Mikaelson Mansion
November 22, 2010
"Please Lijah, just lay him down over here," Elena said pointing to the bed. She used her magic to fold back the duvet bedding covers. Elijah noted she was doing her best not to worry, but he knew his wife enough to see her lower lip tremble as she watched her husband gently place her brother's unconscious form into the cool sheets. Not wanting to distress his wife any further, no thanks to Damon Salvatore's childish outburst, Jeremy's neck was still broken, and he had needed to lay him down, only adjusting his head to appear as if he were only asleep. If it hadn't been for the Gilbert Ring still on his brother-in-law's finger, Elijah or one of his brothers would have beheaded Damon right then and there.
Elijah watched as his lovely wife pulled the bedding up to Jeremy's chin as if he were just sleeping. They'd removed his shoes and outer jacket to make him more comfortable when he finally did wake up.
There was a soft knock at the door and after a quick kiss Elijah went to the door to see who it was. Recognizing the nervous beating of two hearts on the other side of the door, he already knew whom it was waiting for him.
"Hello Miss Vera and Lily, how might we help you?"
Elena's two housemaids seemed a little lost for words, but Vera recovered first and curtsied quickly, mimicked by her younger twin sister.
"My Lord! We were instructed to bring some toiletries, and this, for the Ladyship's brother when he finally recovers from his um… Injuries," Vera answered for them both. Lilly shyly looked away, but Elijah didn't take too much offense. Most human females reacted this way around him for the last several centuries and he had grown accustomed to simply ignoring their behavior.
In Vera's hands was a tray of a wide assortment of the aforementioned toiletries, from a new toothbrush to a razor and shaving soap with a brush. While Lily carried a tray with a glass of water and what looked like pain medication for mild injuries. Being a vampire, he had no need for such things, so it took him a second to understand it was meant for Jeremy.
"Very well, please come in," Elijah said pleasantly. While Elena was unforgivably made absent by a select few of her friends, her lady's maids had been assisting his sister in taking care of Eirik and his little Astrid.
From what both Caroline and Rebekah had recently described, the two humans had done a very outstanding job with watching over them as they rushed to finish up the work on the nursery. Elijah had to smile at how the two of them had bonded. Hopefully it would help his sister feel more secure about this century. He did feel a sense of guilt that his sister, over the centuries, had a difficult time making or more accurately keeping friends. With their constant need to flee at the first sign their father had found them, any ties had to be quickly severed. Rebekah might be a thousand year old vampire, but at her heart she was still a teenage girl who was forced to grow up far too quickly.
Vera headed off towards the suite bathroom to deposit Jeremy's toiletries while her sister placed the glass of water and two pain pills on the night stand beside the bed. Instead of leaving, Lily stood beside the bed as Elena sat beside her brother trying her best not to break down.
"Thank you ladies, you can-" Elijah started but to his own surprise and possibly even to herself when Vera the older Sullivan twin sister interrupted him.
"My Lord and Lady we… My apologies!" Vera said her head bobbed down in supplication to them both. "We can watch over him until he recovers. When he does, one of us will come in search of you."
"Thank you, But I think that won't be necessary, Vera and Lily," Elena said with a tired yawn.
"Elena, I think it would be for the best. They have proven themselves more than capable and they will come get us when he does recover."
He could tell she wanted to argue, but the meaningful look he was extending towards her made her pause.
"If you insist, but I want to be informed when he awakens no matter what I'm currently occupied with, do you understand?"
"Yes, your Ladyship," they both answered succinctly. Elena's lip quirked in annoyance at her husband whose stoic expression hadn't faltered but the slight twinkle in his brown eyes let her know he was enjoying her adjustment period to honorific compulsions their family had placed on the estate human staff.
Elena instead stood up from her place and smiled at her ladies maid before she placed a hand on each of their shoulders Elijah noticed a sudden intake of his wife's breath but as quickly as it had occurred she smiled at them both.
"Thank you ladies, I need to have a few words with my adoring husband." The rather cool gaze she directed at him would have signaled his demise, but there was something in how she was holding herself that said something else.
Puzzled, Elijah followed in her wake as they departed the room, her taking care when closing the French doors behind them before she abruptly whirled around to face him.
But to his surprise, she pulled him into a passionate kiss, before pushing herself away.
"Thank you Lijah, but I'm more than capable of handling the situation."
Taking his hand in hers, she started leading them towards the grand staircase to the main floor.
"Yes, lovely Elena. Might I ask where we are going?" Elijah answered with a slight nod in the direction she was leading them both.
She turned to look back at him as she continued towards the stairs while giving him a rather predatory smile, which excited the beast within him.
"We need to uphold our side of our promise, and I really need to make a few things clear to my former boyfriend. Depending on how that goes, perhaps afterwards I might take a nice long shower and somehow convince my handsome husband to enjoy it with me," Elena said in a rather coquettish manner that had her intended aftereffect of stirring his loins. The coyly timed suggestive wink afterwards, before she returned her full attention to what was in front of her, made him growl in barely restrained anticipation. He could scent her arousal but decided not to call her on that or they would never get to that shower she'd all but promised him.
