Within seconds of regaining consciousness, Amelia was enveloped in a strong embrace. Familiar arms like stone wound tightly around her, the grip of his fingers so tight on her skin that she knew they would leave dark bruises on her flesh for days to come, but it didn't matter. She was clutching him back just as tightly, hardly daring to believe that this was real and he was here.
Elijah was murmuring her name against her hair, repeatedly like a prayer. Amelia pulled back just enough for her eyes to be able to properly drink him in, her hands shooting up to frame his face… the face she'd feared, deep down, that she'd never see again.
Fingers dragged through her hair, down her cheeks, across her lips, down the column of her throat, as Elijah's eyes flickered over every inch of her. As his gaze finally met her own, she noticed that his hands were shaking.
She realized that he was afraid. She'd frightened him.
Before this moment, Amelia hadn't been sure that anything could frighten a man like him. He was so powerful; so unyielding and stoic, Elijah was stronger than any threat, able to withstand even the most devastating of attacks levelled against him.
And yet… he was afraid. But not of being hurt. No, he was afraid of losing her.
Amelia wanted to say a million things to him in that moment, but she couldn't seem to find the words.
Elijah, too, found himself speechless as he took her in. He wanted to tell her what he'd felt in her absence; that the loss of her felt like a physical wound… like the moment he'd realized she was gone, it was as though a large gaping hole had been punched through his chest, and it had remained open and throbbing and bleeding every moment that she'd been lost to him.
In the end, neither of them spoke at all. Amelia surged forwards and pressed her lips against Elijah's, and he returned her fervor with a vengeance. He took her bottom lip between his own, the faintest sting of his teeth eliciting a groan from deep in her throat.
Elijah's mouth was hot on hers as Amelia frantically pushed his jacket off his shoulders, desperate to feel his skin against hers to prove that he was really there. His shirt followed the jacket, and then Amelia let out a sharp gasp when he suddenly shoved her away from him. She fell back against the bed, but wasn't alone for long before his body covered hers, every inch of him pressing firmly against her as his lips crashed back against hers.
Desperate after their separation to be as close to him as possible, Amelia's fingers threaded through his hair, tugging him down to her lips. His hand tightened against her hip briefly before his fingers slid further up her body, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Amelia mewled desperately in protest when she felt his fingers leave her skin, before suddenly a loud RIIIIIP rang through the room as Elijah physically tore her shirt and bra off her body and threw them carelessly to the ground.
He pressed on undeterred, licking a path down her throat to press a sharp bite against the junction of her neck and shoulder as his fingers gripped her newly revealed skin. Another gasp tinged with a moan was pulled from Amelia, prompting Elijah to repeat the motion a little harder.
Fingers impatiently fisting in his hair, Amelia pulled his lips back up to meet her own, and by God she was magnificent. The desperate, wanton noises pulled from deep within her throat caused a shuddering moan to wrack Elijah's body, as their lips moved together, deep and hot and hungry.
His hands squeezed her heaving breasts before drifting down her stomach and clutching at her skirt, not bothering to remove it entirely but instead scrunching it up at her hips. Suddenly, another loud noise filled the bedroom as he ripped her panties off to join her torn shirt and bra on the floor. Amelia's hands frantically pushed his pants down just enough to reveal his swollen member, and then he was inside of her, hot and heavy and perfect.
Amelia's legs locked around his waist as she met him thrust for thrust. The room filled with the sounds of their ecstasy, their mingled groans and gasps as Elijah buried himself deep within her over and over. He buried his face against the skin of her shoulder, groaning her name as he felt her walls squeezing him, the pressure incredible and incomparable and perfect. Amelia's breath hitched in a moan, throwing her head back in pleasure, and Elijah couldn't hold off any longer. He buried his teeth deep into her flesh, and as her blood spilled into his mouth, her gasps heightened in pitch and then she was coming apart against him, writhing and whining.
