A.N.: In trying to make this story feel authentic, I want to build up to the action, showing the differences in my interpretations of the characters and how they've changed, a bit more introspective, learning their history, setting the stage for secrets they've kept and things that really drive them. I wish I could have written the screenplay for TVD/The Originals because I'd have such fun actually getting into the nitty-gritty of complex relationships, rather than shift all of the focus onto the supernatural aspects of the show.

So, the next few chapters will be Rebekah/Stefan-centred. This one was quite fun to write, I wanted to show Stefan being sweet and enjoying having someone else to spend time with, that innate thoughtfulness he has, and show Klaus' diabolical nature, Rebekah's insight into how his mind works.

Cuckoo in the Nest

03

On the Road Again

He sat in the passenger-seat, eyes shielded by sunglasses, his smile internalised as he watched the fields sweep past, lush and green, peaceful after the chaos of their city-hopping road-trip from Chicago. He watched the corn-fields flash past, the woods vibrant and full of life, the scent of warmth and nature heavy on the warm air as the days continued to heat up, coaxing him out to bask like a lizard, the pollen-saturated air teasing his hair as it whipped through his open window, The Sweet and Springsteen and The Kinks and Bowie providing a soundtrack to drown out the incessant bickering of the world's most ancient and petty siblings.

"He's ignoring us," Rebekah pouted, glaring at her brother. Whenever they were confined to the enormous automobile, Stefan put those absurd things over his ears and refused to acknowledge them – unless he patted the seat beside his, and she clambered into the back to plug in her own set of headphones and join him in watching one of his movies on his tablet.

"He'll get over it," Klaus sighed. Why he insisted on driving the entirety of their road-trip, she had no idea – actually, she did, he was just that controlling. She sighed, resting her arms over her stomach, glaring out of the window, and thinking back to their last foray into the city of Manhattan before Nik had laid it all out for them.

"Rebekah – come on – d'you really need to…"

"How gorgeous! Doesn't bat an eyelash at dismembering young girls for a midnight snack but he still blushes at a lady's undergarments. How brazen, though! Oh, these remind me of that secret little burlesque club we used to sneak to," Rebekah tittered, enjoying the flush of annoyance and embarrassment creeping up Stefan's high cheekbones. Truth be told, she was shocked by the wanton display of these scraps of lace – the moulded dress-forms in the window and the glossy posters showing scarcely-clad, absurdly lithe young women showed how such scraps of lace adorned the body but Rebekah could not fathom that they were comfortable. She had done very well without knickerbockers and French knickers for centuries, if she wished to avoid a 'VPL', whatever that was (Stefan confirmed; Visible Panty Line) she would just go without.

She smirked, tilting her chin up defiantly, teasing him further, and strolled about the vibrant, busy shop full of brassieres of all kinds and styles, padded and lacy, silken and fluttery, a labyrinth of strings and bizarre patterns. "You know, lingerie really has made leaps and bounds with regards to comfort," she mused, but wrinkled her nose and grimaced as she lifted something made of a stretchy, manmade fabric printed with leopard-print in a bevy of eye-watering colours. "But these colours are abhorrent."

"Neon," Stefan smiled. "Mostly limited to gym-wear, thankfully."

"Gym?"

"Don't worry about it," Stefan chuckled. "That's one thing thankfully vampires don't have to worry about."

"Alright. I'll take your word for it," Rebekah sighed. "So. Help me pick out some things."

"Oh, no. No way."

"When Nik said his credit-card had a limit even I could not reach, just how unattainable does he believe it is?"

"Depends on just how much he underestimates your desire for revenge," Stefan smirked. "I'd say keep swiping until they get the scissors and cut the card in half."

"How fun! Are you sure there isn't anything you'd like me to model for you later, to say thank you for helping me these last few weeks?"

"Just spending time with you is thanks enough," Stefan smiled, that sweet earnestness shining through his otherwise persistent brooding. Rebekah smiled, touched.

"You are sweet. And starved for female company. Do you think I have not noticed you never look at a girl except to gauge her as a snack? I suppose it was wisest not to become attached; trust me, Niklaus has killed nearly every one of my lovers in the past. I sympathise with your plight entirely."

"Not going to deny, it has been a sexless murder-spree for the last decade; I know bringing a girl home for anything but dinner would only end in –"

"Body-parts scattered across the carpet?" Rebekah asked, examining a display of little lace-trimmed undergarments. Each table had a poster naming them – Brazilian, Thong, Brief, Bikini, High-Waist, Shorts. Half of them looked uncomfortable and superfluous – why not just wear nothing?! But she was intrigued by some of them, and she had always adored making Stefan blush. He had been raised during the sexually-repressed Victorian era, after all; it took longer than a few decades to completely forget one's origins, the values he had been raised to respect. Decency, modesty, gentlemanly etiquette.

Stefan's eyes lowered to the floor, abashed and shameful. She sighed.

"You've regressed, haven't you, darling?" she said gently.

"Ten years with your brother, are you surprised?" Stefan asked quietly, with a bitter edge to his tone. Rebekah sighed. The Stefan she had known in the Twenties was a recovering Ripper, in fact she had gentled the worst of his rage and curbed those instincts; he had enjoyed flirting and fucking more than he had feeding, and that was the fundamental point at which Stefan had ceased to be the Ripper and had started to heal into the boy he had once been, the man he was to become over the ninety-four years in which he would not remember her existence, his love for her. She wondered how much losing one had affected the other – had his love for her been a catalyst to his healing; had he suffered in her absence, those memories removed from him, the emotional ties linking her to his humanity? She wondered.

"She helped, didn't she?" Rebekah observed. Stefan didn't speak often of the other doppelgänger, it was too current, too fresh. And he had fallen in love with her more recently than he had loved Rebekah.

Stefan sighed deeply. "In some ways. In others…it was harder."

