Time can bruise

violent indigo

rush home to your arms

you soothe my weary soul

-Jewel

"I Won't Walk Away"

~Audrey and Jeremy~

Chapter 1

One hundred times he would crawl through the streets, stuck in his thoughts like residue on a pan from last night's dinner. Another one gone. She had left just a few hours back, her crayon-red hair flying out the window of her black 'econobox' car. Now Jeremy was alone. He always had been, in reality. He didn't mind. Even when he had been alive, he enjoyed the quiet. And now, he was never as comfortable around other people as he was by himself. It seemed as though fate were trying to remind him of his general bad luck with other people. He could remember quite clearly every companion he'd ever had throughout the cold dark tunnel of immortality. He did have plenty of time to reminisce, Jeremy mused, as he wandered through the complex web of streets in Boston. He knew every one by smell, as he should, from having been born, raised, having died, then living his undead life in the town. Whenever he left the city, Jeremy felt as though he was missing a limb. He could freely wander about its dark streets and never worry that he would get lost.

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"I'm home," Audrey said raggedly when she walked into her apartment, late from a violin practice. She, as usual when returning from a violin practice, was extremely tired. Mrs. Hutchins, her teacher, was a strict and firm woman, a widow in her late 50's. The lady had a firm belief that pushing someone to their limits made them improve faster. Audrey had to admit this was true, but it didn't stop her from frequently wishing it weren't. Her mind was still spinning a bit from the conversation she'd had earlier with the teacher. It had occured when Audrey was learning a new piece, an etude which required every bit of effort and technical skill she could put forth, and more. She was finishing the final bar of it, which she could hear was riddled with errors, when she'd put her violin down in frustration. "I can't do it!" she'd cried out, nearly in tears. The day had already been long enough. She'd failed a test, and was not looking forward to telling her 'mother' about it, and had been dumped by her boyfriend, Carl. He was a sensitive type, an indie rocker who took to crooning out his feelings on his guitar.

Audrey had thought he was a sweet guy a few months back when he asked her out. She didn't get asked out very often, so when she saw the chance, she took it. The reason for the break-up? "You're just not there for me emotionally." What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Asking Audrey to master an impossible etude called "Studies in E Minor" had just been too much. She hated etudes, anyway. They were tuneless, emotionless songs (if they even deserved to be called that) that were developed to help students learn new techniques. After Audrey's declaration, Mrs. Hutchins had just sighed and taken a seat beside her. "You know, I hate it when kids say 'I can't do it,'" the woman had said, disappointment in her quiet green eyes. Audrey looked away. Mrs. Hutchins somehow always had the ability to make her feel guilty when she had done nothing wrong. "You have a gift, Audrey," Mrs. Hutchins said, with sudden fire and passion. Audrey looked up in surprise. Surely this was part of her standard speech to make discouraged kids feel better, as many of Mrs. Hutchins other students were more technically advanced than Audrey. She stared pointedly at the familiar soft floral print of the blanket casually thrown over Mrs. Hutchins's sofa across the room. "You're just saying that," she said dispritedly. Mrs. Hutchins peered into Audrey's eyes, forcing the girl to look her in the face. "No, I mean it," the woman said forcefully. "You have a gift. You feel the music, understand the emotion it is trying to express. That's incredible in a young musician." Audrey couldn't believe her ears. This was surely the most glowing praise anyone had ever recieved from Mrs. Hutchins. Abruptly changing the tone, Mrs. Hutchins said, "Now let's get back to work on the etude, shall we?" Audrey had been too stunned to say anything but yes.

Now, after a half an hour more of practice and a long walk back home in the misty drizzle of Boston, the effect of Mrs. Hutchins's praise had worn off. Audrey was cold and tired as she stepped in the door, mentally fortifying herself for the inevitable yell, lecture, and grounding from her foster mother, Kerry, on her failed test. Not that it really mattered that she would get grounded, Audrey thought dismally. It wasn't as though she had a social life. Even before they had broken up, her and Carl hadn't ever gone on dates, because both of them were always broke. Kerry was reading on the couch when Audrey first came in. She shook her hair dry and set her violin case by the door, which squeaked as she shut it behind her. "You're late!" Kerry said accusingly. "I don't want you stopping on the way back to talk to any boys, you hear?" Audrey had to chuckle inwardly at Kerry's notion of her talking to a boy on the street. No matter how long Kerry had known Audrey, it seemed that the woman would never really know her. And it did seem as though she had lived with Kerry forever, although she knew better.

Her parents had died in a plane crash when she was four, and she had immediately been sent to a foster home. The McClellans, a family with six kids, had figured there would be no harm in adding one more, and had volunteered to take her in. They were nice enough people, living in the hill country of Texas, but they hadn't adopted her, so she had been shuffled to Kerry, an unmarried woman in her forties who said on her profile that "she had always longed for kids." The way she treated Audrey, like an immense burden, proved otherwise. In the stark quiet of Kerry's apartment, Audrey sometimes felt herself wishing for the happy chaos of the McClellan home.

