❝every beginning has an end❞
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

THE KNOCK ON HIS DOOR STARTLES HIM. He huffs, reaching for the remote on the table, and pushes himself up off the couch, walking down the dimly lit hallway. He doesn't keep many lights on in the house, especially when his dad's not home (which is 98% of the time).

He swings the front door open, and any pretense of irritation or snarky attitude leaves him with a whoosh of breath.

"Charlotte?"

He has to ask, because he could recognize his best friend anywhere, any time, even next to her twin sister, and her vampire doppelgänger, but this– he thinks he questions her because he doesn't want it to be her.

He doesn't want it to be Charlotte. And he doesn't want to know what's happened in order for her to end up on his front porch, barefoot and covered in blood, with a thousand yard stare.

"Cory?" She echoes his name back to him like a question, distant gaze lifting to meet his wide-eyed look.

"Charlotte..." He breathes her name out again, hand shaking as he drops it from the doorknob and steps towards her. "What happened to you?"

Her thin brows pull together on her forehead, like she's confused by his question. "I..." She trails off, looking down at herself for a moment before she looks back up at him. "I need help."

"What–"

"I need help," She repeats, cutting him off. "I need help. I need– I need it off, get it off of me, Cory, get it off of me!"

Her voice breaks off into a sob and Cory quickly pulls her inside, slamming the door shut as she stumbles into his chest, staining the front of him.

"No, no, no," She tries to pull away from him but he just holds her close, wrapping his arms around her until she collapses helplessly, shoulders heaving with dry sobs. "Get it off of me, please, please, I want it off. I don't want it anymore, I don't want it, I don't– I can't,"

"Charlotte, you have to breathe," Cory's hand cups the back of her head, pressing her cheek firmly against his shoulder as he takes purposeful, demonstrative breaths. "You have to breathe, please,"

"I don't want it anymore, Cory, get it off of me, please," She grasps at his shirt like she's trying to claw out of her own skin and Cory's hands shake and shake and shake as he holds her, and then his knees start to shake and he takes them down to the floor with as much grace as he can, letting her fall into him as they entangle their limbs together.

"You have to take a deep breath, Charlotte," Cory says, voice firm but quiet. "With me. Deep breath in, come on,"

Charlotte inhales sharply and nearly chokes on it, but she holds it like he does his, and lets it out in a sob when she finally exhales.

"Another one," He says.

This breath is more natural, but not much. Her throat clicks when she exhales and Cory wonders if she's hurting herself just by breathing right now. He still doesn't even know if this blood is hers or not.

"Keep breathing," He tells her, resting his chin atop her head as he squeezes his eyes shut, attempting to compose himself in the face of her hysterics. "Just keep breathing."

Charlotte does, and her cries quiet, but her tears don't stop and her breath wheezes out of her every time she exhales. Cory thinks she might actually be injured, not just losing her mind.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"I want to shower," She says instead of answering, voice low and hoarse like it always is after she cries. Cory wishes he didn't have a running tab on that identifier. "Please."

He resists a sigh, because it will just make her feel worse, and he's not mad. He's not mad at her at all, he just– he loves Charlotte like he's never loved anyone else. And she may not be aware of it, but it drives him insane. The need to protect her from anything that could ever hurt her, including herself. So when she shows up on his doorstep covered in blood and having a mental breakdown, it strikes that chord in him that wants to burn the town down and take her far, far away from Mystic Falls and everything it's ever done to her. To both of them.

He can't, though. She'll never let him do that. Not unless her family comes with them. Not unless Damon Salvatore drops off the face of the earth.

"Okay," He surrenders easily, because he has no willpower with Charlotte. He's not sure anyone does. "I'll get you clothes."

A while later, an hour at most, when all of the blood is out of Charlotte's hair and she's curled into a ball in Cory's bed in a pair of his too-big sweatpants and a too-big sweatshirt, and Cory's right behind her, arms wrapped tight around her as she trembles silently, he'll ask her again.

"What happened, Charlotte?"

And Charlotte will take a deep breath, more stable than the ones from before, and burrow herself a little bit further into her best friend's arms because he'll hold her tighter without asking.

And she'll think about what happened, how her night with Dylan had been so good, and even with the knowledge that Elijah was there, she'd had a wonderful time and her heart had raced and she felt so real. She'll think about how she'd thought about kissing Dylan in Mrs. Lockwood's secret galleria, about making a new memory in that house that wasn't tainted.

