"I forgot how much I missed this land," Elijah said as he and Riley walked through the woods, arm in arm.
"Is it weird?" Riley asked. "Being back here after a thousand years?"
Elijah considered her question. "What's weirder is being back here after a thousand years with my mother alive once again."
She looked up and noticed his frown. "What's wrong?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to rearrange his features so as not to give away his negative train of thoughts.
She raised an eyebrow. "I spent months trying to get your face out of my mind, I know what it looks like when you're worried. It's the same face that you made when you asked me to stay away from Damon."
Elijah chuckled, before the frown once again took over his face. "I'm worried about my mother. She's been exhibiting... strange behavior."
"What's 'strange' for a woman that's been dead for a thousand years?" Riley questioned. "I'd be more surprised if she was acting normal."
"She's been burning sage," he informed her. "An action that usually takes place when completing a privacy spell."
Riley frowned. "OK, that's a bit weird. Can't you ask one of your brothers? Or Rebekah?"
Elijah raised an eyebrow. "Klaus, Rebekah and Kol know less than I do, and I don't trust Finn. He hates what we are, always has."
"So what do you think she's doing? Because even if she is plotting something... you're all immortal."
Elijah shrugged his shoulders. "Witches' power made us immortal. I'm fairly sure that if anyone were to undo that immortality, it would be the Original witch."
Riley stopped walking, forcing Elijah to also stop.
"I don't care if she's the Original witch," Riley said. "If your mother is trying to kill you, we'll find out, and we'll stop her."
"I appreciate your optimism," he said. "But it won't be that simple."
"Elijah, if you think I'm letting you leave me again, you're seriously mistaken."
He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
"I'm not leaving you," he promised. Neither of them could believe how infatuated they felt so quickly after their first kiss.
"Good," she said, kissing him again. "Because you don't have a great track record for sticking around."
"I'll find out my mother's plans before she has a chance to implement them," he assured her.
"Or you're just paranoid and she has no plans?" Riley suggested, hoping that her suggestion was the correct one. Because if the Original witch was planning a move against her own kids, who was going to stop her?
***
Later in the day, Bonnie, Riley and Elena sat in Elena's bedroom. It turned out that the Original witch, aka Esther, had been burning sage for a privacy spell – a spell that Bonnie was trying to copy.
"He was gloating, like actual gloat," Elena grimaced, her tone full of disgust. "Like he was proud of himself for sleeping with her."
"I can't believe Damon slept with Rebekah," Bonnie shook her head absentmindedly while she worked on the spell.
"I can't believe he never told me!" Riley said, earning a raised eyebrow from Elena. "What? If you get into bed with the sister of your sworn enemy, you tell your best friend!"
"I'm your best friend," Caroline reminded her, coming out of Elena's bathroom. "Not Damon the vampire gigolo. And the sage thingy isn't working."
"It's a tricky spell," Bonnie said, starting again. Caroline went back into the bathroom and shut the door.
"I just feel so guilty," Elena said, completely changing the subject. "Before the sun and moon ritual, Elijah found a way to keep me alive. And now I'm in the exact same position-"
"What do you mean?" Riley asked quickly. "Am I missing something?"
"I thought Damon would have told you," Elena said. "Esther linked the Originals last night at the ball. She's found a way to kill Finn for good, and when she does, the rest of them will die too."
Riley felt her heart racing. "Uh, does she even know for sure that it'll work?"
Bonnie nodded. "She's channeling me and my mom, and our entire ancestral bloodline for power. She's pretty confident."
"But there must be a way to save one of them," Riley continued. "I mean, Elena's right. Elijah doesn't deserve to die. We can save him, right?"
Elena and Bonnie looked at each other as Caroline came out of the bathroom once again.
"Why do you care?" Caroline asked. "Yesterday you wanted nothing to do with the guy, now you want to save his life?"
Riley took a deep breath. "He came over last night, and he apologized for everything."
