Piece of My Heart

Her heart is beating too hard in her chest when she wakes up. She imagines she can see it through her sternum. She rubs her thighs together in an attempt to expel the awkward feeling growing between them. It wasn't even a steamy dream, she rationalizes. Especially in stark contrast to everything she'd been doing with Klaus lately.

She sighs and tries to push unwanted subconscious thoughts about Stefan back where they belong, in the past. She reminds herself that Matt was her first boyfriend, her first kiss, her first everything. It was just a weird dream. It wasn't real. Either way, she's just glad Klaus wasn't in bed when she woke up.

She wanders downstairs, pulling up the edges of the floor length nightgown Klaus had bought for her. A deep purple, he'd said to bring out her eyes.

"Elena love," he calls for her from dining room. She finds him surrounded by plates of her waffles, fruit and fresh cream. Her favorite breakfast.

"You made all this?" she asks, making Elijah bark out a laugh.

"Ah, no love. I had breakfast made," he explains and she can't articulate why that disappoints her a little. "You seemed to have had a fitful sleep. Everything alright? This daily research not taking too much of a toll?"

"I was?" she asks, but Klaus merely nods an affirmation. "Did I bother you?"

"Not at all, sweetheart. Merely wondering if you needed a day without dusty books and annoyances traipsing through my home."

She felt weird about dreaming of Stefan while sharing a bed with Klaus, particularly since she hadn't dreamt of him in years. But the longer she's awake, the further that feeling fades. The more she's here with Klaus, the more the details fade opaque in her head.

The three of them discuss the progress of research, Klaus's distaste for the so many people walking freely around his home, and the eventual plan on how to deal with the problem of the Travelers. Klaus's stance is firmly rooted in utter annihilation. Elena demands to find a more humane way to neutralize the threat. She can tell Elijah agrees with his brother, but he doesn't seem to want her to know that.

Elena stays behind at the table with Elijah when Klaus gets up to get ready for the day. He invites her to shower with him, but she explains that she isn't finished eating by stabbing a piece of waffle with her fork and waving it around. After enough time has passed since she hears his footsteps ascend up the stairs, she turns to Elijah.

"I have a question for you about vampires."

"Has Niklaus asked you to turn for him? Are you considering it?"

"Yes, but that's not my question. What happens when a person becomes a vampire when they are very young?"

"Define young."

"What happens if they are a teenager when they turn?"

"Depending on how old they were, they'd be killed. It's too maddening to be turned at the cusp of puberty. Sometimes death is a kindness. But you aren't talking about a person that young, are you?"

"I'm not."

"Elena, becoming a vampire amplifies everything about a person. The good and the bad. Experiencing more lifetimes than any human is meant to can change a vampire in ways, but they will ultimately remain a little stuck in who they were at death. Growth becomes exponentially harder when time becomes irrelevant."

"A teenager will always be a little bit of a teenager?"

"In some small ways, bigger for others. They may not even realize it. It's difficult to mentally have outgrown your physical body. Creates a dissonance that's hard to live in."

"How old were you and Klaus when you became vampires?"

"Old enough, I should think. Klaus's…rashness comes from his own unresolved issues though. His problems do not stem from his youth, unlike Rebekah and Kol."

"Klaus is not why I asked, Elijah. Caroline seems to think that me coming back will affect Stefan in some way."

"Your friend thinks he still loves you."

"That's silly right? It's been years since we broke up."

"From a man that has loved your face for centuries, I can tell you that it is far from silly."

"Elijah…"

"Years to a vampire aren't the same for a human mind. You can't possibly comprehend it."

"Try to explain it?"

"When you are five years old and your birthday is in a month, how does that feel?"

"Like it's too long to wait. It feels like forever."

"When you are older, closing in on thirty, how does it feel when your birthday is in a month?"

"It's not as exciting."

"You don't even notice the time passing because when you've only lived five years, a month stretches impossibly ahead of you or so it feels. But by the time you are in your late twenties, you've lived so many months. Another one doesn't seem like that much. It goes by quicker. When you've lived hundreds of years, another year feels like that month. Perhaps less." She sits chewing on her food and his explanation. "Do you understand now?"

She does and it helps her see things from Stefan's perspective. Even Caroline's. She chalks the weird dream up to stress and worry over how to deal with that situation. But she knows how to address it now. He excuses himself before she can think of her next question, leaving for a few days on an errand for Klaus.

If I turn, how long before time starts meaning less to me? Before or after all my family dies?

She looks up from her book to see Klaus staring at her and her mouth stretches into a smile she tries to hide. He bites his lower lip and glances out the library door. At first, she ignored his afternoon advances, but now that Jeremy was off with the other Hunters she doesn't feel the need for discretion quite as much. Every day, Klaus becomes harder to ignore.

She's just about to stand up, make an excuse about needing something from the kitchen and sneak away when Stefan interrupts her.

"Another doppelgänger reference. Oh wait, this one actually has some promise. John seemed to think that the doppelgängers and the Travelers were connected. Well, more than that actually."

"Let me see it." Caroline, always wanting to be in the know. She leans over to grab the binder from Stefan who holds it out of her reach.

"Hold on. It says a powerful member of the Travelers betrayed his fiancé, an equally well-regarded witch with the group." Elena smirks as she catches Bonnie shoot Damon a playful look, her fingers gesturing from her eyes to point at Damon. "He tricked her into making him the first immortality spell. They were supposed to take it at the altar together, but she found that he'd given it to another."

"That's so sad," Caroline whined, pursing her lips together.

