chapter six ─ smells like teen spirit

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AFTER SPENDING A GOOD FEW HOURS WITH KLAUS on the road, hearing stories of the time they knew each other and laughing with him, Morrigan hated to have to go. She still had a duty as a reaper to collect souls, take them to their afterlife and then give her report to Lin. She even had a few reports to finish processing from the other reapers. Before she left, Klaus asked her to keep an eye on Rebekah, who he was leaving behind in Mystic Falls, too spooked by what Damon had said to stay in the town and not wanting to tell her and scare her as well. She had agreed, more than happy to get to spend more time with Rebekah.

When she arrived back home, stepping through the gate and pushing it closed behind her, she could see Lin sitting on the porch with some files. She took a deep breath in and then sighed, walking over and sitting down next to him, causing the bench swing to rock and Lin to slam a hand down on the stack of files next to him while he gave her a disapproving look. Finally, she simply smiled at him and turned in her spot so that she could lean against the back of the bench with her feet tucked up, and knees bent in front of her and still look at him.

"What was my life like before I became your apprentice?" she asked.

"Morrigan..." Lin said, sighing.

"I know I'm not supposed to ask, but–"

"You know I can't tell you. I couldn't even if I wanted to. You'll know once you become–"

"Become the Grim Reaper, yeah." Morrigan bit her lip and looked out at the haze beyond the fence around their property before back at Lin. "I only ask because I met some people today who knew me before..."

Lin closed his report and set it on the pile. Then he took the pile and set it on the floor, turning in his seat so he was facing her as well.

"How do you know for sure?" he asked her.

"They called me by a different name, and when they did, it was like electricity down my spine. And just like you said, it was like I did know them. Like I was looking at them with the eyes of my last life, not these ones. The trust, the comfort, all of that, it was there, but I had never seen their faces before."

"Did they tell you anything?"

"He refused to tell me about my death, even though I asked. I know that's what you were asking."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant."

"Well, maybe." Lin shrugged but gave her a smile. "What did he tell you?"

"That my name was Mina Mercer, we knew each other in Spain and a few little stories about our time together. Nothing significant."

"It might not feel like it, but that's a good thing. You shouldn't know too much about your old life until you become the Grim Reaper."

"I know, I know." Morrigan looked down and then back up at Lin. "There was something strange that happened, though. Right before he left town, he almost killed Damon. But before he could, Damon mentioned the name Mikael. And this awful sensation washed over me like I was falling through this cold, dark abyss. It felt... it felt like death."

"Well, it has been three hundred years, so I don't quite remember your death, but it is possible he could have been around when you died," Lin told her.

"What can you tell me about it?"

"I remember that when I approached you, your hair was brown, something that changed when you were reborn. And there was blood on your dress. But it could have been yours or someone else's."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"All I can say."

"Okay..."

"Hey," Lin said, getting her to look back up at him. "Come here."

Smiling, Morrigan did as requested and scooted down the bench and under the arm he had lifted up. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him as he picked up the file he'd been working on before.

"Now, let me tell you about this report. It's quite strange, so I think you'll find it fascinating..."

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MORRIGAN WAS ABLE TO GET THROUGH A FAIR AMOUNT of work before her phone rang, and she kept scribbling down her notes and reached blindly for it. Then, finally, after finishing the sentence that she had been writing, she looked over at the phone in her hand.

Her brow furrowed as she recognized the name on the screen but hadn't expected it to ever come up again. Then, deciding that it was worth figuring out what was going on, she answered the phone.

"What an unexpected pleasure; what brings you to call me this evening, Bonnie?"

"Something happened, and I need your help," the teenager explained. "It's important."

"Alright, consider it done. What can I do?" Morrigan asked.

There was a pause. Clearly, Bonnie was surprised, given her recent behaviour on why she would just agree so easily.

"Meet me at the high school?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'll see you there."

Hanging up the phone, Morrigan closed her file and set it aside. She got up from her desk and left her room, swinging around to Lin's office and poking her head in. He looked up and smiled when he saw her.

"Bonnie just called, said something important happened, and she needs my help, so I'm going to go see what's up. It's probably about that ghost thing. If you need me, just call. Wanted to let you know I'd be leaving."

"Alright, go see what's going on."

She gave him a smile and closed the door.

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OUTSIDE THE GATES OF THE REAPER HOME, Morrigan found herself standing amongst trees under the night sky. She took a moment to get her bearings and realized that she was near the school where Bonnie had requested to meet her. Content with knowing where she was and how to get where she was going, Morrigan started heading in the direction of the school.

"Hey!"

Morrigan looked around to the source of the voice and saw Damon heading towards her. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

"What do you want, Damon?" she questioned. "I have bigger priorities right now."

"You sided with Klaus, who almost killed Elena and forced my brother to turn off his humanity," he accused, anger clear not only in his voice but in his expression.

"That's old news, Damon. Like I said, bigger priorities right now."

She turned to walk away from him, but before she could get very far, he grabbed her arm, stopping her dead in her tracks. Morrigan grit her teeth and took a deep breath in and then out, resisting, for the moment, the urge to rip his hand off of her.

