Sean and Claire had now moved to a spot just inside the heavy gate that was the main entrance to their stronghold. As they waited for Nicolas and the servants to return from their sad duty of burying the young woman, Sean watched Claire nervously pace back and forth inside that gate.

“Problem?” he finally had to ask after watching her for several long moments and forcing himself to once again refrain from pulling that answer from her mind.

“Just not sure why you’re so willing to just bring this man into our home” Claire replied, though the words were more of a mumble.

Sean looked a bit perplexed by that comment but soon responded, “thought we were in agreement that he had nowhere else to go. Plus, I saw the way you looked at him” he couldn’t help adding, and then quickly tacked on, “and you do need a new servant."

Claire quickly looked back at the reasons he supplied; still rather worried, she spoke up “since when are mortals with no place to go our responsibility? And what do you mean the way I looked at him? And yes, we also know why I no longer have a servant” she added the last comment in a whisper.

“Mortals with no homes, families, or other attachments have always made the best servants. And he does seem like he would be quite pretty, under those layers of dirt. And are you still blaming yourself for Finn?” Sean countered each sentence once more.

“The house is already filled with servants. And who else would I blame?” she added more quietly.

“Servants who are all bound to me; If something happened to me, their bond would die and they wouldn’t stay to protect you. That’s why you need your own. That’s always been why” Sean retorted, and then addressed her second statement, “and blame the monster who murdered him, that’s who.”

“Something will happen to me way before it happens to you” she mumbled before adding, “and that monster murdered Finn because he had my blood in him. I’m sick of people dying because of me” she finished sadly as she turned away.

“One, we don’t know that for sure and two, again I tell you to stop blaming yourself. If you want to use that kind of logic then blame me for making you come to the meeting that night. That’s the reason you weren’t at the tavern yourself. And if you had been, then you’d be dead instead. How is that a better option in your mind?”

“If I were dead, a lot more people would be alive” she whispered, choking on the words.

“Claire” Sean stated, once again pained by exactly how deep her guilt did truly run, “unless you’ve become as psychic as our favorite Malkavian, you can’t claim the truth of that statement.”

“Viola would have lived. Avan would have lived” she argued weakly, forcing herself not to tack Eliza, Emilia, and Finn onto that list; at least not out loud this time.

Sean just shook his head, though provided no further argument to those two particular instances. Instead, he moved on to an earlier part of the conversation, “so you don’t want to offer Nicolas a home?”

Claire just shook her head. She didn’t truly wish to turn him out to whatever fate may be in store for him, considering that fate hadn’t exactly worked in his or his sister’s favor so far. But she also had decided to keep her distance from anyone she possibly could, simply to avoid causing any more horror to befall those around her.

“Considering the last mortal I tried to befriend ended up having a relative who murdered our friends…” she simply let her voice trail off as she looked away once more.

“And you’ve got to know that was most likely a one-time occurrence. It would be fairly odd if this young stowaway had anything to do with any of our enemies” Sean attempted to assure.

Claire just scoffed, “well didn’t you look to find out?”

“Look?” Sean repeated.

“Into his head” she added with that slight trace of bitterness.

Sean sighed but quickly covered it and responded, “only at his aura; and all I got from that was fear and sadness.”

“So, you didn’t read his thoughts?” Claire asked bluntly.

Sean looked down a moment before admitting to his answer, “I couldn’t. Not really.”

Claire looked back at him quickly once more, “so you did try to?” another shake of her head before moving on, “but you couldn’t?”

“He thinks in French” Sean admitted quietly, at least providing her with some answer about whether or not she might be able to transmit her thoughts to Nicolas’ head. Though she also had suspicions that he did understand her better than he let on already.

“If only I was the mind-reader, huh?” Claire scoffed.

“I could teach you” Sean dared to offer, only receiving a glare in return. He then decided on a shift in subject, “what I’m more concerned about is why he seems so frightened.”

“It got worse when you appeared” Claire admitted.

“Didn’t realize I was so scary” Sean returned wryly.

“He also seemed afraid of the crew members, but I assumed that was because he was afraid of how they may have wanted to see him punished for trespassing onboard their ship” Claire offered thoughtfully.

