Cherry Wine

by Temperance Cain

Set after the events of season three's 'Our Town.' The night of the incident with Stefan and Elena on Wickery Bridge, the last thing Klaus expects to find is Elena Gilbert breaking into his house and drinking his cherry wine. Klena.

3. NFWMB

Warning: Use of language in this chapter.

---

'If I was born as a blackthorn tree

I'd wanna be felled by you

Held by you

Fuel the pyre of your enemies'

---

Elena watched the moonlight through half-lidded eyes, seeing the world but not quite seeing it, body limp and liquid in the passenger seat of Klaus' car. She watched the light, the way it ribboned and twirled, dancing like a coin trick, highlighting the shadows across the hybrid's face, bouncing off his curved jaw, repelled by the tension it found there, that filled the car. Elijah was silent in the back, no doubt trying to come up with some impossible solution to match their equally impossible predicament. Kol had stayed behind at the mansion, hoping to catch Esther in the act, or at the very least gather more details about the spell she was intending to use.

Use to kill them. Her children. Her children.

She'd been there in the room, had sat across from the woman, listened to the words seep out of her mouth like a dam of poison, but her mind still refused to wrap around it, like trying to force on a t-shirt you know no longer fits, is too tight, stops you breathing.

Elena wasn't a parent, but she'd been lucky enough to have many people fit that role. Jeremy had never lived a day in his life without her watching over him, protecting him, loving him. Even when Miranda and Grayson were still alive, she'd often had to play the role of parent if they were too busy. She made sure he always did his homework, that he didn't swap out his snacks at school for something out of a vending machine. Every day at recess, she'd always made sure he had someone to play with, or invited him to come sit with her when he didn't. Elena hadn't meant it to be overbearing or overprotective, but she'd seen how special Jeremy was, how sweet and kind and sensitive, and she'd wanted to make sure everyone else saw it, too. She'd been proud of him, and she still was.

The thought of doing anything to hurt him, to hurt her family...she couldn't stand it. There was no if, there was no maybe. There was no but what about. It was like trying to put two ends of a magnet together, and each one was North; an instant and complete aversion, so strong it made your hands ache, shake.

And Esther...she'd been so calm. A block of ice, as if she was still a corpse, still stuck in whatever grave Klaus and his siblings had buried her in, a thousand years ago. Maybe being on the Other Side for so long had made her forget what it was to be human, to care, to love. Maybe what she'd felt for her children was now a distant memory, like remembering an old song you heard on the radio on a car trip years ago, the taste of a stolen slice of birthday cake from a party of a friend who's face was now lost.

It didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was going to do it, and it was up to Elena to fix it. The Mikaelsons wanted to survive, but Elena wanted to fix it. For them. For Klaus. Because she couldn't stand the way he wasn't looking at her, the bone crushing, orchid-white grip he had on the steering wheel despite the fact that he was going under the speed limit -which in a small town like Mystic Falls was barely above a snail crawl. She didn't know how to help him. That was the worst part. It seemed her blood was always hurting him, cursing him once again. Only this time, he wouldn't love through it, wouldn't be able to carry on, even as a vampire, as half of himself. He'd be dead. This challenging, curious, exciting, ill-tempered yet good-mannered man who'd stopped her heart and then taken it when she hadn't even realized she'd offered it, right to him on a silver platter, on the dark floor of an empty kitchen, on the counter of a fluorescent-light bathroom.

He'd taken it, and she didn't want it back. Elena wanted him to keep it, so long as she got to keep his.

But he wouldn't even look at her.

She knew why. Of course she knew why. It wasn't about her. He wasn't mad at her, didn't blame her; she'd done exactly what he'd asked of her, to give Esther whatever she wanted, so long as she left that room alive. He was trying to be brave, trying to act like he didn't care only because he *did, too much, and it scared him, and he knew that feeling as he did was only going to make what followed a million times worse, a billion times more painful. Make it a trillion times harder to let go, when you'd only just started to allow yourself to hold on.

So yes, Elena knew why. It didn't mean, however, that she liked it, that she approved. This self-defense mechanism, this shutting down, barricading himself away in a fortress of his own feelings; it didn't help him. His walls were so high, but she'd breached higher. Her own had been towering pillars of solitude and grief before Stefan had come along. She knew that it would be worth it, what she found on the other side of those walls, that broken boy who wanted to be loved so badly that he pretended like the emotion didn't exist at all. Her killer, her sweetheart, her mirror, the man who had once prowled facelessly through her nightmares and who's features she'd now memorized. Love was worth any climb. Her legs may buckle, her arms might ache, and she might never make it over to the top.

But she'd try. Even if she only had today, she owed it to herself to try, and she owed it to him to let him know he was worth it.

The car stopped. No one moved.

Elijah was the first to get out, opening the door, letting the sound of the crickets and the wind, mingling with her harsh breathing before cutting off abruptly, and she could feel the vinyl of the seat, suctioning against her bare shoulders, forcing her in place, begging her not to go the way she knew that Klaus couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't. It does not do to fall in love with the beast everyone wished to slay, it will forever only end one way: dead at its hand, or theirs. Given up on or given back.

Elena didn't want to go back. Didn't want to go into that empty house waiting for her like Count Dracula inviting his guests down to dinner. Yes, please come in, enjoy me in my solitude, with the rooms you can no longer enter, full of memories of dead people yet who are so alive in your nightmares. She didn't want to be alone, couldn't he see that? Couldn't he see that this, none of this, scared her? He was the only one who understood, he'd been just as lonely as she has been, when she'd broken into his house that night. She'd seen it in his eyes, felt it in his touch, hesitant and possessive all at once. He didn't want to be alone; no one wanted to be alone.

'We accept the love we think we deserve.'

But what about pain? Did Klaus really think he deserved this, that his siblings did? After a thousand years, after a life spent conquering anyone and everyone and everything, had his mother's words truly made him feel, made him think, that he was not worth anything? Not even her comfort, that she'd give to anyone in a scenario such as this -but especially to him, she couldn't help it, it felt so good to be needed, not for what she looked like but what she could offer- despite it's uniqueness?

Had the mighty, indomitable empire of his ego finally fallen after one single blow?

Wordlessly, Elijah held her door open, expression so very blank, bleached, restrained, patchy in places, thinned out, mishandled. Trying too hard not to show that this hurt him, too. And it would. The protector, the defender, the most steadfast and unwavering champion of their family's redemption, and it was his own mother that believed that even he was not worth, did not deserve, to live. He held it open, but Elena didn't get out. Instead, she turned to Klaus, eyes begging for him to talk to her, to say something, anything, to let him be there for her. If he still needed proof of her intentions, if he was still unsure of her sincerity...there was no better way to show him that she would not abandon him, not now, than this.

"Klaus..."

He shook his head, a minute gesture, yet enough to crack her heart wide open in her chest, shattering her already tenuous hold on her tears. Elena bowed her head, fists clenching in her lap, dried blood raining down in rusted flakes onto her dress, settling in the spaces between the sequins, black and red and gold.

The red of blood. The black of despair. The gold of his eyes that she had never, ever forgotten, despite only seeing it once, the night he killed Mikael.

"It's late, love. You best get inside."

Clipped like a nail, right down the quick. High as a bluff, looking down at a deep blue sea. Untrue as a kiss, a promise of forever neither had ever wanted to keep.

"Is that really what you want?"

Finally, finally, Klaus turned to look at her, head swiveling incrementally slow, eyes twin blue pools of such bitter, soul-shattering anguish and rage and betrayal that it stuttered the breath in her lungs, like she was the one dying inside, rather than him. Oh, Niklaus. Just what had she done to you?

He held her gaze, reflecting her own, desperate face back to her. "Yes, Elena, it's what I want."

The passenger door hung open, gaping like a question. Careful not to trip over her skirts, Elena stepped out, slamming the thing closed hard enough to make her teeth rattle like dice in a cupped palm, fate throwing out hit after hit after hit, never giving her a break, never letting her win, adding to the symphony of her broken heart, her deepest wish. Her wish for someone to pick her, just once. That love was real, and didn't have to hurt. That she could be enough for someone who had lived more lifetimes than she had tears. Storming past Elijah and his upraised brow, her pulse a ragged, pounding tempest she wisely chose to ignore, Elena flipped the porch mat backwards, snatching up the spare key and jamming it into the lock, directing all her anger into the tiny sliver of metal.

"That doesn't seem any awfully wise place to hide that," Elijah began, hands deep in his pockets, leaning against the rail by the swing, so casually at home outside hers, if she could even call it that. This was just where she ate, slept, plotted, waited for her phone to ring and the next show to drop, the next funeral to sort, the next person to miss and mourn and hate, just the tiniest bit. Hate for leaving, leaving her to deal with all this, leaving her alone.

The thought was selfish, unkind, all the things people expected Elena Gilbert not to be. Didn't make it any less true. Maybe they didn't really know the real her; maybe she didn't even know herself.

"Like my choice of spare-key hiding place is going to stop anyone from getting in if they really wanted to."

Elijah sighed, breath fogging like smoke, the weary sound of a old dragon, too used to huffing and puffing, no heat left. "Elena...don't take it personally. This is just how Niklaus is."

"Who says I'm taking this personally?" Elena barked, a wild thing, a hurt thing, jamming the key in harder. God, why wouldn't the stupid thing open? Why couldn't she get in? Why couldn't the world just let her hide away? "Maybe I don't care. Maybe I don't care at all. Maybe I'll leave all of you to get on with this whole I skip town. I hear Fiji's nice this time of year."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to call your bluff, Elena."

Elena tilted her head, looking at him from the corner of her eye. "And why is that?"

"Because it doesn't take a vampire to see that you're crying right now."

The lock finally clicked. "Seasonal allergies."

"To what?" Elijah replied mildly.

"Original hybrids acting like idiots," she said, wrenching the door open before promptly slamming it in Elijah's face.

Silence reigned. Elena stood on the other side of it, of that door and that silence and the tumbling whirr of her own thoughts, catching up to her, clawing at her, begging for her attention. They couldn't have it. For once in her life, she didn't want to think. Well, that wasn't exactly true, that wasn't the first time, she'd had that very thought lots of times...but the only occasion she'd ever indulged it had been last week, and that was what had got her in this ridiculously painful mess in the first place. She could talk a big talk, stand toe to toe and bluff to bluff with some of the world's supposedly most evil and wicked and diabolical beings without flinching...but at the end of the day, she just wanted somebody to come home to. She wanted someone to put their arms around her, to tell her sje was home, that she was safe and loved and that nothing could ever hurt her, never again, that they'd make sure of it.

Klaus had been the closest person to ever make that a reality. Stefan had tried, of course, but he hadn't understood, hadn't known loss on the scale that she had; his was a miniature, a figurine on a made-up battlefield. Hers was the whole damn army, waiting to make her lose, lose it, give up, give in to the grief. To stay under the covers, nothing but the sound of her own heartbeat, feeling her own breath warm on her face. But then the guilt would come, just as cloying, just as suffocating. She'd hear Jeremy in his room, listening to music, the melodic scratch of his pencils and those expensive colour pens he loved to spend nearly half his allowance on, and she'd think about how he was still willing to get up, to create beautiful things, so the least she could do was shower. Then make him breakfast. Then check his homework, make sure he got to school okay. And then, if she was already there...she might as well be, too. To keep an eye on him, to keep him safe.

It wasn't always like that. Jenna had done so much for them. But she was gone now. Then there was Ric. And now there wasn't, since he was off doing whatever with Dr Fell, who Elena really didn't like, or maybe she just thought he could do better, deserved better. Maybe she just didn't want her to die, like the rest of them. Like the rest of them would, sooner or later. It never used to scare her before, had been such an abstract concept, intangible, unknowable. She'd read a poem about it in class, look over a play that caught her eye, would get out highlighters in pastel pink to mask the darkness of the subject as she scribbled down 'What does it mean?'

What did it mean?

What did it mean that she'd grown these feelings for Klaus so quickly, sprouting up like cactuses in the barren desert of her heart, so very dry, the air acrid and burning lungs with each inhale? Unwatered, untended, they'd grown everywhere, an infestation of want and need, blotting out the indifference she'd felt, bypassing the sharp trellis of her once-upon-a-time anger, red as roses, as the rose around her neck. And what did it mean that he'd done the same, that he'd come when she'd asked, that he'd held her in her sleep not once, but twice, and it was 'a far more restful sleep than she had ever known?'

Damn, she must be exhausted if her mind was quoting Dickens at her, and A Tale of Two Cities no less. But what had happened at the end of that? Sidney Carlton, hung and dead. Lucie Manette, off with Charles Darney, happy but not fulfilled, a glass half empty when it should be brimming over with joy. An itch, an inkling, a what might have, forever staying in her mind, a permanent resident of regret.

