A.N.: She's alive! This chapter is dedicated to FantasyLover2004, because when you reviewed saying how much you missed this story, I was reviewing my notes to get stuck in with Giulia again!

Oh, one big change: Instead of Esther, I'm renaming the Originals' mother Ástríðr. It's actually a Norse name, not a Biblical one! If you're going to write ancient Viking characters, give them Norse names! I like to think the Originals adopted Anglicised versions of their names after living in Marseilles, where they would've been exposed to Catholicism and the Bible. So Rebekah might've originally been named Ragnfrid (lovely goddess) and Elijah might've been Ejnar (leader, fighter).

I may have mentioned this before, but a curvier version of the stunning goddess Gal Gadot is my new, always and forever face-claim for Giulia Salvatore (with ice-grey eyes like Damon's).


Resurgam

23

Mother-Daughter Reunion


Leaves crackled, twigs snapping, and the scent of sun-scorched debris blossomed underfoot as she picked her way through the woods. Ever since Bill Forbes had pockmarked the land around the Lockwood cellar with illegal snares, the Sheriff's Department had been combing through the woods - they had disabled six more traps, but the last few sweeps had come up empty, a relief, as the creek swarmed with kids enjoying the summer sunshine. Insects hummed a chorus as birds twittered, and squirrels rustled along branches laden with vibrant leaves kissed by sunshine filtering through the canopy overhead. Pollen drifted on a sluggish breeze, invisible to the human eye, and the sound of water gurgled deliciously beneath the earth where the river wended through, creating natural cave systems, to the falls that had named their town.

"Strange, isn't it? Human nature," Lagertha murmured, peering through the foliage, watching teenagers dart about in bright bikinis, splashing in the shallows, making out, sharing drinks from a keg glinting in the sunlight, iceboxes and buckets stashed in the flatbeds of trucks, the scent of popsicles, burgers and sunscreen drifting on the breeze. The ancient tire-swing had been replaced by a newer, safer version, and kids took turns outdoing each other as they dove into the water from a height. "A thousand years ago, we too congregated to luxuriate in the creek. The river was the source of life. And still they celebrate it."

"Follow water and you'll inevitably find humans," Rebekah muttered, glancing down at the sun-kissed bodies. Laughter echoed up to them. "They're so modest! We swam naked. They do look delicious. Look at that one!"

"A triple flip - he's a record-breaker on the Mystic Falls High swim-team," Giulia remarked, squinting in the sunlight at the bronzed boy Rebekah had picked out from the crowd, a hand raised over her eyes, shielded by sunglasses. There were downsides to heightened senses. "Butterfly stroke."

"Those shoulders," Rebekah hummed delightedly, practically purring as she watched.

"Rebekah, he is barely more than a boy," Lagertha chided sternly, shaking her head, her golden hair glinting in the sunlight as she turned away. She caught Giulia's eye, and she smiled.

"And children must be taught," Rebekah smirked, "through experience."

"Well, I'm glad at least you're finding ways to keep yourself entertained," Lagertha said glibly. Giulia knew they didn't just speak English for her benefit - the two sisters had not lived in the same place together for centuries, and remembered few other common languages but the Old Tongue, which brought up too many memories when spoken. Especially in this place.

The sisters had died here: Lagertha had been killed defending Rebekah and Gyda - Gyda had picked up Lagertha's shield as Rebekah cowered from her father. Both had died on his sword. Lagertha had already lost her children by then - by the time a powerful witch and even fiercer mother decided to use witchcraft to protect her surviving children. Lagertha and Rebekah's mother had created the vampire race, here in Mystic Falls, a thousand years ago. The story of it had been commemorated in cave-paintings beneath their feet: As they wandered away from the creek, sweeping their way toward the ruins of a Seventeenth Century church, Giulia couldn't help wonder whether the sisters bickered as a distraction, to stop themselves thinking - and feeling - too much about where they were…

This land was drenched with their blood.

As it was Giulia's, too.

She meandered around a fallen log teeming with life, and startled when her phone rang, the noise clear as bells in the quiet, sultry woods. She dug her phone out of her back pocket and raised an eyebrow at the name on the screen, and the photograph - Bonnie and Penelope smushing their faces against a window, as if trapped inside her phone.

