"You can't move in with her," Vince said, chasing after Agnes when she left the lunch room. "You'll be sorry if you do."

Agnes turned. "Oh, I'm sure you're wrong," she said. "She seems genuinely pleased to have me. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Well, let's see," Vince said. "You know the story of Hansel and Gretel, right?"

Agnes nodded. "Of course I do. Who doesn't?"

Vince nodded and cleared his throat. "Okay. Well, remember what happened when the witch lured Hansel and Gretel into her gingerbread house? Well, it'll be a million times worse for you if you move in with Roxie."

Agnes burst out laughing. "Oh, I'm sure you're exaggerating. Could it be that you're acting like this because you want to move back in with her yourself and you regret leaving in the first place?"

Vince scoffed. "Oh, please. Definitely not. But please, for your own good, don't move in with her. She doesn't like you. She's just using you to get back at me."

"Well, all right," Agnes said to him. "I'll leave you with that train of thought. I have to get to Algebra." She scampered off, leaving Vince standing by himself.

"I am very offended," Roxie said, coming up behind him. "How could you tell her that I was going eat her?"

"Well, aren't you?" Vince asked. "Why else would you invite her to move in with you?"

"Maybe because I'm lonely and I want company?" She smacked Vince in the back of the head. "Why can't you ever think I'm capable of good things? Why do you always assume the worst of me?"

"Because I haven't seen any reason to believe the contrary," Vince said. "Is there anything good about you?"

Roxie nibbled on his ear. "What about how I look in a bikini...or out of one?"

Vince shuddered and pushed Roxie away. "You really are evil, you know that?"

"Oh, but you like it. I have to go now. See you later, Vince," she said, giving him an air kiss before turning away and walking down the hallway.

Vince was left watching her retreat and breathing hard. "She's going to kill me one of these days," he said as Tony and Charlie came up beside him.

Tony clapped him on the back. "I know you have this plan in your head about how you think things should go with Roxie, but I don't think you're going about it the right way."

"Why?" Vince asked. "What should I do instead?"

"You should ask her to move back in with you," Tony said.

"No!" Vince shook his head. "I can't do that! It would be counterproductive! I have a point I'm trying to make with her and I can't do it if she's in the apartment with me!"

"Do you realize how lucky you are?" Tony asked Vince. "I mean, myself excluded, do you realize how many men on this planet would drag themselves naked across broken glass to have a relationship with a woman like you do with Roxie? You know, purely sexual with no pressure to marry at all?"

"That may be, but it's almost not worth the manipulation and the lying and the drama..." Vince trailed off.

"But maybe you're the one person keeping her good," Charlie told him. "Or at least better. If she puts all her energy into a relationship with you, that gives her less time to think about doing other things. Like causing trouble. Who knows what she's gonna do now that you've moved out? This thing with Agnes is probably just the beginning. You are practically the only link she has to the small bit of humanity she has in her. Don't make her lose it because you feel like you need to prove a point!"

"I just want to be with her," Vince said. "We've been living together for years. What's wrong with being married then?"

"Because we're young," Tony told him. "Give her time. Give yourself time to have fun...have a life. You can do that and still be with her. Now, she's skipping French, and where does she usually hide out to avoid a scolding from Madam Laurent?" He looked questioningly at Charlie.

"She sneaks a cigarette in the girls' bathroom on the second floor, I believe," Charlie said. "Let's go so you can tell Roxie you don't want to be married yet."

Vince sighed. "Fine."

Charlie led them down to a little used bathroom on the second floor. They stood outside and just as Charlie put her hand on the door handle to open the door, they heard a loud boom! and the sound of rushing water.

"Oh, my god," Charlie whispered. She opened the door and the three of them coughed and gasped when smoke drifted into their eyes. They waded through ankle deep water until they reached a stall, each holding onto the door.

"Roxie?" Charlie called croakily. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"Nothing too bad," Roxie's blase voice drifted over them. "I thought it would be fun to drop a cherry bomb down the toilet because no one really uses this bathroom anyway. Cigarette, anyone?"

"No, thanks!" Charlie called. "We came because Vince has something he wants to say to you."

"Oh?" Roxie hopped off the toilet and strode through smoke that seemed to part as she came near them. "What is it? Are you moving back in? 'Cause if you are, then I can tell Agnes the deal is off."

