I do not own TVD or TO.
2011
Fashion hadn't changed much in the last century. The lines of the suit were a little neater and the jacket a little shorter, but the integrity of the evening attire remained the same; nothing like the drastic shift in style after his last awakening.
Men's fashion, anyway.
A glance at his sister revealed that women's style had met with drastic alterations. The brilliant paint a manicurist applied to her nails would have been considered a great scandal a hundred years ago and labeled her as a prostitute, but in the newest century it was perfectly acceptable for women to colour their nails – expected even. That was nothing compared to her clothes.
Women in trousers; he had only ever seen one woman in trousers and she had abandoned them in favor of socially acceptable attire.
He straightened his jacket, picturing how it would look once finished. He couldn't remember the last time he had worn something so formal for a formal occasion, but he found he didn't have the power to refuse his mother's request as he would have Elijah.
"Rebekah?" He glanced at her in the mirror, taking pains to keep away his glare; mother had said no fighting, and he knew he wouldn't get away with it if he were to attack Rebekah as he had his brother. Revenge against his sister would have to be well thought out. "Tell me how handsome I am."
"Ah, Kol," she flipped a page in her magazine with her finished hand, "you know I can't be compelled."
When he saw her in the mirror her mouth had been stretched into a tight smirk with a hint of hope at the corners, but his eyes held no true amusement. It was false cheer and pressurized smiles; mother could say whatever she wanted, cast her wishes to the fire, but they were not a family anymore and they hadn't been in centuries.
He couldn't begrudge Finn his genuine grin though; his eldest brother was the only one who remained in the dark over the last century's events and deserved some amusement after having spent hundreds of years in the confines of his coffin.
The door burst open and his teeth clenched.
He waved off the tailor, turned and lounged casually against the mirror. His dark eyes tracked Klaus' tense stride across the floor.
"You went after my doppelganger?" He roared halfway across the room. "What is wrong with you?"
"Here we go," Rebekah muttered, rolling her eyes. She flipped another page and scrutinized a black and gold dress.
"Do you want another dagger in your heart?" Klaus tore the glossy paper from her hands, chucking it into a far corner of the room.
"Again with the dagger threats?" Kol scoffed. His muscles tensed, holding him in position. "Don't you have any other tricks?"
"Go back to staring at yourself," Klaus grumbled, glancing over his shoulder.
"And who are you," he straightened up, "my father?"
"No, Kol," he growled, "but you're in my house."
"Then perhaps we should go outside," he stepped into Klaus' personal space. A muscle in his jaw ticked. He itched for a fight, for a reason to throw a punch and mess up his brother's face for a few hours.
Tension shifted, percolating between them, and if he had still possessed magic his brother would have been a writhing mess.
"Enough!"
Their staring contest was broken up by a sharp feminine voice. He glanced from the corner of his eye, but otherwise kept his stance.
"Niklaus," Esther motioned for him to follow, "come."
Kol smirked, watching as his brother trailed out of the room with slumped shoulders.
The moment had finally arrived after an eternity of waiting; he was in there. She knew it.
She could feel it.
She rocked back and forth on her heels – yet another habit she had never been able to shake. Half of her brain whispered 'stop it', but the other half said 'don't'; the shifting movement gave the impression of fear and implied to anyone that looked in her direction that she was still the human being she pretended to be, so she shifted and waited for her back-up.
"It's so weird," Bonnie crossed her arms on the table. She reached out and popped one of Caroline's fries into her mouth. "The Originals are throwing a ball, an actual ball. Did Klaus really give you a dress?"
"Yes," Caroline scoffed, waving a fry around, "and it's a freaking Cinderella fetish, is what it is." She dropped the fry in her open mouth and turned her full attention on Elena. "Why does the evil witch want an audience with you?"
"Do you think she knows?" Bonnie lowered her voice and resumed flipping through the grimoire Elena had brought with her from New Orleans. The loose pages with drawn objects shifted and nearly fell from the book.
"Knows what?" Elena glanced around the Grill. She saw no other supernaturals in the restaurant, but she still leaned in close to breathe the words. "Does she know that her oldest daughter lives and bent the laws of nature to turn the last doppelganger into an Original vampire-witch hybrid?"
"Yeah," Caroline rolled her eyes.
She leaned back, shrugging one shoulder. A hint of a grin played at the edge of her lips. "I have no idea, and there is only one way to find out."
"I thought you told the Salvatores you weren't going?" Bonnie glanced at Caroline. Her slim fingers folded a page that had fallen from the book.
