And so it ends.

I'm having a hard time saying goodbye. Thanks to all who've read along, and to everyone who's helped me: my dear friends SunnyFla, WhiteHare, AquamarineJo, Eve Leigh, and PennyLV for encouragement, inspiration, feedback and kicks in the butt. Thanks CrazyIdeaInc for some excellent beta reading, to Manc for your encouragement and feedback, to TW and the BH actors, cast, crew, writers and finally to the BH fandom, which is the best ever.

I know what will kill me, but it won't be today.

Early this morning, they siphoned away the fluid that had been collecting around my lungs and drowning me from inside. The beds of my fingernails turned from blue-grey back to a nice oxygenated pink. Breathing deeply, I can smell iodine and rubbing alcohol, with a barely perceptible whiff of excrement and a dash of cleaning fluid. Hospital air.

I've been fighting this cancer for seven years, three bouts of chemotherapy, four of radiation, and uncountable indignities, small and large. It's spread to my bones, my liver, and is beginning to claw away at my brain. I won't be myself for much longer.

At tables in back of the hospital cafe are sat the usual assortment of blue-scrubbed or labcoated caregivers. Nearer the windows are the patients in their thin faded gowns with the inadequate closures. Alongside them are their various concerned and civilian companions: parents, spouses, siblings, children, friends. The institutional fluorescent light makes everyone look bruised at the edges.

I'm here alone. Phillipe and I came back to England so I could die at home. How were we to know, devastated as we were by my terminal diagnosis, that he would go first, and with no warning, and so far from his dear Montreal. A massive stroke, the doctors said. He never felt a thing. I miss him terribly, the lucky sod. Since Philippe died I've been flying solo, taking the patient transport to appointments, or riding the bus when I'm able.

A dark young man slides into the chair beside me, offering coffee and a disarming smile.

"Hello Josie."

As Phillipe might have said, Tabernac! Loosely translated: holy shit!

I'm looking at a face from forty years ago, unchanged, like a forgotten Polaroid snapshot stuck in an old book. Mitchell. I'm irresistibly drawn to him, still. It could never have worked out between us, but when we were good, we were very, very good. And he remembers how I take my coffee.

Had Mitchell surprised me yesterday, my reaction would likely have involved turning pale blue and gasping for air, interrupted by coughing and possibly toppling over. Today is a better day. We reach for one another, almost without volition, across decades and distance, my hand over his.

Since I came to Bristol, I've been hoping for and dreading this moment in equal measures. I'd nearly succeeded in convincing myself he was dead. I'm filled with complicated swirls of emotion: for the attraction that once pulled us together like two magnets; for my ordinary old-person wrinkles, liver spots, and for the much uglier ravages of cancer; for seeing him here, in this place, ageless and smiling and whole. I'm trying to ignore the low thrum of terror and outrage, the dull ache of an ugly wound healed over.

He's not living with vampires - I can tell by the state of his hair, which is truly disheveled in a manner that would make other vampires nervous. A familiar wariness, long buried but never gone, suppresses my urge to smooth down his unruly tousles and tangles. My, but he needs it. I survey the room, checking quickly for anyone watching us surreptitiously or lurking in a corner wearing oddly outdated clothes.

His mate finds an excuse to leave us. He's a rawboned, snub-nosed bloke in spectacles that seem far too scholarly for him. I read in him softness and fear, resigned desperation, a sense of being stretched too far, like an elastic band at its limit, and beneath it all: a stolid, certain decency. A nice boy. I'd trust him with my mum, or my bank deposit, or my car keys.

George is not a vampire, Mitchell says, but something else.

I look around worriedly, afraid someone's overheard. Considering how secretive the vampires are, you'd expect a bit of discretion for his friend.

We catch up. "Whatever happened to Stephanie?"

"She didn't stay. When you left, the door shut behind you, and she just... wasn't there anymore. Never even said goodbye."

"I'd hoped she'd forgive you one day. "

"Why would she? But... thanks."

The coffee is getting cold, but I drink it anyway.

"So... When did you come back here?"

"It didn't take long. All my close friends had left, stopped speaking to me, or were dead. Grant took over the office, and every few weeks a new crowd would come in. They were never much fun. I couldn't find another job that paid as well as the studio. What else could I do?"

He'd retreated to the safe and comfortable, the support system that was obliged to have him, despite his intentions of staying clean. He'd corresponded occasionally with James and Albert, who'd never mentioned him to me in their letters.

