A/N: I suck at writing an emotionless character…just saying.

Phoenix Rising
Ch. 36

The bass in the club beat loud as upbeat music played over the speakers. Sweaty body's danced to beat on the dance floor while neon lights flashed. People stood on a balcony up above where the bar was located drinking and talking while watching the people dancing down below. Katie danced in the middle of the dance floor with a guy in front of her and a guy behind her both with their hands all over her while they bumped and grind against her. Their drunk gazes on her bouncing chest, scantly clad in the black sequined mini dress with a plunging draped neckline and a halter strap of rhinestones.

When the song was over and a less upbeat song came on she turned to the guy behind her and slipped her finger under his chin beckoning him to her. "Come with me pretty boy." He followed her out of the club and into the sketchy alleyway like a lost puppy. She reveled in the fact that she could lure men out without even having to compel them. The lust in the guys pretty blue eyes made her smile and when they got to the middle of the alley she turned to him, grabbed his shirt in her fist, pulled his face close to hers, the tips of their noses touching as the blood rushed to her eyes. His lustful eyes turned fearful in the blink of an eye. The guy stumbled back, tripping over an overturned trash can before he turned and ran. Katie let him run a little before she whooshed in front of him and he stumbled back, falling on his ass that he scooted on scrambling away from her.

Tired of playing with her food, she grabbed him up by his jacket, shoved his head to the side then sank her teeth in to him. In thirty seconds he was tapped out and she pushed him to the side watching him fall to the ground as she licked the blood from her lips. She was staring at him when she heard a gasp behind her and turned to see a woman standing in the opening of the alley with her hand over her mouth. Katie whooshed over, grabbed her before she could run away, slammed her into the brick wall and looked her in the eyes. "If you are questioned by anyone, you tell them you saw a man wearing obnoxiously distressed jeans, one of those douchy affliction t-shirts and cowboy boots. He stabbed him in the neck with something you didn't get a good look at. Understand?" the woman nodded. "Now forget you ever saw me."

The tapping of her thigh high stiletto boots on the concrete filled the air as she walked back into the club. Done with dancing for the time being she went up to the bar on the second floor where it was a little quieter and ordered a drink. The bartender set down a napkin then a martini glass. She was about to grab the toothpick and eat the olives, but a hand came from behind her and grabbed them first. She didn't have to guess who it was…she could feel him. She let out a sharp whistle and snapped her fingers to get the bartender to look at her and she crooked at finger at him. He walked over to her and she looked him in the eyes not having to speak to compel him. Elijah sat down on the stool next to her and ate one of the olives. "Hi handsome." She told him with a smirk as she looked at him across her shoulder. The bartender stuck a new toothpick of olives in her drink then walked away.

Elijah whipped the handkerchief out of his suit pocket and held it out to her. "Your dinner is still on your lips."

She pushed his hand down and leaned into him, her lips close to his ear. "You want a taste?" she pulled back looking him in his brown eyes. Eyes that once made her heart skip a beat, but now did absolutely nothing for her. She could still feel him through their link, but it wasn't like it was before. All feelings of longing and love were gone.

He pursed his lips and leaned back. "Wipe your mouth before someone notices."

Instead of taking the handkerchief she licked her pointer finger, wiped her lips then sucked the blood off it. "Bet Damon would have kissed me." she popped off making Elijah look away from her. "I would ask how you found me, but apparently even though I've flipped the switch, I still have a soul and that pesky little link still exists." She told him taking in his un-amused face. "And I can't figure out if I find you so mouthwateringly handsome because I actually think it or if it's the link."

He narrowed his eyes "Did you want it to be severed?"

"Yep." She answered without hesitation.

"Why?" he asked studying her.

"Because I no longer want you." She answered then looked away from him and took a drink.

"We will not discus this right now." he told her.

"Hey you asked." She said with a shrug then threw back what was left of her drink and pushed the glass away.

"May I propose deal?" he asked looking at her like he was in deep thought.

"You can propose it, but I doubt I'll take you up on it."

