We're Causing Destruction Wherever We Go
by Sandrine Shaw

The slam of a door, angry footsteps on the floorboards, and Elena thinks that Stefan is back for another round of shouting and reproachful glares and heavy disappointment. She thinks maybe it's Caroline, who promised not to judge but can't help letting Elena know that she's no good at being a vampire. Can't handle animal blood, goes crazy after her first kill, gets herself into a sire bond, breaks up with her soulmate.

Fuck them, Elena thinks.

None of it is her fault, and she's tired of getting blamed for it. Tired of having to justify herself for things that are beyond her control. Tired of being alone and vilified by the people who should have her back.

It's not Stefan or Caroline who strides into the room, though; it's Klaus. He looks like someone who stepped off a medieval battlefield, splattered with blood and gore. Scarlet patterns all over his face and his clothes. The sweet smell of blood heavy in the air is carried into the room with him, strong enough to make Elena hungry, to make her want, despite the disgust she feels at the sight Klaus makes.

"What happened?" she asks. Her eyes are drawn to his hands which, curiously, unlike the rest of his body are clean, as if he took time to wash them off when he clearly didn't even care to wipe his face. "What have you done?"

For a moment, a haunted look crosses Klaus' face before the mask of casual amusement he wears so well slips back into place. But when he speaks, his tone is strained, as if maintaining the air of nonchalance takes an effort.

"Oh, this?" He motions down his bloodstained shirt. "It's nothing. Killed a few hybrids. Always so messy, ripping out someone's heart. It's far more pleasant to just hold someone's head under water until they're dead."

It seems to be such a non-sequitur, a punch-line waiting to happen, that dread immediately settles in Elena's stomach, even before he adds, "Well, not so pleasant for Carol Lockwood, I suppose."

"Tyler's mom? What—Why would you kill her? What has she ever done to you?"

Carol Lockwood is dead. She talked to her just the other day, before the Miss Mystic Falls contest. Idle chit-chat. Elena can't remember what it was about. She remembers Carol in the kitchen of the Gilbert house, having tea with Elena's mum. It was the winter before the accident. It seems like an eternity ago. Carol is dead. She wasn't someone Elena was close to. It doesn't hit her like Jenna's death, or Alaric's, or even Vicky's, but she was someone she's known all her life, and they only spoke a few days ago and now she's dead.

Elena has to force herself to listen when Klaus replies.

"Carol? Not a thing."

He stares at her until she gets it, until she remembers that this is what Klaus does, how he punishes people who dare to go against him. Katherine's story echoes in her ears, makes bile rise in her throat.

"Right. But Tyler has," she say, and her voice is almost steady even though the words make her sick. "What's next then? Are you going to kill Caroline as well?"

Klaus shrugs. He shrugs. "Perhaps. I haven't decided yet."

"She's my best friend."

Such a stupid thing to say, but it spills out of her mouth before she can stop it. There are other arguments she could make for Caroline's sake: you enjoy her company and you bring her gifts and you said you wanted to show her the world, and all of those would matter more to Klaus than this. But that's not why she wants Caroline to live, and so the words don't come while Klaus, naturally, throws the ones she said right back in her face with a cruel smile that cuts through all of her forced composure and lays her insecurities wide open.

"And why would I care about that, love? You're nothing to me. I have half a mind to leave your heart as a present on Stefan's pillow."

Laughing, Elena knows, is probably the wrong response when faced with a death threat from a person who has both the ruthlessness and the strength to carry it out. But she can't help it. The memory of Stefan's face when he stormed out of the house is still fresh, the pain and anger and disappointment when he threw a glass against the wall behind her.

"He'd probably like that," Elena says, once she's sobered up. She knows she's wrong. No matter how much she's hurt him, Stefan wouldn't want her dead. Would he? "I'm not his favorite person right now."

Klaus raises an eyebrow at her. "Why's that, love?"

Her smile is bitter like medicine, like stale old blood, like a drink laced with vervain. "Turns out he doesn't like the new me very much, and he acts like this is my fault. As if I'd have chosen this. Being a vampire. Being sired to Damon. It's not like I can help it."

"Ah, yes, the sire bond." Klaus' tone is conversational, half-intrigued, half-bored. "Let me guess, Damon chose this very inconvenient occasion to discover his moral integrity? Because I can't imagine another reason why you'd be sitting alone in the boarding house, ranting to me about the precious Salvatore brothers rather than enjoying some festive celebrations with Damon."

"Fuck you," she spits.

She didn't used to swear. Even back when she was playing at being a rebellious teenager who skipped classes and snuck out of the house to see Matt after her parents had gone to bed, she didn't swear. In hindsight, she didn't have much reason to swear then. It's a different matter now.

