Warning: Use of language in this chapter, as well as mentions of drowning and violent canon events.
Today had been a disaster of unsettlingly epic proportions. While Klaus was no stranger to trying times, he really hadn't expected his stay in Mystic Falls to be so rife with difficulties. He certainly hadn't expected that Stefan, of all people, would try and kill his doppelgänger, the woman he was supposed to love more than anything, who he'd fought so hard not to hurt. And while at the time Klaus had found that devotion to be a nuisance...it saddened him to see his old friend throw it away so easily. Because he had, thrown it away. Elena would never forgive him for that. What he did to her tonight...it was an act that she would never be able to move past from, no doubt ranking higher than Klaus' killing of her aunt, Jenna, due to the weight of the betrayal, the love she no doubt had still held for him.
But what did she expect? Life was not kind, only cruel. Love did not heal you, just bled you dry, as he had drained her of all her blood the night of the sacrifice.
Just as she was now, apparently, attempting to drink the entirety of his wine cellar.
She hadn't been very stealthy, tumbling in through an open bay window, clearly confused by the unfamiliar layout. She'd found the alcohol just fine though. It seemed Elena Gilbert was his kind of girl, and it truly surprised him, as few things had the power to do these days. She was a quandary, a paradox in an enigma wrapped in the deceptively meek package of an eighteen year old girl, harmless and need of protection from all her supernatural companions. But her mind was almost as sharp as his, coupled with a devotion to family that rivaled his brother's, and it painted quite the polar opposite picture. Her moral compass had more bearing on her actions than most teenagers he'd encountered, and yet she seemed content to defy him at every turn.
She wasn't scared of him, and Klaus didn't know how to make her scared. Or if he even wanted to. Elena was an inevitable, inexorable part of his life now, and this whole thing would go down far smoother if they could be cordial, civil. As would some ice in that glass of hers.
"Did you find my collection to your liking?" Klaus asked her, arms crossed, lurking in the doorway of the kitchen, cobalt eyes staring at the prone form of Elena, legs spread out in front of her like a broken doll, clutching a bottle limply by the neck, having abandoned the pretext of politeness and simply chugging from it straight rather than using a glass.
Elena nodded, a sardonic smile curving her lips, sharper than any she'd previously given him. It suited her. "Definitely. But I think the cherry one's my favourite; it pairs well with my bitter, heartbroken, raging mood." She squinted her eyes at him, doe-eye brown clouded with a haze of alcohol, pupils blown impossibly wide, a stark contrast to the redness ringing her eyelids, the tip of her nose. She'd been crying. Oh, you poor girl, he almost thought to say to her. Don't you know love isn't anything worth crying over? "Aren't you going to kick me out?"
"Now why would I do that? You seem to be enjoying yourself," Klaus replied, shifting down gracefully onto the floor, his back pressed up against the fridge, it's vibrating hum thrumming through his back as if he was sitting next to some great sleeping creature.
"Exactly. Isn't it your sole purpose in life to make me as miserable as humanly possible? Plus, not to mention the whole 'breaking and entering' thing," she insisted, and Klaus refrained from letting out a snort at her likely unintentional adorableness: she really thought he, Klaus Mikaelson, cared that she'd tumbled in through an already open window.
Klaus waved a hand airily, simultaneously waving away her concern and asking for the bottle.
Elena handed it over without protest, gaze never leaving his as he took a generous swig.
"I really don't care about your somewhat reprehensible entrance, love. And as for your first point of concern...I think you've had enough misery for one night, mmh? I don't wish to add to it," he told her, as genuine as he'd ever been. The admission itched, cloying and uncomfortable like when he'd been human and the marks Mikael left on him, the cuts, scabbed over and he always wanted to pick at them and Elijah always told him not to, but his brother hadn't understood, he'd wanted every trace of it, of him, of his weakness gone and...
"That's awfully nice of you. It's probably the nicest thing you've ever said. Actually, it's probably the nicest thing I've heard in a while. God, isn't that pathetic?" she asked him, swiping the bottle back from him and draining it almost to the dregs.
Klaus simply shrugged, the fabric of his heather-grey Henley pulling up against the fridge. "I choose to take it as a compliment."
"You do that."
Silence settled for a moment. Elena lent her head back against the kitchen cabinet, the one where he kept all the cleaning supplies, but he felt no compunction to tell her that, although her head was a dangerous few inches shy of the handle and...
"I'm the person you hate most in the world, right? I mean, after your abusive asshole of a father who was literally the most evil guy I've ever met and who I'm super glad you killed, by the way. I'm Numero Uno on your 'God she's so annoying, she ruins all my plans, my life would be so much better without her here' list. Aren't I?"
He hadn't expected that. Hadn't expected such bitterness -even though she herself had said she was, moments ago- or the way she sounded almost...eager about it. What was this? Who was this, sitting with him in his kitchen with no light on, drinking his wine and talking to him like he was an actual person, with actual opinions she cared enough to hear? Klaus' first thought was that it was a ploy, some kind of trap, some roundabout attempt at lowering his guard...but he'd seen that look in the mirror too many times to count, had spent so many nights like this, wondering what the point was.
Because that was what she was doing, wasn't it? It was what she was implying. Why haven't you killed me yet? Why am I still here? Why is this all happening to me? What did I ever do to deserve this...?
"Would that make it easier?" Klaus inquired, the tips of his paint-splattered boots knocking against her knee-high rust-red ones, a single point of contact he couldn't help but focus on, be drawn to. "If I hated you, would that give you an excuse to hate me?"
"I hate what you did," Elena began, eyes catching his and then flickering away, temperamental as a candle flame. "I don't know if I hate you; I don't know you enough to hate you, if you know what I mean. You've done awful things, I know, but so has almost everyone else in my life, in one way or another. I'm no saint, and I'll never pretend to be, not even when I'm drunk," she added with a tiny grin. "You killed Jenna. You could have killed Katherine instead, and I would have thrown you a damn parade. Well, Caroline would have organized it, and Damon would have paid for it, but I'd have definitely been enthusiastically supportive..." Elena rambled, head bobbing along on her neck with every word. She seemed to come back to herself, shaking her head like a wet dog, and why did the wolf part of him want to laugh at that, liked that and...
