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Okay, all kidding aside, I need to level with y'all.  I started this story with a fairly solid outline in my head.  At this point, though, the characters have taken that outline, crumpled it up, and tossed it out the window of a moving bullet train.  It's causing MAJOR pacing problems, and I fear dropped plot threads may follow.  I'm tempted to give it up as a lost cause, except that I'm a little bit curious just where the hell these people are leading me.  Which is to say, I know this story has issues.  My apologies for that.  I hope some of you are curious as well to see where this is going to go.  

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/13/
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Inside my skin, there is this space.

It twists and turns; it bleeds and aches.

Inside my heart, there's an empty room.

It's waiting for lightning, it's waiting for you.

Muscle and sinew, velvet and stone,

This vessel is haunted – It creaks and moans.

My bones call to you, in their separate skin.

I make myself translucent, to let you in.

For I am wanting,

And I am needing you

Here, inside the absence of fear.

                        Jewel, "Absence of Fear"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jenna popped the last bite of her s’more into her mouth and licked the melted marshmallow from her fingers before pulling her hands under the blanket and leaning back against Elijah's bare chest.  The night was crisp with autumn, but the fire in the outdoor fireplace was warm, and the bright, full moon overhead had made the balcony an awfully romantic place to be.  Throw in the cozy fleece blanket, the s'mores, and the comfy chaise that they had just had superior sex on, and she couldn't think of anyplace in the world she would rather be.

Elijah was warm too, where she snuggled against him.  He must have fed before she had gotten there.  Which was probably just as well; she wasn’t sure how often one should feed a vampire.  Was it like donating blood, where you were supposed to wait 56 days in between?  Someone really needed to write a manual for dating a vampire.  Everything You Want To Know About Your Undead Lover, But Were Afraid To Ask.

With her mind meandering down that path, a thought occurred to her.  “You fed me your blood last night.”  God, had it really only been last night?  “Will that have any effect on… you know?”

“On the child?”  Elijah stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, his arms wrapped over hers.  “No.  It will pass harmlessly through your system – it probably has already, actually – and out again.  How did Jeremy and Elena take the news?”

"Better than I did," she said, rueful.  "Elena didn't really say much.  Jeremy was sorta 'WTF?' for a minute, but then I think he actually was getting a little bit into the idea of having a baby around.  Which is weird."  She turned onto her side, so she could see his face.  "That is weird, right?"

"Why would it be?"

Jenna shrugged.  "I don't know... I guess I just figured teenage boys were allergic to babies or something.  Of the two, I would have thought Elena would be more likely to be open to the idea."

Elijah pressed a kiss to her forehead.  "Elena is a worrier.  She's already no doubt worrying about the logistics of having an infant in the house, the midnight feedings, the diaper changes, the added vulnerability to the family that a small child brings, the additional responsibility, which preschool to enroll in... it's college fund..."

Jenna gave him a poke to the ribs.  "Great.  Now I'm worrying about those things."  He was probably right, though.  Elena worried about everything.  And now here she was, adding yet another wild card to the constant chaos of their lives.  It probably didn't bode well for her parental instincts that she found dealing with vampires, werewolves and witches to be less terrifying than the prospect of one small infant.  And what about Elijah?  He hadn't really given her any indication of what he thought about the whole mess.  “Can I ask you something?  You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” she assured him hastily.

“Of course.”

She took a moment to pick over her words, for once choosing them with care.  “You said that you had five children, when you were…”

“Alive?”

She nodded.  “How old were they when you turned?”

“The eldest was eleven; the youngest, two.”

“Boys?  Girls?”

“Yes,” he answered, grinning impishly when she poked him in the ribs again.  “Two boys, three girls.”

“Was it very different, after you turned?  How you felt about them?”

Elijah was silent for a while, and she thought perhaps he wouldn’t answer at all.  “No,” he said at last.  “It didn’t change how I felt.”

Jenna stroked her hand along his side.  “How did you handle seeing them grow up and grow older, when you didn't age?  Was it hard, or were you glad that you were able to be there and watch over them?”

 “I didn’t," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "See them grow up, I mean.” 

She saw his throat work, and regretted having asked him.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

He pulled her to him more tightly, resting his chin on her head.  “No, it’s all right.” Taking her hand absently, he brought it to his lips and brushed a kiss over the backs of her fingers, then tucked it against his chest.  “When someone turns, the transition can be… well, it can be devastating.  Heightened emotions, lack of control over the bloodlust, the feeling of being a stranger inside your own skin…  It’s particularly difficult to be with the people whom you care about.  I couldn’t stay with them.  I was afraid of what else I would do.”

Sitting up, she tilted her head and asked him, “What else?”

He was quick to hide it, but the expression that flashed for a split second over his features hinted to her that he perhaps hadn’t meant to say that much.  “Nevermind,” she told him.  “You don’t need to answer that.”  Jenna took her arms out of the blanket and started boxing up the graham crackers and marshmallows, intending to run everything in to the kitchen.  God, Jenna.  Insensitive much? When it comes to killing a mood, you are Jack the Fucking Ripper. "I'm sorry," she told him, standing to gather the food.

"No, don't be.  Come here," he told her, pulling her back under the blanket and settling her onto his lap.  "I've had over a millenium to come to terms with what I did.  It doesn't cripple me anymore, or define who I am.  I've learned to shoulder it."  He tucked her hair back, where the soft breeze had blown a tendril of it across her face.  "I just don't normally talk about it.  In fact, I think I've only ever told one other person."

"It's okay.  You don't have to – "

"Shh."  He laid a finger gently over her lips.  "I know I don't.  But for some reason, I find I wish to."

Looking into his eyes, Jenna found herself nodding slowly, praying that she had the strength to hear what he was about to tell her.  Cold, from more than just the night air, she pulled the blanket tighter and wrapped it around the two of them.  "Okay."

He paused for a moment, perhaps not certain of where to begin.  "The ritual that changed us took place on the eve of battle, so the bloodlust that came with it had a natural outlet at first.  I'm not certain we truly gave it much thought while we were engaged in war.  It wasn't until afterward, when the battle was done, that it became evident that our basic natures had changed, had taken on this new, darker dimension.

