rain

The last time she’d seen him was in Willoughby, a lifetime ago it seemed. A lot had happened in their lives respectively, the lines between heroic and monstrous blurred beyond recognition. But that now was something set aside, a different chapter entirely.

Or was it?

Her mind, in truth, couldn’t silence the ghost of Willoughbycompletely. Now it came back like a boomerang. She’d been pretending to be Katherine then, a desperate, clumsy attempt to manipulate the Original, one that had gone predictably awry. He had kissed her, a moment burned into her memory not just for its audacity, but for the lingering question it had left behind- Was he missing her, Katherine, in that moment? Or her? She’d replayed it a hundred times, always arriving at the same frustrating impasse.

“This morning,” Elijah murmured, his gaze steady, unreadable as always.

A blush bloomed on her cheeks, betraying her composure. Elijah’s eyes, a deep shade of brown, held a flicker that she couldn’t quite decipher.

"Bonnie," she blurted, the name a lifeline. "Did you see her? Uhm- not answering her phone- she had left the bar with Kol"

Elijah’s expression softened, the intensity around his eyes easing slightly. "They're in the library, I believe. Rebekah told me."

"Right- uhm- I guess- I should check the library then" Elena muttered. "We'll miss our flight-"

Elijah inclined his head, a gesture of old-world politeness that had always both charmed and exasperated her. "Thank you for your help," he said, his voice a low, smooth baritone. "We would have been lost without you and Bonnie's capabilities."

"Yeah - no big," Elena waved a hand dismissively. "Glad your niece is okay now." She forced a small, tired smile, already preparing to turn, to walk away and never look back. "Well- I'm gonna go- find Bonnie."

"Elena," Elijah said in all seriousness stepping forward, "I- need to apologize for my behaviour in Willoughby." His gaze met hers, direct and unwavering. "I kissed you- without your consent."

The air thickened, not with the city’s humidity, but with a sudden, startling revelation. Elena’s eyes widened slightly. The question that had plagued her for so long suddenly found its answer, laid bare and undeniable.

"Oh - uhm- so you knew I was not Katherine," she managed, the words a surprised gasp. Her breath hitched, catching in her throat as the full bewildering weight of it descended upon her. The kiss, then, was never for Katherine. It had been for her. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow, a strange mix of relief and unexpected hurt. Relief that this, this connection, was real and directed at her; hurt that it had required such unexpected unveiling.

Elijah’s eyes, dark and infinitely ancient, searched hers, betraying nothing but a deep, steady gaze. He could hear her heartbeat, a frantic tattoo against her ribs, betraying the storm of feelings she tried so desperately to keep under control.

"Your demeanor betrayed you, Elena," he said, his eyes holding hers. "You may look alike, but you're nothing like Katherine."

"Right," Elens muttered, the single word inadequate for the maelstrom within her.

"I have never permitted myself to come forward and express my feelings for you," Elijah said, his voice a deep rumble, the words carefully chosen, though a tremor of something raw hummed beneath them. "You were too entangled with both of the Salvatore brothers."

The name hung in the air, a phantom limb around her heart. She had been, hadn’t she? So consumed by the complicated, consuming love and drama, she hadn’t seen what was right there. Or perhaps, she hadn’t dared to look.

The first inkling that Klaus had that anything was amiss the moment he stepped through the door was the utter stillness around the Abattoir. He paused in the archway, listening intently. He could hear Hayley upstairs, rummaging in the attic, no doubt looting anything and everything remotely related to the history of werewolves in New Orleans—and possibly about magic curses and how to undo them. Next to hers, the baby’s heartbeat was as light as a feather and even he had to strain to hear it. 

It was the quietness coming from the study that perplexed him. 

Elijah was far better at remaining still for an extended period of time than he was, but there was an unnerving quality to the stillness and it unsettled him. Briefly, he ran through the events of the day, wondering if he’d done something he really shouldn’t have and for which he was about to receive one of his brother’s spectacular tongue-lashings. 

