The dizzy sensation went as fast as it came and Bella stood there in the protective embrace of Klaus, utterly confused. A second later his hands reached for her face, guiding her to look up at him. He gazed at her for several more before speaking.
"I am guessing nothing like this happened to you since turning," he stated, struggling to keep his calm. Vampires didn't lose their balance. Not unless something was affecting them negatively. Venom, vervain, severe injuries. He continued once she shook her head in confirmation. "You might not be as immune as we thought."
Klaus kissed her on the forehead, partly out of tenderness, partly to see if she was running a fever.
"You can let me go, I'm fine now," Bella muttered with a petulant frown, the frustrations of her early life instantly resurfacing.
Tripping, falling, injuries of various sorts. Not being able to take full control of her body was the main reason she missed out on so many childhood activities, like sports. Or friends really. No one wanted her on their team, so she was left to play alone in a corner. She had come to terms with being the odd one out, but the fussing that she received from adults annoyed her immensely because it called attention to her failings.
She seemed fine, he had to admit, no fever – not yet at least – so he released her as per her request, even if he just wanted to hold onto her as long as he could, maybe even pick her up to whisk her to a bed so that she could rest.
Bella took a few moments to assess herself, paying careful attention to every sensation in her body, flexing her muscles, but everything seemed normal. Well, vampire normal, the same she had felt since beginning her undead existence. Yet something was different, she knew.
"Bella, love…" the Original began with concern when she didn't move or speak for some time.
"I'm fine, really," the brunette sighed, rubbing her face while she tried to come up with an explanation, having none. She couldn't pinpoint what exactly had changed. The fact that was utterly exhausted didn't help matters either.
"You had a long day, maybe you should take it easy for a while," he suggested, his blue-green eyes still not free of the unease.
"Yeah, you're right. The strategy meeting about Lucien can wait until tomorrow," Bella conceded, turning to leave the bathroom. Klaus followed closely after, just to make sure, though there was no sign that she would lose her balance again, her steps were just as graceful as any vampire's.
"Maybe it would be best if I found another solution," the werewolf hybrid mused out loud, with a scowl on his face.
"Klaus. I'm sure you had sifted through all your available options before seeking me out," the agent sternly remarked. Why she was fighting him on this, she didn't know. It would have been better if she was left out of it entirely, but now that she had made a decision her stubborn streak wouldn't let her stop until she followed through.
"That does not mean that there isn't something I have not thought of yet," he said with a smirk because truthfully he loved bantering with her. She always told him like it was, no games, no deceit.
Bella just rolled her eyes. The fact that he escorted her all the way to her room didn't evade her attention either.
"I won't turn into a werewolf too now, will I?" she joked with a laugh as they reached her door. That would have been the ultimate prank of the universe.
"No, it's a genetic trait, triggered by killing someone," Nik stated seriously, not catching onto her sarcasm.
"I know, I was just kidding," the brunette huffed, crossing her arms. "Though there was a strain of lycanthropy in Europe that spread by bites of werewolves on the full moon. I think they had been driven into extinction by cold ones over a millennium ago. They called them the Children of the Moon. The involuntary, painful transformation on the full moon is a common trait so they could be related. I don't know. I've never seen either species in wolf form before."
"Interesting. What of the offspring of those wolves? Were they infected automatically from birth?" he perked up with interest, wondering why he never heard of them. Not that he actively sought information if it wasn't relevant to one of his schemes.
"I don't know, not even if they were capable of reproduction other than infection. I tried my best to do my homework on the supernatural once I became part of it, but there isn't that much information out there, especially written," Bella shook her head. Admittedly having their world secret from humans was furthered by the lack of scripture but it made it damned well hard to research. Just in the last few days, she ran into problems because of her lack of knowledge despite her efforts.
"Our species can, even if the mother is a triggered werewolf. The transformations stop for those nine months. You know, none of the wolf clans are native to America, some came with Viking settlers, some later. We could very well be descendants of those Europeans wolves for all we know," Klaus sighed. The origins of werewolves were an utter mystery.
