Xxxx

Elena was just sinking into her pillow and shutting her eyes when there was a light rapping at her door. She sat up slowly and her eyes quickly adjusted to the two identical figures hurrying towards her bed.

She let Tatia and Katherine lead her through the dark boarding house and into the basement, only stopping once down the steps when someone stirred upstairs. Once they were seated in the back room near the cooler of blood bags, Tatia lit the candle stick she was grasping by the handle of the old bronze candle holder. Elena almost reminded her that there was a light switch in each room, but decided against it.

With the flickering of a flame dancing on their identical faces, the women wasted no time in planning their next move. Tatia took charge and filled in the silence with her melodic voice and her plans to have one of them take her place during the ritual.

Katherine immediately gasped, "but how would we ever make such a switch, Klaus would know in an instant that I wasn't you."

Tatia smiled and her eyes blinked slowly, "Yes, but he wouldn't catch on quite so quickly that Elena wasn't me."

Katherine shot Elena a look short of disgust, "There's no way she could pretend to be you Tatia. He would never fall for it. We'd all be dead."

Tatia squeezed both of their hands, "I believe, with our assistance, she could help me. You, Elena, are more likely to take my place. Elijah promised me so."

Elena swallowed hard; she had to agree with Katherine. She was the last choice in her mind. Katherine was sultry, yes, but that could easily be transformed into elegant.

"What do I need to know? How do I fool Klaus?" Elena asked, a waver in her voice.

xxxx

Elena lay in the middle of Damon's bed, listening to the brothers bicker about if this plan of Tatias' would indeed work. There were so many things Elena would have to master in order to fool the age old vampire. They seemed as confident as Katherine in her abilities.

Somehow Tatia's faith in her…Elijah's too…comforted her.

She felt the bed shift as the brothers lay on either side of her. She didn't bother opening her eyes to see who lay in front of her or who rested their forehead against her shoulder blade. She had her suspicions but not the energy to verify. Either way she was safe, encompassed by the dedication of two men who loved her in two entirely different ways and magnitudes. At least between that, she could sleep.

Xxxx

Once Klaus returned, he had insisted on a night out. Elena and the others dutifully readied themselves in their prospective living quarters. Damon and Stefan gave her some space to shower and dress as they sipped at bourbon on Damon's balcony.

Elena had opted for a knee length pencil skirt and blouse until Katherine had groaned and grabbed her arm, forcefully shoving her back into Damon's bathroom, "For Christ's sake Elena, we're not attending church!"

Once Katherine had thrown several garments into the bathroom and shouted at her to put on some "Goddamn lipstick", Elena strolled out onto the balcony where both brother's had witnessed the entire ordeal.

As much as she'd hate to admit it, Katherine knew what she was talking about, she could see it in both brother's eyes. A tightly fit, barely covering her ass, lacy white number with a built in push up bra later and she was ready.

She opted for taking a drink out of Damon's hand and gulping it down, leaving a crimson lipstick print behind. He examined the glass when she returned it in mock irritation, grazing his lips on her lip print to take the last gulp, "you look slutty."

Elena flashed him a phony grin, "yeah well, thanks for coming to my rescue in there."

Stefan stood and squeezed her shoulder lightly before walking back into Damon's room to ready himself.

Damon just smiled and let his eyes roam suggestively over her body which earned him a groan and a shove.

Tatia, Katherine and Elijah were gathered in the hallway waiting for them and Tatia gave Elena a knowing look. Tonight was the night they were to pay particular attention to the way Klaus treated and tested them. It would be very telling in how they would dupe him later on.

Tatia lightly reminded Elena in front of them all that Klaus would be especially hard on her. He would go to lengths to make her uncomfortable and she'd even help him along. Tatia had a role to play as well, and it wasn't going to be her usual kind self.

XXXX

Klaus had gone all out, renting a stretch limousine and offering a puff of his opiate filled hookah. He even convinced Rebekah to join in the festivities. Stefan had sighed heavily as Klaus and Rebekah droned on and on about their days with opiates in the twenties, only the elite got their fill of them.

"Get ready to fly," Katherine muttered as Elena accepted her puff.

Upon leaving, Elena overheard Klaus clap Stefan across the shoulders and state, "you could hardly tell which is which. Pity we can't keep them all."

Xxxx

The limo was top of the line. The smell of leather invaded Elena's senses; barely, but almost masking Katherine's strong perfume.

She sat wedged between Damon and Katherine, facing Stefan and Rebekah. Klaus and Tatia lined the side to her right.

"How old are you sweetheart?" Klaus asked Elena as he pulled a neatly rolled joint from his coat pocket.

She swallowed thickly, as all eyes settled on her. The opiates were settling warmly throughout her body but it made her mouth dry and senses almost too enhanced. She felt good, almost too good. She felt Katherine chuckle at her side and mutter to Damon, "she's feeling it now…"

"Eighteen," she finally murmured, locking eyes with Klaus.

