Battered Souls

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~Chapter 12

Humanity

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Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

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Inside his own mind, Elijah realised he was at war with himself.

Leave, his alter ego snarled.

No. Why aren't you embracing this? You say you're noble; well, this is your chance to do the noble thing here.

By eradicating every vampire in existence? There are better ways of pursuing peace and you know it.

Really? Elijah let a smile curl his lips. Pray, tell me of these better ways.

There was a lengthy pause.

Not all vampires are of evil blood. Some use their newfound abilities to pursue a life devoted to helping others.

Elijah searched his memory for specific examples of what his – for lack of a better word – conscience was telling him. He pulled up images of a vivacious blonde girl, as well as a brown haired boy with dark, brooding eyes that spoke of a tortured soul his alter ego could well relate to - namely Caroline Forbes and Stefan Salvatore.

He scoffed, clearly scornful of the evidence he was being shown.

This is all well and good, and we could argue about the good and bad in every species until we are both blue in the face, but we both know the main difference between humans and vampires is that one species was created by nature through time and effort, while the other was created out of selfishness, out of a moment's recklessness that has cost more lives than any war ever recorded.

That's debatable. But riddle me this; if you're so intent on killing all vampires, why have you not killed Elena when you know she is the key to bringing down everything?

Elijah pursed his lips, his dark eyes falling on Elena, who he'd bound to a chair, her hair fallen across her eyes, the marks on her skin from where he'd gripped her visible, even under the faint stream of light the now dying bulb from the storage shed he'd hired for the purposes of a quick getaway released. He felt a prickle of guilt at her state, and the moment he realised he was letting emotions – or, more specifically, his alter ego – direct him, he shut it all down.

Instead, he took a moment to study her, the face of the girl who was key to everyone's downfall – physical and emotional – and tried to work out what was specifically striking about this particular look which meant it would be copied until the end of time. Her experiences in her short life so far had clearly had an impact on her, judging by the way her mouth seemed downturned, almost as if it had forgotten how to smile, and the tight marks along her forehead, which resembled stress lines. He shouldn't have examined her in this way, and she should've long been dead by now, but something other than this rather coarse desire hidden in his bloodstream kept him from killing her himself.

The Petrova bloodline has been important long since before Tatia's existence. You know this because I do.

Be quiet. Why am I unable to repress you?

Because despite mother's best efforts, she's never been able to extinguish the deepest parts of her children's natures. Mine happens to be a determination to not let tyrants like Mother win.

You talk about her like she never gave birth to you – to us. You talk about her with such disdain, such...hatred.

That's because she tore our family apart. She was willing to kill us all, and the worst part was she felt no shame or guilt for doing so. There was not a flicker of humanity in her eyes as she prepared to end all our lives, and even now she continues with her efforts. Why?

We were not supposed to live this long, Elijah. This is a curse. I am ending it.

Go ahead. Try. But know with every fighting breath in my body, I will try and stop you. And despite the fact you possess all the memories I do, you seem to remain woefully ignorant of how stubborn and determined my siblings can be. Combined, I'd say, they make a more formidable team than anything any witch could conjure up.

Elijah released a snarl, which was audible enough to stir Elena,who blinked up at him with tired doe-like eyes, her breathing pattern unaltered by her new situation. It seemed she was accustomed to being carted around like an object, more than used to being treated as something disposable, and that realisation sent a sharp stab to his heart.

Stop that! he hissed at himself.

Relinquish possession of my body then.

Not until my mission is complete.

"Elijah," Elena murmured huskily, her low tone due to exhaustion. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere safe," was all he would say.

"And why haven't you killed me yet?"

"Because you're the perfect hostage to getting Klaus back here so I can stake him."

"How will he even know where here is? He's lying in a coffin somewhere, unconscious."

"Believe me, if he's trying to take my mother on head to head, she'll tell him where to go."

Elena nodded, leaning her head back to appraise the ceiling.

"You're not fighting," he observed. "Why?"

"I couldn't if I tried. And I figured since my life is doomed to be a neverending chase sequence between me and your family, I'd shorten the story," she replied. "Nobody could get through to Alaric when he was like this, so I don't know why I'd expect to get through to you."

Elijah remained cold and indifferent to her plight, yet since he was going nowhere for the moment, he thought he would indulge his curiosity and ask a question he'd been pondering for a while.

"Why do you even look for redeeming qualities in a man who has a bloodier history than even his own siblings?"

She tilted her head to one side, fathoming his level of sincerity before deciding to answer his question.

