Damon stroked Elena's hair as she fell asleep on his lap. They got home late, and then she stayed up most of the night editing part of her novel, so she was exhausted today. He examined her beautiful face, resting peacefully, and felt a surge of tenderness. He hadn't told her what Alaric said on the phone yet, but he knew he had to. He wanted her to have one last nap, one last moment of peace and rest, before he sent her into a constant state of alarm.
Klaus was after doppelganger blood again.
What am I going to do with Olivia?
He wanted nothing more than to lock her up in the house until he could figure out how to deal with Klaus, but Olivia was restless and impulsive and even if he tied her down she would find a way out. She had been fearless since she was little and adolescence had only accentuated that particular trait. As a person, he respected that part of her. As a father, he hated it.
Speaking of… he heard Olivia shuffle down the hallway from her room, dressed for school.
"Hey dad!" She yawned. "What's the news from Alaric and the witch?"
Elena sat up with a jerk, looking around in a confused, sleepy state. Damon smoothed the stray hair from her face and pulled her into his chest. Elena yawned and rubbed her eyes.
"Come into the living room, we need to talk."
"Nice hair, mom." Olivia giggled. Elena smoothed down the top of her head, embarrassed. Damon shot Olivia a warning look and she smiled apologetically at Elena. She sat down on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table from them.
"Your brother called this morning." Damon began.
"Katherine's still in her cage." Elena checked her phone. "As of one hour ago."
"You aren't really having him text you every hour to tell you that?" Olivia asked.
"Of course I am." Elena frowned. Olivia was quiet as she exchanged a look with Damon.
"We may have a bigger problem." Damon said quietly. "Alaric thinks Katherine helped kidnap you to steal your blood."
Olivia sat back, stunned. Elena tensed in his arms, and he searched her face. Slow dread crept into her eyes.
Alaric sat in the kitchen, munching on his eggs and toast when Audrey walked into the room.
"Morning."
"Morning." Alaric smiled.
Audrey smiled back nervously, then scooped some eggs and toast onto her plate.
"So." Alaric began, "What should we do today?"
"Well, I need to visit the witch massacre site." Audrey chewed on her breakfast thoughtfully.
"Why?"
Her eyes flicked away from him as she said,
"They help me control my powers, I told you that."
"Yes, but what do they do? Put a spell on you or something?"
"I meditate and they wrap a containment spell around me. After that, I usually don't have any problems for a while."
"So how often do you visit?" Alaric asked. She was too squirrely on the subject; he knew she was hiding something, he just didn't know what.
"Every other day, sometimes more."
"That sounds exhausting."
"That's why I'm so jealous that you only have problems once a month."
Alaric grinned.
"Well, my sister has problems twice a month."
Audrey choked on her eggs, not expecting the joke. Alaric laughed as she started to cough.
"Sorry. You ok?"
"Fine." She gulped down air.
"Do you go to school?" Alaric asked once she had recovered.
She couldn't look at him again.
"No."
Alaric paused.
"Well, no wonder you had time to stalk my family. Why not?"
She shrugged.
"You should really be in school. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, actually."
Audrey glared at him.
"You're so concerned with human laws. We live in a supernatural world, I hardly think human laws apply."
"As a witch, you're more human than I am." Alaric frowned. "Besides, we live in the human world too. We should follow their laws." Alaric watched her roll her eyes and refocus on her eggs, "I guess that shouldn't surprise me."
"Considering?" Audrey raised an eyebrow.
"Well, let's see, you kidnapped three kids and kept them in an underground tunnel-"
"It was the old Lockwood werewolf cellar. Tyler let me use it. Remember him? He wants to see you, by the way." She cut him off, obviously wanting to change the subject.
"Really?" Alaric put his fork down, amused. "What did you tell him you were using it for?"
Audrey looked down guiltily.
"Spells and stuff."
"That's what I thought. Lying and kidnapping and dropping out of school- you're a regular delinquent." Alaric pondered her quietly for a few moments. She was too young to screw up her life. His gaze made her self-conscious again, however, and she soon put a stop to it.
"What?"
"You need to go back to school." Alaric shook his head and forked another bite of eggs into his mouth.
