Look, I am REALLY not proud of this chapter, but no matter how many times I rewrite it, it just doesn't feel organic. So, since it's extremely vital to our story, I'm going with the best version I can think of and we're moving on from there. This is the last filled chapter, I SWEAR, and next chapter is the one where things get REALLY good. Make sure you tune in when next time I post! Trust me, you won't want to miss it ;)
Lucas Rodriguez is portrayed by Diego Boneta
"I still think this is a horrible idea."
Lucas didn't even look at her as they exited the car, but she could hear the annoyance in his voice as he spoke.
"I know. You've said so about forty times since we crossed the border." He quipped back at his granddaughter, and Val rolled her eyes.
The moonlight seemed to cast a glossy sheen over the foliage around them, highlighting the deep green of the leaves and the grass. The bright pinks, purples, yellows, and reds of the flowers were muted by the darkness, but what made Val pause was how well she could smell them. Pausing, she inhaled deeply, feeling the combined scent of the flowers tickle her nose.
She stopped mid-breath when a sharp tingle originated in her chest and spread across her ribs, down her stomach and arms, to the very tips of her fingers and toes. It came from between her breasts, right where her heart was.
From right behind the crucifix.
She grabbed the jewelry, running her fingers over the sharp curves of the blood diamonds and trying to take comfort in them, like she normally did, but Lucas's voice interrupted her.
"Hurry up. We haven't got all night; the sun will be up in about six hours."
The reminder of the emptiness on her great-great-grandfathers hand was a sharp kick in the ass. Despite her irritation of being bossed around, she continued to follow him towards the large, country mansion in front of them. The walk up the driveway was long, and Val found herself unable to stay quiet.
"How did you even find her?"
"I've been alive for over one hundred years, Valentina, including my human years. You learn a thing or two, especially when Katerina Petrova lived with me for just under twelve months."
"Yeah, you still haven't told me that whole story."
"And I won't. Not alone, anyway. Katerina can fill in most of the plot holes, including making sure that you're properly trained, and we can ensure your survival."
"I've taken on Originals-"
"Yes, and you'll die with that mentality." Lucas finally snapped, whipping around to glare at her. "You have no idea what you've done by drinking Mikael's blood. If he'd survived, you would have killed yourself within a few weeks; maybe months, if you're as strong as you seem. But since a part of his soul has taken up residency with your own, that means that the blood is flowing through your system and manifesting itself in ways that have never been seen before. There's no one we can ask about your condition right now, meaning we'll need all the help we can get."
Val didn't even get a chance to respond before a rustling to the far left made both Rodriguez's freeze. Two sets of amber eyes met, and then they both turned towards the noise. It was silent again, but that didn't mean it was safe. The rustling sounded again, this time closer. A different scent invaded Val's nose. This one was warmer and more seductive, like vanilla. Perfume, high end. It began to grow stronger, and then Lucas sighed.
"And wouldn't you know it, we found it." His eyes narrowed, and he looked behind Val. "Buenos noches, Katerina."
Val whipped around, coming face-to-face with a familiar smirk, dark brown curls blowing softly in the breeze. Katherine cocked her head at them.
"Well, isn't this just like old times?"
The Rodriguez's didn't move, muscles tensed and glaring at the threat in front of them. But Katherine appeared to be the picture of ease; she giggled, shaking her head as the laughter turned into a groan.
"And here I was thanking the universe that I only had to deal with one of you in this century. Nice to see you, Lucas. Thought for sure you'd be dead by now."
"That was your plan, wasn't it?" Lucas snarled, amber eyes blazing. "That's what you had in mind when you turned me. You wanted me to refuse the blood."
"Wait, what?!" Val couldn't stop the shout that left her, looking wildly between them. "What- she- she's the one that turned you?"
"I told you I knew your family, Val." Katherine told her in a taunting voice, seeming to enjoy watching the young huntress grow more and more frustrated. "Why do you think I recognized you so easily?"
"Yeah, you said you knew them. Past tense." It was hard to keep her temper in check right now. Val could literally feel her blood starting to heat up. "You kind of failed to mention that I still had an ancestor walking around."
