A/N: I feel like I've been on such a trip since I've worked on this story. Like, I graduated college, got a new job, moved across the globe. It is nut-so bananas. But I never forgot about Sabrina. I feel like I'm in a better state mentally to re-delve back into this. I'm a little rusty, but I'm going to do my best. Haha, also I might've been a little inspired by Moon Knight when writing this.

Songs for this chapter:

"rapunzel" by emlyn

"I'm Tired" by Labrinth and Zendaya

Chapter Fifteen: Get Out of My House

-O-

The door slammed, and Sabrina woke with a start, eyes still dry and puffy. She met eyes with the cat who sat on the countertop above her, giving herself a bath. She rose to her feet, her neck and back murderously stiff. Nothing set her on edge. The voice would have roused her sooner. She rubbed her eyes.

She grimaced when she stepped into a puddle, "Eww, what—?"

The tattered, soggy remains of the milk carton were strewn under her feet. She glared. "At least, it's not anything else,"

Bags fell to the ground, and she knew it was Caroline. She propped her hands against her lower back, leaning until a satisfying series of pops ran up her spine. She groaned, "Oh, yeah, that's the stuff." She grimaced before calling, "Care? I hope you brought food because I gave the cat the last of the perishables,"

She stepped out of the kitchen and froze. Caroline stood in the entryway, chest heaving, mouth and shirt covered in blood.

"Oh my…god, Caroline? What happened?" She demanded in a horrified whisper.

Her head jerked, her voice hollow, "It's not mine." She paused. "I didn't wanna go home,"

She finally met Sabrina's eyes, and her face crumbled, twisting like a child in agony. They moved for one another in the same instant. Caroline wrapped herself around her cousin, tucking her head under her chin. "Matt…Matt," she sobbed.

Sabrina stood with wide eyes, threading a hand into Caroline's mangled curls, picking out pieces of twigs and dry leaves.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's ok. What happened?" She pulled back, forcing Caroline to meet her eyes, cupping her face in her hands. She said more sternly, her heart pounding in her chest. "Is Matty ok? Care? Caroline, you need to tell me what happened. Is he ok?"

Caroline nodded, her lips quivering. "Mm-hmm." She looked down again, forcing normal breaths into her lungs. "He almost wasn't. I almost— I almost…"

She pushed her head against Sabrina's chest. Sabrina could surmise what almost meant. She directed Caroline to the couch, forcing her head between her knees when the panic almost became too much. Sabrina whispered comfort to Caroline that she didn't understand but listened to anyway. They sat on the couch until the sun began to set. Caroline lay on Sabrina's lap while Peanut had curled up in the center of Caroline's back.

Caroline's voice was stuffy, muffled. "Since when do you have a cat?"

Sabrina ran her fingers across its silken black ears. "I don't think I have a cat,"

"Then what's on my back? A group hallucination?"

Sabrina snorted. "I don't think anyone ever really has a cat. The cat just kinda…" she met its piercing green eyes with her own. The cat turned its head in her palm. "Just kinda does their cat things in front of human people. When they feel like it,"

Caroline hummed, "Must be nice,"

"I was actually just thinking the same thing,"

Fortunately, the cat jumped from Caroline's back before she shot up, nearly clipping Sabrina in the chin.

"I want pizza and a shower," she declared.

"I can help with exactly one of those things. Not both. Choose wisely,"

Sabrina dodged a tea towel thrown at her head as Caroline glared over her shoulder. She grabbed her luggage, heaving it upstairs to her room.

"I want extra pepperoni,"

Sabrina grinned.

-O-

Sabrina lingered in the kitchen after Caroline went up to bed. The cat had escaped out the window about an hour earlier. She slid the pizza box into an empty fridge, thinking she would have to go to the grocery store soon. Especially if Caroline would be staying every time Liz was at the station.

She had half a mind to ask for rent; then she saw Caroline had reorganized the china in all the cabinets according to occasion usage and softened a bit. Caroline had her moments, she supposed.

Grabbing her orange cardigan from across a nearby chair, she ambled through the house, through the dining room, breakfast nook, the kitchen, then the living room, occasionally unpacking a random knick-knack or straightening an old one. Gran had an affinity for Blue Willow china and antique poetry books, which lined the shelves in the living room. The boxes from school and other boxes from Gran's storage unit lined the floors. Her life lined the floors. Trophies from dance competitions, certificates from writing contests, and every article she wrote for the high school newspaper. A few of her mom and dad's possessions lay in a few boxes— photographs from vacations before they died, handwritten recipes Sabrina had yet to try, and a preserved wedding dress from the late 80s.