"I did," Elena nodded, "which is why I need a drama free bodyguard."
"But you don't need a body guard," Caroline whispered.
"I know that," Elena tilted her head, "and you know that, but Damon and Stefan don't. This is the closest I've come since 1923, and I need your help, Care." Her eyes focused on Bonnie. "Why didn't you tell me about the coffins?"
"I thought you'd disapprove and then we left for New Orleans and it didn't matter because they had been given back," she shrugged.
"But you could have told me on the drive back," Elena frowned.
"I didn't see much point," she closed the grimoire, toying with the sheet of paper. "They'd been given back, and for all I knew Klaus had dropped them at the bottom of the ocean again. He's got resources; he could have hidden them away within an hour of getting them."
Elena tightened her glittering shawl around her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. Her friends were right, she didn't need a bodyguard and she had no reason to wait.
She knew what the look had meant; she was sure she had known what it meant.
"Careful, ladies," Rebekah stopped at their table, "it's all well and good until she stabs you in the back."
"What are you doing here?" She leaned back, crossing her arms. "I know your mom's rules: no hurting the locals." A frown flickered over her face when Rebekah looked down.
She dragged her wide eyes back up and schooled her features back into her usual mask of disdain, but Elena had seen where the blonde's gaze had lingered.
"Get over yourself, Elena," she cocked an eyebrow, glancing again at the locket, "it's not all about you."
Nearly a century had passed since Klaus had last brought her there to give blood, and the place looked bigger, or maybe that was a result of the crowd of glittering neighbors; their voices rose from every corner, making it impossible to distinguish a single conversation.
She knew every person in the room, but none of them knew her, not anymore.
Mayor Lockwood's voice rose over the crowd, crystal clear as she shared a whispered conversation with Damon. She just resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the sound of his voice. She started to tune out the conversation – to let it drift back into the cacophony of noise – but then she caught the tail end of an introduction in a voice she had longed to hear.
"… I hope your lovely town embraces us just as much as we plan to embrace it."
Her head snapped up. She looked out over the crowd with baited breath, curing Klaus' architect when she couldn't pinpoint the voices.
"Damon Salvatore. Have we met?"
"I've met a lot of people, and you don't particularly stand out."
She couldn't see him, but the haughtiness in his voice formed a lump in her throat. She swallowed it and kept looking as she adjusted her gloves. She heard Damon excuse himself from Carol Lockwood, but she was too busy trying to find him that she didn't realize where Damon was going until it was too late.
"I thought you weren't coming," she masked her annoyance. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same question," Stefan appeared on her left.
"Surprise, surprise," Damon smirked at his brother, "you're not supposed to be here."
"Well, I am," Elena sighed as the statement was directed at her. She had rarely used her compulsion – aside from 'snatch-eat-erase' in her early years – but she found herself wishing they were vervain free; maybe then she could have gotten them off her back. "And I'm not leaving until I find what I came for."
She flashed them a tight smile, twisted sideways and slid between them to slip into the crowd of glittering townsfolk. If she was going to deal with Stefan and Damon then she was going to need a drink before their protectiveness drove her to reveal her nature and sink her teeth into the nearest human neck.
Her gloved fingers tapped out a pattern on the bar as she waited to be noticed, but before the bartender spotted her a tall man appeared at her side, melting from the crowd.
"Elena Gilbert, I presume?" He watched her from the corner of his eyes. "I'm Finn Mikaelson. You're here to see my mother."
I'm here to find your brother, she tipped her head up. He was as tall as Kol and older than Elijah. I suppose I can see your mother too.
"Is she here?"
Finn glanced over his shoulder and cocked an eyebrow.
"Her request did not include your friends."
Elena followed his eyes to see Damon moving towards them and her annoyance flared.
"They're protecting me," she lifted her eyes. It was true, as was the reason for them to want to. "You may not know it, but your mother tried to kill me once," ninety-seven years ago.
Finn didn't laugh at her attempted joke; he looked in her eyes in what she thought was meant to be an intimidating manner, and she supposed it was.
The Original family were the only vampires on earth stronger than her.
"If you want to see my mother, you'll need to be alone."
He glowered at the glass in his hand and did his level best to ignore the grating sound of his brother's voice. He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. The world was a large enough place that he could find some quiet corner of it and avoid the sham Elijah was currently calling a family.
They hadn't been a family in a long time.
The last thing he wanted was to stay in the town where his baby brother had died and where his half-brother was exploiting another doppelganger. He didn't want to spend time with his family, and he did not – under any circumstances – want to see her.
