emptynight | Hiding from the aftermath

It wasn't that she didn't sleep. She did. It was a practice. Her body rested because it wanted to, but her mind was so awake. Alive with things that didn't quite make sense. None of her visions made any sense. They hurt. They always hurt. Like little icepicks in her eyes. Like little shocks of horror that wasn't right at all.

Thomas smelled of guns. And Thomas smelled of comfort. And Thomas smelled of silence and beauty that went on and on. It curled about her and dragged her into a merciful blankness. If she clung to him like he was the only thing that stopped her from falling, it couldn't be helped.

When she opened her eyes, she still saw fire. Burning. Buildings that had sprouted the arms of an octopus. But it didn't match with the emptiness. The feeling that a part of her had been cut out, and would never come back.

She blinked away the sleep, away the visions.

"I am envious of Edward," she said, her voice barely a whisper, "He gets to wake up to you every day."

Dru's voice, soft and ethereal, called him back from the edge of sleep, and Thomas pressed a short trail of kisses down her back. "Then you should stay with me," he answered, words murmured against her bare skin, "He won't mind. He spends his days sleeping with Lacci."

His arm tightened around hers and Thomas spoke again, this time his voice filled with contrition. "I'm sorry, Dru. About last night."

That stung. Just a little. Which was odd, considering she couldn't figure out why that had stung. Everyone shared. maybe it was because she felt guilty? Drusilla had spent her days sleeping alone, if she slept. Why hadn't she slept with Thomas?

Pressing her body into him, settling into the curve they made, was the bets thing she had done since she ran through a forest. That seemed world's away.

His apology was secondary, and her anger and hurt about their argument was gone. It had been wiped out last night. "Thomas. If I asked you something, you would tell me the truth wouldn't you? Not because I could tell you were lying, but because you cared?"

She settled against him, and Thomas smiled at the feel of her skin against his. At her quiet question, the contented smile faded a little, though Dru couldn't see it. "Of course, lovely," he answered. And when the words came out of his mouth, Thomas knew he would, that even though he would laugh and spin white lies and evasions for Edward and Lacrimosa, pretend things that mattered didn't, he wouldn't for Dru.

Somewhere deep inside him, he knew that was a lie, that even Edward and Lacci would have the truth if they asked. "What do you want to know?"

It was hard to know whether she wanted to know the answer. But she had said it last night as if she had been so sure. Drusilla was now suddenly unsure of everything.

When she turned to face Thomas, she realized she didn't want to look at his face when she asked, but she wanted to line herself up with him. Wrap an arm around his waist, and tangle her legs with his. Her head rested on a pillow, and her lips softly brushed his chest when she spoke, "Tell me Thomas, are you scared?"

For a second, Thomas' body went completely still. His first instinct was to deny it, of course, but her words were ringing fresh in his ears. 'You would tell me the truth wouldn't you?'

He relaxed, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. His answer came out softly, like the barest hint of words. "Terrified. I don't know what to do about any of it." And the fact that there was suddenly a lot more to lose was slowly occurring to him, but Thomas pushed that thought down deep, hiding it away.

Drusilla wasn't sure what she felt. But she felt it all at once. Tons of tiny little emotions, that she normally kept hidden. Except from Thomas. It was useless, and she didn't try. She just felt them. What use was there in keeping secrets when you may never share them with anyone?

"It is twisty isn't it? We have all been bent and molded to wills that are not out own. There is no fault in being afraid. I am afraid, and it makes me stronger. To know what I can lose makes me stronger, and I don't think they understand how much we-" Drusilla quieted. Maybe she shouldn't talk about this. Maybe she should just sleep. Take what time she had in his arms and cherish it. Push things away.

"There is no shame in being afraid. How silly we'd be, if we feared nothing. How dead."

Emotions rose from Dru like a swarm of fireflies, ethereal little specks of warmth that died away too quickly for him to identify. Her words soothed him somehow, and his hand stroked her hair. The gauze was peeling away from his palm and Thomas took a moment to remove it, revealing tender but whole skin, before he resumed stroking her hair, feeling every strand against the new, sensitive skin.

