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Elena knew she hated the woman sitting across from her. It was a simple fact; the same way someone knew the sky was blue or that grass was green, Elena Gilbert knew she hated Katherine Pierce. And yet, as she appraised her carbon copy sitting across from her, she couldn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything at the moment, aside from boredom.
“Where’s the cure?” She asked, watching the elder doppelgänger's head tilt to the side, an exaggerated pout forming on her face. “What? No ‘I’m here to avenge my annoying little brother’ speech?” Elena shrugged, taking a sip from the mug in front of her “People die. We move on.”
She watched as the other woman's brow raised slightly, there for a millisecond before it disappeared. Katherine tsked, “Turning off our humanity switch, so sad for the boys. Their special snowflake of human fragility,” she paused, looking Elena up and down, “gone. Well, if we’re going to be there for a while, I’m gonna go grab some menus.”
Elena laughed as the blonde next to her stabbed a fork into Katherine’s hand the moment she attempted to stand. “You’re not going anywhere,” the original said. Katherine smiled tightly before speaking through gritted teeth, “I forgot how charming you were.”
Rebekah smiled back, far meaner, “I’m surprised you remember me at all, seeing as though you were so busy wedging yourself between my brothers.”
Sighing, Elena put down her mug. “Every minute you two waste with your yapping is another minute we give Stefan and Damon to find us.” Rebekah smiled, before her hand flashed forward, forcing Katherine to look her in the eyes. “Where’s the cure?” She asked. Katherine smiled back, “I’m sorry, I’m on vervain.”
As Rebekah made vague threats, Elena tuned the two other girls out. She looked around the diner, at the families eating and laughing together. One in particular caught her eye, a family of four with a boy and a girl. They were talking, joking with each other. It reminded her of when she’d go out for dinner with her parents and Jeremy. She wondered how much work it would take to compel and drain them.
Snapped out of her musing by a flash in the corner of her eye, she reached up and grabbed the phone Rebekah had thrown to her. “I’m sure there’s something in that, that can help us find it,” the blonde said, looking expectantly towards her. She nodded, opening the phone.
The texts were empty and there was no call log, but when she clicked on the calendar an appointment popped up for two PM. “Who’s Em?” She asked. Katherine looked between the two, not speaking for a moment. “A friend.” Elena hummed, “it says here you’re meeting at two.”
The elder brunette said nothing, pursing her lips. Elena smiled, turning to Rebekah who smiled back, “I guess I’ll just have to meet Em myself.”
As she paced the gazebo her hand fiddled with the bracelets adorning her left wrist, their jingling irritating her. She paused for a moment, lifting the other wrist that now held Katherine’s watch. It was 2:02. “Come on, Em,” she muttered under her breath, lowering her arm and pushing her hair out of her face.
A sudden gust of wind behind her and shiver running down her neck was all the warning she got before he spoke, “Katerina.”
She spun on her heels, and began silently cursing herself. God, she should have realized. Who else could it have possibly been? Who else would Katherine have gone to with something so valuable. And that contact, Em. She cursed herself again.
“Elijah, you’re a little late, aren’t you?” She said, injecting as much confidence into her voice as she could muster. Sure, with her humanity off she couldn’t exactly feel scared, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of a dangerous situation. And right now, the survival instincts that seemed to be ingrained into the very bones of every doppelgänger were screaming at her to run.
His head cocked minutely, before he stepped closer to her and she forced herself to stand there, looking into his eyes as he reached a hand up. His gaze drifted to her hair as his hand did, picking up a colored strand and stroking it between two fingers. “You colored your hair,” he spoke. “I like it.”
He looked back to her eyes, his stare searching. She stared back, forcing her instincts down as she made herself smile. If she got out of this, the first thing she was going to do was kill Katherine. She laughed softly, “Thank you. It’s actually going to-”
And then she was cut off, because Elijah was kissing her. One hand on her waist, pulling her flush against him and the other on her jaw, angling her head. She opened her mouth to do something – what exactly she wasn’t sure of, and he deepened the kiss, his tongue finding hers.
As her hand grasped his suit jacket and she sank into the kiss, something in the back of her mind was nudging at her. She ignored it, leaning further into him as the hand on her waist tightened, their bodies impossibly close. They finally parted, Elijah pulling his head back and holding her in place as she tried to follow.
She knew her pupils were blown, and that if she’d been human she would be flushed and out of breath. He smiled softly at her, the hand cradling her face loosening, his thumb stroking her cheek. “I missed you.”
The second it took for her brain to process that felt like an eternity, and then something in her broke. It wasn’t her he was here for, it wasn’t her he was kissing, it was Katherine. Katherine, who killed her little brother. Katherine, who was partially responsible for Jenna’s death. Katherine, who she knew she was supposed to hate.
