time is on our side

After her brother’s Marks were removed, Maryse only got a short reprieve from the outside world, enclosed in her bedroom, before she had to return to the Academy.

Where everyone knew, and acted in consequence.

She took to sneaking out in the middle of the night, several hours before any of her peers, to left off steam in the training room, where no one could stare at her.

That’s how Valentine found her; on a stormy night, screaming with fury as she threw axes against the bullseye.

She never knew how long he’d been watching her, creeping from the shadows. He made his presence known with a do you want a real fight, Trueblood?.

Maryse, startled, threw an ax in his direction that he dodged without much effort. He tore it from the wall, a challenging expression, and waited for Maryse to pick her twin from the target.

That was her first yes to Valentine. Many more followed.

If she had talked to Valentine before that night, she couldn’t remember it. And she had a hard time imagining someone could forget anything about him.

She, of course, knew who he was. And not just because of his own accomplishments, but because he was Lucian’s parabatai. Lucian and Maryse weren’t exactly friends; he was a grade above her, but he’d been one of the very few people that didn’t shun her after what happened to her brother. It wasn’t until Valentine asked her to sit with their selective clique that they truly became close.

But even then, no one —not Lucian, not Jocelyn, not her parents— no one else seemed to understand her as well as Valentine did.

No one else saw, not as clearly as he did, everything that was boiling inside her brain. Her shame, her heartbreak, her fury. Shame, for how Max had chosen a vapid mundane over his sacred duty. Heartbreak, for how much she missed him.

Fury, against the Clave.

Except for her nights with Valentine, Maryse hid all those emotions under a blank face. She couldn’t put her inner turmoil into words.

But she didn’t need to, because Valentine did. When he talked about what a waste it was, to force Shadowhunters to leave if they paired with mundanes. Those are potential recruits, he said. And if they're not, their children will be. With how numerous demons are getting, we need all the manpower we can get. When he talked about their heaven-given mission to protect the world. When he put her against the floor with his sword on her throat.

It was as if he spoke from her heart.

Maryse’s anger never faded, but it learned. It grew colder, more solid, forged steady like a sword’s blade.

The private training sessions continued, as her outlet to let out every ugly emotion breeding inside her. When a classmate made a dismissive comment, or when her father, meek as ever, bowed to the Clave. When her mother reiterated in her letters that their family legacy was on her shoulders now. On her, as if her parents no longer bore any responsibility for it.

And when Valentine’s family was slaughtered, she was more than willing to return the favor. To be the target of his frustrations, of his grief and his rage. When he broke a bo-staff against her ribs, she hit him in the jaw with hers, immobilized him by sitting in his chest, and asked is that all you got, Morgenstern?

That got what she knew for a fact was his first laugh after the attack. She’d felt it sometimes, that perverse little feeling in her chest, when she noticed how he shared things with her that she didn’t with Jocelyn or even Lucian. How he sometimes got distant with them, but never with her. She laughed back, as that feeling grew again.

Her marriage with Robert Lightwood was, above all, convenient. His family was a beacon among the Shadow world, practically royalty. Her mother, for once, was proud; proud enough to get her off her back and leaving her some leeway to do what she wanted.

What he lacked in conviction, he made it up with imitation. They got along well. And if she sometimes couldn’t help but feel a little condescending, well. She kept it to herself, and swallowed the amusement when Valentine didn’t bother to do it himself.

When the Circle solidified, from idea to fact, Valentine marked them together. He did Robert’s first, light like an afterthought, and then he turned to her. He grabbed her by the chin, gentle and firm, and drew it slowly, maintaining eye contact. After he finished it, he smiled with mirth, his hands lingering on her shoulders, and calling her by her maiden name, told her you and I are going to change this world.

After the Academy, after betrayals and disappointments, they kept up with their ritual. It happened if they got tired of the strategy meetings —often already private between the two them—, if Valentine’s anger got the best of him, if she got tired of being treated like a porcelain doll because she was less than one month pregnant.

It was fitting, that it was during those sessions, when it finally happened.

Maryse had him against the floor, holding him down with her hands and with her body, their weapons discarded meters away. She saw from up close how the anger in his eyes shifted to something else, as it’d done many times before; this time, she felt emboldened enough to descend over him and join their mouths on a wet, languid first kiss.

