7

"What gave it away, brother?" Klaus couldn't help but ask. Elijah had let him go, clearly not fearing him as much while he was in this mortal body. Or perhaps his brother wanted to have a bit of a chat, he couldn't put it past Elijah. He was a vicious, cruel person prone to fits of anger and self-righteous fury like the rest of the Original Family but Elijah remained the only 'diplomatic' person of them all.

"I haven't spoken too often to Alaric but the hunter didn't seem the type to drop affectionate little terms every other sentence." Elijah sighed and unbuttoned his jacket slowly pacing the little clearing. "Honestly Klaus, you weren't even trying. Just your luck that the Mystic Hills' Scooby gang isn't particularly smart."

"Eileen would have figured it out." The words left his mouth almost unbidden in defence of his doppelgänger.

"Of course but she isn't exactly part of the gang is she?" Elijah stopped in his pacing suddenly and looked at Klaus with a frown. "You actually like her."

"I've always liked doppelgängers, it's just never been a permanent liking." His liking for them was like comets and falling stars, shining for a brief moment but then disappearing into oblivion.

"No, no, no,this...this isn't like Tatia or Katerina. I think you might actually respect the girl!" Another time and Klaus would laugh. His brother looked so utterly aghast and shocked at the very thought of Klaus respecting someone. Quite unfair of him. Klaus was sure there were plenty of people he respected. He couldn't particularly remember any at the moment, but they did exist.

Well, there were probably people he respected.

"Well, my standards for general conversation have lowered since I hid Rebekah and the others away and she's one of the few who matches up to them."

"What do you mean hid them? You threw them into the ocean, don't you remember?"

And Klaus who'd pretty much planned to come clean to Elijah anyway if only to keep him from interfering in his plans replied with utter honesty. "Mikael was on our trail. I had to keep them safe somehow. Rumours of death were the safer way to go."

Elijah sped up to him fisting his hands in Alaric's ugly safari shirt collar and lifting him off the ground in anger. "What did you do Klaus?!"

"I did what I had to."

For a moment Klaus believed Elijah might actually kill him. His brother shook with anger, the trembling extending to the hands that were holding Klaus up against the tree. But finally he let him go and Klaus hit the ground harder than he liked.

He really hated human bodies. So fragile, so weak.

"You controlling, narcissistic bastard." All of those things were absolutely true and Klaus was perfectly with being called that.

(In the depths of his mind in a little part that h would forever deny because it was immature even by his standards, a voice said 'I know I am but what are you?' and sniggered)

"Where are they?" Elijah demanded and Klaus rolled his eyes.

"I'm not telling you yet."

"Kla-"

"Once the curse is broken and I have more like me willing to rise, willing to fight Mikael, only then Elijah."

Elijah threw his hands in the air and walked off, "Christ, save me from overprotective brothers with God complexes."

And to his back Klaus shot back, "We're Vikings not Christian infidels, Elijah!"

Elijah continued walking and soon Klaus was left alone to make the sorry realisation that he was in the middle of a forest in a human body that walked very slowly.

"Son of a bitch."

Klaus began his long trek back, making sure to call Greta and Maddox to set up the ritual. He wanted to be back in his body as soon as possible.

Eileen had to get out of the boarding house. Alaric had called them later on, saying that Elijah had just wanted to talk, one grown up to another about primarily dealing with him because he didn't trust Elena and that he was fine. Elena had been distraught at the slander and Stefan was consequently cheering her up in his room.

With sex. Fairly loud sex that had Damon drinking because he was hung up on Elena and Eileen feeling very, very uncomfortable.

Not only because they were loud but also...Elena wasn't eighteen yet while Stefan was an actual century and more older.

Statutory rape. How were they ignoring that fact?! Even if Stefan was supposedly immortalised as a seventeen year old via vampirism, that still didn't change the fact that he was actually much older. And then Damon's revelation that he'd slept with Caroline the year before when they were 'dating'. Eileen knew they were messed up but she had thought that they would wait until Elena and Caroline turned eighteen at least. It made her sick.

And made her wonder if vampires' permanent physical youth extended to their mentality as well, keeping them 'juvenile' in mind for far longer than they should. It was fascinating in the car crash sort of way. Calling the emergency services didn't make you any less of a useless spectator and didn't make you want to throw up any less either.

So she went to Mystic Grill instead, which had been a chore in itself. Eileen hadn't driven since her driving test. They didn't even own a car and Damon's car was a manual too.

It took a while but finally she was in Mystic Grill and sat down at a table in the corner where she was less likely to be noticed.

"Hi, welcome to Mystic Grill, what can I get y-Elena?"

Eileen just couldn't catch a break. "Not Elena, Eileen the long lost twin sister come down for a visit. You must be Max." Elena had said her friend worked at Mystic Grill.

"Matt, actually."

"So, what's the cheapest thing on the menu that will let me stay here for a few hours?"

"I-Elena has a twin?"

"She didn't know about me until recently and yeah. So…?"

The boy jolted himself out of his thoughts, "Right, yeah, I guess a coffee or fries would let you stay here for a while."

"Coffee and fries it is, thank you."

"Right, I'll get it." He said but hesitated, "I'm sorry I just...they didn't even tell me that she was adopted."

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know about it either until a week or so ago."

"Right, I...right." And then the hesitation grew pointed, like he had a reason to stick around. "Listen you shouldn't stay here for too long. The town's a bit dangerous."

