Disclaimer: Not mine. Except for the words, the words are mine and just FYI I'm not giving permission for them to be fed into any kind of writing AIs.
AN1: A note for those reading this fic on , I've decided I'm not going to continue posting here, I will update any already existing WIPs here and I won't delete anything, but anything new is only getting posted to AO3. I have the same username there, so anyone interested can find me very easily there (I'm sorry, it's just kind of a hassle posting here).
AN2: Second-to-last chapter of this fic. And it KICKED MY ASS. I rewrote Rebekah's section like five times and I'm still not sure if I like it but, no, I'm done I can't read it anymore.
WARNINGS: If you read the rest of this story then this chapter shouldn't be a problem, but it does briefly deal with the impact of Damon's treatment of Caroline in season 1 and Elena during the sire bond. So as always, please keep yourselves safe and read only if you think you're okay to do so.
*o0O0o*
*She's Come Undone and Set Free*
*Epilogue - Part 2 - Six Months*
*o0O0o*
*o0O0o*
in two months
*o0O0o*
Rebekah had been stubbornly ignoring the sight of Caroline's judgemental eyes on the periphery of her vision for the past three minutes. The younger vampire didn't say anything, and yet the eyes seemed to be getting louder with each passing moment anyway.
"What?" she finally snapped, once it became clear that unless she chose to acknowledge it, this might very well continue for the rest of the night.
"You're doing it wrong," Caroline informed her.
Rebekah tried to remind herself that she actually rather liked the blonde baby-vampire now. Unfortunately, after forty-eight hours of getting subjected to Caroline actively micromanaging every single, last aspect of this particular day... it was rather hard to remember why.
She took in a fortifying breath and made herself remember how much she was looking forward to the sight of Bonnie lying beside her on some European beach in that new dark blue bikini Rebekah had seen her packing into a suitcase - an evening with cooling sand beneath them, still-warm light from the sunset playing across the lines and dips of Bonnie's relaxed form; the feeling of Bonnie's hand in her own as Rebekah pulled her into the frothy waves for a midnight swim - and that any new murder attempts on Rebekah's part would instead certainly result in a rather sad and lonely trip through Europe.
Killing Caroline wouldn't be worth losing that.
Plus Nik would probably bitch about it from now until Earth got swallowed by the expanding hunger of their sun.
On the other hand... "It's a marshmallow, how exactly can I be burning it wrong?"
Caroline's eyes seemed to narrow into slits, but whatever it was she was about to quip back was stopped mid-word by Bonnie and Elena's rather good - if exaggerated -impression of their childhood friend.
"There's a system," they quoted in perfect unison, chins up and looking at Rebekah over their noses.
"It's six seconds on each side-" Elena continued.
"-and blow on it thrice," Bonnie finished with a swallowed-back grin. Rebekah noticed the way her eyes were still dancing with laughter though, making her whole face seem to shine.
"All three of you are the worst," Caroline huffed, crossing her arms "and I'm glad I'm probably not gonna see any of you for like two months."
Their grins faded a bit at the reminder.
This was their last night in the town all four of them had grown up in - granted, with Rebekah having done so some thousand years before the rest of them.
And Rebekah was pretty sure every single one of them was relieved about the fact they were very near to escaping the - only semi-metaphorical - hellhole of Mystic Falls. After all, if returning here had taught Rebekah anything it was that the whole town must have been cursed at some point - probably by her mother, now that Rebekah thought about it; creating an entirely new species through an act of gruesome sacrifice and blood magic probably left a bit of a smudge in the aether.
Yet now that they were scattering to the four - well, three - winds for a bit - with Rebekah and Bonnie on their trip; Caroline off to make Nik the cheeriest hybrid alive for some two-to-four weeks, and Elena flying to Denver with the two-pronged goal of compelling some distant family as well as a local high school's fill of faculty into forgetting Jeremy's brief stint on the other side of the veil, and some clingy bonding time with said recently resurrected brother - ...Rebekah was going to miss this.
Especially because while Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline were going to reunite at the start of autumn for college, Rebekah had finally decided to join her brothers in New Orleans.
