A/N: I really feel the mojo for this story and I'm excited to be writing for it again. As usual I don't own anything. Hope you guys like it!
Aryn fell to her knees screaming and crying. The blood touched her skin and she would have fallen backward on the floor were it not for Damon being there to catch her. The woman was a woman she hadn't expected to see, someone she hadn't seen for years.
Shayna Talagari.
"D-Damon, it's...she-"
"I know, Aryn. We need to get her to the hospital now." Damon scooped up the woman, trying his damnedest to ignore the intoxicating scent of her blood and put her across the back seat. Aryn climbed in the back and mumbled something about keeping her company. Damon sped to the hospital as fast as his car would possibly allow and five minutes later he was carrying Shayna into the emergency room.
The nurses swarmed and got her on a stretcher immediately and wheeled her out of the waiting room. Damon and Aryn couldn't follow them but waited in a secluded alcove of the waiting room. Aryn had stopped crying and was now staring straight ahead at the wall. There was blood on her hands, shirt, shorts, legs, and feet. Damon couldn't help but think that she looked strangely beautiful in the most chaotic way.
It seemed like hours passed by before Damon saw Aryca walk by the alcove. She doubled back with an odd expression on her face that morphed into concern when she saw Aryn's state.
"What are you two doing here?" she asked. This seemed to shake Aryn from her thoughts and she looked at her sister as if she was seeing her for the first time in a long time. She reached out for her sister and hugged her tightly as tears began to fall from her eyes. She tried to explain what had happened but was unintelligible. Aryca looked at Damon for an explanation.
"Shayna Talagari showed up on your porch with a knife in her stomach. I don't know how she got there. I was just coming from checking around your house for anything dangerous when I got back. We heard a sound on the porch, like she might've fallen or been thrown and Aryn...Aryn opened the door." Damon explained.
Aryca paled and looked down at her sister. She pulled her away from her gently and looked her over as if checking for injuries. Damon dialed Klaus' number and he answered on the first ring.
"Klaus, get to Mystic Falls General now. Shayna-"
But Damon never finished his sentence. Klaus hung up and five minutes later was with them in the alcove. He looked troubled, much like he had the previous week when the note had been found. His eyes immediately went to Aryca and he grabbed her shoulders and looked her over.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Aryca shrugged before nodding. "I was just leaving work to go home when I saw Aryn and Damon here. They were the ones who found her."
Damon told the story to Klaus again as he'd told it to Aryca. It was followed by silence before Aryn spoke. "I thought you said you'd been protecting her, Klaus." It was the thing that had been on everyone's minds. If Klaus had apparently been protecting Shayna, how had she gotten stabbed? And by whom?
Klaus sat down and stared somewhere off into space. "I was. I admit that I thought this would have happened sooner. I haven't been in contact with Shayna in months. Truth be told, I assumed she was already dead."
Aryca gasped and looked at Klaus incredulously. "What? You lied to us? Lied to me?" Aryca actually looked hurt and felt tears rising to her eyes. "You knew I came here in search of her. You knew that! Why didn't you just tell me last week that she might be dead?"
Klaus turned his gaze on Aryca with an odd expression on his face. "Well, I'd thought I might, until it was revealed that you'd been following me in search of her. You lied to me. As I see it now, you and I are even." His voice sounded slightly hollow and emotionless.
Aryca was too angry and hurt to speak. For the past week, she and Klaus had been seeing each other, more or less. They'd gone out almost every night that she was off work and he'd always picked her up from work, all in an effort to ensure her safety. She knew she'd been wrong for not just being upfront with Klaus when they first met about wanting to know her mother's whereabouts but the fact that Klaus had watched her and Aryn scramble and search all the while knowing that she might be dead hurt her.
It occurred to her then that maybe Klaus was hurt a bit too. Sure, he was a thousand years old, but it occurred to her that maybe he was used to double crossing people and not always the other way around. She swallowed hard as she tried to resolve the way she felt, but in the end she realized she just felt ridiculously sad.
"Aryca, I don't think your home is safe. Whoever did that to your mother obviously is the one that left the note." Damon said, breaking the silence that settled over the waiting room.
"We're not leaving just because of some psycho-" Aryn began, but was cut off by Aryca.
"Damon's right. Whoever did this is trying to send a message. I don't want you in the middle of any of this, Aryn. I'm going to find a way to-"
"I'm NOT a child, Aryca! I can defend myself too!" Aryn piped up indignantly. She was tired of her sister trying to do everything by herself, constantly keeping things to herself and alienating her in the process. "You hid the fact that you knew Klaus from me. You lied about why we moved here. You lied to Klaus. We've always shared everything with each other! How could you decide to break that now?"
