(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
Christmas morning dawns bright and crisp and clear and cold.
Elena stretches, luxuriating in the soft coolness of her bed, before she slowly realizes that someone is missing who is very definitely supposed to be here.
A moment later, the soft sound of conversation and the smell of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls alert her that she is very much so not alone this Christmas.
She creeps down the stairs, fully aware that there is absolutely no way that she's going to sneak up on the vampires congregating in her home, but eager to catch an unobserved glimpse while they're distracted just the same.
As she had suspected, Caroline had apparently shown up bright and early this morning, and is busy bustling around her kitchen like a general, pointing here and there with her whisk as Klaus haplessly attempts to fetch supplies and ingredients from the cupboards and set oven temperatures for her.
And it's strange, because a week ago she would have been so terribly jealous of the ease and sheer normality Caroline is able to wring out of Klaus. Elena isn't sure she will ever be able to coax him to behave like this. To be so domestic with her, even with a baby on the way. Isn't sure she could see herself in Caroline's shoes even attempting it.
But that's the thing.
Klaus isn't the only weirdo.
He makes her weird too.
The two of them will never be a normal couple.
A week ago that would have eaten at her, but after last night, after everything, being normal doesn't seem to matter very much.
And as Elena spies upon her best friend and her boyfriend (just thinking the word shoots a little thrill down her spine), there isn't a speck of jealousy within her to be found.
Instead, she looks at Caroline and Klaus (but mostly Caroline) making Christmas cookies and tiny delicate mince pies while the cinnamon rolls cool on her mother's wire rack, and for the first time, she feels utterly certain that her relationship will work with Klaus. That somehow, there is a way for him to fit into her life, without having to sacrifice everything else. That if Caroline can so easily be their friend—both her friend and his friend—then the others will follow. Eventually. Somehow.
She can't fight the grin that lights up her face when she joins them at the kitchen island.
"Please tell me it's time to ice," she says as she examines the haul of confectionary tools Caroline had brought with her.
Grinning back at her, Caroline hands her the white icing for the rolls. "I knew this would lure you out of bed."
"Is that the secret?" Klaus asks, as though he doesn't know exactly how to get her out of bed. Or how to wake her up at least.
Whatever retort she may have had dies on her tongue as she glances between Caroline and Klaus. As she imagines that future she had just glimpsed, dinner parties and holidays and warmth and laughter and possibility.
Yeah. Because maybe this is it. Maybe it's all icing from here on out.
With everything so hectic recently, Elena's cupboards are significantly barer than they usually are, and there's a whole list of sundries she needs to restock on. Eager to prove himself an exemplary boyfriend, Klaus volunteers to do the shopping for her (with only a couple of small regrets that he no longer has any hybrids to delegate to), leaving Elena and Caroline alone together to linger over the baked goods.
"So your mom's working?" Elena asks, guessing at why Caroline had shown up so early.
"Just the morning shift. Mayor Lockwood's invited us over for Christmas dinner. Matt too, I think." She pauses. "I'm sure there's room for one more if you want to come."
"No, I think after everything, I just want a night in." Or a night out with just her boyfriend. Whichever.
"Thank God. I was trying to figure out how Klaus would fit in to the dinner party."
Elena snorts. "I know how to make things easy on myself, huh?"
Caroline appraises her, head tilted, a serious cast to her expression. Like she's looking deep into the issue. Getting to the heart of things. "Sometimes the right choice for you is also the hardest possible choice."
"This is right. He's right."
"Then I'll support you, Elena."
Overcome, Elena pulls Caroline into a tight hug. "I don't deserve you," she mumbles damply into Caroline's shoulder.
"Well, nobody does."
They both laugh.
"Where're Tyler and Matt?" Elena asks a little later, licking icing from her thumb.
"Hung over. Don't expect to hear from either of them before two."
"How's he taking it?"
They both know she means Matt.
"The fact that he killed a human? About as well as can be expected, I guess. Which: it's not like he's hasn't killed plenty of vampires."
As though practice ever makes it easier. As though Caroline will ever be able to understand how Matt can draw such a distinction and still call her his friend.
They both fall silent, Caroline's words—true as they are—ringing in their ears.
"What about Bonnie?" Elena asks at last. "Have you heard from her?"
"Zilch."
The oven beeps, and Caroline flits over to it to take out the tray of mince pies. The sharp, delicious aroma of cinnamon and cloves unfurls throughout the room.
"She'll call us," Caroline says as she transfers the pies to a wire rack to cool. "When she's ready."
The call comes that afternoon—just a short question, Bonnie's voice so tired and small—Will they come over?
They arrive at Bonnie's as the winter sun sinks toward the horizon far too early, the way everything is in the winter. They bring armfuls of baked goods and a thermos of hot mulled wine and cuddle up with Bonnie on the sofa under the window in the front room, one of them on each side of her.
For a long time, they just sit together, It's a Wonderful Life playing on the television with the volume turned down so low that probably only Caroline can hear it.
"I thought I'd be more upset than I am," Bonnie finally tells them. She takes a sip from the thermos. "I've never killed someone before—I thought I'd be devastated."
Elena knows that ache of discovering just how much farther she is willing to go than she ever dreamed herself capable. Of learning how much harder her heart is than she ever realized.
Carefully, she takes the thermos from Bonnie's hand and sets it down on the table. Entwines their fingers. "All it means is that you're willing to sacrifice yourself for the ones you love," she says. "To take that burden on yourself." Whether or not this is strictly true remains to be seen. It's still the only comfort Elena has ever found. The only thing left to cling to late at night when she remembers what it had felt like to bury the knife in Alaric's heart.
(She had lost no sleep at all the night before over Connor.)
(In truth, this is the first time she's thought of him at all since she killed him.)