He smiled and nodded slowly, his voice low and velvety, "ahh, eighteen. There must be a lot you wish to experience in this life. Now you have all the time in the world."

She shrugged a little, her eyes drifting towards Stefan's before blinking away and settling back onto Klaus's.

He smiled softly, tilting his head, "does it ever catch you off guard, seeing an old weathered man in the streets, knowing he has lived and loved and is so full of knowledge that only comes with age…and then look to your young Salvatore lover and realize he is an old weathered man inside?"

Elena was stricken by the question, tilting her head in the same fashion, lips parting. She had a moment just like that one evening. She had joined Stefan and Damon at The Grill one night and Damon had caught her staring at lengths at an elderly man. The man had kind eyes, though sad. He drank alone and smiled briefly when he caught her pensive gaze.

When she had turned her direction back towards the young faces of the two men before her, it really struck her how old they truly were. She laid in bed, entwined with a man that was double the age of the elder at the bar. What could it be like for Stefan, bedding just a baby compared to himself. It was unsettling in that moment.

Damon had cocked his head in question, as if he knew where her mind was dwelling. That night he tried to explain in not so many words what it was like to be a vampire, frozen forever in the same state…physically and mentally. One obtains more knowledge but never again grows as a person does. He was forever 28 no matter the life experiences he would obtain. He could be influenced and changed, sure, but not in the way an old man comes to live his life and evolve.

Klaus brought her attention back to the present when his voice parted her thoughts, "You can always tell someone's age behind their eyes. The way they look back at you and look at the world. You, sweet Elena, have an old soul. I suspect you have barely skimmed the surface of what it is to truly live though. So young," he took a long drag off of a joint and beckoned her with a finger to move closer so he could exhale between her parted lips.

She reminded herself that Tatia insisted she was compliant tonight as she leaned over Katherine and Damon to hover close to Klaus's lips and inhale his smoke. She could feel Damon's eyes piercing the side of her face as Klaus dared to brush his bottom lip against hers as she took in the last bit of his air.

She settled back into her seat, eyes fluttering closed as she slowly blew the smoke back out over their heads. She opened her eyes and swallowed thickly, her chest tingling as the drugs invaded her bloodstream.

Stefan reached across the limo to brush his fingers lightly over her knuckles, "you ok?" he mouthed, tension in his eyes.

She nodded, she really was. This feeling spreading through her body had erased her fears, guilt, pain, sadness. She was left with an open understanding of just how much time she had to live and love and give all that she had. If she could just ensure Elijah's plan worked. If she could just see this through.

Elena let Klaus slip the joint between her fingers and she lifted it up to examine it with glassy eyes.

"I have a question," Rebekah spoke up in her lazy drawl, "since we're getting to know young Elena here…"

Elena took a very small hit and coughed a little, passing it to Katherine, nodding at Rebekah to continue.

Rebekah propped her chin on folded hands and leaned forward, asking under hooded eyes, "I barely remember what it was like to be just a girl. The memories get jumbled and foggy..you'll see what I mean in a century or so," she waved her hand flippantly, "anyway, what was your first time making love like? Assuming you've unlocked the chastity belt?"

Klaus chuckled and clapped his hands together, "Oh that sister of mine, always one to get girl talk all wrong…"

Rebekah shrugged, casting a sidelong glance at her brother before returning her expectant eyes back to Elena who even with the drugs, was feeling uncomfortable at the shift in topic.

She cleared her throat and opted for a very vague reencounter of her first time, "It was with Matt, he was very gentle. He's very gentle in general."

Klaus clucked his tongue, "But it still hurt. Young men, they lack the knowledge and experience us older men have, am I right Damon?" he nudged the silent vampire at his left. Damon remained mum, taking another swig from his drink.

Elena nodded, "yes, it still hurt. The next few times were better but my heart just wasn't in it."

Katherine smirked, "So he never made you cum."

"He did… it was just…," Elena stumbled over her words, biting her lip.

Klaus chuckled, "Oh dear Elena, I'm not surprised. A woman is like an instrument. Anyone can pick one up and pluck the strings, finger the keys if you will…but it takes a musician to know how much to give, when to hold back, how hard, how slow. I assume your young body didn't know how to handle our Stefan. I trust he was gentle as well but with a much different out…come?"

Elena bit her lip as her mind drifted back to their first time. Klaus was right, she had clenched over and over around Stefan, her cervix dipping sharply into the top of him as he stilled deep inside of her. Her toes had gone numb and she had felt a delicious ache between her legs for days afterwards.

"He was gentle…but it was very different, he knew what I needed and wanted," Elena admitted, eyes flitting up to meet Stefan's, who's lips twitched into a subtle smile. She guessed nobody got the memo that they had broken up.

