As always, I don't own the characters, and don't benefit from this story except for the fun in writing it!!
Please, enjoy!!
A Glimpse of Things to Come
Damn! Didn’t see that coming.
Or maybe I did….
In my defense, I knew that little blonde bombshell was trouble from the get-go. Call me paranoid, but anytime somebody wants their 15 minutes of fame at my expense, it’s never good. But until tonight, I had no idea just how much trouble she could be. Until tonight, I’d never seen the real Beth Turner.
When Beth first appeared on my screen with her ‘Vampire Slaying Rocks LA’ story, I groaned at the double entendre, one you had to be a vamp to fully appreciate. Cute or not, if her story got legs, something would have to be done to kill it. Note I said it, not her. Killing humans in defense of the tribe is always an option, just not always the best one. Four centuries and counting is a testament to my impressive assortment of self-preservation strategies.
Bribes? Works if the person is a greedy bastard. Bribes also buy you time as you work out a more permanent strategy. Besides, you can always get the money back after you kill him.
Threats? Veiled or not, threats are often effective, especially if the person you’re dealing with isn’t the bravest of souls. If they do screw you, you can always make good on those threats.
In Beth’s case, a bribe or an anonymous threat would have been like waving a red flag in front of a bull, encouraging her to keep digging. Killing her would have had a similar effect, daring yet another Amanpour wannabe to pick up the story and run with it after Beth was dust.
My choice? Credibility is something people don’t truly value until they lose it. Kinda like virginity. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back again. Destroying Beth’s credibility would have done the trick, since the woman had no reputation as a journalist, solid or otherwise. Working for that electronic rag? Discrediting her would have been sooo easy. A few words to the right people here, some disparaging comments to others there would have been all the ammunition needed to kill both the story and her career. But in the end, I opted to let Mick deal with her. Fielder’s choice, and all that.
While Beth’s broadcast got my attention, so did Mick’s attempt to downplay its threat. I know Mick has a soft spot for the mortals, wanting so desperately to be one himself again. So, I had Ryder do a little digging and wouldn’t you know, my best friend has been holding out on me. Seems he has quite a history with little Miss Buzzwire, one Freud would have had a field day with.
Sure, I knew the story, at least most of it. Vamp wife desperate to get vamp husband back goes all out by kidnapping a little human girl. I admit, not Coraline’s finest moment, but as I said, she was desperate. The love-hate relationship she had with Mick was epic and a lesson that while opposites attract, they eventually piss each other off. After a few years of conjugal corruption, Mick started to pull away from his wife/sire. It took years for him to decide to cut the cord permanently, and even longer to achieve it. The more he resisted Coraline, the more she wanted him. The more she wanted him, the more he resisted. Their marriage gave new meaning to the term ‘vicious circle’.
By the time Coraline pulled her Mommy Dearest stunt with the kid, Mick had already started on the path to redemption, at least that’s how he saw it. Coraline’s proposition to turn a child just pushed him further down that road and away from her. But something else happened that night, something I didn’t appreciate until much later. While that little girl owed Mick her life, he owed her his soul.
So here we are 22 years later and that little girl is all grown up. In the months since her Buzzwire story, I’ve watched the roller coaster ride she’s been on with Mick from the sidelines, admittedly with some trepidation. Would Beth betray our secret or run screaming into the night? Surprisingly, she did neither. Putting a bullet in Lee Jay to save Mick from being vamp flambé? Surprised the hell out of me, not to mention Lee Jay.
The impromptu feeding session in the desert, though, that’s what started me thinking that there was more to Beth and her relationship with Mick than he was letting on or even admitting to himself.
You should have seen him squirm when I tried to get him to talk about it. If vampires could blush, he’d have been scarlet. As far as I knew, Mick hadn’t tapped anybody’s vein in years. Before he became such a bloody boy scout, he could and did party with the best of them. Freshies flung themselves at him and he was more than happy to put fang to flesh wherever they wanted. To say he left them satisfied would be an understatement. Orgasmic is more like it.
But Beth wasn’t a freshie. The desert wasn’t a party. And Mick didn’t have much choice - he could feed from Beth and live, not feed and die, or feed from that pregnant girl, Leni, and die from guilt and shame. Trust me, if Mick had taken Leni’s blood, he would have walked into the desert and never come back. So feed from Beth it was.
From my own experience, when you’re a dying vamp, you can’t be choosy about what you drink to survive. Human, animal, living, dead, it doesn’t matter. Any blood will do. If you’re lucky enough to find a healthy human, great, but if they’re not willing to share, that’s when things gets dicey, at least for the human. Fear sweetens their blood making the feeding more intense, erotic even. Being a dying vamp is as primal as it gets – when that warm, sweet blood flows down your throat and fills your senses, you don’t want to stop. Hell, you can’t stop. As far gone and out of practice as Mick was, Beth shouldn’t have survived.
