Title: I have died...
Fandom: Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairings: Katherine, Elena (Elijah/Klaus/Stefan/Damon)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I claim nothing, the PTB won all the things...
Summary:Katherine listens to a song...
Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
Running. She was always running. An always hovering presence. Even if the world saw her standing still, there was always a rushing sound in her ears, a breeze that picked up the tips of her long hair and tugged whispering. Run, run, run. She felt forever trapped in-between coming and going. There was no longer anywhere to go, no comforting arms to hold her when she arrived, nothing to leave behind when she went.
How can you run if there is nothing before and nothing behind?
She thinks sometimes of the girl that she once was – the girl that didn't know the significance of her own face, the one who could look in the mirror at herself and smile at the face that others saw, others wanted, others loved… now she sees her face everywhere – in the past, the future, in the girl whose life so clearly reflects her own, in the eyes of the men she loved, loves, could love. She is always never the beginning never the end, but always both. The face that they see – the face that is loved – is not just her own. She stands in the center of a world where her face is merely a reflection of someone before, someone after, someone not her own self. A girl that stands for eternity – with no name, no memories, no story, no voice – only a face reflected throughout time. A face cursed by men who loved once. Men who seem incapable of letting her face stand for herself and not for the memory of what once was. That other face was always there, hovering on the edge of every conversation, a shadow that haunted her very existence.
How to be brave
How can I love when I'm afraid
To fall
Even the first is a copy, and even a copy can be the first memory. There could be no original in her face, in her life, in her actions. Even the first has a copy, and even the first can be a copy of a memory. The second means just as much as any first.
There is no room for her.
But watching you stand alone
The day she fell in love with a tall man with a kind smile and slightly mischevious eyes, she had felt the world was finally full. She was still so young – she always felt both infant and aged – she had never known love before, she threw herself into it fully. His laugh filled her belly with warmth. She forgot past pain when trapped in his gaze. She saw her reflection in his eyes and she was beautiful. She filled herself with love for him. She was still so young.
All of my doubt
Suddenly goes away somehow
Before, there were hurried embraces hidden in shadows. Children reaching to each other in confusion. A boy she had known all through her childhood. Together they played at being adults. It was messy and wet, most of the time. Together, they shed tears and laughed. They felt as if it were only possible to be the most real versions of themselves when together, hot and rough. They rolled around like new puppies, delighted in the presence of the other, delighted in their own bodies… until the pain drove them apart.
Drove her away into her own darkness.
She thought those moments were the darkest the world had to offer. She had been wrong. That moment had merely been a shadow of the darkness hiding within her own heart, waiting for a release.
One step closer
His kiss tasted like sunshine.
She didn't realize, while tumbling with a mere child like herself, that lips could taste like ideas – that the rough touch of a tongue could feel like the abstract dream of a word that meant nothing.
That oblivion could feel so solid and soft to the touch.
I have died everyday waiting for you
She did not know it then – could not have known – that there was a frantic frenzy to his touch, that his wandering hands never stilled because they could never stop searching for something that she could not give. Searching for something – someone – that she could not be. She was always and never the answer. Always and never the reason.
Sometimes in the night, she closes her eyes and remembers, relives, reimagines their brief moments. She sees now, in the memory of his eyes, a question that she did not know the answer to. It became a source of exasperation to her later: the once-held belief in a love that she did not fully know the meaning of.
Meaning, she would later find, was prioritized by those that had more power than she. It was a point that kept her grasping, running, searching…
Darlin' don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
It was the brother that woke her from her fantasy. It was the brother that brought her back to reality… it would not be the first time that she would be at the mercy of brothers, that she would feel the pull of two such diametrically opposed yet connected hearts.
She had never known dependency like theirs. Had never seen love like theirs. The whirlwind that she was caught in was between them – had nothing to do with her. She was a mere leaf blown on the wind of their bond, their betrayal, their love, their shared pain, their shared fear.
They were the one and she was the second. They were connected and she was never so truly alone as when she believed that either could be hers; that she could belong to either when they so fully belonged to each other.
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Brothers. A lesson frozen in time, like her own face and mind. She thought, with the second set, that she could reverse it all – send cosmic payback through the centuries.
That she could keep herself detached, distant ... that she could break them apart and leave them both as shattered as she felt.
At first it had been so easy, at first these two had just been copies of those who had never seen her before. One's kiss, the other's smile had been mere echoes from long ago. Memories that whispered at her through her dreams now in the flesh, now at her mercy, now only carrying the meaning she gave them. She stripped their power away, dressed them and played with them as she had once been played with, in the name of an other face. In the name of her own desire and ruthlessness.
Thousand more
One kiss was all it took to make these dreams solid.
One kiss was all it took for her heart to cling to one more than another.
Time stands still
beauty in all she is
What they couldn't understand… what she could never fully explain even to herself… was that in the moment when she knew they would have to be left behind, she had her first moment of doubt. She could take one, probably. She could choose one, potentially. She could seek one out at some point.
But there was no choosing. Not right then. Not for many years later. And even in those moments when she would claim – oh yes, she would claim it true – to have always loved the one more than the other, there would be a niggling doubt.
I will be brave
I will not let anything
When she came back, she found another girl with the face that plagued her mirror.
