Tears Dry On Their Own

Klaus is her salvation as he pulls her out of the carnage. He carries her home, upstairs and sets her so gently down on their bed. Her jeans are torn in several places and soaked through with blood and sweat. His fingers shake when he unties the ropes around her wrist. She feels as if someone has denoted a bomb in her head, the blast echoes through her skull preventing her from forming coherent thoughts. But the image of his shaking hands stays with her.

She's a doll as he tenderly moves her arms out of her sleeves and strips her ruined clothes off. He carries her like a child to the bath, rippling with warm water and steam. She has no objections as she clings to him like a life preserver. At least for her right now, he is.

She watches the water turn a morbid pink and he carefully watches her. She's lost in the middle distance and he scrubs the caked on blood off her skin. She finally looks at him when he pushes her damp hair off her face.

"I can't bear to think that I might have lost you tonight. When I realized what must have happened and the witches had trouble locating you, I was worried that I might never find you again. For once, it wasn't your friends who take you, but an actual enemy." The wavering in his voice is now tied to his shaky hands.

"How did you find us?"

"I turned and followed your scent." It struck her that her blood put her in danger but it was also the thing that had saved her, the damage Markos had referred to her and Klaus doing months ago. He leans down until their foreheads touch and whispers, "I will go to whatever lengths it takes to protect you, Elena, but I need you to be willing to go there with me."

She stays silent as he dries her off and brings her to bed, slipping in under the covers with her. It's comforting when he brings her head to rest on his chest. The sound of him breathing is reassuring. But every time she closes her eyes, she sees Markos's cold brown eyes staring back at her. She won't sleep much that night or the next.

In the short days after Jenna's death, Klaus refuses to leave Elena's side which is fine with her because she hasn't let him out of her sight for more than a few minutes at a time. When he shifts on the couch, she looks up from her book to make sure he isn't going anywhere. When he gets up to grab something from another room, she waits a moment or two before she gets up to follow him. The day of the funeral is the first day she doesn't shadow him through the house.

Elena looks at herself in the mirror and her reflection seems normal. There are no cuts, scrapes or bruises to indicate what had happened to her thanks to Klaus's blood. There is nothing on her that reflects back the truth of the last couple of days. She wishes there were. She wants so desperately to see her pain echoed back to her so she can point to it and say "This! This is where I'm hurting." She not only wants to see it but she wants the others to see it as well. She looks too perfect and it hurts worse to see knowing what's happened to Jenna.

She finishes twisting her hair up into a bun and looks back at herself one more time. Her face is puffy and her eyes seem dead, even to her. Her fingers trace the hollows of her cheek, knowing that she had likely ripped holes in them that night. She regrets taking his blood, the easy way to restore herself. She should have to suffer to make amends to Jenna. To Ric. To Grace. She wants to look as monstrous as the guilt feels eating at her heart.

Mystic Falls, Virginia May 2009

She floats through the days after her parents' death. The only solace she finds is sharing in her grief with Jeremy. Their silence binds them together, but even so she holds on to a special feeling; guilt.

Her parents were never meant to be on Wickery Bridge that night. She'd had too much to drink and had called them to pick her up. They'd always said if she needed them to call, that they'd be angrier if she tried to get home on her own. So she had.

And they had been angry. She'd said something dumb and horrible that she regretted immediately. Her dad had turned around to yell at her and the roads were so slick. He couldn't correct it in time and they smashed into the bridge, careening into the water.

She can't get the image of her parents in the front seat, trying desperately to open the car. And she can't bear to tell anyone how it was her fault they were even there in the first place. Her fault that her dad took his eyes off the road.

Jenna breaks the lease on her apartment and moves in. Elena blames herself for that too. She works so hard to keep her and her brother afloat. Jenna has lost her sister, but musters the strength to push her own grief aside to pour love into her niece and nephew.

Elena spends the summer in bed, barely getting out to eat or bathe. She ignores her friends, she can only hold space for Jeremy. His grief connects to hers. They are on the same wavelength and everyone else just wants to pull them out of it. Matt doesn't even know what to do. Caroline gives up next. Bonnie persists still.

It's Jenna who finally breaks through to her one night when she crawls into bed with her and holds her so tight, Elena feels like she could crush her chest. "Why do you keep pushing everyone out?"

"I'm not," she insists but Jenna doesn't respond. She waits the truth out with love and patience. "I don't deserve anyone being nice to me. I killed mom and dad."

"Elena. Your parents loved you. They were taking care of you and an accident happened."

"If they hadn't come to get me. If I hadn't called them or been out drinking in the first place, then they'd still be here."

"They would have loved that you called them when you needed them most. That you trusted them enough to call. Your mom and I could never have done that with your grandparents. She wanted to have a good enough relationship with you. She wanted you to trust her and you did. She wouldn't have changed a thing."

Elena turned around and buried her head in Jenna's chest. "I miss them so much." Jenna reached out and stroked her hair.

"I know, Elena. I do too. They wouldn't want you to feel guilty over this. They loved you more than you can know and wanted the world for you."

"It isn't fair. Jeremy shouldn't have to grow up without them. You shouldn't have to take care of us. You should be at school, with your friends."

