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The afternoon sun stood high in the sky and cast long, sharp shadows across the manicured lawns of the Lockwood estate. Elijah felt the familiar, cold clinical detachment that usually accompanied any discussion regarding his brother these days. He was in the middle of dismantling the lie of the Sun and Moon curse, exposing it as a mere parlor trick designed to hide Niklaus’s true intention of unlocking a hybrid nature, when the vibration in his pocket interrupted him once again.
He reached in and retrieved Elena Gilbert’s phone. It was a small, plastic thing that seemed to scream with urgency. He held it out to her while maintaining an expression of polite disdain for the device.
"Your phone will not stop its incessant buzzing," Elijah noted. His voice remained smooth and calm. "Answer it, please."
Elena took it quickly. As she pressed the phone to her ear, Elijah watched her with a predator's focus. Her heart rate was already elevated from their talk of ancient curses and bloodlines, but now it spiked violently. He did not need to be close to hear Stefan Salvatore’s frantic, tinny voice on the other end. He caught the name Jenna and he caught the name Klaus.
"Stefan... what's wrong?" Elena’s voice went thin and reeked of terror. "No. No, no, no, no. Okay, I'll be right there." She snapped the phone shut and the calm negotiator of moments ago vanished instantly. In her place stood a frantic, terrified girl. She turned just the tiniest fraction, a move Elijah recognized as an intention to flee. Her instinctual drive to protect her kin was currently overriding any caution she should have felt in the presence of an Original vampire. Elijah shifted his stance slightly to remind her exactly whom she was with. He did not need to lunge or speak because he knew his presence alone radiated a predatory grace that made her hesitate.
She looked at him with a defiant fire shining in those all too familiar dark brown eyes. "Klaus went after Jenna. I have to go to her."
"I'm afraid that wasn't part of today's arrangement," he said. His tone dipped into a lethal warning. The girl's weight shifted and her heartbeat raced even faster. Her bottom lip wobbled as she looked at him with pure desperation.
"She's my family, Elijah," Elena pleaded. Her eyes were wide and shimmering with unshed tears. "I have to go. I’ll be back. You have my word."
'My word.' The phrase tasted like ash in his mouth. For a fleeting second, the bright afternoon sun seemed to dim and was replaced by the memory of a flickering cellar light. He felt the agonizing, cold burn of white oak ash blooming in his chest once more. His jaw tightened and his gaze turned to flint.
"You gave me your word before," Elijah said. His voice dropped to a quiet chill. "And then you stabbed me." Elena flinched as if he had struck her physically. She looked down and let the weight of her betrayal hang heavy between them in the silence. But when she looked up, the guilt was eclipsed by a fierce, desperate resolve that mirrored the very steel in his own soul.
"I’m sorry," she whispered. Her voice was trembling but firm. "I am. But right now, I have to look after my family."
'Family.' The word acted like a key in a lock he had not touched in a century. It softened the sharp edges of his anger and rounded them into something resembling recognition. He understood the madness of blood-loyalty better than anyone living, for he had spent a millennium drowning in it. He looked at her and saw not just a doppelgänger or a bargaining chip, but a young girl willing to fight a monster for the sake of her aunt.
"Very well," Elijah said. He did not wait for her response. He turned and began walking toward her parked car with measured, rhythmic strides.
Elena stood frozen for a beat. Her confusion was audible in the sudden, uneven skip of her pulse. "What are you doing?" she called out as she hurried to catch up with him.
Elijah did not slow down. He reached the passenger side and looked at her over the roof of the vehicle. His expression was unreadable but his presence remained absolute. "I'm accompanying you."
Elena did not argue. She must have known she could not afford to. She unlocked the doors and they both climbed into the small space. The air between them shifted from that of captor and prisoner to something far more complicated.
They exchanged few words during the drive. The silence inside the car was brittle and held together only by the mechanical sound of the engine as Elena pushed the vehicle to its limits.
She drove with a reckless urgency that Elijah found almost quaint. He remained perfectly still with his hands resting precisely on his knees. He was a statue in an ill-fitting suit while he watched the familiar streets of Mystic Falls blur past the window.
He was processing the fact that for the first time in decades, he was following someone else’s lead. It was not out of necessity or a strategic play, but out of a burgeoning curiosity for this girl’s definition of family.
To Elijah himself, family was both a vow and a burden of centuries. To Elena, it seemed to be something warranting a frantic race across town.
As she took a corner with a sharp screech of tires, Elijah glanced at her profile. Her knuckles were white against the steering wheel and her jaw was set in a way that reminded him of the fierce resolve his own siblings used to possess before time and spite had curdled it.
