Sacred geometry: chapter 22
7.00 AM, Salvatore Boarding House …
Stefan opens the door, and is not sure he can do anything except blinking at the scene before him.
It is way too early for Damon-induced shenigans, and this scene already definitely looks like something that is going to give him a major headache.
He is very tempted to shut the door on Damon's shiny, cat-just-ate-the-canary-and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it-anymore grin and crazy-moving-to-match eyebrows, to return to his bed and Elena's warm, long, welcoming body.
But …
Bonnie is just there beside Damon, looking nearly apologetic.
Anna and Jeremy stand behind the vampire-witch duo nuzzling like a pair of innocent lovebirds that death (or murder) never parted. Pearl is in the middle of the should-be-dead-but-they-are-not vampire group, all stiffness and ice, flanked by an aloof Harper and a twitchy, nearly-familiar-looking … ah, no, now his memory connects … that one is the newbie who kidnapped Elena and Bonnie ages ago.
Nothing is right or promising with this picture.
Also, why is the weirdest little cat peeking out of Bonnie's bag?
"There's a really good, really colorful explanation for all of this." His brother zeroes in before he can ask, his whole being stretching in a string of charm and smarminess.
Again, not a good sign.
"I bet."
He is nearly curious… not. He is still pretty attached to that fantasy of cuddling Elena until breakfast time, getting his morning refill of blood and coffee, basking in the glow of her soft smiles as they read the newspaper together, and then facing the crazy of the day.
He got used to that schedule (or variations of it, anyway) when he was staying at the Gilberts, and he is not quite ready to let it go. Not in favor of complications he has not predicted or planned.
But he can hear her dressing in the other room, so he is fully aware he is just stalling the unavoidable until she is ready.
"Dare I ask why they are out of their grave? Katherine's work?"
"My work, preventing her work." Bonnie stresses, raising her hand to claim the responsibility of this, and she manages to look so unhappily guilty about it than Stefan feels unpleasantly certain that the story behind the picture is going to turn even less pretty than he imagines.
"What is up?"Elena asks from behind him, and Stefan takes it as his signal to stand aside and let the group in.
Elena listens.
And she feels.
A lot of different things.
Suspicion - an ever present shadow on the background of everything else- Pearl is too scared of those so called Originals to be trusted with the town or the lives of the people she loves… and the others are just loyal to her.
Relief - a sharp hit of it, because Jeremy is out of Katherine's pocket finally, no matter what this cost them on the long run.
Horror - heavy and inescapable, a thick haze that cloaks anything in its path - for what Jeremy did, what Bonnie almost went through, what Bonnie did that night that changed everything without Elena ever knowing it.
Incredulity that she and Stefan never suspected whole this long, dark list of happenings that concerned their friends and his brother, for God's sake. Shame that she never noticed Bonnie slipping far away into this dangerous world *she* brought on both their doorsteps when she decided to stick with Stefan.
Gratitude that Damon helped her friend and her brother, and disbelief that he managed to keep it from her and Stefan.
She is overwhelmed and she hugs the living daylights out of Bonnie at some point, mouthing a 'thank you' to Damon that looks over at that moment with a suspicious sort of attention she can't quite figure out.
She hugs Jeremy too, hard. Her brother, almost lost, back where he belongs.
There's much that she wants to say to them, privately, a lot of questions she needs to ask … but now, with strangers looking on, this reunion is hard enough without getting too personal.
She wants to thank Damon properly, for orchestrating all of this while she had shut him out, to explain why she felt she had to put their friendship on ice for some time, to thank him again for standing by Bonnie.
She wants to ask Bonnie why she didn't confide in her, assure her best friend that she is not judging her, that she can tell her anything, anything. Comfort her for all the times Bonnie needed her and she didn't know to be there. To erase this sudden sense of separation between them.
She wants to reach for Jeremy, get him away from this crowd and make sure that now he has Anna he knows to draw lines between what he can do and what he should. She wants to take the pain away from her brother, more than anything. She wants to mend him and pull him through.
But this is not the place or the time, she gets that.
Hugs shall have to do.
It is decided that the 'Resurrected Gang' will be hosted at the Boarding House and kept hidden until they are sure about how to settle scores with Katherine.
It goes unspoken that this is also where Stefan and Damon will be able to better keep their guests under a cautious watch.
