Chapter Seventeen
Caroline stayed staring at the mirror while Bonnie let herself out. She could hear the car door close and the car drive away, and she still didn't move. She felt like screaming, yet, she didn't know why. She knew the truth, her father had told her that he was going to get them to think he was dead. She had been informed that it would be a lie, she had been informed that it would be fine; but as she studied her reflection she couldn't place the unfamiliar feeling, it felt as if she herself had a wooden pole in her heart. Like she had died with him. She wanted to scream for no apparent reason. All she knew was that she couldn't deal with anyone tonight. She couldn't force herself to call Elena, she couldn't force a smile on her face. Not because of grief, but simply because she felt like a different person than the girl who had been sitting broken on the floor of this cabin just nights ago. She felt stronger, she felt like she had power coursing through her veins. When she heard a knock at the door, she only paused for a moment, looking one last time at her reflection, trying to place the feeling and the difference. Opening the door, she smiled,
"I thought it would be too dangerous for you to come here." She spoke before giving her father a hug, her arms squeezing just a little tighter than typical.
"I didn't want you to worry, and besides they all think I am dead, and Klaus knows what town I am in, and he won't know what is on this property, so even if he tracks me it won't be anything he deems out of the ordinary." Elijah replied, wrapping his arms tightly around his daughter and placing a small kiss on her head.
"I'm glad."
"I am too. You looked upset when you opened the door, what's wrong?"
"How do you always know when something is wrong?"
"A thousand years of training. You'll get there one day."
"I've had this weird feeling all evening, almost like I was the one that got stabbed in the heart. And, there is this unusual feeling, like power running underneath my skin, I don't know why it's just… weird." Caroline finished with a shrug.
"I was wondering when it would kick in."
"When what would kick in?"
"The spell. You are linked to me, you feel what I feel, experience the feelings of the memories. I never die, but every time I've been stabbed the feeling lingers like there is still wood in my heart or something, it takes a few days to go away. I had a feeling that would pass to you."
"And the power?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure, it could be a number of things. It could be the magic you held in you from your mother being a witch, or from my mother for that matter. It could be the bloodline affecting you being a vampire, it could be a consequence of me dying while you are able to experience what I am experiencing. I can look into it some more and see if I can figure it out." By the time Elijah finished, he had taken a seat in the chair next to the fire place.
"So, Elena got away, what else happened?"
"Everything that needed to. Your friends think they can kill an original. They proved themselves to Rose, who by all my intelligence is currently at their house telling them about me and Klaus. They will then attribute me to being a servant of Klaus at best, at least that is always how Rose viewed me, so that is what she will tell them. They will think that Klaus is the oldest, the most powerful and that they have no chance of beating him. Which, in turn, will prepare them to react perfectly to them finding out that I am alive."
"So, they view you as an evil monster."
"Pretty much. They will even more when they find out that I have a way in Elena's house and have won the trust of her aunt."
"You won't hurt her, will you?"
"Caroline, all of this is an act, I will never hurt anyone unless there is no other option or unless they threaten you."
"How can I help?"
"By staying where you are, and trying to get me the inside scoop on what your friends are planning. I am good, but even my greatest forms of information research cannot top an inside source." Elijah said with a wink and smile at his daughter.
"Will do. Does that mean you will be keeping in contact with me?"
"I was thinking I would stay here in the village with you. I doubt Bonnie will have enough time to be around much, and I am perfectly capable of staying out of sight when she is here. That is of course, if that is okay with you."
"That's more than okay with me. I'm glad you're back. I missed you." Caroline said, sitting in the chair next to him.
"I missed you too, my dear child."
"How on earth did we ever get here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Here, where I am a vampire living in a village that was built to look like one from a thousand years ago and where you are having to play a part to be able to kill your brother because after a thousand years he still wants to kill me."
"We were cursed."
"You really think it's a curse?"
"I do."
"Why?"
"Caroline, I have lived a thousand years with the ability to chose life or death for any person around me, except for myself. I have spent an eternity away from you because my brother had a taste of power and a taste of fear. The curse is what brought about all of this. Honestly, I would wish for nothing more, than for you to grow up and live a normal life with me and your mother a thousand years ago. For the spell to have never been enacted. Do you remember what your aunt said in the letter she wrote to you?"
"That all of it is fear?"
"Yes. She is right, you know? All of it, since the beginning, has been about fear. We try and cover it up, my family especially, but it doesn't change the truth. I have spent a thousand years trying to prove that it isn't a curse, I have seen many others try the same, yet, I and they, have failed. That is the thing about magic, it tends to be pretty self-explanatory." Elijah answered, he had spent the last few months pondering the very questions she was asking now. He was closer to knowing the answers than he had been, but he still felt lost on some of the questions.
"Magic is self-explanatory?"
"Yes, one of the witches in the village told me that it was, skýr eins og bjalla."
"Meaning?" Caroline asked with a laugh.
"I think in today's language it would be translated, "clear as a bell" although I always found the bell to be a little dirty." Elijah joked with a pause before further explaining, "Good magic, which was typically ancestral, natural, or anything aligned with nature and the balance of nature produced good things. While, magic that went against it, things like sacrificial magic, expression, and the lot of magic that ignored nature and the spirits produced evil, or more simply good came with blessings, evil came with curses."
"What kind of magic did your mother use?"
"If I remember correctly, it was sacrificial, but it could have been a form of expression. The two can produce similar results, and besides the typical body that is left after sacrificial magic they are hard to decipher."
