Even In Death {Gabriel, Victoria}

[Katherine Summers]

Katherine sighed. She flipped through her small notebook, eyes scanning over notes quickly written in bright purple ink. She smiled a little at her use of the gel pen, knowing that the other people in the lab hated her use of such bright colours. They didn't understand, that was all. She knew people talked about how strange she was, but as her eyes drifted to Gabriel, she realized she didn't quite care. The only person whose opinion mattered to her was standing just a few feet down the hall on his phone - presumably with Cassandra. The Sergeant had been specific about the new drug task force and how hush it was, and Kat understood completely. She was just at this particular apartment complex to get some information; Gabe had only just arrived. She couldn't fathom why he was sticking to her like glue, and assumed it must be because he liked her.

That was all, right?

She heard the elevator door ding, and glanced up as a blonde woman stepped out. She held her breath in her throat for a second - Kat had never seen someone so... well, stunning before. O'Donnabhain, of course, was unparalleled in her beauty, but Kat had never seen someone whose eyes seemed almost to sparkle. She glanced at the blonde and smiled a little, only to be met with a tight-lipped... grimace, almost.

"Gabe, I think we're just about done here, I just need to jot down a few more things, then we can be on our way." She glanced over to Gabriel, arching an eyebrow slightly as he watched the blonde as well. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy, because his own dark eyes were trained on the blonde as well.

Hmph.

[Victoria Kelly]

Victoria held a sigh between her lips as she watched the elevator floors tick off slowly. She was nervous, no doubt. She'd heard that people were looking for her, and she didn't quite know what to do with herself. Running to Midnight was an alternative she didn't want just yet - she knew it would bring heat to a haven she considered 'safe', and the idea of Midnight being a haven for refuge was laughable in and of itself. She knew well what Midnight held behind its walls, because she'd put a lot of it there herself single-handedly, or of course, with the help of silent partners.

She stepped off of the elevator, finding herself in the company of two creatures she had not expected to see. A human, for one - scent alone told her as much. The other was a vampire, and that scent she knew simply from exposure to the ones at Midnight. He was different, not smelling of iron and ebony, but a softer, more sort of 'city' smell that flooded her nostrils. She glanced at him primarily, but had her attentions drawn to the girl who offered her a smile. Victoria found she could not offer one in return, though she did try - her cover was wearing very thin.

She walked slowly down the hall, carefully measured steps casual and slow. She didn't need to appear in a panic; walking, walking, trying to make it to the door of the apartment she'd rented. She was almost packed, all she had to do was finish one last box and she'd be home free.

Almost.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

Gabe was only slightly down the hall because he was actually on the phone with Wesley, who'd been decided as his partner for this situation.  If he hadn't been trying to keep Kat from overhearing and getting into a mess she didn't really need to be worrying about, he'd have been at her side, just like he'd been trying to do since he'd found out about this whole thing.  He was paranoid, yes, that much was way obvious.  Every damn time he got attached to a woman, someone died.  First, it had been her, then, it had been him.  He was tired of it, so he wasn't letting himself lose Kat.

God, he didn't even want to admit that he was getting attached, but it was there anyway.  Damn it!

He heard the elevator's noises and looked up, just due to paranoia, and he had every right to be paranoid.  There she was.  Wes was still talking, but Gabe didn't hear him.  All he heard was Kat talking, all he saw was how close she was to the Viper, and he knew that this situation was fucked.  Period. 

"Oh.  My God," he muttered into the phone, and just as quickly, he just dropped it.  He knew that getting to Victoria, even with vampire speed, before anything could happen to Kat, would be impossible.  She was close, way too close!  Oh, God, he was never going to make this work.  NEVER.

