17 Works in Episode: s04e18 American Gothic (Vampire Diaries)

Listing Works

  1. Tags
    Summary

    The moon lovingly cast dapples across her, silvery trails caressing her weightless form. Long gone rays of summer sun had left a faint warmth in the depths. Her hair was a silken fan, slow-motion tendrils gently waving in time to the lake's rhythm. Everything was muffled, the only sound the distant crashing of the falls that gave her hometown its name. The surface was an unbroken mirror above her. It reflected her dream self back at her - a still-breathing Ophelia, a nymph from tales as old as time; truly one with the water. Elena wasn't sure how long she'd been denying her lungs air. Time held no meaning; she was a dream beneath the surface, suspended in a quiet, serene world of her own. She felt truly at home; a far cry from the desperate watery gasps and mud-flavoured final breaths that accompanied her dreams during any night when the moon wasn't whole.

    ——

    When Damon makes Elena turn her humanity off after Jeremy's death, she finds that life is a lot easier when you can't feel anything. But the Salvatores' aren't willing to let their human girl go free that easily. So Elena does what doppelgangers do best. She runs - but with a certain blonde Original at her side.

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  2. Tags
    Summary

    "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.

    /or/

    Elena and Elijah never lost touch after Willoughby, though they haven't met face to face since. When Elena finally goes to New Orleans a decade later to ask Elijah a question the first person she meets is someone pretending to be him to hit on women. Not Elijah... has not chosen a very good latest target.

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  3. Tags
    Summary

    She’d been free. Freed from a conscience she couldn’t afford to give up again. Free from the grief she’d never actually wanted to abandon, not until the choice was taken from her. But also free from the two brothers that had been taking choices away from her from the moment they’d come to town.

    And she didn’t want to give that freedom up. She wouldn’t. Not ever again.

    /or/

    When Elena feels her humanity returning she finds herself focusing on having finally been free from the Salvatore brothers, and doesn't abandon her justified anger. Unfortunately, she also realizes that her sire bond to Damon isn't fully broken and goes to Rebekah for help, help that involves a little trip to New Orleans.

    On the way, Elena will have to deal with her newly returned humanity as well as some long-awaited truths about Caroline's old relationship with the older Salvatore.

    There are some things that even the most compassionate person could never forgive.

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  4. Tags
    Summary

    It was the amusement that tipped Rebekah off - the way that underneath the offended anger, Katherine was just about singing 'I know something you don't know' all saccharine pleasure and victory.

    Rebekah furrowed her brows.

    "Give me that," she said, nicking the phone out of Elena's hand and staring at the two-letter word they'd taken for a nickname just minutes ago.

    "Hey," Elena snapped with barely detectable annoyance.

    Rebekah kept staring down at the screen, ignoring the questioning eyes of both Doppelgangers, 'meet em' stared back up at her.

    She cursed under her breath.

    Not a nickname at all was it?

    /or/

    'American Gothic' but Elena never gets a chance to pretend to be Katherine. Not that this means there won't be a moment for her and Elijah to share. The sky is still blue after all.

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  5. Tags
    Summary

    Buck went home after the funeral.

    He thought he could handle it. He thought that laying Bobby to rest would ease his pain, that he would wake up the next day and continue his immortal life and pretend like everything is okay.

    But it’s not.

    Or

    The Vampire Diaries x 9-1-1 fic that nobody requested

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  6. Tags
    Summary

    She had cut a hole into the dam, and emotion refused to obey, cracking the solid stone like a crystal figurine. Until the wall was more like a sieve, letting humanity pour back into Elena with a vengeance.

    And with humanity came-

    "No," she whimpered, freezing in Elijah's arms as he pulled back at once, a worried look overtaking his expression.

    /or/

    Yet another alternate take on the kiss scene from American Gothic.

