Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. They are the property of CBS.

Author's Note: Mick seeks redemption, and one way to find it is to find his human side again. Beth helps him find it.

He knows what's driving her--the same thing that's driving him. The memory of how her pulse matched his when he drank from her wrist, how their breathing synchronized, how they blinked their eyes at the same time, like mirror images of one another. He remembers that moment, and it has very little to do with who he is now. It has a lot to do with the man he used to be.

Man, not monster.

It's been a long, long time since he felt these ... stirrings. Not since his wedding night. Not since he died.

"Mick..." He hears her whisper outside the door. Leans his head on his arm and breathes, knowing she's breathing in the same rhythm on the other side of that barrier. He can smell her breath--delicate, soft. Not the fetid air of the cemetery, but the whisper of life. Even through the door, it calls to him.

"No," he mouths silently, but knows she probably knows he's there.

"Let me in," she pleads, her voice low.

He laughs to himself a little, remembering the old myth that a vampire must be invited across the threshold. This would be so, so much easier if she was Turned, but he shies violently away from that idea. That's Josef's kind of thinking. A rationalization for the blood lust he abhors.

Please, please go away.

A soft thump. A sliding sound. A glance at his door cam shows her slumped at the base of his doorway, head hanging. Her shoulders move--is she crying? Oh, please don't let her be crying. He can't take that. Never could.

He opens the door slowly, so she won't fall backwards. Her face twists up at him, and he can smell the salt of her tears. This close, his nose is like a dog or a wolf's; he can tell she had a Romaine salad with hard boiled eggs for dinner, with an apple to follow. He knows that she's had three cups of coffee with sugar and cream since noon, that she takes a multivitamin every morning; he can smell it all. And he knows -- every single molecule of him knows -- that she's two weeks past her period, at the high tide of her estrogen cycle, which makes her deliciously fertile. Warm. Ripe. Women at this stage taste different, more exotic, more sensual. The flesh is warmer, softer, the blood full and ripe and heady. He hates that he knows that. He wishes he could appreciate her as a man, not a predator.

Then he wishes he couldn't. He can't help it. He extends a hand and she grabs it, and he pulls her easily to her feet, and then they are chest to chest in his doorway and it's very warm. Very close. Intimate. Her breath ghosts across his mouth and he opens it, breathing her in, sharing her. Shocked, he realizes that he is reacting to her as a man, not a vampire. And he doesn't know which is worse.

"You should not be here."

She looks up at him, her eyes large and open and trusting. "You know that's not true. I belong here."

"You have to stop coming here. You can't be near me."

She reaches up and touches his cheek. It's all he can do not to turn his cheek into her hand, bite her wrist (in affection, not hunger), surrender to that touch that flames through him like fresh blood. "We're ... connected, Mick. After the motel, the desert, what happened in that bathtub--"

He turns his head away. "I know what happened. And I'm ... grateful for what you did. But it's not ... I don't want ... Beth, please go!" He can't get the rhythm of her heartbeat out of his head. He remembers how she tasted. He knows her taste more intimately than any human lover could.

She catches his chin and turns his face back to hers. "Don't turn away from me, Mick!"

"I have to. Can't you see how dangerous this is? I don't want to hurt you!"

"I don't think you will," she says. She pushes on him and he steps back, into the room, and she follows and closes the door. "I don't think you can hurt me."

"I can, believe me," he says. He watches as she tosses her purse, then her wrap to the floor. He's caught by the grace of her movements, how easily the muscle moves under the skin, how rosy and flushed her skin is, the blood beating just there at her neck, at her wrist. She turns, and her blouse is unbuttoned low enough he can see that sweet valley between her breasts, and he stops himself just in time from stepping forward. It's been so long. "What do you want?"

"I need to know..." She trails off, biting her lip. He thinks about kissing that lip. Biting that lip. He doesn't know which would be better. Both would be wonderful. "I need to know if you and I, if we're ... connected somehow."

"Connected?"

"I keep ... dreaming about you. Or me." She looks away and her face goes pink. Her lashes are full and thick and he wants to breathe on them, see those eyelids open and the look in her eyes when he kisses her.

