This story is dedicated Nisha (bonneibennett on tumblr) for being the all-round awesome and positive person that she is.

Father Thomas blew out the prayer candles and the church's vestibule was suddenly dark and very still. The night was unseasonably cold and he wanted to get home to a warm hearth and a quiet cup of tea. He had his scarf knotted around his throat and one arm in his jacket sleeve when the heavy wooden doors opened.

He turned to see man standing in the threshold, silhouetted against the glare of a passing headlight. His dark hair was dusted with snow and puffs of frosty air curled around his pale face. He wore all black—t-shirt and jeans, but no coat. Father Thomas shivered at the sight of him.

"Can I help you?" he asked out of reflex, before silently admonishing himself for his temporary lack of hospitality. "Please, come inside. You must be freezing."

"Thank you, Father," the man said a little gruffly, as though he wasn't used to giving his thanks.

He stepped forward into the light and Father Thomas was struck by the ethereal beauty of the man. He was like a dark-haired angel fallen from heaven. No more than thirty, he was somewhat tall, well-built and finely featured. However, it was his eyes that struck Father Thomas the most—they were mercurial-blue and intense.

Clutched in the man's hand was a half-empty bottle of booze. Bourbon? He took another measured step forward, showing a sureness and balance that belied any sort of drunkenness, until he was standing behind the last row of pews. His free hand rested on its straight back and his head was slightly tilted to the side, watching the early November snow silently fall on the stained glass above the altar.

Father Thomas observed the man with a sympathetic frown. He was accustomed to drunken men finding their way into the House of the Lord in their time of need. He would often sit and talk with them until they sobered up or offer them a ride home, or to a shelter. This man, however, didn't appear as though he was looking for a place to sober up. He looked lost and sad; remarkably sad. It was the kind of sadness that could move a stranger to tears.

Clearing his throat, Father Thomas loosened his scarf with one hand before tossing his wool jacket over a pew. The man's eyes snapped up to meet his gaze and the Father was caught in their blue electricity. A slight smirk tugged at the corners of the man's lips—playful, daring and more than a little dangerous.

"I wondered, Father, if it's too late for me to make confession."

Father Thomas relaxed a bit and smiled. "It's never too late, my son."

He made to move toward the dim cage of the confessional, but then he heard the man chuckle. He looked back to see that the man was seated in one of the pews, an arm thrown lazily over its wooden spine. The bottle of bourbon dangled from his fingertips, its glass reflecting a kaleidoscope of colours from the stained glass windows.

"I also wondered if we might do it here," he said. "In the light, so to speak."

Father Thomas paused. "Sure." He took a step closer. "I suppose it wasn't easy for you to come here, was it, Mr... ?"

He waited for a name, but nothing came other than another dangerous smirk.

"You're mistaken there, Father," the man said, taking a long swallow of bourbon. "It was the easiest thing I've done in a long time."

He then lowered his arm and made room for Father Thomas to sit down beside him. The men sat together in the silence of the church, their breath pluming together in the cold air. The priest then made the sign of the cross and looked at the man, waiting.

"I'm supposed to say 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned'; isn't that right?" He crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned back, looking up into the shadows of the high vaulted ceiling. "And I have sinned, Father. Terribly."

"How long has it been since your last confession?"

The man looked at him and laughed softly. "Forever."

"You're not Catholic, are you?"

"No," the man said, grabbing his bottle and sitting up. "Shall I go?"

"No, you came into this church tonight for a reason."

"Well, I wasn't wearing a coat, and it's cold, as I believe you pointed out—"

"Stop the bullshit," the priest said candidly, and the man's eyes narrowed.

They locked gazes and, for a moment, Father Thomas thought this man meant him harm, but then the moment passed.

"You probably get away with flippant lines like that all the time," the priest said, "but I'm not going to let you, son, because I think it's important that you do what you came here to do."

The man's lips twisted into a grimace and he gazed thoughtfully at the priest before leaning back. "Tell me then, Father, what it is that I came here to do?"

