Previously on Taste: "Lean on me, my dear. You're allowed to grieve."

The weeks after Kol's death were busy.

Twelve hours after Katherine and Elijah received the news, Katherine boarded a plane to Canada, where she was to track down the Salvatores and Company in order to get the cure. She was not happy about leaving Elijah so soon, but he insisted, and they both knew she needed to get the thing in order for them to even have a semblance of a life together.

Thirty-six hours in, Katherine had the cure in hand, and had just fed Jeremy Gilbert to Silas. To be honest, she had not exactly planned on getting rid of Baby Gilbert—using Professor What's-His-Name had been her first choice, as his death would not have risked the wrath of the most annoying group of supernatural beings to ever walk the earth—but then she had heard Jeremy and Bonnie talking about how Kol died, and, well… Jeremy had always annoyed her anyways.

Thirty eight hours after the bombshell, Elijah got Katherine's long-awaited call. It had been brief as she was about to board a plane—first to Iowa, then Wyoming, and down to Arizona before finally backtracking to Pennsylvania, where a safehouse was set up—but he had been glad to hear from her, nevertheless. Without her, his house felt colder. She brought a warmth to his life, and even in this time of grief, the remnants of her around his house were a comfort. She had only packed the bare minimum when she left—anything she needed could be bought or compelled—and so her presence in his daily life still felt strong. He missed her; dear god, he missed her already.

A week later, Katherine was sick of compulsion. It was a pain in the ass to compel an entire town to think she was Kate Parrish, a long-time resident of Willoughby, and even more of a pain to go and do something as mundane as grocery shopping, which was nearly hell. She missed Elijah's wonder of a chef more than she cared to admit; that woman could do heavenly things with veal. Not to mention being a "resident" now meant she had to be nice to people when going out. It was too much work being amiable and darling all the time; she was feeling far too much like Caroline Forbes, with all this having to smile and being polite all the time. Katherine wanted to kill something. Or fuck someone. Unfortunately, an entire town perishing in a wave of blood would be a bit obvious. Maybe if there was an accidental town-wide gas leak though… Explosions were always lovely. And, of course, Elijah might be a bit irritated about the whole sleeping-with-someone-else part. He was a man who liked what was his to remain his, not that she had any problem with that. Katherine did not necessarily like to share, either. However, those were both moot points, even as this whole guarding-the-cure business was getting old. It was about time for Elijah to figure out how to arrange a meeting with his brother so she could get back to him, and they could be happy.

After those first few days, then weeks, then months, things grew more stressful for Katherine and Elijah. She took a trip to New Orleans to settle some business with a minion of hers in late March, and ended up continuing her stay to consult with some witch friends. Eventually she made her way back to Pennsylvania, but it wasn't until after a quick weekend in New York, where she was finally able to pick up some decent shoes on 5th Avenue. The limitations Willoughby imposed upon her wardrobe were nearly ridiculous. There wasn't a decent store for miles, and why go to Philadelphia for shopping when she could simply take a trip to Manhattan instead?

Across the Atlantic, Elijah was dealing with the headache of impertinent vampires. Vienna had always been one of his favorite cities to spend time in—he made a point to stop by every few years or so, when not lying in a coffin—but as of late his attention to the city had grown lax. As such, there were a few usurpers of whom he needed to either dispatch of or delegate to, whichever was easiest. Unfortunately the matter ended up taking a great deal more time than he would have wished, pushing his reunion with Katerina back unlike the last day of April.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It could be said that the story of Katherine and Elijah ended when she stepped on the plane to Canada. It also could be said their story ended the moment he discovered she killed Jeremy Gilbert, for at the time he did not know it had been the Gilberts who killed Kol, and not the Salvatores; because of this, he had been incensed she had killed someone else's brother mere hours after watching him lose his. It was a blindsiding blow, for at the time, he wondered if her comforting him was just another one of the masks he had watched her slip on during their time together. Of his misinformation, he would be clued in months later, and would greatly regret the fact that he condemned Katherine for avenging his brother. It was more than his own family had done, that was for sure. Then again, Klaus could be partially to blame for that misstep, as he did not clarify exactly which set of siblings in Mystic Falls he detested the most, and the natural assumption was the Salvatore brothers.

