A.N.: Um, anyone else fall in absolute lust with Caspar Zafer when he reappeared at the end of The Originals S03E15? That new haircut? Touch of grey at the temples, that tan, that smirk, the fitted shirts? Just me? Made me swoon such as I haven't since Elijah first appeared at Rose's door. I have plans for them, BTW – Rose and Finn.


Dangerous Beauty

10

Introspection


"I wish you'd sit down. Make yourself comfortable," Giulia murmured, her pale eyes on her numerous textbooks, notepads, letters and Post Its all piled on a beautiful desk, her neat glasses flashing the reflected light of her laptop-screen. The perfect reminder of her very human vulnerability. And yet he found it difficult to associate vulnerable with Giulia Salvatore. The strong, mature young woman may be considered adolescent in this time; in any other, she would have ruled duchies, a few children being educated on Voltaire and Rousseau in the nursery already, her husband at her knees, staggered by her cleverness, her maturity. Her elegance.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, working furiously in her library. Elegant was far from how he would describe her outfit – baggy grey pants cut off at the knee, a black tank-top with sinuous racer-back straps, her dark hair pulled into a bun, a highlighter and a pen stuck through it – but there was an intensity to her that made everything else fade away. She was entrancing. He could watch her work for hours – it was the only thing that soothed him.

For a very long time, Elijah had been an expert at hiding his feelings. Lagertha used to warn that still waters ran deep with him, and he knew it to be true; but this situation was different. He was having a difficult time keeping everything compartmentalised. And Giulia's presence alone seemed to help soothe the greatest part of his agitation, the helpless, nauseous feeling, the self-loathing and desperation he had felt for days, trying to reconcile what he had planned.

He had no way of excusing it to himself what he was going to do.

How did one reconcile murdering one brother to rescue half a dozen other siblings? And Gyda…

Were they all worth it?

It was a hateful acknowledgement, but deep in his heart Elijah had always known the truth. They were absolutely worth it. He had worked a thousand years toward his youngest brother's absolution and yet in that millennium Niklaus had consistently proven how unworthy he was of it. That tiny kernel of doubt from Aurore so many hundreds of years ago, he had tucked away, never daring to believe it, hating that deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew. Knew it to be true, and yet feared and hated that truth, had wilfully lived in defiance of that crushing reality for a thousand years in hope

Niklaus had repaid that faith with dishonour, punishing those who loved him and yet dared try to build a life without him. His ever-growing paranoia had warred with his need for control to the most minute degree – if Elijah let himself believe in that damning truth he had stolen from Aurore's lips a millennium ago, all Klaus' actions to control and torment his siblings, horrifyingly, made sense. As long as Niklaus controlled his siblings, he controlled what they knew of him.

They did not know Niklaus had betrayed them all long before they had ever made that damning vow – the vow he had held over their heads for eternity. Niklaus had forsaken them all in favour of his own needs and desires long before any of them had ever been confident enough to think of striking out on their own.

Part of him was tempted to raise Mikael from that mausoleum in South Carolina, just to allow him to deal with Niklaus. Yet Mikael was crueller still than Niklaus. The massacre in Marseille a millennium ago – remembered to history as a plague that had halved the population of the great sea-port in mere months – had only hinted at the lengths Mikael would go to in his efforts to annihilate the bastard son who so disgraced him. And yet if Elijah reflected on what Aurore had told him, his father's actions…were not unwarranted, as Niklaus had always claimed them to be.

The rage of being cuckolded, as Niklaus believed Father had been, could not last a thousand years. Mikael had not sought revenge for a thousand years because his wife had borne children by another man.

And yet how did Elijah try to explain the punishing dynamics of his dysfunctional family to Giulia, in the hopes she would aid him – or at the very least understand his motivations? Why the conclusion of the millennium had finally spurred him to action against his brother – to attempt to kill one brother in the hopes he could reunite the others. Those Elijah loved, those Niklaus had deprived of life. Because he had to be the centre of attention, like a petulant eight-year-old.

How did he explain to Giulia exactly the kind of villain Niklaus was without pouring every secret he had ever kept to her? And how would she respond to that knowledge, his family's darkest secrets?

He was perfectly able to carry out this task by himself. He had everything he needed, two capable witches with strong motivations of their own; Katerina had done all the work for him recruiting a werewolf, and yet even as a seventeen-year-old scholar Elijah saw in Giulia the potential to become a truly extraordinary woman…a humbling adversary.

