TITLE: Dry Kind of Love 19/19

AUTHOR: tanith

RATING: PG-13, just to be safe.

ARCHIVE: It's all yours, just let me know.

FEEDBACK: Bring it on. [email protected]

SPOILERS: Probably some minor ones here and there.

DISCLAIMER: See previous chapters.

SUMMARY: You can run, but you can't hide. Future fic.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wow, we've come to the end. I'm both relieved, and saddened. But hey, don't fret. Sequel coming, well, eventually

*************

Dear Roger,

I know you must be mad at me for running off the way I did, without saying goodbye. I hope you know that I would never have done it if I there had been any other choice. But there was no other choice.

As I'm sure you figured out, there were some problems with my chip, and so I'm stuck like this for a while. It would have been too difficult to stay there and pretend everything was normal: I wouldn't have been able to go to school - and I know this makes you jealous. Cut it out! - and Dad and I would have been constantly raiding Porter's blood supply...It just wouldn't have worked. Besides, we want to figure out how to fix this thing, so Mom called in an old favor, and got us a couple of leads. We're heading West now, which is pretty cool. Hey, you know how much I always wanted to get out of Vermont - now I'm travelling across the country!

The night after *that night,* my dad went off to the hardware store and bought a whole bunch of black paint and he and I coated all the windows on the Cabrio with it. Now there's just a tiny blank space on the windshield so that whoever's driving can see, and Dad and I don't have to worry about getting dusted. That's what my dad calls it - getting dusted. I'm learning all this new vampire terminology. Oh joy.

So anyway, we packed up and were gone by sunrise. Mom was still kind of out of it, and she slept for most of the day. I think talking to whoever it was she called to get information took a lot out of her; it certainly put my dad in a bad mood. He stormed around for a good half hour after she called, muttering under his breath and chain smoking. The smoking bugs me, but I understand: Dad has to stay all vampy now, too, even though there's nothing wrong with his chip. He said he wasn't going to let me go it alone. I feel bad for him; I think he got sick of the whole vampire thing a long time ago, and now he's only doing it for me. What makes me feel worse is that about half the time, I enjoy it - being a vampire, I mean. I feel strong, and powerful - things I never felt before. And people look at me differently, now: perfect strangers respect me, fear me, even. I can see how it could go to your head.

Mom and Dad are determined *not* to let it go to my head. My dad's teaching me to "control my demon." I reminded him that I *am* my demon, which I thought would piss him off, but instead he started talking about how *everyone's* got demons in them, and that ours are just a lot less subtle about it. I guess that's true, but it still irritates me that he makes me eat normal food even though I'm not hungry for it, and watch a lot of dumb TV, and do other things that my mom says "kept him rooted." I asked my dad about this, and he said that he doesn't want me to lose touch with the things that made me human. I said that was silly, and that I didn't see how I could lose those things, no matter how many blooming onions I did or did not eat, because those things were just as much a part of me as the demon - the demon's just a lot less subtle about it. This made my dad very happy, and he stopped smoking so much, at least for a couple of days.

So at night we drive, and during the day we stop at crappy motels. My Dad says it's safer this way, because there's less chance we could get stopped by some cop who noticed our out-of-state plates and didn't like our car's creative paint job. Having to explain why neither of us could get out of the car, or even roll down the windows, would be very unpleasant. Anyway, it's normal for my dad and me to sleep during the day, and my mom says she really doesn't mind; she dealt with a similar schedule for ten years when she was the Slayer.

Speaking of which, it appears I've inherited more than I thought from my mom's side of the family. Dad asked me to show him what I did to beat Darla, and I ended up totally kicking his ass! Well, okay, maybe that first time didn't count, because I don't think he was really trying very hard, but we spar quite a bit now, and I beat him at least 50% of the time. Mom therorizes that I've got all this inherent Slayer stuff, without actually being *The* Slayer. That, on top of the vamp strength makes me pretty unstoppable. (Okay, I'm bragging now. I can't help it.) Why none of these fringe benefits could have shown up while I still had to endure gym is beyond me...

While we're not driving, fighting, watching bad daytime television, or sampling the finer aspects of rural American cuisine, my parents entertain me with tales of their youths. Boy, Roger, do I wish you could hear some of the stories they tell! You would love this stuff: lots of violence and sex (the latter severely edited, of course, but I'm not stupid) - all right up your alley. I think that if we ever get all of this worked out, I'm going to write all these stories down and try to get them published. I'd have to pretend they're fiction, of course; but I swear, I'll blow Anne Rice out of the water.

I wish I could give you a better idea where we're going, but my mom and dad have become incredibly paranoid. My dad blames it on the guy my mom called: apparently, he works for some top-secret branch of the military (could this *get* any more X-Files?) and now they're most likely after us as well. By "as well" I mean that Drusilla is probably still following us, so now we're on the run from the government *and* my dad's psychotic sire.

I take it back: this isn't an Anne Rice novel in the making, it's a sitcom. All we need is a wacky neighbor.

I just re-read that last paragraph, and I guess this is proof of how twisted my sense of humor is getting.

Damn. I really didn't want to get into this, but I think that there are some things you need to know. I'm not the same person I was - and I'm not talking about just the obvious physical stuff. Emotionally, I know I've changed. How could I not? I mean, I'm on the run in a Cabrio, for Christ's sake. So, I'm still me. But I'm different, too.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I don't want you to hold on to some idealized version of me, because, at this point, even an un-idealized version of Then-me may not be an accurate version of Now-me. And it's not fair for me to expect you to hold on to something false. Now don't get me wrong: this is *not* a Dear John letter. I'd love to be selfish and ask you to wait for me; but that's exactly what it would be: selfish. I have a lot of crap to work through right now, and it would be wrong of me to expect you to hang around, twiddling your thumbs, while I do it. Especially since, as much as I don't like to think about it, there's always a chance that I may *never* be able to sort through this crap, in which case you'll be stuck waiting for a very long time. And that would just *suck.* Someone as great as you shouldn't be wasted.

You're my best friend, Roger. We've been friends for a very long time, and we were just recently getting to experiment with being something more. I wish we'd had more time. But who knows, you know? Life is full of surprises - we've certainly learned that in the last week. We'll see what happens. But just know that I love you, okay? Don't ever forget it.

Take care of Sarah for me.

Love,

Zoe

P.S. Don't forget to take off your socks.

*************

She is sitting on the swing in the late afternoon sun, her arms hanging lazily at her sides. Her feet trace circles in the gravel. Suddenly, she is seized by the desire for momentum, and she kicks off, her hands moving up to grip the chains, her legs pumping. Higher and higher she goes, until she threatens to swing right up over the bar, to fly off into the sky until she meets the sun.

She throws her head back, and she laughs as her shadow dances on the grass below her.

*************

In a crappy motel room, somewhere in the vastness that is America, Zoe Barnet smiles as she dreams.

*************

ENDbut with sequel soon, I hope!