Author's note: This was inspired by Champagne Challenge #157. I've extrapolated a bit on things we saw on the show, but I don't think this qualifies as AU, because it doesn't clash with show canon.
I'm not quite sure what to make of this piece. It's definitely not my usual style. I guess... you know how sometimes when you have a problem you can't solve, your thoughts go around and around and around, trying to find something that maybe you missed the first thousand times you tried to solve it?
Thanks to choccyterri for reading this, and reassuring me that my muse isn't completely insane.
Rated PG.
Going in Circles
Seven vials. I filled one every night of that week I was on the cure. Seven clues to a mystery I don’t know how to solve. Everything I try turns into a dead end.
I asked Josef if he noticed anything about my blood when he turned me back. He looked annoyed and said he was too busy saving my ass to stop and smell the A-positive. I wouldn’t leave it alone, though. Finally, over a few glasses of scotch, he talked to me. “It was just blood,” he said. “Nothing special. And I drank plenty of it, so if there was something off about it, I’d have known.”
Disappointing, but it was about what I was expecting. It fits with what Dr. Lin at Bionalysis said when she analyzed Coraline’s blood. She found nothing out of the ordinary, except that it was unnaturally pure. “Essentially untainted,” she said, almost like a child’s blood. Coraline drank wine when she was on the cure. She took anti-inflammatories, too. But none of it showed up in her blood. What does that mean? How does the compound clean impurities out of the blood? I may never know.
What I really need is some of the compound itself. But Lance has it… and Coraline. Oh, man. Coraline. I can’t stop thinking about that look on her face when she let him stake her. But what the hell can I do for her? How can I go up against one of the most powerful families in Europe? I don’t even speak the language. And I’d be on my own—Josef refused to get involved. Said I must really have a death wish if I was thinking about taking on the Duvalls. Besides, even if somehow I could rescue her, there’s no way we’d get our hands on the compound. Lance was furious with her for wasting the family’s precious stash. It’s their ticket out of the next vampire genocide.
Coraline said there was more of the compound, hidden. If—and with her, you never know—if she was telling the truth, Cynthia must have it. And she’s disappeared. If she used a relocation service, it’s one Josef doesn’t know about. Even his “master of all things telephonic” hasn’t been able to trace her. I’ve got Logan looking, too, but I doubt he’ll have any more luck than Rider. And if I do find her? She wasn’t exactly cooperative when we talked in her hotel room. She’s got no reason to help me. Unless I promise to help her rescue Coraline… of course, first I’d have to find her.
So here I am, right back where I started. Looking at those seven precious vials of my own, pseudo-human blood. I tried smelling and tasting it myself. It was just like Josef and Dr. Lin said. Very pure, but otherwise unremarkable.
I wonder what would happen if I injected it…
I'd love to find out! 
It always bugged the heck out of me that the show never addressed that vial of blood we watched Mick take from himself. Another lost opportunity for fabulous drama! 