She'll think about the way her skin crawled the second that werewolf walked into the room and spoke to them. And how easily he'd thrown Dylan to the side, and how she thought he was dead, just like that.

She'll think about how hard it was to actually stab someone. What it felt like to puncture the skin, and how it took a lot more force than you might think, and her arms were sore before she ever even left the Lockwood mansion.

She'll think about how it got easier to stab him once she'd mangled him, once he was already dead and she just didn't stop. She'll think about how Elijah took her hand, covered in blood, and looked her up and down and told her she looked beautiful, like a beautiful, bloody martyr.

She'll think about it all. She'll think about how she'll never be able to forget this night for the rest of her life, as short as it may turn out to be.

And then she'll lie.

"Dylan and I went to the Historical Society's tea party for our date," She'll say, honestly. "Elijah was there, too."

Cory will hum, acknowledging her, urging her on.

"We went upstairs, and I showed Dylan the art room. The secret one I told you about a long time ago, you remember?"

Cory will nod, instantly recalling the night Charlotte had told him about their Mayor's wife's hoard of things that didn't belong to her, along with Miranda laughing at the gossip. He remembers Miranda's muttered comment about being pitiful, and had, not for the first time, wished his mother had been anything like Miranda's snarky but loving self.

"Yeah, I remember,"

And Charlotte will continue on with her truths, until she doesn't.

"We were having a good time. Just hanging out and talking, telling stories. And then this man came into the room and said we weren't allowed to be in there, and Dylan, he didn't think anything of it. But I knew that Carol didn't hire security,"

It goes unsaid between them that they both know Carol wouldn't hire security for her events, because she'd sooner cut costs on fundamental things like that in favor of getting a caviar spread no one ever ate because it was gross and entirely too highbrow for Mystic Falls.

"Who was it?" Cory will ask, with a threatening note in his voice.

"I don't know. But he was a werewolf," It's the truth, still. "He tried to attack us. He– he knocked Dylan out, I thought he was dead. And then he came at me, and I– I fought back Cory, I did,"

She'll cut herself off abruptly as her voice breaks again, because the truth is hard no matter what lies you'll tell alongside it. Cory will squeeze her reassuringly, because he knows her.

And Charlotte will swallow her guilt with her tears, and lie to her best friend. "And then Elijah came in, and he– he killed him. Just like that. I– I was beneath him, he had me pinned, and Elijah, I don't even know how he did it. But one minute the werewolf was getting ready to rip my throat out, and the next Elijah was helping me stand up."

"Jesus," Cory will breathe out, horror in his tired voice. "I'm sorry, Charlotte. I'm sorry you had to see that,"

She'll shrug against him, eyes boring unblinkingly into the wall with her back to Cory's chest. "It won't be the last time."

"I wish it was."

She'll hum, a noise of agreement on every surface level.

And then they'll fall into silence, because it's late and exhaustion always wins. But Cory will fall asleep first, inevitably, and Charlotte will still be staring at the wall, thinking about all of it.

And she'll know that if Cory had seen her face, he would've known she was lying. If he'd made her turn around and tell him more details, he would've heard what she didn't say and he wouldn't have let her get away with not telling him every single detail.

But he didn't.

And Charlotte will never tell him the truth.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Charlotte wakes up to the sound of voices murmuring from the other room. She's momentarily confused, discombobulated in her foreign surroundings until she realizes they're the furthest from foreign, and it's just Cory's bedroom.

After that, all it takes it another second for everything else to come rushing back, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the convulsion of her throat when she remembers the taste of blood in her mouth.

Turning to bury her face in the pillow and muffle her noise of misery, she briefly lets the suffocating dark smother her until it gets too uncomfortable and her instincts to breathe win out.

She flops onto her back and throws the covers off, star-fishing for a minute before she throws her legs over the edge and stands up on them, wobbling and then steadying herself out.

Her hair probably looks like an absolute rat's nest because she didn't brush it last night, or even put it up in an attempt to salvage it this morning when she'd first gotten out of bed. She'd had other things on her mind, things she couldn't do anything about, which is why she just ended up sleeping the day away in Cory's bed.

Walking out of Cory's room, she almost expects to see Cory's dad, but she knows that's more unlikely than not, because now more than ever he's out of state and leaving Cory to fend for himself. If not for the checks he sends his son every month and the fact that he still pays the bills for the house and everything, Charlotte would've made Cory move in with her ages ago.

