Okay, I am sorry. Really I am, but the plot bunnies have only just started reattacking me! Anyway, I don't think they'll be many chapters left after this which I'm kinda sad about, but everyone has pretty much deserted the fandom so...

I do have a few Ruby/Mina oneshots ratteling about though so depending on how many reviews/hits I get I might post/write them...

I think thats about it. So I hope you like this! Happy Easter! ^_^

Ruby successfully managed to avoid Mina for five days, until Luke turned up on her doorstep in a dinner jacket, grinning like an idiot.

"We've been invited to a party!" He announced, clapping his hands together joyfully.

"By who?"

"Mina."

Ruby's heart, which had been residing in a shrivelled lump of embarrassment somewhere near her stomach ever since her enlightening encounter with Mina, began to race with the mention of said blind vampire's name. "I can't go."

Her friend looked momentarily crestfallen, "but why?"

"I just can't. I uh, don't have a dress!"

From behind her, her mother's voice called, "you've got that lovely purple one Auntie Agni brought."

Ruby resisted the urge to smash her head against the door. Instead she settled for groaning loudly and hollering "private conversation Mother!" which earned her a stiff reply of "Don't talk to me like that young lady" but otherwise blissful silence.

She turned back to Luke. "It will take me ages to get ready and 'Eastenders' is on tonight – you know I hate missing it."

"Aw, come on, please. Galvin's going to be there and I just don't want to... please Rubes'."

Her conscience, annoying pest that it was, joined the clamour of her heart beat in her ears. Ruby took in her friend's hopeful doe gaze and adorably ruffled suit: "I'm sorry, I want to. I just can't..."

Luke frowned at her. "Is something wrong? I mean you've been acting weirdly recently, is that why you – Oh my god!" He gave a little breathless cry and flapped his arms round – and god Ruby swore sometimes he was actually a twelve year old girl, "You're not ill are you?"

"Huh?"

"Like Emily Benson, remember? That girl who got that weird disease and was tired all the time so her Mum like imprisoned her in the house."

Ruby's eyes rolled upwards without her permission, "she had diabetes. And no, I'm not ill." Just touched by insanity.

"Then why can't you come?"

"Luke..."
"Ruby... we haven't been out together for ages. And it's Mina's party – there's bound to be swanky food and dark mysterious guys hanging about in corners that you can harass. Oh, and Galvin might have mentioned something about a chocolate fountain."

His friend perked up immediately, "really?"

"Uh huh. With maaaarshmellows..."

Ruby gave her friend a long look and decided that the only way to resolve her dilemma was to, rather sensibly she thought; make a pros vs. Cons list.

Pros:

Luke got a wing woman

A chocolate fountain would quite possibly be guest of honour

There was a good chance Ruby would be able to spy on the object of her affections. And really, it was scary how content she could feel just watching Mina (in a totally non-creepy, un-rapey kind of way)

Mina's house was large, labyrinth-like and would be brimming with people and well, Mina was blind.

Cons:

Mina was also a psychic, which had to give her at least a little advantage over your average guide dog and white cane type

If caught by said blind women Ruby would only have two possible options: shrivel up in a ball and pray that the blood that was rushing to her head boiled her brain alive, thus rendering her unconscious and quite possibly dead... Or in the unlikely event that she survived the encounter, move the next day to some remote part of Canada, where people had probably never heard of vampires let alone unspeakably lovely ones.

Four against two. Ruby sighed deeply, "give me twenty minutes to change."

Mina's house was aglow.

Luke spotted Galvin immediately and, lighting up like a Christmas tree, grabbed Ruby's hand and pulled them towards him, "Galvin!"

The man in question was sitting glumly on the stairs, swirling a dark brown liquid around his glass. "Luke. Ruby," he nodded at them but not before, Ruby noted with glee, trailing his eyes up and down his godson appreciatively. Or at least she assumed it was appreciatively – generally all Galvin's emotions were filtered through the general standby setting of 'gruff' which tended to coat all other emotions in a thick layer of gravelly indifference.

"I uh, I wanted to talk to you Luke."

"Bout' what?" Her friend met the older man's eyes with uncharacteristic shyness.

Ruby could practically hear the cogs in Galvin's head turning, "about... things." He gave his godson a meaningful look but Luke, oblivious, continued to stare at him blankly.

