I was alone when I woke up in our big comfy bed, a halo of bright sunlight surrounded the heavy curtains that were drawn across our bedroom window. According to the clock on my bed-side table it was about quarter after three, Wednesday afternoon.

Waking up alone in bed wasn't a big surprise, Sam only needed an hour or two of sleep most days. I wasn't much different, three or four hours were usually enough for me. Our typical routine had the two of us in bed together by ten or eleven in the morning, noon at the latest. Then we'd usually fool around a bit before falling asleep. Samantha almost always woke first, and some days she'd just stay with me and cuddle till I woke. Or days like today, she'd get up without bothering me, and go find something quiet to keep herself occupied.

I emerged from the bedroom and found my girlfriend sitting naked on the sofa. She had her laptop open on the coffee table in front of her, and she was staring at it with a serious, thoughtful look on her face.

"Hey hon," I smiled as I moved to her side.

Samantha didn't respond, she seemed lost in thought as she continued staring at her computer. She'd been staring long enough the screen saver had engaged.

I nudged her, "What's up Sam? Tricky homework problem?"

About eighteen months ago she started taking online learning courses. She earned a high-school equivalent diploma last year, now she was taking some college-level courses. She hadn't decided yet if she was going to try for a college diploma or if she'd just keep taking random classes that interested her.

Whatever she'd been working on this afternoon it obviously had her stumped.

She eventually seemed to realize I was beside her, and she looked up at me. Her expression was still thoughtful and sort of distant.

"Sam?" I asked as I frowned at her. "Everything ok?"

She finally sighed and shook her head, then her attention returned to her laptop. She turned it off and closed the lid, then sighed again and said "I have to go back to Toronto."

"What?" I stared at her. "Jess came up with the five million?"

Samantha shook her head again, "No. It's nothing to do with Jess, nothing to do with the Family. It's personal."

I sat down next to her and slipped my arm around her waist as I asked, "What is it Sam? What's going on?"

She leaned against me and sighed once more, but she didn't respond right away.

It took her a half minute or so, before she finally answered "I was checking up on my folks. I meant to do it a few weeks ago. I've been looking them up about once a year, just to see how they were doing? It's my dad. He uh, died, earlier this year."

Sam had a very different relationship with her parents than I had with mine. Her folks never knew she was trans, as far as they knew she vanished one night shortly after her eighteenth birthday and they never saw or heard from her again. The first six or seven months after she was turned she made a few half-hearted attempts to contact them. That was against the Family's rules though, and they eventually put an end to it with threats of death.

I held her a little tighter and sighed, "I'm sorry Sam. Why do you want to go to Toronto though? What are you going to do?"

Her head tilted over and she leaned against my shoulder as she replied softly, "I need to see my mom. Before it's too late. I have to let her know... I don't know. I'm not sure what I'll say, but I have to see her while I still can."

I didn't know how to respond to that at first.

Going back to Toronto would be dangerous for the two of us. It was the Family's territory, we'd be trespassing on their turf. They had every reason to hate us, every reason to want to kill us. We'd have to be on our guard the whole time we were there.

Beyond that was the fact that Samantha's mother simply wouldn't recognize her, and wouldn't believe who she was. Even if she did believe her child was still alive after being missing all these years, she'd be expecting a man in his mid-fifties. Not an eighteen year old girl.

I finally took a deep breath then asked, "So what's the plan? When are we going, how are we going to do this?"

"You don't have to come Tara," she stated quietly. "It's going to be dangerous. I can't ask you to take that kind of risk for me."

I gave her a squeeze and stated "I wasn't waiting for you to ask Sam. I'm going with you, that's not up for discussion. What we need to decide is when we're going, and how we're going to do this. And if we're going to do anything else while we're there."

"Are we going to try keeping a low profile," I asked. "Just visit your mom and leave? Or are we going to let Jess know we're in town? Are we going to confront her and the rest of the Family while we're there?"

She took a deep breath then let out a long slow sigh. "I don't know yet. I need to think about this for a bit. We'll have to tell Reuben we're going. I'm not going to let him come regardless. He's staying here where it's safe."

I pointed out, "He may put up a fight about that."

"He might," she shrugged. "And if he wants to drive to Toronto by himself that's up to him. But he's not coming with us."

After a brief pause she said, "We just ate on Monday, so we're good for a while yet in terms of food. We could go to the club tonight and meet with Reuben, let him know we're going out of town for a few days. I guess we should tell him where we're heading, but I don't want to see Jess or anyone else from the Family."

She thought a moment then continued, "We'll definitely be ready for trouble. You'll be packing your forty-five, I'll have my vamp-hunter dagger. We'll make sure the SUV is gassed up, bring a wad of cash with us to take care of expenses, and head out either late tonight or early tomorrow morning. We'll reach Toronto Friday morning, and I could visit my mom that day."

I nodded slowly, "Ok. We might want to get a hotel or something though. After twenty-four hours in the car, it might not be a bad idea to get a shower and change clothes before we drop in on your mom, right?"

Sam grimaced, "Yeah ok, good point."

"So it sounds like we have a plan?" I asked. "We're heading to the club to see Reuben, then we come home, pack up, and hit the road?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded.

She looked and sounded anxious, and I was pretty sure she was more uptight about seeing her mother for the first time in almost forty years than she was about returning to the Family's territory.

