Here's the next chapter. I hope you like it as much as I do. I definitely feel like it was easier to write than the last chapter. Please REVIEW and let me know what you think.
CalligraphersNib- I am glad the computer is all settled too. I am really excited at what this storyline is building towards and I can't wait to share it with everyone. Charlotte and Katherine are totally a dream team when it comes to getting things done, although they might not follow all the rules when it comes to getting things done. I promise you will soon find out who is behind this. I wouldn't drag it out forever.
Aarolye- I am glad to see that you are back. I was worried that I lost you as a reader. I am glad to see you are still with us. Please let me know what you think!
Charlotte was a monster of rage in that moment. The slight that Esther had committed against her had upset her, but the connection to the unseen assailant who had been plaguing her since reconnecting with the Mikaelsons had driven her into new heights of anger. The fact that who it was that was hunting them had used the spirit of her dead little sister to try and come after Charlotte and all those she cared about was the final nail in the coffin. All she could think about was making them pay.
Charlotte had been raised in an uncivilized world and as a vampire had trained with warriors since then. She had been taught that each attack deserved a reaction. Showing weakness by ignoring the slight could spell death or dishonor. That kind of thirst for revenge had not been ignited in her for a long time. Yet, here she was ready to rain fire and brimstone down on anyone who would get in the way of her path for vengeance.
This side of Charlotte was a surprise to most of the people around her. Even the Mikaelsons had rarely if even seen here like this. It was probably only Kol who had ever seen her in this kind of rage and he had no idea how to quell it. It was finally Damon who stepped forward to try and get through to her.
"Time out, Charlotte. You and I need to talk. Right now. How about we calm down for a second and stop summoning ghosts. How about you and I go in the other room and just talk for a second?" Damon said as he stepped between Charlotte and the spirit slowly. He put his hands up as someone who is confronted with a person holding a gun might until he realized how ridiculous that was. He laughed slightly and Charlotte responded in kind.
The fire inside Charlotte's eyes calmed down for a second. The sanity seemed to return to the girl. She shook her head as if shaking off the rage and need for rage. "You're right," she said. A small smile crossed her face. "Let's go, Damon," she said guiding him towards her small guest room that had previously been occupied by Rachel. She opened the door and encouraged Damon to enter first knowing it would chafe his sensibilities as a Southern gentleman. He might have done everything he could to pretend that part of him no longer existed, but Charlotte could see glimmers of it every once and a while. He certainly hated when a woman opened a door for him.
Damon sat down on the bed and smoothed the quilt next to him. "Sit down, Charlie."
Damon looked around the room trying to find the words to say what he needed to say to Charlotte. This was not an easy thing for him to say to her. It really didn't feel like his thing to tell her, but Damon could not bring himself to keep it from her. It would hurt enough to know that the whole Mikaelson family had been keeping it from her for hundreds of years. The room looked lovely and welcoming without saying much. It was obviously a guest room. Then a picture of Charlotte and Rebekah in what looked like the 1920s. That was the only thing that felt truly personal in the room. The fact that Charlotte had something that so obviously hinted at her unnaturally lengthened life in plain view spoke to how much she cared about Rebekah. Damon knew however that Rebekah was part of keeping this secret from her. That was all Damon needed to give him the determination to tell Charlotte.
Damon took a deep breath and accepted that he was going to have to bite the bullet and do this. "Charlie, I really don't know how to tell you this and I didn't want to have to, but you should just know."
Charlotte leaned her head on Damon's shoulder and snuggled into him. "Just say it," Charlotte responded. She knew she wasn't going to like it, but it was obviously important if Damon was pulling her aside to tell her even though she was already upset. She was going to just listen, but she was going to take some comfort from Damon while doing it.
"I talked with Tatia. And she told me something that she never told you. Elijah didn't leave you because he didn't love you. She did something to him. She didn't tell me exactly how, but it is like a spell from as far as I can tell. He didn't choose to be in love with her, she forced it. I don't even know if it is love like we know it. All I know is that it is involuntary and that once he is in her presence, even now, he is overcome with this feeling for her." Charlotte let out a small gasp and looked up at Damon with tears filling her eyes quickly and her head still on his shoulder. She stayed silent and waited for him to continue. Damon saw how hard she was trying to wait for him to finish.
He began to run his fingers through her hair to try and soothe her. "Oh, Charlie. I wish I wasn't the one telling you. I know you can tell I have feelings for you. Instead of telling you this, I would rather be telling you how beautiful you are and how funny and how worried you made me when you wouldn't wake up. I can't though. I wish it could just be simple and I could try and charm you and you could be my princess. I genuinely feel like you might just be the girl for me. I can't keep this from you. I made a promise."