Elena didn't want to live with any regrets. Life was so short, too short. Klaus might not see it, but she did. And if they really didn't have much time together...wasn't the best thing to enjoy it? To try and wring out the last drop of happiness that they could, even if it would result in more tears later?

The doppelgänger kicked off her heels, let her heart thunder in her chest, pulsing and pulsing, pulling her in two different directions. Her feelings has never stopped anyone from doing what they wanted before. Her voice has never been loud enough or strong enough to convince the vampires in her life into taking the better path, the more considerate one, the one that felt like she wasn't betraying her conscience so much, wasn't betraying that girl she used to be, who had died going off Wickery Bridge two years ago.

One beat. Two. Ten.

Stay, or go.

She'd never liked being told what to do. She was everyone's mediator, expected to mediate herself, too, the war between what was right and what was expected, what was hard and what was worth doing, worth fighting for. Stay on the straight path, don't venture out, don't get distracted by the glint of light on those sharp teeth, those teeth are not for you, they will bite you, hurt you, cut you open til you're redder than any cloak, deader than any slain wolf.

She didn't want to slay the wolf. She wanted to put her arms around it and hold it, feel it's breath on her cheek and it's tears on her skin and know that it was a monster, her monster, but not to her.

Leave him be. Let him sit, let him wallow, let himself shut her out like Stefan did, snap at her like Damon had, loving her but simultaneously too scared to let her in.

It could be a mistake. He could say no. But the car was still there, engine still running, hope still had a chance of winning. Elijah hadn't moved, like he was waiting for one of them to do it for him, the betting man waiting to see if he'd backed the right horse, waiting to see if he was wrong about her, that she was not like all the rest, was not what had come before, twice over now.

Tatia had not wanted him. Neither had Katherine. But that was okay. She didn't want to share.

Elena unlocked the front door, opened it. Walked down the steps, thud, thud, thud. Padded barefoot across the grass, sucking at her feet like the voice of all her doubts, doubts that seemed to wither away, the closer she got to him. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared Klaus down, the windshield little more than a formality under the heat of her gaze searing into his.

"If you don't get out of the car in the next five seconds, I will be as mad as all hell at you for proving every single person in this town right." She didn't need to raise her voice, knew he'd hear her just fine.

"About what?"

"That I don't mean anything to you." The words were hard to say, but worse to think. She'd rather know now, rather know if the secrets and the flirting and the wine and the way he hadn't stopped taking her hand every possible chance he got meant nothing, if it was all a game or if he just didn't want to care, if he was too stuck in his ways, in himself, to ever be truly vulnerable with her for more than a passing moment, a firework lighting up the night before falling back to earth, fizzled out and forgotten by morning, even if she'd remember the blaze forever, replaying behind her eyelids, a fire that would never die.

Klaus got out of the car.

Her knees almost gave way.

But he was there to hold her up, just like he had the night of the sacrifice, was as gentle now as he had been then, arms fitting around her like all he'd ever been born to do was hold her, make her whole, even though she'd been the one destined to do that for him, make him a hybrid, make him whole. But there was many ways to complete a person, as many ways as there was to love someone. Maybe she should have always known that their story would start and end and start again with her in his arms.

"If I said everything I felt for you, the true breadth and depth of my affections, everything I want to do to you and everywhere I want to take you...sweetheart, we'd be here for all time."

"Sounds pretty thorough."

Klaus smiled, open like a favourite book. "I am nothing if not thorough." He cupped her cheek, fingertips smoothing over her skin, blazing a trail like a tail of a comet, burning her where she stood. "I shouldn't stay."

It was her turn to reach out, to reach for him. To grab him by the lapels of his jacket that smelled like her hairspray and her perfume and haul him in close until she could feel the buttons of his shirt pressing into her front, could reach out and trace the freckles on his neck like a newfound constellation. "I don't care. I'm scared and I don't care. I just want you here, with me."

Elena never said that, not to anyone. To her, being scared meant defeat, meant surrender, meant relinquishing to the fact that, yes, she was human, and she was not unbreakable, untouchable. But she wanted Klaus to know. Not for him to do something about it...but to let him know that she trusted him, not just to keep her safe but keep her from feeling ashamed about it, about needing someone, needing him.

"Then there's no where else I should be but here. I'm sorry if I made you think otherwise."

Klaus never apologized. He'd thanked her, right before he'd taken her blood, but to actually admit that he'd been wrong...Elena held him tighter.

"It's okay. Your mom wants to kill you; that's no easy thing to deal with. You process it however you need to. Just please...don't shut me out, okay? I may not know exactly what you're going through, but that doesn't mean I can't help. Even if it's only to provide an entertaining distraction."

His arm migrated to her shoulder, pulling her in close so he could press a kiss to her temple. "Come now, love, don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you make an entirely adequate distraction. Right, 'Lijah?"

Elijah nodded, the dawnings of a smile making itself known on his face. "Most notably, the time you threw a vervain grenade in my face. I hadn't anticipated that."

Klaus spun her around, mouth hanging open in comical shock. "You threw a vervain grenade at my brother? How do I not know about this?"

Elena began to defend herself, hoping she hadn't destroyed whatever progress they'd just made, "Well, he'd just kidnapped me, so what else was I supposed to do..." when the sound of his laughter echoed through the night, raucous and roaring like his favorite decade. "Gods, I wish I could have been there to see it! Are there pictures?"

"Why do you always want pictures of these things?" Elena exclaimed, leading him into the warmth of her house. "Honestly, Klaus, it wasn't exactly a Kodak moment! I'd just been kidnapped after just being stabbed multiple times because Katherine linked herself to me and Stefan and Damon were trying to kill her. So there I was, tired and in pain, only to get carted off to the middle absolute fricking nowhere and..."

---

Klaus had never had the desire to watch anyone sleep. Quite honestly, he'd never seen the appeal; people were much more fun when they were awake, after all. But he had to admit, there was a certain...vulnerability to it, being so open and trusting. And he'd found himself doing so for the third time, for the same woman, passed out on his shoulder, ball gown still on, breathing softly into the juncture between his neck and shoulder, warning him like no fire ever could.

He'd been wrong to think he could stay away from her. Wrong to think that he could, and should, deal with his mother and the repercussions of her actions alone. But it was what he'd always done, was what he knew best. Like when he had preferred to mix his own paints rather than buying the new ones invented, trusting only himself to get the colours just right. Elena knew the exact hue of his pain, the shade and shape and consistency of it. And the feel of her pressed against his side, safe and at peace, was infinitely better than being alone in his studio, knowing his own mother was plotting to kill him and his siblings right above his head.

Klaus took a meditative sip from his mug on the coffee table, eyeing Elijah speculatively over the rim. Elena had barely taken off her gloves and invited him in -and to the supply of blood she kept in the fridge- before collapsing into the couch and the clutches of sleep. Poor girl. She'd had to kill her stepfather and wait for his magic ring to revive him, take him to the hospital, get choked on the way out by his sister and then saved by his brother, meet with him about the ball and be there for Caroline then go to said ball and have to deal with his mother and then him all in the span of twenty four hours. She needed her rest, deserved it. And she looked so, so sweet. Like that young girl he'd never got the pleasure to meet, the one untroubled by loss and the weight of responsibility. But that was alright; she was perfect, just the way she was, right then and there. He wouldn't change a single thing about her.

"You're looking at her like she's going to disappear."

Klaus turned his head in the direction of the armchair Elijah was presently occupying. "Good things don't tend to last in this family, or rather because of it."

"You're scared that you'll ruin her?"

Reaching out, he tucked the blanket he'd thrown over her more tightly around her shoulders, confessing to her rather than to his all-seeing brother, "Absolutely bloody terrified."

Elijah set his cup of coffee down, clinking it against the no-doubt-antique saucer. "Good. It means you'll take this threat seriously, then. And..."

"And what?" Klaus inquired, albeit needlessly: he knew where Elijah was taking him with this, leading him to the conclusion like he'd led him to the falls as a boy to watch the sunset, so that he could paint it in all it's fiery glory. He'd spent hours like that, just watching him, happy to sit beside him on the bank of dying leaves as Klaus sketched and painted, matching and mixing like he'd never been meant to do anything else in this life but make art. At the time, he'd cherished those quiet times with his brother, but it later soured under the revelation that Elijah had sat with him so that in the event of his father discovering him, Klaus wouldn't be alone, that he could make excuses for him. The sheen lost some of its lustre.

"And that there's still hope for you." Elijah leaned back, contemplating their long and sordid and exceptionally bloody history like he could see every action and reaction and overreaction spread before him, his mind a museum of Klaus's many -all- transgressions, the chronologist of his crimes, the stenographer of his sins. "I admit, I was worried, after you killed Father. I thought you would never be happy. It was your ultimate goal, for a thousand years, and yet once you'd obtained it, you lacked...purpose, direction. Afloat in a sea of hatred and resentment; killing Mikael has not soothed your ragged soul, not erased his heinous actions towards you, the rest of our family. And we all know how you like to pass the time when you're bored."

"By watching the Discovery channel?" the blonde couldn't help but quip, a biting edge to his words. He hated to be analyzed, most of all by Elijah; he was usually right, and Klaus hated to acquiesce to the smartest person in the room.

"Murder and mischief and mayhem, usually. Sometimes a spot of theatre, just to keep things interesting."

Klaus rolled his eyes, huffing out a darkly amused breath. "My, my, was that sarcasm I detect? Coming from you? What have you done to my brother?"

The Original shrugged, an elegant lift of his even more elegantly tailored shoulders. "What can I say, Niklaus? I'm stressed; my iron-clad restraint is somewhat dubious at present." He smiled at him over his cup, every inch the predator. "Don't worry, it shan't last long."

"I suppose I'll just have to enjoy it while it lasts, then." The current of the room suddenly changed, tipped over, a weather vain spinning harder, warning of trouble and coming storms. It was an inevitability, with them. They couldn't put it off any longer. "What are we going to do?"

"For starters, convince Rebekah of our mother's intentions. We need our siblings on our side for this."

"All of them? You really think you can persuade Finn to not go along with her scheme?"

Mouth a hard, weary line, Elijah nodded gravely, voice gravely. "I have to try."

"I could always kill her again." He meant it. There was no love lost between them -he'd lost his love for her a long time ago, the same time she looked across a burning fire at him, flames dancing in her hair, her eyes, not even watering from the smoke, from the sight of her own child howling in pain and betrayal as a part of his soul, his very essence, was locked away. He suspected that was the moment her love for him died, too, the only way she could cope with what she'd done. Klaus didn't believe what she'd told Elena, that Esther Mikaelson still loved her children. Because he believed in Elena, about what love really was, that which was unconditional and was not reliant on anything but a deep connection and understanding, for family was not always even about blood; Marcel had proved that numerous times.

None more so the night he died, and Klaus felt his heart break and harden all at once, a stone thrown over the side of a gaping abyss, never to reach the bottom.

Until now. Until her.

"Must your first instinct always pertain to violence?" Elijah wondered as if he wasn't perfectly aware of who he'd shared the last thousand years with. "Diplomacy goes a long way, Niklaus."

"Yes, well, this isn't bartering for an extra head of cabbage at the market, Elijah! This is our bloody mother and our bloody lives and the possibility that we could all be dead by day's end!" Christ, this wasn't the night for debating the methods of getting what they wanted! They needed a plan, they needed...

"Aren't you just full of sunshiny optimism," Elena mumbled, propping herself up on an elbow, swooshing back the curtain of her hair rather dramatically.

"I thought you were asleep," Klaus replied mildly, nimbly dodging her remark like it was a poorly-tossed knife. Although it did smart, just the tiniest bit, if only because it was true. But he'd see too much of the world, witnessed and partaken in too much wickedness to maintain hope like she did. It was endearing, truly, but unrealistic, a model not made to size, leaving too much out.

Rubbing at her eyes, she offered him an unimpressed glare. "I could hear you arguing in my head. Thought I'd offer my fifty cents."

"I think your contributions are worth far more than that, but please, do go on."

So she did. "I think Elijah's right."

Elijah sat up straighter in his chair. Klaus resisted the urge to tip him over it. "But I also think you're right. We need a combination. Elijah, Klaus is right. You'll never convince Finn, and if you try to approach him, you'll be showing our hand and tipping off Esther. However, the civil, diplomatic approach could get us what we need without Esther ever suspecting our involvement. Well, yours at least; I'm sure she'll scent me all over this like a cheap aftershave."