"Hi, Bonnie," she said gently, "You okay?"

Bonnie was fuming, and lost no time blurting furiously, "You remember when Caroline turned, that night of the carnival? And I was more upset that some random carnival worker I thought was cute had been killed, than the fact that one of my best friends had been murdered and turned into a vampire? You smacked me in the face?"

"I have a vague recollection," Giulia cringed. She had smacked Bonnie: But Caroline had just been murdered. And Bonnie had turned her back on Car, and blamed her for her transition. They had moved on, as soon as Bonnie accepted Caroline as her best-friend first, and a vampire second.

"How the hell did you not keep hitting me?" Bonnie blurted indignantly.

"Uh…" Giulia blinked, thrown off completely.

"My mom showed up, Giulia," Bonnie said.

"What mom?"

"Uh, well, Abigail Bennett: she abandoned me when I was three years old, never called, never wrote, never came to my high-school graduation or my wedding or even sent a card when her granddaughter was born whole and healthy," Bonnie said glibly.

"Oh! That mom," Giulia raised her eyebrows. "She showed up?"

"Yeah."

Giulia settled down against the fallen tree. This was an interesting new development. And the wolfsangel explained itself - not that Giulia hadn't suspected… "Huh."

"And I was venting to Elena earlier at Ash's café - or I was trying to, Elena just completely blanked me, on her phone the whole friggin' time, trying to get a hold of Stefan because she's concerned that he might be drinking human-blood again and that that Rebekah girl is a bad influence on him," Bonnie cried indignantly, and Giulia rolled her eyes, hard. She peered at Rebekah over the top of her sunglasses, raising an ironic eyebrow; Rebekah smirked, and examined her delicate blush-manicured fingernails, her expression the satisfied cat who'd eaten the proverbial cream. "She didn't care! I wanted to shove her face in her avocado toasts and just - argh!"

"Well, you know, in your condition, Bonbon, you shouldn't be doing anything too strenuous," Giulia chided playfully, and heard Bonnie snort at the other end of the line. "And I wouldn't recommend smacking your best-friend, even if she is being a thoughtless bitch… You don't know what's going on inside her head."

Bonnie sighed heavily, and grumbled a defeated, "Noted."

Giulia sighed, and asked quietly, "You okay?"

"Nope," Bonnie answered plainly. "Why is she here?"

"And why now?" Giulia asked. "It's been twenty-five years."

"Yeah, I was like Penelope's age the last time Abby Bennett was in town. Mother and daughter, and I didn't even recognise her - she wouldn't have known it was me if she hadn't tracked down where I live online," Bonnie said, and Giulia narrowed her eyes.

The timing was too suspect.

She'd long had her suspicions, and had them confirmed a while ago: Bill Forbes was the first sign, the wolfsangel outside Miss Sheila's house another… Abby turning up, out of the blue, just as Bonnie was due to give birth to her second child, and Sheila was finally looking at retirement…

Giulia had set a lot of things in motion with that text, the day the statuette shattered in her home-office.

But no-one was supposed to involve Bonnie. She was a former member of the supernatural community in Mystic Falls: She knew the secret, but no longer dabbled… Sheila and Giulia had made sure of it: Giulia had dragged Bonnie out of hell in New Orleans, and Sheila had made sure she could never make another journey back. They had stripped Bonnie of her magic.

And she was content: She only worried about Penelope, and the Unborn.

"What does Miss Sheila say about all this?" Giulia asked.

"Apparently Abby tried calling her, weeks ago. Guess Grams changed her number, you know, a few decades ago," Bonnie sniffed irritably, which was completely understandable. "Probably around the time Grams was teaching me how to take care of my curls, or helping me with my Algebra, or maybe when I was having trouble with my crush or I was feeling insignificant as Elena's best-friend, or I was nervous to try out for the cheerleading squad, or when I got my first period. You know, one of those times when Grams was actually doing what my mom should've been doing."

"Yeah," Giulia winced: As kids, she and Bonnie had shared one unique trait within their tricky quad friendship - they had no mothers. But Giulia's had died: Bonnie's had chosen to abandon her daughter. Giulia had had Liz Forbes and Carol Lockwood as female role-models, growing up: Bonnie had her Grams. "Did she… What does she want?"

