Just Enough Rope, Chapter 6

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sigh.  I think I've lost all semblance of control over this story.

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/6/Just_Enough_Rope
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CHAPTER 6

When Elijah entered his classroom that morning, Caroline was already there waiting for him. “Miss Forbes," he greeted her, drawling the 'r' a bit as he set his briefcase down. "You’re out and about early. Not here seeking an extension on your paper, I hope.”

“No, you’re a hard-ass, we get it. Which I will totally forgive, by the way, if you keep doing that ‘Miss Forrrbes’ thing, because hello, hawt! No, actually, since you're a teacher here now and everything, I want to recruit you.”

"Recruit me?"

"For one of the event planning committees. Instead of doing a Harvest Festival, because boring! I was thinking we should do a Ren Faire. And since you're a history teacher, you'd be the perfect faculty advisor for it."

Elijah closed his eyes for a couple of beats. When he opened them, she was still standing there, and still looking at him expectantly. "Surely you jest."

"No, I'm serious! Look, here's what I've got locked in so far." Pulling out a three-ring binder marked 'School Events,' Caroline flipped to the designated tab. "I want to give it the feel of an outdoor market over here, which is where there will be vendor booths, then a stage over here with medieval type entertainment, like dances and plays and stuff, and then..." she pawed through the different pages until she came to another drawing. "I want to have fencing demonstrations and a jousting tournament. That's where you would come in."

Raising an eyebrow at her, he took the notebook from her and flipped through the pages she had included regarding the event. In addition to drawings and diagrams, she had listed out what each component would need, and had organized contact lists, letters of support, cost estimates, a list of paying participants... any number of organizational details. He had seen top level corporate executives with less organizational acumen. "It looks like you've already done quite a lot of work on the project. I'm impressed," he said – and meant it.

"The only thing I need now is a member of the faculty to sign on to oversee, and someone to train the people who want to participate in the fencing and the joust."

"Shouldn't you hire professionals for that demo? You can't be expecting students to do any jousting." He was fairly certain the school board would frown upon the death-by-impalement of its high school students.

"Well, with modifications, sure! I mean, we'll need to plan on safety equipment and measures and stuff, but I think we can do it. Besides," she lowered her voice. "Whenever we have some kind of a school event, it always seems like we get attacked by vampires or something. So it would be really good if you were around." Caroline closed her binder up and slid it back into her backpack, giving him that sweet-yet-steely head cheerleader smile. "Can I sign you up?"

"What are your plans after high school, Caroline?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

"Huh? Um, college, I guess. I mean, that always was the plan...why?"

"We'll have a more detailed discussion regarding your future at another time. For now, yes, I'll sign on for your event."

The girl let out a little squeal and pressed her hands together delightedly. "Thank you so much. This is going to be epic! I knew I could pull this off. Hah! Suck it, Dana!"

"I'm glad I could be of assistance in your game of one-upsmanship," he said drily. Another skill that would serve her well as a vampire.

Caroline set her backpack down at her class desk. "Um, there's something else I kinda wanted to ask you."

“All right.” Elijah leaned against his desk, arms and feet crossed.

She hesitated fractionally, then plunged ahead. “Do you know any women… you know,” she looked around, though they were clearly the only ones in the room. “…vampires?” she finished in a stage whisper.

Elijah’s lips twitched, but he stifled the grin. “I do. Several.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, of course you know some.” She huffed out a sigh. “What I meant was, do you know of anyone I could, you know, talk to? The only other woman vampire I know is Katherine, like as if.”

“What is it you need to talk about?”

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. “Like, you know. Woman stuff.”

“I…” No, don’t ask for details you don’t want, Elijah.

Too late. “It’s just that things with Matt were all like ‘Mmmm,’ but I was all like ‘Rawr!’, so I had to be all distant and stuff, and then there was everything with Tyler, but then Matt said he loved me, but then Tyler kissed me, and everything was all ’OMG!’ but then he was just all ‘whatevs’ while the werebillies were attacking me, and I was so mad, so when he apologized I was all ‘talk to the hand!’ But then he came back and we talked, and the ritual happened, and Tyler was all like ‘Grrr!’ and I was all ‘No!’ and he totally ran off and didn’t eat anyone, and I think I may kind of like him, but what if I get all like ‘Rawr’ again and he gets all ‘Grrr!’ and…” She heaved an enormous sigh. How she had the breath left to do so, he couldn’t imagine. “I just really need someone to talk to.”

“Okay. Well, I – ”

“I mean, what if I make a mistake and bite him and drink some of his blood? Is that poisonous, like if they bite us? And what about saliva? Because when he kissed me before there wasn't like tongue or anything.”

Elijah scrubbed a hand over his face. He was beginning to feel marginally sympathetic toward Damon. “I think I know someone I can – ”

“And for that matter, what about other, you know, fluids and stuff? Like if I went – ”

“Caroline.”

“Huh?”

“Stop. Talking.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said, looking chastened.

“I have someone in mind. I’ll put in a call to her. All right?”

“Um, ’kay.”

“Was that all?” Please, Dear God, let that be all.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Elijah began taking out his lesson plan and notes for the day, thinking that perhaps adopting some of Klaus's demeanor might not be a thoroughly bad idea. Surely Klaus had never had to deal with a newborn vampire's sex questions.

The warning bell rang; within a few minutes, students were filing in for their first period class. Elena and Stefan arrived in the first wave. He motioned Elena over as she came through the door. “How is your aunt his morning?” he asked, in a low voice.

Elena shrugged. “She got up and went to class, so I think she’s okay.”

“Good.” He left it at that and let her take her seat.

Matt Donovan, Caroline’s ‘Mmmm’ in question, strode in and walked up to Elena’s desk. “Elena, I can’t believe you never told me!”

Elena darted a quick look at Stefan and at Caroline. “Told you what, Matt?”

“That you have a twin sister! You never even told me you were adopted. Why didn't you say anything?”

Stefan looked over at Elijah with an ‘oh shit!’ expression. “Matt, what… where did you see my… sister?” Elena asked him.

“I walked in and she was trying to open her locker, and I thought it was you, but I couldn't figure out why you had changed lockers. I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me – here she is.”

Sure enough, Katerina came sauntering through the door, dressed in an outfit straight out of some teen male sex fantasy: plaid microskirt, button-up shirt that was unbuttoned down to there, and thigh-high black leather boots. Her hair was unbound, and framed her face in a riot of curls. She had a notebook and a couple of textbooks carried in one arm. With a wicked glint in her eye, she came up to Elijah's desk and handed him a piece of paper that turned out to be a note from the guidance office, showing ‘Katherine Pierce’ as a transfer student, assigned to his first period history class.

All conversation in the classroom ceased for a moment, the charged silence quickly giving way to heated whispers as the students who were not named Elena, Caroline or Stefan darted looks back and forth between the two doppelgangers. Elena shot him a desperate ‘do something!’ look. Katerina had picked her moment beautifully, however. There was precious damn little he could do about it, given the present circumstance.

Elijah set the paper on his desk and gestured toward the desks. “Take a seat, Miss Pierce.”

Matt motioned toward an empty desk next to his. "Hey Kat, over here."

Katerina smiled at him and moved down the row, pausing next to Elena. “I can't believe we're finally going to the same school, sis!” she told Elena, before moving on to Matt. “Thank you so much for helping me with my locker, Matt. I can't believe I couldn't get the combination right.” she told him sweetly, batting her eyes at him.

At least, Elijah thought morosely, he now knew Katerina’s whereabouts.
~~~~~

“Miss Pierce, perhaps you could remain a few moments to go over the syllabus,” he suggested when the bell rang, signaling the end of first period.

“Of course. Mr. Smith.”

Elena, Stefan and Caroline all shot him looks with various levels of pleading as they left the classroom. Elijah brought up the rear, intending to close the classroom door to have a little chat with his newest pupil.

“You should probably leave that open,” Katerina suggested. “It wouldn’t look good – a male teacher, a female student, behind closed doors… What would people say?”

Elijah shut the door firmly and had her down across the desk a fraction of a second later. “What on earth are you playing at now, Katerina? A high school student? Really?”

“Who's asking? Elijah the Original Vampire, or ‘mild-mannered history teacher Mr. Smith?’” she mocked.

Elijah released her throat with a scowl and took a step back. Katerina sat up, crossing her legs as she perched on the edge of the desk, which inched the tiny skirt up even further. “Why are you here, Katerina?”

She fluffed her hair up, shrugging. “Building a life. You know, now that I’m not running for mine. Isn’t that what I was supposed to be doing?” she asked innocently.

He sighed deeply. “And you thought it best to do that by remaining in Mystic Falls? And going to high school?"

“Where else was I supposed to go?"

"Anywhere but here?"

"I happen to like it here," she said archly. "And if I wanted to stay, there had to be a reason for Elena and I to look alike. The twins separated at birth and adopted out to two families thing seemed like the most logical story to go with. And if I’m supposed to be her twin, then it would be odd if I didn’t go to school, wouldn’t it?”

He supposed he really couldn't argue with the logic, as far as it went. Stepping forward again, he took her chin in his hand, tilting her head up. "Do not mistake my previous leniency for carte blanche to run around causing trouble, Katerina. If you become a problem, I will end you. So, I will expect you to be on your best behavior."

“Well, what fun would that be?” She shot him a coy little sideways glance and hopped down off the desk. “I think I have English next period.”

Elijah caught her arm before she could slip out the door. “I have enough to worry about right now, Katerina, without having to worry about you, too.

She leaned into him, bringing her lips close to his ear. “Then don’t worry.” A second bell rang, indicating the start of second period. Elijah released her as the door swung open and his next class started filing in. One more wicked little glance over her shoulder at him, and she left, causing a male student to walk into the door frame when he turned to stare at her retreating form, as another let out a wolf whistle, setting off what was sure to be a cavalcade of testosterone-driven nonsense throughout the school's male populace.

Elijah shook his head. Absolutely no good could possibly come out of this.

~~~~~

During the fifth period study hall that he had to baby-sit, Elijah alternated between sending out text messages and watching Katerina as she insured that no male in the room paid attention to anything but her. Marcus and Sophia were still in the area; Sophia agreed to come back to town and meet with Caroline. Elijah thought about warning her just what she was getting into, but afraid that she might change her mind, he opted to keep that information to himself. He sent a few texts to various people keeping an eye on things for him in New York, one to Maya to check on Bonnie's progress, and one to Damon to warn him about the Katerina situation. The handful of text messages he sent to Jenna went unanswered.

