Power of Soul
The spattering of blood from their transformation discolors the cream of the rug. Eventually, Elena will replace it but for now she tracks blood across it barely noticing. After Elijah lets her go, Elena collapses onto the couch and buries her head in the pillows, screaming until her throat feels raw.
Car lights illuminating the window precede Finn, Kol and Bonnie running through the front door. "Elena?" her friend calls for her and Elena's screams turn to choking sobs. "Elena!" Bonnie rounds the corner and rushes to her side. "What the hell happened?"
Elijah jumps in to explain how Klaus had wanted to surprise Elena for her birthday and the terrible impact of Tyler's unexpected presence on the evening. Rebekah sits opposite of Elijah with Elena snug in between them. "He snapped. Turned Tyler. Elena fed him her blood and I suppose unsurprisingly that's exactly what Niklaus needed for his hybrids."
"What the fuck!" Bonnie spins on her heel to charge back out the front door but stops just short of leaving the room with Finn's hand on her shoulder. "Get off. I'm going after that jackass."
"Bonnie," Elena croaks out. "He's gone. He took Tyler and left." She lifts up her head to look at her friend and Rebekah pushes her hair back behind her ear. "He didn't come up with this on his own though, did he?" Rebekah's hand freezes on the back of Elena's head and their eye contact is only broken when the vampire looks away.
"Elena. We were only trying to help." She turns to scrutinize Elijah. "We were doing what we thought was best. He reached out for help. He's our brother."
"I've heard this excuse before and it's less satisfying now that I'm older." The exhaustion of the last few months have settled in Elena's gaze and she's too tired to accept their excuses.
"Darling, it all would have gone brilliantly if you had returned alone as expected." Kol's smile flinches when her judgement finds him in front of Finn and Bonnie. He'd taken a step to come closer to her, but he stops mid-stride with her unflinching stone expression on him.
"None of this would have happened if you all had told me the truth instead of conspiring behind my back. Or if Klaus had just done this on his own and called me. Tyler would still be here and Klaus and I could have worked things out if he hadn't tried insert himself back into my life like he'd never left in the first place."
"Elena." Kol breathes a sigh of relief when Elena's sight returns to Elijah. "What were we supposed to do?"
"You were supposed to be honest. You were supposed to tell me the truth. I am not some wind up toy that you can manipulate at your whim. I'm not a pet. Rebekah can't push you on me just as much as you all can't push Klaus on me. I get to make those decisions and you have to respect that." She pauses to rub her temples. Feeling like they aren't understanding her still, she continues. "If you can't respect that and you do anything like this again, I'm gone. I will find a way to disappear forever."
"You promised!" Rebekah's panicked denial fills the room, but does nothing to move Elena.
She takes a deep breathe letting it out slowly before she responds. "I promised that being with Klaus wasn't the reason I stuck around. He isn't the reason I see you as family. But family doesn't manipulate and lie. Not the family I want to be around anyway."
She's unsatisfied with the conversation until they each promise not to break this boundary with her again. The hardest being Kol, but she suspects that he doesn't care either way and just enjoys being a thorn in her side. She believes Rebekah, but isn't sure if she trusts Elijah not to repeat this mistake in the future. She leans into Bonnie and lets her friend fold her arms over her like a shield. On their way out of the room, she hears Finn remark that he had never colluded with Klaus.
"No one likes a gloat, Finn. This is why Niklaus had you daggered longer than the rest of us," Kol sneers and she can hear the rest of their voices mutter agreements even as they fade down the hall.
"So," Bonnie trails and the cushions next to Elena shift pulling her closer to her friend. "How are you planning on disappearing?"
"I'm not." Her laugh is half-hearted and tired. "It just sounded like a good threat."
"Well, if you ever need to follow through with it, you can call me. We can disappear together. I don't think I would mind a life on the run raising your kid together. Could be fun."
"Bonnie…"
"I mean, do you really think that if you tried to keep Klaus's kid from him that he would let that happen. Do you really think that he's gone forever?"
"No." Elena whispers and feels as small as her voice sounds. All the bravado she had in front of the original siblings gone.
"Alright. Then we'll think of an emergency plan. Just in case you need an out."
"Bon? Klaus said something before he left."
