Chapter 14

He should not have come. He is not the man Leah should allow near her children. He can still smell the smoke and the salt that clings to his clothes. He should turn around and leave right now, get a thousand miles between himself and his family –but the weight of his decisions and actions presses down on him so heavily that he cannot add to it by wiping the hopeful smile off Malachi's face.

His feet move independently and close the distance. Ky does a joyful leap and scampers inside the house. Leah holds the door open, waiting. He pauses in the entryway. Leah's eyebrow arches questioningly over her bottle-green eyes.

"Thank you," he breathes.

She smiles and whispers, "My pleasure."

Her home is warm and lit. Malachi kneels on the living room floor surrounded by tiny little bricks.

"Make yourself comfortable," Leah says, disappearing into the kitchen.

"What are you making?" Elijah asks, sinking down beside Ky on the floor.

"It's a pirate ship," Ky explains, handing over somewhat crumpled directions. Sure enough, he can see the basis of a ship's hull in the early stages. "I have a hard time finding the pieces," Ky admits, a bit reluctantly. "Mom thinks I need glasses."

"Your mother is very smart," Elijah says, listening to the quiet clinking in the kitchen. "She probably knows what she's talking about."

"Would you like some tea?" Leah asks, poking her head back into the living room. "I have green tea, chamomile, blackberry, and peppermint." She doesn't miss Ky's disgusted face, and Elijah doesn't either.

The corner of his mouth twitches. "Peppermint, please."

She moves back to the kitchen where she grabs mugs and the box of peppermint tea. The kettle is just beginning to whistle, and she pours the water into the mugs, letting the teabags seep. The clock is ticking rapidly towards Ky's bedtime, but she can make an exception just for tonight. Peeking through the doorway, she can see a small blond head and a darker brunette head bent over tiny pieces. Elijah hands Ky the pieces, and he presses them into place.

Something pulls at her heartstrings, watching them.

She carries both mugs into the living room and paces Elijah's on the low table within easy reach. Settling back onto her corner of the couch, she picks up her book and pretends to read, but really watches the two of them, listens to Malachi's explanation of how the ship is supposed to look and Elijah's questions of what they need next –he's so relaxed compared to ten minutes ago. This is just the therapy he needs.

She wonders how Malachi knew.

Elijah looks up from the construction in progress, and their eyes meet.

She has called Elijah 'strong' from their first meeting, and he is, of course he is, but no one can be strong forever. There is a fragility in his eyes that touches her heart. He looks back at Malachi when her son asks a question, and Leah feels gifted with a rare sight.

"Ten more minutes, Ky, and then off to bed," she murmurs.

Ky nods, distracted; his attention is wholly focused on the Lego ship that is making rapid progress. Leah sips from her mug and doesn't even bother with her book.

The minutes slip by quickly, and the clock softly chimes ten o'clock. "Ky, time for bed," Leah says.

"Moooom," he whines, looking up from the ship.

She raises an eyebrow. "It's thirty minutes past your bedtime. Start cleaning up,"

"Okay," he mumbles, scooping Legos back into their container and moving his ship off the living room floor.

"What do you say?" Leah prompts quietly.

"Thank you for helping me," Malachi says, turning to Elijah.

He smiles at the boy. "You're welcome. I had fun."

"Me, too," Ky says, suddenly smiling. He surprises Elijah by throwing his arms around his neck. "Can you come back soon?" he whispers.

Elijah wraps his arms around the boy carefully, very conscious that his mother is about two feet away. "We'll see," he says. He doesn't know if he can make that promise right now.

Ky is not entirely satisfied with his answer, but nods.

"Come on, Ky," Leah says, standing up. "I'll tuck you in."

"Mom, I'm not a baby anymore."

"Humor me, sweetheart."

Elijah hides a smile as Ky grumbles, but wraps an arm around his mother as she herds him down the hallway.

That's what mothers and sons should look like. He could never imagine Leah hurting her son. She would never try to kill him, even if she thought that would right a wrong.

Elijah stands and walks to Leah's bookcase, trying to push away the image of his mother standing inside a pentagram of fire, staring him straight in the eyes with no remorse.

His fingers travel over well-worn spines, reading the authors. Tolkien, Austen, Lewis, Dickens, Chesterton, Spurgeon, Alcott, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Keats, Browning… he plucks the book from the shelf, frowning. He hasn't read this in years. He opens the volume, noting the annotations along the pages.

"What did you find?" Leah asks, a hint of humor in her voice.

