Hello! It's been a while since I posted, but this one wouldn't let me go. I love the UK Being Human show (seasons 1-3), but it did irritate me how little they listened to Mitchell the last season, how hard they were on him. I certainly don't condone the killing, but they could have been more understanding of how hard it was for him. And the idiot could have explained a little more, too, but oh well. And Nina could have been a little nicer; I wanted to like her, but she was so antagonistic! *sigh* They were only human after all, I guess.

So anyway, this is my adjustment. Each chapter is a bit of a one-shot, but they will all string together nicely to a complete story by the end. I have no idea how many chapters it will be.

Happy reading!

~Mara

Chapter One

She heard the loud sound of flesh on flesh and came running, only to see the door shut behind George. She couldn't see them anymore, but she could hear them – voices raised and angry. So angry.

"Move."

"I'm not letting you do it."

"Oh, what do you even CARE?" Mitchell's voice rose, furious and – and something else. "You killed him once already!"

George's voice rose too, matching the fury and then some. "What do I care? I never wanted to be a killer of anything or anybody, but I did it."

"I know – I know. And you did it for me…"

"I did it for US, and I'm doing THIS for US." George's tone quieted, firm and insistent. "Herrick is a vampire, but he doesn't know he's one. He doesn't remember all the things he's done. When he DID remember he was punished, but now he doesn't. Now he's just ordinary."

"He was NEVER ordinary – never! Listen to me George, listen to me really good, I'm not doing this on a WHIM."

The desperation in those words made her heart clench, and Annie pressed her ear to the door. That was the something besides the anger she had heard in his voice before – desperation. Her brows furrowed, memories of their encounters with Herrick pressing forward, the knowledge – the little she possessed – of Herrick and Mitchell's history at the forefront, and the niggling doubt she had felt before grew, suddenly and exponentially.

What if they were wrong?

They had known Herrick very little. But Mitchell knew him intimately, as only a sire and an heir can. From the moment he had died to his first breath of a vampire, to the day George had torn that vampire apart, Mitchell had been under Herrick's boot in some way or form. He knew Herrick better than anyone in the world. Herrick had attempted to murder him, just last year.

What if he was right?

"It's costing me. You have no IDEA what it's costing me."

"What are you talking about?"

Her thoughts stuttered to a stop and her ears sharpened.

"If it's costing you so much, then don't do it." George was pleading, but Annie now wondered if he actually knew what he was pleading for. He was the one among them who still had a shred of innocence, still full of idealistic hopes and beliefs about the world, but now – in this moment – Annie wondered if what he was asking was too much.

"I have to. I have to, for you, for – for my friends, for the good of humanity."

That was enough. She knew too much of Mitchell to ignore the sharp doubt and fear that was now in her. A jerk he was, to be sure, and he'd been a right bloody one lately, but when it came to vampires she'd learned to trust him.

She slipped back, to a closet where they'd shoved the broken pieces of wood from the decimated chair. She chose the sharpest one she could find – it only took a second – and then she went back, passing the closed door, eyes sharp on the stairs, movements stealthy as she walked towards them and up, a foot on a step, another, another.

"I'm not asking YOU to do anything!"

"You ARE. You are asking me to look away and I can't look away anymore because I HAVE looked away…"

Their voices faded to an indistinct sound, rising and falling in pitch and volume, but Annie was no longer listening.

She had to know for certain.

She had promised to protect him.

The room was silent, but for the quiet clattering of the small electric train, running, running. Her heart was hammering, her steps slow as she stepped into the open doorway. His eyes rose and met hers, and in that instant she felt her blood freeze.

"You really intrigue me, little lady." He said, voice slithering, just as it had before.

She took another step in, and another, then stopped, staring at him, unblinking. He rose to his feet and came towards her, a smile on his face, his eyes sharp and calculating and curious.

"She couldn't see you!" he said, tilting his head, circling her. "I can see. Those others, they can see you. That idiot woman, she couldn't, why?"

