A/N: As always, I don't own TVD because, if I did, many things would have turned out differently. Any recognizable characters, plots and dialogue belong to the L.J. Smith and the CW.

Elena

"Will you do it, or shall I?" Esther asked as she held a razor-sharp knife out to Elena, who could only stare at the point.

Elena shifted in her seat as she stared at the blade. She had spent enough time with various Mikaelsons by now to know that words were tricky things. Regular dealings with Elijah, and confrontations with Klaus, had taught her the power of carefully choosing words to make it sound like what the listener wanted to hear, but saying something different – hiding motives. Compounding that, Elijah had pulled her aside before she entered the room and admitted his doubt in regards to his mother.

Elena knew that Esther was not saying something in the same way that she knew Elijah admitting to trepidation was paramount to the end of the world. But Elena also knew that calling Esther out on her reticence would not end in Elena's favor. Even knowing that, she couldn't just agree to hand over her blood – it seemed to be a hot commodity, but what resulted never seemed to be something Elena wanted.

"Why will it be in the toast?" Elena asked. If her blood was in the toast, that meant anything could happen to any of the people downstairs – innocent townspeople, her friends, people she'd known all her life… Elijah. Nearly all of Mystic Falls was downstairs, and they were in danger. Again.

Esther frowned as she looked at Elena. Elena got the feeling she was pressing her luck more than was wise with the Original witch. But then, that meant she was hitting close to where the witch was hiding her secrets. Elena filed that away.

"It will be in the champagne to ensure that the requisite party drinks. I couldn't just put it in one glass, ensuring that I hand it directly to Niklaus. You've encountered my son. Do you think he wouldn't suspect something?"

Elena had to agree that that was a fair point. Klaus would be suspicious of any special treatment. His paranoia was one of the first things she had heard about him.

"So, it has to go in all of the champagne just to make sure Klaus drinks it?" Elena asked, just to clarify and to see if she could glean anything new. "Surely, there is another way to make sure he, and only he, takes it. God knows he's had more than his share of my blood before."

There was a brief twitch above Esther's right eye. Elena was definitely on to something with her questions. There was something Esther was not sharing with the class, and Elena knew she didn't want to help. It was going to do something other than hurt Klaus, and that was her only goal.

"It is not only your blood required," Esther said. "If it were that easy, it would already be done." As she spoke, she stepped closer to Elena, blade held aloft.

Elena recoiled, pulling her arms tight around her torso. She leaned into the couch trying to get even further from the suddenly menacing witch. But with a wave of Esther's hand, Elena found she couldn't move. She was unable to resist as Esther snatched one of her hands from her body. Then, with unexpected gentleness, she removed Elena's golden opera glove. Turning Elena's hand so that the palm faced upward, she cut a shallow slice clean across Elena's palm.

Elena hissed, but made no other sign of discomfort, settling for glaring at Esther.

Esther waved her hand again, and a bowl appeared at her side. She turned Elena's hand over the bowl and squeezed to capture Elena's blood. Elena watched as it dripped into the bowl, once more hating that she had no control over her life, her blood, and her choices. Once Esther was satisfied, she ran a finger over the cut, and it sealed itself. It still stung, and she hadn't actually healed it, but it wouldn't continue to bleed, thus not catching the attention of any of the vampires downstairs.

As Esther stepped away to attend her altar in the corner of the room, Elena inspected her hand before pulling her glove back on. The wound was red and inflamed, and she found flexing her hand painful – she would just have to be careful not to use that hand for anything for a while.

"I thought you said only a drop," Elena muttered.

"That was before I knew you were going to be unhelpful. Now, the plan has changed," Esther said. Elena felt a sense of dark foreboding slip over her. Her stomach clenched as she wondered what that meant and who was going to pay the price for her unwillingness to go in blind.

Esther continued, "Now, Elena, I trust you want to start being helpful to ensure that those you love are safe." As she spoke, Esther worked over her altar, but Elena couldn't see what she was doing. Elena nodded, but Esther didn't even glance up to look. However, she continued as though she had seen. "Elijah is more suspicious than his siblings, so he might need more persuasion. But all of my children must drink the toast in order to be linked as one."

