Previously on Taste: 'And here he was, on his knees before her.'

February 15, 2011

Katerina had moved in suddenly, and without ceremony. Perhaps her moving in was simply impending in the shadows, for after the New Year she spent the majority of her nights at his townhouse, anyways. However, after they spent a week in the south of France at a chateau Katerina had found, she spent the first night back with him, and simply never left. Elijah had never considered himself to be a man who would enjoy living with someone—for even when he and his siblings resided together over the years, they never really lived together—but that week and the days following were some of the most enjoyable in his memory. He enjoyed cohabiting with her; enjoyed waking up in the morning to her sleeping body beside his, and going to bed with her at night. He enjoyed living with Katerina Petrova, and it was not as much of a shock as it should possibly have been.

Elijah was not a man who let people in. He prided himself on being able to stay distanced from situations and people that his siblings, with their hotheaded tempers, were not able to. However, throughout the search for this cure—this blessed cure, which had brought them together once more—he discovered that, when he had allowed Katerina to see a portion of his soul back in 1492, she was a piece of him forevermore. That much was evidenced in the way he followed her for years, under the guise of chasing her, when all he was really doing was protecting her. Katerina Petrova was not a woman he could let go. Not when she held so much of him in her delicately firm grasp.

"Is that your phone ringing?" Katherine pulled back from Elijah, leaving him distinctly rumpled, and somewhat pouty. He was very adorable when pouty, however—no matter how much the man denied it, it was true—which often endeared her to putting him in that situation. She did dearly love to tease, after all. Though… This time the phone was actually ringing.

"Ignore it. It is nearing midnight, and they can leave a message." Elijah was more than aware of his Katerina's games, which he let her play. Her games made her laugh, and a giggling Katerina in his bed was as much fun as a lusty Katerina. Nearly as much, that is.

She shrugged and ran her fingers along his jawline as he made a move for her pulse-point again. "You have a thing for my neck."

"And it is a very beautiful neck, моята любов (my love)." Elijah whispered the endearment into her ear, knowing how she melted whenever he spoke her native tongue, which was one of the reasons why they would converse in it frequently, especially when he wanted something.

"You're adorable." Katherine laughed one of her rare, genuine, laughs. For an Original's standards, Elijah could be endearingly sappy. "I like it."

"So that's why you keep me around, is it? Because you find me…adorable?" He flirted, punctuating her endearment with a note of mock-disgust as he pulled away to look at her.

"Among other things." She bit her lip, giving him a saucy wink.

"I feel injured."

"Women are praising me everywhere. I managed to wound your ego."

"Yes, you have. It's quite impossible, actually."

"So that's why you keep me around, is it?" She parroted his statement back to him. "Because I accomplished the impossible?"

"Or because you are the darlingest person I have ever met." Elijah shot back, smirking at the look she gave him.

"Mmmm… Is that a word? It doesn't sound like a word." Katherine trailed her hand down his bare chest and beneath the sheets, before she rolled on top of him.

"Is that so? Then, darling, what are you?"

"Fabulous."

"Yes, but…not as much as you seem to believe." Elijah deadpanned, his laughter giving his intentions away as he admired the view.

"Elegant, then." Katherine leaned down, eyeing him, her forearms on his shoulders as her hair fell to make a curtain around them. She enjoyed this playful side of him. It was refreshing, when they got to act like normal people, instead of dealing with everything else which came with their identities.

"I have observed so, but not what I had in mind."

"Ravishing."

"Quite true, but, no." Elijah laughed when her thoroughly-kissed lips turned down into a pout. "I believe the word exquisite fits you perfectly."

Katherine smiled, and was about to reply, when she was cut off by his phone ringing, yet again. "That's the third time that person's called in half an hour… It may be important." She propped herself up slightly better and reached over to his bedside table, checking who was calling. "It's Klaus. You may want to answer it." As she rolled back to her side of the bed, she deposited the ringing phone on his chest.

"Brother." Elijah picked up and answered. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You certainly took long enough to answer the phone, Elijah." Klaus grumbled over the line. Katherine looked over at her lover, his arms behind his head as he spoke to his brother, the both of them propped up against the pillows, and a devilish idea came into her head. She slunk back on top of Elijah, placing breathy kisses onto what she knew were his most sensitive spots.

"I have company." Elijah managed to strangle out, shooting her an exasperated glare. Katherine simply laughed in response, thoroughly enjoying herself too much.

"So I can hear." Klaus deadpanned.

"Niklaus, what is your purpose for calling me at…midnight?" Elijah glanced at the clock. He turned to Katerina, putting his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. "If it was not entirely obvious, I may ask how the time flew so quickly."

"I should hope you remember the past few hours." She gave him an acerbic look, arching one immaculate eyebrow. "Otherwise I may have to just…restore your memory." Katherine's eyes glimmered.

"On second thought, my dear," Elijah feigned innocent, barely containing laughter. "What were we doing?"

"If you could cease your flirting with whomever you decided to warm your bed with, brother," Klaus interrupted, his voice hard. "Then I would be able to let you know that as of…roughly sixty minutes ago, our brother Kol is dead."

-0-0-0-0-0-

August 29, 1864

Elijah sat in the chair at his desk, staring at the letter on his desk. It had been opened many hours prior—for it was evening by now, due to the fading light in the room—and he had already had his preliminary reaction to the entire ordeal. The few ornaments which he kept to adorn his personal study were testament to that, if one considered their new status, broken on the floor.

