Four

"Katherine is dead." It took a minute for the comment to sink in. Katherine, his Katerina was dead. How? When? And why had neither of his siblings bothered to tell him? Elijah felt a lump in his throat as he closed his eyes. How had she died?

More importantly how had he let her die?

Elijah was furious at himself. He should have been there, protecting her. After they had broken up Katherine had tried calling him, but he had ignored her calls and after a while she had stopped calling and now Elijah was paying the price for it.

"Good riddance." Hayley snorted and she saw that both Rebekah and Elijah were staring at her she shrugged. "The bitch tried to get me killed, excuse me if I'm not crying that she finally got what she deserved."

"That's enough." Elijah interrupted her, which was a first because it startled Hayley. He looked at his sister. "You're going to tell me exactly what happened, Rebekah and you're not going to leave one detail out."

Rebekah squirmed uncomfortably. "I don't know the whole story, but it seems that Katherine took the cure."

"That's impossible, Katherine would never take the cure for herself."

"She and Elena got into some sort of fight after graduation and it turns out Silas wasn't really defeated after all, he drank the cure from Katherine. She survive and she started aging until she well, died of old age." Rebekah suddenly looked ashamed. "Damon called Nik, a few months ago and told Klaus and he told me that he was going to torture Katherine on her death bed and he asked me if I wanted to tag along and I did for Matt. Not for Katherine. But she's dead, Elijah I'm sorry, vampire blood wasn't working on her."

Elijah didn't speak for a moment, but when he did his voice was filled with hurt. "How could you? Why didn't you mention a word of this to me? You're my siblings Rebekah! And I know how much both you and Klaus despised Katherine, but to me she was always Katerina the least you could have done is tell me so that I could have said, goodbye."

Rebekah flushed. "Klaus didn't want to tell you, he knew that you were going to stop him, if he told you that he was going to go torture Katherine-"

"Of course I would have," he snapped. "I expected this from our brother, but I would have thought that you sister, after all the lovers my brother has taken from you, that you would understand. Excuse me."

Sophie was adding onion and tomato to the gumbo when she felt a presence behind her. She closed her eyes and sighed. It really was too early in the morning to be dealing with this. She turned around and said. "Elijah."

"Sophie." He said politely, he was standing in the back of the room, leaning against the wall. "I need a favor."

"Of course you do." Sophie mumbled. "But sadly, I'm not doing any favors today."

Elijah blocked her way. "I can assure you it won't take long and it's far simpler than our usual favors."

"Well, it's not like I have a choice. But if it involves magic, you're explain it to Marcel." Elijah nodded. "All right, what is it?"

"I was wondering if you could contact the spirits on the Other Side," he said quickly. "I want you to ask for a ghost. I need to figure out if the ghost on the other side is still out there or if she has found peace."

Sophie put down the knife on the cutting board. "Who exactly are you trying to find, Elijah?"

Elijah sighed. "A woman named Katerina Petrova."

Caroline's I-pod was blasting music from Katy Perry and Lady Gaga at full volume. The once pristine living room of the Salvatore estate was a mess. The pillows were thrown all over the floor, someone had broken a lamp, and half of the books from the bookshelf were thrown all over the floor along with several empty bottles of wine.

Katherine had put her hair up in a messy ponytail and was now swinging her hips back and forth and sexy dancing while holding a bottle of bourbon.

Caroline was messily holding up her phone. "Go Kat! Go Kat!"

"Where did you learn to dance like that? Opps, all gone." Bonnie dropped the empty bottle of wine on the floor and watched it roll over. When Caroline had approached her already half drunk and telling her that she, Katherine, and Bonnie were having a girls' dance party she had thought about refusing I mean it was Katherine for God's sake that was like having dinner with Satan.

But Kol giving one little comment changed everything. "Are you really just going to sit here and mope over a man that doesn't deserve you? There's pathetic and then there's desperate, Bonnie."

So Bonnie had agreed just to get Kol off her back. It was so annoying being the anchor sometimes, especially since Kol didn't seem to have anything better to do than spy on her.

"At the clubs, the dances used to get wild back in the fifties. I'll take both of you sometime." Katherine knocked over a vase. "Opps. Caroline did it."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "You're such a bitch."

Katherine fluttered her eyelashes. "You know you love me."

Caroline sank back on the couch. "You know that's actually starting to make sense and sound like a really good idea. I must be drunker than I thought."

Katherine turned up the volume of the music, released her curls from her ponytail, and jumped on the table. "I'm Katherine fucking Pierce, I'm strong, I'm beautiful, and I most certainly don't need Elijah Mikaelson!" Katherine gaped. Opps. She had said too much.

Bonnie turned off the volume. "What's this about Elijah?"

Katherine tried to look innocent. "Nothing."

"No, you said something about Elijah." Bonnie insisted. "Were you two together?"

Caroline face palmed her forehead. "Oh, yeah sorry I didn't tell you-Elena mentioned something about that. That he dumped you."

"He didn't dump me!" Katherine hissed. Bonnie and Caroline raised eyebrows. "Ok, maybe he did dump me, but he wouldn't have if poor, precious, delicate Elena hadn't been whining about her dead brother."

Bonnie flinched at the mention of Jeremy.

Caroline opened another bottle of wine. "I don't see you two as a couple."

"Why would you?" Katherine shot her a dirty look. "You were too busy making eye sex at Klaus and trying to figure out ways how to get into his pants!"

Caroline flushed and said a little too loudly. "There's nothing going on between me and Klaus."

Bonnie smirked. "The lady doth protest too much."

"I'm not protesting," Caroline started stumbling on her words, but it was clear that she wasn't a very good liar. "There was nothing going on between me and Klaus. . .at least until I kind of kissed him. . .and then we kind of had sex in the woods. . .against a tree."

-End of Chapter Four-