"Oh, you can thank him for that." The brunette shook her head. "Our little agreement was that I lived, and I kept his existence a secret. A deal's a deal, after all."
"Shut up, Katerina." Lucas growled, a shadow of veins momentarily appearing under his eyes. "That's not why we're here."
"No." Val held up her hands, stopping both parties from speaking. "No, that is why we're here. I don't know about you two, but I'm here for answers, and apparently, those start with however the hell you two met." She looked between them. "So, are we going to take a trip down memory lane, or are we just going to keep doing a vampire dick measuring contest?"
The house was huge. Not that Val expected anything less from the original doppelganger, but still. It was currently empty, or so it appeared that way when they walked in. She couldn't really imagine Katherine doing her own chores or keeping up the house herself, so there was probably some compelled house staff hidden away somewhere.
"Come on in." Katherine's heels clicked loudly on the polished wooden floors, leading them off the entryway into a large living room. "Sit down. I've got some blood and some Pepsi. Not sure what either of you prefer, so help yourselves."
Neither of them touched the glasses in front of them, not bothering to question why they were there in the first place. It would appear Katherine had known they were coming. Of course, she had. Val didn't even want to question how the vampire knew so much. She just tried to keep up, now.
"Ok, not very thirsty." Katherine shrugged as she sipped some blood from a wine glass. "I guess that's not surprising. How about we start this story time, then?"
"Tell me how you two met." Val spoke quietly. She didn't feel quiet, or calm. She wanted to demand answers, she wanted to know exactly what happened. But she knew that getting pissy and tense with Katherine never got her anywhere. So, it was time to try a different approach.
Katherine and Lucas both stayed silent at first. One was swirling the blood in her glass, watching it lick the edges, and the other was simply looking out the window onto the Pennsylvania landscape. Finally, Lucas spoke.
"My mother fled to South America to escape the Rodriguez family legacy." He started lowly, his amber eyes looking far, far away.
"Like I told you before, only one child from each generation can carry on the bloodline. That means only one child will live, and they will be the only one to have children. My mother, Luciana, was the youngest of three. Her eldest brother was in line to continue the family name. My grandparents had already begun to choose a wife for him, and already started training he and my mother and their older sister, Gabriella.
"My mother was still young and had been raised with the knowledge that she would someday die for the legacy. She'd never questioned it, never hesitated. Until one day. She met a young man who worked in her family's house; a servant boy whose name I have never been able to find."
Val's lips parted. "Your father."
Lucas pressed his own together, left hand tightening into a fist before relaxing. "When my mother found out she was pregnant, she was barely sixteen. She hid it for as long as she could, but they participated in hunts and trained vigorously. Eventually, my grandparents noticed.
"They were furious. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Whenever one child was chosen, the others never attempted to have offspring. They merely accepted their fate. My grandparents consulted with a local witch who was close to the family, and she told them that I needed to die. My birth and survival would automatically make Luciana the heir, and they couldn't have that. I would need to be sacrificed to appease the witches so the line could continue.
"I had to be born for the ritual to be performed; they would need to stab me through the heart exactly twelve hours from the time I took my first breath. My mother tried to run, and my father began to help her. They planned an escape, gathered supplies. They were going to come to South America, across the ocean where her family could never follow. They would die in Europe, and then our family would be safe for the rest of our days.
"But my uncle was enraged by the loss of his birthright. He caught my mother and father at the edge of the property, and in a blinded state of fury, slit my father's throat. He then dragged my mother back to the house by her hair, threatening to stab her in the stomach if she tried it again. She was locked away in her room, forbidden to ever leave."
Lucas paused now, an emotion flickering over his face. It looked so… vulnerable.
"But my aunt was compassionate. She couldn't bear to watch her little sister suffer. Knowing she would die no matter what, she chose her path. She smuggled my sister out of the house and sent her off on a ship to South America. But it wouldn't be until long after she'd left that the family realized what else was missing.
"My mother took the Text and the Rodriguez Armor with her. Whether it was for her survival or to insult my grandparents and uncle, I'll never know. I'm not even sure what happened to them. There's no record of their death; just headstones where their estate used to stand in Spain. My aunt and uncle died before they were in their mid-twenties, and my grandparents died right after.