"I find a witch that is able to remove our link. You turn your humanity back on." He said as he propped his elbow on up the bar and watched her take the olives out of the empty glass and bite one off the tooth pick.

"You are vastly overestimating that link and whatever power you think you and it have over me." she hopped down off the stool. "No deal." She started walking away.

"What about Niklaus?" he asked and she stopped and turned back to him. "Did he have power over you?"

"Why do you ask?" she asked curiously.

"I know he meant something to you. You felt the loss of him so deeply you flipped your switch." He told her with narrowed eyes.

She walked back over to him and looked him in the eyes. "Goodbye, Elijah." She walked away and he let her.

Klaus walked into a small bar. He'd followed Katie's trail of dead bodies here and it took no time to spot her sitting at the back of the room with her teeth sank into a woman's neck. No one was paying it any attention. So he assumed she had the whole place compelled.

He walked over and pulled the woman away from Katie and tossed her to the side to land on the couch. "Klaus?" Katie asked in confusion.

"In the flesh." He told her with a cheeky smile.

"Huh, that explains some things." She said as she stood up and tried to walk around him, but be grabbed her arm. She looked down at his hand on her then back up at his glaring eyes.

"This isn't you, love." He told her and a smile formed on her face making him give her an interested look.

"Sure it is." She argued as she took her arm from his, walked over to a guy sitting at the bar and started to bite him, but Klaus whooshed between them. "What are you doing?" she asked with a bored look.

"Telling you that I am alive and to go home and stop this foolishness." He pointed out.

"We screw a few times, you somehow come back from the dead and you think you can tell me what to do?" she asked with a cock of her head.

He grabbed her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes. "It was more than that and you know it."

"Maybe it was, but guess what?" she whooshed around Klaus and sank her teeth into the guys neck then tossed him aside. "I no longer care." She wiped her mouth as she walked away.

Klaus and Elijah stood outside a bar on the Virginia coast that Katie was in, leaning against Elijah's car. "So what's the plan?" Klaus asked not liking that they were about to ambush her. But it had been almost two weeks since she flipped her switch and no one had been able to get through to her.

"Whatever it takes to get her out of there." Elijah answered.

They walked into the bar and saw her up on the karaoke stage, jumping around as she belted Three Days Grace's "The good life."

"Did you know she could still sing?" Klaus asked his brother, not looking away from her owning the stage like a true rock star.

"No I did not." Elijah answered not looking away from her either. He thought her outfit of a tight black leather vest that was only zipped half way, short black shorts, fishnet leggings and black closed toe heels made her look like a stripper, but her confidence made it work.

When the song was over Katie hopped down off the stage and headed to the bar. Klaus intercepted her and purposely bumped into her. "Hello, I'm walking here asshole." She didn't look at the guys face as she started to walk around him, but he grabbed her arm in a grasp too tight to be human and she looked up. "Klaus."

"Hello, Sweetheart." He told her with a closed lipped smile and tilt of his head.

"Unless you intend on having a drink with me or taking me to a hotel I suggest you let go of me."

"Sorry love, that's not why I'm here." He told her as his face turned serious.

"Mkay." She told him as she did an evasive maneuver on him, but he anticipated it and managed to wrap his arms around her, holding her arms down to her sides. A sigh left her flared nostrils as she stomped on his foot, stabbing him with the pointed heel of her shoe then slammed her head back into his face and he let her go. She whooshed outside, where Elijah, who she felt too late, whooshed in front of her and stabbed her in the neck with a syringe of vervain. "Seriously?" She sighed as her world faded to black.

Katie woke up with a groan and tried to pick up her hand, intending on rubbing the sore spot on her neck, but her wrist was tied down to a metal chair. She looked around to see that she was in the middle of a beach house living room. Waves crashing off in the distance filled her ears. "Sleeping beauty finally awakens." Klaus said making her look to the left to see him sitting on a leather couch that separated the living room from the kitchen that Elijah walked out of with a drink in his hand.

Bright light shined in through the picturesque windows on each side of the door in front of her. "How long have I been out?" she asked with a squint.

