It wouldn't get out of my head and we'll leave it at that, shall we? Inspired by last week's episode and the complex character of Godric. Reviews, thoughts, comments, and criticism are more than welcome. Chapters from here on out will be much longer and cannon characters are most definitely going to make appearance. Do enjoy – RJL

I own nothing you recognize, plain and simple.

Happenstance
Chapter I

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust
Wake Up – Arcade Fire

Something was wrong. The moment she had awoken the feeling had overtaken her. The air was disturbed and filled with too many new scents. Granted, the night before a number of vampires had crowded the halls along with their countless and unnamed human companions, but she was sure that the smells lingering in the air were new to her. Quietly, she pushed off the light sheets of her bed and stood lightly. The floor was cold as it was every evening, but it gave her no comfort.

She made for the door quickly and eased it open, the unknown scents attacking her. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Bren moved down the hallway to the last bedroom on the left and paused before knocking on the partially open door.

"Godric?" she called while leaning against the wall outside his door. When no response came, she gently pushed open the door. "Godric?"

The normally pristine and neat room, with it's matching dark oak furniture and tall, black tinted windows, was now in ruins. Clothes were pulled from the bureau and the closet, the sheets torn from the bed, all the drawers upended from the dresser. Even the mattress was slightly hanging off the bed's edge and the television that once hung on the wall was broken on the carpeted floor. A quick scan around the room told her that while their was no Godric residing in his room, there was also no blood that would prove injury. Unfortunately, that also meant that in the apparent struggle, Godric had not managed to wound any of his offenders. Still, there was hope that he had not been wounded in the attack as well.

Bren moved into the room slowly. The strange scents that had leaked into the hallway and her bedroom were strongest here, as was the comforting scent of her maker. The scents in his room were stronger than the ones anywhere else in the house, which put the attack between the time she had gone to bed at five that morning and the time she had awoken only moments before. It was only a short fourteen hour window, but it was enough for someone to successfully infiltrate their nest, take Godric, and leave before she awoke at nine. How they had managed to do so without waking her, she did not understand.

The bond between a maker and their child was one that was nigh unbreakable. The exchange of blood was a bond that connected two beings to the very core. What one felt, the other would feel as well. No matter how faint the emotion, it would be passed between them both with ease and without thought. For someone to come and take the one person that was mentally and emotionally tuned to her without her knowing, it seemed impossible. How could she have not felt Godric's distress? It made little sense.

Turning, Bren left the room swiftly and returned to her own. She went to her closet and took out a set of clothes, barely looking to see what she was going to wear before she pulled them on. After pulling her hair up into a messy bun, she left the room and quickly walked back into Godric's room.

She stood in the center of the room for a few moments before slowly circling the large room with closed eyes. Breathing deeply, she inhaled the mixture of foreign and painfully familiar scents. Picking up a stray shirt from the floor, Bren took a deep breath and opened her eyes. It held the most potent of the scents combined and would do well enough. Taking it, she once again left Godric's room and closed the door gently behind her.

Once back in her own room, she sat cross-legged on her bed and stared at the shirt she had seen Godric wear on multiple occasions. It was nothing flashy or overly dressy, but rather a simple dress shirt with buttons down the front. Black with teeny white stripes and a smart collar, it was what Godric preferred to wear when a professional appearance was called for. Only a few hours ago, it had been nothing but a shirt that he wore and now it was a key to locating him; the change was drastic.

Without looking away from the shirt spread out across her dark comforter, Bren reached for the cell phone lying on her bedside table. Flipping it open, she pressed the fourth number on speed dial and waited as the line dialed.

"Yes?" There was no welcome or silly pleasantries and for that Bren was thankful. She had wasted enough time as it was.

"Godric is missing," she said simply. She saw no point in wasting Isabel's time, or more importantly, wasting what little time Godric had. "I awoke this morning to find him missing and his room in disarray."

A soft stream of foreign words reached her ears. She heard Isabel take a short, unneeded breath. "When?" the woman asked.

Bren could hear the shifting of bed sheets and a man's low protests but ignored them. Nothing was relevant at the moment unless it was somehow related to Godric. Nothing was more important.

"I awoke no more than ten minutes ago and he was already gone," Bren answered. "There were at least eight of them, but with the number Godric had over last night, I cannot tell friend from foe by scent alone."

There was a pause from the other end. "Only eight? To take Godric?" It would be hard to miss the disbelief in Isabel's tone.