"Over what, sweetheart?" Klaus said, watching her intently, the calm that settled over her face, as if she were relieved to be taking control of the situation. Or to be included in the first place.

After this, he needed to pay a much-needed visit to the Salvatores; he had some marvelous decorating ideas for their dungeon. Specifically, them hanging from chains inside it, bleeding out like the bastards they were.

"Your mother was a powerful witch, right?"

Elijah was the one to answer, nodding with a hesitant, "Yes..."

"Would you say as powerful as Bonnie?" She tilted her head at Klaus, bottom lip caught between the trap of her teeth as she reminded him, "You saw what she's capable of when she tried to kill you."

"But it almost killed her, didn't it? I could hear her heart struggling." He remembered that night so clearly. Elena, pounding at the door, over and over again. Screaming, begging, pleading for her friend to stop. How a light had seemed to grown dark in her when her friend collapsed to the floor, haloed by a corona of sparks that had had nothing on the electric vengeance in her eyes that had said, 'I know I'm going down, but I'll take you with me, I swear it.' He'd been taken aback by that outrage on her friend's behalf, had never seen it's like in Katerina, or even Tatia, both of whom had been too consumed by their own agenda to ever really build such tremendous bonds like that, other women around them too jealous or unwilling.

But not Elena. It seemed she made friends the way he made enemies, she stayed true while he remained dishonest, evasive. There had been times, over the long, languorous stretch of centuries, where he'd been tempted, found a rare soul who he thought, hoped, might understand his. But only ever in parts, like getting a few loose pages from a book, some of the whole, but not all, never that.

If anyone ever wrote a book about him...it'd be longer than War and Peace, and a thousand times more bloody, with very little peace in it.

Yes, Elena Gilbert had very much hated him. And look at them now. Side by side on her couch, in her home, the pictures of her life behind them, comfortable together like they'd never spent a single second apart. Her hand curled over his chest, right over his heart, like she could protect it through touch alone, like it was hers to guard. He'd never much cared for the thing; he'd happily hand it over to her, let her find a better use for it.

Elena glanced up at him, as if she could someone divine his thoughts, and smile with all the warmth Klaus had never known he could he want from another person. "Right. So, Esther can't do the linking spell and whatever other magic she needs to perform in order to kill you, alone. If she channeled the Bennet line to come back, then I'm guessing she'll do the same for this spell, too. So, all we need to do is convince either Bonnie or Abby not to do it. Abby's pretty much a stranger, so she won't listen to me, but Bonnie...she's basically my sister. I'd do anything for her, and she'd do the same for me. Therefore, all I have to do is tell her all about you and how the thought of you dying makes me wanna tear at the walls and scream until my lungs give out, and we'll be good. I'm gonna head upstairs and change; this dress was so not designed for sleeping." Kissing him on the cheek, Elena departed in a rustle of skirts and a tired yawn, leaving Klaus board-stiff on the couch.

Elijah cleared his throat pointedly, draining his mug of coffee to the dregs.

"I'm gonna..." Without even finishing the thought, Klaus was upstairs, bracing an arm on her closed bedroom door, trying to find some order to his chaos-dipped thoughts. She'd made her declaration so...flippantly, so nonchalant, like she hadn't just admitted that she felt so strongly for him that the idea of him dying caused her actual pain. Like she hadn't just made it seem like she needed him, almost as much as he was beginning to realize that he needed her.

Klaus knocked once, twice, heavy and brisk as a December snowfall. "May I come in?"

"Sure."

The hybrid opened the door, finding Elena pulling a lavender coloured t-shirt over her head, a hairbrush in one hand, a bundle of hairpins sticking out in the space between her knuckles like claws.

This was the first time he'd ever been in her room. He savoured the opportunity as if drinking from an old bottle of wine. The horse above the bed, the photos taped to her mirror, some curling with age, others still crisp from the camera. The books and the awards and trophies, the textbooks and bags and scarves and jewellery scattered about, silvers and golds and gems and hearts on chains. And the journal, left out on her unmade bed, pen tucked between the pages. He wondered if he'd find his name in there, in what capacity she had scrawled it. Anger? Pain? Hatred? Or perhaps during this mercurial, unknown state they were currently floating in where they pretended like the sight of her before him in her shirt and her sweatpants and her pink polka dot socks didn't make him want to kiss her and haul her close, to feel her hair tickle his cheek and her heart beat beside his. Or like she wasn't staring at him, still in his tux, tie coming undone like a plotline, desire darkening her eyes, eclipsing all else?

He didn't know where to sit. The bed seemed too intimate, too presumptuous, and she really did look exhausted. Klaus moved to her window seat, moving the stuffed koala with the floppy ears onto his lap when Elena shook her head, taking his hand and urging him onto her bed.

"If you sit there, I'll just think about the time Elijah sat there as we negotiated the terms of my imminent demise," Elena explained, no doubt going for cool and adjusted, but all it did was shoot a stab of guilt through his veins, clenching his hands into apologetic fists.

"I'm sure you gave as good as you got."

"Oh, I did. Of course, that was before Damon tried to dagger at him and then I stabbed myself so..." Elena let her words peter out, setting her hairbrush down on the bed, careful not to sit on her diary. "What did you come up here to say?"

"Who says I wasn't here to see the elusive bedroom of Elena Gilbert?" the blond teased, equipped with his trademark smirk.

Elena shook her head softly, indulgent but not falling for his crap. "Are you sure? You didn't come here for an explanation as to what I said?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"If you have one to give. Or if you even want to share it."

She stared down at her diary. Ran a finger over the smooth, supple, sage-green leather, the initials E.G. embossed in the top-right corner. "I would...but I don't want you to think I'm doing so just because everything seems so uncertain right now, that I'm doing it thinking nothing will come of it, that I won't have to stand by what I say, what I choose. If I say it, I want you to believe me."

Fingers reaching out, they laced with hers, palms squeezing together, two books, two hearts, trying to occupy the same space. "Ever since I met you, I've never doubted a word you've told me. I won't start now."

"Alright. Just give me a second." Padding to her door, Elena threw it open, calling down to the second floor unexpectedly, "Elijah, do you need anything else from us tonight?"

Within a blink, Elijah was on the landing, hands clasped gentlemanly behind his back, so very much the polar opposite to her casual stance. But that was Elijah; always posing for an invisible painter, trying to present himself in the best light...if only to receive their enemies of his true wickedness. "No, I think we've done as much as we can for the time being. Can I trust you two to behave?"

"Elijah, come now, she's the doppelgänger and I'm an immortal hybrid; were adults. It's not like we have a bed time."

"Yes, but we all know how cranky you get when you don't sleep. An absolute terror," Elijah whispered conspiratorially to Elena, eyes never straying from his brother's. "I thanked the Lord profusely the day coffee came to these shores."

Klaus scowled deeply at his brother for betraying him so grievously. "I hate you. With a burning passion."

"Like that ever lasts long. Goodnight, Elena. Thank you for everything." The elder Mikaelson wasn't just talking about tonight. Klaus could see it in his smile, worn but genuine, feel the weight of the moment settling between them like something he could tangibly hold in his hands. Elijah was thanking Elena for taking a chance on his notoriously unlovable brother, and not walking away when it got hard, and messy, and disastrously complicated.

The thanks was very much warranted, and deserved.

Reaching up on her toes -Gods, they really did tower over her, didn't they?- Elena embraced his stalwart brother, tone just as earnest as she replied, "You're welcome, Elijah. It's my pleasure to take down your mother and keep you all alive."

"Yes," the Original conceded with a faint nod and an even more transparent smile, "I'm sure it'll make a most interesting story to tell during the holidays. Don't ruin this, brother," Elijah warned him darkly before closing the door and vanishing, leaving the two of them alone in the house.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Elena fretted, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other toying with the rose on her necklace, running a nail over the tiny garnet crystals like they could soothe her worries. "I can't imagine it must be easy, going back to the mansion, having to pretend that everything's fine when it's not."

"My brother has an impeccable poker face. He won't give anything away."

A gentle sigh escaped her lips, fluttering the stray hairs around her face as she rebuffed him, "That's not what I'm worried about, Klaus, and you know it."

"I know."

It amazed him, the depth of her charitable compassion, the way she drew it up from within herself like a pale in a well, this bottomless supply that she could conjure from nowhere within seconds, hand it out like it could cure all the ailments of the world. The way sincerity dropped from her tongue like honey, sweet but not saccharine, light and colorful but not without depth. Elena truly cared for Elijah's mental well-being, the effect the nights events must have had on him. On all of them. She was the maiden venturing into the cave of monsters, not unaware of their claws but unperturbed by them, undeterred, still willing to see the good even through the blood and piles of bones. Not so long ago, Klaus would have labeled it naivete, stupidity, disdainful foolishness.

Now he saw it for what it was. Bravery. Idealism. Hope.

It seemed she found it easier to love beasts than she did to love herself, to forgive herself.

Klaus hoped to one day change that.

"Are you sure you don't...want to go with him?" Elena wondered, walking into the bathroom and coming back out with her dress and a garment bag, scanning his face for the answers she sought as she hung the dress inside and opened her wardrobe with her foot. "Be there for him?"

Before she could make another move, Klaus was at her back, shouldering the door open wider for her, a gossamer-thin excuse to be closer to her, to purr softly in her ear, "Are you sure you're not just trying to avoid spilling your little not-so-secret secret to me?"

"No," Elena dragged the word out indignantly, hands on her hips, chest brushing against his in a teasing, provoking caress. "It's just...I know how important family is. It maters as much to you as it does to me."

"Most people think otherwise."

She smoothed a hand over her dress, reaching past his broad frame to turn off the main light with a click, plunging them into semi-darkness, the only source of light her desk lamp and the moon and her sparkling brown eyes. "Most people don't know you like I do."

Oh, she'd set that up so nicely for him, a trap within a trap within a taunt. Elena did know him, as hard as it was to fathom. She might not know everything, but she knew enough. She didn't need to know of the good when it was the bad that would truly decided her, would make up her mind. If she thought he was beyond redemption, beyond love, then she wouldn't be standing there, and neither would he. She'd invited him into her home. There was hardly any space between them, physically or emotionally. This was what he'd always wanted, what he had not had with Tatia, with Aurora, with the countless women who had caught his eye and then dropped his interest like a shattering glass, obliterating the illusion that Klaus Mikaelson could ever let someone in, would ever be willing to be so vulnerable, to offer himself up like a sacrifice, every bad thought and deed and every rare good one. Every regret, every torrid, shameful thing he'd done and made others do simply to perpetuate his own amusement.

She knew, and yet she stayed anyway. She'd seen it first hand, felt his hand on her cheek, his teeth in her neck, but she still gazed at him like he was the only thing worth looking at, danced with him like they'd been doing it for centuries, intuiting and intuitive and daring, startling him with it's ease. So few things were ever easy with Klaus Mikaelson.

He'd never imagined that love would make itself onto the list.

Still, he had to know..."Really?" the hybrid asked of her, the tip of his finger migrating under her chin, a blush swarming her cheeks, her neck, her chest, as his voice wavered with a fervent, devoted need, "Then who am I, Elena Gilbert? Who am I to you?"

Pupils blow open like a dam, sould laid bare like an offering as she murmured lovely, lovingly, "The guy I really wanna kiss right now, but I can't, since I did promised you I'd share my explanation first."

"Want to know a fact of life?"

Elena quirked a brow. "What?"

"Sharing is so very fucking overrated," Klaus growled before snaking an arm around her waist, chest colliding against his like a supernova, hand sinking into her hair whilst hers gripped his shoulders, hauling him closer and closer, the idea of any space between them unbearable. He drank her in hungrily, tasting the wine and the lipstick, the ragged breath in her throat, the sweet sound of her moans as he kissed and kissed her, as she kissed and kissed him.

Gods, why had he waited? Why had he waited so long to do this? How the hell had all those boys she'd loved before -and that was what they were, adolescent upstarts who couldn't handle, didn't know how to treat a woman, a goddess, like her- ever walked away from this, ever done anything else but this, night and day?

Now he'd had a taste of this, how was he ever supposed to stop?

Because she asked him to.

"Wait, wait, wait. Back up a sec."

Breathing laboured, Klaus took a step back, examine her face. She didn't seem angry, only determined. Sweetly, she ran a thumb over his bottom lip, collecting the remnants of her lipstick like a red-soaked tear. "It's not that I don't want to have my way with you...it's just that I feel like this isn't something I want to rush. Before, it was always rushed, always this looming cloud of awfulness hanging so low over me it's like I could almost reach out and touch it, and at times like that, it's easy to find comfort in forgetting. So, when I'm with you...I don't want it to be about that, about forgetting everything else. I just want it to be about you, and me, and what we feel about each other. Is that okay? Does that make sense?"

