Chapter 28: Katerina

March 25, 2010

After she made the deal with Elijah, he explained the origins of vampires. As it turned out, all vampires were created from the first line of vampires, a family, The Originals. He explained that vampires weren't like their fictional counterparts in most aspects. They could see their reflection and be in pictures as well as eat garlic and go into churches and holy water was useless. They did however, die from decapitation or being burned to death or having their heart ripped out or if they were staked through the heart with a wooden stake. Being out in the sun could also kill them, and at the very least would cause them harm. A plant called vervain was also insanely toxic to vampires.

The description of how they could be killed wasn't a pleasant thing to imagine. When she asked why the coat rack through the chest didn't do him in, he laughed and merely stated that it was a perk of being an Original. When she asked how it was possible that he walked in the sun, he explained that there was a special stone called Lapis Lazuli that, when spelled by a witch, would protect them from the sun so long as they wore it. He showed her the ring he wore and it reminded her very much of the family rings that Stefan and Damon wore.

He explained about the sun and moon curse when asked about it and that led to the revelation about werewolves also being real. Elijah told her all about them, including how they were nearly extinct and the wolfsbane would cause them harm in the same way vervain would hurt a vampire. She felt overwhelmed by the time Elijah ended it. Ellie had been frustrated, but also grateful and he assured her that she could ask another time.

It would be late at night by the time she arrived home. To avoid suspicion, they decided that it would appear that she had been compelled to believe that she'd spent the day hungover in the woods near the Lockwood house and had been too out of it when she was conscious to come home. He carefully dropped her off far enough from her house that he wouldn't be seen and it gave her time to mess up her hair to make it look a bit more believable.

She arrived home insanely late, and thankfully Jenna hadn't been home. The moment she'd walked through the door, Elena had all but thrown herself at her sister in relief. Elena questioned her, but she played her part well. If not from her own experiences, she'd seen Jeremy wasted enough to know how to make it seem realistic. Her brother had seemed worried but she just pinched his cheek before nearly falling down the stairs. It had been enough to make her siblings really believe it.

Elena had left the house early and surprisingly, Jeremy did too, which gave her the perfect opportunity to snoop. It wasn't hard to find where Elena had hidden her diary, although she had changed it's hiding spot. She read the diary at an alarming speed, starting from the day they met Stefan Salvatore. Elena learning of vampires had been a progression. She'd put it together in bits and pieces before she confronted Stefan about it.

It brought back the memory of sitting on Elena's bed with her and Bonnie as the girl revealed her secret to the twins. Elena had said that it wasn't a good week to make her promise anything. She'd been talking about finding out about Stefan. Then Vicki… god Vicki had been a vampire and died because of it. The way Elena wrote suggested that Damon had turned her. Vicki was dead because of Damon. How could Elena have known the entire time that they thought Vicki was missing that she was actually dead and she couldn't even be bothered to tell anyone?

She kept reading and it felt like she was a punching bag and the secrets Elena had kept were hits from a professional boxer. Despite being overwhelmed, she read every page. There were only two times she really stopped. One was when she read Elena's entry about what happened to Caroline. Her beautiful best friend had been murdered in her hospital bed and turned by Katherine, just to get a message to the Salvatores. Caroline was a vampire. Caroline had died and Ellie didn't even notice. That surely won her the prize for being the world's crappiest friend.

But the other… Damon killed Jeremy. He snapped his neck like it was nothing. He did it for the sheer fact that he was having a temper tantrum and if Jeremy hadn't been wearing the magic ring that John had given him, Jeremy would be dead right now. The fact that she'd come so close to losing him… The fact that she had in fact lost him, if only for a few minutes, made her want to scream. How had Elena watched as their brother got murdered and then did nothing? If Ellie saw him any time soon, she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep from murdering him on the spot. He was responsible for the deaths of two of the people most important to her.

To make matters even worse than they already were, Elena had gotten Damon to compel Jeremy. It was the same mind control trick that Elijah had used on Elena. She got Damon to erase Jeremy's memories, to make him forget his hurt. That explained Jeremy's total one eighty that he had done. It explained why he had seemed bizarrely alright after Vicki had died. Elena had absolutely no right to control Jeremy's mind the way that she had and it made Ellie want to scream.

