Chapter Text
Elena dies. She feels herself losing blood and the world goes dark and then.
Elena opens her eyes. It remains dark but a different kind of dark. She looks at the sky with the same stars that she died under. Elena breathes deeply and feels like there's dirt in her lungs.
Dirt. She wasn’t supposed to be buried; why is there dirt in her lungs? She aches. Noise returns to her slowly. There's vague conversations around her but she can’t place the voices. One is yelling something about respect for corpses.
Elena realizes she’s in a dress. She wasn’t in a dress before. They must have put her in a nice dress to bury her in. Her parents were buried in nice clothes.
A face comes into view, blocking out the stars. She realizes she is laying at the center of some kind of crater in the football field. She purses her lips in irritation, recognizing the face. “Klaus. What's going on?” She asks as she sits up.
“We will soon be finding out my dear doppelganger.” Klaus says as he extends an arm to help her out of the crater. She takes it, unsure if she will be able to get past the steep lip of the hole in the ground. Like it was dug with her in mind.
They’re on the football field. Even turning her head is tiring. Elena doesn’t know what's wrong and she feels like she should be shivering but isn't.
It’s only as she steps up that Elena notices Caroline, restrained by a girl she doesn’t know who looks to be around their age. And Stefan is there. He isn’t restrained and she isn’t sure what’s going on. Caroline’s eyes are wide and bright as the moon as she stares at Elena. Elena wants to call out to them but can’t find the words. She thinks they might be saying something to her. Lips are moving but Elena’s lips are ringing too much to hear.
Klaus makes a shallow cut on Elena’s arm. She tries to shake him away but can't. Klaus collects the blood dripping down her arm into a glass and walks over to Tyler who she hadn’t noticed laying on the ground in front of Stefan.
Klaus offers Tyler the glass of blood like he’s offering a friend a glass of bourbon. Tyler doesn’t take it. He seems like he says something but Elena’s head is pounding. She can barely hear herself think. Klaus grabs Tyler by the jaw forcing him to drink Elena’s blood. He coughs on it sputtering and trying to spit it out.
Then Tyler looks up, his eyes are no longer human, but the gold of a werewolf. This is very interesting and all but Elena is very occupied by the fear curling up her throat. Her eyes are so heavy. But she has things to do and she needs to run. She will. Moving her limbs feels like the hardest thing she’s ever done but she does it. She’s woozily stumbling over her feet when Klaus looks away from Tyler, still on the ground.
Her hearing is clear enough to hear Klaus say, “Ah, Elena. We have been witness to a historic moment. The creation of my first hybrid.” His smile is wide and sharp. His teeth are not fangs but it feels like with that smile they should be.
Elena nods vaguely, opens her mouth to speak but gags on something creeping up the back of her throat. She coughs to try to clear her throat but it quickly becomes clear that was a mistake as what was supposed to be a clearing of her throat turns to hacking gasps for breath.
Klaus is talking to her. The tone is different now though. Less victorious and more worried, she can’t make out the words. Elena doubles over, steadies herself with her hands on her knees and empties her stomach onto the grass. At first she doesn’t get it. But when she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand it comes away covered in soil.
And then she laughs. She laughs deep and hearty. She looks down at herself covered in dirt and knows down to her bones that she should not be here. Caroline is calling her name. Stefan too. The both of them have probably been trying to get her attention as soon as they realized Elena was more than a corpse. She wants to respond to Caroline. To let her know she’s alright but she can’t. She feels her legs give out under her but she doesn’t hit the ground. She tries to squirm out of the loose hold. She wants to lay on the ground, to look at the stars. There are voices surrounding her but her eyes are so heavy. She lets them close.
Elena opens her eyes somewhere else. She’s in a car, laid out in the back seat. She can hear Caroline talking. Elena says nothing, staring at the roof of the car while she listens.