That was until he caught the other scent floating about—one that definitely shouldn’t have been there. 

He was up the stairs and onto the main landing in less than a second, hackles raised by the thought of an interloping little intruder of the Petrova variety, when he found himself hauled up by the lapels of his shirt and thrown halfway through the house right back into the courtyard. He was so stunned that he stayed on the floor for a breath longer than strictly necessary, trying to piece together what on earth had just happened. 

“Brother, whatever it was that you were thinking of doing, might I suggest you reconsider?”

There was an edge to Elijah’s voice that Klaus had no trouble identifying: he had threatened something precious to him, and was about to find out the rest should he not toe the line. He’d heard that tone enough times in the past and was intimately familiar with the torment Elijah would rain down upon him should anything happen to that particular Petrova. 

His brother had always been a lovesick fool. 

“Well then, brother, perhaps you might share the reason behind my favorite doppelgänger’s intrusion into our home?”

“Elena is my guest, Niklaus, and as such is to be afforded every courtesy. Am I making myself clear?”

He was half tempted to argue, but the day had been a long one and frankly, he had other things to worry about than a newly turned Petrova doppelgänger, annoying as this one was. At least it wasn’t Katherine; he might truly have done something regrettable then. 

“And what is the lovely Elena doing here, and as your guest no less?” 

Klaus didn’t miss the slight sneer his brother couldn’t quite manage to conceal when he used his preferred moniker for the otherwise perfectly ordinary girl now sleeping in one of their guest rooms. Actually… He strained his hearing, locating her heartbeat, and didn’t bother hiding his grimace. 

Elijah had actually put her in his room. The idiot.

Klaus was certain that, hadn’t he already been dead for a fair few centuries, the sheer monumentality of that discovery would have killed him on the spot. He simply could not wait for Rebekah to find out. 

“She came to New Orleans seeking my help with a… problem. I promised her I would help, but it seems the evening exhausted her.” Elijah actually had the audacity to point a menacing finger towards him. “And should you, or anyone, disturb her rest, for any reason whatsoever, I assure you, brother, I will make certain you regret it.”

He had no doubts about that and if the stuttering heartbeats he could suddenly hear coming from somewhere behind him were any indication, so would the vampires of the French Quarter before the hour was out. 

When Elijah Mikaelson made a threat, everyone toed the line. Privately, although he would never be caught dead admitting it, Klaus often thought his brother far more terrifying than he was. At times, even he was scared of the beast Elijah kept a very tight rein on, unleashing it periodically whenever someone did something spectacularly foolish.

Harming Elena Gilbert in any way, shape, or form fell squarely into that category. Given the strain lining his brother’s eyes, he could tell that someone had, so to speak, fucked around and was about to find out. 

⭐︎☾⭐︎

Elena woke up disorientated. The light in the room wasn’t coming at the right angle and it was too quiet. No birds chirping on the trees outside, no groaning planks of wood or splintering beams, no arguing brothers… 

Her eyes snapped open. 

She immediately regretted it as soon as the sun hit her full force, blasting her eyeballs into painful oblivion. For a few seconds, all she could see was pure white, until she blinked a few times and the fog dissipated. Inhaling deeply, she was hit by two pieces of information at almost exactly the same time: one, she was not in her room at the Boarding House, and two, she could smell Elijah Mikaelson everywhere. 

Why on earth would she smell him everywhere? And more importantly, how did she even know what he smelt like? When had that become a part of her brain chemistry?

She sat up, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands when the memories registered with painful clarity. 

Damon and the sire bond, her no humanity road trip with Rebekah, seeking Elijah out in New Orleans so he could help her remember… What did he help her remember, again? 

And then, because she hadn’t suffered enough shocks to her system to last her the morning yet, she remembered. 

She barely had time to bolt for the bathroom before she emptied the meagre contents of her stomach into the sink, coughing against the block in her throat. Shaking, she turned on the water, studiously ignoring the mix of bile, blood and alcohol as it swirled down the drain, her mind drawing a blank. She slid to the floor, her back against the sink cabinet and took deep breaths, attempting to regulate her heartbeat, careening wildly in her chest. She wasn’t entirely successful until she felt a pair of warm hands around her face, brushing against her cheekbones. 

