Authors note: Takes place post season 3, but with some alterations. Everything went according to the plan – the Original siblings left Mystic Falls with Alaric on their trail. Klaus is desiccated and in their possession. Elena remained a human, peacefully living out her life.
I actually wrote this story somewhere in February, I think. Just some things happened along the way that have kept me away from writing (or in this case, revising). I would like to express my sincerest thanks to Pied Flycatcher, who helped me make this story better than it was in the first place and also gave me several pointers I hope not to forget. Thank you!
A Halt in Correspondence
1
Jeremy felt the corners of his mouth actually aching a bit. He hadn't laughed so much for a long time and even now, clearing up the dishes, he couldn't stop smiling like an idiot.
It had been a while since he'd seen his sister so they had tons of catching up to do. The past few hours had passed in a whoosh, sitting in the small living room of Elena's apartment in Atlanta, dining while they recounted the events of their busy lives.
Jeremy set the small pile of dishes next to the sink and turned to the refrigerator to retrieve a bottle of wine. He noticed the colorful postcard stuck onto the silvery door with a magnet, raising an eyebrow at it. Who sent postcards these days?
Curious, he dragged the magnet off the corner of the card and picked it up, examining the picture of what was apparently Edinburgh Castle. He turned the card over and was surprised to see elegant handwriting filling the back from top to bottom.
Elena,
As you might have guessed by the picture, my research has brought me to Scotland, but same could be said about personal preference. I'm quite glad to be back in Great Britain after a nearly half-a-century long absence. The weather has been cold, windy and somewhat rainy or, in other words – just as you predicted concerning the northern climate – very much to my taste.
Professor Harlow, an old acquaintance of mine from the University of Edinburgh, managed to coax me into going on a hunting trip in the Highlands (with rifles – there's nothing more distasteful than chasing majestic beasts with bare hands), which, I must admit, was quite a refreshing change after weeks spent going through dusty archive pages. I've forgotten the beauty of secluded glens and, as strange as it may sound, the thrill of a hunt. Now that the summer is coming to an end and the university is welling up with students once again, I will be moving on as well.
I was delighted to learn that your hard work is paying off and that you are on the fast track on the career ladder. I still feel the need to remind you not to forget to 'live a little'. That's one of these things you might otherwise regret later in life. I highly recommend visiting Scotland, for example, or the UK in general. I'm sure you'd love it here.
As per usual, I cannot tell you where I'm going, but you know how to reach me.
Elijah.
Elijah? Jeremy thought with some confusion. Why would Elijah write to his sister?
Now, years after that particularly hectic period in his life, it all seemed like some old, forgotten myth that sounded hardly plausible to begin with.
Life hadn't been easy on him and Elena after Alaric's death (Jeremy refused to acknowledge his evil vampire version, presumably lurking around somewhere out there), but somehow they had managed to pick up the mangled pieces and fit them back together again.
After the Salvatore brothers left at Elena's plea and Caroline and Tyler scattered to the wind, their lives had slowly turned back to normal. Of course Elena had been devastated at first – letting go of two guys she had loved and also two of her very good friends all at the same time had been heartbreaking, but they both knew it was for the best. The Salvatore's would have only destroyed each other if they had stayed and Caroline and Tyler couldn't exactly continue living their lives in Mystic Falls after being exposed to the council.
So in time Elena and Jeremy both left for collage, graduated, got jobs and the supernatural became nothing more but a faded memory.
But now, for an instant, it all flooded back to the surface of Jeremy's mind – the alleged curse of the sun and the moon, Klaus and the sacrifice that had stolen his aunt away from him and had almost ended with Elena's death (well, technically, it had). He recalled Elijah being very much eager to send his sister to the slaughter, all to fulfill some ancient revenge scheme, and his fists clenched instinctively at the thought.
Then he thought about the day Klaus died and the anger evaporated as quickly as it had emerged. Because in the end… in the end he had saved her. Elijah's deal had given their lives back to them and Jeremy felt so very thankful for that.