However, neither of these are correct. Katherine and Elijah's story ended on a Wednesday—six months after their story truly began—on May 11, 2011.

On that day, Elijah met Katherine in his sister's home, his heart torn. On one side, there was his flesh and blood; what remained of his rapidly-dwindling family needed his assistance, and all which he considered himself to be as a man screamed to grab Rebekah and take the jet down to New Orleans in an attempt to salvage what remained of their dysfunctional family. However, his heart disagreed. He wanted to be with Katerina; to have her and love her and go back to their home in London—for it was now their home, and he would forever consider it to be as such—where they spent countless hours together plotting in his office and dancing in the parlor and making love across the entire house. He wanted to go back to debates over books and poetry and religion, to learning stories about her past, and telling her stories of his. He wanted more time in the chateau they visited, and to go to her penthouse in New York, of which she had gushed so much about. He wanted a life with her. And yet, he could not have one. His life was in New Orleans now; this was what must be.

Katherine did not expect to get dumped. Now, granted, she could have gone about the whole convincing-thing a little bit better—it probably wasn't the best choice to call his brother a raving lunatic, no matter if he really was one or not—but still, she had not actually thought Elijah would leave her. She loved him, and he left. She had always loved him. She had cared for him as a mere child, and the affection had never really gone away. Now, granted, she had also spent the better part of her life running away from him, and he had scared her more than a little bit over the past three centuries, but that was to be expected. He was an Original. He was the oldest living vampire in the world; it was a little bit scary. Hell, if he so deigned to, Elijah could kill her wherever she stood. It would kill his emotions in the process, and he probably would stick himself in one of those creepy coffins afterwards, but she knew he could compartmentalize enough to rip her heart out of her chest if he was angered enough. She just did not expect him to do so in a metaphorical sense. He was gone, and what felt like for good. Now what was she supposed to do?

-0-0-0-0-0-

May 21, 1864

Katherine had finally managed to escape from the Salvatore Estate, and make her way down to the river. Of course, it was exceedingly improper for a delicate young lady such as herself to be wandering around the woods unchaperoned—if only they knew that the demons lurking in the woods were her all along—but propriety was to be damned right now.

She had had a suspicion for years. If she was really being honest with herself, of which she prided herself on being, she had had more than a suspicion for some time. After all, one does not run into a…former acquaintance, who was supposed to hate her, that many times over the past three centuries, and be let go, merely by chance. And maybe he was simply tracking her for Klaus; maybe she had been slowly going insane over the three hundred years of her life. However, a small part of Katherine could not help but hope she was wrong. Hope that maybe the man she once knew—the man with whom she had had exactly two interactions with since fourteen ninety-two—was perhaps keeping the promise he once made to her. It was an insignificant promise, made on a night when the men of Klaus's castle had returned from a hunt in a ruckus, crazy with the lust for blood and more, and she had gotten herself into a situation where she had desperately needed his rescue. It was a pathetic wish, she knew, but he had promised to protect her then, and perhaps… Perhaps he was the man of his word that she had once believed him to be.

