So some time has passed. As you may have guessed, Klaus is already in New Orleans. Elena, Rebekah and Matt are still on their world tour. You also may have noticed how the story has been slightly different (what, with no song interweaving through the paragraphs) but I seem to like this style more. However, please do listen to the song/s I suggest when you read. Please.

Coming Home (Part2) – Skylar Grey

For the first time since Elena became a vampire, she was positive she had a hangover. Her aching limbs were fast to heal and she stretched, not bothering to cover up her nude body as she rose from her bed and her eyes shifted to the beautiful landscapes on display from a hotel room in beautiful, beautiful Morocco.

Rebekah, Matt and Elena had caught a ferry to the city of Nador when they were leaving Spain. Nador wasn't as big or as glorious as the previous cities the three had wandered over the last few months but it was calm and peaceful and still culture-filled.

A flickering heartbeat alerted Elena of the other person in the room and she sighed, becoming annoyed in an instant.

That was something she had noticed when she turned it all off. Pesky human emotions still found a way to interweave themselves into her psyche whether she liked it or not. She felt irritation, bloodlust, amazement. She felt it.

She felt Klaus. She felt their bond.

She felt a pinch of pain when he felt agony, a sweeping feeling of happiness when he felt pure, unaltered joy. She felt the familiar feeling of irritation as he felt rage. And damn, maybe that was why she was suddenly clutching the frame of the wide window and crushing it beneath her small hands.

He was somewhere near Louisiana and she was across the world from him (well, across the Atlantic ocean, technically). But she still felt him. Always.

He was like that itch on your thighs you felt when cold air hit your bare legs. If you scratched it, it would burn, it would hurt, it would be unbearable. But even if you ignored it, it would still be there.

She finally faced the man laying on her bed and smiled a little. He must be the best hunt she had over the summer.

Long, lush hair and a stubble on his face. Dark eye lashes, dark skin and beautiful arms laying at his sides. She ignored the feeling of irritation when she heard the flutter of his heartbeat. Her dates never really survived the first night. However, Rebekah was growing tired of burying her prey so Elena sighed a little and pouted before she climbed in the shower in the ensuite and proceeded to block out the moans of Rebekah and Matt in the suite over.

She took a polaroid picture of the view from her window and wished that Klaus was across the narrow Mediterranean sea instead of in New Orleans. She wished that he would write to her. She wished that he would stop leaving her heart-aching voicemail messages once a week (that she could only listen to for a split second before she put her phone away).

She hated them.

She wanted to listen to every one of them.

"I hate you." She whispers, wishing he would hear her.

She doesn't. She really, really, doesn't.

"You've stopped killing your dates." Rebekah noted as she flipped through a magazine. They were back in Paris and Matt was out getting them skim latte's with vanilla favouring and their favourite passionfruit parfaits.

"It's gotten boring. Repetitive."

"Do you feel guilty?"

Elena scoffed. She really didn't. "Don't be stupid."

Bekah rolled her eyes, not approving of the insult but she didn't voice her opinion, having learnt her lesson in Melbourne when Elena put green dye in the blonde girl's shampoo and conditioner because she didn't let her kill that guy with blonde curls and brown eyes and Australian accent.

There was a moment of silence as they listened to the bristling life of the tourists fleeting across the streets and gushing about the view of the Eiffel tower.

"Has he called?"

"Last night." Elena whispers, her good mood suddenly throwing itself out of the closest window and committing suicide.

"Did you answer?"

"No."

Rebekah nodded. She understood but when she spared Elena a look, she couldn't keep quiet much longer. "Elijah has been asking me to join them in New Orleans. Something has happened."

They both ignored Elena's eye twitch and the broken arm of the chair she was sitting in. "Something always happens. Are you going?"

"I've been thinking about it."

Elena nods. "I think it's time to go home."

They arrive a week later when it's already August and the leaves turned red and gold and orange. Elena carries the four suitcases with her into her childhood home. Three of them were the clothes she collected from the 37 different countries the explored, the last one of souvenirs (Bekah and her have taken to stealing at least one thing from each city and hotel room). Her journal felt heavy in her right left hand as she opened the door with her right.

"Elena!" It was Jer with his floppy hair and puppy-dog smile and behind him were her friends. Bonnie, Stefan and… Caroline.

The last time they spoke was two months ago when Elena was drunk and left her a nasty voicemail, telling her to never speak to her again (amongst some very crude insults she rather not repeat even in her own head).

Bonnie suddenly ripped her out of her little brothers arms and hugged her so tightly. When she felt the touch of her friends hands on her shoulder blades, she felt that familiar pang of happiness and love and devotion and family and no, no, no, no – she couldn't.

She ignored how much the imprints of Bonnie's hands burned into her flesh and briefly hugged Stefan before awkwardly leaving to her room upstairs to unpack.

She didn't know whether she was staying or not but the happiness Jeremy felt at seeing her again made her want to feel it more often.

Elena didn't even realize how fast her actions were; she was blurring about the room in vampire speed as she put away her clothes and little trinkets and didn't even stop once to breathe.

Shit.

She ignored the doors shutting and the cars revving their engines and the ring of her phone and then just – "Caroline! Fuck!"

