Warning: Use of language in this chapter.

All In Vain

"Stefan could have lived anywhere in Chicago and he chose this?" Elena remarked with no small amount of disbelief as her feet hit the worn floorboards of the landing, gazing at the dishearteningly gloomy space visible over Damon's shoulder.

"There used to be an all-girls high school around the corner from here; it shut down for 'attendance issues.' Weird," he said pointedly as they came up to the old wooden door, chipped and peeling, the varnish rotting away to reveal the exposed wood underneath, and she couldn't help but draw a parallel to this door and Stefan: he was now stripped bare, his Ripper nature exposed to her when he'd tried so hard to keep it hidden from her in the name of love. And yet his efforts made the truth all the more ugly to her now. But she wouldn't let Damon know that.

"If you're trying to scare me into giving up and going back, it's not going to work," Elena bristled, but Damon merely gave her a hard stare and pressed a finger to his lips in the universal sign of 'Be quiet, you idiot, before you get us both killed.' In a flash, he had the door open, and she caught old furniture and a bookcase and then...nothing.

"Damon?"

She banged on the door. No answer.

"Damon!" Elena tried again, shifting the handle, then the sound of chair legs scraping caught her attention, the door handle shook before settling in its antique setting. Damon had barricaded the door.

"Damon Salvatore, do you really think that some old chair is going to stop me from getting in here?"

The vampire shot back hopefully, "Yes?"

Elena snorted. As if. "You can't protect me from everything, Damon. I have as much a right to be here as you do."

"Yeah, but Klaus isn't looking to make me into his hybrid donor, that momentous honor falls to you," Damon said through the door, voice slightly muffled yet just as adamant -and angering her just as much. "So, what you're going to do is, you're going to go back to the car and-"

"Somehow, I don't think Elena shall agree to your terms: she's exquisitely stubborn, especially when it comes to men of ill intelligence telling her what to do."

Damon's barked, "Holy shit," would under normal circumstances have made her laugh, but not this time. Because this time...

Jesus Christ, could she not go one day without running into Elijah Mikaelson?

Hey, it's not like you really mind, a voice on the back of her mind teased her. Elena told the voice to go to hell, and put a sock in it while it was there for good measure.

"What are you doing here?"

Elijah shrugged -she couldn't see it, but she sensed it. "I'm in the process of reuniting my family, Mr Salvatore, just as you are."

Damon scoffed. "Yeah, I get that, but I meant here, in my brother's second personality home."

"Niklaus and Stefan are both here, and I know the reason for it."

"Care to share?"

"Not at present, no."

Elena tried the door one more time, doing a running jump and hauling her shoulder into the wood, but all that resulted in was a sliver of a gap and a burning ache in her arm. Good job, Elena. She was able to see Elijah straighten from an armchair, butting his suit jacket with casual grace as he insisted, "Elena should see this, Damon. She needs to see it; she deserves to know who's she's risking her life so carelessly for."

Damon shook his head and stood his ground. "No. She's learnt enough of what lies under my brother's hero-hair lately, and I'm sure me and my actions have given Elena enough nightmares; I don't need to add Stefan as a co-star."

"My, my, is that guilt I detect?" Elijah drawled, crossing his arms smoothly, tapping his chin patronizingly. "And perhaps a hint of compassion? Hell really must have frozen over."

"Hell's covered in ice, you dick, but either way you'll be wishing you were there of you don't shut your mouth."

"Let her in and I will."

"Fine. But you'll be the one footing her therapy bill," Damon scowled as he crossed the room and flung open the door.

Elena contorted her face into what she hoped was a pleasant smile and stuttered, "Elijah, I..." but her vampire was already gone.

After Elijah -who Damon had now dubbed in his head number one on his list of people he'd be most happy to watch burn in a pit of lava...or maybe number two, after Katherine- had left in a flash of theatrical dramatics, he went over to the bookcase that dominated the far wall, feeling around for the hidden switch he knew to be hidden there. He didn't know how Elijah knew about the list, and he didn't want to show it to Elena, but the bastard was right: she deserved the truth.

The click sounded, and he was swinging the door open to reveal his brother's darkest secret as the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered to life.

"Stefan hid his alcohol. What a monster!" Elena remarked acerbically as her brown eyes scanned over the various bottles of various colours and ages.