She decided it was cheaper to close out her Gran's storage unit than continue to pay for it. Boxes of Gran's life were set alongside her own boxes. Antiques from her own childhood, cookbooks, her nurse's uniform from the Second World War. Sabrina wondered if she kept all those letters from back in the day. She could spin the most wonderful stories using her own life as inspiration. In the dark of the living room, Sabrina knelt by one of her gran's boxes, unfastening the tape, pulling the box open as quietly as she could as Caroline slept upstairs.

First, she pulled out a mint-green crocheted blanket with a line of yarn and knitting needle still attached. In her later years, Gran tried to take up "age-appropriate" hobbies as she called them. A week after trying knitting, she arranged a sky-diving trip.

"I couldn't take it, doll. Sitting up in the porch swing like an old broad in a black and white movie waiting to die," she had told Sabrina. "Old age wasn't meant for me or you anyway,"

A tiny smile quirked Sabrina's lips as she set the blanket to the side. A leather photo album with tattered aged paper sticking from its pages caught Sabrina's eye next.

Creak…

Sabrina stilled, an unnatural quietness settling over the house. She slid the album back into the box silently. She stayed on her knees, leaning forward, tilting her head. Her eyes sharpened, altering in the darkness, becoming more suited to hunting in ocean blackness. The hair on her arms, the back of her neck, stood on end, a chill blossoming over her skin.

Instinct told her to remain silent.

Tap…tap…the sound of a heel lightly contacting the wood floor above Sabrina's head. Sabrina looked to the door. Caroline's shoes sat next to the entry table, and Sabrina stood in a flash, moving across the room, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. The window before the staircase turned stood open, the curtains fluttering slightly.

Someone was in the house.

She held onto the walls on either side of the staircase, claws lengthening against the old yellow paint. She heard the voice, the breathy, charming tone she'd heard surrounding Caroline since she was a little girl.

"Hello, there, Care-bear. I was starting to wonder why you've been avoiding me." The bed creaked as someone sat down, flipping on the lamp. "We're gonna have such fun together,"

Sabrina shook, a pain piercing behind her eyes. The voice demanded,

'Leave her!'

Sabrina responded, 'Keep her safe,' before allowing the black dots swarming her vision to overtake her.

"Sabrina!"

Sabrina's eyes popped open at Caroline's scream as she stood barefoot in the middle of the street, clutching a clump of brown curly hair in her clawed hands. She looked down at her hands, finding them bloody, covered in tissue and glass fragments. Her body ached. She tasted her own blood in her mouth, but much of what covered her wasn't hers. It smelled like rot and decay, like old death. Her chest heaved.

She hissed, flashing sharp teeth when a hand grabbed her shoulder. Caroline stood behind her.

"Sabrina?"

The fangs and black in Sabrina's eyes receded.

"Caroline?" She panted. Caroline rushed to her, moving in a blur across the yard to the middle of the street. She grunted when Caroline threw her arms around her. She held Caroline to her chest in the middle of the street. "It's ok, we're ok,"

Caroline leaned back. "No," she shook her head. "She could have killed you,"

"Who?" Panic edged her voice. "Are you ok? Are you hurt?"

She shook her head again. "No, no. I'm fine. I think you took the brunt of it." She took a shuddering breath. "God, how did you do that, Sabrina?"

She said dully, "Do what?"

She looked at her in disbelief and concern. "Do what? Are you serious? I thought you were going to shred her,"

"Shred who? Caroline. What just happened?"

Her mouth dropped a bit. "What do you mean? Before or after you found Katherine in my room?"

"Katherine? Doppelgänger Katherine?" She looked back at the little white cottage. Part of the fence was decimated. It looked as if she tried to make a stakeout of a picket. It was a shame she missed. "How the hell did she get into the house?"

"I don't…I don't know. You were there, Sabrina?"

"I can't remember,"

Her nose wrinkled. "Is that hair?"

Sabrina held up the hand with the clump of blood, hair, and scalp. She said numbly, "Yeah. Yeah, I think so,"

She looked over either shoulder when Sabrina's neighbor switched a light on. Putting her arm around Sabrina's shoulders, Caroline began tugging her toward the house. "We need to go inside. The neighbors might see us,"