Summary
This story is set just after the episode "Katerina".
Katherine may be trapped in the tomb, but she's not as helpless as she seems. Her new plan is to kill Klaus, but how will she do it? Who will have to die in order for her to succeed? What other Petrovas and werewolves are roaming around? Why can't she seem to stop messing with Damon and Stefan's heads and hearts? And why do they keeping letting her do it?
The escalating crisis (and the competition of Rose and Tyler) is driving Damon and Elena and Stefan and Caroline closer together - how far will Stefan and Damon have to go in order to save the people they love as the looming threat of Klaus necessitates desperate measures?
Author's Notes
Just a bit of plot-driven fun to tide me over until the next episode. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it. I know it's gotten a bit long (depending on what you're used to), but it moves rather quickly, I assure you, and I also promise that I'll finish it sooner rather than later. There's a bit of a slow build on the relationships, but they'll get more intense in the later chapters. (Just to be clear, this is Damon/Elena and Stefan/Caroline story, without doing any disservice to the hotness of Damon/Katherine, Stefan/Katherine, and Caroline/Tyler.) Also, I'm not spoiled in the least (I haven't even seen the episode 10 promo), so don't worry about that. Oh, and please please please comment! I love to hear what you think, and I'm totally open to suggestions. Thanks!
Disclaimer
The Vampire Diaries and its places, characters, etc. do not belong to me and I do not profit from their usage here (or anywhere else, for that matter).
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CHAPTER 1 - Wednesday
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Elena had already decided that school was the biggest waste of time available to her, but Jenna was adamant: she had missed two days already, she was not going to miss a third. Elena wanted to come clean with her aunt, but she didn't have the heart or the energy. Instead she decided to just make her happy, and go. Why not take one day to remember what normal was, before it all became a distant dream?
And, unfortunately, at this point she didn't have any better ideas.
Jeremy was not oblivious to her lethargy as they drove to Mystic Falls High, but he accepted her sugar coated version of the truth: a very old, very powerful vampire had an interest her, and there might be danger coming.
Like that was news (!)
Stefan spent the day trying to comfort her (even he had succumbed to the allure of a normal day at school, or maybe he was just there for her) – she only heard about half of what he said. Her mind raced with ideas: run, hide, turn, fight…they were fantasies. They were all fantasies.
After school they went to the Grill and Elena pushed food around on her plate. Conversation faltered.
In fact, they hadn't talked about anything except for Damon and danger in a long time. And they'd finally run out of things to say on those subjects.
The bartender asked her where Matt was; he hadn't shown up for his shift.
She shrugged. She and Matt weren't friends like they used to be. She shut him out to keep him safe, but he kept getting drawn back in again. His name brought memories of innocence to her; the time before her parents died. Carefree memories of a girl who didn't dream of death and her nice, living boyfriend. It all seemed sinister now – her ignorance. This storm was always coming. It was always brewing, just somewhere else, while she gathered loved ones. Katherine, Elijah, the Originals, Klaus, the curse of the sun and moon – it was all preordained for her. It was her inheritance. It traced itself back through her blood to a girl, a girl who looked like her, a girl who was a sacrifice, like her.
"We need help," she said to Stefan. "But how can we ask it of anyone?" Why should anyone have to risk their life for her?
Stefan would die for her, she knew it. But that didn't mean he could save her. It didn't mean that he could save Tyler, or Bonnie, or Caroline, or Jeremy, or Jenna or Matt.
Would Damon die for her? He had risked his life for her already, more than once. But would he go as far as Stefan was willing to go?
He would. She knew it.
"Where's Damon?" Elena asked, suddenly, coming out of her despairing stupor, setting her fork down onto her plate with a clang. She tried to be proactive, but it all felt so futile.
She was just a girl…
Stefan shook his head; he didn't know.
"He's doing what we should be doing," she declared.
"What's that?"
"Something."
Stefan bristled at the implication that Damon was doing more right by her than he was. Behind his furrowed brow he turned thoughts over and over: one werewolf, one moonstone, one psychotic bitch, one fledgling witch, and…zero ideas.