"The infection caused a genetically transferable mutation without the contagion factor?" she raised a brow at the assumption.
"Why not? There isn't evidence to the contrary," the original shrugged.
"That's not a scientifically accepted argument," the agent made a face.
"Oh, but haven't you heard? It's magic!" he leaned close to her, whispering in her ear with a childish sense of wonder.
Bella facepalmed herself. That was so cheesy even if mostly true.
"I'm too tired for this. Goodnight, Klaus," Bella stated nonnegotiably, reaching for the door handle.
"Sleep well, love," Niklaus switched back to his ancient and mysterious tone that really reflected his age, all playfulness gone.
"You too," she said before closing the door and disappearing from his sight.
A hot shower seemed like a good idea again, and she began getting ready for bed, pondering on the emotional roller-coaster of the day. Klaus was… a mystery to her. Somehow she couldn't imagine him being this attentive and kind to the people he merely used in his ploys. He did say he didn't realize how she would make him feel when he had come up with the idea of luring her in to handle Lucien… She shook the thought off quickly.
That night she dreamt of wolf puppies skipping about in a lush green forest.
Gibbs had McGee and DiNozzo come in on Saturday too, their newest case requiring urgency. While Tony was in the basement getting the evidence they had collected to Abby, he had Timothy report to him on what he had found about Bella.
Tim showed the team leader the collected data on his computer instead of the big screen so that no one passing by the bullpen would know what they were working on at first glance.
"Isabella Marie Swan, born September 13, 1990, in Forks, Washington to Charles Swan and Renée Swan neé Higginbotham, currently married to Phillip Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. The father never remarried. No siblings. Mr. Swan had worked in law enforcement his whole life, currently the police chief of the town, her mother had an assortment of jobs, currently a kindergarten teacher. Parents divorced when Bella was six months old. She lived with her mother, in Downey then Riverside, California, later Phoenix, Arizona. At the age of seventeen, she moved back to Forks to live with her father, where she finished high-school. For about a year after that, she had no permanent residence, traveling the country according to her credit card statements, living off the money she had saved up during high-school, working at Newton's Olympic Outfitters, a sports goods and outdoors equipment store in town owned by the parents of one of her classmates. The longest she stayed in one place during that time was Mystic Falls, Virginia, five weeks to be exact. Four months after leaving there she signed up for police training in Washington, D.C. Exemplary test results in every subject as well as with firearms and hand-to-hand combat. She was recruited by NCIS after a joint operation three years ago. Currently, she holds the best solved case ratio at the agency. No complaints or disciplinary actions on her file, both here and at MPD," McGee fired off the hard facts accompanied by the appropriate pictures of everything before Gibbs inevitably would ask to delve into more personal territory.
"Any ex-boyfriends, people who might have a grudge against her?" the team leader inquired since he was fairly certain that whatever made Bella leave town wasn't work-related. Tony kissing her was just a nice excuse to request a transfer. She took that leave before that happened, and the first thing she did was leave town. No, she definitely didn't want someone finding her here. The question was who was she fearful of and why didn't she ask for help?
"I searched her on the web too, the only evidence I could find that she had a partner at all was this picture posted on her school's website of her junior prom, which she attended with one Edward Cullen, a classmate of hers. I've never seen a millennial like her so disconnected from social media. No Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or any account really. Only a good old email address and a phone. Not even a smartphone at that," Tim ranted on as he brought up the picture. He almost added that she was like a younger female version of Gibbs, but wisely kept quiet.
In the picture a slightly younger looking Bella was standing in a dark blue dress with a crème colored sweater, her hair in carefully crafted curls, smiling shyly at the camera with a tall, copper-haired boy in a black suit with a mega-watt grin on his face. But that wasn't the interesting part of the image. One of her legs was in a full black strap-on cast, and she was wearing converse on the other. Not exactly part of the prom package. You had to wonder why she even went to the dance with an injury like that.
