"If someone told me staying at the Mikaelsons' would be the best vacation of my life, I would have done it sooner. I wake up– bam! - breakfast is already on the table, all my favorite foods and stuff I'd never even heard about but am coming around to love. I come back, and my sheets are fresh and changed and, like, have a higher thread count. The 'TV room' is actually a home theater, and Elijah let me watch the entire Harry Potter series. He even came in to watch the last two with me. He agrees: Klaus is kind of like Draco.

"A week into living here, and I think I'll cry if someone makes me go back to that empty house. A few days ago, Elijah told me to go back and get some of my stuff, and, I swear, I bawled . Like, the second I entered my parents' bedroom, that Harry Potter line from the last book comes back when Hermione's being tortured– that he felt her every scream like physical pain. It was just me and my own screams, of course, but they hurt the same nonetheless. A knife sawing back and forth in my gut. Being away and back– it makes coming back less appealing.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm being pretentious when I say stuff like this. Or that I jump to conclusions. Who knows how long the Mikaelsons will have me for, anyway. But I know this: I'm not going back to my house. It hurts too much. I wonder if I can convince Elijah to take me traveling with me? I'll have to ask tonight at dinner.

"Anyway," I add, feeling a little more awkward. The pen presses harder into the paper, leaving an unappealing and stainable mark. "As always, thanks for absorbing my grief, dear diary. I'm sure you're a horcrux by now. Love, Elena."

"That's a rather heavy sigh," someone comments from behind me. It's by pure accident and my lack of focus that I don't startle. It's, of course, Elijah. His commanding but calming presence fills up my entire world for the second it takes for him to cross in front of me, momentarily blocking out the sun, before he settles at the lounge chair beside me.

"It's always like this when I write," I say, comfortably watching him making lounging effortlessly elegant. "I feel a hundred times worse when I pull up all these emotions and lay them out, and for the next hour or so, before I then start to feel better."

Elijah makes a humming sound like he resonates with me. "Keeping a journal," he says, "Did you pick up that habit when Stefan Salvatore?"

I almost snort, but I don't, since this is Elijah and it would be hella disrespectful and I'm still the mildest bit terrified of him. It doesn't help that my segway into moving into the Mikaelson Manor was him bullying Klaus into letting me do so.

Or so it seems. I actually haven't seen Klaus. It's actually a boost for my self-confidence– that I moved in and the big, bad, unafraid hybrid has suddenly made himself scarce. Just your average doppelganger leper abilities, I suppose.

"I've actually been writing in a diary since I was a kid. It's something my mom did as a kid, too, and we would go over her diaries later. So when she handed me that first pink Hello Kitty notebook, I–"

"- haven't stopped documenting since?" Elijah finishes for me, but the way he does it makes it seem like he's sharing the sentence with me rather than interrupting.

I bite back a smile. "Yeah." The current journal holding my deepest, darkest, horniest thoughts gets slammed shut in case he can peek into it through some kind of vampire superhero. "Just you wait. Five hundred years from now, people will be looking through my journals like they're artifacts, wondering if they're the rambling of a delusional woman or if they're real and that the supernatural really does exist," I end with a little bit of a whisper. "Or my journals will be stuff historians covet– that is assuming you guys get outed or reveal yourselves by then."

An elegant eyebrow gets arched in my direction. "Perhaps Niklaus will reveal his plans for world domination at dinner and we'll see."

This time, I do laugh and smile. "Oh, no. NATO has no chance against vampires." Realization then dawns on me a second too late. "Klaus is having dinner with us?"

"Hey, darling," Kol greets me when I answer his video call. "You look dreadful."

My eyes immediately widen in offense. "You asshole !" I hiss, and his laughter from mocking me sounds garbled in my earphones. "You're not supposed to tell people that."

"You do look tired," Kol says defensively, still chuckling. "This is me noticing it. Are you sleeping enough? I told you the fix for–"

"I'm hanging up now." Because he did share his cure for falling asleep when he's too wired, and it's not exactly PG. I'm pretty sure he just said that to me to gauge my experience and was immensely satisfied/disappointed when I yelled and blushed at his suggested 'fix.'

"Don't," Kol says, "My moon and stars–" One of the things we watched was Game of Thrones. He fancies himself Khal Drogo. I don't have the heart to tell that he's more of Petyr Baelish. I almost expect him to say, say 'there's nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone does it,' but he says, "We need to have a conversation."