"Linked as one?" Elena asked.

"Precisely. As you have pointed out, Klaus is immortal. As such, if all of my children are linked, he takes on their limitations. If one of them goes, they all do."

Elena silently stared at the witch's back. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. As much as she wanted Klaus out of her life, what kind of mother would kill all of her children? Though, Esther had already done that once in the name of saving them, so what was to stop her from doing it again?

Elena tried to picture a world without the Originals. She knew they had only been in Mystic Falls for a matter of months, but good or bad, they had a way of making it seem like they'd always been there.

Klaus was, of course, a threat to all of them and countless others, but Elena had watched him flirt and dance with Caroline. As much as she knew her friend felt conflicted, Elena could see the amusement and flattery under Caroline's hard exterior. Other than threatening and acting against Tyler, since Klaus had set his sights on Caroline, he was wreaking less havoc.

Rebekah had it out for Elena, that was true. But after Elena had literally stabbed her in the back after acting like Rebekah's friend, she could understand. Rebekah just wanted to go to high school and be popular, and Elena felt it was unfair to want to kill the other girl when she just wanted to the normal. Even if she had terrifying ways of trying to accomplish the goal.

Elena didn't know much about Kol or Finn. They were the newest factors to her, but she didn't think it was right to kill them if she didn't know whether they deserved it or not. Plus, Elijah was so excited to have his family back together, even if he did complain about what it was like for them all to live under the same roof again.

Which brought her to the real sticking point. Elijah. She couldn't believe how much he had become part of her every day. How much she had come to rely on him. Yes, he was still less familiar to her than the people she had grown up with, but when there was trouble, she could count on him to let her make her own choices, and he would do what he could to back them up. It wasn't just that he had a millennium of experiences and could help her when she was at a loss. But, there was this understanding between them that her other friends didn't get – family above all. And, in this moment, she had a quick realization that he had somehow wound up in that group for her.

A world without Elijah in it… Elena didn't want that. Couldn't even picture it. But, it was obvious that Esther was deadest on her plan. Elena had already learned that explicitly trying to resist didn't end in her favor, so she would have to think of a way to more subtly undermine the plan.

Esther was talking again, Elena realized belatedly.

"I love my family, Elena, but they are abominations. When I created them, I went against nature. And nature has sent me to rectify my mistake after punishing me for a thousand years."

Elena thought that sounded a lot like the love of balance that witches professed to no end, but surely by now nature had found a way to cope with vampires. They weren't as out of balance as Esther seemed to think. But, it was clear that Esther believed what she was saying, and that made her even more dangerous.

Elena's mind ran quickly through possibilities for how to stop Esther's plan. She needed to warn someone. Elijah would be ideal, but she knew that Esther would be watching as Elena interacted with Elijah. Perhaps that was too much of a risk. Finn had been the one to tell Elena to come alone, and she had a sickening feeling that he was in on the plan, so Elena needed to be careful around him too.

As Elena continued to concoct some semblance of a plan, she watched Esther out of the corner of her eye. The witch poured a couple drops of Elena's blood into a chalice. The sound it made indicated that there was already liquid in the cup. Elena was torn between curiosity and just plain not wanting to know. Then, Esther picked the remainder of the blood up and began to chant over the bowl. She waved her free hand over the bowl, and the chanting grew in volume.

On the other side of the room, Elena felt her thoughts grow fuzzy. She began to panic as her body grew hot. Like the night she had sat in a ring of flame as Klaus drew nearer. She tried to grasp the strength she had felt as she glared down the Original hybrid, but that night she had known exactly what was going to happen to her. Now, she had no clue. She felt her body collapse back into the couch, unable to even sit up on her own anymore.

Just as she was beginning to think the burning would never stop, it did. But it was replaced with a bone-deep arctic chill. She couldn't move to rub her arms for warmth, and Elena had a feeling that even if such a thing were possible, it wouldn't have warmed her up.

Eventually, the cold passed too. The candles scattered around the room glowed white-hot, the flames jumping a foot high, for a brief instant. Then, they went out. And as they did, Elena too passed out.