Eventually, because this time Damon leaves with Bonnie, claiming she is too wiped out by the ritual to not have a 'stud of a bodyguard' at her back for the day.
He's truly a good guy underneath, Elena can't avoid to think then, and she is a little bit happy she was right to put her trust in him, after all.
She hangs on with Stefan as he gives rooms to his unwanted guests, plays hostess by holding polite conversation with Pearl and Anna and helping them to settle in. She even manages to corner Jeremy into a one-on-one-chat, even if not much comes out of that. Too soon to reach him beyond his walls, but she can wait.
She goes to school, comes up with excuses for Bonnie's absence, diverts Caroline's attention from it whole the day long.
Bonnie deserves a break. Elena does not forget the shadows under her eyes or the tension in other girl' body as she hugged her, so when she tries to reach her after dinner she is not too surprised her cell is ringing on unanswered.
It is strange Damon is unreachable too, tough. He is not at the Boarding House either, when she returns to it after leaving Jenna to Alaric' romancing.
Stefan is pissed that he is struck babysitting other vampires all by himself, even if he won't openly say it.
Elena does her best to sweeten the pot for him, insists to stay the night even if he would have safer at house Gilbert.
"Silliness, nowhere is safer to me that a place where you and my brother *both* are."
Besides, she feels better if she can see to Jeremy for herself.
At night, Stefan spoons her and she slides among heavy dreams right away. Even if she does not feel all that tired.
In her dreams she is combing her hair before the mirror of an antique looking vanity. She wears lacy pink lingerie and confidence, the air of fresh-faced self-possession that came easily to her before her parents died. It is the *old her*, Mystic Falls queen bee and socially-active head-cheerleader, someone today' Elena sometimes misses and often does not.
The reflection blurs and the mirror is showing her something else. Bonnie's kitchen, and Damon in it, making pancakes with smiley little faces drawn in syrup upon them, serving them to a visibly exhausted Bonnie that wears the same clothes she did this morning at the Boarding House. Except this Bonnie kisses him for a thank you, a ravenous, almost feral sort of kiss that the real Bonnie never would dare, not with Damon anyway, because she hates him. Or used to hate him tough. And then,* her* Bonnie has not eyes like those, paling green and feverish, haunted but not.
Her Bonnie is consistent with herself and her opinions, always, a steady compass for anyone in need. She is a worrier and a nearly maternal best friend, and she would never grin like that, wide and wild, certainly not for a vampire, and not for a vampire like Damon. She is Bonnie.
With that certainty, the disturbing image blurs away, and her reflection returns. Except it is not *her* reflection for real, this time around.
That penetrating, mocking gaze that cuts into her is 100% Katherine Pierce.
"Denial does not look cute on you, Elena. I saw them. My eyes might well be your eyes, if I put my worst intention to work."
It is not a real dream, it occurs to her at once. There's a pressure all around her mind, squeezing her in one direction, and she can't get out, can't leave.
"Get out of my head!"
"Not until I am done."
The grin is smug, it looks all wrong on lips so closely resembling to hers.
Elena forces the panic to recede.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing but opening your eyes, my naïve little fool."
"So if I say I believe you, you leave."
Simple enough.
Katherine rolls her eyes, twisting her features into an expression of petulant distaste.
"Please,honey, give me a little credit. You will believe me when our dear Bonnie confesses up to you, which will most likely be very soon. She can't keep the charade up for much longer. I just want you keep to your heart the beautiful picture I gave you. They looked hot together. Remember who discovered them first for you."
They looked like strangers, Elena corrects to herself, Bonnie with her … general strangeness, Damon with his domestic fluffiness and tender, not-so-desperate blue eyes.
Irrational, she is acutely aware of it, but she feels betrayed.
"There's anything else?"
With her voice covered in ice, she is reminded once more of that other, past self she glimpsed before in the mirror.
"How is Stefan?"
"A day without you is always a good day."
"Or so he says."
The casual lightness her double uses to insinuate that, like Stefan's view point is nothing because Katherine already decided on her version of reality and will bend him to it, angers Elena in a thousand different ways.
"He means it too. You abused him, made him to feel like your whole relationship was a rape on every level and he still was so defenseless than he could only love you for it. That's monstrous enough. You don't get to dismiss his feelings on the matter, on top of it."
