A.N.: Thank you again to everyone who reviewed – it was delightful, waking up to 23 messages in my Inbox! And the sun is shining, I made a gorgeous banana-bread, I have the weekend off work, so it is a good day!

And it pissed it down with torrential rain all day during our village fête. Not cool.

I just finished watching the rest of season 3 of Teen Wolf. WTF?! Is it bad that I was more upset about Aiden than Allison? Aiden's final scene with Ethan – bawled. And WTF is up with Kate? 'Sometimes the shape you take reflects the person you are'. WTF does that say about Kate? As ever, the inimitable Lydia remains my favourite character – and she has inspired someone who will appear in the 'Originals' timeline of this story. I may also borrow some elements from TW for my story – the ritual sacrifices, etc.

Also just watched the first episode of season four. Am loving Malia's relaxed, natural style and who isn't glad Stiles is back to his old self? Although, bit concerned about La Loba – i.e. sociopathic bitch, Kate. That'll be interesting for Peter to deal with on top of the fact he's a daddy.

Also, I'm going to be changing the face of witches in my story. I'm a huge Kresley Cole fan, and her hidden world of the supernatural features the obligatory werewolves, vampires and ghosts, but her witches are immortal once they've hit the age they're at their physical peak. I like that idea, and I am in love with my own idea for a coven in New Orleans separate from the 'ancestral magic' coven Davina et al. belong to. They're awesome, and friends with Kol – who I will be keeping in my story, instead of writing him out and replacing him with someone else; but he'll be an Original cousin rather than sibling.


Drunken Binges, Funerals and Formals

29

The Morning After


Four a.m., Giulia sat in her favourite of the twenty-four hour diners just off Third Street, jacket on, panties stuffed in her cheer bag, a plate of waffles and a strong, sweet black coffee steaming in front of her, untouched. Still burning deliciously from a few rigorous bouts with Cade, getting creative in the quiet dark of his bedroom, her fingers were trembling, discombobulated by exhaustion, she was…desolated – she had snuck out Cade's window when he'd passed out, worn out by the game, and by her: what she had been searching for, yearning for with every beat of her aching, lonely heart, hadn't been there.

And having sex with Cade, no matter how physically satisfying it had been, to fill the desolated, betrayed void inside her that grew every day, had been stupid.

She'd never had sex with anyone but Tyler before.

And it hadn't worked – she felt lonelier than she had in ages, and what she had wanted from Cade, from someone… It hadn't worked. Her body was raw and on fire, tired but exhilarated, she was wired but about to drop from exhaustion, her eyes burned, her throat was close, she felt bewildered, lost, she was starving but couldn't bring herself to eat, and she sat, head propped on her hand, staring morosely and unseeing at the table-top. Faced with the reality that her only family were leaving town after doing their best to destroy almost every aspect of her life – systematically abusing her best-friend, outing themselves to their ex-girlfriend's doppelganger, torturing her witch friend, turning Jeremy's girlfriend then staking her, leaving a trail of bodies, murdering her father – with their only thought that of Elena and how she would handle telling Bonnie the details…

Her phone buzzed, and Giulia reached blindly for it out of her purse: the screen, blurry in her vision, showed Ashlyn's name. Her surprise was enough to make her hit Accept.

"Hey," her voice was exhausted, but concerned.

"Hi…" Giulia said blearily. "What're you doing up? It's four a.m. I know why I'm still awake…"

"I just…got this feeling…" Ashlyn said softly. Giulia smiled unhappily. Witches… "Are you okay?"

"You've got a bit of Practical Magic going on there," Giulia teased softly, her voice sounding deadened even to herself.

"What's happened?" Ashlyn asked concernedly.

"Bad night," Giulia said morosely, her eyes burning, her stomach aching.

