King had a new truck, something large and ridiculous that suited his personality. It took both of them to wrestle her bike into the back of it, King cursing the entire time. Once she'd jumped into the driver's seat, she headed straight for base. If King had any objections, he didn't voice them, instead slumping back in his seat and watching her face in the street lights as they flashed by.
It was early, not far past midnight despite everything that had happened, and the roads were still humming. It took everything Abby had to keep to the speed limit and not attract attention when every impulse was screaming at her to hit the gas, the feeling of dread growing slowly with every passing mile.
"Can you phone ahead?" King asked, wincing slightly as he shifted position into something that might be more comfortable.
She shook her head. "I didn't -" Her voice cracked. "I left my phone. I didn't want Frank to figure out where I was."
King nodded, switching his attention to staring out of the windshield. "Danica might not know that Frank's dead yet," he offered, like that was supposed to be a consolation. She got what he was saying - that even if Frank had let slip to Danica where his team were based now, she'd need time to organise an attack - but it did nothing to ease the fear tightening her throat. She already knew that Danica was ruthless and scarily smart. She couldn't bet everything on the chance that Danica, for once, would stop long enough to think things through.
Screw the cops. She slammed her foot down on the gas and tore through the city, heedless of the traffic cams. It was King's car and if he'd been stupid enough to register it legally, he'd just have to be the one paying the tickets.
She didn't even relax when they pulled up outside the dark, squat building that served as their headquarters now. She spilled out of the truck, leaving the door wide open as she surged towards the entrance. She drew her gun as she went and left King to make his own way in behind her.
Her first yell drew Hedges out of his workroom, rubbing his eyes like he'd fallen asleep in there again. His eyes widened noticeably when he spotted King limping in behind her.
"Wait, what's he -"
"Find Dex," she snapped as she headed past him, cutting him off before he could get the rest of the question out. "Now!"
Hedges fled, casting one last, confused look back at King.
Sommerfield had obviously already heard Abby's approach because she emerged from her lab, her body tense and her expression watchful. "What's wrong?" she asked, feeling her way along the wall towards Abby.
Abby ignored the question, her throat too tight to answer. She didn't want to have to say it more than once - it was going to be difficult enough to say the first time. Instead she switched the second most important thing on her mental list. "Where's Zoë?"
"Bed." Sommerfield's face was pinched, tight with the fear that she was holding back. "What's wrong?" she asked again.
"Get her up." She kept her voice slightly softer than when she'd been talking to Hedges, but only slightly. "Now, Sommer."
Hedges reappeared, Dex hard on his heels, and Dex stopped short, eyeing King coldly. She suspected that the only reason that Dex wasn't already in King's face was because King was obviously in no condition to pose a threat. He'd wrapped his arm across his chest again and was moving even more slowly and carefully than he had been back at the docks. Either his condition had worsened, or he was making himself appear as unthreatening as possible, at least until he knew which way the wind was blowing.
With King, that was a distinct possibility, but even that didn't appease Dex entirely.
"What's he doing here?"
"We need to leave, now," Abby said, once again ignoring the question. "We're compromised."
Dex's head snapped towards her. "He shows up and all of a sudden we're compromised? What a fucking coincidence. Does Frank know you've taken up with him again?"
"King didn't sell us out." She rubbed at her face tiredly, heartsick and not bothering to hide it. "Frank did."
Sommerfield let out a soft, wounded sound, but when Abby turned towards her, the expression on Sommerfield's face was grieving but not surprised.
Hedges, on the other hand, looked thunderstruck, shaking his head over and over again as though by denying it, it would suddenly stop being true. "That can't be right," he said. "Frank would never -"
"Frank did." Her tone left no room for argument, and she held Hedges' gaze until he had no choice but to look away. "He admitted it, Hedges."
Dex's expression was brooding as he turned her revelation over in his head. "Where is Frank now?" he asked. "Man should get a chance to give his side of the story."
She didn't know how to break it to them gently, which only left brutal. "Frank's dead."
It hit Dex hard, his eyes widening and his body jerking as though the blow was a physical one. "How?" he demanded, his voice rough and raw with grief. Dex had been with Frank for years. Frank had found him and Frank trained him. However hard Abby was finding this, Dex would suffer more.
But even knowing that, she couldn't answer his question; the words caught in her throat and refused to make it past her lips. In the end, it was King who answered.
"Killed himself," he said. "Blew his brains out right in front of us when Abby..."
