Chapter Text

"His what? What is this, some cheap Mills and Boons romance?" Damon was frowning at her, his eyes clouded with anger, his tone as sharp as always.

"No!" She didn't realised that she'd yelled at him, part of her offended that he would try to taint something she held so close to her heart. This was part of what she had been afraid of, the way they'd all view it as something to be disgusted by, as something lacking in sincerity, in tenderness, as something unnatural.

Even if she could understand why they felt that way.

"Then what? Tell me." In the middle of everything, of the shock of her secrets being ripped out from her, of being afraid of Kol and Rebekah, she'd forgotten Damon could compel her too, until she felt the intense desire to tell him whatever he wanted to know.

"He makes me feel like I'm…" Alive, cared for, safe. She could've used any of those words, but she didn't want them to know about this. Whatever she and Klaus had was almost….sacred to her. It wasn't something she wanted to reveal in front of everyone, because it was theirs and it was special and she'd be damned if she let anyone mock it. She tried to search for something else to say, something true, but just at the surface of what she felt.

She knew everyone's attention was on her, that of her friends' was with thinly veiled anger, Kol with his blatant curiosity, Rebekah with a reluctant interest. But the compulsion, the combined effect of both Kol's and Damon's made her dig deep, even though she was sure she would only say as much as she wanted them to know.

"Like you're what?" She wasn't sure that Damon knew he was compelling her again, his words forming layers upon layers in her mind, making her grasp the things that she wouldn't even admit to herself under the cover of the dark when she was alone.

"Like I can be myself with him, and he'd never-" change me, "judge me." It was the beginning of it, but it was true. Over the last few years, her entire life really, she'd felt the need to fit into everyone's expectations of her. To be the founding family daughter, to be the good, responsible caretaker for her younger brother, to not grieve so much that it made others uncomfortable. Then when she found out about Katherine, just how much both Stefan and Damon had hated her doppelgänger, she'd felt the need to be nothing like her. To make sure that no matter what she did, she would never really fit into the mould of the Katherine they hated. All of those expectations fell away when she was with Klaus. Despite her own protests at some of his more... homicidal behaviour, he'd never asked her to change for him. He'd been quite emphatic that he wouldn't change, and he didn't like the way she risked her life, but that had never translated into criticisms over her, her believes or her own twisted morality.

"Like he would protect me." She tried, really, really hard, to keep the vulnerability out of her voice, but she had failed this time. It was an odd feeling too, to have such emotions towards him, after everything that had happened between them, after everything he had done, but he was nothing if not a walking contradiction.

His claims at strength when she had seen him at his weakest, his insistence on not caring, but the hurt in his voice when his family had left Mystic Falls, had left him, his hollow professions of manipulating her, yet his tormented voice clear in her ear, telling her he cared about her, that he had missed her when they were apart, the fear in his eyes when she had almost died. The way he'd stared like he didn't know what to do with himself when she had broken the news about her pregnancy.

"Are you crazy? He's obviously manipulating you and using you." Damon exclaimed as he turned to her but she looked away from him, not wanting him to compel her again. "How can you have feelings for him?" She tried to hold her tongue, but all the compulsion had her talking again. She wished someone would interrupt her, that someone would compel her to just keep her damn mouth shut, because she knew that despite her attempts at fighting it, there was a hollowness growing inside her with each word that was ripped from her.

"I don't know Damon, I can't control how I feel, or explain it either." Didn't want to explain it, she knew how Damon could be. He'd make fun of every word, every look she'd clutched to her heart over the last few weeks, just as surely as Bonnie had scoffed at her.

"Well-"

"You know I hate to say this," Rebekah said haltingly, like she didn't know whether she wanted to speak or not, "but Damon might be right. Nik is a master at manipulation, he'll make you comfortable, make you think that you can trust him, and then he'll turn on you like a snake."

"See?" She wasn't sure what to make of the fact that Damon and Rebekah were agreeing on something, but she was interrupted before she could say anything.