"By the time I returned to my home, I knew that I had this thing inside me, and I feared what would happen if it took control – and it often did, in those early days.  So to keep it from my family, I absented myself from the household as much as I could.  But I only got away with that for so long.  Leah, my wife... she wasn't a woman to be ignored.  She made it plain that she wouldn't tolerate my continued absence and, for a time, I thought perhaps she could help me bring it under control."

"But she couldn't," Jenna murmured.

"No."  He grew quiet, staring into the fire, though she suspected he wasn't really seeing the fire at all, but rather something that had occurred over a thousand years ago, and remained with him still.  "One day," he said, after a time, "Henry, my eldest, did something to anger me... I don't even recall what.  I could feel the control slipping away from me, and I wanted to...  well, I'm sure you can figure out what I wanted to do.  Leah came upon us and, when she saw what I was about, she clubbed me with something.  Not enough to do any damage, of course, but enough to divert my attention from my son.  She told him to run and interposed herself between us."

With a pit opening in the bottom of her stomach, Jenna could see where this was going.  She didn't want to hear it.  Well, no, that wasn't exactly right; it wasn't that she wanted to deny it.  It wasn't about her experience of the story.  She didn't want him to have to say it.  She was making him relive this horrible thing with her stupid questions, and she was sorry – so sorry.  "Elijah –"

"Hush," he repeated, shaking his head.  "Let's finish it."  He settled his arms around her waist and pulled her more firmly against him.  "Leah tried to talk me down, to reason with me, but there was too little reason left at that point.  Her attempts to fight me off were ineffectual, to say the least.  She might have run; if she had, perhaps some small shred of control would have kept me from pursuing, but I think she feared that, if she did, I would go after the children."  Elijah caught her gaze and held it.  "So she stood her ground.  And I killed her.  Her, and the child she carried."

"Oh..."  Jenna covered her mouth with her hand, wanting to say something – anything! – that wouldn't be inane and wholly inadequate, and unable to imagine what it could possibly be.  A tear ran down each cheek, making her feel stupid and ridiculous.  It was his memory, his pain.  Not hers.  Pinching her lips together, she did the only thing she could think to do:  she put her arms around his shoulders and simply held onto him.  Sitting on his lap as she was, she was slightly higher than him, and she held his head to her shoulder, her fingers stroking the back of his hair.  His body slightly tense at first, she felt him gradually relax against her as she sat and stroked, trying to give him whatever comfort he would take.

He eased her back, after a time, taking her chin in his fingers..  "I've made my peace, Jenna.  I'm not haunted by it; it is what it is.  I just... found I wanted to share it with you."

Jenna drew in a shaky breath.  "Thank you.  For trusting me enough to tell me."

Elijah gave her a small smile and slid his hand down her back.  "Do you want to go inside?"

"No."  Taking his face in her hands, she pressed a kiss to his lips, soft and warm and chaste.  Twisted from being sideways on his lap, Jenna resettled herself so that she was straddling him and faced him head-on, pulling back to just gaze at him for a bit, her fingers brushing the hair back from his temples.  Elijah quirked a brow at her, his expression quizzical.

She wished she could explain to him what she was feeling, but words failed, as they so often did.  So she kissed him again, more deeply.  Teasing his lips with her tongue, she darted it into his mouth as it opened under hers, and he kneaded her hips as he stirred again between them.  As she leaned back to adjust her position, the blanket slid a little way down her shoulders, and the crisp air tightened her nipples almost painfully as it whispered across her skin.  Folding her legs into a lotus position around him, she pulled the blanket back up, enclosing them in a cocoon of warmth as she took him inside her, into her own warmth.

Jenna didn't know if this was supposed to be tantric or Kama Sutran or what; she just wanted to be close to him.  The night before, as well as their earlier tryst this evening, had been all lust and fireworks.  This was intimacy.  No gymnastics, no one-upsmanship.  A slow rocking, deep kisses, heart pressed to heart as they embraced.  It lasted forever, or maybe time just stilled – she didn't know.  She just knew that she wanted to give him something.  They moved, as slow and steady and inexorable as the tides, and when they crested together, she looked into his eyes, and knew she was lost to him.

Later, when she lay in bed with him, drifting off to sleep, she wondered why she wasn't afraid of him.  Part of her, albeit a small part, warned that she should by all rights be terrified of this vampire who had lived for over a millenium, who had done God only knew what over that time, who had by his own admission slaughtered his own wife and unborn child.  Just as she should be terrified that she was falling deeply and profoundly in love with him.

