A/N: Hi, I am so sorry its been so long since I updated this, but since the series went on break and I had exam it has been hard finding the energy and motivation to write. But since the series is back, so am I. :) I dont really know how to end things from here, if she could just be a recurring character in the background, I feel like she should have some secnificance and character arc if that is to be the case. I dont really have an idea yet, so if you have any in how she could play a vital role in bringing about or stopping the apocalypse or something, I am listening! :D
Kol's P.O.V.
I was being held back by my idiot brother and I have never felt more like snapping his throat.
"Just let her have some space, she is just a teenager Kol." He said and I hissed at him, and looked over at Davina who just looked defeated.
"I don't think it's just teenage hormones Elijah, something is wrong with her." She said walking over to hug me, and I tried to comfort her but I still just wanted to storm out the door after my kid.
"You're just worried parents, I am sure she will be fine." Elijah said and I rolled my eyes not bothering to contain my anger anymore.
"And what would you know? You have a kid? Do you have any idea about raising a daughter who just came back from the dead? Because unless you have magically made that happen, I will not have you lecturing me about this." I yelled and my brother got closer to me almost looking threatening, but I knew I had hit a nerve with him, and that he had too much control to even consider truly hurting me.
"I helped raise Hope. And since when have I not lectured you brother?" He said calmly trying to keep the tone light but I just rolled my eyes.
"Look, all I am asking is to check up on her. We have been giving her her space, trust me. But something is off about her." I said frustrated that he would not let me go check up on my own daughter, I had this feeling that something bad was wrong with her, I had seen her grow sadder and colder these past few weeks. Almost like she had turned off her humanity or something.
"Look Elijah, we have known her her whole life, let us deal with this please." Davina said pleading to let me go. She could see how much it meant to me, and we had talked about her change in behaviour.
"We are her parents. I am not the little brat you remember anymore brother. Now please, let me go see that my daughter is okay." I said and he finally sighed and nodded knowing I was right, because I was, he had no right to hold me back like this.
I smirked and turned to my wife and gave her a small kiss before vamp speeding out of the door.
I ran to her few usual places, the places she would go these days at least. She had changed it up a lot, and it was confusing. I was on the way back to the house when I smelled smoke. I stopped confused to see that it was coming from the abandoned factory a few blocks from us. As I realised this my eyes widened. What the hell had made her go in there? And more importantly, why was the building on fire?
I could feel my parenting instinctive worrying boil inside of me, and I ran towards the building as fast as I could, I tried to cover my mouth and nose with my t-shirt, as I ran into the building looking around for her. I slowly pushed through shouting her name with a cough as I tried to find her. There was a lot of fire, and I might be an immortal vampire, but even fire would have hard time not killing me.
"Dad?" I heard her small voice say confused, just above a whisper, clearly having been in the smoke much longer than I had. My eyes widened and I tried to follow the sound.
"Yeah! It's me baby! You don't have to speak, but find anything that can make a sound so I can find you!" I yelled, hoping she would hear me. There was silence for a bit, and I could not help but panic, what if there was already too much smoke in her lungs? What if she had passed out? What if her life was slowly fading again, only this time I could actually stop it. I could not lose her again, she was my everything, and I was not going to risk losing her again.
I was panicking and more frantically looking around for her, as I heard a small tap on wood. I sighed in relief knowing she was at least alive. I smirked and concentrated all of my energy into my hearing to find where the sound was coming from. I heard the tap again, this time with closed eyes, I moved towards it. Finally I found her near a wall clearly weak, I smiled as I saw her, she was still conscious and still alive. I sighed in relief and carefully scooped her into my arms. Hugging her close to my chest as I vamp-sped out of the building. I put her down outside, to look at her injuries and to also gain my own breath back. I was completely focused on her, but turned to look behind me as the sound of the building exploding, rang in my ears. Luckily I had ran far enough away from it, but I was shocked still.
As it died down a little, I turned back to Francesca and looked at her worried. I looking at her eyes to see that she was still weakly awake, and coughing slightly. I noticed her jacket was on fire and hit it out. I put my hands on either side of her face just so happy to see that she was still alive. She smiled a little and I pulled her into me, I never wanted her to leave my side again. I looked her over and just smirked a little.
"You taking my jacket again?" I said smiling a little, I knew she did it when she felt lonely or just felt like she needed something to remind her of home. She had taken that jacket since she was a kid. I had just given it to on a whim when she was sad about going to pre-school. Scared that the other kids would not like her. Nothing me or her mother said would convince her of anything else. I finally told her that me and Davina had hexed the jacket, so that as long as she wore it, no one could truly hate her. It was not as large on her now as it was back then, but still too big. She of course knew it was not actually magic now, but I was glad she still took it. I liked knowing she had something of mine with her at all times. She smiled a little as I looked at her smiling even though she was covered in ash.
