A/N: Before I start, I need to clarify something. Reading through your reviews, it's evident there's been a lot of confusion about WHEN the prologue takes place, particularly because Randy makes an appearance, and he was a crispy critter at the end of HTWE. To explain, the prologue actually takes place, chronologically, between Chapter 39 and the epilogue of How The World Ends (remember, there's a two-year time difference), so Randy would still be alive. However, when the rest of this story takes place, he is quite crispy and will be making no further trouble for anyone. Sorry to confuse (and disappoint) you all.

Sorry for the long wait; I was finishing up another story, but I am beyond excited to work on this one. I can't wait to show you what's been cooking in my head.

Thank you to Esha Napoleon, therealchamps, Shandy777, Girl on Fire, and BigRedMachineUK for reviewing the first chapter! You all rock! Seriously! I love you all! Peace!

Chapter 1: Days Go By

"I try to breathe/Memories overtaking me/I try to face them, but the thought is too much to conceive..." - Staind, "Fade"

Three Years Later

The vampire's name was Darren Young, and at the moment, he was running for his life.

The bloodsucker sprinted down the deserted street, little more than a flicker of movement in and out of the intermittent pools of light cast by the streetlamps. Despite his superhuman pace, however, his motions were far from graceful; more than once, the toes of his sneakers caught against cracks and the edges of curbs, sending him face-first onto the concrete and earning him a few more painful scrapes in the process. But no matter how many times he fell, Darren would only scramble frantically back to his feet and resuming running, entreaties tearing out of his throat in a single repetitious moan-

Oh shit oh shit oh shit...

-all the while shooting terrified glances back over his shoulder at the dimly illuminated road behind him, his dark irises searching for it; that massive shadow that seemed to cling to his every movement as closely as his own...

Before coming to this small rural Midwestern town, Darren and his best friend Titus O'Neill had been two-bit hustlers from New York; enterprising, but unable to break through that glass ceiling in the criminal tower of success. All that had changed one night when they picked up a hooker who turned them just for the hell of it, leaving the two of them with empty wallets and a newfound thirst for the red stuff.

After an awkward but mercifully brief adjustment period to their new circumstances, Darren and Titus had tried to pick up where they left off, conning bloodsucker and human alike - only to find that the vampire underworld was even tougher than the mortal one...and infinitely more vicious should you fail.

Eventually, the pair had succeeded in pissing off enough of the undead elite to make living in New York without getting decapitated difficult, if not impossible. It had been Titus who had first suggested California, and Darren - tired of East Coast winters and tempted by the thought of warm summer nights and girls in bikinis - had agreed.

With no money in their pockets, they had hitchhiked and smuggled themselves from town to town, eventually ending up here in one of those landlocked states in the middle of the country: Iowa or Nebraska or Kansas - Darren couldn't remember which. They had only intended to spent a few days in this town, but that span of time had quickly turned into a few weeks, then a few months, as the duo discovered - with some surprise - that they liked it here.

Sure, the only bar was three miles outside of town, and sometimes, the lack of noise at night drove you crazy - but there was plenty of open space, fresh air, and pretty farm girls with tasty corn-fed blood. Best of all, though, there was no other criminal or vampire element to compete with; no rigid hierarchy to work their way up the ranks of. For the first time in their lives - mortal and immortal - Darren and Titus had the chance to go straight to the top; to be the guys in charge; the ultimate, unquestioned authority, and before long, their conversation had shifted from California altogether.

Talk a good enough game, and eventually someone will listen - and if there was one thing Darren and Titus both excelled at, it was talking a very, very good game. Using a combination of their street smarts and supernatural persuasion, the pair of petty criminals were able to weed out a small crew - men who, with the right amount of cash waved in their faces, were willing to put aside their scruples and come over to the darkness. Before long, business was booming; before long, people were showing them respect, and it seemed like the success that had been so cruelly denied them was finally within their grasp.

