"...this was not the best time in the world to relive that particular memory."

"Your subconscious is a mean bastard." She let go of his hands with one of hers and pushed his hair away from his face. "You can't save everyone, puppy."

He swallowed and closed his eyes. "Apparently I can't save anyone."

Her jaw tightened, and she made a decision. Grabbing his face, she kissed him, full on the mouth.

For the barest instant, he returned the kiss, but then his eyes snapped open, and he recoiled. "Ange?"

"You've saved me," she said fiercely.

Puzzlement raced across his face. "From what?"

She kissed him once more, on the forehead this time. "Myself, and a life of narcissistic selfishness." She trailed her lips down his face and captured his mouth.

He held himself very still, and when she stopped, he said, "Then what's this?"

"This isn't about me. This is about you and what you need."

He closed his eyes again, and that smile that wasn't one ghosted across his features, making her heart clutch in her chest. "You can't heal me with your vagina, Ange. I need years of therapy, not sex."

She pushed him to his back and draped herself on top of him. "I'm not a trained therapist. However, I've been told I'm quite good at sex."

He rolled them back to their sides and rested his forehead on hers. "And I'm sure you are. But cheating on my wife is not going to make me feel like a man again, or whatever effect you're going for. In fact, pretty much the opposite."

She cheered inwardly, because asserting himself was exactly what he needed, and she'd known he wouldn't take her come-on lying down (in a manner of speaking). More than one way to flay a feline.

The door burst open and banged off the wall, and Perez charged in. "Angel!" He stopped short when he saw what she was doing.

She lifted a cool eyebrow, much calmer than she felt. "Aye?"

His gaze flitted around the room, and stopped on Ben. "What did you do to him?"

Her lip curled. "He's food, right? I treated him as such." She flipped the sirloin over, harder than she needed to. "Shame I couldn't bring myself to drain him."

He crossed his arms. "You don't have the right, this close to the moon."

"Which is why you came in here, coat billowing, to save the day?" She scooped the steak out of the pan and cut it up. "Had I been able to, you'd have been late. Just so you know to come sooner, next time." Not that there would be a next time. She was done with keeping wolves, once this was over.

She took the plate over to the bed. Ben had laid his head back against the headboard, and his eyes were closed. "Up, Ben. Food."

He twitched awake. "Smells good..." He picked up the fork, stabbed at a piece with a shaky hand, and missed. "Dammit."

"Here, let me."

"What's he doing here?" Ben asked, pointing at Perez's scowling form.

She popped a chunk of meat into Ben's mouth. "You missed his dramatic entrance?" Ben nodded, chewing, and she thought he must have been zoned pretty far out if he'd missed the door slamming open like that. She made a mental note to make him another steak as soon as he finished this one. One side of her mouth turned up. "He came to rescue you. From me."

Ben choked. She pounded on his back until his throat cleared, and he glared at her. "Might want to wait until I've swallowed to say something like that." He turned the glare to Perez. "Don't do me any fucking favors."

"What's happening with you, puppy? I need to know."

"I'm just--" He stopped. Tried again. "Seeing things that can't possibly be."

"Flashbacks? We can deal with those."

"No. Hallucinations, more like. I've had them before. Usually, they're things I don't want to see. This time, it's a mix of something I desperately want to see--but I desperately don't want to see it in this place. Because if she was here, under the power of the kind of vamp that'd be attracted to her--"

It came together for her. "You're seeing Janni."

"Yeah." The word was practically a sob.

"Oh, puppy." She leaned over his body and wrapped her arms around him. "She's not here."

"I know that. And I don't want her to be, believe me." The shakes had him again. "But I'm getting pulled in six directions at once."

"Shh." She gave him a push. "Here, scoot over, give me some room. That's it." She slid under the covers next to him and opened her arms, and he leeched onto her like he was coming home. She pressed her lips into his hair. "I've got you."

"Yeah."

"You should try to sleep. Because I know you're not getting enough, especially lately, and that isn't good for you either."

"Dreams have been bad. Dismembering and screaming and needles." Silence for a five-count. "If it was me they were doing it to, I could handle it. But it's you and Janni, and I can't deal when it's people I lo--" He stopped, swallowed. "People I'm close to."

He rested his forehead on hers. "You're good to me, Ange. And I need--" He stopped, closed his eyes, shook his head. "I need you to know that. You say you're not a decent person, but you are."

"What else do you need?" She brushed his hair away from his eyes.