He was being such a good sport in helping her acclimate to this new time. A significant part of that was due to his abhorrence for her brother; but he was helping her because at one time in his life he had had significant affection for her, and now he remembered it. After ten years with her brother, and only her brother, on his mission to eradicate the werewolves of North America in his quest to sire a new species made after his own image, did Stefan not deserve her efforts, helping him now as she had before?

How had they started before? Passive-aggressive flirtation, she remembered, helping herself to the champagne before Stefan could reach the waiter's tray; his obnoxious friends laughing over Gloria's singing as she danced. And then…tumbling into love, into bed, into a simple intimacy she had always craved, always treasured, always had torn from her. They had been two people drawn together by mutual guilt and grief – over lost loved ones, and their own mistreatment of innocents who had the misfortune to cross their paths. Indiscriminate carnage. That exquisite rapture had shifted, though, from feasting to fucking – and then, to a tenderness that made her heart ache even now, remembering a part of her life that, to her, had been weeks ago.

"Well…in the absence of your Alexia and this new doppelgänger, I suppose I shall have to do my utmost to fill the vacant spot," she smiled. "Now, what do you say to this particularly lecherous little number?" She plucked a tangle of black lace and straps from the rail, smiling sweetly as Stefan flushed, his smile bashful.

"You always did love taunting me," he said hoarsely, smiling.

"And you always loved to evade answering when I made you flustered," Rebekah smirked, giggling. "I suppose I shall have to purchase the lot and put on a little show. I don't think NIk will be recovered from his latest tantrum any time soon."

"I doubt it," Stefan sighed. He sighed heavily, glancing at Rebekah, looking like he wanted to say something.

"Alright, out with it; what has he done?" she asked.

"Nothing. He's done nothing… His inertia terrifies me more than any rage-fuelled murder spree," Stefan admitted solemnly. She would hazard a guess Stefan had been forced to bite his tongue and watch on, in terror of the repercussions if he voiced an opinion about what he saw Klaus doing – was she not exhaustingly intimate with that, too? "Ever since he woke you, he's been painting. And painting…means he's planning."

"Of course he is," Rebekah sighed. "Niklaus had no need to wake me, he could just as surely have taken Mother's pendant from my neck without disturbing me. He went to the trouble of waking me, I just do not yet know why… When Niklaus paints, he can control everything. The materials to create the exact shade of paint, the hair in the brushes he uses, the style he channels, the subject-matter, everything is meticulously thought out – for all half his works look as if someone vomited blood all over one of Monet's rough-studies," she added snarkily, and Stefan chuckled, nodding in agreement. "Every stroke of the brush is his mind moving the chess pieces across a board."

"Does he ever share his endgame with you?" Stefan asked.

"Rarely. He will do as he pleases to achieve his ends, to hell with the consequences for his family," Rebekah said, more mildly than she felt, "and after the dust has settled and the bodies are burned, he will expect forgiveness because he believes every act is justified by logic. He has never been able to fathom that emotion is more powerful than logic, that forgiveness for the heinous acts he has committed must be earned… In the end, it is easier to play pretend, let him believe all is forgiven, his insufferable arrogance never abates but the self-righteous posturing tones down a little."

"But you've never forgiven him."

"I've never forgiven him. And unlike you, he can't compel me to forget."

She sighed, glancing out of the window, fidgeting – after all these years she hated the idea of confinement. She had spent her childhood free, in leather trews and one of Father's threadbare tunics from the Old Country, her long hair in a single haphazard braid, clambering up trees and through rocky riverbeds, learning to swim from Elijah under the breathtakingly beautiful falls, chasing Henrik through flower-strewn meadows, oceans of grass rippling in the breeze, Father's horn calling them home with sunburned noses and growling stomachs, breathless with laughter, barefoot, hands rough from falling and practicing their swordplay, sliding over boulders, knees bruised and bloodied, breathless, having the time of their lives, returning to the jarlshall with pretty feathers and glittering rocks from the stream and eggs and flowers woven in her hair, a brace of rabbits and squirrel roped over her shoulder, or fish from her favourite spot at the lake. Inside had meant weaving with Mother, hiding her struggles with her weak magic, hiding her frustration and shame and feelings of inferiority next to the kind, dazzlingly brilliant savant Kol.

A far cry from the girl who had strutted down Fifth Avenue indulging in senseless consumerism, the accumulation of needless stuff.

But what she truly desired, she could never have, and if she had learned anything over the centuries, it was that appearances were almost everything. The very appearance of wealth transformed the way people responded to her; she had always been tomboyish, stubborn, free-spirited, unlucky in love, besotted with her older-brother Elijah and in constant war with Niklaus… She hadn't always been spiteful, vicious, vain – those were traits acquired over the centuries as a form of self-preservation.

It used to be Elijah who helped her acclimate. Every time she awoke, Elijah had a trousseau of new gowns and sheet-music waiting for her, a kitten, and that smile… She sighed internally, anguished and bittersweet, longing for her sweet brother Elijah. Musical, honourable, calm, and above all kind. Fundamentally lonely. Every lovely memory she had over the last millennium featured Elijah in it in some way… Over a thousand years, she could not recall a single truly joyous moment with Niklaus; they had always done whatever he wished to do, and that she had been there to share the moment was an afterthought. But Elijah… Playing duets Elijah had composed; taking long idle walks through the meadows at their leisure; staying up until the candles had guttered in their sconces as they drank port and discussed philosophy; learning the new waltz; enjoying picnics under their favourite tree on the plantation, the great sprawling oak that reminded them of childhood.

"–Rebekah!"

"There's no need to raise your voice, brother; I was ignoring you quite well the first time," Rebekah sighed, her eyes glued to a glossy new magazine. Stefan had bought her an armful of them yesterday when they had gone out for a proper coffee. It wasn't the Turkish coffee she adored, or the green tea from the Orient, but she had liked the 'art' on her flat white and the dainty little macaron that were apparently the treat to order.

"I do wish you would stop pouting; I only had to resort to this because of your inadequacy."

