Tim looked up at Abby with anguish in his expressive eyes. He had run out of time. Dante wouldn't wait any longer. He must go to him. He had no choice.

"Abby I must go. Dante is coming"

"No McGee. You can't go, not until you tell me what is wrong? And don't tell me nothing is wrong. You just fell over and you look really sick."

Abby was worried as she helped her friend shakily to his feet. Tim tried to sooth her as he knew she would try and stop him or worse try and stop Dante if she knew the truth of what he was going to do.

"It is fine Abby. I haven't seen Dante lately and he's getting a bit impatient. Vampires can be a bit demanding when they want to be. Go figure? Look I have been so busy with the case and I think I'm coming down with a cold. Between that and not sleeping lately I'm a bit shaky on my feet. But basically I'm fine. I need you to do me a favor. I'm going to go up on the roof and see Dante now. I know he is coming I can feel him and I need you to cover for me if any of the team come looking for me. Can you do that for me?"

Tim gripped Abby by the shoulders and tried to impart the seriousness of the request to her. He didn't want to be interrupted when he was up there as god knows what was going to happen.

Abby bit her lip. She knew something was off but she wasn't sure what it was.

"Ok. I suppose Dante is a bit much for Gibbs to take on at this stage huh?"

Tim smiled "Exactly, especially with the mood Gibbs is in at the moment with this stupid case."

Tim leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before he turned and quickly left the lab. Abby watched him go and tried to shake off the feeling he was somehow saying goodbye to her.

*****************************************************************

Tim stepped out onto the roof and closed the heavy door behind him. Black storm clouds billowed above him in the dark night and wind gusted violently through his hair. There was a very fine rain starting to fall and Tim pulled his jacket closer around him and shivered. When had it got so cold? He took a deep breath and sealed up his emotions as tight as he could get them knowing that he would need all of his strength and conviction for his confrontation with the Immortal.

Tim walked through the swirling winds to the far side of the roof knowing instinctively that Dante waited for him there even though he couldn't see him. Thunder cracked above him and made him jump, the jagged lightening following a split second later lighting up the pale hard features of the man who waited for him.

Dante stood near the edge of the roof in a simple elegant black suit and black silk shirt. As Tim's eyes saw Dante for the first time in far too long he found he couldn't turn away from all the little details. The slim line belt with silver buckle that caught the light, the two buttons undone on his shirt, the cufflinks engraved with an ancient crest, the expensive leather shoes. He hungered for the very sight of the vampire even as he tried to deny the hold he had over him. Finally as Tim looked again at Dante's handsome pale face he realized that in all the time they had spent together he had never once been afraid of him.

Except for now.

He could feel the anger and rage the vampire held tightly leashed behind his flashing blue eyes and he knew the growing violence of the storm overhead was just an example of the force of that passion.

Come to me!

"I am here. What do you want?" Tim shouted above the growing winds not wanting to touch Dante's mind and have him feel his anxious confusion. He clutched at his jacket and pulled it closer around him trying to shield himself from the bitter wind.

"What do I want? I want you here by my side!" Dante's voices sliced through the cold night full of righteous indignation and he took a step towards Tim.

"I'm busy. I'm working!" Tim held to his lie searching frantically for a reason not to succumb to the desire to be held in Dante's arms. To rest his tired and aching head on his shoulder and simply sleep. To dream once again of angels.

Dante watched, implacable and completely still as everything seemed to swirl about him before slowly tilting his head to the side and replying.

"You do not need to be. Your work is at an end. The man you search for is dead." Dante's voice held cold certainty and Tim started to feel a rising panic of his own.

"Dead? What do you mean dead? How do you know that?" Tim demanded angrily.

Dante just looked at him and angrily bared his sharp fangs in a demonic hiss.

"You couldn't see me until your work was over. He is dead. He has been punished. Your work is now over. Now COME TO ME"

Dante threw wide his arms and the thunder rolled across the heavens as Tim staggered under the realization of what Dante had done.

A scream in the night. A throat slashed. Hot scarlet running over still warm skin. Cold dead eyes would greet the morning sun.

Dante had seen the man the team had been searching for in Tim's mind and he had killed him.

"You….you ATE him?"

Tim clenched his fists to his temples and reeled. Dante was a monster. He was a monster. It wasn't meant to be this way. He was a federal agent to help people and bring perpetrators to justice not to be their judge, jury and executioner.

