I was mumbling to myself as I stripped the bed.  Even vampire skills don't help with household chores.  They're still irritating, especially when the bed is huge.

"You know, I could have had someone do that."  Alexandre informed me from the doorway with amusement.  I threw a balled up sheet at him and hit him square in the face.

"And you said you were going to stop doing that."  I griped.  "Besides, I need something to occupy my time and practice my speed and accuracy, even if it's just racing around a bed like a maniac, seemed like a good use of time to me."

"I would offer to leave you to it, but I'm quite enjoying the spectacle."  Alexandre responded cheerfully, ignoring the sheet now lying at his feet.

"Yeah well, at least I'm wearing pants now."  I grumbled, to which Alexandre's mouth fell open.

"You forget the era to which I was born.  I would never!  A lady's modesty was sacred!"  Alexandre replied, appalled.

"No, I'm referring to the period of time after you were infected, when the world had a 'sexual awakening'.  Or two.  Or three."  I answered, to which Alexandre grinned.

"Fair enough, but I was raised by a European family."  He pointed out.

"Doesn't that make it worse?"  I asked.  Alexandre pursed his lips in thought for a second or two, but didn't respond.

"I think you just lost a few dignity points there buddy."  I told him with a laugh.  "For the face, and the lack of response, they pretty much told me everything I'll ever need to know."  Snickering, I pulled new sheets from the closet and walked towards the bed.

"Here, let me help."  Alexandre offered.  I sensed an undercurrent of teasing in the offer, but couldn't figure out the deception.

"Oookaaay..."  I replied, unfolding the fitted sheet which he smoothly helped me replace.  I eyed hims suspiciously and tossed him a corner of the next sheet, twitching when he grinned the mischievous wolf smile at me.  He made no other move than to help me smooth the sheet into place.  With trepidation, I handed him the next blanket that he snapped, making me squeal, but again no other moves other than the wolfy grin.  Finally I exploded.

"Enough!  What are you planning!"  I demanded, clutching a quilt edge protectively.  Alexandre tucked his last corner in and lay back on the bed, arms under his head.

"Nothing whatsoever, I just like watching you squirm."  He grinned the wolf grin and I growled and threw my half of the quilt over his face.  Alexandre chuckled, which made me angrier.  I contemplated revenge briefly, but walked out of the room instead.

"You had the perfect opening,  why didn't you attack?"  Alexandre asked me as he ghosted up beside me a few seconds later.  I shrugged, so he stood in my path.

"Aren't you frustrated?  The woman who killed you has killed another and we can make no move to track her, we're being watched by cops which restricts our activities, and I am being intentionally irritating.  Where's the anger?  Fear?  Outrage?  Show some emotion, show some teeth damn it!"  Alexandre demanded.

"Move."  I said, attempting to go around him.

"Make me."  He replied, stepping back in front of me.  I tried to side-step him a few more times before throwing my hands at his chest, palms out.  He took the blow well, but still had to take a step back.

"Of course I'm frustrated!  I'm stuck in this house, incapable of doing the one thing I think is necessary to end my old life, so I can start my new one!"  I hit him again, harder.  "I'm already realizing that I have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of eternity and I'm panicking because I'm looking down a long empty corridor of extreme boredom!"  I slammed my hands against his chest again.  This time he let out a grunt and was forced to back up.

"I'm terrified because I don't know what that means for me.  What is my purpose in life after I get to my killer?  What do I do with myself?  Suddenly I have everything I ever asked for and more and yet, nothing at all."  I collapsed against Alexandre's chest, sobbing and heartbroken.  He wrapped his arms around me, one hand cradling my head to his chest, the other around my shoulders like he was clinging to me just as hard as I was to him.  Except for my sobbing, it was deathly silent for a very long time.

"I was not expecting this reaction."  Alexandre said, his voice rough.  "I knew, one day, you would feel this way, you would blame me for the empty eternity stretched out in front of you, but not so soon...not so soon..."  His voice cracked.  I looked up at him with teary eyes.

"Blame you?  I'm not blaming you!  I blame myself for not having any dreams, or goals or ideas.  I wasn't trying to make anything of myself.  What's my purpose?  I use to just...exist.  Just slog through one day to get to the next.  It was a struggle just to survive.  And now...now..."  I paused as Alexandre's pained face gazed back at me.