"Jeremy?"
He flinched. Someone had just called his name and it sure as hell wasn't Elena. The very next moment he flinched again when he realized a man was standing right beside him, hands folded behind his back as he regarded him with a resigned look.
For a moment he could only stare. "Elijah, is it?" he said after he'd composed himself, bending to pick up the postcard he'd dropped.
Elijah smiled gracefully, nodding, and a sense of relief reflected in his black eyes.
"Are-are you looking for Elena?" Jeremy asked. "Because she's in the living room."
Normally he would have been more than a little alarmed upon seeing a vampire in the middle of the kitchen, but considering the amicable words he'd read behind the postcard and the fact that he had been obviously invited into his sister's apartment, he figured there was no reason to worry.
"Actually I was looking for you," Elijah said.
Jeremy's brow rose. "Me?"
"Yes," he confirmed, smiling slightly, and Jeremy noted there was a strange look on Elijah's face as if there was something obvious he was missing. And it was made even more peculiar by the fact that despite the barely-there smirk, Elijah looked kind of sad. "I would like you to pass on a message to Elena."
"Pass on?" He felt stupid. "But she's in the next room…?"
The truth hit him like a bucketful of cold water. He hadn't seen someone like that in a very long time.
"You're… dead?" he asked with complete astonishment.
"Yes," he replied calmly. "Will you tell her for me?"
"I-I suppose," Jeremy wondered for an instant how close the two of them had been, hoping such news wouldn't leave his sister devastated yet again. He hated seeing her like that.
Elijah gave him a thankful nod, his eyes shining warmly for once. "Tell her I received her letter and I'm glad to hear everything is turning out the way she had wanted. Tell her…" He stopped and Jeremy got the feeling he wanted to say something he wouldn't have wanted to be passed on by somebody else, something personal. "Tell Elena I'm happy for her," he continued after a brief pause, "and that I enjoyed our correspondence."
"I will," Jeremy promised a little breathlessly. It never got easier or less troubling talking to the deceased. "But…" he couldn't help the words coming out of his mouth, "…but how? Did he-" He just couldn't say 'Alaric'. It wasn't Alaric. Not anymore.
Elijah looked away, that oddly resigned smile still in place. "It doesn't matter. Tell her not to worry about me."
Then he was gone.
Jeremy wandered back into the living room, feeling as if he was in a dream. His heart clenched when he saw his sister humming happily to herself while she cut the cake he had brought to celebrate her promotion at work into generous slices.
She must have noticed him at the doorway. "Great, you got the wine," she remarked without turning around. "I think the corkscrew is in the sideboard drawer."
Jeremy walked across the room and set the bottle on the coffee table with a soft thump, making Elena look up at him. He wished he could have postponed the truth, but it wasn't really their thing. After everything that had happened they had learned the importance of honesty and he wasn't going to back down on it now.
Elena took in his slightly paled face and glum expression. "What happened? Is something wrong?"
"I saw someone," Jeremy said. "A ghost."
"What?" Elena's eyes grew wide and fear snuck into her features. Seeing ghosts was never good news. "Who did you see?"
"Elijah."
"No," was the first word she uttered. Like an automatic reflex. "Elijah? How could you have seen him?"
"I was reading the postcard on the fridge, the postcard he sent you," Jeremy explained, "and then, out of the blue, he appeared. I can only guess he'd been waiting for me to notice him."
Elena sank into the couch, a disbelieving look on her face, rubbing her forehead absent-mindedly. "It can't be…"
Jeremy sat down next to her, leaning closer.
"You never talked about him," he said, trying to shed some light on the whole thing. He wanted to make sense of this so he would know how to console his sister. "I- Well, I thought he left for good that night he came to the house to make that deal."
"He did," Elena muttered and he thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. She laughed shortly and to no purpose, wiping her eyes that threatened to overflow. "We just sent letters, it was nothing, really," she said, trying to sound nonchalant when she was so obviously upset.