But somehow, she wasn't.

~~~~~

Sore in all the right places from a vigorous round of morning sex, Jenna peeled herself out of bed while Elijah showered and, buttoning his discarded shirt around her, padded down the hall to the other bathroom, humming to herself.  The essentials taken care of, she headed to the kitchen to see what she could scare up for food.  Culinary ineptitude notwithstanding, even she couldn't screw up breakfast too badly.  Rolling the long sleeves up and out of the way, she inhaled deeply of the shirt's collar, breathing in Elijah's scent.

Oh girl, you are so in trouble.  You have got it bad.

Well, she wouldn't think about that.  Just like she wasn't going to think about Alaric, and how despite her protests, her conscience prickled at the idea of not telling him about the baby.  Though why should she?  It sure as hell wasn't as if he hadn't kept plenty of things from her.  She didn't owe him anything.

That's a little bit different, her conscience chided.  He was trying to protect you.

Elijah was protective of her as well, but he didn't lie to her to do it.  He respected her enough to tell her the truth, trusting that she could handle it, even when she herself wasn't sure about her ability to do so.

Tell you the truth, then lock you up so you couldn't do anything about it.

'That was different,' she silently mocked.  He had done that to keep her from being harmed, and had protected Jeremy and Elena as he'd promised he would.

Alaric loves you.  And he deserves to know he has a child.

"I don't care!"  Great.  Now she was talking to herself.  To busy herself, she found the coffee filters, measured out the grounds, and started a pot of coffee.  She would be like Scarlett O'Hara – she'd think about it tomorrow.  And when tomorrow came, she'd put it off until the next tomorrow, and so on.

Pulling open the fridge, Jenna found that Elijah had done some grocery shopping.  She took out a carton of eggs, cheese, cream, tomatoes, and some... long, skinny, green, vegetable-looking thingies that she was going to hope were:  a) scallions; and b) something that went well with eggs.  She poked through cabinets until she came up with a cutting board and a frying pan, then pulled a knife out of the block and chopped the tomatoes and the thingies.  While the pan warmed, she cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them with some milk.  She debated making an omelet, but that seemed tricky.  Perhaps she'd stick with scrambling the eggs with the other ingredients rather than trying to be fancy.

Once she'd gotten that going, she opened the fridge again to see what else she could come up with.  She spotted a package of strawberries; she could serve those with cream, maybe a little brown sugar if she could find any.  There were a couple of pears...  toward the back there was a plastic grocery bag.  Wondering what was in there, she pulled it out and set it on the counter, leaving it momentarily to give the eggs a stir.  That done, Jenna unwrapped the top of the bag from around the contents and peered in.  She couldn't really tell what it was.  Some kind of meat?  If so, it looked like it had already been cooked.  Reaching in, she pulled it out for a better look. 

And screamed as she dropped it to the floor.

Elijah appeared around the corner almost at once, shirtless but dressed in slacks.  "What is it?" he asked, glancing down when Jenna pointed in horror at the thing on the floor.

"Is that...  It's a...  Why do you...  Oh God!"  She ran for the bathroom, afraid she was going to be sick.  She leaned against the sink, taking deep breaths, and gagged once or twice, but she managed to fight it down.  Remembering that she had touched the thing, she scrubbed her hands under the hot water until they turned red and started to feel parboiled.  She sank down on the edge of the tub as she dried her hands, hoping fervently that it would be gone when she went back out to the kitchen.  So much for making breakfast.

She heard Elijah walk down the hallway and pause outside the door.  "Are you all right?"

Sighing, she stood up and opened the door.  "Yeah.  I think so.  Is it gone?"

"I took care of it, yes."

"Elijah, what the fuck?"

"I can explain."

"Please!  Explain."

Elijah took a step back and held a hand out, motioning her down the hall.  Crossing her arms, Jenna stepped out and went back to the kitchen.  Thankfully, there was no sign of the bag or of what had been in it.  He had rescued the fry pan from the stove.  The egg scramble looked respectable, even if she didn't feel like eating it now.  She pulled one of the barstools out and sat.

Pouring coffee, Elijah added cream to one and set it in front of her before leaning back against the counter.  "I asked Damon and Marcus to keep an eye out for any unfamiliar vampires who might show up here in town.  One appeared, and they... took him into custody.  That's why I was at the Salvatores' yesterday."

"Into custody?"  Jenna took an experimental sip of coffee, and decided she was good to go.

"Anyone showing up randomly right now is likely to be a spy for someone else, so yes, into custody.  When I questioned this particular vampire, he had been compelled to resist subsequent compulsion.  He had a suicide capsule inserted into one of his molars."

"Like a cyanide capsule that spies in the movies have?"

"Same idea.  Whatever was used was highly effective.  I want to have the residue examined to see what the substance was.  Hence..."  He made a hand gesture to indicate the thing.

She supposed it made a certain sense, when he explained it that way.  Which should probably indicate to her just how far off the rails her life had gone.  "Did you find out anything from him?"

Elijah slipped a couple of plates out of the cupboard.  "Not really.  But the fact that he was here, and so clearly equipped for espionage, tells me something in and of itself.  The others are mobilizing.  Whether for good or for ill remains to be seen."

"Was it the one you were talking about, do you think?  Sebastian."

"Doubtful."  He pushed some of the eggs out onto a plate and sampled a bite, an expression of surprised approval on his face.  "This is quite good."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."  He held the other plate up to her, questioningly. 

She hesitated, then nodded.  "So there's someone else after you now?" she asked, taking the plate when he handed it to her.

"Mmm... probably more like performing reconnaisance."

"All right.  New rule:  No nasty human-slash-humanoid body parts in the fridge without suitable warning given.  Deal?"

"Deal."  He leaned on the island, a mischievous look on his face.  "Nice shirt.  What's under it?"

"Uh-uh, mister.  I am going to eat breakfast, then I'm going to take a shower, then I'm going home to work on my abstract."

Elijah stalked around the island and slipped his hands around her waist, sliding a couple of fingers in between the buttons.  "I can think of other things to do today..."

"Behave!  Don't you have papers to grade, or something?"

"Mm-hmm," he hummed, pressing his lips to her neck.

She giggled.  "I mean it. We are not spending the entire day in bed."

Flicking a button open with his thumb, he slipped a hand inside the shirt and cupped her breast.  "It wouldn't have to be in bed.  We could mix it up.  Try the counter, the table..."

His phone buzzed, vibrating against the ceramic bowl that held his car keys.  Sighing, he slid his hand out of the shirt and went to answer it.  Jenna took advantage of the reprieve to retreat to the bedroom and into the shower, half fearing, half hoping that Elijah would join her in it.  He didn't though.  When she had finished and dressed, she found him in the living room, fully clothed, his expression unreadable.  "Everything okay?"

"No."  He looked grim.

Her stomach filling with dread, Jenna wondered what new emergency had come up.  "What is it?"

"It's Sophia.  She was bitten by a werewolf last night."

Just Enough Rope, Chapter 12

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I hate this.  I should know better than to take a hiatus from writing, even for a few days of dog shows.  My brain goes mushy, I lose what little semblance of continuity I have, and my characters punish me by refusing to do what I want them to.  Harumph.  I am Grumpy and Out Of Sorts, people.

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/12/
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CHAPTER TWELVE

The call from Damon could not possibly have come at a better time. The officer investigating the bombing had been easy enough to compel into believing that the investigation was over and done with, but getting to that particular gentleman had been a veritable obstacle course of peons and red tape, so much so that he had at one point begun to consider the massacre of everyone in the building an actual, viable option.  After that experience, he was looking forward with particular relish to the opportunity to “interrogate a hapless subject.  Slipping his phone back into his breast pocket as he exited the police station, Elijah unlocked his new vehicle – a Range Rover this time – and headed toward the Salvatore house, where Damon and Marcus were sitting on an unknown vampire that they had dragged home during the wee hours of the morning.

Elijah had spent the first half hour or so after Jenna left berating himself for the mess he'd made of things.  Not that he could imagine any scenario in which a woman would prefer to be informed by her paramour of such matters, rather than the turnabout.  As if the baptism-by-fire into the world of the supernatural weren’t enough, now Jenna had this all too human situation to contend with.  The one, he would do all he could to protect her from.  The other… well, the choice of how to handle that would be hers, and hers alone.

And what of the child’s father?  Elijah was in no way anxious to see a return of Alaric Saltzman to Mystic Falls.  True, Jenna had thoroughly disavowed any desire to have further relation with the man, but that was before the whisper of a new life had tethered them inextricably together, in ways he doubted either would fully understand or appreciate immediately.  He had little doubt that Saltzman would leap at any opportunity to crawl back into Jenna’s life.  The only question was in what capacity Jenna would allow it.  And where exactly would he himself stand in the equation?

Where did he want to stand?

Question for another time.  Elijah shook it off and turned his attention to matters about which he could do something.  Such as their little “friends” on campus… He would need to somehow convince Jenna to stay away from there until the professor and whatever cohorts he had could be dealt with.  He didn’t believe for a moment that the location of the car bombing was a coincidence, especially when the professor himself had handed Jenna the parking pass for a reserved space.  That, coupled with his strange behavior and his digging at Jenna for information, made his involvement highly probable.  The question was at whose behest.

And yet… something felt off.  Of all the ways for another vampire – another Original – to come at him, a car bomb wouldn’t have made his list of top one hundred guesses.  It was too public, too indiscriminate, too unsubtle… and too ineffective.  But if Mitchell wasn’t in league with Sebastian or one of the others, why the full court press?  Surely Jenna’s scribbled notes regarding the supernatural weren’t enough to draw such a target on her back that a bombing was the de facto solution.  Either way, it was time he took a more proactive approach to dealing with the problem.  With that in mind, Elijah took his phone out again and began a series of phone calls.