“-I mean that I don’t know, Klaus’s witch did something and then Elena was moving and I don’t- she was moving and then she wasn’t.” Caroline goes quiet, listening to whoever is on the other side of the phone. “Yeah I got it, I’ll take her to witch central and we figure it out from there. Also heads up, Stefan's back in town so we might have to prepare for Damon's arrival… Well he was there. With Klaus… I don’t know if he’s on our side but I don’t, I know he’s working for Klaus and I guess he doesn’t have any respect for the dead. I don’t think he wants her anymore… I don’t know. We can figure it out later. Ok love you bye.”
Caroline drives in silence for a few moments. Elena still does not get up. She is so tired. From what Elena can see of the scenery they’re a while out from Mystic Falls. Elena might have drifted off again but Caroline spoke before she could.
Timidly like she isn’t sure Caroline says, “Elena? Is that your heart I hear waking up?”
Elena huffs a laugh, forces herself to sit up. “Hi Caroline. Who was on the phone?”
Caroline exhales heavily, “Just Bonnie. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well. You died. We had a funeral and everything. I just,” Caroline gathers herself. “Do you have any memories of the last few- what's the last thing you remember?”
“Last few what?”
“What?” Caroline evades.
“You were going to finish that sentence with a measurement of time. How long has it been?”
Caroline hesitates for seconds that are agonizingly slow. “It’s been a little more than five months… since you died.”
Elena inhales sharply. Tries not to imagine Jermey left on his own. Without her or aunt Jenna. And fuck. Jenna’s dead too. She can feel Caroline's eyes on her in the rear view mirror. Elena does not want to cry but it feels like it would be dishonoring Jenna’s memory to not let herself shed some tears.
Elena cries quietly. Breathes through her mouth and lets her vision become blurry with tears. Elena gathers her energy and climbs over the center console into the passenger seat. Caroline turns away from the road to look at her then back at the road.
Once Elena has cried herself out and the hole that had formed in her chest after her parents died feels like it has consumed an acceptable amount of her soul she turns back to Caroline.
“Why didn’t I wake up earlier? I had Damon's blood in my system. I should have at least come back as a vampire.”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know why I woke up now?”
Caroline chews on her lip. “Klaus brought you back. He figured out he needed your blood to make his hybrids. He had you dug up and brought back. I don’t know how.”
“I saw Stefan, but he didn’t go to me.”
Caroline scrunches her face up in annoyance. “Ok so, after you died, Damon got bit by Tyler’s wolf and Stefan, self sacrificing piece of shit that he is, made a deal with Klaus for a small portion of his blood which happens to be the cure to a werewolf bite. So Stefan is sorta working for Klaus.”
“Thats crazy. He… Of course he would do that.”
“If it makes you feel any better I think he was going to steal you away but well,” Caroline pauses, when she resumes speaking she is more subdued than before. “I got there first.”
“How did you do that?”
Elena sees Caroline mull something over and decide against giving her the whole truth. “I waited for a distraction and took you. ”
Elena stares Caroline down. They both know that’s not what really happened but Elena is so tired. “That’s… Impressive.” Is what Elena ends up saying.
Caroline shrugged, still tense. Whatever must have really happened freaked her out.
They sit in a strained sort of silence for a few moments. Elena is dreading asking but she has to. Who would she be if she did not ask, “Is Jeremy ok?”
Caroline's eyes dart to her and then back to the road. “I’m not really sure. He wasn’t when he left but it’s been months. Hopefully he’s ok.”
“What do you mean when he left?”
“Some family friend of yours got custody of him. They live in Denver I think Bonnie said so he’s there now. Bonnie talks to him sometimes. Said he was doing as well as could be hoped for.”
Elena nods. Tears prick at her eyes and she tilts her head back to avoid letting them fall.
“You can sleep if you want,” Caroline says. “I don’t know about you but coming back from the dead was exhausting."
Elena laughs, a broken sort of thing, happy that of all people it’s Caroline there to take care of her and get her mind off things. Elena curls herself up in the passenger seat and closes her eyes.