"What do you dream?"

"About you. And ... and me. And the desert and that motel and that ... that time in the bathroom." He steps closer and she raises her eyes and the look there is troubled. And that, more than anything, more than his own restraint, stops him. "I'm confused. I don't understand."

He steps around her, trying to move naturally when his instinct is to spring and trap and overcome. And devour. He gestures to the chair and sits on the sofa, distancing himself. "Tell me, then."

But she ignores his gesture and sits beside him on the couch. Dangerous. He leans back and spreads his arms along the back, opening himself to her but making sure she's out of his reach. He has to watch his every move around her.

"I dream about that ... that time. And it's like I am you. I hear things, more clearly. Like my own heartbeat. Only it's two heartbeats. Yours ... and mine. And I'm the one ... sucking your ... blood. Wow, you don't know how weird this sounds when I actually say it." She half-laughs with embarrassment.

"It's hard to get used to the whole idea. Believe me, I remember." He tries to keep his tone light, impersonal. He doesn't think it's working.

"It was difficult for you?" She leans closer and he catches a whiff of her perfume. But it's not perfume, it's her, and it has nothing to do with her blood. It's Beth, this particular woman with this hair and those eyes and that full mouth and the sweet smile. His hands turn into fists; keep control.

"Yeah, it was pretty tough. Until I became one, I didn't believe in vampires."

"But why do I feel like I'm ... partly you?"

"Because your blood is in me. And that means that some of what I know and feel and taste is ... echoed ... in you."

"Is this pretty common?"

"Almost unheard of," he says. "There are legends." Abruptly he shuts up, remembering where this line of conversation will take them.

"What legends?" She edges closer. He feels the pull of her. He could drown in her. "Tell me. I have a right to know."

"They're old stories. Fairy tales, that's all."

She presses her lips together, frowns. Whatever is bothering her, it's driving her crazy. Almost against his will, he takes her hand in his. "What are you afraid of?"

"I ... am I ... becoming a vampire?" He can see she's forcing it out.

"No," he says matter-of-factly. "You have to die first. And you are very much alive." So alive, in fact, that the touch of her palm against his flames through him like gasoline. He wills himself to be gentle, not to crush her hand in his. It would be so easy...

She takes a deep breath, lets it out. He knows to the exact degree how richly oxygenated her blood becomes, pumping through her veins, deep red, full of life, like liquid sunlight distilled to a rich vintage. He aches, caught between blood lust and plain lust and deep, deep shame. "Good," she says, and gives that half-laugh again. She relaxes, which brings her closer to him.

She should not be here. Get her to leave.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you," she says, and leans her head back against his arm, stretched out on the back of the couch. It would be so, so easy to curl his arm back, gather her into his chest...

"You have no reason to trust me," he says, and his own voice rasps in his ears. It's truer than she knows. "And you shouldn't trust me now."

She turns her head to look up at him, and her face looks like a sun-kissed flower, like life itself. "But I do trust you, Mick."

He should say something now, something to shatter her faith and remind her that he's a monster, a demon who drinks blood, a wolf to her lamb. But he can't move, not while the soft weight of her head on his arm pins him, the weight of her gaze holds him helpless. Words fail him, all he can think of is the feel of her, the smell of her, the throbbing ache all through him responding to her. On every possible level. It's agony.

Her eyes change; she's reacting to him. He waits for her to pull away, to get angry, to storm out. He's ready for that. He hopes for that, because it's the best answer. But she turns, up on her knees now.

"Mick?"

She's close now, he can feel her body heat. She's like a small, hot sun in his personal space, radiating warmth and life and ... and love. And that's the worst of all. That's damnation. Because it can't be, can't possibly be, ever... "No, Beth," he almost coughs. "You can't trust me. I'm a ... a monster."

She shakes her head, and her hair brushes his face and he almost flinches. "No, Mick, you're not a monster. Not to me. I've seen what you do."

"Not ... not all that I do."

