A.N.: So it turns out, me being anxious about not doing work for uni meant that I'd wake up way too early so I could get prepared for research I have to do…and write fanfiction instead… I'd like to say I'm reconsidering my priorities…but who are we kidding?!
Also: "The Last of the Starks" is definitely a theme for Giulia. If I could invite Ramin Djawadi to score her life, there would definitely be recurring Stark themes, especially the combined tragedy, sorrow, triumph, exhilaration and hope of "The Last of the Starks".
Resurgam
31
Torment
She was safe…
Giulia sat on the ottoman, watching her daughter, in silence and in shock, barely blinking, fixated solely on her child, the beating of her heart and her soft sighs as she writhed and squirmed and settled on the enormous bed, tucked up in a blanket. Nothing else mattered.
Yet her mind was a reinforced fortress, impenetrable unless by invitation: There was no peering inside, to find out exactly what had happened.
But Caroline… She had healed rapidly, thanks to Willem's blood: Her startled, exasperated cry reverberated throughout the great room, Klaus and the torture rack he was strung up to the one gruesome feature in an otherwise pristine minimalist home, and the focal point. She sat up, her eyes popping as she realised someone had been strung up for torture - and she realised who…
"Fancy a game of KerPlunk? We've adapted it, Original-style," Kol grinned. "Instead of straws and marbles, we're using paintbrushes - and Niklaus' innards. No plastics; go green!"
"What is wrong with you?" she cried, scrambling off the chaise-longue, away from Klaus, wincing in sympathy. Kol and Isak just snickered, but Elijah shot them a dark look as he strolled into the room, his measured steps and nonchalant body-language never betraying the turmoil within, the dread that had him unfurling his absurd powers to do something he rarely did, to invade someone's privacy without their knowledge or consent.
Giulia's mind was a steel trap, but Caroline's… She was borderline hysterical, and that made it all the easier to enter her mind. Her thoughts revolved around the attack: Elijah did not even need to give her a nudge to get what he wanted, to experience it all through her eyes - the surprise, Giulia's debilitating terror for her daughter's safety, Caroline, remembering the promise she had made to protect her… Elijah was not sure which she meant, Giulia or Zita, but either way, Caroline fell beneath the werewolf's bite, throat torn out, trying to distract the beast from Giulia, already savaged on the tarmac.
"They're safe," he said gently, withdrawing from Caroline's mind as she devolved into hysteria, staring wide-eyed around the living area and silently sobbing as her mind fixated on Giulia and Zita and their absence.
Caroline choked, "They are?"
"Zita slept through the attack," Elijah said gently: Giulia had murmured that much to him, but she was not in the mood to talk. He did not press her. Not about her daughter. Giulia was in shock: It was the very first time that her daughter's life had been threatened… And Giulia was too wise to convince herself it would be the only time. "She never saw a thing."
"She didn't?" Tears splashed down Caroline's cheeks, relief washing through her, and Elijah shot Isak a filthy look as Klaus grunted, a paint-brush stuck through his thigh, shuddering in pain as fragrant smoke hissed and unfurled rapturously from his burned, blistered skin.
"Giulia is in the bedroom with her," Elijah told Caroline. "Giulia…managed to bring you all here." How, he had no idea: She had been teetering on the brink of consciousness, the brink of death, her child slumbering so peacefully in her arms, never knowing that her mother stood mauled to ribbons, her skin chalky white, her ruined dress plastered to her skin by her own blood quickly cooling as it dripped onto the pristine white carpet, her shoulder, her neck, her face savaged, her eyes pitch-black and glowing eerily, fangs lengthened to savage points… She had been vomiting blood and shuddering with the side-effects of poisoning, an infection sweeping through her veins that Elijah, with his heightened senses, could smell riddling her body, attacking her from the inside - he had never seen a reaction so severe to werewolf-venom: In a regular vampire, the bite took days to fester, and longer to inflict the psychological torture that was a precursor to lingering, painful, choking desiccation and death.
But then, Giulia was utterly unique in the world.
She had survived the mauling, driven to fight back, to fight off the changed werewolf, purely by the primal instinct to protect her child.
What mothers would not do, to protect their children…
Caroline slouched with relief, her tears ebbing. She raised a shaking hand to her throat, and frowned bemusedly. "I thought… Oh my god…"
"Willem gave you his blood," Elijah said gently. "It cleansed you of the werewolf venom. Giulia, too. Zita needed no such attention; sadly, there is no cure for Rebekah. She must endure the coming torment."
