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: R
Warnings: Discussion/Implication of Non-Con/Hostage situation/explicit violence/gratuitous angst/extremely dubious consent/potential character death
Elena watches him, warily, from a distance of mere inches. He had let go of her, but he hadn't given her any space. The force of his presence is immense, stifling, incomprehensible that it should be contained in this oh so very normal sized parlor.
His eyes flick over her, and she has the uncomfortable sensation that he is taking her measure anew. She can't tell how he sees her in this moment.
"You're hurt," Klaus says abruptly. He peels her hand away from her throat and inspects the wound, by far the worst of the ones she's sustained tonight. His breath is hot against the torn skin, and she aches with a phantom pain, with the memory of his bite.
He could bite her right now, drain her away into nothing, and she would let him.
She wishes he would hold her.
He doesn't break eye contact with her as he bites into his wrist and offers her his blood. There's an intensity lurking there, in his liquid eyes and parted mouth, that she has only sometimes skimmed the surface of. Her whole body heats as she takes his wrist to her mouth, as she accepts his blood while refusing to look away.
The bloodstone quivers against her palm.
The last time she had taken blood from him, the contact had triggered her awareness of that strange connection between them. She doesn't feel any of it this time, only a yearning for Klaus himself, that has somehow settled in her bones like the ghost of a wound that she is coming to understand she will never heal from entirely. She will always feel this.
She understands, with a ruthless clarity that leaves no more room for self-deception, that he is it for her. At some point along the way, she tripped, and she fell, into this long dark abyss, and she has by now plummeted so fast and so deep that there will be no clawing her way back up to the surface.
An eternity seems to pass between the two of them before Klaus slowly pulls his wrist away. He grazes his thumb over the tender spot along the bottom of her jaw where the knife had cut her. His other hand drifts down, to cover the hand that holds the stone. His fingers scorch hers where they interlock, and she feels frissons dance along the surface of the stone where his fingers brush against it. She shivers at his touch. "Tell me about this bloodstone," he murmurs, snagging her gaze again. There is something familiar and intent in the way he speaks.
Elena leans as far back as she can. Her head thumps against the wall. "You can't compel me. I'm on vervain."
Surprise flickers across his face. "I know. I wasn't trying to." He frowns at her. "The bigger question is: how do you know?"
"What?"
"Stefan's been dosing you with vervain since you arrived—did you really think I'd allow you to stay in such close proximity to so many vampires without even that modicum of protection?"
She feels totally flabbergasted. Too surprised to school her expression in the slightest. No wonder he hadn't mentioned the vervain in her blood the other night.
"But from your response, I must presume you didn't know that. So. The plot thickens."
She opens her mouth to respond, but he cuts her off.
"Tell me about the bloodstone. Tell me about your schemes." The words drag over her skin: quiet, forceful, seductive.
"None of this is what it looks like—"
"Oh, so you didn't voluntarily sneak away from me in order to consort with my enemies? You aren't holding some sort of weapon against me in the palm of your hand?"
"I'm not."
He traces a finger over her face, his touch as cold and menacing as the grave. "Would that I could believe you, but you've a liar's face, sweetheart. But do go on. Tell me your story."
She grabs hold of his hand, curling her fingers around his. She implores him with the full force of her charms, a kind of compulsion all her own. "Aren't we past this mistrust between us? When have I ever lied to you?"
Klaus leans in, as though inexorably lured in by her. She licks her lips, and his eyes dip and linger there on her mouth. If he kisses her, she could probably distract him from his temper. Derail him from the dangerous ground he's determined to drag them both over.
She wants him to kiss her.
She's already on dangerous ground.
He shakes loose of her grip and pulls away from her altogether, and she tries to ignore how bereft she feels at the loss of his touch.
"My bringing you here and giving you the chance to explain yourself at all is already a greater consideration than I would give to any other who had done even part of what I've observed from you tonight. Do not push me further."
"Or what?" she snaps. "You'll threaten me some more? Murder one of my loved ones?"
"Exactly that. I find it to be an ever so helpful tool for encouraging cooperation."
Typical.
Elena looks away from him as she struggles to push her thoughts in order. There's no way she can explain any of this without completely destroying everything they've inexplicably built between them. No way Klaus will be able to hear her side of the story and in any way, shape, manner, or form and be able to empathize with her well enough not to explode with rage. Memories of what he's done to the people she cares about most when that happens shiver through her. She'd be worse than a fool not to take him at his word. She'll have to choose her words carefully, and skirt the truth as much as possible.
(And yet. She wishes that she could talk to him. Wonders what it would be like, if she were completely honest with him, and with herself.
Maybe, someday, she will be.)
Her fingers tighten around the stone in her hand. "It's a talisman," she finally tells him. "That's all."
"Made from your blood." It sounds so damning, when he says it like that.
She takes a deep breath. "Yes."
"Show it to me."
Every instinct she has shies away from showing the stone to Klaus. From letting him catch an unguarded look at her betrayal.
She doesn't want to, but the key is in making Klaus believe that she does. One hint that she has anything she would rather hold back would be all it would take for her entire smokescreen to dissipate like so much mist.
Once she has the stone raised, she hesitates. Darts a glance up at Klaus.
His attention is totally focused on what's hidden by her fingers.
Steadying herself, she uncurls her fingers, and lets him take his first clear look at the bloodstone.
The stone mesmerizes him, just the way it had back at the witch's compound. She can see the dim light it throws refracted in his eyes, swallowing the irises.