She opens her eyes to Caroline shaking her awake. It feels like she just took a long blink but she knows that Caroline wouldn’t have woken her until they got to Bonnie. Elena’s body feels better but her mind is no more rested.
Elena moves to get out of the car but before she can take a step Caroline has swept her off her feet and Elena’s inside of the old Fell house.
Elena swats at Caroline's shoulder as she is set down. “Ask much?”
“Oh I’m sorry, Elena will you give me permission to get you inside the invitation protected witch HQ as fast as possible?”
Elena huffs. She walks down the creaky stairs, Caroline close behind her. Elena can hear a muffled sort of whispering. She would think it was Bonnie doing a spell or something if not for the fact that it’s multiple voices. Elena does not mention the voices to Caroline. She doesn’t think there were voices last time she was here.
They reach the end of the stairs, all the way down in the basement to find Bonnie surrounded by salt circles. Bonnie opens her eyes and a blinding light escapes them. Caroline does not respond to it but Elena has to resist the urge to cower away from the lights glare. Even with all her might she still has to squint to look at her.
Bonnie blinks and the light is gone. “Nice light show.” Elena tells her.
Bonnie sprints the distance to the stairs jumping over the salt lines so as to not smudge them. She slams into Elena, going too fast to stop before running into her.
Bonnie hugs her tight. It takes Elena a second to remember what to do with her arms. Like over the months she’s been gone her muscles have atrophied the memories of what a hug is supposed to be. When she realizes her eyes are closed she opens them. She sees the dirt her arms have left on Bonnie's shirt. She realizes Caroline’s car must be covered in dirt if even a touch sullies Bonnie's clothing.
“I’m sorry about all the dirt.” Elena tells Bonnie’s neck.
“I’d take any amount of dirt for this hug Elena.”
Elena nods. Clinging to Bonnie even tighter now.
Without extricating herself from the hug Bonnie over Elena’s shoulder asks, “Did you see her get revived?”
“Yes.” Caroline answers. “They dragged her body in. The witch did some chanting, her body sorta sunk into the ground and then she was up.”
Bonnie is cradling Elena’s head. “There has to be more to it than that.”
“Well it’s not like I was taking notes on it, Bon.”
“Well maybe you should have!” Bonnie takes a deep breath. Caroline says nothing. “I’m sorry. I just want more information than that.”
“I know Bon. I told you he was trying to make Tyler into a hybrid. With Elena's blood. It seemed to be working but I’m not sure how long the failover period for something like that would have been.”
Bonnie nods. Bonnie begins to let Elena go. She walks Elena to the couch that she thinks is a new addition to Bonnie’s lair. Elena is transferred from Bonnie's arms to the couch. She falls asleep to the sound of whispering underneath her friends' voices.
Elena opens her eyes to a slamming door and the smell of a fries. “Wake up, sleepy head!” Caroline calls out.
Elena sits up. Bonnie or Caroline covered her with a blanket and she wraps it around her shoulders.
Caroline shoves a bag of takeout into her arms.
“You went to get food? Won't Klaus be out to get you?”
“Yeah, but I can't put my whole life on hold. The main thing is he can't know where you are, so as long as you stay here we should be fine. Klaus wants your blood anyways since it worked on Tyler and now I have the negotiating power.”
“What’s stopping him from just killing you?”
“He doesn’t know where you are.” Caroline says. But there's got to be more to it.
“You're negotiating with him? He killed me. Is he really the kind of man you can reason with?”
“Well it's kinda the only option unless you want to hide out for the rest of your life.”
Elena nods. She understands the necessity. They weren't able to save her when they had Stefan and Damon. Now with seemingly just Caroiline and Bonnie they have even less power than before. But it’s hard to think. She is so tired.
“i want to talk to Jeremy." Is the conclusion Elena comes to.
