Ficlets from tvd_rareships
Title: On Your Porch
POV/Pairing: Alaric/Elena
Rating: G
He finds her on the back porch after everyone has left, still in her black dress, her heels forgotten, coltish legs hugged against her chest. The last time Ric was on the swing where she sits, he and Jenna had been drunk, fooling around beneath the night sky as Elena and Jeremy slept upstairs.
Everything is different now.
"Is everyone gone?" she murmurs as he sinks down beside her, her eyes still focused on the open space of the yard.
He nods. "Stefan and Jeremy went for a drive, but they'll be back soon. I can call them if - "
"No," she cuts in quickly, shaking stray hair from her eyes. "I can't...I need a break."
After Isobel disappeared, everyone had sought him out to offer condolences, to volunteer their shoulders to cry on. All he had wanted to do was get mind-numbingly drunk and forget.
Elena is seventeen; he cannot offer her alcoholic oblivion.
"Do you want me to go?"
Elena finally turns to look at him, eyes rimmed red with tears, complexion shockingly pale. "Please don't."
It is instinct to pull her into him, to tuck her against his body, an arm wrapped around her shoulder, her head resting against his chest. She snuggles into the embrace, and Alaric squeezes her tighter, his lips brushing against the crown of her head. This is the closest he has ever been Elena, and he supposes he should feel uncomfortable or awkward, but all he feels is overwhelming relief she is safe and a protectiveness he does not recognize.
"What's going to happen to us?"
It is a question which could be taken any number of ways, but Alaric knows instantly what she means. "If you want...if Jeremy wants..."
He is not sure how to finish the offer; Elena does it for him.
"What do you want?"
He wants to keep Isobel's daughter safe, wants to honor Jenna's memory by protecting the children for which she laid down her life, wants to make sure he never has to see the kind of devastation on their faces as he has in the past few days.
"You're all I have left," he answers, almost startled by the truth in the words.
Elena lifts her head from his chest, meeting his gaze. She leans into him, brushes her lips against her cheek. "Promise you won't die."
"Elena, I can't - "
"Lie to me," she begs, fresh tears welling in her eyes.
Alaric sighs before dutifully swearing, "I promise I won't die."
Elena settles back against his chest, and Alaric can feel the heat of her tears being absorbed by his shirt. His fingers stroke the length of her spine in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.
Alaric does not know how to be a father.
And as Elena manuevers her body so she is stretched across his lap, her arms wrapping around his neck, holding him so tightly it borders on pain, Alaric realizes he is not their father.
Just as he has done twice before, Alaric is left with his arms full of a beautiful woman broken by John Gilbert's abandonment.
* * *
Title: And In The Morning I'll Be With (But It'll Be A Different Kind)
POV/Pairing: John, Elena
Rating: G
Three days after the funeral, Elena enters the guest room to start to pack John's belongings.
The room is neat as a pin, the bed made with almost military precision, the clothes neatly hung in the closet. A comb, some loose change, and a bottle of cologne rest atop the dresser, and Elena realizes she does not know what cologne he wore; she opens the bottle and breathes deeply, trying to imprint the scent in her memory, trying to hardwire her brain to always identify the smell of cedar with John Gilbert.
As she folds the clothing, Elena notices that there is something still inside his suitcase. She pulls it out of the closet, setting it on the bed, and unzips it to reveal a photo album, a burned DVD, and a leather bound journal.
Elena sinks onto the mattress, pulling the photo alubm into her lap. As soon as she opens it, she finds her father in his Mystic Falls High graduation robes, a three-year-old John balanced on his hip.
She nearly cries out when she flips a few more pages to find polaroids of Isobel encased beneath the plastic sheeting. This is not the Isobel Elena knew; she is unbearably young and achingly pretty, smiling at the camera as if she did not have a care in the world. In one, she is wrapped in a sheet, her head down, eyes looking at the camera, a playful smile on her lips; on the white beneath the photo, in the flowery handwriting of a teenage girl, was a heart and the words "Love you forever."