"You're going to break the vehicle," Elijah observed quietly. His voice cut through the tension without raising its volume.
"I don't care about the car, Elijah," she snapped, though her voice wavered. "I just need to get there."
He did not take offense at her tone. Instead, he looked back out the window as the Salvatore house came into view. Its dark timber and stone rose like a fortress among the trees. The car had barely stopped before Elena was out and her feet hit the gravel with a speedy rhythm. The silence of the woods surrounding the house felt heavy and loaded. Elena did not wait for him. She charged toward the heavy front door and nearly collided with Stefan Salvatore as she threw it open and stormed into the foyer.
The younger vampire’s relief was instantaneous, but it vanished the moment his gaze shifted toward Elijah, who was leisurely following behind her.
"You brought him here?" Stefan asked. His voice dropped into a defensive growl. He stepped instinctively in front of Elena and tensed his body for a fight he likely knew he could not win.
Elijah stopped at the threshold and let his presence fill the doorway. He did not wait for a formal invitation because the unspoken understanding reached in the car was enough to bridge the gap. He stepped inside and his polished shoes were silent on the hardwood floors.
"Yes. I invited him," Elena said. She placed a steadying hand on Stefan’s arm to pull him back. She looked from Stefan to Elijah with a new, weary authority. "We broke his trust. I’m trying to get that back."
Stefan’s eyes darted to Elijah and then back to Elena. "And you trust him not to kill all of us?"
Elijah met Stefan’s gaze with a look of bored composure. "No one here will come to harm at my hands. I only ask for one thing in return."
Stefan’s jaw worked and his hands remained clenched at his sides. "And what would that be?"
"An apology," Elijah replied simply.
The silence stretched. For a short moment, Elijah watched the internal struggle play out on the boy’s face. He saw the pride, the fear, and the lingering resentment of a man who had been outplayed. Finally, Stefan’s shoulders slumped. He was surrendering to the necessity of the moment.
"Alright," Stefan said. His voice was tight. "I’m sorry for the part that I played in your death. I was protecting Elena. I will always protect Elena."
Elijah gave a single, slow nod of acknowledgment. "Thank you, Mr. Salvatore. I understand. Loyalty to one's own is admirable."
The tension shifted into a wary truce. Elena sensed the transition and looked toward the back of the house. "Where is Jenna?" she asked.
"In the library," Stefan answered. "She’s trying to make sense of everything Klaus told her."
Elena nodded and her face hardened with a mixture of dread and determination. She began to walk toward the library with a quickening pace. Stefan followed closely and Elijah brought up the rear. He moved like a shadow following the light into the heart of the house.
The library was a sanctuary of warm wood and soft, amber light, but it felt claustrophobic under the weight of the grief it now held. Jenna Sommers sat on a velvet couch with red-rimmed eyes and a face blotchy from a deluge of tears. She looked up as the door opened and her expression was a raw nerve of confusion and pain.
"Oh, Jenna, thank God," Elena let out. She entered first with frantic movements while Stefan hovered in the doorway for a fleeting second before stepping back into the corridor. He was giving them space, though Elijah could hear the younger vampire’s heart beating a steady, watchful rhythm just outside.
Elijah entered silently. He moved to the far side of the room and stood by the window where the dying sunlight caught the edge of his profile. He watched the way the light highlighted the strawberry-blonde strands of Jenna's hair, which was currently messy from her distress. If Jenna noticed him, she gave no indication. She was anchored entirely by the sight of her niece.
Elena rushed to her aunt and sank onto the cushion beside her. Jenna flinched and pulled away with a defensive jerk. Her body language was a fortress of crossed arms and hunched shoulders. Elijah watched from his vantage point. He did not need to hear every syllable to understand the scene because the language of the body was a dialect he had mastered over a millennium. He watched the way Elena’s hands shook as she reached out a second time. He heard the exact moment Elena’s voice broke and he saw Jenna’s defenses crumble in response. The older woman collapsed into Elena’s arms as if the strength had left her entirely.
They cried together. Jenna gave great, racking sobs that shook her entire frame while Elena shed silent, silver tears. Elijah had seen grief burn through empires, but there was something about the raw, unfiltered honesty of this moment that felt different. He thought of his own family and wondered when any of them had held each other like this without the shadow of a dagger or the poison of Niklaus’s paranoia. The promise of 'Always and Forever' had long since been weaponized into a cage. He could not remember a time they had simply sat in the dark and let each other break.
Jenna spoke in fragmented questions. She wanted to know who else knew and why she had been kept in the dark. Elena answered each one with a desperate, aching need to be understood.