~~~~~

Elijah's last call as he neared the Salvatore house went to Jenna’s number.  He was expecting to get her voicemail, so he was more than a little surprised when she answered with her usual, “Hey.”

“Jenna.  I wanted to call and check in.  How are you?”

“Pregnant.”

“Yes, I… think we covered that earlier.”

“I took a test anyway, just to be sure.  Well okay, I took six of them.”  He heard her sigh.  “Couldn’t you have been wrong, just this once?”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah.  Me too.  I think the donuts and the girl-talk have averted the five-alarm freakout.  I’m progressing to the ‘holy shit, what the hell do I do now?’ phase.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not unless Originals can alter the space-time continuum.”

“Sadly, no.”

“I figured.  What are you doing today?”

“Right now I’m headed out to the Salvatores’.  You?”

“I’m headed home shortly.  Conner has been fighting a nap for the last hour and he’s working himself up to a full-blown tantrum.  I’d prefer to spend a little more time in denial before facing the fact that I’m going to have one of those tantrum-throwing things.”

“Do you want me to come by later?”

“Would you be mad if I said no?  I want to talk to Elena and Jeremy, let them know about… you know.”

“Of course.  I understand.”

“How about later tonight, though?  I could drive up to your place.  I somehow doubt I’m going to be able to focus on my abstract anyway.”

“About that… I think it would be wise for you to stay away from campus until we have a better handle on all of the factors in play.”

“I don’t think that’s an option.”

“Neither is getting yourself killed.  Work from home.  The panel will accept your abstract.”  He’d seen to that.

“Can we argue about this later?”

“I prefer to think of it as a discussion.”

“Whatever.  And Elijah?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t even think about locking me up in your house again.”

 God, it was tempting.  “How about a vacation somewhere?  You could take Jeremy and Elena, go someplace warm…”

“I’m not running.  Or hiding.  Deal with it.”

“Duly noted.”  Elijah signaled and turned into the Salvatore driveway.  “I’m here.  I’ll see you later, then?”

“Yeah.”

Elijah ended the call and let himself into the house.  Damon, Stefan and Marcus were in the library.  He didn’t need super-hearing to hear the protests emanating from the cell down in the basement.  “Gentlemen.”

Damon rose and went to the bar to pour him a drink.  “That was quick.”

“I wasn’t far.  So, tell me about your guest.  Where did you find him?”

“Actually, he found us.  Showed up at the Grill after Caroline left.”  Damon shot Marcus a sidelong glance.  “He hit on Sophia.”

“It follows.  She's a beautiful woman.  Was she able to glean any information from him?”

“She might have, if Caveman here hadn’t gone all He-Man on him and invited him to step outside.”

Marcus shifted uncomfortably.  “He was all over her.”

“He had a hand on her elbow!”

Stefan leaned forward on the couch.  “Why don’t we go downstairs and see what he has to say?” he interjected, forestalling further argument between the other two vampires.

Elijah made an ‘after you’ motion, following the Salvatore brothers down the basement steps, Marcus bringing up the rear.  As they rounded the corner, the captive directed a string of invective in their general direction, invective that sharpened when he saw Marcus.  Damon threw the bolt on the door with a “yeah yeah yeah.”  The captive, outnumbered four to one, wisely chose to stand rather than making a break for it.

Saying nothing, Elijah casually slipped his jacket off and hung it on a hook outside the door.  Unbuttoning his cuffs, he made a show of rolling up his sleeves.  Not until he’d done so did he step forward and address the unknown vampire.  “What is your name?” he asked, conversationally.

“What the fuck is it to you?”