Charlotte put a finger to his mouth to silence him. "You don't know how much I appreciate that. I have to tell you that there is something I have been keeping from you. It is big. It is not because I don't want to tell you. We just never got to that part of the story. Your sister isn't dead, Damon. Kol turned her. I had no idea until recently that she is your sister. Once I realized, I knew I had to tell you, but I wanted to tell you everything first, like we promised. She doesn't come into the story until much later. She is being held hostage by an old enemy of the Mikaelsons right now otherwise I would lead you to her right now."
Damon's jaw dropped. "Well, I was not expecting that," he said. He contemplated the bomb she had just dropped. His sister had died more than 5 years before Katherine had come to town. Had Kol Mikaelson really swept through Mystic Falls unnoticed and absconded with his sister? Damon could not even imagine it. "You're sure it's Faye? You're sure that it is my sister? Not someone who is related to us distantly? We aren't the only Salvatores in the world, you know. She could be cousin from my father's side that just happens to have the same name as my sister. I swear that I buried my sister, Charlie."
Charlotte shook her head viciously. "I swear it, Damon. I wouldn't joke about something like this. I know how important family is. There is a whole story behind what I am telling you, but I haven't had time to explain."
Damon nodded then shook his head viciously. "Let's talk about that later. I am not saying I don't believe you, but I can't handle that right now. Later, when it is just you and me you can explain it all to me and we can figure out whether or not it is actually my sister we are talking about. I need to finish telling you this first. We can talk about whether or not my older sister is a vampire later."
Damon put his hand until Charlotte's chin and tilted her head up so that they were making eye contact. "They all knew, Charlie," she said making sure she was looking at him and taking what he said seriously. "All the Mikaelsons have known about this. They have been trying to fix it, but have had no success yet. They didn't tell you about it though. They kept this secret from you. That is why I needed to tell you. We are supposed to be honest with each other and I couldn't keep this to myself."
Charlotte stayed silent and broke eye contact with Damon. Instead, she stared at the center of his chest so that he would not catch her eye until they were ready to talk. She stayed silent for nearly five whole minutes. She breathed a deep sigh and then stood up. "I just can't believe you, Damon. I believe that you think this is true and I appreciate that you have told me, but they wouldn't do that to me. These people are like family to me. They wouldn't lie to me like that. I just can't accept that they would not tell me about this kind of major information. This would change every single thing if it were true. You get that, Damon?"
A sad smile crossed Damon's face. He couldn't bring himself to repeat that what he was saying was absolutely true. He could see that this was something that Charlotte's whole world view was based on. He couldn't take that away from her. Maybe one, even two, Mikaelsons would keep the truth from her about something, but not a massive deception on this scale. She was not going to accept it until she could see the proof. Damon knew that now that she would be looking, the proof would pop up and knock her over. Damon just hoped he would be there to catch her.
Charlotte walked back into her bedroom where everyone else was gathered. She nodded to everyone in the room. She started looking closely at each of the Mikaelsons in the room. She couldn't bring herself to believe that they would keep something this big from her. This defined the whole relationship between her and Elijah. They couldn't possibly keep this from her.
Not ready to confront this idea, she walked over to Katherine, who someone had laid on the bed where Charlotte had been resting. It was certainly eerie. Charlotte knelt next to the bed and took Katherine's hand in her own. She watched Katherine's chest rise slowly. Charlotte could tell by just looking that she was better, but not ready to get up and have a karaoke dance party with her. If what Damon said was true, Charlotte could really only rely on Katherine as far as the people in this room. Damon, too, but he was new friend He was extremely new compared to the other friendships that Charlotte was comparing it to. Charlotte needed Katherine. This girl knew how to make any situation fun. Charlotte could think of all the different ways Katherine had brought laughter to her life. Their initial interaction had been concerning Katherine's run for safety. Charlotte had taught her everything that she knew to keep Katherine safe. Once they had gotten past that, they were wild children. Once the 1960s hit, they really hit their stride. The 1920s had been too plagued by Charlotte's loss of Rebekah. Once the flower children blossomed, Katherine and Charlotte embraced it fully just for the fun of it. They would never actually live like that. It was just nice to try the lifestyle on for a while. They could get up to the kind of shenanigans that people would think that only teenage girls would be capable of and they enjoyed every minute of it.
"Wake up, Kat, please," she whispered. Her eyelids began to flutter and she weakly opened her eyes. A tiny smile blossomed on Katherine's face. "Glad to see you're back," Katherine said in a haggard voice. "I was worried for a moment there that I was going to lose you."
Charlotte laughed heartily. "Couldn't have that, could we?" Charlotte asked. "You wouldn't have a friend in the world."
Katherine quirked an eyebrow as if to challenge that statement. The two girls broke into identical smiled and touched foreheads. That one moment gave Charlotte enough strength to do what she needed to do. "Thank you," she whispered to Katherine and stood up.
"Tatia," she called. Her little sister appeared in front of her looking sheepish. Charlotte saw the look that involuntarily crossed Elijah's face upon seeing her sister and her rage bloomed fully once more and she was ready for a fight.