(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
It's obvious that Damon and Stefan haven't given up their attempts to persuade her to just skip town with them, but Caroline and Bonnie do a great job of running interference so that they don't actually have the chance to talk to her about it anymore.
Truthfully, she barely trusts them not to just kidnap her in exactly the way she had feared Klaus would.
The thought gives her pause.
She really needs to think critically about her taste in men.
Over breakfast, Bonnie steers the conversation to discussing the threat from Esther, and her probable plan to have the Hunter execute Klaus to get to the cure for her other children. Every time the Salvatores look ready to spring another emotional confrontation on Elena, Bonnie veers the topic right back to the Esther Problem. Speculating what she might want with Elena and her baby. Brainstorming ideas to lure her out, to stop her from killing Klaus and therefore killing the rest of them.
At least the Salvatores have plenty of ideas on how to kill Esther. Apparently they'd spent a great deal of time discussing it while on the road together.
Afterwards, Caroline drags out the shopping bags she'd brought in and produces box after box of fresh Christmas lights. "It's Christmas Eve and your tree is max pitiful," she explains. "I thought we could at least cheer the place up."
Damon rolls his eyes. "Spare me the Martha Stewart roleplay."
Caroline sticks her tongue out at him. "Since you're not interested in helping, you can stay here and do the dishes. You can even mope while you do them." She turns to Stefan. "You're welcome to help him."
With that, she gathers up the bag of lights and grabs Elena by the arm and pulls her into the living room.
"Fort Gilbert was definitely more fun before the boys crashed," Caroline mutters. "How long do you think they're going to stick around?"
"I doubt they'll leave before the Klaus-threat is resolved, one way or another."
"Is Klaus a threat?"
"No, not really." She sighs. "He's just… complicated."
Caroline begins plucking ornaments off the tree, which bristles and sheds a waterfall of needles at every touch. "How long's he been out there?"
"Honestly, it feels like forever. Like he's always out there, waiting for me."
"He's always been fixated on you," Caroline agrees.
Elena glances over her shoulder, to where Stefan and Damon are clearly eavesdropping despite Bonnie peppering them with questions about their time tracking Esther.
"I just want to know that it's all my choice in the end. That I'm not being pushed or prodded into a certain direction by fate or Klaus or anything else. That I still have some kind of a future that's mine, you know?"
"What about the baby?"
"The baby's part of that."
Finished with the ornaments, Caroline begins unwinding the blown strands of lights. "No, I mean… let's play devil's advocate here. What if having Klaus in the picture is best? What if he's right, that he's the only one who can protect the baby?" She passes Elena the strand and begins working on the next.
"Care…"
"More than that. He's the father. Doesn't your baby deserve to know her father?"
"But what kind of father is he?"
Caroline shrugs. "I think you need to give him a chance to find out."
The idea is crazy.
Who would give Klaus a chance?
(Maybe the girl who'd seen the good in the same vampire who'd broken her brother's neck, and found it in herself to forgive him. Who'd forgiven her own aunt's murderer because she understood herself in him.)
(Maybe.)
Outside, the clouds gather overhead.
Inside, the tree twinkles merrily.
When this is all over, she should call her brother. Wish him a Merry Christmas.
She retreats upstairs for a nap, excusing herself with the explanation that she'd been up all night and couldn't go on for another minute without rest.
The real reason is more that she just needs to be alone. To close everything else out while she mulls things over.
On her way up the stairs, she overhears Caroline and Bonnie relating to Stefan and Damon how she'd staked Klaus the night before. One of them—Damon, probably—lets out a low whistle. The sound of it follows her all the way to her bedroom.
Inside the sanctuary of her room, she wanders to the window.
Spies Klaus still outside, inhumanly still, waiting as only someone who has stepped outside of time is capable.
Uncannily, he glances up at her only a few seconds later—as though he had sensed her watching him. His eyes fix right on her, his gaze heavy as a cloak.
She doesn't wave this time, or do anything at all to acknowledge him before she steps back into the dark of her bedroom and sprawls upon the bed. Nevertheless, she can feel his eyes on her, tracking her, as though he can see her through the walls.
It's not this that she minds. There's something reassuring about Klaus's attention on her. It means that all is right with the world. That she is fulfilling her place in the supernatural sphere.
It's the question of whether or not she has any say in what happens next that hunts her.
Somewhere, lost amongst the clearing muddle of her thoughts, cushioned in the soft warmth of her bed, lulled by the quiet murmur of her house full of people once again, sleep pulls her under.
Golden sunlight pours into her room from the Eastern window. It's the sunlight of a winter dawn, all false warmth and misty nostalgia.
Esther perches on her window seat, bundled in a tailored charcoal wool coat, hands folded in her lap, one ankle tucked primly behind the other. The sun bounces off of her golden hair, pulled back into an elegant chignon.
Elena scrambles up on the bed. "How did you get in here?"
"Where is here?" Esther asks, cocking her head.
Elena scans the room. Takes in the strangeness of the light. The way the edges of the room seem to shift and blur. When she glances at the alarm by her bed, she cannot read the face. All at once, she realizes that the babble of voices drifting up from downstairs has ceased as well. A deep air of stillness permeates the house. As though this room is all that exists.
"I'm dreaming," she realizes.
A small smile from Esther. "Quite astute. I can see why Niklaus likes you so."
Elena takes in Esther, sitting so calmly in her favorite spot. "You're really here, though, aren't you?"
"This is the only way I can get around that barrier spell in order to communicate with you directly. I hope you don't mind the intrusion."
The barrier spell meant to keep out anyone who means her harm.
"Since you've gone through all this trouble to talk to me, I assume whatever you say must be important," Elena hedges, keeping her tone as light as she can, surreptitiously pinching herself in case that will wake her up.
