CHAPTER 24 – THE DEPARTED
"Alright Jeremy," Rhiannon said into her phone, sitting on the bed. "Sit tight, I'm on my way."
"What is going on?" Elijah asked coming out of the shower in a thoughtful frame of mind. It's really been a long day. After Rhiannon pulled the dagger out of his chest he was understandably pissed and let Salvatore brothers take care of Klaus' body. He knew they wouldn't kill him because he sired their bloodline and frankly, he couldn't care less at that moment. Now that he'd had time to think about it, he was starting to have second thoughts.
"Elena's in the hospital," Rhiannon answered his question, shaking him out of his thoughts momentarily. "She fainted and there was blood apparently, so Jeremy called nine-one-one."
"Well he could've just called one of us and we could heal her," Elijah called out from the walk-in closet, getting dressed.
"I know, but he's not our biggest fan as of late," she remarked making Elijah shrug in agreement. "Anyway, I told him to sit tight until I get there and help him get her home."
"Do you think it's the best idea for you to wander the streets alone after the sunset?" Elijah retorted chidingly. "You know Alaric will be out and about right?"
"Which is all the more reason we need to get Elena out of that hospital and into her house where he hasn't been invited in," Rhiannon reasoned with him getting from the bed and looking for her leather jacket.
"I know I just don't like you going alone," he said from behind her, snaking his arms around her waist and kissing her temple lightly. Turning around in his arms she twined her arms around his neck saying: "I know, but I'm more than capable of taking care of myself by now and you know that."
She kissed him making all his further protests futile, and then stroking his hair lightly, she said: "I'll be back soon. Why don't you call Salvatore boys and find out where they are in the meantime?"
"How did you—", Elijah asked incredulously.
"Come of it Elijah," Rhiannon teased placing her hands on his chest, smiling lightly. "Don't you think I know you enough by now to know that there's no way you'd left Salvatore boys handle Klaus' body? No matter how mad you're at him, he's your brother and with what all your resources and experience I'm sure you'll be able to protect him better than anybody else."
"You're amazing, you know that?" he whispered tightening his grip on her and kissed her. "Do hurry up and please be careful. I'll talk to Rebekah."
"I'll be back before you notice I'm gone," she murmured with a light smile. "I love you."
Hour and a half later they were all sitting in Elena's kitchen.
"Just listen to what Elijah has to say," Rhiannon pleaded looking around at her frenemies as she liked to call them at the moment.
"All we need is to take that stake away from him," Elijah said after seeing that no one was going to interrupt them or tell them to go to hell as he was half expecting them to do. "Once he's been disarmed and the weapon's in my possession, my family will scatter to the ends of the Earth and Alaric will follow us."
"How do you know he won't stay here and terrorize Mystic Falls?" Jeremy asked.
"C'mon Jer, he only has one lifespan to try and get rid of all vampires and the best way to do it is by coming straight to the source," Rhiannon retorted. "Do you really think he's going to waste his time with you guys? He'll come after Elijah and his family."
"She's right," Elijah added.
"And you'll just run?" Stefan asked doubtfully.
"We've done it before," Elijah retorted matter-of-factedly. "Klaus and Rebekah spent the better part of thousand years evading my father. What's another half century while Elena's able to live out the rest of her natural life?"
"We finally stopped him Elijah," Elena protested. "After everything that he's done to us I can't just let you bring him back."
"I give you my word that, Elena, I will not revive Klaus within yours not even within your children's lifetimes," Elijah reasoned. "Perhaps that'll finally teach him some manners."
"Yea," Rhiannon chimed in. "We all could use some Klaus-free time."
"Why should she trust you?! All you've done was screw her over," Matt chimed in with so much hostility. The others were looking at them with so much self-righteousness that it made Rhiannon want to slap it off of their faces.
"Are you even listening to yourself?!" Rhiannon stood up abruptly and all but snarled at them, in spite of Elijah's warning look. "How many times have you merry lot tried to dagger him or kill him simply because you can't get your heads out of your asses long enough to see that he's trying to help you?! All Elijah's done was in retaliation to your continuous attempts to screw him and his family over. If I were you I'd sit down, shut up and listen to what he's got to say, because if you don't we all may well end up dead within a week!"