But she did, and I had to ask myself, why?
I got some insight when I finally met the woman. Maybe she knew I was a vampire, maybe she didn’t, but she walked into my office with no hint of fear, only curiosity. Call strange men and pretend to be an escort? Most women would have been embarrassed or slapped whoever suggested it silly and stormed out. Beth? In a sultry voice that would have made Garbo proud, she agreed.
‘Whatever you want’
It didn’t take vampire senses to know that more than one little head in the room was standing up and taking notice.
OK, so the woman is adventuresome and not one to back down from a challenge. On top of being smart and beautiful, that’s a package that would entice any man. But Mick just wasn’t any man and I was beginning to understand that Beth just wasn’t any woman. They were connected somehow and while Mick was in denial, Beth wasn’t.
Then Lola came to town and stirred things up a bit. Maybe Lola recognized something the rest of us didn’t when she gave Beth that little push toward our world. Knowing Lola as I do, she can be quite persuasive, even when you know you’re being had. Whispering into Beth’s ear, then giving her that little vial of crystalline temptation would have been hard for any human to resist. Go ahead, experience the best of being a vamp without dying. See what it’s like and maybe, just maybe, you’ll want to stay that way forever.
Like I said, Beth wasn’t one to back down from a challenge and it wasn’t long before she gave into temptation.
God, what I would have given to see that woman high on Black Crystal! Mick gave me the highlights later, but still, I’d have paid a king’s ransom to see Beth come on to him like she did. Moral constraints were shed, and clothes were about to be as Beth made it clear that she wanted him badly enough to be turned. How the hell Mick controlled himself, vamp or man, I have no idea. What I did understand was that high or not, a part of Beth wanted to know the vampire in Mick a lot more intimately than she already did.
Again, I ask myself, why?
You want to have sex with Mick? Fine, but you don’t have to be turned to do so. It might have taken a little persuading, but my guess is Beth would have worn him down eventually. Mick may be a vamp, but he’s still a guy and when a beautiful woman you’re falling in love with offers herself to you, most guys wouldn’t hesitate. So, was it really the drug talking as Mick believed? If it was, there was no way in hell he’d take advantage of the situation. Or was it something else, something momentarily freed from its human prison and given a voice for the first time in its life?
Just as things were starting to get interesting, the roller coaster got stuck. Mick’s ex showed up with the gift of mortality, a kind of a ‘sorry I turned you on our honeymoon’ present. Beth’s human boyfriend made one last desperate attempt to keep her from slipping away from him. In the end, it was Lindsey who slipped away, despite Beth’s pleas for Mick to turn him. Mick’s refusal nearly cost him Beth’s friendship, not to mention a chance at anything more intimate down the road.
But true love can’t be denied, and eventually the roller coaster started up again, only the next dip was a killer.
You know how to tell when a person loves someone, I mean really loves them? They’ll do or give anything to keep that person safe, regardless of how much it hurts or costs. To save the woman he loved, Mick offered up his human life, the one he waited decades to recover. To save the friend I loved, I took it from him.
Of all the blood on my hands, his will never wash away.
So weeks later, here I stand, looking at Beth’s face, her normally bright eyes clouded with worry. She wants me to take care of some idiot paparazzo who’s blackmailing her about Mick. Payoff? Even Beth knows that’s not going to work.
OK, so maybe killing humans to protect the tribe isn’t always the best option. In this case, it’s the only one. Beth has already killed, but shooting Lee Jay was an act of desperation to save Mick’s life. Offing this paparazzo to protect Mick’s secret is nothing short of pre-meditated murder.
Fine by me. I can live with his blood on my hands, but can she? I need to make sure Beth understands the consequences of what she’s asking me to do.
As I search her face, the human mask momentarily slips and I catch a glimpse of another, more resolute face. Beth protecting Mick isn’t just about repaying a debt for keeping her safe all these years, it’s about protecting the future, their future. And I’m not talking about a human / vampire relationship here.
In a flash, the mask is back in place, but now it all makes sense, to me, anyway. The connection, the need to protect each other, maybe that all started when a little girl needed and found a guardian angel. Or maybe it was there all along. Either way, one day Mick will figure out it wasn’t the drug talking that night. I just want to be there when he does.
(Come to think of it, that doesn't surprise me at all. 
)
So very Josef. He and Beth have their own kind of connection now. 
'Click' wasn't my favorite episode, but it did leave you with the impression that there was an alliance being forged between Josef and Beth to protect a man they both loved. 
Yeah, Lola did whisper in Beth's ear, but you have to wonder why. Was Lola just having a bit of fun or did she see something in Beth that no one else had (yet)?
