What's At Stake, Part Fourteen

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PART FOURTEEN.  Or:  "How Elijah Got His Groove Back."  I can't believe there is only ONE MORE week until the next new episode.  I need to finish this before then.  Eek!
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"Is... that even possible?" Elena asked, into the silence following Isobel's revelation.


Isobel pulled a tablet-style computer out of the bag she carried. "It is if all of these connections are correct." She tapped some keys on the pad and then held it up. The words weren't legible from that distance, but Elijah could see that it was a family tree. He held his hand out for it; Isobel passed it to Elena, who passed it to him.

"It's about time you showed up," Katerina told Isobel.

Isobel shrugged diffidently. "You wanted a 'show and tell,' didn't you? It took a little while to put it together." She looked over at Alaric who, after glaring at her for a moment, got up and stalked out of the room.

"Wait. I thought vampires couldn't... you know, have kids. Is it different with Originals?" Caroline asked.

"Klaus had a family before he turned," Elijah said absently, scrolling down through the lengthy chart.

Bonnie shifted positions on the couch, drawing her legs up under her. "He wasn't one of the ones who killed their families, then?"

"They had fled by the time we returned from Edington. They must have been frightened when he returned the first time.” Elijah focused on a particular section of the tree and enlarged it. "Right here – you have two names in this block. That would have been Klaus's great-grandson. Was there some question as whether he was actually the sire of these children?"

Isobel came and looked over his shoulder. "No, it’s the same person. There was an adoption." She pointed to the square above it. "He died during the passage through the Balkans – what would have been known as Haemon Mons then. The next spring, she married this man," she pointed to another box, off to the side with a dotted border. "That's where the Petrova name came from."

Andie stretched in her chair to peer over the edge of the pad. "Does the Mormon Church know about you? 'Cause you are seriously kicking ancestry.com's ass right now."

"What was that you were saying about 'substantiation,' Elijah?" Katerina asked, coming to stand beside Isobel and glance over the tablet.

Elijah handed the computer back to Isobel and turned away from the two women, toward the fireplace. "This genealogy spans 1100 years. It's quite a stretch to think you can be accurate going back that far."

"It helps when you have access to resources most genealogists don't." She fiddled with the tablet some more, then held it out to Elijah again. This time there was an extensive list of resources she had used, including some that Elijah recognized from their inclusion in his own database, as well as from sorting through Slater's research.

"So, if this is true," Damon said, looking at Katerina with a huge cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, "Then that means that you..." he stopped, chuckled. "That you and your great, great, great, great – well, your really great grandfather – "

Stefan cut him off. "I think we get the point, Damon."

"Or maybe he wasn't really that great, if you know what I mean, and I think you do." Damon waggled his eyebrows at Katerina in a lewd manner. "You did run away from him, after all." Katerina rolled her eyes and ignored him.

Caroline draped her legs up over the arm of the couch. "I think I speak for all of us when I say: eww!"

"Did... did Irina have children?" Elena asked, peering at Elijah hesitantly.

Elijah looked up from the tablet and shook his head. "No. She had a younger sister and brother, however. They both married and had children. According to this, Katerina came down from Grigor, which is logical as her family retained the Petrova name." Elijah passed it back to Isobel again and went to pour himself a drink, more to give himself something to do with his hands and to take a moment than because he really wanted it.

Lengthy bibliography notwithstanding, the chances of a family tree charting correctly out to that many generations was highly improbable. He was afraid, though, that it was all beginning to make a sick sort of sense. If Katerina's supposition was based off of that genealogy, then her theory was perhaps not as far-fetched as he had wanted to believe it was. If the blood connection truly did exist between Klaus and Irina, then her use as the ritual sacrifice was likely not mere coincidence. And if that was the case, it meant that the man whom he had once called 'friend,' the man whom he had served for the better part of a millennium, had been responsible for the death of the woman he had loved. He dug forefinger and thumb into his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. He was starting to wish he were back in the basement with the dagger in his heart.

"You lost me," Bonnie said, shaking her head. "How does this person being related to Klaus mean that he had anything to do with the curse spell?"

Andie tucked one foot under her. "Well... if we want to go with the theory that he knew of the relation, and that he set her up to be used... maybe there was an object, or some sort of energy he wanted bound to him?"

"You can do that?"

"Sure. You can bind anything to anything if you have the right ingredients. And the skill to do it. As I said, not my area of expertise. I wouldn't... hey!" Andie snapped her fingers. "That's why he wanted Greta Martin! That is her area."

Elijah frowned. "Jonas's as well."

"Makes sense. These things tend to follow family lines."

Jeremy leaned back and oh-so-casually draped his arm across Bonnie's shoulders. "Wait, witches can only do certain types of magic?"

"There is usually one area that we're stronger in, that comes naturally to us," Andie confirmed.

"Why the sacrifice, though?" Bonnie shifted again so she was sitting cross-legged, grabbing a throw pillow to put on her lap and dislodging Jeremy's arm. "Why couldn't he use his own blood?"

"Life-Death dichotomy."

"The whose-in-the-what now?" Damon asked.

"Magic and nature are all about balance and dualities," Andie explained. "In magical terms, Klaus's blood is 'dead.' It isn't a natural life-force that animates him, it's a form of death magic. To bind him to something, you would need to balance that out with life energy. It's the same reason that the doppelganger has to be human, alive. When Katherine vamped herself, she took herself out of the running." She turned to glance at Katerina. "Nice move, by the way."

"Thank you. I'm glad someone appreciates it."

Caroline got up and grabbed one of the bags of chips. "If this spell-thingy was supposed to be all about Klaus, how did the werewolves get mixed up in it? I mean, where'd that come from?" she asked, between mouthfuls. "Seems kinda random."

Everyone turned to look at Elijah. As if I have all the answers. "I have no idea. If we're accepting the theory that Klaus was gathering the ritual for another purpose, the werewolf element could have been a last minute addition on the part of the spellcasters when they decided to change the plan, seeing an opportunity to curse both sets."

Since the discussion was showing a frustrating tendency to yield more questions than it did answers, the group en masse followed Caroline's lead in taking a break, getting up to grab snacks, refill beverages, and make bathroom trips. Damon left the room; a few moments later, Elijah could hear him and Alaric talking in low voices across the hall, in the library. He took advantage of the lull in activity to check his text messages from those whom he had sent on errands earlier in the day, looking for one text in particular. Satisfied, he pocketed his phone again.

Every now and then, when he looked up, he'd catch Elena looking at him, her expression fluctuating between speculation, trepidation, and compassion, so it came as no surprise when she took advantage of Stefan's momentary attention elsewhere to slip over to him. Not quite sure what to say when she got there, she fidgeted with her glass of soda for a few moments before saying, quietly, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

No need for him to ask to what she referred. "Why would you have?"

"I know. It's just... Did – "

"Elena."

"Hmm?"

"We will not be having this conversation.”

"Right. Okay." To the relief of both of them, Bonnie motioned Elena over on some pretext or other. Shortly thereafter, Damon returned, Alaric in tow. The latter resumed his seat, pointedly ignoring Isobel. Elijah gave himself a mental head-slap as it finally occurred to him the relation between the two. No wonder Alaric and John Gilbert had loathed one another. He had feared it was perhaps over Jenna, though Jenna certainly didn't seem to have any use for Gilbert either.

Snacks and beverages seen to, everyone started drifting back to their seats. It was getting late, and they were starting to look a little ragged around the edges. Elena had her head on Stefan's shoulder. Caroline eschewed the sofa in favor of the floor, stretching out on her side with her head propped up on one hand. Bonnie half slumped against Jeremy. Even Andie was winding down. He could relate. Feeding was soon going to become an imperative.

"What about the other Originals?" Stefan asked into the silence. "Where are they? Would any of them help against Klaus? I know you said that none of you are as powerful as him, but if all twelve of you worked together..."

Elijah shook his head. "Most broke with Klaus long ago. They're scattered all over the world."

"But you must know where they are, some of them anyway."

"Even if I do, they won't come. They've washed their hands of Klaus. They won't want to get pulled back in."

"Besides," Isobel put in, sitting down on the floor in front of Katerina's chair. "There aren't twelve anymore. Three are dead."

"I thought we had already established that they can't be killed." Alaric spoke up at last, sending a pointed look Elijah's way.

"The one white oak, Ric," Isobel told him. "How do you think it was discovered that it could kill an Original?"

"It doesn't; not permanently, anyway."

"The ash doesn't, no. But when the tree was alive, a stake from it would."

Andie nodded in agreement. "Life-death."

Elena rubbed a hand over her eyes, stifling a yawn. "I thought that was for binding."

Bonnie sat upright, suddenly alert. "Same principle applies across the board," she said. "The tree was part of the ritual that turned the Originals; as such it bound the death magic that animates them." She stared intently at Elijah as she spoke, her affect strange, her voice low and odd.

Jeremy looked at her, concerned. "Bonnie? You okay?"

"Take that same life energy and thrust it into the death magic, that magic is disrupted."

Elena sat up straight, looking worried. "Bon?"

"The death magic, Elijah. Disrupt the magic that animates him, and you can kill him."

"Okay, now you're starting to freak us out," Caroline said, sitting up.

Elijah walked over to stand in front of the girl, eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. He grasped her shoulders. "Jonas?"

"What?!" Elena got off the couch and came over to stand beside Elijah. "Bonnie? What's happening? Are you okay?"

Elijah held up a hand to silence her. "Is that you?"

Bonnie reached up and grabbed Elijah's hands firmly. "If he starts the ritual, he absorbs life magic from it; that's gonna disrupt his own death magic and weaken him. Strike him then, and you can kill him, Elijah." Her grip on his hand tightened until her knuckles turned white. "Do you understand?"

He squeezed the girl’s shoulders. "Yes. I understand."

Bonnie gave him a brisk nod; a moment later, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed against Jeremy.

"Bonnie!" Jeremy patted her face, trying to wake her, then whirled on Elijah angrily. "What the hell?!"

"I think we just figured out what her specialty is," Andie said. "She's a channeler."

Bonnie stirred and sat up, putting a hand to the side of her head. Looking around, she noticed everyone staring at her. "What happened?" she asked. "Did I fall asleep?"

Jeremy pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back awkwardly, looking a little embarrassed. "What's going on?"

"You don't remember?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "No."

Andie rolled her eyes and stepped over, sitting on Bonnie's other side. "You were channeling," she said, matter-of-factly. "Have you ever done that before?"

"She has," Elena said. "Her ancestor, Emily."

"Wait, Emily came back?" Bonnie asked, pushing away from Jeremy and sitting upright.

"Uh, no," Elena said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "You were, um, channeling Jonas Martin."

Caroline winced up at Bonnie. "Aaawk-ward..."

Bonnie absorbed that news. "Okay... Well, that's a little freaky."

Caroline nodded. "Ahuh, yeah. Way freaky."

Damon sighed and stood up, stretching. "So, basically, to sum up: we can't just sneak up and kill Klaus; we have to make a show out of this ritual thing that involves some arcane, life-and-death magical vampire hoo-doo bullshit that I'm not even going to try and recap; and finally, we can't recruit the other Originals to help, because they're overcome with ennui or something, and would only add up to three-quarters of Klaus's power anyway."

Elijah shook his head. "No, if we all combined we would equal him,” he said off-hand. “When the others were killed whatever power they held dispersed amongst the rest of the twelve. But the point is moot, they won't – "

The realization hit him so hard it almost literally bowled him over. He turned and put his hands
on the mantle for support, breathing deeply as he stared into the fire, seeing all of the implications start to coalesce into a coherent picture. Klaus’s decision to burn the oak to the ground, after staking Gerhard with a piece of it and realizing that Gerhard’s power had transferred to the others. Klaus’s injunction against one Original killing another. Klaus’s insistence that they remain in the village where he had discovered Irina. The amount of time he had spent with the witches and their caravan. The vampire, the werewolf, the sacrifice of Klaus's living blood – and a ritual constructed to bind it all...

