I do not own TVD or TO
Manosque was severely underpopulated in comparison to Manhattan. Twenty-two thousand people could barely hold a candle to one and a half million. The city was nearly the same size, but so very different. There were no towering skyscrapers, no crazy rush of people hurrying to and from work in an impenetrable wave; men and women still hurried to and fro but maneuvering around them was no problem at all.
It was refreshing.
It was a city with the feel of a small town. It was beautiful, full of old world charm. The picturesque streets of the old city, restored by local government, were lined with lovely houses.
Every stone whispered a story lost to time. There were imprints from each year left behind.
Without heavy matters pressing down her shoulders, forcing her closer and closer to the ground, she would have been happy to just stroll through the city and absorb its beauty while drinking in the rich history.
However, she did not currently have the time to enjoy the scenery or attempt to make conversation in order to practice her rudimentary French. They were there for a reason.
The pub was all but empty in the early hours of the afternoon. The majority of people in the city did not appear to be day drinkers. It was a lot like Mystic Falls in that regard.
Finding Damon or Alaric at the Grille on their third, or sometimes even forth, drink by two o'clock was not an uncommon occurrence. Manosque held a small majority of day drinkers, at least the ones that didn't care about drinking in public.
Aside from the two of them there were only to other people in the pub. A burly bartender wiped down glasses and stacked shelves. In the far corner, shielded by shadows, sat a woman with her head bowed over.
Every other table was empty.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" He folded his jacket over his arm.
"It's the right address," Elena ran her fingers over the black and white keys of a piano. Her eyes found a clock on the far wall. "We are a little early though. I got so used to New York that I thought we'd have to fight traffic."
"Walking?" His lips lifted in a smirk.
"Yup," she chirped. "Manhattan is wall to wall people."
She glanced over her shoulder towards the bartender when his gruff voice broke the still air.
"Qu'auras-tu?"
Her brows puckered in confusion. They rose when his smooth voice returned in flawless French.
"Nous rencontrons quelqu'un."
The bartender went back to work.
"You speak French?" Elena turned back to Elijah.
"Apparently," he frowned. Clearing his throat he nodded to the keys beneath her fingers. "Do you play?"
Elena glanced down and smiled softly.
"I used to. I had lessons as a kid and I played with my mom." Her expression clouded for a moment. "I haven't touched one since my parents died."
"Do you play?" She felt like kicking herself the second the words slipped through her lips.
"I don't know," he chuckled, "you'd have to tell me that."
She tilted her head and looked at him as her embarrassment faded. In the length of their acquaintance she had never seen him display any musical talent, but it seemed like something he would have tried at some point in his life. A thousand years was a long time, and she knew at one point he and his siblings had posed as nobility; weren't nobles supposed to be proficient in foreign languages and accomplished on several musical instruments.
"One way to find out," she cocked an eyebrow and nodded to the piano. Glancing over her shoulder she asked in broken French if it was alright.
"That was terrible," his eyes sparkled with amusement.
"Forgive me for not being fluent," she rolled her eyes. Sliding onto the bench she ran her fingertips over the ivory keys. Thirteen years had passed since the accident, but the pain she had once felt before a piano had lightened.
He draped his jacket over a nearby chair when she began to play. Sitting on her left side he spotted a slight shimmer in her eyes that she blinked away.
"Here," she smiled softly, "put your fingers over mine."
The gentle melody stilled as he moved his hands in place before picking up when he shifted with her. A sweet tune filled the hollow room when Elena began to play again with the pleasant weight of his hands over hers.
She watched from the corner of her eye.
His features shifted into a confused frown: the look of a man who knew what he wanted to say but couldn't find the words on the tip of his tongue. The furrow in his brow deepened as he tilted his head.
"I know this feeling," he murmured. The music washed over him lifting his mood in the way her smile did.
Elena bit her bottom lip and smiled while moving her hands back.
The music didn't stop.
He kept playing.
Soft laughter bubbled up from Elena's mouth. She couldn't stop it when she watched the pure joy playing across his features. She was glad she had chosen a happy tune.
