((Hey all. I know it has been a while since I've updated. I hope you can forgive such a long hiatus. I know this isn't going to be the best chapter since I'm a little rusty, but here it goes. Music chapter featuring the music of David Gray -'Shine'. Enjoy. Hopefully, it won't be so long before I update again)
"I'll be riiiight…heeere…" Caroline said in a low voice, speaking the words in time with E.T. as the little alien touched Elliott's chest with his lighted finger on the plasma TV in front of her, then she smiled with a sigh, "Oh, my god, I love this movie…"
When the scene changed, she found herself looking over her shoulder expectantly, seemingly waiting for Klaus.
She had helped him up to his room so he could shower and change clothes around the same time that Kol and Damon returned to the house with Katherine's coffin…
Caroline pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and looked the time and raised an eyebrow when she realized that had been over an hour ago.
Turning the television off and tossing the blanket aside, she raised herself from the couch and walked down the hall to the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and smirking when she saw that the blood stock inside was organized by type and labeled with post-it notes with each original's name in what looked like a woman's handwriting—probably Rebekah's. After a moment, she plucked up two bags with Klaus' name on them and closed the door, then bounded up the back stairs to the second floor.
When she reached the top landing, she looked up to see Kol coming out into the main hall, closing the door of one of the bedrooms behind him.
"Have you heard from Misha?" Caroline asked, "Any word on whether or he's found the portal?"
"No," Kol replied, walking over, "Nothing. I'm going to head out here in a few minutes to catch up with him and Bekah. I just wanted to make sure Damon was alright before I went."
"How's he doing?" Caroline asked, eying the closed door.
"Just sitting in there next to Katherine's coffin…" Kol said, crossing his arms over his chest as he followed her gaze to the door, "He's been like that for a while. I think finding her like that in the woods really threw him…"
"Damon always was the sensitive type…" Caroline answered, "Do you think he needs anything?"
"I think he's alright for now," Kol replied, "I gave him a bottle of bourbon from Elijah's secret stash to take the edge off—"
"Oh…" Caroline said, holding up one of the tagged blood bags with a smirk, "Did Rebekah label those, too?"
Kol smiled and bit his lip to keep from laughing as Caroline continued in a mocking tone, "I bet she used cute little neon ones on them and labeled each bottle by year… That is so sweet!"
"Well, Rebekah is very organized…" Kol added
"I see that…" Caroline chuckled, making the blood bag dance in her hand before pulling off one of the post- it notes and sticking it on Kol's forehead as she passed, continuing on her path down the hall, "I'm going to check on Klaus, who has apparently decided to take the world's longest shower. Call us later with an update?"
"I wouldn't dare not to," Kol smirked, removing the post-it from his forehead and raising his hand in surrender, then smirking as he turned and headed down the front stairs.
Caroline smiled at him back over her shoulder as she made her way down the hallway to the last door on the right—Klaus' room.
"Klaus!" Caroline called as she approached the door, "I hope you're decent, but even if you aren't, I'm coming in! You've been holed in here for over an hour, Mister! You had better have fallen asleep or kept yourself occupied by doing something productive, but not too over-exerting like solving world peace, Sudoku puzzles, Yoga, brushing up on your Latin or reading 'Mein Kamf'…because, if you did do something exerting before they finish the healing rituals, Misha is going to kick my butt. And I've got a really nice butt, so I don't want to see anything happen to it. And…" she continued as she opened the door and walked through doorway and into the room, but seeing that Klaus wasn't in his bedroom, listened for a moment and followed the sound of classical music into the adjoining sitting room, "Thanks to Rebekah's 'Rain Man' labeling system with the post-it notes, I brought you some blood—your favorite type by the look of it. Now, I know you're probably not all that excited about the prospect of eating since the whole vomiting thing in the crypt, which trust me, I totally get because it's not fun to vomit up blood and if you need me to hold back your hair like a good girlfriend, I will totally do it—well, not that you have hair to hold since you've lost the Viking look, Thank God, but—"
Suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks when she beheld the scene before her—maps rolled out on the large cherry desk in the center of the room and on the floor and spread over the sofa and Klaus standing in front of his large easel in the corner with a towel wrapped around his waist, his arm moving wildly as he shaded the portrait he was drawing with immense concentration.
"Klaus…" Caroline said softly, her eyes widening
But, Klaus didn't seem to see or hear her as he continued to move and color and shade to the sound of the music.