He engulfed her in his harms, surrounding her waist, and brought their bodies so close together that Maryse felt as if she was swallowed by him. Without hurry, he leveraged their position to put her on her back, and slowly followed a trail of open-mouthed kisses down her body. Her jaw, right below her ear; the base of her neck, her breasts, her hips. He uncovered her, one piece of clothing after another, still fully dressed. Maryse released a sound of relief when he finally dived between her legs, that turned into needy, breathy moans at his feather-like touches. When she came, she left scratch marks on his shoulders.

The next part was hurried, as she took off his shirt and pulled down his pants, sitting on his lap. She rode him while the sun started to rise, its faint glow illuminating the dark blue mats on the floor, as Valentine kissed her intermittently, a litany of MaryseMaryseMaryse on his lips.

When they finished, their breaths sounded heavier than they’ve ever been after a good fight. Valentine rested his forehead against hers, his hands now light on her hips after the bruises they’ve surely left from how tight they’ve held her half a minute before.

A husky laugh came from deep down her throat, when she saw her lack of regret echoed in his eyes.

The pads of his paws welcomed the change from gravel to soil with relief.

He wasn’t aware of where he was supposed to arrive. He wasn’t aware of much, truth be told. He simply marched forward, driven by an inner force that gave him the impulse to keep walking for hours during the night, on an almost straight path.

He could feel in his blood he’d almost reached his destination. The sky was barely beginning to lighten, and he was growing more and more tired by the second. But he needed to keep going, and to finish his journey before the sun came out...

Caroline was coming back home from not visiting her mother’s grave —first overthinking her choice flowers, then whether she should bring something else, and finally, simply standing paralyzed in the middle of the path, not knowing which way she wanted to go— when she heard something moving and breathing heavily among the trees.

She stood still, taking a defensive position as soon as she saw it: she could distinguish a werewolf on sight. It was almost dawn —she was sure she could fend for herself and just wait out the transformation.

However, it didn’t seem to mean her any harm. It had stopped a few feet away from her, staring directly at her face, with something akin to recognition.

As the soon started to rise, the wolf changed, slowly, one painful bone crack after the other. The person left standing in his place was the last one she’d expected.

“Klaus…”

He hadn’t tried to get on his feet, his hands digging on the floor, his face a rictus of pain. She approached him slowly, telegraphing her movements, and laid a hand on his shoulder; that seemed to calm him down, barely.

“What happened?” she asked, softly as she could.

He emitted a low grunt, without so much as forming one understandable word.

She didn’t know what to do. Leaving him there in the open seemed… callous. But she wasn’t completely sure of whether she wanted to help him.

Klaus raised his head and looked her in the eyes, pleading and exhausted, as if he had read her mind. She sighed, cursing every decision she’d ever made that took her to that particular path in that particular night.

So she took pity on his vulnerable state, and tried to think of a way to sneak him into the town. But first, she took off her coat and covered him with it. Naked men drew too much attention.

Klaus threw the table of Marcel’s apartment against the wall in a fit of rage, letting out a frustrated scream.

Those damn witches… he’d slaughtered every one of them, but it didn’t change his current situation.

“That was an antique, you know?” Marcel berated him, with a tight smirk.

“We need to find that damn wolf!”

“Throwing a tantrum isn’t going to help, man.”

Klaus glared at Jackson. He shouldn’t even be there; he’d only been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and therefore made fifty percent of the people who knew about his predicament. He’d killed for less, but even if there was no doubt that Klaus would end up on top on if that fight happened, Jackson would likely sneak in at least one bite. Which he now was vulnerable to. He wouldn’t die, but he wasn’t keen on the hours of hallucinations and torment that would come with it.

“I need a witch,” he demanded. “Your girl, or the other one, I don’t care. I need this fixed.”

“Davina would be the last person in the world to help you, Klaus;” Marcel said, irritated, “and if by the other one you mean Vincent, he won’t help you either. He wants nothing to do with magic.”

“He’ll change his mind when I’m done with him,” Klaus threatened.

“No, he won’t. Not this one.” Marcel laughed, a shit-eating, prideful grin on his face.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously."

"Oh, I am. If you aren't the Original hybrid, your blood won't cure a werewolf bite. Not the best timing, giving the pack of untrustworthy hybrids in the city." He added, as an insincere afterthought: "No offense."

“You do know you have a witch sister, right?” Jackson asked Klaus, not bothering answering Marcel, “I know it's recent, but you live with her, you can’t have forgotten her already.”

