Another late night, another long train ride home, this was becoming far too common. She hadn’t gotten around to saving up for a car, and at the moment she barely had time to look for one. Her days were becoming monotonous trying to get the layout perfect for their new client’s tastes. The particular sods were bugging the hell out of her and she was five minutes away from telling them where to get off, but that wouldn’t do her employment position any good. She was begin a good girl, or at least trying to; biting her lip when all she wanted to do was scream… “It looks the same way as yesterday!”

“No Chuck, you can’t be serious. I worked my butt off on that what do you mean she things she liked the old layout better?” she asked incredulously, as she took the escalator down to the train platform. She laughed an exasperated laugh as her boss continued to speak, but her mind had completely shutdown by that point. “Chuck…that was three weeks worth of shoots, colour planning, sketch work, my people’s time…my time and you’re telling me she’s going with the layout I did a month and a half ago, that she wasn’t sure about and wanted me to try again?” she moved the phone from her ear and took a deep breath as she stepped off the escalator onto the almost empty platform.

“Fine. Fine, Chuck, I really don’t care, as long as she likes it and I don’t have to waste another three weeks on her ad.” Chuck was an understanding man to some extent; he’d worked his way up the ladder and understood her frustrations. “Yeah, I’ll see you Monday morning. Yes, I’m not working this weekend; I’ve been in the office everyday for three weeks. Yeah, get home safe,” she said closing her phone and sticking into her pocket as she took a seat on the bench nearby and waited for her train.

She looked at her watch; it was a quarter to eleven. She ran her hand through her hair as she leaned her head back and took a breath. The train would be there in a few minutes and then she’d be home where she could collapse in bed and stay there for a while without having to worry about work in the morning. She looked around her; she could count the people waiting on one hand and have fingers to spare. She hated this, it was a desolate ride home at this hour and there wasn’t another woman in sight. It wasn’t that she was scared more a case of being bored out of her wits, with another woman around she was sure she could find something to talk about to kill the time on the ride, but she didn’t seem to be having any luck in that department tonight.

A growl from her stomach alerted her to the fact that she’s skipped dinner and she looked around for the nearest vending machine. She spotted one several feet away and she crossed the floor towards it rummaging in the pockets of her coat for change, knowing her purse was empty. In the end she came up with a fifty and the last thing she wanted was change for that. She looked around trying to size up those around her in an attempt to decide who would be the best person to ask for change. She settled on the guy to her far right standing under the light on the post.

“Hey,” she said tentatively, “Do you have change for fifty?” she asked in her slightly raspy voice with its Italian accent.

The guy to the right under the light of the post looks very normal from the back. He has long dark hair but it's pulled into a sensible and neat ponytail at the base of his skull and appears very healthy and clean. His clothing is typical of a business man as well in black slacks, a tucked in deep purple button down shirt, and black soft leathered shoes that hang out in the limbo between casual and formal. Typical.

When Vincent turns around to reply to the woman he isn't average. On the contrary, Vincent may be the most unaverage person standing on the platform at that given moment. It wasn't his face, he wasn't bad to look at, and it wasn't his expression as that appeared quite polite in a closed but friendly manner. It was his skin. The man's skin was flawless, but that aside, it was pale. Beneath the harshness of the fluorescent light he was nearly white, as if all of his face lacked blood to flush color through it. Beneath his gray eyes dark circles formed half moons as though he hadn't slept well in weeks.

Vincent smiled and even his lips were pale. His hand slid into his back pocket and retreived a wallet as he spoke in his own rasping voice, "I may."

He opened the wallet and flicked through a few bills and his dark eyebrows came down slightly in a mild frown. "I don't supose I do," he said but even as he said this he took a bill from his wallet and held it out to her. "Sorry. Was it just vending money you were looking for or did you really need change for a fifty?" He nodded towards the machine when he asked.

Vincent always took the underground home, no saving money for a car to it. He used to walk the blocks, what amounted to miles, to his home nearly every evening...until someone kindly brought him up out of the dream world and made him aware of the population of blood sucking fiends in the city. Now he took the underground, always.

The guy was well dressed in typical business attire, a fact that Cristobel really didn’t notice, and neither was his ponytail anything interesting, in Siena finding a pony tailed guy was a sight you could find around every block. Then he turned around.

His face was so pale is reminded her of plastic shopping bag, so pale it almost reminded her of something translucent. She stared for a moment, but not long enough to seem rude, before she let her eyes glance towards the tracks and then back again. It wasn’t smart to offend the person you wanted to change cash for you, and Crista was a smart woman. His skin is looks like porcelain, she thought as once again her eyes wandered over his face. He looked tired too, the bags beneath his eyes reminded her distinctly of herself over the past few weeks, and a surge of anger built up inside her. Damn that woman and her finicky, indecisive mind. He looks tired or sick. The last thing she needed was a cold and she stepped back slightly.

When he smiled even his lips looked pale she noticed. She smiled politely in return as he reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Thanks,” she said before he had even found the money. She glanced on her watch; the time was slowly ticking by. Typical, the train looks like it’s going to be late.