"Maybe not, but what I've seen tells me you're a good man. Or at least you want to be." She leans closer. "You are not a monster."

And he is so mesmerized he doesn't see it coming. Her mouth lands softly on his before he can stop her, and it's as paralyzing as a stake in the heart. Oh, yessss, part of him exults. Soft, warm. Wet. Alive. And against his will his mouth opens and he lets her tongue taste his and she's sweet so sweet. The moan comes out of the deepest, loneliest part of him, funneling through him into her. Her hands come up on either side of his face and his arms come off the back of the couch and crush her against him, but she's not wriggling, not trying to get away. She's not prey.

She's his partner. His other self. His mirror.

Mouths locked, he falls to his right, carrying her with him, and lands on his back with her weight on him. Female and hot and willing. He hasn't felt like this in a lifetime.

She's moaning back now, hands in his hair, still kissing him as hungrily as any fledgling at her first kill. He smells the desire rising in her as inexorably as a tide, unstoppable. His hands slide under her sweater. He feels the hot smooth skin of her back, the muscles moving under it, the red tide drumming through her just below the surface.

She breaks the kiss, looking down at him breathlessly. "You won't hurt me. You can't." She kisses the side of his mouth, moves to the other side. He feels dizzy and confused, his body running riot. She kisses his neck and he shudders all over. It's his most vulnerable spot, as a vampire, but he forces himself to lie still as she kisses her way softly down to his collarbone. She shifts her weight and she's straddling him, nuzzling his chest now.

This is utterly insane. He fears the worst, waits for his predator side to take over with fangs and the eyes of a killer, knows with some inner sob that he will lose it here and now and kill her, and it will destroy him. He is helpless. But the predator is silent; all that answers her is the man he thought long dead.

"Mick..." she whispers against his chest, against the heart that beats too slowly for a real human, but that answers her anyway.

"Beth, we can't..."

She slides her hands down his face, his neck, along his shoulders to his biceps. She squeezes them and he smells the arousal in her, knows his strength is turning her on, and that's a 100 pure human reaction. His hands grip her ribcage, slide around and under and then up and he's cupping her breasts in his hands. Her heart, the very fountain he drank from, is under his thumbs but instead of thoughts of blood and hunger, he's feeling the soft weight of them, the human warmth of them, and to his astonishment her nipples are hard. She wants him.

"This is crazy. Stupid," he gasps, but she's unbuttoning his shirt, tugging it out of his jeans. "Beth, no."

"Yes," she hisses against his skin and he feels her breath on him and every possible nerve is on alert now. She pushes his shirt off his chest and begins fumbling with his jeans.

He slides his hand out from under her sweater and catches her wrist. She pulls but his strength is more than enough to hold her. "Stop, Beth."

She shakes her head. "No." Her other hand grabs her sweater and pulls it over her head. Since he's holding her other hand it becomes a tangled mess and he has to let her go. She tosses the sweater to the floor and skims her bra over her arms and she's naked on top of him now. He feels staked and defenseless. He wants her so badly, on so many levels, he can't sort out what's what, whether he wants to have sex with her or drink from her. Maybe both. This hunger in him is new and strange.

She's looking at him, her face unreadable. Then she swings off of him, stands up next to the couch, and is taking her jeans off.

"This can't happen," he says shakily, as every single atom of him contradicts that statement. He pushes himself up on his arms. He has to get up, get her out of here. "It's all wrong. It's dangerou--"

But then she kicks away her jeans, and she is naked and soft and vulnerable before him, utterly helpless but unafraid. She holds out her arms to him. "Mick, you could kill me, I know. Right now you could drain me dry and I couldn't stop you. Only you can stop you. And I believe you would. I believe you will." She steps to him, close, her skin flushing as her emotions bring her blood to the surface. She's a walking billboard saying Drink me.

He clenches his jaw. "I can't ... we shouldn't ..."

She leans down, her hair sweeping off her shoulders into his face, and kisses him silent. The feel of her mouth on his, the promise in it, goes straight to his head and his groin. It's something between the thrill of the chase and the satiety of the kill, but without the violence. It's a new feeling. Surrender.