Her second thought is that it's Damon, and for a split second she's terrified by the prospect because the only reason she could lie to Cory last night was because she didn't have to look him in the eyes, and she knows if she has to face him and Damon, she'll blurt everything out in spite of herself.

To her surprise, it isn't Cory's dad or Damon, or anyone else that she would've guessed.

It's Dylan.

Charlotte stops short in the doorway of the living room, her face scrunching up in utter confusion. "Dylan?"

The boy lights up at her presence, warm eyes softening as he takes in her sleep-addled state, and she flushes beneath his attention, suddenly too aware of how strung out she probably looks.

Shifting her weight between her feet, she pulls Cory's sweatpants up and rolls them around her waist again, praying they look even the slightest bit better. It probably doesn't do much though, because she's sure the ratty, hand-me-down sweatshirt from Cory's dad's alma mater isn't doing her any favors, and her hair is absolutely nonsensical right now. Plus, she's slept for at least thirteen hours in total today, barely getting up to see the sun let alone anything else.

"Hey, Charlotte,"

Charlotte's eyes drift to Cory, silently questioning, and her friend shrugs, a slight smirk on his lips.

"I plugged your phone in and saw you had some texts from him, so I told him you were here and invited him over."

"Oh," She says quietly, looking back to Dylan who looks a little bit unsure.

"I hope it's alright," He shrugs slightly, finally standing up from where he'd been next to Cory on the couch. "I, uh, I just wanted to talk to you about last night."

Charlotte's stomach twists with nausea that has nothing to do with the lack of food in her stomach, or the champagne she had last night. "What, uh, what do you remember?"

He chuckles airily, scratching the back of his unruly brown curls. "Honestly, not that much. That's kinda why I wanted to talk to you,"

She lets out a sigh of relief, shoulders slumping. "Oh, of course. Do you– let's go out to the porch,"

Dylan nods and she turns to lead him out of the living room, shooting one last look at Cory who just waves her off, already reaching for the remote as he settles into the couch again.

The air is warm for the late hour, but there's still a nice breeze and you can almost smell the impending season change in the air. Charlotte gingerly sits down on the porch swing mounted into the roof and Dylan joins her, the old thing rocking gently with their weight.

Charlotte brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, and Dylan keeps his feet on the ground, keeping a swift rocking motion going with his heels.

"So, I think we might've had a little too much champagne,"

Charlotte huffs a quiet laugh, turning her head to look at him. His eyes are brown like hers, but they have more yellow in them, and when the warm yellow porch light hits them, she thinks they look like honey pooling in a cup of hot tea.

"Yeah, probably," She presses her fingers into the meat of her thigh, practically white-knuckling her leg as she prepares herself for the mountain of lies to grow a bit taller. She's grateful, then, for the sleeves of the sweatshirt are too long and they hide the death grip she's got on herself. "But we had fun, right?"

"Oh, definitely," He nods, honey eyes roaming over her face like he's trying to commit her features to his memory. Like she's something to admire. "But I– I actually came here to ask you something,"

Charlotte raises a brow, digging her nails into her thigh through the fabric of the sweatpants. "Yeah?"

"I know we briefly talked about it last night out by the lake, but, uh, after waking up this morning and realizing I don't remember anything that happened after we went back inside, I just..."

He trails off and Charlotte reaches out to lay a hand on his arm before she can think to stop herself. He startles slightly and she does too, like they both didn't expect her to do that, but she doesn't retract her hand.

Dylan looks at where her fingers are wrapped around his forearm and sighs, smiling to himself as he looks back up at Charlotte, his confidence mounting again with her silent reassurance. "I realized that I don't want to forget a single thing about you, or the time we spend together. So, if you still want to, I'd really, really like to take you out on another date. A real one, this time. Just us, and, you know, no champagne."

Charlotte's eyes widen slightly, and she doesn't know why she's surprised when Dylan's been nothing but honest with her about his infatuation, but she is, and she finds that she likes it.

He doesn't scramble to backtrack in the wake of her silence like he has in the past, and she likes that, too, because she doesn't want him to second guess anything about this, ever. She doesn't ever want to make him feel like it's not real. Those secret looks and the nauseatingly intimate touches shared in a room full of people, but it's just for them. He shouldn't ever second guess what that means, not like she has a hundred times before.

Charlotte takes a minute to look at him, to let herself breathe through all of her guilt and panic and think about everything that awaits her in a world he knows nothing about, and will never be apart of, if she has anything to say about it.