"But you didn't. But it was supposed to be Caroline, it was supposed to be Tyler. And I know that Jenna would have done anything in her power to protect them both, even if it meant dying herself. Because that was who she was. She was a -albeit adjacent- Gilbert, and it seems we can't go five fucking minutes without putting our necks out, dancing on the wire, knowing we're gonna fall off...but knowing that everyone's watching, everyone's holding their breath, waiting foe us to overbalance, to topple, to let the greater force that is gravity lead us to our deaths...and that's in me. It's in my blood, as much as the Petrova survival gene, as much as my brown eyes and my hair and my (albeit former) love for cheerleading I got from a mom who didn't want anything to do with me..."
Elena let the thought die out, instead turning to him, head tilted like a curious bird, like the hummingbird in the Andies. "Aren't moms the worst? Like, you think that being a parent is all about love, and protection, and being there. Because it is, isn't it? From that first minute, when you hold them in your arms, you're supposed to feel this instant connection, this overwhelming, overriding need to protect, to defend, above your own inherent, innate need for survival as a living being. It becomes all about them. But not her, not either of them. They both died, right in front of me. My real mom...that wasn't her fault, she didn't choose that, but Isobel...she took off her daylight ring, right in front of me. She burned, and made me watch. She didn't tell me to go. Didn't think about watching my own mother die would do to me. No. They never do. All these people who are supposed to love me and they just keep doing stuff to hurt me. They keep doing it and doing it and when does it end? When can I stop? When can I stop watching as everyone leaves me, hurts me. When do I get to say I've had enough? You vampires may all be 'monsters,'" she murmured, putting ironic air quotes around the word, "but when do I get to roar?"
Klaus didn't know what to say. So, for a moment, he didn't say anything, anything at all. He only looked, and listened, and felt. He looked at the smudges of mascara clumping her eyelashes into points like on a child's star, he listened to her heartbeat, thundering like a war drum, pumping the blood that was both his catalyst and his curse through her veins, and felt his heart break, his soul reach out, his sharp edges yearning to scrape against hers, even if they didn't fit, especially if they didn't fit because he didn't want perfect, he never had, Klaus just wanted something real and there was nothing more real than a messy work of art, beautifully misunderstood, catastrophically misguided and foolish and reckless.
So, for the first time since he'd known her, Klaus took her by the hand with no intentions to harm her, his thumb sweeping against the ridges and valleys of her knuckles. "You can always get roaringly drunk with me, Elena," he said, the humour of his words disintegrating in the fervence of his severity, his sincerity. "I won't ever tell you how to feel. I don't care how you feel about them."
"Right," Elena nodded, something like resignation -disappointment?- settling over her features. "All you care about is my blood."
His fingers darted out, capturing her under her chin, the echo of her pulse radiating out to his fingertips, and he leaned in to the feel of her skin, warm as a fire, as the bonfire in their village, this village, all those thousand years ago, but this was not Tatia before him, and he would never treat her as such; he didn't need, or want, to. "If I only cared for your blood, sweetheart, then I would have asked for if by now. If that was all I wanted, I wouldn't be sitting here with you, on the floor, while you drink my wine and I drink in your secrets."
It was true. With every word out of her mouth, he burned for more, because when did anyone ever confide in Klaus Mikaelson of all people? When did anyone ever trust him so blindly with something so personal, without expecting him to use them against them, even if he had no intention of doing so? Everyone assumed the worst. Everyone was usually right.
Just not all the time.
Sometimes there really was good in him; sometimes he just needed the right person to bring it out.
Like her. And her secrets were delectable, a forbidden fruit, like faerie fruit in tales of old, where the more you had, the more you wanted. Klaus wanted more. He didn't want her to stop talking. It was nice to hear another voice, to just talk, even to a drunken teenager who he was supposed to hate, who he'd killed, who he'd held in his arms for longer than he should have that night, had brushes her hair back and lingered like a man taking one last look at his homeland before venturing into the unknown. All of this was new to him, foreign territory, even though he'd known both doppelgängers of the last thousand years, he didn't know her.
He'd like to. But it wouldn't be easy. Because how did you get someone to lower their guard? By lowering yours first, and Klaus' was an impenetrable castle, with a moat and a drawbridge and a sleeping dragon and a million flaming archers along the turrets. And she was the warrior princess astride her snowy mount, blazing sword held aloft, demanding to be let in, to have an audience with his insecurities and most private vulnerabilities, and Klaus didn't know how to call them all off. He wasn't Elijah with his noble declarations, didn't fall in love like Bekah did, didn't put people at ease with Kol's easy charm. He was himself, and nothing more. Brutal and bloody and violent, a raging tempest, pouring out his pain onto canvas our making it rain someone else's blood.
And so he said, "I killed my mother when I was twenty three and I lied about it. I told my siblings it was Mikael, but it was I who did it. I tore her heart from her chest with my own hands. She died cursing my name, saying I'd become everything she ever hated. And I still miss her."
Klaus waited. He waited for the shock, the horror, the revulsion, the how could you do that, Klaus, to your own mother? He waited for the condemnation from the almighty, pious Elena Gilbert. But it never came. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him, elbows colliding awkwardly with the fridge, fingers settling in the hair at the nape of his neck. Her mouth found his ear, a feather-light brush of lips as she said, "I already know. And I don't, I won't judge you. But I don't know what you need right now." He didn't even know himself. He only knew that, oddly, he felt everything inside him was still, and Klaus wasn't sure if it was the calm before the storm or just...calm. He didn't need to fight her, she wasn't here to fight him, there was no need for masks and grandiose villainous theatrics. He just needed to listen. "Do you need me to be angry for her?" Elena continued, raising her chin defiantly. "Because I'm not. She wanted me gone, too, so she's not exactly high up on my Christmas card list. And no one should ever put their children through what you and your siblings endured, especially with Mikael. This sin is not yours to carry, Klaus. I killed my dad, both of them, by living. Grayson wouldn't let Stefan help him out of car until he saved me, and John died so that I'd come back. We both have blood on our hands."
