Welcome to the third story of my ongoing adventures for Owen and Abby. This will be a rather long story and will deal with their first Christmas together. Warning, the first two chapters will include rather lengthy flashbacks to their journey from Los Alamos to western Montana. The other chapters will have a lot of angst. :-D

I hope everyone likes it. Reviews would be greatly appreciated. :-D

I'm aiming to have Chapter 2 up by Sunday. I'd originally planned the flashbacks to be contained in one chapter, but it was just stretching out too long. So, I decided to divide it up into two.

A/N I don't own the characters.

A/N 2 The title of the fic comes from the lyrics "Song For A Winter's Night", by Gordon Lightfoot.

ENJOY! :-D

On This Winter's Night With You

December, 1983

It's getting cold and late, thought Owen to himself. There was no snow, but the temperature had been dropping steadily since sundown, just past 5pm. It was now closing on 10pm, according to his Timex watch, and the mercury, the last time he checked the thermometer on the porch, was now approaching 20 F. The frigid night was clear though and –thankfully- there was no wind. He didn't want to think about what the temperature would have been like if they'd had to contend with the windchill that came from the northern blasts that came down the Rockies from Canada. That would have made this night's work most unpleasant indeed.

Owen sighed, his breath forming a cloud in the chill air, and returned to the task at hand. He removed the bulb from the socket, shook it gently to listen for the telltale rattle that indicated the filament had broken, and replaced it in the socket, making sure that he put it in straight. He looked back over the string. That had to be at least twenty bulbs on this string that he'd checked, he thought to himself.

A muttered curse from above and his right evoked a grin from him. He rubbed his cold hands and turned to look up to near the top of a large spruce tree that stood next to the porch.

A casual observer would have been shocked to see what Owen was looking at. Near the top of the tree, easily perched there, was a girl who appeared to be not much more than 12 years of age. In addition to the shock of the sight of a young girl that high in a tree, nearing 10 o'clock on a freezing night in December, this girl was only dressed in a light plaid shirt and some jeans. She had no coat or hat to shield her from the bitter elements. As a double-shock for the unenlightened, she was barefoot and the only ladder to be seen anywhere was a stepladder that Owen himself was using to check lights on the eaves. Of course, these unenlightened souls would not have known that the girl had no use for a coat or a ladder and –as a general rule- only wore shoes when in town when the public might notice such a thing. She didn't need shoes (Or socks, for that matter; Owen didn't think she even owned any.) anymore than she needed a coat or a ladder.

Right now, the girl was muttering darkly as she went about the same job Owen was doing. She was checking bulbs on the strands that were wrapped around the tree. Shaking one bulb carefully, she placed it in her shirt pocket and replaced it with a fresh one from a small pouch that hung from a strap about her shoulder.

"Abby, don't tell me you actually found a bad one!", Owen called up to her.

"Believe it or not, I think I did.", Abby called down. "Go try the switch again."

Owen walked up to the front door of the stone ranch house. He opened the storm door and the wooden inner door. He reached around for a switch and flipped it. Instantly, the porch and two flanking spruce trees lit up with cascade of multi-coloured Christmas lights. Owen and Abby emitted twin cheers of success and relief.

They'd been working outside at the job for well over four hours now. Two hours had been spent stringing up the lights on the porch and trees. Then, when the lights had failed to come on when Owen's grandfather had thrown the test switch, another two hours had been spent trying to find the faulty bulb that was causing the entire set-up to stay dark. It hadn't been a terribly hard job for them –at least not physically. It had, however, been a very exacting, annoying and –for Owen, at least- cold job. Abby, of course, was over two hundred and twenty years past a point where the frigid early winter weather caused her any sort of discomfort. Spruce gum on her skin and clothes, as well as the sheer irksome repetitiveness of checking the bulbs, however, could cause her a great deal of irritation though, which had provoked the muttered curse Owen had heard.

Owen looked up as Abby gracefully sprung off the boughs of the spruce and landed like a cat right next to him. Abby stood up with a smoothly fluidic move (It was so smooth, that a casual observer would have noticed that it almost didn't appear human. Of course, Abby wasn't quite human…at least not physiologically. From an emotional and psychological viewpoint, however, Abby had finally begun to see herself as human again after two centuries of feeling she was nothing. As far as Owen was concerned she was simply Abby, the *girl* he was deeply and forever in love with. Anything else about her really didn't matter to him, he'd discovered.) and stood next to her lover. They took a few steps back in the snow and examined their handiwork.

