A glass shattered against the wall behind Maddie's head.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't rip you into a thousand pieces and send you back to your friends!"

The rage in his eyes was unlike anything Maddie had ever seen before. On an ordinary day it would have made her hands shake with nerves but Maddie was already quivering for an altogether different reason. The same rage in Klaus' eyes was reflected in her own.

Maddie reached behind her and threw her backpack onto the floor between them, papers, notebooks, and her mother's grimoire spilling out of it.

"Oh, I can give you plenty of reasons."

XXXXXXXXX

18 Hours Earlier

"There you are."

Maddie glanced up from the stove and found Rebekah standing in the doorway. She offered a tired wave in greeting before focusing back on her breakfast.

"When I didn't find you in your room, I started to worry you had second thoughts about figuring this out." Rebekah wasn't intimidated by the younger girl's silence. She wandered into the room and leaned up against the counter. Her eyes were alert as she watched her Maddie, but her shoulders hung in a defeated slump. "How are you doing?"

"Fine." Maddie muttered as she flipped her pancake and added it to the small stack she had been working on. "Just hungry."

"Maddie." Rebekah shot her a look of disbelief. Yesterday had been one of the most emotionally taxing evenings Rebekah could remember and she had about sixty times the life experience compared to Maddie. 'Fine' didn't cover things like realizing you were alive a thousand years ago or realizing your friend murdered your mentor's family. To be honest, Rebekah was still waiting for that to come back and bite her. "You can talk to me, you know…"

"Same goes for you if you want to discuss your new plan to murder your brother." Maddie grouched. Rebekah glared at her and Maddie's frustration crumbled at the hurt she could see hiding behind the anger. "Low blow. Sorry."

The kitchen sank into silence.

Two pancakes later, Maddie grew tired of it and spoke up.

"I had a weird dream. Couldn't sleep much after that."

"A dream?" Rebekah prompted, eager to discuss anything other than Niklaus.

"You can eat, you know." Maddie pointed towards the pancake stack with the spatula. Rebekah clicked her tongue at the blatant distraction technique but nonetheless went to grab a plate for herself.

"Alright." She agreed curtly. Maddie heaved a sigh at the clipped tone, recognizing it from her many days with Caroline Forbes. It was a shame that those two hated one another so much, they had a lot in common.

"Don't start."

"I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, well, you 'said nothing' really loudly."

Maddie heard a chair scratch against the floor and then the clicking of cutlery. Rebekah ate while Maddie finished off the last of the instant pancake mix she had found. The relative silence let Maddie's mind start to wander. She thought about the caves, diverted to the drawings, from there it was just a hop skip and a jump to Ayana and then Rebekah… But not this Rebekah. The Rebekah she could see when she closed her eyes.

That Rebekah seemed younger, somehow. She smiled more than the Rebekah sitting in the Salvatore kitchen, and braided flowers in her hair. Sometimes, she would braid them into Maddie's curls after their trips to-

Maddie sucked in a breath and grasped the edge of the counter with both hands. A moment later, after she had let her mind wander away from thoughts of forests and rivers and Rebekahs from another time, she relaxed again.

"So," Maddie shouldn't have been surprised to find that Rebekah had abandoned her meal in favor of eyeing Maddie curiously. "Are we going to talk about this or just quietly eat pancakes?"

"I'd prefer not to have my head split in two this early." Maddie quipped, flipping off the stove and moving to gather a plate of pancakes for herself. Thankfully, Rebekah allowed her the chance to sit down with her breakfast before speaking again.

"Is that what it feels like?" Rebekah set a hand on Maddie's arm, her brows furrowed and concern settling into her features.

"Sometimes, yeah." Maddie sighed and started cutting up her pancakes. "I've gotten headaches since I was a kid. I always figured it was something normal or allergies but now I'm starting to wonder…" She trailed off and tapped her fork against her plate thoughtfully.

"I wouldn't call what happened last night a headache." Rebekah pointed out. "You threw me into a wall."

"You deserved it!" Maddie pointed her fork at Rebekah before taking a quick bite of her breakfast.

"Yes, yes, but still." Rebekah waved away the point. The last thing she needed was for this conversation to get caught up on Ayana again. She knew it would come up eventually but it was hardly something she was enthused to bring up. "You seemed to have done a number of those old doodles of yours as well." Rebekah paused as she considered the fact that anger issues weren't exactly rare within their family. "Did you make a habit of vandalizing your work or were these special?"

"Rebekah." Maddie's unimpressed stare answered the question for her.

"Maybe there's a reactive element to this, then." Rebekah suggested. "When you get close to one of the memories you can't access, you lash out at the thing that triggered the inquisition. It's a rather clever failsafe, actually. You can't push at the memory if you've already destroyed what made you think of it." Maddie's face started to fall as the difficulty of the situation started to settle in, but Rebekah was quick to intervene before she fell too far into dismay. "Luckily, I'm rather hard to get rid of."

Maddie could throw Rebekah into things, give her aneurisms, or even snap her neck, but she could neither kill an Original nor scare Rebekah away. Rebekah was damn near indestructible and one of the very things her memories were shielding against, so stands to reason that they had an advantage that Ayana hadn't anticipated… Which brought Rebekah back around to the issue at hand.