"Let's go in the hall," Vince suggested. "The air is cleaner out there." They went out into the hallway and Roxie looked at Vince expectantly. "So what did you want to say?"

He sighed. "Just that...I don't want us to get married, at least not right now. I can wait, I suppose."

"He realizes that we're all young and you have all the time in the world to be married," Tony added.

"And yet you're not moving back in?" Roxie looked at Vince and crossed her arms.

"You and I, I think we moved a little fast and I want to go about being with you the right way," Vince told her. "I actually want us to date."

"Oh!" Roxie's eyes widened. "You mean like that sexy game where people go to bars and pretend they're total strangers and pick each other up?" She grinned. "I like."

"No, not exactly like that. I mean really date. Like regular people do."

"But why?" Roxie asked. "What's the point?"

Charlie grabbed hold of Roxie's arm. "It's time for us to go. We don't want Mr. Withers to find you in here, do we?"

"Wait," Roxie said. "I want to hear Vince's answer to my question."

Vince sighed. "I can't give you one. Not that you'd accept."

"Well that's a stupid answer," Roxie said. "You don't really want to wait at all, do you?" Her eyes narrowed. "What are you trying to do?"

Vince put his hands on Roxie's shoulders. "Don't you want our relationship to be about more than just sex?" He asked her. "Don't you want to...I don't know, share hobbies and experiences and stuff like that?"

Roxie nodded. "Yeah. And? We can do all that without being married, can't we?"

"This isn't about being married anymore," Vince reminded her. "Marriage is completely off the table for now. We were talking about dating, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Roxie nodded. "So what exactly would dating entail? Would we live together?"

Vince shook his head. "No."

"Would we have sex?"

Vince shook his head again. "I don't think we should."

Roxie rolled her eyes. "How is this supposed to benefit me?"

"At least we'll see each other a couple of times a week," Vince assured her. "It's not like I'm abandoning you completely."

Roxie nodded. "So I'll live in the apartment with Agnes and you stay at Tony and Charlie's and we'll see each other a couple of times a week for a date? Is that what's gonna happen?"

"Well, yeah," Vince said. "If it's all right with you of course. I wouldn't want to make you do something that you don't want to do."

"Well of course it's not all right, but if it's the only way I'll see you, I guess I have no choice but to agree," Roxie said. "Are you sure this is the only way to deal with us?"

Vince nodded and pushed a strand of hair out of Roxie's eyes. "Yeah," he said. "The only way I can see. And then when we're twenty, we'll stop dating and reevaluate. How's that?"

Roxie sighed. "Sure, why not? It's only two years...I guess."

Vince nodded and patted Roxie on the shoulder. "Exactly. It'll be all right. You'll make it."

Roxie glared. "Whatever."

Selina stood impatiently outside the door of Damon's house. She'd been knocking furiously for several minutes and he hadn't come to answer the door. Her arms were starting to ache. She shifted Sam again and he looked at her quizzically.

"Let me in, Damon!" She called. "I brought Sam and I have to take Lucy back now. You better not have taken her somewhere else like you did with Sam when I came for him!"

When there was no response, she put Sam down on the porch and took off her coat, setting it down on a deck chair and backing away from the door. "Watch this, Sammy," she said to Sam. "This is how Mommy deals with things when Daddy is being a troublemaker." She ran toward the door and just as she reached it, Damon opened it. She wasn't able to stop her momentum and it was the coffe table that finally brought her to a halt.

"Need ice for your head?" Damon asked her after picking up Sam from the deck and coming back in to look Selina over. "You should have just waited. I would have answered the door eventually. Lucy and I were playing hide and go seek in the backyard. Can you blame us for not hearing you?"

Selina glared at him and put her hand on the giant goose egg that was beginning to form. "You make it sound obvious now, but I bet you were planning on making a run for it."

"Why would I leave with Lucy but not Sam?" Damon asked her.

Selina took her hand off her forehead and shrugged. "I don't know. Can I have some ice?"

Lucy came over to her and kissed her forehead. "Mommy got a owie."

"Yes, she does," Damon said. "But Cookie Monster, that is her own fault for being an impatient person. She wants to take you away."

Lucy's lip began to tremble. "Me go bye-bye? No!" She ran away from Selina and firmly attached herself to Damon's right leg. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.

"It doesn't look like she wants to go," Damon said.

Selina collapsed on the floor. "I don't care anymore. Get me some ice, please. My head feels awful."