"Oh, another awfully colorful insult?" Bonnie snorts a reply.
"No. I always thought the only thing that made me special was my blood. That it was powerful and not me. Not really. I mean, I've trained and I'm capable of defending myself but that's not what I mean. Klaus made it sound like Tyler was protecting me because of something I did to him and not our friendship." The worry and trepidation in her cadence is apparent and Bonnie holds her hands tight.
"What like you are supernaturally charming and endearing? You can compel people without being a vampire?" Bonnie's expression changes slightly. Her eyebrows raise and she looks off to the side.
"What is it? You've just thought of something."
"Just—it isn't impossible. Sirens enchant their prey. Fae are known for being able to charm humans and other supernatural creatures. Stories claim that people lose their sense of self and reason around them. It's not unprecedented."
"You have your teacher face on."
"Do you know where Elijah sent Amara? It might be helpful if we can talk to her. Ask her some questions. I have a theory, but I think Klaus might be right." Bonnie fakes a gag and they laugh. "That felt wrong. Seriously though. He could be on to something. He's seen a lot and you might have some kind of latent ability that you aren't even aware of."
"That feels so weird, Bonnie. If I made Tyler feel protective over me, then what else have I done? Have I done it to you? Or Caroline? Is that why Elijah wanted to help me?" She can't bring herself to add Klaus into that line of questioning. That his love was manipulated is a thought she wants to silence.
"Maybe? But we don't know anything for sure. Maybe he only said it because he was jealous? He wanted to make you second guess yourself."
"What if he's right?"
"Hey! It doesn't change anything. You are still my best friend. That doesn't change no matter what we find out, okay?" Bonnie keeps trying to assure her, but Elena can't help but obsess over the thought that all of her relationships are inauthentic.
When Klaus left the first time, Elena felt lost and stuck in that moment like she couldn't hit play on her life without him. She'd been so determined to prove her worth that she threw herself into planning the Brotherhood's mission against Silas. She briefly wonders if she'd thoroughly thought that out or if she was too eager to feel purpose and movement again after Klaus had abandoned them.
This time, she feels more in control. She doesn't wallow or recklessly throw herself into a project that she isn't prepared to do. She spends her days cleaning out the spare bedroom and picking out paint with Bonnie. She orders furniture with Elijah's credit cards and gets ready to set up the baby's room. Filled with a sense of determination, she also opts for a different OBGYN. She stays within the same practice with a different, more caring physician. Dr. Davis was too condescending and cold for her tastes.
Taking out her laptop, she's even started writing again. Though, this time she writes for herself. She's been carefully putting together the history of the doppelgängers with Elijah's help and letters she's begun exchanging with Amara with Bonnie's input and questions. She isn't sure if it will ever see the light of day, but this project is only for her.
Bonnie and Finn spend more time together, at first to discuss the coffin but then he insists on treating her to lunch in return for her kindness. Lunches become dinners and dinners become walks in the park. Slowly, Bonnie stops going to the tomb as much to visit Damon. Between Finn and the renovations to the boarding house, she's juggling too much and he starts to slip her mind.
Rebekah and Kol do their best to integrate into the town, but they seem bored and restless. Elena tries to figure out how to help, but she can't imagine that a small place like Mystic Falls will ever offer enough excitement for either of them.
This appointment is the one she's most been looking forward to. It also helps that her new doctor is someone she's been getting along with. They laugh and roll their eyes at the way Dr. Davis frowns as he walks and the distant, mechanical way he talks about births.
Elijah offers to accompany her, but she's not afraid to go alone anymore. She's leaning in to the idea of being a single parent with each appointment or class that she attends by herself. While she mourns the nuclear family she had painted in her head, a part of her relishes in the challenge.
The jelly is cool against her stomach, but she barely notices. Her eyes are glued to the screen as if she can understand anything that it shows. The tech smiles at her and she fights to stop craning her neck.
"Excited?"
"Yeah. This feels like a mini milestone. I've been thinking about names, but there's so much going on in my head. It would be nice to have a little direction." The other woman nods, compassionately.
"Are you wanting to find out today or…?"
"Today, please. Yes. Today." Her words trip out of her mouth like a newborn foal, fast and clumsy.
