Letting out a contented sigh, Elena stretched out her tired limbs, yawning as she did. Rolling over, she tucked herself into Elijah's side, throwing her leg over his and burrowing into his chest.
"Good morning." He murmured, his voice husky from sleep as he began to play with her hair automatically.
She returned his greeting softly, tracing random patterns on his bare chest. Allowing the sensation of his fingertips running through his hair to soothe her, she found herself nearly lulled back into sleep until a piercing cry from Hope interrupted the calm silence of the room.
Grimacing, Elena burrowed further into Elijah's side, swatting his side when she felt a soft chuckle reverberate through him.
"No cocoon of calm this morning?" He asked, smiling when Elena swatted him again, not appreciating the reminder of her half asleep ramblings.
"It takes a lot out of me," Elena mumbled, turning her face into Elijah's chest to smother her voice, "especially doing other things at the same time."
Feeling his hand pause in its ministrations, Elena kissed Elijah's chest softly where she lay.
"Its not that bad," she backtracked quickly, "Davina said its kind of just like a muscle that needs strengthening. The more I work at it the easier it'll get."
Gently lifting Elena's gaze to meet his, Elijah frowned at her, concern etched onto his face. "Don't push yourself too much," he worried, "magic isn't something to be trifled with, sweetheart."
"I'll be fine," she smiled, running a hand through his hair, "its all just cheap party tricks at the moment, Elijah. Nothing to worry about."
He still looked unsure, so using her elbow to prop herself up, Elena placed a soft kiss on his lips, lingering for a moment when he reciprocated.
"I won't push it too far, I promise."
"Nice of you to join us." Klaus muttered through gritted teeth, narrowing his eyes at his older brother as he entered the room, hair still slightly damp from his recent shower.
"If it were my child waking everyone up, perhaps I would have been here sooner." Elijah quipped dryly, taking the screaming bundle from Klaus's arms and cradling her in his own. "Good morning, Miss Hope." He whispered, bouncing the baby gently as her screaming slowly ceased before stopping altogether.
Glaring at Elijah, Klaus huffed, rubbing his brow tiredly. "How did you do that?"
"Magical uncle powers." Elijah quipped dryly, continuing to bounce the small child in his arms as his brother dropped his head into his hands.
"I don't know why I ever thought I would be any good at this." Klaus sighed, lifting his head from his hands and pushing away from where he leant on the counter. Turning away from his brother and Hope, he re-focussed his attention onto what had become a familiar ritual.
Removing two bags of blood from the fridge, Klaus tossed them in the microwave nonchalantly, turning the machine on.
"Come on, Gilbert." He barely raised his voice, quirking an eyebrow when Elijah looked at him reproachfully. "Problem, brother?"
"Is this still necessary?" Elijah sighed, hardly paying any attention to his soft movements as he kept Hope calm in his arms.
Klaus scoffed. "She still refuses to meet Hope, let alone acknowledge anything else that is plaguing her. I hardly think that Elena is on her way to coming to grips with anything that happened."
Elena appeared in the doorway as the microwave dinged to signal its completion, her hair similarly damp to that of Elijah's. She appeared to be about to talk before she noticed the small child in Elijah's arms, dismissing a small stirring of want at seeing the man she loved cradling a baby in favour of a large wave of guilt. The colour drained from her face and she immediately turned on her heel intent on leaving the room if not for Klaus appearing in front of her, a stern look on his face.
"Klaus." Elena tried softly, a barely discernible tremble in her voice giving her away.
"No one is asking you to do anything other than come in this room and feed." He said firmly, raising an eyebrow at her. "We all know you can manage that."
Letting out a sigh of defeat, Elena turned back on herself, skulking over to take a seat at the island, barely able to bring herself to do more than glance in Elijah's direction.
The two brothers exchanged a glance, a rather pointed message behind Klaus's look before he turned his back to retrieve the blood from the microwave.
Tossing them at Elena, he felt her confusion before he looked at her; eyebrows drawn together she frowned at him, opening one of the bags as she placed the other on the table.
"Considering I didn't hear a single sound coming from your room until the rather late hours of the morning, I thought you could do with the extra boost." Klaus shrugged, grinning at her and waggling his eyebrows, laughing when her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Niklaus." Elijah admonished, though the softness in his voice gave away the smile Elena was sure he was donning,
"I was merely commenting on Elena's use of sustained magic." Klaus shrugged, an entirely too innocent look encompassing his face.
Elena scoffed between blood bags, shaking her head but not bothering with any words as she moved on to her second bag, secretly glad that Klaus had the foresight to prepare double her usual intake. She wasn't sure if it was Elijah or the magic, but either way she was more exhausted than normal.
Throwing both of the empty bags in the trash, Elena quickly made her way out of the kitchen, neither brother doing anything to stop her as she muttered something under her breath about going for a walk.
Elena sighed, running a hand through her already tousled hair in agitation. Frustration coursed through her as she walked, no location in mind other than away from the poor baby who's life she had ruined. Her, The Hollow, her body, Elena's mind just too weak to be able to do anything to protect any of them.
She should have done more, she knew that, no matter how much Elijah or Klaus tried to reassure her otherwise. Elena should have never let her body be used in such a horrible way.
There was nothing you could have done…
A traitorous voice whispered through her mind, sounding remarkably like Elijah.
The Hollow possessed you completely, you couldn't stop her, no one could have.
Huffing, Elena shook her head, forcefully trying to dismiss the thoughts as they conjured in her brain. If she couldn't even manage to protect her soulmate what was the point of her? All she did was get people injured or killed, if they were lucky.
