Stalking is only the beginning - Dhara

[Pi dArtois]

She couldn’t help herself. She tried not to, but it was a losing battle that most of her wasn’t fighting to win anyway. Her conscience knew she shouldn’t but she was actively ignoring that voice in her head, coming up with other plausible reasons why what she was doing would be alright.

She had a right to curiosity didn’t she? Of course she did. It was natural to want to know who the man you loved had shacked up in the apartment he initially had never told her about. A human no less. There were other reasons too, more logical ones (and some illogical ones too – but she was still actively ignoring those in favour of ones less likely to make her seem like a wretched jealous freak).

Why would Elliot give shelter to a human. This was easily explained, because Elliot was Elliot. He saw no reason to keep what they were a secret. Despite what history should have taught all of them, he had always been of the school of thought that humans, select if not all, were nothing to fear. Not in the way many did. He believed (and obviously acted) on the presumption that we were all still inherently what vampires were all still inherently human. So human or not, Elliot would have given shelter to anyone who asked.

Which then gave rise to the next question, the more logical one, which Pi still couldn’t understand. Why would he give any human safe sanctuary inside an apartment smack dab in the middle of the quarantine zone with zombies and **** all over the place. Now, this question was harder to rationalize. It might have been easier if she’d asked Elliot himself but she wasn’t done trying to figure it out on her own (and she wasn’t sure she could broach the subject without sounding like that before mentioned jealous freak). It begged an answer though. A good one.

There was also that damnable curiosity. Any person given sanctuary was reason to be curious. But a woman? Pi wasn’t a reasonable creature when it came to Elliot in normal situations. This situation pressed way too many of her insecurity buttons and set off little alarms of narrow eyed jealousy with each night she contemplated it.

Why a human. Why her. Why Corvidae and utmost in her mind, what did she look like. This was only one of the many illogical reasons she stood outside the Corvidae apartment. In her hand was the key to the door. She rolled it around and around in her small palm, turning it over and over as she mulled over the good and bad reasons she was standing here staring at the closed wooden door as if it would come alive and explain all she needed to know.

She knew she’d go inside. She knew she’d enter and look around, maybe try to find a photo or some sort of ID she could look at to find out what the woman looked like. Curiosity ate at her like a disease, infecting her blood stream and curling into her veins like hot lava. It was a need, building and building until nothing would do but to satisfy it. Maybe then she would stop. Maybe after she found out what the woman looked like it would be enough.

Pi wasn’t sure it would be. But she had to know.

Fitting the key into the lock she held it there for a single second, knowing in some part of her hind brain that this was the crucial moment. Every other time she’d been in this apartment, had been by invitation. Entering now she would betray a trust given to her on the assumption she could be trusted. And she could. She still could. She just needed to know, needed to see for herself this person Elliot had hidden from her (whether on purpose or absentminded omission).

She kept rationalizing it, using it as a pep talk to opening the door and stepping inside. Using it as a shield against that other voice of drowned out reason who knew there would be a price to pay for walking from bedroom to bedroom looking for photographs of a woman, and she wouldn’t like the cost of it. She ignored that voice, choosing instead to listen to the less reasonable rationale that saw her only as an observer, and that staring at another person’s stuff wasn’t creepy as all get out.

[Dhara]

The key slid in to the lock with a soft scrape of metal on metal, the tumblers turning with a soft 'snick' and the door swung open. Well banged open was more like it, since the tiny woman on the other side had shoved it with her foot. She winced and shuffled inside, barely able to see over the bags she cradled in her arms. With a soft sigh, she set the paper bags down, along with a hard sided cooler, and turned to retrieve her keys from the door. She closed it a lot more quietly than she had opened it, a soft click that didn't even echo through the room. She blew her hair out of her eyes and began to slip out of her coat when something made her pause.

Something was wrong. Different. She shivered and looked around the apartment, a slight frown curved her lips. She couldn't put her finger on it, but the place felt different. Her eyes continued to roam, looking for any thing out of place. But no, her book lay on the arm of the couch where she'd left it. A single coffee cup sat drying on the counter. Her favorite blanket draped over the back of the couch. The chair that Ali had claimed as her own was empty and unmoving. She shrugged it off and finished slipping out of her coat.

With one hand, she lifted the floor length hem of her skirt and slipped out of the soft boots she always wore. She made certain they were out of the way, tucked against the wall. Snagging her coat, she moved quietly to her room and opened the door. The jewel tones were soothing to her aching eyes and she rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. Work had made her tense and maybe that's why she thought something was off. Opening the closet revealed that it wasn't even half full. Tunic style shirts with long sleeves in a variety of colors were hung neatly. And next to that were three hangers that had the simple, plain black skirts she preferred. She hung up her coat on an empty hanger and moved back to the living room. She needed to get things put away.

