Something is Lost (In Between 7 and 8, PG)

[Shadow]

Disclaimer: Moonlight is not mine and no copyright infringement is intended.





IN BETWEEN
seven and eight





Something is Lost




“Were you disappointed?” Beth asked.

Mick had been so shocked when he first saw Morgan, he hadn’t even been able to think. When she’d claimed not to be Coraline, he hadn’t believed her. He’d been upset, angry, thinking that Coraline was manipulating him again, playing games with his life, seeking payback for what he’d tried to do to her. It had driven him mad that she’d resurfaced now, just when he’d started to find happiness with Beth; he’d been sure she had picked the time deliberately, to torment him.

But Morgan wasn’t Coraline.

Were you disappointed?

He had never expected that he would be. He hadn’t even realized it until Beth asked the question. But in this matter Beth could see much more clearly than he could, and she had known.

The longer you live, the more surprises you get. You’d think you’d come to expect the unexpected.

But you don’t.

Mick was silent, which was answer enough for Beth. She lowered her eyes and turned away, going to the couch to pick up her bag. She glanced back at him, and he could see tears glinting in her eyes, but he still didn’t know what to say. I can’t lie to her about this, but how can I tell her the truth?

“Beth,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Wait.”

She shook her head, quickly slinging her bag over her shoulder, and said, “I can’t.” Seconds later the door closed behind her, and Mick was alone.

He sank back into his chair and sat unmoving for a long time. He’d seen so much hurt in Beth’s face, and she didn’t even know, yet, what Coraline had done to her. Beth must have been feeling what he had, ever since they’d kissed at the hospital – that they’d finally found each other, that maybe, just maybe, they were meant to be. And now, with his undeniable longing for Coraline, he’d lost that for both of them.

Was Coraline going to destroy his life all over again, even from the grave?

For that matter, was Morgan going to have him arrested?

Mick got up with a groan and walked to the window, looking out blindly. He’d chased an innocent woman across a cemetery; he’d caught her, thrown her to the ground, ripped her clothes half off, and accused her of things she knew nothing about. God, what a nightmare for her. He’d been completely insane.

And what had she seen? He’d been careless, because he’d believed her to be Coraline, but it had been dark. Morgan was human, she couldn’t see well in the dark. She couldn’t possibly be sure of what she’d seen. Could she?

Mick, she’d said, her voice shocked. Your eyes.

She’d certainly seen something.












But days passed, and nothing happened. Morgan didn’t accuse him of anything, the police didn’t knock on his door, and Beth seemed to have vanished from his life. In the void, Mick searched obsessively for Hank Mottola, but never found a trace of him. No vampire in Los Angeles, it seemed, had ever even heard of him. But somebody turned him, and they did it in this city. If not Coraline, who? But after a few days, he wondered if it mattered. Coraline hadn’t turned Mottola, so there was no conspiracy, no plot. Mottola had killed his old girlfriend, yes, but he hadn’t gone on to kill other humans. He hadn’t gone feral; he didn’t have to be brought down. And maybe he even had good reason for killing that poor woman. Everything else had mirrored Mick’s past – why not that as well?

The old nightmare began to plague Mick again, even in his freezer - the sight of Coraline burning in the inferno he had set. How could he ever have imagined her surviving that? He woke on the sixth night with tears frozen on his face and Coraline’s image in his mind, the way she’d looked at the moment he’d fallen in love with her. The glow of candles behind her, moonlight on her face, her eyes as dark and boundless as the night.











The moon had been nearly full that night, shining into the room and casting its light across the rumpled bed, letting Mick see Coraline clearly. He was infatuated with her then, with her beauty, with her power, with the way she made him feel in bed. There was no more need for drunken jealousy or shattered glass; ever since he’d broken her window she’d been passionate only for him, and he felt connected to her in some strange way. But sometimes she seemed to move in another world, keeping her true self in a place he couldn’t reach. She’d never really talked about her past, or about what she wanted for the future . . . until that moment.

Lying in Mick’s arms in the moonlight, she gently reached out to touch him. There was nothing sexual in this touch, only tenderness, and somehow this meant even more to him - it was something he hadn’t known from her before. Her fingers brushed through his hair, tracing the ridged scar at the base of his skull, and then she slid her hand slowly along the jagged marks that ran from his shoulder down his back and side. He had other scars, mostly souvenirs from bar fights, but her hand moved unerringly to the wounds left behind by the war.

“What happened here?” she asked. She’d lit candles on the bedside table, and her face was haloed by the flames as she watched him, her eyes dark and deep.

“Shrapnel,” he said. “It was from a mortar attack.”

“It happened in the war, then.”

“Yeah.”

“What about this?” She touched the back of his head again, her hand resting against the scar.

“The same. That one knocked me cold. I was out for a week.”

“So long,” she whispered. “My God, Mick. It sounds like you almost died.”

“It was close." He hadn't thought he would survive, when the world had exploded around him that day. “But I was lucky. Almost all the rest of my patrol did die in that attack. Only two of us survived, and Ray – he was crippled.”

“It’s so frightening. I could have lost you, then, and never even met you.”

“The war was like that. You never knew what would happen. My brother was a quartermaster, behind the lines, and he was killed by a bomb. I spent the war on the front lines – I even went through the Battle of the Bulge - and I survived. You just never knew.”

