I do not own TVD or TO.
Sorry for the delays. I've got an inflamed tendon in my wrist and it flared up making typing or writing impossible. It's eased up now and I've got a brace and some anti-inflammatory medicine so it's better now.
Fourteen weeks. It had been fourteen long weeks.
She had a thousand years under her belt and endless time in front of her, but never before in her existence had life passed by so slowly. At first she believed he would relent and speak to her, but she had underestimated his dedication. She shouldn't have. She knew his temper. She had watched him turn on a dime during the centuries at his side and suspected the only reason he had chosen the non-violent route he did was because she was his sister; anyone else would have been violently disemboweled and strung out for the carrion.
He had kept his silence for fourteen weeks. Elijah had left him to his devices, but she seemed to be a sucker for punishment; she had stayed and tried at every turn to get him to talk to her again.
It was ironic, really, that after the events of the previous century the only sibling Klaus trusted was the one that had plotted to 'kill' him.
She had learned a few terms in the time since the ball that had changed everything: cold shoulder, radio silence; both were terms that could describe her current relationship with her brother.
She was used to getting what she wanted from him when she wanted it whether it was his attention or whatever trivial thing she had set her eyes on at the moment; the only thing he had ever denied her was her love because according to him nobody was good enough for her. She was the one who always gave him the 'cold shoulder', but the tables had been turned and she didn't like it.
He wouldn't talk to her. He wouldn't acknowledge her existence.
She was sick of it.
He wouldn't listen to her. He wouldn't listen to Elijah. If it had anything to do with her or Elijah he wouldn't listen to Kol.
The way she saw it she had only one way to get back in her brother's good graces and the only chance to take it was during the time he was out of town. She knew Kol wouldn't stop her unless she attempted to cause physical harm, the chances of which were slim since there would be a threshold between them.
She put the car in park and took a deep breath. Licking her lips she got out of the vehicle and made it three steps before taking in what she hadn't seen before. Elena's brother was sprawled on the swing, but the angle of his neck told her that he was not sleeping. The history teacher was a few feet away with his neck at a similar angle.
Rebekah wasn't too worried about them because she could see the glint of blue on their hands, but the disturbed shrubbery by the stairs was troubling. She gave up the pretense for the neighbours and flashed to the barren bushes. Her stomach dropped as she pulled aside the broken branches.
She swore, closed her eyes, listened and swore again.
"Would you mind explaining the circumstances that led to all of our blood being used?" Elijah glanced up. He flexed his wrist to keep the wound from closing before the small jar could fill.
"Finn vanished and got a witch to cloak him," Kol shrugged. "It took two witches and all of the gathered blood to locate him. He could have made this easier and answered his phone."
"Perhaps twenty-first century technology remains a mystery to him."
"Or, like Nik, he's ignoring all of us."
"Niklaus is not ignoring you," he cocked an eyebrow.
Kol closed the full jar as Elijah wiped his wrist with a pristine handkerchief. "Nik's not ignoring me because I happen to blend in at the high school. I'm fairly certain that, and the fact that Elena happens to like me, is the only reason he's 'forgotten' my 'betrayal' in 1913."
"How is Elena?" He re-buttoned his cuff, straightening the sleeve.
"She's got a gaping hole in her memory," he scoffed, "and her head is at war with her body whenever she's around Nik, so…"
"Not the greatest," Elijah shook his head.
"No," Kol sighed, tucking the blood in his pocket. He extracted his vibrating cell phone and read the caller ID.
"Are you going to answer?" Elijah nodded to the phone.
"Come on, pick up," Rebekah muttered. She held her phone between her shoulder and ear so she could drag the bodies over the non-existent threshold; she needed to get them inside before a neighbour looked over. She had very little time before the sun rose and she lost the cover of darkness that masked the recently 'deceased' as drunk.
"Come on, Kol," she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.
She would have just picked them up, but there was a slim chance that people had seen them on the porch and locating those people would have been a pain in ass.
She deposited Jeremy in an armchair and rushed back to shut the door. A growl ripped from her throat as the dial tone continued.
"It's Rebekah calling again to try and get me to play mediator," he rolled his eyes. She had tried several times during the last few months despite knowing that Klaus wouldn't listen to anything he had to say if it involved her name.
"That's a new role for you."
"And if I take it seriously I'll be in the same position as you and Rebekah," he shook his head, "or I'll wind up back in a box."
"Not necessarily an issue at the moment."
"It will be soon." The call ended before he could answer, and before he could call back there was an incessant buzzing from Elijah's kitchen table.
She ended the call with an angry stab and scrolled through her contacts for a brother that would answer; at least she hoped he would answer.
He watched his older brother flip over the mobile and frown at the tiny screen.
"Perhaps it's about something else," Elijah murmured, raising the phone to his ear. "Good morning Rebekah."
"Elijah," Rebekah sighed, closing her eyes. She opened them and cast her gaze from the armchair to the loveseat and the couch. "We have a problem."