He reaches a hand out and strokes his finger along the length of it. "This feels strange," he murmurs. "Almost like you, except—" He trails off. Notices the way her whole body shudders when he touches it. Shakes himself out of the hold the stone seems to have on him. Backs away from her. "You're lying to me." The certainty with which he hurls this accusation at her is cold and distant as the moon. It's as though everything that has passed between them before this never existed, as though he'd never knelt before her, never lain in her arms, never kissed her until she forgot the world.
"I am not!" The denial feels heavy, obvious. As ineffective as gossamer against steel.
"I can tell this thing is supposed to do something to me. Let me guess—is it meant to ensorcell me? Entrap me unto desiccation?"
She pockets the stone. "If you would just let me explain—"
"Or was that your role?" he asks, suddenly, moving back into her space. There's a wild, roiling undertow to the question, that threatens to suck her under, to that depth of black emotion that's already drowning him. "To distract me until Marcel could have his little witch use the stone against me?"
She slaps him.
Klaus blinks at her, as though he's been dazed.
But then, according to him, she's slapped him a lot. It's the hallmark of their lovers' quarrels, apparently.
"Look," she says, feeling overheated, exhausted. Desperate with longing for him, even as he glares at her with baleful eyes. Even as she hates him for pushing her until she had no choice but to seek a way to undo him. Hates him for making it impossible for her to go through with it. "You're totally off base on this, okay? I would never do that to you."
He shakes his head. "You can't deny your role in this. You've confirmed yourself that it was your blood that made it. I can feel it reaching its sticky fingers out for me. It's obviously a weapon or a trap—" He pulls away, turning his back on her, and she can see it—this will be it. Klaus will shut her out, and she doesn't want to contemplate what will happen if he walks away from her now. (Who might pay the price if she falls out of his good graces.)
She can't stand the thought of losing him.
She grabs hold of his hand. "Klaus, listen to me. It was made a really long time ago. Before I even knew you. Before— before everything happened between us. I didn't even think it still existed until last week." Truth sings in her words. She hadn't known a thing about him when she helped Davina make the stone. Hadn't even known herself, as it turned out. She hadn't even realized that she would be unable to go through with rebinding him until a mere hour ago, when she'd held the stone in her hand and known she couldn't betray him like this.
Not for the first time, she wishes that her heart were not so dark and overgrown, the path through it not so twisted and murky, so impossible to navigate.
Klaus must hear the honesty in her words, though, such as it is. He studies her over his shoulder. "You were in league with Marcellus."
"I wasn't. I found out that Sophie—that Celeste had the bloodstone, and that Marcel and Davina were trying to get a hold of it for themselves. They asked me to find it for them and I agreed because I thought I could steal it out from under them."
"To use against me, no doubt."
"No! I wanted to get rid of it, okay? I didn't want anyone to use it against you."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because I put my life on the line for you tonight. You saw for yourself what Marcel was going to do to me after he found out I was double-dealing with him. What Celeste tried to do when I got caught."
This seems to earn his consideration. "Say I were to believe that you truly were on my side," he says, turning back but speaking to the wall behind her instead of to her. "Why not come to me? Why wait until my attention was elsewhere to slip away like a thief in the night?"
"I didn't want you to ever know about this," she admits.
"Because the stone's existence is too damning."
"Because I didn't want you to hate me for it." Tears burn in her eyes. She blinks furiously, trying to hold them back, but it's probably too late. Klaus will have smelled them as soon as they formed. Frustrated, she wipes at her face with the heel of her hand, unhappy with herself for revealing this vulnerability to him at all, and yet, unable to stop now that she has started. "I helped make the thing before I had any idea what you were going to be to me. I never thought—I never imagined that you would be…"
He finally looks at her. Waits for her to finish.
She swallows thickly. She can't form the words. They're lodged there, in her heart, but they refuse to come. "Klaus…"
He takes pity on her. Touches her wet cheek. "I wish you wouldn't cry so often."
"Klaus, you have to believe me. Please."
"I believe you." He leans in, and brushes his lips against hers. She cannot help but open her mouth against his, to gratefully drink in the taste and feel of him. "Until you give me reason not to," he murmurs into her mouth. "Until then…"
She loses the rest of what he was going to say. It's so easy to forget herself in him, in the way he presses her up against the wall, his mouth desperate on hers, hot and insistent. Their bodies line up, and it's perfect, too perfect. She can't think about anything but him when he touches her like this, his hands roaming her shoulders, her face, trailing down her sides and curling around her waist. He takes everything from her, forcing her to give him with kisses and sighs what she cannot give him with her words.
Everything other than his mouth feels hazy. He finds a particularly sensitive spot beneath her ear, over the new scar, and sucks hard on the spot before biting down gently. The feeling of his teeth against her neck sends crazy, bounding waves of tingling pleasure spiked with adrenaline all through her.
"I almost lost you tonight," he mutters against her skin. "Worse. Thought it had all been a lie between us," he tells her as he works his way down the column of her throat and under the neckline of her shirt. "Wanted to burn the world down."
His confession makes her toes curl, and she cannot resist sinking her fingers into his hair, tugging him closer, as close as their two bodies can get. Blindly, she seeks out his mouth again, desperate to have him. "This is real," she pants against him. "This is the realest thing that's ever happened to me."
He surges against her, then, growling low in his throat and parting her legs with a thigh between them. "I can't stand what you do to me," he snarls, and that, combined with the hard friction of him against her center, with his fervent mouth and roaming, possessive hands, is almost too much for her.
His hand dips into the back pocket of her jeans. He gives her ass a firm squeeze that makes her moan into his mouth, and, so briefly she doesn't at first register it, pauses, before pulling out of her embrace. In his hand, he holds the bloodstone.
