The More Things Change
by Aivaeh

Disclaimer: Familiar characters, plot elements, dialogue, and settings belong to L.J. Smith, Julie Plec, and the CW. The author of this work of fanfiction has made no money from it.
Summary: I have no idea how it happened, but one morning I woke up in the world of The Vampire Diaries. Which, aside from the insanity of waking up inside a television show made real, might not be so bad—if I weren't stuck in the body of vampire magnet and doppelgänger herself, Elena Gilbert.
Pairing(s): OFC x Damon, OFC x Stefan, OFC x Elijah, OFC x Klaus
Rating: M
Warning(s): Graphic descriptions of violence on par with the show itself. References to sex and drug use. Mind control and all the issues of consent that go along with it. Character death.
Author's Note: CONCERNING THE POSTING SCHEDULE: This is likely the last chapter that'll come out before spring classes start. Which means I won't have the extra time to write that I've enjoyed over winter break. I'm going to shoot for a posting schedule of one chapter every week. It might vary a little less or a little more depending on how much coursework/studying I have. I hope y'all understand and forgive me for the slow down.

I was asked by a guest in reviews whether I know who Not-Elena ends up with. The answer is: yep.

Have I thanked y'all for the reviews, favorites, and follows? I have? Well, I'm doing it again! Thank you!

Chapter Fifteen

Fingertips trailed down my cheek, gentle as tears. Breathing made my throat ache. Swallowing felt like gulping down rocks.

I opened my eyes. I was on a bed, one with rough sheets and a blanket so thin it could've doubled as a third sheet. A man hovered above me, watching.

I jerked away, a frightened whine igniting a fire in my throat. He followed, shushing me as his hand kept hold of the lower half of my face like a mask of flesh.

"What?" I rasped through his fingers, wincing as soon as the word was free.

Then it came back to me. The accident. The car door torn aside. Being grabbed. Unable to breathe.

I sat up and scooted as far up the bed as I could manage, until my back hit the headboard. He kept after, leaning over me. Short brown hair, dark eyes, dimpled chin and a dopey smile. I didn't recognize him from the show.

I tried to avoid his face by taking in the room. Beige walls and a brown carpet that looked as if it could've doubled as a welcome mat. Heavy cream drapes covered a window the span of the wall next the door. A small round table and a few chairs were arranged in front of it. Another bed beside the one I and Mr. Personal Space were using, covered in the same crappy bedspread. A nightstand with a small lamp stood between them. A television sat on top of a dresser. Another door stood across the room from the first.

One open room, two beds, simple furnishings, big window and little door, muted color palette—the whole thing screamed motel.

Mr. Personal Space was getting closer. Too close. His face loomed, his grin widening to the point where dolls had more natural smiles. I tried leaning further away, but I was running out of room.

The second door opened, and a cloud of steam billowed out. A man in a towel followed soon after. My heart picked up. Not because of his handsome face and muscular build, but because I was with two strange men in a motel room after a kidnapping. One of which wasn't dressed. This was all going in a direction that had some of my worst fears running roughshod through my head.

But instead of joining Mister Personal Space, he saw the man leaning over me and frowned. "Jesus, Noah. Give the girl some space."

"She looks like Katherine."

My eyes flew to Noah's face. He knew Katherine?

Great.

"Whatever," towel boy replied, side-eyeing him before walking to the table and picking up a remote, powering on the television with a hiss and click. "Freak."

Noah didn't seem to care what towel boy thought. The longer he stared and petted my face, the more inclined I was to agree with towel boy.

If he thought I looked like Katherine, he already knew I wasn't her. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. The way my luck ran, probably the latter.

A few minutes later the door to the outside world opened and the first familiar face walked in, bucket of ice in one hand and a cooler in the other. She took in the room, sights stalling on me, and moved to set the bucket and cooler on the small table in front of the window.

Well. That answered the question of where the hell Anna's been.

The dark-haired vampire grabbed Noah's shoulder and pulled. He fell back with a frown. "Don't get weird."

"She looks like—"

"Katherine. I know." Anna rolled her eyes before opening the cooler and pulling out two blood bags. She tossed the first to Noah and the second to towel boy. He must be the bar tender at the Grill who worked with her on the show. The one who'd trick Bonnie. "Noah has a thing for Katherine," Anna explained, somewhat unnecessarily I thought, and dropped onto the second bed.

"He should go talk to her," I said.

Her lips thinned into a smile that acknowledged my attempt to sass her, but said I'd missed my mark. "See, that's the thing." Gripping the edge of the bed, she leaned forward. "You idiots let out a vampire who wasn't even in the tomb."

