Chapter Text
Keep On Closing
"I don't see why you're operating on Def Con One here, Elena," Ric grumbled to his daughter thickly as she pounded down the stairs, trying to pull a jumper on over his head whilst going down the steps after her without breaking his neck. It was too early for all this supernatural crap. Why couldn't the forces of evil operate on normal business hours? Like after the sun was up, or at the very least after he had five gallons of coffee in his system.
Elena whirled around on the bottom step, almost giving him a mouthful of indignant ponytail as she absently straightened out his jumper for him. "Because there's no way Damon would let Stefan go, Ric. Not after our butchered first attempt. This was our one shot, and there's no way that Damon of all people would let it slip through his fingers. It's his brother."
"Maybe he just forget," Alaric offered feebly, but it sounded weak and ineffectual even to his own ears; they both knew Damon too well, knew that if said he was going to do something, he did it. Usually in the context of doing something bad. Which he tended to do. Because he was Damon, and Ric was still pretty pissed at him. Maybe. But if he was in trouble...
"Where's the fire?" Jeremy asked from the top of the stairs, peering blearily down at them, hair sticking up in sleep-static spikes. The two glared up at him, far from amused by his attempt at humour. Then again, who the hell was funny at 6:33 am?
Jeremy winced apologetically. "Too soon?"
Alaric shook his head, a scowl marring his face at the thought of Elena being in danger yet again. "Never would be too soon, Jer. As for what's going on...Elena thinks that something's happened to Damon," he explained as calmly as possible. "He promised he'd let her know when he'd gotten Stefan to the old Forbes cellar...but he never did."
"And he's not answering his phone at all," Elena chimed in, holding up hers for emphasis, showcasing the blank screen like a defense attorney trying to prove their case in a courtroom.
Ric frowned, curious, attention diverted elsewhere for the moment. "When did you have time to call Damon?"
"In between you trying to get your socks on and me seeing how many wooden bullets I've got left," Elena replied, nonplussed, shrugging like what she'd relayed wasn't a big deal.
Instantly, the vampire hunter was in Angry Dad Mode, voice strained with disbelief and just the faintest hint of betrayal at her secrecy as he exclaimed, "You've been keeping them in your room? Since when do you keep an arsenal of vampire-hunting gear in your bedroom like you're fricking Dean Winchester or something?"
Elena shrugged again, reaching up to grab her jacket hanging by the door. "Worse comparisons have been made. Jeremy could certainly pull off Sam's nerdy/emo/tortured soul look." Sighing, she let the fabric dangle from her fingers, gaze trained on the tips of her autumn-mud-spattered sneakers. "But now is not the time to be arguing about this, okay? Now is the time for planning, and strategizing, and making sure Damon's okay. Which is why his wasn't the only number I called."
As if prompted by some unseen cue, the front door opened, revealing the faces of Lucy and Rebekah Mikaelson, expressions simmering with equal amounts frustration at the early hour and genuine concern. "I also called in some backup."
"I went by this supposed vampire torture dungeon of yours," Rebekah told her over a sweating glass of Bloody Mary, red nails listlessly stirring the celery stick, "and I couldn't find anything. No signs of struggle, no blood, not even a disturbed cobweb. No trace of either of their scents, so we can officially conclude that no Salvatore has been anywhere near the place in a good long while."
"Then they never left the Boarding House," Elena guessed reasonably, sliding a stake into the side of her boot. Straightening up, she pulled a hair bobble from off her wrist and began pulling back her hair into a braid, angrily ripping at the strands like each one had caused her some unknown personal grievance.
Tutting slightly, Rebekah abandoned her drink on the kitchen island and came to stand behind her, stilling her movements with a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Let me. You're far too upset to do a decent enough job. I won't let my brother's girl go out looking like a bedraggled mess."
Elena flashed her a smile, an interesting concoction of bemusement and gratitude. "Thank you." Leaning back, she let her get to work, but Rebekah could hear the pounding of her heart, stressed and worried like no eighteen year old girl's should be.