"Though, that brings up another question entirely. Why didn't you torch the Ayana drawing? Or the one of the caves or any of the others that you made of our old home?" Come to think of it, Maddie hadn't so much as flinched when she spoke of Ayana. She had cried over her death, she recalled the traitorous wench being her mentor, all things that Rebekah would have thought would cause her pain like the knowledge of when exactly she had known Ayana… So why hadn't it?

When Rebekah glanced up, she found herself being watched by a curious gaze. She tilted her head in return. Maddie just cleared her throat and moved on.

"It isn't like my life is a blank slate until I arrived here, or when I arrived now…" The witch crinkled her nose, momentarily puzzled about how best to describe her presence in this era, but inevitably waved away her concern and moved on. "She had to leave something or risk getting rid of things like verbal communication, basic motor skills, or an understanding on how to survive until I found whoever she intended to send me off with." Maddie pushed her plate away, suddenly less hungry than she had been minutes ago. "I don't remember much, but some things are clearer than others."

"What do you mean 'clearer'? You remember your life before?" Rebekah turned her chair to face Maddie, glad that they were finally abandoning the ruse that they were here for a healthy morning meal. "What kinds of things do you remember?" Perhaps if she could get an idea of how much Maddie knew she might find a loophole of some sort to jump through, or at least where best to start prodding at the spell.

"I mean," Maddie wrestled with a way to explain for a few moments before realizing she would just have to take a shot in the dark and hope Rebekah understood. "Not much. Feelings, mundane things, nothing important jumps to mind."

"Try harder." Rebekah could tell she had been a bit sharp in her eagerness and tried to rein herself in. She reached out and gave Maddie's hand a squeeze before adding. "Please." Maddie looked unconvinced that this was a good idea. "Anything you remember, Madelyn, just try and I'll see if I can nudge you in the right direction."

"Rebekah…"

"The moment the pain becomes too much again we'll stop. I don't want to break anything up there anymore than you do, but we won't be able to fix this if we don't test where the limits are." Maddie seemed to consider and after a moment returned the squeeze Rebekah was giving her hand and leaned back in her chair as she started grasping at the few straws she had to reach for.

"I remember a lot of fire." She glanced over at Rebekah and the woman gestured for Maddie to go on, so reluctantly she did. "Sometimes people would gather around it for warmth or light as a village for meals but without it, when the moon was covered or small, the world was so dark that it could swallow you up whole." Maddie's voice took up a distant quality, her eyes falling towards her lap as she let her mind wander to places she hadn't been in years. "My house was too small for me to have my own room, so I shared with… Someone…" Maddie reached for the name but some unknown force pushed her away from it and she didn't bother chasing after the information.

"Many someones." Rebekah made the correction softly, worried that if she spoke too loudly it might shatter Maddie's resolve or jar her out of the memory. Instead, the girl hummed her agreement and picked up the tale again.

"I had a lot of brothers." Rebekah's dead heart threatened to beat again in her chest. "We would have needed to share the space. I remember wishing I had my own room until night fell. Then, on those nights where you couldn't see past your nose in the darkness, I would be thankful that they were close so I could crawl into their sleeping bags," Maddie corrected herself before Rebekah got the chance. "No, of course not sleeping bags… They slept on furs. I couldn't tell you the name of who I would curl up with, but I remember the feel of the fur blankets against my skin and that he smelled like…" Maddie paused and took in a breath as if to remind herself of a scent that wasn't there. "Like pine trees and burnt sage."

"Kol." Rebekah breathed. "He never told me about that."

"Why would he?" Maddie replied, turning abrasive. It felt like she had laid out something personal for Rebekah to see and that vulnerability was unnerving. Preoccupied with the turning in her gut, Maddie didn't recognize the name for a few moments. "Wait, Kol? Kol Mikaelson?" His name had been on the cave wall but Maddie had known of him even before then. He had turned one of her friends. "I've heard he's a douche." Rebekah frowned at the term, and Maddie rushed to rephrase. "Right, you've been in a box since the twenties! I mean he has a reputation. He turned one of my friends a few hundred years ago. She said he was kind of a jerk."

"Ah," Rebekah's lips twisted up at the corners as she recalled her brother's antics. "Well, Kol had always been extravagant. Even when we were human." In other company she would have chosen a different descriptor, but it felt cheap to poison her sister's mind against a brother she had not yet reunited with. "Do you remember anything about him?"

"Kol?" Maddie asked, raising a brow. "No. I don't remember any of you." That wasn't entirely true, so reluctantly, she corrected herself. "I didn't remember any of you. You've started popping up."

"Popping up?" Rebekah repeated.

"Little flashes sometimes." The witch shrugged her shoulder as if it wasn't a big deal. "Sometimes I feel as if I know things I shouldn't… Last night… I had a dream. You seemed younger. We raced to the river downstream of the falls and..." Just as it had last night, a slightly dazed look appeared on the young witch's face as the fog overcame her memories as Maddie stepped too close to something she shouldn't know. "And…" She tried to grasp at the information that was rapidly slipping away. "I called you my-" Maddie choked on her words before she could speak them and Rebekah reached over to rub soothingly at the younger girl's arm as Maddie rubbed at her head.

"Easy," Rebekah cautioned, her eyes sad and full of longing. She was starting to piece together what Ayana had done. Some concepts seemed clear to Maddie once she found a thread to tug at, but the same topic kept bringing her to her knees. Family. Maddie was no fool, she had all the pieces she needed and something was simply keeping her from putting them together.