Damon brought her the ice and picked her up to place her on the sofa where she put the ice on her forehead and took a deep breath. "Fine," she said at last. "Could you bring Lucy to my apartment?" She asked. "After she's calmed down, I mean."

"Sure," Damon said immediately. "Of course."

Selina looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then grabbed her phone out of her purse and called Stefan. "Hey," she said to him. "Could you come over to Damon's and make sure that he brings Lucy back to my apartment and doesn't run off with her? Thanks!" She hung up the phone and gave him a grin, getting unsteadily to her feet. "I'll be on my way now," she said. "Goodbye. See you all in a bit."

"Who was that?" Klaus asked after Stefan hung up his phone.

"Selina," Stefan said. "She wants me to go over to Damon's and make sure he brings Lucy back to her. She must have spent the night at his house or something." He paused as Klaus tensed. "What's wrong with you?" He asked.

"It's wrong," Klaus said. "All of this. Lucy is my daughter, yet your brother gets to see more of her than I do! It's not fair."

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Stefan asked.

"Tell your brother to drop Lucy off at my house instead of Selina's apartment," Klaus said. "Then we can tell Selina that I want to be fatherly, and she can't get mad at me. It's a perfect plan."

"I don't know if we should do that," Stefan told him. "It seems like a step back to me, when you should really try to be taking steps forward. You don't actually want her to bring up divorcing you again, do you?"

"No," Klaus said balefully.

"Well, the way that will stay hidden is if you keep doing things that will make her appreciate you instead of making her think of you as unreliable. And going behind her back and taking Lucy is something that will make you unreliable, just to let you know," Stefan said. "How about I just ask if you can see Lucy?"

"Fine," Klaus rolled his eyes. "I guess that would work too."

Just as Selina belted herself into her car, her cell phone rang again. "Hello?" She asked. "Stefan? What's going on?" She paused. "Really? He does? That'll be fine if either you or Anna is there too. Uh-huh. Thanks for calling me. Bye."

She drove home, and decided to do some laundry. She got hers out of the hamper and saw that Elijah's white shirts were also in the hamper. She saw a pair of her new red panties on top of her laundry pile and an awful idea came into her mind. She grabbed Elijah's shirts and threw them, along with her red panties, into the washing machine, even though she knew that his shirts were supposed to be dry-cleaned. After the washer finished, she threw them in the dryer, and as she suspected, all of Elijah's shirts came out pink. Giggling, she folded them neatly and placed them on his side of the bed and hid his other shirts so that he'd have to wear one of the pink ones.

When the doorbell rang, she went to answer it and was surprised to find Alistair on the other side. "Hello," she said. "What brings you here?"

"Utter loneliness," he replied. "I mean, Astrid is visiting her sister and Helene is living with Adrian, so I'm by myself at home."

"Well, come in," Selina said, grinning. "Can I get you anything?"

"You seem cheerful for someone whose marriage is on the verge of imploding. Of course we both know where the cheer comes from," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Will you stop judging me?" Selina asked. "I have the right to be in a stable relationship, okay?"

"I agree," Alistair said, surprising her. "If all the time I spent telling Klaus how to have a relationship period is any indication, I don't think the two of you would have ever stabilized."

"Well, the only time we did was when I was nuts," Selina said. "And now I'm not. I've gotten better. I've started being a good mom and cooking and doing laundry."

"You do laundry now?" Alistair asked, looking surprised. "I mean, I'm sure I've seen you do it before, but...you just don't seem like the laundry doing type."

Happily, Selina led him to the bedroom. He saw Elijah's shirts on the bed, and the eyebrow rose again. "Why are all these shirts pink? And shrunk?"

"I threw them in with a pair of new red panties and I shouldn't have I guess," Selina said.

Alistair picked up one of the shirts and studied it. "Well, these are dry-clean only for starters," he said. "You aren't supposed to throw them in the washing machine at all, much less with a pair of red panties."

"Well, shoot," Selina said. "I didn't know that. Can you fix it? But make sure they're still pink, please?"

"Why?" Alistair asked her. "Selina, what's going on?"

"I got a bird and he killed it, so I'm taking revenge," Selina said. "The pink will look nice with the gum I spit in his hair. And you know he's not going to get the gum cut out right away, 'cause Elijah won't let just anyone cut his hair."

Alistair put up a hand. "Wait just a minute! He killed your bird, so you spat gum in his hair and are turning his shirts pink."