Caroline approached their table slowly, not wanting to interrupt anything. No one, not even them, knew if they were back together again or not. Stefan caught her eye and gestured for her to join them, but then he broke eye contact and did not look at her again. His brusque manner told her that he was still angry with her for not telling him where Elena was the day before. She had wanted to tell him so badly. But she couldn't break the girl code. Earlier at school she had begged Elena to talk to him on her behalf. Caroline could barely stand the thought of Stefan being disappointed in her; what she had confessed about Tyler was hard enough for her to carry around.
At school Stefan and Elena had filled Caroline in on what Katherine had said, as well as Damon's findings. Caroline had been mulling it over, and had come back to her initial conclusion: "It doesn't sound like Katherine told you anything useful. You know, nothing we can use to make a plan. I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but maybe we should go back and talk to her some more."
"No!" Stefan objected quickly. "And I'm not convinced we should listen to what she's said already. She's a liar."
Elena inclined her head as she thought out the words for what she was about to say. Stefan and Caroline waited expectantly.
"I don't think she lied yesterday," Elena finally revealed. "I think that everything she said was true. But I'm certain she knows more than what she told me. She's-" Elena paused, unable or unwilling to continue.
Stefan and Caroline leaned forward, urging her to finish.
She sighed: "She's not evil. She's manipulative, and ruthless, and self-centered, and a survivor, but she's not…evil. She cared about her family. She cared about her baby. Her baby, Stefan. I truly believe that. She's done what she thought she had to, every step of the way."
"She may be a lying liar who lies, but she's a knowledgeable lying liar who lies," Caroline proceeded. "She'll tell us more if we offer her blood. She'll do it for the blood. Any vampire would."
Caroline exchanged a look of vampiric understanding with Stefan. Only a vampire could truly understand the thirst.
Stefan seemed to be considering it, but ended up maintaining his original position. He pointed his finger at Elena in warning: "Don't think for one minute that she cares about you, or anyone. I know you feel connected to her – because of what you're going through, and because you look alike – but Katherine is not going to help us. She is still the enemy."
"But if what Damon says is true, then we're going to need the moonstone," Caroline persisted.
Elena looked to Stefan for his response.
He shook his head. "Even if we disable the breaking of the curse, Klaus will still come after us. If you believe what Katherine said, then you believe that."
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Alexandra moved aside the stone door without much effort. Silence returned, except for the raspy breathing of the unconscious man at her feet and the release of the propane fueling her lantern. Brushing back her draping, curly, mahogany locks, she peered into the darkness, waiting impatiently for movement.
"Katherine!" she called out, growing alarmed after several moments of nothing. Already fearing she would find no one, the delay in response had her nearly shaking.
A sort of scraping came first, slow and deliberate – it reverberated around the rock enclosure.
"Back so soon?" Katherine croaked, her blanched skin shimmering while the rest of her remained obscure. "Did you miss me?" she laughed as she dragged herself a few feet further into the light, clinging to the wall.
Alexandra gasped at the sight. "Mama!" she cried, dashing forward.
"No!" Katherine cried, just in time. Alexandra's foot was only inches from the boundary line when she stopped herself, remembering.
Fury raced across Alexandra's face.
"I am all right, Alexandra," Katherine comforted in antiquated Bulgarian.
"You're about to be better: I brought you something," Alexandra responded in the same tongue. She dragged Matt Donovan to the entrance and then rolled him towards Katherine.
Veins appeared around Katherine's eyes as she sank her teeth into his neck and proceeded to drink him dry on her knees. She took her time.
"Why didn't you come sooner?" Katherine demanded in English a few minutes later, pausing only long enough to speak the words before consuming more blood.
Her coloring was beginning to return, her movement became fluid.
"I did as we agreed: I hadn't heard from you in two days, so I came," Alexandra explained patiently. "I wasn't exactly close by. And I had to reconnoiter." She looked around. "This was a best case scenario."