"Maybe she is purposefully trying to make it harder for someone to find her. Do we have information how she broke her leg?" Jethro pointed out. Maybe abusive boyfriend? Him forcing her to the prom would explain why she was there in such a state. For some reason, the guy looked familiar. Where had he seen him?
"Falling down a flight of stairs right into a glass door at a hotel in Phoenix," the computer whiz quickly pulled up the medical records that he had hacked into since they had no warrant to look into them officially. Suspicious that's for sure, a common excuse for domestic abuse, tripping, falling. "Dr. Carlisle Cullen, Edward's father, treated her." Even more suspicious, as if it was a cover-up for something.
"What was she doing there?" It was the end of school year, right in the middle of final exams, three states over.
"Maybe visiting her mom? Or not. Renée was traveling with her husband, staying in Florida at the time. Not to mention why would she stay in a hotel if they had a house in the city?" he said after cross-referencing with her mom's credit cards statements at the time, then checked the hotel bookings from that time period. "Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale had the room along with her in the hotel at the time, adoptive brother and sister of the guy."
"What about Dr. Cullen, or anyone else from the family, where they in Phoenix too?" Maybe it was a trip they brought their son's girlfriend along.
"Yes, but their flight only arrived an hour before the accident, Edward arrived on that plane too. They stayed until she was released from the hospital and all returned to Forks after that," he checked the flight passenger lists swiftly.
She was initially there without the boyfriend but gets into an accident as soon as he arrives? Fishy, very fishy. Didn't sound anything like the Bella they knew. She wasn't clumsy or prone to accidents, but worth a check.
"Pull up Bella's entire medical history, any similar patterns?" Gibbs said on a whim.
"Just a sec… oh, there is, a bunch actually. Cuts, contusions, broken bones all throughout childhood," Tim said with a frown. "All chalked up to some accident on her part. She was either the clumsiest child in the history of earth… or…"
"Are we sure the mother was in Florida?" Jethro inquired, thinking the same. Might have been child abuse after all, she was primarily in her mother's care all her life.
"Yes. She was on a plane to Phoenix the day after the accident," McGee quickly replied after searching the passenger lists around that time inbound to Phoenix from Florida airports. She was ruled out then.
"I know that man," Gibbs finally connected the dots after looking at his driver license picture for a while. "He passed right by us on the sidewalk yesterday when we were coming back from the scene."
What gave him pause is that the guy looked exactly the same, not even a sign of seven years passing. Not that Bella looked much older either, just a bit different, her features were more angular, more chiseled, having lost the adolescent roundness. Her mother seemed to age well, so it might just be a genetic trait. This Edward character on the other hand… looked unnatural somehow. Not many things gave Gibbs the creeps, but this did.
"Do you think he is stalking her?" the younger agent inquired in bewilderment.
Any other reasonable explanation why he happened to be walking right next to his ex-girlfriend's supposed place of work, with the look on his face screaming that he was on the verge of killing someone? Maybe wanting to finish the job he couldn't all those years ago? But Gibbs didn't go there. He needed facts, not theories.
"Do a full background check, I want to know everything about the entire family! Talk to her father if you have to, just find out what happened between those two."
Klaus got an early start to his day, already making calls. He wanted answers, and he wanted them yesterday, preferably before he had bit Bella. Her dizzy spell couldn't have been a freak coincidence, happening right after introducing werewolf venom to her system. The most reliable place to seek answers regarding magical issues were witches. The Original tried Davina first, directly after he had discovered that Freya had nothing in the way of solutions. Having been in a magical coma for the better part of the last millennium meant that most of her magic was old school, though not in any way less powerful, and she was still learning the new developments of her field. These interspecies things were definitely new to the oldest Mikaelson sibling.
"It's not my problem," she said. The witch was trying to find a way to resurrect Kol like she had promised, but she wasn't making any headway and definitely didn't want or need the distractions.
