It had started on a Monday.
Laura had some banal assignment due for her lit class that she had forgotten about – as always – and Carmilla was expecting it to be a long night of Laura hyped up on sugar and caffeine muttering to herself at her computer.
Apparently, though, the book had been about Europe in the second Great War. Laura had muttered, sure, but only for a little while. After an hour had passed, the muttering had ceased. Carmilla had noticed, yes, but she hadn't thought anything of it. Perhaps Laura had finished early for once, or maybe she simply felt confident in what she was doing. Whatever the reason, Carmilla had not thought of it as something to worry about.
Ten minutes later she realized that it was possible she should have worried.
"Carmilla?" The vampire grunted, not taking her eyes off the updated guide to Paris she was reading. So much had changed in the city, and though she had been free for over sixty years, she had never made it back after Mother had found her the second time. "Carm? Can I ask you something?"
The brunette sighed heavily, closing her book with a snap. "Since I doubt you'll allow me the pleasure of finishing my book in silence unless you release the question that is undoubtedly on the tip of your tongue, sure, cupcake, be my guest." She dragged herself up to a vaguely seated position and began picking at her nails.
She expected… well, she wasn't entirely sure what she expected, but it wasn't this. "Do you have any family left?" The vampire's hands lurched and she hissed, a drop of bright red blood welling up from one of her cuticles.
Carmilla completely ignored the pain, staring at Laura in shock. The girl had flushed but didn't drop her gaze, holding Carmilla's eyes bravely. The vampire blinked, caught completely off-guard. "What brought this on, buttercup?" It wasn't really an odd question, not when you thought about how old she truly was and certainly not compared to some of the other questions she'd been asked by the dimwit squad once her vampiric nature had been revealed. (Can you fly? What's the specific cellular anomaly that allows you to do that poof! thing? Did you ever meet Abraham Lincoln? Oh my god did people really not believe in hygiene?) The thing that had knocked her off-balance about it was that it was a deeply personal question, and she had been under the impression that Laura's merry band of idiots hadn't felt comfortable enough to ask her questions of that nature.
She had, of course, forgotten that Laura understood nothing of typical social cues or common sense, and as such felt perfectly comfortable asking Carmilla questions like this, questions that indicated that she truly cared for the vampire. It was unnerving. (it wasn't really, it was actually kind of nice, the knowledge that someone cared, but Carmilla would rather set herself on fire than admit that. To anyone.)
Laura swallowed nervously, pulling Carmilla's thoughts back to the present. "Well, um, this book we're reading, it's set in Nazi Germany, and the narrator is from Austria. She… Well, her family was put into a concentration camp, and it made me think. You never talk about your family, and I know they were Austrian, and you were freed during that war, right? So did you ever go looking for them?"
Carmilla frowned harshly, looking away from Laura. "I did, yes. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to until after the war had already ended. It took me quite some time to adjust to the new world I had woken up in. There were so many new things that had come about, socially and technologically, and to be thrust from the eighteen seventies into the heart of World War Two? I didn't have a hope of getting my bearings." She sighed. "I also didn't manage to learn of the true nature of the concentration camps until barely a month before the Americans ended the war for good. Afterwards, though, I went back to Styria. I found my old home – it had been spared from the ravages of war, somehow. My family, though, was not so lucky."
The vampire looked up and smiled gently. "I told you that we were nobility, did I not?" Off Laura's nod, she continued. "The best-kept secret of the Karnstein line was that we were Jewish. Not religiously, my family had lost all interest in religion generations previously, but we were descended from Jews, and at that time in Austria it would not have been in our best interest for people to find out. Leopold the First was king, you see, and he had inherited a hatred of Jews going back centuries. A decade before I was born they had actually forcibly deported the Jews from Vienna. It wasn't until long after my death that attitudes changed. Sadly, though, my family hadn't survived to see it. They were exposed and executed mercilessly, our lands given to the crown and our wealth dissolving mysteriously."
She closed her eyes. "I hadn't yet been interred. Sometimes I wonder if I could have saved them." She wrenched her eyes open, blinking hard. "But then I remember that thinking like that is pointless and I have better things to do than brood over that which cannot be changed." She forced a smirk onto her face. "That answer your question, cupcake?"
Laura didn't answer. There was a slight glisten in Carmilla's eyes, and Laura knew the vampire wasn't as unaffected as she was trying to seem. The journalism major rose from her desk and sat next to Carmilla, forcing her to relinquish her reclined pose or risk being sat on. Laura placed one hand on Carmilla's cheek, not saying anything for a moment and just looking at her, before wrapping her arms around the vampire and pulling her close. "I'm sorry." Carmilla stiffened and tried to pull back, but Laura wouldn't let her go. She held the vampire tighter to her instead, trying to transmit all of her feelings of empathy and love through the hug. "I'm sorry."
After a moment, Carmilla relaxed into the hug. Her own hands rose tentatively, settling delicately at Laura's waist, and she turned her face into the other girl's neck. Laura could feel a faint wetness on the vampire's face, but she didn't say anything. It had been hundreds of years since her family died, but Laura was willing to bet that she had never let herself properly mourn them. It was about time that she did, and Laura was going to be there to support her every step of the way.