Chapter Thirty-five

After stopping at Rebecca's to get some clothes and other essentials, such as food and water and blankets, Bonnie and Jeremy were dropped off at the old Lockwood property. Damon and Rebecca made sure the other two got through the wooded path and to the house. Bonnie still hadn't woken up, and Rebecca was beginning to worry. How sure were they that the spell was going to work anyway? It wasn't like Bonnie had used it before.

"She used up a lot of her energy taking Klaus on," Damon said. "She'll wake up when she's ready."

"Hm."

Rebecca helped set up a small nest type place for Bonnie to rest. It was big enough to hold both Jeremy and Bonnie.

"You call one of us when she wakes up, okay?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. I've gotta go. Damage control with Elena. I'll probably stay there tonight in case Klaus shows up. With Bonnie here . . ."

"Yeah. Don't, ya know, get permanently dead."

She scoffed. "Really not an issue. I like living too much to die."

She went outside to Damon – the witches spirits' still didn't want him inside for some reason – and they left.

Upon arriving at the boardinghouse they were confronted with a crying Elena. She and Stefan were in the living area, and she was holding a mug of hot tea in her hands.

"Where is she?" Elena asked, coming over to them. "What did you do to her?"

"Elena –"

"Tell me you didn't just burn her body or bury her."

"No, we –"

"You just took her!"

"Well, did you want us to leave her there?" Rebecca snapped. "Now hush and listen."

Damon explained it all better than Rebecca could have and, though Elena had tears streaming from her eyes, she was no longer hysterical or angry.

"Jeremy will call when she wakes up," Rebecca said.

Elena nodded. "This can't happen again. Bonnie won't die for me. I will not let that happen."

"I don't really think that's your decision," Rebecca said. "She just wants to protect you, protect everyone, really. You don't have the right to take that from her."

"Is that Rebecca talking or the Slayer?" Elena demanded.

"Both." Rebecca sighed. "We need to kill Klaus. If Bonnie is the only one that can do it . . . I mean . . . We no longer have the dagger, Elena, so Bonnie's the only weapon we have. I'm sorry for the grief you felt, but she is the only thing we can use against him. You know that."

Rebecca turned to go toward the stairs. She just wanted to go to bed. She needed to call her dad first, though, to let him know she wouldn't be home that night.

Damon followed her, as she knew he would, and she stopped once they were in their room.

"Friends are hard," she said. "Right now Caroline is the least stressful of all of them."

"Blondie. Who would've thought?"

"I know, right. I used to not be able to stand her for any long period of time, and now I think she's my favorite. I mean, Jeremy's disappointed because I took Bonnie's side in this. Her life, her decision, you know? And Elena's intent on making stupid decisions that will cost more than just her life, and no one appreciates how in the middle I am in all this! I mean, maybe Jeremy. If I side with Elena, people die. If I side with someone else, people die. So why not just do what I think is right and forget everything else?"

By the time she was done her voice had risen to the point of yelling. Maybe even Elena had heard it.

The anger and fight left her and she began to take her dress off, which wasn't hard. The dress wasn't tight and it was a little slip of a thing.

She flopped onto the bed with her phone and dialed her dad's number.

The night went by peacefully other than a few bumps. They happened frequently, so everyone thought it was just the house settling. The next morning, however, they found out that Elena had released Elijah from the cellar, had removed the dagger from his heart.

Elijah was no longer in the house. Neither was Elena. Once Rebecca found out, her face went even paler than it normally was.

"I – I told her last night that we needed another weapon against Klaus. We needed – did she leave the dagger?"

"Nope," Damon said.

"I tried calling her, and she didn't answer," Stefan said.

"Of course she didn't. She knows you'll try to get her to come back," Rebecca said. "Let me try."

She did, and Elena answered.

"Elena, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

She knew Stefan and Damon could hear both sides of the conversation. Stefan was relieved to hear Elena's voice. To be fair, so was Rebecca.

"Is Elijah with you?"

"Yes."

Rebecca heard the hesitancy in Elena's voice.

"You don't wanna say where." Rebecca sighed. "I'm gonna get dressed and I'm gonna start running. I'm faster than both Stefan and Damon. Text me in about three minutes with your location."

Neither Stefan nor Damon looked as if they appreciated that plan.

"I know Elijah can hear me. I know that he knows I can be trusted. He knows that I didn't want anyone to use the dagger on him. If it had been up to me, that wouldn't have happened. Let me meet you guys. It'll give all of us piece of mind if I'm with you."

