Epilogue

-/-

The days and nights had started to blur into one, her time divided now, divided into time she was awake and time she was asleep; time the pain crippled her and the time the drugs clouded her mind. Dr Zoe Van Helsing was dying. It was a state she had spent most of her adult life studying, and yet the personal experience was very different.

The drugs left her with the most fantastical dreams. She dreamed of places she had never visited, and of times that would have been impossible for her to have seen. Experienced the smell of a pre-industrial revolution world, and sailed across the Adriatic in a sail boat, fighting off pirates and Turks. She climbed mountains, and visited ancient libraries, she swam in icy mountain streams, and danced at elaborate candlelight feasts. She listened to operas and watched Mozart play his music, she wandered the ancient cities, gazing up at architecture that the bombs of a world war would decimate. And she was never alone. Always just out of her peripheral vision there was a consistent presence, so familiar and comforting, they never spoke but Zoe could feel their urging. Like a light touch on her back, her silent tour guide was always there.

The nurses woke her less and less. They had moved to liquid feeding days ago, the drugs administered intravenously now. Very few people visited her, a cousin came occasionally but they had never been close, and Zoe hadn't encouraged the visits. Jack still came once a week, his visits random and dictated by what shifts he was working. No one from the foundation came to visit, but considering how they had parted, Zoe was glad to be spared those awkward moments.

Zoe could still remember Veronica's face, how it gone from smug, almost goading, as she had told what she thought was her remaining captive vampire that her husband had abandoned her, and run away with a younger doppelganger, to sheer horror when Zoe revealed who she really was. It had been a cluster fuck of epic proportions, the foundation had lost two vampires, two vampires that had vanished. The last Zoe had heard was that the backers had pulled their funding, having lost out on gaining their real objectives, and the foundation would struggle to maintain its scientific funding.

It was times like that Zoe was glad her father was dead and her soon to be. The Harker Foundation had failed in its primary purpose, and Zoe was a cornerstone of that failure. For weeks afterwards, she had scanned the news, and social media channels for an increase in missing persons or suspicious murders. She waited for the regret to come and yet it remained absent…

Oh, the guilt was there, for failing to keep Dracula and Agatha safely at the Foundation. Yet it was more relating to all the missed opportunities for scientific advancement. So, Zoe did what she could from the make shift lab in her apartment, working every hour and recording all her findings in a handwritten ledger. It was frustrating, as Zoe was sure with the right equipment and access that she would be much further along, but even the preliminary results were ground breaking. Zoe had made sure to wipe her computer before admitting herself, but she had brought the ledger with her, intending to hand it over to Jack before her end.

Unless of course she had two particular visitors…

It was foolish to even wish to be visited by a pair of vampires, but Zoe couldn't help her curiosity. She wanted to know how they had adapted, what they thought about living in the twenty first century. Had they watched their first movie yet, flown on their first plane, and how did it call compare with the world they had left behind. Most of all she wanted an opportunity to explain her theories to the very people most impacted by them, knowing it was in their interest to have her work continued, and knowing Dracula had the deep pockets needed to fund the work.

"Do you need anything else Zoe?"

Blinking Zoe stared up the nurse who had been giving her a quick bed bath. "No...thanks…"

"Ok, I'll let your sister and her husband know its alright to come back in."

"My sister?" Zoe's brain struggled, the new round of drugs was starting to enter her system, numbing the ever-present pain.

"They've been here most days." The nurse replied. "Sat with you while you slept. Didn't you realise?"

Choosing not to answer, Zoe forced herself to concentrate, to resist the lure to sleep from the drugs. Something that was easier said than done, and Zoe felt her eyes flutter closed, before forcing them open, the pattern repeating.

"It seems sleeping beauty is finally awake…well almost." A familiar drawling baritone sniggered, and Zoe forced her eyes open, blinking as she saw something that should be impossible. A vampire standing in the daylight.

"Am I dreaming again?" Zoe's voice was slurred. It was difficult to detect any sudden movement, and Zoe was certain she misread what looked like an expression of concern on Dracula's face.

"Why do you dream of me often, Zoe Van Helsing? I am flattered, if I wasn't a happily married…"

"Do stop baiting her…Hello Zoe I won't ask how you are feeling." Agatha cut in, moving to take a seat on the edge of Zoe's bed, instead of her usual chair. This way she could hold her niece's hand and be in her line of sight.

"I don't understand the sunlight?"

"Ah yes well seems those vampire legends weren't worth the paper they were written on. And all it took, was someone with basic common sense, and observational skills to realise it." Agatha replied smugly, shooting a look over her shoulder at Dracula who scoffed in reply.

"Are you never going to let that go…"

"Maybe in a hundred years." Agatha teased, her expression annoyingly tender as the pair shared a look.

"Why…why are you here?" Zoe asked, drawing their attention back to her.

"Because you are dying, and we are family." Agatha replied. "Where else should we be?"