"Elena, love, it makes perfect sense. You mean too much to me for this to ever be about anything else. Plus, you look rather dead on your feet, and I intend to have you fully awake when I ravish you entirely."

"Wow, you sure know how to set the bar," she chuckled, her breath on his cheek, his hands on her hips, and then her lips were fusing against his, insistent and aching, and it took all of Klaus' considerable willpower to pull back, to try to think clearly, to respect her wishes. Some things were worth the wait, she chief among them.

"We should probably not have a repeat performance of that of we want to get some sleep," he advised her, voice heavy and rough and just this side of wanton.

"Right, right. Sleep. Need energy to defeat evil witch mother's and foil their nefarious plans."

Klaus shook his head, chuckle rumbling through his chest, his own particular brand of amused thunder. Elena pouted in indignation like she'd spotted clouds on a sunny day. "What?"

"Nothing, sweetheart. It's just, you're the only woman I know who would use the word nefarious at one in the morning."

"Good. I hope I'm the only woman impressing you with their vocabulary at ungodly hours of the night."

"Don't worry," he assured her earnestly, "you are."

"Good. Cause there's no one else I'd rather be impressing at one in the morning." Locking her fingers around his, she pushed him backwards onto her bed, giggling at his startled huff, setting her diary on her bedside table, arm a comforting band across his chest as she stretched to switch off the light.

Then it was just him, and her, and the moonlight. The rustle of the duvet as she pulled it over them both, right over their heads, shutting them away from the rest of the world, even if it was only while they slept. He appreciated the thought, but he knew he couldn't escape his fate. He and his siblings might have been immortal, nearly unkillable, but that didn't mean they could live in peace.

But it seemed Elena had found hers as she pressed one last kiss to his lips, murmuring a quiet, "Goodnight, Nik," before drifting off to sleep.

Nik.

Nik.

Nik.

The hybrid held Elena tighter and followed after her.

---

In the morning, the first thing Elena noticed was Klaus' jacket thrown over the back of her chair, one sleeve trailing almost to the carpeted floor below. She took a moment to just look at it, at the tiny signs that he'd been there: the rumpled pillow, the dress shoes he'd somehow managed to get mud on sitting by her door. Or, less noticeably, but more meaningful, her sense of complete and utter calm, of unblemished contentment. She hadn't had any nightmares while she'd slept beside him, her head resting against his chest. Like it still was now.

He hadn't left. Not this time.

Hopefully she could make a habit out of this.

Klaus -Nik, she wanted to use it more, she liked it, the name used by his family, the people he loved and who loved him in turn (and there was no way she was calling him Niklaus, that was Elijah's thing)- was still asleep, lashes a spread of spider-webbing blond against his pale cheeks, dusting them like pollen, all traces of the thoughts that she knew plagued him so deeply in his waking hours gone, washed away by a tide of unsuspecting happiness.

It wouldn't last long. It couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't when it came to her, she had a streak to maintain, a reputation as a vapid manipulator who his behind the biggest set of shoulders and the sharpest smirk to uphold, according to everyone else.

But they didn't understand. Elena loved with her whole heart, with everything she had. She committed to love the way priests committed to God, giving herself completely over to it, holding nothing back, keeping no secrets except the one where she knew they would one day leave, finding her too much or not enough.

The brother who loved me too much, and the one who didn't love me enough.

Katherine had said that the night of the Masquerade, according to Caroline and her enhanced hearing. History had indeed repeated itself, but also not. Both Stefan and Damon had loved her too much in some ways, but not enough in others, like a palette of paint with only half it's segments filled in with colour.

Elena didn't want any blank spaces in her life. No gaps, no edges, no corners that bruised, no holes that leaked. She wanted something...new. Elena wanted easy and sweet and soft. She wanted fire and passion and excitement. She wanted to laugh until she cried and kiss him until her lungs screamed, wanted to hold him while he told her all his secrets and feel him cup her face when she told him hers. She wanted a partner, an equal, someone always in her corner, but who never put her in one. She wanted a crazy big family and his crazy one and she wanted to make it work.

Her mother had said she'd be doomed if she had a Salvatore on each arm. It only seemed right that she had a Mikaelson holding her in his instead.

Carefully, lest she wake him, Elena reached out, brushing his curls off his forehead the way he moved his brushes over his canvases, with loving, delicate strokes. Like this, it was almost impossible to imagine that he'd ever been anything but vulnerable with her, that there had existed a time and a place where such things as pushing away his hair and smiling as he seemed to subconsciously lean into her touch were so out of the realm of possibility -even to her- that they didn't even deserve any thoughts given to them. He was Klaus, the Big Bad, the Evil Hybrid, the road block on her route to happiness and normality. And that history was still there. He was still the person who had done terrible things to her, because of her and her blood. But so had Stefan. And Damon. And that had never stopped her loving either of them. Love had never been the problem; it was what they'd done to it, and what they'd thought it had entitled them to do. To make decisions for her. To leave her out of things at the grand and meaningless claim of 'protecting her,' even though they seemed to be bested time and time again.

By Katherine. By Elijah. By Klaus himself. Hell, even Bonnie could drop either one to their knees in two seconds flat, and she'd only been a practicing witch for a little over a year now. And yet they thought themselves impervious shields against all who meant her harm, or who they thought meant her harm. It was ludicrous. Stefan and Damon hadn't been able to stop the sacrifice, hadn't stopped Caroline from getting killed, or Ric losing both his wife and the love of his life.

It was time they took her seriously. Time they saw the real her, the one not blinded by her love for them. She'd always care for them, yes, but now...

There was either her team, or everyone else. And she couldn't afford to be merciful if it meant someone she lovee playing the price. It was time someone else started footing the bill.

"If I'd known you were so affectionate in the morning, I definitely would have stayed the first time around," Nik murmured, one marble-blue eye open, the other still clasped tight, pressed into her pillow.

Elena grinned, didn't stop running her hand through his hair. Could have sworn he made a noise almost like a purr. He really was a big old softie. But she could also detect the truth shining through his words like a shadow box, revealing just another kernel of truth for her to gnaw on.

He'd been worried how'd she'd react after getting drunk with him, looking up at the stars. Had been as scared about her being upset as she'd been by how not upset she'd been. How spending time with him was like spending time with herself, only she laughed more and cried less and got her hands on some far better quality alcohol.

"I doubt I would have had the guts to do this even if you had," Elena admitted, feather-soft, nose brushing against the tip of his.

Sleep-warm hands grasped her hips, pulling her towards him so that she was resting against him, on top of him, forcing him to gaze up at her. And gaze, he did. Elena wondered, absently, if he'd ever realized how much those dazzling eyes of his revealed, how they really were windows into what he was thinking, feeling, the blinds forever drawn open, letting in all that light. That love.

They hadn't said it yet, it was too early, for both of them. But that didn't mean it wasn't what that was, what was there.

If Elena had a mirror in that moment, she had no doubt she'd see the exact same.

"My sweetheart, admitting to being chicken? Never," he grinned, and damn if it didn't make her heart flip like a domino, setting off a chain reaction of affection all throughout her body.

Idly, she chased a finger around his collar, the tangle of necklaces at the hollow of his throat. Placed a kiss there, just because she could. "Do you remember, last night, when I was talking like a grown-up and being all responsible? Well...I've changed my mind. Recent events such as this," she gestured to her being on top of him, "have definitely changed my mind. So, I hereby decree that we are not moving, all day, for anything. Do you find my terms agreeable?"

"I think your terms are splendid," Klaus agreed readily, kissing her cheek, her eyelids, the column of her neck, making her sigh happily, only giving her further evidence to support her idea...and then he stopped, lips still glued to her shoulder. "But, I also know you as well as you know me. After about an hour, two at the most, that darling conscience of yours will berate you soundly and you'll get up anyway. At least if you do it now there's still time for breakfast."

"You're really turning me down?"

"Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are. I'm usually the one doing the tempting. Must be all your noble hero-ness rubbing off on me."

Elena tilted her head, considering. "And is that good or bad?"

"Good for the sake of my soul, I suppose. But my patience...let's just say I'll make the day an official holiday to celebrate once we sort this mess out. Now come on, up you get."

In one fell swoop, Klaus scooped her up into his arms, twirling her around before setting her on her feet. She took a moment to simply stop and look at him, the shirtsleeves haphazardly rumpled back, the crooked but authentic grin, the spiked hair and the soft eyes.

Fingers gripping the space between the buttons of his shirt, Elena tipped towards him, capturing his lips in a slow kiss, tongue tracing over his lip like a kid doing a crayon etching; with enthusiastic abandon.

After a minute, she pulled away, resting her forehead on his chest before looking up at him. "Did you say something about breakfast?"

---

Going back to the mansion felt like going back to the scene of a crime, knowing who was at fault but being unable to do anything about it. As Klaus made his way up the stairs to his room, his mind was filled with a barrage of thoughts, most -of course- pertaining to Elena. He'd been apart from her for barely half an hour, and already an unsettling ache had settled within him. He missed her, was worried about her. After helping him make breakfast -a domestic activity he had apparently underappreciated, if this morning (and the kiss she'd given him before he left) was anything to go by- Elena had laid out her plans to convince Bonnie of Esther's untrustworthy-ness, as well as it's many off-shooting branches if that failed.

Mouth full of blueberry waffles, her legs bracketing his hips as she sat on the counter, she'd laid it all out with military precision, and Klaus had hardly needed to make any suggestions or improvements. It felt...odd, to be included in one of her schemes, rather than being on the atypical receiving end of it. Even if she was unable to convince Bonnie, she promised not to come back empty-handed, to, at the very least, find out the timeline for Esther's spell so they could peruse their options.

While he didn't doubt the sincerity of Elena Gilbert's Puppy Dog Eyes -an extremely lethal weapon, he had been informed- and the weight and gravitas of a fifteen-year-long friendship, Klaus didn't think she'd get what she wanted, what she was hoping for. Bonnie Bennett hated him, end of story; her mind wouldn't change. It didn't matter if Elena thought he was an angel on earth, to her he would always be the devil incarnate, a monster that needed to be stopped. Nevermind the fact that none of them, he and his siblings, had asked to be turned, to be forced to live off the life force of others, to crave it so desperately that almost all other thoughts became null and void. That he was frozen at the age where he'd still loved art and making trinkets for Bekah and telling Henrik stories by the fire, where his heart had still beat a normal rhythm and his hope had still burned, that dream of getting away from Mikael never dying, only growing more potent with time, aging like a fine -albeit acidic and likely poisonous- wine.

He'd only finished getting out of the shower when he heard the front door bang open, the clatter of heels on polished marble. Bekah.

Suddenly, Kol barged into his room, making himself comfortable on his bed as Klaus pottered about for a clean shirt. "Looks like little sister's finally returned from her night time endeavours."

"Yes, Kol, I know, I do have ears."

"Which means she doesn't..." his youngest brother trailed off pointedly, curling his hands into imaginary claws and shaking them about wildly. Klaus got the idea.

"Was that meant to be the Thriller dance?"

"I have one word for you, Nik: YouTube."

"That explains it."

"Speaking of the walk of shame...you seem in quite the hurry this morning," Kol smirked, absently flicking through Klaus' open sketchbook, mouth downturned at the etchings of landscapes and night sky's and cityscapes, escapes; not nearly scandalous enough for him. As if Klaus would ever leave anything of the sort for one of his siblings to so easily stumble across. "Did the darling Elena keep you up all night?"

"Say anything like that ever again and I will pluck your eyeballs from your skull and feed them to my cat."

Kol rolled said eyes, the flopping snap of the sketchbook closing shut accentuating his annoyance. "You don't have a cat."

"I'll buy one, just for that particular purpose. Don't think I won't."

"Fine, fine, I yield...for now." Head listing to one side, his brother scanned him like he was a page in one of his beloved grimoires, translating the features of his face into the emotions of his heart. Sometimes Nik really didn't give him enough credit, a mistake many had made in times past. As violent and psychotic as he could be, Kol never missed a single detail, not a flicker of emotion. He was just less liberal in sharing what he'd gleaned, hoarding it for later, letting it accrue interest to cause the most damage -or benefit him more greatly. Still, his tone was not void of surprise as half accused, half marveled, "You must really care about here if you're willing to invest in feline company; you've always been such a dog person."

"One, for the love of everything holy, shut up. Two...yes. Yes, I care about Elena Marie Gilbert," Klaus confessed, spreading his arms wide, a bird freed from a cage of it's own design. "Sue me, crucify me, poke fun at me for all eternity. It will be time we'll spent, I'm certain."

