A/N—Disclaimer: I don't own Lost Boys. The movie, and all the characters and happenings contained within it, belong to whoever owns Lost Boys. And it's not me.

Notes: I used to think a lot about Paul and Marko. They had a stronger bond than the rest of the Lost Boys, it seemed to me. I came up with this plot about two years ago, but I forgot about it until now. And I'm writing it up.

Summary: A crazed woman thrusts her infant into the hands of a young vampire, pleading for protection for her child. What can he say, besides yes? And how does taking an infant into his life change him, and all around him? Paul and Marko—Marko's story. Rated T because I like to be safe, and there'll probably be some vivid description later on.

Human

The alleyways of Santa Carla, California were probably the least dangerous part of the "Murder Capitol of the World." No one went there. The MISSING posters plastered onto the sides of the buildings were wet and faded, flapping about, trying to cling to the wall despite disintegrating tape and rotting edges. The names were all familiar—Santa Carla was a small town (even smaller since the murders started back about five years ago) and the faces on the posters were recognizable by all who passed. If someone didn't know the name of the missing, long gone or recent, they had to be a tourist.

Paul knew the name and the face on every poster. He knew which ones he had killed, Dwayne had killed, David had killed. He knew which ones had screamed, which ones had cried, which ones had fought. He knew what they had been doing when the Lost Boys found them. He knew what their last words had been. It didn't particularly bother him, as a general rule. After fifty years of it, he didn't care.

As a general rule.

There were nights like tonight that every poster not only had a face and a name, but also a voice. There were nights like tonight that every alley held a tortured face, twisting at him in horror and disgust as he slunk by. There were nights like tonight when Paul would have given a lot to go back in time and change the choices that had led him to David and what he was.

The last alley—the furthest from the boardwalk—echoed with a plaintive cry. Paul stopped, confused, glancing at the posters in a quick burst of superstitious nervousness. The cry sounded again, and it sounded like a baby for a moment, but shifted a few seconds in to a moaning whimper of fear.

He slipped in. David would have killed him. A wild-looking teenager going into a dark alley…if someone had died in there, anyone who had seen Paul enter was going to come to a very reasonable conclusion. But he went, because the voice was so lonely, and it rather reminded him of the sound he had used to make, back when he had just made his first kill, back when he cried himself to sleep because he was terrified of the daydreams that haunted him when the sun rose.

At the very end of the alley was a woman. The gown she wore had to have come from the hospital, simply because it didn't cover her up properly, and not in an attractive way. Only hospital gowns were that flimsy without ever meaning to be provocative. She was leaning against the corner, using the edge where the walls met to prop herself up. A bundle was clutched in her arms. A small spark of light that somehow made its way from the streetlamp at the front of the alley down to where they stood glinted off a bracelet on her wrist—a hospital band. Paul couldn't read it.

"Help…" the woman moaned, looking up at him with large grey eyes. Ragged blonde hair tumbled about her face, framing her eyes, her long nose, her delicate lips. An accent tinged her voice, but Paul didn't recognize it. German?

"They…they wouldn't let me go…I begged them to let me go…they were going to kill me…" she continued, her voice glazed and distant. There was a sweet lilt to her voice that ruled out the possibility of her being German. Possibly Swedish.

"Who?" Paul asked.

"There!" The woman's voice grew shrill as she pointed over Paul's shoulder. Her pupils dilated in terror and she shrank against the wall. Paul spun, waiting till he had turned to let the vampire in him show—

—there was nothing. All that could be seen was the shining building of the hospital a ways off. It took Paul nearly a minute to understand that it was the hospital she was frightened of.

She was rocking back and forth when he turned back to her, clutching the bundle to her chest, murmuring something in a language Paul didn't understand, her hands stroking the cloth as if it was hair.

He knelt, reaching for her hand, trying to see the name on the wristband, but she winced away from him.

"Ma'am…?"

"Help…" The word was weak, and suddenly she paled. Her whole body shook, and her fingers tightened convulsively about the bundle in her arms. She looked up at him again, her eyes filled with tears and terror.

"Take him," she pleaded. "Take him. Don't let…don't let them have him! They can't have him. Take care of him, please…"

The bundle was thrust into his arms before he could speak. He looked down and beheld a pair of large eyes, the same color of grey as those of the woman before him, a long nose, a small face, blonde curls…a child.

She wanted him to take her child.

"No, please, ma'am, you wouldn't want me to take your—"

"Please!" she cried, pulling at him. Her eyes were crazed now, and she was trembling violently. "Please take him! Don't let anyone hurt him…my Marko…take…"

Her hand dropped, and she slumped. Paul knew death. He didn't need to take her pulse.

He was kneeling in a dark alleyway in the "Murder Capital of the World," a dead woman beside him, and an infant in his arms.

David would have killed the child.

Dwayne would have left it beside the woman for whoever came next.

Paul couldn't do it. He looked down at the child again—Marko, she'd said—and the thoughts the child stirred in him were thoughts he hadn't had in a long time.

Paul had run away from home when he was twelve. His father was worthless, his mother hated him, his sisters were embarrassed to admit their relation. He'd spent the last six years being told he was worthless, just like his father. It was the woe of being the only man left in a family jilted by a man, and of looking more like his father than his mother. At twelve, he couldn't stand it any longer. He ran away, no note, no nothing. He did keep an eye on the papers, thinking that if his family put out a MISSING poster, he'd probably go home. Apologize. Ask to be loved and taken care of. But no poster, no note ever came, and he gave up when he was fourteen.

He didn't particularly remember what happened in the three years before he met David. He rocked out, he got into trouble, he made people afraid of him. When he was seventeen, he met David, and David became the father figure that no one had ever given him. Thinking back, what a father figure, but it was something. On his eighteenth birthday David gave him a swig of wine—deep, red wine that tasted different from any other liquor Paul had had before.

Paul had been eighteen since then. The first kill that he had to make to become a full vampire had come quickly, what with it being just him and David, and him following David like a puppy.

The child whimpered. Paul bit back tears.

He hadn't been loved. This child hadn't either. If his mother had escaped from the hospital, then he couldn't be more than a day old. He hadn't had a chance to be loved.

Paul was going to change that. He determined to give the child in his arms all the love that Paul himself had never had. He knew what love was, even though he'd never received it. He hugged the child tightly, reaching a hand into the blankets to smooth the blonde curls.

"Shhh…" he soothed. He waited until Marko had quieted before he left the alley.

With Marko.