Klaus merely shifted slightly, looking somewhat disappointed. "My dear, surely you know that even if that—weapon—" he said that word with distaste, as though he felt that guns weren't proper enough for his gentlemanly society—"is loaded with wooden bullets, you can't dispatch us all, and certainly not those of us who are older than any tree on this earth."
"I know," Elena said, and noticed that for the first time, her voice shook, "but I can end this just the same." She took the gun and placed the end on her temple, her finger remaining firm on the trigger. It was cold against her face.
The Salvatores broke their silence at that, a permanent end they could do nothing to heal. "Elena, no! Get out of here, now, while you can. We're not worth this. Nothing is worth this." That was Stefan, broken and watching his worst nightmare unfold before his eyes.
Damon took a different tack. "Elena, we're ready to die for you, and you're willing to let that be for nothing. I never thought I'd see anyone so selfish, so stupid. I thought you were worth something, that you were better than this. Clearly I was wrong." His words had bite, but she was stronger than they were.
She spoke quietly, her eyes never leaving the pensive form of Klaus. It wouldn't do to get distracted. "Shush, just let me handle this."
Klaus' face still shown with amusement—she wondered if he spent most of his time laughing at human folly, repeated over and over again—but she also saw something like respect in his eyes. "Well, then, that's interesting. But do you have the courage to do it? Or is it all a bluff? I've seen many a human threaten suicide—terrible thing—but in the end not have the strength to carry it out."
Elena tightened her grip on the gun, understanding it, ironically, as her lifeline. "I'm strong enough. But you know that."
Elijah stepped forward from the shadows then. She'd noticed him but hadn't focused before. He moved quickly—she had to stop being surprised by that—and before she knew it, he had a stake poised over Stefan's heart. At a quick word, another vampire held one over Damon's.
Still smooth, still maintaining the appearance of effortlessness, Elijah teased, "But what about now? I'll kill them, I swear it, and your little martyr act will be all for nothing. Put the gun down, little girl. You're out of your league here." Klaus said nothing, merely watching. Stefan and Damon were still begging her to run.
She swallowed, her throat drier than dust. She shook her head, hating the words, hating him. "You can kill them. But I'll pull this trigger, and everything you've worked for over the centuries will be gone. They will die, but you will lose. There will be no other chances. I can promise you that."
Elijah glanced up at Klaus, his master—Elena, perversely, loved that Elijah was just a dog with a master—waiting for instructions. Klaus was still looking at her. She looked back steadily. Her heart was racing. She was alive. She was strong.
"Magnificent," Klaus whispered. He stood, towering over his henchmen, over her, even though she still stood a world away. She wondered, idly, how he came to have such height—weren't humans supposed to have grown taller over the years? He must have been a giant when he was alive, if he'd ever been alive. He gestured to the captive brothers, chained to the ground. "I can see why they're taken with you. The vessel has always been beautiful—a nice choice, there—but the spirit is all chance. You've got fire, my dear."
Elena didn't know what to say to that; was she supposed to thank the evil mastermind? But her time was running out. She didn't need to glance at her watch to know that. "Here's the deal. You let Stefan and Damon walk out of here, alive, and unharmed. You swear to me, on your honor, which they tell me is important to you, that you will never hurt them, and that you will leave my family and my friends alone. You swear to me, and I put down the gun. Do we have a deal?"
He considered her. "Do your friends include the werewolf? After all, he's rather a key ingredient to the mix. Everything else I have."
"Yes, Tyler is included. You find another werewolf, and leave him and the rest of the people I love alone. I'm the only part of the mix, as you say, that can't be replaced." She knew that she was condemning other innocents to death, but here, at the end, she couldn't find it in herself to care.
He waited for such long moments that she thought the spell must be wearing off, and she'd have to shoot and leave them all to die, anyway. But then he nodded. "Agreed, as long as they leave, and do not interfere." She nodded in return, the silent finality of it terrifying. She'd made a deal with the devil. What did that make her?
Klaus waved his hand, and Elijah and the other vampire broke through the chains holding the Salvatores back, setting them free.
Elena looked at them then, as they stood and gazed up at her helplessly. Both had tears in their eyes that they didn't bother to wipe away or hide with false male bravado. They seemed at a loss for words. She knew that they didn't want this. "You've risked your lives to save me so many times. It's my turn." she whispered, so low that she could hardly hear herself, but she knew they heard. They both shook their heads, but as they were forced out of the room, they knew they had no choice—for now.
She'd stared at them leaving, then at the door shut behind them, so long that she hadn't noticed Klaus' careful approach. He moved with the grace of a panther, but his eyes were solicitous, even sympathetic. Careful, gentlemanly in his approach, he stopped about five feet away. They all did, coming closer and surrounding her, finally. And at last she was utterly alone, no more friends or lovers to hold her back or protect her. She'd never felt so cold.
