Red Maracas

Damon glowered at the food options on show, all seemingly cooked in such a way so as to make them as unappetizing as possible. He allowed a server to put what he thought were scrambled eggs on his plate, and he then grabbed a few slices of toast, sachets of pepper, and a glass of cranberry juice that he wished was bourbon. What happened to fresh pastries and muffins?

"Is there a new chef?" Damon said, lips twisting in disgust as he closely inspected the food on his tray.

"Caroline told me a temp has taken over," Elena said, then stopping and smiling graciously as she accepted a fruit parfait that had a scary smell. "Hopefully temporarily," she muttered with almost uncharacteristic disdain.

"Do they normally work at a prison cafeteria?" Damon said under his breath, but Elena elbowed him with a shush, and he then asked, "Why does Caroline know this anyway?"

They moved up the line towards the medicine station. "Caroline makes friends with all the employees here," Elena said, and Damon rolled his eyes. "The other chef quit after an… incident."

"Okay?" Damon said, looking at her pointedly, waiting for a bit more information.

She twisted her lips to the side, conspicuously glanced around, and then leaned in and said, a whisper, "A patient bit him."

Damon recoiled, sending juice splashing over the rim of his glass, "Someone bit the chef?" he said, louder than Elena would have appreciated judging by her expression.

"Oh, you've met Oscar then?"

Jolting at the voice, Damon turned around to see Rebekah and his brother waiting in line behind him. Rebekah smiled smugly and Stefan stood by her side, staring at the food on his tray with absent eyes that told Damon he hadn't slept a wink the night before.

"Nik is well-acquainted."

"Don't you know it's rude to eavesdrop?" Damon said, because he didn't want to give her the pleasure of acknowledging her comment, thereby encouraging her to talk more.

Rebekah rolled her eyes and flipped her hair over her shoulder, giving Stefan, who wasn't even paying attention, a knowing look, as though Damon was the one being unreasonable. "Don't you know it's rude to have a private conversation in a public place?" she said tartly.

Even if it was true, Damon didn't care. It's not as if there was really anywhere else to have a private conversation. "No it's not," he said, shaking his head and giving Elena a glance that copied Rebekah's to Stefan; she just looked back, bland, bored, and slightly weary.

With a deep sigh, Rebekah shook her head, repeating her previous look to Stefan as she said, the word haughty and full of meaning, "Americans."

Damon scowled. "You're Ameri–"

"Oscar bit Nik on our first day here," Rebekah cut in loftily as though Damon hadn't said anything. "The woebegone soul has the delusion that he is a vampire."

"Woebegone soul?" Damon repeated with distaste. "Who even talks like that? What are you, a thousand years old?"

Before Rebekah could respond, however, Kol called out to them "Get a room!" as he sauntered with a vicious smirk and far too much confidence to the front of the line. Damon watched with satisfaction as he was promptly sent away.

That satisfaction dissipated when Kol decided to slip behind Damon and Elena.

"So, what are we talking about?" he asked.

Damon rolled his eyes and turned away. Rebekah began to protest at his line cutting. "Does Caroline know when a new chef is going to be hired?" Damon said to Elena, quieter this time.

"I don't know," Elena said, raising the tray to her nose and sniffing her food with a grimace. "But hopefully soon, otherwise I'll try to kill myself again," her face tightened, and she pressed her lips together, then said, "And I won't need help."

Damon stared at her, the look on her face hurting him, tying a knot in his throat, and he found it unbearable. "Don't let Matt hear you say that," he said, holding his breath, hoping, and Elena looked up at him with half a smile, and she let out a breath that sounded like a laugh, nudging his shoulder with her own.

It was a short moment, a small, insignificant reaction, the slight turn of her features, yet Damon found himself smiling stupidly, found himself thinking that if there was any moment, short or not, that he wanted to live in forever, this was it.

"Don't let Matt hear what?" Kol poked his head between them.

