~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In which Elena gets her Petrova on. Damn, girl! Didn’t know you had it in you. I think it’s safe to say that she is firmly on Team Alaric.
Fanfiction.net link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/17/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Seriously, as if the fact that she looks just like you isn’t weird enough! But she walks in with this couple and she's hanging all over them like they're actually her family.” Jenna kicked her shoes off and tucked her feet under her on the sofa.
Elena stared at her. "She showed up with parents?"
"Mm-hmm."
"They must be compelled."
Jenna snorted. "Gee, you think? Completely scrambled. Got to be," she said, tucking one of the throw pillows behind her back. “Why is she even still here?”
“Believe me, I wish I knew.” Elena grabbed the remote and turned down the volume as a commercial came on, driving the sound up several notches.
“Ooh, flip it to Survivor real quick.”
“Aunt Jenna, our lives ARE an episode of Survivor. We don’t need to watch it on TV.”
Jenna leaned forward to snag her iced tea off of the coffee table. “Can we vote Katherine off the island, then? Because bitch has got to go.”
Elena made a face. “Yeah, well, good luck with that, since your boyfriend has apparently given her immunity.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s still here, isn’t she?” Elena shrugged diffidently.
“What's Elijah supposed to do, run her out of town on a rail?” Speaking of Elijah, where was he, anyway? It couldn't be taking him that long to pick up ice cream.
“He could. If he wanted to.”
Jenna shook her head. "If he could have, she'd be gone. He has no use for her either."
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," Elena snotted at her.
And just what the hell was her problem? "You're in a mood."
"Whatever. I'm just saying." Elena boosted the volume back up on the television.
Jenna got up and grabbed the remote, turning the TV off and squaring off with Elena. “No, actually, you're not saying. So whatever it is you’re trying to dance around, just spit it out.”
“Fine. First, Elijah almost blew the sacrifice ritual trying to save Katherine, and now he’s playing along with this whole high school charade. He's twenty times more powerful than she is. If he wanted to force her out, he could. God knows she's all about saving her own neck,” she added, her tone making it clear what she thought of that. “But really, what do you expect, considering.”
"What, Elena? Considering what?"
“The doppelganger thing? Me, Katherine, Irina?”
Jenna looked at her blankly. “I know you're both doppelgangers. But what does that have to do with it? And who is Irina?”
Elena raised her eyebrows at her. “Oh… You didn't know? I guess he must have skipped over that part when he gave you the big explanation.”
“Elena…”
“He told you how the doppelganger came about and why, right? Yes, Katherine and I are doppelgangers. Irina was the original.”
“And…?”
Her niece looked at her like she was explaining something to a small child. “And Elijah was in love with her.”
Oh, Elijah had skipped over that part, all right. “But he can’t stand Katherine,” Jenna defended him, searching her memory for anything he had said about the doppelgangers and how they were created to break the curse.
“Well gee, that wasn’t the impression I got when he was on top of her, trying to rip her clothes off,” Elena said, lifting her hand to examine her fingernails.
What?! “When did… are you… What the hell are you talking about?”
Elena sighed and faced her. “Before the ritual, when we all met? I walked out onto the verandah, and they were going at it.”
“There was kind of a lot going on at the time, Elena. Are you sure you didn’t misinterpret something?” Jenna asked her, grasping at straws.
“Let’s see… Katherine was on her back on the patio table, her legs were wrapped around Elijah, his shirt was open, and they were vacuuming each other’s tonsils. Plus, there was grinding involved. So... nope, I don’t think I ‘misinterpreted’ anything.” Elena crossed her arms over her stomach, eyebrows raised, with the ghost of a self-satisfied smile playing around her lips, and shrugged slightly. "Sorry."
Jenna stared at her niece, wondering how best to forge this new territory. She and Elena hadn't always seen eye to eye on everything, but she had never acted like this – being snotty and purposely hurtful. She nodded slowly. "Yeah. The resemblance really is uncanny."
"Hey, look, I'm just – "
"I'm sure you have homework," Jenna cut her off. "Go do it."
"Jenna – "
"Now."
Elena hissed out a sigh and went up to her room, not exactly slamming her door, but closing it harder than strictly necessary. Agitated – and that had no doubt been the point, hadn't it? – she went into the dining room and started straightening up the academic effluvia littering the table. Her abstract was printed out and only needed to be bound before she took and turned it in tomorrow. Jenna picked it up, appreciating the heft of it and the amount of work that it represented. Flipping over the cover sheet, she looked at the two photos she had inserted into her 'Contents' page.
Her research topic being siblings, she had included a scanned photo of she and Miranda from some long ago Fourth of July celebration. Miranda was around fourteen in it and budding into womanhood. She had her long hair in an up-do that Jenna supposed she had considered sleek and grown-up, a look that went well with the weskit-style vest and flared shorts she was wearing in the photo. Jenna, just five years old at the time, had green stains and bits of grass on her knees, and a big watermelon stain on the front of her striped T-shirt. She sat on Miranda's lap, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at whoever had been snapping the photo.