When he still hadn't heard back from her by the time he was finished for the day, he called. It rang several times, then kicked over to voicemail. Growing concerned, he waylaid Elena as she came out of her last class of the day. "Have you heard from Jenna at all today?" he asked, walking down the hall with her as she went to her locker.

"No, why?"

"She hasn't responded for a couple of hours. Given everything that's going on..." He gave her a meaningful look.

"Here, I'll try her." Elena took her own phone out and dialed Jenna. Just as it had when he had called, it rang and then went to voicemail. "That's weird," Elena said, pocketing her phone with a frown. "Today is her early day, she's usually done with class by lunch time." She looked past him, down the hall. "Jer!"

Elijah turned to see Jeremy walking toward them. "Hey. So, Katherine: WTF?" he asked as he drew near.

"I'll deal with it," Elijah told him shortly. "Have you heard from your aunt at all today?"

He shook his head. "No. Why, is something wrong?"

"She's not answering her phone," Elena told him.

"You said she was sick last night. Maybe she's taking a nap. Or she's working on her thesis and turned off her phone," Jeremy suggested.

Maybe I'm just getting paranoid, like Klaus. "I'll swing by the house and check on her."

"Do you want us to head home?" Elena asked.

"No. Go on ahead to the hospital. I'll call if there is a problem. It's probably just as you said: she's either sleeping or preoccupied." Or in some kind of trouble from Justin or God knows who else. If I'm being paranoid.

On his way to the parking lot, he called Andie to see if she had heard from Jenna, but struck out there too. If he were brutally honest with himself, the whole lot of them would likely be better off if he just returned to New York until the fallout from Klaus's demise had settled, but he feared that if he left now it would be too little, too late, and he'd only be leaving them unprotected. Busy with his phone and with retrieving his car keys, Elijah didn't look up until he was only a couple of car lengths from his vehicle. When he did, he stopped dead.

Two figures stood flanking the car. The man stood on the passenger side, his powerful arm leaned casually on the roof of his Lexus. At around 6-foot-5, he topped Elijah's height by several inches. His sand brown hair has been chopped into one of those spiky, unkempt hairstyles that were supposed to be stylish. The woman leaned against the driver's side, arms crossed in front of her. Only a few inches shorter than the male, her hair was as long and as red as Elijah remembered it. Both were well-dressed, muscular and athletic. And both were Originals.

Elijah resumed walking, keeping his eyes on both of them, and he perhaps put just a bit more swagger into his step. The woman straightened and walked toward him as he neared the front of his car. He stood his ground, hands hanging loosely at his sides, letting her approach. She stopped mere inches in front of him, looking him up and down appraisingly. He quirked a brow at her (and wasn't it annoying that he had to look up at her to do so) and waited, his peripheral vision trained on the man.

She ended the stand-off first. Closing the distance between them, she grabbed him into a bone-crushing hug and practically lifted him off the ground. "Elijah, you son of a bitch!" She loosened her grasp on him enough to pull back and look him in the eye. "You actually – finally – took that bastard out?"

"I did," he confirmed, which got him squeezed against her once more. He flicked a glance over at the man. "Little help here?" he asked, his voice coming out half-strangled.

"Hilda, let the man breathe," he told her. Hilda released him reluctantly. He drew in a deep breath – which promptly left him in a whoosh when the man snatched him up into a bear-hug. This time, his feet did leave the ground. By several inches.

"Gareth," he choked out, "put me down, you big idiot."

The huge man set him down, but not without giving him several manly-hug-back-thumps that set his teeth jarring. Elijah straightened his jacket and tried to gather the shreds of his dignity. Which Hilda promptly shattered again by laying a big kiss on him. "Oh for Christ sake, woman, let him be," Gareth told her. "I think this deserves a celebratory drink, Elijah. I assume there's someplace to get one in his backwater hell hole?"

Elijah glanced at his watch. "I... all right. A quick one."

~~~~~

It was early; consequently, the Grill was sparsely populated. Elijah appropriated a corner table, going around in back so he was facing out toward the rest of the room. Matt Donovan waved as he walked through and headed toward the kitchen to start his shift. Gareth went to the bar and came back with three glasses and a bottle of what was likely the best scotch available in Mystic Falls – outside of Elijah's personal collection at home, of course. "To Klaus: May the bastard's soul writhe in hell," he said, raising his glass. Elijah and Hilda did likewise, all of them draining the first glass in a couple of swallows.

"Have you heard from any of the others?" Hilda asked, pouring herself a second glass.

Elijah held his out for a refill. "Sebastian sent his lapdog to confirm."

"Which one?" Gareth asked. "He's got three or four on a string."

"Justin."

Hilda made a face. "No one else?"

"Just the two of you so far."

Gareth leaned forward on his elbows. "You need to think about calling a summit, Elijah. The sooner the better."

"A summit?" Elijah asked, frowning. "What for?"

"There are issues that need to be discussed. Hell, that have needed to be discussed for decades now, except Klaus would hear nothing of it," Hilda pointed out.

"Klaus may have been crazy as a shit-house rat, Elijah, but he wasn't wrong about everything," Gareth added. "There are decisions to be made about how we're going to handle things now that he's not hovering over us all."

The outside door opened, and Katerina strolled in, glancing his way briefly before going over to the bar to greet Matt.

Gareth looked around to see what had caught Elijah's attention, and did a double-take. "Is that...?"

"Mmm. Katerina. The first doppelganger."

Hilda snorted into her glass. "And she's still alive... why?"

Elijah took a swallow of scotch. "A question I ask myself on a continual basis." Katerina had pulled herself up onto a barstool and ordered a drink (soda presumably, given her cover story) so she could flirt with Matt while he performed, or tried to perform, his duties. The young Mr. Donovan was obviously buying absolutely everything she was selling.

"Oh no. Don't tell me she finally got to you, too," Hilda said, following his gaze.

"No. She hasn't." Had she? He didn't think so. And yet, when he had finally had the golden opportunity to be rid of her forever, he had blown his own carefully laid plans. And rather than running her out of town on a rail when she had pulled her stunt that morning, he had reluctantly gone along with it. Lovely. Yet another thing to worry about.

Hilda set her glass aside and leaned forward, mirroring Gareth. "Is it true that you've agreed to set the witches up with their own compound?" she asked, her voice low.

"It is." Elijah wasn't surprised to be questioned on this point; he had known that it wouldn't be a popular move in some circles.

"Was that smart?"

"I like to think so. You don't agree?"

Gareth took the conversational baton from Hilda, making Elijah wonder suddenly just how 'together' they were. It would make sense, he supposed. Present personal circumstances notwithstanding, he had always maintained that vampires were better off with one another than going the human route. "I think it's dangerous to let them convene and learn from one another and not keep some kind of a rein on them," he said.

"You're clinging to the old way of thinking, Gareth. Keep them enslaved, and sooner or later they were going to build up enough power to throw off the yoke, and we can't have that. It's in our best interest to work with them, show them that they are better off allying with us than being at odds."

Hilda shook her head, scowling. "I don't like it. You should have maintained control over them. They can't be dealt with as equals."

"They're too powerful not to be dealt with as equals." He finished his drink and checked his phone. Still no word from Jenna. "I gave them my word. I will honor it."

"And the summit?"

"I'll consider it." Elijah rose. "I have matters I need to attend to, but it's good to see you both. It's been a long time."

"Too long," Gareth agreed, standing and clasping his hand.

"Will the two of you be remaining here in town?"

"We'll be in D.C. for the next little while." Hilda reached into her pocket and gave him a slip of paper with their cell numbers on it, and hugged him again. "Call us when you've set something up."

He didn't bother to correct her 'when' with an 'if.' Bidding them goodbye, he cast a last glance over at the bar, where Matt was leaning on his elbows and telling Katerina some story or other while she looked at him with rapt attention. Elijah added 'slip vervain to Matt Donovan' to his mental to-do list and exited the premises, hoping fervently that Jenna would be at the house when he got there.

Just Enough Rope, Chapter 5

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I… think I got hijacked by my character again? Maybe?

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/5/
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CHAPTER 5

“So how long are you going to leave him in the dog house?” Andie asked, picking mushrooms off of the slice of pizza on her plate. “Because he is being super cute right now.”

Jenna looked out the kitchen window, to where Elijah was occupying Conner with a slingshot they had made from a tree branch and a big rubber band. So far, Conner had missed the neighbor’s cat, but with Elijah’s help he had enjoyed slightly more success against the old iron birdbath. “I’m not sure ‘cute’ is the appropriate word to use for an ancient vampire.” She pulled a piece of pepperoni off of her own pizza and stuck it in her mouth as Conner pegged a plastic flower pot and Elijah held the boy’s hand up in a victory gesture. “He is being pretty cute, though.”

“Who’s being cute?” Elena asked, coming into the kitchen and reaching into cupboard for a glass.

“Conner!” Jenna answered hastily, turning away from the window and pushing the curtain across. “Have you heard from Jeremy?” He had insisted on staying behind at the hospital, to be there when Bonnie came out of the sedation.

Elena nodded. “Bonnie woke up a little bit but she was pretty agitated, so they’re keeping her under light sedation. They want to bring her out gradually.” She wandered over to the counter and lifted the top of the pizza box, settling on a slice of the veggie pizza.

The back door opened and Conner came thundering into the kitchen. “Mama! I hit it! I hit the flower pot!” He leapt up into Andie’s lap; only the quick reflexes of a mother with a small, active child made her set her pizza on the plate before he could upend it on the floor. “I’m gonna be a… um…”

“Marksman,” Elijah filled in, coming in from outside.

“Yeah! A markthman! I want pizza!”

Andie caught him before he could hurl himself bodily onto the counter and the pizza. “Hands. Go wash them.” She set him on the floor and turned him toward the half-bath down the hall. Conner hit the floor running and made engine noises as he ran toward the bathroom. Andie shook her head in amazement. “If only I could harness that energy…”

“Did Stefan leave?” Jenna asked Elena.

“Yeah. Homework.” She pegged Elijah with A Look. Elijah looked distinctly unapologetic. “Speaking of which, I should get back to mine.”

“Hold a moment, if you would, Elena,” Elijah told her.

“Uh-oh… Mama!” Conner yelled from the bathroom.

Andie groaned. “Nothing good ever follows those two words,” she said, getting up and going down the hall.

“I need to talk to you both about what happened today,” Elijah told them. “It wasn’t an accident. The driver of the truck had been compelled. And he was waiting for my car to go by.”

“He was waiting for you?” Jenna pushed her plate away, pizza forgotten. “Is this what you were talking about the other night, when you said someone might be taking a shot at you?”

“Wait, what?” Elena asked.

“Time to go!” Andie said, coming through with Conner held out at arm’s length in front of her. The wet stain on the front of his pants gave a pretty good indication as to the nature of the emergency.

“But I want pizza!!” Conner yelled, kicking his feet as Andie carried him through the kitchen.

“We’ll get some at home. Sorry, guys,” she said as she passed Jenna. “I should remember to bring a change of clothes for him. I guess I’m a little rusty at this whole mom thing. Call you later.”

“What’s this about someone taking a shot at you?” Elena asked, once Andie had gone out the door.

The door opened again, and Andie poked her head back in. “Um, did someone order a new Lexus?”

“That would be mine,” Elijah said, heading for the door. “I expect the keys will be in it.” He followed Andie out, presumably to move the car.

Elena turned to Jenna. “What is he talking about?”

“The other night he told me he was worried about some of the other Originals coming after him, now that Klaus is gone." She grabbed some plates to start tidying up; set them down, took a glass to the sink; rinsed it and set it back on the counter again.

Elena took the stack of plates and opened the dishwasher. “You okay?”

Jenna gave up on the pretense of straightening up and leaned back against the sink, arms crossed. She wished that she hadn’t eaten the pizza; she could feel it swimming around greasily in her stomach, pitched to and fro on the waves of sudden anxiety that Elijah’s words had churned up. “Is it always like this?”

“Is what always like what?”

“Is there always some life-and-death emergency on the horizon? Someone who wants to eat/kill/sacrifice someone else? Can’t vampires just be accountants and collect postage stamps and watch ‘American Idol’ like normal people?”

“Aunt Jenna, I think you need to be realistic about your expectations. There are much better shows to watch on Thursday nights than ‘American Idol.’” Elena grinned impishly at her and turned to get a drink out of the refrigerator. “How do you feel about stamp collecting,” Elena asked Elijah, as he came back through the door.

“Excuse me?”

“Ignore her,” Jenna told him, rubbing her stomach. “So. This accident. Or non-accident, as the case may be?”

“There isn’t much more I can say. It was obviously intentional. I don’t know who compelled the driver, but I have a fairly good guess. There was a vampire at the restaurant the other night who is aligned with one of the other Originals; I’d peg him as the most likely culprit. Though I did give him some… encouragement to leave town.”

“But… they had to have known that wouldn’t kill you,” Elena said, frowning.

“Not me, no. But it could very well have killed anyone who was with me.” Elijah drummed his fingers on the counter, biting his bottom lip as he seemed to consider something. “I’d like to have a security system installed here, if you’ll allow it.”

“Vampires can’t come in unless they’re invited,” Jenna pointed out, swallowing another wave of nausea.

“Vampires, no. Compelled, or even hired humans can.” He looked over at Elena. “There is also the matter of your safety.”

“My safety?”

“Klaus may be dead, Elena, but you are still a doppelganger, and there are still vampires and werewolves out there who want to break the curse. Surely you’ve thought of this.”

Elena’s expression of dawning realization made it clear she hadn’t. “I… I guess I just thought, after Klaus was gone…”

Jenna pushed away from the sink to go to her, but the movement sent her head into a sudden tailspin. Her stomach lurched as the wave of dizziness put the room at a drunken tilt. Saliva filling her mouth, Jenna clapped a hand over it and ran for the bathroom. She had just enough time to slam the door, drop to her knees and raise the seat before the first wrenching rush came up, followed swiftly by more as she was completely and thoroughly sick.

She hung there over the toilet, dark spots dancing in her vision, until she was sure it had passed. When she had gone a couple of minutes without retching, she reached up to push the handle and leaned back against the wall in a cold sweat, eyes closed. A few minutes passed, then a timid knock sounded at the door. “Jenna? Are you okay?” Elena asked.

Jenna opened her eyes and groaned as the light speared into them. “I think I’ll live,” she answered thickly. “Unfortunately.”

“Okay…” She heard Elena pad back down the hall, and low voices in the kitchen, the words indistinct through the closed door and the buzzing in her head. She turned so her cheek pressed against the cool wall, sitting there until the very thought of movement no longer made her want to hurl again. Climbing to her feet, she went to the sink and cupped her hands under the water, drinking some in to rinse her mouth out. That accomplished, she decided she felt partially human again.

Elena was just putting the last of the food into the refrigerator when she rejoined them in the kitchen. “Sorry. Apparently pepperoni and attempted murder are volatile when mixed. Who knew?”

Elijah squeezed her hand. “My apologies. I didn’t wish to upset you.”

“I’m fine. It’s fine,” she said, squeezing back. “I think I’m just going to go brush my teeth for five hours and call it a night, though. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Jenna left them in the kitchen, twin looks of concern on their faces, and hauled herself up over the stairs. Crawling into her pajamas, she brushed her teeth and started her nightly getting-ready-for-bed ritual of removing make-up, washing her face, moisturizing. She wasn’t even sure when the tears started, but when she lay down in bed, her cheeks were wet with them.

Curling up, she pulled the extra pillow – the empty pillow – over and hugged it to herself. Unimaginable as it may have been a few weeks ago, she missed the ‘simplicity’ of worrying only about raising her orphaned niece and nephew. She missed thinking that vampires and werewolves and witches – oh my! – were just creatures out of books and horror movies. She missed having the phone ring and not being terrified to answer it for fear of what new crisis loomed. She missed going to bed and having someone to curl up with, tell jokes with, discuss the day with.

She missed Ric.

Curled around the pillow, alone, Jenna cried herself to sleep.

