Kol lounged in one of the chairs in his backyard.

Being with his family was exhausting. Rebekah was always screeching about something or another. Elijah was never around. And Klaus was always a days away with the threat of a dagger in the back. It was hard to live in a house when it was always hectic. So Kol enjoyed the few moments of piece that he had in the house and stretched himself out in the sun.

That was until the doorbell rang. Kol thought about ignoring it, but whoever was behind the door had a stuttering heart like they could barely believe that they were there. That piqued Kol's interest. Who was at the door?

He rose from the lawn furniture and walked towards the door. When he pulled it open his eyes caught the form of the lovely Bonnie Bennett. She stood by the door with her hands wringing in front of her. Kol was about to say something when he was caught by the taste in the air.

He could feel it. The difference in the way that she carried herself and the fact that she was here. It could only mean one thing. His plan had worked. A smile curled at Kol's lips and he leaned against the doorframe.

"Hello Ms. Bennett," he drawled. "How can I help you?"

Bonnie's hands stopped trying to strangle one another long enough for Bonnie to look him dead in the eye. "I know what you are," was all that she said.

Kol felt a zinging go up his spine. So she knew? Who cares that only made what he was doing so much easier. Kol's smile never dropped from his lips. He gestured for Bonnie to enter the house. Bonnie entered the home with an air of caution like she was expecting a lion or a tiger to jump out from behind the plants.

Kol closed the door behind them and gestured to Bonnie to follow him. They went back outside to the large backyard. Kol resumed his spot on the lawn chair and stretched out.

"If you know what I am then you coming here by yourself is probably a bad idea don't you think?" Kol said. Bonnie was seated on a lawn chair with her back ramrod straight, her hands fisted in her lap.

"I can defend myself," Bonnie said quickly.

"Can you really?" Kol asked. He laid there on the bed and then with the preternatural swiftness gifted to him, he zoomed towards Bonnie. Her was halted in his steps as a blinding pain seared his brain.

He felt vessels popping and exploding and his head felt as though it was on fire. Kol let out a low groan but he chanced a look at Bonnie. Her brow was furrowed as she looked at him.

"Ah, the aneurysm trick. Always a staple in the magic cabinet," Kol panted out. Bonnie stopped and Kol's head ceased with the burning pain. Kol rose from his crouch on the ground and looked at Bonnie again. "Though I wonder if your grandmother thought to teach you anything else."

"My Grams is teaching me enough," Bonnie said with a frown on her face.

"Ah, but she isn't teaching you spells that would make you powerful. Slow your aging, make you more beautiful youthful. I wonder if she even taught you about the dangers of magic. Of magics to steer clear of," Kol taunted as he went back to his chair.

"My Grams… She's busy she doesn't have time to spend teaching me all of this—

"Ah, but you wish someone would. I can see it in you Bonnie. You don't want to just have magic. You want to master magic. You want to make magic your bitch and make it do as you want. If you're gonna be a witch you want to be the witch."

Silence reigned down between them. Kol laid back down on the lawn chair, stretching out as he did before. He could see it in her eyes. Bonnie wanted this magic. She wanted this power. Now that it was unleashed to her, she wanted to control it. But her grandmother was old and stuck in her ways. She did not have time to teach Bonnie everything. But Kol did.

Bonnie sighed from where she was. "I want this magic to be mine. I want this magic to work for me. My Grams said that magic is tied to emotions when a witch first awakens, but I don't want that. I want this magic to do what I want when I want."

"All you have to do, my sweet Bonnie, is say the words."

Another beat of silence.

"Why don't you feel wrong?"

"What?" Kol was not expecting that question. Bonnie rubbed her hands on her jeans and looked at Kol as if he were an enigma. Something that she had yet to puzzle together. Bonnie tilted her head.

"When I get close or tough a vampire, they always feel wrong. It's because they shouldn't be alive. Vampire are just….wrong. But when I touched you, you didn't feel wrong. You didn't feel like something that I needed to get away from. You felt the same way I feel when I touch any random person passing by."