Instantly, the playfulness is gone from Klaus's voice, and there's a hard edge of warning in it. "Careful, love. I've killed thirteen people today. One more or less won't make a difference."

She knows she shouldn't antagonize the murderous sociopath with anger management issues. She isn't stupid. She isn't suicidal. But she's angry.

She's been angry for a long time. Since Stefan told her Maybe Damon had it right from the start. Maybe you're more like Katherine than I thought. Since Caroline asked her what she was doing with Damon. Since she woke up on the steel table of the morgue. Since she watched Klaus tear Jenna's heart out. Since she first caught Jeremy taking drugs. Since the accident that killed her parents and shattered her world.

So much anger, piled up over the months and years, and she's not human anymore. She can't just swallow it and plaster on a brave, fake smile until it ebbs away. Doesn't want to.

"No. Fuck. You," she emphasizes the words as she holds his gaze. "All of this is your fault. If you and your crazy family hadn't come here, none of this would have happened. I wouldn't be a vampire, there would have been no hunter's curse, no sire bond. Jeremy wouldn't be driven to kill me. Jenna would be alive. And Alaric, and Bonnie's mum and John and Tyler's mum and Caroline's dad. All of this is on you."

She stops, out of breath and elated, adrenaline running high as she awaits Klaus' reaction. It's always a gamble with him. Sometimes when you confront him, he lashes out and leaves wreckage. Sometimes your words seem to bounce off him without even cracking the facade a little.

Elena wants him to react. She wants him furious and defensive and hurting, like her. But his composure remains unruffled.

"There's always bound to be some collateral damage," is all he says, waving her accusations off like they're nothing but an irritating insect, and it's the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard, because it implies that there was a purpose to all of it.

"Collateral damage for what? What exactly have you achieved? Your family hates you. You had to kill all of your precious hybrids because they were staging a rebellion. Every person you ever—"

Pain, sharp and burning in her chest, stops her words, making her gasp for air her lungs technically don't need any more. She looks down and sees Klaus' arm protruding from her torso, feels his fingers flexing against her heart.

There's a hole in my shirt, she thinks, and the idea almost makes her laugh with hysterical amusement because that's the very least thing she should be worrying about.

Blood is dripping down onto the floor, and she can feel the torn flesh over her ribcage trying to mend itself around Klaus' intruding hand.

"You want to finish that sentence?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at her. His nails scrape against the walls of her heart, sending a new wave of pain down her stomach.

She does want continue her tirade, but at the same time, she doesn't actually wish to die, so she shuts up, demonstratively closing her mouth and staring at him, waiting for him to drag his hand out, with or without her heart. Seconds tick by, and she feels every single one of them stretch. When his hand pulls away, it's almost more agonizing than it was coming it, maybe because the shock masked the actual pain. She gasps and all but folds over, steadying herself against a chair.

"There, now. That's a good girl. That wasn't so hard, being civil, was it?"

Except that it was. It is.

Deep in her heart, she wants to lash out and hurt him any way she can, damn the consequences. Hurt someone, just to numb the pain she feels. She used to wonder how Katherine could be like this, so cruel and twisted inside, but now she knows. She's on her way there, and the only thing that tethers her to her compassion, to whatever's left of her humanity, are the people she loves. With that gone... if they died, or turned on her, as she can already feel them doing, she'd become exactly like Katherine. Like Klaus, even. Too broken inside to ever put herself back together.

The idea of losing herself like that, bit by bit, scares her more than anything.

Klaus pours two glasses of Damon's expensive bourbon and holds out a drink in front of her. "Here, that should help with the pain."

She looks down at the torn rags of her shirt, red and heavy with fresh blood, and the unmarked skin underneath. "It's already healed."

His smile is wry. "Not the pain I was talking about, love."

For a moment, he almost sounds compassionate. He sounds like he gets it, and Elena dares to hope that her words may have managed to touch the broken pieces inside of him, that something she said may have made a difference.

It's not that she cares much about saving Klaus. She's beyond that, and even her kindness has limits. Selfishness is what drives the idea: if she can get through to Klaus, if there's a spark inside of him that's not rotten and dark yet, then maybe she will be okay as well, maybe she can get through this without losing every shred of humanity she ever possessed.

"Thanks." She takes the offered glass, and they drink in silence that feels oddly companionable.

She goes home to her own empty house and sleeps in her old room and she thinks, I can do this.

In the morning, Tyler finds Caroline's body lying on his bed, her bloodied heart on the floor next to her, and Elena realizes what a fool she's been.

End.