She didn’t watch him as he looked for change, though the temptation to do so was there. She had always been curious as a child and she supposed it never went away, but curiosity killed the cat so they say. She kept her eyes away until he spoke again. Her lips pursed together, “Oh, well thanks,” she replied completely prepared to walk over to one of the others on the platform, until she spotted the bill in his hand. A soft laugh escaped her lips as she saw it and heard he continued. “Yeah, yeah it was vending machine money,” she replied, “I only had a fifty.” She stared at the bill her mind torn between taking it or not. Was he actually just offering to give her vending machine money? If so, that must have been one of the nicest things anyone had ever done since she moved here.

“Thanks,” she replied as she finally took hold of the bill in his hand. “I…well…thank you,” she replied again not knowing what else to say, still slightly surprised by his generosity. She pocketed her fifty. She would have made an offer to pay him back, but she hardly thought she’d see him again so what was the point. “Do you want something?” she asked, seeing that there would be change from what she wanted. She had to offer; after all it was his money.

Vincent was used to being looked at, stared at even. He comes very close to being albino. It’s the black hair and the gray eyes that prevent this assumption most of the time, although some people don’t make the distinction. Vincent was not albino. He had a condition that when put into lamens terms meant he was allergic to the UV rays in the sunlight. Albino flesh lacks color pigment; Photosynthic flesh just simply doesn’t see the sun. He isn’t quite as pale as an albino and most people who are either open enough to speak to him about his condition or are close friends or those who work with him are always shocked to find out that his is merely the color their skin would be if they didn’t go out in the daylight.

When she glanced at her watch he smiled again and it lifted one corner of his lips higher then the other into a crooked, charming smile. “Don’t hold your breath,” he said. “They usually run ten minutes behind schedule.”

He watched her deliberate taking the bill while she told him she only had a fifty. “I know,” he said, lifting the bill higher to prove the offer was real. “Although I would be careful about announcing that and you may want to carry smaller bills from this time on. Fifty dollars could be worth your safety to someone desperate.” He spoke from experience. Vincent wasn’t an imposing man; he was tall and built well beneath the clothing but muscle only fairs so well against a blade. He’d been mugged before.

She took the bill and he started to turn away again, back towards the tracks. Vincent would have hardly thought that giving someone a dollar was generous. It was more like a small act of kindness, a free favor with no need to be repaid. Generous would have been handing her three twenties in exchange for a fifty and telling her that someone else could break one of the twenties. Generous would have been buying her the vending machine.

“You are welcome,” he replied, turning back as she offered to get him something as well. “No. Sweets on my empty stomach would make me sick, I’m sure. Thank you.” He watched her, however, instead of turning back to the platform. He held out a pale hand towards her. “Vincent,” he said, unsure of why he was introducing himself. She wanted nothing from him, not friendship, not protection, not his expertise (in fact his expertise may have caused her discomfort), she only wanted to borrow a dollar from a man she would never see again. Perhaps it was because she was the first person in a week that he hadn’t looked at and wondered if she was, or if she knew, a vampire. She was safe ground.

Crista laughed slightly as the man told her not to hold her breath on the train. “Yeah, I was just figuring that out.” She’d been taking the same train since she got here, but truth be told, this was the first time she was in a rush to get home that she actually checked the time. Before, she just went on the assumption that it was on time. She really needed to pay more attention, but when you’re going home to an empty apartment without so much as a cat to welcome you…what’s to be excited about?

She’d stopped staring at his skin, though it sort of reminded her of the colour of her friend Ryan when he hadn’t been to the beach for a while, but a little paler.

Her facial expression changed slightly when he mentioned that walking with such large bills might invoke the interest of some desperate person, the she smiled. “I can take care of myself, but thanks for the warning.” Though she didn’t look fearsome in the slightest, Crista had taken several years of kickboxing and could defend her self at any rate, but thankfully she’d never had to up to this point. “I usually have changed, but I used it all on the vending machine at work,” she admitted. When you spend as many later hours in the office as she had been a vending machine became your best friend. She’d get Lucy, her neighbour, to change it in the morning, the woman lived for company and she always had small bills lying around. She was eighty-one she didn’t do much spending and she liked to have change for the thousand and one delivery guys who brought her everything from groceries to books.

He hadn’t given her much money, a dollar, but it was nice all the same she knew a lot of people who would have just told her no and left it at that. He declined her offer, oh well more for her then since she would finish her snack by the time the train got there. “Okay,” she replied the vending machine beginning to call her name.

She looked at his hand momentarily and then took it with a smile; “Cristobel…Crista” said introducing herself, her name sounding like Cree-sta with her Italian accent. “Nice to meet you Vincent, you’re a life saver,” she said with a little laugh. That was unexpected, but pleasant, she hadn’t thought he’d introduce himself, but having someone to kill the time with was always a plus. “Excuse me,” she said as she scurried over to the vending machine and bought to chocolate bars and returned. She smiled. “You seem to know this train schedule well. You take it often?” she asked casually as she released her chocolate delight from it’s wrapping and took a bite.

Delicious! That would appease her stomach for a while.