Gritting his teeth, Damon pushed him back, probably with a bit more violence than necessary as the cup of coffee on Kol's tray tipped to the side and spilled on his sweater, pulling a shocked gasp from his mouth.

"My cashmere!"

After taking his medication and, for an uncomfortable amount of time, watching nurse April stick her gloved fingers in Elena's mouth to make sure she wasn't cheeking her pills, Damon and Elena seated themselves at a table with Caroline, and Klaus also happened to be there as well. Damon emptied all his pepper sachets over his eggs but the grease on the plate soaked the flakes up until they vanished completely; when he attempted a forkful, it tasted burnt. He looked at Elena and noticed she appeared to be chewing the same mouthful. This new chef's cooking defies the laws of logic, Damon thought, How do you fuck up raw fruit? Once they found out Caroline didn't know when or, more worryingly, if a new chef was going to be hired, Damon lost his appetite, if it had ever existed in the first place.

Music therapy was next, and Damon wasn't sure how banging a drum and listening to the music therapist play violin was supposed to help his narcissism, but it was either that or yoga, and Damon didn't believe in controlled breathing.

After narrowly avoiding a fistfight with another patient over a tambourine, Damon was relegated to the only instrument left, the triangle. He quickly lost his patience at its innocent tingling and abandoned it. Glancing around to room to see if everyone was distracted enough for him to slip out, he saw Elena sitting at the piano. Something in Damon's chest tightened at the sight of it, and when he noticed the slouch of her shoulders, the tenseness of her movements, he sat down beside her. She pressed the keys, a disjointed ring of sharp and minor notes clashing together. It wasn't pleasant, but it was certainly better than the other sounds in the room.

"You're a natural," he said, teasing, though his voice was taut.

But they weren't in the cafeteria, and she didn't even seem to hear him. "My parents wanted me to learn piano," she said, jabbing her fingers down harder this time to make a jolt of a sound. "And so did I, I was really excited," with each word she smashed more keys, the jolts turning into a horrendous cacophony of noise. "Until I quit it during one of my episodes, I don't even remember why," she slammed the low end of the piano with her fists, jaw clenching, lips pursing, and Damon watched her, half in awe. Her voice was nearly shaking when she spoke, and he wasn't sure if it was anger or something else. "They were so disappointed in me, but I didn't care, of course, I never cared when I–"

She stopped when Damon wrapped his hands around her wrists and lifted them away. When she looked at him, he could see the tears building up in her eyes, so he said, "Lots of kids quit piano, Elena," and she nodded, her face slightly scrunched. He took a deep breath, and she took it with him; tears fell over onto her cheeks, and Damon wiped them away. She took another one, and he let go of her, and turned to the instrument.

He stared at it, something bitter on his tongue. And he didn't know why, really, because he hated the stupid thing, but he found himself resting his fingers on the smooth white keys, and Damon shut his eyes, emptied his lungs, and he started playing. He didn't even know what he was playing, but it felt uncomfortably natural, and it seemed all the ugly sound drained away, and all he could hear was the piano, feel the vibrations at his core.

"I didn't know you played," he heard Elena say, and he forced himself to open his eyes and look at her with half a smirk.

"My father made me, didn't let me quit," he said, though it wasn't quite the truth.

His father had made him learn piano, but he had let Damon quit. It's just that when he did, he called Damon an abject disappointment, and even when Damon took the instrument back up to please him, practiced it day and night until his fingers ached, until he became fluent in Chopin and Bach and even fucking Billy Joel, the damage had already been done.

But Damon didn't want to talk about it, and he could still see the trails the tears had left behind on her cheeks.

"You're good," she said, smiling at him, "Maybe you can teach me?"

Damon made himself smile back. "Maybe," he said.

"Isn't music therapy meant to sound like shit?"

He didn't stop or bite back the half grin that pulled at the corner of his lips, and without turning around, he said, "That almost sounded like a compliment, Bonnie."

She sat on the other side of him, her features pulled into something of annoyance, but Damon didn't think it was genuine. "Get over yourself," Bonnie said, and he finished what he was playing with a short riff and a shit-eating smile directed at her.

