Emily padded into the dining room, yawning, scrubbing a hand through her sleep-mussed hair. It was still the middle of the night and she really should have been asleep, but keeping up with a vampire's hours was wreaking havoc with her sleep schedule. Alex was already (or possibly still) awake and working at her laptop.

"Morning," Alex greeted, glancing up at her with a little smile. "Well, I suppose not quite morning..."

Emily moved to sit in her lap, arms wrapped around her neck. "Come back to bed," she murmured, "I'm lonely."

Alex laughed softly, attempting to finish typing around Emily's body. "I had no idea you were so needy," she said, teasing.

Pouting, Emily said, "It's midnight and I kind of expected my girlfriend to be in bed with me, not doing research or whatever it is you do at odd hours..."

"And what is it you'd prefer I be doing?" she questioned, smirk on her lips.

"Me."

Laughter bubbling up once again, Alex scolded gently, "If it were up to you, I would never get anything accomplished."

She shrugged as if the matter were outside her control. "So, are you coming back to bed?" she urged.

With a dramatic sigh, Alex said, "Fine. But before we do anything requiring exertion, I need to feed..." She offered a faint apologetic smile. "You don't have to watch."

"I want to," she insisted. "Unless you're uncomfortable with that."

It took her a moment or two to debate, but ultimately nodded. She'd seen James feed while they were married and had always been at least mildly nauseated by the process. Since she'd been turned, she'd had to make her peace with it, but had always been very private about feeding. This would be the first time she'd ever had a witness.

She went to the fridge and grabbed a fresh blood pack, breaking the seal and bringing it to her lips, then pausing. "It's cow blood," she explained. "It's all government regulated and..."

Emily laughed softly. "Would you just drink up so we can have sex?"

With a nervous little sigh, she nodded, then extended her fangs and plunged them into the blood pack.


"What' it like?" Emily asked, almost off-handedly. She lay on her stomach, flipping through one of Alex's course plans that sat on the bedside table.

"Hmm?" Alex hummed in question. She wasn't sleeping, didn't necessarily need to sleep, but she lay in bed with Emily anyway. She rolled over to kiss Emily's shoulder.

Emily glanced at her over her shoulder. "Being a vampire..."

Alex was silent for a moment as if expecting some sort of punchline, but when none seemed forthcoming, she sighed. "Why? Are you thinking about it?" She said it like the very concept was ridiculous.

She shrugged. "Maybe." The way she said it was so flip, so off-handed, like what she was saying was meaningless, without consequence.

"Emily..." It was a warning, a command not to tread these waters.

Emily flipped the course plan shut, turning on her side to properly meet her gaze. "What?" she said, genuinely confused by Alex's quick and complete dismissal.

Alex gave her a pointed look. "Please don't joke about that."

"I wasn't – I want to know what it's like," she maintained. At Alex's continued stare, she said, "Is it so wrong to want to at least discuss the possibility of being able to spend forever together?"

"Yes!" she immediately lashed out.

Emily had never seen this kind of intensity behind Alex's soft brown eyes, this kind of anger in her gentle demeanour. She sat up, combing back her hair. "Why?" she asked, genuinely confused and desperate to understand her steadfast refusal. "What is so wrong about that?"

"Because there's no such thing as forever!" she snapped.

A beat.

Alex stood from the bed and started pacing, perhaps a little frantically. She exhaled a shaky breath, struggling to calm herself. She shook her head once, twice, then rounded on Emily with a look that begged for understanding, but also left no room for argument. "You turn someone because you think you're going to be together for eternity, but that's just not reality. There's always always going to be something to ruin it."

Emily sighed. "What does that have to do with being a vampire?" she asked. "I've had plenty of shitty relationships with other humans."

"Because it's different," she insisted. "When you turn someone, there's this intangible connection between you – you ache for them in your bones because you're a part of them. And that feeling lasts forever. Unless you get staked through the heart, you spend eternity aching for someone you used to care about until you don't care anymore."

Emily chewed at her lip for a few moments, struggling to keep her temper in check, but ultimately lost the battle. "Why are we together then?"

"What?"

Emily gave her a pointed look. "If forever doesn't exist and there's no such thing as a lasting relationship, then what's the point in dating?"

For a moment, Alex looked rather like she wanted to retract her statement, but then a flash of fury ignited in her chest. "Fine. If you don't think we should be together, then we won't." She grabbed Emily's clothes off the floor and tossed them at her.

Sadness flickered in her eyes briefly, apparently not having anticipated this reaction, but she choked down the emotion and got dressed.

At the threshold, she paused, glanced over her shoulder at Alex and opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't find the words. Instead, she shook her head, sighed, then walked away.

When the door could be heard slamming shut behind Emily, Alex sank to the bed with a shaky breath, feeling rather like she'd just made the biggest mistake of her life. She hid her face in her hands as she struggled to keep the threat of sobs from erupting past her lips. She hadn't intended for this to happen, hadn't wanted it to happen, but she just couldn't stand even considering the idea of Emily being turned because of her.