A/N: I added what was going to be chapter 5 to the end of this chapter because people have asked for chapters to be longer and I can't blame them. I like longer chapters too!

Chapter 4

After driving in uncomfortable silence for what felt like hours (in reality, it had only been about 30 minutes) Elijah pulled into a rest stop on the side of the high way they were on. He pulled up into a parking spot and put the car in park and turned off the engine.

Elena sighed. "I guess this is my cue to start explaining." She said.

Elijah didn't say anything, he just looked at Elena and nodded.

"Ok well first you have to promise me something." Elena said, biting her lip

"No I do not. We are not negotiating anything. Either you will tell me, or I will compel you to." Elijah said firmly.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Relax, Elijah. No compelling needed. I told you, I want to tell you. I need to tell you. To get all this off my chest. I'm just afraid how you'll take what I'm about to tell you." She continued. "So just promise me, you'll hear me out entirely. And no matter how crazy what I'm about to say may sound, that you'll keep an open mind. Ok?"

"Yes, I will hear you out." Elijah said, sounding slightly annoyed. She could tell he was getting a bit frustrated with her. But she had to make sure he'd listen to her. This would be a lot of information to absorb.

Elena sighed again. "Ok, I'll just say it... I am from the future." She said. She waited a few seconds for him to respond but he just sat there in his seat. "Well... do you have anything to say about that?"

"I heard you. When from the future?" He said, in his usual calm and velvety voice.

Elena looked at him. "Ok, now I just told you I'm from the future and you're not surprised. What's wrong with this picture?" She asked.

"After being on this earth for over a thousand years, seeing the things I have seen, it's difficult to surprise me." Elijah said simply.

"Ok. Well this is better than you freaking out at me. I should be thankful for that I guess." Elena said. "And to answer your question, I'm from 2012."

"What did you come here for?" Elijah asked.

"Well to be entirely honest with you, I don't really know. My only guess is that my friend Bonnie, a Bennett witch, sent me back in time to fix mistakes I will make in the future. I think you may have been involved as well..." Elena said. "Well, the future you, I mean."

"What did you come here to fix?" Elijah asked.

"Well the last thing I remember was being a vampire. My whole family was dead, and I had turned off my humanity to avoid dealing with the pain. I remember all of it. It was like I was trapped inside of myself. I could see my self doing all these horrible things. I was pretty much a monster. I made Katherine look like a saint.

"You know Katerina?" Elijah asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. Sometimes I'm ashamed to be a Petrova doppelganger. I come from a line of horrible women. People tend to assume I'm exactly like Katherine... and Tatia." Elena explained.

Elijah looked up at Elena when she mentioned the name Tatia. "And what do you know of Tatia?" He asked, almost cringing at the name of his former lover.

"I know she broke your heart." Elena said, her heart aching for Elijah. "I know that she played you, and made you think she cared for you, all the while sleeping with your brother Klaus. I also know it was her blood that helped turn you and your siblings into vampires. I'm sorry for what she did to you. I can only imagine how much that must have hurt. And I'm also sorry for bringing her up and bringing back painful memories for you" Elena said, placing her hand on Elijahs hand that was on his lap. Elijah pulled his hand out from under hers and moved hers off his lap.

"While I appreciate your concern, I assure you I am just fine. That was many centuries ago." Elijah said looking away from Elena.

"Ok, well I promise not to bring her up again. I don't want to cause you any more pain than what you've already had to endure." Elena said.

Elena and Elijah sat in silence for a few moments.

Elena looked over at Elijah. "I know you're not taking me to Klaus. We need to stop Klaus from breaking the real curse. Believe me, no matter how bad you can imagine Klaus being a hybrid is, I can tell you it's so much worse!" She exclaimed, reliving the night the curse was broken in her head.

"Yes, I am aware that Klaus must be stopped." Elijah said. "And I will kill him."

"Elijah, I know how much your family means to you. Although you feel this way now, you may feel differently afterwards. As much as I'd like to see him dead too, I don't think that's the answer." Elena said. "I don't know if you know this, but when an original vampire dies, all the vampires from their blood line die too. Some people I care about are from Klaus's blood line. We need to find another way."

"And if there isn't another way?" Elijah asked.

Elena sighed. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She said.

"So you never did tell me what your exact mistake was that inspired your friends, and apparently myself, to send you back here." Elijah said.

"Well, it was a decision that I made today, actually. I decided to let my friends, Stefan and Damon Salvatore, come rescue me. I tricked you into thinking I would come with you and I threw a vervain grenade at you. Then Stefan and Damon staked you with a large stake. I apologize for my part in that." Elena said, looking ashamed. "So I decided today I would make a different choice. I would go with you instead of fighting you."

"No apology needed. It hasn't happened in this reality." Elijah said.

Elena smiled. "Yeah, I guess you actually now kinda owe me." Elena said with a light hearted laugh.

Elijah smiled slightly. "Oh I do, do I?" He asked.

"Yeah, I mean If you really think about it, I saved you from being staked. And I will save you from being daggered... Ummm..." Elena counted the number of times she remembered Elijah being daggered on her fingers. "4 more times... maybe even more." She said.

"Yes, I suppose you did. Thank you, lovely Elena." Elijah said, with a very slight smile forming on his lips.

Elena smiled and began to blush. She remembered that Elijah used to call her that.

Elijah looked at her curiously. "You're blushing." He said.

