"Rose," Elijah calls, even as his eyes remain fixed on Elena's face. His smile shifts into more of a smirk.

"Yes, Elijah," Rose responds, her tone respectful - though her eyes still shine with tears.

"Come here," he says. Rose looks terrified - but she walks to his side. Elena relaxes as Elijah finally looks away from her and focuses on Rose.

"Why did you hit her?" he asks Rose, his tone conversational. The lack of anger – of any strong emotion – in his voice and countenance doesn't make Elijah any less terrifying. Elena realizes that this is the same tone he used with Trevor, right before Elijah killed him.

"She was annoying me. She wouldn't stop talking," Rose responds, her expression blank. It's almost uncanny, how quickly Rose's terror seems to have disappeared.

Elijah hums, looking thoughtful. "I gave you my word that you would be pardoned for your role in Katerina's escape, and I keep my word. But I am displeased by your treatment of the doppelgänger."

Elena watches as Rose doesn't respond or otherwise react to Elijah's words. It doesn't make any sense. Elijah just said he was idispleased/i with her actions – why isn't she reacting? Elena is scared, and he isn't even focusing his displeasure on her. How can Rose stay so calm?

"You will forget you are pardoned, Rose," Elijah says. Rose echoes his words. A chill rolls down Elena's spine, and a terrible, unfathomable idea is forming. "You will remember that I killed Trevor, and you will forget all about the lovely Elena - you never saw her."

"I never saw her," Rose parrots, her tone blank. Elena can't deny it anymore: Rose looks like she's being icompelled/i.

How is Elijah able to compel a vampire? Let alone one who is more than 500 years old - who is older than Katherine?

"You will stay far, far away from Mystic Falls, and from the doppelgänger, and you will do nothing to interfere with my plans," Elijah tells her, his tone still conversational. Rose echoes him again. "Leave my sight," he orders. She does - and she leaves so quickly that she creates a gust of wind that ruffles Elena's hair.

And though Rose was no protection at all - was, in fact, an additional threat - Elena shivers as she realizes she is alone with Elijah for the first time.

"Ask," Elijah tells her, perhaps reading her confusion.

She doesn't fool herself into thinking she can hide anything from him, though she wonders just how much he perceives. She knows he can heart her heartbeat. Can he smell her sweat? Does she stink of fear? And even if she does - can this ancient, incomprehensibly powerful immortal iunderstands/i such a base, human emotion such as fear?

"I thought v-vampires couldn't compel other vampires?" Elena says, doing her best to keep her tone questioning, but respectful. She's trying to stay calm, but if she can hear the way her voice trembles, surely Elijah must as well.

"I'm a special vampire," he responds, matter-of-factly. Elena would call it arrogance – except he clearly iis/i a special vampire.

"Because you're an Original?" she asks, before she can think better of it and stop herself. (Curiosity killed the cat.)

"Yes, I am one of the six Original vampires, from whom all other vampires descend," Elijah tells her, looking amused. (And satisfaction brought it back.)

Elena pauses a moment to let that fact sink in. "How old are you?" she blurts, wondering if she is pushing her luck.

Elijah smiles, seemingly still amused, but does not deign to answer. "Come, let us walk while we have a little chat," he tells her. He isn't asking. Elena imagines that if Elijah can compel other vampires, he is used to others doing his bidding without question. (Can he compel werewolves as well? What about witches?)

Elena hesitates - but he seems to want her in one piece, so she risks it. "I don't have shoes," she tells him.

He hums, and his eyes flicker down to her bare feet - before he drags his gaze up her body and back to her face. "We wouldn't want you to step on something sharp," he says. Elena nods, glad he seems to understand her hesitance. "May I?" he asks, gesturing to her.

She isn't quite sure what he's asking, but there's only one answer she can give: "You may." He sweeps her up into a bridal carry. Shocked, she wraps her arms around his neck to steady herself - and then slams her eyes closed as the world blurs around her. She swears her heart stops for a beat - maybe two - and then they come to a stop.

Elena swallows, trying to keep the nausea at bay. He doesn't move, and she peeks one eye open to see if the world is still spinning.

It isn't, thankfully.

Elijah is standing next to a black car - and when she looks up at him, he gently places her on her feet, and opens the passenger side door.

"Do we have a deal?" Elena asks, before she gets in.

Elijah smiles down at her, clearly amused. "Let's just say that we're still negotiating, hmm?"

Elena takes a deep breath, and gets in the car. She doesn't find his amusement safe, exactly, but it is better than anger, or that particular tone he used with both Trevor and Rose. And maybe it means Elena has a chance to convince him to take her back to Mystic Falls.

Elijah flashes around to the other side and is in the driver's seat before she can do more than blink. He turns the car on, and pulls onto a back road. "Are you cold?" he asks, his eyes straying to her bare legs – he can probably see her goosebumps. She says that she is, and he tells her that she can adjust the temperature controls on the car as she likes.