Electrifying pleasure sizzled through Amelia's every nerve as dark red blood stained her throat. Her inner muscles squeezed him tightly and Elijah was overwhelmed by how incredible she felt, how perfect she was for him, like she was made for him and him for her. But it wasn't enough, though her blood now sung in his veins, after so many days thinking her dead, fearing he would never see her again, a deep visceral part of him needed to see his blood on her lips and on her skin. Pulling back slightly, Elijah drew his nail down in a long, sharp cut along his chest, and Amelia's tongue shot out to lick the wound clean. A violent groan of pleasure escaped him, his hips snapping faster and more harshly into her, and then Amelia threw her head back, her lips stained in his blood parting to let out another raptured gasp of pleasure, and his grip on her tightened almost to the point of pain as he came, pressing her down into the mattress as her name escaped him in a gut-deep cry of ecstasy.
Much later, when they lay together covered in sweat and blood, Elijah's grip was tightened against her in a way she'd never experienced before. He lay on his back, she tucked under one of his arms, as he continued to squeeze her as though worried she'd disappear if he let her go.
"I love you," Amelia murmured, suddenly feeling a desperate need to speak the words aloud, to tell him how much he meant to her when she'd spent the past few days fearing she'd never get the chance again. "I love you so much, Elijah."
She was already sure she'd bruise, but his fingers tightened further at her words. He tilted his head down to meet her gaze, causing the bare skin of her chest to slide against his own.
"I love you as I have never loved anything else in my long life," he murmured, dropping his forehead to press intimately against her own. Her grip was just as tight on him, though he barely noticed it.
"Without you… I turned into a monster," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. He wondered if she understood how seriously he meant his words; how desperately he'd spiraled without her there, how many he'd butchered and left in his wake… how much of an animal he'd instinctively become in his quest to get her back. "I haven't been that out of control in a long time. But without you… I have nothing worth living for."
Amelia swallowed thickly and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. "I never thought I'd see you again. I thought Klaus would kill me," she admitted in an honest whisper. "I can't believe you found me."
Elijah's hand came up to cup her cheek, and he pulled back to press his lips firmly against her forehead. Then, he forced her gaze back up to meet his own, and he murmured solemnly, "No power on heaven or earth could ever keep me from you. Nothing will ever take you from me again."
Amelia felt herself shiver at the dark promise in his words.
Niklaus had moved all the chess pieces into place. He had a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a doppelganger, and a moonstone. The full moon was tonight, and with it came the sacrifice.
Elijah had been reluctant to let Amelia out of his sight again so soon, but he had no choice. He was the only one with enough strength to kill Niklaus, and it was far too dangerous to bring Amelia with him.
He'd left her in the Old Witch House with Alaric Saltzman, Jeremy Gilbert, and John Gilbert. And then Elijah had kissed Amelia goodbye, and promised her that when he returned everything would be different.
He was right; though not in the way either of them had expected.
The other men in the house didn't speak to Amelia.
She knew that they didn't trust her. She assumed they thought her nothing but a vampire's whore, and frankly that was fine by her; she didn't care about them.
So when they disappeared downstairs to the basement to do God knows what, she'd remained on the decrepit main floor of the house and waited for Elijah to return. Pacing in front of a large window, imagining what he could be doing at that very moment, and wondering how their lives would change when Klaus was dead.
As the hours passed, Amelia more than ever before cursed her own mortality. She was useless. If she was a vampire, she could help Elijah instead of always – always – just being yet another thing he had to worry about.
She wanted to ease his strain, not add to it, and yet she felt as though that was all she'd done since the moment she came into his life.
If she had just let him turn her when he'd wanted to, all those days ago, then things would be so different. She'd been stupid and selfish, wanting to hang on for just a little bit longer to the mortality she now desperately wished away, due to her fear of the unknown. But she'd waited too long, and missed her chance; newborn vampires, she knew, were frantic and almost uncontrollable in their lust for blood and destruction. She would be nothing but a liability (more so than she already was) if she were to transition the same day the curse was due to be broken, when Elijah couldn't afford a single distraction.
No, he needed to focus all of his attention on the task at hand: killing his deranged brother. It was best for Amelia to stay somewhere out of the way and, most importantly, safe, whilst Elijah dealt with Klaus.
But knowing what was best didn't make it any easier. So she continued to pace, her anxiety growing stronger every moment Elijah remained absent from her.
When he did return, she expected he would be covered in his brother's blood. She expected him to be a wild mix of emotions; relieved to have finally achieved what he set out so many centuries ago to do… but mournful all the same at the loss of his own brother, whom he'd once loved so much.
