"You have any other fancy little secrets I should know about, or are they all used up?"

"Well if I told you them, they wouldn't exactly be secret then, would they?"

Damon still swore he was drunk out of his mind and hallucinating. But then he realised that vampires couldn't get drunk, even if they so desperately tried. In his opinion getting bitten by a werewolf was as close to drunk as he could get, and he wasn't about to ask Tyler for a little nip on the arm. As interesting as it would be, the pain aspect of the bite sucked.

No matter how long he flicked through channels on the TV, he couldn't find anything interesting. This, of course, made him wonder if all human programs were boring. Then he passed over a news report about a certain teenage singer and really wished he was drunk. So he had a reason to explain the sudden onslaught of nausea that almost made him throw up all over the worktop, of course. Drinking alcohol made a vampire feel sick. "So how come we can't get drunk?" he asked himself in bewilderment.

Elijah just shrugged through his eyes.

Damon promptly threw a tantrum and kicked the remote across the table. "I thought you were meant to be smart."

"I've never tried to get drunk before," he confessed. "Not intentionally."

Something had been nagging at Damon for about ten minutes now. An annoying but relevant stray thought that had drifted through his mind and then refused to leave. As if his head was a room-for-hire or something. "So what weaknesses do you have?" he asked, glass of whiskey in hand and ready to be consumed. A hundred years of sobriety but damn it, he would still try.

Elijah just looked at him as if to say, really? Damon sent back a look to say, duh.

"Oh come on, we're friends here, aren't we?" The elder Salvatore brother offered his trademark devious smirk which didn't actually help at all. "Just curious. When Klaus became half vampire, half werewolf—because the term hybrid I feel has been horribly overused—he lost several weaknesses and gained several more. E.g. lost the whole wolf venom is bad aspect and the whole point of only being allowed to turn on a full moon. And his senses were heightened too, weren't they? Boy, that must suck in an elevator full of people. No point in playing the whodunnit game, because he'd just massacre everyone in there." Damon laughed half way through the end of the last sentence at his own joke.

Crude as the humour was, Elijah couldn't help but allow a faint twitch of his lips to show through. "What weaknesses do witches have?" he wondered aloud, leaving the question open for Damon's interpretation. And sure enough he did answer.

"Using too much magic, not believing in magic, the fact that they're alive … but you're not and you obviously believe so you don't count for those last two." There was a pause as Damon sifted through his witchy-weakness database to drag up some more information. "Well when they're scared they can't use magic." His brow lifted in disbelief. "But I can't ever imagine you being scared."

Really? I can think of a few times. Elijah glanced upon his lap to where his kids were settled, their eyes closed and breathing even. They were leaving the beach house to go to travel to Scotland, where the final battle would take place. It had to be in a secluded forest where nobody would see anything, because they were not about to start duking it out in the middle of a crowded city. I'm terrified right now, he admitted to himself. I'm terrified of losing these two, my brothers and sister, I'm terrified of losing to Klaus … what happens if I fail? Klaus will undoubtedly hunt me to the ends of the earth, and he doesn't know it, but while these two are my greatest strength, they are also my greatest liability. What will I do if he hurts them? Will I lose control?

Damon was silent for a moment as his words were effectively shot out of the water. But then again, I hadn't exactly expected Elijah to be a family man, to have kids or a real life like I do. "So what, you're not gonna tell me? Not even a hint?"

Well maybe he should have expected it. Since when does anyone willingly talk to another about their faults? Elijah had let his guard down and that's what Damon had latched onto. Because despite his own attempts to seem cold, he was actually extremely perceptive even to emotions. An annoying habit I got from having a baby brother suck up to me, he called it. He wondered if he should have just thrown caution and his expectations to the wind when he heard the Original say, very quietly, "I can't switch off my emotions."

Damon sniggered. Not at Elijah, but at the irony. "You can't switch off your emotions anyway," he said dismissively, though he knew it wasn't entirely true. He'd read in an old journal while doing research that you could, but only if you truly didn't care about anything and you saw no reason to. The amount of times he'd tried, he always ended up caring. That was just proof it didn't work. Damon refused to care about anything. Well, at least he tried to.

