distressing damsels

Because of course rescuing Elena Gilbert from the clutches of a power-hungry vampire wouldn't be as simple a task as it first appeared. Elijah doesn't know why he ever thought otherwise.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This story is set late in Season Two, after Elena has undaggered Elijah but before Klaus arrives to town.

It is seven o'clock on a Tuesday night, and Stefan and Damon Salvatore watch with wariness and muted disgust, respectively, as the Original vampire Elena had revived only days ago strides purposefully into their library.

To be honest, summoning Elijah for any sort of reason isn't something either Salvatore brother fancies (perhaps one of the few things Damon and Stefan wholeheartedly agree on in life). Neither one particularly like Elijah, even for all their newly-established relationship as comrades-in-arms against the looming threat of Klaus.

This dislike most probably had less to do with the personal injustices he had inflicted upon them and more to do with the fact that the ancient vampire was clearly enamored with the object of both brothers' affections, as well as the infuriating way he so effortlessly diverted Elena's sought-after attention from them. Her flabbergasting dismissal of them in favor of spending an entire day in the company of the ancient bastard was still something that sparked annoyance within both neglected paramours. As Damon and Stefan were undeniably experts in vying for Elena's love, it doesn't take them long to suss out a new rival.

However, as the old adage goes, desperate times call for desperate measures—and in this case, Elena had yet again disappeared into the clutches of some unknown enemy, leaving Stefan and Damon rather clueless as to her whereabouts. Bonnie was currently in seclusion, recovering from a particularly strong slew of spells she had been practicing in preparation for their inevitable showdown with Klaus, and would therefore probably be unable to float a feather, let alone perform a locater spell. Caroline's senses were even less precise than theirs, what with her newborn status and subsequent lack of discipline, and Matt and Jeremy's human sensibilities would be about as useful as ordering an inanimate object to go and track down Elena.

Thus, after minutes of deliberation and bickering, Damon had sullenly abandoned his strenuous arguments against the act and Stefan had quickly dialed Elijah's number and left a request to meet.

If anyone can find Elena, they reason, it should be a thousand year old vampire.

Even if, Damon had grumbled as his brother had hung up the phone, he is a haughty bastard.

Elijah wastes no time in casting them a disparaging glance as he enters, idly straightening his immaculate suit sleeves with all of the projected disinterest of an unconcerned stranger. He's already speaking before either brother can get a word in edgewise, his low, stoic voice carrying through the musty library air easily.

"I assume you have a very, very good reason for calling me here, Mr. Salvatore, after we agreed that our involvement should stay a secret lest my brother learn of my presence here." His dark, sweeping gaze doesn't miss the subtle stiffness in Damon's posture, or the hard clench of Stefan's jaw. Elijah tilts his head inquiringly and clasps his hands behind his back. "Why, pray tell, have you chosen to jeopardize this?"

Perhaps it is purposeful, perhaps it is merely his natural disposition, but he speaks in a reproving tone far more suited to chastising a pair of simpletons than to acknowledging a pair of allies.

"It's Elena," Stefan replies haltingly after a moment, his tone gruff. Had he been of the same physical state of being as the aforementioned girl, a dull flush, red with resentment, would undoubtedly have tinted his pale cheeks. "We…need your help."

He couldn't have sounded any more reluctantly pained than if the words had been forcefully pried out with a crowbar. Enmity is not easily forgotten, and the Salvatores had a strict policy of trust no one that they were loathe to deviate from.

There is no outward change in Elijah's poised stance, not even to the sharpest vampire's scrutiny, but his eyes deepen with a strange intentness. "What about Elena?" he questions calmly, a practiced detachedness that has become nearly second nature over the years automatically overtaking him.

"Gone," is the growled answer that comes from Damon. A furious scowl twists unpleasantly on his heavy features. "Probably taken by one of those vampire goons that oh-so-helpfully wants to deliver her to brother dearest." The accusing look he throws Elijah's way clearly expresses precisely who he believes to be responsible for this chain of events.

It is probably Damon's good fortune that Elijah chooses to ignore this impertinent glare, instead directing his solemn gaze towards Stefan. "Where was she last?"

Stefan and Damon exchange uncertain glances, before Stefan sighs and says, "We found her car abandoned off of Baker Street…but it rained earlier and we couldn't lock down a scent."

Elijah doesn't deign to speak, but his penetrating gaze and arched eyebrow seems to clearly say, Pitiful.

After centuries of existence, apathy was not the only skill learned—condescension with only a single glance was another useful ability gained.

"I find it odd," Elijah muses after a moment of heavy silence, carelessly running a hand along the carved, delicate inlay above the fireplace. His eyes are unnervingly blank; his suited body half-turned away from the tense pair of brothers. "That neither one of you could fulfill the sole, simple task entrusted to you: protect Elena." A curious smile, one that is neither kind nor malicious, quirks upon his lips as he flicks an unreadable look at them. "I clearly overestimated your usefulness—as well as the lengths to which I imagined you would go to protect the girl you love."

