Disclaimer: I do not own Carmilla (the series), or any recognizable characters.

Author's Note: So. Here it is, my first entry into the Carmilla fandom. (Oh, yes, there WILL be more. ;) ) Hope you enjoy it!

"Hey, Laura?"

It took Laura a moment to reply. In her defense, she'd been getting lost in Carmilla's eyes... something that seemed to be happening easier than ever, these days. "Yeah?" Carmilla sounding broody or contemplative was nothing new, but she wasn't usually... hesitant about it.

The vampire's voice was quiet, almost vulnerable. "Could we pretend, just for tonight, that if I asked, we'd run away? We'd find some way to leave and we'd just go. Somewhere without murders or sisters. We'd sleep in hotel rooms and..." She guided an unresisting Laura's head back down to her shoulder, cuddling up against her. "...never live in the same city twice. There'd be no one to fail... or disappoint or save. It would just be... you and me, in love."

Laura tilted her head upward. "That would be nice, wouldn't it?" she asked, Carmilla already leaning in for a kiss before she finished speaking.

"Mm-hmm."

She felt bad about breaking the moment. Again. Unfortunately, though, she had to. "But, our friends need us. The school needs us. Maybe we could be happy that way, but, you know, we wouldn't even be you and me anymore. We'd just be these... empty shells who ran away."

Yep, she'd killed the moment, alright. She was still cuddling Carm, sure, but her girlfriend had gone back to her book, and Laura herself couldn't quite shake feelings of depression, as well as the growing fear that she was screwing this up. She had a gorgeous, smart, funny, brave, amazing girlfriend, and she kept doing things wrong. Unintentionally pushing her away. Letting Carm's jerk sister get to her, especially with those completely untrue things she'd said.

'Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside of the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness.'

It wasn't that she couldn't be happy without certain pre-established conditions being met, she told herself. She could. She'd run away from Silas, away from the problems she'd (however unavoidably) caused... Hell, she'd even told Carmilla to kill the cannibalistic witch in the creepy diner, instead of just knocking her out or something and turning her over to the town's authorities (though they probably would have just killed her anyway, if their torch-and-pitchfork mob mentality was anything to go by)... and she'd been happy, when not in mortal danger, because Carm was there with her. But she wasn't going to condemn everyone else at Silas to whatever fate Mattie and the Corvae people had in store for them, just for the sake of her own happiness, and she didn't think Carmilla really wanted to, either.

Still, though... There was no harm in pretending.

Just for one night.

"Where would we go?"

She must have been musing for longer than she'd thought, because Carmilla looked up in surprise at her words. "Hmm?"

"If you asked, and I said yes, and we could get out. Where would we go first?" She idly began tracing a pattern on Carmilla's leg.

"Hmm..." Carmilla actually closed her book - which Laura counted as a major step in getting their evening out from under the pall that the harsh reality of the situation had caused - and looked up at the ceiling, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Venice, maybe. It's not that far away."

Despite it being just a game, she felt her heart pick up, just a little. Venice. Even the name sounded beautiful. "Ooo, good choice. The Piazza San Marco, Basilica di San Marco... They really did like St. Mark, didn't they?"

She felt as much as heard Carmilla huff out a laugh. "Also might want to visit the cemetery island of San Michele, the glassmaking island of Murano, the beaches on the Lido, and the islands of Burano and Torcello in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon."

"...sorry, my brain short-circuited at the thought of you in a swimsuit."

That earned her another, longer laugh. "You've seen me in less."

Her heart was definitely beating faster now, and Carmilla almost certainly knew it. "Not around other people, where I'd have to behave myself," she pointed out.

"Hmm... True."

Oh, hell. She'd given the vampire an idea.

"Of course," Carmilla continued in the husky drawl she knew always got to her, "there might well be days when just never left the hotel room at all."

That sounded far, far too appealing. "Save money on laundromat visits that way, I guess," Laura offered faintly.

"Mmm, definitely." This kiss went on for longer. It left Laura breathless, and she loved it, just like she loved so many things about Carmilla. (Even her name, odd anagram fetish and all.)

Something occurred to her. She wasn't sure if she wanted to say anything...

"What?"

...but Carmilla decided it for her. "I'd have to order extra room service, I think."

Carm smiled wickedly. "You would need plenty of energy, yes."

Laura blushed a little, despite everything... but that also helped emphasize her point a bit, she thought. "That, and, well..." She took a moment to steel herself, then looked Carmilla in the eyes - Carm needed to know she was serious about this, that it wasn't just part of the game - and blurted out, "I kind of don't want you biting anybody but me if you don't have to."

Carmilla's expression was stuck somewhere between surprise and amazement. "Really?" she murmured. "You sure about that, Cupcake? The blood I keep in the soy milk container isn't human, but... You can only lose so much at a time, you know."