"Hm, that's not the Stefan who fucked me from behind while commanding his brother to kneel beneath and make me cum with his mouth…"Katherine smiled, arching her back a little into Damon.

Elena immediately froze at the remembrance of their now shared memory. No, certainly not the same Stefan Elena had grown to love in the past years.

Rebekah tittered with laughter and added, "Or the Stefan who fucked me against the wall and made me swallow every-last-drop-of-him…"

"That's enough," Damon interjected, snatching the bottle of champagne from the side of the limo, "nobody wants to hear this shit."

Klaus swooped in, clasping his hands together, "I think the point here, Elena, is that there is a lot you haven't yet experienced in that department. It's something that takes precedence in a Vampire's life. You see, we can't procreate, we have no time limit hanging over our heads, and we can compel ourselves any damn life we desire. Human ventures such as settling down, children, careers, the whole package…that's nothing now. We eat, fuck, love and don't leave a corner of the world unturned. Then the boredom sets in. Eating, fucking and love..well that turns into a game. A twisted little game."

Tatia finally spoke up, "What I'm interested in knowing is Stefan's point of view. Out of curiosity Stefan, you have bedded both Katherine and Elena…biologically identical. Were there similarities in the way they made love? Taste the same, smell the same? Feel the same?"

Elena jerked her attention towards Tatia, surprise written on her face. It was a cruel question and it hit Elena where it hurt. She had to remember that this was what Tatia planned and it was the best way for them all to learn how each of them responds and reacts in these tense situations. Klaus was sure to put them in some serious conflict before being comfortable with resuming the ritual.

It dawned on Elena that even more than that, Tatia was asking a very important question. Who's to say Klaus wouldn't test her sexually. Would he know a difference in taste or a difference in the way they felt? Elena's skin crawled at the thought of his hands on her body.

Klaus nodded eagerly, a wide sneer marring his charming features, "Ah, there's a question worth asking."

Stefan's eyes flickered to meet Elena's, his jaw tensing. Elena held his gaze. This was something she secretly wondered while lying nude next to his sleeping body. She'd prop up on her elbow and watch him sleep, mind drifting to a time that instead of her it would be Katherine laying in post coital bliss…sated and moist with mingled sweat. Their bodies a perfect copy of one another, how different could it really be for him?

He broke his regard while answering, opting to stare past her towards the dancing lights on the darkened limo's ceiling, "first time we made love I regret to say it was hard to look past the similarities. Their bodies are identical down to the same moles. The taste…"he swallowed hard, glancing again at Elena and held her gaze "was identical. The similarities ended there though. She moved differently, sounded differently."

Elena inwardly groaned. She could just imagine now; Tatia giving her lessons on how to have sex in the same way as her. Maybe it was the mixture of drugs but the thought of sex lessons from her identical gazillion year old ancestor made a bubble of laughter rise in her chest. She clamped her lips closed but it didn't stop the snort of laughter that erupted from her mouth. She clamped a hand over her lips but she just couldn't stop.

Katherine stared at her incredulously, shaking her head slowly.

"Ok…I think it's time to lay off the crazy grass," Damon muttered, thrusting a bottle of water in Elena's hand.

"I'm so sorry," she finally gasped, tears running her mascara.

The limo suddenly stopped and they each spilled out of the doors, Elena grasped onto Elijah's arm as she felt the ground tilt beneath her feet.

"Composure, Elena," he managed to say quietly enough for only her to hear.

Once they were seated in the VIP section of a ritzy club that mimicked that of the one Elijah had taken her to not so long ago, Elena excused herself to the restroom. She had gained her legs back even though she still felt floaty and euphoric in her chest.

There was a large mirror that she shuffled over to so that she could do some damage control with her make up. Her hair was twisted into a bun just as Tatia and Katherine had decided to sport tonight.

"Switch dresses with me," commanded Katherine, who appeared behind her.

"Why? Did Tatia send you in here?" Elena asked, jumping a little at her doppelganger's sudden appearance in the mirror.

"No, I went to order a drink at the bar and snuck off. Come on there isn't much time," Katherine hissed, shoving her into the handicap stall.

"Ow, what are you up to?" Elena asked, rubbing her arm where Katherine would have left a bruise if not for her current vampire state.

"It's just as important that we learn to fool Tatia," Katherine explained in a voice that suggested Elena was as intellectually advanced as a Kindergartner.

Elena clamped her mouth shut at that. She understood her meaning behind it and felt her tongue tie up as the compulsion kept the secret at bay. She quickly shed her dress as Katherine stepped out of her own.

"Undergarments too," Katherine said.

"But you aren't wearing any…" Elena muttered

Katherine rolled her eyes and said in the same dubious tone, "yeah, and now neither will you. To the T, Elena. Can you pull this off? Tell me now if you think you can't."

