"You'll never pull it off."
Elena spins, surprised by the familiar voice. Of course, she shouldn't be. She'd expected her to be here, somewhere. Counted on it, even.
Her nemesis. Her reflection. Everything Elena fears she might be, underneath, when you strip the civility, the compassion, the humanity away. And Elena has wondered, lately - for all her self-righteous rationalizations, how far is she, really, from this? Elena has torn out the hearts of both Salvatore brothers. She intentionally hurt Damon last night. Sure, she might argue it was to save him, not herself, but she's sure Katherine always has her own reasons for her actions. No doubt she thinks they're good ones too.
"Your hair's not right. Your makeup is... amateur at best. Being me isn't as easy as it looks, you know." Katherine observes, running her eyes over Elena's form with disdain. It's a look meant to tell Elena that she's been judged and found wanting: you couldn't be me, even if you wanted to.
But that's just it, Elena realizes. She doesn't want to. Ever. And maybe holding onto that is difference enough.
She had hoped, though, to get further than this before before having her subterfuge discovered. She's playing a risky game and running a tight schedule. Running into Katherine... being in the same space as Katherine, could ruin everything. If Klaus finds them...
Will it even matter? Will Katherine turn her in?
"Are you under compulsion, Katherine?" she asks urgently, even as she realizes the vampire couldn't tell her if she was.
But Katherine rolls her eyes in a way that Elena finds comforting. "Klaus thinks so - I've gotten better at the act since last time," She cocks her hip, patting her opposite side, "but this time I came with insurance".
"You're wearing vervain?"
"Not... wearing exactly." Katherine lifts her top to reveal skin that is tan and smooth... except for a small region about the size of a quarter. It is pink and inflamed, and Elena watches, fascinated, as scarlet patches ripple under her eye.
"What is that?"
"It's the amulet from your little necklace, actually. I couldn't risk Klaus being able to find it and take it from me, could I?"
"The wound's not healing?" Elena asks, curious despite herself.
"My body's rejecting it - vampires and vervain never mix well. I've had to replant it twice already. But it's infinitely better than being in Klaus's thrall." She releases her shirt abruptly, hiding the evidence of her minor surgery. "And you," Katherine shakes her head, "if you're here, where are the Salvatores?" she clicks her tongue impatiently, "It's about time they showed up."
Elena figures it's a predictable enough reaction from the eternally youthful temptress. Of course Katherine would be hopeful for a Salvatore or two, likely not just to save her selfish behind, but to play with afterwards should they manage to survive the attempt.
"They're not here," Elena tells her unapologetically.
Katherine stops her visual search of her surroundings to look at Elena in surprise. Then disbelief. Then disappointment.
"Oh, you stupid little idiot." Katherine shuts her eyes in frustration. "Damon's right. You are suicidal. So you came here alone and unarmed planning to do what, exactly? Flutter your eyelashes and wait for all the vampires in the room to fall at your feet?" she challenges sarcastically.
"I'm not unarmed," Elena replies defiantly. She reaches into her rucksack, carefully pulling out Bonnie's spelled cross. Besides a half-empty bottle of water, it's the only thing she's brought with her. Because, as a matter of fact, Elena isn't stupid. She is well aware of the risks of her plan - that there is no plan B; that if this doesn't work, she won't be needing anything else, possibly ever again.
Katherine looks at the contraption, curious in spite of herself, tracing a finger along a vine that creeps along the main shaft of the device. "What is it?"
"It's a weapon to trap Klaus."
She looks back to Elena, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Which doesn't explain what you're doing with it. Why not leave it to Damon? He's good with weapons. Better than Stefan and infinitely better than you."
Elena wages an internal war against telling Katherine. There's every possibility she could be tricked into helping. It's not like she doesn't deserve it - perhaps even as much as Klaus does.
"He's still alive, isn't he?" The tone is careless, but Katherine's gaze is intent as she asks the question. It reminds Elena that the vampire has saved Damon twice over the past days and, as much as she hates to admit it, Elena owes her for that. She owes her enough for honesty in this.
