(The Stars Were Brightly Shining)
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: After a one night stand with Klaus, Elena discovers she's not going to be alone for Christmas after all.
Spoilers: Seasons 3 & 4
Rating: R
Warnings: canon typical violence/ teen pregnancy / angst angst angst and Christmas
A flash of blonde a few yards away snags her attention, and suddenly, that little moment between Caroline and Tyler comes hurtling back on top of her like a freight train.
Shit. She'd been totally distracted.
"So what's up with Tyler?" she asks casually as she sidles up to Caroline.
Caroline turns and raises both eyebrows. "Tyler?" she asks, for all the world distracted and flustered. "Did he say something to you?"
"You tell me."
Caroline laughs, but it's not her real laugh. "Oh, did you see us arguing back there?" She writes something on her clipboard. "He's trying to get out of a date he promised me, that's all."
Elena grabs Caroline's wrist. Looks around, makes sure Klaus isn't lingering anywhere nearby. "He's not… planning something, right?"
"Why would you think that?"
Because I knows the crowd I run with, she wants to snap.
"If there were something, you'd tell me, right?" she asks instead.
Caroline puts down her clipboard. "Nothing's going on. I promise."
"You know Klaus is here, right?"
"This again? He's just bringing me the painting he promised. Late, I might add." She pats her on the shoulder. "You shouldn't stress out so much. It can't be good for the baby."
"The baby's fine. I just need to make sure you and Tyler are."
"We're totally fine. Better than fine." Her eyes trail away from Elena, to a point behind her shoulder, and she pauses thoughtfully. Glances down at her schedule. "Actually, do you think you can man the auction table? I'm too busy putting out fires and I don't have the time I thought I would."
Elena frowns at her. "Yeah, sure—just—if something is happening, you'll let me know, right?"
"Yeah. Of course."
She watches from the auction tables as Caroline flirts shamelessly with Klaus over glasses of champagne.
Fires indeed.
She wonders if Caroline is doing this to distract Klaus from something or if she simply enjoys his company as much as she appears to.
She refuses to acknowledge the feeling roiling in her gut at the sight of their easy, companionable laughter. Klaus is never like that with her. But then, he never needs to worry when he raises his glass for a sip that Caroline has slipped him his death at the bottom of his glass.
And the worst part is that it's his real smile which he flashes for Caroline, over and over—that smile Elena has only seen a bare handful of times, which Caroline apparently receives so effortlessly, with no strings attached. No wonder she'd fallen for him.
Klaus catches her watching them. Quirks his brow—a question, a challenge, who knows—before returning his attention to Caroline.
The sun gets low.
She cannot look away. Marks them doggedly as they take a slow circuit around the festival.
Elena's interrupted from her vigil by the mayor, tugging at her sleeve. "Elena, dear, are you listening?"
"Hm?"
"The auction winners, dear. I was hoping you could make the announcements."
"Oh, I'm not sure about that. I'm not really feeling very well—"
"It's just that your mother used to always do this, and I thought it would be nice for you to carry on the tradition as a founding daughter—"
Elena glances back, to where she had last seen Klaus and Caroline. They've both disappeared.
"Fine, yes, okay."
She lets Mayor Lockwood lead her to the stage.
On the steps leading up to the stage, Elena pauses. Frowns. "Why did you say you wanted me to do this again?" she shouts over the din of the live band wrapping up their set.
Mayor Lockwood smiles blandly up at her. "You're a founding daughter of the town. It's what's to be expected," she shouts back.
Founding daughter. She shakes her head. There's something familiar about that phrase, but what?
The mayor says something else, but Elena doesn't hear it as she turns the phrase over in her mind.
A vague memory tumbles loose.
I'm a founding daughter of this town. The last of the Gilberts, thank you.
Her heart clenches in her chest.
She clutches Mayor Lockwood's arms. "Who suggested I give the presentation?"
The mayor frowns, her expression a little misty, now that Elena knows to look for it. "I don't understand, dear."
Elena lets her go and searches the crowd.
Klaus had done this. She's certain of it. He'd engineered for her to be up on this stage at this particular time, stuck announcing the auction winners while he—what? Why did he need her up there? To get her out of the way, so she couldn't interfere? Or to get her up high, where she'd be forced to witness—? Her mind grapples blindly trying to fill in the blanks.