"To confess your sins."

"An obvious question gets an obvious answer." The man took another swig from the bottle and shook his head. "You know, I have to admit that confession has always baffled me. Why should confessing sins make them any less sinful?"

"It doesn't," Father Thomas said. "That's the whole point, or it's half the point. The other half is that God loves and forgives you, so long as you accept His love and forgiveness."

The man licked his lips and looked away. "I very much doubt that, Father."

"It's true," the priest said. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't believe it on some level."

The man's eyes never moved from the snowy window. "You know, I've spent most of my life fighting the impulse that drove me here tonight. Maybe that's my sin. That it took so long for me to get here. Or that I've betrayed what I know for what I wish, even if I'm alone in this wish, even if no one else but me believes in it."

Father Thomas's brow creased in puzzlement. "I don't understand. Is that your sin you wish to confess?"

The man dropped his arms, the bottom of the bottle clinking against the pew. "One in a long list of many, Father, but not the one I came here tonight to confess."

"And what is it that you wish to confess, my son?"

The man fingered the rim of the bottle with a frown. "Have you ever been in love, Father?"

The priest paused uncomfortably before shifting in his seat. "Yes, I have."

"Was it the kind of love that consumed you? The kind of love that you'd kill for, that you'd die for?"

Father Thomas cleared his throat but remained silent.

"I've had that kind of love twice in my life, Father," the man said. "With the same girl, if you'd believe it. Two girls with the same face. Kind of pathetic, when you think about it." He picked up his bottle of bourbon and drank heartily. "Okay, a lot pathetic."

Father Thomas eyed the bottle of liquor with disapproval, but he didn't ask the man to stop drinking. For some reason he couldn't quite explain, he knew those would be his last words if he asked the man to part with his alcohol.

"Is lust the sin you wish to confess?"

The man snorted and scratched the side of his nose. "Oh, I've committed all the sins more than once, Father. Some more than others. But I guess love, or lust as you put it, is more my weakness than my sin. I have a bit of a track record, you see. Either they don't love me back the same or my love changes them for the worse."

"So you've scorned and been scorned?"

"I've been forgotten," he said bitterly. "I can't really say that I blame her for it, for moving on, but she's not why I'm here, Father."

"Then why are you here?"

The man hooked his arms over the back of the pew. "How about I answer your question with another question—do you believe in God?"

"Of course."

"Do you believe in a God who punishes the righteous and rewards the wicked?"

"No."

"Even if that's all you've ever seen? Seen God favour the evil and the selfish while condemning the innocent and the virtuous to suffer? Do you love a God who can do that?"

Father Thomas sighed deeply. He had heard such arguments many times before. Why would God punish those who love Him, who do good in this world, while evil men persist? Why do bad things happen to good people? He had several answers for those questions, all good arguments, but he didn't believe this man wanted to hear them.

"I believe God loves all His children," Father Thomas said. "Everything unfolds according to His plan. The innocent and the virtuous are held loftily in His esteem."

"You mean the meek shall inherit the Earth?" The man guffawed and brought the bottle of bourbon to his lips. "Father, God's a kid standing over an anthill with a magnifying glass."

"So you do believe in God?"

"That's a very complicated question—" he took a sloppy swig "—but the short answer is no. I don't believe in a supreme being who created the universe."

"Is this the sin you think you've committed?"

He shrugged. "I consider it more of an intellectual position than a sin."

"Then this sin you mentioned earlier, would that be the sin you've come here both to commit and confess?" The man raised a dark eyebrow in surprise. "To you, coming into a church, looking for God, acting as though you believe in Him when you don't—that's what's really wrong?"

"Yes," he said quietly, "it is."

Father Thomas rolled his shoulders in a shrug. Atheists. "Then why do it?"

"Because—" He was about to take another sip but paused this time, resting the bottle on his knee. "She once told me there was hope for me."