Caroline tossed the blood bags on the bed and picked up the stereo remote, turning off the music as she walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Klaus suddenly slowed his movements and took a shaky step back as the charcoal fell from his hand onto the floor, turning to reveal his pale face.
"Klaus, what the Hell are you doing?" Caroline chided, taking in his face and grabbing hold of his arm as he leaned on her for support, suddenly realizing how weak he felt upon stopping, "You're sick."
"I—I don't know—I had this flash—this—epiphany in the shower," Klaus said as he let Caroline lead him to his bed and sit him down, "I saw the map on Dominic's chest in my mind and then I remembered that Elijah still had these maps of Mystic Falls and then one thing sort of…led to the other…and I had this need to put it on paper…" he trailed off as he looked at the disarray around the room and then brought his eyes up to the charcoal drawing.
"What exactly is it?" Caroline asked, cocking her head to study it as she sat down next to Klaus on the bed.
"It's not so much what as where…" Klaus replied, the way he was staring at the easel seeming to indicate that he was lost in thought and memory.
"Klaus?" Caroline asked in soft voice, turning back to him, "Where is it, then?"
"Stephens Woods...near the village where my family lived a thousand years ago…" Klaus answered in a weak voice then turned to Caroline, "Do you have your cell phone with you?"
"Yeah…" Caroline replied, reaching into her sweatshirt pocket, "Why?"
"Misha should know that we've found his portal," Klaus said in a sad voice, turning his gaze back to the drawing of a one story stone house with straw roof.
# # # # # #
"Ugh!" Rebekah cried, looking down to her feet as she pulled one of her designer boots out of the mud hole she just walked in along the trail in Stephens Woods, "You know, these magic cards could have taken us by a more pedestrian route, Misha. We've been at this for almost two hours."
"Look, I'm sorry I didn't have you pack your hiking gear before we left," Misha called back over his shoulder, "Now, quit your whining and keep up!"
Rebekah sighed and staggered along as she watched the warlock jump over a fallen tree on the trail ahead, his eyes scanning the sky for the constantly moving tarot cards.
"Why? So 'Black Beauty' or 'Black Pearl', or whatever that creepy magician's name is, can keep us walking around these woods in a circle? Are you sure that he doesn't get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of this?"
"Bekah, we're not going in a circle. You just keep looking down at your feet every ten minutes to fret over your shoes—" Misha scoffed
"These aren't just any shoes! These are Giuseppe Zanottis!" Rebekah shot back, then turned in a circle as she pointed to one of the trees at the edge of the trail that towered above her, "Whoa! Okay…I'm pretty sure we've passed this tree..."
"It's a cypress tree," Misha said, stopping and turning around to look at the tree, then at the original, "Virginia is full of them so you're going to see them everywhere you look, especially in wooded areas and low lying swamplands…like this one!" Then, he turned on his heel and started marching back up the trail, "Now stop staring at the foliage, just accept that your Jose Snottys are ruined and keep up!"
"Giuseppe Zanottis, Misha!" Rebekah corrected loudly
"Yeah…yeah…whatever…" Misha waved over his shoulder
"These boots retail for over a thousand dollars, Misha!" Rebekah screamed
"Elijah will buy you new ones when he gets back!" Misha called back
"He better…" Rebekah pouted, giving one last look down to her ruined shoes, then hurried the pace to keep up, but still carefully jumping over the muddy spots on the trail.
# # # # # #
When their breakdowns subsided and they temporarily got their senses back, they had lain side by side on Elijah's bed in complete silence for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling, before Elijah got up and left the room.
Elena now sighed as she took a seat in the one of the Adirondack chairs on the back veranda, still dressed in Elijah's shirt and her polka dotted pajama pants, crossing her legs under herself as she closed her eyes and brought the ear buds attached to the IPod in her pocket to her ears and listened to the music as it washed over her and she reopened her eyes to look out onto the scenic back lawn…
I can see it in your eyes,
What I know in my heart is true…
That our love it has faded,
Like the summer run through…
# # # # # # #
Vivienne's eyes softened as she sat at the kitchen table and flipped through the pages of her grimoir, looking for the spell needed to help re-ensoul Dominic. But, somehow she knew that in the end, with the laws of magic, the spell, alone, would not be enough. Nature always needed a balance.