"Oh, I disagree sister," Kol sounded like he was having a regular conversation, not like he was debating facts about her life, "Nik rarely cares about anyone these days, so it's hard to miss it when he does care." She didn't understand the original, he was the one who had started all this, yet he was supporting her, almost, and she didn't know why. "And I've heard about werewolf mates, a coven I knew was desperately trying to find a way to break a bonded pair. That's what the scar is, isn't it?" Kol asked, "the first part of the ritual."

She remembered the way Bonnie had asked her if Klaus had tricked her into another ritual, and she decided to not hold on to the truth this time, "it happened accidentally. At the sacrifice."

A look of understanding crossed Kol's face as he nodded, whereas, behind him, Caroline looked shocked, as if she didn't know what to say.

"Enough," Rebekah interrupted finally, and was glad for it until she looked at the blonde, "so if you've sleeping with my brother," the blondes lips curled as if in disgust, but she thought it was more about the fact that she was a doppelgänger. "What does that mean for the Salvatores? Have you been sleeping with them too?"

"No," the question didn't cut as deep as she'd expected it to, not after Stefan's words.

"Well then, this was superbly unhelpful," Rebekah said as she walked towards Elena, "and while the others have been sufficiently punished, you and I still have things to resolve."

"What? What does that mean?" She'd already been forced to bare her her deepest feelings and secrets in front of everyone, like it was a spectacle for them to watch, a means of entertainment for two Originals who clearly needed to watch more soap operas and telenovelas instead of usingher life like this. She couldn't think that there was anything left to settle.

"I know what you did, telling Nik to dagger me because you thought I might kill you to get rid of that desiccated hunter."

"What? No, I didn't!"

"Of course you did," Rebekah was next to her in an instant, grabbing her wrist and pressing down on it, making her cry out in pain. "Whispering in his ear after he's done with you I suppose."

"Rebekah, please, please let go," panic overtook her as Rebekah dug her nails into her wrist, tearing though the fabric of her sleeves and then her skin, making rills of blood glide down her arm and under her top, some of it dripping onto the table. She saw, fear rising within her as she did, Stefan's eyes darkening.

"And why should I? You'll be lucky if you can leave here with your life intact." She couldn't even care about that, couldn't even think - the pain was dull at this point, she'd been through worse, but back then she hadn't felt responsible for the other lives growing inside her. "Perhaps, I should get another taste of the doppelgänger blood everyone else seems to want, and raves about." To her horror, there were veins underneath the blondes eyes, her fangs protruding and she panicked, anything unlike she had ever experienced, even the night of the sacrifice. She thought someone might protest, and Caroline looked like might, yet there was nothing but silence, and there was no time, and what if she lost-

"Rebekah please don't! I'm pregnant!" The words seemed to echo over the blood rushing in her ears somehow, and the original who was going for her neck stopped, as if frozen still. Then her veins receded, and she let her go immediately, making her hold onto her wrist gingerly.

There was silence in the room for a few moments as everyone stared at her, and she closed her eyes, holding her tears in at the palpable relief in her chest. She felt some of the pain in her wrist receding and pulled at her sleeve to check that she hadn't lost too much blood, even though a logical part of her brain knew that she hadn't.

Her other palm dug against her bracelet as she saw the deep imprints of Rebekah's nails in her skin, and she could almost see her bone through the blood and the tissue if she focused too hard. Then, to her surprise and her shock, her skin started healing on its own, the wound becoming more and more superficial until it closed, the pressure on her bones alleviating, until the pain was completely gone.

"What the hell?" Caroline mumbled, speaking for the first time since she'd revealed that she had slept with Klaus, making Elena look at her friend. She knew Caroline was angry at her, that she likely felt betrayed by her actions, but Elena felt betrayed too. Rebekah had been about to bite into her neck and not one of her friends had protested. She swallowed the sob that rose within her at the thought, her attention drawn towards Kol's voice.

"Who gave you vampire blood darling?" Kol asked and she thought back on her day uselessly, because surely someone had to have given her blood for her to have healed so quickly. She couldn't think of anyone though, she hadn't spoken to Stefan all day until they got here, hadn't even met Damon, and she would've remembered if Caroline had give her blood. Not to mention that the blonde wouldn't have looked so shocked if she had.

