Life goes on after tragedy, whether we want it to or not.

Somehow George found ways to get through his day – work helped, and then in the evening he puttered around the house, preparing for the arrival of his child. He and Nina started preparing the nursery, and he was glad of the distraction, of the future hope of such happiness, and he watched her round belly grow bigger with delight.

But then there were the moments, the times he expected there to be someone on the couch, arms thrown over the back without a care in the world, and there wasn't. Or he'd look at the coffee maker and expect to see a last bit in the carafe, forgotten and growing cold. Or there'd be that extra cup of tea that Annie made automatically and brought to the table, only to freeze, memory killing the light in her eyes. Or the times he missed the small, snappish arguments full of banter and history, ending in either good natured ribbing or slamming doors. It was sad that he wanted even those arguments back.

Annie struggled. He knew she did. She swung between anger and grief, cupboards slamming and cups exploding, and then hiding in a corner crying. She had loved him, she loved him still, but she still reeled from the betrayal. From the discovery that, no matter how hard Mitchell tried, he was still a vampire and sometimes those genetics won. And when they did, it was bloody.

Nina was somber, but only as someone would be after hearing an acquaintance or a coworker was gone. It was not true grief, and while there were times she was quieter than normal, most of the time she was content and even happy. It was finally just her and George (and Annie, but she didn't hold half of George's heart like Mitchell had), and she relaxed.

Life was much quieter. Even the anger over the Box 20 murders settled, appeased by the death of the murderer and the confession put to paper. The victims could rest in peace, and their families and loved ones, while not avenged as they had wished to be, at least had closure.

The hardest part was the guilt.

They had been best mates once. Closer than brothers. They had shared their secrets, their troubles, their little moments of joy.

When had that changed?

When had he stopped sharing and listening?

When had Mitchell started keeping secrets?

When had everything gone to hell?

Perhaps, George reflected as he carefully put together his child's crib, he hadn't known as much about vampires as he'd thought. Perhaps he hadn't understood, and perhaps he should have tried to a little harder, despite his moral reservations.

None of it would have excused, but it would have explained. And maybe he could have helped. Or maybe not. Maybe there was nothing he could have done.

George sighed. He'd never know, now.

"How's the nursery coming along?" Annie asked, handing Nina a fresh, piping hot cup of tea.

Nina accepted it and smiled, resting her arms on the kitchen table. "Almost done." She said. "It's hard to believe it's actually happening."

Annie grinned, sitting down with her own cup, wrapping her fingers around the hot ceramic, letting the warmth seep into her cold hands. She inhaled the scent and sighed. "George have the crib done yet?"

Nina laughed. "Someday. Hopefully before he or she gets here."

There was silence for a moment as she drank the tea, and Annie stared off into the distance. At the wall. The silly, bloody, ridiculous, wonderful wall, with its palm trees and blue sky.

Hands on her eyes to keep it a surprise. Excitement in his voice. Flowers round their necks and drinks and dancing, pretending to be thousands of miles away, someplace warm and sunny. What a silly, perfect memory.

Tears pricked her eyes.

A hand covered hers, and she looked into Nina's serious face. "You have to let it go, Annie."

Annie traced a pattern with her fingertip on the table. "You don't understand."

"Yes." Nina murmured. "I do."

"No, you don't." Annie pierced her with a sad, knowing gaze. "Because you didn't know him like we did."

Nina drew her hand back, sucking in a breath to respond.

"I know it sounds cliché." Annie interrupted. "But it's true. I don't know what happened in those last days and months, I don't know what dragged him down, but he was good, Nina. He wanted so badly to be good." Her fingers turned white around the mug. "He was not Herrick. He was not like the others. I don't know why he did what he did – and I don't know if I want to know."

Nina looked down. "I understand more than I did before." She mumbled, and her voice was full of regret and apology. "But I will never fully understand."

Annie sighed. "I know."

"Nina, have you seen the remote?" George called, pulling up the pillows and couch cushions.

"It was right there on the end table!" she called from the kitchen.

"Well it's not there!"

The smell of coffee greeted them, and they all ended up in the hall mumbling sleepy thanks to one another for their thoughtfulness, their voices overlapping. When they reached the kitchen and realized that they all had only just woken, they grew silent, and then they stared.

The coffee maker was on and piping hot and full, and a full mug sat beside it, steam gently curling up.

