(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
"You two have always made a handsome couple," Esther continues. "It's a pity the relationship has always been doomed."
"I'm not my ancestresses," Elena snaps as Klaus fights his way up from his knees.
"Aren't you?" Esther asks. "You certainly killed poor Connor with as little hesitation as your forebears would have shown."
Elena glances down into Connor's blank stare.
She hadn't even noticed when exactly he'd breathed his last. Too preoccupied with Klaus.
"Leave off of her," Klaus growls, twisting at his restraints. "If my relationships are doomed then that makes you the harbinger."
"We don't have time for this," Esther says, clucking her tongue. She addresses herself solely to Elena. "Each day your child grows stronger—her voice on the wind clearer and clearer for those who know to listen—"
"What does killing Klaus have anything to do with protecting our baby?" Elena demands.
Esther purses her lips. "It will permanently rid you of the threat he poses both of you."
Elena reads between the lines: if Esther steals their baby and murders her, then Klaus will hunt her for eternity for it. There will be no escaping him. Not ever. Not unless Esther takes him out now...
… even if she can no longer get her hands on the cure with Connor dead.
Elena reaches up to tangle her fingers with Klaus's. "I don't want to get rid of him," she states. "Everyone's been asking me to make a choice—and I've made it."
Klaus turns to her, opens his mouth—
But Esther twists her hand, and he sinks to his knees, screaming as fresh blood streams from his eyes and mouth. Smoke billows from every place the manacles touch his skin.
"I know it's a sacrifice," Esther says. "But think of your baby—"
Elena falls to her knees before Klaus, cupping his face in her hands, thumbs stroking over his cheekbones. Trying to comfort him, the best as she can. "I am."
Trying to think, to remember what she had planned for this eventuality, so hopefully she can find a way for them out of this—
"Your child is a witch," Esther persists. "She ought to be raised with her own kind."
"But my child's not a psycho, so she's not your kind either."
Esther shakes her head, as though she is terribly, terribly disappointed in her. "If you refuse to see reason, then I shall have to choose the best course for you." Esther's eyes narrow, and a moment later, Elena's hand moves of its own volition to reach into her coat pocket and grasp the stake. As Esther controls her.
"Stop!" she screams, thrashing with her whole body against the hold Esther has on her, but to no avail—it's as though she doesn't even have an arm—she can't feel anything past her shoulder— "Stop!" Any thoughts of tricking Esther, of maybe getting close enough to do for her what she did for Connor, dissolve with her fear. "I'll go with you!" she cries. "Okay! I'll go with you! Anything, just not this!"
Klaus climbs to his feet, his face set like stone as he watches her with grim determination.
In utter horror, she watches as her hand emerges from her pocket clutching at the stake— as her arm swings back to strike—
She turns to Esther, ready to beg—
In time to see Bonnie step inside the space, that awful, vacant expression plastered on her face.
Any hope she might have had of escape sputters and dies as Bonnie walks straight up to Esther—as she joins her—
Whatever her friends had attempted to keep Bonnie out of commission, they'd obviously failed—
"Good, just on time. I've been calling for you," Esther murmurs to Bonnie. "Watch closely how I accomplish this next feat."
Against her will, Elena's arm dives for Klaus's heart.
And a familiar, dread wind rips through the room, severing the spell holding her captive. The very air itself crawls under the might of Bonnie's power. With her Expression.
Elena collapses onto her back as the force on her arm flash evaporates, the stake clattering to the ground at Klaus's feet.
Bewildered, she looks to Esther as Bonnie slams her hand against the older witch's heart. Watches as Esther's confusion gives way to shock. "Why?" she breathes.
"Because I'm not a tool, or a weapon," Bonnie says with utter dispassion as Esther drops to the ground. "Least of all against my friends."
Esther's lips move, but no words form. A creeping gray pallor inches over her skin, until she is nothing but a cold, empty corpse, sprawled out beside Connor… in so many ways, her final victim.
(Esther's victim, not hers.)
(She repeats this to herself, again and again.)
At first, Elena can only stare in stunned silence.
"Since it seems you're on our side," Klaus chimes in, breathing through her shock, "perhaps a little help with these chains?"
Bonnie shakes her head. "Yeah, of course." She winces as she steps through the barrier spell. Pauses. "That's going to be a problem."
"It's tied with a blood knot, isn't it?" Klaus asks.
Bonnie kneels to examine the scarlet markings on the ground. "Yes."
"What does that mean?" Elena asks.
"Only the blood of a witch of Esther's line can undo this."
Klaus rattles his chains. "No matter. I'll take my chances crossing it."
"What about Esther's blood?" Elena asks. "Can't we use it?"
"It has to be from a living source," Bonnie explains. She frowns at Klaus. "We're not going to make it out of here alive if you blow yourself up trying to cross your mother's barrier."
"I shan't blow myself up," he says. "At worst I'll probably just smolder—"
Elena picks up the knife she'd used to murder Connor and wipes the blade clean.
"What are you doing?" Klaus asks her as she draws the edge over her palm and pours her blood over the spellwork.
