It's All Over Now

He'd been watching her for days now. Even if he wouldn't keep his word to her about waiting in Palermo, he'd at least keep the illusion of his word. He had tensed first when seeing Damon, but he quickly realized that the vampire was with the witch. An odd pairing to be sure. Not that witches were always opposed to it, but certainly never a Bennett witch.

Klaus imagined what it would be like to walking by Elena's side, rounding out the group as they explored the city together. He noted the ease with which she carried herself around them. Nothing like the people that celebrated her birthday with her just days ago. These, he decided, were her real friends.

Is that why she didn't invite him here? She was keeping this authentic part of herself from him? She didn't trust him yet?

Those thoughts irritated him greatly. He had her, but he wanted all of her. Anything less wasn't enough for him. He needed her to be as consumed by him as he was by her.

He promised himself that he wouldn't reveal himself to her in Venice, but he was tested on the third night.

She was out at a bar with her friends and left without them. As soon as she did, the vampire and witch huddled closer together as if conspiring. It was harder, not impossible, following her now. Crowded streets provided enough of a cover that he lazily follow while getting lost in her. Now, his attention was split between her and not wanting to be exposed that he hadn't noticed the other vampire approach her until the other predator was right in front of her.

"Bold of you, walking these streets alone." He was young and far more confident than he had a right to be.

Elena shrugged, "Not really." She tried to push past him. The wind picked up, her hair and dress lifting off. She leaned into that feeling, as if she could take flight.

"Such a beautiful, stupid girl."

He grabbed her arms and shoved her against the stone wall. She grimaced but kept quiet, even as his eyes darkened. "Don't move. Don't scream."

She let her face go slack and she repeated the words back to him. As he went in for her neck, she released any tension in her muscles. The dead weight of her body surprised him. She slipped out of his arms just enough to pull her dress up, high over her thighs. She'd kept a stake secured at her thigh with a holster Alaric had made for her twenty-fifth birthday.

When she came up again, standing up, she launched her head up into his chin. Lancing pain shot through her head, but it a worth it just to throw him off balance even a little. Make him angry. Get him to do something stupid. He was stronger, but she was more calculating. No one ever suspected her for anything more than a pretty face. As frustrating as that could be, she would never let that tool go to waste.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry!" she feigned distress. As he came for her again, she held the stake firmly in her hand. He ended up doing most of the work. She used his speed and weight against him as leverage. He sank into her, gasping and she gave that final push. Strangely, this was the part she relished the most though she was only vaguely aware of it herself. She was adept at pushing down the darkest parts of herself.

He slumped completely over her, truly dead now. His body turning grey, black veins spider webbing across his cheeks. This was the part she knew she hated the most. She kneeled down, leaning him against the wall. This was the part where the monsters stopped being monsters and she imagined the person they once were.


Klaus had been close to intervening, but she dispatched her attacker so quickly. So many truths were bubbling up to the surface now. She knew about vampires. She fights vampires. She wasn't compelled. Klaus wondered briefly if she was ingesting or wearing vervain. Not that it ultimately mattered.

Did she have some on her when he compelled her in their early day just a month ago? Had he done it since then?

He couldn't remember. It was like trying to remember the last time you took a breath.

The world shifted underneath him. He'd thought she'd shown him her true self and now he knew that he really knew nothing of her. It enraged him, that he could be tricked by such a fragile human. No, he corrected himself, not a human a doppelgänger. A much more deceptive creature.

He growled then, low in his throat threatening to bubble up to the surface to become a roar. He resumed following her through the streets, this time not enjoying himself nearly as much as he was before. He needed to see everything.


When she got to Elijah's flat, she felt so exhausted. He answered the door, still in his suit but without a tie. She smiled, comforted by the idea that at least Elijah would never change. She'd been dealing with Bonnie passively aggressively trying to get her to come home and Damon trying to interrogate her on what she'd been doing with Klaus. After Elijah had let her know he was in town, she made up an excuse for her friends so she could spend a couple of hours with him.

She held on to him so tight, the adrenaline from killing the vampire slowly dissipating from her body, leaking from her pores.

"Are you alright, Elena? You smell-"

"Wonderful? Thanks, you too," she teased.

She always enjoyed the way he smelled, like sailing. Expensive wood and the ocean. The many times he'd comforted her over the years, holding her close, she leaned into that smell. She looked up at him and, as always, felt safe and relieved.

"I have a present for you," he spoke suddenly, breaking their eye contact.

"You really didn't have to Elijah." She curled herself up on his couch, pulling a throw over her legs. Both to comfort herself and to hide the scratches she had earned in her fight. Unlike Alaric, Elijah disapproved of her willingness to confront danger head on."

"I know. I wanted to do this." He handed her a frame, inside was a paper with scribblings on it. Lines crossed out. She studied it careful. After several moments, she realized what it was.

"Elijah… is this a Robert Herrick poem?"

"Yes, it is. Do you like it?" He said it as if it was as casual as picking up a snack from the convenience store.

"Is this…his handwriting?" She looked up at him, astounded.

"It is. Just a scrap of paper he jotted down his ideas and lines he liked for To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time."

"Yeah, I'd started figuring that out. How did you get this?"

He shrugged in an effort to downplay the significance. "I have a lot of odds and ends that I've collected over the years. It's easy, I suppose, when you've lived as long as I have."

She looked up at him out of the side of her eyes. "This is really great. It's amazing, honestly. I love it."