"Two days? Is that all?" Katherine looked back into her prison with contempt. "It felt like longer." She shuddered.
"Why are you so weak, Mama? When we spoke on Sunday you were fine. It's only Wednesday."
Hate spiked Katherine's eyes. "Lucy betrayed me – she poisoned the moonstone before handing it over. She left me to the mercy of the Salvatores. I'm afraid I haven't quite had the chance to recover." Katherine released her grip, and Matt's lifeless body fell to the dirt floor. "But I'm feeling better."
Alexandra smirked: "Well you were right: they locked you up under the ruins of the old church. I can certainly understand why Damon would think it fitting."
"I'm embarrassed they even managed that. Fucking witches." A pleased glint passed through Katherine's eyes: "They couldn't kill me," she murmured to herself. "My boys." She turned her focus back to Alexandra: "Have you found a way to break the spell?"
Alexandra sighed. "I'm still working on it."
Katherine glanced down at Matt. "I'll miss looking at him." Even black and blue from the beating he had sustained from Tyler, even dead, Matt was heartwarmingly handsome.
"Caroline Forbes betrayed you; he had to die. Petrovas don't make hollow threats. Besides, I passed him on my way into town and I just couldn't resist." Alexandra closed her eyes, remembering his robust blood running down her throat, even with the hint of vervain (to which she, like her mother, had fostered immunity). He had consumed some recently; Caroline had probably dosed him after the masquerade. "I'll bring you someone clean tomorrow."
"People will notice he's gone."
"I don't care. I hate them. Look what they've done to you," Alexandra's voice cracked. She paced angrily around the space open to her. "I'll get you out of here, Mama. I promise."
Katherine smiled patiently. "I'm not worried about that right now. Did you tell Isobel?"
Alexandra rolled her eyes: 500 years together and Katherine was just like every other mother, assuming her child was incompetent. "Isobel knows where you are. If anything happens to me, she'll help you."
"She can be trusted – to a point."
"She'll choose Elena over us."
Katherine smiled softly. "I forgive her that."
"Who has been to see you?"
Katherine laughed. "Elena came. Yesterday…I think. She gave me a little blood – obviously it didn't do much good – in exchange for some answers. I wanted to refuse but I was in no state to do that. I thought you were her, at first. You look so much like her." She laughed. "Like us."
"How much did you tell her?"
"I scared her shitless. That's about it." Katherine outlined what she had revealed.
"Speaking of being scared shitless…"
"I know you didn't want me to come back here, Alexandra. But I had to." Katherine pulled the moonstone out of the shelf-bra of her masquerade dress and held it up. "And we could be worse off."
For the first time Alexandra smiled.
"So, you didn't come straight here…" Katherine posed.
"Not quite. After all, for all I knew you were dead."
"What have you learned? Something's gone down, something drove Elena here with questions about Klaus. I know Tyler turned, though I see it was poor Sarah and not poor Matt who got the job done."
"Rose and Trevor kidnapped Elena the night of the masquerade. They contacted Elijah to make a trade, he came, and he killed Trevor. Damon and Stefan killed Elijah, and rescued the damsel. Rose is now in bed with them. Figuratively and literally."
Katherine lifted her eyes sharply. "Rose and Damon?" She did not seem overly gladdened.
Alexandra, also slightly nettled by the liaison, nodded.
"And Elijah is dead?"
"So they say. But it's hard to imagine them capable of it."
"Don't underestimate Stefan and Damon," Katherine warned. "Just look at what they've done to me."
"It's a good thing you still had all of your emotional weapons intact or you might be worm food right now."
Katherine spared her daughter a wry look before handing her another pearl of wisdom: "That's exactly why the power of a good spurning should not be underestimated either."
"Elijah may be dead, but someone out there knows something. Damon and Rose were anonymously attacked yesterday on a little fact finding mission in Richmond, and I don't think it was a coincidence. That's all I know. I think they'll be coming for the moonstone sooner rather than later. They seem to have some odd ideas about it."