Kol nodded his head. "A long time ago, I was… accosted by a witch. She slammed her magic into me. I retain some of that magic. I'm simply a battery full of witch power. That is why I don't feel wrong. You're feeling that residual energy from the witch."

Bonnie's eyes widened. "Can that happen to anyone. Can a person just store up a witch's power? Charge themselves with magic?"

"No. I'm a particular cause considering what I was before, but it is very rare. And it isn't like I can use the magic that is stored within me anyways."

"Why did you come here? Why are you in Mystic Falls?"

"So many question Bonnie and yet I have never asked even one myself. This hardly seems fair."

Bonnie sighed and crossed her arms. "Fine then you ask a question."

"When are you free?"

"Wha-what?"

"When is the next time you're free Bonnie. I think it is a simple question."

Bonnie stomped her foot like a child and Kol held in a laugh.

Kol started again. "I this having it all out would be better done over dinner, don't you think?" Bonnie rose form her chest, cheeks puffed up in embarrassment.

"I'm leaving," Bonnie said, marching back into the house. Kol finally let himself laugh. This was much more fun than he thought it would be.

It wasn't hard to find him. In a town as small as Mystic Falls it was easy enough to find anyone. Rebekah looked at him from the hallway of the large student union building. He was talking to some other student about something or another, but Rebekah was caught with just how the same he was.

His hair was still that delicious golden brown color, and his jaw was still chiseled. She knew that he was a vampire and that there was very little that could change a vampire's appearance, but Stefan was almost exactly the same as when she last saw him. Sure his mouth wasn't dripping with blood like the last time she saw him, but he wasn't just so familiar.

Rebekah wanted to reach out and touch him, to grab on to him and bury her head in his chest like she did in the past. But she couldn't do that. Not anymore. Stefan laughed and handed something to the person who he was talking to. In a matter of moments, Stefan was saying goodbye and walking away. Rebekah nodded her head and walked away from the railing that she was leaning on.

She took to the balcony and walked down the balcony steps, placing her right in front of the doors of the student union. Rebekah pulled out a compact and took a moment to check her hair and teeth. She needed to be sure that everything was just perfect. Seeing Stefan coming from over the edge of her compact, Rebekah closed her compact and slipped it inside her bag. She needed this to go perfectly.

Stefan came out the door and Rebekah turned, bumping into him. She let her bag slip from her shoulder, dropping all the books and notes that she had taken in class that very morning. Stefan gripped her shoulders and Rebekah knew that she got him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going," Stefan said, crouching down to pick up her dropped items. Rebekah let a smirk rise to her features and crouched down to help.

"No problem. And—

She stopped and looked up to him. She looked at him, hoping that her face morphed into the wide eyed look of someone seeing someone else for the first time in a while.

"Stefan?" She breathed. "Stefan is that you?"

Stefan's brow furrowed and he gathered the last of her things, shoving them into her bag. Rebekah took the bag from his hands and still looked at Stefan with the wide eyed look from before.

"Stefan do you remember me?" Rebekah asked. She gripped his shoulder tightly in one hand and made the smile on her face stretch wider.

"I'm sorry. Do I know you from somewhere?" Rebekah's smile faltered for a moment, but she made sure to keep the grin posted on her face. So he didn't remember her. Well, that was unfortunate. And even if he did, why would it matter? He was attached to the doppelgänger and that was something that needed to be sorted out first.

Rebekah pulled away. "Well I should have known you wouldn't remember me. You were on a bender when you met me so I guess it was my mistake hoping." She turned away from Stefan then. This had Nik written all over it. Only he would do something as dastardly as compelling Stefan to forget about her. She would need to convince him to lift the compulsion so that she and Stefan could pick up where they left off.

"Wait," Stefan reached out and grabbed Rebekah's hand. Was it just her or was Stefan's had especially warm? Stefan pulled her away from the door and towards a more secluded area, near the stairs. "Did you know me when I was on a ripper." Stefan muttered the word ripper like it was dirty. But Rebekah remembered how glorious he was back then.