Looking back, that had probably been their first mistake - not realizing that the downside to being big fish in a small pond means that the ripples you create are that much more noticeable. So when the first reports had begun to trickle in through their expanding network that Hunters were headed their way, instead of taking them seriously, Darren had - stupidly - laughed them off.

He had always found the idea of professional vampire hunters ludicrous - in his mind, he pictured a group of nerds armed with crosses and wooden stakes who had watched one too many episodes of Buffy - and even if it were true, if they did exist, what reason would they have to come all the way out here?

Perhaps that had been their second mistake - assuming their small pond was beneath notice. Either way, all of their success, their dreams, their delusions of grandeur - all of it had come to a screeching halt tonight when they had stumbled out of the local bar and he had appeared out of nowhere, shotgun in hand, materializing out of the shadows as though he was comprised of them-

Two shots - that was all it took. Two shots, leaving Titus dead - his half-formed cry of surprise still echoing through the air while his body crumbled to dust - and Darren running for his motherfucking life.

Through the haze of adrenaline and fear blurring his vision, the vampire saw a gap up ahead; a narrow alley that was little more than a pathway between adjacent buildings. Cutting sharply to the left, he practically dived into it, pressing his body against one side, his hands shooting out and his fingers digging into the angled gaps between bricks.

In his panic, he had forgotten that breathing was a vampire nonessential, and the breath was tearing in and out of his lungs in hoarse pants. Sweat dripped down his face in icy rivulets, and if he had still been biologically capable of pissing his pants, the crotch of his jeans would have been uncomfortably damp by now.

A second crawled by, then another, their sum total slowly aggregating into a minute. Darren pressed his lips together, trying to remind his brain that he didn't need to breathe, trying to push the smothering cloud of panic back far enough so he could hear any sounds of his pursuer's approach.

He had been light on his feet even before heading over to the dark side, and had always taken his supernatural quickness for granted, confident that he could outrun anyone chasing him, but this guy...

This guy could fucking move - almost like he wasn't human; like he was a-

The remainder of the thought was cut off as the muzzle of the shotgun dug into Darren's chin, forcing his head up and actually lifting him off the ground an inch or two. The vampire gagged as the unyielding metal compressed his windpipe, his dangling feet kicking helplessly in midair. His eyes bulged, and through the bright blobs of color obscuring his vision, he was able to get his first good look at his pursuer.

The man on the other end of the shotgun was built like a tank - tall and muscular; his massive arms sleeved in tattoos, the lines between his black t-shirt hinting at an equally well-defined upper body. His features were sharp, handsome in a crudely primal sort of way, and his dark hair was shaved close to his skull. His dark eyes were like black holes in his face - but as they fastened on Darren, they suddenly glowed red in the gloom. His lips pulled back from his teeth, and there was a dim flash as light reflected off his set of metal fangs.

Darren felt his body go limp with shock - no way, no fucking way-

"Holy shit..." It took some effort to force the syllables out; the gun was pressing directly against his larynx. "You're-you're one of us-"

The roar of the shotgun drowned out his final words. Dave Batista stepped back, swinging the gun back up to rest against his shoulder, watching impassively as the remains of Darren Young disintegrated into ash, drifting down to the ground in silty motes. The red light slowly faded from his dark eyes, and his lips moved, spitting out only two words in a flat terse voice:

"Not anymore."

Somewhere up above him, he heard the murmur of a sleep-filled voice, followed by the SCREECH of a window sash being pushed up. Dave quickly returned the weapon to the holster strapped across his broad back, melting back into the shadows.

By the time the drowsy upstairs occupant stuck their head out to investigate the source of the gunshot, the vampire was already gone.

The large fenced-in piece of property surrounded by corn fields had once been a working dairy farm; now, however, the sprawling cluster of buildings stood empty, long since deserted by its owners and their livestock.

A chain-link gate stretched across the main entrance to the farm; it was here that Dave paused, flipping open the cover on a fairly new keypad and pressing a five-digit code. The gate rumbled softly, then slid open a foot or two, providing just enough space for him to squeeze his massive frame through, and slamming shut as soon as he was inside. In theory, he could have bypassed the code entirely and just scaled the fence, but Dave knew better - the chain-link barrier was electrified, and Maria wasn't shy about cranking up the juice while the others were out.