Humming softly, she scooped up the bags, double checking that the cooler was still locked. She shuffled to the kitchen and set her bags down on the scarred wooden table. The cooler traveled to the counter with her where she set it down. Her movements were quick, efficient and spoke of restrained energy. It was if she were a person who moved to quick, to fast all the time. And normally she did. But she was trying to be considerate of Ali. Her flatmate seemed twitchy when ever Dhara would move from room to room, like a humming bird darting from flower to flower.

She started to hum softly as she opened the cooler, then opened the fridge. The cooler made a soft snap as she pulled the lid open. Standing on her toes so she could see, she dipped her hands inside and extracted two bags of blood. She regarded them for a moment, then placed them gently in the fridge. The routine was repeated until there was a neat little stack of ten bags waiting for her flatmate. The shopkeeper hadn't even looked at her strangely when she asked for them. She simply packed them in the cooler with the ice packs and accepted the money that Dhara had offered. Then again, she was learning that this was a city full of vampires so maybe she was used to it.

She began to sing quietly as she worked in the kitchen, the ice packs went in the freezer for next time, and the few groceries she'd purchased for herself were neatly tucked away and the bags were folded and tucked in a cabinet. "Hey!" She cried out suddenly, then darted across the kitchen, stooping to pick something up off the floor. "What are you doing in here?!" She said to the inanimate plastic object in her fingers. The guitar pick was a treasured favorite and had some how gone missing. With a soft laugh, she tucked it away in a pocket and began to make coffee. She shivered slightly when her back was turned to the apartment at large. It felt like eyes were on her, drilling in to the back of her head. She set her jaw, brushing her white and red streaked hair back, determined to ignore the feeling and make herself a coffee.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi was watching, still as a shadow clinging to the wall just beyond the living area, her keen gaze watching as the woman entered. None too quietly either. She was hidden, or as close as she could be without using powers her body wedged half in and out of one of the bedrooms. In the blink of an eye she could tome herself out of there and would if the human turned too quickly, or made a move Pi thought would reveal herself. A safety net, a necessary one. Running her hand along the flat spine of the tome she let herself drink in the details of this person Elliot had taken in.

She was small, and attractive, in a small featured sort of way. Her body hidden beneath a voluminous skirt and the bags she carried, her arms loaded with supplies, food by the looks of things, and lots of it. She’d need to stock up if she lived here in the QZ. It wasn’t like she could nip around the corner for what she needed, in fact the more Pi yanked on the that thread the logistics impressed her. It would take a certain will to buy your groceries then hike them through the sewers, into a city block that could double for the set of Walking Dead into an apartment building smack dab in the middle of a nuclear waste zone. Either this woman was really really desperate, or she was out of her ******* mind.

And she didn’t look crazy. A bit kooky to be sure. Pi wasn’t entirely certain what was up with the snow white hair, or the long hippy skirts that swished around her ankles and made soft noise when she moved. The human certainly didn’t dress like a femme fatale, or look like one either. Guilt crawled across Pi’s skin, leeching her of a good portion of her curiosity, making her rethink her reasons for being here, for not trusting the man she loved.

But she didn’t use her tome, didn’t leave the apartment and the woman to her own space. The invasion of privacy was already breached, a corner already turned and Pi stayed where she was, ducking into the dark room, hugging the murky corners as the woman passed the open door into the other room. Pi didn’t leave her hiding place, but she listened, to something opening and shutting, shuffling and movement. Now she knew what room was the humans. That meant this one had to be Aliyah’s and that thought made Pi cringe more. Another trust broken, albeit unintentionally.

Pi was moving out of her hiding spot, creeping out of the open door into the hallway, her movement silent, her clothes designed not to swish and catch on things. Exposed in the hallway her throat closed up at the raised voice the ‘Hey!’ as if the other woman’s exclamation were gun shots and Pi the startled deer caught in headlights she was certain were about to run her over and catch her in the act.

Her muscles clenched for action, her hand reaching to grab the tome and held on with a death grip. Surely she hadn’t been seen. She’d been so careful. Eyes darting down the hall towards the kitchen Pi frowned, the frown easing at the woman’s next words, the tone obviously self directed, the words nonsense to Pi but as obviously not intended to reveal the vampire watching but something else entirely.

