Coming To An Agreement

Bill Compton was already in a very sour mood before he had even gone to Fangtasia, but even after his confrontation with Eric's sister Nora Gainsborough, his mood had still not lifted, after all the information that he had received from Sawyer about Kiara's past with Russell Edgington and Taylor, it hurt him that she had not trusted him with this information about her past, but then he wasn't sure he could trust himself with this information, but he knew that he had to return home to face the past, and see if there was anyway that they could get over this mounding hurdle that continued to grow between them as he had abruptly left needing to gather his thoughts of what he was going to do. As he gently opened the door to the mansion, he was greeted with silence, there was not a sound to be heard, but he knew that Kiara would still be here, or at least he hoped she was. Walking into the office he had seen that his office was put back to the way it was, a brand new laptop sat on his new desk, all the shattered glass had been cleaned and had been replaced. Striding across to the drinks cabinet, he poured himself a glass of blood, Marie had remembered his favorite, he would praise and apologize for her attention to details later after his talk with Kiara. His black pants were still heavy flooded with his blood and torn from where Nora had attacked him with her make shift stake in attempt to end his life for his part in her mentor Salome's death. He would change shortly, but all he needed now was a moment of peace before the storm.

He sat on the edge of his desk, it looked as though his temper than smashed up his own office had never happened, as though it was all a memory, his pants stuck to him as he pulled out a cloth from his pocket and attempted to clean up his leg, wincing as he did, he had really done a number on his thigh. He drained his glass of blood and hoped that in time it would heal, he would need a shower, but before all things he needed to speak with Kiara. After he had poured himself another glass of blood and headed into the lounge he was greeted by Marie with a pleasant smile.

"Marie...Can you ask Ms Griffen to join me please" he limped ever so lightly as he sat down on one of the couches closest to him.

"Of course your majesty" she curtsied and headed of to find Kiara.

Relaxing into the couch as he took another small sip from his blood, he waited to see if Kiara would join him.

Marie knocked on the guest room door before she opened it. "Get up and get cleaned up. The king wants to see you, probably to kick you out in person" she said with a grin that was all too satisfied.

Kiara sighed. She'd done nothing but lay in silence while Marie went about telling everyone about her betrayal. Martin had even refused to make her a snack. Kiara got up and winced. The bruises were all set and she was aching again. She'd deal with that later. She ran to the bathroom and tamed her hair with her wet fingers and washed her face. She still looked like she'd lost a fight with the side of a truck but at least her face wasn't swollen, just bruised.

She made her way downstairs, Marie giving her a dark look before walking off, but Kiara knew better. Marie would spy on the conversation and jump at the chance when Kiara was gone. She found Bill in the lounge, silent; which could be a good or bad thing depending.

"You wanted to talk?" she said softly, standing by one of the couches, keeping a prudent distance from him, but not that it mattered since in her state even a newly turned vampire could beat her up.

Bill continued to sip away on his glass of blood, patiently waiting for Kiara to join him, oblivious of anything that was happening in his home, he debated on what he would do, on what he would say. He normally had all the answers to his own silent questions but it seemed that now was the only time that he did not have those answers that he hoped he would have. As he took another sip, he heard Kiara approaching and since their last meeting he fully looked at her, and for the first time saw all the bruise on her body.

"You wanted to talk?"

Bill slid his glass onto the table and leaned back into the couch and got himself comfortable.

"Can i get you a drink. I am sure Marie would fix you something?" he asked.

Kiara shook her head. She wasn't going to tell Bill all the hurtful things Marie had done.

"I'm alright thank you" she said softly. She merely prayed her stomach wouldn't growl at the wrong time. She walked up behind a couch across from him but didn't sit. She covertly used it to lean and give her bruised ankle a break which felt nice.

"Can I get you anything for your ankle? You do not have to lie to me. I can see that you are pain...Please sit, we need to talk" he urged her, he didn't feel right doing this whilst she continued to stand, he was trying to avoid the whole subject as to why she still felt uneasy around him, but then he mentally shook himself, it was all because of him and the way that he had acted after discovering her hidden past. He also had a past, but if they were ever to work at this, they needed to be honest with each other.

"Please sit Kiara" he offered again, hoping that she would listen to him, making his voice remain calm as he shifted in his seat and there was still a little blood on his clothes from his fight with Nora.

She slowly made her way around and sat on the couch across from him. She smiled softly at his offer but shook her head.

"It's alright. I've had worse. I'll heal" she said calmly. Sitting down did feel better but she didn't dare relax, not when things were so strained between them. She'd already wrapped her heard in the blanket of indifference that had helped her all those years pass. She wouldn't dare to hope for anything good to come out of this.

