Humanity /2/ TO

Ch. 22 City Beneath the Sea

"You doing okay?" Marcel asked me.

I sighed, sitting down. "Not really. I feel extremely guilty because I left my fiance to get a dagger put in his heart by his brother. And I know exactly why Klaus wasn't listening to me and I didn't bother trying to talk to him before I left, because I was scared it would just make things worse," I told him.

"What was going on?" he asked.

"Klaus is Klaus. Paranoid, terrified of letting anyone in, Klaus. I knew I shouldn't have let him come with me to Mystic Falls. I think it freaked him out. Showed us both how real this whole kids and marriage thing was getting. He wanted to push me away and I let him, because I was just as scared as he was," I admitted.

"I thought that that was what you wanted," he said.

"It was. Just- I don't know. It's scary when you get everything you want," I told him.

"Why?" he asked.

I looked over to where Hope and Lilly were sleeping. "Because you realize just how much you have to lose," I said, fiddling with my engagement ring.

"It also shows you how much you have to fight for," Marcel told me.

I smiled. "Why don't we talk more?" I asked.

"Because half the time we are threatening to kill each other," he reminded.

"Oh, right," I said, both of us chuckling.

"Anything else bothering you?" he wondered.

I stood up looking out the window at the pack. "Well, pack moral isn't exactly awesome right now. Jackson's heartbroken. Aiden was our friend. Got any advice on that?" I asked.

"You're a leader who cares about her people. I get it. Right now you're a leader at war. You can either be their friend or their queen. You can't be both. All right, those wolves, Jackson, Hayley, they'd die for you. Question is, are you gonna let them?" Marcel asked me. "If the answer's yes, then you gotta live with that."

I looked at the ground, considering his words.

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I could overhear Elijah and Jackson fighting in the woods.

"I'm here to see Hope," Elijah was telling the werewolf.

"Not gonna happen," Jackson told him. I scoffed at the werewolf's response. "One bite from us, there's venom in your veins. Hard to find anything in these woods when your head's not right."

Jackson growled and I heard them begin to fight again. "Must we proceed with this nonsense? From what I understand, you didn't exactly fare well against my brother," Elijah told the werewolf.

"There's a difference between you and Klaus. You can't kill me. You're waiting for the day that Rory finally gives up fighting for him. You love her and you know that if you kill me, she'll never forgive you," Jack was telling the vampire.

I felt Hayley's eyes on me, but I didn't look at her. I had known Elijah loved me for a while, and I did love him. But I hadn't ever really thought about the fact that we might love each other in two different ways.