She was gone closer to two weeks than the week she'd told King. She didn't even have time to think about him, much. Not with the daily frustration of this hunt.

The vamps they were tracking had gone to ground, and she and Sullivan were always two steps behind them, following the trail of devastation they'd left: the deaths, the families torn apart, the grief and the loss. Maybe that was why she couldn't let herself think of King very often - it was too close to home, too uncomfortable, and she'd always been good at compartmentalising.

The remnants of the other cell they'd hooked up with had a background in law enforcement and were more disciplined than the chaos she was used to, better suited to the life than Hedges had been, or Carruthers and Henderson. She watched them work, observing how they went about it, making mental notes where she needed to, filing away things she could adapt, methods she could use, and ignoring the rest.

She didn't have much in common with them, not like Sullivan did, and outside of the hunt she kept mostly to herself, staying focused and disciplined, outwardly polite but not really friendly and open. Stokes - the younger one - made the effort to get to know her, full of Texas charm and gosh-ma'am attitude, but he didn't get anywhere in a hurry, not that it seemed to bother him much.

She preferred Willows, who was older than her and a lot more cynical. There was something about the woman, though. A toughness that said she'd seen a lot, even before she'd known about the existence of vampires, and that, at the base of everything, she was a survivor.

Stokes had lost his partner, Willows her daughter. It was a familiar story, and for the first time Abby had something similar to share. But she didn't talk about King, and Sullivan didn't either. Some things were too private to put out for public consumption.

They worked well together, the four of them, Stokes and Willows able to read a scene in a way she'd never thought possible. They were also still hooked into whatever local law enforcement networks they'd originated from, and that all provided valuable intel, letting them build up a picture that eventually took them away from the cities and into the heartlands, where the landscape stretched for miles, empty and open, and there was no cell phone signal.

Being cut off from base left her uneasy, not knowing what was happening with King or with Zoë. It was another reason not to think about him much, not when she was so far away and there was nothing she could do about it except get the job done so she could get the hell home. It tested her compartmentalising to its limits, but if Stokes and Willows could be professional, then so could she.

The end, when it came, was almost an anti-climax. Daystar didn't work on this nest, either, not as effectively as it had elsewhere, but it put some vamps down, coughing and spluttering, even if it didn't take them out entirely. Silver and liquid garlic extract still worked, the garlic disabling them the way it always had, and in the end they died screaming and flailing at the end of Abby's knife and her bow, consumed by Sullivan's sundog bullets, Stokes' UV grenades, and Willows' maternal fury.

It was only once the goodbyes had been said, with a hunter's trademark brusqueness - except for Stokes who couldn't stop being charming even if he'd tried - that she finally let herself think about what might be waiting for her back at base. Now it was over, she was chomping at the bit, and Sullivan for once seemed happy to accommodate her, packing the car up in record time and ignoring the way her fingers tapped impatiently against her knee.

Of course, being out beyond the sticks meant it was hours into the journey before she finally got a signal again, and once she had, it figured that Caulder wouldn't be answering his phone.

She tapped at the on-board keyboard of her cell impatiently, staring out of the windows at the vista rolling past outside, the miles of darkness with only a few specks of light in the distance, what passed for civilisation in these parts. She couldn't wait to get back to the city, any city, where the ground was familiar and they had decent take-out. She knew where she was when she was surrounded by steel and concrete, glass and brick. Those were the hunting grounds she was familiar with, not these wide-open skies that stretched on forever, only the myriad pinpricks of starlight relieving the endless black.

Sullivan glanced across at her, taking in her tension, before his eyes were back on the road again. He cleared his throat, for once deciding to say something instead of leaving her to wallow in her own fears.

"I'm sure everything will be fine."

Platitudes didn't suit him. He didn't have the face or the tone for them, the words coming out stilted instead of comforting, the way he'd probably intended. She gave him a look, one that conveyed everything she needed to about his ability to lie, and he scowled for a moment, his expression clear in the reflection on the front windscreen.

She tried Caulder again, cursing under her breath when he failed to pick up.

"You do realise it's also the middle of the night where they are, right? And we'll be there in less than six hours. Just in time for breakfast."