After a bit of unfruitful back and forth, the Original was seething inside and wanted to threaten the girl, to use someone against her so that she would act in his interest instead of her own. That had been his modus operandi for centuries. Yet he hesitated. He knew Bella wouldn't want him to do that.
"Fine, I will have to deal with it on my own then," he snarled into the phone, then in a last fit of rage threw it across the room, shattering the device on the wall into a million little pieces, accompanied by a frustrated growl. He hated feeling weak, not in control.
Bella was just coming down the stairs in time to hear the end and the aftermath of that conversation. She had decided to go comfy for the day since she had no exact plans to leave the compound, wearing grey leggings, a white T-shirt and an overly large teal hoodie that reached almost to her mid-thigh, her hair in a messy top-bun. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking hesitantly in the direction where the noises of Klaus's fury had come from.
"I wouldn't go in there when he gets like that," Rebekah walked up to her from the other end of the atrium, casting apprehensive glances in the same direction. "You might just get staked."
Bella wasn't awfully worried about that, having learned that wood couldn't penetrate her body, but didn't say a thing, just kept watching the door, as if expecting Klaus to emerge any second. She couldn't help but wonder if this was somehow about her. If she really wanted to, she could have eavesdropped on the conversation, but the shouting had only penetrated her consciousness when she stepped out of her room.
"Look, what you said about us girls sticking together and self-defense… could you… maybe teach me?" the blonde inquired falteringly after a few moments of awkward silence.
The agent turned to look at her, trying to discern the cause for her sudden change in attitude. Based on what she knew about the Original girl, Bella didn't take her for the apologizing type, yet this somehow felt like one. Or it could be a trap, a way to humiliate her, and maybe, later on, she would use whatever techniques learned against her.
"Sure," Bella said finally since she was fairly confident that she could handle whatever the Barbie Doll would want to pull on her, and if it was a genuine offer at making peace then it wouldn't be wise to ignore it. "You might want to change into something more comfortable though," she added as she appraised her outfit of white designer blouse, tight leather pants, and stiletto high heels, her hair in a windswept magnificence worthy of a runway.
"I suppose," Rebekah agreed half-heartedly after giving herself a once over. She disappeared at vampire speed, returning a few seconds later in a similar get up as Bella wearing.
"Do you guys have a gym or something?" the hybrid girl asked.
"Not really, but the atrium is fine, it's quite spacious," blondie suggested with a shrug.
"Alright," the agent said after careful thought. She didn't like the fact that everyone got to watch. It still made her self-conscious, even if there wasn't any reason to be ashamed of the way she moved anymore. Force of habit, I guess. She walked to the middle of the open space before turning back to the other girl. "Show me how you would normally attack someone stronger than you."
Rebekah charged, fast and nimble but pretty straightforward. The brunette could see her intentions from a mile away, and she had plenty of time to meet her with her own vampire speed. Bella did a very simple aikido side-step move to channel away her attacker's energy, grabbed her arm in the process and with an elegant twirl had the original immobilized. Though Bella was smaller than her opponent, the way she had Bekah's arm pinned to her back had the blonde struggling for balance, her back arched, forcing her to stand on her tippy toes. The agent released her quickly afterward since power demonstration wasn't the point of this session.
"The problem is that you go in with full-on brute force and no technique," Bella assessed with no malice just sheer observation. "That might work against inexperienced weaker opponents, or if you manage to catch a stronger one by surprise. But the moment you face someone trained in some form of martial arts, they could take you on even if they are weaker than you. Of course, there can't be that big of a gap mind you. You also start facing problems once you have to take multiple opponents."
"But you are stronger than me, of course, you can take me on," Rebekah huffed, perturbed by the easy defeat.
"If you noticed I barely exerted any energy in that move. I used your momentum against you," the agent smiled.
"So what do I do?" she asked, genuinely curious and wanting to learn. They spent the next few minutes practicing that one move, Bella mock attacking her. She could have easily broken out of the hold, knowing the techniques to counteract it, but she was definitely not showing the other girl that yet, not until she could trust her more.