He turns away from the bookcase and smiles. "I haven't read this in a very long time," he says, handing her the book.

She sees the cover and her eyes widen. "The Ring and the Book… I had to read it in college." A strange look passes over her face. "Perhaps it's time I read it again," she whispers.

"So, I assume you liked it?"

"Well, I had to write a paper on it…" Leah says dryly. "That was a little difficult with a four year old who wanted a lot of attention, but I got it done." She opens the pages, looking through the dog-eared pages. "I did enjoy some sections very much."

"Which ones?" he asks.

"Well, I –oh!" She exclaims. "We don't have to keep standing. Please," She gestures to the couch.

He takes a seat, and she sits down beside him, finally finding the place she wanted. "I really loved the three central monologues… especially Pompilia's. It makes more sense now." She runs her fingers over the words, but then looks up at him. Her eyes are filled with compassion. "Elijah, what's wrong?" she whispers.

He cannot stop himself from looking away, swallowing back the bile that rises within him.

"You don't have to tell me," she backpedals, afraid she's overstepped.

"No," he whispers. "No, you need to know, Leah… if you did, you might not want me in this house with your children."

She blinks in surprise. "Then tell me," she whispers.

How to begin? How does one spin a tale that spans a millennium? "My mother is the Original witch," he says, starting simple. "It was she that turned my family into vampires –to save us, she thought, from the threat of the werewolves. She did not know the cost." His jaw tightens. "We became bloodthirsty and predatory killers. And my brother Klaus killed her, though he lied about it."

"But I saw her…" Leah whispers.

"A witch preserved her body with a spell," Elijah says, "and with a lot of power, she was able to come back to life –for what reason, I was unsure. She professed to want our family whole, to forgive Klaus." He breathes out angrily. "I found out last night that was a lie."

Leah puts a hand to her mouth, eyes growing wide.

"She wanted to right her wrongs… and kill the abominations she created."

He is staring off into space, reliving the horror and the heart-wrenching agony when Leah's slim fingers curl around his hand, squeezing hard. He stares down at their entwined fingers and then meets her eyes.

The sheen of tears makes her eyes lose their bottle color and become deep forest green. They are still pools reflecting mighty trunks covered with foliage, and he is in deep danger of falling in. "I'm so sorry," she breathes.

He can't say anything. She doesn't know the worst of it. She doesn't know –but she's got to know. "I had to stop her. I couldn't let her kill my family." The words spill out from his lips, quiet and emotionless. "I used Elena as a bargaining chip to make her friends help me stop my mother. I used Rebekah to keep Elena hostage." He shakes his head. "I have a thousand years worth of blood on my hands. I have killed, maimed, and tortured. I'm a monster."

"No."

Her voice is harsh and low, and as he looks at her in surprise, she glares at him. "You are wrong, Elijah."

"Leah –"

"No," she insists. "You were protecting your family."

"What I did was wrong," he almost growls. He remembers Elena's fear, Rebekah's glee at his plans –he should never have manipulated them, never –but he could see no other route to take to save his family. It doesn't make it right, the insistent voice inside him whispers, the one he can never shut out.

"Yes," Leah agrees. "It was wrong."

Tension crackles between them. Her eyes are no longer still pools –they are a storm. Lightning is about to strike. "So why are we arguing?" he asks quietly, trying to relieve the strain.

"You are not a monster," she says, her voice taut with emotion. "I have seen monsters, Elijah –you are not one of them."

"I have done things I abhor, Leah."

"It's not just actions that make you monstrous," she maintains. She still has a hold of his hand, and she squeezes it in a death grip. "It's intent and purpose and feeling. You know what you did was wrong, and that's why you regret it, don't you?"

He nods.

"Monsters don't think what they do is wrong. They do not feel guilt," she says as a tear leaks down her face. "You are kind, and protective, and loyal, and good. You're the furthest thing in the world from a monster." Her voice breaks. "I know."

She bows her head, letting her hair sweep over her face.

Her words resonate in a place he thought more or less dead. And for a second… just for a second… he allows himself to believe them, and squeezes her hand back.

She takes a deep breath. He has never pushed, never asked, and she's grateful, but… if anyone has the right to know, Elijah does. And she wants to tell him. She wants to prove to him that he is not a monster, not the despicable person that he thinks he is. She wants to shake him and show him the Elijah that she sees and help him see that he is wrong about himself.

She wants to tell her story.

She thinks she's brave enough now.

