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Their legs lay intertwined amongst the crumpled sheets. Rebekah can’t remember how many days it’s been since she began traveling with the doppelganger. Perhaps it dipped into weeks without her realizing it. Being on the run with her had become a fun game, so different from the years she spent on the run from her own father. If they were to get caught, the worst they’d have to face is the Salvatores and Rebekah was confident she could handle them.
“What’s it like, darling?” Rebekah shifts against Elena, her leg sliding further up the doppelganger’s thigh. “Having your humanity off. We were never granted that particular ability.”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try. For me.”
Rebekah runs a light finger across Elena’s hip. She’s spent enough time with the other woman to understand how reticent Elena was to speak of her own experiences. How internal the doppelganger could be but how rewarding it was to be the person to coax her out of her own head.
“It’s not like they said. An emotionless vampire. Everything I felt before, I still feel but it’s…subdued. I can ignore it easier when I’m feeding. That’s as close as I get and maybe that’s why vampires who turn it off kill so much.”
“It’s not really a switch then if you still feel things.”
“No, but it’s not even like a dimmer. It’s like…. swimming.”
“Swimming?”
“Yeah, like when you go underwater and you can still hear the people above you. You can hear when they come closer and you can hear when they walk away. You understand that there are voices and maybe you can feel the tone of them but you never really understand what they are saying. Not unless you hold really still and listen.”
“And that’s what happens when you hold still?”
“I can feel all the pain of losing Jeremy. Losing my hope that he’d come back. He was my last tie to my humanity.” Elena holds a fist to her chest and curls in on herself, turning more toward Rebekah. “He was supposed to live and I was supposed to take the cure so I could be his sister again but what am I going to do now? What’s the point of any of this now that he’s dead? What’s the point of me?”
Rebekah had lived long enough to see all kinds of vampires. Ones that reveled in their new lives of debauchery and ones that sank into depression as they regarded the span of forever with morose approach. On this bed, holding a sobbing doppelganger to her unbeating heart, Rebekah isn’t sure what kind of vampire Elena will be. But she knows with certainty that she wants to be there with her when Elena figures it out.
A dangerous thought flits into her mind. She could always compel Elena to forget Jeremy. To forget all about Salvatores and Mystic Falls and even the sacrifice. Rebekah could give Elena this fresh start to become the person she was meant to be without all this baggage. But would she love her without it? Would Elena still seek out the comfort of Rebekah’s touch if she forgot everything?
Strands of red shift in between Rebekah’s hand as she holds up one of Elena’s curls in the moonlight. Her tears drop down to Rebekah’s bare chest and Elena’s fingers dig little bruises into her back as she holds on tighter. These moments are too delicious to risk. It isn’t Stefan or Damon or any of her friends that Elena has turned to in this difficult moment. It was her. And every second that Elena stayed with her was a moment that she was chosen. Again and again. Even now, this is a deeper intimacy than anything Rebekah had experienced with her other lovers.
People she had needed to convince to love her.
Elena had been caustic and more than a little rude since her humanity had sunk below those proverbial waters but she’d also been fun. And the first time she slipped into Rebekah’s bed and dragged those soft lips between her breasts to her neck and then, finally, to her lips, Rebekah had thought it was the high of a near miss that had compelled Elena. But then she’d returned to her bed night after night. It stopped being a question of where Elena would sleep at night because now it was always at her side.
Even if she could ease Elena’s pain, selfishly she did not want to. She didn’t want to risk any changes to their relationship but more importantly she enjoys drinking in Elena’s pain. It’s a coveted spot she now holds over those who believe they know her best but it’s Rebekah who has triumphed at last.
“Did you know, my sweet, that I never once learned to swim?”
Elena lifts her head from the safety of Rebekah’s body, face puffy and tear stained. It’s as much an admission as it is a distraction. It works as intended.
“How have you never learned to swim?”
“I can’t drown anymore. Water poses no threat to me. There never seemed to be a point.”
“But there’s much more to swimming than safety.”
“Such as?” Rebekah’s tone is indifferent but she knows it works to snag Elena’s attention.
“It’s…fun? Refreshing? You feel weightless. At peace with the universe. I don’t know, Rebekah, it just feels good.”
There’s a button inside of Elena labeled indignant and Rebekah knows that if she presses it exactly so then it will send the other woman into a fit. She smiles through the memories as Elena recounts the summers she spent at her family’s lake house. Rebekah won’t tell her but it’s moments like these where she assumes Elena drifts closer to the surface of her humanity. The joy in her recollections are apparent and her eyes shimmer beautifully with the not-so-lost emotion. Rebekah drinks it in the same way she dines on her pain. As the single, selfish curator to this work of art.