She'd completely ruined Elijah's life; two of his brothers had died, because of her, the mother of his niece was dead, because of her. He had died, because of her. What sick twist of fate had decided that they were fated to be together?
What was she supposed to do to make anything better?
There was nothing that she could do.
Looking around her, Elena realised she suddenly didn't recognise the area of the city she found herself in. Frowning slightly, she turned around to double back on herself, wondering how she had gotten so lost in thought she'd managed to end up so lost.
"Didn't think I'd ever see you without your Original body guards."
A scathing voice commented from behind her, the sound all too familiar to Elena.
"Damon." She whispered, turning slowly to face him, suddenly all too aware of the fact that she was by herself, in the middle of nowhere, with a much stronger vampire who had proved himself to be completely volatile one too many times. Regarding him with a fierce apprehension, Elena took a step back as he stepped closer to her.
"Don't be like that." Damon said softly, a look somewhere between upset and anger flickering across his face before he smoothed it back out into an attempt at looking soothing. "I heard what happened to Elijah." He explained, holding his hands out in a peaceful gesture.
Elena let out a soft sigh of breath, her shoulders relaxing slightly, maybe he'd come to his senses finally.
"He's gone now, Elena, you don't have to be trapped here, not anymore."
As quickly as it had taken her, the calmed sensation fled, her shoulders tightening again, accompanied by a bizarre sensation she wasn't devoting the resources to identifying. "What are you talking about, Damon?" She returned tersely, subtly scanning the area to try and come up with a plan to flee should this turn any more dangerous for her.
"Elijah, he's dead, Elena. You're free now, we can go back to Mystic Falls, things can go back to how they were!" Damon explained earnestly, stepping towards her again, a flash of anger taking over his face as she retreated yet again. "Damn it, Elena, why are you being like this?" He snapped, the peaceful guise disintegrating completely.
As a familiar scent of cinnamon mixed with cologne washed over her, Elena realised what else she was feeling; her magic. Whatever powers she had were stirring under her skin, rearing to life in preparation to defend herself, even though Elena herself had no conscious idea of how to yield them.
A flash of a memory assaulted her; Inadu being reduced to dust at the hand of these very powers.
Was she still capable of that?
Panic beginning to take over her, Elena took another step backwards, grimacing when Damon followed her; it wasn't only her in danger now. If she couldn't get a hold on these powers, and if Damon didn't back off, he could very well end up getting himself killed by something she couldn't control.
"You need to go, Damon." Elena said firmly, putting as much bravado behind her voice as she could despite the panic threatening to overwhelm her. "Now."
"You're not listening to me, Elena." Damon argued, running a hand through his hair in a familiar agitated move. "We can go together, back to our life, back to normal."
"We aren't going anywhere, Damon." Elena denied. "There isn't a 'we' anymore, you have to know that."
"They got inside your head." Damon insisted. "Didn't they? They compelled you, or put some witchy juju on you."
Elena sighed, shaking her head. "No, Damon, they haven't done anything other than help me."
"Bullshit." Damon scoffed, stepping closer to Elena.
Elena stepped back again, becoming more aware of the pulsing of energy that was bubbling under her skin, ready to erupt any minute. "Seriously, Damon, you need to leave."
"Or what? There's no one else here, Elena!" His voice rose to a shout as he lunged forward, dropping all pretences in a desperate attempt to stop her from backing away again.
Managing to evade his initial lunge, Elena span around to face him, her eyes wide when she saw him sprawled several feet away on the pavement. Had she done that?
Approaching him cautiously, Elena only looked at his prone form long enough to determine that she hadn't done any permanent damage.
Taking in and releasing a deep, shuddering breath, Elena turned her back on Damon, fleeing the scene as fast as her limbs would carry her.
"Elena?" Predictably, Elijah was the first to react when she blew in the plantation house, appearing before her only a moment later, his siblings behind him with confused looks focussed on the distraught doppelganger. "What happened?"
"I don't know." She gasped, shaking her head frantically. "I don't know, I-"
"Elena." Elijah repeated, his voice more firm this time as he interrupted the beginnings of Elena's rambling. Stepping forward, he grasped her shoulders with firm hands, keeping her focus on him. "Breathe." He commanded, watching intently as she gasped in a breath, letting it out slowly at his stern look. Satisfied when the next breath she took was much more controlled, he offered her a soft smile, squeezing her shoulders in encouragement. "Now, slowly, what happened?"
"Damon."
Immediately the other vampires in the room tensed at the mention of the elder Salvatore brother, who had only grown more unhinged during his tenure in New Orleans.
"Did he hurt you?" Elijah asked, an undercurrent of anger in his voice that everyone was able to hear.
Elena shook her head in sharp, quick movements, a deep frown marring her face. "He doesn't know you're alive; he said that now that you're gone I'm free; he was trying to convince me to go back to Mystic Falls with him."
Her words awakened a new sort of anger in Elijah, one he immediately tried to stamp down; keeping Elena safe and calm was his priority right now. He couldn't do that if he flew off the handle, so to speak.
"I refused, clearly. He got so angry; he tried to grab me, I only stepped out of the way, then I don't know what happened. He was just led on the ground, not moving. I-I think I did something, but I don't know what."
Letting out a barely audible sigh of relief at the knowledge that Damon had been unable to lay his hands on Elena, Elijah pulled her forward into his arms, enveloping her in a tight embrace. One hand finding it's way to the back of her head, Elijah held her tightly, closing his eyes as he regained his own composure.
Damon Salvatore was a dead man if he didn't leave New Orleans.
I've decided not to hold on to this chapter and to give it over to you guys straight away. Hope you all enjoy!
~ I x