If she'd been thinking it through, maybe she would have taken a plane—fifteen hours in a car was a long time, especially now that she was human again—but she hadn't been thinking it through, had been doing her best not to think at all, ever since—since—

She pulled up to the curb, turned off the car, yanked out the keys. Inhale, exhale. She couldn't go there, not now, not when she was seconds away from ruining her life.

She took a few long gulps from her water bottle—laced with vervain and wolfsbane both, of course, she might have been bordering on suicidal but she didn't have a death wish, and this was the capital of the supernatural world. She should have come here before, been here forever, the doppelganger never stood a chance in the normal world, she'd known Katherine, she'd known she could never be free.

She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, and pushed open the car door. Her legs trembled when she stepped on the ground—fifteen hours straight of driving, come on, Elena, that really wasn't the brightest idea—and the world seemed to spin as she came to her feet. She didn't waver, she'd been drained of blood often enough that she could hold herself upright through basically anything, but she adjusted her priorities nonetheless; food, then Klaus. Klaus could wait.

The thing about vampirism was that hunger always meant bloodlust, and surviving vampirism meant ignoring hunger; just because Elena was human again didn't mean she'd shaken that habit.

New Orleans was beautiful; even through her own despair and misery, Elena could appreciate the buildings, the shimmer of the sunlight on the streets, the music, sweet and bold, weaving around her like part of the city itself. She made way for a nearby restaurant; wind chimes rang out as she pushed open the door, and the scents of warm food and spices wafted toward her. She made a beeline for the bar.

A pretty blonde, a few years older than Elena, walked up a moment later. "Welcome!" she said. Her smile didn't reach her eyes—or maybe that was Elena, projecting her own misery on everyone around her. "How are we doing today?"

Elena inhaled. She was depressed and pissed off, but she didn't have to be rude. "Not great," she said. "I've been driving for fifteen hours straight, and I only just realized how hungry I am." She forced herself to laugh. "Could I get an order of whatever fried food you make best?"

The girl smiled, for real this time; her nametag read 'Cami.' "Sure thing," she said, nodding so her ponytail bounced against her neck. As always, Elena attention was drawn to the girl's jugular, but instead of hunger or desire or even self-loathing, she just felt hollow.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" asked Cami.

"Oh, yeah," said Elena, "thanks." She felt like Alaric, suddenly, drinking before noon. Alaric was alive at last, perfectly fine, probably blowing up her phone, leaving messages torn between frustrated concern and guilt-ridden apologies. "I'll get a bourbon on the rocks, please."

"That kind of day, huh?" asked the bartender, the corner of her lips turning up. "Well, I can't really judge you," she said. "I will need to see your ID, though."

Elena hadn't needed an ID since she'd gained the gift of compulsion, but then again, this city was supposed to be vampire central. The bartender was probably on vervain, anyway. She couldn't blame the woman for doing her job, but she needed that drink.

Elena shifted in her seat, and sighed. No going back now, she supposed. "Do you… happen to know someone named Klaus?" she asked.

Cami went rigid, and then seemed to deflate.

"Yeah," said Elena, with a wry smile. "Trust me, that's how I used to react, too."

"Are you from around here?" asked Cami, frowning, but with her wits about her again. "I had you pegged for a tourist."

"Not a tourist, a visitor," corrected Elena. "Klaus's visitor, to be precise, but he doesn't know that yet." She took a deep breath, and met Cami's eyes. "I'm not twenty-one," she admitted, "but I can't deal with him sober."

"Are you here to kill him?" asked Cami. Despite her earlier reaction, she seemed opposed to the idea.

"No," said Elena. "Been there, failed at that."

Cami seemed hesitant. I just lost the love of my life, Elena wanted to shout, and I'm here to offer myself as a blood bag because I had to leave and had nowhere else to go, but she just looked up, trying to plead.

Finally, Cami sighed. "Yeah, okay," she said, sighing. "It's not like there's anyone left to care."

The old Elena would have been tempted to ask what she meant, what had happened, but this Elena couldn't bring herself to care. She accepted the drink with a murmured "thank you", and relished in the burning at the back of her throat. Her food arrived a few minutes later—she was pretty confident that it was fried chicken—and she gestured for a refill, which Cami granted with a tight smile.

