A.N.: I'm loving the song 'Elastic Heart' by Sia. Very Giulia. And 'Big Girls Cry'. I'm probably late to Sia but whatever! By the way, how excited are we for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? I've been strong-armed into reading The Cursed Child and so far I have been thrown back to my 14-year-old HP fanfic-reading days!


Dangerous Beauty

44

Big Girls Cry When Their Hearts are Breaking


"Caroline – Caroline!"

Liz hustled over to her daughter, staggered by how awful she looked. Hair limp, eyes shadowed heavily, cheeks drawn, her skin dull; they said vampires experienced heightened emotions. Whatever Caroline was feeling affected her entire body.

She was hysterical, still trying to get out of the house. Liz checked her watch; they had a few minutes until sunrise, until Sheila's spell lifted.

The Boarding House was quiet. It always was, but this was the pre-dawn quiet of a house full of sleeping people. If they hadn't managed to claim one of the seven bedrooms, they were camped out in the great-room, the kids making a slumber-party of the whole thing, just missing two crucial friends. Hayley had finally quieted in the cellar; Mason had stayed down there with her.

"Why isn't the spell lifting?" Caroline finally stopped, panting, half-collapsing against the front-door, wild-eyed and desperate.

"There's a couple minutes 'til sunrise," Liz said gently. "We'll be able to leave in a little while."

Caroline seemed to buckle under the agonising weight of her emotions. Her eyes were glazed with grief, with hysteria, tinged with sorrow.

Softly, she choked on a whisper, "I told her it's my turn to look after her."

"Giulia wouldn't have risked you, not for anything," Liz said. "Caroline… Elijah sent me a text in the night." Caroline sniffed, pushing tears away.

"What'd he say?" she sniffled.

"Sweetie… During the spell…Giulia turned into a vampire… She set fire to herself rather than let Klaus stake her," Liz said, more calmly than she felt. She had been treated to Gianna's friendship before she died; Liz had known Zach and Joshua Salvatore since the cradle. Their little girl – their clever, brave, dangerously loyal, wacky little girl…had burned alive.

Like the Gilberts' accident last summer, this crime-scene was one she dreaded approaching – but she had to, for Caroline. For Giulia.

As soon as the spell released them, Liz had to grab hold of Caroline, coax her into the car. Caroline was still frantic over – and disbelieving of – Elijah's text, but she sat in the passenger-seat of Liz's cruiser blinded by tears. The dawn was particularly bright and perfect, a gentle breeze, cloudless sky, warm but not breathless; and Caroline smelt death over the dry A.C. before they even found Giulia's pristine sapphire-blue Beetle parked in the woods by the quarry. Liz's car had better suspension, and her lips parted as she drove down to the water's edge.

A triskele was burned into the dry grass, four bodies – one with a shattered ribcage, one headless, mauled beyond recognition as a corpse…

"My God," Liz breathed, putting the car in park, engaging the handbrake, staring. It looked…like the scene of a movie; an occult scene gone wrong. The burned triskele, the chalices glinting on a blood-spattered boulder, burn marks everywhere, the bloody corpses, the dismembered body and the bloody heart lying on the brittle brown grass.

It was surreal. Horrifying.

Caroline flung open her door, hurtling out of the car, and Liz followed, calling her name. Humidity and the scent of copper hit her; she raised a hand to her nose, wondering how Caroline could stand it; the smell of death was strong even to her, the sun starting to provoke the decaying of bodies.

A huge man had been rendered to bloody mulch, a mass of split bone and unrecognisable anatomy, scattered about; Liz lowered herself to squat over a femur, gnawed on, cracked open, the marrow gone. It looked like an animal had attacked and fed with a strength and ferocity that went beyond any normal coyote or wolf-attack. She recognised the woman, Jules, the werewolf who had kidnapped Caroline; tears had tracked through her makeup, now unnatural against her ashen skin, hazel eyes gazing unseeingly into the cloudless sky.

With a flicker of worry, Liz bent down, tucking Elena's sheet of long, dark hair from her face, touching two fingers to her throat. She felt no pulse; but Sheila had told them protection spells needed a little time to get the mojo going after a person died. Elena would be fine; but at the moment, she was still dead.

Finally, she took a deep breath, and walked over to Caroline. Something wasn't right.

Caroline had thrown her jacket over Giulia's torso, brought her head into her lap, was sobbing as she stroked Giulia's lovely dark hair away from her face. Giulia's long, strong legs were bare, unmarred, her fingertips as elegant as ever, her face…beautiful.

There was no sign anyone had been burned, no other corpses. Could Elijah have been misled?

It was only the charring around where Caroline cradled Giulia's head in her lap, the fact Giulia wore no clothes, the ash on the grass, disturbed by the breeze, that made Liz think…he was right. He had seen Giulia laugh as she threw herself into the flames; she had burned.

So why did she look…perfect?