"Then by all means, my lady."
He did his best not to grin too much at her near sub vocal growled response. Lady Elena Mikaelson had a rather nice ring to it, Elijah decided. He walked in silence, watching her from behind. He briefly wondered what it would have been like to have her by his side over the centuries. Having her addressed with such honorifics might have seen a minor thing but she would have been more than suited for such things. Elena Mikaelson was very much his Queen, and it was high time that their family started taking its rightful place as rulers of their species. The upstart vampire they had left broken on the cold earth and his misbehaving younger brother currently secured in their dungeon were sure signs they needed to take a more active role in their kind's overall behavior.
Salvatore Boarding House
November 22, 2010
Damon groaned as he tried once more to pick himself up from the gravel driveway. It felt like his body he'd been run over by a bus more than once, the younger looking Elijah hadn't broken his neck until the psychotic Original had partly caved in his ribcage. Finally breaking his supposedly prized baseball ball in the process.
After his third try, he finally managed to climb to his knees, ignoring the sharp gravel digging into his kneecaps. Damon surveyed the scene around him. The Boarding house lights were still on but Bonnie's mother's RV was suspiciously absent.
Fortunately, all the Originals were thankfully missing as well, which was a positive in his book as far as Damon was concerned.
Fully climbing to his feet took a little more of an effort, but it wasn't long before he took his first tentative step back towards his home.
Slamming the front door behind him, Damon stomped his way towards the den but drew up short when he found his former friend Lorenzo St John standing by his drink cabinet holding up a tumbler half filled with what he desperately hoped was Bourbon or the nearest equivalent.
Accepting the glass, he tossed the drink back, swallowing its contents in one go, holding the now empty glass to his former friend who thankfully refilled it without a word.
Sitting in his favorite chair, he watched as his friend refreshed his own glass, taking the couch next to him. Damon didn't overlook that he'd thoughtfully brought the bottle with him.
"Tough day at the office, honey?" Enzo drawled, taking a tentative sip of his drink and grimacing before taking another one as he waited.
"Very funny," Damon groused, swirling his drink around, watching the amber colored liquid roll over itself in the crystal tumbler.
"What can I say, I'm getting caught up on all the sitcoms I've missed out on. I really think 'I Love Lucy' lost something when they colorized it. Is it just me or do the colors just not look right?"
"Why are you still here, Lorenzo?" Damon asked, ignoring his friend's attempt to lighten the mood. Then Damon pressed onward.
"Seriously everyone else took off, while I was being deadish, so what gives?"
Lorenzo sighed and leaned over to refill his friend's glass, Damon peered dumbly at its empty contents. When did he finish off what he had? Putting his temporary memory loss to his brain still putting itself right he nodded in agreement.
"I figured you'd need a friendly face when you came around, I wasn't watching your little encounter, but what the hell did you do to make Bonnie and her family want to leave?"
Not wanting to admit aloud to someone else he overreacted, Damon instead studied his recently refilled glass.
"Come on mate, you were a lot more talkative when you and I were locked in those bloody cages at the Augustine Society." Lorenzo taunted, watching over the rim of his own raised glass.
Not wanting to answer the obvious jab Damon once again polished off his glass. He stood up, studying the empty glass in his hand. Reflexively his fingers cracked the crystal tumbler and before they could do anymore damage Damon, without any warning, threw it at the fireplace. The crystal instantly pulverized.
"Whoa! Calm down there, mate!"
Damon let fly a string of curses that would have gotten him beat as a child by his own father. But now, over a century and a half later, his father was a rotten corpse waiting for time to finally reclaim him. Just leaving him and his brother forever frozen as they had been the same night they both died, trying to rescue Katherine. The same Katherine Pierce who had staged everything just to throw off the Original Hybrid from her trail.
"How can I calm down? Everything has gone for shit!" Damon yelled.
"Damon-"
"Don't Damon me! I haven't forgotten what it was like being in that cage right across from you. Or how it was a never-ending cycle of one experimental study after another from our own personal Doctor Mengele wannabe. One of the few things that kept me sane was thinking about her needing me to rescue her from the tomb, and the other was you."
Picking up the bottle, Damon pulled the cork out with his teeth before spitting it out somewhere he really didn't care and took a long swig from it. The fiery liquid burned its way down to his gut and he welcomed the fire within.
"Damon, don't do this to yourself."
"Why not? The woman whom I thought I loved even when I already knew full well she was a vampire, used me. Hell, I didn't need to be compelled not to be afraid of her, unlike my baby bro. For what? She never needed to be rescued. I have obsessed over Katherine Pierce for so long I can barely remember my life before. That obsession didn't stop me from taking my one chance of escape and screwing you over like I did. For what? In all honesty, it should have been me locked in the cage instead of you!"
