Selina's jaw dropped. She snatched the phone away from Alistair. "Is anyone on the line now?" She demanded of him.
He shook his head. "No. Helene hung up."
Selina nodded and began dressing. "I need to go over and find out more about this marriage thing. I'll pick up Lucy from Klaus' cause I told him he could see her for a bit, then I'll go over to Adrian's and find out just what happened." She looked at Alistair. "We approve of this, right? Them getting married, I mean?"
Alistair nodded. "I've gotten used to the idea."
Selina nodded and pulled a sweater over her head and then, fully dressed, left the house after telling Elijah goodbye. She picked up Lucy and headed over to Adrian and Helene's.

"So," she said when Adrian opened the door, "When did this marriage happen?"
"Just a day or so ago," Adrian said. "I was surprised at first. I woke up with a ring on my finger and no memory of a wedding and I said to myself 'Oh, damn, I hope I didn't marry some tramp."
"I was in bed next to him and told him I was very offended by that remark," Helene said. "And he was so relieved to see me, I thought he was going to start crying."
"That happened to me on the island," Selina said. "Only I woke up sandwiched between two naked guys and..."
Adrian put up a hand. "Okay, Mom. That's enough. You can stop talking now."

Selina grinned. "Oh, okay. So how is it that you can get married, but have no memory of it?"

"He was drunk," Helene said helpfully. "Really, really drunk."

"Why would you do that?" Selina asked Adrian.

"Come in the kitchen and I'll tell you," Adrian replied. Selina gave Lucy to Helene and followed him into the kitchen, sitting down next to him at the kitchen table. "So what happened?" Selina said. "You have to tell me everything. Or Helene will, 'cause I'll ask her."

"Actually, she won't be able to tell you anything," Adrian said. "At least not anything accurate. "It's just that ever since we got back together, it seems like all she can think about is getting married and having kids. Now, since I know what life is like without her, I can sympathize with the need to get married, but the thought of having kids scares the hell out of me."

Selina nodded. "I get that. The thought of you having kids scares the hell out of me too. I mean, do I look like someone who should have the title 'Grandma' in any universe?"

Adrian grinned. "You know you don't. But the thing with Helene, she's so happy around kids, you know? She has a friend who works at a daycare center and she spends her days there helping out and I think that just makes the need for kids more urgent for her. And because I want her to be happy, I'm this close to agreeing, even though I know it's not what I want yet."

"Adrian, look at me," Selina told him. "If I've learned anything from the mess that is my love life, especially my marriage to your father, it's that marriage should be a partnership between two people that love and respect one another. Your feelings have merit too, and you shouldn't just lie down and let Helene do something that you aren't ready for just because you risk her being unhappy with you. Stand up for yourself."

"Come here," Adrian said. He stood up and led Selina to the edge of the kitchen that looked out into the living room. Helene had Lucy on her lap and was helping her slowly stroke Rusty, who was lying on his back and looking like he was in heaven. "See?" Helene was saying. "Rusty is a nice doggy. He won't bite you. You don't have to be afraid of him."

Adrian turned away. "How can I deny kids to someone who can pull off a miracle like stopping Lucy from being scared of dogs?"

"You aren't denying her kids," Selina said. "You're just postponing having children until you're both ready for it, which is a very sound idea, given that your child will be, at birth, a witch-vampire hybrid, who will then become a werewolf too after their first kill. That's not something to take lightly. You'll need to take time to prepare for it."

"That's what made me go out and get so drunk," Adrian said. "She was going on and on about having kids and I couldn't handle it anymore, so I left and went to Enid's and got hammered, and apparently, when I got back, I puked all over Helene's favorite silk blouse and that's when she took me to see the judge who married us."

"You just let her run things, don't you?" Selina asked.

Adrian looked shocked. "Well, no, but..."

Selina shook her head. "Normally, I don't advocate you acting like your father, but now would be a good time! Like I said, take a stance, for crying out loud!"

Adrian stood up. "You're right," he said, taking a deep breath. "I need to express my feelings about this whole kid thing because what I feel matters too."

Selina nodded. "Yep!"

He headed into the living room where Lucy was giggling while she and Helene watched Rusty sit and shake and roll over. "Helene?" He asked. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," Helene said. "What about?"

Adrian cleared his throat. "I know you really want us to have kids, because it's all you can talk about, but I'm not ready. I will be someday. But not now."