She knew that she was related to the Mikaelsons, she knew the name that had belonged to Rebekah's lost sister was the same name that Rebekah insisted on using with her, and the final nail in the coffin should have been the discovery that she had been alive at the turn of the millennium but still Maddie seemed unable or unwilling to connect the dots. There had to be something keeping her from the truth and Rebekah would bet that no good would come out of forcing the truth of Maddie's identity while the spell still held.

"What about other people, then?" Rebekah tried to pull conversation elsewhere and though Maddie didn't seem very comfortable, she was able to talk about half formed memories about time long past. That only served to cement Rebekah's theory. It seemed Maddie's mind was malleable in all but one place.

Conversation passed between them steadily from there. The girls spoke of friends from the village that Maddie could describe but not name. Rebekah told her about Elijah's fondness for swordplay and Maddie would recall waving sticks around with her friends to 'prepare them for a real blade'. Maddie would mention how clear the water had been and Rebekah would share a tale about how Klaus (though he was only ever referred to as 'your brother' to prevent Madelyn from more pain) first taught her to swim. In that way, Maddie would offer a seed that Rebekah would help nurture until it bloomed into a somewhat reliable memory. Neither realized quite how much time had passed until they were joined by an unexpected guest.

"Rebekah."

Maddie watched as the Original went ridged in her seat. The witch turned and found an older man standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He had spoken gently, but any notion Maddie had of a normal encounter fled from her mind the moment she set eyes on him.

There wasn't anything innately intimidating about the man. His suit was tidy and modern, his face firm but not frightening. Neither his size nor his frame seemed enough to warrant worry, but instinctually, Maddie understood that he was not to be trifled with. By the time Maddie's observations were finished, Rebekah had fallen into her usual snide expression, though there was something cold in her eyes that Maddie couldn't remember seeing before.

"Whatever fatherly rubbish you're thinking, save it." Rebekah said. "Nothing you say matters to me." Rebekah glanced towards Maddie and the young witch frowned in return before understanding washed over her face, followed swiftly by determination.

"You're Mikael?" Maddie turned in her chair and stood to face the newcomer. "I was under the impression you were still rotting in Charlotte." Perhaps, in this one instance, her lack of memories was a blessing rather than a curse. If the tingling on the back of her neck or Rebekah's initial discomfort was anything to go by Maddie doubted that she would have the nerve to speak so boldly to him had she herself remembered Mikael. Nevertheless, she succeeded in pulling the man's attention away from Rebekah.

"Yes, well, I was under the impression that my arrival was to be kept a secret." The sharpness of the man's tone was like nails against a chalkboard. Maddie crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to squirm under his unyielding stare. "So, who might you be, girl?"

"A friend of Rebekah's." Maddie answered curtly, resisting the urge to take a step back when Mikael paced into the kitchen. He paused at the counter for a moment, his hands clasped behind his back professionally, and took in the girl. He wondered if she was brave or just stupid to speak to him in such a way.

"Hmm." She was familiar, he realized. Mikael glanced towards his eldest surviving daughter and then back at this girl, noting the similarities in their features. It was curious indeed, but what caught his interest was the trinket hanging around the girl's neck. It was a bird, and a familiar one at that; carved from wood and accented with silver. "A starling." Maddie frowned at the statement, her posture slipping for a moment in surprise. "My wife was quite fond of those birds. In fact, she gave a trinket just like that one to some of our children." Mikael stepped forward and made to reach for it to get a closer look, but Maddie didn't give him the chance.

The witch reached back for her water glass and splashed it onto the floor between herself and the original. Rather than a puddle forming, fire sprung to life when the water touched the linoleum flooring. Rebekah hopped to her feet in surprise, but Mikael wasn't as shocked at the display. Rebekah always had attracted a rather dramatic brand of people.

"Don't." The witch warned, her earlier weariness coming back tenfold as she stared up at Mikael. The flames died down to a small simmer but Maddie willed them not to go out in case Mikael decided to come any closer again. She needn't worry about that. Mikael had seen enough to understand.

"Madelyn." He didn't speak her name with the same apologetic reverence he had addressed Rebekah with, but it was a touch softer than his usual tone. "I see you've finally woken."

"You know me?" Maddie's flames flickered and then went out as surprise washed over her.

"You don't seem surprised." Rebekah stepped forward, placing herself between her father and youngest sister. "You knew about this, didn't you?"

Mikael didn't bother denying the claim, he just stood there observing the girls with a weary eye.

"You've grown." Mikael nodded towards the floor that had so recently been burning and added, "I see you still take after your mother." His lips curled at the mention of Esther, his words harshening.

"My mother?" Maddie took a step closer to Mikael but Rebekah caught her arm and held her still. Maddie had stepped up for her when Mikael first appeared, but now it was Rebekah's turn to protect her sister. "Woken? What does that mean?"