There is a strange scornfulness in the words, a chastisement that is seemingly directed as much at the ancient vampire himself as it is at the comparatively young ones in the room. Stefan, perceptive as ever, doesn't fail to pick up on it, but Damon reacts to the jibe as Damon is wont to do:

With seething fury.

Damon's frail thread of patience abruptly snaps, his eyes swirling a dark, insidious black and his mouth opening in a vicious snarl—Elena, and his ability to protect her or lack thereof, is an unfalteringly sensitive point for him.

Stefan grabs his brother's arm in a tight grasp, sinking restraining fingers into his leather jacket with a muttered, "Don't." Elijah, after all, is not a vampire to anger lest one wanted to find themselves sans a body part. And if Elena's story was to be believed, he had very likely just saved just saved Damon's head-to-neck connection.

All of this is played out before an aloof Elijah, regarding them with an air composed of both annoyance and slight amusement.

Stefan, still retaining his firm grip on his angrily quivering brother, levels Elijah with a serious look. "You're going after her?"

"Of course."

The direct, immediate reply seems to unsettle Stefan momentarily before he recovers. "We can come along to help."

A flicker of mirth crosses Elijah's expression at the suggestion, his mouth quirking upwards slightly.

"Do not bother," Elijah dismisses them with a slight wave of the hand, as one would wayward children. He turns in one fluid movement, shoes scuffing faintly upon the floor. "I will…deal with this matter on my own."

Leaving two bothersome vampires gaping out after him, Elijah departs, with only a soft whisper of air and the creak of an opening door marking his passage.

He finds her car exactly as stated and without any great trouble: empty of one Elena Gilbert and abandoned on a desolate little side road off one of the town's main streets.

The air is still rent with the heavy smell of rain and sodden greenery, but Elijah is (thankfully) no Salvatore—over hundreds of years of honing his senses means that troublesome little details that would otherwise interrupt a normal vampire's senses hold absolutely no sway over his.

And Elijah would be hard-pressed to mistake Elena's scent anywhere.

Elena's gentle fragrance—a tangy citrus and underlying ginger—lingers in the car, sharply pervading his sense of smell and immediately transporting him back to the first time they met. Her scent had been one of the first indications as to her humanity and her identity as not that of Katerina, whose sickly sharp aroma resulting from her vampiric nature had not even begun to approach the enticing sweetness of Elena's. Of course, the braveness and temerity in Elena's gaze and speech at their initial encounter had merely further emphasized that she was not her conniving ancestor in any manner of resemblance other than the physical.

He sighs softly as he surveys the car with a deepening intentness, noting that whoever had stolen her away had done so with what appeared to be quite a struggle. The cracked glass of the side mirror and ripped fabric upon the seat his eyes pick out in the darkness evidently intimate that Elena had not gone quietly or with any degree of submissiveness.

And why did that not surprise him?

Shaking his head, he turns back towards the rain-washed street and inhales deeply. A grim satisfaction faintly courses through him as he picks up the desired trail, the scarceness of it hardly deterring his ancient sensibilities where it had the pair of young brothers.

His search leads him to a dilapidated old warehouse sitting unobtrusively on the outskirts of the town.

To the untrained or ignorant eye, one wouldn't be wrong in conjecturing that not a single soul had used it in a fair few years—the smashed windows and walls thoroughly etched with vibrant graffiti lent very well to this theory, as well as the uncomfortable (and deterring) feeling that merely touching the building would bring the entire thing crumbling down in a hail of plaster, brick, and dust.

But vampires (and particularly Elijah) did not possess either untrained or ignorant eyes. Therefore, the faint track of footsteps that lingered scarcely upon the rain-washed ground, and the broken door-lock from someone who had quite obviously forced his way in, do not go unnoticed.

Elijah, it must be said, sometimes heartily laments the diminishing brain capacity and poor planning skills of the collective vampire race.

In the time of one human step he is already at the door, noiselessly opening it without the elicitation of an inconvenient creak or squeal from the age-worn hinges. He peers inside, and it is as expected of such a building: a musty interior, the smothering cloy of dust that coats the atmosphere and surface, the emptiness that resonates with an utter absence of noise.

The only perplexing thing in this situation is the wildly giggling Doppelganger sitting contentedly upon the floor, her mirth uninhibited and freely echoing around the mold-ridden walls of the warehouse.

He is by her side immediately, fingers slipping underneath her chin to tilt her downcast head upwards.

"Elena."

Her gaze flicks up to him, lighting up with recognition.

"Hello, Elijah!"

