Caerwyn bent and kissed Curse lightly on the forehead.

Goodnight . . . Verity.

When he was sure she was asleep, he climbed up on the bed instead of going to the window. He lay down beside her feet, curling up like a pale puppy, drawing his cloak around him. It took a long time for him to fall asleep. Whenever he closed his eyes he could see flames rising around a frightened Gwendolyn. She was crying out for him to save her, but he could not move. He could do nothing but watch her burn, tears streaming down his cheeks.

He buried his face in the blankets and wept.

----

"I suppose not," Thomas said, frowning slightly. Then he sighed and sat down on the bed, looking up at his half-sister. "Elisabeth? Do you think we're doing the right thing? I mean, in helping the anti-unnatural movement here. I know all the ones we've seen so far haven't been exactly 'good,' except maybe that girl, Katie. But, I mean, what if there are others like her? Ones that don't want to hurt us?"

P.S."Brooklyn!"

Unsure of whether Margaret's words were cryptic warning or advice, Kes simply nodded in silent response. She supposed that Margaret knew exactly what she was doing when it came to handling Loren, even though Kes would never understand how she could.

Something glittered on the floor, nearly hidden beneath the bed. Distracted by the sudden shine, Kes knelt down, crawling forward to retrieve the trinket which must have fallen when she had demolished the bedding. A small box pendant hung from a simple gold chain.

It was the same one she had been wearing in the dream, but she had no memory of ever wearing it before... Remembrance, followed by a slight smile, flared as she fingered the necklace. He was always hiding things, shiny objects, within plain view. Every time she had snitched one thing, something else would just appear in another place. After awhile she had caught on to the silly game, but kept quiet for sentimentality's (and her empty pockets') sake.

A lump rose in her throat, realizing that she would have found this if she hadn't- Kes choked on the fact that he had been telling her the truth. How she had used him, left him first. He hadn't lied to her. Destroyed him. Trembling, she tried to reach out- to find him but the thread kept drifting farther away every time she came close to grasping it.

A frustrated whimper broke her concentration. "I didn't mean-" she started, but even an admission didn't seem to be enough. Tears dripped free as she failed to repress the eruption of emotion, her fist clenching as she broke down into sobs.

Ruth looked down at the vampire's prone body, not trusting his helplessness at all, though she was sure Raine had done her job correctly. Snapping, Ruth waited for two hefty goons to lift and transport the vampire inside.

"Thank you," she offered, handing over an envelope, thick with money. "Here's your payment. I'll contact you again should I need anything else," she offered and then sauntered back into the building without another glance at the bounty hunter.

Entering the warehouse again, she directed the men to take the vampire to the laboratory that had been set up. Once he was secure, she went to inform Hook.

---

"Well they don't just kill all the Unnaturals," Elisabeth reasoned as more of her hair tumbled down, "But most are vampires or werewolves. They can't be trusted to have those kind of powers. You don't see vampires on the front page for saving children from burning buildings just for sucking the blood out of innocents."

---

Margaret frowned. What she was picking up from Kes's memories was confusing and disjointed. Loren had certainly done quite a job in restructuring her past. Frustrated, Margaret gave up on getting answers altogether and turned her attention to the fractured emotions of the vampire sobbing on the floor.

Slowly, Margaret knelt beside the younger woman and drew her close, wrapping her arms around Kes in a frigid though motherly embrace.

Thomas thought about that for a moment. He could see Elisabeth's point, but something was nagging at him.

"What if there are good vampires? Ones that don't drink human's blood but are too frightened to make themselves known?"

He could not think of there ever being such vampires, but he had to believe there could be. Everyone had a chance to be good or evil, did they not? Who was to say vampires could not have that choice?

P.S."Brooklyn!"

Hook had occupied himself with a whiteboard in the adjoining room from the laboratory. He muttered to himself as he furiously scribbled equations that passed his lips, making sense only to him, pausing to overview them every few seconds.

His brow creased in a permanent frown as he waited for Ruth to return with instructions. Movement coming from the other room through the mirror distracted him momentarily. He turned to see two men who were carrying a third.

Trying his hardest to block out the rising dread, Hook turned back to his work, but failed to focus when he glimpsed the face of the invalid man.

Eslatar. The marker dropped to the floor.

"If there really were they could just move somewhere else," Elisabeth answered, not thinking that really answered the question, "Besides there can't be a single vampire that hasn't had human blood at least once and that's a crime."

---

Ruth raised an eyebrow at Hook as she entered the room he stood in. "Are you ready?" she asked, looking between him and the scene laid out in the room next door.

"It's not like they can really help it . . . why don't we try offering alternatives instead of just persecuting them?" Thomas asked, thinking that if he were a vampire, he would want people to try and help him, not lock him up or deport him somewhere where he would most likely starve to death.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

Somehow, somewhere between crossing from one room to the next, Hook lost all confidence in his ability to do what he had been asked to do. So he stalled.