She sprints up to the top of the stage and scans the crowd. Races through possibilities as she searches. Whatever this set up is, it's got to involve someone she cares about—someone on her list he can use to hurt her. That's Klaus's M.O., right? Hurt him, he uses the ones you love to hurt you back?
Caroline, Tyler, and Matt are the only ones here—unless—a cold sweat breaks over her skin—unless the reason Bonnie hasn't been answering is that he's kidnapped her again? No, no, that doesn't make sense, no way he could be holding her for days on end—which means it's got to be one of the other three, right?
She doesn't see Tyler or Caroline anywhere, but her eyes lock onto Matt on the edge of the town green. Just an indistinct silhouette against the setting sun, but she would know him anywhere. He's carrying a crate, balancing it precariously as he looks both ways before crossing. Mid-step into the street, someone must call out to him, because he turns back.
Premonition screams through her blood. She knows what's going to happen before the car comes barreling around the corner, roaring through the red light.
Elena leaps from the stage and barrels through the crowd, shoving people out of the way as she sprints headlong toward the far end of the green, ignoring the way that people shout after her. Her lungs burn and her blood pounds in her ears, louder than the music, than the surprised screams of mothers and children as she charges past them. She breaks from the crowd in time to see Matt, prone on the ground, a slick puddle seeping out from under him with each passing second. Shattered glass litters the ground around him, from where the contents of the crate had gone airborne when the car struck him.
There's no car in sight.
The detail sticks in the back of her mind as she rushes to him, her hands hovering over him as she searches for something she can do to fix this—
But fuck, this is bad. There's blood everywhere, and she can't even figure out where it's coming from. It's like Matt is just one gaping wound—
Caroline appears out of nowhere and ducks down to Matt's side. "What happened?"
"He was hit—Care, I don't think he's going to make it—"
"Not if he gets taken to a hospital." Caroline looks around. "I'm moving him inside, so I can take care of this. Help me cover."
Elena nods. Turns back to the members of the crowd who are starting to gather. "Everything's fine!" She calls. "It looks much worse than it was!" She forces a laugh. "Must be a Christmas miracle!"
It's literally the stupidest lie she's ever come up with—no one could look at the ocean of blood on the street and believe it.
Except, this is Mystic Falls, and she's wholesome Elena Gilbert, and everyone knows her. No one would ever suspect her.
She doesn't wait to find out if anyone's willing to put two and two together today, rushing inside the closed Grill hot on Caroline's heels, slamming the lock on the front doors behind her.
By the time she's turning around, Matt's already sitting up near the bar, rubbing blood out of his eyes.
"What happened?" he asks.
Right now, Elena doesn't care that they'd been fighting just this morning. Doesn't care that he's drenched in blood. She throws her arms around him and holds on tight.
After a moment, he returns the embrace. "Seriously, what happened?" he asks as he pulls away.
"You got hit by a car?" Caroline supplies.
Matt shakes his head and mutters that he can't remember any of that, while Elena works furiously over the events of the past few minutes.
The timing of Matt's accident. The hit and run driver. Why put her up on stage? To witness, or to hold her up?
"Matt. Are you on vervain?" she asks.
"Yeah, of course."
"You drink it, every day?"
"Well, no, I have a bracelet—" He holds up a bare wrist.
All three of them stare and stare.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
She'd known Klaus was up to something. She'd known it, all week, and yet she'd never thought—
He'd compelled Matt. Probably yesterday, when he stopped by the Grill. She clenches her jaw, seeing Matt's third degree this morning in a totally different light.
Except, she'd seen Klaus talking to the mayor days ago. Setting this—this—this whatever it was supposed to be up. Making sure she'd be up on that stage. But what for? To watch Matt die? Had he lined this up, some kind of preemptive revenge in case she turned him down? But how could he have known she would?
None of it makes sense.
"When did your bracelet go missing?" Caroline asks. "Elena, what's going on?"
Elena stands up. "Have you seen Klaus?" He's the one piece missing from this puzzle. Why would he do all of this and then not even show up to watch her suffer?
Caroline pauses for a damningly long minute before she responds, "I think we're going to need a drink for this." She marches around to the bar and selects a bottle of Jack.
Everything about the way she does it reads guilty wrong guilty.
"What? Caroline, where's Klaus?" Elena repeats.
"Remember how I told you nothing was going on?" Caroline takes a shot. "Well, I lied!" She says it in just the way she would say ta-da!