Something about her had been niggling at his memories for months, her mannerisms, the glorious resonance of her voice, soft and husky and filled with licentious promise and irony, her extraordinary intelligence – her education – and her incomparable beauty. Those cheekbones and those breasts were the kind Elijah would never forget in another ten millennia.

And, he had to admit it to himself, Elijah…did not want to do this alone.

All his immortal life, but for tiny stolen pockets of time cushioned in his memory like stingless honey-bees nestling their treasure inside the trunks of ancient trees, Elijah had been alone. By his own design, by necessity, by experience having learned better… One day soon Niklaus would resurface and if Elijah failed to kill him all those immediately connected with him would suffer, he had seen it far too many times not to learn from his mistakes, from Niklaus' lack of remorse, empathy.

He knew what would happen should he fail.

His actions must be swift and merciless, as Niklaus would never expect.

Elijah was honourable. The Original with a conscience, upstanding and dutiful, he had a reputation as being the level-headed, clever one, approachable but unyielding, stern and yet forgiving. He valued honesty, integrity and above all loyalty – and he knew that above all things loyalty, love, motivated people far more effectively than supernatural compulsion. It built up empires and tore hearts in two, provoked people to do things they never believed they were ever capable of doing. And yet he had seen it again and again throughout his interminable life; people did anything, no matter their moral scruples, to protect the people they loved. Even if it meant betraying everything they thought they stood for.

Would his brothers and sisters forgive him, would Gyda forgive him, for doing what he knew he had to?

Given what he had forced them to suffer through over the thousand years they had walked this earth, Elijah knew his family – knew they would all, without hesitation, say yes. Yes, they would forgive him.

Perhaps not Rebekah, not fully. She would understand, and her freedom would be staggering to her, and yet she had always been closest with Niklaus. She had a pathological fear of being left behind – a consequence of Niklaus consistently murdering any whom Rebekah dared love, leaving her no-one but Niklaus to turn to. To earn his ire was abhorrent to her – it meant her isolation. A life of her own, on her own? She had been Niklaus' champion long before any oath they had sworn beside Mother's pyre. Loyal to him out of both love and hatred. Rebekah knew she could have no happiness without Niklaus, and yet he frequently stripped her of any happiness she dared seek for herself.

Elijah was determined that never again would Klaus harm their family. He knew he would have to kill Niklaus to ensure that.

So be it.

But explaining that to someone like Giulia… She knew too much already. She was dangerous. If he played this the wrong way she could become a force to be reckoned with – he had no idea what she knew about his family already, but she was unusually clever, too intuitive, and now with her friendships to Carafina, Slater in his Scandinavian internet-café, even Ashlyn, Elijah feared she was too well-connected not to piece together his history. To reveal every pitfall and flaw of his character… He desperately didn't want her to look at him with blame or disdain or hatred in her eyes.

She was too invested in the situation to be coerced into inaction – and yet farsighted enough to realise she could use an ally like him.

And yet there was another danger. There was another ancient, powerful vampire, merciless and selfish, whose greatest flaw was in believing beautiful women could not resist him. Giulia was just such an extraordinary beauty Klaus would be drawn to like a moth to flame, Elijah had seen it too many times, watched Klaus become entranced, reel the girl in, and destroy her. He couldn't help it; his personality was now hardwired to destroy everything he touched. Too many times Elijah had cleaned up the messes, honoured the dead, soothed ruffled feelings, he…took care of his brother. Every awful thing he had ever done, Elijah was there to clean up the mess. And he could name every young woman Niklaus had been entranced by, and then destroyed – through cruelty, paranoia, irresponsibility, narcissism and neglect. Niklaus had always demanded everything of his lovers, secretly desiring them to get him to bare his soul, accept him for all his secrets, and yet disdainful and suspicious when they did.

Elijah wanted Giulia even as he dreaded her involvement with Niklaus – her bond with her friends, her relationship with the notorious Salvatore brothers, her insatiable intelligence were all extraordinary gifts Elijah knew he could use to make his plan move a lot more swiftly than if he struggled trying to approach the brothers so diligent in keeping the doppelganger safe.

With Giulia's influence, and the potion he had acquired centuries ago, surely there was potential for Elijah to convince the brothers, and Miss Gilbert, to allow the sacrifice to take its natural course. The hope of a life after the sacrifice, a life without Klaus in it…even for those who had never met Klaus, his reputation was such that they desired never to feel his influence touch upon their lives.

And yet with the doppelganger's face appearing on social-media, time was running out.

