A.N.- Season 2 is incredible so far! Sorry, I just had to get that out. Anyway, if anyone has any questions or suggestions then please include them in a review or PM. Thanks!

Another week had passed as Belle continued to dive deeper and deeper into her search. She had tortured three other vampires and was on her way to find the next.

Word of her mission had spread like wildfire throughout the Quarter and as a result, it seemed like everyone was avoiding her, fearing her infamous wrath. She hated it. Unlike Klaus, Belle didn't want others to be afraid her, to quake with fear at the sound of her name. It made her feel even more isolated than she already did.

Coping with loneliness wasn't one of her strengths. She had half a mind to call Klaus and apologize, but she knew better. She kept telling herself that she wasn't the one with something to apologize for.

She reminded herself that technically she hadn't really lied to Klaus, just withheld the whole truth. Yet, no matter how many times she told this to herself, she didn't believe a word of it.

Though she didn't consider what she had done to be lying, she knew that Klaus did. And that thought left her with a pit in her stomach and an ache in her heart that she couldn't get rid of.

She hated herself for hurting him. And she hated him for hurting her. It was just an endless cycle of hatred and furry, like a game of tug-of-war that was evenly matched on both sides. It left her feeling empty and exhausted.

As she strode down the darkened streets, she was struck with a familiar memory - one she had dreaded for centuries.

Klaus hadn't always been opposed to her revenge fantasy. In fact, he had once encouraged it. But that changed after one particularly horrific night.

1635

Covered in her own blood, Belle stumbled through the door, screaming for Klaus as she choked back blood. She was hunched over, unable to stand up straight, with one hand covering the wound in her chest and the other on the wall as she tried to keep her balance.

He rushed into the room and looked at her with wide eyes. "Belle!" He rushed over to her side as she stumbled and nearly fell to the floor. "What happened? Who did this?" He swept her into his arms and carried her over to a nearby table, gently lying her fragile body on the hard mahogany.

She coughed violently, spewing a few dribbles of blood onto her already ruined dress. "I was searching for Charlotte. I found one her friends in a town not far from here," she paused as she struggled to catch her breath. "But she, she tried to stake me. I pulled it out, but a few pieces of it are still inside me. I can feel them scraping against my heart." Tears fell from her eyes and slipped down into her hair as she cried out in pain.

He nodded sternly, motivated by anger and fear. "Try not to move." He began carefully trying to remove the splinters as best he could without causing her too much discomfort.

Through the agony, she saw in his eyes that he was terrified. The fear only seemed to grow with each scream that escaped her lips. She hated upsetting him, so she clenched her jaw tightly and tried to stay quiet. If she hadn't been in immense pain, she would have laughed. Even on the brink of death, she was still selfless. Especially when it came to him. It had been a habit from her human years that she had never managed to break.

It took him almost an hour to pluck the splinters out of her. She gasped as the last one, the one that had been closest to puncturing her heart, was out. She took a few deep breaths as she body healed itself.

"Are you alright?" He reached over and moved a curl away from her face.

She nodded weakly, forcing a small smile to put his mind at ease. "Yes. Thank you, Nik."

She expected him to smile back at her, or show some kind of relief, but instead she saw anger. A white hot furry burned in his eyes. "I'll kill her myself and anyone who attempts to aid her." She could tell from the way her spoke that he was about to start making more threats and plotting an elaborate revenge scheme.

"Nik, please." She gathered her strength as she forced herself off the table to go stand by his side. She put a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't your fight."

He shook her hand off and turned to look into her eyes. "You nearly died not an hour ago. Haven't I the right to be angry? To defend you, my closest friend? Would you not do the same for your family?"

"Yes, of course, but we are not family," she said.

He took a step closer to her, taking her hand. "I believe we are. Family is much more than simply those with whom we share blood. Don't you agree?"

She struggled to wrap her mind around his words. Family? He considered her to be family? The word sent a shock throughout her entire body. That was the last thing she wanted to be in his eyes.

Deep down in the darkest pit of her heart she knew how she truly felt about him, but she was too afraid to say it out loud.

So, she simply nodded and painted a small smile on her face. "Yes," She paused. "But, that doesn't mean you should fight my battles for me."

He flinched, seeming offended by her words. His ego was more fragile than the most precious tea set. "Who would you expect to fight them for you when you are clearly incapable of doing so yourself? You want her dead and I can do it for you. It'll take me no time at all."

She clenched her teeth. If he hadn't just saved her life, she would have punched him square in the jaw. "How dare you. Do you think of me as a child? I am not! This is my revenge and I will seek it alone."