"It was a werewolf," Caroline said softly, wonderingly, her eyes wide, her expression soft, faraway - tearful. Her eyes were brimming with tears again as she raised them to Elijah. "I thought - a werewolf…"
"Turned on the wrong moon," Elijah said softly.
"Sometimes called a 'vargulf'," Kol said offhandedly, playing darts with paint-brushes and Klaus' chest as a target.
"Damned creatures enslaved to witches," Isak muttered, annoyed as Kol's last paintbrush pierced Klaus' heart. "Oh, now we'll have to wait for him to regenerate! You know it takes forever!"
"About time you learned patience, brother," Kol grinned, and Caroline stared at them. With an annoyed sigh at his brothers, Elijah cupped her cheek and turned her face away. He had seen that look on too many people.
"Are you alright?" he asked kindly, and Caroline's lower-lip trembled.
"I promised I'd protect her!" Caroline choked, more tears slipping down her cheeks.
"You gave Giulia precious time to fight her way to her daughter's side and protect her," Elijah said, having gleaned just enough from Giulia that it was Caroline trying to intervene to protect them that had given Giulia the time, the strength she needed to fight back. "They're alright."
"You wouldn't lie?" Caroline sniffled, gazing beseechingly at him, and Elijah smiled grimly.
"I would not be here, if they were not," he said honestly. He would be with Willem. Hunting. As it was…a vargulf lingered in the realm of witches, harnessed by magic to do their bidding. It was werewolf business; Willem was the oldest living werewolf.
Giulia didn't want to stay at the Klaushaus, as she had dubbed it, any longer than necessary - heading back into town, even with the threat of the vargulf, was better, in her eyes, than staying at the Klaushaus where Niklaus was strung up to a Fifteenth Century torture-device, his half-brothers practicing their carpentry skills on his exposed bones.
She didn't want them to linger in the Klaushaus for a second longer than tonight's circumstances had dictated.
She didn't want Zita to see.
So it was very late, when she carried Zita out of the house, still fast-asleep, and Elijah winced at the stench of copper as he pulled the booster-seat from the back of her Audi. There was a sheen to the upholstery, the dark fabric concealing the colour of the liquid staining it: The entire car was drenched in blood - hers, Rebekah's and Caroline's. He sighed softly, "What a mess…"
"What do we do about this?" Caroline asked, with a grimace, as Giulia examined the driver's seat with a detached expression, carefully not touching the upholstery. Her heartbeat stuttered, and she tucked Zita closer to her, eyes distant as she tenderly kissed Zita's rumpled curls.
"Get a new car," Giulia said, a touch of her sardonic, deadpan humour shining through, and Caroline rolled her eyes.
Conscious that Willem was out on the hunt, seeking the vargulf, Elijah drove them home, dropping Caroline off first outside her charming, newly-renovated home, her sunny, hard-working personality shining through in the details, the neat raised beds and young crepe myrtle trees, the buttery yellow paint and crisp white trim, the living-room lamp on a timer to greet her. She sighed, turning in the front passenger-seat to give Elijah a sad, strained smile.
"Thank you for the ride," she said gently, and Elijah nodded.
"Any time," he said softly.
"I should call my mom," Caroline said, starting, as if in sudden realisation - the implications. She glanced over at Giulia, who sat in the middle-seat, draped over the booster-seat and gazing down at Zita as if they were the only two people in the world - no-one else existed, nothing else mattered. "Giulia, did you - ? What… What do I tell her?" Caroline glanced uncertainly over her shoulder…but she did look over her shoulder… She was still looking to Giulia for answers, for direction - for comfort in the unknown, as if, no matter what…Giulia knew what to do. Could handle anything… And was expected to.
No matter that it was nearly her tiny daughter mauled to death by a vicious werewolf.
It…nettled him, then - it was not Caroline's fault, of course; she would always look to her friend for comfort and wisdom, as Giulia would turn to Caroline for perspective and joy - that Giulia was still expected to be the one to take point, to take charge, to be the leader - to know what to do. To have the answers, and provide strength. To be the person everyone could lean on, and use as a shield, and deploy as a weapon.
She should be allowed this one moment to be shaken to her core, and upset about the very real danger her daughter had been in, and not have to take care of everyone.
To be taken care of, for once.
Giulia was many remarkable things. But she was not accustomed to being cared for, not in the same way she cared for the people she loved.
She was so very capable, that it was taken for granted that she would be the extraordinary woman they all knew her to be, at any given moment.
It was a luxury to be able to be vulnerable.
It was not a luxury Giulia had opportunity to indulge in very often.