"Yet he loves you now, my living likeness in all but the mellower personality, and before you there was Klaus, my sire and teacher in nearly all things that made me as you know me, for almost fifty years. Basically me with a cock, but then I suppose the same mind games that he found so offensive in a Southern flower weren't so bad in a New York bad boy."
"Don't hide behind sexism. Stefan is not the bad guy here, you are. Right as proved by this … forced conversation. Other people boundaries mean nothing to you."
Elena responds in automatic, determined to not give in an inch.
Inside, she feels like someone just doused her with iced water.
It's an old fear, that Stefan might love her just because Katherine hurt him so much that only being with a *good* version of her could heal him. She pushed it down and decided to believe in their relationship, every time it came up.
But this …
Pearl described the Original family: Niklaus Mikaelson, second born son and bastard of the family, bloodthirsty and vengeaful head-clan; Elijah the Seer, Rebekah Of The Beautiful Death, ruthless assassin to her brothers' enemies. Kol the Trickster who collected witches, who had recently turned one of the New Orleans Harvest Girls right before a sacrifice could occur, making her a nearly all-powerful… Davina The Goddess, they called her now. Finn the Kinslayer who was buried alive after he descended into madness and tried to slay his own siblings, defeated only by a combined effort of all his kin.
Stefan was there as Pearl talked and talked some more.
He didn't act like someone who already knew the Originals. He asked all the right questions, confided his concern over the situation to her right afterwards.
Stefan was silent about Katherine once too, but that was different. They had not the relationship they have now.
Even if she still ignores so much of his past. His remorse makes a lot of not-Lexi-related subjects a complete taboo.
"I won't say I have not traumatized him, Elena, but in the end, what is love but a wound we keep digging into over and over again, trying to feel something other than a lack, an absence? We might hate solitude, but the only healthy love we are ever allowed is the love we hold toward ourselves. A score on the which you need improving, dearest."
"Shut it up."
She has had enough of this proselytism and condescension and general Katheriness. She is ready to get the hell out of this dream.
Katherine just gives her a triumphant smile.
"He told you nothing about Klaus. Nothing about fucking another man neither, just to stay on the generals and bond over the years he was crazy and experimenting? It sounds more and more like you are not inside his head at all, and only because he does not want you there. Some love, being the fuck-toy and not the lover, always the healing and never the sickness that haunts him in his sleep."
Elena mirrors that smile with a beaming grin that comes so easy, too easy. It is never hard to tap in the bravado when there's nothing to lose, and this is how she feels. Nothing is over and everything is at the same time. When she wakes she will have Stefan and Stefan will have her. They will be sharing a bed, a life, but there's a dream she is losing, here and now, and Katherine is killing it somehow.
Just words, they are just words. Ideas and not facts. It might be all a lie. It might be a truth said in the wrong light. I love Stefan. I trust Stefan.
Even if deep down, I don't know him enough to tell the difference between truth and lie. Even Katherine saw that, and she understood how to use it.
"I had enough of you pretending you know anything about me or my boyfriend or our relationship. You can get out, or I can push you out. Either way, I am done replying to whatever you say."
Elena means that. It may be a stretch to claim she will push an ancient vampire out of her head by force, as she does not even know if it is possible (damn her, for relying too much on other people' protection to get better informed) but it won't stop her from trying and trying again.
She is not going down this easy.
"Brave girl. I have one more gift for you, and then we will talk in person. I promise you will even want to see me, when you receive it."
Elena wants to bite back just how likely that is, but she holds back. She promised to stay silent and she will follow through on ignoring her double if it kills her.
Katherine's dark, predatory eyes are the ghost that follows her as she finds herself in her bed, exhaling deep, like she was underwater for long time and just now coming up for air.
Stefan's arms are around her - they feel like a cage.
"Elena?"
He speaks her name against her shoulder like he owns it. He has always seemed to say her name like it meant something to him, everything. He was the only person to ever do that. She trusted that.
I trust it, still.
"Just a bad dream. About exams and not vampires, how odd is that, with our situation? "
And it is easy to talk to him the way she always talked to him. Kindly, softly. Like nothing changed.
Nothing *has* changed, except we have issues to talk through, now.
It is the easiest thing in the world, to lie.