Her heart seized, relief sweeping through her that Caroline hadn't had to find her best-friend, her sister, like that. She had seen too many fatal fires. There was no person left, just…a crust in the twisted, blistered, blackened form of a human-being, unrecognisable.

"She's not dead, she's not dead! She can't be dead!" Caroline choked frantically, her hands shaking as she sobbed, stroking Giulia's thick dark hair, tears splattering onto Giulia's face, glittering in the sun. "Mommy, she's not dead!"

"Sweetheart…" There was nothing to say, nothing she could say. Nothing she could do but sit down and cuddle her little girl, while the other, the one she had watched grow up, grow, over the last year, into a fierce, extraordinary, beautiful young woman, rested, lifeless, in her lap. Zach's little girl, his solace in the darkness, the irrepressible Giulia…gone.

Liz was around death and grieving loved-ones too often, knew how to compartmentalise her emotions too well…and it was she who noticed.

In the sunshine, Giulia's skin was getting warm. It looked…healthy, glowing with life in a way no dead skin ever could.

And her chest was rising and falling. Slowly. Too slowly to notice if you weren't paying attention. And Caroline wasn't, too upset.

Liz watched Giulia's chest rise…fall.

She touched her fingertips to Giulia's throat, felt…a very slow, thread heartbeat – getting stronger, getting faster.

Giulia was…alive?

Turned into a vampire; burned to death.

Alive.

"Caroline," Liz said gently, drawing Caroline's shoulders back, trying to get her attention. "Caroline!"

"What?" Caroline choked tearfully.

"She's breathing," Liz said, gently and clearly. Caroline blinked, sniffled, confused, and listened, staring intently at Giulia's chest. Giulia's chest rose, and she sighed softly, licking her lips, stretching luxuriously. Caroline sucked in a breath, choking on fresh tears of elation – and confusion.

Giulia yawned, preening, and her eyes cracked open.

"Caroline?"

"Giulia! Oh my god! You're okay! You're alive!"

Giulia blinked sleepily. "Am I?"

Caroline laughed tearfully, reaching down to hug Giulia fiercely.

Giulia groaned, struggling, and sat up, grass stuck to her bare skin, in her ashy hair. She peered curiously down at the blazer draped over her front, twisting so that she was strategically angled not to show anything, blinking bemusedly at them.

"Why am I…indecent?"

"I guess your clothes burned away," Liz said, wiping her cheeks. Giulia nodded.

"I never liked those jeans anyway," she grumbled. She glanced around her, eyes out of focus, distracted; she took a shuddering breath, blinking, startled, as she followed a bird's progress as it twittered through the air, jumping when the breeze rustled brown grass against her leg, sneezing delicately at the scent of death all around them, disturbed by the breeze. She turned her face upwards, bathing her face in sunlight.

"Are you okay?" Caroline sniffled, wiping her cheeks.

"Early days," Giulia murmured, frowning into the distance, her features smoothing over, thoughtful, curious. Liz glanced up, and thought she saw a shadow flicker across the quarry in the trees, a slash of darkness in the glowing green. Giulia reached for the jacket, folded neatly beside her, took a pearl ring – her mother's pearl ring – and pushed it over her knuckle, stretching out her long fingers.

"I'll go get you a blanket," Liz said, climbing off the ground, and found a blanket in the trunk, neatly folded. Caroline was chattering excitedly, nearing hysteria again.

" – are you okay? Do you need –? Do you need blood?"

Giulia looked thoughtful. "I don't…think so." She swiped her tongue over her teeth. Caroline peered closely at her as Giulia squinted in the sunlight.

"Is it too bright? Do you need sunglasses? Are you sure you're not transitioning?"

"Transitioning into what?"

"Mothra. What do you think?!" Caroline blurted impatiently, as Liz draped the blanket around her shoulders.

"I don't feel like I did before," Giulia said slowly. "Not fidgety, just more…myself than usual." She sighed, rolling her neck, swiping her tongue over her teeth again. "Still have fangs, though."

"You do? But you don't think you need blood…?"

"No," Giulia murmured, squinting in the sunlight as it shimmered off the quarry.

"Okay, if you were a vampire, you'd definitely know you want blood," Caroline said plainly. "But you have fangs still? How weird." Giulia nodded, frowning thoughtfully.

"Well, since we know you're – alive – we should probably get you and Elena back to the Boarding House," Liz said. "I'll need to run the rest of this through the station. And the Council." Giulia rose from the ground, Caroline hovering protectively.

"Would you mind waiting for me before you involve the Council?" Giulia asked, and Liz glanced at her, thought for a moment, and nodded with a gentle smile. She knew Giulia was guiding the Council, very subtly, compelling via Damon or suggesting members move on to other interests, greater concerns. Those who were…backward. Judgemental, small-minded, self-interested.

It was Giulia's hope, and for Caroline's sake it was Liz's too, that the Council could serve to help the supernatural survive in Mystic Falls – and protect the town in turn. This was the twenty-first century. Liz didn't want her daughter's life defined by the prejudice of others. Mystic Falls was Caroline's home; she should always be welcome here. And she had put too much into the town as a human teenager not to care about how she could help as a vampire, to keep it safe from others who made things go bump in the night. She glanced back at the carnage left behind by Klaus.

