The side of the plane was opening and Thorn, hidden at the back in a pile of bags and suitcases, jolted awake, the book she had been reading still resting open on her chest. Hopefully she’d gotten the right plane and it hadn’t become delayed, because if it wasn’t dark out she was completely screwed. Most vampire’s spoke about how, since they’d been alive so long, a day was really nothing, but Thorn couldn’t agree. She was impatient, that’s why she was risking the trip here on a plane, rather than taking something safer such as a boat. As the bags began to be unloaded she quietly stood, haling her bag up onto her shoulder and taking the book in her hand. Waiting for an opportunity when the men unloading the luggage seemed to have moved she jumped out from the plane and had taken a few steps when she heard someone behind her. “Hey you” The two of them called walking closer, causing her to curse quietly. She stood still, waiting for them both to get close enough before swigging round, letting the bag make contact with both their faces, knocking them to the floor. “Sorry lads, steal toed boots” she explained before hurrying off quickly.

Throwing her bag over and placing the book in her pocket she climbed the fence out of the airport then brushed her hands off on her jacket before reaching into one of the other pockets. Taking out a small metal flask she drank from it before placing it back. Being self destructive wasn’t particularly easy for someone was already dead, things like getting drunk weren’t as easy, but considering the blood the vampire was drinking had been mixed in with alcohol for quite a while now it was keeping her in a slight daze. Just enough to stop her thinking about things too intensely, otherwise she might have turned back around and ended up in London again. That defiantly wasn’t an option, she had already screwed things up for two other people quite a lot, hanging round would only cause something else no doubt.

Looking around Thorn saw attention had been brought to the man she had knocked out and put her bag back over her shoulder, best to get out of here now then have a modern version of the torch wielding villagers. Beginning to walk she pulled her hood up as the rain began to fall, it soon picked up tremendously.

Having nowhere to stay Thorn would find herself a crypt for the night, she couldn‘t stand hotels, it would probably take her a while to get her own place, it wasn’t particularly easy when you can’t go out through the day. Over the last few years of comfortable living in London she wasn’t used to living without electric and a shower anymore. By the time she’d found a church she was soaked to the skin, the front part of her hair the hood had not protected now stuck to her forehead. She glanced to the graveyard round back for a moment before staring up at the church itself. She’d always loved the look of them, even if she never liked church itself, though now being inside wasn’t exactly a comfortable thing with all the crosses, but she could stand it for a while. Biting her lip for a moment she stepped inside, keeping her head low so the hood shielded her eyes as she watched the floor. Her footsteps echoed and she made her way down towards the front of the building, still not raising her gaze just yet.

This wasn’t so bad, not with her hood up at least, she was yet to actually look at anything directly however, the only thing she could really see apart from the floor the flicker of candles from the corner of her eye. Already she could tell though that she might not have as much trouble as she expected in here, crosses needed to be backed up by faith to have much affect and from what she could tell there wasn’t much in the people who visited here. Thorn could hardly blame them, she’d seen a lot of evil in her time, been it too, and the only angel she’d met had been a vampire calling himself so. Moody one come to think of it, in the short time they’d been around each other. Finally raising her head, the candlelight hitting her face, Thorn stared in front of her, taking in the large cross at the front of the church, a slight frown coming to her face, as if she was having difficulty looking at it.

She was just contemplating taking some of the candles with her, to continue reading for a while, when the sound of her name seemed to cause her to stand at attention, her back straightening, her body becoming slightly more alert. After the months away, and the slight daze she’d been trying to keep her memory in, the voice wasn’t entirely recognisable though she knew it was familiar. Swallowing she turned her head to the side, away from the direction of the voice. Familiar wasn’t good for her and when she finally manage to match the voice back to Micky she had the urge to leave immediately. What kind of chance was it that they’d met up again here. It wasn’t chance at all. Still, she needed to say something. She’d been alone for months now, hardly spoke to anyone, her voice sounded different when she did and she knew it, she’d become quieter, almost choked., but silence wasn’t going to do in this situation. Or would it, she wondered what Micky would do if she just left. Would she let the encounter go or follow her?

