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

She had begun to grow complacent, caught in the web between herself and Stefan, his bland smiles and careful caresses and oh, those fleeting moments when she felt the old spark between them.

It's why it is so shocking when something happens to break the spell.

Klaus turns from her and offers Rebekah a beaming smile that is all teeth. "Ah, sister, I see you've brought our guest of honor."

Everyone reacts at once.

Rebekah hauls Matt over to where Elena and Klaus are seated. Elena tries to rise from her seat and go to him, but Klaus pulls her back down by the wrist and throws his arm around her shoulders, keeping her pinned in next to him. The doors, half shut after Rebekah's swift entrance, burst open, and Tyler races into the room, looking anxious and pained and not at all certain of himself. In the periphery of her vision, Elena notices that Stefan has approached their circle as well, fresh blood shining wetly on his chin in the firelight. Even the hybrids have stopped feeding on and dancing with the humans and are watching. Waiting. Someone has turned the music off, and the silence pulses.

The air carries a charge to it that it didn't have half an hour ago, despite the hedonistic activities that had been going on before. It's as though everyone in the room knows—whatever happens now matters. This isn't some random violence—it's something their leaders, their alpha and his vicious sister, have planned.

Elena's stomach twists. The fire feels very hot against her face and throat. She fights down the urge to heave, wishing desperately that she had not let Klaus coerce her into drinking so much so fast.

How stupid could she get, to think that she'd already lost, that there wasn't always more that Klaus could take from her?

"Come now, let's see the boy," Klaus calls, gesturing vaguely in Matt's direction with his free hand. "I never did have the pleasure of this introduction during my last two trips to town."

Rebekah cocks her head and studies Matt, circling round and eyeing him up and down. "You know, he really is quite cute," she muses aloud. She says it like she could be studying a dress she likes in a shop window.

Matt stares at Elena, his blue eyes piercing her. There's no blame in that gaze, only the steady loyalty and love he had always offered her, no questions asked. He has the look of someone trying so, so hard to be brave, of someone who ready and willing to lay his life down for another's.

"Matt—" she croaks. Her throat is very dry. "Matt—" How could she ever voice what she is feeling right at this moment? How could she ever pass on to him her love, her loyalty, when just the hint of that would surely be enough for Klaus to rip Matt to shreds?

Matt opens his mouth like he would like to speak, but no words come.

Rebekah offers Elena a venomous smile. "Oh, don't worry, darling, I compelled him to be silent. It would have been such a long trip if he were asking questions all the way." She looks past Elena then, to where Stefan is watching the entire scene unfold, tense like a drawn wire, before very deliberately leaning forward to run her tongue up the side of Matt's neck from his collar up to the underside of his jaw.

"Klaus," Stefan begins. "I don't see the point in dragging the quarterback into this, his absence is only going to raise questions—"

Tyler cuts him off. "Matt doesn't have anything to do with anything, I swear it. Please, just let him go back home, Klaus. Please. I'll do anything you ask me too."

Elena has never heard Tyler beg before. Not for anything, not ever.

Something about the display seems to amuse Klaus. His mouth quirks into a small, close-lipped grin, like he's trying to fight the expression but the mirth just shines through his eyes instead. "While your display of selflessness for your friend here is touching, Tyler, it's a bit hollow seeing as you already do anything and everything I ask you to. In fact, I think I'd like it if you and the other hybrids would leave now."

To Elena's absolute shock, Tyler actually backs down. The other hybrids turn, leaving the remaining humans huddling in the furthest corner, and head for the door. All that Tyler can muster is one last look before he, too, turns and abandons them.

Klaus must have felt her stiffen in his arms. He turns to her and grins, full out now. "Oh, you look absolutely shocked, sweetheart. Don't be so scandalized. Our Mr. Lockwood's not truly all that brave when we come down to it."

She keeps her eyes focused straight ahead on Matt while he speaks. Wills herself to be braver than Tyler. For Matt.

And oh, Matt is shaking, fine tremors wracking through his body that he is trying to hide. If his audience were human, he would be doing a good job. But to a room full of vampires… he must look like he's shaking like a leaf.