"Oh, that's okay," Helene said. "I wouldn't want to have kids so soon either! Sorry if I've been suffocating you with all the baby talk, but when you spend your days at a daycare center, you really can't talk about much else."

Adrian breathed a sigh of relief. "Really?" He asked.

Helene nodded. "Really." She gave Lucy a hug. "But I won't deny that I love this pretty girl."

"You and everyone else," Selina said. "Listen, would the two of you be interested in watching her for the weekend?"

"Why?" Adrian asked. "You want to dump her off with us so you can spend the weekend in bed with Uncle Elijah?"

"Of course not!" Selina said. "I would never just dump one of my kids anywhere. Even with Roxie, the worst I ever did was tie her to the roof of my car during a rainstorm."

"And it wasn't like she didn't have that coming," Helene said. She put Lucy on her feet and Lucy followed Rusty into the kitchen.

"Dad didn't seem so surprised when I told him that we were married," Helene told Selina. "But what's weird was that when I called him, he answered from Elijah's house. He wasn't at home."

"He is with us," Selina confirmed. "He says it's 'cause you and Astrid are gone from the house and he's lonely, but I think he just wants to study us."

"Well, can you blame him, really?" Adrian asked. "I mean, one minute you're with Dad, and the next Alistair knows, you and Dad have broken up and you're living with Uncle Elijah. That's got to be a little shocking."

"Well, yeah, but not that shocking," Selina said. "It's not like I'm shacking up with a sixteen year old or something. Elijah and I are two adults in a perfectly normal, stable relationship."

"...And compared to the fact that the rest of the time Alistair's known you, you've vaciliated between tragic and insane in your relationship with Dad, that would make seeing you in a stable relationship shocking for Alistair," Adrian finished.

"In the beginning, your dad and I were stable, in our own way," Selina said. "It was just the two of us, out to see the world. Everything was perfect. Until Mary Anne."

"Who's Mary Anne?" Adrian asked.

Selina sighed. "I suppose you could call her our first 'child'. She was six and the daughter of an ex-boyfriend of mine. Her mother had died right after she was born, during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. I killed her stepmother once I found out she existed and I tortured and killed her father soon after that. Your father's and my original plan was to kill Mary Anne as well so that no one would trace her parents' murders to us, but your father, in a rare moment of mercy, asked me if we could spare Mary Anne and take her along with us. Raise her as our own."

"And did you?" Helene asked.

"We did," Selina said. "But I did it under protest. I wasn't really the motherly type back then. I'd just spent the previous thirty-odd years playing grandmother to my son Joshua's children (he was the son I had with Damon before we turned) and it was an experience that I found less rewarding than you might think."

"Because you looked eighteen and the traditional person associated with the word 'grandmother' is an old lady with gray hair who bakes cookies and makes quilts?" Helene asked.

Selina nodded. "Yeah, and that's really not who I wanted to be. I wanted to be a woman of action and found a dependent child to be an interference, especially since, as you would expect, I was the one who chiefly cared for her."

"You didn't kill her, did you?" Adrian asked.

"Mary Anne? No," Selina shook her head. "I don't know what happened to her. I left Europe after the blood on my hands became too obvious and I haven't seen Mary Anne since. Your father would probably be the best person to ask if you want to know more about her. Either of your fathers, because Alistair was with us then too, of course. He was never happy with the way I treated her, and I suppose I regret my behavior now too, but you can't change the past. You just have to move on in the present."

"If you could find her, would you tell her you were sorry?" Helene asked.

"I suppose," Selina said. "But even if she wasn't dead by some miracle, I wouldn't know where to start looking for her."

"There was nothing on the boat," Mikael said. "Where do you suppose we should look next? Lonely Heart is as sneaky as ever. You wouldn't think it would be this difficult to find a murderess. Women aren't usually the best at keeping their crimes secret, what with feeling guilt after each kill. Most of the vampires I've caught over the years have been women."

"Well there has to be something," Aleksandr said. He paused and looked up at his father. "What if the woman who committed the murder on the boat wasn't Lonely Heart at all, but a copycat killer? It would explain why the method isn't exactly the same and how the trail went cold."

"That could be a possibility," Mikael said. "Some new vampire studying up on the infamous killers of the past and looking to repeat their notorious crime sprees. We'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for any more murders, and if there are any, then we'll pursue them."

Aleksandr nodded. "I'm going to go out and wander around for awhile, clear my head a bit."

"Watch out for yourself," Mikael called after him. "You know what's out there."

