AN: Hey everybody! Sorry to leave this update for so long but this chapter was hard to write. I seem to be saying that a lot lately... oh well. Enjoy!
Who Are You?
In which we meet Other
Adriana Mafiay was used to a cold bed.
She was used to betrayal, to the sinking feeling that entered her senses when the musky scent of sex clinged to her husbands skin when he returned from long nights away.
She is not, however, used to another persons memories scorned into her brain. She refused to believe this women was her. Used to be her.
She refused to believe it.
Adriana lay alone on her bed, staring up at the white ceiling with a frown on her face. Ulrik slept silently a few feet away from her, having denied to stay in his own crib for the whole night.
The other her, the one lingering around the edges of her memories, had also been called Adriana. A brown haired widow whose husband had died in battle, leaving her alone to nurse her daughter.
Adriana laughed bitterly in the face of irony. Only for irony to laugh back at her.
"Adriana." An elderly voice scolded the humming girl. "You're husband is not dead three days and yet you're already humming life away. People will start to think you killed him."
"Yes Mother." The girl muttered, stopping her humming aruptedly. The baby girl next to her immediately starting to cry at the loss of the comforting sound. "Oh, Mother. Now look what you've caused. Hush Sygrid. There is no need to cry."
Adriana's eyes snapped open, a soft scowl forming on her face once more.
"Stupid memories." She muttered under her breath, checking that Ulrik was still soundly asleep before slipping out of the bed. "Can't just leave me alone for five minutes."
"Didn't I tell you to leave?" Adriana asked her husband coldly, crossing her arms and eyeing the drunken man warily.
"Didn't I tell you I was staying?" Tayte replied, glaring back at her as he sharpened his sword just outside their hut. "Where is our daughter?"
"Asleep." Adriana said, leaning against the door and glaring at his weapon with narrowed eyes. "Will you please put that away?"
"Is everything okay here?" A strong voice interrupted, both of them turning their head to face the speaker.
"Chief." Adriana addressed Mikael, standing up straighter and glaring pointedly at her husband. "Please tell this idiot that he can not put his newly sharpened swords in our daughters room to, and I do quote, test her reaction."
"Mikael, tell my wife that she is being insanely overprotective." Tayte argued before Mikael could get a word in.
Adriana groaned and roughly slammed her head against a nearby wall, trying to ignore Elijah and Hayley's mingled scents. Growling lowly under her breath.
"Stupid Mikaelson." She snarled, her hands ruling into fists.
Soft whimpers filled Adriana's ears as she tried to stare down her husband.
"Excuse me, but my daughter needs my attention." She bit out civilly, turning on the sole of her shoe. "Chief, I do not wish to see my husband until he is no longer a slurring mess. It's not a full moon, drop him in the forest or something."
Adriana's feet moved on their own accord, approaching the soft whimpers that no human hearing could be able to pick up. Opening the door, Adriana met the eyes of Hope. The baby girl grasping at the bars of the crib with her eyes as wide as the moon outside.
"Hey principessa." Adriana smiled softly, still wrinkling her nose slightly at the mingled scents of her husband and another woman. "Where's your Mama?"
Hope was completely silent now, staring up at her with innocent eyes.
"You know what I think?" She continued. "I think that she's been doing something very naughty with Elijah. Stupid woman."
Hope's pout increased, her arms moving to trap at Adriana's hands that dangled over the crib. She too, like Ulrik, fascinated by her red painted nails.
"What is you want?" Adriana muttered, moving her fingertips as Hope tried to grab at her hand once more.
"Mother." Sygrid gurgled happily, clapping her hands together. "Mother. Mother. Mother."
"Mama." Another voice spoke up, Adriana turning around. Noting how the wooden hut had been turned into a giant forest. "Mama." The green eyes of Cienna stared back at her, glazed over with worry. "What is wrong?"
There's a monster living inside my head. Adriana wanted to shout, her eyes brimming with tears as the intermingled attacked her senses once more. Hope staring up at her with worry as the usually cold woman fell to her knees. And the worst part? The worst part is, that the monster is me.
