Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)
By the way, my Latin is a little rusty because I took it in Spring 2014 and they keep refusing to let me take Latin II every time I request a schedule change because of scheduling issues. So the phrase in this chapter may or may not correct with the endings and it may seem just...blatantly wrong to those of you that can read Latin as well. But there's a translation spoken on what it's supposed to say. If anyone knows if the phrase is correct or incorrect (and knows the right answer) please PM me or leave a review telling me what the correct phrasing is.
Katerina
Damon was the one who opened the door for the awkwardly uncomfortable Elena who stood on the front of the Salvatore porch step awaiting to be let inside. When he saw her, he gave the human soft smile to which she returned.
"Hello, Elena."
"Damon." She gave him a nod, where a silent exchange passed between them both. Elena was trying to contain herself and desperately trying to make sure she didn't push the vampire into giving her answers on how her matchmaking skills turned out, but it was harder than it looked. Inside, she itched to ask so many questions but she knew that if she was the one asking them, Damon would never tell her. He had to come to her on his own accord. So, she sighed. "Where's Claire? She called...said it was important."
Damon stepped aside and gestured into the house. "Right this way. But be forewarned, she's in a mood."
Elena bit down on her lip as she crossed the threshold to refrain from asking all the questions on her mind. "Oh?"
Damon chuckled under his breath, finding it amusing that the human was so intent on sparing his feelings. So, he gave her what she wanted. "Yes. But it's not because of what happened last night."
Elena's chocolate eyes sparkled. "What happened last night?"
He sighed. "I'll spare you the details. But I'm sure you can guess."
She felt somewhat relieved for Damon, but also sad for him. She knew how hard it was for him to admit that he loved anyone, let alone Claire, and for him to erase the confession from her mind must've killed him. It was written all over his face.
Lowly, she asked, "You feel better now?"
He shook his head. "No." Moving on, Damon took in a sharp inhale. "But that doesn't change the fact that she's still in a mood."
"Can it, Damon." Claire snapped at him as she walked up to Damon and Elena in the foyer and crossed her arms. She gave him a sour smile, but Elena watched as Damon just tried to relax himself. "I'm always in a 'mood' according to you." The blonde looked at Elena. "Good. You're here."
"What's this about?" Elena asked.
Claire opened her mouth to speak, but she didn't have to answer Elena's question. The presence of the human's captor the day before was enough to spark a thousand questions inside of Elena's mind, but also enough to answer the one question she had asked Claire. Rose stepped out behind the blonde vampire with her hands in her jean pockets with an ashamed, guilty look on her face.
"You," the human whispered, surprised. Claire exhaled heavily.
"Yep. Her."
"Okay, you have to understand…we only know what we've picked up over the years. And I don't know what's true and what's not true." Rose stammered as she paced back and front of the unlit Salvatore fireplace in the study, staring at the glaring Elena who sat down on the long couch by herself. Stefan and Amelia were standing beside Delia, who was sitting down on the armchair beside Rose, and Claire and Damon were both standing around the back of the couches watching as their speakers repeated their information for Elena.
Delia smiled bitterly. "That's the problem with trusting information given by vampires. Vampires can't be trusted. We lie."
"Shocker," Claire shot towards her own captor. Everyone in the room was acutely aware of the ongoing distrust between Claire and Delia, but decided to pay no mind to their bickering, which almost rivaled that of Damon and Claire's, for the greater good of working together. The two opposing female vampires stared at each other with a burning hatred until Rose intervened with a sigh.
"But Klaus, we know is real," continued the elder, more mature sister. Elena shrugged, still in the dark about most of what the two British vampires were trying to relay to her.
"Who is he?" the human asked.
"He's one of the Originals. He's a legend," answered Damon.
"From the first generation of vampires," Stefan added to clarify his brother's statement. Elena looked over at him and, though the thought of being wildly uncomfortable by the sight of Amelia and Stefan standing so blatantly shoulder-to-shoulder, ignored her personal feelings and barreled on with her questions.
"Like Elijah?"
"No! Elijah was the Easter Bunny compared to Klaus," Rose exclaimed frustratedly. "He's a foot soldier. Klaus is the real deal."
"Klaus is…" Amelia trailed off with a worried sigh, "…the oldest."
Elena shook her head in refusal. "Okay, so you're saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after me?"
"Yes."
"No."
The two different answers came from two different sides: the British vampire sisters said the more frightening answer and Stefan and Amelia tried to reassure Elena with the easier one. Claire and Damon looked at each other, both of them unsure how to answer, until Damon finally inhaled sharply and tried to amend the fear that came off from Rose and Delia's joined statement.
Damon stammered, "What they're saying is...I mean, if what they're saying is true—"
"It is," Delia interrupted him curtly. The raven-haired Salvatore only stopped long enough for her interjection before ignoring her and moving on.
"—and they're not just saying it so we don't kill you..."
"Which we're not," Rose cut in. Behind the couch, Claire gave a frustrated sigh at the theatrics of the pause-and-stop game going on.
"Maybe," Claire finished for Damon impatiently. Elena looked back at her with eyes full of concern and disbelief. "What they're saying is maybe. We don't know anything for sure."
"Look, Elijah's dead, right?" Stefan thought aloud. He looked at Elena hopefully. "So...no one else even knows that you exist."
"Not that you know of, but I'm sure if Rose and I could find her—" Delia added, but was stopped by Damon in the middle of her sentence with a murmur.
"That's...not helping."
"Look, I've never even met anyone who's laid eyes on him. I mean, we're talking centuries of truth mixed with fiction. I mean, we don't know what's real! For all we know, he could just be some sort of stupid...bedtime story." Stefan's desperate attempt to make his ex-girlfriend feel better about being the object of desire to the oldest vampire known to them failed once Rose broke in again.
"He's real! And he doesn't give up. If he wants something, he gets it. If you're not afraid of Klaus, then you're an idiot!" Rose barked.
"All right, we're shaking." Damon rolled his eyes. "You've made your point."
Before anyone else could strategize or enforce terror within an individual further, Elena abruptly rose from the couch just as Claire finished her morning drink and moved to pour a new one. Seeing Elena abandon them, Stefan raised his eyebrows and called out, "Where you going?"
She looked back at him disinterestedly. "School. I'm late."
Stefan began to move forward to walk with her. "Let me grab my stuff. Amelia and I will come with you."
Amelia shifted uncomfortably, knowing just how awkward it would be for the three of them to ride into school together in a white wagon, but decided not to say anything because she knew it wasn't for the benefit of her and Stefan, it was for Elena to keep her safe. Though Stefan and Elena had no romantic obligations anymore, it didn't stop them all from protecting her in the midst of an impending threat on her life.
"That's okay," Elena declined him with a bit of a sassy edge to her voice. Feeling brave, she added, "I know where it is." She moved towards the door, but then turned back slowly and looked at Claire behind the couch. "Hey, Claire? Can we talk for a second?"
The request caught Claire off guard for a moment, but eventually she nodded. She put her bourbon glass down on the counter behind the couch and nodded, moving towards Elena. "Sure. I'll walk you out."
As the vampire and the human left, Damon whispered lowly to Amelia beside him, "Looks like your boyfriend has another girlfriend, huh, Blondie?"
Stefan turned around at his brother sharply. "Shut up, Damon."
"What's this about?" Claire asked her friend as they stepped out of the house into the broad daylight in front of the house. She made sure to keep her voice low, realizing that whatever Elena wanted to tell Claire was not something she wanted the rest of their friends to hear. Elena inhaled sharply and kept her voice as low as she possibly could.
"We need answers, Claire," Elena whispered quietly. Claire waited and listened to Elena with a half-hearted open mind. "I need answers. And I'm not going to get them from the people who kidnapped us—one of which absolutely hates you."
