"There's a thin line between the dark side
And the light side."

The home-in-the-works around me wasn't somewhere I thought I might end up, not by choice, but it was safest for me to confront Klaus. If he got upset about something, I had the element of surprise on my side, and I could always use magic to stun him long enough to get away.

What was I going to do, though? Light a candle? I knew the words for a pain infliction spell, but with nothing but my blood to fuel it, what could I really do to him?

The way Klaus was glaring at me, the darkness in his heart clouding over the depths of deep blue eyes, reminding me of the unexplored parts of the sea. There was so much about him that was unexplored, too, parts of him that we never really thought to look into.

What had happened to him to make him this way? To turn him against his family the way that he had?

"If you weren't the only doppelgänger I believe might stand a chance at remaining human, I'd probably kill you for showing up here right now," he snapped, the corners of his eyes tightening a bit further, despite the outwardly pleasant smile that grew on his face. "Stefan's gone and ruined my good mood again it seems."

"Well, that's a shame," I sighed before shrugging my shoulders, both to show indifference and loosen the stiff muscles in them. "I don't care about Stefan. This is an exchange."

He let out a breath of a laugh, allowing his smile to grow wider to show off the perfectly straight teeth that seemed to be a vampire trademark. "An exchange? What might you have to offer me, love?"

"Give me your word that you'll leave Jeremy alone, and I'll tell you."

His eyebrows wove together, the tightness of his jaw loosening enough that for just the briefest of moments, I wasn't so afraid of him. "If what you have to offer me is compelling enough, sure. I'll leave Jeremy alone."

I nodded. "I have Rebekah."

The anger was back in a second, the darkness clouding over any sense of safety and security I had once felt. It was probably stupid anyways; he had killed Elena, and when finding out about me, he almost killed me too—probably would have if his curiosity of my doppelgänger blood hadn't gotten the better of him.

"You what?" he practically growled at me.

It took a very deep breath in and out to get my heartrate under control, along with the reminder that there was nothing he could do to me, at least nothing that he would do. He said it himself; I'm the only one who he believes will make it out of this town alive.

Little does he know that I'm the only one who doesn't want to.

"Elena is headed to the Salvatore's place right now," I said, when my fears were under control and out of the way. Right now, we had to do this, to protect Jeremy if nothing else. Kol's biggest concern was protecting me, in the same way that Damon's biggest concern was protecting Elena, and me in a way. "She's going to distract Damon while you and I go in there. I'll show you where her body is."

"Funny thing, I went over and had a drink with Damon the other day," he said, his voice laced with the thick accent that slurred some of his words. "He told me that he hadn't seen her."

"Because she wants to kill Elena," I said. "Elena was the one who daggered her."

"Yes, you lot and your whole plan to kill me," he said, allowing his dark smile to come back out as he began studying my face a bit further. "Why should I trust you? What if this is just another trap? I am curious about what happened to Tony and all."

"I have no reason to lie to you," I said. "And what happened to Tony is he tried to run over my brother. He died because of it, and that's all you really need to know."

He scoffed. "Well, I could drain the vervain out of you and find out the truth myself, but I'll just have my hybrids keep a closer eye on you, maybe have my sister watch you while you're at school. She's a fickle one, but if I let her think she'll have her chance to kill Elena, she'll do whatever I want."

I shook my head. "She can't go for Elena. I'm walking around with vampire blood in my system at all times. If anything happens to Elena, I'll kill myself in a heartbeat."

Seeing his nostrils flare, his jaw lock up so tightly that even he wouldn't be able to pry it open with his vampire-werewolf strength, I knew that what I said had touched a nerve, maybe even the same nerve that Stefan had danced on earlier. I didn't know what Stefan had said or done, but whatever it was, it had Klaus on edge, even more so than usual.

"You would be wise to remember what I do to those who spite me."

I shrugged. "Keep your sister under control, and you can have all my blood that you want. I'll even come in for a weekly donation."

"Fine," he allowed. "I can agree to keep my sister from hurting yours, as two doppelgängers is better than just one. Don't go doing anything stupid, however. The Petrova doppelgänger bloodline needs to continue, and as you and Elena are the only children Isobel had before she tragically died—"

"Don't do that," I cut him off, but I could feel my own jaw clenching as the corners of my eyes began tightening up so much that parts of my vision were obscured. "Don't bring what you've done to our family into this. You're making it harder to make a bargain."

His smile came back out now, in the face of the horrible things he had done, and all traces of evil was gone, aside from the fact that his joy was evil; it was evil because it came from something horrible he had done, and for what? To force Elena, who had already agreed to do the ritual anyways, into doing the ritual?