She sat there, reading it over and over, tracing the lines with her finger. Elijah seemed pleased as he watched her.

"You know that I'm not a virgin, Elijah." She barked a laugh at his disapproving frown. They spend many nights together, intimate but never in that way. It was a wall that he had built for her and she enjoyed launching playful jabs over it occasionally. She got a kick out of making an immortal being blush and stammer.

Before he could answer her, the door shook. A pounding so loud that it felt, to Elena, that the walls of the flat were shaking as well. For a moment, she thought it was an earthquake. It wasn't until she hear his roaring that she realized it was not an ordinary disaster.


"Eeeeliiiiijaaah!" he roared, his fists pounding on the door. His brother opened the door without the decency to even look ashamed. Elena stood behind him, a few feet back into the apartment. Good, he thought, she looks scared.

He walked inside, pushing past his more composed brother. "Good, you've met my doppelgänger. How long have you been following me? When did you reach out to dear Elena?" He paced the room like a wild animal, making wide repeating circes. "Dearest Elena," he mocked, "You must know the monster that is my brother. Please let me save you. Run away with me."

"Niklaus, it isn't like that."

"Oh please, save your energy! When were you in Palermo? When did you decide to interfere in my plans again? Was this meeting just tonight? How easily were you convinced by him, Elena?"

"Niklaus…"

"Answer me!" He rushed the older man, pushing him against a bookshelf. Several works falling out of their places, like heavy raindrops on his back.

Elijah grabbed him by the lapels of his jack, lifting him ever so slightly up before rushing him forward to the coffee table, splintering it in half with the force of his body slamming down into it. Klaus snarled and Elena retreated further back.

"Someone had to protect her!" Elijah's hands wrapped around his younger brother's throat.

"Let! Me! Go!"

"I can't let you hurt her Niklaus." Elijah was calm, in control, in comparison to the writhing, spitting beast beneath him.

Klaus's fingers found a broken shard of wood, big enough to use. He jammed it in his brother's ribcage. He smirked at the satisfying grunt it elicited. Elijah's grip loosened and Klaus took the opportunity to shove him off and moved swiftly to stand opposing both his brother and Elena.

"Tell me then. Did she let you fuck her too? Did she remind you of Tatia and Katerina so? You couldn't help yourself. I have to say, I see the appeal." He taunted.

"Klaus!" Elena finally spoke up. "It really isn't like that. I met Elijah years ago. We…we are just friends." She was angry and nervous, but more than that she wanted to try de-escalating the situation.

Klaus shuddered. "What did you call me, Elena?"

Suddenly he was up against her, the wind he created whipping her hair up around her face. "Klaus," she whispered.

"How long have you known?"

At first she didn't answer, until he repeated his question in a scream.

"I said how long! Answer me!"

"I always knew. I knew from the beginning who you are." She looked everywhere else, but at him. He kept trying to capture her gaze without putting his hands on her. He was afraid of what he might do, recklessly, if he touched her.

Kiss her to claim her or kill her.

Nostrils flared, "So none of it was real. You played me. You lied to me." They weren't questions.

"No!" she protested, "It was real."

"You played me a fool, love. Tell me did you have a laugh at my expense? Call your friends to brag about it?"

She didn't like how he said love this time, like a threat. "Yes, I played you and I wasn't entirely truthful, but everything that happened with us was real."

"Those two things can't possibly be true, Elena." His fingers played lightly on her chin, he couldn't help himself even now.

"Yes, they can if you-." Before she could get the words out, he pulled her in for a kiss. His mouth was hot on hers, angry and punishing. She pulled back when he bit into her, her mouth pooling with blood. Black eyes staring back at her.

She held her mouth and stumbled away from him. He advanced on her, but was blocked. Damon was in front of her, pushing her back away from Klaus.

"Elena, care to introduce me to your friend?" His shoulders were squared, his face set in stone. Klaus chuckled, the idea that this young vampire posed any threat to him. He leaned past Damon's shoulder to capture her attention, fully this time. It was the first time she looked right at him since he stormed into his brother's home. He wanted her to be scared of him and he was used to getting what he wanted. Even so, it wasn't enough.

"You and I have business to see to, Elena dear." She swallowed hard, tasting metal. That could mean any number of things, but none of them good she knew. Before she could answer though, Klaus grabbed his head and struggled out a grunt. His body crumbled to the ground, revealing Bonnie behind him. Elena imagined she looked like Joan of Arc. Powerful and unyielding. Her hair whipping wildly behind her with the immense power she generated.

Damon made to grab Elena, but Elijah wouldn't let him. He lifted her up in his arms and her stomach dropped with that nauseating speed. They left Klaus alone and despite everything, Elena wished that they had left her behind to explain.


Hours later, after he was thoroughly satisfied that everything was destroyed, Klaus sat on the edge of the overturned couch. He was alone again, at his most dangerous. Hurt and alone.

He clutched Elena's present in his hand, fingers pressing into the glass cracked it. A poem about making the most of time, of your youth and of love. But she had insisted they were only friends and her words tasted true. What else had his brother given her over the years?

But so much of her seemed true. And it wasn't.

He realized, in that moment, something important about Elijah and also himself. They loved the same girl, again. Only this time, Klaus had a legitimate claim.

So then, was he Paris or King Menelaus? Would he be the one to love her or the one who would try to control her? Weren't they the same thing?


A/N: It doesn't count as running if someone else does the running right? Elijah's back!