She was woken the next morning by the smell of coffee and toast. Cranking her eyes open she could see Angelus, wearing nothing but soft pyjama pants, stirring something on the stove in the kitchen. There was a fine tracery of scars across his back, and a tattoo of a dragon curling it’s way around his torso, it’s head glaring from between his shoulder blades. His hair was loose from it’s customary bun, and reached his shoulders, dark and wavy. She took this all in at a glance and felt her face going red.

He turned, his eyes finding her, some sixth sense alerting him to the fact she was awake.

“Sleep well?”

“Put some clothes on!” it blurted out of her before she could stop it, mortified she clamped her hand over her mouth while he gave her an amused, very smug smirk,

“Too much for you, hmm?”

She pulled the blankets over her head and tried to erase the last minute from her mind, without success. How the hell did he manage to be so; she shook her head and breathed deeply, burying that thought.

A few minutes later he tugged the blankets off her head, this time fully dressed with his hair pulled back,

“Breakfast is ready, and I apologise for making you uncomfortable.”

She rolled out of the bed, and then hissed as she put weight on her sore ankle,

“Fffffff, isn’t being immortal supposed to make you heal faster?!”

Angelus had caught her elbow as she had staggered, and now helped her hobble over to the kitchen, settling her on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. The large pot of coffee, bowls of porridge and rack of toast made her mouth water in anticipation.

“Sometimes. Life threatening injuries heal fastest, the more superficial it is, the slower it heals,” he pushed a steaming bowl of porridge drizzled in syrup in front of her.

“That’s.. So stupid.. This coulda been life threatening, I mean, if you hadn’t been there, those.. Those things..” She noticed her hand holding the spoon was shaking and lowered it back to the counter-top, pressing the spoon down hard.

“Gretchen”

She glanced at him, “what?”

“If you allow yourself to dwell on the might have beens, you will drive yourself crazy.”

She picked the spoon up again and jabbed it at the porridge, “you don’t say.”

He sighed. “This is not about who you were Gretchen, this is about how we deal with this situation now. I cannot have you falling apart imagining worst case scenarios because you are frightened, when I said I will protect you, I meant it.”

She stabbed at the porridge a few more times. “It’s just, I feel like I’ve been dumped into something I know nothing about, and you say you’ll protect me but I don’t even know you, not properly, I mean, how can I trust you, I spent my whole life not even trusting myself. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else, I want you to tell me how to protect myself.”

Angelus sighed again and poured two cups of coffee, sliding one over to her,

“It takes time Gretchen, I cannot magically impart everything you need to know. But I understand your reticence to trust me, the feeling is entirely mutual.”

“Oh great, you don’t trust me either, flipin marvellous, so now what genius?” She pushed the bowl away and wrapped her hands around the coffee cup, watching the surface jitter with her nerves.

“Right now, we eat. Later we can figure out if the Memsers are still lurking around and what has happened to Charles.” He sipped his coffee, his eyes on her, “trust takes time Gretchen, but I do not give my word lightly and I believe you are a person I too will be able to trust, in time.”

She sighed, put down the coffee and pulled the bowl back, eating slowly, “Memsers? Is that the memory stealers?”

“Yes.”

“And there are more, like, more as in every myth and legend I’ve ever heard about is probably based off some weird horrible thing that’s out there somewhere?”

“Has every myth you’ve read been about hostile creatures?”

“Nn..no?”

He smiled at her, “then what makes you think everything out there is hostile? Yes, they all see humans as prey, but we are not exactly human any more, and not all predation is the same, some is basically harmless.”

“..what?! Prey? When were you going to tell me about this?” she slid the stool back and lurched to her feet, swearing as again she forgot her sore ankle. Angelus reached out a hand and grabbed her stool, pushing her back down on it.

“When I thought you could handle it, which was not now, you were supposed to be given time to adjust to being immortal before you got introduced to everything else.”

She buried her face in her hands, “Great.. Bloody.. Just.. God..I wanted to cure the nightmare world I was living in, and look how good a job I did, now I get to live with real nightmares, not just delusional ones, sometimes I wonder if this is even real.”

His voice was sombre, “quite real I can assure you Gretchen,” he shifted closer, taking her wrists and gently pulling her hands away from her face. “I know this is difficult, overwhelming, right now, but it will get better.”

“Said by someone who’s had, what, five hundred years to get used to this shit!” she could feel herself shaking and tried to pull herself out of his grip. Releasing her wrists he leaned back

“Like I said, it was not meant to happen this way.”

“So why did it? Huh? Why me?”

He frowned at her, “I would not take it personally Gretchen, clearly something has made certain factions of the Nethers believe that breaking the accords will not cost them in any way.”

“So just bad timing? That’s all?”

Angelus sighed and swirled his coffee, “No, they were after you specifically, so not just bad timing. You are the newest and as such the most vulnerable of us immortals, I doubt they counted on me being able to fight back.” He swallowed the last of his coffee and placed the cup back on the table, “as for why they are ignoring the accord, that I honestly have no answer to, but I’m worried that Charles’s disappearance is mixed up in it somewhere.”

“What do we do now then?”

“Nothing yet. As I said, first we must be sure the Mesmers have decided against stalking you any further.” He gave her a calculating look ,“how much weight are you able to comfortably carry?”

She blinked. “Uh, what? What do you mean?”

“Nethers don’t like iron, I could give you some of my old armour, it’s leather with iron rods stitched inside it, but it’s heavy, and with your sore ankle, I’m not sure it would not be more hindrance than help.”

“How much iron do I need to keep them away?” she spooned another mouthful in watching him butter a slice of toast.

“Depends on how strong the Nether is, Mesmers are more immune to iron than most, they don’t find it too troublesome to come into human cities, thankfully this warehouse is all steel construction and it’s too much even for them.”

“So you’re saying I’d probably need a full suit of plate armour for it to be effective?”

He smirked at her. “Basically, but having some iron on you will at least slow them down a little.”