"I'll get Mason to jog out here and make the call as cover," Liz said. "You two should get out of here, and take Elena with you."

"I can't believe she's still not awake yet," Caroline sighed, shaking her head. Liz watched, as Caroline lifted Elena effortlessly in a fireman's hold, walking through the woods to Giulia's Beetle, Elena's sheet of hair swaying.

Giulia was alive.

Liz breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

She hadn't had the time to let herself get worked up and upset about Giulia's gruesome death before discovering that Giulia was actually alive.

But Elijah had seen her transition into a vampire. Saw her fling herself, laughing, into the flames…

Had he?

Klaus had had two witches… Was it possible Elijah had been forced to see that?

But the charring… Beneath her feet, the grass was burned away to the dirt. Someone had burned there.

Was it possible Giulia had survived burning? Survived being turned into a vampire? How?


"Are you sure you're okay?" Caroline asked, anxious, fidgety, tear-streaked, her voice still thick with emotion, eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks wan.

Giulia…felt extraordinary. Like waking from the loveliest, deepest sleep, so well-rested it was ridiculous. She could have curled up on the burned grass for hours longer, basking in the sun, if she hadn't been woken by salty tears falling with the force of slaps against her face. It had felt like that, at least…

The world was…alive.

Almost…as intoxicating and surreally beautiful as her brief afterlife as a vampire, entranced by the cosmos above… Colours were more vibrant, unusual, Caroline had never told her how exquisite different hues were, colours she had never even known existed, never seen in nature until now. She had heard the heartbeat as a bird flew overhead, its song so utterly pure and resonant on the breeze so full of scents she had sneezed. She felt the sun caressing her skin, the breeze toyed with her hair, which made her shiver, and the fabric of the blanket rubbed against her skin, itchy but tantalising. Her nipple-ring was gone, burned away, she felt bereft without it, off-kilter. Her tongue felt too thick for her mouth, the addition of fangs alien. She could feel sounds, reverberating on the air, colours were more exquisite than she had ever known, textures were unusual against her skin, her fingertips itching to touch, every step released scents from the earth that made her sway.

It was a heady, delicious, almost overpowering sensation, drugging. Utterly mesmerising.

Every step sent vibrations through her body.

It was titillating.

"I feel…fabulous," Giulia said honestly. Even her own voice sounded different to her ears – lower, softer. She found the key to her car tucked on top of the rear wheel, unlocking the car. Caroline awkwardly navigated Elena into the backseat, and they climbed in, Giulia arranging the blanket strategically, using her seatbelt to keep it in place as she turned the key in the ignition. She sighed, shoulders relaxing utterly, swept away by the sound of the Beetle's engine. There was no sound like it – even to human ears it had been blissful; to her new ears, it was incomparable. She put the car in gear, listening to everything clicking and churning into place, and drove off. Bare-armed, squinting in the sunshine, her stomach grumbled as they putt-putted toward downtown, Caroline sat turned in her seat, asking over and over whether Giulia thought she should be driving, did she feel okay, and Giulia could sense she was biting her tongue from asking things she knew she would have to face up to later, when Caroline's relief faded and her ire engulfed her.

"I am actually hungry, though," Giulia said thoughtfully, and her stomach growled in evidence.

"What do you want – A-negative, there might be an AB positive?" Caroline asked.

"Donuts," Giulia said thoughtfully, indicating and turning, pulling off a perfect parallel-park right out front of the donut-shop.

"You can't go in there like that!" Caroline blurted, eyes popping.

"Of course not!" Giulia blinked at her. She opened the glove-compartment. "You're going. There's concealer and dry-shampoo in there." Caroline fluttered her eyelashes in surprise, then flicked open a compact mirror from Giulia's glove-compartment, gasping in horror. She looked awful; Giulia felt fantastic. Caroline fussed with her hair, dabbed on and blended in some peachy colour-correcting balm before grabbing her wallet and darting out of the car. Giulia waited, and, curious, lifted the compact-mirror to her face, peeling her lips back from her teeth.

No fangs that she could see, but she could feel them.

She didn't look like she'd been burned alive last night.

But she remembered it. Still could feel that pain if she dwelled on it. Laughing at Klaus' tantrum was her last memory before she had…died… She'd remembered the heat, the inferno Elijah created when he delved between her thighs, and wished he could be there with her.

She wanted him with her now. It wasn't her emotions she was struggling with… She had thought this might work and her satisfaction was dimmed only by Caroline's delayed-reaction grief and anger bound to make its appearance known soon – and her grief that Elijah was no longer a part of her life. Was he already daggered?

And her discomfort – he was no longer around to give her a hand, when she needed it most. It wasn't bloodlust she was struggling from; her most overwhelming sensation was…hypersensitivity. Everything was heightened…including lust, and her sensitivity to certain things.

