Thank you to everyone who's still reading (and especially to those who left a review)! This one's a bit longer than the last chapter. My way of saying sorry for the long wait. xD Enjoy!

"We'll find out what happened to their bodies," David promised after filling Marko in on everything he'd missed. He was taking it fairly well, considering…everything…or perhaps he was just too whiplashed to feel the full gravity of their situation. David placed a hand behind his shoulder, the touch as gentle as a ghost's—as if anything more might send him straight back to purgatory, or wherever it is they came from. "We'll get them back."

David could see the whirlpool of anger, pain and confusion on his brother's face. Marko always had been very expressive in that way—always wearing his heart on his sleeve, even when he was trying not to.

David's heart swelled just as painfully as it ached. "And then…maybe we can fix this." His fingers grazed the stake-sized hole in the back of Marko's jacket.

Marko seemed further agitated—either from his ruined jacket or from something else entirely—but he said nothing about it. He swung his legs over the edge of the table as if to stand. The corners of David's mouth quirked and he slid across the smooth wood to join him. It was almost surreal, looking at him—seeing him alive. But there was a serious matter to take care of, and David's small smile quickly disappeared. It was difficult to truly focus with his thoughts in a hundred different places, but he had to try.

They were alive. Now they had to stay that way.

"I was buried," he began. "I was thinking it could've been Max, but—"

He watched Marko take the first step onto the floor. The smaller blonde immediately teetered and David was there to make sure he wouldn't stumble or fall. He pushed off the table and grasped Marko around his arms. "Maybe you should sit for another minute."

Marko rolled his head to the side to shoot him a sardonic look. "I know how to walk, David." That was the first thing he'd said since David's brief recap on their lives.

It was by pure principal, and not by want, that David let him go. He watched Marko step around Eugene's body with a quiet 'ew' and make three shaky steps towards the door. "If you fall and impale yourself on something, I'm not putting you back together again."

Marko paused with one hand on the doorframe and turned over his shoulder. "Impale myself," he repeated with a subtle smile, half-excited and half-scandalized. David rolled his eyes.

He followed Marko as they left the room. "As I was saying, if it was Max—"

"It definitely wasn't."

David kept up a slow pace besides him. He lifted his eyebrows. "Oh?"

It was Marko's turn to roll his eyes. "Did your brain start to rot while you were six feet under? You said that Max told you to leave me here. So if he knew where I was, why was I still here while you were in a coffin ten miles away? I know he didn't like me that much, but you know how thorough he is. He wouldn't have left a body lying around, even in this place."

David was stunned into silence for a moment. He didn't know that Marko had been doing that much thinking while he'd been quiet. He was absolutely right, and David felt like a moron for even entertaining the idea that Max would have been behind David's strange burial. Max must have perished shortly after they did.

This is why I need you, he wanted to say. "Don't say that."

Marko made a face. "What?"

"That he didn't like you. You were everything he ever wanted in us. You always obeyed."

Marko snorted. "As if that matters."

What in the world did that mean? David furrowed his brows, about to ask, but they'd reached the main room of the hotel and Marko went ahead of him, taking it all in. "What the hell did you do to this place?"

David would rather not explain. "So it wasn't Max, but that means it's even more important that we find out what happened to Paul and Dwayne. I left a mess at my gravesite. It won't take a genius to figure out what's going on. If it was Michael or his family, and they buried the others somewhere, they might panic, maybe dig up the bodies and torch them." And who knew how long it would take to come back from that—if it was even possible at all. "We have to find them tonight."

Marko nodded his agreement, and then looked down at his blood-soaked clothes. His jacket had been marinating in his own blood for a year now. Coupled with the giant hole in the back, it was likely ruined for good. "Can I change first?"

It was a rhetorical question, but David answered with a small smile anyway. "Of course."

. . . . .

The Emerson home was dark—and empty, despite the late hour. At first David feared that they had moved on, that Michael and his family didn't even live in Santa Carla anymore and it would be difficult—maybe even impossible—to find him. That possibility shouldn't have bothered David, but it did.