Claire snorted. "Surprise, surprise. Who couldn't see that one coming? But if not them, then who? I don't know anyone who's seen Klaus and even if I did—"
"No," Elena interrupted her. "You're wrong. We do know someone who knows about Klaus. We know someone who knew this was going to happen all along."
This made Claire think, long and hard, probably looking as stupid as she'd felt. But, though it took her moments on end to finally conjure up the name of the person Elena was speaking of, she still protested like Elena knew she would. "No!" Claire hissed. "No! Absolutely not! Hell no! Oh, wait a minute, did I forget to say no?!"
"It's the only way," the doppelgänger pushed. Claire shook her head in refusal, but Elena continued. "Look, she said that they were going to come after you, too. Your family name is in her book, Claire!"
"What?" Claire hissed, confused. Elena nodded with a swallow.
"I've been reading Katherine's family lineage. One of her brothers married a King. Don't you want to know what that means?"
"It means that the women in my family have terrible taste, that's what it means," she murmured.
Elena let out a frustrated sigh. "Claire, she knew you were going to get taken. I doubt the only reason Delia took you was because she wanted revenge."
"Then you don't know Delia! Because she did take me just for revenge."
"Katherine knew, Claire." Elena looked at her friend with sincere eyes, causing Claire to sigh frustratedly again knowing that she was about to do something because Elena was going to compassionately guilt her into doing it. "If you don't want your answers, that's fine. But I need your help getting mine."
Claire was reluctant, more reluctant than she'd ever been with Elena. But, at last, she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and succumbed to the request. "Fine. What do you need me to do?"
"Tell everyone I wasn't feeling well and I went home from school," Elena said to Caroline as she trudged through the dirt ground of the back forest of the graveyard with Claire by her side holding a thirty pound bag as if it were a light paperweight. Caroline frowned.
"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this." She snuck a glance at Elena and said loudly, "I'm a terrible liar!"
"Well would you rather me send her down alone?" Claire retorted to the young vampire who trotted alongside her with a peeved, exasperated expression. "We need someone to keep Stefan busy. I would've asked Amelia but she'd be too worried about me going down a rabbit hole to spend an entire day with the evil bitch who killed me...then tried to kill me again. Repeatedly."
"I'm worried!" Caroline exclaimed. "She did come back here basically to ruin your entire life, Claire! And you're just going to have a nice chat with her?"
"Caroline..." Claire trailed off, her tone bearing a certain parental scold. "This isn't your decision to make. I made up my mind, now we need your help. Can you distract Stefan or not?"
"I'm even worse at duplicity!" continued the young blonde, who looked at her human friend. "And you know this, Elena."
Elena shrugged. "You managed to keep Claire occupied when Katherine paid Christopher a visit at the boarding house."
"Yeah, 'cause she threatened me." She paused. "Not that I'm saying that you should use that as a tactic. It's—" Caroline pulled her sire's arm back to stop her in front of the opening to the tomb. Elena stopped, too, looking back at both of her female vampire escorts. "Claire, you know Stefan's going to see right through me. I'm not his best friend, he doesn't trust me like he trusts you. He'll know something's up!"
"Just take him and Amelia out for lunch after school," Claire suggested lightly. Caroline turned her cheek, obviously detesting her task. "Come on, Caroline. Help your sire out, will you?"
Caroline turned her head back to Claire and frowned. "You're pulling the 'my blood turned you' card on me?"
Claire clasped a hand on Caroline's shoulder and gave her a small smile. "What's the point in turning a vampire if you can't have her help you out once or twice?"
"You didn't mean to turn me! Katherine killed me!"
"Doesn't make it any less true," she pointed out. Caroline struggled, trying to find the energy to turn down Claire, but she knew that it was a favor she would have to go through on. Besides, she would try her best but gave no guarantees. She sighed.
"Okay. Fine. I'll keep him occupied. But just remember, you can't pull the sire card for at least another two weeks!"
"Done." Claire watched as Caroline threw a cautious glance to Elena and then departed to head to school, where Claire turned around at Elena and scowled, deeply dreading the day ahead of them. "You ready?"
"Are you?"
Claire went down the stairs to the tomb first while breathing out, "As ready as I'll ever be. And I'll never be ready so..." She touched base on the underground dirt floor and set the bag down at her feet as Elena came up behind her. "Let's just get this over with."
"Agreed." Elena exhaled. Claire studied the doppelgänger's face for a moment before speaking cautiously, stalling just long enough to make sure that what they were doing was the right decision. Her voice was slow and steady as she spoke.
"You're sure this is what you want to do?" asked Claire. Elena waited for a clarification to the question. "I mean, Katherine might know the truth about Klaus but she could just as easily tell us lies. Probably even more lies than Rose and Delia could even be creative enough to think of."
"I can't just sit back and wait," Elena said firmly. "I have to know, Claire. Please."
"All right." Claire sighed and moved towards the door of the tomb. She studied it, thinking back to the first time she'd been inside the small hole in the ground, unaware of the fact that her husband had been rotting inside ever since the 1800s. A hit of nostalgia rushed over her, but she pushed her own emotions back and covered it with a quip. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
So she lifted the stone door of the underground hell and effortlessly moved it out of the doorway to the side, though it weighed more than fifty men could bear to pick up. Light shone through the doorway of the tomb but did not light the tunnels inside, but neither Elena nor Claire were going to step through the threshold to check it out.
"Katherine?" Elena called with an echo from the tomb's lack of acoustics. Claire stepped back as far as she could, feeling much safer where she was in the light than in the dark. Elena looked back at her friend slowly and offered, "You know, you don't have to do this. You can leave. I'll be fine as long as I stay on this side of the door."
Claire shook her head tightly. "I'm staying."
Just as she finished her words, there was a soft shuffling sound from inside the tomb. Elena and Claire both watched as bare, filthy feet moved forward from the darkness into the light, and out stepped a dirty, pale Katherine moving as far as her barrier would allow her. She fell to the wall, weak and hungry, with a slam. Elena gasped, but tried not to let her obvious fear allow Katherine to manipulate her goals.
"Hello, Elena," Katherine croaked. Her eyes shifted towards the blonde. "Claire. Come to watch me wither away?"
Claire stiffened. "Had to find a source of entertainment somewhere. Right, Katherine?"
"Stefan know you're here?"
"We brought you some things." Elena evaded her question and bent down to open the bag that Claire had carried through the forest. A small smile appeared on Katherine's white, chapped lips.
"You two came to bribe me? What is it that you want?"
Elena pulled out a sleeping bag and threw it in front of her look-alike. "I want you to tell me about Klaus."
Katherine looked up and hummed a sound of crackled approval. "Mm...You've been busy." She looked up at Claire. "Let me guess, you've had a lot of free time now that you're a divorced woman? You're here to find out about Klaus, too?"
"I came to see you rotting in your own pit of despair." Claire shot a bitter smile towards her enemy. Elena set down a lantern on the ground to give to Katherine later. "But yes, more information on Klaus would be helpful, too."
"I also brought you this," Elena intervened, pulling out a book from the bag and rising to face Katherine. The vampire doppelgänger seemed to recognize the large book. "It's your family history. I've read it. It says in here that the family line ended with you. Obviously, that's not true."
Katherine scoffed. "You think that if you brought me some family keepsake that I'd open up?"
As Elena and Katherine stared off at each other, Claire reached into Elena's bag and whistled, earning Katherine's undivided attention as the female vampire pulled out a full bottle of A-negative she'd scored from the blood bank earlier and had packed upon Elena's request. "We also brought a snack."
Katherine flung herself at the barrier of the tomb, hitting the spell wall as she pined after the blood just a few feet away from her. Her lips trembled from the hunger and her eyes narrowed, black and heartless, as she stared into the eyes of the woman that she'd hated for such a long time that now held the power to revive her on the edge of desiccation. Katherine's whole entire body shook with desire as she focused on the delicious liquid in the bottle.