Vincent had similar feelings. It was pointless to rush home when the apartment would only be empty anyways. He’d considered getting a cat at one point but due to the rejection that his friend’s cat gave him he’d decided against it. Something about the smell of formaldehyde and dead bodies tended to irk the strong nosed creatures.

Vincent nodded when she said she could take care of herself. “I always thought I could too,” he replied softly, gently, as if saying ‘I believe you but I’m going to argue the fact anyways.’ But his expression was kind and he didn’t look as if he intended to argue anything, only to reiterate his statement. He laughed when she said her change all went to the vending machine funds. He never ate from a vending machine, at least not beyond the occasional bottled tea or water and a pack of chewing gum. Along with his photosynthesis, Vincent had an array of non-life threatening medical issues, a weak stomach, or rather the resistance in his stomach towards artificial sugar, was one of them. He’d choose to walk a block to a deli then sliding in four quarters down the hall. He replaced chips for crackers and chocolate with gum.

Vincent took her hand and his handshake lacked the masculinity of most men. He didn’t squeeze her hand to establish her strength or some kind of male dominance, he didn’t grasp it as if to hold on to it for the shake. Vincent’s hands were light and practiced and soft. There were no calices, no hangnails, no tremors; they were as steady as an artist’s hands, as a doctor’s hands. They were also cool but not cold like many expect of his pale hands.

His laugh was sudden and soft when she called him a life saver. “That’s right,” he said, smiling and releasing her hand, “saving the world one vending machine donation at a time.” He watched her unwrap the chocolate. Make no mistake, simply because he doesn’t eat it does not mean that he doesn’t like it. “Just about every night and every morning,” he told her about his frequency on the underground. “It’s cheaper then a cab and I work too close to home to bother with car payments,” he explained.

Crista was a little surprised by Vincent’s remark that she could take care of herself. “Someone proved you wrong? About the taking care of yourself thing?” she asked after swallowing her chocolate. She knew some people didn’t eat junk, but junk was her diet for the past few weeks, though it would never beat a good lasagne with lots of sauce and really gooey cheese. Damn she was hungry.

He was different, she could tell and it wasn’t just his appearance. Vincent seemed delicate somehow, maybe she was jumping to conclusions but he didn’t seem the type who would get himself into trouble. He came over as the type whose mother would have worried constantly about him growing up, making the laughingstock at school. When they’d shaken hands she couldn’t help but notice that his hands were soft unlike what you expect from most men. Maybe it was stereotyping that men should have large and slightly rough hands that always attempted to swallow yours on meeting them.

She laughed at his response. “Well I may not know about the world, but you certainly saved me. I was starving,” she admitted. “Really?” she asked as she tried to swallow the chocolate in her mouth and speak without grossing him out. Her parents used to scold her constantly for that as a child, speaking with food in her mouth. “I catch this train all the time, I’ve seen you.” Okay, she never really paid attention to anyone on the train with her so not seeing him before was a given, but it sounded like something good to say at the time. Crista’s life was her work, it kept her on the straight and narrow which was good, it also kept her alone which wasn’t so good.

“I know what you mean about the cabs. I only catch them if I’ve been out very late and I want to be home quickly. I don’t have a car, but I do want one,” she admitted with a smile. “Where do you live? I live in a condominium down town; umm I don’t remember the name very well I only moved there recently.”

Vincent smiled and looked to the brief case and jacket on the ground by his leg. He’s not a typical person but he’s still a male and he still has some of his standard male pride. Telling this story isn’t embarrassing but it is never flattering. “I’ve been mugged before, twice actually. And…picked on often.” He seemed to search for the words and had ended up settling on a phrase that a teenager would have used. Probably because these ‘pick on’ sessions were from his teen years, from his abusive father and psycho mother. Not that he’d say that out loud. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to show a thin scar, only a few inches long, that extended down the back of his wrist and top of his hand. “Any amount of talent, muscle, or skill can only fair so well against a knife. And,” he added as an after thought, “you don’t have to get close enough to a person for them to hit you if you’ve got a gun.” This was, after all, a city. And she was a woman. And it was late and they were standing in an underground platform with a bum and three other men. Anything could be true. Everything should be expected, the worst should be assumed.

While Vincent had never really been a laughing stock at school, and while his mother was quite the opposite of protective, he could be called delicate. He was tall and strong and his hands were large with long fingers but everything was precisely clean, steady, like a well groomed something.

Vincent smiled and raised black eyebrows in mock surprise. I’ve seen you. “Oh really? I’ve never seen you,” he told her truthfully. “I’m usually too wrapped up in photos to notice,” he added almost apologetically as if it were a crime against nature not to have noticed her. She was the only female on the platform, and quite pretty.

”Downtown also,” he told her, “in the renaissance apartment complex.” Of course, he didn’t actually expect her to know where that was if she was so new to the city. It was a fair area, certainly not low income by any means. “It’s near the Deli on Silver Isle and Crossing.”

