The parental urges still rang though his head. You can still go get him, take him back. You can convince him. Or control him. Or even wipe away his bad memories. He's young, magic like that will work on him. You can wipe the slate clean and start over.

And then he'll never remember what it is to be human.

He made sure to give the hired help notice.

The air was cold outside, and he took a moment before closing the door behind him. He was somehow more aware than ever of the keenness of his senses. The darkness of the sky made the moon seem more bright. The night wind made the leaves whisper with a secret sound. He breathed in the smell of the night, and the smell of his son. He followed that smell to the source.

Satoshi had gone a long way in a few hours. The going was slow because of the tracking, and Krad would have lost the scent if not for his more preternatural senses of the boy who shared his blood. His trail was winding, but mainly very clear. Satoshi did not know how to lose a pursuer on such short notice, especially one who knew him so well. Or had thought he did.

After crossing a stream in a seemingly last-minute attempt to throw off any followers, Satoshi had gone uphill. Not a very big hill at all. Just a little rise among the trees, just high enough at the top to be above most of them. And at the top, in the little clearing between two tall pines, looking to the east, was Satoshi.

His back was to Krad as he approached, but Krad knew the boy could hear him. He was intentionally loud, to let him know he was coming. To let him run away.

But Satoshi didn't run, he didn't even turn around. His shoulders were squared in the same defiance Krad had seen in him when he left. He lifted his head slightly when Krad reached the point behind his shoulder.

"If you take me back I will run away again."

He was very resolute. This was a resolve he hadn't had the last time he ran. It was a decision for death. But resolve could melt with centuries, and no matter what his convictions, a fourteen year-old boy could not imagine what a hundred years could do to a person.

"Again and again," said the older vampire softly. "And after that? And that? And what if decades pass by and you don't recognize the people, and then centuries go past and you don't recognize the cities? What if I keep you by my side until nations fall, and people who aren't your people make this country theirs?

What if you forget?"

"I'll keep running."

He stood with his back to his sire, his pale hair sharp against the brightening sky.

Krad watched him until the coming dawn turned the clouds the color of that hair. They would be white in the morning.

"I didn't come to take you back, Satoshi."

Satoshi didn't answer. But he turned and looked at Krad for the first time.

Krad came to stand next to him.

"If you want to watch me die, to get forgiveness in the act of forbearing, that's not enough."

Krad nodded.

"Redemption doesn't come cheap, Krad."

"I know."

The sky cast light upon them now, not sunlight yet, but the harbinger of dawn, light reflected and refracted through the clouds.

"I came to watch the sunrise with you."

He didn't say anything more, and Satoshi didn't answer. Krad stood by him, silent with his pain. A different pain now.

And the light of the sun just beyond the horizon made the clouds begin to turn to rose.

He reached out a hand to touch that hair, knowing that he shouldn't. And his fledgling turned to look at him before his hand could come to rest. A new look.

And in his eyes he saw a name he never deserved, the one name he hadn't taken in all his long years, the years that very clearly now were too many.

They watched the sun rise.

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Author's Note:

And that is the Ending Point.

Eheheh. Don't hurt me.

I didn't update this story for a long time, because life went a different direction, as it were, from fanfiction. But I also didn't update it because the end is not a happy one.

I didn't know where the story would go, initially, but it led here, because I knew it had to end in redemption. And that is a difficult thing if one considers what a vampire, especially the sort that has to kill to survive, is supposed to be.

Thank you for all the reviews, and to those who kept reading and reviewing it long after it seemed dead! I am really grateful! You were very encouraging, and you showed me that my writing-or at least this story-did have worth. And that is more than I could have hoped for.