Chapter 9: Coping

*****Where We Left Off*****

Laurel opened her eyes and saw nothing; everything was blurry. She blinked, and it cleared up. Sara was standing in front of her looking worriedly at her. "Sara?" she asked in dismay. "How—how are you here?"

"It's her! Thanks God!" Sara exclaimed, moving to embrace Laurel.

Laurel tried to hug her but found that she couldn't move. Her arms were bound. "Why can't I move?" she asked.

"Oh, sorry!" a woman she didn't know said. Then suddenly, she was free to hug her sister—the sister that she thought was lost forever.

"What's happened? How are you here?" Laurel asked, pushing her sister back to look at her. "I saw your body. You were dead!"

"I was. It's a long story," Sara asked. "There's so much to tell you."

"It worked!" Felicity said with a clap of her hands. She turned to hug her sister. "Thanks, Willow!"

"Yea, good work," Xander acknowledged.

"Laurel, some things have happened," Felicity said, moving to stand next to Sara. "I've discovered that I have a half-sister. Her name is Willow." She pointed to the redhead. "The guy with the eyepatch is her best friend Xander. They came to town to help us because they're experts in the supernatural. Willow is a witch."

Laurel gave her an incredulous look. "A witch? Seriously, Felicity?" she said in disbelief.

"Strangely enough, I'm dead serious," Felicity said. "There's a lot we have to tell you. Mainly, about yourself. You're not exactly the way you were."

Laurel frowned. "What? What's wrong with me?" she asked. She held out her hands. They looked the same. She heard a scurrying sound in the corner. Suddenly, more sounds became apparent. The motors from the computers were so loud. "Why are your computers so loud? Are they broken?"

"No," Felicity said. She glanced at Willow for help. Roy and Diggle moved closer to give their support. However, neither knew what to say.

"Laurel, you were killed by a vampire," Willow informed her.

Laurel laughed, thinking it was a joke. When she realized that no one was laughing with her, her laughter choked off. "You're serious?" she asked.

Felicity nodded. "I'm not sure how to say this except to say it. You were killed by a vampire. They drained your blood and turned you into a vampire. You lost your soul—it was replaced by a demon. The demon was really evil and tried to hurt all of us. It killed your dad. Willow sort of fixed you—she gave you back your soul," Felicity said without a breath.

"There's not a cure for vampirism," Willow added.

The only part of Felicity's words that Laurel really absorbed was the part about her dad. "Dad's dead? Are you saying I'm responsible? I killed him?" Laurel asked, feeling hysteria build.

"No!" Sara objected. "That's not what she said. A demon killed him and you. Willow saved you." She threw the witch a grateful look.

Laurel got more and more upset, pulling away from her sister. "I don't understand what's happening!" she exclaimed. Sara and Felicity both slowly backed away from her, and she could literally smell their fear. "Why are you so afraid of me?"

"Calm down, Laurel," Sara urged.

"How can I be calm? Something's really wrong with me. I can hear too much! Now I can smell fear! What the hell is happening?" she asked.

Diggle stepped forward and took her hands in his. "Everything's going to be okay, Laurel. We thought we lost you for good. Now you're back. You are different, though, but it's not necessarily bad. You're stronger than you've ever been. You will live forever," he said. He let go of her hand. "Feel your face." She had vamped out and didn't even know.

Laurel obeyed and her panic increased as she felt her face's deformity. "Oh God! What's wrong with me? I'm deformed!" she screeched. "Give me a mirror!"

"Laurel, you're a vampire. Willow couldn't change that. She just gave you your soul back," Diggle explained. "You will never see your reflection again."

"Maybe by camera phone," Willow said. "We've had some slayers say they caught a vamp on camera."

It was all too much for Laurel—she had to leave. "I can't deal with this now! I've got to go!" Before anyone could react, she ran out of the place, moving faster than human Laurel had ever moved.

When she stood out in the alleyway, she blinked. "What the hell?" she wondered. How did she get there so fast? Diggle and Felicity's words rang in her ears, but she ignored it. "It's ridiculous!" She walked down the alley to the street, taking in the night. When she passed a storefront, she glanced in. There was no reflection in the glass. A sick feeling came over her as she realized her friends may be telling the truth.

Two men were walking down the sidewalk toward. When one of them grinned and sped up toward, she felt a rush of anger. Did they think they could hurt her? Let them try!

"Hey, baby! Feel like having a good time?" one of the men asked.

"No, thanks," she replied and moved to go around them.

The taller of the two moved to block her. "Where you going, sweetheart? We don't mean any harm. We just want to buy you a drink," the guy said.

"I'm not interested," she said flatly. Her eyes, though, became fixated on his neck. All other sounds were blocked out except for the steady beat of his heart as it pumped blood through his jugular.

The man noticed her gaze fixated on him and preened. "See, I'm not so bad. How about that drink?" he asked, flashing her a smile.

"A drink sounds great," Laurel said as she pounced on him, her teeth biting into his throat. Hot, delicious blood flowed into her mouth. Gulping it down, she pulled him closer and sucked more down.

"Laurel! Stop!" her sister's voice yelled from behind.

But Laurel barely registered her sister's voice. Instead, she fed the hunger that was all consuming—a hunger that she didn't notice until that very moment. However, her drink was interrupted when a force pulled her back, causing her to release the man.