Her hands help him off with his shirt, and then he's pushing his jeans off his hips, arching up even as she climbs onto the couch, hovering over him, and then her naked weight comes down on him from collarbone to knee and he sinks under the wave of sheer lust cresting in him. He can't think any more, he can only feel, and this time all sensation is concentrated in his cock, his groin, on the feel of her. He can barely remember feeling this, can barely remember when the thirst for blood didn't rule his world, can barely remember when this simple, natural human pleasure was the center of his life. And she's giving it back to him, opening herself to him, offering herself. His body remembers, and arches upward again, and she welcomes him as he slides home in a living human woman for the first time since his wedding night a half century ago.

"Ahhh", he moans, the sound grinding out of his throat halfway between ecstacy and despair. How had he forgotten this? She throbs around his cock, her whole body echoing the pounding of her heart, she is both meat and desire to him. He thrusts into her, feeling the slickness of her, his head thrown back, neck exposed. She kisses his neck, right under the ear where his jugular pounds in the same rhythm as his thrusts. He hears her breath, knows its cadence is the same as his, he can feel her temperature rise, feels the tension in her body, around him. He shifts his angle, hears her gasp, and grabs her hips in his hands. He can't let go now, not unless he dies. Again.

She moans, nuzzles his neck, her arms around him, and he moans back. He thrusts again, burying himself in her, wanting to be inside her, here like this, forever, but then she arches her back and gasps, and he feels her contracting around him. She pushes herself up, looking down, her hair hanging like a veil on either side of her face, and she's looking at him as she comes. He can see her pupils dilate, sees the flush of blood under her skin, feels the shudder that goes through her. Her lips part and a low moan escapes her, of pleasure and release.

And he echoes her as the orgasm takes him by surprise. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like, to dissolve like this into her, their breaths in one another's mouths, their hearts thudding in the same beat, each movement echoed, mirrored in one another. He watches her watching his eyes as he comes, and for one glorious moment he feels like a human man again--the cold predator's soul in him burns away in that scorching pulse between them. Time slows, stops, and it's just him and her, connected by more than flesh. He knows she hears him, for that moment, the way he hears her, as a rhythm that says life life life against the dark background of the universe, like a star throbbing in a far off void.

When she kisses him, time starts up again, but something has been rearranged. The world clicks back into focus, but it's not as cold any more. It's not as lonely. He's different. Changed.

She ends the kiss and settles against him, turning so her cheek lies against his chest. She rises and falls with his slowing breath, and his arms wrap around her, careful with his strength, careful of this fragile, delicate woman who has given him back something he thought lost--part of his humanity. His finger catches a lock of hair and he brings it to his lips. "Thank you," he whispers.

She squeezes him, her face still against his chest. "I told you that you aren't a monster." She lifts her head and looks at him. "You are very definitely a man."

He smiles. "With you, I am." And because he can do it, he rolls off the couch and stands in one smooth motion, still holding her in his arms. It's not something a man can do, but his superior strength and agility make it effortless. Her eyes go wide as he lets her slide through his arms, skin against skin hot and delicious, until she's on her feet again and his arms are around her. "Beth, you can't change me back, you know. I won't ever be a human man again. I died. You know that, don't you?"

She nods and puts a hand on his cheek. This time he lets himself turn his mouth into her palm, and places a kiss in it. He would no more hurt her than he would stake himself. She is infinitely precious to him now. "You won't change me, either, Mick. I'll never be the woman I was ... before."

He lets his hands slide down her naked back to rest on the swell of her upper buttocks. Smooth, warm, feminine. "I guess we're both new at this. I don't know what happens now."

She slides her hands down his arms, pulls his hands free of her, slides her hands into his. "We find out. 'Cause that's what we do." She leans up and he leans down and their kiss lingers, fueling new heat between them. He wonders if he should carry her to bed or take her back to the couch. When the kiss is over, she smiles up at him. "I'm not afraid of you, Mick."

He smiles down at her. "Too bad. Because I'm absolutely terrified of you."

::END::