~~~~~~

Jenna had half hoped that she would still be feeling under the weather when she woke, so that she would have a viable excuse to stay home rather than go to campus, but she woke feeling hail and hearty, if somewhat sandy-eyed from the crying jag. Since she couldn’t in good conscience skip class for no reason, she showered, dressed, and drove to the campus.

One the way, she dialed Andie, but it went straight to voicemail. Speaking of voicemail, there were two waiting for her. One was from Elena, saying she would be stopping at the hospital after school. The other was from Elijah, expressing concern for her health and saying he’d call her later. Jenna erased the messages and tossed the phone back into her bag.

Her impromptu pity party of one notwithstanding, she had to admit that Elijah had sure as hell been a lot more honest with her than Alaric had ever been. And she couldn’t argue that he treated her well. She didn’t think she had ever dated anyone with such impeccable manners. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She had barely dated anyone who didn’t think belching the alphabet was the height of accomplishment. And what was up with him just having a new car delivered, out of the blue? She hadn’t even heard him make a phone call. Were vampires like the Mafia or something?

She could have asked him to stay the night before, she supposed. Although asking someone you hadn’t had sex with yet to sleep – just sleep – with you seemed like a bad idea, especially with an upset stomach. Nothing said ‘baby, take me!’ like being vomited on. Hey, did vampires even sleep? She’d have to ask. She was sure they didn’t get sick –

Out of her peripheral vision, she saw the rounded, red hood of a Volkswagen jut out into her path. She hit the brakes hard and swerved to the left, which made the oncoming minivan swerve to avoid her. Once past the VW, she was able to pull back into her own lane and pull off the side of the road, shaking. Remembering what Elijah had said about his “accident,” she looked in her rearview mirror at the VW. A blond girl, maybe all of sixteen, had pulled to the side of the road as well, and was getting out of her car. Jenna shot a hand over to the passenger seat to grab her phone; her hand hit nothing but air, her bag having crashed into the mess of papers and garbage on the floor when she had stomped on the brakes.

Not sure what to do, but not wanting to be trapped in the seat of her little car, Jenna hastily got out as well and stood facing the girl, adrenaline screaming through her system and making her jittery as the fight-or-flight response tried to take over. To do which, Jenna wasn’t sure. She tried to visually frisk the girl for weapons, though if she were a vampire she wouldn’t exactly need a weapon; her own strength would be weapon enough. Nothing in her hands except a cell phone…

“Are you okay?” the girl asked as she drew near. Two big tears coursed down her cheeks. “I am so, so sorry! I was reading a text and I didn’t see the stop sign. We don’t have to call the police, do we? My dad will kill me!” she sobbed.

Jenna let the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding out in a rush. “Uh, no,” she said, shakily. “Nobody hit anyone else, so I guess there’s no damage done.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much!!” The girl sniffled and wiped a sleeve across her eyes, and might have hugged her had Jenna not lurched back when the girl leaned toward her. Jesus, Jenna. Paranoid much? It’s just a kid, not paying attention. “I will be in SO much trouble if my parents find out.”

Jenna sighed deeply, trying to relieve some of the tension coiled in the pit of her stomach. “It’s okay. Just do yourself, and everyone else on the road, a big favor and leave your phone alone while you’re driving, okay?” She gave herself a mental raspberry for the fact that she had just been doing the same thing.

“Totally! Thank you.” The girl turned around and walked back toward her car, calling someone as she went so that she was already back on the phone by the time she got back into her vehicle. It did look like she ended her call before driving away from the curb, though.

Jenna got back into her own car as well, grabbing her bag from the floor and shoving books and notebooks back into it while she gave her nerves a minute to settle. She wondered if maybe it was time to think about trading the mini-Cooper in for something a little bigger and safer.

