It's done then, she thought. It's done. Done and over. It's over. It's really over. These thoughts played over and over in her head, drowning out any thoughts of anything else.

For the past three days, these thoughts were clouding her mind any time she wasn't asleep. She had taken up residence in the guest room at Margaret's house, and was so far making good use of it by sleeping for almost twenty hours a day. Any time she would wake up, she would flip on the TV, put on something insipid, and then be asleep once again within twenty minutes. Margaret would come in every hour or so to check on her, but would always find her sister out cold.

Margaret had begun to worry about Cami's increasingly catatonic state, but when she consulted her wife Katherine, she was told that this was normal. "Think of what she's been through," Katherine said, holding Margaret close and smoothing her hair. "She's been depressed for months, unable to express herself properly, feeling trapped in her own life. And in a moment of desperation, she acted out— she cheated, she quit her job, she had to move out of her apartment. Her life is totally upended."

Margaret looked at her wife skeptically, still not convinced that Cami was coping about as well as could be expected. "Let's let her rest," Katherine said. "Let her rest for a while, she's exhausted. In a few days, she'll start improving. Then we can start talking about getting her help and treatment." Katherine kissed the top of her head. "Let's go make dinner."

They began cooking, both knowing quite well that Cami would probably not have any, despite it being her favorite meal of polenta with cheese and vegetables. When the food was ready, Katherine went upstairs, walking to the guest room. Cami, as usual, was asleep. Katherine smoothed her hand over Cami's hair gently before resting her hand on Cami's shoulder, shaking her lightly.

"Camille?"

Cami made no indication that she had heard, or that she was awake. "Camille? It's time for dinner. Are you hungry? Do you think you could eat something?"

After a few seconds, Cami stirred, but it was only to roll over and turn her back to Katherine. Katherine put her hands on Cami's shoulders again and pulled her over to the side of the bed as gently as she could. Margaret had come up the stairs to check on her wife, and her sister, only to see that the progress was slow going.

"Help me get her up," Katherine said.

"If she doesn't want to go, we shouldn't make her," Margaret said.

Katherine looked sternly at her wife. "She hasn't eaten in three days. She hasn't gotten out of bed except to go to the bathroom in three days."

She turned her attention now to Cami, speaking loudly. "Cami, if you just have a couple bites to eat, we'll let you go back to sleep. I'll even bring your plate up here," she said. "Do you think you can do that? I really want you to eat something. We're both worried that you won't eat something, and we want you to eat because we love you."

"Don't patronize her, she knows we love her," Margaret hissed.

"I know she knows that, but people with depression often have delusional thinking that tells them the people who care about them don't really care, and only see them as a burden."

The two women bickered as they went down the stairs. "So you don't need to be so heavy-handed when you're trying to validate her and reassure her that we care," Margaret said. "That's all I'm saying."

"I'm just trying to help. She's my family too, you know. It's painful to see her like this. I'm trying to help, I don't know what else to do."

"There's not much else to do but just keep letting her know we're here for her."

"And is that not what I was just doing?" Katherine said as they walked into the kitchen. She scooped a small amount of the polenta into a bowl, taking a napkin with her as she headed back up the stairs, her wife following her.

"I'm just trying to say that if you're going to be so heavy-handed about it, she might see it as disingenuous and start to resent us."

"You're being paranoid," Katherine said. Halfway up the staircase, she stopped short and turned around, Margaret bumping into her. "Let's just try to be a team about this. Let's keep showing her love and support—in whatever way we see fit. She needs us right now, we're her family, and she needs help. Okay?"

"Okay," Margaret agreed, brushing the hair out of Katherine's face. She stretched on her tiptoes to kiss Katherine before smiling. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make such a big deal of it. I'm just…stressed."

"We both are, sweetheart. It's going to be hard for a little while. But we've got to be there for her, and we're going to make sure she gets better. That's what family is for," Katherine said.

They both continued up the stairs into the guest room, where Katherine sat on the far edge of the bed, Margaret standing over her shoulder. "Cami, I brought your favorite," she said. "It's polenta. Can you sit up? You only have to eat a few bites."

Cami's eyes fluttered open, and she gave her sister-in-law the first clear-eyed stare she'd given in days. All the other times she'd looked at Katherine or Margaret, it had been through a haze where it seemed like she didn't know them.

"Can you sit up?" Katherine said again. Cami made no move to sit up, no nod or indication that she would be able to do as she was asked. After a few seconds, Katherine scooped a small amount of the mush-like food onto a spoon, bringing it close to Cami's mouth.

Cami's first thought was that she wasn't hungry. Then she thought of how pathetic she must be, she couldn't even feed herself. Nevertheless, she opened her mouth to accept the small bite of food, willing herself to swallow. She fought the immediate urge to gag, to be rid of the food, but she concentrated hard on keeping it down.