The sight of him holding the stone stuns her. Her thoughts churn sluggishly and her whole body feels thick and syrupy. At first, all she can do is stare blankly at him as he holds the stone up.
By the time she lunges for it, it's too late. Klaus is impossibly fast on his slowest day, and this is not that day. He's out of reach in an instant.
He pins her with a dark and speculative look from several feet away. "Were you trying to distract me, with your kisses and your weeping?"
"What? You're the one who kissed me."
"You're not usually so easily wooed."
"Oh, so now I'm the bad guy for wanting you. I get it. Thanks for clarifying that." She runs a shaky hand through her hair, trying to block out the way her lips tingle from his mouth, the way her body still feels on fire from his touch. "So, all of that earlier about believing me. Were those just empty words?" Her voice comes out high and edged, not at all the cool nonchalance she had been shooting for.
"No," he says at length. He cocks his head, considering her, and the bloodstone in his hand. "You want to trust me and I want to believe you. That much is true. It seems we both have an opportunity to put our words to the test."
Her fingers itch to reach for it again. She has to cross her arms under her breasts to resist making a fool of herself trying to snatch it out of his hands again. "Could you at least put it away? I'm not sure you should touch it."
His expression softens. "You're the only one who ever worries about me."
"I care about you. Is that so hard to believe?"
He looks at her like she's the strangest thing in the world. "I don't want to be at odds with you, Elena."
He tucks the bloodstone into a pocket before taking hold of her hand to guide her to sit down next to him on the antique sofa in front of the marble fireplace. She lets him. The heat from his body seeps into her side. All she can hear, ringing in her ears, is the soft way he had said her name. His hand never leaves hers, his thumb tracing patterns through the web of blood drying on her skin.
"I failed you, tonight," Klaus tells her, voice pitched low and serious. "I swore I would let no harm ever befall you again, and yet, you were very nearly taken from me and I don't know if I would have been able to stop it in time."
"That wasn't your fault."
"I can't protect you when you keep secrets from me."
"Maybe I wanted to protect you."
His mouth tips up into a fond half-smile, then. "I think you really mean that."
She wants to tell him that she does, but somehow, the words don't come.
"Tell me the rest of what you know," he commands, the mild tenderness of his tone in no way lessening the strength of his demand.
It's a dangerous request. One wrong word, one hesitant turn of phrase, and Klaus will realize that she's been keeping the worst of this back.
"I've already told you everything," she hedges.
"Hardly. Why did Marcellus require you to find this trinket?"
"I have an affinity for it. I was able to find it underneath a cloaking spell."
Klaus's brows shoot up. "Truly?" His eyes narrow in thought. "I dislike him using you for petty chores like that. Tell me again how it wound up in New Orleans, if you crafted it so very long ago?"
"I don't know. Like I said, I didn't even know it still existed until you brought me here last week. I'd forgotten all about it."
"No need to be so defensive, my lovely. What manner of weapon is it?"
"I already told you. It's a talisman. Just a power boost for a witch to channel."
"Then why does it feel so peculiar? When I touch it, I get the sense that it's attuned to me, in particular."
Her thoughts race as she clambers for an answer that will satisfy him. "Isn't that obvious? It's made from my blood. That's why the spells cast when channeling it affect you so much. Because of your blood connection to me. It's why I didn't want you anywhere near it in the first place. I was afraid of what it might do to you if someone like Celeste got possession of it."
"Celeste… or Davina," he muses, letting the names reverberate in the silence between them like bricks striking the ground. "Marcellus planned to have the Claire girl channel the stone as the means to destroy me," he surmises. At Elena's affirmation, he sighs. "I suppose tonight's revelations mean that tomorrow's arrangements are all called off." With an air of faint annoyance, he pulls out his cell phone and sends out a barrage of texts, presumably updating his sister, Stefan, and whichever hybrids he deems most useful as to the night's events.
"Marcellus and the witch haven't returned to the Abattoir," Klaus informs her after a moment, before putting his phone away. "Perhaps it's for the best if they remain tucked away until the traitor succumbs. Ought to buy me some time to figure out how to dispose of your little science project."
Elena chews her lip, debating with herself whether or not to share with Klaus the idea that has been slowly taking shape in her mind for the past few hours.
At the beginning of the night, she had hoped to find the bloodstone and steal away with it. Maybe hide it, hang on to it so that, should the day ever arrive when she needed it, she would have it in her arsenal.
Klaus finding out about the stone's existence has completely obliterated that possibility.
Even so, she has to find a way to smooth things over enough between Klaus and Davina so that they don't destroy each other at the very first opportunity.
"Actually, I have an idea that might get you what you wanted from Davina, and destroy the bloodstone in the process."
Klaus's eyes glitter with absolute delight, and a sharp, pleased smile curls at the edges of his mouth. "Well then, sweetheart, I'm all ears."
They spend the night together in the pink stucco house, the fragrance of Confederate jasmine wafting in from the verdant courtyard, in the midst of its wild spring bloom.
For a time, they sit huddled together, expanding on the outline of Elena's plan, Klaus tossing out suggestions and replacing them with new terms, hypothesizing any and every possible obstacle, and forcing Elena to think on her feet, to come up with solutions, all while working to discourage his worst impulses.
It feels good, to work with him like this.
"You look dead on your feet," he observes around four in the morning, after what feels like the dozenth time they've rehashed their strategy.
"Side effect of sacrificial magic," she says between yawns. "I wanted to sleep for days after the last time."
"And did you?"
