Lightning Strikes Twice

Thirty Four

"Oh this is bad." Méalla said into the phone as Klaus told her Finn had locked the werewolves and vampires together in the compound. "I'm coming to help."
"No! Listen, Kol's here with Davina breaking the boundary, Marcel, Gia, Jackson and Hayley are keeping their people in line. We just have to wait some time."
"And what will be happening while you wait? Surely the war won't go on pause?"
"Méalla, please." Klaus pleaded.
"Fine. Call me with updates." Méalla muttered, then hung up.

The vampires and werewolves were mingling in the courtyard, having drinks and trying to enjoy themselves despite being trapped together as Hayley was watching everyone from the balcony. After a moment, Klaus joined her. She smiled weakly at him before turning her attention back to the courtyard, but Klaus looked at her curiously.
"Worried about your wolves? Or, perhaps the source of your anxiety is a little further from home? How is Méalla, by the way? I'm sure she found your visit most curative." Klaus' smirk was wide.
"No." After Klaus continuing to smirk at her, she eventually caved.  "That obvious, huh?" Hayley cleared her throat awkwardly, and Klaus laughed.
"Well, you both had a certain glow about you all morning. Frankly, I'm glad the two of you dropped your pretenses and, uh, shall we say... let the spirit move you? " He started laughing even harder, and Hayley cut him off, shoving him playfully.
Hayley started laughing with him. "Okay! Okay, okay, okay, stop! Enough! This family is weird enough already."
Klaus noticed Hayley's face suddenly grow serious as she watched Jackson down below, who had grabbed his own bottle of whiskey and had settled himself in a chair next to some fellow werewolves.
"You're feeling guilty, aren't you? Wondering if you should tell your betrothed things he doesn't need to know. From all the poems written on the subject of unrequited love, there are so few on the pain of being the object of that affection. The truth is, Hayley, it's not love on which the strongest foundations are built. It's the decency of merciful lies." Klaus stared at her, while she contemplated Jackson. He left after a few quiet moments.

"Alex and the girls are napping. I don't know how Alex is able to sleep so much." Méalla came into the living room, feeling the awkwardness between Cami and Elijah.
"Rebekah's not picking up." Elijah said from the doorway. Méalla sighed and sat down.
Cami was looking through the cabinets in the kitchen when she found a bottle of bourbon and took it off the shelf.
"Yahtzee! If there's one thing I've learned about you people, it's that there's always a bottle of booze around." She started to rummage in another cabinet for glasses and looked back at Elijah and Méalla. "You want one?"
"Sounds delightful. And after that, Camille, then what? We have another, and another, perhaps another after that, another after that... Before long, I find myself opening up to you, or..." He makes air-quotes "bearing my damaged soul," as it were."
Cami, who had the glasses and the bottle of bourbon, sat down on the couch in the living room and rolled her eyes. "It's an old trick, Camille. Not a particularly clever one."
"Your mother really did a number on you guys, didn't she? Has it ever occurred to you that I'm less interested in fixing your problems and more interested in forgetting my own? I mean, I'm basically in a supernatural witness protection program because your psychotic brother, who, by the way, I practically had to seduce, wants me dead. So, yeah." Elijah sat down across from them in an armchair and watched as she pulled out Trivial Pursuit and set it on the coffee table. "Booze and board games is pretty much where I'm at right now."
"I love Trivial Pursuit. Pass me a glass." Elijah rolled his eyes as Cami passed a very full glass of bourbon to Méalla and pulled out one of the game cards.
"Here's a question: "What was the name of Don Quixote's horse?"
"This is absurd." Elijah muttered.
Cami sighed and set down the trivia card. "Fine. Dumb idea." Cami turned to Méalla.
"How's Hayley? You two seemed close." She casually sips her drink, and Méalla takes a long gulp of her own, deciding to make the decision for Elijah.
"Rocinante. The horse's name is Rocinante. Although Elijah knew that." She smirked at his discomfort and he finally relented. He grabbed the bottle of bourbon and poured himself a glass.
"Whoever wins gets to choose the next game?" Méalla suggested, met with a glare from Elijah and a nod from Cami.

