Roslyn – Bon Iver

!!!The last Christian POV chapter!!!!

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"Uncle Christian?"

Turning from his spot by John's wall length window, Christian smiled at the dhampir rubbing the sleep from her large hazel eyes.

"Good morning, sweet girl," He said to Amelia picking her up when she threw her arms around his waist. "You grow more beautiful every day, how old are you now?"

She smiled tiredly and said, "I'm seven. How comes you're here? Where's aunt Chelsea?"

What little of a smile that was on Christian's face slowly fell.

Erinna managed to preserve a drop of blood in her system to keep her from completely desiccating. If that had happened, it would take a lot longer for her to awake again.

Moving Chelsea's body back to Canada was difficult. The only way to get her overseas was by coffin and even then Christian was arguing an unwinnable point.

Seeing her laying there, her skin grey, her black veins outlined all over her face and neck, it killed him. Truly broke something inside of him. He didn't want to leave her, didn't want to close the lid but he had to.

Finding a private jet under such short notice that didn't mind taking on a bloody coffin for cargo was hard too. Quicker than an international flight yes, but not easy. It took another forty-eight hours before all of them touched down in Vancouver airport.

During those wonderful forty-eight hours, all of them were holed up in a motel. Christian only left Chelsea's side once and that was to finally, after over eight hundred years, talk to his makers.

He wouldn't have ever thought in his lifetime he'd be sitting in a small coffee shop in the middle of Reykjavik with them. Erinna, her face the exact same picture as it was when she'd helped turn him. The scar on her cheekbone and eyebrow reminded him of the day he'd first seen her in his village.

Constance smiled at him first, twisting the cup in her hands before taking a short sip. "You must have so many questions."

Christian looked right into her eye as he said, "Not one."

"I find that surprising. My sister and I turned you so long ago, and you haven't one question?"

"I don't have anything to ask about my past. More so to do with now and the future. Like why you helped me."

Christian noticed the small smile to Erinna's mouth so he looked to her. "You must want something in return. A young vampire approaches you about a protégé you haven't seen in over eight centuries and your willingly to help?"

"That young vampire you're talking about is one of the bravest I've ever had the pleasure of meeting." Erinna spoke. "Not one vampire on this earth I know would willingly approach one of the First Three vampire's, ask for something and live to tell the tale."

"I admire Chelsea." Constance added. "She's rare."

"I'm aware." He replied cautiously. "But you can't have her."

Both laughed. Music to some of the human's ears it seemed. It was late but the workers perked up and listened to them until they stopped.

"She's not a possession to have or to keep, dear Christian." Constance scolded him as if he were her child. "We desired nothing when your friends came to us for help. We don't go back on our word. You as well as the world are free of that evil so I see this as a win-win."

"You owe us no favours and neither I you. My sister and I saw into Chelsea's head and saw nothing but pure intentions. We saw something rare. Something we didn't believe would work when we first created vampire's, what with such strong bond's being formed between vampire and protégé."

Christian tensed. "What are you talking about?"

"You haven't realised it, have you? The girl has the power to abjure herself from you. Free herself from the tie you share with her. As her maker, of course you have the power to release her. But as does she." Erinna said. "To release her as her maker you break the bond completely," She picked up a small wooden mixer and broke it clean in half. "But if she abjure's you," She then proceeded to rip open a sugar sachet but gathered the sugar into a tight circle and pointed at it. "The content is still there. You'll still feel connected in such a way but you can't command her as you once did. Weren't you ever curious as to why she could say no or dislike you so much at the beginning?"

Christian wouldn't have ever thought it was something like this. He'd heard of having the power to abjure a maker but it was so unbelievably rare that it was that of a myth.

"I still don't understand why you would willingly help her even if she does have the power to abjure me, why should that be the deciding factor?"

"Because you've been through enough to deserve something real." Constance' voice lowered to a sad murmur. "Plus, any excitement in our lives is welcome. Erinna and I are much older than you, things can get boring."

The sisters smiled at one another and Christian had to stop a small smile from reaching his own lips. He couldn't hate the two of them, not anymore at least.

For another few hours they talked, they mainly asked about what he'd done with his life – the parts they hadn't plucked from his head that is – and what he plans to do now the Steinsson's weren't around to chase him.

He told them the truth, told them what the next step was. Both of them frowned but knew it was the right thing to do. With the Steinsson's out of commission indefinitely, Christian had to do this otherwise, they would win even in their frozen state.

