I was lost, Louis had told Lestat. He is still a little lost, unmoored in the vast possibility of the future sprawling out before him. (The worst days: when he feels so alone within it that he misses Armand. Misses what had been good between them, amidst the problems that had been slowly diminished and diminished until Louis couldn't have named them.) Daniel's fingers are warm, and their hearts don't beat in time but it is a complimentary rhythm all the same.

Or this, Daniel says, and Louis' expression softens, looking back at him across the pillow. Real fondness for Daniel, annoying and insightful and just as stubborn as Louis. Fondness for the promise of having these things always.

"I'm glad you came," Louis tells him. "I'm glad you're here."

And even in the deep, painful snarl of emotion that surrounds the circumstances of Daniel's turning, Louis can appreciate this: the thing he'd hoped for, Daniel's long life extended, his illness erased. Eternity in which they might know each other.

A pause. A breath drawn beneath the sweep of Daniel's thumb.

"I have been so," a break. A small smile, Louis' hand hooking restlessly at Daniel's lapel. "I have been so glad you're alive. That you didn't throw away my letter and ignore my invitation."

Daniel would have been entitled to that. Louis would have accepted it, felt the disappointment like a knife until he stopped feeling anything at all. You're real, Daniel reminds him, quieter here than he had been—

Than he had been there, Louis remembers. A fragment of something turning over in his head.