I do not own TVD or TO.
Sorry for the delays. I've had a busy week at work and a nasty cold that has finally decided to go away. I've made a promise to myself to update two stories this weekend, so keep a lookout for Who Are You?
Also I had this idea for a canon divergence fic that would be a funny fractured fairy tale sort of story. Basically Elena is mistaken for Katherine by a vengeful warlock who locks her in a prison world of sorts where fairy tales play out with her as the leading lady, and maybe the warlock as the narrator who she can hear. The only way out is to gain true loves kiss (cuz fairy tales) only problem is that doppelgangers aren't supposed to have true love (at least not according to the warlock). She's not alone in this prison world either. After each failed attempt to get out the world sort of resets and thrusts her into another fairy tale that pulls in the consciousness' of people she has met in her life that take on the roles of guides or potential love interests. Back in reality nobody can figure out why people keep collapsing for long stretches of time only to wake up with no memory of what's happened during their 'dream'.
This is just in the story idea notebook right now and will remain there until I finish some other stories.
January 17-31 – 16-18 Weeks
She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw her hands up in the air. She wanted to kick the table over. She wanted to send the candles and crystals rolling across the floor. She wanted to watch the flames lick up the drapes.
At least then she would have been doing something. At least then her actions would yield results.
She did none of those things because she was rather attached to her house.
"I can't find them," she massaged the back of her neck. A knot had formed there on New Year's Day and had refused to leave, only growing in intensity with each failed attempt to locate them.
"My children are resourceful," Esther gave a mirthless laugh, "but nobody is capable of hiding forever. They will be found and they will meet the same end as Elijah."
Her eyes flickered over the young witch. Bonnie Bennett still channeled the magic of two dozen dead witches, but still she couldn't find them. She was beginning to think the young woman was having second thoughts.
"You wouldn't be trying to protect them, would you Bonnie?"
A line appeared between her brows. There was no hesitation behind her head shake.
"I want them found. They fled this town with my friends."
"Yes," Esther murmured, "why is that?" She might have thought Klaus was planning to create an army, but the full moon had passed them by and hybrids were easier to track; so far the only ones found were the ones that had remained behind in Mystic Falls. "Why did they take Elena Gilbert with them?"
"Maybe to keep you from using her blood," Bonnie shrugged.
"Really," Esther cocked an eyebrow. "It has nothing to do with the life growing inside of her?"
The blood drained from Bonnie's face. She had been so careful not to reveal Elena's condition to the Original witch.
"Damon let the information slip shortly before leaving to confront Kol," Esther inspected the map laid out, "he was muttering about her 'poor taste' and 'monstrous children'."
It was a good thing Damon had been found dead because if he was still alive Bonnie would have made him suffer greatly for telling Esther about her friend. She frowned and met Esther's dark eyes.
"You know," she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, "and you still want to kill your children? I was certain you'd want to help them."
"Those children should have never been conceived," Esther sighed, "and their existence does not change my sentiments towards my own children."
"What are you planning for Elena?" Bonnie crossed her arms. She might have wanted the Originals dead and the balance of nature protected but she didn't want to hurt her friend.
"As it is too late in the pregnancy to terminate without harming Elena I will wait. There is no reason for her to come to harm," she knelt before the low table. In her time among the living Esther had learned several things about her ally, and she knew the girl was loyal; if Bonnie thought she intended her friend harm she would stop helping her, and she needed the young witch's aid since her children seemed to have taken up with a very powerful witch of their own.
"What are you doing?"
The flat voice was devoid of emotion that alone was enough to raise his concern. His blood shot eyes lifted from the stained pages and traced her drawn features. She was pale, and her limbs were weak. Her eyes were hollow, drained of their usual warmth, but he thought he saw something like curiosity in her furrowed brows and downturned lips.
Glancing down at the nearest grimoire he debated telling her of his plan that suddenly felt foolish: the ramblings of a brother who couldn't move on. He was a lost soul, but then again, so was she. The others would have mocked him gently while giving him pitying looks, but she would latch on to the plan and throw herself into the hunt for answers. Would it break her if the hope he gave her was false, if it turned out that nothing would come of it? Would she be worse off than before? Would she return to her catatonic state? Would she withdraw further into herself to the point where no amount of sleep would bring her out of it?
"Evidently I have become a sentimental fool," he slammed the leather book closed. He had read through it twice from cover to cover and found nothing that would work.
Elena straightened in the door frame and stepped into the room. Her toes dragged over the red rug on the slow path to the dining room table and Klaus' mess of papers.
She pulled out the chair nearest to the grated fireplace and sat. Picking up a loose sheet of paper she frowned at the symbols.
"I'm looking," his eyes slid down from her face.
