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
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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.