2 days earlier.

Elena had awoke the next morning to an empty bed, she was starting to get used too it; she performed her usual morning routine, shower, dressed, hair and make up, she slipped into a pair of converse and went about her day.

She grabbed her first coffee of the morning and sat at the kitchen table, the rain had finally stopped and she felt like getting out of the house; the mansion was empty when she came downstairs, even Rebekah was nowhere to be seen, she had sent them all texts trying to pinpoint there whereabouts but she assumed she'd be met with radio silence.

She continued to scroll through her phone until she found Davina's number, she hadn't caught up with her in the last couple of days, she decided it might be time too; she sent her a message enquiring about a breakfast date and drank her coffee whilst she awaited a response. Her eyes flickered around the kitchen, she saw 4 coffee mugs in the sink, a couple of newspapers on the table and the chairs where all out from under the table, they had been here this morning so they couldn't have long left before she woke up.

Trying to put the frustration from her mind, she picked up her phone and saw a text from Davina, "Marcel has invited you for a breakfast banquet, I don't think he wants me to leave the compound again, so annoying."

Elena rolled her eyes, chuckling slightly at her words, "be there soon, we'll talk to Marcel."

She finished what remained of her coffee and stood from the table, grabbing her jacket and bag before leaving the plantation; just as she stepped outside, she got a little shock when she saw five ravens standing on the patio, they moved around slightly but they just stared at her, she felt a wave of fear wash over her, she couldn't explain why but they made her uneasy.

Keeping her eyes on them, she walked around them and darted for her car; she jumped inside the drivers seat and closed the door, watching the birds through the window, "what the hell..."

She tried to shake it off and started the car, driving away from them as quick as she could; once she was out of the plantation and onto a main road, she started to feel normal again; when she was stopped at a red light, she pulled her phone out of her bag and quickly dialled Rebekah's number, when it went straight to voicemail, she left her a message, "hey, call me when you get this, I need to talk to you, something weird is happening."

She threw her phone onto the seat beside her and continued to drive; it wasn't long until she arrived at the compound, she gathered all of her things of the seat and climbed out of the car, she walked to the entrance and pushed open the gates, walking straight through the courtyard and up the stairs, "Davina? Marcel?"

"We're in here," Davina called through, Elena followed her voice until she found them sat around the dinner table with a large breakfast spread in front of them.

"This looks amazing," she said, before taking a seat opposite the young witch, Marcel was at the head of the table, a smile gracing his lips.

"Thanks," he said, holding his arm towards the food and gesturing for her to help herself; Elena obliged and started with some toast and bacon.

"How's things been?" Elena asked, before taking another bite of her food, "haven't heard from you in a couple of days."

"I'm fine, a little bit cooped up," Davina spoke, a hint of annoyance in her tone of voice as she turned to look at Marcel.

"Not this again, Davina," he rolled his eyes slightly, Elena watching them both shoot daggers with there eyes at each other, "did she tell you about the magic she's been sensing in the quarter, Elena?"

"No," Elena responded, full of confusion, "you didn't mention that at all, Davina, what's going on?"

"It's probably nothi-"

"It's definitely something, D," Marcel interjected before the young witch could deter Elena from listening to him, "a few days ago, she told me she could sense magic all around the quarter but when I went to investigate, there wasn't a witch in sight, I went to the cemetery at the same time she could sense power and there was nothing."

"It's like the whole city is being channelled but I don't know how, I started to assume it was just my magic messing up but then the rain came and it was definitely supernatural, the magic I could feel from it was real, I couldn't find it's source," Davina explained, watching as Elena's expression changed to complete confusion and concern.

"What could it be?" Elena questioned, her mind racing through the very limited knowledge she had of witchcraft and the supernatural, "so, someone is using magic in the quarter, effecting the weather and there's no way of tracing it?"

"Exactly," Marcel concluded, his eyes turning to face Davina, "which is why I don't want her to leave the compound, something just doesn't feel right, all I can feel is danger. I have my guys out scouting the entire city 24/7 but there's nothing."