She gave Sullivan another look, but this time it failed to have the effect she was aiming for. He shrugged it off, reaching over to turn on the radio, the sound filling the car in spite of its low-volume.

It was country, of course, and she could just picture what King would say about that. Or maybe not - his musical tastes were eclectic to say the least.

She tried her cell again, ignoring the slightly exasperated look Sullivan shot her. Still no answer.

"Whistler -"

"The last time I didn't get an answer when I called," she said, staring out the front windscreen, "it was because King and Zoë had been taken and everyone else was dead." She didn't look at Sullivan until she'd finished talking, and when she did, his expression twisted, half in sympathy and half in frustration with her.

"Fine," he said. "But do me a favour - grab one of those cushions from the back seat, okay?" Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he rolled his eyes at her, an expression she wasn't used to seeing from him.

"If the cops pull us over, we're speeding because you're in labour, got it?"

-o-

HQ was quiet when they finally got back, the whole complex bathed in the dawn's golden light, making it look warmer and more welcoming than it usually did. Even the weeds looked pretty, soft greens and golds that she didn't stop to admire. There was no sign of life, which wasn't unexpected - the buildings around them were empty and abandoned, and they'd learnt the hard way to keep a low profile - but it didn't do anything to reassure her.

The sound of the car door slamming as Sullivan joined her on the asphalt sounded too loud in the early morning silence, but she couldn't be irritated with him for long, not when he moved to flank her, his hand dropping automatically to the weapon strapped to his thigh.

There was no sign of any disturbance as she walked up to the entrance to the building they'd appropriated, no indication of forced entry, nothing out of place. She pushed the door open slowly, and it didn't creak. Caulder must have finally got around to oiling it - she couldn't imagine anyone else bothering, and while that should have been reassuring, in her current mood, with her heart beating too fast and the tension rising within her, it wasn't.

She slid through the opening, Sullivan hard on her heels, and kept her tread light as she moved through the building, taking in the signs of occupancy - yesterday's newspaper open on the kitchen table, the dishes in the sink, the faint pulsing light of the TV in the other room and the muted sound of canned laughter.

She moved towards it, still moving carefully, alert for anything out of place, so tense she was almost vibrating with it.

Zoë was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her and a bowl of cereal clutched in her hand. Something chocolatey, the kind of thing that Sommerfield had never let her have and Abby still didn't. This door still creaked, and Zoë looked up at the sound, her small face lighting up as soon as she spotted Abby.

"Abby! We're watching Sesame Street!"

Abby grinned at her, relief flooding her system. It was only when she registered the 'we' that she realised that Zoë wasn't alone in the room.

King was stretched out on the couch, his head pillowed on his hand, with one of the couch cushions underneath that. Zoë's My Little Pony quilt was draped over him and he looked like death warmed over, pale and shivery with dark circles under his eyes. But his eyes were a deep, dark brown, not pale and washed out as they had been, and when he smiled at her, they crinkled at the corners, his whole face lighting up at the sight of her just as Zoë's had.

He was the most beautiful sight that Abby had ever seen.

"Hey," he croaked, shifting slightly on his makeshift bed so that he could look up at her. "You're back. Just in time for breakfast."

She nodded, barely aware that she was doing it, too busy just drinking the sight of him in. She tried to say something, and she was barely aware of that either, only knowing that she couldn't get the words past the lump in her throat or concentrate when her eyes were burning.

"You're... you okay?" The words stuttered out of her, filled with a fragile hope.

"I feel like I've got the flu," he said. "But it could be a hell of a lot worse." He blinked up at her, shivering again, and tried to sit up. He was moving as if every part of him ached, and she could sympathise. She'd had the flu before, and it was never pleasant. "Caulder didn't tell you?"

She shook her head mutely, still focusing on trying to breathe, not breaking down entirely in front of Zoë. He looked sick, but he looked human sick, the normal kind of sick. The kind of sick he'd get better from.

"Huh." He grimaced as he settled down again, tugging the quilt over his legs. "I thought he would have. In fact, I was pretty sure you'd hear his excitement all the way over in... What was the name of that place again?"

