So hey guys! this is my first ever fan-fic, *and* the first thing I've written that I've ever posted online! Please review! Just please remember I'm new, so be gentle! ;)

This is called; Valduggery: The Truth Part 1

Edit: Updated to match TDoTL There *may* be spoilers. So be warned.
Takes place after her 5 year isolation, and two and a half weeks after she's been back in Ireland. Also, I just couldn't stand Ghastly being dead, so let's just pretend that he's still alive..."

This, was exactly how she'd liked to spend her evening's. Dressed in tight, black leather. Adrenaline pumping through her veins, the chill of the icy Irish air stinging her exposed skin. To any normal person, this one night would be the adventure of a lifetime. But for Valkyrie Cain, this was something of a regularity. After having spent the last five years punishing herself in isolation, coming to terms with all she'd done, finding out who she was now. She'd finally returned, and as expected - it was straight back to work.
"Have you seen anything yet?" Her voice a loud whisper.
"Not a thing." Skulduggery growled, a short distance ahead.
Skulduggery Pleasant was a calm, sophisticated man but tonight he seemed a little worse for ware, distant and somewhat irritated. This was something Valkyrie had noticed, and had been playing on her mind since they'd met that morning. It had been so long since they'd seen one another, but he'd never been like this before - and that meant that there was something to worry about. She was thinking of how best to bring this up, when he glanced back at her. She flushed.
"DUCK!"
Startled, she dropped to her belly just in time to hear a loud snarl and watched as Skulduggery hurled several balls of fire right into Dusk's face. As he stumbled, Valkyrie felt the energy crackle between her fingers and pushed hard, sending white lightning forward and knocking the vampire over and giving her the chance to get to her feet quickly, just as four of his infected joined his side.
"Perfect" She muttered. "What's the plan?"
"Well. The way I see it we have two options here..." Dusk and his infected were circling them now, growling and snarling as they moved around them.
"Being?"
"One, we fight our way through freshly infected vampires at their full strength with total disregard for our lives."
"Or two..?"
"Or two, we run."
"I have a hard time believing we'll be able to run without having to fight our way through them first."
"Very true."
"So we fight."
"We fight."

As Skulduggery said this, one of the infected lunged towards him. But Valkyrie was too quick and the infected jumped right into a stream of her lightning. At this the other infected seemed to fall into an intense state of rage, throwing themselves at the pair again and again as Dusk watched contently, leaning against a wall.
Skulduggery was throwing flames one after the other and knocking back more infected with strong jets of air, whilst Valkyrie was locked in hand to hand combat with the tallest of the bunch. She didn't usually have much trouble with close combat, but in this circumstance she'd seriously underestimated her opponent. This guy wasn't just tall, he was built. She'd guessed before he'd been infected he was some kind of weight lifter. Swing, after swing, after swing at intense speed and he wasn't tiring. Suddenly one of the three Skulduggery was fending off changed targets and raked it's claws across her back, she let out a cry - God she wished she'd worn the jacket Ghastly had made for her that night, the claws would have barely left a scratch on that material.
She pushed through the physical pain, and stood angled between her two opponents shooting waves of energy in both directions, she had a feeling this fight was not going their way - When she noticed the ocean, and groaned at how stupid they'd been.
"Skulduggery?" She yelled over the snarls of the infected.
"What?"
"Ocean!"
Together they both made a sprint for the pier, but Dusk had heard their yells and leapt onto Valkyrie before she'd even made it a meter in the right direction. Skulduggery kept running, leading the infected towards the ocean - with any luck they'd be far enough into the infection that the salt water would be enough to hurt them. Nearly there, he could hear Valkyrie's cries and fought with himself not to turn back, just a few more feet and he could be back by her side and fighting. He crashed into the ocean, the infected following close behind. As the first hit the water, a deafening screech broke out followed by three more splashes and three more deafening screeches. He watched briefly as the four infected thrashed; drowning, melting, screeching, dying. Then felt the air shift between his gloved hands, and pushed himself upwards.