“My family and I aren’t on the best of terms right now.”

Freya wasn’t angry at him anymore, but she wanted to mend fences between him and Elijah. And she’d want Klaus to tell him, to use it to bring peace. He wasn’t sure if Elijah wouldn’t be still mad enough with him to consider his loss of power akin to poetic justice, and he Klaus had no desire to subject himself to his brother's preaching.

“She’s probably the only witch on the face of the earth willing to help you.”

He had to concede that.

Caroline had made Klaus sit on her couch, thrown a blanket at him, and gone to look for clothes for him so that she could stop trying not to look at his junk.

She searched in the storage room, finally landing on a box with some of her father’s old clothes. She couldn't find underwear, to her frustration, but she picked up a few shirts and black sweatpants that could pass as your average workout clothes. She couldn’t really see Klaus in her father’s dress shirts. Or in any of his clothes, really, but this was what was available. Maybe she should get him something that fit him better? No, what the hell, she wasn’t going to buy the guy clothes, she wasn’t his keeper. He was rich, he could buy himself all the damn sweatpants he wanted.

She left the clothes in front of him. He, at least, didn’t seem to need help with that. Then she went the kitchen and grabbed a few blood bags. He must’ve been starved; if he’d crossed paths with regular humans he would have torn them apart.

But when she offered one to him, he recoiled violently against the wall.

A werewolf transformation that obeyed the phases of the moon, the blood, the fact that he had yet to speak a word… an idea was starting to form on the back of her mind.

She went back to return the bag to the fridge, backing away slowly. She put on the kitchen gloves and opened the drawer where her mother used to keep the vervain and grabbed some.

Klaus was standing in the middle of the room, following her with his eyes. She approached him as slowly as she could stand, and grazed the skin of his arm with the herb.

Nothing.

She released the breath she’d been holding, her mind going a mile a minute.

No one could find out. Damon and Bonnie had left town, so that was one less threat. Stefan probably wouldn’t have anything against Klaus, and Matt couldn’t do much, but still.

At least Tyler wasn’t in Mystic Falls anymore. He had every reason to hurt him.

A lot of people did.

And she didn’t know how the Heretics could play into this.

She sat on the couch, allowing herself one minute to feel overwhelmed, and Klaus sat right beside her. She could feel his eyes digging a hole in her skull.

She needed to call his siblings. They must be already looking for him. The problem was that after her last... conversation with Klaus, she had erased all of their numbers from her phone, as a way to wipe the slate clean. And she doubted the family appeared in New Orleans’ yellow pages.

Matt probably had Rebekah’s number, but she thought Elijah would be far more reliable. Or even Klaus’ number; he wasn’t traveling with his phone, that’s for sure, and it must’ve been somewhere.

And the only person who could have those numbers was Stefan. Who she was still avoiding.

She groaned, upset, repressing the urge to facepalm. She looked right at Klaus then; he hadn’t stopped staring at her, the creep.

“Why do you have to turn my life upside down every time you come back here, uh?”

Caroline had been trying to come up with a way of getting one of the Mikaelson’s numbers from Stefan’s phone the better part of the day. The problem wasn’t the lack of ideas, but the lack of nerve.

She decided to go shopping to psych herself up, and yes, to buy Klaus something. The guy couldn’t go around with no underwear, and she didn’t really like that he was wearing her father’s clothes, truth be told. She’d also decided she would need more food, at least for today.

And as she got out of the grocery store, she found herself face to face with Salvatore senior.

They hadn’t talked, but it was obvious that Lily Salvatore remembered her. She didn’t look hostile, just curious.

“Mrs. Salvatore.” Caroline greeted her, her voice a little too high, not knowing what else to do to fill the awkward silence.

“Miss… Forbes, right? The girl who turned her humanity off.”

“Yes.” Apparently, she was the only one trying not to make things awkward!

“I heard about your mother. A tragic loss.”

A lash of pain hit at her stomach, but she repressed the biting words that wanted to escape her throat, seeing that she seemed to speak candidly. She nodded in recognition and decided to change topics.

“So, what were you looking for?”

“I was hoping to get something for my family. They’re still acclimating to this world.”

“Well, I… hope they do.” Lily responded with a skeptic stare that Caroline had seen thousands of times in Damon’s face. “No, seriously, it would be the best for everyone.”