Too fast for the other vampires to see, Elijah shot his foot out, shattering the man’s left knee and bending his leg backward to about a 45-degree angle.  The vampire let out a loud shriek and sank down onto his good knee, fighting to stay upright even that much.  Elijah examined his fingernails, then asked, in the same tone of voice as before, “Your name?”

“Geoffrey Landan,” he spat out.

“See, that wasn’t so difficult.  Do you know who I am, Geoffrey?”

“Should I?”

With a roll of his eyes, Elijah wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him up so they were eye to eye.  "Perhaps I should explain how this works.  I ask you questions, and you answer them.  Without editorializing.  Now, I'll ask you again:  do you know who I am?"

The vampire eyed him contemptuously, but resisted the urge to smart off.  "No."

"Why are you here?"

“Because these assholes grabbed me and threw me in here!” he answered, glaring at Damon and Marcus in turn.

"Why are you here in town?"

"I was just passing through.  Jesus, is that a crime?"

Elijah gave him a small, cold smile and patted his cheek as he released the vampire's neck and set him on his good leg – only to kick it out from under him.  "I believe I warned you about editorializing."  Crouching down, Elijah balanced on the balls of his feet to put them at an even height, and tried to catch his eyes.  As he exerted his will, he could feel the younger vampire resisting him, setting off a mental tug of war between them.  Not vervain; the vampire's mind would have slid harmlessly away from his if he were dosed with the herb.  More likely he had been previously compelled to avoid further compulsion, or to resist Elijah specifically.  Landan kept his gaze on Elijah's though, giving him a strange smile.  He shifted his lower jaw to the side, grinding his teeth together.

A bright light flared from the vampire's mouth as it dropped open, giving his face a strange, eerie, lit-from-within effect and drawing a startled yelp from Marcus. A split second later, flames poured out of his mouth, nose, eyes and ears as his head was consumed in a flash inferno.  Elijah shot backward, away from the intense heat, as the chest split open.  Fire flowed like magma down over Landan’s ribs, igniting clothing and flesh as the flames fed greedily on the vampire’s corpse.  Hungry fingers of it reached out, seeking other materials it could use as fuel.  The rock floor and walls offered it nothing, but it made a couple of leaping grabs for the wooden beams overhead.    

Damon zipped around the corner and back in with a fire extinguisher.  Pulling the pin, he aimed and sprayed a layer of foam over what was left of the body, adding a chemical smell to the aroma of charred flesh.  Suffocated, the fire quickly sputtered and died out.  Damon remained poised with the extinguisher, watching for secondary flare-ups, but none sprang up, and he gradually relaxed his stance.

Once assured that the fire was indeed out, Stefan and Marcus crept closer to the body, peering at it with twin expressions of confusion.  Marcus cleared his throat.  “I think I speak for all of us when I say:  What the fuck just happened?”

Elijah sauntered closer, making a slow circle around the corpse as he studied it.  Globs of foam oozed off of the charred remains, taking with it blackened flakes of clothing and flesh.  Little remained of the vampire’s head; the skin and hair had burned away completely, while the skull had split from the sudden heat and its accompanying pressure, leaving the lower jaw swinging loose from one half as he stooped and picked up the two pieces.  He pulled the lower jawbone away from the upper and studied it, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.  Tossing it down next to the body, he flipped the pieces of the upper jaw over, squinting at the nubs of bone that had been teeth.

There.  On the left hand side, one of the back molars had been hollowed out.  If he looked closely, Elijah could see blackened, molten fragments of what had at some point been some sort of capsule.  He would have to have it examined to find out what it had held that could have caused the vampire to combust so quickly, but whatever the material used, one thing was clear – whoever had placed it there had gone to great pains to ensure that this particular minion would not talk if captured.

Elijah tossed the irrelevant half of the skull away and held up the part with the hollowed-out molar for them to see.  “Suicide capsule.”

“Capsule of what?” Damon asked, giving it that wild-eyed look of his.

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Vervain wouldn’t do that,” Stefan pointed out.

“No,” Elijah agreed.  “Some chemical that ignites when exposed to oxygen, perhaps…?”

Marcus stepped forward.  “Whatever it was, that light it gave off at the beginning was ultraviolet.  I felt it burn when it hit my skin.”

“Whereas we all have sun rings so it wouldn’t have affected us,” Damon finished the thought.

Elijah lifted his brows as he examined the upper jaw again, nodding in appreciation.  “How perfectly elegant,” he said, impressed.  He would most definitely have to have someone analyze the compound used.

“Elegant?” Stefan sputtered.

“Ultraviolet radiation to guarantee a rapid death and consumption.  Like a tiny sun, devouring him from the inside,” he breathed.  “It’s almost… poetic.”  And terribly, terribly clever.  Oh, he wanted some!

“You want some alone time with that?” Damon snarked, going across the hall and coming back with a large plastic tarp.  “A little help, here,” he added, shooting a look at Marcus and Stefan.

One corner of Elijah’s mouth lifted in a small smile.  “No, but I’ll be taking this with me.  I have people who can analyze what was used.” 