On the plane journey back to Canada, Christian told everybody else what he had to do next. Katherine, too exhausted to argue only nodded her head. Callum and Joe looked uncertain but agreed. Vlad, sticking to his quiet guns, didn't comment on it. He simply ignored him.

And now here they all were, eight o'clock in the morning in Vancouver. John and Amy offered their spare rooms to whoever needed accommodating – mainly Joe and Callum. Erinna and Constance were upstairs with Kate and Amy making Chelsea comfortable whilst Vlad helped Michael to gather whatever was needed for the witches.

It was odd to say, being back in Vancouver felt like home. Being around these familiar people, it was a breath of fresh air.

"Aunt Chelsea's a little unwell, but she'll see you soon." Christian answered placing Mia back on her feet. He turned to watch little Anna run toward him and managed to muster a smile. "Here comes the troublesome one."

"That's mean." She yawned curling her finger at him. He bent and she pecked his cheek. "Mommy's missed you."

"I'd miss me too." The two of them giggled as Evie rounded the corner with a motherly smile on her face.

"Girls' go get ready for school. Jonas' mom will be here to pick you up in an hour, I don't want you both to be late."

The patter of their feet could be heard until they slammed their door upstairs. Evangeline Reeves looked directly into his eyes with that same motherly look and beckoned him over. He walked over with a sad smile and embraced her.

If there was one other person on this earth Christian could trust with a secret it was this woman. She was his best friend. She was the one that came to him all those years ago to help them out with their Florence problem. He trusted her with his life and he did then too.

Evie leaned back from the hug and smirked. "For once I can be the one that says you've been getting into trouble."

Christian managed his first real smile and shook his head. "Trouble follows me everywhere."

"Let's go for a walk, Christian. We have too much to catch up on. Way too much. In fact, dammit I'm mad at you."

"What? Why?"

"You've been away so long, both you and Chelsea are terrible when it comes to coming home." She said as she led them outside. John's house resided just on the outskirts of Burnaby, he had his own little private backyard that led into a forest. "That friend of mine..."

Silently, they walked side by side, the mood of their conversation already growing gloomy. Evie led them over to a fallen log and sat with a sigh, patting the seat beside her.

"Last I'd heard of her she'd run off to Brazil to find your maker. How long have you both been running?"

"Feels like it's been a year but it's only been a few months, hasn't it?"

Evie's dimples winked as she smiled. "I wouldn't really know, you guys kept it all from us."

"It's not the same as before, Evangeline. You're a mother now, you have a-"

"Family, yes I know. Chelsea said the same thing to me a few weeks ago. I truly am curious about your side of the story though. I'm all ears."

Christian inhaled a very, very large breath and rattled out what had happened and how it'd happened. From the Steinsson's to following Chelsea in Cairo a few months ago. From walking through the desert in Cairo to the moment he danced with her in his old friend's open air bar in Cuba. Rest his soul.

He spared no detail – well, some – and expressed everything apart from how he felt about her and what had happened to her. Evie sat listening, didn't speak a word even when he had to take a few pauses to catch his breath.

By the time he'd finished, he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He hadn't had anyone to talk to about any of this, he tended not to talk to anyone in general but with Evie it was never like that. Well, she wouldn't let it be like that.

"You know what's happened, don't you?" Evie spoke, crossing one leg over the other.

"What, are you going to say something completely cliché-"

"You've lived your own worst nightmare."

Christian stared at her with his mouth slightly open. "What's that now?"

She grinned. "I will never forget the conversation you and I had a few days before Amy gave birth to Amelia. You'd said something along the lines of, 'I made a mistake with Florence and I don't plan on making that mistake again.'" She mimicked his accent as well as she could and he grimaced slightly. "You have done the one thing you promised yourself you'd never do again."

Christian looked away as she said the words: "You've fallen in love. But not that simple vanilla kind of love either. No, it's the, 'I'd rip my heart out and give it to you if it'd make you happy,' kind of love. And I think it's beautiful that you're lucky enough to experience it. It's okay to be scared, I know what you're like. But it's always easier to embrace it rather than run away from it."

Christian glared ahead listening to her words and really, truly considered them. He wanted to embrace it, he did. But he couldn't. Not yet, at least. There was so much for him to do now, who knew when he'd get the chance to embrace it.

"You said it out loud yet?"

He glanced back into her dancing gaze and chuckled. "Why does that matter?"

"The first step to admitting something is to say it out loud."

