'I'm tired of being what you want me to be.'
It'd been six hours and the girl had yet to mutter a single word. It was surprising, but certainly not unwelcome. Katherine had heard enough of the girl's incessant whining to last even her lifetime. The torn out pages of a United States map strewn about the car approximated their location somewhere outside of Lexington, Kentucky driving west on I-64. The silence coupled with the low rumbling of the engine always had a calming effect on Katherine, and most radio stations nowadays played recycled beats of mindless drivel anyhow. The girl in the passenger seat had wrapped her jacket so tightly around herself it obstructed the view of her face. With the absence of the girl's usual rhythmic heartbeat, Katherine had little way to know if she was really asleep. She nudged her shoulder softly and watched for any signs of reaction. The girl's left eye opened so slightly that it would've been imperceptible to human vision.
Elena awoke to a self-satisfied smirk gracing her vampire captor's face. She didn't move from her awkward sleeping position but instead mumbled into her jacket, "Was there something you needed?" Katherine did not answer, her taunting smirk growing wider. Elena scoffed at her and buried her face further into the leather fabric of her jacket. The older vampire surveyed her younger doppelgänger for a moment before turning away, double checking her rear view mirrors and abruptly pulling off the highway, the tires of the black SUV kicking up dirt and rocks behind them.
Elena jolted upwards at the sudden vibration and stared at Katherine in disbelief. "We stopped," she commented warily.
Katherine rolled her eyes and unbuckled the seat belt. "Fantastic deduction, Elena. Nothing gets past you."
Elena ignored the snarky comment. "What are we doing here?"
"Enjoying the view," Katherine quipped dryly.
Elena glared at her evasion of the question, but didn't push the subject.
She followed Katherine into the depths of a heavily wooded area, every step they took bringing them further and further away from civilization. The tree branches brushed uncomfortably against her hypersensitive skin and the bright glow of the moonlight hurt her eyes. "Katherine, please-why did we stop?"
"We've been driving for six hours now and it's nearly morning." Katherine still had her back to Elena, but she didn't need to see the vampire to picture the amused curl of her lip. "You can consider this your continental breakfast." Katherine turned back to the other girl and flashed her a sinister smile. "What's the matter? Don't tell me you forgot this part, Elena, even you aren't that stupid."
"I-" Elena stuttered, but she broke off, her eyes darting around the woods, fingertips fidgeting nervously with a loose thread on the hemline of her shirt. "You are going to make me feed from animals?" She tried to ignore the disgusting taste in the back of her throat from even vocalizing those words.
"Ugh, please," Katherine scoffed and dismissed the statement with a wave of her hand, inhaling deeply as she peered into the darkness. "I'm not Stefan. I don't apologize for taking my livelihood straight from the source. No, I can smell fresh blood not too far off. Campers, most likely."
"Campers?" Elena asked incredulously. "Innocent people?"
Katherine sighed and kept walking without another word, but Elena pressed on. "I won't do it, I don't care what you threaten me with. I have nothing left to lose." When Katherine still remained silent, Elena turned back towards the car. She barely took three steps before Katherine had her pinned against a tree trunk, one hand effortlessly pressed against her jugular. Elena's attempts to squirm out of her grasp only irritated Katherine further, causing the pressure on Elena's neck to tighten with each futile struggle.
Katherine was so close now that Elena could practically feel the vampire's soft breath against her ear. "I don't take kindly to disobedient brats, Elena. Petulant children end up with missing limbs, got it?"
"So you'll kill me?" Elena asked, her tone casual and disinterested. "Do you think that scares me?"
"Kill you?" Elena had expected her to react angrily, but Katherine seemed genuinely amused by her assumption. "You sorely underestimate my intelligence, Elena. Do you honestly believe I can't see straight through your sad attempt to manipulate this situation? You want me to get so unbelievably angry at you that I eventually lash out and kill you, isn't that right?" She released her hold on Elena's neck and watched her doppelgänger fall to the ground, grasping at thin air for some means of supporting herself. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news my dear," Katherine whispered softly, threateningly-and if Elena hadn't imagined it, slightly flirtatiously, "But I don't do pity kills."
Elena didn't say a word, but the harsh glare in her narrowed eyes said more than words could express. Katherine just pulled the girl up roughly by her elbow and smirked as she stumbled back, struggling to keep her balance. "And that'll be the weakness setting in, right on schedule," she sneered mockingly.
"The weakness?" Elena questioned, her wavering voice betraying her unease.
