A/N: Many, MANY thanks go out to alex-rocks4ever and Tracie [auntof3] for the beta for this chapter! *hugs*

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

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Link to Summary and Prologue

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Chapter 1: Tea and Confessions

He didn’t expect to hear from Beth anytime soon, so when Mick got a knock on his door a few days after the funeral and didn’t have the door camera on to see who was calling, he assumed it was the delivery men with the new bed he’d purchased. So he swung the door open wide and stood there for a moment, briefly in shock.

“Sorry to drop by unannounced,” Beth greeted him.

“No, don’t be,” he smiled at her. “I told you to come by if you needed anything. Is there something I can do?”

Her expression was timid and she stood ringing her hands in front of herself as if at the beginning of a first date. “Can I…come in?”

“Sure, of course,” he replied typically, allowing her to come inside so he could shut the door. “Can I…get you something? A drink? Water, iced tea, beer?”

She cracked a smile. “I see things have changed around here.”

“Yeah, you should see my ‘fridge,” he joked. “It’s full.”

“Iced tea would be nice,” she answered his question and they both moved in the direction of the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of the stuff packed into his refrigerator through the clear door and commented, “Wow, you weren’t kidding. You know, you should probably watch your weight.”

“I know,” he chuckled as he got out the container of tea and reached for a glass in an adjacent cabinet. “The first night, I ate like a pig. I ordered everything I could remember missing and ate it all in one sitting. Now I’m being more conservative and I’m still working out to ‘keep my figure’,” he teased and she laughed, reminding him of the most beautiful sound in the world. “I’m just afraid to crave something and be out of it, so I’m staying well-stocked.”

“That’s a good idea,” she assured him as he poured her a glass of tea and handed it to her. She then watched as he put the tea away and pulled a beer bottle from a six-pack in the refrigerator, opened it, and took a swig. “Looks like you’re starting to feel like your old self again.”

“Fifty years too late, yeah.” He took another sip and set the bottle down, leaning with both palms on the counter. “But I’m…guessing you didn’t come over to see how I’m handling mortality,” he mildly teased, lifting his eyebrows inquisitively.

“No,” she dropped her eyes and toyed with her glass. “I mean, I have been curious, but… What I really wanted to talk to you about was…Coraline.” She took a sip of her drink to help swallow down her anxiety.

“Coraline?” he parroted, just as there was another knock on the door. Beth’s expression didn’t mask her annoyance at being interrupted again – last time by Coraline herself – but he assured her with a palm raised, “I’m having a bed delivered. It’s probably them.”

“Oh,” she perked up a bit, and leaving her tea, she followed him to the front door.

Sure enough, three burly, sweaty men in jeans and t-shirts bearing their company’s name came in with a king-sized bed frame and mattress set. Mick instructed them to take it upstairs and then followed them, with Beth trailing interestedly. The gray door that Mick had humorously warned her about in the past was wide open…and the freezer she knew he kept there was gone. The bedroom where he’d had workout equipment and a big screen TV and a recliner all spread out was now pushed off to the side or stowed away somewhere. Beth wondered if his walk-in closet was just as packed full of stuff as his refrigerator.

She stood back and watched as the bed was put together; the headboard and railings were attached; the plastic was torn off of the mattress and box-springs, and the room began to look homey. When they were through, Mick signed a paper on their clipboard and thanked the delivery men. He walked them to the stairs and made sure they got out okay, and then came back to the newly furnished, appropriately-named bedroom and stood beside Beth to take it in.

“Your freezer’s gone,” she revealed that she’d noticed and Mick smiled.

“I gave it to Josef. You know, since he has to start over with a new name and place.”

She turned her head to look up at him and smiled. “You have a regular apartment now.”

“I know,” he grinned back. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“No,” she surprised him. “It’s normal. And you do deserve it.” She focused on the bare mattress again. “Do you have sheets?”

“Yeah, I bought some after I got the bed.”

“Go get them. I’ll help you make it,” she proposed.

“Oh no,” he waved away her offer. “I’ll do it later. You wanted to talk.”

“We can talk while we work.”

Since she was so insistent and he was anticipating having his bedroom completed, Mick gave in and retrieved the sheets and comforter from his closet. He shook out the freshly laundered, new fitted sheet from its folds and Beth rounded the bed, catching the other side.

As they worked to fit the sheet over the corners of the mattress, he began, “So, what did you want to know about Coraline?”

She took a moment to answer. “Not much. I mean, obviously, she was the one that gave you the cure. But, uh… Where did she go after that?”

Mick’s memory ached for his former wife. “She was taken back to her family by her brother. I assume they’re going to punish her.”

Beth’s head shot up. “Punish her? For what?”

“For bringing me into the bloodline without their permission.”

“I don’t understand,” she shook her head.

He picked up the flat sheet and shook it out as well. “Coraline was part of a royal bloodline, including King Louis the Sixteenth.”

“What?” she asked incredulously.