Her arms retracted, palms spread on her knees, peering down at them as if she expected to see them covered in scarlet. She would make a stunning Lady Macbeth, he thought, but it seems she is forever destined to the the Ophelia to his Hamlet, drowning and dying, beautiful and ageless and haunting. "You didn't kill your mom. You killed the thing that looked like her, but it wasn't her. I know that dark magic, the kind that she used, the kind that disrupts the balance of nature, it changes you. Corrupts you. Bonnie told me about it. But regardless of that...she shouldn't have cursed you, shouldn't have made Elijah hold you down."
He must have made some noise of surprise, for her mouth quirked up at the edges. "Did you not know that I know it all? Elijah's quite the storyteller. I think he needed to get it off his chest, after all this time," she whispered conspiratorially, as if Elijah was about to appear around the corner any second, even though they both knew that was impossible. Stefan had made sure of that. "No one lives in Mystic Falls without getting hurt on some way or another. It's like Derry."
Klaus shook his head, chuckling softly. "Ah, but I'd never be caught anywhere near a clown costume," he said, a silent acknowledgment of her literary reference. "Yes, Elena, I know who Stephen King is," the hybrid answered before she could even ask. "Just because I'm a recluse doesn't mean I'm an ill-educated one."
"Then why did you build such a big house? People are gonna expect you to host parties in it, especially if you're in cahoots with the Council."
Shrugging, he plucked the bottle of wine from her lap, drinking it with one hand, since somehow his left, traitorous appendage that it was, had retreated back to Elena's comforting warmth. "And this should bother me why? I'm not here for people to like me."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I have no where else to go, and this is where you are. It's our home."
For the first time all night, Elena smiled, that real, happy smile, the one Rebekah has shown him on the phone at Senior Prank Night, the one he'd caught glimpses of in crowded classroom hallways when he'd hijacked the History teacher's body. It made her eyes sparkle, yet was far more precious than any gem he could have procured from his various troves. This wasn't made, but given, freely offered.
He took it gratefully.
Elena looked down at the empty bottle between them. "More wine?"
Klaus snorted at her audacity, offering him his own alcohol. "Absolutely. How did you find the cellar anyway?" he inquired mildly as he brought her to her feet, catching her when she inevitably swayed, the ends of her hair tickling his cheek, wafting up tantalizing wisps of her shampoo, something floral, yet dignified.
"I asked. As it so happens, I went to school with one of your staff," she explained, rolling her eyes at the word like it was an unnecessary absurdity -she wouldn't think that if she saw the size of the place- "and I said I was a friend of yours. She led me right to it." That was what he got for hiring locals rather than outside professionals.
He found he wasn't as angry as he should have been, as he'd normally be, as he would have been, if he wasn't leading Elena down the steps, still holding her hand, still feeling like none of this was quite real and yet desperately hoping it was. He didn't want to have to pretend he was a decent person in his mind. Not bothering to flick on the light, he plucked a few bottles at random, all that same cherry wine she seemed to have taken a shining for, plus a bottle of rum to keep it interesting. As they made their way back to the kitchen, he caught sight of a mark hiding under the collar of her shirt, an ugly red scratch, and something tightened inside him at the sight.
Before he even realized it, he'd let go of her hand, the pads of his fingers tracing the mark. "Is this from..." Klaus couldn't finish the words, so he didn't, just waited expectantly for her to do so for him.
But she didn't. She just stared, and stared, without seeing him. Then, in a rush, she pulled up her collar like that would somehow reverse it, out of sight and therefore out of her mind. "It's okay. I've had worse."
He knew that. Of course he knew that. But still..."It looks like it hurts."
Elena snorted, so unladylike it made him grin wildly, fishing a corkscrew from the kitchen island. "When doesn't love hurt?"
"It shouldn't."
"I know."
"It didn't, when I was in love."
She stopped, frozen, encased in ice and a curiosity he could almost taste on his tongue. He liked it, liked that she wanted to know. She'd gotten Elijah to tell their story, the family history, and it makes him guilty preen to know she's just as interested in a story about him, and him alone. "Was it only the one time?" Elena wondered delicately, reclaiming her forgotten glass like she was unconsciously giving him to gather himself. He can't decided whether to be grateful that she'd read him so well or indignant over the fact that she can read him at all. His goal was to be unknowable, a looming shadow, the Boogeyman in the dark.
But Elena will want investigate every corner, turn on every light. Ane he hadn't seen light in so very, very long. So he'll let her.
"So far, yes. What I had with Tatia, your ancestor, I don't know if it was love. Looking back, it seems more akin to infatuation, convenience, intrigue-"
"Puppy love?" Elena snickered over the rim of her glass, lipstick-red smile tugging at the corners of his own mouth. Wow, what a joke. Truly original.
"I've killed people for saying worse things to me," Klaus reminded her, but by now she was no stranger to his cruelty; it's his passion, his humanity she had yet to aquatint herself with. He could only hope they'd get along.
"Oh, I know. But tonight's not about being scared of you or what you're capable of."
The hybrid couldn't help but press, "Then what is it about, sweetheart?"
She set down her glass, crystal clinking, boot steps butchering the quiet as she left the kitchen and marched across the parque flooring before landing at the front door. "If anyone tries to come through there and hurt me, you'd stop them, right?" she almost begged, hand flung out helplessly. "You wouldn't even let them through the door?"
"No." Instant. Involuntary. Painfully accurate. Vulnerable.
"That is what I need tonight," Elena insisted, hand falling back to her side, the tide of her breathing returning to normal. "I need to feel safe, and not have to worry about anything. I need to feel like myself, and I can only do that with someone who doesn't expect anything from me, who didn't expect me to show up in the first place. I need the scariest thing in town, with the best bottles of wine and the most intriguing stories and the most broken spirit I've ever seen besides my own. I need to not be alone."
"Then you won't be."
This is bad. So very, very bad. He could see it all, like it was a map laid out before him, imposed across the black and white chessboard-like tiles, all her moves and countermoves, how the Salvatores had fallen for her, how Elijah had opened up to her. She was sweet, and merciful, and fiery and fierce and loving, so powerfully herself that he couldn't help but marvel, be in awe of her. Here was the great doppelgänger, the oldest yet, saying she needed him. Not wanted, but needed. It was intoxicating, headier than any alcohol, for this will not be a temporary buzz, an artificial high. Her eyes were no longer glazed: she was sober, and deadly serious.