"Look harder," he urged her, and when she did, he heard her breath catch in her chest. As she read the list, crowned with the name of their father, the only name he knew for certain deserved to be on there.

"It's a list of names. These are all his victims, aren't they?"

"Still handling it?" he said by way if reply, but he supposed that was answer enough, really.

"What were you doing in the 1920s?" Elena queried in that holier-than-thou tone she seemed to use only on him, or her brother. "Paving the way for women's liberation?" It was a cheap shot, so painfully transparent, and they both knew it, but she was hurt, and it was nice to see that she still had enough fire in her to get mad, even if that anger was directed at him.

Damon said offhandedly, "I was around. Chicago's a big city. Stefan was a cocky Ripper douche, but I could still avoid him and indulge in some Daisy Buchanan's of my own," he tagged on with a smirk over his shoulder as he made his way to the door, mind already percolating over his next steps...

"Where are you going?"

"His old stomping ground."

...which were going to be getting Elena to say here, apparently, because *of course* she just had to insist, "I'm coming with you."

Spinning on his heel, his eyes blazing with simmering desperation he hated himself for letting show, Damon shook his head at her. "No. You stay here and come up with an actual plan. I'll come back when I find him," he promised, and left before she could say anything to change his mind.

But fifteen seconds later, he popped his head back around the door, because since when had he ever been able to leave Elena Gilbert looking alone and miserable. "Elena? For what's it's worth, I'm sorry about Original Jackass. No one deserves to get treated like that by someone they care about."

She smiled a watery smile at him. "Damon?"

"Yep?"

"I'm so glad I'm friends with you. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here with me."

That sound? His heart melting in his chest. "Right back attcha. Hang tight, I promise I won't come back empty-handed."

"Well, look what the wind blew in. Last I heard, you hated this place," Gloria drawled warmly as Damon took a seat at the bar, tossing a bright smile at her like it was spare change.

"Gloria! Damn! If I knew you were gonna age like this I would have stuck around," he replied, and was rewarded for his charms with an amused eye roll.

"I always did like you better," Gloria conceded ruefully, "but I see your brother is still running in the wrong crowd."

He tried to be as uninterested as possible and not sound like the rest of his life hinged on her answer as he asked, "You've seen him?"

She nodded. "With Klaus." Pottering behind the bar, she began fixing a drink with the practice that only comes from cheating the mortal clock. "Bad combo."

"You know where they went?"

"They'll be back later tonight," Gloria informed him as she slid him the full glass across the countertop. "They're running a little errand for me."

Capturing her hand with his, Damon dialed the charm up another notch. "Gloria, don't be a tease," he chided as he did what Elena called his 'Eye Thing.' "What kind of errand?"

"I don't think so," the witch replied as she snatched her hand away from his grasp. "You may be cute, but you're still a vampire."

Damn. He was losing his touch, it seemed.

'April 1922.

Lexi found me last night, dragged me off the train tracks. She thinks she can make me care again.'

'June 4th.

Lexi's driving me crazy. More animal blood. More misery.'

'1935.

Lexi's on to her next project: getting me to laugh.'

When Elena read it, she heard it in his voice. It was like he was right there with her, sharing his past like he had to her on so many many nights at the Boarding House, or her house, just the two of them, wanting to tell each other everything because they wanted the other to be a part of everything, and to know them as no one else did. And despite whatever was going on between her and Elijah, she really did miss that about Stefan.

Then she heard a voice, one that stalked the corners of her nightmares and made her heart leap into her throat as she vaulted from the bed, Stefan's journal still clutched in her hand.

Klaus. Klaus was...here. Crap.

So, she did what any sensible teenager does when they know the psycho killer is in the room: hide, in the tiniest possible space available that they'll probably, in hindsight, end up looking in first.

"Do you feel that?" she heard Klaus say, the heavy tread of his footsteps almost swallowed up by her hammering pulse. "Is anybody here?"

And then Stefan's voice, as much a curse as it was a balm to her terror, "It's been vacant for decades; people must break in all the time. Why'd you bring me here?"

His footsteps grew nearer, and Elena went over everything she'd touched in the apartment. Had she left anything out? She had the journal and her bag, but had something fallen out? Oh, God, her scent was probably over the whole place and he'd be able to pick it up with his creepy hybrid senses...