"Tell me why you want Katerina dead," Elijah commands, as she fiddles with the heat until she gets it to a comfortable level.

Elena doesn't want to talk about it - she doesn't want to tell this ancient, terrifying vampire everything that Katherine did to destroy her life and hurt - ikill/i - so many people that she loves. To tell him, she has to ithink/i about it, and every emotion that she's been pushing down and away and trying to ignore will come bubbling up to the surface.

But she doesn't have any choice. She needs to convince him to help her - and information about what Katherine has done is precious little to give up in exchange for Elijah's agreement to kill Katherine, even if it means that Elena has to expose her grief to do it. (Elena does her best not to think of Bonnie, who-knows-where in who-knows-what condition - but every heartbeat is Bonnie. Bonnie. Bonnie.)

"She pretended to be me, and killed my Uncle John," Elena tells him, starting with the easiest wound to talk about. Uncle John's loss is the oldest, even if she only found his body a month ago. And though Elena doesn't like to measure her grief for one loved one against another, his loss is also undoubtedly the least sensitive for her. She didn't like her Uncle John, even if she loved him (and she did love him), and even though she wasn't angry with him anymore.

There's no point in being angry with the dead. And Uncle John was right, in the end, about vampires in general and Damon in particular. (Elena doesn't let herself wonder what would have happened if she had just let Damon die in that fire. She can't torture herself like that.)

"Revenge, and family," Elijah says, his tone almost approving.

"He was my biological father," she admits, because it is easier than talking about the other deaths that Katherine has caused. "I'd - I hadn't known I was adopted, but I found out after my parents - that is, my adoptive parents - died. I never got the chance to know him as my father."

Elijah nods, his eyes never leaving the road. It makes it easier, that he isn't looking at her. "Understandable, then, that you want Katerina dead," he tells her, as he pulls onto the highway – the one leading back to Mystic Falls.

Is he bringing her home, for some reason? How would he know where to go? She thinks about asking, but refrains for now. For some reason, she wants him to know that it isn't just about Uncle John – even if she falls to pieces talking about the rest.

"She threatened to make me watch as she killed everyone I ever loved if I didn't break up with my boyfriend," Elena tells him next. She wonders, if they were still together, if Stefan would have still betrayed her for Katherine.

"Why did Katerina care?" Elijah asks, obviously curious. Elena wonders if eternal life gets boring – if the pain and the drama of her life is iamusing/i to him. She decides it doesn't matter – she can be his Scheherazade, if it means he kills Katherine and Elena can protect Bonnie.

"She turned him in 1864, before she faked her death in the fire at Fell's Church," Elena tells him. "She says she still loves him, and that she wants him back."

"You say that like you don't believe her," Elijah points out.

"I'm not sure Katherine is capable of love," she responds, unable to keep the spite from her voice. She takes a deep breath, and then continues. "Even though I love – loved – Stefan, I broke up with him, just like she asked, to protect the people I love. But then, last night, she - she k-killed my Aunt Jenna, and her boyfriend Ric, and she left them on my front porch for me to find," Elena tells him, her voice no more than a whisper by the end.

She can barely say the words out loud. A normal human wouldn't even hear - iElena/i can barely even hear her own admission - but Elijah is a vampire, and she knows he hears every word.

A pause. "More than understandable, then," Elijah says. Another pause. "… Is that all?"

Elena pushes back her tears. "My best friend, Bonnie - I don't know where she is. There was a woman, last night, who somehow wore Bonnie's face - she drove me home, and after I found my a-aunt and Ric, she apologized for working with Katherine and dropped the - the spell, or shapeshifting, or whatever it was." She holds the sobs in - she makes sure not a sound passes her lips - but she can't keep the tears in anymore.

Without even looking at her, Elijah hands her a handkerchief. It is a pristine white - clean, not the one he used to wipe off Trevor's blood. Elena wipes away her tears and holds in a hysterical giggle at the thought of this ancient vampire carrying around multiple handkerchiefs - using them to wipe blood off his hands, but also handing them to ladies to dry their tears in equal measure.

"Bonnie is all I have left," Elena admits, realizing that she's handing him her greatest weakness, but somehow unable to stop herself. Maybe she just needed to talk about all this, more than she wants to admit – so much so that it doesn't matter who listens, so long as they do. Elijah doesn't point out that Bonnie may already be dead, and Elena is thankful for that.

She can't bear to hear the possibility spoken out loud.

(Elena isn't stupid - she knows it is possible that Bonnie is already dead - that Katherine snapped her neck, or drained her blood, or tore out her heart, and left her body somewhere for Elena to find. But until Elena sees Bonnie dead with her own two eyes, she is inever/i going to stop fighting to protect her friend. Her isister/i in everything but blood.)

"We both want Katerina dead," Elijah says suddenly. "I will kill her - you have my word."

