He had a million questions for her, and yet he still found himself speechless. It wasn't a spell of hers, that he knew – no, it was something he was unfamiliar with. Something he had felt since he lost her.

Fear.

Serena, now called Christina Death, motioned at a chair in her dressing room; it was plush and black, like everything else in the club. She took her own chair at the vanity, and continued removing her make-up from her face. He sat, silent, and watched as the youthful facade fell off and the corpse-like face reappeared, the one he knew so well. Even in the undeath of vampirism, of being a Cappadocian, she was still beautiful. She had rinsed the blood off of her body, though she still stank heavily of it.

"Serena…"

"Please don't use that name, Wilhem. I'm Christina – I have been for a good number of years now." Her speech lost all the cadence it used to hold when speaking in old English – no, now it was tough. Musical, but strong as though tempered a million times over in a forge of magma. She brushed a hand through her hair, pushing all of that long, black loveliness back over her shoulders. A long line of flesh swept down from the hollow of her throat, over her breasts, and back into the darkness of the black robe.

"Christina…" He tried out the new name, feeling the strangeness of it. She turned in her chair, and smiled at him, then turning the chair about completely so she could look at his face.

"Its strange how time changes us all. How have you been, Wilhem?" He studied her face, now completely stunned. First Christof resurrected himself from the dead, and now…He returned her smile, trying to be jovial, but failing miserably. It took all of his willpower to not stride across the few feet separating them and sweep her up into his arms, but if there was one thing Wilhem was never lacking in, it was willpower.

"Well. Ecaterina has been…" Serena raised a hand, a smirk quirking her features.

"I asked after you, not her." A full smile blossomed over his face – yes, this was certainly Serena.

"I have been well. Practicing the old craft of training new fledglings in the blood, so I might have some time for myself. Of course they are Ecaterina's, not mine." Serena nodded, knowing that Wilhem would not take upon himself the responsibility of new Kindred lightly.

"Are you…and her…still…?"

"Yes. But it is as I told you – we fight against the Tzimisce, and the Lasombra."

"But you also fight the Camarilla. Their Masquerade is the only reason why we live still!" A slip, a sign of the old woman hidden within, and she sighed. It was obvious that she had worked hard to bury that old part of her, to start anew. Wilhem leaned closer, concern crossing his features as he changed the topic of the conversation.

"How is it…that you are still alive? Last I…heard of you was that you had died, in London. A pack of Tzimisce ghouls." He gestured with his hands to elaborate the rest, as his mouth could find no words. Serena smiled at the idea that he would think her dead.

"That was the point. It wasn't them – it was me. It was her, or me, and I intended to survive. So I slew…I…I killed another. I don't even know what clan she was. But I left her body there, in a place where the sun would find it. I knew you would still be watching…and others. She gave me freedom." Whereas you could not, but the words remained unspoken. Wilhem let the spite slide. He noted that, though it seemed to pain her to speak of her misdeeds, her face never even so much as flinched at the idea of killing another, for all her talk against the Sabbat and their ways.

"And now?"

"I own this." She raised her hands to imply the walls of the dressing room, of the club. "I am Christina Death, a caitiff who happens to own one of the foremost Gothic clubs in New York. I dance, because I feel alive again – makes me feel like I'm not hiding. I have a business partner, a Toreador, but he leaves most of everything to me.

"I receive the kine who might've reveled in being Cappadocian…the ones to who death is not something to be feared, but something to be embraced and made a part of life. It…makes me happy. I slake my lust with their blood, and they revere me for what I am, though I doubt many of them truly believe it." Her words were true – he could see it in her smile. But his own face darkened with a more pertinent question.

"Why…why would you want me to believe you were dead? You know how much I…"

"Because it was safer for me. Because of how we…felt…for each other, they were watching you as much as me. If you knew that I was alive, I would never have been able to survive this long. But…I knew it was only a matter of time before you found me again." Her eyes strained for him to believe her, and he did, he wanted to. Inside his still chest, his stone heart was beginning to beat again, but the cracks were creating that familiar pain once more.

Why was it so easy for Anezka and Christof, and so difficult for them? An awkward silence fell between them as their two histories sank in. They had been different people, those eight hundred years ago. All the people they had loved were dead, long dead, but here they were being offered a new chance, and neither of them knew how to take it. Their eyes refused to meet, and then Wilhem cleared his throat.

"I think you ought to know…if you don't already…" He stopped, unsure how to phrase it. Serena looked to him, brows raised and waiting.

"Christof…is alive." A stunned look crossed Serena's face, her small mouth falling open. Wilhem sat back to watch her expression, his own carefully blank.

"How?"

"He didn't die at Vysehrad. Instead, he went into torpor – eventually, a religious group named Society of Leopold discovered his body and brought him to London, where they planned to experiment on him. He escaped…and found his way to New York, looking for Anezka." A shadow of faint envy crossed Serena's face, but it was gone as soon as it had come.

"I found him there, infiltrating the Giovanni for information. Together, and with a few others, we stopped the rising of the Tzimisce creature…he embraced Anezka. I believe they're in Europe, now." He couldn't fathom the idea that she had held onto her emotions for this long – only Toreadors were known for such frivolousness. But then he recalled the look of her face as the university burned to the ground around them, how he had nearly had to drag her from there.