"I'm sorry, Davina, I think I'm on Marcel's side with this one, you should stay safe until we can figure out what it is," she tilted her head slightly, she could feel Davina's pain, she hated being confined.

"Will you stay with me today, then? We'll hang out," an innocent and gleaming smile appeared on her lips.

"Sure, I'd love that," she smiled kindly towards Davina, before pouring herself a cup of coffee out of the jug, she brought the cup to her lips and took a large sip, nursing the cup in her hands.

"So, where's Klaus this morning?" Marcel asked, Elena's gaze turning towards him as he was eating away at his breakfast, "I haven't heard from him in a while and he's been spotted around town with a less than approachable mood."

"In all honestly, I have no idea," she shook her head slightly, she had just managed to pull all of the troubles in her head away and she didn't wanted to be reminded of it, "I've barely seen him for days, too."

"That's strange," Marcel spoke, him and Davina shooting each other a glance before staring at Elena once more, "considering how attached he is too you, that's very odd."

"A little less attached these days, more his old self again," she was saddened by the thought of him reverting, she knew she had to trust him but it doesn't take much to snap, she knew this all too well from her time spent with Stefan.

"You don't think our two problems are connected, do you?" Davina asked, her eyes falling onto Marcel.

"You mean, Klaus is playing a part in all this?" He began to ponder her idea but with very little to go on, there wasn't much to consider, "what do you think, Elena?"

She was silent for a long minute, she knew she had to keep her nose out of her partners business but on the other hand, if she could figure all this out with the help of Marcel and Davina, she might be able to help Klaus instead, she needed him back in her life, she was desperate.

"I want to help figure this all out but you have to promise me it stays between us, you can't tell anyone," she spoke sternly, she was hoping she wasn't making the wrong decision and making things worse for Klaus.

"I promise," Davina smiled slightly at her before they both turned to face Marcel, a long moment later, he nodded his head.

"I give you my word," he reassured, as much as he wanted back up in situations like these, he knew the only way to get the information he required was working with Elena instead of against her.

"At first, Klaus was being distant, argumentative and very withdrawn, he wouldn't tell me anything, I had to go through Elijah to find out there's a new threat, one from there human lives."

"Human lives?" Marcel reiterated, his concern growing the more she told her story, "so an enemy that's over a thousand years old? How many of them are there?"

"I don't know what kind of enemy, they won't tell me anymore, they think by keeping me out of the loop, they're keeping me safe and told me to trust them."

"Well, we can assume they have magic," Davina interjected, offering her thoughts, "but when I can sense there magic, they don't feel like your average witch, it's more of an ancient kind of power."

"You could feel Esther's magic, right?" Elena asked, keeping on her train of thought, "is it anything like that?"

"No way, this is much more powerful, more supernatural than witchy."

"Too summarise, we have nothing," Marcel sighed slightly out of frustration, "the entire city is in danger and we can't even tell by what type of enemy, the only people who know aren't talking and it's happening literally as we speak."

"Sounds about right," Elena agreed, standing from her chair and pacing up and down slowly, "where do we even start looking? There's not point talking to Klaus or Elijah, even Rebekah won't spill, she's been avoiding me for 2 days."

"I can hit the grimoires, see what I can find out or if there's a spell I can do to locate the source of power," Davina offered, "there has to be something."

"I can have a look around the plantation, Elijah has a study full of old diaries and documents, I don't want to invade his privacy but I can't just sit back and do nothing."

"I'll double the patrol on the streets, get out there myself and investigate," Marcel suggested.

"There has to be some mark or clue to where the magic is being performed, there may be some old symbols or runes drawn somewhere, keep an eye out," Davina spoke to Marcel, before standing from her chair, "I'll get started on the grimoires."

"I'll head back, keep me updated if you find anything, I'll do the same," Elena shot them both a kind smile before spinning on her heel and exiting the compound, returning to her car and driving away.

-w-

It wasn't too long before she arrived back at the mansion, she was rummaging through some of the boxes in Elijah's study; she had found some of his more recent journals but none that had an entry in the past two weeks, she eventually found the ones from there time spent in New Orleans a few centuries ago but she doubted they contained any information regarding a threat from there human lives.