"You know her whole name? Sometimes you didn't vene remember half their first."

The hybrid shrugged a shoulder. "She has a lot of cheerleading trophies."

Kol spluttered a laugh. "Lame."

"And she won the Spelling Bee when she was ten."

Cackling, Kol clapped his hands, the picture-perfect portrait of glee. "My, aren't you the boastful boyfriend."

"No comment." There was only so much of Kol's mockery he could take, so he changed the subject dramatically, "Do you want to be here when I talk to Bex or are you just here to meddle?"

"Who says I can't do both?" Kol inquired mildly, crossing his legs at the ankle, an illusion of unbothered boredom.

Klaus affixed him with a look, penetrating that overly-cavalier shell. He cared. He knew he did, if only because he didn't want to die so soon after being undaggered, after spending almost a hundred years in a box.

His youngest brother had never taken betrayal well.

Kol folded, trailing a finger down a feathered pillow, gathering his words like plucking herbs from a garden. "I'm not sure. It might make you seem more credible, but I also don't want to be in our sister's line of fire when she tries to tear your head off...or some other part of you." Covering a moment of honest vulnerability with sarcastic humour; he really was a Mikaelson. He sounded like him. The thought didn't sit as comfortably as it would have two weeks ago.

"Nice. I'm really feeling overwhelmed by brotherly affection right now," Klaus replied, hand pressed dramatically across his chest, a caricature of pain. "Please, I can take no more."

"Arsehole."

He didn't miss a beat. "Git."

"Bastard."

"Prick."

Kol grinned wickedly, skirting the periphery of sincerity as he said, "Oh, Nik, I love you, too. By the by, she seemed nice, this gal of yours. Genuinely smitten with you, heaven knows why. And she was perfectly polite towards me. Easy, she's not my type," he defended off of Klaus' incendiary look. They couldn't just have one single, brotherly moment, could they? Would Kol ever be able to look at him without seeing a silver dagger? The vampire continued on, "You know I never shared your and Elijah's doppelmania. I prefer something a little more...original."

A long-suffering sigh left his lips, followed by a vehement insistence of, "That was a terrible pun."

Kol was unperturbed. "It's 2010, Nik: terrible puns are in." Hand flailing in a mocking salute, his brother left him to his own devices, closing the door behind him in a rare moment of forethought. While their sibling banter was enjoyable, it did little to dampen his guilt over what he was about to do, what he needed to do. Out of all of them, it seemed that Rebekah was the one who had brightened the most at their mother's return, at her act of all-forgiving love. Despite her centuries, she was still just a girl, still looking for love, trying to replace it with mediocre relationships with men who hadn't really cared about her, known the real Rebekah Mikaelson. Marcel had come the closest.

At the end of the day, she'd always want her mother. Some part of Klaus still longed for that woman, too, the woman of their past, who's loved had been complicated but ever-present as the trees and the moon and the falls and lashes of a whip across his back, burning, burning, burning.

But longing was not forgiveness, nor was it love. He'd despised Mikael, yet still yearned for his approval. It hadn't stopped him from plunging the stake into his chest and watching him become ashes floating in the wind.

Forearms draped over the railing, Klaus scowled down at his sister, eyeing her bedraggled state with owlish, unblinking disapproval. "Rebekah?"

Pivoting slightly, his baby sister glared up at him through an unruly tangle of hair. "Before you make fun of me, I'd like to say that I'm a thousand bloody years old, and a woman, and that I can do whatever the hell I want with whoever the hell I want and there's nothing you can-"

"Why do you smell like you slept in a tub of hair gel then took a bath in a distillery?"

Rebekah smirked, absently straightening a non-existent wrinkle in her dress, words dripping with coy amusement. "Damon Salvatore likes his drink."

"You slept with him?" Klaus queried, thundering down the stairs, looming above her like an enraged specter. "Jesus Christ, Rebekah, how could you!"

"He was lonely and pining and licking his wounds after your bloody bitch gave him a tongue-lashing. So I decided to use mine for some far nicer things."

Klaus made a face like he'd just been forced to watch the second Twilight movie.

Rebekah smacked him in the arm with her purse. "I meant kissing, you wanker. Honestly, it's not like you're a saint when it comes to your choice of companions, or do I have to remind you of Princess bloody Aurora."

"Lady, and no, you most certainly don't." Anger deflating, the hybrid took up a spot on the stairs, hands dangling dejectedly in the space between his knees. Every time. Bekah did this every single time. "He doesn't deserve even a moment of your attention."

"Obviously," the Original agreed without a seconds hesitation, hair flipping over her shoulder as she sat on the step below him, "which is why he won't be getting another. But the one guy I did happen to tolerate wants nothing to do with me, so..."

A brush of fingertips along her shoulder, an apologetic smile that reached his eyes, turned them an electric, remorseful blue. "I'm sorry, Rebekah. Truly."

Another pair of blue eyes, this time alight with grateful surprise. "You are, aren't you. Why?"

"Because what I'm about to say next isn't going to make any of that better. It'll only make it much, much worse."

Rebekah crossed her arms, pouting like every girl who didn't get their Malibu Barbie. "You mean the fact that you've fallen for yet another one of her?"

"We'll get back to that, but no; the fact that Mother is plotting to kill us."

---

Elena had gathered them all at Caroline's house, knowing that Sheriff Forbes would be on duty -therefore, there'd be no witnesses but them to the inevitable argument their conversation would unleash. It was going to be bad. Really, really bad. Worse than telling them about kissing Damon (both the deathbed kiss and the front door kiss) or the time Elena had borrowed Caroline's pink sweater for a date with Matt and got ketchup all over it (even though it hadn't been her fault that their waiter had been new and very nervous, and subsequently very clumsy) and hid it in the back of her closet when she couldn't get the stain out.

Caroline was at the foot of the bed, Elena had her back up against the mound of pillows, Bonnie sitting crossed-legged in the middle, a metaphor brought to life of there ever was one.

Caroline holding them up yet resenting being at the bottom, Bonnie in the middle, the glue, the negotiator, the bridge. And Elena right at the top, the star of the tree, reflecting everyone's light at them since she didn't have enough of her own, the tip of the pyramid, the sharp point, when all she wanted was to be on solid ground, cloaked in shadowed obscurity.

But Elena wasn't made for that. None of them were. Weren't meant for small towns or small lives or fading loves. They loved each other too much for that.

And that moment might have been the last, the last time they'd ever be that close, with Caroline organizing her coursework binders and Bonnie tapping a pen on her knee under the guise of 'helping,' but in reality everyone knew that they were waiting for the silence to tear Elena down, to make her spill her secrets like a necklace of pearls, each one shiny and new and damning.

"These past two weeks, I haven't been completely honest, with either of you."

A quirked brow, a pursed mouth. Oh, really, their twin expressions exclaimed. I'm hurt, I'm upset, it's not like you to keep things from us, 'Lena.

"You've both had a lot going on. Bonnie, you got roped into helping Stefan with the coffins and reconnecting with your mom and Care, I know you've been worried about Tyler whilst he tries to break the sire bond and losing your dad like you did. I didn't want to add any more of my drama to it; you guys put up with enough as it is," Elena murmured, eyes on the floor, blame resting their, too, right by her sneakered feet. Sometimes it took more courage than she could ever say just to look the pair of them in the eye because, no matter what happened, Bonnie and Caroline were there first. Before the Salvatores, and long after they left -which they would, at some point, Elena knew it in her heart like she knew her own name- they would still be here best friends, and she'd still have ruined their lives. Caroline was a card carrying member of the undead because of of her, then was almost sacrificed, had been tortured on numerous occasions and had her safety compromised to ensure Elena's.

Bonnie...she'd lost the woman who pretty much raised her, was put on retainer to get them out of every bad scrape, had faked her own death to help Elena, and been threatened almost as much as she had. All of that was on her. Because she fell in love with vampires.

Once, twice, and now a third time, with the biggest bad of them all. But it was in her blood, as much as the magic, that Petrova fire, etched into the very DNA of her cells, her soul.

Elena couldn't love anyone who might break. Because then who would hold her up when she fell apart? Who would carry her when her knees gave out? Who would fall to their at the sight of her in pain and swear unholy vengeance on her behalf?

Who could love the girl with the broken, bleeding heart but he who's heart (almost) no longer beat?

"But I don't want to lie to you anymore, it's not fair. And it will make what I ask of you a little easier to understand."

Breath in, breath out. Blue eyes, cherry wine, a gasping laugh, lipstick on his cheek and kisses on her tongue and I think this is the happiest I've ever been, love.

Truth. "Two weeks ago, when Stefan tried to kill me on Wickery Bridge, I was a mess. Damon drove me home. I got drunk. I broke into the mansion and Klaus found me in his kitchen, drinking his wine and on the verge of breaking."

"What did he do?" Caroline, leaning forward, eyes big and round and curious, because if anyone understood the allure of darkness, it was her -they all knew she preferred being a vampire, that she was so much more herself than she had been as a human, as lovely as that girl had been.

Elena smile was a tender thing, like holding a butterfly in your cupped hands, waiting for it to fly. "He pulled me back from the edge. He saved me. And helped me save myself."

---

"You're lying." Exploding to her feet, their moment of calm and affection dissolving like sugar in tea, leaving nothing but bitterness behind, Rebekah turned her back on him, hands clenched into tightly-wound fists, anger shaking her small frame violently, a tree in a hurricane. He'd almost forgotten how she could go from zero to sixty in a blink, changing emotions the way other women changed their shoes.

"What reason would I have to lie?" Klaus insisted, following after her, nimbly moving past the decorative side tables and antique vases, a few of them wobbling precariously in his sister's wake.

Rebekah whirled around, jabbing a finger into his chest like she could split him open and find the truth she seemed in his sternum. "I don't fucking know! To trick me, to turn me against her, to win back my trust after you revealed the fact that you'd killed her and then lied about it to us all for the near-entirety of our existence! Our mother is many things, but she is not a killer."

"She killed Tatia." He still thought about it. Not as much as he used to, and not out of any lingering feeling, but simply as a reminder of what Esther Mikaelson was capable of, what she'd do in the name of 'protecting her children.' It seemed killing them outright was not absent from the list.

"Tatia got what she deserved, Nik. She was stringing you and Elijah along like her own personal puppets, acting you out in her own bloody play because she couldn't grow some balls and just pick one of you. It's like Katherine and her Salvatores." She paused, eyes shifting into something hard and impenetrable, a steely blue that she had perfected in all her years with him, because of him. It was the look she got before she went in for the killing blow, when she'd found the chink in the armor, the most vulnerable and exposed spot, and decimated her opponent. "History seems to love repeating itself in this miserably insipid town."

A long breath. A flash of gold irises, glinting like newly-minted coins for an old anger. Fangs baring themselves in a vicious snarl, Klaus prophesized darkly, "If you're suggesting what I think you are, I beg you to reconsider before you say something I will be forced to retaliate to. Violently."

Rebekah was unfazed. "Like you'd ever pick that girl over me."

"It's not a competition, Bekah," Klaus insisted, but even as the sentence left his mouth, he couldn't help but think back to last night, to what he'd overheard Kol say to Elena: 'My sister has a temper and doesn't like to be upstaged, or fight for Nik's attention, of which you have in spades.' He couldn't deny the truth in that, but still..."Just because I care for her doesn't mean I care for you any less."

"But it does! She daggered me, Nik!" his baby sister screamed, so much betrayal and heartbreak and resentment in her voice that he was amazed she was still upright, that the weight of all this that she'd been carrying around hadn't brought her to her knees, Original or not. "She pretended to be nice to me, to get along with me, I told her all about us and our history and what we'd been through and she still stabbed me in the back."

Ah, so there it was. Bekah had liked her, had wanted to be her friend. It wasn't about Klaus' feelings for Elena, but Rebekah's. The fact that shed reached out her hand in friendship only to reel it back in when she got bit by the beast of betrayal. The fact that she'd let her guard down in the first place.

Gently, he reached out, mindful of her vulnerable state, wishing to offer her some kind of comfort. But she took a step back from him, like he was the one who had hurt her feelings, betrayed her, and the hybrid couldn't help but snap, "Like you can't understand the desire to protect those you love."

Which only made it worse. "So now you're defending her?" she screeched at an inhuman pitch, a foundation of hysterical tears starting to build at the corners of her eyes. Then she just...stopped. Wiped at her face. Shook her head. Looked up at him and laughed, dry as a desert, hollow as a carved-out tree. "You know what? I take it back: you're perfect for each other. Truly, a match in heaven. No one but that bitch could ever love a bastard like you. And while you're at it, if you say another word discrediting our mother, I'll go after her, and no one will be able to swoop on and save her this time. Elena would look just darling in mother's coffin, don't you think?"