"Yes!", they chorused as they exchanged high-fives in a gleeful exchange of enthusiasm over finally getting the irksome job completed. Their exchange of satisfaction was temporarily disrupted by the fact their hands had briefly stuck together due to the spruce gum that was liberally coating Abby's small white hands.

"Ick.", muttered Owen as he tried to rub the gum off with some snow from the ground.

"Ick is right.", said Abby as she regarded her own hands. "It was getting to a point where I could have stuck myself to the tree with the gum alone.", she said with a smile.

From inside the house, Owen's Grandfather, Oscar Alfredson, smiled as he looked out the window at the pair. It had been a long time since he'd bothered with the outdoor Christmas decorations. This Christmas, however, it had seemed fitting to put them up again. For years, at least since the passing of his wife, he had not had any desire to decorate his home as December 25th drew near. Christmas had either been spent going to dinner at his longtime friends and neighbours, Joe and Sally Lawton, or visiting his son Lyle in San Francisco, along with Lyle's two children that Lyle didn't see as often as he would have liked…and Oscar saw even less. (One memorable Christmas in 1980, Lyle had returned for a visit and was able to bring his two children along. Prior to this Christmas, it had been the happiest for Oscar since before he'd lost his beloved Elina). The last time he'd seen Owen at Christmastime, Gerald Ford had still resided in the White House. The sad irony didn't escape him that his acceptance of Lyle's lifestyle and identity was what prompted his daughter to cut ties with him and prevented him from seeing Owen for so very long. But now, this Christmas season was definitely going to be different.

If someone had told him, one year earlier, that Christmas of 1983 would see him reunited with his grandson Owen, Oscar would have smiled and thought it as something he would have dearly enjoyed, but didn't think as too likely to happen. If he'd been told his grandson would have appeared in March of that year, fleeing from extraordinary events in New Mexico, Oscar Alfredson would have shaken his head in disbelief. To take it even further, if he had been told that Owen would have been with a female travelling companion who he regarded as utterly inseparable, and who –as plausibility seemed to be going out the window totally now- was a vampire as well…Oscar would have laughed out loud and said something about pigs sprouting winds and flying. Yet…This past March, that's exactly what had happened. And now, Oscar Alfredson had not only been forced to accept the reality of vampires, but that his grandson was deeply in love with one. And, as a total demolition of any preconceived notions he might had, he himself now could honestly say that he loved Abby like she was another grandchild to him. It was, he thought, a more than fair exchange. He'd been forced to turn his entire belief system around and in exchange he got Owen back in his life, and a surrogate granddaughter as a part of the deal. You don't question from what direction miracles or happiness come from, Oscar thought.

"Well, I'm glad you got that done.", he called out through the storm door to the pair. "What bulb was the culprit?", he asked.

"It was one that was way up the tree on the right of the porch.", Abby replied. "I didn't find any others that didn't work."

"That's good. So, I'm going to shove off to bed now.", Oscar yawned. "Owen, there's some hot chocolate for you in the pot on the stove. You just have to warm it up a bit. Abby, I brought a bottle up from the downstairs fridge for you, if you want it. It's in the pan of warm water on the stove."

"Thanks, Grandpa. Good night!", Owen called from the snowy yard.

"Good night!", Abby added.

"Night.", Oscar said as he shut the inner door and he could be seen moving past the parlour window to the stairs.

Abby turned to Owen with a smile. Impulsively she leaned over, stood up on her tiptoes –Owen had been experiencing quite a growth spurt since the spring- and gave her lover a kiss on the lips.

"I'm not complaining, but what was that for?", Owen asked jokingly.

"Does there have to be a reason?", Abby asked with a wink as she quoted one of the first things she said to him over nine months prior. "It's just so…different now. The three of us; we're a family, you know. I can't remember the last time I felt like this."

"I know.", said Owen as he gave her very cold (Abby's skin tended to mirror the surrounding air in terms of temperature) hand a gentle squeeze. "When we arrived in March, I couldn't let myself hope it would turn out this well for us."

"Me neither…but it did", said Abby with a gentle smile as they recalled their flight from Los Alamos in March….

