A/N So maybe this chapter is a bit mushy and maybe a little slow but this is kind of a character development chapter. Don't worry, its all going to kick off in the next chapter!

Thanks to my reviewers, can't quite believe people have actually read my story! Thanks to Ruby Rosetta Red for chatting about writing style. I really enjoy that!

Last thing, if people feel Hal is being very… emotional it's because I was thinking about what Tom said to Hal, how he's a scaredy cat because he is not "all blooded up". So I was thinking what was Hal like around women when he was all blooded up? I mean, how drunk on blood would he have to be to seduce someone with a thousand tulips!

Disclaimer: Being Human and all its wonderful characters belong to Lord Toby of Whithouse. Excuse my messing around with them. It's just to fill the time until the next series!

Chapter 2

Eliza sits by the hearth, her eyes fixed blankly on the spot where she and Hal had lain only six hours before. She wears a simple day dress of mourning black, a heavy black jet pendent carved in the shape of a wilting rose hangs about her neck, and a pair of jet earrings are clipped to her ears. Apart from this she is unadorned, except for a plain silver band on her ring finger set with one small ruby at the very center of the band, which she twists incessantly around her finger. Her auburn curls are gathered in a loose style at the back of her head, and her different coloured eyes are heavy lidded and unfocused. She had been up all night waiting for Hal, and is exhausted from the quick succession of intense emotions in the few hours she did see him for. She can almost see him there on the rug in front of the hearth; his boyish smile and his predators' strength making him look ridiculously contradictory. She closes her eyes, trying to block out the memories. Trying not to remember what he had said before he had left, as the first rays of day had come streaming through the gap in the curtains. But it comes back to her now and she hears his voice once again.

He had said, face tight and hard, 'If I am going to do this, there are things I have to arrange. We will also have to leave London. Are you prepared to do that?' She had said yes. What else could she say after all? He had told her what it would mean if he stopped drinking blood. He had told her about the agony of the withdrawal, that it was worse then opium withdrawal, that he would stop being himself, that he would hate her, and hurt her if he could, until the blood faded from his system. That, even if they did succeed in detoxifying him, she would have to spend the rest of her life trying to keep him that way. That it would be a long hard road they would travel, and that he would likely kill her at the end of it. He had looked at her, blood on his neck, his face very still, and had asked her, without saying a word, if he was worth it. In answer she had walked to where he stood, placed her hand where that child must have hours before, feeling the stillness in his chest, where a heart should beat. She had kissed him, soft and slow. It was all the answer he had needed.

He had finished getting dressed and had left, saying he would return soon, and that she should make her own arrangements, to be ready to leave the city. They would go to Eliza's country house, a mansion in Devon that had been shut up since her mother's death five years before. When her father had died just under a year ago, Eliza had had no other living family. So all of the money of her father's estate had passed to her. Eliza Montgomery was probably the richest and most eligible woman in London. There was no title to go with the land, but in a London where the aristocracy was slowly becoming something of a novelty, and money was steadily becoming the province of those that could earn it, the fact that she had no title was not so surprising. It was more that she was so obscenely rich, as a women of twenty, and with absolutely no family, and that she had not particularly made her relationship with Lord Henry York, notorious gambler and all round Byronic, a secret. They had been seen at teas together, at the opera and parties, eating dinner in Covent Garden and strolling together along the Embankment, mostly unchaperoned, which was the truly scandalous thing about it all.

When Eliza had met him, she had been swept away and enchanted, caring little for what everyone thought. She was still grieving for her father, and the suddenness of not being responsible for anyone else, or worrying about anyone else's reputation had sent her into a mad whirlwind of gambling, drinking and parties. The fact that Hal was probably the most notorious member of this set of society had meant that it was inevitable that they should meet.

She remembered that moment when she had first seen him, glass full of deep red liquid ( it was blood, though she had not known it at the time of course) hanging nonchalantly from one hand, leaning against a pillar and surrounded by admirers and hangers on. He had looked terribly bored, hazel eyes moving absently over the crowd, not even listening to the pretty girl almost hanging on his arm, her huge blue eyes fixed adoringly on his face. In that moment their eyes met, and an electrical shock of understand flashed between them. He had raised one eyebrow, a slight smile quirking his full lips. Eliza smiles to herself as she remembers how she had set her empty champagne glass on the table beside her and had walked across the room towards him, their eyes never leaving each other. She had walked right up to him, bold and smiling and asked, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, 'Would you like to dance?'

She had flouted about every law of etiquette that existed between men and women. They had not even been introduced. Admittedly she had been a little drunk, and maybe half mad from grief and boredom. But he had been just as bored, and she had captivated him with her strangeness. Of course he had known who she was. There were not many women in London, who had enough money for a dress like hers, had eyes like hers, and who would actually go to a party while being in mourning. It was not long after that he had told her what he was. It was not long after that she had said she loved him, and asked him to come to her that night. At least she did not have to worry about getting pregnant, she had thought at the time.

Back then she had not truly realised what would happen, or what she had invited into her life. But she knew that what they had was real, and that she would not give it up, even if death were the consequence of her actions. The fact that the amount of people he killed every night had tripled after he had met her, because of his fear that he would kill her, would always weigh upon her soul. But then she had given up on God the day her father had drawn his last agonized breath.

There is a soft knock at the door, and she is pulled from the memories. She had things she must deal with now, and they were more pressing then the past.

'Come in.' she calls, standing up from her chair. The door opens and her maid Amy comes in silently, her pale eyes down cast, her hands clasped neatly in front of her blindingly white apron.