"Come here." Adriana whispered, picking up Hope and letting the girl rest her head on her shoulder. "Your Aunt Adriana is a bit mad you see Hope. Though, aren't we all?"
Taking in a deep breath, Adriana left the room with Hope still in her arms. Walking past Hayley's room with a deep sneer on her face, muttering about incompetent mothers. Softly opening her door and seeing Ulrik still sleeping soundly on her bed, Adriana gently put Hope into Ulrik's cot. The daughter of the feared hybrid already fast asleep.
Slipping into her own bed, Adriana closed her eyes and relaxed.
"Where am I?" She whispered to herself, not able to take her eyes of the shifting images behind her. "Did someone drug me?"
"You're a vampire, you idiot." An indentical sounding voice scoffed, Adriana turning around to see her carbon copy sitting cross legged on the black white floor a few feet away from her. "Have we seriously got to this point of stupidity? I had higher hopes for us."
"Adriana I presume." Adriana scoffed, crossing her arms and staring at her former self.
"Nice to meet you, other me." Adriana smiled, waving her hand at the other self. "Shame, it seems that I am still the more beautiful one out of the two of us."
"Pity." Adriana stated bluntly, her eyes trailing over their others long brown hair that fell into her eyes, the only difference between them.
"A terrible one." Other Adriana agreed, choosing to ignore Adriana's sarcasm. "Now, sweetheart, I'm going to need your body."
"What?"
"What?" Other shrugged, resting her hand on her knee and staring back at Adriana. "I need to find my husband, you need to get away from yours. Good deal on either side in my opinion."
"You're not having my body." Adriana growled back, immediately on guard. "Demetri is still out there."
"Really?" Other purred back, tilting her head and being the exact mirror image of Adriana. "But we're here now, and nothing here is as it seems. Not even us."
"And what do you mean by that?" Adriana asked, folding her arms and glaring at Other.
"Now that." Other grinned, leaning back and choosing to stare at the white walls around them. "Would be telling."
Adriana jerked awake then, gasping for unneeded breath, her eyes meeting the panic brown ones of Hayley as the hybrid ran into the room. Shouting about Hope missing, only to become deathly silent when she saw the girl in the cot.
"Can I help you Hayley?" Adriana asked after a few seconds of silence, glancing beside her to see Ulrik still fast asleep. "You seem to be in distress."
"You stole my baby." Hayley growled lowly, her hands slowly forming fists.
"Really?" Adriana drawled out calmly. "Maybe you should pay more attention to your child, and not have sex with other women's men."
This didn't help her situation.
At all.
Hayley lunged for her, her golden eyes glowing brightly and her lips pulling back with a snarl. Calmly, Adriana sidestepped her grabbing the collar of her shirt, and holding her thrashing body in her grip for a few seconds.
"What the hell is going on here, Adriana?"
Adriana turned around breathing heavily, a huge wooden spoon in her death grip as she waved it viciously at the man that had suddenly walked into her home.
"Tayte. Who is this? Do you know him?"
"Of course I know him you dum kvinne." Tayte sighed, snatching the spoon from her vice grip, holding onto to the back of her dress as she kicked and protested to the insult."This is Finn. Finn Mikaelson."
Without even fully realising what she was doing, Adriana panicked and pushed Hayley away from her. Her ears ringing as she heard the other female crash into the wall just beyond her bedroom door.
"Take your baby and go." Adriana growled at her falling into her bed and cooeing over Ulrik until he calmed down. "I have no more to say to you."
Glancing at her husband and then back to the chiefs eldest son, Adriana let out a noise askin to a scoff. Shrugging off her husbands grip on her with a pointed look.
"A little warning would have been nice." She scoffed, glaring at her husband before turning back to Finn with a polite smile. "My apologies, I thought you were a rogue that had come to raid my home. You'll have to forgive my reaction."
"Calm the hell down woman." Tayte mumbled under his breath, rubbing his head when Adriana snatched the large wooden spoon and roughly hit him over the head with it. "What was that for you hestemunnet utroskap?"
This time Tayte stepping out of reach when the spoon came flying towards him once more.
"I'm two moons pregnant." Adriana smiled, as if she hadn't of just tried to hit her husband. "I will do what I like."