She glances at him. She doesn't want to think about any of what happened in the days following the sacrifice right now. Might never want to think about any of it ever again.
She gets up to leave, but Klaus catches her hand, tugs her into his arms. His mouth slants over hers, his kiss thorough, possessive. "Dream of me tonight," he breathes.
The command shoots straight to her core.
For a moment, she considers grabbing him and dragging him upstairs, to her bed, where she could tear off his clothes and sink her teeth into his shoulder, where she could part her thighs for him and soak in the feel and the taste of him.
She could have him tonight, if she wanted to.
Elena leaves, before she can make a bad decision.
One more night. She'll hold out for one more night.
Her room is just as she left it last December. Sleigh bed with crisp white sheets, Louis-Philippe armoire where she had stashed her bag of contraband, beautiful Italian writing desk. Yet, somehow, it all looks so different to her now, as though she's walked into a dream.
It's herself who is different now.
Unbidden, Tyler Lockwood's face flits through her mind as she settles down to rest.
She can never go back to him, after everything that has happened since she returned to New Orleans. Can't return to the clear, bright happiness they had found together as winter thawed into spring.
Klaus has destroyed that. Revealed it to be nothing more than a soap bubble: fragile and ephemeral. Easily pricked.
She doesn't think she can ever be so carefree or so happy ever again.
But if she has the strength to face such a future (she does), it's because Tyler gave it to her. Because he spent months helping her to rebuild herself, to heal. To remember who she'd been, and to discover who she could be.
Just thinking of him swamps her with an overwhelming rush of love and gratitude. She cannot bear the idea of hurting him.
The memory of their time alone together all feels so faded now, a misty daydream rather than a reality of only ten days past. Impossible to imagine that she had been making love to Tyler amidst the lilies and the ladybugs just a few short weeks ago.
And all that time, her heart had already been lost—she just hadn't known it.
Before she can go any further with Klaus, she'll have to own up to Tyler. To come clean.
It seems impossible, but somehow, she has to do it. For Tyler, she would do anything.
They return to the Abattoir just after dawn.
Rebekah and Stefan fall into step behind them as soon as they are through the foyer.
As always, there are vampires milling around the central courtyard, interspersed with Klaus's hybrids. The two groups watch each other warily while pretending they're not the least bit anxious about the presence of the other. Some of the hybrids, though, look a little less concerned than the others. A little more tense, like they're waiting for something to happen. She spots Tyler amongst the throng. He nods in her direction when he sees her come through the door, a tinge of relief in his eyes, before returning his attention to the room.
Conspicuously, Marcel's inner circle of daywalkers are all missing.
At the entrance to the courtyard, Klaus pauses to survey the scene, before raising his voice so that all can hear him. "Marcellus is gone. As of tonight, this city is under new rule."
A quiet muttering starts up amongst the nightwalkers.
Klaus rolls his eyes. "Right. Best get this out of the way quickly. Are there any here who wish to protest my leadership? Who would prefer I reinstate your bold and winsome leader? I'm ready to debate the issue."
Several nightwalkers immediately jump forward, arguing over each other. Klaus listens, briefly, before he tears their hearts from their chests with all of the speed and devastation of a bolt of lightning. It all happens so quickly that the six bodies all hit the ground with a single thud.
"Marcellus will commend you all for your loyalty when he sees you in hell," he informs their corpses.
Klaus turns to face the assembled nightwalkers with the unsettling black and yellow eyed stare and double fanged leer of a hybrid. All throughout the room, the rest of the hybrids have also revealed their fangs while forming tight, organized circles around the remaining vampires. The fruits of Tyler's training.
"Anyone else care to debate me?" he challenges the room at large. "Or shall we consider this matter settled?"
This time, no one steps forward.
"Excellent," Klaus says, looking over the group of them. "Glad to see the remaining lot of you have the lion's share of the common sense. Consider yourselves in my service from this day forward."
Klaus turns on his heel, summoning a group of hybrids and a couple of the remaining vampires to follow him.
Elena watches him disappear into the depths of the Abattoir, king at last.
Stefan brings her back up to the suite of rooms she shares with Klaus.
He snaps the curtains shut and cranks the phonograph on before turning to speak to her.
"Did you do what you needed to do?"
"Yes and no." Elena twists the fleur de lis ring around her finger. "What has Klaus told you?"
"I got the gist of what happened."
"You were right about Marcel. He tried to kill me last night."
A black fire ignites in Stefan's eyes. "If I ever see him again, I'm going to rip his heart out."
"You know that you can't."
"I'll make it look like an accident."
She actually laughs at the way he says it all so definitively, and if she finds planning the murder of someone she had really liked rather a lot until last night amusing, then that's just the sign of the times.
Stefan crooks a smile and combs the hair out of her eyes. "I'm relieved you're okay."
"You know me. I always land on my feet."
"Are you nervous about today?"
"Maybe a little." There's a lot more at stake today than Stefan realizes.
He divines her unspoken thoughts from her expression alone, as easily as he ever has. "I won't let anything happen to you, Elena." His promise to take her away if things go sideways hangs between them, unmentioned, but not forgotten.
"Everyone keeps saying that to me."
"Good. The more people watching your back, the better."
Elena disagrees. It would be a lot easier for her to accomplish her goals without so many eyes upon her.
But Elena Gilbert is the doppelganger. There's just something about her that turns heads. Some supernatural veneer of allure.
She's long since grown accustomed to the attention.
Davina comes to them at noon, when the sun shines brightest and hottest.
The nightwalkers shrink from her as she enters the Abattoir, absolutely no sign about her that she feels any fear at entering what has indisputably become her enemy's territory.
