New Beginnings (2) [Klaroline]

Standing by

"Isn't it a little too early for a drink, little sister?" Elijah chastised as he entered the kitchen, where Rebekah was in the middle of taking a shot of tequila. She made a small grimace at the taste before she turned to look at her brother with a blank expression.

"I need it after what just happened." Rebekah replied as she tossed down another and pushed the shot glass away. Elijah took the bottle from her with that disapproving look he did so well and put it back into the cabinet Rebekah had taken it from.

"And to what precisely are you referring?" he asked as he found a blood bag from the refrigerator and poured it into two glasses.

"Didn't you hear that Caroline tried to eat our nephew?" Rebekah said in a mocking tone and Elijah let out an exasperated sigh.

"Yes. It is my understanding that she is very regretful about it. Niklaus informed me that Miss Forbes tried to starve herself for her accident." Elijah told his sister calmly and then met her annoyed gaze.

"Who cares about Caroline?! What about Henrik?" Rebekah exclaimed and gestured her hands towards the ceiling, knowing that Henrik was upstairs with Stefan.

"He did indeed seem very traumatized as he happily told me that you were buying him a puppy." Elijah said with a raised brow but all he got from Rebekah was an eye roll.

"Why does everyone seem so eager to just forgive Caroline?" the blonde asked irritated and a tell-tale scowl set on her face.

"What is this about, Rebekah?" Elijah inquired with a stern voice and looked at his sister pointedly. "According to Niklaus, you behaved nicely towards Caroline just mere minutes ago."

"Maybe I was training my acting skills?" Rebekah retorted hauntingly followed by a small shrug.

"Rebekah, whatever you have to say about Caroline, I suggest you do it while our brother's attentions are elsewhere." Elijah told her silently and an amused smirk spread on his sister's lips.

"I'm sure Nik is struggling to not tear down the door between him and Caroline in the shower." she said with a small laugh as her eyes found the ceiling again.

"Please, let us not speak of Miss Forbes that way." Elijah pleaded tiredly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He had not even been home a day and he already felt like leaving again.

"What's so special about her anyway?" Rebekah asked with a small pout and emptied her glass for blood.

"There is no need for petty jealousy, Rebekah." Elijah reprimanded irritated and the blonde smiled to herself as she had actually managed to make her stone-faced brother show emotions. She didn't really care that he was actually annoyed with her.

"I am not. Just curious." she replied with a shrug and rose to refill her glass. Elijah was looking at her with narrowed eyes as she sat back down, but seemed to understand that she was being somewhat sincere. "What do you think about her?"

"I think she's quite extraordinary." Elijah said after a moment's thought and watched the unsurprised look in Rebekah's eyes. "But she is also very young and naïve. I fear that Niklaus will find a way to ruin her for good."

"No. He won't." Rebekah stated without missing a beat and Elijah raised an eyebrow in question. "This Caroline is not the same who came here five years ago begging for our help. This Caroline is extraordinary. No one will be able to ruin her but herself. Not even Nik."

"You have gone back to liking her?" Elijah asked with a confused expression that almost made Rebekah laugh.

"I don't like her, Lijah. I just can't hate her." Rebekah sighed as she downed her second glass, getting more frustrated with their conversation by the minute. "She did it. In less than a decade she did what we have spent a millennium trying to do."

"I would like to believe that the birth of his son had a part in it as well. Niklaus has after all showed more humanity for the last five years than he has for a thousand." Elijah pointed out but Rebekah just shook her head slowly.

"Have I told you about the first time I saw Nik holding Henrik?" Rebekah questioned and Elijah looked at her for a long moment, not sure where she was going with it all. He then shook his head in response and leaned over the counter between them, curious to hear his sister's story.

"It was the day Nik and Caroline returned from Spain with that Bennett witch. Marcel had visited, Hayley had her freak-out, twice, and you had the... displeasure of seeing Barbie half-naked." Rebekah narrated with mirth in her eyes and a smirk spread on her lips as Elijah glared at her warningly.

"After the lovebirds' fight and Caroline's leave for Mystic Falls, I went to see if their yelling had woken up Henrik, but someone was already in the room with him. Nik practically became a father overnight and that was only after he had gone away with Caroline.

"Because, as much as I hate it, she can get through to him. And she still sees some good in him. Maybe she's being naïve. Or maybe we have lived too long to see the good at all. Everything has become so tedious and familiar that we've become blind, Lijah. We say that we've been trying to find just a small part of humanity in Nik for so long, but the truth is that we stopped centuries ago. We gave up on him and he reacted in kind."

A heavy silence filled the kitchen after Rebekah's speech and the blonde noticed irritably that tears had filled her eyes. Everything would be so much easier if she could just hate Caroline freaking Forbes.

"Since when did you become so insightful, dear sister?" Elijah asked with a small smile and there was a soft look in his eyes that made it impossible for Rebekah to keep a scowl on her face. Another pregnant silence fell between them, this time slightly lighter, and both siblings seemed to be lost in their thoughts.

"He loves her." Elijah then said and Rebekah was surprised by the hesitant tone in her brother's otherwise strong voice.

"He could have picked worse." Rebekah replied with a small shrug as she got up from the bar stool to join Stefan upstairs. She paused for a moment when a specific face popped into her mind. "He has picked worse."

"I suppose you are right." Elijah agreed with a small nod and drank from his glass that had stood untouched till now.

"Like that bitch Tatia." Rebekah said with a smirk as she strolled towards the exit and a scowl immediately settled on Elijah's face. Before her brother could reprimand her, she turned around to look at him with a curious expression in her dark blue eyes. "How was New York by the way?"

"Good." was Elijah's short reply but a soft expression had settled on his features and his sister's taunting was already forgotten. Rebekah sent him a small smile, which Elijah quickly returned, and left the kitchen with a feeling that her family might had a chance at happiness after all.