Tears began to fall from her eyes, down pale cheeks, smearing black mascara that still lingered on her lashes. All Wilhem could feel was anger – here he was, after searching for her and finding her at last. After he had protected her, brought her from danger into a semblance of safety, after she had deserted him, and all she could do was weep over the loss of a love she never had?! His hands clenched against the fabric of the chair as his inner beast rose within him at the smell of the blood and at the rise of his emotions.

He put his hands to his face, closing his eyes as he struggled to maintain control. In a moment he would stand to leave, and promise to never bother her again. He'd go back to Ecaterina, her servant for all eternity. All others had left her, even his sire. There seemed nothing else for him, save his slavery. He moved his hands from his face and sighed, looking up to begin the end, only to find Serena's tear-filled eyes staring at him.

"Don't you ever fight for anything that you want? Doesn't it bother you that you're left behind, at every turn?" It was as though she was reading his thoughts; his jaw hung slack. It never even occurred to him that she might know what he was going through, what his desires were. To him, everyone else was nothing but selfish desire – he was the only one who held back, who thought of others. Perhaps…perhaps it had been he who was truly selfish?

"Why does it matter when everything I want doesn't want me?" He shot back bitterly, angered to the core of his being. The beats continued to unfurl itself, taking a stronger hold within him.

"Wilhem…" Her voice was full of pitying sorrow, and she reached out a hand to him, stretching out across the centuries of loneliness, of abandonment, of always doing what was right.

"No! You don't see. You can't have! If you had, you wouldn't have…" Wouldn't have left me. Would've stayed. Would've tried. But again, the words hung on the air unspoken.

He knocked her outstretched hand aside, but it turned with a dancer's grace and caught his wrist. In a smooth movement, she slid forward from her chair and onto his lap, bringing their faces closer.

"I've always wanted you." His eyes looked up in surprise, but then there were no other thoughts in his mind aside from lust and blood.

His mouth rushed forward to take hers in a hungry kiss – no restraints held him back any longer. Her hand released his wrist and snaked around his neck while his own hands buried themselves in her long black hair. The beast within him was fully awake, and pushing at his will. His mouth broke away from hers and moved along her jaw, down to her neck. The only reply she gave was to slide her hair to one side, exposing the naked, pale skin.

He bit down hastily, into the muscle and bone of her neck, digging deep, the taut flesh of her neck pressed firmly against his lips. The blood welled up immediately, as though beckoned. Serena's form stayed solid against his, pressing against and encouraging. She uttered a low moan, loosing her own emotions as she allowed Wilhem to feed from her; his fangs slipped in, out, basking in the warmth of her blood and skin. It was an act, almost more erotic than the dance Serena had performed not more than five minutes before, they had never committed before – it was only a relationship through harsh words and slight touches. Now, hundreds of years later, they were finally consecrating it fully.

Fangs bearing down, he crushed her to him, one hand buried in her hair while the other pressed against the small of her back. Her legs were spread on top of his lap, fitting them together like two well matched puzzle pieces. He drank deeply of her, satiating the beast with her blood. Her hands clenched at his skin, reaching under his shirt, nails tearing furrows in the flesh – saying that now that she had him, she would never let him go. His tongue bathed in the blood running down his throat. It licked against her skin as he regained control and pulled back from her, struggling to not sink back down into the warmth, setting his forehead against her shoulder, at peace enough to simply have his arms wrapped around her, keeping her in place. Her own arms were around his neck, holding him like a mother holds a child. Laughing softly, Serena explained herself.

"You think I would love Christof? Once, I did. But then I realized how foolish he was, and how it had led to his death. I realized, it had been you who had saved me, who had protected me, though I resented it. I wanted to die with him, because it seemed that everything had been taken from me. But you gave me reason to live on, reason beyond the blood, the hunt, and the fear. I was only saddened to learn of our friend's survival too late – I would've liked to have seen his face once more, for helping me to realize what truly mattered to me.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to reach out, to find you, but my fear always held me back. What if they were still watching for me? What if they discovered what I really was; would I be burned like all the rest? The reservations, the cautions you drove into me kept me alive, Wilhem. And that is how I came to love you. You, Wilhem, my brave Brujah.

"So many years, and still you are the same. How is it that you might still be he?" Wilhem shuddered against her, knowing how wrong she was. How many lives he had taken – both evil and innocent. His humanity had been on the brink of complete loss, and the only way it was saved was with Christof's help. Before his old friend had reappeared, he had been falling into an abyss that he wouldn't have been able to escape from by himself. Ecaterina, either unknowing or uncaring, had done nothing to prevent it. It seemed that both he and Serena had learned different lessons from the naïve Brujah – for he, it was that one must fight for what they wanted. For her, what she truly wanted.

"I am as changed as you – had I found you before Christof, I don't doubt I would have caged you as before, or done worse, thinking I was saving you. Now…now I understand." Serena didn't reply – rather, he could feel her smile as she kissed the top of his head and buried her face in his hair. His own smile was reverberant to hers, and they remained as they were until the sun rose – encircled in a close fitting embrace in the dressing rooms of Bella Morte.

It seemed that, this time, God smiled down on them.