A Woman Left Lonely
"You need to come with us, right now."
"She's not going anywhere with you." Elena slips her hand into Klaus's, a little worried that the insinuation of her going anywhere with anyone who wasn't him might send him on murder spree, especially so soon after finding her in Paris. Not that she would exactly blame him, but she wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed by reminding him she was still by his side.
"She will if she wants to live." The woman had a strong, demanding presence that matches his.
"Elena? What's going on?" She hated the helpless way her aunt asked her that question and even more so that she couldn't answer it.
"What's going on is the doppelgänger thought she was being smart and clever. You can't outwit a cunning group like the Travelers whose sole mission in life has been to find you for over two thousand years. Especially not when you return to the scene of your death. How much of an idiot are you?"
"Hey! Woah. Calm down. Who even are you?" Ric finally spoke up.
"Liv Parker. Leader of the Gemini Coven. And I'm the only thing standing between you and them. So, again come with us."
"Elena, it's okay. Liv means the best even if she doesn't always sound like it."
"Tyler?" His dark head peeked behind her halo of blonde hair.
"How do you know these people, love?"
"Tyler and I went to school together, but I don't know her."
"That's because you were never meant to know me. Gemini aren't found unless we want to be found."
Despite her rough edges, Liv sat down and agreed to a compromise, with an abundance of help from Tyler. The appeal of John's research intrigued her and she agreed to stay in Mystic Falls to help with research on the Travelers. The idea of looking for a way to stop them seemed better than continuing to conceal Elena for the foreseeable future, a task Liv had assured her wasn't enjoyable. Elena also thought that Tyler asking her to come meet his mom had something to do with it, if her attempts to hide her blush were any indicator.
Over the next few weeks, the group of them pass through the Mikaelson manor like they are on research parade. Liv and Tyler had brought all the books the Geminis had been collecting and Ric had brought over boxes of all the obsessive notes about the Petrovas that John had been writing in the last decade. Jenna elected to show her support by bringing by baked goods and various casseroles. Elena argued with Klaus about reaching out to Bonnie, a fight she eventually won when Liv off-handedly remarked how good it would be to have access to the Bennett grimoires.
The first day started out explosively when Liv brought over the boxes of Gemini documentation. Elena had been prepared for a fight between Klaus and anyone who had been there the night of the sacrifice. She was surprised that it was between the two witches.
"What's all this?" Bonnie asked, pulling out book after book from one of the many boxes Tyler was still carrying in.
"This is everything the Gemini knows about the Travelers. We've made it our mission to keep track of them. Make sure they never get what they want."
"Your mission? When one of your witches reached out to me last summer, she made it seem like this was all new to your coven." Elena can tell Bonnie doesn't like feeling left out of information. A petty part of her that is still hurt about her part in the sacrifice relishes in watching her friend deal with that feeling.
"Bonnie, it's been my coven's mission for centuries. And ten years ago, Elena's dad put our mission at critical when he killed Katherine. It became more important than ever to protect Elena."
"Protect her? What have you been doing? Keeping quiet for nine years and coming in at the last minute to try to save the day?"
"Is that what you think we've been doing, Bonnie?"
"Look, I appreciated the warning about what they could do, but that hardly helped me protect my best friend."
"Oh wait. Oh no, you think it was your magic keeping her safe? Wow that is so adorable and so naïve. You may have raw talent Bonnie, but there is a reason why covens exist. We are stronger together than a single, solitary witch. We draw power from each other and you? You have no one."
"Liv, be nice." Tyler looked caught in the middle and Elena felt bad for him. She understood what it felt like to be stuck between your friends and the person you love.
"No, Tyler. Let her finish." Bonnie and Liv were standing head on, each woman inching closer to the other. The potential of their magic choked the air out of the room.
"The Geminis are masters at cloaking spells. We are only seen when we want to be seen. That's how Elena's managed to stay hidden all these years. Our coven has been protecting her."
"Really worked for her in London."
"That's only because she was with him." Liv pointed an accusing finger at Klaus. "The Travelers knew that if they found him, then she'd be with him. After they took over your friends at that bar in Amalfi, they had all the information they needed to find you."
"Wait, how could you have known about that?" Elena had stayed silent for the most part, letting Bonnie vent her frustrations at the other witch.
"We make it our business to know about you, Elena."
