They spent the afternoon looking through the more tourist-focused areas of the village. After paying a suspiciously high 'suggested donation' they walked through the over-sized gift shop that claimed to be a supernatural museum. Naturally, the exhibits gave an exaggerated account of the plight of witches through the ages and didn't touch on them hiding the means of accessing magic from the rest of humanity.

Arran had fun whispering corrections in Naomi's ear as they went around the faded displays. Even though his own knowledge of supernatural history was vague he was fairly certain it was more accurate than the official line. They even found an awfully drawn portrait of Cree and the rest of her family amongst a slightly more factual werewolf exhibit. On another day he might have taken a photo of it for her but he didn't think that it was the right time to remind her of her family.

The whole museum was so badly organised that they had to take a break in the cafe to look through the leaflet and figure out what they had already seen and still needed to see. As Naomi ticked off exhibits on the list Arran looked around at the rest of the guests in the cafe.

It had been nearly a year since his last time in a solely supernatural environment and things felt different. Pendle Proper had always been more conservative than even the council's official headquarters but he couldn't help but feel like eyes were on him from all around.

He had probably grown too accustomed to time in the human world where no one had any reason to distrust him on sight. Not that anyone had any reason to distrust him in supernatural communities but that didn't stop the girl working the coffee machine from staring at him whenever she thought he wasn't looking. Given her scowl he doubted it had anything to with his good looks.

"Hey, isn't Dr. Alexander Rose your uncle?" asked Naomi, tugging Arran attention from the rising strands of hair on the back of his own neck.

"Lex? Uh yeah," he said craning his neck to see where she had found Lex's name. "Oh, that's part of a really cool exhibit in the Museum of Supernatural History down in the Indoor City. We should go this Summer it's like...just better than this."

The Indoor City also had a much more comfortable vampire to werewolf and witch ratio and while the atmosphere wasn't necessarily welcoming it felt more like the sheer mass of the place didn't care about him, rather than wanted him out.

"What's it about?" Naomi asked, reading the very brief description about the partial exhibition.

"The whole thing is about vampires. Human perception around the world, basic biology and psychology. You'd probably really dig it actually, it's got loads of my mum and Lex's research over the years in it. There's also like a massive video archive which is what they've got on loan up here. Really old vampires giving first-hand accounts of history and...um..."

Arran remembered exactly what section had been displayed during his last visit to Pendle Proper a few years prior. It had made him incredibly uncomfortable then and he'd pretty effectively blocked it out from his memory. But Naomi was looking at him expectantly so he took a deep breath and continued.

"Right so that part of the exhibit is specifically Lex's research into death. From his own experience nearly a century and a half ago, through to vampires who turned in the late nineties. It's mainly first-hand accounts from high-profile vampires about what it was like for them to...you know, die and come back. My mum's in there, so are some vampire coven leaders."

"But people die and come back to life all the time. It's pretty common, I wouldn't have thought that it was any different."

"Oh, it covers that, don't worry. The whole thing is very...thorough."

"Right," she said tapping her pencil lightly on the table. "I'm not sure I'm ready for detailed accounts of what death is like. I might need more of an emotional run up to that one since, you know, sooner for me than most."

Arran nodded, his mouth dry. This was something they hadn't talked about, though it felt like he had discussed it with everyone else in his life. He cleared his throat.

"You know that you don't have to die, right? Well obviously everyone has to die but if you wanted to you could live longer or maybe indefinitely if you wanted to. Shit."

How exactly was this supposed to be done? Arran had no clue how to offer up immortality but he was fairly certain it wasn't like that.

Naomi's mouth hung open a little and the force with which she tapped her pencil increased. With a sharp intake of breath, she closed her mouth and nodded a few times, seemingly gathering her words.

"So I think that I've been taking all of this in at a fairly quick pace. And I think that I'm actually okay with most, if not all, of it. And it's not like I haven't had thoughts to the whole turning vampire effect already but I honestly just do not have space in my head to really think about it."

"Okay."

"Yet."

"Yet?"

"Yet," she repeated with a nod, gaining more confidence. "It's not like we're massively against the clock, right? I'm not dying in a month or even a year."

"Of course. And I want you to know that you being my girlfriend isn't a pre-requisite. I am offering this to you and we can talk about it whenever you're ready, whenever that may be and whatever our relationship is. I don't want there to be any external factors or pressures on this."