"I don't know, she just showed up, blew my whole world to hell, and left again!" Bonnie exclaimed. "Something about, you know, mistakes she'd made, wanting to 'make things right', whatever that means - she wanted to hold P."

"Did you let her?"

"No friggin' way! I may not be a witch anymore, but I still have my instincts as a mother - and they were screaming to keep Penelope away from her!" Bonnie fumed. "I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid and overprotective -"

"No such thing, when it comes to our kids," Giulia reassured her gently.

"Still…I don't trust this woman. I don't even know her! She…she just looked at Penelope, and there was something in her eye, I don't know - I'm anxious and cranky and the baby's sitting on my bladder, it's so hot I get no sleep and I just…she just shouldn't be here! She has no right! She can't just walk back in after twenty-five years and expect me to be happy about it, to trust her. She -"

"What? Bonnie?"

"She tried to use the whole…witchy thing… You know, the bond of magic, the bond of witchcraft."

"Wow. Your first meeting and she's using witchcraft to fuel her bitchcraft," Giulia tsked.

"Oh, yeah. Whenever I'm with Grams, even though I'm not a witch anymore, I still get that feeling I always got - the feeing I got when I met Lucy, the feeling I have when I'm with all of you, that…that feeling of home… When I saw Abby, every instinct in my body was warning me to run," Bonnie said, and Giulia would never ignore the instincts of a witch - or a mother.

"We'll keep them safe, Bonnie," Giulia promised her quietly. "We won't let anything happen to them."

"I just…" Bonnie sounded tearful, exhausted, as she whispered, "I can't…let anything happen to Penelope, or to… I just can't go through it again."

"You won't have to," Giulia said sternly, and her eyes burned, her tone softening to almost a whisper as she cooed, "Bonnie - please don't cry…" She dropped her head in her hand, listening to Bonnie cry and sniffle at the other end of the line. It said a lot, that after all this time, it was Giulia to whom Bonnie could break down, could offload her worries and her grief. They'd had their rocky patches, and as adolescents Bonnie had always been closer with Elena, the way Caroline was a surrogate sister to Giulia: as adults, as mothers, they shared similar values, similar desires for their children, and it had formed the basis of their more mature friendship.

And listening to Bonnie cry was devastating.

After her miscarriages, her stillbirth, it wasn't fair for Abby Bennett to breeze into town, trying to prey on Bonnie's emotions.

And it was foolish of her to try to do so: Bonnie had gotten over her grief and anger at Abby's abandonment years ago - she had let go. She had freed herself from resentment, and in doing so made Abby Bennett utterly irrelevant. There was no emotional leverage Abby could wield over Bonnie - especially not when Bonnie was going into full-on lioness mode protecting Penelope, and the Unborn.

Giulia sat, and she pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, pinching her eyes, as she listened to Bonnie cry, her own emotions swelling at the back of her throat. "Where's Penelope?"

"She's with me!" Bonnie gasped, and sniffled loudly. "We're cuddling." Giulia smiled sadly.

"Do you want me to come over?"

"I'll be alright," Bonnie promised, sounding drained. "I'll be alright, I promise! I'm just…a little overwhelmed, you know?"

"Yeah, I do."

"And I really want this baby to come out already!" Giulia laughed at Bonnie's frustrated exclamation.

"Don't miss those mood swings," she teased warmly, and Bonnie chuckled dully. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. Grams promised to come check on me and bring donuts, so… Thank you for listening to me," Bonnie sniffed, sounding brighter, and Giulia smiled grimly.

"You're very welcome," she said softly. "You let me know if you need anything, okay - you or Sheila."

"I'll remind her," Bonnie said, more cheerfully. "What're you doing, by the way?"

"Tea with an old friend," Giulia said, deadpan, and Bonnie decided better than to ask further. She hung up, and Giulia tucked her phone back inside her pocket.

"Which of your friends was that?" Rebekah asked. "Not the blonde I met last week."

"No. That was Bonnie," Giulia said, joining the sisters and leading the way toward the church. Sunglasses back in place, she pushed back the tears that had threatened while she listened to Bonnie have a meltdown, angry that, so near to the finish line, something completely out of her control might affect Bonnie's impending birth - again.

