There were any number of things she could - and probably should - have been saying to her daughter just then, Rebecca knew. They did need to discuss Laura having unexpectedly become the Chair of the Silas Board of Governors, not to mention her brief - and it had damn well better have stopped, by now - mergence with Lophiiformes. She also knew it was extremely unlikely that Laura hadn't figured out what Lilith had meant, when the former dean of students had picked up on her vampirism. She wasn't doing any of that, though, for one simple reason:

Her arms were currently full of a sobbing Lola Perry.

It would have taken someone far more heartless than she was to just toss the girl aside and go about her business. She would admit to being somewhat out of practice in dealing with crying girls, though, and found herself wishing LaFontaine would just show up already so she could hand Perry off to someone far better equipped to deal with her. They were likely the one Perry wanted comforting her, in any event.

Laura, thankfully, had shut off her camera once Lilith had been banished, so the entire campus wasn't being treated to Perry's emotional breakdown. "I'm sorry," the girl was sobbing out. "I'm so sorry... I tried to stop her, I swear I tried..."

"Perry, it's okay," Laura said, starting to try and get out of bed. Rebecca wasn't having that, though, and pinned her in place with a glare, pointing a finger at the bed in a clear 'Stay put!' gesture. Laura rolled her eyes, and Rebecca could all but see her thinking 'I am not an invalid,' but she nevertheless obediently settled back down in bed. She kept talking, however, her voice still ragged and torn from the damage Lilith had done to her throat. Why that wasn't healing as fast as everything else, Rebecca didn't know, but she wished Laura would give her throat a rest so that it might get started. In this instance, though, she knew better than to expect it... and couldn't really blame her. "None of this was your fault," Laura croaked out. "I promise, no one blames you for anything she did."

"Those poor kids," Perry sniffed, and if Rebecca cared about such things, she'd probably be hoping the hospital bought the lab coats she kept ruining in bulk, because between her own blood and now this, she might just end up burning this one, or something. "I couldn't... I don't even remember..."

"I know." Laura looked sympathetic and physically pained. Had there been any doubt where her thoughts were, her next words would have removed it. "Perry, I know. But you beat her."

"I couldn't..."

"No," Rebecca interjected, because this had gone on long enough. Even if she hadn't cared about what had been done to Perry... Her healing bullet wounds were itching like crazy, her daughter was hurt and just kept straining her voice further, and Lilith achieving any kind of victory by traumatizing this young woman was unacceptable. "She's right, Miss Perry. Lilith had been using magic specifically designed to anchor her in your body and give her control, and you still managed a number of times to fight her down. What little I know about magic says that shouldn't have even been possible. And once those spells were removed, she was still strong and relatively unhampered, while you were exhausted and worn down, yet you immediately managed to cast her out, rather than resting and recovering your strength first." She made sure to meet the young woman's eyes as she stated, quietly but firmly, with tacit approval, "Well done, Miss Perry."

It might have been her accent - Laura had said more than once, growing up, that sometimes things just sounded more convincing when coming from someone British - or that it was coming from such an unlikely source, but she could see that her words were starting to sink in. Perry would still need time - and possibly therapy, presuming student psych services wasn't being overwhelmed by dealing with Vordenberg's former captives - to fully deal with things, though, so Rebecca was glad when LaFontaine chose that moment to finally arrive, a mostly recovered JP following somewhat more sedately. (He'd likely heard enough to know there was no need to rush, anymore.) "Perry!" Clearly, JP had also explained enough about what had happened for them to know their best friend was herself again.

"Sus- I-I mean, I..." She shook her head violently, then let go of Rebecca and transferred her tearful embrace to LaFontaine, who naturally returned it with far more personal warmth. They didn't seem to notice or care about Perry's slight verbal slip. "I'm sorry, I swear, I didn't know..."

"We know, Perr," they assured her. "Just like we all know you just kicked the dean's butt."

"Still, I'm sorr-"

"Ah! No," they interrupted, pulling back just far enough to give her a mock chiding look, eyes glittering as they added, "That was hardcore. We do not apologize for the hardcore, remember?"

Perry stared at her for a long moment, blinking, then burst into laughter. "Oh, you nutbar!" she exclaimed as she threw herself into another tight hug. She was still crying - probably even more, now, sobs mingling with her laughter - but the emotional release had at least gotten her to move past the quagmire of horror and misery she'd been stuck in.