When the time came, he was none of those things.
Between one length of the room and the next, Amelia blinked and found Elijah standing mere inches from her. Letting out a startled gasp at his sudden appearance, Amelia rushed towards him. Carefully, he pressed a single finger against his lips to demand her silence, before slowly outstretching his other hand palm-up towards her.
Without hesitation, Amelia took his hand. She blinked and the walls of the house around them suddenly disappeared. Instead, the stars twinkled in the night sky above their heads.
"What happened?!" Amelia asked desperately, her hands flying up to grip the fabric of his shirt. "Is Klaus dead? Did you kill him?!"
"I couldn't," Elijah choked out. "I couldn't – he said that he was lying, that he didn't kill them-"
Amelia's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, not following Elijah's frantic train of thought. "What?! Who?!"
"Our family! Our siblings… for so long he's maintained that he threw their coffins into the middle of the ocean, that they were lost," he cried frantically. "But it's not true. I held his life in my hands, and he swore to me that he never disposed of them… that he keeps them somewhere safe."
Amelia spoke his name gently, bringing her hands up to clutch his own. They were shaking; she held them firm. "How can you be sure he's not lying?" she asked softly. She'd spent days with Klaus, and although she wasn't certain about a great many things… she was dead certain that she didn't trust the hybrid in the slightest. "He's a liar, Elijah, you know that better than anyone…"
But Elijah shook his head. "It never made sense to me that he'd kill them," he confessed. "Over the centuries he's gone mad with lust for power, but what was always a constant was that we valued family above all. Even when everything had changed, I know that he still loved us as we loved him. If he thought he couldn't trust us then it made sense to dagger us and keep us out of his way, but to kill us? No…"
Amelia listened to the emotion in his voice, her gaze softening as he kept talking. "Perhaps he is lying, but if there's even the slightest chance that he's not… then how can I not take it?! My family… Kol… Finn… Bekah…" he murmured, his voice breaking on his siblings' names, betraying all the torment he'd felt over the centuries when he'd thought them lost to him. His face was twisted in pain, prompting Amelia to brush her fingers gently over his furrowed brow.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me," she replied, her voice comforting. "We all do risky things for the people we love. Damon and Stefan risked death to save Elena; I know that I'd go to the ends of the world for you. If there's any chance that your brothers and sister are alive somewhere, then you have to do whatever you can to try and get them back."
Elijah's face twisted into an expression of gratitude. "Thankyou," he whispered, his forehead dropping to press against hers as his eyes squeezed tightly closed. "Thankyou for understanding. I don't deserve you. I don't…"
Voice breaking off, he clutched her more desperately against him and his head dropped against her shoulder, as Amelia squeezed him back just as tightly. Elijah knew his brother better than Amelia ever could; they shared a familial bond, had grown up together, had spent centuries as each other's greatest confidant, and Amelia had only known Klaus for the handful of days she spent his prisoner. She had to trust Elijah's judgement; he knew best.
These thoughts racing through her mind, Amelia's eyes squeezed tightly shut against a sudden rush of tears as she tried to ignore the sickening feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that he didn't know best, and that something about this entire thing was so very wrong.
For two days, Klaus had run rampant as a wolf. All the while, Elijah had followed his brothers tracks, cleaning up his messes when his kills has been particularly public… or particularly gruesome.
And for two days, Amelia waited. Feeling like it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped.
Finally, Elijah returned to tell her that it was over, and Klaus was awake. And then he took her back to the place where Klaus was hiding out, to the home of Alaric Saltzman… to the place where Amelia had been certain that she was going to die.
"Brother," Klaus greeted fondly, when Elijah pushed open the door of the apartment and stepped inside. Amelia's gaze ran over the apartment, and she realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that Katherine was not there.
Amelia wondered if Klaus had killed her.
She didn't have long to ponder the alternatives, before Klaus's gaze drifted past his brother to land on Amelia, and a darkly delighted grin lit up his face. "Darling Amelia…"
Swallowing thickly, Amelia greeted back, "Klaus. I see you're not dead."
His grin grew at her words. "Don't sound so disappointed."
"But I am," she shot back instantly, honestly, and Klaus threw his head back in a laugh.