The other photo was of Elena and Jeremy, taken probably three or four years ago at the lake house. Jeremy had caught a fish off of the dock and was advancing on Elena with it where she sat sunbathing, while Grayson stood in the background, holding his own fishing pole and laughing at the kids' antics. Miranda would have been the one behind the camera then. She wondered suddenly what her own family photos would look like. And who would be in the background of them.
Elijah's quick knock sounded at the door, and he let himself in, calling out a greeting as he armed the alarm system and carried a large grocery bag down to the kitchen. Jenna followed him into the kitchen. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd changed your mind. Where'd you go?"
"A certain lady sent me on a mission.” He kissed her temple in passing and set the bag on the counter, removing cartons of ice cream, toppings, whipped cream, and cones from the bag. "There's Rocky Road, pistachio, and black raspberry. I wasn't certain which 'situation' we might be having this evening."
Aw! He knew her ‘situations.’ "Definitely a 'chocolate situation,'" she decided, slipping her arms around his waist and kissing him. Elena’s insinuations notwithstanding, damn she had missed him. Her body had really missed him. She pressed against him more fully, flicking her tongue over his.
Elijah chuckled against her lips. "In that case," he told her, pressing her against the counter and kissing her more deeply, "there's hot fudge as well."
"I'm seeing a number of intriguing possibilities here." She sucked his lower lip into her mouth, giving it a little nibble.
"Mmm... such as?" Elijah slid his hands underneath her shirt and ran them up her sides, his thumbs brushing over her breasts.
Jenna put a hand to his chest and pushed him back. "You dish up the ice cream and grab the can of whipped cream, I'll heat the hot fudge." She gave his groin a friendly pat as she slipped by him. "Then we'll go upstairs and find out."
~~~~~
Breathing hard, and only semi-coherent, Jenna flopped back onto the bed. She landed on something cold and hard, and reached underneath her to pull out the can of whipped cream. She set it on the nightstand, or tried to; it slid off the edge and hit the floor, where it rolled under the bed. “Oops.”
Elijah draped an arm over her and licked a stray smear of fudge sauce off of her shoulder, making her giggle.
“I’ve never much seen the attraction of ice cream,” he confessed, “but I think I may have gained a new perspective on it.”
Jenna rolled onto her side so she was facing him and took his hand, examining his fingers. “Sorry I bit you,” she said sheepishly.
“I think I’ll recover. You did say you had to be quiet,” he teased.
“I know,” she groaned, hiding her face in the pillow. “It’s your fault.”
“I’ll accept that.” Elijah tucked her hair back, where it had stuck to her sweat-dampened face.
She turned so she was facing him again. “I missed you. Are you okay?” He hadn’t said anything about Sophia. Not that she’d given him much opportunity to talk before molesting him, she reflected.
Elijah nodded. “What about you? Any other suspicious goings-on at the campus?”
“Nope. All boringly normal. And,” she said, merging her fingers with his, “I am turning my abstract in tomorrow. On time! Which means I can relax and enjoy our weekend. That’s if you still want to go somewhere,” she added. They hadn’t discussed it further, considering. And they’d certainly broken through the first-time sex barrier already.
Some trace of thought or emotion flitted over his features and was gone before she could identify it. “What would you think about driving up to DC tomorrow night? We could stay for the weekend, take in some of the museums… I could point out what they got wrong,” he said, winking at her and grinning a little. God, he was sexy when he did that.
“That could be fun. I haven’t been to Washington
“Good to know. I, uh, have one little thing I need to take care of while we’re there.”
So, not an entirely romantic weekend getaway, then. “Oh?”
“Hilda and Gareth are staying there. They had asked me to call a summit with the other Originals. And, I’d like to ask Hilda to come and participate in the Ren Faire training. I should meet up with them briefly while we’re there.”
“Yeah, sure. I’d kind of like to meet her. In a ‘holy cow she’ll probably scare the crap out of me’ sort of way.”
“It’s considered bad form to interfere with another vampire’s human. You needn’t worry. You’ll be perceived as mine and, as such, off-limits to them.”
‘Be perceived as’ his. Not that she was his. Down, girl. Now is not the time to get weird and clingy and needy, Jenna. “Also good to know.” Jenna fluffed the pillows up behind her and pulled herself up so she was half-sitting, drawing the sheet over herself as she did so. “Speaking of vampires and ‘their’ humans, what are you going to do about Katherine?”
Elijah rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head, frowning. “I don’t know.”
“She tried to kill me, you know,” Jenna told him, picking at a pulled thread along the edge of the coverlet.
“Elena spoke of it. I don’t think you need to be concerned. She’s unlikely to try again.”
“Can’t you force her out of town? I mean, better safe than sorry, right?”
“I could, yes, but I’d prefer to have her where I can keep an eye on her.”
“Just an eye?” she mumbled under her breath. But of course he heard it.
Elijah lay there for a moment, regarding her. “Wouldn’t it just be simpler to come out and say whatever it is you’re trying not to?” he asked at last.
