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Tweak says, "WHAT THE HELL HAVE IIIIIIII?"

Elena Gilbert (youliedtome) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2014-09-08 20:10:00

Entry tags:

elena gilbert, katherine pierce

WHO: Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce
WHEN: Monday evening
WHERE: Purgatory
WHAT: Doppelganger bonding
RATING: TBD
STATUS: In progress

Elena wasn't entirely sure that this was a good idea. Katherine really did seem different, but she wasn't going to let herself completely trust her ancestor. She had come through for them on a number of occasions in the past but only when it benefited her. Elena couldn't see what Katherine had to gain from befriending her here. She was engaged to an Original, who definitely weren't Team Elena, and, although their paths were bound to cross now and then, it shouldn't be too hard to stay out of each other's way if they wanted to. But Katherine had seemed to be reaching out to her, calling for a truce, ever since she'd arrived. Elena just didn't see why she would be doing that, unless she really had changed somehow. It was either that or she had some secret agenda that she was being very careful about hiding. Even Damon didn't seem to distrust her too much, and that was saying something.

So she had decided to give Katherine a chance. One chance. It helped that she was curious about the version of her that had been here before, but she also was trying to be open minded with people here - even people from home. She couldn't expect people to give her a chance if she wasn't willing to do the same for others.

Pulling her jacket tighter around her, her arms crossed over her chest, Elena entered the bar. It was dim inside, after the still light evening out on the street, but Elena's vampire eyesight adjusted quickly and she was able to scan the bar, taking stock of who was around. There weren't many people there, but that was hardly surprising for reasonably early on a Monday evening. The bar was lit up and it was in that direction that Elena started, the idea of a drink seeming very appealing at that moment.

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believesownlies
2014-09-08 07:36 pm UTC (link)

Truth was, Katherine had changed. So much. Lawrence had been hell for her at first, shunned and slighted by word of mouth of others from home, she didn't even have her game of playing Elena at her disposal because the doppleganger was already there. Her team up with Moriarty, which seemed so very long ago now, had certainly not helped.

But things were so different now, and she understood it was hard for people from home to wrap their minds around Katherine Pierce not being the same cutthroat psycho bitch vampire they knew from Mystic Falls, so she never held it against them when they showed up. She had simply taken to proving it, by her actions. They meant more than her words anyway.

"Hey," she said in greeting when Elena walked up to the bar to order something. Katherine had been a few minutes early and already had her drink in hand. She could only imagine how much more awkward this was for Elena than it was for her.

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youliedtome
2014-09-08 08:23 pm UTC (link)

Elena had noticed the oh so familiar figure, standing at the other end of the bar, as she had been crossing the room. Acting against every instinct that experience had given her, Elena headed towards her ancestor, sucking in a deep breath. "Hey," she replied, trying to sound as casual as Katherine did. How did she make everything look so easy?

Catching the eye of the bartender, Elena leaned forward and asked for a beer. For a moment, she thought she was going to have to compel the man not to ask her for ID, but in the end he didn't ask. She was glad. It somehow felt wrong to flaunt the fact that she was a vampire in front of Katherine. What was she trying to prove? She didn't even know. But everything about this situation felt wrong, backwards and awkward. It was one thing talking on the network sometimes and bumping into each other after a few beers at random parties but this meeting was arranged and that added a hint of menace to the situation. It made Elena feel edgy. She hoped the beer would help put her at ease.

Once the bottle was on the bar in front of her, Elena lifted it up and took a long gulp before peering over the bottle neck at Katherine.

"So," Elena said, pushing herself up to perch on the stool behind her. "This better be a good story."

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believesownlies
2014-09-08 10:21 pm UTC (link)

Katherine watched Elena as she sidled up to the bar and ordered a beer. She was tense. It was...natural, she supposed. She and the other Elena that had been here had actually had building blocks of a relationship that had been carefully placed through months of random talks here and there. And it wasn't as if they were ever best friends, or necessarily even good friends. They were just friends. On the skirts of a descent friendship, and Elena had been one person, much like Lexi, that had helped her when she didn't have to. All would be explained soon enough, anyway. And maybe Elena would relax a bit about how Katherine treated her these days for it.