“Your brother,” she said. “What was his name?”

“Sam.”

“You must miss him very much.”

Her voice was so sad, so understanding. “Did you lose someone in the war, Coraline?”

“Our lives are shaped by war,” she said, looking past him, her gaze faraway. “I was living in France with my family. One day I came home and . . . our house had been burned to the ground, with my husband and daughter inside.”

“Oh, Coraline,” Mick whispered. “I didn’t know. You were married, you had a child?”

“It was a long time ago. I married when I was sixteen, and our child was born a year later. I was so young then! It seems a lifetime in the past.”

Mick had never before thought of Coraline as a wife, as a mother, but he felt the pain in her voice, now, as she remembered her lost family.

“What was your daughter’s name?”

“Minette.”

He could almost see her, as she spoke her child’s name, a young and loving mother holding a dark-haired little girl by the hand.

“That’s a pretty name,” he said.

“She was a pretty child,” Coraline said softly. “I would braid her hair each morning, and put flowers in, but the flowers always fell out by the end of the day.”

“I can’t imagine how much you must miss her.”

“It’s long past.”

“Still.” Mick sometimes felt as if centuries had passed since the war, as if it had happened in some other lifetime, to someone else. Other times, it seemed as if the war was still going on around him. The nightmares and flashbacks weren’t as bad as they’d once been, but they came in waves, and he never knew when they would hit.

“What about you, Mick? Have you ever been married? Do you have children?”

“No. But that’s what I want. One day.”

“And have you ever been in love? Truly in love?”

“Once. A long time ago. It didn’t work out.” Mick looked at Coraline, so beautiful, lying in a wash of moonlight, the candles glowing behind her. He reached out to stroke her hair back from her face, and said, “Never again, until now.”

She pulled him to her and kissed him then, and he was lost in her. Lost.












I’ve been lost in her ever since, no matter how I felt about her, hate or love. How many times did I leave her? How many times did I go back? The story of her family might have been a lie, a ploy to get him to fall for her, but he didn’t think so. He was almost sure she really had been married when she was human, at sixteen, that she really had had a child called Minette, that she really had lost her family in a war. Just not the same war I was talking about.

Mick had wondered, ever since Beth, if Minette had been four years old when she died.












His tears melted away, and Mick managed to get out of the freezer, but only because he needed to see if there were any messages from Beth. He’d been checking his phone messages and email a hundred times a day this week, knowing he was being obsessive, but completely unable to stop. He checked his phone now – nothing – and sat down in front of his office computer, more depressed than ever. He’d called Beth three times this week, and had left two email messages, but he hadn’t received any reply. Can you blame her? He scanned his email, desperately hoping for something, but there was nothing from Beth. More vampspam from Logan – it was a good thing Logan wasn’t nearby, because Mick would have strangled him on the spot – and a real message. Elaine came by; we played some Rock Band. I think maybe she’s doing better? Not much, but some. Did you get all the stuff I sent you on Gregory Foster? I might mention, I haven’t gotten any cash yet. Maybe it’s still in your wallet. Feel free to come by with it any time.

Okay, maybe he wouldn’t strangle Logan after all, in spite of all the mail from Nigerian vampires who couldn’t access their blood banks. Elaine liked Logan, he was a good friend to her. Mick thought Elaine had seemed a little better last time he’d seen her, too . . . maybe she really was.

He deleted the latest Nigerian plea and scanned through the rest of his mail again. Definitely nothing from Beth. But there was a return message from one of his queries on Gregory Foster; curious despite himself, he opened it.

Mr. St. John, I am sorry to take so long to reply, I was in the hospital for some tests and just came home. Yes, I was in Gregory Foster’s first grade class. I did know him fairly well, as we lived near each other and often walked home from school together. We took some long routes, because he never wanted to go home, and after a while my mother wouldn’t let me walk with him any more. When he disappeared, I thought he must have run away, because it seemed he was unhappy at home. Sincerely, Victoria Wallace.

Mick got out Logan’s printed lists and pulled up a map on his computer, wishing he’d never taken on this old case. Maybe he should just tell the great-niece there was no way to solve it. He was fairly sure there wasn’t, and every day it seemed more likely that the boy had simply run away. And even if Mick found out something different, there was hardly anything he could do about it.

A knock came at the office door, and he looked up with a start. Elaine. He hurried to open the door, and she came in without a word and stood leaning against the wall. Mick quietly got her a drink, and one for himself.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“You just get back from the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s Kevin?”

“Worse.” She drank deeply, and then her face brightened a little. “Something cool happened, though.”

“With Kevin?”

“I made him a computer game. It’s based on the treatment he’s getting; you use the game to zap cancer cells on the screen.”

“Giving him a chance to fight back? That was a smart idea.”

“Oh, it’s been done before. But I wanted to make one especially for Kevin, with graphics he’d like. So I made up a bunch of identical demos, and sent them all to the hospital. Kevin ended up with one, and I saw him playing it.”

“That’s great, Elaine.” It was so good to see her cheerful, even if it was just for a moment. “You never know, it might help.”

“Probably not. But still.” She looked at Mick then, and seemed to really see him for the first time. “God, Mick! You look like hell. What’s wrong?”

