Not quite sure that he shaken the smell-or delicious memory-of Katherine from his skin, Stefan nevertheless resigns himself to sniffing out Jeremy and Klaus's camp. A woman he picked up along the way follows somewhere nearby.

"Stefan! Lovely, you've caught up."

"Couldn't have you torturing Jeremy without me."

"Nonsense," Klaus says, slapping Jeremy on the back. "He's my new best mate, isn't that right? Next to you, of course, ripper."

Jeremy shrugs Klaus's arm off his shoulder and refocuses on his sketchbook, filled now with fewer nightmares-thank God-and more undulating tree roots and indecipherable symbols.

"Oh, don't be a spoilsport, Jeremy. I thought we managed a bit of fun together! No?" Klaus grins. He turns back to Stefan and shrugs. "Teenagers. Did you finish up at the house?"

Stefan nods. "Only because you asked so nicely," he replies sarcastically, eliciting a short peal of laughter from Klaus.

All three men turn to the nearing sound of someone approaching. "Hey! Wait up, Stefan," a woman calls. Her flame-red hair just brushes her shoulders as she climbs to their small camp. "Where'd-oh. Hi," she says, unsure now that she's faced with more than her blond companion.

"It's okay, Shannon," Stefan reassures her, motioning her forward.

"Sheena," she corrects.

"Whatever." Stefan takes her by the hand and turns to Klaus. "I brought lunch."

Klaus laughs again, happier than he's been in a long while. He claps one hand against Stefan's neck. "This is marvelous, isn't it? Best friend returned to form, Jeremy's mark finished and hours from having my doppelganger back, and a few short days from an unstoppable army of hybrids. I can't think of a thing more to improve my mood, and then you bring me my favorite? How I do love a ginger."

Jeremy looks like he's about to be sick. Stefan pulls a sandwich out of his duffel and tosses it to him. "Can't have the map man starving to death," he explains, his deadpan humor amusing only himself.

Stefan compels the girl to stay quiet, and sinks into the right side of her throat from behind. Beside him, Klaus smiles wide, and sinks into her left, his hand reaching up to tangle in Stefan's hair, locking them together over their meal.

It takes only moments for them to drain all her resistance.


"Dude, what are you even doing?" Jeremy whispers to Stefan while Klaus speaks angrily into his phone.

Stefan rolls his eyes. "What I've been doing the whole time," he explains. "Only with a spring in my step now," he adds with a disturbing, closed-mouth grin.

"You make me sick. I don't even know what my sister sees in you, if this is what you really are."

"You know, I have asked that question many times myself, and have yet to come up with an answer. But she just keeps running back to me. D'you think it's a self-esteem problem?" Stefan looks at Jeremy expectantly.

Unable to stop himself, Jeremy looses a swift left hook across Stefan's chin. Stefan recovers quickly, rubbing the spot Jeremy hit and laughing genuinely.

"You've got spunk! I like it," Stefan says, like they're just two buddies playing at sparring. "You might survive yet," he judges, and saunters out of the brush to the car.

"I look forward to dealing with him later," Klaus threatens menacingly into the phone. He pockets it swiftly. "You girls work out your differences, then?"

Jeremy ignores him, and joins Stefan at the car, Klaus in tow.

"Lovely. We'll be in Mystic Falls in a few hours. We'll pick up the sword and the doppelgänger and be on our way as soon as I've dealt with some hybrid business. 'The mice will play' et cetera," Klaus says by way of explanation. "Come along."

"D-did you just use a cat metaphor?" Stefan stutters, laughing. "Seems like the wrong kind of irony," he continues, and Klaus narrows his eyes. "Just saying, I think you're losing your edge, there, Duchess."

"And you should leave the witty nicknames to your brother. He's the clever one."

"Aw, I'm sorry, did I hurt your wolfy feelings?"

"What are you two, six? Drive already," Jeremy commands.


As they pass over Wickery Bridge into town, the tension in the car thickens. They all know their goal is close, and a strange combination of glee, terror, and apprehension lay over them like fog.

"Jeremy, you'll be a dear and retrieve your sister," Klaus instructs as he stops in front of the Gilberts'. "Stefan will get Damon as well. Can't have him roaming about, scheming. Better to have him where I can watch him. And I'd just hate to deprive Elena of her burgeoning love while we search," he adds cruelly, his eyes never leaving Stefan's. "Come to the mansion when you've secured them. I'll meet you there when I've finished scolding the children."

Klaus drives off, leaving Jeremy and Stefan staring after him.

"So, do we have a plan?" Jeremy asks.