He was having what an aristocratic man may have called an existential crisis. Ordinary people would just call it grief.

Katerina Petrova was dead. Had been dead for quite a few weeks, actually, if Rebekah's letter was dated properly. Rebekah always dated her letters correctly.

She was dead. The woman he had spent the past three hundred years chasing to the ends of the earth was… Dead. She had been dead for weeks, apparently, and he had not known it. He had not felt it. She had passed from the earth and he had continued on through his days like they were normal. Like the foundation of his very world had not just disappeared. She had died and he had not known. She was dead. It was an impossible thought, really, for this was Katerina Petrova. She evaded death as a mere girl, and had continued to do so many, many times over the past three centuries. And now she was gone, from a church fire of all things.

It was ironic Katerina died in a church; she never quite abandoned her Eastern Orthodox roots. For a supernatural being—from what he had observed over the time he spent chasing her, and even as a girl, during that short time they spent together in England—she appeared to be a habitually religious creature, unlike himself. He personally was raised on a mix of pagan belief systems and magic. It was simply… She was a godless being, who believed in God, and she died in a church. It was irony, really.

Life was a cruel, cruel, being.

She was… She was his purpose. His reason. The past three centuries had been spent in pursuit of her. Every time she switched an identity or escaped a country, he was able to find her. He discovered her whilst she was hiding behind an impeccably crafted disguise, playing princess in the Ottoman courts. He followed her across those damnable Balkan Mountains on foot just as the snows began to melt when she was a mere infant vampire. He found her in the middle of the French-Canadian woods in the midst of a war, for god's sake. He was with her, every time, even when she did her damn well best to avoid him. He had trekked the earth for her, and would drop everything to do it again. If only she were alive, he would never stop chasing her.

He had seen her only three months before, alive and vibrant. She had been beautiful—oh so beautiful—but she was always so. It was more than her beauty, however; it was the life she exuded with every step and smile. She was full of energy and warmth, which were traits he could not remember himself possessing in far, far, too long. She was alive. She had been alive. She was not alive any longer.

If only he was listened, and given into his pride, when she pleaded for him to give in that day. If only he had taken his chance. If only she had not died.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Elijah stiffened, unsure if he had heard correctly. To his left, Katherine sat up, staring at the phone in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Do not make me repeat it. My favorite pair of siblings in Mystic Falls completed the deed not an hour ago in the Gilbert kitchen, presumably to complete the Hunter's tattoo." The younger brother's sentences were clipped, as if he were forcing out the words.

"And… Why have you not gone on a warpath of revenge by now? Or have you already done so?" There was a tone in Elijah's voice which Katherine was unfamiliar with, which made her insides churn.

"If I was not currently stuck in the Gilbert living room I may have already completed that. However, Miss Bennett is far cleverer than I have ever given her credit for. Not to mention the whole bloody lot of them took off to Nova Scotia, as Rebekah informed me when I gave her the news." Klaus added as an afterthought, "She ran off with them, of course, in order to get that damn cure."

"So they've found it." Katherine swore under her breath. "Damn." She looked over at Elijah, who was frozen in place, a blank mask. Gently she pried the phone out of his hand before hanging up, cutting Klaus off mid-word.

Before she could blink, she was up against the wall, Elijah's hands on her shoulders, that same blank look in his eyes as his gaze bored into hers. Katherine could feel his rage at the world—and his brother's killers—his anger at his brother for daring to die, bubbling just beneath the surface. She raised one hand and caressed his cheek, and that was all it took for the ever-stoic man to break. Faltering, he braced one arm against the wall, still leaning over her, his other hand slipping to her upper arm. Elijah's head fell to Katherine's shoulder, his heavy breathing an indication of the emotional state he was in.

"It's alright." She whispered. "You don't always have to be strong around me. You're allowed to be human."

"Katerina." Elijah choked out, a hot mixture of shame and grief overwhelming him.

"It's alright, my love."

"We aren't human, Katerina. We are supposed to be immortal."

"Yet we are more human than the best of them." Katherine sighed, taking her partner into her arms. "We are just as weak as the rest of them."

"Niklaus would not lie about something such as this." Elijah's voice was barely above a whisper, as if it physically pained him to speak of his brother in the past tense. "Kol was my favorite of us all, and now he is dead."

"Lean on me, my dear. You're allowed to grieve."

AN: Alright so... I'm not sure how everyone's going to take this chapter, but I hope you all enjoy it! Or, enjoy it however much you can enjoy a really emotional chapter... This was one of the hardest ones for me to write though-I have difficulty writing Elijah in intense emotional situations-so I'm curious to see what you all think!

Anyways, I feel I should probably let you all know that next chapter is the last one... My reasoning behind this is that I'm not going to rewrite scenes of canon, and, well, we all know what happens after Katherine goes to Nova Scotia; also, I already continue Kalijah's story in ATCL, so there's no real reason for me to do it here as well. Next chapter has my favorite flashback ever, though, as well as one of the first I wrote, so I'm really excited to see what you all think of that one!

If there are any questions I'll be happy to answer them, and I have a feeling a few of you may have questions regarding some things in this chapter.

Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing!

-Abigail