Since he could see the curiosity in her eyes, he went ahead with the long story Coraline had told him about the infamous Reign of Terror, how the temporary human cure she’d shared with him had been stolen from her brother, and how desperate Lance was to get it back. When he was through, Beth still stood dumbfounded, taking it all in.

“Wow, I would’ve never known…”

“Neither would I,” he admitted. “And when Coraline first told me the whole story, she left out that she was part of the family.”

“And you never knew this? Not when she first turned you?”

“Not until the night she cured me.”

She absorbed that as well, bending down to straighten the sheet on her side. Mick busied himself by taking the new comforter out of its bag. “Was there more you wanted to know?” he asked without looking up.

“Yeah, I, uh…” She grasped the other edge of the blanket as he shook it over the bed and set to work by putting it in place as she talked. “Is… Is she coming back?”

“I…I doubt it. Why do you ask?”

She temporarily avoided the question by asking him if he had pillows and waiting for him to come back with those and the cases. But once they were working across the bed from each other again, he didn’t allow the subject to drop. “Why do you want to know if Coraline is coming back?”

“I guess I… I just want to know…if she’s mad at me. You know, for what I did to her.”

Mick’s face scrunched curiously, and he wondered if that was really what she was going to say. “No, I don’t think she is. I think she’s more afraid that you still hate her for kidnapping you as a child.”

“No. I don’t,” Beth blinked, and the information surprised Mick, if only slightly. “If she hadn’t,” she paused as she set the pillow in place on her side, “I wouldn’t have met you.”

She didn’t hear any reaction from him so she looked up to see if she could tell what he was thinking from his expression. But he was momentarily speechless and was just staring at her with an incredible warmth coming from his eyes. “I’m not going after her,” he spoke finally, as if relieving her from having to ask that question as well. “Her fate is her own.”

“But I thought you still loved her.”

“I did once. I don’t anymore. I haven’t really loved her since she turned me,” he confessed. “Yeah, we had passion and there were good moments, but they aren’t enough to keep me committed to her forever. She knew that when she gave me the cure.”

“So, even if she were here…”

“Coraline and I will never be together again,” he vowed, making the statement final. Then he repeated the question she hadn’t truly answered, “Why do you want to know?”

Beth made her way around the foot of the bed to slowly walk past him, crossing her arms on her chest, and keeping her back to him as she talked and pretended to find interest in a modernist painting on his wall. “Remember when I told you that if Josh had proposed, I wouldn’t have known how to answer?”

“Yes,” he spoke with bated breath. What was she getting at?

“Th-the reason I-I…I…didn’t know was because…he wasn’t the man I…I wanted,” she struggled to get out. “There’s been someone else for months.”

“Who?” Mick found himself asking, praying to any god out there that there wasn’t a third man vying for her love.

“I just didn’t know how to end things with Josh,” she went on, ignoring his question. “We had so much history, and I really did love him for most of that time. It’s just that things had changed.”

“Beth,” he felt a bit more empowered. “Who is it?”

She lifted a hand and rubbed at her eyes. “I shouldn’t be doing this. Josh was going to propose to me, and he’s barely cold in the ground, and I’m already trying to move on to someone else.”

His heart was pounding now, and it didn’t even occur to him that it was a new sensation in his now mortal body. “I think that’s what he’d want, Beth. As long as you were happy.” He moved a foot closer to her and repeated quietly but with a touch more firmness and empathy, “Who is it?”

She continued to avoid answering his question. “I wouldn’t even be saying anything, except the words that damn priest said at the funeral keep pounding in my head. ‘Our time is limited. Make the most of the time we are given.’” She sighed. “I know the timing is right on the one hand, but on the other,” she took a breath, “it seems selfish and insensitive to Josh’s memory.”

Instead of protesting what she was saying, Mick understood her perfectly. “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

She lifted her head to the right so that he could see the side of her face. “You have?”

He nodded, moving toward her side by a few steps. “And not just about Josh, but Coraline too. She gave me this gift of mortality – even though it’s temporary – to me out of love. And I don’t even feel all that guilty that I’m using the time I have for selfish reasons instead of going to search for her as repayment.”

“Selfish reasons?”

“Love,” he stated simply. “Sharing my love with…another woman.”

She hesitated asking, but did so softly, “A-anyone I know?”

He smiled, knowing that she couldn’t be that clueless. “Very well. She changed my life when I found her twenty-two years ago.”

Their gazes locked, Mick noticed when the tears began to form in Beth’s eyes. And try as she might, she was fighting a losing battle against them. She blinked to try to think rationally. “Isn’t it wrong, though, to trample on their memory?” she asked. “Shouldn’t there be a long period of mourning their loss to us?”

“I don’t know,” he almost whispered, full of emotion himself. “All I do know is that I’m afraid we’ll lose our chance if we wait. We have to do what Reverend James said and
make the most of the time we have. We can’t afford to dance around our feelings anymore, Beth. We don’t have that kind of time to waste. I’m sorry if it’s too soon, but I can’t stop the way I’ve felt for the past four months. I love you,” he added in one, final, breathless confession.

