Chapter Eleven: Goodbye to You

"Of all the things I believed in

I just want to get it over with

Tears form behind my eyes

But I do not cry...

Goodbye to you

Goodbye to everything I thought I knew

You were the one I loved

The one thing that I tried to hold onto..."

-Michelle Branch

Ooo0ooO

A solemn three months passed slowly after Meredith's death. It was not easy and time did not heal the wounds it left behind as quickly as everyone hoped. It was too close, too personal, and it shook the foundation that Klaus and Anna had built to its core.

Charlie had disappeared a few nights after the funeral. Everyone except Anna wanted to look for him, but when they asked Anna why she wasn't, she would only shake her head and smile. "He'll come back when he's ready," she reassured them.

And so they believed her, for who were they to argue with his sister, the one who knew him the best?

Anna ached quietly for her brother and her friend, gone too soon, taken from them all so quickly and brutally. Even the twins seemed to know something was wrong.

Alone on the porch, Anna gazed out towards the distant hills. Her gray eyes reflected the colors of the setting sun, a fiery blaze of orange of gold. She was worried for her brother, but she knew he was capable of taking care of himself.

Sighing, she leaned back and thought back to the night he left...

Ooo0ooO

Flashback

Twin brown wolves burst through the forests of Mystic Falls, racing each other along the river that carved its way through the town. The male dug in, his claws ripping deep into the earth, flinging himself forward.

His sister, the smaller of the two, kept up with ease. Her golden eyes blazed fiercely.

Then they found themselves at the peak of the falls, breathing heavily, their coats damp with sweat. They stood side by side, overlooking the entirety of the town, which flickered and breathed beneath them as twilight crept in, darkening the sky and lengthening the shadows.

The wolves shifted back into their human form, then sat down side by side, their legs hanging over the cliff's edge. Clad in shorts and t-shirts to combat the humid night, both Anna and Charlie were barefoot. Their hair was tied back in matching knots, keeping it off of their necks and sweaty faces.

Neither of them said anything for a very long time, not unail the moon had risen and hung heavily in the sky. Then it was Charlie who broke the silence, while leaning back against his hands, sighing heavily.

"I should have been there."

Anna looked over at her brother, whose expression was hard like stone. She mirrored his position, swinging her foot. "There's nothing you could have done, Charlie," she told him softly. "We didn't know."

Charlie clenched his jaw, then looked away. "Anna, I can't keep... I can't keep losing the people I love. First it was Mom and Dad, then you for a long time, now Meredith... I just can't. It's killing me."

Annabelle moved closer, pressing herself to his side. She looped her arm through his, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. "The rest of us are still here, and we aren't going anywhere. We love you, Charlie."

Charlie's shoulders heaved as his breath hitched, grew heavy. "Anna, I should have protected her, like I should have protected you and Mom and-,"

"Charlie, enough," Anna said gently, yet firmly. She tightened her grip on him. "Our parents and Meredith wouldn't want you to carry around this guilt. That's what will kill you." She sighed, holding onto him, wishing she could take at least some of his pain away. "You still have people life that care about you."

Charlie was quiet for a long moment. "What am I supposed to do now?" he finally asked.

Anna shrugged, leaning her chin on his shoulder. "That part is up to you, big brother."

Then, finally, Charlie broke. He turned into his sister's waiting arms, and cried into her hair, all while she soothed him. He cried out for the woman he had loved, for the parents he had lost, and for the future he would never get to have with them gone.

And the next morning, he was gone.

Flashback Ends

Ooo0ooO

Rebekah had always supposed that life was a funny, flighty thing for humans. How quickly it came and went, no matter how short or long, how profound or shallow.

For an immortal being, she thought of life as both a gift and a curse. The gift was the people, and the curse was watching time take them away from you. It was a gift in its small favors; the elegance that came with the older years, such as the 19th century, the music and the arts, the journeys that came when you had nothing but time to kill. Then it swapped out those gifts for something else entirely; for loneliness and heartache, for a feeling that you were staring down the barrel of eternity with nothing else to accomplish.

She supposed that was why it was easy to lose yourself to madness when you were destined to live forever. She had glimpsed that madness in her brother, Niklaus, before he had met his Anna. She had seen it in their father, who was a man driven by the one desire to kill the creatures he himself had had a hand in creating.

But then there was a different kind of madness, the madness that came with losing the one who was supposed to share your eternity with you. And there, she saw Charlie Davis, the odd werewolf, brother to her new sister, and in a way, a new brother to herself as well.

Rebekah figured that was another funny part of life, how it took away people you loved, only to bring in more. It seemed you were never truly away from anyone you loved, it was just the faces that changed with time. But some of those faces would last.

Rebekah watched as Charlie grieved for his human lover, a woman take from him by one of life's more cruel moments. She could remember the times throughout her life when she felt grief for a lost lover, so she felt a great deal of sympathy for the man who had showed her own brothers nothing but kindness and acceptance.

So she found herself standing with him, staring out towards the cold Pacific Ocean while the waves crashed against the rocky shoreline.

He was lost, that much she knew, and he was searching for something, and she wondered if he even knew what it was. After he had disappeared from Mystic Falls, everyone had tried to find him, all save for his sister. She was waiting for him, giving him time and space, which Rebekah could also understand.

But it had been Rebekah who had found him, alone in the cold, somewhere along the Oregon Coast. After seeing reassurance to the others, she found herself staying by his side. Charlie had asked why at first when he first realized she was there.

"Because, if the situation was reversed, you would be there for myself or my brothers," she told him.

"What about Marcel?" Charlie asked, lifting a brow.

Rebekah had sighed at that. "Marcel understands. He is loyal to your sister after all, which means, to an extent, he's loyal to you. And I know he's loyal to me."