He was supposed to be the deadly one, with poisonous venom, but she was the one he was afraid of, her goodness its own kind of poison, eating away at him. What would it be like, if he let himself indulge, just this once? If they shared another bottle of wine? It didn't have to mean anything, but it did, or he hoped it did and...
"I think you need this, too. I think you shouldn't think so hard. I'm not going to hurt you."
Oh, but sweetheart, that was half the problem: because if she was, he'd expect it, see it coming, be able to reflect and deflect and attack. He didn't know how to retract his claws; they were so much a part of him. They were the part he'd always liked best. How did he let that go?
"We can be people, just for one night."
The word left his lips before he could regret it. "Okay."
She took his hand, steering him back in the direction of the kitchen, but he soon took over, instead leading her up the winding spiral staircase, mindful of the parts still under construction -a work in progress, just like himself, and whatever this was- to his own room, opening the door of his ensuite bathroom, the light flickering to life.
Elena squinted, pouting at the brightness on her sensitive eyes. "Ow! Give a girl some warning. Not all of us have supernatural bat vision."
"Bats are blind, sweetheart," he reminded her softly, shoulders relaxing back as he chuckled. Maybe she was still a little drunk.
Elena kicked him in the shin. "I know that. What are you doing, anyway?" she asked, so adorably transparent in her diversion.
"Your seatbelt left a mark. Stefan pulled it off of you, didn't he?"
Wordlessly, she nodded, gaze shifting around the room, unable to meet his, landing haphazardly on things. The claw foot bathtub, the tube of toothpaste he'd left out, the china-blue towel on the rail.
Klaus continued on, "I'm guessing mine isn't the first stash you've raided tonight, so while the vampire blood in your system tries to combat that so your liver doesn't end up resembling camouflage, it means you won't heal as fast as you normally would. Plus, it's just good practice, especially if you develop an infection," he added, knowing she'd appreciate the medical logic of it.
"I don't need you to fuss over me, Klaus." It was the second time she'd said his name that night, the most he'd ever heard her say it, but unlike all those times before, it was soft, like a warm blanket on a cold night, and it seemed so more genuine, intimate, even though there not doing anything particularly note-worthy. He had a First Aid Kit in his hand and she was straightening up the counter where he'd strewn everything, tightening the cap on his toothpaste, and he suddenly wanted to hear her say it all the time, just like that.
Maybe he'd just had too much wine.
Or maybe he'll be forever drunk on her, and her kindness, her humanity.
Maybe there are worse ways to live, worse things to live with.
Setting the kit down, he gestured to the tub behind her. "Sit. Let me take a look."
She didn't put up a fight, but her fingers visibly shook as she tried to undo the buttons. His hand reached out, covering hers, only undoing the first few; there was no need to be improper, to overstep, she'd already had her trust violated by someone she loved tonight, and he knew that exact ache better than he'd like, an old companion he'd never quite mastered living with.
Gingerly, Klaus probed the mark, frowning at the split skin. Dear God, what had Stefan been thinking? He'd hurt her. There was a mark on her, and it was long and red and angry, and just because it wasn't made by a belt or a blade didn't mean he didn't, hadn't felt it, too and...
"Stefan will never lay a hand on you. Not while I draw breath," he vowed, forehead swaying dangerously close to hers, pulled in by her magnetic orbit. "I give you my word."
"That's the whole point, you dummy. Stefan wants you dead. Everyone does."
"And you? Do you want me dead?" Klaus asked her as he got out an antiseptic wipe and began cleaning the mark, watching as she didn't even flinch.
Elena put her hand around his, halting him, the other coming up to tilt his chin, a shadow of his earlier actions. "'Darkness cannot drive our darkness; only light can do that.'"
"'Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,'" he finished for her. "You a fan of Dr King's, Miss Gilbert?"
"Dr King Jr," she instantly corrected him, "and yes, I am."
"As interesting as that little factoid is, you didn't answer my question."
Elena raised a brow, teeth capturing her bottom lip as she smiled. "Didn't I?"
Klaus rolled his eyes, finishing cleaning her chest. "Fine, I suppose you did. What you're trying to say is that you've had enough of violence, that killing me is pointless and that...that you're a confusingly optimistic person." It wasn't what he was going to say. He'd been thinking of saying instead 'That you'd miss me,' or 'We're opposites, always drawn to each other, unable to truly let go of the other,' but he didn't, because he didn't know if it was true. He needed her, her blood for his hybrids, but if they'd met under different circumstances, if this had been a thousand years ago, would he still be tending to her like some devoted protector? Would the flush on her cheeks look so inviting if the thought were not such a crime, an act carrying a sentence he wasn't sure he could endure?
Was he alone, and she just lonely?
If he cared about her, he was the biggest hypocrite who ever lived. Love is weakness, he'd told Elijah, over and over and over again. Aurora had made him weak, had exploited him and his family. She'd been human, and her love for Klaus had done him no favours. But Elena didn't want to be like him, wanted to be the antithesis of him, didn't want fangs and claws and bloodshed to override her nature. She didn't want forever, and he respected that as much as it intrigued him, surrounded by the supernatural as she was, how she could hold so steadfast in her beliefs when Klaus had never believed in anything but betrayal and fear, that the world was out to to get him (always and forever was destined not to last)...
But Elena just wanted to get him drunk.
And he was fine with that.
"There. All finished," he said, depositing the wipe in the bin and snapping the First Aid Kit closed with an audible snap. Elena flinched, just barely, but incredibly noticeable with his heightened senses -and the fact that he'd been staring at her. Her hand curled up against her chest, by her heart, like she could keep the stubborn organ together through sheer force of will.
"Stefan tried to kill me."
"I know." It was all he could offer her.
"Stefan tried to kill me," she repeated, a ghostly echo, face drained of colour, eyes brimming with pain, an oceans worth. He didn't want to swim in it, didn't want to get lost in those depths, but there was something about her like this, strong and yet vulnerable, honest and sincere, that he couldn't help but be drawn to. Pain is something he knew, that he could understand, could relate to, and he couldn't help but consider how few people had had the privilege of seeing Elena Gilbert fall apart, let go, and helped her but herself back together after, or just been there to really listen, without judgment, the same grace she affords everyone except herself. This was her confession, and he was willing to hear it, if only so he can plan how to properly punish Stefan when he got his hands on him.
