REVIVAL

by .writer

Summary: After the events of Blade Trinity, the remnants of the Nightstalkers try to pick up the pieces of their lives. They didn't expect the failure of DayStar, or the subsequent trip halfway around the world. And they certainly didn't expect love.

A/N: Because I love Blade Trinity, and Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King. And because I have too much free time in class to think these things up.

PROLOGUE

Abby woke up crying.

In the early morning, she had gone to bed, still covered in blood and sweat, feeling emptier than she ever had before. Her only emotion was a vague sense of triumph at the death of the vampires. She knew she should be happy-- Drake was dead, Danica Talos was dead, soon all the monsters would be ash. But all she felt was cold.

In the dim afternoon light, all that changed. Instead of vacancy, she felt crowded by all these emotions that screamed at each other and fought for her attention: sorrow for Sommerfield, Dex, and Hedges; guilt that she hadn’t saved them; hatred for every bloodsucking monster that had ever walked the earth; anger that she hadn’t been able to kill Drake herself, that Blade had to do it for her...but most of all, she felt fear.

What was she going to do?

If the DayStar virus worked (please let it work, it has to work) then there would be no more vampires to hunt. Her entire life had been killing vamps; there was nothing else she could do. King had brought up the subject before...

No. She wasn’t going to think about him.

Instead, she focused on Zoë. Zoë, whose mother was dead. Abby had sworn to take care of the girl, but who was she kidding? She had no idea how to raise a child. Hell, her own childhood had been so fucked up that she would probably ruin Zoë’s future.

Thoughts of the past and the future swirled around Abby’s head as she lay limp on her bed, tears soaking the pillow. She bit her lip to keep from sobbing aloud. Her insides hurt, and her entire body was bruised and sore from the fight at Phoenix Towers. For half an hour she just lay there, letting tears drench the pillowcase and feeling all the emotions that were running around her soul.

Eventually, the tears dried up. Abby slowly climbed off the bed, wincing at the pull of her aching muscles. Pulling the linens off the bed, she tossed them by the door. She would wash the dried blood and dirt off them later.

Grabbing some clothes, Abby walked to the shower. Turning on the water, she stripped off her ruined clothes and climbed in. Usually she would just sit under the water, letting it wash everything away. Today, she scrubbed her skin furiously, trying to get all the gore off. When her skin was rubbed a raw pink color, she turned the water off, choosing not to linger any longer than necessary. Showers made her think of Sommerfield.

Sounds coming from the kitchen drew her attention. There she found King and Zoë sitting at the counter, quietly eating cereal. Zoë’s face was pale and covered with tear stains. King’s face was blank, but his eyes were distant. He didn’t look like himself. He looked more like the broken familiar she had once rescued, who couldn’t do anything but sit and stare with blank eyes.

He did look up when she entered. “Hey,” he said. No jokes, no humor. Not even an implied innuendo in his tone.

“Hey,” Abby replied. Mechanically she went through the process of getting a bowl of cereal for herself. She sat next to Zoë with it and stared into it, poking it half-heartedly with a spoon.

Five minutes later, she still had not taken a bite. She looked up when Zoë's spoon clattered into the girl's empty bowl. King had noticed as well. Moving carefully, as if he didn't wanted to startle Zoë, he picked up the bowl and put it in the sink. Then he knelt next to Zoë's chair and spoke to the girl.

“Zoë, sweetie, I need to talk to your Aunt Abby for a minute. Want to go wait for me in the rec room? You can watch cartoons with Caulder.” King's voice was low and soft, so unlike his usual tone.

Zoë hesitated, then nodded. She slid out of her chair and trudged to the door, followed closely by King. He stood in the doorway to watch her walk down the hall to the rec room. When she disappeared behind the door, he shut the door almost all the way, leaving a crack open, then returned to his seat.

Abby avoided his gaze, choosing to look at her soggy cornflakes.

“Whistler,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Dropping the spoon into the bowl, Abby pushed the bowl away. “I don't want to talk.” She saw King watch her for a moment before returning to his own cereal. Abby watched him out of the corner of her eye for a few minutes before speaking. “How can you eat?”

He shrugged. “Danica was fond of starving me, even before she turned me. I learned quick to eat when there was food, no matter how hurt I was.”

Cautiously, Abby looked up, but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the table in a thoughtful way. “Are you glad she's dead?” she asked.

King looked up and met her gaze. He nodded once. “Yeah. Even if it was the DayStar that killed her and not me.” He returned his eyes to the table.

Abby sighed. So much had happened over the last week that it felt like it would take the rest of her life to absorb it all. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked, deciding to get the dreaded conversation over with. She knew what he wanted to talk about.

“What are we going to do?” King's question was what had been bouncing around her head for the last few hours, with one exception. With him, it was “we”. Not “I”, not “you”.

“I don't know,” she answered honestly. “Before she...Sommerfield made a video recording. She asked us to take care of Zoë.”

Finally, some emotion appeared on King’s face - surprise. “Us? What made her think we could raise a kid?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she thought we could protect her.” Her sentence continued unspoken. We couldn’t protect anyone, and they all died.

“What about everything else?” King asked, changing the topic as if he knew what Abby was thinking.

“What ‘everything else’?” Abby snapped. “There is nothing else. DayStar’s taken care of the vamps, and Blade’s gone.”

This new topic wasn’t any better than the old one. “Did you see the news report about Blade?” asked King.

Curious, Abby forgot her anger for a moment. “No. What did it say?”

“The FBI claims he’s dead. The body they found in looked just like him. I guess they didn’t figure out that it was a shape-changing vamp.”

“Good for Blade. They won’t be looking for him anymore.”

After this comment, they didn’t have anything left to say. They sat in silence for a moment, then King stood and put his cereal bowl in the sink. “I’ll be with Zoë.” He walked out of the room, leaving Abby sitting alone, staring at nothing.

A/N: It was a little angsty, but I thought it fitting. Please review. The next chapter's a great one, and I want plenty of motivation to post it. Besides, reviewers get protection from evil vampire pomeranians.