ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ⇴ ᴛᴠᴅ ² ✓

twenty one

Billie hadn't been able to tear the smile from her face all day as she walked. The city was one of the places she felt most at home, as part of a huge crowd where no one knew who anyone was, and no one cared too much about it.

Where the drivers were short-tempered and the pedestrians even more so. Billie had to admit, she hadn't quite missed the big city air, it felt so... dirty, compared to what it had been in Mystic Falls, like the sky was just as crowded as the ground. But it was part of the charm, it was all part of home.

Billie refused to discard the sunglasses sitting on her nose, unwilling to see the city with anything but shaded eyes.

She grabbed a coffee two blocks away from where she used to live, the same place she used to get her coffee every day before school. A double espresso drowned in sugar. She had to stop herself from giggling as she held it in her hands. It felt like she'd travelled back in time. When things weren't quite so complicated.

Her phone buzzed incessantly in her pocket again for what seemed like the fiftieth time that morning. Billie pulled it out to check the Caller ID, although she was fairly sure she knew who it was. 

Her suspicions were proved true when the same name appeared on her screen and Billie sighed, figuring she might as well deal with it now before he spiralled, a habit she'd quickly identified in the hybrid in their summer abroad.

She took several deep breaths before answering, calming her heart as she swiped the green.

There was silence for a long moment before the line filtered through a low voice. "Billie, love. I don't remember a time I've read a text that's left me so speechless, trying to contemplate what kind of stupidity was going through your head last night."

Billie smiled to herself to ease her own nerves. "In my defence... I was a little drunk."

She didn't expect a laugh from him, but it didn't make her feel any better. "You're always a little drunk, your defence is weak."

It was Billie's turn to laugh. She glanced up slightly at the traffic light, waiting among the others to cross the wide street. She thought it was best to divert the subject before they fell down a rabbit hole too deep to crawl out of. "So... I heard about your... emancipation. Does that mean you're finally gonna do the rounds and undagger the Vikings in your closet? I'd love to meet them."

Billie charmed her way back into his good graces, surprised even at herself as the hybrid bypassed the subject of her sudden holiday. "Maybe when my good luck comes back into town. Care to share where you're hiding away?" He tempted her with some charm of his own.

Billie sighed softly as the light finally turned green and she crossed the road. "My lips are sealed Klausy. Besides, if I told you, you'd just come take me back before I could do what I want to do." She explained vaguely, keeping her tone light so she didn't have an angry hybrid on her hands.

He hummed in thought and Billie finally spotted the entrance, becoming antsy to get off the phone. "And what do you want to do?"

Billie paused at the door, thinking over his words as she punched in the keycode. "...I'm not quite sure yet." 

She pushed open the heavy door, breathing in the clean, fresh air of inside, a contradiction that couldn't describe the city better. Before Klaus could talk her out of it, she spoke with finality. 

"Well, this has been nice." She tucked her phone into the crook of her shoulder as she fished in the shallow, stiff pockets for the keys to the elevator. "But, places to go, people to see, all that jazz."

"Billi-"

"I'll be back... sometime, until then, call for emergencies only. Tata." Billie quickly hung up before he could get another word in, turning the key for the elevator and taking a big step in, like she was entering a whole other world.

She waited patiently as it climbed forty six floors, hoping to all hope that they weren't home. It was almost noon, they had to have left for the office by now. Billie was beginning to think she was still a little drunk, thinking coming here was a good idea. 

God what was she thinking? She wasn't. It had been one of the most spur of the moment decisions she'd ever made in her life, probably one of the dumbest too.

Billie sniffed the air softly, realising that the musty smell was coming from her. There was no way she was coming anywhere near her parents smelling like the sewers. 

The elevator dinged curtly as she reached the top floor, thankful she hadn't needed to share the ride with anyone. The building was mostly home to well paid residents, most of whom where already out at work. She didn't worry too much about running into anyone familiar, no one knew anyone around here. It just wasn't that kind of neighbour hood.

Cara Delaney and Noah Harper lived in the penthouse of the building. It took up the entire top floor with exclusive access to the roof, not that anyone but Billie had ever went up there seeing as the hidden ladder was outside her window.

The doors took their sweet time lugging open, revealing the place that had dominated Billie's thought even weeks after she left.

Her steps were slow and unsure, like it was still a dream to be back. She didn't hear any noise, they were at the office, which was good. Harper had no idea what to say to them, how to explain why she was back when she had no idea herself.

The wide open space was well decorated, tidy. Everything in this apartment fit in, everything was right where it belonged. Maybe that's why they wanted her gone. Billie had been the odd one out for years.

It was exactly how she left it. The view was identical, superior and on a pedestal over the smaller buildings around them. The furniture was still laid out the same way, the classy, nude colour scheme bugging her with it's perfection just as much as before.

Billie figured being back there was almost like a thirty year old with a successful career and a family coming back to their childhood home. But this room wasn't the one she associated with home in Brooklyn.

She moved on from the entry, brushing her fingers over the couches and the walls as she passed them. Billie couldn't help the way she peaked into all the rooms as she walked, like she had to make sure they would still be the same.

Billie glanced into her parents' office, the only room with a fancy oak door. Her dad had insisted on it because he thought it looked nice. Billie figured out sometime as a teen that it was also the only soundproof room in the apartment.

She vividly remembered sitting crouched outside that door, listening through the tiniest opening in the door as her parents planned on sending her away to an aunt famed around the dysfunctional household for being a lunatic.'

When she finally pulled herself away from the forbidden home office, Billie found herself staring at the closed door to her room. The one place in Brooklyn where she could be herself, where she could be messy and irresponsible. The place where she chose what she wanted.

The only control she'd ever had was in that room.

So you could imagine how Billie felt, opening the door, a smile already stretching over her cheeks, only to find that it had been converted into a nursery in her absence.