She nodded, believing her this time, and went into the store after saying a polite goodbye.

Well, there was no way talking to Stefan could be even half as awkward as that, at least.

When she arrived home, she found Klaus reading one of her mother’s books. He could clearly understand her, and read, and seemed to have a good grip on whatever was going on around him. He just wouldn’t talk.

She put all the bags on the table, getting out the clothes she’d bought for him. She smiled when she saw that he'd washed the dishes she used to make his lunch. Calling him "good dog" would've felt way too condescending, but in the limits of her own head it sounded hilarious.

He advanced to her, an inquiring look on his face, and proceeded to examine each and every one of them. He must’ve found them suitable, because the corners of his lips raised in an almost invisible smile, and he turned his face to kiss her.

She froze in place. The kiss didn’t last more than three seconds, but when he left to go back to her book —an Agatha Christie novel, she recognized now, but she couldn’t see which one—, her lips still tingled.

What the hell. Seriously. What the hell.

“What do you mean the spell doesn’t work?” Klaus asked, repressing the urge to scream at Freya.

“That it doesn’t work,” she answered, clearly reaching the limits of her patience. “You are here, and you aren’t. No location spell I know can work properly around that.”

Klaus bit down his tongue to not scream that maybe she could be of use if she actually paid attention to the supposedly limitless knowledge Dahlia had to offer. Instead, he kicked one of the chairs, taking pleasure on Marcel’s complaints in the background.

“Hi! Eh— I think I left my shirt here when…?”

After the kiss, she had decided that she needed to solve the situation as soon as possible, so she went to the Salvatore house and blurted the first thing she thought of.

It was the truth, so that helped.

“Yeah, come in.”

There was something decidedly smug in Stefan’s smile. He seemed happy to see her, and he probably thought she was making up an excuse to come here to see him.

Which was also technically true —except for the part where it wasn’t really about him.

“I think I know where it is, if you want to—"

Caroline saw that Stefan had left his phone on the table, and quickly turned around, trying to cover it with her body.

“I think it’s better if I stay… here.”

He nodded, with an understanding smile, and started climbing the stairs.

She quickly grabbed his phone, thankful for the lack of password, almost in the mood to dance with joy at how easy it was being. She didn’t know what she could’ve possibly done if he’d had the phone on him.

The "E" contacts. Elaine, Elena… no Elijah. Dammit.

She could hear some noise from upstairs, so she went to the “K”, committing Klaus number to memory. If nobody answered, she could always get Rebekah’s number from Matt’s phone; it’d be substantially easier. 

She put down he phone right before Stefan came back into the room, presenting her with her shirt. It was properly folded, and gave the fainted scent of a floral detergent.

He was too damn perfect. She kind of wanted to throw the shirt in the mud in frustration. She wouldn’t, obviously, but she wanted to.

Klaus answered his phone with a tone of pleasant surprise, ignoring the three pairs of eyebrows that raised at his change of mood.

“Hello, Caroline.”

“Wait. Klaus?”

“Who else did you expect to answer this number, love?”

“No, it’s just—"

There was an abrupt pause on the other side of the phone, while Klaus patiently waited for an explanation.

“How are you right now?”

That seemed too specific to be mere concern about his emotional state.

“I admit I’m not in my best moment. So if you called for help with a werewolf bite, I fear—”

“I think you need to come to Mystic Falls.”

“That’s not what you said last time. In any case, I have an urgent issue to deal with—"

“If by issue you mean your werewolf Doppelganger, he’s sitting on my couch.”

“First of all, you keep interrupting me. That’s really impolite of you,” he teased. “Second of all, I resent the term “Doppelganger”; he’s not a copy, he’s me; we’ve just been split for the moment. And finally: I’ll see you in Mystic Falls.”

And he hung up, because he couldn't not be a bit dramatic.

“I’ll grab the keys,” he said to Freya, “we leave in an hour.”

She didn’t move from her chair, and neither did the two other men. They all stared at him like he’d grown two heads.

“What?”

“Your wolf form,” Jackson started, “functioning on pure instinct, didn’t go to any of your siblings, to your family. It went to some random girl in some lost American town.”

“There’s nothing random about Caroline Forbes. She color-codes her calendar.” Impatient, he clapped his hands, rushing Freya. “Come on. We need to leave.”