“He didn’t seem to be as afraid when it was only you and him? Before he saw me?” Sean added.

“Guess I’m less scary than you?” Claire scoffed again.

“Beautiful women are always scary” Sean teased.

Claire shook her head as she forced back the smile that his compliments always garnered, “you’re assuming he thinks I’m beautiful?”

“Have you seen you?” Sean teased.

“You’re biased though” Claire argued, though she turned away again as if to hide another smile caused by his words.

Before they could exchange any more words, they heard Nicolas and the servants approaching the gate. As suspected, he seemed to balk again at Sean’s presence as the servants opened the gate and gestured for him to follow them inside.

“So, you don’t speak any English?” Sean greeted him as he tried to keep his voice gentle, considering the young man already seemed to fear him.

Nicolas simply averted his eyes, a tangible tension taking up residence in his thin frame as he tried to force words, “non, Français,” he repeated again.

“Well he seems to at least understand that” Sean sighed as he looked him over once more. He then turned back to Claire questioningly, “so you can understand when he speaks French, but can’t speak it to him in return?” he asked her, unknowingly repeating almost the exact same thing Nicolas had last asked Claire.

Claire sighed, “the longer I listen to it, I suppose I’ll start to learn it. But it’s not like I’ll be able to speak it fluently just because I can understand him” she attempted to explain. Though Nicolas did look at her curiously as she answered Sean.

“Such a strange ability” Sean stated, more to himself.

“Jealous?” Claire returned wryly, to which Sean only smirked. She then looked back at Nicolas with another sad sigh, “so how do we talk to him and get any real information if we can’t explain what we want to know?”

“Got me. It’s your ability” Sean returned with another little grin.

“I don’t know” Claire stated more to herself as she looked at Nicolas once more, “sometimes he seems like he can understand me, but then he refuses to speak English.”

“Maybe he’s got the same ability” Sean returned wryly.

“Doubtful” Claire scoffed, as the one thing they could be sure of was that he was indeed mortal. That much was clear from his aura.

That was when Nicolas finally was the one to speak to them, “Est-ce que tu vas me punir? Pour se faufiler sur le navire?” he asked Claire with that fear still apparent in his voice.

“No, Nicolas, you already…” she began to answer his question only to stop midway through.

“What did he say?” Sean asked warily.

“He wants to know if we’re going to punish him for sneaking onto the ship” Claire sighed, “I was going to tell him that we don’t care about that; especially since he already lost his sister too. But I doubt he’d understand” she finished sadly, only to then notice a bit of relief seep into his otherwise fearful aura. Claire raised a brow at that, “you do understand, don’t you?” she asked, suddenly having her mind travel back to that first time she had met Ash, all those years ago.

Nicolas only looked down quickly once more, as though afraid of being punished further for being caught in some deception. That was when Sean spoke again, “according to Haven, most Europeans do understand at least some English” he finished the statement as he saw fear flash through the young man’s aura even more brightly then. Sean furrowed his brow a bit as he had to ask, “what is it you are so afraid of, Nicolas?”

“Please. Sorry. Just hard to…” Nicolas began, finally allowing a few English words to pass his trembling lips.

Claire then looked back sadly at the obvious fear that seemed to permeate every fiber of this young man. She then gently spoke, “we’re not going to punish you for the ship, or for not speaking with us right away. We just want to understand what happened to you and know if there’s anything we can do to help” she offered, her true nature and tendency to help others whenever she could just barely managing to edge out her recent desire to remove herself from the lives of everyone else around her.

“Hard to talk now” Nicolas attempted as he cast one more apprehensive glance at Sean before turning his words back to Claire, “S’il vous plaît ne le lui dis pas, mais il serait plus facile pour moi de parler juste vous, pas lui” he resumed speaking in that pleading tone from earlier as he reverted to his native tongue.

Claire gave him another perplexed look as she translated his words in her brain. He apparently was quite willing to speak with her, but seemed terrified of trying to carry on a conversation in Sean’s presence. Of course the reasons behind this were still quite a mystery to Claire. However, it was one she wished to solve now.

