Reaching Out, Reaching Up

[Sansa]

"I can't stay," Sansa protested, even as she was taken by the arm and propelled to the doors. True, she'd come to Roland asking for a place to stay, but now that it was in front of her, she balked. "I..." her voice trailed away as the Shard enveloped her, the doors closing behind them. She felt trapped. Panicky.

You are no fledgling, to fall apart at the slightest touch. Stiff upper lip! Sansa closed her eyes briefly, to calm herself. She could feel Gabriel standing near her, a faint tug on her heart that felt like home. In the turmoil of her mind, the sensation made her feel ill. She opened her eyes, shaking off the guiding hand of the Ventrue at her elbow. "I apologize. Of course I will do as the Prince commands."

She wasn't quite sure which Prince she was referring to.

[Dylan]

At the main entrance of the Shard, the Scourge of London stood by the handful of discretely dressed, discretely armed Kindred standing on guard. He looked up, as if he could see through the glass and metal and right to where the two traitors were – and for a long moment just stared. He had been so close to putting an end to that self-entitled fop. So very close. Gritting his teeth, his eyes flicked between the guards for one last glance.

“Don't let either of them out of your sight.”

With a snarl, he was off back out into the city and the night.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Inside, the foyer was littered with unpacked fixtures and fittings. The finishing touches were yet to be applied to the Shard, but there was no time to take in the sights. The guided tour continued as we were directed into a lift with a mirrored ceiling and walls.

“Someone will meet you on level 53,” said our guide, who stretched into the lift just far enough to swipe a key-card across the button panel. The doors slid shut without a sound.

We were alone, however briefly – and everywhere I looked, I could see my own reflection.

[Sansa]

The hem of her dress was dirty. Sansa plucked fretfully at it, trying to brush away the filth from the warehouse with one hand while she clutched at her bloody handkerchief with the other. Her hair, loosened from its ponytail, was curling over her shoulders and hiding her companion from view. When she looked up the mirrored walls revealed the truth, and she tried to look at him through the reflection without being too obvious about it. He was slim, blond, and disheveled, his hands and nails dirtier than she'd ever seen them.

Gabriel lifted his eyes and caught her looking, and Sansa stiffened, her eyes darting away toward the floor indicator. 48, 49, 50... Her stomach twisted in knots, but she stood as still as a statue, as regal as she could manage. The Prince, Salisbury, would help her. He had promised to arrange for a place for her to stay, if she upheld the Traditions. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out quickly, letting Gabriel follow her.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I have known enough Kindred in my time to know that no two are like. Yet, the broad strokes that we paint our clans in are rarely far from the truth. Malkavians are unhinged. Brujah are angry. The group waiting for us in the fifty-third floor wore their bloodlines on their sleeves, metaphorically speaking. They were well-groomed, professional-looking and mirrored, in every feature, the Ventrue who had 'welcomed' us on the ground floor.

I didn't recognise any of this group, however. Not only because of their homogeneous appearance, I realised, but because they were new to the city. At least, they had arrived since I had departed. How many new Kindred had made London their home, in the five years that I had been absent? How many had Roland welcomed, or recruited, into his community? Enough to staff the Shard with a significant presence, at least.

A blonde, with her hair scraped into a bun so tight that it pulled her expression into a slight frown, stepped forward.

"Prince Roland has provided apartments for the two of you to rest in."

The floor we'd arrived on now looked like an up-market, business-class hotel. The nameless Ventrue gestured down to the hallway to the left, where two doorways stood open, cold artificial light shining from within. She held out a pair of key-cards and I took one, knowing that it would have a twin somewhere else. I looked to Sansa, wondering whether she would take the card, worrying what would happen if she was left alone...

"If you need anything, we'll be waiting outside."

[Sansa]

Sansa took the keycard offered, ignored the man at her back and the gaggle of Ventrue entirely, and walked as gracefully as she could toward the rooms with the same number. Her Bloodline ensured that she could be very graceful when she wanted to be, so she practically glided away, her skirts swishing satisfactorily. He'd left her to the metaphorical wolves, and deserved her scorn. Of course he does. Abandoning you like that. And yet...she felt drawn to him still. Sansa hesitated at the open door, the immaculate apartment in front of her looking like a page from a magazine, and turned to see Gabriel standing there like a bedraggled puppy in front of his own doorway. Her fragmented mind wanted to love him and hate him at the same time, and still the other Gabe, the one she'd adored for years and made her whole life flickered through her memories.

The pang of regret and pain at his loss was there, even while she stared at Gabriel right in front of her.

Come.

Her head snapped around, looking directly northeast.

Come to me, Sansa.

She gripped the doorway so tightly she put fingerprints into the trim, the compulsion to run straight through the walls toward the summons nearly overwhelming her. "I can't stay," she said. "He's calling me." Unnatural joy flooded her body, coupled with dread. Which was the real imposter? The Gabe who called for her, or the one standing beside her?

[Gabriel Rodermark]

He.