He made his way through the knot of abandoned buildings - the barn, the feed silo, the milking shed - toward the farmhouse at the rear corner of the property. The hot summer air was thick with corn dust and the lingering redolence of cow shit, and beyond the boundaries of the chain-link fence, the corn stalks rubbed against one another with an eerily ominous dry rustle of leaves.

The vampire shot a reflexive glance back over his shoulder, even though there was almost no chance he had been followed - he had taken the least conspicuous route out of town, and his keen senses would have alerted him long before now of a possible tail. No, it was this place, the land itself, that spooked him.

In the city, any city, there were buildings, alleys, basements - places to hide or crannies to duck into when the sun was in the sky. But here...there was nothing but empty open space; endless fields stretching on and on for miles. It was easy for a vampire to imagine getting caught out here, with nowhere to hide, like an egg in the middle of an enormous frying pan, while the sun beat down overhead, burning you into a crisp-

Dave shivered, forcing himself back to the present. The team's business in this middle-of-nowhere burg was almost complete; in a day or two, they would pack up the vans and head east, leaving this flat vacant nothingness far behind them. In the meantime, he would go inside, check in with the rest of the group, look in on Hope, and then crawl into his cot and hopefully grab a few hours of sleep.

The farmhouse was two stories, and, despite its lack of occupancy, only slightly the worse for wear - peeling paint, loose siding, missing shingles. There were no lights visible anywhere - one of the first orders of business upon arriving had been to put blast shields over all of the windows - and the dark panes of glass stared outward like rows of blank unreadable eyes. Unless your ears were sharp enough to pick up the almost imperceptible hum of electrical current - as Dave's were - it was easy to believe that the residence was well and truly abandoned.

The front door was directly ahead of him, but the vampire veered to the left instead, moving along the outer perimeter of the house. The porch was booby-trapped; any unsuspecting individual who trod on it would receive a nasty surprise in the form of several pounds of rigged plastic explosives. Hope was forbidden to go anywhere near it, and all of the other Hunters knew to restrict her outdoor play to the rear of the house.

Halfway along the left side of the house was a set of wooden cellar doors that led down to the basement area. There was no lock, and Dave lifted one open, holding it aloft and using it for balance as he carefully made his way down the stone steps into the cool dank interior of the cellar.

There were no lights down here - pitch darkness wasn't a problem for him, and the rest of the team had flashlights. The small space was filled with shelves heaped with rusted farm equipment and tools, turning the room into a labyrinth of pathways. This was another safety precaution; there was only one safe route through the maze - the rest had been outfitted with traps and alarms.

His meandering through the warren of aisles eventually brought him to another set of stone steps, these ones leading up to the first floor of the house. The door at the top was closed; a keypad was set into this one, and on the wall above the light switch, there was an intercom.

Climbing the stairs one by one, Dave entered the same five-digit code, hearing the soft oiled click of a bolt sliding back. Instead of grasping the knob, though, he reached up and pressed the "CALL" button on the intercom instead. "Dave." There was another click as a second bolt disengaged, and the door slowly swung open, allowing the big man to step out onto the first floor of the farmhouse.

Even though the lights still worked, the large living room area was dark, its only illumination coming from the greenish glow of Maria's computers screens. The red-haired Hunter was staring intently at one of her monitors, chewing absently on her thumbnail, light reflecting off the lens of her wire-framed glasses.

Dave quietly pushed the door shut behind him, the bolts automatically sliding back into place; at the sound, the computer whiz looked up, flashing a welcoming smile and a wave in the vampire's direction. "Hey you! Want some tea - I just made a fresh pot."

The big man shook his head. "Not...really." he answered slowly. Maria's ever-present ebullience always made him feel a little tongue-tied.