Slowly, Elena cracked one eye open, as soon as she felt her heart begin to slow down enough for her to actually speak. 

“Sorry about the mess,” she croaked, “I didn’t have time to aim for the toilet.”

He chuckled, helping her up with one arm around her waist. His other hand was still busy caressing her cheek and she was in no hurry for it to stop. 

“It’s quite alright, Elena. I’m impressed you managed to aim at all.”

She opened her eyes wide before narrowing them suspiciously. He had his trademark Elijah Mikaelson Big Bad Original Vampire smirk, even if his eyes were a little sad. And suddenly it registered. 

“Did you just take a dig at me?”

Elijah placed a hand on his heart, his smirk turning into something more playful. “I would never.” 

Elena was nearly tempted to shove at him with all of her baby vampire strength, just because. She surprised herself by laughing out loud, placing a hand on her mouth in shock, before dissolving into giggles again. 

It felt good to laugh. 

But the whirlpool of emotions she had gone through in the space of a few moments had left her more than a little drained, and Elijah sensed that as soon as her legs began to buckle underneath her. He had her sitting on the bed—his bed, she’d just realized—before she could even begin to feel herself fall. Slowly, he tilted her head to the left, eyeing her greying complexion, before zooming out of the room and back inside in less than a second, a bag of blood in one hand and a warm damp towel in the other. 

Elena took the blood bag wordlessly, sipping at it without even thinking about it, a sure improvement on the last few weeks. She let him run the towel on the side of her face. She hadn’t even realised she had started crying. 

She finished the last of the blood just as he stood to put the towel back in the bathroom. Elena took the opportunity to look around the room. She was still a little dazed, but not enough not to understand the fact that, out of all the rooms she was sure this place must have, Elijah had chosen to put her in his. Part of her truly wasn’t sure what to do with that information, and another part of her was more than a little thrilled. She shut that one up immediately. She was here for a reason, and had had enough of romantic entanglements to last her at least two human lifetimes.

“How are you feeling?”

Elena sighed as he sat on the bed next to her, folding his hands in his lap. She itched to lock her fingers up with his. She ignored the little voice in her head that told her to embrace this, whatever this was.

“Better.” And she knew that he knew that wasn’t quite true, but he didn’t call her out on it and she was grateful for it. “I’m… glad I remember,” she said, risking a glance up at him to find his eyes hardening at the mention of what exactly it was that she was remembering. “Even if it’s painful, I’m glad to know the truth. About him, I mean.” 

There was a definite tick in his jaw and she had the errant thought that she had just condemned Damon to death last night. 

Maybe she should have thought about that, because as obtuse as Caroline liked to call her when it came to romance, she really should have known that Elijah would make Damon wish he had never been born the moment the Original found out exactly what the younger vampire had done to her. 

But then again, she hadn’t remembered, had she? And whatever it had been that she was expecting to remember, it certainly had not been that. 

“Thank you, Elijah. For helping me, I mean. I don’t think I said that last night,” she said softly, letting her hand rest on top of his. 

“You were a little preoccupied,” he smiled, but there was no real warmth behind it. “I certainly am glad to have helped you, Elena, even if, for your sake, I wish things were different.”

So did she, but hindsight was only a wonderful thing because one could only ever see it coming after they had been dealt a crappy hand, when the obvious solution was already far out of their grasp.

“Still, thank you.”

Elijah tipped his head towards her, looking down at their joined hands. He made no move to disengage himself from her and neither did she. 

Until, that is, a loud crash was heard from the foyer and Elena repressed a giggle with great difficulty at the long suffering look he addressed to the ceiling. 

“I’d better go and see what kind of mischief my siblings have managed to land themselves into this time.”

“I guess if you want New Orleans to remain standing, you probably should, yeah.”

