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_{[If Victor's situation were comparable to a 12 step program, showing that he acknowledges, and more importantly values the people he's met in Wonderland, whether friend, acquaintance, or something in between, would probably be one of the steps. Christmas gifts had seemed like the appropriate gesture, as well as an admirable distraction from dreamwalking. A simple solution to a two-pronged problem.

Throughout this thought process, it hadn't really occurred to him that other people might be putting the same amount of thought into him, and as such Rebekah's gift comes as something of a surprise what with... you know, everything.

Victor isn't sure how much Rebekah actually knows of what'd been going on in the dreams--that Rebekah had been affectionate, putting it in the nicest and simplest way--and he isn't really inclined to open that can of worms by talking about it. What happens in future dream Wonderland stays in future dream Wonderland. Still, it's an incredibly thoughtful gift and he spends an undue amount of time debating if he should send a text message to thank her.

But... can. Worms. He's too tired to think this out clearly without making a big knot of it in his head.

In the end, when he goes to deliver his own gifts in the following days, Victor decides to merely leave an extra line in his card to her--a 'thank you' and an expression of his wish to return the favor.

There. This is the behavior of a mature adult male, right? Right? Why is everything hard.]}

[Rebekah wasn't sure what she was expecting exactly. The memories of the dream Wonderland -- the possible future or whatever it might really be -- were fresh in her mind. She remembers a Victor who had been warm and tactile with her, not that the one she knows has ever been particularly cold but in the dream world there was an intimacy to his actions that they do not share here. She too wonders how much he knows about that. Perhaps her gift had been too forward, in light of all that. It wouldn't be the first time she had gone too far with a present.

She tried to buy a boy's forgiveness with a new truck, once.

But then she finds her own gift the next day and whatever worry she had melts away. Rebekah has always been incredibly sentimental, though never much of a journal writer. That's been Elena's thing. Stefan's. Elijah had kept a few through the years. Even Klaus had his version of such with his sketches and drawings. Still. Her fingers splay over the pages and she imagines filling them with her own words. Of taking pictures of her friends and loved ones and pasting them in.

Of creating tangible proof and memories in case Wonderland ever tries to take them away, a looming threat now more than ever.

She hugs the journal to her chest for a few moments debating whether she should say anything at all. It seems wrong not to, when he put so much thought into it. So finally she puts the journal down and writes out a text to him.]

thank you victor, it's beautiful

[nailed it.]

_{[Oh, okay. This is happening. They're talking. Okay. Man up, Frankenstein, it's only a text message.]}

I am glad if it was not too presumptuous. I thought a fresh page for a fresh start might be in order.

Thank you for the watch as well. It was thoughtful of you.

[It is only text messages. They can do this.]

It's not presumptuous at all -- I think it's a good time for a new story.

I'm glad you liked it. I thought it would be a nice reminder, we can all use words of encouragement sometimes.

Then I wish you all the best in deciding what the middle will look like.

_{[Her story has a beginning, and for one of the long-lived it has no end. But the middle is her choice. Her blank slate.]}

I can see something of myself in the passage. Others have given me gifts that I could not have acquired on my own. A quotation from someone you read, I suppose?

I think whatever it ends up being, it's bound to be interesting.

[even immortals like her can have ends. she has seen kol die twice now, from what she understands finn came back and died for a third and final time while she was in a coffin. back home she and her siblings were all poisoned in one way or another and dying, mostly at the hands of someone they had raised as their own.

the Mikaelson family is bound for tragedy and when her story finds it's ending it will probably be tragic in nature but it'll never be boring and she plans to do her best to find the goodness in the interim.]

From one of my favorite authors from New Orleans, Kate Chopin. Her novel The Awakening has always resonated with me.

I think you are right. Finding yourself in Wonderland would seem to imply it is to be no dull affair.

New Orleans. That is where your family currently resides, yes? I will have to look her up in the library.

This place has been many things in my short time here but dull has not been one of them.

It is. We lived there for a long time before my father drove us away from the city. [technically she was the one who called her father there but you know, details.]

It is only in recent years that we have been able to make it our home again.

Your father?

_{[He almost thinks you have a father? but then he remembers in the same second that she'd been born human. Of course the Mikaelson children must have had a father.

Creator. Father. The two blur together.]}

[Mikael was creator and father to all of them, so he's not far off.]

My father and mother were the ones who turned us into vampires, and our father became one as well. Despite being the one to force us into becoming monsters in the first place he spent the better part of a millennium trying to hunt us down and kill us. My father was many things, but he was not kind or forgiving. We rarely knew a moment's peace, thanks to him.

[And while she understands the anger over Klaus killing Esther, an anger she has experienced as well, she cannot forgive her father for his actions -- if he hadn't killed them and forced them into this life none of that would have happened. If he had not beaten and ridiculed her brother for most of his human life perhaps Klaus would not have become so cruel himself.

Parents were supposed to love their children, were supposed to cherish them. Her parents damned and damaged them and tried to destroy them time and time again.

No wonder they loved so terribly, no wonder she and her siblings destroyed the things they cared about most, how could they do anything else when they had such poor examples?]

Edited 2017-01-24 11:49 (UTC)

_{[He's heard parts of the story from the past incarnations of Rebekah and Klaus, but only fragments. A mother who was a witch. A curse. The birth of vampires. But the paternal side of her family had mostly been shrouded in mystery--now, though, he can see why talking about him may not be a pleasurable thing.]}

I am sorry your rebirth was not a kinder one.