Elena followed his gaze and gently lifted the chain around her throat. The silver ring glittered in the bright light filtering down from the chandelier. Her eyes darted from the ring to him and finally to the papers on the table.
There was a hesitation in his eyes when she looked back up. Setting down the paper and dropping the ring she tilted her head and tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear.
False hope, he decided, was better than soul crushing anguish. Her eyes lit up with determination when he told her.
"What do I look for?" She pulled the sheet of symbols from his hand and flipped open a grimoire from the pile.
They were still flipping through pages and pages of spells when Kol found them a few hours later to tell Elena it was time for dinner.
Elena sat cross-legged on top of the mattress. A handful of leather bound books were spread around her, each open to a different page. The slip of paper Klaus had drawn out the symbols on was perched on her knee, but so far she had come up empty.
She was not about to give up though. He had planted the idea in her head and she would be damned if she stopped looking after the first few hours.
It was possible she was being delusional, but the need to hold on to something, to anything, was all encompassing. The thought that they could bring him back lifted some of the weight from her chest.
She wanted to keep looking. There were still three grimoires on her bed to go through, but she was starting to go cross-eyed.
She blinked to clear her vision of the tiny print and turned her head towards the door where a gentle knock drew her attention. It opened when she called out gently.
"Alright, darling?"
She managed a small smile for Kol as he poked his head into the room, but she knew it didn't reach her tired eyes; it was clear when he stepped inside and approached the bed.
"Please tell me you're not about to stop sleeping again," he sat beside her and reached for a book. He recognized the leather bound volume as one he and Lexa had brought from New Orleans. "Are you taking up a new hobby, love?"
"I suppose I am," she shrugged one shoulder and set her cheat sheet aside.
He tilted his head and turned the sheet of paper around; Klaus' handwriting was easily recognized. The combination of symbols made it clear what she was trying to find.
"I would appreciate it if you didn't call me crazy or delusional…"
"I didn't say anything," he held up his hands defensively.
"You were thinking it," she accused with a roll of her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, daring him to contradict her.
He sighed and closed the grimoires after marking the pages with post it notes. He chewed over his words for a moment while stacking the books on her nightstand.
"Death is… its pretty permanent, Elena."
"There's always a loophole." She shook her head. "People come back all the time: Jeremy, Matt, Ric, my uncle…"
"All with the use of a ring made by a Bennett witch…"
"A ring created to get around death…"
"Provided the body was still intact," he cocked an eyebrow.
Her eyes narrowed in a glare.
"Be a cynic if you like, but I'm going to keep looking," she reached for the top book in the stack. She simmered with anger; the emotion took her by surprise after her weeks of grief.
His brows furrowed, eyes darting to his hand around her wrist. Heat licked up his skin, running through his veins until he felt his blood boil. He suspected the only thing that stopped it was the surprise when she felt his palm grow abnormally warm against her skin.
"What was that?" She dropped the book and took his hand. Her fingers swept over his cooling skin.
"The babies will have inherited magic from us," he cleared his throat and hurried on before she could dwell on the 'us'. "My guess is that you're channeling their power."
"I have magic?" She bit her bottom lip.
"Until they're born," he nodded.
She let go of him and flattened her palms over the swell of her abdomen. The babies had been still in her womb before she had grown upset, but now they were twisting and turning creating a swirling sensation in her body that put her in mind of the drop from the top of a rollercoaster.
"That means I've got about five months to find a way to bring him back," she hummed and reached for the book again.
He pulled it from her hand.
"Kol," she bit back her exasperated sigh.
He dropped the book and took her shoulders in his hands, squeezing gently to coax her into looking at him.
"You need to sleep, love."
"I have to keep looking," she insisted.
"You can look in the morning," he reasoned.
"How do I know you're not going to take the books?"
"I'm not going to stop you, love." He shook his head. Truthfully, he was glad she was focusing on something other than her grief. "I'll even help you, but for now you need to sleep."
"One more book," her eyes flickered to the nightstand.
"In the morning," he stood and pushed her backwards until she was lying against the pillows.
"But…" She could feel the exhaustion creeping in, her eyelids began to droop; she knew she was fighting a losing battle. "I'm not tired…" she murmured.
"Go to sleep, darling," he lifted a blanket over her body with a soft chuckle.
"You know," a hushed voice came from the door, "for a thousand year old vampire you've got the whole parenting thing down."
"I'm just getting in some practice," Kol straightened the books and turned off the lamp plunging the room into darkness.
"I don't think you need it," Lexa backed up as he stepped into the hall. With a flick of her fingers she drew the door closed.
"Trust me, darling," his smirk was self-deprecating, "I'm far more damaged than I appear."
His amusement fell away quickly. He had heard her heart in the hall and suspected she had heard most of the conversation. In his thousand years on earth he had never heard of a spell to bring back a lost loved one, but then again, he had never felt the need to search for one; perhaps she had.