"You're not going anywhere," Damon growled.

"Damon, I'm going to give you two seconds to let me go before I make you regret ever laying a hand on me."

"We're not done."

Morrigan wrenched her arm free easily from his grasp and turned to face him, taking a few steps backwards to put some distance between them.

"What's wrong, Damon? Upset that I switched sides?" she questioned him patronizingly. "How many times have you disregarded the loyalty of your friends to do what you want? Do you even know the full story of why I was with Klaus? No, of course, you don't. Because you never bothered to ask."

She thrust her hand out, palm facing Damon and then moved it downward. Confusion flooded his expression as Damon was forced to his knees, following the movement of her hand.

"What the hell?"

"Don't think that you can just attack a reaper, Damon. My whole thing is dealing with the dead," she said with a laugh. "And you might be undead, but you're still dead, and that means still under my control, so next time you go attacking someone, maybe don't do it out of nothing but in-the-moment anger and do your research."

With a gesture of her hand, she easily threw Damon backwards so that he hit a tree and then fell to the ground. It was oddly satisfying, watching him groan in pain where he'd fallen.

"Now, as I said, I have actual problems that need to be dealt with. So why don't you just fuck off and let me do my job."

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THE HIGH SCHOOL WAS EMPTY AND QUIET just like the last time Morrigan was there as the blonde began to make her way through the halls looking for Bonnie. She didn't know her way around totally, but after a little while, she turned a corner and saw Bonnie standing there, so made her way over to the teenager quickly.

"Bonnie," she called out.

"Morrigan," Bonnie said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Thank you for coming."

"Sure, tell me what's going on."

"Listen, I know that everyone kinda hates you right now for siding with Klaus and Rebekah, but we have a problem."

"No shit, Sherlock," she said before she could stop herself. "Your seemingly last truly human friend did part of a spell to bring his dead sister back."

"You know?"

"Of course I know! I'm a reaper, my whole business is maintaining the balance between life and death! You think if someone were trying to disrupt that balance, we wouldn't know about it?" she questioned.

"I... I think I can do a spell to stop her, but I didn't know who else to call. After I brought Jeremy back to life, I knew there'd be consequences, but I thought they were just him talking to his dead girlfriends," she explained.

"I understand, Bonnie," Morrigan assured her gently. "It's a lot to deal with on your own. I'll help any way I can."

Another bit of tension seemed to ease out of Bonnie as she breathed another sigh of relief. She opened her mouth to say something when her phone rang. The teenager quickly pulled her phone out of her pocket and answered it. After a moment, her eyes widened.

"Matt! Matt, slow down. What happened?"

Whatever Matt said, it didn't reassure Bonnie as she looked up at Morrigan with worried eyes.

"What? How? Where is she?"

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IN A CLASSROOM WITH WINDOWS LOOKING OUT ONTO part of the parking lot, Bonnie and Morrigan met up with Matt. He was confused when he first saw her, clearly having heard the stories of her siding against his friends the last time they were all in the school together, but as soon as Bonnie told him to once again tell her what happened, he did so without question.

Well, technically, he started pacing. Morrigan sat upon another desk next to Bonnie and waited mostly patiently for him to be ready to explain.

"I'm so sorry," Matt said. "I didn't think she'd do something like this."

He sat down against the teacher's desk with a distant, sad look in his eyes. Morrigan felt bad for him, really. Vicki was his sister, and the thought of having her back when he'd lost everyone else must have been more than appealing. Morrigan had met many people in her three centuries and... well, most of them wanted people they'd lost back. Given the opportunity, if she'd had people she'd lost, she was sure she'd do the same thing that Matt had.

"I trusted her," Matt said sadly.

"You need to tell me exactly what you did to let Vicki out, so I know exactly how to send her back," Bonnie told him.

Matt started to explain the process of what he'd done as he and Morrigan started to light the candles Bonnie had brought as she flipped through her grimoire, looking for a spell that would do what they wanted.

"I found a spell that can block whatever magic is helping Vicki," Bonnie finally said, kneeling down on the ground.

"What do I do?" Matt asked, kneeling in front of her.

"Give me your hand."

He unwrapped and held out his hand with the cut wound from earlier. Bonnie gave him a look and took his other hand, and cut the palm with a knife. The witch positioned her friend's hand to bleed over a picture of Vicki and then started to recite the spell. Sensing what was coming, Morrigan conjured her scythe and stepped up behind Matt.

Morrigan looked up as she sensed another presence in the room and saw a teenage girl who had to be Vicki Donovan standing there suddenly, looking confused. She tightened her grip on her scythe as Matt looked up and noticed her.

"What is she doing?" Vicki asked.

"Fixing my mistake," Matt said, tears in his eyes.

"Make her stop," Vicki requested.

"Bonnie, hurry up," Matt said.

"The spell is working, Matt. She's still here because of you."

Bonnie continued muttering the spell. Matt looked down, pressing his eyes shut, clearly having difficulty with what he had to do. Then, as Morrigan knelt down next to him, a tear slipped down his cheek.

