Rock and a hard place

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Emma turned off the stove and picked up the hot kettle with the aid of a cloth, walked to the kitchen island and poured one of the cups that was positioned on the table, ready with the tea bag. Then the girl put the kettle down on the cold stone, even though she knew it was probably not a good idea. Emma picked up the cup and brought it to her lips, blowing the tea to cool it down before drinking.

"Always so polite", John teased, picking up the kettle and moving to fill the second cup she had made sure to leave empty.

"You have two functional hands, and you're quite a big boy. You can help yourself", Emma replied.

The two of them sat by the kitchen island for long minutes in complete silence. Emma's head was working so hard that John could hear the gears working inside.

"I've heard about Jenna, I'm really sor..".

"Where were you?", Emma interrupted him, dropping her cup hard on the counter. Her eyes were bright, but not watering. She was angry. "Where the fuck were you all this time?"

Emma didn't like John. She had never really liked him. There was a time when she and Jenna were children and spent the holidays with Miranda's newly formed family, which forced them to live with Grayson's younger brother. At that time, Emma remembered John being quite pleasant, but everything changed at some point in time which the girl had trouble remembering. All she knew was that John was suddenly insufferable. So no, she didn't like John. But that didn't change the fact that he should be there, that he shouldn't have left Jenna alone taking care of his daughter in a town taken over by supernatural beings.

"The last I came I wasn't welcome. Damon made sure that I knew that. So I left", the man replied.

"You listening to Damon? Bullshit!", Emma almost shouted. "We needed you here!"

"Oh, so now you needed me? That's not what you had told me", John replied.

"Jenna is dead!", Emma exclaimed, and her eyes began to water. "She's dead! Elena almost died! She actually did, and if it wasn't for Elijah she would be dead still! She's your daughter! How can you just give her up like this? You should've been here! Because if you were, then maybe... Maybe she would... She wou…".

Emma couldn't finish her sentence and began to cry. John, always so cold, felt something in his chest hurt. He had never seen Emma cry, not even when the girl was little. And he knew she was right. He should have stayed there. Not caring that Emma would probably kick him out and embracing the courage that had taken over his chest, John reached over the counter and took one of Emma's hands in his. The girl raised her face startled.

"I'm a coward", John replied, and Emma frowned and sniffled, "You've always said it, and you've always been right. When I came here, I came with the wrong posture. I tried to claim a space that wasn't mine, and when I couldn't, I just walked away. I guess part of me wanted or you all to need me. Part of me rooted for things to go wrong without me".

Emma unclasped her hand from John's and huffed. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and nervously tucked her hair behind her ears.

"But I never ever really thought Klaus would find her", John confessed, "Isobel promised me he wouldn't, but... She trusted the wrong people, and I was wrong to trust her judgment".

"That doesn't change anything", Emma replied angrily.

"I know it doesn't", John hastened to reply. "But I promise you, Emma, I just wanna help. By your rules, or Elena's. It's your choice".

Emma's cell phone vibrated, and the girl walked over to the stove, since she had left the device there when she went to heat the water. During the short walk, she couldn't take her eyes off the man. She didn't trust him. Looking at the cell phone display, she saw that it was a message from Damon telling her that they had found something in the cave and that Alaric would need her help to translate something. He also warned that he was on his way to her house.

"Damon's coming here. You should leave before he snaps your neck", Emma commented, and John laughed through his nose.

"Eases my mind to know he's still prioritizing keeping Elena safe", John commented sincerely, but Emma felt her shoulders stiffen. "Where is she, by the way?"

"I don't know".

"I thought you had custody of them", John replied, confused.

"She's off age. And I have other priorities than keeping an eye on your daughter", Emma replied, irritated.

The doorbell rang, taking both adults by surprise. Emma left the kitchen and walked briskly to the door. The early morning was quite restless indeed. The girl slid her index fingers under her eyes in order to wipe any tears from her face. She sniffled and smoothed her hair. As soon as she opened the door, she found Alaric, holding a large lantern and carrying a large bag. Damon was standing next to him, smirking.

"The doorbell? That's new", Emma remarked, trying to disguise that she was crestfallen by John's sudden appearance. Damon shrugged.

"I'm a polite man", the vampire replied, and Emma made room for the two of them to enter. Alaric walked directly into the kitchen, muttering something about runes. Damon frowned as he realized that Emma's eyes were red, as if she had been crying. He brought one hand up to her face, burying his fingers in the hair on the back of her neck, while his thumb gently touched her jaw. Before he could ask what had happened, the girl stared at him.

"John's here", she said.