He sets his phone on what appears to be a nightstand from the view it gives me of him lounging in a luxurious-looking bed.

I press my lips together, still ticked. "Let's converse then. Keep it PG or I'm telling Elijah."

He smiles and visibly gets comfortable. I notice what he's wearing for the first time. A silky robe that's in a deep rich blue color with a hotel insignia on the breast. I've never been more attracted to a man in a robe. And jealous.

Kol, somehow interested in my life, asks, "Firstly, what are you up to? How are you doing?"

"I'm good," I say, still a little ticked off– what good was a crush on an– or should I say another – Original was going to do me? "Am on my way back from a walk. Elijah had me pick some things to make dinner tonight, so." With my other hand, I hold up the reusable grocery bag that Elijah had handed me before I left. A few days living with the Mikaelsons revealed several unexpected things about the family. One of them was that Elijah had a serious hard-on for nature . The man recycled, had a compost bin, a sizable supply of reusable bags, and was in the process of planting an herb garden. If we're going to be immortal , he'd said when I'd asked him, then I might as well do what I can to maintain the planet .

"Lovely, lovely," Kol comments. "Wish I was there."

He could be if he wanted to, I bitterly think, but I don't have a claim on the Mikaelsons to voice my opinion so boldly. All I can do is agree, "Wish you were here too. When are you coming back?"

"That is, in fact, what I wanted to talk to you about," he says. "Elena Gilbert- I detest your family name by the way. So inelegant." My lips twist in an unamused smile and I balance my phone enough to show him my middle finger, causing him to smile genuinely. "I have been lonely without you, love, my moon and stars. I need you with me."

"Then come back ," I say with faked patience. I want him here now.

"Small towns are stifling," Kol counters. "You come to me. I'm at Hôtel Du Palais. It's one of my favorite views in the world, and all I'm thinking about is showing it to you. How you'd react to the food here, the chocolate , Elena. I'm sitting here, in my hotel room, because I'd rather talk to you. I'm sitting on this bed that quite possibly has enough room to fit six people, and I'm thinking how much you'll love it." He picks his phone up and actually shows me the empty space next to him, then shines the camera back at him, smiling devilishly.

And fuck me if that wasn't one of the best romantic things I'd ever had someone say to me. My breath literally catches.

"Kol, I–" I breathe. The storefronts, the people crossing Main Street along with me, a cafe blasting indie music– it all becomes background noise to me, static, in comparison to the amount of space Kol is taking up in my brain. I'm about to– I don't know, do something – when someone bumps into me, jarring my shoulder and forever aching arm.

Like blood rushing to a wound, I'm thrust back into reality, where Kol is on a different continent. Admitting Klaus is right is just about up there with being stabbed with needles, but he had been right to an extent. Kol thinks that small towns like my hometown are stifling. But if he really cared, if he really thought about me that much, he would be here nonetheless. God knows I'd hightail out of here if I could, like the rest of my friends and family. If he asked.

"Too attached to Mystic Falls?" Kol finished my sentence, but the teasing is clear. He– rightfully so– guessed that I hate it here.

I want to go back to talking about Paris, but I can't say anything without letting a vestige of my crippling desperation show. Even Originals who'd been kept in a coffin for the last hundred years would be irked by someone clingy.

"It's weird here, all right?" I eventually say. My sandaled feet re-find their footing on the pavement. My car awaits at the end of the street. The wind and surprisingly pleasant sun had been welcoming enough that I'd wanted to walk a little. Solely regret it now, but at least this way I can blame the heat on my face on the actual heat and effort. "I'm not exactly the town pariah–" Being part of a founding family helps a little with that. "But I get weird looks. I don't know how, but people have figured out where I'm staying and– I actually think it was the nice doctor Elijah and I met. But he was so nice, though. Maybe–"

"Hold on, Gilbert," Kol interjects, stopping my upcoming rant about Dr. Sam Hall. His eyebrows furrow in a familiar scowl. I'd seen it before– on Klaus and Elijah's faces. Disapproval runs in the family, especially when it comes to me, apparently. "What are you talking about? Where are you staying?"

"Elijah didn't tell you?" I say and am surprised at his seriousness. "I mean, like, it didn't come to mind. This is our first phone call in–"

"Where are you staying, Elena?"

