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Description
His face hit the bed and he didn’t feel anything. He’d been running ragged for months he felt like, still not able to sleep, still burning up, and London was the hotbed it usually was.
***
Gregory Van Helsing had a blessed blade. When he wielded it in the church, he seemed to glow with power. Kristianna came at him with claws, her blonde hair out in shambles and her dress torn, but he batted her away effortlessly. He looked like some knight of yore, and Thad and Selena hung back as the others attacked him.
Thad thought they ganged up on him like a pack of dogs trying to overcome a lion. Selena looked horrified, and obviously did not want him killed.
Brent and his protégé from Africa were wonderful bruisers, but Gregory was strong. Sebastian blasted flame when the others got out of his way.
Van Helsing seemed protected by sheer Faith alone. Like some suit of armor he glistened with effervescent might. Thaddeus knew he would not harm him unless Gregory came after he or Selena. He knew Selena would only use her power of Presence to drive him away.
They tore, burned, and clawed at him. Punches and kicks and fangs and blood. He in turn slashed and cleaved, and it was terrifying.
Finally, Thaddeus did not know who landed the blow, but the Priest fell to his knees. He was only mortal.
“Where is your brother, Priest?!” Came a barking order.
Gregory smiled. Softly. Triumphantly. Like a man who had succeeded in all he set out to do.
“Safe.”
Kristianna backhanded him through the pews.
***
He struggled to take off his shoes while half asleep, and his shirt, and anything else restrictive, but everything was far too sore to move. He had a million thoughts running through his head he wanted to silence, just to go to sleep.
***
He went running after the damn carriage. He didn’t know who had taken it, but they overcame Sebastian from what he saw. He lost it, like he knew he would, but he was good at information gathering.
It took all night, but apparently this Gabriel, whoever, had been snatching people up and sending them down the road back to London. He found the carriage, but no Selena, and no Sebastian. Great.
He rode the carriage back to London to begin his search.
He wasn’t always the hero who saved the day, he knew. So when Brent contacted him, saying he’d found a very dirty Sebastian and Selena who had narrowly escaped death, he was just happy to know they were safe.
Sebastian had stated that there was some dirt cellar with a dozen Kindred in torpor, and he had a body he had taken of a KO’d vampire. To bring as evidence and such. He said an imp had gotten away, some magic claptrap again, Thad thought.
At least Selena was safe.
***
The manor of Deburg had just burnt to the ground. The Priest and the Widow and the Urchin stormed the place, right in the early morning hours. Thad rushed upstairs, slung Selena’s unconscious form into several blankets, and with Sydney’s help, got her out and into the carriage. Johnathan and Octavia were not so lucky. They were Deburg’s other childer, and he just knew they went down with the house.
He went to the only place he knew was safe.
The Hog’s Pen.
Ian saw Thad and Selena out cold, and just got worried.
“What the hell, Thad?” His hazel eyes alight with worry.
Thaddeus calmed him down, told him what happened and that she wasn’t hurt, he just needed to get his attic room back for a few nights. Ian helped his friend, but reiterated to him that she was trouble again. Thad thanked him, but he wasn’t leaving her now.
She took the bed, of course, Thaddeus slung a hammock from one wall to the other. When she awoke that evening, he told her everything. She already knew it seemed. Something about Deburg ‘contacting’ her via supernal means.
They stayed hunkered down for two nights. He brought food and something to drink up, but she turned it all down. Finally, he must’ve just lost patience with it all. She needed blood. That’s what she said. He didn’t fully believe her.
“I’ve never seen you drink nothing of the sort.” He scoffed, across from her at the tiny table in the room.
“Rose keeps me well taken care of. I have to control the thirst…” She said lowly. She did not enjoy these conversations, he could see it in her uncomfortable demeanor.
“Or what?”
“Or I could hurt someone….”
They were quiet for several moments, she ‘staring’ at the area of her cup. He suddenly had a thought, and it both sickened him that he thought of it and intrigued him at the same time.
He pulled his tool knife from his belt, and pressed the blade to the outside portion of his left palm. Rivulets of crimson dropped into the glass in front of him. Selena perked immediately.
“Thaddeus! What are you doing…?” She exclaimed breathlessly, but he saw her visibly swallow and her nostrils ever-so-slightly flare. He smirked.
Something about her knowing what he tasted like thrilled him in a perverse way.
