Gentle readers, I appreciate your patience more than I can say. If only we all had the time we wished for, to devote equally to our responsibilities and passions. I am grateful to you as well for your indulgence as I have taunted you with cliffhangers and introduced you to entirely unasked-for, non-canon characters. You thought this would be fluff when you began. Believe, me, so did I! Only one more chapter, which I promise to post this afternoon, and then adieu.

Chapter 8

Venice has a very specific smell, a funk, as if the air itself needs to be cleaned. It's the smell of old water permeating every surface, the smell of lagoons and waterways that hide centuries of rot under a green, opaque shimmer. Not the fresh tang of the ocean at the beach. Less salt, more cheese.

But the way the buildings seem to grow straight up out of the water redeems it a little, Matt thinks, as he sits across from Rebekah at a café on a small terrace alongside the canal. In the twilight, the sky blooms a vibrant, fiery orange behind the ancient houses.

Rebekah sips an espresso, her movements efficient, precise. Under her composure, Matt can feel her anxiety crackling around her like static electricity. Her concern is not for herself – she is tanked up with blood and sleep and is, after all, immortal – but for him, for his fragility at this perilous twilight hour. And it's driving him crazy.

"I'm fine," he says through his teeth.

"I know," she says in exactly the same tone.

Rebekah climbs into the ornate gondola when it glides up next to the platform, catching the slim gondolier's attention. "Bellissima – oy, Rifka!"

Max teeters on his perch at the far end of his gondola, righting the small craft with a surprised chuckle. Rebekah beams with the surprise, seating herself between Max and Matt.

Matt settles into the seat at the opposite end of the boat, as far from Max as he can manage. Max is all sinew and bone, like a dancer. Brown curls peek out from under his straw hat. His pale skin glows nearly blue in the moonlight. He banks his oar against the pier and pushes them out into the canal, his eyes sparkling with delight.

"How is my princess?" he asks, his deep voice heavy with an old world accent.

"Princess?" Matt mutters.

"Just a… not really," Rebekah assures him, over her shoulder. Then she continues, all business. "I need your help, Max."

"So this isn't a social call? I still owe you for that dinner in Prague -"

"Don't mention it," she interrupts hastily.

Max's deep-set eyes sizzle with mischief. "Tell me about your friend here." He cranes his neck to look at Matt, who darts his gaze away to the nearest eye-catching anything.

"We don't have a lot of time, Max. We're looking for Veronique."

"Yes, yes, and?" he asks, as if Rebekah has just repeated herself. As if it's common knowledge.

"You know?"

Max cants his head, peering at Rebekah for a moment, puzzling. "All right. Tell me more."

"She attacked us… but she fled before she could finish. Someone is after her."

"Someone else," Matt clarifies. Max glances at him with a look that is, unnervingly, both hungry and cordial.

"And you don't know who," Max says, marveling.

Rebekah crosses her arms in front of her petulantly. "Should we?"

Max smiles in thought. "I guess not." He sweeps the oar through the water, humming indistinctly. "But why not just let this someone do your work for you? If you're patient, I'm sure she'll wind up dead soon enough."

"We don't want to kill her," Matt volunteers.

Max leans to meet Matt's eyes. "He is adorable," Max says as if Matt can't hear him. As if he isn't sitting right in front of him.

Matt persists, his voice gaining strength. "Look, Veronique doesn't know the whole story. Rebekah's changed, she's not -"

"A vampire?" Max offers ironically.

Matt wilts in his seat. "No. She's good now. She isn't the person she used to be."

Max smirks. "And you know this because you've been alive for ten minutes and therefore, what, command the vast knowledge of the universe? Or you are a witch of some sort, you see the future?"

"Max, please," Rebekah asks.

"I see the present," Matt continues, determined. "People change."

Max licks his lips, turning his attention to Rebekah. "No, absolutely not. I'm not sending your little puppy to his death. Not unless you have a better plan."

"But you know where she is?" she presses.

"I have an inkling." Max's oar cuts soundlessly through the water. "But this? Him? Is not going to work."

Matt leans forward in the wobbly boat, wishing he could stand. "What do you want me to say? That I want to rip her head off? That I'm looking for revenge too? That I'm just as bad as she is?"

Max shakes his head, the gesture of a much older-looking man. "I want to know you're prepared to defend yourself. That you're not some dewey-eyed, hippie pacifist. Not if you're going after a maniac like Veronique. Not if Rifka cares enough about you to keep you alive."

Matt glares at Max. "I've killed a vampire before. I would do it again."

Max lifts an eyebrow at Rebekah.

"Where is she, Max?" Rebekah pleads, quietly.

Max pushes backwards against the water with his oar, slowing the boat as they approach a pier. He sighs. "France. Outside of Vichy, a town called Nizerolles."

The boat bumps gently against the pier. Matt rushes to climb out, then offers Rebekah a hand. Not that she needs it. But she takes it with a knowing grin. Then she turns to Max, still holding Matt's hand. "Thank you, my friend."