He had to try, though.  Kat wasn't exactly subtle about the paperwork she was holding and the fact that it had to do with police work, and she had no idea!  She didn't have the slightest clue that she was in danger!  He'd never make it in time, but he sure as hell had a trick or two up his sleeves.  It was night, perfect for his sort of effects, and he used that instantly.  His eyes went black instantaneously, but nobody was going to be paying attention to his eyes.  It was the rest of the hallway that was sure to get the attention, since the lights immediately flickered and simply became engulfed in a wave of shadow practically cascading from the walls, almost tangible in its thickness.  He moved at the same time, straight for Victoria, but he had to hide Kat.  The shadows would have to do it, have to protect her, and in all honesty, he hadn't put that level of power into this particular sort of effect in years.  He hadn't wanted to.

Please...

[Victoria Kelly]

Click.

The key slid into the lock. Victoria sighed in relief to herself; she'd made it. Just one more box...

The lights in the hall flickered, dimmed, and just as she lifted her emerald eyes to glance up and meet with the black of the vampire's... the lights dropped completely.

Shit. SHIT.

She whipped the gun out of the back of her trousers. It was all she had, really - a well-placed shot would kill a vampire or a shifter all the same - she knew for a fact, because she'd done it before. She could see motion, hear noise, and she took a shot.

BLAM!

The flare from the muzzle was so bright it almost lit the hallway up completely, but it didn't matter. She heard something make a noise and then hit the floor, and that was all she needed. She ran for the window and jumped, glass shattering around her. She'd land, she'd be fine - she was always fine, though, wasn't she? It didn't matter. She hit the ground, breaking bones. She cried out, gasping for air, but the alley was unforgiving and empty, and she didn't have time to look up.

THEY HAD FOUND HER.

She was running, DRAGGING herself out of the alley as fast as she could. Her phone was open, on, and she screamed something into it. A black car slid around the corner, a door tipping open, and she dove in.

Midnight, really, was all she had left. She put her head in her hands as the whine of the motor clouded her hearing, but all she could do was panic - they had found her, they had found her. It was over. It was all over.

[Katherine Summers]

"Who are you on the phone with, anyways? Your girlfriend?" she teased, paying no more attention to the woman. Her notebook flipped shut with a deft click, and she sighed, tossing back her long, brown hair. "I'm done. Let's get some food, yeah?"

The lights went out.

"Aw, damnit. I hate the dark," she complained - she shuffled around for a moment.

There was the deafening sound of a gunshot, and then nothing.

When the lights came back on, Katherine had staggered up against the pristine white of the freshly painted hallway, hands at her abdomen. Her large brown eyes were glazed over, in shock, and she looked down, and then up again.

"Gabe?" she asked, voice very faint. She could feel a warm sensation in her stomach - it started as comfortable at first, and then it became almost intolerable and unbearable, scorching her, burning her.

"Oh, fuck," she said, voice littered with emotions she didn't know she had. She could hear herself talking, but she couldn't control what was coming out of her own mouth. She felt the world tilt sideways, and then drop. From the floor, things seemed to make more sense. From the floor, it didn't hurt as much.

There was glass shattering, running, lights, motion. She didn't understand any of it. She wanted to be in her happy place, but she couldn't find it.

"GABE!" she screamed, terror in her voice now. The sound was unrecognizable, like an animal. She didn't say anything after that, but she kept trying to, making strange noises on the ground as she tried to crawl into a doorway to prop herself up. Something pink peeked out from her midsection beneath the bright red, the viscous fluid billowing from her shirt, now stained. She was fighting to keep her eyes open, but she couldn't feel them. She couldn't feel her face, her nose, her hands... anything.

"GABRIEL!!!" she screamed again, before tilting backwards. What... what the fuck was HAPPENING to her?

[Gabriel Sullivan]

He heard the gunshot, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was confused at the fact that he didn't feel any pain to go along with it.  It just made sense that he'd have been the one shot at.  He was the threatening figure, he was the vampire.  She had to have realized that. 

