A/N: DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters of Avon and Soolin, Vila, or Blake. The rest of the characters are my invention, however.

Chapter 2

When she heard the second person approach the stall where Avon slept, Soolin reluctantly roused from her own hiding place, exhaustion marring her fair features. She grimaced at the feel of the dirty, grimy coveralls she wore, ones too big for her petite frame, especially with the weight she'd lost. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt clean.

Peering through the bars of the stall she knelt in, Soolin watched. The first person who'd discovered Avon must have told his boss and now they were going to be evicted. Too bad, too, it was the first time good sleep Avon had had since…before.

With a touch of surprise, she watched as an older blond woman quietly approached and opened the top half of the door to Avon's stall. The wariness with which the woman moved startled Soolin.

He wasn't much of a threat to anyone, not like he was now, anyway. Before…yes, threatening was one of the words she would have used to describe Avon. In his favored black clothes, dark piercing eyes, black wavy hair, solidly built body held fiercely straight…he had been one of the proudest, most intimidating officers she'd ever served under, as well as, she had to admit, the smartest and the most crafty.

But now? He'd become almost skeletal. Unkempt hair hung down his back, clubbed back by her, after a battle that had left her bruised and resentful. He was next to filthy, as he wouldn't stop walking long enough for more than a few hours sleep before rising and walking on again. She'd learned, through hard experience, to tie a cord between their two wrists after he'd dropped off to sleep, so she'd know when he was up and leaving her.

The woman, looking vaguely familiar to Soolin, stood for several moments, staring at the sleeping man, curled uncaring in the straw, loomed over by the glaring black stallion that had keep Soolin at bay with pawing and snorting and flat-out bared teeth, its great head snaking out at her with murder in its eyes.

After a few moments, Soolin left her hiding place and crept silently toward the woman. Whatever happened next, Soolin had to be prepared to defend this man.

"Are you with him, young woman?"

The question, coming unexpectedly and in an almost familiar voice, froze Soolin for a second. How did she know I was here? I was the best scout in our group. Even Avon grudgingly admitted that. I must be slipping. Or maybe I'm just too tired.

Soolin reined her thoughts in and answered politely as possible, "Yes, ma'am. He's harmless enough. I…wanted him to sleep as long as he could before we went on."

She moved to lean on the door beside the woman, looking down at the ragged man in black tatters, curled in the straw, so peaceful and still, unmindful of the powerful stallion hovering over him. "It's the first time he's slept well in weeks."

There was a smile in the woman's voice as she said, "People often sleep better when they finally reach home."

Soolin turned to the woman in absolute shock and frankly stared. Yes. Yes, she has his features, but more feminine. She's blond, though. His coloring must come from his father. A shiver tiptoed down her back. His father. I'll bet he's as formidable as Avon, and probably just as stubborn and high-handed and…dangerous.

"So he did have a goal in mind. How long…" she began, then stopped, uncertain if she was trespassing on private areas.

The woman merely smiled and finished it for her. "…since he left? Over eighteen years." She looked sadly at her son, so much older and all grown up now. Her thoughts ranged back the years, seeing the intense, volatile young man he'd been at sixteen, chaffing under the yoke of their agrarian society, where technology, while not forbidden, was nonetheless suspect, except in machinery.

Soolin also looked at him, but from an entirely different perspective. Softly, she intruded on the woman's thoughts. "It's a shame you couldn't have known him as an adult. He had the sharpest, the best mind I'd ever run across."

Avon's mother flared, blue eyes wide. "Had? What's wrong with him, young woman? I've a right to know!" Even keeping her voice quiet to avoid disturbing Avon, his mother managed to convey her distress at Soolin's indictment.

Soolin considered. The woman clearly still loved her son. How much could she tell her of what he'd been through? What he'd done? Who he'd been?

She began slowly, feeling for words. "We…were in a battle. All the rest of us died and…he was forced to kill his best friend. Since we escaped, he hasn't said a word to anyone. He can still speak," she hastened to assure the woman, stemming the questions trembling on her lips, "but he does it only when he wakens from his nightmares. Mostly screaming."

Soolin shook her head and she fell silent.

Sighing, the woman prompted, "And how did you get here?"

Soolin smiled ruefully. "I sort of followed him. He never told me where to go or even acknowledged my presence, but somehow he made me know what he wanted. We…I worked a short-handed freighter for awhile. They let me keep him in my cabin as long as he didn't get in the way. He left the ship when it landed here and just started walking. What else could I do? I followed. That was six, no, seven days ago," she finished.

Avon's mother studied her for several moments, then asked, "What's your name, girl?"

"Soolin, ma'am."

"Sue Lynn what?"

Startled, she answered with a name no one except the men she'd killed for destroying her family had heard from her lips in more than ten years. "Johanson, ma'am. Sue Lynn Johanson." She lifted her chin, daring the world to try and put her down or discount her.

The woman understood. Extending her hand, she smiled. "I'm Josephus Avenil. Carolius Avenil Mercator is my second-born son." Tears glimmered in her eyes as she looked back at Avon, still asleep in the straw. "Thank you for bringing him back to me, Sue Lynn Johanson." They both watched in silence as the restless stallion eased over to Avon and nuzzled his shoulder.

Clearing her throat against the lump of emotion there, Josephus added, "By the way, I'd advise against entering that stall until he's awake. Fleetfoot would as soon kill a person as look at him, except for Cari, there."

It was Soolin's turn to grin. "Somehow, that figures." She laughed softly, thinking it had been a very long time since she'd done that.

Maybe things were looking up for them. Well, at least for Avon. She was, after all, a stranger.

While Avon…Avon was the prodigal son, finding his way at last to home.

A/N: Please review and let me know what you think of the story so far.