Elena cannot help but start to cry when she reaches the handful of pictures showing John and Jenna, both in their late teens, matching goofy expressions on their faces. Jenna had hated John for so long, Elena didn't remember the two ever getting along, let alone being obviously smitten with each other. She never asked Jenna what had happened between them that made their relationship sour, but, whatever it was, John had obviously looked on their time together fondly.
She loses it completely when, just past the photos of Jenna, are pages and pages of her. There are baby pictures and school pictures, candid shots and the professional pictures they had sat for as a family; every picture is neatly labeled with her age, and Elena positively aches when she realizes there are letters tucked into the back of the album, all written in her father's familiar chickenscratch, all recounting the events of her life and how she was doing at that moment in time.
Elena's vision is blurred severely by her tears as she hurries downstairs with the DVD in hand, and she can see the concern on the faces of Stefan, Jeremy, Alaric, and Damon. As she fumbles it into the DVD player, she waits anxiously, wondering what could possibly have been so dear to John he kept it with him.
She recognizes her bedroom instantly; Elena remembers the soft pink walls with sponge painted butterflies she and Miranda repainted when she was twelve, the white day bed with its ruffled comforter. And there, in the white rocking chair which had sat in the corner of her room until middle school, was John, her two-year-old self curled up on his lap, thumb in mouth and baby blanket in hand, as he read her Corduroy, her favorite book.
Elena watches as John - barely eighteen, so baby faced he could pass for much younger - read the book with a surprising amount of enthusiasm, his voice soft and rhythmic. Halfway through the reading, Elena watches as her younger self lifts her head and kisses John's chin before settling back against his chest, and she watches the way John pauses, pain briefly flashing across his face, before he kisses the top of her head.
Elena is crying so hard, she is not sure who pauses the video; all she remembers if Stefan carrying her upstairs, whispering nonsense words into her hair.
After midnight, Elena steals into the guest room, gathering the photo album and the untouched journal before returning to her bed. She removes her favorite picture of John and Jenna, her favorite shot of Isobel, and tucks them into her mirror, before settling in with John's journal.
Today I became father, the journal began, and she is the most perfect baby in the world.
Elena reads until sunrise.
POV/Pairing: Alaric/Elena
Rating: G
He finds her on the back porch after everyone has left, still in her black dress, her heels forgotten, coltish legs hugged against her chest. The last time Ric was on the swing where she sits, he and Jenna had been drunk, fooling around beneath the night sky as Elena and Jeremy slept upstairs.
Everything is different now.
"Is everyone gone?" she murmurs as he sinks down beside her, her eyes still focused on the open space of the yard.
He nods. "Stefan and Jeremy went for a drive, but they'll be back soon. I can call them if - "
"No," she cuts in quickly, shaking stray hair from her eyes. "I can't...I need a break."
After Isobel disappeared, everyone had sought him out to offer condolences, to volunteer their shoulders to cry on. All he had wanted to do was get mind-numbingly drunk and forget.
Elena is seventeen; he cannot offer her alcoholic oblivion.
"Do you want me to go?"
Elena finally turns to look at him, eyes rimmed red with tears, complexion shockingly pale. "Please don't."
It is instinct to pull her into him, to tuck her against his body, an arm wrapped around her shoulder, her head resting against his chest. She snuggles into the embrace, and Alaric squeezes her tighter, his lips brushing against the crown of her head. This is the closest he has ever been Elena, and he supposes he should feel uncomfortable or awkward, but all he feels is overwhelming relief she is safe and a protectiveness he does not recognize.
"What's going to happen to us?"
It is a question which could be taken any number of ways, but Alaric knows instantly what she means. "If you want...if Jeremy wants..."
He is not sure how to finish the offer; Elena does it for him.
"What do you want?"
He wants to keep Isobel's daughter safe, wants to honor Jenna's memory by protecting the children for which she laid down her life, wants to make sure he never has to see the kind of devastation on their faces as he has in the past few days.
"You're all I have left," he answers, almost startled by the truth in the words.
Elena lifts her head from his chest, meeting his gaze. She leans into him, brushes her lips against her cheek. "Promise you won't die."
"Elena, I can't - "
"Lie to me," she begs, fresh tears welling in her eyes.