"Well, what is it?  What would you like to do with the time that you have been given, sweet Carys?"  Alexandre asked quietly, as if slightly baffled by my answer.

"That's just it, I don't..know..."  I replied.  Alexandre kissed my forehead.

"You have an eternity to find out."  He reassured me gently.  I laid my head back on his chest.  Maybe he was right.  We stood in silence for several long minutes.  I listened to Alexandre's nearly imperceptible heartbeat and slow, steady breathing.

"Can we maybe, get out of here today?  Even if it's just to go for a walk or a drive?  I don't care."  I asked.

"Tonight."  He corrected  "It's quite late.  It looks like your biorhythms are resetting themselves."  He murmured almost approvingly.

"Will it look weird then if we go out?  If anyone sees?"  I asked with worry.

"Just dress warmly and we'll go for a walk.  I'm the eccentric billionaire or whatever, remember?  They'll just think it's a rich people thing."  Alexandre chuckled.  I nodded excitedly and raced to my room.

The wind was blowing wildly outside as Alexandre tucked my arm in his on the way out the door.  We walked down Alexandre's winding drive quietly.  There was an unmarked car parked at the end of his drive, lights off, with two people inside.  They probably wouldn't have been visible to normal people, but hello enhanced vamp vision.

The hair on the back of my neck immediately went up and Alexandre patted my hand on his arm and left his fingers intertwined with mine.  Senses alert, I heard one of the people in the vehicle say 'Yeah, they're leaving the property now.  Looks like they're just out for a stroll...  Yeah I know it's late...  Damn rich people...' I could hear Alexandre chuckle, and deciding to play into it a little more I leaned my head on his shoulder.  He tensed almost imperceptibly.

"Well, looks like you were right about their conclusions."  I said softly.

"If you don't get your head off my shoulder they're going to come to another conclusion entirely."  He informed me quietly.

"Would that be such a bad thing?"  I asked.  Alexandre looked at me with an expression of mild disbelief on his face.  He pulled me to a stop.

"Carys, I suddenly do not know where I stand with you either."  He informed me, bewildered.  "I was under the impression you had told that cop I had saved you, nothing more, and you got so flustered in the mall when you brought up child bearing, yet you taunt me mercilessly and comfort me like you have known me my whole life.  Then you tell me you're terrified of me, and now this.  Carys, tell me plainly: what is it you expect from me, or do you even know yourself?"  His voice was soft, but his expression was guarded.  I wasn't sure how to explain the tumble of emotions inside me either.

"Let's keep walking so I can think how to phrase this."  I answered, giving him a gentle tug.  "And so those pervs back there don't overhear too much."  I stared at my shoes while I walked thinking quickly and furiously.

"On the one hand-and don't take this the wrong way, but the age difference is kind of...weird?"  I paused, but Alexandre didn't interrupt.  "I mean, even if I account for the fact that technically you're younger than me, you're actually older than me, and it would be like dating my father, no grandfather...great grandfather?"

"Now wait one minute!"  Alexandre interjected, but I held up a finger and he was silent.

"Even though your age looks pretty close to mine, so I wouldn't think we'd publicly receive ridicule, I think I'd have to rethink my ridicule of my father's trespasses with women my age..."

"You never mentioned any of that!"  Alexandre exploded and I put a finger against his lips and he stilled instantly.  We continued walking.

"But here's my main concerns:  I... have not done well in the past with my relationships.  I cannot trust people.  Blame my history, blame what it's done to me, blame me for closing myself off, whatever.  They were all doomed from the start.  And then, in sweeps you.  The knight in shining armor I thought would never arrive to save me."  I said with anguish.  "Who promises to protect me, wants to correct my past and remedy my future, but... you do scare me.  You scare me because you have this power over me.  This bond.  The bond that may even be the reason I'm drawn to you-despite my obvious daddy issues making a big play for gold here.  And then there's the virus.  I can't say for certain that the virus causing an increase in aggression, hormones, whatever, is not driving me towards you, and doing the same for you.  You said once the virus was like every other thing on this planet, on an evolutionary path, constantly evolving, pushing us to pass it on.  How do I know it's not driving me towards you to further its cause?  Take the next logical step?  Create a new breed?  A new generation via reproduction?"  I was blushing by the end of this statement, but my voice was firm.

"To say the very least, I don't know what's driving me towards you, and until I figure it out, I don't know what to do about it, because I don't want to sabotage or hurt either of us because I'm all f*cked up."