"You stalked me? That doesn't make me uncomfortable at all."
"We had to keep tabs on you. Make sure you never wound up in the wrong hands."
"How closely did you watch me?" she asks, thinking of the intimate moments she spent on the beach with Klaus.
"Don't flatter yourself. Your blood is the only thing special about you. We didn't want the Travelers having it. As a coven, we were actually pretty okay with him sacrificing you. As long as you had stayed dead."
She started to protest until Klaus leaned her back into his chest and pushed her hair behind her ear. "You're special to me, Wolf-Kissed." She forgets about Liv and Bonnie for a moment when Klaus presses a kiss to her temple. They continue to argue, but she finds she doesn't care to listen when she's in his arms.
Elena is taking a break from research to play with Grace on the floor while Jenna watches from the couch, coffee in hand. Bonnie had dragged Damon away for a breather, something required often for either him or Klaus depending on the day. Damon insists on his barbs to the hybrid and Klaus is never in the mood to deal with him. Half the time, Elena speculates it's also for Bonnie. Liv and she continue to butt heads, trying to outdo the other. It likely slows down their research, but Elena is too nervous to voice these concerns. The other personalities in the room are so much stronger than how she feels and she doesn't want to draw too much attention from them.
With Damon out of the room it is finally quiet enough to concentrate and everyone jumps a little when Caroline squeaks in excitement. "Oh! Hey! I found something here about doppelgängers."
"What is it, Caroline?" Stefan asks and Elena can tell by the way he smiles how close they've gotten. She can't imagine the world as Caroline seems to see it. The one were Stefan hasn't moved on yet when it's so clear to Elena how he looks at her.
"Well, first of all Elena, you are not the only doppelgänger. You're part of a matching set! Yay!" She only needed a moment before assessing the mood of the group before she continued. "Anyway, the Travelers put like a spell on the set to draw them together."
"Draw them together?" Klaus asked.
"Yeah…oh! Like soulmates? That's kind of romantic if you don't factor in the whole luring you to your death thing in."
"There's a set of us?"
"Who is the other doppelgänger then?" Stefan asks.
Liv snorts and their heads turn to her, questioningly. "Sorry, Tyler said something funny." She waves off their attention.
"What? Tyler never says anything funny." Caroline's brow crinkles, confused.
"Maybe you don't know him as well as I do." Liv challenged and Caroline rose to meet her stare. It was that easy for Liv to distract them all from why she had laughed in the first place, by starting a fight,
"I know Tyler. We dated for years."
"Well, then I guess you just never brought it out of him."
"Okay! Supernatural showdown is my cue to get the fragile human baby back home." Jenna picks up Grace and Elena walks her out of the mansion and away from the potential fight. Elena lingers at the door, kissing Grace's fingers and prolonging her goodbye to her aunt.
She's expecting the worst when she comes back into the library, but everyone has gone back to reading and jotting down the occasional note. When Jeremy sees her come in, he stands up and pulls her aside.
"Can I talk to you for second?"
"Sure, Jeremy. Look I'm sorry that this whole thing derailed what we came here for. I promise I didn't mean for this to happen and I still want to help you with the Five stuff."
"I know you didn't mean for this to happen, Elena."
"You aren't mad?"
"No, actually I talked to Galen and he thinks this is a good time for him and Connor to look for the other two. The Five with just the three of us doesn't seem…lucky."
"That makes sense."
"I wanted to see how badly you need me here. You seem to have more help than I'm going to be with this."
"You want to go help them."
"Yeah, I just feel like it's important that there are actually five of us for this thing. Plus, if I get wrapped up in researching the Travelers then I'm just going to get pulled away from researching The Five. We still don't know anything other than this map leads us there."
"When are you leaving?"
"Tonight, after dinner with Ric and Jenna. I'll come back though. Check up on you."
She purses her lips together and leans into her brother, wrapping her arms around his waist for a hug. "Well alright then. Don't let me stop you." She can't hold him back here, but it does feel like she's losing an ally in that room.
Later on, after everyone had finally left, she sits in the library with Klaus picking through the document Caroline had found that detailed the doppelgänger spell. Her feet are in Klaus's lap and he absently massages them with one hand while he nurses a whisky in the other. He seems thoroughly entranced by the fire, so she's surprised when he starts talking.
"Have you given any thought to who this other doppelgänger may be, love?"