"Well, looks like you're having a boy." The tech begins explaining the image to Elena, but she's quickly zoning out.
A boy. A tiny version of Klaus. Oh, a boy.
Elena closes her eyes and the tech's smooth voice fades into the background. An image so clear that it feels beyond her imagination appears in her head. A little boy sucking on his thumb. A mass of wild blonde curls and big, brown eyes. He looks at her like he already knows her and Elena twitches on the table.
"Are you okay? You kind of left me there."
"I'm fine. It's a lot to take in. More than I thought it would be," she explains and pushes herself to sit.
"Alright, well. I'll get you your pictures and then you can be on your way." The other woman looks at Elena with more concern than her tone lets on. Elena texts Bonnie the news and her friend returns her message with a call.
"Do you think you could swing by after your appointment?"
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, fine. Finn helped me out with the grimoires and I have an idea for the baby." Bonnie always sounded so strong and firm that Elena often felt it easier to do as she was asked and wait for the inevitable explanation.
In the parking lot, Elena shoots a message in the group text she has with Klaus's siblings letting them know the results of the ultrasound and suppresses a goofy smile at their reaction.
Rebekah: Wonderful. Another boy…
Kol: Are you displeased already with the child?
Rebekah: That's not what I meant!
Finn: YAY! Finn says "excellent, give her my best". - Bon
Elijah: Fantastic, Elena. Congratulations.
Kol: Everyone is happy for you. Except Rebekah.
Rebekah: Shut up! Obviously I'm happy for you, Elena!
Bonnie waves at her urgently from the front door. The sky had decided to open up and pour the contents of the entire ocean across the state as she was getting off the phone with Ric. Elena was late getting to the boarding house since she'd nearly driven off the road a few times and had pulled over to wait out the worst of it.
The furniture is pushed back from the unlit fireplace and although the curtains are closed, Elena can still hear the rain tapping ferociously against the window. Finn walks toward them as they enter the room, a decorative red bowl in his hands.
"What's the plan?" Elena asks as the candles and fireplace ignite in an impressive display with an effortless flick of Bonnie's wrist.
"Silas claimed the baby was a danger to you."
"That could have just been a bluff."
"But if it isn't Elena? Wouldn't it be best to discover your child's nature as soon as possible?" Finn asks as he bends down on his knees in front of her, gesturing to the open circle of candles. She agrees and sits within the circle, leaning back only when Finn motions to several pillows he had arranged for her.
Bonnie talks her through the research they've done and which grimoire they used to find the spell she'll be using today. She assures her that the cream she's slathering on her stomach is mostly to help her focus and help keep Elena relaxed. "If you're calm, then the baby is calm."
"Are you worried about him?"
"No, I doubt he'll even know I'm checking him out," Bonnie says casually and unconcerned.
Elena closes her eyes, letting the comforting feel of Bonnie's magic glide over her skin as the increasingly familiar sound of chanting begins. The Traveler's magic felt like standing in the eye of a storm being pelted with unseen spikes of energy across her skin. Bonnie's magic feels like a light rain on a warm summer day. She can still feel the touch of magic across her skin, but it is gentle and controlled.
"I can feel the wolf's fur against my cheek. We expected that. Some of that old world, chaotic energy from the Traveler's. I guess that makes sense given your lineage, Elena." Bonnie's brow furrows deeply and then her eyes shoot open. "There's a different magic here. Not as old, but still – powerful. I've met and practiced with a lot of witches, but this one is new."
At first, Bonnie seems curious like she's opening a present, but then her hands on Elena's stomach abruptly stop in place and she tries to get up, but the force of the still swirling magic holds her in place. Bonnie's eyes are glazed over and Finn tries to reach out to her, though he's buffeted away.
"Is this supposed to be happening?" she asks, failing to keep the rising panic out of her voice.
"I'm unsure of the details. She made it seem easy, effortless. But this feels different." Finn looks at her long enough to answer and then switches his inquiring attention back to Bonnie. Elena manages to inch one shoulder off the ground, but the effort is too much and she thumps back to the ground.
Fear burns the back of her throat like bile as she screams for Finn to make it all stop. Nothing he can think of works and Bonnie remains untouchable. Between the uncertainty and confusion, her entire body is tense with stress. She forces her head to the side to look up at her friend, lost to her in this moment. "Please," she begs. "Bonnie, please make it stop."
