Okay... last chapter. before I begin, I just want to lay some stats down for everyone. Not including this chapter, there has been 53 reviews, 7440 views, and 23007 words (making this my third wordiest and third most reviewed story, the first being Where We Begin and the second being Forever This Way on both accounts). Can I just say how awesome that is?

Thank you everyone who has read this story though out and to everyone who has reviewed. You guys rock! =D

I'm working on a sequel to this story... so stay tuned for that. It will be appearing sometime in the nearish future, despite that fact that it won't be set in the near future at all.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, other than Ashley, Danny, and my imagination.

Location: At the Gilbert House

Date: Approximately 1 month after Klaus, Elena, and Ashley's departure.

Ashley hated lying like this. These people, they were Elena's friends, her family. Still, she lifted her hand and knocked, willing herself to be serious, to be solemn. She could do this. She was a witch and it was her duty to protect these people from what was about to come. The boy, Jeremy, she remembered, answered the door, holding it open for her. She plastered a smile on her face, a painfully forced smile.

"Hey, Ashley, right?" the brown hair boy asked.

"Yes. Good memory, Jeremy." He led her to the living room. There they were. The tall blonde vampire, Caroline, and her hybrid husband, Tyler, were on the love seat. The short African-American witch, Bonnie, and the boy who she remembered as the other witch's mother's adopted son, Jaime, were on the sofa, Alaric's girlfriend, Meredith, the doctor, with them. There was Alaric, the vampire hunting schoolteacher, standing behind his girlfriend. Matt, the sweet blond boy, was standing up in the corner of the room. In the oversized chair, there was a brunette whose name escaped her, but she knew the girl was Jeremy's girlfriend.

"I'm so, so, so, so sorry," Ashley started out, a look of horror crossing her face as her eyes became glassy. Hey, she wasn't didn't win award through elementary through high school for acting for nothing. "I didn't know. I would have never opened the door if I did," her words came out rushed. She covered her mouth with her hand, choking back a sob. "There were these men... two of them. The asked to see Elena. She looked panicked but I d-d-didn't think much about it at the time. She went with him. They found the car in they were in floating in the river, part of it was stuck on a rock or something. The door was broke open," she was shaking now. She was sure this was convincing. "One of the men was in there, unconscious, but Elena- oh god- she-she wasn't-" she broke off, sobbing, "She wasn't in the car. And then the man woke, he started laughing hysterically that she was gone and then he took off this ring he had and he started burning and turned into ashes and I don't know how. But before he did that, he said, 'It's done. The doppelganger dead!' I don't know what he meant, but I'm assuming he meant Elena."

She risked a looked at their faces through her forced tears. Jeremy was pale, very pale. Alaric looked like he was going to be sick. Meredith was just staring. Matt had a look of horror over his face. Bonnie was clutching Jaime's hand, tears streaming down her face silently. Caroline was holding on to Tyler, who looked stricken, as his wife wept. "W-W-When?" Jeremy asked.

"About a week and a half ago. I didn't want to say anything, in case they found her, but they told me it was a pretty good chance that they would never find her body." She brushed away a few tears, being careful of her makeup. She didn't want any of the black substance that was running down her cheeks to get on her hands. "I'm so, so sorry," she repeated.

Bonnie stood, unlinking her hand from Jaime, and walking across the room to hug Ashley. The Bennett witch's eyes went wide as she faced away from the room. What she could sense with this girl was dark. She could sense the Original hybrid and she could sense her best friend and she knew this girl was lying. The question, though, was why? Was she working for Klaus?

"I'm going to go get some vervain from the Boarding House, for some more tea. Do you want to come with me, Ashley?" Bonnie asked softly. The others could mourn; she needed to know why this girl who was working for Klaus was in Elena's house.

"Alright," Ashley sniffled, "But I don't know the way there."

"Don't worry, I'll drive," the Bennett witch told her. Ashley nodded.

"Should you be driving?" Caroline asked her best friend. Bonnie gave her a weary smile.

"I'll be fine."

So the two witches left the Gilbert house and Bonnie drove to the house were the dead witches were. This girl, whether hybrid, or vampire, or whatever she was, would have to talk now. She was in her domain.

"What did you do to Elena?" Bonnie yelled at her.

"I didn't do anything," Ashley stated calmly.

"You're working for Klaus. What did you do to Elena?"

"I didn't do anything to her. I'd never hurt Elena! I swear!" Ashley insisted, yelping as Bonnie yanked her hair and dragged her over by the candles, beginning to chant.

"Stop." The single word followed by the footsteps made Bonnie freeze. She hadn't heard that voice since before Damon had left town. She looked into the face of the Original himself. "She's telling the truth."

"And why should I believe you?"

"Because I have something of interest to you." Bonnie's expression changed to confusion as she watched the hybrid look not at her, but over her shoulder. Slowly, she turned around to face her best friend's face.

"Hi Bonnie," Elena said softly. Bonnie swallowed, before snapping around back to Klaus.

"What did you do to her?"