"I'm here to speak to Elena Gilbert," she calls into the gloomy atrium.
Klaus emerges from one of the shadowy corridors with his arms outspread. "Ah, the witch of the hour," he greets her with false warmth, as though he is a gracious host and she an invited guest.
Elena watches them from a crack in the curtains of Klaus's study, where she's been pacing and waiting all morning while Klaus made his final arrangements.
Predictably, Davina uses her magic to throw Klaus midway across the room, but he's back on his feet a moment later, looking none the worse for wear.
"That's our cue," Stefan says from the doorway.
He leads her downstairs, into Marcel's study where they had conducted their original strategy meeting upon her arrival to the city. By the time they make it there, Klaus and Davina have already finished their initial brush up and shut themselves into the study to wait for her.
"I'll be outside," Stefan murmurs, before leaving her alone with them.
Immediately her eyes jump to Klaus, who takes inordinate pleasure in leaning against Marcel's desk and rifling through his papers, broadcasting loud and clear that he has well and truly moved in and taken over all of the previous owner's effects. They hadn't discussed this when they decided to bring Davina in here, but, from the way Davina's grinds her teeth, Elena deems it a successful maneuver. Anything to knock the other girl off balance. To remind her of whose life is at stake.
"Elena," Klaus greets her. "So good of you to join us. Our dear Miss Claire here was just asking for you. Apparently, her guardian is dying even now of werewolf venom. Quite tragic."
Davina ignores Klaus altogether as she turns to face Elena. "You told me to come find you when I found out what was wrong with Marcel. Tell me that means you're willing to help us."
Elena glances at Klaus, who raises his brows at her, as though he, too, would like to know what she plans to say.
Elena holds up her hands, in as placating a gesture as she can manage, and takes a few, cautious steps toward Davina. "It might seem like we're on opposing sides now, but I meant what I said last night. I'm still your friend. I want to find a way for us to work together, so that we both get what we want."
"Give me the bloodstone, then, and prove it."
"If I gave you the bloodstone, how would you cure Marcel? Only Klaus's blood can do that." She holds her breath, praying that Davina doesn't inadvertently let slip the truth of what they planned to do to Klaus with the stone. She's being as careful as possible to keep her wording about the bloodstone vague, but one stray comment from Davina could wreck everything.
Davina's jaw clenches. This close, Elena can see the tell-tale red lining her eyes, the dark smudges under them. She's emotionally wrung out, her anger all bravado. Underneath, she must be terrified of losing the one person she has left.
Elena almost feels guilty manipulating her like this. She knows what it's like to be willing to go to the ends of the earth for the people she loves.
Once again, she marvels at how similar she and Davina truly are. She wishes they had had an opportunity to get to know one another in better circumstances.
"What do you want in exchange?" Davina finally asks.
Here, Klaus breaks in. "It's not what Elena would like, but what I would." He saunters past them, to throw himself down onto one of the sofas several feet away. "The last I recall, we'd struck a bargain. I would help you regain control of your coven, and, in exchange, you would free the Crescent Wolf Clan from their curse, so that I may bring them into my fold. You've already secured one Celeste Dubois, High Witch of the French Quarter Coven."
"Which you were able to do with a Dark Object provided by Klaus," Elena points out when Davina looks ready to protest. Thank God Klaus had assumed that Marcel had found it by rifling through his drawers during the decades he'd been gone.
"Consider that a gesture of goodwill," Klaus finishes. "As it stands now, you need only the blood of the doppelanger to successfully complete your coup. Marvelously, it just so happens that I have a source of doppelganger blood, distilled into a lovely red rock. I've chatted with some witches in my acquaintance, and they have all confirmed that that should serve your purposes. So, my proposal is simple: Complete your power grab, and drain the power in the bloodstone as your buffer against your ancestors' wrath. Once that's done, we can go through with the sacrifice ritual to unbind the Crescent Wolf Clan."
Davina scoffs. "You want me to destroy the bloodstone? No way. It's too valuable to waste it on this."
Klaus shrugs. "Let Marcellus die a horrible and painful death, then. I'm sure I'll find another use for the stone."
"Davina, it's just a little bloodstone. You don't even know how effective it is. Is it really worth Marcel's life?"
The other girl hesitates. "I'm not killing some innocent girl just to break that curse."
"You were amenable to it before," Klaus muses. "Are you implying you weren't really planning to go through with it? Never fear. The girl in question has volunteered to become my next hybrid, so you need not worry your pretty little head over it."
That's not strictly true, but Elena will have to worry about it later.
"Work with me," Elena pleads. "Please. Help me find a way to save everyone."
"Please be accurate, sweetheart. The only one whose life hangs in the balance is Marcellus."
"Fine," Davina relents. "Say I did go along with this. How does this go down? I complete the power transference, break the curse, and then you give me the cure for Marcel?"
"Well, with one final caveat," Klaus says.
Davina glares at him. "What? What else could you possibly want?"
"Once Marcellus is cured, he'll be henceforth exiled from this city."
"That's ridiculous. Marcel loves this city."
"Ah, but I love it too, and find I cannot suffer the presence of traitors and would-be assassins so easily."
"I'm going to be High Witch by the end of the night. If I say I want Marcel to stay, how could you stop me?"
Abruptly, Klaus is standing right in front of her, looking down at her out of half-lidded eyes. "Do you think your magicks capable of containing me?"
"No, I know my magicks wouldn't be enough. But I know what would be."
