Fairytale Ending
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: Klaus takes his girl and his hybrid and gets out of that one pony town.
Spoilers: Through 3x05, The Reckoning
Rating: T for now, but will become R in later chapters
Warnings: I'll be adding more warnings as I update, but for now, hostage situation/explicit violence/gratuitous angst
The next morning, Stefan pretends like nothing happened at all.
That's alright. Elena knows that something did happen. Almost happened.
Almost.
Her life is made up entirely of almosts these days. Almost escaped. Almost was free. Almost lived a life that was her own. Almost.
Klaus is around much more after Zoe. It seems that after a week away, he has determined to stay close. Not the way he was before—not in the library, sharing a companionable silence, or in the garden again, but at the edges of things—coming in and out of the front door, passing her in the hall. He is everywhere.
Never where she can stop to speak to him. No, he keeps himself out of reach, even while he seems to deliberately place himself where she can see him. Murmuring into Rebekah's ear, her manicured nails against his neck like talons as she tips her face to listen. Storming in through the front doors, a pack of hybrids trailing behind him—the lord entering his castle with his faithful hounds trailing at his heels.
Once, when Stefan is leading her back to her room after a walk, she sees him at the foot of the stairs, blood in his hair and streaking down his chin. He offers her a slow and easy smirk. He shouldn't get to smile, to laugh, to whisper secrets into his sister's ear, not after what he's done to her, to the achingly long list of people he's harmed. The fury rises in her so deeply at the sight that she cannot help herself, she arcs toward him, fully intending to slap that stupid grin off of his face. Stefan catches her by the elbow the moment she moves, though, and his grip is punishing. She refuses to make a scene by trying to struggle out of his hold. Her bravado would be reduced to childish tugging at her leash if she did, and she won't do it, not in front of Klaus.
Back in her room, she spins on Stefan. "What is your problem?"
"I'm supposed to take care of you. Part of that is keeping you from flying off the handle and making foolish mistakes when I can prevent them."
Elena sits down hard on her bed. "What does it even matter? Klaus isn't going to do anything to his precious doppelganger."
"Hasn't he already though? Done something?"
Elena glances at him. That last question sounded like he almost cares.
Of course, one of the consequences of Zoe and Sasha's death is that Elena stops her midnight prowls. She does not hear anymore strange noises—she doesn't think she could stay in bed for even a second if there was just the smallest chance of saving someone – but neither does she dare leave the feeble sanctuary of her room and go searching for encounters, either.
The dreams are worse when she stays in bed all night. She misses her brother, and she misses her friends, and maybe, though she won't admit it to herself except for in those first seconds after waking from a dream of piercing blue eyes and a slow, crooked smirk, she misses Damon most of all.
It's okay to love them both.
She's not so sure that it is, so she ignores that capacity within herself to do just that.
She decides that she won't let Klaus's behavior keep her from going to the library. It may be his library, but he offered it to her, and now, in a weird way, she has a sense of it as their library and she won't be parted from this place, this one place in this whole God-forsaken compound where she has ever felt safe, or even just a little bit happy.
Part of her feels guilty for returning here after Zoe's death, after the long line of innocent people that Elena knows have followed since. But really, what else can she do? Stefan had been right. Giving up altogether accomplishes nothing.
There's an old translation of The Iliad by Robert Fitzgerald. She's seen Troy, of course. She'd been twelve when it came out, and Caroline had been at the height of her Orlando Bloom obsession, and Bonnie had pretended to be unimpressed with Brad Pitt. And even though it was rated R and neither their mothers nor Grams would let them see it, Jenna had just come home from college for her summer break and she'd snuck the three of them out to the theater. They'd gorged themselves on a huge bucket of buttery popcorn, and Caroline shrieked so much every time Orlando Bloom came on screen that Bonnie and Elena had ended up throwing half their popcorn at her, and Jenna had whispered her narration to Elena the whole time, like they were best friends, making Elena feel mature and special enough to hang out with her cool aunt. Her fingers spasm and she nearly drops the book. She'll probably never go to another movie again. Certainly not with Jenna.
She takes a deep breath.
The spine cracks when she opens the book, and a cloud of must perfumes the air. The pages have that slightly tacky feeling, like an old library book. The combination tickles her sense memory, transports her to another time. She reads and reads and reads.
The story is a familiar one. It begins with a kidnapping—Chriseis and Briseis, two beautiful maidens, stolen from their homes and families. Briseis is given to Achilles as his war prize—Achilles, who is immortal in deed if not in theory, whose temper is like flame and whose revenge is selfish and wild and singular. Achilles, who kills and kills and kills, who is prideful and sulky and won't come out of his tent for most of the epic, until he has his reckoning.