She couldn’t see, hadn’t moved into a position where she could and at this point was disinclined to test her luck.

It had taken all of Pi’s self directed arguments to get herself to open the door to this apartment and her own guilt at what she was doing ate at her. Yet her curiosity remained. On seeing the woman more question arose than were answered, more scenarios played out in Pi’s head about the rationale for either of the circumstances she needed more information on. Why here. Why this woman and why in hell wouldn’t Elliot tell her?

Sliding forward out of the Shadow’s Pi moved out of the shadows, barely seeing the other woman now, her movements smooth and natural. She was at home here, making coffee, putting away her groceries and getting ready to settle into her evening at home. So normal. So mundane. Yet the fact remained she was a human in a place no human should be. At least no normal one. By virtue of her being there at all. Pi knew there was nothing normal about her at all.

Using the tome Pi left faster than she had entered. If she was smart, she would leave it as it was and not come back. But Pi wasn’t feeling smart, or satisfied with what she’d seen. So many more questions, so many more things she wanted to know about this person.

She’d be back. She knew she would and next time. Well, next time she’d give herself time to look around. Maybe in that bedroom, definitely through the kitchen.

She’d be back. And she wouldn’t tell Elliot. Pi was pretty certain he would not be a happy man if he ever found out what she was doing.

Not at all.

[Dhara]

****Four Days Later****

Time had flown by for the small woman. It seemed as if there were not enough hours in the day or the night for her to get every thing done. She flitted from the bookstore, to Levi's to stolen moments with Calen, to home in time for coffee with Ali. Some where in all that, she'd managed to strip the red streaks from her hair, leaving it a snowy white fall of tumbling curls and waves. Tonight was supposed to be a fairly relaxed night, and yet she was still going to be busy.

As she entered the apartment, she went through her usual routine, setting her things down so she could remove her shoes and hang her coat in her room. As she returned to the living room, she picked up the bags and boxes she'd brought home and placed them on the kitchen counter. Coffee first, then she would deal with every thing else. She smiled slightly, hoping that Elliot and Pi would like the gift she'd gotten to celebrate their marriage. She didn't know the woman. Only her name, and only through a few careful questions.

As soon as the coffee was ready, she moved to the table and gazed at the boxes. They were small, simple items. One was a box of elegant cut crystal champagne flutes, the other was a set of glass candle holders. Six in all, that would hold votive candles. They were slender and stemmed like the champagne flutes, but of varying sizes to create a sort of cascade effect. She picked up the boxes and began to wrap them meticulously in metallic silver paper. She was wholly focused on her task as she tied blue ribbons around each wrapped box, curling the ends before adding a bow. She thought it looked very festive. Using a pen, she carefully wrote on the tags for each box "Congratulations, Pi and Elliot".

Once she had finished, she pulled a stack of papers and books from her bag and moved to sit in her favorite spot on the couch. Along with her coffee, she began to peruse the packet from the University about auditing classes. She figured she could afford the nominal fee, and thanks to her job at the bookstore, she'd been able to get the text book at a fairly reasonable rate. Her lips curled slightly in to a smile as she bent her head to the task of filling out the forms, hoping this surprise would be well received by it's intended recipient.

[Pi dArtois]

It had taken a few days of dithering before Pi came back. A few days where she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t going to go back, guilt crawling up one end of her conscience and down the other at what she had done. Surely she wasn’t’ that person. Surely she could control her curiosity and push it down deep.

Apparently her self control only lasted the length of seventy two hours before it caved under the combined weight of curiosity and niggling irritation. Maybe it was still jealousy, although that was tempered somewhat by seeing the woman (not much, but a little) – now it had morphed a little, idle curiosity blooming into a sort of need to know. Need to know how she lived in the QZ, how much she knew about vampires (probably a crap load by now given how long she’d lived in this place) and what exactly she was planning to do about it.

She wasn’t much for self delusion though. She couldn’t even fool herself that what she was doing was normal. It was creepy and a little sad, a lot mistrustful and just a little juvenile. Yet. Here she was, using the elevator up to the right floor and walking across the short floor lobby to the door she knew would be locked, except for the key in her pocket.

She’d fitted the key into the lock when she’d heard it. Maybe it was a rustle of paper, maybe just a sixth sense or sigh from the other side of the thick door but she stopped, hand on the door handle, key in the lock, her (redundant) breathing hitched and she froze in place.

The apartment wasn’t empty. She couldn’t open the door, not with a key, not without making herself known. There was no way to know for certain if her instincts were correct, or if paranoia was making her crazy, either way she stepped away from the door, pulling the key she held out and pushing it back into her pocket.