He heard her run, and it took no more than a frustrated flip of his hand to sweep the shadows away so that he could pursue the woman, but he didn't get that far.  He knew he should have chased her.  He knew he could have caught her.  He'd caught dangerous individuals in the past, and hell, he'd killed them.  He wasn't a stranger to danger and fighting and pain, but that wasn't going to happen.

Kat.

He'd seen her, but it hadn't registered.  She and Victoria couldn't see in the dark, but he could.  Shadow and darkness were his, but it hadn't registered.  When he returned light to the hallway, he actually regretted it.  At least in the dark, he couldn't see the COLOR.  He could smell the blood, oh GOD could he smell it, but he couldn't see it.  He couldn't see the full extent of the damage.  Now, he could see it all, he could smell it all, and there was no denying what was going on.  He froze between going to Kat and chasing that pale bitch down and tearing her apart, but she screamed, and he moved.

He was on the floor, pulling her into his arms as gently as he could, within seconds, but he knew how bad this was.  His hands moved instantly to her abdomen, trying to hold off the inevitable even as he talked nonsense to her, anything to make this go away.  He fed her all the lies about it being alright, about it not being so bad, but this was too much blood, and if there was one thing he knew, it was blood.  She was dying, and it didn't matter what he said to her, she was going to die. 

"Kat, hang on, please hang on, it'll be fine," he told her, hanging onto her as though that would really do anything to delay death, and he was already calling out for help from anyone he could think of.  Cassandra, Wes, anyone.  He could hear Wes screaming from the phone he'd dropped, knew that anytime the lion shut up to listen, he could hear Gabe talking to Kat and every sound she made.  He could hear her dying. 

God, she was dying, and he was so useless that he couldn't protect her from just a few damn yards away!!

"Kat.  Kat, listen to me.  I'm so sorry, this is all my fault.  Please, don't go."  That wasn't fair, and he knew it, but he couldn't help it.  He was painfully low on options.

Oh, but there WAS an option, wasn't there?  Could he bring himself to do that?

[Katherine Summers]

Kat smiled a little, which was strange - she was smiling, but she couldn't feel her lips twisting upwards. It was a genuine smile, but it was numb. "I have to go," she said matter-of-factly, tipping her head forward. She coughed, finding it suddenly hard to breathe - blood sputtered out of her mouth, and she reeled back into the door with a bang, but it sounded like it came from somewhere in the distance.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. She could see his hands in hers, but she couldn't feel them. It was so strange, but she knew that... it was normal. Black began to ebb on the very edges of her vision, and she blinked unfocused eyes a few times, forcing herself to look at Gabriel.

"We didn't even get a real date," she said with a little laugh. THAT hurt, and she winced, feet kicking at the pain. "It's okay, though. I forgive you. It's not your fault - lucky shot and all," she whispered. She closed her eyes for a long minute, and then opened them again.

"I think... I think I'm going to rest for a while," she said. Or, she thought she did.

Gabe was speaking, but he sounded so far away. She understood, finally. Death made things so quiet, fuzzy, and cold. She couldn't have imagined it before - she'd worked with dead bodies all her career, but this was different. Now she was going to be a dead body, all cold and lifeless. She wanted to frown, but she couldn't move her face anymore, and so she just exhaled painfully.

"I'm gonna see my Gramma. She makes the best fudge. I'll bring you some, some time...."

She closed her eyes. She was barely breathing, barely alive. It was okay, though. Kat was ready for it. She knew all her questions would finally be answered. She sure hoped she'd done enough good to get into Heaven, or at least to hang out at the Gates for a while and ask Saint Peter a lot of things before they sent her away.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

"No, Kat, you don't have to go.  You can get that date, I promise, you don't have to go..."

She wasn't hearing him.  He knew that, somehow, and shut up when she said she was going to rest, just long enough for her to promise him fudge from her Gramma.  No, no, she'd never bring him anything, never see him again.  She was going to die and leave him behind, and with the things he'd done in his long lifetime, even if he died, he'd never see her again.  If it was possible for vampires to go to Heaven, he wouldn't be.  Not with his history. 