Aleksandr turned. "If I run into trouble, I will take care of it without mercy."

He left the house and walked to a nearby lake where a group of people were holding a picnic. Curious, he sat on the side of the lake opposite the picnic, next to a girl wearing jeans and a purple sweater who watched the group intently.

"Excuse me," Aleksandr said her. "Do you know what's going on over there?"

She shrugged, pushing her brown hair out of her eyes. "It's a party for a group of single parents and their children. They have meetings here sometimes. They've asked me to join them, but I don't want to."

"Where are your parents?" Aleksandr asked her. "Are they at the picnic too?"

She shook her head. "I don't have parents. My mother died of the flu, my father was stabbed to death and my stepmother died in a car accident."

"So who takes care of you?" Aleksandr asked. "Anyone?"

She shook her head. "I've learned to take care of myself, be strong. It served me well once I realized I couldn't depend on anyone."

"What's your name?" Aleksandr asked her.

"Mary Anne," she said, not meeting his eyes. "And yours?"

"Aleksandr," he said quietly. "You know, Mary Anne, if you liked, you could come home with me. It's just me and my father. We're not dangerous, I promise."

Mary Anne smirked. "Even if you were, I could handle it. I'm much tougher than I look." She stood up. "You remind me of someone," she said. "Someone I knew a long time ago. He was nice to me. You're not a lot like him, not really, but there's something about you that's the same. I feel like I can trust you." She took Aleksandr's hand. "All right," she said. "I'll come home with you. I have to warn you though, that there's something about me that's strange. I'm not normal."

"Well, what is it?" Aleksandr asked. "I'm intrigued.

"Are you a doctor?" Mary Anne asked. "Or a policeman?"

Aleksandr shook his head. "No. Why would that matter?"

Mary Anne leaned in close to him. "Once, a policeman found me when I was having an attack of my illness and he took me to a hospital where the doctors did all sorts of cruel things to me with electricity and surgery. They even tried to remove part of my brain once. But I killed all the surgeons so they couldn't."

"Well, I don't blame you for doing that," Aleksandr told her as they walked away from the park. "It can't be pleasant having part of your brain removed."

Mary Anne nodded. Her expression was grave. "It happened to another girl at the hospital, and she never said an intelligent word afterward," she said quietly.

"What exactly was it that made the policeman send you to the hospital?" Aleksandr asked.

Mary Anne looked around to make sure no one was watching them and then she said quietly, "I drink blood. I'm a vampire."

"Are you?" Aleksandr asked. "How did that happen?"

"You believe me?" Mary Anne asked in surprise. "No one else ever has."

"Well, I have my own reasons for believing you," Aleksandr told her. "I'm a vampire too. And so is my father."

Mary Anne's eyes widened. "You're kidding."

Aleksandr shook his head. "No, I'm not. Father will be interested to meet you. Neither he nor I have ever met any vampires as young as you."

"Yes, well I'm just lucky, I guess," Mary Anne said bitterly." Aleksandr looked at her sadly and put a firm hand on her back. They walked back to Aleksandr and Mikael's house in silence.

"Father, I'm back!" Aleksandr called when they got inside. "And I brought someone with me you'll be interested to meet."

Mikael entered a few moments later. "Who is this?" He demanded when he saw Mary Anne. "We don't have time to be raising children. Take her back wherever you found her immediately."

"You sound like Sera," the girl said, locking eyes with him. "She didn't want me around either."

"Father, this is Mary Anne," Aleksandr said. "She's one of us."

"A vampire?" Mikael said in surprise. "Her? Who in their right mind would turn a little girl?"

"I thought he loved me," Mary Anne said. "He told me he did. But Sera poisoned his mind. She probably told him he should get rid of me and he did. I never saw him after '29."

"Aren't you a little young to be in romantic relationships?" Aleksandr asked her.

She shook her head. "It was nothing romantic. Nick was the closest thing I had to a father after my own father was killed. Sera was his girlfriend. She was a bitch. She liked to kill things. And people." A picture on the mantel caught Mary Anne's eye. It was black and white and the young woman with hair in ringlets and wearing a long dress and holding a parasol, looked grave. "That's Sera!" she said, pointing. "You have a picture of her!" She gave him a questioning look. "But why?"

"So where's Lucy?" Elijah asked when Selina came in the door. "I thought you were going to come back with her."