"Elena, you can't fix this. Its life and it will never be fair. You just need to learn how to carry it and keep going. It will hurt every day, just less and less. And I'll be here to help until you can carry it on your own."

Mystic Falls, Virginia May 2020

Elena straightens her dress and walks down the staircase. She's sitting in the kitchen waiting for Elijah and Klaus when she spots the bag of pastries that Jenna had brought over days earlier.

She picks at one of the croissants, it feels good to destroy something. Bits of bread litter across the table and when she reaches into the bag further, she feels something smooth and plastic. She pulls out a box of pregnancy tests and blinks back sudden tears, remembering so clearly the last thing Jenna said to her.

She imagines the day they might have had if it had gone as planned, if Elena was a normal woman. They would have laughed and carried on over breakfast. Jenna would have smirked and joked with her when she found the pregnancy tests. She might have argued, but relented and taken the tests. Anxiously waiting for the results with her aunt.

Now that she was thinking about it, she couldn't recall when her last period was and she had been miserably sick for no clear reason. She's trying to make possible the impossible in her head when she hears Klaus and Elijah coming down the stairs. She quickly stuffs the box inside her purse and throws the bag away.

"Are you ready, sweetheart?" Klaus calls to her from the entrance way. He holds out his arm for her and she holds on to him tightly. They all drive together to the church, Elena getting lost outside the window imagining that day with her aunt and how it all should have happened instead of how it did. She doesn't dare let herself imagine the possibility that she could be pregnant. Not yet.

Jeremy is waiting outside for her and holds out his arm for her. She takes it, feeling safe between her brother and Klaus. Elijah bringing up the rear makes her the most protected woman in Mystic Falls.

She sees Ric trying and failing to pacify a crying Grace. It's the first time she's seen him since that night. He'd been so good at coming up with ways to avoid visitors and she hadn't had the energy to push the issue. Jenna would be mad at them both, neither carrying the other through this moment. She slides into the pew next to him, Klaus taking his seat next to her. She offers to hold Grace and Ric passes his daughter to her.

She can smell the liquor on his breathe when she leans in to take Grace and she shoots him a look. This isn't something she can drop. Jenna wouldn't. She holds Grace close to her chest as she strokes her fine, golden hair to soothe her and thinks about how she'll bring this up to Ric.

The sermon goes by and she only catches every few words. It's enough that she's here, supporting Ric and bearing witness for Jenna. She's back in her memories when Klaus nudges her to the present.

Everyone is waiting for Ric to stand up to deliver his eulogy but he's in no state for that. Elena passes Grace to Klaus and she misses his panicked look because she's leaning down to whisper in Ric's ear, her hand massaging his back. He nods and she stands up to make her way to the front. It's difficult to swallow and even harder to look out at everyone. She locks eyes with Klaus and his steadfast gaze is all the support she needs.

"I used to think that the worst day of loving sometime is the day you lose them, but now I know that you never really lose someone even in death. I see Jenna in the love she had for Jeremy and myself. How she set aside her own ambitions to take care of two lost kids. I see her in how Ric uses everything he's learned to take care of everyone around him. I think he was a little lost too when she found him and she created this wonderful family of the lost and heartbroken. She made us all whole again. Most of all though, I see her in her daughter, Grace. In her smile and the way her eyes light up when she's discovered something new. In her laugh and the serious way she looks at you like she's just figured out something fundamental about who you are."

She clears her throat and bites the inside of her cheek as she looks up from her fingers, anxiously tearing at away at the skin next to her nailbed. "Jenna lives on in Grace and all the lives she touched while she was here. It isn't fair that she's gone, but it is an honor that we all get to carry her with us until we see her again."

She walks back down to her family, uncomfortable with the attention. She sits down next to Klaus, who has managed to get Ric to take back his daughter. She wonders what he said because Ric seems to have sobered up a bit.

The damn breaks when Klaus holds her in his arms. She can't help it. It's easy to feel secure with him here like this. It's easy for her to let go and let him hold her. It's easy to lose herself in tears when she knows that he will always find her.

It's a cruel day to bury a loved one. The sun is shining and the spring air makes everything feel new and hopeful. She wishes for rain or something darker. She walks forward and drops a rose into the ground as the casket is lowered. She moves to stand back with Klaus and watches Jeremy do the same. When he comes back, she reaches out and holds his hand. Damon has an arm around Ric and Bonnie is holding onto Grace. Stefan stands off to the side, alone, looking as guilty as Elena feels. Elijah had insisted on keeping Caroline locked up with the Passenger in her body until they had a plan. Everyone agreed, but Elena can't help but feel she's missing such an essential part of her circle.

People begin to disperse, but she stays behind. She feels a duty to Jenna to be one of the last ones there. After some time, Klaus touches her back and starts to guide her away from the grave. She looks up and sees Markos in the distance. She freezes as he waves to her.

"Klaus?"

"Yes, love."

She looks up at him and then back to see Markos has gone, if he was ever there in the first place. "Take me home?"

A/N: It's about to get a little sad and a little violent in the next few chapters.