Lucy's Flat, Bristol, Early Sunday Morning

[chosehumanity]

It was the sensation of Lucy watching him that woke him - that's what it felt like, anyhow. He hadn't actually gone straight here on Friday but he'd waited, lurked around the house. Annie hadn't been around, she had this thing at the theatre that Mitchell simply hadn't been around enough to understand, and...

And last night he'd shown up back at Lucy's place full of stories and then they'd-- done it right here and it had been okay, for a while at least.

But now he was waking up to her eyes on him, the way she sometimes had that look about her.

"Look," Mitchell said, his voice heavy with sleep, "Look, I'm sorry I just-- turned up, all right? But you weren't answering your mobile..."

She sighed. "I told you," she murmured, "I was at the theatre all night. There's this-- oh, it doesn't really matter."

"Sorry," he muttered again. "There was just a situation, and--"

"This vampire," Lucy interrupted him. "He'd... killed people before, hadn't he?"

"There's no way to be sure," Mitchell said, rolling onto his back. "I don't know his history. Some of us are... wired differently, it's hard to explain."

"But there's a good chance that he did," she said, propping her head up on one hand. "That he'd killed people. Like you. You've killed people."

He really wished she'd stop saying that.

"Not anymore," he muttered. "For both, in this case."

She stared at him some more. "Not anymore," she said, her voice pitching higher. "Do you have any idea how insufficient that sounds--? You have killed people."

Christ. Like he didn't know that? "You can be my salvation," Mitchell said. He'd been saying that to himself a lot lately.

"I don't think so," she said, pulling the sheets up over herself. "It's your world, Mitchell. It's in every cell. You can't just-- change."

"I can," he said. Hard. Quick.

"You're not strong enough," Lucy replied, as if she hadn't heard him at all. "They will always find you. Christ, they found you again just this time!"

"It's not the same," he snapped.

Her eyes hardened further, challenging. "Why?" she asked. "How? What's so different with this one? This time?"

Could she just-- stop? "I have you."

She was silent after that, the hard points fading from her eyes and giving way to something... softer. Kinder. "It's a struggle," he continued, "It always has been, it always will be a struggle, but I can do this."

"How?" she asked, softly, but without yielding.

"I'll leave them."

"They'll follow you," she said, simply.

"I'll tell them I'm finished with them," Mitchell interjected.

Lucy dropped the sheets a little, but only so she could lean forward. "When?" she asked. "When will you tell them?"

Tell the vampires in Bristol. He could do that, easily. Tell Eric-- that too. Tell Jack.

Tell Kate, because that would probably involve leaving Fandom all together.

He met Lucy's eyes, and it didn't seem so hard. "I'll call a meeting later this week, at the funeral parlor," he said. It would be that simple. Kate was graduating anyway, and Jack hardly needed him, and everything else didn't matter as much, did it? He'd do this for Lucy, and things would be... better. Human, finally.

She watched him for another minute, her expression unreadable.

Then she rolled over him.

All right.

[[ nfb due to distance, based off Being Human 2x06, dun-dun-dunduuun. ]]