Chapter Six
Elena immersed herself in research. She started with the National Archives in the United Kingdom, with government records that went back a thousand years. From there, she went where he'd told her he was from all those years ago before even her second semester of college. "What would become known as Norwich." That would've been called Northfolk, in his time. In the local archives were more personal details, but the further back you went, the harder pinning things down was.
After days of searching, reading through old diaries, letters and legends, eventually she found him. And it set her back on her heels.
He had always referred to himself as a monster. Now she finally understood. That wasn't self-consciousness talking as she'd always thought. It made her chest hurt just thinking about it.
A middle aged clerk with her brown hair in a tight bun found Elena crying over dusty pages. An Anglo-Saxon historian captured the oral traditions of the Viking people along with current events at the time and how they converged onto scrolls. Elijah was there, in the pages. The poor clerk didn't have a clue what to think about an American that sobbed over historic records. She brought her tissues and said "there, there." a lot. Mostly she was probably concerned that Elena would get tears on the parchments.
She walked back to her hotel room alone in the rain after the local archive office in Norwich closed. She had a respectable car and driver to chauffeur her around, but she sent him home for the night saying she needed to walk. And think. Soaked by the rain and weighed down by the past, she trudged. No rush, no running, just an honest quiet walk to think things through.
What she found wouldn't be all of it. Klaus' reference to the Hapsburg wars in the 1500's proved that. But she had found the start of it, when the change would've been new for Elijah, and all the power and strength that went with it. And what he did with it.
Events had molded him, making him into who he was today. She could see that. The civility that Klaus had scorned on the mountain – she understood now.
She focused then on how she felt about it. Did it change who he was? Did it change how she felt about him?
Drawing a deep breath, she thought of all the simple kindnesses from him over the past fifteen years. His compassion, tenderness, honor, wisdom….all of those things were part of him, just as much as these events were.
One of the last things he'd said to her was that he'd always been who he was right now, with the same passions and the same furies.
She loved him. The past didn't change that and the future wouldn't either. If he didn't want her, then she'd set him free. It might cauterize the wound, actually. But her feelings wouldn't change, even then.
There, standing in the rain with her heart in her throat, her cell phone rang in her back pocket. She blinked furiously and pulled it out. It was Damon. He called to check on her every other day or so.
"How are you?" His deep voice spanned thousands of miles and she could still hear the strain in it.
She swallowed hard. "I'm okay."
There was a harrumph sound from him. "No. You were okay the last time we talked. You aren't now. What's changed?"
Thousands of miles away and Damon could read her so easily. It should've annoyed her, but it made her smile instead.
"I found him." Her voice caught and she swallowed.
"It's bad. I knew it would be bad. Do I need to come?" Damon's words rushed out.
"No. No. It's okay. I just struck the mother lode a couple of hours ago and I'm still processing it. That's all."
"Are you coming home, then?"
Elena drew a deep breath, thinking about Damon's question for the first time. She'd not considered what she'd do with whatever she might find.
"In a few days." Elena had been in Great Britain for nearly three weeks. A few more days wouldn't matter. "I have to do something first. Then I'll come back and start again, I think."
With her unfettered access to the business that he still used, it took only a few keystrokes to find him. Both he and Klaus were together, their accounts both drawing deliveries to the same place every week, but their mutual location shifted occasionally. She found records of their travels to Amsterdam, Halmstad and finally London in the last few months. Elena now had an address and it was only a hundred miles away or so from where she was already.
After spending two hours taking painstaking care with her appearance, she set out to face her husband for what might be the last time. Setting off for the short run to London, she felt more like she was attending a funeral than a meeting. Dread built in her chest, growing stronger the closer she got. For once, she wished she didn't arrive so quickly at what she now knew to be the door to the flat he was using.
A light tap at the door and she was waiting on the street, her stomach rolling with tension.
Steps on the other side of the door caused it to tighten even more.
As Elijah opened the door, he blinked in what looked like confusion. He looked mostly the same. He wore a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the elbows and pants the same color. His hair was a little longer and there was a faint shadow of whiskers on his face that made her draw her hand to a fist to keep from reaching out to touch it. The whiskers were new, and she liked them very much.
