This epilogue proved to be so long I decided just to divide it into two sections, though this chapter is longer. I'll upload the second part in little over a day though! The goal for this epilogue was to get an idea of Maria and Elijah's future life, still full of adventure and fun past the "happy ending."
Thanks so much to tvdspnislife, cara (hope you rocked your finals), and BiancaTSparrow101 for reviewing the last chapter! Huzzah!
Epilogue Part I- Little Red Riding Hood
"I have to go."
Maria instinctively avoided Elijah's gaze, settling her gaze somewhere between his cheek and nose, on his flawless skin, a shade darker than his brothers'.
"Where?" she asked, hiding her fear.
"I have to join my brother in New Orleans," he said coldly. "Something has come up."
The cold, the cold was so deep inside her. "And what of me?"
"I will always treasure our time together," he told her, and held her hand. But still he kept that icy poise, an arctic polish that made him appear a thousand miles away.
The pace of her heart quickened. How elegant he was. How distant. And frozen.
Elijah couldn't be shattered. She bowed her head, hiding her confusion. And Oh Lord, the pain.
A strange twist to her arm changed her surroundings.
"You were frowning in your sleep," Elijah told her, and bent down to kiss her head.
Ugh. She kicked her legs out until she was up from under the wickedly red blankets, and grimaced. The cool air felt good against her bare skin, since she was only wearing a tank top and pajama short-shorts.
"I dreamt that you were leaving me to join your brother in New Orleans," she told him, scared, relieved, and still panicky. This definitely had to be one of the worst dreams she had ever had.
Elijah gave her that stark look of disbelief over the bed. "Have you ever displayed any psychic ability before in your dreams?"
She smiled in satisfaction. "Nope. I have none."
"Of that, I have no doubt," he said drily, and lifted her from the bed in his arms, carrying her over to the kitchen. "I sooner would set my limbs on fire than part from you."
He lowered her smoothly on of the counter stools with an impressive display of dexterity, and nuzzled her sweetly.
"Be calm," he urged. "You're part of my family now."
And plus, they were already in New Orleans together. Silly dream. Laissez les bons temps rouler.
But stress made her hands tingle, which usually meant some part of her was flashing with some sort of nymph magic. Really, Maria was becoming greener, which was weird, but Elijah told her it was cute. Literally, his word. "Cute."
He wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her sweetly on the neck again, and then went into the kitchen to make her try one of his dishes he had clearly been preparing. Her thoughtful vampire had taken to her making her breakfast, and sometimes ate with her like they were normal humans. Though she suspected this was because he was attempting to class her meals up. But was wrong with McDonalds Breakfast Burritos and McGriddles? Nothing at all, obviously.
She looked at him zooming around the kitchen, appreciating the sight. Elijah looked delicious. He was only wearing a pair of slacks unbuttoned at the top, because he really never seemed to have grasped the idea of casual ware. Heaven forbid he wore a T-shirt or basketball shorts. His hair was also a little more spiky than usual from her hands running through it during the night. And those lean back muscles. Yum.
He brought her the plate, moved behind her.
"What a strange creature you are. What fancies you have." The impudent male placed a confident hand over one of her knockers, and kissed her cheek.
Maria felt relief, happiness. He wasn't cold. What was her dream self thinking? He burned hot, like an incinerator.
"What do you think?"
She laughed incredulously. "These are the best tots I have ever had."
He smiled at down at her, looking proud. "I oiled and seasoned the potato, grated it, added my special cheese fondue."
"How are you such a great cook?"
"I am a man of many talents," he replied, kissing her bare shoulder.
"Don't distract me! These are amazing." She started chomping enthusiastically, scarfing them down.
"Easy, easy," Elijah cautioned, rubbing her back.
"Bring me ketchup!" she demanded happily
He did what she asked, then looked at her finishing the tater tots like it was a sight worth seeing.
Grimacing suddenly, Elijah suddenly looked like a troubled male model. " I must know. Am I the only man you ever loved?"
Men. "You're so random, Elijah," she answered, and swallowed. He gave her an impatient look. Sigh. Threading her feet around the foot of the stool, she gave him a measured look.
