Chapter Text
Ellie is seventeen and pissed off the first time she meets a Mikealson.
She’s just landed, and instinct has her running. Being young, alone, and in a dark alleyway never works out well for her. She doesn’t know where she is, but she’ll figure that out later. After coffee. And maybe a bite to eat.
She’s still running on autopilot, fantasizing about a toasted everything bagel with melted cream cheese when she runs into a wall. She curses up a storm before she realized that the wall has arms, and they’re gripping her.
“Hey! What the fuck!” she snaps, pulling away and glaring up (and up, holy shit, he’s tall) at the man she collided with.
The man has short brown hair, and green eyes that are smiling down at her with a familiarity that she finds disturbing, “Ellie,” he says warmly, his voice dark, and accented, “it’s nice to see you so soon after you left,”
She doesn’t drop her glare, causing his smile to falter, “How do you know my name?” Ellie demands, quickly darting her eyes around to see if this was some sort of trap. Why else would an insanely attractive older man with cheekbones for days be talking to her?
But she didn’t see anyone else, just an empty road, and closed shops. When she meets his eyes again, he’s blinking unsurely at her, “Forgive me,” he takes a step back, as if he only noticed how close he was, “I knew this would happen one day, but I still find myself wholly unprepared. You never did tell me how we first met,” his smile is small, and a little crooked, and against her better judgement she finds herself a little endeared by it.
Then the words sink in, and she can feel the blood drain from her face.
“You know?” she croaked, unable to find that anger that usually fuels her through life. She never told anyone about her condition—not like she ever had the chance to with how frequent she gets tossed around.
“You have never hidden from me,” he said softly, his hand twitching like he wanted to touch her, but thought better of it. Which Ellie was grateful for, because she felt like she was one wrong breathe away from sprinting in the other direction.
“If that’s true, tell me something only I would know,” she said, crossing her arms and getting ready for a fight if she had to.
After a short pause, he gives her another gentle smile, “You once told me that you sometimes dream about your mother. That there is a part of you, perhaps through some strange twist of your condition, that can still remember being in the womb. You told me that that dream, or memory, whichever it is, was the only thing that kept you alive in your youth. The knowledge that you were once safe, and loved,”
Ellie was shaking. She pretended it was because of the adrenaline. “I don’t believe you.” she finally whispered.
He continued to give her that closed-lip, gentle smile, and she hysterically thought that maybe he could read minds and knew she was lying. “My name is Finn. Your name is Ellie. You don’t know me yet, but I have known you for many years,”
“Good for you,” she snarled, suddenly uncrossing her arms. She didn’t understand what was happening, or why this man seemed to know her, but it must be some sort of trick, because she would never let herself get attached to someone, and she certainly would never tell them about that memory.
For the first time that smile faltered, “I understand that this must be difficult for you,” –she snorted—“but we are… I am here to help you,”
She noticed the wording, felt that he was hiding something from her, and every hair on her body raised in suspicion, “Okay,” she huffed, “fine. You’re here to help me. How do you want to do that?”
His eyes shone in relief, but she didn’t let herself fall for it. Whatever this was, and whoever he was, he would only be trouble. She didn’t care if he thought he knew her, she knew herself better than anyone ever could, and she learned a long time ago not to trust anyone.
“We can get you something to eat, and then speak about accommodations,” he took a step back and gestured for her to follow. Reluctantly, she did.
“Where are we, anyways?” she asked as they began walking down the dark road. Lord knows where he thought he was going to take her for food, but she wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to find out.
“Mystic Falls, Virginia, United States. It’s Tuesday, October fifth, two-thousand and eleven,” he said easily, falling into step beside her with an air of familiarity that made her stomach twist. But that could have been the fact that he gave her the date without her asking.
He must actually know her. At least enough to know what she really meant when she asked where they were.
“So. Finn. When did you first meet me?” she fished. Maybe if she knew more, she would be more cautious in the future. Or maybe throttle her future self for being so goddamn naïve to let anyone know about her and what she can do.
His lips quirked into a smirk, “Ah, what is it you always tell us? We can’t ruin the surprise,”
Ellie slowed her steps, until she was fully stopped on the sidewalk. He was a few paces in front of her before he noticed, and turned to face her fully, one eyebrow raised in question.
“You said ‘us’,” she accused.
“Yes, I did. There are others that know about you,” he said carefully, like he knew he had made a misstep, but didn’t quite understand how.
“Okay, now I know you’re lying. I would never tell anyone about me, let alone a bunch of people,” she growled, “so, who are you?”
“I am someone you can trust,” he said firmly, with a tinge of desperation.
“And that’s where you made your mistake,” she laughed bitterly, “I don’t trust anyone, not even some future version of myself,” and without hesitation, she turned tail and ran.
She heard a muffled curse behind her, and his footsteps start to follow before he stopped and yelled after her, “Find the Mikealson’s! Wherever you are, we will help you!”
Ellie flipped him off, but didn’t look back.
