Disclaimer: I don't own TO, don't want to, and this is entirely anti-Hayley Marshall and anti-Haylijah.
...
In light of an awful series finale with no closure or glimpse of what came next whatsoever,
I decided to explore the idea of what happened to Elijah post death. Obviously he has some unfinished business to attend to…
"Like Kats and Dogs"
The last thing he remembered was Niklaus' face turning to ash before his eyes. His heart was wrecked from the sight, but he rested easy knowing his brother's redemption was finally off his conscience and that his family would live fulfilled lives, even without him.
He walked through the empty mansion they had once inhabited with a complacent smile, reminiscing over the many memories they'd made here. He hadn't expected the return to Mystic Falls in his death, but given that it was his birthplace, it made sense. Given that this mansion was where his family was reunited, it was perfect.
Everything was still in place the way they had left it and yet something was different. He couldn't place it. As he cut through the ball room he ran his hand along the railing of the spiral staircase where they addressed the small town for the first time as a unit. He passed through the hallway and glimpsed the hole in the wall of the study where he and Klaus had fought. The recollection made him smile.
His steps echoed against the walls as he walked and he grew more and more curious as to why he couldn't seem to find his brother. Surely they would have been brought to the same place, but life after death could be tricky. Perhaps this could be another door situation.
And then another thought crossed his mind. Having lived his life as a man of his word, he expected to fulfill a very important he promise he'd made to another no longer among the living. One dance, and a thousand eternities. And yet no spirits to be found in this carcass of a house.
A gust of wind whooshed behind him making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He stopped in his tracks, shoulders setting as he hardened his stance in defense.
"Niklaus?" he called out, his voice booming back to him with no response. His eyes narrowed and he turned his head suspiciously. "…Hayley?"
A scoffing laugh echoed in the wind, a malicious whisper in his ear. His blood ran cold, heat flushing through his body in a scalding sensation. He recognized that sound. He'd longed for it for centuries, chased it down like his very own elixir of life.
He could feel her looming with every fiber of his being. When he turned around, she was there in the doorway of the Great Room, one hand on the door panel and the other propped against her popped hip, her head tilted just enough to make her curls spill down her shoulder. Her eyes bore the Devil's stare.
"Don't look so disappointed," she greeted him.
He blinked slowly and the breath he had been holding finally released. "Katerina." He didn't bother to hide the disillusion from his voice.
She perked up with a playful little bounce in her step as she meandered his way. "Happy to see me?"
"Confused would be a more appropriate term."
"I know. You were expecting someone else. Spoiler alert - she's not here." She raised her finger. "But the real question is, why did you get sent to the same place that I did?"
His expression cooled. "Obviously this is Hell." And though his tone implied insult, his smirk contradicted.
"It was," she agreed with a wicked grin all her own, stalking toward him predatorily. "Until you got here."
"If I am doomed to spend forever being manipulated by more of your mind games, then yes, I do believe this is Hell." She began to circle him and he felt very much familiar with being her prey. "What are you doing?"
"Taking you in." She tsked. "The years have not been good to you."
"Are you going to tell me why you're here?"
"Why am I here in general or why am I here and not Hayley?" He tried to show no emotion but she caught the flicker in his eyes, the twitch of his brow, the way his head jerked just a little. "I guess not all dogs go to Heaven." She grinned and went down the hallway toward where the kitchen used to be.
His heart twisted at the notion but something beckoned him to follow after her. She was helping herself to a drink at the island; red wine which she preemptively sipped from the bottle before putting it back in the wine fridge below. He watched her curiously, as she moved to the full sized fridge next and then to one of the cabinets, fixing to make herself a platter of cheeses to go with her drink. She was so oddly at home.
"How long have you been here?"
She popped a block of gouda in her mouth as she mulled it over. "I lost count. How many years has it been?"
"You've been here since the day you died?"
"Well, not the whole time. The first time I died I wound up in Bulgaria where I got to see my human life on loop. So boring. Then, after I came back to get my vengeance and Stefan killed us both, I came here. No memories, no people, just a big empty house that I can never leave."