"You look a little parched, Kat," Claire shot as she stepped forward and tossed the bottle up in the air, close enough to her that it landed in the opposite hand she'd thrown it with. Katherine's cold eyes followed the blood as if she were a cat with yarn. "You know, another decade or two down here and you'll be a living mummy. Only, you'll be a mummy that won't return because, by then, everyone will have forgotten about little Miss Katherine Pierce rotting beneath old church ruins." She inhaled sharply. "It must really suck to be you."
Removing her eyes from the bottle, Katherine looked up at Claire and kept the blonde vampire's gaze as Katherine relaxed and slid down against the very edge of the tomb to the floor. Seeing Katherine's cooperation, Claire handed the bottle to Elena, who bent down with a cup in her hand, unscrewed the lid off of the full water bottle filled with blood, and poured a sufficient amount to get Katherine to talk. She used a stick to push the cup towards Katherine and to pull it back for refills.
"You have the Petrova fire," Katherine noted as she pulled the cup up to her lips. Elena didn't respond but merely watched as Katherine drained the contents in the plastic cup with ecstasy.
"More blood?" Katherine set the cup on the ground and Elena pulled it back to her for a refill. Claire stepped forward.
"Now talk," she demanded. Katherine rolled her head back on the stone wall of the tomb.
"It's a long story, Klaus and I. Goes all the way back to England, 1492, after I left Bulgaria. Or...was thrown out."
As Katherine drained a shot of blood, Elena arched an eyebrow. "Thrown out?" she repeated.
Katherine nodded. "My family, your true ancestors, they disowned me. My indiscretions were not tolerated at that time. I had a baby out of wedlock. The shame." She widened her eyes, feigning the shock of her family towards her affair.
"It was kept secret?"
Katherine nodded again. "My baby was given away. I was banished to England, and I had to learn to adjust. So I quickly became English. 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. A vampire named Trevor helped me escape Elijah, who had come after me when I ran from Klaus. He told me to go to a cottage to seek refuge."
"Trevor?" Claire repeated, stepping forward. "Rose and Delia's best friend, Trevor?"
Katherine smiled. "So you've reconnected with dear old Delia, haven't you?"
Suddenly, this made Claire stop and think to herself. With caution, she began, "Did you...did you know that Delia was gunning for me? That she was out for revenge? She kidnapped me, Katherine!"
The doppelgänger shrugged. "I might've heard a rumor here or there. But let's be honest, you knew she was going to come after you sometime, didn't you? You did kill her boyfriend, after all."
"It was a mistake." Claire shook her head. "And I don't have to explain myself to you. Besides, you knew that this would happen all along. You probably told her where I was!" She looked over at Elena. "I told you Delia only took me for revenge. She was stretching the truth, like she always does."
"Are you really that self-involved to think that you were taken just because you killed some brat's boyfriend two decades ago?" Katherine shot, stopping Claire from accusing her of any further blasphemy. Claire paused and waited for Katherine to elaborate. "Delia wanted revenge, sure, but that was never her true endgame. She planned on doing exactly what's going to happen to Elena; she was going to hand you over."
"Hand me over to who?" Claire pushed. "Klaus? What would he want with me?"
"More or less the same thing what he wanted from me, and what he'll want from Elena." Katherine looked over at her look-alike with pointed eyes. "He wants to break the curse."
"By sacrificing the Petrova doppelgänger," Elena noted.
Katherine agreed, adding a wide sense of imagery to her statement for emphasis, "He wanted to drain every single drop of blood from my body."
"I'm not a Petrova doppelgänger, in case you've forgotten," Claire snapped. "So either you're lying to cover your own ass or you have no idea what he'd want from me."
"Oh, I know what he wants from you." Katherine shrugged. "Like I said, he wants the same thing from you as he did with me and will want from Elena. He wants to sacrifice you."
"But why?"
"I thought you'd be more educated by now."
"Tell me why, Katherine, or I swear to God—"
"Rex sanguis ex fortissimis." Katherine kept Claire's gaze as she said the powerful words, and Claire stopped to listen briefly with a confused look on her face. Her opponent swallowed thickly and translated, "'The strongest blood comes from the King'."
Rose sat in one of the many downstairs rooms in the Salvatore house, trying to compose herself as she cried over the loss of her friend in a stranger's household. She heard the words in the back of her mind telling her to get herself together before someone caught her, but it was only when she heard two sets of footsteps in the distance and a voice that caught her off guard when she sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"All right, rosebud," Damon announced as he and Delia joined Rose in her solitude. "I need some answers and your sister is being very uncooperative." Delia rolled her eyes as she followed Damon up the short set of stairs into the connecting room but was soon distracted seeing her sister's distress.
"Rose?" Delia asked as Rose got up from her seat, her head ducked in shame, and walked over to her purse to grab a couple tissues from inside. "Rose? Are you okay?"
Damon groaned. "Oh, please don't tell me you're crying 'cause your buddy Trevor lost his head."
Rose chuckled bitterly. "You always been this sensitive?"
"Little vampire switch you can just pfft for this very reason. Takes the emotion out of it."
"Yeah, you switch yours, I'll switch mine," Rose offered. Delia rolled her eyes.
"Always seemed like a cheat to me."
"Is that a dig?" Damon pushed, ignoring Delia's comment and indicating the rude statement towards the elder sister. Rose smiled.
"It's an observation. Being in love with your brother's best friend, the woman who hates you so endlessly, must be difficult."
Offended at the blunt accusation, Damon threw his hands up into the air and exclaimed, "I'm not in love with anyone!"
"You wanna try that again?"
"Let it go, sis." Delia looked over at Damon carefully. "But, if you do happen to be in love with little-miss-perfect, just remember, cupcake, you're way too good for her. Besides, she'll never give you the time of day the way you want. It's not hard to deduce the fact that she absolutely despises you and once she's got her mind set on something the bi—"
Damon flashed forward to Delia, looking her right in the eye. She stopped, mid-sentence, and after realizing the intent look on his face, tried not to laugh at the amusement he was causing her. "Let me be clear, cupcake; I don't like you. For whatever reason, you tortured someone close to me and then decided to show up here and start throwing around names. The only one around here allowed to make up names is me. Got it?" She stayed silent and he looked her up and down. "Don't get on my bad side."
Delia couldn't resist chuckling. "That would insinuate that you have a good side."
Damon, pleased with the banter but determined not to show it, stepped back with a small smile and looked at Rose. "How do I find Klaus?"
"You don't find Klaus. He finds you," Rose answered. Damon sighed.
"That's what I told him, too. He didn't believe me," Delia shot at the elder Salvatore. He turned around on his heel and started to pace.
"Come on! Somebody's gotta know somebody who knows where he is, right?"
"Add another 200 somebodies to that and you're still not even close." Rose sat down on the arm of a lounge chair as she looked at Damon with firm eyes. He turned back at her.
"Humor me. You got in touch with Elijah. How'd you do it?"
"Through a very low somebody on the totem pole." Damon waited for her to elaborate. "A guy named Slater in Richmond."
"Perfect! I'll drive."
"No." Rose gestured between her and Delia. "You forget, not all of us can do sun."
Damon looked up at the curtains to see the sun shining through and realized that Rose had been sulking in the shadowed part of the room. Irritated, he amended his statement. "Then you drive. Come on."
Amelia and Stefan walked side by side together outside of the school as the instructional day came to a close, and Stefan was moving astronomically faster than Amelia was, who struggled to keep up to his side. She exhaled, agitated with his determination.
"Stefan, seriously? Elena is fine. I'm sure she just has a stomach bug or something, it's not anything to be worried about."