Droplets upon droplets fell into the cup, and after a few moments he pulled a kerchief from his pocket and pressed it to the self inflicted wound. He grabbed the cup with his other hand and set it in front of her.
She looked…in some sort of pain. Like she was trying so hard not to.
“Go on.” He urged.
She looked up at him, regrettably, and immediately took the cup up and began to drink from it.
She seemed to savor every last drop. She drank slowly, deeply, and he felt his heart sink when he realized that she hadn’t touched anything but a mug laced with his vitae.
She set the cup down with an audible and un-ladylike bang. He thought for a moment she was just being uncharacteristically rude, but then she put a hand to her head.
“Thaddeus? This was your blood?” She asked, almost like she was out of breath.
Or had been drugged.
He didn’t know what to say at first, but reached for her as she stood and tumbled toward the bed.
“Ah, Miss?! Are you alright?!” Was all he could ask as he led her there.
She sat, hand still to her head, and wobbled a bit.
“I….I’ve never felt this sort of…rushing. Ah…it’s an odd feeling…”
He knelt in front of her, worried as hell. Great Thad. You killed her.
She chuckled slightly, and it sent shivers down his back.
“I’ve never…drank human before…” She looked embarrassed, shy even about it.
So Thad was her first. In a terrible kind of way.
“I think I’ll just…lay down…” And so she did.
Did this happen to all Kindred who drank human? Some sort of odd rush?
He just decided to keep his distance, right now anyway. Maybe he did make her sick. Of course, he’s the one who gets her ill. Thad took to his hammock, and went to sleep.
Nocturnal schedules were hard to keep up with.
***
Thad got his boots off. He laughed triumphantly. Flopping back onto his bed, he smiled at the next memory, as twisted as it was.
***
He awoke to Selena in his face. Dawn had broken, but still she was awake. Her eye covering was gone, she was under dressed, and straddling him while he was on the hammock.
As erotic as it was, she was staring at him in a very…predatory fashion. Her right hand was entangled in his hair, her left pressed against his collarbone.
She did not look…herself. Like she was…sleepwalking maybe.
“S…Selena…” He put his hands to her shoulders and she pressed down as he did.
“Selena.” He said calmly, desperately, quietly. His eyes were locked onto hers, but she was not looking at Thaddeus. She was looking at food.
“Selena, love, listen to me…” He said her name several more times, and she alternated between lowering to him and pulling away.
Her eyes cleared, they softened, and returned to normal. A look of utter horror and disgust came over her face, and she suddenly scrambled off of him. He dropped out of the hammock from the movement. She headed for the door.
“Selena! Selena wait!” He got to his feet and grabbed unto her hand, spinning her around into his chest.
“Selena, it’s sun out, it’s not safe!” He tried to get her to look at him, but she just tried to pull away, keeping her face low.
“It’s okay! It’s okay! I’m fine! Nothing happened!”
“Let me go Thaddeus….” She said softly, her face filled with shame.
“No! It’s alright miss!”
She snapped up to him, and her expression became determined and hard, but her eyes betrayed her disgust. With him or herself, he didn’t know.
“Let go unless you want to be bitten.” Her expression became overcome by grief and she looked away again.
He shook his head.
“No, Selena. I’m sorry, I didn’t know it’d do this, I wouldn’t have…” And he held up his hand briefly, looking at it like it had betrayed him. Selena stared at his hand intently.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you miss?”
She looked so crestfallen as she stared at his hand.
This was all his fault. He’d pushed her self control, and he had to make it right somehow. Well, he knew how he’d make it right.
He put his forehead to hers, and pulled her into him.
“I don’t mind Selena. You can if you need to.” He hoped she wouldn’t kill him, but she needed to do something or she’d…lose it completely.
She turned to him, and they brushed noses momentarily. He could feel her breath on his chin, and her eyes half-closed as she lost focus. So did he.
He pressed his lips against hers.
He heard her breath hitch, but she immediately hugged him closer and pressed deeper.
They were both hungry, it seemed. For different things of course, but he felt a knot form in his stomach as her hands clenched into his shirt and she kissed him back. She was inexperienced, but no less willing.
Her skin was soft, softer then anything on the planet. He’d never felt anything as…wonderful as her kiss. It made him feel light, and airy, and weak in ways no woman ever had. Then she bit his lower lip.