Who is angry when Agamemnon takes Briseis from him, but not because he cares about Briseis—the movie had taken certain liberties there, when it had spun out that love story—but because having her taken from him is an assault on his pride, because she is his possession.
It's probable that the fact that she is so ready to see herself in fictional characters is a sign that she has been locked up too long.
Stefan finds her at dinner time and escorts her back to her room— he's been making a point lately to make sure she shows up for her meals. She leaves The Iliad open on the sofa.
Afterwards, she wanders back into the library, intending to do some more reading before bed. She won't risk falling asleep here, but it would be nice, to drowse in front of the fire, all warm and full.
She trips over a dead girl sprawled across the library doorway, skirt hiked up around her hips, hair tangled over her wide glassy eyes. Her neck is twisted at an unnatural angle, and that is it, she has had enough.
Elena steps over the body and marches over to where Klaus lounges in an armchair by the fire watching her with a delighted smile on his face. "What is wrong with you?" she demands.
Klaus stands up slowly and stretches. His shirt pulls against the taut muscles of his arms and chest. "Nothing wrong with me, love, though I can hardly say the same about you," he tells her cheerfully. The smile he gives her is not like the ones he used to give her— this one is meaner, more personal, and it's that that tips her off.
"God, is this because I rejected you? Are your feelings hurt?" The smile doesn't slip from his face, but there's a tell-tale twitching to the corners of his mouth. When he doesn't retort right away, she knows she's read him right.
"Do I not have the right to retaliate, then?"
"Retaliate?" She presses her hands to her temples. "Let me get this straight. I hurt you, and you can't hurt me back, not physically, so you go on a killing spree? You are so fucked up."
"So are you."
She laughs, and the sound is so tired and so bitter. The worst part is, he's absolutely right. She's not at all reacting how she should be, how she knows she should be. She's learned to brush off the deaths of strangers and classmates alike ages ago, just so long as the dead wasn't someone she actually loved. Too many people die around her for her to ever imagine that every life is equal. Not to her, not since the day she met Stefan and everything she thought she knew was turned upside down. When did she become so old?
"I may be fucked up, or whatever else, Klaus, but not like you," she tells him lightly. Her voice rings in her ears. She sounds so much like Katherine that she has to pause and compose herself before she goes on, to double-check herself. "I don't hurt people just because I don't get my way. And you know what? I don't need to kidnap or compel or threaten anyone to be with me." She shoves past him and grabs her book off the sofa. She wants to read about how Achilles dies.
He actually lets her leave, arms hanging loose at his side, no attempt to grab her or stop her. Just that blue stare that cuts and burns like molten glass. The fact that he has not struck out at her now probably bodes ill for the future.
Once back in her room, though, she has trouble reading. Every time she gets settled, she feels a prickle on the back of her neck, and she swears she can feel those blue eyes boring into her again.
When she wakes the next morning, Klaus is sitting in the armchair by her bed, flipping through her copy of The Iliad. He's freshly showered, golden blond hair forming damp curls behind his ears, and his white long-sleeved shirt clings slightly to his chest and his back, where his skin is not quite dry. No blood anywhere. It strikes Elena that he looks perfectly normal like this, like he could be any man on the street, and the realization only adds to her sense of unease. The morning light pours in through the open blinds, and dust motes float in the bars of white sunlight.
"Popular criticism always says this translation is melodramatic, but I've always preferred it," Klaus tells her, just as casually as though they were discussing the issue over coffee.
Something's wrong. He shouldn't be so friendly after what she told him last night.
"That doesn't surprise me." Her throat feels tight, and burns when she tries to speak.
"No? You think I have a taste for the dramatic?"
"What else would you call the tableaus you've been arranging for me?"
"Ah, and there is that self-centered streak again. Always assuming that everything I do is about you."
"That's not being self-centered, that's possessing basic observational skills. And I know it's not about me. It's just about my face, right?"
Klaus looks like he would like to respond to that, but ultimately does not. He creaks the book open and glances down at the pages. "You're on the same page you were on last night. Didn't get much late night reading in?" Klaus licks his finger before turning the page.
Elena pushes her covers away and plants her bare feet on the wooden floor. This early in the morning, the floorboards are icy to the touch. She walks over to Klaus and holds her hand out. "Give me back my book."
He continues leisurely flipping through the pages. "My book, actually. Now, I know that you're not a slow reader, as you've already raced through everything you've laid your delicate fingers on. So," he drawls, looking up at her while she stands over him. "It must be something about the passage that has snagged your interest. Hm? Does that sound right?"
