Judy rolled onto her side, feeling heat wash her face comfortably. It was severe contrast to the floor, cold and rough concrete. A coarse wool blanket was thrown lackadaisically over her legs. Her eyes flickered open to see a fire a mere foot away from her face. The light caused her head to spontaneously shrieked pain, causing her to cry out and clap her hands over her eyes with a hiss of pain.

"Yeah, a concussion will do that to you." A serious voice murmured.

Judy shifted away from the fire to sit up slowly, her head feeling as if it was a thousand pounds heavier than it was. She felt her hair only to find that there was a beanie, several sizes too big for her head, covering her head.

She reached to take it off only to feel a hand cover hers to stop it.

"No. The group wouldn't let have any bandages so it's stopping the bleeding on your head." The same serious voice warned her. She rested her hand back on her knee but the hand stayed on top of hers. She followed the dark brown skin of it's owner up to the face of boy she'd seen on the streets before she had gotten tangled up with Angel.

His dark brown eyes, despite his forlorn and serious face, were wide and almost had a twinkle of hidden kindness inside them. He wore a black hoodie and blue jeans with black sneakers. Her stomach jumped nervously as she saw that in his free hand was a wooden stake.

"A-Are you going to kill me?" She whispered, trying to act as fearless as possible and failing miserably. He looked back at his weapon and looked back at her, sitting back on his haunches to gaze at her.

"Depends. Are you going to bite me?"

She looked down at her hand where his still rested. "I'm not a vampire so no." She twisted her hand around to grip his in a handshake. "My name is Judy. You can call me Jude."

He paused for a moment, surprised at the high temperature of her skin. "I'm Gunn."

"Gunn?"

"Charles Gunn."

"Oh."

He removed his hand slowly, still staring at her with a skeptical gaze. "You're skin's hot." He reached over to touch the pulse point on her throat to find her frantic heartbeat. She gasped at his cold hands touching her skin only for his hand to fly off as if electrically charged. He removed his fingers slowly as if not sure what he was seeing, his eyes full of fear and curiousity.

"What are you?"

She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, brushing her long bangs from her eyesight. "I'm immortal."

"But how?" His face and voice gave away that he was no longer suspicious of her, rather more curious than anything. "How is that possible without a bite or something?"

"I unknowingly drank from a fountain of holy water and vampire ash. Ever since that day, I haven't aged a day over seventeen." She told him, a bitter overtone to her voice. "All that changed is my heartbeat and temperature."

He moved over to sit opposite of her on the other side of the fire. She looked around the room, almost suspicious of the bunker-like room they were in.

"What's with the room?"

"It's where my gang hangs out. We kill…" His voice trailed off as he looked away.

"So how did you get mixed up with Angel if you guys kill vamps?" She asked bluntly. "I hate them too, don't worry."

"They don't have anything to do with him. I'm the one who works with Angel. We met a while ago, a couple days before my sister's…." His voice trailed off as Gunn became lost in thought. He cleared his throat and looked back to Judy. "So how did you know him?"

She replied simply. "Back in the day, when he was soulless, he killed my parents and my triplet sisters. His woman, Darla, adopted me and I was their bait. He ditched me at an orphanage when I was fifteen."

Gunn's eyebrows rose to his hairline as his jaw dropped in shock and horror. "I'm not sure what part of that is more crazy: the fact that you were a triplet or that he killed your entire family and you haven't staked him yet."

She gave him small, almost bitter smile. "Juliet, Gertrude and Judith, identical to the last freckle. Darla got my mother, Angel got my father. I found him out in the barn when I went to say goodnight. He was feeding on my favourite horse and grabbed me as I ran back to the house."

"Turns out, when I said, "Can come in now." I didn't specifically say father so Angel and Darla got into the house and finished off my sisters. They kept me so they could raise me to be the perfect vampire." She gave a small bitter laugh, staring blankly into the fire between them.

Gunn was silent. He couldn't wrap his mind around how the girl in front of him was as sane as she was. He never knew his parents so losing Alonna was devastating enough. But to lose two sisters, a mother and a father was unimaginable.

But there she sat, sane as he was, the firelight casting a red tint on her normally jet black hair and casting an orange glow on her pale skin. She still stared at the flames instead of him, almost as if she was afraid to look at him.

She didn't realize how beautiful she was. But he did.

"Are you afraid of me?" He asked quietly.

She looked up and gave him a real smile. "No."

"Why? I've killed plenty before."

She looked back down into the fire. "If you wanted to kill me, you wouldn't have called Angel. You would have done it yourself."

He smiled for her the first time since he had taken her from Angel.

"Hell, if I'd known that he was the reason you're stuck the way you are, I wouldn't have called him in the first place." He admitted, not sure how she would respond to it.

She stood up slowly, her head cocked to the side in confusion. "Why? What would it matter to you?"

He looked away and let out a small sigh. "Because I can't stand the thought of someone like you being hurt."

She moved forward so she was sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him. They sat that way for a while, both of them staring into the fire deep in their own thoughts. It was Gunn who made the first move.

His arm slipped around Judy's waist.