The blonde gasped, alert and scared as she rose her hands in defense. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't realize you were – I'm sorry."

Elena sighed and stopped her movements but refused to face her best friend. She felt the dread, the hurt, the agony, the regret, the love.

She loved Caroline. She was her family. Why did she – what was wrong with her? What happened to the Three Musketeers? What happened to the sleepovers and the double-dates and the endless nights spent at the old cemetery drinking their souls away?

Elena's hands were shaking and she could feel it. She could feel the basis of her emotions sneaking back in as she shook her head and repeatedly said – "No, no, no, no, no – stop."

Neither girls knew who exactly the brunette was speaking to but both stayed still in their places and – Caroline's hand was suddenly on Elena's shoulder and she was turning her around and crying and hugging her the annoying way that Caroline always did by pinning down her arms and leaving her to awkwardly to rest her head against the blonde girls head.

"Please don't hate me anymore, p – please, you're my best friend and it hurts and – Elena, please. I will never hurt you again. I promise, Elena – I'm sorry."

She felt it again. She felt the emotions and her humanity – God, her humanity. She felt the remorse and guilt and she couldn't handle it, she couldn't carry it on her shoulders anymore. She collapsed.

She was on the floor with the blonde vampire for what felt like years but really, it had only been seconds. But time had meaning. Time meant something to her again.

She felt the tender thread of the bond pulling her towards Klaus and the craving for his blood made her throat ache but the craving to see his face and touch his curls and his calloused fingertips was far greater than any craving she ever felt.

"I don't hate you. I could never hate you – you're my best friend." Elena suddenly said and it hurt to speak through the sobs she was attempting to push back but she ignored it. She caused so much pain and suffering and she couldn't cause anymore.

"You know I don't want him – it was just, just a fleeting attraction but it's over; he's gone. And I don't care that he is. Please, I'm sorry. Please forget."

Elena shook her head. "No, I don't want to forget. I need to remember how much pain I caused you because I need to suffer too."

Caroline's eyes widened in that typical way they did. "No, what? Stop!"

They were silent and Elena's sniffs turned to silence but her hands tightened around Caroline's waist because she really needed her best friend right now.

"He calls sometimes," Caroline whispers. "To ask if you're home. He says that because you turned off your humanity, he can't feel where you are or if you're okay and…"

"I know. He left me 51 voicemail messages."

Caroline suddenly giggles. "Wow, he's dedicated."

Elena laughs too, but not because she finds it funny. She doesn't want Caroline to feel awkward or rejected. It was her job as a best friend to let her know that she was wanted and needed.

"I haven't been able to listen to them…" Elena whispers. "It hurts."

They sat on her bed a few minutes later with Elena's phone plugged in and her voicemail operator stating each message before playing it.

The very first ones he left ranged from 'Stop being a child and tell me where you are' to 'You're driving my fucking insane, princess!' to 'I will rip your throat out – no, I won't, please come home' to 'I can't feel you, I hope you are safe'.

Those messages made her smile and laugh with Caroline in a very twisted way because he caused her pain and yet he was the miserable one while she fucked a different guy each week and watched Rebekah burry them when she got bored.

Then they became very long and heartfelt such as 'I feel lost. Not realistically, of course, but perhaps very metaphorically. I wish you were here to see to my wounds. To make sure I will be safe to fall asleep at night because I am so, so exhausted, love. Not tired, no – exhausted from this situation' to 'I felt a flutter of happiness today and it made me smile and I knew you're somewhere in the Middle East because Bekah told me (she remembered that day; she was watching Rebekah and Matt and they looked so happy and content and carefree and it made her so happy, so wonderful) but I can't feel you and it is driving me insane and right now – I am sorry. I wish I could feel something from you, even hate. Anything' to 'That very first time we were together, I saw the real Elena Gilbert you were trying your hardest to bury now that you are a vampire but I could see it because you let me in first. I wanted so badly to see that girl again but you didn't make it easy and even when you stayed with me and let me paint your body, even though I knew it like the back of my hand, I looked at you and for the first time in a thousand years, I felt like I saw something new. Something different – come home'.

And they kept listening and listening and they became shorter and helpless and 'I painted you today and I'm starting to forget how the curve of your lips looks when you find something humorous' and 'Am I a monster? I need to know' to 'I know this girl named Davina and she is fiery and sarcastic and wild and it reminds me of you when you didn't take my hand so that I could lead you to the altar' and finally 'I felt you today and for the first time in months, I smiled in happiness'.

And that was all of them. Some she cried through, some she laughed at but the last one; she wished she didn't feel anything at all.

"Do you have feelings for him?" Caroline asked softly afterwards and Elena shakes her head.

"No." Yes.

Bekah is packing her stolen convertible and Elena smiles wickedly because that is so Rebekah of her to do and she only briefly rubs her face before she hands her the journal she was drawing in and writing in all summer long. It is filled with letters and photographs and little trinkets she managed to sticky tape to it and it defined what she felt – what she allowed herself to feel that summer.

She wanted him to have it.

"Give it to him."

Rebekah nods once, doesn't reach to flick through the pages, only puts it on the seat next to her and takes off with one last smirk.

Let's get to 180 reviews for the next chapter? Elena and Klaus may or may not bump into each other ;) x