"What does it matter? You wished to find him and lock him away where he would do no more harm to others. To punish him for the lives he violently took. Well he will do no more harm. And he has been punished. Now you are free to come to me."

"No no no no no no no. NO! It doesn't work that way. This is important to me. It needs to be done right. You need to understand that being part of NCIS is more than what I do. It is a part of me. You can't just do what you want like that. It isn't right."

Tim tried desperately to explain, his words stumbling over themselves as he paced anxiously.

Dante bristled and his clawed wings flared out to either side of him as he responded angrily.

"It isn't right? It isn't RIGHT? What do you know of right? I am your partner and you DENY me. You lie and do not tell me what is wrong. I call out for you to come to my side over and over again and you turn your back on me. Is that right?

I have shown you wonders mortals have never seen. I have given you answers to questions you haven't even thought of yet. I have taken you places you have never even dreamed of and this is how you repay me? You cast me aside without a word as if I am worth nothing to you?"

Tim just stared knowing that what Dante said was true.

"What was I to do? I am a Vampire. I have few emotions of my own. That was why I searched for a Companion. To share with me this world. I can see you there looking at me like I'm a heartless monster well then you see the true me. I am but only because YOU MADE ME SO!"

Dante lashed out in frustration tearing his sharp claws through a metal grating at the fear he saw in Timothy's eyes. He never wanted his Companion to fear him only to come to him with his laughing eyes and loving heart. It was all turning out so WRONG.

He had so much power and he could do so many things but that which he truly wanted. He had no power over the human heart.

Dante turned back to face his beloved Companion and his mighty wings sagged in defeat. It seemed that he could not win. If Timothy did not want to be with him then they were both doomed. Could he not see it? Could he not feel it? Already he could see Timothy sickening from lack of contact. The part of him that had awoken on the night they were first joined had been starved of his contact and was slowly dying without his magic.

And if his Companion died then he would have no choice but to feel that death. To feel only that he was being left on his own. Forever. He had heard of Vampires surviving their Companions death but Dante knew that he would not be one of them. Even if he fought it the slow shadows of silence would overtake him and eventually he would choose his own unbecoming rather than remember the weeks of perfect shining life he had with his laughing Companion at his side.

"Why wont you tell me what is wrong?"

Tim felt the tears start dripping down his face at the desolation in Dante's voice. This mighty creature with so much power and grace at his disposal was pleading with him. Dante who had shown him so much, who had held him and saved him and came when he cried out in the night for him.

And suddenly Tim remembered.

He was the one that had watched Dante at the party all those weeks ago and it had been he who had walked over to Dante. He had asked Dante to take a walk with him and he had been the one to accept every offer Dante made to him.

He had pursued Dante as much as Dante had pursued him. From that first instant they had met Tim had needed to understand just what it was about him that drew him like a beacon of light through a storm. The wonder and magic and mystery of him enthralled him still.

And now he was turning him away. Why?

Tim dug down through his many hurts to find the source of his pain. Deeper and deeper still until he came to the thoughts he would not even speak of to himself. The one that hid in his own mind behind all the others. And closed his eyes as he found the tiny bitter steel barb that had wedged itself into his soul and was slowly poisoning him.

"Companion Please!" Dante shouted as thunder rolled again across the heavens needing to know an answer.

"Because I'm AFRAID"

Tim screamed, the tears streaming down his face blending with the rain now falling harsh and wet onto his face.

"You became my everything and I couldn't bare the thought of loosing you. Of you choosing another. You didn't come for me. You came for Tony and I'm just a substitute aren't I?

I knew it when you first showed me how to touch minds with you. Tony was the one you had come for and I thought I could live with that. I had you now and I tried to bury any worry about the future. But I can't. I just can't …knowing that I'm going to loose you to another. "

Dante stood stock still in shock. That was what his perfect one thought? That he would be replaced? That he had only ever been a substitute?

Tim his raw feelings now exposed and stripped bare sank to his knees in humiliation and pain as the cold rain soaked him through. In that instant he was a solitary miserable huddled figure on the open rooftop as the lightening flashed overhead. It was over. Dante would leave and he could try and piece together what remained of his life and try and live again.