Cigarette smoke would always bring back memories for George and Annie. A whiff of it on the breeze, rounding a corner to a cloud of it, the remnants hanging in the air around the back door. It always dredged up memories, made their hearts beat just a little bit faster, their eyes drawn against their will to look, expectantly and hopefully, for the gloved hands and the lazy grin, smoke curling in the air in front of dark eyes.

Annie stopped going out.

His room hadn't been touched. Whether Annie had gone in since that night George didn't know, because she didn't need a door to do it. But he doubted it.

He hadn't. He couldn't. He would sometimes go to the door and stare at it, even touch the handle, but he knew upon opening it that he would expect to see his friend, wading through the mess and clutter, looking for a clean shirt and throwing a snarky, fond comment his way. He also knew that his friend wouldn't be there. The mess and clutter would be there as it had been the last time, unmoved, undisturbed, and covered with dust. The air would be stale with the unmistakable scent of old cigarettes, beer, age and cologne.

Mitchell had always smelled old, like old books, old leather, and old buildings.

Today he found himself outside of the door again, his breath shaky. He laid a hand on the wood, felt the grain of it, and swallowed thickly as moisture filled his eyes. It was silent inside, except for the faint rustling of bedsheets.

George's eyes flew open. Had Annie finally gone in?

Or was there an intruder?

He grabbed the door handle and yanked, the stale, closed in air wafting over him like a cloud, expecting Annie to swing around with a scream –

There was nothing.

The mess and the clutter was there as it had been, covered with undisturbed dust. But the scent of cologne and age filled his nostrils, as if Mitchell had been there only moments before.

It made his chest ache.

A warm, heavy, canine scent mixed with florals drifted over him, and then arms slipped around his waist, grounding and comforting. "It looks the same." Nina murmured.

George swallowed again, and tried to joke, "He always was a slob." Even he couldn't laugh at the lame words, but Nina's arms tightened around him in understanding, and her head pressed against his back. "I thought I heard something. But it's empty."

Nina hummed. "Probably Annie."

He nodded. "Probably."

Annie wandered the house at night. Sometimes she'd curl up with a book, or watch the telly, or turn on some of that ridiculous music they'd listened to so long ago and she'd dance in front of the ridiculous wall and pretend someone else was dancing with her. Or she'd go to the nursery and admire the colors in the paint cans, sitting there waiting to brighten up the room, and she'd stroke the boxes with the crib and the dresser, waiting to be assembled. The memory of the Ikea trip made her smile, and she giggled when she imagined what it would have been like if Mitchell had been there, being dragged through the nursery department, resigned and reluctant and complaining all the while.

"They're going to be such good parents." She whispered.

The Mitchell of her memories did not match up with the Mitchell who'd died. That Mitchell had been someone she didn't know. She still didn't know how to reconcile the truth she'd learned with the man she'd known, but as she sat there in the middle of the small room, gently lit with a shaded lamp, she wondered if it mattered at all that she reconciled it.

Sounds drifted up the stairs and through the door. Quiet, everyday sounds. The clinking of a dish, the running of the tap, the smell of brewing coffee. A moment later the muted sounds of the telly reached her ears, and she wondered if it was Nina or George who couldn't sleep tonight.

Probably Nina. George didn't drink much coffee.

Worry for Nina and the baby, big and active in the werewolf's bulging belly, prompted her downstairs. The expectant woman might be in pain, have heartburn, be in labor – or just be unable to sleep.

With a blink she was there in the kitchen, stepping forward to off help and company. "Nina…" She called out, and then froze, because that figure – that tall, slim, dark figure – was not Nina.

The figure at the counter whirled around with wide, panicked dark eyes half covered in familiar dark curls. Coffee sloshed everywhere and a ceramic mug shattered on the floor.

Annie stared at the empty room, at the spatters of dark coffee, at the shards before her feet. Her heart pounded, in her chest and in her throat, and her breath came fast and shallow.

It couldn't be.

It couldn't.

"Annie?"

Thunderous steps, unsteady and without any rhythm, pounded towards her. George was still trying to straighten his glasses, a lamp in his hands like a weapon as he skidded to stop beside her and whirled this way and that, blinking blearily. "What?" he stammered. "What, what, what? WHAT was that? What's wrong?"

Her hands were on her mouth, tears standing in her eyes, refusing to fall.

