With a bouquet of winter flowers in her hands, Elena enters the cemetery and walks the somber path to Katherine's grave. She comes to a stop when she reaches the freshly turned up ground with the small temporary marker till her headstone arrives. Dropping to her knees, she spreads the flowers over the soil and already tears are leaking from her eyes.
Unable to wipe the nightmarish scene from her mind, Elena swallows hard and pinches her eyes shut. On that day, she remembers the unfamiliar roar in her ears as she walked through the house till she saw her - Katherine - lying motionless in the kitchen, her face, clothes, arms and the floor surrounding her covered in red. At first the enormity of what she'd seen was so stunning that she didn't believe it was real. She stepped back and with numb fingers started to call 911 but then she clicked it off. Had she really seen her sister lying on the floor in all that blood? After retracing her steps and finding her still there, she again pushed those three numbers.
Taking a deep shuddering breath, she sounds raspy as her voice is thick with emotion, "Hi Katherine, it's me. Today is Thanksgiving, Jenna and Ric are cooking so you know, we'll probably end up going to a diner or something," Elena smiles sadly at her childhood memories of doing the same.
"Nik and the babies flew to Virginia for the holiday, they'll be back in a couple of weeks. He hasn't said anything but I can't shake the feeling that he'll probably move back. Mikael and Esther are there to help him. I would miss them terribly but I know he has to do what he thinks is right for the three of them..."
A cool draught of air whips over the waves, bringing a taste of the ocean with it. It is the unseen part of the shoreline that conjures more memories than the pebbles or the rotting posts of the old pier. It howls in a low whistle, tossing her hair roughly.
"Oh God, Katherine, I miss you so much, there's so many things I want to tell you, to share with you, I want your advice on Damon but I haven't told you about him have I? Damon is a Texas Ranger, he's working hard to find out who did this to you. I promise no matter how long it takes, whatever it may cost or whatever I have to do, I'll make sure that your killer is brought to justice," she reaches into her bag to pull out a Kleenex to dab her eyes. "I'm sorry, I know you always hated it when I would cry, it's still just so incomprehensible that you're gone... We were supposed to grow old together, support each other, be godmother's to our children. It's so wrong that I have to visit you here."
Elena wipes her tears, swallows thickly, takes a breath and stands up to leave. "I'll see you soon, Katherine," she drops her chin to her chest for several seconds till she regains her composure, then turns around and slowly walks out of the cemetery.
Stabbing a piece of turkey, Elena sticks it in her mouth and follows it with a swallow of water. Surprisingly Jenna and Ric have made a delicious meal. She suspects that Jeremy coming home had something to do with that. "It's good," she smiles at her aunt but inside she's not feeling it. The big elephant in the room is Katherine's forever absence... Her thoughts go to Nik, Nadia, Noah and then to Damon, just the sound of his name brings a little light to her otherwise dark mood.
"Elena," Jeremy starts, "I'm going to go for a walk on the beach, would you like to join me?"
"I'd like that," she nods and finishes cleaning off her plate.
"What about football?" Ric interrupts, sticking another bun in his mouth.
"Dad, we won't be gone all afternoon," Jeremy winks at Elena.
"Can you help me clean off the table first?" Jenna looks at her and starts picking up dirty dishes.
"Sure," she grabs the turkey platter and follows her to the kitchen. She sets it on the kitchen table and is about to go back to the dining room when Jenna grabs her arm and pulls her into a hug.
"I know it's hard, Elena, I miss her too. I raised the two of like my own daughters. I know when you're sad or when something is eating at you."
"It's only been a few weeks, how does one get over something like this? We were little when mom and dad died. That was just a stupid accident, but this - for her to be murdered, I don't know how to process it."
"Sweetheart, grief doesn't have a time table, and people handle it differently. Some are able to move on seemingly right away and other people it lingers and doesn't want to release its hold. I can't tell you when to stop all I ask is that you talk to me or your uncle." Jenna pushes a piece of hair behind her ear.
"You ready to go?" Jeremy pokes his head in the door.
"Let me grab my jacket," Elena kisses Jenna's cheek, adding, "Thank you."
"You're welcome, now go on, he's waiting for you."
Elena bobs her head, gives Jenna's hand a squeeze then hurries to join Jeremy.
"Can I get you some pumpkin pie?" the waitress April asks, refilling Damon and Kai's coffee cups.
"Sure, why not?" Damon agrees.
"Do you want it with or without whipped cream?"
"I definitely want whipped cream," Kai nods and smiles at the older woman.
"This is one Thanksgiving to remember," Damon turns to look outside. Snow dances in the light, a choreographed ballet conducted by the gentle wind. As he watches his eyes grow a tiny bit wider, remembering how he and Stefan loved to corrupt the pristine blanket of snow with their playful feet and hands when they were little boys. Intricate patterns of ice float weightlessly downward from the pure white sky above, each flake swirling and dancing.