"I was pretty stupid when I was younger," she says abruptly, taking a deep breath and regaining control over her voice. "My father divorced my mother when I was five, and I lived with her until she decided she didn't want a child hanging around and hampering her career anymore. She gave custody to my father when I was ten." She looks up and meets his eyes. "By that time, he had remarried and Fay had come along, but her mother didn't much like me, so…" she shrugs. "I didn't have a whole lot of love back then. And it's not an excuse, but… it is what it is.

"I got pretty… rebellious as a teenager, doing the stupid things teenagers do. And then I met Frank, and he was nice, and cute, and he thought I was beautiful… I thought that's what love was, back then." Her mouth has gone dry. She takes a sip of her tea, watching Elijah from under her lashes. He has settled back onto the couch cushions, giving her his undivided attention, still holding her right hand. "And then Malachi came along." She remembers those long knockdown drag-outs with her father and stepmother over what should be done. "If I was going to keep the baby, then I needed support, because my parents made it very clear that they wouldn't keep me and the baby under their roof. But Frank's parents were, thankfully, of the traditional shotgun wedding variety."

Liz and Bert had been good to her. They had helped her through the first rough months of having a newborn, and they accepted her as their daughter. Leah breathes a silent prayer for them, wherever they may be.

"You married at sixteen?" Elijah asks quietly.

Leah nods assent. "Frank was eighteen. It wasn't the best circumstances by any means, but we did the best we could. I started a degree, though I didn't get to finish, and he got a good job… and seven years later I got pregnant with Grace." She takes another sip of tea for courage.

"And then you were turned," Elijah says.

"Caroline told you?"

He nods.

"I had no idea what had happened," she sighs, the corners of her mouth turning down. "I was afraid and scared, and I knew something was wrong –Frank knew it too. I couldn't even get inside the house at first. Malachi had to ask me to come in," Leah says. "So he left me home with a week old baby and a seven year old while he went around to all his friends, searching for answers.

"I cried all the time," she whispers. "Looking back, I think I finally know why: I had postpartum depression when Ky was born, and since being a new vampire makes everything… heightened?" She frowns, checking with him to see if she's getting it right. He nods again, and she continues. "I probably had the worst case of vampire depression on record. I cried, and I found out that sunlight burned me, and I was hungry all the time… but not for food. I knew something horrible had happened since I remembered drinking blood and having horrible thoughts… and then Malachi worked up the courage to tell me what had happened while I was... dead."

She winces, staring into her mug of tea. It had felt like her whole world had come apart at the seams and rearranged itself while she was asleep. Was life such a transient thing, to be taken away so easily?

Elijah's hand squeezes hers again, her anchor in this whirlpool of memory. But he didn't have to be strong for her now. She had walked through the valley of the shadow of death and came out the other side. "I taught Ky to take care of the baby. How to change her and feed her formula and how to hold her. Because I knew I couldn't for much longer." This was important; she had to look at him, meet his eyes when she relived this, so he'd know the truth.

His eyes are dark and shuttered. She can't stop to process what he could be feeling or thinking. But he's listening; she knows he is. "One of Frank's buddies knew someone who turned out to be a vampire hunter. Frank heard what he had to say, and he brought him to see me. And then it all came out. The man said that I was a danger to him and to the children, and I needed to be killed. He would have done it right then, too, but Malachi grabbed onto me and wouldn't let go. He was crying and screaming for them not to hurt me, and I was crying because everything he said sounded true –I was an abomination –and Grace started crying because of all the noise… he finally left on the condition that Frank would lock me in the basement. And he did."

She doesn't really want to relieve every second of those years –they're over, that's what matters. She doesn't want to remember every harsh word, every hurt look, every weapon used against her. But she's got to make her point somehow. "It didn't start horrible. Nothing does. But Frank started training with that hunter, learning how to –to kill vampires. And then …he needed to practice," she says, her voice dropping down to a whisper. "I know what vervain feels like, tastes like. I know how a stake feels when its buried in your chest. I've felt wooden darts pierce my skin. I've had knives rip through my flesh, and all by the hand of the man who promised 'for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health'. He couldn't see that I was still me. He believed I was a monster… and he made me believe it, too."

She shakes her head, emotion finally overtaking her. "But he was wrong."

AN: guys, I'm sorry but my life got incredibly crazy. Apologies. But I've got a question for you: who watches the Originals, and if you do, what do you think about it? I've seen a couple episodes but not many.