How would he react? There's a reason why I haven't mentioned my unexpected move– the same reason why I hadn't sent Kol that selfie I'd taken in the hospital bed while Elijah had stepped out to talk to a nurse. My duck-face expression and peace sign would forever sit in my phone gallery like a dead weight. If it had been Caroline, for example, she wouldn't have hesitated in sending it. If it had been Bonnie…Bonnie would have probably figured out a way to evade the Mikaelsons by now.

"At the Mikaelson Manor," I answer, because there's nothing else for me. "Elijah decreed it so– at least until my blood pressure and anemia thing get better."

That at least Kol knew about. His response had been more or less like my poor, weak human. Then he'd offered to watch Doctor Who with me. We're on the 11th Doctor now. We'd put Game of Thrones on pause until we met in person to watch it together (something I didn't have high hopes for) and instead decided to watch something lighter.

By the expression on Kol's face now– and his reaction then– he's thinking about what anemia and low blood pressure mean exactly. Unlike Elijah, he hadn't followed up with human habits and ailments. "And how did Nik react?"

"I'll let you know tonight." I hold up the bag. "He's been away for the week. Tonight's his first time back and Elijah and I are making dinner."

"'Elijah and I are making dinner?'" Kol parrots in disbelief. "What the actual fuck are you saying, Gilbert? I knew you were friendly with my eldest brother but I draw the line at domestication."

"Like I domesticated him or did he domesticate me?" It's totally him doing it to me. "We just have a routine. That's all." If I'm alone, I end up eating toast or cereal. The first time Elijah saw me dumping spoonfuls of sugar into a bowl of cornflakes, a vein in his forehead almost burst.

"And where will Niklaus fit into that routine?" argues Kol, like he actually cares, as he visibly stands and starts moving around the room.

I finally reach my car– and the end of my patience. "Fuck if I know. Look, Kol– I don't know if you know this, but we're all just pretending I have a choice in any of this. If the Mikaelsons say I'm moving in, I'm moving in. With the pints of my blood that Klaus has, there's nowhere on Earth I can hide without him finding me."

"Not if you had someone to hide you."

An orange (for tomorrow's fresh orange juice) goes rolling out of the bag and slams into the back of the backseat when I, in my frustration, haphazardly drop my bags in the trunk. It's the orange on top for me, because I just slam the trunk close and move on to the driver's seat. Kol is still silent, and my foot slows mid-air from the magnitude of what he just said.

"Kol, we are not having this conversation," I say too quickly. With the force and pace my heart's beating all the way up in my throat, I'm sure it's saying stuff, too. Paranoidly, I glance around Main Street, fearing the moment I might meet Klaus' cold, dead gaze especially, especially when one of his siblings starts or talks about betraying him. "Seriously. I'm good. I'm okay. I'll talk to you later, right? You can check in on me after dinner to make sure Klaus hasn't done anything, all right?"

I don't give him an opportunity to respond because I hang up right away. An Original offering me a chance to get away shatters my illusion of a choice. I drag my feet about my situation– and for good reason, but you couldn't pay me to escape Klaus. How dumb of a doppelganger do you have to be to become the second Katherine Pierce?

Long time no see! I'm so sorry about the delay- and about the kind of filler chapter, but I'm back to writing An Act That Brought You Joy and I'm excited about it, especially since we're ramping up to the scenes I originally wrote first when I first came up with this story: I'm talking, like, dinners with the Mikaelsons, why the Salvatores left, Kol coming back, and more more more that I can't reveal yet!

On a different note, the reason I've been sort of gone is because I've been working on a Twilight story. An original character in a poly relationship with Alice and Jasper and Jacob Black plus with Edward as a best friend. It's full of angst, love, pop culture references. Even in my wildest dreams, I never would have imagined writing a Twilight fic, but I'm doing my younger self justice (because I kind of always thought Jacob was super cute) and having him on as one of the leads. Anyway, I kind of think that this new fic is one of my best works so far.

And the weirdest thing happened: I'm a couple chapters away from finishing the second book of the Twilight fic when I'm nowhere close to finishing the first one. I'll have to sort that out before publishing anything lol.

P.S. This story is also on AO3 except that my name on there is Merontheshore. Thanks for everyone who read, followed, favored, or commented on this story! Next chapter will be posted shortly!