Mercy walked out of the dean's office, still expecting to wake from what could only be a bizarre nightmare. But the police escorting her from the college campus to the morgue reminded her that this was no dream. Her parents really were dead, and she really was on the way to identify their bodies.

The officer who drove her to the hospital couldn't be nicer, but Mercy wasn't ready for the sympathy, however genuine she knew it to be. She was numb at the moment, and really needed to stay numb. Grief could come after she made arrangements, and did what had to be done. Then she could break down; not before.

The doctor who came to escort them to the bodies went on about the likelihood that neither of them knew what happened. Was that supposed to be comforting? She didn't know. He warned her that the bodies were pretty damaged from the trauma, but they'd been cleaned up enough to verify their identity. As they stepped into the morgue the only thing Mercy could think was that it was terribly dark in the room—just how depressing were they trying to make it for people who were already grieving? But no, they probably meant the dim light to be soothing.

"Take your time, Miss Wright," the officer (what WAS her name? Mercy couldn't remember) urged as the doctor pulled the sheets from the corpses heads.

"It's them."

Oh, God in heaven, they really were dead. She was only twenty-two; they weren't supposed to be dead yet. Her college graduation was in three weeks, they had to be there for it.

She only heard about half of what the officer said as her mind automatically went to the task of making funeral arrangements and the paperwork that would have to be filled out. What? Were they finished already?

"Actually, can someone take me back to campus? I need to get my car."

The lot was almost empty when she reached it, only barely remembering to thank the officer who'd dropped her off. Classes were over for the night. The only people left were the residents, and those who were either partying or studying. Mercy decided to head over to the student center and stop at the vending machines before she headed home; there was too much to do to sleep. She had to email her professors, and the high school to let them know she wouldn't be in for student teaching the next day. Did her parents leave a Will? She would need to contact their lawyer in the morning.

She was surprised to see that she wasn't the only person in the parking lot. She must have been more inside her head than she thought, to not have noticed the pale young man before. He didn't really look old enough to be a student; maybe he was someone's relative? Someone who'd wandered to the wrong end of the campus and had trouble figuring out where he was now?

Not that he was her problem, but he didn't even seem concerned at being obviously lost. Did the kid have no self-preservation instincts? The campus wasn't as safe as the recruiters made it sound.

It seemed the world was determined to prove her point when her attention was distracted from the boy by squealing tires, and she couldn't look away when the boy and the car collided. Dear God, not twice in one day. She watched in horror as the boy sailed through the air, and the car sped away. She heard people inside it yelling, asking each other what had just happened. She took a look at the licenses plate, but couldn't see it clearly as she was more focused on the boy who lay on the ground unmoving.

Mercy covered the distance between her and the boy as quickly as she could. He was covered in multiple cuts, and she could see obviously broken bones. And he wasn't breathing. Not good. She checked for a pulse and couldn't find one.

"Help!" she screamed, hoping someone would hear her and call for help. It was a gamble; either take the time to call 911 or try to get his heart started. Mercy tilted the boy's head back and covered his mouth with her own, blowing air into his lungs. After two breaths she placed her hands over his heart and started compressions.

"Buddy, if you can hear me in there you'd better freakin' fight! I can't take anyone else dying on me today."

After eight compressions she stopped to blow two more breaths, and returned to her compressions. It was as she was leaning down for the third time that everything went into slow motion. The boy, who only moments earlier had been practically dead, now had a death grip on her neck, and pulled her down so that she collapsed on top of him. She felt his mouth on her neck, and then excruciating pain as it felt like he was trying to suck the life out of her. What the heck was going on?

"Stop! Please, you have to let me go now!"

She pulled ineffectually at the hand wrapped around her neck. She felt something wet and warm running down her neck. Was she bleeding?

"Kid, you have to stop now!"

She tugged some more, but she could feel herself growing weaker. This was it; she was going to die because some kid managed to literally suck her dry. It didn't register that his mouth was no longer on her, or that he was now sitting up and held her in his lap. It didn't matter that his impossibly sharp canines were tearing into his own wrist, or that he was holding his now bleeding wrist to her mouth. A languorous feeling was stealing over her, and she just wanted to go to sleep.

"Please, you must drink or you will die."

