Synopsis: After Katherine tells her Klaus will be coming for her, Elena runs away to keep him away from his family. Three months later she runs into a man in a coffee shop in New York who claims she reminds him of someone.
A response to the prompt: Ok so... Elena is on the run from Klaus (before sacrifice happened) and she meets Elijah,not knowing he is Klaus' brother :) (by BekahandNik on tumblr)
about to rain down tonight
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His name is Klaus, Katherine explains as she moves from the window seat where Elena had found her that night. And he will want to sacrifice you to break a very old curse.
Run, Katherine tells her, sinking down on her doppelgänger's bed, run as far as you can and don't look back. He will come for you. If you want your family safe, the best thing you can do is be far, far away from here.
And so she runs.
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She abandons her car in a parking lot five towns up and manages to get a ride east. She doesn't care where she's going exactly, but she knows Stefan (and probably Damon) will want to bring her back, so she tries to be as unpredictable as possible.
The first time Jeremy calls, she forgets she's on the run and answers the phone. He asks where she is, claims everyone is worried about her. She lets him finish his story before whispering sorry and it would be better if you forgot about me and take care of yourself Jeremy, and hanging up. She cries herself to sleep that night, clutching her phone to her chest as if the temporary connection would somehow allow her to hug her brother.
The next time he calls she lets it go to voice mail. Soon the messages start to pile up: Jeremy, Jenna, Bonnie, Caroline, Stefan, Alaric. Even Damon demands she tell him where she is. She never answers any calls anymore, but every night she presses play and listens to the messages her family and friends have left her. She listens as their messages turn from worried to angry to desperate to resigned, and hates herself.
After two months the messages arrive less frequently, but by that time she has already memorized the other messages. One night in May she's driving through the countryside in a stolen car, when her phone starts buzzing and she sees it's Jeremy. She parks the car at the side of the road as the call goes over into voice mail and she hears her brother's voice.
Jeremy is drunk. His ramblings echo in the silent car and Elena almost finds herself smiling fondly as she closes her eyes and lets her brother's voice roll over her. Like this it's almost as if he's in the car with her. It doesn't last long – nothing good ever does – one minute he's telling her about how aced a test in history thanks to Alaric and how much he loves her and then it suddenly goes quiet. She opens her eyes, fearing he had hung up, but then she hear the soft sniffling and she realizes that he's crying.
Elena, he whispers, so broken and confused that she immediately flashes back to that moment after Vicki's death. She wishes she could take away his pain, but this is for the best.
(It's what she tells herself every night after she listens to the recordings.)
(It doesn't make her hate herself less.)
Elena please come back, he whispers and she realizes that she's crying again. It seems like she's crying all the time now. (Stupid girl, she thinks, crying never helped anyone.)
Please don't leave me alone, he sobs.
I love you.
I need you.
No, she thinks. No you don't, you are better off without me.
(She really wishes she could believe it.)
Her hand finds the phone and before she realizes it she has cut him off. The silence that fills the car is oppressive and she claws at he door handle, suddenly feeling like she needs to escape the car, escape everything. Once outside the cold air presses against her lungs as she breathes, her tears now cold on her cheeks as the wind tugs at her jacket. She holds the phone in her hand and looks at it. She realizes then how selfish she's been. Don't look back, Katherine had said that night in her room, but all she had done these past months was look over her shoulder. The phone could be tracked, she had known that, deep down. She had known it, but she still kept it with her.
She can't keep doing this. She moves the hand with the phone back, still unable to keep her eyes of it. Then she closes her eyes and throws.
She's not going to put her family in danger any longer.
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She finds a job in a small coffee shop in New York. The pay is good and most of the customers are businessmen who are out for a small break. They are always in a hurry and she doubts they will remember the girl who served them their coffee, which makes this a relatively safe place to stay for a few weeks. She doesn't talk to the other employees any more than she has to. It isn't safe to make friends.
It starts out as a normal Thursday morning, maybe a little more busy than usual, but they hired another girl two days ago so the workload is even less than on some of the quieter days. She first notices him when he takes a seat in one of the tables in the corner of the room. The tables are rarely used, as most people do not have the time to take a longer break, but the way this man sits suggests that he has all the time in the world. It's a strange contradiction with the rest of the people in the coffee-shop and she can't help but glance at him from the corner of her eye as she's cleaning tables.
The man is wearing a suit, but unlike some of the other businessmen she sees every day, he knows how to wear it well. Even when sitting he gives off an air of being in charge and she wonders what company he works for. It must be an important one.