"Yes, Elena," Katherine spoke slowly, as if speaking to a four-year old who couldn't grasp the concept of what crayons were, "You've been in transition for almost fourteen hours now, your body is shutting down." Katherine paused to study her doppelgänger's reaction to her statement, but she only saw a blank stare. She'd have to push, then. "Can you smell it yet Elena-the blood? Is it overpowering every other sense in your body? Is it making you hungry?"
She got the reaction she wanted-Elena's eyes went wide with a mixture of horror and alarm. Katherine didn't need vocal confirmation, it was obvious in the way Elena's slumped shoulders straightened out and her noticeably deeper intake of breath. With Elena's new vampire instincts brewing just beneath the surface, Elena channeled all the disconcerting aggression onto a much more deserving victim.
Katherine swiftly dodged the punches Elena was throwing at her with ease, laughing condescendingly as Elena grew increasingly frustrated. "Don't overexert yourself, my dear-it makes the bloodlust stronger." Elena stopped suddenly, the shock written all over her face, and it took Katherine a moment to realize her doppelgänger wasn't staring at her-but rather, behind her. The light-haired man was surveying the two identical girls with furrowed brows and a frown of confusion on his face.
The man began sputtering nonsense, terrified by the expression on Elena's face. "G-god, I'm sorry-I didn't mean to interrupt, I just heard-" but he trailed off, stumbling over a tree branch as he hastened to get away from this utterly perplexing situation. Katherine simply rolled her eyes at his display of cowardice and grabbed his forearm to pull him close to her. She grazed her blunt human teeth across his neck and smiled appreciatively at his whimper of fear. She could feel her own bloodlust simmering, but pushed it down forcefully. It wouldn't do any good to lose control over her actions right now-this was far more about Elena than it was about her.
She let her fangs elongate and slowly penetrate the soft skin on the man's neck. She could feel Elena's eyes watching the scene play out in front of her-burning, preparing, evaluating. Although she had never experienced it herself, she had heard many times how unbearably powerful the draw to blood was in the last few hours of transition. She was well aware that if any semblance of Elena's rational mind remained, the girl would've been spouting out gasps of protest. Obviously, that was not the case. The usually warm and irritatingly compassionate gaze in Elena's eyes was nowhere to be found-replaced by the malicious glint of bloodlust Katherine was only accustomed to seeing when she looked in the mirror. The image of her doppelgänger so devoid of human emotion-which had once been the most distinguishing difference between them-was enough to invoke a physical reaction of disgust knotting in her stomach.
This has to happen; stick to the plan. Don't lose your resolve, not now. Let it happen. Katherine repeated the mantra in her mind over and over as she watched Elena hesitantly run her tongue down the trail of blood escaping from the man's neck wound, nearly moaning from the immense pleasure as it hit the back of her throat.
Katherine had lived five centuries, had seen the most disturbing parts of the world she never even fathomed could exist, and had caused more death and destruction than she could bother to remember. Yet she had never had an experience quite like this. She stood rooted to the spot as Elena greedily sucked the man dry, her grip tightening with every passing second, her teeth digging deeper and ripping more savagely with every mouth full of blood. Katherine forgot for a moment that she was watching Elena, and all she saw was herself-the young, just turned Katerina surrounded by the cold wilderness of her homeland in winter as she tore apart the man who forced her on this path to hell; the man who had once whispered her sweet, affectionate promises of true love before she was banished from everything she knew for carrying his child.
And suddenly Elena was on the ground, panting heavily, eyes flittering from the immobile form of the light-haired man sprawled in front of her to the blood covering her hands, aghast in horror and disbelief. Oh, and there it was again-that damned warmth, compassion and irritating innocence in her eyes that Elena Gilbert was so famous for.
"I hate you," she hissed, and any warmth that might have flickered in her eyes before had quickly evaporated into exaggerated fury.
Katherine could recall a brief conversation she'd had with Isobel last year, merely hours before the woman ripped off her lapis lazuli necklace and sealed her fate, burning to a crisp in the middle of a graveyard that she should have been buried in all along. She had come back from a tense meeting with her daughter, ranting some ridiculous notion that Elena was much more like Katherine than anyone gave her credit for. Katherine had of course just scoffed and dismissed the statement, writing it off as Isobel once again trying to seem more perceptive than she actually was. But now as she peered down at her doppelganger-lips twisted into a dangerous snarl, eyes narrowed and burning with an unbridled anger, hair disheveled and matted with dirt and blood-she thought that maybe Isobel had a deeper insight into her daughter than anyone gave her credit for.
