Elena was in sitting in his study this time, waiting for him to show up.

Something had happened last night, something strange, she had a dream.

It wasn't that she didn't have dreams.

She dreamt of monsters.

She dreamt of her parents.

She even dreamt of him.

And sometimes, very rarely, she even had pleasurable dreams.

But she had never had a pleasurable dream about Klaus.

She wished she could forget it.

The blue of his eyes. The red of lips. The long fingers.

He walked inside then and led her into the room adjoining his study. This room was different then the one she'd been in the other day.

This one was clear marble, crystals, and red leather couches with sunlight streaming in from the floor to ceiling windows. She had expected his house to be dark and mysterious, like the boarding house, not warm and rich with sunlight. It was so opposing to his nature, she almost wondered if someone else had designed it.

"I'm here." She announced needlessly as his back was turned to her. She had been running her fingers down his back in the dream.

"Clearly." There was something that strained his voice.

"So, what do you want?"

"I want to compel you." He said turning around to face her.

"What? No, you can't do that." She wouldn't let him take over her mind.

"Relax sweetheart. All I'll do is to compel you to not divulge our conversations to other people. And that you don't use anything I tell you in a plot to kill me."

"What? And that's supposed to make it better?" She asked him, having planted herself in the middle of the room.

"Well, it is actually." He said looking at her intensely. In her dreams, those eyes had looked at other parts of her intensely.

"No."

"I won't hurt any of your family if you do. I give you my word." Her neck snapped at his words. While she didn't want to be compelled, she was also tired of the constant fighting. He was an immortal hybrid who couldn't be killed, and at the rate they were going, her family and friends would all get themselves killed.

"That's not enough. You can never threaten them either. Or have someone else threaten them." She said grasping the opportunity that had presented itself.

"Just your family, not your friends and not the Salvatores."

"My family and Caroline and Bonnie."

"Your aunt and your brother, that's it."

"My aunt, my brother, Alaric and" she stopped to think of all her friends. She hated having to pick just one, it was cruel, but there would be no deal if she did that. "And Matt." She said decidedly. The rest were supernatural in one way or another, and they could at least try to protect themselves. Matt was just human and defencelessness.

"You do drive a hard bargain. Fine, your aunt, her boyfriend, your brother and the human. You have my word, now take off the vervain." He said eyeing the necklace.

"And that you'll compel me to do the two things that you just mentioned, nothing else." She saw his eyebrows raise. She remembered him in her dream, how his eyes looked, dark with desire.

"You are careful negotiating aren't you?" He asked looking at her through narrowed eyes.

"I'm negotiating with you. I have to be careful."

"Alright, now take off the damn vervain." He said pointing to her necklace. He frowned at her after a moment. "Isn't that Rebekah's?"

"Yeah. Stefan gave it to me." She did her best not to show her emotions, but she knew the sadness bled into her voice anyway. She looked away from him and took off her one defence against him.

He looked at her, as if examining a specimen in a lab.

"So Stefan took my sisters necklace, who he was involved with at the time, and then gave it to you. Not very romantic is it?" He tried feigning nonchalance, but there was something in his voice, a certain edge to it, that she couldn't quite place.

"He didn't remember it was hers."

"Ah, is that to be my fault too? For taking away Stefan's memories from the '20s. You should be thanking me love," here she scoffed, "Stefan was a monster then. Some of the best tricks of torture I learned, I learned from him."

"No." It was one thing knowing that Stefan had done horrible things, it was another to realise that Klaus had considered them horrible.

"Yes, I was fascinated by his casualness towards cruelty. It rivalled even my own." He told her, even though she shook her head.

"You're lying."

"No I'm not, and you know it."

She did know it. Klaus was manipulative and diabolical, but he rarely lied, at least outright. Elijah was the one who played with words, Klaus on the other hand, played with emotions.

"Let's just get this over with." She said as he walked towards her, taking careful, measured steps.

Until he was right in front of her.

There was something hanging over them. They both knew, even if they didn't acknowledge it, that this would change things, that whatever happened from here on out, it would be something neither could anticipate.

He used two fingers to tilt her chin up.

He had done that in her dream too.

He looked into her eyes.

"You will not tell anyone what we talk about in these conversations we have. Whatever I tell you now, you will never use in any kind of plot against me or my family. You will remember this." He let her chin go as she blinked trying to make sense of what had happened.

She walked back and sat down on one of the red couches as he poured himself a glass of red wine.

Or maybe it was blood.

Maybe it was her blood.

She had let him compel her, and she wasn't sure what she had gotten herself into.

"You're just like Rebekah." He didn't turn around, he didn't need to, she saw the way his shoulders tensed. "She also had to compel herself friends. Only you're worse, at least she didn't use her enemies."

He was in front of her in the next moment, looming over her.

"Here." He said handing her vervain necklace back to her and she laughed.

"Why? So you can compel me while telling yourself you didn't force me, just because of some deal!" She didn't realise the her voice was raised until she screamed the last part of the sentence.

"I don't care about whether or not I have compel you. I will have no guilt whatsoever." He moved back, going to sit on the couch opposite her.

She looked around the room as she waited for him to speak, even as she felt his eyes on her. When she looked back however, his gaze was averted to the glass in his hands. When he looked up, she played with the straps of her bag. The two of them playing a ridiculous, futile game.

