Laura couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her mother drop her mask like that.

Rebecca Hollis, as a rule, was not overly given to displays of emotion. Oh, she had no problem letting you know how she felt about something - or someone - but even then, her reactions tended to be restrained. Light chuckles instead of full-throated laughter. Small smiles rather than wide, toothy grins. Sadness wasn't an emotion she usually showed much at all, so while there might have been a tear or two, Laura had never seen her crying, before.

Not until now.

In the past, she'd always chalked it up to her mother not wanting to appear weak, her just being the kind of person who was fairly self-contained, and about a metric ton or so of British fortitude. Indeed, she still believed those things were true, especially knowing what she now did about her mother's job. (Spies and/or assassins had to be detached, after all.) But now she was beginning to suspect there was a fourth reason: fear. Partly because she was afraid to let herself grow too close to anyone, lest they be used against her (as Laura herself had been) or she wind up hurt because something happened to them, and partly because Rebecca knew all too well what lurked within her, and couldn't bear the thought of her daughter seeing it. Of knowing.

Recalling the poisonous, toxic hatred she'd felt for the former dean of students, Laura got that, now.

As such, when Rebecca's emotional defenses began to crack apart, Laura hadn't had the slightest idea what to do. All she'd done - all she could think of to do - was cling tightly to her sobbing mother, trying not to start crying herself. (She'd failed in that, naturally, but at least she could say she'd tried.) She'd had a very long, eventful, physically and emotionally draining day, and it wasn't even over, yet. She'd been having too many days like that in too short a span of time... and for the first time - having not really been able to grasp what such a thing was like, before - she wondered if maybe her mother hadn't, too.

So much pain. So much death. All of it so very, very unnecessary. She still had no idea why Lilith had wanted to open the gates, to the point of sacrificing so many girls and wanting to eventually kill Lophii herself. She might never know, with the woman finally gone for good. She'd never know what had driven her to abuse Carmilla and Mattie (and Will and God only knew how many others, over the centuries). All she could really do there was try and help them deal with it and move on as best they could. Kind of like what she was doing now with her Mom, really.

Mom.

It had been a long, long time since she'd regularly called Rebecca that. Sure, she'd slipped once when she'd gotten her mug back, the rush of memories it evoked making her forget, just for a moment, everything that had come since she'd first gotten it. It wasn't that she hadn't loved her mother, even when things were at their worst. She'd just been tired. Tired of being hurt, being disappointed. Time and again, she'd given her mother chance after chance, only to be let down. She'd gotten tired of falling into the same trap over and over, and had made a decision to stop. No more chances. Rebecca had respected the decision, and left her alone... Yet, it seemed, she'd never stopped watching over her daughter, in her own way. Feelings of guilt squirmed inside her, and she hated that her Mom had been hurt - had been killed - because of her. She had no idea what might have happened to her at the hands of that unidentified - and thankfully now deceased - vampire (though she'd gotten to be able to read the subtle cues Rebecca displayed fairly well during her childhood, and she hadn't seemed overly bothered by what had happened, implying that even some random, murderous vampire treated his 'offspring' better than Lilith had), yet all Rebecca had cared about was making sure Laura was safe, even from herself.

And now she could see what that had done to her.

It was always easier to remain emotionally distant, to put someone as out of mind as you could manage, when they weren't right there. She'd been struggling to stay on an even keel, ever since her mother had shown up at Silas... even as there'd been a tiny part of her, in the back of her mind, unacknowledged, that had been glad she could see that her mother (with her dangerous job that kept her constantly surrounded by so many lethal people) was alive and in one piece. She'd mostly just wanted her to leave, so that she wouldn't have to deal with the emotional quagmire she brought with her. She'd had enough to deal with already, given the murders and vampires and Vordenberg, to say nothing of falling harder and harder for Carmilla, working out a truce with Mattie, dealing with Danny's feelings for her... Throwing her estranged mother into the mix, as well, was just too much. Much of that had now been resolved, true, but... Was she really going to risk falling into that same trap again?