"Since when do you do music therapy, Bonnie?" Elena asked, leaning forward and talking over Damon, a sensation he found he didn't like.

"I don't," Bonnie said, "I just walked in, the therapist doesn't seem very attentive."

They all looked over to Gia, who stood at the center of the room, eyes shut and swaying as she played a mournful violin cover of American Pie.

"Why are you here then?" Damon said.

"Take this," Bonnie said, keeping her voice low, extending a folded piece of paper over Damon towards Elena.

With a frown between her brows, Elena stared at it, as did Damon, noticing the deep indents of writing lifting through the paper. Slowly, unsure, Elena lifted her hand and took it, unfolded it, and ran her eyes over the words; Damon couldn't see shit, just the confusion melting away from Elena's face. Her nostrils flared, she swallowed, and then she looked at Bonnie, and Damon saw agitation, and fear.

"I want you to give it to Alaric," Bonnie said, and Elena's reaction was instant.

"You want me to give this to Rick?"

"You trust him, don't you?"

"I'd trust him with my life."

"Then give it to him," Bonnie said, almost a frenzied whisper, and Damon was losing his patience. "Get him to put it in an envelope. He needs to look up news articles, too, to corroborate–"

"Can someone please tell me what that hell you're talking about?" Damon cut in, sounding more polite than he intended.

Elena shoved the paper at him and crossed her arms; Bonnie looked at him, steady. After a moment, Damon read.

'To whom it may concern,

My name is Bonnie Sheila Bennett, and I am a patient of the Augustine Center, a mental health facility near Mystic Falls in central Virginia. I am writing to you because I believe that there is another patient at the facility whose life and activities, for the lack of a better word, while here could be of some interest to you for an article at your publication.

Kai, full name unknown to me personally, 22, grew up in an obscure cult in Oregon, and while the details of his past there are also unknown to me personally, he became a convicted felon in his teen years for the attempted murder of his family. While'

–He read no more. He said nothing, staring at the words, mind reeling. And then he looked at Bonnie, who stared back at him, still steady, unwavering.

"You know this is the only way we can get him out without the chance of getting kicked to ward D, Damon," Bonnie said, and the way she looked at him was so intense that he had to look away. "Even just the accusation in a newspaper could destroy this place. Once they see a reporter sniffing around, they'll have to do something."

"I agree," he said, strangely quiet, and then he turned to Elena.

She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "I almost died because of Kai," she said, nearly exasperated. "Of course I agree with you. But I can't just give this letter to Rick and ask him to find a reporter. He'll think I've gone off my meds again."

"Doesn't he trust you?" Bonnie asked.

"Of course he does," Elena said, frowning, leaning forward and lowering her voice. "But look at the context, as far as he knows I recently tried to kill myself and if I hand him this he'll think I'm insane. And…" her voice vanished, and she looked down at the letter still in Damon's hands, eyes becoming glassy. "I don't want him to know. He'll blame himself for putting me here in the first place. And I don't want that. And… I don't want to leave."

Her knee hit Damon's, and he thought it was an accident, but she then glanced at him, tilted her head slightly. He took her hand, and she held it tight. Bonnie sighed, sat back.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Bonnie asked, frustration bleeding from the words. "I don't know any reporters. My Grams would just take me away, which would solve the problem for me but not anyone else. And Damon doesn't have any friends."

Damon bristled at that.

"We can't stay like this, constantly wondering if he's going to do something again, we can't trust him– I…" Bonnie looked at the two of them, but her eyes were distant, as though she wasn't even seeing them. A lump moved down her throat. "After wh–what he's done, we can't just let him stay here, I can't."

There was a moment of silence between them all, and then Elena said, "What about Stefan?"

"No," Damon said, instantly, surprising himself.

Stefan may have annoyed Damon, but beyond the hero hair and being perfect and loved more than Damon by everyone, Stefan was his little brother, and Damon didn't want to end up seeing him tossed into ward D, or hurt.