She wasn't going to do it but she lifted her hand back to the keys and joined him. They played together for a moment until he froze and took her wrist in his hand effectively stilling her movements.
It took her a second to pick up what his enhanced senses already had.
A third person had stepped inside the pub and was watching them intently. Together they turned and found the woman in the door.
"That was beautiful." She nodded to the instrument at which they were still seated.
Elijah's eyes flickered over the slim young woman. She appeared to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five with blonde curls secured in a low ponytail and glittering emerald eyes.
"Who are you?" He frowned.
"I'm your three o'clock," she shrugged with a small smile. "I mean, I'm assuming you're the ones I'm meeting since it is now three o'clock and the two of you are the only vampires in the pub."
Elena's eyes grew round and darted to the bartender and the woman scribbling away in a spiral notebook.
"Don't worry about them," the newcomer waved dismissively. "They don't speak English."
She slipped through the narrow streets silently. Her eyes darted to her phone every few seconds to ensure she was still following the dotted red line that google had laid out for her.
She rolled her eyes when she spotted the house in front of her. Her final destination was a sixteenth century home that she felt confident dubbing as a palace.
She didn't hesitate before pulling open the gate and stepping into the maintained courtyard and approached the fountain. A glance over her shoulder revealed the cold marble eyes of some deity overlooking the garden.
The gravel crunched underfoot as she approached the house, but when she heard the screams coming from inside she ran.
She couldn't remember a time when she had ever feared him, so there was no hesitation when she pinned him to the wall with a hand around his throat.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Her eyes flickered over his features.
"Hello, luv," Klaus smiled. His eyes darted to the half dozen bodies littering the palazzo floor.
Caroline followed his gaze and counted, adding the six deceased to the mental list she had begun when she landed in Italy. Rumors, hearsay and her own eyes put the numbers close to triple digits, and those were just the ones she had heard about.
Ignoring the cloying smell of fresh blood she turned back to him.
"Are you trying to break your record?"
"Currently, I'm trying not to flatter myself that you're here on a sudden whim to see me." He tilted his head when she took a step back and watched her draped the bodies with an antique rug. "Why are you here Caroline? Surely the Boarding school can't do without its headmistress so soon after its opening; you must be needed across the pond."
"Call it a work trip: parent-teacher conference," Caroline crossed her arms. Her eyes narrowed in a glare. "You no longer answer your phone so I had to resort to hunting you down." She heaved an exasperated sigh. "You do realize I have a very busy life right? I'm responsible for an entire school full of kids, including yours."
She caught the way his eyes flickered.
"You remember, obviously," she cocked an eyebrow. "The little girl you have yet to ask me about. You're avoiding her, and I want to know why."
"I'm not…"
"You are," she stepped back into his personal space. "I found her in my office a few weeks ago upset because her father wasn't answering her calls."
"She's heard the rumors, you know." Caroline hummed. "She's clever and small, so eavesdropping isn't that difficult."
"What rumors would those be, love?" His jaw ticked.
"Oh you know," she waved one hand towards his handiwork, "that you've gone completely bonkers."
"As you can clearly see," he chuckled darkly.
"You seem normal crazy too me," she scoffed.
"High praise."
Caroline shifted back on her heels and met his eyes.
"Two men from the family that own this building were killed at a nightclub last night by an alleged maniac, and here lie more bodies." She clicked her tongue. "Care to explain why you're methodically picking off all the members of one family?"
"Because I'm compulsive," he shrugged. "Or maybe I'm just wiling away the time; I do have an eternity of it. Or," he held up a finger and smirked, "maybe, just maybe, Klaus Mikaelson has finally gone mad."
"Or," she smirked, "you want people to think you have because this little spree you're on isn't random. You've got a list, don't you?"
She saw the confirmation in his surprised eyes.
"Yeah," she nodded, "it shocked me too. I was honestly expecting to find you on some sort of bender after I talked to Hope."