"When I figured out it was him, confronted him with it," Abby said harshly, and King's fingers twitched towards her, an automatic gesture of comfort that he quickly suppressed. "But we can talk about it later. Right now we need to move."
The shock was fading from Dex's face, leaving something resigned but focused behind. "How long do we have?"
Abby shook her head, a mute sign that she had no idea, and Dex seemed to fold in on himself a little.
"Where are we going?" Hedges interrupted. "If Frank -" He swallowed. "I mean..."
She'd already considered and dismissed the options they'd had lined up already. That left only one choice.
She turned to King. "You said you had boltholes all over the city, right?" He nodded, his eyes fixed on her face. "You got anywhere big enough for all of us?"
He frowned thoughtfully, his eyes growing unfocused for a second as he worked his way through all of the alternatives. And then he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I've got somewhere. It's a fixer-upper, but it will work."
She nodded, turning away from him to look at the rest of what was left of her team, her family.
"Okay, people," she said. "Get ready to move out in twenty."
-o-
The site King had in mind was an old, abandoned barge on the river, just north of the city's manufacturing district. The traffic to and from the shabby factories would mask most of their movements, but they were still far enough away not to attract too much attention. And even if their neighbours did start asking questions, she had no doubt whatsoever that King would have believable answers lined up, given his gift of the gab and mastery of the art of bullshitting.
She and Dex did a circuit of the structure while Hedges stayed with Sommerfield in the truck, Zoë dozing against Sommerfield's side and Sommerfield's arm wrapped protectively around her daughter. King accompanied them as far as the walkway connecting the barge's mooring to the riverbank. She wasn't sure if it was Dex's obvious wariness and barely disguised discomfort with King's presence, or King's own aching ribs that kept him there, waiting for them to come back.
Their options right then were limited, but even if they'd had the luxury of time, Abby was pretty sure that they couldn't have come up with anything better than this. The barge was defensible, made of thick steel and separated from the land by a removable gangplank, and its position was ideal. By the time she was ready to leave Dex and make her way back to King, Dex was already muttering about security measures and escape routes. Since that was the type of thing that made Dex happy, she left him to it and headed to where the others were waiting.
"Home, sweet home," she told Sommerfield, smiling at Zoë and getting one of the Zoë's trademark serious looks in return. "It has potential. I think we'll take it."
King disappeared an hour or so before daylight, and she guessed that he'd headed back to whatever bolthole he was currently using. She didn't see him go and he didn't say goodbye, but just like he'd had faith that she'd save him, she had to have faith that he'd come back. She had other things to focus on - there was a lot to do, things that King couldn't help them with, not when he had his ribs strapped tightly up and was moving like an old man. Hedges had commented on it more than once, earning himself more than one obscene gesture from King in return.
It was growing lighter when Abby finally took a break, stepping out onto the deck and heading towards the pointy end of the boat. She was pretty sure there was a real name for it that she was missing, and she was just as sure that if King ever came back, he'd take great delight in telling her what it was. At the moment, however, she was too tired to care. Frank's death still weighed heavily on her mind, and that made it difficult to think about anything else.
She crossed her arms and rested them on the railing, staring out across the water and listening to the sound of the river lapping against the side of the boat. It wasn't the rain, but the sound was still soothing and she lost herself in it for a moment. The sky was starting to lighten in the east, the still-hidden sun tinting the clouds with a rosy hue, not the vivid red that warned of a storm - Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning- but something softer, peaceful. She closed her eyes, feeling the breeze rising from the river brush gently against her face. It still held the night's chill, but there was no doubt that morning was on its way.
She heard his footsteps before she saw him. The rhythm of them was already familiar enough that she didn't even open her eyes.
"Is there a name for this part of the boat?" she asked as the footsteps first slowed and then came to a stop beside her.
"The bow," King said, leaning against the railing next to her. "Or maybe the prow, if you're talking about the pointy part." She opened her eyes, turning her head to look at him. He looked tired, faint traces of pain still on his face, but he was alive and awake enough to quirk his eyebrow at her when she kept staring at him, examining his face in the light spilling through the forward windows.
"How do you know this stuff?"
"I read a lot," he said, turning to face the river.
"You read trashy romance novels."
He shrugged, giving her a half smile. "And in that vein, I've also seen Titanic."
She laughed softly, closing her eyes again and turning her face into the breeze. "No 'King of the world' moments, okay?"