And hopefully duplicate it.

~~~~~

Dusk was just falling by the time Elijah and Damon returned from disposing of the body.  Elijah had secured his ‘prize’ at home, where it would await pick-up.  Stefan and Marcus had cleaned the room in the basement while they were out, and were settled in the great room, in front of the fireplace.  Damon broke out a new bottle of whiskey and passed four tumblers around.

Marcus accepted it and pulled out his cell phone to check it, huffing out a sigh and tossing it onto the coffee table when it showed no messages.  Downing the whiskey, he rose and refilled the glass, this time to the brim, before settling back onto the sofa.  Elijah lifted a brow in inquiry and tried to catch his eye, but Marcus was apparently settling himself in for a good long sulk.

“Sophia told him off and left him high and dry at the Grill last night, after the attack of the green-eyed monster,” Damon offered, by way of explanation.  “Speaking of women,” he continued, turning toward his brother, “where’s little miss Elena tonight?  Isn’t Saturday ‘date night?’”

“Jenna asked her to stay home this evening.”

“Cock-blocked by her aunt,” Damon drawled.  “Guess it’s just you and the five pointer sisters tonight.”

Stefan raised his glass to him in a mock salute.  “I’m sure you know them well.”

Damon settled into the wingback chair and put his feet on the ottoman.  “So I’m guessing we have this Sebastian guy to thank for our fiery friend?” he asked Elijah.

Elijah had been considering that.  “I don’t think so.”  Like the car bombing, it didn’t strike him as a move Sebastian would make.  Whereas the bombing was too loud and showy, this level of sophistication and elegance argued for a cooler and more subtle head than Sebastian’s.  “I would say Edmund, if I were to guess.”

That pulled Marcus out of his reverie for a moment.  “I thought you and he got along?”

“We do – to a point,” Elijah said, sipping his drink.

“I’m guessing not so much, now that you’ve killed his lackey,” Damon put in.

Elijah shrugged.  “Happens.”  His phone buzzed; Sophia, according to the caller ID.  He pushed the button to answer it.  “Sophia.”

Marcus sat bolt upright, looking at him expectantly.

“I think I may have a lead on where your professor and his little plaything will be this evening,” Sophia told him.  He could hear lots of background noise, as though she were at a party, or in a rather raucous bar.  “It sounds like they’re going to a meeting of sorts.  Shall I follow up?”

“Please.”

Where is she? Marcus mouthed at him, sotto voce.

“Marcus is here, Sophia.  He’d like to speak with you.”

“And I would like him to grow up and stop acting like a 203 year-old imbecile, but we don’t all get what we want, do we?”  No need to repeat for Marcus’s benefit; they could all hear both sides of the conversation perfectly well.  “I’ll call you tomorrow, Elijah.”  Sophia disconnected the call.

“Oooh, burn,” Damon muttered into his drink.

Marcus shot off of the couch and went back to the bar for another refill.  “You know, there was a time when women knew their place and did as they were told,” he spat as he seated himself again. 

Elijah snorted.  He was absolutely certain no such time had ever existed, and he had lived through many different times.  “Sophia is perfectly capable of handling herself with respect to the opposite sex.  In fact, as I recall, she was handling herself eighty years before you were born.”  Sophia’s calm and self-possession were two of the qualities that had made her stand out from amongst her peers at the expensive and highly exclusive French pleasure-house where Elijah had found her.  Two qualities that had eventually led him to turn her.

“Chill, Romeo,” Damon told him.  “And show some respect:  that’s good whiskey, not a ‘whine’ cooler.  How long have you been with this chick, anyway?”

“A hundred and eighty years.  Since she turned me.”

Damon let out a low whistle.  “No wonder.  Wait, you’re not saying you’ve been monogamous this whole time, right?”

“Yes, we have.”  His expression turned dark.  “Or at least I have.”

“I don’t understand; if you’ve been together for so long, why would you worry about some jerk in a bar?” Stefan asked.

Marcus looked like he was about to bolt his drink, but after a sidelong glance at Damon, he took a discreet sip instead.  “I think I’m losing her,” he admitted morosely.

“A hundred and eighty years is a pretty good run.  Don’t you think it’s time?” Damon asked.

“No, I don’t think it’s time!  I turned so I could be with her forever.  If it’s not forever, what was the point?”

Elijah stood, straightening his jacket as he did so, and fishing his keys out of his pocket.  “’Forever,’ when applied to love, is a concept meaningful only to those for whom there is zero possibility of it.  The rest of us would do well to simply appreciate what we have, while we have it.”  Seeing himself out, he planned to go and do just that.

Just Enough Rope, Chapter 11

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Surprise!  How’s that for a quick update?  

Since I’ll be at dog shows Thursday through Sunday and won’t have time to write and update, I took pity on the characters and didn’t leave them hanging from any cliffs.  Hope y’all will come back after the weekend anyway!  J

Fanfiction.net link:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/11/
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So what is love, then?  Is it dictated, or chosen?

Does it sing like the hymns of a thousand years, or is it just pop emotion?

And if it ever was there and it left, does it mean it was never true?

And to exist it must elude; is that why I think these things of you?

                                    -The Indigo Girls, “Mystery”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jenna stretched, rolled over, and reached an arm out, only to realize that she was alone.  Disappointed, she sat up, opening her eyes and rubbing sleep out of them.  Sunlight, filtered by the trees to the side of the house, shone through the windows; a quick glance at the clock showed her it was already past nine.  No wonder Elijah was already up and about.  She had slept like the dead. Heh, with the dead.  Heading into the bathroom to take care of the necessaries, she supposed she really shouldn’t be greedy, but she wouldn’t have minded a replay of last night.  Not at all.

Elijah had thoughtfully set her bag inside the door of the bedroom, so Jenna fished her clothes out and dressed, leaving her feet bare.  She pulled a brush through her hair, doing what she could with it, considering she had slept (among other things) on it wet.  Padding back into the bathroom, she brushed her teeth, then decided she had forestalled the morning-after awkwards for as long as she could.

He was outside on the balcony that ran off of the kitchen, staring down over the lake.  Jenna took a moment to appreciate the view.  He hadn’t put on a jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, giving him a more casual look than he usually sported.  She didn’t think he’d ever look truly casual, not even naked.  Especially not naked.  The air of power and control was intrinsic to him; the suits had nothing to do with it.  In his case, the clothes didn’t make the man.  The man made the clothes.   