"I don't want him involved in this."

"Well unless you've suddenly got a friend who will believe a crazy story about the homicidal son of a cult leader and can get us in touch with a reporter that will also believe said crazy story from the patients of a mental asylum, that's what's going to have to happen," Bonnie said, brusque, snatching the letter from Damon's fingers and bracing herself against the piano to rise to her feet. "We don't need any more hurdles to jump because you said 'no'."

Just as Damon was about to get incensed, there was a sharp rattling noise behind them, and they all turned, all frowning and tense, to see Hayley standing with red maracas in her hands, lips pursed and head cocked to the side.

"I think I've got just the person to help you guys," she said, a drawl. "But first I'm going to have to hear this crazy story."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Rebekah nestled farther into a cushion as Ella Enchanted played on the TV, the recreation room uncharacteristically quiet enough for her to not need to turn subtitles on. Anne Hathaway was belting out a Queen song and Hugh Dancy had a jawline for days; in Rebekah's pocket were some chocolates that she had smuggled away during dinner the night before. It was about as close as bliss she could get to in her circumstances.

"Can we talk?"

Stefan stepped into her view, and she caught the sigh in her throat before it could escape and paused the film. "About what?" she said, trying not to sound clipped.

He sat down, leaving considerable space between them, and rested his elbows on his knees, head nearly hanging. Rebekah sat up more at this, crossed her legs, leaned closer and noticed he looked even more drawn than the day before. The the press of his lips, his bloodshot eyes, how he was almost wringing his hands, all seemed something more than just a lack of sleep. Stefan was normally a rock, steady and grounded, and she had only seen him like this once before, when Hayley had told her what she thought Katherine had done.

Rebekah swallowed, and took a breath. "Are you okay?" she asked, almost dreading the answer.

He didn't look at her; the muscles in his jaw worked, and then he reached into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulled out a piece of paper, placed it between them. She stared at it for a moment, blinked, the skin between her brows creasing, and then she looked to him, and saw he was watching her. The light shining from behind him made the rings under his eyes seem darker.

She picked the paper up, unfolded it, and read the words, 'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'

"Is this…?" Rebekah started, running her eyes over and over the words, so many times that they no longer made any sense, the curves and corners of the letters imprinting in her mind. She looked at him. "Did you…?"

Stefan shook his head.

He was so serious that it made her heart sink, and she looked around the room, before saying, voice a whisper, "Katherine?" What the hell is this?

His hand shot to hers, held it, and he said, voice low, "Kai gave it to me… To give to Bonnie."

Rebekah nearly recoiled. "Kai? Bonnie? What?"

"I don't know," he said, moving closer to her, leaning his head down farther, "I was thinking about it. I thought that they might be… doing something together? But Kai said to me that he was dammed, that– that he could only raise hell…" he looked down, and Rebekah could only sit still and stare. "I think he's planning on doing something, to her."

She stared at him, grasped for words, her mouth suddenly dry. "When did this happen?" she asked, finally.

"Two days ago, in the fucking bathroom," he said, a harsh hush, "I don't know if he gave it to me just because I was there or…" Stefan trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Well… Well…" Rebekah said, but she couldn't find anything to say. 'We need to tell someone', yet with little evidence but a strangely menacing note and the words of asylum patients, that wouldn't get them anywhere but ward D. She breathed out, shoulders slumped, and pressed her face into her hands. "Why would he give it to you? Why not do it himself?"

"I don't know. He… said he couldn't get close enough to her."

"Why don't you just give it to Bonnie and tell her what you think he's planning?"

"But isn't that playing into his hands?" Stefan asked. She looked up and found him leaning close, fists with white knuckles, and she could see vessels in his eyes, dark red on pink. Her stomach sat uneasy in her gut.