Caroline's eyes dart over to Bonnie who's shoulders have risen to her ears.
“What? What aren't you telling me?”
“We don't know if we're gonna win this. It's best we don't reach out to him until we know your back for good." Bonnie says. Caroline nods her agreement.
“We can't just not tell him. I want to talk to him”
“Look, he just got past the whole bargaining stage. Let's let him have some space before we uproot his world again.” Caroline says as she crosses her arms,
“What do you mean uproot his world? I’m back from the dead and I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.” Elena thinks if this was before her parents died she would have more to say. Would be able to better articulate herself. Like she lost some of her ability to connect with people when her parents died and never got it back. But it's hard to tell, before the car went over the bridge she never felt the cloying choking grief that suffocates any attempt at life. So maybe there is no version of her that would be able to explain what she needs.
Elena used to be the glue between Bonnie and Caroline but while she has been gone they have grown closer. They have fused together so closely that she cannot find a gap to place herself in. What was the three of them has shrunk. Elena sees it in the glances they’ve been giving each other, the whole sentences conveyed with a posture and gesture.
Bonnie, tone placating, says, “We just think it might be best if we give it some time.”
“Why are you talking like this isn’t going to last? Like I’m going to blow away with the wind” Elena all but yells.
“Becuase your pulse keeps stopping!” Caroline shouts.
Even the whispering in the corners of the house go quiet. “What?”
“That's how I got away. You were up long enough to make Tyler into a hybrid and then you were gone. Your heart stopped for hours. You wouldn't get up when the witch tried to revive you again. The witch died trying to get you back up. I convinced Klaus to give me your body. To let us bury you. “
“But I'm fine, I'm just tired!”
“I get tired too Elena but I dont fucking die about it!” Caroline's talking with her hands now.
“Look, all we're saying is that we think it's best to figure out how long this will last before we start telling people about it.” Bonnie says in a placating tone.
The three of them have been friends for years. Elena knows who will bend first. Her gaze trains on Bonnie. “If it were your grams-”
“Don’t.” Caroline's voice barely registers as Elena keeps talking.
“If it were your grams. Wouldn’t you take minutes more? I would. If it were my parents. If it were Jenna.”
“I-” Bonnie puts a hand on her chest, hunches slightly.
The whispers are loudest they’ve been since she entered. “Elena!” Caroline yells.
Caroline's voice pulls her out of Bonnie's eyes.
“I get that your mad but that doesn't mean you get to dig your fingers into other people's wounds”
“I'm not. I'm just stating facts.”
Bonnie opens her mouth like she's going to say something. But all she does is clear her throat. Bonnie begins to say something again and she breaks out in hacking coughs.
Caroline's “Bonnie!” and Elena's “Are you alright?” overlap above the whispers in Elena's ears.
Bonnie braces herself on the wall and hunches over. Bonnie coughs up a smattering of soil, complete with a worm on the top. Caroline rushes forward supporting Bonnie.
Bonnie screams. Her voice ragged and scratchy the screaming is more of a cut through exclamation. There are tears running down Bonnie's cheeks.
Elena has a sinking feeling in her stomach that she did something she shouldn't have.
“Bonnie, are you okay?” Elena asks
Bonnie looks up, her eyes the milky film they get when she’s doing something particularly witchy, “What did you do?” Is all Bonnie says in return.
“I don't,” Elena sniffles, "I don't know.”
“You definitely did something. Look at your nose” Bonnie says.
Elena wipes at her nose. Her hand comes away bloody.
“I didn’t mean to.”
Caroline looks up at Elena from her place by Bonnie's side. “Try it again.”
“What? No.”
“Why not? We could use this.”
“Becuase I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Well we can’t have your try it out directly on Klaus.”
“On Klaus? I can’t take Klaus.”
“And hopefully you won’t have to, hopefully he’ll be willing to negotiate. If he isn't, this could be a good way for you to finally be able to protect yourself.”