There was a pause and then Elena was no longer on the line. Elijah was.

"Your terms are acceptable. I know you never wished for me to come to harm. You come alone."

"Not a problem."

"I assume I do not have to warn you against betraying me, Miss Stone."

"No, and you know I wouldn't do that."

"Yes. I remain uncertain about your friends, however."

She hesitated, looked at Stefan and Damon. Stefan would agree to whatever kept Elena safe. Damon, however, was already shaking his head. He didn't want her alone with Elijah.

"I'll be alone."

Damon shook his head even more adamantly once she hung up.

"What makes you think this is a good idea, or that he can be trusted?"

"He won't hurt me. That much I do know." She looked at Stefan then. "And as long as Elena doesn't do anything stupid he won't hurt her."

She went to get dressed. Damon followed her, and Rebecca knew they were either going to fight or walk away angry without having solved anything.

"You're really planning on doing this?" Damon demanded.

"Yes, Damon." She tried to remain patient as she pulled on a pair of jeans and picked out a shirt. "Part of you knows Elijah won't hurt me, and all of you knows we can't let Elena run this show. She means well, but she can be unbearably stupid."

He really couldn't argue with that.

"I will check in every hour. Besides, if I was heading into danger your spider sense would be tingling."

"That doesn't always work, not since you became a vampire."

And he was just worried. She knew that. And they hadn't started arguing with each other; that was something.

"It's always worked when it counted."

She grabbed his hands with her own and pulled him to her. She wrapped her arms around him.

"We really might need him, Damon. I know you don't want to believe that, but he can be useful."

"Hm. Or he could be vengeful."

"What're we doing here?" Elena asked as she pulled up to the front steps of the huge Lockwood mansion.

"I'm in need of a change of clothes. Let Miss Stone know she can meet us here."

Carol Lockwood met them at the door because she was on her way out, but Elijah compelled her to help him by finding one of her husband's old suits. Apparently she hadn't stored them away yet.

"How did you know she wasn't on vervain?" Elena asked once they stepped into the living room.

"I'm the one who convinced her to get off of it. Before you and your friends killed me. Twice."

Elijah headed towards the stairs where Carol had gone.

"I'll only be a moment," he said. "Don't forget to text Rebecca."

Elena did one better. She called Rebecca. Elena gave her their location and told her all the new information she'd learned, which wasn't much, to be honest. They now knew that Katherine was not the first doppelganger. Elijah had known someone when he'd been alive that had looked like Katherine. That was how Elijah and Klaus had known who she was.

"So they were pretty tight at one point," Rebecca said.

"Seems that way."

"Okay. I'll be there soon."

At the boardinghouse Stefan was on the phone with Jenna, who was wondering where Jeremy and Elena were. Stefan didn't know what to tell her. He knew Jenna hadn't been home in a few days, and, even if she had been, she wasn't in the know about anything.

"Elena's not here at the moment. Is everything okay?"

"I don't know. She left me all these weird messages telling me to stay away from Ric. What's going on?"

"It's really hard to explain over the phone, but she was hoping that you could stay on campus for a little while longer."

Ever since Isobel had visited Jenna hadn't been home. She'd been upset enough that Ric had been keeping secrets from her, but she hadn't been able to take the fact that his ex-wife had been alive and that pretty much everyone had known except for her.

"That's kind of hard to do from my kitchen."

"You're home?"

"Yeah. What's going on? Where's Elena? I'm supposed to meet Ric at The Grill for lunch to talk."

"Jenna, listen to me carefully. Whatever you do, do not meet Alaric at The Grill. I'm going to come over right now and I'll explain everything."

He hung up and looked at Damon, who was pouring himself a drink.

"Are you coming with me?"

"Nope. Got my own thing going. Gonna head to Ric's."

"You've never even been invited in."

Damon shrugged. "Don't need to get in. Just wanna check something."

Rebecca found Elena and Elijah seated in the living room of the Lockwood mansion. Elena didn't appear to have been harmed in any way, but Rebecca wasn't surprised.

The two had been talking about Katherine and about how Elijah doubted she was dead, because Klaus would want revenge for her running away and making him chase her all those years.

"I don't understand," Elena said. "You say that you want Klaus dead, but you still made Katherine pay for betraying him."

"I have my own reasons for wanting Katerina to pay. There was a time . . . I'd have done anything for Klaus. He is . . . my brother."