I tell him about Montreal, where the dark-haired French boys reminded me of him, about meeting Phillipe when I was 45 and had given up on love forever. I explain the duties of a professor's wife. I go on about the lovely markets and galleries in Montreal, the excellent delicatessens, and the viciously cold winters. Finally, I get to the story of our return to England, and Phillipe's sudden collapse. I tell him I'm dying.

His smile fades.

Mitchell rang me once, a month or two after the turn of the millennium, slurring and mumbling, nearly incoherent, saying he only needed to hear my voice, just once. I stammered something about a wrong number, hung up, and poured myself a stiff drink. After nearly thirty years, I couldn't speak to him; too much was different: I had a husband, a home. How would I have explained him to Philippe? If I couldn't be honest, I didn't want to tell him at all. Omissions are easier than lies.

I shouldn't have agreed to this meeting. I know what to expect, more or less. How could Mitchell forget that the last time I saw Herrick, he gave instructions to kill me?

The moment I see those icy blue eyes I remember that this creature is more reptile than human. I will never want what he wants. He's all benign and reasonable now, like a great uncle indulging his favorite nephew, but to him I'm merely a to-do item on a long and sordid list of tasks to be dispatched.

My attention falters at some points, but Herrick seems oblivious, his face flushed a very unvampiric, enthusiastic pink. In a mind-numbing lecture touching on Darwin and Rousseau, on Roman history and Richard Dawkins, he lays out his grand, crackpot scheme. The gist is this: the vampires are planning to take over. At this phase, they want skilled recruits. To that end, are rescuing the best and brightest from certain death and bringing them into the fold. He actually calls it that. A "fold". Vampires are all innocent lambs, I suppose.

I emerge from the meeting with Herrick in a state of near panic. Being recruited could sound like salvation to the confused, frightened and dying, but it's a ghoulish bait and switch: it's more like body-snatching. These are carrion-eaters preying on the sick and desperate, on civilians who've no idea what it means to become a vampire. Although I've had nausea for weeks, in the past hour it's increased by at least an order of magnitude.

We walk along the channel, past floating bars and dockside cafes, where water birds scavenge for leavings. The gulls are sometimes bold enough to snatch food right out of your hand. The hospital building looms grey over the water, and its black wrought-iron gates and a century of grime remind me of old black and white postcards, the kind you see in secondhand shops with faded messages penciled on the backs.

"I know it's a lot to think about. "

Mitchell's eyes are huge with hope and apprehension. He lights a cigarette and reflexively offers me one, which I decline.

"So... If I... Would I get better?"

"You'd be instantly healed."

"But I wouldn't be young... I'd be like this? With you?"

"Forever."

I am actually at a loss for words. Flattered. Heartbroken.

From a vampire, that's almost a marriage proposal. It's out of the question, of course, but I need to be gentle with him. I owe him that much.

If he's carried a torch for me all this time, he's misguided: I nearly destroyed him. I didn't intend to, but I was young and selfish. I left him, alone, hungry, belonging nowhere, to go on endlessly, knowing exactly what had been lost. Humans won't accept him and vampires don't understand him. He must have been desperately lonely, remembering that glimpse of another life, out of reach.

This plan of Herrick's must have seemed to him like a bridge between the two. I'm sorry to tell him it isn't.

"You're offering something you have no right to. Mortality is part of being human. You can't take that away from people."

"But there would be no more death or disease. Places like this will become museums. And it's all voluntary. "

Have they ever got him brainwashed. He's like one of those polite, well-dressed young evangelicals who come to your door with tracts and pocket bibles. The members seem sincere, but the leaders are inevitably revealed to be thieves, frauds and child molesters.

"Stop the spin. People think they want eternal life, but that's not what you're giving them."

Countless patients have passed through this place, suffering from cancer and consumption and gangrene and polio, bleeding from bomb blasts and car wrecks and bullet wounds. Thousands upon thousands of stories of the thousands who've died here, stories they would render obsolete. Instead of life having its arc: birth, love, challenge, pain, joy, loss, death, the vampires would have only stasis. It's a repudiation of everything we were.

I never wanted to live in that world, and Mitchell knows it. He wanted to be in mine.

"You've got it all wrong. What Herrick is planning is not evolution. It's a con. The Mitchell I knew would never have dreamed-"

"-I wanted to save you."

"No, I don't think it was that. You knew I would say no, didn't you? You needed to hear it."

He drops the end of his cigarette and lights another. This time he doesn't offer me one.

"I don't know what I wanted. I thought I could help people."

"Like the vampires helped you?"

On the water, the gulls are squabbling and squawking over a scrap floating on the surface. Mitchell just watches them and smokes. His face is blank and unreadable.

"Do your friends know about this?"

