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Bornkiller9: Thank you, and you'll be getting some more of that in the up coming chapters I promise!

Sorry this one's so short. Think of it as an epilogue to all the chapters from episode 3, if that helps.

But if you're looking for something more to read today, I'd like to give a shout out to the story 'Royals of New York' by 'VintageLilac'. I noticed it a few weeks ago and have been dipping in and out of it and having a lot of fun. It's a Caroline/Klaus story, but there's plenty of other ships in there to enjoy. It's not something I'd normally read since it's light on the supernatural, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it, so if it sounds like your kind of thing then please give it a read and give the author some love!

Chapter 30: A Joint Venture

Twenty-four hours. Just twenty-four hours ago everything had been going her way. She'd been sitting in this very booth with Sarah, she'd called Damon, lured him in to kidnap Stefan, and she'd been ready to whisk Sarah off to somewhere far away once she got her leverage against Klaus. Now, she had had nothing.

She'd lost Sarah to the Originals, who'd likely given her back her memories of the 1920s. After her call with Damon, she'd confirmed he and Elena had failed to kidnap Stefan, and she herself had only managed to escape the warehouse with her life. It was something she valued very much, but it wouldn't give her anything to stop the Originals coming after her.

Grumbling to herself, Katherine snatched up a menu and began perusing. But while he eyes skimmed over the items on the laminated page, her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking back to the 1920s, when she'd been popping in to see what her favourite Salvatores were up to. It hadn't been until she arrived in Chicago that she found out about the Originals.

It had been a shock at the time, and part of her had thought it was a trap to lure her in. But she'd been careful, kept out of sight and observed them all. She never stepped near Gloria's, not to till after the raid, but that wasn't where her mind was now. Right now, she was thinking back on her time with Sarah, though the young vampire hadn't been aware of it.

Katherine had been smart enough not to reveal herself, which was a good thing seeing as Rebekah forced Sarah's humanity back on, something which Katherine would not have accounted for. Had she revealed herself to Sarah while her humanity was off, she surely would have told Stefan and the Originals after her humanity was switched on, if not before. And soon after, the connection would have been made and she would have lost the advantage of her presumed death. She did feel like she'd missed an opportunity though, after seeing the way Sarah was with Leiah. But she'd get her prize soon enough. Just like now, she had to be patient.

But Katherine was always one who liked to try and have her cake and eat it too. So while Sarah had been staying with the Originals, Katherine did one of the stupidest things she might ever have done. Each night, she snuck up to Sarah's bed room window and from there, entered her dreams. They had a lot of fun together, playing. The vervain made it challenging, but some night she caught her when she was weak and she kept the illusions going for hours. It had been the most daring thing she'd ever done for love.

It stopped though, after one night when Sarah almost caught her at the window. Katherine's heartbeat had been racing then, and she'd been petrified when Sarah returned to her room with Rebekah. But the Original merely helped her get back to sleep. After that night, Katherine never visited her dreams again. It had been a foolish risk for her heart. She was glad she'd done it, gotten more time with Sarah, but she couldn't risk it again. Not as things were then.

She'd left and returned many times during that year, checking in on both Sarah and Stefan. Not much changed for them in between visits, not that she noticed. Except for the developing relationship between her Sarah and the Original Leiah. Katherine had a hard time not thinking about that for that whole year. But then she'd heard about the ride and gone to investigate. Stefan had almost caught her then, but he was distracted. Katherine had later found out why, when she caught up with Sarah. From watching her, it became clear she'd had her memory erased, as had Stefan. She'd stayed in Chicago until both Salvatores left that same year, then went back to her life.

She'd been happy that Sarah had had that time with Leiah taken from her. That way, she could pretend it wasn't real either. But if she had those memories back, then it was real. She could no longer live in her fantasy land of being the only woman to ever bed Sarah, her Sarah.

It enraged her, always had done. Stefan's betrayal hurt too, but Sarah's stung the deepest. They were meant to be, Sarah knew this. Meaning she'd only been with Leiah to hurt her. And now that she remembered, Katherine vowed she would get her back for that betrayal. Because Katherine always got even and then some with those that wronged her. Even if she loved them.

Katherine was then snapped from her thoughts, by the sound of obnoxiously loud clicking heels. It was an odd sound to hear this early in the morning. After all, the only other customers in the place were the two deaf and blind early birds that Katherine had spotted when she entered. The only waiter on duty was the slim young boy from yesterday, who Katherine was fully planning on eating today.

Nevertheless, it wasn't a new sound to Katherine, so after being snapped form her thoughts by it, she paid it no more attention, as she actually began to read the menu. After all, her date wasn't here to order for her this time.

However, the heels proceeded to click their way towards her. She fully expected them to pass, but instead they stopped right by her table, before their owner slipped into her booth.

"If you want to live, get up and leave. Now," warned Katherine, without looking over the menu to see who it was.

"Now, is that anyway to speak to your best friend?"

Katherine perked up at the silk like voice, which held a high class upbringing and an air of superiority. She lowered the menu slowly, looking over it with grin at the woman sat opposite her. Similar in age, the woman opposite her was almost as attractive as she was, almost. Her brown eyes held the same cunning instinct and brains as Katherine's, but other than their eyes nothing was similar about them on the outside. Her skin was pale white, almost milky, and leaned – more than Katherine cared for – towards the vampire stereotypes seen in pop culture. Her lips were painted a smooth blood red, with one corner currently turned up in a lazy grin. And her natural wavy red hair was free as it always was, dribbling down both her shoulders.