Her eyes opened wide at the revelation that Vincent had been mugged and twice at that. “Are you serious? Were you hurt?” she asked concerned as if it had just happened. Her chocolate was now a distant memory after his statement. She’d thought that, well she didn’t know what she thought but she hadn’t expected him to say he’d been mugged and picked on. She’d never been on the end of such incidents before, at least not entirely like it.

Crista had been her mother’s person insult pole growing up, it wasn’t that she meant it, Crista was pretty sure now that she didn’t, but when she was drinking her mother said anything and everything and didn’t care who it hurt. It wasn’t easy growing up with a drunken mother or a father who was at his wit’s end trying to save her from herself. Crista often thought that he blamed himself for why she was the way she was, because she’d started drinking when he was sick and Crista was a baby and life was too hard for her to handle. However, Crista saw it differently, she saw that her mother was weak and selfish and unfeeling and she hated that, and for a while Crista hated her and loved her mother at the same time. It was enough to put her in therapy, but instead she took to wayward behaviour and wild nights.

When Vincent raised his shirt sleeve to reveal the scar beneath it, her lips parted in shock. “Oh my goodness,” she said, her hands moving to his arm without thinking about it. She looked at his face and then released his arm. Was he trying to scar her? If so he was succeeding. “I’m sorry that happened,” she continued as the folded the remainder of her chocolate in to a ball and stuffed it and her hands into her coat pocket.

She smiled somewhat embarrassed. “Yes. Only once I think. You were standing in front of a newsstand and I wanted the paper. I tend to remember faces,” she admitted. She was sure it had been him, but then again she could have been wrong and it was just familiarity related to someone else that made her think she had seen him before. “Photos?” she asked curiously. Crista was a photographer, painter, the artsy kind of woman who made her living making silly ads to trick people into shopping at one of her clients’ stores or restaurants or use their products. He almost sounded almost apologetic though he had no reason to be, she didn’t mind. she wasn’t the most noticeable woman on earth nor the sexiest so why would men particularly notice her out of everyone else in during the course of a long day?

She nodded her head as he told her where he lived. “The Renault,” she said suddenly, as the name of her condo complex jumped back into her head. “I live at The Renault.” It looked like a hotel of shorts, with twenty floors and gated off from the rest of the world with guards at the front desk who didn’t let you up unless you were on a guest list, lived there or they got confirmation from the resident you came to see that it was okay to let you in. The rent was over two thousand a month, but she made more than that at work and she had a tidy sum left over from her last job and her father’s benevolence to keep up with the payments.

“I know the Deli on Silver Isle. I’ve been there a few times,” she admitted. “Do you go there often?”

Vincent shrugged, seemingly oblivious to her concern. “Only the first time.” He didn’t pull his arm away when her hands landed on it. The scar was thin and darker then his own pale flesh, almost a pinkish-purple color against the white. It was smooth under touch, not raised at all like most scars but just a colored portion. It was a decoration instead of a mutation. He didn’t seem offended that she’d touched his arm, the scar, looked shocked. That had been the point: to shock her.

“It wasn’t as painful as it looks.” He looked around when she took her hand away and rolled his sleeve back down. “It happened at the top of those stairs,” he said, pointing at the stairs that lead down into the very station they were standing in. “It doesn’t matter if you fight back,” he said. “He was a junkie, sick, thin, and small. I’m not that small. He had a knife and I didn’t. The second time was in an ally two blocks from my office. I didn’t fight back and I lost a watch, my wallet, and with it,” he squinted as if trying to remember, “probably only twenty dollars. The first mugger cut me up for a ten dollar bill and a brief case that had only a pile of photos, a file, and a cheap tape recorder.”

Yes, he was trying to scare her. Bold made you cocky, fear made you cautious.

“Don’t be sorry,” he told her. “Just be careful. It’s a big city.”

He shrugged. “Might have been me but I couldn’t really say.” Her curiosity raised one of his eyebrows for a moment, then he smiled almost knowingly. “You’re a photographer?” he guessed. He made it a question. “These photos wouldn’t…um…interest you, I’m sure.”

The Renault was only a few blocks from the Renaissance Apartments, one underground station apart. He, of all people, would know how many stations were between locations. His own apartment wasn’t quite as nice as hers, no desk man, no guest lists, no gates, but he did have a maid service, all of which were hesitant to enter his apartment due to certain photos just laying around, and a door man.

“Oh, all the time,” he said, smiling.

She looked at Vincent; he was so blasé about his injury. She didn’t think she could be that way about it, but then again he’d probably had it a while and was used to it, for her it was a shock. At least it had healed well. She had seen a few scars in her life, ugly things that made you cringe to look at them, but Vincent’s wasn’t at all like that, it was smooth and even just different in colour.

She looked at him with a little disbelief in her eyes as he said that it hadn’t been as painful as it looked. It looked painful enough to her. “What?” she said a little louder than she had expected it to come out as her eyes flew to the stairs. “Over there?” she asked again this time in a softer tone. Her mind was reeling with what he was saying. He had been attacked right there on the stairs that she walked down every night. This was impossible!

She looked at him blankly for a moment. “He cut you over ten dollars?” The shock was definitely written on her face, so was the disbelief. She took a deep breath to try to calm herself. He had just succeeded in making her not want to walk here alone anymore, at least for a while.