Waking in that sunlight, she could have preened, expecting Elijah to stir beside her, and grin lazily as he descended between her thighs.

Even the vision had her rubbing her thighs together, wincing in discomfort, nipples pulling painfully tight as she bit her lip, the weave of the blanket tickling over her nipples, breath going shallow as the heat of the sun magnified through the window, caressing her skin like hands, and she fidgeted, whimpering in the seat, gripping the steering-wheel, overwhelmed. Paralysed by her insatiate lust. Her need…for Elijah.

Panting in the driver's seat, she jumped hissed as the passenger-door burst open, and Caroline stared at her, eyes wide. The scent of melting sugar, chocolate-chips, strawberry-glaze and freshly-fried donuts hit her like an anvil, and she shook her head, settling.

"Are you okay?" Caroline asked, handing her a coffee. Giulia took it, her hand shaking slightly, her body on overdrive, panting softly, wincing as she tightened the blanket around her to prevent it slipping; Caroline opened the box of donuts, the scent got stronger, Giulia's stomach rumbled, and she let out a soft pant, shaking her head, her hands shaking.

"I – I'm..."

"Horny," Caroline said, giving her a look. "I have heightened senses, you know."

"So do I," Giulia groaned, gripping the steering-wheel so she didn't squeeze the cup of coffee and spill it all over herself. Her leg jigged, and it was…unbearable. She needed – she wanted Elijah, and her heart squeezed, shutting down, grief, the grief of unsatisfied lust, of loneliness, of heartbreak, pure, desolating heartbreak, made her eyes burn with tears, choking on a sob.

Elijah.

She wanted to throw off this scratchy, infuriating blanket, climb into her bed with its nine-hundred-threat-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and have Elijah's help sorting herself out – then curl up and rock herself to sleep as she bawled.

He was gone.

It wasn't enough – they hadn't had long enough.

Now he was gone.

She fought a swell of nausea rising as she panted, eyes burning as tears threatened, salty, searing her skin like acid, tickling her chin. She gripped the steering-wheel and fidgeted, whimpering in pain and loss, grief, eyes frantic, distracted as they flicked around.

"Hey," Caroline whispered, navigating Giulia away from the steering-wheel, into an uncomfortable hug that nevertheless broke through her attack, grounding her gently in a way only the scent of Caroline's perfume and her laundry-detergent could, calm and soothing, home. The pleasant coolness of her embrace in the humid car.

"What did I do?" Giulia whispered, eyes unseeing, darting, filled with tears, as she clutched at Caroline, horrified with herself, full of…regret. Grief. Second-guesses

She had told Elijah to martyr himself, to allow Klaus to dagger him. So she could find his family. And then she had gone to her death, without a second thought. She had set things in place in the event it hadn't worked, but…she had gone on faith. Faith in the secrets kept from her. A gut-instinct.

But he didn't know that.

What if…what if he broke his word?

Had he killed Klaus?

She didn't…she didn't want Elijah to be…dead.

Gone.

For as long as it took her.

But she wanted to live.

"It's okay," Caroline told her gently, hugging her fiercely. "It's okay, whatever it is. You're okay."

"I don't know if I will be," Giulia whispered softly. She wanted her Elijah. Why had she ever suggested her plan? Why would he put that faith in her? Had he? For all he knew, she was gone; he had no need to keep his promise to a dead girl.

"You will," Caroline assured her. But she wanted Elijah. She had never known how huge her heart was – it felt like it weighed six tons, and it sank to her toes, throbbing with pain, it seemed to moan Elijah

She would see him again.

Whatever had happened to her, whatever she was, she had survived death. Returned stronger.

She suspected who might know the reason for that, the answers to questions she had been stockpiling, and she sniffed, gently disentangling herself from Caroline, her stomach gently rumbling, hungry. She sighed heavily, took the donut box from Caroline and opened it, digging out her favourite, taking a distracted bite, blinking in surprise at the explosion of flavours. Heightened taste, too. She savoured the donut, ruminating on her heart squeezing in her chest, too big for her ribcage, pummelled and twisted by grief. She sniffed, rubbed her face, and put her car in gear, driving off.

"Aren't we going back to the Boarding House?" Caroline asked, as Giulia drove off.

"Oh, do we need to?"

"Um…Elena," Caroline said. "And everyone will want to know you're okay, too."

"Did they think I wasn't?" Giulia asked, surprised.

"You disappeared with Elena," Caroline said, munching on her donut, giving Giulia an accusatory look. The storm was brewing, Giulia could see. But Caroline had had road-safety drilled into her, sobbed reading Collision Course, and would never distract Giulia while she was driving, just to yell at her about strutting to her death.

"Don't make a big deal about it," Giulia said, glancing at Caroline. "Only you and Liz, Elena and Elijah know what happened last night…that sounds rather kinky."

"What did happen last night? And you're forgetting Klaus, he was there too, right? I could smell…all kinds of things at the quarry," Caroline said, frowning thoughtfully.