"Stefan," she put her hands over his, pressed her fingers between his to stretch them out, relax them. She pushed out a slow breath, and leveled with his eyes, "Regardless of what he wants, if you truly think Kai is planning on doing something to Bonnie, you need to tell her otherwise she's vulnerable… and…"

His stare flitted around her face; he licked his lips. "What?" he said. "And what?"

Rebekah looked down, clenched her jaw. "You…" she trailed off, her thoughts branching out, a lacework of paths that could be taken, outcomes and, more importantly, consequences. She tried to pick one, tried to reach out, stretch and grab, but every idea, every solution, had threads that trailed away so far that they disappeared into the darkness that were the edges of her mind.

And then she thought, what would mother and father do?

"You need to tell your friend what you suspect," she said, something in reach, that she could hold on to, see, "The blond one. And it needs to be recorded. If anything does happen to Bonnie, well…"

"We won't have another Katherine situation," he finished, nearly too loud.

"We'll actually have some sort of proof," Rebekah said, meeting his eye, feeling what had sat heavy in her chest allay slightly, "Still from a patient, probably not considered the most reliable source, but–"

"It's predictive," Stefan said, the ghost of a smile on his lips, eyes brighter in a way that made them seem less bloodshot. "Lexi has my back, they wouldn't be able to ignore it, if something happens."

Rebekah's lips twitched at his reaction. "And if nothing happens–"

"Then good," Stefan said.

"This gives us– us proof, it's legitimacy…"

It's something tangible we can hold over his head; it's power, power that we didn't have with Katherine. It turned out that Rebekah had learned something from her parents after all; if you can't stop a threat, make it your strength.

"It's a safeguard," she said, a breath the pushed weight she barely knew existed from her shoulders, then looking to the paper, the trap, between them. "Finally," she whispered, more to herself than Stefan.

And she looked back at Stefan, finding him already staring at her, and Rebekah watched as something shifted in his eyes, sucking air from her chest, his head tilting forward, his pupils dilated. His hand came up to her cheek, his fingers threading through her hair, his thumb stroking her temple, so gentle, and it made her mouth dry. She looked down, unable to bear his gaze anymore (because it was like he was stripping her to nothing), but she leaned closer, feeling his breath feather her face, hot, smelling like mint, and when she looked back up, his eyes were on her lips.

"What are…?" she started, ended.

"You're…" he said, barely above a whisper, and she swallowed, thick, finding it hard to breathe, and he licked his lips, took a breath, shook his head. "You know," he said, a wisp of a smile, even though she didn't, and probably never would.

And Stefan leaned back, his hand leaving her cheek, and it made no sense to her that it felt as though he had taken her warmth, her courage, leaving her bare, cold, held out; it was a familiar feeling, though. She couldn't react, her muscles locked, tied in a knot, and she didn't know why. He took the paper from between them, and it disappeared in his pocket.

"I'll do it, I'll tell Bonnie, then Lexi, but you need to keep away from Kai," he said, putting his hand on her knee, and it felt like stone, "And I'm worried Katherine might have something to do with this. You've been staying away from being alone with her, right?"

When he was quiet, unmoving, for long enough, she blinked, opened her mouth and let air stream into her lungs, unable to even speak, because what the fuck was that? What was this? What did she know? And what the fuck was she feeling?

He looked at her, "Rebekah?"

"Yes," she said, stilted, and then she turned away, stiff, put her feet on the floor. "I have therapy."

It wasn't true; she didn't want to be there, and she left without looking at him, without saying any more. Yet even though it was a lie, she ended up moving through the well-trodden halls towards Matt's office, it was just instinctual. But when faced with his door, a foot away, she stopped, stared at it, and, again, she was locked.

Then the door opened, and Rebekah was face to face with Bonnie, and Rebekah immediately looked away, stood to the side. Their eyes had still met, though, Bonnie's framed by her furrowed brows. Rebekah wanted to say something, but she couldn't, she never could, and she just wished she didn't fucking know.