Sam stayed with me on the sofa for a few more minutes, then we both finally got up and started getting ready to head to the club.

• • • • •

The two of us had been silent for the last couple hours. Sam was focused on the road, I was staring out the window at the dark scenery going past. It was just after midnight and my thoughts drifted back over the evening.

We both showered before we got into some nice clothes, and got to the club for seven. We met Reuben and the three of us went into the office where we told him what we were planning.

As we expected, Reuben had a lot of strong opinions about Sam and I going to Toronto to visit Sam's mom. Most of what he said was pretty fair and reasonable, but Samantha couldn't be persuaded to change her mind.

To my surprise, he didn't insist on coming with us. He did suggest we do the reunion thing as quickly as possible then turn around and head straight back to Winnipeg, which suited me fine. Sam agreed too, neither of us really wanted another show-down with the Family.

Since we wound up not having to argue with Reuben our visit to the club was a lot shorter than we expected. The two of us returned home and we both quickly got changed into our 'trouble' clothes.

Sam put on her torn-up old black denim jacket, and she had the vamp-hunter dagger tucked into the lining. She also put on a purple tie-dyed t-shirt, black denim pants, and of course her black ankle-boots.

And I had my Docs and a pair of jeans, a tight t-shirt and I wore a hoodie, but I had my forty-five in its holster underneath. The gun was loaded with my silver-filled bullets, and I had two more full clips in my pocket.

We both packed some extra clothes, and we had our phones and a wad of cash. We were driving that same luxury SUV we stole from the Family when we left almost four years ago, though we'd long since had the ownership changed and got new plates put on the thing.

Samantha took the first shift behind the wheel, and I sat next to her in the passenger seat. It was barely half past nine Wednesday night when we set out.

The silence was finally broken as Samantha asked me, "Have you ever thought about visiting your family?"

I glanced at her then shrugged, "Not really. Not lately."

After a moment I added, "You know the situation with my family's totally different than yours. I have no idea if they ever changed their minds about kicking me out, or if they ever wondered what happened to me. I never tried to contact them though, I've never even tried to look them up."

Sam nodded slightly, "I guess that time we saw your brother in that restaurant was the last time you've seen any of them?"

"Yeah," I scowled. "I'm not really interested in bumping into him again. If we did though, I'd like to teach him to keep his hands to himself."

Samantha suppressed a laugh. "You were probably too distracted to notice, but when I got his hands off you I broke his wrist."

"Seriously?" I felt the corners of my lips pulling up into a grin, "I didn't know that. Good work, thank you."

She smiled, "Any time, Tara. I don't like grabby entitled ignorant creeps, and if we weren't in crowded restaurant I'd have broke more than his wrist."

My grin eventually faded, "I honestly haven't thought about my folks in ages. I don't even know if they still live in the same place. And it's not like we're going to be hanging around the city, right? I mean, we'll get there tomorrow night... Or tonight I guess, it's after midnight now. So we get there around nine tonight, get a hotel or something, then tomorrow we see your mom. Then get back on the road for home, right? The longer we hang around, the bigger the chance of running into trouble."

"Yeah," Sam nodded slowly. "Still, if you wanted to look them up we'll be there for half a day at least right?"

I sighed as I thought it over, "Maybe. I doubt there'd be any kind of nice happy reunion with my parents, but it might be nice to rub their noses in how wrong they were about everything."

My girlfriend glanced at me and gave me a supportive smile, "If that's what you want to do cutie, I'll be right there with you.

After that she focused on the road again, and for the next little while I distracted myself imagining what I might say to my folks if I was to see them again. Of course I'd have the same problem Sam was going to face, my parents wouldn't recognize me and wouldn't believe who I was.

Even if I could convince them I'd transitioned in the seven years since they threw me out, there was no way to explain how I was almost a foot shorter and so much smaller than they remember. And the fact that I hadn't aged in all that time either would be another hard sell. In the end I still wasn't sure if I actually wanted to see them or not.

The two of us remained quiet as we drove on through the night. We stopped for gas a few times but otherwise kept moving. At the half-way point we switched seats and I took over driving while Sam relaxed next to me. She didn't sleep, we'd both get some rest once we were in a hotel somewhere.

As I drove, my thoughts shifted focus to our other Family. If everything Jess said was true, we probably didn't have much to worry about. With only three enforcers left in the city, we'd practically have to go out of our way to run into any of them. Sam's mom lived in the east end, well away from the areas we used to patrol. I wasn't even sure if anyone patrolled that part of town back when there were a dozen peacekeepers and the Family wasn't falling apart into chaos.

As we got closer to the city Sam looked up hotels on her phone, to try and find us someplace nice without being too close to Family territory.

At around quarter after nine Thursday night we reached the outskirts of Toronto. Sam directed me to turn east while we were still a little ways north of the city, and by ten o'clock we were at a hotel outside the city limits to the north-east. It was some sort of conference centre, the rooms were large and nicely decorated and the place had lots of fancy amenities that were wasted on the two of us.

Once we were checked in, we quietly undressed then got into bed together. Sam kept her dagger on the table next to her side of the bed, I had my forty-five on the table on my side.

We didn't sleep right away, or much at all really. But we did take the time to relax and unwind from the drive.

PurpleCatGirl

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