To him!

"The devious, megalomaniacal son of a bitch," he breathed.

“Is he having an episode?” Caroline whispered to someone.

“Something you want to share with the class?” Andie asked.

Elijah straightened, shrugging off his recent doubts as his accustomed air of command settled across his shoulders, warm and comfortable as an old cloak. True, he may not have been the fiery, charismatic leader that Klaus was; but he had, after all, been the architect of most of Klaus’s victories. How many times had it been he, behind closed doors, explaining strategy to Klaus? You don’t take your troops to where the enemy is. You take them to where he’s going to be. Defeat your foes not by chasing them, but by knowing what it is that they want.

Despite the ridiculous amount of power he already possessed, Klaus wanted dominion over everyone else’s too. Katerina had been right; Klaus didn’t give a good goddamn about breaking the curse. He just wanted the energy of the vampires and the werewolves unbound from the moonstone so that he could take it, control it, feed off of it, use it to his own twisted ends. He wanted to own it all. He turned slowly back toward the room, smiling.

I have you, you bastard.

“Damon: Klaus cannot – cannot – gain possession of the moonstone. I’ll be taking it with me.”

“Like I would give it to him?” Damon scoffed.

“Klaus can compel you. He can’t compel me.”

Damon looked very pleased with himself. “Even if I’ve been ingesting vervain?”

“Yes, even if,” he confirmed, wiping the smug grin off of Damon’s face with a quickness. “Go and get it.” The younger vampire sat still, defiant. Elijah started gathering himself for a battle of wills. Seated near Bonnie, Andie cleared her throat softly. He glanced down her way; she lifted one eloquent eyebrow at him, and waited. He sighed inwardly, giving her an almost imperceptible nod, then consciously released the tension coiling in his muscles and his mind. “It’s important, Damon,” he said quietly. “Please.”

Damon held for several beats, perplexed and perhaps surprised by the sudden absence of force against which to struggle. Evidently having made a decision, he slipped the moonstone from his pocket and handed it to Elijah. Reluctantly.

“Thank you.” He slid the rock into his own pocket and turned back to Andie. “You have just over a week. Work with Bonnie. I know it’s not your specialty, but whatever you can teach her will be useful. The more she’s able to channel Jonas, the more we may benefit from his expertise.”

Bonnie looked dubious; Andie reached over and grasped her hand briefly, smiling reassuringly. “It’ll be fine.”

“Jeremy: Meet me here tomorrow after school. We haven’t time for comprehensive training, of course, but we can at least work on the basics of close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat.”

“Really?” Jeremy said, enthusiastic. “Awesome!”

“Elena,” Elijah said, cutting off her imminent protest. “Make certain no one is invited into the house. Klaus will send you gifts, some with implicit threats, some may have explicit threats. Ignore them. He’ll want to mess with your mind, throw you off guard. Do not let him. Try not to move about overmuch without myself or one of the Salvatores with you.”

“You should stay here,” Stefan told her.

Elijah nixed that idea immediately. “No. Elena’s home has a threshold. Yours does not. It would perhaps be a good idea if you were to stay with her there, however, Stefan.

“Alaric: If you’ll join Jeremy and myself tomorrow, we can review your weapons cache to see what, if anything, may prove useful.

“Isobel: Since you’ve demonstrated a flare for it, I’d like to ask that you research the current status of the location where the transformation rituals took place. I will text you the GPS coordinates later this evening, once I work them out.

“Damon: Day after tomorrow, you and I will go and survey the burial ground and figure out our set-up. That evening, we should all meet here again to strategize for the ritual.

“I want cell numbers from everyone. Phones stay on at all times. If anything happens, even something that you feel may not be of much import at the time, you call me. Immediately. Is everyone clear?”

“No instructions for me?” Katerina said, with her usual amount of sarcasm.

“Would there be any point?” He asked, in kind.

Caroline half-raised her hand. “Um, what should I do?”

“Stay out of the way,” Damon told her.

Elijah took a moment to consider her. “I have an idea. Come with Jeremy and Alaric tomorrow. We can discuss it then.” The blonde looked pleased to be included. Damon rolled is eyes. Elijah surveyed the room. “Given the hour, I think we should adjourn for the evening. Andie, I assume you have pen and paper handy. Phone numbers, everyone.” Then, with a nod to her, he wrote his own number on the whiteboard, making her smile.

Their information duly recorded, everyone started filing out. Alaric was first out the door, seemingly happy to get as far and as fast away from Isobel as possible. Stefan left to take Elena home; Bonnie, Jeremy and Caroline went out together; they were sharing a ride. Damon slunk off into the library. Andie looked on the verge of following him, but changed her mind.

“Thank you,” Elijah told her. “For your suggestion,” he clarified when she looked at him blankly. “It was productive, opening the floor up to the group, as it were.” Something Klaus had certainly never done.

She acknowledged the thanks with a nod. “Do you need a ride somewhere? I can drop you off.”

Elijah shook his head. “I have a vehicle waiting outside for me. It was delivered earlier.”

She looked impressed. “Well, that’s handy. Guess it’s good to be the king.”

“No,” he said, smiling as he helped her into her coat. “Just the general.”

“Um, okay…”

He bid her goodnight and would have followed her out the door, but an idea struck him. He hesitated in the doorway, thought about it, discarded it. Thought about it again. Wavered…

Turning back around, he poked his head into the library. “Damon. I’m going out for a drink. Join me?”

Damon held up the half-full tumbler he had in his hand. “Plenty of booze here. Help yourself.”

“That… wasn’t what I meant.”

One eyebrow shot up, joined by the other a moment later as he caught Elijah’s meaning. “Oh. Uh…”

Elijah turned, motioning for him to follow. “Come. There’s something I want to show you.”

Damon set his glass down and stood. “Hey, no offense, but you’re not exactly my type. I mean, I know we’re ‘growing close’ and all, but…”

He rolled his eyes as he waited for Damon to pass him, heading out the front door. “Not that close.”

What's At Stake, Part Thirteen

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0_0


Oh my @#$%ing GOD, you guys. Writing this scene was pure hell. I started out all “I hope this kicks ass!” and ended at “Gee, I hope it doesn’t totally SUCK ass.” The hardest part is being able to see the scene completely – facial expressions, hearing the line delivery – and not being able to quite describe that. You may have to fill in with your imagination to hear how the actors would read the lines.


Another difficulty is with the Curse. As “explained” on the show, it makes no damn sense whatsoever. Consequently, warning: full-scale fanwankery ahead.


Damn. I need a drink. And some chocolate. And maybe some therapeutic re-viewing of all the Elijah scenes…

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When Elijah let himself in the back door, he could hear the heated discussion taking place in the next room.

"This is bullshit, Elena!"

"We're trying this my way. Whether anyone likes it or not, we all need to work together if we're going to have any chance against Klaus."

"We can at least hear him out, Damon," Stefan said, his tone going reasonable, in direct proportion to Damon's outrage.

"First Katherine, and now you want to trust Elijah? Yes, Stefan. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Speaking of Katerina," Elijah said from the doorway, "She will need a little care and feeding before joining us in conversation." All three turned to look at him, various stages of puzzlement on their faces.

"Uh, why, exactly?" Damon asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I snapped her spine earlier."

Damon gave him a surprised and approving look, much like when he'd been ripping out werewolf hearts. "Nice!"

"Without feeding, it will be a few hours yet before she's mobile. I hate to have to repeat myself,” he said, in a bored, off-hand way. “I assume you have a supply somewhere?"

"I've got it." Stefan flashed his brother a look of consternation, then headed for the basement door. Elena watched him go, her expression unreadable. Interesting, he thought.

Any further conversation was forestalled by a perfunctory knock on the door, followed by voices in the foyer. The three of them moved into the big living room, where Alaric had just been joined by three youngsters: Elena's brother Jeremy, Bonnie Bennett, and a young, blonde vampire by the name of Caroline Forbes, whom Elijah hadn't met yet. The first two froze when they saw Elijah. Jeremy moved a step ahead of the Bennett girl, who was starting to look terrified. Elijah realized he was glaring at her and looked away.

The blonde looked from them to Damon and Elena, a finger pointing at Elijah. "Wasn't he...?"

"He got over it," Elena non-explained.

"Hey, is someone throwing me a surprise party?” Damon asked, looking around at everyone. “Because I’m surprised. Why is everyone here?"

Bonnie looked puzzled. "You sent a message saying to meet you here."

"No, I didn't."

The three of them looked at one another in confusion. "Actually," Alaric broke in, "I got the same message. I assumed you had found something you wanted to share."

Just then, the front door opened again, and Andie came through carrying four large pizzas and a bag containing soda, chips, plates and whatnot. "Good, looks like everyone is here. Little help!" she called.

Alaric shot Damon a 'what the hell?' look, which was answered by a "no freaking clue!' look. Alaric stepped forward to take the pizzas.

Damon went over and took the bag from her, setting it on the floor. "Andie! I didn’t know you were coming over," he said, with false cheer, which he dropped immediately. "Why are you here?"

Andie gave him a peck on the cheek and took off her coat. "I called a meeting."

Damon looked at her like she'd sprouted tits on her forehead. Elijah saw him try and catch her eyes to compel her as he grabbed her arm. "Why are you here?"

"I just told you." Andie pulled her arm free and carried the bag in to set beside the pizzas. "Better eat up, guys. It's going to be a long night." She opened each of the boxes to display the topping options. When she glanced up and noticed Damon's look of irritated confusion, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "'Cliff's Notes' version?" She began ticking each point off on her fingers. "Witch, spy for Klaus, defected, gave Elijah a daggerectomy, big planning pow-wow, then we go kick Klaus's ass. All caught up now?"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and gaped. The blonde vampire tilted her head to the side. "So… if you’re a witch, then you can’t be compelled, right?" she asked.

With a snarl, Damon leapt at Andie at vamp-speed, only to draw up short a few inches away from her, yelling and clutching at his head as he doubled over in pain. Andie smoothed a hand over his hair. "Not tonight, sweetie. You have a headache." With that, she moved away to let him collect himself, and gestured toward the food. "Dig in, everyone."

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Reasonably assured that Andie could handle herself with regard to Damon, Elijah retreated to the library while they ate. Food wasn't an option at this point; the blood he'd taken upon reviving had been the barest minimum to get him going. He toyed with the idea of helping himself to the blood cache, foul as it was, but rejected the idea. He could wait a few hours yet, and stop for a drink when he left.

Edgy, he paced the room, giving each shelf only a cursory glance before moving on to the next, fidgeting with knick-knacks tucked here and there amongst the old books. Removing himself from the living room had allowed the others the illusion that he was unaware of their conversation. From the gist of some of those discussions, it was clear that he would have his work cut out for him if this ragtag bunch of clashing agendas were to coalesce into a cohesive unit, focused on one common goal.

It was not by accident that Elijah had become Klaus's right hand through the centuries. General to Klaus's king, he had demonstrated a marked talent for strategy and for choosing the right people to put in any given situation, with a couple of notable exceptions; Trevor sprang immediately to mind. But though the planning and execution of battle strategies and schemes had been his bailiwick, it had always been Klaus who had fired the men's spirits and imagination, who had rallied the troops and pointed all of their heads in the right direction to begin with. Klaus had that electric charisma that made him the natural and de facto leader. It was power, and it was very personal, having naught to do with any vampiric abilities and everything to do with the sheer force of his personality. Lacking that, Elijah needed to find some other way to harness the people in the other room and get them moving in step.

Elijah looked up as Damon sulked into the room, pulling up short when he realized it was already occupied. The discovery didn’t appear to improve his mood at all. “Girlfriend trouble?” Elijah asked, innocently.