It wasn't until he entered the home through the naively-unlocked front door that his concerns were quelled. Michael definitely still lived here. He could smell it. Had they been brothers, he'd be able to sense it, too—but that had never been anything more than Max's pipe dream. David had only one living brother and he was standing right next to him in the Emersons' living room.

It was almost surreal to be here again, after…everything. The memories were still so vivid, although the fine details of the home were a testament to the time that had passed.

The house looked…nice. It'd been repaired, and there were no signs of what had transpired the previous summer. The rooms looked comfortable and lived-in. The place was very homey, and he wondered if they would have visited here often, if Max had gotten his way. He wondered if Lucy would have joined Max at his estate, if Michael and Sam would have chosen to remain here, if David and the others would have become close with them. The hotel had been their pseudo-sanctuary away from Max; maybe this would have become something similar. Maybe they would have been—

He stopped that train of thought right there. The words a family and happy made him feel nauseous, because they were Max's words, not his.

Whatever could have been, didn't matter—because now when David looked around Michael's home, all he saw were puddles and smears of blood around the corpses of Dwayne and Paul. Not as he remembered, because he'd never seen their bodies, but as he imagined them to be.

He stared at a family photo that was positioned on top of the fireplace. Michael, Sam, and Lucy were smiling together in someone else's yard, someone with a fence and full, green grass and an above-ground pool. This was an older photo, taken at least several years ago. Sam had braces. Michael had acne. It wasn't a planned, posed picture. It looked impromptu, probably taken by a relative at some kind of…get-together…barbecue…or whatever families did these days. David was in touch with most things, but not all things.

"Didn't they have a dog?" Marko asked, opening and closing different drawers in the kitchen while David uncomfortably recalled what a happy human family looked like. He would only know from passive observation, not experience.

He cringed at Marko's question. He hadn't seen his brothers die, but he'd felt it, and he had a mostly complete image of how Paul had gone out. It was ironic because Paul loved dogs, even if they didn't always love him. David's mind was cruel enough to instantly provide him with a playback of Paul's final moments, of the blond going into one of the bedrooms to wait for the Frog brothers. David never should have allowed him to seek retribution, not when Paul was angry and grieving so deeply that he could barely see straight, let alone think straight. Paul had sought him out, in his final moment, reaching for his link to David, to Dwayne. As he died, Paul clung to them with a vice grip, desperately shoving at them what David suspected was every emotion Paul had ever felt in his life. David had felt equally cornered and horrified, as if he was being gripped for help by a man who'd been lit on fire. The sense of self-preservation within him, the part that didn't want to burn up too, had forced him to pull away.

"They did," he replied, straining himself to keep an even tone. He turned away from the cool fireplace, just as he'd turned away from his dying brother when he couldn't bring himself to watch. "Don't move things around too much."

In a flash he was at the top of the stairs, looking over the main living area and then glancing down the hallway. "Why?" Marko asked from downstairs. "We're gonna talk to at least Michael, aren't we? It's won't be a secret that we're back." David didn't immediately respond, only ventured down the hall with reserved curiosity, peeking into any open rooms, listening to the way the house moved, searching for any details that would give him a reason not to confront Michael. When David did things his way, he preferred to do them carefully. He should have been this careful before, but that choice had been taken away by Max with all his impatience to reach a happily ever after.

"David?"

He felt Marko silently join him upstairs, a few arms' lengths behind him. Marko had sounded concerned. "It won't be a secret that I'm back," he finally replied. "You're gonna be checking Max's property and watering his plants." He pushed open the door to someone's bedroom and stepped inside.

There was a moment of silence before Marko stalked after him. "Do I get to know why I'm watering Max's plants?"

"It's just a figure of speech," David said easily. This seemed like Sam's room, if the bright clothes and the large assortment of comics were anything to go by. David wasn't snooping around to take inventory of their personal belongings, though; he was doing a general sweep to find anything an ordinary person wouldn't have. Holy water. Excessive garlic or silver. Anything to suggest that the Emersons were dangerous to him in this weakened state—things that David would feel repelled by just by being in their vicinity. If he tuned in closely enough, he'd find even the most hidden weapon without having to lift a finger.

"I'm aware," Marko impatiently replied.