The coiling anger began to burn. "She's not an idiot." She murmured, the words flat on her tongue. "She was nice."

"Nice?" he snorted, stopping. The smile had left. "Who wants to be nice?"

He was the same. "I do."

He sneered in true, dark puzzlement. "Why? I mean, nice isn't really working for you, is it?" he began to circle her again. "You don't really fit in. Nobody really listens. You're a bit…" he searched for the word, stopped and looked at her, raising his eyebrows, and then he grinned. "Peripheral. Like a regimental mascot."

"I fit in just fine." She bit out, and she met his mocking gaze with her own. "And you are going to have to work a lot harder than that to get to me."

A heartbeat passed, and then he stepped into her space. "Just tell me how you do it."

"Guess."

"Give me a clue, little lady. Chuck me a bone."

The tone of his voice had dropped, like gravel in a grave, his eyes dark and sharp with a cold, calculating hunger. "What are you?"

He was the same. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. He would discover his vampirism, she knew, and then – oh, then.

Her fingers tightened around the stake, pressed up between her arm and her side, and she pursed her lips, as if thinking. "What am I." she mused, and then she brought her gaze to his. They were close enough. So close their shirt touched. "Onto you. That's what I am. I'm onto you, little man."

The stake sank deep into his chest, deep, deep. He gasped and tried to shout, did shout, but it was a choking, strangled, pitiful sound. Annie pushed harder, further, driving it as deep as she could, letting every memory of pain he'd brought to them give her the strength, letting the desperation of Mitchell's voice halt any hesitation.

She could not let such a monster loose again.

He might be without his memories, but a monster he still was.

He must have been a cruel man even before he was vampire.

He gasped again, a horrid, drawn-in sound, collapsing on his back, scratching and scrabbling at her and the wood in his chest. His skin began to turn grey, cracks covering his skin as it dried and peeled, eyes and mouth wide in terror, and then –

Then he was gone. Nothing but dust, smoke, and a pile of clothes.

Annie let go of the stake and let it drop, a bloody part of the empty, crumpled shirt, and she stood. She was shaking, breaths coming in little gasps.

She'd killed someone.

Disgust and horror trickled through her veins, and yet in her heart she could not regret it. Did not. And that was what reassured her that it had been the right thing to do – she let herself think of Mitchell's horrified, no – terrified expression when they'd first brought Herrick back to the house, how he'd stood there, frozen. How he'd been so desperate, breaking their furniture in his panic for a weapon.

How he'd laid in his own pool of blood, dying, when Herrick had staked him.

This was right.

She wasn't sure George or Nina would agree, but she had sworn to protect them – she had sworn to protect Mitchell (however horrid he'd been lately), and she had.

She turned and left. She walked down the stairs. The voices were silent, the door still shut. She sat on the bottom of the stairs, and wrapped her arms around her middle.

Hours passed.

It was a uniqueness to ghosts, that hours can pass like a stream. Or not seem to pass at all, just suddenly be gone. The morning light streamed in, and the others were beginning to stir. She heard someone shuffling to the bathroom, heard the door close and the water run. Heard movement in the kitchen.

That door was still closed.

A burning need to see him suddenly filled her chest, and Annie stood, hands shaking anew, and she strode forward and flung open the door. Mitchell was sitting on the bed, head in his hands, and she wanted to pick up the pillow and start beating him with it. Over and over again, as if the feather down could batter some sense into his thick, useless head!

He stirred when his door banged open, and she raised her hand. "Before you say anything I haven't come in here to do the whole crying thing," she stormed, "and I'd rather not talk to you at all because you have been a five-star ***head tonight and – but – what's happened to your face?"

Dried blood stained his top lip and down the side, the bridge of his nose split and scabbed over. "George hit me." He mumbled, head sunk back into his hand.

"Good." She snapped, ire rising again. "Good for George. Saves me the job."