"She? The woman you're in love with?"

"In love with? No, not her. This is someone else, someone—" He let his sentence trail off with a shrug. "What I feel for her is different."

"What do you feel for her?"

"Hope?" He swirled the amber liquid in its bottle and nodded slowly. "She gives me hope, hope for myself; something I haven't felt in a long time... or maybe ever."

Father Thomas waited for the man to continue, his eyes trained on him as tiny clockwork clouds mushroomed from his parted lips.

"What I'm about to tell you, Father—you're going to think I'm insane."

The priest smiled. "I see a lot of crazy people, son. You don't strike me as one of them."

"Just give me a minute," the man deadpanned, before deliberately turning towards him. "You're sure you want to hear this, though? I'm giving you the choice: hear me out or walk away. I wouldn't condemn you either way. Hell, I'd support you for walking away.

"But believe me when I tell you that listening to my story isn't a good idea. I'm using you in the worst possible sense." He smirked as an afterthought. "Well, maybe not the worst possible sense. This is the Catholic Church, after all."

Father Thomas's lips tightened. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, my son."

"Thanks, Father." The man took a good chug from the bottle. "Coming from someone of your profession, that's saying something."

The priest's mouth twisted again, but he said nothing.

"Well, I guess you made your choice, then," the man said with a sigh, realising the priest could not be baited.

He set down the bottle and leaned forward, taking a bible from the back of the next pew. He opened it, idly leafing through it with fluid, deft motions of slender fingers. Father Thomas watched those finely-boned fingers, pianist fingers, as his mother would have called them, and didn't look up even when the man started speaking again.

"Father, what would you say if I were to tell you that I'm 173 years old?"

"I'd ask you what your secret is."

"Vampirism."

Father Thomas laughed uneasily. "Good one."

"Yeah, I'm serious."

The priest paused, brow scrunched over his eyes, and then was on his feet in the aisle. "You think you're a vampire?"

"I know I am a vampire."

"Holy Jesus! Oh Christ, you are fucking nuts!" He stumbled backwards, eyes wide and shocked, extending his hands as though he could ward this man off—this man who was sitting so calmly in the pew.

"Take a seat, Father," the man said, more than a little disgusted but slightly amused. "I'm not going to hurt you, but I would like to talk with you."

"B-but how?" The priest watched his words puff into the cold air and blow into his hands. "You shouldn't be able to walk into a church."

The man rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it doesn't work like that. We can walk into churches. Crosses do nothing to us—same with holy water and garlic."

When the priest started to look at the door, the man became impatient.

"Sit down, please."

Father Thomas took another step back and took a shaky breath. "Fine," he managed. "I'll make you a deal."

The man raised an eyebrow at this. "Don't confuse me with the devil, Father. I ain't got no golden fiddle to trade you."

"I-I'll sit down for as long as you want, if you let me call you an ambulance afterwards."

The man had the audacity to grin. "Ah, you want me committed."

The priest jerked his head once.

"Clever." He held up the bible like an oath. "Okay, I accept your deal, Father." He gestured to the pew. "Now sit down and relax a spell. I hadn't finished my point, or—" he smirked "—my confession."

Eventually Father Thomas lowered himself onto the smallest possible area of the pew as though it might shatter with the slightest pressure. His eyes darted from the man's hands to his face and then to his hands again.

The man sighed irritably. "Relax, Father, I'm not going to kill you, or suck your blood or whatever. Besides—" he waggled his eyebrows suggestively before draining the bottle "—I prefer women."

"Comforting thought, that."

The man clapped his hands, causing Father Thomas to jump in his seat. "Now, where was I?"

"C-confessing your sins," the priest whispered.

"Yes, my sins." The man steepled his fingers, the bible still balanced on his knee. "My first sin, as I said, is that I am here. My second sin is... that I'm here."

"You already said that."

"No, I mean that I'm here-here. Alive." He shrugged. "Well, undead. The point is that I exist when I shouldn't."