Katherine took a sip of her own drink before she focused her full attention on Elena. "Honestly, at first, things were no different," she said, diving straight into the story without throwing any platitudes in front of it. Straight and to the point, it would be better received, she was fairly certain. "I hated you, you vilified me, and with you and your brother and some of the others from home that were already here, I was shoved into a box so tight, I hardly had a single person giving me to the time of day." IT was true, and it had been hard, but eventually, she adjusted. Sort of. "So I did what I always do and stuck to the person most likely to keep me alive. He just happened to be a psychopath. You know the Sherlock stories, right? Moriarty?"

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youliedtome
2014-09-11 09:21 pm UTC (link)

So they were going straight to the point. Good. This didn't need to be dragged out any longer than it had to be. Elena kept her beer in her hand, sipping it slowly and frequently as she peered over the lip of the bottle at Katherine.

She wasn't sure whether the older vampire wanted her to feel sympathy or what at her story. She wasn't sure if she did feel sorry for her or not. She could certainly identify with being vilified, but Katherine deserved it, right?

"Yeah, I know who he is," Elena replied, a slight line of confusion wrinkling her forehead. That was who Katherine had chosen to stick to? She couldn't help thinking that it couldn't have been one of her doppelganger's best choices. "What about him?"

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believesownlies
2014-09-12 09:23 pm UTC (link)

"In retrospect? Not the best idea. But," she shrugged, "at the time, it suited me. He gave me anything I needed. A house, money, kept me supplied with people to feed on. It was the perfect deal. All I had to do was play spy through some carefully selected and frequently compelled people on the inside. Playing his games with Sherlock, as you'd expect." She took a sip of her drink.

That, at least, was the quick cliffnotes version. Full blown details would take more time than they had in one night. "Eventually he got him, Sherlock. I played a part in luring him into the final trap and...basically led him to his death. Oh, people hated me for that. It was worse here than it ever was at home. Less people to trick, couldn't play you because you were already here. Couldn't compel any of the displaces because they already knew all about vervain. Things were rough. I didn't have anyone. And I missed it. Being happy. I didn't even remember what it felt like anymore."

There were no hidden agendas in this (...)

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believesownlies
2014-09-12 09:29 pm UTC (link)

meeting, simply explaining the way things had happened. She didn't want sympathy or even empathy from Elena. She just wanted her to understand. "So, I talked to people. Lexi, other-you, I don't even know how many others. And I decided I'd turn it all back on. It was hell, five centuries of emotions...and it's not a dial, it's a flood and it was brutal. But it changed everything." And it really had. One day at a time, everything changed, was still changing every day.

"Not instantly, obviously. Even with my humanity, I'm still me. I'm still a selfish survivor. It took coaching to get where I am. Again, Lexi, other-you, Ruby...people that pushed beyond the past to try to help me work out a future. I tried, probably a thousand times, to make this city okay with me."

She shook her head, letting out a chuckle. "It was so stupid. I don't know why I thought I could just sweep it under the rug and expect everyone to foeget and give me a chance just because I gave some flowery speeches." (...)

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believesownlies
2014-09-12 09:32 pm UTC (link)

Even Katherine couldn't explain her own thought processes and patterns back then. She was so far removed from it now, it didn't even make sense to her now the way she knew it all had back then. "But you were there for me. I have no idea why, other than you're you and you tend to give people a billion chances before you actually, one hundred percent write them off. But...that's the gist of it, anyway." Of course, it was more complicated in practice than it sounded on paper, but wasn't everything?

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youliedtome
2014-09-15 09:13 am UTC (link)

Elena's brow wrinkled as Katherine spoke. More than a couple of times, she wanted to butt in, say something - sometimes something snarky, sometimes something gentle and compassionate - but instead she stayed quiet, taking small, frequent sips of her beer until the bottle was almost empty.