"You can't be serious," she scoffed; it had to be the most ridiculous plan she had ever heard, and she knew Damon.
"I've never been more serious in my life," he glanced down at the basket she thrust into his hands. Turning on his heel he followed her back towards the corpses. "In my experience those that have been wronged seek revenge, and since many of them," he gestured to the dead with the basket causing bottles to rattle, "have long memories, I am determined to systematically annihilate each and every one of our enemies, and the heirs of our enemies."
"That's insane," she twisted off the cap on the bottle of bleach. "That list has got to be endless by now."
"It has to be done," he shrugged. "It's the only way I can ensure my brother is protected."
"You're doing this for Elijah?" Caroline's brows shot up.
"Of course," he nodded, "in his present state he wouldn't know an enemy it they sat down beside him. How did you know it was Elijah to whom I was referring?"
"Heard about his 'memory loss' through the grapevine," she shrugged. She poured the bleach into a bucket and knelt on the floor after grabbing a rag from the basket in his hand.
"Why exactly are you bothering with this?" He gestured to the stain she was now scrubbing at furiously.
"Because the building is historic," she sighed. She pulled out another rag and held it in front of him. "Take it and start over there." She poured more bleach in another bucket for him.
They had been cleaning in silence for several minutes when Caroline lifted her head. Her eyes darted to the dead now wrapped in plastic to protect the floor. What were the odds that any of them had ever even heard of Klaus, or knew about the wrongs he had done some obscure member of their family countless years ago?
"This isn't right," she shook her head; "even for you this is going too far. What happened to you?"
He balled the rag in his fist and wondered if the break would have come on eventually regardless of Hope's sudden appearance in France a few months before. Rebekah had once called him a lost soul who couldn't be predicted without Elijah to stand in his way, but he thought his actions were easily discerned.
"I'm no good without Elijah."
"You must have been parted before," she tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Not like this," he shook his head, "I've lost my brother, and I'll never see him again."
"You've still got a daughter," she wrong out the last of the blood into the bucket.
"She's better off without me," he averted his eyes. Shame prickled his scalp. "I know what it's like to be raised by a monster."
Her annoyance flared with the phrase. She choked on her anger to keep from shouting but she could still hear the suppressed rage in her own voice.
"Seriously?" Her eyes flashed. "It was a thousand years ago. Newsflash," she tossed her hands in the air, "the guy is dead, so get over it. Stop using Mikael as an excuse to be a bad father!"
There were few times in his life when he had ever been startled by another being, and upon quick reflection he realized that most of the moments, most of the times he had been shocked into silence, were caused by her.
His muttered insistence that she was better off was met with a glare that would have melted ice.
"I happen to know what it's like to be a kid missing her father too," her voice softened when she thought of the sad little girl at school.
"I can't be around her Caroline."
"I figured," she rolled her eyes. "Hayley mentioned that none of you could be near her, didn't go into details, but I got the sense it was some sort of issue centering around magic and keeping her safe, am I close?" She waited for his nod. "I thought so. You may not be able to be in the same room as her, but there is this…" she reached into her back pocket, "… ancient gadget called a telephone."
"Use it before the two of you lose each other." She got to her feet to dispose of the chemicals.
"You came halfway around the world to yell at me and tell me to call my daughter?" His brows shot up when she tossed him her phone. "Why?"
"Because…" she hesitated, and tightened her hold on the bucket, "… I… I happen to think you're someone worth knowing."
"Do you think you can help?" Elena ran her finger around the rim of her glass.
"Potentially," Lexa crossed her legs under the table and leaned back in her chair. "I just want to make sure I've got this straight."
"Sure," Elijah nodded.
"Okay," Lexa hummed. "This Hollow possessed your niece and was going to kill her so she could take over the child. A witch in New Orleans came up with a solution that moved the Hollow from the girl to you and your siblings, who you no longer remember. And now you can't be anywhere near them because if you are the Hollow will reform and go after your niece again."
"That about sums it up," Elena crossed her arms over the table.
