Holy bananas was tonight's episode badass. First baby Tate and then all the crazy. And finally Violet knows the score, though I wanted to smack her when she told him to go away. I get it, sure, mom raped and he's a psycho, but still. If he squeezed out any tears from those big black eyes in front of me I'd forgive him anything. And I can't stand it when guys cry!

And on a side note…Tate coming onto Pat to get that ring? Pretty fuckin' hot.

2000

"I'm bored as shit. Do you wanna watch a movie?" I asked, I'd already turned on the TV when Tate had come into the living room. The current owners of the house were in Virginia, gathering up the rest of their old lives to bring them here.

Tate shrugged. "All they have are these CDs." He motioned to the row of movies on the shelf and I laughed.

"Those aren't CDs, baby, they're called DVDs." I paused a moment, "I guess you wouldn't have seen them though. They came out the year after…anyway. Wanna watch one?"

"How?" He frowned, pulling one off the shelf and opening the case. He jerked it out of the case hard enough to snap the thing in half and I laughed.

"Well not that one." I took away the pieces and glanced at the case. "Ugh, Bambi. Good riddance. Anyone showing that depression shit to their kids needs help anyway." I crawled over to the shelf and grinned pulling out another one.

"They have Sleepy Hollow."

He was looking through the cases again. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"The headless horseman, Ichabod Crane. It's got some wicked death scenes. Tim Burton's a beast."

He shrugged, watching me slide the disc into the player. "How do you rewind it when it's over? Is it on a loop or something?"

I shook my head. "You don't have to rewind it, that's kind of the beauty. And you can jump to your favorite parts in like a second." I wrinkled my nose with a smile. "It's kind of the shit."

"Cool." He grinned, sitting Indian style on the carpet like an eager child. "It's so small though, how does it work?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't invent the thing. But look." The menu came up and I grabbed the remote handing it over and snuggling up against him. "See where it says play movie? You have to click that one."

He began mashing buttons, fascinated, and I giggled and helped him where I could. We didn't really watch the movie for another 10 minutes. He was too busy jumping around to scenes and playing with the remote. I didn't mind though. He was exploring.

Once he'd finally settled down I pulled his arm around my shoulders and laced our fingers together. He smiled kissing me and we settled back to enjoy the film. Laughing at the gore and random blood spurting. Tate particularly like the part where the head rolled into Crane's lap. I was just happy to spend the time in his arms.

Present Day

Tate was resting in one of the spare rooms when I went downstairs. We didn't really sleep anymore, we didn't need to, but sometimes we could pretend. If we closed our eyes and sat quiet and still enough, we could imagine what it was like to drift away into dreams again. Sometimes we could even convince ourselves that we had.

Moira was in the kitchen when I got there, wiping down the counters. I moved to the marble island and hopped up onto it, accidently dropping a glass onto the floor. The old bat spun around and shot me one of her famous glares.

"I see you and the boy have finished fornicating. You could have had the decency to do so quietly."

"Where's the fun in that?" I asked, sliding another glass along the island with my fingertip, though she caught it before it fell. "It's not like you have room to talk. Throwing yourself one every man that stumbles in this house. At least we care about one another." I smiled, kicking my feet. "Tate and I are in love."

Moira set down the glass, far away from me and laughed, her disgusting eyes going hard. "He doesn't love you, you silly cow. He fancies you sure, the way all men do. You fascinate him." Her eyes slid over me like a piece of filth, "You're just as psychotic as he is. Don't mistake his curiosity as anything more. He can't love, and neither can you. Sociopaths can't feel real love. They can't feel anything."

I balled my fists at this, shocked by her viciousness and hurt by the allegations. "You're wrong." It was the only thing I could get out before jumping off the counter, slapping the rest of the glasses to the ground and leaving her to pick up the scattered shards. Old jaded bitch. I hated her and she was wrong, but despite myself, I felt the cold slithering of fear and doubt creeping into my gut.

"No." I told myself, chanting it all the way down into the basement. Funny that my place of comfort was the room in which I'd died. It was also the place I had met Tate, when the world had stopped closing in and I felt as if I could finally breathe again. I screamed, punching the wall. Hitting it over and over until the flesh of my knuckles was spilt flashing the off-white of bone, and blood ran down my arm in rivulets.

"Stop it!" He was suddenly there, grabbing my arm and holding me still with a frown. "Stop hurting yourself. What are you doing?"

I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him close, kissing his neck, his jaw, then his lips. Anything to touch him, to feel that he was there and that Moira was wrong.

"You're upset." He said, pulling me back to brush the hair from my eyes. "What happened?"

"The fucking maid." I growled. "I hate her. If she wasn't dead I'd slit her fucking throat."

"Did she hurt you?" he asked, suddenly serious, and very still. I shook my head, feeling better for having seen his anger for me. How could she say we couldn't feel? How was all of this worth nothing? How could it not be real?

"Tell me you love me," I said, kissing him again, "Tell me you always will."

His brows were furrowed in confusion, but he pulled me close, tucking me against his chest and kissed my hair. "I love you Cynthia. I'll love you for the rest of time."

I smiled big and bright and so happy I could hardly stand it and walked him back against the wall, kissing him with everything I had. He kissed me back just as passionately and the world felt as if it might busrt in my exhilaration.

"Oh, Jesus, will you two get a room." Hayden scowled pausing on halfway down the stairs when she saw us. "Preferably one that's soundproofed. I'd rather not listen to that shit again if you don't mind."

"Fuck off." Tate snapped at her, then turned a smile back on me. "We were here first."

She rolled her eyes and turned around to go back upstairs and away from us while Tate spun me around and braced us up against the stone, lifting my leg up around his waist.

Time for round two.

I know it's short, but i just had to get a little something up for tonight. the next will be much longer, and we;ll get into a bit of Cynthia's back-story. YAY!