"And what, pray tell, have I done wrong this time?" Rebekah sighed, not in the slightest bit interested by his answer.

"I asked one thing of you, and you lost it."

"For a thousand years I wore and protected Mother's pendant; you trapped me inside a box and carted my desiccated body around for a century. You lost it."

"Watch your tongue."

"I shan't. You never could listen. Kol told you for centuries Mother's spell was a gift, why do you think he helped you acquire Katerina? And now see what you have done."

"She cursed me, rejected me as a beast."

"All these centuries, and you are still trying to rewrite the past to paint yourself in a more flattering light. I remember it very differently – how cruel you were to Mother when we discovered her secret, pushing her away – it was Kol and Finn who defended her from Father's wrath," Rebekah said, her eyes narrowed to slits like ice, dangerous and cutting. "It was the shifters who rejected you as monstrous, even Father did not forsake you, not until after Mother died. All her sacrifices to protect us – how ungracious you were. She ensured you were no different than your full-blooded siblings."

"She stole from me the man I might have been."

"Mother never stole anything from you," Rebekah said derisively. "You might have been the man you envision yourself as in your head; but over a thousand years, and to spite our brother Elijah's best intentions to help you, you have made the decision over and over again to be exactly who you are."

"It seems you have become quite bold in front of our mutual friend," Klaus said, in his soft, dangerous tone.

"Has it not always been my boldness that lanced a silver-dagger through my heart, time and again?" Rebekah asked coolly. "You called them my indiscretions. Did you imagine I would smile and thank you for waking me, especially after discovering you had erased all traces of me from Stefan's memory?"

"I protected you."

"You protected you. I was merely luggage," Rebekah said coldly. Stefan remained quietly in the backseat, carefully not drawing attention to himself. In the first few days of Rebekah waking, she had discovered that the Stefan she had known five minutes ago had changed. Ninety-four years had passed without her. And while Stefan was rediscovering his memories of them, Rebekah was learning all she could about her brother's new limitations.

She had spent ninety-four years in a box this time, twice as long as when Marcel had betrayed her. Her head was still aching from all she had missed out on, everything that would take her years to catch up with. Modern technology, leaps forward in physics and medicine, another World War that made the first look like child's play – music, fashions, culture, movies, it had all surged ahead without her. Niklaus had no appreciation for how lost she was, because he had experienced it all. She had been daggered in a dark back-alley behind Gloria's after a raid by Chicago P.D., wooden bullets scattered on the floor, champagne still on her tongue and the scent of Stefan's hair-pomade tickling her nose, the feel of him between her thighs so deliciously sore. The thrill of dancing with him to Gloria's band, the rush of fear at the ambush, her quiet rage and desolation – as the dagger sank into her heart she had had no inkling Stefan was even still living. Stefan wouldn't be joining them. Had Niklaus killed him? He had never specified, before killing her.

But Stefan was alive.

And true to Nik's character, he had ensured Rebekah's punishment for choosing someone else over him had not ended with her being daggered. He had erased every memory Stefan had of her. Every day they had spent together, every kiss, every ounce of ecstasy. He had taken away every bit of Stefan's love for her – only returning it when it suited Klaus.

It was strange, though. Niklaus was not the brother she remembered. Something had altered in him – he was at once simmering with pent-up rage, concealing desolation, and constantly vigilant against some unseen threat, more so than he ever had before. Mikael was the greatest of his problems as he had always been, but he was by no means the only one.

Niklaus could no longer compel, and physically he was weaker than he had ever been; the transformations took him by surprise, by force, there was no controlling them, he lost all power over his own body and instincts, and the first few Rebekah had witnessed had sent her reeling back to their first days as vampires, after Mother's spell had gone awry. They were not supposed to crave blood. And Niklaus was not supposed to be a shape-shifter's get. But they did; and he was. And she remembered the carnage, the horror they all lived in of his transformations, a cursed beast made more so by Mother's failed spell, a monster even the shifters of the moon had despised as unnatural.

Mother had made it right, suppressing the shifter side of his nature underlying the magic she had woven through them, ensuring Nik was not the only one of his kind: but the damage was done. The werewolves had rejected Nik as something impure before he could ever learn from their experience; Niklaus' behaviour had pushed Mikael to disown his beloved wife's bastard; and Mother… Mother was murdered.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"We've covered that; No."

She took great satisfaction in rifling through the contents of the little quilted purse she had bought from the Chanel boutique on Fifth Avenue, reminded of her very first House of Chanel suit. She brought out the colourful little iPod she had bought, popped her headphones over her ears, found the 'playlist' Stefan had created for her, and sat back, closing her eyes, to lose herself in music, thinking about her time in Manhattan with Stefan, fleeting as it had been…

So far, they had visited a vinyl record store, although Stefan had told her they were largely unused by a 'digital' generation who favoured those funny little metal boxes filled with music; they had dawdled around a fabulous bookstore five stories high, Stefan plucking his favourite books from the last century off the shelves for her, giving her hours to peruse the shelves and admire the leap forward in publishing. She had missed so much, but it was delightful to see some of her favourites were now considered 'Classics'.

"So," Rebekah beamed, as Stefan jammed his thumb into the little circle that glowed in the elevator, "what are we doing today?"

"Back in the Eighties, a guy called John Hughes produced a tonne of movies that encapsulated the era," Stefan smiled, ankles crossed, leaning against the wall as the elevator thrummed around them. "Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Weird Science, and one of my personal favourites, Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

"Oh, I was playing on your – did you call it a tablet? – and it started playing something. A film. Much better than the silent movies we used to go to, even with the tragic outfits," Rebekah said.

"I don't know, I kinda miss the old ones. Louise Brooks and that haircut. Clara Bow, Loretta Young, Joan Crawford," Stefan smiled. "They were so glamorous."