Alaric sighs before dutifully swearing, "I promise I won't die."
Elena settles back against his chest, and Alaric can feel the heat of her tears being absorbed by his shirt. His fingers stroke the length of her spine in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.
Alaric does not know how to be a father.
And as Elena manuevers her body so she is stretched across his lap, her arms wrapping around his neck, holding him so tightly it borders on pain, Alaric realizes he is not their father.
Just as he has done twice before, Alaric is left with his arms full of a beautiful woman broken by John Gilbert's abandonment.
* * *
Title: And In The Morning I'll Be With (But It'll Be A Different Kind)
POV/Pairing: John, Elena
Rating: G
Three days after the funeral, Elena enters the guest room to start to pack John's belongings.
The room is neat as a pin, the bed made with almost military precision, the clothes neatly hung in the closet. A comb, some loose change, and a bottle of cologne rest atop the dresser, and Elena realizes she does not know what cologne he wore; she opens the bottle and breathes deeply, trying to imprint the scent in her memory, trying to hardwire her brain to always identify the smell of cedar with John Gilbert.
As she folds the clothing, Elena notices that there is something still inside his suitcase. She pulls it out of the closet, setting it on the bed, and unzips it to reveal a photo album, a burned DVD, and a leather bound journal.
Elena sinks onto the mattress, pulling the photo alubm into her lap. As soon as she opens it, she finds her father in his Mystic Falls High graduation robes, a three-year-old John balanced on his hip.
She nearly cries out when she flips a few more pages to find polaroids of Isobel encased beneath the plastic sheeting. This is not the Isobel Elena knew; she is unbearably young and achingly pretty, smiling at the camera as if she did not have a care in the world. In one, she is wrapped in a sheet, her head down, eyes looking at the camera, a playful smile on her lips; on the white beneath the photo, in the flowery handwriting of a teenage girl, was a heart and the words "Love you forever."
Elena cannot help but start to cry when she reaches the handful of pictures showing John and Jenna, both in their late teens, matching goofy expressions on their faces. Jenna had hated John for so long, Elena didn't remember the two ever getting along, let alone being obviously smitten with each other. She never asked Jenna what had happened between them that made their relationship sour, but, whatever it was, John had obviously looked on their time together fondly.
She loses it completely when, just past the photos of Jenna, are pages and pages of her. There are baby pictures and school pictures, candid shots and the professional pictures they had sat for as a family; every picture is neatly labeled with her age, and Elena positively aches when she realizes there are letters tucked into the back of the album, all written in her father's familiar chickenscratch, all recounting the events of her life and how she was doing at that moment in time.
Elena's vision is blurred severely by her tears as she hurries downstairs with the DVD in hand, and she can see the concern on the faces of Stefan, Jeremy, Alaric, and Damon. As she fumbles it into the DVD player, she waits anxiously, wondering what could possibly have been so dear to John he kept it with him.
She recognizes her bedroom instantly; Elena remembers the soft pink walls with sponge painted butterflies she and Miranda repainted when she was twelve, the white day bed with its ruffled comforter. And there, in the white rocking chair which had sat in the corner of her room until middle school, was John, her two-year-old self curled up on his lap, thumb in mouth and baby blanket in hand, as he read her Corduroy, her favorite book.
Elena watches as John - barely eighteen, so baby faced he could pass for much younger - read the book with a surprising amount of enthusiasm, his voice soft and rhythmic. Halfway through the reading, Elena watches as her younger self lifts her head and kisses John's chin before settling back against his chest, and she watches the way John pauses, pain briefly flashing across his face, before he kisses the top of her head.
Elena is crying so hard, she is not sure who pauses the video; all she remembers if Stefan carrying her upstairs, whispering nonsense words into her hair.
After midnight, Elena steals into the guest room, gathering the photo album and the untouched journal before returning to her bed. She removes her favorite picture of John and Jenna, her favorite shot of Isobel, and tucks them into her mirror, before settling in with John's journal.
Today I became father, the journal began, and she is the most perfect baby in the world.
Elena reads until sunrise.