He raises a curious eyebrow at the cheer in her voice. In his experience, it wasn't the epitome of normal to sound so absurdly happy in the midst of being kidnapped.

Blissfully unheeding of his puzzled appraisal of her, Elena continues on in a trilling voice. "Fancy meeting you here! Do you hang around creepy old warehouses often?"

"Not especially." Only paying half a mind to the strange conversation, he focuses on her heartbeat—erratically thrumming and worrisomely rapid—and then upon her brown eyes—instead of the keenness he's so familiar with, there is only a strangely stupefied quality.

Disregarding her shocked inhale, he grasps her chin more firmly and guides her face closer towards his. As though intending to place a kiss upon her lips, and reminiscent of their first encounter, he leans forwards and inhales.

Rainwater upon still-damp skin.

The clean, mellow scent of her soap.

Coppery blood pooling to create dark bruises from the struggle she had endured.

And there, lingering about her smiling mouth: traces of an herbal odor unfamiliar to him. A drug he hadn't encountered perhaps, that she had been made to drink by her captor? There is a small dab of the substance staining her lower lip—evidence of either a messily forced intake of it or where Elena had defiantly spat it back out…most probably straight into whatever fool had taken her to be the petite female she presented as at first glance.

Elijah glances up as peripheral movement catches his attention, the soft stirring of disturbed dust alerting him to another's approach.

A wry sense of humor courses through him as he observes Elena's apparent kidnapper, wondering at the Salvatores being outwitted by such a creature. In all honesty, the cautiously advancing vampire seems to belong more to a nineteen-fifties greaser gathering, with his blonde slicked-back hair and black leather clothing, rather than the current century.

He had always deplored foolish vampires who were incapable of blending in with the times. Niklaus, if he remembers correctly, had had to be fiercely persuaded by the combined efforts of Kol and Rebekah to give up breeches for hose in the latter years of the European Medieval Era.

Shaking away the memory of past Mikaelson clothing feuds, Elijah levels the blonde vampire a distasteful look, careful to keep close to the dazedly laughing girl.

"Yer Elijah…ain't cha?"

Good news travels fast, he thinks dryly, rising from where he had been crouching protectively next to Elena in one smooth movement.

Apparently ripping the hearts from the chests of her previous would-be abductors hadn't done the trick of keeping his presence and Elena's existence in this town as secret as he had desired. While luring his brother here was indeed the ultimate goal to be reached, Elijah had really preferred not to be forced into dealing with these sorts of trivial attempts at ingratiation with Niklaus by lesser vampires.

Obviously having mistook Elijah's pensive silence for one of solidarity in a common goal, the greaser vampire saunters forwards with a smarmy grin. "Didn't think I'd be dealing with ya…but word on the street is yer workin' for Klaus, and that this here girl's worth quite the pretty penny."

He has the younger, oh-so-foolish vampire by the throat and slammed effortlessly up against a wall in under a second, the unstable structure creaking and shaking dangerously at the force of the movement. Had it not been for Elena's mortal fallibility, Elijah would have taken great pleasure in testing how many times the building could withstand the brunt of his temper before collapsing about their ears.

The other vampire chokes and twists in sudden pain as Elijah's fingers dig mercilessly into his skin, a dark amusement coursing through his ancient veins at his captive's futile attempts at prying his hand away.

"L-let me go," the vampire gasps (a bit redundantly, Elijah observes dispassionately). "I'm givin' her to Klaus—aren't you supposta be on his side?"

A cold smile twists on Elijah's lips, one that, needless to say, doesn't reach his glinting black eyes in the least. He briefly thinks of his family's disappearance one-by-one, each of his beloved siblings fading away from his desperate reach like shadows in the night; thinks of his brother's unforgivable treachery and betrayal of all that is held sacred between those bound by blood. "Whoever told you such a thing," he murmurs in a voice tainted with derision, "was sadly misinformed, I'm afraid."

An evident fear is seeping into the squirming vampire's face now; where there had once been cockiness and surety there is only the commonplace look of panic from a plan that is going horribly, horribly wrong. He begins to struggle with renewed fervor, his entreaties to be released growing increasingly louder and more grating with each passing second until Elijah is forced to squeeze just a little tighter to quiet him.

When silence reigns supreme once again, Elijah calmly leans toward the vampire. "Now," he says as placidly as though preparing to discuss the weather, "I would very much like for you to tell me exactly what you have done to Elena—"

"Who?!" The vampire splutters, showing far more courage (and stupidity) in interrupting him than Elijah would have thought possible of this particularly fine example of the vampire race.

Elijah blinks slowly as he tilts his head, dangerously blank eyes boring into the pathetic creature before him. "Elena," he intones with deadly quiet, his calm manner hardly disturbed but somehow taking on the quality of fragile glass just waiting to shatter. "The girl whom you have kidnapped, tied up, and drugged. A girl who, as far as you are concerned, is of infinite value to me in ways that you cannot possibly conceive."