"It's a little burnt now, sorry." She said and I chuckled and kissed her forehead shaking my head.
"I don't care about the jacket." I said smiling just knowing she was okay, she tried to get up but groaned and I rolled my eyes.
"Where on earth do you think you're going young lady? We are getting you checked by a doctor, and then you're going to explain to me and your mother why on earth you were inside of a burning building." I said looking at her sternly, she looked down and probably knew that she would be in serious trouble for this.
I was going to be pissed about this, but right now, I was too preoccupied with just being happy that she was alive to be actually mad at her. She slowly sighed and nodded I smiled and scooped her up once again, but vamp-sped her to her doctor, it was an old witch who had taken care of her since she was a kid. I had started off by threatening her into treating her, but the old lady just shrugged me off. She always said that she treated witches, no matter the deeds or coven. She was never one for politics apparently. And Davina trusted her, so I did as well, besides she had yet to hurt our daughter in any way.
I called Davina and told her where we were and she hurried down there, explaining to the others what had happened. I could not be bothered to deal with my brother right now, I could feel some anger boiling inside of me. If Francesca had suffered a bit more because he had held me back from coming to her rescue, then I am not certain I would not be ripping out my brothers internal organs. However I focused on my kid as the witch-doctor treated her. She put some herbs I recognised the places she had burn marks and just gave her a potion to have her regain her strength. I smiled and put my head on her forehead slowly caressing it as she fell asleep from the potion. I smiled as I saw her breathing slow and she closed her eyes, turning to the side and curling up just like she always slept. I had been worried that she was constantly having nightmares as a kid when she slept like this, but I knew after many years exactly how she liked to lay while sleeping.
I turned to the doctor who gave me a small smile.
"So, do you know why your daughter started that fire?" She asked and I looked at her confused, I knew she had been on edge but I had really hoped it was an accident that she was in a burning building and not that she was the cause of the burning part.
"Are you certain she started it?" I asked just hoping my little girl would not do something like that. She usually defended herself with other elements than fire, if she used fire it was intentional, she always had to concentrate on that one.
"Sorry, Kol, but there is no mistaking that. But other than a few burns here and there she is fine. Her lungs doesn't seem to have been damaged too much by smoke inhalation." She said putting her wrinkly hand on my shoulder and tapping it once, before leaving me to her.
Davina walked in worried and I explained everything to her, she hugged me and I could feel her worry about Francesca. Our kid was not one to cause fires normally, or cause too much trouble at all. Yes she would pull pranks but she would normally not push her limits past that. This was unlike her.
"Do you think it could be the afterlife? We have both been cursed after coming back before. What if they did something to her?" Davina finally said looking up at me, tears in her eyes, almost like she had read my mind, I hugged her again and kissed the top of her head.
"Doesn't matter. We are going to deal with it, make sure she comes back to normal. No one messes with our kid." I said and we just stood there for a little while.
Francescas P.O.V.
I woke up and shuddered, I looked around knowing it was not my own bed. It was not even my bed at the Salvatore school, but it looked and smelled familiar, and I looked around to see my parents sleeping beside me in two chairs. They looked very peaceful like this. I looked down to see my still slightly burned jacket I sighed. I still shuddered a little from my recurring nightmare. The nightmare that only went away when I passed out drunk. And even then sometimes it still crept in. I lied there a little and looked around, wondering what I was gonna do.
After the experience in the burning building, I knew not having feelings was not the term that could describe what I had. I lied there and looked over at my sleeping parents. I was gonna worry them to death, I always did. This burning down a building and accidentally trapping myself inside it had definitely not been good. Hell it had not even been that fun for me. But as I lied in there losing consciousness I realised, I had not lost the ability to feel. I had just been in hell all of that time. I had been scared. I was still scared, and I could only think about one way to cure this fear. Face it.
I sighed and looked over at my parents once again, I knew what I was about to do was gonna make them, angry, sad and worried. But no matter how much they had shielded me from the world, there were some things they could not shield me from, and that I had to deal with on my own.
I slowly got up, grabbed my jacket and put it on. I walked over to the old witch-doctor who had treated me and she smiled at me. I put my finger to my lips and gestured back to my parents who was still sound asleep. She smiled and nodded knowingly. I then did a gesture and she somehow understood and handed me a piece of paper and a pen. I smiled grateful and she just ruffles my hair lightly. She was fond of me, and I had always liked her.
She walked away leaving me to it and I slowly put the pen to the paper, writing everything they needed to know. I put down the pen and walked out of her office not really knowing what to do now. How to get this to them.