"He was-he was going to turn me!" she gasped, gripping the rim of the tub in a bone-white grip, agony rolling off of her, crashing into him until he could almost feel it himself. Empathy was not his strong suit, but seeing her cry, when she hadn't even cried at her own death...
In a blink, he was at her side, an arm wrapping around her shoulders, urging her head onto his chest as she sobbed, "He was going to make me like him even though he knows that's not what I want! And-and after he made me do that stupid fricking hike and we-we watched the sunset and made me tell him that I didn't wa-want to be a vampire, that I wanted to grow up! And he was going to take that from me! He was going to kill me on the same bridge where my parents car...where they...where he saved me. All to get back at you." Her words were icy, hoarfrost coating her tongue, creeping into her eyes, making him feel far more guilty than he had when he'd gotten off the phone with Stefan and trashed one of -or many of- Mrs Lockwood's 'antique' vases. This was personal, sharp, piercing his heart, her tears and her fire scorching him with shame. This is his fault, his doing, and he doesn't need her to add to it but she had every right to.
Klaus expected her to go on, to link every terrible tragedy back to him, the lynchpin of her unhappy life, to pull away at least physically if not emotionally, but all she did was button up her blouse and wonder, "How can he hate you so much? His humanity's supposed to be off. When Damon first came to Mystic Falls, he didn't have his, either, and while he wasn't exactly Mr Good Samaritan and he killed a lot of people, it wasn't personal, wasn't a direct attack. Sure, he threatened me a little-" oh, sweetheart, he shouldn't have threatened you at all- "but he never would have turned me, I don't think. And then he didn't even-"
"-Love you?"
It wasn't his place to ask, to pry. He was a thousand year old hybrid, the most powerful being on the face of the planet; he had better things to do with his time than get involved with some moronic love triangle but...he'd been there. With Tatia, Elijah on one side and himself, fighting for her and fighting each other for her, in the hopes of impressing her, proving themselves worthy. And he never knew how she felt about that. She'd liked the attention, of that he was sure, but underneath all that...what had it felt like, to be fought over, fought for? What was it like, to know that someone would move Heaven and Earth just to catch a glimpse of your smile?
He couldn't ask Tatia, but he can ask her.
Elena nodded, swinging her feet back and forth like she was on some invisible swing -always seining between the Salvatores, between who hasn't hurt her the most that week? "I know he loves me. Most of the time, I wish I didn't. I never wanted to come between them, ever. I didn't want to be another Katherine. I still don't. It's one of my biggest fears, turning into that manipulative bitch. I think about it all the time, and lately it's just gotten worse, since she can play me so well, according to everyone."
"And what do you think?"
She grinned, wickedness incarnate. "I think that when you've been a vampire for nearly a hundred and fifty years, you should be able to tell the difference between a human and a vampire heartbeat. Don't you agree?"
"I do," Klaus said, arm slipping down her shoulders, tangling their hands and switching off the light. "I don't think I could see you as anyone but yourself. And Katerina really isn't that good of an actress." It was dark, and he was grateful for it, so that Elena couldn't see what a mess his room was -he knew she was the kind of person that abhorred mess, he could just tell, someone who felt the need for control, order, when their life seemed to be dominated by only chaos, unpredictable as a spread of cards. It felt too open, exposed, like cracking his ribs open and displaying his bloody yet still-beating heart. She wouldn't like what she saw, if she ever did.
He didn't like it himself. How he could love his siblings and yet be so angry with them. How he still yearned for his father's approval even though he'd watched him burn only the week before. How he wanted to be loved yet wasn't capable of it himself, not now, if ever again.
She laughed, merry and berry-bright. "And finally somebody says it! Honestly, I think I gave a better performance as Tree Number Two in my kindergarten play."
They'd reached the bottom of the stairs, and Klaus spun around, hands in the pockets of his jeans to resist reaching out for her again. "You were a tree?"
"Yep," Elena nodded, popping the p, punctuating it by jumping down the last two steps. "We were doing a play about the different seasons, and I was so excited because I was autumn and it's my favourite season and I had the prettiest leaves and Caroline was so jealous even though I thought she'd be happy playing summer but...yeah. I had twig arms and actual leaves stuck to this bit of cardboard on my head. Of course, a spider just happened to try and make a bed out of one and it freaked Care out so much that she knocked into me during my big song and-"
And he lost it. Klaus bent double, howling with laughter, tears streaming as he thought of them as toddlers, rolling around on stage in front of the gathered parents of Mystic Falls. "Who won?" he asked, reigning in his glee but unwilling to cover up his joy.
"I did. But then I gave her a big hug and helped her out it outside after the show. I don't think she even remembers it."
Klaus wasn't so sure. Having met her for the first time tonight...he knew that gleam in her eyes, that wish to be extraordinary, to get away and be anything you wanted. No rules, no limitations, only freedom and endless possibilty. Caroline wanted to run. Elena wanted to stay. She'd known Klaus was coming for her but she'd stayed anyway. She'd broken into his house, not wanting to come across him, but when she had, she'd stayed. And while he didn't think she loved this town any more than Caroline...it meant something else to her. She was willing to take the bad with the good, as she had been with the Salvatores, even with Elijah when they'd struck their deal -he'd gone in to his brother's mind when he was sleeping, curious as to what he'd missed, such as Elena calling his brother's bluff and stabbing herself, foolish (brave) thing that she was. She didn't give up anything without a fight, until she was down on her knees with nothing left but her pride and her eyes and the way she tilted her chin when she was being challenged.
She would make such a good queen. Why had no one seen that yet? Why had the girl with the bleeding heart not been given a crown to match?
"Are their pictures?"
"Do you really think Caroline would let evidence of such a catastrophes see the light of day?" She giggled, moving past him to the kitchen -she'd memorized the layout, clever girl, always know your way around a lion's den- and picking up another bottle of cherry wine. She considered it for a moment, turning it around and around in her palms like it was a stick and she was hoping to build a fire. But all she kindled was his puzzlement as she abruptly switched topics -or rather switched back to. "The woman that you loved, the one who wasn't Tatia. What was her name?"
"Aurora."