In half a second, Damon was gone. Emma ran to the kitchen and found Alaric with his arms crossed beside the refrigerator, while the vampire held John by the neck against the kitchen sink.

"I thought I told you to leave", Damon grunted. He had his fangs bared and his eyes red. "Give me one good reason not to slice your throat right now".

"I'm on vervain, you wouldn't like the taste", John replied teasingly, which only made Damon angrier.

"It's actually good that he's here", Alaric interjected, and the other two men stared at him with their eyebrows knitted together, creating a rather Dantesque scene.

"What?", Damon spat.

"He knew about Klaus before we did. Something tells me he knows about Mikael too", the professor replied.

"We can find about Mikael without him", Damon replied stubbornly. Emma crossed her arms and snorted.

"I can help with Mikael, I've heard a thing or two", John commented, his voice choked by Damon's grip.

Damon begrudgingly let go of the man's neck and walked slowly over to Emma as her face returned to normal. John massaged his neck, trying to ease the pain of the vampire's grip.

"Start talking", Damon ordered, and John took a deep breath.

"Mikael is the only one that scares the shit out of Klaus", the man began. Damon rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to reply that this was nothing new. John, foreseeing this, nodded for the vampire to wait for him to finish his sentence. "There's a reason for that. Mikael is Klaus' father".

"But, how?", Emma asked, knitting her eyebrows together. "Vampires cannot procreate. Unless the originals aren't really blood brothers, but just a clan that got together, like the Cullen's…" - Damon rolled his eyes. Always the Twilight references - "... Or Mikael would have to be human to have all the children, and only then would the children have been turned. Like Damon and Stefan, right? And if he's human, he should be dead for ages now. Unless he's a vampire too. But that means he hunts vampires while he's a vampire himself?".

"He's a vampire that hunts vampires, you're right", John said. Emma muttered something about Blade, the vampire slayer, which elicited a discreet smile from Damon, who wrapped her by her waist. "I'm afraid I don't have the specifics, Isobel never trusted me that information, but I know where to find it".

"We've already found it", Alaric interrupted the man. The professor opened the bag he was carrying, removed a professional camera from there, and waved for Emma and John to approach. "This was carved in a cave here in Mystic Falls, they are runes. And I believe it tells the story of the Originals". Alaric pointed with his finger to the third picture he had taken. "See here? That symbol means Niklaus, and that means Elijah, and that means Rebekah. I don't know about the others; it will take a little research".

Emma took the camera from Alaric's hands and zapped through the pictures, bringing her face closer to the object and frowning. Damon was watching her intently.

"That one means the moon", Emma said, and the other three occupants of the kitchen approached the girl. "Which means that the other one means the sun, see? I think it might be something about the curse".

"It might be Klaus tricking us again, like he did with the paintings", Damon commented over Emma's left shoulder, and his warm breath tickled the girl's ear and caused a shiver to run down her spine.

"I don't think so", Emma replied. "Klaus is a methodical, perfectionist. These runes go back to a very ancient time, and even if the irregular line is just a result of the fact that it was carved into solid rock, the drawings are not linear. The story is not told in a linear way. The drawings are confusing, and I'm not sure it's intentional".

"We need to print them", John suggested. "In HD. So we can see all of them and put the pieces together. Organize the storyline".

"I agree", Alaric commented. "I have a printer at the apartment. We can use the place as headquarters".

"Perfect", Emma agreed.

Despite their anxiety to find out about Mikael and the Originals, they all decided it would be best that the investigation begin the next day, when everyone was rested and clear headed enough to stick to any details. John wisely informed them that he would stay at a hotel at the entrance to Mystic Falls so as not to invade Emma, Jeremy and Elena's domestic space. Emma was relieved, as she didn't want to have to argue with John about the fact that Alaric had a room in the house for the nights he spent there to help her with her teenage cousins.

Elena arrived less than an hour later, when John had already left. Jeremy had slept at Tyler's house, his newest friend. The fact did not please Elena and Damon, but Emma honestly did not care much. Was Tyler sired to Klaus? Yes. But it wasn't his fault. He was just another supernatural being in town, and he was just a boy. She didn't think it was fair to judge Tyler while the others - including Damon and Stefan - were always worth a second, a third, and a hundredth chance every time they did something wrong.

As soon as Elena entered, the girl threw herself at Damon, grabbing him by the neck and sinking her tear-wet face into his shoulder. The vampire, after half a second of hesitation, wrapped his arms around her and comforted her as the girl cried for having failed to awake Stefan's humanity. Emma watched the scene, torn between the empathy she felt for her cousin, who didn't deserve to be in the middle of it all, and the dangerous, treacherous insecurity that stirred inside her chest.