"You looked for a way to save me when there was no other way, a way that didn't involve me giving up my humanity. We didn't get the chance to find out whether it would've worked or not, but the fact you gave me hope means a lot to me. And I've learned not to judge people based on first impressions. I was terrified of you when I first saw you, and now? Now I would gladly put my life in your hands."

He gave a sneer at that.

"Then that makes you incredibly stupid. You can't trust vampires, Elena. I've killed for pleasure. My first kill was a seven year old boy who lived in our village. I've torn apart many lives, and I've never regretted it." He leaned forward, his dark eyes boring down on hers. "Given what you've lost, how are you still defending vampires like they are your best friends?"

"Not all of them are bad. Some of them work hard to redeem themselves."

"Some creatures can never be redeemed."

"You say that like nothing can ever change, like nothing is ever capable of evolving into something better than it had ever been before," she argued. "You know the problem with witches? They are stuck with the mindset that they need to eradicate something they helped create in the first place."

"My mother created them. Generalising witches is an error I would not advise making."

"Right. But how did she know what spell to use to make vampires in the first place?" Elena pointed out. "Ever since I heard the story, there's always been one question hounding me, and it's of all the ways to protect her children from the werewolves, how did she know to pick that one? And why? I don't get how witches can create spells blindly, particularly ones that seemingly are against nature."

Elijah gritted his teeth.

Does this girl ever shut up?

She's intelligent. She knows there's more to this story. I had the same curiosity as she did once, and I found many different answers to the questions she's asking.

Yeah, well I have a better question to ask right now – why can I not drown your voice out, when Alaric Saltzman could drown out his? He was a human, inferior, and yet I am stuck with the persistant voice of a weaker man who will one day be the death of us if he isn't careful.

I have a theory about that too.

Go on.

Given the fact Alaric was killed frequently, which gave Mother plenty of chances to poison his mind, and the fact most of what he'd lost was as a result of the presence of vampires, he had a lot more to gain from embracing his dark side and purging out vampires than we do. What have we really lost that we loved with all our hearts?

Our humanity.

The answer came swiftly, and was delivered brutally, if not honestly. Elijah waited a moment, waiting to see if that other voice could come back with a response, and then grinned when there was nothing.

Just the echo of a guilt that stretched way back in time, back to the moment when he'd first held the body of his first kill in his arms, roaring with a deep sadness he couldn't quite understand, the blood still smeared around his mouth and on his fingers.

The thing – and by that he meant the underlining problem - was that he couldn't work out why he was really hesitating to kill Elena. Strategically, using her to lure the other Originals here was a perfectly viable reason for why he kept her alive; emotion wise, however, was where he lost track of reason entirely. Part of him felt a bloom of affection for her, part of him wanted to crush her head against the wall repeatedly until blood bloomed. The two desires were so contradictive, it almost drove him mad, and that was when he realised exactly what the other part of him was doing.

It was messing with him.

He wondered whether Alaric Saltzman had gone through, whether during those moments of darkness he'd looked on the faces of those he professed to care about and felt a flicker of something his alter ego found it almost difficult to shut out entirely.

He let out a groan, and knew he had to kill her. Perhaps then that would give the other version of himself something to grieve over while he was out doing what needed to be done. With that in mind, he strode over to Elena, who glanced up at him with bleary eyes,and grabbed her hair, yanking her head back.

"I'm sorry for this, Elena," he spoke, his voice robotic, devoid of any emotion. "I'm sorry you've been caught up in the middle of something much bigger than yourself."

She didn't react at first; in fact, it was hard to tell what she was thinking. Her gaze was speculative, and her eyes fell to level with his lips for the briefest of seconds, but beyond that he couldn't have said for sure what she was thinking. Again, this should've been the moment where he snapped her neck, but something held him back.

Because you know it's wrong, that's what's holding you back.

His conscience and his alter ego seemed to be annoyingly in tune. They spoke as one voice, yet he could still differ one from the other.

Elena suddenly leaned forward, craning her neck with a determination that robbed him of speech and thought, and pressed her lips against his. It wasn't particularly a violent kiss, but the force behind it shook him beyond belief. It wasn't chaste or tender, but more like a screaming declaration – but he wasn't sure what she was declaring exactly –and he froze, something inside of him shaking, bursting at the seams to be free.

He didn't react.

He couldn't react.

And that was when something inside of him simply snapped, and he was plunged into darkness.

...

Instantly, he felt himself being pulled back to a familiar world, a world that wasn't littered with buildings and cars, a world built from the foundations nature had provided; nothing more, nothing less. He felt the grass between his toes, the wind through his hair, the sense of freedom in his bones.