"It's like being kicked by a bastard horse." He growled, and threw his head up, eyes wild and furious. "And get this, right! He says if I stake Herrick, he won't be my friend anymore." He shook his fist, punching it through the air in the direction of the door. "I mean why is he allowed to forget, and I can't? Huh? Why him and not me?"

Not just fury. Grief. He looked – she swallowed. He looked anguished.

"I feel like I'm losing my mind!" His fingers were in his hair, and then he was gesturing again. "I – I'm so tired and I'm – I'm losing everything."

If you would trust your friends, instead of pushing us away, perhaps you wouldn't be.

"Yeah." She murmured. "Yeah. Certainly looks like it."

He didn't move, didn't look up. He looked miserable. Her anger was still hot, she still wanted to scold him from one end of the house to the other, but she realized also how much of his misery was probably the cause of it. And she remembered why she had done what she had done, of his fear, of when Herrick had staked him – his own sire.

She needed to tell him.

She could give him that, at least.

Before she could open her mouth, before she could utter a word, there was a scream from upstairs, an angry bellow, a clattering down the stairs and then George was there – a raging, crying, angry George, bowling Mitchell over and bludgeoning him over and over with white-knuckled fists.

"I warned you!" he screamed as Mitchell curled up, arms raised to ward off the blows. "I told you not to! I told you! I thought you were my friend! I thought that meant something to you!"

"George!" Annie shrieked, grabbing at him, trying to avoid getting hit herself, all but throwing herself on George's back.

Footsteps sounded behind them and then Nina was there, helping her, grabbing at George's shirt, yelling at him to stop. Between the two of them they finally got him off, pulling him back, and Nina shoved her hand on his heaving chest. "George! Enough! What is wrong?"

"I'll tell you!" he shouted, voice an octave too high, his face red, fury and betrayal in his eyes. "I just took the tray up to Herrick, only he's not there! You know what is there? His bloody clothes and a bloody stake!"

Mitchell was carefully pushing himself up, one hand on the corner of the bed, blood on his lips and his eyebrow. He touched the corner of his mouth and winced; it was already swelling. "I didn't go up there…"

"Just one more! It's always just one more!"

"I swear it!"

"LIAR!"

"He didn't, I did!" Annie screamed, hands in fists, shaking.

The silence that followed opened her eyes, and she looked at them all, each one, staring at her in shock and disbelief.

"I did it." She said again, straightening. "I staked Herrick."

"Annie…" Mitchell whispered.

"Why?" George whined, his sense of betrayal now on her.

"I was going to tell you all this morning, that Mitchell was right about him!" She swung and pointed up at the stairs, her anger from before rolling in her gut again. "He's still who he was! So I did it."

"You couldn't…" George was still in disbelief, and then he balked under her blazing eyes.

"I think about what and who I love, and I think about them in danger…" her teeth bared, tears standing in her eyes, and her vision swam. "And I could tear this bloody house down with my teeth! You have no idea how strong I am." She turned her gaze to Mitchell, still on the floor, one hand on the bed, staring at her with wide eyes. "So I did it. Right in the heart."

"He didn't have his memories!" George protested, and she whirled back on him.

"He was evil!" she shrieked. "Memories don't make a person good or bad! Some people are rotten, George, and they don't need to be a vampire for it! Owen didn't!"

Silence met her declaration, and she shifted on her feet, veins thrumming.

"Yeah." She nodded. "You see? Some people just are. He was a bloody monster before he was ever a vampire, he didn't need fangs for that. And he was just as wicked now as he ever was, I saw it and I knew it. I went upstairs last night, while you guys were arguing, and I saw it."

"Annie…" George closed his eyes.

"And who are you to judge, George?" she shot back. "How much time have you spent with him, except to bring him tea? He knew I was a ghost, he knew it, and he didn't care about impressing me. He was going to hurt you all, first chance he had, and you were too bloody full of your big ideals to see it."

"I wanted to believe that someone could change, if given the chance." George murmured, rubbing his face.