She blinks back her tears and suddenly, Elena can move. Bonnie continues moving her hands like she hadn't been paused in a horror movie that only Elena and Finn could see. She smiles down at her and her mouth forms a circle like she's just been struck by an idea.
"We should do a protection spell for the baby. Obscure his magical signature until he's born."
"What? Bonnie, why? What the hell just happened?" She pushes herself up and clumsily slides away from her friend. "I thought you were just probing around for information. What did you do?"
Bonnie reaches out for her with a steady hand, but then pulls it back as she shakes her head and the hurt off her face. "Elena," she starts slowly. "Nothing happened. I found out everything I could, that's all. I just think it would be smart to hide him until he's born." But when Elena asks her why, Bonnie looks like the reason is just past her tongue and she can't answer.
Even so, Elena lets her friend work the spell which takes less time and energy than Elena had anticipated. It's as if the answer to a question no one asked had just appeared in Bonnie's head, pulled out of the recesses of her memories.
Afterwards, the rain lets up just as Elena's anxiety to get home peaks. She waves goodbye to her friend and as soon as she's in the car alone, her complacent mask drops.
Elijah and Rebekah exchange worried looks when Elena storms past them without a word and bounds as much as she can up the stairs. She paces in her room, gnawing on the side of her thumb as she collects her thoughts. She tries to calm down in bed, but her legs vibrate with an urgency to act and she taps her fingers thoughtlessly against her phone screen.
She trusts Bonnie, but she's too nervous to let her friend know how she's really feeling. She considers talking to Rebekah or Elijah, but she's too hesitant to confide in them without the consequence of violence. For that reason, she doesn't even consider telling Kol. Klaus is still the one person she wants to confide in, the one person she wants input from where it concerns their son, but she won't.
Confronting her need to reach out isn't an option and so she shuffles down the back staircase as quickly as she can, glancing down the hallway before opening the door to Klaus's studio. It was the one place in the house she had left alone after he'd stormed out and now, without him, it feels like a violation. One she relishes in when she imagines how Klaus would react to her breaching his privacy.
The room holds in so much of his personality and the potential of him that for a fleeting second, Elena suspects that he's hiding behind the curtains. His brushes knock and roll against each other under her wandering fingertips and her curiosity is captured by a single easel covered by a plain white sheet. All the other paintings, either finished or in progress, are displayed loudly out in the open. Not this one.
"You're so terrible at hiding," Elena whispers to the empty room as she's pulled towards Klaus's secret. As excited as she is, she's still careful to peel back the sheet afraid to damage whatever is underneath. When the fabric falls to the floor, she takes a step back. A pit forms in her heart dragging it down to her stomach and she holds her face as she loses herself in the painting.
All those nights he came to bed with blue under his fingers. The day she'd sought him out. Blue strokes down her face as she assured him that he was her end and he had promised her forever in return.
Her face, the faces of the women before her, in various shades of blue. She recognizes beach on Amalfi where she let him burrow under her skin. The mountains. The houses cascading down to kiss the sea. The smirk he'd given her that she used to freely wear for him. He painted her the way she fell in love with him.
She can hear him echoing in her head. Let my love be what reassures you in the dark. His words lick her heels through the house and into the garage.
Kol spots her carrying a red gas can and a small box hidden against her chest. He calls after her, trying to keep up without using his powers against her. He tails her back to the studio, wondering if she even knows he's there or if she's that good at ignoring him.
The commotion draws in Elijah and Rebekah and they show up while Elena is splashing the painting in the gasoline. Kol's grin falters when Elijah pushes past him to grab Elena, pining her arms to her side.
"Get. Off." Her words fight through her clenched jaw and Elijah pulls her back.
"What do you think you're doing, Elena? Are you trying to get back at Niklaus?"
"I said, get off me!" Elijah holds on longer until finally Rebekah calls his name. Elena takes two frantic steps back from Elijah and his siblings, her eyes wide and determined. "It's not fair!"
"You sound like a child," Elijah tries scolding her and in the past that might have worked, but now it only fuels her anger.
