"Did you really mean it," he asked several night later as they sat in the kitchen, "When you said you wouldn't mind going to my home city and talking to my mother for me?"

"Of course I did," said Megan. "We could go right now, if you wanted."

"Well, finish your food first," said David with a chuckle, "But I certainly don't have anything else planned for tonight."

She smiled warmly at him. "It's the least I could do, after all the things you've done for me."

He shrugged. He didn't think he'd done much. Saving her on the road had been mostly selfishness, really. He'd wanted to kill vampires and had needed her blood. Holding her at night... well, really that was anything but unpleasant for him. And feeding her and taking care of her at the cabin was hardly some great chore. She did most of the cooking now, for one thing. And it wasn't as if he needed the food himself. And for another, doing something other than hunting was... a relief, really. He knew eventually he'd have to take it up again, and he felt the occasional twinge of guilt over those he wasn't saving while he was here, but... the world had turned on before he had taken up hunting, it would turn on still until he started up again, and it would even keep turning after he was dead and gone. He was doing what he could, but he couldn't do nothing at all with his life but kill. Already the last few months, when he had hunted alone, seemed strange, dark and gloomy. He wondered how he'd managed, without anybody else to speak to, anything else to do. He shook off his thoughts and responded. "I don't think I've done all that much. But thank you all the same."

Megan finished eating and washed out the pot. The cabin was much tidier since she'd arrived. David wasn't exactly a slob, but he didn't really care much for cleaning. But Megan said she didn't have anything better to do, so she'd been putting the whole place in order. She had turned up things he'd had no idea were in the cabin at all. Like a sewing kit, which she'd been using to take in some of his shirts to fit her. Not, of course, his overly dramatic black costume shirts, but the others, that he had found in the cabin when he first arrived. He wasn't wearing them much any more, so she might as well.

They headed for the door, which he and Megan had managed to fix by scavenging the door to the front bedroom. She had said that she'd rather have the bedroom be open than the front door, and David had to agree. They'd turned up some tarps in the storage room, which they had fixed over the windows. It wasn't exactly pretty, but the cabin no longer seemed quite so ruined.

David put on his cape and hat, buckled on his sword belt, and stepped out the door. "I should probably just carry you," he said as Megan shut the door behind them. "We'll get there much faster that way." She nodded, so he picked her up and started to run.

Though she wasn't tired, she leaned her head on his shoulder all the same, and he smiled.

He was able to reach a bolt hole not far from Georgetown before sunrise. He and Megan went inside it together for the time being. He would stay there throughout the day, but Megan planned to only sleep briefly, perhaps until noon, and then set out during the safety of daylight for the city. She didn't think she'd have any trouble getting in the gates. She would find David's mother, and speak to her, and then return.

"And you have to be here, right here at the bolt hole when the sun goes down," said David. "This is important. If you're somewhere else, and have to travel even a short distance, some other vampire might find you before I do. Don't take any chances."

Megan nodded solemnly. "I won't."

David fell asleep with Megan curled up against him, and thinking of the next night, of getting word from his family, he smiled. He was very glad, for many reasons, that he had met Megan.