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The problem with being a vampire, Bella thought as she surveyed the two uprooted trees and pile of kindling at her feet, was that there wasn't ever a break. Maybe the pent up anger, frustration and sadness wouldn't have been as intense if she could have just slept. Just a few hours away from it to reboot or reset herself.

She remembered Carlisle telling her once that vampires felt things more completely, that just as their vision and hearing and speed were enhanced, their emotions were, too. Considering the state she was in now, even days after meeting Adrian, she was pretty sure she knew why. There was no relief from it, just day after day, night after night of dwelling on it.

Today she'd decided to go to her forest, to run, to hunt. To see if she could find something to distract her expanded mind, to get away from seeing that face across the hotel and experiencing the same dashed hope that this time it wasn't someone else.

The run had helped a little, pummeling a few trees to kindling had, too.

But even now as she walked back to her room with twigs in her hair, she knew it probably wouldn't last.

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"So I'm learning. There are a few others here, from all different places, and not one of us appear to be alike in any way apart from the whole blood drinking thing," Bella commented with a shrug. "I'm the only one I've found that doesn't have to even think about the sun, but I'm also the only one that can't drink from humans without killing or turning them. To be honest, I'd trade the sun for not being a potential murderer walking around a hotel full of potential victims."

It was one of the things that plagued on her in the small hours of the morning, that she might hurt one of her friends. That she might hurt Adam.

"Blood does seem to the the only constant, though it's good to hear that you don't eat people. Welcome to the club."

Not that he could if he wanted. He still craved blood, something that stayed with him in the aftermath of having been a vampire for far longer than he was alive, but he'd been off the human diet for well over a century. (Save a few slip ups and some necessary taste tests, of course.)

Restraint, he imaged, was something all vampires had to learn, no matter their worlds or the metaphysical laws that governed them. There was always the risk of losing control, of breaking someone in half without meaning to, of looking at them as food when your instincts clashed with the more intelligent parts of your brain. And for him, there was always that uneasy feeling that warred with feelings of contentment when around Slayers, the demon in him protesting the proximity to those born to hunt and kill his kind.

"I'm Angel."

"I'm Bella," she offered back with a smile. "Nice to meet you, Angel. Are you new to the hotel of mysteries and general freakiness? I mean, you don't have that usual look of confusion newcomers have, but I don't think I've seen you here before. Though, that's not saying much. It seems to be getting more and more crowded here lately, a lot more than it was when I first came here."

That was true enough and it made her even happier that Eric was so sharing with the synthetic blood from his world. She wanted to think she could have used her super self-control to keep from going full newborn around this many humans, but it was nice to know she could supplement her hunting with that and keep the worst of the thirst at bay. Besides, it wasn't like anyone here knew what it meant when her eyes were more ruby red than topaz here.

"New to the hotel, but I'm no stranger to mysteries and general freakiness."

He was a private investigator of the paranormal variety — or at least, he was before he took a job with Wolfram & Hart. His life was full of the freaky and mysterious before he formed Angel Investigations with Doyle and Cordelia. It was an aspect of his life (undead or otherwise) that would likely never change.

"This isn't my first displaced without warning rodeo."

That made Bella giggle a little, a soft wind chime sort of sound. "Have you met Nick yet? Nick Gautier? He's seriously tall and has this double bow and arrow tattoo on his cheek? He's really nice and he's got the same sort of jaded acceptance of the hotel. He was apparently in a place like this but weirder before he came here. It was a desert island that turned everyone human. Weird, huh?"

Angel shook his head. Just like back home, he pretty much kept to himself when he wasn't at Faith's side. Being in the same vicinity as Buffy was a little awkward, and he had no idea where his footing was or should be when it came to interacting with her key-born little sister. He shared history with the Summers sisters, but it was a rocky, uneasy history with several years between now and then.

"I don't think so, but it's hard to miss a guy like that."

An island that turned everyone intrigued him, given his present situation. He'd definitely be keeping an eye out for this Nick Gautier.

"Are you alone here or are there others from your world?"

"Yeah, he really makes an impression, that's for sure."

Bella's smile was short-lived, though. She sighed out a breath she didn't need and shook her head. "No, I'm here alone. And I'm not one of the ones that can go back and forth home, either. I just have a door that leads to a sort of abandoned version of my hometown. The forest and the town are there, but no people. I can only guess it's the hotel's way of making sure I don't start killing residents."

"Bloodlust that powerful?"

