SPOILER ALERT for episode 8, series 3, "The Wolf-Shaped Bullet."

Disclaimer: All hats directly off to Toby Whithouse.

A/N: I couldn't bear Mitchell dying. Imagine: if we're all pining for him (and I know we are), what must Annie be feeling. The only thing to do was to die a little bit with him.

Mitchell had been standing in the darkness, across the street, for who knew how long.

He was smoking. Chain-smoking. Why the fuck not. Take what pleasure you can get. Hadn't that always been his way?

It was like waiting in the trenches, watching the enemy lines for light or signs of movement. Surely someone should have just blown his head off by now. Reckless bastard, on and on he went, through the ages.

No more.

He had strutted and fretted, peacock that he was, for a hundred hours upon this stage—a hundred more hours than was his due. Here, at last, was the curtain call. Hell, he'd take himself out with a crooked cane if it came to it.

But that was to be George's role. George, the only friend he'd ever had whose ethics were stronger than his condition. George, whose love gave him strength. Love, not hate. It was the crucial difference between George and every vampire Mitchell had ever known. Himself included.

He'd thought, for a while—a flickering instant, really, relative to all his years—that he could make a go of it too. Let love fuel him, replenish him. Fool. Hundred-year-old fool.

He'd have to face Annie. Her face, her eyes. Ball of light that she was.

Well, a star and a black hole can fall in love, sure enough, but where will they make their nest? In the heavens, is the obvious answer—and they had tried that; the only nest they were ever perfectly happy in was in the afterlife. But it was purgatory, and it had lasted only minutes. Then what choice had they had but to give in to the pull of nature, the gravity of the situation? A star and a black hole, indeed; the one will, unfailingly, inevitably, suck the life out of the other. What a catastrophic, beautiful, nebulous, nefarious, bloody mess. Of course they had to go their separate ways—carve out different orbits in the end, though the two had crossed for a single, radiant moment—it was for the sake of the bloody universe.

Waxing fucking poetic and mixing metaphors. Now he knew he was standing on the precipice.

It had been hours. He felt rooted to the spot. Vampires can fade into the background if they want to—well, more like they could, sort of, remove themselves from the foreground—not literally, but with slyness, by assuming a façade of meekness, sleekness that matched rainy evenings and fog. It was coming in handy. No one had noticed him. Not a single being.

Good. Perhaps he was already leaving. Perhaps he really was fading. Was it only ghosts that could do that? What if he just gave up? Would he wither away?

But that was another thing nobody ever told you about vampires: the lust for life is about as difficult to stamp out as the blood lust.

They were home in there, the three of them. The four of them (baby included). The lights were on. What a beacon of normality. Quiet. Safe. Cosy. It seemed to draw him in and repel him at the same time.

He ached to be inside with them. George's stutters, Nina's glares. He could almost hear Annie's laugh. He ached for them all.

How could he bear to go in? How could he bear to end it?

Could he bear it if he didn't?

Mitchell angrily flicked the butt of his spent cigarette onto the ground. How many times this evening had he shuffled his feet, dragged his hands through his hair, sighed, growled, clenched his fists, closed his eyes and tried to let go.

And there was the rub. He had already let go, hadn't he. He had gone about as far off the rails as he could have done without driving himself to literal insanity. If he was going to leave this world with anything left of himself—what he wanted himself to be, what he had occasionally managed to be—then he had to let go again. Of the good things. Of everything.

If there was only one shred of humanity left in him, he would use it to do the right thing. End the plague before it struck again.

Hadn't he been having this same circular discussion with himself for a fortnight?

Shit—someone had seen him.

A silhouette had appeared in the window, moving a curtain aside.

It was George… George was coming outside.

This was it. Good. Fuck. Good. This was it. Glory be to God.

His human self had believed in God. Now, his human side hoped there was one. There had to be one. How could good exist at all without some greater benevolent force to encourage it from behind the scenes? How could—good God—how could Annie light up a room like she did, if she wasn't reflecting some kind of greater light, like a mirror, into all the dark corners of the world, of himself?

Maybe his mind was slipping away now. Or maybe his soul. He rarely dared to hope that he still had a soul, somewhere out there, but the end was nigh now; he gave in and let himself hope, with all the might he could muster, shamelessly, as he stepped over the threshold and entered his old world again.

There they were. There she was. He could hardly look at her. There were teacups about the room, and he nearly smiled and sobbed, simultaneously, at the sight of them.

His eyes felt dry and raw. Was it because he was inside now, or because it had been raining? Had it been raining? The details of the world… inconsequential now. It was no longer his world.

"Take it or leave it," Herrick had said to him once.

Had he been crying?

He gathered his energy and focused on George. He focused, at the last. He spoke the words he had planned to speak.

It dragged on, but it raced by. It was like time was shoving him off as well. Even more than it already had.

And then Annie was in front of him, try as he had done to avoid this. He reached out for her when she reached for him. She'd be the last thing, then, that he ever reached for—the last thing he ever grasped, held tight. He had to give her something, so he gave her the words he thought she needed to hear. The words he needed to hear. The words he hoped were the truth. He so, so wanted them to be the truth.

And then—Wyndam—the moment turned on its head—the prospect of a life of enslavement, all over again… and then George, with that strength Mitchell had known would get him in the end. That love.

And in that last moment, it all became inescapably clear: love would get them all in the end. Love was how the world began. Love was how the world ended. How excruciatingly joyous it was. How bright, and how freeing.

He let the world go.

The world let him go.