His eyes widened. Just as she expected, he made a vampiric beeline for the door. She leaned over the counter and waited for the inevitable. The door slammed shut and he reappeared within minutes, gaping like a lost little puppy.
"Try the back door this time. It's a trip."
"Why am I unable to leave?" She shrugged and it infuriated him even more. "What aren't you telling me, Katerina? WHY are you here?"
She spread her arms across the counter, palms down, leaning forward with a secretive look. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you." His glare made her wink and she righted herself, taking up her glass to down almost half of it. "Maybe it's Hell's way of killing two birds with one stone." She rounded the island, slowly nearing him. "I get to spend an eternity watching you brood over the baby mama you wanted to be with, and you – "
"Get to spend an eternity watching youbrood over the Salvatore who never wanted to be with you."
Her spine straightened at that. "If that's what you think, then you don't know me at all."
"You seemed pretty adamant about him from what little I'd heard."
"Aw, you were keeping tabs." She tugged his tie with a mocking pout, speaking through clenched teeth, "That. Is so. Cute."
He grabbed her wrist and yanked his neck away, detaching them from each other. She raised a brow, momentarily impressed, and he let her arm drop.
"What? Did you really think you were going to get your happily ever after, Elijah? None of us do." She rolled her eyes. "Except Elena. The world's precious gift to humanity."
Katherine turned her back again and returned to her wine glass. His palm swept over his chin and then he covered his mouth in distress. "This cannot be where I'm meant to be. I should be with my brother. With Hayley."
"And I should be with my daughter." Her eyes pierced his. "Instead I'm stuck here in this stupid house with you. You think I want to be here?"
"How do I know this isn't some illusion you created to trap me with you?"
She laughed in ridicule. "Yeah, let me just use the magic I don't have in my back pocket to create a prison world where I'm stuck with the man who didn't even try to come and see me on my death bed. Because that's ideal."
His face turned solemn, rueful even. "I wanted to come," he confessed quietly. "But I couldn't watch..." He licked his lower lip. "I wasn't ready to..."
"Ready or not, you should have been there. I deserved that much."
"You're right."
"I know." She flipped her hair coolly. "One of the perks of being me. I'm always right."
Elijah sighed and his eyes drifted to her half-empty drink. He picked it up and finished it off for her, ignoring the look of affronted disbelief on her face. He looked down at the residual red droplets in the glass with scrutiny.
"Did you miss me?" she inquired. "Did you even mourn my death?"
"I allowed myself a grieving period."
"What, five minutes?"
"Six, actually." The amused sparkle in his eyes made her heart rise against her and she had to smile. "One for every century."
He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he brushed past her to get around the counter. It was his turn to take the edge off now and his chosen poison – whiskey. Typical. She stayed as she was, at the corner of the island, leaning over it with her empty glass between her hands, watching his every move.
It was a clever counter to her attacks, playing on her heart strings and not rising to her bait. Still, she was nowhere near done and as as delighted as she was when he showed up, she was never one to let the people who hurt her go unscathed.
"So the burning question on everyone's mind, and by everyone I mean me, why did you really go to New Orleans?"
He kept his eyes on what he was doing, keeping his voice neutral. "To be with my family."
"Please. You didn't have to go with them. You chose to, leaving me high and dry without so much as a reason why. And don't say Klaus because that got old fast."
He pressed his palms into the marble surface and looked up at her at last. "You lied to me, Katerina."
"So what? People lie. I was covering my ass."
"You were using me, just as you always have."
"Yes, Elijah, I was using you. Who else could I have turned to that would have helped me make a truce with Klaus? It's not like Rebekah was ever my biggest fan."
"I was going to help you," he argued. "Until you killed an innocent person for no other reason than because you could."
"You wanted the cure. I got it. Tell me, how many people had to needlessly die during one of your benders with Klaus?" Her eyes turned cold then. "Or how about we talk about your little wolf girlfriend?"
His eye flicked to hers dangerously. "Choose your next words wisely, Katerina."