"No one."

"What do you mean no one? Someone had to have given you blood." Caroline asked again, finally having broken out of her reverie.

"No one did, I swear."

"Then how are you healing?" She finally let go of her wrist, and looked at the drying blood, the only evidence that she had ever been injured at all.

"I don't know." But her voice was drawn out by a chair collapsing against the floor and then Kol was pulling her wrist up, the same one Rebekah had dug into, his eyes dark and veins visible underneath his eyes as he yanked her out of her seat, making her cry out. She tried to pull herself out of his grip, worried at his sudden change in mood.

"Where did you get this?" Kol's voice was uncontrolled, his eyes wide in anger when they landed on her face.

"What?"

"This fucking bracelet?" He hissed his words at her, and she felt fear go through her at his tone.

"Kol, please let me go, you might hurt-" the babies. She didn't say it though, drowned out by his voice. Maybe he didn't believe her because he couldn't hear the heartbeat, but then-

"I don't care darling, answer my question right now, no tricks," he had compelled her again, the earlier playfulness and casualness completely gone from his voice yet she fought to get her hand out of his grip.

"Klaus gave it to me, please Kol…" she yelled again as Kol snapped the bracelet off her wrist, before he let her go, pushing her away. She would've fallen on to the floor if it hadn't been for Rebekah's steadying hand at her elbow, the blonde staring at her brother.

"He had no right to give this to you," Kol said as he shoved the small piece of jewellery into his pocket, his face normal now, the veins gone. There was silence for a few moments as he tried to get control of himself, while everyone was shocked into silence. "Didn't mean to scare you darling," he said after a few minutes, "I just don't like it when Nik takes my things," his voice was back to normal too, but she walked back anyway, Rebekah's hand still steadying on her.

"Kol," the blonde original said cautiously, her words holding some sort of hidden meaning "it's just a bracelet."

It obviously wasn't, she thought as Kol finally nodded and she wondered what the history there was.

"I can hear it now," Caroline said suddenly, as she looked at Elena, sounding shocked, "the heartbeats."

"Yeah, what the hell was on that bracelet?" Damon asked once he snapped out of his shock, his voice full of anger as he looked at Elena through stormy eyes.

"Lots of stuff, ability to suppress magic, a cloaking charm, a charm to conceal anything magical, amongst others. It took forever to make it, and Nik's handing it out to his mate, as it were, as if it was he has any right to do so. Daggering me, taking my dark objects…." She frowned as Kol continued to grumble, his voice too soft for her to hear, her gaze on the floor now, waiting for the reactions.

"Now that I can't hurt you, what are we going to do about the fact that you got me daggered? Again?" Rebekah asked snidely and Elena felt her patience snap.

"I didn't! I didn't even know you had been daggered till you said it like an hour ago." It was probably her raised voice, just how shaken she was, that finally convinced the original, who looked at her brother questioningly.

"You said that she told Nik that I had to be daggered again Kol, and that he only waited long enough to know about the hunters sword." Rebekah's voice was laced with accusation as she jabbed a pointed finger in Kol's direction, who looked a little too casual.

"Yes, I admit it," Kol said, his earlier anger all but gone but Elena still felt wary of him, "it was me. I lied to you. Told you that Elena convinced Nik to dagger you when it was me who did it."

"What?"

"I knew Elena was still linked to the hunter, and I'd seen how protective Nik was over her so I told him you wanted to kill her. It worked and Nik daggered you. But then, I heard all this talk about the cure, and I knew I had to get it before Nik or Elijah got their hands on it. Since you were the only one who knew where the hunters sword was, I had to undagger you. But I had to find some way to get you to be honest with me. So I blamed Elena, it helped that you already hated her, and it worked. How long will you keep falling for the same tricks, little sister?"

"Why would you do this to me?" There was pain in Rebekah's voice along with betrayal, and Elena found herself relating to the blonde despite everything that had happened.