He was quite good at stalling when he needed to be. Most of his current stalling tactics were actually necessary for what he was supposed to be doing, but he preformed them each more than once which served to increase his efforts.

For the next few hours, he ran every test that he could think of that would be beneficial to the experiment without administering the actual experiment. Scans were plastered across the screens, wires hooked up, plugged in, broadcasting data; however, Hook couldn't bring himself to move any further in his work.

He didn't understand what was hindering him from progressing. He wanted this to work, didn't he? Why should he care who the subject was? All of them were vile, vicious creatures. Eslatar was no different. Although as Hook stood there, arms folded, staring at the vampire's prone form in front of him, he couldn't help but think that even he looked just as helpless as any other would.

"I can see it now," Elisabeth replied, some of her old sarcasm creeping in again, "King Thomas the vampire friend." She turned and winked at Thomas before ushering him out the door, "You can do whatever you want with that power...when you get it."

---

Eslatar started to wake, feeling the same groggy feeling that an over-strong dose of Satin's garlic-tainted drinks used to. He began to remember what had happened moment by moment, ending with his capture by the bounty hunter.

Turning his head slightly as his vision came into focus, the vampire could see he was strapped down securely in what looked to be some kind of lab. His eyes bore in on the figure standing nearby, a very familiar figure.

"Eslatar," Mr. T. had said a few days ago. "I have a job for you...it could be more chancy than anything we've tried before." He went on to explain that Pepper had been able to discover that Ruth's anti-unnatural group was looking for vampires to 'experiment' with.

Eslatar finally nodded, "Let's hope I have good odds."

"Somehow I didn't think it'd be you," Eslatar offered to Hook, torn from his memories by the pull of reality.

Thomas sighed as Elisabeth shoved him out of the room. He was not sure if Elisabeth had even been listening to a word he had said. The patronizing tone had come back entirely too soon for his liking. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He glanced at the living room where the Queen was ushering in several harried looking policemen, and then turned away, heading into his room to get some much needed rest.

----

Billy was finishing his dish washing for the day, polishing a silver plate until it shone his reflection back at him. He was just about to put it down, when suddenly a face appeared in the round plate. He almost dropped the dish in surprise.

"Prospero! Oh thank goodness I found you! I've been looking everywhere! This is the last place I'd expect you to be! Oh, but how wonderful to be back together again! You should have seen the way they treated me back at the camp! It was awful! Horrible! I knew I had to find you since you were the only one who ever loved me! Oh, and to see that you were okay of course. But I'm so happy to see you!"

"Lucetta!" Billy hissed. "Be quiet will you? Al-Katie will have my neck if I'm caught with you and we're branded as unnaturals. Just hush up for a moment." Glancing around furtively, he stuffed the plate into his shirt, doing his best not to feel guilty as he snuck outside the kitchen door and into the alleyway. Once he made sure no one had followed him, he took off running to the street he had told Katie he would meet her, holding tightly to the plate underneath his shirt.

Surprisingly, the plate did not utter a single word throughout the entire bouncy run.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

"I could say the same," Hook replied before thinking better of it. He looked away, his eyes drawn to one of the scans on the board. Scans of the brain, where emotion was housed, stimulated. "It's all for Emma," he announced suddenly, then wondered why he felt the need to justify his actions to the one who had caused all the trouble to begin with. "Everything is for her," he added quietly.

He looked back in Eslatar's direction, lost in his own thoughts as he spoke again. "Do vampires know love? Are they even capable of it? To care for someone so deeply that...even morality means nothing anymore if it means saving them." A diluted smile broke as he picked up the readied syringe but didn't move to use it.

After all this time, he finally realized that all of his feverish efforts to keep Emma safe, had in fact pushed her further away. He hadn't seen her, really seen her, in who knows how long and anytime he had...he hadn't been paying attention to her. He realized even more that she would be more than disappointed in his actions here- in him, if he continued. It would make him no better than Savage himself, the one who had really caused their troubles.

Hook glanced down at the vampire, searching for anything human that might remain. Something to dissuade his theory that nothing was left but a monster. An ally in a den of monsters, else... he was truly alone.

Eslatar resisted answering honestly. Telling Hook he could sympathize would not only ruin the mission but also create some feelings of friendship with a man Eslatar knew he would hate in just a short amount of time.

He finally smirked, fixing his eyes on the ceiling instead of on the other man. "I've been dead so long I hardly remember what love is...besides, there's a far stronger need pulling at me day and night." He paused, "What are you going to do to me?"

So that was it then... Hook stepped forward, rolling the back syringe back and forth across his palm, moving around the table that the vampire was held captive to. He glanced down at Eslatar once more without a trace of malice visible this time, replaced with mere pity. Such... sad creatures, to feel nothing.