Meanwhile, Valkyrie was back on her feet. She'd managed to push Dusk off of her whilst he was distracted by the screaming of his allies, she was able to fight back now. Though the large slash wounds on her back were bleeding quite extensively, and she could sense the hunger in the way Dusk was moving - Not to mention the drool. He lunged, Valkyrie responded with a swift kick to his ribs and he staggered only to be met with a punch to the jaw from the other side. As she went to punch again, he grabbed her arm, twisted, and 'crack'. As her forearm shattered she yelped in pain, and he pushed her to the ground, snarling. His claws slashed across her chest as he lent down and ripped a large chunk of flesh from her neck. She cried out again and pushed a wave of energy into his stomach knocking him away just as Skulduggery landed beside her.
Skulduggery sent several balls of fire in Dusk's direction, hitting him squarely in the chest.
He looked down to see Valkyrie had passed out, a pool of blood quickly developing on the ground beneath her. He Picked her up, threw fire towards Dusk a few more times, and flew up into the night.

It was early afternoon when Valkyrie finally woke up, she stretched out in bed and winced as her wounds stretched with her.
"Urgh."
"Good morning." Came the low, velvety smooth tones of Skulduggery's voice.
Startled, Valkyrie scrambled under the sheets trying to hide herself and blushing violently. "What are you doing in here?" She said in a hushed, embarrassed tone.
"Should I not be in my house?"
"What?"
"You're in my house."
She peered over the top of the sheets and looked around the room. He was right, this was his house. She was convinced that she was at Gordon's, in her own bed.
"You seem confused."
"I thought I was at the mansion..." She said slowly.
"Ah. That, you are not." Skulduggery said simply. It bothered him that she didn't think of his house as 'home', she'd only been to the mansion twice in the nearly three weeks she'd been back - She may as well be living with him.
Valkyrie raised a hand to her head and ruffled her hair, looking around the room. "I have a headache."
"I expect you do. You fainted last night. Not to mention the injuries." He gestured in her direction.
As she looked down at herself, she noticed just how damaged she really was, half healed wounds across her chest, her arm purple, her neck and back throbbing intensely.
"I fixed you for the most part, the pain your feel now is just bruising and skin reconstruction. Chew on this." He handed her a few leaves. "This should take away the rest of the pain."
As she chewed, her pain began to melt away and she slowly became more relaxed.
Skulduggery stood. "I need to get back to the Sanctuary."
"Huh?"
"We need to find out why Dusk was after us last night, he's still meant to be on our side."
"I'll come with you-"
"No, you need to stay here and rest."
"Skulduggery, I'm fine. I'm coming with you." She argued
"No. You're not." He stated seriously.
"Fine. Then you can at least stay here with me. We can figure out what Dusk's deal is tomorrow - You know, as a team?"
"This really isn't something we can delay-"
"Fine."
Skulduggery faltered and sat back down in his chair, and they were silent for a good ten minutes until Valkyrie broke it with;
"So are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
"I'm sorry?" Skulduggery asked slowly.
"You've been avoiding me since I got back, especially yesterday."
"I've seen you every day."
"I don't mean like that. I mean we used to talk, we laughed, we'd had fun in between all the work stuff. I know I've been gone for five years- but you phoned me at least twice a week during that time, and you said you understood why I needed to be away from all this, we kept in touch. I didn't think it would be this hard for us to be around each other - and now you want to leave me behind to go to the Sanctuary on your own. I didn't notice it as much at the start, but I was speaking to Tanith a few days ago and she mentioned how 'off' you'd been in passing, and it just... Clicked."
"I can't say I've noticed-"
"Well we have."
"It seems so, yes."
There was a pause, in which she looked at him and he didn't return the favor. "Is it something I've done? Are you mad at me?"
Skulduggery chuckled " No, it's nothing you have done."
She rolled her eyes and sat up in the bed properly. "Well what is it then? I know we've both kept secrets from one another in the past, but I thought we were past this - You don't even have to outright tell me, just a clue would be enough." She sounded frustrated now.
Skulduggery tilted his head and looked up at her, he had no eyes of course - being a skeleton. But he had this way of 'looking' that she could just read. He sighed, and for a second Valkyrie thought she felt his gaze lower to her chest, but she soon shrugged this off as a trick of the light - or if his concentration did shift, he was likely just going over the remaining marks of last nights injuries.
"There's nothing wrong."
"You're lying. Skulduggery please, just give me something!"
"Take my word for it, you don't want to know." And with that, he got up to leave again.
Valkyrie raised her voice "Stop avoiding this! You're making it really hard for me not to punch you right now."
"I'm not avoiding, I'm simply not telling."
"I swear to god Skulduggery - " She breathed through gritted teeth.
Skulduggery interrupted her; "I'm not telling you because there's no point in telling you. Nothing could be done."
"Just tell me, please. I can't stand the awkwardness we've had, I just want us to go back to how we were. I know that will take time, but..."
"It's nothing you've done. Can we just leave it at that?"
"Skulduggery - "
He let out a large sigh, "This conversation is over now." And he left the room.
Valkyrie huffed, laid back down, turned her back to the door, and fell asleep angry.