“Oh I will be,” she told Vincent in as assuring a tone as she could muster. Right over there… her mind was still processing that image. “Umm…what?” she asked as her mind returned to what Vincent was saying. “Photographer? Yes…well no, not by profession. I work as a manager at an ad agency but photography and painting are my passions. I’ve done both since I was a teenager,” she admitted. “Are you?” she asked in response, curious about what type of imagery interested him. “Oh, I wouldn’t know unless you tell me,” she said playfully.

“Really? Well if that’s the case maybe I’ll see you there sometime?” she said as much a question as it was an invitation.

Vincent had always been blasé about his injuries, and other people’s. It was not that being cut up by a heroin addict hadn’t been a shock, it wasn’t a disreguard for injuries, it was simply what happened when you became a doctor. You are trained and brainwashed to react calmly when there is blood, bone-cracking, and various other messy situations. Smaller injuries, such as a cut to the back of the wrist, the side of the hip, and the top of the thigh were no grounds for panic. Also, the wound had healed so neatly because, of course, he was a doctor and new just how to nurse it.

Vincent nodded when she looked at the stairway, confirming that he wasn’t lying.

“Well, I’m sure he hoped that I had more then ten dollars, and I’ll bet he pawned my brief case, but think about it. When someone mugs you they pick you at random, due to your clothing or your behavior or even just the area you’re in. They have no way to know who you are, what’s in your pocket, or how much you are worth. They can only hope they get the right person. It’s a gamble…at the risk of your well being.”

Vincent smiled. “I thought so,” he said when she said she would certainly be careful. He continued to smile when she confirmed his suspicion that she was indeed a photographer. “Again, I thought so.” He shook his head. “No. I’m not. Not in a true sense of the word, anyways.” He hesitated, dropping his eyes down to the briefcase again. “They’re crime scene photos,” he said at length. And photos from the morgue, pale flesh and clear fluids, dangling bits of skin and jars of blood drained from the body. They were gruesome, if not down right disgusting.

“I would like that,” he told her when she suggested that they might run into eachother one day in the deli, and of course perhaps they would have lunch if he invited her to sit, they might talk about the weather. “I usually go for lunch,” implying nearly every day. He worked odd schedules that often left him free for gaps of time in the day.

Crista smiled at Vincent, warming up to him slightly because of his fondness for photography. Taking pictures and painting had been her heart since she first picked up a pencil, but she never showed that side of her to single person, she kept it hidden, her secret and her prize. Her father believed that he had uncovered some secret capability that would save her, but little did he know it was what had kept her going on all along. The day she took the pictures for the showing at her father’s gallery, it was the first time anyone ever saw who she was and they liked it. That was why she kept at it, the look in her father’s eyes every time he saw a new piece, it was like magic and she suddenly didn’t want to disappoint him anymore.

Crista listened to Vincent, her mind on fire from the idea of staring down a man with a knife or a gun asking for everything she had, maybe even more. Vincent spoke about it so calmly it was almost eerie to hear. “You say it like it’s just…nothing. It isn’t. Life is precious, I understand that. However, mugging someone for what you think they have is stupid. I’m sorry but that’s how I see it. I know they aren’t rational, it takes desperation to go so far, and never considering what the other person’s going through.” She had stopped speaking about mugging.

Crista’s mind had travelled back to a time she had tried to convince herself she had forgotten, the time when there was life inside her other than her own. She could remember feeling the first flutters of life and enjoying that feeling all alone. Jacob, the baby’s father wasn’t interested, he didn’t want a child and he saw it as a huge mistake. When she woke up with blood on the sheets, he wasn’t even there; he was at some other woman’s house having some fun. He didn’t think of her then, he only saw down the narrow tunnel that was his life.

She smiled again as Vincent informed her that he had speculated that she was into photography. She didn’t understand at first what he meant but not being a photographer in the true sense of the word, but he made it clear in his explanation. “Crime scenes?” she said in shock and curiousity. “You mean, killing, robbing crime scenes?” she said reiterating what had already been said to confirm in her mind that she hadn’t heard him wrong. Crime scene photos…shudder, but then again, she had photos that someone might mistake for being from a crime scene, but no one ever saw those.

She smiled as Vincent reacted with apparent pleasure to her suggestion that they might meet at the deli. “Lunch? I’m usually in there for breakfast if I have the time,” she informed Vincent though mentally making a note to try lunch there some day. “I always say I would try lunch, but I haven’t as yet. Who knows maybe the day I do, you’ll be there,” she said with a chuckle. She didn’t think she’d mind chatting with Vincent again, despite the morbid calm to dangerous situations and his tastes in photos.

“May I ask…why those particular photos?” he voice was tentative and cautious, but she had to know. Curiosity always kills the cat.

“The most recent one was over a year ago and the first time was seven years before that. You can’t live your life afraid of the past and you can’t live at all if you’re always afraid of what’s around the corner. Desperation drives stupidity and it is hard to care about anyone else when you can only think of yourself.” Vincent said all of this with a mild shrug.

