James slipped into the room, quiet as the grave, to watch his love, his Cathryn, watching Leno.  All the curtains were drawn and the bluish light of the television washed over her.  She was smiling and laughing, sights and sounds that set off cluster bombs of emotion and memory inside his cold heart.  Watching her was almost enough to make the gulf between them vanish for him.  It reminded him of being intertwined, warm sunshine pouring over them on sleepy saterday mornings.  His limbs moved so smoothly, James wasn't even sure that he'd taken those first steps into the flickering light till she looked up at him.  She had long since stopped jumping at his sudden appearance.  There was only so many times it could happen before your fight or flight instict became dulled.  James knew that someday that would make him responcible for her death.

It wasn't obvious within the first few seconds how she was going to react to his presence this time.  He had lived his whole life to see her smile and in death he felt no different.  Yet, he still dreaded these visits.  With every one, the relief that a piece of her beloved had survived was cooling into a sort of bitter indifference over what he had become instead.  Her smiles and tears of joy were stilled the very first time he had encountered one of her boyfriends.  The poor bastard had been hospitalized for weeks after that.  She had never forgiven him for it, never let him forget what he had done.

"Hey," he held his arm as her stare cut into him like knives,

"Hey back," she said, a cold echo of their long dead habbits.  She blinked once and fipped off the TV, looking at the remote as she set it down to avoid his gaze if only for a second,  "What do you want now, James?"

He was still for longer than a man could ever be before he forced himself to suck in a lungfull of air, "I guess I....need someone to talk to."

She laughed when he said that.  Not the pretty laugh his memories were made from, but one that twisted his sweet lost past with the knowledge of what had come since, "What are we gunna talk about?  How you sneak into people's rooms in the middle of the night to murder them?  How every time you look at me, some part of you is thinking about how much it'd like to drink every drop of me and be done with it?!"

The gifts of his damnation made the scene Cathryn made that much more horrible to him.  Though she threw herself at him, her movements were no more swift in his eyes than if she'd calmly crossed the room.  Her body trembled as she shook uncontrolably with miserable sobs, striking uselessly against his chest over and over.  Still, James couldn't help but wrap his cold, lifeless arms around her.  He clutched her to him, oblivious as she thrashed madly in a vain attempt to escape.  The hours she raged against the inhuman strength of his embrace passed for James like a flutter of eyelids  as he cooed to her like he had during life when she'd had a bad day.  It was so strangely normal and she couldn't stand it.

"Why do I still love you, you fucking bastard..." she moaned into his chest and he tried not to hear her words as he stroked her hair,

"Everything's going to be ok," he said, hearing how hollow it sounded, "soon..."

James brushed Cathryn's hair away from her neck and she never tried to stop him.  She knew, but failed to think of a good reason to fight him.  Bringing her in close for one last kiss, James pressed his eyes shut as tightly as he could.  It was the only freedom from him James knew how to give her now.  Just as everything else in his life, James had transformed his deepest love into death.