Everything. “I thought I saw Coraline a few days ago. I could have sworn it was her.”

She was startled. “Another vampire looks just like Coraline?”

“No. A human.”

“But then you must have known it couldn’t be her.”

“I should have. But I thought . . . I thought she’d found a way to turn human again.”

“Oh, Mick.”

“I got so obsessed with her . . . with what I thought was her . . . ” He shook his head, and took a swallow from his glass. “I haven’t heard from Beth since it all went down.”

“Oh. No wonder you look like a wreck.” Elaine glanced around the room uncomfortably, and didn’t say it’s probably for the best, though Mick was sure that was what she was thinking. Instead she drifted over to Mick’s computer, set her drink on the desk, and picked up one of Logan’s lists. “What’s this about?” she asked, scanning the list.

“I’m trying to find what happened to a kid who disappeared back in 1950.”

“1950? That’s one hell of a cold case. What is this list, the neighbors?”

“That’s right. Logan put it together for me.”

“Oh yeah, he said he was doing some stuff for you. But how in the world are you going to find out what happened to somebody way back then?”

“I probably won’t be able to. But I’ll keep trying for a while.”

“You sure it wasn’t that weird creep? Leo?”

“One of my first thoughts,” Mick said. “But it turns out he wasn’t even born then.”

“Are there any other vamps around who go after kids?”

“Probably. But nobody else who has a reputation.”

“They say kids taste better, don’t they.” She put the list back down, and glanced at him sideways. “I guess you’d know.”

Mick flinched, and didn’t answer that. I don’t, actually. It’s not as if I needed to drain you – there wasn’t any blood left in your body by then. But she didn’t know that, because he hadn’t ever told her the most horrific details. He said shortly, “I don’t think it was a vampire at all. I think the kid was miserable at home, and ran away.”

“Where would he go?”

“You tell me.”

Elaine glared at him. She grabbed her drink, finished it off, and slammed the glass back down. “It’s not the same thing at all. Dad.”

“No. Of course it isn’t.” Except for how miserable you feel. Mick sighed, conceding to her, and sank down in the chair behind the desk. “Elaine . . . has it been too hard on you? Never growing up all the way?”

She picked up the rest of his papers and leafed through them, gazing down at them as if she needed to memorize them for an exam. “That’s not the hard part,” she said. “My age has never been a big deal. I can pass for adult, and I don’t think I was ever going to grow out of the ugly duckling phase anyway, so I don’t care about that.”

She would only get angry if Mick told her how beautiful she really was, so he didn’t say it. And he didn’t ask her what the hard part was. He knew.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” she said, hastily piling the papers back on his desk. “I’ve just started working on another game. I have a lot to do on it.”

“Are you still playing music, too?” Mick glanced down at his right hand and touched his ring, tracing the cross the same way Tyler always had.

“A little.” She looked at his ring too, and said, “I wish you’d give it a try sometime. But if Tyler couldn’t talk you into it, I guess I don’t have a hope.”

“We’ll see.” When she was at the door, he said abruptly, “Do you ever really think about me that way?”

“What way?”

“As, you know . . . a dad.”

He’d been expecting her to laugh, or respond with sarcasm, but instead she gave him a long, thoughtful look. “Sometimes,” she said, very seriously, and she smiled at him, a small, shy smile that captured his heart. Then she hurried out the door, closing it behind her, and she was gone.













Mick went to Beth’s apartment that night. Outside the door he paused for a moment, to make sure she was alone, and then, before he could lose his nerve, he knocked on her door.

Beth opened it and looked up at him in surprise. She was dressed in a crisp blouse, jacket, and slacks, as if she’d just come home from work. Had she been working that late? It was nearly ten.

“Oh,” she said. “Mick.”

She certainly didn’t seem happy to see him, but at least she hadn’t slammed the door in his face.

“I’m sorry to come by so late,” Mick said.

“Well, you are a night person. I suppose it’s to be expected.”

Her voice was flat, and Mick wasn’t sure what to make of her words. He said, “I just wanted to talk to you. Could I come in?”

She shrugged and stepped back, letting him into the apartment. He’d been here before, but he’d scarcely noticed anything about the place then. He glanced around at the cozy kitchen, the laden bookshelves, the botanical prints on the walls. Beth must have been at her desk when he’d knocked; the computer screen was lit, casting its glow over a pile of notebooks and a tape recorder. She had been working late, at home.

Beth settled herself on the flower-print sofa, and Mick uncomfortably took a chair opposite her. Nervous, he looked around again. Beth collected birds, it seemed, mostly waterfowl – he saw sculptures scattered about, on shelves and tables, and there was a painting on the wall behind him. They made him think, suddenly and sharply, of that moment by the pond, little-girl Beth with her hand in his, ducks paddling idly in the water and an owl flying past overhead.

“What did you want?” Beth asked coolly. “I have to leave in about half an hour.”

“Leave? This late?”

“For work. I’m covering the execution.”

“Oh.” Donovan Shepherd, of course. Mick had forgotten about it when Coraline had reappeared. No. Not Coraline. Morgan. “I guess I lost track of time.”