"Around nine hours." Elijah answered then looked down at Klaus who took Elijah's drink from him.

"So what's the plan? Torture me into turning my humanity back on?" she asked with an uncomfortable grunt.

"No, love, you see we've discussed it and we both agree that you're no stranger to physical torture." Klaus told her.

"Yes, Caroline has informed us that when Alaric tortured the two of you, you were a…what was it?" Elijah asked Klaus.

"A stone cold trooper." Klaus told her with a smile. "Plus I know you endured the pain of vervain just to chew through your gag like a caged animal. So vervain and splinters will be useless on you. We've got something we think will be a little more effective in store for you."

His use of we made her start laughing. "We? The two of you are going to work together to save me from my humanity-less self?"

"Why is that funny?" Elijah asked.

"Well, all things considered…" Katie told him with a look at Klaus

"Am I missing something?" Elijah asked with a narrow eyed look at her.

"No." Klaus answered making Katie laugh harder.

"Yes." Katie said as she made herself stop laughing. "Klaus and Rebekah have been keeping you in the dark." She told Elijah who pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes further. She then looked at Klaus. "Do you want to tell him or should I?"

"Katie…don't. This is not the time." He told her as he turned his head to the side and blinked at her.

"I think now is the perfect time." Katie thought to herself knowing that if she managed to turn them against each other the likely hood of them forcing her humanity back on would be cut in half.

"One of you speak…now." Elijah demanded.

Katie looked at Klaus and raised a challenging brow, but he just looked at her with pleading eyes that didn't faze her in the slightest. "Klaus and I had sex." She said then turned her eyes to Elijah. "Mind blowing…earth shaking…high class porn worthy fornication." She knew when Elijah's jaw slacked and Klaus blinked at her that it had worked. Did Klaus really expect her to keep that to herself? "Or did we make love?" she asked herself since she couldn't tell the difference anymore. Klaus whooshed off the couch and grabbed a roll of duct tape. "Either way it was fucking amaz-" she was cut off when he slapped a piece of tape over her mouth.

As soon as Klaus turned around Elijah punched him and sent him flying through one of the glass windows and over the rail of the stilted beach house. Katie heard the thud of him hitting the ground below. Elijah whooshed away and continued to fight his brother, but Katie tuned it out and started working on getting the duct tape off of her mouth. As soon as she did she toed off one of her boots, grabbed it with her feet that they stupidly hadn't tied to the chair and tossed it into her lap. She used one of her hands to start taking out the lace of it. When she got it out she managed to toss one end of it up on her chest then pushed her breasts together and picked the end of the lace up with her teeth. From there she whipped her head around until her caught the other end in her hand and threaded it under the ropes on her wrist then down to her foot and grabbed it with her toes.

With everything in place she moved the boot lace back and forth. She was weak from the vervain still working it's way out of her system, but eventually the friction burned through the rope setting her hand free. She untied the rope on her other hand then kicked off her other boot and whooshed to the back exit out of the house. Lucky for her the brothers were still throwing fists and breaking shit and didn't see or hear her leave.

She drained the first person she came across then sweet talked her way into a house and compelled the people inside.

Beaten, battered and tired the brothers went back into the beach house to find her gone. Elijah looked at her unlaced boot, the wet duct tape, and burned rope putting it all together. "Cleaver girl." Elijah commented.

"Cleaver girl or half assed kidnappers?" Klaus asked as Elijah tossed the rope on the floor and stood up.

"Bit of both." Elijah answered. "Lucky for me I can track her." Elijah whooshed away. Klaus rolled his eyes and took off after him.

Katie was sitting in the living room with the family of three, watching cartoons when she felt Elijah tracking her down. An aggravated sigh left her lips. "Are you okay Miss Scarlett?" The little girl sitting next to her on the couch asked.

"Yes, Miley, I'm fine. Keep watching the cartoon." She told her then got up from the couch and went to the kitchen where it was quiet.

Taking a shot in the dark she closed her eyes and concentrated on kinking her connection to Elijah.

