Violet woke to a bright summer morning, with the sun filtering in through the open window. The first thing she really registered was that she was buried beneath several blankets, curled up on the couch. There was no lapse in memory, no momentary sense of confusion as to how she'd gotten to be there. No, she remembered exactly how she'd gotten here, and who had been with her. She remembered, perfectly, how she'd allowed the storm, the bleak destruction and sense of despair to get the best of her. Though she knew better, certainly knew better.

It was because Brody had been there, she told herself. His presence disturbed her peace, messed with her head. She'd have been fine if he hadn't been there, looking at her in that way he had. Because she was almost sweating beneath the layers of blankets, she shoved them aside, pushed herself up on one elbow as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. It was only a movement in the doorway that had her pausing, turning her head slowly.

And there was Brody, leaning against the doorjamb, watching her. But there was no grin on his face, no smile in his eyes. No, here was the Brody that scared her more than anything else, this serious, dark eyed Broderick who seemed to be able to see right through her. But he wasn't looking through her now. No, he was looking right at her, in a quiet, considering way.

Only when she pushed herself to a sitting position, looking rumpled and sleepy and wary, did he step forward, one side of his mouth curving up the slightest bit. "You sleep like a rock, princess." He said, and she noticed that the smile didn't reach his eyes. But then he was holding something out towards her, and her eyes shifted, saw he was holding a cup of steaming tea.

"Light, no sugar," He said, and she nodded slowly, taking the cup in both of her hands as he stood over her. She could think of nothing to say, nothing to make herself feel less ridiculous. So she went with denying anything had happened in the first place.

"I appreciate you covering me up last night. It wouldn't have been pleasant to catch a chill." This time he laughed, just a bit, but there was knowledge rather than amusement in his eyes.

"Come on now, Violet. Don't pull out the ice queen routine on me. Should I remind you what happened last night?" He pulled up a footstool, sat in front of her, close enough that she couldn't just stand up and walk away without having to try and skirt around him.

Slowly she raised the cup to her lips, sipped the tea he'd prepared. She was always wary of this Broderick, the one who smiled pleasantly even while his eyes darkened. You just couldn't trust that sort of expression on a man –especially this man.

When she didn't answer him, he chuckled humorlessly, scratching at a cheek dark from stubble he hadn't bothered to shave away this morning. He figured that when a man spent a restless night curled up with a woman who made his blood run hot, he was entitled to a bit of a five o'clock shadow.

"You and I, my darling princess, spent the night sleeping together, curled up on that couch. You, by the way, do not snore, which was greatly appreciated. And while you slept, I listened to the storm rage outside. A storm, I might add, that came out of nowhere and was only going on around the island. Your island, Vi," He watched her face as he spoke, watched the way she just shut down.

He'd seen it before, of course. Her eyes went cool and blank, her lips firmed into a straight, thin line. But lucky for him –not so much for her- he was getting much better at what was below that mask. Beneath the layer of indifferent ice in her eyes was wariness, and what might've been an apology for God knew what. She was clenching the tea cup in her hand, her fingers digging into the china until her knuckles were bone white.

But Brody mentioned none of this, only continued to look at her. Perhaps it wasn't playing fair, going at her like this when she was tired and off guard. But he was tired of playing fair, of dropping the subject and letting her walk away. So this time he'd just have to box her in, until she gave him the answer he was looking for.

"Why is it just you, Violet?" He leaned forward, lessening the gap between them, close enough now that he could see the flash of fear that moved ever so briefly over her face. He was scaring her. Good. Maybe, just maybe, it would get him some answers this time.

"Because," She finally said, wary defiance in her words, "I am a Baudelaire." She would have left it at that, would have risen and walked away, but he laid his hands on either side of her, boxing her in. His eyes, the look in them, left no room for argument, for avoidance. And that, too, scared her. She, who had lived most of her life avoiding that which would lead to further pain, arguing as a final defense, feared this man who would let her do neither.

"Violet," She almost flinched at the impatience, the anger in his voice, shrank away from it though she knew it was weak. The tea cup in her hands trembled for a moment before she steadied it, pulling in a deep breath through her nose as she stubbornly held Brody's gaze. As the last weapon she had, with nothing else prepared, she drew on her own anger and impatience. Brody seemed to be able to draw both emotions out of her with ease.

"And what is it to you, Broderick?" She snapped out, her eyes narrowing as she spoke in her most cultured, clipped tones. His brow rose a bit, in both appreciation and frustration. She wasn't going to make it easy. She was going to fight him, it seemed, every single step of the way. He couldn't have said why that gave him a kind of sick little thrill. Her color rose when she was ticked off, he noted, and her nose went right up in the air. A proper lady she was, even dressed as she was in those ridiculous flannel pants with her hair tousled from sleep.

