Due to the arrival of a certain unexpected passenger there on the train with them, Eliot made a readjustment to his schedule over the next week. He would now make it a point to go and retrieve his night’s meal from the dining car before the sun went down, then take it back to he and Claire’s quarters where he could finish it with no fear of coming across Lucian once again. Claire also had opted to keep herself sequestered in the tiny car with him each night as well. Though, Eliot’s new found intensity did tend to make several of those hours together more than bearable.

Now, it was true that Lucian had not made any move to act against them even after discovering their displeasure with his previous actions. However, that still didn’t actually erase those actions, and Eliot could still be in danger of getting even further bound to the man if either of them ever let their guard down again.

After all, even though Lucian’s blood did cause various physical changes in Eliot, he did still need to eat actual food, and therefore that led to other biological needs he could not avoid. Due to that fact, Eliot did, on occasion, have to leave their quarters anyway to make brief trips to the privy, and those could unfortunately not always wait until the sun came up.

When Claire did wake as the sun set late on that June evening, she smiled over at Eliot, as he occupied the bed at the opposite side of the cabin, having already finished his dinner while she slept. Though he looked a bit perturbed that evening, staring angrily at the wall of the car above where he sat upon the other tiny bed, his long legs outstretched before him.

“Evening?” Claire managed a smile to try and cover her worry at his apparent mood. She had grown used to him almost immediately taking her into his arms when she awoke each night and making love to her with that intensity that Lucian’s blood was still cursing him with, so seeing the darker mood he was in that night was a bit of a surprise.

“I should just find out which cabin he’s in” Eliot mumbled in response to her greeting, still not looking back her way.

“Pardon?”

That was when Eliot sighed heavily, “Lucian. I should just spend tomorrow trying to figure out where he’s staying.”

Claire looked over at him worriedly as she spoke, “why would you want to do that?”

That was when Eliot turned back to her, his mood still obvious in his dark eyes, “you said yourself; you’re completely defenseless during the day. That means he is too, right?”

Claire was more than taken aback by that statement as she took a moment to find a response, “yes, but he could very well have a servant looking after him, and...”

“A servant?” Eliot repeated, narrowing his eyes at that.

“Remember how May wouldn’t even leave the room during the day when we were in England? She was Hollister’s servant. Her entire purpose was to protect he and his guests while they slept.”

“So, she was one of the ones who were fully bound?”

“Exactly” Claire stated quietly as she looked down.

“And you think Lucian could have someone like that protecting him during the day?” Eliot pressed.

“Most of us do. The fact that I’ve had no one bound to protect me over the course of this trip is a bit of an anomaly. And I’m sure Sean and the others will end up chastising me for it quite harshly once they find out.”

Eliot narrowed his eyes once more at her words. Slightly re-directed from his earlier subject, he had to ask, “so, if you normally do make someone protect you, like that, why haven’t you done it this time?”

Claire looked down a moment before trying to move past the slight accusation in his voice and find a fitting answer, “I planned to” she admitted quietly. “Then we met” she added softly.

“Meaning?” Eliot pressed, though his volume had dropped.

“I already told you the reasons I didn’t want to do that to you” she reminded him as she began. “And, when we first started traveling together, before you knew what I was? It would have been rather hard to explain a blood bound servant in our constant presence back then, wouldn’t it have been?”

Eliot shook his head again as he shifted his gaze away once more. “So you’ve been doing that? Binding people to you like that, for what now? Three hundred years?” he couldn’t help scoffing at the sheer absurdity of such a number.

“Not quite that long” she said softly, though the number was close to accurate, “I wasn’t embraced until 1598, and it took me a long time to even get used to the idea of doing that to anyone at all.”

“How long?” he asked bluntly, reaching up to pull back the dark curtain over the window and lock his eyes on the scenery outside rather than inside.

Claire sighed, and rather than giving him that answer, she asked another question, “are you angry at me, Eliot?”

Eliot simply scoffed and shook his head, though did not look back her way, “just reminding myself” he answered in a near mumble.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Reminding yourself?”

“Of what I always seem to let myself forget” he returned more quietly.

“So you no longer feel the way that you felt on our last night on the ship?” she made herself ask, her own eyes cast sadly downwards.

“Sick and dying? No, I’m pretty much past that. Thanks again, Lucian” he stated bitterly.

“That’s not what I was referring to” Claire replied, though her volume was still quite low.

Eliot finally looked back at her, though his mood remained, “you spoke so vehemently against what he did to me. And you’ve been doing the same, worse even, to countless others for more than two centuries, haven’t you?”

Claire sniffled at his harsh but accurate words, “and thank you, Eliot. I had almost stopped hating myself for a whole minute there” she whispered through a stifled sob as she stood and rushed from the cabin to hide those tears that had immediately begun at the sound of the more than cutting statement from the man she had grown to care so deeply for in the last several months.