“Yeah. She’s a real ‘witch’,” he shot back. Opening the liquor cabinet, he removed a decanter of something, whiskey judging by the scent. He seemed to debate the use of a tumbler, then opted to drink straight from the bottle. Elijah couldn’t say he blamed him.

“So, do you use an accountant, or should I send the bill for my new car directly to you?”

Damon held his arms out in a ‘bring it’ gesture, the decanter gripped in one hand. “Absolutely! Send it. I’ll be sure to file it appropriately.” He tapped his foot against the small trash can placed discreetly next to the cabinet. “Cost of doing business. If you can’t pay, don’t play.” He raised the decanter in a mock salute and took another long drink.

“You know, Damon,” he said, running his fingers idly over the banister as he paced, “You have potential. It would be a shame to see it quashed prematurely because you don’t know when to stop playing the inveterate smart-ass.”

“Who’s playing?” he asked, his smile cocky. “Is that a threat?”

“Merely an observation. Assuming that we’re both still alive, we should explore this topic further, after… Well, after.”

Damon snorted. “You’ve got the wrong brother, man. The “Good One” is in the other room. I’m the screw-up.”

Elijah leaned back against one of the bookcases, crossing his arms and his ankles, and studied the younger vampire. “Yes, the two of you do seem to have an inordinate amount of energy invested in playing those roles,” he said at length. “It makes one wonder what you might accomplish if you stepped out of them.” He heard stirring and the sounds of dishes being collected in the other room. “I guess it’s time.” He stepped out of the library, leaving Damon looking perplexed and suspicious. And thoughtful.

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By the time everyone who was so inclined had finished eating, Katerina and Stefan had made their way downstairs, the former looking just a bit unsteady but otherwise none the worse for wear. She met Elijah’s smile with a glare, but wisely remained silent, settling herself into one of the overstuffed chairs. Damon followed him in and joined Stefan and Elena on one of the couches. Elena's brother, the Bennett witch, and the blonde sat on the other. Alaric and Andie had pulled in a couple of leather chairs from another room in the house.

Someone, probably Andie, had set up a white board on an easel in front of the fireplace, complete with eraser and markers. He took a moment to appreciate the absurdity of it. What was he to do, create a flowchart of actions they might take, culminating in a pictograph of a dagger stabbing a fanged stick-person?

Nevertheless, he took center stage and looked everyone into silence. “I think we all know why we’re here,” he began. “But to summarize, Klaus, the first and most powerful of the Originals, is on his way to Mystic Falls, if he's not here already. He knows about the doppelganger and will try to sacrifice her to break the Sun and Moon curse.”

"That Mayan curse that makes werewolves turn at the full moon and keeps vampires out of the sun?" the blonde asked.

“Only the stupid ones,” Damon scoffed.

Elijah shook his head. "I don't know how the notion that the curse was of Mayan origin came into being. Someone clearly mistranslated something along the way. Someone with an exceedingly poor grasp on geography. Anyhow, since we all share a common desire to destroy Klaus, it would seem that we should stop working at cross purposes and..." he glanced over at Andie, who gave him an encouraging look. "Collaborate."

Jeremy sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Look, not to be rude, but I just want my sister to be safe. I don't really care about this Klaus guy."

"You should," Andie interjected. "Because if he has his way, no one is going to be safe."

"You mean if he breaks the curse?" Bonnie asked.

"That would make it worse, yes, but he's doing enough damage as it is even with the curse in place," Elijah answered.

"What do you mean?" Stefan asked.

Andie answered. "The stock market? New Orleans? Haiti? New Zealand? Japan?"

"Wait, what? Those were natural disasters. Well, not the stock market, but the other stuff," Caroline said.

"'Natural' in that they involved elements of nature, but 'nature' got a little helping hand, courtesy of the witches Klaus has chained to his service," Elijah followed up.

"You're saying a witch can cause a hurricane, or an earthquake? Is that even possible?" Bonnie looked doubtful.

"Not one witch by him or herself, no. But lots of witches, working in tandem? Yeah. It's more than possible, it's what happened,” Andie confirmed. “I know a lot of the people involved. None of them did it willingly.”

"Then why are they working for Klaus? Why were you?" Damon asked. "For that matter, why should we trust anything you say now? How do we know you’re not still spying for him?"

"Klaus can always find leverage to use against people. Don't do what he says, someone you love dies. How creatively depends on his particular mood that day.” Andie leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Trust me, none of us wanted to be there."

"Klaus would like nothing better than to plunge the world back into the Dark Ages," Elijah warned. "When I say that there is more at stake here than Elena's safety, I mean that everything is at stake."

Stefan cleared his throat. "You Originals seem pretty hard to kill. Is it even possible to kill Klaus?"

Caroline raised her hand momentarily. As though remembering suddenly that she wasn't in school, she dropped it with a little blush. "Um, this 'Original' thing. What exactly does that mean? Were you, like, born a vampire or something?"

Damon shot her a perturbed look. "Your mouth is moving, sound is coming out... Not good." He turned back to Elijah. "Ignore Vampire Barbie. We all do."

Elena smacked him across the arm. "Don't be an ass."

"No, it's a valid question," Alaric said, nodding toward Caroline, who shot Damon a "so there!" look.

"One which would take some time to answer in full," Elijah warned.

Damon shrugged, looking around the room. "Anyone have a hot date?"

Andie looked over at him. "Not you."

Rather than waste time arguing about it, Elijah plowed ahead. "Short version, the Originals became vampires through a magical ritual. They weren’t turned by other vampires."

"Why?" Caroline asked, her tone implying that she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be a vampire.

Elijah sighed. "How well do you know your world history?" He asked, then glanced over at Alaric. “I’ll surmise not very well. Okay." He took a moment to figure out how much detail to go into. "During the latter part of the 6th and through the 7th centuries, Britain and northern Europe were plagued by warfare, both amongst ourselves and at the hands of Viking marauders. For – ”

Andie cut in with a stage-whisper, gesturing toward the whiteboard. “Ooh, you should… there are markers there. Why don’t you…” She trailed off as Elijah stared at her, nonplused. “You know what? Nevermind. Just…” She rolled her hands in a ‘please continue’ gesture.

Elijah cleared his throat. “For the first half of the 7th century, the Viking attacks came mostly in the form of individual raids, where they would strike and withdraw. But in 860, they mounted a full-scale invasion into England. By 865 they had an enlarged army that became entrenched, rather than withdrawing after battle. In 867 they toppled the kingdom of Northumbria. East Anglia fell to them in 869, and by 877 we had lost Mercia as well. Those of us who survived and escaped enslavement were pushed into the Kingdom of Wessex. That's where I met Klaus.”

Caroline piped up. “You’re English? I wondered, but the accent’s kind of off – ”

Damon glowered at her. “Stop talking.”

Elijah ignored the exchange. “Christianity had more of less taken hold in England well before then, but there were still underground pockets of the older religions and practices. Though a nobleman in King Alfred’s court, Klaus belonged to one of those sects. And when the Norse army turned toward Wessex, he proposed the wild idea of transforming some of our soldiers into what I suppose you would call super-soldiers, through some kind of quasi-religious, magical ritual. We dismissed the idea as madness. Until he went away, and came back transformed.

“The change was unfathomable. His strength and speed had been multiplied by a hundred-fold. Heightened senses… the ability to bend the mind of others to his will… he was the ultimate warrior. After that demonstration, some of us were persuaded to undergo the same ritual.”

“Is that why he is stronger than you? Because he was first?” Caroline asked, then shrugged at Damon when he gave her The Look. “What?”

“No, not precisely. He was the only one to undergo the ritual the first time. The second time, there were twelve of us. The ritual was the same, and produced the same output of power, but this time it was siphoned into twelve people rather than just one. So though we all received the same abilities, each of us on our own had only about a twelfth of the power and strength that Klaus had." Damon and Stefan exchanged a look that Elijah translated roughly as 'fuck!'

"If it made you so powerful, why didn't more people do the same thing?" Jeremy asked.

“When we were no longer in the heat of battle, when we returned home to our families, it started to become clear just what we had become. Bloodlust was understandable during battle, natural even. But it didn't subside once we were back home. If anything, it grew worse. We became as much of a scourge on our own people as the raiders had been. The very people whom we had fought to protect were terrified of us, and rightly so. Many of us killed members of our own families; some killed their entire families in a fit of bloodlust.” He pushed certain memories that rose unbidden back down, into the past, where they belonged. “Convinced that we had been possessed by demons, they tried to destroy us. We fled. Not to preserve our own lives. To preserve theirs.”

“So you left and started making other vampires?” Bonnie asked.

“That was an accidental discovery. One of our ranks was bitten by his victim as he fought. With the ingestion of the blood, his wounds quickly healed. We realized that we could heal as well as kill. Then one of those who had been healed died through some misfortune, but awoke, thirsting for blood. Once he fed that thirst, he turned. Some started turning their own little cadres of vampires; the new ones weren’t as strong, and they could be killed by the methods you’re all familiar with, unlike us. But they were useful, all the same.”

“So… what you’re saying is, we can’t kill Klaus. He can’t die.” Stefan pointed out, boiling it down and bringing the discussion back on point.

"Jonas and I theorized that it might be possible to kill him if he were to be weakened first. The thought was to strike during the course of the sacrifice, as that would weaken him, but with the power available at the burial ground, we may be able to draw enough power for a magical assault that will do the same. If we can achieve such a weakened state, it's possible that he can be killed via the same methods that would kill a normal vampire."

“But you don’t know that for sure,” Alaric pointed out.

“No,” Elijah conceded, reluctantly. “Not for sure.”

"If we have the dagger, why wait and take a chance on a ritual gathering? Why not just attack him before then, take him out?" Damon asked.

Elijah shook his head. "The dagger will kill any vampire who uses it, and no human is going to be able to attack and kill him with it. It won't work."

"It worked on you. Twice. In one day," Alaric said, looking just a little bit smug.

Elijah narrowed his eyes at him. "Yes, an interesting point, ‘Ric.’ Perhaps we should get together for a drink afterward and discuss it."

"What about using the dagger during the ritual?" Elena asked.

"Best to keep it as a back-up plan,” he decided. “Any human who tries to get close enough to wield it will be in very grave danger."

"I can do it," Jeremy volunteered.

"No!" Elena shook her head vehemently.

"I've got the ring. If I fail the first time, I get a do-over."

"No, Jeremy. I don't want you anywhere near there if we go through with this."

"I'm not some little kid, Elena! You don't need to protect me."

"Jer – "

"Wait. What are you talking about?" Elijah asked, not following.

Jeremy held up his hand. "This ring. It protects whoever is wearing it from dying because of something supernatural." He stopped and thought a moment. "Could... Could Elena wear it, to keep from being sacrificed?"

Elijah thought a moment. "Doubtful. Klaus would no doubt remove any jewelry if given the opportunity, on the off chance that it might interfere with his success."

"So I go in wearing it then."

"Forget it, Jeremy!"

"Elena, his suggestion has some merit. It’s worth considering." Elijah looked the boy over, taking his measure. He was strong and fit, at least. There wasn't much time, but he could be taught some basic moves…

"No. No, no, no! I don't want anyone else dragged into this! He’s just a kid." Elena crossed her arms, stubborn.

"I'm less than two years younger than you!"

"You know," Elijah interjected, "this notion of prolonged adolescence is rather a modern conceit. At his age, I was already a seasoned warrior.”

“I’m assuming we don’t want to actually break the curse, right? That's not on the table?” Bonnie broke in, changing the subject.

“No.”

“But if we don’t break it, won’t someone else just try? Won’t they keep coming for Elena?” Stefan asked. “What if we can destroy the moonstone? That way no one else can break the curse either.”

"Andie?" Elijah turned the floor over to her.

“This kind of magic isn’t really my forte, but basically, there are two ways it could go, depending on how the original ritual was constructed when it set the curse in place. The first possibility is that when the stone that binds the curse is destroyed, the curse is destroyed along with it, since there is nothing left to bind it. The other possibility is that by destroying the stone, the curse becomes permanent.”

