Caroline rudely kept speaking into the phone set on the table in the lawn of the Lockwood mansion. Maeve, who had accompanied Caroline to the mansion with some reluctance, focused her attention on arranging a bouquet of flowers, allowing the conversation to envelop her.

"I don't need to remind you that your Miss Mystic Falls attendance record sucks," Caroline's voice rang out with an edge of exasperation.

Maeve couldn't help but chime in, her words laced with dry humor, "Yeah, last time you were busy indulging in a contestant's blood feast, and now you're out in the woods, channeling your inner fitness guru."

Amidst the banter, Stefan's voice carried a weight that caught both girls off guard. The phone was on speaker, their curiosity piqued by his cryptic response.

"I don't need to be anywhere. Elena and I broke up," Stefan's words landed like a sudden thunderclap, shocking Maeve as much as they did Caroline.

"What?" Maeve's incredulous voice echoed Caroline's surprise.

"Yeah, yesterday morning," Stefan's tone carried a tinge of detachment, but Maeve sensed the layers of emotion simmering beneath his words.

Caroline couldn't help but interject, her words laced with a mix of sympathy and genuine concern, "Did that sound as melancholic to you as it did to me?"

"I'm not depressed. I just want to sink my fangs into someone's artery and drink until I can't draw another breath," Stefan's confession hung heavy in the air, his visceral craving palpable even through the phone.

Maeve's revulsion was evident as she retorted, "That's gruesome, and I'm sorry you're feeling that way."

Caroline's immediate response was tinged with empathy, even if she couldn't fully relate, "And you can't act on it. As your sponsor in sobriety, I won't let that happen."

Then, a revelation swept through the conversation, altering its course entirely. "She said she has feelings for Damon," Stefan's voice held a mixture of resignation and disbelief. Caroline's outburst was immediate, her frustration unrestrained, "She can't have feelings for Damon. He's Damon, and you're you. And I am utterly revolted by this news."

Maeve's gaze met Caroline's, a silent understanding passing between them. The shock of Elena's confession resonated deeply within both of them, despite their differing reactions. While Maeve had anticipated the potential for history to repeat itself, the reality of the situation still managed to strike her with an unexpected force.

Caroline's frustration continued, her words sharp, "I'm going to talk to her, shake some sense into her clearly twisted brain."

In an attempt to add a balanced perspective, Maeve interjected, her voice measured, "I don't know if that will achieve much, Caroline. Elena might have a point. Transitioning into a vampire alters someone fundamentally. It's not a simple shift, like changing clothes; it's a transformation that magnifies who they were."

"Maeve's right. There's nothing you can do." Stefan agreed, his voice saddened and hurt as were his words. Maeve looked up, just in time to see Elena look toward her and Caroline.

"I'd say a few things but they won't be taken in good faith, so I'm just going to excuse myself. Uh, Care?" she glanced at the blonde vampire. "Doppelgänger incoming. Steffie, take care of yourself, alright? Your ex-girlfriend might not like you spiraling."

Maeve scattered away from them immediately. A dull smile on her face, as she walked away. "Maeve?" the sound of her name made her turn her head around. Klaus stood before her smiling back at her.

"Nik!" she yelled happily and leaped in for a hug, he thankfully returned. "How you doing big guy?" she asked into the hug.

"Hunting down a cure for vampirism."

Maeve giggled pulling away, "never a dull moment for a Mikaelson, then?"

"What is more fun than constantly having someone or something to attend to?" he said sarcastically before his expression faltered slightly, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Nik. You?" Klaus studied her face when she responded casually.

"Are you sure? Nothing different?" he insisted. Maeve looked at him curiously and puzzled. She did so for about a minute before she concluded,

"Elijah told you about the tea party didn't he?" she asked him with a deadpan look. Assuming that Elijah had avoided the topic at hand, Klaus──much to his reluctance nodded along.

"He did."

"He didn't have any business in doing that. But, I'm fine. Don't worry." she assured him.

"Well, if you say so."

"Also...a quick question," a question did not follow as Klaus anticipated, he was surprised when Maeve punched him hard on the arm. He lifted up his hand dodging the rest of her punches.

"Ow! Stop that." he winced. Maeve stopped taking in a few long breaths.

"Why didn't you come to the Gala? If you knew everything...why did you not? Neither did Rebekah and I thought she liked such things."

"Well, we just thought of giving you and Elijah some time." Klaus's voice turned apologetic, although Maeve knew better. 

"Really? Yeah, sure I'll believe you." Maeve crossed her arms and raised a single eyebrow at him.