He shrugs. "She may not be there. But if she's anywhere you can find her, she's there." He pushes off gently back into the canal without picking up another fare. The boat teeters but he balances effortlessly. "And give my regards to your delicious brother," he calls from the middle of the canal.

"I'm not with Klaus anymore," Rebekah replies.

Max's eyes twinkle under his hat. "No, no. Elijah."

"I don't care."

(They didn't even make it into the house. Veronique caught them at dusk, entirely by accident, in the courtyard outside the barn, a squat stone out-building. She wore heavy rubber boots, caked with mud, and was improbably easing leather work gloves off her long, slender hands.

Veronique froze when she saw them. They all froze.

"Bien sûr, you would not travel wiss an ordinary, killable human boy," she finally said. "Witch?"

"Ring," Rebekah replied.

Veronique shook her head, as if the whole notion was exhausting.

"We don't want any trouble," Matt began.

"Non? Why else would you confront me ziss way?"

Matt tried to remain calm and even. He willed his heart to stop trying to beat itself out of his chest. "Veronique, Rebekah is sorry for what she did to you and Pia."

Veronique shot Rebekah a skeptical glare.

"I am, truly," Rebekah replied.

Matt wasn't done. "She's changed. She's not like she used to be."

"Not like... you mean vengeful? Selfish? Monstrous? Mais non, idiot, she is. She always will be zese ssings, and worse."

He wouldn't be swayed. "I've witnessed the change. All that, everything she did, it was Klaus's influence, and neglect, and fear. Doesn't matter why; she's past that."

"She is? And who has cured her? You?" Veronique's laugh was harsh and loud in the mute, darkening night.

"This," Matt pressed, "this revenge, it's not necessary. It won't teach Rebekah anything she hasn't already learned. She understands about sacrifice, believe me, and about kindness."

"Everyssing you say is meaningless. Rebekah," she pleaded, turning to her, "ze boy cannot honestly be such a moron."

Matt didn't pause. "I was, for a long time. I didn't see the good in her. I couldn't look beyond her past. I just… I couldn't forgive her. Because I thought it meant letting her off the hook, you know? I thought it meant telling her it didn't matter that she killed so many people, including my best friend, including, almost, me."

"Are you still talking?" Veronique interrupted.

"Everything horrible she's done still matters. It matters to me, and to you, and to countless, literally uncounted people dead and alive. It all matters and the thing I'm trying to tell you is that she knows it. It matters to her. Which is why she wants to be a good person. It's why she is good, one of the best, most loving people I've known. She will always be on the hook, Veronique, in her heart, where it counts. So I can forgive her."

He glanced at Rebekah who gazed wide-eyed back at him, and he held her gaze, his whole face barely holding back a smile. Despite everything.

"I forgive her. And so should you."

Veronique had a vice grip around Matt's neck before he realized she had even moved.)

"I really don't, Rebekah." With her other hand, Veronique deftly slips the Gilbert ring off of Matt's finger, dropping it in the dirt at their feet. "I don't care if you are ze new Dalai Lama, I will deliver ze same pain I felt back to you. Revenge, stupid boy," she says, tightening her fingers around his windpipe suddenly, "is not for teaching. It is for balance."

Behind Matt's closing eyelids, stars begin to dance.

("She has to see that if you're good now, there's no point in revenge," Matt argued, for the twentieth time.

"I'm telling you, it won't matter to her."

Holed up in their (his) rented apartment in Thiers, surrounded by stakes in varying degrees of completion, they argued and planned and kissed and fucked, letting the newness of their access to each other overtake them, letting it steer them back and back to the unmade bed.

"Revenge shows someone who doesn't realize it that they did something terrible. Right? Totally unnecessary in this case."

Rebekah took the stake from Matt's hands then, and the knife, climbing into his lap. "I think you're wrong," she said between kisses.

"I'm right," he muttered, pulling her closer, slipping his fingers around her thigh.)

"I won't let you kill him," Rebekah insists.

And in this moment, it shines crystal clear to all three of them: Veronique will indeed kill Matt, right now, because she has nothing to lose. Why didn't he see this coming? Veronique faces certain death by Rebekah's hand either way. Rebekah won't be able to get to Matt fast enough to stop her breaking his neck.

"I loved you," Rebekah says, maybe to Veronique, maybe to Matt. "I did. I'm sorry it came to this."

It is an odd moment that hangs between them all, thick and tart, this pause before the end. Veronique glances at the ring in the dirt. "She is a monster, little boy. Nossing can change zat."

Matt wheezes for breath.

"I can," Rebekah protests.

But there is a blur, a curl of wind in the dust, and suddenly Veronique lies in a heap on the ground, already graying. Elijah stands where she had been, Veronique's heart in one hand, the other bracing a stunned, gasping Matt.