"My mother trained me to be a warrior. I would be the heir to the legacy, I had to be perfect. She was a stubborn woman, one who would sacrifice everything for the safety of herself and her child. I think that's what made her go searching for Mikael. They worked closely for most of my childhood, but one day, he stopped coming. She refused to explain why, and when he visited one last time when I was still young, she made me hide. She forbade me from ever going to search for him."
"If only you'd listened."
Katherine's words cut through the tense air like a knife, nearly causing Val to jump. She turned to the doppleganger in confusion, shocked to see the anger on Katherine's face. She was glaring at Lucas, like he'd insulted her personally. Lucas didn't look much happier. He met her glare, narrowing his eyes.
"If anyone is to blame Katerina, we both know it's you."
"Can you two stop arguing just long enough to tell me the damn story?" Val growled lowly, running a hand through her hair. This was a lot to take in, and the animosity between them was making it worse. "How does Katherine fit into this?"
"I'm getting there." Lucas waved her off. "Now, you know my first-born daughter, Scarlett, passed away before she was a few days old. It tore my wife apart, but I knew we would need to produce another soon. The legacy had to continue, or there would be consequences."
"Consequences?"
"The witches spelled us with old magic. Magic comes from nature, and nature demands balance. In order to ensure that balance continued, a price must be paid. That price was our family's dedication to slaughtering every vampire we found. If that were to ever stop, the balance would be upset, and," Lucas stopped, taking a deep breath, "and every Rodriguez that ever lived, dead or alive, would need to pay the price that their descendants could not."
Val stared at him, confused and disbelieving. "'Pay the price'…What the hell do you mean? How does that even work?"
"I'm not sure." Lucas shook his head. "But I feel like you should know the cost of upsetting nature, especially if you have been working with a witch as closely as you claim."
His words made her stop, and she remained silent. After watching what the witches on the other side had done to Bonnie, a part of her wasn't sure she wanted to know the cost either.
"When we had Gabriella, we knew we had to avoid having children again at all costs. I refused to choose between my children who could live, and who could die.
"But we weren't as careful as we needed to be, it seemed. About three years later, Sofia became pregnant again. And this time, she gave birth to twins. A little boy and girl.
"I couldn't do it." Lucas's voice shook, his hands clenched so tightly together that they were losing their golden-brown color and fading to white around the knuckles. "I couldn't live with the knowledge that I would have to choose which of my children survived. Sofia wanted to burn the Text and the Armor. She refused to accept it for her children; she wanted nothing to do with it anymore. But I knew that wouldn't work. I knew we could never fully escape the consequences. So, we were left with only one option."
"You had to find a way to reverse it." Val spoke quietly, a sense of dread settling in her chest when she realized what Lucas was saying.
His eyes were growing red, and she could have sworn she saw a flash of liquid in them as he nodded. "It was no longer a responsibility, but a curse. And I had to stop it. I had just started preparing for my initial journey to Spain when two vampires broke into my home and attempted to murder my wife. Sofia had always been able to hold her own just fine, and she defended herself and the children, but it was a close call. Someone was watching us."
"Would you please quit it with the suspenseful story telling?" Katherine butted in, her face etched deeply in annoyance. "Val's already met Klaus. She knows what he's capable of."
"So, it was Klaus that was trying to kill you." Val spoke up, attempting to quell the argument before it started again. "He managed to find you."
"I'm afraid the Mikaelson's had a renewed interest in us after Mikael himself failed to keep up with the training. As soon as Klaus heard, he probably saw it as an opportunity to wipe us out before we interfered again. But as we were deciding where to flee to, we stumbled across a few more vampires attempting to kidnap another."
Val cocked her head to the side as he paused, but then saw where he was looking. Turning, she noticed Katherine glaring into her wine glass, looking annoyed. Her lips quirked up.
"They saved your life, didn't they?"
Katherine didn't answer at first, instead knocking back the rest of the blood before finally speaking. "I don't like owing people. Especially not hunters. So, since I needed to be free of Klaus and the debt that your ancestors had just dragged me into, we would need to work together."
"And that's exactly what happened."