He hadn't said it in a long time. Hadn't thought of her in decades. There was a bricked-up picture in an abandoned home that he hadn't laid eyes on since the night he'd painted it. But he remembered it al too well. The red of her hair, the feel of his smile. The ache of her betrayal when Rebekah came to him and explained what she'd done, what she'd made her do. She'd wanted immortality more than she'd wanted him. She'd wanted power above that of her silly court and her insufferable brother. He had not been enough for her, even though she'd been enough for him, exactly as she was. Why hadn't she seen that?
Elena smiled. Gentle, genuine. "That's a nice name. Was she as pretty as a princess?"
Klaus shook his head, taking the bottle from her, drinking half of it before he remembered to save some for her. "Lady, actually. Lady Aurora De Martel, daughter of a Count, sister of an idiot."
"Is she still around?" she inquired, still so very gentle like she didn't want her line of inquiry to cause him any harm. Always so careful, this one. Always so compassionate. How was she not exhausted by it?
"She is," Klaus conceded sadly, "but I wish she wasn't."
"Why?"
"Because she was perfect as she was. She wasn't suited to vampirism, just as you are not."
She didn't seem upset by his words, only nodded in agreement. "How old were you?"
He let loose a faint chuckling, pulling her in by the hem of her shirt, palms settling against her jean-clad hips. Her breath fanned out against his lips, still smelling like cherries, and blood, and he leaned dangerously close as he murmured, "Why don't you ask what you really want to know the answer to, sweetheart, instead of beating around the bush?"
Elena didn't back down -of course she didn't. "What was she like? What were you like with her?"
Bold. Oh, she was so bold, his doppelgänger. She'd poke the bear and risk the teeth if she could get the nectar she seeks; she seemed addicted to truth. "She was beautiful. Beloved by all. My siblings and I had not been vampires for even a year. We infiltrated her court. She infiltrated my heart, then broke it when she cut herself so that Bekah would heal her, then threw herself off the balcony. She woke up cruel when she'd died sweet, or at least to me. She went mad, Elena. Love can turn to hate so easily, as you well know."
"I don't hate Stefan," she insisted, biting the inside of her cheek. Right, because Elena Gilbert loves everyone... "Hate doesn't even begin to cover what I'm feeling. Maybe I won't feel like this tomorrow, or next week, but right now I wish I'd ever met him."
Ah, finally. Finally, she roared. "Good. You should."
"Why does love hurt so much? You've been alive for over a thousand years, have you figured it out yet?"
"No, I have not," Klaus admitted, nose brushing hers the tiniest bit before he stepped back, gesturing to the bottle between them. "But getting plastered out of your mind really, really helps."
"I don't think that's a particularly healthy coping mechanism," she called out to his retreating back, cautiously following him, just a step behind, eyes on the rafters like she was trying to imagine what the place would look like when it was all done, like she can see the bones of it, what lies beneath the plastic and wood and various power tool spread about.
"I don't think you have much of a leg to stand on with that one, love, considering how you started off the evening." He emerged in the doorway, a red-green plaid blanket folded over his arm. "Shall I show you the rest?"
Elena followed him out the double doors at the back of the house, past the pool covered over with tarp, all the way to the sloping lawns of the garden. While he'd never had much of a green thumb -Rebekah had always liked to help their mother in the garden, and Kol had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of various herbs and roots and their magical properties- there was the beginnings of a rosebush, English roses of yesteryear, hyacinths and foxgloves and lavender. Wild things. Wild things for the wild beast.
He also just liked their colours.
Snapping out the blanket with a flourish, he knelt down and popped off the cork in the bottle of rum, patting the space beside him. "Sit. The fresh air will sober you up."
Elena obliged, lying on her back, jacket balled up under her head, gaze trained up at the stars. "Does this feel weird to you? Like, this whole night? My being here?"
Klaus snorted, choking down a mouthful of rum. "You're only just coming to that conclusion *now?" he teasingly remarked, laughing as she smacked his arm.
"Well, no, but I've had other things on my mind, and stars always help me think."
"They do."
She nodded, eyes straying back to inky sky above, the tiny specks of dying light. "Yeah. My dad taught me how to spot constellations as a kid, when we'd go up to the Lake House. We'd sit out on the deck with a blanket just like this -although minus the alcohol, of course- and he'd teach me all their names and what they meant. Jeremy used to like it, too, but he'd always get impatient and give up after a while."
"But not you." It wasn't a question."
"No," she agreed, voice tinged with sadness, watering down her joy. "No, I don't give up. I'm far too stubborn for that."
Taking another drink, Klaus pointed out, not unkindly, "Stubbornness is just another breed of determination, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with setting goals."
"What, and mowing down anyone who gets in the way of you achieving them?"
He gave a helpless shrug. "Lawns can always do with some pruning."
Another one of those laughs, this one with just a hint of disbelief -did she really think he couldn't be funny, that he was permanently set on 'Big Bad Wolf' mode? She shouldn't; Klaus considered himself hilarious.
"I know mine could. I usually get Jer to do it but..." Elena trailed off, covering up her silence with a gulp of wine.
Something in his head urged him to leave it be, to not rock the boat, to not ruin the most peaceful, interesting night he'd had in years...but he was Klaus Mikaelson, and he had a talent for self-destruction. "I'm sorry, about your brother. If it's any constellation, I knew that Alaric would most likely save him. I wouldn't have let him die."
Because she would have been inconsolable, and would have lashed out at him, and it would have, admittedly, been less fun to play with her if she couldn't fight back, didn't want to. He didn't want to break her, he only needed her blood -this will be his test for himself, he decided, that of this became a regular occurrence, if they could spend their time sipping wine instead of hurtling insults and making demands and dancing around all the other tedious, insignificant players in their play, he will see if he can try and not break her, if he's capable of anything but destruction.
If he can have one thing on his life he can't, or won't, ruin.
"Thank you. You're not the first to use Jeremy like that, and I'm sure you won't be the last, even though he's gone."
He'd noticed. One of his hybrids had reported it to him. When Elena went home, she'd be going back to an empty house, as an empty as his.
"I'm sorry. I know how much it hurts to be away from family."
