This is a rewrite of my previous one-shot "How Things End".

Dark!Fic Hal & Annie

Hal knocked. The sound of his knuckles rapping on the iron door echoed through the empty hall. As he waited he turned a heavy key over and over in his hand. When no answer came he unlocked to door and entered keeping his eyes to the floor. He paused again at the entrance but still no answer, no greeting. He sighed deeply before speaking.

"Annie," he said then knocked lightly again on the doorframe. It was a shriller sound than when he knocked on the door. Hal winced and glanced up finally but Annie had not moved. He sighed again. "I brought something for you."

He tried not to look around too much. The dark stonewalls had been made bright by burning white symbol set into the walls. He couldn't read them but they burned his eyes. Only Mr. Snow knew what they meant and Hal did not ask him. That would have been like a child asking the boogeyman to sing them to sleep.

"Annie," Hal called to her again but still she sat motionless and bleak in her wooden chair. "I brought you some tea."

Annie had her back to him and she sat so still that she could have been a statue but she had neither the weight nor the substance to be that. If he ran his fingers through her hair it would have felt like trying to comb fog. And if he pressed his lips to her cheek he would be met with the slightest resistance like a puff of air and the feeling that he had just kissed the rain. There was so little of her left.

"I know it isn't much but I've been so busy lately. You understand," Hal said looking at the box of Earl Grey in one hand and then to the key in the other as if he was uncertain about what to do with either. "There is so much to do these days, Annie. I've grown quite tired of it."

Hal walked toward her with a slow uneven gait. He kept his eyes to the floor but the symbols still burned at the corner of his vision and worked their way so that they also glowed brightly in his mind's eye. He could never stay for long before if felt that his head would split from the pressure of that glowing, burning light that the symbols let off but he always stayed as long as he could. The symbols, he had been told, were of an ancient language older than time. It was called Enochian and Mr. Snow had called it the last power. It was the only thing that could keep and subdue those spirits, who, like Annie; were bound by no physical trappings.

"But there is only progress now in this world. The world is only moving forward and forward and we must go with it," Hal announced like he was giving one of his speeches but there was no podium here. There was no microphone or propaganda to make him seem larger than he actually was. There was only his voice so small and weak as he tried not to say 'even if what we progress towards is the edge of a cliff'.

"I had a hard time finding anything more than Earl Grey. Nobody's really making Strawberry Kiwi anymore," he noticed the way she shifted, wiggled in her seat at the mention of that particular flavor of herbal tea like someone had poked her with a sharp stick. "I suppose we folk don't very much appreciate the taste."

That's what they called themselves now, the vampires. People hardly ever used the world "vampire" anymore. In polite circles it was never heard. Instead they referred to themselves in the plural sense, as a whole "we folk" and "we people" as if to say that they were only ones who were really people. Only they were real people. Everyone, everything else was just cattle or canon fodder. Except Annie, of course. Annie was the only thing that mattered to him now, not the Agenda or World Domination, not even blood which had ruled his entire existence for as long as he could remember matter so much as a little ghost locked in a stone box and wrapped in gray. He'd never let them take Annie. Never Annie.

Annie's reaction to his words emboldened him. He approached faster now crossing the room with shoulders squared. He only paused as he passed the tall bookshelf where he kept all the gifts and trinkets he brought Annie from his travels he placed the box of tea carefully amongst the other boxes. For a full twenty seconds he straightened the little blue box, stood back to look at it only to lean back in and straighten it some more. When he was satisfied, Hal kept walking until he passed her all together to look out the one window in the room. He slipped the iron key into his pocket then turned to look at her.

"I should be around more now," he chirped conversationally. He even cracked a smile like he used to, a small, uncertain, painful smile but Annie gave him nothing in return. "We just finished shutting down a rebel group's camp that has been giving us trouble."

