Last Visit (Charlie and Marcus)

Although Charlie had said the last time that she was here that she would not visit again, it had been some years since then she her heart was hurting far too much to allow it go on any more, her thirst would not be quenched with anyone other than his memory and his touch, but there was a hesitation, did she really want to see what had become of her love?

Had he been able to move on with his life? Was he able to have a wife and a child? While she was left alone there, being in her shadowy eternal life for all time...without the idea of a lover on the horizon.

Gently she clambered up the side of the house and unlocked the window, looking around before stepping inside the room, it was silent, and that set her nerves on edge, walking through the house she looked into the bedroom that she had her lover had occupied together once, and blinked at what she saw lying there.

It was something that broke her heart.

Marcus was only 42 but he was laid up in his bed, ready and waiting for death. His hair had once been proud and dark brown but was now dotted with grey, as was his roughly shaven face. Although his body appeared to be quite healthy, his face told onlookers that the man was tormented by some kind of terrible ailment. But what most people never got, despite the dead look in his eyes that had been there for many years, was that the most terrible ailment that Marcus suffered from was a broken heart.

He had been unable to find love in anyone else since Charlie had left him alone. His family had tried to arrange some political/financial marriage but he had sabotaged them all so that none of them would ever want to have anything to do with him. To appease his family he had become a writer, earning quite a large sum of money by cashing in on the gothic market of literature by drawing upon his own heart ache.

And now, as he lay within an inch of death by some form of chest disease (TB), he was just as lifeless as he had been during his 'life'. Finally his body seemed to match the sadness of his heart and began to die. But even as the darkness crept upon the corners of his vision he saw her, just the same as she had always been, standing by his bedside. He let out a croaked cry,

"Y-you came..."

Charlie bit her lip, as she stepped closer she couldn't bare to see the man that she loved in this position, she had thought that by leaving him she would have allowed him to be happy, to move on, and not to have him caught up in the dangers of living as she did, as he would have to with her company, with the threat from other vampires being pushed upon him.

Stopping just beside him, she reached out with her cold hand to touch his own, tears of blood welling in the corners of her eyes as she thought about him no longer being alive, and the mistake that she had made in allowing him to come this close to death...was there to be no saving him?

His voice, so unlike how it used to be, made Charlie's undead heart tremor lightly;

"Of course I came." she whispered.

Bending down, Charlie lightly kissed Marcus on the lips, letting a tear plop onto his cheek as she drew away, gently stroking his skin;

"I am sorry." she managed to choke out "I have made the most horrible mistake."

The tears welled up in his eyes but were not able to fall. They just kept building up, making his already weakening eyesight worsen. He managed to blink a few times and his vision cleared a bit more but the darkness was creaping up on his vision. His hand weakly tried to clutch hers but it was too weak, the touch falling away even as he tried with all of his might to hold her hand.

Tears began to decend then.

It wasn't fair, this was the first time he'd seen her in many years and now he lacked the strength to properly touch her. He couldn't even hold her hand he was so weak. His muscles were in ruins from being bedridden and from being at death's door even now. He noticed the splash on his cheek that had come from Charlie's own tears. He tried to speak and nothing but a raspy breath came out. Collecting his will he tried again,

"I'm... so glad... that you came..." he managed to wheeze, "I didn't... I thought... maybe you wouldn't... I didn't see you... at birthdays... or the anniversary... of the day we met... I had almost... given up hope that I would see you again..."

Marcus attempted to smile but moving all of the muscles properly was slightly beyond him at this point so he had only managed the barest of smiles,

"Don't blame yourself..." he told her in a near-whisper, "You did what you thought... was right..."

Charlie gently wiped the tears from Marcus' eyes and she tried so badly not to cry herself, she needed to be strong for him, and she needed to make sure that she was going to be able to make it up to him in the last few moments that they might have together, before the rest of her lonely life would play out with her alone, but in a way that she had never imagined.