Mikael had been a cruel father to all of his children, but he had a special distain for Madelyn and Niklaus. Being both older, a son, and, Rebekah now knew, a bastard, Klaus had taken most of the physical abuse but Mikael had not been fond of his youngest daughter's abnormally strong connection to magic and had made his displeasure known. With Kol it was easier for Mikael to forget. Kol was shifty and often out of sight doing chores or making mischief. Besides, Kol was a strapping young man. He would not be Mikael's responsibility for much longer once he inevitably knocked up one of the girls in the village and had to form his own household. Madelyn, however, was a girl and a much more obvious witch. Her chores were in the house right under Mikael's nose, her lessons with Ayana were nearly every day and then Esther often taught the girl little tricks or helped her to read new runes and spells in the evenings. All of what Maddie was to the family was a witch and witches brought along more trouble than they ever would suitors. It was part of the reason Mikael never allowed Rebekah to start lessons from Ayana. Rebekah suspected that perhaps there was something else to his resentment of the youngest Mikaelson child, perhaps she reminded him of Freya, the firstborn that had died of plague before any of them were born. Regardless, Rebekah wasn't about to risk letting Mikael come near Maddie now that she had the power to stop him.

"Maddie, go home and get your things for tonight." Rebekah instructed curtly. She kept her gaze fixed on Mikael, but she didn't need to see her sister to know she wouldn't be pleased. "I don't feel like getting thrown into another wall if he says something you aren't supposed to know." Well, in all likelihood, it would probably be Mikael himself that Maddie would lash out at, but Rebekah needed her sister to leave and this seemed like a more compelling argument.

Maddie wasn't pleased, but she wasn't particularly eager to test the boundaries of whatever spell had been placed on her. Rebekah took the silence as agreement and slowly removed her hand from the girl's arm.

"Mikael and I will have a chat and when you return, I will inform you of what I can."

XXXXXXXXX

Maddie was ducking out of the house, her sketchbooks and yesterday's clothing in hand, when the others finally called Klaus. She had gotten a glimpse of Mikael desiccated and daggered on the floor and couldn't help but think that she preferred him that way. Even with Mikael gone, Maddie still felt distinctly unwelcome in this particular conversation. The Salvatore boys had a plan and frankly Maddie didn't want to risk messing it up… Though, the longer she thought about it the more she realized they might need a bit of muscle on their side. After last night Maddie would love the opportunity to let off some steam, besides her magic would be more help than a vampire a quarter of Klaus' age like the Salvatores.

When she returned, dress tossed over one shoulder and backpack full of grimoires tossed over the other, Maddie made her way upstairs and followed the sound of male voices into one of the bedrooms. Stefan shoulder checked her in the doorway as they passed one another.

"I see he's still sunshine-y as ever in the face of Klaus-ageddon." The witch grumbled, dropping her dress onto Damon's bed. She made her way into the bathroom and eyed the greenish water mixture brewing in Damon's sink. "What's with the cucumber water?"

"It's wolfsbane." Damon corrected, shooting an unimpressed look her way. Maddie crinkled her nose in response and didn't come any closer.

"And you're going to do what exactly with that?" Maddie inquired, crossing her arms over her chest. "Shoot it at Klaus with a spray bottle like he's a stray cat on your porch?"

"What do you want, Donovan?"

"To help." That got Elena's attention. "Or at least offer my help." The doppelganger huffed and turned back to securing bottles.

"So, now helping me is worth your time?" Elena snipped.

Maddie's arms fell to her side and she tried not to look as annoyed as she felt.

"Of course, it's worth my time, Elena." The witch took a few cautious steps closer and leaned against the counter beside her childhood friend. "You can't still be upset about me not jumping on board to help your boyfriend kidnapping scheme."

"I'm sorry," Elena couldn't keep up the uninterested façade she had put on and set down the grenade she had been fiddling with to face Maddie. Her apology was about as sarcastic as one might expect from someone so high strung. "It seems like a reasonable question to ask these days."

"That's just mean. I like it." Damon chimed in, finally deciding to contribute to the conversation. "I hate to say it," the drawl in his voice and general disinterest in his face said otherwise, "but she's got a point. How do we know you won't make a fingerpainting and realize Klaus is another long-lost pal of yours?"

Maddie turned a scowl on Damon before addressing Elena. She hadn't exactly had time to consider whether or not Elena would tell anyone about what had happened yesterday. She would have expected Bonnie or maybe Caroline to know, but it stung to hear that Elena had thrown her private information to the Salvatore's the first chance she got. Hell, she had been in the same house as Elena most of the morning and not once had the girl come to ask how she was doing after yesterday.

"Seriously, Elena? You told him?" The brunette fidgeted but held her friend's gaze. "You going to share stories about my bra size and first kiss next?"

"Well, if you're offering…" Damon started. Elena won back a small portion of respect when she smacked Damon's side to shut him up, but that quickly faded when she opened her own mouth.

"They needed to know. If you're colluding with them-"

"If I was- are you kidding me?" Maddie knew she was raising her voice, but she couldn't find it in her to care. "Elena, there is no 'them'! Rebekah is helping you and I don't know Klaus! Even if I knew him once upon a time, I can't remember it, it was literally a thousand years ago, and I was six!"

Damon wasn't usually the type to play peacekeeper, but he could tell that this conversation wasn't going to end well if he left the girls to their own devices. He knew something strange was going on with the Donovan witch, though he wasn't so sure it was as menacing as Elena made it out to be. If he knew her a bit better he might be more willing to give her a chance, but right now Damon wasn't willing to place the most important fight of his life on the back of a stranger with questionable ties to the enemy. Instead, he was going to take Maddie up on her offer and add one more strange bedfellow to his already odd group in 'plan A' and keep the backup plan in motion on the side where Maddie was none the wiser.