"Do you think it's possible?"
"Bringing him back?" She started down the hall alongside him. "I think anything is possible, provided you have the right ingredients, enough nerve and power."
"Could anyone have that much power?" He shook his head at the thought while longing for his own magic.
"I don't know…" she trailed off when she spotted an old black and white photograph on the wall. Her great-grandparents stared out of the frame. Two perpendicular scars ran across the right cheek of Alexander D'Ambry. His voice echoed in her mind: 'as part of the initiation ritual of the Kindred they scar their members'… 'New Orleans is the home of your ancestors.'
She didn't want to give him false hope but the power she had felt in New Orleans, the ancestral magic seeping through the earth, had been exquisite.
"Maybe," she glanced up over her shoulder, "if you had the right spell."
The world was overly bright and yet dark. Covered in a haze so thick it was impossible to make out the features of anyone else passing through the fog; like a photograph developed from a film that had been left out in the sun.
Every now and then a snippet of conversation would slither through the condensation, but the source was never found.
He suspected the words came from the others, the ones he couldn't see clearly.
How long had he been there? Where was there? What had happened to him? Was she alright? Was she safe?
He needed to find her. He had to ensure her safety.
The moment the thought entered his head a voice reached out through the fog: her voice. She was calling his name. The fear in her tone drew him to the right.
She called again, more desperate than before and he started to run.
His feet made little more than a whisper of sound against the pavement. The path over the empty street passed in a blur until he came to a stop outside a wrought iron gate as her voice quieted.
He peered into the absolute darkness beyond the threshold from which a deafening silence was emanating. Tilting his head he called into the void.
"Elena?"
For a long moment there was nothing. He stood tense while waiting for a reply, certain that this was where he had heard her.
He was about to back away when she called again in a terrified scream, but before he could race into the dark his body was knocked over.
Familiar weight pressed into him. Familiar hair curtained his face. Familiar hands pinned his shoulders. Familiar features stared down at him. Familiar… familiar… familiar…
Everything about the woman straddling his thighs was familiar, but not quite right; her expression neither warm, conniving nor guarded. The look in her eyes was that of a woman severely annoyed with her lot in life, and the way she was glaring at him made her innermost thoughts clear.
He was her latest burden.
"Are you out of your damn mind?"
He sat up when she shifted and knelt on the ground beside him. His eyes darted to the gate where he could still hear her horror filled sobs.
"I'm out of something," he murmured.
"Clearly your mind," she scoffed. Her hand grasped his sleeve before he could move toward the gate again. "Trust me, sweetie, you don't want to go through there."
"She's in trouble," he got to his feet.
She jumped up and stood in front of him. The cold receded the closer he moved her to the silent gate, but it was not a warmth she welcomed.
"Listen to me," she planted her hands on his chest, "whoever you think you hear is not there, and if you walk through that gate chances are you'll never come back out."
Her chest tightened with fear. It twisted in her gut making the pit of her stomach fall away.
He paused, finally, and looked down into her flashing eyes.
"It's a trick," she inhaled sharply. "The loneliness of purgatory is a picnic compared to what's through that gate."
"Who are you?" He took a step back and watched her arms fall to her sides.
She followed him quickly, eager to put distance between herself and the void. Once the gate was shrouded in fog she relaxed visibly and met his eyes.
"I'm the idiot who was nearly sucked back into hell saving your ass," she gestured to him.
"I was hoping more for your name," he crossed his arms.
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," she mirrored his stance. He might have been the first person she could clearly interact with, but her time on the other side of the gate had instilled a sense of secretiveness in her; a name was a powerful thing, a link to the soul.
"Elijah," his eyes flickered over her clothes: a black skirt that fell below her knees and a sleeveless plaid button down. The casual attire reminded him of the sixties.
"V," she pushed her hair back over her shoulder and rolled her eyes when he gave her an inquisitive look. "Vanessa," she started away into the fog, "but it was always such a mouthful."
His eyes darted from her body that was quickly being shrouded in fog, to the outline of the gate and the voice he could still hear.
He hesitated before following after her because he thought he might be going crazy. He thought he might be imagining her or projecting the face he wanted to see most, but ultimately he hastened into the fog for one simple reason: she was the first person he had seen who might be capable of providing substantial answers.
Okay so I know Julie said at some point that there were only three, but then Qetsiyah said she was forced to watch them find each other again and again from the Other Side. I have this headcanon that when one dies another is born and that the ones we saw on the show were the ones that were located by the Original family at some point in their lives.
Anyway, as always I love hearing your thoughts and opinions. I'm thinking chapters for this story will be between 1500-3000 words from now on so nothing gets bogged down.