Living Dead Girl
Early January, deep in the swamps outside of a bustling port city, a vampire meets with witches. Three women, vastly different ages, who claim sisterhood and who give him the only kind of prophecy witches can give under a blood moon; one to predict his downfall.
Fog swirls around his shoes, almost sentient as it wraps around his ankles, as he approaches them in the clearing. "The Regent King of Care," they greet him in unison, the slight doesn't go unnoticed. "Our message intrigued him well enough to venture forth into the bayou."
"Dangerous territory for one of his kind." The second witch speaks, a woman in her prime with a voluptuous figure and eyes as dark as the violence she craves. Her black dress has a dangerously high slit, revealing hip bone and the faded red stripes of stretch marks. The vampire's eyes dart down to look and the witches all laugh.
"Not so dangerous on a full moon as it were." When they quiet, the uptilted voice of the third witch chimes in. Her young face, so earnest, speaks to the heart of the vampire. Her innocence is the greatest deception. "The world has tilted in the wrong direction."
"You asked for me, put the word out that you wanted an audience. Here I am. What do you have to say?" He's impatient, either to be dealing with the witches or to be so far out from the safety of his city and his people.
It's the first witch who answers, her eyes a milky blue but she holds his gaze with power, nonetheless. "All hail the king until he's dethroned." Her tone mocks, digging under his skin like a crimson chigger bug. He wears his irritation like raised bumps.
"Dethroned? Who could even hope to do that?" He squares his shoulders back, a reminder of the innate power he wields.
"By one older than you in spirit, younger in body." The child speaks up, hopeful.
"By one who was destroyed in water, resurrected in fire." The woman next, malicious.
"By one sullied forever in the blood of loved ones, ruined in the name of love." The elder finishes the prophecy, sorrowful.
The answer isn't enough for him. He implores them for more, dirties his knees for it, but the crone's mouth seal shut with horrific stiches, blood pours from her dry lips. She reaches out to touch her sisters and from their lips sprout the same stiches. The swamp fog thickens, obscuring their bodies. He tries to walk through it but finds it to be more of a physical barrier than he'd thought, and he slows to an excruciating human pace. He persists and just as he gets within arm's length from the three witches, the earth beneath them opens up and swallows them whole in fire. The flames lick at his face, burns crackle on his face and heal before he can really feel it.
With the feud between vampires and the Rougarou long quelled, Marcel the Vampire King of New Orleans has a new enemy in the witches. And their prophecies won't go unpunished.
In the end, Elijah is right about Elena.
She won't forgive Damon.
Ironic that he thought forcing his blood on her would save her when he only managed to kill the part of her capable of cultivating forgiveness. He thought it was love, but even though she is still so heartbreakingly young she knows that love is about choice. She hates the notion of falling in love like it an accident. She'd seen how her parents loved and it was waking up and choosing someone day after day. Love is intention. She derides the notion of destined lovers.
She isn't fooled. Damon hadn't chosen her, not really. He'd chosen himself, praying for redemption in a child. She is his collateral damage the way everyone is hers. Hurt or worse by their association with the doppelganger.
When she wakes up in the abandoned house with Alaric, Jeremy, and Damon she feels so uncomfortably different. Her body doesn't belong to her anymore. Did it ever?
Her gums throb, head pulses, and the morning light is unbearably bright. She can see the dust floating so clearly and it's all too much. She can practically see the pulse jumping in Jeremy's throat when he pulls her in for a hug. Her senses are blitzed, and she wants to scream, but she knows that's not what her brother needs from her now.
John is dead in front of the house and between her choking sobs Alaric manages to explain to her what happened.
Bonnie tried to use John to save Elena's humanity, but it didn't work. Either her magic wasn't strong enough or, more likely, her ancestors didn't want to see her break Nature's laws to help a Petrova. Especially not after Katherine. It doesn't matter. Either way John is still dead, and no ring or childish wish will bring him back.
John and Jenna both are dead because of her. She looks into Jeremy's eyes, open and vulnerable, and all she sees is his destruction in them too.