Listening to her mother sniffling as her tears subsided, she decided that yeah, it certainly seemed like she was. One more chance.

Maybe that was part of growing up? Acknowledging that your mother wasn't perfect, deciding that was okay, and trying to meet her halfway? She wasn't going to get the relationship they'd used to have back, she knew that, but she wasn't that little girl, anymore. They were going to have to define a whole new one.

And maybe that was okay. Good, even. Move past all the baggage they'd accumulated over the years.

Rebecca inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly, then pulled back. The redness and puffiness around her eyes was already vanishing, which was a pretty neat trick. (It also made her realize that she'd never know if Carmilla had ever been crying unless she saw or heard it, or Carmilla admitted to it, which was just kind of sad.) "June's here," she said quietly. "I can hear her speaking with Mister Armitage in the corridor."

June? Laura blinked, perked up slightly, then winced, realizing what else that signified. "Dad's coming here, too?"

"So she's said. It's not surprising, given that Corvae's funding was keeping Silas afloat. With their dissolution, a new arrangement will have to be made."

Laura winced again, more heavily, at the idea of contract negotiations and all other manner of business-related affairs she'd always hated, but would now have no choice but to engage in.

"I know," Rebecca said sympathetically, and if she'd spent any time around Patrick as he was working while Laura was growing up, she probably did. "But take heart: you know he won't be trying to pull anything over on you. Indeed, he'll likely be happy to compensate for any lost alumni donations just to make you happy, knowing how much you love this school. Especially now that he knows he can trust the person in charge."

Laura could have argued that, given his history of overprotection, he didn't exactly trust her, but she supposed that was different. She'd already proven she'd do whatever it took to keep the school and its students and faculty safe. As long as he knew she'd be kept safe while doing so... "I guess that means June's staying."

"That does seem likely."

Well... That was okay. June was quite adept at being close enough to help should she be needed, but otherwise staying out of the way. "Is she gonna be okay with you being here?"

"She's not charging in, guns blazing, despite knowing I'm in here with you, so I would say that she is, yes."

That would be good, if it were true. Still, she should probably talk with June herself, both to make sure of that, and to prevent her from hurting JP... not to mention making sure she knew Carmilla (and Mattie, for that matter) was off-limits, no what her father might or might not have said or implied. Which meant being able to speak normally. She closed her eyes, focusing. Lilith had said she'd made sure the Charter wouldn't protect the Chair from her, no matter what body she was in. However, it had been Perry's body that had caused her harm, so, she decided, the Charter should be healing that right up. She clung steadily to that thought, even though she didn't blame Perry a single bit for what had happened. (Having gone through the same thing, herself, she couldn't.) She could feel it working, albeit slower than she'd have liked. "Okay," she said when her throat finally felt fully healed, opening her eyes just in time to catch the swiftly hidden look of relief passing across her mother's face at her voice sounding back to normal. Laura considered telling her she didn't need to do that, constantly hide her true feelings behind a wall, but realized that maybe Rebecca also needed to take things one step at a time, and wasn't ready for that. (Oddly enough, that was one thing she was perfectly fine having in common with her mother; it always helped to know that she wasn't the only one who needed to take things slowly to keep from being overwhelmed when it came to emotional matters.) Besides, she had to admit, she still had no real idea what Rebecca's job demanded of her on a regular basis, and maybe she needed to constantly work to keep those defenses up, lest she risk them failing her at a critical moment.

Still, it didn't seem healthy, and she made a mental note to talk seriously with her mother about the whole thing once matters were more settled.

"Okay," she said again, enjoying the lack of pain. If only she could will herself to recover her lost energy so easily. "I think you're gonna have to either help me up so I can talk to June, or bring her in here, because I need to make sure she's got some things straight before Carmilla shows up, freaked out by all the blood you might have spilled on your way in."