"Wanna tell me about it?" Ashlyn coaxed. Giulia shut her eyes tight, expelling a choked sigh, and sniffed. She started talking – telling Ashlyn everything, everything she couldn't talk to Caroline about, everything Damon wasn't focused to discuss with her, everything she didn't want to talk to Elena about on principle, about the grimoire, the tomb, Katherine, Giulia's perspective on Damon, her anger at Stefan, her annoyance that now Elena, who was the most judgemental person she knew, had someone to talk to about all of this with Bonnie, the glummest, most negative person she knew. The two combined would surely lead Giulia to distraction – she, the morally 'ambiguous' one with an incredibly high level of intelligence, the lusty introvert who probably should be more judgemental and forceful with her reactions. The only person she would ever really want to know about all of this was the one person she would do anything to prevent learning the secret, because her life would be forever altered, and Giulia didn't want that for her; but Caroline would be exactly the person who would play honesty-police when the others were being overbearingly obtuse and judgemental and making her want to bash their skulls in with bricks.

She finished with, "…and now they're leaving. Like they didn't come to town and destroy everything. Like they don't even realise the two of them leaving town means…means they're just leaving, without even…"

"Without even remembering it's their fault you're an orphan," Ashlyn said softly."That you have no-one else."

Giulia's lip trembled as she admitted what she'd been struggling to come to terms with the last few weeks; "I don't want to live in that huge old house by myself. Just full of the ghosts of people. And that's all they've left me. Just ghosts. They wrecked everything, now they're just leaving. Just like that. And I… I broke my rule, I went and slept with Cade."

"He's one of your boys, isn't he?" Ashlyn asked, her voice picking up in excitement and humour: Giulia had sounded so miserable when she'd admitted sleeping with Cade.

"Yes, and…doing what we'd been doing all summer just wasn't going to be enough any more," Giulia said miserably.

"Was it that bad?" Ashlyn asked guiltily.

"No – no! It was…wow," Giulia said, her stomach turning deliciously at the memory of Cade, still fresh in her mind with the lingering imprint on her body. "That's not the problem. I was just…looking for…"

"Closeness," Ashlyn said sadly, after a minute. Giulia let out a hoarse sigh, her eyes burning; it hadn't worked. She had climbed out Cade's window with her panties stuffed into one of her boots, laces draped around her neck so she could climb, Cade passed out in his bed…she'd lain in the darkness, body wired, mind exhausted, and felt the same way she usually did – adrift. One tiny particle adrift in the great mystical galaxy. Except she had no stunning navy 1964 police-box or a companion who shared her adventures, dazzled by her intellect.

"I was looking for intimacy. The kind I had with Tyler, when…when we were friends," she admitted hoarsely. Because she was missing Tyler. "Because there's not a person in the world I have that with anymore… And now I just…feel more alone than I even did before… Lovely conversation for first thing in the morning, huh?"

"If you're hurting I'd really rather be on the phone than sleep through it, having you upset with no-one to talk to," Ashlyn said softly, and Giulia smiled. Maybe she did have someone she could talk to about all this.

"Thanks, Ashlyn," she said softly, rubbing her eyes. How Ashlyn had known she was feeling off, she didn't know, just attributed it to some mystical intuition, but whatever it was, Giulia was grateful. She'd been feeling utterly desolated, alone and unappreciated – one simple act of kindness could change a person's life, and right now, the heavy weight settling on her was dissipating. One conversation with Ashlyn couldn't cure her of how she was feeling, but it had chipped away a little of the wall of loneliness circumstances had built around her.

"I think you should get some sleep, Giulia," Ashlyn said. "And finish your waffles, 'kay? Not eating and getting enough sleep is having an impact on you, and I know you know that."

"D'you wanna tell me to brush my teeth, too?" Giulia teased, smiling tremulously.

"Brush your teeth, Giulia," Ashlyn said softly, with a faint chuckle. "Get some sleep, and have a decent breakfast. I'll see you soon, okay?"

"I'd like that," Giulia said honestly. "Thank you. Go back to sleep."

"Alright."


Hours later, she could've sworn her phone-conversation was a dream. Only the laptop open on her duvet, the screen showing Facebook when she tapped the mouse-pad, on Giulia's wall, and her cell-phone, getting lost in the folds of her sheets, and Elijah, coming in to her room to coax her down to brunch, asking, "What were you doing at four o'clock this morning? It sounded like you were talking in your sleep."

"I, uh… I got this weird feeling, about Giulia Salvatore," Ashlyn said quietly. She hadn't needed to add the 'Salvatore' part – they all knew who they meant when they said 'Giulia'. La bella, they had nicknamed her in Manhattan; the dizzyingly clever introvert who partied as hard as any centuries-old vampire, and could carry a hyper-intelligent, articulate conversation despite the fun flowing through her veins.