Taking another long swig, he drained more than half the bottle in one go. Not feeling impressed he regarded the bottle for a solid second before he threw it into the fire causing a fire ball to explode within the fireplace.
"Whoa! Don't abuse the liquor, mate!" Enzo repeated. Standing up from his place on the couch in only what Damon thought was a naïve effort to try and calm his former cellmate.
"Bonnie and her family cut and ran when-"
"Mate, that isn't exactly being fair. They all said they needed to regroup. Although she didn't outright say this, Abby appeared rather worried about the well being of her kids."
"I-"
Damon couldn't really refute the previous statement. He did, after all, snap the neck of a teenager right in front of them. However it wasn't like little Gilbert was actually dead; he's always wearing his lucky magic ring.
"How long ago did they leave?" Damon hated that he had to ask, but he wasn't in any condition to try and persuade them to stay put not after his outburst.
"Hard to say, but if I had to guess it was a good half hour before Abby announced they were leaving. Although it took them about an hour to gather their belongings. Just so you know, Abby took about a dozen or so blood bags with her. I didn't see the harm, blame me if you want."
"No, there doesn't seem to be a point anymore," Damon responded; the bitter taste of defeat tasted foul on his tongue.
"You really cared for her, didn't you?" Enzo asked.
"Yeah, I did. Still do I guess. I never told anyone this before now, but I met her first. Even before my hero brother saved her, same night in fact," Damon admitted, letting out a breath he'd held when his former friend had first asked his question.
"Why didn't you tell her afterwards?"
"Because like a moron I am, I compelled her to forget meeting me that night. I was so singularly focused on getting Katherine out of her supposed prison. I missed my chance with her," Damon said, surprising himself with his own honesty. He didn't want to go into details, but finding Katherine hadn't needed him and then trying to keep Elena safe from Klaus's machinations both before and after the sacrifice had been a predominant constant in his life as of late. Perhaps he should just move on.
As he considered his remaining options, his attention was focused inward, so he didn't at first take note of his drinking companion's change in demeanor.
"What-" was all Damon could get out of his thinned lips before another voice stopped him from completing his question.
"Hello brother," Stefan wheezed.
But when Damon finally turned he noticed that his brother wasn't alone. Because helping him stand upright was his mentor, the same vampire who had taught him so much about how to revel in what he had become. Her red hair was styled differently from the last time he'd laid eyes on her, but everything else was the same. Not that being an immortal would allow crows feet to even form to begin with.
"Sage, what?" Damon asked. He remembered she'd been in town but what was she doing here now?
"Look who I happened to find trying to make his way home from wherever he's been," Sage smiled regrettably at his little brother, then towards him. That was before she shifted her gaze to Lorenzo, giving him a quizzical once over before refocusing back on him.
"So Damon, who's your new friend?"
Founders' Hall
November 21, 2010
Five hours before the Full Moon:
Ric would've been looking around the room for his friend Damon if he didn't already know where he was right at that moment. Unlike Damon and the other vampires in his small group of friends, he couldn't compel his way out of teaching his classes while they were busy dealing with the Mikaelsons' family drama.
Knowing that Elena was now part of the family drama was almost too hard to accept, especially after what happened to Jenna and, although he didn't want to admit this, Isobel's death had unexpectedly hit him hard even when he thought he'd gotten over her turning herself into a vampire.
He frowned when he couldn't find Liz in any of the small clutches of gathered council members arrayed around the room so far and that was starting to worry him. For the life of him, he didn't quite understand why it shouldn't and that too worried him as well.
Keeping his eyes roving about but always returning to the main door, his gaze caught the Mayor standing off to the side with an alarming frown almost permanently fixed below her equally troubled brow.
Needing answers, he made his way over to the Mayor. Thankfully after catching sight of him in the crowd she apparently was mirroring his own movement. They met somewhere in the middle of the room.
"Mr. Saltzman," Carol said with a slight nod, but there was a trace of concern in her eye that only heightened his alarm.
"Madam Mayor, nice to see you tonight, would you care for some refreshments?" Ric asked and based on the Mayor's quick nod he knew that she'd understood his true intentions.
After collecting their drinks, the mismatched pair found a secluded spot where they could talk but was close enough to know when the meeting started.
"Did you call this meeting, Mayor? It was really out of the blue when I got the text message about it. Aren't we still scheduled to have our monthly meeting on the day before Thanksgiving?"
With Thanksgiving weekend coming up, some of the other council members had wanted to hold this month's meeting before then and the only time was right before the holiday. The only thing that could have moved the date was if someone on the council called for an emergency meeting.
"No, it wasn't me. It seems it was Pastor Young who called for an emergency meeting. When I found that out, I asked him directly to which he just said his reasons will be brought up during the meeting," Carol said, looking around like Ric had been doing a minute before.