"Rebekah, it's me again." Elijah spoke into his phone, sounding extremely stressed. "Please call."
Adriana sat in the chair away from them a bit, silently glancing at the two while a happy Ulrik played with her hair while she bounced him on her knee.
"Yahtzee!" Cami laughed happily, bringing out a bottle of bourbon. "If there's one thing I've learned about you people, it's that there's always a bottle of booze around. You want one?"
"Sounds delightful." Elijah smiled condescendingly. "And after that, Camille, then what? We have another, and another, perhaps another after that, another after that... Before long, I find myself opening up to you, or- baring my damaged soul, as it were. It's an old trick, Camille. Not a particularly clever one."
"Leave her alone, Elijah." Adriana spoke up, her eyes narrowed as she shot her husband a look. The two walking into the same room as her. "At least she is trying, and that's more than you've ever done."
"Do you have something to say Adriana?" Elijah asked, turning to her. "Or was that broken wall and Hayley's head injury enough for you?"
"Do you have something to say in your defence?" Adriana shot back. "Or was the smell that still lingers around this house enough for you to admit defeat?"
Ulrik started to whimper in Adriana's arms.
"Give me my son Adriana."
"No. I won't."
"Your mother really did a number on you lot, didn't she?" Cami asked them placing a game in the table between them as Elijah sat on the chair next to Adriana's. "Has it ever occurred to you that I'm less interested in fixing your problems and more interested in forgetting my own? I mean, I'm basically in a supernatural witness protection program because your psychotic brother- who, by the way, I practically had to seduce wants me dead. So, yeah- booze and board games is pretty much where I'm at right now."
There was a tense silence for a few moments, Adriana letting Elijah take Ulrik out of her arms when the blonde baby started to reach out for his Father.
"Here's a question." Cami started. "What was the name of Don Quixote's horse?"
"This is absurd." Elijah muttered, holding Ulrik to his chest as the boy talked without words.
"Fine. Dumb idea." Cami agreed, putting down the card. "How are you too by the way? I heard you were getting a divorce and Elijah was sleeping with Hayley, but here you are with an adopted son. What's with that?"
"Rocinante." Elijah answered, exchanging a look with Adriana. Both of them knowing Camille had them stuck between a rock and a hard place. "The horse's name is Rocinante."
"What is the full name of novelist C. S Lewis?" Cami asked, Adriana answering the question before Elijah could answer.
"Clive Staples Lewis." She stated, smiling down at Ulrik as played with his teddy next to her. "Great guy."
"What three European countries begin with the letter A?" She asked, frustrated now as she picked up yet another card.
"Albania, Austria, Andorra." Elijah listed off.
"Okay, hey!" Cami called out, becoming even more frustrated. "Who was the only U.S. president to earn a Ph.D?"
"The rather tedious Woodrow Wilson." Adriana answered, a small sneer of her face in memory of the man. "Saw himself above all women."
"Who rode Secretary to the Triple Crown in 1973-"
"Ron Turket." Elijah said, cutting her off.
"No!" Cami denied, throwing up her arms in exasperation. "I refuse to believe that you two just happened to know all that." In her drunkenness, she splashed some bourbon onto Elijah's shirt sleeve. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Elijah. Here."
Adriana raised her hand to rub away a growing headache, a quick flash of a wooden hut and a laughing brunette appearing before her eyes. Her ears turning to static as the world around her dimmed for a second.
The small hand that touched her arm brought her back to the second, Ulrik staring up at her with wide, concerned eyes.
"I'm okay, soldatino." She reassured him, a watery smile on her face. "I'm fine…"
"I'm not as fragile as my brother suggests." Elijah was telling Cami, his hand wrapped around her wrist.
The ringing a the phone ruined the tense atmosphere in the room, Elijah answering it quickly.
"Rebekah, where on Earth are you?" Elijah asked, holding the phone to his ear. Adriana looking down in concern as a confused female voice spoke at the other end. "I see. No, I must have been dialing the wrong number. Forgive me."
Adriana stood in front of the bathroom mirror, her so hands tight around the ceramic basing that spiderweb cracks had formed under her fingertips.