This was officially their last night together in Mystic Falls.
So to commemorate the occasion they were here, sitting in a semi-circle around a small campfire, burning marshmallows and grimly enjoying the sight of the grand event.
A much larger fire.
Speaking of...
"I'm saying this as your friend, Elena," Rebekah said thoughtfully, eyes on the enormous 'bonfire' that had taken them almost two hours to arrange - where, yes, Caroline had been obsessively guiding the rest of them on the correct placement of the accelerants, and yes it had been extremely irritating. "I think you might have a problem."
"Not necessarily," Caroline came to a quick defense, biting into her own half-melted s'more, her eyes - now that they were done being offended by Rebekah's perfectly normal way of roasting a marshmallow, thank you very much - were back on the glorious spectacle, not for a moment straying from their place in front, something vicious and glad about her expression; something bitterly pleased. "Twice is a coincidence, we need a third time for a pattern. You're fine, Elena."
"Thanks, Care," Elena smiled.
"I don't know, Care, maybe we should confiscate all her matches to be on the safe side," Bonnie chimed in and drew closer to Rebekah with a yawn until she was pressed tightly to her side, their fingers interlocked, and with her head resting against Rebekah's shoulder.
Rebekah drew in a slow breath, letting herself enjoy the subtle scent of apricots from her shampoo mixing with the earthy scent of Bonnie's magic that now - after the defeat of Silas - contained only the trace elements of the ashy scent of Expression, instead leaving behind the impression of vast forests and infinite storms.
"You're one to talk, Miss Burning Car," Elena threw back lightheartedly.
"Well, I'm not the one who's ever gonna need matches for my fires, am I?"
Elena laughed and tipped an imaginary hat at Bonnie.
"Now, now kids, no fighting, all your fires are very pretty," said Caroline and patted Elena and Bonnie on their heads from her spot in the middle, not taking her eyes away from their focus on their biggest act of arson yet. "I'm very proud."
There was a single beat of quiet as they all turned to stare at Caroline until she smirked and they burst into laughter as one. It wasn't even that funny, and yet suddenly they couldn't seem to stop laughing.
Bonnie's giggles tickled against the skin of Rebekah's neck when she pressed her face deeper into her shoulder trying to smother the sound.
Rebekah tightened her fingers around Bonnie's.
The helpless laughter dragged on for multiple minutes because as soon as it looked like they might be calming down Rebekah said "Fire" or Elena said "Pretty" and the laughter came back with the vengeance of... well, any one of the four of them.
Eventually, though, an easy silence fell across their little corner of grass. So not wanting to break it and urged on by the strangely light feeling in her chest Rebekah voicelessly offered Bonnie the last marshmallow.
Bonnie accepted it with a smirk and then shared the lingering taste of it from her lips, kissing Rebekah.
She hummed, pleased, kissing Bonnie back until Elena and Caroline booed at them, and threw a handful of grass at their heads to make them stop.
Who knew that spending their last night in town watching over the Salvatore Estate as it burned to ash and coals would make for such a nice midnight picnic?
*o0O0o*
in four months
*o0O0o*
Caroline Forbes was in his city, in his room, on his bed, asleep in his arms and Klaus would slaughter continents if so much as a squeaky floorboard dared to interrupt her rest.
He had told her he intended to be her last love before he left Mystic Falls behind. But if he was honest with himself, he hadn't truly dared to believe it - it had been painfully wishful thinking on Klaus's part. He'd said it with the hope that voicing it might sway whatever Fates deigned listen to monsters into pity.
Not that she was promising him love yet. But the walls he'd always been stopped against before seemed to be lowering their defensive spikes. Klaus was not yet invited in - there were no tickets to Paris he was permitted to buy; no pieces of clothing that Caroline would unpack anywhere except the guest room she hadn't so far used for anything except dressing and showering - but Caroline had left the impenetrable protection of that guard tower and stepped onto the bridge for a careful parlay.
The implications of that 'yet' were more than Caroline had ever given him before. Klaus had no intention to waste the opportunity.