Charlie had given her a look, with the ghost of his old self in his eyes. "Got him on a short leash, Bekah?"

Rebekah smiled wryly at the memory.

Charlie turned away from the cold ocean, looking at her. His beard was overgrown, his hair tangled, reaching his shoulders. But there was a sort of peace in his eyes.

Rebekah met his gaze. "Time to go home," she said, rather than asked.

Charlie merely nodded, before following the Original vampire as she turned, and lead him back into the forests.

Ooo0ooO

Klaus found Anna sitting alone on the porch, her eyes lost in a thought. He reached out to her through the bond, seeing how she was thinking of her brother, since she thought of almost nothing else.

"Hello, love," he murmured, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

Anna sighed in response. When he moved to sit with her, she shifted so she could curl up in his lap while he took her seat. She burrowed her face into the nook between his chin and chest, nuzzling once, twice, before sighing again.

I'm tired, Klaus, she confessed quietly in their shared thoughts.

Do you want me to carry you upstairs for a lie down?

That's not what I meant, she whispered back, shaking her head a little.

Klaus sighed now. He knew what she meant, but he also knew his mate was physically tired as well, since she had not slept through the night since her brother left.

Anna rested a hand over his heart. "I just wish I knew what to do," she murmured out loud. "Even if Sophie helps us..."

Klaus frowned. Anna had told him her little run in with the witch, which had enraged him at first, until she told him what the witch had said. Neither of them were foolish enough to trust her, but maybe they were foolish enough to believe she could banish the demon once and for all.

But Anna had not heard from Sophie since that day, and her thoughts were too wrapped with concern for her brother. Her heart ached for so many reasons it seemed.

A horrible discovery had been made before the funeral, which had driven Charlie into a near comatose state. He had collapsed within himself, driven past the peak of madness, into a storm of despair and agony.

Meredith had been pregnant when she was murdered. It was clear that Charlie did not know, none of them did, save for Hayley, who stated it was true. She had heard the baby's heartbeat, fluttering deep within Meredith's body, almost too quiet to detect. But Hayley recognized it, after Anna and the twins, she knew and that almost made it worse.

Now Charlie not only had to face the coming days with no fiancée, but he also had to live with the knowledge that that demon took both Meredith and his unborn child from him.

Klaus could imagine no greater pain.

"If she's true to her word, she will do what needs to be done," Klaus told Anna, holding her a little more tightly.

Suddenly, Anna pulled away from him, her hand braced tenderly against his chest. Her eyes flashed gold, and were pinned to the line of trees along the drive leading up to the mansion. Then she jumped from Klaus's lap, running full tilt into the woods.

Klaus blinked, then flashed after her. When he caught up, he relaxed.

Wrapped tightly in his sister's arms, home and safe, was Charlie. His beard was now trimmed and his hair cropped so it fell just to his ears.

Klaus looked at his sister, who looked rather pleased with herself. He stepped closer, placing an arm around her shoulders. He kissed her temple gently. "Thank you for watching over him."

Rebekah smiled at him, leaning against his side. "That's what family's for, isn't it?"

Ooo0ooO

Elijah watched as his wife laid out on the rug in front of the fireplace, reading an old time that told the stories of her family, and its bloodline all the way back to the Davis'. Her hair was pulled into a sleek tail and her face was bare, and her green hazel eyes ran over the pages, catching the reflection of the flames in their depths.

He leaned back in the winged back chair, one hand holding a glass of whiskey. A question rolled around in his mind, something that had been lodged there ever since they had learned about Meredith and her child.

"Hayley?" he finally called, gathering his courage.

Hayley looked up at him. "Yes?"

"I was wondering... well, I've wondered for a while now... you see, I want to know if..."

Hayley's expression became patient and amused. She sat up before moving to sit on the armrest of the chair. She ran a hand through Elijah's hair.

His eyes glazed over at the sensation, but he cleared his throat. He looked up at her earnestly. "Did you ever want children?"

Hayley didn't miss the use of past tense. Of course, they both knew that they would never be able to conceive, not with him being a vampire and her being a werewolf. It had been different for Anna and Klaus, since Klaus had been a werewolf before he died and changed into a Hybrid. A small loophole, but significant enough to bring on the next generation of Hybrids.

Hayley exhaled, pursing her lips. "Honestly? No. I didn't know my own family and I never felt... like I'd make a good mother. I don't feel like a have a natural maternal instinct that someone like Anna has."

Elijah considered her. "I believe you would have surprised yourself."

Hayley smiled. "Maybe. But I like the idea of spending forever with just you, all to myself. Besides, Anna and Klaus might have more kids and maybe even Ch-," She broke off, pressing her lips together.

"It is a sad thing, how life can give us so much to love, yet take it away just as quickly," he murmured in understanding.

Hayley nodded, before sliding down into his lap. She played his the ends of his hair, still facing him. "Do you think he'll ever...?"

Elijah gazed into the fireplace. "I believe that when you're marked to live forever, life gives you more than one person to love. Doesn't matter who, or when, or how really, but when you go on living through centuries and centuries, you fall in love and out of love, and you lose love and are loved by so many. I believe Charlie will find someone else, if time permits."

"But he won't live forever," Hayley said. "Neither will I. Many for a century, or a little longer, but wolves don't live forever." Then she looked at him. "Will you-?"

"No," Elijah said immediately. "No." Of course he had considered how Hayley would not live as long as he, and the thought of losing her one day made his mind cloud and his heart ache.

But of course, it didn't have to stay that way, which Hayley and Charlie both knew. They could change their life, become Hybrids like Anna did, if they so choose. But that was it, it was their choice. No one else could force their hand in this.

Still, Elijah could hope...

Ooo0ooO

Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or the Originals.

Author's Note: Please review!