" already choking on my pride, so there's no use crying about it "
AIDEN and Lena trudged through the French Quarter. The sun had risen in the sky. It wasn't even midday and already a drunk had stumbled past them, almost caving their head in with the sidewalk. Both had just walked past, muttering to each other about their lives. Both of them held steaming cups of coffee from a small hole-in-the-wall coffee joint in their hands, allowing it to heat them up.
Lena had changed from the outfit that had been stuck on her body for what felt like months. Her favourite knitted dress now hung from her shoulders, and her feet were warm in her dark brown boots. Aiden had gladly sat in the courtyard of the compound while she had changed, and then they had gone out onto the streets of the French Quarter to start their search for Marcel and his clan.
"So, you grew up with Klaus and Elijah's sister?" Aiden asked, leading the way across the road and almost getting them knocked over by a green Mini. The werewolf flipped them off.
"Yeah, she's pretty much like my mom," replied the witch, watching a mother and her daughter walk past them, the two of them laughing at some shared nostalgia. Lena missed Rebekah. She needed to find her.
"And now you're dating her brother?"
"The Mikaelson's are really rather complicated."
"That's an understatement!"
They both laughed, the sound ringing through the busy French Quarter. Their laughter was drowned out by the monotonous drone of cars charging down the streets of New Orleans, the rubble of children shouting at each other through the hustle and bustle, the ever playing music that swept through the air. This was the French Quarter in all it's finery.
Suddenly, Aiden got a text from Davina, telling him to meet her at Lafayette Cemetery with the order of getting anything of Josh' that he could. He shared a look with Lena, knowing that the young witch would be able to find Marcel and his other vampires.
"Are you gonna come with or...?" Aiden tailed off, shoving his hands back into his pockets.
"No, I'll get Lottie to help me here, it'd be best." Aiden nodded, glancing around. "You should go, Vina doesn't like to be kept waiting." Aiden nodded again and turned away from her. Lena felt her shoulders fall as she turned from him and began to walk down the street, wrapping her arms around herself.
"WAIT! LENA!" the witch spun around at the shout and the next thing she knew, Aiden was barrelling into her, pulling her into a tight hug. She couldn't help but smile, feeling comforted by the warmth that radiated from the werewolf. Lena squeezed him tighter, allowing numbness to wash over her, allowing herself to forget everything that she was going through in that second. In that hug, Rebekah was not missing, Elijah was not crazy, Kol was not a backstabbing bitch, Hayley was not about to spill the secret of her child to Jackson. In this hug, everything was safe.
"I hope next time we hang out, the circumstances are better," he whispered as he pulled away from her. She smiled back at him, moving her hands up to squeeze his shoulders.
"Go find your Romeo, Romeo."
Aiden laughed as she leant up to kiss his cheek. She watched him walk away. When he was gone from her sight she sucked in a deep breath and allowed the emotions to wave over her again.
She sunk against the wall of a small pizza joint, able to smell the strong garlic bread wafting from the back door, but she didn't care. She was struggling to breathe and she couldn't understand why. There was something wrong, like her lungs had just finally caved in and her throat had tightened up.
She felt tears burning the back of her eyes as she sunk to the ground, knees pulled to her chest. Her head was spinning. She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't feel her fingers. Or her toes. Or any of her body parts. She felt numb. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think.
Her chest hurt. Why did her chest hurt? Why did her heart hurt?
Why was everything slipping away from her? Everything was going wrong and she couldn't think straight and she couldn't stand up and she couldn't do anything, everything was horrible. Her mind spun and spun and spun and spun and spun. Rebekah was there and then she was gone. Elijah. Gone. Hayley. Gone. Hope. Gone. Klaus. Gone. Why couldn't she focus? Why couldn't she answer herself?
"Lena?"
Was that her name? Who's voice was that? Why did it sound so far away? Why did it sound like the sea crashing against the cliff that had taken over her eardrums? Why did she suddenly feel like she was standing on the bough of a ship crossing over the Drake Passage?
"Lena, it's me Stacey."
Her head was being forced between her knees.
Spinning.
Stinging.
Sobbing.
Shaking.
