A/N: Have I watched the last season? No. I'm going to binge it when it comes out on Netflix. All I want from this season is for Dracula's backstory to be blatantly based off of Carmilla instead of actual Dracula, for Julius and Sarah to survive, and for Ivory and Jack to get to ride off into the sunset together. Don't ruin this for me, Syfy.

I was actually about 60% done with a chapter involving Phil and Lucky later in season 2, but I decided that I wanted to do this fic chronologically, so I didn't want to miss the chance to do something with the Johnsons. This chapter got away from me a little bit, so I'm splitting it into two. The second half will be out fairly soon.

Then did the little Maid reply,

"Seven boys and girls are we;

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

Beneath the church-yard tree."

We Are Seven, Williams Wordsworth

Chapter 3: The Johnsons, Part 1

Fiona's mother had schooled her in magic using a technique she'd called "slapstick discipline". She would perform simple spells- hovering a pebble in the air, or creating a flame from nothing- and her mother would strike her forearms with a cane pole. When Fiona could maintain concentration on a spell for ten hits in a row, she graduated to maintaining concentration on two spells at once. They had even attempted three, but to split the mind in three ways and maintain concentration on each in those circumstances was beyond even her mother's capabilities, so when Fiona could hold the three for five hits, her mother relented.

Even at the time, Fiona knew that that was a harsh, vindictive method. Her mother did as well; Fiona saw, more in retrospect than the moment, how it weighed on her. But she was raising a daughter in harsh times and training a magician for even worse, and did what she felt she had to do to forge Fiona into something that could survive the lives they led.

Fiona had never used the method when teaching Cormac- could never bring herself to- but she understood the necessity of it. That didn't mean she forgave it, but when she was with the Johnsons, she could sympathize with the grief that a parent must feel to have to tarnish a childhood to save the child.

On this day, as she always did, she sent Devon ahead of her to greet the family; the second time she had come to their camp, she had avoided setting off the rudimentary perimeter alarms, and they had shot at her on instinct when she quietly appeared amongst them. Devon served as a convenient way to warn them that she was near, so that they could at least temporarily be more careful about identifying humanoids before they shot at them.

The squeals and sounds of delight went up from the woods ahead of her, and a ghost of a smile crossed her face. When she stepped into camp, her familiar was playing with the younger children, fluttering after them as they scattered before him.

"Devon, come get your tips on before you scratch someone." She called, swinging her backpack from her shoulders. After the first few times watching him play with the children, she had spent a sleepless night in the Johnson camp carving old corks down to tightly fit the end of his talons. The raven made an aggravated rumbling sound as he landed on the ground next to her, hopping impatiently in place. "Hold still, dummy."

"Stupid." The raven shot back, a deeper mimicry of Aisling's Dublin accent.

"Shut up." She muttered as she slid the corks onto the tips of his talons. "Or next time I'll carve one to go on your beak."

"Shut up." The raven returned, and shot back to the children, who waved briefly at Fiona before fleeing, laughing with delight.

"Fiona!" Chad called happily, strolling over from the cooking fire. "Good to see you again."

He pulled her into a side-hug, and she patted his back companionably.

"You're looking good, mate. Everybody doing okay?"

"As good as we can."

"Fair enough. Where's Mike?"

"He took Troy hunting. Hey, got anything good for us?"

"Com'on, you have to ask? I stopped by one of my safe houses on the way. Even have some chocolate for ya'."

"Ssshh!" Chad immediately interjected, looking around dramatically. "They'll stampede us both if they hear the C-word."

The Celt laughed at that. "Right, right. What about you guys? Find me anything interesting?"

"Well, don't know if it's anything good, but we have some things for you to look over."

"Good enough for me." Chad began to lead her towards the entrance to their bunker, and Fiona swung her pack over one shoulder and followed along. She waved to the kids as she went, fist-bumped Ethan as she passed, and made it all the way to the bunker entrance before a small body collided with her thighs, staggering her as small arms wrapped around her waist.

"Fiona!" Tabitha squealed, breathless but delighted, Devon swooping towards them both, "Save me!"

The Celt laughed out loud and looked up to Devon, who was already pulling out of his dive to flap around her at head-height.