"And why's that?"

The man lapsed into silence, his brow knitting thoughtfully as he traced the cover of the bible with one finger. Father Thomas bravely reached out and snatched the book from his hands, putting it between them on the pew. The man looked up and their eyes met.

"The thing is, Father, I'm not really sure how to confess, other than to say I'm a screw-up." He produced a small silver flask from his pocket, more alcohol, and offered it to the Father. "Would you like the first sip this time?"

"No, thank you." He held up his hands. "I come from a long line of alcoholics."

"I see." The man took a healthy swig. "I guess there are some perks to being me. Liver failure is a distant concern, as are other ailments and diseases."

"That must be nice," the priest said. "Immunity from death."

The man snorted humourlessly. "Immunity? Just a suspended sentence, really. We can still be killed; most of us, anyway. A stake through the heart or remove the heart entirely; then there's beheading, sunlight, werewolf venom, even some brushwood and a pack of matches will do the trick." He raised his flask with a wink. "We go up like kindling."

"So you're immortal as long as nothing interferes?"

He took a sip and nodded. "Until something or someone more powerful brings us down."

"Are you afraid of death?"

The man lowered the flask with a grimace. "You sure do know what questions to ask, don't you?" He sighed. "Yes, Father, I am afraid. I'm a vampire. We're very selfish and vain creatures, and like most immortals, we fear the one thing than most mortals eventually come to accept. We don't want to go gently into that good night."

"So there's no afterlife for your kind?"

"I've died twice already, Father—once permanently—and I honestly can't give you a concrete answer to your question. All I can say is that for most of us there's a sort of purgatory. Holding cells, if you will. Some stay where they are or move on to worse places, or maybe it's all just the same. I don't know. Some find their peace, I think, or at least I want to believe that they do."

"You know, this is confession," the priest reminded him. "Even if we're off-topic right now, what do you want to tell me?"

The man took a long drink and paused. "The thing is, Father, I died almost six months ago—the permanent kind of death—and the thing that separated me from oblivion was unravelling. In the end it was just me and a girl, waiting for everything to disappear, us included." He glanced down at his hand. "But instead of falling into the darkness, she took my hand and we disappeared into the light."

"Where did you go?"

"It wasn't so much where but when: fifteen years in the past, living the same day over and over again. I thought we were in hell, my own personal hell. Did I mention vampires are vain? We like to think that everything is about us. But this time it wasn't about me. Turns out the girl's grandmother had a plan to keep her out of the void, and she happened to take me with her.

"For months, we thought we were alone. Then a sociopath who makes me look like a choir boy, shows up and tries to kill me. Imagine my surprise to discover that this prison wasn't mine but his. Apparently killing most of your family, who happen to be a coven of witches, means you get trapped inside a Groundhog Day scenario with no Bill Murray and no chance of escape. It also turned out that little Norman Bates Jr was our ticket to getting back home. Or, more precisely, Bonnie was."

"Bonnie?"

The man swallowed uncomfortably. "The girl who saved me."

"And she's a vampire, too?"

"No, she's a witch."

"A witch?" For a moment on the absurd edge of laughter.

The man shot him an annoyed look. "So adding a witch to this story undermines its credibility?"

Father Thomas cleared his throat apologetically. "My apologies. Go on."

"Her and I were just about to board the white lightning express back home when Mr Psycho, in the manner befitting of a raving lunatic, shot Bonnie in the chest with an arrow." He glanced down at his drink. "I had a choice between choosing her and going back home to my brother and the love of my life, and I... chose her.

"Despite the bickering and the back and forth, she was my only companion in this place. She kept me sane." He let out a hollow laugh. "I couldn't leave her, Father, and I certainly couldn't let her die. But being the stubborn bitch that she is, she couldn't let me stay trapped with her, so she sacrificed herself so that I could return home."

The man slouched down in pew, arms folded, with a glitter in his blue eyes that followed the falling snow on the windows. They were the eyes of a man in pain.

