What's At Stake, Part Five

This section expands on two scenes:  the scene between Jonas and Elijah after he saves Elena from the vampires at Slater's loft; and the scene with Jenna before Elena discovers him in the house.

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Jonas didn't appear to be at home when Elijah let himself into the Martins' apartment. The deep, steady breathing coming from behind Luka's closed door told him that the boy was sound asleep. Odd, given the early hour. He stepped into the kitchenette and washed his hands, giving them the thorough scrubbing he hadn't truly been able to avail himself of in what the gas station attendant had delusionally referred to as a rest room. Back in the living room, he noted the knife and the pilfered items Jonas had used earlier for the shadow spell still sitting on the small dining table. He stationed himself at the window and offered up a silent thanks to whichever Fate had urged them to try that spell when they had.

He hadn't thought to return to Slater's loft once the younger vampire was dead and his information extracted, but when he'd seen the girl there he knew that there was no time to waste. If she'd located Slater, that meant that she was working up the same chain of communication that had led to him, and he couldn't have that. Everything hinged on keeping the doppelganger's existence a secret from Klaus. The more she poked at that series of contacts, the more likely it was that she'd eventually encounter someone who was in touch with Klaus. Or that they'd encounter her.

And just what in the nine hells was the girl doing, anyway? Trying to get herself killed? She'd certainly seemed hell-bent on remaining free of Klaus when he had tried to take her from the mansion. And wherever she went it seemed a Salvatore stood nearby, waiting to save her. Why poke the nest, just to see if any more hornets flew out of it?

Footsteps drifted up the inner staircase, and Jonas entered the apartment. He didn't seem particularly surprised to have company. "Where's Luka?" Elijah asked, knowing where but hoping to learn why the boy would be abed so early.

"Asleep." He didn't elaborate.

Elijah shrugged slightly. "Your shadow spell was successful. I was able to track that girl. However I did have a little run-in with one of the brothers that killed me."

"I assume he didn't live to tell about it," Jonas ventured.

"Actually, I spared him." Elijah shook his head. "He'd die for her. They both would. She'll be kept safe."

"For now." The warlock sounded dubious.

"That's precisely what we need her to be." Elijah turned away from the window to face him. "Safe."

Jonas hung his keys on a hook near the door and went to the refrigerator, pulling out a beer and some leftover Chinese food. He held the beer up questioningly.

Elijah declined with a shake of his head and perched against the counter opposite while Jonas dumped the congealed mass of... whatever it was onto a plate and stuck it into the microwave to heat. "It's a little early for Luka to be asleep, isn't it? Is he unwell?" he asked.

Jonas tossed the empty container in the trash can. "He had a rough day. Bonnie Bennett pulled him into a spell earlier. Gave him a nosebleed and a hell of a headache."

"I thought you said she was untrained." Elijah leaned back and crossed his arms in front of him.

"Mostly. Apparently Luka took it upon himself to give her a lesson in channeling. And then, because that wasn't stupid enough, he left his dogtags with her after showing her how to use them to draw energy away from him."

"Well, on a positive note, that should take care of his little crush on her."

Jonas snorted. "You'd think, but no. He's pissed at me."

Elijah quirked a brow at the warlock. "Because...?"

"Because he's a teenager?" Jonas opened the silverware drawer and took out a fork. It took a couple of tries to slide it back in without catching. "Complex rituals, archaic curses, astral projection? Piece of cake. But adolescence? That's a mystery for the ages."

Elijah looked from the drawer to the faded wallpaper, from the wall to the corner of the floor, where the linoleum had started to peel. "Isn't this place a little... lowbrow, for a doctor?"

"It's what was available on short notice, and it didn't require a lease." Jonas removed the plate from the microwave after it dinged and went over to the table, pushing aside the photo of Elena Gilbert, still smeared with Elijah's blood. He gestured toward it with his fork. "So where was she? You took off out of here pretty fast."

Elijah pulled a chair out across from the warlock and sat. "Slater's loft."

Jonas glanced up from his makeshift meal, eyebrows raised. "What was she doing there?"

"I wish I knew." He scraped idly at the dried blood on the glass with his thumbnail. "There were three other vampires there when I arrived. Cody was one of them. He said he was there to collect the doppelganger and bring her to me, for Klaus."

"I guess he hadn't heard that the two of you broke up?"

"No. Klaus speaks to so few directly now. I imagine it isn't exactly common knowledge."

"So how did Cody know the girl was there?"

I probably should have inquired about that before I killed him. "I don't know." Elijah leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. He hated this feeling of being two steps behind, unaccustomed as he was to it. It seemed that was how he'd been operating since leaving Manhattan and driving south. He needed to do something to get back on an even keel.

"Does anyone else know about her?" Jonas pushed the empty plate away and took a couple swallows of beer.

"According to him, no."

Jonas studied him across the table. "What are you going to do?"

