Frankie was exhausted when she woke. Though it was past midday her alarm had been snoozed four times, she'd considered snoozing it a fifth only reconsidering as she actually caught sight of the time.

The ends of her evening felt fuzzy though she remembered parts of it like Elena slipping off to talk to Esther and how certain she'd been about Elena lying to them. She remembered dancing with Elijah and Klaus and teasing Klaus and Kol and she knew she'd had fun. Rebekah looked beautiful and Caroline had come up to her to compliment her dress while Klaus watched with lovestruck eyes.

She remembered too, Elijah's hand on her back and then around her waist, her leaning against him in her sleepy buzz, him driving her home and then helping her up to her apartment. As she'd headed to the shower she saw the dress abandoned on the floor and she wouldn't have been surprised if her tipsy nature had asked him to help with that too, so eager to crash she knew she wouldn't have wanted to take longer to undress.

He was so accomodating that she knew he'd have obliged and she nearly stifled a laugh at the image of him, unzipping her dress and likely turning away to protect her modesty. She didn't remember how she got to bed, she wasn't particularly good at that when she drank too much but she felt it was likely that he'd had something to do with that too.

The next time she saw him she'd need to redefine their boundaries, say thanks for the fun night but I'm not in love with you, cheers, apologies if tipsy me got a bit blurry on the lines. Perhaps that would be overkill though, rubbing salt into the proverbial dead soulmate wound. Maybe Elijah was just kind, a nice guy who'd be fine with just being her friend, being someone to talk to but likely not more than that. She wasn't exactly ready to start dating someone so soon after everything that happened between her and Mitch, no matter how dead and buried that might be.

Skating to the Grill she read back her messages from the evening, there was one from her brother with a joke about her dancing, one from Damon asking if she'd gotten laid and there was one from Elena that said they needed to talk. Ignoring the first two, Frankie replied to Elena telling her that she'd call her back on her break.

The Grill was a bizarre place to work at times, Mystic Falls being such a small town, the Grill operated at all hours, serving coffee and pancakes in the morning and burgers and drinks in the evening. It was a good place to work, people tipped well and with everyone knowing everyone she often had shifts where she saw friends of hers and got to chat as she worked. The downside of this however was that when her brother took his new girlfriend to the Grill, she got to stand at the bar and watch them flirt.

"Hey Ricky," her voice was light as she greeted him with a grin, "you two look cosy. How's your girl going, no murder sprees today?"

"She's fine," he rolled his eyes, "she's not the killer. You just spend too much time with Damon."

"He's a good tipper," she laughed, grabbing their glasses and beginning to fill them, "Do you know what's up with Elena? She sent me a message saying she needs to talk to me but when I tried to call her on my break she wouldn't pick up."

"Damon can't get her either," Alaric replied with a frown, "There's a lot that happened between now and last night, you should know-"

Frankie saw someone waving her down at the end of the bar and she cut him off handing him the drinks, "Later, let me know when you hear Elena's alright."

Frankie was stuck at the end of the bar for a while making a series of unnecessarily complicated cocktails before getting called over by another pair, Klaus and Kol watching her approach with equally mischievous grins.

-

"You guys are going to drain us of booze soon," Frankie told them when Kol ordered their ninth set of drinks in less than two hours, "I know you keep calling me over because you're in love with me Kol, but face it, I'm too good for you."

"A woman of your caliber ought to choose more suitable company than my dull as a doornail brother," Kol replied, watching with a grin as Klaus followed Caroline Forbes out of the bar to talk, "Come on, Elijah got the last one it's my turn to have a go with you."

"A go?" Frankie spluttered, "Terribly convincing but I'm afraid I've got higher standards than you. Run along Kol I'm not interested."

Frankie walked to the other end of the bar, rolling her eyes as she felt Kol follow her, "Why not? I do love pretty little things with sharp tongues and I can promise you that I'm very good with my tongue."

"I'm pretty sure she told you to get lost," Alaric cut in, his eyes having followed them as Kol followed her around the bar, leaving Meredith at their table.

"And I'm pretty sure I don't care," Kol replied, turning to him with a toothy grin.

Frankie rolled her eyes to turn away from the overpowering testosterone, walking away until she heard a sudden gasp of pain. Her head shot back around, eyes widening when she realised the sound had come from Kol, not her brother, and that Kol now had a dagger in his chest, Alaric's arms around him holding him up even as his body began to desiccate.

"Next time he can learn to take a hint," he told her.

"Fuck Ric," Frankie snapped, "thats a pretty extreme reaction to someone hitting on me. Get rid of him before someone sees he's dead."

"Stay inside, it's not safe out there," Alaric told her before dragging Kols daggered corpse from the bar.

"Thanks dad," she muttered under her breath, turning around and returning to work.

Though Alaric wasn't often overprotective of her, perhaps after everything with Mitch he felt it was his job to help her out. She was too tired now from work to reprimand him but she made a mental note to tell him to let her fight her own battles, just because she wouldn't tell him what had happened with Mitch, didn't mean he needed to step in like this because of one overly flirty Original.

The remainder of her shift passed by somewhat uneventfully though when she pulled out her phone and read her messages when they finally closed for the night she was surprised by what had happened in her absence.

