Chapter Text
Klaus waves Matt—who has finally reappeared from the back— over to their table.
Her friend shoots her a concerned look when he arrives, and makes a discreet gesture with his thumbs—their shorthand for, Do you need me to text for help?
She shakes her head, just the barest twitch of her chin, hoping Matt catches it before Klaus demands his attention.
He has Matt bring them a bottle, and she can't help but feel abstracted from her body as she watches Klaus's strong, elegant hands pour amber liquor into her glass. This can't be real. None of this can possibly be real.
This isn't her who takes a sip, who suddenly feels warm for the first time since she awoke from her death last April when she catches Klaus watching her with a singular sort of focus that almost makes her think he sees her.
Because if this were real, then the hunger she feels for this time out would be unthinkable. She'd have to feel guilty that Klaus is right, that the past half hour toeing the line of red hot danger with him has revived her flagging spirits in ways that she really, really doesn't want to analyze.
"On the bright side," Klaus says, cheerfully interrupting her thoughts, "I shan't have to warn the Salvatores away from you if they're already leaving you well enough alone."
"Why would you warn them away from me?"
"To ensure you have a normal life."
"I don't see how that's any of your business."
"Of course it is. You'll want to settle down, won't you? Stop consorting with vampires so you can go to college, become a nurse or a secretary or a school teacher? Get married? Have children?"
"You just want to make sure I continue on the Petrova line. That I live to see old age to keep your blood supply going for as long as possible while you wait for the next Petrova doppelganger."
"But doesn't my version sound so nice?"
Elena swirls the ice in her drink, listening to their gentle clink against her glass, considering. "What if I don't want a normal life?"
Klaus takes his time to respond. "Then I would say that you're both far more interesting and far more foolish than I had thought."
"So how do you spend your time when you're not out menacing my friends?"
Klaus refills her drink, a smile on his lips. "How do you imagine I spend my time?"
"I don't. Imagine you, that is."
"That red stain on your cheeks says otherwise, sweetheart."
She wants to stop that line of inquiry as fast as she can because the terrible terrible thing that she doesn't ever ever ever even let herself think about is that he's not wrong.
"What do you even need an army of hybrids for? You're not conquering anything. You're just hanging out. They seem to mostly be doing your dry cleaning and watching over the construction on your new mansion."
"Which is nearly finished, by the way. Perhaps you'd like a tour."
She ignores that. "My point is, they're not really your friends, either. I don't think anyone is. There haven't been any attempts on my life, so I know you haven't awakened Rebekah yet." She squints at him, as though that will bring him into clearer focus. "You're not even planning to, are you? You don't have any family, or any friends at all. Just… these hybrids who are blindly bound to serve you."
At her words, all of Klaus's warmth and amusement slip away, like a cloak falling from his shoulders. Without any guile or bluster at all, he says, very quietly—so quietly she cannot help but lean closer into his space so she can hear him better—
"I told you I was lonely."
There's a new kind of intimacy that opens between them in the steady way he holds her gaze as he says the words that she had not absorbed as truth until that moment. Not just as truth. As his truth.
For the first time, she thinks she might really understand him.
Might see herself mirrored in him.
That same hopeless loneliness that has sunk so far into her bones that she doesn't think she'll ever emerge from it also resides in him.
"So how do you fill the time?" she asks him helplessly. "How do you keep yourself going day after day? Keep yourself caring?"
"You have to find a way to live for yourself." He pauses, then—almost hesitating. "I paint. For me, that has been my salvation."
"You're an artist." She can't help the flat incredulity with which she states it.
"Don't sound so astonished."
"I'm not. I'm just— recalibrating."
"Why least of all me?" she asks later, when she feels brave enough.
"Hm?"
"Earlier. You said that loneliness is a curse you wouldn't wish on anyone, least of all me."
Klaus shrugs. "You've been exceedingly generous to me, over all. You came willingly to the sacrifice, you've given me blood whenever I've requested it, you were the only one with enough honor to return my sister to me. You even had the foresight to arrange for your resurrection after the ritual so you could help me create my hybrids. Besides all of those very persuasive points, I find your pluck… appealing."
The explanation unsettles her. It had never occurred to her before that Klaus might actually like her.
"You know I planned the attempt to take you out at Homecoming."
"Yes, and handed me one of the things I've wanted most these past thousand years. Brava."
"That doesn't bother you? That I tried to kill you?"
"It's a moot point, seeing as you now never can."
"Where there's a will, there's a way."
"You don't really mean that, though."
"How do you mean?"
"You wouldn't dream of killing me when you're enjoying my company so very much."
"You're flattering yourself."
Klaus watches her with dark eyes. "Am I?"
Matt comes back by their table at eleven. "We're closing," he tells them without preamble. "Elena, can I give you a ride home?" He's been nervously watching them for hours, hovering, but no one else has arrived to break their evening up, so he must have taken her word that she didn't need him to call in the cavalry.
"I'll see her home, thanks," Klaus cuts in before she can respond one way or another.
Except, outside, she tells him, "I don't want to go home."
"No?"
"If I go home, that means tonight has to end, and I'll have to go back to being on my own again."
"Then don't. Come home with me instead."
"That sounds like a terrible idea."
"I never said it wasn't. But think on it: We've established that you no longer number amongst the conspirators plotting against me, and that I wish for you to live a long and fruitful life. And I think that you rather enjoy my company. There is no reason for us not to spend our time together if we so wish."
She swallows. Thinks about going home to curl up in her cold and empty bed. That sickness opens up inside of her, an abyss with no bottom. If she goes home, she'll be plunging into that dark cavern inside of herself. She doesn't know how much longer she can bear to keep treading through this by herself.
"Is that tour still on the table?"
"I think something can be arranged."