Rebecca politely pretended that she couldn't hear the ensuing quiet conversation - it was too personal to feel comfortable acknowledging - only breaking off her study of the utterly fascinating pattern of the curtains on the room's one window when LaFontaine began leading Perry down the hall with the promise of hot chocolate and something to clean. "Mister Armitage," she began softly. He paused and looked back at her, while the other two kept walking. "If you see Miss Karnstein and her sister, please let them know that matters have been taken care of, and that..." She paused, looked briefly behind her, then sighed and continued, "...my daughter and I have a lot to talk about. Privately."

"Very well," he said, just as softly. Then, after a brief pause of his own, added, even more quietly, "Good luck." So saying, he walked off to go track down Carmilla. Rebecca shot a mild glare at his back, but couldn't work up any real energy for it.

She was pretty sure she'd need all the luck she could get.

She closed the door, lingering there for a moment as she tried to work out how she wanted this conversation to go. Laura would have questions - Laura always had questions - but she needed to keep her daughter on track, or they'd be there all day, discussing painful tangent after painful tangent. She turned back to see Laura had gotten out her phone and was poking at the screen. Texting someone, she presumed. "What are you doing?"

"Getting someone official to certify our old dorm as safe for habitation," Laura replied as she sent off the text. "I think Perry could use a bit of space from anything vampire-related, for a while." That was probably true - and no less than she'd expect her daughter to be thinking about. "And speaking of vampire-related matters..."

Diving straight into the conversation was also no less than she'd expect from Laura, she mused with a flicker of well-hidden amusement. "It isn't a matter I enjoy dwelling on," she said simply, expression as neutral as she could make it - and she was very good at remaining expressionless, when she had to. Controlling her reactions and emotions had been one of the earliest lessons in her life.

If she'd ever planned to have children, she would have arranged things as best she could beforehand to spare them from needing to learn how to do that, if possible.

"I'm sure it isn't, and I am sorry for making you, but... I can't just let this go."

"No," she agreed. "You never could." As evidenced by all the trouble she'd been getting in at Silas.

"So... I mean... When? Who? What happened?"

She sighed. She would have happily put this off until at least after Laura's voice stopped sounding so rough - though it was at least a tiny bit better than when she'd been speaking to Lilith, so the Charter's power must have been doing something for her, despite whatever inclusions Lilith had made to allow her to curbstomp the Chair - but maybe if she explained, Laura would stop talking for a while. Besides, the conversation was already long overdue, and waiting further would only make things worse. "It was a little over seven years ago," she began. "Without bogging the story down with needless, unimportant details, the Corvae Corporation had come into conflict with several small subsidiaries of Jarman Enterprises a number of times by then, usually failing to come out on top. The type of work I engage in is a small, highly incestuous business. As such, Telsey and I had crossed paths on more than one occasion. He was competent enough, I suppose, within his limits, but he had a bad habit of confronting his enemies, instead of just doing the job and leaving. He'd also clearly taken his employer's tendency to treat everything like a chess game to heart." She paused, considering, then added, "To put it in terms you'd better understand, his pattern indicated two-dimensional thinking."

As expected, Laura instantly grasped the implications of that statement. "He must not have gotten in your way often, then, given that he was still breathing when Corvae showed up here. Did he ever come out on top in your dealings with him?"

"I'm sure he thought so," Rebecca said with an elegant shrug. "Provided he didn't interfere with my actual mission, I didn't really care what he was doing. The reverse didn't seem to be true, however, because, as I said, a little over seven years ago, he - or someone at Corvae - decided I had to go, so he set about devising a trap, using a piece of information he must have been saving for just such an occasion, bait he knew I'd never be able to resist."

"What?"

She sighed. "You."

Laura blinked.

"I don't know how he found out about you. A seer Corvae had on staff, maybe. We hadn't had much experience with the supernatural at that point, so I didn't know the supposed hitman he'd sent after you was actually a vampire. Suffice to say, I found out exactly how effective conventional firearms weren't against vampires, and... died." She grimaced. "But I hadn't exactly gone down without a fight, and he - the vampire, I mean - evidently decided he had uses for someone with my skills. So he raised me, and trained me in what I needed to know as a vampire. I played along until I could devise a method of killing him permanently."

"The whole sniper rifle thing?"

"Precisely. But... I was dangerous. Too dangerous to be allowed near you. It takes time, after a vampire is raised, for them to learn how to deal with the vastly heightened sensory input, to compensate for the ridiculous increase in strength and speed, and... to manage to tame the bloodlust. His training had only covered certain things, to better keep me dependent upon him until he could find a better means of controlling me."