"You're right, Dru," he said, kissing the top of her head. He gave a soft laugh. "You are always right, lovely Drusilla. I should listen to you more."

He pulled her to him and closed his eyes for a moment, feeling skin and warmth against him. The calm from last night was growing, with a steady resolve her quiet words gave him. "I didn't want Edward or Lacci to know I was afraid," he admitted. "That someone shouldn't be, should have answers and know what to do and where to go and how many guns to bring."

"You will always know how many guns to bring, but I will not always know the answers. Sometimes I am wrong, and that is when I am most afraid. I am always right, until I am wrong." She didn't want to move. Why did she had to start the night? Couldn't they remain here forever, wrapped in arms and legs? He was so warm. Thomas was so beautifully warm. And he had come to her when she asked, and stayed with her through the day. She had been afraid he wouldn't, though she wasn't sure why.

"Thank you for staying with me. I felt alone, and I knew you would smell of guns and night air."

Maybe it was because he seemed so far. The brightest star was still so very far from where she was now. The bandage he removed from his hand. There were so many questions she had for him. So many things she wanted to ask, and none of them were easy or not painful.

"Would you," she started, but didn't quite know how to finish. There were a few questions she wanted to ask above all. They piled up in her mind, and she found one she thought was the easiest for her to take. Her fingers followed the curve of his hip, and she spoke slowly wanting the knowledge but understanding she may not get it, "What hurts you so? Your hand? I kissed you once, and tasted ashes. Are they the same?"

"I don't--" The urge to deny, to ignore the question with a play at ignorance, was instinctive, but Thomas caught himself, sinking into deep, uncomfortable thought as he contemplated the answer. Had it been the same, that night when She had offered to leave? He new the answer now, as much as he wanted not to. He had known the answer then, too, and it had been his own fear, his denial of that knowledge that led them to Zero.

Her touch had burned that night, burned but not burned, when she had offered to leave, had offered to sacrifice what was dear to her heart out of love. Was that the difference, that sacrifice had been offered but not taken, that kept his skin whole at her touch? That was a question he honestly did not know the answer to.

Unconsciously, Thomas clung to Dru. One hand tightening in her hair, his legs tangling and hooking around hers, his free arm pulling her to him with a force that bruised, as if trying to pull her into himself.

"The same but different," he answered. Why he found it hard to tell Dru now when he'd already admitted it to Edward, Thomas wasn't certain. Perhaps it was some old fashioned self-preservation that kept him from telling one woman about another, or the simple fear that he didn't want to admit there was some part of him he couldn't give her. That Thomas didn't think himself capable of giving as much of himself to Dru as she had given him. The words would not come, and he was left with only the inadequate, incomplete truth, spoken again with regret and apology that he couldn't give her more, "It was the same, but different."

The silence lingered. In it, Drusilla knew she consciously understood. Had always really understood from the moment Justine had shown herself in dreams and visions. Thomas' shining beauty. The one she understood she could not replace. She understood, but it still hurt. It even hurt less than it might have hurt another woman, but it still hurt.

And just because it did hurt didn't mean she could just stop, or downgrade her feelings to match. Drusilla would take whatever part or piece he could give her, and she knew there was nothing wrong with it. It was just the way things had worked out for her.

Why Drusilla was reminded of the Judge at this time bothered her. But his words came to her mind unbidden. Drusilla reeked of humanity. Her doey eyes and small full lips. Her hands dancing over flesh. Her cheeks resting against his chest. The only thing that stopped her from feeling human now, was her heart. Never had she missed her heartbeat, until now.

"I know." Drusilla wanted to say that she always knew, but she didn't. She wanted to say that different was okay. Something else that told him how much she understood. Accepted. "It is different, but no less."

His words had hurt; he had felt the tiny little flinch in body or spirit, he wasn't sure which, and Thomas kissed her hair, feeling multiple layers of guilt that any licensed therapist would say were ridiculous. Guilt for telling the truth, guilt for not feeling guilty about Justine always being first and foremost in his heart, guilt for wanting to feel guilty about Justine. If he delved into it too much he was going to turn into Edward, certainly. But then her words had lessened some of the guilt at least, her understanding absolving him somewhat.