"Me, too," Giulia said softly, internalising her smirk. She could smell the lingering scent of Klaus' terror and pain imprinted on the quarry. She took a turn, heading toward the Boarding House.

"So! What happened?" Caroline prompted.

"Last night I turned into a vampire," Giulia said mildly. "I went into the flames, and I was dead. And then I wasn't."

"I can't believe you…burned yourself alive," Caroline sighed, shaking her head, her limp curls swaying. She was on the verge, Giulia could sense it. "That's psychotic, you know?!"

"I wanted to take the satisfaction of killing me away from Klaus," Giulia said, shrugging. "He would've enjoyed it too much. Sadistic. He shoved his hand into Jules' chest and ripped her heart out, he had a stake to kill me; I imagine he used his fangs to drain Elena… Very phallic…penetrating… A classic sign of impotence."

"That's more than I needed to know," Caroline said, blinking.

"And impotence is a physical manifestation of deeper psychological issues," Giulia continued, smirking to herself as Caroline sighed impatiently. "I'm just saying… Klaus is a sexual sadist; there was no way I was going to allow my death to get him off." Giulia shuddered at the very idea. For her sake as well as Elijah's she had wanted to make sure Klaus didn't look back on the ritual with satisfaction – that he would look back, and regret, and know that that was the beginning fo the end. And utterly self-inflicted.

He was the architect of his own fate.

For a thousand years, Klaus had managed to hide behind the protection the mother he murdered had given him.

Now he had stripped that away.

And Giulia knew he would live to regret it…

…if Elijah hadn't killed him outright.

She still wondered if Elijah believed Klaus deserved inescapable death, rather than unending torture as punishment for all his crimes against his family.

But wouldn't he have killed Klaus then and there, at the quarry, while Klaus was at his most vulnerable?

Yes.

He was keeping his word to her.

"That's gross," Caroline crinkled her nose. "Did I see Jules? I thought I recognised her."

"Yeah, that was her," Giulia said quietly.

"Who was the – blob? There was no head or…"

"That was Klaus' witch. I don't know his name," Giulia said sadly. "Greta must have died when she attacked you."

"Well…good," Caroline sighed. "I mean – her dad and brother died trying to save her. She shouldn't have to live knowing that."

"I don't know that she would've cared," Giulia mused. A person like Klaus would always have an affinity for finding people like him – self-serving, arrogant, power-hungry – and convincing them to join whatever cause he wanted. A sociopath. A true cult-leader.

Caroline jumped, and Giulia frowned in annoyance, as a huge gasp exploded from the backseat, Elena's limbs flying as she flung herself around, wild-eyed, shuddering gasps.

"Stop flailing," Giulia frowned. "The upholstery's fragile."

"How do you feel?" Caroline asked, offering Elena the box of donuts, beaming. Giulia frowned, reaching back to take her favourite before Elena could.

"I feel fine… I feel fine!" Elena gasped, panting for breath, hand fluttering to her throat, unmarked but stained with dried blood. She gasped in relief, collapsing against her seat, hands to her face. Giulia glanced in her rear-view mirror, noticing Elena looked relieved, alarmed, bewildered, glancing out of the windows. "Where are we going?"

"The Boarding House," Caroline told her. "Everyone will be so worried."

"Is Klaus dead?"

"I don't think so," Caroline said, shrugging. "But you're not either, so it's okay."

Giulia frowned in the rear-view mirror, shaking her head in disbelief. "I'm fine too, by the way," she said drily. Elena glanced at her, expression falling.

"Oh my God… Giulia… I saw you burn… How are you alive?"

"Sheer brilliance," Giulia said. She rolled her eyes to herself, not in the least bit surprised she had been an afterthought that needed a prompt.

"Why did you do it?" Elena asked. "Klaus has lifted the curse now, he'll be a hybrid."

"Yes," Giulia chuckled.

"Why is that funny? I knew you were working for him!" Elena's tone was tart, poisonous. Giulia scoffed, amazed. Her, work for Klaus?!

"Why would Giulia work for Klaus?" Caroline frowned. "She – didn't want anyone else having to be the vampire sacrifice."

"That's why you get the good bourbon," Giulia smiled, patting her friend's knee delicately.

"Why aren't you more worried Klaus is still alive?"

"Stefan and Damon wanted Klaus dead for want of a better plan to keep Elena safe from the sacrifice," Giulia said, shrugging. "She's safe, ergo… No need to kill Klaus. And there's more going on than just what they wanted."

"Elijah," Elena scowled, her expression very snide, disdainful.

"It's his family, his brother to punish – or kill," Giulia said softly. She hoped he would do neither; now that she was…okay…she needed him to keep his word to her. To take a leap of faith in her, the same way she had.


Damon was dying.

She had smelled it first, the sickly-sweet scent of rotting meat where the infection was attacking his body at the sight of his bite. He called it a 'nip', and Giulia had stared at it, blank-faced, appalled, angry.

