No Expectations

She inches down into her seat, only partially listening to the chorus of voices around her arguing about what's best for her. Jeremy and Ric want to take her home, but Elijah and the rest of them are staunch that this is still her home. She hadn't even considered that it might not be, but she also hadn't considered Klaus would ever voluntarily leave her. Her skin feels numb to the touch and she's already looking for ways this is her fault.

"Stop it! Have any of you even wondered what she might want?" Rebekah's voice pierces through room and everyone, including Elena, look to her. "Of course this is her home still, if she wants it to be. But, Elena, what do you want?"

"I think. I just want. Can I just go upstairs and go to sleep? I'm exhausted and I can't think about this right now." Jeremy secures her to his side with an arm around her shoulder and walks with her to her bedroom. As the walk away from the room, the real conversation begins and she strains to make out the first few moments.

"Your brother is an ass," Ric starts. "Elena needs to get out of this town. Start over with the baby and her family."

"Niklaus may be as you put it, an ass, but this fit of his won't last long. He just needs to cool down and forcing Elena to leave won't do either of them any good. Tonight was…distasteful, but the depths of her love run deeper than most. She will forgive him of this moment in time."

"And we are her family now," Rebekah chimes in at the tail end of Elijah's short speech.

Jeremy brings the covers up over her lap and her lips twist. "I haven't gone catatonic, Jer. I can still do this by myself."

"Why can't you just let me take care of you? That was…rough."

"It's my job to take care of you."

"Well, take a vacation." He sits on the end of her bed with a hand on her shin.

"I should have waited longer to tell him. He was so stressed to get tonight perfect and I should have known that tonight wasn't the right night. I should have picked another time, just the two of us or something."

"Hey! Tonight? This isn't your fault, Elena. No matter what you did or didn't do, you didn't deserve him exploding on you like that. Stressed or not, there are better ways to handle it."

"If I had waited though…"

"No."

"If I had given him time to process…"

"No!"

"If I hadn't made it a surprise like that…"

"Elena! Stop! You can't beat yourself up over the way he treated you. You were excited about this and wanted to share that with him."

"I just. I was so excited. It's everything I've wanted and I thought being with him meant giving that up, but then I took the test and I could suddenly just see the three of us together and I've never been happier. I thought he would be too. I didn't think he'd react like that."

"Who knows what he was thinking." Elena nods, pursing her lips tight. "How did you do it?"

"It's so stupid. I went to the store and bought this cheap frame and some paint. Put a picture of us from London in it and left the other one blank for the ultrasound photo. And I wrapped the test in ribbon so he had to open to see what it said."

"That doesn't sound stupid at all. How long did you know?"

"Well, Jenna knew first I think," she tries to stop her voice from cracking, but it only sticks in her throat more. "The day of her memorial I threw away a bag she had brought over and the test was in there."

"So, since the memorial?"

"No. I was too nervous to take it and there was so much happening with Klaus's family that it was kind of easy to ignore it."

"What made it less easy to ignore?"

"It wasn't one thing. I guess I just didn't want to keep being a coward about it, you know? I needed to find out either way. I couldn't keep refusing drinks without a reason."

"Yeah I thought there was something off about you." He smiles at her and because she still thinks Klaus is coming back soon, she can smile back.

"Jenna would have known how to handle this. She would have told me not to surprise him before dinner and wait until after."

"She also would have dragged Klaus by the ear until he came to his senses and apologized to you."

"Do you think he'll come back tonight?"

"I think he'd be pretty stupid not to come back to you." She brings the covers to wrap tight, comforting around her shoulders after Jeremy leaves and stays awake as long as she can waiting for Klaus to come home.

In the days after Klaus leaves, she refuses to get up from their bed, feeling foolish for wanting to smell him on their sheets. The room starts to get stuffy and Rebekah tries to open a window, but Elena won't let her. She's worried the wind will carry the rest of him away and she'll be left with nothing until their baby is born.

Even through the heartache, Elena feels like he set of timed explosions in her head to remind her of his anger. She can hear his last words to her ringing in her ears.

Not my child. Impossible.

Duplicitous Petrova.

What happened to your promise of forever? Liar!

She searches for her own anger, but he's left burnt earth where her heart used to be. There isn't enough of her left to support rage and so she remains hidden away from the rest of them like the comforter can protect her from their probing questions.