"Here, let me take you back to your house, come on."
She was moving. She was on her feet. She was walking. But the world was still spinning. The world was not meant to be spinning but it was and Lena felt weak, she was sure her legs were going to break as she stood, as she walked, as she breathed. Her ribs were going to break, she was sure of it. She could hardly breathe, how could she walk if she could hardly breathe? How could she do anything.
"Here, sit down here, I'm going to get you some water."
There was something soft underneath her. A pillow? The couch? Maybe it was the couch, the couch made sense. It made sense. She dropped her head into her hands. Her body hurt. Her legs bounced. Her head throbbed. She was going crazy or the world was going crazy or both. Could it be both? She didn't even know anymore.
"Lena, I want you to focus on my voice. I think you are having a panic attack. Now, I'm not going to touch you again, I just knew I had to get you to someplace you felt safe, and this here is safe. This is your home. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Did she nod? She felt like she nodded. She probably did nod. She should have nodded.
"I want you to focus on my voice. Just me. Nothing else. It's Stacey McCall. I'm a werewolf, we met last year at the plantation house before there was the fire, on the full moon. I haven't seen you in a while. Last time we saw each other there was a party and a fight broke out between Diego, Oliver and Elijah. Do you remember? Do you understand?"
Spinning.
Stinging.
She nodded.
"I have water for you, so when this stops you can have a drink. Panic attacks don't last very long and once it stops you can tell me all about how you feel. But right now, I just want you to focus on breathing. I know that it feels like you cannot breathe. But you can. It might hurt, but you have to try. Do you understand?"
Spinning.
She nodded.
Again.
"Okay. I want you to breathe in."
She did. It burned. She wasn't sure she could do it. But she did.
"Hold it."
She did. She didn't think she could. She did.
"And let it out."
She did. The air left her lungs. Her lungs were working again. She was working again.
"Okay, breathe in. Hold it. Let it out."
Spinning.
She followed Stacey's voice. It was Southern. Very slow. Very Southern.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
"See, I knew we would get through it together."
Lena ran her hands down her face and met Stacey's eyes. The werewolf looked a little worried. The witch gulped, but her throat burned and she held her hand out for the water that Stacey was holding.
"I haven't seen you in forever," Lena finally croaked after downing half of the water. Without realising it she had used her magic to fill the cup back up again. Stacey looked a little stunned at the simple wordless spell.
"You've been out of town, I heard. I was in the bayou, and your boyfriend came running in demanding to see Hayley and Jackson. Of course, we don't know where they had gotten to, so we took him to go see Mary, Jackson's grandma. Anyway, heard a lot of shouting, but Jackson told me to go and check on Aiden, he's been doing a lot in the Quarter and he thinks none of us know about his boyfriend. But he'd be wrong. We been knew."
Lena felt herself laughing. It hurt. But it was a good type of hurting. She had missed Stacey. She hadn't even realised it but she had really missed the beautiful, bouncy Beta.
"Anyway, walking through the Quarter and I heard you and well, here we are."
"I'm sorry I haven't text or called. Bex and I were busy."
Stacey shrugged, grinning brightly at Lena. Lena found comfort in that smile. Like she had found some sort of numbing comfort in Aiden's arms. Her eyes dropped to her knees. She couldn't help but wonder if he and Davina had found Josh yet. Maybe she should have stayed with him.
"You smell like Aiden, you seen him recently?"
"We hung out this morning, we were looking for some missing vamps but, we couldn't find them so he's with Davina, in Lafayette Cemetery. I didn't want to go."
Stacey nodded, wringing her hands together. Lena could see her feet bouncing, the twitch in her crooked jawline, the tapping of her fingers. Stacey could not sit still. She wanted to get to Aiden. She had been sent out to find the other Beta, her comrade, her brother-in-arms. She wouldn't rest until she had done so.
"You should go and get him. Just in case, I'll be fine here, I'll probably just nap or something," Lena shrugged off. Stacey looked like she was ready to argue, but Lena's hand shout out and curled around Stacey's extremely tanned one. "I'll be fine, Stace, you go."