And so he lay beside the unexpected sunlight he'd found centuries after he'd stopped looking, guarding her sleep like a dragon guarding precious gems.
And yet Klaus could do nothing about the pained furrow that had, a minute ago, snuck like a thief between Caroline's brows to steal the pleasant dreams she deserved.
He tried soothing her back into restfulness, running his thumb softly over her forehead but all it seemed to do was deepen the line there. She whimpered, flinching minutely and Klaus had to take a moment to fight off the urge to erase her rising nightmare more directly.
But he knew Caroline - knew her better than she'd wanted him to ever know her back in the beginning when he'd unknowingly been busy sabotaging his own future chances at happiness - she would see it as a betrayal of trust.
Which it would be. Klaus may not know which monsters haunted her nights, but he would not want Caroline to invite herself into his torturous memories of his father; he would not want her to see that weak, useless boy who had earned nothing except disappointment and the sharp end of a drawn fist.
He would not commit that kind of act of invasion against Caroline.
"No," he heard her whimper again, heart clenching at the wetness straining to escape Caroline's closed eyelashes.
"It's alright, love," he soothed, fingers itching to run over her hair, except that this seemed to always conjure the exact opposite of the intended result. Instead, he took her clenched fist between his palms, massaging the tensed muscles of her hand until it let go of the sheets and relaxed into holding onto his fingers instead. "It's a nightmare, love, just a dream."
She flinched into wakefulness, eyes jumping to Klaus's face before the frozen, scared look thawed upon recognition.
"Klaus," she breathed, relief stark in the long breath Caroline let out with his name.
"Just a nightmare, Caroline," he repeated himself.
"Right," she nodded, a flicker of... something complicated passing over her face within a quarter of a heartbeat so brief, Klaus wasn't even sure he hadn't imagined it, let alone had time to attempt translating. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into his chest. "Do me a favor?"
"Always."
"Don't ask questions, okay?" He felt Caroline swallow and slowly move his hand, - the one now clenched so tightly by hers she would have broken a human's fingers beyond repair, - up until it rested atop her head.
Klaus bit into his lip to keep himself to her request as Caroline moved her iron grip to his wrist, letting him start carding his fingers through the loose curls of her golden hair.
She was breathing in small, shallow gasps, her heart running with the speed of a galloping horse.
"Tell me something," she ordered tightly.
"Tell you what?"
"Anything, just speak."
He stopped for a moment, mind leafing through centuries of memories, trying to grasp at something that felt like it would take Caroline's mind off of whatever struggle she seemed to be using him to battle.
In the end, Klaus landed on the story he had found that no one was ever quite willing to believe.
"Did you know Elijah once spent a few years as the head of a large pirate fleet at the beginning of the 17th century?" Klaus wondered aloud, going back to carefully running his hand over Caroline's head again.
Caroline went as far as to pull back a moment to stare at Klaus, with her fingers still encircling his wrist he was momentarily forced to halt his own once more.
"Elijah, Elijah? Elena's Elijah?"
Klaus felt his eyebrow rise in interest at that particular moniker. Wasn't that just... curious? It seemed he might very well have deserved that notable overreaction that greeted him when his brother had returned from his visit to Mystic Falls those months back.
He wondered if he should apologize. But no, that seemed a touch excessive.
"That would be the Elijah I speak of yes, though this is not even what I consider the best part of the story. I do think I remember him going by Peter at the time, which as I recall was Kol's fault, you see-"
And as Klaus continued the story - that, by the way in which Caroline's eyes seemed to glint, told him would be at some point relayed to a third party very soon - he also went back to soothing loose strands of Caroline's hair for a few more minutes until Caroline firmly moved his wrist down, letting it rest against her waist.
With that, her heart finally seemed to slow.
Klaus did not ask any questions.
It did not mean there were none waiting in the darkest recesses of his mind.
Those questions were finding a newly birthed home inside the growl of a wolf who was ready to savage the owner of the name Klaus was beginning to suspect was there to one day be given.
The wolf would avenge its mate.
*o0O0o*
in six months
*o0O0o*
Elena missed Elijah.