Elena had called her back finally and she'd left a long voicemail explaining what happened and that she was okay. Meredith had texted her too, having pulled her number from her brothers phone, she had taken Alaric back to her place with a concussion and a broken rib thanks to Klaus and Kol. It turned out that Alaric hadn't daggered Kol for his comments but for Elena which was promising on her end, though it did potentially mean that Kol might retaliate against him which was.. less so.

Elijah had called her too, several times though no messages accompanied them. She tried to dial him back but when he didn't pick up she left it, it was past midnight and she presumed he'd be asleep by now, whatever he wanted to say could wait until morning.

Frankie didn't go straight home, she skated in circles for a while, a long while as she thought over Elenas rendition of the day, Merediths assessment of her brothers wounds, the actions of Klaus and even Damon. Everyone was okay, but she could feel the fear bubbling inside of her and so she skated and pushed it down and away, finally arriving home sweaty and exhausted, the anxiety pushed under control.

If she'd been paying worse attention, Frankie would've tripped over Elijah, so exhausted on her way to her home it could've been easy to miss him. He was waiting outside her apartment, leaning beside the door with his ankles crossed and his face furrowed into a frown.

"Are you alright?" Elijah asked in way of a greeting, catching her shortened breaths and her racing heart.

"I'm fine," she told him with a grin, a hand reaching out to push her hair from her face before letting them both into the apartment, "What are you doing here? I heard what happened, are you okay?"

"I-" Elijah broke off, the door had been shut behind them. Suddenly the guilt magnified inside of him, the openness in her as she looked up at him with concern was too generous after all he'd done so he faltered, "I shouldn't have come, I'm sorry for bothering you."

"Elijah sit," she pushed, dumping her skateboard by the door as her eyebrows furrowed, "just let me go shower and we can talk. Don't leave."

Frankie wasn't quite sure why Elijah was here, she really had only known him barely a week but she supposed it was because there wasn't anyone else in the town for him to talk to. He seemed gripped by so much anxiety as leant by her door that she didn't have the heart to turn him away.

Elijah nodded stiffly, falling into the seat he'd occupied each night he'd visited her, waiting as he heard the shower turn on then just as quickly, turn off, Frankie appearing in front of him in a sweater so large the sleeves were rolled and he could only just see the ends of her shorts peeking out.

"Elena told me what happened," she said when she finally returned, her hair had been tugged into a bun and she went to the kitchen to boil the kettle, "What your mother tried to do, I'm sorry Elijah."

"I have no mother," he told her, "Only Esther and she was right about me."

"Right about what?"

"My talk of virtue," he told her, accepting the mug of tea she handed him with a smile at her easy kindness, "When it suits my needs, I kill, maim, and torment. Even today I terrorised an innocent."

"Elena's fine. You shouldn't have threatened a teenager but she's okay, just don't do it again and move on."

"I used my sisters hatred of Elena to get what I wanted. I wielded her like a sword. My own sister."

"You did it to protect your sister," Frankie shuffled forwards, "You can't take the blame for the weight of the world, you need to let go of the things you can't change. You can't change what's been done or what your siblings do you can just do better next time."

"I'm a monster," he muttered in disgust, "My mother only made my family into vampires, we made ourselves into monsters, my siblings and I. Every person we killed, I killed, thousands ended because of our blood. I claim nobility and yet I'm no better than Niklaus, than Kol."

"Elijah," she sighed, shifting beside him, her legs crossed as she turned sideways to face him on the couch, "your mum obviously messed with your head, thats what parents do. You've got a fucked up family, you can't let it get to you. You've had a shit day, you should sleep it off, everything seems better in the morning. "

Elijah smiled at her, at her kindness and at her naivety, "Thank you," he said, standing and brushing an invisible piece of dust from his suit, "I should let you get to sleep, you must be tired."

"You can't be pushing me to bed every night, 'lijah," she laughed, "I'll think you're trying to get rid of me."

Frankie was worried about him leaving, she knew what to do when someone was comforting you and you gave up on letting them try, pressing a smile and leaving to wallow on your own. She could feel the familiar anxiety bubbling in her stomach as she tried to fight her concern for him, she pushed it down with another grin, grabbing hold of his forearm to squeeze it lightly. He was fine, he just needed to sleep and he'd be fine.

"I would never," he chuckled raising a hand to caress her cheek before catching himself, straightening up and clearing his throat, "Goodnight, Francesca, Frankie."

Francesca.

There, he'd said it again though this time it was him who corrected himself.

It had never felt like her name, maybe that was why she'd come into herself once she'd enforced a nickname, that was when she finally separated herself from her past self, from the one Elijah had loved. Francesca had never liked her name it made her feel like an imposter, but somehow when it seeped from Elijahs lips it didn't, it felt, nice. Pressing the name from his mouth made her feel differently, different to how she felt she had before, even with Mitch.

This was getting complicated much quicker than she'd expected. She watched Elijah leave, noticing after a moment that she'd been holding her breath. Though when she'd entered the building of her apartment with burning legs and a racing heart, needing to force herself to keep her eyelids open, now she sat wide awake.

She was too tired to skate again and there was no one awake to talk to so instead she pulled out her notebook. Instead of drawing like often she did to comfort herself she began to write, writing about Elijah and about Francesca, trying to make sense in her head of what had happened and what now she was supposed to do.

She wasn't meant to let this happen, she wasn't meant to care about someone she'd only met days ago. Frankie wasn't sure what exactly was the solution but she was sure she needed to make it stop, she would make it stop.