"Your friend, Liam Grant, the one you made drink his wife's blood, I could never figure out why you wanted his name-"

Stefan had made someone drink their own wife's blood? And why did that name sound familiar? Because she was looking right at it, that's why.

"But then you told me your little secret. All part of your special little ritual."

Stefan replied, but she couldn't quite hear him, although it sounded like, "To write it down."

It must have been, if Klaus' accompanying, gruesome reply of, "And relive the kill. Over and over again," was anything to go by.

Elena heard the latch click, felt cold air on the exposed skin of her legs as Klaus opened the secret passage/cupboard/likely place of her death.

"Do you believe me now?"

More footsteps, lighter this time, the sound of shallow breathing then...Stefan. All she could see, all she could feel and hear and breathe was Stefan as their eyes locked on each other for the first time in nearly a month.

A thousand words passed between them in that one, single look. Every 'Are you okay?' and 'I'm sorry' and 'God, I've missed you so much,' it was all there as their gazes met, and held, as they themselves could not do to each other, not with Klaus only a few short feet away.

Yet with four words, it shattered.

"Look what I found."

The smile dropped from Elena's face, and she felt betrayal and anger boil the very blood in her veins, the blood that had gotten her into this mess in the first place and...

"1918. Single malt."

...and Stefan was talking about Scotch. (At least, she thought it was, she'd never been an expert on the different types and variations of liquor.)

"My favourite," Klaus remarked with a palpable grin in his voice. "Let's go and find someone to pair it with."

Stefan didn't even look back as he closed the secret door on her relieved face.

"Where's Rebekah?" Gloria greeted them after yet another trip to the warehouse, hands moving in a blue behind the bar. All the while, Stefan couldn't get the sight of that grey corpse out of his head, of Klaus' pulling the dagger out of her chest. He didn't remember Rebekah at all, but the way the hybrid had talked about their relationship...he must have cared about her, as much as Ripper-him had the capacity to. He wondered, as he sat down in the spot next to the Original, if she might be able to help him out, team up with him against her brother; she had to be pissed at him after he'd kept her in a box for ninety years, right?

"She'll be here," Klaus promised vaguely, tagging along with the long-suffering sigh of the elder sibling, "I can't just conjure her on demand." The hybrid then turned his attentions to his reluctant partner in crime. "What's with you?" Klaus asked, sounding as if he genuinely cared either way, although give all he'd revealed about their history tonight, Stefan supposed he did, to some extent. "I thought Chicago was your playground."

"So this is why you asked me to be your wingman? Because you liked the way I tortured innocent people?" Stefan replied, knowing the answer to be yes, and was therefore surprised when Klaus told him, "Well, that's certainly half of it."

His response was automatic. "What's the other half?"

"The other half, Stefan, is that you used to want to be my wingman," Klaus confessed to him as he poured a shot into two glasses, and then he talked and talked about how they bonded, how Stefan had once called him a king and Klaus had cautioned him against the passionate yet flighty nature of his baby sister, and with every word out of the Original's mouth, Stefan realized just how lonely Klaus had been, and still was...and how lonely he had been, too, without Damon. He may have called Klaus a 'good friend,' once upon a time, but Damon was his best friend, for all time -bar Lexi, of course- and no take-backs, as his older brother would undoubtedly say.

Klaus offered his drink. "To friendship."

The music was playing, the alcohol was flowing, and the puppeteer would cut more than his strings if he defied him, so what could he do but dance along?

The minute Tyler Lockwood showed up at her door, Liz knew something was wrong, but more importantly was wrong with her daughter. After explaining his mother's involvement and how she'd contacted someone to deal with the situation, only to backtrack when she realized how embroiled her own son was in the supernatural, it didn't take long for the sheriff to put the pieces together.

There was only so many places in Mystic Falls one could house a vampire without eliciting suspicion, and it just so happened to be right under where she'd been working these past two days. The drive to the City Jail was tense, the silence ratcheting up her nerves with every passing turn. If Bill had killed their little girl...

There was nothing on this earth that would stop her from emptying her clip in his chest.