"Indeed, what I have to say to you is of the utter most importance." Esther's eyes flick to the pincer of Elena's hand. "I'm holding you under, right now. You won't be able to awaken until I release you."
"That's supposed to make me trust you?"
"It's vital that you hear me out, in full, without my son or the talented Miss Bennett or anyone else disrupting us."
"Okay. Fine. Shoot."
"Your child—my grandchild—is in grave danger."
Elena sits up so that she is resting against the headboard. Crosses her arms protectively over her middle. "So far, primarily from you."
"You misunderstand my intentions—"
"Knocking me out and kidnapping me weren't clear enough?"
"Expedients which I regret. Time is short, but it would have behooved me to remember that you are a rational young woman in possession of a great deal of practicality and resolve. Just like your ancestress. You're willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, so I trust that you will see reason as plainly as I do when I tell you…" She trails off, her brow creased, as though searching for the right words. The ones that will make her listen.
Elena already does. If she hangs on Esther's words, she cannot help herself. Her curiosity has always been a living creature prowling under her skin, equipped with a ravenous appetite. She has long since grown accustomed to feeding it.
"By now you must realize that your child is special," Esther at last continues. "That she has inherited not just the cursed lineages blighting my son's bloodline, but that she has also been blessed through my line with rare talents. With magical gifts magnitudes beyond the reach of an ordinary witch." No acknowledgment at all that whatever curses the baby may have inherited from Klaus had been at least partially her own doing. "It's a trait of my bloodline," Esther explains, "that the eldest child in each generation is born with this extraordinary power. Your doppelganger blood only magnifies the potency of this triple inheritance. Has only awakened her gifts all the sooner. I was half the world away, and yet I could feel the whisper of my granddaughter, could taste her power rippling through the very the air."
The room darkens as she speaks, the sun a blazing red eye as it sinks beneath the Eastern horizon, smothering the light with its descent.
Elena shakes her head. "None of that justifies your actions."
She holds up her hand as though holding her at bay. "Do you think I am the only one who feels the babe's power stirring? I am merely the first. The next to arrive will be far more deadly."
"Who?" Elena casts about her for any of the stray pieces her friends and her had put together. "Silas?"
"No, though the answer is just as grave. My sister."
Elena blinks. Surely her sister had to be centuries in the grave by now—
But no. Of course not.
The story Esther paints her of her sister and what she will want with the baby is grim, and gruesome, and yet, all Elena can think about through all of it is how of course she's managed to land smack dab in the middle of the one family with more drama and cloak and dagger addictions than her own.
"So what was the point of last night?" Elena asks when Esther finishes her tale of danger and woe.
Stars wheel against the velvet night sky. A sickle moon gobbles their light, dripping tendrils of inky darkness into the quiet street below.
"I was trying to mask your child's presence from my sister. To use the residual energy released from the sacrifice, the weakening of reality in that place, to hide you both. Only by drawing on the strength of an elemental circle such as that one do we stand any chance of evading her."
We.
The word whispers through her heart.
"You weren't going to just release me after the cloaking spell." It's not a question.
"No. I would be a fool to do so. I had planned to take guardianship of you."
"Why?"
"My own children are monsters. Perhaps there is a way to save some of them… perhaps… but my granddaughter is an innocent. As are you, despite the darkness you have had to walk through." Slowly, as though afraid Elena might startle if she moves too quickly, Esther eases herself from the window seat over to the edge of her bed. She takes her hand. "You are as alone in this world as I am. But together, we could be a family. I could be your mother, and we could raise your daughter—my granddaughter—together. I could teach her all that I know of the craft. Could teach you some things too, if you'd like. And I could protect you both."
She looks deeply into Esther's face. Takes in the open, earnest expression. The warmth and tenderness she exudes. For a moment, the memory of her own mother, sitting just there on the foot of her bed, holding her hand just like this when she had been upset and in need of comfort, overlays with the image of Esther before her. It's been so long since she's had a mother.
"Say I want that," Elena says at last, her voice shaky, weak. Genuine tears well in her eyes. "How would I even get to you? Klaus is waiting to intercept me the moment I step outside."
"I have ways to turn my son's attention. Your path will be clear."
"How do I find you?"
"I shall wait for you at moonrise in the sacrifice clearing."
"And then?"
Esther goes so far as to tuck the hair back behind Elena's ear. Her fingers against her cheek are warm, maternal. "We complete the cloaking spell, and we will away."
Elena wipes at the tears sliding down her cheeks. "How do I know this is really best for my baby? How can I just leave?"
"Listen to your heart. Does it not yearn for the peace I am offering you? There is a reason you have not invited Niklaus into your home. A reason you keep him at a distance. You have been searching for a safe place to land, a soft place to build a home. I offer that to you now."
"And what of the others? Won't Klaus come looking for us? Or Rebekah, or Elijah?"
Esther pats her hand. "Do not trouble yourself with them. All is in hand."
"A soft place to build a home," Elena repeat, her words soft as breath. "I do want that."
"I know, dear." Esther lingers for just a moment, hesitates for just a moment, before rising from the bed. "Speak of this to no one," she warns. The sky behind her brightens and dims, brightens and dims, like the winking of a candle flame. "Tell no one you are leaving, and pack no bag. All will be provided for, and all will be well."
She lays her hand over her brow one last time, her fingers blazing bright as the sun—
Elena gasps, bolting upright.
Her neck cracks as she whips her head from side to side, searching for Esther lingering somewhere in the shadows.
The din of raised voices from downstairs pierces through her disorientation.
She's awake.
A/N: Mmmmm where do you all think Elena is going with this?
I'm going to have the next chapter VERY soon!
Please let me know what you think!