They continued on like that. Stacey not wanting to leave Lena by herself after a panic attack and Lena telling her that she would be fine, that she would be safe in the Mikaelson household until finally the werewolf had finally left and Lena was able to stretch across the couch in the middle of the courtyard.
She wanted to sleep, right then and there, but her mind was running at about a hundred miles a minute. Why wasn't she doing a single thing to find Rebekah? Had she even tried? Her best friend could be anywhere and she was doing nothing because Klaus had told her to do nothing. She was just sitting -- laying actually - about, doing nothing, while the woman who raised her was probably in trouble.
But what could she do? She couldn't track her, she didn't have the power for that. She was useless. Useless while her best friend probably lay frozen in the body of some mental hospital patient, forced to endure horrendous torture while she tried to find a way out of whatever hellhole she was stuck in.
As Lena's eyes slowly fluttered shut, her mind wandered through the abandoned hallways of her deepest, darkest memories, opening the door she had locked a very long time ago.
The dreams -- nightmares are dreams too aren't they? Dreams that are so dark they force you into a paralysis you had never realised existed before now -- that accompanied the sleep she fell into were full of blood, screams and pain.
And there, at the very front of her mind, were words written in the blood that flowed through her veins too.
"All I know is a hopeless place that flows with the blood of my kin."
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
SOMEONE was shaking her awake. Someone sounded worried as they said her name, over and over and over again. She blearily blinked away, bringing her hand up to rub at her eye as the person let out a sigh.
"You scared me," she heard Klaus' familiar voice and smiled at the sound of it. When her vision wasn't blurred by the bright flashing of phosphenes, she noticed him smiling back at her and allowed his hand to brush the strands of light blue hair out of her face.
"Is everything okay? Is she okay?" Klaus nodded, smiling gently at her.
"You look like you've had a rough day, I hope that wolf treated you right," Klaus said, noticing how much paler she was and how dark the bags under her eyes were. Something had happened today and he couldn't tell what it was.
"Yes, Aiden was... wonderful. He even bought me coffee this morning, very sweet. Stacey dropped by earlier too. But, Klaus, since everything's okay, can we--?"
"We can start looking for Rebekah as soon as the sun rises tomorrow morning, I promise. Right now, you look like you need a nice, long bath."
Lena felt herself grin. Next thing she knew, Klaus' arms were underneath her and he was lifting her up. She let out a squeal of surprise as she threw her arms around his neck to make sure that she didn't fall. Klaus laughed in her ear as he pulled her closer to him.
"What are you doing?" she asked him, the echo of laughter hidden behind her vowels.
"Taking you for your bath. A woman such as yourself should not have to walk."
Lena giggled as Klaus rushed upstairs to the ensuite bathroom in the bedroom that they now shared. Klaus let her down once they reached the bathroom. The tiles were cold under her bare feet, but the ice that ran through her was something nice.
As the water filled the bath tub, Klaus started to undress his girlfriend.
"You do realise I can do this myself?" she asked, trying to swat his hands away as he rolled down her tights.
"You do realise that it's more fun this way, love?"
Lena rolled her eyes but then decided that she was feeling too lazy to do it herself and so after she allowed Klaus to fully undress her, she slipped into the bath, running her fingers through her hair to tie it up into a bun. Klaus leant against the wall, watching her for a moment before he remembered that he had something to do.
"I have a phone call to make," he told his girlfriend. "How about after your bath, we..." Klaus trailed off, trying to think of something fun but lazy the two of them could do for the night. Lena had her eyes closed as she leant her head back to lie on the edge of the bath, her muscles relaxing in the warm rose-scented water.
"Watch movies and eat popcorn. In bed?"
Klaus chuckled at the way Lena grinned up at him, her face full of innocence but her eyes shining devilishly. He pretended to mull it over for half a minute before he finally shrugged. "I suppose," he said, before taking his phone out of his back pocket. "I really should phone my brother."
Lena nodded and waved him off. She heard the door shut behind him and sunk deeper into the bath so only her head wasn't submerged in warm water. She could hear his muffled voice through the door, but she didn't care to hear his words until she felt her fingers pruning up and the water had gotten colder, and so she decided that her bath was over and she pushed herself out of it. She grabbed the bath towel that was hanging on the rack and wrapped it around her body, before slipping out of the bathroom.