"Well, we can't be taking any chances." He fixed the strap of his bag on his shoulder and moved faster. She groaned to herself quietly. "With everything going on right now, I don't think it's a good idea for Elena to be alone...at all, really. Especially after she was taken—"
Amelia stopped in her tracks as Stefan moved forward without her. As he moved away, she shouted, "You want to sleep in her bed, too, or would that finally be crossing the line?" Stefan turned around, seeing her exhaust, and walked up to her with confusion all over his face. Amelia sighed. "Stefan, she broke up with you because you didn't know whether or not you had feelings for me. And, considering everything that's happened in the last couple days, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you do have feelings for me. But, you know, I could always be wrong."
Stefan shook his head. "It's not like that. Amelia, I do have...feelings for you."
"Really? Then why are you rushing to your ex-girlfriend the minute school ends?"
"Because she could be in danger," Stefan tried, stepping forward to explain it to her clearly so he wasn't upsetting his companion. She turned her cheek, biting the inside to refrain from saying the same thing she had before. "Look, just because I'm worried about Elena doesn't mean that I'm in love with her. I just want to make sure she's safe. Something feels off. With Claire, too, I...I just don't know what it is."
Amelia pursed her lips, looking back at Stefan and trying desperately to avoid the trap she called his emerald green eyes. Eventually, she let out a deep breath and admitted, "Well, Claire hasn't called me all day...which is kind of unlike her..."
"See?" Stefan shook his head. "It doesn't feel right. I need to make sure everything's okay. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yeah, I understand it." She shrugged. "I mean...I get it. Even if something didn't feel off, I...know that you think it's still your job to keep Elena safe. I get it, Stefan, because that's just who you are. You're too..." Amelia trailed off, searching for the right term that had her tripped up. He waited for her to come up with the answer and, when she finally did, she let out an exhale, "...good."
"Good?" Stefan repeated slowly. She nodded. "That's all you could come up with?"
"Hey, school drains a lot out of a person." He smiled and she reached over to grab his hand. He looked down at it and back up at her, where she smiled and started to walk forward. "Come on. Let's go to Elena's house. Then we can go check on Claire and then...then we can go grab something to eat because I'm a little hungry."
Stefan chuckled. "Deal."
But just as they started to leave campus together, the two of them heard their names being called. Looking behind them, Stefan and Amelia noticed Caroline jogging up to the two of them. Stefan and Amelia split their hands.
"Stefan! Amelia." Caroline slowed down next to them. "Um, I need to talk to you two. Where are you going?"
"Well, Elena went home sick," Stefan began. "I just want to go check up on her."
"Ditch her." Caroline laughed.
"Stefan's worried that there's something wrong. With Claire, too," Amelia countered. Caroline looked between the two and sighed, her heart beating rapidly from her nervousness trying to distract the pair.
"You know what? Of course you are. Go ahead—I'll...you know what, we can talk later." Caroline started to walk away, but hearing the shakiness of Caroline's voice, Stefan and Amelia looked at each other in concern and turned around to stop her.
"Uh, talk about what?" Stefan asked, preventing the blonde from leaving them. Caroline turned around and they all came to a stop in the courtyard. The young vampire scrambled for an excuse and said the first thing on her mind she thought would prevent Stefan and Amelia from going to check on her friends.
"I...might have done something."
Amelia frowned. "Something like...?"
Caroline bit down on her lip and, before she could stop herself and find another solution to her problem, blurted out, "I told Tyler I'm a vampire."
"'The strongest blood comes from the King'?" Claire quoted her enemy as she paced in front of the tomb. Katherine stayed silent. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means exactly what it sounds like. The strongest blood comes from the King." She looked up at Claire. "'The King', meaning, the King family. An exclusive line of men and women wielding the power to give the most powerful strength to any vampire who ingests their blood."
Claire stared. "What is this, some sort of myth? A legend?" Katherine shook her head.
"It's all real."
"Bullshit! How have I not heard of this before, then?"
"You think your family goes around bragging about being the one thing that can make vampires a hundred times stronger?" The sassy vampire shot a pointed glare at the blonde across the threshold. "In order for a vampire to gain the strength, someone has to die. The power of King blood is one of the greatest-kept secrets since the beginning of time. Downside is, the power doesn't last very long for a regular vampire. Two...three days, at most. However, for an Original..."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." Claire crossed her arms and laughed. "I'm supposed to be sacrificed so some power-hungry jackass can take on world domination? Please. Now I know you're lying."
"I'm not lying." Katherine shook her head. She sighed and looked down the tunnels of the tomb and murmured under her breath, "Not that you would believe me, anyways."
"Damn right I don't believe you!" Claire snapped. Katherine turned back at her to find Claire pointing an accusing finger as she bent down to Katherine's level. "All you've ever done, all you've ever wanted, was to see me suffer. To make me suffer. And now I'm supposed to believe that you're not making up stories so that you can see to it that I'm a fool?"
"Fine. Then don't believe me." Katherine looked at Elena. "I'll take more blood now."
Claire decided not to egg Katherine on, primarily because she was going to go insane if she had to deal with another one of Katherine's lies. As Elena pushed another cup to Katherine, she moved on to try and push more answers out of their informant.
"What does the Petrova bloodline have to do with Klaus?"
"It's really tedious but..." Katherine drank what was left in her cup and crushed it in her hand. Her color slowly started to come back to her face, removing the cold color from her features. "The curse was bound by Petrova blood. Witches are crafty with their spells. The doppelgänger was created as a way to undo the spell. Once the doppelgänger reappeared, the curse can be broken."
"So you ran before he killed you?" Elena urged. Katherine paused.
"Something like that."
The black SUV that Trevor had used to transport Elena when he had his human puppet kidnap her was the car that Rose drove into the parking garage so that Damon could get the answers he so desired. He carried himself cockily, and this was observed by both vampire sisters as he walked around the nose of the car holding himself tall.
"Back entrance. How convenient."
"That's the point," Rose replied. "We can't all have little daylight rings."
Damon waved his hand in front of his body to showcase the daylight ring he was so fond of. Rose turned and Delia followed by her side to walk to the back entrance of their meeting place. "How do you know this Slater guy's even here?"
"I called him," said Rose. Delia scoffed.
"And we shouldn't even have to do that. Slater practically lives here. It's his favorite hangout spot."
"Good." Suddenly, there was a whoosh, and Damon had Delia pinned up against his back with his hand on her throat for Rose to see. Rose turned around and observed Damon's sadistic look and Delia's annoyed one. "Just one thing. If either of you are setting me up in any way, I will rip one of your hearts out, shove it down your throat, and leave the other to an eternity of misery. It's something I'm very good at." He smiled.
But the corners of his mouth turned down as Delia vamp-sped out of his grasp and pinned him up against the exterior of the black SUV, careful not to chip the glossy paint job she'd just had done a month ago. Damon grunted as she nearly pulled his shoulder out of its socket.
"I'm getting quite bored with your threats. I'll admit, it was fun while it lasted, but now it's just annoying." She twisted his hand further up and Damon groaned from the pain. "My sister and I are both older and stronger than you. Don't get on my bad side."
She released Damon and he frustratedly shook his arm out of her grasp and turned around to meet the blaring eyes of his attacker. Rose stepped forward, not opposing her sister's threat, but rather leaving the violence to her younger sister and reassuring softly, "You can trust us."
Rose nodded at Damon, who studied her with a scowl on his face, and when Rose left towards the entrance to their meeting place, Delia followed after one last violent look towards Damon. However, she couldn't deny the physical appeal of the dark-haired Salvatore. He broke hearts left and right, she was sure of that. Lucky for her, she was a girl who liked a challenge. She believed that there were three important things on this Earth: blood, sex, and family. Though only two of them could be mixed without triggering some gag reflexes, all three were equally as important. That was her ideal on life, but every vampire had their differences.