"Like it or not, Violet, you're stuck with me. And I'm stuck with you, on this island. And when the island I'm stuck on is prone to freak storms – one of which destroyed my ship and tossed me on your doorstep – I think I deserve to know why." When she remained silent, her lips firming into a thin line, his eyes flared. He reached out, wrapped his fingers around her wrist, squeezing lightly. He saw the temper spike on her face, was darkly satisfied when she jerked her hand away, held it aloft as though she meant to strike him. Hit a nerve there, he mused, even as she lowered her hand, laid it in a fist on her thigh. After a long, tense silence, she huffed out a breath, ran her hand through her hair in a gesture of agitation he'd come to recognize from her. Rather than look at him, she looked once again towards the window, out where the sea was once again calm. After a moment, she let out a slow breath, nodded her head once, steadying herself.

"I have decided that it is a curse." When he didn't laugh, didn't comment, when she was certain he hadn't thought her foolish for voicing the words, she took another breath and continued on. "When I was fourteen, my parents were killed in a fire. Our home burned to the ground. My brother, sister, and I were put into the care of…Count Olaf." She visibly shuddered, and Brody resisted the urge to reach out and take her hand, which had begun to grip painfully tight around her knee. "He…He had thought that, by adopting us, he would get our inheritance. When he learned that wasn't the case…he devised some grand scheme to have me marry him. It can be done, you know, marrying a fourteen year old. With guardian consent. And he was…technically our guardian. It didn't work, of course, or I wouldn't be here right now. But that was just the beginning." She cleared her throat, took a sip of her tea. It was hard, even all these years later, to speak of it. To speak his name was to welcome him into her thoughts, her nightmares.

"We were sent, after that, to live with another uncle of ours. Montgomery Montgomery. Uncle Monty." She smiled, just a bit, as she thought of the delightful man with his precious reptiles. And then she simply closed her eyes, and her smile disappeared. "The Count killed him. Poisoned him with snake venom. And we were homeless again." She shrugged her shoulders, brushed aside the memory. It would do nothing for her now.

"It became like a pattern then. Wherever we went, Olaf would show up eventually. After Uncle Monty, it was Aunt Josephine. Hurricane Herman was going through the area, tossed the house clear into the lake. He – Olaf - tossed Aunt Josephine overboard in Lacrymose Lake, posing as a ship Captain. She was devoured by leeches. Leeches of all things. And Sunny…Little Sunny, she was only three. Only three, and she bit down on that horrible man's fake leg, showed everyone that it was the devilish Count come again to try and take us back. He escaped, and we were moved…again."

Brody could only stare as she spoke, his mind racing to try and process what she was saying. Count Olaf…He sounded like a…a story villain. And those just didn't exist, not in real life. But she wasn't joking. And she wasn't crazy. Of that he was certain. So he would listen. And he would believe. He owed her that much.

After a beat of silence, she swallowed the lump in her throat, kept her eyes steady on the sea. "They were running out of family members by that time. So they sent us to work instead. Lucky Smells Lumbermill is where they put us. One meal a day, paid in coupons…He found us there too. Posing as a receptionist that time. He…hypnotized Klaus. Hypnosis, of all things. We escaped that time as well. And they put us up at a boarding school. Austere Academy. Of course he was there. He was always…He posed as the gym teacher this time. We escaped, but he kidnapped…We had made friends. Foolish, but we had made friends. Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. They were our friends, and he kidnapped them." She shook her head at the absurdity of it, ran her hand through her hair once again.

"We were with the Squalors for a bit. Jerome and Esmé. They thought it would be…stylish to have orphans about, I suppose. But Esmé was working with Olaf. He was going by Gunther this time, an auctioneer. He…he auctioned off the Quagmires. We tried to save them. Couldn't. Something was always going wrong. Always." She shrugged her shoulders, pushed that aside as well. It simply wouldn't do to dwell on it.

"After that…" She smiled a bit, amused despite herself. "We were adopted by the Villages of Fowl Devotees…V.F.D. There was a man, a kind man named Hector. He took us in. There were some…complications. He found us again. Posing as a detective, he had us thrown in jail. So I put together a water pump, used it to loosen the mortar around the bricks in the cell. It was easy enough to use the cell's bench as a battering ram of sorts. We managed to help Duncan and Isadora escape with Hector, but now we were considered escaped convicts. Convicts. Can you imagine?" She chuckled humorlessly, and then it was she whose hand was reaching out. He wrapped his fingers silently around hers, watched as she gripped tight, let out a deep breath. Did she realize, he wondered, that her hands were trembling? He doubted it.

"Well, ah…let's see…It was the Heimlich Hospital after that. We helped a kind man named Hal in the library of records. Esmé was the one who found us first that time. They must have been a bit desperate, I think. Sunny and Klaus, they escaped, but she caught me. She and Olaf…I guess they figured they didn't much need me. Tried to cut my head off, right in the hospital. A "cranioectomy" of all things." Her neck ached just thinking about it. "Klaus and Sunny helped me escape, but Olaf…he set the hospital on fire, blamed it on us. We had no way out…so we hid in the back of his car. Of all places, it had to be there." She shook her head, closed her eyes once more. It had been perhaps the hardest decision she'd ever made, putting her siblings back so close to that vile man.