It felt like a century had passed since I had first met Sansa, and it was all because of him: Jude. I had taken her from him, erased him from her memories, and he had repaid the favour. Now, the old blood-bond that had once held us together - the connection between sire and childe - was a distant echo, shrouded in as much fog as her memory of that fateful night at the Barbican would be.

I watched her, as she looked with fierce intensity at... something, nothing. There was a gleam of her new keeper's blood in her eyes. Guilt plucked at my heart, to see what the years in Jude's care had made of her - but then, had she been any different, at my side? Shunted from one crisis to another, either with blinkers drawn over her eyes or blood splattered on her face.

I pushed my shoulders back, trying to force my tired body into a less abject posture.

"The Prince won't allow it. We... are both fugitives from the Camarilla."

[Sansa]

Gabriel's words brought her back to earth, his advice carrying weight that she felt in her bones. "Of course. I can't go."

Sansa, I need you!

She fluttered like butterflies were caught inside her rib cage. He wasn't dead. How could he not be dead! He was staked. Vampires die from being staked! That's why Rod was holding one to her chest the other night. What? Who told you that? Oh dear. The whispers rose again in her ears, dissolving into maniacal giggles and then fading away just as quickly.

A laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she called on the power of her blood, using Celerity to run to the elevator and mash the call button before anyone can stop her. No, the lift will take too long. Sansa darted for the stairs.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I watched her flee, half-resigned to the fact that she was gone already - if not gone from the Shard, then almost certainly gone from me, her mind tangled up in mania borne of five years spent in my brother's company. The other half of me knew that I had to protect her herself, from the consequences of slipping Roland's leash. That was what I told myself, at least.

When I called out to her, my words thrummed with the power of our blood, dominating her will: "Sansa, you have to stay."

[Sansa]

The door handle was in her hand, stairwell open to her, but instead of dashing headlong down the stairs Sansa abruptly... stopped. Her vitae thrummed in response to the call of her sire, her true sire, and she was rooted to the spot. Ventrue kindred surrounded her as she paused, their expertise in the discipline of Presence and Dominate compelling her to walk back to the rooms that had been offered her.

She met Gabriel's eyes, a sudden rush of fear nearly overwhelming her as she could still feel Gabe/Jude calling to her like a distant bell. "I will try again. I cannot stay here when he is calling me." She closed her eyes tightly, calling on whatever scraps of self control she had left. "Am I to be Dominated and left in a closet?" A dark memory threatened to rise, of a pale woman and her vizier, and she pressed it back down.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. The look in her eyes, it looked like the frenzy of an animal in a snare. Wriggling and writhing to get free and tearing the flesh from her bones in the process.

My heart bled. I couldn't bear to look at her. “Christ. Just.. let her go,” I relented, raking a hand back through my greasy hair. I was tired and hungry and the mix of those two fatigues amplified the upwelling of guilt that I'd pushed to the back of my mind for so long.

The kindred at the head of the Ventrue coterie, the severe blonde, met my eyes. “That isn't your call to make,” she said, her voice calmer than it felt like she had any right to be. But that was why she was there, wasn't it? That was why I'd kept Roland and his clan so close to me – because they could look at suffering with clinical detachment, applying logic with the precision of a surgeons scalpel.

“Go to your room,” the woman said, “We'll see to it that she's safe and secure.”

[Sansa]

She walked into her room at the behest of the Ventrue, her eyes tracking to the windows. There were heavy blackout curtains, and the glass seemed to have a tint to it, but they were pulled open at the moment, revealing the lights of the city.

Sansa flexed her hand, forming it into a fist. Maybe she could break the glass and escape that way. The blond Kindred walked past her to the windows and pulled the curtains shut, perhaps reading her mind. "Sit," the woman commanded, and Sansa sat in the nearest armchair, closing her eyes.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

For a long minute, I watched through the open door way.

I don't know why, or what I was expecting, hoping for. As if she was a startled animal and they would soothe her with soft words and touches. No, Roland used – I had used – Ventrue enforcers for a reason. They would do exactly what Sansa had said: Dominate her until she was sedate and repeat until the Prince had reached some final decision on what to do with the pair of us.

A hand at my elbow made me start, my nerves as taut as steel. Another of the coterie gestured for me to go to the room I had been allocated. Once I was inside, the door was eased shut behind me.

I sat down on the bed, listening to the sounds coming through the wall from Sansa's room.

Some time later, there was a knock at the door. I looked up from the end of the bed, where I was still sitting.

“Come in?” The invite was perfunctory, but no invitation was needed, in truth. It was merely courtesy that compelled Roland's staff to knock. The same ritual was in the process one door down; I could hear Sansa moving in response to it.

“The Prince would like you to join him for dinner.”

[Sansa]

The calling had stopped, but she still felt a tug on her soul where Gabe... Jude? was waiting for her. A thinner thread drew her toward the rooms next to hers, but Sansa went through the motions of showering and dressing into the clean clothes provided for her: slacks and a silk tank top, complete with matching pumps. Not her style, but she put them on anyway.