"Oh, there's no denying that. There is no comparing the timeless glamour of those actresses to the colours and fabrics and the hair in that film," Rebekah grimaced. Stefan had loaned her his sleek silver 'tablet' to play around on; he seemed to spend most of his time playing with 'the internet'. He'd showed her how to access his music, the TV shows he kept up with and his favourite movies 'downloaded' to it so he could watch them while Klaus drove them across the continent in search of doomed werewolves.

"Which movie did you watch?"

"There was a girl, a boy – he stood outside her window with some sort of modern gramophone," Rebekah frowned. Though she hadn't understood a good deal of the modern terms and references, she could appreciate the sentiment.

"Say Anything," Stefan smiled. "Lloyd Dobler desperately trying to get back the girl of his dreams. Remind me to introduce you to Princess Bride – Wesley slays giant rats for love. The Breakfast Club – one detention shows a bunch of outcasts who they really are."

"So, it was a decade of sentimental drivel as well as excess," Rebekah said.

"No more than the Twenties. For me the 1980s were a decade of…hope. Of love, and unconditional friendship – of excess and fun, yes, of possibility. The underdog American Olympic ice-hockey team won against the seasoned Soviets in one of the best hockey games ever played, and one of the biggest moments in sports history, and a political F-you to the USSR. Great Britain's Princes Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, the people's darling. There was the first artificial heart-transplant. Vanessa Williams was named the first African-American Miss America. CDs, mobile-phones, camcorders were all invented. Smallpox was eradicated. Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the first woman to ever lead a Muslim nation; Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female and longest-serving Prime Minister. There was – and is – a worldwide ivory ban, protecting Indian and African elephants. In the Great Pyramid of Giza, a forty-four hundred year old mummy was discovered."

"It sounds very vibrant," Rebekah said wistfully. She had missed it all.

"Well, it wasn't all a John Hughes movie," Stefan sighed. "HIV appeared; John Lennon was assassinated. Over a million people died in Ethiopia due to famine in one year alone. Enormous chemical disaster in India claimed 2,000 lives overnight, thirteen-thousand people were affected after and there are still people alive today suffering from the repercussions. The Cold War was ongoing. The first hole in the Ozone was discovered. In 1985, twenty-five thousand people died in a volcanic eruption in Columbia; ten-thousand were killed by a cyclone in Bangladesh; and nine-thousand people were killed in an earthquake in Mexico City that reached 8.1 on the Richter scale. The US Space Shuttle 'Challenger' exploded immediately after launching, killing the seven astronauts inside. The global stock-market crashed on Black Monday. The First Persian Gulf War started and ended, with a reported death-toll of a million lives lost."

"I didn't understand most of those references, but every era had its tragedies, I assure you," Rebekah sighed. She pulled a little black moleskin notebook out of the purse Stefan had bought her, a slim silver pen, and started scribbling notes. "They truly eradicated smallpox?"

"Gone," Stefan smiled.

"Good. That horrific illness took more of my friends than I can count," Rebekah said, her heart squeezing as faces flashed through her mind. "And – what was the Cold War? And what on earth is a Space Shuttle?"

"Would you believe Man walked on the moon?" Stefan asked, smiling.

"No."

"A sceptic, huh? You don't think in the last ninety-four years mankind could have developed that technology?"

"I highly doubt the same technology that funnels drivel from the Kardashians to their millions of fans is the same technology that could send people to the moon," Rebekah said disdainfully.

"Ninety-four years in a box and you know about the Kardashians?"

"I was eavesdropping on a group of girls at – what was that cosmetics shop called? Sephora? Going on and on about a girl who looks like one of those absurd fishes with the enormous lips in that animal show you forced me to watch."

"Not just any animal show; David Attenborough," Stefan smiled. "He's the king of naturalists."

"Funny. I thought that was Darwin."

"Darwin never had HD cameras," Stefan smiled.

"I never took you for one interested in the sciences," Rebekah said. "You always leaned toward the tragic poets."

"The nature shows remind me of someone."

"One of those little friends you had back in Mystic Falls? Which one? Don't tell me – the odd one, the one you called a 'rare bird'. The short-haired girl you secretly had a lot of admiration for despite her not-so-secret loathing of you, and her – was the doppelgänger her sister, I can't remember."

"Technically, biologically, a cousin," Stefan sighed. "Elena and Sophia were raised as twins."

"I imagine both girls had a time of it wrapping their heads around that," Rebekah mused, with a slight smirk. "It's a pleasure to realise it is not only my family that suffers dysfunction."

"Your family redefines dysfunction," Stefan told her.

"True enough. Anyway, what is it we're up to today?"

"Like I said, one of my favourite movies is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 'Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it'," Stefan said, grinning. "Today's a, uh, a special day. It's, uh…it's my friend Lexi's birthday."

"Lexi… That girl you used to talk about all the time? The one who straightened you out after you first turned?" Rebekah asked. She had been curious about the vampire who had taken Stefan Salvatore under her wing, old enough to control a Ripper but not so jaded that she had stifled the natural sweetness in him.

"That would be the one," Stefan smiled, and there was a sadness in his eyes. She remembered that his friend Lexi took Stefan every day on his birthday, to do whatever she wished, something completely out of character – when he wasn't the Ripper, of course – and indulge, celebrate with abandon.

"I was always curious about her. She seemed like the kind of great friend everyone desires to have in their lives." Stefan nodded.

"Yeah. Lexi and I spent most of the Eighties together – quite a bit of it in Chicago, actually," Stefan said, and there was a bitter tinge to his smile.

"So, you're being so nice to me in commemoration of your friend," Rebekah realised. That sad smile, the bitter-sweetness… His old friend was dead. She knew that smile too well; she saw it reflected back at her. Stefan glanced up, his expression carefully guarded, but she had already seen.

"She would certainly have helped you acclimate; she would've loved teaching you about the last century – the Civil Rights activism, the music and fashion, the sexual-liberation of the female race," Stefan chuckled softly, traipsing down memory-lane. "This last was her favourite century. Men were learning that women had no limitations… But, you know, I – I want to spend time with you, Bekah… I'm remembering everything, and… I wasn't on my best behaviour, not by a long shot, but I genuinely…adored you. I loved spending time with you. It's…been a long time since I've spent time with someone I genuinely liked."

