(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
"Elena," Klaus calls, trying to get her attention.
"Something's wrong—"
"Elena, you're bleeding."
She scrambles up, onto her knees, where she spots the dark red stain she's left pooling on the bedding.
A vice squeezes her heart as she stares and stares.
Klaus grabs her around the shoulders. "Elena, tell me what to do," he pleads with her.
The helplessness in his tone breaks her out of her shock. "I need my phone. I have to call the after-hours emergency number."
Half an hour later finds them in the hospital, getting triaged in Labor and Delivery, where she'd been directed to go instead of the normal emergency room.
When the doctor finds the baby on the ultrasound, she's not prepared for the sheer relief she feels at hearing the baby's heartbeat still crashing away.
It isn't until that moment that she lets herself acknowledge how afraid she'd been that they'd find nothing.
Klaus leans over her to peer more closely at the screen, a look of naked awe on his face. "That's the child? The device is capturing her in real time?"
"Sure is," the doctor replies, distracted by the diagnostics she's running on the machine.
Klaus opens his mouth to say something more, but Elena squeezes his arm. "Don't distract her."
Nodding vaguely, he slumps down on the chair next to her, his eyes never leaving the screen.
"The measurements look good, but there's some indication that the baby is in distress," the doctor finally announces.
Distress.
That was the word Klaus had used the day before when he'd listened to her heartbeat.
There's a pelvic exam, a panel of blood tests, and a consultation with another doctor, but they can't quite figure out what the issue is.
Eventually, they send her home with orders for bedrest and to wait and see if things improve.
If anything, she feels worse than she did this morning. The cramps are more persistent, and her anxiety is ratcheting as she wonders what's to be done.
"That was worse than useless," Klaus growls as he helps her into the car. He fishes his phone out of his pocket, punches in one of the speed dials, and cradles it against his shoulder as he drives. "Your spell backfired," he announces to whomever is on the other end of the line—it must be Bonnie. Which means Klaus has Bonnie on speed dial. "Elena's having complications," Klaus continues, pulling out of the parking garage and speeding through a yellow light.
There's a harried response of some sort that Elena cannot quite make out, followed by Klaus recounting the morning's events, interspersed with various complaints about the incompetency of the American health system.
As though Klaus is familiar with any country's health system, she thinks half-hysterically as her belly cramps again.
"My place," Klaus concludes, before hanging up.
"She's meeting us?" Elena asks,
"Shortly. She's going to fix whatever it is she bungled up last night and then we'll be right as rain."
"What if she can't?"
"I thought you had unwavering faith in your friend's abilities."
"I do."
He takes her hand. "Then have faith."
Bonnie and Caroline are both waiting on the front door step by the time they arrive, each with a huge stack of books cradled in their arms.
"Follow me," Klaus commands them, leading them to the study outside of his bedroom to work before insistently tucking Elena back into bed, as though if he doesn't place her there personally she will somehow slip away. "I'll be just in the other room," Klaus assures her. He's gone a moment later.
For a time, she does her best to tune out the three of them arguing, the sound of their strained voices rising and falling as different ideas are debating and tossed out. Focuses instead on the ebb and flow of her body, on the blood she wills to go to her body. Not to escape her. Not to harm her baby. After a while, she can almost imagine the pressure of her cramping syncing to the beat of her heart.
"You okay in here?" Caroline calls after a small eternity.
Elena shifts up onto her elbows. "I can't say."
Caroline sits on the edge of the bed and busies herself smoothing the covers down.
Elena doesn't want to think about what Caroline can probably sense—the smell of her blood thick in the air, the sound of her baby's distress. Her weakening.
She flops onto her back. Stares at the ceiling. "Any theories yet?"
"No—mostly, I've just been running interference so the two of them don't kill each other before we can come up with a working solution."
From the other room, Elena can hear the sound of Klaus's voice: low, urgent, threatening. Can imagine Bonnie's expression as she hisses her reply. The frantic way she flips through her grimoires.
And then the doorbell rings, the high, pleasant chime so plain and ordinary amidst the furor of the morning that everyone stills.
A moment later there is some sort of commotion at the front door.
Faintly, she can hear Klaus deep in conversation with what sounds like a group of women.
Or, as it turns out, a trio of witches.
"Elena, you'll recall I summoned Thérèse and her sisters to tend to you," Klaus reminds her as he ushers the three women into his bedroom.
Elena blinks.
In all of the chaos of the past few days, she had completely forgotten about Thérèse.
From Klaus's ill-concealed fluster, she realizes he had too.
And yet, they have arrived exactly when they said they would.
Perhaps she is not out of miracles yet.
They don't look like sisters. None of them share any similarity in build, features, or coloring. And yet. They all somehow bear themselves in the exact same subtly unsettling way. Like birds of prey, terribly still while they wait for the exact right moment to swoop down from their perches.
The leader of the trio—Thérèse, probably—steps forward. She's tall and broad-shouldered for a woman, dark complexioned with curly hair elegantly swept away from her face and neck.