Her hair hung in damp curls around her face, her freckles standing out a bit against the paleness of her skin as she regarded herself in the mirror. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, staring, getting lost in her own reflection and the small imperfections she could see in herself, but when someone knocked on her door she turned and walked over to it, opening it to reveal the stern blond Ventrue.

"The Prince would like you to join him for dinner," she said, and Sansa nodded.

"Of course." She felt a little like a robot, but moved smoothly from the room into the hallway, faltering for a moment as Gabriel joined them. A light touch of Dominance shivered up her spine, and she straightened her posture, walking with her new captors toward dinner and all that might entail.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

They lead us to dinner in a room that felt as if it were full of nothing. It was sparse – a chrome and glass table surrounded with functional but empty furnishings and settings. Floor to ceiling windows looked out over the London skyline, twinkling with the lights of the city, so near yet so far.

Roland sat at the head of the table. Arrayed about the place, far enough away to be discreet yet undeniably present in the shadows, were his coterie. Shadows clinging to the walls. Dylan lurked a few paces behind Sansa, his features a grim set as he watched the two of us with knife-sharp eyes.

The table had been set for a formal dinner. Plates and cutlery were arranged in anticipation of at least three courses, but no food was displayed. Wine glasses stood empty beside our plates,.

I watched Sansa. Her eyes looked everywhere but at me.

[Sansa]

She stood quietly, her eyes picking out the coterie around the room before settling on Roland Salisbury. "Please, sit," he said, but it was a command, not an invitation. The Scourge at her back took a step forward, nearly vibrating with angry energy, but Sansa stood still for one moment longer before walking to the table. She took a seat to the Prince's left, while Gabriel sat on his right.

Her eyes tracked to the knife on the table with the rest of her silverware, but she closed her eyes for a moment, took a breath, and opened them, looking up at her dinner companions. Not so far gone, no, no, not yet. Sansa didn't attempt a smile, but at least she didn't scowl as she waited to see what Roland had in mind for the rest of the night. She had asked him for help, and so she would attempt to cooperate.

[Roland Salisbury]

“Thank you for joining me this evening,” Roland began, and as if that were a command, discreet attendants came forward and began to fill the three sparkling wine glasses with healthy measures of chilled blood.

“I can see that your continued presence here is.. unsettling to you both. What I hope you understand is that my decision to temporarily house you here is an act of.. significant clemency on my part as Prince.”

As he spoke, Dylan prowled about the edge of the room, like a restless ghost.

“I need to understand, from both of you, what your intentions are going forward.”

[Sansa]

"I asked you for help," Sansa said, speaking almost before she formed the thoughts in her mind. "I told you of the vampire hunters. Of Gabriel -"

She faltered, staring only at the goblet in front of her and the viscous liquid within.

"What I said earlier tonight, you must understand, I thought it was the truth. But I was fooled, and probably foolish as well. He was staked, not dead." Sansa looked up, daring to meet Salisbury's gaze. "He made me drink. And he calls to me now. Release me, and I will be gone. I will leave London."

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I watch Roland as he watches Sansa. His face is a mask of attentive concentration, but I know the wheels that turn behind his eyes. I know the calculations that he has already made, the decisions that are near enough etched stone, because it was once my job to come to those same conclusions. I had depended on Roland's level-headed counsel as my Primogen, and I had no doubt that as a Prince he would preserve the sanctity and security of the Masquerade with the same cold, clear-headed efficiency.

"You must understand that I can't allow you to leave London," he said, his attention shifting from Sansa's dipped gaze to my own. When our eyes met, I could feel the faintest buzz of blood calling to blood, as if an innate part of his Ventrue heritage sought to assert it's, even unconsciously, over me, to tame the unruliness that came with my own, temperamental Toreador blood.

"Not yet, at least," Salisbury added, reclining in his chair and taking his glass to hand. "Gabriel?"

"My intentions were only to... escape what I found on the continent, and to warn you and the others of it."

For all our disagreements, for everything that I had done that contravened the laws of our society, I could no more leave London forever than I could walk down Oxford Street broad daylight. The city was a part of me, and the strongest ties I shared were with those who called the capitol their home. At least, they had been. My actions and time away from England had burned most of the bridges behind me, even - it seemed - those with the only childe I'd ever sired. If I had any allies left in London, doubtless they could be counted on one hand. That my life was forfeit to so many could work in my favor, however, if Roland saw the value in making use of me instead of sacrificing me on the altar of the Camarilla.

"Our city is under threat again, Roland. I want to help protect it."

I looked between the Prince and Sansa, a meaningful glance.

"This mess is partly of my own creation. Let me help to fix it."

[Sansa]

Can't allow you to leave London.

Sansa stared at the table, forcing the tears back by willpower alone. Would Salisbury imprison her? Put her to work in some way? Or perhaps something else, something she couldn't even imagine.

Her eyes lifted to the goblet of blood, and she reached out a slim hand and lifted it from the table, taking a sip as the two men talked.

"I, of course, serve the will of the Prince," she said quietly, trying to regain some dignity as she put the goblet down again.