(It's not complete - as usual, it needs more, but this is as far as I got. I've known this story was coming for a long time, but it never quite congealed properly enough for me to sit and put into words putting to rest a favorite character or mine. I finally got motivated to write it down.)

How much of this is necessary, I don't know, but this is the back story: two vampires, they have the same Sire (creator), they start as lovers and then they end up as rivals in this Sire's household. It starts as friendly rivalry with the relationship carrying on normally, until the competition puts too much strain on the relationship and they split. It's ugly and they have to continue seeing each other as they compete for this position.

And there's some other conversations that they have that makes some of what is said have a little more impact...at least I think it does. Blayne tells Julianna at one point a while ago, that the nature of what vampires are, and how they die: staking, burning, and just plain violence, doesn't afford most vampires the opportunity to say goodbye to each other, no final words on a deathbed. Vampires never die slowly, they die suddenly and almost always violently and rarely leave anythign behind in passing except ash. A loved one would die and there be no sense of closure, might drive a creature that (potentially) had the ability to live forever if they were careful, insane. Creatures that live forever, like those of us that don't, think they will always have time...later, to say things that need to be said.And as usual with most relationships, someone doesn't usually say I love you, or apologize, until it's toa headstone, if they're lucky enough to have one.

So most recently: Julianna has been missing for years. A prisoner of the Sabbat. Kept staked in a paralyzed state. Awake and aware but trapped in a body she couldn'tt use. Blayne finds the pack that has her captured and in the ensuing battle they become buried alive. So they are trapped in a cave and will slowly starve until they both are raving after blood and will uncontrolably tear each other apart to get what in the others veins. And neither one of them wants their final moments together to be as mindless beasts trying to kill each other.)

And I don't know if you have ever noticed (because I don't write enough), but Blayne never smiles, he grins, which isn't the same thing...)

The Final Blayne Story...

"This is my apology, and my gift."

Julianna gasped "No!" as he drew the blade across the side of his neck, making a gash. Blood began to spill across his neck and chest. Blayne drew her close into an embrace, pressed his face into her hair, and drank in her scent one last time.

Julianna clamped her hand down over the wound; warm vitae ran over her fingers and under her palm. She could smell it's sweet taste in the air of the cave, and no matter how hard she pressed the wound, it wouldn't stop bleeding. "Dammit. Blayne..." Emotion strangled off the rest of her words.

Blayne just smiled. The smile was for her, and for once it was a real smile, something that reached his eyes and lit his face. "Tell me goodbye, Julianna."

She squeezed her eyes shut refusing to cry, if she said 'it' that would be the end, no turning back. If she voiced that one simple word, it would be the begining of the end for them. Her vision started to mist red as they filled with bloody tears, she blinked rapidly trying to stop them. She was afraid that if she started she'd be unable to stop. Bloody tears slid from her eyes like the blood from his wound and she whispered, "Goodbye." She removed her hand from the gash, pressed her lips to his, and then pressed them to the wound that would be his end and fed.

They stood there in the dark as she drank, unable to share anymore words, it was too late for that. The lovers final embrace. Warm blood slid down her throat as he stroked her hair. She wanted to scream, to argue, to say I Love You, anything but the silence. But she couldn't, she had to feed. As the seconds ticked by she could feel him leaning more heavily into her until finally his strength gave and they both dropped to their knees, Blayne clinging to her. She could feel him getting weaker as she drank, he closed his eyes and with a final sigh "Goodbye Jewel."

She rocked him back and forth as she fed from his wound, unable to communicate any other way with him.

She drank until he stopped moving. She drank until he was gone. Drank until he was cold and empty. Drank until he dissolved into dust in her arms. One moment he was there, in her arms, like he always had been for her, a constant force that had crossed uncounted miles and fought his way to her full of fury and thunder until she was safe and they were together again. Time and again.The irresistable force, the unmovable object which everything else dashed against. And then he was gone. His ashes ran through her fingers like so much sand, and she couldn't hold onto him anymore.

And now she was alone. And alone, sealed in that cave, finally able to, she wailed her grief covered in her dead loves ashes. On her hands and knees on the floor of the cave she hammered her hands against the cold stone fo the cave floor. Unable to contain it any longer her sorrow boiled out of her like a thing alive. She howled at the unfairness of it all, she wailed at the years they had wasted on stupid arguments, she screamed herself hoarse at being the one to have to carry on alone, and she wept pure tears for the loss of her true love.