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It was the fact they hadn't really lost contact in the decade since their last meeting that brought Elena to New Orleans now.
They easily could have, - she wondered how different this day would have looked like for that other Elena, and found that despite the uncertainty and the nerves she didn't want to know - but after Willoughby Elijah had sent her a letter with a phone number through his sister - which Rebekah had passed over with a grimace and an eye-roll - and after getting her humanity back, Elena had found herself calling him to apologize.
And then to vent about the latest disaster falling over Mystic Falls.
And then to ask to be put in contact with a few of his witch contacts once she realized that if Bonnie was forced to continue carrying the survival of all her friends they would inevitably lose her to magical exhaustion.
And then - very occasionally - just because.
It's the 'because' that was doing her in now. As Caroline had so pointedly commented on a few days back, she and the Salvatores had crashed and burned years ago, the short-lived relationships Elena had been in since were barely more than repeat booty calls, and - 'You've basically been long-distance dating that man for the past three years, the fact that you've fallen asleep to his voice multiple times and haven't seen him naked yet? It's sad, Elena. I'm sad for you.'
And hearing it get pointed out made Elena realize the blatantly obvious.
She called Elijah because she missed his voice. She called him because she liked the way he said her name. She called him because talking to him tended to be the best part of Elena's week.
So here Elena was. Sitting by the bar inside a small club in the French Quarter, sipping on a blue cocktail and building up the courage to call and announce her presence to the man she might - or might not - have been dating for the past few years, when a vampire slid onto a stool beside her.
He was definitely a vampire. She'd found that the longer it was since her own turning the easier it was to identify other supernatural creatures at a glance or two, the fact that there was the vague coppery scent of blood from his last meal clinging to him only confirmed the guess.
"You must be new in the city," he said, looking at Elena with familiar interest. At least there was no recognition, inside a city crawling with vampires who'd probably run into Katherine a time or two over the centuries, it was almost a pleasant surprise.
Then again, by the looks of him, Elena wouldn't guess his turning to be more than ten or twenty years in the past.
"Must I be?" Elena asked and fought back a slightly irritated sigh, she was alone inside a club, it wasn't a bad guess to think she might be interested in some flirting.
Incorrect. But not bad. She could give him the courtesy of turning him down easy.
"I haven't seen you before, and I know everyone." He looked like he'd been turned in his early twenties, handsome enough, with dark brown hair cut in a way that made it fall over his eyebrows in the front, and making the smug air around him more pronounced than it needed to be.
It reminded Elena a little of Damon and the urge to play at politeness took a slight but immediate dive downward.
"Do you? And why's that?" Elena asked, accenting her question with a hint of boredom.
"I'm sorry, I should introduce myself," he smirked and extended his arm to her for a shake. "Elijah Mikaelson. You might have heard of my family."
Elena stared, her mouth dropping open in disbelief.
The vampire wore a suit - though not one that looked to be tailored specifically to him, - and she supposed the hair was a similar enough shade of brown - though greased up with just a bit too much product and not looking nearly as soft to the touch as Elena had always secretly suspected Elijah's to be - but he was not, in this or any other universe, Elijah Mikaelson.
The smug air around the Pretender grew as he clearly misinterpreted Elena's gobsmacked disbelief as awe at his 'identity'.
It was through sheer force of will and a sudden attack of morbid fascination in finding out how deep a hole this Not Elijah was going to dig himself that Elena suppressed a bark of laughter from escaping her throat.
"You are?" Elena widened her eyes and turned on the chair to face him fully. She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Aren't you like vampire royalty?"
Obviously thinking he'd hooked her line and sinker the deeply stupid vampire nodded his head magnanimously. "Some people view us as such, I admit."
This... was the most hilarious thing that had happened to Elena in... maybe ever.
She could already picture the pained grimace Elijah would wear when he found out that someone had stolen his identity to sleep with women he was picking up at clubs around the French Quarter. And if Caroline proved to be right about more than just Elena's feelings? Elena shivered a little at the look he might wear when that someone used Elijah's identity to try to pick up specifically her.