Briefly, she told Rebekah and Lagertha about Bonnie's history - her struggles with carrying a child to term; and her mother's historic abandonment.

As they neared the church, she went on, to explain a little further. Bonnie's mother had abandoned her - reasons unknown: Isobel Flemming had given up her newborn daughter to ensure they could both have a better life. Isobel had returned, when her daughter was a teenager, to protect her from all the nasties that partied at night.

It was all they could hope for that Abby Bennett's return might be in the same vein…but Giulia knew it would be foolish, given what she knew about Abby, what Sheila had implied over the years, to believe that the purpose of Abby's return was going to be anything but duplicitous. Bonnie may not have her powers anymore, but she still had a mother's instincts.

They were telling her to keep her daughter as far away from Abby Bennett as possible.

"You don't trust this woman," Rebekah said, and Giulia shook her head. She shot Giulia a sidelong look. Insightfully, Rebekah remarked, "You know more about her than her daughter does."

"There's a connection…between Abby Bennett and my uncle," Giulia admitted.

"Not a pleasant one, by the sounds of it," Lagertha summarised.

"No. Bonnie's grandmother Sheila knows more than she'll tell me about it," Giulia said. "Bonnie doesn't need to know about that, when her own instincts are telling her this woman is dangerous."

"A mother's instincts need neither proof nor reason," Lagertha said, almost to herself, and Giulia nodded in agreement.

"So, this…this Isobel. She's a descendant of Katerina Petrova?" Rebekah asked, and Giulia nodded: Rebekah had known the human Katerina, when the Originals had lived in England - around the same time Rose had been turned. Katerina had used Rose, and Rose's friend Trevor, to escape Klaus, and the sacrifice ritual he had inevitably completed five centuries later, using Katerina's descendant Elena, and Giulia herself. "We all saw through the saintly façade Katerina portrayed; it was half the fun, of course, the long game… But even I never would have realised quite how much fun she had been having. She had a child."

"Briefly," Giulia said, feeling a pang. To have Zita ripped from her arms…

"The child was taken away?"

"By her father. Given away. And yet, survived, somehow," Giulia said. "Isobel, Elena and her son Grayson are Katerina's direct descendants." She had done some research into any others who might have survived: there were two threads of Katerina's direct bloodline still surviving to this day - more than many royal bloodlines could boast - one, Giulia had tracked to Zadar, Croatia, and one, stubbornly surviving all odds, in New Orleans, of all places. Giulia glanced over at Rebekah, who was frowning to herself. "It puts things in perspective, doesn't it?"

"They took her baby away," was all Rebekah said, very quietly, and wandered on in silence. Lagertha eyed her sister thoughtfully, picking her way through the woods. Giulia glanced at the younger sister, forever preserved as a plump-lipped, sugary blonde adolescent with a vicious streak that concealed her loneliness. "Why did you decide to come out with us, by the way?"

"Oh, all the screaming and torture was fraying my nerves," Rebekah said airily, waving a hand. "I can't concentrate on my harp when Niklaus' vertebrae are being shattered one by one."

Giulia blinked. She had heard from Kol that the Originals were taking turns to torment Klaus… "Whose turn is it?"

"Isak's. He's discovered curling irons. Apparently you just plug them in to an electrical socket - constant source of flesh-melting heat," Rebekah said, with a glint of amusement in her eyes. "Interchangeable barrels - some come to a wonderful point."

"Why - never mind. I don't need to know," Giulia grimaced, her eyes widening. In her research for her History and Psychology PhDs, she had of course come into contact with torture. And she had fully immersed herself in Shakespeare while living within spitting distance of The Globe Theatre in London - the Bard was specific; and she had an imagination. "Well, it's nice that Isak's found himself a playmate. When's your turn?"

"Oh, after Isak gets bored, I suppose. Truthfully I'm rather disinterested. Torture is always satisfying in the moment, of course, but…one starts to feel like a carpenter after a while. I've seen and done it all, where is the spark, the ingenuity?" Rebekah sighed, and Giulia stared at her nonchalance. Rebekah shook her head, her pale golden hair shimmering in the sunlight. "No…I think I will follow Elijah's example, and simply refrain. Niklaus adores the attention, even being physically tortured - he's winning, you see. He still has power over Isak. If he'd asked, I would have warned Isak that the surest way to torment Niklaus is to ignore him utterly. Remove that power from him."

