I wasn't me that chose darkness, but the other way around (1/1 - Alaric/Jenna)
Title: I wasn't me that chose darkness, but the other way around
Rating: PG
Characters: Alaric/Jenna
Disclaimer: Vampire Diaries belongs to L.J Smith and the lovely people who brought it to TV
Summary: Jenna is desperate to make Alaric understand that she is not Isobel - she did not want to become a vampire, she is merely playing with the hand she has been dealt
Author's Note: Written for TVD Comment Ficathon Part 2 (Prompt: same as title)
Eight days after Stefan disappears with the monster that made her (which makes it ten days after her ‘rebirth’ sort to speak) Jenna takes enough time away from comforting her heartbroken niece to address a crisis of her own.
She tracks Alaric down to his apartment (although he has admitted he no longer considers it home). He doesn’t look surprised when he opens the door (he doesn’t look happy either). She decides to take the plunge first and smiles. It earns her an invite in.
She steps over the threshold and is immediately assaulted by the smell of too many cleaning products. And blood - no amount of scrubbing will ever hide that smell for someone with as keen senses as her. It triggers a chain reaction throughout her body (her jaw aches as fangs descend and there is blood pooling in her eyes). She has her back to him but she knows he knows.
Thankfully he waits patiently as she takes a deep breath and pushes it aside.
“I’ve been told it will get easier,” Jenna says quietly as she turns to face him. “That I will be able to control my reaction…with time.” Of course, all things take time (she only hopes he will give it to her).
“It will. As you get used to everything.”
His response is said in the same stilted tone their last several conversations have been in.
Hence, her crisis.
“Alaric,” she begins. She has practiced in between holding Elena close and watching Jeremy stress (over what, he has not told her
yet but she is determined). She knows exactly what she wants to say and now is as good of time as any. “I am not her.”
He frowns. He does not ask her what she means like she has predicted. He knows.
So she pushes forward.
“I am not Isobel. I didn’t research this. I didn’t obsess over it. Or dream of it. I didn’t seek it out. Most importantly of all…I didn’t choose this,” she tells him, a slight quiver in her voice (crying was never part of her plan and she is not sure she likes the last minute embellishment). “It chose me. And there is not damn thing I can do about it.”
“Jenna…”
Interrupting was not part of the plan either so she holds up a hand to silence him. “I need you to stop treating me as if I am her. I need you to stop thinking that I want to live like this - that I am embrace it. I am just playing with the hand I have been dealt. Yes, I am different in many ways, but the central part of me, the part I would like to think is the reason you came into my life in the first place…that’s still the same.”
There, she has reached the end. He has the stage now. She takes a deep breath (one of the most basic human actions she refuses to part with) and waits. She wishes there is some vampiric sense to allow her to read minds. Even facing forever, there are limitations.
“Jenna, I don’t think you are her,” Alaric begins, his eyebrows furrowed together, his arms crossed (all classic defensive behaviour). “I never have. And I never will.”
“Then why do you treat me so coldly?” Jenna asks, deciding the floodgate has been opened. “You have no idea how it feels to watch you
buddy up to Damon but refuse to even touch me.”
It is as if he is realizing it for the first time. His face falls, and his arms fall to his sides. “I never meant to be that way.”
“Do you know how many times I needed you to hug me? To tell me it is going to be okay? Even if it’s not. Do you realize that every time you walk away from me I feel more like a monster then when I bite into a blood bag?” Jenna sags a little (and still he does not move to comfort her).
“I don’t do it because of you,” Alaric says his voice barely above a whisper. “I do it because of me.”
Now it is Jenna’s turn to furrow her brows and cross her arms. The ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ cliché seems out of place in a situation like this (and who in their right mind would try to pull it on a vampire). “It’s you?” she asks, and realizes the sarcasm is heavy in her voice.
He looks pained and he steps toward her for first time in what seems a long time (but it’s really only been ten days, a drop in the bucket to someone like her). “I let him do this to you. I should have stopped him…I didn’t protect you.”
“And if you tried, you would be dead,” Jenna stated (for it was not possibility, but fact). The realization that he is harbouring this much guilt is both frightening and comforting (because it really isn’t her or what she has become). When she reaches for him, her hand curling around his cheek, he doesn’t flinch like she has envisioned so many times. Instead he leans into her touch and she feels a strong measure of relief. “Alaric, I don’t need you to protect me. And I will never blame you.”
She thinks he is feeling his own measure of relief. She can feel him sag forward and it is only natural for her arms to move around him. He holds her in return and her head comes to rest on his chest. She can hear his heart beating loudly in her ear. The now familiar ache returns and she panics, desperate to pull away from him. But he holds tight (she lets him despite knowing she could easily throw him aside).
“It will get easier,” he promises, and this time, he speaks with passion and caring instead of complacency.
So she believes him.