"What kind of a feeling?" Elijah asked, handing her a cup of coffee, frowning concernedly. "Do you suppose her to be in some kind of danger?"

"Besides having two vampires living in her house?" Ashlyn said, smiling ironically. Elijah hummed softly, his lips twitching. "She's not like me, Elijah… She can't give them a continuous aneurysm when they step out of line."

"No, she cannot," he said softly. "Though I am certain La Bella knows how to handle her relatives."

"I just don't think they really know how to handle her," Ashlyn said softly, remembering the things Giulia had told her. "It…sounds like they don't even…think about the effect their actions are having on her. And she told me herself, she can't speak her mind to anyone at home about the things going on there."

"And why not?" Elijah asked. "Surely her family and friends would appreciate her input."

"No; she thinks they'd judge her as a bad guy if she told them her perspective on things," Ashlyn said quietly. Elijah's lips quirked, in that quietly ironic look he had perfected, the look that made her want to smile, though she didn't know the joke. "What?"

"Sometimes…a little naughtiness breaks up the monotony nicely," he said softly, and Ashlyn rolled her eyes, amused. "Her friends and family, you mentioned they would not appreciate her perspective… Her perspective on what?"

As Elijah wandered around her bedroom, examining trinkets, leafing through textbooks, smiling vaguely at framed photographs, smelling a bottle of perfume, subtly eyeing the contents of her dressing-table drawers, she told him everything she remembered from her conversation with Giulia. She was a pretty good judge on Elijah – her proper, quirky guardian, who kept things buttoned, except when he was incandescently joyous, her clever, secretive, wonderful guardian, weird and sorrowful – though she had heard stories about him in past lives. So she could tell when her story started to truly engage him, rather than him just listening out of concern. No, something about her story was captivating him; he had the serious, thoughtful face on usually reserved for when he had to go abroad to deal with renegade vampire warlords, as he called them.

The one he put on when he knew he would have to pluck a few hearts from their chests to settle the situation.

"And you say Katherine was trapped within the tomb by magic?" he asked, and Ashlyn nodded. She had heard stories about Katherine Pierce – she was a hellacious slut, turning brother against brother, manipulating others to their doom for her own survival, constantly running for centuries, piling up bodies in her wake, making enemies of their loved-ones. And she was the doppelganger – the supernatural occurrence made to ensure a curse could be lifted whenever one appeared. Ashlyn had been told her vampire history by Cara before she was even out of her cradle. Elijah embellished here and there, wherever her education seemed lacking – she knew about New Orleans, and the nefarious Kol's exploits in Africa, Haiti, in his small French Quarter cocktail-bar.

"According to Giulia, who has it from Damon, who's the only one who knew Emily Bennett was successful in saving her life," Ashlyn said, now sitting at the breakfast-table, reaching for fresh croissants and preserves. Elijah was partial to jam – would eat an entire jar straight if he was feeling indulgent. "Giulia says that Damon was only told Emily's spell protecting Katherine was successful after he had turned. And because Stefan forced him to consume human blood to complete the transition, so he didn't have to be alone for eternity, Damon didn't tell him to punish him… Although Stefan's convinced Katherine compelled him to love her."

Elijah's lips twitched. "I find it difficult to imagine any young-man would need persuasion to feel affection for Katerina. Or any old one, either. She had her charms, long before she turned vampire."

"Yuck."

"As a vampire, our personalities are only heightened, not altered – Katherine Pierce became a manipulative slut as a vampire because she was a self-absorbed slattern as a human," Elijah said coolly. Still waters ran very deep with Elijah – core-of-the-Earth deep – and only a handful of times had Ashlyn ever seen his usually stoic demeanour waver toward an immediate, dangerous emotional response. Talk of Katerina Petrova brought out one of those reactions, where politeness, properness, were abandoned in place of real, lingering anger that gnawed at his stomach and made his skin crawl. Betrayed. She had betrayed him – just as the originator of the doppelganger lineage had. Ruptured his relationship with his brother forever.

Always and forever, she thought, eyeing Elijah as he absentmindedly stroked her cat, curled up and purring in his lap.

