"Did uh… Did you bring me here?" The painkillers that Jonno had been hopped up on before was slowly wearing off. His drugged haze was fading and though pain was returning to his throat, higher brain function was also being restored.

Erin was still in the hospital with him. Scowling and staring out of the window at the, luckily, grey sky. "Yeah." She said nonchalantly.

"Why?" Since her transformation into a vampire Erin wasn't one for altruism and they hadn't always been on the same page in things.

Her eyes lost their steely edge. "No idea." She shut her eyes briefly. "I don't know why I'm caring again. I just am. And Mir, I don't know why but I don't hate him. He's Vlad and he's done everything that Vlad's done but…" Jonno watched her chew her lip. "I just don't hate him. Or you." There was shock on her face, as if she couldn't understand what she was saying. "I'm a vampire." She mumbled and Jonno got the feeling she was reassuring herself.

For the slayer, it was far from that. He was slowly becoming aware that the morals in the world of slayers and vampires, weren't as cut and dry as he'd believed. Erin was a vampire, yet she was here with him, displaying perfectly human behaviour and there was Vlad… Now that his mind was clear he recognised hurt in Vlad's attack on him.

How could he go on killing vampires when he knew for a fact they were as complex as humans? How could he cope with what he'd done? Because if vampires were people and killing vampires was murder… There would be so much blood on Jonno's hands.

Mir came to be in a vast expanse of blackness. It was eternal, darkness reaching out in every direction, so absent of anything that even his vampire eyes couldn't find a scrap of light. He himself, was visible however, his pale limbs glowed like moons and his eyes started at his hand and travelled up his arms until he reached his torso. The dark buttons of the shirt popped open with the slightest pressure revealing a white chest littered with scars. Light, bullet craters on his skin that appeared almost silver. He traced the outline of one with his finger. It didn't feel different in anyway but there was a phantom sensation in his memory, something that lingered from the night of his death.

He looked away. His eyes failed to penetrate the dark.

Mir looked down at the sensation of liquid trailing between his fingers. The hand that had been resting on his chest came away crimson. Suddenly pain swelled in his chest and his lungs clenched. Splats of blood flew from his exposed scars. He choked, a cruel combination of bile and blood spewing from his mouth and down his chin. Helplessly, he stared into the darkness.

"You shouldn't have come back Mir." The slayer came out of the shadows with hard eyes. A silver pistol lazily swung from his hand.

"Jonno – please!" Panic hared through the vampire's veins like a human pulse.

His knees gave out as the slayer moved closer. The many scars on his chest belched blood and sapped his energy, leaving him swaying. Jonno smiled nastily. "You should have left when you had the chance." He closed his hand calmly around Mir's throat and dragged the vampire to standing. "It doesn't matter if you seem invulnerable. We'll find your weakness, and we'll kill you." The butt of the pistol slapped the vampire in the face and he was hurled across the floor.

The slayer stalked over, snatching his neck again. "You've surrounded yourself with killers, Mir. And the only way you can survive is to be one too." A cold barrel was pushed against his forehead. Mir squeezed his eyes shut.

He heard the trigger click.

With a gasp energy surged into Mir's limbs and his eyes snapped open. He was staring at the top of the casket, light worming in through a crack where he'd failed to close the coffin correctly.

Sighing deeply, he slumped back into the cushioned interior.

Strange and frightening dreams were just another part that came with the restoration of his memories. Half of them he didn't understand and the rest left him fearing things that he didn't think he was afraid of, like his family. The knowledge that the only people in the world who knew him as blood wanted him dead simply for existing. He still couldn't recall what was so special about him that everyone seemed so afraid of.

The vampire rose from his coffin, quietly crept passed Cheyenne who was sleeping on the sofa and wandered out into the corridor. The Count was still in the throne room, turning pages of his magazine, watching Mir from the corner of his eyes. Erin still hadn't returned and he was beginning to wonder if she'd fled and never would. If that was the case then he would have to ask Ingrid.

He did not want to ask Ingrid.

His feet took him down a set of stairs that were vaguely familiar, into a room with a concrete and various weapons adoring the walls. He knew he should know the room – his body was screaming with deja vu but his brain could summon no memories.

A sabre, wickedly sharp, beautiful in it's deadliness winked at him from the corner of his eye. Mir rescued it from it's stand and brushed a finger along the blade. Dust collected on his fingers and he clasped the handle. He took a few swings with it, admiring the swiftness of the blade, trying to find the reason for his attachment to it.

Memories surged through the blade and into him like an electrical shock.

Erin appeared in the lobby of Garside Grange school. In Jonno's presence she'd weakened enough to return home; the questions had gotten too personal and the slayer needed a friend too badly to hold her at arms length.

Something in her craved Mir's acceptance, something that was almost painful, something that constantly drew her back to the very school she stood in. And for some reason, she believed that he would accept her.

The throne room was the first place she checked. She stuck her head in the doorway curiously, almost recoiling from the Count's sharp look. "You seen Mir?" The question rolled off her tongue before she realised who she was asking.

"No." He replied curtly. His eyes flicked back to his magazine in an obvious dismissal. As she was turning to leave his low voice stopped her. "And I haven't forgotten that you are the reason my son has no idea who I am." There was a threatening note to his statement that had Erin back pedalling out of the room.

The half fang reversed all the way back into the corridor where she slammed into Cheyenne.

"Erin?" The human shook loose hair out of her face. "What are you doing here?"

She snatched the girl's shoulders. "Where's Mir?"

"He's gone out! He went downstairs and then bolted!" Cheyenne untangled herself and glared at the vampire. "He thought you'd scarpered. Hmph. I wish he'd been right."

"Where?"

"No. And if I did I wouldn't tell you,"