Juliette only feels a twinge of sadness when she finds not her girlfriend as she would have preferred given a choice after ducking back through the now half-opened window into her second-story bedroom and then stripping down to chase away the chilly night air choosing after her with a warmed shower.
"Mother." She greets tugging her towel a little tighter around herself self-consciously as she makes the quick crossing first to her dresser and then into her closet for some fresh clothes.
"Juliette." Her mother greets her in return yet to move from her relatively relaxed state against the head of her daughter's bed. A hairbrush resting in waiting in front of her as she listened to her daughter rummaging around for something to wear.
"Sebastian set the other MAAM's home once it seemed Sarah wouldn't be coming back with news or food." Juliette bites her lip to hide her snicker at the mention but her mother keeps talking "and of course Bunny is staying in the guestroom for now. Says she didn't want to go back to the- not without Ben there when she got home." Margot explains once she noticed the quick flash of surprise in her daughter's expression at the fading lack of other 'flavors' on the air other than her parents since she'd made her personal side trip out of the house.
Juliette nodes her head mechanically despite her mother not being able to see it with her hiding in her closet at the moment. The very action was not lost on her as she hastily tugged on the closest pair of sweatpants and fresh-smelling tee shirt, she laid her hands on.
"Cal went with her parents and Apollo for the night." Margot was saying now as Juliette dressed. "but I'm sure she'll be back in an hour or so once the rest of her family goes to bed and Oliver and Carmen offered to give Theo a place to stay for the night despite your father and I making an offer ourselves." Her mother finishes in summary
"What do you want Mom?" Juliette questioned trying to go slower now she knew she was wanted out in the main space that should have been her haven until Cal tapped on her window and truly made the space bearable to her again.
"Juliette, please." Margot answers her tone more coaxing now as she easily notices her child's poor attempt to stall her attempt to talk.
With a defeated sigh the teenager trudges out into her bedroom pausing only once in her cross towards the bed to roll up the waistline of her sweatpants a few times once she realized they were actually Cal's instead of her own then making another self-conscious smoothing of her tee shirt over the top as she crossed to the end of her own bed.
"What do you want Mom?" Juliette asked mostly to keep her mother from staring too intently at the seeming to glow red eyes of the serpent necklace coiled at her throat as Juliette climbed onto the bed to sit obediently in front of her waiting mother.
"It's been quite the night tonight, hasn't it?" Margot started off picking up the hairbrush and making a few soft passes in her daughter's wet hair.
Juliette feels herself tensing up at once at what for some might be an innocent attempt at small talk. If only it were that simple. The teenager sighed in her own head "Yeah, yeah what a night." She repeats already feeling her mouth go dry at the implications of the wording.
"Elinor in prison for all those murders." Margot goes on still making light work of untangling her youngest daughter's shower-dampened locks as she spoke.
"Mom." Juliette sighed only for her mother to quiet her with a soft "Sshh, let Mommy speak, Julesy." Just as she might when her youngest child was just that a child. Juliette quiets at once as the asks feeling more than seeing another harder press of the hairbrush against her scalp when Margot finds a more unruly strand of Juliette's hair to tame.
"Theo told us what your sister did to him, Jules." Her mother tells her "How she tricked Apollo into staking him when the dear boy had been aiming for your sister, how he asked for your help after you'd shooed Cal and erm what the phrasing nowadays?
"Cal and co?" Juliette offers her tone stiff and layered in guilt as she spoke.
"You're a maker now," Margot says in answer. "My baby girl all grown up." She says wistfully the hairbrush pausing in its caressive movements through Juliette's hair but isn't dropped away completely as the weight of the words settles in for both of them.
"I didn't…." Juliette starts to defend her voice breaking in the effort to keep true tears in check as she spoke. "I couldn't just let them die. Not like that. They didn't deserve to die like that."
"I'm not here to tell you off for your choices Juliette." Margot soothes or at least she attempts to soothe given how on edge her daughter was now at the current line of conversation "Besides the fact both Calliope and Theo have a reflection shows you had to have some strong feelings about what you were doing, sweetie." Her mother reminds pressing a light kiss to the top of her daughter's head as she spoke.