“I suppose you’ve had a lot on your mind.” Beth glanced at him, and there wasn’t just distance in her look – there was fear as well. Mick felt the pain of it deep in his soul. She had always looked at him with pure acceptance in her eyes, before, but that was gone now. Gone forever, now that she knows I killed Coraline. Beth had accepted the vampire; knowing what he was had never made her fear him in the slightest, but now –

Mick said quietly, “I need to explain.”

“I think you told me enough the other day.”

“No. I didn’t. I got lost in the memories, and I never explained.”

“Explained what?”

“Why it happened. Why I killed her.”

“Oh,” Beth said, folding her arms in front of her. Her heart had started to race, with both fear and anger. “Yes, that’s right. You seemed to think I ought to know.”

I think you do know. You’ve only blocked it away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was half out of my mind. I know I wasn’t making sense.”

Beth frowned, her body rigid and tense. “Well? Explain it properly, then.”

Mick could still feel her fear, lurking behind the anger, and he suddenly remembered the night she’d found the wedding picture at the Pollocks’ house. He killed his own wife, she’d said, her voice full of shock and horror. And why shouldn’t she be afraid now? He’d told Beth that he’d murdered Coraline, and had then done nothing to explain why. He’d only told her that Coraline had always made him crazy. With her I was insane, addicted, enraged, besotted, terrified . . . and madly in love. Literally. He often thought of himself as two different people, the man and the vampire; he thought of Coraline in a similar way. She was the enchanting, enigmatic girl he’d fallen in love with, the girl he’d meant to stay with for all of his days; she was the cold, indifferent woman who killed innocents without blinking, the woman who’d smiled at him hopefully as she prepared to turn a four-year-old child into a vampire.

“I found out that she was going to kill someone,” Mick said. He looked up at Beth, saw her staring back at him with those wide eyes, so much the same as her eyes had been as a child. As if she could see into his very soul. “Someone that I -- ” He couldn’t say, to Beth, she was about to kill you.

“Someone you loved?”

The tense wasn’t correct, but it was close enough. “Yes.”

“But you must have loved her. Coraline, I mean.”

Mick looked down, unable to meet Beth’s gaze. What Coraline had done to Beth was unspeakable – how could he have ever loved a woman who was capable of that? But he had, and he did. Had she always been that way? Or had his rejection of her created that horror?

“There was a time when I loved her more than the world,” Mick said at last. “And there’s a part of me that still loves her. I can’t help that. She – she was different, once. Or at least I thought she was.”

Beth had uncrossed her arms. She was listening.

“But she became – the things she did -- ” Mick swallowed, seeing again the little girl in the lamplight, Coraline gliding down from the ceiling, Coraline with her hands wrapped possessively around the child’s face. Beth’s face. “There was only one way to stop her. I don’t think I really had a choice. But can you imagine what that felt like? To know that I’d killed my own wife? When I saw Morgan, and thought she was Coraline – and she was alive – I thought - ”

“You thought you hadn’t killed her after all.” Beth’s voice was soft, and unexpectedly gentle.

Mick nodded miserably. “It’s haunted me forever. And just for a moment, I was free of it.”

“Then that’s why you wanted it. Why you wanted Morgan to be Coraline.”

He hesitated. “That’s part of it,” he said finally. “And Morgan . . . she was human. If she really was Coraline, that meant there was a way back. A way to be human again.”

Beth looked troubled. “But there isn’t any way back, is there?”

“No. Josef’s told me, everyone’s told me. There’s no cure.”

“Maybe everyone’s wrong.”

Mick smiled painfully. “I wish.”

Beth sat deep in thought for a time, going over his words. Then she looked up at him. “You said that Coraline was different once. Do you mean before she was a vampire?”

“No. I never knew her when she was human. She was turned a couple of centuries ago.”

“But you didn’t know that she was a vampire. Before you married her.”

“No.”

“Then did you really know her at all? Didn’t she lie to you, by not telling you?”

Lies of omission. Like all the things I haven’t told you. “I knew part of her,” he said.

“How long were you with her before you got married?”

“Three months.”

“Three months? Is that all?”

He shrugged uneasily.

“And you said you were turned on your wedding night. That would have been . . . in 1952?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened after that? Didn’t you leave her, after what she did to you?”

“I wanted to,” he whispered. “I couldn’t. She was my sire. I needed her. Without her . . . I would have been feral, like that doctor.”

“How long did you need her?”

“A year. Two.”

“And how long did you stay with her?”

“It was . . . it was off and on, I -- ”

“How long?”

“It was -- ” He couldn’t say thirty-three years; if he did, she’d be able to work it out with simple mathematics. Hell, she was going to work it out anyway, probably sooner rather than later. But he still couldn’t say thirty-three. “It was about thirty years.”

Beth’s mouth fell open, and she stared at him in shock. He could almost see her thinking longer than I’ve been alive. But for the last half of those thirty years, he’d spent far more time away from Coraline than with her. He’d almost broken free of her. Almost.

“How could you still love her that much?” Beth asked. “After she betrayed you?”

“It doesn’t . . . it isn’t like what it sounds. For a vampire, thirty years is just a heartbeat. It doesn’t mean the same thing as it does to a mortal.”

Oh God, I shouldn’t have said that. Beth, I didn’t mean your life was only a heartbeat to me. With you, it’s different. But Beth’s mind was fixed on a different angle. “You did still love her, though,” she whispered. “I can tell.”