"How do we figure out which?" Caroline asked.

"I'm not sure we really can." Andie looked at Elijah. "How much do you know about the ritual?"

"Not enough."

Katerina leaned forward in her chair, entering the conversation for the first time. "There may be even more to it than that. Some of us have a theory that Klaus was the one that set the ritual in motion."

"A theory for which you have no substantiation," Elijah said shortly, wondering where exactly he had lost all semblance of control over this meeting.

"I'm working on that. Anyway, if that's the case, then there has to be something else that happens if the curse is broken, something we're not seeing. The curse isn't a problem for Klaus, nor for most of us with half a clue. There has to be some other reason he wants to break it, something that dates back to what happened, or what didn't happen, the first time." She looked from Bonnie to Andie. "Witches. So tricky."

"Why do you think there's more to it?" Elena asked, frowning.

Katerina shrugged. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"That's pure conjecture," Elijah snapped, impatient to get on with it.

"That you don't want to entertain because of Irina Petrova. Do you really think Klaus would hesitate to use her because of her connection to you? We're talking about Klaus. He may have engineered her use just because she was yours."

Elena's eyes snapped up to meet his with a start, as the implication of what Katerina had just said set in. Katerina noticed. "What, you didn't know?" she asked Elena, with a wicked sidelong glance at Elijah, daring him to repeat his earlier handling of her in front of the whole group. "We're copies of his dead girlfriend. You more than me, apparently." She put on a fake scandalized look. "She wasn't all slutty like me."

"Jenna Jameson isn't all slutty like you," Damon cut in.

"I didn't hear you complaining when I was being slutty with you," she purred at him.

Caroline raised her eyebrows, twirling a piece of her hair around her finger. “Well this took an awkward turn.”

"Enough." Elijah didn't raise his voice, but the one word cracked through the room like a whip, silencing the discussion. "There was no logical reason to use Irina."

"Actually," a voice drifted in from the foyer, and another woman entered the room. He searched his memory… Isobel Fleming, if he recalled correctly from photos he’d seen. “There was a reason. Irina Petrova was Klaus's..." she counted out on her fingers as she spoke. "Great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter."

What's At Stake, Part Twelve

I'm... not really sure what to say, guys. Elijah's having a rough day, I think, this first day back to life. Hopefully he's gotten the emo out of his system now and is ready to resume being the BAMF we all know and love.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elijah was reading by the fireplace when he heard two vehicles pull into the driveway. He glanced at the grandfather clock: it was only around 3:30 p.m., a little earlier than he had expected Andie to start gathering people. He closed the book and sat quietly, waiting. Three car doors opened and closed, and footsteps crunched on the gravel of the walkway.

“All right, little brother, what’s the big school emergency?” he heard Damon ask. “Not enough streamers for the pep rally? Deciding the theme for prom?”

“Elena had a little surprise in her locker today.”

“Ooh, a rose. Scary!” The front door opened and closed. Elijah heard the clink of keys being tossed into a ceramic dish on the occasional table out there. “Now, a ficus – that would have been truly terrifying.”

“Could you be serious for five minutes, Damon?” Elena said.

“So you have a secret admirer, Elena. Look, there’s no point getting all paranoid about every little – ” Damon cut off abruptly, his eyebrows climbing into his hairline, as he came through the archway and saw Elijah sitting there. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!!” He looked not so much scared as disgustedly incredulous. Elijah almost sympathized with him. Almost.

Elena and Stefan rushed around the corner, Elena’s eyes going wide as she brought her hand to her mouth. Stefan pushed her behind him, a look of consternation on his face. Or maybe constipation; it was hard to tell.

“Let me guess,” Elijah said, standing and sliding his hands into his pockets. “A single white rose, with one thorn featured prominently near the flower? Klaus’s signature.” He smirked when no one said anything. “Hello, Elena.”

Damon stepped to the fore, putting himself between Elijah and the other two. “Let me guess: Katherine?" He turned and speared Stefan with a glare. "I told you the bitch couldn't be trusted.”

Elijah’s smirk widened a little, considering Katherine’s current state as she lay upstairs, mute. “No. We'll get to that later." He approached the group, seeing Damon gather himself for a strike as he drew closer. “Think it through,” he warned, his voice pitched low. He flicked his glance over at Elena. “May I see it? The rose?”

Stefan put his arm out to bar Elena as she moved to step around him, and reached over with the other hand to pluck the rose out of her fingers. He passed it over to Elijah.

Elijah examined the flower. Signature Klaus, all right. “Was there a note?” he asked.

“Klaus’s ‘signature’ is a white rose? Really?” Damon looked over at Stefan. “This is the Big Bad we’re all quivering over? LaAAAame.”

Elena shook her head, ignoring Damon. “No note. Just that.”

“There will be with the next one. Probably in or on your car, the porch of your house. He likes to ramp these things up gradually for maximum effect.”

“Great. Something to look forward to,” Damon said, dismissing the topic. He clapped his hands together, voice filled with faux enthusiasm. “So, who wants to discuss the elephant in the room? Or, the Original, as the case may be.” Damon held his hand up to indicate himself.

Elena pushed Stefan’s arm away and stepped around him. “I want to talk to Elijah. Alone.”

“No.” Stefan shook his head, adamant, at the same time Damon said, “That's not gonna happen!”

“Guys. We handle things my way, remember? You promised.”

Damon crossed his arms and bent down so his face was close to Elena’s. “Not when your way involves you running off – again! – to get yourself killed.”

“Damon’s right, Elena. We’re not leaving you alone with him.”

She ducked around Damon and pressed her hands to Stefan’s chest, whether to placate or to press him back, Elijah wasn’t certain. “If he wants to kill us right now, Stefan, we’ll all be dead. It's not like we can do anything to stop him. I want to talk to him.” Elena turned around to face Elijah.

Damon stepped in front of her again when she started forward. “Elena, I swear to God, I’ll – ”

“Damon.” Stefan shook his head at his brother. “She’s right. There's nothing we can do.”

“So we're supposed to just let her waltz off with him? Screw that!” Damon hissed.

“It’s my decision, Damon. You don't get to make it for me.” Elena pushed her way around him, took another few steps toward Elijah, her arms pulling in across her body in an unconsciously defensive position. She tilted her head in the direction of the hallway leading to the kitchen. Elijah held his hand out in an ‘after you’ gesture. Elena ducked her head down a little as she moved past him. Elijah gave one last warning look at the Salvatore brothers before turning and following her.

Elena stopped in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, arms still crossed in front of her. Elijah raised an eyebrow. “I assume you wanted only the illusion of privacy?”

“Huh?” He pointed to his ear. “Oh. Right.” She shook her head at herself as his meaning sunk in. “Um…”

“Shall we take a walk?”

Elena glanced back toward the hallway, and sighed. “Yeah.” She headed out the back door.

Elijah listened to the heated whispers between the brothers for a moment to assure himself that they didn’t in fact plan to follow, then joined her outside. Elena started down a path that led through neglected gardens, walking slowly, eyes downcast, as though lost in thought. They passed an old stone bench, moss covered and stained with age, a shallow crack running down the middle. Beyond it, the path narrowed and meandered around a copse of fir trees, skirting the boundary between field and woods.

Dead, brown leaves were piled thick here; the crunch of them underfoot sounded extra loud in the silence that grew increasingly charged between them. Elena broke it at last, her voice calm and measured. “You’re probably waiting for me to tell you I’m sorry, for what I did.” She looked up and met his eyes as they walked. “I’m not.”

Elijah wasn’t entirely certain what to say to that. It wasn’t what he had expected as her opening salvo. “Honesty. How refreshing. And brave, all things considered. Should I be frisking you for weapons, now?” he asked, a ghost of amusement flickering over his features.

She ignored the attempt at humor. “I know we had a deal, and that I broke it. You said you’d protect the people that I love, and you did. I know that, too.” She picked up a pine cone as she walked, peeling pieces off as she went. "Although, I never actually said I wouldn't do you any harm, just that I'd stop trying to get myself killed."

"You're playing word games with me?" he asked, incredulous, and just a little bit impressed.

Elena slanted a glance at him, eyebrows raised. "You would know."

Elijah gave a tiny shrug. "All right, I'll concede the point."

Elena discarded what was left of the pine cone and brushed her fingers on her jeans. “I’m not stupid, Elijah. I knew I wasn’t included in the promise of protection. I thought it was enough that my friends and family would be safe; maybe it should have been enough. They were just so angry when they realized, and they kept telling me to fight, and they wouldn’t let it go, and…” She took a deep breath, let it out in a rush. "And I didn't want to die."

They walked in silence some more, until they came to an old stone well. Elijah walked to the edge and peered over, but could see nothing but darkness. He found a smallish stone near the base and dropped it in. He counted five or six seconds before he heard a distant splash at the bottom.

Elena turned back-to the well and put her hands on it, pulling herself up to sit on the edge. “It’s like this big, awful, cosmic joke. Only it’s not funny." She looked down at her fingers while she spoke. "Some witch performs a ritual hundreds of years ago to put a curse on vampires and werewolves, but leaves some kind of crazy, back-door loophole by having copies of a dead girl pop up from time to time? And because of that, I don’t get to be a person. I'm just this... this tool, to be used. And the people close to me, they die, because of me." She tucked her hair behind her ear, in a gesture reminiscent of her aunt. "I thought, if I made the deal with you, that I could stop it; then I thought maybe I could stop it if I fought, too, and then I wouldn’t have to die either." Elijah saw a tear drop onto her jeans, and she wiped her hand across her cheek impatiently. "But people are still dying. And it’s still because of me.” She looked over at him, clearly miserable. “Do you know about… do you know what happened with the Martins?”

He nodded. She feels guilty, he realized suddenly.

“No one wanted that to happen. It shouldn't have happened.” Elena kicked the heel of her foot back against the stone. “It’s my fault, because of what I did. They wanted to bring you back.”

If it had been Katerina before him, he would have taken it all for an act to garner his mercy, and not given it another moment’s thought. Elijah had once thought Elena different, had wanted to believe it, but he’d been burned by that before – when she had suckered him in with the vervain grenade, when she’d driven the dagger through his heart. But he couldn’t deny that she had a certain selflessness, a compassion, a basic… decency that was nothing like Katerina and everything like Irina. The one, he had never wanted anything to do with. The other, he needed to let go of. No more comparisons, he had said. But if he couldn’t weigh the two extremes to see where they balanced on the scale, then how on earth was he supposed to judge her?

As Elena. On her own terms, as her own person. Just Elena.

A breeze blew up, swirling dead leaves around them and sending up a mournful howl through the trees. Elena shivered against it. Elijah realized that she had come outside without her coat, having shed that when she’d entered the house. He slipped his own jacket off, and draped it across her shoulders. With the miniscule amount of blood he’d taken when he woke, he had no borrowed warmth to give her, but it would hold the wind at bay, at least. She pulled it around her, surprised by the gesture.

“Guilt is a burden." He leaned back against the stone, beside her, close but not touching. “I brought Jonas here, convinced him to bring Luka with him, even though he didn’t want to. I wanted him to get close to Bonnie Bennett, to you." Elijah looked up at her, caught her eyes. "You don’t bear this particular burden alone, Elena. We both have a share.”

Elena studied his face, with eyes that seemed so much older than her few short years. A panorama of emotions moved across her expressive features, settling finally at a sad sort of acceptance. She acknowledged his admission with a nod, and looked away. “All of this… It won’t stop, will it? Not until I’m dead.”

Elijah pushed away from the well and tilted his head, gesturing her to walk with him. Collaboration. “What if I told you that we needn't perform the sacrifice, just lure Klaus in by making him think that we're going to?”