She shrugs. She may as well get this conversation over with. "I just got to thinking about Briseis."
To her surprise, Klaus looks genuinely puzzled by that answer. "Briseis? Really? Why is that?"
"Really? Why is that? Kidnapped, tossed around between powerful men like she's an object?"
He waves her off. "It's a flawed comparison. Briseis doesn't really matter."
Exactly.
She sits down on the edge of her mattress across from him. She doesn't look at him when she asks, "You don't think I have a lot in common with Briseis?"
"Don't be foolish. If you're anyone in that narrative, you are Helen."
Of course he's given her the lead.
"How do you figure? Helen's not really kidnapped. She loves Paris."
"But oh— the destruction she causes. And all for a pretty face." The armchair springs whine when Klaus stands. He steps into her space, and pulls her up to stand flush against him. He keeps one arm wrapped around her waist and cups her jaw with the other, tilting her head back so that she is forced to look into his eyes. The heat of him sinks into her bare skin, and she can't help but lean into him just a little, even while she reminds herself of why he is so hot to the touch.
"It's not really she who does the destroying, though. It's everyone who follows her to Troy."
"Does it matter whether they die by her hand or in her name? They still die. And you know what?" He leans forward, so he can murmur his next words directly into her ear. She can feel his lips brush against the shell of her ear when he speaks. "You're just like Helen. You hurt people just by existing."
Elena pulls back. "No, you do. You hurt people." She twists in his arms, trying to push him away, but he holds her fast.
"Tell that to the stack of bodies you've left in your wake. I'm sure your answer will amuse them."
"You're twisting everything up."
"Am I? Or am I just throwing light on a truth about yourself that you refuse to acknowledge? I'm not at all surprised that Stefan chooses to keep his distance from you. He probably knows it's a wonder he made it out of your little romance alive. Perhaps he knows his survival will always be tenuous so long as you draw breath."
He lets go of her and turns to leave. He takes a step and then pauses, turning back to her. "One more thought, sweetheart, while we're on the topic of Helen of Troy. You're right, of course, she wasn't kidnapped— she ran away. I'd hate to see what would happen to your beloveds if you ever tried such a thing with me."
Elena frowns at him. "I've never run from you before. Why would I start now?"
"Just a thought." Klaus leaves her before she can respond.
Stefan comes in with her breakfast a few minutes later. The whole exchange could have been a very disturbing dream, if not for the fact that her whole life was a waking-nightmare.
Elena does not particularly care, at this point, what happens to her. She's taken herself out of the equation, a non-entity in this war for her own destiny, a war that she has lost. The example Klaus set half a millennium ago when he slaughtered everyone Katherine ever loved still serves as a powerful example of what happens to anyone who crosses him.
But she does care about Stefan, and she does care about Tyler. Elena never lets herself picture for too long what would happen to Stefan and Tyler if she tried to escape. Whenever she does, it's Klaus's voice she hears telling her all of the lurid details.
Still, the images are there, painted in red, gory, glorious detail, whenever she shuts her eyes to sleep.
The ache of it is duller every day though as she becomes more and more used to her how her life will be.
Elena spies the hybrids from the hallway window outside her bedroom one chilly morning. It's the first week of October, and the weather is starting to change. The yard is foggy and damp, and the flowers that had bloomed so brightly in September have lost their petals and are starting to rot.
The hybrids are out there in the yard, organized in lines— no, regimens, she thinks. Klaus's personal army, the little civilization of creatures just like him that he's been so hell-bent on creating. All those creatures down there, each carrying a mixture of Klaus's blood and hers.
She squints, gaze flicking over the boys down there. Her eyes latch onto one in particular, his hair nearly black and his features sharp, even at this distance. The need to see him had swamped her the moment she noticed him. Just the chance to spend time with someone else. She's seen him like this a few times, at a distance, out of reach. So far, she hasn't had the chance to get close to him again, even though she has been on the look out. But this time is different. She can feel it in her gut, in the part of herself that takes wild leaps and always rolls to her feet. It'll be hours yet before anyone comes looking for her, unless she is unlucky enough to get cornered by Rebekah. She's not even certain Klaus is home.
Yet she cannot help but turn Klaus's threat over in her mind. Would making a point of seeing him make him even more of a target? Is she really allowed to see him, or will there by hybrids reporting back to Klaus if they see her with him?
Still. She hadn't gotten where she had by refusing to take chances.