Harsh laughter came from towel boy's corner of the room.

"She was in the tomb." I scanned the room, looking for any way out. With three vampires between me and the door, nope.

"No. She wasn't." Anna launched off the bed, agitation in every short step. "Not originally."

Noah dropped into her spot on the bed, staring at my face.

He was creeping me out so thoroughly, it took a moment for Anna's words to register. "Wait—what do you mean, not originally?"

"I mean she wasn't sealed inside back in eighteen sixty-four, because I saw her in nineteen eighty-three." Anna's hand clenched into a fist. "She left the rest of them to rot while she roamed free."

"But she was inside."

"She must've found out the Salvatore brothers were unsealing it." Anna shrugged. "No idea how. Or why she'd go to the trouble of sealing herself in. Or trust those two morons not to screw it up." She stopped to stare down at me. "Doesn't matter. What does matter is opening it again."

I realized I'd been talking to Anna as if I knew her. Which I did. Kind of. But she didn't know that. "Who are you? Why do you want it open?"

"Anna," she said. "And my mothers in there."

"If you wanted to get your mother out, all you had to do was ask," I said.

Anna's eyes narrowed. "Unless your boyfriend already murdered her."

"Stefan didn't stake everyone inside." Not the best defense.

Grabbing my arm, Anna hauled me off the bed. She wasn't gentle. I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. "You better hope he didn't kill my mother," she said, dragging me across the room to the door opposite of the one that lead outside. As she opened it, I had a glimpse of plain white tiles, a sink with a mirror hanging above, and a tub. A draft of humid air wafted over me. "Or you're dead."

I nearly slipped on the damp tiles as Anna shoved me inside and slammed the door. I backed up to the edge of the tub, sitting on it.

At least I was away from Noah.

It was dark by the time Anna and the other two vampires came and got me. I shot up from my seat on the covered toilet, wondering if she'd come to kill me. My throat was still sore, though it no longer felt like I was swallowing glass. Which was good, as I choked back a shout as she grabbed my arm and jerked me up onto my feet.

"I can move on my own," I told her as she hauled me along. "I'm not stupid enough to try to outrun any of you."

Anna didn't listen. She kept a bruising hold on my arm as she dragged me through the room and out into a car. She shoved me into the back. With Noah.

I scooted as close to the door as I could manage. Noah followed, grinning at me all the while.

It made for a fun ride, if endless anxiety and a creepy vampire breathing down your neck all the while is someone's idea of fun. Someone twisted. I wasn't there yet.

When Anna turned off onto a road leading into the forest, I couldn't help but stiffen in my seat. My stomach flipped and sweat gathered at the nape of my neck. Why take someone you'd kidnapped to the middle of the woods? Not for any wholesome reason.

Weirdly, the sight of tombstones rising out of the ground calmed me somewhat. I realized where we were. Or Anna had her own special burial ground for her victims.

Had to admit, no one would blink if a body turned up buried out here. Or given how old the cemetery was, maybe they would.

We parked and Noah pulled me across the seat out of the car. He was handsy as he 'escorted' me through the graveyard and to the path to the church. I tried to worm out of his hold, but he was too quick to let me escape. I shuddered at the feel of his hand running down my arms, my spine. He cupped my neck in a gesture that was more threatening than intimate.

There was no flashlight, and the trees threw too many shadows to see by moonlight. I ended up tripping practically every other step. This gave Noah more chances to manhandle me.

I'd never been happier to see anything as I was to spot the church ruins.

That happiness drained away the further down the small spiral of stairs we went, until we reached the tomb's entrance chamber. The stairs were pitch black, and I would have taken them at a tumble if I hadn't ended up half-way carried by Noah. I couldn't see any better in the chamber. I stepped on a raised portion of ground, some pile of dirt or debris, that rolled my ankle and sent me crashing painfully to my knees.

I felt the sting of cuts right away and I clenched my teeth, as if that might keep the vampires' teeth shut, too. Standing as quick as I could, I brushed my hands of the small rocks and dirt that had embedded themselves in my palms and grimaced. The small hairs on the back of my neck rising told me someone was watching.

The click of a lighter ignited a small glow around Anna's face before she put it to one of the leftover torches. She then picked it up, carrying it over to the others, touching the tips of each until the entire chamber glowed.

"What now?" I asked. They didn't have the grimoire or the crystal. What did she expect to do?

"We wait," Anna said, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall.

Great.