Elena fell into step with him, frowning. “Bonnie said that you needed Klaus weakened, and that the only way to do that was to let him complete the sacrifice.”

“That seemed the most obvious, most expedient course to take. But Jonas and I had a theory that if we found a place of power – ”

She nodded. “The burial ground.”

“Then a witch should be able to channel that power and use it either to weaken Klaus or to empower someone to strike against him.”

Elena stopped. “Wait. You and Dr. Martin were working on that?

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“I wasn’t certain it would work. Now that the dagger has turned up, we have two advantages I hadn't previously taken into account.”

“But…” She made a frustrated gesture. “If you had told me…”

Elijah stood silent, letting the unspoken words fester between them: then none of this would have happened. And those who were dead would still be alive.

Elena blew out a breath. “You really don't communicate well.”

“So I’m told,” he said wrily.

They headed back along the way they had come. Elijah snagged a couple of milkweed pods as he went by, splitting the papery skin to release the delicate white seeds; the breeze carried them into the trees, to haunt the woods with the other ghosts. A twig snapped somewhere, further into the treeline. Elijah turned and caught the white flash of a doe's tail as she darted away at their approach.

“What about the curse?” Elena asked at length. “Will it still be intact, as long as there's no sacrifice?”

“Presumably, so long as it remains bound to the moonstone.”

“What if the moonstone were destroyed? Would the curse stay in force, or would it be broken along with the stone?”

“I don't know. I was outside the circle. I saw so little of the spell that set it in motion. The question is better left to the witches to figure out.”

“You were there? When the curse was cast?”

"Yes."

She thought that through for a moment. “So, if you were there… Did you know her? The first Petrova?”

“Yes.”

She glanced up at him as they walked, clearly intrigued by the notion. “What was she like?”

Strong. Beautiful. Compassionate. Brave.


Mine.

“Unfortunate,” he said tersely. "Come. Damon and Stefan will have themselves worked into a frenzy."

Elena hustled to keep up as he picked up the pace, the better to discourage further conversation along that meme. From a distance, he could hear other vehicles slowing as they approached the property. It seemed Andie was good to her word. He wondered what Damon would make of this impromptu house meeting they had called – in his house.

When they came to the bench they had passed earlier, Elena stopped. “Elijah?”

He halted, impatient to return to the house and get this meeting, collaboration, whatever Andie wanted to call it over with so that there might eventually be an end to this interminable day. “What?”

Despite his obvious impatience, she took a few moments, considering her words carefully. “I don’t want to die. Whatever they think, I don’t have some kind of suicidal death wish or anything." She sank down onto the bench, digging her thumbnail into the lichen to worry it away from the stone. "If this doesn't work, though, or if it all goes wrong… if it comes down to me or to them – ”

He made no comparisons. She was just Elena. But she was tearing his heart out, a piece at a time, all the same. “It won’t come to that.”

"But if it does – "

Rip. “Elena – ”

“Please. I don’t want anyone I love to die because of me, because they're trying to save me.”

Rip. “Elena – ”

“If it comes to that, Elijah, promise me. Give me your word.”

Rip. Could he? Could he give his word to let her die, to kill her himself if everything went to hell? There she sat, just a handful of years old, looking up at him with those dark eyes, and talking of death. It was absurd; it was obscene. But those eyes were clear, and calm, and they held the full knowledge of what they asked.

Elijah closed his own eyes and nodded. “I give you my word," he murmured.

He turned to go, but she stood and laid her hand on his arm to forestall him. It was the first time she had touched him willingly. Well, except for when she had killed him. She couldn’t know that she was doing it all over again, right now. “Thank you,” she said.

He nodded again, not quite trusting himself to speak. He turned for the house again and pushed on, before she could undo him completely. A small, vicious voice inside cursed him for making the colossal mistake of caring, about her, about any of this.

Elena kept pace with him, a couple of steps behind until they rounded the bend and came back into sight of the mansion. Stefan and Damon were standing on the terrace, eyes trained like lasers on them as they came into view. Alaric had joined them.

Elena drew even with him and peeled his jacket off, handing it back to him. “So," she said, putting on her game face. "What happens now?”

He took the jacket, and answered in kind. “Now, we go kill Klaus.”

She smiled at him, a genuine smile, and that was a first too. “Just like that?”

He returned the smile, and gave the only appropriate response: “Just like that.”

He held back, letting Elena go ahead of him to placate the Salvatores, who looked just short of foaming at the mouth by this point. Alaric followed the trio in, casting a troubled glance back his way as he disappeared inside. Elijah slipped into the jacket, now warmed by her body.

It wasn’t until he felt its weight, there in the inner pocket, that he realized he had given her the jacket with the dagger still inside.

What's At Stake, Part Eleven

I had hoped to keep on a daily roll, but most of what I wrote yesterday ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.



To Elena Winchester: I tried to work in a flashback for you, but it just didn't fit. It's now a deleted scene. If you want, I can clean it up and PM it to you, since you've been so cool about reviewing and all. :-)


And finally: These two!! Jeez!! I feel like they're always this close to some truly epic hate-sex; the only thing that stops me from actually writing it is the fact that I don't think I can possibly out-epic Bill and Lorena on True Blood. [And as an attestation to Nina Dobrev's acting ability in distinguishing between Elena and Katherine: I love the idea of Elijah & Kat; any thought of Elijah with Elena completely squicks me out.]


Anyway...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elijah rejoined Andie in the study after slipping outside to make some phone calls. Being dead and incommunicado for a fortnight was proving to be a considerable inconvenience. He was fortunate that Andie had thought to pocket his cell phone before his body was dragged down to the basement. Now that he had people scurrying to perform certain errands for him, such as procuring another car to replace the one now sitting at the bottom of a ravine – and we will be discussing that at length, Damon – he felt the crisis of confidence waning somewhat. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. He just needed to regroup.

Andie looked up from her notebook as he seated himself. "We should leave," she said. "Figure out where to hide you, since Klaus is on his way."

“No.”

“There are a bunch of cabins on the lake that – wait, what do you mean, 'no?' You can’t be seen, Elijah. As it is, I’m going to have to put a glamour on the room downstairs so that no one will realize you’re not in it anymore.”

“I have no intention of hiding behind a glamour, or anything else.”

Andie stared at him as though he were being particularly dimwitted. “Did you miss the part where I said Klaus is coming to town?" She started singing, "You know, 'You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why –'”

He cut her off with a look. “We have what, a week, now, until the full moon? If I’m back in the equation then it throws him off his game and divides his attention from any other last-minute preparations he may be making.” Let Klaus be the one scrambling to keep up for a change.

Elijah walked to the fireplace, running his hands over the stone mantle. "Can you gather them all here tonight?"

"Them?"

"The Salvatores, Elena, and whoever else needs to be included?"

"Uh, probably, but..."

"Good. I may as well address them all at once, have everyone on the same page."

Andie slid her notebook back into her bag and studied him for a few moments. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"By all means."

"This... 'Master of the Universe' thing that you've been doing? You might wanna take that down a notch. Or ten."

"Excuse me?"

"You know, the thing where you're all, 'I'm a big bad Original Vampire. Do as I say and don’t ask questions, or else?'"

"I prefer to think of it as maintaining control of the situation," he said stiffly.

"Yeah... how's that workin' for ya?" She sat forward in her chair. "News flash: This isn't the Middle Ages; it's 21st century America. There are no serfs anymore. They're not going to jump to do your bidding. People expect information like they expect air to breathe. If you want them to work with you – and please note I said 'with you,' not 'for you,' – then you need to collaborate, not dictate."

Several replies sprang to mind, but he bit them off.

"Not your strong suit, I know." She brightened. "But we can work on it! So, what are you going to do in the meantime?”

"I believe you said that Katerina is staying here." He smiled, and could feel it going feral around the edges. "I'll wait for her."

Whatever Andie saw on his face made her slide out of the chair, on the side away from him. "Ooookay then! Well, I'm gonna go." She put her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the foyer. "I'll try and get everyone here later." She stopped short as she glanced out the glass doors toward the back of the hallway, seeing again the mass devastation outside. "A little landscaping, some mulch, maybe they won't notice. Bye!"

Elijah paced the library as he listened to her drive off, and considered her words regarding the approach to take with the Salvatores and their little band. Though it galled him enormously to admit it, she had a certain point. Autocracy had gotten him nowhere thus far. Perhaps a more collaborative spirit... The mere thought of it gave him a tremendous urge to go back outside and do a little more damage. With a snarl, he went upstairs to seek out the room currently being occupied by Katerina.

It wasn't difficult to find. Five hundred years had done nothing to improve upon her tidiness, or lack thereof. The bed was unmade, with blankets sloughing off the sides and pillows knocked askew. Clothes littered every conceivable piece of furniture and spilled over onto the floor. There was a trail of wet towels leading out of the bathroom, the state of which Elijah didn't even want to contemplate. Baubles, beads, make-up and hair accessories ran riot over the bureau, which sported a scorch mark in the wood next to whatever hair-styling contraption lay there. He accidentally kicked a discarded shoe and sent it flying under the bed, where its mate already cowered, as though hoping to escape notice.

The room was a sharp contrast to Elena's.

And that's quite enough of making comparisons between the two, he warned himself firmly. The exercise was futile, and had caused him more than enough trouble already. No more. No more comparisons, period.

He heard her from the time she turned off of the road and into the driveway. He thought about meeting her downstairs, as she walked into the house, but some perversity of nature made him choose to surprise her here, in her room, instead. Hearing her footsteps on the stairs, Elijah removed a robe from the armchair to sit, uncovering when he did so a black, lacy, and barely-there... something. He wondered which brother she had sought to entice with it, and whether she had succeeded. Pinching the edge of it between thumb and forefinger, he was about to toss it onto a pile of clothing already on the floor when she walked through the door.

She looked ready to rush the intruder, until she registered who it was. Recognition pulled her up short.

Elijah smiled at her, and instead of tossing the garment as he had intended, he held it up like an exhibit. "Special occasion?"

Katerina crossed her arms and shrugged. "If I’d known you were coming, I could have modeled it for you. All those long, cold nights in prison... a girl gets lonely."

"That’s right… you aren't where I left you, are you?"

"Ditto."

Elijah brushed a couple of remaining garments out of the chair and seated himself. "I must admit, I’m surprised to find you still in town, what with Klaus on the way. I would have thought you’d be across the state line about ten minutes after you were freed.” He tilted his head to the side, looking up at her. “Why are you still here?”

"The same reason you are: I want Klaus dead."

"My, aren't we brave all of a sudden."

She crossed to the window and looked out. "I’m tired of running. This is the best opportunity to take him out."

He snorted. "You’re as likely to drop to your knees and service him as you are to try and kill him, if you see a greater advantage in it.”

She whirled back around, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Not after what he did to my family.”

Ah, yes. That. “You expect me to believe that, 500 years after the fact, you’re ready to take up arms and oppose Klaus now, to avenge a family who I’m guessing, knowing what I know now, ran you out in disgrace?”

“Believe what you want. It changes nothing.” When he didn’t answer, she crossed her arms and leaned against the windowsill. “We have a common goal here, Elijah.”

“Hmm… I don’t recall it being a particular goal of mine to be killed with the dagger.” He bent in the chair, giving her a little mock bow. “Nicely done, by the way.”

“Don’t look at me. I was in the tomb, remember?” A flicker of triumph ghosted through her eyes, belying her denial.

“Mm-hmm. And the fact that it turned up with John Gilbert, descendant of the John Gilbert whom you just happened to know when you were here in the 1860’s, who just happened to have researched the dagger and the lore behind it… purely coincidental, I'm sure.”

A little smirk betrayed her before she got up to pace the room. “Maybe we should work together.”

“And I would trust you because…?”

“Because, as I said, we both want the same thing.”

He leaned back and crossed his legs, making an expansive gesture with his arms. “Since I’ve been told I should be more collaborative, let’s assume that I’m foolish enough to believe you. What’s your plan?”

