Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: I know it's been two months since the last update and I am seriously so INCREDIBLY sorry, but hopefully, this chapter will make up for it (it contains something you've probably waited to see for like eight or nine chapters). For those curious, the chapter is kinda Elejah-heavy but also contains the return of a little more Klaroline (as a treat).

CONTENT WARNING: This chapter will slightly touch on the subject of Elena and Caroline's trauma with loss of consent. Not heavily, but the warning remains.

*o0O0o*
*She's Come Undone and Set Free*
*Chapter 12 - Hearts on Display*
*o0O0o*

"You're letting me go." The glee that Elena could read in Damon's voice and the eyes he suddenly flashed in her direction made something sour curdle in the bottom of her stomach. Already he was clearly building up a new narrative that would cast Elena back into her old role, the woman who didn't know her own heart and needed Damon to tell her exactly what she felt.

And what that was of course would be her feelings for him.

The worst part was how easily she might have been pulled into exactly that narrative if she hadn't noticed that the sire bond was still in place after the return of her humanity. If the first thing she'd grabbed onto had been something other than her desperation to be free of the choking trap of that love triangle she'd been tangled in for more than two years now; if it had been her grief for her brother, or her hatred for Katherine - and the frayed sire bond had instead lingered in the back of her heart, slowly recovering, beginning to wrap itself back around her sense of self until all that mattered in the world again, was Damon.

'You know what would make me happy? To know that this entire time that I've been completely in love with you, that what you actually felt for me was real,' the memory of his voice slipped like poison into her blood-stream. Would anyone ever have noticed that she was still a slave to that wish, or would she have spent centuries growing into a paler and frailer version of herself until something somewhere finally killed her and set her free?

"Yes, and you're going to wish they'd kept you at their mercy for a lot longer. You might have eventually received it after all." Rebekah's voice was full of feigned sympathy that did little to disguise her mirth. Elena shook herself, trying to dislodge her thoughts from the horrific musings on a future that she'd never allow to pass now.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Damon snapped, his eyes were once again hot on Elena. He was pale with blood loss, wet streaks of red running down his chin and cheeks, - obviously at the weakest she'd ever seen him - and still, she had to fight back a flinch. She'd seen that rage in his eyes so many times; the rage of her not bending to his way of things - when he'd snapped Jeremy's neck; when he'd bit into his wrist before the Sacrifice and forced his blood down Elena's throat; or most recently, when she'd mocked their... - she didn't know what to call it anymore, every word for it made her recoil - their night together during the torture, and he'd retaliated by hurting her more.

She swallowed, - looking away toward Caroline and Bonnie, - trying to buy herself time to recover. Was this what Caroline had been going through all this time?; beginning to build herself up from what he'd done to her, only to be hit once more by the memories of having been trapped by the compulsion whenever Damon looked at her? If so, then Caroline was worlds stronger than Elena could ever hope to be.

She could barely stand this for a few days. Caroline had been surviving for years.

Which just meant she shouldn't have to for even a moment longer.

"Give me a minute," Elena said. With Rebekah's compulsion in place, no one else really needed to stay down here anymore. Not even Elena really, but she knew Damon far too well to hope that he'd let something like this rest without making Elena regret it. It would be better if she let him throw whatever cards he still thought he held here.

"Are you sure?" Caroline asked, reaching over to tug on Elena's pinky.

"I'll be up in a minute, Care. I promise." She smiled tightly and then waited until she and Damon were alone again.

"Elena," he said her name and she had to clench her jaw to fight off the disgust that hit her at the way it sounded in his voice; at the pain it inspired in her, despite all the reasons it should mean less than nothing after everything he'd done. But it didn't stop hurting just because she hated him now, she'd never truly been in love with Damon but she had cared about him, and it hurt to know the kind of man he truly was. It hurt that she'd once been willing to believe him capable of being better.

It hurt worse to imagine how Caroline must have felt when she'd defended him.

"You're going to leave Mystic Falls, Damon," she told him, instead of giving him time to lead the conversation down avenues she had no intention to remap.

"And why would I do that?" he scoffed.

"You're going to run. And you're never going to stop running," she told him, voice vicious as she stepped closer to him so that there would be no mistaking the glare in her eyes. She could nearly feel his sharp breaths hit her face but despite the crawling sensation it inspired, she didn't allow herself to back away. She couldn't let him scent any weakness.

"And again. Why would I ever do that, Elena?" he repeated himself, leaning closer to her, the chains jingling slightly at his movement.

She didn't want to say it. Knew that it would reveal much more than Elena wanted to but she also knew there was no choice here. There was very little that could scare Damon enough to make him start running. He didn't see either her or Caroline as a real threat, not if he thought he'd see them coming now. Bonnie was a threat, but that just made her shudder with the idea of what Damon might decide to do to remove her best friend from the equation. But the Mikaelsons? With all the daggers far out of reach, Damon would know that the only hope of survival would be to run.