Luckily, Tyler was able to hear that Caroline was alive, thankfully, but sounded hurt, words no parent ever wants to hear. Making her way to the hidden door and drawing her gun, Liz prepared herself for whatever awaited beyond that dark metal door.

"Hello, Bill."

As a cop, Liz dealt with criminals every day, people who did bad things, either for bad reasons or for reasons they'd convinced themselves were good ones, yet she'd always tried to remain impartial, non-judgmental, to not feel anger or sadness or anything of the sort: it wasn't her job to pass judgement on people or their decisions, only to bring order and instill justice. Yet as she trained her gun on her ex-husband, as she saw his face, so still and calm, like he hadn't just spent the past two days doing God knew what to their daughter...Liz felt the deepest, darkest desire to pull the trigger herself, so that her little girl would never have to live in the same world as the man who'd hurt her so badly ever again. She couldn't...she couldn't...

God, that was Caroline he'd hurt, their daughter, half of him and half of her. How could he ever find it in himself to actually hurt her?

When she'd found out Caroline was a vampire, she hadn't fooled Matt: she would never have hurt her daughter, law or Council or upbringing be damned.

No one hurt her baby girl.

"Put the gun down, Liz," Bill urged her in that same calm, collected voice he'd used whenever he could tell she was settling in to argue with him. "I know what I'm doing."

"That's our daughter in there! She looks up to you, she loves you." They'd always been close, closer perhaps than she had been to her before all this, and Liz had always been secretly jealous of that, how he got her to open up so easily, how quick she was to give him a hug. Or how she'd begged him to stay, or if he couldn't, to take her with him. But none of that mattered right then. All that mattered was making sure her daughter was okay.

Bill argued stubbornly, "Then she'll trust me to to do the right thing. Let me do this, Liz. Not because she's a monster," he pleaded with her, "but because we love her."

And that one word, monster, sealed his fate entirely.

"Tyler!" the Sheriff called out, and he was soon at her side, wary of the situation and yet willing to brave it, for her daughter's sake, making his way down the spiral staircase.

"You're not going in there." Bill made to block him, but a movement from her and the gun in her hand going off, the bullet pinging against the metal mere inches away from him. He put up no further protests.

"Go ahead."

And as she saw that boy, who was growing up into such a good young man, carrying her daughter in his arms like she was the most precious thing in the whole entire world, she was so grateful that Caroline had picked one of the good ones.

Following Damon out of Gloria's after he discreetly nodded to the back entrance and he made an excuse to Klaus, Stefan began to put the final pieces of the Klaus-shaped puzzle together, and it did not paint a pretty picture. But it could work to his advantage, if he played his cards right. The hybrid obviously had a soft spot for him, and a soft spot could also double as a blind spot. Revelation aside, he was still pissed, and since he couldn't take out his anger on Klaus, he'd have to settle for the next best thing: yelling at Damon.

"What is wrong with you?" Stefan yelled, fighting the urge to pull out his hair in frustration, or fight his brother.

"What is wrong with you?" Damon fired back. "Kill Andie one day, save my life the next. What are you? Good? Bad? Pick one!"

"Klaus almost saw Elena today! You have to get her out of Chicago."

Damon rolled his eyes at him. "She's not going anywhere until she's got you booked into vampire rehab and on the mend. Trust me, I've tried."

Stefan began to pace, splaying his arms wide. "She is the key to everything, you know that! Klaus can't know that she's alive, but his witch is seconds from figuring it all out! Tell Elena to go home and forget about me."

Something passed over Damon's expression, something hard and yet sympathetic and angered.

All his musings about blind spots...well, here his was, standing right in front of him in a purple party dress.

No.

"I see they've opened the doors to the riff-raff now," Klaus commented dryly as none other than Damon Salvatore sat down on the barstool his brother had occupied only moments prior, absently twirling one of those little drink umbrellas between his slender fingers.

"Oh, honey, I've been called a lot worse."

The blond grinned darkly -it was always entertaining to see total idiots skirt around the promise of a painful death- as he begrudgingly praised the younger vampire, "You don't give up, do you?"

Damon bargained tediously, "Give me my brother back and you never have to see me again."