His eyes were darker than she remembered, nearly the color of midnight and she watched his broad frame draw tight with tension as he looked down at her.
"Elena. What a nice surprise." His tone didn't match his words. It sounded like he saw nothing nice about it.
"Elijah." She drew her lips into what was intended to be a smile but never quite reached its goal. "Is this a bad time?"
He turned and looked behind him, back into the room where she couldn't see and was still for a second before he turned back to her and answered. "Not a bad time at all. Please come in."
At least she wouldn't have to do this standing at the door without an invitation.
The apartment had a warm, opulent feel to it. A long burgundy brocade couch matched with dark leather chairs sat around a small fireplace that burned hot on the cool, damp night. The polished hardwood floor was covered in a wool rug with a design of gold and burgundy scrollwork. It was lovely. And impersonal. She saw nothing of the person he was in this place.
Elijah gestured for her to sit and she found a place in the furthest corner from what appeared to be where he was sitting, if the book turned face down over the arm of a chair was any indication. He took his place, crossed one leg over the other and looked at her.
"What can I do for you?" His tone was all business, but his eyes were narrowed and his shoulders back stiffly, like he was braced for something.
"Mostly I came to say thank you." Why was her heart beating so loudly? She could barely hear him for the pulsing sound in her ears.
His brows shot up, surprise softening his expression. "For…?"
"The house. The business. You didn't have to do that." He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable.
"I thought a clean slate was best." He told her after a breath. Shifting in his chair under the tension, he said, "I assume you will have redecorated the house at the very least? Or have you sold the place?"
She looked at her hands, clasped together and white knuckled in her lap. "Oh, no. Not yet. I only learned it was mine a few weeks ago."
His dark eyes narrowed and moved over her slowly before she watched all expression be wiped clean from his face.
"You found somewhere else to stay very quickly, then." His voice had deepened three octaves and his tone told her he already knew where she'd been staying. And with who.
"I did. Yes. With people who love me." She raised her chin a little at the last sentence.
His lips drew to a smile, but it was hard, his eyes still narrowed. "Of course." He agreed. "You're much too young to waste time."
The hiss of accusation was there in Elijah's words, but the tone was casual. Her heart stopped behind her breastbone completely and shuddered useless for several seconds before it started up again.
He was furious. That dark, thoughtful type of furious she'd only ever seen in him a few times.
Who, exactly did he see as the victim here? He was the one who had walked away. What did he have to be furious about?
Elena leaned forward, searching his face to understand his words but finding no answers.
"You're going to have to explain."
"You were injured and dying. Your Damon called to tell me so." Dark eyes moved over her like a whip before he turned his eyes to the fire. "I called Klaus, knowing he would be the only remedy. He made a bargain with me. Your life in exchange for my walking away without a word. He wanted things to be as they were. He and I travelling together."
"So this makes you happy?"
"The arrangement suits me." He said without turning around. She noticed that he didn't exactly answer the question.
Elijah felt her eyes on the back of his neck, studying him closely. Elena saw too much and understood too clearly. He would have this meeting done.
"I've been working on something. Writing." His head came around at that, surprised at the swift subject change.
"Writing?" His eyes swept her.
She rose and came to sit beside him in the empty leather chair, keeping her hands between her knees. Her body seemed small and drawn tight with tension.
"I have yes. Would you like to hear about it?" When she was still writing, she would talk out her books as she planned them, in the early stages. They would spend hours discussing motivation and character portraits.
This hardly felt like the time for such things, but there he was.
"Of course." He leaned back in his seat, one hand rested on the armchair he sat in, the other opening and closing uselessly in his lap.
What he wanted was for her to be gone so he could nurse the pain in his chest and try to forget.
Elena looked to the rug, her eyes wide.
"It's a historical piece. I thought you'd be a good source for some of that." She hadn't looked up at him.
"My story is about a young man who defended his home during the Viking invasions of Britannia around 1066 A.D."
Elijah's head snapped up, turning to watch her as turmoil broke loose inside him. A dark flush worked under his skin and his heart stopped for two breaths before it roared to life again.
Elena still did not meet his gaze.