From the corner of her eye, Bella noticed that they had gained an audience. Klaus and Elijah were watching from the sidelines.
"This is nice and all, but wouldn't it be kind of dangerous letting your enemy attack first? Can't you teach me something that I could take the initiative with?" the blonde inquired after a while when she felt she had the hang of it already.
"Ah, well, that wouldn't be self-defense, would it?" Bella smirked conspiratorially. She had a feeling that this wasn't exactly about learning how to defend herself anyway.
Then Nik began clapping. "Quite the performance, love. Say, how would you fare against more than one experienced opponent?" he looked at his brother with a beckoning smirk, suggesting that they should get to have a go at their guest as well.
"Now this will be interesting," Elijah smiled back, undoing his tie and removing his suit jacket in preparation.
Bella removed her sweater, giving them a glimpse of her toned stomach before she pulled her shirt back down, anticipating that this would be a bit more of a workout. The boys planted themselves in basic fight stances about ten feet from her on either side.
Bekah had joined Freya at the other end by the kitchen entrance, on the side where Elijah was standing, eager to watch. Her older sister cast a brief worried, questioning glance at her.
"Don't worry, she can handle herself," the younger sister commented when she noticed the witch's concern.
"There is no way she could simultaneously take on two Originals," she pointedly remarked, regarding them carefully as they took their places.
"Do you want to bet?" Rebekah offered with a laugh.
"You are on, Lil'Sis," Freya agreed. "A hundred dollars that she would not make it to two minutes with them."
"Whenever you are ready, boys," Bella smirked, hearing the conversation of the other two girls clearly.
Klaus was the one to attack first and the agent whipped in his direction to divert the incoming punch. She grabbed his arm, yanked it to the side just as Elijah came up behind her. Bella placed a backward kick right in his solar plexus, sending him staggering back from the force.
The werewolf hybrid recovered quickly, rounding his other arm for an elbow hit. The brunette ducked and swept his feet from under him with a low round kick. The older brother had already regained his footing and came at her again, and she threw him over her shoulder, right into Klaus who was about to stand up.
Rebekah noticed that during the whole thing – that barely lasted a second given their speed – Bella barely moved an inch from her initial position yet she had the brothers dancing to her tune, like a puppet-master tugging the marionettes on a string. They were scrambling to find some sort of hold on her but never found one, worse yet, she had been using them against each other to take them out. To think that Klaus single handedly matched more than ten vampires from Marcel's gang – with more there as back up – when they had arrived back to New Orleans three years ago, and now he was having problems with a single girl! With Elijah there helping to boot! True he only managed to overpower them after letting his wolf side loose.
As if reading her thoughts the werewolf hybrid let out a frustrated growl and bared his fangs, his eyes turning black and gold, upping his speed and strength another notch.
"Stop evading and fight me for real," he said with a sadistically eager smile, blocking his brother with one arm, gesturing for him to stay back and to let him handle it.
"Oh, I am, believe me," Bella giggled but changed her stance anyway to another fighting style. She hadn't had this much fun a while. "Just didn't want to hurt you."
That pushed his buttons, and he let out an animalistic snarl as he charged again. And this was precisely the agent's intention, goading him into acting rashly, fueled by anger.
This time instead of just channeling away his momentum, she met him punch for punch, kick for kick, except the payback was double or triple, and Klaus never laid a hand on her, she blocked them all. In true Krav Maga style, she went for a thigh kick then sent quick successive punches into his shoulder as he was coming down. They hurt like hell, needless to say.
He somehow managed to grab onto her arm, twirling her around. He almost let out a triumphant yell, believing that he finally had her as he pinned her in a chokehold with her back flush against him. Bella kicked back at his shin then threw him over her shoulder as his grip loosened on her, reaching for the fabric of his shirt around his right biceps with one hand, hooking her other arm under his on the same side for purchase.
