Enjoy the final Moonlight tonight. I want to tell all my fans that I will not be quitting. I will finish my stories and I still have a list of one-shots to write, but I can't promise regularity. It is down to the wire right now with school, preparing to study abroad and preperation for the con.

This is a three-shot. I designed it as such so there will be a second and third part, don't think that this means that I will be updating on my other one-shots. That's all they are and were ever intended to be.

Okay, I'm a history major if you didn't know that already and my friends find it hard to watch historical dramas with me (I had to walk out on Troy!) I figure Mick and Josef (or any old vampire for that reason) are worse. This is my "What if?"

BTW I love The Great Escape it is by far my favorite Steve McQueen movie (and I've seen all of them since I was little—my dad's a huge fan) It is actually one of the better movies, but I had to be able to stand watching it to critic it!

I don't own Moonlight or The Great Escape

Enjoy!!

Movie Night-Part 1

"Hey, Mick. I was thinking we should have a date that doesn't involve you watching me eat." Beth said over the phone.

"I don't mind, Beth."

"I know, but I do. So why don't you come over and we'll watch a movie at my place."

Mick hesitated for a second. "Sure. Do you want me to bring anything?"

"Whatever you might want to drink, but I've got the rest covered." She hung up, leaving Mick puzzled, but intrigued.

Knock, knock

Beth looked at the room one last time, then opened the door. Mick stood there, looking as good as ever. "Hi."

"Hi," Beth said, blushing slightly.

"May I come in?"

"Oh, yeah." Beth opened the door and let Mick in. "Do you want me to put that in the fridge?" she asked, pointing to the bag he was holding.

"Um, sure. If you don't mind."

Beth smiled. "No problem. Do you want a glass now?"

"Well, no. See, I brought my own glass. I didn't want to…contaminate one of yours."

Beth grinned. "That's very thoughtful of you, but they've invented these things called dishwashers…they're really good at getting dishes clean."

Mick grinned too, running his hand through his hair. "Yeah, I know. I've heard of them. There's just something about drinking out of a glass that once contained human blood…"

"You really hate being a vampire, don't you?" Mick just smiled at her. "It's no problem. Why don't you leave the glass here? Just in case." Mick quirked his eyebrows at her. "I promise I won't use it."

"You're asking me to leave a glass here?"

"Sure. It's not like you have a toothbrush or something?"

"Actually, I do. I got to keep my fangs pearly white. What would my meal think if I had yellow fangs?"

Beth laughed. "Can vampires even get cavities?"

Mick chuckled. "Don't know, never tested it, but I doubt it. They can, though, have bad breath."

Beth chuckled and poured herself a glass of red wine. Mick smiled back and poured himself a glass of blood and stuck the rest in the fridge, making sure to keep if far away from her other food.

"Shall we?" Beth asked, sashaying over to the couch. Mick grinned and followed, sitting down next to her. He was a little surprised when she curled up next to him, but he immediately relaxed, draping his arm around her.

"So what are we watching?" Mick asked.

"An oldie, but a goody. I hope you like Steve McQueen…" Mick smiled down at her. She grinned up at him. "I guess I guessed right."

"Of course."

"Good, because if you didn't like The Great Escape, I might have to tell you to leave and never come back." Beth grinned from ear to ear and pressed play, missing the grimace on Mick's face.

Mick shifted slightly in his seat. It's not that he didn't like The Great Escape—he did. It was just that watching a movie on events you actually witnessed was difficult. War movies tended to bring back bad memories; memories Mick would rather keep repressed. It also reminded him of his once humanity which usually sent him into a tailspin of depression.

Why did Beth have to choose this movie? Couldn't she just go with some romantic comedy? I guess that's what makes her special… The fact she choose a Steve McQueen movie was downright awesome, he just couldn't appreciate it the same as she did. Though I do wish I was Steve McQueen…

As the opening credits ended and the prisoners arrived at the command, Mick shifted in his seat again. Beth looked up at him, curious. "Just trying to get comfy," he lied. He'd never actually spent time in a POW camp—Thank God!—but a few of his buddies had. The closest Mick came to a German POW camp was the one his unit had liberated in Italy.