"Well as it turns out," Selina said, putting her arms around Elijah's neck, "Helene has been thinking a lot about kids lately and it made Adrian nervous, which is why he went out drinking and then he and Helene got married. Anway, I suggested the two of them borrow Lucy for the weekend, to test the parental waters as it were. Lucy didn't seem to mind. She and Rusty are close now, apparently."

Elijah's eyebrow went up. "So you and I are going to be alone all weekend?"

Selina grinned. "We can be as irresponsible as we wanna be."

"But what about Alistair?" Elijah asked. "We have to be mindful of Alistair."

"What about me?" Alistair asked, coming up behind them.

"Selina was suggesting that since Lucy is staying with Helene and Adrian, she and I should take advantage of it," Elijah said. "But of course we don't want to do anything that would make you uncomfortable."

Alistair shrugged. "This is your house, isn't it?" He asked. "Besides, after living with her and Klaus for as long as I did, nothing makes me uncomfortable."

Selina flushed a little. "Well, nice I could help with that," she said and darted away.

"Don't worry," Alistair said to Elijah. "I had plans with friends of mine this weekend so I was going to be gone anyway. Would you tell Selina that?"

Elijah nodded. "Of course."

Alistair headed out and Elijah headed to his and Selina's room. "Looks like we have the house to ourselves for the weekend," he said. "Alistair has found entertainment elsewhere. So, what would you like to do first?"

Selina looked up. "You're kidding me, right?"

He grinned and sat next to her. "What was I thinking?"

"Actually, I wondered if we might do something a little different first," she said, laying her head on his shoulder. "Like, I know how I always go on and on about how I hate Italian opera, but maybe if you and I watched one together, it wouldn't be so bad. And maybe get dinner afterwards?"

"I don't even think I could compel us opera seats at the last minute," Elijah said.

"Oh, I bet you could," Selina said. "It's not that popular." She paused. "I mean, we wouldn't even need to actually go to the opera. There's also the rental store. And you could pick the opera. I wouldn't know any from any other."

They left for the rental store and came back with La Traviata a short while later. By the end of act one, however, Selina was nearly in tears.

"How stupid are you, Violetta? I mean really?" She shouted at the screen. "You have a perfectly sweet, lovely man who loves you and you just toss him aside like trash because you need your freedom What is your problem?" She got up and began hitting the television and then when Elijah finally got her to stop, she turned to face him. "I need to eat something," she said. She went into the kitchen and returned with a carton of vanilla ice cream, a bottle of chocolate syrup and a spoon. She put the ice cream in her lap, squirted a bunch of chocolate syrup into it and then began eating it at an astonishing pace. After the ice cream was gone, she moved on to cookies, then a king-sized candy bar, and as the end credits rolled, she had to go bury herself under her covers.

"I'm sorry," Elijah said to her. "I wouldn't have had you watch it if I'd known you'd react so badly."

Selina looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "It's just such a stupid story," she said, holding her arms out. He held her and stroked her hair. She sniffled. "Doesn't the idiot that wrote it know that love is supposed to fix everything?" She asked. "When somebody tells you they love you, you don't just throw them away! What good are money and social standing if you end up all alone or with somebody who doesn't appreciate you? Violetta and Alfredo should have just said 'screw you' to Alfredo's father and lived happily ever after. That's how it should have ended."

"Well, not everything can be happily ever after," Elijah said. "The world doesn't work that way."

"It could if people thought that it could," she said. Then she sobered and wiped the tears out of her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know you don't like having to listen to all my perky rambling."

"No!" he said. "I like your perky rambling. It's very refreshing."

Selina leaned her head against Elijah's shoulder and took a deep breath. "You know, you smell really good," she said.

He grinned. "Well, Miss Stinson, I certainly didn't wear the cologne I'm wearing in the hopes it would get your attention and then we'd have a romantic encounter that would take up our whole night."

"You didn't?" Selina said. She got off the bed and removed her skirt and blouse, ending up only in her black bra and panties. Then, she got on the bed and pushed him back against it, climbed on top of him, unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it off and ran her fingers lightly over his stomach. "Well, I certainly didn't wear this underwear in the hope that we would have a romantic encounter that would last all night either." She kissed him and unzipped him, then giggled as she felt him slip off her panties. They rolled around for a little while and then were interrupted by a knock on the bedroom door.

"Just a minute, Alistair!" Selina called.

"It's not Alistair!" Roxie called back. "It's me! Can I come in?"

Selina and Elijah got out of bed and quickly covered themselves up before Selina went to answer the door. "Roxanne, what are you doing here?"