"Thank you," he whispered. Drusilla was pressed so close to him that Thomas thought he could sense every emotional nuance as she felt them. His hand ran through her hair idly as thoughts and memories chased themselves through his mind, finally coalescing into a single question, one he'd been wanting to ask since he'd read the translated journal. "Dru, can I ask you something?"

Already she wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault. She understood everything. Most of all she wanted him to know something she assumed he did. That everyone he cared about, automatically became someone she cared about. Anything they needed, she would do.

She loved Thomas. It couldn't be avoided.

It was useless, Drusilla realized, to hide the fear she felt when he spoke next. So she just let it happen, but she didn't let it consume her. There were no secrets. Not from Thomas, not from Edward, and not from Lacrimosa. They way he felt, and the way they lay felt so very right to her. One question, would not spoil it.

she pulled back just a bit, so that she could look into his eyes. There was a trepidation there, but there was also honesty, love, kindness. "Of course Thomas. You can ask of me whatever you like."

When he looked at her with so much in her eyes, and so much more in her touch, Thomas couldn't help but run his hand over her cheek, following the curve of her jaw as if memorizing the look and feel of the face beneath his hand. "With everything we found out..." 'Everything they've done to you' remained unspoken.

"Even with all the things changing, that we can't fix... The way you are now, the way you're going to be... Are you happy, Dru?"

It was an honest, simple question. There were no elaborate promises behind it, just the simple question, with an equally simple understanding behind it that if the answer was no, they would move mountains and storm the very gates of Heaven to change it.

It felt like he was touching her for the last time. It was a horrible for the briefest of moments. It struck the type of terror in her that even demons could not. Then it was gone, and was replaced by warmth. Blotted out by affection and longing.

There was relief when he did ask, and her body settled. Drusilla calmed, and almost produced a sad sort of smile. "I am not happy, and yet I feel I should be. I am changed so greatly, and yet I feel nothing at all. What does it mean except that I could be alone again? What use is it if-" She wavered there, and her fears lay plainly before Thomas, as they had been laid before Edward. It did not get better the second time.

"Infinite power has limits my love. Infinite loneliness does not."

Her answer struck a deep chord within Thomas, and its echoes reverberated through him, mind, body, and soul. Knowing that his was only a shadow of what she could feel made it worse. Still, that wasn't something they could fix, teeth bared and guns blazing. It was simply a fact of life (or unlife), and Thomas closed his eyes, wishing he could will it away.

He'd always been a romantic, try as he might to deny it even to himself.

"It means that you're not alone now," he said simply. Woefully inadequate but whatever little light they had in the darkness was better than none at all, even if it reminded them how dark it was without. "That now you have me, and Edward, and Lacrimosa by your side. For now, for as long as we can." He ran a thumb over her cheeks, catching tears that weren't there.

"Even one star shining faintly is better than night without it, isn't it?"

Now. Now, was everyone's word. Drusilla don't fear. You are not alone now. Drusilla had never lived in the now. It was hard when you knew the future. She lived for then more then she lived for anything. It made her want to wrap around him and turn away at the same time. A night without stars.

Her entire body stiffened. She had Seen a night like that. A night in which all the stars blotted out, and nothing shined right. All the colors were faded grey. It was cold, and she would have died to have warmth. Warmth that could never come. The vision racked through her again, and she saw past him, into a void of nothing. The path wasn't clear, everything seemed a lie and a truth.

Gasping was not something she normally did, but she did it until she thought her lungs would burst. Drusilla hadn't realized how hard she had been holding onto Thomas, until it all started to fade away. Her nails dug into flesh. When the feeling of blades and darkness faded, she looked stricken. Aloft in emptiness.

He would say something, but she couldn't stand to hear it. So she kissed him, because at that moment he was all that she could see.

((Visions of Desquish))

When Dru suddenly stiffened and clung to him, gasping with the desperation of the drowning, Thomas felt a deep horrified panic. The emotions that had been so close to him were suddenly gone, replaced by some gaping void. He called her name once, twice, unable to coax any recognition out of unseeing eyes. And as suddenly as it had come, she was back, her emotions again rushing up against him. Her nails had broken skin, but he made no sound of discomfort or pain, opening his mouth to ask what was wrong.