Spying the half-full coffee pot, she gave it a precautionary sniff.  Her stomach must have been inclined to forgive and forget the previous incident, because it smelled heavenly to her.  Fingers crossed, she opened the fridge.  Sure enough, there was a little carton of cream in there.  God.  The man really was perfect.  Well, except for that whole blood-sucking, undead, ancient vampire thing.  And even that had its perks, which he had more than amply demonstrated last night.  Jenna sighed.  She needed to be careful.  She was already half-way to stupid over him.

Smiling to herself, Jenna opened the French door and stepped out, suddenly wishing she had put some socks on. Joining him at the rail, she set her mug on it, next to his, and slid her arms around his waist.  “Hey.”  Okay, so as morning-after greetings went it wasn’t exactly witty.

“Good morning.”  He laid his arm across her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.  He picked up his coffee and drank.  “How are you feeling?” he asked, gesturing toward her own mug.

“Fine.  I’m apparently over the coffee wiggins.  Thank God.”  She retrieved it and took a sip.  “You got up early,” she said, oh-so-casually.

“Mm.”

Well, that was nicely monosyllabic, she thought, when he seemed disinclined to say anything more.  Apparently even a thousand years of experience didn’t banish the awkwards.  Good to know.  She tried to think of something else to say, something that wouldn’t sound completely inane.  Or clingy.  Or needy.  Or too soon. The harder she thought about it, the more blank her mind became.  Great.  Apparently it actually is possible to screw your brains out.  Jenna balanced and put one foot on the calf of her other leg to warm it, then switched legs. Which did absolutely nothing to make her look or feel any brighter.  Or warmer.

“Here, you’re cold,” he said, turning her toward the door.  “Let’s go in.”

Jenna did as he bid, going to the coffee pot to top off her mug as he shut the door.  “So, any big plans today?” she asked, wincing at the over-bright tone in her voice that made her sound like some deranged, cracked-out Pollyanna.  Elijah merely lifted a brow at her, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth.  “Okay, all right!  I suck at this morning after thing!  I never have any clue what to say.  ‘Hey, loved meeting your penis last night!’ just doesn’t really strike the right chord, you know?  It’s stupid, and it’s awkward, but there it is.  I am inept.”  She took a big swallow of her coffee, blushing furiously.

Elijah rubbed his hand over his mouth.  Jenna was pretty sure he was stifling a laugh.  “Jenna?”  He leaned on the island and held a hand out to her.  She rolled her eyes, but took it.  He raised it to his lips, kissing the back of her fingers and, looking at her earnestly, told her, “I loved meeting your vagina, too.”

“Oh, shut up!”  She tried to pull her hand away, but Elijah wouldn’t let go, coming around the counter and pulling her to him, chuckling.  She put up a token resistance before snuggling against him, blushing and laughing.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Good.  Because there’s something I need to ask you.”

“What?”

Elijah released her and lifted their coffee mugs from the counter, nodding toward the living room as he carried them in and set them on the coffee table.  Jenna followed, not sure she liked the sudden shift into seriousness.  She lowered herself onto the leather sofa, facing him as he sat.  “What?” she repeated, when he sat watching her.

He hesitated, then pushed forward.  “When was the last time you were with Alaric?”

Jenna paused with her coffee mug halfway to her mouth.  “Excuse me?”

“Intimately, I mean.”

 I know what you mean.  So help her God, if this was his roundabout way of calling her a slut, she was going to punch him in the balls, vampire or no.  “Yeah, I got that.”  Jenna set her mug back down, perhaps harder than strictly necessary, and crossed her arms in front of her.  “I’m just trying to figure out what the hell business it is of yours.”

“That’s not…”  He blew out a breath.  “I don’t mean to put you on the defensive.”

“Really.”

“I assure you, that wasn’t my intent.

“Because gee, Elijah, I don’t know.  How long has it been for you?”

Elijah closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “It wasn’t meant to be an inquisition.”

She gestured impatiently.  “Then what the hell kind of a question was that?”

“This isn’t going well,” he sighed.

“How exactly were you expecting it to go?!”

“Fine.  Let me rephrase the question, then:  When is the last time you bled?”

What. The. Fuck?  Then it dawned on her.  Jenna shook her head.  “Okay.  I get it.  The throwing up thing.  Jesus, Elijah.  A woman can hurl without her being pregnant.  Well, unless she’s on a soap opera.  Seriously.”

“That doesn’t actually answer the question, Jenna.”

“Christ!  I don’t know!  Things have been just a little crazy.  In case you hadn’t noticed.”  She’d had her period when… well, it would have been… she hadn’t had it since before she had stayed here, and that was… a month ago.  But before that… it was… she didn’t think she had had it since Isobel… which…

Unable to sit still, Jenna paced to the window, wracking her brain.  It couldn’t have been that long… could it?  Wouldn’t she have noticed?  Apparently not, a snide little voice popped up into her head to say.  She jumped when Elijah put his hands on her shoulders.

“Jenna.”

She shook her head vehemently.  “I need to think.  I just need to figure out…”

“Jenna, you’re – ”

“I’m not pregnant!”  I can’t be I can’t be I can’t be –

Elijah turned her to face him.  “I can hear your child's heartbeat,” he said quietly.  “You are pregnant.”

Heartbeat?  Jenna backed away from him, still shaking her head.  “No.  No no no no.”  She turned to look out the big window, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle the torrent of denial.  This was not happening.  This could not be happening.  She’d been careful.  They’d been careful.  They’d always used a condom.  Always? the voice mocked.  Almost always!  Maybe once or twice, when they hadn’t had one, or couldn’t wait…  It only takes once.

“Oh my God,” she said, her voice hitching on a sob.  Elijah stroked a hand down her back, but she spun away from him.  “That’s it.  The final ‘eff you’ from the Universe.  The big, neon sign flashing over my head:  ‘Jenna is a monumental screw-up.’”  She dashed tears off of her cheeks and pulled her hair back from her face, resting her hands on the top of her head as she paced.  “It’s been almost four months.  How can I be four months pregnant and not even realize it?  Who does that?  Okay, really fat, stupid people on TLC do that.  Oh my God.”

Elijah reached a hand out to her on one of her passes by, but she avoided it.  “I have to get out of here,” she decided.

“Why don’t you wait for a bit until – ”

“No!  I have to go.”  Jenna strode out to the kitchen, searching the table by the door for her keys.

“Jenna – ”

“Just – leave me alone.  I have to get out of here.”  She found the keys and headed toward the door.

“Jenna – ”

“I have to go!”

“Shoes.”

“What?!”

Elijah glanced down at her feet.  Her bare feet.  “I’ll get them.  Just… hold a moment.”  He disappeared into the bedroom, returning with her shoes in one hand and her bag in the other.  Sniffling, she took the shoes and stuffed her feet into them.  “I wish you wouldn’t leave while you’re this upset.”

“I… I just have to go.  I need to think.  I’m s-sorry.”

Elijah took her chin and tilted her face up to him.  “Please be careful?”

Jenna nodded, took her bag, and left.