"If that's worrying you, perhaps you should begin editing that video you recorded now, for the benefit of those not watching it live?" Rebecca suggested, climbing off the bed and pausing only to retrieve Laura's dropped water bottle and hand it to her before heading for the door. "I suspect your girlfriend will want to see for herself that the former dean is finally gone."

"I'll say." She'd also benefit from seeing Rebecca's speech to Lilith, but Laura refrained from bringing that up, too. For that matter, if her Dad was really watching her videos, as had been previously implied, he could stand seeing it, as well.

If only to understand why Laura would be asking him to get the restraining order against her lifted. It only applied in Canada, anyway, so it was kind of pointless, now, and would be even more so once Laura herself was a vampire.

That was a discussion she knew she'd have to have with her parents at some point, so maybe it was just as well they'd all be in the same place for the first time in years shortly.

Hopefully, she'd feel ready by then.

Carmilla, being so much younger than her sister, was still much more susceptible to being surprised. Even so, events that could render her utterly speechless were few and far between.

As with surprising Mattie, however, Laura seemed to have a gift in being able to accomplish it.

This, though...

When she'd first been told that her mother had been killed, when Laura had been filling her in on what had happened after her plunge into the crevice after striking at the Light (inbetween much touching and kissing, Laura still trying to reassure herself that yes, Carmilla really was there, alive - or undead, as the case may have been - and getting better by the minute; it was only now that she really understood why her tiny human girlfriend might have been having such trouble fully accepting that), she hadn't known how to react, what to feel. Her 'mother' might have been using her for her own ends - really, on some level, she'd known that from the beginning - but, before Elle, it hadn't been too bad, really. What she'd told Laura about the things they'd seen, the places they'd gone... It had all been true. (Fortunately, Laura tended to gloss over the part about the hunt, because that could have caused them serious problems, early on, before Laura understood her nature as well as she now did... though even now, given her request that Carmilla not bite anyone but her, she clearly wouldn't want to hear about it.) After Elle, though, when she'd been betrayed and locked away, her mother's cold and disappointed expression burned into her mind... After the coffin... Even when Lilith had found her in Paris, their relationship never recovered. Her 'mother' had never once apologized, insisting it had been for her own good... yet, even then, she'd only really cared about how Carmilla's actions affected her goals. If Carmilla cooperated, played the dutiful daughter and obedient bait, her other actions were mostly overlooked. If she faltered in that...

Well, Laura had almost found out the hard way what that would have caused.

She'd never really talked about it with anyone, even Laura, but part of her actually missed the woman - or rather, the relationship they'd once had. In that, she understood Laura's reluctance to completely ignore her own mother, even though she seemed to bring her daughter nothing but pain. Rebecca, however, had shown that she genuinely loved her daughter, and that she was fully willing to make whatever sacrifices she had to for her sake. Even in their few interactions, Carmilla had picked up on that. She might have felt a tiny frisson of jealousy about that, but Laura had been so obviously lost in how to deal with her (and in so much pain from the whole Mel incident) that it had quickly faded away.

There had been another part of her that just couldn't quite believe it. Her 'mother', so old and powerful, who'd been around for so much longer than the rest of them combined... Gone? Finally, really gone? She'd wanted to believe it so badly - indeed, she knew Laura wasn't lying in what she'd said had happened - but there had always been that one sliver of doubt that Lilith even could be destroyed. As such, when they'd figured out who was possessing Perry, that part of her was completely unsurprised. Terrified, yes, but not surprised.

That was why hearing that she was gone for good again was even harder to believe. That had already been claimed once and been proven wrong, after all. What was different now?

Then Laura had shown her the footage she'd recorded, and doubt was replaced by utter astonishment. Lilith was actually, really gone. She'd seen it with her own eyes this time. Even before the video had gotten to that point, though, she'd been rendered speechless by Rebecca's words. Her anger on Carmilla's behalf. Someone finally saying the words that she had long dreamed of telling her 'mother', but had always been too afraid to. Rebecca being a vampire was a surprise, but one that had swiftly been pushed out of her mind. Rebecca had been angry that Lilith had hurt Laura, yes - and her reaction to that final murder attempt had been incredibly satisfying to see - but everything she said after that, about what it was to be a mother...

