Aubrey spends most of Saturday studying.
It's the entire purpose of her separation from Chloe and Beca, after all, and even if Aubrey feels like she has a pretty decent handle on at least the basics of the material, it also provides a much needed distraction, for the blonde. She still misses Chloe, and she still misses Beca, but Aubrey has never really been one for sulking, even when she wants to.
So Aubrey chooses not to.
Aubrey chooses to study until her brain feels practically like it's about to bleed out from her ears, and, after reaching that point, she settles on the living room couch to binge watch three episodes of Grey's Anatomy before migrating back into her room.
She doesn't want to leave Emily alone, too much – Aubrey promised Beca that she would keep an eye on her, and Aubrey has never been known to neglect her promises – but, after spending some time with her, the blonde realizes fairly quickly that Emily is slipping; she isn't happy, anymore, and she doesn't interrupt the show to insert any sort of commentary at all, like she'd done the night before. Instead, Emily is very, very quiet, and Aubrey doesn't need to ask in order to know why.
The girl misses her sire.
Aubrey understands – probably more than she wants, and definitely more than she is willing to admit to anyone who's not Chloe or Beca – but she isn't sure what to do about it. She considers calling Beca – for advice, maybe, or even just to let her know that Emily isn't doing particularly well – but Aubrey doesn't want to worry the Vampire Queen any more than Aubrey knows she already is, and she's pretty sure that there's very little Beca could do to help Emily from this distance, anyway.
Still, Aubrey's basically accepted a position as Emily's caretaker, at least for the weekend, and even if Emily is old enough to take care of herself, Aubrey takes that role very seriously; the way Aubrey sees it, Emily is unhappy, and it's her job to fix that.
The blonde doesn't call Beca, but she keeps herself awake past two, despite her exhaustion, because Aubrey's fairly certain that she only really has one viable option.
She receives a few shoddy, drunk-looking texts from Chloe, and a very blurry picture that Aubrey can hardly even see shapes in, let alone fully make out; it's dark in the photo, and all Aubrey can really identify inside of it is a pair of gleaming, silver eyes. She replies with a smiley face, and a brief 'I miss you,' which Chloe very promptly reciprocates.
Still, that was about an hour ago, so Aubrey fires off a quick message to Beca, requesting that she let the blonde know when they've safely made it home. Beca promises she will, and, in a separate, quick text, the Vampire Queen inserts a slanted-mouth emoticon before typing out, 'Wish you were here.'
Aubrey doesn't immediately reply, because the short sentiment makes her chest hurt and her fingers tremble, and she isn't even a little bit prepared for the sharp pang of neediness that jolts outward from her heart; there's nothing she can say to Beca that could accurately convey that feeling, so Aubrey doesn't try. Instead, she tells Beca to have a good night and to keep safe, and reminds her again to text when they're back with the Beales.
After that, Aubrey thinks she falls into a light sleep, but she keeps some section of awareness, apparently, because she definitely hears it when the front door creaks open.
She bolts from the bed, afraid that she might miss her chance, and throws a blue robe across her shoulders, hastily tying the knot around her waist; Aubrey scrambles from her bedroom quickly, but rubs tiredly against her eyes as she leans into the wall of the living room when she realizes she'd made it out in time.
Emily's already at the door, and Aubrey can see the top of Luke's blonde head reaching above the brunette's smaller frame. She sighs out a breath of relief; she hadn't known for sure that Luke would stop by, or even when, but Beca had told her that he'd been charged with keeping Emily safe, so she'd suspected that he might.
The two speak quietly in the doorway, for a moment, but they're speaking so lowly that Aubrey can't quite make out the words. Still, she remains polite and waits for the soft murmurings to cease, before she offers carefully, "You can come in, you know."
Luke and Emily both quickly turn to face her, and Aubrey instantly wonders why they hadn't known she was there, to begin with.
"Jesus!" Emily shrieks, reflexively curling her palm over a heart that no longer beats.
Aubrey chuckles a little and shakes her head. "Sorry," she tells them earnestly. "I didn't mean to scare you. Honestly," she furrows her brows sleepily, "I didn't even think I could. Didn't you hear me?" The blonde wonders curiously.
Luke smiles, calming much more quickly than Emily, who still stands practically paralyzed with her hand tucked atop her chest, her lips parted in surprise.
"Humans make a lot of noise," Luke tells her patiently. "It's hard to separate what's close by and what isn't, sometimes, if we aren't trying to. If we're distracted, especially by conversation," he shrugs a little, "it's a bit more difficult to keep an ear out for anything else. We hear so much that, a lot of times, it's simpler to block everything else out, when we can."
