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.


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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.