When Elena had calmed down enough, she sat down on the couch and told Damon and Emma that Lexi had shown up and helped her chain Stefan in vervain, starving him and making him vulnerable enough that Elena could awaken his humanity with her loving words. But she failed. She cried, saying that she thought she had lost Stefan forever. The words that came out of Damon's mouth didn't make Emma any less insecure.

"I'm here for you, Elena", he had said. "I always will be".

"I thought he was protecting me because he still feels something. But he is only here because Klaus asked him to. There's nothing else inside him, he's empty", a girl chorused, her head lying on Damon's shoulder. "Can you stay, please?"

"As long as you need", Damon replied, stroking Elena's black hair.

Emma felt cold. She was alone in the armchair, while the two of them were on the couch. Suddenly she felt left out, she felt as if she was watching a scene in which she did not belong. She looked at her own hands, and then again at Elena and Damon. They were so absorbed in each other that they didn't seem to see her, to acknowledge her presence in the room.

So Emma carefully left the living room and went to her bedroom. She washed her face and looked at herself through the mirror. She continued to stare at her own image for long minutes, before turning off the lights. She lay down on her bed, too big for her alone, and stared at the ceiling. She tried to escape the horrible feeling, but she was painfully tied to her chest.

Three different Emmas were screaming in her head. The first one was angry and yelled that she should go back downstairs and pull Damon into the room. That she should ask him what he was doing since the two had been together for months, that Elena was being a bitch, trying to get him now that Stefan wasn't in the picture. That Elena was more like Katherine than she thought.

The second was resigned. She said in a low voice that Damon always said they were "friends who fuck". They were not together. She was saying that Emma shouldn't be that surprised. After all, Damon was only fucking her because he couldn't have Elena, his real obsession. The good version of the only woman/vampire he loved. But now everything changed, Elena was finally available. And he would always choose her.

The third was comforting. She kept trying to make herself heard through the screams of the first and the hurtful words of the second. She said that Elena was just hurting, and Damon was the closest to understanding that feeling, since Stefan was his brother. She said that even if Damon and Elena got together, Emma was strong and had survived much worse than that.

Emma felt tears in her eyes, and it took her a long time to sleep. Damon never went to her bed, or if he did, he got up too early for her to notice.

The next morning, when Emma walked into the kitchen, the house was empty. She called Damon and asked him where he was, and he said that he and Elena were already at Alaric's house. She hung up the phone in his face, angry, and left the house.

.

It was really hard to concentrate in the large table of HD printed pictures while Elena played Lara Croft with Damon behind them. Emma was annoyed, and the fact that Elena was so close to Damon while teasing John and interrupting every single line of reasoning from the man, Alaric and Emma, left the older girl close to collapse.

"Can you fucking stop this?", Emma shouted to Elena. The younger girl widened her eyes and Damon stopped his movement, locking Elena in his arms after blocking her punch. "We can't even think with the two of you playing mortal kombat like two fucking kids".

"We're not playing. Damon's helping me learn to defend myself", Elena replied. Emma rolled her eyes, and the vampire smirked. He knew she was jealous, and he was having the time of his life with this.

"If you're not going to help here, then go somewhere else", Emma punctuated, with her hands on her waist. Elena snorted and picked up her own purse.

Emma felt like she was going to explode when the girl practically dragged Damon out of the apartment saying that she wanted company for something to eat at the Grill. The Sommers closed her eyes and inhaled sharply before turning back to the table where the pictures were spread out.

Alaric was watching her intently and had a post-it and a pen in his hands. Emma caught the objects tightly, wrote a word, and taped the post-it with unnecessary force over one of the photos.

"Hybrid?" John asked. Emma swallowed her irritation. She needed to focus.

"This symbol it's the combination of the vampire symbol and the werewolf symbol. It means hybrid. It's Klaus", she explained, handing the pen back to Alaric and crossing her arms.

The three of them made good progress in reading the runes, unraveling parts of the story. Both Alaric and Emma noticed a certain familiarity in one of the runes, one of which they were finding difficult to unravel. The professor was the one who seemed to have a click and called Bonnie.

Bonnie arrived a few hours later. The girl seemed uncomfortable with Emma around, maybe because she was Jeremy's cousin and the witch had broken up with the boy. Alaric went to the kitchen to grab a few snacks for them, asking John to help him. The two men were incredibly civilized with each other.

Bonnie approached Emma carefully. The young woman turned to her.

"Are you okay?", Emma asked. Bonnie took a deep breath.

"I've been better".

"Jeremy is an idiot", Alaric commented, returning with two bags of potato chips in hand. John was carrying two glasses of orange juice. "I know this because I was a Jeremy once. But I promise we learn eventually".