Elijah and Klaus were whooshing through a row of abandoned warehouses when he lost contact with her and stopped. "What?" Klaus asked.

"I can't feel her." Elijah said in confusion. "I believe she has cut me off."

"Well it can't be the first time that's happened." Klaus commented.

Elijah ignored him. "She is roughly fifteen miles due east. Assuming she is not on the move as we speak." He told Klaus.

"Then let's hope whatever she is doing won't hold long." Klaus told him and he walked past him.

The longer Katie held off Elijah the more draining it became and the hungrier she got. After two hours, blood flooded to her eyes and she snapped, letting Elijah back in as she whooshed to the home office where the father of the house was working through lunch and sank her teeth into his neck. "Miss Scarlett?" A small voice came from behind her and she turned, letting little Miley see Katie in all her vampire glory, blood dripping down her chin and neck. Katie whooshed over to the terrified six year old and looked into her eyes, "Go to your room and stay there." The little girl screamed and ran upstairs.

"I can feel her again." Elijah said feeling her essence fill him once again. He whooshed away leaving Klaus to trail behind. Katie knew he was close when she felt the pull in the pit of her stomach and rolled her eyes. "Open the door, Katie."

"Not happening, Handsome." She told him, looking at him through the peep hole to see him rolling something around in his hand. Recalling the change through the coffee shop window incident she whooshed to the dead father, ripped out his heart, then whooshed to little Miley's room.

A few minutes later the little girl opened the front door, her father's heart cupped in her little hands as she looked up at the two men standing on the other side. "Miss Scarlett told me tell you that if you do not leave her alone, the next heart to be ripped out will be mine." She tossed the heart over the threshold and it bounced across the wood porch to Klaus's feet. Klaus and Elijah shared a look, both knowing that Katie would never forgive herself for what she had just done.

Elijah kneeled down and looked the little girl in the eyes. "Come outside."

"I can't." She answered.

"She's already compelled her not to listen to us." Klaus pointed out with a motion a the child.

"And she is in the basement." Elijah looked at Klaus with hard eyes and tossed the pebbles in his hand out into the driveway. "We need a human."

"I'm on it." Klaus stalked off with his determined walk.

Katie was lying on the sofa of the basement man cave with her eyes closed and ear buds in her ears. She no longer felt Elijah near so she assumed he and Klaus were gone. However, silenced shots were taken from the top of the stairs, darts pumped her full of vervain and she passed out. The ex navy seal Klaus managed to find and arm with vervain picked Katie up and tossed her over her shoulder. She carried her outside and passed her off to Klaus who motioned for her to give her to him.

Elijah whooshed over. "Your talents are highly appreciated." he put a hundred dollar bill in her hand. "Thank you." He looked into her eyes, "forget everything that happened in the last forty-five minutes." The woman nodded and walked off.

The first thing to make it into her semi conscious state was that she was laying on a soft bed on her back. The second was the voice's of Klaus and Elena, who Katie knew was now a vampire thanks to someone who told her, she just didn't care or remember who told her. "I apologize for the lack of windows. It's to preserve the art." She heard Klaus say in the room next door to hers. "And of course to prevent you from taking off your daylight ring and burning yourself to death in the sun." Katie sat up and looked around to see three solid walls of brick and the forth that was across from the foot of the bed made of wood with a thick looking metal door. A crystal chandelier hung over the bed and another across the room. Statues and sculptures were decoratively placed around the room and very old looking works of art hung on the walls in the room.

"I'm not going to kill myself. I would never do that." Elena told him.

"No, but you'll want to. I did. Problem is I'm immortal." Klaus told her.

"You went though this?" Elena asked.

"Yes, I did. For fifty two years, four months and nine days." He told her. "I was tormented in my dreams…my every waking moment. Relentless, never ending torture. It was the only period of my life when I actually felt time."

"So you knew that this would happen if Connor died? That's why you got involved." Elena asked. "Did Stefan know too?"

"All he knew was that the hunter had to be kept alive." Klaus told her. "You should have listened to him when he said he had it covered, love."