"I swear, on my honor, that neither I nor my people will harm the Salvatores or the people you love for as long as they live, as long as they do not seek to interfere with the ritual. I can promise no more than that. My word binds us all. Is yours as strong?" He looked at her with respect, even reverence. In the back of her mind, she wondered at that, but she pushed it aside for the moment.
Elena clenched her hand on the gun for a moment, wanting nothing more than to pull the trigger and beat him, end this once and for all. She was so tired. But she would die for them, not for herself. She was that strong, at least. She took the gun away from her temple at last. Bending down slowly, warily in this circle of predators, she placed it on the ground.
Klaus smiled, so perfect, and waited until she straightened herself up again before holding his hand out to her, for all the world like an eager suitor standing before the woman he loved. "My lady," he said, his voice touched with only a little irony.
Elena took her turn to consider him. He waited, collected and confident. She reached out her hand and placed it in his.
Elena was surprised at the electricity she felt when she gave her hand to Klaus, as though a jolt had gone through her and a fire had been woken deep inside. It was different than what she felt when she touched Stefan or Damon, as little as she'd liked to admit to herself that she felt something with both. That was love, affection. This—this was destiny.
She thought he felt it, too, and wondered who this man—this vampire, evil undead, she reminded herself—really was, how they were bound together and what he knew. Whether he would give her any answers before he bled her and let her die to achieve his millennia-old agenda.
He led her out of the room, and they were followed by the others, quietly, respectfully, even Elijah, who had looked at her with little more than loathing, as a pawn to be used, at every past encounter. She had the odd sense of being queen of a court, followed by her devoted train. She thought she understood why Katherine had enjoyed this, encouraged it, before she found out the truth and ran. At least Elena already knew enough of the truth to avoid that particular scenario.
Klaus took her outside, where a group of dark-tinted SUVs waited on the opposite side of the house from where she'd come in, ages ago. Only the Originals, or those she assumed were Originals—six more in addition to Klaus himself—followed them out into the sunlight. They began to get into the cars, following some preordained order of who went where, but Elena paused, bringing Klaus to a solicitous halt beside her.
Stefan and Damon were standing across the road, beneath the shade of some trees she couldn't identify. She took a moment to marvel that their rings hadn't been taken in their captivity, that they really had been released. Elena smiled at them, sadly. This was truly the end.
Neither looked willing to go, but neither was stupid enough to rush back into captivity, this time certain to end in death. So they watched and waited. Klaus' smile was somewhat mocking in its triumph, and he released her hand for a moment and stepped forward to the nearest car. He opened the car door for her and gestured her forward. "My dear?"
Elena realized for the first time that she was standing alone. No one was within a few feet of her; no one held her captive or forced her into the car. In a moment of insanity she imagined running, escaping into this blinding sunlight and just—living. But then reality came back to her. The lack of physical force was a nice change, in a way, but as she shook her head at the brothers, she realized it all came to the same. In fact, this was worse: this was her decision, even though in reality, there hadn't been a choice. She turned away from those pleading eyes and climbed into the back seat of the car, sliding over to the other side as Klaus followed her in and shut the door.
Damon and Stefan watched as the caravan of cars drove away. They made no overt attempt to follow, feeling their defeat fully and completely. When Elena had walked out of the house, her hand in Klaus', not carried over his shoulder, not forced, not even compelled, and then torn her eyes from them and willingly gotten into that car with the Originals, they knew that they'd lost her. Elena had officially crossed over to the other side.
The tough pill to swallow was that she'd done it for them—so that they could live an eternity knowing their utter failure. What sort of gift was that? The brothers looked at each other, still unspeaking, but as they nodded to one another, they knew were united in this as they weren't in anything else. They were always united in protecting Elena. And they would be damned if they let it end this way. If they were going down, they would go down fighting.
Stefan and Damon found Elena's car after a quick survey of the surrounding area. She'd left it unlocked, the keys under the mat. It was lucky it hadn't been stolen, but they supposed she'd known she wouldn't be needing it. They tried not to dwell on that.
In the center console was a cell phone, not one they'd seen before. The battery was near dead, but in the last several hours there had been 28 unanswered calls from the same number. Stefan dialed it.
"Elena?" came Bonnie's frantic voice.
Stefan paused. "It's Stefan, Bonnie," he said softly.
"Oh, God!" Bonnie dissolved into hysterics and appeared to drop the phone in the process. Stefan was trying to get her attention again when another voice came on the line.
"She did it?" Jeremy's voice was cold. Stefan had never heard him sound so detached.
"Yes," he replied.
"And you let her?" Ice mixed with anger.
Stefan glanced at Damon, who was staring resolutely forward as he navigated the car toward a main road. "She didn't give us a choice, Jeremy."
There was a bitter pause. "Yeah. She didn't give us one, either."
"Listen, where are you? We can come straight there. We're—we're not being followed anymore."
As he wrote down Jeremy's instructions, he thought, idly, that it had been a long time since they'd been free. He shook his head. They still weren't.