She found a box with loose pages and began picking them out, a lot of them where documentation from the places they have stayed over the centuries, even the one they had signed to live in the compound from there previous visit here.

"They lived in Rome, that's insane," she muttered to herself, revealing a document that had an address on it from Rome, she placed it back in the box and placed it back on the shelf in his bookcase.

She felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans, she stood up and pulled it out, reading the caller ID, 'Klaus'

She accepted the call and pressed the speaker to her ear, "hey, everything okay?"

"Not particularly," he sounded angry and abrupt.

"Why? What's going?" She sounded more concerned than she should be for someone isn't supposed to be involved.

"Why where you at the compound this morning?" She could hear the frustration in his tone of voice.

"Oh, I was having breakfast with Davina and Marcel, he's keeping her locked up again," she spoke, not entirely dishonest but she left out a few details.

"Why is he keeping her locked up?"

"I'm not sure, they wouldn't tell me so I just left and came home," she hated lying to him, especially with everything going on between them.

"You just willingly left Davina in her confinement? I don't believe you, you got her out that attic in the church only for her to be kept in the compound instead?"

"Well, it's not like I could fight Marcel, I don't have any back up these days considering my so-called boyfriend and family are completely avoiding me," she argued back, her patience thinning.

"Just stay at home, Elena,"

"Yeah, sure," she spoke sarcastically, rolling her eyes slightly.

"Elena-" before he had the chance to argue with her, she ended the call and tossed her phone onto the sofa adjacent to his desk; she growled slightly, his behaviour recently was driving her mad.

She pushed him from her mind and continued to search for anything that could lead to information on the new threat; all she seemed to find was a few diaries she couldn't read because it was written in runes, a few other journals she didn't want to read to in-depth due to them being personal and a few sketches.

An hour had passed and she had pretty much turned the office upside down and found nothing, there was a few boxes on the floor with papers spread about; she had slumped into his chair and began tapping at the desk, just as she was about to give up, she heard a hollow sound in the centre of the wood, she inspected the piece of furniture and found nothing that could indicate that there was a drawer there but there was definitely a hollow sound.

She bent down onto her knees to look under the space in the middle of the desk, "got'cha."

She saw a small handle, there was no lock or anything stopping it from opening; she pulled the handle down and a compartment opened up with a small book placed inside it; she grabbed the book and closed the drawer. She quickly opened it and flicked through some of the pages, most of it was English but she couldn't understand some of the runes and spells within it.

She closed the book and placed it in her back pocket, she had to clean the room up; she put the papers back in there rightful places and the boxes went back onto the shelves, she organised some of the books she had rummaged through and lined everything back up neatly, she wasn't entirely convinced Elijah wouldn't know she was in there but she hoped she had enough time to read the book before he questioned her.

Darting for the door, she went up to her bedroom and closed the door behind her; she sat on the sofa under the window and opened the book, it was small and ancient looking, it was merely a plain black hardback with 'Mikaelson' etched in the front.

She read through some of the entries, the majority of them had detailed the days from there human lives; what happened to Henrik, the war with the wolves, the beatings from there father and how they lived a normal life as a doting family.

As Elena had read further on, she started getting to the part about there transition; there was entry detailing how there parents had been acting differently, the way they treated Tatia and a spell she had been working on and the next entry was several days later and he had stated they where no longer human, how they had a bloodlust and an urge to kill, how the sun was there enemy and the village had turned on them.

Elena sat at the sofa for nearly 2 hours, completely engrossed in the journal, it took her a while to find what she was looking for but she did in the end, there a rather lengthy entry at the back of the journal, some was wrote in English and the rest in runes but she could make out parts of it.

"I have lay eyes upon our darkest foe yet, I fear I have seen these men before with different eyes, now that we our vampire, I see and hear everything, I know one is a werewolf and the other has magic like my mother but it's a peer I have not yet seen possessed in a mortal, one is man and the other is something I've never seen before, something I cannot comprehend."

