"You wake your ass up Edge, we’ve got a hell of a lot of talking to do." He shook his head as if trying to clear it, and began to make his way over the soft chairs by the draped window. Gabrielle stopped him, grabbing hold of his arm with surprising strength, preventing him from moving. "Stay right there. Don't move." He furrowed his brow in concentration. "I am going to tell you what I've been doing for the last twenty years, every last thing you need to know, every damn thing that you may have a problem with or find even remotely questionable, and you are going to stand there and listen without saying a word, got it?" Edge nodded, and Gabrielle began her narrative.

"Let's start at the beginning. Julie Andrews always said it was a very good place to start. That night I left you, I wandered Bourbon street, loving that open container law. I ended up pissed drunk in an alley, and the only thing that told me I had to move was the sun which decided to interrupt my sleep. I was nearly burned alive. Shows how great I can live alone. One night and I'm as good as dead. Luckily, there was a nice little backdoor that was left open. The next day, I hopped a Greyhound to Lafayette, spent a boring, lost year there before heading over to North Carolina. I stayed in Raleigh, fed on the locals and somehow met up with Matt and Melissa. God, how I wanted to be with him, just to recapture the past. He wanted me to stay. We spent weeks mooning over past days and he told me about Jeff's ashes in the wind, and how incomplete his requiem was. I cried for a few days, still feeling rightfully guilty about what I did. Then, brace yourself. If you didn't want me screwing Kael, you're sure as hell going to hate this. In some odd detached moment, we just comforted each other in the only way we hadn't yet. So, to make that long story shot, Melissa found out, and all hell broke loose. I left, even though Matt still wanted me to stay. I decided I'd be better off alone. To Toronto I headed, back home for some reason, and spent three years there. I think it was three years at least. I met this other vampire, Chris. After a brief affair with him, I realised that I was really meant to be alone. At least for the time. Chris just bugged the hell out of me, so I shipped off to Europe. Went aimlessly around France, Greece, you know, Edge, we should go to Crete sometime. Its perfect there. And I just went wherever else I ended up. Finally, 15 years or so later, I ended up in Wales. Travelled the whole place too, went everywhere I could. The last place was Cardiff. That’s where I saw Kael, and he convinced me to come back here and be with you again. After I made my decision, I was a mess. You have to understand I had been thinking and analysing every little thing for almost a full day. I needed something, I needed comfort. So, we fucked. Yea, it was a mistake, but it was my favourite mistake. Oh, and while all of this was going on, I was battling the demons within that prevented me from feeding and actually killing. Its been a year since I've fed, Edge, but this isn't the longest I've gone. The whole time I was in Toronto, I didn't take a life. Sure, I fed, but that was only on Chris, and as Christian told me once, that’s exchanging not feeding."

She signed heavily. "And that, in a nutshell and without a lot of detail, is my 20 years." Edge stood before her, trying to absorb all that had been asid. After a moment, he reached out and pulled her to his chest.

"You know what?" He asked, as she titled her head up. "As long as I have the old Gabrielle back, I'm fine." Gabrielle smiled forcefully. Was there even an old Gabrielle, as he put it, left, she thought.

"You know I'm not the same person that left you, right?" He smiled down at her.

"Of course you are." She frowned, but quickly put her head to his chest, so he couldn't see.