"Back, fowl beast!" She called dramatically, waving her arms at him threateningly and laughing at her own pun. He croaked and dived in, nipping her finger and darting back out of range. "Ow! Dick! That hurt."

"Hold still dummy." The raven mimicked, this time with Fiona's more Ulster accent. Tabby burst out laughing at the retort.

"Stop showing off for the kids." She grumbled as the raven lazily glided away. He was rarely this talkative around adults, but soaked up the wonder and attention of children. Then Fiona looked down to the girl wrapped around her legs and grinned. "Nice to see you again, lass. What've you been up to?"

"We found some mushrooms for you!"

"Wonderful! Were there any you can name?"

"There was porcini, and hawk's wing, and Ryan found some chanterelle."

"Good job! Hawk's wing is criminally underrated in my opinion. If I'll remember, I'll have to bring you all some of the beefy mushroom soup we make with it."

They descended into the underground bunker where the family slept; Fiona paused at the bottom and turned back to the ladder, arms held out, and Tabby leapt to her from the top with a delighted laugh. The Celt caught her, spun around once, and deposited the giggling girl onto the floor.

Chad, meanwhile, had pulled a small box of items from under one of the bunk beds and was methodically laying items out on the floor. In a familiar ritual of theirs, Fiona settled cross-legged on the ground across from him, swung her pack from her shoulders, and began laying things out of it as well. Tabby quickly grew bored and headed back up the ladder. Fiona glanced over her shoulder to assure herself that the girl was gone, and then added a box of condoms and a jar of coconut oil to the pile of goods.

Chad shot her a bemused smile. "Still on about the coconut oil, huh?"

"It's better than any modern lube, and I'll happily die on that hill."

"It's alright." He said with a shrug.

"Well, if you don't want it-"

"I didn't say that."

She huffed a laugh. "'Course not. What mushrooms do you have for me?"

Chad deposited two bunches of mushrooms in front of her, each tied together with a small length of twine. "Left we identified, right we're not sure about."

Fiona spent the next few minutes dividing the mushrooms into several smaller piles. "No one ate any of these, did they?" She asked, holding one of the unknowns up.

"No. Poisonous?"

"Aye. Psychedelic in small amounts, but nothing you all should be messing with." She added it to one of her piles. "But if you find any more, I'd be happy to have them."

"You getting into recreational drugs these days?" Chad jested.

"Please, I've been in the recreational drug business for years. I don't touch uppers, though."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's where you draw the line, huh?"

She shrugged. "I just don't sleep enough to be taking anything that might keep me up. I don't judge the hard stuff, though. Everyone was on laudanum back in the day. And I was in love with a man once who enjoyed a bit of opium from time to time. Helped him calm down after gunfights.

"Gunfights? He a cop or something?"

"Crime lord."

"You know I can't tell if you're joking, right?"

She grinned devilishly. "And you never will."

He snorted a small laugh. "I suppose I'll live. Hey, you think those mushrooms are a fair trade for the chocolate?"

"The chocolate's not in the pot, it's for the kids. But I'll trade you twenty rounds of ammo for the mushrooms and the wild mustard."

In a familiar routine of theirs, they spent the next few minutes bartering items back and forth. Chad certainly came out with the better of the deal, but Fiona was sure to counter his offers enough to make him feel that he'd earned it. When it was done, she began to pack everything back into her backpack; if Chad noticed that more fit into the bag than should have really been possible, he didn't mention it.

"We still have room at Elsinore if you want it." The witch offered conversationally as she packed.

"We appreciate it." The 'no' was left unsaid.

They'd had this conversation before, but this time, Fiona paused and looked up, fixing Chad with a hard, grim look.

"Things are getting dangerous, Chad. And I mean more dangerous. Infinitely more. I can't protect you out here."

"We didn't ask for you protection." Chad replied, quiet but tense.

"And I didn't ask to like you lot, but here I am." She snapped back.

"We're done talking about this, Fiona."

"Then stop talking and listen. You can't keep these kids safe, Chad.

"We're-"

"I don't care how bloody careful you think you are. I was in a castle full of armed guards when I lost a child. You're in the middle of a fucking apocalypse with some cans on a string."

"Then I'm sorry for your loss, but we are done talking about this."

"I think you missed the point of that anecdote." She grumbled, pushing herself to her feet and stalking across the room. There really was no graceful way to stomp up the rungs of a ladder, but the hatch made a satisfying bang when she slammed it.