Not only that, but apparently Mason was a werewolf and being a werewolf ran in the Lockwood family. From what Elena wrote, to become a werewolf, someone had to have the gene and kill someone to activate it. They found out he'd been working for Katherine and he'd also tried to get Stefan and Damon killed. So instead, Damon killed him. Ellie could see Tyler so clearly in her mind. He had been upset that Mason had just disappeared. How could she see him and not tell him the truth? How had Elena been able to look at him and not feel guilty?

Once she finished pages, she hastily put the diary back in its place before rushing to get out the door and get to school. Her drive was filled with an unexpected amount of danger. Every single time Elena had been shady, every lie she told, she had put everyone else in danger. People had died because of it. Not everyone got the chance to come back like Jeremy and Caroline had. Anna didn't get that chance, nor did her mother. They hadn't been best friends, but she'd cared about the girl, especially since she was important to Jeremy.

When she arrived at school, she prayed to whoever was listening that she wouldn't see any of them because she definitely did not have her emotions in check. "Hey, excuse me." An unfamiliar boy grabbed her attention as he approached her. "Do you know which way's the office?"

"Uh yeah, you go through those double doors right there, go straight and take the first left, and then your first right. Are you new here?" Ellie asked him. He was a good distraction to reign in her emotions before something bad happened.

"Yeah, I am. I can't really hide it. My name's Luka." He introduced himself. "I got those same directions earlier from another guy, but I think I went through the wrong double doors." Luka explained with a small laugh.

"Ah, I see. Don't worry, happens to the best of us. I'll walk you over there. My name's Ellie by the way." Ellie said as she offered her hand for him to shake. When he did, it felt like static shock ran all the way up her arm and her eyes snapped up to his in surprise. He was grinning knowingly. "What-"

He gave her another bright smile. "Elijah told you he had his ways didn't he?" Luka questioned. "Don't worry, I'm really here as a student, and I mean no harm. I promise. I wouldn't have made myself known if I did."

Luka seemed to be telling the truth, and so she let herself relax. "That makes sense. I've just had a lot of bombs dropped on me at once and I just feel…"

"Like you were one of the unlucky passengers on the Titanic?" He offered.

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up." She agreed. He had an air of ease about him and it helped to ease her nerves. "Well, that's part of the reason I'm here. He mentioned that you had just the supernatural bomb dropped on you last night, and that you weren't aware of anything other than witches. He also mentioned that you lost your teacher. I'm very sorry for your loss." He seemed completely honest when he said it and for a moment she felt the flicker of pain at Miss Sheila's death. Another death caused by Damon Salvatore.

He had somehow managed to get it so that her arm was wrapped around his and he gave her a reassuring squeeze when her expression changed. "We weren't related, but she was like family to me. She died doing a hard spell, and ever since I found out, I just feel like if I'd been there, maybe I would have been enough backup and she wouldn't have died." It was the first time she'd confessed it out loud.

"You can't think like that. If she didn't involve you, then it was probably to protect you. If you had been in her spot, and you could risk your life or someone else's, what would you do?" Her silence was telling. "Exactly. She did it because she cared. It would be a disservice to her memory if you let guilt eat away at you when you have nothing to feel guilty for." Luka insisted.

It was how truly sincere he seemed that caused her to nod in agreement. "Ok, middle of the hallway is not the place to get emotional, so come on, let me actually show you to the office." Ellie said as she shook her head to try and get herself together.

"Of course." He agreed easily and they switched to safer, and more school appropriate topics. "If I'm lucky, you'll be good at English. Not my best subject." The tears that had threatened to fall vanished as she started to laugh.


The school day went by smoothly. Neither Caroline nor Bonnie had really spoken to her. She wasn't sure what Bonnie's deal was, but Caroline had seemed oddly focused on Stefan. At every sign of the vampire, Ellie tried to get as far away from him as possible. Luka had made sure that the two of them exchanged numbers before promising that he would introduce her to his dad soon since the older man had far more experience with being a witch.

It seemed that she was the first one home. She walked through the house as thoughts swirled around in her mind. Everything happened because Stefan and Damon came to town. Elena's diary told her that they came to town because Elena looked like Katherine, who had turned Damon and Stefan in 1864 right here in Mystic Falls. Everything seemed to start because of Katherine's influence, whether it was what the vampire intended or not.