If he let her go, she was lost to him.  If he let her go, he was going to lose another one.  Why did he even bother?  He was doomed to lose any woman he started to care about, that much was obvious, but he didn't have to let go this time.  He could turn her.  He could.  Make her a vampire, and she'd be so much safer, so much harder to hurt, but would she hate him for it? 

No, she couldn't possibly want to die.  No human wanted to die.

"God, Kat, please don't hate me for this later.  I don't want to lose you," he told her, and he pulled his hand away from her just long enough to cut into his own wrist, and then he pressed it to her mouth, praying that she was still there enough to drink.  He even tilted her head back to help the blood get as far as her throat, but she had to swallow.  If they could only get enough of his blood into her, she wouldn't have to leave. 

[Katherine Summers]

She wasn't dead yet, of course, but she was getting there. she'd just stopped fighting it, because she knew that there wasn't any time for anyone to get to them. She absolutely couldn't hear anything anymore except for a strange white noise as it had become ambient around her. She had her eyes closed, and found that it was nearly impossible to open them - she didn't feel like trying. She wondered what she should think about, and naturally, since Gabriel was with her, that's what she thought about. He was a comforting idea to her, at the very least; he was considerably more, actually.

She still wheezed a few breaths out, trying to swallow back the blood she'd been coughing up. It tasted awful, like peppery pennies. Had that been the lead in it? Inwardly, she frowned - that wasn't what blood was supposed to taste like, but then again, maybe blood tasted different when you'd been shot. She hadn't ever been shot before, so it wasn't likely that she knew any different. She wouldn't have known that it was Gabriel's blood, either, since she had her eyes closed, which may have been better for her.

She felt the hinges of her door closing slowly, and then.... stop. Something had stopped. Something had changed, something had begun to reel her back from this death. She almost thought EMTs had arrived, but as she opened her eyes, she saw Gabriel's bleeding wrist, saw the hall shrouded in shadows, and saw --

Everything went black.

Kat couldn't believe she'd actually thought for a moment she were going to live; no, she was being propelled towards death yet again, but this wasn't the comforting death she'd been having a few moments prior. This was something terrifying and lonely, and she could feel every cell in her body as it seemed to freeze in place, her blood suddenly turned to fire in her veins. She wanted to scream, but she didn't make any noise, unaware of anything around her. She was trapped in her head with the darkness, with the painfully slow dying, and she didn't know why. There was no white light, no pot of gold, nothing at the end of the tunnel - just more oblivion.

Strange things began to float in front of her suddenly. I must be stuck in some sort of... vacuum, she thought to herself, because Kat was a logical-minded individual, and this certainly seemed like it. Death was therefor, a vacuum. She was in a suspended sort of reality seeing memories, but the memories were unfamiliar; alien, not her own. The overwhelming scent of salt in the air clouded her nose, made it hard for her to breathe almost, but sweeter scents would waft in and tame the harsh burning - coconut, mango and a soft spicy odor. She could hear creaking, feel rocking, barely make out shouting of words she couldn't quite hear to understand.

What the Hell, am I on a boat now? she thought, and she knew that it didn't make any sense, but somehow, she'd gotten on a boat. The sound of someone's voice, very familiar and close to her ear - who was it?

Gabriel.

Kat frantically tried to wake herself up, but the burning sensation was back again, and there was a soft sort of lullaby trying to calm her, something in her blood, something mixing with it, telling her to relax, to relax and go to sleep...

Kat stopped breathing.

Everything will be fine when you wake up, I promise. Everything will be okay, you'll se--

Her heart stopped beating.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

For an instant, he thought it wasn't working.  He'd never turned another person before, and he'd been nearly dead when he'd been turned himself, so for a moment or so, he really thought he'd done it wrong and that Kat was going to just die.  That, or he hadn't done enough, and she'd be bloodbonded to him, still die, and drag him down with her.  That would be fitting, in a way, but it was why he hadn't tried to bloodbond her instead of going so far as to turn her.  He didn't think bloodbonding her could heal her fast enough to save her life. 