It wasn't even about Shayna anymore and Aryca, Damon, and Klaus knew it. Aryn had been holding in a lot in an effort to seem strong to everyone else.
Aryca's face turned stony. "I've never hid anything from you that you didn't need to know. Everything I have ever done has been to protect you, before Mom ever even left us. So, don't ever try to lecture me about what I didn't tell you. Stop being so dramatic."
Aryn looked taken aback by the tone Aryca had been using with her. If she was hurt by anything she'd said, she didn't show it. Instead, she turned away from her sister and stood as a doctor came into their little space. Everyone else followed suit.
"You're the one who brought in the woman with the stab wound?" the doctor asked.
Damon nodded at the same time that Aryn said, "Shayna. Her name is Shayna."
The doctor nodded before speaking again. "There was a lot of internal bleeding. We did what we could, but the bleeding just continued. At best, she has a couple of hours. If there's anything you'd like to say to her, I suggest you do it now. I'm very, very sorry to have to be the one to tell you this." He said all of this before giving them the room number and left.
Aryn and Aryca both got up at the same time and left to go to Shayna's room without so much as a word to anyone else. Damon and Klaus mutually and silently decided that this was something they would have to sit out. Damon took out his phone and texted him that there was a strong possibility that Aryn would be coming back with him to stay if not just the night then possibly for a few days.
Meanwhile, Aryn and Aryca went to Shayna's room at the back of the emergency area where all the emergency rooms were. She had a tube in her nose and an IV in her arms. Her normally hazel eyes were hidden behind her pale and sunken eyelids. Her long brown hair was dull and spread all around the pillow. Her olive skin was pale and slightly yellowish. Her eyes cracked open as they came in and a small smile graced her lips.
"My babies," she rasped. "I missed you so much."
Aryn felt tears immediately sting her eyes. She'd always imagined that the next time she saw her mother, she would yell at her about how she never should have left them and they wouldn't speak for a few months but they would eventually. However, seeing her mother like this, she couldn't even summon any anger.
"We missed you too, Mommy."
She felt like she was a small child again, except none of it felt right. She remembered being very young and thinking that her mother was invincible, that her mother could do anything, that she was the most powerful woman in the whole universe. She worshipped her. So, when she'd left, it had been Aryn who took it harder than Aryca.
Aryca and Aryn took hold of their mother's hands and held them tightly, standing on either side of the bed. Silent tears leaked out of Shayna's eyes before she began to talk again. "I never wanted to leave you behind. I never wanted to leave my babies behind. But, it was all I could do to protect you. You both have to know that all I ever wanted was to protect you. I'm so, so sorry."
These words seemed to drain Shayna from speaking for a bit. Her daughters squeezed her hands tightly and Aryca spoke next. "It hurt. It really hurt when you left us. But, we've been getting along okay. We're okay now. We're going to be okay."
Shayna closed her eyes tightly as more tears leaked out of her eyes. "I would have come back sooner, but I could never get them off of my trail. They always came after me. But, I got tired of running. I had to come back to my babies."
"Who?" Aryn asked, her voice cracking as she cried silently.
"The hunter. I was close...so close, but he caught up to me just as I came into town." Shayna rasped.
Aryca's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "Who, Mom? Who did this to you?"
Shayna didn't answer. Instead she said, "Aryn and Aryca, you two were my whole universe. I love you so very much. You have to know that. I cannot leave this world without you knowing that. I thought leaving you would be the best way to protect you, but I was wrong. All it did was bring you more trouble."
Aryn and Aryca both let out more tears before bending to hug Shayna as tightly as they could without hurting her. "We forgive you, Mom. And we love you."
They pulled away before Aryca asked again, "Who did this to you?"
"It was your father. It was Isaac. He's alive, Aryca. He's alive and he's coming." Just then, Shayna began shaking and gasping for air. The monitors began to beep violently. Nurses rushed in and pulled a screaming Aryn away from her mother. She sobbed as she saw her mother fighting for life, the mother she'd wanted so badly to hate, but now found she never could.
Aryca backed away, her nurse instincts kicking in. She backed away and tried to stay as calm as possible but the tears were falling rapidly from her eyes. She took hold of her sister who was screaming, "Mommy! Mom, don't leave me! Please!" It broke her heart to hear her sister this way.
She took her out into the hall and cried as she hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry, Aryn. I'm so sorry." They held each other together and hurt and sorrow threatened to tear them apart.
Aryca caught sight of Damon near the end of the hall and silently pleaded with him. He rushed to Aryn's side and picked her up. She sobbed into his neck and he held her tighter as he carried her down the hall and out of the hospital. Klaus replaced him in the hallway and saw the tears on Aryca's face. Just like Damon, he ran to her and embraced her tightly as she cried into his sweater.
A/N: What did you guys think?