"What?" Rebecca asked. She had not seen that one coming.

"Yes. I'm a little behind on the times, but I believe the term you're searching for is OMG."

"I'm assuming you guys didn't just pop into existence . . ." Rebecca prompted.

"You assume correctly," Elijah said. "My father was a wealthy land owner in a village in Eastern Europe. Our mother bore seven children."

"So your parents were human?"

"Our whole family was," he said and stood up. He didn't pace frantically, but he did begin walking back and forth. "Our origin as vampires is a very long story. Just know . . . we're the oldest vampires in the world. We are the Original family, and from us all vampires were created."

"Right, but –"

"Hold up," Rebecca said. "That's it? You're not going to tell us how you were created?"

"No," Elijah said. He almost smiled. "There's no reason to. It has nothing to do with why I'm here."

"You want Klaus dead," Elena said.

"Yes." Then, "I need some air. I'm feeling a tad . . . dead."

Damon knocked on Ric's apartment door when he reached it. This was gonna go one of two ways. Either Ric was going to be there still possessed by Klaus or Ric wasn't going to be there at all. If Ric was there - if Klaus was there – Damon had no delusions of coming out of this in one piece. There would be a fight.

But Klaus wasn't who he was after. Neither was Ric for that matter. He was after Katherine. He'd originally thought she'd been killed, but now that he knew that Klaus had gotten information before coming for them . . . Katherine had to be alive.

No one answered when he knocked, but he hadn't expected anyone to. Klaus would have compelled Katherine not to say anything if someone were to knock. The door wasn't locked, however, so he had no problem with the door. And there Katherine was. She didn't appear frightened; she seemed bored. Other than that she was the same old Katherine.

"Thought you might be dead," he admitted.

"Unfortunately not. What're you doing here?"

"Deciding whether or not you deserve to be rescued."

Damon had put some of his stash of vervain oil in a little vial in case he deemed Katherine deserving of it.

"Klaus was blending way too easily," he said. "Figured he probably had some coaching, and then I figured you still might be kicking."

He pulled the vial from his pocket and showed it to her.

"Is that . . ."

"Vervain. Your salvation."

"It's not going to undo anything."

"There's always a loophole." There usually was, anyway. They just had to find it. "Did he tell you to stay in this apartment until he said it was okay to leave?"

Katherine opened her mouth to answer, but quickly closed it as if she couldn't speak.

"You can't say. Did he tell you to do absolutely everything he says until the end of time?"

"No."

"There's your loophole. Drink this and prevent any further compulsion."

She stepped toward the door and reached a hand out for the vial, but she couldn't get out and he couldn't go in.

"Give it to me."

"Answer one question first. You double-crossed us with Isobel. Why?"

If Rebecca had been there she probably would've said something like 'Because she's Katherine.' She wouldn't have been wrong.

"I didn't think you could stand a chance against Klaus, so I was looking out for myself."

"And where did that get you?"

He tossed her the vial and she caught it easily.

"Be careful with that. If he finds out you have that, you're never getting out of here."

She opened the small battle and took a small sip. She grimaced as the liquid went down. Damon knew it burned.

"You owe me," he warned, "and I will collect."

While Damon was dealing with Katherine, Stefan was dealing with Jenna at the Gilbert residence. Jenna had been unharmed when Stefan had gotten there and she still was, but Klaus was there. He still had control of Alaric's body.

They were all in the kitchen, and Klaus was chopping vegetables at the counter. He was using a large kitchen knife.

"I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what's going on."

"Well, would you like to tell her, Stefan, or should I?"

"Tell me what?"

"Do you believe in vampires, Jenna?"

Klaus chuckled at the confused expression that made its place on Jenna's face.

"Well, who does, right? But believe it or not, they do have a place in our history. And as a history teacher, I find them fascinating."

"Why are we talking about this?"

"Well, you've been angry with me for keeping secrets, and this is one of my secrets, I'm obsessed with vampires." Klaus shrugged. "There. I said it."

"Are you joking?"

"Not at all." Klaus looked Stefan's way. "How about you, Stefan? Are you a fan of vampires?"

"In literature. Bram Stoker. It's dense, but I appreciate it."

"Hm. Did you know vampires are the oldest creatures of the night? Except for werewolves, of course."

"Werewolves?" Jenna rolled her eyes. "Werewolves. Now I know you're joking."