“I loved her, I hated her . . . I never understood what I felt, I just felt it. Maybe part of it is because she turned me. I don’t know.”

“I guess love doesn’t always make sense.” Beth’s eyes were downcast. “And then you had to kill her. I can’t even imagine. How did you ever get past that?”

“I didn’t,” Mick said quietly. The nightmare flooded over him again, Coraline in the flames, and then, more strongly than ever before, came the memory of what had happened next.












He’d driven away with the little girl buckled into the seat beside him, his eyes on the rearview mirror, watching the fire fade to an orange glow in the distance. Lights flashed ahead of him, and he pulled to the side of the road as a fire truck approached and passed, its siren wailing. He drove on, but his hands were shaking on the wheel, and he couldn’t get his breath. Which is crazy. I don’t need to breathe. A vampire can’t feel this way. But his lungs were full of smoke, full of fire, and he was suffocating. He drove as fast as he could to a small residential park, trees and bushes and a little pond, and pulled over by the curb.

“Wait here, okay?” he told Beth. “Just for a minute.”

She nodded, silent, looking up at him. God, those eyes. He stumbled out of the car, closing the door behind him, and collapsed in the grass under a tree. Vampires couldn’t get nauseated, either, but he was going to be sick any minute. He clung to the ground, and it lurched impossibly beneath him. Coraline’s gone. I killed her. I killed her with fire. Smoke overwhelmed him and he gasped, fighting for air. She lost her family in a fire. What have I done?

“Are you sick?”

Mick started and very nearly changed, his eyes turning pale for an instant. He hadn’t heard the little girl get out of the car, he hadn’t smelled her approach. All his senses seemed to be gone, lost in a cloud of smoke. He lifted his head from the grass and saw her looking down at him, her face haloed by tree branches and faint city stars. The smell of smoke faded as she moved closer, an almost unbearable relief, and other scents slipped back into his world. He took a breath, and another.

“I was,” he said. “But I’m okay now.” He wasn’t, not in the least, but he needed to reassure Beth.

“Did she hurt you?”

His face was covered in blood, where Coraline had raked him with her nails; his shoulder was drenched with it where she’d bitten him. It was all healed now, of course, and the wounds were gone.

“No,” he told Beth, not even trying to explain the blood. She was only four, after all. Maybe she wouldn’t notice the discrepancy. “Did she hurt you, Beth?” He pushed himself to sitting with an effort, and turned to face the girl. There were no marks that he could see – no bite wounds on her throat, or at her wrists. Was Coraline saving her for me? Did she mean for me to do it? He felt ill again, faint and nauseous.

Beth solemnly shook her head. “She scared me,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“There’s blood.” She pointed at his face.

“I’ll clean it.”

Mick got to his feet, taking Beth’s hand, and walked the few steps to the little pond. He sank to his knees on the muddy bank and splashed water on his face and neck, washing away the blood. Beth stood beside him, watching. A few ducks bobbed on the surface of the pond; others slept on the bank. An owl made a shadow across the stars, night air flowing over its wings. In the distance Mick heard the peaceful, constant hum of traffic on the freeway. He heard the little girl’s slow steady heartbeat, the soft sounds of her breathing – she wasn’t afraid at all any more; she felt safe here, in this place, with him. Mick took deep, slow breaths of his own, taking in the scents. Water in the pond. Grass, trees, ducks. Beth. No smoke. The air was clear again.

But when he turned his head, he saw the orange glow on the horizon.

“Don’t cry.” It was Beth’s voice, worried now. Worried about him. She put her little arms around his neck and gave him a hug, and he held her tightly, overwhelmed. She wasn’t afraid, and she trusted him absolutely. She had felt his pain, and she’d reached out to him. Beth might be only four, but she was the most extraordinary person he’d ever met.

I did the right thing. I know that now, without a doubt.

But he still couldn’t stop crying. Not even for Beth.












The sounds of the freeway never really changed, not even after all these years. Mick sat listening to the traffic in the distance, remembering how he’d listened to it before, on that long-ago night by the pond. Beth was silent, and she seemed to be lost in thought. He knew she still didn’t remember, but she was closer to it now. Much closer. Telling her thirty years might have been enough to bring everything together for her, but her mind was still fiercely blocking it all away. Should I tell her the rest? Should I tell her now? Something had changed in her tonight. Sometime in the last few minutes – he wasn’t sure exactly when – her fear of him had vanished. She was confused by his story, bewildered by his relationship with Coraline, but even so, she was starting to understand how he felt about having killed his wife. She was only starting to understand, though; surely she needed to come to terms with it before he told her anything else. And she’s not afraid of me any more. Mick was clinging to that, and he couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything that might make her fear return.

“I should get going,” he said, getting up. “You need to leave for work in a few minutes.”

“I still have some time,” Beth said. “Look - can I show you something?”

He realized, startled, that she didn’t want him to leave. “Sure,” he said.

She led him into the bedroom. He hesitated halfway through the door, with the sudden odd feeling that he’d been here before. But he hadn’t - he’d stood on the other side of its wall many times, hovering on her balcony, but he’d never been in the room itself. Why was the feeling so strong? The memory of a dream. She took my hands, and brought me into her room, and told me it wasn’t impossible.