Her lip twitched when he mentioned the rebels. For a second, he saw just the smallest movement of her bottom lip and the passing shadows cast by the artificial light outside the window creating light impressions around her mouth as a frown began to form. It was a cheap ploy. He knew she was starved for information about the rebel groups but no one ever came to visit her except for Hal and Mr. Snow. And Mr. Snow never told her anything she wanted to hear. To be fair neither did Hal. He only ever crawled down there like a dog on his belly to the gilded cage where he kept a sad little ghost so that he could whisper his terrible stories of war and revolution. Most times he only ever ended up unloading his bleak soul to her like some wicked sinner to a priest. Annie never did much when either man visited. She only stared straight ahead out her only window and pretended she was alone.

"I know what you're thinking," Hal said taking a place beside and glanced out the window again. They were three stories underground but the window looked out on what seemed to be a flourishing garden but if one had looked close enough and as long as Annie had it would become obvious that it was mere fabrication. The lights the shone down were artificial although they would dim and go out. Then smaller, softer light would shine over the scene filled with plastic plants, artificial grass that would never grow, never die. Annie could not help but feel that they were just as trapped as she was in their fabricated Eden.

"You're thinking about Tom and whether or not we've found him yet or little Eve."

Hal watched her closely then hoping to see her crack, fracture just the tiniest bit. He knew, he just knew she had spent every moment of the last few years waiting for them to come save her. Hal knew that she thought about them every single moment and never spared a second for him. It wasn't that he was jealous except for the fact that he was. Hal was very, very jealous.

"I'm sure you'll be quite pleased to know we haven't found them yet," Hal said in a clipped and quick tone. "Which just means we haven't killed them yet."

Had Tom ever brought her tea? Would Eve have even bothered to send her postcards from every single city he had been to? Would either of them have done half of what he did for her. The answer was no. Damn right they wouldn't have done that for her. No one took better care of Annie than Hal did. That of course was a lie. Hal was a bastard and a liar.

Once again they came to silence. Hal continued to look out onto the gray city below and Annie thought about her little girl and Tom and how much she wanted to see them. How much she missed them.

"Annie," Hal crooned his voice was honey but there was something beneath the sweetness, a glittering sharp desperation. "Don't you want to see what I brought you?"

He looked down at her. Her curls had gone limp and lifeless and her clothing, a reflection of the state of her soul, was heavy and cloak like. She was all wrapped up in herself. She wore herself like armor.

"I brought you tea. See I've put it there on the shelf besides the rest."

Sure enough on the shelf was a whole assortment of things, not just tea. There was tea of course. An old box covered in dust sat at back pushed up against the back read "Strawberry Kiwi" in cheery bright lettering. It was obviously the oldest, covered in dust and surely spoiled but he wouldn't remove it and Annie never threw it away. There was a great variety Green, Jasmine, Chai, White, Oolong so many in fact that they filled nearly two shelves. Some of them had come from the furthest corners of the world, places Annie had never even heard of. All of them were neglected and ignored. Above the shelves of tea there was an array of postcards with pictures of all of the different places that Hal had been on his tours of the world, spreading the good news. Among postcards were some trinkets that Hal had picked up here and there for her arranged immaculately so that each one could be seen and appreciated. Then all alone on the highest shelf, almost out of view was one lone picture framed in a plain wooden frame. It was of two people, a man in glasses and a blonde woman with their arms swung over each other's shoulders. But what was strange about the picture was the way they stuck their other arms out, up and over as though either of them were holding another person close.

It was the photo that Hal had focused his attention on when Annie spoke nearly startling him out of his skin.

"Why am I here?" the ghost murmured. Her voice was hoarse as though her throat were dry from lack of use. She had not spoken in over a year. But Annie no longer had a throat to be dry or otherwise, no cracked lips that could even ache as they wrapped around words that formed a question that had haunted her for years. It was all in her head, always in her head. She believed that it should hurt to speak and so it was.

Hal didn't respond. His face remained impassive save for his eyes which widened with either horror or astonishment or perhaps both.

"If I can't help Tom, if I can't take care of Eve, then what purpose do I serve?" she croaked her throat still aching but with each word her voice grew steadier, surer.

