" pointing fingers cause you'll never take the blame like me? "
"WE HAD A DEAL!"
Lena let out a screech of fright as Sophie and Klaus appeared out of nowhere in front of her. She had been alone in the sitting room, one earphone stuck in her ear and a drawing pad out in front of her as she sketched to pass time. She had woken up early and gone to the Quarter to find new art supplies and some more magical things to keep in her room (mostly crystals and talismans.) Now, she was a bit bored waiting for Hayley and Rebekah, who had agreed to a movie day with her.
Rebekah had also suddenly appeared beside her, raising her eyebrow at the drawing of Klaus that Lena was sketching.
"You protect my unborn child, I dismantle Marcel's army and whilst I've been busy fulfilling my part of the bargain, you allowed Hayley to be attacked and almost killed by a gaggle of lunatic witches!" Klaus reprimanded the witch, sitting down beside Lena who had to quickly turn the page of her drawing book before he noticed her sketch.
"I had nothing to do with it, I swear," argued back Sophie. "Hayley and I are linked, remember? She dies, I die."
"Then who were they?" asked Rebekah. Last night, Hayley and Rebekah had been attacked by witches, but they had been saved by the wolf that had been following Hayley around everywhere.
"They're a faction of extremists, Sabine stupidly told them about some vision she had about the baby!"
"What kind of vision?" asked Klaus, his arm curling around the sofa behind Lena's head. His knee pressed against hers and no matter how much she wanted to move away, she felt drawn to sitting next to him and she knew she couldn't move.
"She has them all the time, they're totally open to interpretation. I'm guessing she's wrong on this one," Sophie tried to explain, but Lena felt oddly uncomfortable about the idea of a vision being open to other ideas. Visions were meant to be solid, seen as they were. Whoever this Sabine was, Lena didn't feel the need to meet her.
"Well, how, may I ask, was this particular vision interpreted?" asked Klaus, moving so that most of his leg was pressed completely against Lena's. That electricity ran through her completely and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
"Pretty much that your baby would bring death to all witches."
"Ah, well, I grow fonder of this child by the second." Lena rolled her eyes, elbowing Klaus in his ribs as he chuckled at her annoyance. Even Rebekah let out a giggle at Lena's reaction to her brother's joke.
"All witches as in all witches all over the world or just New Orleans witches?" asked Lena, obviously growing more wary of Hayley and Klaus' unborn child. Would this child force her into an early grave?
"Uh, she didn't say. Open to interpretation and all that," shrugged Sophie. Lena's face fell and she focused on not getting angry at Sophie for not being able to answer her worries properly. Klaus must have felt this, for he moved his arm so that it was wrapped around Lena's shoulders.
"Sophie, look," interrupted Rebekah, falling onto the couch on Lena's other side. "I promised Elijah that I would protect the Mikaelson miracle baby whilst he tries to win your witch Davina's loyalty. Why don't you tell me just how extreme this faction is?"
"Elijah is talking to Davina?" asked Sophie.
"Yeah, as we speak, I imagine."
"I'm guessing she'll have plenty to say about that crowd."
"Do tell," ordered Klaus, sounding more amused than anything else. He shared a look with his sister over Lena's head, both of them raising their eyebrows at each other. Sophie Deveraux held many a dark secret and Lena knew she couldn't trust her.
"I wasn't always an advocate for the witches," and then she sprung into her story. "My sister was devoted like our parents and our upbringing was very strict, which drove me nuts. The minute I turned twenty one, I left the Quarter to travel and play, but I wanted to be a chef, so I came back to Rossuea's. One night, Jane-Anne came and found me and told me they were moving the Harvest forward."
"What the hell is the Harvest?" asked Lena, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
"It's a ritual our coven does every three centuries so that the bond to our ancestral magic is restored. We appease our ancestors, they keep our ancestral power flowing."
"And why haven't I heard of this?" Klaus asked, his grip on Lena's shoulder tightening a little. She wished there was no weird bond between them, that there was no static jumping between them every time they touched. She did not want Cascada's iconic song to become her life.
"Because the harvest always seemed like a myth," explained Sophie, "a story passed down through generations like Noah's Ark or the Buddha walking on water, the kind some people take literally and some people don't."
