Nothing Dark Can Stay, Either

Chapter 4

By the third year, neither could deny that they were likely going to go psychotic.

"I'd be turning twenty five this year," Kai mentioned one evening. They had stayed in the Mikaelson Manor since they arrived, and had enjoyed the colors of New Orleans even without the people who made it so lively. "Yet, I still look twenty two. I wonder if I would have aged much."

"My count is three hundred and thirteen," Beatrix hummed. "Congratulations to me."

She missed everyone more that year. Kai hadn't asked questions after the revelation that she'd practically raised Marcel Gerard. Even though she wasn't his biological mother, it was clear to Kai that being away from him pained her. They must have been very close, and he for once didn't feel like taunting her about her past. He wondered what it might be like to feel the way she did. To have three hundred years of pain and joy and family. He had never liked his. Clearly, she had made her own and enjoyed it.

Thus, the third year, it had been far too calm. Not many snarky comments. Still sleeping in separate rooms, still sharing meals, but not many conversations. They took turns going out to explore, coming home at late hours of the night. About a few months into the new year, Beatrix had noticed Kai came home with a bloody shirt one day, but it appeared that he didn't see her watching him. She suspected he had tried to kill himself, to see if it would work that time, if inflicted on its own, in a secluded area. No such luck.

They'd thought the second year was hard, but the third year was worse. Neither was sure at what point it'd just be calm again. Neither knew what their count was. Three of twenty? Of one hundred? Of forever? Both understood exactly why the world was dubbed as a prison. And both hated the Gemini Coven more every day.

Since they hadn't talked, Beatrix had not yet told him about her time with the Mikaelsons. How could she? It would just be another roller coaster of emotions for her and it'd give Kai new material to tease her with. He called her Trixter anytime he ever needed to speak to her, and she addressed him as CobraKai, but apart from that, neither had much interaction with the other. They withdrew, and that's when the nightmares began.

Beatrix had never been one to have nightmares. It wasn't in her nature, not really. She usually had a dreamless sleep or dreamt something stupid, like that she was picking up a prescription at the pharmacy. She did at one point try it in real life, reminiscing on her days studying the medications when she was at Duke.

Her undergraduate degree. Thinking back to that was so weird. She'd only ever gone because Marcel had mentioned Law School in the fifties and she had decided to go do something less witchy and vampiric.

Usually, her nightmares made sense. She'd lost someone or something, and couldn't find it. Or she was forced to kill someone she cared about. Or she watched someone else be killed. Whoever created her dreams had no flair for dramatics, just pure angst.

Some nights she woke up and made no sound. Other nights, she thrashed and screamed. She started to put spells around her room so Kai would not hear her. It would be so embarrassing if he did.

It was strange to think that the nightmares started when they stopped talking so often. It was as if the lack of contact with the one person nearest her was making her paranoid in her brain. If she couldn't keep a connection with the one person she shared a prison with, how could she expect to connect with her friends when she returned to their world? If she returned to their world.

"Trixter?"

She turned around. He probably needed something. She was lounging on the floor of the parlor after several hours playing random tunes on the piano. Melodies that Elijah had taught to both her and Marcel.