"Something other than a vampire?" Elena muttered to herself, her eyes glancing over the parts she could not understand before she found another entry.

"They attacked tonight, my mother and father could barely fend them off, our power was nothing compared to there might and my eyes deceive me, I thought I saw Tatia but the flames burnt so high, I could have been delirious, my mother prevented them from performing a ritual, one she claimed could end us all, bring forth an apocalypse so brutal, none would survive.

My brother, Niklaus, always quick with his mouth, had offered himself to them, they have taken him and we must rescue him but at what cost, there are 13 of them and only 7 of us, I fear we may not win. They call themselves The Order, they want something from my mother that she will not tell us, we may have to leave here for a while, resettle when we have ended there lives, once and for all."

"The Order..." she reiterated, closing the book over and placing it in the top drawer of her dressing table; she paced around the room slightly, unsure what to do with this new information, she felt she couldn't tell Klaus, not without admitting she went snooping through Elijah's study and if she told Marcel, he would react too quickly.

She suddenly heard the front door close and footsteps downstairs, she quickly grabbed her phone and lay on the bed, her face glued to the screen; it took several minutes but eventually, she heard a knock on the door.

"Elena, are you home?" Elijah called through.

"Come in," she responded, remaining glued to the phone as Elijah entered, "everything okay?"

"I'm unsure, have you been home all day?" He questioned, his head tilting to the side slightly.

"I was out this morning, why?" She continued to scroll through her phone mindlessly, this was annoying Elijah slightly, he found it to be quite ignorant and rude.

"Where did you go?" He continued to watch as her eyes didn't leave the screen.

"What's it to you?" She sniped.

"Well, someone has been in my study and I'm trying to figure out who," he remained calm for as long as possible but he knew she was hiding something, "Elena, will you put that phone down."

She tossed the phone onto the bed and sat up, her gaze shifting to his, "I don't know, Elijah, why would someone go in your study?"

"Stop lying to me," he spoke through gritted teeth, trying to remain his usual collected self but he was becoming impatient, "your scent is all over my study, I know it was you. What where you looking for?"

"My copy of 'the shining', I felt like reading today but couldn't find it anywhere, I've looked all over," she lied once again, she hated doing this, her and Elijah had such a good friendship, she didn't want to compromise it, "satisfied?"

"Not even a little bit."

"I guess I'll just have to order a new one," she spoke, putting slight emphasis on the word 'order', anything to get to the bottom off all this.

"Yes, I suppose you should," he raised an eyebrow slightly, his confusion heightening.

"Do you know if there's a book store in town? Or anywhere I could order one?" She continued to pry.

"There's one not too far from the compound, as for ordering from a website, I'm rather clueless," he smirked slightly, he too prying what he could from her.

"If they don't have it in store, I'll definitely have to order it, right?"

"Enough games, what do you know?" Elijah pursed his lips, suddenly becoming concerned Elena had involved herself too much.

She stood from the bed and went to her dressing table, she opened the drawer and took the book, holding it up towards Elijah, "what is so bad about The Order that you have to keep them from me?"

"Elena, what I wrote in that book over a thousand years ago isn't even a fraction of what they're like, I was young and naive, extremely clueless, it took us centuries too fully understand what they where capable of and the power they possess, our mother was the only one who truly knew them and she refused to tell us, even she feared them and wouldn't put us in harms way, not after what Niklaus did."

"When he offered himself over?" She questioned, trying to process the information as it came.

"Indeed, in exchange for our lives and the lives of the villagers, he went with them, he stayed with them for a couple of decades, keeping them at bay and away from our family but he won't tell us most of what he had too do for them, all we know is that a lot of his paranoia and fear come from his time spent with them."

"Oh my god," a small sigh escaped her lips, she felt guilty for pushing him so much and breaking his trust by not minding her own business, "and that they're back, are they doing the same thing to him again?"

"I believe so, he won't indulge me too much of there plans but I do know they're planning something catastrophic," he placed his hand on his forehead, his fingers massaging into his head, "you really shouldn't have become involved, Elena, if my brother didn't want you to know any of this then it was for good reason."