Kai chuckles, "Yeah, I never thought I'd be spending it with you, no offense but I have a girlfriend that I'd rather be snuggling with."
"Why didn't you say something? You could've flown home," Damon smiles when April returns with their pie.
"No, I want to see this case through," he picks up his fork and takes a bite, nearly moaning at how good the pumpkin pie is.
"Thanks Kai, I'm lucky to have men like you on my side. Speaking of work, we're going to meet with Miss Barstow and her attorney tomorrow?"
"We really don't have anything on her except pawning stolen goods so the judge granted her bail. She and her attorney, some guy named Cooke are supposed to be at the station at 9 tomorrow morning. I believe her that she knew nothing of her brother's plans but I also can't shake the feeling that she may know more than even she realizes. It's weird."
"Tell me about her," Damon finishes his pie and pushes his plate away.
"She and Markos weren't close. He fell into a bad crowd, started doing drugs, selling drugs, you saw his police record. He'd only show up if he needed money or needed a warm bed. He was her brother and she couldn't turn him down. When he borrowed her car, he told her it was for a job interview to work on one of the oil rigs in the Gulf. It was an old car, one that she hadn't been driving anymore. She told me that she was going to advertise to sell for a couple hundred bucks, then he showed up so she let him take it. As you know, he returned it and disappeared. She found the necklaces in his room so she took them."
"Captain Guerrera told me that he had $5000.00 in cash on him when he was arrested. They should be sending it to his next of kin, which is her," Damon taps the tabletop with his fingertips. "Who gave him that much in cash and was it the price paid to murder Katherine Mikaelson?"
"This has all the earmarks of a murder for hire, we just have to get the evidence otherwise the DA will never take it to trial."
"Everything rides on that," Damon takes the bill when April returns. After paying it and leaving her a nice tip, the two men walk through the snow back to their hotel.
Having said goodnight to Kai, Damon retires to his own room, takes a shower then makes himself comfortable on the bed, picks up the remote and starts to scroll through the channels. Finally settling on an old Bogart movie, he sets it aside and pulls up the covers. His eyes are just dropping closed when his phone rings, startling him awake. A lazy smile forms on his face when he sees who it is.
"Elena, Happy Thanksgiving."
"To you as well. Did you have a nice day with your family?"
"I'm not actually with my family, I'm in West Virginia," he shifts onto his side and turns down the volume.
"West Virginia?" she asks, sitting up straighter in bed.
"Yes, I'm here with one of my guys to interview the sister of Markos Barstow."
"Do you think she knows something?" Elena bites on her lower lip, her heart pounding in her chest.
"I don't know, Elena and I don't want to make promises I can't keep but my hope is that she does. But you didn't call to ask about her..."
"No, I called to hear your voice. I like you Damon and I trust you. Believe me, that's not always an easy thing for me to give."
"I like you too, very much and thank you for trusting me. I'll do everything in my power not to erode that. When I get home, I want to take you out, someplace nice," he feels himself become aroused at just the thought of being with her.
"I want that too, and Damon, I'm not attracted to you only because of what you're doing for Katherine. What I feel, I can't explain it other than to say it's the most real thing I've ever felt in my entire life."
"That's exactly how it feels for me too, Elena," he echoes the sentiment.
"I have to go, my cousin is yelling for me to come downstairs. It's a Saltzman tradition to play Uno on Thanksgiving evening. Goodnight, Damon."
"Goodnight, Elena," he repeats softly, clicking off his phone only after she ends the call.
The room is every shade of grey, from washed out concrete to almost steel-blue. Every line is straight, every corner sharp, and the chairs looking as comfortable as a train station bench. Damon moves forward in his seat. There's no back wall to the interview room, only tempered glass.
"So Miss Barstow, what can you tell us about your brother?" Damon asks as he stares at the young brunette.
"I swear, I didn't know what he was up to. Markos and I were close once but that changed when he was a junior or senior in high school. He started hanging out with the low lifes, using drugs and drinking. He dropped out of school and would disappear for days, sometimes weeks even months at a time. I could always count on him to turn up when he ran out of money or if he needed something, a favor, an alibi - anything. Despite who he turned into, he was still my family, the older brother I once looked up to," she pauses to take a drink of water.
"I had that old car, I was going to either sell it at the scrapyard or try to get a couple hundred bucks selling it to a kid. Markos showed up, said he had a great job opportunity to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Said they'd pay him good money and that he'd send me something for the car after he got settled. I should have known better than to take him at face value... I guess I wanted to believe it. Several days later, he returned it, left the keys inside my place then disappeared. I caught him just as he was about to leave, he said he had to go and that he'd be in touch. That's the last time I saw him."