One wouldn't have known it, watching Giulia Salvatore, but then – she was human. And so blissfully young; the world was entirely new to her. She believed she did have all the time in the world. Humans always did – until, suddenly, their time ran out.

He frowned, watching her across the beautiful hand-crafted desk laden with research books, notepads and Post Its, spinning a slim highlighter and pen between her fingers expertly as she read, flipping from book to book, pale eyes zooming across the pages, hand moving fluidly across her notebook. A cup of coffee steamed in the sunlight blazing through the window, and he marvelled again that she was only seventeen years old. He had met hundred-year-old vampires without the level of gravity and maturity she lived by.

Elijah turned away; when Giulia was working there was no distracting her. Nothing to distract him but the fascination of watching Giulia absorb knowledge. He'd learned quickly that there was no hope catching up with Giulia's projects – the moment he tried to immerse himself in what she was researching, she had found the answers she was looking for and had already moved on to four other projects. He used his new surroundings to distract himself, curious about how psychologically revealing Giulia's home was about its owner.

Hidden away in woods owned by her family for centuries, perched on the edge of a small lake likewise owned by the Salvatore family, the structure that had emerged through the trees was not one he had expected. An understated, sleek modern building with traditional themes that had been cleverly designed to blend with its surroundings, gleaming wood and walls of glass giving no hint of the interiors.

Giulia's home was stunningly beautiful, and incomplete. The sheer elegance of it lay in the rich, contrasting textures, moody, romantic tones of grey, navy, charcoal. Polished floors in herringbone, granite and tile, dark, shimmering wallpapers that caught the light of unusual chandeliers, gleaming marble countertops, sleek and modern with a timeless feel to the architecture, high ceilings panelled with wood, hidden coving filled with light refracted to the ceiling, panoramic glass windows just beneath the ceiling in the main living-area bringing in natural light during the day. Different areas of the open-plan living quarters were sectioned off with different flooring, wallpapers and ceiling finishes blending seamlessly into each other very cleverly. The beautiful parquet floors, the unusual tree-stump coffee-table, a driftwood and hand-blown glass pendant chandelier in the kitchen above a seamless marble island, the rich glow of copper, added warmth to an otherwise modern house made minimalist by such recent habitation. The architect had worked with the slope of the hill leading to the lake, utilising the layout of the house to create different levels to the house, the trees outside to give both privacy and stunning views for the resident. Everything was elegant, timeless, pared-back, each detail in every room had been painstakingly thought out, traditionalist architecture combined with mid-century modern and contemporary themes, wide open areas, different levels, and elegant lighting, a moody, romantic, stunning canvas already imbued with such rich details for a truly personal feel.

She had barely started to decorate, and with such a stunning building, Giulia's home in itself was a work of art. It had been designed for her by someone thoughtful, who knew her, or had guessed their influence on her, the person she would become. Truly appreciative of the beauty around her, disinclined to fill the beautiful house with stuff but putting as much thought and care into what she did decorate as she did with everything else in her life. There were few pieces of furniture, but what Giulia had picked out were pieces of a timeless design or unusual beauty: a beautiful hand-made desk in neo-Louis style, topped with leather; warm metallic cushions on the tufted cognac-leather sofa in the 'den' with a large fluffy carpet and an exquisite upright-piano glowing golden in light bathing it from above; a glittering absinthe tap on the marble island in the kitchen, lots of glossy greenery and fragrant herbs and delicate flowering plans in the largest, formal room, fresh herbs, a ghost-pepper plant in the kitchen. A beautiful, simple drinks cabinet propped on sinuous legs, opened to reveal a diamond-paned mirrored interior and an unusual pick-and-mix of glasses. A shallow wooden dish of hand-carved spinning-tops, her collection of star-puzzles, unusual vases, an antique hourglass on a swivel and art books decorated the huge tree-stump coffee-table in the formal room, a large model train on a long, narrow table in one corridor, an ornate crystal candelabrum on an antique dresser in another corridor, with an voyeuristic Cecily Brown, Van Gogh-inspired painting hanging above it, drawing the eye with warming, inspiring orangey-yellow hues almost incongruous to the setting.

Elijah could see hints of the atmospheric Boarding House, in some of the things she had obviously taken from her old family home. A crystal decanter; a life-size marble statue of an infant boy; a small oil painting by a Dutch master in an ornate gold frame propped on a polished mid-century modern sideboard with a model Aston Martin DB5; a stunning antique English tea-set glittering in a glass-fronted cabinet; a Faberge box; a matched set of ivory elephants, beautifully engraved; a glittering head-sized chunk of bourbon-hued smoky quartz; a sleek record-player and a large collection of vintage records she had obviously pilfered from her vampire relatives' collections.