Within seconds, Devon was diving towards her, and she held her arm out instinctually. He landed and cocked his head, chirping and rumbling at the emotion he could feel rolling off her.

"I tried. He won't listen, as usual." Devon croaked, and the sound stretched into a grated rumble. "Yeah. We'll see." A more inquisitive chirp. "I'll give it to Tabby. She's a reliable kid."

Fiona spent the bulk of the rest of the afternoon teaching the kids card games and helping with small tasks around camp. Troy and Mike returned without a deer, but had collected several rabbits from their traplines. Fiona expertly dressed them down with her dagger, and then summoned the kids around for a lesson on how to remove the skin in one complete piece; Mike and Chad, meanwhile, took the chance to slip into the bunker alone.

They had dinner, and the kids chatted animatedly with Fiona the whole time, asking this and that about history and her travels and her current life. She didn't lie, but she kept some parts purposefully vague. The whole family was delighted when she presented two whole bars of Hershey's chocolate for dessert, and Chad passed out one square to each person and hid the rest away for the days ahead.

Then the guitar came out, and the children were polite enough to let their fathers get through one song before they were asking Fiona to play. The witch had never officially learned how to play the guitar, but she could pick the strings almost like a banjo, and knew enough basic chords to combine into music. Her voice wasn't exactly beautiful, but she had the confidence and the range and precision of tone to make the performance enjoyable nonetheless. She played a few adapted songs in languages they couldn't understand, knowing that they simply enjoyed the new rhythms and sounds, and then played Dark and Stormy Night, a jaunty and humorous ballad about an entire castle conspiring to cover up the murder of a countess. By the end of the song, Tabby was falling asleep against Fiona's side, worn out by an afternoon of playing and socializing.

She smiled down at the girl. "Hey Tabby, you awake?"

"Mmhm." The girl hummed.

"Com'on, time for bed." Fiona prompted, passing the guitar back to Mike.

"Nooo!" She whined immediately, sitting up straighter and rubbing her eyes. "I wanna stay up."

"I'll sing you another song if you go to bed now." The six-year-old only frowned up at her, lower lip beginning to stick out in a pout.

"Will you tell me a story too?"

The witch grinned. "You're a tough negotiator, lass, but you've got a deal."

In what was almost becoming a routine of theirs, Fiona stood and lifted the small girl into her arms, opening the hatch to the bunker and descending the ladder with one hand.

"What story do you want to hear?" Fiona asked as she crossed to the beds and began to tuck Tabby in for the night.

"I dunno. Something I haven't heard before."

"Hmm. Have you heard the story of Medusa?"

"Nuh-uh."

So Fiona told an abbreviated and significantly less graphic version of Medusa's origin story, and ended it well before Perseus arrived. She focused on the idea that most monsters were better left alone- that, in fact, even the monster was usually happier that way. Tabby listened with rapt attention at the beginning, but by the end, she was nodding off again.

"Tabby. Hey."

"I'm awake." The girl muttered.

"I know. I have something for you." That woke her up a little, and she sat up straighter in bed.

"What is it?"

Fiona reached into a pocket inside her jacket and pulled out a round amber stone that had been tied into a loop of black paracord to make a necklace.

"Ooh. It's pretty." Tabby said, reaching for it. Fiona looped it over the girl's head; the cord was so long that the stone hung halfway down her torso. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, lass. This is a very special stone. It's called a Sending Stone. I have one too." She pulled a nearly identical stone from the same pocket to demonstrate, then dropped it back in. "If you're ever in trouble, you can use it to contact me. I'll hear it through my stone. Understand?"

"Like magic?"

Fiona grinned. "Exactly like magic. Now, all you have to do to get it to work is say this phrase into it. Repeat after me, okay?"

She spent several minutes teaching her the phrase, adjusting her pronunciation until Tabby could repeat it flawlessly.

"Very good." She praised when Tabby finally had it. "Now try it into the stone."

"It'll really work?" She raised the stone up and repeated the phrase into it, and it lit up with pale golden light. Tabby's eyes went wide. "Woah."

"I told you. Magic." Fiona pulled the twin stone from her pocket again. "Say something into it."