"You touch her and I'll put you back in yours. See if you like waking up in 2077."

"It'd be worth it to see that girl pay, pay for what she did to me," Rebekah seethed, features shaded by the ominous clouds of her fury. She even went so far as to play into his paranoia, his own beliefs on loyalty and betrayal. "Nik, she plotted to kill you! Multiple times! You've beheaded people for far less."

She didn't see it. She didn't understand. None of that mattered now, was in the past, as forgotten as an abandoned language, a civilization in ruin, nothing but an echo of an earlier time, and one he didn't need to hear. "Elena's different; she's special."

"Why? Because you drank her blood? Because you used her in the sacrifice and she's the key to making your beloved hybrids? Because she knew you were the Big Bad Wolf but still came to the door and gave you her goods anyway?" she taunted, lips curved in a sword-sharp smirk, like the one that had run her through and killed that sweet girl he'd loved so much, who would never have dreamt of saying such things to him. "Because you're so desperate for someone to love you that you'll settle for the first woman who doesn't run away screaming at the sight of you?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"Because she just is! Because I know. I've always known, since the moment I first saw her."

"Known what?"

"That she'd be the ruin of me." It felt good to say it; it felt right. Rebekah of all people would understand it, the urge to ruin into the flaming throes of love, knowing they could be burned but wanting to feel the fire anyway, wanting to try. "And that even of she was, I'd die with a smile on my face. Because we were not made for story-book lives, Rebekah, and neither was she. And just because we weren't...doesn't mean that we won't be extraordinary, that we can't find some small iota of happiness. That after a thousand years, there is still so much out there, things we haven't done, things we haven't felt. That this existence is not a cursed one, and that even if there is only one single person in this world of billions that remembers us as anything other than monsters, that sees the good in us...then it will be a life well spent."

Rebekah smiled, putting her arms around him. Klaus brought his up, holding her tightly, sighing like he'd just put down a burden he hadn't even been aware he'd carried. "Nik?"

"Hmm?" he murmured into the crown of her head.

"You've lost your bloody mind."

Pulling back, he surveyed her fondly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Maybe? Who can say? I suppose it doesn't matter much; I'll lose everything else soon enough."

"Mother doesn't want to kill us, she loves us." But...her resolve had weakened. He could see it, hear it, a change in pitch, a shift in her melody. She was starting to believe him, either because if his words or their mother's actions, things she had no doubt noticed and brushed away, not wanting to see them, to admit that kind of truth to herself.

"Didn't stop her the first time, Bekah. It won't stop her now. I know I have kept things from you, been deceitful and dishonest, but you must know that when it comes to your safety and that of our siblings...I take nothing more seriously. I'm sorry, sister, but not is all as it seems in this house. Our happy reunion is a final goodbye."

---

"So let me get this straight...you got drunk with Klaus, who then tended to you like some teen romance hero, and then you spent a couple hours looking up at the stars and getting more drunk and telling each other stories like you're re-enacting The Notebook, after which you fell asleep on hus chest and he carried you up gallantly to his bedroom where he was going to leave you, but you asked him to stay, and then you cuddled."

Elena nodded at the blonde, taking a sip from her glass of water and setting down on the coaster resting on Caroline's bedside table; spilling your guts was thirsty work.

"Wow. Just...wow. Wow."

"Can you stop saying 'wow'?" Bonnie grimaced, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else, listening to anything else, "It makes you sound juvenile." And it hurt. It was like walking through a forest, relying on someone to be beside you, as they always have been, only they drop your hand and turn around, leaving you alone in the dark with no way out.

Elena didn't know how to be if her and Bonnie weren't best friends.

"Don't care. This is a wow-worthy conversation." Turning back to Elena, the reigning Miss Mystic eyed her with eagre excitement, as if the story of Elena's life was her favorite soap opera, craving the drama of her latest plot twist. "So then what happened?"

The brunette continued on, "I woke up. He offered to make me pancakes, I let him. All the while I was internally freaking out over what I'd done, ashamed because I wasn't ashamed. I left, and we didn't talk. But he left me a bottle of wine on my porch with his phone number on it."

"Oh, that's classy. Real nice. Super smooth. God, why do all the evil psychos have to be the best romancers?" Caroline remarked, sighing up at the ceiling, no doubt thinking of Tyler, who had never been known for his great displays of romance even when he was here, let alone when he wasn't and was barely returning his 'girlfriend's' calls. Was no doubt thinking of Kol, who she'd seen her sneak off with at the end of the night.

"Because they've had lots of time to practice it on innocent people?" was Bonnie's taught reply, ever the rational one. It used to work well, balance out their dynamic, but she wished that for once, just this one time, the witch could put herself in Elena's shoes, could see how she'd been through so much, too much. That love was complicated, and irrational, that you could no more pick who your heart called out to than you could pluck a star straight from the sky.

"Bonnie!"

"What? It's the truth! What you did was stupid, Elena. You let your guard down; he could have hurt you."

As if it would be the first time.

"But he wouldn't. He needed, and still needs, my blood to make more hybrids." He wouldn't, because he looked at me this morning like he'd never let me go, because I slept in his arms three times and yet never had a nightmare when every other night I wake up screaming, haunted by ghosts who aren't here, haunted by my choices and my mistakes. Because there's a darker side to me, one I don't ever let you see, but that he does, he does and he understands. He never makes me feel like I need to be good all the time, to be perfect, not like I feel like I have to when I'm around you, because I never want to see you look at me with disappointment...like you are right now.

"Like that would matter if you crossed him," Bonnie insisted, eyes brewing a dark anger, patience fraying, strings pulled too tight, about to snap entirely.

"But I haven't. The little coffinscapade was your and Stefan's thing, remember? I didn't even know until after," Elena reminded her, not even attempting to masquerade her bitterness into anything more palatable, more appropriate. Honesty was the theme of the conversation, after all.

"We were trying to protect you." A back-pocket excuse, creased like an old love letter, a family photograph, soft from top many foldings, thinking it would make her fold.

Not this time.

"And yet Stefan was the one I needed protection from. You know what being on that bridge is like for me, how traumatized I was. Bonnie, you were there in the car with me when that crow hit the window on our first day of junior year. Stefan knew that, used to it to his advantage. And the only one who protected me, who got him to back down, was Nik."

"Ooh, he's Nik now?" Caroline interjected, a shot of sunshine-levity, but they both blazed past it, heading down the road of conflict, a collision in the making.

Mouth hanging open, Bonnie clambered to her feet, staring her down like an enemy. "Yeah, he's Nik now? The freak hybrid who killed Jenna, who's terrorized us for months, who we spent all our time and energy trying to stop, to kill, all to keep you alive? The monster that has no doubt killed thousands upon thousands of people, most of whom were likely innocent, just caught in the cross-fire. The bastard I almost died trying to get rid of, who started all this when he tried to kill Katherine five hundred years ago. Elena, he killed her entire family, the people you're descended from. They're all dead, because of him. And so is John, since he only gave his life so you wouldn't lose yours."

Elena got up as well, right up in her face, her own force of nature. "That was his choice! I never asked him to do that! If I'd have known, I never would have let him go through with it!"

"It wouldn't have mattered! That's what love is! True love, not whatever facsimile you have of it with Klaus!"

"How would you know! You weren't there, you haven't seen what he's like with me!" Screaming, breath hitching, hands shaking. No, no, no. She needed this, she didn't want to go back, she didn't understand, that wasn't what this was. Only they knew. Only they knew what they did to the other, how they just fit, like they'd been disjointed all their lives and suddenly everything was in perfect alignment, a bone set right, finally healing after so many breaks.

"And you're not seeing at all! Whatever his endgame is, whatever he's planning, it's not for you two to ride off into the sunset and have 2.5 kids and drive a minivan, Elena! For one thing, he can't even have kids. What kind of future could you ever possibly have with him?"

Elena parried with, "The only kind of future I need: a happy one."

"And one I'll happily give you, sweetheart." She felt him come up behind her, take the phone she'd palmed when Bonnie started yelling. I need you here, please come. Two minutes. He'd gotten here in less than two minutes. "Bonnie, I believe you have a few things you wish to say to me?" Klaus smirked, one arm snaking around her waist, his touch grounding her.

She leaned into him, letting him keep her upright.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Bonnie exclaimed, before turning accusing green eyes her way. "Did you text him? You can't even talk to me without calling in your boyfriend for back-up?"

"Well, we haven't DTR'd as you kids today say...but yes. A threat to Elena is a threat to me. You come at her, you come at me."

Bonnie shook her head, disgust coating her like a visible second skin. "I'm not threatening her."

Nik cocked a disbelieving brow. "No? So you're screaming at her for fun then?"

"You're suddenly an expert on friendship?" The Bennet crossed her arms, looking so much like her late grandmother ot almost made Elena do a double-take. "And here I thought the daggers you stab your siblings with were your best friends."

The hold around her waist tightened protectively, the only sign of weakness he'd ever let show. "Be careful, witch. Elena may love you, but I must say you're certainly not inspiring anything of the sort in me."

"Klaus, that's no way to get what we want," Elena chided him, running her fingers up his back soothingly, lingering a moment in the curls at the nape of his neck. "Look, Bonnie, I know this is a lot to take, and I'm sorry, but it's not just Klaus. Every one of the Mikaelsons will die if you do this. Elijah tried to save my life with the elixir, protected everyone until the sacrifice. Rebekah just wants to be a normal girl and live a somewhat-normal life. And Kol...well, he probably just wants to have some fun and stir up trouble, but I don't think Caroline's very opposed to that. Right, Care?"

"Thanks for throwing me under the bus, 'Lena."

Elena smiled remorselessly. "Better to be under it than get hit by it."

"Fair enough. But just to set the record straight, we just talked. And drank some champagne. And had a staring contest. I won," Caroline added, wearing her achievement proudly, an invisible emblem of her awesomeness. Trying so hard to act like she wasn't sitting as farthest away from Klaus as physically possible in her small room.

"As touching as all that is, I'm sorry, Elena, but it's done. There's no way. Even if I wanted to -which, for the record, I really don't- it's too late."

The doppelgänger's gaze hardened, Medusa on a warpath. "Too late? Why?"

"Esther's doing the spell tonight, harnessing the power of a celestial event: the full moon. She's gonna draw on the magic of the Bennett line to do the spell," she explained tiredly, as if even saying the words sapped her of some of her strength. Indeed, those were sleepless circles under her eyes, the splotches of pinkish anger in her cheeks the only colour on her face.

If things had been different, Elena would have put her in bed and made her soup, watched old movies until they both fell asleep.

But things weren't different. Bonnie may be tired, but so was she. In her heart, her soul, she was so tired of this. She wanted to be selfish, wanted to tell everyone to go to hell, it didn't matter what they thought or felt or wanted or expected. She wanted to roar until her throat bled, sink to her knees and scream until her lungs have out like they had that night in the car.

So she did.

"No! Bonnie, no! No! You can't let her! I won't let you!"

"Why not!?" It seemed Bonnie did, too. "Look at everything they've done! For a thousand years, that family has wrought nothing but death and destruction. For God's sake, Elena, this guy you claim to care so much about killed you, killed Jenna. How can you move past that?"

"Because I need to! Because I don't want to be sad forever, Bonnie! Because I'd rather forgive him and be happy than hold a grudge ans be miserable for the rest of my life, wondering about what I could have had."

Panting breaths filling the silence, Caroline looked up from her binders, waving slightly. "Can I just say that I totally called this? I always knew you were secretly not vanilla when it came to dating."

"Not helping, Care. I'm doing the spell, Elena, and that's the end of it."

"But it's not! Please, Bonnie. Please. Please, please, please. I can't lose him, I can't. I've never asked you for anything, not a single thing, but I am begging you here. Please, I'll do whatever you want. Just...please." Elena buried her head in Klaus' chest, sobbing uncontrollably, struggling to get air in through her spasming lungs, choking on her own despair. What could she say to convince her? Bonnie hated the Mikaelsons, and she wouldn't stop for Elena, especially since she saw them all as a threat. But what would she stop for? If the spell put one of them -her and Caroline- in danger, definitely.

Silently, Elena wracked her brain, Klaus' fingers carding through her hair helping her to think, how he pressed his lips to her forehead as he murmured, "It's okay, Elena. It's alright, I'm right here, love. I'm right here."

Linking spell. Blood. Mikaelsons. Love. Family. Linking, turning, magic...

And then it hit her.

