Petrichor - e.mikaelson

53

Frankie recovered surprisingly well from that day though she spent almost all of it wrapped up in Elijah's arms. She couldn't believe that Cami had been up and running about the same day which her compulsion had been lifted because she was gripped with such exhaustion she was sure she could barely move.

Fortunately she was just fine eventually, and better still no one brought up how vehemently she'd known that Elijah was the devil. Even Klaus who relished any opportunity to taunt her understood that a reminder of how she'd acted would only cause her pain. She'd been nervous the first time she left the room, love for her friends filling her as each of them pretended nothing had happened.

Both she and Cami lived at the compound full time from then on. She and Elijah would occasionally spend the night at her own apartment but he was so protective of her each time they left compound that she almost worried about the strain it put him under. He'd never been this worried about her before but she understood how terrifying what she'd gone though had been for all of them and why he needed to know she was okay.

Her brother had visited too though she declined to tell him the full extent of what had happened when she never showed up to thanksgiving. He'd actually been the one to sound the alarm that she never showed. When she hadn't arrived on the first day like she'd intended, he shrugged it off presuming she'd been waylaid, but when a second day passed and she didn't return her calls he grew worried. He knew Damon had Klaus' number thanks to their time in Mystic Falls and when he called to find out if Klaus knew why she wasn't here nor calling him back, they'd both realised simultaneously that something was wrong.

It was somewhat a tense visit considering everything that had happened between him and the Mikaelson's, particularly their mother, but it was one that everyone tolerated because it was for Frankie.

Eventually he left and things retuned to the new normal, one with the Mikaelsons, Cami, and Frankie. Rebekah was still at large, apparently while Frankie and Cami were taken by Lucian, she'd been caught by the Strix and then Aurora and staked. Klaus and Elijah had tag teamed in their searching and they knew her location at last. Though they hadn't brought her home yet, with each piece of the puzzle they were closer to finding her and she had no doubt they they would.

Frankie was laying on the couch in Elijah's room now, her laptop propped on her stomach and her legs sprawled across Elijah's legs. She was typing out replies to her emails without much effort while he read, his fingers absentmindedly running across her skin comfortingly. His touch was always so tender across her skin and she felt herself flood with love for every piece that made up Elijah.

"I like how you touch me," she murmured.

Elijah stilled, the corner of his lip quirking up in surprise and amusement as he raised his eyebrows. His fingers that were trailing across her leg paused and he closed his book, placing it beside him on the side table.

"Do you?"

"Not like that," Frankie rolled her eyes, shutting her laptop too and placing it beside her as he had, Elijah pretended to look wounded and so she corrected herself, "Not not like that, but just when we're doing normal stuff. Your thumb always traces me, or your fingers draw circles, it makes me feel like I'm really here, and it makes me remember you're here too."