One thing that Ellie knew for sure was that she wanted to know more about Katherine. Because, at one point, she had just been a regular girl. If Rose and Trevor had been on the run for five hundred years because they helped Katherine escape her fate, then that placed Katherine at somewhere over five hundred years old herself. Ellie couldn't even imagine what it must have been like to be a teenager in the 1500s.

She had headed to the kitchen to get a drink before a knock on the door interrupted those plans. "I'm coming!" Ellie called out to whoever was at the door. The last person she'd expected to see on her porch was Elijah, yet there he was. "How did you know where I lived?"

"When I have someone that I'm supposed to be protecting, then I do, in fact, protect them. I made sure that you arrived home safely before I departed." Elijah explained. "May I come in?"

"Would you be mad if I said no?" Ellie asked before stepping out onto the porch with him. "It's nothing against you, really. I just want to try and limit the amount of vampires with access to this house. Plus, I don't want to worry about accidentally making you mad and you killing me and everyone else in the house while we sleep."

Elijah nodded as he stepped away. "I felt it was probably wise to check in. You are of no use to me if you are too overwhelmed." Elijah told her. "I assume you met Luka today."

"I did. He seems pretty nice." She commented.

"He and his father are good people." He agreed. "You have a question. Ask it."

She supposed that with having five hundred and however many years that he'd been alive as experience on reading people that she was probably easy to read. "I want to know more about Katherine, Katerina, whatever her name is. Everyone makes it sound like all of this is happening because of her. I guess I can't help but be curious." Ellie confessed.

"Katerina is not to blame for you and your sister being in the position that you are currently in. Not really. Yes, if she had completed the sacrifice then there would be no need for you, but that's more correlation rather than causation." He said. "Klaus is the one that wants to complete the ritual. He found Katerina in 1492 and she fled before he could sacrifice her. When we first met Katerina, she was just a girl who had just arrived in England."

"So what's so important about Elena, Katherine, and I being doppelgängers? What's it have to do with anything?"

"The curse was bound by the blood of a Petrova, at least, what would become the Petrova line. Surely you know that certain spells have very specific requirements. The blood of a Petrova doppelgänger is simply one of the requirements." Elijah said as he moved to sit on the porch swing.

Ellie contemplated it. That made sense. "So, if that's the case, and Elena and I look exactly like Katherine, does that mean that all three of us look exactly like the girl that was used to bind the curse in the first place?"

He nodded in confirmation. "You're very quick to pick up on things." He complimented. "When Katerina escaped, she only managed it because Trevor aided her. We would have found her had he not led us astray. Because of his assistance, she was able to turn into a vampire and escape Klaus. It was what put a mark on the heads of Trevor and Rose." The mention of the now very dead vampire made her wince. The sight of his headless body was still burned into her brain.

She tried to put herself in the other girl's shoes. If it meant saving her life or someone else's that she loved, could she potentially sentence someone else to death? She didn't want anyone to die because of her, but… it made her head hurt to think about it. The situation really made her feel like she was treading a thin line. "You said Klaus was the one that wanted to break the curse. Does that mean you don't?"

"I might have at one point. Now, I am no longer sure it's wise." Elijah said before glancing down at his watch. "My apologies for having to cut this short, but I have an appointment I must attend. If you have any other questions, Luka and his father will do their best to assist you. If something comes up that they do not have the resources for, they know how to get in touch with me." He was gone before she even had a chance to say goodbye.

She didn't dwell on his sudden appearance and disappearance for long. Instead, her thoughts kept traveling back to the thoughts of a young girl, absolutely scared to death in a foreign land with a dangerous man wanting nothing more than to kill her to get what he wanted. Whether Katherine was a decent person now didn't really matter much. Even if she had been a bad person when she was human, she didn't deserve to get sacrificed.

Elena had also told Elijah that Katherine was in the tombs under the old church. She could… no… surely that was a bad idea. But she was a witch, and she had been strong enough to hold Elijah off for a bit when she'd been exhausted. She hadn't been trying to hurt him either, it had just been an attempt to keep him out. The rational part of her screamed that it was a bad idea.

She elected to ignore it.

Rather than listening to it, she grabbed a few things before heading back out to her car. She knew where Elena was talking about. It wasn't far from the place that Duke had had that party a while back. She drove quickly before her nerves, or maybe just her common sense, could convince her to back out. The sight of Duke's party was easy to find with the way the ground was still scorched from the large fire that had been going that night. She considered which way to go and let her instincts guide her.