Elena interrupts them before the tension can grow anymore monstrously stifling. She goes so far as to tug on Klaus's arm to pull him back. "Davina, despite how Klaus is phrasing it, we're trying to build a truce with you. A way for all of us to live together peacefully."
Davina glances between the two of them. "I didn't realize the two of you were such a unified front."
"Amazing what can be accomplished with a little trust," Klaus drawls.
"Please, Davina."
"You're really planning on staying, then?" she asks.
"I built this city from with my bare hands. Nurtured it from its infancy," Klaus tells her, almost patiently. "It will always be my home."
Davina scrutinizes them openly. Elena wonders what picture she and Klaus must paint. What Davina must think of her now.
"I believe you, Elena, when you say you want all of us to live in peace with each other. I don't think it's possible, but I believe you." She turns her attention to Klaus. "I'll be here. Sundown. Be ready."
Davina lets herself out without the same fanfare with which she arrived.
"I think that went well," Klaus declares moments after she leaves.
Elena studies him. "You have no intention of letting her go after tonight."
"Why would I waste such a valuable tool?" He begins rooting through Marcel's bar.
She supposes it's a lost cause. "I need to talk to Hayley," she says, switching to a subject where she can actually do some good. "If she agrees to it, you'll turn her, right?"
He shrugs as he pours himself a drink. "If you wish it."
"She doesn't deserve to die for the sake of your ambition. But I also don't want her hanging around."
"I could send her to join one of my teams of hybrids elsewhere."
"I would appreciate that." She paces the end of the room, thinking through the remaining details. "Would it be so bad if you let Marcel stay? It would help build a stronger bridge with Davina."
"You're too soft-hearted. If I let him stay, he'll be grasping to recover his old status every time I turn my back. There'll be no end to the plots."
"Does that matter? You're immortal in every conceivable sense of the word."
He pauses. "But you're not."
His words pierce through her.
Soft-hearted. He has no idea how right he really is. It seems like she cannot help but let these monsters in, never mind how steeped in blood their souls are.
Her feet carry her across the room to him of their own volition. Before she quite realizes what she's doing, she wraps her arms around him and lays her head against his chest.
Klaus's hands hover uncertainly over her back and shoulders before settling around her. This isn't the kind of intimacy that they're used to sharing.
No matter.
Enfolded in his arms, she can forget. Nothing else exists but the steady beating of his heart beneath her ear.
"What happens next?" she asks.
"After tonight? I think we'll have earned some time to enjoy ourselves, don't you?"
Her fingers play in the soft fabric of his shirt. "I would like that."
Hayley is never particularly hard to find. Ever since she showed up unannounced last week, she's been lurking at the edges of things, observing the hybrids or following at Klaus's heels or sulking at the far end of the courtyard where everyone can see her.
No, that's not very charitable. Elena realigns her thoughts: Hayley's just a lonely girl caught up in a game she mistook for real life. It's not her fault that she's too naïve to realize that real life is a game to creatures like Klaus and Rebekah. Even to creatures like Stefan.
"Can I talk to you?" Elena asks her.
It's the first time they've spoken since Elena found her trying to break into Klaus's desk.
From her perch on the edge of an iron table, Hayley regards her, her head tilted back. "You're the human girl Klaus keeps close. I've been asking him about you, but he never gives me a straight answer."
"And you're the werewolf girl he's going to use to break the curse on the Crescent Pack. Can we skip the introductions? This is kind of important."
"Okay. I'll bite."
"If you haven't figured it out, the ritual tonight is going to kill you. I've been there before: it sucks."
Hayley raises an eyebrow. "I know it's going to take my blood to lift the curse. I'm not afraid if that means I can finally meet my family."
Elena sits down next to her. She doesn't dare to touch her. She understands, implicitly, that this half-feral girl isn't used to friendly gestures. "Please listen to me," Elena tells her lowly. "This spell isn't going to require some of your blood, it's going to require all of your blood. That's how these things work."
"Are you trying to get me to bail? Klaus warned me you might try to get in my head—"
Of course he had. Inwardly, Elena could scream from frustration, but outwardly, she remains calm as a flat sea as she explains, "It's too late for that. Any of his hybrids would stop you in a heartbeat. The vampires too, now."
"Klaus wouldn't do that to me."
"I know you must have feelings for him—and that makes it hard to imagine he would betray you like this."
"He wouldn't, though."
"Don't be so certain. He's done worse."
Hayley's sharper than her present predicament suggests. Her eyes rake over Elena. "To you?"
"Yes."
They sit in silence together while Hayley takes that in. While she thinks about why a human girl with bite scars on her face and on her throat remains in Klaus's company. The shadowy, mysterious human girl he keeps locked away. Once examined, the truth of Elena's situation bears down on them like anvil.
"Did he fool you too?" Hayley asks once the silence has stretched.
"No." Elena considers. "That just makes what he did to me worse."
"If it's too late to run, why tell me at all?" She sounds oddly calm, for someone who's just found out that her sweetheart is planning to murder her. Maybe she's used to being hurt by the ones she loves. The thought makes it very difficult to dislike her.
"Because I want you to live when this is over. Klaus is going to offer you his blood before the sacrifice. You should take it."
"I don't want to be a hybrid."
"Is Klaus worth dying for?"
She opens her mouth like maybe she's about to say that he is, despite everything Elena's just told her.
"He's not," Elena cuts her off. "Not like this." She looks out over the courtyard. "I can't force you. But I hope you'll choose to live, even if it's not the life you would have chosen for yourself. And hey, maybe if you do, you'll get to meet your family after all."
She stands up to leave, but Hayley calls her back.
"Hey! Wait!"
Elena turns back, waits for Hayley to speak.