Elijah lifted the photo, studying it. "I think it's time Miss Gilbert and I had a talk."

~~~~~~~~~

Elijah glanced down at the address Carol Lockwood had given him and compared it to the numbers on the white house. The home was modest, but well-kept, with a swing gracing the front porch and a few flower pots here and there adding color and character. Making his way up the steps, he rang the doorbell and waited.

Footsteps pounded down a set of stairs, and a woman, looking barely older than Elena herself, opened the door, still trying to get her right foot all the way into the shoe she had obviously slipped on in a hurry. “Miss Sommers?” Elijah said, extending his hand to her.

“Oh please, it's just Jenna. You must be Mr. Smith.” She shook his hand, a little awkwardly.

“Elijah is fine.”

“Please, come in,” she invited, backing up a step to let him through the door.

Elijah smiled and crossed the threshold. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Miss – Jenna. I hope Mrs. Lockwood didn’t strong-arm you too badly.”

“No, it’s fine! I was just making some coffee. Would you like some?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you.” Elijah followed her to the living room. While she went to the kitchen to fetch the coffee, he examined the photos on the mantle. Family photos, all of them; Elena and a younger brother at various ages, sometimes together and sometimes solo, others showing a family of four. One shot, obviously taken during some long ago holiday, showed the younger Gilbert children with Jenna, who looked to have been around Elena's age now when it was taken.

“’The Gallery,’” Jenna said, nodding toward the photos as she came back in, a tray balanced precariously in one hand and a box held to her hip with the other. Elijah took the tray from her and set it on the coffee table. “Thanks. My sister was nuts about taking pictures. I’d be amazed if there are more than five undocumented minutes of Elena and Jeremy when they were little.”

“Mrs. Lockwood mentioned that you’re raising your niece and nephew now. That must be quite an undertaking.”

She gave a quick laugh. “That… would be putting it mildly.” Sitting on the sofa, she poured coffee from a carafe into the two mugs. “How do you take yours?”

“Black is fine.” He took the proffered cup and seated himself in the overstuffed chair. “I imagine it must have been a difficult adjustment, for all involved.”

“Uh, yeah.” Jenna stirred a generous amount of cream into her own coffee and added a spoonful of sugar. Scooting back into the cushions, she folded her legs up underneath her and cradled the warm mug between her hands. “I still have days when I wake up and can't believe that this is my life now.”

He took a sip of the coffee. “What were you doing before?”

“Going to school. Partying. Drinking too much, smoking things I shouldn’t have been. The usual,” she said ruefully. “And now here I am, telling my sister’s kids not to do those same things, and feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and settled a throw cushion idly on her lap, looking for all the world like a teenager herself. “I mean, the idea of me being totally responsible for two other human beings? Is totally ridiculous."

She's cute, he thought, apropos of nothing. Elijah leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. “I’m sure you’re doing the best you possibly can under the circumstances. They're at a difficult age. Teenagers: a mystery for the ages,” he said, echoing Jonas's words.

“Definitely. You’d think being a grad student in psychology would help, but it actually just makes me realize how much I don't know…" She shrugged. "Do you have kids?”

He shook his head. “No. I… lived with someone once, someone who was orphaned and left to care for her younger siblings. It’s not an easy situation; I think you’re to be commended for what you’re doing.”

She blushed and tucked her hair back again, obviously a nervous habit. “Family. What’re you gonna do?” Leaning forward, she pulled the box over to her and started removing what looked to be old journals or photo albums. “But I’m sure you didn’t come over here to listen to me whine about being the 'loco' in in loco parentis. Carol said you're writing a book on small towns in Virginia?"

Elijah smiled at her and nodded. "Yes. I'm particularly interested in the 18th century settlements in this area. So much has been written about the 19th century, but there were people here well before that."

Jenna flipped through a couple of the albums. "I think these photos and articles here are mostly 1880 and after. I know Miranda had boxes and boxes of stuff from the Historical Society's archives, though. Let me see what I can dig up."

Elijah made a show of flipping through the albums he was ostensibly there to examine while Jenna rose and started combing through the hall closet. "I'm not sure you're going to find much pre-1800. Mystic Falls was founded around then," she called. "The Lockwoods arrived in 1811 I think, the Fells at around the same time, the Gilberts a couple years later, and – eek!"

Hearing the sound of something heavy starting to slide, Elijah sped to the hall and was there to reach over her head and catch the large box of ledgers. She turned and squeaked again to find him standing mere inches behind her, and blushed once more as she pushed at her hair. "Why don't I set this on the table?" he said, smiling down at her.

"Um, yeah. Good catch," she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Cute, and easily flustered. How unfortunate that this was no time to get distracted.

He saw her bend to pull some more boxes from the floor as he turned toward the dining room. The box he carried looked to contain ledgers of births and deaths, something that may prove useful down the road. As he flipped through the worn, leather-bound books, he heard the front door open, and Elena's voice as she spoke to her aunt. His smile turned predatory, in anticipation of her shock at finding him there. Inside of her house.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Oh, good timing," Jenna answered. He heard the sound of a box being transferred from one to the other.

"Whoa! What is this stuff?"

"Your mother's files from the historical society. I got roped into helping Mrs. Lockwood. Aaaand, by roped, I mean very excited to participate." Jenna stood and closed the closet door, revealing Elijah standing behind it.

"Hi," he said, smiling as the girl jumped and stared at him in horror. "I'm Elijah."