"I don't see either the Sheriff or Bill Forbes here yet, which is strange since they are one of the first to arrive for these monthly meetings," Ric pointed out more to himself than to the Mayor, but she seemed distracted as well.
"I don't see Damon mingling, either."
Ric sighed. He really didn't want to mention it but he had a gut feeling that his absence would be observed by more than just the Mayor of all people. Hopefully the fallout from him missing this one meeting could be overlooked. Given the appropriate circumstances, he noted dryly.
"Damon, and for that matter Stefan, are busy with Original Hybrid complications."
"Klaus," she involuntarily breathed out.
"Unfortunately it's not just him anymore. His family is here in town as well. I believe he might have mentioned them to you in passing at a fairly recent charity event."
The horrified expression she was giving him to some degree reflected his own sentiment, so he briefly outlined how many Originals there were and their names. He ostentatiously avoided mentioning Elena by name but he did reveal the marital status of Klaus's older brother.
"Wait, this Elijah person is married? Is she a Original too?" Carol asked, her voice had raised enough to garner some of the others to glance their way before she recovered enough to lower her voice although she was still slightly dumbfounded. If only she knew, he thought sadly.
He had never wanted anything to happen to Elena. For all intents and purposes she was the step daughter he never knew about and that knowledge still to this day ate at him. What might have happened if Isobel had told him about her daughter? Sometimes he allowed himself to dream about an alternate future of just the three of them. Just how it might have changed things for everyone was really hard to guess.
"Yes unfortunately, and from what I understand she was made into a vampire the same time Klaus's siblings were."
"Why is it unfortunate? What is her name?"
"Um… I think that particular revelation is going to take something stronger and I guarantee it will take quite a while to tell you, from just what I know, and that isn't even the half of it," Ric sighed and looked down at his glass. The wine was good but nowhere strong enough of a liquid courage booster for the bombshell she wanted to know.
"Oh um… can you tell Caroline when you see her at school tomorrow, Tyler called me and said he isn't coming back until his sire bond thingy is fully severed? I almost didn't pick up because it came up as an unknown number on my caller ID. He doesn't want to make it easy for me or Caroline to contact him either by free will or through manipulation."
"Sure, and I'l make sure Caroline understands. From what little I know about sire bonds, if a sire calls the sireling has no choice but to obey," Ric said, giving her a reassuring smile. It sometimes worried him that some of the children in this town had to grow up faster than others their same age.
Before either of them could think of something related to discuss, Pastor Young, along with almost a half dozen unfamiliar faces, strolled into the council's regular meeting room as a group. Ric frowned at their overall demeanor; it felt as if they were acting that this place belonged to them and that notion was worrisome, considering at least three of them wore the Mystic Falls deputy uniforms. The Pastor moved to the front of the room to address them all and hopefully tell them why they were meeting earlier than planned.
"Sorry ladies and gentlemen, for my inadvertent tardiness but I needed to ensure final preparations were being made," Pastor Young started, raising his voice high enough to cease discussions of people who hadn't seen his arrival or, like Ric, didn't really care what the Pastor had to spout off about now.
"Why did you call this meeting?"
"What sort of emergency?"
"Does this mean we don't have to meet like we originally planned?"
"Where is Sheriff Forbes, why isn't she or her former husband here?" somebody asked, sitting off to the side of the room. Ric couldn't adequately see to identify who had just asked; he might have if he wasn't preoccupied himself.
And so it went on for another minute. Ric and the Mayor watched in silence as they listened to the questions the others had that, while valid, were not helpful in helping to understand why the meeting was called for now. He knew that Pastor Young had been trying to press his agenda, but he didn't quite know what it truly was about underneath everything. There was just something about the affable Pastor that felt wrong, at least to him. Growing annoyed with the volume of questions the man held up his hand to silence the room.
"I called for this emergency meeting for multiple reasons. However I will address why the esteemed Sheriff is not with us right at the moment."
But instead of addressing it himself he motioned for one of the deputies to step forward. Looking into the man's dark soul penetrating eyes, he suddenly felt as if he was looking into a mirror. He too had that look for years after coming home from University one late night.
"Hello, I'm Deputy Eben Hartnett and up until a year ago, as of today in fact. How's that for an anniversary? Anyway, I was once a security consultant of a small mining community a hundred miles from Barrow, Alaska. Just to highlight the important details; out of thirty people, only two of us survived on our own. From a trio of vampires who thanks to yearly Polar night spent thirty days of nothing but darkness terrorizing us, before they eventually killed off or worse, my friends and family."
As expected there were follow-on questions which Ric only paid some attention to, but by Deputy Hartnett's description the vampires that attacked him and his friends must have been recently turned and mostly likely abandoned by their sire. Of the three, the leader had some understanding of compulsion, while the other two hadn't mastered the technique yet. They managed to lure one into a room with enough UV lights to burn him alive while the other minion they set on fire after dousing her in aviation fuel then ignited by a simple road flare. The leader escaped, but not before she turned to someone and fled together before the sun finally showed itself.