"And in return?" Elena asks, echoing his earlier words. Elijah seems amused.

"You tell me everything you know about where the moonstone is, who has it, and who else may be searching for it," he tells her.

"Deal," Elena tells him immediately. She knows that once he has the moonstone, there will be nothing she can do to prevent him from sacrificing her to break the curse - not so long as he has a witch. And she imagines that he must.

But it doesn't matter. If Elena has to die for Katherine to die, it is a trade she will gladly make. (The sooner the better, because every moment Katherine is alive, she is a threat to Bonnie.)

She can't let herself be held back by thoughts of Tyler - or Mason. There is a good chance they are already dead - at Katherine's hand, or god forbid, at Stefan's. If they aren't, Elena knows she is betraying them to Elijah. But she needs to take the chance - to get rid of Katherine, and save Bonnie.

Elijah doesn't seem wholly unreasonable - perhaps he will even agree not to hurt them, so long as they stay out of his way.

"And what would you offer me, were I to agree to save your friend Bonnie and ensure she is protected from further harm?" Elijah asks her.

"Anything," Elena swears. She watches as Elijah smiles - a smile of pure satisfaction - and she understands that she has handed him the ultimate leverage.

But it is the truth. And she is beginning to understand just how highly Elijah seems to value the truth. If sharing her dearest truth – her ultimate weakness – is necessary to convince him not only to kill Katherine - which she understands already aligns with his goals - but also somehow to protect Bonnie - for whom he cares not at all – Elena will do it gladly.

Elena will do ianything/i.

"Make me an offer," Elijah tells her. "What do you have to offer - specifically - that may be worth my substantial ability to protect your Bonnie?"

Elena swallows and takes a moment to think. She already bargained away her information on the moonstone. If only she had known that Elijah would at least be willing to negotiate for Bonnie's safety, she would have saved that offer. Protecting Bonnie is more important than killing Katherine.

Protecting Bonnie is more important than ianything/i.

"If I understand correctly, my blood - and my death - is the sacrifice necessary to break the curse," Elena tells him. "I - I also understand that a iwilling/i sacrifice is more powerful than an unwilling one - or a coerced one." Bonnie told her that, once, when they were discussing the spells that could be performed - or strengthened - with doppelgänger blood.

With iElena's/i blood.

Bonnie told her the stronger the blood sacrifice, the less magic a witch would need to channel from nature, or a celestial event, or herself. That human doppelgänger blood is stronger than non-human doppelgänger blood. And a willing sacrifice of human doppelgänger blood is strongest of all.

Bonnie had been excited about the protection spells she could try to perform, with Elena's help. Elena isn't sure if that will ever happen, now.

"You would willingly walk to your certain death, in exchange for my protection of your friend?" Elijah asks her, snapping Elena from her thoughts.

"Yes," she tells him immediately, no hesitation in her voice. "Deal?"

"No," Elijah declines. "My goal is not to break the curse."

Elena's stomach drops. Elijah is wearing a daylight ring - he has no need to break the curse, and perhaps he enjoys the fact that other vampires are bound by the night. (But then why was Rose so convinced that Elijah would want her – that he would pardon Rose and Trevor in exchange for Elena?)

"But what about the werewolves?" she asks him, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. "If they break the curse first, they'll be able to turn whenever they want - not just on full moons. And legend says a werewolf bite is fatal to a vampire."

"Leveraging the war between the species," Elijah states, more than asks. "A sound tactic." He sounds approving. Elena can't help but feel a spark of hope. "Werewolf bites are indeed fatal to a vampire - the venom of a werewolf acts almost like a virus, and any infected vampire will be dead within days."

"So we have a deal?" Elena asks again, trying to keep the conversation focused.

"Originals are exceptions, of course," Elijah tells her, rather than answering directly. "But in any case, the Sun and the Moon Curse is a myth."

"W-what?" she asks, shocked – her mind racing, desperate to come up with the right tactics, the right iwords/i, to convince him to help her save Bonnie. "But the legends say…"

"Notoriously unreliable," Elijah interrupts her, sounding amused. "And in any case, invented by myself and my brother, to ensure that both species would search for the moonstone and the doppelgänger."

Elena doesn't respond, her mind reeling. If they were wrong about the Sun and the Moon Curse, what else were they wrong about? What else could she possibly offer Elijah, for his agreement to save Bonnie?

"My apologies," Elijah tells her, after a moment. "I find these negotiations amusing, but I can tell that you are genuinely distressed. I will agree to save your Bonnie from Katerina, and protect her from further harm - and in exchange, I ask that you work with me to lure my brother to Mystic Falls, and to willingly sacrifice yourself to break his curse."

Elena has so many questions about what Elijah just said. Who is his brother? How does Elijah know about Mystic Falls? What curse, if not the Sun and the Moon Curse?

But none of that matters.

Only one thing matters.

"Deal," Elena says. Elijah pulls into a rest area, and they shake on it.