It was a far cry from the cluttered Victorian sanctuary she had grown up in, but by no means less isolated than the Boarding House, nicknamed throughout Mystic Falls as "the creepiest place in town". He could imagine the sparse beauty of the building had drawn Giulia, an opportunity to start afresh, build something of her own rather than work with what she had inherited in the Boarding House, trying to leave a mark on something that had a personality of its own, transcending the generations it had been built for. She had left that sprawling mansion to the relatives who so clearly loved it more than she did. He supposed the Boarding House had seemed like home to them far longer than it had to Giulia, but it was a shame she had been run out of her home by unfeeling relatives. He knew that sensation far too well. Only he hadn't had a haven like this to embrace as his own. A thousand years ago he had found some sanctuary in a medieval castle – only after being removed from its dungeons and invited to live as a guest of the noble family who ruled the surrounding lands. As ever, if he dared let thoughts of the Countess sift through his consciousness, or when they sprang up, unbidden, unexpected, knocking him over, he felt it like a sucker-punch, it caught his breath, seized his heart, made his knees weak, simultaneously filled his chest with a burning, cramping ache and left it void of anything, weightless and disoriented. The first woman he had ever loved as a vampire – as such no other woman could ever live up to her. As a vampire his emotions had been heightened exponentially; and his mother had always been so afraid of how deep the still waters ran with him, too like her not to realise the danger of how much he felt everything. Even if he rarely let it show.

Of all of his siblings, Elijah had always been afraid he was most like their mother. Willing to go to any extreme to protect his family…

It had been a long time since he had allowed thoughts of Lucrezia out of the neat box he had painstakingly, over many decades, tucked them into. But it was the single photograph of a younger couple, grinning lazily in each other's arms on a rope-swing in a sun-dappled creek, that brought thoughts of her rushing back. The photograph, the woman in it, stomach gently swollen with pregnancy, Elijah had little more than glanced at her face before doing a double-take, at first thinking it was her, Lucrezia – then, possibly Giulia herself, before he noticed the bump of a child growing, promising… It wasn't Lucrezia, and it wasn't Giulia either, for all they looked so similar. He swallowed the lump in his throat, blinked eyes dazed from memory and shock, and focused on the features, so familiar and yet at the same time, alien. This was not Giulia in the photograph, but Giulia's resemblance to the two people, man and wife – a narrow gold band glinted on the woman's finger with a single pearl he recognised from Giulia's own hand, was staggering. It was commonly accepted that it was eerie Giulia looked so like her great-grandfather, several generations removed, they could be twins. But Giulia clearly got a good deal of her looks from her mother; on Giulia her mother's bone-structure had been sharpened, much more intense, striking in her own way from her mother's beauty, her cheekbones were extraordinary, eyes paler and more cutting than her mother's blazing dark-sapphire jewels. Giulia had the shape of her father's eyebrows and lips, softened by the lush plumpness of her mother's, her mother's beautiful fingers but her father's large, clever hands. He peered closer at the old photograph – he guessed Giulia had the exact same beauty-spots peppering her chest that her mother's dress revealed, and he knew she had those three small moles on her left arm that her father had. Unlike her mother, Giulia's skin was not a rich olive, she was fair as her father with her mother's dark hair. Her father's pale eyes made prettier, her mother's full dark lashes.

It was astonishing to see the exquisite mixture of mother and father mingled in their child, the gamble with genetics, the chance – out of millions of options, what they had created together was Giulia. Their likenesses combined, perfected and polished, made unique. He could see her in them, though they were both gone… His stomach ached, a hollow pang he felt in his numb fingertips, wincing. It had been so long since he had seen Gyda, and yet her face had not changed in a thousand years. Would never alter. And yet he had forgotten what her mother's face was like. There were no photographs, only memories; and he had a millennium of those all fighting for attention. Some memories shone brightly in his mind, every detail fleshed out and visceral, evoking his senses, or vice versa, his senses flinging him back to ages past; others were murky, intangible, confusing. He remembered her, his wife, by the curve of her nose, the faded ink pattern on her thigh, the raised scar behind her knee, in the shape of their daughter's face, her smile. The two of them, combined to make the last remnant of his wife gifted to the world long after she had left it.

He didn't even have a photograph of Gyda. Portraits, yes. But nothing he could fold into his wallet, nothing to keep saved to his phone, the way humans took for granted their privilege of being able to carry with them their loved-ones' likenesses. So they could never forget.