Matt rubs at his face and slumps at the bar. "I have no idea what's going on."
"What do you mean you lied? Where is he?"
Caroline frowns at the intensity in Elena's voice. "The coup's happening tonight. Tyler's friend Hayley found a witch to do that body-swapping spell Klaus likes so much, except this time, he's going to get swapped into Tyler's body… and buried in concrete."
"What? That's insane—I asked you earlier—"
"I know, and we decided to keep you out of it, okay? You get so—so keyed up about him, so frightened, and so Tyler and I thought it would be better if you just didn't know." Caroline takes another drink. "Tyler's sacrificing himself so the others can escape." She sounds equally furious and aggrieved.
Buried in concrete. "How long?"
Caroline doesn't answer.
Long, then.
A wave of dizziness closes in on her. That's it, then. He really will be cut out of her life.
She's getting what she asked for.
Wishes coming true.
"Where are they?" She doesn't even recognize her voice when she speaks. It feels like the words are coming from someone else.
"The sun's set, Elena. I think it's probably already done."
"I have to go," Elena mumbles, hurrying from the bar, ignoring the way that both Caroline and Matt call after her. Neither of them follow her, though.
Already done.
He may as well be dead.
To her, for all practical purposes, he is.
The tears burst from her before she even makes it to the green, scalding tracks down her cheeks as she stumbles through the debris of the disbursing crowd.
She's such an idiot. Crying over Klaus, like she can't read his fingerprints all over what happened to Matt tonight, like she hasn't been in a state all week worrying over him and trying to find ways to push him away. All because there's this knot buried at the center of her chest that she just can't untie, no matter how hard she picks at it.
And she cries harder because she knows she'll get over this loss, just like every other.
She's Elena Gilbert. Death has no hold over her.
And when Klaus emerges, years down the line, she'll just be a memory. He'll think back on their last conversation—how she told him he'd meant nothing to her—and—and—
And that will be how their story really ends.
And that'll be fine.
She won't even let herself think about Tyler just yet.
She huddles up by the empty auction tables and watches all of the happy families leave the festival.
That'll be me in a few years, she tells herself. I won't even remember this then.
It's a pretty lie. Her favorite kind.
It's late when she finally stands, her body numb from the cold, especially in the places where Matt's blood had soaked through her dress and turned icy.
The only people still about are Mayor Lockwood, seated on the lip of the fountain, cellphone in hand, and a lone figure approaching from the other side of the green.
Elena frowns as the figure draws closer.
Recognition seizes over her, flooding her with relief sharp as the knife she'd stabbed herself with last spring.
"Klaus!" She's calling his name before she knows what she's doing. Running toward him without even thinking about it.
If there's something disturbing about his slow, deliberate gait as he drifts toward Mayor Lockwood, she doesn't register it until she's already careening into him, hands reaching out to catch at his arms.
"Klaus, you're okay," she pants, her hands roving over him.
He blinks down at her, as though noticing her for the first time.
There's a look of such raw anguish on his face that it strips Elena down to the bone. Scours away the last of her defenses against him.
Pity stirs her heart. And with it, an unfurling softness.
The moment stretches long as they take each other in.
Klaus's gaze sharpens upon her. He steps out of her reach. "Tell me where your friend Tyler Lockwood is hiding," he demands, his voice low and steady like the roll of a drum. It dawns on her that he's absolutely covered in blood and gore. She
"I don't know. I haven't seen him in hours."
He nods, like he's not surprised.
"Your hybrids. You killed all of them, didn't you?" She should be horrified. Instead, she's just glad that Tyler had escaped.
He closes his eyes, briefly. "Yes." Somehow, covered in the blood of the family he'd attempted to create for himself, he looks even lonelier and sadder to her than usual.
She's unprepared for how deeply the sight of him like this moves her.
She also knows what it's like, to be completely alone. To be so sad that each breath aches.
"I had no idea what they were planning."
"It doesn't matter."
"It does, though." Tentatively, she reaches out, and when Klaus doesn't pull away again, she threads her arms around him and holds him close to her. He doesn't return the embrace, but he doesn't shove her away, either. "I'm so glad that you're okay," she confesses into his sodden dress shirt.
He doesn't respond, but the words seem to seep into him, little by little. Slowly, Klaus's arms come up around her and draw her close against him.
She stays with him the whole night.
A/N: YUP. Thanks for reading.