"It was you who got me daggered a century ago sister, consider this payback for it."

"Payback? So you came after me? The sister that's easy to trick and manipulate. Why not go after Nik? He was the one who daggered you. Or Elijah? Who held you down."

"This is me going after Nik. I knew he cared about the doppelgänger beyond just needing her blood, so I confirmed it. Of course, Elena was elusive with the questions I asked her, but I figured they were together in some way. And now he'll know that if he comes after me again, I'll just use her to retaliate against him."

"Well, if you're original saga is over, can we talk to Elena now?" Damon asked to no one in particular, not even waiting for an answer and she finally looked towards him. His eyes were icy, the disappointment in them clear and she felt a little ashamed at making him look at her like that. She'd never done well with that emotion, she could handle anger well, but not that. "Like who the hell is the father."

She closed her eyes as Kol chuckled beside her, "as if Nik's left him alive till now."

"Why not?" Stefan spoke again, his eyes burning in betrayal as he refused to look at her, "this is exactly what Klaus wanted right? Her pregnant so he can always have another doppelgänger to bleed dry. And to fuck apparently." She cringed at the thought, not wanting to linger on how disgusting it was now that, well -

"Is he alive then?" Rebekah asked, her voice still tinged in sadness but most of her earlier anger gone. "The baby daddy."

"Yes." She bit the inside of her lower lip as she waited for the inevitable question, wishing she could say it herself but knowing that she couldn't, thanks to Kol.

"Who is it then? Matt?" Rebekah's insecurity was obvious and Elena shook her head, tired of trying to fight the compulsion that seemed to have her in its clutches.

"No, it's Klaus." It wasn't as if she could hide it anymore. Stefan's eyes widened at her, his lips parting as if he couldn't believe her.

"That's impossible!" Caroline's eyes were wider than Elena had ever seen them.

"It's official," Damon said through a clenched jaw, "she's lost it."

She ignored each of her friends' reactions for the look that Rebekah was giving her, almost the exact same look Klaus had just two days ago.

"No, that's ridiculous. Vampires can't have children, how would that even be possible?"

Elena met the blondes eyes, "according to Esther, it's because he's a hybrid."

"Vampires can't procreate," Kol said, his eyes wide, finally out of his element as he came into her view again, "but werewolves can?"

"Yes."

There was silence again for a few minutes, then "well that's bloody unfair is what it is." Rebekah said, her voice lacking any real heat now, "why does he get to have kids while I have to compete with a bunch of idiotic young vampires to get to the cure?"

Kol moved towards her again and she leaned further into Rebekah as he smelled her, much in the way Elijah had done when she first met him. "She smells like Nik too." She remembered how Klaus had said the exact same thing, and felt heat rise in her chest.

"It explains why you were healing on your own too," Rebekah said to her, her voice slightly awed, a look of understanding on her face and some envy in her eyes and Elena looked at her curiously, "your baby is healing you, Nik's blood in your system." She blinked at that, she hadn't even thought about it like that, and despite everything, she wasn't sure she was ready to think about it yet.

"Right. Well, this is new, isn't it?" Kol asked no one in particular, "hybrid bun in the doppelgänger oven." She groaned at that as Kol leaned back against her empty seat.

"Elena," Caroline said finally and she looked at her friend, seeing the pain in her eyes. "How could you keep this from me?" Bonnie had been angry, but Caroline was hurt and the pain was clear in her voice. "We never-" her voice broke and Elena did everything to hold her tears in, "we've never kept secrets from each other before, I mean, I called you five minutes after I had my first kiss, Bonnie told us about the first guy who asked her out moments after he was gone, but you're pregnant, and you've been with Klaus, and you didn't think to tell us." Rebekah finally let her go as Caroline got up, removing the vervain from her wrist.

"Caroline…." she could hear the originals bickering amongst themselves, something about Elijah and Klaus and daggers, but she ignored them, and moved towards her friend instead.

"He had me bit." Caroline's voice was raw with pain and anger, "Tyler had to leave town, and turn a hundred times in the fucking mountains. Even now, Klaus could kill him at any moment, and you're doing what exactly, playing house with him?"