Felicity ran to the guy. She ripped at her shirt, tearing off a strip that she used to hold against the man's neck. His freaked-out friend looked ready to flee. "Do you have a car?" she asked him. The man pointed to a car across the street. "We need to get him to a hospital. He lost a lot of blood."

"She drank his blood!" the man gasped, horrified.

Roy ran up with Diggle right behind him. "We got this, Felicity," Diggle said. He bent down and picked up the man.

"I wasn't done!" Laurel said in annoyance.

"Laurel, you can't feed off of humans. You would've killed that man," Sara told her.

"Didn't you say I was a vampire? Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?" Laurel asked in a bitter tone.

"No!" Sara exclaimed. "You have a soul now. You can't kill anyone."

"Only monsters," Willow added, having been a step behind Sara. It'd been her that'd pulled Laurel away from the man. They were too far away to reach her before she would've drained the man.

"I'm the monster!" Laurel said in disgust.

"Come home with me, Laurel. Everything will be okay. I promise," Sara said, holding out her hand to her sister.

Not knowing what else to do, Laurel followed her sister.

Felicity looked at Willow and Xander. "Well, that went well," she said.

"Actually, it did. It could've been much worse," Xander said with a wink.

"Very true," Willow agreed.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Felicity asked as they headed back to the club.

"I think she'll be as okay as she can be—considering," Willow said.

"At least she didn't kill anyone," Xander said with a shrug.

When they made it to the entrance, Willow looked at Felicity and asked, "Do you want to work on your magic before calling it quits?"

Felicity shrugged. "Sure," she said.

"Are you coming?" Willow asked Xander.

"Watch two hot girls play with magic?" he asked with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrow. "You don't have to ask me twice!"

Willow giggled while Felicity flushed. Xander was joking, but the way he sometimes looked at her made Felicity nervous.

Felicity opened the door and stepped inside, and Xander and Willow followed.

Xander made himself comfortable in Felicity's computer chair while Willow led her to the workout mats. They sat down Indian-style across from one another.

"Have you practiced the levitating spell I taught you?" Willow asked her.

Felicity nodded. "I've tried it. Not had too much luck, though," she admitted.

Willow laid a pencil on the floor between them. "This is what I started with. Just relax and focus on the pencil. Close your eyes. Picture it moving up from the ground," she said in a soft voice.

Felicity took a deep breath and followed her sister's advice. A few minutes passed.

"Open your eyes, Felicity," Willow encouraged.

Felicity did so and saw the pencil floating between them. She grinned and asked, "Is this me? Really?"

"It's all you," Willow said with a proud smile. She pulled out a single rose from her bag. "Now we're going to try something that requires a bit more finesse. It's an exercise I did with my first girlfriend."

The pencil fell to the ground, and Xander clapped. "Great job, Samantha-in-training!" he cheered.

Felicity gave him a pleased smile and looked back at her sister. "So what are we going to do?" she asked.

"We're going to pluck the petals off the rose one petal at a time using the power of our minds," Willow said.

Xander sat there an hour in complete silence watching the two women. It never grew dull watching Willow instruct someone. She was a natural teacher. It didn't matter if she was teaching magic or computers—her enthusiasm was contagious. Xander always wondered what he might've become if he'd ever had a teacher like her growing up. His eyes focused on Felicity. She was so lovely, so sweet, yet fierce. His little crush seemed to be growing more all the time. How long was she going to be grieving for Oliver Queen?

Of course, Xander had waited a few years before he'd moved past Anya's death. Even now, he still felt that she was with him. But he and Anya were together a long time—almost married. From what he'd gleaned, Felicity had never really been with Oliver. Their relationship was more of an almost than anything else. Still—he knew that he would need to tread carefully.

*****The Next Day*****

Sara woke up close to noon. Her sister and she had spent hours talking and hadn't gone to sleep until almost five. Laurel now knew as much as Sara did about how she was alive and what had happened in the past few weeks. Sara even gave her a heads up about the slayers. Laurel was heartbroken about their dad, and se knew that it would take Laurel a long time to come to terms with the guilt.

Laurel came out of her bedroom—Sara had been crashing at her sister's apartment since she'd made it to town. As a vampire, Laurel hadn't wanted any part of her old life, so the place had been abandoned. Sara had been using her guest room.

She was pouring Laurel a cup of coffee from the kitchen. "Coffee's ready," she told her.

"Great. I may be a vampire, but I still crave my coffee!" Laurel said with a smile. She crossed the room and stepped into a ray of light that was coming into the living room. The light hit her skin like a hot poker. "Ahhh!" She jumped back.

Sara moved quickly to shut the blinds all the way, keeping the light out. "You can't be in the sun, Laurel. Too much of it and you'll literally burst into flames," Sara explained, feeling guilty. "I'm sorry. I thought they were closed." Laurel's arm was blistered, so she ran to give her a cool cloth to wrap around it.

A few minutes later, Laurel stared at the window, the blinds and curtains shielding the sun from gaining entrance. Not only had she become a monster that had to drink blood to survive, but she would never see a sunrise again. She could never lay outside and take a sun tan. Laurel's heart broke all the way as she fully realized that being a creature of the dark meant that she would forever be denied the warmth of the sun on her face. The cold was her new companion.

Being a vampire really sucked.

******Chapter End******