Chapter 09

She could feel herself being able to direct herself to where she wanted to be, and while her truck was still at the reservation, she didn’t feel like explaining herself. Bella found herself in the Mikaelson home, in the living room and fell onto the couch upon coming back. Hopefully, she had timed it right and there weren’t two of her around.

“It’s been ten minutes since Jake came to our house to say you disappeared… he gave it ten minutes too,” Kol said as he casually walked into the living room. “I told him not to worry, but I was worried, where were you? What happened?” He helped her sit up and checked her over. “Is that blood! What the hell happened?”

“I’m fine,” she said, tired. “What time is it?”

“Midnight.”

“Of course I’m tired,” she sighed as she swatted his hands away from her. “I got stuck for a little and some vampire thought I was a snack. Taught him a lesson.”

“Stuck? Why? What happened?”

“Ah… uhm…” she ran her hand through her hair and grabbed a pillow to hug it to get some space between her and Kol. “I was drunk, cozy and warm in the middle of a pack of wolves and uhh… I had a vision.”

“A vision?” Kol blinked at her. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. The guy who helped me when I was stuck said it had to do with the difference in magic between you and the wolves. More potent or something and I don’t want to have one ever again. It sucked.”

“But how did it make you go stuck? I can imagine it was a panic reaction but how did it make you stuck?”

She played with the corner of the pillow and looked at it as she took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure at first, but with some help, I discovered that what I saw was the wolves slaughtered by an army of newborns. I recognized a handful from Charlie’s missing children flyers..”

“The Volturi would never allow that to happen.”

“No, it’s Victoria. I knew she was planning something, but this?” She felt the panic rise in herself again. “She’s coming to kill me for what Edward did to her mate and she’s going to bring an army to do so.”

“Not if we stop that right now,” Klaus’ voice sounded as he walked in and looked Bella over before guilt briefly washed over his face upon seeing the blood on her neck and shirt. “Wasn’t your father involved with this?”

“Uh, yeah, he’s having a meeting with other chiefs from the area. He’s back tomorrow.”

“That means that the army is still in its early stages, it’ll be easier to take care of them. Your wolves will be safe, as will you and Forks,” he said gently. “You can help, of course, you’ll be a great asset to us in the fight.”

“That’s great but can you guys tell me how I can suddenly have visions?” Bella asked, feeling a bit… she wasn’t sure how she felt. Included? Edward and the rest of the Cullens always treated her as a fragile being.

“We’ll see if it returns and then work on that, how’s that?” Kol suggested. “But for now, how about you get some sleep and then Nik, Elijah and I will check out what’s going on and think of a plan on how to stop them.”

“My truck is still at the rez,” Bella pouted. “And Charlie isn’t home.”

“You can have the guest room,” Myriam grinned as she rubbed her hands in glee. “With your permission, I’ll go to your home to fetch you some clothes and nightwear while you take a bath. It’s sleepover time.”

Bella’s grew large as she looked over at Klaus and Kol. “Should I be afraid?” She pointlessly whispered, almost terrified of the expression on the female vampire’s face.

“No,” Klaus said impishly. “She’ll make sure you get your rest.”

“Just don’t kill her when she wakes you early in the morning to watch a movie or something,” Kol added.

“I won’t! Look at her! She looks dead on her feet!” Myriam defended herself. “Maybe if she stays over more often. Then I might do that. It’s been far too long.”

“Girls nights are usually done at night, love,” Klaus said kindly.

Myriam huffed. “I’m a rebel. Now go get your brother and assess the situation, I’ll take care of the witch,” she said as she put an arm around Bella and started to lead her up the stairs. “Do I have permission to enter your home to get you some clothes? I promise I won’t do anything but that.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bella sighed. “Or I could just get one of your shirts or something.”

“Nah, it’s always better to be in your own clothes, at least that’s my experience,” once upstairs, Myriam opened the door to the guest room that had an ensuite bathroom. “Welcome to your guest room, Bella, I hope you like it. If not, just tell me and I’ll change it for the next time but I had so much fun decorating it for you.”

“You didn’t just-”

“Do this for you?” Myriam smiled widely. “Of course I did! Who else will come over for a sleepover? It’s not like Rebekah wants to invite the girls from school over and you’re Kol’s only- friend. So yeah, I thought it’d be nice to create something you’d like so you’d feel more at home. Is it too much?”