Neither of them moved, and their eyebrows almost touched their hairlines, but he was not going to let their attitude ruin his good mood.

Her stomach dropped the next evening, when she heard the sound of a car parking close by.

She had spent a quiet night with… wolf-Klaus. He wanted to read, to be close to her, and to help her. The only minor problem had been when he’d wanted to sleep beside her, but she felt that would be crossing a line; worse, she thought that vampire-Klaus would somehow know, and he’d never let her forget it. So she had prepared the guest room for him.

She fixed her hair absentmindedly in a mirror, chastising herself when she realized what she’d done. Irritated, she went to open the door and invite them in.

“That is… not your sister,” she deadpanned.

“Nice to see you too,” he greeted her, his voice all syrup. “Meet my long lost older sister, Freya. My mother sold her to a witch and led us to believe she was dead.”

“That does sound like something your mother would do.” Freya snorted in response, amused. Caroline extended her hand to her and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Well, where’s the other one? I hope he didn’t bother you,” Klaus said, jealously redirecting the attention to himself.

“Not at all. He’s a lot sweeter than you, actually,” she told him, snippy, and then he added looking at Freya, hoping to find an accomplice “He cleans after himself, and he doesn’t talk, which is a vast improvement.”

“I bet it is,” she agreed, amused.

She heard steps behind her back, and all of them turned to look at the other Klaus.

Ugh, the name thing was going to be a pain.

Freya examined both Klauses for over half an hour, while Caroline alternating between fidgeting in the living room along with them, and cursing that wolf-Klaus’ tidiness kept her from stress cleaning.

When she finally stopped her chants, the look on her face didn’t scream good news.

“I know how to reverse it,” she started, “but there are a few complications. It needs to be under another full moon, on the same sacred spot. And it requires at least five witches and a lot of preparation. We’d need to leave as soon as possible.”

When she heard that, Caroline’s chest tightened, her heart skipping a beat in what was, frankly, a disproportionate reaction. She could count the hours she’d spent with the guy, she'd been made to feel uncomfortable over half of them, and he wouldn’t even maintain a conversation.

But one look around the house could tell you he’d been there. The Agatha Christie novel —By the Pricking of My Thumbs, it’d turned out to be—, the clean sink, and just… his mere presence made the place feel actually lived-in.

She’d felt so damn lonely in that house.

When she raised her eyes, she discovered Klaus —both of them— and Freya had been staring at her, and she got a little defensive.

“What.”

Klaus gave his sister a pointed look, and she rolled her eyes.

“I’ll go take a walk,” she announced, just on the right side of annoyed. “A really long walk.” Then, looking at Klaus, “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

She put on her jacket and walked through the door, waving her hand at them without looking back, and leaving Caroline alone —and slightly alarmed— with the two lookalikes.

"I was sorry to hear about your mother," he told her as soon as they were alone. It was the first thing he'd wanted to say to her. 

"Thanks. But I don't want to talk about that."

"He seems to have taken a liking to you." He settled for that to diffuse the tension. In any case, it was the truth. His other half seemed to gravitate towards Caroline, and he couldn't take his eyes off her for long. Klaus could relate. 

His stratagem seemed to work, because Caroline snapped at him. 

"He's you. You're obsessed with me."

"That's not the word I would use."

 She bit her lip and closed her fists in frustration, shaking her head. "You're so infuriating."

"I bet you prefer it when I can't talk." He pointed at the other Klaus with his head as he said that. 

"He's certainly your better half."

At her easy agreement, just to be a little shit, he asked, moving his eyebrows suggestively:

"Did you two ever...?"

"What— how— no!" 

"Seriously?" he asked, surprised and a little displeased. As ridiculous as it may sound, he couldn't help but be a tad jealous of himself at the moment.

"No! He kissed me, once, completely out of the blue! I wasn't— I didn't take advantage or anything like that." 

Amused at the fact that that was what had her so nervous, he laughed uproariously, seeing it echoed in the complicit smirk of his double. 

"I think he would've been fine with that." 

She looked between the two of them, a heated, curious-despite-herself look in her eyes. And Klaus knew how to recognize an opening. He leaned forward stopping when his face was mere millimeters away from hers.

"I know I would love it if you took advantage of me."

Her eyes dropped to his lips, dark and hungry, and she sat on top of him, pulling his head back.

"Shut up." 

