FicWad

Hours before Beckett began advancing his plan to torment, torture and eventually kill the hunters, the quiet peace that had descended over the warehouse as dawn had approached was now coming to an end.

Patrick opened his eyes, blinking in the unexpected light. Above him, the cabinet door was already unlocked and open. Looking down at him expectantly, were Joe and Andy, while in the adjoining room, Patrick could hear a repeated dull but echoing metallic thud as Pete hammered on the inside of his cabinet.

Confused by the noise and the stern expressions aimed at him, Patrick frowned as he sat upright, only to see two taser batons brought into view.

“What...?” he asked slowly. “What's going on?”

“Get up,” Andy replied, his voice clipped and his gaze still severe.

“What's going on?” Patrick asked nervously. “What's wrong with Pete?”

“Get up!” Joe yelled angrily, reaching down and pulling at Patrick's shirt in an attempt to hurry him along.

“Okay! Okay!” Patrick cried defensively as he climbed out of the cabinet.

“You've got some explaining to do,” Andy finally added.

Patrick nodded his understanding.

“Spencer, yes, I know, but dawn came before we could explain everything. You must understand that I...”

“That's not all that came,” Andy cut in as he kicked a box. “Care to explain this?”

Patrick stared silently at the box. He didn't need to look inside it, he knew exactly what it was. The label clearly visible at the side was addressed to him, as administrator of the clinic that he had secretly set up over eight months earlier. Moreover, he could see that the box had already been opened and Andy and Joe knew about its contents.

“Well?” Joe prompted. “Are you going to tell us why you're ordering human blood?”

“You opened it?” Patrick asked quietly. He knew it was really a statement, but hoped it would buy him a few seconds to clear his mind.

“Yeah,” Andy snapped. “We opened it. It arrived by courier this morning. We had to sign for it, but we had no idea what it was. Of course we opened it! It could have been anything! Beckett could have sent it! Anything!”

“I didn't think of that,” Patrick sighed.

“Let me out of here!” Pete was easily audible even from the next room.

“I need to calm Pete down,” Patrick sighed, heading towards the door only to be stopped in his tracks by the tasers pointed at him.

“You're not going anywhere until you explain this,” Joe replied grimly as he fired up the taser.

Taking a step backward, Patrick replied, keeping his tone as even as he could. “I can and I will, but I need to calm Pete down, you don't understand.”

“You're damn right we don't, Patrick!” Andy yelled in reply. “You're acting like it's you and Pete and me and Joe now! It used to be the four of us! You can't just go off on your own and keep us out but expect us to just trust you.”

“You used to,” Patrick argued.

“You never did this before!”

“I did!” Patrick yelled in return. “But you just never noticed or something! I used to spend days in here, building gadgets and looking out for Pete, making sure his blend worked, writing my notes and journals and you never had a problem with it! Now, what's the difference? Oh, yeah, that's right, I'm a vampire, and all of a sudden I'm sneaking around, leaving you out of stuff and plotting against you? Is that it?”

“You ordered a box of human blood! Damn it, Patrick, can you not see how that looks to us?”

“I can explain!”

“Damn right you will,” Andy growled. “And you'll do it now. Sit down!”

“This isn't his fault!” Pete yelled from his own room, having heard the exchange. “Its mine! It's fucking mine, okay! Let me out and I'll tell you.”

`Pete, you're not helping,' Patrick contacted him telepathically. `Please be quiet! I'll deal with it.'

`You're always doing this.'

`What?'

`Clearing up my mess, fixing my mistakes, I don't deserve any of this.'

`Yes you do, now shut up and let me do this!'

“You did it again didn't you?” Andy sighed shaking his head. “You spoke to him and you blocked us out.”

“Yeah, I did, but you didn't give me any choice. What makes you think that you can treat me like this just because I haven't had time to explain everything? You're my friends... at least, I thought you were. What changed?”

Andy lowered the taser. “Everything,” he sighed.

“What's on your mind, Andy... I mean apart from this,” he added pointing to the open box.

Andy took a deep breath and rolled his eyes. Somehow Patrick always seemed to get to the very heart of a problem. Sometimes whoever he was speaking to didn't even know there was a problem. But he always knew. He probably knew what the problem was too. It may just have been the impression he gave, but somehow there was no use lying to Patrick. He always knew.

“There's been too much going on lately, too much going wrong,” Andy sighed. “Too many things I've got wrong. I don't trust my own judgment any more, so I'm suspecting everything and everyone.”

“What did you get wrong, Andy?” Patrick pressed, his voice soft and gentle.

“I believed Brendon when he told me Joe betrayed us. I didn't see it coming that Simon, a guy I brought in thinking he could help us, was the one who betrayed us. And I convinced Pete to turn you. As a result, I nearly died, we almost lost Pete and you've been thrown into a world you didn't want to be in. And finally, the worst of it...” Andy paused, trying to choke back the lump that had grown in his throat. “The worst of it is, I believed Joe cared more about rescuing Andrea than you. And you know, what did it matter if he did? There were still three of us wanting to help you; he just wanted to help Andrea too. We acted too late and now she's gone and what can I say? My judgment and decisions lately have been bordering on useless and pathetic. And now? Now I'm doubting everything I was ever sure of... Including you.”

Joe turned a surprised gaze towards his friend. They were all suffering, yes and all of them for different reasons, but he had no idea how much blame Andy had taken upon his own shoulders.

“Andy, you can't blame yourself for any of that,” Joe insisted. “I don't blame you for thinking I betrayed you. If it were the other way around, I'd have believed him too. And there was nothing you could have done for Andrea that you didn't do. If it weren't for you, I'd still be at her office. You did everything you could, for both of us!”

“And none of us saw that Simon was working for Beckett,” Patrick added.

“But I brought him in!” Andy insisted, tormented now that they didn't share his belief that he should be blamed.

“You might as well give up, Andy,” Joe switched off the taser as he shook his head. “We're never going to accept that you're to blame for any of this.”

“But...”

“Sit down, please,” Patrick gestured to a table and four chairs. “I want to explain everything. Spencer, the box, everything.”

Taking a seat at the table, Andy began to feel as if his trust in Patrick was no longer misplaced. Wanting more than anything for the group to be as tight-knit as they had always been, Andy folded his arms in front of him and prepared to listen. Patrick noted with a smile that Andy had made a point of resting the taser on the floor behind him, in the full knowledge that if he needed it, there would be insufficient time to reach it.

“Spencer's been hounding Pete, trying to play on his insecurities,” Patrick began to explain only to be interrupted.

“What's he doing here? I thought he was dead. Pete said...” Joe queried.

“It's a long story,” Patrick sighed. “Suffice to say, his own servant, another vampire called Ryan gave up his life for him.”

“And now what? You say he's hounding Pete. How? And why is he in the cage?”

“I just thought he could do less harm there than anywhere else.”

“He just let you lock him up?” Joe frowned.

“More or less,” Patrick nodded.

“He's working on something,” Andy joined in with his own concern. “He's dangerous.”

“I know,” Patrick agreed, “but that doesn't mean he can get the better of us, just because he wants to. That isn't his main priority anyway, he wants Beckett dead as much as we do. He might be useful.”

“I don't trust him,” Joe announced.

“Good!” Patrick replied emphatically. “Because he can't be trusted!”

“And the box?” Andy prompted.

“Yeah,” Patrick sighed. “That's a little more serious.”