"There's just one small problem with all of this," Lexa bit her bottom lip, "one thing that doesn't add up."
"What's that?"
"The choice of vessels," Lexa tilted her head and regarded Elijah. "Assuming the witch had enough power to lift the Hollow from the child and split it in four pieces they could have contained it differently. Placing it in people is the stupidest idea I've ever heard of, siblings is even worse."
"What do you mean?" Elijah's eyes narrowed.
"I mean people move about," she leaned forward and whispered. "Their locations fluctuate and there's no way to regulate that movement, or to account for the bond between family. Eventually you'll all make your way back to each other if just for a glimpse." Her fingers drummed the table lightly. "There are ways to contain these sorts of things."
"Could this be contained somewhere else?" Elena rolled her wrist, sloshing the liquid in her glass. She'd had that thought a few times since meeting Rebekah in New York, but without an adequate understanding of magic she thought her thoughts were a pipe dream at most.
"It's going to be more difficult now," Lexa chewed her bottom lip. Her eyes rolled to the left in thought. "The Hollow's now in pieces which means it will have to be drawn out carefully and sealed in a mystical container."
"Shouldn't it be easier now that it's broken down and weak?" Elijah frowned.
"Wouldn't that be more dangerous? Couldn't people locate the containers?"
"Not if they're on different plains of existence," Lexa cocked an eyebrow. "Niamh sent you to me for a reason, and in her mind it's because I've made a career of the history of magic in its many forms. Do you know what my studies have taught me, Elena?"
"I'd think many things," she tilted her head.
"You're right," Lexa nodded. "I know about the origin of the different supernatural races: vampires, werewolves, travellers, hunters, immortals, and doppelgangers. I know the different forms of magic: nature, spirit, traveller, ancestral and expression. And I know about the various states of limbo that are separate from each other."
Elijah whetted his bottom lip quickly as he tilted his head to watch her through narrow eyes. The set of her jaw told him the young witch had an idea, and he suspected he knew what it was.
"You want to extract the Hollow and store it somewhere else in some sort of box?"
"A locked box," she held up a finger to clarify. "Obviously you can't seal something permanently because there has to be a way to open it, but I can try and make the key… hard to find. Something nearly impossible to locate would be best."
"Like Klaus' curse," Elena murmured. She felt two pairs of eyes on her a second later. "He couldn't break it without the blood of a doppelganger: my blood."
"You're the doppelganger?" Lexa looked at the brunette in a new light. "That would do it. Doppelganger blood is said to be a powerful binding agent and also incredibly rare."
Elena shook her head slowly.
"I'm a vampire…"
"But your blood retains its magical properties," Lexa cut her off. "Did you have kids before you turned, Elena?"
She was mildly taken aback by the shift in conversation, but shook her head regardless.
"Do you have any family left alive that could carry on your bloodline?"
"My brother, but technically he's my cousin on my dad's side," she tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Would I be correct in assuming your doppelganger nature comes from your mom's side?" When Elena nodded she smirked. "Excellent; I could use your blood to seal the containers."
"Would that work?" Elijah's eyes darted to Elena.
"It should," Lexa nodded. In her head she was already going through a list of possible containers and spells to draw out the leech attached to his soul. "For good measure I'd put the pieces on separate plains; one on the Ancestral Plain, one in Hell, one in reality and one in the Dark Realm."
"The dark realm?" Elena blinked slowly.
"It was supernatural purgatory before the creation of Hell and The Other Side," Lexa explained. "In order to reunite the Hollow one would have to collect the pieces from each plain and obtain your blood…"
"I sense a 'but'," Elena met Elijah's eyes for a moment. "Would it be hard to place the Hollow there?"
"There are gates into each of the realm," Lexa shook her head, "for those who know where to look, and spells to temporarily open them. The problem isn't moving them to limbo or finding a container to hold them. The problem is extracting it from its current host."
"You'd have to find them all," Elijah reached for Elena's hand under the table.
"And you better believe pulling out something that wants to stay put is going to be difficult," Lexa shook her head.
