Recap: Elena and Damon are now human and are currently residing on the Slayer compound in Scotland along with Bonnie and Caroline. Jeremy and Stefan remain in Klaus's captivity. In attempts to find a way to unbind Klaus from the rest of his bloodline, Willow channeled Anya's spirit from the Other Side. Anya revealed that while they could not kill Klaus, they could make him mortal but it would have consequences. Elena spent the morning training with Buffy but became upset as she was leaving when she realized it was Jeremy's 18th birthday.

Chapter Fourteen

Elena frowns at the mirror as she runs her hairbrush through her hair, smoothing out the tangles. She watches, as Damon comes up behind her, leaning forward to inspect his own hair. He moves slowly, exhausted from his morning training session with Faith.

"I think I'm getting grey hair," he mumbles as he arranges his wet locks into their usual tousled manner.

Elena sets down her hairbrush with laughing eyes. "You're not even twenty-five yet."

His eyes lift with a glimmer of humour.

"Technically," she adds, taking in their reflections framed in the glass of the cheap wooden frame. With their dark hair and bright eyes—their perfectly smooth skin—they look the epitome of youth. Elena tilts her head slightly, watching her dark curtain of hair fall to the side; she hardly looks her eighteen years, but inside, she feels a thousand years old.

"I wonder," she ponders leaning into him as he rests his chin on her shoulder, "what we'll look like when we're old."

Damon's eyes meet hers in the mirror. He stands so close behind her that she can count every one of his eyelashes. He doesn't say anything, just wraps an arm around her waist, watching her as she brings up one of her hands to brush a piece of hair away from her face.

She tries to picture herself in ten years, in fifty years, but the life she always wanted, even now, seems like a blurry pipe dream. "I guess," she lets out thoughtfully after a moment. "I think if we survive that long we'll look lucky more than anything."

Damon's eyes peer over her shoulder, heavy with concern. Elena turns around to face him, winding her arms around his neck.

"Hey, whatever they say in there, whatever Elijah and Willow and Bonnie have come up with, I'm not planning on running off on some crazy suicide mission, okay?" She squeezes his shoulder gently. "You and me, we're a team. Whatever we have to do, we'll figure it out together."

Damon's mouths curls into a half smile. "Go team."

The library, so orderly at Elena's last visit, now maintains roughly the amount of tidiness as a Barnes and Nobel the morning after the release of a new Harry Potter book. A fire sits smouldering in the grate, books are half yanked out of shelves, and the rug is bunched up from where furniture has been dragged from across the room. At first Elena worries it has been looted, but then she notices Willow, curled up in one of the red leather arm chair at the centre table.

Willow sits with her knees up to her chest, a cup of coffee clutched in her hands as she fixes the white board propped up directly across from her with an even stare. It's covered in some kind of strange hieroglyphics that must make some kind of sense to her because she doesn't turn her attention away as they walk into the room.

At the centre table, surrounded by a smattering of books and papers, Bonnie looks up from the book she is inspecting, greeting her friend with a weary grin.

Elena notes the bags under her eyes with concern. "Bonnie, you haven't been here all night, have you?"

Bonnie shakes her head. "I only got here this early this morning. Willow and Elijah have been here all night." She cocks her head to a nearby doorway where Elijah stands, his arms full of books. In the office behind him, she glimpses Buffy and Giles conversing quietly with Xander.

"Did you find anything?" Damon inquires from behind her, his voice strung tightly with tension.

Bonnie rubs her eyes, staring at the book in front of her. "Some. We still haven't found anything about the third bloodline Anya mentioned. Everything is...complicated. We're still figuring out the kinks."

"We may never work out all the kinks," Elijah adds in his perfectly precise diction. He gestures to the empty chairs around the table. "Why don't you have a seat?"

Elena gulps, apprehensively pulling out a chair and taking a seat. Damon seats himself next to her, his arm draped across the back of her chair. She places a light hand casually on his knee, a comforting gesture for herself as much as it is for him.

At the end of the table, Willow finally makes a movement, grabbing a notepad where she jots down a few strange looking symbols. "I think I've got it," she explains to Elijah. "Buffy, Giles," she calls, raising her voice to be heard in the attached office.