"I can help her back across, Matt," Morrigan told him. "I promise I will, but I can't do that until you let go."

"Matt, please," Vicki begged.

He stood up and walked over to Vicki with tears in his eyes, Morrigan following a few paces behind him.

"I can't let you hurt anyone, Vicki," Matt said.

"I won't. I'll stop. Just, please, don't make me go."

"I have to. This is wrong. You shouldn't be here."

"I'm sorry," Vicki said. She was starting to cry as well. "I just didn't want to be alone anymore."

"Neither did I. But I have to let you go."

The candles suddenly started burning brighter as Bonnie continued her spell. Morrigan knew they were close, so she stepped up next to Matt and closer to Vicki.

"Goodbye, Vick."

She disappeared as Morrigan took her arm, and Bonnie finished her spell.

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THE WORLD BETWEEN THE ONE OF THE LIVING and the one of the dead and the various afterlife's that resided there was one tinged in greys and muted colours, where time crawled to an almost standstill. It was a peaceful place, and Morrigan knew that its serenity went a long way towards soothing the souls they encountered there, as well as the calming influence of the reapers themselves while there.

Vicki Donovan still had tears in her eyes as she appeared there with Morrigan and immediately fell to her knees as soon as Morrigan let go of her arm. This wasn't going to be the easiest job.

"You know this is for the best, Vicki," she assured her, kneeling down next to her. "Ghosts aren't supposed to be in the world of the living."

"The reaper that took me across the first time didn't tell me that I'd be so alone," Vicki spat, eyes still clouded over with tears. "They said it would be peaceful."

"I understand. Some do find it peaceful, and it is our job to calm you and ease you across." Morrigan touched her arm gently. "I know you didn't choose to become a vampire, so it isn't your fault the afterlife that you were stuck with."

"I don't want to go back there where I'm going to be all alone forever," Vicki cried.

"Hey," Morrigan said in a soft voice, "it's okay. You're gonna be okay."

Morrigan set her scythe down next to her and wrapped her arms around Vicki, letting the younger girl cry into her shoulder.

This wasn't as uncommon as people might think. Some souls didn't take the news that they were dead as well as others. Sometimes, just like Vicki, the idea of leaving their family behind, of being alone... it was overwhelming. And Morrigan couldn't help but empathize with those people. She did whatever she could to comfort them.

Unfortunately, there was nothing that she could do for Vicki. She had died a vampire, and so she was stuck with the one afterlife that was available to the supernatural. Those rules predated even Lin, she was sure, and he was at least twice her age.

Although, maybe there was something that she could do.

Morrigan carefully adjusted Vicki so that she could look at her again and gave her a smile, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"What if you didn't have to go back to being alone? There might be a way that you wouldn't have to go back, but you'd never be able to see Matt again. You wouldn't even be able to watch over him."

"I wouldn't have to be alone?"

"No, you would have a big family. You'd be reborn and be raised as a reaper, like me. But you wouldn't remember this life. It would all be erased."

Usually, it was Lin's job to offer people the chance to become a reaper, but Morrigan was allowed to if she really thought the person should. Normally she didn't, happy to leave the decisions up to Lin and just accompany him when he found someone he wanted to extend the offer to. She'd only done this once before, and she'd been as sure then as she was now.

"I... I think I'd like that," Vicki said, sniffling.

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ALTHOUGH LIN WASN'T THE MOST IMPRESSED by Morrigan's decision, he also wasn't entirely surprised. It had been a similar situation with the last reaper she'd brought home for him. Lin was happy to take the baby off of Morrigan's arms, and they agreed that she would be renamed Rachel. Now feeling a little better about the whole situation, Morrigan went back to the school, reappearing just a minute after she'd left.

"She's gone, isn't she?" Matt said sadly.

"You probably won't ever see her again," Morrigan told him. "At least, not the way you remember her, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"She did this because she was afraid of being alone and... there was something I could do about it. I couldn't change her afterlife, the supernatural are bound to the one afterlife, but I could offer her a chance to not be a ghost. To become a reaper."

"You turned Vicki into a reaper?" Bonnie asked.

"No, I offered her the chance to be reborn as a reaper, just like I was. Vicki, as you knew her, is gone. She was reborn and renamed like we all were. Lin and I will raise her. I have faith she"ll be an amazing reaper."

"Could I..." Matt started, then hesitated. "Could I see her?"

"I might be able to swing once, Matt. But it'd be against protocol and the rules, and it would only be once. If you're sure that you could handle that, then... I could convince Lin to let me bring her by one time."

He nodded. "Thank you, Morrigan."

"Of course, Matt."

He left then, walking out of the classroom by himself and leaving Morrigan and Bonnie alone. She was putting her grimoire in her bag before going around to collect the candles.

"Thank you for helping. After everything, I wasn't sure if you would."

"I'm not on anyone's side, Bonnie. If you ever need my help, all you have to do is ask."

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an. here you go, folks! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I had fun writing it even if some things happened that I didn't plan for. And you might just get another one soon with what I already have prewritten and the rate at which I'm prewriting for this fic, so...