He didn't want to see the physical reminder of the woman he had failed, but because he was cursed – there was no other explanation for it – he lifted his eyes and spotted a stunning brunette on the far side of the ballroom slowly turning away from the bar.
Pain gripped his chest when he saw the profile he hadn't seen since 1914. What had been her final thoughts in that bloody cottage? Had she hated him in the end?
He wanted to look away, tear his eyes from her angelic face and stop the torment. He could remember the days when his heart was as black as his name before he had helped her and before she had breathed light back into his soul.
He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. His eyes were glued to her as she finished her turn and his depression threatened to descend when he caught her eyes. From his place on the stairs he couldn't quite make out the shift in her gaze, but he knew her breath had caught and that if she didn't breathe soon she would be in danger of passing out.
She must have realized the fact because she sucked in a rush of air and her chest rose. The light caught a glint of silver around her neck and suddenly it was his turn to be breathless.
Elijah's smooth voice broke him from her spell.
"If you could all find yourselves a partner, and please join us in the ballroom."
For a second he stood frozen on the stairs with his eyes trained on her, but then she moved. She made it precisely three steps before her path was blocked by the raven-haired vampire he had met earlier. He hurried to descend the stairs.
"Where do you think you're going?" Rebekah arched a perfect brow.
"You heard Elijah," he flashed a tight smile, "I've got to find a partner." He was too focused on the brunette's conversation to notice Rebekah's returned smile.
"Was I not clear this morning?" Damon tilted his head.
"I was invited," she sighed.
He felt his breath catch again when he heard her voice; unfortunately her voice was quickly interrupted by Damon.
"You have to tell me before you walk into the lion's den."
"Why, so you can stop me?" Her hands landed on her hips.
"Yeah," he scoffed.
Kol stiffened when Damon held out his hand.
"It would be rude not to dance," he smiled.
Kol came to a stop beside Damon, giving the extended hand a pointed look. He couldn't stop the condescending tone when he addressed him.
"That is no way to ask a woman to dance," he turned his eyes back to her and grasped her hand. "Allow me to formally introduce myself, Kol Mikaelson," he kissed her knuckles and heard her heart skip, "at your service, darling."
Damon looked from her to Kol with narrowed eyes and an open mouth.
"You're not seriously considering this," he scoffed, glaring when she didn't remove her hand from Kol's grip.
Kol ignored Damon in favor of her. He didn't know how she was in front of him, or how she had gotten the locket, but he fully intended to find out.
"Would you do me the honour of joining me in a dance?"
"I'd be delighted…"
"Elena," Damon snapped.
"You should find a partner Damon," she turned her cool gaze on him, but for Kol she had a smile. "I feel like I've been waiting ninety-seven year for a good partner."
She placed her gloved palm on the back of Kol's hand and stepped out onto the dancefloor. She heard Damon's voice when she was still in human ear shot.
"I'll catch you when we change partners."
"No, he won't," Kol smirked. He took his place and bowed at the waist. "I promise you that, darling."
"Right," Elena dropped into a short curtsey, "and you always keep your word."
He might have been offended, or thought that she was if not for the teasing tilt of her mouth; an expression he never thought he would see again.
"How?" He pulled her close.
She could feel the heat from his palm through her dress; it sank under her skin and pooled in her belly.
"I tend to make friends in the craziest places," she smirked.
"I'd love to hear more about these friends," he moved through the steps of the dance with ease.
"What a shame our time together is so short," she sighed dramatically.
He pulled her closer and felt her heart skip. His eyes flickered around the room; Klaus was enamoured with a blonde vampire on the other side of the floor.
"Do you trust me?" He met her eyes.
"Well," Elena tilted her head, biting her lip to hide her smile, "we did just meet."
"Take a leap of faith, darling," He cocked his head to the side as the music swelled; thirty seconds and it would be time to switch.
She nodded once, imperceptible to the dancers around them. Nobody noticed the rush of air or the suddenly empty spot on the floor until it was filled in.
Rebekah found her way into Klaus' arms for the second round of dancing and immediately noticed the stiffening of his spine.
"Where has Kol run off to?" His eyes narrowed.
"He's been saying that he wants nothing to do with any of us," she rolled her eyes. "He probably used the distraction to run off."
"He was dancing with my doppelganger," he growled.
"It's not all about Elena," she scoffed.
He gave her a look and she made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. "Kol's not Elijah; he doesn't go after every doppelganger, but if you must know your precious Elena went outside for air."
Here we go :D