She started another circuit, window to closet, closet to the other window. “There’s full moon next week.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Klaus will try to break the curse. Although…” She made a show of pausing in front of one of the windows and putting her chin in her hands, a puzzled expression on her face.

Elijah rolled his eyes, but opted to play along. “Although?”

The chair he inhabited sat kitty-corner to the bed, which was a large, four-poster affair. Katerina came over and leaned against the post facing him, just a few feet away. “The so-called ‘curse’ keeps the werewolves pretty handily in check; meanwhile, Klaus isn’t really even inconvenienced by it, nor is anyone else with the werewithal to have a witch make a daylight charm for them. Have you ever considered it a little curious that Klaus has gone to so much trouble to try and break it?”

He had, and on more than one occasion. But Klaus was one who, once he took something into his head, would stop at nothing until he got what he wanted. “Continue.”

“I don’t think the breaking of the curse is the point, at least not for the reason we’ve always assumed. Something else must happen when it’s broken, something that’s to his advantage. I think it goes back to the ritual that set the curse. And,” she said, sauntering over to perch on the arm of the chair, “I think he was the one who set that whole thing up in the first place.”

Elijah considered it for a millisecond, discarded it. “No. Why set up a curse he would then spend a thousand years trying to break? It makes no sense, even for him.”

“I didn’t say he intended to set the curse, just that he set up the ritual. I think whoever performed it was supposed to do something else, but double-crossed him.” She leaned an elbow on the back of the chair, and shifted onto one hip, so she was draped along the arm, her head a little higher than his. “But then, maybe you’d know better than me. You were there, after all, weren’t you?”

He had been there, outside the circle, kept out by a mystical barrier that wouldn’t allow a vampire to pass, no matter how frantically he had tried. As had Klaus.

Klaus, who was already there when Elijah and the others had learned of what was happening. Klaus, who had spent a great deal of time and coin with the caravan of gypsies, from whose ranks came the witch who had stood in the circle and cast the spell. Klaus, who had murdered every last one of those gypsies the night after the curse took effect. Klaus, who had purchased a very similar moonstone to the one binding the curse from some Silesian merchant on one of their northern sojourns.

Klaus, who had told him that Irina had gone to assist the midwife with the birthing of a child, and would be late in returning home that evening.

“No.” He shook his head, denying the possibility. “No. You’re reaching too far.”

Katerina tilted her head, studying his face. Her hand slid down from where it draped across her thigh, and trailed down his chest. “Am I?”

Elijah smacked her hand away, annoyed. “Do you even stop to consider it anymore, or is ‘whore’ simply your natural default?”

She removed her hand, but didn’t remove herself from the chair. “Fine, you hate me, I get it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That doesn’t make me wrong, though. About Klaus.” When he said nothing, she swung around and perched sideways on his knee, wearing an expression of mock primness. “Would the theory be more palatable to you if I said it all ‘sweet and sincere,’ like Elena? Or… what was her name… Irina?”

He looked up at her with a small, cold smile. Taking her wrist, he tugged so she was off-balance, then turned her so she was facing him. He grasped her hips and pulled her closer, and ran his hand up her back. Katerina leaned her face down toward his, a small, triumphant smile on her face – a smile that died just as quickly as it had flared to life when he dug his fingers into the back of her neck, deep into the flesh, and snapped her spinal cord.

Her body went limp, as though she were a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her eyes went wild around the edges, and her mouth moved, but he had severed the cord high enough that she could draw no breath to speak. Lifting her with him, Elijah stood and deposited her on the bed, straightening her limbs out. “The only reason that wasn’t your heart coming out of your chest," he told her, "is because you may still, somehow, prove to be of use to me.”

Tears coursed down her cheeks from eyes that glared up at him. He sat down on the bed next to her and wiped them away in a parody of tenderness. “At your age, without blood between now and then, it will take seven to eight hours for your spinal cord to heal itself back together. I suggest you use that time to consider just how useful you might be.”

Standing, Elijah drew a blanket over her, for what purpose he didn’t know. He paused on his way out the door, and turned back, drumming his fingers on the door casing. “I like this collaborating,” he said, and closed the door.

Now, he had only to deal with the other Petrova doppelganger.

What's At Stake, Part Ten

Author's note: Hmm. Okay, this may sound kinda weird, but others of you who write may be able to relate (or you may just think I'm nuts; it could go either way): Even though you spend a lot of time plotting a story and being inside a character's head space, sometimes they still surprise you. Elijah took this whole thing a little harder than I expected him to. I didn't anticipate that tonal shift. As always, though, I'm anxious to see where he takes me. :-)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blood.

It was the first thing that crept into his awareness. His throat convulsed on it, cold and thick, and a little stale to the taste. But it jump-started his heart, filling and soothing the dry, ragged veins as it flowed through his system. Six swallows, seven, then he pushed it away and sat up, opening his eyes.

He was back in the Salvatore house, once again on the basement floor. And he wasn’t alone.

Andie Starr crouched next to him, holding the blood bag from which she'd just fed him. “More?” she offered.

Before she could blink, he had her pinned to the wall with a hand on her throat and his body weight pressed against hers, knocking the bag out of her hand to splash on the floor a few feet away. She held herself still, even relaxed, making no effort to struggle lest she risk inciting him further. Letting the wall and his hand support her weight, she returned his gaze calmly, and waited.

“Explain,” he growled, his face close to hers.

Andie rolled her eyes down to his forearm, then back to his face, and raised an eyebrow. Elijah relaxed his grip, but didn’t let go of her completely.

She cleared her throat. “Easy, tiger. If I weren’t here to help you, I wouldn’t be feeding you, and I wouldn’t have pulled that out.” She tilted her head to indicate the dagger, lying on the floor next to the spot where his body had lain.

Reluctantly conceding the point, he removed his hand from her and stepped back a couple of paces, careful to keep himself between her and the weapon. Andie rubbed at her neck and slid along the wall toward the door, which had something hanging from it.

“How long?” he rasped out.

“Two weeks, or thereabouts.” She grabbed the thing from the door as he stifled an oath. “There’s a lot to catch you up on." Her tone brightened considerably. "But first, maybe you’d like to, oh, I don’t know, put some pants on or something?” She held up what turned out to be a garment bag. “Not that I don’t enjoy the view…”

Elijah glanced down. He was naked. He took stock of the room as he accepted and unzipped the bag. Charred remnants of what he presumed to have been his clothing littered the grey stone. That, and the flamethrower propped in a dark corner of the room, gave him a pretty good indication of what had occurred. He had a guess as to who had wielded it; his dark sense of humor asserted itself as he imagined Damon Salvatore’s expression when he had realized that Elijah’s corpse wouldn’t burn.

“Are we alone?” he asked, with a glance toward the ceiling.

She gave him a look of mock flirtation. "Why, what did you have in mind? You Originals must have quite the powers of recovery, if you can go right from being a stiff to having a – "

"Andie..." He warned.

“Fine! Jeez. Watch where you aim that look. You could hurt someone." She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms. "Yes, we're alone. No one should be back for at least a few hours.”

“Then I’m taking a shower.” Before heading out of the room, he made it a point to retrieve the dagger.

“There are seven of them upstairs. Take your pick.”

He paused next to her in the doorway on his way out the door. What had Jenna said about men being territorial? “Which one is Damon’s?” he asked.

She chuckled approvingly. “Follow me.

                                               ~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten minutes (and the shedding of layer upon layer of grime that he didn’t care to name) later, Elijah rejoined Andie in the library. She held a brandy out to him. “Or, there’s more blood downstairs if you'd prefer,” she offered.

Elijah wrinkled his nose in distaste. “That stuff is vile. I prefer it warm, and a whole lot fresher.”

She held up a hand. “Don’t look at me, pal. I gave at the office.”

Accepting the brandy, Elijah withdrew the dagger from the inside jacket of his pocket. “Where is the rest?”

“Huh? Oh!” Andie opened the liquor cabinet and withdrew an ornate wooden box. Opening it, she grabbed the antique bottle of white oak ash, and passed it to him. Elijah pocketed it along with the dagger and seated himself in one of the overstuffed chairs flanking the fireplace, gesturing her toward the other. “All right. Talk. You can start by explaining who you are. Clearly, you're no reporter.”

“Hey! The 8% hike in ratings since I joined the station would argue otherwise, thank you very much.” She took a sip of her own brandy. “But that’s not why I’m here, no.”

“So why are you here?”

“Guess.”

He eyed her speculatively. “You’re a witch.”

Andie smiled at him and raised her glass in a mock toast. “Got it in one.”

“So this… thing with Damon…”

“Was an act. I needed to keep track of what he – what they – were up to. And I could do that best by being his compulsively dedicated little – ”

“Chew toy?” Elijah flicked a glance toward the bite marks, now uncovered, along her neck. “Brava. You’re dedication is outstanding.”

“You have. No. Idea.”

“Oh, I think I have some.” He sipped at his brandy. “So, a witch. One of Klaus’s, I presume.”

“Nothing wrong with your brain.”

“Nothing at all. Which is why I don’t believe for a moment that Klaus would want me reanimated. I presume he’s now aware of…” Of Elena. “…of the doppelganger?”

“Elijah, Klaus has been aware of her almost since the moment you have.” She relaxed back into the chair, tucking her feet underneath her. “Did you really think he had just let you run off in a tiff, without having someone – several someones – keeping an eye on you?”

He hardly thought a profound difference in world view, and the future of humanity in it, qualified as “a tiff,” but he let it slide. “Where is he, then? Why wait? Why not crash in here and snap her out from under my nose?”

“Why do all the work locating the moonstone, securing a werewolf, etc., when he can sit back and let you do it for him?”

Yes, he thought bitterly. That sounded like Klaus. Always leaving him to do the dirty work, then swooping in at the last minute to collect the spoils.

“Besides, he hoped that, if he left you out there on the front line, so to speak, you’d draw the dagger out of hiding. Which you did. All very neat and tidy." She waggled a finger at him. "You’re dead and removed as a threat, same with the dagger, all of the components to break the curse are in place…”

“And now he can come waltzing into town with everything at the ready.” Elijah nodded. Pure, vintage Klaus.

“I sent him the all clear signal myself.” She shook her empty snifter at him.

Elijah gamely took the glass from her and refilled it at the bar. “Which means that you’re now working off-script.” He handed her the drink and sat, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “This would be the part where you start explaining why, and just exactly what your stake in all this is.”

Andie drained the glass in two swallows, as though to steel herself. “Simple. I want a deal.”

“A deal.”

“You know, one of those arrangements where I do something for you, you do something for me…”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” he said drily.

“You need a witch, I – ”

“I have a witch.”

She lifted her eyebrows, then looked down and away. “Yeah… about that…”

Elijah let the silence sit, charged, as his mind raced over the possibilities, none of them good. “I think you’d better bring me up to date,” he said grimly.

Andie sighed, then squared her shoulders. “The Martins are dead.”

Dead. The Martins. Plural.

“Stefan tried to talk to them, to get them to work with him and Damon, but… Jonas didn’t go for it.”

“What happened?” Elijah asked softly, dead calm.

“I wasn’t here, so I don’t know exactly, but from what I’ve been able to gather, they took an astral walk to locate you. Jonas wanted you resurrected.” Andie started fidgeting with a loose thread along the arm of the chair. “They found you, here, but instead of leaving it at that and coming back when no one was around, Luka tried to take the dagger out – ”

“Luka did?”

“He was the one being projected. He wouldn't have had the skill or power to anchor the spell. Jonas would have had to do it and send Luka.” She worked another thread loose. “Anyway, Katherine – who I'm not supposed to know is staying here, by the way – saw the dagger moving, and…”

Katerina. Damn it! With him dead, of course she'd be free to leave the tomb. And wreak God only knew what havoc with her particular brand of chaos.

