This is a fic dedicated to the ship Jerbekah (Jeremy Gilbert and Rebekah Mikaelson). I was inspired by a post on tumblr a while ago, but I finally worked up enough motivation to start writing something fic-length. Here's the first part! xx

Chapter 1

He'd been in the basement of the old house that stood on sacred witches' ground a million times before, because comfortable with the dim glow of the candles, cobwebs, and ever-present chill that came with the territory. He'd been Bonnie's own personal test subject before, too. But tonight felt different.

"Think of Elena," he heard Bonnie say, shaking him from his brief reverie. She was walking towards him, a large and very old-looking book open in her arms. "We're doing this for her."

"And what about you?"

She looked up from her book, blinking for a moment and then furrowing her brows. "What about me? Like I said, this –"

"Okay. Forget I asked." He held up his hands in front of himself defensively, before taking a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. It didn't work. "So what do I have to do?"

"Nothing," Bonnie told him, shutting her book and setting it aside. She knelt down on the floor and he followed suit, a map smeared with blood the only thing between them. "Just hold out your hands and keep still." He offered her his hands and she took them gingerly, taking a breath and shutting her eyes, allowing herself to relax.

"Bonnie, you don't have to –"

She sighed, shaking her head. "I know I don't have to do this, but Elena's my best friend. I can't bear to see her suffering the way she is. That's why we need to fix whatever the hell it is Klaus broke in Stefan."

Her tone was matter of fact, and her gaze dared him to challenge her again, but he kept quiet. He swallowed and let her return to her state of relaxation, before she began to chant in Latin. At first nothing happened. That's how it always started. But this time was different, and he slowly felt himself regretting volunteering to do this. Sure, Elena was his sister, but she'd get over Stefan. It wasn't healthy pining after him the way she still did. But he found his hands were tightly grasped in Bonnie's and there was no turning back now.

The lights began to flicker, a gust of wind threatening to put out the candles surrounding them and lifting the corners of the map off the ground. Looking up, he saw that Bonnie was starting to bleed. "Bonnie!" He shouted, tugging at her hands, but she wasn't responding. "Bonnie, stop! Bonnie –"

She heard him shouting her name once, twice, a third time, as though it was far away. And then all of a sudden it stopped and her chanting stopped, too, her hands feeling suddenly empty. She opened her eyes, and with a gasp, she quickly got to her feet, looking around.

"Jeremy?" she called feebly. "Jeremy!" But no matter how many times she called out to him, the fact still remained:

Jeremy was gone.

Chicago, 1920's

She'd told them to give her a minute and had ended up taking fifteen. She was the type of girl to catch the spotlight both when she wanted it and when she didn't, and the type to get lonely in a room full of people. Was that due to the fact that her brother saw right through her or that his newest protégé only wanted her for her body, or both? Her luck had run out long ago.

Or so it seemed.

"You said a minute," came a voice suddenly in her ear, and she knew immediately who it was as the owner of said voice placed a kiss on her jaw and a hand at her hip.

"I say a lot of things, Stefan," she replied coyly, swirling the amber liquid in her glass.

"Rebekah,"

The blonde caught him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him sharply towards her and hissing in his ear, "You're not my father, and you're sure as hell not my brother either, if he had any sort of power over me. So if I want to be alone for a minute, you'd do well to let me have a minute alone."

When she released him, she saw he looked confused. This was new, considering she'd only ever seen him hungry, mischievous or lustful (or a combination of all three) since the day they'd met.

"Did I do something wrong?"

She fought the urge to roll her eyes, lifting her glass to her lips as her eyes fell on something just over Stefan's shoulder. Niklaus, who was standing by the railing above them, watching from a distance but, judging by the smirk on his lips, hearing the whole exchange clearly.

"No, of course not." Rebekah told him simply, before pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. "I've just been a bit… on edge lately. You wouldn't understand."

"I…" he began, before following her gaze and frowning slightly. "Look, if it has anything to do with Klaus, I can talk to him about it if you'd –" Before he could finish his sentence, however, there was suddenly the sound of glass breaking and a shrill outcry as smoke started to fill the room. Rebekah's brows furrowed, but as soon as she heard Stefan – and quite a few others – start to cough, she knew exactly what was going on. "Ver…vain." He managed to choke out.

And that's when the shooting began.

He had been standing in the middle of the room when it started. Jeremy had managed to persuade a very drunk middle-aged man out of his suit on his way in, and effectively blended into the scene he had woken up in. That didn't eliminate the fact that he was royally confused, and that Bonnie would be getting an earfull if he ever got back to the 21st century.

"Elaine? Elaine, honey, what's going on?"

Jeremy had been in the middle of pushing his way through the crowd when he heard the sound of glass over the music and an object hit the floor a few feet away, emitting a thick cloud of smoke almost immediately. People around him started to grasp at their necks, cough, and some even screamed. The woman he suspected was called Elaine had fallen to her knees in front of him, her companion looking utterly confused. He would have felt the same way, if his eyes hadn't fallen on an all too familiar blonde at the bar across the room. Jeremy took a step towards them, but the second he did, doors flew open and the bullets started pouring in.

He dropped down into a crouch as people around him started to scatter and bump into him, and furniture burst into splinters of wood where bullets hit them. Jeremy tried to quickly maneuver his way towards the bar, but by the time he reached it he found that Rebekah was already gone.