"Well," the hybrid admitted amusedly, "I am tempted. You see, I promised Stefan I wouldn't let you die, but how many freebies did I really sign up for?" Klaus wondered rhetorically, relishing in the man's look of utter annoyance. These baby vampires were such easy creatures to rile. The hybrid continued dispassionately, "Clearly, you want to die, otherwise you wouldn't be here..." he trailed off pointedly with a casual shrug of, 'What is a man to do in a situation such as this but tear the head from your body and watch you die?'

"What can I say?" Damon flashed a grin of his own, not yet nearly as captivating as his. "I'm a thrill-seeker."

Yeah? Klaus thought, How's this for thrilling? and grabbed him by the throat.

"You shouldn't be here," Stefan rasped in a broken growl, practically vibrating before her with unbridled terror on her behalf as they stared each other down in the dimly light parking area. Not exactly the most scenic place for a reunion, Elena mused dryly, taking several hesitant steps towards the one man she'd let into her heart since her parents died.

"Where else would I be?" was her soft reply, as soft as his arms had been when he'd held her in the mornings as dawn light broke in through her windows, as soft as the t-shirts of his she'd sneak when he wasn't looking, as soft as their laughter when he raided the kitchen for her, using his vamp speed so that he didn't wake up Jeremy or Jenna. Soft like the memories of her love for him, worn and fading, taken out too many times to go on, fading into nothingness, especially when he looked at her like that, like she was a mistake, like she shouldn't be here, or when he asked her, "What do you want?" as if he didn't possibly know the answer. "Damon won't be able to distract Klaus for long."

True, but she trusted him to handle himself. Just like he'd trusted her to get through to his brother when no one else could. Reaching out, Elena touched his face like she had that very first night, and begged him with all her bruised and battered heart, "Come home."

Stefan didn't move, he didn't even look like he was breathing -not that he needed to- so she took that as encouragement, resting the side of her face against his, letting her warmth seep into him and fight the cold that had settled in him since he'd left. Like this, with him, hugging him like she hadn't in months, Elena really thought there was a chance, thought that her hope had not been misplaced, and after she did what she was planning on, maybe everything would be okay.

But of course it couldn't be. Of course, Stefan intercepted the syringe of vervain before it could even pierce the fabric of his shirt. Grasping her fragile wrist in a iron grip, he growled in a voice hed never, ever used on her, "How much clearer can I make it? I don't want to come home."

All of this would be so much easier if she was more like Katherine, Stefan thought as Elena looked up at him from under her lashes, brown eyes dark pools of frustration and hurt and pain and...denial.

"Klaus is obsessed with siring these hybrids," he reminded her, detesting treading over the same ground -hadn't he just said all this to Damon?- but having to try regardless. "The second he knows you're alive, he'll figure out why it isn't working and that your blood is what he's missing, that it's the key!"

Elena crossed her arms over her chest, shielding herself against his common sense. "I know you're trying to protect me but I can't let you do it. Come with me Stefan, please."

He had to hurt her. In that moment, it all became so clear, clear as crystal held up to the light, a shining prism of clarity that was going to shatter him entirely...but not so much as if he had to see her die again. Straightening to his full height, he barked as cruelly as he could, "And what do you expect if I do? It's never going to be the same, Elena!"

"I know that," she murmured, unable to met his gaze, and he hated himself for that alone, but he knew it wasn't enough. If he was going to do this, he had to take it all the way, without mercy.

Because Klaus certainly wouldn't show her any if he found her still alive.

Stefan shook his head dejectedly. "No, you don't. I've left bodies scattered from Florida to Tennessee. Innocent people, humans."

"I know!" Elena exploded, so volcanically he actually took a step back. "Who do you think has found them all? Me, that's who!"

"And Elijah," he couldn't help but add.

"What's he got to do with this?"

"He's Klaus' brother, and the brother of the sister Klaus just woke up!"

"Rebekah's awake?" Elena queried, something he could only describe as excitement in her voice. What the hell?

Stefan nodded regretfully, "Yes, which is all the more reason for you to leave."

"But Lexi found you like this before, in the twenties, and she saved you," the brunette reminded him, and he felt a sharp stab, even now, at the thought of his dead best friend. He didn't want Elena to end up the same.

His reply was brutal, yet all of it was true. "And do you want to know what I did after that? I spent thirty years trying to put myself together. To a vampire, that's nothing. To you..." his voice cracked, yet Stefan forced out the words, "that's half your life."