“A little, yeah,” Bella let out a snort as she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I mean… I don’t think I’ll stay over that much and-”

“That’s okay.”

The whole room was in pastel colors, not nauseating, but classy. There were some wooden fixtures like the exterior of the house and the beams she’d seen all throughout the house and the bed looked nice and comfortable. There was a dresser for her clothes, a desk with some books on there and an ensuite bathroom. “Thank you, Myriam,” Bella smiled at her. “You’re insane but this is great!”

“Great! Now get clean, I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Rebekah’s around, just busy with her latest project but you’ll be safe nonetheless. Do you mind if I burn those clothes once you’re out of them? You don’t want to try to explain to your dad where all that blood came from.”

Bella huffed. “It’s not the first time I’d had to wash blood out of clothes.”

“Likely his clothes, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my point,” Myriam pointed out. “See you in a bit!”

~o.O.o~

When she woke up the following morning she was slightly disoriented, she wasn’t in her own room and the sleep had made her memory fuzzy. It took her a moment that she had stayed the night at the Mikaelsons, had survived the night at the Mikaelsons and that there had been no Mikaelson sitting on the bed with her to watch her sleep.

It was great to wake up like this. She felt rested and hungry. Grabbing her phone, Bella panicked when she saw the time. Why had they allowed her to sleep in so late?! She needed to get dressed and pick up her truck and apologize to the wolves. Oh, god, the wolves. She wasn’t sure if she was able to face them after not returning last night. How could she face them like this? She couldn’t rely on Jake having told them, so that was going to be a great conversation.

Jake had sent her several messages asking if she was alright. Her dad had sent her one message that he was going to come home today, which meant she needed her truck to do groceries. And then she needed to study. And deal with- A shit ton of other stuff. And thank the Mikaelsons for their hospitality and…

She had so much to do. So much.

And Bella didn’t want to. She wanted to hide and make it all go away. Again. And that was wrong too. It was better to go ‘poof’. Away. That was hiding, too.

Sighing, she rolled out of bed and got dressed, grateful for Myriam to have gotten her own clothes and made sure she left the bed made up before tentatively making her way downstairs towards the voices. She hated sleeping over – anywhere.

“Hey look who’s awake,” Klaus greeted her. “Just in time for brunch. Rebekah retrieved your truck from the reservation while Kol explained the situation and assured the pups you were alright.”

“You might want to text Jake though,” Kol nodded as he pat on the chair next to him. “He wasn’t really happy and very worried. As expected, he’s your best friend after all.”

“Oh, I just wanted to thank you and-”

Myriam pointed at the empty chair for Bella to sit down in. “So, where did you go yesterday?”

Bella sat down next to Kol and scratched her head before briefly glancing at Klaus. “2016. Out of state.”

“Oh, that’s good, then the vampire who bit you could still be alive. Who was it? I could do with a good kill!” Kol said as he rubbed his hands together in glee. “I’ll make it as painful as possible, I promise.”

She uneasily shifted in her chair. “Can we just talk about something else? I got stuck, I got help and I’m back. And did what you told me taught me to do, erase that vampire’s mind so he wouldn’t remember the encounter and endanger the present.”

“Remembering you or not, you got hurt.”

“I’m fine, I promise,” Bella said and felt Rebekah stare at her so she got some pancakes on the plate in front of her and felt that stare ease up. “I’ll just have to stay away from puppy piles for now so it won’t happen again.”

“I don’t care.”

“Kol, leave it alone, please,” Bella said as she took a bite out of her pancake.

“It was one of us, wasn’t it? And you erased the memory, why?”

“Because whoever it was, told me that if I’d left only a little bit of knowledge about what they encountered, they’d never stop searching or trying to find out who it was,” Bella explained. “It’d drive them mad and it would cause a lot of trouble.”

Kol had seen her brief glance over to Klaus earlier. It wasn’t fair. “And yet, it seems like you told Nik. Again. And you allowed him to remember,” Kol was jealous. Once again his brother knew everything and he didn’t. “So, who was it, Nik?”

Bella couldn’t believe Kol’s…. What was it? Anger? Jealousy? What? He hadn’t been this antagonistic towards his brother before. Then again, during the dinners she had had over at the Mikaelsons they had all been very well behaved for the most part, but this was the first time she realized that Kol could be a ticking time bomb because he didn’t do emotions very well. But why?