Her eyes slammed shut as she tried to step back; his hand on her waist becoming a cage she couldn’t escape. She shook her head, raising a hand to her forehead as she felt something clawing its way into her mind that she desperately tried to shove back.
She opened her eyes, her heart beating frantically as she looked for an escape, unable to find one. His hand that had left her face the moment she tried to step back found its place again, and he moved her to look at him. A second was all it took, and those feelings clawing at her broke through whatever door she had put in place.
It hit her like a tidal wave, drowning her in everything she’d shoved away these past weeks. She couldn’t breathe as her mind ran over everything she’d done, and then she remembered Jeremy. The scream that built in her throat upon those emotions returning choked her, and her knees buckled.
If Elijah hadn’t been there holding onto her she’d have fallen to the ground, and she didn’t know if she would have been able to get up. Her throat got tighter, her breathing quicker until she couldn’t breathe at all. Tears were cascading down her face, stinging her eyes as they left.
As she began clawing at her throat, desperate for air that her body in all its panic and grief would not allow her to have, Elijah sank to the ground with her, her legs folding under her as he gently held her head to his chest and made calming strokes up and down her back.
He made soothing sounds, reaching around to grab her wrists as she continued to claw at her throat. “Breathe with me, Elena,” he said softly, still stroking her back. “Listen to my heartbeat.”
She tried, God, she tried, but she couldn’t. How could she? How could she ever? Jeremy, sweet Jeremy, always so desperate to help her, protect her, was dead. Dead because of her. Just like the rest of her family. Jeremy, the very last bit of family that she had left, gone.
“I can’t,” she choked out, pushing her face further into his chest. She felt his chin lift off her head, and the hand holding her wrists released them as he tilted his face towards hers. His thumb brushed against her cheekbone, his pupils dilated, and before she had a chance to move back he spoke. “Breathe, Elena.”
Instantly the compulsion took hold, her body dragging in deep and ragged breaths. Her head fell back to her chest and he let it, simply holding her.
It could have been minutes or hours that she lay limp in his hold when her breathing finally evened out, she didn’t know. When he spoke again his voice was as gentle as she’d ever heard it, “What happened, Elena, to cause you to abandon your emotions?”
Her eyes opened slightly, tears still clouding them. When she spoke, her voice was raspy; something she hadn’t thought possible for a vampire. “Jeremy’s dead. Katherine killed him.” Elijah’s entire body tensed the moment the words left her mouth. “Tell me everything,” he asked her.
And so she did. She told him everything that he’d missed. Her transition, the sire bond, Kol, Silas, Jeremy, everything. She forced the words from her mouth, barely able to speak them. She was exhausted, the weight of her emotions, her actions, bearing down on her.
Elijah simply listened as the words tumbled from his mouth, not speaking until she got to the events of her flipping her switch. “Damon used the sire bond to compel you to turn off your humanity?” He asked her, his voice even. All she could do was nod. “And,” he said, “what else did he use the bond to compel you to do?”
Elena shuddered, her body twisting in his hold. When she spoke the words were stilted, her voice trembling so slightly that only a vampire could have picked it up, and she knew he did. “I can’t Elijah- not, not now. Please.” He only held her tighter, his hand resuming its methodical stroking down her spine, “when you are ready, lovely Elena.”
When they finally got up, Elena ripped Katherine’s bracelets and watch from her wrist with shaking hands, throwing them to the floor. She shook the jacket from her shoulders as well, watching as it fell to the wooden slats next to the discarded jewelry.
She reached for the boots next, Elijah reaching out to steady her as she yanked off the left and then the right. When she finished, her body devoid of anything that was Katherine’s, she simply stood in place. She should be used to this feeling by now, she thought. Grief was an old bedfellow at this point, and yet didn’t believe she’d ever felt this agonizing level of pain.
Maybe it felt so acute because of her recent emotionless state, but she thought back to the moment she realized Jeremy was gone and his ring wasn’t going to work, and didn’t remember feeling any less sorrowful. No, she decided, it wasn’t that.
Even when she’d grieved her parents, and then Jenna and John, and most recently Ric, she’d known she’d be alright. Maybe she knew that she’d never be truly happy again, but she knew that eventually, she’d be fine. She had to be, for -
Ah. For Jeremy. But not anymore, now she had no one she needed to be fine for. Her last, precious bit of family, gone. Elena didn’t think she’d be fine this time.
Her throat had just started to choke up again when something warm was placed over her shoulders causing her to jolt. Instantly she was enveloped in the scent she’d come to associate with Elijah, and turned to look at him. Without Katherine’s heels she had to tilt her head back a bit more, and when she did his eyes found hers, searching.