At least Noah wasn't rubbing his hands all over me. Disgusted, I sunk down to the dirt and rested my back against the wall. Ignoring the chill of the stone, I brought up my knees and hugged my legs. My palms stung and knees smarted, and I had an aching ankle to add to my bruised throat.

Time passed and sitting through it felt like watching paint dry. If the paint were made of blood. Anna kept pacing, which wasn't helping my nerves. Neither was the obsessive staring of Noah and the occasional hungry glances of towel boy.

Finally, as an hour crept up on us, Anna's head tilted. "Noah."

Noah nodded and disappeared, and I took the first easy breath I'd had since waking up. Aware something was happening, but not certain what, I let my arms fall and, ignoring the protest of my ankles and knees, stood up.

The scraping crunching of footsteps on the stairs pulled my gaze to the opening that led up to the surface. Eventually, two sets of legs appeared. The first set led to a torso, then eventually revealed a familiar face pinched with worry. "Stefan!"

Stefan's eyes roamed over me. There was no hint of a leer as he looked over my body, only concern. "Are you alright?"

I was bruised and scared but walking and talking. "More or less."

He didn't like that answer. His expression hardened as he turned to Anna. "Annabelle."

"You remember me," Anna said, letting her arms fall to the sides and moving away from the wall.

Stefan gave a single nod. "I thought you—"

"Was one of the vampires you staked in the tomb? No, Stefan. I've been out. Like Katherine." Anna stalked towards him. "Mother wasn't so lucky."

"Like Katherine?" Stefan asked, skepticism bringing lowering his brows.

"Yes, Stefan. Like Katherine. My mother's the one whose been rotting all these years." Anna got up into his face and glared as she said, "You took the wrong woman out of the tomb."

Stefan met her furious glare with a steady gaze. "Let Elena go. She has nothing to do with this."

"Except as leverage for you and your brother." Anna's eyes narrowed. "But I guess with Katherine back, Damon's got no use for her."

Damon knew I was in trouble but had stayed behind? With Katherine? My throat tightened as if Anna were choking me again. I swallowed despite the bruising.

How stupid of me to think he'd care enough to come.

"What do you want, Annabelle?" Stefan's question drew my focus back onto him and Anna.

"It's Anna. And I want my mother out of the tomb."

Stefan's brow furrowed as he thought. "I can get you the spell to drop the seal, but the crystal is used up."

Anna frowned. In an instant she was at my side, hand back around my throat. I choked, and despite knowing I was no match for her, I grabbed and scratched at her hand and arm anyway. "Then you'd better find another way of powering the spell." She shook me and pain exploded from the bruising still fresh on my neck. "Or I swear, Salvatore, I'll rip her pretty little head off."

Stefan held up his hands, palms out. "Alright! I'll find something else." His gaze turned imploring, "But let her go."

Anna pursed her lips as if thinking it over before shrugging with a smile that failed to reach her eyes. "Okay."

She dragged me over to the tomb door and, right as I realized what she intended, shoved me through the opening. My arms shook as the ground slapped against my hands, disturbing the already raw scratches along my palm. The only light was a slender golden rectangle flowing in from the chamber. Beyond lie absolute blackness and the dead.

I turned to scurry out, only to find Anna glaring down at me, hand curled into a fist. I stilled like a rabbit under the deadly eye of a hunting hound.

"What are you doing?" Stefan demanded.

"Until mother is out, your little girlfriend is going to keep her company."

Looking around Anna, I met Stefan's worried stare.

I knew we should have shut the damn door.

A grunt from Noah drew everyone's attention. The fist through his chest, heart in hand, kept it. We stared in shock as dark veins crawled up his graying neck, including Noah himself. When the hand disappeared back with a squelch, sending Noah's body crumpling to the floor, Katherine appeared in his place.

Towel boy barely moved in her general direction, and she punched through his chest as easily.

As her second lackey died, Anna appeared behind Stefan, holding him in front of her. She forced him to sidestep along with her until they reached the tomb's opening. Katherine's high heels ground against the dirt floor as she slowly followed. "He won't protect you."

"But you won't hurt him," Anna said.

A single brow arched indolently. "Won't I?" Katherine asked.

Anna considered. Apparently unwilling to risk it, she pulled Stefan back into the tomb with her, pushing me further back from the opening.

Katherine's eyes narrowed as she stepped right up to the line of the spell. She looked down, examining the groove marks on the floor before her sights glided back up. "You got what you wanted," she began, sounding bored with the whole ordeal. "Reunited with mommy."

