Disclaimer – The characters aren't mine, but perplexed Godric is all me.

Part 25 – Reflection

Godric's POV

The four of us stood in stunned silence after Adrienne's outburst. No one said anything because none of us knew what to say, or what to think; it wasn't even clear what had precipitated her outburst. Hugo broke the silence.

"I don't think she was going to attack me," he said in a small voice.

Stan snorted and left the room, while Isabel focused her concerned gaze on Hugo. Most humans would not be able to detect her apprehension, because her face betrayed no emotion, but as a vampire I could feel it radiating from her body.

"She was staring at you," Isabel reminded Hugo.

"Yes, but there wasn't any hunger in her eyes," Hugo reasoned. "Her gaze was more calculating."

"That's so much better."

"It is actually," Hugo defended his assessment of the situation. "I've had people look at me like that before in job interviews and meetings with high level clients; it's shrewdness, as if by simply looking at you they can discover your hidden secrets."

I focused my attention away from their argument, seating myself behind my desk once more. Choosing a corner, I stared, until my mind began to wander, and I started to analyse the room's furnishings. Straight lines, black on grey on charcoal on silver on white; there was no colour or anything extraordinary in the room. There was nothing to hold my focus. Gone were the days when I could sit and stare at a chair leg and be enthralled for hours by the intricate workmanship and the imperfections that creatures, other than vampires, couldn't perceive. Now the most interesting feature I could locate in the room was a fingerprint left on a chrome surface. The room had changed since Adrienne had left it; there was no longer anything to interest me.

Deciding that I would go find her, I rose from the desk only to discover that I was alone in the office. Isabel and Hugo were long gone; it was less than an hour until dawn and Adrienne would already be dead for the day. My sense of time was slipping.

-----

Adrienne didn't emerge from her room for two whole nights and during that time Isabel became increasingly uneasy. On the third night she left her room, but only long enough to go to the kitchen and heat up some TruBlood. After another week had passed Isabel to speak with her, only to emerge from Adrienne's room looking extremely troubled.

"Does the situation require mediation?" I asked. The question was detached, but I was extremely curious to know what had passed between the two; especially since they had been preparing to attack each other last they were in the same room.

"No," Isabel answered in a quiet voice. "She told me the circumstances of her turning."

I waited, expectantly, for Isabel to elaborate.

"She wasn't turned willingly, not really."

-----

Another week passed and Adrienne still only quit the sanctuary of her room to heat TruBloods. I was missing her company; a feeling that was wholly foreign to me. It had been a long time since I had desired company and even longer since I had sought it out, but that was what I was doing. Pausing for a moment to note the damaged door to her room, it did indeed require replacement, I knocked on her door.

"Come in."

I stepped into the room carefully closing the door behind me and was instantly struck by how different this room was from the rest of the nest. Instead of the stark white walls of the rest of the house the walls, one had been painted with a shimmering silver forest. The detail in the trees was mesmerising and could only be the work of a talented vampire artist. I could make out every detail of the trees from the veins of the leaves, to the texture of the bark and the ants and other insects on the forest floor. There were also three paintings on one of the walls. They were done in a vivid red; the blood splatter patterns expertly captured. The red of the paintings was the only colour in the whole house, and I instantly recognised them as the paintings that Stan had been describing at a recent gathering at the nest.

"Did you paint these?" I asked Adrienne, still mesmerised by the paintings. They were transporting me back to my violent past.

"No, they were a gift from a friend. Apparently they are of blood splatters from punctured arteries, but I've never seen an artery spurting blood so I can't confirm it. I think of them as abstract."

"They are perfect," I murmur in response after a while, still examining the paintings.

"Creepy."

"What is creepy?" I ask Adrienne, my curiosity piqued by her intonation.

"You," she answered simply. "You were staring at those paintings for almost three hours straight!"

"I apologise, I find that I lose track of time more and more these days."

"Everyone zones out, I guess," Adrienne replied with a shrug after taking a moment to absorb my words.

"It is more than zoning out, I am afraid, it is happening more and more frequently as the centuries pass."

Adrienne does not reply, although I can verily see her mind racing to formulate an appropriate response to my words.

"I forget how young you are," I tell her to distract her from my words.

"So do I," she replied with a smile, distracted for the moment from my sombre musings. "I'm so used to thinking of myself as an adult; it's still weird to think that I could live for centuries."

How I had managed to shift the conversation to another undesirable topic was beyond me, but I quickly remedied the situation.

"You told Isabel the story of how you became a vampire?"

Adrienne was momentarily stunned by the abrupt change in topic, but quickly recovered. "She told you that?"

"Only that you had shared it with her, it is your story to tell," I assured Adrienne.

"It's not a happy one," she replied quietly.

A/N: A long wait for an update as far as this story is concerned, but you've all been spoiled thus far. I know, I still haven't really explained where/who Adrienne got the paintings from, but it's a coming.

As per usual, I'll include the customary plea for reviews. I read the all, respond to most, and incorporate the ideas from some.