Mick watched as the prisoners blotched their initial escape attempts and he huffed when they were not punished for their actions. They should have been sent to the cooler too! Then the ever daring, always charismatic, Steve McQueen entered frame. Playing a daring American pilot who mouthed off to the Germans every chance he got. They would have shot him at the fence. There would have been no warning shots…But then there wouldn't have been a movie.

Mick coughed to hide a second huff and he could feel Beth stiffen next to him. Great, now she knows I don't want to watch this.

"Is something wrong, Mick?"

"No. I'm fine." Smooth St. John, real smooth. She isn't going to buy that for a minute.

Beth sat up, removing herself from Mick's side. "What's wrong, Mick?"

"Beth…"

"Mick…" Beth said, answering him back in his same warning tone.

"Look, there is a lot of things you don't know about me and a lot more to me then you can possibly understand."

"So tell me. I want to know, I'm trying to learn, but you refuse to teach me. What is bothering you? Am I too close? Is the couch uncomfortable?"

"No, Beth…It's the movie."

"The movie?"

"Yeah. I…I was in World War II. This isn't Grandpa's stories, this is my life."

"Oh." Beth was silent for a moment and Mick regretted telling her. Akinning yourself to a girl's grandpa was not the way to win her heart.

"So is that what you meant when you said, 'You learn a lot in war'?"

Mick smiled, relieved that Beth wasn't hung up on his age. "Yes. I was a medic in World War II."

"Were you…I mean…were you captured?"

"No. I was never a POW. A couple of my buddies were though."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize…If this is too hard to watch we can change it."

Mick smiled at her and pulled her closer to him, hugging her tightly. "No. It's fine."

Beth smiled and curled back up into his side. "Too bad I can't tell anyone I'm dating Steve McQueen's twin."

Mick's grin spread from ear to ear. "I was medic, not a pilot."

"So? You were still the cocky American GI."

"I was not cocky!"

Beth giggled and snuggled up closer. Mick could feel her pulse beating against his skin and the vampire in him was intrigued, but he kept those thoughts at bay. "You know, Beth, snuggling up to a vampire for warmth is an oxymoron."

"Maybe I'm snuggling up for coolness. We do live in LA. It was really hot today and it is still pretty warm right now." Again, Mick grinned. Somehow Beth always knew the right thing to say.

He focused his attention back on the TV, not wanting his thoughts about Beth, curled so tightly into his side, to influence his actions. Right now he was seconds away from pinning Beth into the couch and blanketing her with himself.

Stop it! This is a date, not a make-out session. Concentrate on the movie…focus…focus… Mick's eyes veered back to Beth and her smiling face was caught his attention. She looked so happy. So healthy, so…

"Would they really be given tools?" Mick's thoughts were broken by Beth question. He blinked trying to clear his mind, but she was staring at him expectantly.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

Beth huffed. "Come on, Mick. Your vampire hearing can listen to my heartbeat, but you can't hear a voiced question?"

It was because I was listening to your heartbeat that I couldn't hear your voice. "I was concentrating on the movie. You learn to tune out all the other noise."

Beth looked him, judging his honesty with her stare. Much to his shame he couldn't hold her stare and looked away. He heard her heart-rate quicken and a smile spread across her face. She knew that he wasn't focused on the movie, he had been focused on her, but she was polite and didn't bring it up. She didn't want to embarrass him.

"Would they have been given tools? Wouldn't that help them escape?"

"That's the point. They made their tools out of scrapes, but they don't show how hard they were to come by. The Germans were not stupid and a high security prison camp would have been heavily patrolled with special searches to find all the normal hiding places. They had to be ingenuous."

"Oh." Beth went back to watching the movie and Mick tried not to concentrate too hard on Beth.

A while later, Beth turned and look up at him. "Why is it such a bad thing to be sent to the Russian front?"

Mick furrowed his eyebrows. "Didn't you take history in school?"