Your brother mentioned you had returned in recent years. Your father is no longer pursuing you?

[Mikael was never a pleasant subject, even before he turned them into monsters he beat Niklaus without mercy, to the point where Rebekah herself tried to murder him once while they were all humans. If Elijah hadn't found her she would have gone through with it.

She wasn't going to let him hurt her brother anymore.

But that was a long time ago.]

My father is dead. Nik killed him. Twice now, I think.

_{[... Right. The Mikaelsons are not the family to go to for cheery family bonding stories. The dreadful thing is, he can understand the position of a father loathing what he has helped to create--and likewise, the children for hating the father in turn.

Lily had said it once. Life, once created, must be left to live. Controlling it is a hopeless endeavor and ends like this: sadly.]}

Would that blood not have to be spilled to see your lives returned to you, but now that it has, I hope for your sake the future carries more promise with that shadow removed.

[No, there aren't a lot of cheery bonding stories, not in comparison to all the ones that end in bloodshed. The Mikaelsons have been the damned children and damning creators all at once, the resurfacing of the Trinity had been a stark reminder of that. Rebekah had been hesitant to turn anyone at first, Aurora tricked her into it, but over the years she had become more willing to do it. She has seen people she loves like Marcel choose immortality and their gifts over everything else and she has seen the cost of those choices. She had told Elijah once that everything the loved turned into ashes.

It feels true, now more than even.

Victor mentions the future and Rebekah hesitates. She has not spoken to anyone about what awaits her at home. Even with Klaus and Freya they skirt around the topic, as if it is too heavy of a burden to fully grasp. She was cursed with a madness that consumed her, Freya, Elijah and Kol were all poisoned from someone they had once considered family (Klaus' surrogate son) and Klaus was in constant agony to buy them time so Hayley can find ways to save them.

Assuming that's even possible.

Rebekah wants a happy ending more than anything else but she's not sure that's in the card. Maybe she's always been in a tragedy but she's never been content to simply accept that, easier as it might be on her heart if she did.]

Perhaps someday, it will, but he is not the only shadow to which my family has to face. We may not have asked for this story, but it is ours and the choices we have made as a result have had consequences that were still playing out when I was brought here.

_{[Does one of those shadows have to do with harvesting blood from doppelgangers?

The need to know how Rebekah's family ties into Elena's is a near-constant burn, but after the painful awkward of that event and the delicateness of their current conversation, he thinks it best not to get into that right now.]}

Being here does offer the advantage of time. Time to consider your next move.

_{[He, too, had returned to Wonderland to reflect on the consequences of his actions and what to do once he returned home. It's true they might not remember the conclusions they come to here, or the peace they may find, but they also might remember. One day. Should Wonderland ever give up its secrets.]}

[To be fair, they don't hunt the blood of doppelgangers anymore. And never would have done so in the first place if their mother hadn't placed a curse on Klaus for a crime he had no control over -- his birth. The Mikaelsons have drawn themselves away from Mystic Falls and the drama of the doppelgangers but those histories will always be entwined. Elena and Katherine's presence alike here remind Rebekah of that. She's never been on good terms with either one of them and yet Wonderland keeps throwing her in their paths during events.

She tries not to read too much into that.]

Given the predicament as they are back home, there isn't much I can personally do, it lies mostly in the hands of someone who isn't here. But I trust Hayley to do right by my family, there is that comfort if nothing else.

Still, if I found something useful here, and I managed to remember it back home, I wouldn't be adverse to it.

Having seen what Wonderland is capable of, I would posit that near anything is possible. There could very well be other ways to reach a positive outcome that have not presented themselves.

_{[He wants to believe that for Elena. If he can, he'd like to believe the Mikaelsons can also find some peace that will mean no one else has to get hurt--them, or others by their hand like Elena.]}

There must be some advantage to living here.

It's quite possible. If there's anything I have learned in my long life it is that things can surprise you, people can surprise you, if you let them.

[As impossible as it may seem Rebekah wants to believe there could be a happy ending for her and her siblings.]

There are a few. When the events aren't going on it can be almost peaceful here, which is a nice change. And there are people here I would never of gotten to meet otherwise. That's important too.

There is truth in that lesson. I have learned it well in recent years, myself.

_{[She'd surprised him, once. Her kind are a far cry from the creatures Van Helsing had dedicated his life to pursuing.]}

Indeed. In our case, it has been fortunate to have the chance to meet again. Thank you again for the gift.

It's a good lesson to learn. Life is hard enough, it is much more difficult if spent alone.

[Connections to people can be risky, Rebekah's tendency to run headfirst into her feelings has backfired on her more than once and yet she would rather love and lose a thousand times then never experience love again.

how lonely that would be.

she thinks briefly of the version of Victor she had met in the other version of Wonderland but she's not sure how to even begin to approach the subject without admitting how much she had indulged in the experience.]

It has been. I am glad to have met you.

Merry Christmas, Victor.

_{[Solitude is the tip of a larger iceberg. He's unsure the true size and shape of it beneath the surface, but what he does know for sure is that he's not terribly keen on finding out, especially after events at Christmas had added a confusing new shade to matters.

Ignore something long enough and you get used to adapting for it. Looking through it rather than at it. Loneliness is one of those things it takes practice to repress, but it can be done.]}

And an early new year.

_{[He's usually not a person who goes for gifts and holiday well wishes. He's trying, though. Just because things are a little awkward now doesn't mean he can't return politeness when it's shown him.]}

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