"I don't see anything. Annie, what's wrong? You screamed and…"

She didn't remember screaming. But her throat was raw and thick and there was coffee, still steaming, on the ground. His favorite mug lay shattered in the puddle.

"Oh…" he breathed. "Annie, it's okay. The mug – it happens."

"He was here."

George frowned, confusion filling his eyes. "Who?"

"George," his name left her mouth on her breath, and her hand shook as she lowered it from her mouth to her belly. "It was Mitchell."

If anyone would recognize a haunting, it would be a ghost.

George began to pay attention, to look at the odd things that happened, and he realized how many of them there had been. The odd coffee in the mornings that no one seemed to have made, abandoned mugs of the dark brew long gone cold, the telly left on in the middle of the night, the missing remotes, the keys not where he himself would leave them but definitely where – someone – would leave them.

He paid attention to the scent of smoke, too, and sometimes it was just a group of people walking by when they had a window open but often, far too often, there was no explanation. No open window, nobody walking by.

He sometimes heard faint movement in the Room, as he now called it, and was too afraid to open the door to prove or disprove his suspicions. But Annie had already confirmed that she had yet to go in there, so…

If there was ever a time he wished that ghosts could be caught on camera, this was it.

Nina didn't know what to make of any of it, and thought they were all mental, but then she fell asleep on the couch one night and when she woke up someone was by the shelves looking at the books and dvds and it wasn't George or Annie. She bellowed and threw back the blanket, struggling to sit up and get to her feet with her large belly.

By that time the books and dvds had finished crashing to the floor and the figure was gone.

George had enough.

For the next week he set up camp on the couch, barely sleeping, sitting as still as a statue, but nothing happened. Nina demanded he come back to their room and Annie tried to convince him to get some sleep (even though she sat with him, hands twisting in her lap, every night).

And then it happened.

A barefoot figure, in dark jeans, tshirt, and open button shirt slipped silently down the stairs, taking each step slowly, peering round. When it made it to the floor it straightened, arms hanging at its sides, and it stared at the wall. The silly, wonderful wall. It walked over and touched the palms and the sky with a hand covered in fingerless gloves, swallowing hard.

George couldn't move.

He couldn't even breathe.

Annie reached over with a cold hand and gripped his with frightening strength, the tendons in her hand standing up and her knuckles turning white. Tears were running down her face, hope and love and fear and heartbreak in her large, dark eyes.

They watched as he ran his hand over the bar top, then hopped onto it and sat, staring into nothing.

George stood, and stepped forward, a hard knot in his throat. "Mitchell?"

The dark eyes flew wide in an expression of terror that George had only ever seen once on that face, and the figure jerked back, stumbling off the bar top, never breaking eye contact – as if George was his doom come to claim him.

"Mitchell!" Annie darted forward, her voice catching and high. "Mitchell!"

His eyes widened even more and his mouth dropped open – and then he screamed, curling in on himself, and disappeared.

The lights popped, wires buzzed, sparks flew everywhere. Annie shrieked and George cried out, throwing up his arms to shield his head. Nina suddenly appeared on the stairs, one hand supporting her belly, the other on the wall as she rushed downstairs.

"What is going on?" she shouted, even as George ran forward and curled over her, protecting her.

The tv suddenly flickered and blared, and images began playing on it. Scrambled, pieced together images – they heard Annie's screams and saw Mitchell doubling over in pain as she was wrenched from him, and there was rage and hurt and howling grief – and there was Herrick telling him it was just a phase, this abstinence, and offering to share the woman he held with Mitchell, the scent of blood filling his senses and nearly driving him mad – and George, George, George, George, killing Herrick for him, not killing Herrick for him, hitting him, yelling, trying so hard to be good, and he was not… Mitchell was not good at all and he was poisoning George and dragging his friend, his good, good friend, down with him – and Annie and all of them – and it hurt, it hurt so much, and he was supposed to be gone, gone, gone –

Everything went black and silent.

For a moment no one moved or even dared to make a sound, till Nina moved forward and turned on a lamp, her face pale and her hand shaking even though she turned back around and tried to hide it. "Well." She said, "What was that, then?"

Annie sank down to the floor and just sat, staring. "That was Mitchell."

"I know. On the telly. How? What?" Nina threw her hands out to the side.

"It was from him." George mumbled. "He was here."

"He's here?" Nina pressed, still pale, eyes still too wide, still demanding an answer that she could accept.