"He's fine, but... he won't be if he uses this."
Katherine pulls her hand back as if burned. "So what then, this is like the Originals Dagger? You need a human to wield it?"
"No." Elena shakes her head. "It will kill a human if they use it. But I thought if I could sneak in... I mean, if they thought I was you - maybe I could make it past Klaus's men and find the coffins and find... Elijah."
"So you were planning to undagger the mighty Elijah," concludes Katherine.
"He owes us. He promised he would kill Klaus, and he let us down so that he could find his family. Well, if I undaggered him, I thought he might-"
"Might what? Sacrifice himself? He's been around a long time, you know. I imagine he's fairly attached to his life by now," Katherine points out sarcastically.
"But Elijah is an original. The weapon targets Klaus, not him, and he's strong. He has the best chance of any of us of making it out. And if I don't undagger him, he'll be trapped in a box for the rest of his life. It seemed like a pretty good deal." At least, it had at the time, in her late night panic. In the cold light of day, it seems a lot less certain. A lot more risky. But it's the only plan she's got.
Katherine cocks her head, considering. "He sees you looking like that, he might kill you before you get the chance to ask. If you hadn't noticed, he doesn't like me much."
Elena sighs impatiently. "Look, Katherine, I don't have time for this. Are you going to help me, or not?"
###
By unspoken agreement, Stefan and Damon have gone on ahead alone. There is no room here to be concerned about speed limits, reckless driving, or respecting the laws of physics to the extent required to keep mortal passengers safe. With Elena in danger, all feuds are forgotten, and their purpose is single-minded and clear.
Damon is driving. Stefan noticed his brother didn't even have to ask - Ric just handed his keys straight over.
This is not how this was supposed to go down. For either of them.
Finding Elena has slipped out of their protection is bad enough. Discovering that his brother has been part of another barely-foiled suicide attempt is ...
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Damon switches down a gear as he cuts a corner dangerously close to a utility pole.
"You know why. I was trying to avoid this."
Damon waits for the car to straighten out before glancing sidelong at him, "And let's not pretend Elena was my only problem. You would have done exactly the same thing, if you'd known." He looks back to the road. "Truth is, I'm sick to death of pulling both of you from your attempts to run headlong to your own funerals. At least this way I'd be out of it."
"Even though you know it's not what either of us want?"
"It would destroy her, you know." As much as it hurts Stefan to admit it. "It would destroy both of us."
He'd told Elena he'd needed to find a cure for his brother because he owed it to him after forcing vampirism on him all those years ago. But that was only half the truth. Whatever they've been through, whatever Damon's done or hasn't done, he loves his brother.
And as jealous as he sometimes gets of Damon's relationship with Elena, he's realized it isn't always just about his fear of losing Elena's affections. There's a part of him that's jealous of Elena's relationship with Damon too - the way she seems to get him in a way that Stefan - Stefan, who grew up with Damon, who spent the last century and a half in and on-again off-again dance of brotherly threats and cajolements with him - has never been able to.
In fact, any closeness he's regained with Damon now, he owes to her.
"We'll get her back,Stefan." Damon tells him.
It's false confidence, but Stefan appreciates it. Damon's bravado usually irritates the hell out of him. His brother has caused him so much trouble with his cocksure arrogance, reckless impulsivity, prodigious ability to destroy and charm in equal measure - the way he sees what he wants and barrels full throttle into it, no thoughts, no hesitation, no regrets.
There is no one in the world Stefan would rather have on his side in this.
"I'm glad you're here."
Damon gives him a nod and a half-smile, and plants the accelerator.
###
Katherine hates this barn.
It's big and it's dusty and, despite the fact that the disused stalls look like they've been empty for decades, it still faintly stinks of horseshit.
But it's also home to two rows of surprisingly gleaming coffins. And one of them, she knows, contains Elijah.
Okay, one of them, she's reasonably sure contains Elijah. It's not like Klaus confides his family secrets to her, but what other reason can he have for hauling a matching box set around with him?