No, it was working.  It took precious moments for it to become clear, but it was working.  The horror of seeing things that shouldn't be seen in her abdomen was fading, her body pulling itself back into the condition it should be in even as her breathing slowed and her mind flew through...things she shouldn't know.

He was monitoring her thoughts, his absolute worry about her being joined by something of a fascination with what was happening that was only enhanced when she started smelling...home.  His home.  The smells, the feel of the boat, and he really didn't understand where it had come from, but he DID know one thing.

He had a hell of a lot of explaining to do after this. 

God, he hoped she didn't hate him for what he'd done, but he supposed it would still be worth it to have prevented her being lost.  She'd still died, technically, but she wasn't gone, and that was what mattered.  He wasn't letting her go until he was sure that the little promises about it all being 'alright' were true, though.  He was going to hold her until she came back to him.

"Don't be afraid, Kat, everything is going to be just fine, you'll see.  You're going to be alright," he told her, all the while praying to God that he was right.

[Katherine Summers]

Fortunately for Katherine, Gabriel's coworkers were a little smarter than to just let him sit in a hallway with blood everywhere and broken glass all over the floor. Cassandra and Wesley had arrived within moments of eachother, though it had still been nearly fifteen minutes before either of them had showed up. Cassandra had ushered Gabriel away, and accepted the idea that he wasn't going to let Kat go, after merely raising her eyebrows at what was coming out of his mouth.


"I know," was all she'd said. Wesley'd stood there, shaking and stunned, but thankful that Kat was 'alive', even if he didn't quite agree with the method. He grimaced at Gabriel - he'd told him about what he'd done to Drew's girlfriend, and now it seemed like they were in the same boat. Too bad neither of them could drink, because they both deserved a stiff one.

Cassandra and Wesley set to disposing of any evidence that Katherine or Gabriel had ever been there. Lucky for them the apartment was all but cleared out; Victoria had done them a favour in that regard.

Wesley kept his distance from Cassandra, staying at opposite ends of the hall, while they waited for someone from Onyx to come with a clean-up crew. Wesley didn't like how vocal he got around her, and he had enough on his mind that the truth wouldn't necessarily have been pretty - he was imagining all sorts of colourful and graphic ways to murder the Viper, and none of them were appropriate to mention in the presence of a lady such as O'Donnabhain.





Seven hours later, Katherine screamed, opening her eyes and grabbing her midsection. The soft sound of a fan, white noise, and the presence of warmth at her side made her realize that she was dreaming - and what an awful dream! She'd gotten shot by some woman she'd never even seen before. Gabriel had even been with her, come to think of it. She sat up a little, body aching all over; she must've been sleeping in a bad position, because every muscle in her body felt flooded with dull pain.

She reached out in the darkness, patting around. She was in her own room, she could tell as much by the sounds around her, and the scenery, of course - fingertips found hair from the spot next to her, and gently brushed it. Gabriel. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew, and it was strange to hold such a knowledge in her. She hadn't really ever been sure of something in the dark before like who was with her when she couldn't remember them getting there in the first place - if she had, well.

She opened her mouth to speak, not aware that she hadn't drawn a breath up until this point, but when she did, her lungs swelled with so much pain that she exhaled sharply - which only hurt more. She made a muffled sort of cry, flopping back onto the pillows. She inhaled slowly this time, but her chest still felt like it was on fire - had she pulled something? She made a sort of wheezing sound. Was she having an asthma attack?

What the HELL is going on? Unshielded, loud and angry, her thought broadcast itself through the room. It even hurt her own head, and she wondered if she wasn't suddenly becoming ill. She didn't even know what time it was, come to think of it, and craned her head to see her clock - which had been unplugged. No clock, darkness, pain in chest.

