I do not own any part of The Vampire Diaries, this story was written purely for entertainment purposes.

When the train came to a stop at the Notre Dame de Paris station, Katherine grabbed Elena and dragged her roughly off the train. She'd been absently scratching the cuts on her hands so that they wouldn't scab over, and it seemed that in the heat of fleeing whoever had caused the scene at the café, Katherine hadn't noticed Elena leaving a trail.

She realized that by doing so, she was leaving a trail for the mystery attacker too, but she needed Damon to be able to find her. When they emerged above ground, Elena had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the majestic cathedral before Katherine had swept her up and jumped away again.

Elena repeated her method of letting her hands flail as they landed, certain that she was going to fracture something if Katherine landed too hard.

On the fifth landing away from the train station, Elena's hand collided with a rail atop a building, and in addition to the clang of metal, there was a loud crack that split the air like a gunshot, and pain knifed up Elena's arm, causing her to let out a sharp scream.

Katherine stopped and looked down at her, seeing that the back of her left hand was sharply indented, and a bone pressed against the skin of her palm, threatening to pierce through.

"Goddammit, you humans are so breakable." She said with similar disdain as if a dog had made a mess in her living room. Her eyes flashed red and vein-rimmed for a moment and she tore her wrist with her teeth, putting the wound to Elena's mouth. The human kept her mouth tightly closed until Katherine looked her in the eyes and said firmly

"Drink." Elena parted her lips obediently and felt the cold blood flowing into her mouth. Disgusted, she couldn't pull away, and felt completely aware of what was happening despite the fog of compulsion filling her mind that was stamping down the desire to wrench her head away and gag.

Warmth filled her left hand and she could feel the bone knitting itself back together. The abrasions and cuts on her hands shrank and disappeared, leaving only smooth, unmarred skin behind.

"I suppose it doesn't matter…" Katherine trailed off and set Elena on her feet, who swayed for a moment before regaining her balance. The wild jumps through the air had made her a little unsteady and nauseous.

"What doesn't matter?"

"I was going to feed you my blood anyway, I just hadn't planned on it being that way. I also wanted to dress you in something nicer before you met Aiana, but I suppose that can't be helped."

Elena felt panic because she remembered that Katherine had told her that she would kill her in order to save her life, and that meant making her a vampire. But at the same time she also felt relief because they were at their destination, and Damon would be able to find her.

Katherine walked over to the door that led down from the roof and wrenched it open, the rusty hinges squeaking. The steps led down in a gentle curve, and the view opened into a spacious loft that had large windows on every wall.

A woman stepped out of a doorway across the room and to Elena's surprise, she didn't look exactly like herself and Katherine. From the fine lines that were around her eyes, Elena guessed her to be about thirty years old. She the supposed that it wasn't all that shocking. After all, Aiana would have had to have lived long enough to marry and have children. She just wondered how long Klaus had chased her before she'd made the decision to turn.

"Aiana." Katherine said, smiling, and opening her arms for a hug

"Katerina." They embraced for a long moment and kissed eachother's cheeks before they pulled apart and Aiana looked Elena up and down.

"It's remarkable."

"I know, isn't it? I'm sorry I couldn't give her appearance some work before bringing her to you.

"Nonsense, it's fine. After all, neither of us had all these modern beauty treatments when we were her age. Shall we get down to business then?"

"Uh, excuse me?" Elena interrupted, "what business is that exactly?"

"Remember that I said I was going to kill you to save your life? We've got a witch who thinks that she can do it without turning you into a vampire, since I know that you don't want that yet. Maybe ever. Of course you realize that you won't be able to be with Stefan or Damon after a few more years. People will start calling you a cradlerobber."

"You're trying to manipulate me into turning, and it's not going to work. There are experiences that I want to have before I die, regardless of whether it's permanent or not."

"Having kids isn't all it's cracked up to be." Aiana said

"It isn't just that. And if I was with Stefan or Damon I wouldn't be having kids anyway. Vampires can't have children, I know that."

"Alright, enough of your yapping." Katherine said and locked eyes with Elena as she walked forward, "Undress and lie down on the table over there, and wait patiently for us to shackle you down."

Elena's eyes went blank, and she robotically followed Katherine's orders, leaving her two day old dirty clothes in a pile on the floor of the loft. She laid down on the table and positioned her wrists and ankles in the shackles that were bolted to the thick slab of wood.

Aiana walked over and closed the hinges, locking each with a heavy padlock and tugging on them before moving on to the next limb.

"When and if Damon finds you, he won't be able to break you out. I made this sturdy enough that I would have a hard time destroying it. And I have four hundred years on him." Katherine murmured as she ran her hand over one of the steel padlocks.

Elena wanted nothing more than to thrash against the bindings, even if it was useless, but she laid still, if only for the fact that she knew if she struggled, she would start bleeding from her wrists and ankles, and she knew better by now than to willingly bleed when she was surrounded, or soon to be, by vampires.

Katherine kept talking as Aiana tied a tourniquet above Elena's elbow, the human wincing as the rubber pulled tightly on her skin. The vampire tapped the crease of her joint and waited for the vein to swell before she inserted a medical needle into it and clicked a test tube into the reservoir. Elena had held her head up, watching what Aiana was doing, but when she saw her blood shooting into the tube, she laid her head back and stared at the ceiling, trying to forget what was happening. She'd always had a hard time with seeing her blood drawn, even when it was her father that was doing it.

"Raechelle!" Aiana called as she placed a gauze patch over the needle site and pressed down hard as she pulled it out, then wrapped Elena's entire elbow in medical tape to hold the gauze over the wound. A young girl with olive skin stepped out of the doorway which Aiana herself had emerged from, and waited patiently for further instructions.

Elena turned her head to look at Raechelle while Aiana gathered the vials of blood she had drawn from Elena.

"Fetch your cauldron and herbs, we have the blood ready. She has already imbibed from Katherine."

Raechelle nodded wordlessly and turned back into the room. Elena saw that she had thick, wavy hair that fell far down her back, almost to her buttocks, and her eyes had been slightly slanted. From this she guessed that the girl was partly Oriental, but she had never encountered a witch who hadn't been African-American.

She returned a minute later with a heavy black cauldron that was twice the size of a soccer ball on a wheeled cart that had several bunches of herbs laid out on it, as well as some questionable looking liquids, some containing what appeared to be obscure body parts.

She lit a fire under the cauldron stand and poured into it from a tall pitcher. As she let this heat for a long while, she tore off the flowers, stems and leaves of particular bunches of herbs which she waved her hand over before selecting, making sure she was choosing the correct ones. Aiana placed five vials of blood on the tray next to the cauldron and Raechelle nodded. She continued with the herbs for several minutes more, then stirred the cauldron three times clockwise and four times counterclockwise.

Raechelle added a single vial of blood and stirred the concoction again, setting a small timer next to the cauldron and walked back into the back room. It seemed like an eternity had passed for Elena by the time the shrill bell of the timer rang. The young witch came back out and shut off the ringing, then ladled the mixture through a strainer into a pewter goblet that was waiting on the second shelf of the cart.

Elena saw steam rising from the goblet as Raechelle handed it to Aiana, who began approaching Elena. She hadn't struggled before but now she didn't care. She thrashed against the bonds and turned her head frantically, eyes closed to keep one of the vampires from instantly compelling her.

She felt Aiana's strong fingers work her mouth open. She tried to bite down to no avail, and screamed as loud as she could with the vampire's fingers pressing down on her tongue.

At that moment, the door leading to the roof burst open.