Come to think of it how exactly did she feel about the vampire, she had after all come along and turned life upside down for both her and Willow, once before the human had tried to kill her, and would have succeeded if she really wanted to. She didn’t care what Micky had said to her about their relationship already being in trouble, Thorn saw herself as responsible for breaking it up, and then she hadn’t even stuck around. She’d ended their relationship, for nothing. Perhaps that was why Micky was here, had somehow found out where she was heading and followed her to put right the mistake she had made by letting her live. Thorn wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that, she didn’t have a death wish of course, but over this time alone it had dawned on her she had eternity to live if she kept to herself, just nothing to do with it.

Moving forwards her steps across the stone floor echoed once more and she stopped at a row of candles, watching one flicker before dipping her fingertip into the wax and watching it harden almost instantly on her skin. The rainwater from her hair dripped, dying out the candle she had been concentrating on and finally she was brought back from her thoughts, remembering the reason she had been thinking about Micky in the first place was that she was here. Rounding she stood facing her in silhouette now the light was behind her, the hood still up shielding any light the candles could have still cast on her face. “Yes?” she ask finally, quiet, hoping the question asked everything for her. Why are you here, what happens next, where do we stand? Though she doubted she would be lucky enough to get the conversation over so quickly.

Scratching the wax off of her fingertip Thorn forced her body to relax, slumping down into a sit on the few steps at the front of the church. To be fair she probably needed quite a lot of rest, since for last few month after London she had simply been travelling around the rest of the UK, mostly on foot. Blood hadn’t been a recurring thing, butchers that would agree to give her it were hard to come by so she’d taken to draining farm animals when she came by them, no doubt starting another Chupacabra legend. She’d hitchhiked a little, when she could, though being in secluded places with unsuspected humans was only becoming harder with the little she had been feeding. Micky had nothing to worry about of course, even if she did give in she knew how much weaker she had become over her past few years with a diet of animal blood, she’d almost killed the vampire once before after all.

If they were back in London Thorn would find this silence between them strange, though with the time apart and her months of almost constant silence she had forgot how they had actually gotten along. Well, most of the time, usually when the whole undead thing didn’t get in the way. She guessed she’d have to answer the question though, leaving usually was something she would consider but for some reason she couldn’t do it this time. Pulling her hood down Thorn shook out her hair for a moment before it fell into her eyes as she began to pick at the worn out shoes she wore. “I heard this place had a hellmouth and since I couldn’t stay in London and I’m not exactly at my best right now it seemed the right place for me. They say it naturally makes us stronger, I kind of need that with my diet” She shrugged a little, eyes still not on Micky. “As for the church… I need a place to stay.”

Finally lifting her eyes she leaned backwards, supporting herself with her hands as she let her eyes meet Micky’s for the first time that night. They seemed to have dulled, almost a cloudy gray rather than blue. She still couldn’t help but to wonder why she was here, though from her reaction of seeing Thorn here she could rule out that she’d been followed. “I’m guessing from the question you aren’t here to kill me then. So how did you end up in this place? Seems like a Million to one that we’d end up in the same church… all these miles from London” Her voice still held slight suspicion but she tried not to let it show on her face.

This all caused a big dilemma for her. Thorn wasn’t in the right state of body or mind to deal with moving around constantly at the moment, maybe when she could stand to feed from humans again. If ever. She’d got too close to them, and this was what had happened. She’d let herself start feeling again, rather than making it harder to do so by keeping a distanced. Because vampires could feel, just like humans, they just don’t like to, they stay away, or it makes it a whole lot harder to be evil. So now what did she do? She’d come here to try keep herself away from people, become the loner again so she could stop being caught up in shit. How was that going to work with Micky there, just knowing they were in the same place was going to make it hard to stay away. “Actually I was looking for some candles, but this place isn’t bad. Hardly makes me squirm at all” She gave a small smile, her voice steady as she spoke, hiding everything that was running through her mind as she looked over at Micky. She’d left a lot coming here, she was comfortable in London, but the situation had become too much for her and she’d left with only a few things, whatever fit in the two bags she had.

