"You're awfully quiet tonight..." Alex remarked, just airily enough to sound as if she'd only just noticed, while also being sombre enough to imply that she was concerned.

Emily pushed her food around her plate with her fork, failing to react to Alex's gentle prompt. She wasn't hungry – partly because she didn't need to eat traditional food, but partly because she was far too preoccupied to get any joy out of eating anyway.

When she didn't respond, Alex urged a second time, "Are you going to tell me what's on your mind or am I going to have to force you?" Another moment of silence passed without response. Finally, losing patience, she snapped, "Emily!"

Emily's gaze snapped up to meet Alex's eyes, seemingly only just remembering she was there. "Oh, umm... Sorry. I guess I'm just a little distracted." She shrugged slightly, as if brushing off Alex's concern.

"No kidding," Alex scoffed. She shook her head a little, then sighed. "Did something happen at the DMV?"

"No! Of course not. What... What would make you think that?" Emily stammered, eyes gone wide with alarm at the implication.

Her reaction, of course, was anything but reassuring. "Em, what's going on?" Alex urged gently. "You can tell me..."

She let out a nervous little laugh because she really really couldn't... "It's nothing," she tried to insist. She attempted, rather abruptly, to change the subject. "Have you ever thought about moving?"

Alex raised a brow. "Moving where?" she asked, confused by the direction the conversation had taken, but willing to play along, at least a little.

"I don't know," Emily said, drumming her fingers on the table rather frenetically. "Just...somewhere."

"Well, in this hypothetical scenario, are you coming with me?" Alex posited.

She shrugged again, but didn't answer.

Alex sighed. "Emily, you're being very evasive," she called her out, "If there's something going on, please, just tell me."

"I can't," she whispered. "I just... I can't."


Long after Alex had fallen asleep in her arms, Emily lay wide awake, her mind racing a mile a minute as she struggled to make sense of a universe that would give her something as pure and good as Alex, only to then take it away for the sake of something so purely evil as a man like Ian Doyle...

She'd briefly glanced at the file Clyde had given her, delineating what they knew about the target – which, truthfully, wasn't all that much...just enough to leave her worried about her chances of ever getting out of this mission unscathed.

Three UC's had been sent in before her and none of them had come out alive. Which lead her to believe that either Doyle was remarkably skilled at sniffing out agents or he was a ruthless killer that would put a bullet between your eyes as soon as look at you. Or, more likely, both...

She wanted to believe that she'd be the one that managed to succeed where others had failed, but she was also a realist. She knew that, just because she was a vampire now, she certainly wasn't infallible; especially not compared to a much older vamp like Doyle.

If he'd asked a year ago, she probably wouldn't have put up nearly as much of a fuss. But a year ago, she hadn't had everything to live for. She hadn't had Alex. Now Interpol came marching in, commanding that civilian life be damned, she was useful again...and so long as she was useful, she was Interpol property.

She would have very much loved to tell Interpol where they could go and what they could do to themselves once they got there, but she couldn't ask Alex to sacrifice her life for the sake of going on the run together, fugitives from international law. And, if she didn't have Alex, then she might as well just do what Interpol asked.

Which is all a rather long-winded way of saying that she didn't have much of a choice in the matter...


Alex was in the middle of office hours, doing her best to assist a young man who, she swore, had to be half-ogre (if his significant body odour was anything to go by) muddle through the latest chapter of the textbook she'd assigned as extra-curricular reading...when there was a commanding knock on the office door.

Before she could tell the person on the other side of the door to come in, they'd already done so.

"You," the newcomer snapped at the young man, "Out." It was a command, not a request.

Alex offered him an apologetic, albeit confused expression, betraying the fact that she was just as surprised by the interruption as he was. He scrabbled to pack his possessions into his backpack before scampering off (and looking rather relieved to be escaping the situation as well).

Once he was gone, the newcomer spent several long moments just surveying Alex. Finally, he informed her, "Pack up your things. We're leaving."

"Excuse me?" she said; she'd heard him correctly, she just didn't understand why she was expected to obey without so much as an explanation. The man was obviously government – CIA, she guessed, maybe Interpol – she just didn't know what the government wanted with a linguistics professor/reluctant vampire...

The man gave a long suffering sigh and pulled his badge from his pocket to show her his credentials. Once she'd gotten a sufficient look at them, he gave her a pointed look and once again commanded, "Get your things. We need to go."

"Go where?" she asked, stubborn in her refusal to obediently go along with his demands.

He did not appear amused. "I'll explain on the way," he said, reluctantly conceding to her stubbornness, just a little.

And, though she really wasn't all that eager to comply, she had a strong feeling that she was more or less expected to obey, assuming she valued her continued existence as a free citizen. She couldn't help but wonder what it was that she'd somehow gotten herself mixed up in that warranted the involvement of international law enforcement...