"That is so interesting," Elena smiled and tried to exude as much wide-eyed innocence as possible while moving her fingers to twirl a strand of hair around her fingers.
Not Elijah visibly lost a few more brain cells as his eyes got naturally drawn to Elena's chest area by the movement.
"I'm Elena," she said, knowing he was forgetting her name even as he heard it. He had that look about him.
---
Elijah lay in a comfortable leather armchair reading a fascinating biography he'd come across recently and was considering if he had time for a few more chapters before bed when the phone on the tabletop beside him began buzzing.
He sighed at seeing his brother's name on the screen and after carefully placing a bookmark between the pages of the book, picked up the call.
"Niklaus, for what do I owe the displeasure of this late a call?"
"Do you remember those rumors about someone pretending to be you to the recent supernatural arrivals in the city?"
"Vaguely," Elijah said with a slight grimace.
Rebekah had laughed for hours when she'd heard the news from Marcel. Elijah's amusement was rather more lacking.
"Diego just saw him hitting on some fledge in a club in the French Quarter."
"And this requires disturbing my evening why exactly? Just send a few of your little soldiers to pick him up, this can be dealt with tomorrow." The impersonator was not exactly a threat to his reputation, over the centuries all his siblings had picked up a copycat or two.
Upending Elijah's entire night required something far more serious than the latest brainless pretender.
"Oh, I think you want me to disturb your evening," Klaus said, suddenly sounding worryingly gleeful.
Elijah felt the threat of a yet another Klaus-induced migraine.
"And why is that?"
"Because you are never going to guess who the fledge being hit on is."
"I am on the edge of my seat," Elijah replied dryly only to be answered by the ping of an incoming text.
It was a photo.
Slightly blurry and clearly taken from a distance but the woman's face was well lit by the lamps behind the bar. Elena sat frozen inside a moment; a strand of hair wrapped around her finger; and suppressed laughter hidden in the uptick to one corner of her lips.
Elena had come to New Orleans.
The last time they talked had been no different from the hundred times before it. There was no reason for Elena to suddenly drop into Elijah's city unannounced. If there had been a new threat and she thought it required his help she would have called first, and she would certainly not have gone to a local club to - as Niklaus had so succinctly put it - be 'hit on' by someone impersonating him.
If Elena was here she had come because she had something to say to him, something she did not think should be said over a phone call.
"Give me the address," he said, the book he'd been reading already dropped forgotten in the chair behind him.
On the other side of the line, his brother laughed and then turned his voice mock-thoughtful. "You know, maybe you're right, you should let the guy have one last night of fun, from the sounds of it 'you' were about to get lucky."
"Address, Niklaus."
---
Elena felt his eyes on her well before she saw him; felt the little hairs on the back of her neck raising into goosebumps as her skin seemed to warm instinctively.
"...Klaus might be the face on the throne but between me and you, I'm actually the hand behind it," Not Elijah prattled on barely taking breaks to take in a breath.
So far she'd learned that the Mikaelsons were apparently 'born in England' - Elena personally guessed she could blame that one on Klaus having settled on a British accent over the centuries - and that 'some of the Arthurian legend was actually based around me and my brothers' - of whom he had two, there didn't seem to be a Finn, or a Henrik in Not Elijah's version of events.
Neither was there Rebekah or Freya. The semester in psychology made her wonder if Not Elijah didn't know about them or if they somehow didn't count.
Elena nodded along with feigned interest and tried to narrow down the direction of the person whose eyes seemed to be tripping every single nerve ending under her skin.
How exactly had it taken Caroline's blunt observation for Elena to notice this development? The fire licking against her was pretty much an old friend by now, she'd felt its like every time Elijah's voice had risen from the speaker during their conversations for... a good well longer than Elena was entirely comfortable admitting.