Maria finished the tots, put down her fork. "Of course you are. I don't why. I'm certainly old enough to have fallen in love more than once. It's just that I was alone for such a long time. And love just never… happened."
"I idealized women, and they disappointed me, and likely I them," he admitted, leaning against the counter, looking appeased by her answer.
"Maybe you never cooked for them enough."
"Perhaps," he said softly, and rubbed his jaw, laughing. "You heard of me before, yes? Not just back in the village?"
"You have a scary reputation. The cool older brother, rational and violent, the fiery half-psychotic younger brother."
"Were you intrigued?"
"I was creeped out," she said honestly. "I've never been a vampire groupie."
Elijah stepped forward, coaxed her body against his, and ran his hands through her arms, his bare chest directly against her back.
He laughed lowly, nibbled her ear, as if in contemplation. "Of that I am glad. I would have to find every vampire boyfriend you ever had, and exterminate them."
Maria sighed, shook her head. "I'm going to treat that as a joke, but I know you're completely serious."
"Very serious."
She reached back to curl a hand around his neck, stroke the skin. "Elijah, you're such a freak."
"You're the deviant." His voice got lower, suggestive. "The things you bid me done to you last night. Sizzling."
Cruel vampire. "Haven't you ever read Cosmo? I'm not deviant! I'm a normal woman with needs."
He was laughing at her. "So you say, Maria. Come here, sweet creature."
Elijah turned her around to directly face him.
Still standing, he stepped in between her legs. "Now I get to decide which way I want it. Agreed?"
"Looks good," she said in a strangled voice, and kissed him.
His face vamped out, fangs distended, eyes swollen in blood.
Elijah disrupted the contents of the nearby kitchen table and set her on it like she was the feast.
"Hold still," he instructed her, and bent down while she gasped in pleasure.
Questing Prep
Maria's limbs still felt liquidy. It had to be said again. Hottest. Vampire. Ever.
What a bizarre time she had spent in New Orleans so far. It was offensive, the lack of magic here. Marcel's glam Kobe Bryant looks and wide grin didn't offset his creeptastic stranglehold on the city's witches. Though it wasn't all that surprising that a protégé of Klaus would have control freak issues, she had to admit.
Apparently, Klaus had truly taken a liking to the city, had fond memories of it. Maria didn't give a damn about trying to take it over though. Neither did Elijah. But she was willing to help on the behalf of the witches here, and according to Klaus, she was "part of the family now, and obligated to help a brother-in-law."
"I am certainly willing to step up for your protection, Klaus," she told him. "But I'm not part of your army and you're not stronger than me, so I can't be forced."
"And if I am uncertain about whether your help would constitute being my soldier," and his lips had twisted amusedly at the word, "or if out of the kindness of your very own heart to aid a family member?"
"Then you can ask."
"He's sulking because Caroline wants to live in a dorm instead of with him," she complained to Elijah inside their apartment, her head on his lap, resting on top of a baroque couch that had beautiful iron moldings like a throne. The rest of the room was typical Elijah, Corinthian flourishes on all the chairs and sofas, a nail and timber design on all the doors like some sort of torture chamber, and a refined warmth from the wood-paneled walls like an aristocrat's library.
He played gently with her hair. "Klaus takes what he views as slights against him very personally.
"So he overtakes a city?"
"That is my brother in a nutshell."
A thought occurred to her. "What would you do if you have that sort of problem? The last time you were that angry, you only had sex with me. But don't think I'll ever forget WalMart."
"My dear, I do not lash out. Well, rarely so. When particularly angry, to calm down I polish my shoes."
She twisted her head in his lap, looked up at him. "Say whaaaa?" Her face contorted in disbelief.
"I can add rubber soles to maintain stability, wash them with saddle soap to protect them from water damage, buff the scuff marks, and of course, re-sole them when I deem them to have suffered too much wear."
He breathed out, looking smug. "And of course, I make my own shoe polish."