"Screw you, Katherine," Anna said.

"Not my type." Katherine's head tilted to the side, sending her cascade of brown curls spilling over her shoulder. "But now that I think of it, this works out for me."

"How is that?" Stefan asked.

"Because she," Katherine indicated me with a graceful gesture of her hand, "can't go and get herself in more trouble before Klaus arrives." Her sights shifted to Stefan. "Don't worry, Stefan. I'll get you out." Her lips curled into a smirk. "Once Klaus is finished with my doppelgänger."

Stefan sped up to the opening but was held back by some invisible barrier. He bared his teeth in a growl, slamming at the air with his fists.

Katherine eyed the three of us, and apparently pleased with what she'd found, turned to the tomb's door. Gripping the edges, her face finally contorted into an expression other than boredom as she struggled to push against the huge block of stone. With the slow grind of rock and dirt, the door began to close.

"Can she do that?" I wondered, voice heightened by a tense note of hysteria. "I thought it could only be shut with magic."

"The magic must be in the barrier," Stefan answered, his own voice deep and grim. "Not the door. And she's obviously strong enough to move it."

Katherine gave a little wink. Soon we had a mere crack of light. A second later, door shut.

It wasn't just that it was dark. It was absence. It was as if the abyss had risen and swallowed us. If not for the stone beneath our feet, it would have been as if we were floating in a void. As it was, we merely stood in it.

I slid my foot across the darkness till I bumped into something nearby. Not as unyielding as rock, but not as giving as flesh. Firm and hard. A shoe? "Stefan?"

"No." Anna snapped.

"Here." A hand took mine. I gripped it tight and fought the urge to tuck into his side.

"What do we do?" I asked.

The scraping of footsteps disturbed the darkness. "I'm finding mother." Anna's steps paused. "You'd better hope you didn't stake her, Stefan."

"Katherine wants Elena alive."

"I don't really care what Katherine wants," Anna said, harsh and defiant.

"You can see?" I asked Stefan.

"Not well enough to identify a body," Stefan said. "We need to work together, Anna."

A beleaguered sigh cut through the blackness. She was up ahead of us. Eight or so feet, I guessed. "To do what? The door is on the other side of the seal. We can't dig our way out because the barrier extends around the whole tomb."

"Let's worry about getting some light, first."

"For your pet human?" I could hear Anna's sneer.

"You won't find your mother if you can't make out her face," Stefan said. He made a good point.

Anna must have thought so too. "Fine."

Light was going to be hard to come by. We hadn't left a torch behind. I didn't have my flashlight. I didn't even have my keys. They were still in the SUV.

Then I remembered Anna lighting the torches. "She has a lighter."

"It won't burn indefinitely," she said.

Stefan moved forward, keeping hold of my hand. I could either follow or stay by myself. I kept as close to him as I could without stepping on his heels.

Stefan and Anna must've seen well enough to navigate. We moved without bumping into any walls or doorways.

"Stop."

Anna's voice sounded from somewhere ahead. "Admiring your handiwork?"

"We need something to burn." Stefan squeezed my hand before carefully extracting himself from my grip. "Stay here."

As his footsteps led further away, I wrapped my arms around myself. I squinted, as if I'd magically be able to make Stefan out the further away he got from me, when I couldn't see him even as he'd held my hand. There were shapes in the darkness, but I was fairly certain it was my own mind oh-so helpfully conjuring them.

I hoped so, anyway.

He stopped a short way ahead. "Let me see that lighter."

There was a rustling of cloth and then the slap of something hard meeting skin.

"Thank you," Stefan said. He walked back towards me, but instead of meeting back up with me, he stopped halfway. Another rustle of clothing sounded in the dark. And then, the grind and click of the lighter.

Stefan's face leapt out of the darkness, floating in the small circle of firelight like a disembodied head. As he moved the lighter down, I could see he'd crouched down next to one of the dead-dead vampires he'd staked the last time we'd visited this damned place.

Twisting the lighter to the side, he touched it to the lace sleeve of the vampire's dress, until it began to burn.

It started as a small flame, but as if the corpse had been doused in gasoline, the fire whooshed up her arm and spread over her whole body in moments. Still crouched, Stefan inched back to leave a careful distance between himself and the fire greedily lapping at the remains. Greasy black smoke rose into the air that smelt like burnt ham. Gorge rose in my throat.

I covered my mouth and nose as I looked at the body. "How long will she burn?"

"Not long," he said, standing. "If we gather up clothes to burn, we should have some extra time."

