2-01

Waking up the next morning was a chore, even more so because my phone kept buzzing. It was either my alarm or one of the others, but I didn't care because my bed was so comfortable and the outside air was cold enough that it didn't help any towards helping me out of bed. But even so, the comfort of sleep had to end and my door was quite viciously cursed open and Bonnie walked in.

"No," I said, pushing a pillow with too much vigour in her direction. It spoke much of her reflexes that I didn't hear the ooph I was expecting, instead feeling as the pillow hit me enough that I rolled out of bed and fell on the floor.

When I got up I was glaring at her.

"You've been sleeping for six hours," she said. "It's time to get up."

"I think the recommended period is eight, ten in the least," I said. "I've still got four more hours."

"I wouldn't recommend that," said Bonnie walking in and with her the most tantalising smell of coffee wafting into the room. "I think I read somewhere that sleeping too much may be killing you."

"Funny," I muttered. "I remember reading somewhere that sleep is the best sort of exercise."

"That doesn't sound right," she said handing over the coffee. I took a sip, just right in a way that even I couldn't achieve: Black, strong and still sweet.

"In a demented way it does make sense though," I said. "Sure your body is in a hibernative state but you're still spending at least six hours without eating while your body still goes through is biological…You got me in a monologue."

She grinned at that. "Yeah," she said, that grin turning smug. "Now you've thought. Have fun trying to get back to sleep."

I glared and threw another pillow at her which stopped in mid-air before falling to the ground. She was getting really good with that reactionary magic, I hadn't even know she was working on that sort of thing. Though it made sense thinking about it, vampires had superstrength and speed, which meant things they threw would move very, very quickly. I made a mental note to start working on it too.

"My phone was buzzing this morning," I said. The coffee had started moving its way through me, warming me up. "Who was it?"

"Our council," said Bonnie. "Word has passed. They want to know what we're going to do."

"All things you could discuss without me there," I said.

"And we did," said Bonnie.

"You know," I said, interrupting whatever she was going to say. "It would have made me feel special if you'd said you couldn't do it without me."

"If you felt any more special you'd have too big a head," she said. "And we can't have that. Anyway, we got the parts of the spell prepared in the meanwhile and we're just waiting on the entirety of our coven here before we start making the things."

"Do you really need me?" I said. "This is more enchantment that a curse or blessing or anything. Trial and error."

"What I said to Jared, predicting all of this," Bonnie said. "And he said that we might need your eye one this."

"See, sister, there's a guy who knows how to make a guy feel special." Bonnie just gave me a dry look. "Wait. How long have you been awake if you had time to discuss all of this?"

"A few hours," she said. "Unlike you, the rest of us aren't eerily calm. What's up with that, anyway? The way you described them before, Originals are very dangerous and yet you're…chilled about all this?"

I gave her a shrug, waving the thing off. "We've got two clairsentients. That's got to count for something. But then, they're extremely old, which has to count for something too." I let out a breath. "Okay, I'm up and I'll get the gears moving. But could you leave? It's the morning."

"Right," she said and then she left. I had to take another breath, taking a few more sips of my coffee before I started going through the morning routine, letting more of the worry start to seep through, the reality that pretty soon Klaus would be on us, someone who perhaps even more dangerous the Elijah.

I wasn't sure I scaled that but all the Originals were demented in their special way. But I'd have to outthink them, something that sounded impossible but I could predict them, which helped.

The house was filled went downstairs, my coven and our friends even Tyler. The most surprising occupant, though, was Andrew who was sitting next to his brother, a scowl directed at me. I would really have to find a way of getting through to him at some point, but I would have to put in a lot of work seeing as he was a blind spot. I internally grinned a little thinking about how much I was projecting strength when I was so fallible.

"How do we deal with this?" said Jeremy. He was serious, but then it was his sister concerned. "We've thought through countermeasures but we've never really spoken about how we're going to handle them."

"We have," said Jared. "Boundary spells. It's the entire reason we've been experimenting. I daresay we've gotten better."

"But that's passive," said Tyler.

"And we're not tackling the obvious issue," said Stephan. "The Martins. How are we dealing with them?"

"We're not killing them that's for sure," I said. "If we do that we'll have a very powerful witch on our hands with little reason to live."

"Limiting how we react," said Bonnie. "This isn't you. Giving us restrictions without trying to work through solutions."

I let out a sigh. "You back to thinking I've been bewitched?"

"You're acting strange," said Bonnie. "Enzo and I have noticed it. I'm sure others have noticed it too. It's the only explanation."

"Not the only," I countered. "It could be that I'm working to lessening the mental strain from all this. What we're about to face will be long and arduous, it will do us a lot of good if we don't get too bogged down by this. Not mentioning the fact that we're dealing with immortals, patience is their entire thing, I mean Klaus spent a few centuries giving misinformation to the entire world so they could work towards his agenda."

"So you're trying to be like him?" asked Jeremy.

I shrugged. "Let's trying and not think about that too much," I said. "I'm just trying to work this problem differently than I approach other problems." I took a breath and said, "Elijah wants to kill his brother."

"Something we don't want because it means us dying," said Jeremy. "We have to dissuade him."

"But the shortest path to that is me dying," said Elena.

"Something we don't want," said Caroline. It was a little amusing that she would say that as if it wasn't the idea behind all of this.

"Another limiter," said Jared. He saw the looks that were being directed at him. "I wasn't thinking of a possibility," he said, hands raised in surrender. "I'm just working to better form this in my mind."

"We can't help him along in that regard," said Andrew. "But maybe we can trick him? Tell him we're working towards the same ends?"

"Won't work," said Bonnie. "He knows about the bloodline thing. He'll suspect us."

"He doesn't know," I interjected. This, speaking, was making the memories a little clearer, easier to connect the pieces.