"Those horrible monsters!" a woman Ric had only met at other council events exclaimed in self righteous indignation. Damon had once pointed her out to him as being a member of the Fell family.
"Oh my God!"
"Who was the other person? How did they survive as well?"
That last question seemed to have struck a sore nerve Ric decided, based on the scarlet red the man turned after hearing it.
"That other person is my fifteen-year-old nephew, it was just the three of us left towards the end and when my own sister awoke after being force fed vampire blood then killed. Amy then fed on her own freaking son. I had to literally body slam her just to get her to stop. She tried to apologize, but that was before she and her new master ran off!" Deputy Hartnett spluttered.
"Where is your nephew now?" a man asked, sitting adjacent to Ric, and he felt the sudden urge to throat punch the insensitive jackass for his question. However it was the bitter laugh of the deputy that drew everyone's attention back to the front of the room.
"Where is my nephew, you ask? I'll tell you where. My only remaining flesh and blood on this world is now a supposed Initiate of the Brotherhood of the Five, that's where." It wasn't difficult to overlook the bitterness that tinged the deputies demeanor.
"Initiate?"
"What exactly is this Brotherhood of the Five?" Mayor Lockwood asked, sitting next to Ric. He'd almost forgotten she had taken the seat next to him. Normally she would have been the one to start the monthly meeting. Racking his brain, he seemed to recall hearing something about some brotherhood when he first started hunting vampires, but everything he found had led to a dead end. Most other hunters he'd met over the years likened them to the Men in Black, but that was usually after a few rounds of drinks.
Isobel's research she had left behind had a few footnotes, but nothing that had panned out when he started going through it himself.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please, one question at a time. As for what does this mean about the whereabouts of Liz Forbes? Rest assured, she is still our sheriff since it is an elected position if all of you recall. She is currently investigating the body of a woman that was found this afternoon by a group of out-of-state nature backpackers. Before you ask, the victim was completely drained of her blood. Preliminary indication is that she was drained somewhere else and then discarded there out of sight," Pastor Young said, interrupting Ric's thoughts.
"If that is the case then how does any of this relate to Deputy Hartnett tragic tale?" asked the same individual who inquired about the Deputy's nephew's whereabouts.
"Deputy Hartnett, I believe that is your que to continue your story for us," Pastor Young smiled at the man, giving him a curt nod to continue.
Clearing his throat, the Deputy looked out at the founder's council before speaking. He looked over the members almost as if searching for someone.
"After the vampires left us it was just me and Daniel. Naturally we weren't sleeping very well and then he- he started having these strange hallucinations, or that's what I thought he was having at the time."
Looking down at his hands, he shook himself before looking up. His eyes glistened with unshed tears.
"My relationship with my nephew was not the best, but before his mother was turned, we were starting to mend our family connection. But I didn't believe him when he started spouting off about seeing a tattoo on his hand when I couldn't see anything. For context, he always wanted to get tats like his dad, but his mother refused till he was eighteen. I was too busy trying to clean up everything to really talk to him about it to be fair, but it wasn't until two hunters from the Brotherhood showed up as if out of the blue."
"How did they know how to find you?" someone in the front row asked, and Ric had to agree with whoever had asked it.
"They were tracking my nephew. It turns out that the Tattoo I could not see is like a calling card to their kind. When a hunter senses a possible candidate they will dispatch a recruiter team. That was why they came, not because they knew anything about the vampires wiping us out," Deputy Hartnett said in such a manner even Ric could taste the bitterness from his own seat.
"They took both of us, but not before blindfolding me, to their training center. To this day I still don't know exactly where other than somewhere in the United States. The pair of us started training. I learned everything they had on vampires such as vervain and how to strike a vampire to pierce its heart with a hidden stake. I was one of their best. I was so motivated to prove myself until they dropped a bomb shell. I had thought that if I trained hard then I would become an initiate like Daniel, but that wasn't the case. I was furious and tried to leave with him, but they stopped us. For my actions I was expelled. I do have limited contact with him and friends I made but I can't show my face to them- not that I could find their training center, that is."
Accepting a glass of water from the Pastor who had a gleam of anticipation in his eyes that both annoyed and concerned Ric, he had the oddest feeling the other shoe was going to drop. Turns out he didn't have long to wait.
"Earlier this month one of my friends in the Brotherhood reached out and strongly advised me to keep myself out of Mystic Falls, Virginia while the Original family are still in the vicinity. Apparently they have reliable Intel that the first vampires to ever walk the earth are in the area," he paused to slam his hand on the nearest table.
"Well, I say screw that. I want some payback!" he yelled, pounding a clenched fist into his open palm.
"For starters, we, that being the Founder's Council, are going to do something proactive for a change. Some of you asked why we were late. Well, a few of my fellow like-minded deputies and I working under direction of Pastor Young, have been lacing the town's water supply with Vervain."