At least Gabriel was there.

Now about that dream...

[Gabriel Sullivan]

In all honesty, and this may not have been vocalized but Gabriel made it painfully clear with his attitude and every nuance of the things he DID vocalize, he wasn't letting Kat go and nobody could make him.  Cassandra was older and higher ranked in the precinct than he was, but he was confident that he was stronger.  He was a fighter and always had been.  From the time he was turned, he'd pushed his abilities to their limits, and he'd pushed his body to its limits when he was mortal.  Cassandra could argue with him if she wanted, but there was nothing she could do about it in the grand scheme of things.  If he had to, he'd abandon his place among the police to keep Kat safe.  He didn't say it in so many words, but it was clear.  He couldn't lie to Cassandra, and really, he saw no point in it.  His 'nerd cop' act had slipped beyond his own abilities to return it right then, and he was sorry for that, but given the situation, it was rather unsurprising.

Cassandra sent him off with Katherine, and he knew that the best idea would be to take her to her own home.  It would be familiar to her, and that mattered.  He didn't want to take her to his own place because it would be entirely new to her, and everything else was already going to be new.  It didn't occur to him right then that he and Wes were in similar situations where Richardson's girlfriend was concerned, but the irony of that would strike him after his mind had time to calm down.  Fortunately, he wasn't so hypocritical that he'd disagreed with Wes' actions.  He'd been a leader his whole life, so he understood making unpopular decisions for the good of others.  Actually, he'd been a lot of things up until he went and joined the NYPD, which was interesting.  This really HAD been his downtime.  Hopefully, it wasn't over just yet.

He left Cassandra and Wes to deal with clean-up, not caring who they had to call or what they had to do.  Kat was his concern, and as soon as he got her to her apartment, he laid her down gently on the couch and regarded her for a moment.  Waking up with her clothes drenched in blood would help her believe him when he explained what had happened, but that was a shock he didn't want her to suffer as soon as she came to.  He had to enter her closet, something he hadn't wanted to do because of privacy issues, but he found her something he hoped would be both modest and comfortable enough and made quick work of changing her clothes and trying to clean up some of the blood on her skin.  He left the bloodied, drying  garments draped over a chair, then carried her to her bed and tucked her into the covers.  He briefly considered teleporting home for a change of clothes for himself, but he didn't want to leave her alone at all, so he simply pulled his coat off and was sure to lay out a dark-colored towel to keep any blood that hadn't dried on his own clothes from getting onto her blanket.

Yes, he'd laid down with her, but he laid on top of the blanket after tucking her into it.  He wasn't going to push any boundaries, just in case she became upset.  He was trying to be careful.

Amazingly, he managed to doze off beside her, which was actually something he wouldn't have thought possible.  Even with the smell of blood in the air, she had this comforting, exotic smell about her, though.  It soothed him, no matter what he wanted to say on the matter, and when she woke up, he was actually sleeping.  He smiled ever so slightly in his sleep when she brushed her fingers over his hair and was actually stirring awake as she made her first movements and sounds.  It was the mental shout that got him, though.

He shot up, glancing around with eyes much keener to the darkness than any human's and probably any vampire's.  You didn't play with shadows and darkness and find yourself unable to see in them.  He didn't see anything that could be a threat, which naturally brought his attention to Kat.  He leaned over her, eyes wide and hoping there wasn't something wrong that shouldn't be.  He was still worried that he could have messed something up, which wasn't making any of this easier.  "Kat?  Kat, are you okay?" he asked, and though he didn't prefer to invade her thoughts, he dipped into them to see exactly what the problem was, and he calmed slightly.

"Breathe easy, and stay calm.  You need to take it slow," he told her, voice softer and less panicked.