Buffy emerges moments later with Xander and Giles at her heels. She regards them with a clenched expression she did not have earlier this morning.

"We're ready," Buffy tells her friend with a terse nod, taking a seat next to Bonnie. "Go ahead and fill them in and then we'll share what we've got on our end."

Willow stands shakily, taking a sip of her coffee before she starts. "Okay. I'm gonna try to explain this in layman's terms, but you guys have to interrupt me if the magic stuff gets to be too much, alright?"

Elena nods in agreement.

"Alright," Willow begins. "So a spell as intricate as the one that created the Originals is very complicated; it's layered upon a lot of different things. At first, it took me awhile to figure this out because I couldn't understand why Anya thought that Elena's life force would bind to Klaus's if we tried to undo the magic; ordinary dark magic just doesn't work like that." She pauses, letting them process her words. "But then when Elijah mentioned to me that the bloodlust had never been the intention when Esther created vampires, it hit me—vampires, period, weren't Esther's intention—they were just the result; what she was trying to create was immortality. And to create that, you need more than just dark magic; you need alchemy." She gestures to the series of the symbols on the board. "The blood of the doppelganger is the alchemical bond that binds the whole schebang together. That's why no matter what you seem to do, everything seems always comes back to Petrova blood." Willow's mouth turns up with regret as she utters her last sentence, watching Elena's face with trepidation as the news sinks in.

Elena stares at the incomprehensible symbols on the board which finally, at long last, give her a reason for her ill fate. It's a bittersweet revelation as the knowledge brings little comfort with it.

"We can undo the magic that made Klaus a vampire, which will make him mortal again," Willow continues. "But the forces are bound together too tightly to undo completely, so when he becomes human, the side effect is that your life forces will bind together. If one of you dies, both of you die."

"Will it be like what happened with Alaric?" Elena turns to Bonnie, "Or will it be like what Katherine tried that time at the Masquerade?"

"It will be blood magic, just like what happened with Alaric," Bonnie explains. "Only you will both be mortal. If one of you dies, both of you will, but you won't share any physical pain or anything."

"How come I don't have to die for the spell to work?" Elena asks quietly. She squeezes Damon's knee gently as she feels him tense beside her. "I mean, I did before. What makes this different?"

"Esther did not kill Tatia for this ritual, Elena," Elijah answers evenly. "I assumed, at the time, she had, but she didn't do it until later, when Niklaus's werewolf side had to be bound."

Elena nods grimly, understanding. She remembers the night that Klaus broke the Sun and the Moon curse, the orange glow of the flames revealing flickering glances of her aunt's terrified features, and the bitter helplessness she felt as Klaus sunk his teeth into her neck. She's brought out of her reverie by Damon's sharp hiss in her ear. Looking down, she realizes how tightly her nails are digging into his knee.

"Easy tiger," he whispers in her ear. "Save the claws for later hmm?"

She elbows him teasingly, a flicker of a smile passing across her features as their eyes lock for a moment.

Elena looks away when Elijah clears his throat slightly, jarring them back into the matter at hand. She snaps back to attention, surprised at how easily distracted she was.

"So what exactly are you going to need to do in order to turn Klaus into a human again?" Damon questions impatiently, not chagrined in the least.

Willow sighs. "It would take me all day to explain the technicalities. But basically, I'm going to unbind the other two elements Esther drew on first: the sun and the white oak. Elijah has provided me with some ash that will work. Then Klaus will have to drink Elena's blood, straight from the vein."

"Willingly?" Damon asks dubiously.

"No," Willow replies, shaking her head. "But I think I've found a way we can subdue him long enough to force your blood down his throat," she says to Elena, gesturing to her notepad, etched along with the strange symbols. Elena can make out her own name along with Katherine and Tatia. "As we've talked about, the doppelgangers and Originals are bound up in ways we can't even fathom, probably in ways Esther herself never intended. Elijah, would you mind explaining the next part?"