Elijah saw the vivid greens and blues of the world he'd grown up. He saw Mystic Falls as it once had been, not the pretentious town it now was. The woods, the fields, the tunnels were all before him, laid bare like the contour lines on a map long since engraved on his memory.

This felt like a flashback, only he was vividly aware of the events which had long preceded this moment right here. He paused, sensing he was being watched, but because of the fact he was now reduced to his former human state, his reflexes were slow, and his senses were dull. He could only really put down this feeling of being watched to pure instinct, nothing more, and it made him wary.

He closed his eyes, absorbing everything, the way everything felt. This was more than a memory, but not quite as substantial as a dream. It felt like a world formed between reality and the past, a weird sort of bridge which allowed him to remember and also to forget at the same time. Honestly, this was what he'd missed; he'd missed this feeling of every breath being important, of everything feeling as fragile and as breakable as glass because that's what humanity was – breakable. He'd never liked viewing the world as a toy, as something he could smash and destroy, because that's what came with being a vampire – that inevitable sense of power which inflated your ego, whether you liked it or not. He missed appreciating nature for what it was, not what was left after man had covered it with manufactured towers and buildings that ultimately served no purpose.

A gentle breeze perfumed with the scent of pine wood - a scent he'd sorely missed, he wasn't going to lie - reached his nostrils, pulling them apart so he could take more of it in. As he turned, he blinked, surprised to see Tatia lying on the grass, her dress fanning out from around her, like she was the centerpiece of an elaborate display. Her chestnut coloured hair cascaded down her, and there was a rosy tinge to her cheeks, making her appear more vibrant than he'd ever seen her before.

Cautious, Elijah headed towards her, stopping to hover over her, feeling a familiar pang flick his barely working heart.

She opened one eye, squinting up at him, an innocent smile touching her lips.

"You're staring."

"Tatia." He could only manage her name. "What - Where am I?"

"Hovering between life and death while your brother fights your battles for you." Her eyes flickered from his face to the sky, and back again. "If he succeeds, I'm sure you will owe him a lot more than mere gratitude for securing sole possession of your mind."

"My brother is saving my life?" Elijah absorbed that; the fact didn't quite ring true in his mind. "Why?"

"Loyalty. Love. Out of some ulterior motive which requires you to be alive as opposed to dead." She smiled. "Knowing Niklaus, I imagine it's all three."

"How did I end up here?"

"Esther is a powerful witch. More powerful than I think even you have given her credit for. My guess is that now her attention is otherwise occupied in stifling Niklaus and his efforts to stop her, she's relinquished possession of your body."

"But she wasn't possessing me. It was something else. A darker part of me," he insisted. "I know because it was like there were two versions of myself dwelling in my body." He lowered his gaze, hot shame pouring through him like blood; it felt stronger than it had ever been, and he wondered if that had to do with the fact that his actions had hurt Elena, someone he'd always admired and felt quiet affection for, even if it had only been in secret. "You had the same problem once, I recall."

"I was never turned, so no, I did not have the same problem," Tatia pointed out. "My blood was spilled as a punishment for coming between Esther's family. This you know, Elijah. Why bring it up?"

His stare bore into hers.

"You do no remember the conversation we shared outside my home? The one where you said it felt like you were two different people depending which of us you were around at the time. You said you felt wild and impulsive around my brother, but secure and loved around me. You said that, Tatia, those words are engraved in my memory as though it happened yesterday!"

Her smile became cold, the look in her eyes detached and distinerested. As she rose to her feet, he wasn't quite sure when it became obvious that this wasn't Tatia he was talking to, but Katherine. All he knew was that as cruel and heartbreaking as Tatia had been towards the end, she'd at least remained human, and he could see no evidence of that humanity in her eyes, which led him to the conclusion he'd been talking to Katherine this whole time.

"We're all the same you know," she spoke, her voice a soft drawl. "Even my doppelganger bore, Elena, is like me. The innocence you see in her is merely a byproduct of her being human. What if, then, she were to turn? I mean, we all know that's gonna end up being her fate, right? When she turns, she will break your heart, like her ancestors before her. Perhaps it's better to rip out her heart, before she rips out yours."

"Stop it," he growled. "I see what's going on."

"Do you?" Oh he recognised the way Katherine's eyebrows curved upwards, displaying her skepticism in a cold cut manner. "Oh, Elijah. Do you not remember our story? I cared for you more than you know, but your brother burned away every bit of affection I had, turning me into this cold, reckless, admittedly sexy, heartbreaking bitch you've despised all these centuries. Given the way your siblings have treated lovely Elena, I suspect history might just repeat itself all over again."