"It's not like that, I…..was so scared…"

"Of course you were, you betrayed all of us. And then you lied about it. We've done everything for you, trying to kill him-"

"But I told you, I told you not to-" she had all but begged when they had the white oak, but none of them had believed her, "and if I had told you the truth then, you would've just doubled down on your efforts to kill him." Caroline looked away at that, acknowledging the truth they both knew.

"Yeah, we might've. What about after that? What about before? Why didn't you tell me, at least? "

"I….I didn't even know what I…" she looked around the room, biting the inside of her cheeks hard between her teeth, at the way Damon's eyes were still strained on her, at how uncaring Stefan looked, yet the anger and sadness in his eyes, and she turned back to Caroline, shaking her head, willing for her friend to say something else.

"What?" She was glad for Caroline's open ended question, and slowly released the pressure of her teeth.

"I'm still compelled, please Caroline, please don't make me do this, at least not you." Her friends eyes cleared in understanding, her blue eyes landing on Damon almost scathingly and she nodded.

There was a feeling of numbness within her, the way she had been made to reveal all her secrets still stinging. And the thought of willingly divulging anything more in front of any one other than her best friend made her feel like she'd break.

"Elena," she could feel the effect of her friends compulsion, and even after the entire day, she still trusted her, "don't say anything you don't want to, even if you've been told to be honest." She felt a little bit of the tension leave her body as she nodded.

She wanted, needed to keep whatever she could to herself.

"Are you kidding me?" Damon's voice rang out in the room, his anger finally snapping, and he was between her and Caroline in a moment, "she was finally telling the truth." The words he directed at Caroline were harsh and she'd never felt more afraid of him than when he turned to face her. His eyes were stuck on her scar too, a different type of possession and jealousy in his eyes right before his thumb was brushing over it, and then digging into her skin.

She could feel her eardrums vibrate, and goosebumps rising along her flesh as she tried to walk away. "Stop reacting to it Elena," he said softly, "it's just an ordinary scar that means nothing." She could hear it in his voice then, the desperation, the need for it not mean anything, because if it did, then it would mean that she had really betrayed them all, that what she had said about her feelings for Klaus was real. She could still remember the way Damon had confessed his love for her just a few days ago. She understood it, it but she still pulled at his hand, trying to get away from his touch that felt rough and invasive.

His nail broke into her skin then, just as she could barely make out Kol and Rebekah's raised voices, along with Caroline's protests, her friend trying to pull at Damon, and it made her shiver. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes, feeling like she was being violated as she felt warm, sticky blood trail down her skin. She wanted to tell him to stop but the words were stuck in her throat.

She tried taking another step back but Damon was lost to his anger, and suddenly, the rest of his palm digging into the other side of her neck, "why do you have to be so fucking gullible? And naive." His words were insults cutting into her as the pressure of his hand increased steadily for the fraction of a second, until he was being pushed back. She could feel her breathing become easier, and when she ran her hand over her neck, the small tear in her neck had healed already.

"What do you think you're doing?" She had thought that either Stefan might've helped Caroline push Damon away, but it was Rebekah instead. "She's pregnant, you could've killed her." It was odd to hear anger in the originals voice, for once, not being directed towards her, but for her.

"What do you care? You hate her." Damon was trying to push back against the immovable original, and it only made Elena walk back and away from him, hitting Kol who looked at her almost apologetically.

"I do hate her, but she's pregnant with my brothers child. And while that may not mean much to you, it does mean something to me, no matter what or who she is. Besides, do you have any idea what Nik will do to you if he finds out about this? He'll torture you until you won't be able to tell what century it is. So what you're going to do is leave, in fact you can all leave, this entire afternoon has been a complete disaster." There was a little fear under Rebekah's anger, but she was still the image of indestructible and there must have been something in her eyes, because Damon left without an argument.