"Oh, yeah. It's just, you used to call me that sometimes. I missed hearing you say it." Elena said with another smile.

"I'm begining to see the nickname is well earned. You aren't at all like your predecesors, are you?" Elijah said.

"You wrote me a letter once. In it you said 'Your compassion is a gift. Carry it with you, always and forever.' " Elena said, smiling. "You left me soon after, and then I became a vampire shortly after that."

"Why did I leave you?" Elijah asked.

"You did something to me, and after you regreted it. You left because the guilt was too much for you to bear.

"What had I done?"

"That's another long story, that I'll save for later." Elena said. "For now we need to figure out how we're going to draw Klaus out, and keep my family safe in the process."

"Well, I think we should head back to Mystic Falls, or atleast the outskirts of Mystic Falls, and draw Klaus out. It will take awhile. Klaus is paranoid, and lives in hiding." Elijah said.

"As I said I don't want to include my family or my friends in this if possible. Even though I told Stefan and Damon what I was doing I know my friends will not accept that. They'll keep looking for me. Especially my best friend Bonnie who is a very powerful witch. Elena said with a sigh. "Is there some way I can be blocked from locater spells or any other spells that could aid in them finding me?"

"I know two powerful witches who might be able to help us" Elijah said.

"The Martin witches? Luka and Jonas right?" Elena said, remembering.

"Yes. That's correct. I will get in contact with Jonas. But now we need to find a place to stay." Elijah said.

"My family has a lake house, it's on Dunham Lake. It's a fair distance away from Mystic Falls." Elena said.

"Excellent. That should do for now." Elijah said.

And with that he started up the car again and merged back onto the highway.

The Lake House 9pm

Elena took a sip of her glass of wine. She was curled up on her favorite recliner in the living room with a blanket and her diary. She was writing about the events of the day and time traveling.

She was feeling much better, as she had convinced Elijah to heal her. Normally she wouldn't do that, but given her state, she'd be no use to him hobbling around in pain. She also had found some clothes in her bedroom dresser so she could get out of her torn and bloodied clothes.

Elijah was in another room on his phone talking to Jonas Martin, discussing Klaus, Elena, nd how to go about protecting her family. After a few minutes she heard him hang up and he made his way back into the living room. He sat down on the couch by the fireplace. Which was about the furthest away from Elena that he could be. She had almost felt like he was beginning to avoid her. This was a bit of a weird arrangement. When she had suggested the lake house, she hadn't thought that meant that she and Elijah would be there - alone. This would have been fine with the Elijah she knew in the future, but to the Elijah from this "reality" Elena was a complete stranger. Maybe she had come on a bit too strong. She all of a sudden had all these feelings for him that seemed to come out of nowhere. She was finding it hard to keep them to herself.

Elijah looked up at her. "Is something wrong?" He asked.

"No... not really." Elena lied. She didn't want to get into it with Elijah.

"I spoke with Jonas, and he wants to see us tomorrow morning at 11 to discuss how to deal with Klaus." Elijah said. "Since killing him isn't an option we need to find an alternative. And soon. I have a feeling my brother may make his grand appearance sooner rather than later."

"Your brother is quite the drama queen, isn't he?" Elena said with a laugh. "Well we have one advantage. I've already met Klaus and have and idea what he might throw at us. If I recall, when he first arrived here, he took over the body of my history teacher Alaric Saltzman. One of his favorite tricks I've been told."

"Yes he has done that several times." Elijah said.

Elijah looked at the fire. It was dying down so he threw some more firewood. While Elijah worked on the fire, Elena went back to writing in her journal. Elijah sat back down in his chair when he finished. "So, is there anything else you'd like to tell me about the future?" He asked.

Elena looked up. "Yes... but I can't." Elena said sadly.

"And why not?" Elijah asked.

Elena put her journal down and the blanket she had wrapped around her and stood up. "It's because I'm from the future. If I make too many changes or share too much I might end up screwing things up even worse than they were. And I don't just mean for myself. Other people could be affected too." Elena sighed and sat on the couch next to Elijah. She looked him in the eyes. "Look, I know this is frustrating. Believe me, I'm frustrated too. I have so many things I want to tell you. But this is my second chance. I can't mess this up. So I'll tell you things when I can. 'Til then I just need you to be patient with me." She said.

Elijah smiled slightly. She could tell he understood. Elena put her hand on Elijah's hand that was sitting in his lap. She moved over close to Elijah and leaned over. Elijah leaned towards her.

Just before their lips touched one of the windows in the living room shattered and a gas bomb flew in and exploded upon impact on the floor.

Before either Elena or Elijah could react the room filled with vervain tear gas like fumes. Elijah collasped to the ground. Apparently it was even enough to temporarily incapacitate an original vampire. Then Elena felt arms wrap around her waist. She tried to wrestle her way out of the person's grasp, but they were too strong. Then a damp rag covered in chloroform was placed over Elena's mouth and nose. Elena felt herself become light headed, and then everything went black.

A/N: I did some research on chloroform. According to wikipedia "It is nearly impossible to incapacitate someone using chloroform. It takes at least 5 minutes of inhaling an item soaked in chloroform to render a person unconscious." Well ok then the stuff in the story is... I don't know... super concentrated chloroform? I couldn't think of anything else to knock Elena out.

I know that I said the other characters presence in this story would be limited, and it will. I realized since I'm building my story around the actual events that they'd have to be included. I'm not a fan of them, so I'll keep their inclusion as brief as possible.