Epilogue

"Mom! Dad! Manny brought home a bunny for Easter!"

Joshua laughed and ran a hand nervously through his ash-blonde hair. Manny leaned up to fix his bangs for him while Heather escorted the aforementioned bunny into the household.

"Your little sister is… energetic." He pretended to be annoyed with her hands and waved them away. "I forgot what a bundle of energy she is."

Manny smiled at him. "You did not, you just hoped that she had changed since Christmas. Any little girl is going to be energetic when their guests for Easter dinner present a rabbit."

Joshua winced and shut the front door behind him. "I just hope that your Mom doesn't think that this is you and I bringing our own food to Easter dinner. Your Mom's a great cook, and I want to taste everything on that table that I can." The delicious scents of cinammon-roasted yams, freshly baked bread, and turkey with stuffing had escaped the kitchen to fill the entire house. He paused and looked down at her as she lead them into the living room, taking off her jacket and tossing it on the back of a nearby chair just like she had since she was a teenager. "It was also really nice of her to ask Heather and I to join the family for the holiday."

Manny shrugged. "When I told her Heather had no where else to go for Easter dinner it was practically a command. Then I mentioned that you'd be home by yourself and she started apologizing. 'Why wouldn't Joshua be invited to Easter dinner, Manouchka?' 'I don't know Mom, maybe it's because last Halloween he turned me into a vampire, remember?' 'Oh, now, Manouchka, you told me that children have a special relationship with their sires, so of course he's expected to be at the dinner table!' My family is really weird. Like, the Addam's Family kind of weird. Not every family could deal with their daughter turning into a vampire and still ask the man who changed her into coming over for dinner."

Despite what she said, there was a smile on her face as she looked around at her family house and heard Heather's thick accent from the kitchen as she delighted over the dishes that had been made for dinner, while introducing Manny's younger sister to the rabbit—the same one that Manny had saved from becoming her breakfast all those months ago.

Joshua shrugged out of his own jacket and placed it next to Manny's, uncertain of where else to put it. He eyed Manny—about the sixth time he had done that since he saw what she was wearing to Easter dinner. "You look really nice," he admitted when she caught him looking at her again.

Manny looked panicked and then slowly smiled. She tried to turn away, but he reached out and caught her hand, pulling her back to him. He opened his mouth to speak, but the voice of Manny's mother from the kitchen interrupted him.

"Manouchka! Joshua! Do you want some wine? We have white or red!"

Rolling her eyes, Manny hollered back, "White, please, Mom!"

"I'll have red, please!" He grinned, and Manny giggled into her free hand. Red. Like blood. The hand still held in his tingled with warmth from where his skin touched hers, and when his free hand came up to fix the collar of her shirt and adjust her necklace, she felt like her heart was squeezing. "Manny…"

"Yes?"

Joshua coughed, clearing his throat. "I just… I wanted to tell you that since we've been living together, this past year, that I've come to realize that… I care for you. Greatly. In fact, I think it's fair to say that I haven't cared this much about anyone in a great many number of centuries. I suppose I just wanted to let you know that..."

She grinned up at him teasingly. "Your accents getting thicker. And your eyes are changing color. You're nervous."

"I am not."

"Yes, you are. You can't hide it from me, Joshua. I know all your tell-tale signs of when you're lying or nervous, or happy, or angry. Right now, you're lying, you're nervous, and you're getting mad that I'm better at reading your emotions than you are mine." She held her chin up haughtily. "If you were better at reading my emotions, you would know that I've loved you since the night you saved me from Mr. Aspen. My God, Joshua! You threw yourself into the lion's den, you let yourself be tortured just to buy time until Poppy and Ash could get ready to come and get us out of there! You knew what was waiting for you as soon as you handed yourself over to them, but you still came anyway. How could I not love someone as brave as that?"

His eyes flashed a shade of green that she had never seen before. They were boundless, deep and inviting. His mouth parted a little from surprise. Then he smiled and shook his head. "Aye, Manny. I knew you were trouble since I chased you down that night. Ye got under my skin, and I've not regretted it since."

"Now that we've gotten all the mushy-stuff out of the way, and don't get me wrong, because I do quite like mushy-stuff, and if you could tell me that you care for me a lot more in the future, I'd really like it, does this mean we can kiss more? I really liked that kiss we shared in your office, and I really like it when you hold me, and I wouldn't be adverse to the idea of doing that more in the future, too."

Joshua's eyes became pained, but he drew both arms around her to hold Manny tight. "Manouchka, I think that you're underestimating just how much I care for ye. You could just reach into my mind and pluck out the thoughts, ye know that, right?"

"I know, but watching you struggle like this is so much more entertaining. But does this mean no kissing, because…" He dipped his head down and silenced her with a kiss. Someone came into the living room, saw them, and wisely turned right back around and walk away, leaving Manny free to wrap her arms around his torso and hold him back with all the inhuman strength in her body, until at last he lifted his head, keeping his lips hovering over hers.

"In that book which is memory on the first page that is the chapter when I first me you, appear the words: here begins a new life." Manny swallowed nervously. "Dante Alighieri. That's how I feel about you."

He smiled. "Mine's a bit longer, and it's Edmund Spenser. The part that reminds me of you, though is… My love is like to ice, and I to fire: How come it then that this her cold is so great/Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, but harder grows the more I her entreat?...Such is the power of love in gentle mind, that it can alter all the curse of kind."

"I believe the right phrase is 'course of kind'."

"I know, but 'curse' seemed more appropriate to our particular relationship."

Manny smiled brightly. "I'm not afraid of you anymore."

"You should be."

"In fact, I think you should know I think I love you."

"You have inherited your family 'Addam's family craziness', as you so aptly phrased it a moment ago."

"But it won't stop you from kissing me more often, right?"

"I don't think it will."

"And maybe some day we can even move on to the sex? Made vampires can still have sex, right?"

Joshua sighed. "Is this how Easter is celebrated in this household?" A swift kiss from Manny stopped all arguments, so he struggled to free himself from her. "Maybe when you're older enough."

She laughed in delight and Joshua knew he had said the right thing. "No amount of me aging is ever going to stop you from being a cradle robber, Mr. I-helped-build-pyramids!"

"There were no pyramids! I already explained that!"

"No, no, don't cover your ears! Trust me, I'll just start using telepathy!"

"Is there no way to shut you up anymore? I think I liked it better when you were afraid of me and all I had to do was glare!"

"Yes, well, that's your own fault for teaching me how to project my thoughts. You could try kissing me again. That does seem to do a good job of shutting me up. Ooh, Mom! You made cheesecake for desert!"

Satisfied that the cheesecake would entertain Manny for at least a short while, Joshua found his glass of red wine and took a seat at the back of the kitchen table, watching Manny steal food behind her mother's back, the adults discuss recipes, and Manny's little sister play with the rabbit on the kitchen floor.

Family. It had been exactly what Joshua was missing for so long. He smiled and sipped at his drink.

He felt whole around her in a way he never had before. That, he believed, was the power of Spenser's 'love in gentle mind'. She had drawn him in, lured him in, with her shyness and naivety… and when that was worn away had revealed a sharp mind and a strange, perplexing sense of humor which kept him watching what he said around her. He might have tried to save Manny by changing her into a vampire, but he knew full well that in the end, she had been saved him, too.