(Murdered him.)
(No, better not to think of that.)
"Do you really think that's true?" Bonnie asks, painfully hopeful.
"Of course it is," Caroline assures her.
Caroline, who has never to Elena's knowledge lost sleep over any of it.
Before them, the movie plays soundlessly on, and the three of them huddle close against the world.
They say their goodbyes around six—Caroline to go join her mother at the Lockwoods, Elena to meet up with Klaus.
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" she offers as Bonnie sees them to the door.
Bonnie shakes her head. "There's this party my dad wants me to attend with him—he says it's not political, but I think he wants to network so he can challenge Tyler's mom next spring." She shrugs. "It'll be good. I'll be too distracted trying to remember everyone's names to think about last night."
They all gather in for one more hug before scattering.
"Oh, and Elena," Bonnie calls out as Elena unlocks her car. "About that cloaking spell. Be ready tomorrow night."
Klaus shows up on her front step an hour later, looking distractingly handsome in a simple black suit, a spray of undoubtedly expensive hothouse flowers in the crook of his arm. He's made some attempt at slicking back his hair. A stray curl falls over his forehead, and Elena cannot help but brush it back when she greets him. Cannot help but kiss him as she pulls him inside.
"You're not dressed yet," Klaus notes between toe-curling kisses.
Elena pulls away, frowning. "What?"
"You asked me to take you out to dinner." He presents the bouquet to her. "This is how it's done, is it not?"
She blushes. She'd completely forgotten.
Or—perhaps she hadn't expected Klaus to take her suggestion so seriously.
Overcome, Elena takes the offered blooms, careful not to crush their delicate petals. The aroma of them, ripe and sweet, wafts up from their center. They must have cost a fortune. "They're beautiful," she murmurs, taking them back into the kitchen so she can find a vase for them. Lovingly, she places them on the coffee table in the front by the Christmas tree, where she's been spending so much of her time of late.
"I'll just be a few minutes," she promises Klaus, pressing another kiss to his mouth, before dashing up the stairs.
She throws on a green satin wrap dress she bought last year and never wore, her mother's jade earrings, and a pair of black pumps. In the bathroom mirror, she realizes that her hair is starting to curl at the ends, but she forgoes fixing it. Hastily freshens her makeup and applies some burgundy lipstick.
When she glides down the stairs a few minutes later, Klaus is slouching against the front door, absently examining the damage he'd wrought to the frame the day before. "I'll have this fixed," he says, before turning to look her way. He straightens when he sees her. Comes alert, his gaze slowly trailing the length of her body. Drinking her in.
Her stomach flips as she thinks about Klaus drinking her. Consuming her. The thought has her whole body heating.
As she steps up to his side, she sees her same desire reflected back at her in his eyes.
There's no way Klaus can't detect the bent of her thoughts. No way he isn't thinking the same things.
Her phone rings.
Jeremy.
"I have to take this," she apologizes, fumbling with her phone and taking it to the back of the house.
It's Christmas, and she's completely forgotten to call him.
"Elena, Merry Christmas!" Jeremy calls over the line. For a moment, the connection is so clear she thinks he could be right here in the room with her. Her heart aches with how much she misses him.
She swallows down the feeling. Makes her voice merry and bright. "Merry Christmas, Jer. Tell me about your day."
He does, spinning out the details with lazy good humor. There's a warm, familiar jubilance to his tone—he's been drinking, having a good time. Far away from all of the troubles here in Mystic Falls. Safe. Living the life she has always wanted for him.
"And you?" he asks at the end. "What are you up to?"
"It's been quiet here," she half-lies. "Caroline and I baked, and we watched It's a Wonderful Life over at Bonnie's. I have dinner plans tonight. You know. The usual."
Jeremy accepts her reply, tells her about his plans for the evening, and for the rest of winter break.
When she hangs up, Klaus has appeared in the kitchen with her. He takes her into his arms before Elena even realizes that that's what she needs right now.
"You miss him," he observes, stroking his fingers through her hair.
"Every day."
"You sent him away because of me." It's not really a question.
"Yes."
"I shouldn't have targeted him."
She dashes the tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist. It's far too late for apologies. Not that she's even really looking for one. "No, you shouldn't have."
"Would you like to bring him back?"
Elena pauses. Pulls away.
Somehow, it's never occurred to her that with Klaus now effectively her boyfriend, her ally, there's no reason to hide Jeremy away.
He could come home. Move back into his old room, play video games on the sofa and eat dinner with her and go to school and meet his niece.
There's no reason to hide Jeremy away anymore.
No reason, except that he has escaped the perpetual cycle of death and despair that she fears may always linger over her here in Mystic Falls like the death shroud she should never have shrugged off last April.
No reason, except that he is happy, and safe, and she would not endanger that for all the world.
"No," she tells Klaus. "I think it's best for Jeremy to stay exactly where he is."
She never tells him where, exactly, that is, nor does he question her decision.
Instead, he takes her hand, flipping it over to kiss the pulse point at her wrist, and thumbs the tears from her cheeks. "As my lady wishes."
And it's not very hard at all to tuck her regrets away, to beam up at Klaus, her handsome, strange, enthralling man, and ask him to take her out—to make her forget about everything else. Just for a little while.
A/N: Thank you to everyone for your patience. As those of you who follow me on tumblr know, I've been quite ill the past month and unable to write nearly as much as I wish I could, let alone as much as I have been able to in the past. I decided therefore to increase the chapter count on this fic to 54 in total, in the interest of getting the remaining bits of this fic to you a little faster/dividing the amount of ground to cover in each update so it doesn't overwhelm me.
Please comment and let me know what you think. We're going to jump right into that date and a few other fun things in the next chapter! Xoxo