Hello Again.

so, here we go, Alex has finally woken up to the truth. The trinity have their showdown.

I own nothing. reveiws are love. Thanks so much if you are still reading!

Thanks for pointing out my errors, hopefully there are less now (I went through and hopefully removed the ones in the last two chapters, thanks Saba's Reflection!

It hadn't been ten minutes, By the time Hal had phoned Tom and got him to meet on the way home, Alex had had plenty of time to process the discovery in Hal's room of the ash covered clothes. She had also found a stake, and more ominously, the hand knife he had used on Tom in the pub when he had been Evil Vampire Hal.

He had promised her he had got rid of the thing. Another lie.

Her blood was boiling but her insides were ice cold. For the first time in months, Alex felt awake and alive, she had snapped back into life and was thoroughly God Damned pissed! She had confronted her scared self in that wardrobe, and the idea that she had been clinging to a man that had not only lied to her, but consistently lied to her and given her new fire. This had gone on too long. She wasn't going to let them get away with this anymore.

From the second she heard them coming up the steps she ran to the door and flung it open, eyes blazing, teeth set. 'Get in here.' She snarled.

Tom and Hal and exchanged looks before slowly following her in.

'I shoulda known you'd call him. Come up with another convincing cover story have ya? What are you an Tom planning on building a rockery fence in the front?'

'Alex I think-' started Hal, hands up in placation.

'Don't!' she said whirling on him finger pointing. 'Don't either of you dare lie to me anymore!' she said, breath coming out fast and deep as her eyes blazed. 'How long?' She said. 'How long have you two been bullshitting me?'

'Alex, we weren't-' Hal started.

'Don't you fucking dare!' she screeched. 'I found yer knife, and stake, and your ash covered clothes. You gonna tell me you're a really sloppy secret smoker are you?'

Hal stopped and closed his mouth, his demeanor changed from placating, to neutral, He doesn't even look like he feels guilty, Alex thought as Hal raised his chin subtly.

By comparison, Tom dropped his. 'We thought it best not to tell ya.' He mumbled.

Hal shot him a look.

'Best?' she said incredulously. 'Best for who? Best for the two of you, not me! I've been going out of my mind because I knew someone was wrong, because there was something rotten underneath all this, and now I bloody know why!' She shook her head. 'Don't you understand we can't be involved in that world any more. It'll kill us.'

'It's alright,' said Tom encouragingly. 'We've bin doing it for weeks, killed loadsa vampires, we know what we're doin,'

'Tom,' Hal warned looking between the two.

'Loads?' shrieked Alex, Tom's face dropped as he realized he'd said the wrong thing. 'How many is loads?'

'I dunno-' Tom looked at Hal who shook his head. 'Like more en fifteen… mebe… more?' He trailed off

'Tom. Shut. Up.' Hal glared.

'Fifteen? An this's been going on for weeks?' Alex looked between the two before her eyes rested on the stony faced Hal. 'How could you?' she said, her eyes stinging with tears. 'How could you lie to me.'

'Technically we didn't lie.' Hal began calmly.

'Oh!' Alex threw up her hands and walked away from them. 'Technically? You're really going for technicality here? Why don't you throw in 'Tangentially involved' while you're at it!'

She looked at Hal, shaking her head, then let her hands on her head drop. 'You know, I don't know why I'm so surprised about you, all you ever do is lie to save your skin.' She looked at Tom, 'But you? What words did he pour inta ya ear so you would go along with this, for weeks?'

Tom shuffled his feet. He didn't want to say anything else.

Hal looked at his friend the turned to Alex. She was shaking, she was desperately upset and he wished he could make it better for her, he wanted to comfort her, he cared for her, but was he in love with her? He wasn't sure. The realization of that hit him hard at that moment. He knew he should be sorry, acting like Tom was now, but confrontation always brought out the worst in him, and it wasn't in his nature to back down.

'Because I told him you couldn't handle it.' He said firmly.

'Bullshit!' Alex cried. 'What utter bullshit! And you bought that?' she rounded on Tom. 'I always thought you were naive Tom, but really you must just be a fuckin brain-dead mor-'

'Hey!' Hal said stepping forward and holding a hand up.

Alex didn't stop though, her eyes narrowed at the soft target that was a cowering Tom 'You're not his friend you know that, you're his fucking pet. You're so pathetic and desperate you'd do anything so long as he'd let you follow him around like a puppy.' She sneered, 'A dog and his psychopath master, not much difference from before there. Still acting like a fucking child.'

'Alex!' Hal roared stepping forward, Alex flinched. 'Alex that is enough!' He turned to Tom who was looking like someone had just shot his entire family in front of him. 'Tom,' he said in a rather unnervingly calm and measured voice. 'Why don't you go upstairs for a while?' Tom looked at him.

'Yeah Tom go! If Hal tell ya to do somthin you gotta do it.' shouted Alex as Tom backed away. 'Leave the adults to talk, because you're clearly not capable of thinking for yourself!'