"Going to add arms and legs like firewood?" Anna stood at the light's edge, arms crossed beneath her chest. "Toss in a head?"

"If you have a better idea," Stefan arched a brow.

She walked over to another body and grabbed its arm. By the time I realized what she was doing, she'd pulled the limb off with the cracking pop of a dislocated joint. When she stuck her fingers beneath the skin to either side of the bone I managed to look away in time. I couldn't turn as easily from the sounds of skin and muscle being shucked like peeling the husk off an ear of corn.

When I heard the louder tear of fabric, I looked over. Anna was ripping large swaths of fabric from the corpse's dress, wrapping the strips around the end of the bone in her hand. When she came over to the burning body, flames already shrunk as they burned through the vampire's dry flesh like paper, she held a makeshift torch. She touched the fabric wrapped end to the fire and waited until it caught.

As soon as the fire had spread around the whole of the wrapped end, she turned to Stefan. "I'm finding mother."

If Stefan was at all put off by the grisly light, I couldn't tell. I didn't think he was holding back his revulsion. I, on the other hand, tried to ignore what the handle was made of. It wasn't easy. "I'll help."

"I think you've done enough helping in here," Anna shot back.

"You know all these vampires couldn't be released back into the town."

"Why?" Anna whirled about and strode across the chamber. Stefan stood and followed. I hurried after. Anna paused at each vampire in a dress, holding the firelight close enough to examine their faces. "Because they'd kill people?"

Stefan let his frown answer.

Anna scoffed. "You have serious issues, you know that?"

"Because he doesn't want to see people murdered?" I demanded.

Anna spun about. Her eyes narrowed as she stared me down. "Do you have any idea who your boyfriend is?"

"We aren't dating. And, yes. I know."

"Really?" Anna looked to Stefan. "You told her about Monterey?"

"She knows," Stefan said.

Anna gave a disbelieving laugh. "And you're still holding his hand?" she asked me. She shook her head, going back to her search. "You both have issues."

Stefan and I exchanged a glance.

She wasn't wrong.

We followed quietly after Anna as she examined the rest of the dead-dead vampires. I knew we were nearing the remaining desiccated as the whispering began. When we reached the chamber where Stefan had been interrupted, red eyes opened.

Anna kept her distance as she examined these faces.

"What did you mean, earlier, when you said Katherine wasn't originally in the tomb?" Stefan asked.

"Just what I said. She wasn't in the tomb."

"But Damon and I—"

"Look, I've been over this with her," Anna nodded to me. "I don't know why or how, but Katherine must have entered the tomb before you opened it."

"Willingly trapping herself?" Stefan's voice was thick with skepticism.

"I'm not the Katherine Whisperer, alright? I have no idea why the backstabbing bitch does what she does." Anna waved the torch over the next female vampire. "All I can tell you is I saw her in Chicago in nineteen eighty-three, very much un-entombed and not desiccated."

Stefan's eyebrows dipped so low it was a wonder they didn't cover his eyes.

When we entered the last chamber, something occurred to me. "Stefan. I think she's right." At Stefan's glance, I said, "Think about it. Katherine's dress didn't have a speck of dust on it. She looked as if she were sleeping, not drained of life like," I waved my hand around, "all the rest."

Stefan's eyes were hard as emeralds in the torchlight. "Another scheme," he muttered.

"Mama!"

Anna knelt beside one of the vampires, hands on her shoulders, tears in her eyes.

To me, Pearl was unrecognizable. Her flesh was sunken and gray, the rest of her covered in so much dust even her black hair looked white. The only vaguely human part of her was the pained frown on her face. She was on the floor, propped up against the wall, as if she'd sat down one day and stopped moving all together.

Anna reached up and wiped at her eyes. My throat tightened at the sight, reigniting the aches of the day. But seeing Anna with her mother, I thought I could understand why she'd done it. She'd been desperate. What would I do to see my mother again? The thought made my own eyes burn with tears.

I blinked to clear my sights, but as I looked where Anna and Pearl had been, I discovered it was just Pearl instead. My arm was grabbed, and I was forced forward.

"Let her go!" Stefan demanded, anger sharpening his words as he stepped forward to confront her.

Anna met him with a shove that sent him crashing into the opposite wall.

"Stefan!"

"I'm centuries older than you," Anna sneered. She turned to me. "And I decided a long time ago that Gilbert blood would bring mother back."

Before I could protest, even so much as tell her I wasn't actually a Gilbert, Anna brought my wrist to her mouth and bit.