Rebekah occasionally crawls into bed with a snack and prods Elena until she opens her laptop to stream a movie for her. They lay together, sharing the responsibility of keeping the computer level on their thighs. Even though she stayed behind in Mystic Falls staunch in her loyalty with Elena, Rebekah can't help standing up for her brother.

"You know he didn't mean what he said. He pushes people away. That's what he's always done. He'll be back." Her confidence does little to back up her words.

"We don't know that, Rebekah. He was so angry. He may never come back for me."

She doesn't know what to say to Elena and because she doesn't know what will fix the situation, she says nothing at all. Silence works for Elena. She's too tired to argue with Rebekah about Klaus's intention or if he will come back. She is too empty and it aches. It's easier to lay in this dark room with Rebekah on the occasion she gets bored of her brothers and needs this distraction. It's a distraction for Elena too and she's content to let the shadows consume her with only the light of the laptop illuminating her face, catching Rebekah up on all the greatest romantic comedies.

She thought it would be difficult to watch two conventionally beautiful people predictably fall in love over and over, but the popcorn cheesiness can't compare to what she felt with Klaus. And so, she watches unaffected.

The only natural light she sees is when Kol manages to sneak past Elijah into her room. He ignores her protests and opens the curtains wide and dramatically each time, proclaiming that she'll be unnaturally pale and unattractive if he doesn't force the sun on her.

She sits up in bed to take a steaming cup of cocoa from him, which she sips tentatively. After the first time, when he poured a generous hand of whisky, she had to reprimand him and remind him of the baby. Reprimanding him for her child is the only time she comes alive and he sometimes he still does it just to get a rise out of her.

"Normally, Elena, I rather fancy a woman who can't get out of bed. Typically, though, it's because I'm in it with her."

"You're wasting this material on me, Kol. You should get Elijah to take you out. Find a girl who would appreciate your charms."

"I've been to the Grille. None of the women there have sparked an interest."

"Not as much as the woman carrying your niece or nephew?"

He scowls at this. "I did like you better when you were hiding this little secret. You were more fun to play with."

She can't help but smile when he's around, but it might be because if she squints enough she can pretend that he's Klaus. They have the same charming arrogance that she hated at first, but grew to love. Eventually, Elijah finds him and chases him from her room. He never stays long, muttering an apology before closing her curtains and turning off the lights.

Surprisingly, it's Finn who spends the most time in her room. He was always so concerned with propriety, but that all seems to have gone out the window in the last week. It's always the same. He brings her dinner every night and lights a fire. He gently makes sure she's eaten an adequate amount of it, always a little more every day until he's satisfied.

At first, he doesn't say anything. They are both comfortable holding silence together, a quality they share. He stays with her until she goes to sleep, slipping away with her half-eaten dishes in the night. Almost like he'd concocted a master plan with his lack of questions, she asks him one night to tell her a story.

"What kind of story?" he asks, a little shocked to hear her finally speak.

"A true story."

And because no one else had ever asked, he tells her all kinds of stories. He tells her about sailing in a ship for the first time and how it made him feel powerful for the only time in his life. He tells her about his family, growing up with so many siblings. She tells him how envious she is of his big family and he warns her that not all things glitter the way she wants them to. It takes him awhile, but he tells her about the only woman he had ever loved and how he hopes to see her again one day.

Elena hadn't realized it in the time Finn had been awake, but there were two longing hearts in her room those nights. She tells him she isn't ready yet, but maybe one day he could tell her stories about Klaus. He promises to try to remember some of the good ones for when that day comes.

"You'll have some time," she promises.

All the while, Elijah is behind the scenes orchestrating her care. He sends Rebekah up with snacks and a movie suggestion. He carefully instructs Kol to only lightly tease her and tries to wring a promise out of him not to spike the hot chocolate. Finn doesn't need help, but all the same, Elijah likes to be the one to cook Elena's dinners. He's careful to pick out foods with dense nutritional value knowing that she's only been eating half of it. He reaches out to Klaus too, but like everyone else, his calls are ignored.

"How long do you think he'll stay away?" Rebekah asks him one day, waiting for him to salt and butter the popcorn.

"How can I be sure? His actions and reasons have never been easy to gauge."

"You know him best. Shouldn't you try to find him at least? Bring him back?"

"Forcing him here is the last thing I want to do. He needs to come back on his own. Face whatever it is that made him run in the first place."

"We know what it is." Words unspoken linger between them as he passes her the bowl. He turns to wash his hands and Rebekah cocks her head to the side. "Do you love her, Elijah?"