"He's a ghost." Annie murmured. The tears were drying on her cheeks, and her eyes were staring. "Mitchell's a ghost."

"Well – good. Right then." George licked his lips and began to pace. "So what now? How, how do we talk to him? I mean, he runs, or – rent-a-ghost's out of here every time. And what was that?"

"I don't know," Annie mumbled. "Memories? Thoughts?"

"It was terrible, is what it was." Nina said.

"I could feel it." George pressed a hand to his chest, grimacing. "I could feel it, Annie, what he was feeling there – on the telly – I just – "

Annie swallowed and stood. "I need to find him." Her legs were wobbly, but determination was filling her eyes and driving back the shock. "I need to find him." She looked at George, and their eyes locked.

He nodded, trying to not let on how he was crumpling inside. "Do that." He whispered, his breath shaky. "Bring him back, Annie."

She nodded and was gone.

"Can't we just be rid of him."

George turned. She'd spoken under her breath, quiet enough, but he still heard her. "Don't."

Nina looked up, hand on the back of her neck.

"Don't do that." George said. "He's my friend. And if there's any way of getting him back, and getting him back safe – oh."

"But George – you know what he did."

"Oh yes." He nodded, eyes too wide and mouth pressed thin. "I know what he did. I know lots more of what he did than you, and I may not know why he did some of those things but I also know that there were too many secrets those last few months and a lot of it – was my fault."

"George…"

"No, Nina, I chose you over him, I chose me over him, and I chose so many other things over him. I didn't want to know anything, and Mitchell – Mitchell was fragile." She scoffed, but he went on. "He never liked himself very much, Nina, and if one gave him no reason to share, or made it clear that one didn't have time for it or him, he just jolly well clammed up and never said a word. I didn't realize it before because he always seemed so cocky, but he was." He rocked on his heels, swinging his hands, and blinked hard. "I never knew what made him do those things, and I wonder – I sometimes wonder if I had just listened, really listened, how much could have been changed?" He looked at her. "Remember? When we talked about meth, how hard it is for someone trying to change?"

Her face fell, and she dropped her eyes.

Annie moved through the rooms, one after another, searching the corners and the furniture and the closets. Then she moved through the walls, through the spaces between.

She'd lost him once, she wasn't losing him again.

But he was nowhere.

Annie appeared in the nursery, all cream now with yellow trim and smelling of fresh paint, the pieces of the crib laying on the floor in a pile of parts and instructions. It was the last room in the house, the last space before the roof and the sky. She couldn't believe she hadn't been able to find him, and she chewed on her lip, wondering where he was and how she could get there, when she heard a sound.

It wasn't much, but it was a sound.

She turned, listening, following. She touched one of the cream walls, and then went through, and found herself in the space between the straight walls of the room and the rafters of the roof. It was triangular, dark, dirty space, and completely hidden. She couldn't see anything at first, but slowly her ghostly eyes adjusted, and she looked around.

He sat in the furthest corner, curled against the wood, a hand on his face.

Softly she appeared beside him, crouching with one knee down, and she touched his arm. "Mitchell?" she murmured.

He started and stared at her, with his big dark eyes, as if she'd been everything he'd been hoping to see again and also his greatest grief.

And then his face twisted, and his hands covered his face as he howled.

George and Nina were just about to start their way upstairs when the lights flickered again and the tv sprang to life. They whirled around, gaping as scenes from a long ago war began to flicker to life, a young and very human and familiar figure creeping along the battlefields, trying to find and save his men and finding monsters from his nightmares instead.

"It's happening again."

"Are these…" Nina frowned, pointing.

"His memories." George breathed, watching Herrick leer at Mitchell, blood staining the entire front of his uniform. "He was in the first World War, Nina. It's when he was turned."

In a flash Nina was by the tv, fumbling with something on the DVR, and then he saw the letters R-E-C flash a few times in the upper corner of the screen and saw the red light on the player. Nina turned and looked at him. "I want to know." She said. "You keep saying I don't understand. I want to save this, so I can."

He nodded.

He couldn't watch it all. Neither could Nina.

They were awful.

The memories played through, one after another, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes in order and others incredibly disjointed. What floored George, again, was that somehow, through the video – recording – channel – video – they could feel what Mitchell's felt.

