Young Blood (PART ONE OF THREE)

A Stranger's Memory

17. A Stranger's Memory

"Good moooorning."

Blake groaned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes and said, "Not likely."

She looked around and was startled to see a very happy Vaan smiling at her and holding a tray with a buffet of breakfast food on it. "I take that back," she muttered.

Vaan leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I missed you so much," He said into her hair and then he laughed.

He sat the tray in her lap and Blake stretched out her arms to him. "Hey, babe," She said as she pressed her face in to the crook of his neck. She definitely remembered him now. He still smelled the same, still kissed her forehead like he used to. Then she grinned and pulled away and smacked him on the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"What took you so long?" She laughed. Vaan grinned and he sat down on the edge of the bed and played with the loose strings from the holes in his jeans.

He sighed, the smile still on his face, and said, "Trying to figure out what to do with my life."

"And save the world from mass destruction," Blake added with a thin smile. Vaan nodded and then told her to eat, and she picked up her fork.

Blake's head began to hurt again, but it was a minor gradual pain and she decided to ignore it for Vaan. "Funny," She whispered. "I've helped lots of kids out of captivity and they were all scarred for life. But I think...I think I'm actually okay."

Vaan nodded slowly. "That's good then," He said. "Now I don't have to wallow around waiting for you to talk to me like in the movies." Actually, he thought, having Blake that close and not speaking to him because of what happened would be worse then her staying completely away from him. It would be torture.

"I wish this was at least a little like the movies," Blake said absentmindedly as she shoved a forkful of pancake in to her mouth. "And the good guys prevail."

Vaan looked over at her very seriously and asked, "But who are the good guys?"

Blake's jaw clenched. "We are, right?"

Vaan shrugged. "They think they're the good ones, we think that we are. We both have good and bad intentions," He told her.

Blake frowned, "Are you saying we're wrong? That Samuel and his brainless flunked are good?" Vaan raised an eyebrow at her. "No, I'm just saying that maybe we're all in the wrong here."

"Vaan, do we torture Agents?"

"No, but-"

"I'm not finished. Do we capture them, kill their families and steal the things that make them who they are?"

Vaan shook his head.

"Then I think we're in the right here."

There was silence between the two for a few minutes as Blake continued to eat and Vaan stared out a window behind Blake's bed.

Blake's head was really hurting now. She began to feel very light headed and very tired.

"Blake, I... I love you, you know," Vaan said as he turned to look at his sleepy girlfriend. Blake looked up at him and smiled faintly then opened her mouth to speak but her eyes began to close and her head rested gently back on her pillow and her breathing was deep.

Even in sleep her brain buzzed with pain and thousands of thoughts and ideas, some her own, an others she could not remember having. Memories of death, so much death, and memories of happiness but so little of those. Who's memories were these?

Not hers, she knew. She knew because she'd never married, shed never had a child. And that child that she had never had was most certainly not a vampire. But who was the woman this person married?

Sleek black hair and sad, sad eyes. How they seemed so familiar to Blake, she didn't know. She'd never met this woman. She never would.

One memory in particular stuck out.

This person, who's memories she saw, was thinking of their son playing in a garden. It seemed like a long time ago, maybe from around World War I just based off the clothing.

The little boy had black hair like his mothers and he seemed perfectly human. He smiled up at the person and his human teeth gleamed.

And then the person seemed to switch back to reality.

The son. The boy before Blake, and the person who's memories she watched, was older now. About fourteen. But this time the boy opened his mouth, revealing a pair of fangs and the person, who Blake had now realized was human, slapped the boy and shouted at him. My son, the person exclaimed, shall not be a freak.

But, Blake thought, there was no way the boys mother was human. Something about that woman's sad eyes was entirely nonhuman.

And then like a door had been shut, the memories of that stranger were blocked from her. And Blake was left wandering who they were and why, why they were so cruel to a boy they had once loved.