Klaus clasped his hands together with a tight smile curling on his lips, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go ask Caroline on a date." A loud squeal of delight escaped Maeve's lips before either of the two could comprehend.

"Yes! Finally." she kept cheering merrily.

"Shut up."

"I will not do such an atrocious thing!" Maeve responded crossing her arms and craning her neck up for dramatic effect.

Klaus rolled his eyes and walked away ignoring Maeve's yell following him. Maeve stopped after the fifth yell of the name ‘sir’ and giggled to herself.

Maeve stared at Elijah with a deadpan look. Elijah avoided looking directly at her—only because he didn't want to look right int9 the deadly red flashing in her eyes and the stunned anger on her face.

Her nostrils flared, lips pressed together and arms crossed. "Why did you choose not to say anything?" she asked him in a low and calm voice. Elijah hid it well but he could see the brewing rage slowly crawl out──the most dangerous kind of anger.

"I wanted to have a solution before I came to you." he confessed truthfully. Maeve rolled her eyes and uncrossed her arms. She stood up from her seat and walked around the chair to the window in the living room space. She focused her vision on the streetlight just outside and tried to equalise her breathing.

"How long?" she asked him. Elijah didn't respond to her. He stayed stationery in his seat, his back to her. Maeve turned around staring at the back of his head,

"How long have you known."

Elijah sighed inaudibly and got up as well. He turned to look at her with a regretful gaze, "since the Gala."

Maeve's jaw dropped open, a harsh breath escaping her mouth. "For two weeks?" she questioned feeling a sense of betrayal in his actions.

"Maeve I was worried ab──"

"You were not." she asserted, her voice wavering a bit from the buzz of her unsteadily growing anger. She darkly scoffed looking away,

"You were not worried. You were scared of me." she regressed. "You feared what I was capable of. You know what happened when I faced Esther and you didn't want someone like that."

Elijah shook his head, "that is no──"

"Don't lie to me Elijah. At least give me that. Tell me the truth. You hate that I have that darkness. You hate that I can act on it in ways which are unethical and according to you──evil."

"Stop putting words in my mouth!" Elijah protested. "That is not why I hid what I came to know. I hid it for the sole reason of wanting confirmation for myself before you."

"Are you for real?" she sourly inquired. "My life, Elijah. You cannot hide something so drastic and grave and dangerous from me."

"I'm sorry. Maeve please." He took a step closer to her but Maeve showed her protest by taking a step away.

"Tell me the real reason. Why you hid it from me. Tell me." Elijah could read it clearly on her face the loath she was feeling for herself, the hate she had for his actions of hiding information.

"I didn't want to put you through what you went through the last time."

"Or were you afraid that I would just kill myself." sharply said Maeve. Elijah covered the distance between them in three long strides, now his eyes burning in anger.

"Don't say that."

"Why? I gave up last time, I could now. It is the better option than just losing to the darkness and hurting anyone else." she deprecated herself with a sniffle.

Elijah licked his lips, looking down at her with a surprised and hurtful gaze, "it is not. You can never hurt anyone."

Maeve craned her neck up, looking directly in his eyes. "How are you so sure?"

"Because I know this Maeve." he placed his hands on her neck, fingers entangling into the loose strands of her hair. "This Maeve who always goes above and beyond for those she cares about. This Maeve who has been that humanity for us──for me."

"But you still see me as a dark being."

"Why are you so convinced that you are someone evil?" he asked her. Their voices were low, just loud enough to reach each other. Their breaths were loud and matching the others. They mixed and silenced the world around.

"I──I hate who I've become." she confessed in a trembling low voice. Elijah had to replay what she had said, thought over it to see if she was really saying, what he heard.

"What is it that you have become?" he asked her.

"My worst nightmare." she whispered.

"Maeve...I do not think you have."

"You don't know what my worst nightmare is."

"I know what you believe to be your worst nightmare." He enunciated for her. "I will protect you. You have my word."

"Lying to me was your way of protecting me?" she challengingly glared at him.

"It was not. I ju──"

"You just what?" she inquired, cutting him off midway, "thought keeping his from me would be the best?"

"That was not my intention."

"Then what was? How can you justify lying to me that everything was fine. Hide all of it from me."

"I just hid that you lost control once." Elijah blurted out without thinking only to immediately hate the words.

"I──di──I...I did what?" she stuttered looking at him wide eyed and shocked. Elijah had no choice, and so he simply narrated the events at the Gala. Maeve listened to him, slowly processing everything.

A full minute passed since Elijah finished repeating her words from that night verbatim. He waited for Maeve to speak, his patience slowly running low.