"I can't give up on you, Stefan." But she sounded like she wanted to, and he couldn't help but wonder just how much she'd given up by doing all this for him, especially when it came to Klaus' older brother.

"It's over, it's done," he uttered with a tone of finality. "That part of my life is done. *We're done." Then, he went in for the kill. "I don't want to see you, I don't want to be with you. I just want you to go."

He didn't mean it. As he turned away and headed back to the warmly lit interior of Gloria's, some part of Stefan still hoped she'd go after him, that she'd see through him, see him, like she always had. But Elena didn't.

It was really all over for them.

Curled up in the safety of her bed, Caroline was glad that all the lights were on. She'd been in the dark so long, it was nice to see something happy and inviting, chasing all the shadows away. If only there was something that could chase the memories away, too. Of her father hurting her, over and over, holding out blood bags and then taking them away when he didn't get the response he wanted. Even now, as she thanked her mother, she could hardly stand to look at that Mystic Falls General logo and not think of what she'd just gone through.

Her mother must have seen it on her face, for she tried fruitlessly to somewhat absolve him, "Honey, your dad, all our families, we have beliefs that have been passed down through generations, and we were taught never to stray from them."

"You did," Caroline pointed out, hating how small and childish she sounded, and felt; didn't make it any less true, though.

"You taught me to see things in a different way," Liz aquiesced softly, enough so that Caroline mustered her courage and bared some of her insecurity, "I just thought...he was the one who got me."

"He did. He will again," her mother promised, but she didn't believe her. How could she?

She heard him before she saw him, that familiar heartbeat ringing out in her ears. Tyler. Sensing that she'd obviously like a moment with her undefined sort-of boyfriend, her mom got off the bed, but Caroline halted her exit with a quiet, "Mom?"

Liz stopped.

"Thanks for believing in me."

With a happy smile, the sheriff left the two of them alone.

"Would now be a bad time to give you crap about sneaking out on me?" Tyler drawled amusedly, and she let out a broken laugh at his startling ability to cut tension with his knife-sharp humour. Wordlessly, he climbed into the bed beside her, holding her close to his chest, and she wished they could have had a moment like this after their night together on Elena's birthday, that it was under nicer, happier circumstances.

But he'd come for her, and that was enough. It was more than enough, really: he'd put her first. Liz had told her all about Mayor Lockwood know being on their side, and Caroline almost couldn't believe he'd changed in front of her just in the hopes of getting her back. They'd spent one night together, and yet he went to so much trouble for her, yet her dad...her dad, who was meant to love her and protect her no matter what...

"I think...my dad hates me."

Her tears fell thick and fast, soaking her face and Tyler's shirt in seconds, but he didn't move away: he held her closer.

Watching from a concealed corner, Rebekah watched with increasing amusement as her brother surveyed her empty coffin, plus the very dead security guard she'd just had the pleasure of draining.

"Rebekah, it's your bid brother," he called out patronizingly. "Come out wherever you are," and it was enough for her to speed out and confront the traitorous bastard...and gave him a taste of his own medicine, white oak dagger-flavoured.

"Go to hell, Nik!"

With seemingly no effort, he extracted the dagger from his chest, the blade a slick and dripping crimson. Damn!

"Don't pout," Nik chided her, "you knew it wouldn't kill me."

"But I was hoping it would hurt more," Rebekah sneered, enraged by the fact she couldn't even have a little justice. If only she hadn't stopped Kol from making that dagger back in 1914. Maybe she wouldn't have spent the last however many decades in a bloody box!

In tune with her shifting emotions -after a thousand years together, especially family, you learn how people tick- her brother tried to placate her, "I understand that you're upset with me, Rebekah, so I'm going to let that," he waved the bloodied, bloody dagger, "go. Just this once." He then enticed her, "Brought you a little peace offering. You can come in," he called out to some previously unseen figure, who turned out to be nine other than...

"Stefan?"

Placing a brotherly hand on his shoulder, Nik compelled the young vampire, "Now, you'll remember," and Rebekah watched in equal fascination and horror as Stefan was bombarded by an influx of memories. Nik had compelled him to forget about them, about both of them? How could he? Well, there was only one answer, the same reason they'd fled New Orleans, and been in the process of fleeing Chicago, the same reason they always fled: Mikael, their father.