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. "That's it? He just apologized?"
All three girls stared Riley down until, eventually, she broke. "We kissed."
"What?!" Caroline asked loudly.
"Are you serious?!" Elena asked, equally as loudly.
"You kissed Elijah?!" Bonnie joined.
Riley nodded, pointing at Caroline. "And it's all your fault."
Caroline gave an outraged squeal. "Hey, I told him to say sorry, I didn't tell him to stick his tongue down your throat!" she said, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "How was it?"
"It was..." Riley tried to think of a word to describe it, but none of the ones in the English language could do it justice. "Indescribable."
"I'm sorry Riley, there's nothing we can do now," Bonnie told her apologetically. "He'll be dead by the end of the night."
"What?" Elena said, her guilt even stronger now that she knew about Riley's feelings.
"It's a full moon," Bonnie said. "Esther needs to harness the energy of a celestial event."
"So that's it? It's a done deal?" Caroline asked sadly, to which Bonnie nodded.
As Riley began a futile protest, her phone vibrated, signaling a text.
Blue-Eyes: Need your help. Wanna dagger an Original?
"Hey, if Esther's planning on killing the Originals for good, why does Damon need me to dagger one?" Riley asked.
"What?" Elena asked again, taking Riley's phone from her and reading the message. "They're gonna get themselves killed."
Riley stood up. "No one's dying tonight. Not if I can help it."
***
"I'm not doing it," Riley immediately declared, walking into the house.
Damon rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're getting an attack of conscience," he said. "Look, this is the lesser of two evils. You dagger Elijah, we don't have to kill Bonnie and her mom."
"Why would you have to kill Bonnie and her mom?" Riley asked.
"Elijah threatened Elena," Stefan told her. "If we don't stop Esther's plan, Rebekah will kill her."
Riley shook her head. "Elijah wouldn't do that."
"Well, he did," Damon said, handing her a dagger. "So as you can see, this is the best option."
She turned the dagger over in her hands, before handing it back to Damon. "I can't dagger Elijah."
"Why not?" Stefan asked.
"I just can't."
Damon frowned. "So you'd rather let Bonnie or Elena die?"
"Find another way," she told him. They'd always managed to find alternatives, why should this time be any different?
"There is no other way," Damon told her harshly. "It's this or nothing."
"I'm not daggering Elijah," she objected. "I can't, and I won't."
Stefan and Damon looked at each other, suspicion riddled in their frowns.
"What's going on, Fletch?" Damon asked. "What aren't you telling us?"
"Nothing!" she said. "I should go." As she turned around, Damon vamp-ran in front of her, blocking her path. He stood for a second, staring at her as her face got guiltier and guiltier. Finally he worked out, as only a best friend could, why she wouldn't dagger Elijah.
"Ew!"
"What?" Stefan asked.
"Please tell me you didn't have sex with him," Damon begged, his face screwed up in disgust. "If you did I'll dagger him myself!"
"I didn't have sex with him!" Riley said quickly. "But... I like him, Damon. And he likes me. And I can't let Esther do this to him."
"You can't say anything," Stefan warned. "Riley, please don't screw this up. We need Klaus gone."
"Let it go, Stefan," Riley demanded. "This revenge thing has to stop. And even if I did dagger Elijah, Klaus would still be alive, so this whole thing is pointless."
"This guy that you like, he wants us to kill one of your best friends. How can you be OK with that?!" Damon asked angrily.
"You're kidding right?" she asked. "You've done awful things to literally everyone in this town, and you're still one of my best friends!"
"Maybe Ric can dagger him?" Stefan jumped in quickly.
"No one's daggering Elijah," Riley said, crossing her arms, signaling that she was willing to stand her ground on this no matter what it took.
Thinking quickly, Damon grabbed Riley, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder.
"Damon! What are you doing?" she shouted, her foot catching his chest again and again. He finally put her down in a utility closet, taking her phone from her and locking her in. "No Damon, please don't do this!"