~~~~~

When Andie opened the door to her apartment, Jenna held the bag from the drug store up in front of her.  “I have to pee on these,” she told her.

Andie’s eyebrows climbed halfway up her forehead. “Uh… okay…”

Jenna pushed past her and marched down the hallway to the bathroom.  “Who wants to watch Cars?” she heard the witch ask brightly.

Conner’s footsteps thundered past the closed bathroom door.  “Me me me!” 

“Okay.  You sit down baby, and Mommy will bring you some popcorn, okay?”

“Yay!” 

Jenna opened the first pregnancy test while Conner made car noises in the living room, then thought, screw it and opened all of them, so that by the time Andie had gotten Conner settled and tapped on the door, she had six sticks of varying shapes and sizes all sitting on the sink and taking their requisite amounts of time to process.  “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”  Jenna was sitting on the edge of the tub, staring at the collection when Andie opened the door and stepped in. 

The witch folded down the toilet cover and sat.  “Okay, sweetie.  What’s going on?”

“I had sex with Elijah last night and I’m pregnant,” Jenna told her, checking her watch and grabbing the first stick.  Big fat plus sign.

“I… don’t think that’s quite how it works.”

Jenna checked the second stick.  The readout said ‘pregnant.’  “No, not… It was Alaric.  Obviously.  But Elijah told me I was pregnant.”

Andie raised her eyebrows and looked off to the side.  “Awkward…”

She looked at the third stick.  Another plus sign.  “He said he could hear the heartbeat.  How fucked up is that?”

“Pretty fucked up,” she agreed.

“Shit.  Where’s that box?” she asked, looking at the fourth.  “Is it one line or two for ‘Oh my God you are totally screwed?’”

Andie stood and took her arms as Jenna started pawing frantically through the bag, looking for the right box.  “All right, hon’, I think it’s pretty safe to say that you are indeed pregnant.  Let’s throw these away and go sit, okay?”

Jenna let herself be led out to the kitchen and nudged into a chair.  Andie set a cup of coffee in front of her and dropped a bag of chocolate donuts onto the table.  Jenna took one and bit into it morosely.  Andie sat down opposite her and grabbed a donut for herself.  “Okay, first things first:  how far along are you?”

“Three and a half, four months?”

“You didn’t have any inkling?”

“With everything that’s been happening?”  Jenna took a sip of coffee.  “I… I never even gave it a thought.  Isobel happened, and then I wasn’t having sex, so I just wasn’t that aware of having my period.  Or not, as the case may be.”

“Understandable, I guess.  Wow.”

“Yeah.”  Jenna polished off the donut, washed it down with her coffee, and reached for another.  “What the hell am I going to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think I really have any choice, do I?  I mean, four months?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe not.  I mean… I don’t know.”  Andie rose and refilled her coffee cup, then poured milk into a sippy cup and took it out to Conner.  “What about Ric?” she asked as she came back into the kitchen.

Jenna folded her legs and pulled her feet up onto the chair with her to sit cross-legged.  “I don’t even know where he is.

“He shouldn’t be too hard to find.  We can check with Damon; I bet he knows.”

“I don’t even know if I want to tell him.”

“And I get that, but… don’t you think you should?”

Jenna glanced in the direction of the living room, where Conner was saying lines along with the movie.  “Did you tell his father?”

“Little different circumstance.  He’s aware, but… it wasn’t exactly like either one of us had a choice.”

Come to think of it, Andie never had told her about Conner’s father.  “How do you mean?”

Andie shook her head.  “Another story for another time.  We’re talking about you now.”

“I don’t know what else there is to say.  I’m knocked up.  By my ex-boyfriend, who is God-knows-where.  And I’m apparently so stupid that my current boyfriend had to point it out to me.”

Andie reached for a second donut as well, muttering something under her breath about how she’d known she shouldn’t have bought them.  “So how did that go?”

Jenna shrugged.  “He was pretty sweet about it.  I think.  I don’t know.  It’s all sort of a blur right now.  I stayed there last night after the bombing, and we – ”

“Whoa, wait!  After the what, now?”

“Oh.  Yeah.  We went to that mixer thing on campus last night.  Elijah’s car got car-bombed.”

Andie stared at her, wide-eyed for a moment, then started to giggle, though she tried not to.  “Girlfriend, the fact that a car-bombing didn’t even seem worth mentioning should maybe make you ask yourself some things about your current lifestyle.”

Jenna’s sense of humor kicked in, and she started to giggle too.  That fed Andie’s laughter, which in turn kept hers going, and before long they were both sitting at the table, howling.  Jenna wasn’t even aware of when she started crying instead.

Andie pulled a chair over next to Jenna, dropping and arm around her shoulders.  “All right, sweetie.  Everything will work itself out, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Sure.”

“Liar.”

“Yup.”

Jenna cried on Andie’s shoulder for a little while, gradually getting herself under control.  When she was, she took a napkin off the table and blew her nose.  “Well that was nicely bipolar.”

“Hormones.  You’re entitled.”  Andie stood and went to the coffeepot, only to realize it was empty.  “So, to recap,” she said, as she started fixing another pot, “Elijah has people bombing his car, you had sex with him, and he informed you you’re pregnant.  Since you obviously survived the bombing, and I think we’ve covered the pregnancy thing, let’s get down to what really matters and talk about the sex.”

“You are such a pervert.  No wonder we’re friends.”

“Come on, dish.”

Jenna broke a half off of one of the remaining donuts.  “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you?”

“Is it working?”

Jenna smiled, and decided to let her friend distract her for a little while.  “Well, first…”