Rose lead the group as they walked through the back entrance into the quaint coffee shop designed for vampires. Rose took off her jacket and sauntered inside as Delia came behind her, looking right through the open windows where the sun shone through. Damon looked at the two of them in alarm.
"Whoa! What about the, uh, sunlight?"
"Double paned and tempered," Rose answered. "UV rays can't penetrate. You see the appeal now?"
"That and the free wi-fi," someone interrupted them with a smile. Rose, upon seeing Slater, pulled him close with a smile as well and they embraced for a few moments while exchanging greetings. He pulled away from Rose and then hugged Delia as well, then looked back and forth between the two of them. "I saw you come. What are you doin' here?"
"Mm...it's a long story." Rose sighed. "But I want you to meet..."
Slater and Rose turned their heads to face Damon, who Rose was just about to introduce before Slater interrupted passionately. "Damon Salvatore! Turned 1864 in Mystic Falls by Katherine Pierce...aka Katerina Petrova." Damon, shocked, stayed silent as Slater turned to Rose and Delia. "So I take it I was right. What I told you about the tomb under the church is true?"
"Yes. It was right. Thank you for the tip."
Slater looked at Delia. "And you? Any luck finding Claire?"
"Plenty." Delia smiled sourly. Damon cut in promptly.
"You know Claire?"
"Clarissa King, now known as Claire, turned 1864 by Katherine Pierce just a few weeks before you and your brother." Slater turned to Damon and Damon gave the man a sour smile. "I know everyone. It's nice to meet you." He extended his hand and Damon shook it, all while skeptically cautious and freaked out by Slater's impossible knowledge. Seeing Damon's look, Slater amended his statement. "Maybe. What's...goin' on, Rose? Where's, uh, Trevor?"
Damon turned his head, realizing the situation that Rose was in, and Slater looked between Rose and Delia for an answer to find that the words unspoken meant more than ever.
Katherine told Claire and Elena more of the story, ending right when Rose had shoved her in a room to take her back to Klaus because she believed Trevor was mistaken in helping her. Elena shook her head, piecing together the story.
"Rose never ended up taking you back to Klaus, did she?"
"No. But not because she had a change of heart." Katherine looked up at Claire and finished the rest of her story with her eyes locked on Claire's. "She came to take me, like she said, but I tricked her into giving me her blood. When Trevor came back and distracted her by pleading his pathetic love for me, I took the rope she intended to use to tie me up and strung it up, put the noose around my neck, and..."
Katherine trailed off, shrugging to herself as if it were no big deal, but Claire and Elena both realized what this meant. Elena gasped and sat forward. "You killed yourself?"
"Klaus needed a human doppelgänger. As a vampire, I was no longer any use to him."
"But it didn't work," Elena realized. "You didn't really escape. You've been running from Klaus ever since."
"I underestimated his spirit for vengeance."
Claire snorted. "Talk about an ironic situation."
Katherine peered up at Claire, who said nothing more but bore a bitter smile on her face. Eventually, the doe-eyed vampire sighed and moved on. "Living out of a suitcase is better than dying so that you could have your blood spilled over some silly little rock." Elena avoided her doppelgänger's eyes, but Katherine was too smart not to notice. "What's wrong? Afraid I'm right? You don't wanna die? There's another way out." She looked down at her palm and used her fingernail to nick a vein. A small slash of blood appeared at the base of her palm and Elena turned her head. Katherine looked up dramatically. "You better hurry. Your opportunity's going, going, going...and gone." The human avoided her gaze, and Katherine just chuckled softly. "I made the other choice. I used Rose, Delia, and Trevor so that I could turn and I ran. And they knew Klaus would come after them."
"Typical Katherine," said the blonde.
"Rose, Delia, and Trevor spent the last 500 years running because you used them. Trevor just got killed!" Elena scolded.
"Never thought he would've lasted that long," confessed Katherine as she looked down at her family book and opened it. Elena looked at the vampire with incredulity.
"You don't even care that you ruined their lives."
This seemed to get to Katherine. She looked up into Elena's eyes and snapped, "I was looking out for myself, Elena. I will always look out for myself. If you're smart, you'll do the same."
Caroline's crunching was starting to get on Amelia's nerves. The older blonde watched as the young teenage girl ate her salad and Amelia snapped, "Did you ever learn manners? Or chew with your mouth open, why don't you?"
Stefan sighed, irritatedly awaiting as Caroline ate her meal and stalled them at the table in the middle of the Grill. Caroline flushed, embarrassed. "Sorry. I'm just so hungry. If I don't eat, I get those 'kill innocent people' urges. Tyler totally has those too, by the way."
Stefan leaned forward. "Yeah, what else did you say to him?"
"Not much. I was trying to keep the questions to a minimum." The younger Salvatore surveyed his friend in front of him and then leaned his elbows on the table, burying his head in his hands. Caroline pursed her lips. "Are you mad?"
"Yes, Caroline! As a matter of fact, I am a little mad," Stefan admitted. "I mean, you put yourself at risk! If Damon finds out—"
Caroline stopped him. "But you're not gonna tell him, are you?"
"Telling Damon would cause the next World War." Amelia leaned on the table as well and crossed her arms over them with a sigh. "No. We're not going to tell Damon but he's going to find out eventually." She turned her head to Stefan. "You think if Claire talks to him she can help?"
Stefan chuckled bitterly. "Claire would kill me if I asked her to talk to Damon again. We're going to have to figure this one on our own."
"What's the deal with Claire and Damon, anyways?" Caroline intervened with her voice a pitch higher than usual. She was desperately trying to stall, even though Amelia and Stefan didn't have a clue. "I mean everyone talks about their past but no one's ever really told me anything..."
"There's nothing to tell." Stefan shrugged. "Unless you'd rather me recount their million arguments over the past century."
"They're that bad?"
"Worse." Stefan nodded. Caroline shook her head.
"I don't get it. Why are they so mean to each other?"
"They were engaged." Amelia set down her glass of water and looked up at Caroline, who was staring with wide eyes. "Yep. Since they were about five or six. Arranged, obviously, but then they actually became best friends. Then something happened and...I don't even know."
"It was over a vase," Stefan recounted. "He broke a priceless vase in front of her bedroom in their house. Then she came over and broke my dad's drinking glass that was worth a fortune. The both of them had to deal with the consequences for the others' actions and ever since then, they've hated each other."
"Over a vase?" Caroline repeated, dumbfounded. Stefan nodded. "No! No way. That's ridiculous. It can't be true."
"It is." Stefan and Amelia said together. Caroline started to laugh and picked at her salad in attempts to distract them more, but Stefan sighed. "All right, we've gotta go."
"Wait!" Caroline stopped him and Amelia as they both braced to leave. "No! Um...what do we do about Tyler? I—I don't want Damon to kill him, 'cause there's a full moon coming up and Tyler's totally freaking out about it."
Amelia and Stefan had no choice but to divulge Caroline for a little while longer, and it became evident that she was stalling because every time Stefan tried to get up and leave, Caroline stopped him. Once they caught onto her act, it was dessert time, and Caroline gave a hum of appreciative approval as she stared down at the delicious treat in hunger.
"Okay." Stefan grabbed Amelia's hand and started to rise. "Enjoy your food, Caroline. Now we're leaving."
"Wait! Um..."
"Caroline, the cat's out of the bag." As they sat back down, Amelia turned to Caroline and gave her a pointed stare, concerned. "Why are you stalling?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'd believe the whole innocent act a little bit better if I didn't know how good you were at providing a distraction on demand," Stefan added. The young vampire fell silent. "Where's Elena?"