She shrugged, too focused on him to pay any attention to his question. "Somewhere... else," she said, and he smiled, the expression on his face moving from something amused to something warmer as she watched him.

"Hey," he said again, and she nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

He'd left a space on the couch next to him when he'd sat up, and she dropped her bag to the floor, her jacket following it as she headed towards him, settling down next to him. Her hand reached out towards him before she caught herself, half-convinced that this couldn't be real, that she'd fallen asleep in Sullivan's car and they were only half-way home. But King closed the last few inches between them, his roughly callused hand wrapping around hers.

His skin was warm to the touch, too warm to be due to anything but his fever, but his eyes weren't glazed. He knew exactly who she was, and he knew who he was, too.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, searching his face anxiously. "Are you...?"

"Human?" His eyes crinkled again. "As I ever was, I guess. It's -"

He broke off, looking past her, and she didn't need to hear the sound of boots scuffing against the floor to know that they were no longer alone. When she turned her head and looked towards the doorway, Caulder was standing there, still in his nightclothes, yawning and scratching unselfconsciously at his beard, Sullivan just behind him.

"Abigail." Caulder sounded just as glad to see her as Zoë and King, and his next words confirmed it. "It is good to have you back."

"You," she said pointedly, "need to start answering your phone."

He snorted, not at all put out by her tone, but then it took a lot to faze Caulder.

Abby, however, felt completely fazed, still reeling and still not quite able to believe that this was for real.

"You want to explain?" King asked, gesturing at himself, curled up on the couch. "The technobabble is beyond me."

Caulder nodded, looking smugly pleased. The light of scientific discovery shone in his eyes, the same light he'd had when admiring Sommerfield's handiwork. That had to be a good sign.

"As we discussed," he started, a little pompously, "I stopped administering the antivirus we had been using to treat King." Abby could only assume he meant the royal 'we', since no one else had had anything to do with treating King. "I expected that the transition to vampire would occur within twenty-four hours at most, as the antivirus gradually left his system. I knew it may not be as quick for the vampire virus to turn King as it would with the newly infected, not if some of Sommerfield's antivirus lingered in his system, but when forty-eight hours had passed and King was still running a fever -"

"Cut to the chase, Caulder," Sullivan interrupted in a slow drawl. "You can blow your own trumpet later." Abby shot him a grateful look, and he acknowledged it with the very faintest inclination of his head.

Caulder was shaking his head, not at all annoyed by Sullivan's interruption. If anything, he looked indulgent, and his eyes were sympathetic when they met Abby's. "There will be no trumpet blowing, my friend," he said. "I had very little to do with it."

She looked between them, confused.

"Apparently I'm making antibodies," King explained, leaving her very little the wiser.

Her eyes widened and she looked at Caulder for some kind of confirmation, relieved when he nodded thoughtfully. "It seems," he said gravely, "that King's body is fighting off the vampirism virus on its own. I had not heard of such a thing before, and if I had not seen it for myself..." He paused, giving her enough time for his words to sink in and start to make a strange kind of sense. "Perhaps it is because this is the second time he has been infected, leaving him, if not immune, then less vulnerable to infection than might be the case otherwise. Or perhaps it is that Sommerfield's antivirus has bought him enough time on this occasion for his body to begin to fight back, when normally the bone marrow is altered by the virus too quickly to enable it to produce the necessary antibodies."

"So..." She trailed off, trying to formulate the question in a way that made sense. "Is he... cured?"

"The virus is not entirely gone from his system, not yet, and I have re-initiated treatment with the original antivirus to assist in reducing viral load so that his own immune system has every opportunity to continue to produce antibodies. But I think at this point it is simply a question of time."

"There's more." It was King's turn to sound smug, although that might have had something to do with the fact that he'd taken the opportunity while Caulder was talking to move closer to her, his shoulder now pressed up firmly against hers and their fingers intertwined. He made her wait, though, for Caulder to explain what he meant instead of telling her himself.

"We may be able to use the antibodies that King's body is producing to augment Daystar."

"Now who's a waste of resources?"

Sullivan's brow clouded for a moment at King's crowing, but then it cleared again and he gave King a rueful little smile.