Like maybe a tank.

~~~~~~

The whole ordeal, combined with the stop that Jenna made for some therapeutic doughnuts to overcome it, made her almost half an hour late to her first class. That in turn gave her whole morning a rushed and off-kilter feel, so that by the time she dragged herself to the student union for lunch, she was grumpy, exhausted, and out of sorts. Consequently, she was less than thrilled when Suzanne, one of her fellow grad students, invited herself to sit with her.

“Jenna! I’ve hardly even seen you this semester. How are you?” the bubbly little redhead asked, settling in across from her.

“Been better. How is your abstract coming along?”

“Oh, I’ve had that done for weeks now,” she said offhand. Jenna wondered how much trouble she’d get into for hitting her. “That’s right, you got Professor Mitchell for an advisor, didn’t you?”

“Yep. Lucky me.” Jenna pushed her tray aside, leaving half of her beef stew still in the bowl. Given her sickness the night before, the doughnuts and extra coffee had maybe not been the best idea in the world, especially when combined with the adrenaline rush from the near accident.

“Oh, he’s not so bad. I’m TA-ing for his abnormal psych class this semester.” And with Suzanne, Jenna thought uncharitably, the ‘T’ and ‘A’ in this case could go either way. The redhead was about as subtle as a tornado in a trailer park.

“Yeah? Any tips on how to deal with him?” Jenna asked, giving in to cafeteria boredom and shredding her napkin. “He seems to run pretty hot and cold.”

“Oh, he’s a little weird at first, but he chills out once he gets to know you.” She stopped, a thoughtful look on her face. “Or maybe you just get used to him.”

Jenna highly doubted it. “Are you going to this mixer tomorrow night?”

“Definitely! You?”

“Yeah. Professor Mitchell actually recommended I go. I get the feeling he thinks I’m going to need all the help I can get when it comes time to present my thesis abstract to the committee.”

“Yay! I’m so glad you’re going to be there. Are you bringing anyone?”

“Mm-hm. A guy I’m seeing. He teaches history at Mystic Falls High.”

“Oh, that Ric guy? You showed me photos of him when we were doing that clinic rotation. He’s a hottie!”

Awkward. “Uh, no. I broke up with him, actually. I’m seeing someone new. His name’s Elijah.”

“I’m sorry. I must be mixing them up. I was thinking Ric was a history teacher.”

“Heh. Yeah… funny story, that. Ric left town after we broke up. Elijah took over his teaching position.”

Suzanne stopped mid-chew and gave her the eyebrow treatment. “Okay… So is this history teacher fetish something new, or is there some deep, dark, scandalous secret from your high school past that you’re not sharing?”

Jenna had to laugh. “Nothing salacious, I’m afraid. Mrs. Murray was about sixty years old, and she was just not that hot.”

“Speaking of hot teachers, where would you rate Professor Mitchell on the hotness scale?” she asked.

“Probably somewhere in between ‘he’s my advisor’ and ‘I’m not even going to think of him that way?’”

Suzanne stuck her tongue out at her. “I think he’s kind of handsome. Maybe it’s the beard. It makes him look…”

“…like a lumberjack?”

Suzanne kicked her lightly under the table. “No! He looks distinguished.”

“Hey, whatever does it for you.”

“Oh, shut up. Here, eat half of this brownie. I want to fit into my cocktail dress Friday night.”

Jenna waved it away. “No thanks. I ate two doughnuts this morning and they’re still fighting the good fight.”

“Well… I DO have to carry a bunch of equipment this afternoon. I’m sure I’ll work it off!” she decided, lighting into the brownie. “Professor Mitchell has this slide show to do, but none of the slides were digitized, so I have to bring this huge – ” In making a sweeping gesture with her arms to demonstrate, Suzanne knocked her glass of soda onto the floor. “Dammit! Jen, could you grab me some more napkins out of that dispenser over there?” she asked, getting on the floor and dabbing at the puddle with the two napkins she had.

Jenna walked over and grabbed a wad of napkins, hauling her bag out of range of the liquid when she came back with them. It looked to have escaped unscathed. Not that one more stain would really signify at this point, but still. She saw the opportunity to escape and took it. “I’m going to run over to Barrowman. They’re starting a series of clinical trials this afternoon,” she said, swinging the strap over her shoulder.

“’kay. See you tomorrow, Jen.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

Just Enough Rope, Chapter 4

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Sorry, guys. I know this is way later than normal, and a short one to boot. Thursday night's episode threw me COMPLETELY. Between all the new mythology I can't include, the abundance of highly squee-inducing Elijah-y goodness in the episode, and my nerve-wracking paranoia that he will not make it out of the season alive, I've been in an absolute state. A STATE, I tell you! So I wasn't so much on my game writing this. I'll try to do better the next section or two before this Thursday evening, when I will no doubt have all new reasons to hyperventilate.



Jeez. I'm almost looking forward to the summer hiatus at this point just so I can rest my nerves and chill the fuck out, y'all!

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/4/Just_Enough_Rope
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER 4

Elijah straightened and slipped the pen back into his jacket pocket, the breeze that swept the parking lot rustling the rough drawing he had done of the hospital wing that Bonnie was in. “Is everyone ready?”

“Totally! This is like, ‘Mission: Impossible’ or something,” Caroline enthused.

“Hopefully not ‘impossible,’” he said drily.

“Are you sure you can keep Bonnie’s father away for long enough?” Stefan asked her.

Caroline rolled her eyes. “Pfft. Have you met me? I’ll get him to go to the cafeteria with me and I’ll talk his ear off. And if all else fails, I’ll compel him to stay there.”

“And Glamour Shots here isn’t going to short anything out by lying in the bed and putting on the illusion that she’s Bonnie?” Damon gestured toward Andie with his thumb.

“Glamours don’t throw around disruptive energy," Andie assured him. "It’ll be fine.”

“Don’t you have one of those… children things running around somewhere?” Damon looked around as though he feared the child would ambush them from behind a trash can, or one of the parked cars.

Andie rolled her eyes at him. “He’s with Jenna. She’s babysitting.”

“What about Elena and Jeremy?” Stefan had checked his cell phone five times since they’d been standing there.

“I told them that this wasn’t taking place until tomorrow. They can do nothing to help, and they would only be in the way," he explained, when Stefan gave him That Look. "They’ve gone to the library to do some research I recommended for their history papers. We should have time to take Bonnie and bring her back before they decide to pay her a visit.”

“So, since I’m helping with this and can’t use the time to study…” Caroline looked at him hopefully, batting her eyelashes.

“…you’ll need to put in some extra long hours this evening,” Elijah told her, quashing any notions of leniency or extra credit.

“SO mean.”

“You’re up first, Barbie,” Damon told her, nodding toward the hospital’s main entrance.

“No kidding, Ken,” Caroline bratted at him. “Hey, shouldn’t we have, like, walkie-talkies or something? You know, code names, ‘the eagle’ has landed…?”

“Yes. Because that wouldn’t be conspicuous at all.” Damon leaned down close to her. “And for the record? I am totally G.I. Joe.”

They gave Caroline a head start of about fifteen minutes or so to get Bonnie’s father out of her room before Damon and Stefan headed in to cover their assigned exits. They would clear the way for him to remove Bonnie from the building, and be on hand in case someone did wander onto the scene and need an emergency compulsion to forget what they had seen. Elijah gave them a few minutes to move into position, then sent Andie in and pulled his car over close to the emergency exit, the alarm for which she had already shorted out.

Elijah parked and let himself in through the emergency door, moving quietly up the service stairway. He popped out on the second floor, only two doors away from Bonnie’s room. Andie was already there, waiting to take Bonnie’s place on the bed. He took a moment to carefully remove Bonnie’s IVs; a quick glance at the bags hanging from the IV stand showed that they served only to hydrate and funnel nutrients into her. There were no medications to help with what was wrong with her.

Once he’d made sure everything was unhooked, he lifted Bonnie from the bed. Andie gave him a ‘here goes nothing’ look and lay down, pulling the blankets up over her. Mumbling an incantation under her breath, her form began to shimmer, like a mirage off of sun-heated pavement. Within moments, ‘Bonnie’ once again lay in the bed. Elijah nodded approval and, checking the hallway for pedestrians, slipped out of the room with Bonnie in his arms. He zipped down the stairs and bundled her into the car at speed to minimize risk of detection, and settled her into the back seat. Coming around to the driver’s side, he sent a text to Damon; three or four minutes later, Damon appeared and got into the backseat with Bonnie.

The trip from the hospital to the Salvatore house, where they had agreed that Maya would set up, took ten minutes or so. Bonnie, held across Damon’s lap to keep her secure during the drive, gave signs of neither distress nor of waking. Still, Elijah didn’t relax until he had carried her inside, to the room that Maya had prepared for the spell work she would do.

Damon was already in the library when Elijah came back downstairs. He handed him a glass of whiskey, already well into one himself, as he came through the door. “I don’t like it,” Damon told him, pacing over to the fireplace.

“The whiskey?”

“No, not the whiskey.” He demonstrated by downing the rest of the amber liquid and going back to the bar to refill his glass. “That was too easy.”

“How do you mean?”

“No hiccups? No emergencies? No one popping out of the woodwork to throw everything into a tailspin?”

Elijah allowed himself a little smirk and sipped at his drink. “Contrary to the chaos you engender in every harebrained scheme you come up with, Damon, I try to anticipate the contingencies and answer them beforehand. Hence the smooth operation.”

“Right. You know, I totally should have realized that, what with how smoothly everything went at the sacrifice ritual and all."

"You survived it, didn't you?" Elijah settled himself into the deep leather chair.

"Let's hope she does." He flicked a thumb toward the ceiling.

"While we have a few moments, there are some things of which you need to be made aware." Elijah finished the whiskey and set the glass aside. "I had a run-in the other night with a lackey belonging to Sebastian, one of the other Originals. Word of Klaus's demise is evidently making the rounds."

Damon sat down on the sofa opposition him. "What kind of a run-in?"

"He appeared at the restaurant while I was out with the Gilberts. He wanted to know if it were true, about Klaus. I suspect there will be others coming to confirm for themselves."

Damon stretched out and put his feet up on the coffee table. Elijah hid another smirk behind his hand when Damon opened a magazine and placed it under his shoes. He was finding himself increasingly amused by the younger vampire's OCD when it came to matters of housekeeping. "So, now that Klaus is gone, the rest of the Originals are going to show up here to see which of you has the biggest dick?"

He snorted. "Succinctly if inelegantly put, yes."

"And this Sebastian guy is the first to whip his out?"

"A direct confrontation isn't really his style. He'll wait until he can make an alliance with one or two of the others. In the meantime, I expect he'll continue to send his minions to complicate things for me."

"Will anyone ally with him?"

Elijah considered for a moment. "He may be able to persuade a couple of the others. I would estimate it at a 50/50 proposition."

"Have I mentioned yet how glad I am you chose to stick around Mystic Falls?" Damon snarked.

He finished his drink and set the glass on the coffee table. One... two... three... Before he could count to four, Damon had picked it up off of the wood and set it on another of the magazines. Elijah swallowed a grin. "Well, better here when they come for the doppelganger than elsewhere, wouldn't you say?"

"Wait, what?"

"There's still a doppelganger in play. There will be others who seek to break the curse."

He gave Damon a second for the implication to set in. "Elena is still in danger."

"I'm afraid she always will be, as long as she's alive and human."

Damon got up and paced over to the mantle. "Then we'll turn her."

"I've never gotten the impression that Elena desired to be turned."

"She wouldn't before, because of what Klaus did to Katherine's family when she did it." He gestured out the window, toward the newly extended terrace and pool. "Not an issue anymore."

Elijah frowned. "She had no other objections?"

"None that are relevant."

"Relevant to her, or relevant to you?"

Damon made that little facial shrug to which he was prone. "Details..."

An ear-piercing scream echoed down from upstairs, forestalling any further discussion. Both vampires were up over the stairs and into the spell room within a second. Bonnie was sitting up on the bed, restrained by Maya and her partner, screaming. Her eyes were open and wheeling around wildly, but they didn't appear to be registering anything in the room. Maya tilted her head toward the dresser. "There's a syringe there with a sedative," she said, over the screams. "Bring it to me."

Elijah fetched it and took Maya's position, holding Bonnie still so she could give her the injection. It took hold quickly; within a minute Bonnie had quieted and fallen back against the pillows, asleep.

"Is that a good or a bad indication?" he asked the witch, smoothing Bonnie's hair back where it had fallen forward during her struggles.

Maya dabbed surreptitiously at her nose, leaving a smear of blood across the backs of her fingers. "Good that she's out of the coma state. The rest... It will be a work in progress. Perhaps you can see that I get assigned as her 'therapist?'"

Elijah passed her a handkerchief and nodded. "I'll see to it. Can we move her back to the hospital?"

Maya nodded. "That sedative should keep her out for at least two to three hours. We'll clean up here and meet you over there."

Damon picked Bonnie up and headed downstairs. When he was out of the room, Elijah passed Maya a discreet envelope from his breast pocket. "This should cover any expenses you'll incur while staying here in town. Is there anything else you need?"

"No, we're fine." The witch started gathering candles and other items she had used during her ritual. "It's a good thing that you're doing, Elijah. With the academy," she added, when he looked at her blankly. "I know some of the people who have chosen to stay and help put it together. I think they're really hopeful that this means a new age for us. For all of us."

He lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug. "Klaus's idea of witches' conclave was never a bad one. His methodology, however..."

She squeezed his arm on her way past to straighten the bed. "You've made some powerful allies. Don't be afraid to call on them if need be."

Which had, after all, been the idea when he'd first bandied it back and forth with Andie, he thought to himself as he trotted down the stairs. With upheaval brewing amongst the ranks, he fully expected to be drawing help from that quarter.

Damon already had Bonnie settled once more in the back seat with him when Elijah reached the vehicle. "Not exactly encouraging, was it?" he said as Elijah pulled out of the driveway.

Elijah briefly met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "At least with her awake, they'll be able to begin helping her mind to transition from the old way of doing things to the new. You weren't expecting her to wake up and ask for a dish of ice cream, were you?" He thought her heard Damon mumble something like "it would have been nice." He considered commenting on the fact that Damon actually seemed to care, but decided it was better left unsaid.

A quick glance at the in-dash clock told him they would have her back at the hospital in just under the three-hour window he had hoped to remain within. Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he checked for any messages from the gang still at the hospital. One text, but it looked to be from Jenna –

A large, open bed truck, piled high with fence stakes, accelerated through a stop sign and came barreling at the side of the car. Elijah saw it and tried to swerve, but the truck caught the rear fender of his car, sending both vehicles spinning around. Several of the fence pickets came loose, shot from the truck bed by the centrifugal force as the truck spun and fought for control. "Get down!" he shouted at Damon, killing the engine and flattening across the front seats just as four or five of the pickets came crashing through the windows.

Two of the stakes scraped along Elijah's back as they came through the passenger side windows. A muffled oath, heard through the sounds of squealing tires and glass breaking, told him some had made it through the back window too. The car came to a sudden, crunching halt as the driver's side slammed up against a telephone pole.

Elijah pushed the pickets off of him and sat up, whirling to check the back seat. Damon had thrown himself down across Bonnie. His shirt was torn and Elijah could see several bloody welts rapidly closing up. A couple of the deeper cuts, imbedded with splinters from the wood, continued to seep blood. With the driver's side door encasing the telephone pole in a cradle of crumpled metal, Elijah pulled himself over to the passenger seat and tried the door; when it wouldn't pop open, he gave it a hard, two-handed push and knocked it off of the car altogether. He was out of the car in a split second and pulling the rear passenger side door off as well.

Extending his hand to Damon, he helped haul him off of Bonnie and out of the car, then crouched down into the back seat to check on her. The crash hadn't awakened her; she was still under the sedation. Elijah saw no immediate wounds or injuries – Damon's body had held hers in place and kept the wood and glass off of her. Her pulse, under his fingers, felt slow and steady, while her breathing appeared normal. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief and backed out of the car.

Damon was standing with his hands on the hood of the car. Elijah pulled the torn shirt away from his back and started removing the larger splinters. As he debrided the wood from each scrape, they closed and healed. "She okay?" he asked Elijah.

"She appears to be fine." He reached into his breast pocket for his phone, but came up empty; that's right, it had been in his hand when he had flattened across the seats. "Do you have your phone on you?" he asked.

"Yeah." Damon straightened and turned – and shoved Elijah violently to the side, darting in the opposite direction himself. One of the stakes smashed into the car where they had just been standing. It splintered, sending more shards of wood flying.

A man, somewhere in his forties, perhaps, pulled the now broken stake back. One side of his face was bloodied, as was his left arm. The driver of the truck, Elijah presumed. With a glassy-eyed, blank expression, he looked at Elijah and shoved the broken wood toward him. Elijah caught it easily and jerked it out of the man's hands. Catching him by the shoulders, he spun him around and pushed him against the car, grabbing his chin to hold his face still and looking into his eyes.

"He's been compelled," he told Damon.

"I'm guessing this would be one of those 'complications' you were talking about?"

"Mm." He slapped the man's cheeks a couple of times and caught his eyes, pressing at his mind extra hard to overcome the previous compulsion. "You will remember nothing of the accident." Once the man nodded in assent, Elijah squeezed his neck to constrain blood flow to the brain, releasing him only when the man passed out. Then he slung him over his shoulder and carried him back to the truck.

Sirens sounded in the distance. "Bloody hell! We don't have time to wait. Take Bonnie on foot and get her back to the hospital before anyone gets here. I'll have to deal with this mess."

Damon reached into the car and lifted Bonnie out of it, settling her into his arms. "Guess you hadn't anticipated the 'stake truck' contingency, huh?" He took off at speed, before the sheriff's car crested the hill, and before Elijah could reply.