However, she didn't seem to have gotten very far.

"Nik! Nik, where are you?"

Jeremy spun around, finding the very blonde he had been looking for wandering around the room almost like she had some kind of death wish. Somehow, every bullet narrowly missed her, hitting other things, but she hardly flinched. "Nik!" her call was desperate, and she seemed to have lost her companion – whoever she had been with when he'd seen her at the bar.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Jeremy shouted, running over to her and tugging her out of the line of fire behind a large piano.

"Let go –" she hissed, but by the time she had acquired temporary shelter, she seemed to have regained her sanity. "What? No, I was just looking for my brother…" She peered around the side of the piano, but all she could see was a blur of feet, dead bodies, and bullet holes in the floor. It was all she could do to keep the instinct at bay as the smell of blood was almost overwhelming now.

Jeremy shook his head, before leaning it back against the leg of the piano, trying to catch his breath. "There's no use. If you haven't found him by now, you have to stop looking –"

"No! I can't –"

"Hey!" He said, his tone more harsh than he'd intended. Jeremy was kneeling in front of her now, his hands on either side of her face, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "I'm not saying that he's dead." He bit his lip, trying not to give anything away. He knew, of course, that Klaus had gotten away safely, but Rebekah was so sure that he hadn't. "But if we don't get out of here now, you very well might be and then there'll be no chance of you finding him again."

She was shaking her head again. "I can't… I can't leave him – oh!" Rebekah's eyes widened as a bullet hit the floor next to her, marring the floor. Soon, she was on her feet, taking his hand and dragging him up with her. "Fine, okay," she coughed. "Let's go."

"What are you doing here?"

Jeremy looked up as Rebekah walked into the living room, still clutching a bag of frozen peas to his mouth. He had run into some trouble as they had made their getaway, busting his lip pretty bad and scratching up his hands. She, however, looked like none of the events of the night had even touched her, let alone happened at all. "You let me in…?" was his semi-muffled reply.

Rebekah rolled her eyes, taking the towel from her hair and letting it fall around her face in damp waves. "No, I meant what are you doing here. In Chicago?" She rose a brow. "In this century?"

"I don't know what you're talking –"

"Save it," she told him. "People don't just walk into that speakeasy unless they were told about it by someone else. You don't look like you know anyone that frequents the place, and I certainly have never seen you before." Rebekah looked him up and down. "And you're human. Humans from around here aren't that stupid."

"You mean like a centuries-old vampire that walks in on a raid? That stupid?"

Before he could take a breath, the blonde was pinning him to the nearest wall with a hand at his throat. He dropped the peas, blinking wildly at the sudden assault. "Tell me who you are and what the hell you want before I snap your neck," Rebekah hissed, her voice barely above a hiss.

"Jeremy Gilbert. I was sent here from the future by a friend to fix a mess that your brother made." He gasped out the words, prying at her hand. Surprisingly enough, she released him then.

"Gilbert…" she mused, weighing the name on her tongue. "Well that explains the stupidity."

Rubbing his neck, Jeremy stepped towards her, eyes steady on her face. "Okay, I answered your question, now it's my time to ask one." He took a deep breath as she finally met his gaze, her blue eyes dark. "What happened back there?"

"What makes you think –"

"Because you know what happened," Jeremy insisted, his eyebrows pulling together. "I saw the way you were so quick to get Stefan out of there, Rebekah." She rose her eyebrow, but he just shrugged apologetically. "Sorry." He shook his head. "It's just… you had to have known what would happen if you knew to get him out before it got bad."

She sighed, moving to sit on the couch. "I didn't know what exactly would happen, I just knew that they would come after us. It was only a matter of time until they caught up."

Jeremy frowned, "Until who caught up? Your father?"

"What?" Rebekah said, looking up at him in a mixture of confusion and irritation. She didn't seem to have fully heard him, so he just shook his head and went to sit down next to her. "Look, it doesn't matter, okay? Once my brother shows his face again, we'll be off to a new town, a new life…"

"You don't sound too excited about that," Jeremy observed.

"Well, when moving around and being on the run has been a huge part of your life, it gets a bit boring after a while, you know?" she explained, a small smile forming on her lips.

"Makes sense," he chuckled, looking away.

As he did, Rebekah leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, making his brows furrow considerably. It was odd, considering they'd never spoken two words to eachother before – in the present – and now they were chatting away in her living room like everything had changed.

It was odd… and somehow felt good, too.

Without really thinking about it, his hand found its way to the back of her neck, and he pressed a kiss to her lips, at first slow and sweet, until she started to respond. She kissed him back for what felt like hours, but it was only minutes later when he was pulling away. Rebekah looked up at him, somewhat dazed by the surprise kiss. She bit her lip, finding it wet with something bitter and metallic in taste.

Blood.

She felt her cheeks tighten as the veins emerged under her eyes, her teeth sharpening to lethal points. Rebekah was on her feet in seconds, her hands over her mouth. "You should go."

"Rebekah, I –"

"Now!" She shouted, and that was all the incentive he needed to grab his coat and make a beeline for the door, despite the fact that, in this new town and new century, he had no idea where he was supposed to go.