A.N.: I feel like a neglectful mother for leaving this story for so long! I've been obsessed with The Society and Shameless (US) on Netflix, and of course GoT has come and gone…
I've also been obsessed with Sia's Unstoppable - it is an epic song and perfectly encapsulates Giulia.
Resurgam
22
Oh, Mother
"-and now Lagertha is trying to convince me to give her driving lessons."
"You're a great driver, Jem; I should know, I taught you to drive."
"No, you didn't! You got obliterated out at Fort Salvatore and I had to pour you into your old Beetle and drive you home!" Jeremy laughed, handing Ashlyn a glass of wine, as she and Jenna flicked through bridal magazines and Ric chopped fresh herbs, dinner simmering away on the stove.
Giulia blinked at Jeremy. "And it worked perfectly."
Jeremy laughed; the others chuckled. Giulia glanced toward the hall as an engine cut out on the street. "Matt's here," she told them, beaming, and Ashlyn darted to the front-door, returning with Grayson cuddled in her arms, plastering kisses all over him, blowing raspberries on his neck to make him giggle, and Matt, smiling tiredly, trailing behind.
No Elena; she wasn't up for it. What Matt meant was that Elena wasn't up for a room full of adults judging her for nearly killing a father of two, and putting his athletic teenage daughter in a neck-brace, terrified from ever getting behind the wheel of a car again.
Elena had many admirable qualities; but she had never been forced to take ownership of her mistakes. Things had magically been glossed over or blamed on someone else for as long as Giulia could remember.
It was sad to say, but it didn't matter that Elena wasn't there: They had all become very accustomed to getting along perfectly happily without her. That was the saddest thing; and Giulia scented Matt's relief when he was surrounded by them, cuddling Grayson, forcing a decent meal on him, forcing him to sit down and not think about anything but Jenga. There was a very crowded dining-table, what with Giulia bringing Spencer along for Games Night. He was bummed Tyler had already returned to New Orleans, but would be buzzing on the memories he had made with his cousin for months: He was telling Matt all about their camping-trip.
After they had cleared away the meal, Giulia asked for a moment with the adults. Enzo, knowing what was coming, ushered the children into the family-room: They were like bumblebees swarming a lavender plant, buzzing excitedly and delighted. After a century of loneliness, Enzo adored even the inane babbling of small children. He loved them coming to him with their problems; and they usually did, because he always took the time to listen.
Giulia took the opportunity, while they were all gathered, to discuss the wolfsangel, staked and burning in Sheila's yard: Ashlyn's eyes became sharp, dangerous, and she exchanged a serious look with Jeremy.
"Sheila doesn't want Bonnie to know, not so close to her due-date," Giulia told them all quietly. "But we should all be on alert." She glanced specifically at Ric, who had retired from vampire-hunting and passed his Gilbert ring on to Matt, Elena's husband: It would pass to Grayson when he was old enough. Jeremy's glinted in the soft lamplight; Jenna refilled their wine-glasses, though Giulia held her hand over her glass, conscious that she was driving them home.
"Do they know about Ash?" Jeremy asked, and Giulia shrugged delicately.
"I don't know," Giulia admitted; because she didn't. "But if you don't hear anything, assume they don't; and keep working from the shadows."
"We'll figure out what's going on," Ashlyn promised her, sharing another look with Jeremy, their resident ghost-whisperer. Since being killed and resurrected by John's sacrifice a decade ago, Jeremy had the uncanny - and often inconvenient - ability to commune with spirits of the dead. Only the supernatural dead: He had never passed on any message from Giulia's dad.
"There's also something…else I wanted to talk to you about," she told them, and Jenna and Ric shared a look. Giulia told them her reasons, and then revealed a long-kept secret.
"-you want to do what?"
"I don't want to… She's a professor of Parapsychology and three of her books were specifically about ancient warriors fighting against the Occult," Giulia sighed.
"And Elena's birth-mother!" Jeremy blurted indignantly. "Last time she was in town, she threatened to go on a murder-spree!"
"Hang on a sec - I thought she'd died - well, I mean, I thought you'd dealt with her," Jenna said, staring at Giulia. "Wasn't she the whole reason you let me in on the secret - she was threatening Elena and was a threat to mine and Ric's relationship - you came to campus and we drank whiskey!"
"You told me you'd disposed of her in the woods," Ric said, with a subtly disapproving look her way.
"Well - yes - I did tell you that."
"I thought you meant in little tiny pieces - or scattering her ashes."
"Wow… You guys really paint me as the Merry Murderess of Mystic Falls… Not that that doesn't have a nice ring to it," Giulia said thoughtfully, then raised her hands defensively at the looks on their faces; they weren't amused. "I wasn't going to kill Elena's birth-mother, no matter what she'd become or who she was threatening! Who do you think I am?"
"So Isobel's been out in the woods this whole time?" Ric said, and Giulia could tell he was more upset than angry: He'd thought that chapter of his life, his life with Isobel, had been closed for good.