Something was pressed to her lips, something warm flowing in, and she instinctively swallowed. Her mouth filled again, and she swallowed a second time when she grabbed onto it and held on. Whatever this strange boy was giving her was working. She already felt better. All too soon, it was taken away, and she reached for his wrist again. She watched, stupefied, as the injury healed before her eyes.

"How do you feel?" the boy asked in heavily accented English. Mercy slowly sat up and looked around. How did she feel? Her head snapped to the side as she heard the sound of footsteps on gravel. There was no one else in the lot, and the nearest lot was a good ten minute walk. She turned her head again and saw two people walking by the Philosophy department. Had she actually heard them all the way over here?

"Your senses will be heightened for a time; a side effect of the blood."

He wasn't kidding. Everything was sharper. She could smell things on the breeze. She could hear snatches of conversation by the buildings. She could feel the vibrations on the road as a car drove past the lot.

"What a head trip."

"My apologies."

He stared directly at her, and Mercy felt herself getting drawn into a pair of ageless blue eyes. This boy couldn't be more than seventeen, tops, so why did he look so old at the moment?

"You will forget the events of this night. You will not remember me, or the car that hit me. You will go home, and it will be as if nothing happened."

Her laugh at that was bitter. Her parents were gone; this boy had almost killed her then somehow saved her; and she was supposed to go home and forget this all happened just because he said so? He must be mad.

"If only."

She missed the look of confusion as she pushed herself to her feet. Whatever just happened (and she would try to work that out in her mind on a day she wasn't already dealing with death) she had far more important things to worry about. She didn't have the time to stand around with a kid who didn't seem human.

The boy stood quickly—too quickly—and took her carefully by the shoulders, staring at her again.

"You will not remember what happened here this night."

She shrugged free of his grip. He was starting to scare her.

"I can't forget something just because you say so, kid. Believe me, I wish I could. And you should be getting back to wherever you came from, if you're alright."

She was certain she was hallucinating. There was no other explanation for a boy getting hit by a car, then getting up and walking around after his heart stopped beating. She was having a breakdown; she must be. This kid wasn't really here, and she was talking to herself.

Feeling strangely better for realizing that none of this really just happened, and that she was imagining all of it, Mercy headed back to her car, patting her pockets for her keys. Her hallucination didn't follow her, but as she drove away she saw him standing in the same place she'd left him. She dismissed it all from her mind until she got back to her apartment and discovered that the collar and shoulder of her shirt was covered in blood. It showed up quite clearly on her yellow shirt.

She didn't know what woke her. Maybe it was the feeling of being watched. Maybe it was the feeling of unfamiliar sheets—her sheets came from Wal-mart, they weren't satin. They might be the same color and pattern, but they were far too soft. Whatever it was, she was wide awake, and she knew she wasn't alone.

"How did you get in here?"

"You let me in."

It was the boy she'd hallucinated, but strangely she wasn't afraid. It was as if she'd expected him. Indeed, even as she thought that he was slipping out of his clothes and sliding between the sheets, as comfortable as if he'd done it a thousand times before. He seemed perfectly at home running his hands along her torso. And when precisely did she give up her yoga pants and tank top for a silk chemise?

"You really should be more careful of strangers at your door."

"Are you saying I should throw you out?"

"Never."

His smiled at her before playfully nipping her shoulder as his hand slid the silk upwards, nudging a knee between hers. His teeth barely grazed the skin, and it felt incredible. Blue eyes stared into green, silently asking permission before he slid the chemise all the way up, and then pulled it off completely.

Mercy sat up with a gasp, rubbing her neck. What the heck was that dream about? And why on earth had she fallen asleep on her rather purgatorial sofa?

TB-TB-TB-TB-TB-TB-TB

Mercy finished unloading the last of her boxes, exhausted. It had taken her most of the last three weeks to get her things boxed and moved from her apartment back to her parent's house. It made more sense to move back home, where she didn't have to pay rent, than to try to go through everything immediately to get the house ready for sale. Several of her friends had helped her move the last of her things before the graduation ceremony.

She still had to unpack, but she would leave that for another day. The only thing she wanted at the moment was a glass of sweet tea and a slice of red velvet cake. Bless Kate for baking and for waiting until she'd actually need food to do it. She'd had to throw away so much food that first week.

Mercy cut herself a generous slice of cake and poured a glass of tea, then headed to the living room. This should keep her going for awhile. She turned on the television and began mindlessly flipping through channels until she found a station playing Aliens. Good. She was in the mood to see an alien rip its way out of a person's chest.