"Niklaus," Elijah interrupted, his serious tone clearly indicating that he was not amused in the slightest with this small talk. "Take me to our siblings."
"Brother, I gave you my word that I would reunite you with our siblings, and you can rest assured that I will," Klaus replied. His gaze drifted back to Amelia, and a shiver ran down her spine at the darkness she saw there now.
"But you know, it could be like old times. Just us," he said silkily. "Two brothers against the world, Elijah. Nothing needs to change."
Elijah's gaze shifted back to meet Amelia's, and he smiled lovingly at her. He reached out to twine their fingers together, and Amelia felt her anxious stomach calm at his physical touch. She squeezed his hand tightly with both of hers. Elijah, always so firm and confident, was like a physical anchor in her nerve-frazzled state.
"But things have changed," Elijah said, and his gaze softened on Amelia's face as he continued. "It's been a long time, Niklaus. Many years have passed, and I'm not the man I once was. I've changed very much… because of Amelia."
Amelia squeezed his hand even tighter, feeling a surge of deepest love and longing for her Original suddenly shoot through her. Even now, after so long had passed, she still thought him too good to be true.
A quiet laugh pulled Amelia and Elijah from their daze, and they both turned to see Klaus smiling. "You know, Elijah, after a thousand years I thought nothing you could do would surprise me. But I was wrong, because I never could have seen this coming," he laughed, grinning widely. "My brother the beast, tamed by a simple human girl!"
Inclining his head towards Amelia this time, Klaus continued, "no word of a lie, the two of you make a delightfully adorable couple. Truly, you do."
Elijah smiled in response. "Where I go, she goes; and where she goes, I go. That's how it is."
Nodding thoughtfully, Klaus strode forwards. Upon reaching them, he extended his hand to the human woman. "Then I welcome you to our family, Amelia Stone," he said sincerely, and Amelia hesitantly pulled one shaking hands from the safety of Elijah's to meet Klaus's. The hybrid held it firmly, before leaning down to press a kiss against her knuckles.
Amelia felt her skin crawl where his lips touched.
"You know, darling Amelia, you've surprised me at every turn. It's rare anybody surprises me these days," Klaus said with a sincere smile. "I look forward to sharing an eternity with you."
Amelia wanted to lie. She wanted to return Klaus's sentiment for Elijah's sake, but she couldn't force the words to come. She felt suddenly sick, standing here sharing pleasantries with this monster. Her now desperate gaze shot back to meet Elijah's, and she shifted her body closer against his, seeking the comfort he'd always brought her. Elijah's gaze shifted to one of concern as he felt the anxiety rolling off her in waves.
"Do you not share my sentiment?" Klaus prompted, his voice tinted in sickeningly fake concern. "Do you not trust me, Amelia?"
"No," she instantly replied, pure instinct before she could remember to hold her tongue. "I don't trust you at all."
Suddenly remembering herself, Amelia squeezed Elijah's hand more tightly, anchoring herself to his calmness. Taking a deep breath, she met Elijah's gaze again and took enough strength from him to say, "but Elijah does trust you. I know that counts for something."
There was a very long pause between them all. Then, his voice lacking any emotion at all this time, Klaus said, "Actually, it really doesn't."
And within an instant, Klaus pulled a familiar looking dagger from where it had been tucked into the back of his belt, dived forwards, and stabbed it deep into Elijah's heart.
Elijah's shout of pain was drowned out by Amelia's shriek of horror. She lunged for him as his hand slid from hers, but Klaus dived between them. The hybrid caught her around the waist and hoisted her back, even as she struggled desperately against him in an effort to reach Elijah. She was like a wild animal, kicking and screaming and hissing and fighting with everything she had against Klaus's hold. But it was all for nothing – Klaus held her still, and forced her to watch as Elijah's skin turned grey and he died in front of her. Elijah's desperate gaze met hers once more as he took his final breaths, and then his eyes rolled back and he slumped to the floor. He didn't move again.
"No," Amelia shrieked, shoving at Klaus more desperately than ever. "No – NO!"
She turned hysterical the longer he held her there, her screams echoing through the apartment and her clawing fingers drawing blood from Klaus's firm arm around her. She couldn't drag her eyes away from Elijah's body even as she began to sob, urgently trying to escape Klaus and reach her Elijah.
