William took hold of Jen's hand and led her to the study. She had seen it before, but as they walked in, something changed. The sun seemed to dull, and before long, the room fell dark. The door closed behind them, the click giving her a chill.
William turned to her, seeing the confusion in her eyes.
"Don't be afraid. You are safe." He smiled warmly, and candles... All over the room... Began to light.
"I don't understand." She started to breathe deeply. "How are you... What's...?"
"You do. You always understood. You know what I am. You knew the night we met." His cerulean eyes found her brown ones. Meeting in the flickering of the candle light. "Say it. It's alright."
"But that's... No. I'm a rational adult. I don't believe in things like...."
"You don't have to believe in something for it to be true. Man-kind has been proving that for millennia."
"You're a witch."
"Well, that's a term more frowned upon. But, tomato potato."
She smiled. "That's not the phrase."
He smiled back, for a moment. When it drifted she noticed something else. Fear? "And that's not all...."
Jen frowned. "Clarissa."
"We were nearly bound, until I discovered that she is a monster. She hates people. She wants nothing more than the destruction of the human race. She's young, and full of herself. She thinks she is superior to others. I guess I didn't want to see it at first. But now, it's all I see. And there is nothing uglier than someone who wants to see an entire race of creatures destroyed."
"William... Why have you pulled me into this? I'm not sure I'm made out for this. I'm not like you. I don't belong in your world." Jen's eyes started to water as she headed for the door.
William appeared before her. "You have no idea just how similar we are."
*~*~*~*~*
In the time that passed, she had begun to learn a lot about William. His abilities, which seemed to be never ending, his history, his age... She often teased that he was too old for her. Truth be told, when a man is more than two centuries over the age of his partner, she determined, age really was nothing but a number.
But in the back of her mind, she could feel that William had been hiding something from her. Something he thought could hurt her maybe? Or perhaps he just thought she couldn't take it. Either way it was driving her mad. She needed to know why he occasionally became so distant. Why he sometimes seemed to grow cold. And why, on occasion, she would wake to a cold, empty bed.
*~*~*~*~*
"Am the information is all there? I need to know I can rely on you Nolan."
Jen had just made her first hire last month, and he seemed to show great potential. If only she could get him to have more confidence in himself. She remembered when she first got hired. She was terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing, so she kept her mouth shut. It didn't matter if she needed help, or she was getting screwed by a fellow employee. She was going to drown in silence. It took a coworker taking credit for her hard work for her to finally gain a voice. After that, well, the flood gates were open.
She wanted to help Nolan get there too, before some shark in the water sunk their teeth in.