"I'm glad I'm involved, I can finally breathe knowing what you're all doing, you might be trying to protect me from all of this but the feeling is mutual, all I want is this families safety," she spoke, full of passion and emotion, "when are you all going to get that? We should be in these fights together, not abandoning me the second things get a little bit bad."

"They're not just a 'little bit bad', Elena," his frustration was apparent in his tone of voice, he took a few steps closer to her, locking his gaze onto hers, "you just don't realise the danger you've put yourself in, you have to stay low and don't tell Niklaus you know all this."

"There's just one tiny thing I haven't told you," she tried to sound as innocent and as coy as possible, "Marcel and Davina are on there trail, too."

"What?" He exasperated, "how could they possibly know?"

"Davina has been sensing power all across the quarter but Marcel couldn't find anything, I think that's why he invited me to breakfast, to see if I knew anything, they're out now trying to find out what they can," Elena watched as Elijah was starting to become angry, she didn't see him like that too often, "if you go to them, they're going to want to know more."

She suddenly heard the front door slam shut again, Elijah could already sense who it was, so he tucked the book in the inside pocket of his jacket and stood a short distance away from Elena.

"Elijah?" She heard Klaus call out.

"I'm up here, brother," he responded and Klaus was in front of them within seconds, he moved like a blur, so quietly.

"What's going on?" He asked, his eyes flickering between Elijah and Elena.

"I only came to see if Elena was alright, I had received numerous messages and calls, I thought she was in danger," he spoke, lying through his teeth.

"I did send you the same messages, Klaus," Elena spoke with a hint of sadness in her tone of voice.

"What happened?" He asked so quickly, she could have easily mistook it for concern.

"When I left for the compound this morning, there was 5 ravens on the patio, I can't explain it but they made me uneasy, they just kept watching me."

Klaus and Elijah shot each other a quick glance, she could tell instantly that they knew what the ravens where, whether they told her or not was a completely different matter.

"Elijah, stay with her, make sure she's safe," he said, his eyes gazing into hers the whole time, his concern was mixed with anger, he knew something, "I'll find out who has done this."

"Klaus?" She spoke, just as she watched him walk out of the room, she quickly followed behind him, chasing him down the stairs and towards the front door, she held out her hand and grabbed his arm, "wait."

"What now, Elena?" His voice had gone cold again and he was acting as if he didn't even have a minute of his time for her, all these little things messed with her head, she knew she had to trust him but she couldn't help but feel neglected.

"Be careful, okay?" She reached up to his cheek and kissed him gently, his eyes turning to face her when she started to move away; like a reflex, his hand cupped her face and his thumb stroked the skin along her cheek, "I trust you completely, just come home to me soon."

He simply nodded his head, his cold and hard exterior softening at her touch; he leaned down towards her, his head resting near her shoulder as he spoke in a hushed tone, "I'll be back soon, I love you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and placed soft kisses along his jaw and too his lips, her heart broke just that little touch more every time he had to leave her but she was starting to believe it was for the best, "I love you, Klaus."

And in the blink of an eye, he was gone and she was left standing alone in the hallway once again; Elijah had joined her a few long moments later, as soon as he heard Klaus had left, he knew how upset she would be and he still had this uncontrollable need to comfort and protect her, even if it was only in a platonic way.

"Would you like coffee?" He asked, noting the sadness that was etched into her facial features.

"Sure," she nodded her head slightly, turning to face him; she didn't know why, maybe she felt lonely and hurt but she leaned her head on his shoulder, her eyes turning back to face the front door, Elijah slowly placed his arm around her shoulders, in these type of situations, he didn't know how to relieve her sadness or how to approach her, so he just went with it, "everything's going to be okay soon, right?"

"I hope so," he spoke in a low and quiet tone, as much as he felt uncomfortable with the close contact between them, he was happy to be a rock, "we'll get through this."

She remained silent for a long minute, finding some comfort in his embrace; she still felt so drawn to him, maybe not romantically but they had bonded on a level she hadn't with anyone else before, even if she couldn't pinpoint how, "let's have that coffee."