⭐︎☾⭐︎

To say that Rebekah was annoyed was an understatement. She wasn’t just annoyed, she was irritated. One could almost say pissed off. And the reason for that entirely too early bout of irritation was trying very hard to disappear behind her elder brother, and failing miserably. 

“Not that I didn’t appreciate our little road trip,” Rebekah said, crossing her legs over the arm of the sofa she had nearly thrown into Nik’s face when he had refused to stop gloating about his accomplishments as the Great Hybrid King of New Orleans, “but what exactly are you doing here, Elena?”

She had thought leaving Mystic Falls behind would be easier than this, but it seemed the irritating little town was entirely true to form to its inhabitants: a perpetual thorn in her side. Judging by the adoring and frankly disgusting look Elijah was casting sideways, he at least was probably overjoyed at this new turn of events. 

Every time she was forced to watch the two of them interact, Rebekah pondered the merits of exiling herself to another continent. At least until they got their act together, which could take anywhere between one week and one century. She repressed a sigh with great difficulty. 

“I needed help with the sire bond, and Elijah helped.”

Her brother at least had the grace to look away—and was that a blush she saw?—before her disbelieving stare. 

“I… see.”

She fervently wished that she did not, in fact, see. 

“It’s not what you’re thinking, Rebekah.”

Klaus looked caught between wanting to murder someone and absolutely gleeful at the blush—because it was a blush—he could see fast developing on his brother’s cheeks.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Elijah blush but the sight was worth it. Until his mind caught on to what his little sister was insinuating and he suddenly wished he was the one lying daggered somewhere just so his brain did not have to conjure up the ghastly image of Elena and his brother engaging in that particular act. 

“Oh?”

“Elena needed help remembering a few… details of her time under the sire bond, and I merely agreed to help her.”

Or, more likely, he had seen an opportunity to play knight in shining armour to the woman he was hopelessly in love with and took it.

Rebekah would give him points for effort. She was just happy she could trash the image of her brother letting Elena drink his blood to rid herself of a sire bond into the proverbial bin. She wasn’t sure her breakfast could have remained where it was if not. 

“And those details were…” Klaus trailed off, fixing himself a drink with the look of a man who both desperately needed it and was enjoying the scene playing out in front of him immensely. 

“Private,” Elena shot back, nonplussed. 

If Rebekah wasn’t so set on retaining at least some her initial dislike for the newest Petrova (on principle, if nothing else), she might actually admire her for the way the baby vampire handled Klaus. She clearly had either lost her mind, her sense of self preservation, or simply could not care less. 

Impressive. 

Klaus looked like he was about to retort something unforgivably rude, but Elijah, as always, shut him up before the idiot got himself thrown into next week through the nearest wall and all the way into the Mississippi. 

“As I said, Niklaus, Elena is here as my guest and will remain so for however long she wishes.” He levelled a long look at Rebekah, who narrowed her eyes in return. “And the both of you will leave her alone until such a time she decides she wants your company, is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

But just because she simply could not resist the idea of tweaking her brother’s nose a little, Rebekah crossed her fingers behind her back. 

⭐︎☾⭐︎

Elena had been expecting a call, but not so soon. Still, she really should have known better. 

She’d been perfectly content on taking Elijah up on his open-ended invitation to stay, and after escaping Klaus’ laser-focused eyes and Rebekah’s disturbingly blue ones, she had settled back into his room, a book in hand. She had figured nobody would try to disturb her here, but she hadn’t counted on the kind of electronic disturbance that could transcend state borders. 

“Hi Care, how’s Mystic Falls?”

“You know, you could have dropped me a text to say, oh, I don’t know: “hey Caroline, guess what, I’m not dead!” but guess not.”

“I’m sorry,” and she was, “but it’s been… difficult.”

Elena could almost heard her friend’s eyebrows drawing together by the slow exhale she let out on the other end.

“Difficult how? What happened?”

She toyed with the edges of the book before remembering that this was, in fact, a priceless first edition, and closed it sharply. She knew Caroline heard it by the equally sharp inhale she heard. 