"You've been with Nik nearly a decade. Try a millennium," Rebekah said, giving Stefan a glum, sympathetic smile. "And I wasn't exactly on my best behaviour then, either."

"How are you handling all this so…well, like you're taking it in stride – I've seen Captain America – American wartime superhero frozen in ice, only to wake seventy years later and find himself in Times Square – okay; you should be freaking out a whole lot more," Stefan said, frowning bemusedly at her. She scribbled down another note in her little pocket-book.

"Darling, I've been daggered and woken countless times over the centuries," she sighed. "You get used to having to acclimate, used to accepting that nothing around you will be as it was, that the people you had loved, the home you had enjoyed…are all gone. Life has ticked by without you, the ones you left behind have changed while you remain as they remembered you, from a time they have forgotten." Stefan frowned, thinking that over. "So, what are we doing today?"

"Well, Klaus hinted it might be one of our last days in the city, I thought we could pay homage to Ferris and Cam and Sloane," Stefan grinned.

"I don't know what that means," Rebekah said, smiling.

"We're going out, and we're going to enjoy ourselves. The Yankees have a game today; there's an exhibition at the Met you're gonna love, and we can sneak cocktails in the Cloisters, it's very pretty there; there's a Bombay-style Indian place I want to go back to before we leave Manhattan; we can pick up some more books; I'll take you shopping down Fifth Avenue; we can pick up some magazines and new toys," Stefan smiled.

"You sound enthusiastic," Rebekah frowned suspiciously. Stefan had made a point to not draw attention to himself, especially when Nik was around. But whenever they had ventured out of the luxury hotel, Stefan had seemed to shed his misery like a skin that weighed more than his vampire body could handle.

"I've spent nearly a decade hanging out with the Internet," Stefan said grimly. "No-one but your sadistic narcissist half-brother for company; and he spent most of his time in a towering rage, murdering werewolves or painting."

"Welcome to my life, darling," Rebekah sighed, glancing up as the elevator dinged softly, and noise washed over them as the doors parted, revealing the relatively luxurious foyer. Conspicuous by their youth, and the fact they weren't wearing thousand-dollar suits with those glowing mobile-telephones clamped to their ears, Rebekah lifted her chin, and she and Stefan strode boldly out of the hotel.

"See, I don't get that. You were just as strong as Klaus, just as – well – psychotic," Stefan said honestly, "why the hell did you stay with him all these years?"

"He's my brother," Rebekah said quietly. "Should I spend an eternity alone, instead?"

"I don't think Klaus or isolation are the only two choices open to you," Stefan murmured thoughtfully. "I mean, you have a talent Klaus never had; forming deep, honest bonds of friendship with people. You'd built a little family of friends in Chicago."

"It was more of a salon… Niklaus has made certain there is only ever one option for me, Stefan. Any time he felt ignored, he went out of his way to destroy anything I had built for myself, whether it was a lover, a literary circle, a charity foundation, my first motorcar."

"He's your brother. He should be happy you're out living your life, finding joy for yourself. It's hard to come by."

"I thought you said you'd spent nearly a decade with Niklaus, Stefan," Rebekah said, squinting in the sunlight. It felt odd, unnatural even, to be out of doors without a hat, without gloves, an escort; she had spent so many centuries never venturing out of doors without a bonnet, even a veil to shield her from the sunlight. And one rarely walked anywhere. "The time we spent together in Chicago; erasing me from your memory; sacrificing the girl you loved for his own desires… Surely you know who my brother truly is."

"Yeah," Stefan sighed. He glanced at her. "Enough about him. Today is about us. And Manhattan."

"Why Manhattan? As gracious as you were in helping me begin again, you were more reluctant to enjoy Chicago," Rebekah mused. Ninety-four years had passed, her reflection was flawless as ever, Stefan looked exactly the same, but the city of Chicago had become unrecognisable.

"I used to hate that city, I couldn't…remember there were some good things that happened there," Stefan said. "You happened to me. You…brought me out of an especially brutal, dark place in my life."

"And you me," Rebekah said softly. The way she and Nik had been acting, the blood, the parties – Niklaus' torment of their victims… They were acting out, in a way Elijah would never have let them get away with: They were mourning their lost lives, they were grieving Marcel. She had never turned off her humanity – frankly, the concept of vampires and their humanity was a laughable, modern concept created by baby-vampires who could not remember the brutal, unforgiving, medieval world into which Rebekah had been born – and reborn. Rebekah had never suppressed her emotions, but she could ignore her conscience, especially when she was hurting, if only for a little while, and after fleeing a burning New Orleans, the nightmare of Marcel's fate kept her sleepless, sobbing in quiet hotel-rooms so Nik couldn't suspect her guilt…

Elijah would have abhorred their behaviour, and as much as she had gentled the Ripper in Stefan, to the point where he had been feeding almost normally under her influence, not sadistic and gluttonous, Stefan had started to heal the wounds seared eternally on her battered heart. Gentling the rage and despair and guilt, drawing her out of herself, holding her when she awoke in the dark, crying for Marcel. They had lived in the moment, enjoying each other's companionship, opening themselves up to emotional intimacy. Klaus had kept Stefan alive because he gave Klaus the ego-stroking camaraderie he had always craved outside of his family.

She wandered down the packed street, wishing Elijah was with her but pleased it was Stefan if there had to be a substitute, jarred by the world now utterly alien to her. The motorcar, wireless and silent films had all been invented shortly before the dagger had entered her heart once more, but the Tin Lizzy trundling along unpaved streets with horse-drawn carts and buggies and cable-cars was a very different experience to the screeching hustle and impatient honkings of Manhattan's tarmac-smoothed roads, glowing lights at every crossroads, steam rising from manhole-covers leading to sewers and underground train networks, overhead wires buzzed with electricity and the gods knew what else.