"And what do you call Mitchell?" she demanded, throwing a hand in the huddled vampire's direction.

Mitchell shrank back at the attention suddenly turned his way, eyes flicking towards George as if waiting to be attacked again.

"He was Herrick's!" Annie pressed. She was still angry at Mitchell, but Oh was she now angry at George. At Nina. At herself. So wrapped up in their so-called humanism and kindness that they ignored what was so obvious. "He was turned by Herrick, raised by Herrick. And look at him! He's not the monster the others are, though by all rights he should be. Didn't you tell me? Didn't you tell me, when we first lived together, that you'd forgotten what the others were like? Predators, every inch of them just hunger and fury. You wondered how much energy it took him not to be like that."

It hurt. It hurt so much, her throat tightening, and she dashed away moisture from her cheek, angry at everything. So very, very angry. "When have we ever listened to him? Huh? When have we ever taken his warnings seriously? Shouldn't we have understood when we brought Herrick back? Who knew Herrick the most, out of all of us? Why didn't we listen?" She opened and closed her fists. "I know he's been a major ***head, but that doesn't make him wrong."

Nina turned around and left, silent, expressionless. George stood still, face pale, hands still clenched. Finally, he too turned and left, and it was silent, and they were alone.

Annie's breaths were deep and hard, trying to calm the trembling in her core. A hand, a real, warm hand, touched hers, fingers wrapping around, holding.

She couldn't look at him. Not yet. "Let go of my hand."

The touch disappeared, and she heard him move, heard the bed shift as he sat on it. "I said some things I didn't mean." He murmured.

You want every corner of me, and I just don't want to give it.

I was in love with the idea of being a hero, a rescuer, your savior. That's what I was in love with, not you.

"Then why the hell would you say them?" Tears clogged her throat and her nose.

He stared at her, bloody, sweaty, empty. He looked tired, and she felt like she didn't know anymore what or who he was. What they were.

"Because…" he lowered his eyes and shook his head. His voice shook. "You and me, it's for eternity. Really forever."

She waited.

"I – I was running scared, a typical useless man. But…" he finally looked up, and the look in his eyes broke her heart. "I don't want to live without you. I can't live without you."

She looked away, trying to stop her ears to his whispered 'I can't', her chin shaking. He had come for her, to hell and back, and she still didn't understand all of what was happening (though she was determined, now, to drag it out of him), but she loved him. She loved him, and he loved her, as crap as he was at showing it sometimes.

A tear slipped past her lids and fell down her cheek, and she glanced at him, and saw the tears now on his face, and that was it. She stepped closer, hands out, his hands reaching for her, and he buried his face in her belly, his arms tight around her, hands holding her as if she might disappear again.

She covered him with her arms, one around his shoulders, a hand in his hair, holding him close, feeling his tears soak her shirt even though he made no sound except a few harsh breaths.

What weight was he holding that was burying him so low?

"Is he really gone?"

The mumbled words, spoken into her shirt, were hard to hear – but she heard them, and felt the tightness of his hands as he asked. She wondered what being Herrick's heir had been like, what it must have been like to be followed and stalked, trying to get away only to find him there – again.

Her eyes lifted to the stairs, and she remembered the look of shock and horror on the greying face, cracking like glass, puffing into smoke.

"Yes," she murmured.

His hold grew tighter, and if her shirt grew wet anew, she wasn't going to say anything.

George sat at the table, hands around a mug, staring vacantly into space.

He and Nina had argued. She still didn't understand – refused to, actually, if he was being honest. And honest was what he knew he had to be now, after what had happened. Because Annie – sweet, gentle, non-violent Annie – had staked Herrick. Staked him without a second thought.

Perhaps, he mused, he had been too caught up in his ideals to see things as they really were.

How many times had Herrick smiled at him, looking as innocent as a child, and yet whenever Mitchell was near his friend came away grim and dark?

Had Herrick been playing him?