Isobel was a lot of things, none of those which were a good mother, but for all her faults, she had kept the secret of the second daughter safe. Even under compulsion, even when it might have saved her life, she didn't tell anyone that there were potentially two doppelgängers. She let everyone believe that there was only one, that Elena was her only child.

"So run this plan of yours by me again," he said, after a few more moments of gloating in all that he had done.

"Elena is on her way to the Salvatore house, to distract Damon however she needs to in order to get us down into the cellar," I said before pausing to take a deep breath, folding my arms over my chest as I did. "She and I are going to go in, saying that we're looking for something for Bonnie. While she's talking with him, you follow me down to the cellar. Before taking the dagger out of Rebekah, you have to give us all time to get out of there. She could kill any of us because of what Elena did to her."

"It wasn't Elena alone," he pointed out. "You allowed it to happen."

I shook my head. "To be honest with you, I didn't know she had done it until after it was all said and done. When we were all loading up to head to the homecoming dance, I asked where Rebekah was, and that was when they told me. Something about me disapproving if they waited too long."

"Sometimes, you have to do things that are otherwise unpleasant for the sake of necessary plans to carry out," he agreed, giving me a larger than life smile as he sat the empty glass in his hand down on a nearby table, which had the plans for whatever mansion he was building around him. "It's probably best that you can't become a vampire. You would make a horrible one, probably wouldn't survive very long. Elena has what it takes, but you, not so much."

I snorted. "Right because there's no way to survive by being a decent person. People who are decent have friends, you know. Family who doesn't hate them."

The smile fell off his face in an instant, all traces of humor gone when those eyes found mine again. "Yes, well, let's just get on with getting my sister out of the cellar at the Salvatore's then."

"Not until you tell me that we have a deal," I said. "If we don't, I'll call Damon right now and have him move her body. Your sister in exchange for my sister and my brother."

"You have my word that I will leave your brother alone, and that Rebekah will not kill your sister."

Setting off after that was uncomfortable, and not because there was a long drawn out car ride to the Salvatore boarding house. The uncomfortable part was that Klaus had to hold me while he ran there, moving faster than any car could've gotten us there.

Elena was just pulling in when we got there, so we had the perfect timing. She was going to be enough distraction for Damon, as his feelings for my sister had been raging as of late. All the time he had spent with her, absent of Stefan being there, had brought him closer to her, made him fall harder for her.

Klaus stood back hidden, standing completely silent, while Elena and I knocked on the front door.

Damon opened the door in a second, and at the sight of Elena and me standing there, his eyes grew wide at the same time his brow furrowed. "Uh oh. The Gilbert twins are showing up unannounced in the middle of the night. Is there something I should be worried about?"

"Bonnie just asked us to stop by and look for a grimoire with a particular spell she's looking for," I said. "Something unrelated to all this mess."

He nodded and took a step to the side, holding a hand towards the interior of the house to gesture us in. "You'd know what she was looking for better than me. Are you sure you don't have them at home?"

Elena's eyebrows furrowed. "Have them at home? Why would she have them at home?"

My eyes widened, at the same time Damon's did. He hadn't realized that it was a big secret, and truth was, I hadn't gotten the chance to tell Elena yet. That, however, wasn't my main concern; what I was concerned about was the man standing just outside, listening in to our conversation and hearing far too much.

He groaned. "Come on, Darcy, you said you were gonna tell her. I thought she was on board with this, too!"

"Not everyone is on board with everything your crazy brother is doing right now," I disagreed. "I haven't gotten the chance yet, Damon, but I'll tell her on the way back home."

He rolled his eyes. "No you won't, so I'll fill you in. Stefan came by and decided that it would be best if Darcy stopped pretending she wasn't a witch and start getting better with her magic."

"Damon, Klaus has hybrids stalking us!" I hissed, but it was hard to even breathe right, much less stick to the current plan. "Now is really not the time to talk about this!"

He held his hands up. "Fair enough. Sorry. Forget I said anything. You know where we keep the grimoires. Any idea what you're looking for?"

"I know exactly what I'm looking for."

It would've been easy to stay in that conversation, to hide away from the truth that had just come to light, but when Elena mentioned needing a drink, after hearing that I planned to start using my magic and knowing that Klaus was outside, which completely ruined all elements of surprise, it gave me the distraction I needed to sneak Klaus and me both inside. The door was still left open, and while I pretended to close it, as Damon led Elena away from the door and into the den where they had more alcohol stored away than was even remotely safe for someone, I didn't actually close it but instead held it open just enough for Klaus to slip inside.

My footsteps were loud enough for Damon to hear, if he was actually paying attention. By this point, I didn't figure he was because he had bought what I was saying, and he was probably trying to attempt to calm Elena down about it all. She had always been the most vocal in keeping my magic hidden, keeping me weak so that no one ever had to know, so she would've been the hardest to get on board with this new plan for me to learn it.