"Not all of them," Selina countered. "Just the white ones."

"Fine," Alistair sighed. "I'll make them fit normally, but I won't take the pink out."

"And make sure you put them back where Elijah will find them," Selina called as she headed out of the bedroom and waited for Elijah to come back.

When Elijah came back from visiting Elissavetta, who'd nagged him about avoiding her, he was pleased to see Selina standing by the door waiting for him. She was holding a glass of red wine out for him, but as he went to hug her, it spilled all over his shirt.

"Oh, damn, I'm so clumsy!" She said. She dabbed at it the best she could with cold water, but there was still the lingering hint of a stain.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "I can just go and change. It won't take me any time at all." She followed him to their bedroom. "Alistair stopped by," she said. "He told me Astrid is out of town and he's lonely at home by himself, so I told him he could stay with us for a little while. That's not a problem, is it?"

"No," Elijah shook his head. "Of course not." When he saw the shirts on the bed, he froze. "Are those my white shirts?" He asked her. "What happened to them?"

"I washed them," she said. "I shouldn't have done that, I know. But Alistair only told me that after I took them out of the dryer."

"But why are they pink?" Elijah asked, picking up the sleeve of the top shirt and examining it with dismay.

"I had a new pair of red panties in the same load," Selina said. "Apparently, I shouldn't have done that either. Alistair unshrunk them, but he couldn't make them white again. I'm sorry."

He glared at her. "No, you aren't!" he said. "You know you aren't supposed to put my dress shirts in the laundry, especially not with your red panties! Why are you doing this?"

"I don't know, bird killer!" Selina said. "You tell me!"

He growled. "Why are you still going on and on about that bird?" he asked. "We didn't have it for very long and it was probably full of germs! Lucy could have gotten sick!"

"She can't get sick!" Selina shot back. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"

Elijah's eyes narrowed and he picked her up and put her out in the hallway. "I have a shirt to change into," he said. "And you will not be watching me while I do it!"

"Well fine," Selina called back. "Don't think I care about missing out on an opportunity to stare at your naked chest, because I don't!" She blew a raspberry and he slammed the bedroom door closed.

"So Selina said I could have Lucy for a while?" Klaus asked once Stefan hung up his phone.

Stefan nodded. "Yep. She said it was okay as long as either Anna or I was there with you. She doesn't trust you much, does she?"

Klaus shook his head. "No. And I have no idea why."

"I have some ideas," Stefan said. "But we won't get into that now. First, we have to go over to Damon's and get Lucy. Let me handle this. You stay in the car."

"Why can't I come?" Klaus asked.

"Remember how you weren't going to do anything else to make Selina think you're untrustworthy? Starting a fight with my brother about Lucy will not help your case."

"Fine, I'll stay in the car," Klaus said.

When they arrived at Damon's house, Stefan got out of his car and headed up the front steps while Klaus stared morosely out the window.

"You didn't have to come, Stefan," Damon said. "I would have brought Lucy to Selina's. I really would have."

"Well, that's the thing," Stefan told him. Selina told me that Klaus could see her for a bit, so that's where she's going to go from here."

"To Klaus'?" Damon asked, holding Lucy to himself protectively. "I can't send her there!"

"Why not?" Stefan asked.

"I don't trust him!" Damon said. "He might hurt her!"

"He's her father," Stefan said. "And based on what I've seen go on between Lucy and Sam, Lucy's pretty tough. If she got hurt, she'd bounce back. Why are you so attached to her all of a sudden?"

"Don't look at me like I'm being creepy!" Damon said. "She loves me too!"

"You've completely lost your mind," Stefan said. "You have to let her go."

"Fine," Damon said. "You try taking her away. Just try."

Stefan got down on his knees so that Lucy, who was sitting on the floor, was closer to him. "Want to come home with me, sweetie?" He asked her. She looked at him curiously for a moment, then looked questioningly up at Damon.

"Tell her it's okay to go with me," Stefan said.

After awhile, Damon sighed and picked Lucy up. "Fine," he said. "But you better watch Klaus like a hawk. I don't want any funny business."

"Look, if Selina said this is okay, why are you so against it?" Stefan asked. "Why are you so attached to Lucy?"

"'Cause she reminds me of how Selina was when she was little, you know, back when she really liked me," Damon said. "I don't get a lot of that these days."