In another life, she might have hated the newest Petrova doppelgänger, might have resented her and the attention she was so frequently and unreservedly bestowed, a perpetual spotlight dangling over her head like the Sword of Damocles, how she'd been with Stefan and yet still had Damon fawn over her as well, then add in Nik and his ridiculous quest for hybrids and how Elijah would still be absolutely smitten with her even if they weren't currently together...but not now, not in this one. Because she'd seen Elena make her brother smile like no one else ever had, because they were both orphans -any good or love or kindness had perished and withered in her father a long time ago- and bound by forces they couldn't control, and punished by them when they'd never done anything wrong, never asked for any of this. They just wanted to lead normal, happy lives, find love and have laughter and a sense of purpose, of belonging, just like anyone else would and did.
Plus, it would give her no end of pleasure when she repeatedly spirited her away from Elijah to go on shopping trips. The girl could certainly do with some new trainers; hers were filthy. And was that blood on the left one?
"There, all done," Rebekah declared brightly, finishing off the braid with a flourish. It wasn't half bad, considering the style hadn't been in favour the last time she'd been awake, when it was all wavy bobs and slick fringes. "I always wanted to have a sister I could do things like that with," she found herself saying, unsure where the particular admission was coming from but deciding to just go along with it; just because her brothers were known for being emotionally repressed didn't mean she was under any obligation to carry on the tradition. "It was hard, growing up with five brothers. Not many of the village girls liked me, you see, especially when one of them was hovering around, or they only spoke to me in the hopes of currying favour and getting a marriage proposal. Everyone wanted to be a Mikaelson..."
"But they didn't know what a burden it was," Elena finished for her, taking her hand and clasping it warmly in her own as she turned to face her more fully. "Elijah's told me bits and pieces, but one day...I'd like for you to tell me your story; I'm sure it's different from his. He's always been so worried about protecting you all, the thought always on the forefront of his mind, to steer and guide him. But that wasn't the case for you. I think it might have made it worse, actually, that you felt the loneliness more acutely. But that's just a guess."
"No, you're right," Rebekah confessed, sheet of blonde hair shifting as she tilted her head. "Elijah always knew what he was doing, always believed in what he was doing. I stayed because I loved Nik, and I always will...but I wanted another love, you know? One just for myself, that I found, that I helped grow and nurtured with somebody else, tended to and looked after, and knew they'd always do the same for me."
Understanding shone in her brown eyes, steady and uplifting as a lighthouse beacon slicing through heavy fog as she offered carefully, "Like what you had for Marcel?"
Oh, God, she hadn't heard the name in so long -Nik had, in that silent, unspoken way of his, begged her to never speak of his dearest friend and son and protegee around him- hadn't even allowed herself to think of him..."Elijah told you?" Rebekah guessed, unsurprised, but also surprised that she wasn't angered at the revelation. She didn't want to be the sole person to carry the thought of that brave, bold, brilliant man around forever, the version of Marcel that only shd had ever been lucky enough to know.
Elena nodded, shifting against the back of the couch. She hadn't let go of her hand. "He did. When we were tracking Klaus and Stefan, he mentioned how the only place that had ever felt like home for you all was in New Orleans, until Mikael came and ruined it as he always did. He told me about how you all raised him, how he was one of you, and how much you loved him. And...what your father did to him, how much it hurt to leave him behind."
Rebekah arched an interested brow. "When was this?"
Elena paused for a moment. "First week of June, I think? I'd literally only just saved his life like the day before, and in the grand scheme of things it had only been a few months since we'd met, so maybe I should have been more surprised..."
And her brother had known even then, known that he could trust her, of he'd shared such a painful, intimate piece of his past, their past, with her, so soon after reconnecting. He really was pathetic, but in a way she was beginning to understand and appreciate more and more.
Lost in thought as she was, Rebekah almost didn't notice the tense look on Elena's face, how she shifted her weight, subconsciously moving her legs into a fighting stance, no doubt the reflection of some internal battle she was waging. "Look, I know it's probably not my place to tell you this, but I really think you deserve to know and-"
Rebekah held up a hand, effectively cutting her off. "Spill, Elena. No one likes a coward."
The brunette squared her shoulders, chin raised bravely. "Marcel is alive."
Breathing became difficult.
"I was asking 'Lijah about places Klaus might go, and he said that New Orleans wouldn't be an option because it was under new management. When I pressed him about it, he told me it was Marcel."