That Stefan had been marvelous. Not a care in the world and always so touchy. It was like he couldn't get enough of her or the blood. Rebekah leaned her shoulders back.

"I know you during the twenties. We— We had a thing," Rebekah said gesturing between her and Stefan. Rebekah wanted to smack herself. A thing? A thing. That was the best that she could come up with in her thousand years of literature and literacy. A thing? She wanted ton sink into the ground when Stefan raised a brow. "It was a long time ago and I— I can't believe you're here! What happened to you after Chicago?"

She remembered it like it was yesterday. Her, Nik, and Stefan out on the town and making the most of it. They ruled the streets and the clubs. It was like her own slice of heaven back then. She had her favorite brother and the man of her dreams with her. She leaned against the stone of the wall behind her.

"Listen. The person you knew. That— that wasn't really me. Sure, it was a facet of me, but it was me uncontrolled, unhinged. I'm better now."

Better? Rebekah wanted to snort. That was debatable. She tilted her head and looked at him. He looked tired and her smelled. Rebekah took a deep breath. He smelled of blood, but not human blood.

"Better? And how would you define better?" Rebekah asked. Stefan rolled his shoulders.

"I'm in control and I drink animal blood—"

"Animal—" Rebekah slapped a hand over her mouth. Animal blood? He was out eating animals and wearing that maudlin attitude like it was the latest fashion and he considered this better? Rebekah wanted to bark out a laugh in his face.

"Yes, I drink animal blood." Stefan said with a roll of his eyes. It seemed that this was not the first time that he had had this conversation. But Rebekah was not going to let this go. She remember the Stefan of yesterday like the back of her hand. The way that he would grip her waist, the way they would dance as if it was just the two of them, and the way he got on with Klaus. No, this man was not the Stefan of the past. Though that was something that could be fixed. "I'm happier this way."

Rebekah stepped closer to him. "Do you remember all of the twenties?"

"Not really mainly bits and pieces, here and there."

"Do you remember what it is like to drink from a human. The way their heart beat under their skin. The way that they sag into you when they can no longer hold themselves up. The way their heart stutters in their chest."

Stefan pulled away from her, but Rebekah saw that she got to him. The veins under his eyes were raised and Rebekah thought that she could see a peek of fang from behind his lips.

"Stop," Stefan slurred from behind thick fangs. Rebekah stepped closer then and leaned in to whisper in his ear.

"If you want to remember the twenties. All of the twenties, feel free to ask me," she said. She dared to press a kiss to him cheek and then she turned and walked away.

It wasn't the meet cute that she imagined it to be, but it was better than she could have hoped.

He had seen Katerina. He had seen Tatia. But it still amazed him every time that he caught sight of another doppelgänger. It was amazing. Everything about her was the same, to the cupid's bow curve of her lips down to the color of her hair. Elijah took a moment to take in the scent of her. Lilacs. Similars, but not so unfamiliar from the two counterparts that had come before her.

She was sitting in the town square in her hands was a book. She was scribbling furiously like she could not get all the words down, like she needed to get all the words down. So this one was a writer. Tatia had like playing with relationships, always posing herself as a matchmaker of some sort. Katerina had liked to primp and prime herself, taking care of herself was what she was best at. But this one it seemed was a writer.

Elijah took a step forward. What would he say to her? He knew how he looked, dressed in a linen button down and with a black jacket and pants to match. He looked far older than he. He was far older than her. But he could not help it. He wanted to reach out and just touch her. He just wanted to feel her silken hair around him and take in the scent of her.

He took another step forward. Maybe this was his chance. Maybe this time, with this one he could get things right. Tatia had been a huge failure. And Katerina—look at what the world had turned her into. No, Elena could be his chance, his one and only chance to make everything right.

Another step. The light hit him then and feeling the warming rays on his skin made him feel younger again. More youthful. He took another step forward and he was fully in the light. Yes, this was his chance. This was his opportunity.