And her lips were suddenly on his, kissing him with clinging desperation, and Thomas' arms tightened around her, returning her kiss with everything he could give her. It took a moment for him to realized that she didn't need his words now, his little reassurances, even if his instinct was to offer them. The Hunger was on his lips as he deepened the kiss, tasting Dru as he scraped his tongue lightly against her fangs.

He couldn't give her words or understanding, not now. All he could give her was blood and silence, body and mind.

There was no lust in her kiss. Drusilla wasn't drowning, she just needed Thomas. Whatever he could give. Anything that could stave off a darkness she thought she had banished the night before. Her madness went out uncontrolled, the way it had done whens he had first got to the house. It was in every kiss, every small touch. His blood was sweet, but nothing was as precious or taken as desperately as the silence. Her hips rocked gently against his, and Drusilla found everything funny. Drowning. She was always drowning. Sadness and joy wrapped in each other. The knowledge that she could never be first in his heart hurt. It hurt so much, but it was still worth it. Loving Thomas was worth being second or third or fourth. He was worth the taste of ashes.

How lucky she is. How lucky we all are. For loving you.

Drusilla pulled away, her hands on either side of his face. Breathing softly, her breasts rising and falling against his chest, Drusilla fought to say what she wanted.

"I couldn't help myself. For all my badness, for all the wrongness I have wrought..." Drusilla kissed his bottom lip, and tried to get it out. "I am still so mortal."

The words were like a stone. It was nothing she'd say in front of a camera, or anyone else. "I couldn't stop myself Thomas. I tried. I tried to stop myself, I knew. I knew. But I couldn't."

Could she say it out loud? Have it spill over her lips? It scared her, more than it had scared her with Edward. More than she knew it would scare her when she told Lacrimosa.

"I love you, and I will not stop, cannot stop even if you asked."

She pulled away, the madness untangling itself from the Hunger, and Thomas felt irrationally alone when she did. Her hands on either side of his face relieved some of that loneliness, but then she began speaking and it was as if someone had simultaneously pulled the floor out from under him, kicked him in the gut, and clubbed him over the head.

There was so much fear in her as she spoke; he could feel it in her hands, against his skin, still tingling on his lip where she had kissed him. And then she had put all that he had known in the back of his mind into words, turning those easily repressed vague intuitions and feelings, into crystalline truth. It hurt to hear it so plainly, and he almost flinched as if he'd been slapped.

Silence hung between them as he fought for words, fought the immediate denials that sprung to his lips, fought the urge to run and never look back. He raised his hand and brushed Drusilla's face with the pads of his fingers, meeting her eyes. They were blue again, clear and startling, against his own dark grey. Clear skies and storms. "I can't ask you to, because it would hurt you." The words were simple, but every one of them felt like they had been ripped from somewhere deep inside him.

"I..." The lie caught in his throat; he had promised her the truth. "I... I can't." He pressed his lips to her forehead, closing his eyes, whispering against her skin so that he wouldn't have to look at her even as he felt everything she was feeling, knowing it would cut him like a thousand knives. "I will walk through the gates of Hell for you. I will come for you anywhere if you ask me to. I will storm Olympus itself if it will make you happy."

His eyes were burning, and he braced himself, knowing the knife would fall with his next words. "But what you're asking for, I can't give."

It was selfish of him. He knew it. To feel that brief moment of elation at her words, to know that there was enough left within him to be loved, and yet not be able to offer it back as wholeheartedly. It tore at everything left in him that wasn't hunger and corruption and Thomas feared some little bit of himself died with the words he spoke.

He pressed his lips to her forehead again and tasted of ashes, bitterness on his tongue. He didn't want to pull away, didn't want to meet her eyes and see what he had done with the gift she'd given him. But he did, pulling away slowly, ignoring the insistent burn in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dru."

Her eyes were unflinching. "How vain you are."

Slowly, she raised herself uncaring the the white cotton sheets fell away, exposing warm pale flesh. Her head bent forward, and her hair covered her features. Now he knew why she feared, or at least a very small part of it. Her hands were laced in her lap. They were painted a whimsical blue and pink.