The redhead flipped her palm in a dismissive gesture. "Eh, I'll pour you a cup anyway - give you something to hold while I sit and drink mine." She pushed her rolling chair back, the wheels clattering against the warped floor boards. "Have a seat - I'll be right back." She disappeared into the kitchen area, and Dave heard the sounds of cabinet doors and clinking pottery.

The vampire grabbed a nearby plastic chair, dragging it over to the computer bank and sinking down onto it. He didn't much feel like socializing, but he didn't want to disappoint Maria - he genuinely liked her, and out of the entire team, she was the one who had put forth the most effort in terms of making him feel like a member of the group.

Even after three years, the reality of his situation had never lost its acutely uncomfortable edge. He was a vampire in a group of vampire killers. Sure, Cena and his team had saved his life, and sure, he had repaid the favor more than a few times in the years that followed - but that would never change the fact that their alliance was based on necessity, not trust.

His teammates had been shaped by tragedy, their lives irrevocably destroyed by bloodsuckers. Even though Dave had suffered, too, the very fact of what he was would always mark him as an outsider. He could never be one of them, not really - at best, he was merely a painful reminder of what had befallen them - and most days, he felt less like a part of the team, and more like a prisoner who's been granted a temporary stay of execution.

The vampire's bitter musings were cut off as Maria returned, two tall porcelain mugs in hands. She set one down near Dave, pushing it toward him. "Here ya go - fresh out of the pot." However, Dave's nostrils quickly detected the unmistakable coppery aroma, and picking the mug up, a cautious swig confirmed his suspicions - it was full of blood.

The big man shot a look at Maria, raising both eyebrows questioningly. The computer whiz shrugged, wrapping her slender fingers around her own mug as she raised it to her lips. "What? I thought you'd be hungry, and I know you don't like to drink in front of Hope-"

She had a point - if there was one thing Dave absolutely made all efforts to avoid, it was consuming blood in front of his daughter. It was one thing to say that Daddy slept all day because he worked at night, or that he could lift up the back of the van because he was just really strong - it was quite another to explain why Daddy drank the same gross red stuff that came out of your knees when you fell down and cut yourself.

And in the back of his mind, the vampire was painfully aware that he would have to explain it; that one day, he would have to sit his daughter down and spell out very carefully just why her daddy was different from her "aunties" and "unkas".

Why he was different...and why, ergo, she was special...

Dave realized that Maria was staring at him expectantly, lips poised at the rim of her mug. "Well?" the redhead asked.

The big man leaned back, taking a longer sip from his own cup before replying. "It's done," he remarked shortly. "Both of them - though that Darren ran like a motherfucker." He glanced at the computer whiz. "The others back yet?"

Maria shook her head. "Nope - they're still staking out the site. Of course, you would have known that already if you'd bothered to wear your earpiece." The last sentence was delivered in a tone of teasing reproach.

Dave let out a low chuckle. "Yeah right; I fucking hate that thing. I hear enough voices in my head, thank you very much." The redhead giggled at this. The vampire took another swig. "So what's the plan? We hitting them tomorrow night?"

At this, the computer tech bit her lip, hesitating just a moment too long before answering. "Actually...they decided to just wait until dawn - daybreak those guys while they're still sleeping and take them by surprise."

At this, the big man rolled his eyes, blowing air out between his lips with obvious irritation. Maria threw him a pointed glance. "Don't look at me like that - it was Boss Man's call-"

"Of course it was," the vampire interjected, his tone a mixture of sarcasm and annoyance. "It always is - and heaven forbid we question the decisions of our fearless leader. I mean, I'm only the one who found those guys, sitting night after night in that damn honky tonk-"

The redhead sighed, averting her gaze and setting her mug on the edge of her desk. tucking both of her hands under her thighs. "Cena's just trying to give us a tactical advantage-"

"Is he?" the big man shot back hotly. "Is he really? I mean, why don't we just call it what it really is - that even after three goddamn years, he still doesn't trust a bloodsucker to watch his back."

Maria pressed her full lips together pensively, her emerald irises still fastened on the floor. "He's trying, Dave-"

"No, you're trying," Dave interrupted. "Beth's trying - hell, even Jeff's trying. Cena...he just tolerates me."