She was at the good part, the part where Ripley and Newt were trapped in the infirmary trying to escape the face huggers, when she was startled by the doorbell ringing. She looked over at the clock. Who could be knocking on her door after 10 pm? She checked to make sure that her pistol was within reach before going to the door. When she looked through the glass, she nearly fainted.

"I know you're in there. I've no wish to harm you, but I must speak with you."

Mercy debated ignoring the request, until she considered the odds that he would go away. Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the door and pulled it open to see the boy she was sure wasn't real.

Godric waited as he heard the human's heartbeat accelerate. Three weeks of debating whether to find her ended when Isabel informed him that he was very nearly worthless, distracted as he was. She was a puzzle, the human woman; a puzzle he found he could not stop dwelling on. He could feel her emotions and while she dreamt of him nightly, the most common emotion he felt was nearly overwhelming grief. What could cause such grief in one so young? Finally he came to the conclusion that he must seek her out.

"I'm not hallucinating, am I?"

She'd believed that night to be a hallucination?

"No, you're not. May I come in? We have much to discuss."

If nothing else, he must learn why he was unable to glamour her. He'd never encountered a human he couldn't glamour. It was the simplest thing in the world for him to take control of a human mind. A human who couldn't be glamoured could be seen as a potential threat to his kind.

"I don't think so."

Wait. She was refusing him?

"If I'm not hallucinating now, that means I wasn't hallucinating that night when you had no pulse and still manage to almost kill me."

"I give you my word I will not harm you. And if you will remember, I also healed you."

"I consider that only fair since you're the reason I needed healing in the first place. But if this is real, how was any of that possible?"

"Is that really a discussion you wish to have standing in your doorway?"

He didn't wish to converse with the woman standing just outside her door. He decided to try once more to glamour her.

"You wish to invite me into your home."

"You're pretty full of yourself, aren't you?"

He blinked. The glamour still didn't work. She didn't invite him in. Instead she surprised him by disappearing momentarily, returning with a drink and a half eaten slice of cake. She stepped past him and settled onto the porch swing. Godric was unsure if this was wise, or incredibly foolish. She prevented him from entering her home, but on the porch she was completely at his mercy. Worse, she couldn't possibly understand the risk she was taking.

"Speak."

She commanded him to speak? He couldn't recall the last time someone spoke to him that way. Even when Isabel gave him a piece of her mind, her words were still tinged with respect. The woman was watching him, eating her cake as she waited for his answer.

Now that he was faced with the human again he was unsure where to begin. If she couldn't be glamoured, there was no way to explain that night's events without revealing the truth of what he was. Although the Authority had opened the possibility of disclosing their existence once the synthetic blood was perfected, that revelation was still years away, if it ever happened. This knowledge could put the human in danger.

"What happened that night is regrettable."

"In more ways than you can imagine," her heard her mutter to herself. If he'd been human, he wouldn't have been able to hear it.

"IF you had not been kind enough to attempt to assist me—"

"I watched you get hit by a car! What was I supposed to do? Nothing?"

"That would have been better, for your sake."

He was still shamed that he'd attacked the very person attempting to save him. Being hit by a car was no excuse. Such loss of control was expected of a newborn. He was two millennia old. He'd not been injured so grievously that he should lose control, yet that was precisely what he did.

"Okay, you have to tell me what actually happened that night. I swear you didn't have a pulse. And it felt like you were trying to rip my throat out with your teeth. And—you fed me your blood, and it fixed me. That kind of stuff just doesn't happen in the real world."

"I'm a vampire."

"Oh, come on. This is already close enough to a B horror movie. Don't make it worse."

She didn't believe him. She had all the evidence before her yet she didn't believe him. He dropped his fangs and bared his teeth at her. Showing was always easier than telling. His human fell silent.

"Oh dear God."

"I needed blood after the car hit me, and you were so close. I lost control, and pierced your artery, which is why I had to feed you my blood. I couldn't let you die after you saved my life."

There was more he wished to say, but he didn't want to overwhelm her. He wanted to know more about the woman, and in order to do that he had to earn her trust. He couldn't quite decipher the look on her face. Was she getting ready to bolt? He knew that if she did, he would stop her.

"Your blood. That's why my senses are sharper?"