"Well I would apologize for Rhiannon's outburst," Elijah said grabbing her hand and pulling at it making her sit back down, giving her a pointed look that suggested she should try and keep her temper. "But she's absolutely right. I've always kept my word, even when I didn't have the slightest reason to do so, and I'm not about to stop now. You should also consider this. Elena could've been dead the instant I walked through that door tonight. So, Elena, I leave it to you to make the decision whether to trust me, or not."
"Not!" Damon yelled from his phone. "Hello?! Did that concussion give you brain damage?! His lunatic siblings will kill you the first chance they get!"
"Rebekah and Kol honored the terms," Elijah retorted a little irritated. "If you return Klaus' body to us, Elena will come to no harm. Do we have a deal?"
"No!" Damon chimed in again. "No, no, no , no. Did I mention NO?!"
Stefan, although very reluctantly, said: "Elena, it's up to you."
"Oh, c'mon!" Damon cried out.
"Why do you want Klaus' body?" Elena asked.
"He's my brother," Elijah retorted calmly. "We remain together."
It seemed like everything important has been said since nobody else felt like contributing to the conversation. Rhiannon smiled at her friend encouragingly, saying: "You know it's a right call to make."
After a moment of hesitation, Elena finally said. "We have a deal."
"That went quite well," Rhiannon remarked sitting next to Elijah at the porch swing of the Gilbert house. Vaguely she remembered how she sat there couple of months ago after she arrived from Seattle and waited for Elena to come home. So much had happened since then that it seemed like ages ago.
"Yes," Elijah agreed. "Although, you still have a lot to learn about the art of negotiation, especially when it comes to keeping your temper," he continued chidingly.
"I know I fucked up, but I couldn't help myself," she said apologetically. "For some reason they think they're so much better than any of you and it just pisses me off so much that I—"
Her rant was interrupted by Elijah gently grabbing her chin and kissing her senseless. Thanking deities that she was already sitting, otherwise she would slump down on the ground and dissolve into a puddle of mush, she drew in a sharp breath after he broke the kiss and murmured: "Although not helpful, your little intervention was very much appreciated."
"Well I'm glad," she retorted smirking at him. "So where would we go after we get Klaus' body and the stake from Alaric?"
"No Rhiannon… I refuse to sentence you to half-century of running and not being able to settle anywhere for longer than couple of months," Elijah said looking at her, trying to look stern and unyielding, but only with marginal success. She could see he didn't want to leave her behind, but being the infuriatingly chivalrous man, he wanted something much better for her than that.
"Now I know you're not asking me to spend next sixty or so years without you, are you?" Rhiannon asked incredulously.
"You shouldn't have to live like this," Elijah retorted, still somewhat determined. "Constantly looking over your shoulder, dodging enemies my family's made over the centuries. I don't want this for you."
"I understand that but you need to understand that I don't care about that," she objected. "I love you and I want to be with you no matter the circumstances. If you love me as much as you claim to, then you'll respect my choice. That is if you still want me and I can see it in your eyes that you don't want me to stay behind. I know you're trying to do what's best for me but how about you let me decide what that is. And I think after centuries of putting everybody else before you, you deserve to be a little selfish."
"You are infuriatingly stubborn you know that?" Elijah muttered in response not quite looking at her. "But you also make a lot of sense for eighteen-year-old woman."
"That's all part of my charm," she retorted jokingly. "So does that mean you're done trying to drive me away?"
"It would appear so," he said smirking at her and kissing her once more before they were rudely interrupted by Stefan saying it was time to go.
They've been waiting in the forest for what seemed like hours when Elijah heard the distant muttering of Stefan talking with Damon on the phone. He couldn't quite make out the words but Stefan's tone of voice had his heart skip couple of beats as he clutched Rhiannon's hand in his. They made it to Stefan just as equally freaked out Caroline came to a halt in front of them asking: "Was that Damon? What's going on?"
"Stefan?" Rhiannon asked shakily. The look on the young vampire's face confirmed her fears. She squeezed Elijah's hand as much as possible given that he was already crushing hers.
"It's Klaus," Stefan said after a moment of horrified silence. "Alaric staked him."
"Oh god," Rhiannon muttered and started to slump towards the ground only to be caught by Elijah. His grip was rigid as he pressed Rhiannon tightly against him, holding onto her for dear life. He seemed to have gone into a shock of some sort as he was still looking at Stefan, his eyes wide with terror and filled with tears.