She waits for Tyler in the hall near the front door, pressed back into an alcove where she won't be in the immediate path of the hybrids coming in. After all, Klaus had told them to stay away from her. If she doesn't go to them, she doubts that they'll come to her. Tyler wanders in last, and she thinks that that's a good sign, because then it is so easy for her to go to him without anyone else noticing. She latches on to his arm.
"Elena, what are you doing?" he asks her when she pulls him off to the side with her.
"I wanted to see you. Are you free?"
He glances over his shoulder. The other hybrids have already all disappeared, wherever it is they go when it's time to be out of sight, out of mind.
"For now, I guess."
"Good. Tyler, how have you been?"
His eyes rake over her. "Elena, you look—" He clenches his jaw and looks over his shoulder again. "Let's get out of here. Can you come with me?"
"Of course."
He nods, and then he is the one latching onto her, his grip steady and sure and so comforting, as he leads her down the stairs into the basement of the house, where there are a line of wooden doors in an unfinished hallway. He opens up the third, indistinguishable from all the rest, except that when he leads her in and shuts the door, she immediately recognizes the space as his.
"Is this your bedroom?"
"Yeah, I thought it would be a good place to talk."
There's only one table in the room, a low desk. The entire surface of it is cluttered with stacks of paper, open tins of charcoal, the black dust of it sitting in piles under the desk. Some of the drawings are tacked up to the wall. Her heart clenches a little when she gets a closer look.
Jeremy had told her that Tyler liked to draw the supernatural, or comic book villains, or cars— the natural inclinations of a high school jock with a hidden werewolf strain.
These images though—
"You've got Caroline nailed. This looks just like her."
She glances at Tyler, notices he's flushed.
"I have a lot of time to think about her."
"Do you miss her?"
"Of course. I miss everything."
She looks at the other drawings. There are others— his mother and his father. The Grill. Matt. The interior of the Lockwood Mansion. Mystic Falls's eponymous waterfall. So many familiar faces and places, and she doesn't think she'll see any of them ever again.
"You can't leave either though, can you?" she asks him. "You're stuck here as surely as I am. Because of me." She can't keep the self-recrimination from her voice. Maybe Klaus was right. Everyone really does suffer because of her, no matter how much she tries to save them.
"No, Elena, it's because I'm part of something here." And she hears it, that same burning purpose she had heard in his voice when she first saw him here. There's something electric in his black eyes when he tells her, "I'm Klaus's first hybrid. That means that I have to set the example. And that I have a responsibility to the others."
Elena sits down on Tyler's bed. She flops back on it. The sheets smell like Tyler, like teenage boy, so very male and familiar. "You know Klaus wants to use you as leverage against me."
Tyler shrugs and wanders closer to her. "I can multi-task. I can look out for the other hybrids and be leverage at the same time. No big deal."
Elena props herself up on her elbows to study him. He looks sincere, and totally aware of the decisions that he is making. "I can't pretend to understand why you would choose to be here, but I can understand that you have your reasons," she finally tells him.
Tyler nods. "You look like hell, Elena. Are you holding up okay?"
"Sometimes I think I just might be. And then I remember where I am, and who I'm with, and I don't know how I can keep going like this."
"It's not a place for humans," Tyler agrees. Gingerly, he sits down next to her. "What can I do to help you?"
She reaches out and touches his wrist. "Can you just be here with me?"
Tyler looks down at her, frowning as he studies her. "I'm always going to be here for you, Elena. We're like, Team Mystic Falls. I figure, we probably have to stick together."
"'We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately'?"
Tyler wrinkles his nose. It's the same face he made the first time they got drunk, back when the lot of them— Matt and Tyler and Elena— had found a half-consumed bottle of scotch under the floorboards in Tyler's father's study. Tyler doesn't make that face often anymore. Certainly not when drinking. It amuses her to see that childish expression on his face again.
"What is that?" he asks, voice dripping with incredulity. "Shakespeare?"
"Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Were you not listening to Ric in class?"
"You know that I wasn't."
"I never did get around to gluing Ric's desk shut. On senior prank night, I mean. That's what I was on my way to go do." There's a long pause. She hadn't meant to bring the conversation back toward their current predicament so soon. She bites her lip. "Do you think they're doing okay? Without us?"
"Oh, yeah, they're totally fine. You know that Caroline has that situation handled. She's probably picked up the pieces and patched everyone up good as new by now. She's got a freaky gift for that— for getting people through their troubles."
Elena forces a smile. Her tone is artificially bright when she speaks. "You're right. Caroline will take care of everyone. And Bonnie and Jeremy will take care of each other. And Ric will take care of Damon." The last time she had seen Damon, they had argued. How had he reacted when he found out she was just gone? Not well, she would wager. Maybe take care is too strong a term for what Ric might be able to do for Damon.