David lifted his eyes to the ceiling and spun around to face his brother. He could see that Marko was more confused—perhaps offended, even—than standoffish. The smaller vampire was more petulant right now than usual. David decided to go easy on him, in light of the year they'd had. "It'd be best if you're not here, if they come home. Trust me."

Michael or his family could be hostile about David's return. They could try to kill him. They could even succeed. He didn't plan on dying again, but if the first time taught him anything, it was that he didn't always think straight wherever his brothers or Michael were concerned. If that's how things ended up, he couldn't have Marko become a target as well. From a logical standpoint, Marko would be the only one who could possibly bring back the others; from an emotional stance, he was all David had left. He couldn't think of a worse scenario than one where Marko was killed before him, again. A scenario where David was alone. Again.

"Go," he ordered before Marko could properly react to his vague explanation. "See if Max has anything left to his name—and get something to eat for yourself. I'll call on you if I need you."

David turned his back, and Marko disappeared without a word. Only the tell-tale, barely audible whoosh of air indicated his departure.

He was hit with a wave of panic as soon as Marko was gone. He had never been concerned about his brother doing anything stupid or overly reckless; it was everyone else that he didn't trust. He couldn't protect his brother if he wasn't with him.

"And be smart," he added as an afterthought before (he hoped) Marko was completely out of earshot. He would have told him to be safe, but that sounded like something Max would say. Max would have nagged at them to lay low, told them exactly where to go and what to do.

The swift obedience was something that he suspected he wouldn't see for much longer. He felt as if he was on thinning ice, and every poor decision, every misplaced judgment would further wear down their relationship. Maybe everything was fairly normal right now, but Marko's perception and loyalty would change soon enough. Marko would question him. Maybe even come to resent him, for everything that he had allowed to happen. David wouldn't blame him.

After the strongest wave of anxiety subsided, dread weighed heavily on him instead. He bowed his head and clenched his teeth.

He had much to atone for.

. . . . .

After the impromptu home inspection, David found himself on the front deck, half-sitting on the small ledge created by the wooden railing and watching the night crawl by. He gazed up at the partially-obscured moon, listened to the sounds of insects in the grass and the Emersons' goats mulling about in their pen. He and Marko had noticed horses in the pasture behind the barn when they were initially surveying the property, but they were quiet now. Marko had an immense (and secret) soft spot for animals, to balance out the general spite he held for most humans. David felt a passive interest toward both humans and animals and never really bothered with approaching either, unless he had explicit motive to do so. Sometimes he felt like he wasn't actively here, that he was merely observing the world and trying to find a place in it where he belonged. Of course he'd been human once, and of course he was alive in some sense, but he had a difficult time living so closely around mortals. His old humanity was too close for comfort—distant enough that he struggled to connect with humans, yet close enough that he still wanted those connections at all. He supposed that's partly why he was even here in the first place, waiting for Michael (or for anyone else, really, at this point) to eventually come home. Waiting outside like a normal person would. No tricks, no mind games. He wanted to talk to Michael like he was a person and not a goal to be obtained, something he should have done the first time around.

His brothers were the connection to reality that he needed. They were the only people he knew and understood, the only people who might just understand him, at least on a very basic, instinctual level. But now…now they were no longer the only connections he might have.

He hoped that Michael could see beyond all the theatrics and the blood and realize the events of last summer for what they really were. He hoped that Michael didn't resent him. David knew that they pushed him too hard, but it wasn't by choice.

If Michael did hate him, at least there were no weapons around out here. Inside the house would have been a bad place to surprise him, considering the relatively close proximity of their kitchen knives. A knife wouldn't kill David, but it would be another nuisance to deal with, one that he felt he didn't have the energy for, as interesting as it might be to spar with Michael once again.

He didn't have to wait for much longer.

When the moon was completely obscured by dark clouds and those noisy little goats had fallen into a light sleep, a motorcycle came roaring up the driveway. The engine was cut and rubber soles crunched very lightly against the dirt path leading to the deck. David heard the jingling of metal keys and the thrumming of a steady heartbeat, and he saw Michael, in all of his handsome, broad-shouldered, messy-haired glory.