"Alright, alright, point taken." The vampire toweled off his hands and put down the wolfsbane. "You might be old as dirt, but so are two of our other allies right now." Damon pointed towards the bag Maddie was still shrugging around. "You got anything in there that can help stop an Original Hybrid? I heard you slowed him down last time he came to town."

"Depends on how much time I have." With some effort, Maddie pulled her glare off of Elena and turned to address Damon. At least someone was being reasonable here.

"Give or take seven hours."

"Tonight?" Maddie exclaimed. "The dance?" Damon hummed in agreement and Elena nodded. "Last time Klaus was here I had a spell going that strengthened me."

"Good. Do it again." Damon demanded, only to be shot down.

"Not that simple."

"Well, why not? Just go throw some herbs in a fire and chant again."

"I'd love to, but I can't." Maddie shrugged, still pointedly only addressing Damon and not Elena as she explained. "It was a side effect of the spell I was doing to help with the Ghost situation. I needed to talk to dead people so I figured out a way to make my spells seem a little more dead to make it easier." Damon caught on quickly enough.

"Like a magic vampire?" He asked. Dead thing that made her stronger as a side effect? Vampires seemed the only real answer. "Is that even allowed?"

"No, of course not. Do I look undead to you, Damon?" Maddie gestured to herself as she stated the obvious. "My spells can just be a bit more hands on than Bonnie's traditional magic." Maddie could tell that the vampire was teetering between interested and dropping the subject so she cut to the chase. "Basically, I used vampire blood, a supernatural creature that is technically dead, to improve a spell to contact the dead."

"You're doing a different kind of magic… I didn't realize there was more than one. Isn't it all just a dark and light kind of thing?" Elena sounded puzzled but at least she wasn't being hostile anymore.

"There are plenty of different kinds of magic. Spirit magics, like Traditional and Ancestral magic are most common and they're fairly safe, but they're not the only way." Maddie didn't particularly want to talk to Elena, but she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to explain the craft. As often as Elena seemed to call on her witch friends to help with supernatural issues it might be better for Bonnie in the long run if Maddie gave her a quick lesson before Elena started to think that these things came easily to witches. "The stronger the magic, generally, the worse a toll it takes the body of the witch casting it. That's why people don't normally stray from the usual paths. Plus, the witch spirits get nervous about new things, and not for no reason. I've had to take a lot of precautions and all of those summoning spells reminded me why I need to be more careful about my experiments. That's why I couldn't tell Bonnie. She'd hurt herself experimenting like this."

"Cut to the chase." Damon insisted, growing tired of the witch 101 lesson.

"The point is, using vampire blood in a spell to communicate with the dead worked. Do it once or twice and I'm fine, but I was trying to contact Vicki and Anna for days." Silently, she added her own ghostly visitor to the list as well. "Vampires are strong and fast, and by the time Klaus came to town my magic was stronger too."

"Seems like a pretty good side effect to me. Still not seeing the problem."

"Yeah, well, it bit me in the ass." Maddie assured him. "I woke up the next day and the sun felt a thousand times brighter, I was starving all day no matter how much I ate, and I got into multiple fights with my friends. Sound familiar?" Weakness to the sun, overwhelming hunger, and heightened emotions. Maddie hadn't gone near any vervain but she bet that it wouldn't have been an altogether pleasant experience. "I didn't grow fangs or try to bite anyone but I don't really like the idea of testing out what would happen if I do any more spells with vampire blood right now." She had gone home and found a quick fix to reverse the effects after school, but Maddie didn't feel like taking the risk that it would work again.

"Well, isn't that horribly convenient for your new Original friends," Damon drawled as he came to terms with the fact that a super witch would be unavailable. "Then what help are you?"

"If anyone had bothered to tell me you guys planned on trying to murder an un-murderable Original Hybrid during homecoming, I might have made a different call with those spells, Damon! I'm not psychic." Maddie argued dryly, to which, Damon made a face and conceded she had a point. "Look, I get it if you don't want to tell me the plan, but even without my kind of magic, I can still cast some impressive spells. All I need to know is if you want me to play defense or offence." Damon looked surprised at her lax attitude about being kept out of the loop. Maybe he would work better with the new girl than he thought.

"How do you feel about setting a hybrid trap?" He inquired, raising a brow at the brow at the witch.

"For Klaus?" She paused for a moment before nodding. "If you can get him into a room then I can keep him there for a little while. Where are you thinking?" Maddie thought she caught a hint of a smile twisting Damon's lips before he agreed.

"The library work?"

"Yep. I'll get started on that. I assume you have salt in your kitchen?"

Damon nodded and even Elena had no objections, so Maddie nodded and made to leave, snatching her dress along the way.

She was tempted to end the conversation at that, she had gotten what she wanted and Damon seemed to be going back to his wolfbane bombs, but something stopped her at the doorway.

"Elena?" The witch called back, already regretting her attempt to be the better woman. "Lets… Talk tomorrow or when this is all over or… Something." She waited just long enough to see Elena hesitantly nod before fleeing the room and heading downstairs. Trapping an evil Hybrid was so much easier to handle than friendship drama.

XXXXXXXXX

Elena wasn't as bad as Rebekah had expected.