"Of course," Elijah replies gracefully. "We haven't yet figured out exactly what my mother did to Tatia to turn her into the first doppelganger. To be honest, we may never know. But we have figured out that the reason the blood of the doppelganger binds this spell together is because it combines both of the necessary elements needed to create vampires: alchemy and magic. The alchemical component is the binding agent—more or less—for the other elements, the sun and the white oak. The magic component is what perpetuates the blood line and ensures a new doppelganger every half century or so. Do you follow?"

Elena nods slowly. "I think so. I don't really get what it means, though."

"I believe that if you channel the ancestral magic inherent in you and Katherine all the way back to Tatia, we can subdue Klaus, at least for a few minutes," Willow explains. "The only problem is it will likely incapacitate Elijah as well."

Elena stares at her in disbelief. "Channel the...but how would that even work? I'm not a witch." She glances from Bonnie to Willow to Elijah. "Am I?" she asks, her voice cracking as she questions even her most fundamental knowledge of herself.

Willow shakes her head. "No, you're definitely not a witch. With ancestral magic like this, you don't need a witch. I'm sure you know that being a doppelganger doesn't really come with many supernatural perks, but the magic that created you will allow you to tap into your ancestry." She pauses, biting her lip. "I hate to tell you this, though, but you're gonna need Katherine. Her blood won't work for the ritual because she's dead, but she is still the doppelganger; she still carries some of the magic that you'll need to channel."

"Yeah, good luck finding her," Damon spits.

"I can find her." Elijah states firmly.

Damon raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, your excellent track record with that really speaks for itself."

"Did it ever occur to you Damon, that perhaps we weren't looking very hard?" Elijah responds evenly. "Katerina ceased to be of use to Niklaus the moment she became a vampire; the only reason he wanted her at all was for revenge. I assure you, I found her many times, but watching her panic and flee was much more satisfying to me than handing her over to Niklaus and—"

"Say you do find her," Damon interjects. "What then? We all know she can't be trusted."

"I can easily make her...amenable," Elijah replies.

Elena shivers slightly, the kind look in his eyes has been replaced with something cold, ruthless almost. It's a look she remembers from their first meeting and has seen very little of since.

"This is all a moot point anyways unless we find Klaus," Damon throws out, shaking his head in frustration. "I mean do we even know where he is or where he's holding Jeremy? I doubt he's sitting on his ass waiting for us to show up. He'll want to draw us out before we're ready so we have to fight on his terms. We need to move and we need to do it soon."

Xander throws him a questioning look, but Buffy's mouth turns up into a half smile. Crossing her arms, she watches him intently, her eyes silently urging him to go on.

"What, I have to be a vampire to think like one?" Damon gestures wildly. "It's what I would do. We might have Elena, but he has Jeremy and Stefan, and you can bet your ass he's gonna use them to draw us out."

"Damon!" Bonnie lets out harshly, her eyes darting to Elena with concern.

Elena stiffens, keeping her concentration fixed on Buffy. Next to her, Damon's fingers lightly brush her shoulder, a silent apology. "He's right though," she lets out quietly.

"Look, we don't know where he is for sure," Bonnie explains. "I tried to do a location spell on Klaus last night using Elijah's blood, but it didn't work. He's surrounded by magical protection."

"Does that spell even work on vampires?" Elena asks, surprised. "I didn't think it did."

"It does if both subjects are the same species," Bonnie explains. "For example it would work on two related humans or two related vampires, but not a on a human related to a vampire. We found Kol in Australia and Rebekah is still in Mystic Falls. Elijah thinks..." she trails off, looking to Elijah to finish her thought.

"I believe that Niklaus is still using the fortress in Italy," he finishes. "It's secure, and from what we can determine, extremely hard to penetrate. If I know my brother he'll want us to come to him so we have to fight on his terms. We do have an advantage, though, in that he doesn't know we've aligned with the Slayers. He'll be expecting us to come at him with a lot less firepower than we have, even if we don't get the hybrids on our side."

"Faith is on the phone with Angel, and Andrew and Caroline are finishing up with the video as we speak," Giles interjects. "Andrew said he would have the video to Angel by tonight. We'll hopefully hear back from them shortly."