His prolonged silence explains everything. They can't help him if he won't let them in. I wonder if in the past forty years, Mitchell has trusted anyone.

Well, shit.

No longer a glamorous couple, us, just two long-ago acquaintances, practically strangers. We're not even on the same side anymore.

He scowls into the sun, and it's hard to tell if he's ashamed or just disappointed. Late autumn wind gusts in our faces, musses our hair and blows a chill through my clothes. I'd forgotten how lost, how mutable he is, taking his guidance from whomever is closest, becoming whatever he's expected to be, keeping his thoughts to himself. I only hope I've reached him.

I can't let them destroy everything. Even if I won't live to see it happen.

Mitchell's friend George is flirting awkwardly with the little nurse, who seems to be enjoying it. Perhaps he's grateful for the interruption.

I have my doubts about him: he's not weak, exactly, but he lacks tensile strength. He's also far too young, unfamiliar with vampires, and completely out of his depth. But there's no one else.

Without preamble, I explain the whole sordid plot to him, and Mitchell's pivotal role in opening the floodgates. George's eyes widen with horror.

"Christ." It's the first word I've heard him say without a stammer.

I don't see well at dusk, and all the excitement made me clumsy and distracted. While climbing the short flight of steps up to my flat, I take one the wrong way, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground.

As I lie sprawled in an undignified heap on the steps, bruises swelling at my hip and elbow, Stephanie's image swims into view, her white blouse falling in elaborate folds and shadows under the streetlamp. She perches on the step beside me, her torso at eye level.

"Hey Josie. I thought I'd drop in to check on you. I hear you'll be joining us soon."

I'm not even surprised. "It's nice to see you Stephanie. I've been thinking about you a lot lately. Every time I go out, I take a long look in the mirror and think, what would Stephanie say about this outfit? If I think you wouldn't like it, I change. I still value your input."

"Hmm. My input? I'd say you need your roots touched up."

"Thanks. I feel better now." I pull myself up to sit beside her on the stair. "You must know what's happening then."

"How could I not? It's my job." She gives a little annoyed snort. "Still."

"You're like my guardian angel."

She shrugs. "Or something. I'm your conscience, say. You did right to try and stop Mitchell. What he's up to now is rather extreme, but it's not the first stupid thing he's done. Recently." She narrows her eyes at me. "You don't still have feelings for him, do you?"

"I don't know. Yes. Kind of. It's complicated. He's changed."

"Has he? I don't see it. Still a murderous git, if you ask me." She examines her chipped manicure. "Your husband, er, Phil, isn't it? I like him. Nice broad shoulders. Good sense of humor. Patient. Sensible. Not bad to look at either."

My heart nearly stops right then. "How do you know him? Have you seen him? Is he all right?"

"He misses you. He asked me to tell you. And to do this." With a crooked finger she makes a gentle scratching motion twice on the back of my hand, leaving a prickly chill on my skin. It was our signal, when we needed to leave somewhere, to tell the other it was time. It got us out of innumerable dull dinners, faculty events, cocktail parties.

I miss him too. Like a lost limb.

"He's really there?"

"Sure looked like it. Six foot or so, grey hair that needs a trim, pornstache?" She holds a finger under her nose, demonstrating. I always did want him to shave that thing, but he wouldn't. It tickled. "Sort of a weird French accent? He said you never learned to cook anything that wasn't from a box or a tin, is that true?"

"Hah! Montreal has very good takeaway. Now, Bristol... is getting better. And how are you? It's been so long."

"Not for me it hasn't. Time is acting rather squishy. Last thing I remember is watching Mitchell mope around after you left. He asked me... me!" (and here she gives me a baffled look and shakes her head like she's trying to clear water from her ears) "... what he was supposed to do next, but obviously I hadn't a clue. I left him there listening to Hank Williams and getting drunk with Grant. Really not my scene."

It was ridiculous to think she might have forgiven him.

"But things are okay. Not much happens, and I don't mind. We play shuffleboard. We watch football. We can eat or drink if we want, not like here, but it doesn't have an effect on us. And I can smoke again, thank god! Sometimes we see old friends. Sometimes we get special assignments to muck around with the living, but mostly it's nice and dull. I think you'll like it."

I'm not sure how to respond to that. I think my feelings are hurt.

An ambulance arrives. They are taking me back to hospital for observation, probably because they saw me talking to someone who wasn't there.

Stephanie waves and blows kisses while they carry me away. "I'm glad you made it this long. You've had a good run. See you soon!"

"Do you have a minute?"

"Oh my god, George. What happened? Are you okay?"