"I think you getting slutty may do you some good," Ashlyn said thoughtfully, eyeing her uncle. Elijah's lips twitched in amusement.

"Truly?"

"Well, it's not a cure-all," Ashlyn said sadly. "Giulia's having a hell of a time of it."

"She just lost her father, in a sudden, violent way," Elijah said softly. "Death is always imminent yet humans do not dwell on their mortality. They seize it… I am sure Giulia never expected her father to be taken from her so early in her life… She lives in a blessed generation where medicine allows families to stay together longer. Hers is a generation of great-grandparents." Ashlyn knew he meant that because medicine and a heightened standard of living helped humans live longer, numerous generations of the same family survived – great-grandparents could coddle new infants, even while the new parents were in their twenties or thirties. Previous centuries, people had been widowed or orphaned very early in life, married off during their early teen years because the life-expectancy was so low, mortality rate of infants so dire, plague, illness, war so virulent entire populations were decimated.

Ashlyn had no idea what it felt like to have grandparents; Giulia had her father, the one grounding constant that had shaped her childhood and moulded the person she was growing into. Now that person was gone.

"I don't think it's just her dad being gone… That's definitely a huge part of it, and I'm not sure she really knows how to go about dealing with it," Ashlyn said quietly. "And I don't think anybody is noticing she's having a hard time."

"Alexia's friend Stefan, I would have thought, would care about her feelings," Elijah said calmly, a faint frown drawing his eyebrows close.

"He's totally whipped," Ashlyn said, rolling her eyes. "A total Edward."

"Then I pity Giulia having to live with him," Elijah sniffed; he was a dedicated Anne Rice and Kresley Cole fan. And completely disdained the other more recent and delusional take on sparkling bloodsuckers. Elijah sighed softly. "Perhaps La bella takes as much from your burgeoning friendship as you do. You've seemed so much happier in the last few weeks."

"I am," Ashlyn admitted. She had been miserable before; just Giulia's friendship – long-distance phone-calls, chatting about their lives, homework, her dates, Giulia's slip-up having sex with Cade, doing their mutual blog, sharing recipes, doing their shared story, enjoying getting to know each other, putting together small gift-exchanges full of makeup, sweet things and trinkets – had somehow transformed Ashlyn's everyday life. She had someone removed from the situation to talk to about it, where before she hadn't had a single person in the world who knew her secret, couldn't talk to anyone about the very unusual realities of her family-life. Now she did. And getting a lot off her chest the past few weeks had been liberating, befriending Giulia the way she had suggested they could be friends. Ashlyn didn't have a best-friend, and Giulia couldn't talk to hers, even though she would probably die for her friend Caroline.

"Perhaps you could invite her to visit again," Elijah suggested, taking a drink of tea from the fine bone-china cup at his place-setting. Ashlyn nodded; she did want to see Giulia again. But she…sort of wanted to get away from the city. Giulia had seen her life: Ashlyn wanted to experience the calm that was small-town life tucked in a sleepy community. She wondered how different her life would have been like had Elijah and Cara decided to move to a small-town to raise her… She knew they never would have – couldn't have gotten away with not aging the way they could in huge cities. But she did wonder.

"Yeah," she said softly.

"We've got the Solstice Gala coming up," Elijah reminded her, and Ashlyn glanced up. The Solstice Gala was something Elijah had done every year since before he could probably even truly remember. On the longest night of the year – a vampire's playground! – he presided over celebrations, the same way he and his community used to as humans, celebrating being halfway out of the darkness. That much closer to spring, to the fruits of the earth blossoming, life-giving. Since she had been alive, Elijah had hosted every gala at his Connecticut mansion, the donations going to charities of his choosing, each year showcasing the wing of the mansion open to the public and schools as a museum, full of artwork, sculptures, historical artefacts, exquisite ancient bibles, jewellery, vases, that sort of thing, even the dolls' house he had made for his sister Dagmar. The one Ashlyn had grown up gazing at in complete wonder for hours on end, always knowing there was something too exquisite, too special about the handmade porcelain-faced dolls with their period costumes full of tiny real pearls and jewels and silks to ever play with, dragging them across the lawn as she played in the paddling-pool, or cuddling in bed with them.