"Stand up straight, don't slouch so much," Kerry barked at her. "Get your hair out of your face!" Audrey felt suddenly overwhelmed. "Can't you just say something nice for a change?" she cried, on the verge of becoming hysterical after her long day. Kerry's look softened almost imperceptibly. "I worry when you're out so late! It's for your own good, anyway." Audrey stormed to her room, taking almost no notice of Kerry anymore. She was certainly not showing Kerry the test grade, not now. Perhaps never. She could raise her grade, after all. Audrey just barely resisted slamming the door after her. She knew that Kerry thought that door-slamming was childish, but also extremely disrespectful. Slamming a door could mean getting grounded for a very good amount of time.

In her room, Audrey mentally scolded herself for overreacting. Now Kerry would be harsh on her all night. She took a deep breath to stabilize herself, and took a look around her room. Audrey's room was small and simple, even though she spent a large portion of her time (too much, Kerry thought) in it, reading, sleeping, doing homework, or just staring out the window. The walls were bare and cream-colored, and she had a closet, a bookshelf, one twin bed, and a desk in her room. Her favorite part of her room was the window. On warm summer nights, she would open it and watch the cars go by in the street below her. Not this night, though, with her mind troubled and uncomfortably full and the weather outside horrible. Audrey hurled herself onto her bed and shut her eyes, and wished in vain for someone to love her, really love her, like she felt she deserved to be loved.

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Jeremy stopped his restless wanderings at a street corner lit by a dim and flaring lamp. It shed its meager light on an abandoned restaurant across the street. The old place, a deli, served fine hot sandwiches, Jeremy recalled, in the 50's and 60's. A fire had destroyed it in 1968, and no one had bothered to rebuild it. A sad 'For Sale or Lease' sign was slumped on the place where the sidewalk met the door. As though someone would buy a ruined building, but Jeremy had to admire the optimism behind the sign. It was the perfect place for a vampire like himself to hide from the uncomfortable light of day. Most likely, since it was only 10 at night, any vamps who were using it were out hunting. When they returned before dawn, they would find Jeremy. He was one of the city's older residents, and older vampires could easily scare younger ones off. He just had to hope that whoever was using it was not older or more powerful than he was. Jeremy shoved the thought out of his mind. He didn't have the energy to deal with it at the moment.

Jeremy climbed through a precarious hole in the door and stepped inside. The black tattoo of burn marks was scribbled like graffiti all throughout the building. He explored a bit mindlessly, looking for a nook in which he could sleep undisturbed, also looking for signs that the place was inhabited. He saw a glass bottle or two, shattered on the floor, and a ratty blanket, and he could smell blood in the air and could see spots of it, dried on the ground. Jeremy could smell it was old, though. All in all, the place had been inhabited, but not recently, and there were certainly no signs of anyone current living there.

Unbidden, his thoughts turned towards the woman who had left him earlier in the night, and of all the women he had known throughout his long years. One of the things he hated about his race, was that they simply didn't understand the concept of love. Pure, giving love, not lust. Jeremy knew that he was considered a sentimental fool among his race, but he couldn't help his yearning for it. Among the people he'd known along his long years, his sire, Elizabeth, always stood out of the rest. She was extremely beautiful, with her long curls of blond hair and eyes as blue as the ocean but with the edge of a knife. She was born in 1654, the daughter of an English colonist, had been considered a witch by her Puritan community. The day before she was to be executed for crimes she did not commit, a handsome rogue vampire turned her. Elizabeth spent her vampiric days turning young men and breaking their hearts. However, Jeremy was an exception. Elizabeth didn't simply turn him, then an eager young bluecoat soldier in the revolution against the British oppresors. She sired him. "I could never leave you, for you are my childe," she had said, remembering how her own sire had left her. Of course, that was the day before she was killed. A group of young vampire hunters, called Blood's Enemy, had shot her in the heart.

They had been walking toward Helmsman's Pub in the heart of the city, when the black arrow hit her. She looked at Jeremy, who was helpless to stop her death, and fell to the ground. Elizabeth began decaying where she fell instantly, in the manner of the vampires, and was completely gone within a few minutes. A sickening process to watch. He'd seen it happen to other vamps, of course, but he'd never dreamed that it could happen to his dear sire. It wasn't until she was gone that Jeremy realized there had been no other arrows. Whoever had done it was an assassin, and had been stalking her and planning for weeks, perhaps months. After that, Jeremy went through a revenge stage, anything to keep him busy and not thinking about the raw pain of Elizabeth's absence. He captured a few hunters, (that was where he learned which group had killed her) but he never managed to find the exact person who did it. He let it drop after a decade or so of searching.

He could remember others, call up sketchy pictures of people he'd turned or sired to keep him company, who had later been killed or more likely had left him. Caroline, a Southern belle he'd found in Virginia, in one of the rare instances he'd left Boston. Eve, a protester in the 1910 "Votes for Women" campaign. And many others. And tonight, Hope had left him. She fiery, had a gift with singing, and a spirit of independence. She had wanted free of him, like most of the others.

Though he certainly had enjoyed all of their company, none had come close to the kind of affection Elizabeth and him had shared. No one could fill the hole she'd left in him. Maybe it was time to try something different. He would find someone new, of course, rather than die of the unbearable loneliness that so often afflicted his race. Jeremy would look for someone, but not in his usual fashion. He would take his time, let his intuition guide him. And maybe this time, it would be different.

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Author's Note: What do you think? Should I continue?