She wasn’t sure what conclusion he came to about what he saw on her face, but he gently grabbed her upper arm and steered her into his side before guiding her out from under the gazebo. The two walked in silence down an unremarkable street before Elena nearly tripped due to her lack of shoes, and Elijah scooped her into his arms faster than she could comprehend.
She tensed at first, but quickly relaxed in his arms as his thumb began drawing small circles on the outside of her knee. She turned her head towards his shoulder, her ear pressing against his chest. As she listened to the slow, rhythmic beating of his heart Elena found herself asleep.
_______________________
Elijah would have liked to say that he knew from the moment he saw her across the street it was Elena, but that would make him a liar. He first noticed something was off when she turned quickly, her heart slightly accelerating.
When she spoke, “Elijah, you’re a little late, aren’t you?” It skipped a beat. That was when he knew. Everything about her was slightly…off, but her heart beat gave it away. The quirk she’d had as a human had seemingly translated to vampire. Well, at the very least it was useful.
Unsure of what she was playing at, he decided to go along. Cocking his head and stepping closer he looked into her eyes. Something was off. Wondering how far he could push this new game, he slowly lifted his hand to her hair. He caught the red colored strands between his fingers, smiling ever so slightly.
Katerina was many things, but she was not a woman to color her hair in such a way. Neither was Elena, from what he recalled. “You colored your hair. I like it.” He told her, looking back into her eyes. She smiled, but her eyes remained blank. She laughed, but it sounded empty, forced.
“Thank you,” she said, “it’s actually going to-“ He didn’t let her finish; his mouth on hers, a hand sliding to her waist and pulling her tightly to him, the other previously in her hair moving to her jaw to angle it just so. She seemed surprised, freezing for a split second before her mouth opened.
He took the opportunity, deepening the kiss. She relaxed into him, her hands clutching at his jacket and pulling him closer yet. Normally, Elijah knew he’d be upset at the idea of wrinkled clothing, but for this he was willing to sacrifice a perfectly pressed suit.
Regretfully, he eventually pulled himself back, ever so slightly tightening his grip on her jaw as she tried to follow him. When she stopped chasing him, he rubbed his thumb gently over her cheek. “I missed you.”
It seemed as though her whole body shuttered, her eyes slamming shut. He tightened his arm around her waist as she tried to move away, frantically looking over her. Then her eyes met his, and Elijah wondered how he could be so foolish.
Lovely, compassionate Elena had her humanity off, and he believed it had just made a reappearance. A small choked noise sounded in the back of her throat and she fell, her body going limp. He held her up, staring desperately at the tears pouring from her eyes.
When she started clawing at her throat Elijah sank to the floor with her, guiding her head to his chest as he tried to soothe her. When it didn’t work, he had to grab her hands to stop her from clawing at her throat. “Breathe with me, Elena,” he told her as gently as he could manage with the influx of emotions he himself was feeling, “listen to my heartbeat.”
When she told him she couldn’t, her words coming out strangled as she burrowed into his chest, he made a choice he only hoped she’d understand. He used the hand not holding her wrists to lift her head up and compelled her to breathe.
It worked, and as she calmed herself he sat there holding her, thinking. It wasn’t unheard of, for a newly turned vampire to forsake their emotions. It actually tended to be quite common amongst those who transitioned alone and woke up terrified, killing those in their paths from bloodlust.
But Elena wasn’t alone, and if there was anyone he would have guessed would never flip that switch, Elijah would have guessed it to be Elena. It made him wonder, what exactly had occurred in the past weeks since he’d left Mystic Falls that would have caused her to take such drastic actions.
The more Elijah thought about the possibilities, the more on edge he became. He was already riled up, Elena’s earlier panic and deception having set off alarm bells in his mind. Thankfully, her breathing finally evened. “What happened, Elena, to cause you to abandon your emotions?” He asked.
And so she told him; of the sire bond, of the hunter’s death at her hands and the hallucinations, of her brother’s death at Katherine’s hands, of his own brother’s death. The more she spoke, the more broken she became as she did so, the angrier he became. By the time she finished, Elijah was a hairsbreadth away from snapping.
It was an unusual feeling, for one who prided himself on control. When Elena started speaking again, this time of her humanity switch, he spoke. “Damon used the sire bond to compel you to turn off your humanity? He asked, unadulterated rage filling him as she nodded, accompanied by a sickening feeling when he asked what else the elder Salvatore had used it to do and she could not answer him without panicking.
“When you are ready, lovely Elena,” he told her, stroking a hand down her spine. I’ll kill him in the most painful ways, he thought.