He then moved from her hair, started delicately outlining the contours of her face. "Elijah, are you like, a cobbler? Is that what you did back in Mystic Falls of yesteryear? Did you cobble?" Her man was so weird.
"Of course not. Though as a youth, I wanted to be a blacksmith, but admittedly, did not have the physical build."
"I can't tell how serious you are. The thing is I think you're more serious than not serious, so I really don't know what to say here."
He placed a wandering hand on her knee. "I have many interests, and you are one of them. Come here."
Maria fought his plans. His touch always ruined her prepping. It had been a miracle she had gotten anything done against Silas! "But I've been trying to trace where Marcel's power source is coming from. The one where he can detect any trace of magic. I can't figure it out for the life of me," she protested.
She saw Elijah stop his attentions, frown. "Do you think he could detect you? I would eviscerate anyone who tries to interfere, of course, and lay their hearts at your feet, but I don't want someone to pay added attention to you."
Her boyfriend could be so sweet. She reached above her head, took his hand. "Nah, I don't think so. What I'm doing should be indistinguishable from any other act of nature, a tree growing, flowering, a seed blooming. It's just the way I was built. "
Gah, time to try again. She planed the map of the city in her head, the physical landmarks, all that weird pulsing energy in this crazy town. Such a power should be practically screaming for attention, but she couldn't see any marker.
Elijah kept still while she went through the city's infrastructure. "This should be easy," she complained. "Regular magic that comes from nature, the kind we don't notice, flows evenly. It's like seeing a bunch of integers, and then a repeating number. It should stick out at you immediately, but I don't see any irregularity."
She fell silent, adjusted her reclined position over his knees. Maybe there was too little irregularity? The power source could be masked somehow. In her mind, she zoned in on a specific spot that seemed particularly even. Huh. There was a lack of elasticity in the nature magic, the power flow is too precise, marginal but without any change in its flow. And nature should be constantly changing.
"Got it," she told Elijah, still resting on top of him.
"I'm not surprised," he said, bending down to kiss her forehead.
Maria explained the situation, the anomalous area in her calculations, the static point at the edge of the city that could potentially hold the source to Marcel's power.
"I was also able to go into its magic," she continued. "It's intense. There's about three shields, the magic itself, which I can't puzzle out from here, another layer neutralizing the magic in the first place to keep it from escaping, then the last shield making all that magic seem negligible and normal, when really the second shield has even more power than the first, with all the energy it's taking to contain the power. The place is massively sourced."
He gave her an admiring glance. "Magnificent. You impress me at every turn."
She smiled, gratified despite herself. "We need to go check it out. If we can't take it out, we'll need to call on Bonnie."
He shook his head. "Kol called me yesterday. They are to be staying in the Other Side for a little while. Bonnie has been tasked with maintaining its stability."
"Damn. When I was a teenager, I dug holes in the ground for fun. I was trying to trap lizards. It didn't work."
Elijah laughed. "Oh, Maria. I still marvel at the fact that I had not known of your existence."
She smiled at him. "I keep low. Never met a lot of famous people either. It kills me that I never saw the Beatles live. I was totally planning to, but then they stopped touring."
"You know I met Eleanor Roosevelt once," he commented.
"Oh, don't tell me that, I am so jealous. She's my role model in everything. A true Bohemian."
Elijah sighed, crept his hand back to her knee. "Should we take Klaus to the place?"
"Um, Klaus is…volatile right now."
"Let's take this adventure alone then. I should be protection enough."
"Heck yes, hot stuff," and took his hand, encouraging him higher.
Vera
"Oh, look. Finn." Vera said his name like it was a bad word. "It's you again."
She wanted to smack something to take out her frustration. Could this man ever take a hint? Finn ignored her putdowns, accepted all her insults. He just kept coming back for more abuse! And she suspected that the charismatic ogre Caroline had given him her phone number. Though Finn's texts were hilariously formal, she only sent back rude responses, like 'drop dead vamp. again.' Heh.
'I wish to speak to you, though I am discomforted by communicating through this mobile device,' he had written to her a week ago, and later 'I admit to being discouraged by your antipathy, but am heartened that this only proof of your fire, and the zest only adds on to your appeal', and one she couldn't bring herself to delete like the rest of them, simply 'you are beautiful.'