"You wouldn't have hurt me," Laura stated immediately, her childlike, absolute faith in that fact warming Rebecca's heart.

It was a shame she had to crush it. "I wouldn't have wanted to," she corrected. "But I wasn't about to take any chances on that score, and neither was your father. That's why he took out the restraining order against me, and why I never fought it. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but we'd just been given a rude awakening to how dangerous the supernatural world was, and had a lot of work to do to learn and adapt to that. There are entire divisions and companies within Jarman Enterprises that you don't know anything about, devoted solely to the occult and the supernatural - likely where anything he kept from Corvae wound up." Her lips quirked briefly into a small smile. "The money you're making off of those parts of the business is in an entirely separate bank account. I can give you the details of it later."

"Oh, good, because I didn't have nearly enough money already," Laura muttered, rolling her eyes. Rebecca fought down another smile - while Laura had never been unhappy with being able to buy anything she might want, she'd never relished it, either. She might not care overmuch for Patrick most days, but she had to admit, he had done a good job of raising Laura, especially when she hadn't been around to help. "No wonder you were so unhappy finding my bite marks, though."

She grimaced. "Quite." One of her biggest fears, especially immediately after her transformation, was that she might lose control and hurt her daughter, a thought she simply couldn't bear. To learn that not only was another vampire hurting her little girl, but that Laura was actively inviting it... She couldn't help but wonder if, had she told Laura sooner, maybe that wouldn't have happened. Certainly, she would have done a great deal of research into Silas University, and forbidden Laura from going anywhere near it. Though if she hadn't, people would have just kept dying, Lilith would have continued abusing her 'children', and had the dean actually managed to kill Lophiiformes and open the gates...

She'd missed so much of Laura's childhood, it could sometimes be hard to admit that she'd grown up. Yet, for all her childlike enthusiasm, she was unmistakably a young woman, now. She made her own choices, her own mistakes. And when that happened, she did everything she could to fix those mistakes. "Look at you," she murmured fondly, shaking her head. "All grown up."

Laura smiled and looked down, embarrassed. "Not sure I'd go that far..."

"Oh, no, miss Board Chair?"

"Except I didn't really plan things out past that step," she admitted... then fidgeted a bit and began trying to get out of bed, again.

Rebecca fought down a surge of fond exasperation. If there were anything she would change about her daughter, it was her inability to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time when not digesting some form of pop culture. She could sit and watch an episode of one of her favorite shows just fine, but the second it was over, she would be up, doing something. (Rebecca hadn't really admitted it to herself, but while she'd been motivated to bring Laura's previous hospital stay to as swift of a conclusion as she could safely risk doing to get her away from any plans to use her as bait - or worse - she'd also known exactly how torturous such enforced inactivity would be for her daughter.) "Laura, stay put," she insisted. "You're still recovering."

"The withdrawl's mostly done with by this point, anyway," Laura disagreed. "It's not like I'm confined to bed." She tried to rise... only to have her arm give way. "The choking and the whole banishment thing didn't help, sure," she admitted, muttering. "I just wanted to get-"

Rebecca had moved off to the side to retrieve a bottle of water, returning to her bedside before Laura was even finished speaking.

"-some water," she finished, torn between bemusement and mild consternation. "You know I'm not confined to bed, right?" she repeated.

"I imagine you would be, had any of the hospital's doctors been present for what just occurred," Rebecca countered, handing over the water bottle.

Laura took it... then froze, expression startled. Before Rebecca could do more than to start wondering about that, Laura was pulling her lab coat open. "You've been shot!" she exclaimed, alarmed.

Oh, goddammit... This was really the last thing she needed. "It's nothing," Rebecca said flatly, tugging the coat out of her hands.

"It's not nothing! You have about a dozen holes in you! What happened?"

"Lilith had Telsey and a few of his men acting as a diversion." It went without saying that it was the last thing any of them ever did. "I'm already mostly healed. Now lay back down; you're still recovering."

Laura, naturally, did no such thing. "Do you need blood?" she asked, having no idea tasting her daughter's blood was the stuff of nightmares for Rebecca. "I can-"

"Absolutely not!" Laura started at the vehemence in her voice, water bottle rolling off the bed to fall to the floor. Without thinking about it, Rebecca bent down to retrieve it.