And then she told the story of the Harvest. Lena was glad that the Ricci's did not dabble in ancestral magic, that their magic was passed down through the generations and that the first spell they ever did was to make sure that all magic would be passed down to the last Ricci left alive, which was why the Luzzatto's wanted them all dead.
They had missed out one though and Lena was left alive.
"They had the girls of our community preparing for months. Four would be chosen for the Harvest. They said that it was an honour, that they were special. I thought it was a myth."
"Was it?" asked Lena, who had noticed the crack in Sophie's voice, the unmistakable anger in her eyes. Whoever she was angry at was no longer here to feel the fire. It was then that Klaus' phone began to ring and he pressed a kiss to Lena's temple before answering it.
"Marcel, bit early in the day for you, isn't it... rather you than me, all that responsibility seems like such a bore... dead witches in the bayou, sounds like less of a problem and more like a cause for celebration." Lena sent Klaus a glare, much to his amusement as he ruffled the light blue hair she sported that day. "Well, why not? I haven't been to the bayou in ages, I'm on my way."
"You can't go out there now!" Sophie argued with Klaus, just as Hayley entered the room with her coffee. "I need to gather the witches' remains and consecrate them, if I don't get to them before sundown, we lose the link to their magic!"
"Those witches tried to kill Hayley," Klaus reminded Sophie, "I prefer for Marcel's informant not to find anything that would lead him back to us, to her, or to you know, that." Klaus referred to his child by waving to Hayley's stomach. Lena couldn't help the giggle that fell to her lips as Hayley raised her eyebrows at the hybrid.
"You are all class," the werewolf sassed, taking a sip of her coffee.
"Stay put and save the rest of your story till I return!" Klaus ordered Sophie. He let his fingers graze over Lena's shoulder one last time before he flounced out of the room. Lena's eyes followed him, at the way his shoulders tightened, at the grin he threw over his shoulder at her, at the way he winked.
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
HAYLEY and Lena watched Sophie zip up her backup. They had followed her to the Lafayette Cemetery and now they were in some tomb for the witches, probably. The Ricci's didn't have tombs in Italy, when a Ricci witch died their ashes were scattered onto their land and they floated away in the wind.
Lena had never been able to do that with her family.
"Hey, what the hell?" Sophie burst out once she turned around and saw the werewolf and witch blocking the exit with their arms crossed over their chests and their eyebrows raised.
"You're going out there anyway, despite Klaus' warnings?" Lena asked. Sophie's eyes narrowed at her and Lena only smiled in response.
Good things. Art supplies. Lemonade. New lipstick.
"We want to go with you," Hayley told Sophie. Hayley to find out what it was that had saved her and who had tried to kill her and Lena because she hated being locked up inside and needed the fresh air.
"No thanks, already got assaulted by Klaus this morning, don't need a repeat."
Hayley stopped Sophie before she could barge past the two supernatural women. "What if whatever is responsible for all those dead witches is still out there? We've already established that it likes me and hates witches, so you'll be safer with me."
"Sorry if I'm not buying your sudden concern for my safety but you're literally wanting to take another witch with you, so like..." Sophie trailed off, shrugging at Lena and trying to side step Hayley, but the werewolf's hand slammed against the wall of the tomb, forcing her to stop.
"Listen," she snapped, her eyes dangerously narrowing. "The whole reason I came to this stupid town in the first place was to learn more about my family. Your sister is the one that told me Marcel ran the werewolves out of the Quarter into the bayou, and last night pretty sure that some guardian angel wolf saved my life. So I'm coming with you, and Lena needs the fresh air or something."
"Could you three be any more idiotic?" Rebekah's voice rang through the tomb, causing Lena to stiffen. She hadn't told Rebekah that she was going with Hayley to find Sophie, and instead lied about wanting to see more of the Quarter. "Two can play the follow game, you know?" she snapped at Hayley, before allowing a sharp glare to land on Lena, "and you know better than to lie to me about your whereabouts, Lena Francesca. You all heard Klaus, he and Marcel are heading right where you're going."
"So distract them," Hayley snapped back. "Because, unless you want to lock a hormonal, pregnant werewolf in a tomb, I'm coming with you and wouldn't Elijah be mad if he hears that the baby and I died of asphyxiation."