March, 1983

Owen looked out the train window as they neared the station in Pueblo, Colorado. It was approaching twenty-four hours since the event that he could now consider the most pivotal in his life. Twenty-four hours since he had –in his estimation- gone from death to life. A day earlier, he'd been held underwater at the Los Alamos swimming pool by four sociopathic bullies who had been bent on murdering him. A cycle of violence –for no other sake than the gratification of those perpetrating it- was about to be brought to its logical conclusion.

Owen had been strangely accepting his fate. Perhaps, in retrospect, he'd really had enough. His divorcing parents didn't seem to even notice him, let alone pay any attention to him. At school, there wasn't a single person who he could refer to as a friend. And, the final straw, the evening before, he had watched Abby –the best friend he'd ever had, the girl he now realized he'd fallen irrevocably in love with- had gotten into a cab and driven out of his life. The brief time he'd known her had been the happiest he could remember and to then have it taken from him was simply too much. If this was to be his fate, he'd thought, well…that was it then.

Of course, what had changed everything was the sound of a window shattering, followed by screams of pure rage that could only be described as inhuman in their sheer intensity. Carnage followed as blood and body parts spilled into the pool. Owen had pulled himself to the surface and scrambled out of the water, to find himself looking into Abby's blood spattered face. Seeing Abby was to Owen a doorway to a new life. Perhaps, he thought, part of him did drown in that pool, and a new Owen had pulled himself out. Or, maybe that water had been his baptism into an entirely new life for both of them. At any rate, by morning, the two of them were on a train out of Los Alamos. A local train had taken them to Santa Fe by mid-morning. There, they'd boarded a northbound train, with their eventual destination being Montana.

On the train to Pueblo, Owen had happened upon a newspaper left behind by another passenger. The massacre of at the Los Alamos pool was headline news. A rudimentary glance at the stories revealed that four bodies were accounted for a fifth student was missing. The savage dismemberment of the corpses was delaying a positive identification, however, the results would probably be forthcoming by that evening. Owen realized this could be bad news.

He looked out the window and saw that it was now dark. A glance up and down the corridor revealed that the other passengers in the car were either absorbed in gathering up their baggage or sound asleep. He knocked softly on the trunk. Another knock answered him. With a deft movement he undid the latches and lifted the lid. Abby slid out with a silent efficiency that Owen could not help but wonder at. As the trunk's lid slid softly down and Abby took a seat next to Owen, it looked like she'd been there all the time.

"Hi.", she said with a smile as she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Hey", he replied with a happy but worried look of his own. He figured that since it was dark now, Abby could handle any problems they might encounter. But, her methods might involve gathering more attention to themselves –something they both really wanted to avoid.

"What's wrong?", she asked.

"Take a look.", Owen said as casually as he could, handing her the newspaper.

"Hmmm.", Abby mused as she read the headlines and articles swiftly. "Where are we now?"

"Pueblo, Colorado.", Owen replied. "I think that it'll take us at least two more days to get up to Montana. The trouble is, what if they realize I'm the missing student and they start watching railway stations?" So far, they'd taken steps to be sure he hadn't been seen. Abby had initially given him money for the train ticket, but they'd then decided she should be the one to buy it. Owen had thought that a ticket agent shouldn't see his face in case his photograph should ever appear anywhere. Thus, Abby had bought the ticket to Pueblo. She'd made sure not to do anything that the agent might recall as out of the ordinary. She'd even made sure to approach and retreat from the counter when the agent was distracted, so the fact Abby was barefoot would not be noticed.

"Do you think they'd watch railway stations this far away from Los Alamos?", Abby asked. "I mean, if they think you've been kidnapped by this Satanic cult the Los Alamos police are speculating about, would they really think to look for someone travelling alone, or think to look for the two of us, together?"

"I don't know. But, can we afford to take that chance? I mean, I don't want to have to worry about anyone tracking us. I want us to find somewhere that we can live in peace. You and me…together.", Owen said softly as he caressed her cheek.

"I know Owen. I want that too.", Abby said as she furrowed her brow in deep thought. Her eyes suddenly brightened. "I've got an idea for now, I think. That train schedule. What time is the train for Denver leaving"

Owen looked at the schedule and his watch. "About an hour and a half.", he replied.

"What time does it get to Denver?"

"About one in the morning."

"Good. That'll leave us plenty of time. Owen…You trust me, right?"

"You know I do."

"I know. But, I had to ask. And, do you have claustrophobia?"

"Am I afraid of tight places?"

"Yeah"

"No. I don't think so."