Aubrey nods, because that makes a surprising amount of sense, to her. She'd asked Emily the day before if human noise levels could be overwhelming, for a Vampire, and Emily had confirmed that they frequently can be; it seems logical that they might develop a way to accommodate for that.
It also reminds Aubrey that, when she'd first met Beca, she obviously hadn't been prepared for Aubrey's presence around her at all; Aubrey remembers that the Vampire Queen had also been on her phone, though, before the blonde had unceremoniously smashed her headphones beneath the soles of her running shoes, and this explains a lot, for Aubrey, about how that could even occur, even if she hadn't actually thought to wonder about it, quite yet.
Still, Aubrey tries really hard not to remark on the fact that this brings an entirely new meaning to the phrase 'selective hearing.'
"Sorry," she smiles ruefully at Emily, stepping a bit closer to soothingly stroke her palm against the girl's back. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Emily nods, allowing a tired, breathless little laugh as she shakes her head. "Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry."
"My fault," Aubrey shrugs easily. "Did you want to come in?" She asks Luke tentatively, darting a brief, worried look toward Emily that she hopes the older Vampire is able to interpret, somehow, even if she isn't quite expecting that he will.
"That's- very nice of you," he hesitates. "Are you sure it's alright? It truly isn't necessary," he adds cautiously.
Aubrey sighs and nods, before replying carefully, "You're Beca's brother. And you're here to keep Emily safe. Beca is…" Aubrey trails off and shakes her head, promptly ignoring the knowing grin that Luke immediately flashes in her direction, before she tries again. "And, anyway, Emily is a Bella; I care about her, and you're protecting her. There's no reason I shouldn't allow you in, and even if you did want to hurt me, for whatever reason, I don't think Beca would support that decision, so it'd probably be more trouble for you than me, anyway. It's become pretty obvious that it's now important to be careful about who I do and do not invite in my home, but I'm fairly certain that you're not a threat to me, Luke," she concludes rationally.
"Pretty and smart," Luke chuckles out softly. "No wonder Beca's so fond of you," he says, winking playfully.
Aubrey flushes, and straightens her shoulders uneasily, rustling slightly as she watches Emily do the same, from the corners of her eyes. It hurts to talk about Beca; it hurts Aubrey everywhere, and she can't imagine how vastly that same hurt must be affecting Emily, right now.
It hurts to talk about her, but all Aubrey wants to do is talk about her, and that doesn't even make sense.
"I appreciate your invitation," Luke tells her, evading the subject entirely once he realizes the way it's impacting the two girls in his company, "but I actually have a few things to take care of, tonight. Emily needs to hunt, first, before I can knock any of it out, but- if you're willing, I could stop by tomorrow, before Beca and Chloe return. My girls are spending a lot of time with you, Aubrey Posen," he grins secretly. "I'm not at all opposed to knowing you a little better, if you're open to that."
"Uh…" Emily interrupts, raising her hand shyly beside her shoulder like she actually needs permission to speak, right now, before Aubrey nods at her encouragingly and urges her to continue, "Beca won't like that. Luke," she huffs in instant aggravation, "you know she told you to stay away from them."
"Why would she do that?" Aubrey frowns bemusedly, the lines of her forehead wrinkling in concentration.
Luke rolls his eyes and folds his arms across his chest. "Beca says it's to keep Emily's Bellas separate from the coven," he whispers conspiratorially to Aubrey, "and it might even be partly true; she wants Em to have friends, and somewhere she can go that's just for her, you know," Luke explains, cuffing his fingers around the back of Emily's neck until, after a moment of irritated reluctance, she releases a soft giggle like she can't even help it, and burrows her face into his chest with a sigh. "And that's fair," Luke concedes. "She wants to give Em the world," he beams proudly, "and she's doing a good job of it, too."
Emily hums her agreement, but keeps her arms stationed snugly around Luke's waist like his impromptu, teasing hug has now turned into her greatest source of comfort, and she refuses to relinquish it.
"But she also wants the coven to stay away from you and Chloe, specifically," Luke discloses quietly, "and her reasons for that are, admittedly, pretty fair, too."
"How so?" Aubrey wonders tentatively.
Luke sighs heavily, and nods his head toward Emily, snuggled up in his arms. "Has Beca ever mentioned why I look after her?"
Aubrey clips her brows together and chews thoughtfully against the inside of her left cheek. "Beca says you keep her safe, but- I always wondered, a little, why Emily would need that sort of protection," she confesses.
"Beca is Queen," Luke tells her solemnly. "She'll joke about it, sometimes, and she'll make it sound smaller than it is, but it's a very large responsibility, and, being honest, it's not one that Beca's really ever even wanted," he shares softly. "Your country has Democrats and Republicans for your political parties, but we have- something different," he says slowly, like he's being very careful with his words. "We have Dwellers and Non-Dwellers."