Laura had never been one to stay cowed for long, especially where family was concerned. She took advantage of the movement to lean over from her bed, tugging again at the coat. "Let me see how bad it is!"

That movement, the probing touch, was simply too much. Rebecca had to let go of the bottle before she crushed it, swiftly standing back up and (gently) intercepting the extended wrist. "Laura, for once in your life, worry about yourself!" Laura jerked in surprise, leaning back against her pillow, eyes wide. "God, you always-!" Rebecca shook her head. She was still holding Laura's wrist, while her other hand was gripping the bedrail... which was beginning to deform out of shape. "It never fails with you, does it? No matter what's going wrong, no matter how bad things get, you're always worrying about someone else! Your roommate, your friends, your girlfriend... You didn't even care that you could have permanently harmed yourself just to get to the crater a bit faster when you didn't even know that there was any way of saving Belmonde, did you? No, of course you didn't. Because that was something that might happen to you, so it didn't matter, right? I'd be willing to bet that even over Christmas break, you were mainly worried about that witch eating your friends, not you. And letting the damned fish take over your body, just to-!" The bedrail under her hand emitted a tortured squeal as it was bent completely out of shape... while Laura's skin wasn't even slightly red where she was holding her. "Dammit, Laura, I..." She shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat and willing herself not to shed any tears. "How do you think it makes those of us who care about you feel, watching you treat your own life so cheaply?" she asked softly.

Laura couldn't seem to come up with an answer, merely watching her with that same wide-eyed look. She knew - not just suspected, but knew - that her daughter was still worried about her, but after her outburst, didn't know how to go about saying so. While that was a nice change of pace from their usual interactions, it was also immensely frustrating... and tiring.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Laura was in the hospital (again). She'd proven that she was clearly not ready to get out of her bed. That was no real surprise, given that she'd gone from being injured and on crutches to drinking an even bigger overdose of Vordenberg's so-called 'elixir', which could have killed her in and of itself, then had run - on her injured ankle, no less - down to the Lustig crater, where she'd performed some kind of ceremony and merged with the fish god, let it use her as a vessel to save itself and take what little power Belmonde had stolen back, after which she'd gotten into a fight. Then she'd very nearly been choked to death - her voice was still somewhat strangled-sounding - and tired herself out further banishing the former dean of students.

And she was worried about Rebecca?

"I'm... I'm not... more important than..." Laura began stammering out.

"You are to me!" She sagged, feeling utterly worn down. Too much activity on too little sleep was starting to catch up to her, to say nothing of being injured and healing. "I've done so many things that..." She couldn't even finish that sentence, not wanting to see the revulsion any examples she might name of her past misdeeds would doubtlessly elicit. Locking eyes with her daughter - and still refusing to allow herself to cry - she said, quietly but with a level of feeling she usually kept suppressed, "I've taken a lot away from this world. You are the one good thing I've ever brought into it. Please, just... think first. I don't want to... I can't..." She didn't care if she felt a drop of water hit her arm, she was not crying.

Laura just stared at her for a long, long moment, taking all that in. Then she was tugging at Rebecca again, but this time trying to pull her closer. She was too worn down herself to fight too hard as Laura pulled her toward the bed, and into a hug. Not that she was sure she would have, in any event; it had been years since she'd been able - since she'd been allowed - to hug her daughter. Oh, God, had she missed this. She'd almost forgotten what it was like, the simple contact that she had loved, that had once been so normal, before she'd begun reforging herself into the weapon she'd needed to be. The world was too dangerous to keep Laura safe any other way than giving her up, no matter how much it had torn out her heart to do so.

(She'd more than once caught herself wishing she'd been informed of what was happening at Silas sooner, while the former dean had been in her own body, so she wouldn't have needed to restrain herself while expressing her feelings regarding the other woman's "mothering" abilities.)

Laura didn't know any of that - Rebecca had made certain she wouldn't, over the years - but she still gave a quiet, warm laugh as she rested her chin on her mother's shoulder, hugging her as tightly as her tired body could manage. "I love you, too, Mom," she said softly.

Now Rebecca was crying.

"There's nothing wrong."

As if actively seeking to prove him wrong, the quiet sobbing went on behind the door JP was standing in front of. The nurse probably couldn't hear it, if she was as human as she looked, but that only meant that he needed to actually explain why he was standing there, blocking access to Laura's room. "Everything's fine," he insisted. "Ms. Hollis is just relieved that her daughter is safe. I believe they're getting caught up, right now."