"Are you okay?" a gentle voice asked. Giulia appeared, peering concernedly at him. He didn't know how long he'd been standing staring at the photograph in his hands, but he hadn't heard Giulia approaching. He swallowed, setting the frame down, nodding mutely. Giulia approached, fiddling with a hair-tie, untying the thick glossy braid draped over her shoulder, threading her fingers through the shining coils, using a comb to create a sharp centre-part. Wandering around her house, he hadn't heard Giulia changing her outfit.

"Mm," he said noncommittally, tucking his hands into his pockets, a bad habit he had picked up only in the last century. Otherwise he tended to fiddle with things, giving away his emotions through trembling fingers or clenched fists. He was a tactile person by nature, he adored touch, he appreciated textures and loved the feel of the organic in a world increasingly plasticised. The grain of wood, the hum and whistle of sheet-metal, the whisper of fur, the chill of granite, the warmth of a woman's body. He inhaled, Giulia's freshly-applied perfume lingering on the air, mingled with the warmth and natural scent of her skin. He did a double-take. She was wearing light makeup, a pretty top. "You look very lovely."

Her smile truly transformed her face, no longer intense, stern. Terrifying. Her smile illuminated her features, pale eyes sparkling like sunlight diffusing through quartz. Her smile softened the intense features, warmth radiating from her, there was a sweetness to her smile that unsettled him. There were many facets to Giulia's personality, and he liked the tender, intimate side of her as much as the feisty, ironic smart-ass, the fun, sexy vixen, the awe-inspiring Valkyrie.

"Thank you," she said, with an unexpected blush. Giulia was not a girl who had grown up being told how beautiful she was. She had been raised knowing she was fiercely clever, talented, loyal, accountable. Mature and responsible; the dead man in the photograph had been a good man. Elijah didn't have to meet Giulia's father to know; Elijah knew it by knowing his daughter.

"Are you going out?"

"Aunt Jenna's is hosting a cookout," Giulia said, with a sigh and a grimace that told him a lot about her feelings on having received an invitation.

"It is nice of her to include you," Elijah said. Giulia spoke of the doppelganger's aunt and guardian, Jenna, with affection; she respected the slightly older woman who had given up everything for her orphaned niece and nephew, balancing her own instincts with the desire to do her best by them, trying to impart her own hard-earned wisdom on two kids who did not want to hear it, all the while she struggled with wanting to be their friend, but needing to be the enforcer, the emotional sounding-board, the warrior fending off every bad thing, picking up the pieces when she couldn't prevent everything falling apart.

"You've not had Jenna's cooking," Giulia said, with a teasing smile. That explained the food Giulia had been preparing at six a.m. this morning: a cilantro-lime cucumber salad; artichoke hearts and homemade aioli; Greek filo-pastry spanakopita triangles with homemade tzatziki; and eggplants filled with fresh feta, spring-onions, cherry-tomatoes and sliced figs, wrapped in foil to be grilled. He had enjoyed himself this morning, sipping strong, fragrant fresh-ground coffee, watching Giulia cook. Just talking. They hadn't discussed the song he had played for her last night, but after he had finished playing, she had looked at him in a way that told him the music had touched every part of her soul, drenched her with some of the same feelings he had been harbouring for a millennia, missing someone he had lost forever.

"Anyway, it's calculated – Damon mentioned to Ric who suggested to Jenna she have a cookout to welcome her old school-friend, Mason Lockwood, back to town," Giulia said, rolling her steely eyes.

"Ah," Elijah said slowly. He knew a little of the Lockwood family, more than Giulia had before stealing the diaries she had been poring over recently. One could not exist within the supernatural community without the oldest supernatural in history learning even a tiny detail about them; a now-dead generation of Lockwoods had triggered their curses during the Vietnam War and made a nuisance of themselves in the Virginia forests for several years. Before they were dealt with. "Damon is running reconnaissance on your new neighbour."

"Since Katherine's glacial rejection of him, Damon has turned his energies elsewhere. Keeps him from getting bored. Any words of wisdom before I head off to mediate Monopoly with a doppelganger, a vampire-hunter, a werewolf and a vampire? Oh, and a tipsy Psychology grad-student?" she asked, now securing tiny gold hoops in her ears. Her earlobes glittered with dainty gold or pearl studs and tiny rings, three piercings clustered together at the far corner of her left lobe, two other piercings connected with a dainty gold chain, her cartilage pierced twice on her right ear with two tiny gold hoops, and two delicate little studs decorating her earlobe. Running his fingertip along her the shell of her dainty ear always made her shudder, and he did it now just to smirk when she did it again. She responded to touch the same way her cat did, curling up, shuddering. She all but purred.