In a blur of sudden movement, Elena had disappeared into the darkness. It's not like Katherine hadn't been expecting this to happen-she knew Elena would run. However, she also knew-and was sure Elena knew-it wouldn't take long for Katherine to catch up to her and drag her back to the car. As soon as Katherine determined which direction was the most potent with Elena's scent, she paused to stare at the stiff figure of the light-haired man slumped against the tree trunk. He sputtered out a soft, barely detectable cough, but the slight rise in his chest gave it away. He was still alive. She could feel that knot twisting in her stomach again, and realized startled that it was not disgust at all-it was guilt. She shook her head as if to banish the ridiculous thought, it had been centuries since she'd allowed herself to feel guilt. And for what? For some whiny human bitch who just happened to share her face?
She cut her wrist quickly and shoved it forcefully down the man's throat, feeling him steadily begin to suck from the wound. Once she was satisfied she'd given him enough, she gripped his neck and pulled him up to her eye level. "You won't remember either of us or anyone attacking you. The last thing you remember is walking through the woods before you blacked out. You're certain that an animal must have attacked you, and you will go back to wherever you came from to seek help with your injuries." His eyes dilated in response to her compulsion and he wordlessly limped off in the other direction.
She gritted her teeth in agitation-it had been over three centuries since she'd bothered to heal someone she'd fed on. Why now? The question echoed in her mind, and she already knew the answer-but she would never admit it, not even in the security of her own mind.
She climbed into the front seat of the SUV they had abandoned on the side of the road and turned the ignition to roar the engine to life.
"He's dead. They're dead. They're all dead."
The sound of Elena's voice from the passenger seat made Katherine nearly jump in surprise. If Elena had noticed Katherine's uncharacteristic display of shock, she didn't comment on it. Elena had run off-hadn't she? Had she really broken the excessively stubborn Elena Gilbert to the point where she'd given up fighting? The thought unnerved Katherine more than she dared to show.
"I fed the man my blood," Katherine said nonchalantly, as if her uncharacteristic display of kindness towards a human meant nothing, "He won't remember what happened-he'll be fine, Elena."
Katherine could see Elena struggling with how to respond to that, opening her mouth several times before dejectedly closing it and leaning back in the seat, rubbing her forehead softly to ease the tension of their current predicament. Katherine pulled the car into drive and sharply turned back onto the highway, once again resuming their path down I-64 to St. Louis.
Despite the car being shrouded in shadows of darkness, she could still see the 'thank you' embedded in Elena's-thankfully once again soft and expressive with emotion-deep brown eyes.
'Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface.'
It'd been seven hours since Elena locked herself in the second upstairs bedroom with nothing but a black spiral bound notebook, a smooth textured fountain pen that she was sure cost more than the package deals she usually bought by the bulk at Staples, and a blood bag that she forced herself not to look too closely at when she drank. For the first five hours, she had done everything in her power to block the sounds of Katherine pacing downstairs, but she was unsure how this new heightened vampire hearing actually worked and gave up after a while. Luckily, the pacing had stopped and was replaced with an eery silence. Now she was beginning to grow worried. Had Katherine left her here? As much as she despised the thought, the security of knowing Katherine was downstairs was preferable to succumbing to the to truth of how miserably alone she truly was.
With that thought in mind, she trotted down the staircase, hesitatingly only slightly when she reached the bottom and noticed how large this house really was. She could easily spend twenty minutes trying to find Katherine in this maze of old portraits, antique furniture and brick fireplaces. Thankfully, it didn't take long because she found the vampire lounging lazily on a chaise in front of a lit fireplace, a bottle of something unmistakably alcoholic teetering unsteadily in her left hand.
"Elena!" She exclaimed, far more chipper than Elena felt was necessary for the situation. "C-come and sit with me. I wanna tell you a story."
Elena eyed her skeptically, but sat down on the couch opposite her. "You're drunk."
Katherine looked briefly offended, but then burst into laughter and nearly spilled some of the drink on the carpet. "Maybe," she said, a playful grin dancing on her face. "I wouldn't know-I don't get drunk often. Y'know, running for my life and all that." She whispered the last part as though it was a secret and giggled at Elena's face. "Aw, come on," Katherine teased, a mock pout on her lips. "Frowning has never been my best look, and neither is it yours."
"I'm not frowning," Elena said defensively. "And if I was, I'd have every reason to be."
"Right," Katherine smirked at her, "Because everyone you love is dead. Barbie vampire, the witch, your brother, the Salvatores. That sounds quite horrible. But guess what? Everyone I love is dead too-and has been for hundreds of years over." She took another sip of whatever it was she was drinking and leaned back, the curls in her hair draping over the back of the chaise. "Welcome to the club, my dear. The t-shirts are on back order, unfortunately."