“Well we do always end up running into each other somewhere” she said “Though I didn’t expect it to happen this time” she admitted. She was going to leave the subject of their past behind, mostly because she didn’t want the questions to come her way also. She wasn’t going to ask Micky to leave this place, though she wasn’t sure yet if she would herself. For a while at least she’d stay put, maybe they wouldn’t always find each other like they seemed to in London. If things got weird for her again she’d just have to deal with finding somewhere else. Preferably with a hellmouth. They couldn’t be that hard to find surely.

Thorn paid enough attention to notice the small smile as Micky agreed she didn’t expect them to run into each other again. So did that mean she was actually happy about it, even if both of them knew how awkward it also was. Thorn couldn’t lie, she did enjoy being around Micky and they had kissed, there was some feeling there. Some feeling she was trying to force down however. She knew how it would turn out if she didn’t. That wasn’t something she was planning for, the last few years had been confusing and had changed who she was considerably.

Seeing Micky stand up and begin to look around Thorn rose to her feet again on the steps and watched until the girl met her gaze. As Micky asked if she wanted her to leave Thorn shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. She wouldn’t have her thrown out in that rain, which was just another example of how she’d changed, going from torturing and killing to not even wanting someone out in the rain. “No no, it’s fine, I should probably go back out and get in one of the crypts anyway, don’t want the vicar coming back and trying to get me to confess my sins. That’d be one long conversation.” she gave a small smile, though joking about murder probably wasn’t the best idea she reminded herself. Giving a small shrug to herself she turned round to face the candles behind her and blew out 3 of the larger ones, taking them off the stands and holding them with one arm as she picked her two bags back up. Turning back to look at Micky she just watched her for a moment, wondering where she was staying now. She’d been living with Willow before, hopefully she had her own place here and wasn’t just sleeping where she could. She didn’t ask however, knowing it wasn’t really her business.

For a few moments, as Micky came away from the benches and out into the aisle Thorn was still and silent, as if it was taking her a moment to get used to her being that little bit closer. As she spoke however Thorn let out a small laugh, and a smile stayed on her face for a moment. She knew exactly what Micky meant and she agreed. “Yes, typical and you’re right… you wouldn’t usually find me in a crypt.” Though she was a vampire Thorn wasn’t used to slumming it really, it hadn’t happened often, though unless she found a new way of making money she was going to have to. It was surprising how much you could get off victims… and how much Sophia had left her since she thought she was simply someone who needed taking care of. But by now almost all of it had run out and with no more victims there wasn’t exactly anything coming in.

“I’ve become used to the easy life, never really had to go without” she admitted, resting back against the end of one of the benches as she watched Micky, she didn’t like to hear that she was living in an old warehouse, though she kept silent about it. There wasn’t exactly anything she could do about it after all, not that she thought Micky would ever allow it even if she could. “I had an apartment in London but since I don’t really have the money for another and the last time I stayed in a hotel in America everyone had a strange obsession with my accent I don’t have much choice of places to stay.” she explained, though still she knew that a crypt was typical. Typical but safe however, as they let in no sun and there was barely any chance someone would come disturb her through the day while she was sleeping. Well, unless a Slayer decided to come take her out while she was sleeping, though they tended not to have that idea for some reason. “I dunno, maybe I’ll be a bank robber, I once when through a period of stealing from art galleries… though the security is probably better by now no doubt” she gave a shrug and a weak smile, not exactly wanting to think about where money would come from now, maybe she’d just have to get used to no longer having a comfortable lifestyle. “So unless you have a better suggestion I’ll have to take the crypt”

((Thanks! I was thinking of having a little evil Thorn slip back in… though I wasn’t exactly sure how to do it. Any ideas?))