********
Finn sighed as he walked into the manor. He shrugged off his coat and walked straight to the kitchen, grabbing a glass and a blood bag. He may have come to terms with his vampirism, but that didn’t mean he had to be uncivilized.
“Brother! What’s got you all in a mood?”
Finn only sighed again as one of his said uncivilized brothers walked into the room, his smile wide, but his eyes sharp and just a little mean.
“Kol,” he greeted with an air all older brothers adopted when speaking with their little brother. Still, he answered the question since it had to do with her, “I saw Ellie,”
“Oh, she’s back already?” he grinned, his grin softening just enough to remind Finn of what they were like when they were only children.
“Not quite,” he hummed, taking a thoughtful sip from his glass.
After a few beats of silence, Kol rolled his eyes and raked a hand through his shaggy hair, “Please, don’t leave us in suspense, brother. Where is Ellie?”
“She will not be joining us this time, Kol,” Finn said, bracing himself for his youngest brother’s fury. Out of all of them, Kol had the least amount of control over his heightened emotions.
“This sounds like a conversation for all of us,” Kol said instead of the explosion Finn was expecting. Sheepishly he followed his brother to the main living area, where his other two brothers, and one sister were.
“Finn, Kol, what has you two looking so serious?” the question tinged in sarcasm came from the shortest of the siblings, with curly blonde hair and deep dimples. The last brother stood perfectly still, in a well-tailored suit, his brown eyes sweeping across the room. The sister, with hair so blonde it was almost white, tried to keep the curl of a sneer off her face.
There was only one thing that could rile up all her brothers like this.
“You’ll have to ask our dear eldest brother that. He says he saw Ellie, and yet she’s not here,” Kol said, that smirk never leaving his face. He traded the blood bag for a glass of whiskey, then flung himself onto the couch, looking careless to the untrained eye. But Finn knew his brothers, and saw the thread of tension in all of them. He turned an intentional blind-eye to his sister’s clear ire.
“I did see Ellie,” Finn said, stepping further into the room, but remained standing. All his siblings were certainly closer than they’d ever been before, but that didn’t mean a hybrid bite, or a neck snap was out of the realm of possibility.
“And she was well?” the second eldest son asked, voice carefully contained, even as he stood there looking like a statue.
“Yes, Elijah. However,” he hesitated, “she did not know who I was,”
The silence was only broken by the sister’s quiet chuckle. She faced all of her brother’s glare with one of her own, “Oh, please, you’ve all known that this was to happen at one point or another. Why the tension?”
“Careful, Rebekah,” the blonde brother growled, and flashed his yellow eyes to show how short his patience was, “this is Ellie we’re talking about,”
Rebekah rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything more.
He turned his attention to Finn, crossing his legs from where he was sitting on the sittee and gestured for him to continue.
“Truthfully, Nikklaus, I was surprised,” Finn admitted.
“Well, that hardly seems like an excuse to leave our Ellie alone and wandering in the dark with no means to provide for herself, does it?” Nikklaus said with a deceptively genial smile.
Finn wanted to be angry, but he was too worried about Ellie to truly disagree. She never delved into too much detail about her early years alone—always smiled and said she’d already told them, even if it hadn’t happened for them yet. But she did share how difficult it was, to ‘land’ as she called it and not know where- or more importantly when -she was. That she spent her life alone, and afraid.
“She was frightened of me,” he said, finally sitting on the couch across Nikklaus, and beside Kol. Elijah remained standing behind Nikklaus as Rebekah leaned against the wall by the window with her arms crossed, “I tried to take her somewhere to eat, and convince her to come home with me, but she… refused,”
“And you didn’t think to just take her?” Kol demanded, scowling at his eldest brother. If it had been him, he would have moved heaven and hell to make sure that she was safe with them, with her family.
“And scare her more?” Finn scowled, some frustration finally leaking through. What did his brother take him for? Of course, he wanted to just bring her home, but for her it wasn’t home. It was a house filled with strangers that knew too much about her. If there was any hope to continue having Ellie in their lives, then they needed to think about this logically.
Or as logical as their situation could be.
“At least we would know she’d be safe,” Kol glowered.
“While I do not agree with our troublesome youngest brother,” Elijah said, his mask of calm never breaking, “I would like more details. Our Ellie just left us, and you know that we often go… many weeks before seeing her again. Please give us details so that if we see this, shall we say, younger version, we can be better prepared,”
Nikklaus tapped his ringed finger on his glass, but didn’t add.
With a sigh, Finn told them everything. Including how young she was, and how thin. Including how painful it was to look at her and not see the reflection of affection and trust in her eyes. Including how she insisted she didn’t trust anyone, not even herself.
When all the Mikealson men were sipping on the drinks (Rebekah had long ago retired, not particularly interested in hearing anything more about the dreadful wench), Finn said with a touch of laughter in his voice, “She also, how is it worded now, flipped me off as she ran away,”
Everyone gave a soft chuckle at that.
“She’s still our Ellie, then,” Nikklaus murmured to himself, though all the brothers agreed.