"Eventually he stopped, at this carnival. It was…Caligari. The Caligari Carnival. We didn't have many options then, so we posed as…freaks, I suppose. Madame Lulu, she ran the carnival…She worked with Olaf, but she…she wanted to help us. She wanted to help us, so he pushed her into a lion pit. We didn't have a way out, so we thought we'd just travel with the caravan. But he knew who we were. She'd told him. He took Sunny hostage, then unhooked the caravan from his car. And he was gone. He'd taken Sunny." She shook her head, bit her lip. She'd failed there, for letting her sister out of her sight for even a moment. Her strong, brave little Sunny.

"I, uh…I met Quigley while we were trying to get Sunny back. Quigley Quagmire. We became close. But, ah…It's quite complicated, really, the way we got Sunny back. But we did. So many absurd plans back then. Plans that never should have worked, but did anyway. Foolish, childish plans." She shook her head, though her lips curved again at the thought. The adventures they'd had, wanted or not. "We were separated from Quigley in the end. We were always getting separated from someone. In any case, we ended up on board the QueeQueg. Captain Widdershins and his daughter Fiona, they were fine people. I was turning fifteen then, and they…they threw a party for me. But Olaf showed up, of course, in this ridiculous octopus-shaped ship. He called it the Carmelita. We escaped from that as well. We always did escape eventually. We went to the beach, as Quigley had sent us a message. We were always using codes. Safer that way."

She was winding down, Brody saw, but she wasn't done. Not quite yet. Already she looked so tired, her shoulders drooping. Running his thumb over her knuckles, he offered what comfort he could, and wondered why he'd ever thought he needed to know what she hadn't wanted to tell.

"We ended up at the Hotel Denouement. Esmé, Olaf, all those sort were there. But then, they always were. There was…a trial. A ridiculous trial. Everyone was blindfolded, the judge was kidnapped. Then the hotel was on fire – everything always seemed to be on fire at some point- and we were in this makeshift boat, using giant spatulas as oars. It all sounds so ridiculous now. But Olaf was with us. The great evil fool of a man. We ended up on this strange island, headed by a man named Ishmael. My parents, it seemed, had ruled it before him. Imagine, ruling an island." At this, his lips quirked as he, too, glanced out the window, at her. Yes, he thought. Imagine that.

"There was a woman…Kit. She was very pregnant, very knowledgeable. Something…They called it the "Great Unknown," had carried off many of the people we knew. She said one of them had called my name. It was Quigley. I never saw him again. Or the others she named. There was a fungus going around. Olaf died from it. But so did Kit, just after giving birth to a baby girl. Beatrice. We took care of her. We were her parents, I suppose. Her brother and sisters. We needed to get her off that island. We needed to get her off, so we built a boat. We named it Beatrice." She paused then, collecting herself, blowing out a slow, not-quite-steady breath. This was the part, she knew, that would hurt most.

"We didn't make it. A storm came up. We'd almost reached the mainland when it came up, came out of nowhere. Our boat was crushed on the rocks. I had Beatrice in my arms when we crashed. Sunny and Klaus…They never came back up when we sank. I couldn't…I had the baby. I had to get her to land. So I swam to the beach, left her there on the sand while I went to go find my siblings. But every time…Every time I started to swim out, the waves pushed me back. Over and over and over again. The pieces of the ship washed up on shore. But they didn't. They never did. They couldn't." Her breath caught in her throat, her voice breaking on the last word. She would never forgive herself for that. For being unable to protect that which was most important to her.

"I…I was put in the foster system. They didn't know what else to do with me, with Beatrice. I took care of her. But she wasn't safe. Not when she was with me. So when I turned eighteen, I left her. I left her with a nice, loving family who would take care of her better than I could. And I came here. Back to the island that had once been the home of those strange people, the island my parents had ruled over. Except now there's no one left. No one but me. It's safer that way." She turned then, to look at him for the first time. She didn't cry, but her eyes were wet, hot.

"It's safer, Brody. Boats come, and storms drive them off, or crush them on the rocks. Birds don't fly over this island. Hurricanes plow through it. Shipwrecks wash up each month. You're not safe here, Brody. You're not, and I can't stand it. I can't." She did cry then, a single tear that slipped down her cheek, landed in her tea with a quiet plop. With a quiet murmur, he took her tea cup, set it to the side. She didn't fight when he pulled her into his lap, when he cradled her. Her face pressed into his shoulder, she didn't see the way his eyes went hard, bleak. He should have left it alone, he thought. He should have left the subject alone.

"You know," He murmured after a long moment, his hands running up and down her back. "I always thought safety was overrated."