~~~~~

"Thank you for coming," Elijah told Jenna, walking over to her once he'd finished telling the deputy the version of events he wanted him to have.

"Of course. Wait... Conner, come back over here!" She went to retrieve the boy, who was making tire sounds and smashing noises as he bounced back and forth between the car and the truck. The boy managed to elude her for a couple of passes, but she finally snagged him and swung him up to settle on her hip.

"Was it a big, big, big crash?" he asked Elijah, bouncing excitedly against Jenna.

"It was big enough," he decided. "We need to go the hospital," he told Jenna.

"What? Are you okay?" She pulled at his jacket, looking, he thought inanely, for bone or entrails sticking out of him or something. "I thought you healed – "

"Of course. I'm fine. But I need to check on Bonnie."

"Um... now? Why?"

He sighed, deeply. "Because we removed her from there earlier so Maya could perform the ritual to help her. We were on the way back when all this happened." He motioned to where a tow truck was hauling his car – what was left of it – up onto its flatbed.

"You what?" she shrieked, then flashed a look at the deputy and lowered her voice. "I thought you weren't doing that until tomorrow?"

"That's what I wanted Elena and Jeremy to think."

"So you lied?"

He winced and held his thumb and forefinger up with only a small space in between.

"Uh-oh! You're in big trouble! Lying is bad," Conner told him sagely. "I get a time-out if I lie. Are you gonna get a time-out?"

Elijah glanced at Jenna, who was giving him a black look. "It appears likely, yes."

Jenna put the boy in the back seat and got him buckled in while Elijah retrieved his phone from the floor of his car and called Damon. "Were there any problems?"

There was a pause on the other end. "Uh, define 'problem.'" He heard rustling in the background, then Elena's voice asking, "Is that Elijah?!"

Elijah ended the call. So much for everything operating according to plan.

Momma Liked It Doggy Style - Review of TVD 2.19: "Klaus"

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Wow, okay. I think I may have finally calmed down enough to write a semi-cogent review of TVD Episode 2.19, “Klaus.” But before I get to that, I have one question for the universe at large?


WHY HAS DANIEL GILLIES NOT BEEN GIVEN THE LEAD ROLE IN A MAJOR BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE YET?! This is a situation that needs to be rectified immediately, universe. Please see to it.

On to the evening’s storylines:


I think I ate some bad vampire or something: Elena and Elijah
Elena de-daggers Elijah, who takes his own sweet time waking up. Elena waits. And waits. Makes herself a sandwich. Does her nails. Files her taxes. Waits some more. Maybe because the Salvatore boarding house is having major digestive issues with him? Elijah wakes up all disoriented, first imagining Elena is Katerina, then – I think – imagining she’s the original Petrova, whose story we damn well better get one of these days. Elijah gets jerked around by the house, literally, and realizes that he can’t be in there, as he was not invited. Instead of inviting him in, Elena sort of ‘duhs’ around, and the house slams Elijah up against a few walls before VOMITING him out onto the doorstep. The stuff my cat horks up never looks as good as Elijah.