He's standing at my bedside, hollow-eyed, exhausted, his shirt smeared with blood. Did he see me come in last night?

"I am. Mitchell's not. Herrick tried to kill him."

"Tried, but didn't?"

"Not quite. He-" George, obviously no brawler, makes a limp-wristed stabbing motion. A stake then. "Mitchell's in a bad way, nearly bled out. He said something about needing, erm, living blood, but I didn't really follow. All I know is, he can't get up, he can barely talk! They're trying to help him, but the longer he's in here the more questions they'll ask. It's really, really, really not good." His words come faster and faster, and his voice goes up an octave to emerge as practically a squeak. I'm reminded of a 33 record played at 45.

"Slow down, slow down. Tell me what's going on. Why did Herrick attack him?"

"Something really spun him. After you told me what was going on, we paid a visit to the vampires' 'lair'," (ironic air quotes here), "and I don't know what they were going to do, but we found that he... needed rescuing. They put up a good fight, but we overwhelmed them with our great powers of- of- running away. Herrick came after him at home, rudely interrupting what was supposed to be a very private dramatic moment. He only just missed. The vampires seem quite emphatically to want him dead."

"We aren't going to let that happen, are we? Where is he now?"

He looks awful: blue-grey skin like a dead person's, dark purplish-brown shadows under his eyes. The head of the bed is angled so he can sit up, but it's not clear if he'd have the strength to do it on his own.

"What happened? I thought you were vampire employee of the month."

"I had a change of heart."

His voice has an unfamiliar hesitation, as if he's gathering strength before each word.

He says the cold centrifuged blood they're giving him doesn't help. I don't need much imagination to work out what he means.

Stephanie once asked me, drug overdose, Mitchell, or bus? She never rated cancer. Where would cancer fall on the Stephanie scale?

As someone whose next stop is to be hospice, I know my answer. And I have an idea: he would get better, stop Herrick's plot, and set me free. He can resolve to quit blood ever after. Just not quite yet. Bureaucrats would call it a "win-win".

Without asking, I climb up beside him. There's enough room for both of us. His arm wraps around me, the most natural thing in the world.

I point at my breastbone. "Put your hand here." He does. A slight buzzing vibration seems to emanate from his fingertips, and I recall the weird bluish glow that would sometimes arc between us, and the thick calm that would follow. Today, malignant cells prickle under his hand like coarse sandpaper pressed against my skin. His hand recoils, but I hold it there.

"Oh. That's really... awful. " He trails off, sympathy and sorrow and regret in his voice. "Fucking cancer. I'm sorry."

"So am I. And I'm done with it. No more."

"I hear you. I don't want to be here any more than you do."

"Speak for yourself. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be."

"Please don't say that."

"I want to say it. You know, you have work to do, and I'm going to help you do it. And your friend George wants you back, and I bet that pretty little ghost over there does too. Yes, I see her. Did you think I wouldn't?" A thought crosses my mind unbidden. "You didn't kill her, did you?"

"Of course not! That's my housemate Annie." His scowl lacks vitriol. All he can manage is to exhale in an offended sort of way.

"Sorry. Anyhow, you can't deny it's a fair question." The frown remains. "Are you pouting? Stop it." I nudge him with my elbow, which makes him wince. "Oh, I am sorry. But listen: Your friend? Your ghost friend? She's plain as day, without any help from you. Don't you understand what that means?" I look pointedly in her direction. "Hello, there!"

She gives an awkward little wave. "Erm, hi?" She's dark-skinned, dressed in a modern style, and has on those awful puffy knitted boots the young girls like to wear these days. I wonder what killed her.

With some difficulty, Mitchell turns toward her. A tentative note creeps into his voice, like when he spoke to Stephanie, as if addressing an invalid or a child, but there's affection too, and familiarity. "Annie, would you mind..."

For a split-second, her eyes widen, then she recovers. "Ah. Oh. I'll... I'll be off, then." Her voice only quivers a little.

"Hey? Don't worry, okay?"

She frowns and shakes her considerable dark curls. "I'm going to worry. Just... I don't want to know, all right? One of us will be right out there."

He nods, closes his eyes and doesn't answer. Annie dissolves, leaving a chilly, empty place in the air.

"Your friends are so young, I can't get over it. But I'm glad you found them. "

There is no later. There is only now.

"Josie, please don't ask me to do this."

"I'm just giving you something I don't need anymore."

"This isn't about saving the world from Herrick, is it? This is about you."

"Herrick wants you to recruit thousands of people! And what difference does it make? It's both."