"It's for his own good," Elena said, and Klaus couldn't help but wonder who she was trying to convince more: him, or herself. "It would have happened eventually, even without you around. It's better I send him away while he's still breathing, while he still has a chance. He's my baby brother, I'd do anything for him, even break my heart like this."
"I would have for mine as well."
He'd loved Henrik. So, so much. His little brother, constantly following him around, always curious, always happy to play with him. Klaus had taught him how to hold a sword and follow tracks in the woods and the best place to find flowers to make crowns for their sister. Kol had never really needed him, but Henrik...he'd loved being there for him, had protected him as much as he could. He'd been so innocent. He never should havs taken him to see the wolves, shouldn't have put his own need to give in to the connection that, at the time, he hadn't understood, should have put his safety first...
Maybe he'd still be alive. Forever twelve, never getting a chance to truly grow up. Maybe vampirism would have turned him into a monster, as it had the rest of them.
Slowly, Elena took his hand, squeezing tightly, a quiet I'm here. "I'm sure he knew how much you loved him, Klaus. Anyone can see how much you care about your family."
"I don't think everyone sees it that way. Especially my siblings."
"Love isn't always rational. Should you have daggered them, over and over and over? No. But they're still alive, which means there's always the possibility for forgiveness."
Klaus barked a laugh, bitter and resigned. "Weren't you cursing the name of Stefan Salvatore not ten minutes ago?"
Elena pouted, folding her arms over her chest. "That's different."
"Different how?"
"You're unkillable; I'm not. If you hadn't given in, I'd be dead." Spoken like a woman who was used to such an idea, forever the bait in everyone's trap, the magician's assistant diverting attention when she was the true prize, the real magic.
"If he'd succeeded in turning you, I would have killed him where he stood," he said, swallowing another gulp from the bottle.
Her eyes flickered. "I know. But then you wouldn't have been able to get your family back."
Klaus turned his head, grinning down at her wickedly. "Perhaps not. It stands to reason that after taking them as he did, Stefan would find some way of cloaking them. He'd need a witch to do that, someone he trusted, or at the very least who's hatred of me he trusted. And no one despises me more than Bonnie Bennett. If I'd killed him, I'd have gone straight to her."
The doppelgänger didn't move, didn't give even the vaguest hint that he was right or wrong either way. Such loyalty was admirable.
"I don't know where they are. I think Stefan was wrong to take them. If someone had taken Damon...even as he is, there wouldn't be anyone or anything that could stop him from getting him back. Even you."
"I know. I believe you."
"No one thinks I should know. They keep going on about 'protecting me'." She scoffed, rolling her eyes hard. "What a joke. Like I'm not a magnet for supernatural drama. If I don't know what's going on, how can I defend myself? Hell, I could just start guessing places where your siblings could be, and I might actually be right. I hate being treated like a child. I haven't been a child since the night my parents car went off Wickery Bridge."
"That's the one Carol Lockwood is lobbying to store, isn't it?"
Nodding, she took the bottle in his hand, drinking it like her life depended on it. "That's the one." She looked down at the bottle, then at him, biting her bottom lip sheepishly. "Sorry. This line of conversation was beginning to require something a little stronger."
"No, I like it," he assured her. "You should always take what you want."
"Even at the expense of others?" Elena parried, handing it back to him. Klaus expected her to go back to the stars, but she put her head down on his chest instead, eyes closed like she was perfectly safe. And she was.
"You can't go through life with everyone you meet singing your praises."
"I suppose not. But I've seen so many bad things in my life, so much darkness. Even before Stefan and Damon rolled into town like twin freight trains of diaster and peril."
Great, now he was thinking of Stefan resembling a train out of Thomas the Tank Engine, complete with spiky hero hair.
"My dad was a doctor, and I'd get him to tell me about what he was doing, the patients he'd helped. People can do terrible things to each other, for each other, without any kind of magic or bloodlust involved. And while I think everyone wants to stay innocent as long as they can... there's innocence, and there's naivety. If I wasn't dealing with vampires and witches and werewolves-"
"-and Original hybrids with excellent taste in vintages," he couldn't help but interrupt.
Elena opened an eye, glaring at him like he was the world's biggest nuisance. "I'd still have some other problem or other. I wasn't happy here. I was safe, but I wasn't happy."
"But you're still not happy now. I can tell. It's hard not to see. Wouldn't you rather go back to ordinary life, to not knowing what goes bump in the night?"
She shook her head, the curve of her forehead brushing his collarbone. "No, I wouldn't. Now I know how precious everything is, to never take anyone for granted. Life is short, eternity isn't what it's cracked up to be and...the only thing I can really count on is what I believe, and what I choose to do, and how I feel about people. And the rest...I just have to roll with the punches and I hope I can always get back up again."
Her words drew him back to Senior Prank Night, to the gym, how he'd slapped her across the face, how she'd fallen to the floor, the first time he'd ever seen her impregnable will falter. "I'm sorry I hit you," Klaus confessed, feeling her body tense against him, rigid as a roman column, a wire pulled too tight. "I shouldn't have done it."
Slowly, she reached up, her fingertips trailing ever so slightly along the curving arch of his cheek. "Thank you for the apology. I can tell you meant it."
He did.
Her hand settled on his chest, right over his heart, transmuting him the courage to ask, "If Stefan apologized, if he begged for your forgiveness for what he did to you, would you grant it? Would you go back to being his girl, help him straighten himself out? Could you forgive him for being monstrous to you?"
She, who clung to love like morning dew clung to grass, mourning when that love vanished and left her with nothing but emptiness, left her cold. This time tomorrow, would her head be on someone else chest, her confessions whispered to another's ears? He didn't like the thought, not at all.
"I don't know," Elena replied honestly, brow furrowed in deep thought. "I said I'd never forgive Damon when he snapped Jeremy's neck in front of me when I turned him down," the bastard did what? "and he didn't know he was wearing the Gilbert ring. I told him he'd lost me forever, and yet I kissed him when he was about to die, I spent all summer with him. How I feel now, it might change, but it also might not. Because as awful as it sounds, everything Damon's ever done to me, he's done to keep me alive, even if it's as a vampire. What Stefan did...he was going to kill me, murder me in cold blood. I wouldn't have died right away, if we'd gone over the bridge. He'd have had to wait. He might have even held me down to make sure I...Damon's not capable of that. I don't think even you would be capable of that, not to me, doppelgänger blood or not. Tonight, Stefan said that killing you was all he had left, but I told him he was wrong. Do you wanna know what I told him?"