She'd known that she would, she'd missed him before, back when he'd left her his first letter. Even as angry as she had been about the events preceding the letter, Elena had missed him.
This time was different.
That had been losing a secret thought at the back of her mind, in the shadow of her skipping heartbeat. This was putting away a briefly tasted certainty, an always that was still waiting for her.
It was more than a little infuriating that a decision Elena had made because it was the best thing for her; because she knew it would have been too easy to put the weight of her emotional healing on Elijah's shoulders instead of truly working through the trauma herself... that it still had to hurt so much; that instead of being able to cocoon herself in the safety of Elijah's arms and share conversations about their days, Elena had to get all her information on Elijah through news conveyed to her during her phone calls with Rebekah, or through old stories Klaus had apparently told Caroline - and yes, after that particular story got around to her, Elena had in fact woken from a very steamy dream containing pirate ships and the image of Elijah in a loose fitting, windblown shirt with a scabbard for a sword on a leather belt around his hips.
She was a vampire, not dead.
But what made it even harder was the fact that Bonnie had recently started hiding leaflets for colleges nearer to New Orleans, and Caroline was driving to visit Klaus every other weekend with the occasional appearance of the hybrid himself at Whitmore - though those visits had slowed with the closely nearing due date of Hayley's labor as the danger their baby was in, increased.
"For fucks sake, Elena, just call him," Rebekah barked at her from her side of the phone call.
"Rebekah,-"
"You have his number. He has your number. It's not that complicated, just press on the little green symbol by his name and be done with it, talking with him doesn't mean you have to move here and marry him from now till death don't do you part." There was real frustration in Rebekah's voice.
Not that Elena could exactly blame her. Elena might not have been the most subtle of people with the way she ended every conversation by asking after Rebekah's brother.
She missed him, and safe from any eyes Elena let herself indulge in a secret comfort that her friends would probably tease her about forever if they ever caught her at it.
She pressed her face into the collar of the suit jacket Elijah had wrapped around her shoulders in the woods - when they'd met to discuss Damon - and never retrieved, relieved that she was alone in the dorm and that both Caroline and Bonnie were off at the library dealing with some last corrections on their notes from one of yesterday's lectures.
She could still faintly smell Elijah's scent clinging to the fabric.
"What if that's worse?" she whispered uncertainly "I asked him to wait for me, Rebekah, wouldn't calling him be even more cruel?"
"It might be," Rebekah said ruthlessly "but I know my brother well enough to know that he'd take hearing your voice over not hearing it however much it hurt him."
Elena swallowed.
"I'll think about it," she promised.
"Fine." She heard Rebekah let out an irritated little scoff before switching tracks to something softer. "Tell Bonnie, I said hi."
"Didn't you see her last Sunday?"
"And your point?"
Elena breathed out a small chuckle, "I'll tell her."
Elijah was undressing for the night when his phone rang, he looked towards it already considering whether or not he felt like answering at this late of a time of night - especially if it involved some new drama in the Bayou - when Elena's face lit up the screen.
A picture of her laughing that Rebekah had snapped at some point and sent him. She'd cut her hair again, a little above her shoulder blades this time, it made the red strand stand out even more prominently against her features, complimenting them in some ethereal way Elijah couldn't quite name. All previous annoyance dropped away.
"Elena," he spoke as soon as he'd accepted the call, worry warring with elation. "Is something the matter at Whitmore?"
"Elijah, hi, no, everything is fine, I'm... I'm fine, I just... I miss you," Elena's voice rambled, stumbling over each word like a newborn colt.
Elijah's eyes closed at her words, letting himself savor both the joy and the sting.
He could already feel that Elena was not telling him he no longer needed to wait for her, but that mattered so very little in the face of hearing her voice for the first time in six months.
'I missed you.'
He had once expressed that sentiment to Elena before, hiding it behind a veil of the pretense she had provided him when she'd waited for him under the awning of the gazebo and he'd realized she was pretending to be someone else.
This time he did not hide behind the cowardice of that act.
"I miss you too, Elena."
*o0O0o*
AN3: I think I can guess which section many of you liked most of all, but please do let me know what you thought.