"I told you," Elena says, "My blood and the baby's blood are bound up in a circuit right now—and our baby is a witch of your mother's line."
Indeed, as her blood sinks into the ground, the entire circle begins to glow, brighter and brighter, until the whole thing goes up in hissing metallic flames.
Bonnie waves away the remaining residue the way someone would brush aside a cobweb. "That's one way to do it." She turns back to Klaus then, who watches Elena with an intensity that makes her shiver.
After a moment of examining the manacles, Bonnie whispers a spell into them that releases Klaus seconds later.
Immediately, he is at her side. "Are you alright?" He tries to snatch at her hand, but she won't allow it.
Instead, carefully, she takes his hand, weirdly conscientious of the way her blood smears against his palm, hot and slick. The wound stings on contact. The pain is steadying. Cleansing. "I will be—"
Caroline and Tyler spill through the entrance, both of them looking thoroughly bedraggled.
"Thank God, everyone's here," Caroline sighs, breezing over the dead bodies and offering the three of them all a tight smile.
"We don't have much time—Damon and Stefan are holding the way open, but it's pretty hairy out there," Tyler adds.
Klaus scoops Elena up into his arms. "Lead on."
After a narrow escape, culminating in a not-so-accidental deadly cave-in that buries the rest of Esther's host alive, Elena's friends fill her in on what she'd missed— How Bonnie had awoken and insisted on going after them… and how the rest of her friends had made a game-time decision to trust her. How Matt had had to kill a witch to save Caroline. How he hadn't even realized what he was doing until it was too late, and all that was left was his guilt.
"I'm going home," Bonnie quietly tells them all at the edge of town. There's a dark, haunted look in her eyes that Elena recognizes far too well.
Bonnie had also crossed a line tonight from which she could never go back.
"Do you need anyone to go with you?" Caroline asks.
"No. I just need some time by myself. Maybe see my dad. Get some sleep." She shrugs. "It's been a while since I was alone inside my own head."
Elena makes a note to check in on her tomorrow morning. Not to let her own issues cloud her from looking after the people who matter the very most when they're in pain.
"I'm heading out too," Matt declares when Bonnie wanders off.
"Let me buy you a drink, man," Tyler offers.
Unlike Bonnie, Matt gratefully accepts the company.
Caroline shoots Elena a look.
Elena waves her off. "It's fine. Go with them."
And so her three remaining friends leave, off to commiserate over all the blood on their young hands. She wonders if Tyler and Caroline have any advice for coping. If they do, neither of them have ever shared it with her.
Not that she's ever asked.
Finally, that leaves her with just Klaus and the Salvatores. The four of them stand awkwardly in a loose circle, appraising each other.
"Give us a minute," she tells Klaus.
"I'd prefer to keep you in easy reach."
"I know. I still need a minute."
Klaus examines her narrowly, but whatever he finds in her face must satisfy him, because he slinks off to wait against the brick edifice of one of the boutiques facing the square.
"Thank you for what you did for me tonight," she tells Damon and Stefan, the words pouring up from her heart. "It means everything."
"So long as you know we did it for you," Damon says.
Stefan peers over her shoulder, into the night. "You're going home with him." It's a statement, not a question.
"Yeah. I am."
"The offer still stands, you know."
The offer to run away with them.
She gazes up into Stefan's face. Takes a moment to look at both of them. Her dear ones. Her beloveds. Her past. "I know," she tells them.
"It always will, Elena," Damon adds.
"I know that too. But—don't wait for me, okay?"
Damon looks like her answer breaks his heart.
They both do.
(And maybe that's the point. They will always break each other's hearts.)
"I'm going to be okay," she promises them, as gently as she can. Then, because she cannot suppress the hope that rises within her, nor the smile that bursts over her, she confesses, "I'm going to live."
And, somehow, they smile back at her.
For her.
Klaus walks her home in contemplative silence.
Beside her, he's practically boiling over with questions. She can feel him literally vibrating with his desire to spring them on her.
At her front porch, they both pause.
"This is goodnight then," he says, watching her beneath the yellow lamplight as she unlocks her front door.
Elena turns to face in him in her open doorway. "That's it? You don't want to talk?"
"I do."
"No demands to talk now though?"
"No. Not right now."
Behind her, the clock in the front hall chimes the hour. Midnight.
"It's Christmas," she observes.
"So it is." He turns to leave.
"Klaus, would you like to come inside?"
Klaus freezes halfway down the front steps. Returns to her at once. "You're finally lowering the draw bridge?"
"Yes."
He casts a conspicuous glance over her shoulder. "Is this a trap?"
"Why would you think that?"
His mouth twitches. "I assumed I'd have to lay siege for at least another month before you relented."
"I'm here now, aren't I? I didn't run away."
His gaze softens. "No. You saved me instead."
At a loss of how to respond, she says the only thing that comes to mind. "Merry Christmas." And, taking his hand, she welcomes him into her home.
A/N: Thanks for reading! As many of you know, this fic is soon winding to an end—there's a bit more to unpack between Klaus and Elena, and of course, I have a few scenes I'd like to write in conclusion. Thank you to everyone who has been reading this fic and supporting it. I appreciate you all!