“Um,” he said when she said ‘killing, robbing crime scenes?’ “Not robbing. Just the killing kind actually,” he said a little mildly, as though hesitating to even tell her this, afraid to chase her off. “Murder scenes.” And after the crime scene photos. The body belonged to a crime scene in which he photographed but then the body was loaded up and carted off. After that point, Vincent pretty much owned it. He poked, prodded, cut, and sewed it up. He swabbed, photographed, inked, and did many things to it before releasing it for burial.

He smiled. “Maybe. Well, lets hope that the day you do decide to have lunch there then you decide to go between eleven thirty and twelve o clock this Saturday.” He smiled widely, his voice making the oh-so-casual words into a mild suggestion.

Vincent’s smile faltered a little around the corners when she asked why he photographed crime scenes. “It’s in the job description,” he replied vaguely, taping the toe of his shoe against the brief case on the ground, which contained a folder full of medical reports, images, a Polaroid camera, and a voice recorder.



OOC: Sorry it's been so long. My family came into town and I got distracted.

“I know you can’t be afraid of the past, but…it had to make you a little wary,” Crista replied to Vincent’s statement. She wasn’t sure she would ever get over an incident like that as long as she lived. Thankfully she never had and hopefully she never would either. She looked at him curiously. Those were an interesting choice of words. You can’t care about anyone else when you can only think of yourself. She was sad to say she knew that to be a fact. She had been a rather selfish girl growing up, wanting to cause pain and do what she wanted. She was regretting that now, but like Vincent said, you can’t worry about the past.

Murder scenes?

Crista’s eyes widened slightly at this. How the world was he getting crime scene photos? Was he a cop? Was it part of the job?

His response was still bouncing around in her head when Vincent, not so subtly told her when he was going to be at the café next. “Eleven thirty to twelve…Saturday?” she said with a smile. “I’ll see what I can do,” she replied. Was she really going to show up there? It depended on why he had crime scene photos. Crista’d had enough of strange men in her life; she wanted normal people around her now. She had to determine which kind Vincent was. If he was the former kind then he’d be waiting around on Saturday for nothing.

She looked at him with more ease than before. Job description, she’d thought so. “So what are you a cop or something?” she asked casually with a small smile. She looked at the briefcase in his hand. “You have them in there?” she asked wide-eyed. She couldn’t’ image walking around with those kind of pictures on her.


((No problem. Glad to you're back :) ))

Vincent shrugged. “It has,” he replied, “I don’t linger near ally entrances, I carry no more then a twenty on me and I don’t wear inviting jewelry,” he said. Vincent could hear the soft rumbling of the underground train pulling closer and he bent to pick up his jacket from its place folded over the brief case. “But fear can’t run your life and I survived both attempts,” he said, tugging the jacket on. It was soft black leather that appeared warm but also slightly worn, it fell to his hips in business attire cut and looked fine over his slacks.

He didn’t flinch when her eyes widened but his eyes flicked to the side, away from her face briefly and then back. He may as well have hid his face for all that action said. I’m morbid, I’m sick, I’m embarrassed. He isn’t morbid, just curious.

Vincent’s smile widened and white teeth flashed in a straight, happy line when she told him she would think about showing up around that time on that day in that place. “Then I’ll be looking for you,” he replied, his voice smiled softly as the smile on his lips faded slowly around the edge into a closed-mouth expression of pleasure. He enjoys her company at this odd hour in the morning on an underground platform where he usually spends this time alone.

“Um, I work with the police,” he replied. Evasive? Who me? Naaah. The train tugged closer and he could now see the bright beam of spotlight bouncing off of the tunnel wall. He picked up his briefcases. “Yes. I have this bad habit of too many office hours and bringing my work home with me.”

OOC: Glad to be back. ^^

Just as she’d thought, he’d become more cautious since his attacks, like anyone naturally would. She listened, considering for herself that he had some valid and useful points. She never really thought about what she had on her. She wore jewellery yes, but they weren’t that expensive, but then again to someone who really needs the cash a little trinket means a lot. As for cash, she was sad to say she was a cash girl. She didn’t like credit cards but she usually only had cash on her just after using a banking machine. She tried to plan her expenses for the next day and take off accordingly; perhaps she needed to rethink that.

He looked away from her, was he embarrassed? She couldn’t tell what the action meant, but she did hope she hadn’t made him uncomfortable with her questions, it was just her curiosity. She flashed a reassuring smile.

“You do that,” she replied as he said he’d keep an eye out for her. She had to admit this was nice. Strange how the simple action of asking for change had started a conversation such as the one they were engaged in. She heard the rumble of the approaching train, and her eyes turned in anticipation.

She looked back at him. She guessed as much that he worked with the police, but his answer was so vague. Was he a cop? Crime Scene Investigator? What? “I know all about bringing work home with you,” she confessed as she watched the train pull up. “I do it almost every day,” she said, dividing her attention between the train and Vincent. “Looks like our train’s here,” she said with a smile. “You going my way?” she asked jokingly as she placed her hands in her pockets and began walking towards the train. “You can help me kill time on the train,” she added with a grin.