Katherine snorted, but the look on her face looked downright murderous as Lucas interrupted. "I'm sure that's what you thought, Lucas. But Sofia and I knew that it would never be enough. She saw that we couldn't break the curse-"
"I would have broken the curse if you hadn't killed me!" Lucas thundered, shooting to his feet. Katherine matched him, both of their eyes beginning to darken, black veins shadowing under the surface. "I was so close! All I needed was a little more time!"
"To what?! Find Mikael?!" Katherine shouted back, and Lucas froze. His eyes widened and his face went slack in shock, as if he lost his bearings for a moment, and she scoffed, shaking her head.
"Yep. You guessed it, Lucas. Sofia knew what you were planning. She told me that you were going to look for the vampire that trained your family, the one that had no interest in actually breaking the curse. She knew what he would say to you; she knew he would convince you to take his blood. So, unlike you, she actually tried to do something."
The words had just barely left her lips before Lucas was flying at her, a scream of rage ripping through his throat as he flipped the coffee table over in his rage. Val leapt to the side just in time; her grandfather grabbed Katherine around the throat and slammed her against the wall behind them, his teeth elongating as he snapped at her throat. But Katherine recovered and he lost the element of surprise; and being over four hundred years older than the vampire in front of her, she grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him to the ground, pinning him down. Her eyes blackened and she hissed before raising her hand to slam it into his chest.
Val got over her initial shock and realized in horror what was about to happen. Without even thinking, she acted. One second she was on the far side of the room-
-and the next, she was grabbing Katherine and flinging her through the French doors behind them.
The glass shattered and crunched underneath the vampire's body weight, but she recovered quickly. Using the momentum, she rolled back and came up to stand on her feet, staring at Val in disbelief.
The huntress was planted in front of Lucas, shoulders squared. She snarled angrily at Katherine, ready to fight her again. But as the seconds ticked on, her adrenaline lessened, and her heartbeat began to slow. She saw the broken furniture around them and realized something with a shock.
She'd just thrown Katherine through a wall.
And Katherine hadn't been able to fend her off.
The story ended there. Of course, it didn't actually end. But both Katherine and Lucas refused to speak of it again. In fact, the doppelganger immediately threw them out. It was mutual. After what had just happened, Lucas didn't want to stay and Val was confused, angry, and mildly horrified at what was happening. She didn't even bother to ask where they were going as Lucas loaded her into the car and drove off, her mind going about a million miles a minute.
How did I do that?
It hadn't been intentional; not completely. When she saw Katherine about to kill one of the last few surviving members of her family, an instinct she didn't even know she possessed kicked into high gear and took complete control. It was like nothing else she'd ever felt, like nothing else she'd ever gotten to experience. It had felt amazing and horrifying all at the same time. She felt like she couldn't have ripped Katherine's head off without too much effort.
The car slowed a stop, and Val looked around her, finally able to get her bearings. It looked like they were still in Pennsylvania, but probably far enough away from Katherine to allow her to cool down. Lucas jumped out of the driver's seat and was suddenly at her door, opening it. She felt too shocked and confused to really fight him as he helped pull her from the car and started escorting her up the walkway towards a house. It was older, Victorian, but appeared empty.
Lucas' hand on her arm wasn't rough, but firm. It was the first time he appeared to be gentle with her at all. Before she knew it, they were inside, and he was leading her to a couch. She simply let it happen, sitting down and looking around them.
It was furnished, but there was a layer of dust on just about everything. There must not have been a living owner, or maybe Lucas was the owner, because he didn't have any permission to enter.
Creaking made her look up, and she saw Lucas stop in front of her, holding a steaming mug.
"Tea." He said simply, holding it out to her. "Drink it. It will calm you down."
Val licked her lips and shook her head, raising a hand to push it away. "No. I'm fine-"
"You're not." He cut her off, his voice taking on an authoritative edge. "That rush of adrenaline you just felt was Mikael's blood interacting with your own. Your body is confused right now; it's still getting used to the transition."
"The transition? What…" She pushed the mug away again, standing up. "Lucas, what the hell is going on? Transition into what?"
Her grandfather stopped, staring at her, looking like he was trying to decide what to say. Finally, he shook his head and set the mug down on the coffee table.