A shock bolted down my arm and hit my nervous system, but it wasn't pain. Not entirely. Warmth spread out from the fluttering in my stomach to the throbbing ache in my wrist. As soon as I realized I'd liked what she'd done, the fluttering turned acidic, and the warm tingles became unbearable. I tried to pull away, to hunch over myself, to hide, but Anna's hold was unbreakable.

She roughly thrust my arm into Pearl's dried mouth. It was like touching aged leather. The whispers of the other vampires became a cacophony in my mind. I could barely think over the dozen voices hissing at me.

And then Pearl's teeth latched onto my wrist.

A feverish wave had me breaking out in shivers and brought me to my knees. I bit my lip and tried to concentrate on the cool touch of stone beneath me, the rough texture of the rock, instead of the tingling sparks that kept flooding my nerves as blood was pulled from my body. Something was seriously wrong with me. I dropped my head, wishing I could press my face to the floor to rid myself of the flush—whether I was red from the pleasure or the shame of it, I couldn't say.

Either way, it was a relief when the steadily building weight of exhaustion pushed me to the ground.

"Stop! You're killing her!"

Hands gripped my upper arms, wrenching me back. I made a noise of protest as the teeth tore further through my skin. I don't know if it was from the pain or that the feeding had stopped.

I was pulled up against a warm and solid body. The smell of copper filled my nose before something hot and wet splashed against my tongue.

I swallowed reflexively. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever tasted. Like sucking on pennies.

It took a few more seconds before I realized I was drinking blood.

"Mmph!" I turned my head from the bleeding wrist at my mouth.

Stefan pulled his arm away. He angled my face up, hands brushing my hair aside as he studied my face. He let out a relieved breath. "I'm sorry, Elena. But she'd taken too much blood." He looked up to glare at the two vampires sitting across from me.

Pearl was already more recognizably human in appearance. Her skin held a healthier, if still pale, color, and her eyes had settled back to a natural brown.

"Annabelle," she whispered.

Anna gave a tearful laugh as she hugged the now sensate and more lively Pearl. Pearl laid her head against the top of Anna's, closing her eyes as she breathed deeply.

A combination of mortification from being fed on, my reactions to it, and the sheer joy of the mother and daughter drove me to look away. I studied my wrist instead. It was completely healed. I touched my throat and, for the first time since waking, felt no pain as I swallowed or pressed with my fingers.

By the time I was done inspecting how quickly Stefan's blood had healed me, Pearl's eyes reopened.

"Stefan Salvatore." Pearl's gaze found me. Anger hardened her features. "Katherine," she hissed, moving Anna aside and starting to stand.

"No, mama," Anna said, arms still around Pearl's neck, tears streaming down her face. "That's not Katherine. It's a human girl who looks like her. Elena Gilbert."

Recognition sharpening her gaze, Pearl stared at me with new understanding. "A doppelgänger." Before I could wonder that she knew of doppelgängers, she asked Anna, "How long?"

Anna's face fell. "A hundred and forty-five years."

Pearl's eyes widened. Her mouth opened but she said nothing. I don't think she knew what to say. I wouldn't.

I sat up under my own power, and once I was sure I'd be steady on my feet, stood. I clenched and relaxed my hand, amazed at how much better I felt than I had minutes before. Rubbing my wrist, I looked around the chamber, at the red eyes gleaming in the low firelight.

We couldn't wait for Katherine to come back. I couldn't. There was too much I had to tell Klaus, had to arrange, before he killed me.

But there wasn't another exit besides the door we'd used to come in. Just walls, the occasional desiccated vampire, the floor, and the ceiling. The magical barrier had to extend around more than just the door. The vampires hadn't been able to dig their way out.

The vampires couldn't.

Maybe a human could.

I stared up. "How far do you think it is from the ground to the top of the ceiling?"

With a few soft taps of his shoes, Stefan stepped beside me. "A few feet, maybe. Four or five at most."

"The barrier surrounds the walls," Pearl said, voice still raspy from disuse.

I looked down over my shoulder at her. "A barrier that keeps vampires in. Not humans." Or whatever I was.

Her eyes widened, understanding gleaming within. She looked up. "If we collapse the ceiling…"

"I can dig the rest of the way out. Maybe." I turned back around. "It's worth a try."

"If the room doesn't fill with dirt," Anna said.

"Then we'll clear it." Stefan nodded to me. "Build something Elena can stand on." His gaze swept across all of us. "Unless you want to wait for Katherine to come back."

