Disclaimer: I own nothing except broken dreams and cigarettes...and the love in my heart...whatever that is.

A huge thank you to mswyrr who was a big help in getting this chapter done.

As you can tell it has been a while and I'm taking this in a slightly different direction than I had planned a month or so ago.

A little less drama this time around but I promise no such thing for next time.

Chapter 7

Hal never knew that someone could talk so much. Pearl could certainly run her mouth when provoked, but for the most part the last 55 years of Hal's existence had been a quiet one. But Annie, Annie was the very definition of noise and chatter and life. Which when he thought about it, was quite impressive for a dead woman.

Sometimes she'd just talk about her day or explain the ins and outs of the house rules, which were immense and complicated. She'd talk so much he had to push his sleep schedule back just to give her enough time.

But Hal didn't mind for the most part. He didn't actually need sleep and he knew she like to be heard. At times his heart broke at just how much she wanted to be heard. Sometimes she fires off thoughts and memories to him like a starving child would grab for bread. It's times like those that Hal found it hardest to listen sometimes she'd reach out and touch the air besides him as if to say 'please'. And it was hard at first but he reached back saying 'yes, yes here I am'.

His favorite time to listen to her is when she would share a memory from before John Mitchell and the others. Memories of the first time she rode a bike (September 14, 1992) or of that one time her pants fell down in the middle of class (third grade, 1993). She told him about the first boy she ever kissed (Chris Crowley Summer of 1997) and how they held hands in the sun. They sat together besides the public pool so close that their skin stuck together from the heat and sweat. They only kissed once and it was clumsy and strange but Annie still blushed as she told him the story.

All of these things Hal knew about Annie. Briefly Hal would wonder if John Mitchell had known those things about her as well. A small part of him hoped not.

It was like she was giving him pieces of herself and at first he had been overwhelmed. He didn't know what to do with them all but eventually he figured it out. He wasn't supposed to do anything. He was just supposed to listen.

Hal was up late one night a couple of weeks after their time at the beach. It was far past the time he had set for sleep on his rota. He simply could not get to bed. He could feel the electricity in the air and taste the danger on the wind. The beasts were moving and the demons prowled. Hal knew this and that knowledge was what kept him up that night sitting at the kitchen table tracing war plans on a floral tablecloth.

"Isn't it past your bedtime or something?" Annie said flippantly as she bustled into the kitchen laundry bin in hand.

Hal didn't even start at her sudden presence. He just continued to glare at repetitious flowers blooming across the table. He despised that floral-patterned tablecloth. It was so tacky. Surely there had to be some other tablecloth out there more suitable more tastefulthan the pink and green one that Hal had to endure everyday.

"It's not a bedtime," he snapped back, "I've told you Annie, I've explainedto you that it is a part of my schedule and that schedule is one of the only things keeping me from tearing this miniscule little island apart."

Out of the corner of his eye Hal could see Annie's reaction. She looked as though she had been slapped. She still forgot sometimes that she wasn't talking to Mitchell or George. She forgets that Hal is nothing like them: he's brittle and if she's not careful anything could break him.

"Hey, I'm sorry," she said putting down the basket of laundry that she was just about to fold, "I didn't mean it like that. I know you're trying."

Hal sighed. He didn't like being impatient with Annie or being annoyed with her. He hated it but he was hanging on by his fingernails even now.

"I know you know," Hal replied.

He always liked to say that even though he'd only had the chance a few times before and usually while he was distressed. He liked to remind himself that he knew things about Annie. He liked to say aloud that there is someone who has given him secrets and stories so much so that he just knows. Hal likes to say out loud that he knows Annie.

"It is your 'condition'?" Annie putting her forefinger and middle finger up in a way that made them look somewhat like fangs, "are you feeling a bit peckish?"

Hal made a face.

"That has to be the worst impression of fangs I have ever seen," he said scoffing at her mockery.

"Well all right," Annie snipped putting extra emphasis on that 't' a sign that she's just a little bit miffed, "we can't all be Humphrey Bogart can we?"