"I know." But - for obvious reasons - she'd come to associate Carm biting her with intimacy, and couldn't stand the thought of her biting anyone else. "If that means eating more meat and drinking more orange juice, then I'll do it."

Carmilla seemed to have been stunned by her statement, as it took her a few seconds to reply. "Well," she finally managed, "at least you'll finally be improving your diet."

'Will be', Laura thought happily. Not 'would be', but will. Carm got it. "You're worth more to me than sugar," she said simply.

Carmilla kissed her again. Enthusiastically.

Laura was not objecting.

Carmilla took a deep breath after it ended, letting it out slowly. (Given Carmilla's undersea sword retrieval mission, Laura was pretty sure vampires didn't actually need to breathe, but evidently some reflexes never went away.) "Okay. So... Where were we before this little side topic?"

"Venice."

"Ah, yes."

"What would be after that? Milan?"

A negligent shrug. "If you like. There wouldn't be any rush. We could go wherever you wanted."

God, it really did sound so appealing... She caught herself about to make another comment about the reality of their situation, and clamped her mouth shut. Why did she keep doing that?

"Laura?" Not like Carmilla could fail to notice, as close as she was - and as close attention as she was paying.

Laura help up a finger, silently asking for a minute to think as she frowned, staring at the wall. Why was she doing that? Because she was afraid? Afraid of what?

A moment later, it hit her. "Oh..." she breathed softly.

"What?" Carmilla was starting to look somewhat concerned.

"I just realized something. Why I keep bringing the mood crashing down." Not waiting for Carm to ask, she smiled weakly and admitted, "I'm afraid."

Carmilla's brow furrowed in confusion. "Of what?"

"I'm afraid because... Because I know, on some level, that otherwise... I'd do it. I'd say yes, take your hand, and not look back. Despite... everything. Everyone." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I'm not sure I'd even remember to call my Dad. What does that say about me?"

Carmilla shrugged. "That you realize you have as much of a right to be happy as anyone else? That you know that not every problem that comes up is your responsibility?" One corner of her mouth quirked upward. "And we both know you'd be buying Papa Hollis souvenirs wherever we went."

Laura allowed herself a brief, sheepish smile. "Heh. Maybe. But still..."

"But nothing. Laura, you're human. Even if you don't act on them, you are allowed to have wants and desires of your own."

That brought up another point... and one she was pretty sure Carmilla wasn't going to like. "How long would we be doing this world tour, anyway?"

If she was at all thrown by the sudden subject change, Carmilla didn't show it. "Unless we found somewhere absolutely perfect to settle down, indefinitely. Why?"

Laura took a deep breath. Here we go... "Because if we did, we'd have to have the conversation that you've consistently shied away from every time the subject's at all come up."

Carmilla shifted uncomfortably, looking away. She didn't say anything, but they both knew what Laura was talking about.

Laura was human. Carmilla was a vampire. (Laura didn't like her at all, but Mattie hadn't been wrong about the problems that would inevitably spring up from that situation.) If they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, one of those facts had to change.

And as far as she knew, vampirism couldn't be undone.

Carmilla wouldn't talk about it. She didn't seem to even want to think about it. Laura had to admit, it had stung at first to think that Mattie might have been right, that she was nothing but a brief fling for her ageless sister.

But she was pretty sure that wasn't the problem.

For all that she might enjoy the benefits of being a vampire, Carmilla had never asked to become one. The decision had been made for her, and her human life - and all the possibilities it had contained - had ended. Even back when she'd briefly been their captive (and Laura cringed internally thinking about it, all of it, but especially that stupid puppet show that she'd made sure to apologize for a million times or so, until Carmilla had insisted she stop), she'd said she'd been murdered. Oh, she might have used more flowery terms when discussing what she'd known of her 'Mother' - 'prying apart the jaws of death to enact her rescue' and so forth - but she'd been quite clear that she had been murdered, and obviously didn't like thinking about it, trying to move past it in the conversation as quickly as she could get away with... which unfortunately for her, hadn't been very fast at all. (Damn her and her sock puppets!) It had taken a little while for her to really be comfortable drinking her "soy milk" in front of Laura, her complaints toward pop culture regarding its portrayal of vampires involved them being presented as friendly and tragic and misunderstood as much as it did making them into objects of ridicule (though they both agreed that Twilight was by far the worst offender), and she'd actively resisted the 'heroic vampire' label even before she'd done anything to deserve it.

Deep down, Carmilla thought she was a monster, and she couldn't bear the thought of inflicting that fate upon Laura as well.