"Elijah would have told someone what he was doing. And now that the Originals know about Elena, I'm not sure I'll be able to make a deal for immunity. It won't be hard for them to learn that Tyler Lockwood is a werewolf. The moonstone is the only bargaining chip I've got left. I'm safe here, for now. But not as safe as I let Stefan believe. No spell is unbreakable, not even one made by the powerful Emily Bennett using the power of a comet."
"Bargaining was never going to work, Mama. I've always been of that opinion. Elijah killed Trevor for his betrayal after 500 years even though he was able to hand over a doppelganger. Klaus will never forgive you. He's been chasing you all this time. I don't know if he's in love with you, or if he wants to kill you, or both, but it's not going to end well. I'm going to get you out of here, and then we'll do what we have to do."
Katherine bit her lip thoughtfully. "The full moon is in two weeks. Are you going to be able to do this on your own?"
"I'll get you out. We'll do it together."
"But if I'm still in here, then it's up to you."
Alexandra set her jaw firmly. "I'll get it done."
"I've got an idea for how you could get in with the Salvatores. If you kill Rose-"
"She's stronger than me. Anyway, it won't work." She sighed the sigh of a little girl about to be scolded. "Damon Salvatore will recognize me."
Katherine narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean? You said he never saw you."
Alexandra shook her head, shame now overshadowing her proud determination. "I kept tabs on him for you for almost a century and a half, and he never noticed. But then 15 years ago he'd just moved to Miami and I was watching him at this bar, and…He and Stefan had just gone their separate ways. He was so…utterly pathetic but in such a sexy way. It was irresistible. He was lonely, and so was I, and…"
"You fucked Damon?"
She shrugged, as if the gesture would lessen the importance of her transgression. "It was a small bar. He saw me. One thing followed another." Alexandra avoided her mother's eyes.
Katherine was furious, but she laughed. "He can't resist us Petrovas, can he? Me, you, Isobel, Elena…My blood, my kind."
"Her blood," Alexandra corrected, growing annoyed with her mother's megalomania.
Katherine glared. "You know better than to mention her."
Alexandra shrugged again. "We'll always live in her shadow. Just like Elena lives in yours. At least until this curse business is over."
The elder laughed, her impure joy filling up the cavernous space. "Poor Elena. Damon and Stefan, so in love with me that after 145 years all they've managed to do is fall in love with my double. Or think they have."
"Elena isn't you."
Thinking back to her family bible, to the light, and the blanket that Elena had brought to her, she agreed. "But they still haven't figured that out. They're too busy convincing themselves that she's not me. Besides, we look exactly alike. How could that not matter?"
Alexandra admired her mother's beauty. Even emaciated she'd had a charm to her. But she was back to devastating after the sustenance Matt had provided. No wonder the witches had created a lineage of doppelgangers – you just don't waste a face like that.
"I think I had better go," she finally said. "They'll be coming for the moonstone, I'm sure. They're lying if they offer you your freedom – they can't give it to you. Their little Bennett witch is one spell away from a coma. Regardless, I think she'll find the task beyond her competence let alone her strength."
Katherine sighed as she ran her eyes over Matt's corpse.
"Do you want the company?" Alexandra teased, covering for the pain and guilt she felt at the quasi-abandonment coming.
Katherine raised her eyebrows and then shoved Matt back over the threshold. "Let them find the body. They deserve to know he's dead."
Alexandra nodded.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Katherine checked, covering her need for reassurance with a business-like tone.
"Yes. I know just what to bring. And I'll go and collect your things from Mrs. Flowers' B and B." She tossed a backpack into the tomb. "But in the meantime: some more blood, and a little reading material – I think you'll find it interesting."
Alexandra's eyes stung with tears as she moved the stone door back into place, and heard her now-recovered mother skipping back to the living space she had created.
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Damon opened the door to Bonnie. He knew she was troubled the second he saw her face, but she plowed into the boardinghouse and to the center of the room before she said anything.