Rebekah barely heard the words, the sounds all a cacophony of vague, white noise in the background amidst the tornado of her thoughts.
Marcel was alive. Her Marcel, her great love, who she'd had to abandon yet who had never left her heart, was alive and in New Orleans.
And Elijah had known.
And not told her.
"Will you be alright?" Rebekah asked her, barely waiting for her subtle answering nod before speeding out the door and to Elijah's new townhouse, a modest - at leasy by atypical Mikaelson standards- two-storied walk-up with big bay windows and Colonial brickwork. She didn't bother to knock, just kicked in the polished black door and stalked to her brother languishing on the pine forest-green couch, book in hand as she roared, every syllable lacquered in utter anguish, "Why the bloody fuck didn't you tell me the love of my life was still alive?"
Elijah set down his book, smoothing out his mulberry-coloured tie. "What exactly is it you want to hear from me, Rebekah?"
The Original deflated slightly, huffing out a long-suffering sigh as she tapped a stilettoed foot. She hoped it left scratches on his new flooring, the idiot. "The truth would be nice."
Her brother gestured for her to have a seat and Rebekah complied, fingers drumming restlessly on her thighs. Elijah could be so infuriatingly dramatic sometimes, a compunction he unfortunately shared with Nik and Kol.
"I only found out recently," Elijah began, tactful and diplomatic as ever, like he was speaking to a business associate rather than his own flesh and blood, his only sister. "And Niklaus is as of yet unaware of the fact."
The Original immediately opened her mouth to object "How could you not-"
Elijah swiftly cut her off, swiftly and remorselessly. "Because if we have any hope of getting our brother back, he cannot know what Marcellus has done in our absence. It would break him, Bekah; our brother has no tolerance for betrayal, not when it comes to family. You know this better than anyone, or do I have to remind you of the time he daggered you for fifty two years? Or you yourself betraying Kol when he attempted to a forge a dagger to use on him?"
"No, you don't." Sometimes she really hated how much she listened to him, how he still talked to her like he did when she was a girl and was ignoring whatever reasonable (read:boring) thing he was trying to to tell her, how something in her instinctively obeyed and retreated at the harsh snap of his voice now just as it had then, the deeply-rooted fear of disappointing her big brother, as intrinsically a part of her as her fangs or her fingernails.
"I made some discreet inquires when I was looking into the sacrifice," her brother declared, gentler now, rising from the couch and placing his book back in its place on the shelf with a soft thunk. He'd arranged everything alphabetically, the loon. Where was his sense of imagination? Had he left it in one of the trunks he hadn't unpacked yet? (Maybe it had been misplaced in their initial voyage from Virginia to Europe all those centuries ago). "Ways of ensuring Elena's safety. New Orleans still houses some of the most powerful witches in the country; I thought they might be of use, until I learnt of Marcellus's reign. Supposedly he has banned magic from the quarter, both the practise and the teaching of it."
Interesting. Completely mad, but interesting. Stowing that fact away for later ponderance, she fixed her darling brother with a teasingly saccharine smile. "Of course you did. This was before you were dating, yes? Seems you've held a candle for her for quite some time, brother."
Elijah arched a pointed brow, unimpressed at the insinuation slithering under her words. "And?"
"Nothing," Rebekah shrugged innocently -or at least tried to. "I just thought you would have swept her off her feet sooner, that's all. You're not the kind of man who waits around."
Elijah rolled his eyes, a clear sign of his frustration; he usually refrained from any physical displays of his annoyance. Elena really was domesticating him, it seemed. "Yes, because sacrificing the woman you care for to your villainously psychotic brother is so conducive to romance. Regardless, she was with Stefan Salvatore at the time. She loved him and I chose to respect that."
The blonde scoffed at him. "Chicken."
He didn't take that well. "I was no such thing. I was honorable and dignified and-"
"And a chicken. You were scared of being rejected for, compared to us, a toddler. Oh, brother, that's so sweet. Ridiculously pathetic, but sweet. I'm sure she liked you from the minute you met; Mikaelson genes are irresistible," she added with a gleaming smirk.
Elijah blinked, slowly, like he was restraining himself from refraining, and yet confessed, "The first time I met, I cut off someone's head with my bare hands."