[Katherine Summers]

Kat was trying to breathe easy, lips pressed firmly together as she forced air in and out of her nose, which was so dry she was surprised it hadn't been bleeding. She felt strange all over - before she had just assumed she'd slept wrong, but now she knew something was wrong. Why couldn't she remember coming home and going to bed? She couldn't remember anything before waking up to go to work that morning, actually, and a hand shot to her head as pain flickered behind her eyes.

"I just had a horrible dream," she said to him, not yet ready to question his presence in her bed. She'd learned her lesson last time, and from now on, if Gabriel wanted to cuddle with her, she was mum about it. She figured he'd stay around longer if she didn't hound him about it, and it was working so far. "I don't mean to sound stupid, but how did we get here? I must still be really... shaken or something," she said. She didn't know how to describe it - she'd never felt that way before, so how would she?

Something, though. Something was definitely different. Something was tingling in her dry nose, making her head pound. A strange, sweet sort of scent - metallic, but dirty. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it smelled almost like... blood. She took one or two sniffs before rolling her head to look at Gabriel in the dark. By now her eyes had 'adjusted' and she was barely able to make out his form.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

This was going to be disastrous, he could see it coming, and he was dreading it with all of his being.  He wasn't going to dance away from it, though.  That was why he sighed and slid off of her bed to go get the light, knowing that it would be all that was necessary.  "Watch your eyes, I'm turning the light on," he warned her, and then he flicked the switch.  Even if his coat had gotten most of the mess, his white shirt was an absolute wreck, the rolled up sleeves stained completely through and the front showing prints from him wiping his hands there as well as Kat bleeding on him.  His pants weren't much better from the floor, but they were darker and the stains were harder to see. 

"I truly wish I could tell you differently, Kat, but it wasn't a dream," he said softly, regarding her carefully.  This SO wasn't going to go well.  "I brought you here...afterwards.  How much do you remember?"

He knew that, no matter how badly this went, he was going to have to be around long enough to teach her about being a vampire.  Even if she hated him and wanted him gone after that, he had to teach her.  He couldn't just leave her like this.

God, he wished it would have been as simple as cuddling and her deciding not to question his presence in her bed.  He was going to have to explain things, and that was going to take a lot, and would involve admitting to some awkward lies, even if there'd been a reason for them at the time. 

[Katherine Summers]

Kat winced as he turned the light on, keeping her eyes closed for a moment as the sudden illumination split through the back of her eyelids like UV rays. She sat up again so she could get her bearings on things, but as soon as she glanced over to Gabriel, her eyes widened. She didn't even hear what he said, because --

"Oh my GOD!" she shrieked. "What the Hell happened? Are you okay? Oh my God, where did all this blood come from? Jesus, Gabriel!" she shouted, hand pressing down on the towel - some of it was wet. "What happened to you?"

That was when what he'd said finally seemed to register with her, and she sat back a little, hand to her chest in surprise. "I -- what?" she asked. She squinted her eyes a little, making the confused face. Something occurred to her then, something odd, something that she'd never noticed before.

She couldn't feel her heartbeat.

Fingers splayed across the exposed part of her chest right above the v-neck t-shirt she was in, and her palm moved around inch by inch, searching. She pressed down harder still, and then looked back up at Gabriel.

"I must be dreaming," she said. She rocked back a little, taking her hand away. Kat's expression changed. "Is this Purgatory?" she said after a long silence. "Am I... am I dead? Because, if so, and I don't mean to sound selfish, but, yeah, totally dedicated my life to helping others, so Heaven sometime soon...?"

When Gabriel just stared at her, she shook her head. "Nn-- " But it was all she could think to explain... She was dead. She was a ghost. And Gabriel could see her. She looked down at her hand, narrowing her black eyes at it. She couldn't see through it, so she didn't know what sort of ghost she'd become, but really...

"Holy shit, I'm a ghost," she said, surprised.

Kat had really taken that and run with it. Sorry, Gabriel - thanks for playing!