When she found herself heading in the same direction that Elena and Damon had gone that night, she figured that she was going in the right direction. She walked carefully as she searched for the entrance. The last thing she needed was to fall in and break an ankle. It took a couple minutes, but she managed to find a hole in the ground with a set of stairs. Ellie walked down it carefully and she could feel the magic radiating around the room. "Back so soon?" A familiar voice called. She sounded exactly like Elena.

A figure strolled towards the entrance. The last thing Ellie had been expecting was to see her double wearing the dress that Elena had worn to the masquerade. "What-" Unless it hadn't been Elena.

Katherine smiled at her as she leaned against the wall. "Well, well, well, I didn't expect to see you here." She confessed. "Because last I checked you were clueless as to what was going on. But I have gotten really good at being Elena if I do say so myself. I pretended to be your twin and you didn't even realize." She tilted her head and quirked up an eyebrow as she appraised Ellie. "So, what brings you here?"

"You do." Ellie told her simply. "And, to be fair, it's not like I knew that there was someone else identical to me and Elena that could potentially be impersonating her." If she thought about it, why would Katherine remain here in a dress from days ago, unless she was trapped.

"Alright, I'll bite. Why have I brought you here?" Katherine questioned as she slunk down to sit. Ellie went closer, but didn't pass into the opening since it seemed the most logical place to put a boundary spell on. She'd read about several of them in the grimoires Miss Sheila had given her.

Ellie took a seat as well and faced the vampire. Really, she had no reason to not tell the other girl the truth. So she did. "Everything vampire related started happening the moment Stefan and Damon rolled back into town. They came back because Elena and I looked like you, because you turned them in 1864. This stupid curse sacrifice crap is happening to us now because you weren't killed five hundred and whatever years ago. I guess I was curious about you." Ellie confessed.

"Curious about me?" Katherine scoffed. "Alright, ask away. I like you better than Elena anyways. She's boring."

"I want to know about Klaus and what happened when you met." Ellie told her.

Katherine didn't mask her surprise. "You know far more than I expected of you." Katherine told her. "I'm not caught off guard often, you should be proud of yourself." Ellie watched as Katherine cracked her neck before she seemed to shift to get more comfortable. "But since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you." The witch must have had a look of disbelief because Katherine added, "That and Elena didn't tell you anything and it brings me joy to spite her."

"Good enough for me." Ellie said. As long as she was getting answers, she didn't care what Katherine's reasons were for telling her.

"The story of Klaus and I goes back more than five hundred years. It was 1492 to be specific. It was in England, after I left Bulgaria… or, was thrown out."

"Thrown out?" Ellie questioned. "Why?"

"My family, the true ancestors of you and Elena, they disowned me." Katherine confessed. "My indiscretions were not tolerated at that time. I had a baby out of wedlock. The shame."

Ellie nodded along. "And they kept it secret to keep the family reputation." It was more a statement than a question.

"Mmhmm." Katherine confirmed. "My baby was given away. I was banished to England, and I had to learn to adjust. So I quickly became English." Ellie could admit that she was impressed at how effortlessly the vampire took on a flawless British accent. "It was there that I caught the eye of a nobleman named Klaus. I was taken with him at first, until I found out what he was and what he wanted from me and then I ran like hell."

"What exactly did Klaus want?" Ellie questioned. There were others that she wanted answers to but it was better to take it one at a time.

"Same thing that he's gonna want from either you or Elena. He wants to break the curse." Katherine told her.

"By sacrificing a Petrova Doppelgänger." Ellie added.

"He wanted to drain every single drop of blood from my body." Katherine said.

Ellie fiddled with the laces of her shoes as she put what Katherine had said with what Elijah had told her. "He needed a Petrova because Petrova blood was what the curse was bound with."

The vampire nodded. "The doppelgänger was created as a way to be able to undo the spell. Once the doppelgänger reappears, the curse can be broken."

"So you ran before he got the chance."

Katherine made a face. "Something like that. When I ran, I took the moonstone and with Trevor's help, I made it to a cottage in the woods where his friend, Rose, was staying with a human to protect them from other vampires. She didn't want to help me. She was terrified of Klaus and swore that she would take me back to him at nightfall and beg him for mercy."

"But that didn't happen did it?" Ellie asked, although the answer wasn't hard to guess.