"Hello?" Tabby immediately said into the stone, and her voice echoed from the stone in Fiona's hand. A wide grin split her face. "That's so cool."

"Right?" Fiona said with a matching grin. "But it's not a toy, Tabitha. This is for emergencies only. Alright?"

Disappointment dampened her smile immediately. "Alright." She said sullenly. Then, "Can I tell Mike and Chad?"

"Of course." Fiona replied, because she knew they wouldn't believe her. Any time the pair had witnessed something out of the ordinary with Fiona or her equipment or her stories, they pointedly ignored it; she had no doubt they'd dismiss this as well. "Now, what song did you want to hear?"

Tabby requested The Willow Maid, and when she was still awake at its end, Fiona immediately went in to How the Tide Rushes In. She was sound asleep halfway through, and Fiona spent one minute watching her sleep, tamping down the familiar wave of warmth and pain that rose in her chest. The Celt slipped back up the ladder as quietly as was possible, and rejoined the rest of the Johnson family around the campfire.

They talked and told stories for perhaps another hour before it was declared time for the rest of the children to go to bed. Fiona bid them all good-night as they shuffled off, and as soon as the hatch closed behind them, Fiona shot Mike and Chad a wicked grin.

"The coconut oil is just okay, is it?" She teased.

"I usually don't want to have to decide between cooking and sex." Mike replied mildly. "But it is pretty good."

Fiona moaned dramatically. "What an understatement."

Chad looped an arm around his partner's shoulders. "Did your crime lord introduce you to it?" He asked.

"Crime lord?" Mike asked, looking between them with raised eyebrows.

"Old love." Fiona explained. "And I introduced it to him."

"Good God. A crime lord and a Russian noble." The latter referred to her second husband, whom she had mentioned during a previous visit. "Where do you find these people?"

"Well, the Russian was the nephew of an associate of mine." She flashed a bemused grin, sinking into memory and drawing her flask from her jacket. "Same associate basically called me a gold-digging whore when he found out we were engaged. That's the second or third closest I've come to going at him."

"That was Ivan, right?" Mike asked. "Which husband was he again?"

"Number two. First one I loved, though."

That surprised Chad. "You married someone you didn't love? I can't see that."

Fiona took a deep swig from her flask. "Honestly, I don't know if I loved my first husband. In my time, a woman's relationship with her husband was about survival. You had to play to what society expected of you, yes, but you also had to love someone. You can't live like we did if you didn't have a reason too, so if you had to force yourself to love someone, you did. That might have been more Stockholm Syndrome than love, now that I think on it. But Ivan… Ivan I loved. It tore my heart out to watch the Van Helsings give him a slow death."

"The Van Helsings?" Mike asked. If they were thrown by phrases like in my time, they didn't mention it. They never did, nor had they ever asked about her implications that she was much older than them.

Fiona waved off the question. "This rich German family. Bunch of sociopaths. Thank God they don't have the resources they used to."

"Who does these days?" Chad put in, a little bitterly.

"Aye, that's the truth. My people are going stir-crazy without TV. If Marge didn't have the entire Golden Girls box set, they'd be at each other's throats by now."

"You've been watching Golden Girls?" Mike asked with a fond smile. "I loved that show as a kid. Watched it all the time in high school."

"Me too." Chad agreed. "One of the first shows that made me think it was okay to be myself." He pressed a kiss to the side of Mike's head.

"You know, I was actually in love with a woman named Sofia once. Not nearly as sarcastic as Sofia Petrillo, thank the Lord. I would've been roasted alive."

Here I go again, Fiona thought distantly. The Johnsons and the whiskey were a combination that always brought her back to lost love, and they were dangerously easy to talk to.

"Wait, you had a girlfriend?" Chad asked, his surprise based in her plethora of male lovers, string of past husbands, and self-proclaimed "overly Catholic" upbringing.

"Girlfriend." Fiona scoffed. "She wasn't my girlfriend. She was the light of my life. My partner, my lover. She was the force of nature that I believed in more than I believed in my father's God-"

"Okay, Romeo." Mike jested when he sensed that she was about to get long-winded and poetic. Fiona grinned.