"She was so spurned and her revenge so terrible that the rumors of what she'd done had made their way to other covens. Hundreds of witches gathered together to curse the Travelers to never be able to meet in peace. Should they try, nature would find a way to stop them."

"How?" Bonnie had stopped flirting with Damon and was giving Stefan her full attention.

"John has all these events written down. Antioch earthquake. Shaanxi earthquake. Aleppo earthquake."

"What's the deal with earthquakes?" Damon scoffed.

"The witches must have thought the Travelers went against everything in nature. They made a mockery of it with their immortality spell. It's like the earth detests their very presence, opens up to swallow them whole." Bonnie seemed lost thinking about it.

"Nature always finds a way," Klaus finally spoke up.

"Wait, so the doppelgängers didn't start with Tatia? With the spell that made you a vampire?" Elena hesitates, afraid of what meaning Klaus might make of this information.

"Appears not, love," Klaus said as he left the library.

"Elena," Stefan looks at her concerned, "The doppelgängers are descended from Travelers. You and whoever else are Travelers or at least your ancestors were."

"They want to kill the doppelgängers to fix the mistake of their leader. Immortality was their downfall and they want to take it back." She keeps looking out the door, caught between her friends and wanting to follow Klaus.

"Not just that Elena. They want their revenge on those who cursed them. Witches who serve nature. They want to fix what they've done and what's been done to them." Bonnie had snapped out of it.

They speculate for a while about what and how they could be trying to accomplish their goal, but everyone agrees that Elena should stay within the confines of the mansion. Everyone excluding Elena. Bonnie points out that they need to figure out who the other doppelgänger is so they can find and protect them too.

She says goodbye to everyone and walks through the house looking for Klaus. She finds him brooding in his art room, his fingers covered in paint as he contemplates the outline on hi canvas.

"You never came back," she ventures. "Is something wrong?"

"What could possibly be wrong, Elena?"

"You thought Tatia was the original. You wanted her to be the original."

"Well, it turns out she isn't. Just another copy." That stung, but she knows he's deflecting so she brushes it off.

"You thought the Petrova lineage began with the spell that created you. You wanted to be the other doppelgänger, the one we were all drawn to." She can see the way his jaw works back and forth to conceal his feelings. Anything to distract himself.

"I'm not a copy. I'm an Original. A Hybrid. I'm one of a kind." She feels him testing her patience. He's lashing out and she's the only one around to punish with his disappointment.

"It's okay that you weren't my beginning, Klaus." She walks tentatively towards him, each step light and gentle. He glances up at her as she reaches out to grab the brush in his hand, leaving it on the table next to his easel. His still wet fingers drag three blue marks down her face. Her fingers tug at the front of his shirt, pulling at the buttons.

They look at each other for such a long time. She wants to make sure he really sees her, takes her all in. "You aren't my beginning, but you can be my end."

"Always, Elena. Today, tomorrow, forever." He holds her close, his thumb stroking at the crown of her head. After some time, he pulls back to look at her. "What is the point of all this research?"

"We're looking for a way to stop the Travelers."

"Death would prevent them from harming you, love. From harming us all."

"There could be another way, Klaus."

"You're prolonging the inevitable, Elena. Why do you refuse so stubbornly to see yourself as I do? What makes you so afraid to confront your true nature?"

"I don't want anyone to see me differently."

"Let them see the truth. Should they fear you, let them cower and let my love be what reassures you in the dark."

"I'm not that person, Klaus. I'm just me. The only impressive thing about me is my blood." She smiles, sad and unconvincing.

"Your blood is powerful as evidenced by me. A man doesn't exist without his shadow and a Hybrid doesn't exist without you. But that is the least of what makes you so indomitable. You'll see. I'll show you." That night he makes up for his earlier retribution by showing her all the ways he loves her. She goes to sleep content and exhausted having fully forgotten about dreaming of another man.

The gardens are fragrant this time of year, especially at night. The crickets lull her into feeling like she could be anyone she wanted to be and not who she is; a sinner, a betrayer, a woman incomparably in love.

When she's alone, she has hours to let the guilt eat at the margins of her soul. But anytime he's near, even when she can't see him, she knows that a love so infinite could never be wrong. They could never be wrong.

She can feel him approach her from behind, but she pretends to be busy smelling the flowers. It's a game she loves to play with him. His hand on her shoulder prompts her to turn around to look at him. His soft, wavy hair falls into his face and she reaches out to touch the red shawl wrapped over his left arm.

He talks a hold of her hand and reaches out to remove her face covering. Her cheek tingles when his fingertips trace over her skin. The way he drinks her in makes her feel seen for the first time in her life and there can't be anything wrong with that, she tells herself.

In moments, he has her up against the trellis, his hands pushing the fabric of her dress up further and further. She stifles an awkward, almost wrenching noise when fumbles his way inside her. Being with him has gotten easier each time since her first. She wonders if she's close to enjoying it when he grunts and spasms inside of her. But there's no one to talk to about this, only him. So she runs her fingers in his hair the way he likes and pulls him close.

"You're mine to love forever, beautiful Amara," he whispers into the side of her neck. And because he says it, she believes it to be true. Just like when he tells her not to feel guilty.

Elena jolts awake and looks up into Klaus's face, comfortingly bringing her back to reality after dreaming about Stefan. At least, she thinks it was Stefan.

"Dreaming of me, love?" he asks and she doesn't know what to tell him, not with the way her underwear has been soaked through. She can't tell him the truth because speaking it out loud would make it real. So, instead, she kisses him in an effort to force Stefan out of her head.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the conversation between Elena and Elijah. I am really interested in the idea of being mentally way older than your physical body and how that may affect someone. Also how a vampire's view of time would differ from a humans.