"Yeah, there's a plan," he replies, and Jeremy sighs in relief. "We do what he says."

"What? No!"

"Yes, Jeremy. We get them. We find the cure. Elena takes it. Klaus gets what he wants, but at least she'll be alive."

Jeremy recognizes when arguing with Stefan has become futile. He needs backup, so he waves Stefan off.

He searches the house, but it's clearly empty. A quick call to Elena's phone goes straight to voicemail; Damon's too. His third call, to Matt, is more successful.

"Jer, where are you?"

"Home. Away from Klaus for now. Where is everyone?"

"We're all holed up at April Young's house. It's the only place that isn't open to every vampire in town."

"I'll be there in a few."

"Be safe."


When Jeremy arrives at April's, he passes Rebekah, who's curled up on the porch swing with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She never breaks her stare into the mountains.

He crosses the threshold and scans the front rooms of the Pastor's house. "You said everyone was here, Matt. Where are Damon and my sister? And Bonnie?" Jeremy demands.

Matt, Caroline, and April all share a look. Caroline is the first to stand from her seat at the dining table.

"Don't be mad, Jeremy-"

"Too late. Where are they?"

"That Hunter you sent, he got here last night. And they left, pretty much right away. To find it," Caroline clarifies.

Jeremy is relieved to hear that Vaughn made it here all right, and that he got safely out of dodge before Klaus got wind of him. "Who's they?"

"Elena and Damon went with him, and they took Shane, who pretended to know how to decode the Mark," April says, an edge in her voice.

"Pretended?" Jeremy asks. "So they have no idea where they're going?"

"No, they do." April turns the laptop on the dining room table toward Jeremy, who scans the screen quickly. "We found this-Shane thought he knew where the cure was already. He didn't need a Hunter with a Mark to get it."

"So then why...?"

"He needed a witch to get them there, Jer," Matt explains.

"Bonnie." Jeremy's heart sinks. "He took Bonnie."

Caroline nods. "They left this morning."

"What does he want with the cure, anyway? What's it to him?"

"We're still looking through my dad's stuff to find out. But we know that he went to a lot of trouble to find it. Twelve homicides and a week of witch-hypnosis kind of trouble."

Jeremy feels even more helpless than he did last night, if that were possible. "And we have no way to warn them."

Caroline smiles mischievously. "Bonnie's smarter than that," she says, and waves a blank sheet of paper in the air.

"What's that?" Jeremy asks.

"An insurance policy," Caroline replies, and uncaps an inkpen.


Bonnie ducks into an alleyway to remove the remaining ropes from her wrists, and Shane and Vaughn follow.

"Which way?" Vaughn asks.

"Bonnie, you should be able to sense them. Open your mind to the Power of witches here. They're your family, you can find them," Shane encourages her.

She closes her eyes, and searches through the mental fingerprints nearby. Slowly, she sends out tendrils, adjusting north and east as the remnants of Power get more and more familiar.

"This way," she says, and reluctantly takes ownership of their ropes.


She has the strangest sensation, when they reach the forbidding iron gate, that she has come home. When she touches the gate, it swings open of its own accord. The men queue behind her, feeling only unease at the enormous structure before them.

"It's okay," Bonnie reassures them, and bends down to pick a few sprigs of the herb growing like a weed between the cracks in the walkway. "This is where we're meant to be," she says, handing one to each of them.

Shane brings it to his nose and smiles. "Vervain."

"How does this stuff even grow under this poor excuse for sunlight?" Vaughn asks, twisting the stem as though it will reveal some secret.

"Magic," a voice responds from the front stoop of the mansion, and Vaughn drops the vervain in surprise. He backs up a few paces.

"Come inside, Bonnie. Bring your friends." Emily turns back inside, not waiting to see if they follow. She knows they will.

As much as they've come to realize that nothing in this place is quite as it seems, Bonnie still has to fight slight vertigo as they step inside the house.

"Once upon a time, when the outside of the house was built to match the enormity of the inside, we found that we drew too much attention to ourselves. The vampires sought to challenge our power and gain control of this dimension. We found it more practical to operate out of a small house," she explains. "Or to pretend to, anyway."

"And what, all y'all live here?" Vaughn asks as he pulls his wrists free of the rope.

"Do you live in a prison?" Emily asks cheekily.

"Sometimes I wonder," he replies vaguely.

"This is where the Bennett witches work, and in some cases, where they're imprisoned."

"You've thrown our family into cells?" Bonnie demands.