Although Katherine was talking about a different version of herself, as she listened, Elena had to admit that the person Katherine was describing sounded a lot like her. Perhaps it would have been harder for her to do the same, give Katherine the same chances, after the way she'd stolen her body at home, but she found herself feeling glad that the previous version of herself had been open enough to help, despite Katherine's past transgressions. Elena remembered being that compassionate girl. She missed her. She thought she might have been slowly shutting her off, bit by bit, more and more with every threat and betrayal she faced. She wondered if that was how it had happened to Damon, until he'd made himself believe that he didn't care anymore. It shook her slightly, thinking of that comparison. She didn't want to lose who she used to be. She supposed that being here, hearing Katherine out, was a good way to start getting back in touch with her.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that," Elena said after a moment, brown eyes meeting identical brown eyes. "It can't have been easy." Elena knew what it felt like to be vilified but she thought she probably couldn't even begin to imagine how much hate Katherine had been subjected to. It was true, she probably deserved a lot of it, but that made it even more impressive that she'd come through the other side.

"And I'm sorry that I haven't been as... forgiving as she was." Elena's eyes slid down to look at her beer bottle, feeling almost ashamed of herself.

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believesownlies
2014-09-16 04:04 pm UTC (link)

"It's been a ride," Katherine admitted with a nod, "but it's been worth it. Once I let go of trying to make people be okay with me, things eventually sort of leveled out, you know? And they go on about their business, I go on about mine, and I know the lines I can't cross, they don't seek out shots at me all the time anymore. It's a good, unspoken, mutual agreement, basically." That was really the best way to describe it, she supposed. There were some people she could never speak to, like John Watson, not without being met with sheer vehement hate, which, deserved. So she just didn't bother anymore.

Katherine shook her head, "You don't have to be sorry, she was a different girl." Because ultimately, every version of anyone that ever showed up here was different in one way or another. Even if they held their Lawrence memories, they were still different because of the things that had happened back home. "I haven't...done it yet, personally, but I've heard about things back home, from Damon and the others that come from after me. You didn't exactly have any reason to believe me, or to take the olive branch I offered when you showed up here."

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youliedtome
2014-09-22 10:31 am UTC (link)

Elena sucked in a deep breath, raising her eyebrows as she thought back over the last few months. "I think I need more alcohol for that conversation," she said eventually, leaning forward over the bar and trying to catch the eye of the bartender. "Two more, please," she called when he met her eye, nodding her thanks when he placed the two fresh bottles in front of her.

"Here," she said, pushing one towards Katherine. Finishing off the last of her old beer, Elena placed the empty bottle on the bar and wrapped her hand around the cool, fresh one.

"You tried to kill me," Elena said bluntly, giving a little shrug. "You hurt Damon, you toyed with Stefan, you upset my friends and you tried to kill me. I was glad when you were gone. But I'm also glad that the you that's here hasn't done those things. Because, honestly, I don't know how I would deal with this if you had." Elena paused, taking a long drink from her fresh beer before taking a deep breath. "But, before all those things, I wanted to forgive you. Because I can understand how you became the person you are. And I know that I'm lucky to have the friends I do because, if I hadn't, you and I might not have ended up so different."

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believesownlies
2014-09-23 03:50 pm UTC (link)

She finished off the first beer and set the empty bottle aside, accepting the new one when Elena ordered another for both of them. She supposed there was nothing quite like getting the story straight from the source, and since they were apparently sharing things, now it was Elena's turn.

The blunt opening atatement was dulled a bit due to the fact that it was hardly the first time something like that had ever happened between the pair of them before. "Stupid question, which I probably already know the answer to, but...why was I trying to kill you?" Katherine never did anything just for kicks, there were always reasons for every action she made, even if they were terrible reasons, they were still reasons.

"If I had, this probably never would have even been a suggestion." she admited, taking a drink of her beer. That last little musing brought a knowing smirk to her lips. "You and I are a lot alike, Elena. But you never had it in you to be me, and I don't think you ever will."

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