The three of them were still playing Trivial Pursuit, Cami quickly reading off card after card, frustrated as hell that Elijah or Méalla knows the correct answer to every question she asks.
"What three European countries begin with the letter "A?"
Elijah sounded bored. "Albania, Austria,"
"And Andorra." Méalla finished. Cami threw the card aside.
"Agh! Okay, hey! Who was the only U.S. president to earn a Ph.D?"
Méalla answered immediately. "The boring Woodrow Wilson."
Cami groaned and tried to find another question in the stack of cards.
"Who rode secretariat to the triple crown in 1973?"
"Ron Turket." Elijah said, taking a drink.
Cami threw up her hands in frustration. "No! I refuse to believe that you just happened to know that!" In her exasperation she accidentally spilled Elijah's drink onto the table and his shirt sleeve. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Elijah. Here." She handed him a hand towel to clean himself up, which he took to blot the alcohol from his shirt while she started looking through the game cards.
"Ohhh... Okay, who was..."
Méalla got more concerned the longer he tried to dry off his shirt, and the more furiously he began scrubbing at his sleeve.
"Elijah? Elijah, what's up?" Méalla reached out to touch his hand, but Elijah quickly grabbed her by the wrist to stop her. Cami's eyes widen in alarm, but Méalla remained calm. Elijah gently set her arm down.
"I'm not as fragile as Niklaus suggests." Elijah said, holding eye contact with Méalla, who stared at him contemplatively. They remained uninterrupted until Elijah's phone rang. He answered it. "Rebekah, where on Earth are you?" He paused and listened to the voice on the other end for a moment before talking. "I see. No, I must have been dialing the wrong number. Forgive me." He hung up the phone, looking distressed.
"Rebekah's not where she's supposed to be is she?" Méalla asked. Elijah shook his head.
"I'll call Niklaus."

As Elijah was on the phone with Klaus, Cami came walking up behind Méalla, who was standing at the doorway of the room where they had set the three young ones to sleep.
"You seem off."
"Do I?" Méalla answered absentmindedly, watching them, scanning for any sign of distress.
"What did she say? In the time I've known you, you're always full of snark and quick to defuse tensions. Now, you're biting your tongue and hovering."
"I suppose you won't be satisfied with the answer that I have more to worry about now that I'm a mom?" Méalla looked back at Cami, who stared at her expectantly. Méalla shook her head gently. "Oh what the hell? You're the only one of us paid to listen to problems. My mother used different methods while trying to change Elijah's and I mind. I don't know what she did to him, but it had something to do with his fears of monstrosity. Me on the other hand, I don't quite mind being a monster. What she decided was to bring to the forefront the untimely fates of those who I wanted to keep safe most. My brother Kol's death, Hayley's. The few people I've let myself care about over the centuries. Then she decided to tell me how she was going to continue that cycle if I didn't agree to a new body, coming up with awful ways to torment the family I've gained in the time since coming to New Orleans. A different technique, a different person every time I closed my eyes." Méalla paused for a moment, watching Alex turn in her sleep, holding Howl the worrywolf. Visions of desiccated corpses, bloody remnants of clothes passed through her head. She shook her head to clear them. "I can deal with my mother wanting to kill me. Let her try. But she's clearly shown she has at least a little bit of ability to hurt those i thought I shielded, so that's on my mind."
Méalla felt Cami's tentative hand on her arm.
"You have to realize this is what she wanted. She wanted you to be scared because she knows if you aren't, you could've dealt with her faster than you run. She wouldn't have been able to do anything."
"Well, it worked. Although she herself can no longer do anything. I just have to hope Finn won't take after her in this aspect. He was willing to have children kill for him, so I have no doubt he'd be willing to hurt anyone to get to me. Add in a dash of sibling rivalry mixed with hatred of me and you got yourself a righteous king of balance."
Cami was quiet for a moment before she continued speaking.
"You know, when I didn't know he was Finn, we talked about our families. He said the usual, devoted mother, distant father, yada yada. He didn't say much but he did mention having a sister he regretted the way he treated. How she changed from his baby sister, to someone he didn't recognize and therefore distanced from, into a woman better than any he knew."
"I'd like to believe that Camille, I really would. But I just don't think that's true." Méalla turned away from Cami, back to watching the girls sleep. Cami walked away, meeting Elijah at the door as he hung up with Klaus.