"Have you found out anything about the island?" Damon asks.

"We found it on Google maps," Xander answers, he pulls up a map on his iPad and hands it to Damon. "But we can't see much."

"I did a spell last night trying to get a closer look," Willow finishes for him. "It's completely sheathed in magical protections. Klaus's witch is pretty good; I couldn't even get within a mile of it."

"Can you break down the protections?" Buffy asks, peering over to get a look at the map.

"Not from here," Willow answers. "But give me an hour or so at a closer proximity and I know I could. The thing is, as soon as I do, their witch is gonna know and she's going to come at us with everything she's got."

Damon studies the map carefully. "Do you have anything else physical I could look at? Like some old maps of the region or anything?"

Willow shakes her head. "Not here. But I'm sure there are records or maps somewhere in archives in Italy if we know where to look. Do you see something we missed?"

Damon shrugs. "I can't tell from this, but I spent some time in this region right after World War Two and I know the area. How far off the coast is the island?"

"Not far," Xander answers. "Little more than a mile."

Damon sets the iPad back on the desk. "Look, it's just a theory, but that region is known for caves. If it's always been used as a fortress, which I'm betting it has, they would've wanted the ability to retreat if they had to. There's a chance there might be some tunnels running underneath it, especially if the Nazis were using it during the war."

Elijah bites his lip thoughtfully. "That's certainly worth looking into. Although, I do wonder if Niklaus has perhaps found them already."

"We'll know more soon," Buffy interjects. "I sent Spike down to Italy to meet up with our two Slayers there and do some scouting of the area. He should be there by tomorrow. In the meantime, I think we should prepare to set off for Italy in groups. Willow, Bonnie, I want you to leave as soon as possible; see if you can get a feel for what kind of magic that witch is brewing?"

Elena glances at her friend with uncertainty. She doesn't like the idea of sending her best friend into the lion's den, especially having seen the power of Klaus's witch first hand.

Buffy, however, continues on without noting anyone else's trepidations.

"Then, depending on what they find, I want to head down there myself. Xander, Damon, I want you to come with me. We need to figure out how to get into that fortress and we need a strategy for what to do once we are. Giles, do you have any idea where we might find the records we need?"

Giles pushes his glasses up his nose. "For a fortress this old, I would start in Naples. I can make a few phone calls for you to an archivist I know there."

"Excellent," Buffy remarks crisply. "Xander, I need—"

"—Hang on, why do you need me?" Damon interjects, holding up a hand.

"Because you just proved me you know what you're doing," Buffy states. "I've read the journals and I've looked at your military record from the Civil War. You may be reckless but you're also creative, you know how to strategize, and as a bonus you speak Italian."

"So?"

"So, Xander and I are good, but we could really use someone with your experience. Elijah tells me you once managed to run him through with a coat rack which is certainly no easy feat, and even your Civil War record speaks for itself. Your actions at the Battle of Chancellorsville saved fifteen lives."

"Yeah, a fat lot of good that did them," Damon spits bitterly. "I got my ass handed to me for not following orders and every single one of those men lived just long enough to get slaughtered at Gettysburg instead." He pauses, letting his words sink in. "Bet that wasn't in my military record, was it?"

"No," Buffy replies quietly, taken back. "It wasn't."

"If you read up on me then you know that I don't take orders," Damon remarks snidely, eyeing her carefully. "Not after Gettysburg."

"No one is ordering anyone," Buffy replies calmly. "I'm merely suggesting that you come with us. I know you and Elena would prefer to stay together, but I need her to remain here where it's safe until we're ready in Italy." Buffy frowns, looking at the two of them. "Willow can do a spell to prevent both of you from being found by magical means once you leave the compound, but I know for a fact Klaus already has scouts scouring Europe for you. Travelling together will put both of you in jeopardy."

Elena sucks in a breath, torn. After so many weeks in such close company, she's all but forgotten what it is like to not have Damon within arm's reach. But yet, Buffy speaks the truth; in Italy, Damon would be an asset to their cause, but his remaining here would only serve her own selfishness.

Damon looks to her, defeated. "I promised you," he breathes, still holding to his vow, even in the face of the vastly changed circumstances.