She mumbled something barely audible, and was surprised to find her voice hoarse from disuse and lack of water. Trying to remember when she'd last had any water to drink, she recalled that her sister had left a glass of water for her to drink yesterday on the nightstand. It sat untouched in the same place that Margaret had left it for her, and she picked up the full glass and took a long drink.

"What did you say?" Katherine said, the spoon poised with another bite of polenta to feed to Cami. "It tastes like ash?"

Cami coughed as she swallowed another gulp of water. "No, I said it tastes like a**."

Katherine laughed in spite of herself, but Margaret scowled. "You know, we spent a long time cooking this specially for you," she said.

Her wife elbowed her in the ribs. "Don't make her feel bad," Katherine said. "She made a funny joke."

Katherine moved the spoon closer to Cami's mouth as she sat up properly in bed to make it easier for the food and water to go down. As the spoon got close enough for Cami to eat the waiting food, she grimaced. "Do I have to?" she said quietly.

"Just three more bites after this one, please," Katherine said. "You haven't eaten in over three days. Just a little more, please. And then you can go back to sleep."

Cami reluctantly took another spoonful of the polenta. "See, that's not so bad," Katherine said.

"Would you feel up to doing something later? Maybe we could go for a walk around the block in the evening?" Margaret said. Her wife shot her a withering look that said Don't push things, she's already accomplishing enough just by eating.

"No, I'm not…I'm not…" Cami struggled to find the words. It was as if all the words she had in her mind, her entire vocabulary was stuck behind a locked door, and she didn't have access to the key. The words just wouldn't come to her.

"It's okay," Katherine said, filling in for her. "You're probably not feeling up to it."

Cami nodded her head in agreement as Katherine prompted her with another bite of food. Only two more after this bite, and then they will leave me alone.

But even those last two bites were torturous to her. Her stomach was turning against her quickly, roiling, threatening to expel the minuscule amount of food it had just been given. And then the guilt made her feel even more ill, the guilt from feeling like she was such a burden to her family. They literally were spoon feeding her like a baby, and she couldn't even muster five bites. She was so ungrateful, such a pathetic excuse for a human, she felt so disgusting.

Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over easily.

"Camille?" Margaret said.

And before she knew it, before she could explain herself, she was sobbing uncontrollably. Both Margaret and Katherine looked extremely alarmed, startled at this sudden outburst, but Cami was too choked up to say anything. She didn't know how to explain how overwhelmed she felt, how lost was, how she felt like her own body and mind had turned against her and that she wasn't sure if she could ever undo that. It hit her that if she couldn't ever fix this and how she was feeling, that she would be a burden to her sister and Katherine forever, and that made her cry even harder.

"Oh, Cami," they both said in hushed tones, Margaret climbing onto the bed with them so she and Katherine could both hold Cami. They clutched her to them as she cried. They allowed to let it all out, to cry and cry until the sobs dissipated into a quiet weeping, and then into an occasional sniffle and wayward tear.

Cami felt hollowed out now, as if someone had taken a spoon and scooped out everything inside, leaving a vast nothingness. She wasn't sure if she preferred this numbness to the constant swirl of emotions that had previously overwhelmed her. Because when she was devoid of feelings like this, she felt even less human, even more of an alien in this environment. It frightened her to feel so numb.

Her sister smoothed Cami's hair out of her face, taking a tissue and dabbing away some of the tear tracks that had stained Cami's face. "What can we do, Cami? Is there anything we can do to help?" she said, knowing full well that Cami might say that there was nothing Margaret or Katherine could do.

"I…" Cami said, her voice feeling foreign as the words left her mouth. "I want to take a bath."

In the tub, Cami had the desperate urge to smoke a cigarette. She wasn't a smoker, never had been except for a few times in college when she had been extremely drunk. But something about being in the bathtub, almost in complete darkness except for a few candles lit around the rim, made a craving stir within her. It just fit the scene, she felt. And besides, with how she'd been feeling lately, with everything that had been going on, she had the compulsion to do something self destructive. But then she remembered the other night at the country club, the same compulsion brewing within her, and the perfectly willing stranger— Klaus Mikaelson— who had helped her commit a self destructive deed, and she was reminded that considering that that impulse was part of what got her into such a mess, it was probably best to not act on every impulsive thought that entered her head.

She had been in the bathtub for at least two and a half hours, had been in there for so long that Katherine had knocked on the door to check on her three times. "Cami, you still doing okay in there?" she had said.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Cami had said each time.

"Do you need anything?"

"No. Thanks," she had added hastily.

After she had been crying so hard in the guest room, an idea had come to her. She wanted to be clean. She wanted to be clean more than anything. She wanted to scrub away her sins, soak away her problems, sit in a body of water for so long that she just might dissolve into a million little particles and float away. So when her sister asked if there was anything they could do to help her, she told them what she needed.

It had been difficult for her to get up, she was so weak from lack of food and water, and her legs shook with the effort. Margaret had draped Cami's arm over her shoulder for support, while Katherine walked on Cami's other side with her arm hooked through hers. Together, they had slowly made their way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, pausing every few steps to give Cami a rest.

