Carmilla

"So you see, it's all Danny's fault..."

"Carmilla!" Laura smacks her on the arm, and she jumps out of her girlfriend's reach, wincing.

Danny sighs again.

Okay, so fine, if Carmilla is being completely honest, she does realize that it's not totally Danny's fault they're all stuck here. It may have also been a little bit of...

"Fratboy was the one who..."

Carmilla!" Laura hits her arm again, and this time she gives up.

"Fine," she admits, rubbing the buised part "Fine. It was me too."

She thinks of this morning, when Laura convinced all of them to go looking into the debris for "interesting things we may find, Carm!", and how it led to all of them, Lafontaine, Perry, Kirsch, Mel, Danny, and of course, Carmilla to accompany her to the ruins under the Lustig. Of the weird glowing locket that Kirsch saw and immediately picked up, and how, when she and Lurch saw him, tried to knock it out of his hands. Of that stupid glowing locket, which had cracked on impact, and sent up a cloud of green smoke, which had, of course, immediately sent them to God knows where.

"Well, we're not in Silas anymore," Laf says doubtfully, looking at her pocket compass, the needle of which is currently going haywire in her hands "I mean, it looks like the same place. It's underground, in some network of caves, but it's more like the below of Silas before it was destroyed last week. I just have no idea where, and how and why."

"Well, thank heavens I, at least, brought Gertrude along. I mean, whatever comes at us this time, I will shoot it in the eye before it does some actual damage." Mel declares, pulling her weapon out, and there are five collective "Jeez"es, Carmilla included. Danny is the only one who doesn't bat an eyelid, hefting her axe. She opens her mouth to say something when Carmilla suddenly cuts in.

"Look, can we get out of here, at least? It's underground, and I haven't had food in hours, and it's getting dark in here."

She hates the sudden looks of understanding and pity that every one's faces sport right after she says it. She knows why they look this way, and know it's well-intentioned, but a part of her hates them all for thinking of her as weak. She thinks of saying something scathing, when there's a sudden pressureon her hand, and she realizes Laura has grabbed hers.

Hey, baby, she imagines Laura saying, going by the look on the face right now, a mixture of love and understanding , You know they all love you. They don't mean to make you feel weak. Just worried about you.

Yeah, I know, she replies in her head, and would usually feel stupid saying this, but Laura understands.

Ah, Laura.

Carmilla still doesn't understand how she ever got this lucky. To be holding hands with the long lost love of her life, the most amazing girl in the entire world, Laura Hollis. It seems like yesterday, when she was hopelessly pining after her, and trying to solve a million mysteries at once. And now, here they both are...

"Could you stop staring into each other's eyes for, like, one second, and try to figure out what's going on here?" Mel snarks, and the spell is broken.

Ah, well, Carmilla thinks. You can't have everything, I guess. If you get the girl of your dreams, I suppose you also have to contend with her annoying idiotic friends tagging along on every adventure.

************

Laura

She honestly has no idea how they manage to land themselves in places, or situations like this all the freaking time. Her luck seems to be worst than Harry freaking Potter.

"At least Harry Potter had a dream team," Carmilla drawls from her rather uncomfortable perch on a huge slab of rock.

"Well," she shoots her a look "So do we! I mean, look! There are three warriors here," she points at Danny, Mel, and Kirsch "Well, you could also include me, since I know Krav Maga..."

All of them shake their head no, and she scowls for a second.

"Fine, three warriors. And we've got a super smart scientist, and a super mom-researcher in Laf and Perry."

Lafontaine smiles, and she hi-fives them.

"And, then, we've got me, a...person, and Carmilla, who..." she trails off, because what talent does her girlfriend actually have apart from snarking, and looking gorgeous while doing it? "Thanks so much, baby," her girlfriend deadpans, but Laura can detect a tone of hurt in her voice, and oh, crap, she's pissed off.

Laf cuts in "She means we've got the most badass journalist ever and the girl who..."

"Defeated an evil witch with a sword in her hand," Laura completes their statement, looking right at Carmilla "She's a hero."

Carmilla looks at her uncertainly, and then her face breaks into a tentative smile.

"Well", she says, jumping off her rock perch, and grabbing Laura's hand "Let's get out of this place, and find out what the hell's going on."

It takes them about half an hour, one smashed-against-the-wall flashlight, two fights, one between Mel and Kirsch, and the other invlving Danny and Carmilla, one grumbled apology from Danny, and about a hundred lost turns in the underground tunnels, before they finally manage to find a series of stones that could pass for a staircase leading up towards light.

Amid a bunch of "Oh God, my eyes" from half the people in the group, Laura tugs Carmilla down to where she is currently lying, on the grassy lawn. Her girlfriend grumbles a bit, but aquieses, stretching out next to her.

"Hey," Laura whispers, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.

"Cupcake," Carmilla whispers back, amusement in her voice.

"Granted, I have no idea where we are," she starts "And that we might possibly be in a lot of mortal peril, and that this might be a surprise death trip, and there might be a lot of unpleasant things waiting for us out here..."

"Way to make me feel better, sweetheart," the other girl deadpans.

"Let me finish," she chastises, and Carmilla lets her face falls into a mock-serious expression "Given all of those stupid things, I am glad that you're here with me. And that I, very much so..."

"Uh huh," her girlfriend says, anticipation coloring her voice.

"Very very much..."

"Yes?"

And because, of course, even this place won't let Laura share a romantic moment with her girl, that is the exact moment Laf decides to scream a greeting at a shrubbery.

"Hello?"

Both she and Carmilla raise their heads to watch a woman walk out of the bushes, a woman wearing a gown, the kind Laura likes to call old-timey costumes, the one with frills, and lace, and silk, and judging by the woman's stifled way of walking, a corset too.

"Um," Laf calls out to her "Could you possibly tell us where we are, kind lady?"

The woman casts one suspicious glance over their ragged selves, and hurries away without giving an answer.

"Well, that was weird," Kirsch notes "You think she was wearing her Halloween costume or something?"

"Guys, are your watches working?" Laf asks them all, urgently, rifling in her own backpack for something.

Danny, Perry, Mel, and Kirsch all check their wrists "Nope."

"Oh," Laf says "Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh."

"What? What is it?" Perry asks them.

"Well, aside from the very minute possibilty that we just met a cosplayer, and considering the facts that all of our watches have stopped working, and the fact that J.P, who I've been carrying

around with me has turned into a candle, I think it might be a very good assumption that we have, somehow, travelled into the past."

The freaking past. Of course. Because Harry Potter wasn't enough, now they've all turned into bloody Time Lords. Life, and Silas, really don't want to give her a goddamn break.