Grace - Elijah Mikaelson -

Chapter 69

Grace danced through her new apartment to cheery music coming out of the speakers of her new laptop. It was huge, actually way too big for one person alone and had this modern style mixed with the vintage charm of the old building in the middle of Algiers. 

The whole place inhabited two flats, while Elijah occupied the even more spacious ground floor, Grace lived on the top floor. Elijah had bought it and Grace furnished it in the matter of a week. 

It felt good to have something 'real', not just living in a pension. But saying goodbye to Ariana had been hard. Grace promised to visit often and continued renting the room for storage, because she knew that Ariana kinda relied on the rent. Still, it had been nice to see the elderly woman every day and have her advice on some things. 

For example her telling her what kind of stupid idea it was to live in the same place as Elijah did. Ariana was sure that it was a mixture of self torturing and suppressed feelings and that this would lead to her giving into his charms again, but Grace couldn't help herself. She kept telling herself that she just did it to have better chances at making the baby vampires strong. They were a nice distraction, but it only took the first night here for her to figure out that she could barely bear being this close to him all the time. Grace thought that this feeling had vanished over the time they spent in the safe house, but back here it was different. 

She looked over her shoulder to see Elijah in her living room, she had talked him into setting up a bookshelf. Mostly she did it to laugh at him, but unfortunately, as always, he was doing a pretty good job. And of course he looked outrageously handsome doing it. She should've known. 

He bickering with Nik over speaker phone while he tightened the screws firmly. Grace shook her head smiling at the view and continued to decorate her bedroom. From one of the moving boxes, she retrieved a framed picture. It made her stop in her tracks and stare down to it. 

This was the photo they took on their Christmas evening of peace in Mystic Falls. It was the only picture that she couldn't bring herself to burn after Elijah left her. A photo of them that had all of them smiling, so close together and happy. 

Grace's heart clenched shortly when she remembered how lovingly Elijah's and Grace's relationship had been. Then, her eyes flickered to Kol's portrayal and a sad smile appeared on her face. 

The grief was still so strong on her, exactly one week after he died for the second time. It was simply not fair. They had him back, he finally was starting to trust them and then Finn simply murdered him. He would pay for this. Grace would make sure of that. Nik had told her about their wretched long lost sibling Freya who dared to support Finn in trying to take Hope. She too didn't do anything to stop her brother from killing their sibling. If these two even dared to cross her, they wouldn't see that Grace Gilbert was a force to be reckoned with. 

"Gracie, can you please watch out for this bunch of lunatics while I'm gone?" 

Those were the last words Kol whispered to her, his head resting in her lap. Her relationship with Kol never was the best, but at least they always had an agreement of trust in each other. 

Sighing, she put the the picture frame on her nightstand and walked back into the living room only to hear that Nik and Elijah still were fighting over nothing at all. 

"What are you doing anyway? It sounds like your drilling holes while you should concentrate on the topic we're just discussing." 

Nik muttered, obviously still pissed that Elijah and Grace left the compound. Even after his stupid action of inviting Jackson to live there, he still didn't get that his brother wasn't just pouting. He was hurt, roughly.