Hal's response was to snort and sneer but he couldn't help but smile afterwards at the way she scowled at him. He half expected her to stick her tongue out at him.

"You're right I suppose," he said, "though if anyone had any decency they'd at least try."

Annie laughed at just how serious he was about that statement. If Annie had a passionate love affair with Colin Firth then Hal was very happily married to Humphrey Bogart. She could only afford quiet and modest laughter what with the hour being so late. Tom and Eve still needed their peace and quiet but she had tears at the corner of her eyes by the time she calmed down.

They sat together for while neither one speaking. This was the other side of their relationship. Sometimes more than memories and more than truth, they needed silence.

"Something's been bothering you though," Annie said breaking the silence, "it's about the Old Ones isn't it."

She could be quite perceptive when she wasn't trying to deceive herself.

"I've been thinking about it too," she continued, "and I know that Tom's been worried, I think he's been planning and half of me wants to know and other half – the other half is too scared to ask. Sometimes I really don't know what to do with him. He can be so difficult when he wants to be."

Hal wondered briefly if Annie realized how much of a mother she sounds like. Even though Tom was already past his teen years she sounded like a mother dealing with a rebellious adolescent.

"And then there's you," Annie said pinning him with her dark eyes, "you're even worse with your enigmatic, oooh I'm old as dirt and I've got a proper accent so I've got to hold the whole darn world on my shoulders. Don't think I don't notice just how many times you've stayed up past your bedtime or the way you watch us like you're saying goodbye. I notice these things Hal. I do and I just wish you two would talk to me."

At first Hal was shocked, just utterly shocked, by the sudden burst of frustration and insight. Annie walked away from the abandoned laundry bin to lean against the counter.

"We talk all the time, Annie," Hal replied rising to go to her side, "every day in fact. It's on my rota. Supper, post-supper yoga deep breathing session, and then listen to Annie talk about her day."

He bumped his shoulder against her shoulder. It was something that Pearl always did to him when he was being especially difficult. He saw her do it to Leo as well. It was a way to say 'I'm here, don't you ignore me'.

"I just feel like it's George and Mitchell all over again. I always felt so useless, like some little housewife sitting at home twiddling my thumbs praying that my boys come home from the war," she said no more anger left just exhaustion, "but I'm not useless and this is my fight just as much as it is yours or Tom's."

Hal leaned into her. There was no heat between them and Hal liked that. Heat meant blood and blood meant violence. There was no place for violence between them; there was no room. He couldn't hurt her even if he tried and he loved that about her.

"You're right, Annie," Hal whispered into her hair, "but do try to be patient with us. We're all learning still."

"I'm scared, Hal. I feel frightened every day," Annie said resting her head on his shoulder.

Hal didn't tense or fidget at the gesture. He hummed in agreement because he was frightened as well.

"But I'd tear down the whole world before I let them hurt us, Hal." Annie said moving away from him so that he could see the brutal honesty in her eyes. "I won't let them rip my family apart, not again."

It was easy for Hal to forget that Annie wasn't human. She was sweet and adorably maladroit but there was steel in her, stretched so thin and long that it could wrap around and slice the world in half. For all the fear and hype that vampires and werewolves got Hal knew that Annie was a force of nature. And if vampires craved blood and werewolves violent release then ghosts craved purpose.

Annie needed her family the way Hal needed blood and the way Tom need the full moon every month. And one could say that her needs and addictions were not cruel uncouth and barbarous like his and Tom's, but when she spoke about tearing worlds and buildings down Hal couldn't help but disagree.

Annie could be just as dangerous and just as deadly as he or Tom. He'd see it with his own eyes.

"And I believe you," Hal said in earnest. "I know you'd do anything to protect Tom and Eve."

"And you," Annie said leaning back against the countertop. "I'd protect you too."

The two stood silent together for a while. Annie eventually put her head back on Hal's shoulder and closed her eyes. Hal didn't say it out loud but her words made him feel safer. He trusted her to save him. When the Old Ones came, because there was no escaping that they werecoming but when they did come he knew she would save him.