"You know, I've read that there's an Aztec curse on both species that keeps werewolves slaves to the moon and vampires bound by sun. Isn't that right, Stefan? You know they say these creatures would do anything to have this curse broken and that they wouldn't care who they had to kill to do it."

Klaus put the vegetables on a plate and put it on the table. They all three sat but no one touched the food.

"I know this all sounds so crazy, but . . . vampires are real."

"Get out," Jenna seethed. "I don't know what it is you're trying to do or why you're saying these things, but I want you to get out."

Klaus didn't move so Stefan stood up

"You heard her."

"I'm afraid I don't want to."

"Fine. I'll go," Jenna said.

"You're not going anywhere."

When Jenna moved to get up Klaus moved to hold the knife against her neck, but Stefan was able to shove Klaus against the wall. He was even able to get the knife and place it at Klaus's throat.

"Stefan!" Jenna exclaimed.

"Jenna, get out of here. Now!"

She seemed too shocked to move even as Klaus said, "You can't kill me, Stefan."

"Watch me."

"I may not have a witch protecting me today, but if you kill this body, what's to stop me from choosing Jenna as my next one?"

"Jenna, go!"

He looked at her and allowed his face to change so she could see that, yes, vampires did exist. It took her only seconds to respond enough to run out of the house.

"Kill me," Klaus said. "Just remind Elena how easy it will be for me to get my revenge if she tries to stop me from breaking this curse."

Furious and frustrated, Stefan punched Klaus hard enough for him to double over. He shoved Klaus to the floor and took off after Jenna. He had damage control to do there.

At the Lockwood Mansion Elena, Elijah, and Rebecca were walking over the small wooden bridge over the pond in the back part of the Lockwood estate.

"As you've seen, nothing can kill an original. Not sun, not fire, not even a werewolf bite. Only the wood from one tree. A tree my family made sure burned."

"That's where the white ash for the dagger comes from."

"Yes. The witches won't allow anything truly immortal to walk the earth. Every creature needs to have a weakness in order to maintain the balance."

"If the sun can't kill an Original, why is Klaus so obsessed with breaking the Sun and Moon curse?" Elena asked.

Elijah smiled as if he knew a joke they weren't in on.

"The curse of the Sun and the Moon. It's all so . . . biblical-sounding, don't you think?"

"What d'you mean?"

"It's not real. Klaus made it all up so people would know to look for the Petrova doppelganger. Roman scrolls, African tribal etchings, and any other culture or continent we felt like planting it in. Klaus is . . . quite the artist."

Neither Rebecca nor Elena spoke for the longest time. All this time they'd been worried about a curse that didn't even exist.

"Okay . . . Why make up a curse to find a doppelganger to break the curse that doesn't exist?" Rebecca asked.

"Easiest way to discover the existence of a doppelganger or to get your hands on some long lost moonstone is to have every single member of two warring species on the lookout."

So Klaus still needed Elena and the moonstone for some reason, but not for what they'd originally thought.

"So . . . Klaus decided that part of the curse was whichever species broke the curse was the only one that would be set free . . ." Elena said. Rebecca could hear the uncertainty.

"Yes. Werewolves would have the ability to change whenever, the choice not to change at all."

"And vampires could go outside during the day," Rebecca said. "Not every vampire can get his or her hands on lapis lazuli."

"Exactly. Klaus and I faked the Sun and Moon curse dating back over a thousand years. The real curse is much worse. It's a curse placed on Klaus. Klaus has been trying to break it for the last thousand years. You are his only hope."

Rebecca was going to ask what exactly that meant, but Elena's phone vibrated. All three of them heard it, and Elijah nodded his head to let her know she could answer.

The call lasted a minute tops. Stefan had called to let Elena know Klaus had come after Jenna. She was fine physically, but Stefan had lost control and Jenna now knew about vampires.

"I have to go to her."

"I'm afraid that wasn't part of today's arrangement."

"She's my family, Elijah. I have to. I'll be back. You have my word."

"That doesn't mean anything to me until you live up to it."

"Thank you."

"Tell Damon I'm okay," Rebecca said. She had tried calling him a few times because she'd been gone longer than an hour, but he hadn't answered. He was probably still angry with her. "I'll be home later."

"No problem."

After Elena left, Elijah turned to Rebecca.

"I suppose you want to know what the real curse is."

"Yes. In a minute."

"There's something else?"

