Summary: Elijah calls in a favor from some old friends while trying to figure out what happened to Klaus.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of it's characters, and the title is a lyric from the song All I Need, by Within Temptation.

A/N: Hi there! This is my first TVD fic ever, and the first fic I've attempted in about a decade, so please bear with me. I've tried really hard to keep everyone as IC as possible, but I may have slipped up a few times. I should warn you, it takes a while to get to the romance part of the story. I'm still writing this, and I'm trying to build the OC family, and set the stage, so to speak. The first couple of chapters take place in the mid 1600s, then it picks up at the end of Season 3, but does not follow Season 4's story line. Reviews and constructive criticism are very much appreciated, flames are not. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy it!

I.

Evil always finds you in the night.

Caitlin had known this truth her entire life. And now it was knocking on her door.

It mattered little that this evil was merely a plague on her village while she'd been away from home, learning her craft. Her aunt had sent her cousin, Connall, to find her and give her the news. It had started in the neighboring village, and had found its way to theirs, he told her. Then one of her sisters and her brother had gone to try to help, to try to heal the sick, and stop it from spreading to the rest of them.

And instead, they'd fallen ill as well. It was only a matter of time before the sickness made it through most of the village and to her parents and other sisters. Her entire family was dying and there was nothing she could do about it. She'd been a three day ride to the south, where she'd slowly been making her way for well over four months now, learning everything she could from the village's healer before she'd move on again, to another village, to learn more.

And now when it mattered most, when her family truly needed her, she wasn't there for them.

Her cousin had told her no one had survived the sickness yet. People were simply barring their doors, refusing to leave, for fear of catching it. Her aunt hadn't sent him to her for whatever healing abilities she'd picked up since she'd been gone. Her aunt had sent for her for the funeral. To bury her family.

But Cate wasn't the type to give up so easily. She knew there was only one thing that could save her family, and as much as she dreaded it, she wasn't going to sit by and let them die when she had a chance to save them. When you learn the arts of healing, and the secrets of nature, you often learn more than you ever could have imagined. You hear stories. Things that until that moment, she had always hoped were just that; Stories. Fairytales. But now, with her family's lives on the line, she could only pray that they were true.