He turned around, determined to get away from her, but she was there, taunting him with her lilting voice, occasionally adopting a facial expression he would recognise from a memory associated with Tatia, and he became frustrated, anger building up inside of him, a newfound rage ploughed from ground he'd thought he'd managed to skim over and forget.

"This is another trick to poison my mind," he growled at the open air. "I will not succumb to tragic tricks such as this. I am stronger than that."

"But you're not," came Katherine's taunting voice from behind him. "You've fallen for her, hook, line and sinker. So much for not making that common mistake ever again, right?"

He whirled around and lunged but she was gone, her cruel laughing echoing around him, filling him with a dark hatred he never knew he could feel.

See, something else whispered. See what falling for the woman who possesses that face does to you? It poisons you from the inside out. End it. End it now. End the cycle.

And just as he was about to cave, he was plunged back into darkness again, all his thoughts, fears and doubts reflecting all around him like a hall of mirros as he fell back into the realms of consciousness.

...

Elena couldn't quite believe her own nerve, and where it had taken her. All she knew was that she'd found the slightest glint of humanity in Elijah's otherwise stone cold eyes, and it had stirred some deep desperation in her to coax it all the way out, however she could.

And she couldn't even bring herself to regret the kiss, even after it had happened. She was sure the blank shock in his eyes had been his own - not the manufactured emotion of a robotic version of himself created by his mother. She was stunned by an action she could never take back, and as she leaned back against the chair she'd been chained to, she reflected on the brief history she and Elijah shared, how it began with an authoratitive look from him, her eyes blinking back frightened tears at his visage, progressing to a relationship based around mutual respect and admiration.

Elena couldn't even fathom, even to herself, what it would do if that man she'd respected enough to stand up for against the Salvatores were to ever vanish entirely. She'd seen the violent side of that Elijah's nature, when he'd almost effortlessly ripped off Trevor's head without batting so much of an eyelid, so what a ruthless, emotionless, humanity-less Elijah was capable of, she wasn't quite sure she dared to find out.

When he awoke, there was a split second of absolute clarity, because when his eyes locked on hers, she could see the affection and guilt and absolute fury at what he'd done all blazing across his face, like the darkest shadow buried in the depths of the night, clumsily revealed by a thin veil of moonlight. Part of her feared it was a trick of the mind, something her own thoughts and hopes and desires were projecting out, but wasn't, in fact, real.

Then he spoke, and the rich, gravelly quality to his voice seemed to be like music to her ears; like the chorus of a song you'd almost feared you'd forgotten until the very first words start playing.

"Elena," he spoke, his eyes locked on hers, his body rigid, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

"Elijah?" she replied, her tone laced with caution.

He closed his eyes, clearly still at war with himself, but it seemed, momentarily, he'd regained control.

"I am myself...right now," he informed her, almost as if he needed to confirm what she already knew. "But I cannot hold on for much longer."

"Yes, yes you can," she insisted. "You've held off killing me so far, even though you have me exactly where you want me."

He flinched at her words.

"Do not remind me of the abomination of a mission my mother has set me on," he said, sounding pained. "I should not be around you right now."

"Untie me," she pleaded. "And I can get some help."

"It's admirable your selfless nature should continue to thrive even amongst these dire circumstances, Elena, but we both know what this will turn into," he said, sounding exhausted. "It'll turn into a war you'll be in the middle of and I...I cannot have that."

She grit her teeth, unsure where this sudden need to make sure he kept on fighting came from. It seemed like only yesterday she'd been the key part in ensuring his and his siblings' downfall, and now here she was trying to orchestrate the attempt at rescuing them all. Was this what it was like to walk through the looking glass, and glimpse at what the other side of the coin had to offer? It felt as surreal as that experience would've been, and yet it also felt like the best decision she could've made under those set of circumstances.

"I'll always be in the middle of everything when it comes down to you and your family," she said matter-of-factly. "And I may have made some stupid decisions before, but I know stopping your mother is the right thing to do. If I can help in any way..."

"You are foolish to think you can stop her," Elijah remarked bleakly. "Even dead, she seems to have an army of witches at her disposal. My guess is it won't be long before she calls upon the Bennett line to fulful their duty, and what do you think Bonnie's choice will be, if it's between eradicating the thing she hates most, and preserving the lives of the monsters who have upturned hers?"

"She won't obey Esther, no matter what she promises. Our best friend, Caroline, is a vampire, and Bonnie would sooner die than be responsible for her death."

"Maybe so, but you underestimate the power of my mother. She will use every manipulative trick under the book to employ her services. She is determined to undo her mistake, and she has already proven herself a formidable opponent."