Vincent probably had much less to worry about then she did in the first place. First of all, while he was often on the street at this hour alone, he was a man and his chances of being picked out as a victim were far less then hers. Hate to say it and it isn’t feminist, it’s just true. Second of all, while he is fairly good looking often the paleness made people look the other way. It was either too freaky, to weird, or too much like a handicap. People stared but looked away fast. She was pretty, and female, and not weird. He needed to be far less cautious then she should consider being.

“Try walking to the underground before dark or with someone else,” he told her. “People are less likely to get attacked if they are in groups.” And not females, alone, after dark.

He smiled at her joke and turned to follow her closer to the edge of the station. “I think I might be,” he replied. Every conversation has to start somewhere right? “And no one at home hates you for bringing home a case load?” he asked. He smiled at the thought of Poe pouting profusely in the corner because Vincent wasn’t paying attention to him.

The train pulled up and stopped with neck break speed, sweeping a gust of wind across the platform, stirring the littler and sweeping his hair over his shoulder and into his face. He pushed it back with the empty hand and when the doors wooshed open he held a hand out in front of it the way one does to an elevator door. “After you,” he told her, guesturing with his brief case.

“What is it you do, then?” he asked. He knows now that her photography was just a hobby. Surely something along those lines was her life style.

She started for the train, and it pulled up with lightening speed, throwing its doors opens second later. The gust of wind it caused sent her hair fluttering around her shoulders almost like the wings on a hummingbird before it settled once again.

“I’d do that, but there isn’t anyone for me to walk with. The people I work with all have cars and don’t live in my area,” she explained why she traversed the streets and subways alone at such an hour. “I know it would be safer to walk with someone but that’s not always possible,” she explained giving Vincent a soft look.

She looked at Vincent. Was his question an attempt to find out if she had someone in her life? She smiled. “No. Just me and the fridge, and it never complains as long as I keep it stocked,” she added jokingly. She was a single woman, who walked alone at night. Someone would say she was the perfect candidate for some type of criminal attack. Crista never thought about it. She was pretty confident that she could handle herself if the need arose, but thinking you would be and actually being able to where two different things.

She smiled as Vincent held out his hand and told her to go first. “Thank you. Such manners,” she added with a small laugh before stepping inside. As usual, the train was fairly empty, most people having caught much earlier rides home. She had her choice of seating. “I’m a manager at an ad company,” she told Vincent as she tried to decide what seat to take. Crista was a bit particular, there were the cases of gum stuck to the seats and other things left lying around. Finally she found one that looked relatively clean and sat.

“How long have you been working with the police?” she asked curiously, still trying to figure out what it was he did.

“I would offer to walk with you,” he told her, “ but my hours are…abnormal to say the least.” Of course, his only true requirement was to work an eight-hour day, no matter the time, and be on scene whenever he was called upon. He could work his schedule however he chooses. The problem is, Vincent will look at the clock to note a time for his voice recorder but rarely does the time he speaks register in his mind. He works until he can do no more with his…subject. Then he takes the rest home, or to his office. He smiled, smirked almost. “It’s become so bad I’ve put a cot in my office behind my desk.”

The question hadn’t been to divulge any information then exactly what the question was…but that information may be reflected upon at a latter date, maybe a few weeks from now in the desolate hour of the night when he realized how lonely he himself was. “Ah. I have Edgar. He despises my work and sulks too often I suspect then is healthy but as long as I keep him stocked,” he said, carrying her joke over, “he’s fairly happy.”

Vincent would say she was the perfect candidate for an attack. Considering his line of work and what he sees done to women that look like her, he thinks worse case scenarios.

He followed her onto the train, smiling. “Any particular ads or just ads in general?” He wondered how that job made her feel. Was she happy with it? Did it give her pleasure that her photography did? Was it a job or was it a career. The difference is simple. A job you have to do, a career you enjoy doing.

He scrutinized the seat beside her, then across from her. He wondered what was more appropriate and then seated himself across from her, putting his briefcase on the floor, standing it between his feet so that it would not fall.

“I took an internship with them halfway through medical school. But I didn’t start working with them until after I left the hospital,” he said it out loud but more to himself then to her, looking to a point above her head as if calculating it. “All in all probably near five years.”

Crista smiled. “Thank you, but I have odd hours myself,” she added. With her new client, her hours were getting later and later every day. They were a stiff group, stuck in the past and refusing to progress and wondering why their product sales were declining. They had to get with it, to get with the fact that the market they were targeting were no longer into the homespun ad, they wanted something vibrant and alive. She was having a hard time convincing them.

“Oh no…if I ever get to that point I’m getting a new job,” she joked as Vincent revealed he had set up a cot at work. “I could never sleep in the office. I wouldn’t have the guts to walk around there with no shoes on,” she teased. Crista was big fan of less is more, when it came to her home life, which was another good reason why she could never sleep at work.

“Edgar?” she questioned. Was Edgar a pet, friend, a relative, a lover? In this day any of the above was possible.

