I'm baaaaaaaaaack. Sorry that it took so long to get this chapter out. My father passed away this April and it kind of jammed up the works. He was my favorite person ever so it has been hard, but at the same time, I did not want to abandon Charlotte. Here we are to talk about happened with Charlotte after she left.

To lmr1985 & melissa2005, thank you for favoriting the story.

To Rosalie Mikaelson, thank you for following the story.

To CherryFresh, thank you for doing both!

To ThePhantomismylove, here is more!

To with-a-passion, I loved writing that moment between Charlotte and Elijah. I can't promise that they will end up together because there is a lot of mess there that needs to be cleaned up first. There is still so much feeling and love between the two of them.

Lisolotte

Charlotte was tied up and surrounded by a circle of salt. Her head ached something awful. Maybe it was her neck. She honestly couldn't tell right now.

"Ah, you're awake," a voice said. Charlotte was still unable to get her eyes to focus, so it was just a voice still.

The right hand that the voice belonged to yanked Charlotte's head upward. "Don't try too hard, little miss. We've been bleeding you to make you as weak as possible. You are quite the scary little thing, I'm told. I don't want to mess with that. We just grabbed you to send a message. You don't want to get involved with us. We are quite the nasty bastards. Settle your score with Simon and leave it at that. Don't pursue it any farther. As a show of good faith, we are giving you his address. Don't make us sorry, little bit."

Then it went black for Charlotte again.

-ahc-

Damon looked at the unconscious Charlotte that he had found on his lawn this morning. She looked like she had been worked over quite heavily in the time since she had run from the Mikaelson Manor.

He knelt down and brushed the hair out of her face. "Feeling okay there, princess?" Damon asked her when she stirred.

Charlotte's response was a long series of unintelligible grunts. "Goddamn got kidnapped Daphne style," she finally told him.

"Someone kidnapped you?" Damon asked.

Charlotte dragged herself upright. She rubbed her eyes trying to clear her thoughts. "They bled me dry. I need some liquid sustenance and badly."

"Who did this?" Damon asked.

Charlotte shook her head. "No idea. Apparently they consider themselves some bad stuff. Warned me not to get involved with them. They did give me what they claimed to be Simon's address. I must have hit too close to some nerve then." She reached into her pants pocket and handed the address to Damon.

"So, we just show up here and this Simon guy doesn't kill us?" Stefan asked from behind Damon.

"I am more than capable of handling myself. 1000 years old over here," Charlotte responded.

"Did you not just say that you got kidnapped 'Daphne style' a minute ago?" Stefan asked.

Charlotte sighed and rubbed her temples. "Shut up, Stefan. My head hurts so much. Can you not be a brat right now?"

"No need to lash out at Steffie because you got beat up," Damon censured.

"Well, you both suck," Charlotte responded half-heartedly. "But the great thing about being me, is while I might not be invincible, I have the bestest brother in law who is. Not to mention that he kind of would fall over himself to get into my good graces right now."

"Fine, you call up the Big Bad Hybrid," Damon mocked.

-ahc-

Simon sat in the hub of his evil scheme. He loved to think of himself as some evil genius capable of overtaking the world. He had met Charlotte back in the late 1700s and was surprised to see someone else who could commune with the dead. Trading favors with the dead lead to being able to get whatever you wanted in the world. The dead could tell you all kinds of important secrets.

When Esther came to him and asked him to help take Charlotte out, he was glad to be of service. The older woman had not told him what her reason for wanting to get rid of the woman, but Simon hadn't really cared. Now that they were having so much trouble with it, he was starting to ask more questions. Who was Charlotte? How old was she? Were their powers the exact same? Was she stronger or was he? What was Esther's role in all of this?

His informants were not really bringing him much. Finding Tatia had been a blessing, but she was actively resisting him. That was something that no spirit had been able to do before. Was it some extension of strength Tatia had in life or was she that old? Simon wasn't sure that the answer was something he wanted to hear.

-ahc-

Charlotte sat at the bar in the Mystic Grill and downed as many shots of whiskey as she could. Kidnapped. Fucking kidnapped like a small child who was no longer being tended. Charlotte had spent so much time making herself no longer vulnerable and here she was again.

"A whiskey girl?" a man next to her asked. He had not been there in the moments before he spoke so she assumed that he was a ghost.

"I am really not up to unfinished business right now," she told him sourly.

"Not why I am here," he responded with a gentle smile on his face. "Alaric," he introduced himself.