Elena reaches for his hand, squeezing it gently. "You should go," she lets out. "I want you with me, but they need you. Jeremy and Stefan need you."

"Elena—" Behind his eyes, she can see his mind whirling. He is at war with himself over his inability to protect her in his mortal body, his promises to her, and his need to save his brother.

Elena shakes her head, folding his hand between hers and interlacing their fingers. "My part comes later. Right now you need to play yours."

Damon turns to Buffy, biting his lip. "When are we leaving?"

"As soon as I hear from Spike," Buffy replies briskly.

"What do you propose to do about the hybrids?" Giles asks, already moving on. "If Caroline and Andrew are successful in their endeavour, they're going to need to meet them somewhere."

"I talked to Caroline about this earlier," Xander replies. "She suggested that she go and meet them personally, then bring them to meet us. I suggested they meet in Rome, it's a large city; they'll blend in better if someone is watching for them."

"She's not going alone, is she?" Elena pipes uneasily.

"I had a thought about that actually," Xander answers, turning to Elijah. "You're going to have to go get Katherine anyways. What if we send her to meet up with Caroline?"

"You're kidding right?" Damon sputters.

"Well she's going to have to go somewhere until we need her," Xander points out.

"Yeah, that's like storing my iPod in a tub of battery acid when I'm not using it," Damon spits. "Actually, a tub of battery acid is the perfect place to keep Katherine."

"Katherine is the reason Caroline is a vampire," Elena translates the Damon-speak to Xander. "They don't exactly have a warm and fuzzy relationship."

"I'll compel her," Elijah declares matter-of-factly. "In terms of safety Katerina would be a very suitable companion for Caroline; she's over five hundred years old and very strong; I could compel her to protect Caroline at all costs."

Damon eyes him warily, not convinced.

"Katherine would hate that..." Elena spitballs, enjoying the irony of Katherine forced to be Caroline's designated body guard. "But really, I think it should be Caroline's call. She's the one who is going to have to put up with her."

Elijah nods. "I'll speak with her before I leave this evening."

"How long do you think it will take to find her?" Elena poses, finding humour in the notion that Katherine isn't near as good at running as she thinks she is.

"No more than a few days. I have a lead that she is currently heading towards Canada. As soon as I find her I'll send her off wherever it is that we need her and come back here to escort you to Italy. I believe Faith will be joining us?" Elijah turns to Buffy for confirmation.

"That's the plan," she replies. "But nothing is set in stone until I hear from Spike. Willow, Bonnie, are you two prepared to leave in the morning?"

Willow nods absently, obviously listing something in her head. "I'm all set; I just need to do the spell on Elena, Damon, and Caroline before we leave so they're not found once they leave the compound."

"Great, I think we're done." Xander declares, anxiously glancing around. "Right?"

"Yes, Xander," Buffy replies, shaking her head with an indulgent smile. "We're done."

Next to her, Damon sighs with relief, "Thank God. Anyone else need a drink?"

Six steps. That's how far it is from the edge of his rusty cot to the end dingy wall. Jeremy has counted them over and over again, the numbers a mantra running through his head. He doesn't know how long he's been here. Weeks, months. They've all bled together.

He flings a bit of rubber that came off the edge of his bed at the wall and watches it bounce off, pretty much his only source of amusement unless watching the water dripping from the rusty faucet in the dingy attached bathroom counts. He wishes Stefan would come back; things were easier when he was here, but he hasn't come to see him in ages. Jeremy hopes he's still alive wherever he is. He's afraid Klaus found out he was lying to him.

He was terrified the first time Stefan ever visited. Klaus was with him and they dragged him into a big room upstairs. Klaus watched with an obnoxious smirk while Stefan hit him over and over again like it was some kind of test. When he finished, there was barely a bone in his body that wasn't broken. Afterwards though, when he was reduced to a bleeding husk curled up on the floor, Klaus grew bored and Stefan carried him back downstairs himself.

He spoke to him softly, feeding him some of his blood and wiping blood off his face without a trace of bloodlust. He talked and talked, but the only words Jeremy could latch onto were "I'm sorry." He said them over and over again and Jeremy held onto that like a mantra.