"I—I'm not used to others being kind to me. I'll remember this."
Elena gives her a smile. "I hope you get to see your family soon, Hayley."
She spends the remainder of the afternoon searching for Tyler. The need to talk to him itches under her skin, distracting her from everything else she probably should be doing to get ready for tonight.
She knocks into Rebekah around a blind turn, and has to scrabble at the wall to keep her balance.
"Lost?" Rebekah asks, sounding a little too innocent. She leans against the corridor wall, feet crossed at the ankle, and examines her manicure. "Or are you looking for someone? Tyler Lockwood, for example?"
Elena gives her as wide a berth as possible as she picks her way around her. "Why would you think that?"
"I've been watching you hunting through every possible place a hybrid could be for over a quarter of an hour. Did you think you were being inobvious?"
"I could be looking for your brother."
"If you wanted to find my brother, you would have already. There's no keeping him away from you."
Elena slumps against the wall opposite Rebekah. "Well, have you seen him?"
Rebekah watches her steadily. "Tyler? He's out just now, but he'll be back before dark."
"Oh." Out. The word churns in her gut. The last time he'd gone out, he'd almost been killed by that curse. Had Klaus already forgotten his promise to her?
No. She can't think about that right now.
When she realizes that Rebekah is still staring at her, Elena frowns at her and straightens. "Was there anything else? Or did you just want to come by and see if you could rattle me?"
"Actually, there was." Rebekah looks down, and visibly fortifies herself. "You were the one who coaxed my brother into saving Marcel. I wanted to thank you." She speaks with an earnestness Elena could never have predicted from her.
The impulse to tell Rebekah that it wasn't for her sake rises up within her, but Elena suppresses it. If Rebekah can make this attempt at cordiality with her, Elena won't turn her away.
"You're welcome."
She'd been serious, about wanting to find a way for everyone to live in peace.
Just before sunset, Klaus finds her in the sitting room.
"I have something for you," he tells her. "Keep it safe for me?"
Davina arrives with Celeste as the last rays of the sun dip below the horizon. The missing contingent of Marcel's inner circle prowl in right on her heels, fanning out around her in a protective arc.
Klaus strolls through the small crowd, for all the world totally unconcerned by the threat of barely contained violence emanating from them in force.
"Lovely to see you again, my dear," he greets Davina. "Though, I'm afraid your gatecrashers are most unwelcome."
"I would never show up here without someone to guard my back," Davina fires back.
"Fair enough." He turns and makes a show of inspecting Celeste. "By the way," he asks her, "I am curious—is this a spiritual resurrection, or have you been body jumping all this time? I'm always charmed by the ways you lot find to circumvent your own death. Call it a hobby."
Celeste's eyes close, and her brow furrows in concentration. When she opens them, her voice comes out as a mere hiss. "You won't get away with this, Vampire. My coven and its allies will come for you—"
Davina flicks her hand, and Celeste's mouth snaps shut. "She's been talking like that all day. I bound her spirit to this body earlier, and it's gotten her all stirred up." Shaking her head, Davina turns to take in the rest of the courtyard, where they have left a space clear, illuminated dimly by the waning light filtering through the foggy skylight overhead.
Rebekah and Stefan have taken Klaus's left and right. Behind him, yet more hybrids and the nightwalkers who chose to defect ring the room, Hayley amongst them. Elena waits off to the side, away from the immediate action.
A hand touches her elbow.
Elena whirls to find Tyler standing just behind her, his attention split between her and the rest of the room.
"Tyler! I've been looking for you!"
"Yeah, I'm here now."
She looks to the other hybrids, who have already fallen into formation. "Do you need to join them?"
"No. Klaus told me to watch you tonight. Anything goes wrong, it's my job to get you out."
"Oh. Okay then." Maybe Klaus had remembered his promise to keep Tyler out of the firing line after all.
In the center of the gathering, Davina tugs Celeste forward.
She looks to Klaus. "Where is the bloodstone?"
Elena steps forward, the bloodstone gripped in her fist. One last time, she searches out the feeling of it alive in her hand. Grabs hold of her tether to it as tightly as she can.
She holds Davina's gaze as she lays it in the other girl's hand. "I'll feel it, if you try to go off script."
"Do you think I'd gamble with Marcel's life?"
Elena knows what she would do in the other girl's shoes.
She doesn't answer.
Elena keeps close during the ritual, the better to keep a line on the stone. Klaus stands right beside her, his presence weirdly reassuring.
She hadn't expected to feel it so strongly when Davina begins to work her spell.
If the stone had responded to Celeste before, during the aborted sacrifice ritual, it howls now, her bond to it screaming in her veins.
"She's begun," she tells Klaus. "I can feel it—"
She can feel Klaus watching her as Davina's magic engulfs the stone, but she doesn't have room inside herself to dwell on him right now. It's near impossible to focus on the details of what Davina does with the bundle of burning herbs, the blessed chalice, or the chalk she uses to draw symbols onto the floor. All she can focus on is the bloodstone, the way her connection to it slides and distends. She feels no pain, only that strange, swelling arc between herself and the bloodstone, pulled overly taught.
The connection snaps. Rebounds and redoubles again.
Her awareness of Klaus beside her amplifies a thousand fold. The old current between them sparks and electrifies.
The full force of its return pounds through her, exponentially stronger than the tie between herself and the bloodstone had been. She lists on her feet, only for Klaus to steady her. The heat of his touch clambers against her skin.
"Alright?" he asks, low in her ear.
It's all she can do to nod.