Elena peeled her panties off in response and flung them at Katherine. She exited the stall first after she had stuffed her breasts in the chest crushing crimson mini dress. Katherine ushered her to the mirror where she smudged more eye shadow from her clutch in Elena's creases and suddenly pressed her lips to Elena's.

Elena gasped and wrinkled her nose as Katherine proceeded to clasp her lips in her own and then break away with an urgent voice, "now you're wearing my lipstick and you know how I kiss…just in case…"

"You do remember I witnessed all of your memories. I have a pretty good idea of how you kiss," Elena muttered, examining her lips in the mirror.

Katherine shrugged and smiled smugly, "well maybe I needed to know how you kiss…you know…just in case."

Xxxx

Damon took this opportunity of having a moment alone with Rebekah to hiss in her ear, "What exactly are you doing here Bex. You trying to get your paws on this cure?"

Rebekah let out a titter of laughter and turned her hooded blue eyes to his calculating glare. He would poke around until he could figure out if she had any idea about this secret and Elijah's role in it. She glanced around her, probably to check for her brothers that disappeared behind Tatia towards the bar. Stefan had stepped outside to call Bonnie in an attempt to figure out what the strange words were Elena had spoken when Elijah commanded her to.

"To be honest Damon, I have my doubts that this cure is even real. My mother never spoke of such a thing like Tatia is claiming. She would have told me," Rebekah insisted.

Damon pondered this for a moment before asking, "Then why waste your time, we've got a full house as it is."

She smiled slowly and responded, "I thought it would be fun to watch all three of them die. This won't end well. Especially if Tatia is involved. Never much liked the bitch."

Damon watched the full lipped original take a longer than necessary sip from her wine glass. So sister original didn't trust Tatia and seemingly had no clue what was going down on Tatia and Elijah's end. He weighed his options. He could tell Rebekah of Tatia's death wish and maybe gain more insight into what may be going on, or he could keep her in the dark like Elijah and Tatia instructed. They obviously didn't want her running to Klaus with this tidbit of information and for good reason.

He dipped his toe in the water a little and asked, "But you are aware that the cure would only work on them right? You get that one of them has to die and one of them will live the rest of their life as a human, the other as vampire?"

She let out a puff of laughter through her nose and replied, "Rubbish. There would be no reason for my mother to create such a cure if it only worked on Tatia and her doppelgangers. The only thing she'd ever create for Tatia would be a death serum. She despised her!"

Damon dug a little further because he felt that nagging in the pit of his stomach that usually got him into trouble. "So why did she turn Tatia then? Why not just kill her?"

Rebekah sighed heavily, obviously growing bored with the topic yet she replied anyway, "Tatia believes it was a form of punishment…damning her soul and all…blah blah blah. "

Damon took a sip of her wine, plucking it from her neatly painted fingers, "Oh yeah? And what do you believe?"

Her eyes flitted to his lips that he purposefully darted the tip of his tongue out to sweep the stray droplets of merlot from. She looked back into his eyes and said in a very hushed tone, "I believe Tatia is very self-serving, much like Katarina. She has both my brothers wrapped around her finger and she will get what she wants. In truth, I'm here to make sure my brothers don't do something stupid."

Damon nodded slowly, rolling around another question in his mind. He blurted it out just before Stefan walked into earshot, "How do you suppose your mother knew about the doppelgangers if it was just a twist of nature…a backfire to the spell that created vampirism? In order for this cure ritual to work, there needs to be the three of them. She hadn't known that when the cure was made."

Rebekah shrugged and said, "Like I said, I don't believe there is a cure. Tatia is using my brothers to get something she wants. She's probably been trolling around Katarina and Elena for years just waiting to pounce on their weaknesses. It's who she is Damon."

Stefan sat next to Damon, sighing heavily and tucking his phone back into his blazer pocket. He tossed Damon a look of defeat and offered a shrug. Witchy must not have been much help with the translation.

Damon took a stab in the dark and peered at Rebekah for a moment before stating the foreign words to her. She looked surprised and looked around her frantically before leaning her face inches from his and hissed, "who told you to say that?"

Damon smirked, "so you know what it means?"

She clamped her mouth shut for a moment before answering, "it's a spell of my mother's. It's something only us originals can use when compelling somebody. It's to make sure another one of us can't compel over us. It's also a way to strengthen our hold on somebody. It's especially important when you're keeping someone from telling someone else a secret."

Damon nodded slowly, it made sense. Elijah wanted to make sure his brother couldn't compel certain things out of Elena and Katherine. Dangerous too, Klaus could easily find out that there was something Elijah wanted hidden from him. He started to get a creeping feeling that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to bring this to Rebekah's attention.

xxxx