It was the best payback she could use to punish him. The rage of an Original pointed like an arrow with Elena giving it its direction. Even running would only delay the inevitable. But it meant he'd guess what Elijah's anger on Elena's behalf meant.

Elena didn't want Damon to touch even a trace of her relationship with Elijah, wanted to keep it separate from him, the way it had always remained up to now. All those conversations had been theirs in a way she'd never quite been able to put into words.

All those deals that neither of them wanted to break and only did when their loved ones inevitably marched themselves in the lines of fire.

Everything about Elijah was personal. Even when there had been other eyes on them she'd never let anyone intrude on the moment. Upon reflection, that should maybe have been a clue.

"Because Elijah knows what you did to me." Or suspected anyway.

"To you? I've never done anything but love you, Elena."

That made her laugh bitterly and step back, taking in a few deep breaths at the relief that fell across her shoulders upon having Damon out of her personal space again. "I don't think you even know how to."

"That's not true, I-"

But she was well past being willing to listen. "I'm done talking about this. This is what is going to happen. You're going to leave my town and you're never going to come back, you're never going to come anywhere near me or anyone I care about again or-"

"Or what?" Damon snapped, face twisting into a rage.

"Or the first thing I will do the moment I see you will be to call Elijah and tell him exactly where you are," she threw back, voice going cold as she turned her own rage into an Arctic glacial. "And I'm sure what we've done to you for the past few days will be a vacation when compared to what he will do."

"And what does dear Elijah Mikaelson get out of this exactly?" There was jealousy and cruelty slipping into his voice again and she knew to steady herself at whatever would come out of his mouth next. She was familiar with Damon's patterns. "What did you barter to make a deal with him this time? You get me out of town and he gets to fuck y-"

She flashed forward with inhuman speed, grabbing his blood-soiled shirt to keep him in place, and slammed her knee between his legs. The sound he made in response was almost more satisfying than the way he'd choked on his own blood when she'd been pouring vervain down his throat.

Elena let herself savor it for a moment.

Then she encircled his head between her hands and twisted sharply until Damon's neck snapped with a sharp crack and he slumped into the chains, his head in its increasingly more familiar grotesque angle.

It was clearly time to stop giving him the opportunity to open his mouth.

There was blood under Elijah's fingernails. He noticed it absently with faint irritation as he ran his tools under the water pouring from the bathroom sink. Placing them aside with a sigh he moved to clean the blood from his fingers more thoroughly before finally turning off the tap and then drying his hands in the towel hanging beside the mirror.

He might have been... in a less-than-civilized state of mind after returning from his meeting with Elena.

She had, after all, all but confirmed that Damon Salvatore had taken advantage of his sire-hold over her, and with the vampire in question the unwilling guest of the two women with the far dominant claim toward retribution, he was left with the brother who should have done more to protect the woman he'd been proclaiming to love.

Elijah's own heart seethed with roiling darkness, not at all sated by the paltry amounts of pain he'd dragged out of the younger Salvatore. He could still feel the ghost of the tears Elena had pressed into his shoulder when he'd taken her into his arms, and no amount of blood he could spill would ever properly pay back for a single one of them.

But, oh, had Elijah tried.

He took a quick look at his wristwatch and noting the time bit back another exhale. It was probably long past time to call back his own brother. If he knew Niklaus at all, he was about ready to descend on Mystic Falls himself, which - if he found out what Elijah now knew - would undoubtedly become the kind of bloodbath the town itself didn't quite deserve.

He pulled out his cell phone from the pocket of his pants - the suit jacket in which he carried it usually had left with Elena, and by this point probably smelled of her so heavily that he wondered if it might be kinder for his sanity if she just kept it. Dry cleaning could only do so much against an Original vampire's sense of smell.

Shaking off that particular tangent before he could begin picturing the way his jacket had looked draped over Elena's shoulders, he attempted to go back to considering the best way to belay Klaus's valid worry over Miss Forbes. Lying would be foolish, Klaus's paranoia would hone in on any untruths, but complete honesty was of course out of the question.

It was lucky that Elijah had centuries of experience handling his brother. He pressed the screen for the call.

"Niklaus," he greeted his brother when he heard the call being picked up.

"Have you spoken with Caroline?" Klaus replied at once and Elijah winced, his brother's voice was tight and the immediate focus on the young vampire who had so quickly enchanted Klaus spoke volumes of the likeliness that this would not be as simple a matter as Elijah would like. "Is she alright?"

"I've been assured that Miss Forbes is perfectly well, Klaus."

"You've been assured," his brother sounded less than impressed "meaning you haven't talked with her."

"I've spoken with Elena. Caroline Forbes is not in any danger at the moment," he said and then before Klaus could start digging. "Nor do they think that she's about to be."