"Maeve? Say something." he urged her just as he saw a pale look glass over her face. Color drained from her face first, before a feared glassy look glowed in her eyes.

She punched his chest letting out every bit of her anger. "How could you hide that I still had that darkness in me!" she argued and punched him again. He welcomed her blows without any protest.

"I told you I was shit scared of the voice in my head. I knew she was a part of me and I hate that she exists here in me and you chose to keep it a secret? The fact that the voice fucking took control of me?" she yelled frustratedly.

Maeve pushed him to walk past him but he stopped her immediately, "don't you remember? What I put all of you in one night? What would happen now, huh? If this evil side of me really did this, what more can she do? How much has she already done?"

"Maeve we can fix this." he pleaded with her. Elijah grabbed her hands in his and pulled her flush against him.

"We can't Elijah. You cannot."

"Yes I can. I give you my word."

Maeve stopped protesting against his hold and stood still. "no one can help me. I am a danger." She pushed him away successfully this time while muttering how much she hated being the danger.

Elijah grabbed her by her elbow and spun her around in a split second and pushed her against the wall.  "No you are not. You need to stop saying that." he scolded her. "When are you going to get it through your head that you are not a danger to anyone. Not to me, not to Niklaus or Rebekah or even Kol. No one thinks that."

Maeve's breath hitched before he became erratic. Elijah's one hand still rested on her neck, the other was on the wall right next to her head.

"What about to myself?" Maeve asked him in a low voice. Neither had moved from their place by the window.

"You simply cannot." replied Elijah, sincerely.

Maeve pouted her lower lip, looking up at Elijah through her brows. "You need to stop trusting me so much."

"I will when you start." Maeve looked at him angrily. It stemmed from his lies and secrets.

"You shouldn't have kept secrets."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Maeve chuckled at his words, "you're not. You did this with a good heart. You are not sorry." she took a brief pause, "you are absolutely infuriating."

"Not as much as you are being now."

"I have valid reasons, you crazy idiot!" she yelled at him. Maeve pushed him away from her and stood her ground. "Don't you fucking raise your voice at me. I am in the right, you are not."

"I did it because I knew you would react like this. It's either of the extremes with you, isn't it?" he argued with her. "For once why can't you see someone doing something for you?"

"Because this isn't about covering up a murder scene Elijah, this is about death. A prophesied death. Mine. Nobody needs to help because you and I──we both know it is an absolute lost cause." Both were fuming in their anger. Both stubbornly stood their grounds, not wanting to back down. For them both, they had valid reasons and worried about taking the stand that they did.

“the idiot believes everything doesn't he?” a voice said inside Maeve's head.

“this is all because of you. Why don't you just die?”

“kill yourself and get rid of me.” the voice sneered with a challenge, “until then, let me have my fun──you have been depriving me of.”

"Maeve...just listen to me,"

"I told you last time, I will say it again. Just accept it Elijah."

"No, you listen to me." he demanded,

"Why? Huh? Why should I listen to the man who told me everything was fine when nothing was!" Elijah pressed his lips together tightly holding back on his anger. He shifted his hand on the side of her face, to wound around her neck, forcing her to tilt her head backward.

It all happened in the matter of a split second. Elijah pressed his lips on hers fervently venting out every ounce of his anger. She had no control over her arms as they roamed around his chest before tangling into the hair at the base of his neck. Elijah gripped her hips. His strong hold would leave marks, there was no doubt about it. Maeve pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders. He helped her taking it off before his fingers traced her collarbone teasing and playing with the strap of her dress.

Maeve moaned with a slight gasp from being out of breath at the touch of his cold fingers on her exposed collarbone. She glanced upward into his eyes, darkened──a shade of anger and lust mixed incandescently.

"I am still mad at you." she confessed breathlessly as Elijah turned her around, her front pressed against the wall. Elijah gazed down at her, only now noticing the flushed red cheek. He toyed with the zipper of her dress and pulled it open in one go.

"I know. I am too." He pressed his lips to her neck, placing butterfly kiss from the base of her neck to her ear and jaw. Maeve moaned out in the feeling that vibrated through her body.

**************************************
What a shit show this chapter has been!

I have zero experience in writing romance, somehow I always manage to make it cringey, awkward or pathetic ... hopefully this time..this chapter was not.

Let me know your thoughts.

Also,

My Marauders fanfiction is up on my profile! Please show it the same love you've been showing this book.

The name is “Hollywood Rush & Stardust”

Go check it out if you wish.

Take care everyone!

Raven :)