"I don't know."
Val stared at him, mouth open, and laughed.
She giggled, albeit a little hysterically, and lifted her hand up in disbelief. "I'm- I'm sorry. You don't know? So, you know that I'm transition into something, but you don't know what it is? You don't know what I am?!"
Her voice rose until she was shouting, but Lucas only stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Yes. I do know what you are, I know who you are. You are Valentina Esperanza Rodriguez-Garcia. You are the last descendant of a very long and very powerful hunter line, and you are the last hope in destroying this cure once and for all. You're already changing the tides, Valentina."
In case anyone was wondering, living with your ancient relative in a house, with just the two of you, was extremely weird.
Val followed a strange routine for the first week. Wake up, have breakfast, go out and begin training. Lucas was there, she could sense his presence and hear him coming and going, but they didn't interact.
"I miss you, Tina."
Val bit her lip, one hand pressing the phone to her ear while the other braced on the balcony railing. She was on the back porch, staring out into the thick acres of the backyard. The moon was full and bright, lighting everything around them with a pale light. They were somewhere in the country, still in Pennsylvania, but she didn't know where. Right now, she was just speaking to Ally and Hector.
"I know, baby." She soothed, keeping her voice steady. "But don't worry, ok? I'm going to be home soon."
"Are you ever gonna stay with us?"
Val blinked, her eyebrows narrowing in confusion. "What do you mean, Al?"
"You always say we're gonna stay together like family, but then you leave." Her little sister's voice rose in pitch, warbling a little at the end. "You always leave us with Liza and Gil. I don't want to stay with them, I want to stay with you."
Val felt like she'd been punched in the gut. "Ally… sweetheart, I do want us to be together, and we are family. But there's a lot of dangerous stuff going on. I have to protect you and Hector and that means we need to live separately for a while; and I know that doesn't make sense, but you'll understand when you're older."
"But I want to understand now!" Her sister's voice rose to a shout, and Val could just see her little fists clenching.
"Alejandra." Her voice cut off the little girl's arguing, hardening in frustration and anger. "Do not raise your voice at me."
"No! This is stupid!" Ally shouted back over the phone. "I don't want to do it anymore! I just want you to come home!"
"Alejandra-" Val didn't get to finish her sentence before the phone line went dead. Her mouth dropped open, and she pulled the phone away from her ear to see that the call had, indeed, been ended. She couldn't do much but stare at the phone and realize that her little sister, the sweet girl with a bright smile, had lost her temper and refused to speak to her.
How much am I really missing?
Her ears perked up at the sound of someone speeding closer, but she didn't turn around. There was only one other person in the house, and she could smell him. The realization made her stomach turn. He smelled like pine and cinnamon, with a hint of blood. Not human blood.
He smelled like a vampire.
"Give her time." Lucas's voice made her take a deep breath, heavily resisting the urge to roll her eyes.
"She's just angry," He continued, "And hurt. As soon as you go see her again, she'll just be happy that you're there."
"How the hell do you know?" She couldn't keep the snarl out of her voice, whipping around to face him. "You've never even met her. You don't know the rest of my family."
"I am your family." Lucas reminded her lowly, simply watching her with a calm expression. "And while I think you're too young and hot-headed to really know what you're doing, that doesn't mean I don't think you can get better."
"Better?"
The word had barely passed her lips when a knife was heading straight for her. The blade glinted in the sunlight, and her hand came up just in time to clamp down on the hilt, stopping it about an inch from her face. She stared at it, and then Lucas, with wide eyes. "What the hell?!"
"You're only getting stronger by the day." Lucas told her, pulling a similar set of daggers out of his jacket and twirling them in his hands. "That means that if you're not training, you'll have similar episodes like today. Your instincts will take over, and you may or may not be in control of whatever destruction follows. If you're really friends with other vampires like you're saying, then you'll need to know how to protect yourself."
"They wouldn't hurt me."
"Really?" Lucas cocked his head at her, amber eyes swimming mocking. "And have you ever had to fight them with their humanity off?"
Stefan's face flashed in her mind, and she found herself unable to answer.
"That's what I thought. Now," he got into a stance. "Let's begin."