A hand reached out from the shadows and drew him back into the darkness of the alleyways. An arm slipped around his shoulders and Elijah's nose was assaulted with the scent of Niklaus's cologne.

"Why brother what were you thinking?" Klaus tsked. Elijah pushed Klaus off of him and straightened himself out. He patted down his shirt making sure that it wasn't wrinkled.

"You cannot blame me for wanting to talk to the girl," was all Elijah said. He wanted to wince at his words. He had shown his hand too soon. Klaus's eyes grew wide and then they zeroed in on Elijah. "I simply wished to talk."

"Talk," Klaus said. He rolled the word on his tongue and Elijah stood in front of him like a child waiting to hear if he would be punished or not. When had Niklaus become his task master? When had things changed so much between the two of them? "You merely wished to speak with her?"

"Of course. You cannot blame me. This is the third girl I have encountered with the same face. I was merely curious that was all."

"Merely curious," Klaus let out a dark chuckle. "It always starts out with curiosity with you."

Elijah frowned, not understand where Klaus was going with this. But Klaus did not leave him to wonder for long. His younger brother began to laugh and then nodded his head, crossing his arms.

"It is always you being curious about the girl and then next thing you know they have you wrapped around their fingers. And then you begin to make designs against me."

Elijah wanted to roll his eyes. "You know that isn't true Niklaus. And you know I had nothing to do with Katerina."

"Did you brother? Swear to me on your life that you had nothing to do with Katerina."

"I had nothing to do with Katerina." Elijah said, looking Klaus square in the eye. Klaus stared at his brother for a moment and then turned away from. He looked out to the town square still under the cover of the shadows. The light did not dare touch Klaus.

"Soon this will all be over. I will be released from my curse and then we can leave this place behind for good."

Elijah shrugged his shoulders adjusting his jacket on his shoulders. "You can't mean that. This place will always be our home. It was where were born and raised. You cannot tell me that this place means nothing to you."

"This place hold nothing more than bad memories for me."

Elijah thought back to the days when they were young and human. They had fun here, frolicking among the flowers and enjoying the camaraderie that came from being siblings. It could not have been all bad, but then again, Elijah did not bear the weight of their fathers ire. He did not hold the hatred of infidelity.

"Then it is fortunate that soon all will be done soon enough."

Klaus turned and Elijah could not mistake the brightness in his eyes for anything other than excitement. And Elijah really wondered if it was something to be excited about. The girl the one who sat in the sun writing in her notebook, would be dead before the next change of the moon.

"Klaus do you think—-"

"Don't you start," Klaus said his expression dimming.

"The girl will serve no purpose to you after the ritual. What is the harm?"

"The harm is that for the ritual to work I need her dead. Mother decreed it when she cleaved me in two and that is how it is going to be. The girl stays dead Elijah."

Elijah said nothing as he watched Elena rise from her bench. She tucked the book in her bag and then walked away, unknowing of the two men arguing over her fate.

"Where is you humanity? There has to be something left of the brother that I remember from a thousand years ago," Elijah asked. He looked to his brother, his brother's unchanging face since the times unmeasurable.

"I am the same brother that you have always remembered. Now I just don't have that brute beating me down," Klaus said as he turned and walked away. Elijah watched his brother's back become smaller and smaller and felt his shoulder sag.

No. He may not have interfered when it was Katerina and that was his mistake. This time he would not make the same mistake again. Elena would make it through the night. She would survive the ritual if it was the last thing before the dagger was plunged into his stomach.

Elena would survive. He would make sure of it.

Elijah turned his eyes towards the bench where Elena had sat. He wished that hen could be like her and sit out in the sun without a care in the world. He wished that things could be that simple for him, but it wasn't.

Without thinking, Elijah pulled out his phone and dialed a number that he thought he would never dial.

"We need to talk," Elijah said.

"Set a time and a place and I'll be there," the voice at the other end breathed.

Things would be different this time.

Author's Note: Who did Elijah call? Will Kol help Bonnie with her magic? And will Stefan find out about the twenties? Find out next time!