As the silence progressed, he began to mull over what Elijah had said and piece things together. Despite acting and seeming like one, he was not a clown. "I don't have a red nose or big shoes," he mumbled absently to himself, to which the comment made sense.

Elijah, however, wasn't a mind reader and blinked confusedly at the seemingly spontaneous comment.

Damon glanced at him. "Seriously, I'm not." And then he went back to thinking, as he observed the alcohol sloshing around in his glass. Vampire weaknesses … vervain, sunlight, wood, werewolf venom, wood … invitation, and starvation … "Those two rhyme. I think. No, wait..." Witch weaknesses, already listed. Hmmm … "Fear. Your main weakness would be fear, right?"

Now Elijah blinked at him in dazed confusion, as if he had been thinking about something completely different. "Pardon?"

"Fear," Damon repeated, and then went on to explain, "your emotions are heightened especially so since you're an Original vampy." Putting down the glass, he reached across the table for a cupcake—because hey, they're delicious, and not just the cupcake—and began peeling back the paper base. "But witches, and warlocks," he added at Elijah's furtive glare, "can't use magic if they're afraid. Can't focus. So what does that mean for you? If you really can't switch off your emotions, you can't switch off fear, and that means..."

"Well done, I think you're starting to get somewhere. Just one question," Elijah gestured with one finger laxly, "I thought you said it's impossible to turn off your feelings."

Damon grumbled something inarticulate. "Forget what I said."

Kol traipsed into the room. "Almost everything's in place. Rebekah's finishing up the last preparations now with Caroline, and Elena's packing the grenades." Dark eyes fell upon the sleeping brothers on his older brother's lap. He smiled when Elijah made a shrugging motion and the boys, each supported by one arm, stirred sleepily but did not wake. "You want me to take them?" he interpreted, swiftly crossing the room. "I'll put them in the car."

Kol scooped the boys up into his arms and smirked darkly at Damon. "I call shotgun."

Damon sneered. "Called it before you."

Kol did his best and managed successfully to stick up his middle finger as he passed. "Fucker."

"Dick."

"Not in front of the kids," Elijah said distractedly.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Two cars rolled through the streets of Dublin, their tyres crushing gravel and branches. At the wheel of one was Rebekah, who was behind the lead vehicle in the Escalade. In the other was Tyler, paving the way to the Airport.

"Tickets are already in hand," Caroline reported over the phone connecting the two cars. She was with Elena, Aaron and Tyler in the silver Ford Escort. "I went and bought them yesterday and confirmed the location with Rebekah. The flight will land in Glasgow, and we make our way down from there."

There was a bout of swearing from the other end that made Tyler glare at the mirror. "Kol, just accept you have the map upside-down and stop pissing around!"

"It is not upside-down!"

Caroline forced back a smile, shook her head and warned, "er, guys, you might want to be careful. There's a police car trailing us."

Rebekah huffed. "No, Caroline, that's just us." The car swerved violently as she smacked at Kol's head. Kol scrunched up the map, his lips pursed and wrinkled, glaring at his sister angrily.

"Pack it in, both of you." Damon snapped.

"Bloody blonde women drivers," Kol complained.

In an impressive feat whilst recovering from a particularly nasty swerve, Rebekah reached around to the front passenger seat and punched Kol straight in the face, streaming out curses as she did so. The black Escalade growled as she put her foot down and sped up slightly to make up lost distance.

"Don't you dare crash my car!" Elijah was shouting.

Nursing his broken nose, he slumped in his seat and caught a glimpse of white, yellow and blue in the side mirror—a police car. Now Kol was as eager to get to Glasgow as possible so he could rip his half-brother a new one, but he couldn't resist opening the window, waving his arm out and howling at the top of his lungs, "Fuck da police! Fuck da-"

Nixkamich reached over from his middle seat in the second row and tried pulling the vampire back in. "Don't provoke them!"

Kol's eyes flooded with challenge. "What are you gonna do about it, Sunshine?"

"He won't do anything, but if you don't shut up, I'm going to kick you the fuck out and drag you by your ballsack while driving down this road at ninety. I swear to god, Kol." Rebekah broke off of her threat with a frustrated howl as a pair of blue lights and a siren began to wail about ten feet behind them.

Damon cast an interested, slightly bored look at Elijah. "Now that I'd like to see."