Hesitantly Elena nods. Caroline steps away from Bonnie. “Ok. Hit me with it.”
Elena tenses her jaw, clenches her fists and tries to pull on the feeling in her stomach. The dropping feeling she gets when she knows someone is gone and never coming back. She wraps herself in her pain like a hug she will never again get from her mother.
Elena hunches over and spits out a spoonful of dirt. She makes eye contact with Caroline. Caroline spasms. She starts clearing her throat. Coughing. She brings a hand to her throat, coughs harder. And then Caroline's spitting out dirt she coughs it up in clumps, clearly painful.
And then. Elena stops, she closes her eyes and is numb to the sound of one of her oldest friends hacking away. As the last of Elena's cloak leaves her Elena’s emotions feel like they start returning to her.
“Caroline, are you ok?”
Caroline takes another rough inhale. When she looks up she has a vicious smile on her face. “I think we might have a shot at this. Do you think you have it down or do you want to practice again?”
There's something in Elena that wants to say no. That wants to ‘practice’ until Caroline gives her a phone to call Jeremy with. “I’ve got it.”
Caroline nods. “Then I think it’s best to act as fast as possible. What do you want?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like out of the deal with Klaus, you can’t really go back to how things were.” Bonnie tells her.
“So, what do you want?” Caroline asks.
“I want him to leave me alone.”
“Don’t even want to squeeze some money out of him? You're gonna have to move out of town, might as well be into a mansion.” Caroline looks at her with pleading eyes. She’s always dreamt big. Elena knows she used to find it endearing. More than that she used to share that quality with her. Now it feels like her lungs are losing capacity as she tries to think about the future.
They must be able to see it in her. The way that integral pieces of her have shriveled and decayed. Bonnie interrupts her thoughts, “We could ask him for a tome on necromancy?”
“Yeah but we should also ask for money.” Caroline says. “It’s good to have resources.”
“Fine, money, a necromancy tome and him leaving me alone.”
“All in exchange for a bit of blood.” Caroline says as she walks toward Elena with an empty water bottle.
Elena nods. Caroline takes out the butterfly knife she got from her dad when they were thirteen. With the Hello Kitty knife Caroline makes a cut on Elena's arm and collects the blood into the bottle. Caroline licks the flat of the knife then makes a face.
“Your blood tastes weird Elena. It’s like metal still but the wrong kind of metal maybe? I’m not really sure. Maybe too much metal.”
“Do you think it’ll be a problem?”
Caroline shrugs as she caps the bottle. “Maybe but we’re gonna have to deal. Bonnie, do some tests if you can?”
“What am I even supposed to be looking for?”
“I don’t know? Basic health stuff? But like with magic?” Caroline looks at Elena’s sluggishly bleeding arm. “Maybe heal her a bit.”
Bonnie rolls her eyes. “Yes sir, Captain Caroline.”
Caroline flips the bird as she walks up the stairs. “I’m gonna call Tyler, see how being a hybrid is treating him.”
Bonnie turns to Elena. “C’mon sit on the couch and I’ll patch you up.”
Elena does as Bonnie says. Bonnie mutters a spell, drags her hand over Elena’s cut. As Bonnie's hand moves over the cut it stitches itself back together.
Elena turns her arm back and forth inspecting it. “Thanks.” When she looks up Elena finds Bonnie staring at her. She raises a brow.
Bonnie looks away. Looks up to hold back tears as she asks “Do you feel solid?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like any feeling incorporeal, see through, I don’t know anything undeady?”
Elena tries to take an assessment of herself. She feels untethered in the way she did right after her parents died. She thinks that’s ok. It’s familiar at least. Elena knows she never really recovered before she died. She thought she was living as a ghost already but while the sadness feels like an integral part of undeath, there's something more. The infectious grief she can summon into someone's throat. She sits up straighter. Grief that she will summon into Klaus’s throat. She will give him the cloying in his lungs, choking him with his own fear. And the dirt. She loves the dirt best of all. The dirt that she is meant to be surrounded in but will not return to. Elena needs to be there for Jermey. But she will miss it terribly.