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It wasn’t much later that Eliot did break his own recently adopted routine and left their cabin after all. Claire had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes now, and though his words had been the thing that had made her go, he still couldn’t just let them leave things the way they had. He was angry about so much, but he also still cared for her so much. He was self-aware enough to know that his harsh words were spoken without thought, and a direct result of his own feelings of powerlessness amidst this entirely new world he now found himself embroiled in after one simple case of mistaken identity all those months ago.

Eliot slowly moved down the narrow hall between rows of passengers’ quarters, his eyes watching for any sign of either Claire or Lucian. He then moved even more slowly toward the door of the dining car. With a deep breath, he made himself enter, his eyes immediately scanning the area for either of the two most powerful inhabitants of that westward-bound train.

Seeing neither of them there, he wasn’t sure if that made him feel more or less calm. With another breath he moved to the bar, took another look around the room, and gestured to the bartender for a drink to help soothe his already frayed nerves. After taking a tentative seat at the bar, and downing a few sips of the strong alcohol, he turned his eyes at the sound of the nearest door opening to allow another passenger entrance.

Both he and Lucian seemed to tense a bit as their eyes met. As always, Lucian attempted another smile as he warily moved toward the stool Eliot was perched upon. “I was beginning to wonder if the two of you were so eager to be rid of my presence that you hopped trains” he greeted Eliot with a wry attempt at humor.

Eliot allowed a shaky sigh while pulling the remainder of his drink in more closely, to be sure that Lucian had no chance to slip anything into said drink, as that fear was the foremost in his mind at the mere sight of the other man.

Lucian easily noted the gesture and shook his head as he took a seat next to Eliot, though facing away from the bar, those impossibly dark eyes scanning the room. “Believe me, I have no intention of tampering with your drink, Eliot. I’ve definitely learned the meaning behind that adage about ‘no good deed.’”

Eliot scoffed at the statement, though his displeasure that night was more due to sadness than anger at that point. He couldn’t stop his eyes continuously moving to the door in the hopes of finding Claire entering the room as well. “Good deed?” was all he managed to mumble in return.

“Save any further recriminations. The message has already been received loud and clear” Lucian returned, wishing he could drown his own mood in alcohol at that point too. Though his kind had no such luxury, at least without a willing conduit to help them achieve that blissful alcohol induced ignorance of the unpleasant realities around them. “So where is your beautiful companion this evening anyway? I can’t see her letting you out of her sight once night falls. Not with me on the same train, at any rate.”

Eliot didn’t provide Lucian with any answer, as he didn’t honestly know where Claire was hiding herself away at the moment, anyway. Though he was at least glad that she had not found herself alone with Lucian, even if he himself had now entered the other man’s orbit once more. Eliot instead found his mind returning to he and Lucian’s previous conversation. “What did you mean when you said that Claire was the reason you even came to America?” he had to ask.

Lucian shook his head as he allowed the briefest glance back at Eliot, again, forcing his smile to remain, “if you recall the rest of that conversation, I offered to give you further details, but not in such a... public setting” he decided on, “and you refused to grant me a private audience. Have you rethought?” he asked pointedly.

Eliot sighed heavily again, “you don’t stop, do you?”

“For god’s sake, Eliot, I have no interest in making you into a permanent fixture in my life. I’m not even that keen on you being an impermanent one. But the things you are asking to know pertain to a very delicate subject matter, which I’m sure is a fact you’re more than well aware of at this point!”

As Eliot stubbornly refused to make any further response, or even look back over at Lucian, the older of them huffed impatiently. His own nerves were also frayed at this point. He had achieved nothing since meeting Claire other than placing a permanent wall of distrust between them after his attempt to give her what she had asked for. And his failure to gain even her trust, let alone her heart, was likely to lead directly to an unspeakably horrible fate for his own daughter if he could find no way to carry out his sire’s dark directives. And on top of it all, this human boy who already had some sort of claim on her heart; he was now doing nothing but reminding Lucian of his own failures once again.

His patience at a breaking point for all of those reasons and more, Lucian stood, looking back at Eliot once again, “if you ever truly want answers, I’ll be in cabin eleven” and with that, he left the dining car with another frustrated sigh.

As fate would have it, Lucian happened to be passing by the privy just as Claire stepped out. Both of them froze at the sight of one another again as Lucian gave her a puzzled look as she stepped through the door.

“Well done. I’d never have thought to look for you in there” he told her with a bit of humor to cover any nervousness he may have had upon coming face to face with her once more.

Claire quickly bit back an involuntary smile at his words before managing her own, sad though they were, “I assumed Eliot would find me in there, eventually.”

“Rather than just finding you inside the quarters the two of you share?” Lucian asked her with a raised brow.

Claire shook her head again, “we had a bit of an... and I stormed out” she then looked down, “which is really none of your business, and I should be going” she added more quickly as she moved to turn away from him.

“Claire,” he called out to stop her departure, “you don’t have to run at the mere sight of me. I’m already quite aware of my apparent misdeeds. And I would really like even the slightest chance to at least try and make up for them. If you’ll allow me that chance, that is,” he added more quietly.