"I haven't done anything recently, so I can only assume that something else is wrong," he noted, following her.
Stefan, Elena, Jeremy, Rose, and Caroline were seated around the fire – they all looked to Bonnie expectantly.
The witch inhaled deeply. "The grimoire is missing."
"What?" Stefan and Damon demanded simultaneously.
Bonnie shook her head, beside herself. "Stolen, I can only assume. The bathroom window was broken."
"You just left it lying around!" Damon hissed, speeding at her and slamming her against the wall, his forearm against her chest.
Stefan and Elena jumped to their feet and called out his name.
Bonnie knew she was too weak to use her aneurysm-spell without revealing her debilitated state; fortunately Damon had already released her. She took a firm step forward. "I keep it in a special place. But I've been using it recently – helping you." Also, with the appearance of the Martins in town reigniting her interest, she had been reading it the night before. They didn't need to know that. "Why did you ask me here?" she questioned, changing the subject.
"Rosebud's little friend – the nerdiest vampire I've ever met – he reminded me of you, Stefan – tells us that a witch can disable the curse using the moonstone."
Elena furrowed her eyebrows at the nickname, darting a look Rose's way.
Bonnie shook her head. "So I've heard, but like I told Stefan this morning, I don't know how. Anyway, we don't have the moonstone, it's with Katherine."
"Let me worry about that," Damon announced.
"You should. It's your fault it's down here," Stefan replied.
Damon turned to his brother angrily, obviously rehashing an earlier argument. "It was poetic! Besides, I was afraid she would wake up if we took it from her. I figured it couldn't cause any trouble, hidden away down there. Maybe we should just leave it down there like I'd intended. No one will be breaking any curses while it's safely nestled away in the tomb."
"Klaus will find a way in there," Rose assured them. "He won't be stopped."
"Everyone who knows it's down there is in this room."
"He'll figure it out!" Sometimes she felt like they just didn't quite get it. "Someone knows something – don't forget that we were attacked yesterday! Someone followed us to that café and either overheard our conversation, or stopped us before something else could be said. And someone stole this 'grimoire'."
"And Matt!" Caroline added, her bottom lip trembling.
Bonnie was confused. "What?"
Her heart heavy, Elena informed Bonnie that Matt was missing. "It's not right; he has no part in this."
Bonnie shook her head. "We're all in this, Elena, don't you get it? And not because we want to be." She hadn't meant for it to sound so harsh, but it hardly seemed fair for Elena to be the center of attention when she wasn't the only life in danger. Dead because of Elena was still dead.
Tears streamed silently down Elena's face and Damon and Stefan both rose to go to her. They halted at the same time, but Damon took a step back, ceding, and Stefan took Elena into his arms.
Bonnie sighed guiltily. "It's not your fault," she said. "It's no one's fault. We're at war."
Caroline stood and crossed her arms. "We need to bring Tyler into this. He's involved too. Katherine said he's needed to break the curse, which means that this Klaus guy will be coming for him too. He deserves to know that."
Damon rolled his eyes at her. "Your new boyfriend is staying out; I think that maybe wolfboy won't be OK with the whole me-killing-his-uncle thing."
Caroline glanced around the room, embarrassed. "He's not my boyfriend." She took a deep breath: standing up to Damon took preparation. "We can tell him it was self-defense. It sort of was – he tried to have you killed. He threatened Elena."
"Well, Tyler may not like that we're vampires," Damon countered, and it sounded like he had a long list of reasons to keep Tyler in the dark.
Caroline made desperate eyes at Stefan, pleading for his help. And Stefan couldn't help but help her. "I think she might be right, Damon. We don't need to be afraid of Tyler."
"He doesn't want to hurt anyone," Caroline continued. "He's lonely."
Damon growled. "I told you not to make friends with him, blondie."
"He's been trying to connect with me, because of what I did for him. He won't leave me alone! He deserves to know, Damon," she whined.
Damon and Stefan exchanged looks, with Stefan nodding once.