Why now?

What would the harm be if she’d free that memory? Likely a lot. If he wanted to kill the vampire who had taken a bite out of her, then he was going to hate himself. On the other hand, it wasn’t fair, seeing as she interacted with Kol in the past and only Klaus knew that. Then again, she basically erased his memory, or her way of a vampire’s compulsion and she shouldn’t have been able to do that on an Original vampire. And she had. Power made them scared and paranoid.

Telling Kol could either be the best or the worst thing, there was no middle ground.

“Tell me Kol. How would you feel if you knew that you may have attacked Bella two years ago? Maybe I’m not telling you that it was I because I’d already met her and already knew and have to help keep the timeline,” Klaus argued, trying to help. “It could have been Myriam and you know how she is when she is blood drunk. Or Elijah when back when mother messes with his head. No. I know but I won’t say.”

“Did I?” Kol asked angrily as he looked at his brother. “Because no one dares to say a name, which makes me think it was me.”

Bella rolled her eyes and looked over at Klaus before sighing and looking at Kol. “Can we like… talk somewhere without them?”

“It was me!”

She sighed and slowly nodded. “But can we talk about that? Just you and me? Not with the rest of your family?”

“No,” Kol said as he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “I can’t believe you didn’t allow me to remember!” He then ran out of the house, slamming the door in his wake.

“I’m sorry, maybe I should just go and-”

“Stick your head in the sand and withdraw?” Rebekah asked, raising a brow. “Not going to happen, Ducky. I’m sure you had your reasons and Kol will return once he comes to the same conclusion. Don’t run.”

Bella pointed in the general direction of the door. “That was not the Kol I left behind when I went to see the wolves at the Rez. I fucked up.”

“Oh, no, that’s the same Kol alright,” Rebekah replied. “All these months he’s been on his best behavior around you. Patient. Caring. He wanted to help you and make sure that you were alright and had your powers under control,” she explained before taking a sip of her tea. “While he usually tolerates witches and manipulates them to think that he’s not impatient, his behaviour towards yourself was new.”

“When Jake came here to tell him that you were missing, Kol went crazy with worry. He knew he should have never allowed you to go to the Rez. At least not by yourself. But he told you to go because he also knows how much you’d missed your friends,” Myriam added. “Kol truly cares about you, Bella, more than that he’s willing to show at the moment because he doesn’t want to scare you off.”

“Right now he’s mostly angry with me,” Klaus said with an encouraging smile. “He’s jealous. But I’m sure that you talked with Kol about erasing his memory as not to change your present and future.”

“I should have done that to you but you were in Mystic Falls,” Bella muttered. “And since you were already keeping my secret and done well with it, I didn’t care. Seeing as Kol’s my friend, I wanted to preserve that and not change how I met him or whatever. I don’t see any issue with returning the memory of us meeting in Denver, other than the fact that he won’t like how we were towards each other. Mainly because he thought that you send me to him, Klaus, and wanted to have me for lunch. So I wiped the floor with him.”

“Ah, true love,” Myriam grinned. “In all honesty, Kol will come back. He just has a lot of pent-up stress and aggression he needs to deal with at the moment. Vampire and all. Finish your breakfast and go about your day, that’s the best you can do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep, and if he doesn’t, I’ll make him,” Myriam said in barely a whisper with a demented smirk on her face. “It’s been a while since I made him do something he didn’t want…”

“And you’re not going to, either!” Bella said shocked. If she was willing to threaten Elijah with cutting off his manhood with garden shears, what on Earth would Myriam do to Kol? “Leave him alone, I can understand why he’d be hurt.”

After breakfast, she thanked the Mikaelsons for their care and jumped into her truck to get groceries so she could start cooking for her dad after cleaning up the house a little. Bella couldn’t help but worry about Kol, so while she was cleaning, she sent him a text message asking if he was okay and if he’d please forgive her. That she wanted to explain.

But she didn’t get a message back. Nor the next day. Bella had, however, received several messages from Jake to which she responded but got annoyed when the number of texts didn’t stop, making her want to change her number just for him. She wanted Kol to respond and hoped he hadn’t done anything stupid.

My window’s open. Come here, let’s talk.