After a moment, Bonnie moved past her without saying anything, and Rebekah stepped into the office, hovered. Matt sat behind his desk, head resting on one hand while the other wrote. He glanced up at her, down, and did a double take, his eyes wide, lips parted. But it was only a second of hesitation on his part, and he put his pen down and leaned back. Rebekah swallowed, shut the door behind her, and then sat down across from him. He said nothing, but his face was soft, his eyes gentle, and he gave her a small smile.

She stared at him, said nothing, for a little while. And then–

"I spent most of my time at seventeen and eighteen locked in my room."

Matt's face shifted to one of moderate surprise, a hint of confusion, the light of the lamp making shadows shift across his face. "Why?"

It took a second. "Because my parents loved me, because they didn't want me going out," Rebekah said, her stomach sitting uneasily. "Freedom for safety," she said, though she didn't believe it; something taken for something in return that never came.

"Is that because of what happened to your sister… Freya? Or your brother Henrik?"

"No, we had Freya back by then and Henrik… died long before," Rebekah said, something pulling in her chest, something hurting her eyes. "My parents had always been protective… When– When I was sixteen I fell in love with an older boy called Alexander... He was my first boyfriend and we became engaged not long after because–" she wiped at her eye with her finger and looked away from Matt, swallowing thickly. "I suppose he was the first person who had really given me the kind of attention I wanted… or needed. And he was so handsome."

She thought of his dashing smile, his cheekbones, his lips, his gorgeous eyes, his thick, dark hair that she loved to run her fingers through, the tattoo across his chest, the way he held her, listened to her speak and rant and cry. She had realized she was in love with him the first time she had complained about something dumb, something that she couldn't even remember, hyperbolically and for a ridiculously long while pacing and gesturing and yelling, and he had sat there, looked at her, and listened, nodded, responded.

He had been everything she wanted, inside and out, and he gave her so much, took so little.

"That's young to get engaged."

"That's what my brothers said, and Freya," Rebekah responded after a moment, leaning forward and swiping a tissue from the box on his desk. "My parents forbade me from seeing him when they found out," she shook her head, rolled her eyes, "That didn't stop me. I didn't care what they thought. I loved him, and I still saw him… H– He would sneak into my room some nights. I just… I used to love that…"

"What happened?" Matt's voice was soft, and it just made her cry.

"Elijah found him going through my dad's desk."

Matt stared at her blankly, and then said, "Well, that's an invasion of privacy…"

Rebekah sighed at him missing what she was implying, what she had been implying every session she had had with him when her parents came up. She wiped her face, feeling sick; implications weren't enough for Matt, he didn't understand or he didn't want to understand, and Rebekah couldn't just tell him the truth about her parents' 'occupation'.

She wanted to, though, so much, she wanted to tell him about what they did, wanted to tell someone her family's hideous secret, because even if it was his job, Matt made Rebekah feel listened to and she trusted him. But she was scared, scared that Matt wouldn't believe her and would move her to ward D for being delusional, and, most of all, she was scared about what would happen if her parents managed to find out she had told someone. The first time Rebekah had accidently done something wrong that could've hurt her family, she was locked in her room for years. Then she, Klaus, and Kol were thrown into a mental health facility, and they still didn't really know why. Rebekah was terrified to find out what would happen once she knowingly did something bad. She knew how they dealt with problems.

"He was looking for money," she said, finally. "Elijah kicked him out and told him to never show his face again… and he didn't."

She remembered how much it had destroyed her when Elijah had told her what had happened. She hadn't believed him at first, or maybe she just couldn't, but when she called Alexander and was told the number didn't exist, when she saw he had deleted all his social media profiles, when she visited his apartment and found it deserted, she knew, and she was destroyed.

Rebekah was crying again. "He never loved me, just– just what my parents could bring him."

Reputation, clout, a big bust.

"He was lucky Elijah found him and not dad…" Matt held the tissue box out to her and she took a few, wiping her tears and snot and heartbreak away. "I think he would've killed him on the spot."

Matt probably thought she was exaggerating. 'Cut the Gordian knot, children.'

