Hitching a ride in Elena's body, Katherine hightails out of Mystic Falls on the coattails of Nadia's death with a plan to raze the entire state of Virginia. But she knows she can't do it when her heart is so heavy and fractured. Instead of forgoing Nadia's wish she find her own happiness, Katherine decides to embrace it.
Tying up the loose ends of her life had never been a thought of her own. She'd believed she would have centuries left to live, but Katherine knows the clock is ticking for her, and hot on her heels will be the Scooby Gang trying to exorcise her from Elena Gilbert's body.
It isn't difficult to track Elijah down. If he isn't in a stuck-up hotel, he's out in an alleyway, in an expensive suit, new shoes, and with blood on the palms of his hands. It's how she finds him, wiping his fingers on a handkerchief he places back into the breast pocket of his suit.
"Elena," he says. Then he turns, noticing the details she's purposefully left as herself. "Katerina," he says, tone shifting into something more breathless.
Her heels click against the stone pavement as she slowly approaches him.
"This look doesn't suit you," he says.
"And you with you head between your legs doesn't suit you, either," she says. She stands before him, arms by her sides, her defenses down. He looks at her like she's a ghost. She figures it's the only time he's ever looked at her and seen the real Katherine Pierce.
Instead of giving him time to speak, Katherine stands taller. "I've come to say goodbye, Elijah."
"You came all this way for a farewell?"
"I'm going," she says. "Far, far away." Looking down at his hands, she notices how they're clasped together. Sometimes, she thinks Elijah does that to prevent himself from reaching out toward her. "Somewhere not even an Original can follow."
He opens his mouth, but she refuses to let him speak. The reins have always been in his hands, callousing them when hers have remained soft and needy for them.
She takes a step forward and leans on the tips of her toes to press her lips gently to his. It's such an Elena thing to do, but she doubts Elijah will be so blinded to not know it's Katerina reaching out to him now.
Looking up at him, she says, "For all the mistakes I made, you were never one of them." She tries not to read his expression, of how it falls from being perfectly guarded and blank into something akin to what a human whose capable of being hurt would wear.
She takes a step back. "Goodbye, Elijah." And turns her back on him for the very first time.
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drop a ship ‣ elijah + katherine
for raos; elijah + katherine