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Elena becomes a thief.
All things considered, it's really not even the worst of her actions at the time, which is just one more mark of how horribly off the reservation she's found herself. She doesn't like who she's becoming, the words coming out of her mouth before her brain catches up leave her agonizing about what she's turning into. So she tugs at the reigns of her subconscious and brings it to heel. Nobody but her is going to decide who she grows up into- the kind of person she ends up being. She belongs completely to herself.
Elena steals a dagger and then she sends a message.
To: K 703-774-8989
I have something you want. Let's make a deal.
1-703-774-8989
I'm listening.
…
Once she decides to go about it, she's really not surprised that more people don't fake their own deaths. And it's not even because it takes serious planning and no little amount of work. It's because the only thing fake about it, when you get down to brass tacks, is the coroner’s report. Because you're not dead, not if everything goes as planned, but the fact that your heart still beats is almost a non issue; to everyone who has ever mattered to you, you cease to be alive. You can't just lay low for a couple of days and wait for a change in the news cycle before heading out the Grill for a burger. It's not like Jeremy (and she will never forgive herself for what she's done to him. Even if he could, Elena knows she'll carry this guilt for the rest of her life; copper bright and heavy around her neck) compelled but still known. No. Faking your own death calls for sacrifice. Her choice, Elena decides, it was always her choice and she has her reasons. Any doubts are erased by the look on Bonnie's face as Caroline closes the door between them.
Elena knows from sacrifice, she was made for it after all.
…
"Do you want to know what he said?" Katherine’s voice is smooth even over the crappy line of the pay phone. Elena is in Miami and the sun is unnaturally bright and hot against the back of her neck; her hair cut off the minute she'd crossed state lines. She raises her hand to twist her locket and meets nothing but skin. Of course it's not there, hasn't been there since before she left Virginia. Katherine needed to wear it.
'No.’ Elena shakes her head unconsciously and grips the receiver even tighter in her hands. She does not want to know, she cannot know what Damon may or may not have said when he pulled Katherine's body out of the water thinking it was her. And even though Katherine hasn't said as much, Elena knows it was Damon, how could it not be?
"Are you sure?" Her voice is still smooth, but there's something commiserating about it now. They share this little thing, dying to live, and if Katherine weren't Katherine it might even make them friends.
'It's better this way.' And it is, even if it's not.
"Martyr Elena,” Elena has time to exhale sharply in reply before Katherine continues ‘don’t miss your flight, keys are in the mailbox." There's a dull click before the dial tone echoes in Elena's ear. She takes a minute, sagging her shoulder against the sun warmed glass wall of the phone booth, lets the heat and the sun and the smell of melting asphalt press around her. One minute she gives to her grief and anger, to the panic she knows is going to be with her at least until she lands in the Netherlands. On the sixtieth second Elena picks up her bag.
She hails a cab, gets on her plane, get’s gone.
...
At first, Elena had honestly thought she could win. Stupid? Maybe. Naive? Definitely. But she was seventeen and still adjusting to not having her mom and dad greet her when she got home from school. So in love she felt invincible with it. And she had Damon. It’s not an excuse, but she’s not looking for absolution so it hardly matters at this point. The important thing is that at the beginning of everything going horribly wrong she really thought they stood a chance. They’d solve her doppelganger mystery, they’d kill Klaus, she’d get to keep everyone she loved- she’d get to keep her life. Most importantly, no one would die for her.
Jenna died.
John died.
Damonalmost died.
Stefan left.
Klaus lived.
Things were not going quite according to plan. Even so, Elena couldn’t admit that she wouldn’t get her life back, because of course she would, right?
The worst part, the part that makes her stomach ache when she realizes it, is that she didn’t even notice how deep she was until she heard the words coming out of her mouth. ‘Well maybe that’s the problem.’ And before it even finished forming on her tongue it was like she could suddenly feel the cement she’d waded into all the way up to her throat, choking her. She remembers reliving the moment later and feeling like she was watching a character on television, because that couldn’t possibly be her saying that. Love isn’t a problem, a lack of love maybe, but never actually love. There can only ever be a need for more of it, not less, never less. After that it was a veritable tidal wave of images; Matt drowning himself, Caroline needing her, Jeremy, Bonnie’s birth mother, Damon’s face. What had she done? Oh god, what was she doing? She’d been so busy thinking about how she’d get to keep her life that she’d stopped thinking about the things that made up her life as people separate from how they related to her. Elena had wanted to just keep them so badly that she’d lost sight of the big picture. Her friends and family could be used against her, had in fact been used against her, but they didn’t live just for her. She was the real threat, without her they ceased to be targets, they could just be. Once she realized this, there was really only one solution.