"Yes. Desiccating. She's not been having any fun at all," Giulia said regretfully. She still remembered tucking Isobel's dead-weight body into the dark recesses of Fell's Church ruins. She had had Sheila spell the place to repel humans, so no-one became Isobel's accidental snack: And Isobel had been desiccating where her ancestor Katherine should have been desiccating all those decades.
She had been threatening them; she had been a danger to Ric and Jenna, whom Giulia loved. But Isobel, professor of Parapsychology, estranged wife of Ric, was Elena's biological mother: At that time, Giulia and Elena's friendship had already suffered a lot, but even then, how could Giulia kill her childhood friend's mother?
Did they really think she was capable of that?
Yes. She knew the answer without hesitation: Yes, they would have believed her capable of absolutely anything back then. But she had then, as she did now, had her own code, which was more than many could boast.
Kill her friend's mother, even the biological one who had never raised Elena?
"I really wish you would've told us that," Jenna sighed, shaking her strawberry-blonde head, and Giulia gave her an apologetic look.
"Isobel was dangerous: But I'm not the monster you all think I was," Giulia told them quietly, and they all looked rather shame-faced, perhaps because they had assumed that Giulia was comfortable with doing the absolute worst.
Ric sighed heavily, catching Giulia's eye, before gazing at Jenna for a moment. They did that silent-married-communication thing Giulia missed from her own relationships…
"Something I never told any of you," Ric said, and Giulia quirked an eyebrow curiously, as he sighed heavily. "The last time I was killed…some compulsion broke. Isobel's compulsion. I guess perhaps it was before you ambushed her, Giulia - Isobel compelled me to let her go…she compelled me to forget her admitting that chasing down vampires, becoming one, leaving me…was her greatest regret… I imagine if she'd thought she could get away with it, she might've given some kind of confession to Elena, too…"
"So you're okay with this Isobel woman being - rehydrated?" Matt asked, looking appalled.
"I'm saying that if anyone knows what Elena is going through, and if anyone might have a shot at actually getting through to Elena…it may be Isobel," Ric sighed. "Isobel never told me about Elena, never even breathed a word that she'd given up a baby for adoption when she was still just a kid… But she regretted leaving me…and Isobel…in spite of everything that came later, Isobel was a good person…"
"I can't imagine having to pretend like Ruth or J.D. never even existed," Jenna said, realisation dawning softly on her face; she looked utterly saddened. "And then to find out Miranda and Grayson were gone? She gave Elena to them, knowing she'd have this rich, happy life…"
"Isobel gave up the two most important things in her life, for the fantasy of magic," Giulia said, sighing sadly. She had never understood, always feared pregnancy and childbirth; she couldn't imagine her life without Zita. The idea of giving her up? The momentary dread that shocked her into brief paralysis at the idea that Willem had come to town to take her away?
She couldn't imagine giving Zita up for a better life, only to learn the parents who had made her world safe and special had left her orphaned? That, worse, she was embroiled in the supernatural?
It was the last thing she wanted for Zita, the dreaded double-life, half-hidden in the shadows, drenched in secrets, the sacrifices and compromises…the unrepentant devastation.
"Even if you freed her…do you think she'd help?" Matt asked quietly. Giulia gazed at her friend; he looked tired. Grayson was fast-asleep in his arms, sucking his thumb, utterly safe and loved there.
"Even when she was threatening mass-slaughter to the townsfolk, Isobel was motivated purely by wanting to protect Elena," Giulia said. "She wanted the Gilbert device; she wanted Damon and Stefan dead. She wanted to protect Elena from discovery; and from being involved with vampires."
Jeremy frowned slightly. "How do you know that?"
She sighed sadly, gazing at Grayson. "A mother's instinct never dies. She gave up Elena to give her a better life; she was protecting the promise she made to her daughter."
"But she had her emotions turned off," Jenna pointed out.
"Did she?" Giulia asked sadly. "If ruthlessly protecting the child you gave up for adoption isn't proof of humanity, I don't know what is."
"The Isobel who compelled me to forget she was asking me to let her go…that was the Isobel I fell in love with all those years ago," Ric said, sighing heavily. He wound an arm around Jenna's shoulders and kissed her. "She wasn't gone, she just…"
"Lost her way," Giulia said sadly.
"Just…I don't want her in the loft," Matt said, readjusting Grayson in his arms. He sighed, glancing at Giulia. "If it might help Elena, then do it. But I won't put Grayson at risk."
"That's fair," Giulia said, nodding: And really, as waking Isobel would hopefully shock Elena the hell out of her apathy, Matt could make as many demands as he wanted. It would directly impact their lives - Giulia hoped for the better, though she knew she was being overly optimistic.