“And?” he whispered.

She shifted in the chair, went back to worrying at the fabric. “Damon… Damon grabbed the flamethrower, and…” Andie straightened in the chair and met his eyes, reluctantly. “How much do you know about the mind/body link when it comes to this kind of magic?”

“Enough.” Enough to realize, with a sick feeling opening a chasm in the pit of his stomach, just what would have happened to the boy when the flames swept over his spirit form.

“Jonas…” Andie lifted her hands, let them drop into her lap. “He went off the reservation, Elijah. He showed up at the Grille, hollering for Elena. He set it on fire, he stabbed some busboy in the neck, threw a bunch of people around… and then he went after Elena at her house. They had to kill him to keep him from taking her. He just... went crazy.”

“His child was dead,” he murmured, his own words rising like gorge to coat the back of his throat in bitterness: The boy need not do anything other than make friends at his new school. Surely there's no harm in that?

Elijah’s scalp began prickling until the whole of it felt electrified. Sparks sprouted in his chest and ignited flames that pushed outward to limn his nerves in fire, all the way to the ends of his extremities. His lungs heaved, dragging in air in great gulps even though he had no real need to breathe. A rushing sound roared into his ears on the tide of a rapidly increasing heart rate, as the veins around his eyes engorged and turned them red.

He had long ago drawn the conclusion that, with strength and power such as he possessed, the sheer devastation that he could cause by indulging in a fit of pique was seldom in proportion to whatever had provided its catalyst in the first place. Consequently, Elijah very, very rarely lost his temper.

He lost it now.

Outdoors, with no real sense of how he’d gotten there save through the imperative to flee the confines of the house, he tore into the treeline and lay waste to whatever he found in his path. Trees, brush, boulders, a small shed… all were pulverized as he shredded, tossed, or crushed whatever came to hand as he whipped through in a blind rage.

And why not? Hadn’t he been making as big a mess out of everything he’d laid hands to since he’d left Manhattan? Always scrambling to get one step ahead, misjudging one situation after another… all in some vain and futile attempt to get something – anything – over on Klaus? And when had he ever been able to do that? Instead, he’d done all of Klaus’s prep work for him and played right into his hands, and what in hell did he have to show for it?

Nothing. Nothing but a dead boy, and a grief-maddened father who had followed him through the gates of death, seeking to answer for such an affront. Nothing but a hole through his heart that still bled from the betrayal that had pierced it. Nothing but a cold certainty that, despite his efforts and whatever they had cost him, Klaus would have his way again, just as he always did.

“Are you finished?” Andie asked quietly, from a little distance away.

Elijah turned his head to look at her, seeing as he did so the scope of the destruction he’d left in his wake, and climbed wearily to his feet from where he’d dropped to his knees. Was he finished? Was there any point left in fighting it? He could walk off this property, leave town, let Klaus have his ritual and break his curse, go hole up someplace quiet and solitary and just watch the world go by.

Whatever would be left of it.

The witch stood still, facing him, arms crossed as she waited to see what he would do.

“This deal,” he said at last, his voice hoarse. “What do you want?”

Evidently deciding he was through dealing violence for the time-being, Andie led him out of the carnage and back toward the house. “Klaus may make a big show out of hating technological advancement, but he’s the first to latch onto anything that he can twist to his advantage. He’s developed quite an obsession with genetics. All these centuries of stealing witches and locking them up, never finding one who had enough strength combined with the innate talent… I guess he decided, if he can’t find the perfect witch, he’ll figure out a way to breed one.” Andie paused at the open terrace door, and turned to face him, full on.

“I want the same deal you offered Jonas. I help you kill Klaus. In return,” she said, “you help me get my son.”

Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. “Your son?”

“Yeah. My son.” She held her hand out to him. “Do we have a deal?”

Because that’s working out so swimmingly. Bloody hell. Here he stood, the blood of one child still slick on his fingers, and she wanted to thrust the fate of another into them? How dare she? How dare he? Hadn’t all of this demonstrated quite profoundly that he wasn’t up to the task? That Klaus always had, and always would, come out on top? What did he have to give him any hope whatsoever of snatching victory from the jaws of this most resounding defeat?

Well, actually…

He had the dagger. He had one of Klaus’s witches, one who was obviously both skilled and trusted enough that he had chosen her for this particular assignment. Through her, and her surveillance of Damon, he had the location of the burial ground. He would have knowledge of Klaus’s movements, of his arrival in town. He had Jules on a nice, tight leash somewhere; he needed only to call her to heel.

And he would, by all that was holy or unholy, have the doppelganger – one way or another.

Elijah nodded slowly and extended his hand, clasping Andie’s in his own.

“Deal.”

What's At Stake, Part Nine

Woo! Finally up to the point where we left off for the hiatus (well, where Elijah left off, anyway). Next section, the fun REALLY begins. :-D


 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Elijah’s cell phone beeped just as he was pulling into the Salvatore driveway. He checked the display and took the call. “Jonas.”

“Hey. Any luck with the property search this morning?”

“It’s difficult to say. There are a couple of areas that might correspond, but I’ll need your expertise to tell me if what we need is there.”

“I marked some possibles in an atlas that I wanted you to look at; I figured you’d stop by last night.”

Elijah parked and exited the car. “I did. From the yelling, it seemed an inopportune time. More teenage drama?”

“Don’t even get me started.”

“I’ll stop over later. Right now I’m attending a dinner party at the Salvatore house.”

“Um…”

“Exactly. Later.” Elijah slid the phone into his pocket and rang the doorbell. Damon answered in short order. “Good evening,” Elijah greeted him.

“Thank you for coming. Please, come in.” Damon plastered a smile on his face and stepped to the side to motion him in.

“One moment.” Elijah ran his fingers down the wood of the door frame. “Can I just say that, if you have less than honorable intentions about how this evening is going to proceed, I suggest you reconsider.”

“No, nothing dishonorable," he said, perfectly innocent. "Just, uh, getting to know you.”

Someone was certainly putting on the good, little, cowed vampire act. Elijah didn’t believe it for a second. “Hmm. Well that’s good.” Stepping through the doorway, he stopped next to Damon, speaking quietly. “Because, you know, although Elena and I have this deal, if you so much as make a move to cross me, I’ll kill you and I’ll kill everyone in this house. Are we clear?”

Damon’s smile faltered infinitesimally. “Crystal.”

Jenna stepped out into the foyer at that moment. She had spurned the blouse and jeans she’d been wearing earlier in favor of a form-fitting cocktail dress in midnight blue. The material along the sleeves and collar bones was sheer, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of what was under the denser fabric below. “Jenna! Wonderful to see you again,” he called, holding his hands out and touching her shoulders as he drew near. “How are you? You look incredible.”

“Oh, this old thing…” she said, blushing and obviously pleased by the compliment.

They made their way into the large living room, where Andie Starr was standing in front of the fireplace, talking with a man Elijah recognized as John Gilbert, Elena’s ersatz uncle and biological father. Saltzman stood a little off to the side, idly flipping through a leather-bound book and looking daggers at Elijah as he stepped into the room with Jenna, one hand resting lightly on the small of her back as he gestured her ahead of him with the other.

“Ric! You made it. I’m pleased to see you were able to free yourself up after all.” Elijah's smile made it plain he was anything but.

“I’m sure you are,” Ric smiled back, just as sincere.

“Elijah!” Andie motioned John to follow and came over to take his hands in greeting. “John Gilbert, Elijah Smith,” she said, by way of introduction. The two men shook hands and made the requisite mouth noises at each other, in keeping with the pretense that each didn’t know full well who – and what – the other was.

“Yeah,” Jenna turned toward him and stage-whispered, “We don’t know why he’s here either.”

Damon came in through a smaller door at the other end of the room, carrying two bottles of wine and some glasses. Passing the latter around, he peeled the label from the first bottle of wine and popped the cork. “Let’s get this party started!”

                                                         ~~~~~

By the time they sat down to dinner – a Tuscan herbed chicken, roasted red potatoes, asparagus, a pear and spinach salad, and bread with dipping oil – they had consumed three bottles of wine and were well into the fourth. The spirits had made Jenna flushed and even more prone to giggling than usual, a fact that probably wouldn’t have charmed him so much if it weren’t for this nagging predisposition to find everything the woman did charming.

In sharp contrast to her joviality, Alaric was quiet, as was John Gilbert, save for the occasional barbed volley shot back and forth between the two. Elijah was certain he was missing part of the story there, but whatever the reason, it was clear that the two shared a profound dislike of one another.

Andie played the roll of hostess to the hilt, making sure everyone’s glasses remained full and keeping the conversation going whenever a lull threatened. Elijah could have done without her cloying and near constant displays of affection toward Damon. Between the adolescent-like infatuation and the conspicuous scarf around her neck, he suspected that she was Damon’s chew toy as well as his bedmate, though she lacked that caged look behind the eyes that one typically saw in victims of chronic compulsion. He wondered suddenly if Damon were ignorant of the technique of applying a little of his own blood topically to close a bite wound, or if he merely enjoyed having a visual display of his dominance over his playthings. Given that he was sired – and immediately abandoned – by Katerina Petrova, Elijah assigned even odds to either possibility.

“I hate to break it to you, Damon,” Jenna said, following a discussion of various Founder’s Day activities, “but according to Elijah, your family is so not a founder of this town.”

“Hmm, do tell.” The younger vampire eyed him speculatively.

“Well, as I mentioned to Jenna earlier, a faction of settlers migrated from Salem after the witch trials in the 1690’s. Over the next hundred years they developed this community where they could feel safe from persecution.”

“Because they were witches,” Jenna announced, as though the concept were prurient and slightly wicked.

“You know, there is no tangible proof that there were witches in Salem.” This from Andie, who didn’t appear to have had anywhere near as much wine as Jenna.

“Andie’s a journalist. Big on facts,” Damon explained, unnecessarily.

“Well, the lore says there was this wave of anti-witch hysteria," Elijah continued. "It broke out in a neighboring settlement. So these witches were rounded up. They were tied to stakes in a field together and burned. Some say you could hear the screams for miles around as they were consumed by the fire.” He remembered it all quite fondly, actually. Good times. “Could you pass the…” he gestured toward the wine.

“I wouldn’t repeat this to the historical society,” Jenna cautioned.

“Sounds a little like a ghost story to me.” John looked skeptical, though that could have been a cover for a familial knowledge passed down through the generations of the Gilbert family. The first John Gilbert had been ridiculously troublesome, always digging at things better left alone.

“So, why do you want to know the location of these alleged massacres?” Damon asked, sipping his wine.

“Oh, healthy historian’s curiosity, of course.”

“Of course.” Damon’s expression made it plain that he believed no such thing. He wasn’t stupid, Elijah would give him that. More and more, he found himself hoping that Damon Salvatore didn’t do anything that would necessitate him having to kill him. He appreciated a quick mind.

With everyone apparently done eating, Andie rose and starting stacking the plates. “The gentlemen should take their drinks in the study,” she suggested, a little too brightly. Elijah wondered anew just how much the woman was under Damon’s compulsion, especially after the ‘good girl!’ look he shot her.

“I have to say, the food was almost as wonderful as the company,” Elijah complimented her.

“I like you!” she said, flirty and charming. And not looking at all compelled.

Elijah mulled it over as he followed Damon to the study. There was no way the young vampire could be that skilled at manipulation, not at a mere 145 years old. Perhaps the journalist was one of those driven, career women who liked to play the dominance-submission game at home. It was moot anyway, he decided, running his hands over the mahogany wood of the banister. One didn’t ask another vampire impertinent questions about his 'toys'. It simply wasn’t done.

“So let me guess,” Damon said, pouring a deep, richly colored brandy into two crystal snifters. “In addition to the moonstone, the doppelganger, the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, you need to find this witch burial ground.”