With a sigh she dragged a heavy hand through the choppy growth of her brown hair, shoving it off her forehead only to fall back around her temples she let it go.

There was something wrong and Pi stared at the door as if it would reach out and bite her, gnawing on her guilty arm like a drug dog at an airport who had marked a bag and suspect by sitting down then tackled the poor drug smuggler when they tried to get away.

“No.” She said to no one, (cause she was alone in the hallway), and turned back towards the elevator. “Not tonight.”

[Dhara]

She worked in silence, filling out the forms, rolling her eyes at some of the questions. The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the fridge. She stretched lazily, then got off the couch for a full body feline like stretch. She groaned in happy satisfaction and started to sit down when she heard a key in the lock. She figured Ali was home and she couldn't wait to tell her the news. When the door didn't open, she frowned slightly and tilted her head, staring at it like it had committed some sort of sin. Maybe the lock was stuck or Ali had her hands full.

She bounded across the living room and flipped the lock. Grasping the doorknob, she swung it open with a laugh. "I swear I didn't change the locks, maybe it's your key." She teased as the door opened. "You're never going to..." Her words trailed off as she finally looked up, her eyes landing on a tall, slender brunette that she'd never seen before. A faint frown crossed her lips as she stared at the woman.

Leaning against the open door frame, she studied the other woman with curious amber eyes. She was tall-ish. At least five or six inches than Dhara's own 5 feet tall frame. Her brown hair was layered and piecey and seemed to frame a petite, almost heart shaped face. The woman was slender, maybe even could be called wirey. But Dhara suspected that she was far more athletic than she appeared. In this city, you never really could tell. Canting her head, she tried to figure out who she was and why she was here. The odd spacing of the apartments made it highly unlikely that she'd accidentally come to the wrong door. But she could have. She could have accidentally gone right instead of left, only realizing her mistake when her key didn't work. You're not Ali. She thought to herself, realizing she should really be more cautious. She was alone in her apartment with a strange woman in the hallway and she lived in the QZ. Popping open the front door was probably not the smartest move.

"I mean... hi." She finally said, realizing she'd been so rudely staring made her cheeks turn pink. "Did you get turned around? Maybe I can point you in the right direction?" She offered politely, her smile warm and inviting. She was relaxed as she leaned on the door jamb, hands at her sides, simply waiting for the woman to speak. Or ignore her. Both situations were easily plausible.

[Pi dArtois]

She'd made it to the elevator when the apartment door opened, waiting for the lift to arrive.

Pi hadn’t intended to meet the woman. Meeting the woman would change everything. You couldn’t hide behind anonymity if you meet the person you were stalking, it wasn’t the point. Meeting. Pi didn’t want to make friends. She didn’t want to know more about the woman than she already did, not yet anyway. Maybe later, maybe after she’d made up her mind one way or another.

She’d even entertained ideas of biting the woman, taking satisfaction of taking from the anonymous female. It would have satisfied something dark that brewed under the surface of Pi’s curiosity, something mean and vindictive. She could have remained anonymous even then, letting the blood letting become a blank space in the human’s life, a gap in memory, a terrifying confusion at their memory loss, their displacement across the city as they wandered aimlessly under the influence of a vampire’s bite. Their memory white washed of recall, not understanding how they had ended up where they were, waking in a jolt somewhere else.

But she couldn’t now. Not after being hailed. Not after being seen and potentially recognized later. Pi didn’t want to turn around, had considered walking into the elevator that had arrived and leaving the woman behind her, never turning around, never acknowledging the greeting. But that was wrong too, because Elliot had taken this broken bird under his wing and it was only a matter of time before she would have to meet with the woman, face her, and wonder if recognition would spark and questions asked about why she didn’t turn around, why she was even there in that building.

There was no good way to exit this moment and not get found out. With her back still turned Pi sighed.

It was ironic really, that she’d be caught out as simply as this. As inanely easily. She turned slowly, a small smile in place and hopefully shining in her eyes too.

“Bon jour.” She greeted simply, not moving from where she was standing, her hand in the elevator, holding it at the floor.

“I had come to see Aliyah.” She answered with a shrug. “I wasn’t sure she was… here.”

It was a simple lie, because good lies were simple and not expanded upon. They didn’t give away too much information, nor did they require elaborate explanations to flesh them out. The best lies were ones couched in real truths, truths easily connected to cover the lie. Pi had been here before, she had a key, Elliot trusted her, Aliyah trusted her and the only person who shouldn’t now stood on the threshold of the apartment with a small smile and a bemused expression at finding the French woman there.