"I've done everything you've asked me too," she grinds out. "Why bring Matt into this? Don't you have enough ammo to use against me already?"

"Oh, no, this isn't about that sort of leverage at all. I wanted to meet this Matt Donovan personally."

She twists around in Klaus's arms. "Please, Klaus."

He drops his arm from around her shoulder to rest his palm on the curve of her bare thigh instead. He traces his finger over the sensitive skin there and watches the goosebumps he raises as he asks, "Please what? I'm not a mind reader, you know."

"Please don't hurt him."

"Oh, don't worry, my dear, I won't harm a hair on his head. Truly."

Elena frowns. Where is the lie? "Do you give me your word?"

"Of course."

Rebekah flops back against the sofa cushions and picks at her nails. "To be truthful, Nick, I don't think he was really worth the trouble. I'd ask if you were sure he was definitely the one—don't get me wrong, he's got beautiful eyes, I just think he's a bit dull—except I know how that must have appealed."

Stefan tries to break in again. "Klaus, this is unnecessary."

"I don't recall telling you to stop feeding." Klaus twists round to make eye contact with Stefan, locks him in that vice-like gaze. "Keep going, then."

Stefan complies. For his part, his mouth twists and his jaw clenches as though he would like to say more, but the moment passes and Stefan prowls back toward the gaggle of humans, obedient as can be. Methodically, he begins grabbing them by the shoulder and feeding.

None of them scream. None try to flee. Their bodies all sound exactly the same when they hit the floor.

Dully, Elena wonders how they were compelled. What orders, exactly, did Klaus give them? Don't be frightened. Enjoy yourself. Don't run. Don't make a sound.

She's glad, vaguely, that he had at least given her the dignity of not compelling her before he killed her.

"Bex, why don't you let our new friend here have a word?" He gestures for Matt to have a seat across from him once Rebekah lifts the compulsion.

When Matt speaks, he addresses himself solely to her. "We all thought you were dead, Elena. I thought…"

Her eyes drink him in, every detail of him. She wills herself not to reveal anything that would only get them all in trouble. "Don't worry about that, Matty," she tells him. Worry about yourself. "I'm alright."

Klaus breaks in. "Yes, as you can see, I'm taking quite extraordinary care of my doppelganger, so I think we can move on now."

Matt pins Klaus with a truly impressive glare as he takes a seat across from them, next to Rebekah. "So I guess this means you've been holding Elena captive this whole time, huh?"

Rebekah scoffs. "No, she's our guest. What else would she be?"

Matt ignores Rebekah entirely as he focuses in on Klaus and Elena. It's a striking display of bravado, especially since Rebekah had just kidnapped and compelled him.

Klaus leans forward to study Matt. He keeps his hand on Elena's knee. "Yes, I think you'll find that Elena's quite settled here. However, there were some things about her that I was curious about, and it was so helpfully pointed out to me that you may have the answers."

Matt frowns. "Me? Answers about what? What could I possibly answer for you that Stefan doesn't already know?"

"Hm, you would think that Stefan would have all the answers, and I have asked him about Elena here, but you see, there are some secrets that only a long acquaintance could tell. For instance, why exactly did Elena choose to give her maidenhead to you?"

Matt's mouth drops open. He actually splutters. It would be comical under different circumstances.

"Oh for God's sake." Rebekah rolls her eyes and stands up. "Ew." She stomps over to the other side of the room, to watch Stefan work.

A blush burns across Elena's cheeks. "You can't be serious," she tells him, voice low.

"No, I'm completely serious." He turns back to Matt. "I would like to know what made you, particularly, so special."

"I'm not—we were just—" Matt looks at her helplessly.

"Each other's first lovers, I know. Perhaps you weren't aware of the magnitude of the situation, but it's something to have earned the attention of a Petrova. More worthy men have failed where you apparently succeeded."

"You're making it into a bigger deal than it was," Elena tells him firmly. "We were just friends, who happened to have dated for a little while."

Matt straightens up. "Yeah, we were childhood friends. It was natural to develop feelings for each other."