He pauses and smiles slightly, observing the wide, disbelieving gaze and surprise-slackened mouth of the vampire. Judging from the other vampire's expression, it's clear that Elijah's faux-polite smile is not being mistaken for one born out of pleasantness. "That being said, shall we try this again? Without any interruptions, if you would."

A dark eyebrow quirks expectantly, and the fair-haired vampire takes quite a long time to understand that an answer is required of him. His airway sufficiently cut off to prevent anything more than a garbled, incomprehensible keening, he replies in the only way left to him: a rapid, fervent nod that elicits a patronizing look from the Original. "Very good. Now, I would be greatly appreciative, as well as slightly less tempted not to separate your rather unimpressive head from your shoulders, if you would be so kind as to tell me what manner of sedative you've given Elena. Lies are, of course, undesirable."

Just to give the vampire a little added spurt of speed in his reply, Elijah weaves a very small dose of compulsion within his words—he fears anything stronger might melt the evidently meager brainpower of his captive. Such a thing is unacceptable…at least until he has gleaned some measure of understanding about what has been done to Elena.

At the immediate choked and sputtering attempt at a response, Elijah loosens his grip and eases the pressure constricting the other's trachea.

"Nothin'!" The vampire pants, staring down hatefully at Elijah. Rather a bold expression to treat an Original vampire with, but Elijah dismisses it in the interest of time. "I didn't give her nothin' like that!"

Elijah sighs, not bothering to point out the glaring double negative. "You did hear that small addendum about lying, correct?"

"It's not a lie!" Elijah is hastily assured by the increasingly desperate looking vampire. A leering grin overtakes the young creature's face as he looks at the addled Elena. "It's a spell—just a euphoria potion I made her drink. Makes its drinker nice and compliant, you know? Strips 'em of all their sense. Didn't want to hurt her seeing as the rumor is that Klaus needs her nice and whole."

While Elijah is greatly inclined to make mention of another inhabitant of this pitiful hideout that is clearly lacking in sense, especially given that aforementioned person's foolishness in daring to cast such a look at her in his presence, he refrains from doing so with restraint. Instead, he icily questions, "And what is the antidote to this potion?"

The grin slides off the vampire's face abruptly at Elijah's discarding of his ersatz polite tone, and he gives a tentative shrug. "I don't know. The effects wear off after a couple of hours, so I didn't bother with any antidote."

"Is it harmless?"

"Eh?"

Elijah's expression hardens almost imperceptibly. "This potion. Does it have any lasting side effects?"

The thought that such a thing should have been irrelevant, given that the girl bound upon the musty floor would be dead in merely days after the completion of the ritual, briefly crosses his mind…and is just as promptly discarded.

His attention is drawn back to the sniveling thing in his grasp as a frantic headshake is given in answer to his question.

Immediately, Elijah drops the vampire to the floor in a resentful heap, flicking imagined dust idly from his cufflinks as he stares imperiously downwards.

"Follow me," he orders, striding brusquely over to one of the furthest corners away from Elena. His opinion of the younger vampire's intelligence improves marginally when he merely gives a surly scowl and reluctantly follows in Elijah's wake.

"Well," the blonde vampire grumbles, sticking his hands deep into his pocket. "What'd the 'ell you bring me over here for? We've got the girl."

Elijah cocks his head, smiling collectedly as he nods in agreement. "True. I do have the girl now. Which causes there to be very little need for a middle man, don't you suppose?"

The younger creature's face most probably broke quite a fair few records with the rate at which it drained of all color, his jaw slackening with nervousness.

"Here now," he says, slipping trembling hands from his pockets to raise them cautiously before him (almost as though he were attempting to ward Elijah off). His voice is suddenly dry. "A little hasty, don't you think? After all, I—"

"Am wholly unneeded at present," Elijah interrupts. He lays his hand in an almost friendly fashion upon the other's shoulder—a cordial gesture to a human eye, and a predator's method of keeping his prey still and malleable to a vampire's gaze.

Elijah glances at the forefront of the warehouse.

A quick check to make sure that Elena's back is currently turned and that she is as oblivious as ever.

She is.

And then Elijah's hand is sliding smoothly into the chest of the still-protesting vampire, as effortlessly if neither skin nor bone nor sinewy muscle presented an obstacle. His hand clenches around the heart, and one merciless squeeze is all that it requires to cause it to fall apart between his unyielding fingers.

The blonde vampire abruptly topples backwards after one final, surprised gurgle, skin morphing into an ashen gray and eyes turning dull with death.