"You're older than ninety, my dear strumpet," Kol sneered. Rebekah barely restrained herself as she pulled over at the side of the road.

"You're bickering like an old married couple!" shouted Aaron over the phone, though he was laughing at the entire conversation. Obviously he would have liked to see it too. "Do you want us to pull over?"

"Us?" Tyler said. "I'm driving. And they're a road hazard. Next thing they'll be up my backside and driving the car for me."

"Watch what you wish for, pretty boy."

"Kol, if you make one more sound, I'll personally see to it that you walk the rest of the way." Elijah's eyes burned into the back of his brother's head.

"Thank you!" Damon smiled. "I don't know about you guys but the arguing was getting-"

"No," Elijah interrupted, glancing towards the back of the car. "They're going to wake up the kids."

Damon rolled his eyes.

"Tyler, you go ahead and meet us at the airport. Elena, remember that café we were at a couple months back?"

"Sure. I'll take everyone there."

"Bitch!" Kol spat, clawing at Rebekah's sleeve.

"Thanks," Elijah muttered.

As an officer approached the bouncing Cadillac Escalade, the two vampires kept fighting, but there was disbelief on her face as Damon lowered the window and smiled pleasantly. "Good evening, officer. May we help you?"

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

"Give me one reason why I should let you two drive my car ever again."

Rebekah and Kol didn't look the slightest bit guilty as they sat on the plane—as far away from each other as possible. That, however, couldn't and didn't stop Kol from flinging peanuts at her head. When he ran out of his own, he snatched Damon's out from his tray and replied that he really didn't care, and that he would just steal the car if he wanted to. At that point Damon was past caring about his stolen food. He was busy hassling the crew of the aircraft with questions to sate his own boredom.

"Really? I'm a great pilot, you know."

Elena didn't believe in the slightest that Damon could fly a plane. Glancing over the group, she figured maybe Aaron could, but wasn't placing any bets. At a couple thousand feet up she wasn't too worried they'd get kicked off of the plane, though if Kol decided to start acting up she was certain they'd have to turn around and go back. The flight only lasted for just over an hour.

Caroline and Tyler were having a moment in their seats behind her so she figured she'd just leave them alone. By moment she meant heated discussion that was borderline argumentative. It was too low for her to hear what was being said so she simply turned her attention elsewhere—to Nix, who was sat next to a round middle-aged man who snored like a choking horse. His head was tilted back and his throat was exposed. Nixkamich looked to be struggling.

Elena reached around and attracted Tyler's attention, and nodded towards the hybrid.

Nixkamich's eyes were beginning to become bloodshot and his hands gripped the armrest so tight it looked like it would break. With his strength it very well could.

Tyler jumped up instantly and knelt down beside him. A massacre on a plane was not what they needed, Elena thought as she slithered from her chair and approached Rebekah.

"I think Nix is hungry," she said quietly.

Rebekah didn't glance up and continued to brush her hair. "So?"

Elena sighed. "So," she said, "he's new to the whole … thing. He's not gonna last long." She left the blank open, more out of her own desire not to say the word vampire in front of a plane full of people. It wasn't wrong, but she didn't want to be deemed a crackpot. Not when she had to sit with said people for the better part of an hour.

Rebekah sighed, got up and pushed her way to where Nixkamich sat, a small duffel bag over her shoulder. The crowd around the chair attracted one of the members of the crew, and Tyler smiled as he assured her that everything was fine, while trying to hide the fact that Nixkamich's eyes were red and veined.

The flight to Glasgow ended soon after and nothing bad happened. Unless, of course, Kol watching downloaded clips of Frankie Boyle on his phone and laughing raucously and disturbing the other passengers was classed as bad. Elena figured it was more annoying than anything.

All throughout this, neither Duncan nor Philip had woken up, and as they drove down the M77—Rebekah and Kol in different cars and in the back, because Elijah was concerned they might start ramming each other if he dared let either of them drive—she wondered if they were under some sort of trance.

Leaning over to Damon, she asked this.

"Vampires can manipulate dreams of those who are asleep and deepen it," he murmured quietly. "Elijah must have put them under for a while to make sure they're well rested."

Elena nodded in understanding. The drivers had rotated since before the flight; now Caroline drove the Ford Escort and Elijah, his SUV. While they cruised down the motorway he sipped at a blood bag.