She flashed through the house, confirming again that it was empty and that her heart was the only one beating. She came to a stop in the undisturbed room she assumed belonged to Elena.
The sound of speeding hearts came from the living room.
"We've got a big problem."
Elijah hung up the phone and reached for his jacket. He ran out of the house to catch up with Kol and snatched the keys from his brother's hand.
"I'll drive," he opened the car door, "you call Niklaus. He won't pick up if it's me."
Kol nodded and slid into the passenger seat. He pressed the phone to his ear and gritted his teeth as a woman's tinny voice filled the vehicle.
The number you are calling has been switched off. Please try again later.
He swore and hung up.
"Was there nobody watching her?" Elijah accelerated upon reaching the highway.
"Nik left her in her kitchen," he tried again, getting the same message. "She was in her house. She should have been perfectly safe until morning when Caroline was going to drive her to school."
He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed thinking of a pregnant brunette when he heard the approaching footsteps. He didn't bother straightening up, choosing instead to adopt a relaxed stance and a cocky grin.
"Hello Finn." The exasperated look on his oldest brother's face sent him back a thousand years to his childhood.
"Haven't you got anything better to do than orchestrate an unwanted family reunion?" Finn focused on the task of unlocking the door.
"Personally I could go without family for a decade or two," Klaus tilted his head, "but I need your blood before I can let you disappear into the ether. I'd rather not have mother, or any other witch, make another attempt to kill us all."
"Personally," Finn's lip curled as he stepped into the rented apartment, "I'd welcome the attempt."
"Unlike you," Klaus shifted to stand in front of the door, "the rest of us are not suicidal." He moved to enter and found his way blocked by the threshold. "Clever," he nodded to the door.
"Makes closing the door on you so much easier," he sighed. "Go away Niklaus. "I'm certain you're pregnant mate is missing you."
"Thanks to your actions," his eyes narrowed, "she lacks the memory required to miss me, and can barely stand to be in my presence because of the war waged between her body and mind."
"If you've come to accuse me of taking her memory…"
"I know you didn't compel her Finn," he clenched the doorframe, "at least not to forget, but you killed the vampire that did, and all because he was the one to kill the witch and keep you from killing yourself."
"What do you want Niklaus?" Finn glared. He would have shut the door, but there was nothing keeping his brother from kicking it in.
"I've already told you," he smirked. "I want your blood and I won't be leaving without it."
"Then you'll be standing out there for the rest of eternity because I have no interest in helping you." Finn's jaw ticked. "You left me in a box for nine hundred long years while the rest of you went free, terrorizing anyone in your paths."
"So angry," Klaus shook his head, "it's not as though you felt the years or anything at all, until waking up; they've said its equivalent to a dreamless sleep."
He saw something flash in his brother's eyes, and nearly recoiled when he spat the words at him.
"There is a difference between being daggered for decades and being daggered for years. Eventually I started to feel again; trapped in my own body, unable to breathe or move or do anything but hear the occasional snippet of conversation." Finn's brows lowered. He felt the door splintering beneath his hand. "Every time I close my eyes I go back there, so you'll have to forgive me for not wanting to aid you or any of the family that abandoned me to the prison you left me in."
He inhaled slowly and forced his fingers to uncoil from the door before he did enough damage that it wouldn't close. Slivers of wood floated to the ground.
"What are the odds you'd accept an apology?" Klaus cleared his throat when Finn glared at him. "Right, a trade then?"
He reached into his jacket pocket, unfolding the photo paper before flipping it around. He knew precisely what Finn saw when he looked at the image with widening eyes: a tall woman with flaming red hair and piercing blue eyes.
"Very much alive," he flipped the picture around and refolded the paper. "I have her address, as of three days ago, and I'll hand it over on one condition." Klaus pulled a small knife and a glass vial from his other pocket.
Ten minutes later he was tucking a full vial away as he moved back towards the rental car. His phone buzzed before he could start the vehicle and race back to the airport. He pulled it out to check the calls he had missed during the flight and felt his heart stutter.
Caroline frowned when she reached the driveway. Kol's car sat along the curb along with a red convertible she had seen around school. Stepping out of her blue Ford she heard the unmistakable sound of Kol, his sister and his brother all speaking over each other.
She found them in the living room.
"What's going on?" Her eyes flickered from Kol to his siblings before finding the unconscious human's in the room. The blood drained from her face when she saw the still body on the couch.
"I suppose it was too much to hope Elena was with you," Kol sighed.
"She's not here?" Caroline drew in a quick breath. "What happened?"
Jeremy chose that moment to wake up. His frantic eyes searched the living room before focusing on the vampires in his house; one of which he was certain had never been issued an invitation. In his peripheral vision he saw Alaric come awake.
"I think we're about to find out," Elijah cocked an eyebrow. Over his shoulder he heard a heart stutter before threatening to break free from its owner's chest cavity.
There was a dull ache in her head, knocking behind her eyes, pounding in her ears. She could sense that she was lying on her right side and attempted to roll over, certain that the pressure would ease if she could move onto her back, but her arms refused to go with the rest of her body.