What she had said was correct; the focus of several of Isobel's texts had been about ancient societies hell-bent on eradicating the supernatural. She knew of the Order; so she would understand the tenacity of its last bedraggled members, still clinging to the old ways and pursuing one last-ditch attempt to eradicate the source of all abominations forever… Isobel would appreciate the significant threat the Order - and ironically not the Originals - posed to Elena, and her family.
Giulia was wagering on Isobel having hidden the fact that she wasn't emotionless when she had come to town, manipulating everyone, threatening to drown Mystic Falls in the blood of its residents: As a mother, Giulia knew…there wasn't anything that could stand in her way, if anyone threatened Zita. Not physical limitations, not moral qualms.
And Matt had every right to protect his son.
Giulia couldn't guarantee that Isobel would take it on as her own personal responsibility to bond with Elena, or protect her family, but she was betting that Isobel would try. Everything she had done, everything that had earned her so many enemies a decade ago, had been to protect the daughter she had given up.
Enzo appeared in the doorway, looking sheepish: Tiny little faces peeked behind his legs, as the sound of furniture being bumped out of the way and a small thump and a cheer of "Yes!" was muffled in the family-room.
"Purely hypothetical," he said, "but if Rambo somehow escaped his cage and went on a terror through Ruth's paints and dragged a rainbow across the rug…what kind of punishment are we talking?"
Ric groaned; Jenna sighed heavily, head falling into her hands, as the others tried not to smile. When there were children involved, there was always going to be chaos. But that chaos involved Spencer, who was mortified, and slipped past Enzo to root around under the faucet for cleaning-supplies, stricken: He and J.D. had been playing with Rambo the guinea-pig and taken their eyes off him long enough for him to make a bid for freedom, across a painting of Ruth's - knocking over a vial of glitter and heading straight for a forgotten cheese-puff under the sofa.
Jenna caught Giulia's eye as Giulia confiscated the spray-bottle stain-remover and Marigold gloves from Spencer; he was red-faced and his eyes were downcast. They were all apprised of the situation at home. Jenna was one of Mason's best-friends, after all: But it was Ric who made light of cleaning up the mess. It was not the end of the world that paint had been spilled…the glitter was another story…
But when they got home, Enzo carrying a sleeping Zita upstairs, well-schooled in getting her ready for bed without waking her, Giulia took Spencer into the living-room. She showed him the scratch in the wood that had appeared when Spencer accidentally dropped gears he was working on for his go-kart. The deep, raw scratch had been buffed, smoothed, and polished, bright against the darker wood: Around it, Giulia had drawn, using silver paint, an elaborate swirling frame, and written in elegant silver cursive with a Sharpie, 'Spencer Dropped the Gears He's Building for His Go-Kart, 3rd July, Age 9'. She had covered the whole thing with polish, making the silver gleam against the darker wood, preserving the memory.
Everything that happened in her home was a memory - mostly good, sometimes fraught - but they were all threads in the fabric of her life. They were all memories. And she wasn't going to make Spencer feel ashamed for being relaxed, feeling safe in her home: She had left the Boarding House because she had found her father murdered there, had herself felt unsafe there.
The lake-house had been her home ever since, no matter where she lived in the world.
When she had needed a safe place, she had come home.
It was important to her that Spencer understood that accidents sometimes happened; and they were not the end of the world. They were not always met with a violent explosion of temper.
Sometimes accidents were beautiful: She needed Spencer to know that.
Technically, he was one. He had come into existence out of pure chance.
So had Elena. An accident, conceived to two teenaged, overwhelmed parents, but also fated to be born, just as the doppelgänger had been conceived and born umpteen times before.
Chance! More like fateful cockup.
She tucked Spencer in, after checking on Zita; she didn't stay up too long after having a quiet chat with Enzo in the armchair and chaise-longue in her bedroom, too exhausted from the hellish week she had had work-wise, so glad that Caroline would be resuming her responsibilities.
Giulia had other things to think about: But what she didn't want was her life, the lives she and her friends had put so much effort into building for themselves, overhauled by the appearance of the Order. Where she could, she would absolutely put things into place to ensure she didn't have to actively engage: Rejuvenating Isobel had more to do with the fact that she was a font of Order knowledge, and the fact that she could be an effective bodyguard, than Giulia truly hoping she could get through to Elena about her postpartum, missing out on her son's life…
It would be a wonderful side-effect if that happened, but Giulia was more concerned with using Isobel to protect her friends, so that she could continue to devote her time to ensuring Zita - and Spencer - never had to know the creatures that went bump in the night were real, and were called Mamma.
Since becoming a mother, Giulia wore two faces: One, which she presented to the supernatural community. And the other, the real Giulia, was for her daughter. For Spencer.
For as long as possible, she would do her utmost to keep those children out of whatever was going on.
And they would never see the woman Giulia was to her enemies.
A.N.: So, a short one, but it's something, right? For anyone interested, look out for my Shameless/Chicago Fire crossover story, coming up…whenever I can stop putting notes together on the characters and actually write!