"So let me make sure I've got this right," Caroline said through the phone. "We're not going to drive straight to the park. We're going to pull up in Maybole and run south until we get there, is that right?"

Whatever sugar high Elena was on, it began to wear off. Sleep claimed her unexpectedly and she missed the next few hours of journeying.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Several lines of wolves ran past him into the forest, his pack. Paws churned up the earth and heartbeats thumped, chasing away all prey for miles. Through the shroud, a massive black-striped silver wolf stormed, batting away anything that got into his way.

"Find her!" he roared, eyes glinting madly in the moonlight. "Find the witch and kill her!"

He knew it could be a trap. That's why he had brought several forms of insurance. The wolf transformed to Klaus as his pack swarmed around him, splitting about the forest. Barks and snarls echoed throughout the forest park, but he paid no attention to them.

Esther wouldn't have said this particular night for no reason. I know what tonight is. One thousand years, the eclipse...

"You lot, do some witchy spell and find out where they are," he ordered, rounding on a group of people clustering near the trees.

"We need something that belongs to that you wish to find," said one, stepping over sticks.

Klaus reached into the back of his jeep and thrust a bag at them. They set to work trying to locate his family, the treacherous witch who had kidnapped his brothers and sister. He kept one ear trained on them as they worked and searched the narrow path of trees with his eyes. All he could see was the flicker of fur as his pack scoured the forest in search of their quarry.

"They aren't here yet. We can't sense them nearby."

That was not the answer he wanted to hear, and Klaus nearly tore them apart. No. To fight witches, I need witches. "Then set up a perimeter. Something gets in, it doesn't get out. And don't even think about leaving."

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

"Ditch the vehicles. We proceed on foot."

"Oh, where have I heard this before?" Damon pretended to think for a second. "Army movies?"

"Ex-soldier," Aaron shrugged. Undoing his seatbelt, he slipped out of the car and took a look around. "Several wars, actually. This'll probably be my last for a while. My partner'll murder me if I keep trying to get myself killed."

"I can't wait to get this whole day over with so I can go home, have a bath and not have to worry about Klaus. Let's just go in, kill him and go."

Aaron fell into step with Caroline and Tyler. "You shouldn't be so eager to get to the fight," he said gravely. "Niklaus is not going to step down and take it on the chin. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he came prepared for the occasion."

"Prepared? What do you mean prepared?"

"He means you shouldn't get so excited because, chances are, Klaus'll have a hostage lined up and waiting."

Caroline stopped walking, her mind momentarily numb, and whirled around to face the owner of the voice. "Elena?"

Elena looked impassive, surprisingly so as she stood beside Rebekah. Talk of a possible hostage silenced the chatter but the doppelgänger carried on as if it was only the two of them. "You don't expect him to turn up alone, do you? He's going to come with hybrids and witches of his own, but he's expecting something to happen."

"If he's expecting something to happen then how are we going to get close to him?" Tyler frowned. "In fact, how are we even going to be certain he'll show up?"

"Because he's already here," said Duncan. The boy knelt over a map, his hands raised and palm down, almond eyes studying the images. "I've used a location spell. This is his blood on the map and this," he pointed to a smear on a patch labelled Galloway Forest Park, "is where he is. We're here," he pointed to another button of blood, "and this is the path we will take."

"If you can find him, can't he find us?"

"He could. However..." Duncan pointed with his thumb to the hood of the car where Elijah leaned, murmuring something under his breath. "He's blocking the spell. Unless they think to perform the counter-counter spell, they're not going to find out where we are."

Rebekah pointed accusingly at Tyler as he opened his mouth. "Ask any more 'and if they' questions and I'll rip out your teeth."

"They're coming!" called Philip, running over. "Khimki pack is here, and so are our witches!"

As he finished his announcement a blind, blue-eyed young she-wolf with the odd silver marking around her pelt skidded to a halt nearby and lifted her tail in signal. A wolf pack streamed out behind her and Sharpclaw rushed to greet them, where he was received with joyful nuzzles and yips. Vampires from the pack leaned in to ruffle his fur, and a random goat from the pack bleated happily.