A few minutes later, the wind chimes rang out again, and a voice—a voice that still haunted her nightmares, sometimes—called out, "Where is she, then?"

Elena swallowed the remainder of her class, and the spun on her stool to meet Klaus's wild gaze.

Klaus seemed to freeze, not blinking, not breathing, just staring. After a lifetime, he swallowed.

"Elena Gilbert," he said at last, and Elena pursed her lips in acknowledgment. "I must admit, love, you are the very last person I expected to see here."

"Who did you expect?" she asked.

"Well, sweetheart," said Klaus, striding forward to lean on the bar next to her, "I received a call from the lovely Camille, saying that I had a visitor, a girl, who'd decided to drink away her woes before seeing me."

"You thought I was Caroline?" asked Elena, smiling despite herself.

Klaus scoffed. "In what world would I greet our dear Caroline so harshly?" he asked. Cami brought out another drink, and Elena had started to reach for it when Klaus snatched it and took a long gulp. "Truth be told," he continued, after a minute of pondering, "I rather thought it might be the Bennett witch, here to beg for help with this so-called disintegration of the Other—

Elena's glass shattered across the floor, and she realized that her hand was still trembling. Klaus shot her a sharp look.

"Bonnie's dead," said Elena, choking on the words as she forced them out. "Dead for good, there is no more other side, everyone who was there either found peace or is—gone, destroyed—I barely made it back to this side in time, Damon—"

She couldn't make herself say it, but she knew Klaus understood from his sharp intake of breath. "Stefan?" he asked, his voice low, and then: "Caroline?"

"Alive," Elena confirmed. "Stefan died for a bit, but he came back."

"And how exactly did you make it back from the realm of the dead?" asked Klaus.

Elena sighed. "There was—a spell," she said. "It weakened Bonnie so that we could pass through—our witch stopped chanting just before they could—"

Klaus sighed, and sank into the chair next to her, taking another long gulp. "Well," he said at last. "I'm sorry for your loss, sweetheart—more sorry than I'd usually be—but I don't see what any of that has to do with me." He swirled the contents of his glass. "If it were Elijah you were here for, I might understand, but—"

Elena forced the words out before she could have second thought. "I came back from the dead, but I didn't come back a vampire," she blurted out, and then knocked back what was left of her drink.

Klaus slammed his glass down with such force that Elena started, and then looked up at her. "What did you say?" he asked.

"I came back human," she whispered, her eyes burning. She refused to cry, though, not again, and especially not here.

Klaus stared at her, and then shook his head. "And you came to me—"

"Isn't this what you've always wanted?" asked Elena, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Your doppelganger, your human doppelganger, with an endless supply of blood and no plans to run away and no Salvatore brother to try and rescue her?"

Klaus's lips parted. He was almost snarling. "I don't recall you ever being invested in me getting what I want, love."

"I can't be in Mystic Falls," said Elena, her voice breaking. "I just can't, and even if I wanted to, it's controlled by travellers now, travellers who have spent the last few months collecting my doppelganger blood, and if I leave Mystic Falls, I get chased by witches who keep trying to kill me so that the travellers can't use my doppelganger blood, Damon's gone, Stefan's—not Stefan, not anymore, Bonnie's gone, and I'm not even a vampire anymore." She sucked in a deep breath, and realized that Klaus was still there, staring at her intently. She'd half-expected him to be gone. "I'm not safe," she said, "not anywhere, not anymore."

"You've come to make a deal," said Klaus, sitting back on his stool. He raised his glass at Cami, and then gestured to Elena's as well. "I'll pick up her tab, love," he called after her, and then looked back at Elena.

"Not a deal," said Elena.

Klaus blinked, and then smirked. "No?"

"You aren't going to kill anyone I love," said Elena, "and don't tell me I'm making demands, because you were never going to. You won't kill Caroline, not ever—you won't kill Stefan, or Jeremy, or Matt—you probably won't even kill Tyler, not unless he threatens you again, and I can live with that."