"What can we do to help?" Elena ran her thumb over his knuckles.
"You can retrieve the wood or stone I'll need to create the containers, and give me your blood when I need it," Lexa's eyes shifted to Elijah. "You can be my willing guinea pig; it's probably going to take a few tries to get it out of you."
He stared down at the phone in his hand. The contact information for the school had already been pulled up. All he needed to do was press call, but he hesitated.
How could he ever hope to explain what she had seen?
He sighed when he felt her eyes on him.
"Must you hover?"
"Just making sure you actually call," Caroline leaned against a pillar.
"She astral projected Caroline," he murmured, "and saw something." He could still see the look in her eyes, and feel the horror in her expression. Hayley, his mother, his father, and even his siblings, in moments of anger, had said he would ruin his daughter if given half the chance.
"I know," she straightened up and circled around to stand in front of him. She could still see him covered in blood; she could hear the shell shocked tone as he choked out his daughter's name. "She misses you."
"I can't…"
"Don't you dare give me that," her eyes narrowed in a glare. She plucked her phone from his hand and pressed the call button. Holding the phone to her ear she told Bonnie to get Hope.
"Pull her out of class?"
"Yes," Caroline nodded. She passed back the phone when she heard small feet entering her office.
"Hello?"
His throat clenched at the sound of her voice. The innocent curiosity was in stark contrast with the terror that had burst from her lips. It reminded him of the day he had taught her how to mix paint.
"Hello?"
"Hello, sweetheart," his fingers curled tightly around the phone.
"Dad?"
Caroline could practically see the puckering of Hope's lips and the vulnerability in her eyes. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that father and daughter shared the same facial expression. Stepping away from him she moved outside and perched on the edge of the fountain to wait.
"You left me," she held the phone in both hands. She had wanted the words to sound angry, accusatory, but she seemed to be stuck on sadness; it weighed heavily on her chest and behind her eyes. She didn't notice when Bonnie left the room.
"I had to, Hope."
"That's what Caroline said," she sniffled.
"It's the truth. Had there been another option I would have taken it, but we had to get the Hollow out of you."
"That's what mom said," she stared at her plaid skirt. Catching her toe on the desk she spun the chair back and forth in a half circle. "You stopped calling."
The anger that had fallen under the blanket of sadness reared its head causing a candle to light on the desk and the flame to raise six inches into the air.
"I didn't think you would want to hear from me after what happened. I'm sorry, sweetheart I should have called you much sooner."
She agreed before falling quiet. Her eyes locked on the candle flame now at a respectable height. She wanted to tell him she missed him.
"Are you coming back?"
"I can't do that Hope."
"Then I can come to you," she sat up.
"Hope, you can't come to me, sweetheart. We can't be anywhere near each other."
"But…"
"I can't see you ever again, Hope. If I do the Hollow could take hold of you again."
"I don't care about the stupid Hollow," she cried. The flame sputtered higher and higher when he repeated his previous statement.
"I can't be near you, Hope." His heart wrenched painfully when her sobs echoed over the line, and for a moment he was back in the courtyard stealing one last look at the child he would never again see.
"I love you," he disconnected the call before her tears could draw him to Mystic Falls. He stared at the hunk of glass and plastic for a long moment before curling his hand into a fist.
Blood dripped from the cuts on his hand and from his knuckles when he punched the pillar hard enough to create a series of cracks. His fist collided with the stone again and again until a slim hand wrapped around his forearm.
Caroline pulled him into her arms. Her fingers threaded through his hair as she tucked his head into the crook of her neck. She made no comment on the choked sounds rising in his throat or the tremors shaking his body.
Her eyes fell to his bloodied hand when she let him go.
"Did you crush my phone?" She bent and picked up a bloody piece of plastic, rolling her eyes when he rubbed the back of his neck. "Good thing I got the extended warranty."
I know it's a little late. I've had a crazy week, and a cold on top of it, but the cold is gone now. so yay
Leave a review and let me know what you think.