"Good"

"Why?", Owen asked. Although, as he looked at the trunk as Abby looked down at it and then him, as though estimating the sizes, he suspected he knew what her plan might be.

"Well, if they should try looking this far away, they'd be asking around if anyone saw you. They'd ask ticket agents, food vendors, and the like."

"So…"

"So, my idea is this. If you think you can handle being in the trunk for a while, you can get in before we get off the train. I'll get the tickets for Denver from the agent. So, if the police start showing your picture around, it won't do them any good."

"I'll be able to breathe, won't I?"

"Oh yes. I can feel the wind sometimes when I'm outside, in the trunk. It's not airtight or anything."

"OK, then. Let's do that.", Owen sighed. He glanced down at Abby's barefeet. "Abby.", he said.

"Yes?"

"Do you have shoes anywhere?"

"My boots are in one of my other bags. I can't get them easily now. Why?"

"They might remember a little girl in her barefeet in a train station in March", Owen said as he undid his own shoes. "Here, will these fit you?"

Abby put his shoes alongside her own feet. "They're big, but they'll do for now. Do you want to get in? I promise I'll let you out on the train if I possibly can."

"Ok.", Owen said as he took a deep breath. He paused and looked at Abby. He glanced up and down the corridor. Nobody was watching them. He gave her a quick but tender kiss on the lips.

"I love you, Abby"

Abby smiled at him. "I love you, too. Now, get down and relax. I'll see you soon, I promise.", she said as he lay down and she closed the lid.

The train came to a halt in the station. Abby pulled on Owen's shoes and did them up very tight so they'd stay on her smaller feet. She gently grabbed the trunk handle and lifted it up, mindful of the cargo inside of it. She took her other bag from the overhead compartment and quietly made her way to the train door.

Inside the trunk, Owen fought to remain calm in the enclosed darkness. He reminded himself that Abby was carrying the trunk and she wouldn't allow anything to happen to him. Once he kept that image in his mind, he could force himself to think about the next step of their journey.

It was unlikely that any police in Denver would be alerted to them. If they thought he was kidnapped, they probably would never think to look at public means of transportation. Still, if they thought he'd been brainwashed by that non-existent cult he'd read about, they might think to look for a boy on his own. Or, they might try to see if he'd gone through afterwards and then they might find out where he bought tickets to. They couldn't go the whole way with him in the trunk either. At dawn, Abby would have to return here to hide away from the sunlight. Owen sighed to himself. It's a shame, he thought, they couldn't just mail themselves to Montana. In the darkness, Owen's eyes opened widely as it dawned on him…maybe they could do that.

"We do what?", Abby asked quietly, three hours later on the train to Denver. The car they were in was almost deserted. Three other passengers were sleeping throughout the car. Even the car's conductor, after checking her ticket had nodded off. Owen getting out of the trunk had been done without difficulty aside from his being incredibly stiff and his eyes sensitive to the light for about ten minutes afterwards.

"Have ourselves shipped.", Owen said with a quiet intensity. "Think about it. If anyone wanted to follow us, they would look at the ticket booths and ticket agents. Well, we have the trunk. It *could* fit both of us for a short time. Or, we could get a crate somewhere, put the trunk in there along with the two of us. We have it shipped in the baggage car to Montana. Nobody sees us. No ticket agents sells a passenger ticket to a boy or girl our age. No conductor sees us in the car together or alone. I think it would work."

Abby thought about it. It certainly wouldn't be terribly comfortable, but it would definitely be safe. She couldn't find a hole in the plan, no matter how hard she looked at it. She smiled at her new boyfriend. "Owen, I think you're a genius."

In Denver, Owen and Abby had debarked from the train with Owen in the trunk. Abby had carted the trunk out to the taxi stands, for the benefit of anyone watching…Then she'd detoured into the shadows of an alley. There, Owen emerged again and Abby returned his shoes to him. The two then went to a nearby deserted park, across the street from the station, where they could wait and look at the schedules and figure what was their next move.

The next step was a little more delicate. Abby had to seek out someone who looked desperate, yet trustworthy for the next part of the job. Towards five a.m., Abby spotted a tired looking workman carrying a lunchbox, walking along the street. It was decided that Abby would handle this part of the job. She'd done it before. As well, there was something about her that made people want to help her, which would be a benefit. Plus, if this person turned out to be violent or dangerous, Abby would be more than capable of defending herself. It turned out to be quite easy.

"Excuse me, mister."

