A Heart To Heart (Maria and Leon)

Maria had decided that she needed some time alone, she had been having more and more time on her own recently and she was beginning to realise the reason why that was, it was because whoever she spent time with, they were so involved in the war she didn't feel she could speak freely to them.

There was Leon, the Gott Des Assisstenten, of course he was not going to budge and listen to her views on what was going on or what she thought he needed to do.

There was Charlie, and she seemed to have gone off the rails and would most likely decapitate and drain her if she even hinted that she didn't believe in what she was doing, and that she wouldn't support her as much as she could.

Now James was on the side of the rebels! Wasn't there anyone that she could talk to that didn't have a side? That was just as confused as she was?! And then to top it all off, she was having those urges again, the urges that meant she wanted to have a child, but knew as a vampire, she would never be able to.

Shutting the door to her and Leon's room quietly, Maria sat on the bed, and sniffled, holding back her tears as she thought about what she should do.

Leon walked into his home tired and drained from another painful meeting with the ruling heads of the German Ministry and the magical military. The same thing every meeting. More fighting. More killings. More destruction. More war. Even Leon, a fighter by nature, was growing sick of war. The fighting didn't even seem to have a point anymore, other than to kill others. And that had never interested Leon.

As he made his way up to the room he shared with Maria he heard her soft sniffles through the door. Tiredness forgotten, Leon opened the door slowly and stuck his head round to show who he was to Maria. It wasn't wise to startle a woman who could put you through the wall with a reflexive shove. He entered their room quietly and sat down on the bed beside his lover. He wrapped his arms around her and just held her close,

"Tell me Maria..." he whispered comfortingly, "Tell me what troubles you meine leibling."

Maria, when she heard Leon coming in the house had immediately attempted to purge all signs of upset from her face, however she was not sure that she was that successful as the white marble of her skin was stained with a faint trek of blood from the tear that had escaped from her eye.

When he opened the door to their bedroom Maria smiled gently at Leon, he looked so very tired, the way that he looked most of the time, of course she understood he was busy at the ministry, and a vampires patience was legend, however, Maria was missing Leon's company dearly.

"I feel as if I cannot tell you Leon." she sighed, her accent tinging her words "I feel as if I cannot tell anybody because I am afraid of what they might say, as everyone seems to disagree with my point of view now." Maria smiled ruefully.

Leon had always been able to tell when Maria had been upset, not least because the tears of blood left very visible evidence on her face. But it was in the way she tried to smile afterwards. It lit up her whole face, just like her regular smile. But unlike her regular smile it didn't reach her eyes.

He chuckled a little bit and pulled Maria closer to him in a tighter hug so that her head was resting against him. She had been having this problem for a long time. Only recently had be actually started to feel the same way,

"Yeah I get how that feels." he agreed before smiling, "But I want you to tell me your worries Maria and we'll talk about them. Not as a minister and a citizen. Not as a man and a woman. But as lovers, supporting each other."

Maria gently squeezed Leon's hand, she was reminded of the time where she was first in his employ, how he managed to make her feel so loved and warm, that hadn't changed at all, in fact she felt even more secure now, however dangerous her situation actually might be in the cold light of day.

Resting her head on Leon's chest, if she could have taken a deep breath to steady herself she would have done, with a small sigh she started to think about how to phrase what her problem was.

"Well, I know that you've been busy recently my love, and I know that it's because of the war...and I was just wondering if it was going to be coming to an end soon?" she asked, her eyes wide and fluttering, as if attempting to persuade him "Because I dislike it so strongly Leon, it's everywhere I go there is no escaping it any more, no way at all."

Leon held Maria's cold hand in his warm one and felt the happiness that she always gave him. People asked him if it was strange to be so intimate and close to someone who was naturally cold to the touch but to him it was a perfect match. He was naturally too warm so together they balanced each other out so well.

Stroking her hair with his fingers comfortingly, Leon cooed softly into her ear as she tried to compose herself. He knew that this wasn't exactly going to be easy for her,

"You know my love... despite the best interests of almost every important German figure..." he smiled at her with a smark of hope, "I think it is winding down. The will to fight is leaving the population. Hell, even I'm tired of all this needless fighting. I think the war might be over soon..."

Maria blinked when Leon told her that the war was winding down, the war between the British and the German people maybe but there was another fight that had been sparked that was not going to be squashed too easily, after all, Charlie was a powerful vampire, she was going to keep at this fight until she couldn't keep at it any more.

Being over thousands of years old, Maria knew that Charlie had more patience and reserve than any human government ever could, and she just hoped that Leon would prepare himself.

"OH Leon." she sniffled "I am so glad that one war might be coming to an end, all you need do now is to keep Charlie placated from attacking Germany, and the rest of the humans like she plans too, a war among creatures is not what is needed!" she exclaimed a little too loudly for her normal self, showing just how stressed she was.

Leon knew that what the VIPs had told him to do, the deal with Charlie, was going to spark another war. It was coming and everyone knew it. The worst kept secret in the world right now was that Charlie was going to lead the creatures against the humans.

He smiled slightly and held Maria close to him. For some reason it felt good to be aiming towards peace rather than war. It was very odd considering all he'd ever been good at was fighting, was war,

"Well we have to stop it one war at a time now don't we?" he asked her quietly before he sighed and looked at Maria, "What will it take to stop her? You've known her longer than me... much longer. What will it take to stop Charlie trying to take her revenge out on all humans?"

Maria, when Leon so happily held her close to him couldn't help but feel a little bit more relaxed than she had done before, she felt better having him close to her, knowing that he was going to listen to her now, that it was just them with no distractions.

Thinking about Charlie, Maria hung her head and she didn't know what the right answer would be to that question, she supposed that she should give the only answer that she thought was truthful.

