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He saw her pacing in place, eyes flicking down to her wristwatch, and took a moment to observe. Something about the sight in front of him wasn't quite right.
It was nothing obvious. There were no other covert eyes watching the location from a distance so it was unlikely to be a trap - always something better kept in mind when dealing with Katerina.
And yet Elijah lingered in the spot, trying to identify the feeling.
Her hair lacked the curls he knew she preferred, and though the leather jacket and the heels looked her style, the flowery red summer dress wasn't quite. But that by itself meant very little. There was no way to predict what kind of role she was busy playing at the moment.
But then her face rose to throw her gaze around the street and even with the distance the recognition hit. Elena.
He felt a brief spike of amusement which was less than a fraction of a moment later washed away by a more powerful wave of bittersweet affection. He hadn't seen her since leaving her in Mystic Falls when he'd planned to take the desiccated body of his brother, and run. He hadn't thought he'd ever see Elena again.
And he suspected many things had happened to her since then. Because she was no longer human, he could hear it in the heartbeat which had changed to the fractionally out-of-pace beat which now identified her as a vampire.
The scene now thus clarified, Elijah used his enhanced speed to flash across the street to join her under the roof of the gazebo.
"Hello, there," he said, amusement reasserting itself as he realized the opportunity to recreate their first meeting. He wondered how long it would take Elena to recognize that he knew exactly who he was talking to.
She startled in place, clearly having heard him before she'd seen him. Her eyes clashed against his and he felt it like a breath of heated air hitting his lungs, or maybe deeper than that.
"Elijah," escaped her in a rattled breath, before a mask slid over her face, and the role she was clearly trying to play reasserted itself "you're a little late, aren't you?"
Only by the minute he'd taken to assess her.
"You colored your hair," he noticed now that he was in front of her, the bright streak of red almost calling to him to touch. Usually, he'd resist but there was a reckless air around her that seemed to work on Elijah like a spell. He walked over, narrowing the distance between them, and slowly ran his fingers over the colored strand. "I like it."
He considered a few scenarios in the next second.
To lean closer into her personal space, nose pressed a hair's breadth from her throat so that he could identify every minor difference between her scent now and the memory of the one he'd smelled when he'd first met her, - miraculously human despite the old certainty that Katerina had left no descendants. The same Elena who was no less a miracle to him now, though for far more viscerally personal reasons, - but that would undoubtedly put an end to the game, and Elijah wasn't yet decided he was ready to close it.
Maybe to let her keep thinking himself fooled. There was a certain attractive quality to that too, he could get a taste of what it would be like to have her for a few precious seconds without risking her reading his heart like a book. But... maybe it was time to show his hand, he'd left her to her human life knowing that he could not offer her true happiness in the kind of future she had chosen for herself. But she was no longer human.
And though her heart was unlikely to have changed in so brief a time, there was now an eternity in front of Elena. Maybe making himself entirely clear here would be the smartest thing despite the increased risk of injury to Elijah’s heart.
He weighed his options, letting his thumb run over the skin above her pulse point. The blood heating something within him sparked to life when he felt the pulse skip a beat.
"Thank you, it's actually gonna-"
He slid his fingers deeper into her hair, gently cupping the back of her head, and caught her eye to make sure she'd be looking at him. To be certain he was making himself utterly translucent to her.
"I missed you, Elena," he said, and before she had time to do more than blink he leaned forward and caught her lips against his own.
He felt her breath stutter as the world seemed to slow around them, and then pleasure rippled through Elijah's entire being as he realized that Elena was kissing him back. He felt eyelashes tickle his skin as her eyes closed and she seemed to pull him toward her. He'd been ready to loosen his hold upon the first sign of Elena trying to pull away but the way her lips moved against his, - the way they opened to deepen the kiss as one of her hands clenched around the shoulder of his suit, - made him press her closer instead.
For an extended slip of an eternity, Elijah felt only the nearly savage bliss of finally having Elena in his arms. He didn’t think there was a power on Earth that could make him move. But then he felt something change from her side. She wasn't trying to pull away, if anything she was pouring more into their kiss - or maybe it was more like she was pulling the energy from every spot of shared contact deeper into herself. Whatever it was, he felt it crash against Elena like a wave as her knees seemed to buckle underneath her and he had to encircle her waist to keep her on her feet. She began shaking and he tried to lean back, worry starting to overtake want but his movement made her gasp out a wounded sound of something nearly like agony. He let himself swing back to place a few shorter feather-light kisses against her lips and the pained whimper quieted into rapid gasps for air.
He tasted tears against his lips and his chest tightened with flickers of fear. Something was wrong.
"Elijah," she finally spoke, voice ragged, like her heart was being torn apart "it hurts."
Understanding dawned as he met her agonized eyes. "You’d turned it off."
"No!" she snapped, rage igniting and momentarily replacing the pain of her returning humanity. "My sire told me to turn it off."
The words were a White Oak Ash Dagger slicing into Elijah’s chest, and the metaphor was nearly perfect because everything within him certainly felt like it was going numb and hardening into stone. She was speaking of a sire bond. And of someone who had used it to rob her of her free will.
Quiet fury now pouring from his every cell he collected each line of tears with his thumb, finally cupping the side of Elena’s face so carefully he could only just feel her cheek against the tips of his fingers.
“Who?”
She spoke the name with something nearly empty in her eyes and Elijah took it in the way of a hired killer being given their next target.