He stepped closer, grasping her carefully by the arm. "You misunderstand me. I do not believe you are a child, I simply want to help you and keep you out of harm's way. You are my friend, Belle." His eyes softened. "You are my family."

She shook her head firmly. "No, I refuse to give up," she insisted with blatant determination.

"No, you won't. You'll die."

The fear she had seen earlier in his eyes had returned. She had only seen that look a handful of times in her centuries with him - all of which were when someone threatened to leave him, whether it was a sibling or a friend. It broke her to see him that way. Despite every instinct, every nerve in her body, she gave in. For him.

She looked up at him with tears brimming and cascading down her face, and nodded solemnly.

Present

She had struggled for years to avoid it, to keep her promise to Klaus. But she couldn't.

There are some people who need something to do, something to give their life a sense of purpose. Belle was, without a doubt, one of those people. Revenge had become a bigger part of her life than she had originally intended. She knew that. And that knowledge absolutely terrified her.

She snapped back to reality when she caught sight of the vampire she had been looking for, a former friend of hers from the '80s. Well, friend was a very strong word. Her name was Skylar and, as Belle had recently learned, she happened to be on of Charlotte's favorite pets.

Before she could follow Skylar, the last person she wanted to see stood in her path. "Get out of my way, Niklaus."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "And why should I do that? Do you have somewhere to be?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's none of your business what I'm doing or where I'm going, so back off. Got it?" She grew more annoyed by the millisecond.

"I know you're still on your little mission of vengeance and all, but I'd prefer that, if you're determined to get yourself killed, you do it somewhere else. The last thing I want is for the vampires of my city to fear for their safety within the walls of their own homes." His casual façade made her want to tear out her own hair and choke him with it.

"Get away from me," she growled, resisting the urge to slap the antagonizing grin off his face.

He took a step closer, which only made her angrier. "And why should I do that?"

"Because I don't want to see you. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to be anywhere near you!"

"Then why don't you leave? No one's stopping you."

"Trust me, as soon as my work is finished here, I'm gone. For good."

"Fine by me."

His words cut through her like knives. Despite what she said, she didn't want to leave. She loved New Orleans. The best years of her life were there. Klaus had been the reason she had come there three-hundred years before, and now he would be the reason she would leave.

So many things needed to be said in that moment, but all she said was, "Go fuck yourself," before storming off after Skylar's bleached blond pixie-cut in the distance.

She ignored that pesky voices in her head that shouted "go back" and focused on the task at hand. The sooner she found and killed Charlotte, the sooner she could leave behind her old life. Maybe she'd give herself a new name. Dye her hair. Move to a foreign country, never to be heard from again. That sounded nice.

She cornered Skylar in an alley, snapped her neck, and brought her to an abandoned building a block down the road. It had become such a routine thing for her that she didn't even have to put much thought into it.

This time, she had to put more effort into getting the answers she so desperately wanted.

"You know, you used to be fun back in the day. What happened to you?" Skylar groaned in pain as Belle twisted the blade that was jammed into her femoral artery.

Belle laughed. "This is fun, don't you think?" she said before yanking the blade out of Skylar's leg, who yelped in pain. "Well, I guess it's just fun for me." She put the blade down on the floor before returned her attention to the latest fly she had tangled in her web. "All this fun can end if you just tell me where to find Charlotte. Come on, be smarter than everyone else. Take the easy way out."

Skylar shook her head. "No, no I can't. She'll kill me. I can't do it." A idea seemed to spark in her eyes. "But I know someone who will. He's a new kid, Charlotte just met him. He'll crack like an Easter egg. I swear."

Belle contemplated her suggestion for a second or two, before answering. "And who might this gullible little sap be?"

"His name is Josh. Josh Rosza." She pulled against her restraints. "Now please let me go."

She scoffed on disbelief. "Josh? Baby vampire. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Gay as a daisy in May. That Josh? Really?"

Skylar nodded as though her life depended on it, which it did, in a way. "Yes. Now let me go."

Reluctantly, Belle unlocked the locks to the chains that bound her and let her go.

She stared out into the darkness that poured into the dim room after Skylar fled. She knew what she had to do. It was the last piece of the puzzle she had been trying to solve for nine-hundred years.

She just prayed that Josh was really as easy to crack as she hoped. It'd be a shame to have to torture her little brother's new boyfriend. She really wanted them to stay together. At least one of them deserved to have a lasting relationship before they were a thousand. God knows it wouldn't be her.