"Huh.", the man started in surprise. He stared at the pretty, delicate looking girl. "What do you want sweetheart?"

"On your way to work?"

"What?", he exclaimed. Clearly, being asked about his schedule by a little girl at five in the morning was not a normal event for him. He decided to humour her. He was far too tired for anything else. "If you really gotta know, I'm leaving my night job. Now, I go home and shower before going to my other job."

"Sounds bad."

"It is. But, I have to pay my mortgage. There's this little thing going on called the Recession. Friggin' Reagan…", he muttered.

"Want to make fifty dollars easily?"

"Little girl, I'm really too tired to be playing games."

"I know. It's no game. All I want is for you to just go into the train station and pay to have a trunk shipped to Montana."

"That's it?", the man looked around as though he was afraid he was being filmed. Of course, what this kid was asking wasn't in any way illegal, even if it was out of the ordinary.

"That's it. I'll give you the money for the shipping. You can keep the change as well as fifty dollars just for your troubles."

The man looked at Abby. This little kid might be nuts. She was offering him enough that would definitely help a little with his monthly bills. Shipping a trunk within the United States was definitely not illegal. So, he thought, why the hell not?

"Ok, kid. You've got a deal. Let's see your money and what's the address?"

Abby handed him some bills and a slip of paper. "This is for the shipping. This is the address. You'll get your fee when I see the shipping receipt."

"Don't trust strangers that much kid?"

"Please don't take it personally."

"Don't worry. I think you're smart for a kid your age.", the man sighed as he walked into the station. Ten minutes later, he emerged with some papers. "There's your receipt. This here is your baggage ticket. They said just drop the trunk at the baggage check area here. The train leaves at nine this morning."

"You were fast.", Abby said with a shallow smile, as she scanned the papers and confirmed their validity

"I want to get home fast."

"Well, I won't keep you. Here's your fifty dollars…a ten dollar bonus for being so fast.", said as she handed him three twenty dollar bills.

"Sixty bucks for fifteen minutes?", the man said incredulously. "You don't need me for any more jobs, do you? I could quit my night job if you did and actually sleep in the house I'm trying to pay off."

"I'm afraid not. Sorry"

"Mind if I ask what you're going up there for?"

"I rather think a whole new life.", Abby smiled at the man in a pleasant way that yet made him feel chilled as he saw that her teeth were quite white…and rather sharp looking. "Have a pleasant night.", she said in a courtly manner that reflected a bygone era.

Abby walked back to the alley where Owen had been watching and keeping watch on the trunk.

"We're set. We just have to get this to the baggage loading area by around half-past eight."

"Do you think anyone would be watching us?", asked Owen.

"I doubt it. I think that they look for people taking luggage, not putting it there. Owen, I'll have to be in the trunk well before that time. Can you handle it on your own?"

"How about we take it there now? That way we can both be inside before the sun comes up and also before it gets busy there."

"OK. That's a good idea. Um, I know it's a little late to ask, but will be able to handle being inside there all day with me?", Abby asked with a questioning half-smile.

"With you…I can stay in there as long as it takes.", Owen said with a smile as he took her hand. "I was looking at the schedules. With a bit of luck, we should be in Montana by this time tomorrow."

"That's good. When the sun goes down tonight, we can open up the trunk if there's nobody around. It'll give you a chance to stretch. You might even be able to do it during the day if there are no windows in the baggage car."

"Alright. I just want to get there. Let's get the trunk to the baggage area."

Abby affixed the shipping labels to the exterior of the trunk. She noted with satisfaction that the trunk had been listed as a fragile item and shouldn't be placed up high or with anything on top of it. That would make opening up the top at nightfall a far easier prospect.

Returning to the train station, they walked along to the doors where heavy baggage was dropped off. Luckily, no station employees were on hand at the moment. Stealthily, they pushed the trunk to the loading platforms and found the area for the northbound trains. Abby lifted the lid and stepped in. She lay down and beckoned Owen to follow her. Owen carefully stepped in and lay down beside Abby. It was tight, but definitely something he could tolerate for the hours it would take until they were in a darkened baggage car –or even until the sun set that evening, if it came to that. His earlier experience in the trunk had shown him that he could breathe without difficulty. The stiffness was something he would simply have to tolerate. As well, he thought with a smile, he could find nothing wrong with being put into such close quarters with Abby.

They shut the lid on top of them and quietly awaited the baggage handlers to load them onto the Montana bound Amtrak.