The stunned silence in the room was only broken by the gasp of surprise from a few of the seated council members. Ric and Carol exchanged a look that while indecipherable to the others spoke volumes. They both had loved ones and people they cared about that could be harmed in the near future. Looking at his watch, he wondered if they had time to call everyone and warn them before it was too late.
"So, as you all can see my fellow members. It's only a matter of half a dozen hours at the most before we can finally start to ferret out this soulless monster's root and stem," Pastor Young finished.
Mikaelson Mansion
November 22, 2010
Neither of them wanted to intrude when, considering they had been so wrapped up in finally being reunited after all this time, Elena and even Elijah hadn't realized the storm brewing in the foyer of the family mansion.
"Sage my elskede, I don't like this!" Finn said, facing off against his paramour. Elena winced as even she heard the pleading undertones in her brother-in-law's voice. Elena didn't blame him, not in the least.
"Finn love, I'm the only one that can do this and you know it!" the fiery redhead shot back. During their short excursion away from the boys, Elena had come to appreciate her sister-in-law in all but name or by modern parlance still waiting for her suitor to spring the rock or the question on her. She made a mental note to talk to him about it, hopefully not in such a way that would sound outright scandalous to his ancient sensibilities.
Their relationship had to be the longest courtship in recorded history but fortunately for them and Elena's sense of decorum, bringing that particular detail up would only exacerbate the problem.
"No, I won't allow it. There has to be some other way!"
"Did you just say 'No' to me, Finn Mikaelson?" Sage asked sweetly, but her tone and her sudden shift towards a rigid body stance should have been a warning to any male within earshot or eyesight of her. Poor Finn didn't seem to get the hint, unlike everyone else who'd gathered to watch the spectacle.
"Why yes I did-"
"Ouch, that is going to leave a mark," Elena muttered to herself only to realize she'd spoken her thoughts out loud again. She really needed to break that old habit fast. She was reunited with her family in physical form not as an astral projection.
Sage had slammed Finn's body into the wall, knocking over a priceless looking Ming Dynasty vase plus a nice Finn sized dent in the adjoining wall.
"Would you care to say that again to me, sweetheart!?" Sage cooed into his ear.
"Uh-"
Coming to Finn's aid, Elena separated herself from her husband and cleared her throat, drawing her new friend's attention along with her ire.
"Are you going to try stopping me, too?" Sage snarked. However, she did release Finn, allowing him to stand on his own feet.
"Sage, a little context would be helpful," Elena said carefully as she adopted her best diplomatic demeanor. Finn, by all appearances, seemed more shocked than angered by how his significant other was manhandling him in such an unfaltering manner. As if she was reading Elena's thoughts, Sage backed away from Finn but still kept him at arms length from herself.
"You and Elijah just released Stefan, less than ten minutes ago?" Sage asked, more a statement than a question. Elena and Elijah exchanged a look that brought back their recent encounter with the younger Salvatore brother.
Ten minutes earlier:
While Elijah worked on removing the wrist shackles, Elena helped by working on the ones secured around his ankles. Grimacing at the amount of blood that must have pooled around his bare feet before the crimson liquid soaked into the concrete, it would be a miracle if they could remove every trace of it. A blood splatter analyst would have a field day in here Elena thought, trying to keep her gorge down.
The blood was old and while it did send the veins under eyes to twitch almost in anticipation of a meal, she forced that urge to drink it down.
Stefan groaned as his leaden arms dropped to his side, and Elena helped to keep him from falling flat on his face. Collapsing to his knees she helped to keep him upright.
"Lijah, hand me one of the bottles we brought down for him."
After thanking him for opening the bottle up for her, she passed the bottle under his nose, hoping to get a reaction.
"Come on Stefan, I've got some blood for you. Mmmm…. It's warm and delicious blood."
"No blood. Can't start that again-" Stefan mumbled feebly, attempting to push the bottle away from his nose.
Looking up at her husband, Elijah simply shrugged as if he didn't understand the reluctance to drink. By the time she fully considered what might be the issue, she felt like kicking herself.
"Stefan, it's not human blood, if that is what has you concerned. I wouldn't do that to you. I still remember what it did to you the last time. Look I promise that it's animal blood, it might be a few days old but I believe that shouldn't be the problem. Besides, it was one of the bottles you collected yourself. Remember?"
Tilting the bottle so he got a better look, Stefan blinked bleary eyes at it, trying to focus on it and not its contents. Something about the bottle itself must have triggered something in his hazy memory; he instead of speaking simply nodded.
Tilting the bottle into his mouth Elena carefully fed him like he was a starving animal which was too weak to feed itself. While not as potent as human blood, Stefan's preferred diet almost immediately started to revitalize him enough for him to pull the bottle away from her and start feeding himself.
Tossing the bottle to the ground he held out a hand for another bottle, which Elijah readily handed it to him.
"This unfortunately is the last bottle we have of animal blood. These two were the only ones we found on you when we collected from your hunt," Elijah said.