Lena watched Sophie roll her eyes as Hayley smirked triumphantly, knowing full well that she had gotten Rebekah to agree just by the paling of her already ivory skin. Lena felt bad, for involving Rebekah, for lying to her, for not feeling bad at first.
But she couldn't let herself feel bad, not when she was going on an adventure.
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
"WHAT is all that dreadful hillbilly ruckus in the background?" Rebekah asked Klaus through the phone. Lena giggled beside her as she kicked fallen branches out of her way. They were walking through the bayou and it smelled a lot worse than she had thought it would. "Well, order up a few rounds of moonshine and stay clear of the dead witches for a few. The witch is on a burial mission, your baby mama is on a spirit quest, I'm keeping Elijah's promise to keep her safe and your new girlfriend is seeking her young-adult adventure, so stall please."
Lena's cheeks blushed a very dark shade of red at Rebekah's words when she hung up the phone and she tried to stutter out how there was no way she'd ever date Klaus when Rebekah shut her up.
"Please, my dear, I've seen the way you look at him, it's like the way you look at new skirts in the store but more... intense."
Lena couldn't help but think about Klaus. There was something about the glint in his beautiful, blue eyes, like watching the sun break out through the clouds in the Springtime sky or the oceans lapping over the sand, forcing the glass to sparkle like diamonds. Then there was the sharpness of his impeccable jawline and high cheekbones, like sharp daggers ready to slice through tainted skin. Of course there was the hair with it's beautiful blond that dazzled in the sunlight and the curls that clung to his forehead. But he was way more than that. He was all bad manners and a beautiful accent and brilliant clothing choices. He was a warm breath fanning over her face, and cool fingers creating currents of electricity in her veins, and an icy glare stabbing her in the heart. He was everything he ever wanted and none of what she needed all at once, and her hands ached to hold him, her lips begged to feel his.
"You're allowed to want him," Rebekah whispered to her best friend. Lena looked up at her, eyebrows raised, as she focused on not tripping over tree roots or getting hit in the face by branches.
"He's your brother."
"That doesn't make it illegal, it just makes it more scandalous," Rebekah joked, the word rolling off her tongue in a way that made Lena want to run towards Klaus right that second. But she pushed those thoughts away, she never acted like that for a guy and she wasn't going to start now. Rebekah came before any man, even Niklaus Mikaelson.
"You come first, Bex, always." Rebekah grinned, pulling Lena into a side hug and letting warmth spread through the young witch's stomach. She always felt better when she made Rebekah smile because the vampire didn't smile that often, she had been hurt too much in the past by people she loved.
"So--" Rebekah suddenly said louder, breaking away from Lena as the four women trekked through the bayou. "--this harvest thingy, tell me more."
"Klaus said to wait," pointed out Sophie, as they all kept their eyes peeled for anybody also creeping around the bayou.
"But he also said to stay out of the bayou and we failed at that, so, like, do we really care about his orders?" Lena quipped, sending Rebekah a wink which made the blonde vampire giggle.
"We're here," interrupted Hayley once they reached the clearing full of dead witches. Lena could feel the magic leaving their bodies. She stopped between two trees, too afraid to get any closer to the dead bodies. She didn't particularly like death and destruction and blood, they brought along flashbacks of screaming and streets filling with blood and being forced into a car at such a young age.
There were severed heads and mangled bodies, but Lena tried not to look at all the blood and death in front of her. Instead she focused on the claw marks in the trees and the large paw prints dug into the dirt.
"Is that a wolf track?" asked Sophie, and then they heard the snap of a twig and they all straightened.
"Who's there?" called out Rebekah, moving to shield Lena from any harm.
Suddenly, a man with too large ears and a body too lanky for him stepped out of the trees. He looked worried. "What the hell?" he gasped at the sight of Rebekah. "An Original?"
Then he disappeared.
After an annoyed phone conversation with Klaus, Rebekah told the girls that she was off to distract Marcel and took Lena with her. Lena sighed, walking through the bayou with her best friend. Rebekah complained about everything and Lena let her, before Rebekah then complained about walking in the heat and forced Lena onto her back.
With that, they were off, and Lena was having to hide her face in the crook of Rebekah's neck to stop her head from being snapped off of her entire body. She hated when Rebekah made her do this, when she ran so fast that the earth turned to a blue that made Lena's eyes water. She hated moving so fast. She wanted everything to be slow, to be normal. She wanted it all to be the way it was supposed to be.