He returned after that as often as he could manage. Sometimes he brought food. Sometimes he just brought news, though there wasn't much. It was pretty much the only contact he had with anyone. And then one day he just stopped coming.

Jeremy glances up as today's meal slips through the door with a clang. Every day, or at least he thinks it's a day—it's hard to tell without any source of daylight—a plate arrives for him. He eats and slides it back through the latch on the door. Every few days, it seems, someone comes and takes his dirty clothes. He supposes he should be grateful that at least he has clean clothes to wear and clean sheets to sleep on.

But even a comfortable prison is still a prison. Sometimes he contemplates whether or not he could strangle himself with a bed sheet, but he never gets farther than that. He's had enough suicide and near death experiences in his short life as it is.

Instead he tries to concentrate on memories. He remembers his childhood, how it felt to run off the edge of the dock and launch himself into the vast blue lake with a resounding whoop of joy. He thinks about the crinkles in his mother's eyes when she laughed, the way his father's hands moved nimbly over the fishing wire while he explained how to tie a knot.

Most of all, he thinks of his sister. He sees her at age six, holding her hands over his eyes during the scary parts of Mulan. At nine, her eyes fierce with condemnation while she shouted at Gracie Lockwood for kicking sand in his face. And finally, he sees her at eighteen, grown up in ways she never should have had to. He sees her face, lonely and scared as she blinked back her tears while Damon compelled him to go to Denver. The irony is that Damon didn't have to compel him; he would have gone willingly, but he let him do it anyways because he knew in his heart his sister needed him to go and she needed Damon to be the one to make it happen.

That's ultimately why he can't pick up that sheet and twist it around his own neck. His sister would never, ever leave him alone in the world if she could possibly help it and he owes her the same. Alaric once told him that as fucked up as Damon and Stefan were, he couldn't picture a world where one Salvatore existed without the other and he knows it is the same for him and Elena. They would be the Gilbert siblings until the bitter, bitter, end.

"Hey buddy," A soft voice says, echoing just to his left.

Jeremy nearly lurches off the bed in shock.

"Easy there," Alaric says with a halfway grin sliding off his face.

Jeremy gapes at him. "Alaric? Where have you been? I've been trying to see you for months."

"Klaus has a witch here blocking out all outside magic. I'm not strictly a magical being, but it's been harder to get through. I'm so sorry Jeremy. I promise you, I've been trying. "

Jeremy leans back against the wall, his long legs stretched in front of him. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you," he sighs.

Alaric makes an attempt at being human and takes a seat next to him. "I'm glad I got through, today of all days. Happy eighteenth birthday, kiddo."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. Today's April 5th."

Jeremy flops down onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "You think Klaus will let me out to go register to vote?" he jokes dryly.

Alaric gives him a teasing smile. "Yeah I'm sure that was the first thing you were gonna do." He runs a hand through his hair. "I'm so sorry, Jeremy. Look, I don't know how long I can stay, but I can give you this at least. You need to be ready because Elena and Damon have raised the cavalry and they're coming for you."

Jeremy struggles to sit up, his eyes more alight than they've been in months. "When?"

Alaric meets his gaze, his voice serious. "Soon."

A/N: Firstly, thank you all SO MUCH for your support of this story, you have truly been wonderful and loyal readers, I hope you are still with me. I want to apologise to all of you for the delay, I was finishing up my MA thesis which is now thankfully done. I tried to balance both things at once but I'm afraid that just didn't happen.

I now have much more time to commit to writing to so I hope to finish this story in the coming months, there will probably be about 17 chapters (originally I'd planned for 12!) and an epilogue. I've already put a lot of thought into the sequel so I'm excited to get that going soon. I also want to specially thank my beta Skye, now This Is My Escape, for all of her support and corrections, this story would not be what it is without her thoughtful suggestions and grammatical corrections.

If you're looking for something to read while you're waiting for Chapter 15, which will hopefully be up soon, please do check out my other story, a series of Defan centred one-shots titled The Things We Carry.

Again, thank you all so much for reading.