"I… I had two more. I must have dropped them," Stefan said weakly but glared at both Elena and Elijah. When he finished the last one he dropped that bottle to the ground as well. Elena didn't blame him; by his appearance either Klaus or Elijah had made their displeasure of his part in taking her captive. She would ask at a less stressful time about who tortured him. She loved Stefan but wasn't in love with him anymore, yet she didn't want to see him in pain or distress.
"What is going on?" he growled.
"What is going on is that we are keeping our promise, mister Salvatore," Elijah answered, choosing to ignore their guest's attitude for the moment.
"Yes… Stefan, we can drive you home, or if-"
"I would rather walk! I don't think I would want a ride from any of you after-"
"I understand. Can you stand on your own?"
They watched as he struggled to stand, he swayed but refused to be helped any further than he had been until that point. Once he was upright, Elena stood in front of him, eying him critically, looking for signs he was about to collapse despite his bravado about being fit enough.
"Stefan, I'm sorry,"
"What? NO!" He tried backing away but Elena was faster and snatched him by the chin to prevent him from looking away. He seemed too shocked to remember to close his eyes.
Elena peered into his familiar blue eyes, the same set she had found love in once before. Pushing those thought out of her mind instead, she pushed her compulsion into him, finding it was far easier since he was still relatively weak.
"Stefan, when you leave the mansion you will immediately forget that you were given permission to enter and you will not know the identity of the human that gave you permission. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Stefan said robotically, but his look of betrayal stung her deep. She didn't want to do this, but she had to protect her family from the possibility of retaliation.
"Good… Now you will forget that I compelled you. All that you will remember is that we have just released you."
Ending her compulsion, she stepped back as her former boyfriend collected himself. Blinking once, then twice, Stefan glared at Elijah, but his eyes seemed to linger on her before he quickly looked away.
"Can I go now?"
The defeat in his voice tore at her heart and she wondered if there was anything they could do to salvage their friendship or if she should even bother to try.
Present:
"Yes." Elijah answered for them both.
"Then this is our best opportunity to get one of us back inside their place while they are still vulnerable," Sage said, but the mix of confused or horrified expressions made her restate her reasoning.
"Look, I've known both Damon and Stefan off and on over the last century. So it's highly doubtful they would suspect me of being there for ulterior motives, as far as they know I have no connections to the family. Besides, as far as Damon knows, my reason for being back in Mystic Falls was to reconnect with him," Sage tried to reason and at least for Elena and her husband they had to agree with her common sense. Finn's entire body tensed at the unspoken implications of what her prior relationship with Damon Salvatore might have been like. During their shopping trip, Caroline had quite bluntly asked if Sage had been with anyone else. Sage's only response to the question had been just as blunt being that she only loved one man in her life, but a girl also has needs.
"But look what we had to go through just to get Elena back? If they did the same to- I don't know what I would do to this miserable little town to get-" Finn started when his brain finally reconnected to his mouth.
It was hard to hear her eldest brother-in-law showing such vulnerability; he had always been the stoic standoffish one of the Mikaelson siblings. Sage reacted by pulling him in for a lingering kiss that warmed Elena's heart, to see such a public display of affection. It had taken time to get to know her and see how special she was to Finn. Hopefully in the future she would have a new sister-in-law. Feeling eyes on her, Elena found Rebekah smiling at the scene along with Caroline who gave Elena a slight wave.
"Brother, I don't believe that we will be facing the same situation as before. My apologies to you, sister, for mentioning this in light of his actions, but the Eldest Salvatore has broken the good will of the Bennett witches. My hybrids have informed me that the Bennett's have already departed the boarding house. That only leaves the Salvatores and that vampire Lorenzo," Klaus said, giving Elena an apologetic nod for even bringing up those far too recent memories.
Sage pulled Finn closer to her by looping her arms around his neck. "Finn, I can do this. I promise, I will come back to you."
"But-"
"I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't so important to the family."
Sage looked around at the stunned faces arrayed around her before focusing on Klaus and surprisingly self conscious Rebekah. When Elena had been daggered herself she visited Finn once she realized he had regained consciousness despite being daggered. They had talked about Sage and how poorly his siblings, specifically Klaus and Rebekah, had treated her no better than a common peasant in the eleventh century.
"I will not fail, Finn Mikaelson. I will find out what happened to the lumber harvested from the Great White Oak Tree and its last known location."
Finn, while not comfortable with his paramour's decision, he also knew better than to fight against it without causing possible harm to their reunited relationship.
"I… Please, my elskede, just be careful and if you need any assistance, anything at all, contact me like you have previously shown me on that strange device."
Elena tried not to let her grin show too much as she recalled the somewhat private discussion with Sage she had had about catching Finn up on modern conveniences.