She was still…not herself.
He pulled away gingerly, and she let him go. But only briefly. Her off-hand raked through the back of his shaggy black hair, and she pulled his head to the side.
He didn’t have a chance to calm her down before she pressed her fangs to his neck, and he felt nothing but the ecstatic kiss of a vampire.
***
He stared at the ceiling. Maybe he was too tired to sleep. He didn’t know anymore. Maybe he could go to Molly for some kind of sleeping drug. Or chat with Sydney. But he couldn’t even pull his arms up. He just lie there, unmoving.
***
They were chasing some imp through the streets of London. This little thing was left behind at some very interesting scenes of Kindred capture, and finally they were able to track the little bugger down.
Thaddeus, Selena, Olivia, and Sebastian chased it to a back alley, and the little winged gargoyle thing went straight up. Up two stories, at least, and the party sighed in dismay.
“How are we to follow it now?” Selena asked confusingly.
“Well, I could always toss Sebastian up there…” Thad offered with a laugh.
“That’s ridiculous.” Olivia shook her head.
“We may lose it if we can’t follow it, though.” Selena sighed with slight annoyance.
“Toss me! Thad Toss me! Toss me! Toss me!” Sebastian said excitedly and quickly, jumping around in front of him. Thaddeus liked it when Sebastian decided to show his inner child.
He shrugged and grabbed the back of his collar and his belt.
“Alright! Give it a go!” He tossed Sebastian far over his head, using his vitae and feeling power burn in his veins.
“ICHANGEMYMIIIINNND!!!!” He heard Sebastian scream as he flew up thirty feet. Sebastian grappled the ledge, and pulled himself up, taking off after the thing.
Olivia did not look amused.
“Well, it works I suppose. However…” She left off as she started to float slowly upward. Thaddeus averted his eyes.
“Why didn’t she just do that before?” He asked Selena with a smirk. Selena sighed with a slight smile and shook her head.
“But how do we follow them, Thaddeus?”
Ah, dash it all.
***
He heard a knock. He didn’t say anything, just grunted slightly. The door opened, and it was Rose. She smiled pitifully at him, and brought in a tray with a bowl and a glass on it. She set it next to him on his bedside table, and sat on the edge beside him.
“How are you, Thad?”
He smiled tiredly.
“I can’t sleep very well…”
Rose shook her head, her warm brown eyes filled with care.
“You never have been able to. Not since you came here.”
“I never have slept well at all.” Thad admitted.
Rose put a hand to his forehead, and pulled it back.
“You really do a lot around here, you know? You…you changed things. I don’t know if I ever told you, but you did. For the better I think. Sydney never did have any friends before you. You helped him…inspired him in some ways.” She said, almost in a reverie.
Thad squinted confusedly.
“Why are you telling me all this, Rose?” It was quite sudden of Rose to be expressive.
Typically, if Rose thought or felt anything, she didn’t talk about it. She instead would talk of fashion, or her books, or the weather. It gave most the impression that she was a vain, petty minded sort of silly girl, but Thad had learned better.
“I just never was able to tell you how much I appreciate that you entered all our lives. Even Molly is quite fond of you, even if she doesn’t show it. Selena…” She trailed off and Thad felt his stomach fall.
“Selena is…she just…she cares for you deeply, Thaddeus.” Rose looked at him, serenely but seriously. Thad only nodded.
“She’d be upset if you weren’t taking care of yourself. She’d be very cross with me.” And Rose, silly, irreverent, girlish Rose was back. She tucked him in and picked up the bowl of stew.
“Now, Molly made this. You need to eat it or she’ll have my hide too. Not to mention, if Sydney knows I was lulling you to sleep he’d be awfully jealous.” She added mischievously, and he took a bite of the stew. Mmmm. Molly’s Stew.
Briefly, he saw another woman other than Rose. Somewhere, in that wondrous area where you aren’t asleep but you aren’t awake, he remembered something he tried so hard to forget.
A Spanish woman, with long black hair much like Rose, fed him from a bowl when he was ill. Her eyes…he couldn’t remember her eyes, but she looked at him with a love he had never seen from anyone since.
Maybe it was just the thought of the comfort, or the idea that Rose sincerely valued him, but halfway through the third bite, he drifted and fell into a sleep so deep he did not remember dreaming.
But he did indeed dream.

