Before Sunset - Part One

Elena put a paint cover over the armchair. We were going to paint Ric's room... in the middle of the night. Maybe it'd be good for us, maybe we'd get some closure... but all I was getting was a headache.

Jeremy and Elena were pouring paint into a white container. "Going darker, huh?" Stefan walked into the room.

"It's the only color we had," Elena told him, looking around.

"That's what happens when you decide to paint your dead guardian's room in the middle of the night," Jeremy said.

"I don't suppose anyone tried to talk you guys out of doing this so soon," Stefan said.

"Oh, I tried, believe me," I assured him. "But she won't listen."

"We have to keep moving," Elena stated. "Otherwise we'll start thinking and we don't want to think."

"Want a hand?" Stefan offered.

"So, are you two like back together or something?" Jeremy asked them.

"Uh..." Elena stammered, looking to Stefan for some input, but he decided to be a coward at that precise moment. "It's complicated."

"Yeah," Stefan agreed, nodding. "I was just checking up on you guys. Seeing how you were doing... after everything."

Jeremy's face twisted in anger. "We're fine. But, if you are trying to be the good guy again, why don't you do the right thing and give us one day. Just one day without any vampires in it."

With that, Jeremy stormed out of the room. I began to paint the room quietly, listening to Stefan and Elena's conversation. "He didn't mean that," Elena said to Stefan.

"Yeah, yeah he did." The doorbell rang. "I'll get that."

I put down the paint roller and followed him to the door. It was my house as well, after all. "Expecting any visitors?" Stefan asked me.

I shook my head. "Nobody knows that Ric's dead."

Stefan nodded and opened the door. Damon was gripping Bonnie's upper arm and the witch had a bite mark on her neck. Blood was dripping from her wound.

"We have a problem," Damon said.

Stefan handed Bonnie a towel for her neck. "What do you mean he turned? I thought you were standing guard!" Stefan growled at his brother.

"Don't blame me. Blame Bonnie the blood bank. She fed him!" Damon insisted.

"No, let's not blame anyone," I said, giving a pointed look to them both.

"I had no idea what was happening, okay? The witches led me there. They wanted him to feed so he'd turn," Bonnie explained.

"So, where's the stake now?" Stefan inquired.

"Oh, you mean the white oak one?" he said sardonically. "The one that can kill an Original and wipe out an entire line of vampires?" Damon glared at Bonnie. "We don't know."

"If you are so upset with me, why did you feed me your blood to save my life?" Bonnie questioned.

"Because I do stupid things, Bonnie. I do things... like let my friend die with dignity when I should have just killed him," he spat.

"There has be a way to kill him now," I said, taking a seat on a wooden chair beside Bonnie.

Bonnie nodded. "I've been trying to figure that out. A witch can't truly make an immortal creature, there is always a way to undo a spell."

"So, what's the witchy work around?" Damon said.

"That's the problem. I don't know."

I stood up. "I'm gonna go check on Elena."

Stefan nodded as I past him. Elena was still painting Ric's room. I picked up the paint roller and joined her. Jeremy walked in on Jenna and Ric 'doing the deed' in that room. Every inch of this goddamn house was filled with memories of people I loved who had died. I wanted to runaway and to never come back... but I was needed here.

"I hope we don't have to do this again," Elena said sadly.

"Do what?" I questioned.

"This," she repeated. "Mourn. Lose someone else. It seems to be the ushe these days. Have breakfast, go to school, someone we love dies, eat dinner, go to bed. Life seems to just an endless cycle of grief for the past year and a half."

She was right. I pursed my lips tightly, suppressing a sob and continued to paint. After a few moments of silence, I said, "It won't always be like this."

"Won't it?" Elena asked, tears in her eyes and her voice shaking. "I mean, how long more until you become a vampire, huh? Then we'll lose someone else."

She threw her paint roller on the floor angrily. I placed my roller into the container. "Hey, hey," I soothed, putting a hand on each of her arms. "We'll be okay. And you're not losing me. Remember what Esther said? You'll only lose me if I die... die and that's not happening."

She nodded. I smiled at her reassuringly. Our moment was interrupted when my phone rang. Ric popped up on the screen. I scoffed and answered it. "Whoever this is, it's not funny."

Elena shot me a worried look and I shook my head, signalling for her to not bother. "Well, who else would it be?"

I nearly dropped the phone when I heard my apparently not-so dead guardian's voice. Elena heard his voice too and pressed her ear up against my phone. "Ric?" I said breathlessly.