"You know, I still haven't finished the book of letters, we could read one if you want. Tonight seems like a night that could use a little encouragement." Caroline offered with a smile.
"I think I know just the one that could do just that. Where is your book?" Elijah asked, Caroline responded by getting up and grabbing it out of the drawer next to her bed, bringing it back to the living room and handing it to her father. Elijah ran his hand over the outside of the book, taking a moment before he opened it to the page he had been thinking about. Caroline sat at his feet on the floor, waiting on him to read it. Elijah was slow to start, taking in the writing on the page and the name at the bottom, he was hesitant to start because he knew once he started it wouldn't take long for the letter to end and then his glimpse of the person he missed so much would be gone. Yet, after a moment, he cleared his throat and began to read,
Caroline,
Welcome to France. I know you are not seeing what I am, although I wish you could. The sunset is painting the sky a golden orange color, and the gray clouds from yesterday's rain are shaded red tonight. The architecture here is beyond its time, and the castle that sits on the hill above where I am writing this is a glorious thing to witness. I cannot say I enjoy being immortal, yet, I am thankful for moments like this that I would never have seen in my normal lifetime. I hope that one day you can recognize this beauty. The beauty I have found in the darkest cloud and the smallest flower, this world, seems to put the world's idea of beauty to shame. I hope you can remember to look at these things sometimes, the world can pass us by without us ever knowing, I hope you notice it before it does. Time is precious, even when you have eternity. I am not sure what you will be experiencing when you read this, but If you are having trouble understanding I advise you to watch the sunset, smell a flower and allow nature to show you. If there was one thing I learned from your mother, it was that nature always has an answer, if you look close enough or pay attention enough to hear what it is saying. Of course, she believed that this nature was God, I am still unsure as to what I believe, but I know that I have always found an answer in the red of the sunset and the yellow of the flower. Never lose sight of this, and my dear niece, never lose hope. It is what holds us together, and an eternity without it will kill you faster than any human sickness ever could. There is always hope, hope that the evil can be defeated, that the hurt can be healed, that the bad can become good, that people can change. I have seen it happen more than you will ever know, please never lose it, when you do you lose yourself, and that is the darkest path you can ever take. I hope you have grown, hoping in the small things and the big, and never giving up. Dance in the Rain and pick some flowers, and don't get so busy that you forget to live. You can have forever and still never live one day.
I love you Always and Forever,
Your Uncle, Kol.
Elijah was trying his best to fight the lump in his throat, he missed his brother more and more every day. Especially as he prepared to go against Klaus, he wanted so badly to have Kol, Finn, and Rebekah back. He carefully closed the book before he looked up at his daughter.
"Where are they?" Caroline asked, her voice soft.
"I don't know. Klaus says he dumped them in the ocean, I don't think I believe him, though. All he has wanted for the past thousand years was to not be alone. I doubt he would have given up the family he has been able to force into submission for the past millennia."
"So, if he didn't throw them into the ocean, where are they?"
"With him. He has never let them out of his easy reach before, and I doubt he will now. They are leverage."
"Are you going to try and find them before everything goes down with uncle Klaus?"
"I will find their location, but I have not decided if I will do anything with the information."
"Why find them then?" Caroline asked, she was really enjoying just getting to spend time with her father, but she also wanted to know some of his plan so that she could help him.
"For you. If something goes wrong, I want you to be able to get their help. Like I have told you before, if I fail, Kol knows how to delay Klaus, and they will be able to help you get away and be able to protect you."
"Dad, I'm sure nothing bad will happen. Your plan is going to work."
"Caroline, in a thousand years I have come to know many things, one of which being that no matter how hard I try there is always a chance that Klaus is one step ahead of me. While I do not believe that he is in this case, I am not sure of it, and therefore I must be prepared for him to know of my plan. If he does, I have to have somewhere to send you that you will be safe. The only place I know of where that will be the case is with Kol, and possibly my other siblings." Elijah explained, he wanted so badly for his plan to work, but he knew his brother and he would not allow his daughter to be left unprotected.
"So what am I supposed to do? Just watch you getting killed and instead of help, run away and wake up my uncle and leave you to die?" Caroline asked, standing in fear, anger as she realized what her dad was saying.
"If it comes to that, yes."
"I won't just leave you to die!"
"You have to."
"WHY?!" Caroline yelled, tears beginning to fill her eyes.
"Because I can't lose you. I can't let Klaus destroy you. You have to be safe. I have lived a thousand years with the knowledge that at any moment Klaus might take my life, and I have accepted that fate, but I cannot, and I will not watch my power hungry brother destroy you and take yours." Elijah seemed defeated, as he stood, stating his reply.
"And you think that I can lose you?!" Caroline yelled back, her tears freely falling, she paused before she spoke in a broken voice, "You're all I have left. Everyone else is gone, I have no mother, no adoptive parents, my friends literally tried to kill you and Bonnie was more worried about Elena than she was about me and you. I have nobody but you, what am I supposed to do if I lose you?" At her words Elijah moved towards his daughter, pulling her into a hug,
"You will do as your uncle said, you will live, you will watch the sunsets and smell the flowers, and you will be safe. And you will never be alone, I will always be there, watching over you. You will survive and live a long and happy life, and you will find people who will choose you, and you will live a happy life full of love." They stayed that way for a while before they both found their way into a restless sleep. They both knew that tomorrow started the actual work, and after it started nothing would be the same. On the other side of the town the Salvatore's were being briefed on who Klaus was by Rose, and Bonnie and Elena were having a movie night, the world seemed at peace for all but the two vampires in the cabins in the woods.