"I wouldn't dream of it. But I do have a car, just in case you feel like a steamy interlude."
She smiled, still keeping her eyes closed. The air stirred around her and it brought the sounds of early-morning - the faint tooting of far-off boats, and the sound of machinery as the factories came to life - with it.
"You okay?" King asked softly, and she opened her eyes.
"Still alive," she said and again that was probably the wrong choice of words given what had happened.
King nodded, still watching the water flow past. He reached into the deep pockets of his jacket and produced a bottle of beer, cracking it open for her before handing it to her. She wasn't surprised to read the label and find out it was Canadian.
"It's a little early for this, isn't it?"
King shrugged, pulling out a bottle from another pocket for himself. "Or a little late," he said. "I suppose it depends on how you look at it."
He had a point, but then she could say that about most things.
She clinked her bottle against his and then swallowed a mouthful of beer. It went down easier than she'd expected. "I keep thinking..." she said before trailing off. She half expected King to come out with a witty remark, something about that being dangerous, but instead he turned his attention from the river to her, watching her seriously. She licked at her lips. "About Frank," she said, and he nodded.
"Understandable under the circumstances."
"It's..." She swallowed, all of that panic she'd been holding at bay bubbling up to the surface. She took another sip of beer to hide it, push it back down again. "I don't think I can do this," she said, pushing the words out as quickly as possible so that they wouldn't stick in her throat and choke her. "If Frank couldn't make it..."
King was still watching her seriously. "You're a hell of a lot stronger than Frank Reilly," he said.
She shook her head, her eyes stinging. "He was strong," she insisted. "And if I hadn't heard it myself, I would never have believed that he could... If Frank could fail like that, when he has twenty years more experience than me..."
"And Danica had two hundred years more than Frank." King shrugged, his face lost in thought as he took a swig from the bottle in his hand. "Maybe Frank took that first step down that slippery slope himself, but I'm pretty sure that Danica gave him a good, hard shove to send him the rest of the way."
She knew he was trying to help, but the thought didn't make Frank's betrayal any easier to bear, and she gulped back on the sob that wanted to escape. She'd shed enough tears for Frank Reilly. Too many.
But then King wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a rough hug, and that did make it easier to bear, just a little. He was warm and the fabric of his shirt scratched against her face as she burrowed into him, finally letting go. The storm, when it came, was full of fury, but it soon blew over, leaving her exhausted and limp in its wake.
"Bad night," she said when she'd gathered enough composure to speak, although her voice was still rough and broken.
King snorted, his fingers stroking up and down her spine in an oddly comforting way. "Now that's a fucking understatement."
She pressed herself closer to him, closing her eyes and breathing in his scent, which was even more familiar than the sound of his footsteps. Musk and fresh salt sweat, warm cotton and cool leather. She was tired, so tired, and it would be so easy to let him keep on holding her, lean into him and just doze for a moment while the world went away.
Too easy, and she'd never been one for the easy option instead of the right one. There was still too much to do, too much to think about, and it would be better for her to do it now, while she was still numb.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," he said and his voice rumbled through him. She could feel the vibrations of his body as he held her. "But in case you're wondering, those rumours about me are completely untrue."
She smiled, not so much amused by his comment as simply glad that he was there. But this was something she needed to know, no matter the consequences. "Did you know it was Frank? Who sold us out?"
There was a pause before King pulled back far enough to peer down at her, his expression sympathetic. "No," he said gently. "I just knew it wasn't me."
She nodded. Maybe it was weak of her, but instead of stepping away like she should have done if she was sensible, she sank back into the warmth of his body, closing her eyes as he squeezed her gently. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "For doubting you."
"Sometimes," he said, "I think you have more faith in me than I do. Actually, I don't think that. I know that."
She didn't answer the question he wasn't quite asking. Instead, she simply listened to the sound of his heart, each beat serving to reassure her that he was still alive.
"If Frank had tried to hurt you again," she said, "I'd have killed him."
She didn't miss the sudden tension in his frame or the way it ebbed away again, nor did she miss how his arms tightened fractionally around her as he swallowed, suddenly and awkwardly.
"You do seem to have this habit of saving me," he said. "You probably want to work on that."
"No. I really don't."
"Right." There was a catch in his voice, something anyone else would have missed. She didn't call him on it, any more than she called him on it when he rested his cheek on her hair for a moment, his breath stirring her hair. "I suppose everyone needs a hobby. But you know, that's why I -"
He bit the words off, but he didn't need to complete it; she knew what he'd been about to say.