She had not invited Hayley into her home; but she had attacked Damon, doing the honourable thing protecting Carol when the moon had risen, full and glowing silver, affecting only the uninvited guest who had previously helped engineer the failed kidnapping of Tyler and Caroline. Hayley had no ring to protect her from the moonlight; she had bitten Damon when she started to transform, and he helped protect Carol and get the wolf-bitch into the cellar.

Giulia reflected on the sacrifice and believed she might have preferred Hayley to meet her death on the Boulder, heart torn from her pulverised ribcage. At least Jules would have had the sense to leave town, knowing she wasn't needed – or liked. But Hayley had strolled from the cellar, half-draped in an old blanket, hair a mess, stinking of sweat and pain, gazing demurely through her lashes and smirking subtly at Mason, who had bundled her up in one of his shirts and a spare pair of jeans and driven off with her, Carol and an irritated Tyler, his eyes burning holes into the back of Hayley's head, realising what Giulia had last night that Hayley had kept Mason busy so he and Caroline could be targeted by Klaus' minions.

The newly-unified Somers-Saltzman clan had made their exit as soon as they could, as soon as Stefan would let go of Elena, awoken from what Sheila Bennett had called 'mystical Benadryl' to keep him complacent overnight, while the rest of them tried not to worry, and failed at getting any sleep, with the werewolf in the basement, the panicked vampire in the library and the sociopathic Original on the doorstep performing a blood-sacrifice.

Jenna hadn't stopped hugging Elena for twenty minutes, Jeremy wound around them both, Ric looking relieved, exhausted, but happy. He had given Giulia an odd look as she slipped upstairs unnoticed, pulling some clothes she had outgrown from her old closet. She had sat on the bed, just breathing in the lingering scent of Elijah everywhere there. Her stomach flipped, and her heart squeezed painfully, imagining how it would be to walk into her own home again. Without him.

Slowly, the house had emptied, leaving only a gentle warmth and quiet that Giulia barely remembered, the kind of cosy warmth that inspired lazy afternoons playing catch with a baseball in the gardens with her dad, baseball-caps on, talking about her homework, card-games after sunset with burgers and swing music playing on the old gramophone.

She had been remembering things, more and more clearly, over the course of the day. Her favourite songs, gazing at the stars, had concealed to any observer how she was reacting emotionally to her transition – to the memories fighting for her attention.

Damon had compelled her years ago.

To forget finding photograph albums…

She remembered being attacked in the gardens by the old rabbit-hutches, the argument between Damon and Stefan, his face smeared with blood, after Damon had found and healed her, crying about Daffodil and Rumball. She remembered Stefan's grief; her father's terror; Damon's anger. She remembered Damon compelling her dad to calm down, taking a knee in front of Giulia to smile, tickle her chin playfully, smiling, his eyes more alarmed than the smile let on.

"You're alright, little girl," he promised, smiling, his eyes darting over her face, taking in every inch of her appearance, pausing on her throat. She sniffled, choking, and wiped her face on her arm, her lower-lip wobbling.

"He killed Daffodil and Rumball," she choked, not in the slightest bit upset Stefan had taken a chunk out of her throat. She could still taste the coppery tang of Damon's blood on her tongue, and…felt warm inside because of it, not tired from running around with a soccer-ball with Tyler earlier.

"I know, honey," Damon sighed, looking relieved. "He didn't mean to. And he didn't mean to hurt you. He should've known better than to feed around here, he gets lost in his dinner and can't see straight." Giulia sniffled.

"Daffodil and Rumball were my responsibility," Giulia hiccoughed, wiping her eyes again. "Daddy said I had to l-look after th-them and m-make sure I fed them and cl-cleaned their c-cages and let them r-run around f-for exercise."

"I know. And you took very good care of them," Damon said gently, reaching out to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Why don't you go with Daddy and get cleaned up, hm?"

"What about the funeral?"

"F- Funeral?"

"For Daffodil and Rumball. They need closure."

A week after the funeral for Daffodil and Rumball, Giulia could always remember Tyler helping her dig up the shoebox to make sure they were okay.

She sat in the still warmth of her old bedroom and just thought, memories sweeping over her. Some very old – some recently unearthed under the mire of compulsion.

Giulia had never known she had ever been compelled, and she supposed that was the way her dad and Damon had always wanted it. She had asked too many questions, and they hadn't wanted her remembering Stefan had nearly killed her. Hadn't wanted her growing up with that fear.

There weren't too many memories, though, and none from her time with Elijah; he would never have compelled her. But Damon had, so she would forget she had seen albums full of photographs it was difficult to explain away. Pictures of her mother with a baby. Had she had an older-sibling? No-one would have had to compel her to forget someone she had lost before her first true memories, the earliest of which she remembered from when she was four years old.

In her heart she knew that wasn't the case.

But she couldn't bear to ask.

There were some things that she knew she was better off not knowing. She had not wanted to dig into why the Gilbert device had affected her, because she was afraid the answer would change too much irreparably. Sometimes it was better not to know your own true nature.