Squaring her shoulders, Elena lifted her head, chocolate brown sparking cobalt blue, and announced, "Because the linking spell didn't just link all the Mikaelsons together, Bonnie. Esther used my blood, doppelgänger blood, the most powerful magic ingredient of all; she wouldn't have needed that to link five vampires, even Originals. She needed it to link them to every vampire they've ever turned. She said it herself, vampires are abominations, a perversion of nature that disrupts the balance. So she wants to get rid of all vampires, not just her children."

"But that would mean..." Bonnie trailed off in horror, dawning realization of death breaking through.

"Caroline would die. So would Stefan and Damon. Maybe everyone walking around with vampire blood in their system." That was a bit of a stretch, but Elena knew she would buy it; Bonnie would never get innocent people be put at risk like that."

Nothing else, nothing else but that lie would get her to do what Elena wanted, needed. It made her feel awful, but it would be worth it, so long as they all lived.

Bonnie hung her head, a knight admitting defeat, falling on their sword in resignation to an unbeatable foe, the unstoppable force that was their love for each other. "Alright. I'll do it. I'll try and stop the spell, see if there's a way to break Esther's connection with me and my mom and all our ancestors."

"Fantastic. I call this meeting of the Midnight Society to a close," Klaus decreed before disappearing out the door, holding Elena firmly in his arms. He didn't stop until they were in the woods, far enough away that she could feel some of the stress leave her body as she inhaled the fresh air, greedy gulps, like she's stealing from the cookie jar rather than taking in necessary oxygen. Like she was supposed to drown, always and forever, even on dry land.

Klaus still had a hold on her, hadn't let go, one hand on her waist, his heart bleeding in through the fabric of her coat that he'd somehow remembered to snatch up on their way out. "A sire line spell? Really?"

She couldn't tell what his tone was, couldn't bother to understand it.

"It got the job done, didn't it?" Elena barked, jamming the palm of her hands against her eyes until she saw stars, searing bursts of light playing out against her eyelids like the film reel of her betrayal.

He pried her hands from her face, the world coming back to her in a blur, in drips and drabs of blue and green and blond. "You misunderstand me, sweetheart. I'm applauding you; that was some marvelous thinking. Your friends will be working round the clock."

"Good."

"Elena?" Tugging on the end of her scarf, wrapping it more securely around her neck, rubbing the silken monochrome fabric between his fingers, effectively getting her attention. "You did the right thing. You just saved my life, and those of my siblings."

"And just damned myself to friendship hell for the rest of eternity."

He cupped her jaw, face so close to hers she could count his eyelashes like stars in her own personal universe, voice cruelly teasing, "If you ever ended up in hell, you know I'd be right beside you to keep you company."

"How chivalrous." Bumping her forehead against his, Elena allowed herself a moment to simply breathe him in, the smell of turpentine and coffee and spice, warm and alive and real. "God, I hate that I had to do that. I don't like manipulating my friends. I don't want to be like..."

She couldn't finish the sentence. Didn't want to, or need to. Unspoken understanding flowed between them, binding them to each other. It was what had attracted her about him in the first place, that first night, how he'd taken a single look at her and figured her out, not because she was easy to read, but because she was a reflection of everything he felt and endured.

"It could be true," he tried to placate her, and if she hadn't fallen for him already, then Elena would have in that moment, with the kind smile and the open expression and the fact that he was comforting her, wanted to make her feel better, just because he could, because he wanted to. Because he himself had always held such a high prize for loyalty, and it broke him every time he didn't get it. "You never know; it's the sort of thing my mother would do, expunging her guit in one fell swoop."

It really did.

Setting it aside, Elena weaved his hands in hers, taking in the trees and the fading leaves and the glimpses of sky above. "It's so nice here. Still. Quiet. Is that why you picked it?" she asked, although she had her suspicions to indicate otherwise.

Klaus shook his head, gaze trained on the earthen floor at their feet. "Yes...and no. Yes, I thought it might help calm you, but it wasn't random. I was planning on paying this spot a visit today regardless, given everything that's going on."

Paying this spot a visit today.

Everything that's going on...

"This is where you buried her, isn't it?"

Oh, Nik...

He was so, so still. Didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't even look at her, frozen in his shame and his grief.

"We -myself, Elijah, Rebekah- had thought about making a funeral pyre, burning her, as was the Viking custom, but we knew she wouldn't have wished for that. She would want to return to nature, be a part of the earth, that connection she'd felt to every living thing through her magic. Now I know it was always her plan to come back, to try and kill us, to rid herself of her abominations.

"I came back, a hundred years after I turned. I found her exactly the same, not a hair out if place since the day we put her in the ground. I had got my hands on the daggers, used one for the first time. On Finn. Vowed to never do it to the rest of my family, although of course that didn't last long. I felt...guilty. And I didn't want to leave her for Mikael to find. He burned our old village down, once, in an attempt to smoke us out. So I dug her up, put her in a coffin beside Finn's. I thought her spirit would appreciate it, being near him. He always was her favourite, perhaps because he reminded her of better times, when her eldest child, Freya, was still alive, before she died of the plague. I've always wondered why she never tried to bring her back to life, or Henrik; she's a powerful dark witch, and she had no qualms with turning us into vampires. Surely she would have resurrected them if she were capable. Or maybe her obligations to nature were more binding than her obligations to her children, her flesh and blood. I guess some things never change."

Leaves swirled in the breeze. Somewhere, a bird took flight. Tears streamed down both their faces, twin tracks of heartbreak.

Pushing back a sob, Elena dropped Klaus' hands and whispered, "Nik, sweetheart, come here."

He didn't so much go into her arms as crumble into them, a bulldozed house being torn down, supports obliterating as he buried his head against the crook of her neck and cried.

No one else. No one else would ever get to see him like this. Billions of people on the planet, and Elena Gilbert was the only one who Klaus Mikaelson would allow himself to fall apart in front of, to hear him cry like his pain was tearing him apart on the inside, a howling, wild beast he had been trying to tame for a thousand years, ten long centuries of trying to pretend that he did not miss his mother. And that her plans for him and his family did nothing to change that, even if he could and would not ever forgive her for them.

Elena held him, held on to him, with everything she had. Neither Salvatore brother had ever let her see them in any state of distress even remotely resembling this. Stefan was always so stoic, bottling everything up, and Damon covered his with flippant remarks and bottles of Bourbon. They never wanted her to see them as anything but her noble protectors, always being strong for her, always there for her.

But Klaus...he let her be there for him. Leaned on her as much as she'd leaned on him. And she'd never trusted him more, felt closer to another person than she did right then, with him clutching at her coat and his tears catching on her hair like snowflakes, cold and glistening.

Pulling away, the hybrid swiped at his face, opening his mouth with a timid expression. "I'm-"

Reaching up on her toes, Elena put a finger to his lips, halting his words. But the intimacy of the gesture was undone by the steel in her voice as she exclaimed, "If you try to apologize for crying, I will punch you. And it will hurt, because I've been practicing."

Klaus smirked, ever so slightly. There it is. "Well, I suppose if I've been so thoroughly warned..."

"Exactly." Fingers trailing down his sleeve, she raised his hand, placed a delicate kiss on his palm. "You don't ever have to apologize for how you feel, not to me."

"Still, it's not exactly sexy when you start blubbering all over the girl you fancy."

"First of, I find you totally sexy, in any and all emotional states. And second of all, fancy? Really? That's what you're going with?" Elena teased him, bumping her shoulder against his, settling into their familiar rhythm, comforting as the beat of her heart. "And here I thought I was playing tongue hockey with a walking Thesaurus."

Nik rolled his eyes fondly. "You're hilarious."

Elena curtsied primly. "Thank you. I try."

Stillness hung around them like a curtain, closing them off, bringing them closer.

Tilting his head, face striped in rays of dying daylight, Elena watched him take a long breath, savouring the moment like it was a favourite song, a good meal, an excellent bottle of wine. Eyes open, gaze now on nothing but her, he took her hand, leading her out through the maze of trees. They'd just reached the edge when he stopped, turning towards her, thumb stroking over her chilled cheek, a steady cadence that matched his words as he began, "That night, you mentioned about you and Stefan taking a hike, watching the sunset. How he made you confess that you didn't want to be a vampire, that you wanted a chance to grow up. I've thought about it often in the time since, trying to pinpoint the when and the why. But today...it finally made sense. It was the day of the sacrifice, wasn't it? When Damon had forced his blood into you, ensuring that you'd come back, that he wouldn't lose you."

Elena nodded, burrowing into his touch. "Yeah, it was. It was meant to be my last day as a human, before everything was supposed to change. Stefan made me spend it hiking." Elena pulled a disgruntled face. "It was a nice gesture, and I appreciated it at the time, but..."

"It wasn't how you would have chosen to spend your last hours," Klaus finished for her, intuited her.

She nodded once again, eyes shadowed with memory. "If it had been up to me, I would have been with my family, my friends. We would have sat on the couch at home and watched movies and baked cookies and just been, been together, one last time. I would have slipped out, left a note. I don't do goodbyes too well," she admitted hoarsely, unsurprised when she felt a tear slid down on her cheek, disappearing down his shirt cuff.

"I know, sweetheart. I only mentioned it because, if today is indeed my last day...it was far better than I could have ever imagined, or thought I deserved. Because I spent it with you."

When Elena kissed him, he almost looked surprised. How could he be? How could he expect after a declaration like that that she wouldn't attack him like her life depended on it, or his? That she wouldn't clutch at his hair and sink hee teeth into his bottom lip, trying to capture as much of him as she could.

Klaus was just as voracious, as desperate, clinging to her as if he'd never let her go, like he was already dead and she was the only thing keeping him alive.

She might very well be.

Prying herself from his grip, Elena smoothed a hand along Nik's chest, resting it on his heart, the beginnings of a plan taking shape in her mind like one of his canvases.

"There's something I need to do. It's dangerous, and likely very stupid, but I think it will get us what we need."

She waited to be rebuffed. Waited for him to yell or threaten or get angry, tell her she was crazy and that she shouldn't put herself in harm's way, that he couldn't worry about her as well along with his siblings.

None of it happened.

Just a kiss on her temple and a soft, "What do you need, love?"

Elena's grin was brighter than the sun, than every star in the sky, brighter than the whole galaxy. "What's your mom's favourite flower?"

---

Standing at the front door of the mansion, dressed in her most sensible Founding-Family-approved pastel pink sundress -that Klaus had taken one look at and almost laughed himself off of her bed, saying she looked like a cream puff, which, with it's puffy sleeves and skirt, Elena had to agree- hair still retaining a slight curl from the night before, armed with a bouquets of fresh dahlia's, Elena faced down the heavy knocker, internally debating the merits of her spontaneous plan; this wasn't her kind of thing. Spontaneity was notoriously bad. Just look at spontaneous human combustion, and Elena knew Esther was certainly capable of it, if not eagre after their encounter the previous night.

But she needed to know. If only to soothe her troubled conscious; this was the only tonic available, no matter how unsavory, but life couldn't always be chocolate-flavoured. Knuckles wrapping firmly on the wood, Elena waited for someone to answer.

And was rewarded with the frowning face of Esther Mikaelson. Plastering on her most plastic smile, Elena greeted the other woman, all honey doe eyes and inviting smile, "Mrs Mikaelson, good afternoon. Do you have a moment to talk?"

The frown intensified, grew barbed thorns thick as tree trunks. "I'm afraid not, Miss Gilbert, I'm terribly busy at present. Perhaps some other time."

*Yeah, terribly busy trying to murder your own children, Elena thought but of course didn't say; she had far more tact than that. Instead, she lowered her head slightly, posture slouched with regret, the sad little orphan girl desperate for an ounce of motherly affection. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I only wished to apologize to you. I feel just awful about yesterday and how I spoke to you. I bought these as a peace offering," Elena supplied, gesturing to the flowers in her hand, the blood-red blooms. "Rebekah told me they were your favourite, about how she used to help plant them in your garden when she was a girl."

Lie, lie, lie. But it seemed to do the job, Esther visibly softening at the sight, anger wilting as she acquiesced, "Very well. I suppose I can spare a moment."

"You're too kind."

Elena followed her through the mansion, leaving her coat on a passing armchair, keeping her purse slung over her shoulder, her phone tucked safely inside. Esther led her to an ornately furnished parlour, full of buttery sunlight and white-painted lawn furniture, all intricate swirls and curlicues, a circular stained glass picture window occupying the attention of the room, a porthole into another world.

"I was just having a spot of tea," the matriarch said, gracefully flitting about the room. "Would you care for a cup?'