Oh, how she despised him. The heartless monster who had taken her beloved Marcel from her. She hoped he was still alive, if only so she could have the pleasure of killing him herself, once and for all. Then, they'd never have to run again. Then, Nik might let go of his paranoia and stop daggering her. But, one thing at a time.

"Rebekah? Stefan's voice was sweet and hopeful and yet wary, and she wasn't all that surprised, but it was nice to see such a lovely smile after such a long sleep.

Ever one to hog the spotlight, her brother exclaimed, "Stefan," diverting his attention from her. Spoil sport.

"I remember you. We were friends."

"We are friends," Nik corrected him, before striding over to his blond counterpart. "And now the reason you're here. Gloria tells me you know how to contact the Original Witch?"

Why the bloody hell did he want to talk to her? "The Original Witch?" Rebekah parroted, making her disbelief remarkably apparent.

Klaus intoned pointedly, "You have what she needs."

Right, of course. Nik would never resurrect her unless it benefited him and one of his schemes. It seemed that in the however many long years she'd been asleep, that had remained a constant, and unfortunately so, at least for her. Reaching a hand up to her throat, Rebekah was startled to be met with bare skin.

"Where's my necklace?" Rebekah breathed quietly in a voice few lived to hear again. "What did you do with it, I never take it of?"

"I didn't touch it!" Klaus defended himself heatedly, but Rebekah was hardly listening.

"We need to find it, Nik!" she screeched at him, looking around to see if it could have fallen off somewhere. Why wasn't Stefan helping her? He'd always been so helpful when she wanted something...

Her brother began darkly, "Tell me that's-" but she cut him off with, "I want it back," which he obviously didn't take well to.

"Tell me that's not what she needs!" Klaus yelled, gripping her by the shoulders like he could shake his frustration into her. It was easy to push him away, easier still to walk over to the coffin that had housed her and smash it into pieces. Repeatedly.

After finishing yet another pointless conversation with Damon -God, listening to Elena trying not to cry in the background had really grated on her nerves- Katherine's mind couldn't help but pull her back into memories of the last time she'd been here, in Chicago, watching over Stefan as she had for the past hundred and fifty odd years. Of that night in the speakeasy, the night of the raid, how the light had shined off the broken glass and lit up that beautiful face of his, or how that police officer had asked him about Klaus and his sister, yet he said he'd never seen them before. Or how she'd watched him pick up that awful necklace, the one he gave to Elena as a symbol of their love or whatever garbage he'd spewed to her. God, he could do so much better, and she didn't mean that train-wreck Rebekah, but her.

She was so much more fun.

Speaking of fun...hailing a cab, Katherine slid into the back as she pulled her phone from her purse. She may have called Damon using a payphone, but she knew her intended caller wouldn't pick up unless he recognized the number.

Dialing the long string of digits, Katherine watched the glittering city of Chicago pass her by until he eventually picked up.

"Hello, handsome, it's your favorite doppelgänger. I know you're in Chicago and I know what you're after. Or, should I say, who you're after. How do you feel about a little team-up?"

"I'm listening, Katerina," was Elijah Mikaelson's drawled reply.

As Damon drove through the streets of Mystic Falls, of home, Elena finally took the time to check her voicemail. Eight missed calls from Tyler, one from Liz, another from Ric and another from...Bonnie! She listened to Tyler's first, growing more horrified by the second. His last one was a punch to the gut.

'Hey, 'Lena, it's me. Just wanted you to know Caroline's safe and sound back home and the Sheriff's dealing with Mr Forbes. If you can, can you get Damon to call her back so that once the vervain's out of his system he can compel him? Anyway, I hope you're doing okay in the Windy City. I promise I'll make sure Caroline's alright tonight. Okay, stay safe. Bye.'

Before Damon had even killed the engine, Elena was already out of the car. "Caroline's in bad shape," she rushed out to him as she pulled her bag from the back. "I need to go see her. Can you wait for a few minutes than drive me to hers?"

"Sure, of course," Damon replied instantly, a slight flicker if a wince on his face from what he'd described as "Klaus playing, 'Pin the Drinks Umbrella In The Damon.'" Repeatedly. "How bad is bad?"