"What happened with Selina was unfortunate," Stefan agreed. "But you have to move on. It would do you some good. After I leave, you should call Wendy. Are the two of you still going out?"

Damon nodded. "Yeah."

Stefan clapped him on the shoulder. "Good, then you won't have to be alone."

"It's not the same," Damon said.

"Maybe not," Stefan replied. "But at least it's something." He picked up Lucy, who was shyly reaching up for him and after she and Damon told each other goodbye, they left the house.

After they were gone, Damon didn't call Wendy. Not yet. He left Sam with the neighbors, got in his car, drove to the movie theater and brought a ticket to a slasher flick called House of a Thousand Knives, and every time a person got killed, he killed someone in the audience, their screams blending in with those of the dying victims on the screen. When he'd had his fill, he left the theater, got in his car, and went to Wendy's after he was sure all the blood was washed off his mouth and that his clothes were clean.

"Well, isn't this special?" Klaus asked Lucy, who was eyeing him nervously. He looked at Stefan. "What should I do now?"

"Well, what did you do with Roxie?" Stefan asked. "Do you even remember?"

"Teddy!" Lucy said.

"I don't have your bear anymore," Klaus said. "Roxie took it."

"No teddy?" Lucy asked. She looked like she was about to cry.

Klaus took off his watch and dangled it in front of her. "See, this is better. It's shiny!"

Lucy shook her head and started to walk away. "I want teddy."

"Well that didn't go very well," Klaus grumbled.

Stefan rolled his eyes. "I'll go call Anna. Maybe she can help."

"This is just sad, Nick," Anna said when she arrived a few minutes later. "No wonder Selina's lost interest in you if you can't even entertain a little kid much less her."

"It's not that I can't," Klaus said. "Lucy wants the bear I gave her, and Roxie took it back because it was originally hers, so I don't have it anymore."

"Well then you have to distract her, don't you?" Anna said. "Make her forget all about the bear. Just let me push back our reservations and then we'll go find something for you and Lucy to do."

"Oh, you don't even need to do that," Stefan said. "It'll be more fun getting in if we're late. We'll get better food that way."

"You make a good point," Anna said. She and Stefan looked around for Lucy and found her wrapped in an old blue and red tapestry that she'd managed to pull off the wall. "Did you find a blanket?" Anna asked her. "Is it comfy?"

Lucy nodded. She'd tangled herself in it so that all they could see were her blue eyes and some whisps of blonde hair. Anna picked her up and carried her to the living room, sitting her down on Klaus' lap. "Where'd she go?" He asked. "What's this?"

Anna moved the blanket off Lucy's face and Lucy burst out giggling.

"There she is!" Klaus said. "There's my girl!" That seemed to break the ice between the two of them and then Anna put Beauty and the Beast on and after it ended, Stefan and Anna left Lucy and Klaus to their own devices, pulling out just as a blue Miata pulled into Klaus' driveway.

"Oh, boy," Stefan said. "There's Roxie. I'm glad we're going to miss this."

"Daddy? I have a problem!" Roxie stomped into Klaus' house and gasped when she saw Klaus and Lucy playing with stuffed animals in the living room. "What's going on here?" She demanded.

Klaus looked up. "Hello, Roxanne. Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

Roxie shrugged. "What for? If I miss a test, I can just compel the teacher to give me an 'A'. I mean, Mom would want better than that for me, but she's not here, is she?"

"What caused you to come barging in here when you're supposed to be at school?" Klaus asked.

"It's Vince," Roxie told him. "You have to do something about him! He says he wants to date me and that he won't sleep with me anymore!"

Klaus looked up. "Why would he say that?"

Roxie shrugged. "I don't know! Tony even said Vince should consider himself damn lucky that I allow sex without commitment."

"That's not necessarily true, is it?" Klaus asked her. "You do want commitment from him. If you didn't, I'd have a lot more to worry about. You love Vince, don't you?"

"Yeah," Roxie nodded. "Just like you love Mom. But they're screwing over both of us. Mom with Uncle Elijah, and I bet Vince will start sleeping with somebody else any day now!" She paused and looked at Lucy again. "Why are you so attached to her? She's small and boring."

"You were small and boring once too," Klaus said. "Those playgroups your mother insisted I take you to when you were little weren't exactly my cup of tea."

"Well I didn't like them either, so why did we do it?" Roxie asked.

"I don't know," Klaus said. "I guess I just wanted to bond with you and not let you out of my sight, so that I wouldn't make the mistake I made before."

