Rebekah had taken Elijah out of the house for the best part of the day, for what none of them were sure, but it left Theo with Elena, Klaus and Kol for most of the morning and the afternoon. It also meant that Elena had a chance to interrogate Klaus without too many ears listening in. She'd felt a bit different in the day and a half since Damon had kidnapped her, and while she couldn't out her finger on why, she was sure it must have something to do with what Klaus knew. He'd been edging around any sort of conversation about it since Elijah had been out of the house and, as the day wore on, Elena only found herself getting more annoyed.

"What do you know, Klaus?" Elena snapped, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at him as she stood across from him at the island in the kitchen, glad Kol had decided to put Theo down for her. "It's obviously more than I do, so I don't understand why you won't just tell me!"

"Have you not figured it out yet, love?"

"Clearly not." Elena ground out, dropping her arms from her chest and leaning on the kitchen counter. "So tell me what you know." She glared at him, surprised when he suddenly straightened up, appearing to take her seriously.

Kol appeared in the kitchen a moment later, Theodore bundled in his arms, he regarded Elena with a strange look before turning to Klaus. Some sort of message passed between the two before Kol disappeared again, Elena could faintly hear him talking to someone.

"Elena, love, just try and calm down."

"I'm perfectly calm, Klaus!" Elena hissed, not understanding why he and Kol were suddenly acting so strange. "Tell me what's going on."

"I think we should-"

"Don't you dare say wait for Elijah!" She snapped. "I'm so sick of you pussy-footing around everything, Klaus! Tell me what is happening!"

Klaus took in a long breath, letting it just as slowly, but nodding as he did so. "Alright, love, let's go for a walk, I'll tell you what you want to know."

Elena searched his face carefully, wondering why he was suddenly so forthcoming, but willing to accept the sudden change if she got the information she wanted. She followed Klaus out the back door, confused when he vaulted the fence, heading in the direction of the forest, but wrote it off just as quickly, assuming he just wanted privacy for whatever he had to tell her.

"Have you given much thought to my hybrid nature compared to my siblings? Wondered why I'm a hybrid when they are very much not?"

Elena frowned at Klaus's words, that definitely wasn't where she was expecting him to start.

"No?" She replied, as much a question as it was an answer.

"My mother was unfaithful," Klaus sighed, "and my father an abusive bastard, to me at least." He shrugged, the last words an afterthought.

"Oh, Klaus." Elena breathed, stunned at the revelation, she couldn't imagine Klaus taking any stick from anyone, but family was different she supposed.

He shrugged again. "Looking back, I imagine Mikael always had his suspicions about my true parentage, it doesn't excuse his actions, but it explains why I was never good enough I suppose."

Elena stayed quiet, wondering where he was going with this.

"After my mother turned us into vampires, none of us expected the bloodlust that came with it. We slaughtered most of our village, largely unaware of what we were doing. I don't think it truly sunk in what we'd done until our first full moon." Klaus muttered, offering a hand to Elena when she tripped on a root, engrossed in his story more than she was their surroundings.

"What happened?" Elena asked, gratefully accepting his help over the patchy terrain.

"A werewolf curse can lay dormant for an entire lifetime." He explained, the topic hopping making Elena's head spin. "The werewolf side is only activated, when you take the life of an innocent."

"You turned on the full moon." Elena let out a long breath, not sure what else to say.

Klaus nodded. "Neither myself nor my siblings had any idea that Mikael was not my father, but his suspicions were confirmed that night. I feared that night would be enough to drive my siblings and I apart forever; in my fear of that, I nearly made it happen myself."

"But you're all here now." Elena said softly, hoping to at least reassure Klaus a little bit.

"Because of you, Elena." He replied quickly. "You brought our family back together, remember that."

Elena stopped walking, narrowing her eyes at Klaus when he turned to face her. "What's going on? Why are we out here?"

"That depends what you want answering first." He sighed, leaning against the tree trunk behind him.

Suddenly, Elena wasn't sure that she wanted to know, this version of Klaus seemed much more serious than the one that had stood at the foot of her bed, teasing her about what he knew.

"Why are we out here?" She repeated, the rest could wait.