"I believe they call that survivor's guilt, son."

"Yeah?" The man sat up and grabbed the bible again, weighing it in one hand. "I call it divine punishment."

"So you do believe in God." Father Thomas almost smiled. "Well, I doubt I can absolve you of that."

"I'm not here for absolution," the man all but growled.

"But I'm a priest. It's my job."

The man smiled bitterly. "We both take our jobs seriously, don't we? You absolve while I damn myself and anyone who comes into contact with me." He took another swig from his flask and glowered. "The thing is, Father, I'm not looking for forgiveness or absolution."

"Then what do you want?"

"Meaning," he said thickly. "I want her death to have had meaning."

Both men were silent. The beams of the church creaked with the cold. A pale illumination came from the lonely light above the altar, only to wander up and get lost in darkness.

"You don't think her dying for you had meaning?"

He shook his head slowly. "Her and I were once enemies. That's what vampires and witches are: natural enemies. We never had a nice thing to say to the other. We worked together cause we had to, not cause we wanted to. And, oh, I could be cruel to her, Father. Real cruel. Always bringing her down because—well, fuck, I don't know. I guess on some twisted level I thought I was making her stronger. Or maybe I'm just a mean son of a bitch—pardon my language.

"But despite that, despite who I am and what I've done to her and countless others, she chose me. She chose me over herself. She saw some kind of hope for me. She saw my salvation." His voice faltered, "I don't know anybody who would do something like that, Father."

The priest was nearly on the edge of his seat. "What about your brother?"

"He'd probably do it cause he felt like he owed me, or cause we're family." He shrugged. "We're all each other's got."

"And the woman you love, would she do it?"

"No—I mean, I don't know." He drummed his fingers on the bible. "Before all this happened, I went on a suicide run to save my brother. The reason I died in the first place. She came with me, was willing to die with me, and I thought that this was love, this was the height of selflessness."

"And now?"

"Now I know that what she did came from a place of safety, of knowing. Not to diminish what she did or anything, but she knew she was coming out of it alive. She knew Bonnie would save us all, and if she didn't, she knew she wasn't going to be alone. But, Bonnie, she knew. She knew she was going to die, she knew she was going to be all alone, and yet she still—" He sat up abruptly. "But what does any of it matter now, anyway."

"Did you love her?" the priest asked.

"You asked me that question already."

"And you said you didn't know, but you do know, don't you?"

The man said nothing, just looked away. Silence fell and filled the thin space between them, between the vast space under the beams and the sky.

"You're not done with your story about her yet," the priest said.

The man looked at him and Father Thomas shivered again, but he held his gaze. The man was obviously a little troubled in the head, and certainly not a vampire, but he needed to vent. He needed this.

"Well, you're not finished, son. Your conscience is torturing you and I want to know why."

The ghost of a sadistic smirk touched the man's lips. "I wouldn't say torturing. I've found that the word 'torture' has a very specific meaning."

"The longer you talk, the longer before I call someone," the priest said. "Don't make me do it now."

"Ah, yes," the man said lightly. "I wonder that eternal oblivion ever frightened me compared to the terrifying prospect of a phone call, some padded walls and a linoleum floor."

Father Thomas almost smiled, but then it faltered. "You were scared?"

"Of oblivion? What do you think?" He brushed a piece of lint off the sleeve of his black shirt and tilted his head back so that he could stare up at the ceiling. "She wasn't scared, though. Bonnie. Or maybe she was. Yeah, I think maybe she was. But she still stayed strong. She kept hope for herself and for me. Enough for the both of us."

The flask shook slightly in his hand, and Father Thomas looked at him.

"You're still stalling," he prodded gently. "This story is interesting as hell, pardon the pun, but your time is running out."

"True," the man said. "You have, I'd say, about five minutes."

"You have five minutes," the priest said. "But tell me more about Bonnie."