"V," Katherine said, as she lay the menu down on the table between them.

V's grin grew, a manicured eyebrow that matched her hair colour rising. "What? Not happy to see me?"

Katherine gnawed on her lip. "You've caught me at a bad time."

"Well, I got your text," explained V, removing her phone from her jacket as to read from it. "'I lost Sarah. Got nothing on Klaus.'" After, V placed her red cased phone down on the table, then fixed her gaze on Katherine. It was a wide eyed look with a tight smile that Katherine knew well. "Care to explain how you screwed that up?"

"Not particularly," replied Katherine lowly, not caring to relive her most recent failure.

"I think you should," V replied in a level tone, as her hands came together on the table. "Because I would very much like to know, why, after I've been trailing those Originals and your boy toy for months, you finally get what you want – and get within in distance of something we can hold over Klaus – and then lose it in the space of, what? Three days?"

Katherine glared across at V, not appreciating the point by point on her disaster of a day. "Seems to me like you know all there is to know, why go into details?"

V stared at Katherine for a long moment, reading her. Then she pulled back, withdrawing her hands from the table. "Fine, don't tell me. I doubt it makes any difference to me anyway."

"It doesn't," Katherine assured her.

"And it's not like your last blackmail plan worked either," V muttered, to which Katherine shot her a scowl. "So, does this mean your done with the Salvatores then?" Her tone was doubtful, and with good reason.

Katherine shook her head. "No. I've still got a few plays in motion. I can still turn this around."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning, I can keep Klaus distracted long enough for us to get what we're after. If it works, he'll be too preoccupied to care about us and what we're up to."

"And what about your girl and the boy toy?"

Katherine shrugged nonchalantly. "They can look after themselves. That's not to say if the opportunity arises, I won't try and bring them with me of course."

"Of course," replied V dryly, with a subtle movement to her eyes that Katherine had come to recognise as an eye roll.

"That being said, if anyone can keep the Originals off my back, it's them," continued Katherine.

"Is that just going by the headache they gave you during that moonstone business?"

"They kept Klaus on his toes too, you know."

"With your help, and barely," corrected V.

Katherine took the compliment with a grin. "True, but they managed to save the doppelgänger."

"Which most likely mucked up his Hybrid plans."

"And he's still fixated on those as well," added Katherine as she leaned forward. "Trust me, I can make this work. By the time I'm done, I'll have Klaus spinning so many different plates he won't give us a second thought. And by the time he gets those under control, he won't care about us anymore."

"Unless he finds out what we're up to."

"He won't. No one has so far."

"Famous last words," V replied, with another near missable eye roll. It had been harder to spot this time, as she'd noticed the same waiter Katherine had been eyeing up, and was now tracking his movements around the dinner.

"Speaking of," Katherine began after a moment of silence, allowing time for V to size up her prey. "How is our joint venture coming along?"

"It isn't," V answered sharply, turning back to Katherine. "You've pulled me away from it to help with your Salvatore obsession."

"I take it from that, you have a lead then?" replied Katherine cooly, figuring her friend wouldn't be this irritated if she had nothing to go on. In fact, she'd probably be a lot more sour about the subject if she did have nothing.

"Yes. And if I'm done here I'll get back to it. Although, this whole thing would move a lot faster if you helped."

"I am helping, I'm keeping Klaus off our backs. Because if he finds out what we're up to, he'll make an example of us."

"Yes, yes, I know the risks. It's the rewards I'm interested in," stated V, her brown eyes lighting up.

Katherine grinned back, sharing her friend's passion. "Well, once I finish setting up the Salvatores, I'll join you." She looked down at the menu for a moment, pondering, then decided to be hopeful.

"How good a lead is it?" Katherine asked as she looked back up at V. The vampire's red lips slowly curled upward.

"It's good. Could take some time, and a lot of persuading. Our associate with the Travellers has already started working on that side of things. But we'll have to move slowly to keep it from getting noticed. Not just by Klaus, but anyone in the supernatural world. If even one vampire or witch looks too closely–"

"Then they'll figure it out," finished Katherine. "Sounds like the kind of thing you need a best friend for?"

V grinned back at her. "Well, without one, these things get terribly tedious."

The waiter then approached them, the young slim one. "What can I get you?" he opened with the same line as yesterday. He hadn't recognised Katherine yet, probably because Sarah hadn't tipped him that well – they'd been in a hurry. But Katherine was about to rectify that, and make sure that she and her friend, were never forgotten.

"Oh, we'll just have your wrists," Katherine compelled the waiter. "One each, please."

Obediently, the waiter held out his wrist towards each of the vampires. "Can I get you anything else?"

"No, this will be lovely, thank you," answered V. Then the whites of her eyes filled with blood as blackened veins appeared beneath her eyes. Katherine followed suit, as both hissed, exposing their fangs before they dug into their half of the waiter. And from there they drank, quickly and competitively, trying to take as much as they could before the source ran dry.

All too soon the waiter collapsed onto the table, but the two vampires kept drinking. After all, what was a more true sign of friendship, than murdering someone together?