While they talked, Katie walked around the room looking at the works of art. "What else does Stefan know?" Elena asked.

"Now that's one of life's little mysteries isn't it?" he answered.

"How did you make it stop?" Elena asked.

"I didn't, eventually it just stopped." Klaus answered. "The hallucinations tend to appear in strange forms."

When she heard the door to the room Elena was in slam shut she expected Klaus to come to her room, but he didn't. With no windows and no clocks Katie lost track of how long she was in that room before the door finally opened and Elijah came in. Someone pushed in a tv strapped to a rolling stand. A dvd player was plugged into it. "What, is it movie time in junior high or something?" she asked weakly from not having blood for a while.

He remained quiet until the minion left and locked them in. He grabbed one of the two leather chairs in the room and moved it across from the tv then motioned at it with his hand, elegantly like usual. "Sit and watch."

"Sir yes sir." She replied snippily and sat down in the chair.

He grabbed a remote off of the stand and walked around to stand behind her then pressed play. Alan Jackson's "Remember When" started playing as a slide show of pictures of her and her friends started playing. The music faded as a video of Katie and Caroline riding their bikes as little girls started playing. The girls, laughing and not paying attention, wrecked into each other and both fell off their bikes. Katie scraped her knee and started crying. Caroline who was okay rushed to her side as Katie's mother, who had been filming passed off the camera to someone and ran to Katie. "It's okay baby girl." Her mother assured her child in a calming voice. "It's just a scrape."

"Mommy, it hurts." Katie cried.

"It'll stop soon." The little blond that was Caroline told Katie then stuck out her little leg and ripped a Cinderella bandage off of her own knee. "See." She poked at her scabbed over knee. "You just need a bandage to make it feel better. Right Mrs. Finnegan?"

"Right, Caroline." Katie's mom brushed Caroline's hair out of her face then held her hand out to Katie. "Come on, let's get you a bandage."

"A pretty princess one?" Katie asked now more concerned with making her leg look pretty than she was the pain.

Her mom laughed. "I'll see what I can find." Her mother then noticed that whoever was recording was still recording and waved at them to turn off the camera and the video cut off.

The music kicked back up as did the slide show of pictures. They mapped out her whole life and every friendship she ever made. A picture of her at an eighth grade party popped up on the screen. She was sitting on a hard wood floor with a beer in her hand, an empty beer bottle on the floor in the center of the circle of preteens. It had been taken right after Katie found out she'd have to go into the closet with the immature, douchy Tyler Lockwood. Her face was beet red and Caroline who was sitting next to her had a big smile on her face as she pointed at Katie. Matt on her other side had an oh-shit look on his young face.

When that picture faded a video of Tyler popped up on the screen. He spoke of how he loved her and thought for a split second about buying her a ring when she told him she was pregnant. She tuned it out, but when a video of Damon started she couldn't help but pay attention. Damon was standing in his bedroom with an aggravated look on his face. "This isn't going to work." He said with an eye roll. "She didn't care about me before she flipped the switch, why will she care now?"

"Talk." Caroline barked at him. "Tell her how much she means to you."

Damon sighed and licked his lips as he leaned on the post of his bed with his forearm. "Katie you are…one of the most understanding…caring…kind hearted and loyal people I know, but you're also stubborn as hell and a major pain in my ass sometimes."

"Damon!" Caroline snapped and he gave her a look. "Good things please."

Damon sighed and rolled his eyes. "You caught my attention not because of your outer beauty, those glasses of yours were horrendous, but because you are gorgeous on the inside too. You cared so much for your friends that you made me want your friendship even though I could have cared less about making friends with anyone at that time. You…compelled, me to want you to be my friend…That's how powerful your friendship is. It's one of the many reasons why I fell in love with you and why I still love you." He took the camera and focused it on the top of his dresser as he walked over to it, showing her a framed photo of her and Damon kissing, the necklace he had given her hanging on the corner of the frame. "I never told you, but I gave you a moon and star pendant because I couldn't wait for nightfall so I could sneak into your bedroom window." He put his face in the center of the video. "You won't feel anything now, but when you flip that switch back on and everything comes flooding back…I want you to look at that ring on your finger and remember that I never stopped loving you…it just changed into a different type of love and we pushed each other away. And as a side note, I'm still sorry I never took you on a real date." His eye watered right before the video cut off.

