18: Transition

She rolled over on the bed and was surprised that she had rolled into someone. Opening her eyes, she blinked when she saw that it was Klaus. Sitting up and the room came into focus, everyone else was there as well. “Oh, that’s not creepy at all,” she muttered as she looked at them. “Watching me sleep?”

“More like waiting for you to wake up, love,” Klaus crooned and looked her over. Over the past few hours, he’d watched her body heal itself, turning those pale cheeks pink again, and all the bite marks removed from her. “How are you feeling?”

“I… feel fine?” she guessed. She did feel fine, how was that possible? She looked at Jeri and smiled at her. “Did you do this?”

“There wasn’t anything I could do, Bella,” Jeri replied with an even voice. “We called Kol and Klaus back so Klaus could save you.”

“You did?” she smiled back up at him.

“Not quite yet, love,” he gently rubbed her back. “But for now, we’re all glad you’re feeling better. Let’s have breakfast, I think we all could use a good cup of tea right about now.”

She softly kissed Klaus and left the bed. “I’m going to get changed, I doubt you’ll want me to be at the table in-” she looked down at herself and shrugged. “Nothing but a shirt and underwear, apparently. Why is that?”

“Things became a little messy last night,” Jeri answered with a smile. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I don’t know… having my pancakes and then laying down on the couch, I guess?” Bella said after a while. She gratefully took the pair of sweatpants that Kol held up for her and got into them, making her look a little bit more presentable. “Why?” She could tell that they were all hiding something and were watching her carefully. She had felt uncomfortable before, but this was at the top of her list right now. “Just tell me, please. Something’s going on, and you’re leaving me out of it. I don’t like it.”

Kol smirked. Bella was feeling better, her lethargy of the past few days gone, and now he hoped she’d stick around. “You know what? I think this is a talk that Nik and Bella should have in private. I’ll bring you some breakfast, but you two need to discuss this.”

When the door opened, Bella could hear the hinges squeak, and it sounded as if Carlisle was using a saw of some sort to cut something in her body. Wincing, she stumbled back, holding her head.

“It’s alright love; I’ve got you,” Klaus said as he helped her back to her feet and gently placed her on a chair. “That door has always been a slight annoyance, but you’ll get used to it eventually.”

The door closed again, and Bella angrily looked at Klaus. “What is happening?”

“You fell ill,” he said as he kneeled down in front of her, leaning on her knees with his arms. “Rebekah found you convulsing on the floor after you fell off the sofa, and it went pretty fast after that. They called Kol and I back because you were fading.”

She blankly stared at him for a while as her brain started to connect the dots. “Save me… Kol said you saved me. You bit me?”

“No, I haven’t. Jeri helped me to get my blood into you before you… passed.”

“So I’m dead? I’m… how? Why am I still here?”

“You’re in transition, love. You were in so much pain last night that it wasn’t wise to wake you to ask you… this was the next best option. You could either choose to die or to live.”

She blinked at him. “You asshole! What was the talk about loving humans, respecting them and things like that? You violated me!”

“You still have a choice.”

“I shouldn’t have to have that choice, do I?” She pushed him away from her and started to pace the room. “Haven’t I been through enough? Why couldn’t you just let me go?”

He got to his feet and looked at her as she kept pacing the room. He didn’t want to grab her because he might hurt her; her anger was fuelling his. Why was she unthankful? A lot of humans would love to have taken her place to get the choice.

“I mean, seriously, Klaus. You can’t just play God like that. I thought you were different than that,” she stopped pacing and looked at him. “Why couldn’t you just let me go?”

That was the second time she asked him that and despite admitting it to himself, he wasn’t quite sure what her reaction would be if he’d tell her. However, she needed to know, she didn’t have a lot of time. “Because it is impossible for me to let you go, Bella. Not because you’re a charity case because you’re far from one. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

She huffed and rolled her eyes at him. She had done it before, but there was more fire behind it. Klaus mentally braced himself for if it’d come out today. “You’re a thousand years old, Klaus. You’d be fine without me.”

“Don’t you want to stay?”

“Of course! But my life ended. And now it has to end again. I mean, I’d be so bad at being a vampire. I don’t even dare to go out on the street!”

“You’ll be stronger as a vampire. You could handle whatever would come your way. You won’t get sick anymore. You’ll be faster. You don’t have to rely on others to protect you because you will be able to do it yourself – although that won’t stop neither of us to still do that for you.”