"The reason you compelled me . . . You told me it wasn't safe for me to know you. What you meant was that it wasn't safe for Klaus to know I knew you. Right?"

"Klaus can be vengeful. If he gets upset with someone, you never know if he will take it out on that person directly or if he will go after the ones they care about."

"So it was to protect me."

"For the most part, yes."

"And the curse?"

"My family was quite close, but Klaus and my father did not get on too well. When we became vampires, we discovered the truth. Klaus was not my father's son. My mother had been unfaithful many years before. This was her darkest secret. Klaus is from a different bloodline. Of course, when my father discovered this, he hunted down and killed my mother's lover and his entire family. Not realizing, of course, that he was igniting a war between species that rages to this day."

Always quick on the uptake, Rebecca realized what that meant.

"Klaus's real father was a werewolf. How does that work? A werewolf's ability to change is triggered by killing someone, which Klaus has many times over. But . . . he's a vampire, right?"

"He's both. A hybrid would be deadlier than any werewolf or vampire. Nature would not stand for such an imbalance of power. Therefore the witches, the servants of nature, saw to it that my brother's werewolf side would become dormant. He wants to trigger that part of him that's a werewolf. If allowed, Klaus would sire his own bloodline. He'd build his own race, endangering not just vampires, but everyone."

"We have the dagger now," Rebecca said.

"When a werewolf is wounded by silver, it heals. An Original can't be killed by anything but the white oak ash on a silver dagger. So you see the conundrum. The dagger does not work."

"Are you saying Klaus can't be killed?"

"There's one way to kill any supernatural species . . . at the hands of the servants of nature themselves."

"Witches."

"The curse must be broken during the full moon when Klaus is in transition. That's when he'll be at his most vulnerable. A witch with enough power can kill Klaus."

"We have one of those," Rebecca said. "She's . . . willing to die if it means Klaus will be stopped."

"You should know, then, that there may be a way to save Elena. I was going to do the same for Katerina, but she decided to run."

"You were going to save Katherine."

"I don't believe in unnecessary death. Klaus did not care one way of the other. He wants what he wants. He wants to be free of that curse. Everyone involved, everyone that has to die is just a means to an end to him. I told him about the solution and all he could say was that she was human, so her life meant nothing."

"He does know that all werewolves were once human, right? And that without sacrificing Elena's human life the curse can't be broken."

"Klaus sees love as a vampire's greatest weakness. He . . . chooses to block his feelings."

Great. He was one of those types. That could work to their advantage. As Klaus had said, love was a vampire's greatest weakness. Right then, Rebecca knew only one thing that Klaus cared about, and that was breaking this curse.

They just needed to find something he cared about more.

At the boardinghouse Elena was with Jenna in the library that sometimes doubled as a war room. Jenna was seated on the sofa, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. She was crying. Elena was sure it was from trauma and shock more than anything else.

The first thing Elena made sure Jenna knew was that Ric had not been the one to attack her, that Ric would never hurt her. They never meant to hurt her by lying and keeping things from her; they'd wanted to protect her from all of it.

"Ric wanted to tell you. I asked him not to. I'm sorry," Elena said. "If you're gonna be angry at someone, it should be me."

"When I was little, your mom used to tell me bedtime stories, stories about vampires. I never thought that what she said could be true."

"It is true, Jenna. I should have told you. I thought that if you didn't know, you'd be safe. But then things got so out of control and everything I had done to keep you out of it, it just blew up in my face."

"Who else knows?"

"Uh . . . Jeremy. He found out a few months ago."

Elena gave her a rundown of everything that had happened recently, everything she needed to know to keep herself safe. She didn't have time to start from the beginning because there was just too much to tell, and she needed to get back to Elijah.

Outside the library she met up with Stefan, who had been listening in because he wanted to know how Jenna was doing.

"She's in shock. I tried to tell her as much as I could, but I barely scratched the surface." She sighed. "I'm starting to think Rebecca was right about letting everyone know. Jeremy was angry when he found out I'd been lying, and Jenna is scared. If she'd known, she would've known about Klaus possessing Ric, and –"

"She would've known about me," Stefan said. "I never meant for her to find out that way."

"It's not your fault, Stefan. It's mine," she said. "Anyway, I have to get back to Elijah."

"What?"

"I promised him that I would return. I can't break that promise."

"Oh."

"I'll be back." She kissed him briefly. "I promise that too. And let Damon know Rebecca's okay. I was supposed to, but he's not here, so . . ."

"Will do."