They sacrificed themselves for a lost cause and she doesn't know what it will take for everyone around her to see the truth. She isn't worth saving. She's a sunk cost fallacy that everyone keeps trying to put more into, but she'll devour their efforts until they have nothing left to give. And then they'll resent her for it.
That's her argument to Stefan and Damon when they try to convince her to complete her transition.
"You're already halfway there, Elena. C'mon! Just finish it out," Damon urges her and she's so exhausted, her body slowly shutting down, that all she wants to do is sleep.
Her first death had been fire in her lungs, her body screaming to live and fighting against the dark shawl. Her second had been quick. She went to it without a fight, letting Klaus hold her like a lover. She can still feel his hands on her waist, fingers inching up her ribs to her breasts. Still, she was defiant in the face of it. She held her head high, swallowing her fear to let her bravery breathe free.
And now this one, so different from those. Her organs shutting down as she refuses the magic that could keep her young forever. No, not young, stagnant. The word echoes in her head and with each reverb it becomes truth. Immortality stagnated life, freezing over the running waters that made humanity beautiful.
It's more exhausting than the other times she died. This, she assumes, is what it's like to die of old age and a part of her thinks that in a way, she gets to grow old too by choosing this death. Her soul, ancient and ready, knows that she'll never get a conventional death. This might be the closest she'll ever get.
"No." Her lids are heavy when she finally opens her eyes to look at him. "You don't get any input in what I do now, Damon. You took away my choice once, but this one? This is mine. I'm not drinking blood. I won't become a vampire. You can't make me."
"Why not?" His arguments never sounded this whiny, flimsy, to her before now. Her memories of the days leading up to the sacrifice have become mottled. She's a beautiful painting left forgotten out in the rain. She remembers the taste of his blood in her mouth and Stefan's head in her lap as she screams for Damon to leave. Even the energy she had then, the memory of her anger, exhausts her now.
"I don't want to live forever hating you, Damon." He looks so hopeful then and a deep part of her, one she won't ever acknowledge out loud, relishes in crushing him. "I will never forgive you and I'd rather die than live the rest of my life letting hate consume me." His face contorts and she knows he wants to say something devastating, the instinct to lash out is abetted only when Alaric forces him out of the room with a hand on his back and a bottle pressed to his chest.
They leave her alone with Stefan, a strategic plan if intentional. If anyone could convince her, its him.
He walks over to her in that tender way of his and wraps his arms around her, turning her to face the open bay window in her living room. This room holds so much that she's lost. Christmas with her family, her dad teasing them with hints as they rattle their chrome-wrapped boxes. She winces and tries to look away, from the sun or the memory, but he holds her there with his chin resting on her shoulder. "I know how scared you must be right now, Elena."
"I'm not scared, Stefan. I'm angry, but I'm not scared of dying. I know what I want to do. I've known what I've wanted to do for a while now, but everyone keeps trying to save me." She pauses, out of breath. "I tried. If Damon hadn't…and we had taken Elijah's help, then maybe I'd be fine right now."
"Maybe? But that doesn't matter anymore. What matters is right now. You are in transition, and you have a choice. Drink blood and live as a vampire or die. Right now."
"I'm tired."
"I know." Stretched as she is, Stefan diligently puts the pieces back together.
"No, I'm tired of being the reason everyone is in danger." She breaks out of his arms, safe and lulling. If he keeps holding her like this, she'll give in and give him what he wants. She puts much needed space between them to clear her head, her body, of his influence. "I'm tired of being the reason my friends can't live normal lives. I'm tired of fighting against the inevitable. If Klaus finds out that I'm alive, you know what he'll do. He'll come for me and kill everyone I've ever looked at. He'll kill Jeremy. No one will be safe, not even you. Can't you see? It's better this way."
"There is nothing better about you dying." She turns around and he looks at her like he did the night before when Klaus came to take her away. This time, she's the one who closes her eyes. His lips on her hers work to convince her that staying alive wouldn't be so bad. He molds his body to hers and his touch leaves behind lingering memories. She flashes to their perfect last day and how that perfect day could be her life for the rest of time, but then three perfect circles of fire dance behind her eyes and she's reminded of the ritual and more importantly, Jenna.