A sigh escaped him, and George dropped his head. Yes, he admitted, he had, and it filled him with remorse and humiliation. Did he want his child to know that a person can be forgiven? Yes.

But he supposed he aught to teach his child to recognize when someone might be forgiven, but not trusted even with a twelve-meter pole.

A chair shifted beside him, and he didn't need to look up to know who it was. "I supposed I owe him an apology." He murmured.

"He owes us one, too." Her voice was rough, as though she'd been crying.

He looked up. She was leaning back in the chair, her arms crossed, her mouth tight. Her eyes were red, her shirt a mess. Patches of damp, and blood. "Is he all right?"

"You certainly did his face in." she said.

George grimaced.

"You have to let up on him about being a vampire, George. He can't help what he is anymore than you can."

That brought a flash of temper, and he rounded on her. "Don't compare what we are."

"Well he can't." She wasn't letting it go. "Tell me, George, can you control yourself when you're the wolf?"

"Annie…"

"Can you?"

"It's not the same. It's once a month, I keep myself safe so I don't hurt anyone."

"Then should we just lock Mitchell down there for the rest of his life? Because he doesn't have a day, George Sands, it's every day. It's every damn day for him, and I'm tired of you being a bloody jerk to him about it."

"Oh, I'm the bloody jerk?"

"You're both bloody jerks, and I've about had it!" Annie covered her face, scrubbing it roughly, and then she dropped her hands into her lap and sighed. "I'm not making excuses for his behavior, George. But I do think we could offer him a little more sympathy and understanding. You know, like a drug addict." She shrugged, eyes slipping to side the way they did when she felt awkward. "I mean – it's got to be a bit like someone trying to get off meth walking around with meth everywhere. With meth mates stalking you and trying to force it on you."

"I never thought of it quite like that." George groused, lifting his cup and taking an awful sip of lukewarm tea.

"Well, maybe we should." She insisted. "And please, give me that. It makes me sick watching you drink it. I'll make a fresh one."

George let her snag the mug from his hand, but still didn't look at her, still rebelliously not wanting to admit any fault.

"Is it like that?"

He turned, and saw Nina standing there in the doorway.

"Is that what it's like, George?" she asked again.

"Like what?"

"Vampires. Drug addicts."

He sighed, shoulders slumping. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Yes, it is." Annie said, thunking his mug on the counter top, a new tea bag in it. "Remember, George? All hunger and violence, all the time – and when they drink, how high they get?"

Nina's eyes closed, and George was ready to tell Annie to shut it, but then Nina opened her eyes again and there was a thoughtful look on her face. "I've seen drug addicts, George." She murmured. "When it's friends and family that are the problem – also in bad situations, also into drugs – it's almost impossible for them to stay clean."

George leaned back in his chair. "You don't like Mitchell."

"No, I don't." Nina admitted, stepping slowly in. "But… I've always thought of everything he does as a free choice. Like he's like you and I." she sat down in Annie's chair, hands folded tightly in her lap, and she glanced between them. "But he's not, is he?"

"You were listening."

"Yes, I was. Am I right? Is it that hard?"

George pulled in and released a deep breath. "Maybe."

"You have no idea." Annie muttered, turning off the kettle as it began to shriek. She poured the water into the mug. "Even too much snogging can set it off."

"What? EW!" George exclaimed, but Nina shushed him with her hand.

"What?"

Annie blinked, apparently realizing what she'd just said. "Oh – I just – well, once we tried to – I mean, it was right after we became an item – we were trying to figure out, you know – I mean, a ghost – and, well, it just…" she stopped, brows puckered as she tried to figure out how much to tell them. "It just happened." She finally blurted. "Being a vampire, you know. He pulled himself back, he didn't do anything, but it just happened." She looked down, dunking the bag over and over. "Not like he chose to vamp out in the middle of a good snog."

Nina nodded, the intense thoughtfulness still on her face. George recognized it as her nurse-face, the face she got when there was a difficult case she had to try and figure out.

"I see." She murmured.