Perhaps she felt Lagertha's expression, because Rebekah certainly couldn't see it, striding ahead of them. Rebekah turned, and her expression hardened as she levelled her eyes at her older sister. All Lagertha said was, "You always relent."

All emotion seemed to be wiped instantaneously from Rebekah's beautiful face, until it hardened to resemble a perfect marble sculpture. "Before. I never knew he murdered our mother. And we were never united as we are now." Lagertha didn't say anything. Her expression flickered, ever so briefly - and Rebekah noticed. "You're sceptical."

"You've said all this before. You've made promises to your siblings before…" Lagertha said, and Rebekah's shoulders went back, her spine straightening defensively. "And you always run back to him. He always finds a way."

Rebekah's features turned hard. "Not anymore. He used to be able to hide it. His nature. Now it's on display, and he has no control over who sees it. And he killed our mother. He gave me her necklace; he knew I'd coveted it," she said, sounding angry and breathless and devastated. She held her sister's eye as she said, "He knew I would wear it, always…a trophy, for him to luxuriate in the memory of Mother's life-blood dripping from his hands as he tore the trinket from her neck, Mother's heart still warm beside her body. All I see when I look at him is everything he has ever taken from me."

She turned, and strode on ahead. Lagertha sighed deeply, squinting in the sunlight at her sister. Giulia knew better than to comment. Their relationship had always been fractious: They had been raised far too differently, by the same parents.

"Why is it you asked me to join you this afternoon?" Lagertha asked Giulia quietly. Like Willem, like Finn, there was an earthiness, a richness and gravitas to Lagertha that time had never erased. She did not seem to walk on air as Rebekah did, so much as carve her way through it, intense and watchful - a warrior on alert. Lagertha had been a shield-maiden, long before she was created into a vampire: She fought in the shield-wall beside her father, with her brothers, fighting with sword and spear as they raided the coastlines of Scandinavia. When her brief role as a mother was brutally stripped from her, Lagertha had embraced the warlike side of the goddess Freya's dual-nature: She was still warm, nurturing, but she was tough, and wise, and stern. She was not frivolous; she was gentle with children and frightening with her querulous brothers, putting them in their places as only a fierce oldest sister could. She had historically not gotten along with Rebekah, who was her antithesis - Rebekah had been born into a thriving settlement, and it was a point of their father's pride that Rebekah could be raised as a princess, never having to callous her hands with blisters from swordplay or working the fields - the way Lagertha was raised, by plough and by blade.

The other night, Giulia had stopped at the witch-house with Zita: They had indulged in a couple of hours, and watched Wonder Woman with Lagertha, Kol and Willem, who had lusted shamelessly after Diana, smirking at Giulia the entire time, about how similar they were in looks. Lagertha admired Wonder Woman's heart, in spite of her suffering; and her gentleness, in spite of her power.

Elijah, returning home with Gyda from another day spent together, had caught the second-half of the movie, mesmerised by the music - and Diana's epic fight scenes: Elijah enjoyed Diana, reminded too much of Giulia a decade ago, fighting off werewolves to protect her friend. Though even he would admit, Giulia had been far angrier than Diana: Giulia had gentled since then.

And it was the old Giulia, the one Elijah remembered so intimately, that Isobel had met.

That Giulia had locked Isobel away in the tomb beneath the church ruins, without blood, for a decade.

Still…it was a better alternative than killing her - less merciful to Isobel, yes, but kinder to the people in Giulia's life who would be affected by Isobel's ultimate death. Like Ric. Like Elena.

"Isobel has been desiccating beneath the ruins for a decade," Giulia told the sisters. "I am quite certain she was still in touch with her emotions before I interred her, no matter how she acted… But - unlike your slumber - she felt every second of her desiccation, and was conscious for all of it… I want to ensure, even if she has abandoned her emotions, that she will behave when I free her."

"Why not have us compel her to feel again?" Rebekah asked breezily, by all appearances leaving her snit with Lagertha behind her.