She breaks the kiss and stumbles back from him like he bit her. Her voice shakes at first, but she's quick to steady into resolve.
"If I stay dead, then Klaus has no reason to come back. He won't even remember me when I'm gone, and Jeremy will be safe. I love you, but this is for the best." His bottom lip quivers and she's close to breaking again. She turns her back to him. It's the only way she can hold onto her decision.
He holds her as they watch the sun go down for what seems like forever. She's reminded of their hike. Of the patient way Stefan gets her to come to terms with her possible future. She tried so hard to play it off like it didn't matter, but Stefan always saw her. She could never hide from him.
She'll paint this moment in her head along with the views of the sun setting over the mountains at the top of the waterfall. In the darkest times of her life, she'll clutch these memories close to her heart to keep her afloat. She'll add them individually like beads on a rosary, clasping it together with the feel of his hands brushing against hers when he lets her go. In the future, they'll be the only things that keep her alive. For now, she lets him hold her like it's her last day.
Her heart beats slower and she slouches into the couch. Lips crack and no matter how much water she drinks, she's still thirsty. Caroline and Stefan shoot her worried glances and she wants to ask them what they can hear. The part of her that dreamed of being a doctor wants to know; what does a body sound like when it's dying? Bonnie weeps against her stoic brother, refusing to cry, and Alaric leans against the kitchen island on drunk elbows, eyes red-rimmed.
They say their goodbyes and Elena lets fond memories spill out of her mouth like water from a broken spout.
In the end, it's Damon who violates her again when he forces human blood down her throat to complete the transition. He becomes everything he claimed to hate about Stefan. He becomes every reason he had for ruining Stefan's life. She angrily reminds him about this as the blood bag lays leaking on her lap.
"I don't care, Elena. I'd do it again. I can't lose you. I can't let it all end like this. I need something good to come from my life and it's you. Elena. You're the good thing I can do."
This is his idea of a romantic gesture, and it makes her shudder. Even more insidious is how relieved Stefan seems now. He doesn't even have the decency to hide his smile. They are a symbiotic parasite sucking the life out of her while pumping her full of venom.
It takes her a moment. The changes are instant, but overwhelming. And then it hits her, the smell of rot. If she were human, it might have impacted her differently. She might have been swayed to forgive him. But her grief and anger are amplified. Worryingly, the spark of survivor's guilt turns into a brushfire. She can't see Damon through the flames.
"Don't you see, Damon? You've already lost me." She leaves them alone in her empty home full of mourners made false by her rebirth. Like her heart, it's too big and too empty. She wanders around town for hours, avoiding them.
Afraid of hurting Jeremy, she shows up later that night at Caroline's window, tapping incessantly until she comes outside. They walk through their small town, swaying against each other until Bonnie joins them and evens out their pace. She has no words for them. She's silent as she listens to Caroline promise to help her with the transition.
"It's honestly not so bad," she peppers on and Bonnie squeezes Elena's hand at the other side, giving her a knowing look. It's easy to imagine the three of them striking out in the world like this, when her mind stops racing and quiets just like her town this late into the night.
But it's a fantasy that disappears when she spots Stefan on the porch swing as she turns the corner of her street. There isn't a world that exists where either Salvatore would let her run away without chasing her down.
When had she agreed to be caged?
The three steps up to the porch feel steeper than ever, the air changes and her brain warns her that daylight is approaching. She wants to ask Stefan about it, but he looks at her so full of hope and yearning that the question dies on her tongue. "I had Bonnie make this after Damon fed his blood to you." He holds up a dainty ring, a sister to his own, and tries to smile but falters when she doesn't give him the satisfaction of a returning smile. "I thought it wouldn't hurt to be prepared." Her body is stone under his gaze, only broken when he nods for her to sit next to him.
"I'm tired," she complains again, wondering when that will change.
"We'll get through this, Elena. I'll help you through the worst of it. You and me. I promise."
She looks away from him to her front door. Where she invited him to talk. She asked for this. She asked him to be part of her life. Everything that happened after was her fault. This has her dizzy, leaning into Stefan who mistakes it for affection and kisses the top of her head. "How long will that take?"