Quick, and perceptive. “Because I feel we’ve grown so close, Damon, I’ll tell you: yes.” He studied him for a moment. “Do you know where it is?”

“Maybe.” Damon handed him one of the brandies. “Tell me why it’s so important.”

“Not that close.” At least not until such time as he could be assured of a certain amount of loyalty from the younger vampire.

Elijah turned his attention to the shelves lining the room. Floor to ceiling, leather-clad spines abounded. He recognized many of them. The classics, history, military history, philosophy… “It’s quite the collection you have here,” he said, impressed.

“Mmm.”

“Here’s a funny thing about books: Before they existed, people actually had memories.”

Before he could ruminate further on that thought, Alaric entered the study, Andie following closely on his heels. “Ah, gentlemen, we forgot dessert.”

“Elijah?” Andie flirtily held her hand out to him.

“Miss Starr,” he drawled, playing along. He took her hand and spun her out of the room, startling a laugh out of her.

“I bet you would cut quite a figure on the dance floor. Hmm?” She eyed him speculatively.

“I’ve been known to dance, a time or two.”

“Well we’re just going to have to try that out sometime.”

“There’ll probably be an opportunity for that if you’re in town long enough, Elijah, what with all the fundraisers and festivals Carol has us throwing,” Jenna said, poking her head out of the kitchen for a moment and handing Andie a coffee pot. “Sorry guys. Dessert is taking longer than I thought. I usually just unwrap food.”

She slipped back into the kitchen as Alaric and Damon filed out of the study, joining him and John at the table while Andie poured the coffee. “So, I know this is a social thing,” Andie said, once she’d sat down, “but I would really love to ask you some more questions about the work that you’re doing here.”

She was persistent. “I’d love to answer,” he capitulated, if only to pass the time.

“Great! That’s great. Alaric, would you hand me that notebook out of my bag?” The schoolteacher went to go fetch.

“Elijah,” Damon said, apropos of nothing, “did John tell you that he’s Elena’s uncle-slash-father?”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that.” And apparently there was no love lost between he and Damon, understandably so. Which made the man’s presence all the more perplexing.

“Of course, she hates him, so there’s absolutely no need to keep him on the endangered species list.”

“No Ric, it’s in the front pocket, on the… You know what? Excuse me guys, sorry.” Andie jumped up to go retrieve her notebook, a task apparently beyond Alaric.

Ignoring Damon, John leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What I’d like to know, Elijah, is how you intend on killing Klaus?”

So was that the purpose of this little gathering? They’d all break bread together, have a few glasses of wine, and he’d just open up and unroll his entire plan before them? Suddenly weary of the whole charade, Elijah lowered his voice, dead serious. “Gentlemen, there are a few things we should probably get clear right now.” He pointed his fork at Damon. “I allow you to live solely to keep an eye on Elena. I allow Elena to remain in her house, living her life with her friends, as she does, as a courtesy. If you become a liability, I’ll take her away from you and you’ll never see her again.”

Notebook finally in hand, Andie reclaimed her seat across the table. “Okay, my first question is… when you got here to Mystic Falls…”

The pain that suddenly tore like lightning through his chest was absolute agony. He cried out as his heart erupted into a white-hot ball of flame, sending boiling acid pulsing through his veins with every weakening pulse. Gulping for breath – to say what, he didn’t know – he saw, through his graying vision, the point of a narrow dagger protruding from his chest. He had just long enough to realize what it was before he no longer felt or thought anything.

                                                    ~~~~~~

When he could feel and think again, he was lying on a cold stone floor. A small amount of light, enough for him to see by, filtered in through the window and under the door. The room looked to be in a basement. There was a heavy-looking wooden door with a high, barred window, not that he expected it would so much as slow him down if he wanted out.

Listening, he heard voices upstairs, the same voices with whom he’d so recently been conversing. They took it out! That could mean one of two things: either they had had no intention of killing him, and just wanted to make a – heh – point; or, and this was the more likely scenario, they didn’t know.

Yet they had the dagger. No one – no one – had known its whereabouts for the last two centuries. There had been any number of stories, rumors, theories, etc., but none had borne any fruit. God knew Klaus had looked high and low for it, to no avail. And now, here it was. Had the Gilbert family kept it squirreled away all this time? Had the first Jonathan Gilbert been that lucky in his endless research? Somehow he doubted luck had had as much to do with it as the presence of one Katerina Petrova, here in Mystic Falls as a contemporary of Gilbert's.

And just what did Elena Gilbert know? Damon had said she’d gone away with Stefan for a little R&R, and to get away from the werewolf threat. Was that true, or had she simply put herself out of his immediate reach in case this attempt on his life had gone awry?

Oh, it had most assuredly gone awry.

Getting silently to his feet, Elijah weighed his options. He could do as he had threatened Damon: he could go upstairs and kill each and every one of them, up to and including Jenna, leaving nothing but a pile of broken and lifeless bodies in his wake. They would all be dead before any of them even realized that he had awakened. Or, he could make an object lesson out of just one of them… he wracked his brain for a moment, trying to recall just who had been where. Damon had been at one end of the table, John at the other. Andie was sitting across from him… that left just Jenna and… Alaric.

But what if Elena hadn’t known? What if Damon, or John, or Alaric had dreamt this whole thing up while she was away, without her knowledge or approval? He’d given his word to her – to her – that he would protect her loved ones from harm. Could he in good conscience slaughter over half the people on that list, no matter how viciously provoked, without first knowing?

She isn’t Katerina.

And that thought, above all else, really left him with only one option. He had to get to Elena.

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~

Not wanting to alert them to his resurrection by driving away in his car, Elijah ran, at speed, through the woods until he reached town and the Martins’ apartment complex. Taking the stairs two at a time, he burst into the apartment without knocking, startling both Jonas and Luka where they sat at the table.

Jonas took in the state of his torn, dirty and bloodied clothing. “What happened?!”

“I need you to find Elena. Now.”

"What did they – "

"Now!"

Jonas swallowed the urge to say more and turned toward the cupboard, rummaging inside for the items he had stolen from Elena. "Luka, get the candles ready," he instructed his son.

The boy didn't move, just sat staring at Elijah, as he had since he'd burst into the room.

"Luka!" Jonas raised his voice to get his attention.

"I'm sorry," Luka murmured.

"What?" Jonas stood up, hands on his hips.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to. I don't even know... I'm sorry!"

Elijah stepped toward the table. Luka shrank back in his chair. "Jonas, do the damn spell," Elijah gritted out. Easing himself into the chair across from Luka, he tried for a calm, even tone. "Luka, what are you sorry for?"

To the horror of all three of them, Luka burst into tears.

Jonas would have left off preparing the spell again and headed toward his son had Elijah not looked him off with a particularly vicious glare. He took a deep breath to get himself under control before turning back to the boy.

"Please," Luka begged, before Elijah could say anything. "Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean say anything, but they did something, I don't know what, and I must have told them something." Luka swiped his sleeve across his face. "Just don't take it out on Dad and Greta, okay?" Another sob shook the boy. "It's my fault, don't take it out on them. Help him get Greta back. Please!"

Elijah rose from the chair and walked around the table.

"Is that why you were so late last night, Luka?" Jonas asked. "Did Bonnie Bennett do some kind of a spell on you?"

"I'm s-s-s-sorry, Dad." He wiped at his face again, then buried his face in his hands. "Punish me, it's okay," he said to Elijah, his words muffled, "just help Dad find Greta."

Elijah took Luka by the shoulders. The boy stiffened under his hands, and he saw, out of his peripheral vision, Jonas start to move toward them, then hesitate. "Luka, look at me," he said softly. Luka drew in a shuddering breath, sniffled, and did as he was told. "I gave your father my word that we would go and get Greta as soon as Klaus is out of the way. I have no intention of breaking it because that Bennett girl used magic on you to try and obtain information that you don't even possess. You couldn't have told her anything of importance."

"What if I t-told her about the doppelganger? That you plan to k-k-kill her?"

Was that what had set this evening's chain of events in motion? Elijah doubted very much that that would be news to Elena. To her friends, perhaps, but not to her. And if he had his way, it was old news at that. "Luka. You did nothing wrong. Everything will be fine." Elijah straightened, giving Luka's shoulder a pat as he released him. "Go on. Let me speak to your father." Luka nodded and went to his room, shutting the door behind him.

Elijah turned to Jonas. "Find Elena, and then – for Christ sake! – get your ass over there and do something about that little witch!"

                                                               ~~~~~~~

He parked Jonas's car well away from the house on the lake, wanting to keep his approach a secret for as long as possible. Stefan Salvatore worried him not at all, but he didn't want to take the chance that Elena would bolt and injure herself, or worse, running through the woods at the water's edge in the dead of night. As he walked quietly down the driveway, he could see lights on in the house, and hear movement. He suspected they were waiting for him.

Crouching down, he scooped up a handful of rocks from the driveway, shifting them from hand to hand as he contemplated both the windows and the door.

“He’s here,” he heard Stefan say.

So much for the element of surprise. Elijah drew his arm back and aimed the stones at the door. They shattered it on impact, taking it completely off its hinges.

“You need to go," Elena told Stefan. "I have to talk to him alone.”

“Elena -- ”

“Stefan, it’s okay. He can’t come in the house.”

“You know, I might not be able to enter this house, but I’m a very patient man,” he called, stepping onto porch. “I’ll wait you out.”

Elijah heard footsteps, and Elena shuffled around a corner, into view, her arms crossed protectively in front of her. “They shouldn’t have done with they did.”

Indeed. “The deal is off.” He needed to make that clear to her; whether she'd known beforehand or only learned of it afterward, she needed to understand that, as far as he was concerned, the others were now fair game.

“I’m renegotiating.”

“You have nothing left to negotiate with,” he reminded her.

Elena uncrossed her arms to reveal a knife, though what she thought she might accomplish with such a paltry weapon, he didn't know. “I’d like to see you lure Klaus into Mystic Falls after the doppelganger bleeds to death.”

A hollow threat. “Stefan won’t let you die.”

“No, he won’t. He’ll feed me his blood to heal me, and then I’ll kill myself and become a vampire just like Katherine did. So unless you want that to happen again, promise me the same as before. Promise me that you won’t harm anyone that I love, even if they’ve harmed you.”

She isn't Katerina. Katerina had used Rose and Trevor mercilessly to insure such a fate for herself, never caring what became of anyone else. But Elena... Elena cared. It was in her eyes as she pleaded with him, in her voice, in her hand that trembled even now, holding the knife. She might threaten to harm herself, yet even as she did so, she begged for the lives of her loved ones. She wouldn't put them all at risk by turning now and drawing Klaus's ire down on the whole lot of them.

“I’m sorry, Elena," he told her softly. "I’m going to have to call your bluff.”

He saw her swallow once, hard, and look down at the knife in her hand. She turned it a little, and took a deep breath as though to brace herself. Elijah had a split second to watch the resolve harden in her eyes, to realize that he had misread her; then her arm came up, and she plunged the knife into her abdomen.

“NO!!!” He roared, surging forward, only to slam up against the barrier of the threshold. Elena writhed in pain, dropping the bloodied knife to the floor as she curled in upon herself, upon the pain. He looked around wildly, trying to gauge how much of the house he might have to tear apart before that barrier gave way and he could reach her, could save her. Too long. Too long! “Yes!" he capitulated. "Yes, you can have your deal. Let me heal you!”

She moaned, gritting her teeth against the pain. “Give me your word!”

“I give you my word,” he agreed.

Elena staggered toward him, popping free of the threshold and into his waiting arms. Relief flared quickly – and died just as suddenly as fire once again exploded in his chest. Shock mingled with the agony, an agony magnified a thousand-fold by virtue of whose hand had dealt it. He clung to her still as his flesh started to grey and his knees gave out, unable to believe how badly he had misjudged her, seeing what he had wanted to see instead of what was there...

And thus, I die a fool.