"You have very beautiful eyes," Not Elijah said suddenly, apparently finally realizing that talking about 'himself' wasn't quite enough to land himself an invite to Elena's hotel room and he moved his hand as if about to brush her hair out of those eyes when his arm halted mid-reach.
It seemed touching was one step too far, Elijah had his pretender's appendage in a grip within the space of a single heartbeat.
And for the first time in ten years, Elena's eyes met Elijah's.
Her breath halted at the look in them; a familiar look, a look like the one she'd seen there before Elijah had kissed her. Like he missed her and were they not in public he would devour her then and there.
Except this time- this time he definitely knew she wasn't Katherine.
"Elena," he said as if to confirm her thoughts.
"Hey," Not Elijah snapped harshly, "we were having a conversation. Do you have any idea who I am?"
"No," Elijah said, not taking his eyes off of Elena and making a spike of something like hunger strike her below the ribcage. Being the one doing the devouring didn't sound so bad either. "Though I do believe the feeling is mutual."
"Hi, Elijah," she managed, her throat dry.
In the periphery of her vision Not Elijah froze like prey in the sights of a prehistoric rex. Blood seemed to drain from his face in a rush of terror.
He tried tugging at the arm in Elijah's grip. It didn't move so much as an inch.
"I was not expecting a visit," Elijah said with carefully pleasant curiosity.
"I know," Elena admitted and bit into her lip nervously, his eyes dropped to her lips and the already charged air between them seemed to heat further. "Caroline kind of mentioned something... that made me wonder."
"Did she? And what was that?"
This wasn't quite how Elena had pictured this conversation - first of all, she had expected they'd be doing it in privacy instead of to the eyes of a horror-struck third party. But this had apparently been coming for ten years, maybe longer, and Elena found she didn't really care to wait any further.
"Have we been seeing each other for the past few years, Elijah?"
Not Elijah seemed to let out a high-pitched whine of reignited terror.
She almost felt a bit bad for the guy, this was probably pretty much his worst-case scenario playing out right in front of him.
Almost.
She was rather too busy with Elijah's eyes, they seemed to light up with something that simultaneously ignited a burn somewhere low within her and sent warmth spreading into her heart. There was wonder and relief there and Elena imprinted every bit of it into the blood warming her from the inside out.
'Yes,' the look said 'if you want us to have been.'
"Hello there," Elena said, and now ignoring the Pretender entirely slid off the stool she'd been sitting on to step into Elijah's arms, wrapping her own around the back of his neck and breathing in a deep breath of his scent.
There was the whoosh of air signaling the flight of the deeply unlucky vampire who had sat beside her half an hour back. And then Elijah's arms encircled her back pressing Elena into him until her nose poked against the collar of his shirt.
After a further gust of air, this time one encircling her and Elijah entirely, they were outside, the artificial lighting from the club replaced by the natural light of the moon and stars as well as the lanterns on the streets below them.
She wondered about the blatant show of vampire speed in plain view but decided that if it didn't worry Elijah, she could drop the thought too. She'd heard that the humans in this city knew far more than they did in most other places.
They were alone, on an anonymous rooftop in the middle of the French Quarter with the distant sound of blues music coming at them from all directions.
Feeling a little wicked, Elena lightly bit the skin of Elijah's neck.
"Elena," he hissed, his fingers contracting against her back.
"Say it again," she ordered, finding something sharp getting soothed by Elijah's use of her name.
"Say what?"
"My name," Elena said and bit him again, a little more sharply, her teeth slicing a tiny cut into his skin and letting a single drop of red touch her tongue.
She moaned at the taste.
"Elena," he said again, this time pulling away with clear reluctance and using his fingers to lightly push against her chin until she looked at him. Elijah tucked a strand of her hair behind Elena's ear. "You are an excellent liar Elena, but your heart has always jumped when you were lying to me, even while you had your humanity off."
She blinked at him, trying to understand what it was he was trying to tell her.
"I like it," Elijah said, something infinitely soft in his eyes and-
He would have kissed her. Except that this time Elena got there first.