The muscles in his mouth go tight against her forehead and he responds tersely, "Months. Maybe, years."
Jeremy doesn't have years to get used to the monster he calls a sister. She can't bear the idea of watching him get older, changing while she's chained forever in a body that won't ever get to experience the wealth of a human life. She's lost in a stupor when Stefan puts the ring on her finger like an absurd engagement. When he puts his arm around and holds her tightly, she snaps out of it to be here with him. Desperately willing herself to see this the same way he seems to.
Together, they watch the sunrise while she twists the ring around her finger absently. It's easy to trust in him like this; in his arms with the sun warming her skin.
Easy to feel human. Easy to believe the lie.
Harder though to believe it when she has to bury her mistakes.
Jenna and John's funeral is an ordeal for her worsened by heightened emotions. She can't bear to look at Jeremy anymore. He clings to her like a drowning man, looking for normalcy anywhere, but he's a living reminder of her every failure. It only took her two days to take away his entire family. The day their parents' car flies over Wickery Bridge and the day an ancient, vindictive vampire claims her life for his pleasure.
They lost everything to fire and water. At the funeral, the blame and self-hatred collects in her arteries, hardening.
She watches Damon pull Stefan aside, pulling his sleeve up to reveal his bite after the rest of them walk away. He either forgets what he made her or doesn't care enough for discretion. Not that she wasn't gagging on his rot throughout the service. She hears his request for secrecy. The claim to keep her from another heartbreak, not realizing that she'd already figured out his condition on her own. She reasons that he wants her to know without having to tell her. His fear of facing her disregard tastes of salt on her tongue.
She salivates at the possibility of lashing out again.
Despite everything, Stefan can't let Damon go. He will never let his brother go, no matter what it costs him. He leaves her after the funeral and the open wound in her chest festers with the knowledge that he'd keep choosing Damon over her.
He must have waited for Stefan to leave because as soon as she says goodbye to him, Damon shows up in her bedroom pleading for forgiveness.
"Please, Elena. I don't have time to wait for you to change your mind. Before I- I need to know that you forgive me." A sheen of sweat already decorates his brow. She wonders how much longer he has but not even the thought or her experience with Rose sways her.
He grabs at her, fingers digging into her arms desperate to pull forgiveness from her body by force it seems. She pushes back, rears back and slaps him like she has so many times before, but this time her arm doesn't hurt. This time, he goes flying into her bookshelf like the impact actually matters. "Stop forcing me! You can't make this happen. It's my decision, not yours." It's so much more than forgiveness now. Her resentment and anger have grown fangs. She seeks blood in more ways than one.
To her relief, that's the last she sees or hears from him until he shows up, deranged and violent, in the middle of town.
Another buried tragedy. Another town event. Life moves on even when she can't with a movie night on the town green. Caroline's favorite, Gone with the Wind. Elena is envious of Caroline's seemingly easy handling of her bloodlust. She's managed to make it look like riding a bike.
Elena doesn't fare as well.
The sun begins to set and the pounding of dozens of hearts pulse in her head. She can barely focus on her friends' conversation, and she twists her new daylight ring around her finger in an attempt to focus on anything other than her neighbors' necks.
Caroline's infectious positivity grates against her chest, heavy with grief. Bonnie's love for Jeremy feels so pure that she feels offensive in their presence. Elena's love is the kind that infects and leaves people in ruin. Their happiness is too much for her. She doesn't belong in the warmth with them. Her knuckles are white trying to grip reality, but her hold on it loosens no matter how hard she tries to stay.
Her mouth salivates at some passing freshman. Her heart speeds up when two kids playing tag race past her. It's when she vividly imagines ripping into Jeremy's neck as he leans over to grab the popcorn from her lap that she stumbles up and away from them. She's saved from their questions by Stefan, who walks her away to the edge of the gathering.
"Hey. Damon's in trouble. Tyler bit him the other night when he was helping Caroline escape Klaus." He hesitates when he sees her expression and it tickles her jealous heart. "You…don't seem surprised."