"I train on my own, you know." She told him, but also slid her foot back and square her hips, adjusting the knife.
"Yes, on your own. Fighting a vampire every day will only make you stronger. Unless, of course, you don't think you can take me."
Val's face dropped into a scowl.
Living in Lucas was, in short, a lot like living with a cat.
Unless he wanted to be seen, he wasn't. Val saw him in the morning before the sun rose, and in the evenings after it had set to train, and that was it. Of course, she knew he slept during the day. It was an almost hilarious cliché, but she could only guess if you couldn't do anything with the sun out, you might as well adjust your schedule.
The house was well-stocked, which was due to a young boy that Lucas hired to go buy groceries every week and then drop them off. She'd never seen the boy paid, but he told her that "Mr. R" paid him very well, thought he never really saw him.
She never heard another story about Sofia, or really got a finished version of what Lucas and Katherine had started to tell her. The animosity and utter loathing between the two was evident, but Val had the strongest feeling that it centered around Lucas's dead wife, the one that Katherine had mistaken her for the first time they met. And judging by the generations that followed Lucas and his children, she could tell that whatever they'd attempted to break the curse had failed. That made her stomach drop; that meant he'd been alive to watch two of his three children die before growing past young adulthood.
Finally, after a month of being almost completely isolated and barley spoken to, Val was starting to really lose it. As they sat, carving some weapons in the cooling night air of the autumn around them and the crackling warmth of the fire she'd started, she finally spoke.
"What happened to Sofia?"
Lucas froze, his knife still poise at the tip of the stake he was carving. He was actually very talented, having whittled several designs into the bottom. She noticed he liked to do that with whatever weapon he made; he always added something else to it.
"After you and Katherine fought," she continued carefully, "you… you never told me what happened to her."
He still didn't answer, his eyes on the dancing flames in front of him. He seemed to be focusing on everything except her question, and she could see the muscles in his neck and jaw coiling and loosening as he struggled to answer her question. Or maybe he wasn't struggling with the answer; just struggling with voicing it.
"It's not important."
"Was it the curse?" Val spoke before she could stop herself, "Did it kill-"
WOOSH!
She jumped to the right just in time. The stake flew past her head and embedded itself into the arrow target behind her. She watched it wobble in its new home, then slowly turned back to Lucas with wide eyes.
He had missed on purpose.
"I said," his voice was low, threatening, like the growl of a wolf, "It. Is not. Important."
Stabbing the knife into the grass, he got up and walked off. The back door to the house slammed loudly, and then Val was surrounded by the sounds and smells of the nocturnal world around her.
It was a few days after the incident at the fire pit. Val was steering clear of Lucas, allowing him the chance to calm down. Airing on the side of caution, she trained by herself for those days. While she was getting stronger and faster by the day, she still wasn't quite ready to take on an angered vampire and expect to come out alive. A part of her knew that Lucas wouldn't kill his only living relative, but another part of her would always remember the way his eyes burned with an emotion that she didn't recognize, a dark and bottomless one that she didn't want to recognize.
One evening, she found herself armed with two stakes, hands fit snugly around the hilts that Lucas had painstakingly carved. They were older than any of the other weapons, but maybe that was why she liked them so much. They reminded her of the ones her father used to make.
She was only about twenty minutes into her movements when a familiar scent invaded her nose, and footsteps getting louder. Ignoring them, she continued, working to make her movements as quick as possible.
"You're not moving fast enough."
She felt her eyes go far enough she almost saw her spine. "I'm not a vampire. Everything looks slow to you."
"No, you're not a vampire." He moved into her line of sight, still watching her. "You're something else entirely. You can match Originals in strength and speed if you would stop being so afraid-"
"I'm not afraid." Val cut him off, freezing in one stance and turning to glare at him. "Not of the Mikealson's."
"No, you're not." Lucas cocked his head at her. "You envy them."
Her arms dropped, fingers tightening around the stake to the point of pain.
"Excuse me?"
"The Mikaelson family is dysfunctional. Irrational. Toxic and manipulative and extremely frustrating to be around. They've killed a lot of people, increased the vampire population past the point of control. But they're a family. Klaus has daggered his siblings more times than most people can count, yet they continue to return to help him with anything. No matter how horrible they treat each other, they will always show up for family. And since your siblings are tucked away for their safety, you're worried that makes you just as bad as Klaus."