And we'll walk down the shoreline one last time together,
Feel the wind blow our wandering hearts like a feather…
Then a small smile suddenly crossed her face when she came across the edges of a torn out page—the page that once contained the preservation spell she had used for hundreds of years to keep herself young—and the photographs she had bookmarked it with to remember its place and remind herself everyday of her choice to grow old and live out the rest of her life naturally.
But, who knows what's waiting in the wings of time…
There were two—a lithograph of her and her sister in 1812 and a photograph of her and Elijah in 1960 in front of the house they were now in. Vivienne stroked his black and white face behind the photo with her thumb and bit her lip in thought for a moment, before it finally occurred to her what she had to do.
Dry your eyes,
We're gonna go where we can shine…
Don't be hiding in sorrow or clinging to the past…
Elena suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look up to see Elijah standing silently in front of her, his eyes soft and sad as he studied her.
With your beauty so precious and the season so fast…
He didn't say anything and she didn't expect him to.
He just held out his hand to her and smiled a small smile when she took hold of it and let him pull her up.
And no matter how cold the horizon appears,
Or how far the first night when I held you near…
He brushed the back of his free hand over her cheek before removing the ear bud from her left ear and brought it to his own ear so he could hear the music.
We're gonna rise from these ashes like a bird aflame…
Elijah then, with his hand still in hers, pulled her into an embrace.
Take my hand,
We're gonna go where we can shine…
# # # # # #
"Finally, we've stopped," Rebekah sighed in relief as they came into the clearing at the top of the hill where the trail ended.
As she watched Misha walk toward where the tarot cards had now fallen unceremoniously to the ground in a circle on the far end of the clearing, she suddenly felt her jacket pocket vibrate.
"Hey, Nik," she answered, after glancing at the caller id
"Bekah. I know where the portal is," Klaus' voice sounded on the other end of the phone.
"Really? Well, too bad you couldn't have called a little earlier," Rebekah said, rolling her eyes as she walked forward, looking down at her mud-clad feet, "You would have saved me a pair of seventeen hundred dollar shoes."
"Is Misha there?" was Klaus' only reply
"He's here…" Rebekah said, looking up and walking toward where the warlock now stood, taking in his surroundings, "Apparently, he's admiring the scenery…"
"Rebekah, the portal is where Ayanna's house once stood," Klaus suddenly offered
Rebekah's face suddenly fell as she also took in their surroundings in immediately realization.
"Nik, I have to go…" she said softly, then pulled the phone from her ear and hung up before moving toward Misha where he stood in the clearing, now envisioning the village where he lived a thousand years before in perfect detail.
And for all that we struggle,
For all we pretend…
Suddenly, it was all there before him again and he found himself standing in front of the one story stone house with a straw roof where he had been born—the house that had been his family's home for years until they were forced to leave it.
You know that it don't come down to nothing except love in the end …
He smiled as he saw vividly his mother and sister working in the herb garden at the side of the house…
Elijah walking up the path to meet him and Octavian, Niklaus in tow…
Luka and Dominic as young boys, playing and chasing each other on the hillside…
And ours is a road that is strewn with goodbyes…
Misha took in a staggering breath as the vision suddenly disappeared, leaving only the fallen cards on the ground before him at his feet and feeling of a hand slipping into his.
It was Rebekah.
# # # # # # #
And as it unfolds…
Damon took a deep breath and stood from where he had been sitting next to the mahogany coffin, wiping under his eyes as he gave one last look at Katherine's body lying in the open casket.
As it all unwinds…
Damon sniffed as he reached inside the front of his leather jacket and pulled out the cigarette case he had always carried close to his heart and popped it open in his hand, looking down into the beautiful, placid face of Katherine Pierce that was framed in dark ringlets in the photograph she had given him in 1864 when he had left to join the Confederate Army.
He had kept it for over two hundred years and it was how he would always remember her.
Remember your soul is the one thing you can't compromise…
Damon gently pulled the photograph out of the case, then stepped forward and placed the photograph next to Katherine in the coffin.
Step out of the shadows,
We're gonna go where we can shine…
Damon gave a small, sad smile as he stroked her cheek, then reached up and closed the coffin lid.
# # # # # # #
We're gonna go where we can shine…
They didn't say anything and they didn't' need to.
They always had this—they always had dancing to communicate all the words they couldn't say out loud.
Elena just cried into Elijah's shoulder and he held her tighter as they swayed to the closing verse of the song that played in both of their ears through the Ipod.
I said we're gonna go where we can shine…