Rebekah shrugged once more, nonplussed. "Well, no one's perfect, and so long as you didn't get any blood on her I'm sure she wasn't too bothered."
"She threw a vervain grenade in my face."
Okay. A little tougher to spin, but not impossible. "Everyone has their foibles. Wait, you let her get that close?" She exclaimed, more than a little surprised. Elijah would never let someone past his defenses so easily, both physically and emotionally. The fact that she'd even gotten in throwing distance of him...
"I was intrigued!" Elijah said, tone straddling the border of petulantly defensive. "Forgive me for still being shocked to learn that Katerina had had a child without any of us knowing."
"You mean you knowing." Rebekah three back her head, tossing herself into one of the armchairs she recognized from their second Tuscan villa. If she squinted, she swore she could still see the outline of a wine stain from when Kol and Nik got into an argument and her Loki-like brother spilled his glass in irritation, like the chalk outline of a crime scene victim from one of those shows she kept seeing when she turned on the nefarious invention known as cable TV. "She was a manipulative bitch, Elijah: secrets come with the territory."
Elijah sighed, brows pinched, shoulders heavy. Sisyphus and his boulders. "If she had truly loved me, she would have told me. Elena tells me everything. And if you've come to such knowledge of Marcellus, you've obviously talked to her. Today. Why? What's wrong?"
"Who says anything's wrong?" Rebekah hedged, playing for time. "Maybe we just wanted to have a...what do they call it nowadays? A girl talk?"
Her brother was not convinced. "At seven in the morning?" It seemed she couldn't put it off any longer, then. Damn.
"Fine!" Rebekah exclaimed, throwing her hands -perhaps somewhat unnecessarily- dramatically in the air. "Damon Salvatore has been unreachable for the past few hours and we believe that Stefan never made it to the Forbes cellar, alright? Elena's gone to the Boarding House to investigate."
His jaw twitched, a metronome keeping beat with his outrage. "Alone?"
"No, she called the older Bennett witch to go over with her. She ordered Alaric to stay with her brother and keep an eye on him since he's something of a ghost magnet these days it seems."
"Rebekah! You prioritized yelling at me about your paramour from a hundred years ago over Elena's safety?" Elijah accused her, equal parts angry and worried and, worst of all, disappointed. And that just wouldn't do.
"She's a big girl, 'Lijah, she can take care of herself! She doesn't need you fretting over her. Women are independent these days. It's quite fascinating, actually, I've been reading about this thing called feminism and I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with-"
Elijah's phone buzzed sharply, cutting off her musings on the milestones of social equality. Glancing unashamedly over his shoulder -Elena didn't seem like the type to send anything particularly salacious over the phone, especially in the middle of a rescue attempt- Rebekah could discern that it was a picture of the Salvatore living room, a length of chains seemingly suspended in mid-air. The text read simply, The ghosts are back in town.
"What's that? She asked, ever deferring to her brother in times and topics of uncertainty.
Elijah frowned, stashing the phone in his jacket pocket with hands too steady to be natural. "Aside from being a nineties pop music reference...it means I have to go fight something I can't see."
"Sounds fun. Can I come?"
When Elena pulled up to the Boarding House, the first noticeable indication that something was wrong was the flung-open front door, gaping like a hungry jaw, the maw of a lion waiting to devour. While her death during the sacrifice had nullified the house's transference to her name and any vampire could now enter so there wasn't really a point to lock it, it was still an uneasy sight to behold.
Sliding out from the driver's seat, Elena's eyes darted to Lucy, noticing that the woman was already speaking, chanting something she couldn't quite make out.
"Something's here. A presence. Definitely something from the Other Side."
"How can you tell?" Elena asked, genuinely interested.
Lucy's face was grim, almost haunted as she supplied, "The cold. It seems to follow the dead when they try to interact with the living, a sense of wrongness in the balance of nature. The dead are meant to stay put, you know? Whoever's doing this, the either don't care about the rules or they're desperate enough to break them, which is a helluva lot worse."
Elena had to agree.
Keeping her weight off her feet as much as possible, she crept across the gravel driveway, inching up to the front door. She'd barely made it past the threshold when a noise caught her attention, a barely-audible groan of pain. Recklessly, she followed it, trying to make out where it was coming from, the sound seeming to echo off the walls. God, this place had too many rooms, too many places to look...