Jeremy wrapped one arm around her shoulders and she leaned her head against his.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
Elena didn't know why the news of Elijah's death had affected her so strongly. They hadn't even seen each other for nearly ten years, simply trading letters with inconsistent intervals, just exchanging bits and pieces of their lives, discussing ideas, beliefs, principles and other stuff like that.
It was nothing.
Anyway, that's what Elena kept telling herself as she prepared for bed. Jeremy had said a concerned "good night" to her when she'd announced she was suddenly very tired. She'd felt bad for leaving him to pack up the untouched cake and worry about her, but she'd been afraid she might break down if she didn't lie down at that instant.
Everything was alright. It didn't affect her life, not really. But if so, then why was she feeling that hollow emptiness in the pit of her stomach?
Then, the next instant, Elena was confused and angry. She sat onto her bed, hugging her pillow so tightly, it made her arms hurt, but she hardly noticed the dull pain.
How could this have happened? Elijah had told her in one of his letters that he had managed to disarm Alaric and had gotten rid of the one stake that could kill them. So how could he be dead?
Elena had asked Jeremy to try and contact him again after he'd repeated to her word for word what Elijah had said, but her brother had explained that he wouldn't show up again. That he was gone.
A moment later she was filled with some weird sense of guilt. Maybe their correspondence had made it possible for Alaric to track him down? She sent all her letters to one and the same mailbox in Vermont, after all. She had no idea how they reached him from there.
Elena crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her head. She didn't want to think about this anymore, but she couldn't seem to be able to stop.
She peeked out from under the blankets at the dark ceiling above her. Elijah had always seemed so eternal. Even though she hadn't really seen him, his letters had become one of the highlights of her everyday life. She hadn't even noticed how much she'd started to depend on his opinions and how whenever she had a big decision to make, she'd always ask him for advice, waiting patiently for his answer to arrive. Elena was an emotional person in general, so reading Elijah's delightfully rational and well-exemplified replies made the process of decision making that much easier for her.
But it wasn't just that. It was so much more. She enjoyed reading his short but illustrative descriptions of his travels – the places he'd visited, jobs he'd taken, people he'd met. They were rays of excitement in her otherwise gray workdays, something to look forward to. Sometimes she felt almost as if she was partially living through him since her demanding job deprived her of the opportunity to go travelling herself.
Now she'd never receive another envelope from him again… And it felt like a small, strangely private part of her life had collapsed.
Elena folded the covers back to her waist and rested her hands on the soft fabric, staring at the gloomy ceiling. "Are you here?" she asked, surprising even herself. She must have sounded mad talking to an empty bedroom.
She lifted her head up a bit, scanning the darkness, hoping against everything that through some miracle he'd appear, all calm and collected like he always was, laughing even at the very thought of him perishing from this world.
"If you are here," Elena went on. "I just wanted to say…" She sighed. "I'm gonna miss you." She let her head drop back on the pillow and her eyes drift shut, feeling the tiniest bit better.
Had Elena indeed been able to see ghosts, she would have probably noticed the man sitting on her wide window seat, observing her inner turmoil and listening to her midnight confessions.
He didn't stay for long, though. He just wanted to say good-bye now that she knew, even when she'd never hear it. Actually, he'd become quite used to being dead. It had been, after all, four months already. The only thing that had bothered him was the thought that she'd hope to find his reply every time she walked to her mailbox and wonder why it wouldn't arrive. Because that was true hell – not knowing. The truth, as they'd tell you, would only set you free. Even if it wasn't the entire truth.
Elijah was dead, but not without a chance of resurrection. Only Alaric Saltzman was in the possession of his body with the handle of an all-too-familiar dagger sticking out of his chest, not to mention even Elijah had no idea where he had hidden it. All he did know was that there was a very slim chance of finding it as long as Alaric was alive. And because his life was tied to Elena's, he would only die when she did.
So consequently in her world he was, for all intents and purposes, dead.