Description
His face hit the bed and he didn’t feel anything. He’d been running ragged for months he felt like, still not able to sleep, still burning up, and London was the hotbed it usually was.
***
Gregory Van Helsing had a blessed blade. When he wielded it in the church, he seemed to glow with power. Kristianna came at him with claws, her blonde hair out in shambles and her dress torn, but he batted her away effortlessly. He looked like some knight of yore, and Thad and Selena hung back as the others attacked him.
Thad thought they ganged up on him like a pack of dogs trying to overcome a lion. Selena looked horrified, and obviously did not want him killed.
Brent and his protégé from Africa were wonderful bruisers, but Gregory was strong. Sebastian blasted flame when the others got out of his way.
Van Helsing seemed protected by sheer Faith alone. Like some suit of armor he glistened with effervescent might. Thaddeus knew he would not harm him unless Gregory came after he or Selena. He knew Selena would only use her power of Presence to drive him away.
They tore, burned, and clawed at him. Punches and kicks and fangs and blood. He in turn slashed and cleaved, and it was terrifying.
Finally, Thaddeus did not know who landed the blow, but the Priest fell to his knees. He was only mortal.
“Where is your brother, Priest?!” Came a barking order.
Gregory smiled. Softly. Triumphantly. Like a man who had succeeded in all he set out to do.
“Safe.”
Kristianna backhanded him through the pews.
***
He struggled to take off his shoes while half asleep, and his shirt, and anything else restrictive, but everything was far too sore to move. He had a million thoughts running through his head he wanted to silence, just to go to sleep.
***
He went running after the damn carriage. He didn’t know who had taken it, but they overcame Sebastian from what he saw. He lost it, like he knew he would, but he was good at information gathering.
It took all night, but apparently this Gabriel, whoever, had been snatching people up and sending them down the road back to London. He found the carriage, but no Selena, and no Sebastian. Great.
He rode the carriage back to London to begin his search.
He wasn’t always the hero who saved the day, he knew. So when Brent contacted him, saying he’d found a very dirty Sebastian and Selena who had narrowly escaped death, he was just happy to know they were safe.
Sebastian had stated that there was some dirt cellar with a dozen Kindred in torpor, and he had a body he had taken of a KO’d vampire. To bring as evidence and such. He said an imp had gotten away, some magic claptrap again, Thad thought.
At least Selena was safe.
***
The manor of Deburg had just burnt to the ground. The Priest and the Widow and the Urchin stormed the place, right in the early morning hours. Thad rushed upstairs, slung Selena’s unconscious form into several blankets, and with Sydney’s help, got her out and into the carriage. Johnathan and Octavia were not so lucky. They were Deburg’s other childer, and he just knew they went down with the house.
He went to the only place he knew was safe.
The Hog’s Pen.
Ian saw Thad and Selena out cold, and just got worried.
“What the hell, Thad?” His hazel eyes alight with worry.
Thaddeus calmed him down, told him what happened and that she wasn’t hurt, he just needed to get his attic room back for a few nights. Ian helped his friend, but reiterated to him that she was trouble again. Thad thanked him, but he wasn’t leaving her now.
She took the bed, of course, Thaddeus slung a hammock from one wall to the other. When she awoke that evening, he told her everything. She already knew it seemed. Something about Deburg ‘contacting’ her via supernal means.
They stayed hunkered down for two nights. He brought food and something to drink up, but she turned it all down. Finally, he must’ve just lost patience with it all. She needed blood. That’s what she said. He didn’t fully believe her.
“I’ve never seen you drink nothing of the sort.” He scoffed, across from her at the tiny table in the room.
“Rose keeps me well taken care of. I have to control the thirst…” She said lowly. She did not enjoy these conversations, he could see it in her uncomfortable demeanor.
“Or what?”
“Or I could hurt someone….”
They were quiet for several moments, she ‘staring’ at the area of her cup. He suddenly had a thought, and it both sickened him that he thought of it and intrigued him at the same time.
He pulled his tool knife from his belt, and pressed the blade to the outside portion of his left palm. Rivulets of crimson dropped into the glass in front of him. Selena perked immediately.
“Thaddeus! What are you doing…?” She exclaimed breathlessly, but he saw her visibly swallow and her nostrils ever-so-slightly flare. He smirked.
Something about her knowing what he tasted like thrilled him in a perverse way.