Nodding, Elena took a seat, folding her hands in her lap. "Yes, thank you, that would be lovely." Thank God she'd sat through so many cotillion and etiquette lessons, most under the hawk-sharp gaze of Carol Lockwood, back when all the woman had to worry about was pageant planning and making sure her son's -and her husband's- antics didn't become fodder for the town gossip mill, back when the biggest threat to Mystic Falls was a bad snowstorm or not having enough swords for the Willow Creek re-enactment.

Accepting the china rose cup, Elena took a sip, trying not to wince at the scalding temperature -and the lack of sugar, but that was no surprise, coming from her; the woman wasn't known for her sweetness. "Like I said, I wish to apologize for my behavior yesterday, Mrs Mikaelson. I was out of line and incredibly rude, and it is not my place to tell you how to deal with your own children."

Esther examined her dubiously over the rim of her own cup. "Really? You seemed most adamant on the subject."

Elena waved a hand airily. "The misguided notions of a confused young woman. Truth be told, this past year has been so overwhelming; I don't know what to believe anymore." A lip trembled, a slight shake to her hand as she set the saucer down. It was the little things that made a performance believable. And maybe it wasn't all fake. "After losing my parents like I did, and my aunt, my uncle...I've been so lost, and all I've had to comfort me are vampires, filling my head with their poison. When you lose the people you love so suddenly, you cling to the first bit of kindness and affection you can, even if it's wrong for you."

The Mikaelson witch nodded, as cooly detached as a severed limb. "Yes, I can only imagine your pain."

"And Jeremy's so young, and I want to do right by him, thought that the vampires could protect him when I can't; I'm only human, after all." Look weak, look vulnerable. It was the same as 'Sit still, look pretty, smile with your eyes' and 'Elena, dear, look at you, you're filthy, covered in pen, what would your mother say if she saw you like this? "I don't have their speed or their strength. But I don't have their morals, either, can't stomach taking a life so easily."

Truth. "I tried to distance myself from Stefan and Damon but they just won't leave me alone, especially since they've been invited into my house, violating my life like an infestation. Stefan even goes to school with me, so it's not like I can even avoid him there. I spend all my time with monsters, trying to pretend like I'm not appalled by their terrible deeds, by all they've done to me. And Klaus...he promised to protect me, to keep me safe." This was the hardest part, the most difficult to sell, especially since she could still taste his kiss under the taste of the bitter herbal tea, could still feel his hand in hers like he was sitting right beside her. "He's the only one they're scared of. I thought if I stayed close...they'd never hurt me."

'Esther was taken by Vikings,' Klaus had told her on the drive over, when she'd asked for everything he knew about her. 'They invaded her village, killed her parents. It was just her and her older sister, Dahlia (hence the flowers). They protected each other, loved each other. They were barely older than you, thrust into a way of life they hadn't asked for. Of course, no one told her to go and marry one, so I can't say I hold much sympathy for her...'

Reaching out, Esther grasped her wrist, nails digging into her flesh like tapered claws. "Don't worry, Elena. After today, you'll never have to fear for your safety again. You won't ever have to be afraid." She sounded like she was doing her a favour, undertaking some great deed. As if she were a hero, killing the wicked dragon to save the town from destruction. But a dragon is still a living thing, a being with a heart and a soul, and it cannot help that it breaths fire, or that people are not immune to the flames.

It didn't mean it should die.

"But-but how? I thought your spell was only about killing your children?" Here it was. Elena was practically vibrating, waiting for the magic words -pun intended.

Esther sat back, crossing her legs demurely, triumphant smile creeping across her face. "Ah, but what you don't know is that every vampire is linked to their sire. Sometimes, this connection can be so strong it presents itself as a sire bond, like Klaus with his muts, but it happens between ordinary vampires as well. If one Original is killed, so is everyone they've ever sired, a glorious domino effect. And since all my children shall be linked...every vampire on the face of the earth shall be dead by the time the moon rises tonight."

"Wow, that's incredible," Elena remarked breathlessly, awed. "You must be such a powerful witch." A little buttering up never hurt anyone.

"You flatter me," she insisted, but Elena saw the tender sprigs of greed, of vanity and narcissism behind her eyes. If Klaus had taught her anything, it was that those in the Mikaelson family wanted to be noticed, especially for their talents, craved appreciation almost as much as blood. "I must say, I'm glad you've come to your senses. I always knew you were a sensible girl. It must be the magic in your blood."

That threw her for a loop. "Do you mean the doppelgänger magic?"

"Not just that. You see, being on the Other Side, I've seen everything, talked to spirits from all walks of life. Katerina, or Katherine Pierce as you know her, had a child with a type of witch known as a Traveler. Her father was one as well, ironically enough, so the magic of their people flowed in that child's veins, and through those of every descendant. The coven is a despicable bunch, saying my type of magic is a perversion, but I don't care for the words of nomadic hypocrites who can't even grow corn without enacting a biblical flood. Given time, the proper training...you could be a very powerful witch. Not nearly as strong as me, of course, but close."

"I had no idea." She really hadn't.

Esther nodded sympathetically. "I take it Katerina was not forthcoming?"

"She's never liked me very much, yet she seems to fool everyone when she pretends to be me." Truth mixed in with lies. A spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down, getting her what she wanted. Subtlety went such a long way, moves and counter moves, back and forth, bartering and trading, swapping and placating. It all came naturally to her. Maybe, a year ago, it might have scared her. But not now. Not now when it was the best weapon she had: who expected the girl in the pink dress with the heels with bows on to be anything but a pretty little thing, a doll waiting for someone to pose them, create the picture they wanted to see?

The thousand year old witch was no different than anyone else in this town.

The thought was almost comforting, in a very morbid and depressing way. The fact that no one expected Elena to act any differently.

Perhaps reading the discomfort on her face, Esther reached out, tucking away a strand of her hair. It took everything in Elena not to pick up the knife on the tray and stab her with it. "Don't fret, dear. After today, you'll never be plagued by her again. You will be the last Petrova doppelgänger, and a mighty one at that. Cucumber sandwich?"

---

Elena had just finished typing out a text to Klaus, 'I was right. Every Original linked to vampire they sired, and who they sired and so one,' when she felt a hand come up over her mouth, the other grasping the back of her neck with vice-like strength.

"Try to scream, and I'll snap your neck like a wishbone," drawled none other than Rebekah Mikaelson, out of her ball gown but still retaining her murderous expression which she wore just as well.

Nodding helplessly, Elena held in her sigh, wishing that this day would be over with soon.

Removing her hand, Rebekah took a step back, brushing imaginary lint from the cuffs of her black leather jacket, flicking her braid over a shoulder. "It's time you and I had a conversation about my brother."

---

"I loved these woods as a girl," Rebekah reminisced as Elena walked through the woods for the second time that day, only this time far less well-equipped. These heels were torture on her feet, not to mention making it ten times harder to navigate all the treacherous roots and twigs and fallen branches. If Rebekah wanted to kill her, Elena wanted to tell her not to bother; the shoes were gonna end up doing it for her. "Mother always chided me about getting my skirts dirty, making extra work for her, but I loved the freedom of it, chasing around my brothers. It made me feel like an equal, rather than just their baby sister."

"I can imagine it must have been hard, growing up the only girl in a house full of boys," Elena commented, bypassing a fallen tree, smiling at a little robin hopping along it's length. She wanted to sympathize, find some common ground, some equal footing. Ironic, given their current setting, but Elena and always prided herself on being an optimist.

"You have no idea. Food disappeared before it had a chance to hit the table, Kol always took all the hot water, Elijah used to steal my nice-smelling soaps and Klaus broke my hairbrush trying to get twigs out of his hair on more than one occasion."

Elena halted, mouth agape. "Klaus had long hair?"

Rebekah shrugged nonchalantly, but a hint of amusement tugged at the corners of her mouth, a little sister unable to stop herself from poking fun at her big brother. "It was the style then."

"I know, I know. It's just... sometimes its easy to forget that he's been alive so long; he fits into the present so seamlessly," the brunette said, seeing the other girl's face darken slightly.

"He's had lots of practice. We all have."

"I take it you didn't bring me out here solely to tell me stories of your past." Not a question, merely a prompt: today was a busy day. Mother's to thwart, vampires and witches to corral, episodes of Gossip Girl to catch up on, not to mention the four chapters of Physics with her name on them...

The blonde rolled her eyes dramatically, unimpressed. "An astute observation. Come." After a few minutes, they stopped at a makeshift clearing, complete with an ominous hole in the ground. The Mikaelsons always took her to such lovely places. "What? Scared of a little jump?" Rebekah teased her tense silence.

Elena shifted her weight, stood up straighter, lifted her chin. "Never. I've jumped higher in gym class."

"Good. Then you won't mind getting down unaided, then," Rebekah chirped before dropping down to the earthen floor below, wiping a stray clot of dirt from her knees. Craning her neck, she looked at Elena above, no doubt watching her take in a shallow breath, could her her heartbeat, rapid and frantic, before she closed her eyes and lept, a small cry of alarm escaping her sealed lips before her feet reconnected with something solid.

Treating Elena to another eye roll, Rebekah caught her before she could do any damage, setting her upright with a curt huff. "Klaus would do unspeakable things to me if you got a hangnail, let alone a broken leg."

"I'm sorry is my closeness with your brother bothers you, but honestly that's not my problem."

"I know," Rebekah remarked sullenly, "which is why I'm making you my problem. What are your intentions with my brother?"

"Seriously?" Elena let out a disbelieving chuckle, the sound echoing off the walls of the...cave? It looked a little like a cave. "You brought me all the way down here and made me jump into a creepy hole for this? Your own version of the shotgun dad talk?"

The Original shook her head, confused. "I don't know what that means."

With the patience of a saint, Elena explained slowly, "It's a cliché. Teenage daughter brings her new guy to the house to meet the parents, dad answers the door with a shotgun and tells the boy that if he hurts his previous baby girl, he'll kill him."

"Yes, that is what I'm going for. Do you love him?"

Taking a step back, Elena conceded vaguely, "It's complicated."

Rebekah was unconvinced, pacing towards her, pouncing like a jungle cat, majestic, as dangerous as she was beautiful. "It's not complicated. You either love him, or you don't. Yes or no."

"That is not a yes or no question," Elena ground out, clenched fists shaking, desperately trying to hold back, to keep this one thing to herself.

"Do you love Niklaus?"

But she didn't succeed. "Yes! Yes, I do. I love him. I'm in love with him."

Then it dawned on her, the enormity of what she'd said, confessed, felt. "I'm in love with Klaus Mikaelson."

A rare, genuine grin broke out on Rebekah's face, the first of it's kind -at least in Elena's presence. "Good. Just wanted to know." And just like that, all was forgiven, all past sins brushed aside like snow on a windowsill, wiping the slate clean. Come on, I'll help you up; don't want to be late for your big meeting." When the Original realized that she wasn't following, she frowned, peering at her with concern. "I didn't break you, did I?"

"I wanted him to be the first one to hear it," was all Elena said, surprised when Rebekah reached out and patted her on the shoulder, albeit awkwardly.

"Don't worry, love. I'll take the secret to my grave."

---

Last night, Elena had told the Salvatores to not expect her at the Boarding House anytime soon. Standing in the living room, still in her pink dress, flanked by four Mikaelsons and her two best friends, she felt like a bit of a hypocrite, but there wasn't anywhere else they could talk without worry of Esther overhearing. Plus, it made quite the statement, or so Klaus said. He'd even angled her armchair to be backlit by the fire, giving her a hazy outline of fiery authority.

She couldn't believe she'd fallen for such a drama queen. Couldn't believe that she'd fallen in love with him so easily, as if a part of her heart had known, long before she herself ever did, that he was the only one for her, and her for him.

The dramatics seemed to have the desired affect, though, with Damon and Stefan stopping in their tracks, almost banging into each other with comical hilarity. But Elena wasn't laughing. She didn't move, didn't blink, just kept her chin held high and her eyes unreadable as she greeted them, smooth as glass, "Afternoon, Stefan. Damon. Won't you sit down?"

---

Author's Note: Hello, everyone! I'm back with chapter three. I had some issues with getting the flow right, and this chapter could have been another four or five thousand words long at least, but I thought this would be a good place to leave off until next time. The lyrics at the start are taken from the Hozier song 'NFWMB,' which seemed appropriate for the plot. There'd various pop culture/ fandom references throughout, but I just thought I'd explain one in particular, since it's pretty obscure: when Klaus mentions The Midnight Society, that was a reference to the kids show Are You Afraid Of The Dark? from the 90's about a group of kids called, you guessed it, The Midnight Society who told scary stories in the woods, and it likely would have been one TV when Elena and Co. were kids.

As always, I hope you enjoyed it, and reviews and comments are much appreciated and welcomed.

All my love, Temperance Cain.