"So what you're telling me is that the Petrova family smuggled Tatia's child back to Bulgaria after Esther turned her children into the original vampires," Elena summed up.
"Yes," Katherine said, checking her mirrors before switching lanes at high speed. "They had been warned by Esther that the child and all of her descendants would inherit the curse of the doppelgangers and that Klaus would do unspeakable things to them to break his curse. They fled back to the old country hoping to hide from Klaus for eternity."
"Except you were exiled from Bulgaria and as luck would have it you ran right into Klaus's arms."
"Give the girl a prize. The family knew he would be looking and tried to take precautions. Though you can see why the stories of Klaus would dwindle away after five hundred years. By the time I was born it was simply a family legend that nobody even remembered and I was left a lamb to the slaughter."
"No one would ever mistake you for that," Elena credited the other girl. "I know about everything you've done to survive, at least the big stuff. You outsmarted, outran, and outlived just about everyone who stood in your path."
"Yeah, well better me than someone else I guess, but we're getting off the point. The branches you dug up have remained hidden for longer than I've been alive. About halfway between Tatia and me, one of our ancestors gave birth to twins. How pissed off do you think Klaus would be if he found out that he only had to wait 250 years after I turned for another doppelganger?"
"There was another?" Elena was astonished.
"It seems that every 250 years the family tree grows another branch," Katherine told her. "And every 500 years from the time of its inception it breeds another doppelganger."
"But that would mean—"
"That would mean," Katherine elaborated, "that there's another doppelganger in the family right now."
"What do you mean, you 'don't know where she is'," Caroline asked. Ever since Jeremy's death the cheerleader and former Ms. Mystic Falls had been afraid for her friend. Sure, Caroline had been questioning Elena's judgment before that –due to her newly confessed love for Damon—but Elena had finally lost the last member of her family. There were no more parents or guardians to step up for her and now she seemed like she was missing.
Damon poured the whiskey into his tumbler and began to lift it to his lips, hesitating to give Caroline one of his patented 'Go away before I kill you' looks. "She wanted some alone time this morning. Spent most of the day looking at old family photos and then decided she wanted to go for a walk. Explore the old haunting grounds."
"And you didn't go with her," the blonde half screamed and half laughed, panic finally taking over.
"I asked," he defended himself. "She didn't want the company. It's only been a couple of hours," he swirled his drink before sipping. "I don't think you need to worry about her being lured into a dark alley by a strange man with a puppy. Elena can handle herself."
"Are you saying that because you truly mean it or because you're freaking out and there's nothing you can do?"
"Oh, you got me," Damon pretended to be frightened, "the truth is I'm afraid of the things that go bump in the night," his blue eyes grew wide and Caroline found her nerves calming down. "Look, she's not much younger than you when it comes to the whole vampire thing. Elena will handle anything that happens but chances are she's at the Gilbert family mausoleum, visiting the people she misses the most and finally grieving all of the tragedies that have fallen on her.
"She wants to be alone, to contemplate what everything means to her and when she figures it out she will come to us," Damon assured Caroline. "I bet she'll be back anytime now."
"How much further," Elena asked.
"Oh, only about five more hours. We're almost halfway to Massachusetts," Katherine smirked. "It looks like it's time for a family reunion."