"Yeah, but it's not as interesting listening to a boring teacher as it is to listen to you."

Mick grinned. "The Russian front had the highest death rate. More soldiers die on the Russian front then the rest of the battles in the war combined. It was cold and always low on supplies."

"Why?"

"The Russians have this great strategy. It worked with Napoleon and Hitler. When they are invaded, instead of standing and fighting, they retreat."

"How is that good?"

"As they retreat they burn all the fields behind them so that the advancing army doesn't have anything to eat. Their supplies lines become stretched thin and then the Russian winter sets in."

"So the troops stop fighting because they're cold? Doesn't sound to military to me."

Mick chuckled. "Russian winters aren't just cold, Beth. They're down right frozen. The cold kills and what is left of the invading army drags itself home with the Russians right on their tails, picking up the pieces."

"Oh." Beth looked back at the movie, content with Mick's explanation. She was startled to hear a low growling coming from Mick and it was even odder when she felt his chest vibrate with the noise.

"What's wrong?"

Mick stopped growling, unaware that he had been, until Beth asked. "Oh, I hate the rail system in Germany."

"Really? It's that bad?"

"No. It's that good. It is always on time. It won't let you board late and they the most comprehensive border checks I've ever seen! It's impossible to travel there."

Beth thought about it. Mick was eighty-five according to his birth certificate. If a patrol happened to note his birth date they would automatically become suspicious.

"Why don't you get a new ID that says your 30?"

"Because…IDs are expensive and they usually require relocation."

"I mean just an ID for you legal documents, like passports."

"That's even harder. And try passing a fake ID off on a German officer. You'll be locked up before you know what hit you. I mean, the last time I was there I had a fake passport, a good one too, and they only thing that saved my butt was Josef's ability to speak German."

"Josef speaks German?"

"Yeah, and about any other language you can think of and a few you've probably never heard of. Don't tell him I told you, but his native tongue is German. He was born there or near there in Poland. There was no such thing as Germany when he was born."

"Really?" Beth couldn't imagine Europe without Germany. It had been split in two for a part of her life, but it was still Germany.

Glancing back at the movie another question crossed her mind. "Would they really send someone out for surveillance?"

"Oh yeah. There were people who would escape every night and break back in every morning to bring food, aid and information to the camps and subsequently give information to the allies. It was extremely dangerous, but it was key in winning the war. A lot of the information we had on the German interior came from the prison camps."

"Wasn't that counterproductive to escaping?"

"No. In fact it helped more people escape, just like in this film."

"Is this film accurate?"

"As good as any will get. Movies always dramatize things and simplify others. They have to tell the whole story in a few hours."

Beth glanced back over at the movie and realized that a good chunk of the movie had passed as they talked. Instead of rewinding it, she just hit stop.

"Why'd you do that?"

"Because it's obvious that neither of us are watching the movie. Maybe we can try again later, with another film." Beth stood up to escort Mick to the door.

Mick got up hesitantly. "I don't want to ruin your evening, Beth."

"You didn't. There's just other stuff I should be doing if we're not watching a movie."

Mick walked the door disappointed that the evening had not gone as planned, but he was not going to try and stick around when she clearly wanted him out. "I'm sorry, Beth."

"It's not a problem. We'll try it again sometime."

Mick smiled and leaned down to kiss her goodbye. She eagerly accepted his kiss and he was tempted to push her back inside her apartment and finish what he had started earlier in his mind, but he pulled back instead.

Beth moaned from the loss of sensation, but Mick just cupped her face in his hands. "I'm still figuring this out. Please don't rush me."

"I know, but can you hurry?"

Mick chuckled at her eagerness. "That will entitle a conversation with Josef."

Beth eyes opened. "Hell, I'll speak with Josef if that all that's holding us back."

Mick grinned t her and kissed her forehead. "I'll talk with him soon."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

With that Mick was gone. Beth didn't even see him walk down the hall. All she heard was the door to the stairwell close and she sighed, leaning against her door frame, hugging herself.

Remember, this is a three-shot, so hang in there. There is more to come!