Ashlyn knew Giulia was a huge History glut. She doubted there were many people who would appreciate Elijah's museum more than Giulia. And Giulia could dance – would she actually enjoy a highest-society gala benefitting charity? There was always sumptuous food, the alcohol was free-flowing, the most glittering people in the world were invited, the entertainments were always staggering, and Ashlyn was now at the age where Chocolat would delight in dressing her for the party as a young-woman rather than a child, not sent off to bed before nine p.m. to watch Disney movies, eat excessive amounts of tortilla chips and hand-crafted chocolates pilfered by Cara for her, her stomach aching to be a part of it.

Besides Cara, Aljaž and Chocolat, there were few people Ashlyn would actually spend time with at Elijah's fancy ball – they would all be greeting their own vampire friends whom they hadn't seen in years. Kol would probably come up from New Orleans to whip up a few signature cocktails to fit with Elijah's theme (always usually chosen by Vera). It might be…lovely…to have Giulia there.


Later, he sat in his study, his favourite music playing quietly, a glass of very expensive cognac poured out, a book he'd read a hundred times before open in his lap, and Grace dozing at his feet; he was gazing unseeingly at the richly-woven carpet, turning over everything Ashlyn had heard via Giulia.

Katerina was alive. Desiccating to the point of anguish and insanity, but still a part of this world.

Elijah would have believed her smarter than to let herself get caught in a human ambush – although escaping death, certainly, was consistent for the selfish girl he had once allowed himself to be charmed by, too caught up by memories of a long-forgotten past filled with unendurable agony.

The hope that she could redeem the insults done unto him by her forebear. The wounds had only been torn open afresh, the healing breach between himself and his brother injured once again, so that, centuries later, the already tenuous bond had become almost irreparable.

Almost, he thought tiredly. Almost. Almost implied hope, and Elijah was a master of patience, of forgiveness, of hoping for redemption. Of hope.

This situation – La Bella, left to deal with the ramifications of her ancestors' actions, driven by their love for Katerina – was a delicate one. To allow too many people to learn of Katerina's continued existence was to court every vengeance-fuelled vampire the world over to descend upon Mystic Falls, enough to wipe out the entire community of the small town. And Elijah knew Katerina would have no qualms about holding the town hostage – she had done so before, compelling entire communities to shelter her but forget who she was when she was not standing right before their eyes – if anyone dared threaten her freedom. After a hundred and fifty years stuck inside a tomb, desiccating, Elijah fancied there would be nothing Katerina would not do to ensure she was never again bound.

She valued survival above everything else.

In many ways Katerina exhibited traits inherited from the seductive, selfish Tatia from whom she had taken her face.

Tatia had never been wicked for the sake of inflicting pain. Self-absorbed and sometimes unkind, yes, but in the end…at her end, she had made a choice. To atone. Tatia had sacrificed her life.

Katerina held nothing more sacred than herself.

Rejected by her family after her father had given her to a local warlord to secure a pact when she was still a girl, banished to a foreign country being rebuilt by an aging Henry VII for her shame when she had learned to deal with her problems by allowing men into her bed, Katerina when she had arrived in England in 1492 had been a wounded, beautiful girl trying to leave her demons behind her, her eyes bright, cheeks flushing with delight with every gift bestowed her, learning to enjoy the warmth of the sun on her face, learning French, the language of royal courts the world over, enjoying his Italian garden, inviting herself into his bed during terrors at the English storms, or times of emotional anguish…and into the bed of his brother, when he set his sights on her, trying to woo her to lull her before he intended to drain her dry of her blood on an altar of fire.

Better you die than I, was the last thing Elijah had ever heard her whisper on the wind. The young Katerina who had sought safety in his bed, in his arms, had been destroyed. By his brother – his selfish agenda, to undo the past, a fate Elijah believed he had come to deserve with every vile, wicked act he had committed against others. The abused had turned into the punisher, the one who doled out torture, pain as the clouds surely emptied themselves of a torrent. Though his efforts reaped naught but pain, resentment, anger and the consuming drive for vengeance.