He could feel the tension between them as if there was an elephant in the room between them, but he knew it would his anger and her past that had led them both here to this point in their lives, but he had to fix this, fix it or finish it, it was down to two choices, which one would he make?

"I..I am sorry about my actions. I should have stopped to listen, to hear what you had to say. But i let my anger lead me instead of talking to you" his words a whisper as he leaned forward on her arms as they rested on his knees, wincing at the wound on his thigh.

She smiled softly. "It is my fault. I should have been upfront and honest, even more so when you hired Taylor and Sawyer" she said softly. She leaned forward a bit, her bangs falling on her face, hiding some of the bruising.

"You have every right to be angry at me. Even I'm angry at me. I wouldn't blame you if you never wished to see me again"

He listened to her talk about being angry at not telling him, angry at herself for putting him through not finding out about her past from her rather than Sawyer. He sat back further into his chair as he thought about his next answer to her comment.

"I hired Taylor and Sawyer because they are good at what they do. They are the best in their line of work and are wanted across the state and all over Europe, I hired them to protect you from my enemies when I am not around...Which seems to be a lot of recent. But mainly to protect you from me...But it seems that they were not needed to protect you from my own lack of communication skills. You have to realize something Kiara. I am nearly 200 plus years old, I have never had to answer to anyone other than my Maker. I find it difficult...i find it difficult expressing things to others other than myself. I may be a vampire, but a part of my is still some what human. A human part of me that i didn't believe existed. And the vampire in me took over and i reacted badly when I should have listened...But if you want me to be honest there was a part of me that wished i could erase everything, but i don't want that. I want to hear it all. But that is up to you" he offered her a chance to tell him everything or anything from her past anything that he believed that he had missed, but after everything that Sawyer had sent him, he doubted that there was anything he had missed.

She sighed. There wasn't much left to tell. "Bill, I am broken. Since the death of my parents I've had a void in my soul. After being abused by Russell I hated vampires. I was in so much emotional pain I did anything and everything not to feel it, even f it meant debasing myself"

She paused for a moment, her voice breaking. "Then I met you. You were so kind to me. You showed me that there are decent vampires, that even in the darkness there is something good to be found. Not even Quinn managed to break through my jadedness but you... you made me believe again, made me believe I could be more than the sum of my sins" she looked at him with a weak smile. "I can't ask for Your forgiveness, nor do I expect it. But I hope you know I am sorry for what I hid, and that I still love you"

He listened to her, continued to hold his facade as he listened to her bare her soul to him, about everything that she had done, everything that she had been forced to do, willing to do anything to fill in the void that crept inside her and filled her. But then she spoke about him, about how she felt about him, and how he had changed her, but yet inside he did not feel like that man that had helped her, he felt like a shadow of his former self as he once did all those years ago.

"Kiara...I am not going to pretend I understand your past, nor do i think that you can run from it. We all have a past, some we keep hidden to protect the ones we love, some that could lead to the destruction of ours and that is the demons we have to live with. I have not acted nor pretended to be a saint, a saint i shall never be. And for the forgiveness, you get that not because of whats brought me home, but because deep down i know that i have my troubles, some more than any average vampire. But because I love you. I have always loved you. I never stopped" he whispered.

She listened to him, a tiny part of her jumping and weeping in joy that he forgave her. "Bill, I know there is darkness inside you. There are probably things there that I will never understand...." she scooted a bit closer until she could touch his perpetually cool hand. "... but I still love you, I want to be able to understand you, and be the woman you deserve"

He listened to her, he could tell her everything and lay it out in the open, but at the risk of it ever becoming public knowledge it could and would put Jessica's life in danger and possibly even her own if he divulged this, he had never spoken to anyone about this, not even Lorena especially after that night.

"There is things...things from my past that i have never spoken of to anyone, not even Jessica. There is secrets that could put Jessica in danger, even you if it ever got out. It is considered a crime in my world Kiara. It would mean the end of me" he flinched slightly at her touch and then relaxed.

She smiled gently. "Well then.... from one criminal to another, guess we'll be outlaws together" she said softly. She felt him flinch but at least was glad he didn't pull away.

"And if it makes you feel better, Jessica is well protected. Lucifer would be wearing snow gear the day Quinn allows her to get hurt"

"That is why it is best that Jessica never does find out about this. And nor does Quinn, I still do not trust him, but with Jessica he may be the best one to protect her. That is why I have given her, her own home away from me. And why i hired Taylor and Sawyer, although i doubt their abilities now. But if you were willing to even know I had to hear it from another about your past, it is only fair that you should hear about mine...But that is your choice. I shall not force it upon you" he wrapped his hand around her own and waited.