While they were on their girls trip out of town. It had taken a rather epic drunken argument which quickly evolved into an all out cat fight between Rebekah and Sage. Caroline and Elena knew they needed to work out their differences. It took almost the entire night. The devastation wrought could have been attributed to a drunken frat party of twenty or thirty party goers. Or so it was made to seem after Caroline and Elena calmed things down with a hefty effort of compelling first the other guests and then the entire hotel staff. As well as a substantial tip charged on her black credit card to assuage Elena's guilt for the sheer amount of destruction inflicted on the entire VIPs suite.
After reassuring him that she would call if she needed help, Sage gave Finn a rather impassioned kiss before she vamp sped away.
Finn forced himself to look away from the direction she had disappeared before giving everyone still present a hard but forlorn look.
"I don't like this," Finn glowered, before he too disappeared up to his apartment suite he'd shared with Sage.
The awkward silence that followed seemed to be reflective of the general mood of everyone present. From Elena's conversations with the eldest Mikaelson while they both were daggered together, Sage had been looked down upon by almost everyone in the family to one degree or another. Even her own husband, Elijah, had disliked how Sage seemed to relish being a vampire, and that was only after their first century as vampires themselves. Sage had been Finn's first person he'd turned not for favor or control, but for love.
Not for the first time did Elena wonder how things might have been, if she had been with her family sharing their experiences both the good and bad, instead of being first hidden away in a cave then locked in a coffin.
A forced cough made all of them look over at Elena's childhood friend standing off to the side of the foyer with the same travel suitcase she'd brought with her sitting beside her on the marble flooring.
"Care, why are you leaving now? I thought-" Elena started but her friend held up a hand for her to stop, which she did but didn't attempt to hide her confusion. Hadn't her mother wanted her to stay with them until Liz Forbes or her former husband ascertained what Pastor Young was up to with regard to the Founder's Council?
"I know what my mom said about the council, but I need to get a few things from home," Caroline said then looked down at her hands, which was odd. Her friend almost seemed hesitant to continue but when she did Elena understood why. She hadn't really thought through the full implications of her being back in the present. She was a married woman with children of her own and, although to most of the residence of Mystic Falls Elena had only been gone for a relatively short time, but after a thousand years- five hundred of which she was conscious- she honestly couldn't remember what her classes were or even her locker combination. Maybe there might be another use of Katherine's presence, Elena considered silently.
"Besides, I really do need to finish an extracurricular paper for my honors lit class. Sorry Lena, I forgot to mention this before now, but while you were um… gone, I'd pestered our teacher for the opportunity and she finally gave me permission last month. If I do well enough in paper and class presentation, she'd promised to write a recommendation letter for me. Unfortunately all of my research notes are still in my room. If I don't hand it in by tomorrow, I won't get the letter Misses Patterson promised me."
Elena's eyes blinked, and she had to mentally parse through everything Caroline had just said in such a rush she wondered if her friend had rehearsed saying everything in one go beforehand. It wouldn't be the first time she'd done that, Elena reflected.
"Um… If you're sure. Not trying to pry, but I overheard your mom while you were talking and she did seem rather concerned about how Pastor Young has been growing more aggressive and demanding within the council," Elena said carefully.
"I'm sure. I'm just going back to my place. Besides, what can happen in my own home?" Caroline stated, not really expecting an answer from her friend. If she had, Elena would have reminded her of the half a dozen things that had happened to her in her own home; but Caroline didn't give Elena a chance to answer a rather glib question.
"So I'll spend some time finishing proofing my paper, then get some sleep. Although I will freely admit that I will miss the shower I currently have in my suite here, but driving back here just for a shower before heading off for school seemed too much of an imposition on your family's generosity."
They said their goodbyes and everyone started to retire for the evening. After checking on their children who were sleeping peacefully in the nursery, Elena was finally alone with her husband.
Taking his wife into his arms, he for now just held her, looking into her lovely brown eyes as if he was trying to memorize every detail of them before finally leaning down to kiss her on the forehead. Wanting something more, Elena quickly tilted her head far enough that his lips instead touched hers. The feeling of them connecting was electric. He had always been a good kisser, Elena reflected, but the pleasant wetness building between her thighs made him growl when he finally scented her growing arousal.
"A nice long hot shower does sound like a rather good idea right about now, I must confess, my elskede," Elijah's voice was husky with need and who was she to deny him the opportunity. They had yet to christen their shower and Caroline had been right; when her brother in law had been designing their home he had spared no expense on the quality of the suite's rainfall shower head and temperature selectable water jets accouterments.
"After you, lovely Elena." Elena could feel the blood flood into her cheeks making them grow hot. It never ceased to astound her how his mere use of her name could bring forth such a reaction. The mischievous part of herself wondered if her using his name did the same thing to him as well.
Not entirely letting go of his hand, she trailed their still joined hands behind her as she led them both towards their apartment suite. She could feel his eyes on her back tracing down the curve of her hips, and her heart skipped in anticipation of what was to come. What little time remained of the evening was going to be more than just a pleasant homecoming, if the sly grin on her lips were a sure indicator of intimate things to come.