Elijah bends down, wipes his crimson-soiled hand upon the vampire's jacket, and nonchalantly returns to where his addled Doppelganger placidly waits for his return. He scoops her up swiftly, ignoring the small squeak of surprise, and spirits her out of her temporary prison.

The late night air is cool and biting upon Elijah's face—a refreshing contrast from the stale atmosphere of the warehouse they had just emerged from.

Judging from the sharp inhalations coming from the girl tucked snugly in his arms, she feels much the same way.

Having been stolen away quite a while ago, much of the unnatural mirth had drained from Elena's countenance. However, given the girl's rather dazed expression and lingering upbeat smile, Elijah assumes that the remnants of the potion in her system are still quite busy wreaking havoc with her psyche.

"Elena."

The reply is immediate…and loudly shouted enough to cause him to flinch.

"Yep!" She wrinkles her nose. "I mean, 'yes'. Mom never did like it when Jeremy 'n me used slang. Or bad words. She said it was…it was…" A moment passes in silence, and then Elena carefully relates, "'The mark of a lazy, indolent, and inferior mind'. Whaddaya think, Elijah?"

Elijah supposes that strangely-timed diatribe has answered his question in regards to Elena's current mental wellbeing.

Humoring her, he says, "I think that she was quite right, Elena. However, that is not a topic of interest at the moment."

"Who's involved in tropical incest?" she asks vaguely, far more interested in staring up at the sky with the stars reflecting in her wide, brown eyes.

"Topic of interest," he corrects automatically, his lips twitching upwards. "And I was wondering where you wish to be taken."

"How 'bout the moon?"

Elijah smirks at the guileless response. "As vast as my reservoir of skills is, Elena, I believe that's rather impossible even for me. I was actually inquiring as to whether I should return you to the Salvatore's residence or your own."

Elijah is immediately treated to what is unmistakably a pout as Elena's gaze returns to him with a crestfallen look. "Those are my only two options?" she says. Disappointment is ingrained within every inch of her tone.

"Right now, yes."

"I'd rather go to the moon," she mutters petulantly, folding her arms in an unhappy gesture across her chest. "No annoying brothers there."

"I believe your sibling would take offense at that."

A loud scoff rips through the air, and Elena rolls her eyes. "Not Jeremy. I love Jeremy. Love, love, love. Even if I do wanna smack him a lot when he's being dumb. Which is a lot." Her brow furrows and she scrunches her nose, as though offended by a malodourous scent. "Nope! I'm talking about Defan and Stamon."

The corner of Elijah's mouth twitches. He doesn't bother to correct her.

"They're no fun anymore," she complains, seemingly eager at having a willing and quiet audience. "Really, it was kinda a relief to be kidnapped by the Danny Zuko wannabe. It's all, 'Elena, sit here and let me protect you', 'Elena, I'm gonna lock you in this box so you don't hurt yourself', 'Elena, times have regressed to the sixteenth century and being a girl means you're useless'!" Elijah is treated to a surprisingly strong glower as she accuses, "And it's all your fault!"

"That your eager suitors wish to lock you in a box? I certainly never told them to do so," he replies calmly, unfazed at her anger.

"Yes you did! You told 'em to protect me from harm, and now they think every time I head for a window I'm gonna try to jump out of it just to thwart Klaus!" Elena makes a frustrated noise—something that sounds charmingly similar to the dying squeal of something being sat on by an elephant. "As if! If I'm going out, it's gonna be in a biiiiiig way." She spreads her hands out, as though he is in any doubt of what 'big' means (he isn't).

"Such as?"

Elena seems rather taken aback at the blunt question, frowning perplexedly at him. "Oh. Well…I hadn't really thought that far. But I guess doing something heroic. Like rescuing a baby from runaway galloping horses."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Does that still happen?"

Tapping her fingers speculatively upon her chin, she ponders that before brightening. "It does in books!"

"I see. I hate to disappoint you, Elena, but life rarely follows the exciting path described by your novels. And most people die rather ignominiously."

"Don't I know it," she complains, slumping backwards in his hold. "Who's gonna write a story about a girl who gets gobbled up by a power-mad vampire?" Her eyes widen. "Oh god, I'm gonna be dinner. Like on the cartoons, where they stuff the pig with an apple in its mouth. And there's going to be lame food puns and typical evil villain cackling and—"

Elijah silently and fervently damns the guilt her dazed babbling has inadvertently managed to awaken in him. His desire for revenge against his brother is unparalleled in intensity, and yet Elena has the most inconvenient ability of poking the first holes of doubt in that resolve in over a century.

He sighs.

Elijah decides that the wisest course of action would be to relocate the girl to her home, posthaste, before she unwittingly convinced him to succumb to his guilt-ridden impulses of placing her far, far away from the reach of any Original, thus rendering worthless over a hundred years' time of plotting vengeance against his brother. It is this that spurs him to transform his languorous strides into vampirically-enhanced running as he heads towards the Gilbert residence.