She observed everything around her, Stefan's hand clasped loosely around hers because he knew she was focused on other things besides making it safely across a striped section of the road where shining motorcars lingered impatiently for the lights to glow a garish emerald. The outfits, the hairstyles, the 'gadgets' that seemed to have been stitched permanently to the palms of their hands. It was an alien city, and she felt conspicuous in it. Luckily, Stefan assured her, she was surrounded by millions of humans experiencing the very same feeling.

"You don't have to be so nervous," Stefan said quietly, pressing his thumb into another large silver button at a crosswalk.

"That is very easy for you to say," Rebekah said. "You haven't had ninety-four years stripped from you."

"Haven't I? I had all memory of you erased," Stefan said quietly. "I had ninety-four years not even knowing I should have been missing you. I allied with Elijah to bring down Klaus, but I had no idea I should have been helping him avenge you. And myself."

Rebekah glanced at him, the sun shining brightly in her eyes, and she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as the warm air whipped up around them, cars passing with staggering speed. He looked miserable and earnest, staring gloomily at the white stripes on the tarmac.

On a sudden decision, something familiar and lovely warming her stomach, she grinned, leaning in, and murmured against his lips, "May I kiss you in public?"

"You may," Stefan chuckled, and she stole a deep kiss from him. His smile was bemused. "What was that for?"

"For regretting not missing me. And for all your help the last few weeks. Acclimating is always a wretched business; you've made it something lovely, all these special days you've spoiled me with. I think I shall like this new Stefan; I adored the other – not the Ripper. The real you. You seem more yourself now than you ever were then." Stefan's smile was bittersweet. "Don't worry, darling. You don't have to handle Niklaus alone anymore; I'm here. And there's no-one he likes to bully more than I."

Stefan frowned. "I won't let him do that."

Rebekah smiled at him. "You're sweet for saying so."

"I mean it."

"Stefan, I've been awake weeks and even I can see that my brother is all the more dangerous now for his impotence," Rebekah said seriously. "For a thousand years he had his mind set on my mother's spell being one thing; it wasn't, and he will not forgive that."

"He'll have to get over it," Stefan said, his tone bored. Rebekah's laugh was sardonic; Niklaus did not just get over disappointments. But it was sweet, that Stefan was not yet wholly ruled by cynicism brought on by excessive exposure to her brother.

They spent the day as they had been spending most of their days whenever they weren't travelling. While Niklaus sulked and plotted in luxury and utter privacy, they explored sprawling cities. Snacking in the flattering lighting of decadent nightclubs, enjoying unusual eateries and wandering museums and galleries, Stefan filling her in on everything he could remember that might interest her. She was observing everything around her, the differences – the enduring similarities. She had been watching Stefan. He had spent nearly a decade with her brother, deprived of any connection to the world around him. During rare afternoons free of her brother, Stefan had gone to see films, alone, had bought new journals he couldn't bring himself to write in.

He was utterly disconnected.

She was curious about this new Stefan. There were vestiges of him still, the sweet, thoughtful Stefan, the brave and charming old young-man, the conscientious, lonely, guilt-stricken boy she loved, the young man who drew her in like a moth to flame, drenched in the guilt of her own conscience.

She had picked out a sleek pair of sunglasses, had spent the day at the Met, sourcing the best eateries, enjoyed cocktails in a rooftop garden overlooking Central Park, eaten popcorn at a Yankees game and collected records, they had taken a ferry so Rebekah could see the Statue of Liberty for the very first time, and after refusing to watch her shoe-shop in Christian Louboutin, Stefan had surprised her with a gift he had known, with that innate sweetness that transcended the Ripper, she would appreciate so much more than anything else he could buy her.

"Thank you, Stefan," Rebekah smiled softly, the small but heavy, padded case open on their little table, the flute nestled inside it in pieces gleaming in the string lights and the candle. The hustle and bustle of the city had taken on a new life in the dark, as they enjoyed chilled sherry and authentic Spanish tapas in the balmy warmth of a Manhattan spring evening. "It truly is beautiful."

"I asked the guy in the store which is the best one," Stefan shrugged apologetically. "I'm not really a music guy; Damon plays the piano."

"One hundred and seventy two years old and you've not yet learned to play a musical instrument!" Rebekah tutted, her smile sweet and earnest as her fingers lovingly stroked the pieces of her new flute. She sighed, happy, touched by his gift. "However did you remember?"

"You once told me you and Elijah played duets," Stefan said quietly.

"You now sound surprised. You can't imagine my buttoned-up, terrifying older-brother composing something?" she teased.

"I guess, after meeting him…it's just odd to me, the guy I met, writing sonatas for you," Stefan shrugged.

"He was miserable," Rebekah said, barely moving her lips, her eyes glittering in the candlelight. "I'll play you some of his music, it really is…quite sublime… We always shared it, music. The two of us, playing duets. Going to concerts was one of our favourite things. He'd always ask me to play after dinner."

"I'm sorry he's not here," Stefan said. Rebekah's smile was sweet and sad.

"We should get going," she said, eyeing the waiter as he came to remove their empty tapas dishes. "All this talk of my lovely brother, and my evil one will have been left alone far too long for his liking."

They swerved off the road, and Stefan launched himself out of the backseat with a groan, stretching his legs while Klaus filled the tank. Rebekah hopped out of the passenger seat and wandered about, enjoying the warmth of the day and the sun kissing her bare, smooth legs. Of all the absurd fashion-trends she had endured, she liked the freedom of denim shorts and sneakers. They reminded her…of childhood, running about, free and uncaring of what she wore, getting filthy, brushing blood and grass and dirt off her knees, chasing after Henrik and pushing him in the stream.

"You look a little happier," Rebekah observed, glancing at Stefan, who was still frowning at his phone, but his brow wasn't furrowed as deeply as it had been recently. He glanced up, squinting in the light.

"I'm nearly home," Stefan said, with a tiny smile, and Rebekah squashed the guilty squirming sensation in her stomach, glancing over at Niklaus.