Elijah also noted what Elena did not do. She did not lie or deflect. Instead, she stood in the center of the storm and bore the weight of the truth.
His mind instinctively turned to the women who had shared her face.
Katerina would have spun a web of silver-tongued lies by now and woven a narrative where she was the only victim.
Tatia, ever the pragmatist, would have been clinical, perhaps even brash.
Elena Gilbert did neither. She smoothed back her aunt’s hair with a gentleness that tightened something in Elijah’s chest. This was what family looked like when love was not considered a transaction.
Eventually, the conversation wound down to a low murmur. Jenna pulled back and wiped her eyes. She whispered that she needed to be alone to think. Elena nodded with an expression of profound sadness and respect. She leaned forward, kissed her aunt’s cheek, and stood. She walked toward the door with heavy footsteps and closed it softly behind her.
Elijah knew he should follow. The very reason for his presence was that he did not want let the doppelgänger out of his sight again. But he remained by the window, his gaze fixed on the quiet, grieving woman on the couch.
He knew now that Elena would not run while her aunt was in this state. The realization settled in his chest with an unexpected, grounding weight. In the corridor, he could hear the arrival of the other brother, Damon, whose voice was sharp with a dozen questions. Elijah tuned them out. He took a single step away from the window, his decision made.
His footsteps were silent, but the subtle shift of his weight caught Jenna’s attention. She startled violently and jerked her head toward him with wide, panicked eyes. He could hear her heart from across the room. It was a frantic, hammered rhythm against her ribs.
"Jesus! Mr. Smi... I mean, Elijah," she breathed. Her voice was a ragged thread. "I didn't... how long have you been standing there?"
Elijah stopped and maintained a careful distance. He kept his posture non-threatening. "My apologies, Miss Sommers. I didn't mean to startle you. I've been here since you and your niece began speaking."
Her eyes widened further and her shock deepened into something more guarded. "You were listening to us? The whole time?"
"Yes," Elijah replied. His tone was even and unapologetic. "Though I should point out that everyone in this house could hear you regardless. Vampires have rather exceptional hearing."
He watched her process the word and waited for the flicker of revulsion he usually expected from humans. Instead, she simply stared at him. She looked at the noble set of his features and the quiet authority he carried. "You're a vampire," she said. It was a statement of fact.
"I am."
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped her. She looked at him in an almost unsettlingly perceptive way. "Then you must have thought I was an idiot. When you came to town with your whole historian act and I had absolutely no clue what you really were."
"I would hardly characterize you as an idiot for failing to believe that folk monsters walk among you, Miss Sommers," Elijah said carefully. He chose his next words with precision. "If anything, your skepticism speaks to a rational mind. Though if you're asking whether I found your ignorance convenient? Yes. I did."
The distinction seemed to land. He saw her shoulders ease just a fraction. She understood the subtext. Her family had lied out of a suffocating sense of love that felt like a patronizing betrayal. He, however, had lied because it served a purpose. To Elijah, his honesty was a mark of respect he was now deciding she had earned.
"So you're saying you're done lying to me?" she asked.
"I am saying I have no reason to lie to you anymore," Elijah admitted. "Which, in my experience, is as close to honesty as most immortal creatures ever get." He took a small step closer and tested the space between them. "May I sit?"
Jenna nodded mutely. He took his seat at the opposite end of the couch. His posture remained as formal as if he were at a state dinner. For a long moment, they just sat in the quiet of the library. Outside, a bird chirped and a car passed on the road. The world continued even as the woman in front of him felt herself breaking apart. "So the historian thing... that really was all fake?" she asked quietly.
"The persona was a convenience," Elijah admitted. He let his gaze drift to the books on the shelves. "My interest in history, however, is quite genuine. It is difficult not to be interested in a subject you have lived through."
She gave another small, humorless laugh. "I suppose you'd have to be. How old are you then?"
"Over a thousand years." He watched her blink as the number sank into her mind.
"A thousand..." she trailed off and shook her head. "I don't even... how do you process that? I don't even know what to say to that." She looked down at her hands. Her voice dropped into a reflective, hollow tone. "They kept all of this from me. For months. Vampires, everything. And I had no idea."
"Your family was trying to protect you," Elijah offered.
"Yeah, that's what they say," she snapped back. A spark of sudden, sharp anger lit her red-rimmed eyes. "But I'm supposed to be the one protecting them. Elena and Jeremy." She looked back down and her voice got quieter. "I thought I was doing okay, you know? Keeping them safe. But all this time, they were dealing with it without me. What kind of guardian doesn't know when their kids are in danger?"