It would have probably been easier if she cried. Or if her heart was breaking. He couldn't ask her to, because it would hurt. But lies hurt too. And lies hurt her worse than anything. There was a lie somewhere, and she couldn't even tell where it was.

"I didn't ask you for anything, Thomas." Her voice was quiet. So very remote. But accepting. As if she had been through the talk dozens of times with similar results.

"You twist the blade, even though I didn't ask you to."
The worst part of it all, she thought, was that she forgave him his words. There was such a forgiveness and understanding. An innate sweetness at her core. How very Drusilla of her, to smile as she faced his words. She didn't need to cry, she had already cried for this particular moment. In his arms at Zero.

Tonight was not the night she had seen. The stars were still in the sky, and though she felt like sobbing, all Drusilla did was pull the overs over her when she lay back down. "How selfish I have been to tell you something you hoped you would never hear from me."

Even as she said it, her voice rang with it still. She loved Thomas, and that could not change. Drusilla turned, her body curling in on itself. She looked up at the canopy, and wished she could sleep forever.

Thomas didn't move when Dru sat up nor did he say anything in response to her words. Every single word made him flinch, and the fact that there was forgiveness in her words made it worse. When she laid down again, pulling the sheets over her and curling up in on herself, Thomas sat up.

He wanted to reach for her, wanted to touch her, and speak to her, but there was nothing he could say. There was no justification for the fact that whatever he was, vampire, demon, the devil in angel's clothing, he was a being that took what others offered, that inspired such emotion, took them and left them empty, left them dead. The fact that Dru, who had no soul judging by what Isaac had said about Angel, somehow managed to love him but he, with soul intact, could not return it, was bitter knowledge. How much less human did that make him?

The mattress dipped beneath him as he moved, standing up. In a few hours, he would have figured a way to deal with this, but for the moment he couldn't stay. Thomas tried to speak with nothing but apology, but the words came out heavy with sorrow, self-loathing, and care.

"I should leave."

"No you shouldn't."

The way she moved was like a dance. Fast and flowing, the sheets sliding over her body. There was a hand on his hip, and a kiss to his back. Her body pressed into him, knowing that it would not make him stay. Drusilla knew she couldn't make him stay. It would be cruel of her to, but didn't mean she didn't want to. She knew how this felt, from both sides. Knew and understood so well. A selfishness rose in her, one that wanted to beg him to stay.

"I-" Her voice stopped, and there were dozens of things she could have filled in.

Need you. Want you. Apologize. Love you. Should have pretended otherwise.

"It's not your fault." Drusilla took a step back, her hands falling to her sides. There was nothing but warmth and understanding for him. No hints of jealousy. Nothing but an unconditional love that she could not take back. It was no one's fault. It was simply how it happened.

"I will see you later, won't I? And tomorrow there shall be a party." She sounded very much like herself. Carefree and impish. A mad girl in a sane world, where the whole night would be filled with nothing but laughter and kisses and light from the sky.

"It will be small and grand. A birthday party. For the house." When Drusilla crossed in front of Thomas, she looked like she was already picking up pieces of herself. He didn't have to stay. Not if he wanted to go.

What Thomas wanted and what Thomas thought he should have were often polar opposites. He should leave, should run far far away before he hurt her with another truthful word, before she forgave him again for things he couldn't forgive himself for. He wanted to stay, to make her smile and touch until the distance between them didn't feel so raw and bleeding.

Harry was right. Justine was right. He was a romantic idiot.

He heard her words and didn't hear them, instead reaching for her and kissing her, slowly, tentatively. His teeth nibbled lightly on her bottom lip, never deepening the kiss unless she wanted it. "There should be dancing," he said. "Will you--" 'Wait for me?' 'Forgive me?' 'Cast me aside and love Edward and Lacrimosa and someone else who can give you everything?' "Will you dance with me?"

No one could give Drusilla everything, even if she herself gave everything. It was just something she accepted. Drusilla didn't want summers in Chicago, or a happy quiet home for the two of them. She didn't ask for anything except perhaps warm thoughts. A night spent together banishing the demons they both faced.