But once she remembers, it will be.

“Mick? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He took the next step, and made it past the doorway.

Beth sat on her bed and opened the drawer of her bedside table, reaching to the back of it to take out a small lotion jar. She took off the lid, and he saw that the jar was empty except for a crumpled ball of tissue paper. Slowly, she untwisted the paper, and held it out to him. He reached for it, but she pulled back sharply. “Be careful, don’t touch it. Just look. It’s silver.”

Silver? He leaned closer. It wasn’t just silver – it was a little pile of silver bullets, buckshot fragmented into pellets and distorted by impact. He swallowed hard, shivering, and sat down abruptly on the bed beside Beth. She wrapped the bullets up again and returned them to the jar.

“I found them in the warehouse,” she said. “About a week after it happened. They were embedded in the wall. The police never really did an investigation, you know. Josh closed the case.”

Mick had never bothered the Cleaners about it, either, since the police had turned up too quickly for them to intervene. “Why did you go back there? To the warehouse?”

“I needed to. To get it all sorted out in my head.”

“But – why keep the bullets?”

“To remind me of why I did it.” She took a deep breath. “To remind me of why I killed a man. I need to remember that I did it to save someone, someone I -- ”

Mick looked at her. She placed the lid back on the jar and went on, “I had to shoot Spaulding. I didn’t have a choice. He would have killed you if I hadn’t done it. But in the nightmares, I don’t always remember that.”

“I know,” Mick whispered.

“I hated him. I hated everything about him, and it’s still not easy for me to live with what I did. I can’t even imagine what it would be like -- ” She broke off and reached out suddenly, taking his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

“I’m sorry too. I’ve been so – crazed.”

“Yeah, well. I can see why.” She took both of his hands in hers, then, and frowned. “Your hands are cold.”

“They’re always cold. Vampire, you know.”

“But you’re shivering.”

“It’s just because of the silver. Looking at it brought back some memories for me, too.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have showed it to you.” Beth sounded apologetic.

“I’m really glad you did.”

Beth let go of him long enough to put the lotion jar away in the bedside drawer, and then she took his hands again, holding them as if she were trying to warm them in hers. Her fingers brushed across his ring, and she looked thoughtful. “This sure looks like silver. But I suppose it really must be gold.”

“Yeah. Silver wouldn’t feel too good.”

“Do you wear it because it looks silver? So no one will suspect you?”

“No.”

“But you always wear it. It must mean something.”

“It used to belong to a friend of mine.”

“Used to?”

“He’s dead now.”

“I guess he must have been human.”

“No. He was a vampire.”

“Oh.” Beth held his hands a little tighter. “I remember you telling me, you don’t lose vampire friends as often, but you still lose them.” She gazed at the bedside table, as if she could see what she’d hidden within it. “I suppose I should realize, by now, how easily vampires can die. The silver . . . when you were shot, how dangerous was that? Could you have died from it?”

Mick still felt chilled to the bone, from the sight of the silver bullets, from the memory of the pain they’d caused. “Josef says I almost did,” he said. Beth looked stricken, and he went on hastily, “Of course he could have been exaggerating, so that I’d be more careful next time.”

“I don’t think he was.”

Mick looked down at their entwined hands, and saw the time on his watch – it was past ten-thirty. He slowly, reluctantly, drew his hands away from hers. “You’re going to be late if you don’t go now.”

“Yes.” She got up uncertainly, and walked with him to her front door. “I’ll see you, then,” she said softly, and the door closed between them. On the other side, he waited and listened. She stood still for a full minute, and then she finally began to move, hurrying to fetch her notes, her bag, her keys. Only then did he quickly walk away.












When Mick got to his apartment he switched on his computer, but Beth wasn’t on yet; another Buzzwire reporter was in the midst of a tell-all story about the actress Tierney Taylor. He left the report running, so he’d hear Beth’s voice when she came on, and retreated to his office to look through Logan’s lists one more time. But he kept thinking of the silver bullets Beth had saved, and her reason for doing it. Absently he touched his shoulder, almost feeling a twinge of pain, remembering the nightmare sensations the silver had given him. There were lead bullets embedded there now, in his shoulder and chest; he really ought to have Josef take them out. It would be difficult to remove them on his own. But he could, at least, take the bullet out of his left forearm, and it would pass the time until Beth’s face appeared on Buzzwire.

He went to the kitchen, opened a cabinet and got out his box of supplies. Scalpel, forceps, jar of bullets . . . it was probably morbid to keep the bullets, but he always did. He poured a glass of blood, rolled up his sleeve, and quickly made the incision, flinching as he used the forceps to probe for the bullet. It hurt fiercely, but he was used to it, and it was over quickly. Mick watched as his muscles knit and his skin healed, leaving him without a trace of a wound. A cut this small didn’t even leave blood on the skin. He wondered if four-year-old Beth had ever questioned why he’d been covered in blood, with no wounds underneath. Had she ever mentioned it to her parents? What had she told them? Whatever she’d said, they must have dismissed as a child’s imagination – if, that is, she’d told them anything at all.

