Ok this is a slightly refined version of chapter one as of 07/15/2014. I know it's been 5 years since I started this but I am finally ready to proceed. Will mostly be non canon after season 2. Don't like what ended up with all these wonderful characters.

I ran my hands through my curly brown hair as I felt the humid air hit me as I walked through the ER doors. I still couldn't believe how hot and sticky the weather was here in Louisiana. Los Angeles was hot in the summer sure but usually about midnight it cooled down and the crisp night air would be welcome respite after a long crazy night. Not so here in Shreveport where the only promise you got at the end of the was a sleepless sweaty night.

"You working tomorrow Torrance?" My favorite ER tech called out as I walked off towards the parking lot.

"When am I not?" I threw back jokingly over my shoulder feeling a smile spread over my face. I worked way too hard and way too many hours but I loved my new team. They were a refreshing change and well worth the cross-country move.

I had moved here on an impulse. Why Louisiana I don't know. I just felt drawn here somehow and when the recruiter called I said yes instantly

Good experienced nurses were in demand after Katrina and the sign on bonus they offered me to take on this position was too tempting and I was tired of the Los Angeles lifestyle. People there were rude and full of their own self-importance. I wanted to live somewhere people where people actually still cared about each other rather than viewing friends and colleagues as a way to get ahead. I thought working in an ER down south would be a nice change of pace.

Well I was half right. Southern hospitality was in full swing here for the most part. A nice, quiet emergency room? Mm not so much. The County hospital here suffered the same problems as the inner city hospital I worked at in LA.

Less gunshots though, well kind of. Less intentional gunshots at least. Same frequent flyer drug seekers who were always good for a laugh even though it got tiring day after day. Of course since the fangs came out of the closet we mostly saw them only during the day so that made the night shift a little bearable. I loved working nights.

People think I'm a saint being an ER nurse. Sometimes it feels like it couldn't be further from the truth over the years I've become cynical. I'm not the wide eye idealist girl I was when I started nursing school. I like the cynical me better though. I see life for what it really is rather than poetry we are spoon fed from an early age. I've learned to embrace the uncertainty of death and life and to have faith that the universe would unfold as it should.

I think a lot of that has to do with my quirk. I call myself an empath. I saw it on Star Trek once and it made sense. I can feel other people's emotions. For years I told myself I was really good reading peoples expressions and body language but deep down I knew that wasn't it. It was more than that. I felt what other people did and it affected me. For years I thought I was going slowly crazy. It took talking to patients in the psych ward for me to realize that this wasn't a curse but a gift. It took an insight into the minds of the insane to make me embrace my sanity.

To say my ability makes me more effective at what I do is an understatement. It helps me always remember that we are fighting for someone's life. Sure we can an overwhelming number of worried well and malingerer's here but everyone arrives at the ER because they have reached the end of their ability to cope with a situation whether that's a severed limb or not being able to sleep through the night without knowing whether your cold is a really a cold or swine flu.

My ability makes it harder to keep a stable relationship though but not for the reason you would think. The closer I get to someone the less I am able to read him or her and that lack of control frightens me and I run. I always run. That's why I'm here.

I'm walking across the parking lot heading towards my little red Mini convertible a throwback from my former Los Angeles life. I inwardly groan as I see a scuffle occurring over by my car. I'm too far away from the hospital to just call security over. Obligated to help I run over to the huddle.

The arid smell of burning flesh hit my nose. That's the kind of smell you never forget it imprints itself into your brain and never lets go. It reminds me of many horrific things. I can't not help, as much as I would have loved to have just jumped into my car and sped off into the night.

Arriving at the location I am surprised see two of my "favorite' drug seekers who I kicked out earlier in the evening for trying to scam drugs out of the fresh faced residents again. They are struggling to subdue a vamp. It doesn't take much though to what they are up to.

Ugh Drainers…

I try and claw the taller scrawnier man from behind. For someone who was writhing in pain on one of my gurneys only a few hours ago with supposedly the "worst headache of his life" he sure was scrappy.

