Andy's head was pounding. And it wasn't a 'went on a bender' pounding. It was the 'you have a potential concussion' variant.
She was well familiar with both. This was definitely the latter.
What had happened…?
Let's see…she had been walking home from her gig. She'd heard a noise, she remembered, and then she could recall nothing but pain in her head.
Andy sighed, and opened her eyes a crack, and immediately closed them because ouch bright lights what the fuck.
Maybe if she just closed her eyes and pretended she was sleeping on her ratty mattress that was honestly just as comfortable as the floor she was currently on, she could pretend like she wasn't just kidnapped by some nefarious figure.
That, of course, was when she saw the kid. Well, teenager.
He had short cropped hair and dark skin, and he was lying very, very still on the ground next to her.
Welp, she at least had to make sure she wasn't sharing space with a corpse. She reluctantly - damn those lights to the deepest pits of hell - shuffled over to the maybe-corpse and shook his shoulder.
The teenager groaned.
Okay, so he was officially a not-corpse.
And judging by the little zing she just felt from touching him, the not-corpse was a witch. Fuck her life.
This was what she got for walking alone in the evening.
"Hey, are you okay?"
The not-corpse pushed himself up into a sitting position.
"Who are you? Where are we"
Andy could do without the accusatory tone, thank you very much.
"I'm Andy and I don't know."
She pressed her hands to her eyes - fuck those lights - and took a fortifying breath.
As a rule, she tried to avoid looking into her own future. It was far too easy to get lost in it. But she'd make an exception to her rule in this case.
She was stretched across a bed, feet kicking in the air, writing in her journal. A knock echoed through her apartment and she perked up, a smile - and that was enough of that.
Okay, so the chances of getting out of this were rather high if that was the first possibility she saw.
She took her hands down from her eyes once the pounding in her head receded to a reasonable level, and the tell-tale change to her eyes disappeared behind her veneer of normality.
Andy decided to see if she could get something out of the witch. Obviously, she wasn't going to tell him that she knew of the supernatural. That would mean potentially getting more involved - which she would like to avoid like that plague.
"Do you know what happened?"
The boy wouldn't meet her eyes.
"I have no idea. I just woke up here."
Andy didn't need her Sight to know that was an absolute lie, but whatever. She wanted to get out of this mess, not get involved in Supernatural Drama.
That was, of course, when the previously unnoticed door swung inwards, revealing another witch. And, if Andy wasn't mistaken, a vampire.
Oh joy of joys. Wasn't this a fucking delight.
Andy made sure that she kept fear and confusion in her face and body language, and nothing else. For the purposes of this kidnapping experience, she was a normal human being.
If these people knew what she was…she'd never get out of here. She'd Seen possibilities in her future when she was young and stupid enough to look, and she'd Seen what had become of some of her predecessors when she had grown smart enough to search the established past instead of the nebulous future for information.
"Luka Martin. Just what we needed."
It was the witch who spoke, not the vampire.
"You know, your sister is smarter than you and your father."
The vampire smirked, and Andy half expected him to spontaneously grow a mustache and start twirling it.
The teenager, Luka apparently, stood up.
"What do you want?"
"What I want is for you to join the right side."
Andy…wasn't liking the sound of this. This sounded like a Big Deal, and she had a sinking feeling that she was here as collateral.
"I'm already on the right side."
And that was when the vampire blurred forwards and broke Andy's shin.
Andy screamed.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit she was definitely collateral.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming again. Spirits above and below, she'd forgotten how much a broken bone hurt.
Luka move to maybe cast a spell, but the witch cut him off.
"Ah, ah. You wouldn't want to get an innocent woman killed, would you?"
The mustache smirk made another appearance.
"Look at her. She doesn't know what's going on. She's terrified."
Yeah she was scared, and in agony, but she was also absolutely pissed. And she had an unfortunate tendency to mouth off in situations like this, when her rage was acting like an anesthetic.
"For fucks sake, could you stop acting like a cartoon villain and get to the point?"
The witch looked amused, damn him, and acknowledged her for the first time.
"Oh? The human wants to have an opinion?"
This condescending fuck -
Fortunately for her continued life expectancy - she really needed to learn how to keep her mouth shut - the witch fell to the ground, neck at an unnatural angle, and the vampire followed seconds after, with his heart on the ground beside his corpse.
There, in the doorway, was a man in a suit. Well, not a man. A vampire, most likely. Or a werewolf.
Andy tried very hard to not look at the bodies on the floor.
The ceiling. That would do.
"Your father is quite worried about you, Luka. I trust you can find your way out."
Andy kept staring at the ceiling as her rage-induced adrenaline began to fade and her injuries began to make themselves known with a vengeance. She didn't know what was worse, her head which was hurting even more due to her brief vision earlier, her broken leg, or the frightening ease with which the mystery man had disposed of the witch and the vampire.