And EIleen looked up. She knew that his sister was supposedly involved in all this for a bit. "Thanks for the warning. I know that your sister's death must have been…" Eileen searched for the right words but couldn't quite find polite ones for it, "it must have been shit."

He closed off, "Is that what they told you? I suppose they said it was the drugs, that she deserved it-"

"Matt, I only just met Elena, we're not going to be braiding each other's hair and gossiping about people just yet." He snorted as if he knew that wasn't true. To be fair if they'd been friends for so long he must have known Elena's tendency to spill. "So, fries and coffee?"

"I'll get your fries and coffee." He shook his head as he walked off.

"Hello Eileen," Alaric's voice came from behind her in a sing songy tone and she all but collapsed into the table. She just wanted some peace and quiet so she could pointedly not think about the lack of legality in her twin's sexual life but people just kept on bumping into her. "How are you today on this wonderful day?"

"Why are you so happy?"

"Oh I'm going to getting a new lease on life this afternoon." He said happily. "What's gotten you so glum?"

Alaric talked with more of a British accent when he was happy. The girl who ran the theater club back in school used to do that too. She was a Julie Andrews fans.

"Stefan and Elena are engaging in relations." Eileen hoped that this one person, the one adult in their life got where she was going with this.

"Loud?"

Apparently he didn't.

"No, she's not eighteen yet but he's hundreds of years older than her!"

"Ah, the age of consent thing. Once they start murdering people other legal barriers don't matter that much either."

"But that's still so wrong and no one else is bothered?!"

"It's interesting, I have met a fair few vampires and the way people treat them and their life experiences affect them more than anything else. You could be middle aged, but if you don't look like it or have any of the experiences of middle age, no midlife crisis due to aging, no children who're growing up and leaving, no thinking about saving up for when you're retried, all these normal sorts of things, then you don't feel your age. And while Stefan and Damon aren't that old they are old enough that the culture clash comes into play. In 1864 when they were turned, the age of consent probably didn't exist so that's not even something that they've been brought up to think of as part of their morality let alone a taboo that they're actively breaking."

"Alright fine, but even then how do Elena and Caroline not realise how screwed up this is?"

Alaric gave her a patronising look. "Well, there's a reason why the law considers them to be too young to make their decisions."

That made sense too, how horrible. "How am I the only person creeped out by this?"

"You are mature beyond your years, child." Alaric said and Eileen snorted.

"I'm really glad you called me child. The world feels a bit more sane now."

Alaric burst into almost maniacal laughter. He laughed so much that he fell off the chair and had to be helped up by Elijah who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Do I want to know?" She asked the Original Vampire who looked just as confused and fed up as she felt.

"I highly doubt it." He beckoned Alaric to leave, "Come along, let's go open your special parcel now."

And Alaric him followed gasping 'Sane!' in between guffaws.

"What was that all about?" Matt asked setting down a basket full of fries and coffee in front of her, watching his history teacher run off while still laughing hysterically.

"I have been reliably informed that I don't want to know what that was about."

She took a large swig of the coffee and began her mental countdown. Nineteen days left.

The situation was getting worse day by day. It was day 16 in the countdown to curse breaking and Eileen was getting very fed up. Alaric had been acting weird and withdrawn, going so far as to ask to stay at the Boarding house because of a pipe burst in his apartment yet somehow spending even lesser time with them than he had before, Elijah kept dropping in on multiple occasions, asking her invasive questions that she didn't answer and doing his best to gauge Eileen while drinking tea and Elena and Stefan were having sex by the bucket to get over their shared 'angst', which left a very irritable and morose Damon as her constant companion.

And Eileen hadn't danced properly in a week! IT was getting out of hand.

This was not something Eileen dealt with very well, this cabin fever. Things went belly up when she got really truly bored, not just for herself but for others too. Marlene said that it was just usual chaos of the world but that when Eileen was bored she had the time and capacity to play spectator to it instead of distracting herself with work, essays and dance. It was what she said to make Eileen feel better about what she thought to be her strange luck when she was bored. Perhaps it was a doppelgänger thing but things got weird when she was this blasé.

Last time she was really truly bored Gavin and Marlene got high on the 'special' brownies his roommate gave him and he ended up breaking his leg trying to break dance while Marlene was arrested by campus police for using a cylindrical pillow as her strap on and knocking on doors to show off her giant 'penis'.

This time she sat at a table at the Mystic Grill with her usual order of fries and coffee and wondered if she should take up running. And then her phone rang. Despite it being a unknown number she picked up and was treated to the sound of a British voice purring into her ear the very words she was living. "I'm bored."

"May I know who's speaking?"

"Lost my number, love? And after I was so kind as to welcome you to town too, tch tch tch."

Klaus. The thousand year old vampire was calling her, the girl he was soon to be killing, because he was bored.

"I'm at the Mystic Grill if you want to hang out."

The call was cut and in the time it took her to finish eating another fry, a man stood in front of her with a crooked little smile. He had a brightness to his eyes, an actual gleam and seemed to be very excited.

"Allow me to introduce myself," He said and it was the same voice that she'd been hearing a few minutes ago the accent making it even easier to recognise, "I'm Klaus Mikaelson, I'll be your murderer this full moon."

And Eileen couldn't help the awkward smile. "I already knew that."

A/N: This chapter seems cracky, I know. I figure Klaus is very high energy and just waiting for the full moon drives him stir crazy and Eileen doesn't do well with drama and angst without having an outlet for it all via ballet. The next one should be better.