"I smelled it on him. I could smell his arm rotting off," she says it with pride having figured it out on her own. Not relying on him to tell her the truth has her triumphant. She doesn't care that she sounds a bit like Katherine.
"Elena. Why didn't you tell me?"
Her resentment grows. That he can't see her pain or how she is so obviously struggling. Resentment that even after everything, she needs him to focus on her and not Damon.
"I have other things on my mind." She sounds like a teenager, surprising since she hasn't felt like one in so many months. Her tone electrifies her, the gut-wrenching knowledge that she'll never be anything more than a teenager now. Leagues of distance grows between them.
"Bonnie couldn't help much with the witches, but they gave us a clue. Klaus. He has the cure. I'm going to go bargain with him." When Elena hears how Bonnie helped them again, she wonders how many one-last-times exist before there is only truly one last time. How much will they take until Bonnie has nothing left to give?
"If you go to him, he'll kill you, Stefan." She softens. Her love for Stefan erodes the wall she's building up to save her loved ones and to hide her immense hunger.
"If he wanted me dead, then I would be dead. He had his opportunity, but he spared me."
"What makes you think he'll do it again?" She can't bear to say his name. A word that's been ringing in her ears for months. A name that makes her shiver; fear, vengeance, and a feeling that she refuses to dwell on. Her body quickens and betrays her more than Stefan, Damon, or anyone else ever could.
"He's my brother, Elena. I have to try. I owe it to him."
He'll always owe him.
She doesn't agree, but he leaves anyway. He's on a mission and she can't hope to stop him. So, she tries her best to leave the park, but everyone keeps stopping her to give her their condolences. It's the first time she's seen their concern for what is was, hearty gossip.
"Terrible about what happened to John and Jenna. A gas leak, was it?"
"Will you go stay with your family in Denver, Ms. Gilbert?"
"First your parents and now this? I can't even imagine, Elena. Will you become Jeremy's legal guardian?"
The pressure of their questions and the whispers she can now hear behind her back send her spinning. She doesn't know it, but Damon is loose in the crowds as well thanks to Liz Forbes and Alaric. He's spiraling the same as her. His fevered ramblings to Katherine scare people out of his path unlike the way she's holding herself tight to contain the hunger makes everyone throw themselves at her.
They are concerned and normally it would make her feel loved, but right now all she wants is for them to run away.
When one of her mom's friends gives her a hug, Elena can almost feel her pulse rolling in her mouth like hard candy. One bite is all she needs to open up the juicy center. A memory of her and her mom gossiping at the kitchen table jolts her out of it and she pushes the older woman away. It's unfortunate timing or cruel fate that she's running past the Grille when she hears a gun go off. Curious, she peeks into the windows through the hastily shut blinds.
She watches in horror as Liz lowers her gun and runs to Jeremy, lying prone on the floor. She has a temporary moment of relief when Caroline bites into her wrist and presses it to her brother's lip. Just a moment though because he's already gone. She can tell by the way his head hangs to the side and the way Caroline looks so helpless.
No magic can bring him back now.
She bites through her lip to hold back tears when Alaric and Bonnie leave with his limp body. Blood and tears run down her chin as she scrapes her knees against the asphalt.
She has no one now. It was only a matter of time. She's alone. The thoughts crash into her head like a storm against the seawall. It's unrelenting, breaking her down. Violent sobs rack her body until she has nothing left to give and she becomes still.
Slowly, she gets to her feet and, guided by instinct, methodically stalks her way to the boarding house. She's a woman possessed, seeking out Damon Salvatore. Once, he had used his power to call to Caroline to save him. Now, it's Elena's own power that propels her to him. She's a hurricane, gathering speed until she hits land. She's a force unstoppable even from her own discretion. This is what it's like to set a caged animal free.
And she's finally found someone else to blame.
A/N: This is ultimately a Klena fic but be warned, it will take several chapters for Klaus to show back up in person in a way that allows him and Elena to interact. This is mostly about Elena and her journey getting to New Orleans; surviving and then thriving as a major player in the power dynamics of the city. When Klaus comes into the picture, it will be to a different Elena Gilbert.
And I'm so excited for him to see her.