If David were mortal, his heart might have done something silly. His breaths might have stuttered out of anxiety just for a moment. But David no longer feared the judgment or the wrath of men, and he very seldom ever felt attraction. So why did his blood seem to thin just from Michael's presence?

Michael didn't see him, his gaze trained on the keys in his hands as he approached the front door. David found amusement in that. Michael wasn't naïve, but no one said that Max picked him for his strong intuition.

Michael slid the house key into the deadbolt, completely oblivious.

"It's not locked."

Michael froze, his hand still on the key. His heartbeat became erratic, and David could practically smell the adrenaline that must have shot through the brunette's body.

"You shouldn't be so careless in a city like this," he went on, his voice calm and cool. "You never know who might stop by."

His eyes were trained on Michael as the brunette slowly turned. David almost expected fear, maybe with a dash of seething hatred. Michael's eyes were impossibly wide, his lips parted slightly in a classic look of shock.

David slid off the railing and took two careful steps toward him, coming into better view for the human. "You would know better than anyone. Right, Michael."

Michael suddenly looked pale, and anguished. His head tilted to the side as he turned to face him fully. "David." His voice was so soft, hardly more than a whisper.

That caught David off guard, but his step faltered for only a beat. "You had to see this coming," he continued to patronize. He walked in an arc, coming toward Michael's side. It was instinctual for him to approach humans this way, like a predator would. "You did, didn't you? You don't seem very surprised." He actually didn't. Not after his very brief initial shock.

David really shouldn't let his pride do the talking—making it sound like of course he'd be back, of course Michael hadn't seen the last of him. He shouldn't toy with him, and he wasn't trying to.

Michael didn't exude fear, so that was a good sign. He did, however, shift his weight to instinctively guard the side that David was approaching. He was more muscular than David remembered—more formidable. For a moment, David got a glimpse of the vampire that he thought Michael could have become.

When Michael spoke again, he sounded anxious. "I— There's so much I wanted to say, I just—" And there was the taste of fear that David had expected. "Just let me say something before…before you do whatever you're gonna do."

Michael thought that David was here to kill him.

You don't know me at all, do you?

He supposed Michael's conclusion was a fair one, though, all things considered. They didn't exactly get off on the right foot with each other. They hadn't been allowed to.

David tilted his head a bit, considering the brunette. Michael inhaled sharply, as if preparing himself. "I—"

"I'm not going to kill you, Michael," David interjected, his voice a bit sweeter than it was cool, this time.

Michael paused, then blinked, stunned. David didn't have to take a peek into Michael's thoughts to see his genuine regret. He wore his heart on his sleeve, much like Marko did. There was no malice to be seen for miles. "You're…not? But I—"

"I remember." He didn't blame Michael for what happened. Before Michael made that final move—that bold, honestly impressive move—David had been willing to forget everything and accept Michael. He'd still cared for him and felt responsible for him. Nothing had changed now.

Michael's eyes became glossy for the briefest moment. He shook his head. "Then why are you here?"

This was going far better than he could have ever imagined, and for the second time that night, David was filled with genuine hope. He smiled. "Let's talk."

. . . . . .

"This is it?" David asked when he and Michael reached Dwayne and Paul's resting place—the same place that David had resurfaced from just hours earlier. The private gravesite was about a quarter of a mile from the Emersons' property, another thing he'd been unaware of.

Michael nodded and propped his shovel up on the ground as David surveyed the ground. "There," Michael said, pointing with the flashlight. "And there."

They were unmarked. Michael had already explained all of the details of their burial on the short walk here. He said that he had to do all of it in secret, afraid that his grandfather would desecrate the graves if he found out that their bodies hadn't been burned. He said that Sam had covered for him, but that no one else knew. It took them two days.

As touching as all of that was, David was distracted by the disturbing realization that he couldn't feel even the slightest presence from either of his brothers—not even the softest vibration or whisper to let him know that they were underneath the ground where Michael said they were.

He wordlessly held out his hand for the shovel, which Michael handed over to him. Even though he wasn't at full strength, he would be a much more efficient digger than the brunette. He didn't mind doing this on his own. His brothers were his responsibility, after all, in life and in death.