He trusted her.

"I've got work do," Hal sang as he mopped the floors.

He was in a surprisingly good mood. After his chat with Annie the night before his conscience was not completely cleared but it was in a much better condition than previously. Hal wondered what he could do to thank her.

"I've got work dooooo," Hal belted out playing out a bitchin'broom-guitar solo as he mopped up the linoleum floors of the café.

He thought he heard the jingle of the little bell that signaled the arrival. Turning around he came face to face with the broad pink smile of the very gray ghost he had been thinking of. Swaddling a sleeping Eve in her arms.

"Annie!" Hal exclaimed noticing the sleeping baby swaddling in the cotton of her cardigan.

Then he noticed her pointing to her left.

Surely enough to Annie's left was young woman standing before him dressed in a strange yet oddly fashionable combination of shorts, flannel and leather. She was beautiful and absolutely confused.

"No," the young woman said the left corner of her magenta lips curling up the side of her face, "it's Alex but good try."

"Apologies!" he exclaimed, "I-I didn't hear you come in."

Hal quickly moved past the two women to turn the radio off.

"Oh no worries," she said, "I – oh shit."

Hal glanced at Annie who made a scandalized face at the profanity. She pushed the sleeping baby further into her chest as if to shield the child's virgin ears. Then he followed the line of the other woman's sight to the muddy tracks across the floor. He frowned inwardly but cheered up at the thought of more work.

She tried to apologize but Hal assured her that it was quite all right. He asked if there was anything he could help her with all the while glancing to the ghost who had seated herself in one of the booths. Annie cradled Eve in her arms and stared lovingly into the child hidden in folds of her clothing. She looked like the Holy Mother with the sun shining in her hair and eyes transfixed on her child.

Because as much as Annie assured Hal that George and Nina were Eve's parents in Hal's eyes the child would always be Annie's.

He was so distracted by his housemate that he didn't notice Alex moving his condiments around talking about cars and sports. He repositioned the salt, pepper, and ketchup she had just moved and replied that he didn't really keep up with rugby.

"Oooh okay you want the big guns then," she said smiling smugly, "pull my finger."

Hal knew of course what this joke was about. He was still a man and it wasn't like the joke was all that new. He looked to Annie for some kind of moral support or guidance but she was not paying attention to the conversation. He felt embarrassed by the brashness of the jest. This is what young women thought it took to speak to a male? Farting and rugby, is that what men were made of now?

At any rate Hal wanted none of it.

"Look I'm sorry," he said, "I'm – I may have misled you. I was just being friendly."

He turned away to fix the tea.

"Same here," she said laughing and trying to play it off.

But Hal was no fool. He had seduced hundreds and killed all of them and more; he knew a pass when he saw one. This was only proven further by her questioning of girlfriends and boyfriends. Hal had the pleasure to enjoy his share of both but currently he did not partake of either and he told her as much.

"Aaah you're religious," she said in a condescending tone as if faith translated to ignorance, "hence your blend of happiness and sexual repression."

He thought he heard a soft chuckle and sure enough when he glanced over Alex's shoulder he saw Annie with her hand over her mouth. Her eyes shined with mischief. He pulled a face at her that said "don't you darelaugh at this". She continued to watch them but had the decency and logic to catch her giggles between her teeth and tongue.

It had been literally centuries since Hal could have been considered a virgin and even longer since he had believed in any god. But at the thought of god and religion he couldn't help but picture Tom, Eve and Annie. The three of them at the park or watching Antique Roadshow.

If his religion had a face it would be like cocoa powder framed by dark curls dipped in sunlight and eyes that laughed at his discomfort. His place of worship was a worn down bed and breakfast in Barry.

"No," he replied refuting her hypothesis because he didn't reject her because of his friends.

"Oh! oh you just," she said disappointed and just a tad bit surprised, "you just don't fancy me."

