"Are you playing me, Katarina?"
She stands with her legs apart, shoulders back, her eyes forcing his gaze upon them. They are miles apart, it seems, yet if he reaches out enough, he'll touch her.
She swallows. She doesn't look down or sigh or show any sign of regret or fear. She just swallows.
"Yes."
With that one word his entire world crumbles to the floor, because he thought he had his Katarina back.
He starts to walk away, his pace brisk yet he refuses to run. She's the one who runs.
"No! Elijah," She grabs his arm and forces him to look at her. "It's not like that."
He stops, and when he straightens they are so close he can feel her unnecessary breaths.
"Then Katherine," She flinches at the name she chose and not the one she was given, "Why are you afraid."
Her eyes are alight with a distant fear.
"Because you're going to kill me."
"Why? Who do you assume that I-"
"Because he wants you to, Elijah. He told you to. You do everything Klaus asks. You were going to kill me, so I... I pretended I loved you."
Pretended?
"So it is true Katherine. That you are using me. Again."
"Yes, but... I only pretended because I'm the manipulative bitch that no one cares for, and I do care Elijah, but we don't know each other anymore. I don't know me anymore. I don't know anything anymore, Elijah. I'm not that girl. I don't believe in love , I can't trust it. Not now, not when... not when I've used it against so many people."
"Why do you assume that I wish you dead Katarina?"
She's innocent now. Honest. He can feel he's getting her back.
"I saw you on the phone. I'm not an idiot, Elijah."
He smirks and looks away in the same almost-laugh Klaus has, and she fears it. But then he grasps her arm and laughs, pulling her closer.
"Katarina, why must you assume that everything is about you?"
She smirks a Tatia smirk, but he enjoys it, because she's using it to humour him.
"Isn't it, Elijah? Your brother spent half a millennia chasing me, the Salvatore's entire history is spent on my love, and ... well, there are a few others."
She pulls away from him, and turns in the opposite direction, placing her heeled feet in front of her delicately and seductively, and she smirks as she feels the jealousy rolling off him in waves. Oh, she thinks, this is such a Katherine thing to do. But she's spent five hundred years in this facade, it will be so difficult to grow out of it.
His footsteps follow her on the pavement.
"Others?"
This is too easy.
"Yes. Caleb Lockwood? Of course, I've had fun with others, but let's not waste the dawn on people I can't remember."
"Is that it Katarina? Is this you now? Using ... SEX as some kind of tool?"
This isn't the way it was supposed to be. She turns around to face him in a blaze of fury.
"Really, Elijah? Hypocrite, much? I wonder who I learnt that little skill from?"
He grabs her arm and forces her to him again.
"Are . You. Playing. Me?"
"Yes, Elijah. I told you. I thought you were trying to kill me, so I gave you the cure and made you think that I was in love with you so you'd shove it down Klaus's throat. But you didn't. Now, it's nothing but us, and yet you still don't trust me."
"How can I? When your holding your conquests above me like toys to a child?"
She shrieks, and it's so out of character that she stomps her feet like a pepetulent child.
"Christ, Elijah! That is me, OK? I am a manipulative bitch, teasing children is what I do now, OK?"
"No, Katarina. Not OK. This isn't you!"
"Really, then what is me? The child you left to Niklaus and Trevor because you were too God damned afraid to take yourself?"
"Yes. Yes, Katarina. That is you."
"No," she falls to the floor as her legs give way beneath her, "That isn't me anymore. So you can love me or leave me, because I am done having my heart broken. Not Stefan or Damon or ... God I actually wanted your brother, but no. Because of who I am. Take me or leave me. You don't get to play with me and drop me when you're done, Elijah. That's my game."
He takes her hand and wraps it in his.
Then his lips capture hers, and she knows she won't ever play that game again.