By the time they had gotten to the bathroom, Cami was already exhausted and had half a mind to turn around and go back to bed. But, she had reasoned, there would be plenty of time to rest once she got in the warm water. Her sister and Katherine were going to let her use their bathtub in the master bath because it was bigger and had jacuzzi jets if she wanted. Cami really wouldn't have minded using the guest bathroom, but she felt she would seem ungrateful if she were to refuse the offer of their bathroom.

Once they had arrived in the master bath, Katherine and Margaret had nodded at each other conspiratorially, and then Katherine had left, leaving Cami alone with her sister. Margaret had looked Cami over, and Cami was sure that she looked absolutely terrible. She had been sure that Margaret was pleased that at least Cami would be bathing, because she was sure she didn't smell particularly nice.

"Alright, sister, here's the deal," Margaret had said, and Cami had looked up at her expectantly. She had sat Cami down on the edge of the tub so that Cami didn't waste any extra energy that she didn't have by standing. "I bet you're going to need some help undressing, so it's best if you don't put up a fuss about it so we can just get that over with, get you in the tub, and then you can have some alone time. Deal?"

Cami hadn't particularly wanted to have help undressing herself, but she also hadn't been able to deny that she needed it. So she had just nodded, agreeing at the very least that when it came to her sister, it really was best if Cami didn't put up a fuss and just went along with it.

Margaret had undressed her quickly and efficiently, helping Cami carefully step into the bathtub as she turned on the warm water tap. Picking up a glass jar from the vanity counter, Margaret had brought it over to Cami. "This is bubble bath, and it smells amazing," she had said. She had gotten the feeling that Cami was appreciative, but also wanted Margaret to leave. "Alright, I'll leave you to it, then. Shout if you need anything, but we'll also be by to check on you in a little bit. Is it…is it okay if we keep the door unlocked in case…in case there's an emergency?" Margaret had asked, and it had seemed as if there was a lump in her throat as she said the last word.

Cami had simply nodded, understanding what her sister meant. She was scaring her sister, she knew, but she didn't know how to explain that she would be alright even though overall everything was going wrong.

Margaret has scooped up Cami's dirty clothes to be added to the laundry to be done that night, and had left her in peace.

Cami found herself there now, two and a half hours later, her skin now profoundly wrinkled and pruny. The candles and bubble bath had filled her nostrils with beautiful scents, and she felt like she could just stay here in the warm water for forever. If she closed her eyes and lost herself for a minute, she could imagine herself as a mermaid, and she let herself get carried away with the fantasy.

She pictured herself in the sea, the adventures she could go on, the freedom she could feel. Mermaids didn't have douchebag bosses, or unrealistic deadlines; mermaids didn't even have jobs in the first place. They could go wherever they wanted, do whatever they pleased, no responsibilities to hold them down.

Off in the distance of this dream vision, she saw another mer-figure, and as she swam closer, she realized it was a merman. In the murky, dark water, it was hard to make out his features. It wasn't until she was only a few feet away from him, and he was taking her into his arms and kissing her that she realized with a start that it was the man from the other night. Klaus Mikaelson.

Cami gasped loudly, sitting up so violently that water sloshed over the side of the tub and onto the tile floor.

"Cami?" Katherine called from where she'd been sitting in her bedroom watching TV. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yes," she said. "I think I'm ready to get out now. I need some help."

"Okay," Katherine said. "Is it alright if I come help you, or do you want Margaret?"

"It doesn't matter," Cami said, her voice shaking. She just needed to get out of there, to get dried off and hopefully go right to sleep so that she wouldn't have to be awake and thinking anymore. The vision had frightened her; she didn't want to think about Klaus Mikaelson and all that she had ruined with her tryst with him.

Katherine came in a few seconds later with a warm, fluffy towel. She helped Cami stand, wrapping the towel around her. She took a smaller towel off the vanity counter and wrapped Cami's hair in it, wringing out the extra water. "Sit tight, I'll get some clothes for you," Katherine said as she sat her sister-in-law down on the edge of the tub. A few seconds later, she was back with a pile of clean pajamas, helping Cami step into each garment carefully.

Getting Cami back to the guest room was an easier affair than getting her to the bathroom had been. Cami felt recharged, if only very slightly, from the bath and from the small amount of food that she'd eaten, and it made her legs less wobbly. Once back in the guest room, Margaret joined her wife as they tucked Cami into bed, both placing a kiss on her cheek. "We'll see you in the morning," Katherine said. "Just shout if you need anything, any time. Don't worry about waking us. Just let us know, okay?"

Cami nodded weakly, hoping that once they left, she would be able to fall asleep soon. Sure enough she did. But her dreams were much the same as the fantasy visions she had concocted in the bathtub. She was once again a mermaid, free and wild, almost happy. But over and over again, no matter where she went, the dream looped infinitely, always ending with her falling into the arms of Klaus Mikaelson.