Klaus smiles. "I notice Elena doesn't frame your relationship in quite the same terms, Matt. Do I detect a difference in your feelings? Did you care more for her than she did for you?" His hand strokes her thigh as he speaks.

In the background, she can hear the sound of bodies hitting the floor every few minutes, like the slow roll of a drum. The smell of blood hangs heavy in the air.

Elena places a hand on his arm. "Klaus, stop it."

He brushes her off and peers into Matt's eyes. "Tell me, how did she end it?"

"At a party in the woods," Matt tells him, the truth torn from him by Klaus's hypnotic blue gaze. "Out of the blue. The night her parents died."

"You didn't see it coming?"

"No. I was in love with her."

"Ah, so she broke your heart then. I'm familiar with the feeling. How did that make you feel?"

"Honestly, like she'd torn my heart out."

The statement is punctuated by the thump of another body against the floor.

Tears prick at Elena's eyes. She'd never felt guilty for breaking up with Matt. It had been the right thing to do. But then, even though she had been aware, if somewhat distantly, that he still carried a torch for her, he had never pressed her on it, and she thought they had moved past that point in their relationship. It was always their friendship she focused on when she thought of him, not their brief romance.

Klaus laughed, breaking eye contract. "She's a cruel thing, isn't she?"

"Fuck you."

"Oh, but she wouldn't. That's why I'm so curious. Why you?" Klaus leans back and puts his arm back around her, drawing her close against him. "I suppose you've conducted yourself well, under the circumstances," he tells Matt. "Other men have not handled themselves so well in similar situations, and your behavior might be construed as brave—though, I rather think foolish might be the better word for it."

"Look, Klaus," Elena snaps. "It's not some big mystery you have to get to the bottom of. Matt was my best friend. I loved him, I trusted him, and I wanted to have sex with him."

Immediately, she can see that her explanation does not please him. And yet… there is a spark there, a terrible spark, in the way the firelight shines in his eyes.

"I see now that I've been missing a critical element," Klaus murmurs. "It occurs to me, suddenly, that you are unusually trusting—look at how blindly you went to your death last year, trusting only on dear Elijah to save you, or how shocked you were tonight when I had Rebekah fetch Matt for me—Katerina had never been so trusting, nor was the dead girl whose face you wear." He's studying her like she really might be something new, and he's only just realizing it. "How fascinating."

Her heart slams against her ribs. She wishes she could hide from that predatory regard. Her skin feels on fire everywhere he touches her.

"I think we may be finished here, for tonight," he tells her. Abruptly, he pulls back and looks over his shoulder. "Stefan? Could you come here, please?"

Dread floods her as she realizes that the room has gone completely silent. She cuts a quick glance to the back of the room only to see a pile of partially dismembered bodies, necks connecting head to shoulders like fraying thread.

The worst part of is that she's not nearly so upset as she should be. All she cares about is getting Matt out of this safely. Somehow. Just like Stefan had accused her weeks ago, her moral compass has spun wildly out of control.

Stefan obeys, of course. He always obeys. He stops right in front of them. Blood soaks the front of his shirt, staining it nearly black and plastering it to his chest. There's a feverish look in his eyes that she remembers well from last fall, the first time she'd ever seen him on a blood high.

"Stefan, I have just one more thing I'd like you to do—" Lazily, he gestures toward Matt. "Drain him."

At those words, Matt absolutely freezes, but Elena struggles like a hellcat to pull out from Klaus's embrace.

"Do relax, Elena, it'll only take a moment."

"You gave me your word that you wouldn't hurt him—"

"I won't be hurting him. Stefan will be."

"No. You got what you wanted, you played your little game, now let him go."

"As you recall, what I want is for Stefan to kill every human in this room, with only one notable exception." He flicks a glance in Matt's direction. "I'm afraid that you're not it," he tells him with false sympathy.

During all of this, Stefan had been watching them all intently, gaze jumping between Matt and Klaus. He cuts his eyes over to Elena when he speaks. "Is this necessary, Klaus?"