"Can't have you warning him, can we?" he said, sure that he was doing the right thing. Even if the guilt was starting to creep up on him.
"Damon please!" Riley pleaded, banging on the locked door until her fists ached. "Damon!"
"Let's go," he said to Stefan, ignoring her cries. She'd thank him for this one day; he was sure of it.
***
The sound of the door unlocking hours later made her heart fill with dread. She'd been running through various scenarios in her head, all of them worse than the last. She knew that when she left this room, either Elijah (and by extension all of the Originals), Bonnie or Elena would be dead.
"Damon said to give you this," Stefan said, handing her back her phone. She took it, barely looking at him. "He'll never say this, but he's sorry."
"Did he kill Elijah?" she asked.
"No," Stefan informed her. "We had to find another way, so, we turned Abby Bennett into a vampire."
"Bonnie's mom?!" Riley asked. It was an option that she hadn't considered, and she should have been happy that her friends were safe. But Bonnie hated vampires. How would she deal with the fact that her mother was one?
"If it was up to Elijah, she would have been dead," Stefan reminded her. "He's not the person you think he is Riley."
She ignored him. "Thanks for the phone. And tell Damon I said 'thank you' – for trying to save Bonnie's life."
Stefan nodded and watched her walk out the front door and into her car. She needed to see Elijah, and she knew exactly where he'd be – at the house were all of the Originals were staying.
She got there in record time. After a moment of hesitation, she pushed the door open and walked inside.
"Elijah?" she called. Instead of the Original vampire that she wanted to see, she saw the one that she hated.
"Hello love," Klaus greeted her, smirking. "Don't you know it's impolite to walk into someone's house without knocking?"
Riley rolled her eyes. "Klaus, for the first time in forever, nothing that happened tonight was your fault. Please don't ruin your good track record."
He smirked, gesturing to a room across from them. She walked past him and into the room, to see Elijah standing there, expecting her.
"How could you?" she asked, emotion taking over her the second she set eyes on his face. "Bonnie's mom is a vampire, you threatened Elena, how could you do that?"
"Today I had to do contemptable things," he admitted. "To protect my family. If there was any other way..." he trailed off.
"Where's the honor in that, Elijah?!" she shouted. "You claim to be so much better than Klaus, but you're both the same."
He nodded. "It's good that you hate me. It'll make things easier."
She frowned. "What things?"
Elijah took a small step towards her. "I'm leaving town."
Her anger was immediately replaced with confusion. "What?"
"I can't stay here," he said. "When it suits my needs, I kill, maim and torment. My mother made me a vampire, but she didn't make me a monster. I did that to myself."
"No," Riley said. "Elijah, when people make mistakes, they face them. They don't run away."
"I'm not running away," he said.
"Yes you are," she argued. "You promised that you wouldn't leave me, so please don't."
Elijah sighed. "I don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice," Riley said, walking up to him and taking his hand. "I was so selfish today, I was willing to do whatever it took to save you. My friends could have died, and it would have been my fault."
"It wouldn't have been your fault," Elijah said in a low voice, lightly touching her cheek with his thumb. "If your friends had died, it would have been because of me."
"I know, and we're both gonna have to live with that. But you owe me. So please don't leave me again."
"You deserve better than me," he told her honestly. "You deserve a human, someone who can always put you first."
Riley shrugged. "I don't know what I deserve. But I know what I've got, and it's you. So stay. Please."
He knew that staying would be a mistake, but when he looked down into her tear-filled, begging eyes, he knew that he couldn't be the reason for her pain. Not again. So instead, he kissed her.
They kissed until they couldn't tell where one person's lips ended and the other's began.
"I'll stay," he whispered against her lips. "For you."
She kissed him again. And in that kiss, she tried to forget about every bad thing they had done that day. Because everyone she loved was alive, he was staying, and nothing else mattered.
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Was Riley right to forgive Elijah (again)?
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