One of Stefan started and Katie let her head fall back and started pretending to snore. Elijah didn't think this would work, but just incase Caroline and the rest of her friends knew something he didn't he kept letting it play. More interviews of Matt, Elena, a tired and emotionally distressed Bonnie, and even Jeremy then it ended with an interview of Caroline herself that basically gave her the same speech she had given her after they found out Klaus had been desiccated.

"Did you really think that sappy crap was going to work?" Katie asked as she looked across her right shoulder at Elijah.

"No I did not." He told her as he turned off the tv and set the remote back on the rolling metal stand. "But I had to try."

"So what are you going to do, keep me locked in this room for forever?" she asked.

"If that is how long it takes to get you to take back your humanity and keep you from emotionally scarring more innocent kids…yes." He told her then walked over to the door and knocked on it. Someone opened it from the outside and let Elijah out then shut it behind them.

Once again Katie didn't know how long she had been in the room before the door was opened again. This time Klaus walked in and shoved a guy into the room then walked in behind him. Her eyes took in the guy in his late twenties with auburn hair and skin the same light ivory tone as Katie's with a few freckles peppered over his nose that looked like hers. Now that she really looked at him, she'd actually gotten a lot of her features from her father…he was just a masculine version of her.

"Bradley." She observed emotionlessly as she stood up from the chair in the room and walked over to him. "Mom said you're good at talking people into things they don't want to do" she stopped a few feet away from him and gave him a come at me motion with her hands. "Give it your best shot. You won't succeed." Klaus, who was leaning back on the metal door with his arms cross, smirked at the line he knew she'd picked up from him.

"You've spoken to your mother?" he asked confused.

"Yep. That's how I know you killed her. Apparently your aim sucks." She told him with a sneer. "Just like I know that the two of you left me with that abusive piece of shit grandfather of mine to go to New Orleans and find your way into Klaus's inner circle and keep him and Elijah from ever finding me." Bradley looked at her with a frown. "I know that you drunkenly told Damon Salvatore that you would never come back to Mystic Falls because the last thing I needed were vampires in my life. News flash!" She made flashing motions with her hands. "I am a vampire and not only did the originals find me I slept under the same roof as all of them." She looked over at Klaus, "and with two of them." Bradley sighed and rubbed at his temples and she started laughing. "It's enough to make your head spin right?"

Bradley made a move to leave only to see that Klaus hadn't left the room like he thought he had. "Abandoning her again, mate?" he asked with a glare.

Bradley realized he couldn't run so he walked over to Katie and grabbed her shoulders. "My Little Scarlett." He stared, looking her in the eyes. She looked back into his green eyes that matched hers. "I am so sorry. I only ever tried to do what I thought was best for you… I want you to know I never stopped loving you. There's so much more I want to tell you, but it will never mean anything unless you turn it back on. Baby girl… you have to feel the pain to feel the good you have to open that door and let it all back in or my worst fear will come true. You will be lost forever. I will never get to know the daughter that I so stupidly left behind. I am begging you…My Little Scarlett, turn it back on." He could not have been more sincere.

"Mom must have been the weakest woman in the world because that…" she twirled her finger pointing at him, "sucked ass." Bradley sighed and let his head fall forward in disappointment. She looked at Klaus then at Bradley. "If you can get past him you can see yourself out."

Klaus knocked on the door and one of his minions opened it letting them both out. "Well that didn't work." Katie heard Damon on the other side of the door. "Here's an idea, compel her to flip it back on."

"She will just switch it back off." Elijah argued.

"So compel her to never turn it off again." Damon told him with a loud tone and distain in his voice.

"Compulsion will solve nothing. It has to be genuine. She has to want…it." Elijah told him getting angry at Damon.