That had been for her. Her and Mattie and all the rest, now dead. The ones who had failed to meet their 'mother's' standards. Having sacrificed so much for her own daughter's wellbeing, she supposed it was only natural that their 'mother' would set her off. But to hear it articulated like that...

Given her love of philosophy, it would surprise no one to learn that Carmilla was very self-aware. As such, she knew there was a part of her - the small, scared child who'd been torn so cruelly away from her parents - that had eagerly drank that up, like a barren desert finally getting a long awaited rainstorm. That part of her wanted her to approach Rebecca, to find out if that had just been a one-time statement, or if the feelings that had caused it lingered... but she couldn't. She was, well, scared. Scared that she might be rejected... or, worse, that she wouldn't.

After living for so long with such a poor facsimile of a mother's love, the possibility that she might actually be able to get the real thing was, in its own way, even more terrifying. She wouldn't have the slightest idea how to react to that and she knew it, so she instinctively kept her distance. If Rebecca really would be staying in her daughter's life, even if only peripherally, she wouldn't be able to dodge the issue forever... but then again, that would give her time to try and slowly adjust to the idea, maybe even get enough clues that she wouldn't have to ask. She suspected that Laura had some inkling of what she was thinking, but, displaying the love and compassion that tended to define her, didn't push her on it.

Then there was June.

Carmilla honestly had no idea how to react to her. Laura had described the other girl as her best friend from back home - or, at least, the best friend she'd had there. Given her isolated upbringing, that clearly wasn't a difficult achievement. It was entirely possible that giving her any time and personal attention at all had been enough. And June certainly seemed happy enough to be back at Laura's side... but that was about the only emotion she displayed at all. Admittedly, she'd missed their reunion, so she had no idea how June had reacted when Laura told her about reconnecting with her mother (whether or not June had already known about Rebecca being a vampire was also unknown), how serious things were getting with Carmilla... any of it. So she may well have had plenty of emotional reactions, but having had time to get used to it all, was concealing her true feelings behind a professional mask. (How Laura had grown up surrounded by such people, yet remained so emotionally open and friendly, she had no idea.) That would certainly be appropriate for a bodyguard.

Still, something about her seemed... off. Who knew, maybe she just didn't like Carmilla, but was refraining from saying so, not wanting to hurt Laura's feelings?

As for her being a bodyguard... Well, that was another thing. Carmilla knew better than to assume "small and cute" meant "harmless" - Laura herself proved that - and choosing someone who would blend in as one of the crowd, that could easily be written off as just one of Laura's friends... That made perfect sense, she had to admit. She also had no idea what the girl was armed with. Still, even if most of the people at school didn't know who her father was, they knew who she was. That kind of deception, hiding a bodyguard in plain sight, usually worked best when one had another, much more obvious guard to attract any hostile attention, distracting from the real threat. Granted, with both herself and Rebecca there and known to be protective of Laura, as well as having the power of the Charter backing her up, anyone who came for Laura would already know they'd have a fight just getting close to her. Maybe June was just intended to serve as a sort of last resort? Or she was there mainly to serve as a liaison for Patrick Jarman, and to keep him informed as to what was going on in his daughter's life?

That, Carmilla decided, was probably the possibility bothering her most: Laura's father using her childhood friend as a spy. Laura herself didn't seem at all put out by the suggestion, but then, given what she'd revealed about her home's omnipresent security cameras, she probably wouldn't be. "At least I know she won't be passing along anything I really don't want her to," she'd said, which was hard to argue with.