Klaus was still on the phone when she had slipped one of his old cotton shirts over her head and pulled on a pair of lace underwear before going to find him in the dining room. Her bare feet padded across the wooden flooring and he didn't even notice her slip into the room, almost soundlessly, as he told Elijah what had happened with Hayley and Jackson.
"A little faith in Jackson is a means to an end. If I had simply killed him, Hayley would've turned against me, you should've seen the ferocity with which she defended him, it was impressive," Klaus was teasing Elijah, playing with his feelings for Hayley. Lena made herself known as she allowed herself to stand on the one squeaky floorboard. Klaus turned to her, knife raised, ready to be thrown into her heart, but his nerves settled when he noticed it was just his girlfriend standing there in his oldest t-shirt giving him the look that made him shiver.
"That being said, I don't take the matter of secrets lightly. Once the wedding takes place and the wolves are forever altered, our Jackson's fate becomes a little less certain," Klaus smirked to himself as he twirled the knife between his fingers while he hung up on his big brother.
"You can't kill Jackson."
"I can do whatever I want, love, I'm the big bad wolf after all."
"You can't kill Jackson because Hayley cares about him. You kill him, you hurt Hayley. You hurt Hayley, she takes Hope away from you. And that would kill you, no need for a white oak stake, no need for magic. Just a mother taking her daughter away from someone dangerous."
Klaus turned his back on her, mulling over her words. Lena didn't say anything as she watched the muscles in his back tighten. He was obviously taking her words into consideration.
"She's right. She's always right," came a voice neither of them recognised. The couple spun around, eyes narrowing at the dark skinned girl who had just walked into the dining room. She smiled at them both before she realised what Lena was wearing. "Ugh, you're really wearing his shirt now, could you be any more cliche, my dear?"
"Rebekah?" gasped out the witch, causing the 'stranger' to nod. Lena let out a squeal, immediately rushing over to throw her arms around her best friend. Rebekah laughed as her own arms tightened around the younger witch. They both felt as if they had been separated for days. "Oh, I've missed you so much, we've looked everywhere for you!"
Rebekah giggled, pushing Lena away slightly so that she could wrap her arm around her shoulder while they turned back to Klaus. Lena wrapped her own arms around Rebekah's waist again. She didn't feel like Rebekah at all, but this was her best friend and she wasn't letting go for a while.
"You absolutely will not believe the week I've had," moaned the vampire-turned-witch causing them all the chuckle.
"Join the club," muttered Lena as Klaus moved closer to the two of them. His hand cupped his sister's face, grinning brightly at her. Rebekah grinned back at him and allowed him to kiss her on the forehead.
"Well, seeing as you've just disrupted our plans, you might as well," he joked. Rebekah let her arm drop away from Lena, who stepped back so that she was standing in between the Mikaelson siblings.
"Plans?" asked the now-brunette. "What plans? It hardly looks like you had dinner reservations at Galatoire's 33," she pointed out, raising her eyebrow at the two, who looked like they were both ready to get into bed and do nothing else for the next week.
"It was movie and popcorn night," Klaus told his sister. Lena felt herself smiling again. The way Klaus said it made it sound like it could be a reoccurring thing. She really hoped it was.
"Well, let's get the corn popped and I'll be the damn movie."
Lena laughed again, wrapping her arms tightly around Rebekah once more.
"I really have missed you," whispered the witch. Rebekah grinned down at her adopted daughter, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head before pulling her even tighter against her.
They had spent so long with it just being the two of them, that not being together really took a toll on them both. That was obvious for everyone to see, which was why Klaus was happy enough to leave them alone while he got the popcorn that his girlfriend so desperately wanted ready.
He decided he wouldn't ask her about the panic attack she had next to Pepe's Pizza Place. She didn't need reminding.
hope you enjoyed this!
I love Aiden so much and Stacey. My two favourite Beta's. Like they are gonna be so brotp in the future. Also, I know this chapter was a bit different and I hope nobody is offended by the way I wrote the panic attack scene. I just wrote it in the way in which I experience panic attacks.