Fire and Ice

[Sky]

"Alice wait!" Seth yelled holding his bloodied and burned arm out to reach for her.  But it was too late. She had passed the crowd that stood starring and pushed open the door. There were faint bloody handprints on the old wood of the door. But Seth didn't even notice as he ran and grabbed it. Alice was just standing there, tears gliding down her cheeks like tiny rivers. He felt the eyes of the crowd on his back and turned suddenly.

  "What the hell are you looking at?! Go home!" He gently eased Alice forward and closed the door behind them. He stood behind her and let his hands stand at his side. "What happened between you and Axel while I was gone?" He said, his voice a little shaky. This day was just too hectic.

[potter_fan122]

Alice felt Seth gently push her forward, then take a step back. Her red hands were clenched together and she could feel her nails digging into her palm. For some reason she felt like she couldn't uncurl her fingers.

"Maybe we should go somewhere with a little more privacy," she replied softly, her voice cracking. She didn`t want to tell Seth what had happened. She didn`t want to talk to him at all. She felt betrayed; he had taken away someone that had changed her life. Sure, he felt bad too, but that didn`t take away the naked feeling.

[Sky]

Seth sighed, frustrated, and grabbed her arm. He apparated them to the woods, just a mile or two away. They sounded roughly onto the cold, moist dirt, where the sun hardly shined due to the mass amount of trees and their large size. He let her go and looked at her.

  "Tell me. I need to know." He said in an unfamiliar tone. It was almost sad, pleading. With a mix of anger and a feeling of betrayal.

[potter_fan122]

Alice turned around on her heel, her eyes suddenly flashing with anger. Her eyes were still black, like they used to get when she was hungry, and her skin looked pasty. Tears wet her cheeks and eyelashes, but she wasn`t crying any more. Other feelings had replaced her sadness.

"If you worried about what I was doing while you were gone then you shouldn`t have left. You could have at least wrote to me, or something." Her voice was soft but had a sharp edge to it that she couldn`t get out. The anger she had felt towards Seth when he had left hadn`t just gone away when he came back. She still remembered what it felt like to have him gone. Her words were accusing and mean-- Seth didn`t deserve that-- but it had been a hard night, and too many things were still unsolved.

"He comforted me, okay. He reminded me of you, smelled like you. At first I attatched myself to him just because some of your blood was in his veins, and I could sense that. He didn`t mind me being around because he didn`t have anyone else. We were like two stray puppies who had found each other on the streets. We found comfort in having each other there, we couldn`t help it. We pretended that we were actually happy together, like we were a happy couple. We kissed a few times, but there was nothing in it other than the motions. We both wanted other things but we couldn`t have them, so we took each other. Nothing happened, Seth. He was angry at me when you came back because he knew how I felt when you were gone, and that added to his hate for you. I hadn`t talked to him since the bookstore until tonight." By the time she had gotten all of that out her teeth were clenched together and she was crying again. She could feel blood coming from little cuts on her hands from her fingernails, but none of that processed. Right now she just wanted to be angry.

What else could she do? She was human.

[Sky]

Seth stepped back as Alice turned. His heart jumped when he saw her eyes. They were as black as night. He wasn't used to that. But he also wasn't used to her being angry.

  "Writing to you would only make it hurt more!" Seth said, clinching his own fists. "I wanted to sever my ties so that we wouldn't hurt more. Do you know how hard it would be for me to receive a letter from you after we broke up? To smell your scent? And...and feel the bumps where you wrote too hard? It would hurt like hell. It would kill me inside." He turned around and started to pace.

"You can't stand there and tell me that there was nothing. I'm not f-ing blind Alice. I saw the way you talked to him. I saw the way he looked at you. Yeah, I know he loved Avalee more than anything, but he had something for you too. And you know you felt the same way towards him."

[potter_fan122]

Alice glared at Seth, her hair haning in her face making her look more savage. She didn`t care about what she said anymore. What she really wanted was some alcohol. Preferably firewhiskey.

"You didn`t have to break up with me, Seth, don`t you get that? I could have gone with you, or something. You didn`t have to leave like you did. Axel was right. You wanted to leave, to get away from me so you could think about our relationship. To make sure I was what you wanted." Alice stood up straight and suddenly her voice was softer, hurt not angry.

"And okay, I loved him. But it was different. I loved him because he listened, he understood what it was like to be alone. You don`t get it. You`re all that I have, Seth. There`s no one else. Everyone who ever cared about me besides you is dead."

[Sky]

"I needed to think. I didn't have two hundred years to decided what I wanted in life. I needed to make sure that even when I wasn't close to you, that you would still be the one my heart called for." Seth brought his hand to his forehead and pushed his hair back as he walked around.

"You know, I don't need this right now. I just killed someone. And not just somebody, but my own blood. I still have his blood on my d**n hands." He pulled the silver band off of his ring finger and flung it down on the ground in front of Alice.

"Come to me when you're not like this. When we're not like this." He looked at her sadly before apparating and disappearing.

[potter_fan122]

Alice watched Seth pulled off his wring, and with that motion it felt as if her heart pulled itself apart. He threw off his wedding ring and threw it on the ground right in front of her. Everything they had for each other was up in the air. A loud sob ripped from her throat the second that he Apparated, and Alice fell to her knees. Her bloody fingers searched through the grass until they found the stained band.

-I`m not coming to you, bastard. You`ll see what it`s like to be left alone.- As soon as the thought ran through her mind she felt guilty, but she didn`t take it back. Seth needed to understand what it felt like to not have anyone, to have taken a life and had to live with yourself. She knew all too well that feeling. Hell, Axel`s own blood still coated her hands. For some reason that didn`t bother her. The coppery scent coated her throat, but she didn`t care. Everything around her seemed sharply in detail and loud. None of this processed.

She stuck the ring in her pocket and stood up gracefully. With tears running down her face she turned and walked deeper into the trees.