She's interrupted in her thoughts when one of the employees asks to switch with her and she suddenly finds her approaching the back of the room, where the man is still inspecting the menu. His brow is frowned as he reads and she crosses her fingers, hoping this won't be one of those men that want to order something that's not on the menu.
She stops in front of his table with her notebook out and he finally looks up. His eyes are brown, nearly the same shade as hers and they widen in what looks like surprise when he takes her in. Elena shifts the notebook from one hand to the other, suddenly uncomfortable.
"Would you like to order, sir?" she asks, tucking her hair behind her ear with one hand. His eyes are still stuck on her face, then suddenly he seems to recover from his surprise and he sits up straight.
"My apologies, miss, you reminded me of someone," he says in an accent that she can't quite place. It sounds American, but there is something about the cadence that reminds her of the newsreaders on the BBC. She tenses as she realized what he just said, but by now he isn't looking at her anymore, instead he's reading from the menu.
"I would like a cup of tea please, whichever flavour you have, no milk, no sugar." He looks up again and Elena can feel his eyes on her as she writes his order down.
"Where did you get that necklace?" he asks suddenly, abruptly, and her hand automatically flies to her neck where she still has the necklace Stefan gave her all those months ago. She looks at him, and he gives of a feeling of friendly curiosity, but his eyes are sharp and seem to be recording her every reaction.
"My boyfriend gave it to me," she tells him. She learned long ago that it's easier to tell the truth whenever possible, it meant less lies to remember.
The man only makes a non-committal noise.
"Can I get you anything else?" she asks, wanting to leave as fast as possible. She needs a moment to think about what just happened. Did this man know something? Did he know Katherine? Why was he interested in her necklace?
"That would be all, yes. Thank you," the man says as he surveys the room with his back against the wall.
Elena suddenly recognizes his choice of table for what it is. Caution. The tables in the back are rarely used, but they offer a great view of the entire coffee shop. This man had walked over to the seat without hesitation though, meaning it was probably a habit of his. She forces herself to look normal as she smiles at the man and turns to go.
She's just about to walk away when his voice stops her.
"Ah, please wait, I would like to change my order."
She turns back, a forced smile on her face.
"Of course," she says, "no problem."
He smiles back, but instead of reassuring her the smile only makes her want to run.
Run, Katherine echoes in her head, he will come for you.
"I will take my order to go," he states, and suddenly he is all business as he gets up and towers over her. "There has been a change in plans, I'm afraid I can't stay."
She decides then that she's going to leave New York the moment her shift is over. She's been running for nearly three months now and if it has taught her anything, it's to trust her instincts. Right now her instinct is screaming at her that this man is dangerous. He moves with the precision of someone who knows exactly what he's doing. Except for his moment of surprise when he first saw her he appeared to be in complete control of his body the whole time he was sitting there, not a single move was wasted. It screams vampire to her.
And he said she reminded him of someone.
"That's okay," she says, but she doesn't smile now and neither does he. "Just follow me please, you can wait at the counter."
He follows her through the shop and she's hyper-aware of the way his eyes are on her the whole time. At the counter she ducks around to fix him his tea, which she puts in one of the travel cups. It says coffee on top, but then outward appearances are often deceiving, this man in front of her is a perfect example of that. As is she, for that matter.
"Here's your tea, sir," she offers as she hands him the cup. His fingers are careful not to touch hers. He puts down a twenty dollar bill.
"Keep the change," he says, "thank you for the excellent service, Elena."
She freezes.
How did he know that? Then his eyes move down to her chest and she remembers the name plates that came with the uniforms. She relaxes slightly and smiles, but she can see from the faint curling of his mouth that he noticed her earlier tension.
"It was my pleasure, mister…" she trails off, looking closely at the man's face to see if he will be annoyed by her prying.
He isn't. Instead he almost looks amused by her attempts of getting information from him.
"Elijah. My name's Elijah."
He nods at her, straightens his jacket and turns to leave. Then he looks back at her and looks her straight in the eye.
"I hope to see you again sometime soon, Elena," he adds and with that he makes his way through the crowd in front of the other counters.
Yes, she is definitely getting out of town tonight.
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A/N: This was a response to a prompt and I finished it in one night. Technically the prompt was supposed to be three sentences but that didn't work out.
In case it wasn't clear, in this fic Katherine wants Elena out of the way early in season 2, so she tells her about Klaus and dopplegangers, but also says that running will keep her family safe. Of course in canon Katherine had other motives in coming back to Mystic Falls than just the Salvatores (such as planning to offer Elena to Klaus in return for a pardon), but I had to change something to fit the prompt.
A/N: Edited 22/8/2015 (spelling, grammar, minor sentence changes, etc)