“Listen, Sean, Just let me talk to him for a bit inside. Once he relaxes more it’ll be easier to get something out of him. Then I’ll let you know what we can do, ok?” she told Sean in a gentle but furtive manner, as Nicolas had also requested she not tell Sean of how uncomfortable he was with the idea of speaking to him.

“Right” Sean returned skeptically as he looked back at where Nicolas still held his gaze tightly to the ground. Sean then sighed, deciding that even if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of this young man, he at least could trust Claire to handle this new arrival the best way she could find. “Ok, just come talk to me later” he told her softly as he placed a small kiss upon her cheek and headed back into the house, his two servants trailing him as always.

Giving Sean a moment to retire to his office inside of the huge home, Claire finally turned back to look up at the young man, “will you come inside and talk with me now?” she asked him softly.

“Inside?” he asked warily.

“Don’t worry, Sean’s probably returned to all his other duties by now” she attempted to assure him.

He nodded hesitantly then, but did nod. She attempted a gentle smile back up at him and moved to lead him into the home with her. Though the whole time she was mentally chastising herself for even letting another new person into her life, considering her theory that any relationship with her was sure to bring doom to all of those poor unfortunate souls who ever dared to get close to her.

She led Nicolas through the huge home and into the kitchen as he looked around his surroundings in awe, his fear only slightly diminishing now that it was just the two of them. As they entered the room that Claire normally never had any reason to even enter, she gestured to the water basin and spoke, “feel free to wash up some and help yourself to anything that’s left of the meal our servants ate earlier.”

“Food?”

“Yes, I smelled them cooking earlier, so I’m sure there’s still some around here somewhere” Claire smiled.

“You did not eat too?” Nicolas asked as he moved to wash some of the grime from his hands and face.

“I usually don't eat at the same time as the servants” she provided him with the most truthful answer she could.

“You are very wealthy” he stated with another nervous look around the room as he continued washing.

“My husband’s had some very fortunate luck with traders and merchants” she attempted another half-truth that would be easily believable. At the mention of her husband, Nicolas’ expression darkened again as he stepped back from the basin at last, those brown eyes on the floor again.

Claire couldn’t help narrowing her eyes at his reaction to just the mention of Sean. She sighed slightly as she moved to the oven and found a plate of still warm leftovers that had been left by the servants earlier. She offered him the plate and gestured for him to take a seat. After another soft smile as he eagerly took the plate and the seat, she claimed another chair.

After letting him eat for a few moments, she had to speak again, “so I take it you have no other family?”

Nicolas looked down sadly again, “father died and we had no home left. Took boat. Came here. Hoped for better life.”

“So, was your father your only family then?” Claire asked.

“Mother died having us” he supplied quietly.

“Us?” Claire latched onto that word.

“Madeleine was twin sister” he offered with another slight sniffle.

Claire looked down sadly at that information, “and your father raised you alone then. He didn’t remarry?”

Nicolas took a deep breath before answering, “he worked. Just worked” he stated quietly.

“I see” Claire paused a moment as she studied his body language as she was not the one who had the ability to read thoughts, be they in French or English, “so what kind of work did your father do?”

“Doctor” he supplied that simple answer.

“So what happened to your home after he died?” she continued.

“No home. Live in hospital.”

“He raised you in a hospital?” Claire asked a little shocked by that information.

“He had us but not wanted us. He lived where he worked. We were just there. He died and we had nowhere” he finished quietly.

Claire was caught again by that, “so who looked after you while he worked, and after he died?”

“Nurses. Then we got older and then other man wanted us. Father was dead, so they let him have us” he finished, though his words sounded pained.

“So another man adopted you? Is that what you mean?” Claire pressed.

“Not adopted; Just took” Nicolas finished as he attempted to force down another bite of food.

“Another man took you?” Claire returned warily.

“He wanted Madeleine. I went too. To try to… make it better for her” he stated as his voice tapered off into a whisper.

Claire narrowed her eyes again at that odd statement, “so this other man wanted your sister?” she paused a moment, “like as a wife?”

“He just wanted her. I offered me too. So it wouldn’t be just her” Nicolas admitted in the same hoarse whisper.

“I’m not quite sure I understand” Claire stated slowly.

“He wanted her. He took her. He hurt her. I try to make it better. Then he just hurts us both.”