"Are you quite done yet?" Bella asked, leaning over his head when he stayed down.
"Do they really teach techniques like that at the police academy?" he asked with a frown. She was evidently stronger and more trained than he had anticipated.
"Well, yes and no. I went and learned about half a dozen other fighting styles after that, incorporating parts of them into my own." Aikido being her favorite of them all since she could use it without worrying about injuring her opponent too much since she was only using her their strength and momentum against them, not her own. Of course, she still had to pay attention not to grab them with too much force, since she could easily crush the bones of a human with one wrong move.
"What for?" the man on the floor laughed. "I mean, I cannot imagine human criminals giving you any trouble in detaining them."
"No, they don't," the agent furrowed her brows for a moment. It was a daily struggle not to let her superior strength slip, and that included making sure that her skills were believable. Something being humanly possible didn't mean that a girl of her build should be able to pull it off, no matter how great shape they were in. "But I figured sooner or later I'll have the supernatural world coming to take a bite out of my ass."
And since she had had no comparison before she had always thought that she was weaker than anyone else among vampires, hence her intense desire to build up skill to compensate.
"That reminds me, how had you not killed anyone by sheer accident?" the Original asked, wanting to distract her. She was letting her guard down, and he had a plan. They hadn't agreed to the match to be over yet.
"By holding back. Obviously," she rolled her eyes. "This was the first time I got to utilize them at full strength. So thank you. It was a lot of fun."
"Fun is not the word I would use for this," Klaus grimaced then suddenly reached above his head to pull her legs out from under her.
The brunette arched her back and landed on her hands, wanting to launch herself back into a standing position, but he had a firm grip on her legs and pulled her back down before she could twist them out. Her breath was knocked out of her as she thumped down on the floor on her back, the original on top of her, pinning her down within a fraction of a second. His elation only lasted a moment because Bella kicked him off to the side, changing the tables on him, now her straddling him.
"That was cheap," the brunette pouted as she leaned in close, holding his hands firmly above his head.
"All is fair in love and war, sweetheart," he winked at her, bucking her off. Instead of losing her balance she rolled off in a graceful somersault and even managed to flip him over and pulling him with her in the process because she never let go of his forearms.
"Oh, yeah? Which one do you suppose this is?" Bella laughed as she got his head in a chokehold between her thighs. There was nothing he could do about it, he was utterly trapped.
"Surprisingly much more fun than before," Klaus smirked at her even though his face was starting to redden with the effort of trying to free himself.
"Khm… I think that's enough," Elijah cleared his throat after a few moments, purposefully not looking at them.
"Right," Bella released him quickly, sitting back on her heels, her face heating up with embarrassment. The whole thing must have seemed like weird foreplay or something.
"I think it's time for you to pay up," Rebekah held her palm up with a smirk to her sister.
"You bet against me, Sister? You wound me," Niklaus grabbed at his heart melodramatically as he sat up, not having heard their wager beforehand, too preoccupied with his lovely Bella and how he was going to take her down. Didn't work out exactly like he had hoped.
"Sorry, Nik, but I've already got a taste of what she is capable of, there was no way I was betting against that," the blond girl quipped back as Freya handed her the hundred dollar bill.
Elijah raised his brow at his sister, recalling catching the girls in the kitchen last night. That wasn't a friendly show of skills after all, but Bekah just shook her head at him not to inquire further. Klaus might have taken it the wrong way, especially if he learned why Bella had resorted to restraining her, and the Original wasn't sure whose side he would take. Not to mention that hopefully, they had mended their differences already, no need to test the werewolf hybrid's infamous temper.
Niklaus thankfully didn't catch that side note and just assumed that she was talking about the little training session before they had butted in to challenge Bella.
"I believe it is time to have that strategy talk now," he announced as he jumped to his feet, offering a hand to the brunette.
*A/N: I know Bella was born in 1987 in canon but to fit the timelines better I'm taking creative liberties here :D