Klaus nodded.
"I told him he had me," she whispered, a few stray tears falling from her eyes, dampening his shirt. Hw held her tighter. "And he said that he lost me when he left town with you. And maybe he did. Or maybe it was when we broke up over Katherine. Maybe it was when I found my ancestor's diary, about him being a Ripper, all the things he'd hidden me. Maybe I never really had Stefan Salvatore, not in the way I thought. Pieces, yes, but not the whole. And isn't that what love is supposed to be about? Finding that one person who will give you everything, and who you can give everything to in return? It shouldn't be drips and drabs, waiting and hoping and not-knowing. He knew I was related to Katherine even before I did. He saved me that night on the bridge, but would he have tried so hard if I didn't look like her? Because I think a part of him still loves her, even more than it loves me. Damon wants to be good, but Stefan wants to be perfect, and I was the last part of the picture, the girl next door with her diary and her sadness who welcomed him in like he was home. And I don't want that; I just want to be me."
"And who is that?" Klaus asked her, now being the one to trace her cheek with his thumb. "Who is Elena Gilbert?"
"She's the girl that's gonna stay here, with you, and finish this bottle of wine and look up at the stars and try and find some peace."
"She sounds positively divine, sweetheart. And what about me? Who am I?"
She replied, as easy as breathing, "You're the guy who didn't yell at a sad, drunken teen. Who took her by the hand and cleaned her up and made the rest of the world go quiet, so that she could finally hear what her heart and her mind were trying to tell her. You're the guy who listened, and who shared things you probably haven't told anyone in a while, if ever. We're enemies who have put down their weapons, rivals who have come to a truce. It's thin, patchy like ice, and maybe it will give way under his, plummeting us into a killing, cold unknown. Or maybe we might both finally have someone we can really talk to, someone who finally understands. And if not..." Elena shrugged, beaming a wide grin. "We'll just be really weird drinking buddies. It's not like we'd be the first in this town."
"I can live with that." I like that.
Raising her cherry wine aloft, Elena clinked her bottle against his. "Cheers."
Not an hour later, Elena fell asleep on his chest, well and truly tipsy, face still stuck in an untroubled smile. After her little toast, they'd moved on to lighter topics, ranging wildly from their favourite colours to their most hated TV shows. She was easy to be around, had laughed at his jokes and asked a million questions, each thoughtful and insightful. He told of his favourite adventures, and she told him about the first time she rode a horse. Klaus shared the tale of how he got stuck in a room with Marie Antoinette, Elena recounted the story of how she got stuck in a tree when she was eight trying to rescue a neighbor's cat. It was the first conversation in years that didn't involve ulterior motives, where nothing was gained by either party except a better -and more entertaining- understanding of each other.
And now he knew, more than ever, that he'd never left any harm come to her. He'd deal with Stefan, get his family's coffins back. He might even throw a ball to celebrate, open up the house as Elena had suggested: 'It's a shame to let all that space go to waste, Klaus. A house like this deserves to be lived in, to see some excitement. Nothing so beautiful should be so closed-off.'
Scooping her up in his arms, Klaus made sure her head was tucked firmly in the crook of his neck before bending down to retrieve her jacket, shamelessly riffling through her pockets in search of her house keys so he could take her home.
Abruptly, Elena groaned, burrowing further against his chest. "Don't take me home. I won't feel safe there. Stefan can still come in and hurt me again."
It was true. The vampire blood would be in her system for at least another day, adding in the fact that she was drunk and wouldn't be able to defend herself...it was the logical option. It was what she wanted, what she'd asked him for. To protect her.
(It was, deep down in that darkened, charred, cherry-pit of a heart, what Klaus really wanted.)
So he opened the door on silent hinges, padding across the floor and up the staircase, taking care not to jostle her. Klaus briefly entertained the idea of putting her in one of the finished gutes bedrooms, then discarded it, depositing her on the bed in his own room. Better to keep her in his where she wouldn't be disturbed, where the hybrids wouldn't dare venture -at least without knocking first. He was planning on agreeing to Stefan's terms and sending most of them out of town, maybe keeping Tyler around, since he was a part of Elena's inner sanctum. And Caroline had seemed like a nice enough girl; she could consider it a birthday gift.
Easing off her boots, he placed them on the floor by the bed, in easy reach when she woke up and would no doubt come to her senses and run out of the house like a bat out of hell...but he hoped not. He made some excellent pancakes.
Klaus turned down the blanket, untangling the strands of her chestnut hair from her collar so that they fanned out on the pillow. For a moment, and not a second more, he contemplated kissing her, knowing her lips would taste like cherry wine, rare and sweet...but he wouldn't. For one thing, he'd gone from seeing her as a means to an end to something far more personal in the span of a few hours, and he himself was still adjusting. And the thing that swayed him the most...was the fact that it wouldn't be her choice, and she'd had enough of that, of people taking her choices away, making assumptions, decisions for her.
It would be all the more satisfying if she ended up being the one who came to him.
He could wait; he was a patient man.
(Fine, he wasn't, but in this, he'd certainly try.)
With one last lingering -longing?- look, Klaus turned on his heel, leaving the sleeping Elena be, when he felt a pressure on his wrist, urging him back to the bed. Her eyelids fluttered open for the briefest second, chocolate brown intent on cornflower blue as she said one word, sweeter than any kiss could ever be.
"Stay."
And so he did. And it should have been a crime, how right it felt, to curl up on the other side of the bed, Elena immediately folding into him, breathing deep within moments. Klaus soon followed suit, and his last thought before sleep pulled him under was that he'd never been more grateful for a bottle of cherry wine.
Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Welcome to my incredibly self-indulgent Klena fic. This is the first time I've written them in a non AU/AH capacity, and I had so much fun doing it. I've had this idea brewing around for a while, and then I sat down and finally decided to get it out and share it with you.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it! If you'd like to see a continuation of this fic, let me know; reviews are always welcome!
Happy Sunday (or whatever day of the week it is when you're reading this).
All my love, Temperance Cain.