It was so strange.  Over the two hundred years she had been alive, she felt the passage of hours go by shorter and shorter.  They were increasingly smaller and smaller segments of her existence.  But these hours didn't pass like the others.  These hours dragged by, waiting for him to come to.  Hours of her beloved in immeasurable pain and Elizabeth powerless to take any of it away.

She was sitting on the floor at the hearth beside their bed, staring into the fire.  Every cringe, every twitch, every whimper, she could feel it in her bones.  She could hear his heart beating faster, faster, louder, more and more frantic.  The venom was cruel, she knew.  It was a fire that crawled through every limb of the body that could not be sated nor distinguished.

She ignored the ache in her stomach all during the night.  The mouthful of his disgusting, diseased blood did little to sate her hunger, but she didn't dare move.  Not when he could wake up at any time.  Nothing short of divine intervention itself would keep her from being by his side when he awoke, even more so if he needed to be restrained.  She could barely remember the days and weeks and months following her transformation.  That was what newborns did.  They went wild.  Elizabeth wasn't going to allow Jaspin to torment the humans around town.  They were his friends.  Even if he wouldn't be able to see them for months, she'd make sure they lived and didn't get suspicious, for his sake.  

As the hours dragged on, something changed.  Everything went quiet in their little cottage.  His heartbeat, which she always cherished hearing, fell silent.  There was nothing to be heard but crickets in the distance and leaves softly stirring in the trees.  The warmth she usually felt radiating from him, giving life to her cold skin, faded away.  Elizabeth bowed her head, as if mourning.  Was that not the proper thing to do when someone died?  Indeed, by all sense, Jaspin... was dead.  Dead.  Just thinking the word made her feel like she could vomit.  Thinking of him gone for good.  She had done the right thing, she told herself.  His pain was over now, but his life was not.  It would be a different, strange life, not quite like the one before.  But it was life indeed and it was his now forever.  

Elizabeth stood up and turned to him.  For the first moment, it hurt to see him.  As she expected, he was as still as death, but expecting it didn't make it any easier.  She sat beside him on the bed, forcing herself to keep watch.  It was about over.  It had to be.  

It happened at last.

Elizabeth reached a hand across the bed to the wall, just in case he bolted up or otherwise needed to be restrained.  It was inappropriate, she knew, but she smiled.  She couldn't help it.  He wasn't pained anymore, from sickness or venom or anything.  He never would be pained again.

"Darling, darling, I'm so glad you're awake.  It's over now, it's all over," she cooed, speaking softly.  "Please listen to me.  I know you're restless, but you need to stay calm.  It's going to be alright, I'm going to take care of you, sweetheart, I'm here."