But it is about me. Am I using him? Am I being selfish? When he says it "pushes him further and further from humanity," I don't understand what he means. Or perhaps I don't care. Everyone has free will, even vampires. He can be cruel, or he can be merciful. That's the real choice.

"You won't hurt me. I've had very good drugs."

"Yeah, nice. Very alluring."

"I'm not trying to allure, I'm trying to be practical here. And calling in a favor."

"What?"

"Don't you remember? You promised that when the time came-"

"What? Oh, do you mean... Jesus Christ! That had nothing to do with this. Nothing. Stop it. Hush."

"No. You've never been able to shut me up and you sure as hell aren't starting now."

It's been years and years since anyone kissed me to stop me talking.

We rest and reminisce. We revisit old treasured memories: chocolate and cigarettes, paint and music. Neither of us is quite ready to say goodbye. Morning becomes afternoon. Time is growing short.

"What is your friend George? He said he was 'something else'."

A glimmer of an amused smile. "He is."

"You've spilled most of the beans, you may as well spill the rest."

"Werewolf." Before I can say anything, he pokes a finger at my ribs, already sore from coughing. "Don't laugh."

"I wouldn't dream of it. He seems like a nice young man - a bit excitable, perhaps, but very, very solid. I might recall you saying something about werewolves once, but you never seemed inclined to be friends with one."

"I saved him from some vampires. I look out for him."

"Is that so? He appears to do a fair amount of looking out for you. "

"He's done his best."

"I don't suppose he can make you look out for you."

"Jesus. Give it a rest. I've lived without your help for a long time now." His tone softens. "I'll be okay."

"Will you ever forgive me?"

"For what? Josie, you needed to go. You told me: getting saved isn't a one-time deal, it's over and over. And you'd reached your limit. I always understood that. It's fine."

We were only passing strangers before. Now we meet.

It hurts, but there's no fear. White noise in my eyes and ears like snow on an old black and white television, shapes forming in the clouds, pressure and cold gentle hands growing stronger more insistent, a kiss, pulling and drawing at my throat like wires through my veins pushing the cold down inside, static signal hissing and humming. Your hand threading through mine. It's all right. Don't stop. Don't stop.

I am full of nectar like a flower. Drink me. The sweetness bubbles up and runs down my flanks, my shoulders, under my breasts, sticky and fragrant. Drink me. It pools underneath me, its aroma like honey and jasmine filling the air and wafting into the hallway. The bedsheets are soaked. I'm an uncorked bottle. Drink me.

He kisses my neck, drenched in hot sugary spray. It drips down his cheeks and I take his face in my hands and smear the juice into his hair, let him lick it from my fingers and put my mouth on his so we can share our insides with each other, bathed in sweetness. My heart races with the effort: it's hard work. We lie bathed in syrup and our outsides are our insides and every surface meets every other, sliding wet and silky and close and naked, sharing one skin.

Teeth like metal. Your hand curls into my hair. I give you this. I give you this. Heat dissipating. Dark. Safety is a lie. Connection is an illusion. Cold. Hacking and gasping. I can't stay.

Something damp on my lips, medicinal and sweet and full of bubbles that burst like pinpricks. "Please. Don't go."

"I'm not leaving you. Sh." Morphine leaves a bitter aftertaste. I don't need any more. Nothing hurts.

"Liar," he says, from very far away.

Listen for me. I'll always be there.

Stretching before us is an expanse of nothing. Red dissolving into grey, into black.

I watch him lift me from the clean white bed and arrange my body in the chair beside it. His face is clean. There's no blood anywhere, nothing spilled, nothing out of place. I'm not drowning anymore, not cold, not tired, not dying.

Thank you.

"That was a generous thing you did. We all appreciate it."

"Annie, right?"

"I want you to know, he's not alone, he's with us. My unfinished business... it got finished, but I couldn't leave him like... like he was."

"Do you plan to stay here now?"

"I'm not sure. If I can. Will you?"

"Nope. I'm all done."

"Oh, that's... too bad," she says, a bit too brightly.

"Don't worry dear, I'm glad to be on my way. But be careful. Even in the best of times, a vampire needs more than you can give."

"We're so grateful. And don't worry. We've got this." She tugs at his elbow. "Come on Mitchell, time to go home."

There's a door that wasn't here before. I can't see into its high window, but a yellowish light is shining through. Something warm and inviting must lie on the other side, a comfortable room with a fire burning, shelves full of books, overstuffed furniture. Perhaps Philippe is there, sitting in his battered old reclining chair, smoking his pipe and watching the hockey game. A wisp of vanilla-scented tobacco smoke curls under the door. I'll be there soon, love.