"Get the fuck off me you skanky bitch"

He grabbed my throat and was squeezing so hard I could hear the blood flowing through my ears. I didn't have time to think I grabbed my trauma scissors out of my scrub pockets and just jammed them straight into his thigh. He shot straight up in shock letting me go at the same time.

"You crazy bitch"

"Which is it? Crazy? Or skanky? Be decisive and make up your mind," I retorted in between sucking air into my oxygen starved lungs."

His pudgy sweaty, greasy looking partner just looked at me bug eyed. His mouth dropped open in shock. His eyes darted between his victim and me and I could feel him grappling with the decision whether to cut and run or stay and claim his prize. He chose the path of survival and grabbed the skinny man and ran.

"Don't bother coming into my ER again. Or I'll make sure all your pain medication gets squirted down the sink" I yelled after them.

I crouched down and focused my attention back to their victim, peeling the silver off him watching in childish wonder as his wounds healed instantly in front of my eyes.

"I wish every one of patients would heal like that. It would make my life much easier."

He stared back at me with luminous icy blue eyes. I could see in them something I saw in my self. Eyes that have grow hard and weary of the world yet still seek the novelty and new. I wondered which side I would be placed on. Wonder or contempt?

He didn't reply back and just continue to stare. I wanted to look away but I could not. I could feel a slight pulling around my eyes. I could tell he was trying to glamour me. Glamour doesn't work on me. I've chalked it up to fact that I had extra mental skills and figured the barriers I used to block the tidal wave of emotions somehow provide me with some immunity.

He didn't seem surprised by his lack of success though and deep down that worried me.

"What are you?"

"I'm just a nurse"

"I doubt that." His lips curled up into a smile that revealed the tips of his fangs. He was sexy, godlike and frightening all at the same time. He didn't get up though.

"Do you require assistance?"

"Assistance?"

"A ride home?" I internally slapped myself as soon as I said that but it was instinct for me to help though the last thing I needed was to be playing chauffer to a creature that could end me in heartbeat.

"Yes, that would be… appreciated."

I stood up and unlocked my car door with the key fob and waited for him to follow. He remained down on the ground. I cursed under my breath and I moved towards him and began to half lift half shove him into the passenger seat of my car. He barely fit. He must have been at least 6'4" with pale blonde hair that glowed in the moonlight.

We had been traveling along some side streets for about five minutes the GPS guiding me towards the address he gave me. I could see him giving me curious looks out of the corner of my eye. I did my best to ignore it.

"Why do you work there?" He finally spoke up that cool accented voice stirring me up in all the wrong places.

"The hospital?" I wondered where he was going with this.

"Yes. Doesn't it constantly remind you how fragile human life is and you see the worst of humanity on a nightly basis?"

" I guess in some way I do it because despite it all sometimes I get the chance to turn death into life. Isn't that what you live for?" I don't know why I was so honest. There was something about him.

He caught my gaze and tilted his head and I was grateful that the GPS interrupted me to let us know we have arrived at our destination. I looked up at the sign on the building and couldn't help but let out a genuine laugh.

"Fangtasia. The bar with a bite." I turned towards him with a smirk on my face. "You live in bar?"

" In a way."

"Well here you are" I flicked the door locks open and waited patiently for him to make his exit.

"Aren't you going to help me out like a good little nurse?" He had little boy look on his face. I had to bite my lip to avoid laughing. He was pushing an emotion towards me and I was trying not to react to it. I did not need to be falling down that well.

"No. You don't need it. You didn't need it back at the parking lot. I was just humoring the patient"

He quirked his eyebrow up at me.

"Well it seems I am in your debt"

Dear god that was the last thing I needed was for a fang to owe me a favor. I certainly didn't intend to collect on it. And in a blink of an eye he was gone. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I looked down and notice my id badge was gone. "Damn it."

As I pulled back out on to the road towards the little motel I was calling home I felt deep down like I had been played. For a fool I do not know but it wasn't a feeling I liked.