"Then what do you want from me?" asked Klaus, accepting another drink.

Elena accepted hers as well. She'd had more than was smart, especially considering the time, but it didn't matter.

"I don't want anything from you that you don't want to give me," she told him. "I want what you've always wanted from me. I want to stay here, with you, give you my doppelganger blood whenever you want it as long as you protect me from everyone else who's after it as well."

Klaus was still smirking, but it seemed somewhat tame, now. "What about wanting to live your life?" he asked. "To stay in your home?"

"What home?" asked Elena, and then took another long drink. "What life?"

"Do I have to worry about you killing yourself on me?" asked Klaus, his voice tinged with amusement.

Elena scowled at him. "I've never wanted to die," she told him. "Given the choice, I'd rather it be me that die than the people I love, but it's too late for that, isn't it."

Klaus grinned, looked down at his drink, and then looked up, his expression sober. "Well," he told her, holding up his glass. "Welcome to New Orleans."

She touched her glass to his, and drained it in one gulp.

. . .

Never, in the year and a half since she'd met Klaus, and with the possible exception of the night of the sacrifice, had he been this polite to her. Polite was the only way to describe him, though; he'd paid for her food and drinks, held open the door for her, grabbed her bag from her trunk and carried it for her, held out a hand to stabilize her when she stumbled.

"…once we get to the compound, you can get me your account information, and I'll send someone to return the car to the airport," Klaus was saying.

"What are you talking about? That's not a rental car," said Elena. "Didn't you look at the license plate?"

Klaus paused, and then groaned. "Please," he said, "please tell me you stopped somewhere for the night, and did not drive for fifteen hours straight in your condition."

"You mean humanity?" asked Elena.

Klaus rolled his eyes. "Rule number one," he said, starting up the walking again, "you are not going to ruin our deal by getting into a stupid car accident and wasting your precious blood all over leather seats and highways."

There was a part of Elena that wanted to tell him he couldn't set rules, but there was a much greater part of her that didn't care, that just wanted a needle in her arm and a bottle in her hand and to never have to think about anything ever again.

"I told you, it isn't a deal," she said. She was glad it was Klaus she was with, though, because making petty barter with Klaus was a lot easier than dealing with Caroline's coddling or Stefan's resentment or Alaric's misguided attempts to parent. "It's an understanding. Which, by the way, you should probably warn Rebekah about, because I really can't remember whether she wants to kill me at the moment."

"Ah," said Klaus, his pace slowing. "Well. That won't be a problem, seeing as Rebekah is no longer with us."

Elena stopped cold, her breath hitching in her throat. "No longer with us?" she repeated. It was only Rebekah, but—

"Oh, no, Elena, no, she's perfectly fine," said Klaus, the words rushing out faster than they should have. "She left New Orleans… months ago. She's alive."

Elena could hardly hear him over the sound of her heart pounding against her ribcage, but she heard him. She reached out a hand to find a wall and steady herself, and felt Klaus clutch her elbow. She focused, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and finally, pulled away.

"Sorry," she said. "I guess I'm drunker than I thought."

"Poor choice of words on my part, as well," said Klaus, a half-hearted laugh in his voice. "It's no matter, we're almost there."

After a year of reluctant visits to Klaus's Mystic Falls mansion, the compound was not what she'd expected. There was no sign of the regal carpets and shimmering staircases she'd grown to expect, and where there had usually been silence, loneliness, or tense civility, there was—

"Wow," said Elena, staring at the bodies strewn across the floor of the compound. "You've been having fun."

Klaus groaned. "Hayley!" He strode forward. "Hayley, where are you—"

Elena blinked. "Hayley?" she asked. "As in, Tyler's werewolf friend?" She remembered the girl, but she more clearly remembered her betrayal, how that had led to the second sacrifice, how Klaus—she pressed her eyes closed. It was too late for her to remember the array of reasons she had to hate Klaus. And she'd wanted this.

She opened her eyes to see Klaus turning around, eyes wide. He took a deep breath.

"There's a lot for me to catch you up on," he told her, as she noticed the clear vampire bite marks in one of the bodies' throats.

She met his eyes. "Yeah," she said. "A lot."