He swallowed hard. He needed to feel something besides this black hole of despair he'd somehow fallen into, this wolfsbane net of pain that had wrapped itself around his heart and lungs so hard that he could barely breathe.

He needed Janni.

Ange nodded, as if reading his mind, although she wasn't putting a Thrall on him and she hadn't fed from him recently enough to reach in that way. "Och, I know. Come to bed, Ben. I can't give you...well. Her. But I can give you myself."

"Aw, Ange, no..."

"It's all I have."

"Hey." He crushed her to him. "No, it's not, okay?" he said into her hair. "You're shortchanging yourself and being unfair to both of us. I'm lucid enough to realize that much."

"Then what?" Her voice broke. "What can I do for you?"

"You've done so much already, you don't even know. Trust me. Keeping my mind from snapping up to now can't have been easy, for god's sake." And watching him fall to pieces was probably even harder. He needed to keep a tighter grip on his sanity.

He wished he knew how.

She dropped her head to his shoulder. "Oh, god, puppy, we're both of us lost."

She swallowed deeply, and she made sure he enjoyed it. One pint. Two. His arms around her loosened as he lost strength. "I...Ange? What..." They fell, slack, to his sides. She massaged his shoulders and continued to suck.

"Shh." More drinking. Her tears were soaking his neck. She'd taken a lot, now--

And she pushed herself off.

Bloody hell. She buried her face in the pillow and cried.

"Mmph." Ben rolled onto his side and flopped his arm across her back. "Ange? What...what was that? What's the matter?"

Her voice was muffled in the pillow. "They said no."

"Did they." His fingers combed through her hair, very slowly, while his heart audibly banged in his chest, way too fast. "And so, that was you..."

"Trying to kill you, aye." She pounded her fist on the bed. "And I couldn't do it."

"A for effort...I guess." Breathing. "Feels like you...about half-succeeded..."

"I'm sorry, puppy. Oh, god. I'm so selfish."

"Well, you know. They'll put me back on the table. And my mind will go. And then it won't be me anymore." His hand never stopped stroking her hair. "You can kill what's left."

She rolled over and sobbed into his chest, while he shushed her, weakly, and tried to make her feel better about...not killing him.

Oh, god.

"Oh! Oh, Benji, no..."

He'd been here for six weeks. Even strapped to the table, with all of his buttons being pushed at once, he'd never cried, she'd noticed. He'd fallen apart on her plenty of times, when the triggers got pulled too often, when the nightmares got too bad, when the whole situation just hit him too hard at the wrong time. None of that had been enough to wring a single tear from his eye.

And now he was coming to pieces in her arms. She'd caused this. She'd tried to make it better and only made it worse. This utterly abandoned weeping was horrifying.

She rolled them so his head rested on her chest. Petting him, kissing his hair, trying to soothe him, although he wouldn't be soothed. "It's all right. Let it out, puppy. I've got you."

He finally wound down, after over an hour. The shakes still had him, though, and his eyes were squeezed shut. He hadn't relaxed at all. If anything, he was more tense than when they'd started. He lay across her, and she could feel the effort he was making to breathe normally.

"I still want you to kill me."

Her unbeating heart clenched in her chest. "I won't."

"I know." More breathing. He calmed, marginally.

"Makes a lady feel insecure, aye, when a man has a reaction like that."

"This is the part where I say it's not you, it's me."

"Do I need to hide the silver?" She was going to anyway.

"No." A few seconds of silence. "But if you slipped, or something, when you fed from me next time, and took too much, or nicked an artery? I'd forgive you."

Ben awakened with a gasp, and she was right there for him, holding his hand. "Oh, god," he panted between clenched teeth. "Ange--"

"I've got you, puppy." Knowing how much mental agony he was in was nearly worse than seeing the physical pain. "You have to let me help you with this."

"Not--not doing...too good..."

"Look at me, Benji. For god's sake. Let me take this from you."

"Hate...the Thrall. Losing...bits of...myself..."

"Hate this worse." She squeezed his fingers. "Remember what it was like before. You'll lose more than bits this time. Saints preserve us, Ben, do it for me if not for yourself."

"Didn't know...you cared."

"Course I do, you idiot, if I didn't I wouldn't be here, aye?"

His eyes slid shut, and his breathing eased somewhat from its terrified huffing. "Not as bad...with you here. Easier."

"Let me make it easier still."

"Not...not yet. Can still stand it." A pained not-smile ghosted across his face. "You got me pants."