No one liked that idea, except maybe Pearl. From the look on Pearl's face, I didn't think Katherine would be very happy to find her old friend waiting for her. Not if she liked her eyes un-gouged. "Katherine is still in Mystic Falls?"

"Yes, mama," Anna said. "She just returned."

"Hmm." Pearl's murderous expression eased into something more neutral. She stood up to look around the room. "We need to move the rest." She glided to a vampire, picking her up and walking to the hall in a swish of silk skirts.

Anna immediately moved to do as her mother bid. Stefan frowned. "Stay here." It was a gentle order, but an order nonetheless. He crossed and knelt down beside another vampire, picking him up.

There weren't many left in the room. Half a dozen now that Pearl was awake. It took them two trips to clear them out to the chamber down the hall.

Once the others were moved, Pearl, Anna, and Stefan began studying the ceiling. Anna held the torch aloft while Pearl and Stefan walked the perimeter of the room. "We should be able to collapse the center," Pearl said.

Stefan nodded his agreement. "But how to get past the spell?"

Lifting her skirts to mid-shin, two leather boots laced a few inches past her ankles appeared on Pearl's feet. She crouched, undoing the laces with expert fingers before prying the heeled boots off. Pearl set them aside and stood. "Like this." A thunderous crack echoed throughout the room. The floor beneath her foot was crushed as if the stone had been pulverized by a jackhammer. Pearl shifted through the larger pieces until she held a stone twice the size of her head. "Each of you take one. We'll throw them at the same time."

Stefan and Anna followed her directions, choosing their own considerable rocks and picking them up like they weighed no more than golf balls. "From three?" Stefan suggested.

Pearl nodded and turned to me. "Wait in the hall."

I wasn't about to argue with the lady who could crack a stone floor.

Once I was in the hall, Pearl started the countdown. When they got down past one, they moved too fast for my eye to track. The rocks were in their hands one moment, the next came thunderous booms. Detritus of dust and bits of rock fell from a few spots in the ceiling, but it held up.

"Again," Pearl commanded.

This repeated quite a few times. Once a bigger piece of the ceiling fell, a chunk the size of my bag, but it wasn't large enough to cave in the earth above. The compacted dirt stayed aloft above the hole.

It took six throws in all before the stone finally gave way in the center. A section as large as the hood of the SUV came down in a great crash soon swallowed by an avalanche of dirt collapsing down after it like an earthen waterfall. A cloud rose in its wake, billowing across the room. Even after the main bulk of earth had fallen, little rivulets of dirt streamed down, pattering on the floor.

The three vampires stood by me in the hall, untouched.

We studied the resulting pile of dirt.

"That's not going to be high enough to reach the ceiling, let alone dig past it," Anna observed.

"I'll hold her up," Stefan said.

We all trooped back into the chamber, mindful of the still crumbling hole. "Guess I dig with my hands?" I said, uncertain as I stared up at the darkness beyond the broken ceiling.

"Here." Pearl punched into the floor, pulling part of a stone block free. While I blinked at that show of strength, she hit it again from the side, slicing it in half. She lifted the top, a piece about half an inch thick and a little wider than my hand, passing it to me.

I accepted it with a small thanks. Stefan and I walked to the mound of dirt. He tested it first, feet sinking as if stepping on sand, but stopping once his foot reached ankle-depth. He climbed half-way up before holding a hand out to me and pulling me up next to him. The soil felt like a mixture of sand and clay, which would be interesting to dig through.

Once we reached the top, some three feet high, Stefan secured his footing. He looked to me. "Ready?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

Stefan flashed a smile before gripping my waist. And then I was airborne, held aloft in a way I hadn't been since I was a little kid.

"I'm going to put you on my shoulders."

"Even after watching cheer practice?" I couldn't help the nerves that leaked into my voice.

"Use the ceiling to balance," he advised before lifting me straight up over his head.

Maneuvering was awkward since I didn't want to kick him in the face, but I managed to get both feet on his shoulders. I could reach the edge of the ceiling, and like he suggested, used it to help me balance as I slowly and carefully stood up.

If only Caroline could see me now. Balancing on Stefan's shoulders like a real cheerleader. Well, almost. I had a hand dug into the dirt for stability. I closed my eyes and angled my head down as my other hand used my makeshift shovel to shove into and scrape free the dirt.

The earth rained down on me like I was under a freaking shower. I kept scraping. Huge clumps would sometimes drop, occasionally with a rock or two buried within them. I didn't stop. They couldn't do this, and I wasn't spending one moment longer in the tomb than I absolutely had to. If I wanted out, that meant digging.