"No. But not because she had a change of heart." Katherine said and if Ellie wasn't wrong, Katherine sounded a little bitter about it. "She'd had the woman give me water and something to eat. When the woman did just that, she'd also given me a knife. So, I cut a gash into my side. At nightfall, when Rose was preparing to take me back, she noticed it after I had been bleeding for a while. I told her I would rather die than go back to Klaus."

"I can't imagine she liked that." Ellie commented.

"She didn't. I would have died by the time she got me back to Klaus from blood loss, so she fed me her blood to heal me. She had been preparing to bind my hands so that I couldn't try to run when Trevor arrived. She made the mistake of leaving the rope in the room with me. I couldn't go back to Klaus, so I did what I had to do." Katherine explained.

Ellie's breath caught in her throat in surprise. "You killed yourself?"

"Klaus needed a human doppelgänger. As a vampire, I was no longer of any use to him."

"But did you really escape? From what I know, you've had to be on the run ever since." Ellie asked her.

Katherine shrugged. "I underestimated his spirit for vengeance. But living out of a suitcase is better than dying so that you could have your blood spilled over some silly little rock. Of course, your sister made it clear how much of a 'horrible person' I was for using them." Katherine rolled her eyes at the statement.

"You weren't." Ellie told her.

"What makes you say that?" Katherine asked sarcastically.

The young witch shrugged. "I can't talk about you now because I don't know you. But from what you've told me and from what I've heard, you as a human were just trying to survive. Yeah, it's awful what happened to Trevor and Rose, but what else were you supposed to do? Let yourself get murdered?" Ellie questioned. "How could I sit here and tell you that you were a bad person when I'm not sure I would have made another decision."

"Well, at least you're honest." Katherine commented. "It was nothing personal against either of them. I just didn't want to die."

"Most people don't want to die." Ellie insisted before asking, "How badly did you underestimate him? It's got to be more than just hunting you."

Katherine didn't say anything for a moment. She looked at something farther back in the cave and Ellie thought she could faintly see the outline of a book laying back there. "I severely underestimated him. After I turned, I made my way back to Bulgaria. When I made it back to my family, I found them slaughtered. My father had been pinned to the wall with a sword through his chest. My mother was dropped across the bed with my sister sitting on the floor next to her." The vampire flexed her fingers. "My sister was twelve years old."

Five hundred years later and Katherine was still hurting over that loss. That much was clear. It wasn't surprising though. No matter who she was now, she had just been a young girl trying to survive. "I'm so sorry." Ellie told her sincerely. Katherine turned to look at her once more. "I don't think I would have been able to survive something like that. I'm sorry that you had to go through it."

"Nothing I can do about it now." Katherine said uncaringly. Ellie didn't believe her nonchalance for a second.

Ellie didn't comment further on it. Instead, she took a moment to process all the information that she had been told. The curse of the sun and the moon, as Luka had hastily explained at lunch, was a curse placed on both vampires and werewolves. Vampires break the curse and they can walk in the sun freely. Werewolves break the curse and they can turn at will instead of just on the full moon. "But a spell that's this old and no one's broken it, means there's more to it than a doppelgänger and moonstone isn't there?"

"Mmhmm." Katherine confirmed.

She thought through what Katherine had done since she'd arrived back in Mystic Falls. "So what else does it need?" Ellie asked. Mason came back to town trying to find the moonstone. But he was a werewolf. Why would she help a werewolf? "You needed a werewolf. That's why you were involved with Mason, isn't it?"

"Smart girl. Believe it or not, werewolves are hard to come by."

"If you needed a werewolf, then you needed a vampire too." Ellie deduced. "That's why you turned Caroline."

"Really, I could have turned anyone, but I figured that Caroline would send a stronger message. I like the poetry of Caroline." Katherine confessed. She didn't seem to really feel guilty about it.

But if she needed a werewolf… "But Mason was killed by Damon. Which means you need another werewolf." Ellie said more to herself than to Katherine, but with the other girl's super hearing, she caught it easily.

"I already have one. It's just oh so convenient that there was another Lockwood boy around." Katherine explained as she examined her nails. "And it was so very easy to stage an accident. Those Lockwood men, they have such strong tempers."

If Katherine had been at the masquerade ball... If she had staged an accident… "Tyler." Ellie said in shock. "Oh my god, Sarah." She'd seen Sarah's body and how upset Tyler had been. He'd given the moonstone to Mason. Was it possible that he'd known what would happen if he killed someone?