He took a deep swallow from his glass, and even as he did, he heard Beth’s voice. Watching her on the screen, seeing the sign-waving mob behind her, he thought about the ways humans dealt with trauma. Some of them obsessed, like this crazed mob - some turned vengeful, like Shepherd – and some blocked everything away. Like Beth. Vampires tended to lose their oldest memories as time went by, but blocking memories was a human trick; vampires couldn’t do it. It was yet another reason for Mick to wish for his mortality back.

Just before midnight the report ended; the news services wouldn’t be allowed to film the actual execution. “I’ll be back with a full report afterward, so don’t go away,” Beth said, and vanished from the screen.

Mick finished off the blood and put away his supplies. Sitting down at his desk, he unlocked the top drawer, reached to the back of it, and took out a tiny gold box. He opened the box and gazed down at a coil of half a dozen fine blond hairs, nestled on a piece of black velvet. He’d found them on his jacket that night, after he’d taken Beth home, and he’d kept them all this time. He’d kept them to remember why he’d done it. To remember why he’d killed Coraline.

After a long time he closed the box. Midnight had passed. He heard Beth’s voice from the other room, and sat listening, holding the box in his hand.















-

[francis]

Shadow, this one is a true masterpiece. You give so much backstory to Mick and Coraline’s relationship with this tender scene in bed. It all makes sense, and gives us a feel of what he saw in her and what she saw in him and that they truly loved each other.

Mick had wondered, ever since Beth, if Minette had been four years old when she died.

This just about killed me.

Okay, maybe he wouldn’t strangle Logan after all, in spite of all the mail from Nigerian vampires who couldn’t access their blood banks.

Bwahahahahaha!!!! Mick has just the same problems all of us have…

I love love love the conversation with Elaine. I’m now understanding more about their relationship, they are kindred souls somehow in their regrets, their sadness and the way they try to find humanity and pass the time.

Now finally Mick is explaining Coraline’s murder to her. And Beth seems to understand it pretty well. She’s compassionate. It’s not about her. It’s about what Mick felt and she got it.

The little scene in the park – Mick getting sick from the thought of having killed his wife and sire – it makes so much sense. This really is a missing scene that we should have seen, to understand what Mick went through back then. And I love your portray of little Beth, compassionate and inquisitive even then. The fact that he doesn’t tell the adult Beth about it is a great lead-in to why it would come up again in the next episode at the balcony. It seemed a bit jumbled in the show, not really leading up to that great revelation, just coincidence that she found out, a tie-in with Audrey’s panic not having a guardian-angel like Beth had. But with these little scenes here you make it into a real story, gradually leading up to a big revelation. He can’t tell her yet, he’s afraid of losing her if he does.

And then the bullets! She’s keeping them just as he is, to remind her. That’s really a great symbol. And she almost said she loved him. The fact she killed Spaulding to save someone she loved, that’s why she can understand why Mick killed Coraline.

I love that this ties in with the scene where Mick takes out the bullet of his arm. And he kept the coil of hair like she kept the bullets! You give motivation to scenes that have no real motivation in the show. Your story is a “show it, don’t talk” kind of story, the best ones always are.

Wonderful!!! If you had written Moonlight, it would have been even better. I guess, you should write a Moonlight book. Why don’t you talk to WB about that? Write the show and your in-betweens into a Moonlight book for everyone to read. It would greatly enhance what we saw.

[redwinter101]

Oh Shadow, you got me. Totally got me - I'm crying - for Mick, poor Mick, with all his pain and regret and hurt. This really is marvellous in every way. The scene between him and Coraline, discussing the war, is SO perfect an insight into their relationship and I adore the way you've explained Mick's relationship with her and why he stayed with her so long. I'm sure you know I feel the same way about them and this really is lovely.

There is still that tenderness in Beth that you show in so many stories - her willingness to listen and try to understand is so perfectly canon - but even better in your hands.

But it was Mick's memories and feelings about killing Coraline that really got me - I love that you gave him a way to explain that was enough to give Beth the outline to HER story and the emotions (for both of them) are so clear and true and beautiful.

Stunning. Simply stunning.

Red

[Shadow]

Wonderful!!! If you had written Moonlight, it would have been even better. I guess, you should write a Moonlight book. Why don’t you talk to WB about that? Write the show and your in-betweens into a Moonlight book for everyone to read. It would greatly enhance what we saw.

Now that is some compliment, francis ... I'm about speechless!

Though we'd probably better see if I can actually finish the in betweens first ....

And what an amazing comment altogether; I am so pleased you saw all the ways that I was trying to fit the pieces together. I felt the same way about that balcony scene, it seemed like something must have happened before that, besides finding the photos, that gave Beth so much insight. And I always wished they had showed us something of what happened after Mick set that fire, of what that would have done to him emotionally. It couldn't have been simple for him.

Thanks SO much, it is so wonderful to know what you thought of this, and in so much detail!

[Shadow]

Oh Shadow, you got me. Totally got me - I'm crying - for Mick, poor Mick, with all his pain and regret and hurt. This really is marvellous in every way. The scene between him and Coraline, discussing the war, is SO perfect an insight into their relationship and I adore the way you've explained Mick's relationship with her and why he stayed with her so long. I'm sure you know I feel the same way about them and this really is lovely.

There is still that tenderness in Beth that you show in so many stories - her willingness to listen and try to understand is so perfectly canon - but even better in your hands.