Caroline looked back and forth between the two vampires before her and eventually let out a frustrated sigh and mumbled, "She's with Claire."
"Where's Claire?" Amelia urged.
"I...can't tell you."
"You can't tell us? Are you kidding me?" Stefan exclaimed.
"I'm...sorry but I—I can't tell you."
Amelia's eyes were laser-focused on the young vampire sitting beside her and she tried to extract the information as efficiently as possible. "Caroline, I'm her sister. If she's in danger, you have to tell me. Claire was kidnapped by some...evil psycho bitch who wanted to torture her for however long she pleased. And Elena was taken so she could be a barter object for someone's freedom. Both of them could've been killed and if you know where they are, you need to tell us. Now."
"They're not in danger," Caroline promised as she looked towards Stefan. "Claire wouldn't let Elena get into any danger, you know that. And I wouldn't let Claire or Elena put themselves in danger."
"Put herself in danger where? What do you...?" Stefan trailed off, completely confounded for a moment, until he found an answer to his question that was just staring him in the face. "Claire's with...Damon, isn't she?"
"Ew! No!"
"Then where—where is she? Where's Elena?" he pressed. Caroline hung her head and he leaned forward. "Caroline, Clarissa is my best friend. She's Amelia's sister. And if you're really our friend, like you've been pretending to be all day, then you'll tell us where she is so we can find her and Elena and make sure they're safe."
She took a moment, but finally exhaled. "Stefan...Amelia...I am your friend. But I'm also Elena's friend and Claire's friend and...and Claire's been really, really good to me and she asked me to do her this favor and not tell you where she is. So...I'm sorry, but I'm not going to tell you where they are."
Stefan shook his head in disappointment, but Amelia just stood from the table. "Come on, Stefan. Let's go."
"So how much of your little story is true?" Elena asked as she got up from the ground and started to pace. Claire remained stationary with her back leaning against the stone wall of the cave.
"I have no reason to lie, Elena. I have no reason to do anything but sit here and read and rot."
"That's a lie right there." Claire scoffed. Katherine looked over her shoulder as she flipped through her family book. "You always have a reason to lie. Even when you sit there and read and rot."
"That's the reason why you came back, isn't it?" Elena blurted out, not giving Katherine a chance to respond to Claire. "Because you wanted to be the one to hand me over to Klaus."
Katherine shut the book and turned back to the two ladies in her company. "Mm...500 years on the run...I figured, maybe he'd be willing to strike a deal."
"So it wasn't just to ruin my life again?" Claire prompted, throwing a glance to the side at her enemy. Katherine's smile pecked at her lips.
"Not just."
"So you got Mason Lockwood to find you the moonstone," Elena interjected. Katherine looked up and nodded.
"Right again."
"What else is needed to break the curse?"
"Mm...look who's getting smarter."
"It's not just me...or the stone, is it?" Elena paced back and forth in thought. "Otherwise, there'd be no reason to trigger Tyler Lockwood's werewolf curse."
Katherine laughed. "Witches and their spells. So many ingredients, so many people to sacrifice..."
"So you need a werewolf?"
"Believe it or not, they're hard to come by."
"What else?" Elena pressed further.
"A witch to do the spell. Mine bailed, but Bonnie'll do just fine."
"What else?"
"Vampire." Katherine's eyes drifted to Claire, who slowly leaned off of the stone wall and back on both feet again, coming to the realization. The brunette shrugged. "I figured...I'd killed you once...now it was time to come back and finish the job."
"So why Caroline?" Claire demanded. "Why'd you turn her? There was no reason to—"
"There was plenty reason. I knew you never turned a vampire. I wanted you to know how it felt to have sired someone before you died."
Claire shook her head and chuckled softly. "No. No, you didn't. You wanted me to know how it felt to have sired someone so that, when I die, I would know that I'm leaving someone who needs me. Someone from my own blood. Someone who was turned by 'the strongest blood', like you said."
Katherine pursed her lips. "Caroline has the potential to be a very strong vampire if she so desires. And your blood...might have something to do with it."
"So when I died, you would take over." Claire configured, stepping closer. "And you'd train her to be a vampire stronger than anyone your age, wouldn't you?"
Her doe eyes sparkled. "Looks like you caught me."
"So you were just gonna hand us all over to be killed?" Elena continued, stepping up to Claire's side. "Claire, Tyler, Bonnie, and I...you were just going to trade us and take off with Caroline?"
The doppelgänger straightened and said simply, "Better you die than I."
Damon, Rose, Delia, and Slater all sat around a coffee table by the double-paned window Damon was informed of before. After the three settled down, Damon leaned forward on his arm.
"Here's what I don't get. Elijah moves around during the day, which means the Original People knew the secret of the day ring. Now, why would Klaus want to lift the curse of the Sun and the Moon?" he suggested.
"To keep the werewolves from lifting it," Slater explained. "If a vampire breaks the sun curse then the werewolves are stuck with the curse of the moon forever and vice versa."
"But werewolves are all extinct," Rose objected.
"True. I've never seen one, but rumor has it—"
Damon cut Slater off with a smile and caught the attention of all other vampires at their table. "Not such a rumor."
Slater looked up. "Mystic Falls? God, I've gotto visit this place. It sounds awesome!"
"It's not." Delia leaned back in her chair and folded her hands over her lap with a sigh as she looked at Slater, who waited for a clarification. "It's boring, it's small, and it's completely isolated from the rest of the normal population. Trust me, it's not worth the day trip."
Damon rolled his eyes and ignored Delia's comment. "Awesome doesn't even begin to describe it. Anyways, what about Claire?"
Slater shook his head. "What about Claire?"
The dark-haired Salvatore thought back to the night Katherine begged for him to get her out of the tomb and he repeated the words echoing inside of his head. "Katherine said something about her being the 'strongest'."
Slater was still confused, but it was in the opposite direction Damon would've thought. "She's a King..."
"So?" All other three vampires looked at each other at the table, making Damon feel incredibly left out. He surveyed the expressions on their faces and demanded, "If someone doesn't come clean right now, we're going to have a problem."
Rose looked at Delia curiously. "You mean to tell me that you never told them the truth? Even after we came to them to help?"
Delia threw up her arms. "I didn't know I was supposed to sign a goddamn blood pact, Rose! I thought they knew."
"No, you didn't." Rose turned to Damon. "My sister did not just take Clarissa for her revenge. We were going to hand Claire over as an apology. With her blood, breaking the curse would mean that vampires get even stronger. Strong enough to wipe out the entire population of werewolves if they so desire."
Damon raised his eyebrows. "Are we talking about the same Claire here?"
Delia groaned. "Yes, we're talking about the same Claire. The blood of a descendant of the King line can have an intense effect on a vampire and heightens their senses until the blood runs out of their system. Her blood, in addition to lifting the curse, would strengthen it."
"Well...can we stop the curse from being broken at all?" Damon inquired.
"What do you mean?" Slater asked.
"Well, if we rendered the moonstone useless and stopped the curse from being broken..."
"Well, yeah, probably...but why would you wanna do that?" Slater trailed off, surprised. Damon just gave the other male vampire a small smirk.
"Tell me how."
"You think I'm going to help you figure out how to do something that'll piss off an Original and keep me from walking in the sun?"
"You wanna walk in the sun?" the Salvatore prompted. "Well, I can make that happen, if you help us."
Slater opened his mouth to respond, but just then there was a loud crashing sound. Glass shattered everywhere, covering everyone inside of the coffee shop, and Rose, Delia, and Slater started to scream aloud as their skin started to boil from the heat of the sun. Damon looked outside, protected by the ring on his finger, and looked for an assailant. As Rose was able to get to a dark corner with the rest of the crowd exiting through the back, she shouted for her sister, earning Damon's attention back into the coffee shop. Though he was still distracted, Damon rushed forward and pulled a Rose's jacket off of the back of her chair and draped it over Delia's scorched body. Rose had already exited the building through the back and anxiously was waiting for her sister to make it out alive. Damon emerged with Delia in his arms, all battered from the prolonged exposure from the sun unlike her sister, who had gotten away early enough for the burns to heal quickly. Damon and Rose rushed to get Delia into the back of the black SUV.