"Elijah..."

He shook his head vehemently, interrupting whatever well intended speech she'd been about to reel off in support of her helping, and she knew he was about to lose the sliver of control he'd managed to acquire during his blackout.

"I am going to untie you," he said slowly, looking at her solemnly, but not quite in that intense way which spoke of intended compulsion. "And you are going to run."

"But - "

"No buts," he emphasised, his voice low, insistent. "You are going to run. About half a mile from here, you'll find a payphone. Call your friends and then stay the hell away from me."

She looked hesistant. Hell, she felt hesitant. She didn't owe Elijah anything, but there was this intense desire to help him coarsing through her veins, and if she didn't at least try to help, what kind of person did that make her?

But at the same time, his alter-ego had sneered at her what he was capable of, had told her who his first kill had been, had blanched at her compassion for the vampire race, and it just wasn't in her to ignore the fact she was currently in a very grey area. Was she right to defend a race which, truthfully, had caused her nothing but hell since the moment she'd learned of their existence? Was she right to defend a family with a bloodier history than any periodical group schools taught about?

"Elijah - I can't just not help. That's not who I am," she insisted, biting her lower lip. "You found a way to help me once when there was no other way."

"We had no guarantee it would've worked," Elijah countered. "I fed you false hope, believing in that false hope myself, hoping it would give me a measure of redemption I, quite frankly, don't deserve."

"Nevertheless, you tried," she said in a measured voice. "I'm not going to give up on you."

He stared at her, his stern visage shattering, replaced by a look of confusion.

"Why?"

She thought about the answer for a moment.

"Because I trust you," she said honestly. "And I'd consider you a...friend." Was that even the right word to use after the way she'd assaulted his lips? "And friends help friends. No matter what."

He closed his eyes, and she couldn't help but notice at the way his lips turned upwards, if only by a fraction, and she wondered whether Elijah had even had that word thrown at him before...friend. Part of the curse of being an Original vampire, she was beginning to realise, was that it came with an eternity of being alone. No one trusted you. Everyone feared you. That had to equal to a pretty lonely existence.

Elena momentarily reeled back at what she'd just done then.

She'd sympathised with the Originals.

Now that was screwed up on every level imaginable.

"Please go," he said, a tremor of an unidentifiable emotion rippling through his voice like thunder across a violent sky. "It's too dangerous. I could kill you. In fact, a part of me wants to."

"I've heard all of this before," she argued. "I'm not a fragile little flower, Elijah! I can fight my own battles."

"Not against this. Not against her." Elijah let out a frustrated growl, his fingers beginning to break the binds holding her on the chair. "Elena... if your claim to our...friendship is as genuine as I believe it is, you will take yourself to safety. I will compel you, if I have to, although such extremes I hope to avoid entirely."

"But - "

"Go!"

And as soon as she was free, Elena, giving him one last look, burst into a run which boasted of a speed she had no idea she was even capable of producing. She pushed herself out of the storage shed, wondering if it was some sort of poetry that at this moment, the skies broke, and a heavy rain came lashing down, which drowned her hair.

Then, just as she turned to see if Elijah had broken free, a strong hand gripped the back of her head, a set of lips crashing against hers, and she was unable to control her own body in that moment. Her hips bucked against his, their hands tangled messily together, before weaving in each other's hair, and just as they broke apart, she gazed up at Elijah, stunned into silence both by his impulsive action - rivalling hers in both intensity and spontaneity - and her own reaction.

"Go," he said, and it was a quiet, sincere, honest instruction, delivered in a way that told her she had to listen to him.

And as Elena flung herself into another run, she had to ask herself where she'd gone so wrong to have kissed an Original - twice, now - and not feel the slightest bit of remorse for it. She could've blamed it on a desperate attempt to get him to keep his humanity...but even her motives for that were questionable, at best. Surely this was a just enough reason to prove the Originals were unstable, and that they needed to be put down, but she wasn't convinced by that.

Ironically, being held hostage by Elijah's family had drilled it into her that not only did they display all the traditional elements of a family - you know, when they weren't trying to rip each other's heads off, and she wished she was being figurative when she thought that - but the fact they would all die for each other, if it came down to it, meant she could relate to them on more levels than she cared to admit.

A/n: THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVIEWS. That's pretty much all I have to say here, but I really do appreciate each and every one I get. Next chapter; a reunion with Damon and Stefan, and their thoughts on this situation; Klaus awakens, and informs Kol and Rebekah of a startling new threat; and Elijah continues to battle his darker sider, resulting in tragedy. See you next chapter :)