Annie vaguely understood the technicalities of why she was still there. It was the symbols that trapped her. They held some kind of magick that she could not break no matter how hard she tried.

Annie knew why the Old Ones wanted her around. Every so often Mr. Snow would pop in and ask her how she was doing and observe her. They wanted to know what she could do. But Annie would not show them anything. A ghost's power came from pure will as that was what they were made of and it seemed not even the symbols could not force her to do anything, only trap her, push down on her to make her small. They had tried torture but when that did not succeed in provoking her they began to lose interest. Snow came around less and less now and the others who had been there for the very first trials of but not Hal. Hal always came to see her.

"Why am I here?" she reiterated her voice trembling, rumbling like a clap of thunder or the ground just before an earthquake.

She looked up at him and at first he was out of focus. He was a blur, more of an apparition than even she was. It had been so long since she had focused her eyes on anything or anyone. Her eyes darted down to her own body, taking in the image of her hands, her thighs and torso wondering if she saw herself as blur if she would become a blur and then from a blur into a smudge and from there surely melting away into air would be an easy task. But she was out of luck. Her mind focused and her vision sharpened and Hal became real.

Hal was the definition of sharp. He wore a dark tailored three-piece suit with off-white pinstripes; on his feet were shiny black winkle pickers paired with smart charcoal socks. His dark hair was slicked back making him look smart and dangerous. His face was clear and fresh. Hal looked the part of poster-boy for the eminent revolution.

"You're here because I want you to be here," Hal said softly, almost tenderly. He felt like weeping. He crouched down beside her and placed his hands in her lap. He looked at his pale lifeless hands besides her lovely dark ones. He got down to his knees and lay his head on her thighs. "You're here because it is where you belong. With me."

Annie felt cold to him. She hadn't felt cold before back when he had first felt her at Honolulu Heights. Back when he was still sober but now Annie felt very cold and Hal felt like fire on Annie's skin. It was all of that borrowed blood burning up inside him.

"Oh Annie," Hal said moving his hands up to rest on her hips. "I still think about those days, those glorious days we all, Tom, Eve, you and I, spent in that little bed and breakfast. I wonder at how simple life had been before this war began. I marvel at how little we worried compared to how much we should have worried."

His fingers tightened, digging into her. He had the feeling of dipping his fingertips into cool water. She couldn't feel anything but she felt like she should.

"We were too busy trying to be normal," Hal said his ear to the soft fabric of her thigh but all he could feel was cold softness. Everything about her was so soft, so cold, illusory. "We were too busy trying to be human."

They stayed like that for a while. Hal closed his eyes hoping and hoping that he could melt into her. He wished he could learn how to be cold again.

Annie watched him for a while. He had mussed his hair, a few locks falling over his forehead, sticking to the skin. The shell of his ear was flushed pink and Annie raised a hand to it her fingers hovering just over the hot skin. But she dropped her hand to her side again. She turned her attention back to her plastic Eden and thought of a pink house, of Bristol.

"I can't let you go, Annie," Hal mumbled. "You know that don't you? I won't ever let you leave me. You can't ever go away, not to your friends on the other side and not to Tom and Eve. I won't ever let you go."

Annie believed him not just because she was certain that she no longer even had a Door but also because Tom and Eve were dead. They had been for a very long time. Mr. Snow had brought their heads to her as proof. He even asked her if she wanted to kiss them goodbye. That was the day she lost her voice. Hal had spent nearly two days with trying to figure out what was wrong before giving up. Snow had told her that Hal had thrown a tantrum that had cost nearly a hundred people their lives. And she had sat like a stone unable to feel anything sorrow or sympathy for those poor, lost souls. When Hal came to her still covered in blood, tears in his eyes, she couldn't tell if truly didn't know or if he was just in denial.

"It's just you and me, Annie," he said lifting his head hoping to catch her eye but she was gone again.

He put his head back down and tried to fall into her. Hal was amazed at how much it felt like he was hugging freshly fallen snow.

"Just you, me and all your boxes of tea."

Hey guys! As always your feedback and thoughts are appreciated

much love,
Bri