She bristled.
"You're not in charge of me."
"No, but you should go back. You'll have a better chance of getting a job you like that pays well. Don't you have something you want to do?"
"Look, I don't need you parenting me. You're not even three years older than me!" Audrey picked up her plate and stalked from the room.
Alaric smiled to himself. Teenage girls.
A scream pulled Alaric from his room. He sped down the stairs, his worst fear fueling his speed, and sure enough-
Katherine's hands were free and one was wrapped around Audrey's neck. She looked awful, but her wrists were quickly healing.
"Call the witch or I'll snap her neck."
"Audrey, what did you do?" Alaric growled.
"I- she said-"
"Call. Now." Katherine's hand tightened on Audrey's neck, cutting off the witch's halting explanation.
Alaric slowly reached into his pocket for his phone, trying to think of another way out of the situation and coming up with nothing.
"Alright."
"Tell them Elijah's here to pick me up." Katherine insisted. Audrey swallowed hard.
"Fine." Alaric said quietly.
Alaric listened to the phone ring with dread.
"Rose, Elijah's here. Lower the spell."
"Ok, can I talk to him?" Rose asked.
"No, he's busy."
"Sorry, Alaric, Elena and Damon said not to lower the spell until I heard Elijah's voice."
Alaric raised an eyebrow at Katherine and she, in turn, tightened her hold on Audrey's neck. The witch sputtered but no sound came out and her eyes grew round with panic. She couldn't breathe.
"Rose, lower it now." Alaric said quickly.
"Is everything ok, Alaric?"
"Katherine has Audrey and she's going to kill her unless you lower it."
Rose drew a sharp breath.
"Ok."
Katherine relaxed her hold on Audrey and the girl drew frantic, ragged breaths. Alaric waited, his body tenser than it had ever been, listening to Rose chant on the other end of the phone.
"It's done."
Alaric hung up without another word.
Katherine pushed Audrey forward to the barrier of the room. She stepped over it, malicious glee lighting up her face. She tightened her hold on Audrey with a vicious jerk, lowering her glare on Alaric.
"I will kill her, right here and now, unless you call your parents and convince them to trade for Olivia. I promise I won't hurt Olivia, I only want to borrow her for a few days, but I will snap this girl's neck if you don't do it."
Alaric could barely breathe.
"I don't think they're going to agree to that." He couldn't look Audrey in the eye as he admitted this.
"Even if it means I kill her? I only want to borrow your sister, she won't be harmed."
"Still." Alaric choked on the word, terror rising in him. Olivia would consent to it, but Damon wouldn't believe Katherine meant her no harm, and he would never hand Olivia over to this maniac. His mother would likely agree, though she would feel far worse about Audrey's consequential death. Alaric looked at Audrey, and no apology could ever express how sorry he felt. Tears welled up in her eyes as she understood there was no way he could save her.
Katherine was about to shrug and snap the girl's neck out of spite when Audrey's pupils expanded to fill her entire eye with black. Some unseen, powerful force threw Katherine off of Audrey and into a wall. Black electricity sparked from Audrey's fingertips, and when she opened her mouth a horrible inhuman screech shattered Alaric's eardrums. The lights began to flicker, and a ferocious gust tore through the room, knocking cabinets open and blowing the decorative, heavy curtains every which way. Katherine was pinned to the wall by the force of the wind, and Alaric was blown clean off of his feet into a couch, which fell over with him and pinned him to the wall. A blinding pain in his abdomen and chest accompanied the sound of bones breaking. He couldn't breathe suddenly, a wet feeling clogging his airway and compounding the effects of the heavy pressure of the couch on his chest. The air was riddled with the sound of things smashing into walls over Audrey's blood-curdling scream. Alaric tried to push the couch off of him but only managed to move it to the side. He moved it off his injury enough that he felt himself start to heal. The couch provided some cover, at least, to the whirling objects in the room, which he could only hear from where he was trapped. He coughed up the blood that filled his airway, still unable to breathe.
Then the wind died down, the screaming stopped and the couch fell off of him. Alaric couldn't get enough air in his lungs to move, so he just kept coughing, waiting for whatever was wrong to heal completely.