Ruby could feel a grin threatening to split onto her face and tried to cover it with a quick cough, "it uh, sounds serious Luke. I think you should go somewhere quiet and talk." From the corner of her eye she caught Galvin's grateful look.

"Oh. But I don't want to leave you alone," he glanced around at the people swarming past them. "Why don't you find Mina?"

Internally Ruby began cursing every God she'd ever heard of or imagined. Don't even...

"Yeah, I think she's in the kitchen talking to some tuba player or something." Galvin nodded enthusiastically, suddenly seeing an opportunity to drag Luke away to some remote corner and... deflower him. And honestly – these two were so unsubtle, how was it even possible that she hadn't noticed it before? In fact how was it possible that all the pent up sexual tension that was currently wired up in the stacks at the moment, hadn't spontaneously exploded, burnt all their clothes up and left with them all dry humping like... like whales! (Ruby wasn't entirely sure that whales dry humped but the name 'hump-back' had to come from somewhere, right?)

Both Luke and Galvin were staring expectantly at her now. "She's in the kitchen..." Luke prompted.

"Yes, right. I'll just be off to the kitchen then. Ha. Have fun." She stood stationary for a second waiting for them to turn and leave her, but through some sort of twisted chivalry they stayed patiently, determined to see her walk safely to the kitchen just in case, oh, she caught the eye of a rapist and they attacked her within the few meters walk.

Resisting the urge to club them both over the head with her clutch bag, she turned and as slowly as feasible and inched towards the kitchen. If she just hung silently around the edges of the room till Luke and Galvin had disappeared then she could sneak off and hide for the rest of the evening.

Unfortunately as she was rounding the doorway another guest stepped into her spilling their freezing cold and bright blue drink down the front of her chest. Ruby gasped. The man who had collided with her swore loudly and in a thick French accent shouted, "Mina! Mina, I have doused this lovely young woman in, in..." The man paused puzzled and sniffed his now empty cup suspiciously, "in whatever Claude has given me to drink."

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut.

There was a clicking of heels and the sudden smell of vanilla and then a hand gentle taking her wrist and turning her round. "...Ruby? Oh, your dress."

The teenager heard the French man begin apologise only to be cut off by Mina's voice, "really Mr Maladroit it was an accident. And Claude has been plying you with drinks all evening. Why don't you go and find a glass of water?"

There were footsteps and Ruby sensed Mina's attention shifting back to her. Fingers skimmed her cheek, "Ruby? Are you okay?"

Dragging whatever remains of her courage she could from the dark cluttered corners of her brain, Ruby opened her eyes. Mina's face swarm into view, as did the rest of her and Jesus she really should have kept her eyes closed.

The blind women was dressed in a floor length silk red dress which shimmered over her curves and revealed just enough cleavage that Ruby had to swallow thickly. "Mina... I, uh, you look beautiful," she breathed.

The elder woman's face brightened, "as I'm sure you do Ruby. Well minus the..." Mina frowned and leant forward ever so slightly. She sniffed, "well, I have no idea what that is. It smells a little like paint remover. Honestly I don't know where Claude finds these drink – he did assure me that it was digestible though, and after what happened at the Christmas party last year I thought it best to check." She paused and reached out to skate her fingers just above the neckline of Ruby's dress, the corners of her mouth curling up mischievously at the younger girl's soft gasp, "do you want to change?"

"Into what," the teenager muttered dreamily, hypnotised by the other woman's lips.

Mina's left hand which was still holding onto her wrist slid downwards to tangle their fingers together, "I'm sure I'll have something that will fit you upstairs."

"Up-upstairs?" Ruby, whose only experience of ever being invited upstairs, not including Luke, had resulted in having her hand pushed down the front of someone's trousers and spit smeared across her cheeks by a boy who was rumoured to be the best kisser in her college; shivered. Mina seemed to be filling her senses and she felt like she was drowning blissfully in silk and vanilla.

"Yes... is that okay?" The blind woman bit her lip, briefly hesitant.

"Yeah, take me." Ruby murmured breathlessly and then, realising what she had said began to stutter, "I mean t-take me upstairs, not, not uh... Oh Christ!"

To her horror Mina chuckled lowly, "oh, I'll take you Ruby... upstairs."