"Where have you been?"

"Around the city."

"And it took you all day and most of the night?"

"Well, it's a very large city, you see," Rebekah said sweetly. "So much to experience, so much I've missed." Klaus narrowed his eyes in that you-flirt-with-death way he had.

"If you wouldn't mind, Stefan, I'd like a word with my little-sister," he said, in his silkiest, most dangerous tone. His eyes never strayed from Rebekah. "In private. Perhaps you'd like to work on fulfilling this list of chores I took the liberty of putting together while you were gallivanting around the city today." He smiled dangerously at Stefan as he handed over a long list.

"I'd be delighted. I've errands to run, actually," Stefan smiled. "How long d'you need to plot another failed attempt at world domination?"

"Oh, a good couple of hours, I'd say," Klaus replied without missing a beat. "Why don't you get yourself a snack while you're out, it'll be a while before you can indulge as we have."

"Dictating my diet, now? You're not thinking of going vegan, are you?"

"Some privacy, friend," Klaus said, dropping his smile at the sardonic look on Stefan's face. Stefan chuckled, shrugged, and glanced at Rebekah before excusing himself, eyeing up the list Klaus had given him – time-wasting jobs, all of them, just something to keep him occupied while Klaus filled Rebekah in on why he had woken her – and made his way back down to the foyer.

"You know, it's a wonder he hasn't torn your heart from your chest by now," Rebekah said lightly, Stefan's subtle cologne lingering on the air after he had left.

"If murdering his beloved on a fiery altar hasn't driven him to assassinate me, nothing will," Klaus smiled. She gazed around the parlour, full of canvases and paints and the acrid scent of turpentine. He had been productive today.

"Don't you believe it," Rebekah said coldly. She knew perfectly well how long a person could hold on to their grief and rage, just how long it took to really push someone to their limits. And Stefan had been working on his self-control throughout the entirety of his enslavement to her brother. "So. You blame me for your misplacing Mother's pendant and have ignored me since we discovered it missing, now you want something. What is it?"

"Sister! I have given you and your lover space, and time to…reconnect after your little sojourn." Klaus smirked, his eyes twinkling with smug irony. She wanted to slap the look off his face.

"You are foul."

"Insulting me, after I took the dagger from your chest, brought you your beloved to teach you about this new time?" Klaus raised a hand to his non-existent heart, pretending it was wounded.

"You're lucky all I hurl at you is insults. Are you going to tell me why our dear brother Elijah is in a box between Finn and our devious Kol?"

"Well, that's a rather long story, sister, and Stefan will be along soon enough."

"If you don't tell me why you daggered Elijah I shan't listen to a word you have to say about anything else."

"Very well. Mikael disappeared, nearly three decades ago. There was nothing, no hint of him anywhere. And so, dear sister, I had to disappear also. Blended into the mists, nothing more than a name that inspired terror wherever it was whispered," Klaus explained, slowly, in that soft, dangerous tone he took on. "A rumour, nothing more, the monster even monsters feared. I may have upset our brother with a little fib I spread."

"And what was the fib, pray tell?"

"That I had scattered your bodies into the oceans." Rebekah blinked. Her heart stuttered.

"You did what?" she asked breathlessly. "How could you do that to Elijah?"

"How could he ever believe I'd do such a thing?"

"To punish us, you'd do anything!" Rebekah blurted indignantly. "You know, I heard Stefan bartered his own freedom to save his brother's life. My conniving bastard brother would happily sacrifice his siblings for his own selfish desires – Elijah knows that better than any of us."

"Well, I suppose that would explain his allying with my enemies to prevent my breaking the curse Mother put on me."

"Curse…" Rebekah scoffed, laughing.

"For nearly ten years, I've been across the continent a dozen times searching for werewolves. Every time, they fail me. I did everything I had to, I sacrificed a werewolf, a vampire, I killed the doppelgänger, destroyed the moonstone. Mother's curse is broken," Klaus said furiously. "But they aren't working – I've tried with every werewolf we could track down – I… Bekah, I can't create vampires anymore, let alone hybrids like me."

"Yes, I know; Stefan told me," Rebekah replied tartly. "He seemed to think it important I know just how deranged you've become since the Twenties. You should have realised, Nik. Kol knew exactly what would happen were you to break Mother's spell, why do you think he helped you? He'll be delighted." She smiled, revelling in this fleeting, vindictive pleasure – she knew Kol would be beside himself with glee when he found out.

"I broke the curse to protect us. It was supposed to work!" Klaus' rage was as sudden and heart-stopping as it always was. The smile fell from Rebekah's face, but she couldn't douse that flickering flame of righteous joy. After a millennium… "To create an army of hybrids to protect us from Mikael."

"You're barely as strong as Stefan, and he's just a baby," she said, hiding her smirk.

"That baby's loyalty is the only thing protecting us, dear sister," Klaus growled. "A decade ago in my arrogance I promised Stefan Salvatore would not wish to leave my side; I had thought we might rebuild our friendship, but he has proved resistant."

"You murdered the girl he loves."

"You are the girl he loves, Bekah," Klaus growled again, and Rebekah scoffed. He smiled at her. "I returned his love of you to him. And I woke you, to ensure we retain Stefan Salvatore's loyalty."

"The moment his decade is up, Stefan will return home to the brother and the people he truly loves," Rebekah told him. "He hasn't loved me in nearly a hundred years. You made sure of that. What do you want from him?"

"I do intend to honour my word, we can't let Elijah monopolise the role as honourable Original," Klaus smirked mockingly. "When Stefan's ten years are up, he is free to live his life the way he chooses. You, my dear sister, are going to ensure he lives his life in a way that ensures our safety. I woke you to keep Stefan Salvatore close."

"I am not a whore, Niklaus," she hissed, "least of all yours to do with as you please, pass among your serfs like a party-favour."

"Now, little sister, let's not delude ourselves," Klaus murmured, his expression darkening. "You've sold plenty of yourself to benefit your family."