"What else did you need?"

"A witch. I had one, but she bailed. Little Bonnie will do just fine though. Bennett witches are always a good choice." Katherine said.

"God." Ellie muttered under her breath.

"I've run from Klaus for five hundred years. I figured maybe after all this time, he might be willing to strike a deal." Katherine told her. "The more I could give him, the more forgiving he might be." Ellie hated that she understood her reasoning. She didn't like it and she definitely didn't agree with it. But she understood it. "If Klaus comes and anyone tries to run, he will hunt them down until he finds them. He is not a very forgiving man. Whatever you do to escape, he will get vengeance. There's nothing you can do to stop it."

She sounded entirely serious. "He's going to kill us all."

"If you run, yes. Maybe some of you will survive if you do what he wants." Katherine told her. "In the end, no matter how long it takes, he will get what he wants." She picked up a large book and started flipping through it. Ellie remained silent, not knowing what else to say. The past two days had been such an information overload and she needed a minute to catch her breath. So she watched the vampire before her.

Katherine was scanning over the pages of the book she'd gone to get as mixed emotions danced across her features. She turned the page once more and stopped. Ellie watched as her eyes went wide and delicately took a hold of a drawing. From what Ellie could see, the drawing was three different faces. A man and a woman were drawn on the upper half of the page and a younger girl was drawn in between the two on the lower half of the page. Were they Katherine's family?

It seemed like Katherine had forgotten she was there entirely. The vampire's eyes watered slightly as she caressed the drawing of the older woman. It was painful to see her look so upset. How could it not when it felt like looking at Elena when she was upset? She completely forgot about the boundary spell as she reached over to squeeze Katherine's forearm. "I'm sorry for what happened to them." She knew she'd already told her, but it felt necessary to say it again.

"Thank you." Katherine replied as she stared at Ellie's grip.

"What is that?" Ellie questioned as she nodded her head at the book.

"It's my family's Bible." Katherine said as she closed the book to reveal the name 'Petrova' etched in gold on the side. The book was worn from the centuries but it looked like it had been an expensive book in it's time. "I haven't seen it since I left Bulgaria."

"How did you get it back then?" Ellie questioned as she released the grip she had on Katherine.

"Elena." Katherine confessed as she set the book aside again. "She brought it in and thought it would be an effective bribe for me to tell her what she wanted to know."

So that was why she'd made the comment about being back so soon, Elena had been there earlier. But the mention of being bribed by Elena reminded Ellie of the bag she'd brought. "Oh, that reminds me." Ellie said as she pulled her bag closer to her and started opening it. She pulled out a thick blanket and placed it in her hand along with a pillow before bringing out a couple books and some snacks. "These are for you." Ellie said as she passed them through the barrier. "I don't really know if vampires are affected by the cold and stuff, but either way it can't be comfortable to be stuck down here."

Katherine took the offered items as she gave Ellie a funny look. "How considerate of you." Katherine remarked as she placed them down on her lap. "A bag of Chex Mix?" She questioned as she held up the bag.

Ellie shrugged. "I don't know what you like and we had it in the house. It's not like I had any blood on stand by to give you." Ellie admitted. "Oh, here's something to drink though." She pulled a few bottles of water out of her bag and passed it to the vampire as well. "Can I ask how you ended up stuck in here?"

The vampire looked annoyed as she huffed. "The witch I had betrayed me to Stefan and Damon. She spelled the moonstone to knock me out when she gave it to me. They decided to toss me in here out of spite."

"Spite?"

"In 1864, the founding families had a secret council to get rid of the vampires in the town. I faked my death by setting it up so that I would get taken but I would escape before the church was set up in flames. All the other vampires were rounded up but didn't die because Emily had cast a spell to seal us in the tomb until it was safe. They were trapped, I got out. Stefan and Damon died trying to save me. Damon spent the whole time since then trying to get me out. They weren't exactly pleased when they found out I wasn't in here." Katherine explained as she rolled her eyes. "He stuck me in here and said it was where I should have been all along."

Ellie nodded. It sounded like a petty move, but if she had spent that long trying to save someone only to find out that they didn't need saving, she might have been a bit petty too. "If Elena brought you stuff, did she bring you any other clothes?"