"I'd heard the rumors, but I had not thought to give them credit," she murmurs as she sits down on the edge of the bed and takes Elena's hand.
The other two witches move to circle her, one at her foot, one to stand directly opposite of Thérèse at Elena's shoulder.
"Which part?" Elena asks.
Thérèse does not answer her. Nor does she ask any questions herself. Instead, all three witches grasp onto her at once, their grips sure and firm as they work their magic. And there's no other explanation for it—although Elena herself isn't magically sensitive, she's experienced enough spellwork to cotton on to the small signs of otherwise invisible magic—the infinitesimal drop in air pressure, the tang of ozone on her tongue, the prickly feeling of static on her skin.
Her gaze slides over to Klaus, who watches her intently while these three strangers work.
These strangers whom Klaus trusts, she reminds herself.
Who know what they're doing.
Klaus must have explained the situation at the door, Elena thinks, distracting herself from the vice tightening around her middle.
A shadow passes by the doorway. Bonnie, hovering, wanting to watch, but not wanting to intrude.
"Tell me, child," Thérèse finally asks. "Just how many spells have you physically encountered during your pregnancy?"
"Since October? I've lost count."
The three witches share a look.
"And in the past two weeks?" the golden-haired witch at her shoulder asks.
Elena purses her lips. Tries to think. "Four? Five? Does it count if I'm just near a spell?"
"Could you tell the Bennett girl to stop lingering in the doorway and to come here, please?" Thérèse calls out.
"I'm not a girl," Bonnie corrects as she steps out from behind Klaus's shoulder and marches into the center of the room.
Thérèse squints at her. "You're powerful, it's true. Or at least, you have the potential to be. But you're also reckless and untrained. You won't help anyone if you get yourself killed before you live to see twenty."
"How am I supposed to fix that when there's no one to teach me—"
Thérèse holds up her hand. "Later. For now—We will need your help if we're to save your friend's unborn baby."
Bonnie looks around. "What can I do that you three can't? You're the ones who have so much experience."
Klaus steps into the room. "You know then what's ailing Elena?"
Once again, everyone is talking about her like she's not in the room.
(She wishes very much, not for the first time, that she could have had some sort of supernatural destiny that involved a little less objectification and a little more agency.
No matter.
She has always excelled at carving out that agency for herself since no one else seems ready to hand it to her.)
"An overcharge of magical currents. Residue from numerous spells, magicks, and traces from several different witches—some of them very, very malignant—and all of them intermingling, influencing each other—a healthy eighteen year old may be able to overcome such an assault, but it's poisoning the child in the womb." Thérèse looks to Bonnie. "A good deal of this magic has your signature on it. Let's consider this your first lesson—you're going to learn how to siphon back some of your magic, and cleanse it of its dark properties along the way."
"I've never done that before," Bonnie hedges.
"My sisters and I will guide you."
"There was another witch who used dark magicks on me," Elena interrupts. "She's dead now though. What are we going to do about that?"
"Hopefully what we remove will be enough."
Elena locks eyes with Bonnie.
So much has gone wrong between them in just the past few weeks—but also, so much has gone right.
The spell last night had been the tipping point… but had still been vital to protecting the baby going forward. Apparently it had been successful—or else, surely Thérèse would have mentioned her daughter's status as a witch during the diagnosis process.
Could Bonnie pinpoint what strands of magic had been used for which spell? Could she keep that one layer of protection in place, while pulling out the rest of her diagnostic spells that had gone so wrong as well as her Expression?
Bonnie nods, reading her thoughts. She's going to try.
And Elena will have to have faith in her.
Her faith is rewarded.
The process makes her feel a little high. Like watching an operation on herself, a mere observer to the intense processes enacted upon her body.
She braces herself for pain, familiar by now with the way of things, but instead, she is treated to a strange, trickly sensation, like water dripping from a tap, except the tap is her own body, the water presumably the magic leaving her through the warm contact of Bonnie's fingers pressing against her heart. The other three witches anchor her with contact points over her wrists, ankles, and at her temples. All of the witches gathered around her are so intent that they do not even seem to see her, but instead, see within her. Every now and then, one of the witches whispers something to Bonnie, but the words pass over Elena like foam over a wave.
Pinned as she is, she cannot see Klaus at all, though she can feel his presence just on the other side of the room. Hovering protectively in the background. The knowledge reassures her enough that she can lie still.
Little by little, the fissuring pain in her abdomen recedes, leaving in its wake only the normal twinges and aches of a second trimester belly.
Abruptly, Bonnie staggers back to lean heavily against the wall, breaking the connection.
"There's still more," Thérèse says, beckoning Bonnie back.
"I can't," Bonnie pants, bracing her hands against her thighs. "I can't."
Elena fights to sit up. "It's okay." She meets Bonnie's eyes, relieved and grateful that Bonnie had found a way to leave that one spell in place. "The pain's gone."
Thérèse sweeps a hand over her from sternum to navel. "Perhaps it is enough," she finally concedes. "The child life force feels stable." She frowns. "You must avoid all magicks until the after the child is born. And I advise rest for a week at least." She looks to Klaus. "I cannot guarantee there won't be dire consequences if my advice is ignored." Then, to herself, "I cannot guarantee there will not be dire consequences for us all if you do heed me."