"I'm a sap, I know, but Sofia deserves every ounce of it. She was this curvy five-foot-nothing Greek with these deep black eyes… And she had the cutest little girl. They had my heart in their hands. The kind of love that makes you want to be a better version of yourself. Kinder, more patient. I hadn't been that happy in… in a long time." The familiar wave of grief swelled in her chest, and the witch took a deep swig from her flask.

"What happened?" Mike asked quietly, gently. Chad shot him a disapproving look for prying, but Mike was unperturbed; he knew that some grief needed to be shared.

"She was in an arranged marriage. He was an abusive psychopath, and the son of a Mafia don who operated out of Portland. I tried to intervene so many times, but she begged me not to hurt him. Knew the rest of the family would retaliate against me if I did. I begged her to come live with me. I tried so many times." She paused, took another swig. "Heh. Guess she had a deeper hook in me than I had on her, 'cause I didn't touch him. Then he found out about us… In those days, relationships like ours could be a death sentence, and he was already unstable… He took them both from me, and wouldn't even face me like a man. Made me carve through his father's men to get him."

The "carving" didn't go as well as the statement implied. She'd gotten herself pinned down in a warehouse in Portland, surrounded by mobsters spraying gunfire at her. Cormac had had to call Dmitri, and he'd sent Julius to pull her bleeding, bullet-ridden hide from the proverbial fire. Then she'd staggered her half-conscious self around that warehouse until she found Sofia's husband- the man was barely alive by that point- and emptied an entire revolver's worth of bullets into his face. Dmitri and Julius had been livid about the whole event, though the latter's anger was slightly assuaged by his love of killing mobsters.

"Christ." Chad muttered.

Fiona smiled blithely. "Apologies. I don't mean to be so depressing."

"No, its okay." Mike responded immediately, all earnesty and sympathy. "It's been hard for us, and we still have each other. I couldn't imagine…" He trailed off, leaned into Chad for comfort.

"Well, I couldn't imagine doing it now. In the middle of all this, and with kids…" Her face hardened. "I wasn't joking earlier. This hellscape is about to get even worse, I guarantee it. Those kids need to be somewhere safe. Elsinore. Dunsinane. Even one of my safehouse would be better than out here."

"Fiona-" Chad snapped, but Mike put a hand over his to pause him. Then he fixed Fiona with a firm but patient look.

"Can you guarantee that no one will disapprove of our relationship?"

"I can guarantee your safety."

"If you can't guarantee that, then you can't guarantee our safety."

Genuine anger spasmed across her face. "You insult me, lads." She said lowly, voice tight and caged. "I don't harbor bigots. I can't police thoughts, but all of my people are hand-selected and trained. You two have absolutely no idea the lifetime of effort that has gone into making Elsinore a safe place, so don't sit here and tell me it's not."

"Don't sit here and tell us it is." Chad snarled.

"It is." She insisted, growing frustrated by both their denials, and the fact that she couldn't explain that violence was magically prohibited in her lands. "And even if some of my people did disapprove of you, it'd still be a better place for those kids."

"The best place for them is with us!" Chad snapped.

"Chad." Mike interjected, and the pair shared a look. Mike looked back to Fiona. "We appreciate your concern. I know you're pushing this because you care about us, but-" She could have hit him when he said but, "-you need to let it go now."

They all knew that wasn't going to happen. Fiona took a sip of whiskey to soothe the frustration and anxiety twisting in her chest. She had seen the pattern of history, and knew, through a kind of instinct that bordered on clairvoyance, that these people would not be unaffected by unfolding events. She knew in her bones that there would come a day when she would have to intervene, and the beginnings of grief began to weigh in her chest. She already knew that her hand would be forced in protecting these children, and that that would destroy this relationship.

Fiona turned those emotions off. What had to be done would be done. She had lived too long to shy away from necessities for the sake of sympathies or morality or personal pain.

The three chatted a bit longer, especially about what Fiona knew of the current state of the continent, but the tension never completely dissipated. Eventually, Fiona bid them both a good night and settled in next to the fire to keep watch. She rarely slept, and so her visits with the Johnsons was an equally rare opportunity for the whole family to get a night of uninterrupted sleep.

