"What if I need you?" She whispered. He took her face in his hands, bringing his head closer.

"I’ll be right here. Just talk to me…" He said, kissing her forehead, "In here. You know how." Gabrielle closed her eyes, then nodded, turning and walking down the stairs.

It seemed to be an impossibly long walk. Gabrielle knew Christian was in the kitchen, and she had to talk with him. It had been three days since he violently took her, and they hadn't spoken since. Standing in the hallway, she could see him, head pressed against the glass, looking outside, dragging his finger idly down the windowpane. When she walked into the kitchen, he looked up and his eyes grew guilty. Neither spoke. Gabrielle sat on the cushioned seat beneath the window beside him, staring out at the blackness of night. Christian occasionally broke his gaze outside to look at her, then drew his eyes reluctantly back out. 'Kael, help me.' Gabrielle silently pleaded with him. 'What do I say?' 'Tell him what you think, ask him what you want to know' came his mental response. Building up courage through silence, Gabrielle drew a deep breath.

"Do you hate me, Christian?" She asked quietly in a small, almost scared voice. He turned his head from the window to look at her, but he couldn't look into her eyes without guilt. He stared to say no, but stopped himself. Did he hate her? He didn't know. She was different, much different that before. Could he still love her the same, he wondered.

"Gabrielle…" That was it. He didn't know what else he could say. Nothing worked, no words rang true. They were all hollow, dead and meaningless. Christian kept his gaze fixed downward.

"Look at me…" She pleaded, a stray tear shining in her eye. Why won't he look at me? She asked herself over and over. Slowly, he brought his head up, and at long last saw her eyes, her face, and hated not her, but himself. Still, words that came so easily before seemed to have fled his mind. He could say nothing. By her eyes, he knew he was forgiven. In his own mind, he was guilty as sin. He shouldn’t be forgiven, he knew. He could never forgive himself for something so severe, so earth-shatteringly cruel. Gabrielle looked at him with fear in her eyes, fear and forgiveness. His own eyes glazed over with tears, blurring his vision, Christian rose and left the room, out the front door into the refreshing, somehow alive coolness of the dark.

Gabrielle sat, head pressed against the cool glass, weeping again for what she deemed a lost love. 'Kael,' She called in her mind, not being able to voice her need, 'He left me…'. At once, he was by her side, then she was engulfed in his arms. Neither noticed Christian had re-entered the house, standing in the doorway. He watched Gabrielle in Kael's arms, heard Kael's sweet comforting words to her, and wanted it all to go away. Christian wanted her back, wanted everything to be as it was before, before she went away, before Kael, before anything happened.

"He hates me…" Christian heard Gabrielle say painfully to Kael. "I don't want to stay here…" Kael told her to be quiet, garnering more sobs. Turning his head, he saw Christian in the doorway.