"Well, I would love to stay and keep up the dynamic save Katie threesome we've got going on, but I've got to go teach Little Gilbert how to actually fight before he starts trying to murder vampires and gets himself killed."

That night Elijah sat in the room in Klaus's house that Katie was being held in, watching her where she slept in the middle of the bed on top of the fluffy comforter. With a heavy heart he took her hand in his. He never meant for this to happen when he left. He thought she would be safer without him in her life putting a target on her back, but he realized now that he had been very, very wrong.

He also realize that in leaving her, he pushed her right into Klaus's arm. He hadn't been completely blind throughout the short time that he and Katie had been together. He had seen the way Klaus looked at her and the way Katie didn't hate him as much as he thought she should considering all the bad things he had done and the fact that he had killed her in her first life.

He had also heard her at the ball when she asked Klaus who he would choose between her and Caroline. Why would she have asked if she didn't want to hear him say that he would choose her? She had openly admitted that they'd kissed while he was daggered. He had no one to blame for Katie and Klaus but himself. And it pissed him off to no end and hurt him even more because if all it took was a month for her to move on, did she really ever love him?

Desperately trying to think of a way to get her humanity back so he could get some answers, he started thinking about their link. It was like a tube, connecting them with a constant flow of back and forth energy and emotion. With her switch flipped it was simply just energy he felt from her. She had constricted the tube once, and if she could do that…could he dilate the tube and open the flow. Could he let her feel his emotions even though she couldn't feel her own?

He closed his eyes and concentrated. The longer he concentrated the more restless she started to grow until she opened her eyes, shot straight up in the bed and looked at him. "What are you doing? Why do I feel…angery and hurt?" she asked trying to pull her hand out of his, but he wouldn't let her break the contact.

"Because I am angry and hurt." He answered and she stood from the bed still attempting to pull her hand from his.

"You're angry? You're hurt" she asked with a scoff as her pupils dilated. "You are the one who left me!" she yelled at him. "You are the one who told me you'd never hurt me, who filled me full of hope and love. Who made me look forward to a future together then ended it the first time things got hard." As she yelled at him he started to grow weak and he tried to pull his shaking hand away, but she placed hers over it to keep him from moving it. It felt like she was sucking the energy out of him and he wasn't sure she even knew that she was doing it. "If you wanted me to be safe you should have stayed! You should have talked to me about your fears and concerns. But you took matters into your own hands! You, just like every other man in my life before you, decided what was best for me without even asking me. So please tell me why in the hell you think you're the one who gets to be angry!"

"Katie you need to calm down." He told her looking down at his hand that he couldn't take off of her now. "Turn your humanity back on so we can have a rational discussion."

"No." she told him with flared nostrils and blood filled eyes. "I'm never turning it back on."

"Please, my love, think about what you're doing to yourself." He begged.

"I said no!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, sucking the last bit of energy from Elijah making them both pass out.

Elijah woke up in his bed at Klaus's house feeling weak and extremely hungry. Then he remembered that he and Katie had passed out in her holding bedroom. Someone had moved him. With a whoosh he went downstairs to Katie's room and the guard let him in. He found Katie lying in bed with her hands folded over her stomach. Klaus was let into the room and Elijah didn't look up from her as he asked, "How long have we been out?"

"Almost a day and a half." Klaus answered as he walked over to the other side of the bed.

"Explains why I'm so parched." Elijah said and Klaus held up a glass of blood. Elijah took it and took a drink as he walked over to look down at Katie. "Any movement from her?"

"Other than breathing, no." Klaus answered then watched Elijah wave the glass of blood under her nose. "Tried that." Elijah dipped his finger in the blood and Klaus knew he was going to put it in her mouth or smear it on her lips. "Tried that too."

"Why didn't she wake up when I did?" he was thinking out loud more than asking Klaus.

"Not a clue, but then again all I know is I woke up to her yelling at you and by the time I got down here the two of you were passed out." Klaus said with a look up at Elijah. "Care to fill me in?"

Elijah told him what happened causing yet another fight to occur.