He was surprised that after three weeks her senses were still affected, but he nodded.

"And the x-rated dreams?"

"A side effect of the blood."

"How long until it goes away?"

She sounded more curious than angry. Godric decided that was useful for him. It was far easier to satisfy curiosity than to attempt to transmute fear. The time for fear would come later, when she learned more of his world. He'd determined he would keep her in his life the moment she'd ordered him to speak as she calmly ate cake.

"Your senses should return to normal soon. But the connection we now share will last until your death."

"What connection?"

"I can feel your emotions," he answered her honestly, "and I shall always be able to find you, should you find yourself in trouble."

She stared at him, her eyes flashing. Those eyes that were so expressive. They had looked blue on that night, but now appeared more green. Hazel, he believed was the correct term for that color.

"You can feel ALL my emotions?"

Her face flushed crimson, which he found strangely endearing. Embarrassment was the only emotion he felt from her now. He knew she was thinking of the dreams. While he couldn't share them, he knew from the high levels of lust and then satisfaction that they must be intriguing. He briefly wondered at her reaction if he was to offer to re-create some of them with her.

"All," he confirmed. "But as I said, they are a side effect of the blood. I have no expectations of you in that vein."

The words were meant to be reassuring, but she stiffened in her seat.

"Good to know, because I wasn't offering. Don't get ahead of yourself there, Vampire Man."

Mercy had had just about all she could take. The boy she was sure wasn't real showed up on her doorstep. He proved that vampires existed, informed her that not only could he feel her emotions but that he could always find her. She found out that the very vivid dreams she'd been depriving herself of sleep attempting to avoid were likely to be permanent, and she was supposed to be thankful that he had no expectations? What century was this guy living in? Did he not realize how insulting that was, in more than one way?

"I have offended you."

He sounded so surprised. Mercy had to resist the urge to slap him. Of course he'd offended her. She stood to leave his pale butt on the porch, but he caught her wrist before she could blink.

"I apologize. I meant no insult. Please sit."

She wanted to refuse, but for all the polite tone of voice, she was pretty sure it wasn't actually a request. And she had no doubt the man could snap her neck if he wanted. Grumbling to herself, she resumed her seat.

Godric fought the smirk off his face when the woman resumed her seat, grumbling to herself about "overbearing man-children". Letting her go for the night was probably the wisest course of action, but he couldn't' end the evening on such a tense note. She might refuse to see him again, and since he didn't yet have an invitation into her home he would have difficulty forcing the issue. He didn't even know her name.

"What's your name, human?"

He needed to know. He couldn't' simply call her "human", or "woman". Even he knew that would be insulting to her. And it would be much more pleasant to think of her by name; almost as pleasant as thinking of her as his.

"Mercedes. Mercedes Wright."

"Mercedes."

"Most people call me Mercy."

Mercedes suited her. It was a strong, feminine name.

"I am Godric."

"Godric."

He relished hearing his name roll off her tongue. It had been too long since he'd had a human companion, for which he blamed the current urge to lay claim to Mercedes and mark her as his for all to see. A long time had passed since he'd used a donor to do more than slake his thirst.

Mercedes yawned, making Godric aware of the time. It was nearing midnight, which was somewhat late for a human. She was tired.

"You are in need of rest."

She shook her head, even as she yawned again. He didn't understand why she was denying a simple truth. What purpose did it serve?

"I'm good for awhile."

She was yawning even as she spoke. She was stubborn, his human. He regretted not having an invitation: he would put her to bed himself if he could.

"Your body betrays you. Why would you avoid something you so obviously need?"

"It's not my body I'm worried about. Sex dreams about a kid who looks like jail bat are just disturbing, and I've had enough of them. I don't care if it's a result of your blood; it's just wrong."

He chuckled softly.

"Staying awake will only exhaust you, and you will still dream. If it is any consolation, I don't actually see what you dream."

"That's really not as helpful as you probably meant it to be."

He smiled.

"Get some sleep Mercedes. I will see you again soon."

He pushed the front door open and steered her to the doorway. Once he heard the deadbolt lock, and the alarm activate, he returned to the nest in a much better frame of mind to focus on this duties as sheriff. Mercedes would have to be introduced to his world slowly, and a plan was beginning to from. Isabel would be a good choice to introduce to Mercedes, at some point in the future.