Hal kept his eye contact with Tom who looked back at him. In that one look Hal wanted to put across all his feelings, that Tom wasn't his lapdog, that he hadn't lead in astray for his own ends, but now wasn't the time; 'Please.'

Tom nodded slowly, every inch of him looked wretched and broken, but he went.

Hal waited until he heard Tom's door close before rounding to Alex. 'How dare you do that to Tom!' he said, fury and rage threatening to take over. 'You have no idea what it's like for him right now, how delicate he is.'

'How delicate he is?' Alex rounded. 'He's punching holes in the fucking brickwork! He's taking on blood sucking vampires for fun! How delicate can he be?'

'He's not doing it for fun Alex.' Hal retorted. 'He's doing it because it's the only thing keeping him sane.'

'Well it's clearly not working is it!' Alex shouted back. 'Because he's turned his room into a rabid kennel that even my brothers would catch teninus in. It's like he's squatting in his own room! He's sleeping in a corner surrounded by knives and stakes and, and.'

'And the things that he knows Alex.' Cut in Hal. 'You have to remember; Tom's whole identity was werewolf. He'd lived, breathed and been raised as one his entire life. His world has quite literally been shattered. He has nothing to fall back – no family to go back to like you, or memories like me, just a dream which – let's be honest, none of us imagined would happen, let alone prepared for.'

'He has us, or at least I thought he did.' Said Alex urgently, 'Jesus Hal, all this bullshit about him needing stability, he's turned into a fucking animal, and you're letting him! He isn't alone, everything didn't fall apart, we're all here now. I thought between us we could do it, but you've just gone ahead and poured petrol on the flaming pile of shite that's Tom's mind. He coulda fallen back on us, I thought we were showing him that violence isn't the human way of living, you of all people should know that, you were fifty years without hurting a fly because you knew that it wouldn't help anything! But no, you just took him along on your benders, you had to drag him down to your level, just because you can't adjust after five hundred years of being a lying homicidal arsehole! You wanted someone along fer the ride and decided the poor simple minded Tom would do.'

Hal looked at her; a deep, grave and knowing look, he clenched his jaw slowly. One, two, three, four, five… No, not this time. He looked up at her. Time to stop indulging. 'I don't think any of us are in a position to be relied upon for stability do you?' He said calmly.

'What's that supposed to mean?' She said, a hot flash of anger coming over her – how dare he flip this on her.

'People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones Alex.'

Alex opened her mouth to protest but nothing came out.

'How long has it been since you went outside Alex?' He asked raising his chin and staring at her straight in the eye. 'When did you last speak to anyone other than Tom or me?' Hal took a slow step forward, 'When did you last talk to your family?'

'I spoke to them a few days ago.' She said weakly.

'No Alex, you didn't. You left a message when you knew they would be out. And you used the house phone because you have destroyed your mobile.' He stepped closer still. 'And from what I can tell, you haven't left the house or spoken to another living soul in four and a half months.'

Alex shook, her eyes darted around as her face went ice-cold and stomach dropped. Hal was right in front of her, his warm breath on her face. 'It's not like that.' She said feebly.

'If I didn't know any better,' Hal continued, a small voice in his head said he'd gone far enough, but she'd touch a nerve, so he would crush hers. 'I'd think you were more of a ghost now then ever. You might as well be dead to your family. The only people who even know you're alive are Tom and me, and both of us have our own live now that hardly involve you. We could quite easily live without you, but I doubt you could do the same. Who really is the pathetic one Alex; Tom, or someone who can't even walk outside their own front door?'

Alex backed away. She couldn't believe he was saying these things. 'Stop it Hal.' She mumbled. She wished she could rent-a-ghost away, or push him against the wall and run away, but where to? As if reading her mind, Hal stepped closer 'Want to run and hide little Alex? There's nowhere you can run to is there?' Did he mean from him? From the monsters out there? Or from her own head? She didn't know, he didn't say. She couldn't meet his eyes, instead she whispered in a voice no louder than a breath 'Please, that's enough Hal.' It was a plea, a heart wrenching plea.

There was a pause.

'I'm sorry,' Hal said, genuine regret in his sad eyes behind the gritted teeth. 'But it's time you started facing up to your own problems not distracting yourself with ours.'

Alex's eyes were filling with tears, she wanted to collapse into a heap, she wanted to leave and find somewhere quiet and dark and safe.

Hal took her face gently in his hands and tilter her head up to his. 'We are all finding it troubling, Alex. We have to do it in our own way. Tom needs to channel his anger until he can manage it, you have to get over this crippling fear of dying again.'

'What about you?' she said, tears finally spilling down her face, she wrapped her hands over his squeezing hard. 'You say we all have problems, what about yours?'

'This isn't about mine.' Hal said, his eyes dark, his tone soft as he caressed her face. 'Not this evening.'

Hal leant forward, And Alex submitted to his kiss; light at first and then harder. It was the first contact they had had in over a week.

Okay, only the ending to go now chaps.

And a min epilogue. See ya soon.