Once Elijah is safely deposited on the doorstep, the two have a whispered convo that consists basically of “Can I trust you?” “ Can I trust you?” As a show of good faith, Elena hands the dagger to Elijah. Elijah palms it and is, apparently, impressed by this surrendering of the only weapon that can “kill” him. [Because he’s TOTALLY not going to end up having to stab Klaus with it and thereby KILL HIMSELF in a couple episodes or anything. In which case, fuck you, show.]

Elena takes Elijah for a drive and gives him a blood bag, putting the pep back into his step and costing him several coolness points simultaneously. They swing by the Lockwood Mansion so Elijah can mind-whammy a de-vervained Carol and convince her to let them crash there and give him some of her dead husband’s clothes. I just love how Elijah is all, “Fuck that ‘nicest foreclosure in town’ crap. I’m taking over the Mayor’s mansion, bitches!” They have a brief siesta in the storytelling while Elena leaves to go hold Jenna’s hand for her nervous breakdown, promising to return. Elijah is all, “Yeah yeah, heard it before. Talk to the hand, honey."
But she does come back for Underworld 'Originals, the Sequel', making Elijah’s heart grow three sizes that day. I know I’m on record as saying that the idea of Elena/Elijah squicks me out; after this episode, I may not have boarded the ship yet, but I’m standing on the dock and eyeballing it.


Look! It’s the Exposition Fairy!!
(It’s like the Tooth Fairy, but instead of a tooth you leave a note that says ‘WTF, show?’ under your pillow.) Today, the role of the Exposition Fairy will be played by Elijah. The referral to him as a fairy is not a poke, btw, at the ‘aw, look at the vampire doodles’ scene which was, in all honesty, really gay. Does Daniel Gillies not have brothers? Because I’m pretty sure most brothers don’t touch each other that way. Just sayin’. Let’s just all be happy TVD doesn’t air on HBO. (Why yes, I did watch “Game of Thrones.” Why do you ask?)

Anyway, here’s our history lesson, per Elijah: The Originals were a family. They all started out as human. Mom, Dad, seven children. Dad was a wealthy Eastern European land owner. They later, at some undisclosed time and through some undisclosed method, became vampires. Elijah says that the tale of them becoming vampires is a long and complicated one. Dayna says that the writers just haven’t come up with the story yet. It was a little unclear whether or not Mommy and Daddy Original became vampires, or just the seven kids. Once they were vamped, they learned that Mommy O was a little slutty and liked it doggy-style, which is how Klaus came along, making him a wolfpire. Daddy O didn’t take kindly to the cuckolding, so he killed Mommy O’s baby daddy, as well as his puppies, thereby igniting the Hatfield-McCoy werewolf-vampire feud. Witches, who are described by Elijah as being the “servants of nature,” (the fuck?) didn’t like the idea of a hybrid (now wait, shouldn’t the servants of nature be encouraging us to go green?), so they “cursed” him by suppressing the wolf side of Klaus, leaving him just a ‘pire. Klaus took exception to the suppression of his furry persona, hence his obsession with breaking the curse so he can sire his own designer breed of wolfpires, because mixed breeds are all the rage nowadays.


What? Another Curse, you say? What about the Sun and Moon Curse?:
Oh, you mean the Aztec curse on Bulgarians in Virginia? Yeah, Klaus and Elijah were totally punking, like, everyone in the world with that shit. Which makes you wonder what other ‘historical events’ they made up during some keggar one night. “Ooh, Klaus, I know: how about a guy who goes up on some mountain and the gods give him some tablets that tell him not to bang the hot married chick next door that he’s totally coveting the fuck out of?” “Dude, that’s awesome! You know what else? He should *hiccup* totally, like, part the Red Sea with his hands and shit!” “Awesome!”

Yeah, so anyway, the Sun and Moon curse if fake. It was just a way to keep both the vampires and the werewolves looking for the moonstone and the doppelganger. Psych, bitches!


Um, Pardon me, Sir, but you appear to have a spot of blood on your shirt:
Onto history of a more personal nature. Trevor brings Katerina to Klaus’s household for Klaus’s birthday. They didn’t have cakes for girls to jump out of back in the day, but you just know that Kat would have totally been game for that shit. Elijah is taken aback when he sees her, looking all Pertrova-y; as is Klaus, theoretically, but he handles it more smoothly than Elijah, ‘cuz that’s just how he rolls. During the following weeks, Klaus alternately charms and ignores Katerina, while Elijah is left to “entertain” her. Which apparently involves her skipping around the gardens like she’s one of Sookie’s cracked-out fairy cousins while Elijah “chases” her. I’d point out how he runs like a total dork, but the dialogue is so cute that I let it pass. “You’re supposed to catch me!” “Then the game would be over.” They have a little scene together on a stone bench, wherein Katerina suggests she’s perhaps not all that in love with Klaus, leaving Elijah a perfectly good opening, which he TOTES FUCKS UP BY PROCLAIMING HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN LOVE. See, Elijah? This is why Klaus gets all the pussy – he knows how to lie to the ladies. Elijah is totally the Stefan of the relationship: cock-blocking himself at every opportunity.

Klaus shows up, his shirt covered with blood, to take the cock-block baton from Elijah and whisk Katerina away. Elijah: is sad. And probably a little uncomfortable in those leather pants. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.

Elijah talks Klaus’s witches into configuring the ritual so that the doppelganger need not die, but Klaus is all “No, I’m fine with it, really. Sack the fuck up already and stop being a pussy. Love is for losers, bro.”

Katerina – perhaps as a result of Elijah’s warning, perhaps not, you decide – runs away, prompting Klaus to threaten Elijah’s life if he doesn’t find her and return her to him. I think we all know how that turned out. Elijah: is sad some more. And a little peeved that Katerina didn’t let him save her. (Which… also kinda makes him the Damon in the relationship…?)


Sibling Rivalry, The Next Generation:
Stefan wants to respect Elena’s “Sistas are doin’ it for themselves” mantra; Damon would like to keep her dumb ass from doing stupid things like, say, waking up Original vampires who want to kill her. Pushing and fisticuffs ensue. The built-in bookshelves pay the price. Stefan is a good little boy and apologizes to Elijah when he asks. Damon: "Fuck this shit."


Nothing like a little therapeutic domestic violence!:
Andie is super-creepy all episode, defending Damon’s right to TREAT HER AS HIS CHEWTOY to Stefan. This culminates in one of the ugliest scenes I’ve seen yet on this show: Damon, post non-apology to Elijah, discovers Andie and her skimpy black underwear in his room. Though he asked her to leave earlier, he didn’t compel her to, and she wants to show him how vewy much she wuvs him. Damon: head-grab, chomp-chomp, throw girlfriend to the floor sobbing. While I’m not a fan of Damon’s actions here, obvs, I do want to give kudos to the show for “going there” and really showing Damon in all of his fucked up fuck-uppery.


I was having the weirdest dream...
Klaus decides he’s had enough of living out his ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ fantasies and has his own (way less impressive than Daniel Gillies’) body wheeled in in a steamer trunk. When they first brought in all the luggage, I thought maybe someone had cut Klaus up into pieces or something and they had to Frankenstein him back together, but not the case, thank goodness. Some candles and witchy mumbo jumbo, and Klaus is now all Joseph Morgan-y. With either better or worse hair than his flashback counterpart – debate amongst yourselves. Once he leaves the meatsuit, Alaric comes to enough to mistake Katherine for Elena before doing a total faceplant on the floor. Oh, and one of the witches mumbo-jumboing is Greta Martin, totes NOT there under duress. Jonas Martin's ghost: *facepalms*


Here, Kitty Kitty:
Damon goes over to Alaric’s apartment to see if Katherine is alive and kicking. Incidentally, Damon has not been invited into Alaric’s apartment, which makes Alaric a very smart man, despite all other evidence to the contrary. Damon gives her some catnip vervain and tells her to find the loophole that lets her get away from Klaus, saying she owes him. I’m sure that won’t turn out badly AT ALL.


For the sports-minded amongst you, the evening’s score sheet:
Team Delena: will still find ways to defend Damon’s behavior and somehow make it All. Stefan’s. Fault.

Team Stelena: Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!! Suck it, Team Delena!

Team Elena: Is happy that girlfriend is doing it her way

Team Alaric: Is hyperventilating unless they watched the promo for next week

Team Klaus: bemoans the fact that Daniel Gillies is WAY more impressive as an Original vampire than Joseph Morgan

Team Elijah: Is completely overrun with a thundering horde of new recruits. Fortunately, the team’s original members weren’t alarmed at the sudden influx because they had already fallen into a squee-induced stupor at the embarrassment of riches that was this episode.

Just Enough Rope, Chapter 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, looking through here, that's a lot of sittin'-and-talkin' scenes. I'll punch the next chapter up with some action. In the meantime, I totally want one of those bumper stickers.

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/3/

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

CHAPTER 3

When Jenna came down the stairs the next morning, Elena was already up. Not only up, Jenna realized; she had made coffee and prepared parfaits of yogurt, granola and fresh fruit, one of which she passed to Jenna along with a cup of coffee. She regarded her niece suspiciously as she slid onto the stool beside her at the breakfast bar. “You’re not going to tell me you’re pregnant, are you?”

“Uh, no. Vampire boyfriend. Not exactly an issue,” Elena said, topping off her own coffee.

Jenna hadn’t really thought about that. “Wow. That’s true. Huh. I can see the bumper stickers now: ‘Practice safe sex: Screw a vampire.’”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to catch on," Elena said, laughing. "Anyway… I thought maybe we could talk.”

“Okay…”

She swirled her spoon through the yogurt, making a trail through the fruit and granola. "I know you were really upset last night."

"Yeah. I was."

"And I realized we haven't really talked about everything from before. It's been so crazy since the ritual and everything..." Elena started segregating strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries into separate camps. Jenna wondered if she planned to eat it, or if she'd only made it to have something to do with her hands. "I hated lying to you," she said finally. "That was the worst part. All the lying."

Jenna took a sip of her coffee. "For something you hated doing, you did it for an awfully long time."

"I know. It wasn't supposed to be like that. At first, when Stefan told me and asked me to keep his secret, I didn't like it, but I didn't think it was going to hurt anyone. He said it was better for people if they didn't know, and I thought he was right. Then something happened, and then something else, and the lies just kept snowballing. Then it just got to the point where it was like, how do you even begin to tell someone all that? Where do you start?"