Droplets upon droplets fell into the cup, and after a few moments he pulled a kerchief from his pocket and pressed it to the self inflicted wound. He grabbed the cup with his other hand and set it in front of her.
She looked…in some sort of pain. Like she was trying so hard not to.
“Go on.” He urged.
She looked up at him, regrettably, and immediately took the cup up and began to drink from it.
She seemed to savor every last drop. She drank slowly, deeply, and he felt his heart sink when he realized that she hadn’t touched anything but a mug laced with his vitae.
She set the cup down with an audible and un-ladylike bang. He thought for a moment she was just being uncharacteristically rude, but then she put a hand to her head.
“Thaddeus? This was your blood?” She asked, almost like she was out of breath.
Or had been drugged.
He didn’t know what to say at first, but reached for her as she stood and tumbled toward the bed.
“Ah, Miss?! Are you alright?!” Was all he could ask as he led her there.
She sat, hand still to her head, and wobbled a bit.
“I….I’ve never felt this sort of…rushing. Ah…it’s an odd feeling…”
He knelt in front of her, worried as hell. Great Thad. You killed her.
She chuckled slightly, and it sent shivers down his back.
“I’ve never…drank human before…” She looked embarrassed, shy even about it.
So Thad was her first. In a terrible kind of way.
“I think I’ll just…lay down…” And so she did.
Did this happen to all Kindred who drank human? Some sort of odd rush?
He just decided to keep his distance, right now anyway. Maybe he did make her sick. Of course, he’s the one who gets her ill. Thad took to his hammock, and went to sleep.
Nocturnal schedules were hard to keep up with.
***
Thad got his boots off. He laughed triumphantly. Flopping back onto his bed, he smiled at the next memory, as twisted as it was.
***
He awoke to Selena in his face. Dawn had broken, but still she was awake. Her eye covering was gone, she was under dressed, and straddling him while he was on the hammock.
As erotic as it was, she was staring at him in a very…predatory fashion. Her right hand was entangled in his hair, her left pressed against his collarbone.
She did not look…herself. Like she was…sleepwalking maybe.
“S…Selena…” He put his hands to her shoulders and she pressed down as he did.
“Selena.” He said calmly, desperately, quietly. His eyes were locked onto hers, but she was not looking at Thaddeus. She was looking at food.
“Selena, love, listen to me…” He said her name several more times, and she alternated between lowering to him and pulling away.
Her eyes cleared, they softened, and returned to normal. A look of utter horror and disgust came over her face, and she suddenly scrambled off of him. He dropped out of the hammock from the movement. She headed for the door.
“Selena! Selena wait!” He got to his feet and grabbed unto her hand, spinning her around into his chest.
“Selena, it’s sun out, it’s not safe!” He tried to get her to look at him, but she just tried to pull away, keeping her face low.
“It’s okay! It’s okay! I’m fine! Nothing happened!”
“Let me go Thaddeus….” She said softly, her face filled with shame.
“No! It’s alright miss!”
She snapped up to him, and her expression became determined and hard, but her eyes betrayed her disgust. With him or herself, he didn’t know.
“Let go unless you want to be bitten.” Her expression became overcome by grief and she looked away again.
He shook his head.
“No, Selena. I’m sorry, I didn’t know it’d do this, I wouldn’t have…” And he held up his hand briefly, looking at it like it had betrayed him. Selena stared at his hand intently.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you miss?”
She looked so crestfallen as she stared at his hand.
This was all his fault. He’d pushed her self control, and he had to make it right somehow. Well, he knew how he’d make it right.
He put his forehead to hers, and pulled her into him.
“I don’t mind Selena. You can if you need to.” He hoped she wouldn’t kill him, but she needed to do something or she’d…lose it completely.
She turned to him, and they brushed noses momentarily. He could feel her breath on his chin, and her eyes half-closed as she lost focus. So did he.
He pressed his lips against hers.
He heard her breath hitch, but she immediately hugged him closer and pressed deeper.
They were both hungry, it seemed. For different things of course, but he felt a knot form in his stomach as her hands clenched into his shirt and she kissed him back. She was inexperienced, but no less willing.
Her skin was soft, softer then anything on the planet. He’d never felt anything as…wonderful as her kiss. It made him feel light, and airy, and weak in ways no woman ever had. Then she bit his lower lip.