Groan. She had finally explained her past history with Silas to Maria, and she been a teary mess. She remembered the days of her youth, feeling innocent, pure, enjoying life with these strange humans and their transitory, finicky ways. Until his eyes started to creep over her body, and he started whispering promises to her of eternal lives, the life he was going to steal away from Qetsiyah. He broke one of her bones with his anger once, and then sobbing, had set and dressed it for her, crying for forgiveness. And when Qetsiyah slashed her throat, and Vera, still not understanding death and who she was, had expected to have her life ended. Until she woke up amidst discarded, sacrificed bodies, and had realized her immortality.
She had been traumatized, that's what had happened. And she did not trust the promises of men.
Vera had made sure that her visit to New Orleans to see Maria has been a secret, but here he was all the same on a busy street in mid-day, ogling the view.
"Sorry, young one. Time to scuttle on ahead. You're not manly enough. What can I say? I like them tall and virile." She gave him a queen bee smile.
Finn only drew himself more straight. "I am more than man enough for you," he growled.
She looked at him with surprise. Whoa, cowboy.
"You think so?"
"Affirmative." The Original gave a stiff nod. Still looking at her with that constant hunger. But it didn't frighten her, exactly. Though it did make her feel odd.
"D'ya like the skirt I'm wearing?" she asked him, determined to show him what he could never have. Vera kicked out a leg, a high-waisted miniskirt in deep burgundy that showed off her long legs, all the way down to her hipster boots. This month she was wearing her hair short, straightened and pulled back in a bun. But who was she kidding? Whatever she did with her clothes or hair, she always looked hot.
"Is that an invitation to more closely examine your garment?" he asked her, his voice husky.
"You wouldn't know what to do with it even if you used a magnifying glass."
He only smiled faintly. It illuminated the ghostliness of his features, the sharp cheekbones, the handsome face but morose, slightly sunken eyes.
"It would be a worthy experiment."
Was that a fluttering in her heart? No! That meant his vamp senses could hear it. "Whatever, dude, step back. And stop acting so damn thirsty."
He gave her a determined look. "I don't understand all the modern diction you use. Please speak plainly."
The conversation had gotten dangerous. "I'm leaving now. Don't follow me," she told him. Vera looked behind at him suspiciously as she walked away into another street.
She willed her breathing to steady. She would keep a close guard on her heart. No one had ever managed to unlock it anyway.
At the Gathering Point
"So we're here. Yayyyy…" Maria's sarcastic voice trailed off. It hadn't taken very long for her to find the hotspot, off the outskirts of New Orleans in a neighboring county.
The house was hideous, truly demented. The windows were mismatched, the doors trapezoidal and rotting, and the wooden shingle walls chipped and sagging. And apparently the area was supernaturally reinforced to expel all non-magical beings.
Her nose wrinkled. "The walls…are slimy."
"Exceedingly poor architecture," he agreed, not liking the place. If only Maria would let him explore the area first.
Elijah was determined to protect her. Unlike when they had faced Silas, where he was forced to leave her to fend for herself. That still rankled. The pain she must have faced fighting Silas inside his very mind…
Though truly, Elijah also wanted to impress her. He wanted to ensure that she was as entrenched with him as he was with her. Her humor, her dark looks, he loved all of it. He could readily admit to a fascination with her body. She could grow thinner or larger, had growing hair, and he was attuned enough to see occasional subtle changes in her body. A changeable, living creature. Nothing like him.
"Oh my God, Elijah, I think we are wandering into a haunted house." Her expression looked close to breaking.
"Don't laugh," he warned her. "You could offend whatever demon resides inside."
They stepped over the crunching leaves, a rich black, and in between stones beset by a strange amber-colored moss. The trees beside them overran with sap, dripping onto the dark ground.
His lovely woman kicked at the ground, displacing leaves. She looked especially discordant with the surroundings, wearing a bright red pea jacket, a suave looking navy beret, and saddle shoes. "Give me a minute while I undo this shielding. It's complex."