She knows, and has known long before she ever knew about doppelgängers and sacrifices and vampires and everything else, that she was doomed. It swam in her blood, it wove itself into her DNA while she was still being formed, right next to Elena.

There wasn't a world where Charlotte lived long. She has always known that, in some way. Because there is no world where Charlotte doesn't give up her life to make her siblings happy. Even if she lives to see a gray hair, her entire life will be lived for Elena and Jeremy, because nothing and no one means more to her in this world. No one ever has, and no one ever will.

So she knows that doing this with Dylan, whatever this will be, it won't last. She won't ever have a picket fence life like Elena wants. She will probably break Dylan's heart one day, if he doesn't break hers first.

But for once, that foreboding feeling doesn't stop her.

She just smiles and squeezes his arm lightly, fondly. "I'd really like that, Dylan."

Dylan smiles back at her, like he had that night in the bar when she agreed to go out with him the first time, and it makes her heart race for the same reason it did then.

"Okay," He nods, trying to pull back his grin, much to his failure. "I'll plan something, then. And we'll work out a good day for it,"

"That sounds good,"

The two fall quiet, letting the late night noises fill the space between them. The gentle creak of the chains on the swing on Cory's front porch become a part of the tree frog and cricket symphony, and they just exist together, tentative and new to it all.

"Hey, Charlotte?" Dylan breaks their comfortable silence, but his voice is soft and she hears a degree of hesitation in it that threatens to have her frowning.

"Yeah?"

"Can I–" He stops, shaking his head like he's physically shaking his nerves away. He shifts on the swing, turning to look at her head on, and she turns a little bit as well, just to mirror him. "Do me a favor?"

She smiles slightly, tilting her head curiously. "Sure,"

"Just– hit me or something, if this isn't okay," He rolls his shoulders back, and Charlotte watches as he brings his hands up to cup her cheeks so, so gently, like he knows she's breakable, and she holds her breath as he lowers his head just enough to kiss her.

She's not taken back by his actions, she doesn't startle, instead she just sinks into it and closes her eyes, hoping it will stave off the sudden tears she wants to shed.

He's careful about it and she likes that, likes that his thumbs are gently caressing her cheeks like he's just cherishing her, and she can feel it all, and it's inevitable heartbreak, she's breaking her own heart, she'll break Dylan's heart, and probably Damon's, too, but God– wouldn't she have done that, anyway?

Wouldn't it have all ended in heartbreak and tears anyway?

She sighs against his lips and presses in just a bit more, her hand still clutching onto his arm. She starts to laugh suddenly, lips splitting into a grin that has him pulling back, looking down at her with his own growing smile.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing," She shakes her head. "I just really like you."

Dylan's cheeks flush and he ducks his head away, dropping his hands from her face as he flusters. Charlotte laughs to herself at it and nudges her shoulder into him, teasing and reassuring at the same time.

"Charlotte,"

She doesn't jump when Cory interrupts them, stepping out of the front door and turning to face them on the swing. "What?"

"Your sister,"

He holds up her phone, and she sees the panic in his eyes and her bubble bursts within that stomach-dropping second of realization. She scrambles to her feet, pushing off of the swing as she practically lunges for her phone, pressing it to her ear.

"Elena? Elena, what's wrong?"

"Charlie, you need to get to the boarding house. I– I'll explain when you get here, but just– hurry, okay? Something happened with Elijah,"

A million questions pop up into Charlotte's mind but she knows from the urgency in Elena's voice that there is no time to ask them. "I– I can't–" She stops, turning to look at Cory, and then at Dylan, who's looking at her concernedly. "Okay. Okay, I'm on my way."

"Hurry, please,"

Charlotte pulls her phone away from her ear, watching the screen flash with the short duration of the call before it goes black, and she forces the white noise rushing into her ears back, squeezing her eyes shut tight before opening them again.

"I'm so sorry, Dylan, I have to go home, my sister needs me,"

"Don't worry about it," He shakes his head, giving her a reassuring smile as he pulls his car keys out of his pocket. "I'll text you later, okay?"

"Okay, thank you for– for everything," She looks up at him, nodding, and wishes she could rewind to just minutes ago when her stomach was turning for entirely different reasons than it is now. "I'll talk to you later."

Dylan gives Cory a nod in goodbye and walks down to where he'd parked his car on the curb, and Charlotte presses a hand to her mouth with a heavy sigh before she turns to look at Cory.