Klaus's grip around her shoulders tightens for just a second—the only sign that he's unhappy with Stefan's response. "Not all necessary, no, though, it does bring up an interesting opportunity to prove yourself, Stefan. Who are you more loyal to? If the answer is Elena, then by all means, spare the boy. Repay the trust she has apparently placed in you. But if the answer is me… Well, you know your choice then."

Elena holds Stefan's eyes, willing everything into the look passing between them to make him understand. "Please, Stefan. You don't have to do this. Please."

"No, I do." He tears his eyes from her and gives Klaus the nod.

Klaus's smile raises the hair on the back of her neck. "Any last words, then, Mr. Donovan?"

Matt stands, and squares his shoulders. He looks like a man, suddenly to her, the boy he had been scoured away by turbulent waters. "Yeah, I do. Elena—I don't want you to feel guilty. About anything. Whatever happens…" He clenches his fist, like he wants to say more.

Elena nods. "I understand, Matt." She doesn't have to feign the tears that trail down her cheeks. So many tears, for so many dead loved ones. At some point, she thinks she would stop crying.

And then it happens. Stefan snatches Matt off his feet and tears into his throat. His fang nicks the artery, and the blood spurts from Matt's neck like a fountain, spilling his life onto the parlor floor in moments. Klaus holds onto her while her childhood sweetheart dies right in front of her, murdered by her one true love, a piece of theater he had arranged especially for her. Stefan drops the body when he's finished. It sounds just like every other body had.

When it's done, Klaus jumps up and claps Stefan on the shoulder. "That was a bit of fun, eh, Ripper?" There's a genuine smile on that angelic face, real affection for Stefan after what he had done.

Free at last, Elena hurtles onto the floor and crawls over to Matt's corpse. His blood coats her bare legs, but she doesn't care as she pulls him toward her as best as she can. The tears fall freely now, a never ending river that blinds her as she clutches Matt's rapidly cooling hand to her chest.

From where she sits on the floor, she can see Klaus pulling Stefan and Rebekah from the room with him. Klaus doesn't even bother to say anything to her before he leaves. None of them do.

She sits with his body for hours.

For a little while, she hopes that Tyler will come in and sit with her. He had loved Matt too. She knows he did.

He never shows up, and his absence only makes the wound of his earlier abandonment cut deeper.

By the distant tolling of the grandfather clock in the hall, Elena knows it's nearly four a.m. when Stefan quietly steps back into the room. He eases the doors shut behind him with a soft snick.

Elena's eyes burn from staring at Matt's too pale face, and her hand is cramped from squeezing onto his for so many hours. She hasn't moved from her vigil. Her legs are sticky with blood, and her whole body aches.

When she looks up at Stefan, though, she sees that he is not much better for wear than she is. Most of the blood has been cleaned off of him, but there's something distinctly tousled about him, in a viscerally familiar way that tugs on the edges of her mind. Though he doesn't have any dark circles or other human tell-tale signs about him, there is something distinctly exhausted in his manner.

He kneels down next to her. Slowly, he untwines her fingers from around Matt's hand. "I'm here to help you bury him," he tells her softly, pointedly. "Are you coming with me?" He nods when he speaks, waiting for her to agree.

Elena responds how she always does in times like these. She straightens up, raises her chin, and tells him Yes.

Stefan lifts Matt like he weighs nothing at all. The image of him snatching Matt off of his feet to devour him flits through her mind, but she quashes the thought with a vengeance. She can't think about that right now. What's done is done, and she can't linger on the past when there is so much else she must focus on.

He leads her outside, to the line of woods at the edge of the property. Elena's never been so far from the house since she left. It's a sign of how serious the situation is that Stefan is allowing her out like this. They are absolutely silent while they travel. Some things are easier if others don't know they're doing them.

Skulking around on secret missions in the woods. Something she and Stefan have ample practice in.

It's only once they actually break past the line of trees that she dares speak again. "How long do you think we have until Klaus comes looking for one of us?" she whispers, voice pitched as low and quiet as she can go.

"Time enough, I think." Stefan's voice is like leaves rustling in the wind—barely more than a sigh.

"What took you so long? I was so worried that we'd run out of time before you came back."

"I had to entertain Klaus. He won't miss me for a little longer yet, though."