Elijah looked at her with interest. "Can you undo magic as easily as that? One minute?"
"Kind of? Witch magic is so different from mine, I can just pick it apart. It's like finding neon threads in a sweater and just plucking them away."
Maria closed her eyes, and he took a moment to stare into her face, so uncharacteristically still.
"Done!" she announced, opening her eyes. "Someone really does not want us to be here. It was a little harder than I thought it was going to be." This assertion only made his gypsy look cheerier.
She took his hand, and they walked through the muddy ground to the front door.
"Should I knock?" he asked her, feeling whimsical.
"Do it. Do it."
Elijah put up one hand. His knocks…went through the door, breaking the frame.
"Well, you messed that up."
"Weak infrastructure. Not everything is as strong as hardy as you, Maria."
A familiar, heady sparkle came into her eyes, the same glimmer he saw when he knew he had turned her on. "What can I say, my body can take you perfectly, Elijah."
"Like a glove," he agreed, taking her arm.
He wanted her then. Curse this place. He looked around with distrust. Exposed walls and wiring, rugs soaked with some foul substance, and distressed paintings overcome with mold. And the long staircase at the right looked chewed. The scent was curiously blank. Faint echoes of pain, ruthlessly suppressed, musty cloth, a slight churn of oil. Shielded, like everything else in the house.
His unease grew. His sense told him magic was assembling.
Elijah heard a girl laughed. Loudly.
Maria clutched his arm in panic. If he had been human, the pressure would have cut his skin.
The floor clenched and rocked beneath their feet.
"No," he announced to the air, angered that someone was placing his Maria in danger. "We are staying right here."
The rocking faded.
"You were supposed to come over here, where the floor didn't move," the voice said in a whine, and moved forward. The girl pouted, flounced her old-fashioned white skirts. She sidled over, almost skipping.
The apparition extended a hand. "Come join me.
Maria in the Mansion
Maria hastily grabbed Elijah's arm. "Maybe later, miss? We have an urgent social appointment, I'm afraid."
She lowered her voice so only he could hear. "Magic freak monster. She's just a collection of energy. She doesn't live. She's just magic trained to respond to us."
The girl stared blankly ahead.
"What should we do?"
"She'll probably only respond to generic questions."
"So if we just ignore her, she'll just stand there?"
"Seems like it."
Creak, the ooze. A stench. Rope, and ship. Rope and ship. We escaped to worse darkness.
"What is that?" Elijah grimaced.
"A disembodied voice? Coming from….somewhere?" Her usual light, carefree voice was coming out strained. She hoped he didn't hear the tremble. "I don't get this. Is it the house itself that is the genesis of Marcel's power? Or something inside?"
A ruined house of no fear. The door never closes. The window never shatters. The light never keeps. And the witch never sleeps.
"Hey, girl," she tried. "Can you make the voice stop? It's annoying us."
The figure ran a hand over the staircase, took a delicate bite off the banister. "I can't. I like it. It keeps me company."
"So do you want something from us? Why are you here?" Maria queried.
"I want blood," the girl said. "But don't worry. Not yours. I have some right here," and she took out a small dingy metal box, and shook the contents until it sloshed and rattled.
Elijah let out a breath beside her. "That is blood inside that box. But it's missing platelets."
Furrr-eak. "You can tell just by smelling that? Dude."
"I have intimate knowledge on the subject."
Heck, he had intimate knowledge on her blood. He fed from her like every day, but she loved it too. Did this mean she had become Elijah's own vampire groupie? Dammit.
The girl smiled cautiously. "But I suppose we would like some more blood. The lady's."
"No," Elijah only said calmly, as if refusing an extra dessert at dinner.
"There's not much I can do about that, then," the being said, amiably enough. The being placed the box back somewhere inside her dress. "She wants me to come back."
Maria narrowed her eyes at the girl. "But you aren't even real. How can she be calling you?"
"I know. But sometimes I think I feel like what I am isn't enough." She shrugged her shoulders, laughed. "Come back soon!"
Chance Encounter
"Again? Finn, really? Take a hint. Leave me alone."