Her sisters silently file out, taking Bonnie by the arm and leading her into the anteroom.
Thérèse stands to follow them.
"Wait," Elena calls, reaching for her arm. "What did you sense about my child?"
Thérèse flicks a look in Klaus's direction. "That I hope I will not come to regret the actions my sisters and I took today to save her."
It's an odd thing to say. A prophetic thing. A suggestion that it might have been better to let her daughter die than to be born.
"You think she's unnatural." A monster in the making.
Thérèse regards her from fathomless eyes. "What is nature to one such as you?"
At the doorway, Thérèse pauses by Klaus. "As agreed upon, our debt to you is paid. Do not call on us again."
Klaus nods at her. "Until next time you have need of me then."
There's more conversation in the outer room. Caroline peppering them with questions. Bonnie hesitantly agreeing to stay in touch with them.
Klaus shuts the door and stretches out beside her on the bed.
"What was there debt to you?" she asks.
"They were all born into a particularly severe and controlling coven. I helped them to escape." He sounds so smug when he says it.
"You completely forgot you called them."
Klaus laughs. "I did. How fortuitous then that once again I was able to provide the solution to all of your problems."
"You're my primary problem."
Fiercely, he kisses her on the forehead. "Say that less affectionately and I may believe you."
"Maybe I'll offer you a concession then." She takes his hand and places it over her womb. "Maybe this will be our problem."
The week between Christmas and New Year's passes in a blur.
She spends most of it finishing up her college applications, watched over with single-minded vigilance by Klaus, who hardly lets her step out of bed or leave the sofa. He brings her delicate morsels of food, is constantly fussing with her blankets and whether she would like something to drink, with the size of the fire and whether the windows should be opened or closed. Not once does he attempt to seduce her, which drives her crazy because if he's going to keep her in bed, he might as well take her to bed. But he's like a stone wall on the issue. He even insists on carrying her to the shower. It takes three days just to convince him to let her go home. Longer before she can convince him that she is perfectly capable of looking after herself for a few hours, thank you.
It's like he has no idea what the actual dimensions of mortal frailty are. Like he suspects she might crumple up and die on the instant if he doesn't watch her constantly.
"I'm turning you as soon as you as soon as the babe is born," she catches him muttering more than once.
She throws her pillow at the back of his head and he has the grace not to dodge it.
He's at least half serious about turning her.
That's one of the reasons she keeps insisting she's only ready to be a girlfriend.
She won't be ready for more until and unless he learns he can't make decisions for her. Only with her.
By the end of the week, Klaus has (finally) regained a modicum of proportion. Not that he ever had a great sense of proportion to begin with.
(Which really leads her yet again to question her own judgment, because, somehow, she's still stupidly in love with him.)
It's finally in the quiet early morning hours, alone in her house on the last day of the year, that she submits the last of her college applications.
For a while afterwards, all she can do is stare and stare and stare at the screen. Because… there is an honest part of herself that never thought she would make it this far. That she would do something as simple and expected as apply to college on time.
And yet, here she is.
With the taste of a bright new future unfurling on her tongue.
Caroline throws her annual New Year's Eve party at her house.
Elena goes stag, at once relieved that she has not yet had to fold Klaus into her social life as well as a little sad that the idea is still so daunting.
Whatever her reservations, she forgets them once Caroline sweeps her inside that evening, into the crush of friends and classmates—all the people she used to spend so much time with, and has somehow nearly forgotten about during the past year when her circle had shrunk to be so small.
Amazingly, it's ridiculously easy to slip back into the mold of that old life—to laugh at Tyler trying to cheat at flip cup and knocking over the whole row, to sneak off with Bonnie to giggle over their preposterous list of New Year's resolutions while Bonnie drinks cheap champagne from the bottle and Elena eats maraschino cherries straight from the jar ("No more dating older men." "No more dating creepy older men." "Maybe no more dating." "No more morose journals." "Reading them or writing them?" "None—of either variety." "No more baking—we both suck at it." "Practice self-care?" "Oh, positive ideas—I like that."). She even catches up with the friends she'd had before.
At midnight, Caroline stands up on the dining room table, effortlessly balancing in a pair of glittering heels amidst a jungle of cups and spilled drinks, to urge everyone outside for sparklers and fireworks.
As the year turns into the new one, the rainbow of lights is so bright she cannot even see the stars.
A little before one, she calls Klaus.
"Finished already? I thought the tradition was to stay out until dawn."
"I missed you too much for that. Come take me home."
But they don't go home right away.
Instead, they walk through Mystic Falls's quiet residential streets, the tranquility only punctuated by the occasional house party, which grow fewer and further between as the night arches toward morning.
The night is their element, she thinks, as they wander through the night, her hand clasped tight in Klaus's. The still hours, when it can just be them.
When they, two warring creatures at heart, can be at peace.
A/N: Thank you for reading, and for all of the well wishes.