"After your evil twin made me stab myself might have been a good time," she suggested.

Elena winced. "I know. I just... I guess I thought we could handle it. Could handle Katherine, get things under control..." She raised a bite of the yogurt, then gave up on it, putting the spoon back in the bowl and pushing it away from her. "I'm so sorry, Jenna, and I need you to know that it wasn't because I didn't care about you, or didn't trust you, or didn't think you could handle it."

Jenna got up and grabbed the coffee pot, topping off both of their mugs. "I couldn't really blame you if you did think that. I haven't exactly been a candidate for the World's Greatest Parent."

"Jenna – "

"No, let me finish. There was a time, a very short time ago, when I would have said that I couldn't handle it. Just like I said I couldn't handle losing my mom and dad, or graduating college, let alone going to grad school. Or suddenly finding myself with a niece and a nephew to raise. There are still times I think maybe I can't handle it." She pushed Elena's hair back behind her shoulder. "I've made a lot of mistakes, too. With Jeremy, and with you. I was so worried that you wouldn't see me as 'Cool Aunt Jenna' anymore that I let a lot of things slide that shouldn't have. And I haven't set a very good example."

"For the record, can I just say that we're fine with you being 'Cool Aunt Jenna?'"

"So I can do things like let you go away for the weekend with your boyfriend?" She stopped and shook her head, marveling at her own ineptitude. "Who does that?"

"Cool people?"

"Anyway, the point is, we've both made mistakes. But, we have the opportunity to do things differently from now on. I need to be able to trust you and your brother. And I need for you to be able to trust me. I need to know if there is something going on, even if it's going to freak me out. It probably will freak me out. But I still want you to tell me. Two-way communication from now on, okay?"

"It's a deal."

"Good. Now, in the interest of being a responsible parent, I'll point out that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and you should really eat that."

Elena made a face at her and pulled the bowl back over, sprinkling another spoonful of granola over it. “So, in the interest of that two-way communication, what’s going on with you and Elijah?”

And already that one bites me in the ass. “Uh… well, we… I… this is really good!” she punted, stuffing a big spoonful of yogurt and granola into her mouth.

Elena just gave her a raised eyebrow.

Jenna sighed. “We're enjoying each other's company, and seeing where it goes from there. That's really all there is to tell right now."

"Just be careful, okay? He's..."

"A vampire. Which you should have no problem with, considering you're dating one yourself."

“That’s different. No, it is!” she said, when Jenna gave her the hairy eyeball. “Besides, what I was going to say is, he’s dangerous.”

“I thought that was sort of covered under ‘vampire.’”

“Well, yes, but Elijah is big ‘D’ Dangerous, not little ‘d’ dangerous.”

“He saved your life,” she reminded her.

“And I'm glad. It's just... you haven’t seen him do the things I have. He acts like this mild-mannered historian around you. But he can be scary. Really scary."

Jenna paused, spoon halfway to her mouth as a thought struck her. "Elena, you're not scared to have him in the house, are you?"

"No... No, not exactly. I just want you to be careful, okay?"

"Fine. I'll be careful, Mom."

Elena stuck her tongue out at her. Jenna responded in kind, making them both giggle.

"I will even go one better," Jenna told her. "I hereby do solemnly swear that Elijah will not be wandering the hall naked in the middle of the night, eating ice cream."

"Oh, thank you so much for putting that image in my head!"

Jenna waggled her eyebrows and downed her coffee. "I have to jet. I'll see you this afternoon."

Elena hopped off of the stool and hugged her. "We're good?"

Jenna hugged her back. "We're good."

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

“Miss Sommers!”

Jenna stopped when she heard the voice and rolled her eyes before turning around. “Professor Mitchell.”

Hustling a little to catch up with her on her way to the student union, the Professor drew even with her. Jenna started walking again, him falling into step beside her. “I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, Miss Sommers. I’d like to offer my apologies. Can you join me for lunch?”

Well, that was unexpected. “Uh…”

“Please. I’d like to help you get that abstract together for the review panel. That is my job, as your advisor, after all.”

Jenna shrugged. “Um, okay. I guess.”

He smiled. “Excellent. How about the café upstairs, here? It will be a little quieter than The Den.”

“Sure.” Jenna followed him up the granite steps on the outside the building, his keycard allowing them access through that door so they could avoid the noontime crunch of people in the building’s grand foyer. She snuck curious glances at him as they worked their way through the lunch line, where she decided to forego the delicious-looking but gravy-laden shepherd’s pie, opting instead for a lunch-with-a-man-I-don’t-know-very-well salad. Their lunches purchased, he led her over to a table next to one of the floor to ceiling windows.

“I was a little hard on you yesterday, Miss Sommers,” he began, once they’d seated themselves.

“First of all, call me Jenna, okay? Every time someone calls me ‘Miss Sommers’ I feel like some spinster librarian with a beehive hairdo and those pointy silver glasses on a chain, wearing a grey hounds-tooth skirt, a cardigan, and those ugly, sensible pumps.”

He grinned and let out a chuckle. “Well, that’s certainly… descriptive.” He wasn’t at all so fierce-looking when he smiled like that. In fact, he wasn’t at all bad-looking, either.

“Fertile imagination,” she admitted.

“Please call me Richard. At least when we’re not in class.”

“All right.”

“Speaking of imagination, you did tickle my curiosity with some of your research on the supernatural.” He took a bite of his club sandwich. “I know I said it didn’t have the makings of a psychology thesis, and I stand by that, but it looked like an interesting collection of anecdotes and mythologies. What drew you to the subject matter?”

Let’s see, my ex-boyfriend’s undead vampire wife showed up on my doorstep; my niece is a curse-breaking doppelganger; the previous doppelganger, who is also a vampire, compelled me to stab myself in the gut with a knife; said niece’s friends are a witch, a vampire, and a werewolf, respectively; and I’m theoretically quasi-dating an Original vampire. “Um, no big thing, I guess, really.”

“Really? That was a pretty extensive collection of research for there to have been ‘no big thing’ spurring it on.”

She chased an errant chick pea around her salad plate, finally cornering it against a broccoli floret and spearing it with her fork. “I don’t know, there’s been this explosion of vampire and werewolf movies, books and television shows over the last decade or two. And the ‘Harry Potter’ phenomenon. Some of those stories deal with supernatural creatures suddenly going public, and how society deals with that. I guess it made me wonder what would happen if that did occur, how would it affect us on some fundamental level.”

“I see.” Richard ate some potato chips, making her jealous. Stupid salad. “One of the stories you managed to collect was a little different than the usual run-of-the-mill stuff. Something about a werewolf curse, and a moonstone. How did that go, again?”

“Uh, that one… let me think…” She was treading on dangerous ground, here. She had never been able to lie convincingly to save her life. She decided to stay as close to the truth as possible, and just act like it was only a story. “If I’m remembering it correctly, that was the one where certain families were cursed to be werewolves, and then there was another curse that limited them to only changing during the full moon.”

“How was it that a moonstone played into it?”

Jenna ate a bite of broccoli. Yuk. “I think the witches who cast the curse used the moonstone to hold the curse together. Probably whoever originated the story liked the symmetry of the moon and the moonstone.”

“Weren’t vampires somehow involved in the whole thing too?”

“Yeah. The same curse made it so vampires couldn’t walk in the sun.”

“And was there a way to break the curse?”

“Um, yeah, I think so. I can’t remember the details very well,” she fibbed. “What was it that interested you in that particular story?” she asked casually, though his honing in on the Sun-Moon Curse made her suddenly suspicious. Elijah had said to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. A faculty advisor, apologizing for being hard on a student, definitely fit that category.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “As I said, it was a little different than the usual fare. I often find it’s the inconsistencies that can lead to revelation, not the dozens of repetitions.” Jenna glanced at his hands as he took another bite of his sandwich – no ring. It was impossible to tell for sure under the button-up shirt, but Jenna didn’t think he was wearing a necklace either. No lapis lazuli made it highly unlikely he was a vampire. That didn’t mean he hadn’t been compelled by one, though.

“So,” she said, changing the subject, “my thesis.” Jenna rattled off the basic structure of the outline she had worked on until 3:00 a.m. or so, and they spent the rest of the lunch debating what should be included, and in what order. Mitchell was actually helpful, and perfectly charming, with no trace of the previous day’s surliness. She could definitely see why he had the reputation for being moody.

Having filled a page with notes she had jotted down during the conversation, Jenna glanced at her watch and realized she had ten minutes to get to her next class. “Yikes, I need to go.” She stood and held her hand out to him. “Thank you for lunch, and for the work session. It’s been really helpful.”

He stood as well, and shook her hand, holding onto it for perhaps a moment longer than necessary. “My pleasure, Miss – Jenna. Um, say… what are you doing Friday evening?”

“Excuse me?”

He let go of her hand with a little laugh. “The department is holding a meet and greet for its faculty and Ph. D. candidates. It’s an opportunity to meet with members of the panel, get to know the people who will be making the decisions as to who will proceed.”

She blushed. Jeez, Jenna, as if he were really going to ask you out. “Oh, yeah. I remember getting a letter about that.”

“I think you should come. It would be helpful to meet the committee in a less formal setting, before you have to pitch your abstract, when your nerves will be running high.”

“But gee, I’m so poised under fire,” she self-deprecated.

He smiled – and didn’t argue the point. “It’s at 6:00 p.m., over at the Arts Center. Wine, hors d’oeuvres, and pretentiously artsy exhibits will all be provided. Bring a date, if you like.”

“I’ll see if I can make it,” she agreed.

“Then I’ll look forward to it.” He collected his briefcase and, nodding to her, deposited his tray on the return cart and headed out.

Jenna headed toward class, thinking about the mixer. This sort of thing seemed right up Elijah’s alley. She'd call him later to invite him. Maybe he could tell her if there was something off about her professor, or if she was just being paranoid.

And, it wouldn’t suck to finally go out on an actual date with Elijah, either.

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

As it turned out, Elijah’s car was already there in the driveway when she got home. Judging by the noises coming out of the backyard when she got out of her car, he was giving Jeremy the promised sparring lesson. Rather than go into the house, she walked around to the back and leaned her arms along the top of the fence, watching.