Stefan looked after his brother, and somewhere in the middle of everything, he had ended up removing the stake that had been lodged in his stomach, and got up from his seat. She caught his eye for a moment, and she could see it, if what he did on the bridge was something she couldn't get past, then this was something he wouldn't be able to get past. Before she could say anything though, he left.

"I'm sorry Elena, I can't talk about this right now, Stefan is-", she looked at Caroline then, and nodded before her friend left in a blur, no doubt going after Stefan, leaving her with the two originals. She walked back until she could sit in her chair again, head falling into her hands.

She felt another gush of wind, and then heard the chair beside her was scraping against the ground.

"What more do you want Kol?" She asked when she looked up at the only other person left in the room, tears stinging at her eyes freely now.

"This was never anything personal darling." Again, she could hear the forced casualness in his voice, the seriousness in his eyes a contradiction.

"It felt personal." Her hand was rubbing at her neck, and even her own skin felt sensitive against the scar, but not nearly as much as Kol's had or Damon's. Against her own skin, it felt almost like touching an open wound, something that didn't make much sense to her. While she knew that it wasn't a regular scar, it was still an old one, it shouldn't be sensitive to anything.

"I didn't know about your well, you know, pregnancy, otherwise I would've tried to control Bekah. For what it's worth, she would never have killed you."

"She hates me."

"Not as much as she fears Nik." She didn't say anything to that, she was sure that if she did try to say something, she'd end up yelling, and she was still a little afraid of Kol. "I'm not very good at apologies darling, so instead, let's just say I owe you a favour." She looked at him, shocked at the offer, but he took it as something else, "very well, I owe you two favours, whatever you want."

She was angry, but Kol was the most unpredictable of the Mikaelsons, and well, she wasn't about to kick a gift horse in the mouth, not when it looked like she'd lost everyone. Not after the day she'd had. "Okay." He nodded and then left, so that she was finally alone. She did cry then, everything that she had buried bubbling to the surface as she did. It wasn't for long though, she felt more numb than anything else, and she got up, trying to look for the anklet that Caroline had dropped on the table. It wasn't there though, it wasn't anywhere on the floor either or even the bookshelves and she choked back a sob, because it had meant something to him, and along the way, it had started meaning something to her. When she saw the setting sun from one of the windows though, she decided to go home before someone locked up the school. She'd look for it in the morning.

She walked back to the room her bag was in, knew that there were still many things that she needed to think about, to talk about, to many people, but all she wanted to do was to take a shower and sleep.

She stopped at the bathroom on her way out, washing the dried blood from her arm and neck, over her healed wounds and she wasn't ready to even think about that.

It didn't take long until she was at her car, wanting to get home quickly, she knew where Jenna's old vervain perfume was, along with Alaric's watch that had vervain. Now that she couldn't consume it, maybe it was best for her to wear something else that could be hidden more easily. She tried not to focus on how it made her feel just as paranoid as she she had seen Klaus be. She shoved her bag in the backseat with more force than necessary and turned around, letting out a gasp when she saw Damon.

"Damon? What-"

"Brought you this," he dangled her anklet between his fingers, and she reached for it, only for him to pull it away from her.

"Damon…"

"Relax, I'm gonna give it to you," there was something in the tone of his voice that put her on edge. "This isn't you Elena, sneaking around, lying, trusting Klaus, he's clearly got you compelled." She wondered if he even knew her at all, she'd been lying to someone or the other consistently for the last two years. "I don't have too long, Stefan's probably going to want to go somewhere," she closed her eyes, her hand going down her open window to look for something, anything to use as a weapon when she understood what he was planning to do, again. She felt his hand at her jaw, pulling it down, making her eyes open and all she could see were his blue ones. "I'm going to find a way to help you." She felt the effect of the compulsion then, that same feeling of a net being cast, "I'm going to find a way to save you, and when I do, you're going to do exactlywhat I tell you to do."

"I'm going to do what you tell me to do."

"Good," he looked around as he said it, clearly hearing more than she could. "Forget this happened, I found you, apologised, and then I returned your vervain." She felt the weight of her anklet in her palm and then he was gone.


A/N - Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows and favourites. Do let me know what you think!