"Let me go!" she shrieked, lashing out at Klaus's face and leaving deep, bloody gashes down the length of his face. In fury, Niklaus shoved her away from him, so hard that she flew across the room. Amelia crashed to the floor, hitting it so hard that a flash of pain shot through her entire body and the air flew from her lungs, but she barely hesitated before she was scrambling back to her feet, her gaze locked on Elijah, knowing that she could make things right, if she could just reach him that she could remove the dagger and she could fix everything –
Klaus planted himself between her and Elijah's body, and when she got close again, he threw her back hard enough to dent the wall. Amelia let out a cry of pain as she slumped to the floor, her entire body throbbing in aching agony. She blinked away the sudden dizziness and focused on Klaus, still standing between her and her love, and all of Amelia's scrambled emotions turned to one overarching feeling of hatred for the man before her.
In that moment, more than ever, Amelia wanted Klaus to die. She wanted to kill him herself, to feel the life leave him under her fingertips.
Needing to do as much damage as she could, Amelia grabbed the closest thing to her – a framed photograph of Alaric at Mt Rushmore – and threw it with all her might at the hybrids head.
Klaus ducked easily, and the frame smashed against the wall as Amelia picked up another photograph, and then another, and sent them all flying furiously at Klaus one after the other.
"You bastard!" she shrieked, throwing another frame as Klaus ducked yet again. "You piece of shit!"
In a heartbeat, Klaus was standing in front of her. He grabbed her by the wrists and hissed, "stop it, Amelia!"
Struggling wildly, Amelia continued shrieking like a mad woman. Klaus shot one hand out to grip her throat, squeezing and forcing her gaze up to meet his own. "I said stop it!"
Feeling the effects of his compulsion wash over her, Amelia fell still. Her lip curled as her gaze met his own suddenly satisfied one. The look on his face caused a fresh wave of fury to wash over her, and before she'd thought about it, Amelia reared her head back and headbutted him.
Yanking his head back in more shock than pain, Klaus gripped her wrist tighter and shoved her forcefully to her knees.
"I find you amusing but if you try that again, I'll make you sorry," Klaus snarled darkly.
"You're a bastard!" Amelia shouted back hysterically. "He saved your life, he came to you to make peace! He came to help you!"
"And then he outlived his usefulness," Klaus replied silkily. "Now stay still-"
He ducked his head towards hers, and Amelia cried out as the familiar beginnings of compulsion begun to wash over her. "No," she choked out a protest, squeezing her eyes shut and frantically trying to pull away even as his grip held firm. "No, Klaus, don't, please don't-"
Insistently, he gripped her head tightly and forced her head still, forced her gaze to meet his own so he could compel her. "You'll stay in this apartment until I tell you that you can leave again. And you'll stay still until you see me walk out that door."
"No – please-" Amelia begged, her eyes welling with tears as she was forced, helplessly, to watch him walk away from her. He bent and hoisted Elijah's dead body over his shoulder, acting like he couldn't hear her at all. "Please Klaus, please don't do this – please don't take him from me-" she sobbed.
But he didn't listen. He ignored her pleas entirely, and Amelia was forced to watch, frozen in place… and entirely helpless, as she had always been in this supernatural world she didn't belong in.
The moment the door clicked shut behind them, Amelia was freed from Klaus's compulsion. She dropped to her hands and knees, deep painful sobs wracking through her entire body.
And then, a surge of hopeless fury fiercer than any she'd ever known burst through her chest, and she pounded her fists against the floor. Shooting to her feet, Amelia kicked the coffee table beside her so hard that it toppled and everything on it went flying. Hands shooting up to pull at her hair, Amelia screamed at the top of her lungs, "FUCK!"
Giving into the fury coursing through her blood, she lunged forward and shoved all Alaric's belongings off his bookshelf before moving on to unleash her emotions on the rest of the room. If Amelia was in the right frame of mind, she'd have known better; this was Alaric Saltzman's home, destroying it would only hurt him, not Klaus. But Amelia wasn't in the right frame of mind, she was distraught. All she knew was that this was the place she'd first met Klaus, the place he'd come to find haven, and now the place he'd taken everything from her. It felt like a hurricane was raging inside her chest and she needed to let it out.