"I would advise your mother that the werewolf in question is being hunted as we speak," Elijah said softly. "My brother - Willem - has an affinity for them… Also, reassure her that we have the blood of a werewolf-turned-vampire to heal any unfortunate vampires who may find themselves on the wrong end of this vargulf's fangs."
Caroline nodded, glanced briefly over her shoulder at Giulia, still gazing down at her daughter, and slipped out of the car. Elijah waited until she was safely tucked inside before reversing off the drive: He didn't wait for Giulia to climb into the front-passenger seat. There was no way she was going to leave Zita's side tonight - or for several days to come, if not weeks.
Something fundamental had been violated when the vargulf had attacked Giulia in proximity to her daughter.
Elijah glanced in the rear-view mirror. Gently, he said, "Giulia…"
Giulia sniffed softly; in the mirror, he saw her eyes glinting.
"I'm as bad as Hayley."
"What?" Elijah frowned, glancing over his shoulder at Giulia, startled.
Giulia's voice was hoarse with emotion, quavering subtly, and she looked on the verge of tears as she said, "I did my utmost to give Spencer Lockwood a safe place to escape his mother's abuse and…but Zita -"
Sternly, Elijah cut her off: "You are nothing like Hayley."
"My entire being…my existence, is a threat to the life I want Zita to have," Giulia murmured, her voice trembling.
"Giulia…" He sighed, shaking his head, glancing back at her. "Whatever you may be, utterly unique as you are, you and Zita are supernatural creatures by definition: You belong to this world, some would say more than I do -"
"A witch wouldn't," Giulia said softly. "Not after how I was made."
"You were born. The same as a werewolf is born, their latent potential triggered… Just as a witch must learn to harness the power gifted them by Nature," Elijah sighed. "Witches and werewolves do not apologise to their children for bringing them into the world, our world. Nor should you." Elijah gave way at the intersection, and twisted in his seat to catch Giulia's eye, telling her earnestly, "You came into being for a reason… It may be centuries before the world learns why…but it was no accident. You were meant to be part of this world, as surely as Zita was, and one way or another, Zita will one day be introduced to it. All you can do…as her mother…is prepare her."
Giulia rested her head back, finally shifting away from the booster-seat, her eyes shimmering with tears. "Like my father did me," she said hoarsely. "She almost -"
"She didn't. She is safe. She is unhurt. And she did not see. Her innocence remains intact," Elijah said kindly. He sighed heavily, realising, "This is the first time you have known true fear for your daughter… This was not your fault… Even you could not predict a vargulf attack, Giulia."
"But I should have been prepared for it," Giulia sniffed, wiping her eyes. She sounded exhausted, hollow, as she added, "I've become too accustomed to it."
"To what?"
"Violence."
"Too accustomed to engaging in violent behaviour?" Elijah frowned.
"To controlling it. I've been…moving the pieces across the board for so long, I've been - detached from the violence, an onlooker… I relaxed," Giulia admitted. "I have the right to feel safe…" She sniffed, squeezing her eyes, glancing down at her daughter. "I froze… All I could do was…stare. Just…watch, in horror…dread that my daughter was a breath away from…"
"It's different," Elijah said quietly. "When it involves your child, everything is different."
Giulia's lip trembled, as she smoothed her daughter's curls. "My heart is vulnerable outside my chest… How can you bear it?" Elijah knew she referred to the children he had lost.
"You know my past… It was not my wish to endure, when they had succumbed… But it was Gyda who coaxed me back to life. My baby, my beauty…my first, greatest love…my little girl…" Elijah said, driving along the lane toward Giulia's lake-side home. Drawing up in front of the house, he cut the ignition. He fiddled with his ring, and twisted in his seat to gaze at Giulia, glancing at the sleeping child beside her, and told her, "It has been my privilege to spend these lifetimes with my daughter…that was the gift my mother gave to me, trying to protect her children… I would not give them back…not for all the others. It's a terrible…privilege."
Giulia nodded silently, sniffling a little, as she gazed at her daughter, tenderly stroking her curls away from her face. "A rogue werewolf…" Elijah sighed. He watched Giulia. Carefully, he said, "It was the threat to Zita's safety that shocked you, not the attack itself. Almost as if you were expecting something like this to happen."
"Now, why would you say that?" Giulia asked.
"I've been reconnecting with old friends… Centuries-old vampires, and they fall silent at the sound of your name," Elijah confessed, and Giulia gazed at him from under her lashes. "If I was an intelligent man, and I like to believe that I am…I'd say you've been up to no good."
"You are an intelligent man," Giulia said delicately.
"And yet nobody has mentioned anything specific," Elijah said.