"She should be awake by now." Elijah said as he paced the floor of her holding room. "Mother warned us that dying and coming back would eventually destroy her soul and I stupidly poured my rage into it. I can not feel her essence anymore. What if I single handedly destroyed her soul?"

"We will not know until she wakes up, will we?" Klaus asked with a harsh impatience, angry at Elijah for doing what he did.

"WAKE UP!" Klaus yelled, his hands on Katie's shoulders as he leaned over her, tears of worry on his face.

"Get off of her Niklaus!" Elijah whooshed into the room and shoved him away from her.

"You did this to her!" Klaus shouted with a point at his brother. "Would it have killed you to just leave her alone for once?" he asked pacing back and forth at the foot of her bed. "Look at her." he stopped and pointed at her. Elijah looked down at her to see her purple fingertips and toes. The dark circles of starvation under her eyes. "She is not only stuck in a coma, but desiccating because of you."

"Keep an eye on her, I need some air." Elijah told him then walked away.

*~That night~*

Klaus moved Katie to her room upstairs and was sitting by her on the bed with his back to the door when Elijah walked over and looked down at her, tapping his fingertips on the white post of the headboard taking in her degenerating state. The purple-grey of her desiccation had reached her elbows and knees. The blood bag that was connected to her arm was doing nothing to help her.

"Bonnie came while you were off doing who knows what." Klaus spoke up. "Katie's not just desiccating from lack of blood intake. You overpowered her soul and shattered her. If her soul ceases to exist, so does she." He looked up at Elijah with angry eyes. "You all but signed her death certificate."

Elijah's wide brown eyes watered and hands shook as he kneeled down, placing his head on the mattress. His hand slid over her cold, motionless one and held it as he let his tears soak the plush comforter.

Damon knocked on the frame of the open door making Elijah and Klaus look up to see him along with Caroline, Bonnie, Elena, and Stefan. "I don't know if either of you know this, but today is her birthday." Damon told them as he walked over to the side of the bed where Klaus was sitting and pulled the necklace he had given her out of his pocket. "May I?" Klaus stood up and moved out of Damon's way, but didn't let go of her hand. Damon put her necklace on her then walked over to the foot of the bed where her group of friends was standing.

Caroline opened her hand showing Bonnie and Elena the star charm bracelet she had found in Katie's bedroom at her house. "You do it." Bonnie told her, a tear slipping out of her red eyes. "You were closest to her in the end."

Elena didn't say anything considering she didn't care. She had flipped her humanity off and was only there because Damon and Stefan were forcing her to be, hoping that what was happening to Katie would make her feel something.

Caroline walked over to Klaus's side of the bed and he held Katie's hand and arm while Caroline fastened the bracelet around her purple-gey wrist.

Before she turned from him, Caroline rubbed his shoulder and looked at his red tearstained eyes then mouthed, "I'm sorry." She was the only one who really understood why he even cared that Katie was dying.

When she rejoined her group of friends they all looked at Stefan. "I've never bought her anything." He said with wide eyes realizing he didn't have anything to give her.

Damon rolled his eyes and pulled a rolled up picture out of his back pocket. "Got you covered baby bro."

Stefan unfolded the picture to see that it was the one he'd had framed for her. "I don't get it." Elena said with confusion.

"The mystery gift was from you." Caroline spoke up remembering the unmarked gift from Katie's last birthday party. Stefan leaned forward and set the picture on Katie's stomach.

Taking in the things that her friends had given her Klaus whooshed down stairs grabbed a picture off the table in his studio and whooshed back to the room. As he walked in he went to the vanity, grabbed the teal jewelry box and held it out to Elijah who took it and popped it open to see the necklace he had given her. He'd assumed that after what he'd put her through that she threw it away. Instead of putting it around her neck with Damon's necklace, he wrapped the chain around her wrist then fastened it.

Klaus walked around the bed and sat the picture he'd drawn of her in her ball gown on her chest. After a few minutes everyone started to clear out, but Katie shot straight up in bed taking in a deep breath and they all looked at her in shock as she panted out, "What the hell happened?"