He knew that everything else would seem a dull shadowed imitation after the burning joy of Dante's touch but he couldn't live this pretense anymore. It wasn't really his life to lead anyway it was Tony's. He had only borrowed it for a while.
And even if Tony didn't want this life there would be another. Someone funnier or more handsome or clever. There were so many others better to serve as Dante's Companion no matter how much he wanted it.

It was just a broken heart. He had had them before and survived. Still at that instant Tim sobbed and clutched at his chest. It hurt. It hurt so much. For an instant everything had been perfect and he could have given up children and a normal home for all the wonders and love he received in return.

"Oh my Little One. My beloved Companion. Is that what has hardened you against me? You are mine. I do not live without you."

Dante whispered softly as he spread his wings and pulled Tim into his arms sheltering them from the driving rain.

"From that very first night I wanted you. Do you remember? I was thinking who is this silly Boy who comes to confront me? You of all those people that night were not afraid. You did not fall for my tricks or my compulsions. You saw straight through to the heart of me and I was lost right then and there although I did not know it. I dreamt of you and your stars as you dreamed of me. You are my True Companion and there will never be another. You make me remember what is was to be human. To feel the sun on my back and hold the one I love in my arms. We are bound together you and I for as long as we live."

Dante looked down smiling into his Timothy's eyes made huge with terrified helplessness. Leaning forward holding his head in his hands Dante tenderly kissed his full soft lips. Dante growled as he felt a shock run through him as he tasted again his cold and wet Companion, felt his mortal warmth, smelt his scent and held him in his arms.

Tim was lost as he reeled in an emotional overload. Hot, cold. love, fear, pain, desire. All he could hear were Dante's words as they echoed in his mind repeating over and over. Could it be?

"Truly? I am yours and yours alone? You do not wish for another?"

Mine forever

Dante sunk his teeth into Timothy's sweet neck and Tim threw back his head and screamed in completion and absolution as they were once again joined as one. The magic awoke in Tim again and surged through his mortal flesh like a forbidden ecstasy.

Dante!

My True Companion!

*******************************************************************

Tony watched horrified as the whatever it was lunged for Tim and obscured him from his view with its giant leathery bat wings.

What the hell was it?

He had come up to the roof to check out this freaky storm and then he had seen someone who he thought was McGee standing over on the far side. What was crazy probie up to now standing out in that freezing cold rain and wind?

His curiosity got the better of him and Tony went to investigate who the hell it was McGee appeared to be shouting at. An instant later he found he had instinctively ducked behind a block of ventilations shafts as his heart hammered and he struggled to reconcile what exactly he had just seen through the now almost driving rain.

Holy shit.

Tony clutched at his service revolver at his hip and was suddenly very glad he had strapped it on earlier in the evening anticipating a very sudden exit from the building.

Ok ok. So it would appear that vampires were real. There was something about the creature that cut through all of Tony's internal arguments about it being a very realistic prank. There was just no way. It had fangs and flashing cold blue eyes that seemed to glow not to mention honest to goodness wings. But it wasn't just that. He could feel the ….the…power and rage emanating from the thing. It was enough to make the hairs on his body stand on end.

It had to be a vampire. It was handsome and wearing what looked like Armani. And great shoes. It definitely wasn't an ugly troll or sparkly fairy or red skinned demon. What the hell was he thinking? Tony head slapped himself. How the hell did he know what it was? Did he really care anyway other than what the hell was it doing on the roof of NCIS?

How the hell McGee had the guts to stand in front of it and challenge it Tony didn't know but when he saw him collapse trembling to the ground and the vampire advanced on his friend through the buffeting wind Tony knew he had no choice.

Standing and pulling out his gun he slowly moved forward hoping the noise from the wind and the rain would cover his approach. Vampires…vampires….How the hell did you kill one? From what he remembered methods were all different depending on what you read but they all seemed to agree on a stake through the heart. Ok he didn't have a stake but if he emptied his entire clip into the heart of the thing it should be enough, if not to kill it to slow it down enough that he could drag McGee to some sort of safety.

Tony slowly stepped closer wiping the rain from his face and hoped the monster would stay distracted long enough he could get his shots in. He raised his gun and then froze horror stuck as the creature began to feed from his friend, his fangs buried deep into his neck. Tim's writhing scream shattered his fugue state and he swiftly released the safety on his gun and took aim at the heart of the creature.

(Do please review and let me know what you think. I will try and get the next chapter done as quickly as I can. I hope this scene works!. Precious)