Skulduggery slumped in an armchair in the corner of his living room, allowing his skull to droop slightly, and he began to meditate; hearing nothing but the rain on the windows and the ticking of his pocket watch. As he wondered the paths of his mind, he thought about the events of last night, how they'd been intended to go, and how they'd ended. He hated seeing Valkyrie in pain, though it seemed that was just how their lives were meant to play out; They saved the world more times that he could count. He continued to meditate for a few minutes or maybe it was hours trying to clear his thoughts, they always returned to her. Skulduggery awoke from his meditation grudgingly, got up from his chair and walked to the kitchen to make some tea. A few moments later he was sat on the bed beside Valkyrie, tea in hand. As he turned his head to look at her he noticed the still healing wounds on her back, red raw and visible to him now; He remembered how they stretched from the top of her shoulder, right down to her hip and he felt his heart sink. He placed the teacup down on the bedside table, and reached out a gloved hand running it lightly over the harsh lines etched into her pale skin.
"I'm sorry." He muttered softly.
There was a moment where she stirred, only to wince, readjust and fall back to sleep. Skulduggery sighed, and leaned down to brush the hair from her face when he felt her phone vibrate a few centimeters from his other hand. Without thinking he glanced at the name lit up on the screen;

Tanith xxx : ' Sounds tough Val', you already know what I think though...'

He picked up the phone, placed it on the table beside the tea he'd brought in and pondered to himself.
'Know what she thinks about what? Obviously something about their "fight" earlier, but what?'
He was always so clueless when it came to Valkyrie and Tanith. Just as he began to ponder further what this text message was about, he received one of his own, this time from Ghastly.

Ghastly Bespoke: 'I don't know what's happened, but Tanith seems

intent on me asking you about it...'

Skulduggery got up and walked quietly into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind him and calling Ghastly.
"What is it?" Ghastly asked in his usual husky voice.
"We are, close friends?"
"I'd like to think so."
"So you can usually tell if I'm behaving... Irregularly?"
"I can."
"And have I?"
There was a short pause.
"I wouldn't say... Irregularly."
"What would you say?"
"I would say I've known you long enough to be able to tell how you feel about people."
"And..?" Skulduggery said slowly.
"And I'd say you've probably had some sort of strong emotion towards Valkyrie for a very long time now."
"What makes you think that?"
"The closeness -"
"We're partners." Skulduggery interrupted.
"The protectiveness - "
"I've known her since she was twelve, of course I'll be protective of her."
"The physical contact, the way you look at her, the way you worry; and most recently, the general avoidance of her." Ghastly said quickly, getting irritated by the interruptions.
"Ah."
"Ah." Repeated Ghastly. There was another pause. "I think you've had feelings for her for quite some time now, and I think you haven't realized how extensive they were until recently, and I don't think you know how to handle it." Ghastly sounded serious now. "When I lost Tanith to the Remnant, the pain was unbearable - I wished I'd said something to her about how I felt sooner. Now I have her back, I treasure every moment. Maybe that, is something to consider."
"It is." Skulduggery said coolly. And with that, ghastly hung up the phone.

So That's the first little bit up! I'll be updating as and when! Let me know what you think! :D