Elijah studied the letter he held in his hand. The ink stained with dried tears. This was going to be complicated, he sighed.
"Rebekah, we have a problem."
He thrust the paper into his sisters' hands. Abruptly turning back to the window of the lounge, watching the festivities of the street scene below him. He had been due to return to Hayley and to his nephew (how strange for a vampire to say that? He reasoned) when the letter had arrived. It was not thick, a brief statement of fact and one which could cause yet more angst to the Original family.
"Dead? He's dead?" Rebekah looked up from the note. Her expression was, as usual, unpleasant, "But he can't be dead. Klaus would have known. He'd have...I don't know, felt something!" She got up from the chaise long and began to pace across the carpet. Her bare feet sounding muted on the fabric.
"All creatures can die, sister. All. Why should Tyler Lockwood not be dead? He was young, impetuous and a werewolf. It was only a matter of time." Elijah controlled his voice, allowed it be inflectionless against the horror of another dead being. Another desolation for everyone that had cared for Tyler. That was a shame. That was humanity's insult – snatching away until everyone, everywhere was alone and facing themselves.
"He was a hybrid Elijah, The first of Klaus' hybrids. Surely that must count for something?" She sounded exasperated. The pacing ceased whilst she flung herself back onto the chaise. Long tanned legs under a white dress briefly kicking up into the air.
Elijah sniffed, "He wasn't sired though. He had no bond. He had...resolve. He had broken it. Do you feel something when one of us dies?" He asked.
Rebekah frowned, "You're family. Of course I feel something."
Elijah continued to stare unseeing out of the window, "No. When one of our line dies. Do you feel anything?"
"No." She responded, shaking her head.
"No," He stated back at her, his cool eyes hidden under heavy brows, "Neither do I. So why should Klaus be any different?" Elijah took a heavy breath inwards. He sighed to himself.
"It doesn't give much information away," Bekah said. Her expression one of preoccupation. She read from the paper, " 'Tyler dead. Tragic accident – call off Klaus.' Pretty basic really. How can we be sure that is the case, brother, how can we be sure it isn't a lie?" She searched his face. Looking for clarification.
"Because it was Hayley who killed him." Elijah spoke simply. He had known that was the end. Her handwriting shaky with guilt and denial, the tear stains fresh as she wrote and the spot of blood on the edge of the paper – not her own, it reeked of Tyler, "You can see our problem though – with Tyler gone.." he left the sentence hanging in the air.
"...What's to stop miss Mystic Falls busybody from pushing down south to be Queen of New Orleans?" Bekah finished the line. The agreement in Elijahs' face unsettling her. They had always been close. Her eldest brother and herself. They had always been able to see in themselves exactly what they were and what that meant to others. Rebekah respected her brother, protected by him and able to sense what was in his inner thoughts. It was a relief to share eternity with family, she reasoned. A relief to be in bondage to family matters. Never ending family matters, she concluded wryly.
"We should keep this from him. For as long as possible. Give us time to organise our plans. To assess our options." Elijah was concerned. During his time in Mystic Falls he had not fully comprehended his brothers' infatuation with Caroline Forbes – her use had been limited and was decidedly limiting in terms of influence. It was...confusing. She appeared superficial – pop psychology he believed was the term she offered in terms of support. She rarely managed to engage wholeheartedly. There was, he thought, a coolness, a detachment that meant she was flawed to her emotions; a swing that could not be pushed without a detriment to the person stood behind it. And he feared that in the 1000 years since his brothers turn that this would be the woman he listened to the most. That Klaus would move everything when the time was right to ensure that this woman – this chit of a girl – would be encircled in the protective cotton she seemed to Elijah to want. Or that she did not, at heart, know what she wanted at all and that indecision could cost them all greatly.
It was not to be tolerated.
"Yeah, so when miss Righteous Indignation touches down in New Orleans I can finally stake the kid. You do know her cheerleading skills were absolutely basic? No flare, no imagination," Bekah fumed to Elijah. Her mouth twisting at all the imagined slights Caroline had projected onto her. Perhaps my sister has more in common with the girl than I thought, Elijah kept this to himself, allowing only the briefest of nods and smiles to emerge.
"No, Bekah. That is not the way. I do not know how deep this...thing Klaus has...runs for Caroline – though Klaus alone knows the reason for this stupid..affection. Considering his reactions, it is best if we handle this with diplomacy."
"Sure, diplomacy. And threats." Bekah flipped, "I'm hungry. I'm hunting. There is a crowd of life lovers out there and I need my energy drink especially after this bitter little pill I have to swallow." She cast the note to the floor, where it lay before Elijah carefully picked it up and with obsessive neatness folded it into his handkerchief pocket of the navy suit he wore.
In her dream state she could see the waterfall. Droplets trailing fast into the pool at the bottom. She heard her voice called from behind and turning, saw the shadow of Tyler. Brown eyed and dark haired smiling fully in her direction. She sensed peace. Calmness and clarity. She knew then that she was dreaming. In the final conversation she had had with him, before he headed to the Appalachian mountains again – his retreat; his sanctuary – he had let her go. He had put the bitterness of his feelings for Klaus aside and let her go. She may have been his forever love, but underneath the surface, he was not her passion. She cursed herself for it and shifted in sleep. Still sat in position. Still waiting to be released. She had said that in time there was room for everything. For being truly free. Perhaps it had been an echo of Klaus. Or of Damon, or Elena. All entwined in finding out freedom; mostly, she gathered in her darkest moments, mostly it was in filling time between days.