“I feel fine.”
Bonnie doesn’t look like she believes her. With the pause she took while she thought it over that's not shocking.
Before Bonnie can respond they hear a “What!” from upstairs.
Caroline stomps down the steps and points at Elena then makes a zipping her lips motion, then she puts her phone on speaker. “Klaus said I’m gonna be helping him out for a while.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Well, he hasn’t told me yet but don’t I owe it to him for a little while at least? He saved me, I’m free of the werewolf curse.”
“Tyler, where are you?”
“I’m at the Salvatore’s place. Klaus snapped Damon’s neck when he opened the door, but otherwise everything's fine.”
“Cool. Great. Look, we're still digging the new grave so that’s gonna take a while but I’ll call you when we’re done.” Caroline hangs up before Tyler can respond.
In a sing-song voice Bonnie says, “Someone’s boyfriend is being brain-washed.”
Caroline points at Bonnie, “Shut up. Fuck okay, we need a plan.” Elena watches Caroline pace the length of the room from her seat on the couch.
“We could see if I could kill him. With the dirt thing.” Elena says.
Caroline sighs, “Elena we don’t know if you can kill anything with the dirt thing right now it is at best a distraction tactic. It hurts, don't get me wrong, but we can’t assume that means it can kill.” Caroline inhales heavily. Elena resists the urge to try to fill her lungs with dirt. “We know what we want and we know what he wants. I can stop by the boarding house, give Tyler a Grill burger or something and while I’m there I’ll approach Klaus. Negotiate” Caroline nods, she puts her untouched burger in her purse.
“That’s it?” Bonnie asks, “That’s all you’re planning?”
“What should I script my pitch? I’ve sorta done that in my head. It’s like an elevator pitch length–”
“Caroline, you can’t go alone. Especially if you’re going to be telling Klaus you can get him more of Elena’s blood.”
“What so should we do this over the phone?”
“Maybe? It might be safer.” Bonnie says.
“I think it would project weakness, doing it over the phone.”
Elena interrupts, “How about you go in to negotiate with me and Bonnie outside, and if it starts going badly then me and Bonnie attack enough for you to get away.”
“He’ll hear you from inside.” Caroline says.
“We can stay in the car. Attack from out there. Bonnie can be the get away driver and I can make him choke on dirt.”
“Fine, but first you have to try to attack me from down here while I’m upstairs. If it works then we go with it.” Caroline’s running up the stairs before Elena can respond.
Bonnie turns to Elena. “Are you able to sense people? That seems like it would be a good starting point for a long distance attack.”
Elena shrugs. “I can try.” She closes her eyes, focuses on the sound of Bonnie’s breathing. Elena listens and the whispering comes back, slowly, incrementally getting louder. It’s too indistinct to hear but Elena is drawn to it anyways, trying to figure out if there is a pattern or some reason to the voices.
Elena stands there, listening. The whispers are more than voices. There is a weight to them, Elena feels their weight on her shoulders, hears the space they do not occupy in the shape of Bonnie. But that's easy Elena can hear Bonnie breathing, feel the hole in her heart where all the things she has lost tore away pieces.
And then it's simple. Elena looks for the place where Caroline loves and hates her dad, and she finds a chasm in the shape of her. Elena sticks her fingers in the living wound of her friend, gently at first. Easing her way into the fear and grief and resentment that is already there. She opens her eyes, looks at Bonnie waiting, and pulls.
Caroline's scream echoes throughout the witch house five seconds later. Elena and Bonnie make eye contact before they both run for the stairs.
Upstairs they find Caroline hunched over on her knees, tears streaming down her face and a pile of dirt next to her.
Caroline’s eyes are sharp even as she cries with shuddering breaths. “This might actually work.” She says.