She knew it was irrational, but Laura couldn't help but blame Elle for that. She didn't know what the Dean had said to her (she didn't doubt that the woman would have known exactly how to portray Carmilla in the worst possible light), but it didn't matter. Loving someone meant accepting them, all of them. The good, the bad, the beautiful, and the bloodthirsty. Maybe Laura's infatuation with Carmilla had blinded her to some of the vampire's poorer personality traits for a time, but even when things were at their worst, when she'd seen the footage of what Carm had let happen, she never would have sold her out like that. Hell, even the naive, provincial schoolgirl that she'd been in the beginning hadn't been able to stand the thought of Danny or LaF taking Carm away to lock her up or experiment on. (That, in retrospect, really should have been a clue that her feelings for Carm were a bit stronger than she'd thought at the time, she supposed.)

Oh, the Dean had been a monster, and she had no doubt that had affected Carmilla's opinions, but Elle had actually called her a monster, and since Carmilla had loved her, she would have taken that to heart. Then she'd had decades locked away in that damned coffin to dwell on that.

Sometimes, if she really thought about it, she was amazed that Carm was still sane.

"...I suppose we would," Carmilla said finally, grimacing. She sounded extremely reluctant, but she was at least talking.

The silence stretched on for long enough that Laura realized she was going to have to start the conversation herself. Okay, fine. She could do that. She was good at talking. "What's it like, then? Being a vampire?"

"That's... not a simple question, Cupcake." She sighed. "You're still you, despite what Buffy would have you believe. But you're a lot stronger, a lot faster, your senses are all cranked up to ridiculous degrees..."

"But...?" Laura prompted when she fell silent.

"But... You're not human. You don't need to breathe, your heartbeat will be sluggish if it's there at all - and believe me, you do notice that, when it's gone. Sunlight won't make you burst into flames, but it does weigh you down. Nothing crippling, but even if you're indoors, it'll be enough to remind you of how... other, you are. Between that and how eyes adapted for night hunting do not enjoy bright lights, it's little wonder most of us avoided the sun whenever possible."

"Until sunglasses became a thing, anyway," Laura interjected.

Carmilla smiled. It was brief, and strained, but it was there. "And, of course... the blood."

Laura was silent, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze and maintaining a steady eye contact, making sure Carm knew she wasn't judging. Wasn't leaving.

"That... can take some serious adjusting to. I've known those who couldn't."

"I doubt Mommy Dearest helped them with that, much," Laura grumbled before she could stop herself.

Carmilla gave a quiet, humorless huff of laughter. "That's a fucking understatement."

Okay, conversational landmine spotted. Best to avoid it for now. "What's it like?" she asked instead. "I mean, do you taste things... differently, now?"

Carmilla pursed her lips thoughtfully as she shook off her previous dark thoughts as best she could. "Yes and no," she said slowly. "Most food... Well, your body's not exactly equipped to digest it, anymore. You can eat, but it won't really do anything for you."

"Thus, the chocolate."

A quick smile. "As for the blood... I never tasted any while I was alive, that I can recall, so I don't have a comparison. I'm not sure I can explain why it tastes so good, exactly. It just does. Enough so that..." She sighed. "It can be hard to stop, sometimes. Especially in the beginning. Chances are, it wouldn't be long before you killed someone."

Laura started. "You don't know-"

"We're killers, Laura," Carmilla interrupted harshly, the faint anger in her voice almost masking the self-loathing that was really causing it. Almost. "Every single one of us. Even if we never wanted to be, even if we swore that we would be different, it's never mattered. If you're turned, you will kill someone. Then more people. It's inevitable. That is what you're asking about, what we are. Do you really think you could deal with that?"

...well. She supposed it was at least fair that Carmilla got to be the one doling out the harsh realities, too. She bit her lip, thinking about her girlfriend's question.

And thinking.

And thinking.

"...would you help me?" she finally asked, speaking softly.

"Help you what, exactly?" Carm still sounded a little confrontational.

Laura wasn't going to start a fight, though. No more avoiding the issue. "Would you help me deal with it?"

"I..." Carmilla blinked rapidly. "Well... yes, of course I'd try."

"Then... yeah. I think I could." Which wasn't to say that she wanted to have to, and they both knew it. She massaged her forehead. "Arrgh. Too much serious talk."

Carmilla laughed, the sound lifting much of the tension from the air. "Well, you're the one who started it."

"Yeah, well, now I'm the one who's ending it." She got up - it may have taken her a little longer than strictly necessary to pull away from Carm - and stretched, wincing at a series of pops from her back, before she moved over to her computer and began shutting it down (which was probably the only reason Carm let her go). "Ugh. Remind me to edit all that out of the video," she remarked as she saved the file and shut off the camera. Just a few more steps...

"That thing was still on?"

"You didn't notice?" She shook her head. "You know, after all that surveilling I did of you last semester, I really would have expected you to pay more attention to it."

She could all but feel the face Carmilla was making at her.

With a grin, she finished shutting down the computer, then rose and faced Carm. "Okay, I'm all yours."

Carmilla smirked. "You say that like you weren't before."

"Carm... Shut up and take me to bed."

She was pretty sure her feet didn't touch the floor the entire trip to the bedroom.