Wherever Niklaus was now, Elijah was certain he was surrounded by sycophants, paranoid, destructive, in pain, terrified of him…of Mikael. A hundred years on, nearly, since his request to help him kill Elijah's own brother, his own blood, Mikael had never once darkened Elijah's door, though he had built himself a community, a world here, hidden in the sweeping avenues of Manhattan, but very much visible for the vampire who hunted vampires. Who hunted his wife's son.

In centuries past, Mikael had never sought out Elijah – nor Isak, Freya, Dagmar, William - even his cousin Kol, the most insolent of them, Mikael had left alone, to mix his cocktails in the Quarter, cavorting lustily with the witches he adored so much. Kol knew how to keep a low-profile; recent phone-calls gave evidence to the fact Niklaus had not caught up with him – or bothered to catch him. Belligerent as the two had always been, Niklaus had always been least-likely to get on Kol's bad side. Kol, the sole cousin raised amongst siblings – and Niklaus, the half-brother, the shame of their mother – the proverbial slap to Elijah's father's face that he had been cuckolded.

Though Elijah tended to believe less that his mother had been unfaithful, rather she had lain with the wolf to cement alliances between his clan and her own. Throughout time, Elijah had witnessed women being exploited for the benefit of their husbands, fathers, brothers. For power, for prestige, and influence.

Katerina had landed in England, in his home, his bedchamber, due to her father's ambitions. And the hypocrisy, when a woman bore a child from it, or took other men into her bed because she enjoyed it. Elijah had not been raised devout Eastern Orthodox the way Katerina had – far from it; his mother had raised her children to be deeply traditional pagan.

Nature-worship…or so they had thought; Esther had proved herself to be exquisitely adept at dark magic.

He was living-dead proof of her talents.

Katerina was a reminder of his mother's gifts. The doppelganger was a supernatural occurrence guaranteed to pop up throughout time because of Nature, and because of his mother's cruel sense of justice.

For too long, Elijah sat ruminating on the past – so long Cara found him, and had to snap her fingers in front of his face, clapping her hands, finally pinching him, threatening to get her antique Renaissance torture-devices to break him out of it.

He invited her to sit in the armchair beside his, poured a tumbler of cognac for her, and sighed heavily. Of all the vampires he knew and trusted, Carafina and Veronica were the two highest on the list. For five centuries they had remained together – and remained loyal to him; and him to them. There was nothing he would not do to protect them, make their lives beautiful. Isak had seen the exquisite potential in the two women centuries before, it had been Elijah's privilege to nurture it. Because of Niklaus, Isak never got the opportunity.

Elijah rubbed his palms against the arms of his chair, anger such as he hadn't felt for decades prickling his skin, and told Cara what he had learned from Ashlyn. From Giulia Salvatore.


On the one hand, she had dealt with her problems without the excessive consumption of alcohol. So a plus was that she had no debilitating hangover. The drawback of using sex to feel better was that she actually felt worse: she hadn't found what she was needing with Cade. Intimacy, a closeness, a deep emotional tie that could help her through anything.

And the first thing Caroline did when she saw Giulia next was to berate her – apparently, the whole school knew Giulia and Cade were 'together', though Giulia couldn't remember any such conversation between the two of them. Apparently most of the football-team had heard Cade talking to Tyler about it being weird that he and Giulia were hanging out.

They'd had this conversation before, Cade and Giulia – Giulia telling him that Tyler had absolutely no say in her life anymore given what he had done. They were exes – they were now not even friends. As far as dictating whether it was okay for Giulia to hang out with Cade, well, she'd had a very frank conversation with Tyler about his place in all this, months ago.

Caroline wouldn't let her forget that she'd climbed in Cade's window the other night. Giulia would have liked to forget it: no good had come of it, and she was lonelier than she had even been before. Anyone could've probably told her that sex wasn't a quick-fix for severe emotional turmoil, but she'd…wanted immediate closeness with someone. Hadn't worked out that way, after the initial act. Cade had passed out, she'd been unable to sleep until dawn, and even then, only for a couple hours, her conversation with Ashlyn ringing through her mind.

Had it been wise to tell her about Katherine?

Probably not. She remembered the antagonism toward even Katherine's mere memory at Chocolat's penthouse. She guessed Damon would be the only one excited to see Katherine again – Giulia knew Stefan would do everything in his power to make sure he didn't. Because he was spiteful, had a very short memory and no qualms about painting his brother as the evil one.