"Ah, isn't this like old times," Rebekah interrupted Klaus and Marcel as the two females walked into the bar. Lena wanted to roll her eyes at her best friend, but caught sight of Klaus staring at her and stopped herself.
Do not think about him, she ordered herself, do not think about how much you want to rip his clothes right off of his goddamn body.
Marcel was staring at her too, but he was more confused than lustful. He was recognising her without even realising it, he was too confused by her constantly changing hair to put his finger on the dot that connected everything together inside his brain, and it was amusing Lena to no end.
"Just how drunk are you two?" asked Rebekah. Klaus turned slightly in his seat, grinning wickedly at Lena as he spoke.
"Skating on the razors edge," he slurred slightly, leaning closer to Lena. His breath fanned over her face and she realised he wasn't drunk at all, just a very good actor. "I'm gonna use the loo, come with me love?"
Lena let out a scoff of laughter, rolling her eyes at Klaus as Marcel laughed loudly and said something to Rebekah about her brother being too confident. "What? Just so I can watch you fall down the bloody thing?" Klaus chuckled at the little witch as she shrugged and brought her phone out of her back pocket. "I mean, Twitter would really love to see it."
Instead of actually going to the bathroom, they slipped out of the backdoor just in time to see the lanky, big-eared vampire Lena had just seen in the bayou. She grinned and pointed him out to Klaus, who ruffled her hair in thanking and moved over to the man.
"Tomas, I presume?" he asked, grabbing him by the shoulder. The vampire stared wide eyed at Lena, who he had obviously noticed in the bayou because she had been so close to Rebekah. "Marcel asked me to find out what you know about the dead witches."
"What's she doing here? I just saw her in the bayou." Klaus raised his eyebrows at Lena, who was standing on the other side of Tomas as they made their way over to a black SUV.
"Um, I've been here this entire time?" lied Lena so smoothly that Tomas had no other choice but to believe her. He nodded, just as Klaus smirked at the young witch. He looked proud of her, and she couldn't help but feel proud of herself. She was never much of a good liar.
"Well, I, uh, heard they were going after some pregnant werewolf. She was stupid being out there all alone." Klaus pretended to chuckle along with him, muttering some sort of agreement, but that wasn't his real smile. Lena knew his real smile, that was some sort of weird sarcastic smile he used when trying to hide his actual anger.
"It's amazing how gullible some people can be."
Tomas agreed with Klaus, who, in the next second, snapped his neck and threw him to the ground as if he was nothing. Lena let out a little squeal of surprise and jumped back, away from the now unconscious vampire.
"Did you have to break his neck?" she asked Klaus, as they made their way back to the bar, albeit slowly.
"What else was I supposed to do, love?" Klaus questioned, throwing his arm around her neck.
"You could've compelled him, and don't put your arm around my shoulders, now I'm paranoid you're gonna break mine!"
Klaus' eyebrows furrowed at the little witch under his arm and he stopped. His hand moved down her arm, taking a hold of her warm hand in his. "I would never hurt you," he murmured, stepping closer to Lena.
"Because I mean too much to Rebekah?"
"No, Lena, because you mean too much to me."
And as much as Lena wanted to close the gap between them, she knew she couldn't. It was too dangerous and would hurt too many people. It would hurt Rebekah, and she meant more to Lena than her own heart did.
So, she ducked her head when his face came down, allowing him to kiss her hair instead of her lips. He stepped back in surprise, and when he brought her face up with his cold fingers pushing up her chin, he noticed the tears that were gathering in her eyes.
"Klaus, you're the one person in the entire world I can't kiss even if Bex says it's okay."
"But you want to."
"I want many things in life that I cannot have. You've just made the top of the list."
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
ELIJAH Mikaelson was standing across from Lena. She knew from the pristine suit that he wore despite the fact he'd been locked up in a coffin for around three months, the crooked smile he gave Lena when he saw her and the fact that Rebekah had practically flung herself at the martyr of the Mikaelson family.