"You're gonna be okay," Damon promised. Delia nodded as he set her down in the open trunk and she sighed.
"I know. I need a minute."
"Who was behind that?" snapped Damon to the pixie-haired vampire beside him. Rose shook her head and looked around. "I-I don't know. Where's Slater?"
"Iowa by now. Who the hell knows?"
"He's not behind this," Rose pushed. "He's a good guy, he wouldn't betray me and Delia like that."
"Then who did it?"
"It was Klaus!" Delia said briskly, pulling the attention back to her. The red on her skin was starting to fade, but there was pure hatred in her eyes. "It will always be Klaus because he will not rest until he finds that human doppelgänger of yours and he will take Claire too. Rose and I are already dead, but if you don't give him what he wants, you are too. We're all dead!"
And as she said her last, abrupt, cold word, Damon stared into the eyes of Delia and started to realize that it was not the time to underestimate who they were running from.
"Just give it up." Claire watched as Elena paced back and forth waiting for Katherine to show herself to them again as she'd disappeared earlier with her snide little comment about her self-preservation. The blonde crossed her arms at the human. "Elena, she's not coming back out here. She made herself clear."
"I need more," Elena pressed. "That isn't the end of the story. There's more to it."
"Every second we spend down here is literally one more shot that I could be having at the Grill right now," she mumbled.
Elena slapped her hands down to her sides when she finally realized that Katherine wasn't going to come back out and say anything else. "Fine. Fine, let's...let's go."
As Elena gathered her things, Claire gave a relieved smile and walked towards the exit of the tomb, just to watch as Stefan came down the stairs shouting out Claire and Elena's names. When she saw him, she raised an eyebrow.
"Stefan? What...how the hell did you find me?" Claire asked, her voice a pitch higher than usual. Stefan looked at the tomb entrance as Claire groaned frustratedly. "Caroline told you, didn't she?"
"No." Stefan shook his head and looked back at her. "She kept your secret from me and Amelia but we could only think of two places you would be with Elena that could potentially be dangerous. I came here."
Claire arched an eyebrow. "And Amelia? Where did she go?" Stefan shifted his eyes ever so slightly, but Claire frowned and realized immediately what he was thinking of. "No. I was not with Damon."
"Why would you keep this from me?" Stefan barreled on, ignoring her comment. "I could've been here—"
"You would try and stop me and you know it," Claire pointed out, earning silence from her friend. Claire looked back at Elena, who was idly standing behind her looking at them in the midst of their argument. "Besides...Elena needed answers and I wanted to help her get them. Even if it meant seeing...her."
"Whatever she said to you is a lie. She's a liar! You know that!" Now Stefan was intense, looking between both Claire and Elena at the appropriate times. Elena stepped forward.
"But what if she isn't? You didn't hear what she said," the doppelgänger argued.
Stefan walked around Claire to Elena. "Elena, you don't need to worry. I'm not going to let anything happen to you more than I'm going to let it happen to Claire." He turned back to the blonde vampire. "I said I'd keep you both safe."
"That's the problem," Elena snapped, earning Stefan's undivided attention. "You can't keep us safe, Stefan. You can't keep me safe. But I know you'll try and...and you'll die trying. How is that any better?"
A glimmer of hope and love shone in Elena's eyes for a brief moment, and a silent understanding passed between the two of them. Claire felt awkward witnessing such an intimate exchange right in front of her, especially considering the conflict of interest she had, but regardless, she didn't have much time to think about it before someone interrupted.
"There's nothing you can do, Stefan." Claire, Stefan, and Elena turned to watch Katherine as she neared the edge of her radius. Katherine looked down at Elena. "I haven't even told you the best part of the story. When I returned from England to be with my family...perhaps, to make them as eternal as I was, I walked into my cottage to find them all lying there, soaked in their own blood." Elena took in a sharp breath and looked at Katherine with compassionate and guilty eyes. "He killed them. My entire family, just to get back at me for running. Whatever you do to escape Klaus, he will get his vengeance. On your friends, your family, on anyone that you've ever loved."
"No." Stefan grabbed Elena's shoulders. "Look at me. Do not listen to her, okay?"
Katherine chuckled softly. "Always the protector. But even you must realize that she's doomed. There's nothing you can do to stop it." The vampire paused. "Unless, of course, you have this."
From inside of her arms, Katherine produced the clear rock that Damon had put into the tomb with her—the moonstone.
"What?" Elena breathed.
Claire sighed. "This doesn't even surprise me anymore."
"Oh, no. There it is!" Stefan exclaimed and pointed an accusing finger at Katherine holding the moonstone so powerfully in her hand. "It's the ultimate lie, sin't it. You spun this whole thing so that we would have to get the stone from you, didn't you?"
Katherine put the stone down. "I didn't spin anything, Stefan. It's the truth."
"No. Let me guess. You wanna trade that stone for your freedom? Hmm? You manipulative, psychotic bitch."
Katherine scoffed. "My freedom? That's where you're wrong, Stefan. I don't want my freedom! Because when Klaus shows up to kill us all, and he will, I'll be in the tomb, where no vampire will enter because they can't get out. I'll be the safest psychotic bitch in town."
And the brunette turned, going back into the darkness of her cave. But they were right about one thing; she did lie. Omitted the truth, rather, about one small little detail.
Bulgaria, 1492
Katherine's hands shook as she stood over her mother's bloody body and cried, mourning for her entire family as they all gathered around her, their insides drained and their hearts dead. When Katherine finally pulled away from her mother's bloody body, her hands were stained with red and her eyes were wet with tears. But, suddenly, there was a voice.
"I'd express my dear condolences..." Katherine looked up to see her childhood friend, a girl she considered to be family, lick her lips free of her family's blood. She spoke in an English accent, but then again, she had always since her parents were originally from England. "But I sincerely could not help myself. Your brother, especially, was the most divine."
Tabitha King stood before Katherine, her blue eyes full of satisfied bloodlust. The tips of her blonde hair was stained with blood as well. Katherine, still wrought with despair, stood shakily to face her new enemy.
"Why would you do this, Tabitha?" Katherine nearly wept. "Why would you do this to my family?"
"Because he said to." Tabitha straightened to face Katherine in the eye. Her smirk haunted Katherine and would haunt her for the rest of eternity. "You ran from him, Katerina. And he will not rest until you are dead for your betrayal. I am here to give you this message and bring you back to England myself."
Katherine shook her head tightly and, from behind her, she broke off a piece of the bed's wooden footboard discreetly. "I won't go."
"Katerina, do not make this harder than it needs—"
"I won't go, Tabitha!" A certain amount of hatred burned in Katherine's eyes as she stared at the blonde-haired vampire in front of her. "You will have to kill me yourself."
Tabitha smiled wickedly. "So be it."
And she rushed forward, full vampire speed, and pulled her hands up above Katherine's head just about ready to twist her neck. Instead, Tabitha stopped just short of Katherine's cheeks, gasping and choking for air as she felt the life being sucked out of her. Looking down, Tabitha saw the piece of wood lodged in her chest cavity, and she could feel it as her heart started to wither and her skin shriveled. Katherine watched as her murderous friend collapsed to the ground with an ugly grey color coating her once flawless skin, and Tabitha's heart finally gave out.
But Katherine did not feel guilt; all she felt for Tabitha was hatred. So much of it, in fact, that she stared at Tabitha's face—the woman that had murdered her entire family for Klaus—and she remembered it. She would remember it for as long as she lived.