"Are you trying to be uncommonly cruel or are you just naturally a bitch?" Elena spat, her eyes narrowing in annoyance.
"I'm trying," she emphasized, mimicking Elena's exasperated tone of voice and giggling again, "to get you to drink with me. Take it from someone with years of experience, alcohol is a fantastic grieving companion."
Elena scoffed at her and raised her chin in defiance. "What do you have to grieve about?"
Katherine just laughed. "You aren't even aware how self-centered you can be, are you Elena?"
"Right," Elena remarked, now mimicking her sarcastic tone of voice, "Because you loved Stefan. Who did you think you fooled with that one?"
Katherine didn't reply, her expression stoic and unreadable as she handed Elena the bottle of liquor.
"What is it?" Elena asked, apprehensive about what consequences could come from drinking with Katherine.
"Don't ask; no questions, no thinking. Just drinking."
Elena was vaguely aware that Katherine could be poisoning her, but she couldn't muster the energy to care. She might actually welcome a poisoning right now. And as the repeated sips of alcohol burned down her throat, she felt the tension pounding in her head slowly start to dissipate.
As Katherine draped the blanket over Elena's sleeping form snuggled into the couch, she smirked at the empty bottle of Gosling's Black Rum tucked under one of the cushions. She had never expected a drunk Elena to be that difficult to control. After insisting they play 'Never Have I Ever'-("Elena, I'm fucking five-hundred and thirty-seven years old, what haven't I done?")-and proceeding to dance around to the room when Katherine begrudgingly let her win, Elena traipsed around the kitchen, unknowingly knocking over the microwave in her attempt to find pop tarts, which she explained enthusiastically were the best thing to eat drunk. Twenty minutes into trying to convince Katherine to bring her to the store to buy a twister mat, she curled into the couch and asked what kind of movies Katherine had here. Unsure of how to explain to an intoxicated Elena that she hadn't exactly thought to stop at a video store while planning their getaway from Klaus, she was relieved when she turned back around to find her doppelgänger fast asleep.
Katherine pulled out her phone hastily and unlocked it to find an array of flashing messages beeping at her. 57 missed calls, 74 unread text messages and 33 new voicemails. Why was she even remotely surprised by this?
She slipped into the hallway and up the staircase, locking the door to the bathroom behind her, not willing to take even the slightest chance of Elena overhearing. The words Damon Salvatore flashed brightly under a picture of the aforementioned vampire giving the camera a trademark cocky grin. She took a deep breath and hit send, waiting barely even one full ring before the voice from the other line greeted her-if you could call it a greeting.
"Where the fuck are you, Katherine? If you've even touched her, I won't hesitate to rip your head off."
"So polite, Damon. Is that the way you greet everyone on the phone?" Katherine jeered at him.
"Where are you? Where's Elena?"
"Elena's here-she's fine. I'm afraid you can't speak to her right now though, poor little darling is passed out on the couch."
"What did you do?" His voice was a low, threatening growl but Katherine simply laughed.
"I didn't do anything, Damon. But your girl-" Katherine broke off, a smirk gracing her lips, "Damn, she's quite the drunk."
"Katherine, don't play games with me. Where are you?"
She sighed, knowing that it would come to this-knowing she would have to tell him eventually. "I can't tell you, Damon." Her voice was low and dejected, and she almost cringed at hearing herself sound so vulnerable.
"Enough of the bullshit, Katherine, stop playing around-you don't understand. We have a real problem with Klaus, and I need to find Elena. Tell me where you are."
Katherine might have laughed at the irony of his statement if she wasn't so distressed.
"No Damon, I'm afraid you don't understand. This is the problem with Klaus-I can't tell you where we are."
So, this story was originally going to be a songfic to 'One More Night' by Maroon 5. But, as happens with most stories, it developed a mind of it's own and refused to be what I wanted it to be. And thus, it ended up being this. I'm not really sure what this is just yet, but I've got an idea. I've been reading Kat/Elena for such a long time now I began to ask myself why I hadn't written any. And I wasn't really sure, so here is my attempt. I know there wasn't any smut (boo!) and I'm sorry for that, but this chapter was much more about dictating the plot, flow and characterization of this story than anything else. I promise some fun times later. ;)
For now I'm rating this story as 'T' because there is absolutely nothing in this chapter that warrants an 'M' but I'm 99% certain that the rating will change with future chatpers. Just a heads up.
Hope you enjoyed this, person reading this right now! :D
Drop me a line, I'd love to hear your suggestions, praise, critiques, flames... whatever you've got to say, bring it on.
:)