"Elena, get the hell out of here!"
She'd known that voice anywhere.
Hurtling towards the living room, Elena almost tripped over the rug as she took in the carnage before her, the sight of the floating chains and fireplace poker hovering mid-air. Snapping a photo, she sent it hastily to Elijah with a pithy joke to try and distract her brain from how scared she was.
Damon's head whipped from side to side, tendons straining in his neck like struggling ropes on the verge of snapping. "What the fuck did I just say? Get out of here, Elena, before you're next on the ghost menu! And you, shut the hell up," he snarled at empty space. "Just because I can't hear you doesn't mean I know you're not saying something stupid about how much she looks like Katherine. Which, seriously, man, you need way better taste in women. Is there a speed dating thing for ghosts on the Other Side? Meet a nice Woman in White and settle down..."
Elena watched, horrified, as the poker was rammed into his stomach, sticking all the way through and into the back of the chair with a sick squelching sound she knew would feature in her nightmares for at least a solid week. Thankfully, Lucy came up behind her, palms held aloft in the direction of the fireplace. And suddenly, like peeling back the layers of an orange to reveal the fruit underneath, the air around them seemed to shimmer, then unfurl, revealing the figure of Mason Lockwood, hand still clasping the poker sticking out of Damon's lower intestines.
His eyes darted up to them, startled, pupils blown wide in what could almost be described as fear, if he had anything left to lose. "What the hell? I thought you weren't supposed to be able to see me."
Lucy tossed him a wicked smirk. "I'm a witch, honey, I can do whatever I want. And I think I'll start with this," she said, clicking her fingers and shattering the nearest window, shards of glass pelting the hardwood like hail stones. She moved her left hand sideways, and his spirit hurtled through the now-empty window against his will, back hitting the dew-slick grass without a sound, which was creepy. Elena pushed that aside though and whirled towards Damon, kneeling down just as she heard the soft whoosh of Elijah's presence entering the house, another following soon after she naturally deduced was courtesy of Rebekah.
"Hi," Elena said, smile wobbly and sagging in the middle like a waterlogged picture. "I don't know how to get this thing out without hurting you."
"Newsflash: you can't. You're gonna have to pull it, Elena," Damon instructed, teeth already gritted, bracing for the pain. "And quickly. Don't be nice about it, okay? Just do it."
A shudder trickled down her spine, palms suddenly slick with sweat as she gazed at the gaping wound. It was nothing like the pictures she'd seen in her dad's textbooks, any of her Biology class videos or that one time they'd had to dissect a frog and Caroline had cried, both sad and grossed out. Surreptitiously wiping her hands on her jeans, Elena gripped the filigreed handle, sharp finials biting into the thin flesh of her palms.
"Let me do it."
"It's okay," she shook her head at her boyfriend's offer, "I've got this," Elena insisted, and yanked the poker out, nearly tumbling backwards with the force of it. Ever the gentleman, Elijah's chest cushioned the potential blow, arms coming around and hurling the ruined poker out the window, landing somewhere in a bush by the sound of it. She allowed herself half a moment to bury her head against his collarbones before they set to work unwinding Damon's chains, metal clattering to the floor as he rose on unsteady legs.
There was a flash of vulnerability in his opal eyes, then irritation at being vulnerable, and he shook his head like a wet dog before speeding away without so much as a thank you, leaving the two non-vampires to race after him at their frustratingly slower human speed. Elena's sneakers hit the floor by the cellar, and suddenly it was eight months ago, and Stefan was locked up, and she was sitting down here in the dark, watching over him, scared out of her mind that she'd lost the man she loved to an enemy she couldn't fight -that only he could fight. She was pulling the dagger out of Elijah's chest, waiting and hoping and apologizing and praying she hadn't made a mistake.
Damon was leaning heavily in the doorway, head hanging limply in abject, unmitigated relief. Even from here, she could clearly see Stefan's unconscious body, the rigid slope of his shoulders hardly moving as he breathed, so eerily still and quiet. He hadn't woken up. They hadn't missed their one opportunity to save him.
"Anyone feel like helping me carry him?"