Elijah’s expression shifted against his will. A memory of the siblings he could not save flickered through his mind before he could stop it. Jenna caught the look. "What?"
"Nothing. I simply... understand the question better than one might think." He regarded her carefully and saw the guilt that mirrored his own. It was the guilt of a protector who had stood by while the world devoured those under his care.
He found himself moved by the softness of her voice and the fierce way she cared for those children. "A highly regarded one," he said firmly. "One who is so beloved by her charges that they were willing to carry the weight of the world alone, simply to keep your world bright for a little while longer."
Jenna shook her head and her voice became a broken whisper. "I wasn't good enough."
"You were more than good enough, Jenna," Elijah insisted. He did not use his compulsion, yet he felt the weight of his own conviction behind the words. "The best guardian for anyone is someone who watches out for them, loves them, and puts their needs first. You were placed in a terrible circumstance."
"Thank you," she said. She looked at him with an uncertain, fragile hope. "For trying to make me feel better."
"I am not trying to make you feel better, Miss Sommers. I am telling you the truth."
She searched his eyes and found a certainty there that seemed to ground her. She looked at him for a long moment and Elijah noted the scent of her, which was a faint mix of vanilla and the salt of her tears. "Why did you come here? With Elena?"
"To ensure her safety, for one. My brother threatened you specifically to manipulate her. I wanted to make certain he did not return to finish what he started."
"Your brother. The one who... who was in Alaric?"
"Yes. Niklaus."
Jenna absorbed this and her gaze turned sharp. "You're trying to stop him. And Elena is helping you?"
Elijah felt a slight grimace cross his face. Lying to her now felt entirely wrong. "We're helping each other."
"So you came here to protect us. From your own brother," Jenna summarized. She studied him with a look that felt uncomfortably perceptive. "Why would you do that?"
"Because my brother needs to be stopped. And because your niece is essential to that effort." Elijah felt her waiting and her gaze remained steady. He found himself adding something more personal. "That's not the only reason. I have spent a very long time watching my brother destroy everything in his path, including our own family. I'm tired of it. And I'm tired of watching innocent people suffer for his ambitions."
Jenna nodded slowly. "So you wouldn't hurt us. Me, Elena, Jeremy."
"No," Elijah said. He met her eyes directly. "I would not."
She held his gaze for a long moment and searched for the monster. She found only the man who had stayed. Finally, she whispered, "I thought so. Thank you for confirming it, though."
Something unexpected happened in Elijah's chest. It was a soft and unfamiliar flutter of respect. She had looked him in the eyes despite him being a creature who had just admitted to a millennium of being a monster. She had assessed him herself and decided he was honorable. It was remarkably like what Elena had done earlier that day when she removed the dagger based on her own evaluation. He realized the trait must run in the family.
A moment passed between them while an understanding was reached. Jenna was clearly exhausted. He could see the way her shoulders sagged and how her movements were slowed by the crushing gravity of the day. Elijah murmured that she should rest. Jenna replied with a tired smile that she did not think she could sleep if she tried because her brain would not stop spinning.
Silence settled over them. It was no longer jagged, but soft and heavy like the velvet curtains. Jenna shifted slightly and wrapped her arms around herself. Then, almost without thinking, she leaned toward the only solid thing in her world. Her head came to rest against the charcoal jacket of his shoulder.
Elijah went still and did not breathe. This was not something he was accustomed to; he rarely shared this kind of casual and human comfort with someone who was not family, certainly not after Niklaus had withdrawn and taken Rebekah and Kol from him, leaving him to eighty years of solitude. He could not remember the last time someone had sought comfort from him without an ulterior motive. It was not seduction, not manipulation, and not even the desperate clutching of family who had nowhere else to turn. It was just rest. He could not remember a time.
To an Original, a human was a creature of glass and heartbeat. He was acutely aware of the heat radiating from her. It was a startling and vibrant warmth. Through the layers of his suit, he could feel the rhythmic and delicate pulse of her carotid artery. It was a fast and fluttering thing, like a trapped bird. It was a constant reminder of how easily that rhythm could be stilled and how much restraint he chose to exercise every second he remained in her, or any human's, presence.
Outside the door, he could hear the frantic and messy sounds of the other inhabitants. He heard the Salvatores’ hushed arguments and the floorboards groaning under Elena’s restless pacing. They were a storm of youth and panic.
But here, Elijah remained. After a long moment, he carefully adjusted his posture with the same precision people used to handle fragile artifacts in museums. He was not pulling away, but settling in. His hand moved to rest on the back of the couch. He was not touching her, but he was close enough to catch her if she fell. It was a silent promise.
'You will be okay.'