"What mistake?" Roxie asked. "Did you have another daughter before me?"

"Yes and no," Klaus said. "See, back when your mother and I were first together, she had a little problem with an ex-boyfriend of hers and one night we went to sort it out...

"Why did you think you could get away with stringing me along like that?" Selina asked the man who was tied to the desk chair in the bathtub, clad only in a tiny pair of swimming trunks. She poured scalding water in his lap. He screamed.

"Answer me, Arthur!" She barked.

"I didn't mean for it to go this far," he said. "My wife and I were having our problems and I needed a break."

"Oh, all right, so I was just a toy for you to play with until your wife took you back. Is that it?" She shoved soap from the soap dish into his mouth. His eyes widened and he nodded, muttering pleas around the soap.

"I don't like to be used, Arthur. I don't." She put the drain down in the tub and went to grab a box of matches, lighting one and putting it against his cheek after she pulled the soap out of his mouth so she could listen to him scream.

"Keep lighting these and put them on your skin," she said. "I have to go get a knife." But just as she put her hand on the doorknob, the bathroom door opened. "What's all this noise in here?" Klaus asked. "What's going on?"

"Oh, this is Arthur," Selina said, pointing to the main in the bathtub. "He's an ex of mine who thought it would be fun to string me along even though he was married."

Klaus strode up to him and chortled, looking at his graying hair and the slight belly he had. "Really lowering your standards, aren't you?" He asked, turning back to Selina for a moment.

"He was a mistake," she nodded. "Jung would say I have an Electra complex. Problems with my daddy make me seek out men like him for relationships. But I believe I'm over that now."

"You made a big mistake, mate," Klaus said to Arthur. "I feel sorry for you."

"What's she going to do to me?" Arthur asked.

Klaus shrugged. "I don't know exactly. But I believe it's going to hurt. A lot." He kissed Selina. "Can I get you anything?"

"I was just about to go and get a knife, but now that you're here, could you get it for me?"

Klaus nodded. "Of course." He came back with the knife and Selina stabbed Arthur in several places until most of his blood had drained into the tub. With his dying breath, he said, "My daughter...my daughter..."

"Where is your daughter?" Selina demanded. "What does she matter?" But Arthur was dead. Klaus and Selina disposed of his body and then made use of his blood and the tub.

"What do you think Arthur meant about his daughter?" Selina asked when they were in bed that night. "Do you think maybe she's still alive? Maybe we should kill her so no one will be able to trace her father's killing back to us."

"It wouldn't hurt to be sure," Klaus nodded.

The next day, they went to Arthur's house. It was a mess. They heard sobbing and found a little light brown-haired girl of six in one of the bedrooms.

"Are you Arthur's daughter?" Klaus asked her. "What's your name?"

"Mary Anne," the girl said through tears. She was a pretty child with big brown eyes. "Where's my daddy?"

"Your daddy's dead," Selina said. "And soon you will be too. But it won't hurt much. I promise."

"Daddy's dead like Mommy?" Mary Anne asked. "Mommy got sick when I was a baby. She died. Daddy said she had the flu."

"Just a minute," Klaus said to her. He dragged Selina off to a corner and said, "Let's not kill her. Let's take her with us. What would it hurt, really? She's all alone."

Selina growled. "I came to Europe to have fun, Nicky. Not to play nursemaid and mother to a little orphan brat. Let's just kill her and get it over with. Since she's got no parents, she's as good as dead anyway."

"You killed her stepmother too?" He asked. "Where's her stepmother?"

"She had an unfortunate car crash," Selina said. "It's a shame, really."

"Well, I say we take Mary Anne with us. I don't care if you don't want to," Klaus said.

"Fine," Selina told him. "But you're responsible for her. I don't want any part of this nonsense and she better not cut into our alone time, or she'll see her mother, father and stepmother real quick."

Klaus eyed Selina coldly for a moment and then went back and took Mary Anne by the hand. "We're friends of your father's," he said. "Want to come and live with us?"

After a moment, she nodded shyly. "All right," she said. "Will you get sick and leave me?"

He shook his head and put a hand on her cheek. "No, sweetheart. I won't. And I can make it so you'll never be sick either."

Mary Anne's eyes widened. "Really?"

Klaus grinned, ruffled her hair and nodded. "Really. Let's go."