“I know what a vampire is, Klaus,” she murmured as she looked at her feet. “I’ve suffered at the hands of a couple of bad ones for most of my life. And then I saw the beauty of it when you took me in,” Bella lifted her head to look at him with a big smile on her face. “You’re such a great person, Klaus. You’ve shown me kindness, warmth, happiness. You’ve shown me a better way of life; you were fixing me, building me back up from the ground. I kept telling myself that I was so lucky, so fortunate. There was nothing more that I wanted than to spend the rest of my natural life with you.”

“Bella I-”

“I’m not done,” she walked to him and pulled him down for a kiss before continuing. “I’m so afraid that I’m not a good enough person to be a vampire. I’m… what if I turn, and I end up being like the Cullens? Rotten? And then you’d leave me. Or you’d kill me because it’s easier to break a broken vampire, isn’t it?” She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks. “And if I do turn, and I’m alright… what if in a couple of years you’d find someone more interesting? Prettier? And you’d forget about me?”

He was silent as he struggled to keep his temper contained. Her wanting to leave, to die, hurt deeply. “You couldn’t be more wrong, love,” he murmured as he lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “If you’d ever listened to a single story I told you, you’d know that I don’t like to turn people myself, and when I do, it’s because they mean something to me. Like, Marcel. He begged me to turn him, and I did, because, after all, he was family. You are family. You…” Klaus sighed as he released her. “I don’t turn people because, in the end, all they want to do is leave. Marcel stuck around but not before stabbing me in the back a couple of times. My siblings? Elijah and Rebekah have left me countless of times; they still want to leave. And I don’t blame them. Soon Kol will want to leave because he’d want to show his catch of the month the world, have her meet other witches. And me? I’m supposed to let that happen. But not you, Bella. Please. You can’t leave me too.”

Of course, why not? She nodded as she wiped away her tears. She couldn’t leave. Over the months, he hadn’t done anything simply for his enjoyment. He hadn’t been selfish towards her; he had given her all the space and time she needed, and now he wanted one selfish act; he wanted her. Unless of course, she’d be bad or if he’d lose interest. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to stay, she wanted to be with him, she really did, but she couldn’t quite explain what she was feeling. Instead, she was crying again. The thought of her leaving him hurt her too, maybe more than him leaving her. She didn’t want to leave him. But she was scared.

“I get it that you’re frightened, love, but please, everything will be alright, I promise you. Let’s not hurt each other by talking about leaving one another.”

Bella huffed and then nearly vomited when some disgusting smell wafted in through the open window. “What’s that? Oh, that’s disgusting.”

“Your pancakes.”

“No!” she said shocked. “You can’t tell me that that horrible smell is the smell of my pancakes.”

Klaus laughed. “It’s not. It’s the smell of coffee.”

“Oh good.”

“Everybody still alive in there?” Kol opened the door and peeked around the corner. “No bloodshed? I’ve brought pancakes and tea. Sorry, Nik, holding off on the blood so she can still make a normal, rational decision.” He placed the breakfast on the table and smiled at Bella. “But I’d really love it if you’d stick around, little mooner,” he winked at her. “Imagine all the fun we could have without worrying about one of us getting hurt!”

“You smell like coffee,” Bella said as she scrunched her nose. “You’re disgusting, Kol.”

“I am?” He grinned as he took a step closer to her. “Hi,” he breathed out in her direction. “How are you?”

“Leave me alone,” she said, stepping back and pinching her nose. “You stink.”

“I think he smells delicious,” Jeri muttered darkly as she followed behind him.

“He makes me want to throw up right now,” she said as she kept walking back while Kol kept walking towards her. “Go away, you need a mint.”

“Oh, doubt you would want me to do that,” Kol said with a grin before looking at his brother. “People in transition and new vampires are so much fun!” He fumbled in his pants and held up a roll of peppermint. “I’ve got a mint, are you sure you want me to take it?”

Bella nodded as she bumped into the wall. Kol was standing toe to toe with her now, and as he unwrapped his mint, she realized she had made a big mistake. The scent was even worse, stung her nose the moment it hit. “No, stop!”

“Too late,” he grinned and popped it in his mouth.

“Stop overwhelming her senses, brother,” Klaus warned him. “As you said, we want her rational still.”

She managed to duck away and ran towards her pancakes. “Evil, so evil,” Bella muttered as she rolled one up and took a bite out of it before spitting it out again after a few chews. “What did you do to the pancakes?” she breezed as she looked at Kol. “Did you make them with mud? I like pancakes, and you decide to ruin them?!”

“It wasn’t me, darling,” Kol laughed as he munched on his mint. “It’s the change of human blood in your system that’s killed your taste buds.”

“No, you did this, you did this to annoy me!” Bella threw a pancake at him. “You’re a stupid pancake, Kol!” She threw another at him, and it hit him straight in his face.