She smiled gently and tried to reassure him somehow. "Bill I wont force you to share anything nor will I pry into your life. If you wish to share then I'm more than happy to listen"

Bill stood from the chair letting go off her hand as he did, was he really about to do this? Tell her everything, everything that he had been hiding, his most darkest hidden secret that he had never told anyone. Taking a single pause before he spoke.

"The year...the year that I was turned, Lorena took me to see my human family one last time. My youngest son Thomas had died of an illness, he was so young, so innocent. I missed so much of his life. It was 1897 I had sneaked away to see my daughter Sarah. She was happily married with a daughter, Elizabeth. I came upon a young boy that night, Christian. He looked so much like my son Thomas, i grew to love him as my own. But one year later it was late January, i had come back one last time, it was his birthday...But my recklessness did not fool Lorena. She followed me to where I was meeting the boy" he paused as he leaned down to take a drink from his glass of blood.

She listened silently. Before vampires came out into the open they were a very secretive people. They kept away from human and from what she'd heard they were forbidden to associate with their human families. But it seemed like a very "Bill" thing to do to check on those he loves, even if it was from a distance.

The moment he mentioned his maker she felt her stomach sink. She'd met Lorena when she'd taken refuge with Russell, granted she'd been sky high on V but she remembered the prim woman who seemed at ease along the blood shed. This story clearly did not have a happy ending if she was involved. She said nothing and listened politely.

"It was his tenth birthday...i had grown so attached to the boy that i made his something, he always talked about wanting to see the sea, i made him a wooden boat. Anyway she was very displeased about my actions...and I had not fed that night. Lorena was evil, she liked to play with her food. She lured the boy to believing that she was his friend. I could do nothing, if i did she....She made me turn him....she made me feed on the boy....You have to know this Kiara that turning a child is against vampire law, it is punishable by the True Death if anyone found out about this. Anyway....i fed on him, and was about to feed him my blood, she commanded me to stop. She made me watch as Christian died in my arms...She made me do the.....She made me into a monster. I-I buried the boy, out by the old oak tree just across the river. Its been one hundred and fifteen years a few days ago" he finished as he sat down back next to her on the couch, waiting for her reaction.

She touched his hand gently and looked at him. "Bill. We were both made to do things we wouldn't do otherwise. You're not a bad person, or a bad vampire" she said gently. She couldn't judge him for his actions. The gods knew she'd killed plenty of people, children included. Even more so Lorena had probably used that "as your maker" thing vampires used so Bill had no choice but to kill the innocent boy.

"You really loved that boy didn't you?" she asked, seeing the emotions play in his eyes.

I had been stalking Bill Compton that was his name ever since that very night i had awoken in the ground in the dirt. I had been silently following him until this very night, i could see him through the window of his home talking to some woman. She looked a lot like my mama before i had killed him...i was always so hungry...always hungry for more. I couldn't get enough of it.

I had crept into the house unseen and could hear them talking about me...he felt guilty...well he should feel guilty. He killed me.

"You really loved that boy didn't you?"

Love? What was love?

Opening the door to where they were sat, i leaned against door frame.

"He loved me that much he murdered me....Hello Bill" i smirked.

"You really loved that boy didn't you?"

Bill nodded to himself as he had finally let everything all out, everything that he had been bottling up aver the years, he finally felt a relief that he was able to speak of this before he self com-bust

"He loved me that much he murdered me....Hello Bill"

Bill turned swiftly to the lounge door, and there stood the boy, the boy that had haunted his thoughts for over one hundred and fifteen years...Christian.

"How is this possible?" Bill stared confounded and on edge.

Kiara smiled before she froze. There was a child in the lounge with them and Bill was frozen in shock.

"He loved me that much he murdered me....Hello Bill"

That made her pause. Was this the little boy Bill was talking about. But he had killed the boy not turn him into a vampire.

"Bill...whats going on?" she asked softly.

"Bill...whats going on?"

Bill stood on edge, and he pulled Kiara up from the chair and pulled her so that she was behind him as he stood there in utter shock as the boy that he believed to have killed. The grave he visited only mere days ago lay there, his bones were still there.

"Your dead! How is this possible?" he stood there with his fangs out ready on attack mode.

Did Lorena go back? Did she complete the change? No, she was with him the entire time. Had he done this?

"Your dead! How is this possible?"

I smirked at my so called 'Maker', a Maker that had left me all alone to deal with the changes of becoming what I was....a vampire. To the average human i looked like a lonely lost child, but in fact I was more...so much more.

"Hello daddy...No welcome home for your little boy?....No?" I smirked again as i sped over to the couch that they were sat on and watched as he moved the girl further behind him.

"I won't hurt her....yet..But soon. So this must be a surprise? So are you going to introduce us?" i smirked innocently at them both.