When Klaus returned an hour later, Amelia had collapsed in the middle of the wreckage she'd wrought. Cuts littered her arms from where bits of shattered glass had torn at her skin through her rampage, but she didn't seem to notice that she was bleeding, nor that Klaus had returned. Her entire body had deflated, leaving her defeated form curled up and her unfocused gaze staring at nothing.
"Catastrophic thing, aren't you?" Klaus mused, his gaze running over the ruined home. He sounded pleased. "I knew you had it in you, darling. I knew if the going got tough that you had the capacity to be utterly lethal."
Amelia didn't respond; in truth, she didn't even hear him.
Klaus moved towards her, kicking rubble out of his way as he did so, until he came to kneel directly in front of Amelia. He reached out and brushed her hair behind her ear, before dragging his fingers gently down the side of her face and propping her chin up. Amelia blinked as her gaze was forced to meet Klaus's, and she felt bile rise in her throat.
"How do you live with yourself?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. Her tone held none of her earlier bite; it was flat, the words sounding weak and lifeless.
Klaus's jaw slackened as he seemed to contemplate her words. In the end though, he didn't respond; instead, he posed a question of his own.
"It was Elijah's intention to turn you into a vampire, was it not?"
The mention of Elijah's name caused a pang of sharp pain to shoot through her weak body, and Amelia physically curled in on herself in an effort to ward against it.
"That hardly matters now, does it?" she forced herself to ask. Now that his name had been said, the pain threatened to overwhelm her again. Scrunching up her eyes to force the sudden wetness back, she whispered "why? Why did you do this? Why did you take him from me?"
"Because he cannot be trusted," Klaus replied simply. "I have big plans that don't involve reviving any of my siblings, and Elijah wouldn't have accepted that. He would have become a liability, and I couldn't allow that."
Raising her chin defiantly, Amelia's watery gaze met Klaus's. "And what about me?" she asked. "Am I not a liability? Are you going to kill me too?"
She almost wished he would.
"I think…" Klaus began thoughtfully, "…that you may be of some use to me yet."
Amelia's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"Just because Elijah is gone doesn't mean that your future needs to change," Klaus continued. "I see it in you, Amelia… darling, you would make an exquisitely lethal vampire. If you come with me today, I'll change you myself."
It felt like all the air had disappeared from her lungs; she couldn't breathe, couldn't force her brain to comprehend his words. It didn't make sense, because it wasn't supposed to be like this. Of course her future had to change… her future was Elijah. She didn't want to become a vampire because it seemed like fun to maim and kill people, she wanted to become a vampire so she could be with Elijah, because there was no other way she could stay with him.
But now? Elijah was gone, and that changed everything. Klaus had taken him from her, stabbed him in the heart and hidden his body somewhere only he knew.
How long would it be before Klaus would undagger Elijah? She remembered the stories Elijah told her of his brothers and sisters… Rebekah, dead for eighty years; Kol for two hundred; Finn, for nine hundred; the lot of them subjected to their mad brothers' whims and fancies.
Amelia didn't have nine hundred years. She didn't even have eighty.
For nearly five hundred years, Elijah had sought Klaus out and failed to find him. The hybrid was over a thousand years old, a master avoiding detection… and Amelia was twenty-three, mortal, and barely had enough money to catch a bus to the other side of town, let alone hunt Klaus across the globe. She didn't have the time, she didn't have the means… she didn't have a hope in the world of getting Elijah back.
But if Klaus took her with him today… it was only a matter of time until he revealed where he kept his siblings, and Amelia would be able to undagger Elijah herself.
She realized then, with a start, that it truly was now or never.
"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, Klaus."
Slowly, a vicious looking smile spread across Klaus's face. He stroked his thumb gently against her cheek in a faux gesture of intimacy, before leaning forward to press his lips against her forehead.
Pulling back, he met her gaze and murmured, "my darling… we're going to have such fun together."
Then she felt his hands firmly gripping either side of her head, he twisted, and there was a blinding flash of white hot pain, so fierce and all-encompassing that she instantly knew she couldn't survive it… and then Amelia's entire world turned to darkness.