She wasn't sure why she was being so nice to the vampire, but she couldn't help it. Katherine was staring at her before shaking her head. "No. Elena didn't bring me any clothes." Katherine informed her.

When Ellie looked down at her phone, she was surprised to see the time. "I'm sorry, but I have to get going. I don't want anyone to get worried." Ellie said as she stood from where she sat. Katherine watched her as she did so. "Do you want me to come back?" Ellie asked before she left.

"Why would you?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Ellie shot back.

"Fair enough. Do what you want." Katherine told her. "It's not like I can stop you."

"I'll see you later, Katherine." Ellie said before she made her way back up the stairs. It was already dark as she made her way back to her car. Navigating out of the woods in the dark was a bit trickier, but she managed it before taking the familiar path home. She hoped she didn't bump into anyone when she got there. Her emotions were still running far too high and there was a good chance she would snap on Elena.

There were choices that Elena had made that she just couldn't support. She would need to talk to Elijah about what to do. He had wanted her to pretend to be unaware of what had happened for a reason, although he didn't disclose why. She needed to know how he wanted her to react. If she was working with him, for him, whatever she wanted to call it, she had to make sure she didn't mess up his plans so that he didn't go back on his word to protect everyone.

When she arrived home, she moved quickly up the stairs. Jeremy's door was closed and she could hear the music coming from it. She could hear Elena sniffling in her room, but she didn't have the energy to try and deal with it. Even if she did have the energy, she wasn't sure she could help Elena without thinking about all the things Elena had done. So, she ignored it and walked into her room instead. Ellie had had her limit of insanity for the day.


Author's Note:

More Ellie and Katherine this chapter! And more Ellie and Elijah!. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Leave a review and let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions!

To Koinaka: Yes, they really did.

To RubyGemGreen: Oh my gosh, really? I'm so so glad you enjoy this story enough to read it all in one day! That literally means the world to me.

To Daynesky: Yes, yes, yes! They finally met! I'm so glad you loved them forgetting her. I was kind of worried people would hate it and say that it wouldn't happen like that. But I'm glad you think that it makes a good story point. It definitely changes how Ellie feels about certain things.

To HappyKat: I'm so glad you enjoyed the first taste of them together! I hope you enjoyed their interactions in this chapter and there's plenty more to come. Also thank you for saying the story is well written, I have a habit of worrying that it's not written well enough, so it's really nice to hear. I'm glad you think that I've made her real, it's part of why I spent so much time making the build up for her introduction to vampires because I wanted to flesh her out first. I hope you enjoyed this chapter too!

To lolistarkiller: Yeah, Elena does tend to think that she knows best. I'm still upset that she had Damon compel away Jeremy's memories of Vicki. I also agree about trusting Bonnie after she'd lost her grandmother because of Damon and not telling Jenna. But don't worry, I have plans for Jenna. And yeah, part of the reason I try my best to be consistent is because there's been so many times where I start reading a fic and then they don't update for months. I spent months writing chapters ahead so that when I posted I wouldn't have to worry about getting writers block and messing up the schedule, which turned out to be a very smart decision. I hope you liked this chapter!

To Aryabloodlust: She now knows basically everything thanks to Elena's diary, but she's going to have to keep her feelings to herself for a while longer because she's not allowed to say anything. Maybe Ellie's going to tell Jenna... maybe not. You'll just have to wait and see ;) And now the countdown starts once again. I hope you liked this chapter.

To Charlie0925: Honestly, Elena deserves a smack down. And don't worry, Ellie's going to do her best to protect her family. Also, the thought of Jenna signing over the house to Ellie is a very interesting idea. I'm so glad you enjoyed Ellie and Elijah meeting!

To RiRi: It has been a while! Tyler doesn't know anything because from what I remember, he wasn't involved with everyone else at that point when it came to the supernatural stuff. Jeremy and Caroline were absolutely pissed. The part that's going to make Ellie mad is that there is no excuse, but it happened anyways. The hiding info about biological parents was a very important part for me in writing because there's literally no way it can be excused. It isn't entirely involved in the supernatural and so she had no reason not to tell Ellie.

To Oz: I wanted the readers to be pissed that Elena and the Salvatores left her. And yes, the others are going to be pissed at what they did, but you don't get to really see it because Ellie isn't spending much time around them at the moment.

-Madame Magic

Posted: 8/22/20