But as seems to be the norm lately, his plan is undermined by none other than Elena.

"Ugh! Stop, stop, stop!" she immediately cries out, clasping two hands against a suddenly pallid face.

Elijah complies, looking down at the girl in his arms questioningly. She returned the gaze, offering a shakily sheepish grin. "Could we not whoosh, please?"

"Whoosh?"

"Yeah," she says, ineffectually waving her arms in some oddity of a demonstration. "The speed-walking thing you guys do. It's making me a little sick. Silly, sappy, sicky, sick." Elijah studies her face, realizing she did indeed appear slightly paler than she had a moment before.

With that observation he obligingly slows down to the human equivalent of a slothful stroll (which is, essentially, the vampire equivalent of a snail's agonizingly pitiful speed) and is recompensed with a relieved sigh from Elena and a happy smile. Elijah cannot help but recall the last instance in which he had walked at such a leisurely pace—it had been with the same girl, but golden sunlight and the soft churn of the wind upon water had surrounded them instead of moonlight and shadows.

"Much better!" she chirps, rewarding him with the flash of another charmingly bright smile. "You're way more awesome at the entire 'rescue Elena' routine, you know. And it only took you a few hours. Sometimes it takes Stefan 'n Damon a whooooole day!" A pause ensues as she cocks her head speculatively, considering him with unnervingly steady eyes. "It's probably cause you're old as dirt, right Elijah?"

If it had been physically possible for him to be so inelegant as to choke on his own saliva, Elijah most likely would have done so. Where, he wonders wearily, had the girl who had regarded him with wary eyes and approached with a cautious step disappeared to? "I'm ignoring that statement, Elena."

She yawns against him, trying to surreptitiously muffle it by pressing her mouth into his shoulder. "Sorry. Was that rude? It was rude. But I'm really tired right now. Tired, tired, tired. I'm mostly tired of getting kidnapped," she admits to him candidly, leaning her head against him with a sigh.

"You do seem to have a certain knack for it." He turns eyes lightened with amusement upon her as her mouth furrows into a petulant frown and she hits his shoulder with a curled up fist.

"H-hey," she squeaks indignantly, the pout never leaving her lips. "Are you calling me a distressing damsel?" Her eyes crinkle in thought and her eyebrows draw together. "Wait. Or is it a damsel distressed? Damsel dessert? Ooooh, chocolate!" One hand comes up to rub the bridge of her nose, and she gives him a mystified look. "What was I saying, Elijah? I wasn't listening."

"You were deploring the state of your oft-impeded liberty," he supplies dutifully.

She gives him an innocently befuddled look. "My what?"

"Your propensity for being kidnapped."

"Hm. I don't know what that is, but it sounds painful," Elena confides to him in a hushed voice. "Just like when I got stolen away by Rose. And that other vampire. That hurt."

The saccharine stench of dried blood upon her shirt. The faint hint of chloroform still lingering upon her mouth, and the red burn of where a cloth had been roughly scraped against her mouth and nose. The weariness and fright in her soft brown eyes that she so desperately strove to cloak from his sharp scrutiny. He had clinically, coldly, observed all of this and more upon that initial meeting with her…so why did the memory provoke such an irrational sort of anger now?

"Hey Elijah, was Rose your girlfriend?" Elena asks unabashedly, directing wide, curious eyes at him.

He blinks. "What?" For once, he's rather caught off guard—something that is not a common occurrence when one is thousands of years old.

"I just wondered how you two knew each other," she says with an innocent smile and guileless shrug. "When she kidnapped me, you guys were all…familiar. I thought maybe you turned her or something. She seemed to know you pretty well."

"No, Elena," he manages, simultaneously wondering at his patient indulgence of her. "She was not."

"Oh. Sorry. It's not like you're not pretty enough though," she reassures him, idly twisting a strand of silky hair around her finger.

"…pretty?" He might very well have to retract that obviously erroneous mindset that age was equivalent to having seen and heard it all. Elena Gilbert, as she does in every other way and fashion, is decisively proving him wrong in that account as well.

She nods matter-of-factly. "Oh yes. I thought so from the very first moment I saw you. Unfortunately, it didn't stop me from wanting to punch you right on that pretty nose of yours, you know."

The mental image of the petite human girl ensconced in his arms succeeding in such an endeavor is, to say the least, entertaining. "I see."

He feels the strength of her irritable glare trying to burn a hole into his face. "Well, what else was I supposed to feel like doing? You nearly kissed me!" In a lower tone that he suspects she believes will be inaudible to him, she mutters, "Pervert."

Elijah thinks that this might be the first time in his thousand years of existence than anyone has applied such an epithet to him. It's rather jarring to be fitted in a category that had notably been inhabited by flirtatious Kol and bed-hopping Klaus for centuries past.