"What does that mean?" Aubrey frowns.
Luke ruffles a wide, careless palm through his hair, and holds it against the back of Emily's head when he's finished. "It means that we have Vampires who wish for nothing more than to dwell among the humans peacefully, and then we have Vampires who want nothing from humans but their blood. Beca, obviously, is a Dweller," he explains. "She's made the slaughter of humans illegal, and she's exposed our kind to the world, all within the last five years; I understand that this may seem like regular progress, for you, but, typically, changes like that take centuries to enact.
"Beca's been working toward this since the day she became Queen," Luke says quietly. "It's essentially the entire reason she became Queen," he laughs wryly and shakes his head. "Our sire – Lessa," he sighs longingly, blinking just a little too hard, and just a little too long, "this was what she wanted. Vasidius killed her to eliminate the possibility of this ever occurring at all, and Beca- she fought him, for it," he swallows thickly.
"Someone had to," Emily pulls away quickly and scowls. "He was evil."
Aubrey bites her lip and averts her gaze, because, while she can see exactly how Emily might form that opinion, the blonde is still highly aware of the fact that the man had still sired Beca; even if someone did have to fight Vasidius, and even if he was evil, Aubrey firmly believes that it should never have been Beca's responsibility to take care of that.
It doesn't matter that she doesn't have the whole story, or probably even most of it; she knows that it had hurt Beca profoundly, and Aubrey instinctively hates anything that can make her feel that way.
"Yeah," Luke nods and inhales sharply. "And Beca did," he smiles, something sad and loving that's all for his sister, even if Beca isn't here to witness it, and it makes Aubrey's heart feel sore and broken. "She fought him, and she won, and now she's Queen. She's spent centuries turning enough of our kind onto her side; convincing them that living with humans, knowing humans, loving humans is the best way for us to thrive. Beca's worked so hard for this, and she won't ever tell you, but I'll boast of it at any given chance," he swears earnestly. "Beca's done well by us – all of us – and she's kept us safe; she's brought our circumstances to light, and has done everything in her power to legally and personally protect both Vampire and human, alike. She's been drafting laws and holding conferences for decades; she didn't make the decision to out us lightly.
"Beca has held the position of Queen for as long as many of us can remember, and she's well-liked," Luke explains proudly. "Vampires trust her to care for us, and the humans are swiftly learning that, where our safety is concerned, Beca will not compromise. Still," he sighs out gently, "despite all the precautions she's taken, Beca has enemies. Though the majority of us – largely due to Beca's efforts – have become Dwellers in the past several centuries, the Nons aren't pleased. They've fought her on this since day one, and will likely continue to do so – but, because she is a sire now, it's her main priority to keep Emily safe, and so I act as her guard," Luke says solemnly. "The whole world knows that Beca has sired, now, and that makes Emily a target. Beca doesn't want us associating with you or Chloe too closely, because she doesn't want to put you in danger, either. It was one of her biggest fears about turning Emily, and Beca had quite a few of them," he discloses softly.
"She did?" Emily frowns and lifts her head, backing away a couple of steps to observe Luke more easily.
Aubrey studies her curiously, and wonders how she couldn't have known, already, that Beca might have feared turning her for any number of reasons.
"Well, sure," Luke grins broadly, and chucks his fingers beneath her chin fondly. "She was afraid she'd do wrong by you, Legacy," he chuckles and shakes his head. "She was afraid she'd endanger you in ways that you didn't understand, and she was afraid she'd take life from you before you were old enough to really accept what that meant."
"I was eighteen," Emily tells him pointedly. "I was an adult."
"And you were sick," Luke reminds her sternly. "You were very, very sick, and had been for years when Beca found you. She always said she was never even sure that you wanted to be turned; only that you couldn't bear for your mother to suffer if she didn't need to."
"I – " Emily swallows and shakes her head. "I didn't want my mom to suffer," she says, strained. "But- Beca was so… I dunno," she shrugs weakly. "I wanted to be with her. Not like, with her," she rushes to tell Aubrey, with a wildly desperate little look in her eyes that pleads for understanding, and it nearly makes Aubrey smile, except that she's afraid to.
Aubrey's afraid to do anything, truthfully, because she's terrified that any move she might make could cause this discussion to end, and she isn't ready for that, yet; she wants to know everything about Beca, and about her past, but- Beca's never seemed like turning Emily was something she'd actually been ready to do, despite how much she loves her, and Aubrey's always wondered how that came to be.