Giulia pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I…don't want to take that choice from her. I - It would have been a kindness to kill her, but I left her to rot. Whatever she had to do, to survive that torture…I won't take it from her. It has to be her choice to let things touch her, when she's ready."

"You respect this woman?" Lagertha asked.

Giulia frowned. "I didn't - then. I was seventeen; she was a threat to my friends. Only the fact she was Elena's birth-mother stopped me from killing her outright. That's what my instincts told me to do…but I didn't. Now that I'm a mother… When she was born, Zita granted me new perspective. I respect that Isobel wanted to protect her daughter by any means necessary."

"You had a lot of forethought and restraint in not killing her," Rebekah remarked, idly examining a wildflower that had escaped the heat.

"Well…you can always kill them," Giulia said, shrugging delicately, "but it's a lot harder to bring them back. That's my philosophy."

"Still, you've made things harder for yourself, keeping her alive. You brought her exquisite torture," Rebekah observed. "She'll be vengeful."

"Hence my bodyguards," Giulia smiled grimly.

"You do not wish us to compel her to embrace her emotions?" Lagertha clarified.

"No; only to behave herself."

"And if she doesn't?"

"She'll learn very quickly it's in her interests to do so."

"Ah, yes, your…delightful little insurance policy," Rebekah seethed, suddenly turning narrowed eyes on Giulia. "How fastidious of you to punish the supernatural for preying on humans in this town. I shall never tap a vein within the town limits again."

"Well, you're a fast learner," Giulia replied, smirking, unfazed. "Isak would rather exsanguinate a kindergarten than relent and acknowledge the pain, just out of spite."

"He has always chafed under rules," Rebekah smirked.

"I imagine he chafes most at being punished with magic," Lagertha said succinctly: Isak had been born a witch, like Bonnie - like Kol, who had been a savant in his time. Before. Their magic had been stripped from them the moment they were turned into vampires against their will: They could be only one or the other. And Isak had regretted his loss from the moment he rose in transition: According to Gyda, any reminder of what he had lost set him off. And magic blanketed Mystic Falls, protecting everyone who lived within its limits from the supernatural: Giulia's sacrifice had served a dual purpose all those years ago at the quarry.

"What about this Isobel? Is she likely to misbehave?" Rebekah said, with a snide little inflection: She didn't appreciate being punished for trying to snack on the locals, Giulia knew. But she had learned. Wholesale slaughter, mindless menace would not be tolerated. Not here. Not if they all wanted any chance at surviving - at maintaining somewhere safe.

Everyone was entitled to that. Even the monsters that partied through the night.

"Before her internment? Perhaps, if fuelled by jealousy. She took things a little too far outside of her quest to protect Elena to be above pettiness," Giulia mused. "But after she's spent a decade desiccating? That's anyone's guess - and I'd rather not have to clean up after her if it can be avoided, so…"

She had no time for divampires, as Caroline called them.

It took only a few minutes to meander up to the ruins. There was no-one around: A deflection spell laid down by Sheila encouraged humans to veer away from the area if they got too close. The ruins were worse than they had been a decade ago, something Giulia attributed to - and Sheila confirmed - the spell Emily Bennett had cast to imprison and protect the vampires in the crypt below. The spell had been broken: The vampires had been freed. The magic that bound them to the ruins was broken; without the magic sustaining it, the crypt had fallen into disrepair.

When Giulia had brought Isobel to this place, all those years ago, it had been a chore: Isobel had been dosed with a highly concentrated shot of vervain to keep her docile, but lugging her body-weight had then been a workout for Giulia. Now, she simply hopped down into the antechamber as if stepping down from the sidewalk, upsetting unseen inhabitants in the undergrowth now carpeting the cracked stones. Sensing the sisters' presence behind her, Giulia approached the entrance to the crypt. Isobel had been sole occupant.

"Housekeeping," she chirped, leaning tauntingly in the entrance. Within, she heard a soft cuss-word, and the rustle of fabric, movement. Pretty-eyed, dark-haired, Isobel Flemming shuffled into view, squinting and shrinking from the intense sunlight she was unused to.

"You."

"Me," Giulia said, smiling jauntily, perching her sunglasses on top of her head. "You look gorgeous. The O-positive treated you right."