She was still…not herself.
He pulled away gingerly, and she let him go. But only briefly. Her off-hand raked through the back of his shaggy black hair, and she pulled his head to the side.
He didn’t have a chance to calm her down before she pressed her fangs to his neck, and he felt nothing but the ecstatic kiss of a vampire.
***
He stared at the ceiling. Maybe he was too tired to sleep. He didn’t know anymore. Maybe he could go to Molly for some kind of sleeping drug. Or chat with Sydney. But he couldn’t even pull his arms up. He just lie there, unmoving.
***
They were chasing some imp through the streets of London. This little thing was left behind at some very interesting scenes of Kindred capture, and finally they were able to track the little bugger down.
Thaddeus, Selena, Olivia, and Sebastian chased it to a back alley, and the little winged gargoyle thing went straight up. Up two stories, at least, and the party sighed in dismay.
“How are we to follow it now?” Selena asked confusingly.
“Well, I could always toss Sebastian up there…” Thad offered with a laugh.
“That’s ridiculous.” Olivia shook her head.
“We may lose it if we can’t follow it, though.” Selena sighed with slight annoyance.
“Toss me! Thad Toss me! Toss me! Toss me!” Sebastian said excitedly and quickly, jumping around in front of him. Thaddeus liked it when Sebastian decided to show his inner child.
He shrugged and grabbed the back of his collar and his belt.
“Alright! Give it a go!” He tossed Sebastian far over his head, using his vitae and feeling power burn in his veins.
“ICHANGEMYMIIIINNND!!!!” He heard Sebastian scream as he flew up thirty feet. Sebastian grappled the ledge, and pulled himself up, taking off after the thing.
Olivia did not look amused.
“Well, it works I suppose. However…” She left off as she started to float slowly upward. Thaddeus averted his eyes.
“Why didn’t she just do that before?” He asked Selena with a smirk. Selena sighed with a slight smile and shook her head.
“But how do we follow them, Thaddeus?”
Ah, dash it all.
***
He heard a knock. He didn’t say anything, just grunted slightly. The door opened, and it was Rose. She smiled pitifully at him, and brought in a tray with a bowl and a glass on it. She set it next to him on his bedside table, and sat on the edge beside him.
“How are you, Thad?”
He smiled tiredly.
“I can’t sleep very well…”
Rose shook her head, her warm brown eyes filled with care.
“You never have been able to. Not since you came here.”
“I never have slept well at all.” Thad admitted.
Rose put a hand to his forehead, and pulled it back.
“You really do a lot around here, you know? You…you changed things. I don’t know if I ever told you, but you did. For the better I think. Sydney never did have any friends before you. You helped him…inspired him in some ways.” She said, almost in a reverie.
Thad squinted confusedly.
“Why are you telling me all this, Rose?” It was quite sudden of Rose to be expressive.
Typically, if Rose thought or felt anything, she didn’t talk about it. She instead would talk of fashion, or her books, or the weather. It gave most the impression that she was a vain, petty minded sort of silly girl, but Thad had learned better.
“I just never was able to tell you how much I appreciate that you entered all our lives. Even Molly is quite fond of you, even if she doesn’t show it. Selena…” She trailed off and Thad felt his stomach fall.
“Selena is…she just…she cares for you deeply, Thaddeus.” Rose looked at him, serenely but seriously. Thad only nodded.
“She’d be upset if you weren’t taking care of yourself. She’d be very cross with me.” And Rose, silly, irreverent, girlish Rose was back. She tucked him in and picked up the bowl of stew.
“Now, Molly made this. You need to eat it or she’ll have my hide too. Not to mention, if Sydney knows I was lulling you to sleep he’d be awfully jealous.” She added mischievously, and he took a bite of the stew. Mmmm. Molly’s Stew.
Briefly, he saw another woman other than Rose. Somewhere, in that wondrous area where you aren’t asleep but you aren’t awake, he remembered something he tried so hard to forget.
A Spanish woman, with long black hair much like Rose, fed him from a bowl when he was ill. Her eyes…he couldn’t remember her eyes, but she looked at him with a love he had never seen from anyone since.
Maybe it was just the thought of the comfort, or the idea that Rose sincerely valued him, but halfway through the third bite, he drifted and fell into a sleep so deep he did not remember dreaming.
But he did indeed dream.