“Pretty much anything really,” she replied. “We are a fairly large firm, we have people to handle just about anything,” she divulged. She liked her work, it was nothing like her photography, where she had the final say on what was good and what wasn’t what she liked and what she thought appalling. Though it had its differences, she couldn’t say she hated what she did; she just would have preferred doing something else.

Vincent seemed to ponder his seat as well, and Crista smiled slightly as he chose to sit across from her. “Medical school. You had big hopes. I’m sure my parents would have loved it if I’d had that sort of ambition,” she said honestly. She nodded her head as he spoke, his eyes hovering somewhere past her. “Am I asking too many questions?” she asked bluntly. She knew not everyone liked to talk about themselves and she didn’t want to step on any toes.

“Well, in that case,” he said, “maybe you ought to have my number.” He smiled at all of the things giving out someone’s phone number implied. He added quickly, before she could think anything too terrible of him, “that is, if you want it. You could call and if I’m intending to leave soon we could walk together. “I … prefer your company to the silence,” and thoughts of dead bodies and vampires. And if she could call and they could walk, then she wouldn’t be alone on the streets at night and she wouldn’t be another mangled corpse in his dreams. It is easy for Vincent to detach himself from his work but it’s hard for him sometimes to separate real life from work in his dreams.

Vincent laughed; it was throaty and free. “I keep this job because it keeps me busy.” He sighed. “If it doesn’t keep me busy enough the hospital can always use the extra hand.” He only sleeps in the office when he doesn’t feel safe enough to venture into the night…ever since Jenny and her vampire stories.

“I failed to mention that Edgar was a cat, did I?” He smiled. “Sarah, my sister, says I treat him like he’s a human being.” And why shouldn’t he? “He’s the most agreeable, and demanding, living companion I’ve ever had.”

“Like it?” He asked about her law firm. He waved his hand. “No big hopes, just too much time on my hands. Truthfully, anatomy interests me.” He shrugged. “My parents probably don’t even know I’m a doctor.” He said it as if he didn’t care that they paid so little attention, as if he liked it that way. He raised his eyebrows at her question. Was she asking too many questions? “Only if I am,” he replied. “Why?”

“Your number?” she said with a smile. He added if she wanted it, but the statement was already made. “I could take it,” she said with a smile. “If you want?” she added jokingly. “Thank you,” she added. “That’s really nice of you to offer.” She meant it. They had just met, and she had to admit it might be a little odd, but Crista knew a bad guy when she saw one, she had a knack for picking them up, but she didn’t get that vibe from Vincent. He was a little odd to look at, but not unattractive and very pleasant.

“Same here,” she replied with a smile as he said her preferred her company to silence. Crista was used to sitting on the train alone, quietly thinking over her day and wondering what she was going to grab for lunch the next day. It was boring but she liked to plan, she had to, with her work she had a very tight window to do little things like feeding herself.

“You like being busy?” she asked with a smile, a response to his laugh. “Well if you want to be very busy, you come work with me,” she joked. “I hardly ever have time to eat,” she said pulling out the end of chocolate bar he had helped her acquire.

“A cat…” Crista said with a grin. “You have a cat?” The question was rhetorical; she already knew he had a cat. She thought it kind of sweet that a grown man had his very own kitty, it was even more interesting to find out he treated the cat like a person. “Maybe I need to get a cat,” she added.

She made a quizzical face at his question. “Well…yeah. I would have to say I like it. There are some great people there and I’m always busy, and I’m the manager. At the moment I have a new client who has a huge product, which no doubt you’ve seen on television, that I’m trying to improve their image,” she divulged. She left the statement about parents alone, even though she’d brought it up. Her mother didn’t give a damn, she couldn’t leave the bottle alone long enough to realise she was gone, and her father, she adored him and she knew he was proud of her.

“No you aren’t asking too many questions. I sometimes do, so I just was making sure,” she replied.

Vincent smiled and managed not to be sheepish at her teasing back. Alright, so he picked a bad phrase to use, give him a break. “Yes,” he said, continuing the joke on his words, “I want you to have it.” He waved off her thanks. “Don’t mention it. I have selfish intentions,” he told her. “Like I said, I’ve enjoyed your company far more then the silence.”

He laughed. “I’m not sure I could be of any use in an Ad Firm. I’m afraid I’d be more of a handicap to you, such it my knowledge.” He chuckled. “Of course, I’ll bet money that your coffee boys are run ragged at all hours into the night.” Vincent never had time to eat in the office. The detectives would find the Prince of Death, their Crypt Keeper, even more morbid if they were to walk in while he was doing an autopsy and had a ham sandwich on a napkin sitting by the dead guys head. He shook the image out of his mind.

“Yes a cat,” he said, leaning forward and shaking his head. “A black cat. Edgar Poe.” Vincent never had liked the name Allan, and naming the middle name of the cat after his own middle name had given him so mental stress. “Maybe you should,” he said. “It’s nice to come home and have someone waiting to greet you as if you’re their whole world…even if they are only a seven inch tall, eight pound, mass of fur.”

“What product might that be?” he asked. The train screeched to a halt at another station. He didn’t even look up to see which one, he knew it wasn’t theirs. “I’m afraid I don’t follow television very closely.”