Maybe it was the looming death of her brother weighing on her or what she had learned from her father about Madelyn but she hadn't immediately shooed Elena away when she appeared in the doorway. She still didn't like Elena. It felt contrary to some sort of unwritten rule for Rebekah to like her ex's new girlfriend. That being said, she still appreciated the company.

Somehow, it was easier to talk about Klaus' death with Elena than Maddie. Maddie might not remember Klaus, but he was still her brother and it felt wrong to mourn or worry in front of her sister when Maddie couldn't join her. Part of Rebekah feared that it might hurt too much if she saw Maddie delight in Klaus' demise. Part of her knew that if she thought about it for too long, Rebekah would remember that she was taking Maddie and Klaus away from one another before they could truly meet again.

No. No more of this. She couldn't take it.

"How do I look?" Rebekah asked, turning to stare at herself in the mirror. Distractions were easy to come by when one was getting ready for a dance. There was the make-up to put on, the hair to fix, the dress to fit into, the shoes to get used to, and probably a long list of things that Rebekah had yet to remember. She wanted everything to be perfect. Maybe then she would be able to forget that at any moment her brother might be dying.

"You look amazing." Rebekah smiled tightly at Elena's compliment. She did look amazing, didn't she? That should make her feel better than it did. The doppelganger walked closer and Rebekah swallowed the sadness creeping up in her throat. "But you're missing one thing."

Rebekah turned, saw what Elena had dangling from her hand and felt a wave of… Something. She wasn't sure how to place it. It was a reminder of the mother that had been taken from her, but, now, that also made it a reminder of Klaus and what he had done. It was bittersweet, to say the least, but that didn't make Rebekah any less grateful to see it again.

"My mother's necklace." Perhaps she could like her ex's new girlfriend, after all. Rebekah had never been fond of rules before, why start now?

"You should wear it tonight." Elena sounded so sure. "May I?" Rebekah turned quickly back to the mirror and nodded tightly. She pulled her hair out of the way and ignored the pressure building behind her eyes as the familiar weight settled around her neck. It was a thousand years of familiarity but it also felt like the last nail of her brother's coffin settling into place. She loved it. She hated it. She needed it.

"Thank you."

Then there was pain.

You would expect getting stabbed to feel hot, the fire of nerves rippling, of pulling skin and muscle apart, but that came later. The dagger was cold as death against her skin, and once it froze her undead heart the burn of her veins crying out for blood began.

Rebekah felt the desiccation slither up her shoulder and a scream cut the air, but it wasn't hers.

"No!"

Rebekah saw Maddie in the mirror, her arm outstretched towards them.

The burning stopped. The ice slid out of her heart. Elena struggle to keep the tip of the dagger in place.

Then Damon appeared in the doorway and Rebekah watched him shove her baby sister's head against the doorframe.

Maddie fell, the cold of the dagger slid back into place, and as Rebekah hit the floor the last thing her senses could make out was the heavy smell of Maddie's blood.

XXXXXXXXX

"Hey."

Everything hurt.

"Hey."

Her head especially.

"Hey."

There was a coppery taste in her mouth…

"Wake up."

… And was someone touching her?

Maddie pulled her eyes opened and lifted her hands to throw her attacker away- or at least she tried. The zip ties securing her wrists behind her back meant she nearly pulled her shoulder out of its socket instead of doing any magic.

"Woah! Woah!" The hand jerked away. "Chill, I'm the rescue team!" Maddie turned her head and saw a young woman crouching beside her. The witch tugged uselessly at her bindings and tried to kick out but found her feet similarly restrained.

"The rescue team?" Maddie repeated doubtfully, cranking her head to look around. She didn't recognize this place. "Where the hell am I?" Last she remembered, she was going upstairs to help Rebekah into her dress and then… Right. "Rebekah! Where's Rebekah?" There wasn't anyone here but the stranger crouching in front of her. Rebekah was nowhere to be found.

"I was kind of hoping you'd tell me that." The girl admitted, sitting back on her heels and lowering her hands from the 'surrender' position that she lifted them into. Maddie saw the blood staining her wrist and put two and two together. It wasn't much reassurance, but she reasoned that if the woman wanted her dead, she wouldn't have bothered healing her. "Actually, I was hoping you were Rebekah. Klaus sent me to find her, but since you didn't snap those zip ties in half the second I woke you up I'm guessing you aren't an Original vampire…"

"Klaus sent you?" Maddie repeated. "Klaus should be dead."

The stranger laughed, her dark eyes crinkling with amusement.

"Klaus isn't dead. He's the Original Hybrid." She shrugged her shoulders and settled her arms atop her knees. "You can't kill him. Which brings me back around to my original question of who 'you' are exactly?"

"With that attitude, I take it you're one of his hybrids." Maddie grumbled, wringing her hands back and forth behind her. This conversation would be a lot less unnerving if she wasn't still tied up on the ground… Then again, she probably wouldn't still be having a conversation. She would have blasted this girl into the wall and been on her way to either find Rebekah or go help her murder Elena by now, depending on her mood.

"With that accent I'm guessing you're the sister witch." The hybrid didn't seem put off by Maddie's grouching, in fact she didn't seem to notice it at all. "Awesome. Klaus mentioned you." She hummed to herself and tilted her head to the side, her wavy brown hair falling over one shoulder. "I guess one of you is better than neither of you." The hybrid shuffled closer and reached out towards Maddie, but the witch scrambled to scoot herself backwards and maintain distance.