My arm tired and I switched hands. My hair and shoulders were covered in so much dirt, I probably would be washing it out for days. But the higher I got, the more moisture I felt. "I think I'm getting close."

"Taking you long enough," Anna said.

"Hush, Annabelle," Pearl scolded.

She wasn't wrong, though. It was taking time. "You okay, Stefan?"

"Fine," he said, hand squeezing my leg where he held it. "But let me know if you need a break."

I didn't want to spend any longer down here than I had to. Shaking my head, I said, "I can keep going."

And I did. Switching arms again when my left began to tire.

But it was slow, frustrating, dirty work. And my right arm was beginning to grow sore. I was thinking about that break when something in the texture of dirt beneath my hands changed. It was stringy, and hard, against my fingertips. Digging it away, I brought it to my eyes and squinted in the dim firelight to see what it was.

Roots.

"I'm close!" Excitement renewed my strength and I redoubled my efforts. I had to extend my arm out all the way to scrape at the top of the hole I'd created. Finally, my makeshift shovel seemed to catch along something rougher. And touching it, I felt more roots. Dozens of them. I stabbed at them with the pointed end of the rock and felt them give just enough for my fingers to poke through.

On the other side were long, wet blades of grass.

"Higher, Stefan! I feel grass!"

Stefan shifted his hold, grabbing my thighs and lifting me up.

I stabbed the little hole my hand had made a bit wider and grabbed at the edges and pulled as hard as I dared. A side of the top came tumbling down. A single, thready beam of light pierced the shadows. A thin ray that shone a spot of yellow the floor.

"Careful," Stefan warned as I began tearing at the edges of the hole to widen it. "You still have to crawl out."

"Don't need the ground giving way as soon as you get up," Anna added.

"I'll catch you if that happens," Stefan promised.

I tried to compromise by making the hole only as wide as absolutely necessary for me to fit through. "Okay. Can you lift me any higher?"

"Yes, but I'll have to toss you a little."

I hand my hands gripping the grass of the outside. Almost there. "Do it."

I felt his hands leave me for a terrifying moment, and then they were back, gripping my shins and pushing me up.

Heart racing, I squirmed between the walls of dirt. Some of it stayed solid while other portions gave way and fell. I wriggled up until my arms were all the way out and could feel the breeze of fresh air. I spread them, and let my head emerge.

Daylight.

I had no idea where I was, but I saw grass, and trees stretching towards a dim, overcast sky. The first dreary day in Mystic Falls I'd seen.

It was beautiful.

"I'm out!"

I could hear them speaking below but couldn't make out what they were saying. Not with my body still stuck in the hole I'd dug.

Stefan's hands moved once again, this time to my feet. He was pushing me upward. I used my arms to help him, glad Elena was strong enough to hold her own body weight. With a little grunting and shimmying, I was out to my waist when Stefan had to let go. Legs dangling, I grabbed onto the grass and pulled the rest of my body out, which was pretty simple once my hips were through.

Mindful that I was basically standing on a bunch of dirt over a huge cavernous hole, I crawled rather than stood up and walked. I shifted around on all fours, peering back down into the hole I created. Pearl and Anna had joined Stefan beneath the hole, and all three vampires stared up at me, faces lit by sunshine.

"I'll get help," I promised.

"You can't go to Damon," Stefan warned. "He won't believe you about Katherine."

"I know." I took a breath. "I thought I might try Richmond."

Stefan's face blanked. "Is that really wise?"

"We need witches to break the barrier spell. Bonnie isn't speaking to me, and wouldn't know how, anyway. Elijah knows the Martins." I sighed. "I'll add another condition to the agreement."

Stefan's face was still smooth, but something of his unhappiness with the plan leaked into his eyes. "It'll take time to contact Elijah."

"A day. Maybe two." I bit my lip before adding, "Lets hope it's before Katherine gets word to Klaus."

"You're going to need a guide," Stefan said. "Here." Stefan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He tossed it up.

I didn't grab it in time.

Anna caught it before it hit the floor and gave me a look. "Really?"

"I don't have the best hand-eye coordination, okay," I shot back.

She tossed it to Stefan, who had no problem catching it out of the air. He looked up. "You can do it."

Anna moved in place to catch it again.

She needn't have. I managed to fumble enough to clutch the phone to my chest. Holding it out, I looked down at it. Another old-fashioned model. To me, at least. "Who should I call?"

Stefan smiled, and when he told me the name of my would-be guide, I smiled too.