“Fine… I was just wondering if you’re keeping her here because she reminds you of Irina, and you may have feelings for her because of it.”
He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. “It seems Elena’s been speaking of a lot of things, lately,” he observed, his tone carefully neutral.
“She said you kissed her." Among other things. "Why didn’t you tell me?” Yeah, so much for not getting weird on him.
“Jenna,” he said, raising an eyebrow and giving her that disarming smile of his, “if I’m going to recite every woman I've kissed over the last twelve hundred years, it's going to be a very long conversation."
"You know what I mean. When you were telling me about the doppelgangers, why didn't you tell me about Irina, and how she was connected to you?"
"Because it was irrelevant at the time."
"And since then?"
Elijah leaned in and kissed her shoulder. "It's still irrelevant."
"But Katherine and Elena are just like her."
"No. They look just like her. There's a difference."
“Okay, but still – ”
A crash sounded downstairs, followed a split second later by the blaring of the alarm. Elijah was out the door in a blur, telling her to instruct the alarm company not to send anyone, and disappeared down over the stairs. Jenna got out of bed and grabbed her robe, planning to follow, when the phone on the bedside table rang. She grabbed it, panicking momentarily as she blanked on the challenge question; once her brain re-engaged, she gave it to them, told them they had it under control and hung up.
Jeremy and Elena were both in the hall when she left her room. “What’s going on?” Jeremy shouted, over the screeching of the alarm.
“I don’t know!” she shouted back, her voice ringing loud suddenly as the alarm cut off mid-sentence.
“Elijah went down to check,” she told them in a normal voice. “He’s here,” she added, rather unnecessarily.
“Yeah. We heard,” Elena dead-panned, sharing a look with Jeremy.
Right. God, she really was the worst aunt ever. “Is everything okay?” Jenna asked, leaning over the railing and peering down the stairs.
“You have a broken window,” Elijah called up. “It looks like someone was trying to let him or herself in through the dining room. The alarm must have caused whoever it was to reconsider.”
“You guys go back to bed,” Jenna told them. “We’ll take care of this.”
Elena ignored her and started down the stairs as Elijah rounded the corner into the hallway. “Oh God!” She did a quick one-eighty, slapping a hand over her eyes. “Jeez, you couldn’t have put some pants on?”
“Time seemed rather of the essence,” he answered drily.
“Well, this is awkward,” Jeremy supplied helpfully.
At least he wasn’t eating ice cream, she thought inanely. Jenna huffed out a breath. “Bed. Go. We’ve got this.”
Elena flounced back up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door shut. Jeremy gave her door a WTF look and shrugged at Jenna before turning and going to back his own room. Jenna scrubbed a hand over her face and went back into the bedroom to retrieve Elijah’s pants, tossing them down to him. “You better put something on your feet before you come down,” he warned. “Broken glass.”
She did so and joined him in the dining room, where he was now half-clothed and picking up the larger pieces of glass. “Did you get a look at who it was?”
“Not much of one. Someone in a hooded sweatshirt, fleeing down the street. I didn’t want to pursue, in case that person was just a lure to draw me out of the house.”
She frowned. “Draw you out?”
“Another vampire wouldn’t be able to enter,” he reminded her.
Right. “How would they know you were here? Another spy?”
“Likely.” He carried the glass out to the kitchen and threw it away. “We can vacuum the rest up in the morning.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go anywhere this weekend,” she said, following him.
“On the contrary, I think a trip to DC may be more imperative than I thought. The sooner I can pull this summit together, the better.”
“What about the kids? Should we leave them here?”
He dropped an arm over her shoulders. “I’ll ask Stefan to stay again.”
“I really don’t think I should be condoning Elena having her boyfriend sleep over.” Elijah just looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “I’m an adult! It’s different!” The smirk joined the eyebrow. “Oh, all right! It’s not like I’m going to win any parenting awards at this point anyway. At least I don’t need to worry about her getting pregnant,” she added morosely.
Elijah pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. “Go up and get some sleep.”
“Are you coming up?”
“I think I’ll stay down here.”
“Oh, right. The alarm won’t work now, will it? Because of the contact point thingies?” She was sure the technician had said something about contact point thingies.
He grinned. “No, the system is still armed. That was a glass-break alarm that triggered. The frame is still in place, so the contacts are still functioning. If anyone tries to come in it will still go off.”
Jenna stared at him blankly. “Uh… okay. If you say so. Come to bed, then.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“I’d argue with you,” she said, stifling a yawn, “but since my clock is set to go off in about four hours, I think I’ll crash.” She would sleep better knowing he was keeping watch. Not that she was going to tell him that.
Elijah kissed her and turned her toward the stairs. “Get some sleep while you can. I intend to keep you up quite late tomorrow evening.”
“Oh, I intend to keep you up, too,” she assured him, waggling her eyebrows at him as she went up over the stairs. It didn’t occur to her until she was drifting off to sleep that they hadn’t really finished their discussion. And they had resolved nothing about Katherine.
No comments:
Post a Comment