"Alaric!" In the blackening, spinning world of no-air, he barely recognized Audrey's voice.
"Alaric, are you ok?" Frantic hands turned him over on the ground and fussed over his injuries. With a crunching sound that he suspected was his rib fusing back into place and out of his lung, the ability to breathe returned to him. He dragged blessed breath after breath into his lungs, fighting off the fuzzy black edges in his failing vision.
"Alaric!" She cried again, cradling his head in her arms. Her terrified expression came into focus slowly.
"I'm ok." He gasped, "Katherine?"
"Gone."
With that knowledge, Alaric took time to recover. Audrey inspected his upper body, touching his chest and arms and smoothing his hair back, all the while murmuring how sorry she was. He realized she was crying, hard.
"I panicked. I never meant to hurt you. Please get better." She murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
"That was your 'out of control' powers?" He asked, finally feeling well enough to sit up.
"Yes." She nodded, tears dripping off her cheeks.
"You forgot to mention that you make a lightning tornado that destroys everything within twenty feet." Alaric commented, surveying the completely wrecked room. He brushed some tears from her cheek. "That was an incredible amount of power. I've never even seen Bonnie do something like that. It's a good thing I'm practically indestructible."
"But I can't control it. It just destroys everything." Audrey confessed. "It killed my father." She whispered, her lip trembling. She didn't seem to believe her own words, but the moment she said it her eyes filled with tears and her shoulders began to quake with sobs. Alaric couldn't move he was so stunned. Her wail of raw pain brought him out of his state of shock, though, and he drew her into a tight hug.
Elena walked slowly up the walkway. Her mind was reeling, and her emotions tugged her in every direction.
She knocked on the door of the pale yellow house, admiring the flowers planted around the porch despite her troubling thoughts. Bonnie had the best garden she'd ever seen. It soothed her to work on it, she knew, and any time she was stressed she could find her out weeding her plants.
"Elena." Bonnie opened the door before she had a chance to knock, a smile on her lips. Elena smiled in relief and hugged her best friend. Dark circles were starting under Bonnie's eyes and her hair was swept back in a hasty ponytail. "Thank you for picking up Rose. I was out of my mind with worry."
"It was our pleasure. What you were doing sounded really important."
"Yeah, some vampire was mass producing other vampires to create a sort of gang for killing off witches in Massachusetts. I was just doing what I could to help get it under control."
"Right, that." Elena grinned sheepishly. Honestly, she'd been so concerned with finding her children she hadn't been listening to Bonnie's original explanation.
"So Katherine's on the loose again?" Bonnie folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. Elena sat down on the porch swing, enjoying the smell of the flowers all around her.
"And after doppelganger blood."
"You and Olivia. You think Klaus is masterminding it?"
"I called Caroline, and she didn't seem to think he could be behind it. I guess they're still in Paris. According to her, he hasn't even mentioned making hybrids in years. I think she's still a little insecure about it though, she didn't sound completely convinced of what she was saying. I mean, he's a thousand years old. People don't change that much that quickly. What would anyone else want with doppelganger blood? I hate to say it, but she may be too close to the situation to see clearly."
"Who else terrifies Katherine? She's 500 years old, she's pretty terrifying herself."
"Other than you?" Elena shrugged. "No idea. Maybe another Original." Elena bit her lip.
"You mean Kol."
"It's what I'm afraid of. Of all of them, he was the most impulsive and unpredictable. But what would he want with doppelganger blood? Klaus is the only one who has use for it."
Bonnie pushed off from the doorframe, planting her feet firmly. Glee sparked in her eyes.
"Well, let's stop guessing and smoke them out. I'm done playing their games, and if that bastard's back to his old ways, Caroline should know about it as soon as possible."
Here's the deal: it's illegal for Alaric and Audrey to get down and dirty in Virginia (it's illegal to have sex with a 13-15 year old if you are older but under 18), where Mystic Falls is, but not in California (if one of the party is under 18 and there is more than a 3 year difference it's illegal, but they aren't quite 3 years apart), where Alaric usually lives. I'm not yet sure whether I agree with Alaric or Audrey on whether human laws apply to supernatural creatures :P. Thank you for the reviews!
