(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
A moment later, the house reverberates from the thunderous pounding against the door.
"Let me answer it," Elena calls out to Bonnie, scrambling out from her place at the window seat and dashing down the stairs.
"Is that Klaus?" Bonnie hisses.
"Yeah—"
"I thought you didn't want to see him?"
"I don't, but this will go easier if I talk to him. Besides. He's crossed the property line, so we know he doesn't mean any harm, right?" He might be absolutely boiling over with rage, but apparently not the murderous sort.
And, maybe now, with him unable to physically overpower her, she can make him listen to her.
She shoos Bonnie into the back of the house, out of sight. No need to set him off any more than she inevitably already has with the whole staking him in his sleep thing. If he discovers she's locked herself inside this house where he can't reach her, alone with Bonnie, who's been less than stable lately, he's likely to go ballistic. More so than he undoubtedly already is.
Taking a deep breath, Elena swings the door wide open.
Klaus glowers at her from the front porch. "I'm surprised you didn't flee town after that little stunt." The words are sharp, clipped, like he has to fight to rein in every syllable.
"Why would I?"
"I assumed that was the point of that little note you left me."
"I'm not trying to hide from you," she tells him quietly. "And I was sorry to stake you."
The words sooth the beast in him, just a little.
Only a little.
"Why would you do it then?" Underneath all of the ire lies a kernel of pain. He sounds so lost. So bewildered.
He'd thought she'd left him, the same way she has feared he would leave her.
Elena catches herself shifting closer, unconsciously drawn to him.
It's only when Klaus tenses that she realizes how close she had come to accidentally inching over the threshold. To putting herself in range of where he might grab her.
And he had been about to. She can see it in every line of his body, in the rueful way his shoulders relax when she takes a huge, deliberate step back.
She takes a deep breath. "Because you weren't interested in giving me space, so I had to take it for myself." She presents it to him completely unvarnished, as calmly as she can.
Inside, she's rattled by how close she had come to putting herself in his power without even thinking about it. How instantly seduced she'd been by the lure of his closeness. By the instinctual desire to step into his arms and hide herself away from all of her problems.
He clenches his jaw. "Must your actions towards me always tend towards murder?"
She gives him a tight smile. "I've learned from the best."
"Indeed." He drinks her in, his eyes roaming over every inch of her. Searching for something.
The wind rustles through the clinging, brown leaves on the winter trees. The sun pours down white light through the bank of clouds.
He is so still. So intense. Like a storm brewing in the distance, rolling thunderheads and crashing lightning that is utterly breathtaking in its raw power until it bears down upon you. Then it is another story entirely.
Her story. The story of a storm-chaser.
"I'm not your enemy," Klaus tells her lowly.
"I know that you're not."
"My mother is though, and she's coming for you. The only way I can protect you is if you let me in."
"There's more at stake than just whether or not you can protect me." She winces at her choice of words. Presses on. "You're asking for so much more than that."
"I only desire your safety. Our daughter's safety."
"No. You desire me. That's very different."
"Is it?"
In the distance, a mother pushes a stroller down the block. An older couple walks their dog.
That could never be her and Klaus.
Klaus glances over his shoulder, to whatever has distracted her.
"That's not the sort of life that you want, sweetheart."
"How do you know that?" she snaps.
"Because I know you. You'd shrivel up from boredom in mere weeks."
"No, you don't know me. If you did, you wouldn't be asking me to marry you."
Klaus braces his hands around the molding framing the front door, effectively bracketing her in, the way he no doubt wishes that he could contain her in truth. If only she were not so very good at slipping free of him.
"What are you so afraid of?"
She opens her mouth, the words piling up on her tongue.
He nearly vibrates with anticipation of what she might say.
And—
She can't answer him.
"Did you hear me last night?" she asks him instead. "When I whispered in your ear?"
His eyes go flat. "Do not trifle with me."
"After I staked you," she continues, right over him. "As you lay dying. Do you remember what I said?"
"The last thing I recall was your face leaning over me in the dark."
"Oh." She drifts further from the door.
He marks her every step as she pulls away from him. His fingers curl around the wood frame of the door. "Elena, whatever it is, you can tell me again, and I'll gladly listen." His voice is low, coaxing, like he's trying to soothe a spooked animal.
She responds to it, in ways that frighten her very much. When had she let Klaus learn how to call to her like this?
"Only step outside," he continues, "or let me in, but either way, lower the bridge."
"Aren't you angry at me for staking you?"
"Furious. But I'm also impressed. Enchanted. Astonished." His fingers twitch as his eyes travel covetously over her body, the wood straining and cracking beneath them. "In a thousand years, you're the only one who would have ever dared such a thing. You're my only equal."
She shivers. Just the wind, she reassures herself.
"Only because I'm so good at throwing up obstacles to slow you down," she hedges.
"You're the only one who's ever been nimble-minded enough to accomplish that."
"That's not a foundation for a steady relationship."
In the distance, an engine roars. Something about the sound of it tugs on Elena's attention, but she bats it away, narrowing her focus down to just Klaus.
Her whole world, just Klaus.
That's what she's up against.
"Did you hesitate?" he asks her, the question intent as a caress. "Before you staked me?"
"No," she lies.
He recognizes the lie for what it is.
"Wicked creature. Why won't you be mine?"
The sound of two car doors slamming punctuates the question.
"Sounds to me like she doesn't want to be," Damon calls from his parking spot right in front of her house, hurling the words like a spear. He prowls around the familiar blue Camaro, until he's shoulder to shoulder with Stefan. "Why don't you take a hint and scram?"
A/N: Thanks for reading. Much love to you all.