As she often did while in the field, she spent the night alternating between funneling spare energy into the red pendant around her neck and watching through Devon's eyes as he lazily circled the perimeter. Around four in the morning, Devon had drifted farther afield, and reached through the familiar-bond to turn Fiona's attention to him. She entered his body reflexively, and immediately saw what had caught his attention. The local group of Flencers had wandered closer than normal- still within their own territory, but close enough for it to be noteworthy. They were sniffing and circling the area, and from the aggression and frustration in their bodies and their clipped, growling communications, it wasn't prey they'd found.

Trespasser, Devon thought- or at least, he thought of a concept that made the word appear in Fiona's mind.

Aye, Fiona agreed somberly. As plain bloody creepy as the Flencers were, they knew and usually respected where their territory ended and the Johnson land began. A lone, wandering vampire, on the other hand, would not know nor care about a human's territory. The witch had her familiar follow the half-feral vampires as they tracked the scent through their land, hoping that the group would find the interloper and deal with it. Instead, they gave up when the scent crossed fully into Johnson land, wary of tracking something past the unofficial border for fear of traps.

From the trajectory of travel, it was possible that the interloper had unknowingly cut through the corner of Johnson land and just kept going; still, Fiona and Devon spent the remaining hours until dawn meticulously combing the area in outward-spiraling circles. They found nothing else, but that didn't comfort her. Was it one of Dmitri's scouts, or Mara's? Was it a hungry vampire, pushed out of his territory by some of the vampires that were scattered when Portland fell to the Resistance? Like any ecosystem, the consequences of the changing dynamics would have far-reaching consequences, and in this food chain, the Johnsons were near the bottom.

The Johnsons began to wake a few hours after dawn. Fiona began to gather her things and prepare to move on, and told Chad and Mike of what she had seen. They were put far too at ease by the news that she hadn't been able to actually find anyone near the camp. At this point, Fioan felt like she might as well be bouncing her head off a wall as trying to warn them, so she let the subject fall.

After breakfast she said her good-byes and hugged everyone in turn, unable to shake the nagging feeling that the next time she saw them, someone would be missing from the family.

"Be careful." She told Mike and Chad. "More careful than ever."

"I promise, we will." Mike assured her.

When she knelt down to hug Tabby, she lowered her voice to say, "Be good for your fathers. And if something happens, call me."

"I will." Tabby replied, as close to dead-serious as a young child could be.

"Good girl."

Fiona had arranged with Chad and Mike to be back in about a month's time. In reality, it would be less than a week.

Three days after arriving back in Elsinore and five days since parting with the Johnsons, Fiona was spending an afternoon reading reports in her study of the morning when Ian began to shout from her bedroom.

"Fiona! Get in here!" He sounded only half-awake, sleep thickening his North Irish accent.

Fiona was in the doorway in an instant. Inside, Ian was frantically pulling his clothes on. He was in his early fifties, leanly muscular, with white hair cropped short in a military haircut and an equally close-cropped beard. "The stone." He explained shortly, and nodded to the Sending Stone glowing on her nightstand. She could hear Tabby's voice from across the room, whispered and frantic and barely intelligible between sobs. In the background, she could hear someone hushing her but holding back sobs himself.

Fiona darted to it and said the phrase. "Tabby? Can you hear me? What's going on?"

"Please come. Please, it was in the camp. There's blood-" The girl trailed off into sobs and rambling, and cold terror shot up Fiona's spine. She moved as she talked, pulling a snub-nosed revolver from her nightstand drawer and loading it.

"Tabbly, lass, where are you? Are you hidden? And what's in the camp?"

"It's Grendel. It's Grendel from the story. I'm in the bunker. Hurry. Please."

Fiona slid the revolver into the waistband of her cargo pants and threw on her jacket. "I'm coming. You stay in that bunker until I get there and don't come out for anything. I'll be there in a minute."

She deactivated the stone, put it in her pocket, and darted back out to the desk in her study. Ian was hot on her heels, but while she grabbed the satellite phone from her desk, he crossed to the opposite wall, where buttons for an intercom system were neatly labeled.

"How many squads?" He asked.

"Get me two, and whatever Vultures are in tonight. Prepare for casualties."

"Got it. Don't forget your vest." He responded brusquely, but when he glanced back, she was already gone.

The songs mentioned in this chapter are,

Dark and Stormy Night from the album Heralds, Harpers, and Havoc by Mercedes Lackey

The Willow Maid from the album Raindancer by Erutan

How the Tide Rushes In by Anne Dudley