Caroline was gone, probably running to tell Tyler what happened and say their goodbyes before they would start to die, one by one.
Elijah couldn't decide what hurt more – the fact that his brother was dead or that Rhiannon would follow closely behind him. The pain was so overwhelming that for the first time in almost thousand years of his existence he considered shutting his humanity off. He was sure he couldn't possibly survive losing his brother and his love at the same time. He felt like either he shuts it off or he goes insane right then and there. It took him couple of minutes until he realized that somebody was shaking him and calling his name.
"ELIJAH!" Rhiannon screamed, shaking him violently. It wasn't until she slapped him hard enough to almost make his head spin that he snapped out of it. He was still holding her in a death grip and she didn't seem like she was about to protest. She was gripping lapels of his jacket and there were tears streaming down her face. He looked into her eyes and probably for the first time he saw them darken with a genuine fear. Even before, when she only knew him as her kidnapper, the fear in her eyes was tainted with defiance and fire he'd grown to love so much. Now all that was left in there was fear.
"Rhiannon, I don't know what to do" he muttered stroking her face lightly. "I can't lose you. You can't die on me. I need you."
"Well if you have an idea on how to stop it, I'm all ears," she retorted through tears, trying so hard to pull herself together, to be brave for him. "I… I don't even know what else I should say other than I love you," she said smiling despite the tears that continued to roll down her face. "You are strong and you still have Rebekah. She just lost her brother and she's going to need you beside her. You still have your sister. You can help each other through it. You are survivors and you will survive this, even though it seems impossible right now."
"I can't…. I can't," Elijah muttered shaking his hand. "I…," he really was in loss for words so he grabbed her and kissed her until they both slumped towards the ground. "I love you Rhiannon," he whispered sitting on the ground and cradling her in his lap, stroking her hair out of her face.
"I love you too Elijah," she muttered into his neck trying to enjoy last few moments with him and waiting for the darkness to come and take her.
Elijah lost track of time as he held Rhiannon in his arms, desperately fighting tears but with zero success. They weren't talking. Everything that they needed to say to each other had been spoken and he was just trying to enjoy the closeness of her body and her heart beating against his chest until it would all be taken away from him.
"He's gone Elijah," he heard Rebekah mutter from behind him. "There was nothing I could do to stop it."
He jumped up, closely followed by Rhiannon who ran towards Rebekah and hugged her tightly, muttering: "I'm so sorry Becks. I'm so sorry."
"Tyler Lockwood's dead," Rebekah said crying even harder. "I overheard Caroline calling Stefan on my way here."
Rhiannon almost fainted as she heard that. Elijah was next to her within a second, asking: "How are you feeling?"
"I don't know," Rhiannon muttered. "I'm scared shitless but other than that I feel normal."
"It took Sage about an hour before she got sick," Elijah said. "It's been longer than that by now."
"The rest of them are fine too," Rebekah chimed in, making Rhiannon sigh in relief.
"What the hell is happening then?" Rhiannon asked. "If Tyler's dead, I should be dead too, I mean… I'm certainly not complaining, but…. I don't understand what's going on."
"How's this possible?" Elijah muttered. "C'mon, we should get you inside." He couldn't help but notice she was shivering. The emotional strain was taking its toll on them.
"What if I'm still going to die?" Rhiannon protested.
"You're not," Elijah retorted firmly. "It would've already happened."
"So I'm safe?" she murmured, slightly dazed.
"You're safe," he whispered and hugged her fiercely. He was sure that if he didn't have her to hold onto, he would collapse from the sheer relief that she was alive.
"So how on Earth am I still alive?" Rhiannon asked getting out of her jacket after they returned to the mansion.
"I have no idea, but we should start packing," Elijah retorted heading straight for the closet. He had a suspicion as to what actually happened to his younger brother but he kept it to himself for the time being.
"Yea, I'm on it," Rhiannon said grabbing her shirts and other clothing from her drawers. "And where the hell is Rebekah?"
Just as Elijah was about to answer, Rhiannon's phone rang once again. It was Stefan. Elijah watched Rhiannon sit on the bed with a stony expression on her face before she muttered: "Elena's dead."