With the strange need to defend himself against the (thoroughly untrue) rebuke, he looks at Elena…

…only to find her staring up at the sky once again, her eyes regarding the moon in a rather dreamy manner and a mysterious little grin that is more melancholic than mirthful.

"It's almost full," she says, when she catches his inquiring glance. "I was just…just thinking about…"

The ritual. She hardly needs to finish, given that Elijah himself had hardly had any other manner occupying his thoughts as of late. Ironically, the only time his mind hadn't been consumed with relentless scenarios of his brother's death and subsequent revenge was…when he was in the company of one Elena Gilbert.

"Hey, Elijah? Do you think Jeremy will be okay?" Elena chirps this question with entirely too much happiness for such a serious matter. However, she quickly sobers a moment later, concern momentarily invading her carefree gaze.

His mood is similarly dampened by the implications of her impending demise, the silent despondence about her affecting his own disposition. It's a reaction that serves little in the way of surprise and grants him a disproportionate amount of annoyance at his own soft-heartedness. "If he is anything like his sister, then I suspect so, Elena," he says finally, the evasive answer the most he can muster in way of providing comfort.

It's a complete lie, of course. Elijah knows it, and if the sad skepticism playing upon Elena's features is any indication, so does she.

Because there was never any true recovery from the death of a sibling.

A thousand years plus, and Elijah would have traded each and every agonizingly long second of that time in exchange for the chance to see Henrik's shy little smile and Finn's warm grin, to hear Kol's mischievous laughter mingling with Rebekah's light and vivacious one over some shared prank.

The vivid memory of a vampire was little more than a curse when it came to the painful details one would desperately like to forget, and Elijah can only hope that her brother's imperfect human memory mercifully dulls over the passage of time. That the recollection of his sister's determined brown eyes when she was set on a course of action, the earnestness of her smile, and the tentative, honest quality of her laughter, as though she were frightened to show happiness lest it be snatched away, will hopefully fade over the years.

Glancing at the subdued young woman, Elijah is inherently, painfully, aware that no such mercy will be afforded to him.

"I think it is time I return you home, Elena."

The lethargy of his voice is reflected in her far-off gaze.

"Okay."

Mindful of the presence of her younger brother and aunt in the house, and having no wish to face a round of inquiries and accusations, Elijah reluctantly decides to utilize an entrance favored by literary and film vampires everywhere: the window.

Mentally shaking off the discomfiting yet bittersweet image of Kol and Rebekah working themselves into hysterics at their refined older brother sneaking through a teenage girl's window in the dead of night, he manages to slip inside without much fuss.

Elena is lightly dozing in his arms by this time, barely jarred by his fluid movements and only muttering something incoherent as he walks over to her bed.

The room, he notes after a brief glance about, is the same as last he was in here. Lingering remnants of a beloved childhood are still present in the forms of plush toys and stuffed animals…it is an oddly endearing, softer side to a girl who held no objections to telling ancient vampires to go to hell upon impulse.

Amusingly enough, her bed resembles something more of a nest—a variety of colorful blankets piled atop each other. "How in the world do you sleep in this, Elena?" he murmurs to the half-awake girl he holds as he contemplates it, briefly worrying that all of his plans will be ruined if he allows her disappear beneath the veritable mountain of quilts and be subsequently smothered by them.

"Mmm…naked," comes the mischievous little reply.

There is an outraged, sleepy squeak as Elena is hastily dropped on the bed by a visibly frayed Elijah, his fingers instantly rubbing the bridge of his nose. "That is not what I asked."

"Jeez, Elijah," Elena admonishes in a slurred voice, rubbing her wounded backside and looking up at him. "Can't you take a joke?" Elijah thinks he hears the words "Vampire prude" mumbled somewhere after that, and distantly wonders how much more abuse he'll suffer tonight at the hands of a seventeen-year-old human.

A rambling seventeen-year-old human.

"We're not generally known for our sense of humor," he sighs, dark eyes regarding her solemnly. "And I think you should go to sleep, Elena." Before I fall prey to insanity at this side of you, he wants to say, watching her as she yawns cutely and stretches before obediently flopping backwards onto the bed.

Her fingers tug blindly at her mess of blankets, trying fruitlessly to pull them up. "Fine, bossy."

His larger hand closes over hers, assisting as he draws the tangle of bedding over her sprawled form.

Large brown eyes observe him from the safety of a shield of eyesore-patchwork patterns and flowery designs. "Are you tucking me in?" A faint giggle punctuates the question.

Elijah freezes in his absentminded smoothing of the covers, snapping his hand away with a forced nonchalance. "I prefer to think of it as protecting my…investment."