"That's because nobody realises they know anything specifically worth mentioning," Giulia said offhandedly, her words loaded. He raised an eyebrow at her, barely concealing his smirk. "Compartmentalisation… Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows all the secrets."
"Except you," he muttered, well aware that he was awake, having this conversation with her, because of her.
"Not even me," Giulia scoffed, after a brief silence. Her voice was sad, grim, tired, as she said, "There are some things we don't need to know…some things it's dangerous for us to know, before we need to know them… I do know that Abigail Bennett is one of the most resilient, most dangerous survivors in what is left of the Order. She's powerful enough to sense what Caroline and I are, and we're far too close to Bonnie…whose magic I helped Sheila strip away after it almost claimed her life." Elijah's lips parted in understanding. The Order held sacred a witch's power, would consider it the betrayal of one of their most fundamental beliefs to strip a witch of her magic. "Caroline is a vampire and on the Founders' Council I now co-chair… We're the biggest threats to whatever it is Abby is up to… Rebekah was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I imagine if I'd left her in that parking-lot, she would have woken to find herself in a very uncomfortable situation."
"Rebekah can handle herself," Elijah said, and Giulia made a noise of agreement; perhaps she had learned of Rebekah's reputation. Giulia had lived in New Orleans, after all, their old playground. "I'm worried about you."
"I can handle myself," Giulia said quietly.
"I know you can," Elijah smiled, "but that's not quite what I meant."
Giulia unbuckled her seatbelt, sliding forward in her seat. She gazed solemnly at him, her glowing eyes sweeping luxuriously over his features, and she reached to cup his jaw, gently kissing his cheek. She stroked his jaw tenderly with her thumb, and smiled, as she leaned back.
"Thank you, Elijah," she whispered. Zita snorted softly in her sleep: They glanced over their shoulders at her.
Giulia lifted Zita out of the car; Elijah unbuckled the booster-seat and carried it to the house for her. Five minutes later, the tail-lights of his Bentley had disappeared down the lane, and Giulia carried Zita upstairs, bypassing Zita's bedroom.
Giulia turned down the sheets, laid her daughter in the bed, and climbed in beside her. She tucked herself around her daughter, gazing at her tiny, relaxed face.
Beyond Zita, resting on the bedside cabinet, the patina of a handmade wooden jewellery-box gleamed in the light of the single lamp. Resting on top of it was the last, unopened gift Elijah had arranged for Giulia to receive in his absence, ready for her to open when she returned from the Founders' party…
It was unbearable, grieving her father: Missing Elijah had been bittersweet, and every year, for the last nine years, she had opened one of ten presents Elijah had had the forethought to leave her - he had never known her endgame to question whether there would be occasion for her to open them… One gift, every year, opened on the anniversary of her father's death. The one glimmer of something good to look forward to - on the worst day of the year. Each year, an exquisite, unique piece of jewellery Elijah had designed and crafted himself: Pendants, a bracelet, earrings, an exquisite necklace, each of them staggering in beauty and in skill - all of them inspired by Giulia herself, by their brief but exhilarating time together…
Every year, she opened the gift, and it soothed the worst of her grief at her father's death to think about Elijah…because thinking about him gave her hope. She would always see him again.
And this year, eleven years to the day…Elijah was here, awake, and thriving, and telling her exactly what she needed to hear to calm her down when her world had almost ended. He had coaxed her from hysteria, guided her back from the edge, steadied the tightrope she continued to walk all while juggling dynamite, gentled the sting of her grief, and calmed her as nothing else could.
As she shuddered with dread at the thought of what could have happened, Elijah had held her until she gentled. He understood, and allowed her to indulge in that grief, that devastation - even if only briefly… While she sat on that ottoman watching Zita sleep, he had taken charge, reassuring Caroline, was thoughtful enough to remove Zita's car-seat and give her a ride home, understanding she was in no state to drive, not with the emotional terror she had endured - was enduring.
It was the worst day of her year…but Elijah had taken care of her.
She sighed, and groaned as her phone, tucked in the clutch she had salvaged from the parking-lot, pinged with a new notification. She sat up, reaching for it - wanting to turn off the volume, more than anything.
It was past midnight.
She sighed, squinting as the screen illuminated harshly. Emails, texts, notifications - a voicemail from Sheila.
Bonnie had gone into labour.
She smiled, and gazed at the photograph of the squished meatball in pale-pink crocheted swaddling that was Sheila Dean Bennett, born at 10:39 p.m., weighing a healthy 7lbs 8 ounces after an uncomplicated delivery.