"So then I am. It doesn't change anything. He left me, Elijah. He's gone and how the hell is it fair that he gets to leave this," she points an accusatory finger behind her to the painting, "behind like some kind token of his love? What love? He promised me forever and he couldn't even last a year. That if others should judge me that it wouldn't matter because he would never. So what is this then?"
"Elena, he'll come around. He will see reason, just give him time."
"I'm tired of giving him everything!" She spits back at him and she feels like a mongoose staring down the black eyes of a snake. Her back feels tight and Elijah seems like he can sense her readiness to strike because he backs down a little.
"Then that is your choice, Elena. But I worry that you might come to regret this decision."
"I won't," she's cold now as she strikes the matches letting them fall on the canvas.
He'd have to come back on both knees first.
The fire blazes brighter than she had imagined it would and she takes a seat in front of the burning portrait like a prayer at the altar of her ruined love. Rebekah stands behind her, refusing to join her and unable to leave. Always stuck in the middle.
"You're brilliant, darling. Pure bloody brilliance." Kol's arm brushes against her as he sits and smiles at her. She spares him a glance before revering her work again. Blue curling into black by licking red flames.
Elijah leaves and comes back with a fire extinguisher, grumbling to himself about her stupidly rash action while he smothers her triumph. She returns to her room, satisfied and soothed.
The relief in her voice when he says hello is like the hot chocolate his mom used to bring him during a storm. He smiles and hopes she hears it in his voice when he assures her that he's fine.
"I'm going to stay, Elena. Keep an eye on him. I can't explain it. I just feel like I need to be here. I'll keep in touch." Tyler hangs up the call and stuffs his phone back in his pocket while he eyes the tent Klaus vanished into hours ago. He hadn't realized how much he had missed the forests in the Pacific Northwest until he and Klaus had ventured into the Tennessee Mountains in search of yet another pack of werewolves.
He settles down with his back against a large pine, picking a part the needles under a waxing moon while he waits for the tent flaps to open.
Klaus rolls to his side. The air mattress shifting underneath him as well as the brunette next to him. He pushes her arm off his hip and pulls up his jeans. The tent flaps open in the wind which brings in the comforting smells of the forest around him. The moonlight washes the camp in dim, blue light and Klaus makes his way to a slowly dying fire.
He takes a seat next to Tyler and a handful of werewolves get up to leave, offering only apprehensive glances. The wolves are wary of them, more so of Klaus. Their hybrid nature is off-putting and strange. Klaus doesn't fit in here either and he notices it. Once he can get a vial of Elena's blood, he can go to work transforming their judging faces into his own imagine and then, finally, he will belong.
Tyler leans back, getting a peek into Klaus's tent. "Elena won't forgive you for this if she finds out."
"She won't forgive me for what I did to you so what's the point? She made it clear the she wanted me gone, so what does it matter what I do now?"
"So you're giving up?"
"She gave up first." Klaus's voice is petulant and his lip curls into a weak snarl.
"I've never known Elena Gilbert to give up. On anyone or anything." Tyler pokes a log and watches the embers burst out tiny fireworks. He longs to go home, but there's something about Klaus that keeps him here. She had asked him not to go and her words play in his head like a song. He's worked it over and over while Klaus's orders crash into his head like waves at a rocky cliff. She's the melody carried over the waves and that's what keeps him above the surface.
"You're pouting." Klaus's eyes flash amber over the exhaling flames of the fire and Tyler understands the challenge.
He stands up and squares back his shoulders. "Maybe, but at least I didn't run with my tail tucked between my legs just because my ex-girlfriend or whatever yelled at me to leave. Oh! After getting so insecure that I murdered someone."
"I made you better! Freed you!"
"No, you killed me. Let's be clear. Elena made me better."
"My blood-!"
"Turned me. Hers kept me from dying. That's what happened to the others when you tried without her, right?"
Slowly, the other wolves come out of their tents and from the dense trees. They whisper among themselves about the newcomers and their judging eyes look from Klaus to Tyler. Inadequacy. Insecurity. Familiar feelings rise to the surface and he can hear his father's taunts in his head as he launches himself at Tyler.
A/N: I have been thinking about her burning that painting for ages now and I'm so glad she finally got to do it.