Obviously not deterred, Elena's expression turns challenging. "From the monsters in my closet, you mean?" she asks sweetly. Too sweet, in fact.

"You have no need to worry." A low laugh escapes him, an ancient bitterness embroiled in it. "I believe I'm the only fiendish creature in here, Elena."

"No." Her voice drifts quietly upon the still air. "No, I don't think there are any monsters in here at all, Elijah. Only good people."

It's as though a thousand hands have seized his body, holding him resolutely down in a statue-like stillness. He is able to do little more than stare at her in the manner of some halfwit, even as she offers him a knowing little smile.

It's in that moment that he hates Elena Gilbert, just a little bit.

He hates her for having none of the heartless artifice of Katerina, or the cruel sisterly indifference Tatia had bestowed upon him. He hates the upward curve of her lips and the evident trust in her regard of him. He hates her for keeping her word to him, for returning to his side when granted the chance of betrayal and escape.

He hates the fact that she is capable of eliciting emotions he had thought to be long since banished.

Saying nothing, he inclines his head in a slight nod of goodbye and strides quickly towards the window, its wind-battered curtains fluttering open in invitation.

"Hey, Elijah?" comes the drowsy inquiry as he prepares to leap from the ledge. "One more question for tonight, okay?"

He pauses and casts a glance back at her bundled form, her long hair spilling across her pillow and tired eyes peeking out sweetly at him. He's been the subject of countless attempted seductions, by noble ladies and princesses and dancers and artisans trained solely in the skill of making love, but for all their coquettishness had never felt the weary desire to simply lay beside them and pull them close, allowing the cold loneliness of the long years to be replaced by the warmth of another.

His eyes slip closed briefly, summoning the self-control that seems so elusive in her presence. "What is it, Elena?"

"'Member how we were at the Lockwood's? And we were talking?" Her face scrunches up in sleepy reminiscence. "And remember how you said you wouldn't fall in love with anyone anymore?"

Elijah moves silently from his position at the windowsill to crouch lithely beside her bed. To be more precise, he'd stated he wouldn't care for anyone anymore, but quibbling over word choice with a girl who was half-delirious was rather useless. It was also rather useless because one Elena Gilbert had somehow managed to singlehandedly kill that resolve stone cold dead, no matter the word choice.

"I do," he tells her softly.

"I can't stop thinking about it. It just keeps playing over and over and over and over—"

"The emphasis is rather unnecessary, Elena."

"Sorry," she says in a muffled voice as she snuggles deeper against her pillow. "But since you said you won't make that mistake again, I guess it's kinda impossible now. But do you think, if you'd met me first," she murmurs, stopping to interpose her words with another tiny yawn before continuing. "Do you think you'd have loved me?"

Her voice trails off lightly at the end, her eyelids drooping shut until her dark lashes dust teasingly against her olive skin. Low, rhythmic breathing penetrates the monotonous tranquility of the room, heard only by the ancient being frozen at her bedside like an ethereal sentinel.

Elijah realizes, with some incredulity at the abruptness, that Elena has fallen asleep.

The stoniness of Elijah's handsome visage is destroyed as he lets out a resigned sigh, running a hand distractedly through his hair and gazing at the slumbering girl. "I cannot seem to win against you, can I, Elena?" he queries to her. A short, humorless laugh escapes him as he fluidly stands and leans over her slightly, bracing both hands upon the downy bed she lies on. "Even wholly deprived of your wits, half-drugged and nearly unconscious, you manage to best me in every way imaginable."

Because she cannot feel it, and because she will never remember it, one long finger skims gently across her cheek in a soft touch.

"I wonder," he muses grimly, "Precisely what kind of vampire that makes me?"

When Elena wakes in her bed tomorrow, feeling oddly content and strangely unable to recall a single event from the night before, she'll find a small scrap of paper neatly rolled up and placed in her lightly curled palm.

When she unfurls the paper curiously, a confused expression will sweep through chocolate eyes and turn her mouth down in a befuddled frown. For upon it, written in an unfamiliar and yet breathtakingly elegant script, will be only a single word:

Yes.

One day later, the two of them alone before the embers of a dying fire, Elijah will give Elena an elixir that may be able to save her life.

She never does ask him why.

fin

Author's Note: *peeks around to make sure there are no pitchforks or torches in sight* So obviously, this is not an update for Meddlers, of which I am extremely apologetic about. Everyone's response to that story has seriously overwhelmed me with happy feelings of gratefulness, and I'm already working on the last chapter. Promise :)

But I had this story sitting around on my laptop for a while, and I was in serious need of posting some Elejah cuteness after TVD royally screwed up all of Elejah's glorious potential after that kiss scene (but then again, when does TVD NOT screw everything up?).

I love all of you dear readers and reviewers, and I'd truly love to know everyone's opinion on this!