He was crazy - it was the only explanation. This boy was seriously unbalanced. He remained calm after being stabbed by his own mother, he even had a few compliments ready for her. But his positive demeanor did not have a positive effect on Moira. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite. She had wanted him to get angry, to hate her. She had wanted to see his eyes harden, to know that he would never try to touch her again. Yet he didn't appear to hate her in the slightest.

"Stay away from me, O'Conner," she stated simply, her voice still taking on that wintry tone. "I don't want to ever be within three feet of you again. And if you ever lay a hand on me in the future, I promise I will cut it off."

There was no lie in her eyes.

"I'll send Ms. Sedgwick to tend to your wounds," she stated after a pause. She then turned to leave the basement.

Perhaps he was a masochist. But if that was the case, and pain was really what he wanted, she would give it to him. Pain was something she was intimately close to - it was her constant companion. He had suffered, yes. But he had never been tortured, never endured physical pain like that which she had barely lived through. He had not even suffered the mental torture that she had gone through. And yet here he was, practically begging her to show him, to make him understand. The fool.

She let her eyes linger over his, her head tilting slightly. It made her look like a curious child, as though wondering what would happen if she did this...

Her hand tightened around the hilt of the sword she still carried. And again, her movements as swift as before, she brought it up. Yet instead of merely slicing through the first few layers of flesh, she plunged it deep inside his abdomen, its point coming out the back and ripping through his shirt. She was intelligent enough to know where to put the blade - avoiding any major organs - yet there was no doubt it must hurt like hell.

Her hand still on the sword, she stepped closer and spoke in a low voice.

"What do you think of mummy now?"

Then she yanked the sword from him, its surface shining with crimson liquid. She would have to polish it again.

He was driving her mad. Had she been anyone else, she would have killed him out of pure rage. Of course, had she been any other person, she wouldn't have been angry with him in the first place. Unfortunately, being herself, she was unable to truly let herself go. To surrender to the feelings whirling inside her. So instead of screaming and railing and crying and slapping, she lifted her hand up to his and wrapped her fingers around his index finger. She then proceeded to give it a sharp twist, breaking the bone like it was nothing but a piece of straw. Her eyes were not angry, but they held something that looked even more terrible. It was a coldness that seemed to drop the temperature of the room around them. It froze her insides against any and all feeling and frosted her skin. She was not sad, she was not mad. She was simply empty.

"You know nothing of fear," she stated in a low voice - still not angry. Not anything. "But I can teach you."

Was he fucking crazy? He was; he had to be. The most casual of touches had caused her to punch him and here he was wrapping his arms around her. And for a moment she just stood there - too blown away to have much of a reaction. But when it finally sunk in that this was happening and she was not, in fact, in the Twilight Zone, Moira put her hands against his chest and shoved him away. Her face showed a rare emotion - fury.

Not thinking anymore of her earlier speech about not wanting to cause pain, she brought her sword hand up and made one swift movement upward, slashing across his chest. And then, before reason had a chance to kick in, she swept forward and planted an iron hand around her son's throat. Her face was inches away from his.

"Next time you think about placing an arm around me, be prepared to lose it," she hissed through her teeth. "I may not be prepared to kill you, but you would be surprised what you can live through."

And then she shoved him away from her again.

Ah, so he was being noble. Yes, well, that fit his personality too, she supposed. His wish for death was for her sake, not his. And he thought that him dying would help her in some way, but it wouldn't. Because then she would be, not only part vampire in blood, but part vampire in action. And that was the last thing she ever wanted.

Se was prepared to argue some more, but then he had to go and touch her. Without thinking about it for a second, she allowed her instincts to kick in. Her arms came up, knocking his hands off her shoulders and then, ina blindingly fast movement, her right hand came forward, intending to give him a solid punch to his cheekbone.

She allowed herself to be blocked, raising her eyebrow in bemusement. He was bordering on suicidal. Did he prefer she kill him? Was he that unhappy with his existence that he would rather it simply end here and now? Or was this merely a ploy to see if she would take him up on the offer? Killing him when he had done nothing wrong but live was not something she planned on doing any time soon. Yet if she refused to kill him, he would think it a sign that she felt some small amount of affection for her long lost son. Which was not the case.

"I'm not in the habit of killing perfectly good Hunters, O'Conner. Nor am I the kind of person that offs someone merely because they displease me to look at. I'm not a vampire; I don't enjoy causing pain or murdering innocents," she stated evenly.

Was he looking for death? Was his life too difficult to bear? Was he weak?

She listened to his words and were not all that surprised by them. Somehow, they seemed normal coming from his lips. He was the type of person to put everyone before himself. Even Moira - someone who was very close to hating him. It was simply who he was. She gave him an odd sort of smile - not a happy one, nor a comforting one. It was a black thing, mocking what a true smile was.

"Why get rid of something useful?" she asked rhetorically.

She then got up from her seat, dropped the rag, and stepped out of the storeroom.

She sighed inwardly. This was the tricky part - if she refused to tell him, he would think she was really bothered by it enough to want to forget it. If she spoke of it, it would be apparent that was the case. But she didn't want to care. She wanted this to be a nothing circumstance that meant less to her than it did to the vampire who brought it all about. And at the same time, she couldn't deny that that was far from the truth. It did bother her. It tormented her.

"You want to know about Kathryn Sommers?" she said - more as a statement than a question. "Fine, I'll tell you."

She looked up at Hunter's face, her own expression showing nothing but her usual cold control.

"Your mother had a happy family - a father, mother, brother, sister. She had a twin. And her happy little family lived in a happy little house that sat in a happy little town."

Her tone grew distasteful.

"One night a vampire came to visit. Its name was Valen and he was a kinderling - just barely changed. He tied Kathryn's family up and tortured each in turn. He made them watch as their child, their sister, their brother, was beaten, burned, and sliced."

She closed her eyes, seeing things that were once saved for the wee hours of the night when her mind was cruel enough to replay the events.

"He raped her."

She paused and then opened her eyes, gazing at Hunter once more.

"He raped me.

"And then he made me choose which order my family would die in. After they were dead, he refused to kill me too. It took days to escape, but it took only two weeks to realize I was pregnant with the bastard's baby."

Her eyes hardened.

"You're right to think I don't want you, O'Conner. But I was stupid when I was younger. I didn't want to be a killer, so I went through the birth and then gave you to someone else.

"And yet you still seemed to have found your way back. Imagine that."

The gods were laughing at her again. Fate could be cruel.