“Rebekah!” Elena sits up abruptly and her hair cascades over her chest. A single pink nipple appears between the strands. Rebekah has the thought to ignore her lover’s excitement and lean over to capture the offending skin between her lips. But she exercises patience instead.
“What is it, my love?”
“I have to teach you how to swim. Tonight!” Elena flies out of bed and shimmies into her shorts. Rebekah groans. “Come on. We’ve been holed up in this bed and breakfast for days now. You’ll love it. I promise. There’s a lake nearby…”
“You may be overconfident if you believe that I will enjoy dipping a single toe into slimy lake water.”
Suddenly, Rebekah understands more of the Salvatores’ behavior as Elena turns her shining brown eyes on her. Pleading and begging. Her lip jutting out enough to pout. Rebekah rolls her eyes, but gives in.
Calm waters act as a mirror to the sky, perfectly reflecting the moon back to itself. Rolling mountains surround them with the colors shifting from the autumnal leaves. Golds and yellows blend together into a beautiful palate in the moonlight. Fog rolls in off those same mountains. Creeping and haunting as they linger on the shore.
Rebekah’s lip curls as sand crawls in between her toes. Elena walks toward the water, shedding a layer of clothing with each step. She stays on the shore to admire the way the curve of her ass hits the surface tension before she turns around.
“You have to get into the water if you want to learn!”
“And if I have no desire?” Rebekah calls out after her. “What if I am content to watch you from land?”
Elena screws up her face. “I don’t believe you! You’re way more adventurous than that!”
It’s this taunt that compels Rebekah to follow Elena into the depths. Not the taunt really but more that Elena has seen a part of her. Beyond the vapid and shallow qualities that most people assign her. The cold, distant demeanor that she often puts up in order to keep herself safe in a world that was always hungry for women who yearn to openly. For love or passion or adventure, it didn’t matter. But Elena saw it and she was asking Rebekah to join her fire in hers. And who was Rebekah to deny that?
Elena’s fingers are light against Rebekah’s back as she helps her to float. Her limbs are tight against her body even as Elena coos at her to relax. Her hands spread more confidently against Rebekah’s back to support her as she dips her head down for a kiss.
“If you never relax, you will never learn how to float.”
“The last time I trusted you with my back, you plunged a danger into it,” Rebekah snipes in return.
It was a true thing. A hurtful thing. But not what she’d meant in this moment. Rebekah had wanted to enjoy this with Elena. But her words edged too close to criticisms that Rebekah is always waiting to hear. She can’t relax. She can’t be smart. She can’t be trusted. She can’t be allowed to live her own life. She can’t enjoy this moment without ruining it.
Rebekah stands, ready to defend herself and deal with Elena’s anger. It’s what she’s learned to do from years of living with her brother. But the look on Elena’s face startles her. It’s soft with regret coloring the edges.
“I shouldn’t have done that to you. It was terrible. You let me in and I took advantage of that.” Elena’s chin trembles but she takes in a deep breath to calm her core.
There is no surface to muffle Elena’s humanity. It’s right there. After weeks together and catching peeks through the veil, there it was. No great display of tragedy or pain to bring it back. No torture or force got her here. Rebekah hadn’t set out to bring back Elena’s humanity. To pull her from the deep waters to break the surface. It had simply happened. In the small moments they spent together, Elena was kicking her feet towards the horizon in the comfort of Rebekah’s arms. And now she was calmly breaking through the surface. And she hadn’t even noticed.
“You don’t have to say that.” Rebekah suddenly felt uncomfortable in her nudity. Too exposed. This was a sentiment she wasn’t used to receiving.
“I do.” Elena’s hands are on her shoulders, tentative. Feeling Rebekah out. “I want to.”
“We’ve done terrible things to each other. There’s no sense in living in them.”
“Maybe not, but I’m not saying we should live in them. I’m just saying – I’m sorry, Rebekah. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
She can’t think of a time when someone apologized to her without wanting something in return. She waits for it. For the follow up where Elena asks for help getting the cure or killing the Salvatores or anything that she might want. But it never comes. Her delicate fingers are in Rebekah’s hair, pushing it away from her face. Looking at her with no expectations. Not even acceptance. Painfully earnest in a way that spurs on Rebekah’s self-preservational instinct to mock.
“You must want something,” Rebekah whispers. “Otherwise you would never apologize.”
“That’s not true, Rebekah.” Elena leans forward, holding their bodies close. Rebekah’s hands slide up her back as Elena’s hands bury into her blonde curls. “I just want to be with you.”
“Then why apologize?”
“Because that’s what you do when you hurt people you love.”