"Well maybe after our exams are over and I have less on my mind we can go down to London and watch people you know and care about explain what it felt like to die."

"It's a date."

She took his hand on top of the table and squeezed it. Even if there hadn't been any real conclusion to their conversation it felt good to have acknowledged the issue. Now all Arran had to do was try not to think about it for the next month or so.

"So seeing as we're avoiding that exhibit and the only thing we haven't is," he peered at the list to see what else Naomi hadn't crossed off the list, "anti vampiric weaponry through the ages, what do you want to do?"

"Why don't we get out of here, see if there's an outlet with cinema and some overpriced bowling? Then maybe we could actually do some studying. I don't like this place, it's creepy."

Arran couldn't agree more.

---

By Friday afternoon when Arran and Naomi were checking out of the rented cottage he really didn't want to leave. The rest of their break had been bliss, just the two of them alone without having to worry too much about anything else. But it did have to come to an end and they still had to get through Naomi's parents meeting his mother later that night. That couldn't be over with quickly enough.

He could trust Celyn to be relatively normal, she was well practised in acting human after all, but it was the more normal differences between their families that had him on edge. He knew for a fact that Naomi's mother thought that he was a spoiled rich kid and the thing was that actually true. Their house was gorgeous and while Celyn didn't often have access to obscene amounts of money she took pains to keep a lot of her wealth in valuable assets from the jewellery around her neck to the rarer wines in the basement. Arran could pretend to be the same species as Naomi but he couldn't pretend to have a similar background and for the first time in his life he was acutely aware of how different their lives had been growing up.

But it had to happen. It was already a miracle that Naomi had been able to talk her parents into letting her go away for a few days. Hopefully, if the night went well they would more comfortable with her having even more freedom.

They got to Rose House a good hour before the Falls were due and found Celyn finishing up her preparation for the night's meal. Whenever she spent extended time around humans Celyn defaulted to a slightly eighties inspired look, opting to wear high-waisted trousers and an asymmetrical top that hung off of one shoulder slightly. She claimed that if she were in fact born in the mid-seventies, as she was currently pretending, then she would have grown up in the eighties and it would likely have stuck with her somewhat. Arran could see the logic but personally thought that she looked like she had stepped directly out of the eighties. Maybe it didn't give away her immortality because it put people in mind of a time-traveller.

He noted that she was also making mushroom vol-au-vents for a starter, another affectation of her fake timeline but he didn't mention it and instead set about helping her cook while Naomi sat at the bar and watched them.

"Naomi dear, what do you parents usually drink?" asked Celyn.

"Uh, dad doesn't, mum drinks wine."

"What kind?"

"The kind that costs six quid from the corner shop? Twelve pounds if she's feeling fancy." Naomi laughed but she sounded a little apprehensive. "I would probably just pour something for her and not try to make her feel too defensive. Which is impossible because knowing my mother she's going to be on edge from the moment she drives up to this house. I don't think there's really anything that we can do about that."

"Certainly," replied Celyn with an understanding smile.

After that an uneasy silence fell and Arran could feel his own and Naomi's tension build. It was still fifteen minutes before her parents were to arrive and Arran wished that they would just hurry up so they could get this all started.

Even while wishing it would come, the knock at the door made Arran jump.

"That's not like my parents," said Naomi. "Mum thinks being early is rude and dad's nearly always late."

"Hmmm," hummed Celyn, who was in the final stages of cooking the starters. "Arran go and answer the door, I'm very nearly finished."

Arran walked through the living area to the front door, Naomi trailing a little further behind. He took a deep breath and opened it, ready to welcome Claire and Madu into his house for the first time.

Instead, he was met with the ever-scowling face of Alexis Vasseri. 

Hello again, it's me back from the proverbial dead. A lot has happened for me, I had to quit my job and didn't have anything to go into so all of my free time was dedicated to finding something but...I've got something now! Something I'm going to love with less hours and more money and (most importantly) more time to write. So updates are back on every Friday and some Mondays. I love you <3 

Also it might be worth noting that after I got featured I went back and rewrote the whole of chapter eight from Naomi's perspective, changing the plot of that chapter a fair bit as well. This was a planned edit but I was going to leave it until I finished the first draft in it's entirity, as I had many new readers coming in I wanted to fix this before they got to it. You don't have to go back over it at all, but I just thought I'd let ya'll know.