"It will take time, I have never seen Charlie like this and I know that it will take time, perhaps another large attack for her to know that what she was doing is wrong..." she sighed gently "One of her vampire children died in the attack, the bond between a child and her sire is...very strong."

Leon smiled when he noticed that his presence seemed to be having a calming effect on Maria. It was kind of cute that she preferred it when he was here.

The way she hesitated did not bode well for the possibility of reasoning with Charlie but then again Leon had been expecting that. She had been hard to deal with even when they were on the same side after all,

"Jesus Christ... that Irvine guy has sent us all straight to hell hasn't he? Don't need to answer. I know the answer is yes." he said with a sigh and he hung his head for a few moments. When he lifted it again he looked older, "Are their any elements in the creatures who wouldn't support her?"

Maria was frightened by Leon's aged appearance when he lifted his head, oh what she wouldn't give to take his pain away, to help him solve this situation, but she didn't know how she would do that, she didn't know how to solve it for him. The only way...would be for someone close to Charlie to be killed by her, by accident. To show the error of her ways.

The only person left close to Charlie, was herself.

"I will never support her blood lust Leon, many vampires and creatures involved deeply in human lives will not either, I can't say whether they will fight against her...or just stay out of the fray, but not all creatures are baying for blood."

With a small sigh Maria bit her lip;

"Leon...whatever did you do to anger a demon? Why would you even think..." she asked, her eyes filling with tears "The most dangerous creature you could have..."

Leon sighed a little bit, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as the pressures of the job once again began to weigh down on him. He didn't want to have all of these responsibilities anymore. It was so hard to make any kind of decision when you knew that someone was going to get hurt, or something like that, trying to carry out your orders. Not to mention every problem with the country was automatically your fault,

"Well I'm glad to hear that you and some others won't become involved in this new war." he told her quietly before smiling, "And who knows? Maybe someone will be able to reason with her. What about that Marcus guy?"

When she mentioned angering a demon he paused for a second,

"And what demon have I angered Maria?" he asked with genuine confusion, "It was my understanding that they tended to live in hell. Not earth."

Maria smiled gently, she so wanted to give Leon that security that Marcus would be able to make it all better, that he would be able to snap Charlie back into the vampire she used to be, the gentle kind soul who always wanted to help humans, never to hurt, never to kill any of them.

"Marcus has already spoken to me, he sought me out." she whispered quietly "He is just as confused by Charlie as the rest of us, they argued, since he wont become a vampire...she's left him until he decides differently."

When Leon said that he didn;t even know what demon he had angered Maria's mouth threatened to drop open in surprise, how could he not know what was going on here?! Lucian was far from subtle after all, at least in the presence of creatures.

"Why...Lucian Ciero of course." she answered "He broke into Marcus' house, found out what you did to him...oh Leon." Maria sobbed gently trying to coax herself out of crying, this wasn't going to give him an awful lot of confidence "Just what did you hope to GAIN from allowing Luther to do what he did? Or what you wanted him to do! I just don't understand!"

Leon had tried his hardest to come up with some alternative solutions to "Problem C" as the ministry was secretly calling it. Killing her would be suicide for many, many lower ranked witches and wizards or perhaps even a handful of their stronger fighters. He thought that as it stood the only person from the ministry that had a chance at killing her, other than himself, was Luther,

"Well damn." he muttered quietly, closing his eyes tightly for a few seconds, "That was our best shot to end it peacefully. I can't think of anything else that would have worked as well."

Leon was drawing a blank. He knew who Lucian Ciero was, an incubus attending Durmstrang, but he had no idea what he could have done to offend the boy. He'd never met him as far as he was aware. Something in his head reacted though. Instantly Leon had a blinding migrane, causing him to gasp in pain, holding his head,

"Jesus that was a sudden headache..." he moaned before shaking his head, everything he was saying hurt his head, "I have no idea what you're talking about... I've never even spoken about Lucian... why? What did... what did Luther do?"

Maria was now less focused on Charlie and more focused on Leon's reaction to her telling him about Lucian, and his rather startling lack of knowledge for the immense peril that he had placed himself in at this moment in time, or maybe he didn't place himself in that position...but if not, who did?

Calmly Maria placed her hands on either side of Leon's head and she gently kissed his forehead, it was so strange, she knew she would have to tread carefully as this conversation progressed.

"You inflicted some sort of spell upon Marcus and ordered him to kill Lucian's sister, Raziel and her romantic partner at the time, James Brunel." she whispered quietly "But surely you remember this Leon? The orders came from you and Luther."

With that Maria pulled Leon down to lie on her lap and she played with his hair gently in a soothing motion.

Leon was sure that he would have remembered putting himself in a large amount of danger by pissing off a demon. After all, he had done his homework on the creatures when it became obvious that Charlie was dangerous to all humans, not just British people.

His head was pounding, each and every heartbeat sending daggers of pain lancing through his brain. When she told him what he had apparently done to Marcus, to Lucian, to Raziel and to James, he paused and tried to remember.

"I don't... I don't even know there are spels that do that..." he winced as an even larger spike of pain went through him and he moaned in pain, "I can't... remember doing anything like that..."

Maria blinked at Leon when he only moaned in pain, his head seemingly causing more and more pain to run through him the more he tried to remember, it was something that she couldn't understand, maybe he had some form of mental block? Some sort of spell he placed on himself so he would remain innocent?

Biting her lip she ran her fingers across Leon's forehead and she gave him another gentle kiss, she had a theory and she wanted to test it to see if she was going to be able to help him, and to help her understand the situation at hand.

"Stop trying to remember Leon, hush hush, I have a theory I am desiring to test out, so, let us change the topic for a moment, see if your headache gets better." she whispered quietly "I love you Leon Becker and I want to ask you, if you will accompany me to a function?"