"You sure you want to do this?"
"Probably something best discussed before you killed two of Klaus's guards to get us in here, don't you think, Katherine?" Elena points out helpfully. "And, anyway, yes. I'm sure." Elena walks over to a row of coffins with the purposeful stride of someone trying to prove a point.
Katherine shrugs, taking her place at the first box in the unattended row. "Just checking." She flips the lid, finding a dry, husky male occupant, younger than Elijah but impaled with an encouragingly familiar-looking dagger. "I mean, if I was you, I would have let Damon sacrifice himself - I know he would have. Stefan too, for that matter."
"Why do you always choose Stefan?" Elena blurts out.
Hmmm.
Katherine smiles wickedly. "What an odd question coming from his girlfriend."
"I'm not." Elena bites back immediately, then looks chastened by the slip. She drops her own lid and doesn't make eye contact as she moves to another casket.
"Oh, I see. Switched teams, have we?"
Katherine enjoys it, cajoling this young, naive human inhabiting her likeness. It reminds her of herself, once upon a time. Before her life became about survival and original-dodging. The truth is she almost envies Elena the luxury of conscience and compassion. Sure, it's going to get the girl killed, but that's hardly Katherine's problem.
"I haven't switched anything," Elena insists, struggling with a brass clasp.
"Of course not." Katherine hoists the coffin lid in front of her until it is resting open on its hinges. "Look, I understand, Elena. You have no idea how I understand."
"They both have their charms, I'll admit. And Stefan's love, it is pure…"
"…not very true though, is it?" she adds conversationally.
"I don't know what you mean."
Of course she doesn't. She's still lost in the world of warm and fuzzy, unicorns and rainbows. She doesn't know what it's like, to be considered for what you really are, found wanting, and discarded. To be left out in the cold. Katherine turns to her younger doppelganger, crossing her arms. "He loved me, Elena. He loved me, and it was all pure and light and... good, and, frankly, like nothing I had ever felt before. It was so utterly different to anything I had experienced, to anything I was."
"But then he found out I was a monster, and it was gone. Poof," she spreads her arms and snaps her fingers, "just like that".
"That's a fickle kind of love, don't you think?" She says, turning back to her row of cold, dead vampires.
And she can admit, now, that it hurt. It hurt to have to compel him not to despise her. And the sad pathetic truth of it was, after so many centuries of hardening her heart, she'd thought herself beyond having it broken... It had been... disconcerting to discover she was wrong. To say she hadn't appreciated the discovery was an understatement.
"Now, Damon..." There was a different story. "When he discovered I was a vampire, it didn't make a damn bit of difference. He accepted it as part of who I was - the woman he loved." Having confirmed the occupant in front of her as blonde, female, and definitely not Elijah, Katherine moves to the next coffin in her row.
"Yet you still chose Stefan."
"I'm a dark creature, Elena. We dark creatures are drawn to the light. Damon is as dark as I am." Katherine twists to look back at where Elena crouches, struggling awkwardly with another coffin. "And what about you? What are you drawn to?" Her doppelganger stays silent. Good girl, ignoring the bait. Or maybe she's just not ready to admit the truth. To either of them. "Anyway," she adds off-handedly, "it was Stefan's love I lost. And you know how I hate to lose."
Of course, it didn't help that every time she looked at Damon, he reminded her of her own silly hopes, the lovelorn foolishness that she'd tried to bury so deep. His devotion had come to represent the pathetic human weakness that she had come to despise in herself.
"Well, now you've lost them both," snaps Elena.
"Perhaps. Did you ever think, Elena, that it might be kinder to give one of them up, to let him sacrifice himself for you? Instead of leaving them both to run around you like fawning idiots for the rest of their lives?"
"Because that's what you would have chosen. For their own good." Elena huffs sarcastically.
"No, of course not. But then, I'm the selfish, uncaring monster, aren't I. You're supposed to be the fair maiden of this piece."
Mind you, the fair maiden's looking fairly guilty right now.