"Nothing," he answered quietly in utmost simplicity as he set the needle on the tray. He wouldn't do anything- not anymore. He wouldn't turn into the monster that Emma had worked so hard to tame. Turning to leave, he cast one last look at the vampire before flinging open the doors that led out into the hallway and started to walk, shoes echoing down the corridor, lab coat fluttering behind.

He was going home.

"Sir?" Daniel inquired in sudden surprise as he came around the corner, causing Hook to come up short in his rebellious exit.

Hook gave his assistant a somewhat withering glare, before steeling his gaze. "Tell Ruth to find herself another cash flow," he informed Daniel shortly before shoving his way past the younger man.

Daniel gaped, then closed his mouth quickly as his professor disappeared around the corner. He swallowed, taking a few steps forward in order to catch up to the older man, persuade him to come back... but then turned, taking a few steps back towards the lab where the vampire was secured.

Ruth would be proud if he were the one to rid them of the vampires. Proud of him. He wanted so badly for her to be proud of something that he did.

Knowing most of the experiment from his time spent with Hook, he figured it wouldn't be too difficult to administer a simple drug. Straightening his spine, he strode for the lab with the purpose of doing exactly that; pushing open the door to face the vampire with a bold expression-

which might have worked if he hadn't tripped over his shoe lace, sprawling across the room. He caught himself on the tray next to the table, sending the contents flying except for the syringe which he fumbled with, but in the end did not drop. Righting himself quickly, Daniel readjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

He glanced down at the vampire, swallowing again as his nerves built under the red stare. He coughed, "Sorry about this," he offered with a weak smile, "It should just be a pinch," he added, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth as he slid the needle into Eslatar's jugular.

Emmaline came out of the bathroom, drying her hair as she walked across the bedroom to her side of the bed. She knelt beside it, dropping the towel as she pulled out the suitcase she'd had there for nearly a month. Why was it there in the first place? You can't really leave...what would Curse do? What would happen to him?

Sighing, she pushed the case back under the bed again, wondering if she kept it there just to see if Hook would ever notice. But he wasn't noticing much of anything these days. Slowly she got up, untying her bathrobe and laying out her pajamas to change.

---

Watching Hook go, Eslatar sighed, partially in relief. If he could leave now, get some of the research and take it with him, maybe Mr. T wouldn't be too disappointed that he hadn't actually tried the concoction. Gritting his teeth, he began to struggle with the bindings, knowing that it would take extra concentration to break them. Ever since his transformation to something other than wholly vampire, he'd had less strength at his disposal.

In the midst of these thoughts, Daniel entered. Eslatar knew him by face as one of Ruth's cronies but couldn't think of his name- though 'clutz' came to mind when the man tripped over everything. His struggles increased as he saw the man's purpose. His hand closed over the needle and Eslatar thrust out, only to be drawn back to the chair by the bindings force. He barely heard Daniel's words as the needle plunged into his neck.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Burning filled the spot where the liquid first entered and then multiplied faster and faster throughout his body. Every nerve was on fire- even those that Eslatar had assumed dead long ago. Hundreds of years of pain was nothing compared to this sudden agony.

Amidst the pain the vampire realized something in feral pleasure, his strength had suddenly returned- no not returned, doubled...tripled? The vampire wasted no time in ripping free from the constraints which broke now like strands of spider silk and fell to the ground.

He stood in front of Daniel, not showing heaving breath or panting form but perfectly unnatural in his silent, furious glare. Eslatar wasn't sure what was happening. All he could feel was the pain, now fading but leaving a burnt sense on ever part of him that it had touched. As it left it filled him with strange desires he'd once controlled with ease, but they had to wait.

Right now in his suddenly animal-like mind was one word Escape.

Daniel backed away from the risen vampire in a panic, losing his footing over the items which he had previously displaced. He stared from the floor at the monster that was now quite loose and quite...angry, he assumed. Pressed up against the far wall, all he could do was stare, shaking his head in disbelief.

"This was never in the research!" he gasped, finding some wit to reach behind him and slam the alarm button with a sweating palm, sending a klaxon blaring. Eslatar was supposed to die! Shrivel up into a rotting corpse or disintegrate into ash but not break free! Had Hook tricked him? Was this the plan all along?

Now Ruth wouldn't proud of him at all; she would be very disappointed- if both Hook and the vampire escaped. In fact, she might even be... mad.

Daniel shuddered. No one liked Ruth mad.

===

Hook kept walking, glancing up as the alarm sounded, but he didn't even think of turning back to investigate. He already knew what had gone wrong. Pages from his research, key ingredients to the experiment, were neatly tucked away in the confines of his basement lab at home.

Daniel would be smart enough to figure out the cause of his mistake, but there would be no way of reversing it without the missing pages.