The computer whiz's eyes flicked up, meeting his, sparkling with just a touch of anger. "You know," Maria remarked, her voice just as controlled as her gaze. "You're not the only one who lost Mickie."

It was the entirely wrong thing to say, and both of them knew it. Dave's dark irises narrowed, and he chugged the remainder of his blood, slamming the empty mug back down onto the desk hard enough to rattle the multiple keyboards. "I'm going upstairs to check on my daughter," he spat shortly. "After that, I'm going to bed - wake me up if Boss Man decides that he wants my help."

"Dave..." Maria tried to say, but the vampire swept past her, moving to the doorway separating the living room from the foyer. The redhead swung her chair around, rising to her feet as she called after him. "I'm sorry - you know that I didn't mean it-"

At this, the big man paused, and after a second or two of tense silence, turned back toward his teammate. He ran his tongue thoughtfully along one of his steel fangs, choosing his words carefully. "Tell me, Maria - what we do..."

His dark irises bore into hers. "...does it ever get...any easier?'

Maria's delicately featured face didn't even flinch. "Do you want the truth...or the lie this time?"

A humorless smile touched the corners of Dave's mouth. "Lie to me."

The redhead let out a soft huffing sound that was almost a laugh, a similar grin twitching at the edges of her lips. "Of course it gets easier," she finally replied. Her high-pitched voice was thick with the beginnings of tears. "It always gets easier."

The vampire stared at her for a long moment. "Hmmm...you're a terrible liar." With that, he turned around, moving out into the foyer, and making his way up the steps.

"No...Mickie...no..."

Dave tossed and turned restlessly on his sleeping cot, his violent movements threatening to overturn the narrow apparatus. His eyes were closed, but his sharp features were twisted in a grimace of intense pain, his cheeks damp with sweat and tears. His mouth moved as he slept, exhaling the words in a breathless, tortured murmur:

"Don't go...please...don't..."

His powerful hands clenched into fists, the knuckles flushing white with the pressure. The sharpened tip of one of his metal fangs sank into his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood.

"Mickie...don't...Mickie-"

With a hoarse cry, the vampire sat up, all the air exploding from his lungs in a single anguished gasp. His eyes flew open, the look in them crazed and distrustful as they darted over the contours of the room, as though he doubted the veracity of his surroundings.

Gradually, as the seconds ticked by, reality reasserted itself and the nightmarish world of the dream melted away into the ether. Dave remained where he was for another moment or two before swinging his legs over the side of the cot, hunching over and resting his elbows on his knees. His head was pounding, and he felt like he had just stepped off a rapidly spinning carousel; everything around him seemed to be sliding out of place.

The nightmare was nothing new; he'd been having it almost every night for the last few years, the only exception being when he was too exhausted to dream. There were several variations of it, but the particulars were always the same.

Mickie, alive and unscarred, safe in his arms, lying beneath him as he made love to her...

I want you to hold me...hold me, please...

...abruptly fading into Mickie lying on the floor of that shower stall, the life bleeding out of her-

You gave me a reason...to live...

I love you...

Dave's stomach abruptly inverted, a sudden burst of nausea climbing up his throat. Clamping his lips together, the big man stumbled to his feet, staggering toward the door and across the hall to the bathroom. Grabbing onto the sink with both hands, he spat a foul-tasting dark red glob of bile into the basin.

The vampire stared at it for an instant, then turned on the faucet, washing it down the drain and out of sight. He cupped his hands under the flow of cool water, catching it in his palms and splashing it against his face. He did this a second time, then a third, and then eventually turned the water off, lifting his head up to stare dully at his reflection in the spotted bathroom mirror.

When you were a vampire, forgetting was easy - when your face never changed, it wasn't hard to pretend that nothing else did, either. Looking into the mirror, it was easy to forget that three years had gone by...and that Mickie, the mother of his child, the love of his life, was still dead.