But it was Mick's memories and feelings about killing Coraline that really got me - I love that you gave him a way to explain that was enough to give Beth the outline to HER story and the emotions (for both of them) are so clear and true and beautiful.

Stunning. Simply stunning.

Red

This story's rather a contrast to the last one ... so, Red, I am really glad this could make you cry, especially with this particular memory of Mick's.

I do love that gentler side of Beth, and I think she would really be this way in a situation like this. (Of course, in the next interval, I don't think we'll see much of this side of her! )

Thanks sooo much for the beautiful comment.
I feel quite motivated to work on the next part now!

[lorig]

That was great. I could feel mick and Beth's pain right along with them. I look forward to the next one!

[Lucy]

so many sweet recollections.....so many painful memories and a breath of hope for the future.

Thanks!

[Shadow]

That was great. I could feel mick and Beth's pain right along with them. I look forward to the next one!

Thanks lorig! This one had to be darker than the last few; glad those emotions are coming across.
The next one is coming along ....

[Shadow]

so many sweet recollections.....so many painful memories and a breath of hope for the future.

Thanks!

Lucy, it was so great to get your comment. This was one of those interesting transitions; a lot of mood change from one episode to the next.
Mick and Beth really seemed close again at the beginning of episode 8, but it seemed like they would have had to go through a lot to get there.

[Lupine]

Not being a writer I don't have the words to adequately describe how good I thought this story was. It has it all; Mick and Beth characterizations that are spot on and fill in scenes that are so believable and really give a thought out and rational foundation for the next episode's character interactions. Sometimes the writer's weren't so good at that.

All of these "in between" stories have been great. I have a plan for the next bad weather weekend to rewatch each Moonlight episode, pausing between to read your stories.

[lynnrxgal]

Thank you, Shadow, for giving me a dose of Moonlight tonight - I've needed this in spite of all the Alex-goodness we've had the last few weeks. I crave a touch of Mick and Beth (and even Coraline) every so often to warm my heart. Hugs to you!

Lynn

[rijane]

“Were you disappointed?” Beth asked.

Great opening! Trust Beth to ask the all important question!

““It’s so frightening. I could have lost you, then, and never even met you.”

It feels like here is where Coraline made her decision - this point where she saw Mick's mortality in a very real and vivid sense, in the scars on his back.

She pulled him to her and kissed him then, and he was lost in her. Lost.

Oh, and this is the heart of Mick and Coraline - he's deeply lost in her and that's in a way the scariest part - he loses himself to her in all the important ways.

I might mention, I haven’t gotten any cash yet. Maybe it’s still in your wallet. Feel free to come by with it any time.

LOL - that's fantastic! Great Logan-ism there

On a completely different note, the back and forth between Elaine and Mick - that was just stellar. You can see the regret, the tension between the two, the things that will never be resolved (though I'm dying to know exactly what happened!) I'm really loving this interwoven plot and the character!

“You thought you hadn’t killed her after all.” Beth’s voice was soft, and unexpectedly gentle.

Mick nodded miserably. “It’s haunted me forever. And just for a moment, I was free of it.”

Oh Mick! What a tantalizing that prospect would be for him! And very smart on your part to have Mick equivocate about *exactly* long his romance with Coraline lasted. He's a smart guy and so is Beth.


This continues to be a wonderful bit of Moonlight and makes me miss it that much more - it has all the good parts, nails the characters and flows well. I'm so impressed with your work and so excited when there's a new part! Thank you for keeping Mick and Beth and Moonlight alive!

[Shadow]

Not being a writer I don't have the words to adequately describe how good I thought this story was. It has it all; Mick and Beth characterizations that are spot on and fill in scenes that are so believable and really give a thought out and rational foundation for the next episode's character interactions. Sometimes the writer's weren't so good at that.

All of these "in between" stories have been great. I have a plan for the next bad weather weekend to rewatch each Moonlight episode, pausing between to read your stories.

Oh, my. Your bad weather weekend plan is going to keep me here on cloud nine for a while ... I'd never even imagined that possibility!

Love that you find the fill-ins believable and rational ... that is really what I am going for here, and that is just awesome to hear.
Thank you so much ...

[Shadow]

Thank you, Shadow, for giving me a dose of Moonlight tonight - I've needed this in spite of all the Alex-goodness we've had the last few weeks. I crave a touch of Mick and Beth (and even Coraline) every so often to warm my heart. Hugs to you!

Lynn

Moonlight is good medicine ....
Not to mention being just slightly addictive!
Glad this could help your craving. Thank you, Lynn.

[Shadow]

This continues to be a wonderful bit of Moonlight and makes me miss it that much more - it has all the good parts, nails the characters and flows well. I'm so impressed with your work and so excited when there's a new part! Thank you for keeping Mick and Beth and Moonlight alive!

Rijane, thank you, that is a heavenly comment .... perhaps especially about nailing the characters, as I'm never quite sure about that...
So lovely to get your insights in such detail, too, all the way through. Of course it's particularly nice that the scene with Elaine and Mick worked for you, and I do promise to (eventually) explain just what happened .... and I'm really glad Logan can entertain a bit, even if just through email. (One of these days I'll have to actually let him into the story!) Thanks for keeping me so motivated to keep going with this!