"Her dad's spent the past two days torturing her because he knows she's a vampire," Elena explained, hating every single word out of her mouth.

"God, that is bad. Better call for reinforcements."

Elena didn't question him on that, didn't even say a word to Jeremy or Matt or Alaric in the living room as she pelted up the stairs to her bedroom and changed into her comfiest pair of pajamas -a pale blue cotton with penguins on- and grabbed a single DVD from a shoebox marked, 'MMT,' under her bed. She was back in Damon's car in under a minute, running up Caroline's front steps in ten. Skidding to a stop in her best friend's open doorway, she couldn't help the tears that sprang to her eyes as she looked at Caroline's face, pale and wet with tears.

"My dad found out I was a vampire and now he hates me," Caroline cried with hiccuping breaths, blue eyes misted with cloudy tears.

"Stefan doesn't wasn't to come home, it was all for nothing, and he broke my heart," said Elena hollowly.

"God, life sucks for us, doesn't it?" the blonde grumbled as she scooted away from Tyler and opened out her arms to her. Elena feel into them like she had so many times, like when she broke up with Matt, or when her parents died, when she found out she was adopted. Her and Bonnie, they'd felt more of her tears than any pillow.

Tyler left the room, giving them a minute, but they were soon interrupted.

"I leave town for the summer, and everything goes horribly for you to?" said none other than Bonnie Bennett, and soon they were all crying, cuddled up on Caroline's bed, and then Matt came in and then Jeremy and Tyler, they were all there, and Elena didn't think anyone had ever felt such love and overwhelming friendship as she did in that moment.

"You know what we need?" Bonnie asked the assembled group. "Ice cream and 'MMT.'

Elena grinned, sitting up and wiping her eyes. "Did you get yours?"

"Of course. As soon as Damon called, it was the first thing I grabbed."

The doppelgänger gaped at her. "Damon called you? That's how you knew to come over?"

Bonnie nodded admiringly. "Yep, said Caroline and you had had it rough and needed me, needed to be all together. He called Matt and Jer, too." As she said his name, she shot her boyfriend an affectionately shy glance. There was certainly no doubt about who she'd be falling asleep next to tonight.

"Come on, let's take this party into the living room."

"Wait!" Matt called out. "What is the 'MMT'?"

With a crooked smile, Elena pulled him from his pillow-mound on the floor as she purred, "Oh, Matty, we're about to change your life."

The 'MMT' stood for the Magical Movie Trifecta, the three movies Elena, Caroline and Bonnie had picked when they were younger that, individually, were great, but combined...they were magic. Each one represented a flavour: savoury, salty, and sweet. Savoury was, 'Fried Green Tomatoes,' salty was 'Grease,' and last, but not least, sweet with, "The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement.' Because mattress surfing and, oh yeah, Chris Pine.

Elena had a weakness for Chris Pine, it was true.

As the six of them shuffled out into the living room, they found Damon, Ric and Liz already setting out ice cream, Coke, popcorn, and other essential chick-flick goodies and getting out the comfy blankets. God, she loved her little family.

Some of her old pep seeming to come back to her, Caroline clapped her hands and decreed, "I'm picking what we watch first. And no one touch that Rockie Road before me if they want to live, or not have embarrassing pictures posted online, whichever's most terrifying."

Matt grinned, handing her the remote. "Definitely option two."

"Totally," Tyler agreed. "Death is quick, but social humiliation? That's forever."

The blonde declared, "We're watching Tomatoes."

"Better get out the tissues then."

Author's Note: Hello, everyone! I'm sorry for the wait, I had such a hard time writing this one, and I apologize that so much if it is canon, but hopefully the ending made up for it, and that you like where I'm taking this story. Elena and Elijah will work out everything soon, I promise, but not in the way you're expecting...

As always, feel free to leave a review and share your thoughts.

And, I want to wish you all a happy Remembrance Day, and my thoughts go out to those who have family who have served, or are serving, or have served themselves. Love, peace, equality and freedom are always worth fighting for.

Okay, I'm off to start writing chapter 23...Who will win the breakfast cook-off for the gang? Alaric, Damon, or Liz?

All my love, Temperance Cain.