He began to dig.

"I tried to bury all of you together," Michael said uncertainly, "but…" But he couldn't find Marko? He couldn't take the time to look, in fear of getting caught? It didn't really matter to David. Burying them all together might have brought some kind of weird closure for Michael, but the dead took no comfort in the efforts of the living. "I'm sorry."

Michael's words sounded genuine, so David decided not to voice his thoughts. Besides, he wanted to move past everything, not create tension over something so trivial. "It's fine, Michael," he replied as he heaved shovel after shovel of dirt off to the side. "Let's just forget about everything that happened before."

Michael nodded, and a grin pulled at one side of his mouth. "So we're doing a full reset starting where you crawled out of the ground like something from Thriller?"

David's eyes lit up at him. "Exactly." He stabbed the dirt again.

Michael's lopsided grin eased into a more relaxed smile. "I can do that. After, you know, everything that happened…when I realized that you were never really in charge—"

"Who was never in charge now?" David leveled him with a playfully challenging look.

Michael's eyes suddenly fixed themselves to a random point through the woods. "I mean—it was Max's idea, wasn't it?" At the mention of Max's name out of Michael's mouth, David slowed in his digging just a little. "The big plan was, anyway. So then I started thinking, how much was you and how much was him? And I wished so badly that I could've asked you. I thought, maybe I killed you for no reason."

"Well I wouldn't say it was for no reason…"

"David, I'm serious."

David sighed quietly and stilled his work. He propped the shovel up against the ground and leaned one of his forearms across the handle. Apparently he was weaker than he originally thought, because he needed a break already. Fatigue was starting to settle into his body. Who knew that skipping out on meals for a year could leave him so tired? He tilted his head to the side a bit as he regarded Michael. The woods around them were silent, and the air felt thin between them. "Go ahead, then."

Michael furrowed his brows. "What?"

"I'm right here, aren't I? So just ask me." He supposed that it was unrealistic to expect them to move on and never address what happened. In order to get past everything, they first had to at least acknowledge it.

Michael seemed uncertain, then, but he played along. "All right…" He pulled his hands from out of his pockets and crossed them over his chest. "Undead David. How much say did you have in what happened?"

David told the truth. "None."

Michael blinked. "None of it was your idea?"

David mulled it over for a second before he replied. "We weren't forced to like you, if that's what you mean. That part was real."

Michael looked pensive, troubled. "I wondered why you picked me. But you didn't, did you?"

David's eyes softened. "No, Michael. Max chose your fate the moment he met your mother. The wine, the initiation, that was all because of how things needed to work out. You had to be turned."

"I don't understand…Why didn't you just tell me?"

David fell still and silent for a moment. It had never truly crossed his mind to tell Michael about Max's plan—to tell Michael about Max at all, until the time came. Perhaps he'd been concerned that if Michael knew, he would just run away even faster.

Or maybe David had wanted Michael to resist him, because that's what he had wanted all those years ago—only, in David's case, it wasn't becoming a vampire that he'd opposed to. On his bad days, David wished that he had struggled harder. On his worst days, he wished that he'd just bared his throat and submitted to Max's every whim. In a twisted way, it felt good for Michael to put his foot down once and for all and pin him on those antlers. You couldn't yell "no" any louder than that. David was proud.

None of that was something he felt like sharing with Michael at the moment. "Would it have made any difference?"

"Yes!" David lifted a brow at Michael's instant and impassioned response. "At least then I would've known who the real problem was."

Oh, Michael… David chuckled and looked casually at the couple largest trees around them, his teeth nearly glowing as he smiled. Michael actually looked frustrated for a second. How cute. "If you think we could've teamed up and killed him so that we could all come out on top, I'm telling you right now, that would have never happened."

He adjusted his stance and grabbed onto the body of the shovel that was still pointed down next to his boots. "Don't get caught up on the what-ifs, Michael," he said when the brunette fell quiet. "Those are for people who've run out of chances." The shovel made a brief shick noise as he poked the ground with it. "You and me?" He smirked wickedly. "We aren't done yet."

And with that, he once again began to dig toward the rest of his family.