"Don't touch me!" Maddie snapped. To her surprise, the Hybrid listened, retreating back to the hands up position she had taken on earlier.

"I was just going to cut the zip ties!" The woman exclaimed. "Are all witches this jumpy?" Rather than answer, Maddie just glared. "Fine!" She slowly lowered her hands and moved to sit cross-legged on the floor. "I can sit here all night, let me know when you get tired of being hog tied."

"Who are you? Why do you care about me if your hybrid master sent you to get Rebekah? How did Klaus even know we were here?" None of this made sense. One minute Maddie was preparing a spell to trap Klaus in the library, the next she walked in on Elena trying to dagger Rebekah, and now she was stuck in a basement somewhere with an unknown hybrid. Klaus was apparently still alive, Rebekah was missing, God knows what happened to Mikael or who knew Maddie was stuck down here.

None of this would be happening if Elena had just used her head. Maddie couldn't understand what the hell she had been thinking! Rebekah was on their side, and for that matter, so was Maddie, yet both of them had ended up getting stabbed in the back in one way or another. If Elena had just stuck to the plan Klaus would be dead. If Elena had stuck with the plan, Maddie wouldn't be questioning a decade of friendship.

"I'm Tess." The hybrid pulled Maddie out of her thoughts before they could spiral any further towards rage. "Klaus sent me when he realized something was up at homecoming…"

XXXXXXXXX

"Seems the homecoming queen still walk among the living, which leads me to believe Rebekah isn't here. Where is she?"

Tess had never really bought into Klaus paranoia. She might not know much about vampires, but she knew that Originals couldn't be killed, plus Klaus had a army at his back that wouldn't let anyone hurt him. By the time the party was in full swing, however, even she had to agree that something weird was going on. Klaus had instructed Tess and a few others to stay close in case he needed them, so she lingered nearby and, with a little help from her newly acquired vamp hearing, listened in on his conversation with Stefan Salvatore.

"No idea. I thought she was coming."

"Oh, be honest now Stefan." Klaus' voice turned condescending. "One missing relative I could ignore, but I see young Madelyn is similarly nowhere to be found. Where are my girls?"

"I said…" Stefan drawled, "I have no idea. Now would you like me to take you to your father?" That got the first smile out of Klaus.

"Well, it wouldn't be a party without the guest of honor, would it?" Klaus nodded and then commanded. "Bring him to me."

The boys talked for a few more minutes before Stefan sulked away and Klaus called on his Hybrid for assistance.

"Teresa, be a dear and go find my lost relations." Klaus drawled, already having seen the girl watching them from the crowd. "Go mingle with the locals, show them some of that southern charm and see what you can dig up about Rebekah and the little witch. Tyler will help."

Tess had done as she was told. Tyler pointed out Bonnie and Elena before scurrying off to ask his vampire girlfriend what she knew. Tess mixed and mingled, but neither of the girls were much help so she retreated into the crowd to observe. You could imagine her surprise when she saw Elena slide away from the rest of the part… In a blur. Naturally, Tess followed.

Superspeed was awesome, but Tess was still getting the hang of stealth. If she had known more about Katherine, perhaps Tess would have been more careful. A few minutes into the chase, her target disappeared. Tess stopped and looked around, stretching her wolf senses to try and scent the missing vampire.

She certainly found Katherine, but it didn't work out the way she had intended.

Katherine appeared in front of her and threw Tess into a tree, pinning her in place with an arm on her throat.

"You really think I wouldn't notice a tail that sloppy?" The sneer on Katherine's face was somehow pitying and encouraging all at the same time. Like a spiteful teacher. "Nice try though. Say bye-bye, wolfie." Katherine pulled her arm back, ready to thrust it into Tess' chest and kill her for the second time in as many weeks, but Tess rushed to speak first. She didn't like the thought of dying.

"I'm just looking for the missing sisters!" The Hybrid's words were choked and gravely under the weight of Katherine's arm on her neck. It was enough to give the vampire pause and Tess ran with it. She didn't realize that she had made an assumption about the girls she was sent to find. She knew Rebekah was Klaus' sister and assumed the same of the other girl when she found they were related. "I don't want to fight you!"

"The sisters? Plural?" Katherine repeated. The curious tilt of the other woman's head and the thoughtfulness in her voice made Tess realize she had just said something she shouldn't have. Katherine read the hesitation as a threat of denial and shoved her hand into the other girl's chest. Each finger wrapped painfully around Tess' heart and the hybrid choked on her own fear. "You were saying?"

"Klaus- Klaus sent me to find Rebekah and the witch." Tess stuttered, her hands clawing at Katherine's arm. "They weren't at the dance-"

"Huh."

Just as quickly as it had entered her chest, Katherine's hand disappeared. Tess sagged against the tree in relief, both hands pressed against her chest to reassure herself that nothing was missing as her body started to stitch itself back together.

Meanwhile, Katherine was calculating her next move. After five hundred years running from Klaus and months living with the Originals as a human, Katherine had learned quite a few family secrets… And family tragedies. Most of what she knew were rumors, or so she had assumed, but what if there had been more truth to them than she'd initially thought? This… This could be good.