He immediately looked up at the young woman feeling uncomfortable. She was actually very pretty and she seemed sweet to some extent but he couldn't imagine loving her. Not because of her or particularly because of him. There was no reason to not to love her that wasn't the problem. The problem was the he could find room for her in his life. All spots were occupied. So he said nothing in response. There was no point in wounding the young woman's pride any further. Instead Hal went back to work and tried his best to put the covers on with as much care as he would for any customer but Alex grew impatient.

"Thanks for the tea," she said before ripping the cup covers from his hand and hurrying out the door.

"Nice to meet you," Hal called weakly after her ever polite.

"Obviously," she said under her breath and then she was gone with the tinkle of a bell.

Hal sighed to himself annoyed at his folly. He thought briefly to turn the radio back on but then decided that it no longer fit his mood. He looked to Annie who was still seated in her booth besides the window. He went to her and sat in the booth across.

With a sigh he said, "Hello, Annie."

She offered a smile in response but remained quiet. Hal wondered if he should speak but he doesn't. The blinds are only slightly open and he thinks that he would like to trace the curves of the shadows they cast over her cheeks and jawline. His fingers twitched but he didn't move. He didn't touch her.

"Is it always that difficult," she said, "with you and the customers I mean."

"What do you mean 'difficult'?" Hal said offended he thought given the circumstance he was damn good at his job.

"I mean is it always that difficult to deal with people for you?" Annie replied, "and do keep your voice down I only just got Eve to sleep before I got here."

Hal nodded but then a thought hit him.

"Why areyou here by the way?" he asked avoiding her question.

It was the first time that Annie had ever visited his place of work at least when he was working. Once before she had to run Tom's lunch out to the café but besides that she had never come to see either he or Tom while they were at work.

"Tom came by the house and asked me to tell you he would be coming in late today for his shift," she replied.

"You could have just called," Hal said though he was glad to see Annie.

"I guess I just wanted to see you," Annie said but then realizing what she just said began to backtrack, "I mean I wanted to see where you and Tom work. Can't have my boys working in some shady dive can I?"

"Shady dive? Annie, even Iknow that language is outdated," Hal said with his trademark tight-lipped smile. "I wanted to see you too."

If Annie could blush her face she would have been a strawberry. If she had a heart it would have burst.

"I want to thank you for last night," Hal said and then Annie's eyes got huge, "I mean about the talk – no! - I didn't mean – I just – "

Both were reduced two bumbling idiots trying to avoid eye contact. Annie was glad that Eve slept like a log and wasn't able to see two of her caretakers looking like complete arses.

"I want to thank you for talking to me last night and reassuring me," Hal said regaining his composure, "you saw one of your own in distress and you efficiently negated the problem. You have good leadership skills, Annie."

Annie sat and processed what Hal had just said before bursting out with laughter. He could be so formal.

"My goodness, Hal!" Annie exclaimed still laughing good naturedly, "we're not in the army. We're just housemates you can just say 'thanks, mate' if you like."

"We're more than housemates, Annie," Hal replied serious as ever.

Annie quieted at his genuine tone. He could be so sincere.

"Yes," Annie said hoping that he saw that she was just as genuine, "we are much more than just housemates. We're family."

Hal smiled at her statement but he also heard a ringing in his ears like the sound of coin dropping into the hollow mouth of a well. They were family and family was a wonderful thing. Family could be a group of whores and Home can be a brothel. Family could be a pack of murderers and thieves and Home could be the gap between sanity and desire. Family could be a werewolf and a ghost and Home can be by the sea.

But sometimes home is a woman and in Hal's case home was a woman with cocoa skin and dark curls. Home was a young man with a funny accent and a little baby girl who could save the world. Annie was his home and his family and that should be enough shouldn't it?

A/N: Hello everyone I am so sorry for how long this has taken and if you're still with me bless your soul. Things have been pretty rough with finals and then moving and taking care of my grandmother.

I've recently been dealing with clinical depression and I just want to thank all you readers and reviewers. Sometimes writing is my only lifeline and you guys are the ones holding onto the other end.

Thank you all for reading. Hopefully updates will go back to being weekly.

aloha nui

Briana