Rebekah blinked, her heart squeezed, and she reached for a handful of paintbrushes, embedding every single one in Niklaus' chest before he could react. His reflexes truly were abominable now. "How dare you!" she shouted, twisting the last brush into his liver.

"Alright – alright," Klaus groaned, chuckling to himself, writhing on the plush carpet as he pulled the brushes out. "Rebekah!" he called, and she paused at the door, deciding to enjoy the sight of him writhing in pain, however fleeting. "That was uncalled for." He clambered off the carpet, tossing the bloody brushes down on a table, and sighed, approaching her, his tone gentling to something that mimicked sincerity. "You've done more than anyone could ever have asked you to, to protect this family. Now I am asking you again." He sighed, then smiled sadly. "Will it be such a chore, making him fall in love with you all over again?"

She leaned in, and whispered, "You disgust me."

Klaus smirked, infuriatingly. "You haven't said you wouldn't seduce him."

"Seducing Stefan is its own end, brother," Rebekah said, smirking. "You've me by your side, now, why did you even bother to keep Stefan alive?"

"Because, my sweet sister, we need Stefan Salvatore. His ten years are nearly up; but before they are, he is going to make sure we slip seamlessly into his quaint little home-town of Mystic Falls. He is going to ensure we become part of the fabric of that town, where a secret Council protects the humans from the monsters that party hardest in the dark, where the police-force is knowledgeable about vampires and vervain grows like weeds and there is absolutely nothing to make people go there unless they have to."

"You want us to live in tiny backwater town?" Rebekah scoffed. After the delights of Chicago and Manhattan, why would she possibly want to live anywhere else? She had thought New Orleans wild.

"Consider it witness protection," Klaus said, and she narrowed her eyes at his flagrant, infuriating use of a term he knew she didn't understand. "Until I can discover why my hybrids go rabid every time I try to turn a werewolf, we must be discreet."

"Discretion, from you, who flayed men in the middle of Easter Mass in Rome, who left dismembered children on their parents' doorsteps, who made sport of witches throughout the last millennium as the nobility did boar and foxes?" Rebekah laughed. "You are jesting."

"I assure you, I am not," Klaus muttered. "I did all I had to, to ensure Mother's curse was lifted, to embrace my full potential, to create hybrids I felt certain would protect us from our father. We must return to Mystic Falls; while you seduce Stefan Salvatore to ensure his loyalty long after his time bound to me is ended, I shall discover what went awry. I believe Mother's pendant is there. You do want it back, don't you?"

"After it has been worn by another girl Stefan loved?" Rebekah sneered; her anger at Stefan giving her pendant to another girl had evaporated when she learned Niklaus had taken every memory of it being hers from Stefan.

"You mustn't be petty with him, dear sister; it was I who made him forget you, after all."

"I am keenly aware of that, brother…" Rebekah scowled. "People will notice us, Nik. A tiny town – people talk. They'll notice. New Orleans was our home for centuries because it was so sprawling, it changed so quickly."

"Mystic Falls isn't just any little town, Bekah. We were born there."

"What?" she frowned.

"After a thousand years, some things have not changed. I recognised the waterfalls the first moment I saw them… Besides," he added, "don't you want to stay in one place, to build a home again? Hm? You chose Stefan and Chicago over running with your own blood when Mikael came for us."

"I was tired of running," Rebekah said tiredly. After ninety-four years daggered, it was amazing how exhausted she could feel. Niklaus had a way of doing that to her. "I was tired of trying to keep up with your cruelty as we mourned Marcel."

"Don't speak that name to me." The command was a soft, vicious hiss; tears welled in her eyes as Rebekah shook her head.

"To me it was yesterday," she whispered, her eyes hot with tears. "You've had nearly a century to grieve him. And now you wish me to ensnare Stefan in my bed – just so you can decipher why your hybrids have failed you?"

"Oh, sister, you rarely ever made it to Stefan's bed, did you?" Klaus taunted.

It was an easel this time, dismantled with a kick, the pieces shoved into his stomach and ribcage. As he writhed, Rebekah stood over him, wondering if a team of those people from the crime television-show Stefan watched would come and piece together what had transpired here based on the forensic evidence. And enthralled by the sight of her intolerable, immortal brother, writhing in pain, pale and shivering with cold sweat as he bled, writhing and tearing the wood from his body, leaving splinters.

"Well, Stefan was correct," she mused softly, "you don't heal nearly half as well as used to."

"I'm going to let that go, sister," Klaus panted, "as I know you're still sore with me for letting you rot for ninety years. And so I shall give you the choice. The same choice I gave you in 1922." Klaus dragged himself onto the settee. He reached idly for a silver-dagger, resting beside an ornate filigree dish that made her blood run cold in her veins. Klaus' eyes were limitless in their cruelty, and she stood, coiled with tension, wondering whether his sheer force of will to dagger her would compensate for his new inferior strength. Could he do it? Would she have to sleep with an eye open the next few decades, lest he dagger her while she was at her most unguarded?

"You can stand by me," Klaus rumbled, his eyes never leaving her face as he dipped the blade into the ash, "or you can go back into your box."

Rebekah stepped forward, slowly, predatory, everything about her controlled, except how she quivered with rage. "I will repay you for this," she promised.

"You should learn a new song, sister," Klaus smiled, setting the dagger down, and reaching for something under the table. A bribe, to gentle the sting of his threat, her helplessness in the situation of his making. She glanced at the case disinterestedly as Klaus undid the latches.

"A flute," she said, bored. "Stefan already got me a new one."

A.N.: What do you think? I know, it's long! I'd love to have shown a montage and flashbacks of Stefan pulling a Ferris Bueller – come to think of it, ditching Klaus is the supernatural equivalent of ditching school, right? – in honour of Lexi, getting back in touch with his well-adjusted side to help Rebekah, being sweet to her. And it shows Klaus' new limitations and just how dangerous he still is in spite of them.