Petrichor - e.mikaelson

31

It took Frankie ten minutes to work up the courage to place her feet on the ground and make her way over to the mirror near the door. Taking in her disheveled appearance she felt sure she should've waited longer to look, she quite literally looked as though she'd been pulled from a scene in a horror film.

Her hair that had been tied messily in a bun had slipped free from the tie and now sat in disheveled waves with its tips tinted pink, tainted by her blood. Her white shirt too was almost entirely red, dyed with blood that congealed against her front, even her olive coloured trousers were blackened and damp.

Trudging to Elijah's closet, she hoped he'd forgive her as she rifled though his drawers, eventually pulling out a shirt and sweatpants. She stumbled into the bathroom that was connected to his room, tugging her sodden sticky clothes off and dumping them in a pile by the door before climbing into the shower. Glancing down at her feet with her arms crossed around her while she waited for the water to warm up she saw the blood even tinted the tips of her toes.

After what felt as though it was the longest shower of her life, Frankie finally turned the water off and stepped from the shower. Satisfied at last that she was clean and that every inch of her body had been scrubbed to oblivion to clear the blood.

Elijah was waiting for her when she left the bathroom, his head was in his hands though it shot up in relief when she emerged as though he'd been frightened something had happened to her after their hour apart.

"Did you get them," she asked tentatively, stepping slowly towards him, "are Rebekah and Klaus okay?" Elijah shook his head and she came closer, taking a seat beside him on the bed with her hand resting on his leg, "I'm so sorry Elijah. I should've listened to you and gone with Hayley and then-"

"Then Hayley and the baby would've been at risk too," he cut her off, his hand reached out to catch hers that sat on his leg and he brought it tenderly to his lips, "This is not your fault. This is on my own actions and that of my family, not you."

"Elijah," Frankie said softly, her fingers fidgeting in his hand, "Maybe I should leave New Orleans. You've already got Klaus and Rebekah and whatever's happening with Marcel and then Hayley and the baby to worry about. I could go, go sort my head out and be somewhere new. You don't need to be putting them at jeopardy just for-"

"No," he cut her off, gently turning her head to face him while his other hand clutched her hand only tighter, "Don't. Please, don't leave New Orleans. Don't let my family chase you from another city."

Don't leave me.

Elijah knew his heart was racing almost more quickly than hers as she said this and he wanted to collapse to his knees and beg her to stay. He needed her to stay, to be his light in the unimaginable darkness of his family and their enemies. Elijah knew truly that the farther from him and his family the safer she'd be but here he could keep her safe and then too at night he could hold her. Each night recently that she'd allowed herself to drift off beside him felt like the most blissful dream he could imagine and he couldn't bear to believe he might lose her.