[Dhara]

She continued to watch the woman with a warm smile, even as she turned around. In spite of the French greeting, the other woman's English was flawless, if accented. It actually made Dhara smile even more. Made her feel as if her own blended German and Australian accent wouldn't stand out as much. Here in Canada, she often felt as if her accent glaringly pointed out that she was an outsider, a foreigner. It was just one of those things to be ignored. For now, this place was her home. She took a half step back and lifted a hand towards in the inside of the apartment, a hint of the tidy, sparsely furnished living room could be seen from the open door.

"Actually, she is not home at the moment. She should be back any time. You are welcome to come in and wait, or even leave a note if you like? I would be happy to give her a message." She laid the options out to the stranger, but made no moves to walk towards her, after all the woman was still holding the elevator as if she was going to hop inside and leave. "I am Dhara, by the way. Ali's flat mate." She hoped supplying the woman with a name might make her feel more comfortable.

As it was, she felt kind of awkward standing in her doorway while the woman held the elevator. She didn't want to intrude if the woman had plans to leave, but by the same token, she'd feel terrible if she didn't let Ali know some one had come to see her. She managed to keep quiet after she had spoken her piece. Moments like this, ones of awkward silence, usually caused her to ramble on, and she felt a flash of pride that she was actually staying quiet for once.

[Pi dArtois]

It was over before it began. This stalking moment Pi had indulged in. There was no good way to get out of this and no easy way to pretend she wasn’t who she was when it was likely (highly likely) that Pi would be introduced to this woman one day by Elliot or by Aliyah or by any number of people that would one day connect the dots between where this woman lived and who owned the place. Elliot was playing with fire when he gave this human a key to an apartment located where it was and now Pi’s sleuth moment had been nipped in the bud before the flower had any chance of opening.

There were things she had considered before she’d been caught out, scenarios she’d let play through her mind about what she would find out on the sly and what she would do with the information (likely nothing now). It was all gone now. She’d even, in her darker moments considered biting the human, sending her stumbling around the city in a vampiric induced haze, maybe making her realise exactly what she’d got herself into by living where she did, surrounded by what they were.

That too was gone, that darker potential as well as the more innocuous information gathering.
“I was going to come back later…” Pi answered, placing her body into the entrance to the lift to stop it from closing. “If you could let her know I came by.. my name is Pi.”

The introduction needed to happen, as much as Pi didn’t really want to. It was better now, especially now that Pi had been revealed.

“I have a key…. To the apartment but I didn’t want to use it … if she wasn’t here.” Pi finished, revealing her ownership (or at least ability to enter) the apartment the human was staying in. Plus, the game was up, there was no sense to have half truths. Seemed redundant too, all things considered.

“I’ll be going now though… if you’ll give her the message? It was nice to meet you.” Pi finished, backing up.

[Dhara]

She watched as the woman slowly stepped in to the elevator, disappearing bit by bit, even as she kept talking. A faint frown crossed her lips and she wondered why the woman seemed so nervous. She stepped out in to the hall, bare feet making no sound on the carpet. She was nearly to the elevator, trying to hear every thing when she realized that she was the cause of Pi's case of nerves. She was human, Pi was nervous, which could only mean one thing. Pi was a vampire like Ali and Elliott. She shoved the thought aside because the woman had finally given her name and recognition lit up her eyes.

She darted forward, stopping the doors of the elevator with one tiny hand, just barely avoiding having the doors slammed on the delicate bones. She really ought to be more careful with her hands, they were how she made a living. Then again there were a lot of things she ought to do but rarely did. Her inner common sense, the tiny voice of caution was ignored more often than it was listened to.

"Pi?" Her voice was curious and excited. She'd just been asking about this woman in relation to Elliott and now she stood on... well in the elevator. But she had been on her doorstep. "Elliott's wife, Pi?" She queried with a smile. Not that it could really be any one else. After all, how many women... how many people were named Pi? She looked up at the woman and offered another warm smile. "I don't mean to hold you up, I'm sure you're busy. But if you could come in for just a moment? I've got a little something for you and Elliott.... for getting married I mean. It's not much, but I wanted to congratulate you both." She gave a rueful smile because she'd started babbling, as she usually did when she was nervous. For being a performer, some one who was used to large crowds and putting on a show, she seemed to get very nervous in any one on one situation. She moved out of the way of the elevator doors, she didn't want the woman to feel forced in to stepping out, so she would let Pi decide. She could let the doors close, or she could hold them open and come back to the apartment.