Tyler grimaces like he's read her mind. "Well, Saltzman will at least keep Damon from tearing the town apart."
"And they'll drink together."
"Hey. We can drink together."
"I would love to drink together." Elena looks around the room. "Do you have a stash? Klaus doesn't like, forbid it or something, right?"
"Obviously I have a stash. I'm a Lockwood." Tyler stands and rummages through his dresser door. He pulls out a bottle of bourbon. He uncaps it and offers her the bottle. "Just like old times?"
"I think that's exactly what I need right now," she tells him, and takes a swig from the bottle. "To old times."
Tyler resettles next to her on the bed, and for a while, they pass the bottle back and forth. There are no windows in his room, so there is no clear sense of time passing. Just the feel of Tyler stretched out next to her, warm and oh, so comforting.
"That leaves Matt," Elena tells him after a while.
"Hm?"
"Matt. He's the only one who doesn't have someone to look after him."
"Caroline."
"They're hardly close anymore. Not after last spring."
"Yeah, but Matt has a big heart, and so does Caroline. Everyone will be okay."
"Even us?"
"We're going to look after each other, remember? I'm going to make an effort to do that, Elena. I just— I just got caught up, and you seemed okay, and then I saw you today— I'm going to be there for you. I promise."
She holds out her pinky to him. "Swear then. And I'll swear that I'll be there for you. We'll look after each other."
Tyler hooks her pinky with his own. "I swear it. I'll look after you, if you look after me, and we'll hang out together so we don't die alone. That's how it went, right?"
She laughs at him. "Something like that."
They get buzzed together, something they haven't actually done since her parents died. And slowly, the talk turns to happier topics. They linger over those first two years of high school, when they had been two such reckless and happy kids.
"Do you think you'll ever see them again? Caroline or Matt or your mother?"
"I figure I've got forever, Elena. I'll see them again." He doesn't lie to her and tell her that she'll see everyone again. She can always count on Tyler to be totally frank with her when it matters. It helps.
"That makes me happy. I want to imagine you and Caroline together and happy one day."
"One day."
She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knows Tyler is shaking her awake with a hand on her shoulder. "I think it's time, Elena."
Elena sits up and rubs the crud out of the corners of her eyes. "I'll see you soon, though, right? We'll find a time?"
"Yeah, I'll make sure of it."
Tyler walks her up to the ground floor of the house. She makes sure to hug him extra tight before they say their goodbyes. She'll never take the chance to say goodbye properly for granted ever again.
And she thinks, this is the first really good day she's had since she came here.
"You're chipper this morning."
She looks up at Stefan, who is walking beside her in the garden. It's not as beautiful as it had been at the end of summer. It seems too early for the garden to be dying for the winter.
"You've been smiling all morning," he clarifies. "I thought you were brooding."
He's right. She's had a smile playing at the corners of her mouth ever since she left Tyler the night before. "Like you said, I can't brood forever. Besides, I don't have a diary anymore. Hard to brood without a pen and paper."
Stefan pauses. "Would you like a diary?" He sounds as surprised to be asking as she is to hear him ask.
The idea is very tempting. She misses her diary dearly. "Do you think that would be wise? To write everything down?"
"You're a Gilbert. Whether it's wise or not, I imagine you need to."
You're a Gilbert. She hadn't realized what a relief it would be to be called a Gilbert rather than a Petrova.
"Do you still keep a diary?" she asks.
"I've always kept a diary. For brooding."
She stops mid-step. "Was that a joke? Are you actually joking with me?" She puts her hand to his forehead and feigns taking his temperature. "I think you must be sick. Call the doctor."
"Haha. You're hilarious."
"Oh no, you're delirious now."
He knocks his shoulder against hers, that old gesture reminiscent of the time when they used to be so physical, when they laughed and played and kissed and touched as thoughtlessly as breathing. If Stefan thinks twice about the interaction, he doesn't show it.
"I was serious about the diary. I'll get you one."
"I… would like that very much. Thank you."
All in all, it's an unusual day with Stefan. For once, everything feels easy between them. The smile stays on Elena's face the rest of the day. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Stefan smiling too.
She won't escape.
Like a river cutting stone, she'll wear them down. Tyler, Stefan. And one day, Klaus is going to wake up, and realize that his right-hand man and his star-hybrid belong to her.
A/N: Here is a properly long update to make up for the slow summer! If you're enjoying this story, please go ahead and drop a review— your feedback really does keep me writing when things get busy! xoxo