...
It didn’t take long for Elena to realize she wasn’t going to be able to pull of her Houdini trick without help. It wasn’t a huge surprise, in the grand scheme of things, but the fact that it caught her a little off guard was another wake up call. Elena finds herself wondering exactly how long it’s been since she was thinking clearly and of something other than herself. Katherine Pierce is not her first choice. She does, for a moment, consider confiding in Damon, but that idea is shelved almost as soon as it forms. If she’s going to die, it needs to be believable, and while she hates herself for it Elena knows she needs the reality of his grief. Anything less and all her efforts would be for nought. Everyone else is considered and summarily rejected. If she’s being honest, and that is something new she is trying out if only with herself, they’ve done enough for her already. She’s brushing her teeth when it hits her and she’s a little exasperated that she didn’t think of it sooner. After all, Elena thinks as she rinses and spits, the answer was staring her in the face the whole time. Once she’s figured it out though, the only hurdle remaining is payment. Or rather in this case, leverage.
…
In the end, it turns out to be pretty anticlimactic. That’s not to say that the actual thievery wasn’t anxiety inducing, but the reality is that despite what’s been perpetuated by myths and cave drawings, the Original vampires are not actually omnipotent. They are also extremely suspicious of each other. Elena was counting on it. As soon as she has the white ash dagger tucked securely under her shirt using one of Ric’s appropriated hunter contraptions it’s only a matter of lifting Katherine’s number from Damon’s phone. There is the expected cat and mouse foreplay but after Elena practically dangles the white ash dagger in front of her like a proverbial carrot Katherine is predictably amenable to the service of her own interests. Elena had been counting on that too.
The bridge is Katherine’s idea.
“Nice symmetry, don’t you think?” She’s fussing with her straightened hair in the mirror on Elena’s dresser and meets Elena’s eyes in their reflections. She’s wearing Elena’s clothes and looking at her is unsettling. Elena has to breathe past the instinctual panic that squeezes her lungs but by this point she knows a good plan when she hears one.
‘The sooner the better.’ Because the dagger won’t go unnoticed and the last thing they need is Stefan or worse, Damon, connecting the dots. They’ve both been giving her strange looks the past couple of days. It’s like they smell impending death on her. Well, she concedes, if anyone it would be them who did. Katherine pulls an envelope out of one of Elena’s favourite tops and places it on the bed by Elena’s feet.
“Everything you’ll need is in there. Codes, instructions, directions,” she raises an elegant eyebrow, “tickets.” Elena can’t quite manage to speak through whatever is blocking her throat, but she nods. “Be ready to go tonight.” Elena picks up the envelope, blinks, and is alone in her room. She gets up slowly and walks through the bathroom to stand in the doorway, taking in Jeremy’s room. She doesn’t cry she doesn’t pack; she looks at the messy desk and the clothes still on the floor.
‘I’m so sorry.’ It’s quiet, barely even sounds at all, that thing in her throat’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I love you, she thinks, I love you I love you I love you-
…
Four years on and Elena’s in Berlin. Her hair is blonde, still short, and she answers to Helen at the nursery where she minds the children of corporate parents. She has a little apartment on the metro line; having left Katherine’s Holland safe house behind years ago and fallen even further off the grid. Her German is almost fluent and if anyone comments on her accent she says she was born in Canada. Eighteen months after her death, Elena used an internet cafe in Bern. The relief at seeing image search results of everything she’d left behind alive and smiling and alive made her light headed. She paid cash, dyed her hair and moved again. She has not checked since, won’t risk it. Instead, she goes to work, waters her plants, even goes out for drinks on Fridays with her coworkers. She stands and drinks coffee over her kitchen sink, gets on with that business of living.
Six years, and if she still double takes strangers in the street, blue eyes on the train, feels that phantom grip along her wrist? Well, it hurts no one but herself. Elena watches the sun rise in St. Petersburg and feels that old familiar itch again, that insect on your neck quiver down your back little shiver again. Packs her daggers in the lining of her suitcase, moves on. Six years is a drop in the bucket, a blink of an eye when you’ve got eternity, Elena knows this. She doesn’t need to hide forever, just for long enough. There’s a tick of a clock counting down on her, it sounds like footsteps, and the heart in her chest knows the gait. She needs to hold on just a little bit longer, she thinks I love you I love you I love you-
It was her choice to make.