"So you 'adopted' a little girl when you and mom were first together and Mom hated her?" Roxie asked. "That's so weird to think about. What happened to her?"

Klaus shrugged. "I don't know. We were together until '29. That's when I turned her. Then, your mother disappeared, I left Europe to look for her, and eventually Mary Anne and I got separated. I lost track of her. I don't know where she is. But your mother made her life a living hell when we were together. She can do that sometimes, if someone makes her mad enough."

"How much longer are we going to let this go on?" Elijah asked. "Haven't we both had enough?"
"Let what go on?" Selina asked, bringing a knife down on a red apple and splitting it neatly in two.
"This back and forth between you and me," he said. "Actually, I haven't done anything since I rid this house of that bird."
"That in itself is the problem," Selina said. "You shouldn't have killed him. Look where it got you."
Elijah looked at himself in the mirror and gingerly fingered the section of his hair where a wad of Selina's gum had made itself at home. "I can't believe you spit gum in my hair."
Selina smirked. "It's not like you're committing a fashion faux pas though. The gum and your shirt are the same color."
"I don't understand how that happened either," Elijah said. "You're just lucky my shirts didn't shrink!"
"Actually they did," Selina said. "Alistair was nice enough to fix them for you, though."
"Why did you have to make Lucy hate me?" Elijah asked her. Lucy hadn't come near him since the bird died. "Was that really necessary?"
"You made her hate you," Selina said. "She was very upset to learn that Uncle Elijah killed her pet birdy."
Elijah shut his eyes. "If I tell you I'm sorry, will you just fix things, please?"
Selina cut the apple again and handed him half. "No, I'll fix it now. I suppose the possibility of Nicky seeing you in a pink shirt is punishment enough. I'll go get your others and then we'll cut your hair."

"Now are you sure you know what you're doing?" Elijah asked as he watched her handle a pair of shiny shears. "You've done this before?"
"Of course," Selina nodded. She went to his bathroom and got some of his hair supplies and put them on the kitchen table next to him.
"Shut your eyes if you're nervous," she said. "I want to do this."
He adjusted the table cloth she put over him, wiped off some water that was dripping down the side of his face from his wet hair and tried to relax. Even so, he started a bit when he heard the first snip. "Gum is gone," Selina said. "Now I just have to even it all out."
Eventually, Selina told him he could open his eyes again and handed him a mirror. He eyed himself and then stood up and let the table cloth drop. "That doesn't look so bad, actually," he said.
Selina rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't gush," she said. She ran her fingers through his dark hair. "I like it better this way. It's easier to touch." She put her arms around him and inhaled. "You smell really good..."

He put his hand under her chin and brought her face up. Then he kissed her, backing her up against the wall.
"Maybe I should have cut your hair in our bedroom," she whispered.
He picked her up and carried her to their bed. "Maybe you should have," he whispered back against her ear.

She looked up at him. "Just a minute," she said, sitting up. She went into their closet and shut the door.

"What are you doing?" Elijah asked her.

"You can't come in without knowing the password," Selina called back.

"It's the closet," Elijah said. "It doesn't have a password. Now why won't you let me in?"

"Because I'm not wearing anything!" Selina called back.

"That's not really a deterrent," he said. "Especially not right now." A few minutes later, she opened the door, just wearing a pair of red panties.

"These are the panties that wrecked your shirt," she said. "Do you hate them?"

He nodded. "I do. I should take them off of you and we should throw them away." He pulled her to him and kissed her, lowering her down to the floor, peering at her. He swirled his tongue around her belly button and put his hand against her panties, rubbing hard. She reached up and unbuttoned his shirt and tore it off him, kissing his abs and then he eased off her panties and unzipped his pants. He picked her up and got her on the bed before he entered her.

"I knew you wouldn't do me on the floor," she said.

He shook his head and kissed down her neck. "Of course not. That's barbaric." He backed out of her and pulled his pants and underwear off, so they were both naked and rolling around, giggling under the covers. Finally, they sat up and kissed each other on the lips several times before taking deep breaths and leaning against each other. Then, they heard a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" Selina called.

"It's Alistair!" He called back. "Should I wait a few minutes before I come in?"

"Yes!" Selina nodded. "Just a minute!" Selina and Elijah separated and got out of bed. Elijah put his pants back on and Selina put on a bathrobe. Alistair came in a few seconds later. "I only came in because I found out something you might want to know too. I got a call from Helene and she says that she and Adrian are married now."