Hannah looked up from the baby. "Sorry, dear?"

"You get a bit of sand or something under the shell, and a pearl grows around it. Look, are you sure she's not just concussed?"

Hannah composed herself in patience. "At present, there is no personality to be found in Fran. She retained all her skills, so at least she can look after herself, but beyond the simple needs of tiredness or hunger or whatever there's no motivation. To use your simile, to get out the sand we shattered the pearl. "

"I know. There's nothing there. I reach for her, sometimes, but I can never bear to, it's just a little too close to necromancy. She's the walking dead."

"Perhaps something can be salvaged-" Hannah saw Fynn's expression, and changed the subject. "I was talking to me friend Esme, earlier. She says all the vampires have been released."

"A vampire chef," said Fynn faintly. "Health and Safety must love that."

"Nothing to do with them. Anyway, nobody does a vegetable lasagne like our Esme. We reckon that the demon learned to tap the latent ability of it's host, somehow."

"Does it really matter, now? Tell me some good news."

"Amanda is growing normally again. She must sense that the threat is over."

"Yes," said Fynn softly, "it's over."

Curious sounds from the kitchen made Hannah look up. Was Fran wandering around again? She did that sometimes, touching commonplace objects as though expecting her to remind her of something. Hannah could never bear to watch that.

Fynn was doing the washing up in neat, mechanical motions. A plate was dried, and then a mug, and then a knife.

"You all right, Fynn?"

"Fine, thank you." He looked up with a bright, glassy smile. "Hannah, go to sleep, just for twenty minutes."

Even as her eyelids drooped, Hannah realised that she was staring at the knife. "You-"

"Yes. Somebody's got to set her free, and I love her, so it should be me."

Fynn stepped over Hannah's sleeping form, weighing the knife in his hand. If there was any hope, any hope at all... but there was a part of him that had never bothered pretending to be human, and it knew that there would never be more in Fran's mind than there was now.

Amanda was sleeping peacefully, and for a moment Fynn wanted to hate her. After all, there were any number of babies in the world, but there would never be another Fran.

"You'd have really liked her, you know. And as you'll grow up, I'll tell you all about her, over and over. I promise."

For a moment, as the light hit her, Amanda's face was full of compassion. Fynn reeled- and crashed straight into an unresponsive Fran. She stared down at him.

He stood shakily, getting a grip on the knife, and trying to fight down a feeling of stupidity. He was no kind of killer, he didn't even know where to put the knife so that she died quickly. The heart? He could never remember which side it was on. The throat? Bit messy.

"Oh, God." He traced a path down her skin with one finger. It gave slightly under the pressure, impossibly soft. He couldn't do it, couldn't harm even a mockery of his Fran.

There had to be something in her that wanted to live, right? Otherwise, she would have starved herself. So why did she just watch, watch, watch, waiting for it all to become clear?

"You know I can't do it. Oh, God. It's so hard, Fran, without you. Your parents are right, I do just follow you around. I can't- hell, without you I can't anything. And you don't understand, because you're so damn far away and I'd do anything to reach you." Fynn gulped, trying not to cry and failing. Damn it, he was twenty one, not twelve.

"I've been searching." The voice was hoarse from disuse, and the vowels sounded strange, as though she was learning how to use them, but it was recognisably Fran. Fynn looked up.

"T-trying to find the point where it ended and I began. And I found it. It- it's the part of me that can't bear to see you weep."

"I love you," said Fynn helplessly, wishing for the hundredth time that the words weren't so small and simple compared to their meaning.

"I love you, too." Fran's voice was already stronger. She geared up for an effort. "And Fynn?"

"Yes?"

"Yer- you can lose the knife any time you're ready."

"Oh. Right."

© Naomi 'Ni' Claydon 2000. No copying without permission.