"That…" The hybrid chuckled, "that's an interesting question."

"So you're a hybrid now? But you're not acting all 'Klaus is my master. I worship the ground he walks on'." Elena shook her head.

"I have a theory, two theories on that." She waited for her best friend's expression to change from confusion to curiosity before she continued. "One theory is that because I'm the doppelganger, and my blood has to be used to transform, so it doesn't affect me."

"And the other theory?"

"Before I turned, I hadn't killed anyone. That means until that point, I had never triggered the werewolf curse. Because he changed me when I wanted to die more than anything, I felt resentful. I didn't owe him anything. I still don't owe him anything. He killed me!" Then Elena frowned, "Well, technically, I strangled myself the second time with the hospital wires." She risked a looked at Bonnie's face. The witch had a look of what seemed to be awe.

"My two best friends are dead." She snorted, "So why are you with him now if you owe him nothing?"

"Because…" Elena sighed, looking for the right word, "he's lost, more lost than the rest of us."

"And somehow, you see him worth saving." The witch shook her head. "Un-be-lievable. He kills you, turns you into a hybrid, and you still think you can save the guy. Elena, if only the world was full of yous." Both girls laughed.

"He's a good man, Bonnie. I know how it feels now though. When you're angry, you can slip up, kill someone, kill many people. When you're hurt, the pain, it overwhelms you, and if you don't release it, you feel like you're going to explode. The two are so closely related that when you think about it, Klaus has been hurt so many times, especially by the people closest to him. But deep down, Klaus the person is a good man. In his human life, he'd been innocent."

Bonnie looked carefully at her best friend, studying her. She had grown up so much more than she should have had to. She had been through more in the last five years than people go through in lifetimes. "So you want me to protect the town. Keep up the rumor that a vampire, who hates Klaus, killed you." Elena nodded.

"I don't want to have to lie to everyone, but if they know where I am, that I'm alive, I'm putting them in danger." Elena closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Stefan woke up the other Originals. He scared Katherine, of all people! He didn't recognize me, even though I've age, and he acted like I was Katherine. This isn't the Stefan we know. Ashley has some friends that are spying on him and they said there are hundreds of vampires there, under his command."

"What does he want?" Elena was quiet. She stood, going to one of the shelves with the candles, lifting them up and examined them. She drew lines on one with her fingernail, then handed it to Bonnie.

"He wants to reveal vampires to the world. He wants to take down Klaus, then use the world as one big vampire play land. I know that you'd think Klaus would be on board for that idea, but he's not. Even though he says that human life is our means to an end, in the back of his mind, he doesn't believe that. He regrets killing his mother. You can hear it in his voice when he lets his guard down. Ashley has the means to take Stefan down, all of us do, but it's going to take work and that's why I have to be dead."

She nodded, before she wrapped her arms around her best friend. "I'll miss you, 'Lena. Don't forget me." Elena hugged the witch back.

"I won't. I'll miss you too. I'm going to miss everyone. Take care of everyone."

"And you be careful."

Elena nodded, pulling back. "You have to go," she told the witch. "Everyone will wonder where you went. I got some vervain when Ashley texted me the excuse you used to get out of there." Bonnie smiled.

"Bye Elena." She turned to Klaus and Ashley who had reentered the room. "You better take care of her or so help me God, I will hunt you down and-"

"Ashley would have killed me six or seven times at that point," the Original stated, "But don't worry. Nothing is going to happen to either of them." He pulled something, a small package, out of his pocket, tossing it to her. "That was my mother's. Perhaps you can channel her from beyond still. She should help, after all, she created this mess to begin with." Bonnie carefully untied the strings. Inside was a pendant, similar to the one Elena used to have, Rebekah's locket, but not quite. It held little blue stones, bluer than the skies on a clear day. "The crystals contain energy, how much, I'm not sure. She put a spell on it about two years before we turned to connect the crystals' energy with this comet that passed overhead. I think she was saving the energy in it for something big." The witch nodded, biting back a reply of 'Bigger than the creation of vampires?'. After all, for the first time, the Original and her were on the same side.

"Thank you." Silence filled the air. Everyone knew how much it took for Bonnie to thank Klaus for anything. After several moments of quiet, Bonnie spoke again. "Ashley, we need to go. They're expecting us."

Deep within a large compound in the rural area of Illinois, a metal door clanged opened, footsteps walked down a long hall, a hall that was dark to human eyes. A second door clanged opened before the vampire closed it. There was a large, circular room with a table in the center, with maps rolled out on it. Three men stood around the table, talking in hushed voices. The vampire knelt before the three male vampires, the two Originals and their leader, a young, blond vampire with a reddish-brown base to his hair. There was a guard who was also there, a dark haired with bright eyes vampire, standing against the wall of the room, completely silent, a prisoner in his own mind.

"Sirs," he greeted, "The doppelganger is dead."

The End...

:D Ta da! The end. It feels so fulfilling to write that you know? So, tell me what you think. Like it? Hate it? Want to see more?

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