The next night, Claire was still having a major inner struggle with herself about Sean’s suggestion. After all, she had indeed fought the idea of training herself to do that for nearly three hundred years and counting.

Claire was once again staring out at the ocean and the stars. Though this time she was alone, and standing on the balcony outside the bedroom that Eliot had stayed in during his time with them. She had moved to a place at the banister, mere feet from where the sun had nearly burned her to ash less than fifteen years earlier.

This time it was another man’s voice who broke into her somber thoughts, “There she is, looking as joyful as ever.”

Claire turned back to the the tall, dark and handsome man from the other side of the world, whom she had first met thirty some years earlier. But Lucian wasn’t the man she was thinking about that night after all. She made a conscious effort to keep her expression blank as her eyes fell on him, though that was rather difficult, as his presence there was almost as surprising as if it actually had been the man her thoughts had been with that night.

“Nice to see you again as well,” Lucian spoke after a long moment of silence was her greeting.

“Sorry I just...” Claire stammered, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Yes, I wasn’t summoned this time, after all,” Lucian smiled as he took a few steps onto the balcony, though remained a conservative distance from her, still.

“Why are you here?” she asked, then tried to soften her words, “I mean...” though as distracted as she was, and surprised by his return, her eloquence was suffering a blow.

“And still a warmer welcome than the one I received from your husband,” he stated more to himself as he moved to the banister as well, but remained a foot or two from where she stood looking back at him questioningly.

“I’m sorry, I just....”

“No need to apologize every time you and Sean have that particular reaction to my presence. After all, I always will be her childe. Only a moniker I’ll have to endure for eternity though, right?” he scoffed as he turned those impossibly dark pools of brown out to the crashing waves as well.

Claire sighed, her voice apologetic, “So what does bring you back here then?”

Lucian sighed as well, but welcomed the move past their awkward reunion, such that it was. “The Camarilla have finally decided who they’re going to put in charge of Santa Maria and the rest of the area north of Los Angeles.”

“Yes, I know, but still, what does that have to do with your visit?” she continued, still trying to keep a pleasant lilt to her tone.

They had parted a bit more amicably after she had summoned him to try and provide any medical answers for Eliot’s current state back in 1886. But as Lucian himself had just stated, he would always be Awsha’s childe, and that was difficult for she or Sean to ever forget unfortunately.

“See previous comment.”

“Pardon?”

Another sigh from Lucian. “The Camarilla still have their suspicions about Awsha’s part in the death of... our grandsire I suppose it would be?” He turned his eyes back to her briefly for confirmation of Haven’s place in their strange vampiric family tree. “Even though I never even met the man, and barely spent a second longer than I had to with Awsha.

“But, as stated, I will always be her childe. So, while they’re continuing to investigate in the place where she and her companions were unofficially running things, any of the Kindred who lived there while he was in charge aren’t exactly feeling very welcome. Something about guilt by association. Even if the association was only living in the territory Baron was pretending to run.

“And, in my case,” Lucian continued, “I’m the childe of one of his main henchmen, or henchwomen, as it were. Needless to say, living in a place where you feel like you’re considered guilty just because of who made you; it’s not exactly a hospitable choice of where to make your home.”

Claire looked down, trying to find words to comfort him, difficult as that was. “I thought you felt that way here too though?”

Lucian managed a wry smile before responding. “You and Sean just cast me suspicious looks in case I ever do anything that reminds you of her. That’s a bit easier to take than an entire team of Kindred turning over every detail of your life trying to figure out if you could possibly have ties to the murder of a Prince that happened before you were even born.”

“I doubt they could really think that you had anything to do with Haven’s death. As you said, it happened in 1807, and you weren’t even born til what, 1820 something?”

“Close enough,” he returned with an attempt at a wry smile, as he was actually born, the first time, near the end of 1822. “But still, if your sire was being investigated for patricide, how welcome would you feel in the middle of the territory where they’re running that investigation?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“So, you came here instead?”

Another small smile, charming as Lucian’s always were, despite all else. “At least I have a few good memories here, which is more than I can say about living in a place where that man was masquerading as the Prince.”

“You’ve met him?”

Lucian gave her a look of disbelief at the question, then forced his smile back into place. “Getting me confused with my sire again? I suppose we are both rather pretty. But please, Claire.” Lucian just shook his head before moving on. “And you don’t have to have met Baron to know the kind of prick he was. Living in his territory was definitely different than living here was.”

“So what was it like? Living there instead of here?” Claire asked.

“Here you’ve got wealth and luxury and showmanship and a night life of unending variety. They’re even referring to Los Angeles as the center of all American culture these days. And I believe all these things are exactly what us Toreadors, most of us,” he had to add, “want from our lives. We thrive on an endless supply of creativity and entertainment.”