If Stefan put half as much energy into getting to know his brother, rather than chasing after a teenage girl he would have to inevitably leave, he would know what Giulia had known since she was a little girl: that Damon pretended to be evil, because someone had to fill the role and get things done, he looked good in black, and eternity was too long to play by all the rules.

Stefan pretended to be good. But a good person wouldn't want to see their brother hurting, and Damon was. She'd left the house this morning chock full of sorority-girls in their cute little cheekie panties and colourful floral bralets, braids and diamonds – playing Twister and dancing with Damon. To each his own – Damon was coping.

One last hurrah with the Tri Deltas before he made his departure.

Giulia didn't know exactly when that would be: in the past he had come and gone as he pleased. She expected him to just disappear one night, and not return for a decade, if nothing brought him back to Mystic Falls. He wasn't a creature of strictly-regimented habit the way Stefan had become. Regimenting, sublimating.

All she knew was that someone had slipped Logan Fell vampire-blood before he had bled out in the woods the night he had attacked Stefan and Vicki. Damon had fed on him and left him to die, she was sure the Sheriff and the other Council members had discovered the body and disposed of it quietly.

So who had fed Logan their blood – it certainly hadn't been Damon or Stefan? She knew it wasn't 'impossible' for another vampire to be in town, as Stefan had claimed: so who was it? And why Mystic Falls? It was boring here, there was nothing to do, no buzzing city-life to conceal nefarious misdeeds committed in the midnight hour. So what had drawn another vampire to town?

Only one thing came to mind: the tomb.

Twenty-seven entombed vampires meant there may be double that number waiting out their eternity for the same moment Damon had. The night the comet passed over Mystic Falls again after one hundred and fifty years, when the spell on the tomb could be broken and allow the vampires free.

As Caroline slept on, Giulia mused, frowning up at the ceiling in the dark, on the Founders' journals. With an eidetic memory, Giulia never forgot a single letter of anything she read. It was like a computer-system, things she had read filed away, able to open them and bring them up for perusal. Sometimes she could pull up the page in her memory like an HD photograph, every detail intact. And having read every Founders' journal but the Lockwood archives, Giulia put the pieces together, obscure references out of synch with any other entry in other journals, details that had gone unlinked for generations.

That 'Miss Pearl' had a young daughter. That said daughter, Annabel, referenced several times by Jonathan Gilbert in his journals, in the early days when he had been courting Pearl, had not been named in the Founders Archives as a civilian casualty during the Battle of Willow Creek. She had not been listed as one of the vampires rounded up in the Founders' journals.

Described as a little thing, demure and smiling, bright-eyed by Jonathan Gilbert's account and adept at needlecraft, her mother's friendship with Katherine Pierce had been well-documented, they had been best-friends for centuries. Damon told her this, texting back as she messaged him in the dark. Pearl, and her daughter Annabel, had five-hundred years on Stefan and Damon – had centuries on Katherine herself.

Mother and daughter, together for eternity.

Giulia glanced over at Caroline, still sleeping soundly, exhausted from crying over the fact Logan Fell, her old babysitter, had attacked her when he'd offered her a ride home. She didn't know that he had been a vampire set on turning her to spite her mother, who had buried him behind a used-car dealership when Giulia's 'uncles' had left him to die in the woods, chasing after transitioning Vicki Donovan.

This all came back to the tomb. To Emily. She had destroyed the crystal, but didn't all magic demand balance? Everything made must eventually be undone? History was living testament to that fact. Even now, the economic prosperity and political influence of America was waning, China taking its place as the hub of economic growth. Everything was cyclical. And there was always a loophole. Always a way out, she thought again. There had to be a way to get the vampires out of the tomb.

Sitting up suddenly in the dark, Giulia knew exactly where to find it.


A.N.: Please review. And if anyone wants to chat Teen Wolf season 4 with me, feel free to give me a PM. I absolutely love Malia – it's so refreshing to see a character who's unpolished…maybe it's the wild hair and fresh, makeup-less face, but I love it. A normal teenage girl…albeit an emotionally scarred and intellectually stunted werecoyote, but still! She's probably the only female character I immediately liked, aside from Lydia and Mrs McCall.