"You don't know your own family history well enough, or you wouldn't ask that," Emily says. "Bennett witches are our own worst enemies, and we never were good at using magic in moderation. Why do you think so many of us are in this dimension, Bonnie? There hasn't been a single witch from our line that passed into the Celestial Court."

"So this is my future? As an inmate or a jailer?"

"We cannot know the future, but perhaps not. I know what you seek here," Emily says with a serene smile.

"Are you going to help me get it?" Bonnie replies. "Or try to trap me here, like last time?"

"Last time, you were dead. By natural order, you belonged here. There was no malice intended."

"And now?"

"You are very much alive, and you have an important purpose yet to serve. Fate readjusted to your continued presence."

"Then tell me what I need to know," Bonnie demands.

"There is one more test," Emily says, and motions for Bonnie to follow her.

She scoffs. "Of course there is."

"Stay here, please," Emily requests of Shane and Vaughn. "This way, great granddaughter."


A few long minutes later, Emily and Bonnie step out of the shadows. "I have what we need," Bonnie tells Shane and Vaughn.

Shane looks into her eyes closely, searching. Bonnie smiles at him, the secret they now share electrifying the air between them. He holds back a satisfied, triumphant grin.

"Good. Let's go," Vaughn commands. "Not that y'all haven't been... welcoming, but all these witches in one place creeps me the hell out."

Emily narrows her eyes at him. "If it weren't for witches, you wouldn't have the Power and the mission you do. You'd be a normal, unremarkable human."

"Yeah, exactly," he replies.

"Fine," she says, and pulls out her overburdened key ring. Carefully selecting one, she looks to Bonnie one last time. "Are you ready, great-granddaughter?"

Bonnie hardens her features. "Yes."

Emily inserts the key into the heavy wooden door, and turns it. When she opens it, they're looking into the basement of the dilapidated plantation house in Wickery Woods. "Godspeed, then."

Together, they walk through the door, and it shuts with a thud behind them and disappears.


April steps out onto the porch with a blanket under one arm and a tray of tea under the other, and settles on the Adirondack chair next to the swing.

"I hope you like Oolong," she says as she pours out two cups.

"I do, yes. Thank you," Rebekah replies, accepting the cup with both hands. "I went to China once. It was my first trip away from my brothers, right after Nik murdered my Alexander."

"Was he your...?"

"I thought he was, yes. I mourned him in every corner of the Orient after Nik had finished interrogating me. That's how my brother works. Once he's wrung whatever usefulness out of me, he discards me, or worse, ignores me."

"I have about a million cousins-most of the family is Catholic, aside from my dad-but I don't have any siblings," April explains.

"Probably better that way."

"Is it? My dad died, and now I don't have anyone."

"Family is like having a bottomless font of disappointment and betrayal."

"I don't think human families are much different."

Rebekah's head turns at that. "No?"

"No. You love them, and you'd do anything for them, and they piss you off more than you thought possible. You think, if we weren't family, we wouldn't even be friends, but when they're gone..."

"It's like a piece of you is gone, too," Rebekah finishes. "Maybe..."

"Maybe what?" April asks, sipping her tea.

"D'you think it's possible to have friends like that? If you wouldn't be friends with your siblings, but you love them anyway, can you have friends you love as siblings?"

April thinks for a moment, and the thought fills up a tiny, hollow space within her. "Yeah, I think that's possible," she decides.

Rebekah smiles. "Thank you. For the tea."

April knows she means to convey gratitude for more than just the tea.


Ric is whispering to Damon, softer than the witches can hear, but not in a way that suggests he means to hide his words from Elena. His words are sweet and familiar, and far too intimate for Elena to continue to listen in, though. Damon can't tear his eyes away from Ric, as though he means to re-memorize his face. He doesn't say anything to his best friend.

Alaric turns back to Elena, hovering near the cell door.

"What happened? All of it, Elena."

"The night you died... the night we died," she amends, "I had vampire blood in my system. We didn't know, it wasn't intentional." Elena looks to Sheila, seeking forgiveness, as though this was some slight against her.

"Go on," she encourages.

"It's been hard, trying to learn how to not hurt people. Damon's helping. But a Hunter came to town-"

"One of the Brotherhood of the Five," Damon clarifies.

"-and we found out that they have a Mark that has a map to a cure for vampirism. But..." Elena can hardly bear to think back on what she did, to admit that she's a murderer.

"He threatened Jeremy, and Elena protected her family. Exactly as she should have," Damon insists.

"I murdered him," Elena says harshly.

"And Little Gilbert was called to be a Hunter instead, thankfully."

"Is Jeremy here?" Alaric asks, alarmed.