Guilt. Another luxury a monster can't afford to indulge in. And completely pointless, when it comes down to it. Beside, would it really have done Katherine any good, to choose a brother? And what of their free will? She might have compelled away Stefan's fear, his prejudice, but both brothers were always free to make their own choices. Surely she can't be held responsible for those?
This time when Katherine swings the lid open, she sees a familiar clean jaw and chiseled features beneath a sweep of dark hair.
"Bingo."
And thank God for that. This girly conversation is turning out far less fun than she had hoped (which explains why she's so short on girl friends). Another moment of it and she might have found herself volunteering for Klaus killing duty.
Elena drops her lid in a clatter and comes to stand beside her. As her human doppelganger reaches for the dagger Katherine puts her hand on her arm. "Wait -"
Elena pauses, her face questioning and vaguely irritated. Irritated. At her, a conscienceless killer 500 years her senior.
Katherine has to admit the girl's got spunk.
"If I don't survive this," she tells Elena quietly, "Tell him I'm sorry."
"Him?"
Katherine frowns. "Both of them."
Elena nods, and Katherine watches as she slides the silver dagger free of the original's chest.
"If you really think you're not going to make it," Elena asks her, "Why aren't you running?"
Katherine stares at the handsome corpse in front of them. "I've been running ever since the day I left him."
"Elijah?"
Katherine nods. "Elijah, Klaus... I'm not a deer to be hunted. I want this over. I want to see that it's over. With my own eyes."
"I've had enough."
500 years of running is more than enough. She's seen now, what it looks like to have a home, to have a place where you belong. Where people look out for each other. It's not for the likes of her, for the people who exist without bonds. Who can't afford to. She wonders, if she hadn't had her entire family slaughtered, if she'd had somewhere to belong over the past five centuries, if she'd have turned out differently.
"Did you know he found an elixir?" Elena motions toward Elijah. "For you? So that you wouldn't have to die to break the curse, 500 years ago?"
Why would he do that? Katherine wonders. But all she says is, "I bet he regrets that now."
Elena eyes her sadly. Katherine fixes her petulant gaze even harder on the original to avoid the teenage human pity emanating from her right.
It's his pinky that twitches first.
"Uh, Elena -"
"Niklaus..." Elijah, panting, galvanizes into action; torso bolting upright, he reaches out until his hands stumble upon Elena, gripping so hard he'll probably leave bruises on that little human body. "You."
"Katerina," he rasps in surprise.
"It's Elena, Elijah. I'm Elena. That's Katherine." Of course Elena seems compelled to draw attention to where Katherine now stands (sensibly) several feet away.
"Hi Elijah," Katherine offers. "Long time no see."
###
Elijah regards them gravely. "You know what you're asking."
"Yes, I know, but this is our chance to take him out."
Elena has no idea what Elijah is thinking. He remained mostly silent through her explanations, silently staring at the weapon in his lap. "Klaus betrayed you."
"And what you are too polite to mention is that I betrayed you." Elijah holds Elena's eyes, dark and unfathomable. "But this would seem rather a high price to pay."
"You're an original. It won't kill you. It's a containment spell, and it's not even aimed at you. At worst you'll be trapped. If I hadn't undaggered you, you would be no worse off."
"And if I don't agree, are you going to redagger me, child?" He doesn't laugh, though it surely must be a joke. Elijah's humor is so dry there's no real way to tell for certain.
"Of course not." Elena replies, making it clear just in case (after all, she does have a poor redaggering history). She places the dagger in Elijah's palm, echoing the show of trust she'd given the original once before.
He glances behind her to where Katherine hovers, unusually quiet. "I could make her do it."
"You couldn't. She's on vervain."
"That's right, I am." Katherine asserts. "Give me five minutes and I'll find you a lackey who's not though," she offers.
Elijah pauses thoughtfully, and Elena wonders if he is considering Katherine's offer. Or hers. Or something else altogether.
"Unfortunately we won't have that long." Elijah lilts. "My brother is already here."