Luckily, as I walked out of the building I bumped into my uncle Elijah. He smiled at me but looked at me concerned when my parents were not behind me.
"You gave us quite a scare there Fran." He said with a small smile and I nodded.
"I know. Hey, when mom and dad wakes up, do you think you could give this to them?" I said holding out the note I had written for them. He looked at it and then me worried.
"Not off to burn down another building are you?" He asked and I shook my head with a small smile.
"No. There is just some things I am gonna have to deal with on my own." I said and he sighed looked at me with furrowed eyebrows.
"Your parents are gonna hate me for this." He said and I sighed and nodded, he looked me over carefully and the sighed and nodded clearly defeated, he could probably see that there was something serious going on with me.
"My brother is going to kill me if anything happens to you, so be careful please. We don't get a lot of kids in our family, I would hate to lose you." He said giving me a small smile and I nodded and gave him a small smile. He sighed and took the note from me, then gave me small hug and then he let me walk away.
I could feel him looking after me as I walked the familiar path into the city. Right now the plan was to compell people into giving me some free bus tickets, and then I would be off. I went to the busstation and got the tickets, compelling the women at the office into thinking I had won a free bus-ride. She gave me the ticket and I walked into the bus finding what I hoped would be a secluded windowseat.
My parents were going to be angry with me, I knew that much. But I knew I needed to deal with this on my own. I loved the fact that they had always tried to kill and keep every monster that could come near me away fro me. But this monster they could not kill, because it was inside of me.
I thought I had run away from this, it is easy to convince yourself that you have run away from something, when in reality you have been carrying it with you the whole time.
After a few hours I got off the bus outside the gates of the Salvatore school. I looked at it a little scared and sighed as I walked in, slowly pushing the cold metal gate open. It creaked a little, and I winced at the sound. Everything reminded me of that place.
I walked in, and put a cloaking spell on myself, I did not want anyone to notice me as I walked through the school, scared, covered in ash and miserable.
I walked though the halls, passed the classes, and the kids playing in the halls. None of them noticed me, and it was like a haunted house, but I was the ghost. Finally I stopped where I was going and I could feel my breathing and heart momentarily stop as I stood in front of the door. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, normally I would try to hide them, wipe them away, do anything to hide how I felt. But right now I was going to own up to this, face this and then maybe, just maybe move past it.
I tried to take a deep breath, but I could not really manage as my breathing was still shook from all of this. I slowly put my hand on the cold metal doorknob, and turned it pushing the wooden door open. As I walked in the room looked the same. There was no way anyone could see that something horrible had happened her. But as I closed the door behind me and walked around slowly, images flashed behind my eyes. How I got killed by my own parents. How I was haunted in the underworld. The few hours of peace I had through a candle in this room.
I had realised as I woke up, that I had been stuck in the burning building, scared and panicking if I would get out of it alive, and just then I realised. That even as I was trapped in a burning building, it was not really there that I was stuck. I was stuck in a different room, mentally. Mentally for months I had been stuck here, in this empty ballroom in a magical school. For months I had thought that I had lost my feelings, but I had just been scared. This entire time I had repress all of my emotions, because deep down I knew if I let them out, the fear I felt would overpower them all. I slowly sat down, not even having to think about it, I knew this was the spot. I slowly sat there pulled my legs under me and held them tightly. I just sat there crying for a while. Thinking about it all, letting it all out, letting out how truly scared I was being back here. But it was also therapeutic, because I had been so scared of this place, the place that sent me to the ancestral plane. It had trapped me in this dark hell dimension where I was being haunted by witches everywhere I looked. I had never been more scared in my life. But I realised I need to go back here in order to move on. In order to stop having the recurring nightmare of the ancestral plane but in the dream I was truly trapped there. I had to stop being stuck in this room, scared of it happening again. So scared that I had stopped moving and just been here, terrified that maybe this was just a sick hallucination, and I was not actually home and alive, but still trapped in that hell dimension, in this room by some horrible witches who wanted revenge for something I did not do.
I slowly lied down as I had done on the grass back home, and after having been there for a long while I felt cried out. I felt a little safer. Knowing I could be here, in the room that had terrified me for months, and nothing happened. It was just an empty ballroom floor. No blood, no witches, no curses, no nightmares. No one was hurting me there, I was back there and it was hard, but I was there back in the room where I had literally died. Where I had left my body, a body I had no felt home in in a while. But right now, I felt a little bit like me again, like facing this fear was helping me get rid of it. I felt like I was no longer being driven by this desire to feel something other than fear, but rather feeling the fear slip out from inside me.
I lied there and slowly sighed and closed my eyes, content with finally facing this room. This room that I had been stuck in for so long, and now I could finally leave behind what had happened here.