Dark Ridge - Walking In The Day

Walking In The Day - Pt 12

Kameron laughed, shaking her head and thinking that this was rather surreal.

WitD

Clay was sitting silently in the den; the TV was off, no music played. Silence and darkness were the only things in the room, besides himself and his thoughts.

Miranda was dead.

Had he killed her? In his last fleeting moments of wanting to remain human, had he killed her? He'd gone back to his honeymoon bed and slept with his wife of a few hours, hating himself for having given into the immortal temptation of life in the darkness and out of the sun. Clay had given up his wife for a man who hunted in the darkness, but the thrill had been what had captured Clay's attention. It had made him feel wanted, feel the lust for life that he'd always felt lacking.

Had he fed from her? What had killed her? The questions badgered him. Clay had gone to the local library, done a computer search for her name and had found nothing. Not a thing, just the notice of her death, and it had been almost a year after he'd married her. Had he somehow killed her?

Clay had married her and died, changed his name, changed his face and had gone off, not giving her a second thought.

"Clay?" asked Baltar from the doorway. "Darling, are you..."

"She's dead," said Clay in a pained tone that Baltar had never heard before.

"Who is dead?"

"Miranda...."

"You went to see her," sighed Baltar. His long legs ate up the carpet as he walked to Clay, kneeling at the younger man's side. "My love," whispered Baltar. "...she is dead and mourning her will not bring her back. We all experience this, usually much later in life, but our human counterparts die, they fall away into the earth and we cannot...."

"What if I'd turned her? When I had assimilated into my form? She'd be alive."

Baltar sighed. "She wouldn't have loved you as she had when she'd been human, she'd have lusted for one of her own kind," reminded Baltar.

Male and female vampires had a different make up, they came from the same DNA, but it was manipulated differently. Then, later in a vampire's life, if they sought out love or passion, it was linked to one of their own kind. Baltar was sure, had he been a scientist, he'd have found some link on the X or Y chromosome that explained it all way.

"But she'd be alive," said Clay through clenched teeth.

"Would she want this? This life?" asked Baltar softly.

"No," said Clay. "Yet, she might not have minded if she'd been alive to see at least more of it."

"You cannot let this drive you, Claymore. You are no longer the man you were when you were her partner. You're DNA, your wants, your needs and your soul are no longer that mans," reminded Baltar.

Clay looked away, his aqua eyes cutting along the carpet, unable to face Baltar. "I just need to be alone."

"You need to feed," said Baltar.

"No," countered Clay.

"Yes, come feed with me," cooed Baltar, turning his sultry and intoxicating gaze onto Clay. Clay needed to cease his dwelling in the past and see the future, to remember what he was, a vampire.

"Stop doing that," snapped Clay forcefully, moving to stand but Baltar pushed him down into the chair. "Baltar!"

"You are a sixteen year young vampire, Claymore, and you must realize that life moves on while we cease to move. We might well move from one town to another, but we cease to really live, we are caught in a perpetual loop of our death, now get up, and come with me and be what you are," commanded Baltar.