"No, I haven't." He shook his head his smile dropping. "But it doesn't matter."

"Why?"

"She's going to hate me again and to be honest it might make this easier."

"Oh no. You're leaving her?"

"I have to." He insisted. "I can't take her with me for this. And I can't have her following me, it won't be safe. What we did in Iceland? Stopping the Steinsson's? A lot of people, bad people, are going to get suspicious and I'm the one that has to clean this up. Not Chelsea, just me. I wouldn't dare put her in anymore danger, I couldn't bare seeing her hurt again. It just might kill me." Christian admitted rubbing a hand over his growing stubble.

He took a deep breath and released it thinking, hell Evie was right. "I'm in love with the girl." Admitting it out loud made him feel better for about a second before it made him feel like a pile of shit. "She'll kill me, won't she?"

"How long will you be gone?"

"That's the problem, I don't know."

"I'd love to say she'll kill you but, I don't think she will."

And that was what truly was upsetting. If she didn't tell him off, slap him, at least attempt to kill him then that meant he'd really hurt her.

"It'll be hard," She stood, brushing off her jeans. "But you'll know what to do. And try not to say anything stupid like you did in the airport in Dubai. Your sister told me what you said you jackass."

"It's not one of my best moments."

"I'm glad you agree." From a fair distance, Christian could hear footsteps approaching. He spotted Vlad slowly walking toward them, the girls with their backpack's walking either side of him talking his ears off.

Evie shook her head. "You're going to have to explain that to me later. Only in this world would I ever dream of meeting Vlad Tepes and have him walking beside my kid."

Christian chuckled as she met him halfway. Evie gave him a 'nice to meet you' hug; Mia and Anna followed her aunt back to the house.

Vlad watched the two anomalies walk off before turning to Christian. 

"Dhampir's are magnificent aren't they," Christian said. "Half human, half vampire."

"I've never seen one before, let alone two. Their mothers, human when they were born?"

He nodded. "Turned after birth."

Vlad sat beside him with a hum and rubbed his hands together. The two of them hadn't had the chance to properly speak. Hell, they hadn't seen each other since the year Vlad had left Christian to his own devices with Florence. It was so long ago now, he didn't know where to start.

"Why were you and Chels fighting on the beach in Rio?" Christian asked after a long moment of silence.

Vlad smiled again; what an accomplishment. "She was defending you. I said to her you didn't deserve someone like her fighting for you to which she replied, everybody deserves someone loyal, faithful and trustworthy enough to fight their battles. And if it wasn't her, who else would?"

Good God.

"I remember because it's what persuaded me to help her. She's a special girl, Christian."

"I know." He murmured.

Again, they fell into silence and Christian looked to his old friend with regret. They'd missed so many years over a foolish woman. Its peculiar to think how Florence touched every person's lives just because he'd turned her. If he hadn't, Evie and Michael would never had met. Michael would have lived a different life; Nate would have died young from influenza in the twentieth century. John and Amy would never have crossed paths.

It was mad to think like that. How their lives could have gone left or right.

So, after a thought, Christian held his hand out to his old friend and said, "I should have listened to you about Florence. And for that, I'm sorry."

Vlad the Impaler stared at Christian's hand before taking it in a strong forgiving handshake. "I'm sorry too."

He patted Vlad's shoulder and suggested, "I'll need help getting through that list I stole. What vampire wouldn't listen to a first sire and the legendary Dracula?"

"Of course. Whatever helps you get through that list quicker."

The two of them stood from the log and shook hands again before making their way back to the house.

"Evie's husband and I managed to get enough blood to put straight back into Chelsea's veins and enough for her to drink when she wakes up. Erinna said it will take a day or two for her to wake up. But she'll be fine."

Christian was glad. It gave him a few days to figure out what he wanted to say to her. To prepare himself for whatever she would say to him when he told her. Who knows, she might be fine with it. Might smile and wish him well.

There was another thing plaguing his mind. Something he knew he had to do. He should have done it years ago. He had to release her or she had to abjure him. He had to know what he felt was real. And whatever she felt was real too. Time away from each other not having that tie to one another could be the start or the end.

But it had to be done. Not just for that reason but for her. He knew she'd had enough of him constantly having this over her. At least this way, she can finally go back to her life. Go back to work. Live without having to constantly look over her shoulder.

He loved her. But just for a while, a month, a year, he had to let her go. And he damn well hoped, prayed, he wasn't selfish enough to hold her back.

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