In the end, she was the one that broke.

"Is that my blood?" She asked pointing to the glass in his hands.

"No." He said as looked at her thoughtfully. "Why would you think that?"

"Seems like something you would do." He looked amused at her words,

"This is from a fresh, local blood bag. Not your brachial." He said, raising the glass.

When he didn't say anything for a few more minutes, she slowly relaxed into the couch. She pulled out her calculus book.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"I told Jenna I was staying late at the library to study." She said flippantly, just because she had to lose her time, didn't mean she had to fall behind in school.

"And she believed you?"

"I don't know. But I actually have to get this done." She said looking directly at him.

"By all means." It was a tenuous silence after that stayed for a while. Elena kept doing her homework and he was pacing about the room, like a caged tiger. When she was done, she put the book back in with a sigh.

"So what is this?" She asked him.

"It's whatever I want it to be. After all, I'm the one with the power."

"Alright, so I just come here after school each day?" She asked in confusion.

"Whenever you can. Now tell me something interesting that happened today."

"I-what?"

"I'm bored." He flashed her his dimples and she wanted to shove a poker from the fireplace in his chest. In her dreams, there was a soft edge to him, there was nothing but roughness now.

"I'm the prime suspect in a murder investigation." She said without preamble, and she finally caught him off guard, even if it was for a few seconds.

"Well, don't just leave it like that, do tell."

"Someone killed the medical examiner with a wooden stake-"

"He was a vampire?"

"No, that's the thing. He was human. Anyway they killed him with one of my families stakes. So it had my fingerprints all over it."

"Are they investigating you?"

"Sheriff Forbes told me she knew it wasn't me."

"What did you mean, your families stake?"

"No, not like this. You can't ask me deep, personal questions without anything in return."

"I get to do whatever I like." There it was again, that slight edge of cruelty.

"Then you compel someone else." She said, "but if you want me here then you have to answer my questions too."

She thought he would force her, or threaten someone, or maybe just ignore her. But he didn't do any of it.

"Fine." She frowned at him, he was behaving very odd, having her come to him, demanding conversation, was he really just that lonely? Or was he trying to pull her away from her friends? Although he had never said she couldn't tell anyone about them meeting. Or was there some diabolical plot he was planning? Worse, was it some sick game to give her Stockholm Syndrome? The possibilities were endless.

And then there was his mood. She knew Klaus was as moody as they came, but today was something else entirely. He was angry, but she could tell he was still in control.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't know what else to do." She could've sworn she heard vulnerability in his voice, but when she saw him his face was a mask, fully devoid of emotions.

"My family. They were a long line of vampire hunters." She said and he looked surprised.

"You get more fascinating by the second."

"Who all are in the coffins?" She asked, "It's only fair. Besides, you've already compelled me remember?" She spat out the last part bitterly.

"Obviously Rebekah and Elijah, and my brothers, Kol and Finn."

"It started with Johnathan Gilbert, he was a founder and he was the one that came with the idea to burn all the vampires in the tomb. Including Katherine."

"I like this ancestor of yours." He said at her words.

"Only because he wanted to kill Katherine."

"Yes, of course. Although, I do want to be the one that kills her."

"So, why didn't you just do it? At the sacrifice. And why did you let her go?" She asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice.

"Because I like the idea of her, constantly on the run, always looking over her shoulder. Wondering when I will strike." The smile on his face was so pleasant, they could have been discussing about the weather, and not the way he mentally tortured her ancestor.

"That is ruthless."

"Feeling sympathy for a distant relative?" He asked her mockingly.

"I...no."

"I'm surprised, I thought you had sympathy for everyone, darling."

She thought back to the day in the tomb, the pity she had felt for Katherine. And then she remembered how she had worked with Isobel to exchange her life for her own freedom. Turning Caroline, stealing the moonstone, wanting to use Caroline and Tyler for the sacrifice.

"Not for her."

"Well, looks like I have finally found a limit to your limitless compassion." He said in the way that he always did. She looked down at her watch and sighed looking at the time.

"It's almost five, can I go now?" She felt like a child, asking for permission, but she didn't know what the rules were here.

"Of course, you can leave anytime you like." He said in that usual way of his, but there was also something weighing him down, almost.

She was itching to ask him if he was fine, but she didn't know what she would do if he wasn't. It wasn't as if she could offer him comfort. So she bid her goodbyes and left.


When she reached home, she could smell the flavours of a rich sauce hitting her nose. She walked to the kitchen and found Damon there, along with Alaric, Jenna and Bonnie.

"Elena, hey, dinner's almost done. You should freshen up." Jenna told her and she nodded going up the stairs, unable to stop herself from thinking that something was going on in the kitchen. That they were planning something she didn't know about. Probably some move to kill Klaus.

She sat on her bed, head heavy in her hands, as she let her tears flow.

She let Klaus compel her.

After everything that had been said and done, she allowed her enemy into her mind. In more ways than one, a treacherous part of her mind thought, going back to her dream, which only made the tears fall faster.

And she didn't even regret the decision. Not with the scene she had just witnessed downstairs.

As much as she loved her friends, their plans always failed and Klaus always won. So she let him control her, to an extent, to save them.

Because even if she was a martyr, her plans worked.