Except for his fangs, which had never grown back, his injuries from that night had healed completely - even the worst of his burns from his sprint through the sunlight had faded away eventually. But not even the passage of time had managed to seal up the hole where his heart used to be; a void inside his chest both numb and aching.

Perhaps he didn't understand the hatred that drove his fellow Hunters...but he understood their grief - that it was a wounded animal, snarling and in pain; that it never stopped hurting and never stopped digging its claws into the most tender spots of your soul...and that just picturing Mickie's face or remembering her voice was like poking that animal with a stick.

He had been asked once or twice over the years, by other Hunters whose paths they'd crossed, if it was hard for him; killing his own kind without mercy or constraint. And every time he heard it, Dave almost wanted to laugh because it wasn't hard - whatever loyalty he'd possessed toward his vampire brethren had died the night Mickie had. Hunting...that was easy; when you hunted, your only focus was eliminating your target while making it out alive - there was no room for unnecessary emotion or pangs of conscience.

It was when he wasn't hunting, when he no longer had the luxury or excuse of shutting himself off from the world, that living in it became almost unbearable-

"Daddy?"

The tentative high-pitched child's voice immediately cut through the self-pitying haze surrounding the vampire, and he froze. Slowly, trying to wrest his features back into some semblance of affability, he turned around, his gaze instantly falling to the tiny figure standing in the doorway. "Hey, baby," he whispered, forcing a smile onto his face. "What're you doing up?"

Hope wore an oversized My Little Pony t-shirt for a nightgown. In one hand, she clutched Mr. Lop, the stuffed rabbit that Jeff had made for her out of old socks; with the other, she sleepily rubbed her eyes. "The crying - it woke me up." Having spent the entirety of her small life around adults, Hope was surprisingly articulate for her age.

Dave felt his stomach clench painfully, and it took everything he had not to squinch his features in consternation. He sighed heavily, running one large hand over his shaven skull. "I'm sorry, baby - I guess I was having a bad dream."

Instead of answering, Hope popped her thumb into her mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully as she stared up at her father. Dave felt his breath catch in his throat, as it did every time. Hope had inherited his coloring and his dark hair, which flowed down her back in raven-hued waves - but her face, and especially her eyes, were a mirror image of Mickie's.

The vampire loved his daughter more than anything in the world, but sometimes just looking at her was almost too hard to bear - she looked so much like her mother.

Hope removed her thumb from her mouth, hugging Mr. Lop to her chest and blinking her brown eyes solemnly. "About Mommy?"

The big man felt his stomach wrench with another agonizing twist - he'd been fully prepared to deliver a phony story, but sometimes, there was just no point in hiding the truth from Hope; as young as she was, she had an uncanny knack for seeing through to the heart of things. So instead, Dave just nodded his head slowly. "Yeah...about Mommy."

"Hmm." Hope hugged her stuffed animal even tighter, pressing her small face against the space between Mr. Lop's ears. Her eyes never wavered from the imposing figure of her father. "You miss her?"

This time, Dave had to look away for a second or two, blinking back the tears that stung his eyes. "Yeah, baby..." he managed to answer, his voice hoarse with barely controlled emotion. "I do."

At this, Hope lifted her face up, her delicate jaw quivering slightly. "Me too."

Dave looked up, gazing at his daughter for a moment before kneeling down, opening his arms. Hope didn't hesitate, but ran to him, entwining her small arms fiercely around his neck. Wrapping his own arms around the child, the vampire carried her out of the bathroom, crossing the corridor to the room adjacent to his.

Until the other spaces in the house, which were stark and functional, Hope's room was plastered with posters of flowers, puppies and kittens, cartoon characters. Handmade mobiles dangled from the ceiling, and the small nightlight in the corner was covered with a screen that projected images of hearts up onto the walls.

The posters had originally been Maria's idea, though the rest of the team had added to the decor over the years. They all doted on Hope, and it wasn't unusual for one of the Hunters to return from a long night of tracking with a small toy or a packet of crayons in their pocket for her.

