(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
The sun is just beginning to lighten the eastern sky by the time she veers up to the Forbes house and slams the car into park. A moment later she dashes around the side of the house, over to Caroline's first story bedroom window.
The familiarity of rapping against the glass, waiting for the lights to flick on in the bedroom and Caroline to let her in, unmoors her. Adds to the night's pervasive aura of unreality. She hasn't snuck up to this house like this since before her parents died.
When Caroline doesn't come to let her in right away, she knocks louder. She's a moment away from sprinting back to the front of the house to ring the bell, even though it would wake Caroline's mom up, when Caroline finally throws the curtains back to stare down at her.
In a flurry, she cranks the window open and steps back so Elena can crawl through. The room is dark, but as always, it's compulsively tidy, the bed neatly made. Warm light spills in under the closed bedroom door from the living room beyond.
"Elena?" Caroline whispers. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't have a lot of time—I need somewhere I can hide out—"
"What's going on? Are you okay? Where's Klaus? He said he rescued you."
"I staked him."
Caroline pales. Her hand flies to her throat. "What?"
Elena waves her off. "Just with a regular stake. He'll bounce back. I need to be scarce when he does though."
"Why would you stake him?"
Elena collapses on the foot of Caroline's bed. Braces her hands on her knees, her fingers clenching spasmodically, uncontrollably, as she in turn braces herself for this impact. "About that. Care, I need to talk to you."
Caroline glances to the closed door. "Okay." Beyond, a tea kettle whistles, only to be cut off a moment later. Sheriff Forbes is up early. "Okay, but first I have to tell you—"
"Klaus is the father," Elena blurts out, before she loses her nerve.
At the same moment, the door handle turns, and Bonnie ducks into the room, clutching two mugs of tea by the handles in her free hand.
The confession dangles between the three of them like a balloon with its string cut, floating up up up into the atmosphere, all of them helpless to stop it, to do anything more than watch.
"I can't have heard that right," Caroline exclaims, her voice overly loud in the deafening silence that looms between them in the wake of Elena's revelation.
She feels like her strings have been cut. Like she could float up just like that balloon, so far outside of her life and her body that no one could ever reach her again.
"What are you doing here?" Elena asks Bonnie, hearing herself say the words but really feeling like she's listening to someone else speak. This is the first time that she's been in a room with Bonnie without some terrible threat in what feels like ages. She has no idea how she feels about running into her like this. Can barely process anything right now.
"She's been here since Klaus left to go save you," Caroline supplies. "We've been talking."
Gingerly, Bonnie sets the two steaming mugs down on Caroline's dresser. Approaches Elena where she sits on the edge of Caroline's bed.
"Klaus is the father?" she repeats.
Elena swallows hard. Hearing those words from Bonnie somehow makes this real. Pulls her down to earth as nothing else could.
"Esther told us. It's why she wanted me—my baby."
"This makes total sense though," Caroline mutters to herself, leaning against the window on the other side of the room. "Sleep with a guy in October, eight weeks later discover you're pregnant, of course he's the father." Her hand chops through the air, illustrating the logic of the sequence.
Bonnie speaks over Caroline, her voice quiet yet strong. "You believed her?" She stretches a hand toward Elena, but Elena flinches back.
"I wish that I didn't." Because there's no way to hide from this. Her baby… is also Klaus's.
"If Klaus is the father, why'd you stake him?" Caroline breaks in.
Bonnie's brows climb her forehead, but Elena bursts before she has a chance to say anything.
"Because I panicked, okay? This whole thing with him has been so fast—so intense—so overwhelming—and you should have seen the way he looked at me when he found out."
"How was he looking at you?" Bonnie asks, a shadow passing over her expression.
Elena shivers. Doesn't exactly answer. Doesn't dare say, Like I was his.
(Or, even worse: that he is hers.)
"I knew I had to get out, right then and there," she tells them instead.
"Wait, are you skipping town?" Caroline demands.
Elena sighs, the breath leaving her lungs in such a rush that it's like her whole body deflates. She's just so tired. Tired of running around desperately just to keep one step ahead of whoever has it out for her and her beloveds on any given day. Tired of fighting her feelings. Fighting the inevitable. Tired of proving again and again that her only fate is the one she makes. "What's the point? I wouldn't get very far before he'd hunt me down. I just need somewhere to think where he won't come searching for me right away and where he can't get in. I was sort of hoping I could hang here for a while."
Caroline shakes her head. "Here's no good— my mom invited him in when he saved me from Tyler's bite."
Elena looks hopefully to Bonnie. If there's one place a vampire would avoid, it would have to be a witch's abode.
"My dad's in town," she says. "I can't endanger him like that."
And it would be. Everyone around her is in danger from Klaus.
From her.
"What about the lake house?" Bonnie suggests.
Elena scrubs her hands through her hair. "I've already invited him in there."
Bonnie frowns, a distant look in her eyes. "That's where you went to hide from me, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it was."
She looks like she wants to say something else, but Elena feels each passing minute like the edge of a knife scraping against her nerves. Klaus will surely wake up any moment.
"I guess I'm going home then," she announces, resigned.
"That's going to be the first place he looks," Caroline points out.
"Yeah, but at least he can't get in. I just need somewhere I can sort myself out in peace without him pressuring me."
Somewhere she can find a path to something that feels like victory, and not just capitulation.
Somewhere where she can sort out what she really wants.
Part of her almost wishes for Damon and Stefan, so that the three of them could spin out some gem of a plan. Maybe there will always be a part of her that instinctually reaches for them.
Even though she's learned to stand on her own two feet, alone.
"You invited him into your lake house but not the house here?" Bonnie asks.
Elena shrugs.
"Fine, let me just grab my purse," Caroline says.
"What?"
Caroline rolls her eyes. "Obviously if you're going to camp out inside Fort Gilbert, we're coming with you."
The first thing Elena notices when they spill into her home together at dawn is how clean everything is. The residue from the fried lights has been swept up, the floors freshly mopped; the framed photos Damon and Stefan had smashed during their row have been salvaged and restored to the mantle, awaiting a time when Elena can replace the frames; and someone has attempted to straighten out the warped iron fire screen as best as they can. The whole house smells like fresh lemon and pine. Heavenly.
"I was anxious," Caroline explains, a note of defensiveness in her voice as Elena looks around. "And it's not like you've had a chance to straighten up with everything going on."
"Thank you," Elena says, truly touched.
Bonnie clears her throat. "I'm going to put up a perimeter spell around the house. Just to make sure no one who means you harm can cross the property line."
Since Klaus doesn't have an invite, she can only mean Esther.
God, she's not even ready to think about Esther.
Who may as well be her mother-in-law, whether or not she marries Klaus.
Nope. Can't think about that right now.
"Are you sure you should be doing any magic?" she asks Bonnie instead of dwelling on how she's accidentally stumbled into the family dynamics from hell.
"I can handle this."
She doesn't have the energy to pick this battle right now.
She's still only human. There's only so much she can handle at a time.
"I'm going to go upstairs, if that's okay."
"Go rest," Caroline urges her. "We'll be here when you need us."
A/N: So this is going to be a double update. Next chapter will be up in just a few hours… so in the mean time, let me know what you think!