She kissed him, hard and bruising, and he was happy to let her take control, laying back with parsimony.

He heard a noise besides them, and they both turned to it. It was his double, staring at them with curiosity.

Caroline examined them both with a calculating look, and put a hand in the other Klaus' cheek, leaning down to kiss him, much more slowly, but not less domineering.

She pulled his double's hand under her shirt, directing him. Klaus, feeling left out, bend down to lightly bite at her neck.

"Hey!"

"It's his teeth you'll need to worry about."

Caroline pulled the two of them up, guiding them with kisses and caresses to her bedroom, the three of them losing all of their clothes along the way. Klaus took a second to try and catalog everything that had changed from the last time he was there, but was quickly distracted by Caroline pushing him to the bed.

She didn't lose time, climbing on top of him and starting to ride him as she pressed his back against the mattress. She kept a slow, maddening rhythm, one which got slower every time she could read any sign of impatience: the pressure of his thumbs against her hips, the expression of his face, a word of encouragement.

While she kept that torture, she kissed the other Klaus, impassioned, while he got to touch her all over her body.

He felt her orgasm building up in the way her nails dug into his chest and her voice and her groans got higher and sharper. She picked up the tempo, getting to the frenetic rhythm he needed, and came on top of him, looking like a sun goddess. 

He followed her no long after that, feeling exhausted in all the best ways. She got off of him, laying down by his side as she caught her breath.

She raised on her shoulders, her eyes ahead. Klaus followed her stare, seeing his double above them, still hard as a rock.

"Round two for the other guy?" she asked, making him laugh.

It was a pity that those witches were all dead; otherwise, he'd send them flowers.

Oh well. The colors would compliment their headstones nicely.

The Mikaelsons were leaving early in the morning, and that was making Caroline feel a little blue. 

Freya left them space to say goodbye, waiting next to the car and facing the other side of the streets. 

Wolf-Klaus went to her first, stepping over her personal space. She surrounded him with her arms and let herself melt against him in a tight, long hug, that she didn't stop when she heard vampire-Klaus clearing his throat.

She did stop it when wolf-Klaus' hands started to get dangerously under her hips. She mirrored his bold smile and kissed his cheek goodbye.

"I don't get a hug?"

"Nope," she teased him, remarking the "p" sound as much as possible.

"Not even a peck?" he asked, tapping his own cheek.

"Shut up," she said, pushing him playfully.

A slow, content smile expanded on his face. "Goodbye, Caroline."

"Goodbye."

And with that, both men turned around to leave, making her feel like she was seeing double. Even the clothes she'd bought for wolf-Klaus were similar to the ones vampire-Klaus came with, something she refused to overthink.

The both drove away, leaving her alone in that house again.

A week later, still feeling down, she had another encounter with Lily Salvatore.

She mostly stopped to talk to her out of loneliness. The woman was staring ahead, lost in his thoughts, and Caroline decided to sit beside her on the bench.

"Did you like your human self?" Lily asked her, without so much as looking at her.

The question made her remember a story Stefan had told her not so long ago, in a voicemail, about his mother. She had nothing better to do, so she took it seriously.

"I wasn't really that different. I'm still the same person, deep down." It had been something she'd think once or twice, and made peace with a while ago. "But humans are vulnerable. Which isn't so bad if they're surrounded by their peers, but once vampires got into town... I was vulnerable, and I was hurt. And I got killed."

Lily was now looking at her, measuring her. For some reason, Caroline didn't want to come up short, but she knew she'd be fine even if she did.

"And ironically that was the best thing that could have happened to me;" she continued, "I like being capable to defend myself; I like being powerful, and how intense everything feels as a vampire. I love that I can have the entire world open and waiting for me to explore it and that—"

She stopped, realizing who she was paraphrasing.

"Excuse me, I need to— it was a pleasure talking to you, genuinely, but I need to leave now."

She looked taken aback, and slightly offended by Caroline's poor manners, but she nodded and got lost in her own head again.

Caroline ran back to her house as fast as possible without using powers, and packed everything she could under half an hour, knowing she might lose her nerve if she gave herself more time.

She got into her car, set the navigator straight to New Orleans, and breathed deeply, exactly one time, to calm her nerves. She was way too nervous, about something that —she kept telling herself— might be only a short visit.

She turned on the engine, smiling. At least for now, she needed to be around someone that made her feel as good in her skin as being immortal had always been.