Giulia didn't know what she was – only that she was alive, had heightened senses and fangs, but no lust for blood – but…she knew someone who could tell her how she had come to be what she was. The beginning of it, anyway. She had died, transitioned, and then died again as a vampire. By all accounts, she should be ash.

She was not the Khaleesi, disappointingly she had no dragons – but Giulia believed she would have been a far superior empress than the Targaryen. She actually went out and did things herself, she didn't rely on everyone else to do have ideas and execute them for her.

And that was why she had decided it had to be her who offered herself up as sacrifice. Sheila had told her that acts like that – boldly going to one's death, in place of another, when the outcome was certain – had their own magic.

Like Harry in the Forbidden Forest.

Quicker and easier than falling asleep, Sirius had told him, and Giulia was glad she didn't feel a breath of Caroline or Tyler or Caroline or anyone anywhere near her last-night, much as she would have liked to believe her dad and her mother were there striding beside her.

It was the game, of course. Giulia knew the moment they went public with their relationship that Klaus would home in on Giulia as the one thing left to torture his brother with. So she had been prepared for distractions he would try to tempt her with, Caroline and Tyler – she had outwitted him weeks ago, and had been prepared to die, to take the place of her friends, to allow Klaus to kill her so that he believed he was winning, to take the place of some faceless, nameless stranger he might otherwise have used. A single selfless act.

Well, she hadn't stayed dead, but if she had, she'd have earned that VIP fast-pass through Peter's gate.

As it was, she had done what no-one else would have ever dared do, sacrificed herself absolutely with no real thought of her own survival. Just a strange gut instinct she had been refusing to listen to the last few months, ignoring her reaction to the Gilbert device, the fact that she felt…like she had been getting stronger. She trained, yes, and hard, she went to the gym four times a week, took MMA and dance lessons, giving her superior agility and flexibility, she was honed and trained, but…she shouldn't have been able to do so much damage to those werewolves the night they took Caroline. Should she? They were supernatural; training could only account for so much.

Perhaps she was just trying to build her case – to justify what she had done, striding to her death. Because who would ever believe she had willingly just sacrificed herself? She wasn't suicidal; she loved her life. She loved her friends, she loved school, she loved…she loved Elijah.

Why wouldn't she want to be here when he woke again, no matter how long it took her to pull that dagger out of his chest?

She was sore for him now; she wanted him so badly she felt like someone had used a teaspoon coated in some kind of flesh-eating bacteria to scoop out her heart, taking their time, until nothing remained but the seared, scalded, gaping chasm of her empty ribcage.

Vampires felt their emotions heightened. Their bloodlust, too.

Giulia was shivering from lust, but it was entirely the sexual kind, the scent of Elijah in the room and the memories of wrecking her bridesmaid's dress in here on Jenna and Ric's wedding-night making her squirm, panting, and grimace, pained by her emptiness.

She wanted him back.

Giulia wanted Elijah back here with her, cloistered in her huge bed at home, she wanted to stay there with him until she could no longer walk.

She hadn't been scared. Just regretful. If it hadn't worked… Well, it had. That was the only thing that mattered, and any argument someone – Caroline, Damon – could bring up was made moot by that fact. Giulia would never have risked never seeing them again, if she didn't think something magnificent had to happen to her.

Turning into a vampire had felt like she was starting to shed her old skin, as if her body was starting to finally settle and be itself, rather than the itchy, uncomfortable tightness she had been feeling since Sheila healed her from the werewolves' torture, only Elijah able to quell the feeling with intense fucking. But turning into a vampire hadn't been enough, that wasn't who she was. A vampire wasn't what she was meant to be. She had been born something…else.

Waking up this morning, she had felt relaxed, herself, for the first time in ages. Rested, comfortable in her own skin, as if she had woken from the most intense orgasms, preening and delighted, relaxed. Herself. Like Tyler had when he transformed into a werewolf, Giulia felt as if she had shed something constricting, something preventing her from being what she was meant to be.

What that was, she had no idea, but she felt better than she had in ages, and it felt…right. No bloodlust, but she was still nearsighted and her stomach grumbled, hungry again. She was…Giulia. The rest didn't matter. She had survived the sacrifice, and had survived Klaus.

She would survive her separation from Elijah; she wouldn't allow herself not to. She was going…to soar. Conquer. She was going to have adventures, a life worth telling someone about.

A life worth sacrificing Elijah's presence in it.

She believed she had…emerged from a cocoon of sorts, had risen from the ashes of her sacrifice stronger, more herself than she had ever been. She had emerged the person she was meant to be. Giulia happened to believe things happened for a reason. Her family, the Salvatores, were unusually intertwined with the Original family. Stefan, in the 1920s, with Rebekah and Klaus in Chicago; Damon, spending the 1970s in London and Manhattan with Willem and Gyda; her ancestresses Carafina and Veronica sharing Isak, turned by him, in 1490s Rome. Even Elijah's Lucrezia had been a Salvatore, her biography said, daughter of a very wealthy nobleman whose lineage went back to the Roman Empire, not only one of the most beautiful and powerful women of Medieval Europe but mother to one and guardian to another.