"But now his family, or at least you know his father and brother, want to kill him because of what I did." Juliette reminds "and they don't even know about Cal." She adds in a rough breath wanting to turn around as if to emphasize her point but was unable to do so as her mother once again starts to slowly slide the brush through her drying hair.
"He- they- are also alive in a sense of the thing because of you," her mother reminds "if you hadn't gone back for Theo, he would have died his human death alone and afraid. Because of you, he was none of those things."
A few tears spill from Juliette's eyes at the reasoning. Mostly because her mother was wrong. Theo had been scared. Hopeful but scared at the same time as her head had bowed in answer towards his offered wrist.
"You carry a guilt you don't need to sweetie." Margot sighed "you can feel for yourself how Theo doesn't blame you for what happened and neither does Cal, yet you still beat yourself up over it."
"Yes, I do deserve it, Mom." Juliette argued "Cal….Cal…."
"Car crashes happen, sweetie, it's a hard part of the world we live in." Margot reminded sadly setting aside the hairbrush to pull her upset daughter more fully back into her lap as Juliette still struggled against the full weight of the emotions her mother seemed to be just as determined to drag out of her.
"Why?" Juliette asks in more of a growl than a true question even as she melts back into the offered comfort of her mother's arms.
"Because you haven't given yourself a moment to grieve for them, Jules." Her mother says like the simplest answer in the history of questions. "You have to grieve for who they were…."
"They aren't dead, why grieve for them when they aren't…."
Margot quiets her with a soft kiss between her daughter's eyes. "I mean you need to grieve for the humans they once were Julsey." She says "If you as their maker won't morn for them…"
"I can't." Juliette hates how badly her voice cracks on the last word unable to bring herself to look into her mother's eyes as she talks.
"Then what makes you different from the true monsters Theo and Cal have hunted since they were able to hold proper weapons?" her mother demands to know "You say you love Calliope, yet you can't find the time to mo…"
"Because I have mourned her mom." Juliette cuts in her eyes now rimmed in a growing tinting of deep emerald in her anger when they finally twist around to lock unblinking on the woman sitting so coolly behind her. "I was ready to die myself than face another second in a world without her in it."
"What?" Margot asked shocked
"After she consented to let me turn her and I took her blood I didn't know immediately if it had worked or not as I had with Theo." Juliette elaborates "I was… well I was internally crazy with guilt and grief at not being able to save her."
Margot nodes once in understanding at the words as Juliette leans forwards to nuzzle her head under her mother's chin in comfort as she speaks.
"I could handle her hating me for the rest of forever so long as she you know alive to hate me."
Again, Margot's arms wrap in grounding support as Juliette's head dips hiding more along the curve of her mother's throat as she sank more into the grounding safety of her mother's embrace as she spoke. "but the idea of her not…"
The hard tapping of knuckles against window glass was the only signal Cal gives before she was climbing the rest of the way up the side of the home's outer wall into her girlfriend's bedroom.
"Haven't we been here before?" Juliette tries to tease turning her head just enough to catch the movement as Cal makes the quick crossing towards the bedside.
"Stay." The new vampire says climbing onto the bedside herself when it looked like Margot was going to make her exit.
"Please, Mom." Juliette adds hugging her tighter.
Margot nodes her head once in agreement with both girls' requests "I'll stay." She agrees when it seemed neither believed she wasn't going to move.
How long she ended up sitting like this in a relatively quiet silence with Juliette snuggled against her lap with her daughter's hunter girlfriend leaning her head against the mother's shoulder Margot couldn't tell as she listened to the girls' heartbeats fall into an even more mirrored rhythm.
"And here I thought you needed backup." Sebastian chuckled from the doorway as Cal shifted uneasily in her sleep at the noise.
"I think it would be safe enough, but I also don't want to risk waking her." Margot confessed talking more for her daughter than the hunter still attempting to use her shoulder for a pillow.
"On three?" Sebastian offered making the quick crossing from the half-open doorway to the four-poster bedside.
Margot shakes her head in denial at the suggestion "I'll be alright another few minutes." She waves off only for her husband to sigh low in his throat and pull up a chair as close as he dared to the side of the crowded bed.