Elena nods and takes a deep breath.

Stefan eases Matt's body onto the ground, and props him against a tree. He studies the ring on Matt's finger. "How much longer do you think, before he wakes up?"

She shrugs. "Soon. It was never more than a few hours for Ric." The moon casts a silver shadow over everything, and makes the dark parts of the woods seem all the deeper. They wait in silence for several more minutes before Elena asks the question that had been on her mind since she first noticed the ring on Matt's hand. "Why do you think he's wearing this?" she asks. "Do you think… Do you think something happened to either Alaric or…" Her heart turns over in her chest. "Or Jeremy?" she finishes almost silently.

Stefan shakes his head. "It's not worth wondering, Elena. You'll only make yourself sick." He says it like he knows what she feels, and of course, she realizes, he does know. He too has a brother he cannot watch over.

Perhaps fifteen more minutes pass before Matt convulses back into life. Relief knifes through Elena, sharp and clear. She throws herself into his arms, and he barely has a moment to catch his bearings before he must wrap his arms around her.

"Where are we?" Matt asks after a minute. "How long was I gone?"

"Nearly five hours. You're back though, and that's all that matters."

He looks at Stefan and rubs at his throat. "Thanks for not dismembering me when you killed me."

Stefan gives him a nod, the closest he'll come to saying you're welcome.

"Matt, I have something I have to ask," Elena cuts in. "Why do you have the ring? Is everyone… okay?" Is my brother alive?

"Oh, no, everyone fine!" Matt's smile eases her immediately. It always has. "Just, uh, Alaric was having some trouble with his ring. We think it might be a side effect from dying too many times with it on, or something. So he gave me his to hold on to, at least until we get things figured out." Matt pauses, as though to contemplate what would have happened tonight if Alaric hadn't loaned him the ring.

"Is Jeremy having these side effects?"

"No, but he hasn't died so often."

Elena wants to ask more questions, is desperate to hear more about everyone, but Matt derails her from asking anything more.

"So what's the plan?" Matt asks. "How do we get out?"

Here, Elena and Stefan both pause.

"Matt," Elena murmurs, "We don't. But you do."

"No. No. You can't make me leave without you."

She reaches out and takes hold of his hand. "You're right. I can't." She'd held on to his hand earlier tonight like she would hold on forever. She makes a promise to herself to hold onto Matt, and everyone else, forever in her heart, because she knows she will never hold this hand in hers again. She embeds the memory of this indelibly into her mind, so that she can live on it later. "But Stefan can." She lets go of Matt's hand and steps away from him.

Stefan steps in to fill her place immediately, and locks eyes with Matt. His compulsion is very, very strong now that he is on a diet of human blood. She can remember a time when his compulsions were weak and tricky things, and has an odd moment of gratitude that this one will stick.

"You're going to head north and west, until you hit the old highway," Stefan instructs him. "Follow that road into town, and take the bus home to Mystic Falls. You won't contact anyone in Mystic Falls until you return. When you get back, you won't remember any of this has occurred. You won't remember coming here, you won't remember Klaus or me, and you most especially won't remember Elena. When everyone asks you where you were, you're going to say that your mother called you out of the blue with an emergency, and you had to bail her out of trouble. Now go."

Matt turns around without saying goodbye to her. That's alright. It's better this way, without having to worry that her loved ones will come looking for her where they might only find death.

Once Matt has disappeared from sight, Stefan leads her back into the house. She's shivering, teeth chattering, by the time they start to head back. Stefan offers her his coat, and she takes it and burrows into the warmth of it.

"Would you have done it if he hadn't been wearing the ring?" she asks him.

Stefan glances at her from the corner of his eye. "Isn't it enough that I did it because he was wearing the ring?"

Like a river cutting stone, she thinks. One day, she is going to wear him down.

If Klaus does not reduce him to rubble first.

A/N: Thank you thank you to everyone who has commented, your reviews really make my day and keep me writing, even when I write myself into messes like in this chapter :) If you're enjoying, please leave a review. Also, PSA, I'm going to changing the rating of this fic to M sometime in the near future. xoxo