“You hear that, Nik? I’m a stupid pancake!” Kol kept laughing as he peeled the food off his face. Bella looked just about ready to blow; this was fun. So much fun! “But you know what? This pancake tastes delicious.” He folded it and took a bite out of it. “Hmm… tastes so good, Bella, you have no idea what you’re missing.”

She was just about to throw another pancake at him when she smelled something delicious, almost as if it was calling out for her, and it was close. It wasn’t the tea, although it smelled delicious too, she figured that if the pancake didn’t taste good, the tea wouldn’t either. This was a sweet smell; she could feel how she was salivating in her mouth. “Is that blood?” She looked at Jeri, who was standing at the table and walked towards her. “Oh my God, you smell delicious.”

“Yes, she does, darling,” Kol said as he stepped between Bella and Jeri. “But until you decide to stick around and be Klaus’ Drusilla to his Spike, you’re not going to taste blood.”

“I don’t want to be his Drusilla,” Bella looked up to Kol and pushed the pancake she was holding in his mouth. “I want to be his Buffy. But seeing she’s not a vampire, I suppose I’ll have to settle to being his Drusilla, I don’t know.”

“How about just be the Bella to his Klaus, huh?” Jeri said kindly as she looked around Kol. It was nice and all that he wanted to protect her from the transitioning girl, but she didn’t need protecting. She was going to be fine even if Bella killed her. Less trauma for the girl, and more fun for Jeri. “And what kind of person are you, Bella? Would you like a ring, bracelet or necklace? With your clumsiness, I think a ring would be best…” she looked at Klaus and smiled. “A ring so she won’t turn crispy in the sun? You know, in case she says yes?”

“I have a question,” Bella said as she had given up on Jeri, Kol was in her way, and that sucked. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked this before, but how do you get your blood?”

“It’s freshly squeezed out of one of our servants every serving,” Klaus replied as he had calmed down somewhat. His brother was a menace, but at least he also knew how to interrupt without it being an interruption.

“Do they volunteer their blood?”

“Bella, you’re not going to drink animal blood, are you?” Kol groaned as he turned around to watch her walk back to Klaus. “That’s disgusting.”

“No, no animal blood, absolutely not,” she shot at him before looking back at Klaus. “You compel them?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want that. But I don’t want innocent people to die either, so how is that going to work?” She put her arms around Klaus and looked up to him. “I feel like I’m a little bit too demanding…”

“Oh, no you’re not love, and you raise a valid point,” he ran his hand through her hair. “We know what your stance is on compulsion or any other method of control, and I was thinking that maybe we should indeed stop doing that to our servants.”

“What?” Kol sputtered. “Nik!”

“They get paid for serving food, they get paid for everything, and we compel them to forget that we’re vampires the moment they walk out the door. Why not have a change in diet? I’m pretty sure that there are deviant humans out there, we could keep them in our basement and feed off of them, have them donate their blood,” he said with a smirk. “You know, those bastards who don’t get picked up by the police, I’m pretty sure that New Orleans has a fair amount of them.” Klaus looked at Bella again and smiled. “Would that be satisfying for you, love? Should you turn and need to feed that it’ll only be on a bad person?”

“I think that would be great,” she smiled up at him.

Oh, he was so grateful for Kol and his wickedness, he was. Just like that, he had eased Bella’s mood again and coaxed her out of her head. “Alright love, was there anything else you were worried about?”

“Are you sure I won’t become like them?”

“No,” he smiled at her. “You simply turn into a stronger version of you. I have to admit, the first few days won’t be very easy because you’ll be ravenous and moody, but as you level out, you’ll find yourself whole again.”

“Although, if you lose your quirks, I’ll be the first one to pester you to just fake it then,” Kol added playfully as he finished eating the pancakes. “You won’t change. Everything gets heightened, and you’ll have to find a way to deal with them. Easy peasy after what you’ve been through.”

“Now,” Jeri said as she moved closer towards Bella and Klaus. “If you’ve made your decision…” she got her knife out of her pocket and slid open her wrist. “Have at it.”

“Oh, that does smell good,” Bella said as she looked at the blood flowing from Jeri’s wrist. She wanted to take a sip but found herself unable to move as Klaus held her tightly. “Klaus!”

“What are you doing?” Kol demanded as he pulled Jeri back to him and quickly covered her wrist with a cloth. “Have you lost your mind?”

“What? She’s going to turn, and that will make me the only mortal in this building. No thanks. And you promised.” She sulked as she poked Kol in the chest with a knife. “Just as I promised to be on your side, you and your family’s side, forever. Someone like me could come in very handy for you guys.” She pouted when Kol took away the knife. “Besides, she’ll have a few sips of my blood, and she’ll turn. It’s not like she’ll actually kill me. She won’t do that.”