It had been really intense for him those first few decades of existence, but he hadn't really tried to keep much of a reign on it back then. Controlling it got easier with time, but there were moments when he lost control. Like in the 1970s, when that man was shot. There was so much blood and it had been so long since he'd fed on human blood...

Odd (and slightly disturbing) how that still had power to make his mouth water.

"It can be, but I have control over it," Bella explained. "Kind of like the skin thing, we're different another way. Vampires like me are venomous. If I bite someone but don't drain them? The venom burns through their bloodstream, which will either kill them or turn them into a vampire like me eventually."

She looked up at him with a quirk to her lips. "Which is why I needed this place," she said and gestured to the trees around them, "so I can hunt."

Angel nodded, following her explanation and understanding it. Different worlds, different vampires. He didn't envy her venomous qualities.

"Sate the cravings and get out the aggression. Tai chi helps with that, if you're ever interested in learning."

Bella frowned a little, shrugged. "Sort of? I'm not all that aggressive. The tree was more frustration and a little bit of a 'that's not fair' sort of tantrum because there's a new guy here at the hotel who's the mirror image of someone I knew back home, someone close to me. Stuff like that aside, I'm usually pretty easy going. The hunting thing? Well, I have to eat just like everyone, but I doubt the residents would like bears and mountain lions wandering around the hotel."

He chuckled at that. "No, I don't imagine they would. And I doubt the hotel's kitchen staff butchers their own meat. I used to get my blood from meat markets — pigs. I lived in LA, so nobody really questioned you when you showed up at a butcher shop asking for a few pints of pig's blood."

Angel couldn't hold the tantrum against her. He'd had plenty of his own in the past few months. Not over this place, but over his present situation and how everything good he attempted, everything right he did always had a wrong, always came with a downside. He stopped the world from ending, shut down the be-all, end-all of apocalypses, but Los Angeles paid the price when the Senior Partners plunged the entire city into hell as a consequence of his world saving actions.

It wasn't fair.

"Does he know that he resembles this friend of yours?"

Bella wasn't about to mention when she'd been drinking bagged blood during her pregnancy. She still wasn't sure what other vampire cultures thought about the subject...and there was no way she was going to even open the door to that level of suspicion on the off chance Ness arrived here someday.

"I suppose that's an option, but I never thought about it. The forest has plenty of wildlife and," she smiled a little wider, "it's really fun chasing them down."

She took a breath she didn't need and nodded. "Yes, he knows. Hard for him not to when I tackled him nearly to the ground and called him the wrong name while I did so."

He grinned, because drinking blood out of a bottle, bag, or mug would never compare to the thrill of the hunt, whether it be an animal or a socialite with a finely powdered neck and wig who made the mistake off leaving early without a proper escort. He used to enjoy hunting and was still good at, even without the finesse of his vampire instincts. A few centuries worth of practice and you didn't need a sensitive nose and other sharper senses to track something down, it just took longer.

"Butcher isn't always an option. In a small town away from the bright lights of Hollywood, you'd definitely raise suspicion. And at least this forest is full of decent-sized and tasting wildlife. Back in the day, it was usually rats. Especially on ships." He grimaced. "I sincerely hope you never have to eat rats."

They'd have something more to talk about, should her daughter ever come up. Angel's got a half-vampire/half-human kid of his own.

"Makes sense. Not pleasant sense, but sense. Place like this with this many intersecting worlds and realities, there's bound to be a couple of look-a-likes out there. A veritable mecca for doppelgänger scenarios."

If puking had been an option for her, Bella thought she just might have at the very idea. "Yeah, no. No rats. We only have to hunt every week or so, but can go longer if necessary. That probably helps a lot."

She nodded at his comment, having thought the same herself once she'd calmed down about it. "There's another guy here who knew someone like me, with the same name even but when I was still human, though I've never seen him before in my life. And believe me, he's memorable. Just adds another level of weird to the place, huh?"

"Good thing weird is something of my specialty."

He could probably write a book to rival some of the records that were lost with the destruction of the Watcher's Council on some of the things he saw during his time at Wolfram & Hart. There were entire floors in that building that housed things that redefined the meaning of the word.

"I think you have to be good with weird to live in the worlds we do," Bella nodded, quirking a half-smile. "Otherwise it's probably straight to the looney bin and the jackets that let you hug yourself all day."

Angel smiled and nodded in agreement.

“Good with the good weird and ready combat the weird that’s not.”

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