Frozen except for the tears, Beth stared at him unmoving. “What about the cure? How temporary is it?” she managed to get out, even though it appeared she was now trembling.

“It’ll live as long as I do. And as long as I have life, I want you in it.” He paused, keeping their distance so as not to overwhelm her because he knew he was about to with his words, while she finally reached up to dry her cheeks. “Marry me.”

Beth’s face paled and she stared blankly at him; wiping her tears had become a memory. “What?” she mumbled out in shock.

He closed the distance between them and reached out to grasp one of her hands with both of his. “I’ve been thinking about this the last few days and…I know it’s soon. But, the last few months, I’ve been so jealous of Josh’s presence in your life… Now that we have our chance, I want to marry you; I want you to be a permanent fixture in my life. I’m going to love you for the rest of our lives and for all of my eternity anyway and, if you love me too, why shouldn’t we spend what time we have together?” He realized that theirs were special circumstances and it also needed to be stated, “I won’t hold you to our commitment once I’ve turned back. It’ll take death to make me immortal again, and that would be a breach of our vows. I’d let you go; you’d be just as free as any other widow.”

She suddenly chuckled out of turn, considering the moisture on her face. She squeezed his hand in hers. “If you’re trying to sell me on marriage, talking about the end of it is kind of a mood-killer.”

He smiled with her and then clarified, “I just didn’t want you to think that I’d make you stick around for my eventual, immortal death. Forever is a long time to wait for that.”

“Who says I won’t kill you myself for leaving the toilet seat up or forgetting to pay the electric bill?”

She was clearly thinking of the lighter side of life as a normal couple would. Then it hit him that they were basically that. “Is that a yes?”

She bit her lip, thinking. “What about kids?” she asked first.

“What about them?”

“Can…we have a baby?”

Mick’s bliss crashed when it hit the brick wall she’d thrown up and he let go of her hand to put his on his hips. He honestly hadn’t thought about the possibility of Beth wanting to have a family – something he’d thought for sure was long-gone to him in the great scheme of things. “I-I…” he stalled, hoping that he’d come up with some kind of an answer that would satisfy her.

“You are human, right?” He managed a nod. “That means that all of your human capabilities should be back to normal?” Another, more reluctant nod. “Then, if you’re going to live until you die, just like other humans, why can’t you have a family like other humans?”

She made a good point, and he couldn’t argue it. “I…don’t have the answer that you’re looking for, Beth. I can’t even fathom the consequences that would arise if we had a child and I died and turned back…”

“We would deal with that if we had to, with whatever seemed best for all of us,” she encouraged.

“And what about the child’s safety? What if I couldn’t protect him?”

Her gaze softened in compassion. “I think you could. You protected me through all of my childhood. Why would ours be any different?”

“He’d have a vampire for a father, Beth. That alone would put him in danger.”

She closed her eyes when she felt like she was losing the argument. “It’s something to think about at least. Will you?”

“If you marry me, then yes,” he countered.

“When?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Whenever. There’s no time like the present. Every second spent waiting is a second lost to us.”

She quickly agreed, speaking her thoughts, “The courthouse is open today. I’m sure we could get Alison at Bionalysis to rush the blood tests, and we could get married before the day is through.”

Mick slowly smiled when he realized she was accepting his proposal and his timing…and they had yet to kiss to seal the deal. Recognizing this, he stepped forward, wrapped one arm around her waist and reached the other up to cup her face, drying her cheek with his thumb for a moment before drawing her lips to his.

The kiss was so much better than the one they’d shared before, when she’d caught him off-guard and pecked his lips in an impetuous gesture of the nearness she felt at the time. She didn’t even really give him a chance to respond – only slightly with her second kiss. But this one… Within a second, her lips were parted and she tasted him in a way she’d never dreamed. And he was human and so ruggedly masculine and sexy; her hands were quickly around his waist, pulling him closer to her body.

But there was much more to her attraction to him than just the physical. She was in love with him, and there hadn’t been much denying that for weeks. Josh had just been a stumbling block; even as much as she cared for him, she knew he would’ve been gone from her life soon even if he hadn’t died so tragically. She had been planning what to say in her break-up speech for a while and just hadn’t yet had the courage to spit the words out. But how could she have gone through with it? As proven by her actions since Josh’s death, she’d had to step out of her comfort zone and vulnerably confess her feelings for Mick in the hopes that he would return them. It hadn’t been easy…but as she readjusted her mouth on his, she knew it had been extremely worth it.

Mick pulled away slightly just to look at her face for a moment before capturing her lips once more, now dropping his hands from her cheeks to wrap them around her. Beth could feel the change in the mood from bliss to passion and even though she fought it, her mind thought rationally.

She broke away, out of breath, and begged, “Mick, wait.” She swallowed and tried to calm her pounding heart, blinking her heavy lids up at him. “We’ll have plenty of time for this later…if we hurry.”

Knowing she was talking about getting married as soon as possible, Mick slowly and genuinely smiled, shrugging as he asked, “Then what are we waiting for?”

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♥

Link to Chapter 2!!