It also might have been the way June tended to just stand immobile, doing little more than blinking, as she stood guard. She clearly missed nothing, making note of even the slightest sound, but that kind of stillness... She and other vampires could do that, she knew, while even the finest of Corvae's forces hadn't quite been able to. It just didn't seem quite human. Laura had just seemed amused at the idea that June might also be a vampire, but Carmilla couldn't readily dismiss it. That would go a long way toward explaining why Laura's father believed she'd be able to keep his little girl safe, even at Silas.

Because it was either that, or she'd gone through intense training of such a hellish variety that even Rebecca couldn't match it, and she didn't like what that would say about Laura's father.

After being kept overnight for observation, Laura was finally allowed to come home, with the understanding that she would get plenty of rest. Laura had agreed, though anyone who knew her would have realized that she made no note of when she would be resting. She'd managed to turn her footage into a proper SNN update and posted that while still in the hospital, but she still had a lot of work to do. She'd begun preliminary discussions with the rest of the Board to fill the vacant spots left by Mattie and Vordenberg, as well as raised the possibility with them of Mattie assuming the office of dean of students, which they'd seemed open to. (Or at least, they did once Laura explained the files that had been used against her in her debate with Vordenberg had actually belonged to Lilith, and been prepared as part of her plan to remove the entire Board. Vordenberg's knowledge of Mattie's necklace backed her up on that, though she carefully avoided commenting on whether or not Mattie would have made use of the information, if given the chance and enough motivation.) She'd also recruited Danny to try and gauge the student body's feelings toward the idea of Mattie being the new dean, in the guise of a hypothetical scenario as to who the new dean even could be. Given the way Vordenberg's ranting and his raving speciesism had begun alienating even his most ardent supporters (to say nothing of the condition of his prisoners), as well as knowing the lengths Mattie had been willing to go to save her sister, the responses weren't quite as negative as they could have been. (Having Danny, the one who had unseated her as Board Chair, being the one to ask had also helped with the idea that this was just a question. Danny herself seemed... ambivalent about the possibility, which was better than Laura would have hoped previously.) Knowing that Laura would be sticking around as Board Chair and would be able to keep her in check certainly seemed to help, something that Carmilla understood entirely... even if she was personally sick of Silas as a whole. Who knew? Maybe, under Laura's leadership, it could be transformed into something positive, something good.

She herself was proof Laura could do that, if she set her mind to it.

Laura had also managed to get their old dorm certified as safe for habitation, which eased congestion of the other dorm buildings considerably. Perry had wasted no time in settling back into her old room, and unsurprisingly, LaF had gone with her. At Laura's suggestion, JP had moved into her and Carmilla's old room, once their belongings had been moved to the house. She'd even managed to get his student credits reactivated, if only so that he could stay in the dorm, stating he'd more than earned it. (The dorms were significantly more co-ed than they'd been before; there'd been too much confusion on campus, and too many students having fled at the end of last semester, to go back to exactly the way things had been before.) Carmilla had to say, she was not sorry to see them go. Not that she had anything against them, as such - indeed, after watching the young woman kick Lilith to the curb, she was pretty sure she didn't get to make fun of Perry for lacking a spine, anymore - just that the fewer people there were in the house, the more privacy she and Laura had.

It had taken almost a week to get everything settled, but after a good night's sleep in the hospital, Laura had bounced back with energy to spare. Whether it was the Charter or just having enough food shipped in to be able to resume her sugar-heavy diet, Carmilla didn't know. Not to say that Laura couldn't tire herself out - finding her sprawled face-down at her desk was becoming far from uncommon - but Carmilla ensured that she got plenty of sleep every night, whether she liked it or not.

Though given her methods of tiring Laura out, she almost invariably did.