"When my parents found out what had happened, they locked me in my room and…" Rebekah couldn't say any more, not about what being stuck in her room for years did to her, not after reliving Alexander.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you, Rebekah," Matt said, and she looked at him, finding him staring back at her with an expression of genuine concern, sorrow, care, and it cut her. "You didn't deserve being punished like that for loving the wrong person, no one does. You do deserve someone who will give you what you need without expecting anything more than love back."

"Give not take," she said, a sliver of a whisper. She couldn't look at him anymore. "Thank you," she said, hoarse, drained.

Matt sighed heavily, and then turned, opened one of his drawers and rifled through it. "Here," he said, extending a packet of wipes towards her.

"Thank you," she said, taking one, rising to her feet. "I must look a mess."

He gave her a gentle smile. "Everyone's a mess here."

Walking through the hallways, Rebekah rubbed the wipe over her face, feeling quite self-conscious, even though crying wasn't a particularly rare occurrence there. She felt much better, though. She had cried about what Alexander had done to her before, many times and to many people, primarily her siblings, but no one had ever said to her what Matt had said, made her feel as though she deserved better than that, that it wasn't her fault, that she hadn't done anything wrong. And it was a fucking relief, even if she hadn't been able to tell him the full truth, to have him listen and hear him say that.

Thinking of it, she started to smile.

"What happened to your face?"

She skidded to a halt. "The same thing that happened to yours when you last left Matt's office. By the way, doesn't Davina have a restraining order against you?"

It was the most shocked Rebekah had seen Kol in a while, and she walked away before he could ruin it by answering.

It wasn't warm outside, and though the grass was crisp with frozen dew and her breath frosted before her, the sky spotted with wispy clouds, the sun hanging bright, and Rebekah just wanted to feel it. So she had pushed through the glass doors to the grounds, pulling her thick woolen jacket tighter, and she walked on a path to nowhere.

She let her mind unwind, every step she took seeing the muscles through the body relax, every breath a calming rush of soft noise. Rebekah didn't know how long she walked for, green passing by her, from manicured to wild, voices rising and fading, stinging wind threading through her hair, biting the skin on her neck, thoughts flowing through her head, climbing and falling and lulling; she could barely remember what it was that had been in her mind the second it left. At some point, she had gone far enough that the paved path had turned to gravel, had turned to dirt, then grass tufted dirt, path gone, and she was at a brick wall five feet taller than her.

And she stared up at it, at the tree trunks shadowed onto its surface, the breaks of light, at the chalky dents in the red stone, the lines of cement, at the ledge that hung a few feet out, making it impossible to scale the wall; there was something bitter on her tongue.

"For nothing, from one prison to another," she whispered, held herself. Then she made to turn, but when she did, something flashed light, a distance away.

Rebekah stilled, holding her breath, staring at the direction it had come from; she repeated her movement, the sway of her body, and it flashed again. Slowly, she approached the source of spontaneous light, dead leaves and snow crunching under the soles of her shoes. When the crunch turned into something else, when she felt something hard press under her foot, she looked down, kicked away some leaves.

It was glass, a broken beer bottle, the neck broken, broken amber glass scattered about, the label torn, broken, faded. Rebekah breathed out, frowned, wondered what it was doing there, but only for a second.

After a quick glance around, she pulled the arms of her jacket over her hand and picked the bottle up, grimacing at the rancid stench of it. She pivoted on the ball of her foot, and hurled the bottle towards the brick wall, staggering forward, watching as it shattered and fell to the ground. With one more look around to make sure she was alone, Rebekah walked over to the glass, arms crossed tight. She bent down, and picked up one large shard, the broken edges rippled and sharp, and she tucked it into her pocket.

She didn't know why she did it, but the feel of it in her hand was a comfort. She didn't know how long she had been out, either, or how long it took her to walk back, but the sky was awash with orange and the sun beginning to set when she walked into the recreation room.

"Where have you been?"

It seemed like Klaus had appeared from nowhere, and Rebekah startled.