It was hard to face him, and even harder to kiss him. As she always did with him, Drusilla wrapped her arms around his neck, and leaned backwards, taking in the warmth of his touch. She didn't even bother to cover up the feelings that came with it. Desire, and a supreme bittersweet taste that covered everything.

It left her wanting more. Drusilla thought that she felt so very whole and broken all at the same time. The feeling wouldn't last long. It couldn't. "I will always dance with you Thomas, you have only to ask me, and I will cross the floor for you."

His arms wrapped around Dru's waist instinctively, pressing every inch of skin he could reach. Desire and something else, something he couldn't put a name to, sang to him, and tasted like ashes and honey. One hand slid down to rest at the small of Dru's back and the other trailed up her spine, caressed her shoulder, and down her arm until it held her hand. Thomas swayed lightly, bringing her with him in a silent waltz.

"You've given me too much already," he said, lips at her ear. "I shouldn't have asked." The smile on his lips was sad, apologetic, even though she couldn't see it. "Let me cross the floor for you." Let me give you everything you ask me for.

Love was a paradox. It left her full and empty, it cut her deep and sewed her up. On tiptoe she followed him, one leg behind the other slow and filled with quiet grace. To be near him now was to find the music in silence. Whole orchestras saturated in emotion. It struck her to create something for him, to render the room a ballroom, to render the world theirs. To show him how much she cherished even the simplest touch. But she worried it would carry the same taste of longing, delicious and unending.

Drusilla pressed against Thomas, a faint smile on her lips. Loving Thomas was like walking through the most dangerous of gardens. She might never get to the actual roses or taste the sweetness of the blackberries, but it was glorious to try and she'd accept the cuts and tears that came with it. "And I would still give you more," she whispered, a small laugh on the end of it, "If only because you deserve it." And perhaps it made her happy, even when it hurt.

When Dru pressed against him, more skin against skin, everything she felt fell into sharper relief. There was that bittersweet longing as before, the desire. But there was something beneath it all, a faint infinite sweetness, the tiniest tendril of joy. He wanted that to be all Dru felt, that hint of happiness, but Thomas refrained from reaching for that shining thread, not wanting to sully the purity of it with the Hunger's touch.

"If you fill my head with sweet things like that, I will become unbearable to live with," he teased softly, feeling a little of his equilibrium return, having found something besides a longing he could not ease in her touch. "And Edward tells me regularly that I am impossible as it is." He kissed her hair, a light brush of silk against his lips even as he swayed to unheard music, guiding them both back towards her bed. "Another party? At this rate we will never do anything but dance and drink ever again."

"It is the house's birthday, Thomas. So we must have a party. There will be cake. But no death." Delicate hands ran down the front of his body before she allowed herself to fall backwards onto her bed, bouncing on impact.

It was a romantic picture, her dark hair splayed over the rumpled bedclothes. Her eyes opened slowly, and she looked at him with a pang and a flood of happiness. It hurt to love him, it hurt but she understood it. Accepted it, and it made the hurt ebb. Drusilla would never be able to stop looking at him the way she did now. As if everything he was was the most perfect thing that had been created.

There was a peaceful smile on her lips, and a laugh in her voice, "Is that such a bad thing Thomas? Dancing and drinking and-" Loving. "Enjoying each other?"

The sight of Dru with tumbling dark hair wild against the white sheets and laughter in her voice made warmth flood through Thomas and he laughed with her, sitting on the bed next to her. "Not at all," he answered, drinking her in, grey eyes darkening as he did. "Not when you paint such a beautiful picture with your words, dear Dru."

"That is my secret talent." She put a finger to her lips, as she nudged his thigh with her knee. "Sssh, my darling. Tell no one, or everyone will want me to paint fancies out of verbs and phrases. And then it will not be secret or special."

And so it was that She had fallen in love with Love. Everchanging. Double sided. But as he was next to her, she remained whole and unsplit. Lightness where the could be darkness. Woe to the coming day when She lacks Her unbeaten heart. The absence of love is nothing to want and everything to fear.

"How silly we would be," Drusilla said with a pleased smile, "If we were not afraid. Or lacking in love. What a bleak exsistence the centuries would be. There is nothing wrong with fear and love."