Some good news at last, Giulia thought, turning the volume off on her phone, turning off the light, and cuddling up close to Zita. She fell instantaneously and blissfully asleep.
Enzo met her with an intense glare the next morning.
For all Zita knew, everything was normal; she chattered away happily to Enzo as he prepared her breakfast, and Giulia sidled up to hug Enzo from behind, resting her cheek against his back, giving a gentle squeeze. When Zita had taken herself off to the piano, he rounded on her.
"I got a call from Caroline. What the hell happened last night?" he demanded.
She told him.
"Where are you going?" she called, as he strode to the door.
"I have a playdate arranged."
"With Damon - Enzo, don't… We don't know what we're dealing with - what they want."
"You know exactly who we're dealing with," Enzo rumbled, glancing back at her - furious that she had been put in danger, that Zita had been put in danger. That Giulia hadn't called him for help in the parking-lot as they bled out. "You just don't want to get your hands dirty."
"No, I don't!" Giulia snapped. She closed her eyes, sighing heavily. "But I know…I'll have to."
"Who was the vargulf, Giulia?" Enzo asked, the veins beneath his eyes flickering dangerously. He was thrumming with aggression, coiled to strike. "Was it Hayley?"
"No, it wasn't Hayley," Giulia said again.
"How can you be certain?"
"Because the werewolf who attacked me had an entirely different scent from the werewolf currently keeping Isak's bed warm at the Klaushaus," Giulia sniffed. Enzo froze; his eyebrows rose as his lips parted.
"She was there?"
"Her scent was, even if she wasn't," Giulia said coolly. She had scented Hayley all over the linens in the bedroom where Finn had carried Zita. Hayley, and Isak.
"You don't seem surprised."
"She always liked strong protectors," Giulia said disdainfully, recalling the first time she had ever met Hayley Marshall, back when she had passed herself around her pack like a party-favour - before ensnaring Mason… Tyler had been her first attempted target; he had wanted nothing to do with her. A few months later, Hayley was pregnant. The rest, they all knew. Hayley had fallen back into her old habits, the only thing she knew how to do.
"So Hayley wasn't involved," Enzo grumbled. "Who was? Was it Abby Bennett? What's she in town for?"
She gazed back at Enzo, her family, her partner, her brother, the co-parent of her child. She weighed her options, and admitted grudgingly: "The silver daggers are gone."
A fine sheen of sweat shimmered on her skin, as her breaths rattled, and the nauseating scent of poison ate at her flesh. Her eyes, when they were open, were glazed, unseeing; she spoke unfamiliar languages, called out ancient names, and cried. She cried.
Stubborn, lonely Rebekah succumbed to the werewolf venom searing through her veins.
In the Klaushaus where her family was content to torture Klaus…she was being ignored. Not always out of malice: Gyda and Lagertha had gone into town to try and track down the vargulf through whatever mess had been left in the parking-lot of the Founders' Hall, Elijah was consulting with Kol about the necessary precautions any coven had to make before they could bind a vargulf to their will… Isak was entertaining himself with a new friend…
Stefan wiped the sweat from Rebekah's face and limbs with a soft washcloth, uncertain how he felt about watching her endure psychological torture. He was unfazed by the treatment Klaus endured at his siblings' hands - had Stefan not treated others just as viciously over the last ten years, at his behest and under his tutelage? But watching Rebekah whimper and scream and rage against a thousand years' worth of memories and torment… That was different.
He remembered their time together in Chicago, all those decades ago, long before… Without his consent, without him even realising it, Rebekah had slowly teased Stefan from the blood-drenched Ripper haze… He had read his old journals from the Twenties, noticed how his diary entries had become more eloquent, more introspective, the longer he spent time with her…as he fell in love…the first, exhilarating emotion he had reclaimed after succumbing to the bloodlust, to the Ripper…
Unknowingly - or more likely very astutely managing him without him even realising it - Rebekah had coaxed Stefan back to himself. Set him on the path to healing…
So, he stayed by her side, and he nursed her through her illness; he cleaned up the vomited blood, changed the sheets, and stroked her hair as she cried and whimpered.
He stayed, and realised he couldn't bear the sight of her in pain.
Stefan remembered how much he had loved her.
A.N.: I really hate how they did Rebekah dirty in TVD. Her characterisation in The Originals, I adored - she was tough, mesmerising, a boss. A direct contrast to the shit-show that was Hayley - how did she go from the orchestrator of three massacres to a doe-eyed angel with a hidden backbone and queenly presence? And can I say what opportunities were missed by the writers passing over a potential Rebekah/Stefan pairing in 'modern' times in TVD? She was so much more interesting than Elena!