Wallace returned quietly. Invisible to all apart from the spirits of nature who quaked in his path and, out of spite, caused his feet to burn on the forest floor. He noticed bitterly. It was disquieting, after an eternity of isolation to come back to a place of safety and find someone there. Wallace never sought people out. He feared, like Frankensteins' monster the damage that would be done by his revelation. Yet here he was, compelled into action. A final straw away from impersonating a real being – regardless of its supernatural status. He watched from the branches of a tree as she slept sat upright.
I am a monster, he thought, again. I have no mercy and no rights. I take what I can to survive and to prosper. Here is the prize. This moment here when I can slip into someone's dream and catch them being true to themselves. Caroline frowned in thought and he hesitatingly moved the dreamscape back to something softer, calmer. He watched from the branches of the tree and he watched from inside her head and he felt that though this girl was infuriatingly blasé about life, she had a hold that was both useful and conductive. He felt that from the moment he looked in her head and learnt her secret self. I regret the pain I caused you, he mouthed silently at her figure, and around her the land warmed at his thoughts, green shoots of grass grew brightly and a beam of sunshine, a mimicry of the reality of it, spun down and wrapped around her. She glowed in her dream, in her dreamscape with the dead werewolf hybrid, and Wallace allowed her solitude in thought.
"You may drink," The voice was Klaus and it came to her hazily. She swam back in warm thoughts and chided herself. Opening her eyes, she looked into the eyes of the man she had sought out. They were red in the pupils. She didn't scream, she remembered everything and for a moment she contemplated refusing the nourishment, but she was thirsty. Her brain addled. And...she was in sunshine? She felt warm heat. Sunshine heat.
Vampires, day walking vampires, although protected from the harshness of the suns furnace cannot experience the warm caress of its touch. Caroline began to panic.
"Are you killing me now? Is this what you do – this your 'thing' – get vampires to feel the sun and then burn 'em up while prolonging the pain with blood? Well, it's not working. It's not hot enough and I'm not going without a fight." Her voice quivered slightly. It had been nearly three years since she had felt the heat of the suns rays and this refreshing pleasantness would probably end up in flames. Her flames. Charred remains – she shifted, her hand freed. Lifting it upwards into the sunshine she marvelled as her skin glittered. It actually glittered. Glimmering beads swept over her skin. Blue eyes, startled with fear and curiosity looked across at her captor.
I'm scared, she thought. I'm alone and scared and I'm going to die.
We all die, love, we all die. Not today though. Not for you.
Caroline frowned, she opened and closed her mouth before thinking in response: You heard me. You heard my thoughts.
Of course, love, I am a demon. I am a strong demon. And I have no one to stop me.
Caroline tilted her hand, this way and that. Is this the flames that end the days? Is this how we burn out in glitter then in darkness?
The laugh was genuine. As if the owner of it had not laughed honestly in a long time. It echoed in her head and she said: Get out. Get out of my head.
"No; this is how you would look if the suns heat caressed you. If the ray's that reach down to the Earth flowed over you, as they flow over cold crystal. You are unnatural. And something unnatural deserves no warmth." Wallace said this as he sat beside her. His legs stretched out, just touching the edge of the beam before he snapped it off with a finger click. He looked at her, "I have got out of your head. For now, but I liked it, Caroline -" Her name was sugar on his lips, full of compulsion and promise and exactly as he had meant it to sound. A shiver of – something – ran through her, " - And I will do it again. I have no one -" Wallace reached his hand up to her cheek. The back of his hand trailed down it, as he had moved his fingers across the pen bars earlier. He watched it, she felt, without compassion.
She shrank away, as much from the feeling of insecurity and need as from the act itself, "- To stop you." Her tone was sarcastic. Mocking. Wallace, unsurprised by it, moved away. To the other side of the clearing.
"If that is what you wish." He sighed, "You must be weary. It is weary: fear. Anxiety. All those other negative emotions that are so involuntary we use up energy without knowing it. Seriously, Caroline, drink before you desiccate." He offered the glass again, as gingerly as she could she took the stem of it and drank deeply. It was not Vervained, as she had supposed. She frowned at that thought.
"So, what was that? That glitter?"
"I told you, love, that is nature's reaction to the unnatural. It is beautiful. I am glad I could use that on you. You glowed from the inside out. A shimmering vision," He spat the last words out. Not with anger but loathing, at himself, at what he was in the scheme of the world and the pureness of something he could never endure to be around without the guilt and shame of past indiscretions creeping into him. Harming everyone.
Caroline glanced back at him, "Does that happen to you – to your kind?"
Wallaces' mouth turned into a grimace and he wryly looked at her from eyes that he let burn the full red of his soul, "I have no kind. I am unique. As is - - well, as is. I have no family, no kin, no Sire. No past and no future. I exist as the balance decided."
She looked through the creature in front of her. Glimpsed the monster he felt he was, "And you hate him for it."
Pacing, raking his hand through his dishevelled dirt blonde hair, he narrowed his gaze at her, "I have capacity for everything. As you know. It is without limit. Control, however, ensures that this is limited by myself only. Do you understand, love?"
"Stop calling me that." The statement was out before she could even wrench it back in. The expression on his face made her regret the rashness.
"Oh, love, you wouldn't have been able to hide that from me. Now, I shall call you love until that is all you can do. With love comes realisation and pain and acceptance and all those other trite sentiments that I would waste on you if I chose to do so. It would eat you from the inside out, love, and I shall watch as my brother breaks from the dawning realisation and pain and acceptance that he has no power that matches mine and no equal to call his own. Now, nod, love and cry until I say stop." Wallace turned away. The monster that rose in him pushed back down with the bile of his own self loathing. The sound of Carolines' tears mocking his defence. He was unnatural. Unnatural but of Nature itself. For that, he had all of humanity, all it's faults, flaws and perfections and the balance needed to shift: He needed a witch.