Damon gave in with a groan. "It's on you," he said to Caroline, dragging her eyes to his.
She agreed eagerly, and felt intense relief sweep through her.
Damon looked around the room at each person there. "And Mason was self-defense – is that clear? He attacked me, I fought him off. He died. I covered it up to protect our secrets. That's that as far as little Tyler Lockwood is concerned. We might as well add that Katherine had him wrapped around her evil, psychotic little finger. He was dead regardless."
Everyone agreed to stick to the slightly modified truth.
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The room had become a vector for fear, so the dissatisfied group disassembled. Elena and Jeremy went home. Bonnie came along, not feeling safe in a home that had already been violated. Caroline had wanted to speak with Tyler right away, and left as soon as she had permission. Rose's eyes and demeanor expressed desire for more intimacy with Damon, but he waved her away, remaining with Stefan and pouring drinks down his throat, straight from the decanter.
They were silent, occasionally sharing despairing looks.
"We need-" Stefan began.
"Don't say it," Damon interrupted, followed by a desperate swig.
Stefan finished anyway: "We need Katherine." He spent all day fighting it, but it was the truth; Katherine was their only hope.
"No way. Even if she could help, she wouldn't. She'd turn on us the second she got the chance. We can't trust her, and we're not smart enough to play her. We tried that, and if it weren't for a defection we would have failed. She knows too much about this whole thing. I don't know what she held back from Elena yesterday, but you can bet she didn't tell her everything. She can use that information to use us." He paused. "How did she look?"
Stefan didn't answer at first. "Even with the blood Elena had given her, she was weak. Drawn. She was still working the dress, though," he added, intoned with a humor his face didn't show. And a misery.
Damon had turned away, towards the fire. "We locked her up, we're not letting her go. If we let her go…"
"It's a moot point. We can't let her go."
Damon ran his free hand through his hair. He kept inhaling as if he were about to speak, but he said nothing.
Stefan knew what Damon wasn't saying: it was a good thing he was busy, or else he would have been haunting the woods, the ruins. Knowing she was there. Trapped beneath his feet. Wasting away but not dying. Completely at his mercy, almost as much as when she had been writhing at his feet. Damon was dreaming about the tomb, Stefan knew, because he was too. All of this was going on, and he still couldn't get her out of his fucking mind. And that's what Damon was thinking too. The other elephant in the room. It was so easy to say she meant nothing to you, only slightly harder to try to kill her. Twice he'd had the chance, and twice he'd hesitated.
"This guy Slater, he knew about the tomb," Damon suddenly said. "He was some kind of intel nexus, a walking encyclopedia. If he knew, then others know. No matter what Katherine said, I couldn't believe that she didn't want her freedom. But maybe she's counting on someone finding her someday."
"Will the spell expire? Do they do that?"
Damon shrugged. "If it does, it won't be any time soon." His nostrils flared. "We're too dependant on Bonnie. I'm so fucking tired of witches and their fucking spells."
Stefan sympathized, without the rancor. "Well, this witch that created the curse sounds like a different kind: why ask for such a high price in blood? Three deaths?"
Damon downed the rest of his scotch. "Tyler is the only weapon we've got."
"We can't control him. And look how easy it was for us to take out Mason."
"But they don't know about Tyler – element of surprise, and all that. What about Caroline?"
"What do you mean?"
"Controlling Tyler." He raised his eyebrows.
Stefan crossed his arms. "We're not pimping out Caroline. Anyway, Tyler doesn't even like Caroline. I go to school with these kids – I know them better than you do."
Damon shrugged. "She's hot – I don't see much else mattering to a dick like him. I think it's worth a try."
"He should be pliable enough once he learns his life is in danger."
"Well, you'd think so. Or he might just take off and run."
The day ended much the way it had begun: in terrified idleness.
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In Chapter 2
The gang tries to gather more information any way they can, Stefan and Damon talk to Caroline about Tyler, and Katherine and Alexandra move forward on their plans.