"Listen closely, I'm at the school. I have Caroline, and if you want to keep her alive, I need you and Elena to get in your car and come down here right away. If you tell anyone where you are going, I will kill her."

Ric - or Evil-Laric - hung up. "What do we do?" Elena asked me.

I gulped. "The only thing we can do. We have to go to the school."

Elena groaned in frustration as we walked down the school hallway. Sneaking out had been surprisingly easy. There was a tree in front of my window which we climbed to get out. We used to use it to sneak out as Sophomore's.

My heart broke (figuratively, in a world of supernatural, that was all too possible) when I heard the sound of my best friend crying. "Caroline," I said.

They were in Ric's classroom. Caroline was pinned to the table by two pencils and a cloth was stuck in her mouth, it was undoubtedly Alaric's doing.

"Oh my God," I muttered. My tone got louder and angrier as I turned to my once beloved guardian and mentor. "Let her go!"

He gestured to Caroline. "Free her yourself."

I knitted my eyebrows together in confusion. Alaric didn't break the stare. I glared at him. Was this some kind of trap? I walked gingerly over to Caroline and placed a hand on her shoulder soothingly. She was about to be put through a hell of a lot of pain. I slowly pulled the pencil out of one of her hands, but before I could get it out, Alaric rushed behind me and slammed the pencil back into Caroline's hand. The blonde vampire yelled in pain.

"What the hell?" I said angrily to Alaric. "You said I could free her! You-"

Alaric only got angrier. "How many times do I have to tell you, Louise? Stop trusting vampires!"

Alaric dipped the cloth into a bottle of vervain, with the intention of shoving it back into her mouth. This wasn't our Ric, this was a monster! The skin around Caroline's mouth was red and peeling off. How could he do this to her? Did he not see that Caroline never asked for any of this? None of them did.

Ric was walking over to her when the blonde vampire pleaded. "No... no more. Please, no more!

Elena and I stood up. "Alaric, stop!" Elena begged.

He pushed Elena back into her seat and shot me a look. "Sit down, or I'll make you." Self-preservation kicked in and I sat down like a dutiful child. "Good." He gave me a look of approval, but I just scowled at the monstrous vampire hunting Original. "This keeps the vervain in her system. It's like inhaling razor blades with every breath."

He wrapped the vervained cloth back around Caroline mouth's. Smoke was being released for the burning sensation Caroline felt. She whimpered and screamed in anguish. I touched her arm, trying to comfort her some how.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked Alaric.

He smirked. "To make it easier on you when you put her out of her misery." He picked up the white oak stake. "Who's going to be the taker?"

"What?" Elena exclaimed. "No!"

"Isn't this what you wanted, Elena? For me to teach you how to kill a vampire?" Alaric said. "Well, here's a vampire, Elena. Kill her."

She shook her head. "This isn't what I want."

He tutted and turned to me. "Louise? You always were the stronger one - tougher. All those hours you spent training, getting even stronger, you could be a hunter. But you've never actually staked a vampire through the heart."

He offered me the stake and I eyed it, glaring at the stake as I could make it burn to ashes by just a stare.

"Why are you doing this?" Elena asked, glaring at Alaric with as much intensity as I was.

"Because you need me," he answered. "You both do. The two of you are eighteen year old girls without any parents or guidance or any sense of right and wrong anymore."

I gestured to Caroline pointedly, "And this is right?"

He pointed to Caroline with the stake. "She's a murderer. She told me she killed someone and liked it. Now how is that right? Listen, Louise, your parents led the council. It was their life's mission to keep this town safe. They weren't dead six months before the two of you undid it all."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You don't know them. You don't know anything about them," I spat.

"Why, am I wrong?" Alaric said. "Do you actually think that they'd be proud of you?" He knelt down in front of me. "If you don't side with the humans, you're just as bad as them. Now kill her." He handed me the stake. "Or I'll do it for you and I'll make it hurt. Get up!" He pulled me forcibly out of the seat. "Or does Elena want to do it?" I shook my head slightly, non verbally saying to her that I had a plan, and Elena shook hers. Alaric chuckled darkly. "I knew Louise would be the one to do it." He clapped me on the back proudly and I flinched. "Go on, do it. Put her out of her misery. Show me what you've learned."

There was no way in hell I was going to kill Caroline, Alaric should have known that. He gave me the stake, not that I willingly took it. I had to take him by surprise. Maybe the stake could kill him? But Esther wouldn't have made that mistake when she made him. Not again, unless she was very idiotic.