Bella couldn’t help herself. Kol likely needed space but she wanted to make this right for him. And tell him that she’d likely do it again if she’d meet him in the past. To preserve what was now. Because if she’d change one thing, everything could change while she wouldn’t. And Kol knew this. He was aware of the rules and, while he couldn’t remember, he had given his permission.

But she was going to make him remember and then see what happened. She didn’t want to lose him over this. Bella wasn’t sure if she could do this without him or the rest of his family.

It didn’t take long before a slightly agitated looking Kol was standing in her bedroom. “The window? Really?”

“My dad’s asleep,” Bella said as she looked at him from her position on her bed and put her phone away. “Are you okay? Have you calmed down some?”

Kol sighed as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, Bella, that I got jealous at my brother for knowing what happened. It almost feels as if you two have a secret club that I’m not a part of, but, I do understand. Nik wouldn’t have let it affect his decisions and I would.”

“But it still isn’t fair.”

“No, especially knowing that I have hurt you. I wouldn’t even dare to think that I would do that to you now.”

She crawled to him and settled herself next to him as she took his hand. “Would you like to know? I mean, we’re in the present now, nothing can change.”

“Is that even possible?”

“I think so, yes. I’m not even sure how I managed to do that on you, seeing as you’re an Original vampire armed with potent magic in your blood yourself,” she gently squeezed his hand. “Oh, but you did feed me your blood to heal before I did the spell.”

“Then that must have been it, that extra little nudge.”

“You were an asshole.”

“I’m still one, darling, I just behave myself slightly better these days because of you, because I know what the Cold Ones have done to you and I’m not a saint. Nik and Elijah often tell me to do their dirty work when I’m out of the box.”

Bella smiled then as she looked up to him. “You’re a good person, Kol Mikaelson. And I understood that I met you when you were still a little rough around the edges because you’d been only free for a week at that point. I will try to return the memory to you but I don’t want you to feel any guilt over you thinking I would make a great snack, because I smacked you on your ass for that.”

“You did?”

She nodded with a big smile on her face. “I wasn’t even afraid of you.”

“Something is wrong with you,” Kol let out a snort. “You truly don’t see danger.”

“I do now. But you and your family are a different kind of danger. You protect each other and anyone who crosses one of you will be truly sorry. As long as I don’t do anything to hurt you, I’m not in any danger.”

“We won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, I know,” she retorted as their eyes locked. “Because otherwise you wouldn’t have told me most of your family’s history. You let me in, and you didn’t have to do that,” she said as she squeezed his hand again. “Just promise me you won’t start hating yourself or get angry with what happened. That was a different situation.”

Kol nodded. “I promise.”

She took his other hand and whispered the spell Kol had taught her to release the memory, nearly falling off the bed as he got up in shock.

“That…” he said as he scratched his head in confusion as he looked at her. “That’s certainly a strange experience… Don’t ever do that again, please.”

“I hope not to, but I was actually thinking that should I encounter you in the past again, to do the same thing. That way you still know what happened, but nothing would have changed.”

“You could allow it to change.”

“But I don’t want things to change.”

“Why not? You were a bitch when I first met you.”

“Yeah, and you were a persistent jerk, who cares? If that didn’t happen, you know, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

Kol looked at her for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, alright.”


A/N: Thanks for reading! I’ve had some concerns about Myriam in the past, especially since I’ve basically put her in every story since we developed her and I can promise you that this will be the last story with her in it.

She was conceived because I really like writing Kol, but I like Klaus as well, and Klaus is better with someone by his side who’s not Elijah, a female presence makes Klaus mellow out a bit more and not be so hard on his brother Kol 😉

6 Comments:

  1. Got to say Miriam sometimes ruble the wrong way but she has a good relationship with Klaus

  2. Oh good they worked things out.

  3. LOL! Something like that is going to happen. Something like that. It’s akin to Edward’s convo with Vicky in the hills.

    There’s more shit to come, but it’ll be a fun romp 🙂

  4. Glad they worked that shit out.

    Kol can take his anger out on the newborns! That would be fun for him. Then Myriam can put Vickie’s head on the mantle or something. Hang it in the garden like a scarecrow.

    Crush her into dust and use the dust like glitter! (Maybe I should use that one … Maybe I will.)

    Sprinkle vamp dust around the house to keep varmints out …

    Ooo! Send pieces to the Cullens! A finger, and eye, a lock of hair.

    Could be fun.

  5. Love this story!

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