"The Vikings were brutal, destroying much of what they found. He fought with his family and against all odds, they were successful at defending their parcel of land in what was called Norfolk at the time. But everyone else around them, eventually fell." She appeared to study the pattern of the carpet as she went on.
"When William the Conqueror - the Viking ruler responsible for the invasions - was finally crowned King of England, in a rare effort at diplomacy, he folded the family into the crown. He made the young man's father an Earl. But the new king was also quietly taking ownership of the property by duplicity rather than force – because a member of the crown kept their property at the pleasure of the monarch. And the property, after all, sat adjacent to the site of the castle he wanted to build. A few weeks later, the new Earl was called for a visit to court in France. It was a trip he never returned from."
"So, now, the young man, as the eldest, was presumed to be the new Earl for a king he hated and that no one wanted. So he took his younger brother and the two of them set out across Europe toppling every stronghold they came across that William had set up. Whole villages were demolished and entire troops of William's men died because they fought under his flag. It was revenge for the loss of the young man's home and his father's death. The two were headed for France, where William lived, to destroy his whole family if possible. Along the way, the young man became known as a draugr to the Vikings because no defense stopped him, nothing could kill him and he only attacked at night."
She stopped and looked up then, her dark eyes expressionless. "Draugr…it means…"
"I know what it means, Elena." He interrupted her with a choked rasp. Draugr was a Norse word for the undead. He could still hear the whispers of that word closing in around him, as he moved in the dark, intent on blood.
Elijah stood, because he couldn't stand to sit any more, under the guise of making himself a drink. His heart was in his throat, and he hoped a strong drink might wash it down again.
"Norman children were told stories of him by their mothers to keep them inside after the sun went down. He became a specter in children's nightmares for decades. "
She looked up and met his eyes then. Rather than finding judgement, he saw tenderness. The mahogany depths moved over him fondly, causing a riot behind his breastbone.
"Should I go on?" Her voice was low when she asked it.
"I would prefer not." The words were hard to force out around the lump in his throat and the pain in his chest. All he had feared was there in her words. Still behind the bar, he took the bottle and filled his glass again.
"How about I jump to the last chapter?" She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. He just watched her, not responding.
"The young man, who still looked like a young man, wasn't anymore. He'd seen too much. But he still found the courage to fall in love with a young American orphan girl. It took a bit of patience on his part, but she loved him too and they settled together into marriage."
"That part, you'll find, is inaccurate, if you're going for truth." He kept himself behind the bar, unable to move. His voice was still raspy and foreign to his ears.
The eyes that met his were lashed with pain. She swallowed hard before she spoke. "How so?"
"You'll have to write that he loved her from the beginning, before the bloodshed. That he knew her before he met her, which is hard to explain."
She stood and moved slowly toward him, placing a hand on the bar next to his. He bowed his head, seeing their hands together, focused with all of his might on that simple thing. The pain in his chest made him want to rub the heel of his hand over it, hoping for relief.
The hand he was watching so closely rose and covered his. His eyes came up to meet hers and something in him pushed to strip it all down to the bone for her.
"There's a detail you've missed that you should be aware of." It was his turn to turn his eyes to the floor. "The younger brother lost his humanity in the bloodshed of those nights, eventually. What had been a kind, innocent, eager to please young man became a monster that lived and breathed for blood. Any blood. He had been unable to handle the carnage. But the eldest held onto his through it all."
Elijah forced himself to meet her eyes frankly. "Who, do you think, is the real monster between them?"
A small hand reached up to mold his rough jaw as the honey colored sparks in her eyes shone up at him. His jaw tightened at her touch, as he fought not to close his eyes and savor the moment one last time.
She shook her head at him, the gesture tight and swift. "I don't have an answer for that. I wasn't there. But I can tell you today that I'd have stood by your side through every battle given the chance – past and future."
"There is nothing anyone can tell me that will ever change that."
It was something. Elijah had hoped for so much more.
When he said nothing, she stepped out from behind the bar and headed for the front door. Stopping before she opened it, she spoke without looking back.
"I'll have the divorce papers drawn up in a few days and delivered to this address." With that, she was gone.