Hehe. I loved the reaction to the Shane-staking-Claire thing.

Enjoy.

Being staked actually wasn't all that bad at first.

There was the cold. The stillness. The stifling helplessness. But no pain. For that, Claire was grateful.

After the initial fire ripping through her torso, Claire had gone completely numb. Sensation became muted. Touch, sight, taste, all coyed and cloudy, all except for sound. Sound was mercilessly detailed in comparison to her other deadened senses, and song drifting through the air, horrible and alluring. She felt, in that moment, that if she could get just a little bit closer, hear a little bit harder, she would be able to make out the words of song.

Time passed. Seconds melted into hours. Hours became days. She started to feel the pull of the void Myrnin had saved her from. She became aware of song fading into the distance. She missed it. It kept her company in the weeks she'd been gone. Claire's mind was in the place the eye did not see. She was in the place the eye did not want to see. Would she ever awaken? Had there ever been a time when she had been awake? She couldn't remember anymore.

It was after the first couple months that the voices started.

Ash in the wind. Some said. You are but ash in the wind.

You'll never leave. Some taunted. You will stay here with us. Forever.

Myrnin will come. One said.

Yesss! Others echoed. The creator will come!

Call to him. Sing in his blood. He will come.

Call him, dear one. Bring him to us.

Call him!

Call him!

Call him!

"SHANE!" Claire screamed in her head.

"Sorry." She heard his lips say.

She was lost in the darkness.

. . . . .

Years. It had to have been years later when the stake was finally, finally removed. And. . .Oh! There was the pain she had been expecting. Delightful, horrable, wonderful pain. A break in the voices and the darkness and the emptiness. She gasped as the void reluctantly withdrew from her, leaving no trace of it's murky tendrils. Sight returned in a rush, and then sound, mercifully free of song, and touch, and. . .oh! Oh, dear god. What was that taste?

It glowed. She glowed. There were no words. She didn't even try. Couldn't try. She held warmth in her hand, and was drinking it down greedily. The warmth spread, first to her throat and then to her torso, through her bleeding heart and chest cavity. It healed and gave life. And then it was gone.

Claire's eyes snapped open and she gave a desperate grab at the still bleeding wrist before she came back to herself and realized, suddenly, that this was Shane. Oh, god. This was Shane's blood she sipping, Shane's life she was draining. She dropped out of the defensive, greedy crouch she had sunk into and fell back to the pavement, staring with horror at the bloody, bleeding arm Shane clutched, wrapping with torn up strips of cloth in a detached, almost medical manner. Much too calm.

He didn't look up, but answered her silent question. "It seemed the least I could do, considering." He gestured to the wooden stake lying a few feet away, dripping with black blood. A shudder passed through Claire.

"Why?" She asked.

He blinked at her. "Why what?"

"Why," She said, "Did you stake me?"

"Oh." Shane cleared his throat. "It was the singing. It's a trap. It's probably how they got Michele." He looked at her hard, then. "You herd it before us, and we couldn't stop you. The earplugs didn't work on you." He looked down at his bandaged arm. "I couldn't lose you." His voice broke. "Not again."

Claire looked down at herself. A pale, unmarked torso peeked at her from the rip in her shirt, edged by dark blood. No scar. It didn't even hurt. Shane's blood now coursed in her veins, and she suddenly felt the energy high pounding through her that surpassed even the feeling Myrnin's crystals had given her. She felt on top of the world. She felt she could do anything she put her mind to.

She smiled as she embraced the cold fire burning in her, and flipped up, vampire quick. Shane eyed her wearily. "Alright then." She nodded. "Off we go." Claire looked around, spotted the hearse a few feet away with Eve peeking out the window at her, and started towards it. Shane stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"You can't go." He said.

Now it was Claire who was blinking. "What. . .? Why not?"

Shane hesitated. "You know. The singing. The earplugs don't work on you." Remembering them, Claire reached up and plucked them out of her ears, noticing they were so useless to her vampire hearing, she hadn't even noticed they were in. "Eve and I are going to look in the drains." He gestured to the nearest sewer grate. "That's were Oliver was taken. That's where the water is. That's were we will find them." Now he gestured to the hearse. "You," He said. "Are going home."

Claire opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried to think of an argument. None came to mind. She was sure if she had time, she could make something to disrupt whatever frequency Magnus was singing on, but she didn't have time. Michele didn't have time.

She growled in frustration and let a ripple of Shane's borrowed energy shiver through her. She glared at the ground childishly.

Shane jogged over to the drivers side of the car and pulled out the keys, tossing them to Claire. She caught them easily enough, almost without thinking, and walked over to the car with a sigh.

"Hey." Shane said as he passed her. "You have to help me with the grate over the sewer. I admit my guns are impressive, but not bloodsucker impressive." He gave her that cute boyish smile she realized she had missed so much, the one that had been absent in the past couple of days.

If she had a heartbeat, it would have stopped then and there, because there was a kind of hope in his expression she hadn't seen in him in what seems like ages. Or not. . .hope. Not exactly. More like the desire to hope again. It put a little flutter of light and warmth inside her belly, so fragile and pale as to be all the more precious.

She smiled back and walked over to grate, reaching down without looking away from him, picking up the heavy iron and throwing it into the grass with one hand. Eve walked over first, almost hesitant, silver flashlight in hand. She smiled after a moment and through her arms around Claire. Claire hugged her back gratefully, glad for her friends presence and trying to ignore the pulsing, pounding ambrosia teasing her under thin, pale skin, just begging to be ripped open and drained. . .

She shook her head and stepped back quickly, smiling sheepishly. "Go on." She said. "Save Michele. It'll be a nice change from him saving you all the time."

Eve scoffed. "Ha! I let him save me so he doesn't feel like such a useless bloodsucker." She grinned. "No offence."

"None taken." She smiled and Claire helped her down into what must have been pitch black to Eve. Her flashlight bobbed around a minuet before she got her barring, and pointed it farther down the tunnel. Shane stepped forward, and he slipped down without Claire's help, but he held himself up with his hands so she bent down to his level and looked into his eyes. He smiled and leaned forward to plant a kiss on her pale cheek, and whispered in her ear, "Be safe." before he let himself drop.

Claire smiled and touched her face where Shane's warmth still lingered, and turned back to the hearse while her friend's breathing faded down to the underground. She was still smiling when her phone gave out a shrill ring, promptly scaring the crap out of her, and while she fumbled the keys into the ignition, she reached into her pock and flipped open her phone. No number was on the screen.

"Claire!" A gruff voice shouted out of the speaker.

She hesitated. "Frank?"

"What the hell are you doing? Get Shane out of Morganville!"

"What are you talking about?" She asked, bewildered.

He swore, and static filled the air. "Ameile is pulling the plug. Get him out of Morganville before everyone dies!"

Ahhh. . . Frank. What would this storey be without you?

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