"I-I love what she represents for this family. A fresh beginning. A chance to start a new generation."

"Is that why you send us in there day after day? Not that we are complaining. I'm sure we'd do it on our own, but you make it feel so…coordinated. You are putting so much effort behind her care."

"I want to make sure Niklaus's child is cared for in his absence. That is all."

"Alright," she acquiesces and starts to leave, but she turns just before she's out of the room. "You know, none of us would exactly blame you for picking up what Nik's carelessly tossed aside." She leaves before he can say anything back, not that he had anything to say either way.

At night after Finn leaves with her plates, Elijah lingers at her door waiting for the soft hum of her breathe when it falls into the slow pattern of deep sleep. Every night, he promises this is the last time, but night after night he finds himself standing in front of her door unable to stop. He sits in the chair next to her bed and watches her for a moment as her features relax and the weight of her heartache disappears into dreams.

At first, he worries that she might wake up and catch him, but the longer he remains unnoticed the less he seems to be concerned. He's tempted to go into her head, give her happy visions of her and Klaus together to bolster her waking spirits, but that feels like crossing a line. He tells himself that sitting with her like this is a service. A warm presence in her room will help her heal faster. And like this, he waits for her to come back.

The rain brings a cold front in and its moments like these that make Elena feel like she may control the weather. She is cold and alone and she leans in to the sad romance of a soft, biting wind on her face. It's the last cold snap before the summer. One final reprieve before the Virginia sun scorches them all. She had woken up and realized that she couldn't smell Klaus in their bed anymore. With no reason to stay, she finally left her room.

Elijah finds her sitting by the sliding glass doors that lead to the backyard, curled up with a cardigan and blanket she's dragged with her from her bedroom. He takes a long moment to watch her in a way he hasn't since he accepted that she was his brother's girl. His eyes linger on her long neck and the scattered dark hair that frames it, remembering that impulsive day in his flat. Finally, she turns around and hits him with those big doe eyes. He wants to ease the pain in them. Tell her that Klaus will come back when he's come to his senses and she'll have this as playful ammunition with which to fire at him in the years to come. What he really wants is to be the light in her eyes.

She speaks first, cutting off any chance he has to say anything at all. "He's never coming back, is he?"

"I can't be sure, Elena. This isn't exactly a situation any of us have ever been in before." He feels awkward standing there next to her so he crouches down until he's seated just across from her.

"He didn't believe me. After everything. He didn't trust me. He's the one who left." Her voice seems lost like she can't believe the words she's saying. "After all that we'd been through, it was him who left."

"He shouldn't have left. He's a fool for it. Perhaps, a scared fool?" he offers that last bit, not wanting to betray his buried feelings too clearly.

"That's not a good enough reason for me. I'm scared too. I wasn't expecting this. I didn't think it could happen and I don't know that I can do it alone."

"You are the furthest thing from being alone, dear one. You are one of us now. Rebekah stood up to Klaus for you. You got Finn out of his shell to re-join our family. And I think with Niklaus gone, you may have to be more mindful about Kol's advances." She laughs at that and when she smiles, he feels it was worth bringing up his youngest brother's flirtations. "You can't possibly get rid of all of us now. On top of your friends and family? No, Elena, you are the least alone person I know."

"I feel alone."

"You won't feel this way forever."

"What do I do about Klaus then? My calls go straight to voicemail. He's reading my texts, but hasn't responded. I don't even know where he's gone."

"That I don't have an answer for. But I do know this. Out of all my years of watching and observing human nature. Out of all the books I've read and lives I've lived, there is only one great piece of wisdom I can gift you in this moment." He moves to sit next to her, holding his arm up so she can lean her head on his chest. He rests his chin on the top of her head and whispers into her hair, "Wait, Elena. Wait and hope."

She repeats his words to him and lets her tears fall freely on his suit jacket. They sit there, huddled together, until the rain lets up. Her trance is broken as the sound outside becomes more irregular and she looks up. He isn't sure when she stopped crying, but her face is dry now. He reaches out to stroke her face and she holds his hand in place with hers.

"Thank you, Elijah. For believing in him even when I can't. For believing in him enough for the both of us." She stands and steps over his legs, trailing the blanket, as she makes her way to the bedroom she shared with Klaus.

Elijah has never hated himself more than he does watching her walk away.

A/N: If you follow me on tumblr, then you might notice how real life impacted the end of this chapter. I love it so much and how each of the Originals are taking care of her in their own way. As always, thanks for reading!