During some of the more violent memories George felt ill – no one should take so much pleasure in killing. But one thing became very clear to him very quickly: that the vampire nature and Mitchell's own nature were two very separate things, at war within a single heart and mind. For every murder, for every kill, there was always a reckoning when he came back to himself, in the flashes of self that broke through here and there. Eventually, after so many years, the two intertwined so much that it was no wonder Mitchell didn't know how to separate the two and believed himself – he, Mitchell – to be a bloodthirsty demon.

Those moments made George want to weep.

When the sun began to rise, lightening the windows with gentle rays, it found George and Nina sitting at the table with their backs to the still running TV, cradling mugs of tea. Faces equally pale, equally drawn.

George belatedly thought that this couldn't be good for the baby.

"He was under that bastard's control for how many years?"

Nina's voice, loud after the silence, startled him.

"Ninety?"

"Give or take." He confirmed.

She released a long breath. "Herrick was a sadistic, manipulative psychopath." She rubbed her nose and then her eye. "I've seen abusers before, and what they do to their victims. Some of them can hardly function in the end, they're so twisted up in their head," she tapped her temple and then rested her head in her hand, staring with unfocused eyes. George nodded, wondering just how often she'd run into such scenarios at the hospital, and then wondering if he really wanted to know. Nina dropped her hand back to her lap. "No wonder he wanted to stake Herrick when we brought him here." She swallowed, hard, and then sucked in a deep breath. "I should have let him."

"I should have known." George rasped.

Nina covered his hand with hers, squeezing gently. "You couldn't. He never said."

"I knew Herrick was bad. I'd dealt with him enough to know. He stabbed Mitchell with a stake, Nina, at our house. He sent people to the hospital to finish the job." George shut his eyes and pulled off his glasses, rubbing the heel of his palm against his face. "No wonder he quit sharing with me, Nina."

She was quiet, too quiet, for a long minute. He looked up to see her twisted around in her seat, staring at the tv. Watching whatever new memory was playing. "He really loved you."

George twisted around and looked back, and saw him and Mitchell fooling around in the kitchen with soap suds – dishes forgotten in the sink, and a mess to clean up on the floor afterwards. And the desperate motions as he put himself between George and Annie and eventually Nina and whatever danger was in front of them. His terror that his world, his kind, would rip them from him and then his grief when he realized he'd done too much to keep them, anyway. The silly arguments, the laughter and the jokes, the terrible paint-balling fiasco.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take." George rasped. His eyes were welling and his heart was breaking and all he wanted was to pull his mate into a hard hug and apologize and forgive and ask if they could start again.

"Have you ever known a ghost to do this? Does Annie do this?"

"No." George shook his head. "And… Well, I don't know, I've only ever known Annie. I'm not sure."

As if she'd heard her name, Annie suddenly appeared next to the table. Her face was set, grim, and sad. "I found him." She said. "But I need you, George. He needs you. He needs us."

The chair screeched as George flew to his feet, adjusting his glasses. "Where is he?"

Annie tipped her head and they left, up the stairs. Nina stayed where she was for a minute, and then stood and went back to the living room. She sank into the couch, cradling her cup of tea, and watched.

She was a woman who liked to know, who liked concrete answers and lines, who'd believed things to be fairly black and white. It was one of the reasons she'd disliked Mitchell so much. Not only did he have at least half of George's heart, but he was not black and white. They loved him, but he killed. He protected them, but he spilled blood. He was a walking contradiction that challenged everything she so firmly believed in.

But now, watching the flickering images, Nina reflected that she really didn't so very much at all. But she thought she was beginning to see, to understand.

She'd been abused herself. Her parents had never been what she'd call stellar; her father was a no good alcoholic that always promised to change and never did, who came home mean and angry, just to apologize when he'd sobered up. Only to do it all again. Her mother was emotionally manipulative, always twisting it so that it was Nina's fault, Nina's problem. Telling her it the problems were there because she like drama, she was insensitive, she didn't care enough, she had issues. By the time she'd moved out she didn't know who she was anymore, and it had taken a good deal of therapy to undo the misconceptions, the beliefs about herself, to sort her thoughts into what was true and what was conditioned into her by her mother.

He was a killer. A part of him, the vampire, enjoyed it and craved it.

But so had her father's alcoholism.

And so did her wolf.

She sighed and tipped her head back on the couch.

A few minutes later George and Annie came back downstairs, their steps slow, their faces despondent. "He's gone again." George mumbled.