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[allgotrabies]

Hey, it's Annie, you know what to do.

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[loveisall]

He listens, really listens, and squeezes her hands. "You have done a wrong thing, Annie, and that will sit with you for a while. But you are allowed to give yourself permission to enjoy what you did before. You must give yourself permission for it. If you allow the guilt to consume you, then you truly cannot move on or grow."

[allgotrabies]

She'll listen to anyone with experience, but Godric, how he's come through all the things he's done, is who she would most like to emulate. So he has her full attention, minus any defensiveness anyone else would have got.

"But if I stop feeling guilty, what if I stop taking it seriously?"

[loveisall]

"I never said stop feeling guilty." He brings her fingers to his lips. "I feel guilt constantly. But I do not let it consume me. Well, not all the time." He smiles, because, like Annie, there are still some days where it is difficult for him to get out of bed. Where sometimes he goes to Archer's room with the excuse of wanting to visit but it's really only because he wants to hide away from the world with him.

"And you need not always feel guilt as I do, Annie. I have thousands of years of sins to atone for. I would not wish that upon you. One day it may leave you. And that's...what I hope for you."

[allgotrabies]

There are deeper guilts than what she had done to Quill, things she remembers clearly. At least with Quill the worst of it is a terror that she can't control herself. With the others it's a knowledge that she's a coward who allows others to die for her.

"You're pretty good at atoning," she tells him. "You've taken all that, everything that's got you weighed down and you use it to help people get better. It's helped me." Something she wishes she could do, and would try to do, if she lived long enough. "I like seeing you have fun. I like knowing there's a way to balance everything back then with what's going on now. I just don't know how you do it, or how to do it myself. Yet."

[loveisall]

"I don't think I know how I do it, either," he admits. "Knowing that it's wrong now. Knowing what to do next. Having a strict moral code that has alienated my entire species both at home and here seems to help."

He gives her a small, hesitant smile that's touched with sadness. "I'm glad that it helps you. Sometimes it's hard, Annie. Sometimes I drown in it. Sometimes I need help, too."

[allgotrabies]

"What helps for you?" She's asked this before, but it was early on in their friendship. It wasn't so long ago, but things move fast on the Barge, things are constantly changing.

[loveisall]

"It helps to be reminded of exactly what I am reminding you. That I cannot change the past. I can punish myself until the end of time for it, but it doesn't matter. It won't bring back the lives I've taken. I can only focus on what I am doing now. Examine what I am doing now."

He brushes his fingers through her hair.

[allgotrabies]

"I know you probably don't think so, or maybe just not all the time, but you're such a good person. I'm sorry I let you down." Closing her eyes, just feeling his fingers brushing her stress away. "I hear what you're saying."

[loveisall]

"Do not worry about letting me down," he says softly. "I have forgiven you, but my opinion is not the one that matters. It is easy for me to forgive you."

[allgotrabies]

His opinion matters enough that knowing he's forgiven her lifts so much of that pain, though. "I'm going to do what Quill said. Figure my shit out. Then I think I can forgive myself."

[loveisall]

"That is wise. Vague. But wise," he sits back and pulls her against him again. "It is a shame that your leprechaun is so ill tempered. And likely hates me."

His lips quirk up slightly.

[allgotrabies]

"Oho, my leprechaun? Why would he hate you? You're the best vampire here," she teases, but there's a note of real curiosity.

[loveisall]

He just grins. "Because I was a little aggressive in my protection of you, I think." He sits back. "It was difficult to keep my control, if I'm honest. He's a faerie. Faeries in my world..."

He trails off. "It is complicated."

[allgotrabies]

"I'm guessing they aren't tiny, flying around in green leotards," she murmurs, but has a hard time imagining what else they could be.

[loveisall]

"They aren't tiny. They're fairly rare. But they've been hunted to extinction -- by vampires," he adds. "Because they are, well," he huffs out a laugh. Very rarely is Godric embarrassed. But he is embarrassed by this.

"Their blood is the equivalent of a drug, I suppose. They, dammit, Annie. They taste very good. And the legend is that they make it possible for us to walk in sunlight."

[allgotrabies]

She doesn't understand why he's embarrassed but she's grinning at him, loving the fact that he is.

"How would a vampire test that? Get all coked out on a fairy and then run out into the first crack of dawn?" A pause as she reflects on all the drugs she's taken, or seen others take. "Actually, I guess I could see that. ...I'm guessing you haven't bitten one? Or does the sunlight thing only work for a little while?"

[loveisall]

"Oh I have before. But I was not enough of an idiot to try walking in the sun," he laughs. "I was in bed by dawn, as I should have been."

He leans back, shifting so he can lie on the couch, his head in her lap. It's a reversal of their usual positions, but he wants the comfort this time.

"But Sweeney smells like that, Annie. I could have put my teeth in his wrist and it would have been so easy." He lets out a sigh.

Not his neck, though. Never his neck.

[allgotrabies]

"He smells really fucking good to me, too," she admits. "I figured it was just the whiskey and cigarettes, or my mood 'cause Bobo set me off, too. But now I wonder if it's not the same for me."

She strokes his hair, lingering just above his ears and along the hairline where most people are more touch-sensitive. There's a low, very nearly inaudible note in her voice that isn't human, but is deeply, unmistakably protective of Godric even when she isn't speaking of anything like protecting him. He's safe with her.

"How d'you handle being around him?"

[loveisall]

"Hundreds of years of self control," he laughs. "And I focused on the cigarette smoke." He raises his eyebrows at her. "Though now I simply want cigarettes. I have not smoked in centuries."

[allgotrabies]

"I bet cigarettes were better then," she sighs. "I quit for about a month. I can't get cancer and I can outrun a train so I figured I can give myself that weakness."

A worrisome thought occurs to her. "The other vampires won't try to hurt him, will they?"

[loveisall]

Godric sighs, but there's steel in his words. "No. That is something unique to my world. But I have already cut my ties with Nadja," he tells her softly. "If I must kill her for this, too, I will."

[allgotrabies]

"I'm sorry," she says, frowning. She knows his relationship with other vampires is already complicated. "I got your back though. In however you want me there."

[loveisall]

"I do not want you there," he smiles. "I can take care of Nadja myself." He pulls himself up enough to kiss her. "I know you will be there for me. But she continues to threaten Anita, and I cannot abide that. Anita is human and an inmate. Nadja should know better, but she lets her emotions rule her."

[allgotrabies]

She kisses him back, warm and fond.

"I know you can handle her. This is he having your back now, too. Like this." Offering the comfort back that he so frequently gives her. "I hope she doesn't do anything stupid though. The second you realize you locked yourself in, it's... Bad. And I don't think I'm as, um, emotional as her in the first place."

[loveisall]

"No," he assures her. "You aren't. But bloodshed is the last thing on my mind. She's angry with me, but I'm stronger than her. I'm hoping that will keep her at bay for a while."

He shrugs, sitting back again. "But enough of Nadja. Back to your leprechaun." And he deliberately uses that word again. "Did he hurt you? Let me see."