IMPORTANT: I changed the last chapter so that Jenny WAS compelled. I'm a dumbass and I forgot one of my plot points. Forgive me.
"THEY ALL ASKED FOR YOU."
Rebekah wanted to throttle her brother. And it wasn't Klaus which was odd. It was Elijah.
"So you moved out, Elijah. Now can we talk about the elephant in the room?" Rebekah questioned over the phone and Klaus chuckled while Elijah sighed.
It was true that Elijah moved out of the Abattoir. But he did it so Hayley could get over whatever feelings she harbored for him.
"Yes, please do, but without me," Klaus said before he hung up.
"I can only fix one sibling at a time and right now I'm dealing with you. Jenny makes you the happiest I've ever seen you, Elijah. If you let her go, you'll regret that for the rest of your life," Rebekah lectured. "And forever is a long time."
"She's better off without me, Rebekah," Elijah explained. "We have bigger things to deal with like Dahlia."
Rebekah hung up as she huffed in exasperation, "I have to do all the work myself as per usual."
_____
Jenny packed her bags.
She had stayed in a hotel that night but she was leaving now. Damon tried to talk her out of it and Rebekah even demanded she stay. But she just couldn't.
When she got down to the lobby, she saw two guys enter the lonely hotel. She smiled a bit before she rifled through her purse for her keys until she heard them talk.
"That's her," she heard one of them say. "She's the dangerous soul."
She looked up to see them staring straight at her. Then suddenly the rest of the people in the lobby fell unconscious. She looked on wide-eyed before one of them flicked their hands out towards her which made her flinch before she went flying across the floor.
She hit her head on the tile but she didn't feel the pain.
"We need to take her alive. She's too powerful to kill," the leader of the two man team said as the other got closer.
She grabbed her duffel and swung it at him as she got up before running for the stairway. She got to the stairs and started running up them. She heard footsteps behind before her leg was grabbed and she was pulled down, hard.
Her ribs hit the edge of the stairs as her arms caught her before her head could go down, too. She tried kicking at the man but it was useless as he straddled her.
She started to scream but she felt a dull sensation around her neck. He had grabbed her throat and squeezed. He leaned down and whispered, "Try to scream again, angel face. I like the screamers."
She was losing oxygen and she fought to get his hands off her throat. But it was useless. He was stronger than she was. All she could do was wish she was somewhere else. And suddenly she was.
Her surroundings faded to black. The hands around her throat disappeared. The ground she was on turned to black glass. The place she was now in was very, very familiar.
"No, no, no," she repeated as she got her breath back.
She was in her land of the dead. The place of shadows and darkness. Where she was lost and lonely.
She brought her knees to her chest and started rocking back and forth as she cried. Did she die? Was she ever even alive?
She would've rather had the hands around her throat.
_____
She didn't know how long it had been. Maybe hours, maybe days. But the darkness faded and she was back in the real world. Or what she thought was real. She couldn't be sure anymore. Was this an illusion she created in her head?
She rocked herself back and forth on the staircase. Then Rebekah called. The Original wanted to know if Jenny had left town. She specifically chose this time to call because Elijah was in the room.
She was with Marcel and they were trying to figure out why witches wanted to kill her this morning. It seemed that, without knowing, she and Jenny had similar mornings.
Jenny pulled her phone out of her pocket. She answered it.
"Jenny, you better not have left town because I will drag you back here," Rebekah started as she heard the phone pick up.
"Rebekah," she choked out as her lips wobbled. "I don't know what's happening..."
"What do you mean? What happened?" the Original questioned.
"I'm not alive, am I?" she started to sob so badly her chest heaved from not being able to breathe. "It's just fantasy, isn't it?"
Jenny hung up the phone and Rebekah went to look at Elijah but he was already gone. He knew where Jenny was staying and the distress in her voice made him panic.
Jenny rocked back and forth again as she wondered if all along she had become the mad woman without even knowing it.
_____
Elijah entered the stairway and looked up at her on the landing from the bottom of the stairs. She was still rocking and she looked so...lost.
"Jenny," he called softly and her eyes went to him as she stopped rocking. He approached her and he noticed she had blood on her forehead and he thought he could spot bruises on her neck.
As he got closer, she immediately sprung backwards and away from him, "Get away from me."
"This isn't real. This isn't real," she repeated as she backed into the corner.
Tears sprung to his eyes at how broken she looked. He never wanted to see her like this because it broke him.
He crouched down in front of her, "If this wasn't real, would you be able to take my hand?"
He held his hand out to her and she studied it for a moment before she slowly reached for it. Her fingertips grazed his and she could feel it so acutely compared to hands that had been choking the life out of her.
She slowly traced the lines on his palm like she'd done many times before. The mere touch of him made her feel so alive like her blood was buzzing with warmth. It felt real. In fact, he was the only thing that did.
She let her hand drop before staring into his eyes like she was seeing him for the first time, "Elijah."
She uttered his name like a prayer before she quickly crawled into his open arms and hugged him for dear life. She'd never leave; she didn't want to leave. She didn't want reality to change around her.