"Or what, you'll kill me?" She tilted her head with a bemused look. "Can you kill someone who's already dead?"
He took a long drink of his whiskey and set his jaw. "I assure you, making you a test subject is not out of the realm of possibility."
"Just admit it. You gave up on us."
"Once upon a time I would have given everything to have untethered myself from Niklaus and run off with you somewhere remote in the world, where we could have lived our lives in peace and in love. But I realized, after you killed Jeremy Gilbert, that you would never be the girl I wanted to spend my life with. And so I had to let you go. You would have never stopped using me to your benefit."
Damn. That one stung. Right to the very core. Luckily, she knew exactly what to do with pain.
"You wanna go? The man who imprisoned an innocent girl so that his brother could kill her to become the biggest baddest wolf on the planet. Didn't think I forgot about that did you?"
"I admit to past flaws, but at least I have learned from my mistakes."
"So have I. Maybe my methods are a little...unorthodox, but I do what I have to to survive. I wouldn't have had to do that if you hadn't put a target on my back. It is not my fault that the girl you loved got buried in all the ruthless things I had to do." Her adrenaline was coursing at record speed, the cold rush of rage making her muscles tremble. "And you know what? I have no regrets. I may not have been as free as I should have been, but at least the life I lived was mine."
His eyes rolled tiredly. "If your intended implication – "
"Oh it's not an implication. It's a fact. I'm not the one who spent their time cleaning up after my brother's messes, wallowing in how if only you had just been a second earlier you might have been able to save him from himself."
"Do you honestly think that you are in a position to judge me and the way that I live my life?"
"Is that a trick question?" She smirked at his blatant agitation. "I mean, come on, Elijah. You fell for your brother's sloppy seconds. Fool me once..." Her hand slid along the edge of the marble as she meandered his way, making her way to where he stood until her hand no longer touched the cold hard surface and instead layered over his. "But that's your thing, isn't it?" she crooned, now close enough to send a shiver down his spine. "Swooping in and saving your brother's victims? Especially helpless, pregnant – or previously pregnant – girls, with no one else to turn to."
He smiled, tight-lipped, curling the lower one inward to bite down in frustration, his eyes narrowing in hatred. "Actually strong, independent women with unparalleled compassion."
"Yeah." She snorted. "I'm sure she had a lot of compassion for all the hybrids she killed on her way to the top."
"We're done here." He stormed past her, leaving the kitchen to head back up the hall towards the foyer.
She grinned to herself. "Oh, I'm just getting started."
He turned the bend and escaped into the Great Room only to find her sitting on one of the ottomans.
"So if you slept with Hayley, and Klaus slept with Hayley, does that mean you've had sex with your brother?" She paused and her grimace became a pout. "Actually, that would explain a lot."
He glared and sped out of the room and started for the front door again. He whipped it open and took a step out onto the front porch and for a brief moment he was reprieved. And then he was thrust backwards into the house by an invisible force, sending him sliding along the floor to where he hit the base of the staircase. Katherine was sitting only a few steps above him, now filing her nails. She stopped, holding the thin emery board upright.
"What if you got married? Would the kid call you Uncle Elijah or Stepdaddy?" He snarled and got on his feet, whooshing up the opposite flight of stairs away from her but she was there at the top just the same. "It's a valid question."
"Why won't you let me be?!"
"And pass up all this fun?" She pretended to think about. "Yeah. Not happening."
He grabbed her shoulders in a desperate attempt. "What is it you want from me, Katerina? Groveling? To drop to my knees and beg for your mercy?"
"It's not a bad idea, but no. I want you to hurt." She stepped forward and he began a backwards descent, carefully feeling his way to each step as she slowly descended on him. "I want you to know how it feels. To never be free. Or be with the person you put all of your faith and trust in. To have someone who hates you always just a few steps behind you to make sure you never know a moment of peace."
"You can't hate me forever, Katerina."
"I've got all of eternity. And it's just you and me here." She leaned in and her breath crept along his neck until her lips brushed his ear as she whispered sweetly, "We're going to have so much fun together…"