She tugged experimentally without opening her eyes. Something thin dug into her wrists. She pulled again, half convinced she was dreaming; trapped in a nightmare that was about to turn deadly. She was only half convinced though because nothing actually hurt in a nightmare and her headache was quickly being joined by a burning sensation in her wrists.
She pushed away the welcoming darkness and its promise of slumber to force open her eyes. It took a moment to blink away the last of the sleep before she was able focus and take in the thin white lines encircling her wrists, holding her arms above her head.
She stopped tugging on her arms and used her elbows to push up as much as she could and swung her legs around so she could sit on the side of the bed.
Her heart thundered in her chest as she took in the unfamiliar room. It was sparsely furnished in dark wood with heavy curtains hanging above the window to block out the world. She had no way of knowing if it was day or night; her only hint to the outside was the steady tap-tap-tap of rain against glass.
She swallowed the thick lump in her throat and turned her attention back to the bed on which she sat. The question of how she had gotten there could wait a moment. There was a far more pressing issue at hand: the zip tie binding her hands had been threaded through the cast iron headboard. Three rungs over and she could have used the ornate fleur-de-lis to break her bonds, but whoever had deposited her in the bedroom had thought her imprisonment through.
She took a deep breath. She could get out of this. She had practiced in the past.
She distinctly remembered going over the many ways to free herself if someone ever tied her up; an event that was likely to happen given her supernatural status.
Zip ties had been lesson number one. She bent her head and twisted her fingers around to feel through her hair, quickly locating the bobby pin she had used to hold her hair from her face. She gripped it, full of determination and shifted to take the metal between her teeth, but before she could bite down she heard the door knob turning.
The pin fell into her open palm. She clenched her fists to hide her means of escape and turned to glare at the door. Part of her was hoping for a rescue, but the other part thought it was unlikely to come so soon – assuming she had been gone long enough for rescue to be considered soon.
She felt the first strains of relief when she saw the neat lines of the blue suit, but her heart dropped before she could release a sigh because the man entering the room was not Elijah. She wasn't sure she trusted Elijah after the events following the ritual, but she knew if he had learned she was abducted he wouldn't have hurt her; at least, she doubted he would have hurt her. The man that actually entered was a mystery.
"Who are you?" She clenched her jaw. There was something savage in the man's eyes. He stood balanced on a precarious fence and she didn't know which way he would sway when the wind hit.
"Have you such a short memory lass?" He strode towards her, power in each step. "Or is it merely the compulsion wearin' off?"
Her eyes narrowed as she followed his nod to her necklace, placed with care on the nightstand. She chewed her cheek as the memory slowly crept back in.
"I do apologize for that," he picked up her locket, "but I couldn't run the risk of you attemptin' to run off before I got what I needed from you."
"Let me guess," she breathed through her mouth, "you want some blood?" She banished the sudden image of Jeremy and Alaric, dead on the porch. They would be fine. She knew they would be fine because the man in front of her, the man she now remembered as breaking their necks, wore a lapis lazuli ring.
She tried to remember what had happened to Jenna, but couldn't recall anything after rushing onto the porch so she could push her aunt back inside.
"What I want, Miss Gilbert, is revenge," he turned over the locket in his large hands, "but I am not a heartless monster."
She shuddered when he looked at her; if she had been able to she would have covered her stomach in a foolish attempt to protect the baby because she already knew who he must want vengeance against.
He lifted her chin and she felt her skin chill. His breath fanned over her face; the hint of his accent clicked when he met her eyes.
"There is every chance you are no more than a victim yourself, and until I can prove otherwise you will remain my guest."
"Is it customary to tie up your guests in Scotland?" She pulled on her wrists.
"That would make me a terrible host," he smirked.
She refused to look away when he stared her down. Her eyes widened a fraction of an inch when he snapped the tie holding her wrists together.
"Try anything," he pocketed the white plastic, "and you'll be right back here."
She blinked at his hand when he held it out.
"The hair pin lass," he sighed.
New Story ideas that I probably won't get around to for months, but if I write them here I'll be more likely flesh them out at a later date.
Tabula Rasa Sequel that explores the Gypsy/Gemini conflict laid out during TR's backstory, and the efforts of the travellers to break their curse. The working summary: 'Katerina Petrova, Stefan Salvatore, Elijah Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes, Tom Avery, Joel Goran, and Elena Gilbert have absolutely nothing in common, but they are each of them the same. They are all mystically recurring beings with ties to an immortal, and their blood is the key to a war waged long before any of them were born.'
Who Are You? Sequel. I'm tentatively naming it What Are You? and it's set six or seven years after Who Are You. It's gonna deal with Hope's transition to tribrid. Basically she breaks her curse, but her 'victim' comes back kicking in a 'blaze'.
Both stories are on my to write someday list, and since they both have the background started... it might be days, or it might be months, or it might be years... you never know with me. It all depends on the muse.
Anyway... Who took Elena? What happened to Jenna? Why does Elena's abductor really untie her?