'The gentleman you sent for has arrived, missus.'

'Very well, send him in. And close the door behind him when you leave Amy.' The dismissal is clear in her words, and though Amy purses her lips disapprovingly she does not protest. She leaves and as she does a man steps past her. He is surprising in this setting to say the least. Seeing him standing there in the parlour the eye almost tries to deny that he is there. He is beyond giant, a huge hulking figure, at least six foot seven, maybe taller. His skin is the deep chocolate brown of the African continent, and his muscles move like boulders under his skin. He wears the clothes of a respectable businessman, but they look odd on his hulking frame. He bows slightly to her, holding his dark grey bowler casually in one hand.

'Goliath.' She says, by way of greeting. He had been one of her fathers slaves before he had freed the giant for saving Eliza's life from a runaway horse. This had been in 1826, just before the declaration that slavery within the British Empire was piracy. Not that her father was not a pirate, or privateer as he had actually been, but he simply did not want to be so obvious in it. But Goliath, or Gol as he was known, had chosen to work for her father doing anything he needed doing. In fact, it was jut the same as before, except that her father had started to pay Gol instead. When Eliza's father had died, she had cut down on the amount of servants she had dramatically, as she simply did not need or want them. But Gol was always there, and though she had no longer had a need of him, she had not asked him to find other employment as she had so many of the others. She found that the need she had for him now was ridiculous and infuriating, but necessary.

Gol does not speak unless he has to. Her father had told her once that Gol disliked English, that he found it course and unsophisticated compared to his own language.

'I have need of your services Gol.' The giant nods, his dark eyes glittering with curiousity.

The gentlemen's club is close to St James' Palace. It reeks of privilege and two hundred years of pure pomp, the polished oak doors alone warning off any riffraff. Hal looks up at those doors, remembering the small son of whores who stood looking at similar doors, and who never dreamed that he would walk through such doors with a familiar ease. Hal smiles wryly to himself. He has not thought of his childhood in years, and this is evidence enough that he is coming to the end of his cruelest cycle yet. He walks up the steps and enters the club. A valet takes his coat, hat and cane and shows him through to a private dining room. Fergus is already there, muddy boots up on the polished mahogany table, pipe clamped between his small, mean lips. A slender young girl wearing only her corset and underclothes is gagged and tied up next to Fergus, and one of his hands rests nonchalantly in her hair.

'A gift for you my Lord.' Fergus says, grinning cruelly. He grabs the girl by her hair and throws her to land at Hals feet. Hal looks down at her shaking and terrified form, and feels a sickening mix of desire, need and disgust rising in him. He does not yet feel the gnawing need to feed, yet he had killed that family at least twelve hours before and he can feel the need rising in him, like an earth deep hum. Then he thinks of Eliza, her amber and blue eyes staring at him in the light before dawn, her lips twisted in pain and grief. He had promised her he would not kill until he saw her again. But how to not make Fergus suspicious. He is still a young vampire, barely turned twenty years ago, and his appetite almost rivals Hals own. He might find it odd enough if Hal does not kill the girl to tell Wyndham, and Hal certainly does not want to warn the other Old One of his actions.

'I am not here for pleasure Fergus. I'm here for business. I will take her late if I wish to. I want a clear head for now.' Fergus shrugs and sits back down, but with his boots firmly on the ground. He has heard Hals tone and obeys without thinking. He was a corporal in the army before he had been recruited and could not resist that firm authority in Hals voice.

'The others will be here soon my Lord.'

'Good. But I do not need to speak to them. You will tell them that all of my dealings are to be shut down immediately. The dog fights, my business in the docks, the opium smuggling. Shut it all down. Buy some more shares, anything Robert Mercer thinks might do well in the next fifty years or so. Then lodge all of my capital in my private account in the Bank of England. All of it, do you hear Fergus?'

'But my Lord!' Fergus cries in pure confusion, his eyes wide with surprise.

'No buts Fergus. Just do it. Get the others to do it. I do not care what you have to do, just get it done.'

'Why?' says the other vampire a little desperately. Fergus had been abandoned by his maker and Hal had seen his potential and taken him under his wing. Hal was the only stability Fergus had known since his recruitment, and he had followed Hal faithfully for the last ten years.

'I am leaving London for awhile. I am not sure when I shall return.'

'A..are you going alone?' he asks, a pathetic note of hope in his voice.

'Yes.' says Hal firmly. He voice brooks no argument and Fergus stands looking lost and miserable. Hal sighs and shakes his head. Next time he leaves the other vampires he will not tell them. It would probably have been easier to just leave. But he had worked hard for the past two hundred years to accumulate his wealth, and he could not give it up so easily. For money was power, and he had spent enough of his mortal life being powerless. He would not go back to that.

'Keep the others in line for me until I get back.' He says, some uncharacteristic mercy entering his tone. Fergus nods and Hal turns around to walk out of the door. He gets to the front door and has his hat and coat on before Fergus catches up to him.

'This is about her? That human bitch that you've been all over recently, isn't it?'

Hal grimaces and shakes his head. 'Goodbye Fergus.'

He is out the front door before Fergus can say anything else. He has several business ventures and bank accounts that he has kept secret from his vampire associates and he will have to sort them out before he can return to Eliza. Will he be able to last? To not kill until he sees her again? And what will happen if he does, will he just kill her before he can stop himself? He shivers and wraps his coat more firmly around himself, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight and hurries through Piccadilly, already feeling the sweat of withdrawal forming on his cold skin.