Katherine stopped, having heard a twig snap. She turned, skirts and immense petticoats rustling, but behind her there was nothing. "I know you are here!" She said to the woods. "I can hear you. I can feel your presence." She turned back, facing her original direction. "Show yourself!" Katherine was beginning to feel as if she was going insane as she pushed the bonnet back from her head, feeling constricted by her clothing. What if she had been wrong? Was he not here? If not… Was this to be her life? Traveling from city to city, taking on a new identity every time, making up a new deceased 'family' to replace the one she lost far too long ago… Was this woman she plastered on every day to become the rest of her existence? Would she ever be able to break this deadly cycle she had gotten herself into; would she find happiness for just once? "Damn it, I said to show yourself! I know you are there." She heard another twig snap, again to her back. Katherine whirled around once more, but again, nothing. "Stop being a coward! You're here; I know it! You've always been with me; forever in the shadows, three arm's lengths away. You let yourself get close twice, though those may have been accidents. Or maybe your will was giving out." She gave an exasperated laugh, worrying the fan in her gloved hands, dearly wishing to just rip off her petticoats and run. Running was what she did best, after all. But right now, she needed answers to her never-ending questions. "Well, right now, my will has given out. I am tired; so dreadfully tired. I know you are here, just out of reach, like always. Simply…show yourself. Before I give up, once and for all." Katherine pleaded, in a way she had not begged anyone before.

"Miss Katherine?" A voice shouted from a distance away in the woods. Her heart sunk. She had been discovered.

"Yes, Mister Salvatore?" Katherine slipped her haughty mask back into place as she fixed her bonnet, playing her role before the young boy as he appeared in her line of sight. Thankfully he did not question her presence in the woods, or she would have had to resort to compulsion to cease his questions.

"My father is back from his business, and I believe he has requested your company in a game of croquet." Stefan said.

"I would be honored." She forced the sly smirk upon her face, really not feeling up to a game of croquet at all. "Tell me, Mister Salvatore, when will your brother be back from his business?"

"Quite soon, I believe, Miss Katherine."

"How lovely. It is always so delightful to have the company of both yourself and your brother." She replied as they walked up towards the manor.

Elijah was left mere feet where she had just stood, cursing the young man's existence. He had been so close to walking out to meet her, so close to taking her up on her plea, when they had been interrupted. He wanted to speak with her, to see what could happen. But she was right; he was a coward. Or, more correctly, he was a selfish man. Her carrying-on with the Salvatore boys angered him. It incensed him, to see her acting so like the woman he had thought she was nothing like. He knew her to be more of a woman than yet another girl who played with brothers. She was worth more than that, and here she was, proving him wrong. She was like a disease; something he could not get rid of, no matter how much he wished to do so, and yet what he clung to most desperately. It had been hell, watching her with the Salvatore boys these past few months. It was torture to see her fall for someone not worth her time, and a mere human, at that.

No, this was too much: to see her playing and laughing with children. It was entirely selfish, and the moment he left town Elijah knew he would regret this decision, but he could not take it anymore. He would leave; he must leave. He could not look at her every day while the memory of her pleas ran through his mind continuously, if only for the weight his own guilt would bear upon him. He needed to get away from his damned birthplace and away from her, before he went insane. He could not take this anymore. Maybe… Rebekah had urged him to rejoin her and Niklaus in New Orleans for some time now. Perhaps after taking care of that business in London he could consider her request.

And so, on that spring day in the year of 1864, Katherine Pierce and Elijah Mikaelson nearly touched before they went their separate ways.

AN: Well, that's it. I'd love to know what you all thought of this chapter and the story overall-your lovely words will console me during the grief period I'm going to enter the moment this story is posted. This story has been my love letter to the Kalijah family, and especially now in the wake of a certain actress's announcement, it really feels like a goodbye to the ship itself. I feel like this story is my magnum opus for Katherine and Elijah: this is the best I'm ever going to get them. And strangely, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with letting two of my favorite characters on television peak. I think it's been fantastic run, and though things in canon never happened like they should have, well, we've got fanfiction to fix those messes.

This won't be the last I write for Katherine and Elijah. However, this may be the last I write for a while. I'm in the home stretch of my senior year of high school-one month left-and it's setting up to be a rough one, homework-wise. Over the summer, though, we'll see how things go before I head off to university.

I thank all of you who have spent time reading, and reviewing, this story of mine. It really means a lot to me.

Alright, I'm going to go cry now.

-Abigail