Klaus nodded at her, but she couldn't tell what he felt about her decision one way or the other. "Now that, love, requires some of your own personal history."

•••

"Wait, what? How is that even possible?"

Klaus laughed at Elena's befuddlement. "I've quickly learnt not to discount anything when it comes to you, love."

"Wait, stop, no, I don't understand, why are you telling me this now?"

"I think that little witch that Damon had poking around in your brain may have done something she didn't mean to. Perhaps we should've kept her around." Klaus muttered his last sentence more to himself than to Elena.

She grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop and look at her.

"What did she do to me, Klaus? Please, just tell me."

"It would appear she managed to tap into your hybrid heritage. It's a full moon tonight, Elena." He elaborated when her desperate eyes continued to bore into his.

"I've killed an innocent?" She asked, hating the tears she felt well in her eyes.

Klaus nodded slowly, seemingly unsure what to do with her change to upset from anger. "You had your humanity turned off for a while, love, it wasn't really you."

"Does that mean I'm going to turn?" Elena asked, ignoring his words in favour of her own question.

Again, Klaus nodded.

"That's why you bought me out here, to get me away from Theo."

"To get you out of the house." Klaus argued. "You would never hurt any of us if you could help it, but I've been through this, Elena, you won't be able to help it."

As if on cue, Elena let out a cry of pain as her ankle snapped under her, falling forward into Klaus's arms, her eyes wide with panic.

"Will you stay with me?" She asked desperately. "I don't want to hurt anyone else." Her eyes bore into his, begging him for his help.

"I'll stay, Elena, I won't let you hurt anyone."

"Elena!" Kol was by her side in an instant following his shout, taking her from his brother's arms into his own. "What's the plan here, Nik?"

"The Lockwood cellar isn't much further, we should be able to keep Elena contained until I can get through to her."

A soft, hysterical laugh escaped Elena's lips against her will, garnering her some strange looks from the brothers.

Quickly Kol swept Elena into his arms, she vaguely heard him telling Klaus to lead the way before the sensation of her wrist breaking drew her attention away.

The next thing Elena was aware of Klaus was taking her back from Kol and ordering him to go and get Elijah.

"No." Elena whimpered against Klaus's chest, her whole body shuddering and convulsing from the pain of her bones shattering. "Not Elijah."

Klaus gestured for Kol to go over Elena's head, turning his attention back to her when he was satisfied Kol was on his way.

"I might need Elijah's help to ground you, Elena. As a hybrid you have better control of yourself than a normal werewolf, but this is your first transition, you need your connection to Elijah as well as my help."

Elena shook her head, crying out again as another bone gave way. "He can't be here." She denied. "He just can't, Klaus."

"Why, Elena? He loves you, so much, what are you worried about?"

"I don't-" She screamed again.

"Don't want him to see you like this? He loves you, he will always love you, this will not change how he feels for you, Elena." Klaus implored, desperately trying to get through to her, he wasn't sure if he could do this without Elijah, if they weren't taking her magic into account he wouldn't have a worry, but they had no idea what to expect from Elena.

"I don't wanna hurt him." Elena gasped as quickly as she could before the pain took her again, writhing in Klaus's iron hold.

"Elena, listen to me, and listen carefully, you will not hurt Elijah anymore than he can handle, you love him too, Elena, you won't hurt him."

"I'm not-"

"You don't remember yet, I know, you're not who you think you should be, but you are falling in love with him, Elena. The voice you heard, the hallucination in the Salvatore house, Aunt Jenna, the white oak, they're your memories bleeding through, Elena."

Brown eyes met blue, one met with pain and desperation, the other shining with truth.

"This-this is what you wanted me to figure out?" Elena panted, refusing to let the pain get to her for a moment until she had all of her answers.

Klaus nodded. "You're falling in love with him, Elena, we were all too hung up on a burst of memories, that none of us considered the possibility that they would come slowly. You won't hurt him, I'll be here to stop you, and you'll stop yourself more than I do, Elena, I swear to you."

•••

Phew, this chapter was more Klaus/Elena centric than I was planning on! Worry not, the next instalment will have plenty of Elejah for you all!

~ I x