Something inside her snapped.
She was flying forward, she could feel the wind pushing her hair back, but things seemed to be going in slow motion. She slammed into Lucas with enough force to send him backwards, and then pinned him to a tree. Raising the stake in her hand, she slammed it towards his chest-
-and his hand was on her arm, stopping it right as it brushed the fabric of his shirt.
She was trembling, panting, a fire that she didn't recognize soaking through her veins and making it impossible to think straight. But Lucas didn't look angry that she'd attacked him; in fact, he didn't look upset in the slightest. Instead, he squeezed her arm gently.
"Right now, this part of you only wakes up when you feel like yourself or your loved ones are being threatened." He told her softly, "But you can't let that be the thing you rely on. You know better than anyone that in times of crisis, you have to be able to remain calm. You can't be arguing and fighting with yourself and others while your temper runs rampant. You need to learn to control these new abilities, harness them until they're as easy as breathing."
"Please. It's just Christmas."
Lucas looked up from his stir fry, cocking an eyebrow at her. "You're the one who's been begging me to train you harder and harder lately, and now you want to leave?"
"I've never missed a Christmas." She reminded him, braced up against the back of a chair. "The kids are expecting me, and I haven't seen them in ages."
When he remained silent, Val leaned forward again, imploring him with her eyes.
"Lucas, please. They're my family. They're my siblings."
He stared at her, amber on amber, searching her expression. His lips twitched, and his face softened for a fraction of a second. But then it was gone, and he cleared his throat.
"Just don't be gone longer than two weeks. You'll go soft."
San Antonio was by no means a winter wonderland, but the Texas city did get cold, and the humidity from the gulf always seemed to make it worse. But as Val drove down the street towards Liza and Gil's house, nostalgia blossomed in her chest. The lights and the decorations looked campy and bright, but they were the one's she'd grown up with. Christmas in foster care was usually hit or miss since it depended on what family you were with, but the kids did their best to take care of each other and ensure it was at least halfway enjoyable.
As she drove past the lit Riverwalk, making a left turn, the bag of gifts shifted in her seat. Val smiled, thinking of the looks on the kids faces. She meant what she'd said to Lucas; she had never missed a single Christmas with either Hector or Ally. Even if it was just for a few hours on Christmas Day, she always managed to find a way to get close to them, and to spend the holiday with them. She refused to let that tradition fade, especially after what Ally had said.
The girl's words still stung. Mostly because they were true. Val had fought tooth and nail to raise her siblings, but lately it felt like they spent more time away from her than with her. She kept telling herself it was for their own good. They had to be kept safe.
But did Lucas have a point?
Did trying to decide her siblings' safety on her own make her like Klaus?
Her thoughts were cut short as she drove deeper into the suburbs, a large, red-brick house coming into view. The tire swing out front and blue shutters brought a smile to her face she couldn't keep down, and she pulled up front. Getting out of her car, she'd just barely shut the door when the front door opened up, and she smiled at the man in the doorway.
"Hector, Ally!" Gil turned around and shouted into the house, "Come here! Santa delivered one of your presents early!"
Val's heart swelled as two small heads full of black hair bounced into view, and two large sets of brown eyes widened.
"TINA!"
Hector came tearing down the lawn first, his legs being much longer than his little sisters, and he nearly tackled Val to the ground as he threw his arms around her middle. If she didn't have her newly acquires strength, he may very well have taken her to the ground.
Next came Ally. The little girl flew across the grass, her little face bright with joy as she encircled her little arms around her brother and sister.
"Tina! Tina, you came back!" She shrieked, eyes dancing as Val dropped to her knees and pulled both kids close. Their little bodies buried into her, and she felt tears gather in her eyes. After nearly squeezing them to death, she pulled back, pushing a thick lock of hair back onto Hector's head, and smiled tearfully.
"I'll always come back, baby. Always."
Next chapter: Val's desire to return to Mystic Falls puts her at odds with Lucas, but before she can leave, she makes a discovery that will change everything.