"Nothing is with me now but a sound,
A heart's rhythm, a sense of stars"
- W. H. Auden, Compline
In which Charlotte Salvatore wakes after a 145 year slumber and is thrust into a supernatural world before she can cope with the modern one.
(THE VAM...
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Night came and then went. Charlotte and Katherine were restless, moving from the couch to the table, the kitchen to the bedroom. At some point Katherine dozed off on the couch, waking up to see Charlotte asleep on the floor. Each waking at random intervals throughout the night, they'd pull the door open, seeing if Klaus was dead, their compulsion gone, and their freedom granted.
The sun was just beginning to rise when they both dozed off for the final time, laying with legs tangled on the couch, a blanket pulled from the bed. Charlotte hadn't wanted to leave the living room, frightened Damon or Stefan might come in the night and miss her.
Finally as the sun hit its peak for the day the two girls rolled awake. It was Katherine who checked this time, tugging on the door and pushing her hand out and breaking both their hearts. The compulsion still held. Klaus was alive and Damon had failed. Both girls let out the breath they didn't realise they'd been holding, Katherine's fingers curling into a fist at her side.
The day passed slowly, as they resigned themselves to their fate. Pulling the fridge open as the evening drew on Charlotte looked disdainfully in, "Does this guy eat at all?"
"He's always at the Gilbert house."
A pang of regret washed over Charlotte as she remembered Jenna, their part in the plan to break the curse. She'd stopped searching through the fridge at that thought so Katherine leant over her shoulder, pulling a drawer of the the fridge open she found a red apple, hidden beneath an empty paper bag.
"Here, no starvation today," Katherine grinned as she tossed the apple in the air for Charlotte to catch. Charlotte moved away after that, watching as Katherine continued her search and found a blood bag for herself.
The apple wasn't quite the grand welcome back to life meal she hoped they'd prepare after a hundred and forty five years, but it would have to do and so she lay back on the couch eating it. She wasn't exactly sure the plan now, she couldn't leave until Klaus said she could, her brothers hadn't come back to help her. She didn't even know if they'd made it, why hadn't they come back for her? Were her brothers even alive?
Charlotte was at a loss for what she could do now but wait.
Katherine was better about entertaining herself, shuffling about from one activity to the next, intervals where she would play music so loud Charlottes ears would ring, dancing around with her hands in the air. She'd spend an hour doing that before making her way to the kitchen, chugging desperately from a bottle of whiskey before relaxing in Alaric's small bathroom, 'self care' she called it. Charlotte would do her best to chug along but it was hard to keep up with the pace of the vampire.
Focusing on time passing made it feel slower.
Charlotte was hungry and tired, she'd eaten the rest of Alaric's food, two slices of bread lay in the freezer, and a bag of orange cheese that she'd spent several decades watching people eat. A little unsure of its legitimacy as a food item, the flavour was soft, barely there, and the texture felt like rubber. She remembered the cheese that she grew up with with fondness, but there were no other options and so she ate it, ignoring her distaste.