Because if she can feel him again, the way that she had last fall—
Abruptly, she realizes that Davina is no longer cradling the bloodstone in her palm, but cupping both of her hands together, as though holding liquid. A moment later, she empties her hands into the chalice, and blood pours out of them. Smoke rises from the cup as the remnants of the bloodstone boil over within it.
Before the smoke clears from the chalice, Davina lifts it up and drinks down half of it. Next, she forces Celeste to drink the remainder.
"It's gone," she confirms for Klaus, just as Davina uses a long, wicked blade to slit Celeste's throat. Elena looks away from the naked terror in the witch's eyes. Her blood washes over their feet.
This is justified, she tells herself. This is necessary.
Davina lets the body drop to the floor, only kneeling to dip her fingers into Celeste's blood and paint her face.
When she stands, blood spangling her brow like a circlet of rubies, the vampires behind her call out, "All hail the High Witch Davina Claire. All hail!"
Davina turns to address them both. She looks like a figure out of myth. Savagely beautiful and overbrimming with primordial power. "The bloodstone's gone, and Elena can confirm it. I'll keep my side of the bargain, and break this curse for you. But once that's done, and I have the cure for Marcel, that's the end of this. The French Quarter Coven won't involve itself with you any longer."
"That's a pretty speech, love. Who wrote it for you?"
"No wonder you don't have any friends." Davina stalks past him. "I'm ready to get on with this. Where's the girl?"
Hayley steps forward, hand raised. "That's me, I think."
"You're very brave," Davina tells her. "I was asked to make a similar sacrifice for my people, and I couldn't do it."
Hayley lifts her chin. "I've been looking for my family my whole life. I'm ready to do this."
Elena elbows Klaus in the ribs. She gives him a meaningful look when he frowns down at her.
"Oh—Actually," Klaus interjects, "Not quite." He snaps his fingers, and a hybrid obediently brings him a glass. He steps up to Hayley, and, combing her hair away from her face, tells her, "You've my gratitude for doing this, Little Wolf. Of course, there's no reason you have to stay dead." He draws back to bite into his palm, then, and lets his blood trickle into the glass. "Your choice, Little Wolf."
Elena tries to squash down the ugly feelings that arise when Klaus uses that pet name for Hayley.
She's going away, she's going away, Elena reminds herself. Saving her was your idea in the first place.
Wrinkling her nose, Hayley takes the glass and drinks from it. "See you on the other side," she tells him.
Klaus smiles, and turns back to Davina. "Stupendous. Now we're ready."
Watching someone else go through a sacrifice fills Elena with a bizarre sort of déjà vu, an unease that burrows under her skin with sharp hooks and yanks at her innards.
More than anything, she wants to dash over to Davina and disrupt the set up for this spell. It's at once totally different and totally, horrifyingly the same.
There is no fire, but there is the moon, drifting pure and silvery through the skylight. Davina draws only a single ring around Hayley, just where that moonlight is strongest, instead of the three circles from Elena's memory.
There are no fangs, either. No final embrace. Just the sound of Davina, chanting rhythmically, her words a towering wave that builds and builds and builds, until it fills the whole space, crashing in her ears.
Inside the circle, Hayley looks ecstatic.
The light from the moon seems to grow brighter. Brighter. By the time Davina draws a fresh dagger out, Elena can hardly make her out against the radiance of the moon.
She slits Hayley's throat in one sure movement, quick and painless.
The courtyard thunderclaps back into a natural darkness that feels all the deeper and more complete when compared to the impossible luminescence of the spell.
Davina breathes harshly. "It's done," she pants, when she can catch her breath. She straightens and marches up to Klaus. "I've done my part. Give me the cure."
"All in good time," Klaus assures her. He points at one of his hybrids. "Bring me the wolf." To another, he orders, "Get the girl off the floor."
Davina looks like she's ready to argue with him, but she freezes with her mouth open, and a fine tremor wracks up her body.
She turns toward the door.
"Something's coming," she says, seconds before the front of the building explodes inward.
Klaus snatches her up and pushes her behind him. She struggles to see over his shoulder so she can peer into the cloud of billowing smoke.
Through the haze, a man emerges. Tall, gray, and dignified, but with a zealous, vicious gleam in his eyes that makes Elena's skin crawl.
"Hello, Niklaus. It appears I've found you at last," the man calls. "But then, you've hardly kept a low profile."
Klaus stiffens as though he's been struck.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rebekah take a hesitant step forward. "Father?"
Father?
A thousand questions burst into being.
"Mikael," Klaus finally answers, his voice more strained than she has ever heard it. "I'm afraid you've missed the main event, but I'm sure my hybrids will be delighted to entertain you. They're rather fond of dismemberment."
"Spare me the small talk, boy. You know why I'm here." He produces a huge, pale stake from the inside of his suit jacket.
"That would be very threatening if I didn't have an army standing between the two of us."
Mikael smiles. "How splendid, then, that I brought my own."
At that moment the smoke finally clears, and Elena's blood freezes in her veins.
Bonnie—her Bonnie—stands just behind Mikael, her hand held high above her head, fingers already glowing with magic. And behind her— the rest of her beloveds. Her lost ones. Damon, looking inhuman and hollow— and her heart aches, because she knows why he looks like this—and Caroline, and Alaric, and Matt, and Jeremy (oh God, Jeremy!)— Jeremy, who has grown so much in the past nine months, who looks too old and too careworn to be only seventeen—
All of them are here.
A/N: Special thanks to icebluecyanide, who figured this twist with Mikael out a year ago and very kindly kept my secret.
Lots of love to everyone who has read and commented. Y'all are the life's blood of this project.