It wasn't just because she was a child, however, that they were so devoted to her. To them, even to Dave, Hope represented innocence - not only the innocence of childhood, but the innocence they all had lost the day they discovered that vampires exist. More than that, she represented her namesake - the hope that redemption was possible; that a new life could transpire after this one.

That was why they disarmed before coming to her room, why they never talked business when she was within earshot, why they hung up her pictures on their walls as though they were priceless works of art - because childhood never lasts, and when you grow in the midst of a bunch of vampire hunters, that childhood is destined to come to an end abruptly and far too soon.

And the last thing any of them wanted to see was that bright youthful curiosity in Hope's brown eyes fade away into the same flat dull awareness they all saw in their own.

Dave carried his daughter over to her bed - instead of a cot, she slept on two mattresses stacked on top of one another - and tucked her in, pulling a thin blanket carefully up over her and Mr. Lop. "Now, if I tell you a story, do you promise to go back to sleep?" Hope bobbed her head up and down in an emphatic nod. The big man glanced over at the small makeshift bookshelf, where his daughter's picture books were kept. "Which one? Cat in the Hat?"

Hope shook her head. "No, tell the one 'bout the princess!"

The vampire chuckled affectionately. "Again?" Another vehement nod. Dave shrugged. "Okay, here goes..." He settled his massive frame down on his haunches, folding his hands together as he spoke. "Once upon a time...there was a beautiful princess...the most beautiful princess in the world...and her name was-"

Hope giggled, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. "Mickie!" she crowed.

The big man laughed, reaching over to ruffle her hair. "That's right - her name was Mickie." He went on, his deep voice rising and falling as he talked about Princess Mickie, and her handsome prince Dave, and the evil witch Melina holding her hostage.

He had told the story so many times that he barely paid attention to it anymore, so he was genuinely startled when Hope suddenly asked: "Daddy...why are you sad?"

The vampire faltered, all the air leaving his body as though he'd been punched in the gut. With effort, he lifted his gaze, staring at his daughter. "I-I don't know, baby," He reached over, gently stroking her cheek. "Sometimes...people are just sad."

Hope bit her lip, her expression pensive, and then sat up, crawling over to him and wrapping both arms around his neck. "Here's a hug, Daddy," she whispered. "I don't want you to be sad."

Dave embraced his daughter, placing a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you, baby," he murmured, hoping that she wouldn't hear the tears hovering at the edges of his voice.

Hope pulled back, and climbed back under the covers, clutching Mr. Lop to her as she waited to hear the rest of the story. By the time the vampire reached the end, where the brave Prince Dave vanquished the evil witch Melina and tossed her into a bottomless pit never to be seen again, the little girl was fast asleep.

Dave softly pulled Hope's door closed, leaving it open just a crack, before trudging over to his own. He traversed the distance to his cot, sinking down onto it and stretching his tall frame out full-length. The vampire sighed, reaching up with both hands to cover his face, his daughter's question still reverberating in his head:

Daddy...why are you sad?...

The big man let out a harsh laugh that was filled with more desperation than humor. Hope would have been better off asking why the sky was blue or why birds fly - at least those were questions that had answers. This one - he didn't know if he could adequately explain it to himself...let alone to a three-year-old.

Because all I want is for you to have a normal life - but you can never have a normal life...because your mommy's dead, and your daddy's a vampire, and the fact that you even exist is an impossibility...

Because the day you were born was the day I lost HER, and the moment before I held you for the first time was the moment I felt her slip away. Because living is hard, EXISTING is hard, and you are the only thing in this world stopping me from eating my gun and ending it all-

Dave drew in a labored shaky breath. He couldn't keep doing this forever - and the profound irony of that assertion was that he could. His body might be indestructible, but his sanity was made of much more fragile matter - it wasn't much of a contest which one would break first.

The vampire dropped his hands back down to his sides, staring vacantly up at the water-marked ceiling. "It gets easier," he remarked to no one, echoing Maria's words.

His lip curled with faint scorn. "Yeah, right." Without uttering anything further, he rolled over onto his side, waiting for the dull gray fog of nightmares to swarm over him once more.