“I… I don’t know if I want to talk about it, Care—at least, not right now. Not like this,” she rushed to add the moment she heard the breath that would no doubt precede a torrent of protests. Something in her voice must have stopped Caroline though, because there was a suspiciously long silence at the other end of the line. 

“Okay, ‘Lena, just… Just be safe, okay? I know you want to trust Elijah, and if he helped you, I’m game, but please remember you basically walked into Supernatural Central as the twice dead, twice revived Doppelgänger, yes?”

Elena had to laugh as the entirely too accurate picture. “Don’t worry, Care. Elijah pretty much threatened both Klaus and Rebekah into submission over my continued well-being.”

Silence, and then… “Ew, you’re even starting to talk like him.”

Elena had no time to let the middle-school insult she had ready-made fly because the next second, Caroline ended the call. She couldn’t shake the suspicion that she would be hearing from her friend very soon.

⭐︎☾⭐︎

Elijah had not counted on being given an outlet on which to work out some of the simmering rage roiling beneath his skin and was therefore entirely unsurprised to find that the nearest piece of furniture suffered the fate he wished to inflict upon the eldest Salvatore instead.

A few hours later, confronted with the mess he had made of the study, he resolved to put it to rights before either of his siblings managed to corner him. 

He really should have known better. 

“Dare I ask?” His brother held up the vintage print normally hanging above the mantel piece, no doubt foraged from somewhere underneath the previously pristine coffee table, which was now missing three out of its four legs. 

Elijah threw him a dark look. He had not worked out all of his rage yet and if Niklaus decided that now was the appropriate time to test him, he would be more than happy to oblige him, for once.

“Better not, eh?”

Klaus hung up the print back where it belonged, fiddling with it with the intensity only an artist could manage, before turning back to his older brother, analysing him.

If Elijah had any inkling that he was watching him, he gave none, instead focusing on rummaging through the pile of papers on the desk.

For someone as neat as his brother was, Klaus was forever astounded at the fact that Elijah’s desk could most often best be described as a minefield: papers, letters, business cards and other deal-making paraphernalia littering the surface of the desk. And yet, somehow, Elijah always managed to find what he was looking for. The rest of the study, in its normal state, was usually a perfect reflection of his brother’s intensely restrained personality, a masterwork of control. 

He would know, he had snooped around enough. 

But the desk… now, the desk gave away more than Elijah might like to admit. For example, while the surface was always nearly chaotic, there was order within the chaos, a perfect capsule of his brother’s personality. 

Right about now, there was no order to be found, which meant that Elijah was troubled. And, judging by the scowl on his face, save for when a certain Petrova was in the room, vengeful. 

“What did Elena tell you last night that managed to rile you up so much, brother?”

For once, there was not one ounce of mockery in his tone. Perhaps that was why his brother actually listened to him and looked up, glaring daggers that Klaus understood were not truly directed at him. 

“It seems I was remiss in thinking her safe in Mystic Falls,” Elijah said, voice tight and just shy of low enough to be considered a growl. “Damon Salvatore, in particular, has proven most… untrustworthy.” 

There was so much venom infused in the name that Klaus immediately knew that whatever the petulant little man had done paled in comparison to anything either Salvatore brothers had tried to pull off before the sacrifice. And since there were very few things on this earth that could infuriate his brother as much as a good daggering, Klaus could admit to feeling somewhat… perturbed. 

Particularly because he knew that the only reason Elijah had left Mystic Falls behind was that he had thought Elena safe with her friends and family. Apparently, something had happened that had made him not only reconsider, but reconsider it strongly enough to destroy half of the study in the process.

“And let me guess, you’d like nothing more than to rip Damon’s head from his shoulders?”

Elijah smiled darkly, the sort of smile Klaus hadn’t seen in a long time—except for the odd occasion where it was directed at him.

“That would be letting him off far too easy, brother.” Elijah rearranged some papers on the desk, piling them up neatly. “Once I’m through with him, there might not be enough left for a proper beheading.”

to be continued....