Take away
When she came back, she always knew she would have to come back, there was another girl's heart at the mercy of another windstorm between two brothers; another girl with a face as ageless as time itself; another girl straddling the line between her own inner purity and darkness.
In the eyes of the brothers she saw another's face reflected back at her, just like before. She was always living a repeat of someone else's life. Even these two – these that belonged to her, these that she had created with her own blood and … they were no longer hers. The game she had once taught them to play they were now masters of and her part in the puzzle was now decided by them. Her piece had been taken away while she lurked in the shadows: unseeing, unknowing.
Unaware of how desperately she relied on it to keep going.
What's standing in front of me
Now.
Now she was the darkness and the other was the light.
Now she was the demon and the other was the saint.
Now she was the monster and the other was the angel.
Now she was no longer the creator, the glorified mother, the desired beauty, the damsel in distress, the victim – now she was the outsider, the villain.
Every breath,
Every hour has come to this
Running. She was always running. She never had a place, even in her own story.
One step closer
It didn't matter now, whether she was the victim or villain, angel or demon, darkness or light. They had decided for her. Time repeats itself. And Katherine was never not the victim of time. Of history. Even the men she had created for herself – the men who were supposed to one day find that they were mere reflections of the past, had stripped her own self away from her, given it to another girl with her face.
I have died everyday
Waiting for you
She thought sometimes of being the villain they so clearly needed her to be. In the past, she had chosen to not be the victim they needed of her … there was always a problem with her personal pronouns now… she could never quite determine which they.
Darlin' don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
The other. The new one. The girl with a face that had never belonged to anyone, the face that they presume existed only for their own story.
She was fierce. Katherine watched her from beneath, delighting in every victory – even if it was over her. She could never say, could never let slip, could never reveal – how much she loved the face in the mirror. How much she clung to the potential of a life that prescribed its own meaning.
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
There was also bitterness, sure – she was tired of this game. She was tired of watching this game played out. It wasn't just in a face – it was in the memory. How many girls had she seen get trapped in this game? A game played by vampires, werewolves, witches, humans alike.
Men didn't seem to change, whether supernatural or not. They were always seeking a perfection, a memory, that couldn't exist. Had never existed. The draw of the face, the body, the hands of an angel was in a memory that had never been.
How? How can they grasp for something that is not real, when what is solid is so much more than anything their minds could create.
Thousand more
Even the first is a copy, and even a copy can be the first memory. There could be no original in her face, in her life, in her actions. Even the first has a copy, and even the first can be a copy of a memory. The second means just as much as any first.
There is no room for her.
There was no room for any of them in this game that was played without their choice.
And all along I believed
I would find you
For this, Katherine fought for her piece in the puzzle back. For this, she fought against and for her position as villain. Villain? Sure. If that's what she needed to do to get her piece back on the board. If that's what it took to gain power over any of them.
But the monster – the angel – they only had the power to live in their state.
Time has brought
Your heart to me
For her, she kept fighting. For the younger, she kept reaching for the light. For the younger, she kept pushing them all towards the darkness.
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
She watched the younger seek the Dark One.
She watched the younger seek the Light One.
She watched the choice become blurred, watched the Dark One follow the younger into the light, the Light One seek out the darkness. She watched them play a new game, one that she did not create the rules for.
She delighted in their escapism, in their ability to break out of their roles.
She hated them for their escapism, in their ability to break out of their roles.
Thousand more
She delighted in the idea of winning.
One step closer
As if for the sake of them all, she would keep playing.
I have died everyday
Waiting for you
Darlin' don't be afraid,
I have loved you for a
There was a fine line between winning and losing.
She was no longer sure if this game could have a victor.
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more
She saw, in the young girl with her face, the same potential for darkness that had once lingered like the taste of berries in her mouth on a summer day. She also saw the light that she had once possessed, beaming out at her threatening to consume everything all at once. She saw, in the reflection of her that wandered the streets and touched the men she had once touched, straddle the line between light and dark, embrace both simultaneously and with as much fervor as Katherine had once embraced the brothers she had created.
It was endearing.
It was frightening.
It was intoxicating.
And all along I believed
I would find you
Time has brought
Shadows and reflections danced across the landscape of such a long life, of such a long dream.
What was solid was never grasped, what was malleable was always heavy on her heart.
Your heart to me
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more
"Katherine, seriously?" Stefan reached from the backseat of the car to turn the radio station dial. Immediately, something with an electric guitar blared out of the speakers and Stefan sat back with satisfaction.
Katherine surreptitiously brushed a stray bit of moisture on her cheek away and looked slyly to her right, Damon's face was turned away from her as if he was suddenly fascinated with the scenery.
"I heard she wrote that song for Bella and Edward," little Caroline piped up from her seat between Stefan and Elena. Stefan exhaled a loud sigh and Katherine could hear him muttering something to Vampire Barbie … whatever argument he was simmering up was only going to make this "road trip" longer, especially if Damon decided to get involved.
She peeked into the rearview mirror at her doppelganger. Elena's eyes were shining and bright, but she met Katherine's gaze in the mirror without shame.
It was only a moment, a brief second of mutual understanding, but right then: it mattered for the first time in Katherine's long life.
For the first time she truly felt a connection with the girl behind the mirror.