"There's something wrong with me," she uttered so quietly (brokenly) as her head rested against his chest.
"Then we'll fix it," he responded before he picked her up into his arms and carried her away.
He cradled her like he'd never let her go and, truthfully, he wouldn't.
_____
Elijah brought her to his place. He wasn't staying at the Abattoir anymore apparently. She sat on the counter in the kitchen with a blood bag pressed to her head. It was the only thing that was cold and the only thing he had in his fridge.
"Ow," she lightly touched at her ribs. She thought it was odd how she didn't feel any of the pain before he showed up. It was like his absence made her numb, literally.
"Who hurt you?" Elijah questioned with a ferocity in his voice and she knew what it meant. He wanted to hurt them.
"I don't know. These two witches attacked me. Said I was dangerous but they wanted me alive," Jenny answered.
"But then..." she paused as she thought about the darkness. She shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Until I find them, you'll stay here until you're safe," Elijah stated.
She smiled as she moved her head to look at him. The world was a little dizzy. "Is that an order?" she teased.
Elijah thought he lost the ability to breathe when she smiled at him. He shook his head. "No, but I would like some peace of mind knowing you're okay while I'm gone."
"Where are you going?"
"Rebekah is being hunted by witches. I need to make them stop and figure out why."
She hummed in acknowledgement before she dropped the blood bag. He crossed over to her to inspect the wound. It had stopped bleeding and he was content to leave her without worrying. He didn't offer her his blood because he didn't think she'd accept it.
"If it gets too painful, just call me and I'll be here," he said.
"Okay," she answered and his eyes glanced from the wound to her own. She was already looking at him, staring at him with bright eyes. It was the look he missed so much; the one he'd been looking for in any room he entered. Then he realized how close they were.
"I love you," she smiled sadly like she was resigned to it. His heart would've soared if she wasn't so sad; she'd never been sad about loving him before. It made his heart sink.
He went to speak but he was interrupted by a voice. "Elijah. You called me here."
It was Gia.
"It's okay," Jenny reassured him. "I know."
But she didn't know. He didn't understand that, though, until he thought it over.
Elijah bottled up his feelings before he excused himself to talk with the young vampire about how she needed to play a violin.
____
Gia had noticed Jenny.
As they walked to the entrance of this house owned by Josephine LaRue, she spoke, "So who was the girl? She was pretty."
"None of your concern."
Gia smiled, "So you do have a woman to mess up your life."
Mess it up? No, it was more like fix his life.
_____
Jenny was alone the whole day. She found some painkillers in the back of a cabinet that was dusty but they did the trick and she felt better.
When Elijah returned home in the night, he thought she was asleep with how she rested on the couch. So he turned from her before he heard her speak.
"Will Rebekah be safe?"
He turned back to find her standing up from the couch.
"For now."
They both just stood there in silence. The words that were left unsaid between them strangled him and he loosened his tie.
"You don't know," he uttered.
"What?"
"Why is it so hard for you to believe that I still love you?" Elijah searched her eyes but she glanced away from him.
"I let you go," she thought about the goodbye that he never heard. "I thought you would if I did."
"When I told you that I would love you for the rest of my forever, did you think I didn't mean it?" he practically shouted at her with tears in his eyes.
"Where I was, you only get to see people when they think of you," she tried to explain as tears fell down her cheeks. "A lot of those times you were with Hayley. You're an immortal, Elijah, and I was dead. You deserved to move on."
"Deserved? I couldn't save you," he started to cry. "I dream every night of that day and in them I hold your mangled body all over again. If I ever have to hold you like that again, I fear I may lose it entirely. And moving on, how could you think that I would?"
"Why would you want me..." she sobbed. "...when I've been gone?"
Elijah approached her slowly. He hated how she caved in on herself like she didn't have any value. His sweet Jenny.
"Want you?" he placed his hands on her cheeks delicately as he spoke slowly and tried to get her to look at him. "Jenny, I love you. I will always love you. In life, in death, and no other."
"That might be a very sad life, Elijah," she met his eyes.
He smiled, "It's the one I chose when I met you."
Tears fell down her face again but they were so, so happy as she smiled up at him. She couldn't help it anymore and she kissed him. It was a kiss of love that repaired the hearts that grief had broke.
After all, it was really grief that was the death of love. Because once you stopped mourning something in your heart, it was well and truly over. But this grief just never died.
The kiss turned more passionate and needy for the lovers that hadn't touched in two years. His hands wrapped around her waist and she hissed in pain.
"Ow," she muttered as she pulled away for a short breath as Elijah removed his hands. He was going to ask if she was okay but she connected her lips with his again before taking his hands and putting them back on her waist where her sore ribs remained.
Her hands ran through his hair before undoing his tie. His hands pulled at the hem of her shirt. And she didn't care about pain where his hands claimed her that night. She'd rather suffer sweet pain than feel nothing at all.
AN: I'm sure this made you very happy.