Elijah knew if he drew Klaus's mind toward the current lack of any concrete future threats, - other than Silas, whose focus would not be Miss Forbes - his brother would be less likely to double back on maybe having missed a hurt that had been inflicted on the woman in the past.

There was momentary silence on the other end of the line.

"You're not telling me something, Elijah," Klaus's voice held suspicion but then his brother was nearly always suspicious, and with his brother's heart - which Elijah had nearly thought long abandoned before he'd noticed the way Niklaus seemed to lose millennia of weight whenever his eyes caught even a wisp of blonde curls - this clearly on display, Elijah would honestly worry more if he'd heard no suspicion at all.

"I have told you all you wanted to know, Klaus." Which was the truth. Klaus had not known enough to have wanted to know more when he'd asked Elijah to look in on Elena's friend.

"You're certain she's unharmed?"

His mind flashed back to the look on Elena's face when she confronted Stefan Salvatore about his lies on Damon's behalf. There had been horror and heartbreak there. Elijah knew that the woman who could lay claim to his brother's love in a heartbeat if she only wished had been harmed greatly. But that was not something he was permitted to say.

"She is as she was when we left Mystic Falls, brother."

Clenching his fingers more tightly around the cell, Elijah couldn't help but wonder how long a time he would spend daggered in a coffin in payment for this conversation once Klaus did learn exactly what Elijah had not been telling him during this call.

And for a change, he did not quite know if he would blame him.

Once there Elena wasn't certain at which point that day she'd finally decided to do it. If it was in the middle of her latest - and hopefully last - confrontation with Damon, when her thoughts had turned to Elijah and to how closely she'd always guarded their conversations. Or earlier that morning, when she'd sought comfort in the warmth of his arms; when he'd left a kiss she could still feel on the skin of her brow and it had nearly felt like every rattling breath was the slightest bit more bearable.

But maybe the decision wasn't truly even made that day. Maybe there was a part of Elena that knew she'd have always come to read his letter sooner or later. However furious she'd been at his absence when she slipped the letter back between the pages of the book, she'd probably known even then that his words would mean far too much to let them gather dust, unread.

Whatever the truth, quite suddenly Elena couldn't stand wondering.

So after leaving Damon unconscious in the basement and talking her way past her friends by feigning a headache, she nearly rushed into the room Rebekah had given her and pulled the envelope out of the inner pocket of her own jacket - his, Elena had taken off before she and Caroline had gone downstairs when they'd caught Bonnie and Rebekah having their moment.

Her name was written on the side of the envelope with obviously careful strokes of the pen, and Elena - not quite knowing what inspired her to do so - ran her fingers over the ink with a secret, feather-light touch. Elena's heart clenched as she considered if maybe Elijah could have been looking at her when he wrote this. She'd fallen asleep on that small couch in the corner of his library. She didn't think he'd have left her there alone. No, that probably came later, once Rebekah had returned.

Slowly, she moved to break the old-fashioned wax seal he'd used to keep the envelope closed and carefully, trying not to wrinkle it, pulled out the letter hidden inside. With one last shaky breath, Elena started to read.

Elena,

I love you. I said I would never mention it again, and I will keep my word on this - though I'm not sure how much my word means to you by this point - as you have just seen into the heart of me it feels dishonest to pretend otherwise.

So I mention it here, just this once more.

But you need not fear that I will now try to pursue an answer I have no right to seek. I did not ever expect you to learn this, and I'm sorry that I couldn't keep to that oath. I have hurt you far too often in the past and had hoped to not do so with my own feelings as well.

The last time I left you a letter I told you that your compassion is a gift, and that will always be true. But do not be obligated to force that compassion into a shape not meant for it on my behalf.

I am sorry, Elena, for only leaving you letters on a page when you deserve so much more, and always have.

There is very little left I can offer you that you are likely to accept. But know this one thing, please, if ever you need my help again. If it's tomorrow or in a century, you need only call.

Yours,

Always and Forever.

Elijah.

A tear fell heavily on the page of the letter and Elena abruptly moved to wipe her eyes dry. Her heart was thundering like a herd of horses running free, so loudly it nearly pulsed in her ear. And the idea that she might end up smudging any of the words made it trip.

She didn't know what to feel about the letter. It's not that she hadn't already known since the moment she'd swallowed the first mouthful of his blood, she'd felt what he felt for her. But somehow reading the words, knowing that Elijah had chosen to write them, - had deliberately left them to Elena, instead of being placed in a position where showing his heart was something he had to do - it just-

It meant more.

*o0O0o*

AN2: Writing the letter was the HARDEST part about this whole thing. I mean I knew what it contained but Elijah is a freaking closet-romantic and making it sound like him, was complicated - still not sure how well I did at that honestly.