Claire couldn’t help a smile, as he was definitely right about the place that L.A. was beginning to take in the entire culture of the country in nights of late. Then she looked back up at him. “I suppose Santa Maria wasn’t quite like that?”

“With Sean running the city of angels, it’s full of glitz and glamour. He may try to pretend to be a Ventrue, but he’ll always be a Toreador, deep down, which I’m sure you know.” He smiled as he looked up the coastline at the lights dotting the sky. “With Baron running Santa Maria, it was mostly death and crime. Which I suppose kept me able to pretend to still be a doctor after all these years. There were plenty of dead or dying to tend to on a nightly basis. But it’s not exactly a relaxing place to live, or very inspiring,” he added with a sigh.

“We do have crime here too. Plenty of it.”

“Here, you’ve got human on human crime. Which is unpleasant, but there... Baron may imagine himself a Prince, like the Camarilla leaders. But it definitely didn’t feel like a Camarilla city. I lost count of how many drained bodies with fang marks that weren’t even covered up that I’ve had to make up causes of death for. The masquerade barely exists there. It was a Sabbat city, masquerading, if you will, as a Camarilla one.”

“No wonder they’re finally installing their own Prince,” Claire replied softly.

“And about time. But it’ll probably be some tight arsed Ventrue, like usual. But still an improvement, at any rate.” Lucian looked back toward the ocean. “But in the meantime, I don’t really fancy continuing to live there. So, here I am, instead.” He accented his words with a slight bow, and another of those impossibly charming smiles.

“Here you are,” she affirmed quietly, attempting a smile, sad though it was.

Lucian watched her a moment before attempting to find a way to continue their conversation. “And what dire tragedy has you looking so sullen this beautiful evening anyway?”

Claire looked downwards, knowing that he wouldn’t be likely to share in her current sadness, considering that he and Eliot were hardly friends when they had shared the city. But lying never was easy for her either, so she managed an answer. “New Year and all. New century, even. It just had me thinking. It’s almost his birthday. I think he’d actually be fifty-four now, if you can believe that.”

“He?” Lucian asked, then he remembered the reason she had summoned him there those fourteen years ago. “Oh, your... Eliot,” he corrected himself.

“Maybe I should just keep calling you number twelve after all,” she stated, more to herself.

“Pardon?” Lucian asked with a furrowed brow, as Eliot would be the only one in her life who would understand the comment. If only he had been there to hear it. Claire simply shook her head, rather than providing an explanation that would be more than awkward. “Last I saw him, he still looked like he was barely twenty. He ages as well as we do, it seems.”

“Permanence spell,” she stated, again speaking as though lost in her own head, which she likely was.

“He can magically keep himself from aging?”

“He put the spell on my blood,” she attempted, “the last time he drank it.”

“On your blood?”

“That way he never had to drink from me again, but still got all the benefits, and the downsides, of having my blood in his system.” She then shook her head again. “But this all happened years ago, before he... went away,” she finished, her voice dropping.

“So he’s never come back once, in what? Fifteen years?” Lucian asked with surprise.

“He can’t, it seems,” Claire whispered back.

“Can’t?” Lucian asked with further confusion.

“That’s the theory, anyway,” she added softly.

“Whose theory?”

“Sean’s,” she sighed. “And I suppose it’s mine too. It makes sense I suppose.”

“Oh good. I was hoping we’d get to a part of this conversation that actually made sense,” Lucian returned wryly.

She shook her head sadly again. “Sean tried to compel him to come back when I... when something happened here,” she corrected, not quite ready to share that part of the story with him yet. “And it seems that being compelled when your own brain has already put you into a magical trance is probably a bad idea,” she sniffled slightly.

“Who knew?” Lucian responded with a tinge of sarcasm, sad though it sounded.

“And that’s why we think he can’t come back on his own now. We took away the control he had when we forced his brain into our own control while he was like that.”

“Don’t you mean Sean’s control?” Lucian dared, though quietly.

“I tried to compel him out of that trance too,” she defended, though weakly.

“But was it after Sean had already taken Eliot's control? And, if so, you weren't actually able to undue Sean's compulsion yourself, were you?" He paused only a moment, "Seems that any of your attempts may have been after the damage was already done,” Lucian stated warily.

Claire let out another sigh, but posed no further argument. Sean may have been the one who had done the damage, but it was after she had done nearly fatal damage to herself. And it was the only way Sean thought he could stop it from ever happening again. So she could hardly condemn or defend her husband’s actions, in all honesty.

After another moment, Lucian finally spoke again, though his words shook her, “It seems as though both of our sires took away someone we each loved dearly then, doesn’t it?”