"Dad told me about Mary Anne and I'm curious," Roxie said, striding into the room. "I'd like to know about the one person in the world you were more mean to then me."

"That's not truly why you cam over here, is it?" Selina asked. "Your father sent you to spy on us, didn't he?"

Roxie shook her head. "No. No, he didn't. But while we're on the subject, why don't you like him anymore? He's perfectly nice."

"We've been over this and over this," Selina said. "We just don't click anymore because I'm no longer a psycho! I mean, if you were with a guy who did sleep with you, but had no respect for you whatsoever, would you stay with him or let him go? And this is pretending you aren't with Vince."

"Of course I wouldn't stay with a guy who had no respect for me!" Roxie said. "I deserve better than that!"

Selina nodded. "And so do I. I mean, it's not that my attraction to your father is completely gone, but I've learned that there are more important things in a relationship than just sex. There's also mutual respect and sharing common interests and...stuff like that. Like what you've got with Vince. Elijah is kind of like my Vince."

"Ah." Roxie said. "Now I kind of get it." She sighed. "Well, I suppose I better be on my way. I have someone moving in with me tonight and I want to get a new apartment before she shows up."

"Yes?" A young man with spiky bright red hair and a stud in his eyebrow gave Roxie an appraising look when he opened the door to his penthouse. "What can I do for you?"

"Listen, Mr. Penthouse," Roxie said. "You're going to have to move out. I want this space. Mine is a bit small."

"Look," he smirked. "If you want to be one of my groupies, you don't have to come up here under the guise of wanting to take the apartment from me." He boldly looked her up and down. "You're hot enough, I guess. Come on in."

Roxie's eyes narrowed. "You're a real ass, you know that?"

He laughed. "That's what all the papers say. Torch Barrows, rock star. I just released my fourth album. What's your name, Gorgeous?"

Roxie gasped as she felt his hand on her butt. She grabbed it and snapped his wrist. He screamed.

"It's none of your damn business what my name is," she said. "Now, I didn't come here so you could feed me a bunch of bullshit about being one of your vapid, shallow, bubble-brained groupies, all right? I came here because I want this apartment, and you are going to give it to me!"

Torch was clearly in horrible pain and trying not to show it. He gave her a watery smile. "What will you do to me if I don't?" He asked her.

"Let me show you," she said. She began herding him toward a large window, then she grabbed a sculpture and smashed the glass, shoving Torch out the window, laughing as he screamed all the way down and hit the ground with a bone-smacking thud. Once it was all over, Torch was laid out on the sidewalk below, his neck, arms and legs each at a grotesque angle. Roxie nodded with satisfaction and went to call the police and tell them about Torch's unfortunate suicide. Then, she went down to see the landlord and get a new set of keys for the penthouse.

"How exactly did you get the penthouse?" Klaus asked as he entered the front room holding a box that contained Roxie's bed covers.

"I just used a little persuasion," Roxie said. "That's all. Listen, I saw Mom today and she says there's a part of her that's still attracted to you."

"Of course there is," Klaus said. "It's just werewolf biology." He got out the blankets and they began making the bed. Just then, the doorbell rang. "There's my new roommate," Roxie said. "Are you going to be okay in here?"

"Sure," Klaus nodded. "Go ahead and get the door."

Roxie opened the door and saw Agnes and her parents on the other side. "Are you the girl who invited Agnes to live with her?" Agnes' mother asked.

Roxie nodded. "Yes. Roxie Mikaelson. Nice to meet you. Come in. You don't have to stand out there all night."

They came and sat on the sofa. "Now," Roxie said, "each one of us will have our own room and the only people who will visit are my friends and Agnes knows all of them cause they go to our school. And this is a very safe building, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about in regards to your daughter's well-being. She'll be safe here with me."

"Roxanne, I've finished making up the bed!" Klaus' voice drifted into the living room quite suddenly.

"Who is that?" Agnes' mother asked. Just then, Klaus came in. "Oh, hello," he said. "You must be Roxanne's roommate. I'm-"

"He's just a friend," Roxie said. "He doesn't live here. Goodbye, friend." She pushed Klaus into the hallway and told him goodbye.

"Does he visit often?" Agnes' father asked.

"No," Roxie shook her head. "No, he doesn't. Any more questions?"

"No," Agnes' parents stood up, kissed Agnes goodbye, and then left. Once they were gone, Agnes gave her a wink. "Who is that guy, really? Your 'friend'? You can tell me. I think he's cute."