Disclaimer: I OWN KNOW NOTHING! besides Darla ALL RIGHTS TO CHARACTERS AND STORY OR PLOTLINE INCORPORATED IN THIS WORK BELONGS TO HBO OR SOME SHIT BUT NOT. ME.

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'WE'RE ALL MADE HERE. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

"Why are you here?"

Godric's eyes snapped up to look at the woman who had spoken. She was shrouded in darkness and had broken his train of thought with her strange question. Before answering, Godric studied what he could see of her. She couldn't have been more than 5'2" but besides her small stature she was, for all intents and purposes, average.

"I am here because I have been captured by the Fellowship of the Sun," he responded matter-of-factly, "they wish for me to greet the sun as exclamation and proof of the power of their god."

"That sounds like some weird shit right there," Darla said rubbing her fingers over her chin, "so I guess that means you're, what? a vampire?"

She leaned in out of the shadows trying to get a better look at the 2000 year old vampire in his cage like he was some sort of oddity or show for her viewing. Darla squinted at him examining his appearance being careful not to look him in the eye while Godric in turn examined her. How could she not know what he was if she was in that church? Godric had heard the constant chatter of his captivity it seemed to be all they ever talked about.

"Ya know, you're a bit young to be so old," she said as she pulled out a cigarette box out of her back pocket.

Godric watched her intently. She had small hands that were the color russet as was the rest of her. Even her hair was on the lighter side and in the dim light as she pulled a thin white cylinder from its packaging, she looked like a sepia tone photograph. As she searched her person for a lighter Godric noticed how her foot tapped impatiently as if she was beyond anxious to fire up the cancer stick.

"Shit," she whispered her voice muffled due to the cigarette between her lips, "I suppose I could ask you for a lighter but that would be stupid huh?"

Darla had no idea what she was doing down there. She had no idea what she was doing in that shit hole sorry ass excuse for a church. It was all Betty's fault. The dumb bitch wouldn't stop chattering about that stupid Fellowship of the Sun crap. All she ever talked about was how accepting and warm they were and how they made so much sense. She never mentioned they were a bunch of idiotic maniacs.

"I'm sorry I am without a lighter," he responded his tone relaying his apologies a wry smile playing on his lips.

"Nah it's alright," Darla said in defeat.

An awkward silence ensued and Darla took the time to feel pure astonishment at the fact that she was even there. What was she doing in a religious building? She was prostitute for fuck's sake. An escort on good day but it really all came down to two things, money and sex and from what she's heard those thing just don't belong in a church. Goes to show just how fucked up that place was.

"Why are you here?" said Godric repeating Darla's question.

Darla thought for a moment, really concentrating because that's what she's been asking herself the moment she stepped over that holy threshold. It was maybe 7:13 pm and the evening service was going on overhead but she had taken one look at that crowd and knew that she wasn't supposed to be there. She could practically smell the hate coming of those sheep but Betty insisted that they take a seat. And as Darla made her way down the aisle in her tight low-riding jeans and V-neck shirt she felt so very ashamed. It was an ugly feeling. She really didn't have a clue why she was in that church but she knew why she was in its basement.

"I don't do well with judgment," she said motioning above her to the people up stairs.

"Perhaps a church was not the place to spend your evening," the vampire replied good-naturedly enough but Darla took one look at the vampire and knew that wasn't the 'here' that he meant.

There was no good reason why Darla was still in that church. It was a stupid idea to go there with was a dumb bitch and Darla should have known that those people were going to be just as full of shit as Betty was but Darla needed something. She was desperate. The only thing was though, when she walked into that place and heard the shit that so called pastor was spewing she realized: she wasn't that fucking desperate.

So she left she turned the fuck around and walked out of that joint. At least she would have but she didn't have a ride and it was already dark. Darla didn't really feel like getting raped or beaten on at least without getting paid. Besides it was her one night off so she had resigned herself to find some kind of closet or such to have a smoke in and wait out the service. It was quite by coincidence the she chose the basement door rather than the closet door.

"My...friend brought me along," Darla said slowly as if she were choosing her words carefully, "she's been blabbin' all damn week about how great this place is I should have stuck with my gut and told her to fuck off."

"That is how you speak to your friends?" he inquired truly curious.

He had been so out of touch with human mannerism that he was honestly interested in learning if such language was indeed exchanged between friends. Darla, who being human and only able to pick so much up from the inscrutable vampire, did not catch his sincerity. Not that Darla knew what sincerity looked like.

"And who are you now," she said just a little offended but too tired to make a real fuss, "vampire Jesus?"

Godric smiled at that inquiry, "I am actually older than the Jesus of the Christian faith," he said.

The statement would have made any other vampire quite proud but it only made Godric feel weary. Darla on the other hand thought that his statement was hilarious.