"Something's going on with Elijah," She tells him, her voice taking on that distant tone it does when she's trying not to panic. "I have to go to the boarding house."

Cory's eyes search her face and he seems to be upset for a reason she's unaware of. "Okay. Okay, I'll give you a ride to your car."

"I– I need clothes, too. I think I left some clothes here one day if you still have them," She says, raising her voice as he turns and walks back into the house, leaving her standing on the porch. "If not, I'll just wear this."

Cory waves a hand, the only sign that he'd listened to her, and she lets out a shaky wheeze of a breath, ignoring the ache in her ribs that hasn't gone away all day.

She shouldn't do this to Dylan. Even now, him witnessing something so easy to lie about, it can only end badly for them. Last night was lucky. Lucky that he wasn't killed, lucky that Elijah was there, lucky that compulsion exists.

Luck always runs out eventually. And Charlotte won't know what to do if she gets Dylan killed because she was selfish enough to let him fall in love with her.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"Can one of you please tell me what's going on? Seriously, Damon hasn't answered a single question and you couldn't even text me!" Charlotte throws her hands up, exasperation in her voice as it echoes through the walls of the boarding house.

Elena gives her a guilty look but quickly closes the distance between them, wrapping her in a hug that Charlotte reciprocates even as she frowns.

"What's happening? What's wrong with Elijah?"

Elena pulls back, shooting a quick, unhappy look towards Damon and Stefan. "Remember how we told them to leave Elijah alone because of our deal with him?"

Charlotte slowly nods, already looking at the brothers, where neither of them are even pretending to feel bad.

"Well, they didn't listen. They had a plan to kill him tonight, because apparently, John gave Damon a dagger that can kill an Original, but the catch is if a vampire uses the dagger on an Original it will kill the vampire, too."

Charlotte's eyes widened and even though Elena absolutely would've told her if something happened to Damon, she couldn't help but look him over like he was hiding an injury. "John was trying to get one of you killed,"

Stefan and Damon nod and she clenches her jaw, huffing out a cold laugh.

"I told him–" She cuts herself off, shaking her head like she knows she shouldn't tell them any of what she'd said to John that night at the Grill. "What happened, then? Obviously Elijah's not dead, since you're still standing."

"Alaric daggered him," Damon tells her, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against a thick wooden column. "But unbeknownst to us at the time, you have to leave the dagger in for the Original to stay dead."

Charlotte narrows her eyes, looking at Damon scrutinizingly. "So Elijah's out there, extremely pissed off because you tried to kill him and failed, and we're just going to, what? Hope he doesn't kill you? Elena and I told both of you to leave him alone, and you didn't listen. You haven't listened to either of us once since all of this mess with the Originals started,"

Stefan sighs, looking at her pleadingly. "Look, I told Elena, it's– it'd be different if you were trying to fight back, t–to save your lives. But you're not, you're not even trying! If this is what we have to do to keep you guys safe, then yes, we aren't going to listen to you. Elijah couldn't be trusted. This is for the better,"

Charlotte scoffs, stepping away from Elena to glare at Stefan.

Elena, very obviously seeing the anger in her sister's eyes, looks between them warily. "Charlie..."

"No, Elena, I want to know why either one of them think they know better than us about what we should be doing to save our lives," Charlotte dismisses her sister swiftly, stepping towards Stefan as her eyes burn with exhausted rage, any ounce of serenity from earlier with Dylan gone in the wake of her reality. "I want to know why you think you can keep my sister safe from something you know nothing about, considering all you've ever done is get people killed, or killed them yourself, ripper."

She jabs her finger into his chest, watching him flinch from her spit of words rather than her touch, and she instantly feels the way the air is sucked out of the room.

"Charlotte–"

She turns abruptly, looking at Damon with the same narrow-eyed glare that has him standing upright. "I told you. I told you to leave it be, Damon. I begged you to let this happen the way we all know it has to happen, and you didn't listen to me! Nobody is listening to me, and I've had enough! So whatever mess you've gotten us into now, count me out. I'm done. If you think you can come up with a plan that saves us all, and we get to skip out of this mess with– with sunshine and rainbows and get a happy ending, then do it. Make it happen. But until that day, I will be down here on earth, where life isn't fair and people die."

Charlotte spins on her heels and storms past Elena, ignoring her sister's call of her name as she snatched her keys off the hallway table, swinging the front door open.

