Willow ↠ Elijah Mikaelson

36

Elijah had to stand alone for a few minutes to re-think. But he could see no other way in saving her.

And then the noise of the shower turned off, and footsteps along the wooden floorboards of her room made themselves known, and Elijah knew it was now or never.

He opened the door and revealed himself, Willow had tiptoed out of the shower, flung on a robe and was towel drying her hair. "There you are" she smiled, standing up straight "I just took a shower and got all of the blood out my skin, it took a while but it's all gone. I made sure of it"

Willow walked over to him. Why was she talking like nothing had just happened? It was like she had just awoken from a long sleep, its like she ignored the elephant in the room.

She tiptoed and kissed him, but she knew that there was something odd when he didn't kiss her back. Willow sighed, grasping Elijah's suit collar.

"I get it" she said "I really do, you're mad. It was stupid, okay? I'm sorry" she raised her eyebrows and thought the whole thing would go away with those words. "I didn't want to put you through that"

"One minute" Elijah breathed, just those two words sending shivers down his spine.

Willow raised an eyebrow, wondering what he meant.

"One minute more and you would have died, you would have bled out" Elijah elaborated on his previous remark "what would have happened then?"

Willow stood back on her feet, hopping down from her tiptoes. She took a step back "you can't really be holding this over me" she told him, shaking her head "Elijah, I had to do what I had to do, so we both could get out"

"That's not what I want you to say, that's not how I want you to feel" he snapped back "I don't want you to think that the only way to keep yourself from being taken is to stab yourself"

"Yes but..." Willow stuttered, not being able to think of anything to reply to him "but, it worked, you of all people know that In this type of life, you have to take risks and make sacrifices. And look, we now know how I can heal quickly, it's fine, everything's fine"

Elijah didn't reply to her. Yes, it was a major breakthrough but that wasn't the principle of the thing.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked "you should be happy that I'm not dead, not shutting me out because I did something you didn't like" her worry turned to guilt, and now her guilt turned to anger.

"Im not shutting you out" Elijah replied quickly, defending himself.

"Then why are you being like this with me?" She asked, verging on tears, not because this was their first argument, not because she just had come back on the verge of death. But because Elijah looked heartbroken, and he wouldn't tell her why. "Don't you care about me?"

"Of course I care about you, Willow" he spoke her name and it still had the same effect, he was still powerful enough to send shivers down her spine and weaken her at the knees. "How do you think it feels, that when you're hurting, when you're bleeding and crying, screaming out in pain, I cannot hold you" his voice raised at her "I can't lift you and carry you to safety without risking my own life, I can't hug you or kiss you, I have to stand at a distance and try and tell you everything's okay. If you died, I wouldn't be able to kiss you goodbye, you could have died because I couldn't touch you"

Her heart broke even more. She walked closer and took his face in her hands, turning his head to look at her. "Elijah, look at me" she said, her eyes were burning red. She then took his hands and forced them on her waist "look at me, feel me, I'm alive and I'm going to stay alive" she told him "I promise"

"You are" Elijah agreed, nodding his head as he sniffed "you are going to live and I'm going to make sure of it"

"Good, then can we forget this entire thing?" She went to walk away but Elijah took her hand and pulled her back.

"You're going to live, because you aren't going to be here anymore" he revealed "we've got an apartment for you in Beaufort"

"South Carolina?" She asked "that's almost 12 hours drive, what do you mean?"

"Tristan thinks your dead, I can get you out of here tomorrow-early morning, get you settled in and make sure you have the life you deserve" Elijah told her with a lump in his throat.

Willow laughed "you can't possibly believe that I won't come back" she said "why are you doing this? This is my life, I don't want it any other way"

"But I don't want you dying because of it" Elijah replied "that's why I'm going to wipe all of your memories, everything; me, Christopher, your parents."

"You're going to condition me, making me forget everything that makes me, me, in order to satisfy yourself?" She asked, now she was crying, because it wasn't a joke. Elijah was serious "you can't do this to me Elijah" she cried, shaking her head "no, no, no I won't have it, you can't"

"This has to be it, its the only way" Elijah tried to explain himself, trying to make it sound okay for her.

"No, it is the way it has to be for you. Please don't, I'm fine, I'll be fine, we can kill Tristan" she begged, squeezing his hands and trying everything she knew to change his mind.

"And when Tristan has gone, who else? The entire world knows about you and as long as we're alive, people would want to kill us. Plus more, you'll never be safe" Elijah carried on trying to justify his actions.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it then" she tried but it was failing "I'm not going to let you do this"

Elijah took her shoulders "you will" he compelled "forget this conversation happened, forget anything is wrong. Just lay low for tonight and pack up all of your things, set an alarm for 4am tomorrow morning and get some rest"

Willow stared at him blankly "I'll pack up my things" she repeated "I'll set an alarm for 4am"

"Good"'Elijah swallowed "we'll leave shortly after"

Clinging on For Life - The Hoosiers