"Of course I have. I thought this whole time it was just me. Now I know there is someone else out there. Someone like me who could understand. And don't mention Katherine. I mean someone like me who could possibly be friendly."
"I wasn't going to mention her. But now that you bring her up." Elena shot him a look. "Well, I've met two of your predecessors. Such a strange coincidence that seems."
"True, you did know both Tatia and Katherine. And you did accidentally run into me in Sicily."
"Precisely. I wasn't even trying to find your lovely face and as if by magic, I did."
"So, you think you're the other doppelgänger?"
"Would that be so terrible?"
"No, but it's just how many things do you want to be? A vampire, a werewolf and a doppelgänger?"
Klaus sat up and pulled her closer to him, their bodies tangling up on the couch. He ran his cheek along hers, as if he were an actual wolf scent marking her. "It's not that I desperately want to be the other doppelgänger, but I would hate to find out anyone else was your soulmate."
"We don't know that. Those things could be mutually exclusive," she whispered back, opening up her neck for him.
"By your logic, Niklaus, wouldn't I fit the bill slightly better?" Elijah propped himself against the archway to the library, unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up.
"Elijah, how very…you to interrupt us." They untangled their limbs until they were both sitting upright on the couch.
"Think about it for a moment beyond your immediate wants. Tatia was in love with me. Katerina loved me. Elena-"
"Loves me."
"True. I found her first though. In New York City."
"Okay, as much as I can appreciate being fought over I'm starting to feel like a flag tied to a piece of rope." She stands up and leans down to give Klaus a light kiss on the lips. She can't deny the thought of them being soulmates, twin doppelgänger flames, is appealing. Especially when the lightest of his touches burn through her entire body.
"Come to bed soon?" she asks and he nods an answer. When she walks past Elijah through the archway she pats him on the arm and chides, "You're irritating him. And me."
After Elena leaves, Klaus gets up to pour himself another whiskey, grabs a second glass for his brother.
"You have a reason for that interruption. You always have a reason and as annoying as it is to hear you insinuate that you may be Elena's soulmate, your reasons are never that pointless and petty."
"I've allocated rooms for our siblings. Moved them in."
"What's your plan then?"
"I see how hard you're working on the Traveler research with Elena and her friends. I understand how precarious her life is right now. I'll wait, until the problem is rectified."
"Thank you, brother."
"And then, Niklaus, you and I will open the coffins together. All four of them."
"I've told you, Elijah, the fourth one is empty."
"Then why is it sealed shut?"
"A simple ruse. A decoy to protect the others."
"Clearly."
Elijah and Klaus talk well into the night, they have several lifetimes of topics to discuss. They outlast the fire, slowly suffocating in the fireplace with nowhere to burn. They outlast Elena, fallen asleep in the bed she shares with Klaus, her head propped up on her hand. Two brothers talking, Originals who can outlast the entire world.
By the time Klaus opens the door, Elena is asleep. Her neck is angled at an uncomfortable direction. She's fallen asleep waiting for him. He cradles her head and gently slides her down onto her pillow. He's thinking about the doppelgänger lore when he finally falls asleep next to her.
She sits in a dark theater with the popcorn he bought in her lap. It's her first date and she feels so incredibly anxious. She slides her hand over the arm rest and lets it linger. She moves closer to him, grazing his arm. Her heart drops when he pulls away. She worries that she's blown it with the most popular guy in school. Star quarterback. Founding family royalty. Beloved town son. A jaw that could cut her heart to pieces.
She brings her hand back to her lap, creating an invisible demarcation zone of which only she's aware. About halfway through the movie, he runs a charge over her borders. His hand finds its way to hers and she worries that her heart might actually burst out of her chest like some kind of parasitic monster.
Right before the movie ends, he leans over to kiss her and it makes her toes curl up, her fingers itch to run through his slicked up hair. She wants to touch that divot above his upper lip, but this is her first kiss and she's too unsure of herself to try for more, she's content to follow his lead. Stefan is her perfect first kiss.
And then Elena wakes up, feeling sick to her stomach.
A/N: The blonde is Liv! I loved the potential of the Gemini coven and what a horribly interesting method they have of picking a leader. I know in canon Luke was stronger than Liv and the one they assumed would win the merge, but this is my story and I wanted a way to bring Tyler back in. I hope you enjoy reading! Thank you.