"Come a little closer and I'll show you just how good I look."

"Oh, I don't think so. Not until we've cleared up a few things."

Isobel narrowed her eyes, sweeping them from the tip of Giulia's soft black Skechers to her expensive sunglasses, taking in her haircut, her skinny-jeans and top, the rings glittering unashamedly on her fingers. Giulia knew…she was cataloguing every change.

Isobel was clever. Giulia wasn't the only one in the crypt with a PhD.

She noticed. She knew time had passed.

"What do you want?" Isobel asked, sighing, and leaned nonchalantly against the rough wall. She was grubby, covered in muck, her hair was tousled and needed washing, but there was a…a Katerina Petrova-esque glint in her eye, already assessing, already scheming. Until her eyes slid onto the blonde sisters flanking Giulia. "You've made new friends."

"Isobel, this is Lagertha, and that's Rebekah," Giulia said, glancing over her shoulder. Something like recognition sparked in Isobel's eyes, and she crept closer.

"Those names…"

"Originals," Giulia said, and Rebekah smirked, giving a mock curtsy. Lagertha gave Isobel an assessing frown.

"I found a portrait of Rebekah, painted in the 1880s…" Isobel murmured, her eyes moving to Lagertha as Rebekah's lips parted, delight touching her eyes briefly - wanting to discuss the portrait, perhaps? Discover its fate? "There were only ever rumours there was another sister."

"My siblings prefer not to brag about me," Lagertha said, with an ironic little bite. She had a sharp tongue when she wanted, an ironic sense of humour, comedic timing that worked off of Kol's so beautifully. Finn seemed to be her favourite brother, and Gyda her favourite - only surviving - niece. In the few visits Giulia had had at the witch-house when all of the siblings were there, she had noticed that Elijah, Finn and Lagertha tended to gravitate toward each other, unconsciously or not. They were of similar natures, and seemed to find contentment in each other's company.

Isobel's pretty eyes slid to Giulia, full of suspicion - and maybe a little blame. Giulia wondered briefly if Isobel had succumbed to abandoning her emotions as a form of mental self-preservation.

"Why are the Originals in Mystic Falls?"

"That's a longer conversation," Giulia said. "Suffice it to say, it begins with a completed sacrifice ritual, Elena's resurrection and the Salvatores leaving town, and culminates with the Order circling Mystic Falls, leaving wolfsangels burned into Sheila Bennett's yard and Bill Forbes torturing his daughter. Elena is suffering post-partum depression after giving birth to her first child." Isobel raised her eyebrows, staring at her. "In exchange for your freedom, you're going to keep an eye on Elena, and her son. And you're going to share with me everything you accumulated on the Order."

"You can't look into it yourself?"

"I'm a working mother; I have no time," Giulia said, shrugging unconcernedly. "I'll use the resources available to make my life easier so I can focus on my daughter. I suggest you do the same."

"Hm…why bring the Old Ones with you?" Isobel asked, smirking as she added, "Afraid I'll retaliate?"

"Oh, please, I did you a favour," Giulia said, realising why Isobel was so calm. She had tucked Isobel safe inside a place no vampire would enter for fear they couldn't leave: Giulia had made Isobel safe from Klaus. From being compelled to help him hunt her daughter; from the repercussions of daring to run. Giulia had nullified Isobel's role in her own daughter's demise: And made sure Klaus couldn't kill her for it.

Giulia had protected Elena from Isobel. Isobel knew it; and was relieved.

She narrowed her eyes at Isobel, "…and you know it. Do we have to make a big show of this, or are you ready to come out and play?"

"Hm… I'll need clothes."

"We have Niklaus' credit-cards," Rebekah chirped delightedly from behind Giulia: Isobel raised an eyebrow, looking smug.

"And a place to stay," Isobel said, levelling Giulia with a look. "I'm not squatting, and I will not tolerate chintz bed-and-breakfasts."

"There's a suite at the Boarding House set aside for you," Giulia said, "for as long as you need it."

"The Boarding House?"

"You've been dehydrated for a while." Isobel's eyes trailed down Giulia's arm, to the rings glittering on her slender fingers.