By the end of the week, though, Laura finally began slowing down. Or, more accurately, she began getting caught up on things. The paperwork had mostly gone through to make Mattie the new dean, though it was agreed that there was little point in her starting the job this close to the end of the school year, so that would wait until fall. A list of candidates had been compiled for the open spots on the Board, which Laura and the others would be going over in the next few days. Mattie had even begun sprucing up the small residence she'd been staying in since she'd arrived, to make it more suitable as a full-time home. Both Carmilla and Laura had assured her that she would be welcome to stay with them - or to stay there while they were away - but she had politely declined. She'd be over plenty to visit, but she did enjoy her privacy... and she knew full well what her sister and her girlfriend would be getting up to, and didn't particularly want to overhear it. Which meant it was just Carmilla and Laura... and June. The other girl did, at least, tend to leave them alone during private moments, having been assured multiple times by Laura that it was safe to do so. Given that they'd known each other less than a week, Carmilla wasn't offended by that lack of immediate trust.

"You know, I think we may just be able to pull this off," Laura said as they settled into bed that night.

"I'm not surprised," Carmilla told her. "I know what happens when you set your mind to something, after all."

Laura smiled, giving her a lingering kiss. "Do you know what my mind's set to now?" she asked playfully.

"Oh, I could guess..." Carmilla murmured, leaning in for a longer, more thorough kiss.

"Well, that, sure," Laura admitted when she pulled back. "But that wasn't what I meant." She tilted her head to the side, pulling her hair back to reveal her neck.

Ah. That. Carmilla felt a burst of excited anticipation, even as caution reared its head. "Are you sure that-?"

Laura didn't even let her finish the question. "I'm sure. I've been wanting this since about five minutes after the last time you bit me."

"Laura-"

"Carm." Her gaze was level and entirely serious. "I want you to bite me. The hospital even gave me a clean bill of health. And keep in mind, the Charter's still invoked." Her gaze grew heated. "So you don't need to stop as soon as you usually do."

"That's why you haven't revoked that, isn't it?" Carmilla realized, even as she leaned closer.

"It's a reason, though not the only one," Laura conceded. "I wanted to, at least once..." She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't have to. They both knew what she meant. What she wanted. So Carmilla gave it to her.

Laura's moan when her fangs delicately sank into her neck was easily one of the most arousing things she'd ever heard. Laura clearly hadn't been kidding when she'd said she'd been wanting this; her hips began rocking in time with Carmilla sucking at her neck. Exactly when her enjoying being bitten had turned into a full-blown fetish, Carmilla didn't know. Or care.

For the first - and possibly only - time, she had free rein to take as much blood from Laura as she wanted, knowing she couldn't hurt her lover by doing so. (Though she was certainly doing the opposite; Laura had climaxed three times from her doing that alone.) So she did, taking her time in slowly pleasuring Laura, biting her somewhere else as she moved up and down Laura's body: her neck, yes, but also her arm, one of her breasts, her inner thigh...

She felt somewhat overstuffed with blood, and Laura was as limp as a deliriously pleased dishrag by the time she was finished, and even then, the bite marks vanished almost immediately. The taken blood took a little longer to be replenished, but not much. "...have I mentioned lately that I love you?" Laura finally managed to ask, voice barely above a whisper.

"Oh, I think a few times in the past ten or so minutes alone," Carmilla replied, feeling (justifiably, she thought) a bit smug. She had been pulling out all the stops all night long, after all, reaching heights she'd never achieved with any of her past lovers.

That, she was pretty sure, Laura would be happy to learn.

"Not nearly often enough," Laura decided, cuddling against her. "I am so keeping you."

"Likewise."

Laura smirked. "Maybe we should get married, then," she said, referencing her accidental proposal after Carmilla's beautiful words to her the morning after the storm (and Mel's death, and she'd realized her mother had the Blade of Hastur).

"Maybe we should."

Laura blinked, hesitated, then warned, "Don't tease me about that."

"I'm not." She flicked her tongue briefly across one of the spots where she'd bitten Laura earlier, relishing the shiver of pleasure the motion produced. "I can't think of anyone else I'd rather spend eternity with."

Laura, looking like she might cry, pulled her into a kiss that went on for a good five minutes. When they broke apart, and Laura regained her breath, her expression turned speculative. "Hey."

"What?"

"When I'm a vampire... Can I bite you?"