"I just- wanted to be around her. And I was so sick, and the leukemia was so painful, and my mom just- cried. All the time," Emily whimpers softly. "I hated it. I hated being powerless, and I hated being weak, and I hated that there was nothing I could do to fix any of it. And then Beca came into the hospital and stopped into my room, and it was like she was meant to find me, there," Emily smiles vaguely as she drops her gaze to the floor.
When she lifts it again, she looks to Aubrey and briefly explains, "She wasn't looking for me; there was another girl, about my age, who was brought in with some serious injuries. I didn't know it then, obviously, but it turns out she'd been attacked by a Vampire, and Beca wanted to check on her, and make sure she was alright – but she found me, instead.
"And we talked," Emily laughs, but it sounds watery, so Aubrey checks her eyes and feels her heart clench when she sees that they are tear-filled and lined with red. "We talked for hours, after she found out the girl was in surgery, and when Beca left, I never expected to see her again. But she came back for me," Emily whispers, awed. "She came back for weeks, every day, until she finally told me what she was. She said that she could make me better, and I told her yes. Right away, I told her yes," Emily chuckles softly and shyly shakes her head. "She made me wait, though. She told me to think about it – really, just think about it," Emily sighs. "Then she told me to talk it over with my family.
"It took a while, because I wasn't sure how to explain the second chance she was offering me, and it was still so crazy that Vampires were even real, you know? I mean, they'd already exposed themselves, but it was mostly only something you heard about in big cities, and I lived in Ohio," she snorts. "But- my mom was all for it," Emily swallows again. "She just wanted me better, no matter what it took, so Beca came by the house after I was released, so that she could meet my mom and talk everything over with her, and make sure that we understood what would happen. Beca's always been so- so good to me," Emily breathes softly, like, even now, she can't believe how deeply Beca cares for her. "I've only ever been grateful for what she did," she tells Luke, wide-eyed and honest and so, so sad.
"As a human," Luke tells her softly, and slowly, "Beca cared for you. She'd spent so much time working for Vampires to accept humans as an equal race, but she'd never spent much time with humans outside of politics; she never had the inclination to hide who or what she is, and so she'd never bothered to associate with them, much. You were the first human she'd befriend in probably a thousand years," Luke sighs. "She didn't want you to pass on.
"Beca always said she'd never sire anyone before she could promise that they'd be allowed to live openly, and freely, throughout the world," Luke whispers reverently. "She swore she'd never condemn anyone to live in secret, the way we've always needed to. But, when she met you, Beca had already achieved all that was necessary for you to live any way you wanted. She cared for you, and she had no reason not to help you; she wanted to do everything that she could for you, Emily, and if that meant siring you, then she would do it. And she did. Don't ever doubt her love for you, Legacy, because only love would have made her sire you, in the first place."
Aubrey aches in places she didn't know could even feel aches, and it's only partially pleasant.
She wants to hold Beca, and she wants to press her nose into the Vampire Queen's neck just to share her air and smell the nature on her skin. Aubrey wants to submerge herself entirely inside of Beca's heart, because it doesn't matter that it doesn't beat, like Aubrey's does; Beca's heart might be the biggest thing Aubrey could possibly conceive, anyway, and she wants to carve space for herself inside of it, forever.
The blonde wants to feel Beca's love surrounding every part of her, and she wants to give her own in return; she wants to show Beca how perfectly inspiring Aubrey believes her to be, and she wants to make Beca feel as loved and cherished and cared for as the brunette strives to make Emily feel.
Because it might be true that Beca hadn't been ready to sire Emily, but – to Aubrey's knowledge – Beca has never failed her; she keeps Emily safe, and loved, and protected, and she gives Emily all that she knows how to offer. Beca gives that to Emily because she cares for her, and whatever is left, Beca devotes to caring for others of her kind.
Aubrey thinks that Beca, after three thousand years of waiting, must deserve to feel that sort of love and attention in return, and it hurts Aubrey that she isn't able to begin gifting that to Beca right away. When the Vampire Queen returns, though, Aubrey intends to make it very clear that that's what she wants.
Loving Chloe is a wonderful thing, but loving Chloe and Beca is the most fulfilling emotion Aubrey's ever known.
Author's Note: Ugh. I can't even remember why I wanted to separate them right now, even though I think they're all learning a lot about each other and learning how to grow, together; I just want all of them back in the same place. I'm sorry if this didn't come out quite right, but I've been imagining this scene for weeks, and it's hard to nail it the way I want. Let me know what you think, and if this answers any of your questions. Thanks!
Oh, dude! Also! You guys are so amazing. Seriously. I hit 500 reviews last chapter, and that is just mindblowing. Thank you so much!