“You’re tall, and you have a long reach,” Elijah was saying, “which can be advantageous when you’re fighting hand to hand, but it can also be used against you, as your center of gravity sits higher and can be more easily thrown off by grasping your limbs. Rather than relying on reach, I want you to try coming around the side and bringing your body in closer, like so.” He showed Jeremy what he was talking about, nodding to her when he saw her standing there.

Jeremy did as Elijah had just instructed him, landing what looked to Jenna like a pretty hard punch to Elijah’s kidney. She winced and decided to go inside after all. Setting her bag on the kitchen counter, she went straight to the coffee maker and started a fresh pot. Elena didn’t appear to be home, yet. She was probably at the hospital, or with Stefan. Or at the hospital with Stefan.

‘The boys’ came in from the yard as the coffee finished brewing. “Done beating on one another for the day?” she asked.

“Yeah. I had to stop before I hurt him too badly,” Jeremy told her, grinning and grabbing a package of cookies out of the cupboard.

“I quake at the thought of a rematch,” Elijah answered drily.

Jenna handed him a cup of coffee as Jeremy thundered up the stairs to his room. “It looked like he was hitting you pretty good out there.”

Elijah shrugged. “He may as well learn to do it properly.”

She leaned up against the counter. “You’re good with him. He seems to look up to you.”

“He’s an adolescent male. He’s going to look up to anyone who actually encourages him to engage in fisticuffs and weapons-play.”

“Still…” Elijah had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves up for the lesson. His shirt had come untucked on one side; she briefly entertained the thought of sliding a hand up underneath it. Clearing her throat, she dug around in her bag until she came up with the crumpled and slightly torn letter regarding the mixer. “So, what’s on your dance card for Friday evening?”

“Well, I had planned on grading papers and bemoaning a certain graduate student’s dedication to preparing her thesis abstract, but I’m open to suggestion.” He looked over her shoulder at the letter, running a finger down her arm as he did so.

Andie’s comment about what vampires could do with their fingers recalled itself to her, unbidden. She shivered a little under the touch. The next two weeks could not possibly go by fast enough. While her brain might have a qualm or two about whether vampire sex constituted necrophilia, her body apparently had no such compunction; if she kept touching him, kept letting him touch her, she was going to spontaneously combust. Oh hell, who was she kidding? He didn’t even have to touch her. He was such a damned dominant presence that she could feel him all the way across the room. She was tempted to think it was part of the whole vampire mystique, but neither of the Salvatores had this effect on her. Just Elijah.

“I thought – ” she had to clear her throat again, twice, as her voice came out all low and husky. “I thought it would be a good idea to go to this,” she said, holding the letter up to him. “Both for the obvious reason, and because I need to know if there is something off about someone.”

“Oh?”

“My adviser, the jerk-off that I was ranting about yesterday? He caught up with me today, apologized, and took me to lunch.”

Elijah smirked that little smirk of his. “The cad!”

“And, asked a lot of questions about the Sun-Moon curse.”

The smirk disappeared with a quickness. “Wait, what?”

“He read through my notes on vampire and werewolf stuff yesterday, and that was the story he chose to fixate on. So I’m wondering – ”

His tone alone was enough to push her back against the counter again. “What in the nine hells was that doing in your psychology notes?!”

“I… I was thinking about changing my thesis to people dealing with, you know, if the supernatural were…” She swallowed, hard. “Did I forget to mention that?”

The look he shot her before whirling away from her had her flinching back from him even further. “Yes, Jenna. I think I would have recalled that,” he said acidly. “What in God’s name were you thinking?”

“Nothing! I mean – ”

“Clearly.”

“Okay, it was stupid! I get it! But it’s not like I put it out there as a true story or anything. It was one of a series of myths and legends that I had jotted down to show him…”

Elijah paced back and forth across the room a few times, visibly wrestling his temper under control. Suddenly, what Elena had said earlier carried a little more weight. Elijah could be scary. Damn scary. She shut up and drank her coffee, hoping that if she kept quiet he would calm down, and she could bring the discussion back on point.

He eventually stopped, let out an explosive sigh, and came back over to the island, picking up his coffee again. “So, you want to know if he was asking merely out of curiosity, or whether he already knows something and is fishing for more specific information.”

Jenna nodded. “He wasn’t wearing a ring and I don’t think he had a necklace. He was out in the sun, so I doubt he’s a vampire, but for all I know he could have been compelled. Would you be able to tell if he has been?”

“Perhaps. Yes, I’ll accompany you to this and scope out the situation.”

The front door opened and closed, and Elena came down the hall into the kitchen. “Oh, hey.”

“Elena. I’m glad you’re home," Elijah greeted her. "I need to speak with you and Jeremy. I have news. Would you go up and get him, please?”

“Um, sure.”

Once Elena headed upstairs, Elijah turned back to her. Jenna sucked in her bottom lip and looked up at him through her lashes, going for cute and contrite. Elijah sighed again and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist; then, remembering that his shirt was untucked, she slid her hands underneath the fabric to touch his sides – all hard muscle – and his back, rising to her tiptoes to kiss him.

God, she wanted him. Scary or not, he did things to her insides that she didn't even think there were words for. Images danced behind her eyes, of taking his shirt off altogether, of touching all of that muscle, of him picking her up and laying her on the counter and having his way with her right there…

Elijah nudged her away from him just as Jeremy and Elena came around the corner into the kitchen. Embarrassed, she went to refresh her coffee while he gestured them to the family room to sit.

“Is this about Bonnie?” she heard Jeremy ask. “Did you talk to your witch?”

“I did. That’s what I’d like to discuss with both of you.” Elijah lowered himself into the chair. Jenna could have sworn he made a strategic and surreptitious adjustment as he did so, and thought it was perhaps fortunate that his shirt was untucked after all. Maybe she wasn’t the only one going crazy with this unresolved sexual tension. The thought pleased her inordinately.

“I thought she had to be out of the hospital first,” Elena said, tucking her legs up under her on the opposite end of the sofa from Jeremy. Jenna stayed leaning in the archway, cradling her mug between both hands.

“Maya felt confident that she could perform an evaluation of Bonnie’s condition at the hospital without undue risk. She visited her today.”

“So is it good news or bad news? Can she do anything?” Jeremy looked ready to come out of his skin.

Elijah looked him into silence. Man. How does he do that? “It’s both. Yes and no, good and bad. The way Maya explained it to me, there are two components to a witch’s essence: that which is merely human and physical; and that which is metaphysical. Obviously, the two intersect in various ways, but they’re by and large two different things.”

“The doctors said that Bonnie seems fine physically, so it was the metaphysical part that was damaged?” Elena asked.

Elijah nodded. “Her brain – the physical organ itself – is whole and is functioning, which is why all of the autonomic systems, such as respiration, are working, and why brain scans show activity. She’s in a coma, not brain-dead.

“The metaphysical part, though… to put it simply, it’s burned out. There’s nothing there anymore. Bonnie wasn’t able to contain the amount of power she channeled without it destroying the vessel.”

“I don’t understand why that’s keeping her from waking up, though,” Jeremy said. “If her brain is okay… I mean, people who aren’t witches don’t even have that other part, right? So shouldn’t she be able to wake up even if the witch part doesn’t work?”

Jenna went over and put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, squeezing gently, and silently willed Elijah to get to the point before he flew apart. The poor kid had lost two girlfriends already. Surely fate wouldn’t be that cruel…

Elijah seemed to consider for a moment. “Think of it like this: a person who is born blind uses his other senses to navigate through the world. It’s normal to him, it’s all he’s ever known, so that’s how he operates. Then take someone who is suddenly struck blind: he can still hear, he can still feel things with his body, but he doesn’t relate to the world through those senses because he’s never had to, he’s always been able to see. Once he can’t, he doesn’t know how to navigate. He’s lost.

“Though witches don't show outward signs of magical ability when they're small children, usually not until after they reach puberty, that other part is always there, and their experience of the world is always filtered through that. Take it away, and it’s just like being blinded, but it’s their mind that’s blinded.”

Elena picked up one of the throw pillows and hugged it to her stomach. “So what you’re saying is, Bonnie’s mind is just sitting there, afraid to move, because it can’t make sense of the world around it anymore.”

Elijah nodded. “That's an apt way to put it, yes.”

“So what can we do about it?” Jenna asked, before Jeremy could. She kept her hands on his shoulders for support.

“Maya believes that if they can… ‘wall off’ the metaphysical part, then Bonnie’s mind will stop reaching for what isn’t there anymore and start figuring out how to work without it. The question, or the danger, I suppose, in doing so is how she’ll be able to adapt to her new circumstances, mentally and emotionally. Which is why I wanted to talk to the two of you.

“There are some people, a few, who when faced with something like the amputation of a limb, or the loss of one of their senses, would choose not to go on. They can’t face not being whole. Maya tells me that, for a witch, the loss of that part of herself is devastating, far worse than losing a physical part of the body. The two of you know Bonnie the best out of everyone. I need to know what you think she would want.”

Unable to be still any longer, Jeremy fairly exploded up off of the couch and stalked to the window, looking out. Elena wiped tears off of her cheeks and went to him. “Jer?”

“We have to try. She’d be alive, Elena! That’s what’s important, right? She’d be alive.”

“I know.” Elena swallowed a sob. “But what if she can’t take it? What if they do this and it’s s-so awful and she can’t t-t-take it?”

Jeremy gripped her shoulders. “This is Bonnie. She’s tough, Elena. She’s so tough.” Elena nodded, sniffling. “You should have seen her, working out spells, totally ready to kick Klaus’s ass… she was fierce. And she did it. She took him down. She’s gonna do this too. We’re gonna help her, and she’s gonna do this too. Okay?”

Elena nodded again and hugged Jeremy, who sniffled a couple of times himself. Jenna couldn’t stand it anymore. She retreated to the kitchen, ostensibly for a box of tissues, and shed a few tears of her own. She ached down to her soul for them; just kids, asked time and again to make life and death decisions that no adult should have to make. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing she could do about it. And standing here in the kitchen wasn’t doing a damn thing for anyone either. So she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and took the tissues into the family room.

Elena accepted the box gladly. Jeremy gave a couple of manly sniffs and passed. Jenna perched on the arm of Elijah’s chair. “So what happens now?”

"Now we get Bonnie out of the hospital."