I pretended to contemplate killing Caroline, but turned around at the last moment and went for Alaric's heart. He grabbed my wrist before I could. "I thought I taught you better than that."

I suppressed a grin. He taught me one thing, good vampire hunters always had a back-up plan. "You did."

After I grabbed the beaker of vervain, I smashed it over Alaric's head. He roared as his flesh turned to red crisp. Elena released Caroline and urged her to leave. "Get help!"

I followed the two of them out of the room. Caroline was able to get out, thank God, but Alaric blocked the two of us from leaving.

"Not so fast."

He pushed us out into the hall. Elena and I backed away from him. The enhanced Original approached me first and stuck the stake into my stomach. I gasped as he took it back out and threw me across the hall. My head split open. Alaric looked like he regretted it, but didn't he hate vampire sympathisers?

I crawled away from them and towards the door. Alaric had pinned Elena against the locker.

"Louise?"

I looked up. Klaus knelt beside me and placed my head on his lap. He bit his wrist and offered me his blood. I drank it. He stroked my hair as I did.

The vampire blood was taking immediate effect. It wasn't completely healed, but I wasn't exactly dying. Klaus' blood was like super blood or something. He helped my up, gripping my arms. "Thank you," I said.

He caressed my cheek with his thumb. "We'll save Elena. You stay here."

I nodded and he gave me one last smile before vamping away.

After the dose of Klaus' blood, it worked pretty quick. The rest of the wound was taking forever. I still had a sharp pain in my gut from where Alaric stabbed me. I heard the fighting, but I couldn't do anything about it.

"Let him go or I'll kill myself!"

That got me going. Suddenly, the pain didn't exist as I staggered towards them. Alaric was on top of Klaus, ready to plunge the stake into his heart.

"Put it down, Elena," Alaric said.

"Why? Because you still need me alive?" Elena pressed. "There's a reason why Esther used me and Louise to make you, isn't there? She didn't want you to be immortal, so she tied your life to a human one. Two human lives. Mine and Louise's. That way you have only one life span to kill all vampires and then you'll be gone. So, when Louise and I die, you die too. That's it, it has to be!"

"You're wrong," Alaric insisted.

"Am I?"

Elena was dragging a piece of broken glass along her throat. "Elena..." I warned, gulping.

She gave me one of her 'shut up' look. Her plan worked as Alaric yelled, "Stop! STOP! STOP! STOP!"

While Alaric had a near-breakdown, Klaus grabbed Elena and I vamped off. Then everything went black.

I woke up in a place I didn't recognise. I was in a fancy looking room, tucking in a maroon bed. I had a horrible pain in my head. What the hell happened? The last few hours were a blank. The last thing I remembered was Caroline rushing away.

I rubbed my head and tore the covers off me, throwing my legs over the bed. I tried standing up, but fell back on the bed, too weak to stand up apparently. I heard an amused chuckle coming from behind me and whipped around.

"Klaus," I said. "What happened?"

"Alaric Saltzman was transformed by my mother into an enhanced Original-"

"I know that," I interrupted. "After Caroline got away. What happened then?"

He sighed. "We found out that Alaric's life force is tied to your life and Elena's."

I bolted up. "And you're going to kill me?"

He looked flabbergasted and shocked at the idea. Klaus shook his head. "No. Of course not."

Realisation hit me like a ton of bricks. "You're gonna kill Elena, aren't you?"

At least he had the decency to look mildly ashamed. "Yes. I'm draining her of blood as we speak."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "No. You're not going to kill her. Please, Klaus!"

"I understand that you're trying to protect your family, but I am trying to protect mine and the rest of the vampire race," he explained. "If Alaric Saltzman kills me, Damon, Stefan and Caroline will die as well. I sired their line. I turned Mary Porter."

Surprisingly, that relieved me to hear it. Now they couldn't kill him. But they'd find another way. They always did. I backed against the wall and turned my head to see a knife on the chest of drawers. "You won't have to kill Elena." I picked up the knife and held it tight in my hand.

Klaus' eyes widened when he realised what I was about to do. "No, Louise, no."

"I'm not about to let my sister die, Klaus," I said, scared out of my mind. I tried not to show any fear as I pointed the knife towards my stomach. "And if you die, then... then Stefan, Caroline and Damon die, not to mention thousands of vampires." I shook my head slowly. "I can't let that happen. I have to do this."

As he rushed towards me, I plunged the knife into my stomach.

The last thing I heard was Klaus' roar before darkness took me.

A/N: Next chapter: vampire Louise!