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  7. Tags
    Summary

    “I can’t,” she choked out, pushing her face further into his chest. She felt his chin lift off her head, and the hand holding her wrists released them as he tilted his face towards hers. His thumb brushed against her cheekbone, his pupils dilated, and before she had a chance to move back he spoke. “Breathe, Elena.”

    Instantly the compulsion took hold, her body dragging in deep and ragged breaths. Her head fell back to her chest and he let it, simply holding her.
    -----
    Elena has no desire to turn her humanity back on – It takes Elijah less than ten minutes. A retelling of the gazebo scene in American Gothic.

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  8. Tags
    Summary

    “I missed you,” he murmured.

    She opened her mouth to return his sentiment, expression already shifting into that perfect Katherine attitude, but her throat closed around the words.

    She couldn’t close the door fast enough.

    (Canon Divergence from The Kiss 4x18)

    (EDIT 23 February 2024: See End Notes for a long explanation of what's been updated and what's to come in a few months)

    Works Inspired by this one:
    They Disappear (Series) by AnonymousObsesser

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  9. Tags
    Summary

    "You listen very carefully to me, Stefan, if anything whatsoever happens to Katherine, I will descend upon Elena."

    Elena rolled her eyes. Bored.

    He was a threat but not because of the reasons she was sure Stefan and Damon were probably freaking out about right now. Not because he could "descent upon her" and tear her to pieces before she could so much as flinch back - she wasn't sure if she'd care if he did and it was moot anyway, he wasn't going to. She knew what it looked like when Elijah made a genuine threat and this here was as empty as it came.

    /or/

    A look into Elena's head during the beginning of her and Elijah's conversation following the kiss. With a small little twist because Elena has always been able to read Elijah Mikaelson just as well as he's been able to read her.

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  10. Tags
    Summary

    Elijah observes that she's not herself.

    Of course she isn't, not when everything that makes her her has been stripped away. Sometimes, she feels unhinged from the world.

    Sometimes, she feels she's looking in a funhouse mirror.

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  11. Tags
    Summary

    Rebekah and Elijah on an all night road trip back to Mystic Falls after the events of 'American Gothic.'

    (Originally written in 2013 post 4x18, given a brush up to be posted here)

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  12. Tags
    Summary

    Her hair lacked the curls he knew Katerina preferred, and though the leather jacket and the heels looked her style, the flowery red summer dress wasn't quite. But that by itself meant very little. There was no way to predict what kind of role she was busy playing at the moment.

    But then her face rose to throw her gaze around the street and even with the distance the recognition hit. Elena.

    /or/

    An alternate take on Elijah's meeting with Elena in American Gothic.

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  13. Tags
    Summary

    “It probably took him about ten seconds to realize that she wasn’t me, at which point he probably yanked her heart right out of her chest.”

    For a few moments Rebekah’s mind - barely past the ickiness of Katherine’s last announcement - blanked at the horrific picture being painted across the back of her eyelids now, and Rebekah felt her nose scrunch up in disgust once more. As soon as the idea of Elena - running on payback and spite and lacking all inhibitions - currently being alone with her brother crystallized in vivid detail, she wanted to scrub it clean. For the good of her own mental health.

    Then she burst out laughing.

    /or/

    An alternate take on the diner scene where Rebekah reacts differently to Katherine's grand statement.

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  14. Tags
    Summary

    "I want you to stay," she says.

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  15. Tags
    Summary

    Another way the infamous gazebo scene in American Gothic (4x18) could have gone.

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  16. Tags
    Summary

    She was driving, driving away from that horrid place, about time too. Maybe it was when her adopted parents died she should have left, or when the supernatural started haunting her, or when she, John and Jenna died in the same night. Maybe it should have been when she well and truly realized that her life would never get back to normal.

    (Elena tries to feed herself to Klaus but he is too busy murdering people so she gets a job and makes a friend.)

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  17. Tags
    Summary

    Nothing can fight off the desperate feeling of rightness as he brushes his lips against hers for the first time.

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