Elijah was still sore for her to this day. Giulia wondered if he'd dream of her.

The children of Mikael and Esther had been bound with the Salvatore family since almost their very beginning.

And there was no such thing as a coincidence.

It wasn't just a blip in Emily's magic that had affected Giulia, when a device specifically engineered to debilitate the supernatural had hurt her. There was a reason why Damon, who never let anyone, even his own brother, close, had been so close with her when she was little. It wasn't chance that Damon had been in Mystic Falls when Giulia was born.

There were questions that she could ask, answers she wasn't sure she wanted – because when she knew them, others would demand them of her. How had she survived the sacrifice? What was she? What did it mean?

She had fangs, but no bloodlust. She was strong. She had heightened senses and it seemed to her in the hour she sat in her old room that she was suffering hypersensitivity – a supernatural lust. Her emotions were stronger, but she had always had an affinity for compartmentalising, and letting most things go that she deemed unworthy of her time and attention. As a vampire she had survived death by fire – had healed from it, utterly rejuvenated, skin like a baby's ass, but still scarred from her tomboyish, very athletic childhood. But she also still needed reading-glasses, as she found out, trying to read the titles of books she had left behind on the shelf. She felt warmer than she ever usually was, and her stomach grumbled again, hungry still after four donuts. She hadn't had a proper breakfast; dinner seemed a long time ago.

A heightened metabolism, warm to the touch, fangs, hypersensitivity, ridiculously farsighted but she still needed glasses to read, and her lust was almost paralysing. She sat on her bed, and sighed heavily, dropping her head into her hands, distracted by the feeling of her hair sifting over her fingertips, the scent of the ash in her hair, sneezing delicately at the remembered scent of Klaus' rage and confusion. Her lips twitched. He was in for quite a ride.

She blinked, sat up, and pulled her phone from her bag, where she had stashed it last night: she thoughtfully worded a text, and sent it off into the ether.

And she remembered how quiet it was: she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Cara, Ashlyn or the others, not even Kol. But they'd know the drill; they had all known Elijah and his extended family for long enough to realise what the score-card probably looked at by now. If Elijah hadn't followed her home, well… They had lives of their own to get back to, and had to figure out how to do that without Elijah in them. She felt badly for Ashlyn, whose only true parental figure, really, was Elijah. Cara was all very well as the psychotic auntie who kept you up trampolining until three a.m. and teased you about boys, took you toconcertsand snuck you into clubs – but as far as parents went, orphaned Ashlyn had Elijah.

And Giulia had been instrumental in taking him away from her. Ashlyn was sixteen years old; this was probably one of the most crucial times in her life where having a wise influence like Elijah was going to be very important. And Giulia had taken – no. Klaus had taken him from her, ripped her dad away from her. The thing was, Ashlyn was surrounded by people who adored her, she had Jeremy… And Giulia knew from personal experience that one cuddle from Jeremy Gilbert could right a multitude of wrongs.

She pulled herself reluctantly from the bed still infused with Elijah's scent, and shirked off the blanket Liz had given her, stepping into the shower, washing away the night, the scent of ash and slaughter. Her skin picked up every tiny drop, and she panted and fumbled with the knobs to stop the water-flow as it pummelled her skin, hitting every spot as she had lathered up her front, catching on her piercing, tickling around it, she had rocked on her toes as the jet had hit her lower. Baths from now on, she thought, alarmed, and reached for a towel with shaking hands.

Giulia had no bloodlust, she hadn't even thought of blood since last night, pulling the blood-bag from her pocket. It had been a means to an end. No, she suffered from plain, ordinary – heightened, supernatural – sexual lust.

Possibly it was just the reaction of her new senses heightening her already sexual nature. Unused to her new sensitivity… She would adjust, just as Caroline had.

She dressed in the clothes she had pulled from her old closet, long outgrown, and got dressed, letting her hair dry naturally. The coolness of her hair was welcome in the sultry warmth of the house.

She sighed and let herself out of her room, traipsing down the corridor with new eyes – literally. She noticed things she never had in the textures and colours of the house. It was moodier, the stain on the wood was dull, she could smell dust everywhere, the paintings seemed to be sobbing, in need of urgent restoration. She could hear soft scurryings in the walls, and the scent of damp from the cellar made her nose twitch. It was an old house, she knew. But she felt…she could do better. Make this place better. Make it into something she could be proud of, even if she hated it.

Stefan appeared in the hallway, frowning bemusedly at the sound of her approach.


A.N.: Y'know…I could actually see Elijah and Caroline together – in a world where Giulia doesn't exist, of course! I've been reading the gossip that they're considering bringing TVD characters into The Originals – the show doesn't need Nina Dobrev, I hope the universe is listening to me! Even if she'd only appear as Katerina.