“She has my blood running through her veins, Jeri. If anything, she won’t stop,” Klaus said with a low growl as Bella was struggling against his hold.

“I don’t care! I’d rather have her drink from me than she has to do it from a stranger. Her first time is special!”

“And what if it doesn’t work?” Kol asked quietly. “What if she does kill you, and you don’t come back?”

“I will come back, I have your blood in me. And with my family history? I’ll definitely come back as a Heretic. I’ve done my research, trust me. I’ll be here.” Jeri thought for a moment. “You know what? Maybe it’s safer to wait until the moon’s out. The full moon is always stronger, more chance for me to survive it the way I want.” She held up her wrist for Kol to heal. “Or you know, she could have a few sips now, complete the transition and then she can feed on me later.”

“She’ll kill you, Jeri.”

“And I’ll come back, you halfwit! And if you two are going to stop me, then you’re mistaken. I’m powerful enough to stick the both of you behind the wallpaper and have Bella feed on me anyway, I’m playing nice here.”

“You’ve lost your mind!”

“No, I haven’t. I have wanted to do this ever since I heard of the coven’s demise and the destruction of Mystic Falls by the Heretics. I want to do good, Kol. Help people. It’s what I do best. As a Heretic, I can function on my own without drawing power from anyone magical, it’ll make me stop feeling like a leech. You know this. I told you this.”

“I know but…”

“And Bella here, she’ll be hungry. Starved. Have you even stopped for a moment and thought about how a kill would change her life? I’d rather have her first to be me than some random stranger you guys picked up on the streets. I come back; it won’t be as hard on her considering I’ve been trying to get you fuckers to kill me all this time. I love this crazy family but boy, you people are idiots sometimes.”

“Please?” Bella looked up to Klaus, a hopeful look on her face. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about, love,” Klaus said as he held her closer. “It’s her.”

“After all she did for you, for us, you still don’t trust her? I do. I appreciate her honesty and her treating everyone equally. I don’t think she’ll do anything to hurt Kol or you, or the rest of your family.”

“You’re just saying that because you want her blood.”

“No, I’m not,” she said as she shook her head. “You can’t see it, can you? She has nothing but respect for you and your family. She has a big mouth and speaks out of place, but she speaks her mind and changes yours on occasion because she has valid points. She deserves to change, Klaus. She is willing to give me her blood now, and I can have more later.”

“So it is about the blood.”

She hit him in the chest with her fist. “I trust her more than I trust Marcel.”

“She has a point,” Kol said, and then playfully smirked. “And if it doesn’t work out, Niklaus, at least we’ll have a challenge in killing her.”

Klaus growled lowly as he leveled his eyes on Jeri, ignoring another punch coming from Bella. “You feel more confident around the full moon?”

“Well, sure, I can draw power from that to speed up the process of me healing. But I doubt anything will go wrong,” she said with a shrug. “But she needs blood now. She needs to complete her transition because right now she’s doing fine, but you know very well that the longer she waits, the weaker she gets, and she won’t be able to drink blood at all. She’ll probably won’t get hungry until tonight anyway.”

He took hold of Bella’s wrists as she wanted to punch him again and smiled at her. “Love, that didn’t hurt me at all but did you work through your anger?” He asked amused. “Finished your little tantrum?”

“It wasn’t a tantrum; I was trying to prove a point.”

“You can prove a point without hurting people, love.”

“And you just said I didn’t hurt you at all,” she beamed up at him. “So how does that work?”

He had to admit, he was slightly amused by this Bella. She was antsy and wanted Jeri’s blood, but her heightened senses weren’t allowing her to be so closed off. He hoped it’d stick once she fully turned. It was adorable. “Are you sure, love? Do you really want to complete your transition?” He wanted to know she was sure, but he couldn’t even be happier as of this moment.

“Klaus, I want to stay with you,” she smiled up to him, so much love was in her eyes that filled his heart with glee. “I want us to become better together. I want to continue what we’ve started and be part of your family. So I can annoy Kol the way he annoyed me.”

“Very well then. Just a sip. You can have her all to yourself tonight.”

Kol scowled at his brother as he wrapped his hand around Jeri a little possessively. “I take offense to that! She will be mine!”

Jeri huffed as she swatted his hand away from her. “Does it really have to take someone else’s drinking my blood for you to agree to this? Idiot. Tough. The girl will need to feed, and she’s going to do that on me. If you want to have some of my blood, you two better share.”

“I’m still not liking it!”

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One Comment:

  1. Loved this chapter. Full of some pretty funny moments, and I am liking this Bella just a much as Klaus is. I can’t wait till you can post more. 🙂

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