"Which means it's a viable option," said Andrew.

"Though it shouldn't be the only plan we're putting forward because it leaves a lot of room for error," said Stephan. "Even so we should be watching him. I'll help with the spell. It might be easier if I was with you."

"Might be much easier if you were a part of our coven," said Jared in a singsong voice while elbowing his brother.

"What about that whole thing with the cottage?" asked Matt. "Can't you use its power to bind the Martins or something?"

"We could," said Jared after a moment. "But that brings its own complications. With how little of us there are, the bond between us might mean they'll be able to influence our actions."

"There's already risk of that even with your current setup," said Andrew. "Part of the reason I don't want to be tied down to a coven. Part." He shot me a look as he said the last.

I just shot him a bored look. "There'd surely do that," I said to Matt. "Good idea though." He tried to keep it in, but I could see his lips quirk wanting to grin.

"Come on," said Jared, a bit of a whine behind his voice. "Do that thing you do, already. It was more fun when you thought faster, getting us into the thick of it. Maybe we should run a few spells on him, test out any ties that might be connected to him, messing with his brain."

"I want to refuse," I said. "But that's a good idea. We know that Luka and his father are good with linking spells. For that very matter it's quite possible that they might be watching us now."

"Say that a little calmer, why don't you," Enzo drawled. "Because it certainly isn't the most terrifying thought at the present climate."

"More so because of who's saying it," said Bonnie. "First matter of business, that's what we test out. Micah goes first."

The process wasn't that long. Andrew took the lead with him being our aficionado when it came to Linking spells. He drew a circle on the floor with smaller circles, in all the circles he place black feathers; he said a word and the feathers simultaneously burnt to nothing, leaving in their place an acrid black smoke that filled the circle.

"We just walk through," he said. "If the there's any links on you it should be visible."

I was the first to step through and when I did there indeed were a set of threads from me to the outside world, framed by the darkness of the smoke. Andrew frowned from beyond the circle, moving his hands at intervals and the threads disappearing. He did this for fifteen minutes in total before two thread was left, thick things that looked indestructible, one even thicker than the others.

"You're not cursed," he said.

"What about those?" I said pointing at the threads.

"Your ties to my brother and Bonnie," he said.

"Guess he's just having a slow morning," said Jared, muttering just loud enough for me to hear. He followed and then Bonnie, who had a strange thread, she pulled on it and said that if gave her an image of Ben. Thinking on it, it was probably the linking spell we'd done when everything had started.

The others moved through with the only oddities being Tyler and Stefan, who were connected to each other and Mason, and Elena who was connected to an entire network of people.

"They're naturally forming," said Andrew looking over Elena's threads. "Stronger than anything I've seen before. Wait," he said. "Stephan, do you mind getting back in here?"

When he did Andrew looked at me with a frown. "How many doppelgangers exists in the world right now?" he asked. "Because these threads look exactly like the ones Elena has."

I hadn't seen that coming. But I hadn't exactly been thinking on that matter. I had to wander why my thought process was so slow. I took a long breath closing my eyes and pushing away the torpor. We were in danger, they were in danger and all through that I had plans to alleviate that danger. But I just had to think.

Elijah. The Honourable one. If we made a deal he would keep to it, but he was particular about his word choice. Not harming a hair on someone's head meant not harming a hair.

How would he play this?

Right now he was watching over things. He wanted to kill Klaus but he still wanted him to get close enough to achieve that. Which meant—

"No," I heard from far away, Jared's voice. "He's doing it.'"

—he wasn't about to kill Elena. The Martins were probably a measure towards that. Keeping an eye on Elena, but ensuring if she ever needed to be killed it would be done.

There was also the fact that he was looking for enough power that he would be able to kill Klaus, which meant trying to find the cottage. Now, though, he knew that I knew he was here, he knew about my ability which mean that he would be after me.

"He'll come after me," I said.

"To take you out?" asked Jeremy, his voice hitching.

I shook my head. "To speak. That's when we can make the deal. He'll want the power of the witches in the cottage. I'm his access to that."

"Another protection detail?" said Enzo. "Is there ever going to be a time where we go on the offensive?"

"Think of an offensive play and we'll do that," I said. "But I'm scared of going on the offense. I don't think I can outplay them. But I can react to them. Use that to get a better and better image of how they'll play things."

"Wouldn't two heads be better than one in that case?" said Tyler.

"Josephine wants to meet?" I asked.

Tyler nodded. "She's been wanting to do that all morning."

"Probably had a judge-y face all through it I imagine," I said. It made me wonder how she would playing this. The smart thing to do would be to leave. But she was staying, had a reason to stay in the power. Maybe it was the best thing to do. "We should meet though. I'll have to setup the place."

"She said you'd say that and she said you should meet at Bob's Diner. She already has a functional boundary in place."

"I'm a walking boundary maker," I said. "I trust my own spells more than I trust hers. We can meet at your house. It's highly likely that she said that to provoke a reaction and she was really betting on being there in the first place. It's close to Bob's and her people will be outside in case there's trouble."

Tyler didn't say anything, which to me meant a yes.

"And tell her it took me a second to figure all of this out," I said. "I think this is us having a pissing contest."

There was more talking after that but I wasn't listening much. The others who had school went out, they'd missed the first few periods but there was still the rest of the school day. Bonnie, Andrew and Jared worked on her idea while I watched over the entire thing, mentally preparing myself for my meeting with Josephine.

After that, it would no doubt be—a knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. Enzo was immediately at the door opening it, he took a step back when as a familiar voice on the other side said, "Is this the Bennett Residence? I'm looking for Micah Bennett."

I couldn't help the grin that had spread on my face. Because things had turned out for the worst, but I'd been right.