And nearly 400 years later, that face would reappear in Katherine's life. Her name was Clarissa King.
Damon sat in front of the fireplace in the study with the entire distilled bourbon container, staring at the flames that flickered right before his eyes. He barely noticed it when company joined him.
"You should know that I'm sorry about today," Delia announced as she stood a few feet behind Damon. "I didn't know that was gonna happen."
Damon shrugged. "I believe you."
Delia bit down on her lip and tried to come up with the next words to say. She let out a deep sigh and inched forward, trailing her finger along the backside of the couch. "Look, I know you want to save Claire—"
"I will." Damon drank.
Delia grabbed a bourbon glass from behind the couch and started to walk over to Damon. "I'm not an idiot, Damon. I'm aware that you're not a fan of me. I did intentionally kidnap your girlfriend, of course."
"She's not my girlfriend." Damon looked up at Delia as she came up to him and extended her bourbon glass. With a sour frown, he poured some of the bourbon into her glass and handed it back to her. "She never has been."
Delia drank slowly, gulping down a large sum of alcohol at the end. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "You're right to fight it, you know. The way you feel about Clarissa, that is."
"And why is that? So she can't be happy?"
"So you can," the black-haired beauty told him bluntly. Surprised, Damon let his eyes drift up to hers but she started to walk around him. "As long as you love her, she will never love you back. You forget, I have seen Claire at her lowest point in time. I know the way she acts when she doesn't have any emotions at all. Guilt is her strong suit. Love...is not."
Damon turned around. "You knew her for...what, a year?"
"And during that year she killed the man that I wanted to turn into a vampire and spend the rest of my eternal life with." Delia sat down on the couch correctly, as Damon was sitting on the arm of it with his back twisted. "But I've realized now that torture is not the answer to my problem."
The elder Salvatore narrowed his eyes. "So what is?"
She set her glass down on the table behind the couch and locked gazes with him. "You are."
"Excuse me?"
"The way I see it, you have two options, Damon." Delia leaned back on the couch and crossed her legs, clearly in a position of comfortable power. "You can either sit and stare at that fireplace and consume an extremely large amount of alcohol while you wallow about how you will never be able to have the woman you love or...you can choose the other option."
It was self-explanatory. Damon could see the twinkle in her eyes, the way she twirled her hair, the extremely obvious body language that she'd had the moment that she stepped into the house. She didn't have to clarify her statement before Damon, with the thought reeling in his mind, flashed over to her just as she stood from the couch so they were inches apart. So many thoughts went on in Damon's head; primarily all of them were about Claire. But then he remembered what happened the night before, and he felt the pain inside of him from knowing that he took away his one chance to have his own selfish happiness just to let Claire have hers. And it hurt like hell.
So he leaned down as Delia reached up, and they kissed. It was nothing that Damon could get from Claire, but it was enough to make him forget about the woman who haunted his mind. He knew Delia's intentions weren't pure. He knew that this would eventually get back to Claire for Delia's own selfish reasons.
He just didn't care.
"Thank you," Claire told her sister as Amelia handed her a glass of scotch and sat down on the couch in the middle of the King's living room. Amelia nodded silently and Claire took a sip of the strong alcohol and let out a sigh of relief. "God, did I need one of these today."
"Why'd you go without me?" Amelia asked, confused. "I could've...helped you."
Claire shook her head. "You would've been worried about me, just like Stefan." She paused. "Which, quite frankly, I don't understand. I mean, first of all, I'm a vampire which automatically makes me pretty hard to defeat. Second of all, I just found out today that if I work at it hard enough, I could be one of the strongest vampires in the history of vampires. It seems like your concern is misplaced."
The younger blonde frowned. "You went down the rabbit hole to see the woman who killed you once and has attempted to kill you multiple times. Excuse me for my concern." Claire just kept drinking the scotch and Amelia sighed. "Where'd Stefan go?"
"He dropped Elena off at her house." Amelia silenced and Claire snuck a glance at her sister, slowly catching on. "Uh oh. Now I'm starting to get concerned."
"It's not important."
"Anything about you is important, Amelia." Claire leaned forward and set her glass down with a deep sigh. "Lately, everything has been about me. Not that I don't like it being about me, I just...I really could use a break."
Amelia laughed, unintentionally of course, but ended up shaking her head. "Seriously, Claire, I'm fine. I trust Stefan. I have to. He loves Elena." The younger King paused and corrected after a while, "Loved Elena. He loved Elena."
Claire bit down on her lip. "I hate to break it to you, sis, but love doesn't fade so easily. You and Stefan are a prime example."
"But you and Damon aren't." Amelia looked at her sister from the side, catching Claire off guard as she drank from her scotch again. Slowly, Claire put her drink in her lap as Amelia continued. "I mean...you did love him once. I assume he felt the same way about you."
Knowing what she knew, Claire didn't really know what to say. No one knew the truth besides her and Damon—no one knew everything that they had been through together. It wasn't just the night he kissed her or their unorthodox relationship, there were other moments in time where it wasn't so easy to just pretend that she didn't care for Damon at all. There was a small part of her that admitted the truth, but the larger part of her covered it up. Claire could not answer Amelia honestly, so she simply lied.
"You're right." Claire gulped down the rest of her glass. "Damon and I stopped loving each other a long time ago. It did fade easily. Hopefully, it goes the same for Stefan and Elena." She tilted her glass towards Amelia. "Please?"
Damon and Delia sat on the floor in front of the couch, both of them half-naked covered only by a thin blanket that was completely unnecessary because of the fireplace beside them. As Delia laughed at something Damon said to her with a smirk on his face, Rose barged into the room without warning to find her sister and the elder Salvatore lying before her just after their rendezvous. Rose paused for a moment, but she could hardly say she was surprised. Eventually, she sighed.
"Slater wants to know if you can get the moonstone," Rose whispered to Damon. "Can you?"
Damon nodded immediately and Rose told Slater that he could. "What's next?"
The two vampires on the floor overheard the other side of the phone. "We need a witch. G-Get the moonstone. A-A witch should be able to figure out the rest. Good luck, Rose."
Slater ended the call, and Damon, Rose, and Delia stared at each other as they plotted their next move.
Thanks for reading! Review, please! I don't think it's too confusing, but I just wanted to make this clear: Tabitha King is an exact look-alike of Claire. Or, rather, vice-versa but the same rules apply. This does not mean that Claire is a doppelgänger. Unfortunately for you all, this won't really be entirely explained until the third season but Katherine will give a brief run-down about it in one of the next couple chapters.
SomebodyWhoCares: Don't worry, there will be more 'awww' moments in the future.
ThisIsMeAndYou: Sometimes I can be predictable, I know this. But sometimes I have a few tricks up my sleeve...
RHatch89: Thank you!
Savage Kill: Haha definitely!
NicoleR85: Claire feels to guilty to really 'get back' at Delia for it. But she will have a few choice words. I haven't decided whether or not I want Claire to find out about Delia and Damon yet so we'll see.
grapejuice101: Thank you! Cordelia is actually a really awesome character to write with, I really enjoy her. Here's the update!
Momsen-xxxx: That is exactly the correct response. Honestly, I fell over laughing reading that because it's probably what I would say if this were someone else's story and they did that to me.
Guest: Oh she does. She definitely, definitely does :)
Bella lugosi: Same witty Claire, as usual, she just doesn't know that Damon's in love with her. Well, she does, but she hasn't heard him say it in her mind. Yes, that is a lot of questions. I can tell you that Christopher will not be happy about things when he returns to Mystic Falls. And Claire will have some choice words to say to both him and Damon when the time comes. Thanks for reviewing!
beth: Here's the update!