"Don't go out there, Charlotte, you don't know–"

"I don't care,"

"Hey, stop," Damon reaches her in the driveway before she can get into her car and she wrenches her arm out of his grasp, turning to face him with a glare that has him holding his hands up in a silent don't shoot. He looks her over, concern in his blue eyes, and Charlotte's shoulders heave with the deep breath she forces herself to take. "Listen to me, Charlotte,"

"Ironic,"

He glares at her and then grimaces, and then sighs. "I know," He says, a sudden plea in his voice. "I know that you didn't want me to kill Elijah. I know that you just want to save us, to save your sister. But I– I told you,"

He stops, looking down at her with eyes that burn so bright it hurts her to look up into them. "I told you that I didn't care if you hated me for it. But I'm not going to let you die. And more than anything I've ever said, I meant that. So you can hate me, and you can hate Stefan, but I'm never going to stop trying to save you."

Charlotte clenches her jaw, resenting how Damon's face blurs in her vision as hot tears well in her eyes. "Do you want to know why I'm mad, Damon? It's not because you and Stefan are trying to save me and Elena. It's not. I'm mad because everything you have been doing in order to save me has only proven that you don't trust me, and you don't believe a word that comes out of my mouth."

Damon's face twists with indignation and confusion. "What? Charlotte–"

"I don't want to die. I don't want this to be my life," She tells him, not letting him finish a thought. "I want to go to school, and I want to be with my friends and family, and I want to go to football games and I want to learn everything I could possibly get my hands on. I want to be your friend, I want to spend time with you, a–and share my life with you, because you love me, and I– I..."

She trails off, a single tear tracking down her cheek as he looks down at her with grief shining in his suspiciously wet eyes. "Even if we didn't get forever, I wanted something. But instead, you told me you loved me and then gave up before we ever had anything. And now your reckless rescue attempts are going to get us all killed, and it's just,"

She shakes her head, scoffing wetly. "It's a really funny way of showing it, you know? You took it away from me, Damon. Even though your compulsion didn't work, it's– it's almost like it did. Because I don't think you've loved me since you told me."

Damon rears back like she's slapped him and she clenches her jaw as her lip quivers.

"But like I said," She breathes out thickly. "It's not like you trust anything I say. Every single thing you've done proves that."

Damon doesn't say anything, and it feels like the world's worst deja vu, standing in the driveway, letting her tear him to pieces because they just can't seem to get it right no matter how much both of them want to.

It's nonstop lately, a good day, a great day and then it just gets worse and worse with every passing minute. Damon doesn't know what to do anymore. He doesn't know how to make Charlotte understand where he's coming from.

He can't. Because she's right, is the thing. He doesn't believe her when she says she doesn't want to die.

He never has.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Charlotte's fingers tremble and ache as they clench the pen in her hand tighter, and she releases the pressure, watching as her capillaries fill back out and return the pink to her nails.

Her whole arm tenses and creaks as she finally readjusts, setting the pen to paper to write out her first few words.

After that, it's like it pours out of her.

She can't stop, and her hand is cramping horribly, but she finds she has too much to say, even still, so she just keeps writing and writing.

She tears the pages out of the notebook, stacking them neatly as she addresses each one, and when that rush of watery emotion finally dwindles to a calm tide, she lets out a breath and drops the pen onto her desk.

She eyes the small stack of letters, four or five pieces of paper, and quickly folds them all in half before re-stacking them and setting them to the side.

A fleeting thought crosses her mind and her eyes fall back to the remaining blank paper before her, pen ink splattered messily in a corner from where she'd carelessly dropped it.

Picking it back up, she wraps her hand around it again and writes out her name in a simple scrawl.

This letter is different. Unlike the others, it's not harsh truths and painful confessions, or anything like that.

It's short and simple. A request, if not a polite demand.

And when she finishes it, she doesn't fold it up and set it aside to hide in her room for a later date like the others. She folds it up and then goes downstairs to get an envelope from the kitchen junk drawer, and a stamp, too.

And she writes an address on it that she'd gotten a mere glimpse of on the computer at that vampire Slater's apartment what feels like months ago, when she'd dragged Rose there with her and tried to end this entire mess one of many times.

She doesn't know if this letter will make it to its intended target, but she hopes that it does. It's her saving grace.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

author's note; so. who do we think Charlotte sent that letter to and what did it say. what insane thing do we think my little martyr is doing now 

edited and published; 8.24.24.

- liz