Two hours later Beth woke. It was another hour before we were able to see her.

I let Ann go in alone. I was unsure how Beth would react to my being there. I waited in the hallway for twenty minutes.

Ann pushed through the door, a happy smile over her tear streaked face.

"She wants to see you, Alex." She said. She sounded so much better then she had just a half hour ago.

I straightened my posture before I went into Beth's room.

She was watching the door as I entered.

"Alex." She let out in a breathy sigh. She smiled. Her teeth showing. "I'm glad you're here. But why are you here?"

I walked across the room, put a hand on the back of a chair and pulled.

The chair scrapped a few inches across the floor. Stiffly, I sat down.

"Alex?" She questioned my lack of response.

"I rode with Ann." I told her.

She grinned tiredly at me. "That's not what I mean, Alex."

I nodded. I knew but was unsure what to tell her. She was looking at me expectantly.

"I came back to the apartment. I wanted to talk about forgetting the one night stand plan." The words doesn't deserve to die alone was whispering in my mind.

"Alex, Alex." She said sadly and sighed. She tried to sit up but grimaced.

"No." I said. I reached out and layed a hand on her chest.

She sighed again, this time the sound seemed more content. She lifted a hand and placed it over mine. The contact warmed me.

It wasn't sexual. It was a calming warmth that made me feel like I would be okay.

I hadn't felt that before except when Jeremy used his gift on me. But Jeremy didn't need physical contact with me because I was his creation.

I pulled back. The sense of serenity was unsettling when I knew that I wasn't calm.

"Alex, your leaving in two weeks." She said. She looked up at me and I knew that she was trying to protect me. It wasn't that she expected me to leave in two weeks, she was still trying to give me an out.

"I don't think I'll be leaving after all. My uncle is coming to the States." I told her. I had told her I was meeting Jeremy, my uncle, in Paris. True in a way, but I didn't say why he now planed to meet here.

He takes his responsibilities way too seriously. I was over the two hundred year mark but most of the time he still treated me as a newborn.

It was a never ending process.

Ann had sat in the waiting room, I found her there when I left Beth's room. There were other visitors, I did my best to ignore them.

We spoke mostly about Beth and Ann's childhood. How they had lost their parents in an auto accident and how Beth used to be an artist.

I admitted to Ann that I was surprised. Beth had almost no artwork in her apartment.

"She put them all in storage. Except for what she gave me." She had a whimsical look on her face. "Oh, Alex, you should see them. They look so real you'd think you could walk right into the painting like a doorway."

"I want to see them as soon as possible." I assured her. I liked learning about Beth. "Why doesn't she paint any more?"

"I don't know. She stopped a few months, well, maybe a year ago. She's never said why. She just says she doesn't feel like it any more."