"I don't know sunning yourself on a beach somewhere…" Zoe suggested, earning her a leering smile from Dracula.

"Oh, that has possibilities, I've seen what the people of this century wear to the beach, and it is illuminating."

"Darling if you can resist being yourself for five minutes…"

"But you like me just as I am, you've told me so…many…many times…and quite vocally I recall."

"If you two are just going to flirt over my dying body, you can do it elsewhere." Zoe groaned, the desire to sleep was growing strong. Yet it was nice not to be alone.

"Did you send me those dreams?"

"We did, there is still a connection there from when we drank from you, its weak so we have to be touching. Did you like them?" Agatha asked as she squeezed Zoe's frail hand, careful to be gentle with her mortal kin.

"I did…thank you…I think I've seen more of the world these past weeks, than I ever did in all my years. I suppose some might say I wasted my time, but I don't regret it, the choices I made with my life."

"Then close your eyes my Zoe, we'll be here, and we'll keep your dreams sweet. You won't be alone, not even at the end I promise."

Smiling Zoe was touched. She was not an affectionate person, but she did feel, and it eased some lingering fear to know that they would watch over her.

"I want you to promise me something…If I rise again…I want you to put me out of my misery…I don't want to live like that, rotting away in my own body."

"Zoe…"

"Promise!" Zoe insisted, forcing her eyes open once more to meet Agatha's gaze. "My blood was tested extensively, I know I don't carry the vampire pathogen. If I rise again, it will be as one of the undead, and I couldn't bear that…Just don't let them burn me either."

"Zoe Van Helsing I make you this promise." Count Dracula interrupted, his dark gaze unusually serious. "If you awaken in your grave, I will come and stake you myself. Let us call it a debt repaid."

That was a strange relief, but Zoe did trust Dracula to keep his word. It would be a mercy, not a normal motive for him, but Zoe didn't doubt he had the stomach for it.

"I have something for you." Zoe added. "In the bedside cabinet…the journal."

Intrigued Dracula bent down and retrieved the item she was talking about, he went to hand it to Zoe, but she waved him away.

"Keep it, it's yours now."

Flipping it open Dracula frowned as he looked at lines upon lines of formula and detailed medical notes, along with printouts of what looked like slides of cells.

"Its my research, everything I learnt from studying your blood sample, which I might have accidentally had removed from The Harker Foundation, by a willing accomplice or two." Zoe almost half smiled. "Find someone who can continue my work, it will revolutionise how you think about yourself, I promise. It might even help with that other matter, it's not hopeless at least."

"Dr Helsing it has been an honour and a pleasure." Dracula bowed politely in Zoe's direction. "I promise to do as you ask…after all it is in our best interest."

"Agatha…"

"Yes Zoe?"

"Was it worth it?... Did I do the right thing?... Will my father forgive me?"

Reaching up Agatha brushed Zoe's hair out of her face, caressing her cheek gently. "I think it was, and I know he will. Van Helsings stick together remember. And I promise it won't be in vain, we will do good with your work I promise, even if it takes us another 123 years."

"It had better not." Zoe muttered, the urge to sleep was almost overwhelming now, the drugs worked, and darkness beckoned. "I'm grateful…"

"So are we." Agatha whispered, watching her niece and holding her hand as Zoe finally drifted off, this time deeper than she ever had before, and Agatha could tell from her increasingly sluggish pulse that it wouldn't be much longer now…a few hours at most.

Taking the seat by the bed Dracula leant forward, his hand resting to cover Agatha's knee, a silent gesture of support, as tears gathered in her eyes.

"Do you want to be alone with her?"

Shaking her head Agatha reached down and covered his hand with her spare hand, the other still held on to Zoe as she sent her dreams of soaring through the air, night's warm currents buoying her, the bright shining moon casting down its soft gaze.

"No…Stay…I need you here."

"Then here is where I will be." Dracula replied, leaning back in his chair and gazing at the two Van Helsing women before him, one dead the other dying and both so alike in wit and bravery.

They would need that bravery. The world around them changing so fast, and with unknown enemies stalking them, and yet there was still hope. Agatha had given him back the sunlight and Zoe had given them hope.

Perhaps one day those deeply held dreams would finally come true, dreams that were so fragile that Dracula didn't even dare speak them aloud, but they both knew. They had both seen them, lived them if only for a short time, and Dracula knew he would give everything just to feel that child safe in his arms once more. A child he hadn't even named, the pain of it was so deep, but perhaps now he might dare to…

Perhaps that could be her name…their Hope…

"No Zoe…we'll call her Zoe."

Resisting the urge to chide his wife for snooping in his thoughts Dracula could only nod his agreement. It may indeed take them another 123 years, but one day there would be a little girl with dark curls they called Zoe. And her parents would raise her on tales of her namesake, the brave Dr Helsing, who had brought them back together, and made their entire future possible.

-/-

The End