"It's nearly dark out."

She rolled her eyes. "I was going for a walk," she said, slightly irritated, crossing her arms.

"You shouldn't go out the grounds by yourself near night, Rebekah," he said, rubbing his hand on his jaw; his charcoal tipped fingers lefts black streaks across his stubble. Idiot. "There's barely any supervision and anyone could attack you in the dark."

Rebekah immediately thought of Katherine, the 'human embodiment of the devil', Stefan had told her, she thought of Kai, his 'raise hell', Stefan had told her.

"For goodness sake," she said, shaking her head at him, half-incredulous, "All the violent patients are in ward D and aren't even allowed outside, you idiot. This isn't home, Nik. I don't need an escort to walk around a bloody garden. And even if I did get 'attacked', which I won't, ever, mum and dad would just come and get me out of this awful place once they heard. So I'm going to do what I want."

She gave him a derisive smile, and pushed past him before he could get another word out. Unfortunately, he followed. "They didn't care when Kol was attacked."

"Of course they didn't, he's Kol."

Rebekah was yanked back as Klaus grabbed her arm, locked the back of her neck in his hand and forced her to look at him. Anything she could've said faded, because the way he was staring down at her with piercing eyes reminded her so much of their father that it knocked the breath from her lungs.

It was something she had never seen before.

"Little sister, if you honestly think you are any different to Kol in their eyes, then you really do belong here," he said, a whisper, spite, and it struck her in the chest. "Don't be a fool, and don't walk outside in the dark unless you want to be stuck here and have a bite mark on your neck."

And he let go of her, almost with a flick, turned around, and stalked off.

Rebekah just stood there for a moment, watching him go, her heart palpitating, hands shaking, and tears running, again. When a patient walking past gave her a strange look, she came back to herself. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she ducked her head and went to her room, watching the tiles pass beneath her shoes, but his words stuck in her head.

Elena was there when she walked in, lounging on her bed, reading a book. Rebekah stilled in the doorway and stared at her, half on the verge of screaming at her, half on the verge of breaking down; her hand gripped the glass in her pocket all the while. She didn't have to say anything, though, because it was just one moment of eye contact, one look, and Elena shut her book, got to her feet, and, wordless, started towards the door. And watching as she moved past her and into the hallway, Rebekah appreciated Elena more in that moment than ever, and it was so much that she was overcome and–

"Elena," spilled out of Rebekah's mouth, and Elena stopped and looked at her, a frown between her brows, her eyes gentle, book clutched to her chest.

Thank you.

You're not safe here.

Katherine helped you try to kill yourself.

They wouldn't, couldn't, come. She thought, again, of Stefan telling her what Nora and Mary-Louise had said, 'the human embodiment of evil', she thought of what her brother had just told her, what she had probably known a long time but never wanted to realize, but she did. And Rebekah realized she needed to do what she hadn't ever done before. It hardened in her chest.

"Never mind," Rebekah said, and she shut the door.

She turned and sat on her bed, then lay down, resting her head on her pillow, bones heavy with a calming exhaustion, face still dirty from her tears. She slipped her hand back into the pocket of her jacket, traced her fingers over the smooth surface of the glass shard, and she shut her eyes.

I know this took three or so months but... this definitely took a shorter amount of time than what I thought it would when I released the last chapter! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it!

On a more serious note, I recently got a pretty disgraceful comment on one of my other stories on another website (and I responded in the way I thought was appropriate lol), but it's reminded me to make it clear that I'm completely open to constructive criticism! I've done quite a few writing classes and know how to take critical feedback and I seriously welcome it, whether on my story structure, writing, grammar etc., because I'm under absolutely no impression that I'm the the Greatest Writer Of All Time. Just make sure you're respectful about it! I trust that everyone knows how not to be a dick but I just wanted to make sure that it's clear that I welcome any respectful/tasteful criticism!

Thank you all for reading! X

Next Chapter - insight into a character that we haven't properly heard from in a while. From there, ?