"Not this time," he pressed her. "I have reason to believe that Elijah and his paramour, your friend, have entered into danger."
Vera wrinkled her nose in distaste. "How can we help her?"
"I know about your power. It should come into use."
Her friends would blab anything to anyone. Even apparently, the apartment she was staying at.
"Has everyone been telling you everything about me? I have no more friends! I abjure them," she cried.
"From the sources I have gotten from Marcel's men," he told her urgently, ignoring her vow, "they are doing blood experiments. To create new members of his army, or modify his current ones, I do not know."
"That's impossible. The amount of magic to do that, well, it needs Expression. And probably thousands of sacrifices."
He only looked patiently at her. And those tortured eyes, they appealed too much to something she thought buried long ago.
"Why are you helping anyway?" Vera asked warily.
"I'm trying to impress you. Last week when you saw me, you said the most impressive thing I had done in my life was lie in a box for centuries."
"It didn't come off that mean!" she defended, feeling uncomfortable. "It sure showed commitment to, erm, resting." Sigh. OK, so she could be a bitch sometimes. But didn't that just mean she didn't take BS from anybody? Why was that a bad thing?
"So what exactly are they really doing in that magic factory of Marcel's?"
"Rumor has it that they are trying to figure out how to kill Originals. They might be opening a portal to the Other Side, to imprison us there."
"How do you know all this?" she asked him suspiciously.
He gave her a bland look. "Weaker though I may be than my siblings, I am still one of the strongest vampires in history. I got it out of people."
OK, so that was kind of hot. "Raising an army, making their personal supernatural death prison, and I'm guessing also suppressing witch energy? What aren't they doing? And Qetsiyah sucked at her job, to allow this. Bonnie's going to freak. That's one fierce bee-yotch."
"I think her and Kol already were up there. They probably already stifled that, though I cannot contact him in the Other Side to confirm this."
She gave him an assessing look. "You don't have some Original family bat signal or something you can flare?"
Finn only gave her an uncomprehending look, and a morose flex of his eyebrows. This was probably the zillionth time he didn't understand what she was talking about. Was she feeling…guilty? No, impossible, definitely not.
"So Maria's already there? What a spaz," she said affectionately.
"So you agree to come?"
"Of course.
Suddenly, the vampire smiled. And holy smokes, it was a good look. His cheekbones looked better than ever. "I have been trying to convince you to spend time together. It seems I have succeeded."
"Am I really worth a journey into possible death, maiming, Other Side drama? Really?" She looked at him with astonishment. This man was loco.
Finn gave her an incredulous look. "Of course. Didn't you already know?"
Vera wanted to cry. Her cold, dead heart was doomed.
Parlor Games
"We're stuck. How many corridors does this house have? I hate mazes!"
Elijah gave her a sympathetic glance. "Unfortunately, you have just found yourself in one."
"Bollocks. What we need is a clear path."
"Such a do-gooder," he said, amused by her vexed tone.
"That's what haunted houses do! They make you try to break the rules they set. And one of these rules is 'don't get lost inside a freaking haunted mansion-shack!'"
He walked on calmly beside her. Yet inside the voice was speaking.
What would it take? What would it take? How many crops did we grow, only to lose to snow, only to lose to them? Those rancid beasts. They made us hide in dirt.
Maria walked on, untroubled.
Your whelp can't hear our conversation. Her love is like a poison, the female voice hissed.
She destroys me, he agreed. I have been altered. But it was a necessary change.
You are softer.
I am more ruthless in other things. Your destruction, for one. Before I could have planned your truth death calmly. Now it's like my mind drips in your blood already. What I wouldn't give to kill you right at this moment for daring to even speak of her.
And of her wishes? Will she want to stay for you for eternity?
Do not matter. She will never leave me, even if she begs.
How autocratic you seem.
I am gentle with her.
You are demanding.
I don't think you understand, she likes it.
And you know who I am?
Elijah smiled down at Maria as she ranted on about the evils of ghost magic and hauntings. They continued walking on.
I do. Hello, Grandmother.