It had - gradually - become known who Rebecca actually was. The hospital staff hadn't drawn any attention to her presence before, not wanting to impede her efforts against Vordenberg (even if they didn't know precisely what those were). Now knowing why she'd actually been quietly taking over Laura's care, they were even more inclined to stay out of her way - especially those who'd been watching the recent live broadcast from within that very hospital room. Giving JP an instruction to call in case anything was wrong, the nurse headed back down the hall in the direction she'd come from. He managed not to sigh in relief until she was gone.

He supposed it could be worse. He hadn't actually managed to find Carmilla before he'd been forced to take up guard duty to prevent someone from walking in and interrupting Laura and her mother, and wasn't looking forward to the conversation when she showed up. He'd done his best not to listen in, but vampiric hearing was vampiric hearing, and his training as a records clerk - specifically the part about not ignoring any details, in case they wound up being relevant in his research - was actually working against him here. Both Laura and her mother, he was certain, needed this conversation.

He envied Laura, in a way. Having been trapped in the Library catalogue since 1874, his own parents - as well as the rest of his family, and everyone he'd known and loved - were long since dead and gone. He might well have descendants, but even if he did, he could hardly go up to them and introduce himself, especially now that he didn't even look like he'd used to. It didn't bother him too much, most days, since he'd had over 140 years to adjust to the idea - before the catalogue had been digitized, he hadn't had much else but his thoughts to keep him company, with only the books to try and stay sane. (He still couldn't quite explain how he'd been able to read the books as a disembodied consciousness, being forced to just chalk that up as another "freaky Library thing", as LaF had once put it.) Knowing that Rebecca genuinely loved her daughter, even if she wasn't good at showing it, he wouldn't dream of standing in the way of their reconciliation, and wasn't about to let anyone else do so, either.

As such, when he spotted a brunette he didn't recognize making her way down the corridor, heading straight for Laura's room, he moved forward to intercept her before she got too close, stepping to the side when she tried to go around him.

She stopped, though she didn't look happy... or annoyed, or much of anything, now that he thought about it. "Please get out of my way," she said simply.

Well, at least she was being polite. Good manners, he'd noticed, were something of a lost art in this age. "May I ask where you're going?"

"I'm looking for Laura Hollis."

Not a surprise, given her determined stride before. Still, he might not know everyone's name, but he had gotten a good look at the pictures of most of the student body while he'd been in the computer (not every profile had come with a photo, but those that hadn't were either vampires or a species that didn't photograph well), and this girl wasn't among them. "I'm sorry, Miss...?"

"My name is June."

That did sound familiar, for some reason. "I'm sorry, June, but Miss Hollis is not to be disturbed right now."

That didn't seem to sit well with her, for some reason. "I have to get to Laura," she insisted, sounding slightly agitated, the first emotion he'd yet heard in her voice. "I have orders."

That didn't sound promising. "From whom?" he asked, still trying to figure out where he'd heard the name June around Silas before.

"Patrick Jarman."

That was it, he realized. Laura had mentioned a June once or twice as someone she'd known back home. "You're that June? Laura's... what? Friend, chaperone, bodyguard...?"

She considered the options he'd listed, then replied, "Yes."

"Yes to which? Friend, bodyguard, or chaperone?"

"Yes."

"And where were you when her life was actually in danger?" he asked, allowing himself to be somewhat miffed on Laura's behalf.

What might have been annoyance flickered briefly across her face. "I was not given permission to come to Silas until now, Mister Armitage." And she clearly didn't like that. That she knew who he was wasn't a huge surprise, given how wide-spread the audience for Laura's videos seemed to be.

"So why now?"

"Laura has become too widely known, and too much of a target. She has also been engaging in increasingly reckless and seemingly suicidal behavior. Add to that her recent elevation to Board Chair, and her father decided there was no choice but to send me, regardless of her wish to remain low profile and incognito." She cocked her head to the side. "I am also to begin preliminary negotiations for the funding of Silas University, given that we have since bought out the Corvae Corporation."

That sounded like an odd job for a bodyguard to be doing, but if she was someone Laura knew and trusted, he supposed it made sense to have this June at least broach the subject with her before actual negotiations could begin, to see how open she would be to them, if nothing else. Still, he had to ask, "Preliminary?"

"Her father will be coming here. Soon."

Author's Note: Just as Summer Storm guest star Mary Ringwold has an actress 'cast' to play her in Silas Confidential, June does, as well: Madison Davenport. ^_^