"Oh, Elijah, you're safe!" Rebekah had gasped out. Lena had never heard her sound so happy and she felt a sudden stab of pain in her heart. Lena, who had given Rebekah everything, who owed her so much, who never wanted to be parted from her, now felt as if she didn't belong beside the blonde. Not now that she was reunited with her family, a trio unwavering in their attempts to have the whole universe to themselves.
Elijah looked up, past Rebekah, and caught sight of Hayley who blushed a very bright shade of pink and left the room embarrassedly. Lena wanted to go with her, but Klaus had appeared at her side, blocking her in her actions, forcing her to watch this family reunite.
"Now that you're home, is your first plan to kill Niklaus?" Rebekah joked, before she realised that Elijah was staring at Lena in mild confuddlement. "Oh yes, silly me, this is my dearest Lena, a little part of me." Rebekah reached her arm out, motioning for Lena to join her at her side, but Lena stayed where she was, beside the big bad wolf.
Lena waved, and Elijah smiled back. "A pleasure," he said, before allowing his eyes to float to the door that Hayley just disappeared through. "Excuse me for just a moment," he whispered to his sister, kissing her temple and following after the pregnant werewolf.
"Where's he going?" Rebekah asked Lena and Klaus, who shared a look. There was a reason that Hayley had gotten so annoyed without Elijah there, who had begged for him to be found and to be safe. In the small amount of time that Elijah Mikaelson and Hayley Marshall had spent together, they had been entwined with threads of intimacy and it was a thread that could not be cut.
"Are we going to leave now?" Lena asked her best friend, glancing over to the hybrid beside her who was pouring himself a drink. But he was staring at her too, and she couldn't look away, she didn't want to look away. And she knew, deep, deep down, she did not want to leave.
"Definitely not," said Rebekah, her eyes darting between the girl that she raised and the brother she had been raised with. She felt no disgust, no hatred, no anger at the two of them for having something that she had longed for for so long. All she felt was the peace that came with knowledge. The knowledge that two things belonged together so deeply that the bond was felt so fiercely."We can't leave now."
When Elijah and Hayley came back in (Hayley looking proud of herself, and Elijah looking proud of her) the five of them met in the study. Lena sat on the arm of Rebekah's chair, her legs angled towards Klaus who sat beside her. Hayley was leant against the fireplace, arms crossed over her chest as Elijah stood across from them all, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his body leaning nonchalantly on the back of the chair. It looked like the weirdest parent-teacher meeting ever.
"Everything that brought us here to New Orleans was a lie, this story that Sophie Deveraux fabricated, this struggle for control of the French Quarter, this war between vampires and witches wasn't over territory at all, this was over Davina" Elijah explained to them. "Eight months ago, Sophie Deveraux and her sister, Jane-Anne, lost everything. Now, four months after that, a young, pregnant girl wanders into their restaurant. Suddenly, all hope is renewed. Jane-Anne actually sacrificed her life so that her sister could use you to find Davina. If Sophie Deveraux is successful in capturing Davina, she can return Jane-Anne's daughter back to life. We thought we'd come here to wage a war for power. This is about family. In order to return her niece to life, Sophie Deveraux will fight to the death. That makes her more dangerous than anyone."
Lena glanced around. Everyone looked so grave, so depressing. She had never felt such a sudden urge to make a joke in her life and before she could stop herself, the words came tumbling out of her mouth.
"Honestly, everyone here is suicidal, I'm going back to Paris."
It felt as if the world had stopped. They all looked at her. Rebekah's eyes sparkled and her lip quivered and Lena knew that her best friend wanted to laugh but she was too afraid to, especially with Elijah staring at her with his eyebrows raised and his lip turned down.
Then, all of a sudden, as if some weird sort of hilarity bomb had gone off, Niklaus Mikaelson began to laugh. It was a real, clutching-the-stomach, unable-to-breathe type of laugh, that set both Rebekah and Hayley off too, and then Lena felt better.
She always felt better when she made someone laugh, but when she made Klaus left, she felt something completely different. It was like everything made sense now, everything had been leading up to this moment, and she felt lifted up, past the planes of existence to a world that was entirely new and far less frightening.
i mean like ofc they can't leave Lena and Klaus are sooooo in love with each other and it hurts to write them wanting each other so much and not having each other
but also thank you to sebstab for making these awesome gifs of Klena, like Ash is honestly so talented wow