"Well, it's about time you turned out to be useful for something."

King flipped him off, but the move was automatic, no hard feeling behind it.

"Now what?" Abby asked, still wrestling to assimilate what she'd been told and still too scared to truly believe that things were going to turn out okay.

King's fingers squeezed hers for a moment, comfortingly.

"At the present rate, I'm hoping that the worst will be over within a matter of weeks. He will continue to run a high temperature, cold sweats, headaches, perhaps nausea and aching muscles -"

"I've got the flu," King repeated, and Caulder frowned, opening his mouth to object as his sense of accuracy was offended. King cut him off, however, before he could say anything. "For all intents and purposes, I feel like I've got the flu."

Caulder let out an exasperated sigh, the sound suggesting that they'd had this conversation more than once while Abby had been away. But he was a smart man - he knew when it was best just to let King have his head, crack his jokes, be a smartass. He had that much in common with Abby, at least.

"The symptoms," he acceded, "will be very similar to a bad case of influenza, and other than the antivirus, the only treatment I am recommending is rest, warmth and lots of liquids."

Zoë had been listening, if not following what the adults were talking about, but she jumped in now, obviously pleased to have a contribution to make. "He gets cold," she explained Abby solemnly. "So I fetched him my quilt."

"Kind of makes up for waking me up at five a.m."

Zoë frowned. "You were already awake. I didn't need to wake you up and I could have got my own breakfast."

"Yeah, yeah," King said, waggling his eyebrows at her. "You just wanted someone to watch Sesame Street with."

"Watching Sesame Street was your idea," she said seriously, her small face solemn as she pointed out the unfairness of King's words. "I wanted to watch SpongeBob."

It was overwhelming Abby, the idea that this was it, that after everything they'd been through, all of her fears of losing King to either the antivirus or to a hunter's blade, it had come down to King fighting it off like a bad case of the flu. Maybe Sullivan got some of that, or maybe the on-going good-natured bickering between Zoë and King was more than he could take, but he tapped Caulder on the shoulder and gestured with his head that the pair of them should leave her alone with her family.

Zoë broke off from arguing with King over whether Miss Piggy or Animal was the best Muppet. "I'm glad you're home, Abby," she said shyly, and Abby gave her a shaky smile, fingers tightening automatically around King's. She hadn't been able to let go of him and he didn't seem to have any objection.

But as soon as she thought it, King finally released her hand, shifting down the couch and stretching himself out, laying his head in Abby's lap and curling his legs up so that he'd fit his frame onto the cushions. He let out a satisfied sigh when he finally settled, something soft and contented, and Abby's eyes prickled again, burning with unshed tears. She covered it by tugging Zoë's quilt over him again, smoothing it down and leaving one hand on his shoulder as she threaded the fingers of the other hand through his hair.

Touching him made it real in a way it hadn't been before, and for the first time since they'd been captured she began to believe, really believe that they'd make it through this, that everything would turn out to not just be okay, but better than okay.

"She's not the only one glad you're home," he said sleepily, reaching up to catch hold of her hand again and twining his fingers with hers. "There's only so much Sesame Street a man can take."

"Your idea," said Zoë stubbornly, wriggling around until she was sitting with her back against the couch, pressed against Abby's leg as she started to eat her breakfast again, her eyes fixed on Elmo's antics.

"Anyone would think you'd missed me," Abby said quietly, the world narrowing down to just the two of them. He snorted softly, rubbing his face against her legs like a self-satisfied cat.

"Maybe a little," he admitted. "You know, because of the Sesame Street thing." She smiled, not believing that that was it for a moment, not when his fingers squeezed hers gently, moving her hand until he had it pressed against his chest, just over his heart. "Okay, I missed you."

"Because you love me?"

The corners of his mouth curled up. "Yeah, that must be it."

"I..." She choked, the lump in her throat threatening to undo her, robbing her of all of her words and most of her self-control. He turned his head, twisting to look up at her. The look in his eyes was warm and understanding, maybe a little amused, but it let her breathe again. "I'm glad to be home, too," she said, because that was all that was needed.