Dru's words made Thomas blink, made him suddenly think of Lara and Lord Raith and the rest of his family. What a bleak existence the centuries would be without love. He was different from the rest of them, he'd known, but it had always seemed a failing, a weakness. The words she offered gave him hope that maybe it wouldn't be. The fact that he may have been given the answer from the mad-sounding words of a budding goddess seemed... appropriate.

Thomas stretched out on the bed next to Dru, raising his thumb to caress her lip. He leaned over then and kissed her, still lightly, offering but not demanding. "I promise I won't tell anyone," he said against her lips, and there was gratefulness hidden under the laughter in his voice. He kissed her again. "My lips are sealed."

There was one thought foremost in her mind. How lucky she was. Not Drusilla, but Justine. How fantastically lucky she was, wherever she was. She deserved more. They all deserved more. Drusilla wondered if she could do something about that. There may come a time in which all she had was more. Should they not be the first to receive it? Of course. She was a romantic too.

The simplicity of having Thomas' body next to her own was an unexpected joy. There had been a fear that he would never again lay with her in just that way. A fear that everything she had said would make him run. But for now, he was still there coaxing desire out of her sadness and beauty from a longing that would never quite go away.

"I don't believe you," she laughingly whispered. The love and delight in her touch, was something Drusilla couldn't help.

"No Thomas, your lips are never quite sealed," her voice was light filled with the simple pleasure of being exactly where she was at exactly the right time, bruised heart and all. "Not at all, but here, let me help."

The light fleeting touches over his arms and chest, the soft kisses to his neck; they all served a purpose. If only he realized how much there was in him to love.

No, she could not ask him to return it, but only to accept it. Accept that so many people saw so many shining things in him. She led small kisses from his shoulder to his cheek, and finally to his lips. Drusilla decided that if she could do that one thing, it would not matter that he could not give her anything in return.

The light touches of her fingers against his skin and the delicious feel of her kisses to his neck drew a wanting sigh from Thomas. "You are always welcome to help, lovely Dru." Without conscious thought, his hands were all of a sudden full of her hair and her skin even as he was filled with the taste of her, soft and yielding with depths as changing and constant as the sea and hidden sharpness.

Her kiss was so full that it left him breathless, and Thomas couldn't help but pull away, to look into Drusilla's eyes and smile. "What would you like to do, Dru? Face the night? Or shall we stay and laze in bed?"

Sunshine.

She felt it, something deep and familiar, underneath the love underneath the desire and lust. His question remained unanswered while she took Thomas in. How marvelous every part of him seemed to her. His grey eyes and his now tousled hair. How perfect he seemed in all his flaws. To touch him sent a pang to her, and the desire to do things. To be things. Better.

Good.

The breath caught in her throat, making her realize she breathed, That seemed to happen so often now. Drusilla ignored it. Thomas brought out an innate goodness. But there was no soul. You couldn't be good without a soul. But she loved without one. Thomas was proof. Edward was proof. Lacrimosa was proof.

Drusilla wasn't good. Though the more looked at him, the more she realized she may no longer be evil. She had prided herself on her wickedness her entire undead life. The meanest. the cruelest. The nastiest. But here in Thomas' arms, she was the vampire she could have been without Angel's influence.

There was a great confusion, and though she tried, Drusilla could not kiss it away. There was within her, an ever spreading goodness. Balancing the dark loveliness with light.

"I must explore the night and all of its whispers Thomas. Though I'd gladly spend all night exploring you." She kissed his cheek, and tapped his nose with a smile. Her emotions went into double time, and she did not want to be the cause of a headache, even if all of the emotions she was spilling out were light and glory. Reluctantly she left his side and padded into her bathroom, turning on the shower until steam rose.

"You know Thomas," Drusilla said softly, peeking her head out from around the door, "You never have to sleep alone while you're here." With a smiled, she retreated back into the bathroom. Her hands shook as she opened the kitten printed shower curtain, and stepped into the near scalding water.

It didn't wash away the goodness. It remained, having been there under the pain and hurt and twisting of centuries. It would never go away, and the more she realized it, the more it grew.

Maybe Thomas had given her something after all.

Hiding from the aftermath

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