"Do you remember the type of people he ran around with?"
"You're a Texas Ranger, surely you know how addicts and people who prey on others look. Disheveled, missing teeth, some skeletal looking from meth. Markos didn't use that crap, heroin though he sometimes dabbled in. Mostly he liked pot and ecstasy... But there was one time..." she looks at Tripp Cooke her attorney. "It was one of those times, he'd show up for a few days or a couple weeks. We went to Walmart to get some things, groceries, cat food, some nails so he could do a little work for me at the house. On the way home, we stopped to get gas. I went inside to use the bathroom and to get a soda. When I came out, I saw him talking to a really well dressed guy who was leaning against a Maserati. He was wearing expensive everything, it was obvious. You don't see cars like that around here... They seemed to be deep in conversation so I kept my distance, I didn't know who this guy was, he could've been a dealer? It looked like he handed Markos something, then he jumped in his car and sped away. When I asked Markos if he knew him, he said no that the guy just wanted directions. I didn't quite believe him but I didn't pursue it either."
"Do you think you could identify that man?" Damon's heart races at the thought but he doesn't want to get his hopes up either. The man she saw could be anyone and the encounter she described could be entirely innocent too.
"I think so, I got a pretty good look at him," she looks up, her brown eyes meeting Damon's blue ones.
"Do you remember when that was?" Kai's asks, commanding their attention.
"Let me think for a moment," she rests her chin into her palm and drops her eyes.
"It could be nothing or it could be very significant..." Damon adds, his line of sight drifting to Kai's.
"It was at the end of August when that Gulf hurricane was all over the news," she sits upright, "I remember because I asked Markos about that when he told me he was going down there."
"Thank you... That'll be all today, Miss Barstow, your cooperation may prove to be invaluable. Will you be available to view a photo line up when we can get our ducks in a row?"
"Yes," she agrees after her attorney nods his approval.
"You're free to go, thank you again," Damon shakes her hand, and watches as she and Mr. Cooke vacate the room, pulling the door closed behind them. "If she can positively identify him..."
"Then we're one step closer to making an arrest," Kai finishes his sentence.
"But it could be anyone and the encounter as innocent as Markos claimed..."
"It could," Kai agrees.
"Come on, let's see if we can get a photo of the doctor and probably one of Niklaus Mikaelson too," Damon pulls open the door allowing Kai to pass before trailing after him.
"Katherine wait," Elena runs after her, following her into the labyrinth. She feels her way through the shabby twisting hedgerows of the maze, all of them twice as tall as she is. Each turn she makes, it seems she's back to where she started. Although certain she saw her sister slip in here, she's met with only silence when she calls out her name.
When she turns the next corner, she gasps at the amount of red liquid pooling at her feet and splattered on the leaves. Horrified but wanting to help, she stoops down to the prone body. Blood flows thickly over her fingers. Elena skitters backwards but is stopped by the wall of the maze when the corpse heaves, causing more of the scarlet colored fluid to run down her hands.
Elena doesn't know what's kind of a nightmare she's entombed in but as she watches, the body moves through the dappled shade of the woodland, her corpse is alternately cast in light and shadow, her skin ghostly pale, so much whiter than she had been in life. Having no control over her movements, Elena follows after her. When at last they come to an old oak, the ground turned up for her burial, Elena's legs give way beneath her. One minute she and Katherine were playing in the maze, the next she finds herself here, cradling her sister's head and begging her not to die.
"Elena, wake up," Jenna clutches her upper arms and shakes till her eyes snap wide open. "Thank God, you scared me, the way you were screaming."
"I'm so... sorry," she drops her head onto Jenna's shoulder, allowing her aunt to gently run her palm over her back.
"You don't have to be sorry, it was a nightmare."
Pulling back, Elena looks at Jenna's face and her chin begins to tremble like that of a small child. A single tear leaks from her cloudy brown eyes, followed by another one, and another until a steady stream of salty tears trail down her cheeks.
Raw anguish burns through her veins when she chokes out the words, "How can you call it a nightmare if it doesn't leave even when I'm awake?"
I know it's a scary time and if another chapter can take your minds off this for a couple of minutes, we're happy to do so. Thanks so much for all that you do for Eva and me. And thank you to my sweet sister Eva. She's talked me off the ledge many times over the course of our fanfic experience.
Chapter title: 'Welcome to My Nightmare' by Alice Cooper.
Hurricane Harvey hit Galveston in August of 2017.
Let us know what you think and have a wonderful weekend. Hopefully the tide will turn soon. And actually there have been 23K flu deaths in the United States for the 2019-2020 flu season. Just take care of yourselves.