Caroline and Elena couldn't hold back their squeals of joy as Bonnie climbed out of a car, dressed in a red all-weather coat and brown boots as if she were going somewhere cold. The Bennett witch held out her arms and was squashed against the black chassis. "I missed you too," she murmured shakily.

Lucy Bennett was dressed the opposite; she wore a thin black shirt and trousers, and grinned as she walked past her cousin and towards the warlock bent over the map. "Duncan Bennett?"

"Lucy!" Duncan got up and stepped over the map, opening his arms up for a hug. "Not looking bad for thirty-three."

"Says the boy of seventy-three," Lucy teased. "You haven't aged a day."

Duncan snorted. As Bonnie broke away from Caroline and Elena, he reached up as far as he could and hi-fived his relative. "Nice coat."

Bonnie waved dismissively at his inquiry. "They wouldn't let me come without it," she said. Taking this as a cue, another set of voices rose out from the cars pulling up into line around them.

"Elena!"

Elijah simply stood away as Elena, again, squealed, and enveloped Alaric in a hug. Meredith Fell came up behind them, and wrapped her arm around Alaric's side. "Damon," Alaric purred, pulling him into a manly hug and patting his back.

Alaric was a man with stubble around his face, short brown hair groomed slightly backwards with a left-side parting. His jaw was square, arms strong, a vampire hunter with considerable skill. Like Lucy, Kol, Duncan and Damon, he was dressed solely in black. But he had some serious armaments with him. A crossbow was slung over his shoulder with a quiver strapped to the back, and he had a duffel bag with many more weapons inside.

"I don't understand," said Elena, though she remained overjoyed. "Bonnie, Alaric, Meredith … why are you all here? Where's Jeremy?"

"Damon told me you had an infestation," Alaric said simply. Four other hunters loitered around him, unloading weapons, some of which they passed over to the witches. "Klaus brought more hybrids than you were expecting. So I brought a few friends to help out." Raising his voice, he shouted, "hand 'em out! And I want these back afterwards." Turning back to Elena, he added, "You're going to be fighting and Meredith's a surgeon. If anyone gets hurt, she's agreed to help." Meredith nodded her consent at this, patting a bag on her side. "But she's not going to be doing anything without a rifle."

"I thought we weren't allowed to tell anyone."

Damon, in turn, glanced and half-smiled at Elijah. "You know me. Since when do I ever listen to rules?" he drawled. "I convinced him it would be a good idea to have Alaric on our side."

"Actually I threatened to stake him unless he told me where you'd been hiding," Alaric cut in. Damon's face fell and he squinted at the vampire hunter. Alaric just glared. "Caught him sneaking into his own house like a rat. I was a little bit surprised to find out you'd been living with them for six weeks. You're alright?"

"Elijah took care of me, Ric," said Elena with a fond smile. "He's taught me a lot. I trust him."

"Well I don't," Alaric growled with a suspicious glare at Kol, who just happened to catch his eye. Kol's expression only increased in dark mischief and he waved as if to taunt the hunter, but made no other move, instead inspecting some of the weapons he had brought. "I still don't fully understand all this. I just know that you're going to be fighting. And to answer your question earlier, we dropped Jeremy off somewhere safe a few days ago. He doesn't know about any of this."

"You can't talk me out of it," Elena warned. "I'm fighting whether you like it or not. I've been learning how to defend myself, I can take care of myself."

"I suppose Damon's been teaching you then, has he?" At this, Damon smiled wryly.

"Actually it wasn't just him. Elijah and Philip taught me most of what I know." Alaric's eyes widened and he looked around the gathering in disbelief. He caught the unwavering gaze of the Original at the edge of the 'camp' talking with witches. He gave a little nod, and then Alaric was even more startled with a little boy no older than nine hopped up onto his shoulder and started laughing. Elijah looked sideways at the boy and smiled, saying something that was lost in the crowd.

"That's Philip there, on his shoulder," said Elena fondly.

"We're going to have a discussion later," Alaric started. Suddenly there was a ripple of movement in the crowd, several raised voices, and everyone looked around. Elena could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw who it was.

"I've come to help," said the woman as she stepped towards the gathering. Elena and her friends bristled at the sight. "That is, if you'll let me."

"Katherine!?"

"Well, this was unexpected!" narrated Kol.