When he couldn't even speak to her Charlie felt a large lump develop in her throat and she had to swallow several times before she could allow herself to speak in return to what her love had said to her, gently she kissed his lips over and over again, all the times that she had wanted to, and been unable, seemed to be coming out all at once.

"I was there," she smiled lightly "I just made sure you didn't see me. I'm sorry I did not come to see you sooner, I have been away for some years, there was...a problem I couldn't avoid dealing with." she whispered stroking his hair back from her face.

The way that he spoke almost made her heart break in her chest, it was something that she hoped that she would be able to deal with, her mistake, but it was killing her slowly inside;

"I...I had hoped you would have moved on Marcus...I, I can't...I don't want you to die. I love you." she cried lightly.

Marcus tried again to smile and managed to get somewhat of a more complete smile out this time, just being with her like this seemed to brighten his soul but at the same time, he knew that he wouldn't last much longer. He enjoyed the kisses, so very many of them, and tried to kiss her back but was unable to for the most part. So instead he looked softly into her sad eyes with his own, life sparking into them for the first time in years, just in time for him to die,

"I thought you might have been..." he admitted with a ghost of a smile, all that he can manage now, "It was my one... thought that kept me... alive. That you were there... watching over me... that made it all... worthwhile..."

He hated seeing Charlie looking so sad, so defeated. It was so at odds with who he knew her to be. When she told him that she believed he would have moved on he managed to shake his head,

"No it was only ever you Charlie... only you..." he told her in a whisper before his eyes almost fluttered closed before he forced them to stay open, "I love you too Charlie... but I'm slipping... I can't stay... no matter how much I want to..."

Charlie smiled lightly and she shook her head, the love that they felt for each other should have been celebrated not supressed and she knew that now, but there was very little that she could do now, unless after Marcus dies Charlie stepped into the sunlight and followed him soon after.

Seeing the light pop into his eyes once more made Charlie hope, hope that for one second he might summon up the energy to live, that he might be able to summon the will to carry on now that she was here, and she would make sure that if he did, she would never leave him again.

"I have always been watching over you Marcus." she smiled lightly.

When his eyes almost closed Charlie gasped and she hugged him close to her, now becoming frantic as she stroked his hair, not wanting him to go, not now that they were together again, not now that they both had the chance to be happy.

"M-marcus please you can't go. Please I love you! You...you've made me into who I am today, I am so much better than the person you first met Marcus, I can't be without you, you have to be alive...you have to be." she cried, placing her head on his chest and not caring any more, sobbing her heart out onto his shirt, not caring about the blood tears.

"I am so...so sorry." she whispered "Stay with me please."

Marcus had been waiting for so many years to be here with Charlie, like this, but now that they were he could feel less and less with each passing second. He was rapidly losing his sense of touch. All he could feel in the tips of his fingers and toes was a tingling sensation that was not at all pleasant, very much like pins and needles. He saw her beginning to hope and hated his body for denying Charlie happiness by dying as it was doing right now,

"I'm glad..." he swallowed a little bit, with difficulty, "Do you... remember the candle...? I lit one every... night since our last... meeting... in hopes... that it would invite you in... by showing you... that I always cared... always remembered... always loved..."

He was only dimly aware of being pulled closer to Charlie as she panicked and stroked his hair, trying to get him to come back to her. To be with her again. He tried, he honestly tried, but all he could manage was to open his eyes almost all of the way, looking as if he was tired and that his eyelids were drooping,

"I want to stay... but... I can't Charlie... I can't feel my legs... my hands..." he was beginning to cry again now as the lack of sensation that was death began to spread along his body, taking short and gasping breaths, "Oh god... I... I love you Charlie... I won't leave you... I did a spell... a soul spell... I'll come back someday Charlie... for you..."

Marcus puts all of his energy into moving his arm up long enough to cup Charlie's cheek,

"I... I... I love you... I wanted... to marry you... to be with you forever..." his tears streaked down his face, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry I'm not strong enough..."