"I knew she looked familiar." Katherine had seen the little blonde bleeding in Damon's basement earlier that evening. Damon had avoided discussing it and Elena had nearly flinched at the mention of her, but Katherine had assumed it was some internal drama that she did care to dig into when Klaus' death was looming. Now that she had something to go off of, she realized the kid had a striking resemblance to her least favorite Original. Elijah had once told her about the tragic loss of his little siblings, the brother was killed by beasts but the sister… Well, he never told Katherine what became of her. Now a blonde witch with the family jawline turns up hog tied in the Salvatore basement the night Klaus is supposed to die? Well, suffice to say that Katherine wasn't one to ignore a good scheme when it fell right into her lap. "I don't know where the Barbie is, but you'll find one of them in the basement of a house due west. When you wake up, remember to tell her who helped you."

"Wake up?" Tess hardly got a chance to finish her question before her neck snapped. She would be out long enough for the plan to play out without interference from the witch she was running to save.

Katherine was going to do everything in her power to see Klaus die tonight, but if Damon was allowed to have a backup plan, why couldn't she?

XXXXXXXXX

"The crazy bitch told me where you were and now here I am."

Tess finished her story with a sardonic smile. She couldn't help but rub her neck unconsciously as she recalled the odd angle it had been twisted into. "I was kind of hoping you would be Original, that way if that vampire bitch comes back I'd have some backup."

Maddie wasn't quite sure what to make of the hybrid or her story, but one thing it had done was remind her how she ended up here. Tess might not be an ally, but since Maddie's friends weren't what they seemed maybe neither were her enemies.

"Get me out of here." Maddie muttered as her resolve hardened. She knew what she had to do. "Take me to Klaus."

If Elena wanted an enemy, then she had one.

XXXXXXXXX

Present time

"You would so easily turn on the very people you swore to protect last time we met?" Klaus had moved them into his drawing room, but the sketchbook he held was not his own. The pictures he thumbed through were good, but it wasn't the art he was admiring. It was the familiarity of the images. He had drawn the same field of horses dozens of times over the years. He recognized faces as his neighbors and landscapes as his first home. His human home.

"They did this to themselves." Maddie snipped from her spot behind his chair, overlooking the same pictures she had shown to Rebekah. Her face was furious, but years of experience told Klaus that hurt hid behind it. Betrayal was a painful thing to endure and anger was a much simpler emotion than sadness. "They turned on Rebekah and I first. Now they have Rebekah, and Rebekah was helping me figure this out."

"And thus, an unlikely partnership was born." Klaus finished for her, closing the sketchbook with a dramatic snap. "It seems the Salvatores have taken something precious from both of us." His eyes trailed down the witch's neck to the wooden bird that hung there. A bird he had carved with his own hand a thousand years ago.

"So," Maddie walked around the chair to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. Her hair was still caked in dry blood and her clothing covered in dirt. Klaus couldn't help but think the resemblance to his siblings was easier to see when she was such a savage sight to behold. "Here's the deal. I help you get your coffins back, find Rebekah, and in the mean time you help me figure out why I ended up in the wrong century."

"Then I awaken Rebekah and she once again takes up the task of helping you remember the life you once led." Klaus agreed, finding the terms more than favorable. He was losing nothing and in return gaining everything. Even so, he pretended to think the deal over just to see Maddie squirm.

Eventually, Klaus smiled and stood, offering his hand. Maddie didn't hesitate to take it, sealing the deal.

"Go find a bedroom and clean yourself up, sweetheart. I prefer my spies to be properly watered and rested for the war to come." Klaus gestured towards the hallway. Maddie would be safer under his roof for the time being. It wouldn't do either of them any good for her to get snatched up by the Salvatores on her way home.

The witch swayed on her feet for a moment, wrestling with her options before she nodded and turned to leave. She paused in the doorway and glanced over her shoulder at Klaus, offering some parting words as he poured himself a glass of wine.

"Just for the record, Klaus? I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for Rebekah and for me. The moment she's back we're done."

Rather than be offended and the fickle loyalty Maddie displayed, Klaus grinned and lifted his glass for cheers.

"I'll drink to that," the witch huffed and left the room, shaking her head at the hybrid's antics. As he watched Maddie walk away Klaus took a long sip of his wine and muttered to himself, "Welcome home, little sister."

XXXXXXXXX

Hello again! Thank you for being patient as I took a week off! I'm back at it again per usual and I hope you like the new chapter. We got some explanation and a strange new partnership this week. Let me know what you thought! I tried some new things this chapter, so let me know if you liked them! Constructive criticism is always appreciated!

Reviews::

Call . Me . Random – I'm sorry. This chapter took out Rebekah and didn't give you many answers about Maddie! I hope you still liked it though! Elena was still annoying in a whole new way, Matt didn't appear much but that's okay, we'll get more of him soon.

BlondeAli – Sorry for the wait but I hope you still enjoyed the chapter!

I love Kol Mikaelson – Ah, I see. Well, in the show, at least to my understanding, there are specific types of magic and dark magic is one of them. I understood it to be a title for a specific type of magic rather than a description of any magic that brings about negative consequences. I'm glad you liked the Rebekah and Maddie moment and thank you for the compliment!

Thanks to the Originals101, Mousey Kimmy, Smilin steph, marystirling, and littlemissy3982 for reviewing!