"Have an inappropriate amount of hero worship for me?"
He laughed softly against her hair, and she didn't think she imagined the kiss she felt him press there. "I think that by now it's entirely appropriate."
His heart was beating slightly faster. Pressed up against his chest, she could hear it, and she raised her head to look at him, her own heart starting to race, too, when she saw the look in his eye. He reached up and gently brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, easing it behind her ear, and his fingers lingered there for a moment before his palm cupped her cheek. He leaned in and pressed his mouth against hers.
He tasted of beer and hope, and she parted her lips, deepening the kiss as she slid her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer.
When she broke away from him, he kept her close, tucking her under his chin again and wrapping his arms around her. It worked; she wasn't cold any longer, not with King's warmth right there, and for the first time since Frank's death she felt a measure of peace.
"If you have anything else you want to tell me, now's the time," she said quietly, rubbing her cheek against his chest. "Because after what happened with Frank, I really don't care about all the stupid things you think you've done that you don't want me to know about." He stiffened, like he was still afraid of her reaction in spite of what she'd said, even after all of this time and everything they'd been through. Together. "King," she said gently, lifting her head to stare into his face. "Spill."
Maybe it was the gentleness that finally got through to him, because he let go of her, and she let him go. He moved a couple of steps away and took a deep swig of beer before he faced her again.
"Okay," he said, and his voice shook a little. "So, I picked up this Betty in a bar. You know that much already. She had this tattoo on her wrist, just a little thing, looked a little bit like cuneiform, you know, if you prettied it up a bit or just had about two thousand years of linguistic drift. It was one of the first things I noticed about her. Well, that and the really tight skirt she was wearing..."
It wasn't difficult to put the pieces together, not when she understood King now. "You told her what it was, or what you thought it was."
The corner of his mouth twitched upwards, but there was no amusement in it. "It's stupid, but I was just... I was showing off. I was trying so hard to make an impression, and all I managed to do was hang a sign on my chest that said 'all-you-can-eat buffet'."
She stared at him for a long moment. "You think that's why she took you? Because you could read cuneiform?"
"Well, I can't think of any other reason." His tone was bitter.
"I can think of several," she said, and he rolled his eyes a little. "You're good-looking, you're funny, and you're smart, even if sometimes you're too damned smart for your own good."
She was no good at this - the compliment came out a little stilted and she expected some smartass remark from King in response, but he stayed silent, his eyes watchful. There was something lurking in the depths of them, something close to a desperate kind of hope.
It freed her tongue, in spite of her awkwardness. "You can't blame yourself, King. You didn't ask for it. Any of it. Maybe you're right and she would have picked someone else, but maybe she'd still have picked you and just killed you instead. You can't live in a world of what ifs."
He took another slow swallow of beer, still watching her. "Did you read that in a fortune cookie, Whistler? Because it's really profound."
She studied him for a long moment, saying nothing, and he finally raised one eyebrow and smirked at her, apparently unable to take the silence any longer.
"So, you think I'm good-looking?"
She hummed noncommittally. "I'm not sure about the beard."
He grinned suddenly, and this time he seemed genuinely amused. "I like the beard. Makes me look older, and since my birth certificate has me at five years older than I actually look, that isn't a bad thing. The beard's non-negotiable."
"Really?" She returned his smirk with interest, taking a long, deep pull from her bottle, and he actually looked indecisive for a moment before mock-scowling at her.
"Mean," he muttered, picking at the label on his bottle. That gesture was familiar, too, the clearest sign she could have of the fact that something was still bothering him.
"What is it?"
He glanced back at her, seeming surprised that she'd noticed he was still holding back, and the indecision hadn't faded entirely from his face. Nor had the sympathy, and it was the latter that caught her attention.
"Since tonight is the night for revelations," he said, and there was a strange kind of seriousness underneath his jokey tone, "there's something else you probably need to know." Once, that might have worried her, put her on edge and made her doubt him; now she simply watched him and waited calmly. Whatever it was, they'd deal with it.