"What about…?"
"I'll handle her."
Andy hoped that 'handle' meant compulsion and not death. Oracles couldn't be compelled, but she could sure as hell fake it. But if it was the latter…she was screwed. The benefit to being an Oracle lay entirely in the Sight. She had no way of defending herself against the man, especially not with a broken leg.
Andy pushed herself up into a sitting position, refusing to make a sound as she jostled her leg. She'd be damned if she didn't face her fate with dignity.
The man appeared in front of her in a burst of speed. Andy flinched. Vampire. Definitely a vampire.
He crouched down in front of her, but didn't speak. In fact, he studied her for a second. Andy resisted the urge to cringe back. Or mouth off. She was already up a creek. Her broken leg was all the reminder she needed to not mouth off. It was easy not to, now that her anger had worn off in favour of fear.
"You are an Oracle."
Oh no.
Of course. Of course she gets rescued(?) by one of the few beings observant and knowledgeable enough to detect an Oracle by sight. Or scent. Or whatever sense the vampire used.
Andy briefly considered deflecting the statement, but discarded the notion after a moment's deliberation. This vampire could tell that she was an Oracle, not a mere seer. That meant that he was more dangerous than the average blood-sucking bear.
And to make matters worse, she owed him. He had saved her, even if she was just a collateral recuse. So she decided to be blunt.
"What are you going to do to me?"
"I am going to heal you."
"What about after that?"
"Nothing."
Andy stared at the man, disbelieving. He offered a bloody wrist in return.
After a second that felt like a small eternity, she took it. No need to deny herself an unbroken leg, and it wasn't like she could owe him any less. He'd already saved her life.
Andy wasn't stupid enough to think the now dead witch and vampire were going to let her out of this alive. She grimaced as her leg began to reknit itself, but stood up the moment she was able. The sooner she could figure out what this vampire wanted, the sooner she could get back to her shitty apartment, have a small emotional breakdown, and then put this entire terrible experience behind her by refusing to think about it for the rest of her life.
Time to take the proverbial bull by the horns.
"Look, I'm an Oracle. And I owe you. I'm not stupid enough to believe that you don't want something from me."
The vampire nodded in acquiesce, and very notably did not leave her personal space once she stood up.
"I certainly do. But I know better than to force an Oracle to See."
And that cinched it for Andy. She would definitely give this vampire what he wanted, if only to never see him again afterwards. If he was wise enough to know that a forced vision almost always led to the worst possible outcome, then he would probably just try to convince her until she Saw him. Might as well just get it out of the way.
Andy spoke slowly, considering her words carefully.
"You saved my life and healed me. So I will give you three visions in return. One of the past, one of the present, and one of the future. And then I'll give you one more of any variant you want, and then we'll be even."
She stuck out her hand.
"Deal?"
The vampire looked at her, expression inscrutable. But, after a few long moments, he spoke.
"Deal."
For a dead man walking, his hand was remarkably warm.
"I'll see you home, if you don't mind?"
Andy got the feeling that it wasn't a request. She sighed, and put her hands in her hoodie pocket.
"Sure."
It wasn't like he couldn't easily find out where she lived with the witch allies and the enhanced vampire senses.
She walked out of the room, carefully avoiding the bodies, not bothering with speaking any further. It had been a very long day, and she was just about out of fucks to give about anything more than pushing down her inevitable freak out until she was in the sanctity of her own home.
Thankfully, Andy did know where she was, once she stepped outside. It was an old storage building a few blocks away from her apartment.
She led the way to her building, very, very aware of the vampire trailing behind her. It wasn't until she got to the door that she decided to speak again.
"If I'm going to See for you, I'd like to at least know your name. Mine's Andy, by the way."
"Elijah."
Andy blinked. Stared at the man standing before her. An obviously old vampire with brown hair and dark eyes. Considered the politeness. The bespoke suit. The fact that he was absolutely terrifying, even though he'd only helped her.
"Do you happen to have a last name…?"
She really didn't want to know, because that would mean a potential confirmation of her suspicions. But she also knew that if she was going to do a vampire a favour, she needed to know who she was dealing with.
Especially if the vampire in question was who she thought he was.
Elijah gave her a kind of half smirk. That smug kind you gave someone you knew you were about to drop a major truth bomb on.
"Mikaelson."
His half smirk became remarkably more smug at the look that Andy knew was on her face. But he had the decency to not say anything. Thank the powers that be for small favours.
"I'll be seeing you again soon. Have a good evening."
And with that, he disappeared.
Andy mechanically entered her apartment and sank onto her ratty sofa as the events of the past few hours hit her like a runaway semi.
There was one thing, and one thing only, that she could say about this entire situation.
"Aw, fuck."