Bren let out a sigh. It made little sense to her as well. Eight weak human men could not overpower Godric, not even if he was a thousand years younger and blind. "I cannot know for sure, as I said. There are too many vampires and human companions moving through at a time to catalog each and every being who comes into our home," she said with frustration. "I know of eight scents for sure, beyond that I do not know."

"Eight men for sure, then," Isabel repeated. Bren heard a door open and close before the sounds of a busy street filled the background. "And you heard nothing?"

It was Bren's turn to pause before answering. "No," she said. "Nothing at all."

"We need to call a meeting, immediately," Isabel replied without hesitation. "I will call the others and arrange for one. How soon before you can be at Hotel Camille to meet with us?" she inquired.

The image of Godric's destroyed room flashed through Bren's mind. "An hour should be more than enough time," she answered. "There are a few things that require my attention."

"That is fine. I will alert the others and we will be awaiting your arrival," Isabel promised before quickly ending the call. She would no doubt be already calling Stan, among others, to report the Sheriff of Area Nine's disappearance. Within the hour, Nan Flanagan and the Magister would also be alerted along with any of the nearby Sheriffs. By the next sunrise, any and all vampires within a thousand mile radius of Dallas would know of Godric's disappearance. Bren was unsure whether the thought was a comfort or not.

Uncurling her legs, she took Godric's shirt and left her room, not bothering to close the door. Once she reached her maker's room, she waited outside the door. It felt so very wrong to invite herself into the room that for the past twenty years, he had called his own. Never had he denied her entrance when she asked for it, but neither had she barged in on his personal space without his permission. While they had spent close to the last fourteen hundred years together, they were in no way equal to one another. As her maker, Godric would forever be her better and she would treat him with the respect he both asked for and returned. To simply let herself into his room, a room that had already been violated by so many within the past few hours, she was unsure if she could defile him in such a way.

Hand on the doorknob, she stood for seemed like hours but were really only seconds. Abruptly, Bren turned and strode down the hall. Upon Godric's return she would assist him in cleaning his room, but until then she would stay out of his private space. While she still had nearly three quarters of an hour before she was meant to meet Isabel and the others, Bren exited the house. It felt strange and empty without Godric inside and she held no desire to stay there alone. No, Bren would make reservations with the hotel to reside there until his return.

She climbed into her sleek car and turned it on before throwing it into reverse. The short drive to the hotel was made in record time, despite the large amounts of night traffic. Bren left her keys with the human valet and made her way into the lobby. After checking in with the front desk, she took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. There was still plenty of time before she was to meet with Isabel and it had been a number of days since her last feed.

Using the small key card given to her by the receptionist, Bren let herself into the small suite that would serve as her new residence for however long it took. It resembled closely to what her room at home look like and it gave her a small comfort. She dropped the key onto the table beside the door and made for the phone. A little room service would do her well before what she knew to be a stressful next few hours.

She hung up the phone with a click upon finishing her order and settled into the large bed to wait. There was a tugging in her stomach that made her feel uneasy, but she pushed it away. She pushed away the fear for her maker's life, the uncertainty of finding him as unalive as he had been only a few hours ago, and the nagging voice at the back of her mind that couldn't help but remind her that Godric had warned her this would happen.

For weeks he had gone around the house speaking of human and vampire co-existence and telling of ways that the preposterous idea could be made a reality. He spoke of drastic life changes for not only vampires but humans alike that would one day make both species equal to one another. Bren was used to Godric's talk of equality, he had been talking of it for centuries before True Blood had been invented and the vampire nation had been made public. But in recent years, since their global out coming, his words and plans had changed.

He stopped including himself in the plans. Rather than refer to their race as his as well, it slowly became 'the vampires' or more often than not 'my people'. It was as if he had cut himself from the plans deliberately. As if he had no plans that would include him as well as the entire vampire race. Bren had thought nothing of it, not even after he had pulled her aside one night close to a month ago.

"The times of peace are quickly ending between our two races," he had said. The look of both seriousness and pain on his forever young features and frightened her, if only a little. "There is only a short amount of time before the humans decide to revolt against our existence and lives are lost to both sides. It is only a matter of time, Bren, before someone is taken as an example."

Soon after telling her this, a small smile had lit up his face and Godric had pulled her into a tight embrace. He had left her to entertain the guests in their home without another word and she had wrongly tossed away his warning. Now, she realized the mistake in doing so.

Reviews are greatly appreciated.
RJL