"Come here," he murmured, biting at his lip and reaching for her. She went, sliding back into his arms as though she'd never been away. Maybe having her that close helped, or maybe he was just braver than he thought, because he finally admitted, "If you hadn't come when you did, if you'd offered me the cure two, maybe five, years down the line, I wouldn't have taken it." His voice dropped until it was barely above a whisper, dark with shame and a weird kind of hopelessness. "I was just... I was so fucking tired of fighting her. I don't think I could have kept it up. I just kept on losing, and the more I lost, the more I lost myself. Sooner or later, I'd have drunk the fucking Kool-Aid, so when I say that you saved me, Whistler, I'm not fucking exaggerating, okay?"
His tone was deadly serious, none of his trademark flippancy in it, and she whispered a brief okay against his chest, fighting the temptation to wrap her arms around him and never let him go. Apart from everything else, it wouldn't do his sore ribs much good, and there was enough bewildered pain in his voice that she didn't want to add even one iota more to it.
"It's not that Danica sucks the life out of you, Abby. It's that she sucks everything else out of you, too. Reaches deep inside and takes hold of every little bit of hope, everything that makes you 'you', and rips it all away until there's nothing left. Nothing but her."
He wasn't talking about himself, she realised. At least not entirely, and his next words confirmed it.
"If you can't forgive Frank, then I don't know how the fuck you'll ever forgive me. The things I did when Danica had me were a hell of a lot worse than anything Frank could have dreamed up."
She wasn't convinced, but she knew she'd never convince him. Instead she limited herself to a nod, pressing her cheek more firmly against his jacket.
"He was a good man once," she said, because she could offer that much, at least, to King. "And I'm sure he set out to do the right thing."
"Yeah, I'm sure he did. The road to hell, and all that..."
It was an apt descriptor, especially when she remembered how much Frank had aged over the last few months. Abby was pretty sure, now that she thought about it, that Frank had already been living in hell.
But she couldn't think about Frank any more, not without completely breaking down, and the front of King's shirt was already damp.
"Are you staying?" she asked softly instead, and that was the only other question she was interested in. It didn't feel like a question; it felt like a request.
"My stuff's in the back of my truck," he admitted, and she smiled even though he couldn't see it. "If nothing else, I'm sick of ramen noodles and Dex is a pretty decent cook."
"I'm glad," she said and he squeezed her again, pressing another kiss against her head before he loosened his grip and stepped away again, a little more reluctantly this time. His fingers rested in the small of her back for a moment before they dropped away.
"What now?" he asked and she didn't think the question was just about whatever it was that was going on between them.
She leaned against the railings again and thought about it, watching the early morning mist curling up as the sun rose over the horizon, painting the sky with hazy pinks and golds.
"We keep going. We keep fighting. We kick Danica Talos' ass."
"That's a good plan," he said. "Short, simple, and to the point. I like it."
She smiled and took another drink of beer. The bottle was almost empty; when she finished it, there'd be a lot of things waiting for her to do. And a team that would need her to hold them together.
King was watching her, a small smile playing around corners of his mouth. When she caught his eyes, he lifted his bottle, tilting it towards her in a small toast. "To the Night Stalkers," he said.
She stopped in the act of taking another drink, the bottle still pressed against her bottom lip. "Oh no," she said. "We are not calling ourselves the Night Stalkers."
He pouted, but his eyes were dancing, his amusement clear in every line of his body. "Every gang needs a cool name, Whistler," he said. "Somehow I don't see us as the Scooby gang, and Buffy is already taken."
She gave him a look.
"Oh, come on, Whistler. You know it makes sense. They're Night Walkers. We hunt them, so that makes us Night Stalkers."
"No," she said firmly.
He grinned, throwing his arm around her shoulders and tucking her up against his side. "We can talk about it later," he said expansively, and she had a feeling that it was going to be a very long, very repetitive conversation. But she couldn't find it in her to care, not when King smiled down at her, his eyes softening when she smiled back. It felt natural to settle into his embrace, and she wrapped her arms gently around his waist, watching as the sun rose on a brand new day, one where King would be right beside her.
-o-
Epilogue
Two Years Later
Abby had to admit that Blade was impressive; she'd seen vampires pull some pretty slick shit before, but a half-vampire jumping from a fifth floor window and landing without a scratch was new, even for her.
Even King was impressed, not that anyone else would have been able to tell from the never-ending stream of consciousness he kept up all the way back to the Honeycomb Hideout. She left it to King to introduce the team to Blade while she watched Blade's reaction, assessing him the way that he was judging the rest of them.
"We call ourselves the Night Stalkers," King said, and Abby smiled.
The End