The man seemed to almost smile fondly in remembrance, and Father Thomas realised this was the first time he saw the young man genuinely smile, without sadness, mockery or malice.

"I guess you could say that Bonnie and I were opposing generals in a supernatural war—at least we were at first. Then we became reluctant allies. Truth is, I always saw her as my equal, even if I didn't want to admit it."

"So what changed between you two?"

He fiddled with the large ring on his finger. "One day she actually tried to take this off me, my daylight ring. It's what keeps me from burning to death under the sun. She told me if I had no hope, then to end it then and there.

"I refused, obviously. I told her that there was no hope, that this was my hell, my punishment, and that she could do nothing about it—my regular mantra. And you know what she said? She told me that hope was the only thing keeping her going, and that I wasn't helping her or myself with all this self-pitying."

"And you didn't agree with her?" Father Thomas guessed.

"I absolutely agreed, but I didn't tell her that. I'd never admit to her or myself that she was right, or that her words meant so much to me."

"Why not?"

"Because my head was so far up my own ass I couldn't see what she was offering me."

"Hope," the priest said, and the man bowed his head sombrely.

"And my humanity. People tend to forget that I was once human."

"For good reason," Father Thomas said dryly.

"Despite everything, she still kept her hope." A slight grin surfaced on his lips. "Don't get me wrong—she never forgave the horrible things I've done. She never forgave and she never condoned. Time and time again she let me know that my choices were my own and that they almost never led to good things. Not once did she ever try to change me."

"But she challenged you to do better," the priest supplied, "to be better."

The man nodded slowly. "For myself."

A long beat of silence followed.

"Before I left, I told her that I knew there were a billion people she'd rather be with, and you know what she said? 'Not exactly'... Not exactly." He laughed softly. "That's progress. Was progress."

The man's brow knitted and suddenly his eyes had taken on a wild edge, enough to make Father Thomas feel acutely uneasy. It seemed like there was no light of sanity left to them. Or maybe that was what true despair looked like. Hopelessness.

"She said there was hope for me," he said almost dreamily. "She said it—that there was hope... for me."

The man went silent again, looking out into the night sky.

"If I'm to be completely honest, she was one of the greatest casualties in my long life, next to losing my mother. Perhaps the only person I regret losing—no, wrong verb." The man's voice was quiet. "Leaving behind."

The man paused for a long while, his head bowed. The flask dangled from his fingertips. He didn't seem to notice it slipping.

"That was cowardness on my part, I think. I don't know. I didn't mean to leave without her. I just wish I could have had the chance to apologise for all the crap I put her through. I think I came here tonight cause I needed to tell her that, that I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Bonnie. I'm sorry for leaving you behind—"

Father Thomas watched the flask slip, but the man didn't drop it. Instead, he looked down at it and tossed it onto the bench. It clanged, a loud, tinny sound, and rolled a few times before stopping with a wobble.

Sighing, he scrubbed his face with his hands, and stood up. "I believe you have a phone call to make. Thanks for listening, Father."

He began to walk away and the priest could only watch, his mouth opening and closing.

"Wait!" he suddenly shouted.

The man stopped, half-turned, a sad yet slightly amused smirk angling across his lips.

"Yes?"

"You promised. We had a deal—"

"I promised you could call," the man said. "I never promised to be here when you did. In fact, I'm doing you a favour by leaving. I'm not even going to compel you to forget this conversation. That's my choice to give to you."

He had almost closed the doors behind him when he turned and looked back at the stock-still figure in the darkened church.

"Do you think she was right, Father? Is there any hope for me?"

Father Thomas shook his head with a bewildered shrug. "I-I don't know, but... Maybe the fact that you came here is a sign of that hope. That you want to change. That you want forgiveness—"

"But not from Him," he said with a quiet conviction. "I want it from her."

A burst of freezing wind blew inside the church, scattering snow along the red-carpeted aisle. Before the priest could say another word, the wooden doors had already closed shut and the man with the angelic face had disappeared into the cold November night.