"No, a different Hunter, one Jeremy found and sent to us so that we could come here undetected while he distracts Klaus," Damon answers.

Esther sighs. "You were not meant to live again, Elena."

"I wasn't meant to be a vampire, either."

"No, you were meant to die in the ritual, and then move on."

"Pardon me for not following your 'master plan' and dying before my 18th birthday like a good little doppelganger," she replies sarcastically. "Petrova or not, I deserve to have a life."

Alaric and Damon are both proud of her in that moment.

"Where are the others? Were they taken?" Esther asks, avoiding Elena's comment.

"No," Damon answers. "They escaped, and went to find the cure."

"You have no idea what you may have unleashed!" Sheila cries.

Esther frantically searches through her keyring and selects one. She rushes over to the wooden door they've just come through and inserts it.

When she opens the door, Elena is startled to see a different room just beyond the one she was in moments ago. She takes Ric and Damon's hands and hurries through it behind Esther and Sheila.

"Where are they?" she calls to no one in particular. Several witches turn their heads, and point down a nearby corridor. "Emily Bennett, I should have known it would be you responsible."

"They are gone already, Esther. Your plan failed, as did Sheila's. It was time to try a different solution."

"And there will be immeasurable consequences, Emily."

"Perhaps. We will find out soon enough," she says cryptically. "Come, Damon and Elena,
I will send you home now. You'll arrive not long after your friends."

Elena panics, looking back at Ric, and she can see that he's just as desperate.

"What?" he demands. "Already? But they just-"

"They have to go now," Sheila insists.

She's only gotten moments with Alaric, and she has so much to say, so much to share with him still. She looks at Damon helplessly.

"What if-" she starts, but Damon shakes his head.

"Not how it works, Princess. He died. For real died."

Ric realizes the thoughts and wishes that pass between them, because he's thought of it too, more than fleetingly, in the years he's spent on this side. He turns to Elena.

"Be glad we got to see each other for a little while at least. I am. And know," he says, affectionate and genuine, "that I'm with you. Always."

"No!" she protests. "Not the way you should be!"

"Don't make this hard, Elena, please," Damon pleads under his breath. He embraces Ric, heartbroken but stoic, and tries not to let his tears fall as freely as Elena does.

Sheila distracts Elena while they say their goodbyes. "I need you to pass a message on for me, sweetheart. It's critical, can you do it?"

Elena sniffles and nods.

"You tell Bonnie that I tried to warn her for a reason. The danger in her magic is real and it will have deadly consequences if she allows herself to be manipulated. You repeat that back to me now."

When Elena has all the words memorized just so, Sheila releases her shoulders and gives her a tight hug.

Damon can't even stay once he's said goodbye to Ric. He walks through the door that Emily opened, not brave enough to look back.

He waits, perched on the same rock where a hundred-forty-odd years ago he became a vampire. When Elena finally falls through a shimmer in the air, he catches her and grips her with a strength he's never known, and sorrow he knows all too well.

Elena sobs into his sweater for the better part of ten minutes.

"We keep this," he thinks aloud. "We keep this memory of him just for us."

Swiping at her tears, Elena nods.

"Caroline's been texting."

She stands and holds out her hand, hoping that pretending to be strong will make her feel strong. "Let's go."


"I can't find Damon or Elena, Klaus. And Jeremy's gone MIA," Stefan explains into his cell.

"Unfortunately, that's the least of our troubles right now, mate. I think I might need backup; and since your dance card is unexpectedly empty..." Klaus hints.

Stefan sighs. "Tell me where you are."

"I'm currently in the woods behind my mansion, staring into several pairs of angry hybrid eyes. Given their body language, and the fact that they're led by the ever-infuriating Tyler Lockwood and his werewolf wench Hayley, I suspect they're no longer sired to me."

"Fine."

"Lovely."

Klaus slips his phone into his jacket pocket and tries not to make any unnecessary movements. He created these creatures; he knows what they're capable of.

"And Darius and Melanie?" he asks.

Tyler releases the hybrid he's got trussed up on his knees. "Dead. This is the only one still left who's still your bitch. He refused 'treatment'."

"That so? Come here, dear."

The hybrid-Kyle, Klaus remembers-climbs to his feet quickly, rubs his still-bleeding nose against his arm, and hobbles over to his Sire.

"Thank you," Klaus says genuinely, "for your loyalty." He strokes Kyle's hair for a moment, who seems relieved at the affection. "You'll thank me for this someday," he whispers, and shoves a fist into Kyle's chest. It's less violent a death than the unsired hybrids would have given him.

One final act of mercy. Klaus resolves to show no more.