"Keep the liquor flowing," Elijah said, and Giulia scoffed, smiling.

"No worries there. According to Jenna, Mason Lockwood's as big a lush as I am," she said, sighing contentedly. "I knew we were made for each other."

"I see. Moving on already, are we?" he smiled.

"A woman needs options, Elijah," Giulia said lightly, giving him a glowing smile that radiated solely from her eyes. He reached out and pinched her waist lightly between two fingers, making her grin and squirm away, eyes sparkling. "Are werewolves immortal?"

"Their lifetimes are…extended," Elijah said thoughtfully, "but not indefinite. They are as hard to kill as vampires on any day, they have learned to overcome vulnerabilities. Few ever reach old-age, however."

"It doesn't seem fair, really," Giulia said thoughtfully, giving him a measuring look. "The odds are stacked in vampires' favour. Hunting werewolves is like bear-hunting."

"Bear-hunting?"

"Humans are an apex predator," Giulia mused, "but you still wouldn't underestimate a bear in a fight."

"No, you wouldn't," Elijah said softly, memories whispering at the back of his mind, high snows, the scratching of his wool tunic, the moist heat of his leathers and his own snow-packed furs, and the beautiful, ferocious creatures…

He gave her a sidelong look, taking in her made-up eyes, the hint of blush on her cheeks and the warmth kissing her skin, the sun warming her fair skin where she had spent the last week with her friends at a local creek, the low V-cut of her black halter-top. That low V showed off her lovely throat, the elegant collarbones, the constellation of delicate beauty-spots she had inherited from her mother across beautiful full breasts. A lock of wavy hair swayed beside her face, out of place, entrancing; he reached out, and their eyes met as he tucked the lock of hair behind her ear; her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, body reacting to his touch, trying to suppress a shiver as he brushed his thumb against those tiny piercings. Electricity sparked in the air as Elijah cupped her cheek, never breaking eye-contact; with a tiny moan, she leaned forward, delicately bumping her pretty nose against his, whispering her lips against his in a teasing question. Fingers threading through her hair, releasing the scent of it into the air, he pulled her closer, answering her question with a kiss that made her breath catch, and she sighed delicately against his lips as he fought off a shiver of his own, his entire body warming, coming alive, responding to her warmth, the tiny noises she made, her hands on his hips gripping his belt, thumbs hooked inside the waist of his trousers, and he revelled in it. The warmth of her skin, the taste of her, and his excitement – she had a habit of throwing down the gauntlet, forcing him to be unabashed in taking what he wanted.

They were learning each other. Sending texts, seducing each other over the phone, was very different to this physical nearness; he found it more difficult to engage in intimacy with Giulia now, sleeping in the same bed, than when they had been hundreds of miles apart. Difficult wasn't exactly the word he would use; they were both too conscious of the fact he was here because of the doppelganger, her friend. They had yet to delve into those dangerous, murky waters, but he felt jittery and agitated just at the thought of arguing with Giulia – she wasn't one to say anything she didn't mean, and if he wound her up enough, he was sure they could both do each other a lot of damage.

Perhaps it might be best, they could get everything off their chests.

Last night had closed the distance between them, taken their previous intimacy to new levels. A line had been crossed, he had felt it; they couldn't go back. He hadn't made love to her, they had teased and mercilessly tortured each other, taken the edge off as many times as they needed, but they had yet to be with each other fully.

That was something they would never be able to return from.

And with everything that was about to come, the complications of a fully-consummated sexual relationship with Giulia were too dangerous to think about; Elijah had never been one to sleep with a woman and make no attachments.

And he suspected Giulia, once she fell in love with someone, would continue to love them her entire life.

Such a person was rare, and he could count on one hand how often he had met someone like that. But in Giulia he saw it. Never to be blinded by lust, or by love, but strengthened by it.

And Giulia was already so strong…


A.N.: I know it's expositional. But I like looking inside Elijah's head – He's a thinker. And I have so many ideas for him. One of my sequels for Giulia's adventures will be about the Originals'…well, origins. Their genesis, their time in Marseille (because what they wrote for canon was Riddikulus). When they were still young, unsure, when they were scared and vulnerable and overwhelmed, when everything was new to them. Oh, it's so delicious in my head…