It didn't really matter what she wanted, though. Kol was going to teach me everything I needed to know, and that was that. She didn't have a say in how I was able to protect myself, and at this point, what was it going to hurt? Klaus already knew.

Sneaking down the hall and into what was a basement for most families, but a cellar for the Salvatores, I could sense Klaus right behind me. The magic in his veins was different from the magic in Kol's, and it always gave me the creeps. Maybe it was all that Klaus had done, or knowing what all he really was, but it didn't make me feel good to have him standing behind me, especially so close.

Getting into the cellar without making a lot of noise proved a lot more difficult than I had prepared for, mostly because the doors didn't know how to open without creaking. It wasn't a soft and gentle creak either; it was the kind that a vampire didn't have to be listening for to hear.

The only chance we had was if Elena was doing her job well enough, which knowing Damon and Elena, she definitely was.

Their relationship was blossoming, in a way I was more than happy to see. Everyone else disagreed with it, said that Damon didn't deserve love or anything good to happen to him because of all the bad that he did, but I knew better. Everything he had done had been because he was hurt, because he lashed out. It wasn't justified by any means, but vampires feel things more powerfully than humans. What seemed like an act of betrayal to us, one that we might not be able to recover from for a while, was absolute hell for him, the worst kind of betrayal there was.

Katherine had done a horrible number on him, one that led him to do terrible, terrible things. Sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, he let the pain show. He let himself feel remorse for every wrong choice he had made along the way, but at the end of the day, it never stopped him from making another choice.

Maybe Klaus was right; maybe I wasn't cut out for the vampire thing. Sure, I could make the best choice for everyone, one that might get one person killed but might save a hundred more, but was that gonna lead to survival?

Then again, with Kol on my side, who could really kill me? It wasn't like a werewolf bite would do me in, and neither would a wooden stake. From what Jeremy and Kol said, hybrids could only be killed through decapitation or heart extraction.

We just had to figure out how it was possible to make me a hybrid without Klaus' blood, or if it was possible.

Finding Rebekah's body, still dressed and ready for the homecoming dance, was simple enough. There was only one holding cell down there, and that was where they decided it was best to hide her body. Until this point, Klaus didn't even know there was a cellar down here, so hiding her in it was easy to do.

He did now, but it didn't matter. He wasn't going to let anything happen to Jeremy or Elena, and while some might worry that they were in danger, I wasn't. Kol wouldn't let Klaus do anything to hurt me.

Unless he had to show himself to protect me. At that point, I didn't actually know if he would choose me or himself. I liked to think that he would choose to save me, but Klaus had done a lot of horrible things to him over the years. Hiding from his brother until he had a plan for revenge set in motion was the best thing for him.

I didn't say anything, only gave Klaus one last stern glance before turning and running away, leaving him with the body of his daggered sister to do whatever he wanted with it. Honestly, I wondered if he would even take the dagger out or just take her body with him, keeping the dagger in her chest until he saw fit to remove it.

Maybe if I had told him about what Rebekah knew . . . but Kol had mentioned that his sister could be used to his advantage, at first as an ally against Klaus but now to help sell his "not an Original" story. When I brought up the idea that she might not help him, as his siblings had all worked with Klaus against him before, he reminded me that he has all the daggers. While nothing in him wants to resort to using them, he will do what he has to protect himself.

That couldn't have been easy for him to bring himself to do, so I really hoped it didn't get to that point. Bringing him back from that, convincing him that he wasn't his brother, would be hard.

His siblings all probably deserved it, aside from Finn. He had been the only one who had never betrayed Kol before, had never helped Klaus dagger him at some point or ratted him out, knowing that he would be daggered for it.

How they could do that to their own brother was beyond me, but I didn't know the fear he must've held over them all.

What I really couldn't understand was why they didn't just leave. Kol never got much chance to leave; time after time, they daggered him any time he really tried.

I knew how this dagger removal process went; sometimes, it took quite a bit of time for the Original to wake up while others, it was a quick process. There wasn't much time for us to get away before Rebekah came back and was able to get her revenge somehow.

With a text sent to Bonnie, Caroline, and Matt, warning each of them to get home and stay there, I took off running up the stairs and towards the living room, where Damon was suddenly on alert at the sight of me.

"You should probably get out of here for a little while. Somewhere a blonde Original vampire can't get."

A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song If I Had You by Adam Lambert.

Hope you guys enjoy! My day yesterday was pretty busy, and today might be as well, but I will try to post another chapter a bit later.

As always, read, review, and enjoy. :)