"Oh that's rich," she said, "have you told the Jim Jones wannabe that yet?"

She was of course referring to Mr. Newlin. Darla thought he was a real prick, she knew a snake when she saw one. Godric could only manage a smile that a corpse would wear to his funeral at Darla's jest. It wasn't a terrible joke per say. It was a very nice mixture of wit and pop culture but he hadn't been feeling very up to comedy lately. What is meant by lately is 'in the last 200 years or so'.

"There you go again," Darla said speaking of his weak attempt at expression. She rolled her useless cigarette between her forefinger and thumb, "you know you look even sadder when you try to smile."

Godric did not take offense. He's far too old and far too tired of being old to be offended by anything much these days.

"I am sorry that my smile displeases you," he said in a soft hollow voice.

"Pfft, yea okay," she replied not really knowing what else to say to such a queer statement.

Then the hilarity of the situation hit Darla. She was a hooker sitting in the basement of a church talking to a vampire who was older than Jesus himself. A slow sardonic smile started on her face as the irony and agony of her current situation made amusement bubble up beneath her skin. Godric watched the young woman smile and he silently wished that he too were in on the joke. Seeing her so tickled made him wish he could still find joy through inner monologue but now a day his thoughts led to mostly depressing subjects.

"The name's Darla," she offered hoping to break the silence that had somehow cropped up between them.

"My name is Godric," he said introducing himself but without much else to say another silence stretched between them.

Darla, seeing that there was really nothing else to talk about, began to think that it was time to leave. The only problem was that she didn't exactly know how to do that. She couldn't exactly leave him in there could she? That would just be plain manic but she really did need to leave and she didn't know how to get him out or if he even wanted to get out.

Godric could see Darla's inner struggle clearly written across her face. She was an open book to him. He presumed her thoughts had something to do with wanting leave. He could tell by the way she fidgeted, moving from one foot to the other and rolling her cigarette between her fingers and thumb, that she was unsure about something.

He knew that her departure was for the best because if anyone found her down here they'd both be in trouble but he didn't want her to go. He liked watching her face scrunch up and open with her petty human emotions. Godric liked the way her eyes glazed over when there was silence like she had drifted far far away from him. If only he could follow her but watching her was enough.

"Do you have no other name besides Darla?" he asked but noticed that she seemed confused and maybe even scared by his question, "what is your surname, if I may inquire?"

Darla sighed with relief she feared that the man, for she still thought of the baby faced monster before her as a man, had somehow figured out what she was and knew that she went by a different name most every night. She didn't want him to know just yet. She'd had enough judgment for one day.

"Blake," she said telling the 2000-year-old vampire in a cage in a basement her family name.

In Darla's defense she had no idea just how old and powerful Godric actually was. She did know somewhere in the back of her head that she shouldn't be talking to this stranger, this vampire let alone telling him her name. She knew that what she as doing was dangerous and severely frowned upon in some circles but she was put into danger everyday, rather every night of her life.

She let men of all different kinds touch her and ruin her for cold hard plastic. She defiled her own body by filling it with poison. She cut and bled away whatever was left of her innocence just because it hurt less than when the world ripped it out of her thin shakey fingers. So what was a vampire compared to that? All he could was drain her dry, or cut her open or tear up her pretty olive skin. He could torture her and make her wish she had never been born but she can do that all on her own. So what harm could it do to tell him her name?

"Darla Blake," Godric mumbled testing out how it felt rolling off his tongue, "it is nice to meet you Darla Blake."

The way the light hit his face made his skin seem paler; he looked ashen like a corpse just before they put it in the ground. His eyes were red ringed adding even more so to the effect. The eyes themselves, so dark and exhausted, made him look like he was tens of thousand years old and for the first time in her relatively short lifetime of twenty-four years Darla felt like she had connected to someone. As for Godric he was just happy, if that was even the word, that he could still find some semblance of intrigue for the creatures of this world.

"Godric you up?" came a low harsh voice through the darkness. That was Gabe, a large bald man who had very few positive attributes.

"You must leave," Godric said quickly but thinking better of it he added, "no you must hide he must not see you."

Darla's mind did not seem to fully process the weight of the situation at hand mostly because she did not fully comprehend just how violent and dangerous the Fellowship of the Sun was. She had no idea that she was messing with the most idiotic and sadistic people on Earth. All she could think of was that she might drown in her own sorrow if she couldn't focus on the sorrow, so very like her own, of this man-child before her. So Darla, being quite the self destructive little girl, decided that she needed this Godric because here's the truth.

Although everyone around her was completely insane, those people up stairs filling their souls with so much hatred that it over flowed pouring from their mouths and ears and eyes, the man who stood before them leading the Sheep with blind promises and enough dogma to strangle the pope, even the vampire in his silver cage waiting for someone to let him kill himself or at least inflict some pain, Darla was probably the maddest of them all.