"This is my body." She growled into the mirror, her reflection seeming to smirk at her. "You can't have it."
"Bad things happen when you refuse your own soul Adriana." Her reflection spoke, Adriana clenching her eyes shut as she continued to hallucinate. "At this rate neither of us will be in that shell."
"Go to hell." Adriana spat at Other, the reflection only raising an eyebrow at her.
"I've been there, the devil didn't like me much." Other replied calmly. Her hallucination not even flinching as Adriana brought her hand up and let the mirror smash under her closed fist. The glass shards falling to the floor as she drew her hand back to her chest. Breathing heavily.
"Elijah?" Adriana heared Cami ask as she exited the bathroom, glancing to find Ulrik dozing off in the chair. His teddy pressed tightly against his chest. "Elijah, are you okay? Hey, I know you're worried about Rebekah..."
"Camille." Adriana stated, striding into the room with her head held high, as if she wasn't near a complete mental breakdown. "I strongly recommend you step back."
Cami stepped back silently as Adriana walked forward, her heels clicking against the floor. Raising her hand, Adriana lay a hand on Elijah's shoulder. Not even flinching when he suddenly turned around and latched onto her face.
"Wake up." Adriana commanded, staring Elijah in the eye as Camille watched them curiously. "You think you are the only one going through this inner turmoil? You're wrong. Stop thinking about yourself Elijah. This red door is ripping you apart from the inside out, I understand. You don't know how much I understand. I have two different lives running through my head because of you Elijah. Think about that for a moment and spare us all this self pity."
Stepping back, she allowed Elijah to leave, following his figure as he left the room at human pace.
The ringing in her head came back once more, the age old Italian raising a hand to her temple and sighing lowly.
"Adriana, are you okay?" Cami asked in concern, glancing at the door Elijah left through and then at the other woman.
"I'm fine." Adriana answered quickly.
In the back of her mind, Adriana swore she heard herself laughing.
Having put Ulrik down in his crib, Adriana watched Camilles and Elijah's interaction from the doorway, a warm mug in her hands.
"I owe you an apology." Elijah stated, shifting uncomfortablely as he stepped closer. "My sister's missing, my family's in jeopardy, I am... uh, utterly powerless to help them. This is not a state of affairs I'm accustomed to. Perhaps I'm not weathering this ordeal as well as one would hope. Forgive me."
Adriana turned away from them, glancing a glimpse of her reflection moving without her, looking slightly frightened.
"If you ever want to talk about it..." Cami trailed off, smiling forgivingly at him. "It's kind of what I do."
"What have you done?" Other screamed at Adriana, the hallucination appearing next to her. "What's happening to us?"
"I'll tell you when I know." Adriana mumbled, her grip on the mug tightening ever so slightly.
She leaned back on the counter, Other disappearing with a snarl in her direction.
Taking in a sharp intake, Adriana felt the mug slip from her fingers as she fell to the floor, the ringing in her head becoming louder and louder. She landed on her knees, her mug shattering in front of her as she screamed, the sound ripping through Elijah's head as he ran inside, having heard the shattering of ceramic.
"Adriana?" He asked, Cami quickly entering after him. "Adriana, talk to me. What's wrong?"
She was silent, the sound of her heavy breathing bouncing off of the walls as she stared at the floor, her eyes flickering in a different direction every few seconds.
"Adriana? Adriana!" Elijah continued to ask, holding her in his arms. "If this is about Hayley- I made a stupid mistake okay." He was becoming frantic now. "Do anything you want. Shout, scream, cry, curse me to hell. Please Adriana, just look at me. Talk to me."
Adriana's face dragged up, her brown eyes staring at his for a few seconds, tears running down her cheeks.
All was silent for a moment, and then Adriana opened her mouth.
Elijah had expected something a curse maybe, a sneer and a roll of her eyes as she shoved him off her. He wasn't, however, expecting what did come out of her mouth. The three syllables he never wanted to hear from her making him choke on unnecessary breath.
"I'm sorry." Adriana spoke, staring back at him with confusion. "But, who are you?"