"So it would seem. Just so we understand one-another. Klaus lifted the curse; Elena is alive. And you want me to - what…play nanny?"

"Nanny, guard-dog, emotional sounding-board, punching-bag. Whatever," Giulia shrugged. "You and Elena can work that out between you."

"And you want my reconnaissance on the Order."

"Yes."

"You don't want me to give up the location of all my research so you can ensure it's worth your while before you release me?"

"I've read your texts. There's no way you Googled it. We both know you want out, Isobel."

"She's okay?" Giulia shrugged noncommittally.

"You'll see. You can decide for yourself," she said, and Isobel stared at her.

"Fine," she agreed, somehow managing to look blasé, even filthy and dishevelled. "Let me out."

From her pocket, Giulia withdrew a small clay totem - like the one Sheila had spelled to forewarn of Klaus' return within state lines. This one had a lock of hair baked into it. Giulia hurled it at Isobel's feet, shattering the totem to dust.

"What, that's it?" Rebekah asked indignantly. "We tramped through the woods for a civil conversation?"

Giulia glanced from Rebekah to Isobel. "Well, feel free to smack her around a little if it means that much to you." Isobel shot her a deadpan look; Giulia smiled blandly back at her, remembering Ric's anguish. Rebekah sighed huffily, but made no move to start swatting Isobel around the antechamber as she tentatively stepped forward into the searing sunlight. Giulia slung her backpack down onto the ground, unzipped it, and took out fresh blood-bags, new underwear and a clean t-shirt and jeans.

Isobel glanced from the clothes and wipes to Giulia and the Old Ones and sighed, shaking her head, before starting to strip.

"What do you know about Abby Bennett?" Giulia asked, seeing no reason not to multitask.

"That piece of work?" Isobel tsked, pulling on the new underwear and bra. As she buttoned up the new jeans, she raised her pretty eyes to Giulia, narrowed shrewdly. She smirked indulgently as she said, "No…no, you don't care about Abby Bennett… You want to know what happened to Joshua Salvatore."

Giulia gave no reaction except to raise an eyebrow. "Abby Bennett has returned to town inflicting mental anguish on my very pregnant friend; I will settle for information on her, rather than the disappearance of an uncle I never met."

"That's a shame. Even I couldn't find out the ending to his story; but it's a doozy," Isobel smirked. "As for Abby, well…I'm guessing you already know she had everything to do with Joshua's disappearance. That give a little hint into the kind of woman you're dealing with?"

"I don't care so much about the woman as the witch," Giulia said, waving a hand. "What do you have on her?"

"When I figured out Elena was a doppelgänger, I researched all of the people in her life," Isobel said blandly, and Giulia blinked, realising she was one of those people - and Isobel's research into her would of course have put her on the path to Stefan and Damon - who had turned her.

"I'd like to get my hands on those files," Giulia muttered, wondering what Isobel could have dug up on her before any hint of doppelgängers and Originals and werewolves had touched their lives.

"You can have them, for your autobiography," Isobel said, a touch snidely. "Memoirs of a drunken little lust-filled teenaged beast."

"Catchy title," Giulia smirked, and prompted, "Abby?"

"All I'll say is that her daughter had better thank God every day she wasn't raised by that woman. Calm, fanatical, vindictive. And smarter than she lets on," Isobel said, straightening up. "It's a good thing she committed to the Order; because if she had decided to team up with Klaus…" She shook her head, finger-combing her hair; the diamond earrings she had been wearing when she was interred caught the light, incongruous against her griminess. Isobel caught Giulia's eye. "What's his name?"

"Whose?"

Isobel looked her straight in the face. "My grandson."

"Grayson," Giulia said softly. "Grayson Donovan."

A heartbeat, and then Isobel laughed, smiling. "She married the quarterback?"

Giulia nodded, rolling her eyes in amusement. "She married the quarterback."


A.N.: I've felt like a neglectful mother with Giulia; I didn't mean to abandon her. But there was Game of Thrones; and Shadowhunters; and A Court of Thorns and Roses. I got distracted! Don't hate me! I still love Giulia - I think she's always going to be my favourite. And I've got lots planned for her. I was really channelling Damon through her in this chapter, I could just see her emulating his swagger and attitude as she sparred with Isobel.