Bonnie smiled weakly and faced Emma.

"You gonna let him talk about your cousin like this?" the witch asked. Emma smiled at her.

"I kinda agree with him about that".

Bonnie felt more comfortable after that, and the four of them ended up connecting some dots. They were in the apartment all day. Elena and Damon never returned. Emma was the one who came up with the theory that the witch was the Original's mother. It all made sense. Mikael, the father; the witch, the mother. It didn't explain why Mikael was Klaus' nemesis, but it was a start.

Elena called Emma and asked them all to meet her in the caves. The girl had managed to get the whole story out of Rebekah during the afternoon. Emma empathized with the vampire as she confirmed that the original witch was really their mother, and that she had turned them into vampires to protect them from the werewolves after their youngest was killed. With each new piece of the story, Emma felt that waking Mikael was a bad decision. She even vocalized this feeling, and Damon was strangely quiet, which awakened Emma's suspicion.

If Klaus was impulsive, spiteful, and power-hungry, Mikael was a thousand times worse. Emma hated Klaus with all her might for killing Jenna. Emma hated Elijah for helping Klaus and then disappearing even after he promised to help them. But Emma sympathized with Rebekah, the girl who was manipulated for years by all the male figures she had in her life.

The girl just wanted a normal life. And that was why Emma got into a heated argument with Elena about whether to tell Rebekah that the original witch had been killed not by Mikael, but by Klaus. This fact had been discovered by rereading the whole story in the caves after uncovering the runes and learning Rebekah's version. The hybrid had killed the original witch.

Emma did not support using this truth as a weapon to try to pit Rebekah against Klaus. Elena said that Rebekah deserved to know the truth, while Emma screamed that the girl didn't care about the vampire's feelings, that she just wanted another pawn on her side of the board. Emma said things she would later regret, but she couldn't prevent spitting out the hurt she carried. She couldn't prevent the resentment of her cousin for keeping everyone worshipping her at her altar. She couldn't prevent the enormous feeling of jealousy and insecurity she had towards her cousin.

Bonnie was the one who put everything into perspective and got the two cousins to agree to tell Rebekah the truth. Emma drove in silence to the Boarding House, with Elena by her side. The two got out of the car and walked into the house, calling out to the vampire.

Telling Rebekah the truth was not easy. Elena took the initiative, and Emma was beginning to regret her behavior earlier, but then the younger girl finally tried to use the truth to turn Rebekah against Klaus. Elena said that Rebekah should take their side and end Klaus, because Klaus controlled her life, Stefan's life, and Elena's life.

Rebekah, with her emotions amplified, held Elena against a wall, and Emma thought that the vampire would end up killing her cousin, so she intervened. She didn't think twice about intervening. Although she hated Elena at that moment, she loved her. After all, she was her cousin. And something inside Emma told her that Rebekah didn't want to hurt her, so there was no real danger in intervening. It was like breaking up a fight between two normal teenagers.

When Rebekah let go of Elena's neck, the girl held the area and tried to control her breathing. Emma looked from the girl to the vampire and, contrary to what Elena or anyone else would expect, walked over to Rebekah and took the vampire in a hug. The blonde clung to Emma with such strength that Emma thought she would have her bones broken, but she held firm.

She felt sorry for Rebekah, whose demeanor screamed "please accept me, love me". She herself was quite like that, she knew that. Elena felt a little rejected and left the house slamming doors in the way. Emma stayed there, holding a crying millenary vampire.

"Why are you being nice to me?", Rebekah asked through her tears. Emma didn't answer for a while.

"All you did was to protect your family. Sounds like a fair reason to me", Emma finally spoke. "I don't see why your motivation is less understandable than everyone else's".

Rebekah sniffled and stared at Emma with her green eyes watering. Even though she was crying, the vampire was beautiful, and looked much more fragile than she really was.

"Even yours?" the blonde asked. Emma nodded positively. "Thank you".

"I didn't do anything", Emma justified herself, frowning.

"You didn't ask me to take your side against Niklaus", Rebekah replied. "That's more than anyone has ever done for me".

The vampire wiped away her tears and announced that she was going to bed and went upstairs. Emma stood for some time in the Boarding House living room, frowning, staring at the large painting on one of the walls.

She wondered whether she really had such noble intentions, or whether she was actually manipulating Rebekah because she knew her weakness. Because she herself identified with her weakness. For people like herself and the original vampire, feeling like you have a choice is the greatest treasure you can receive.

Rebekah spent years having her own brother as her tormentor, while Emma spent years - to a lesser extent, but still years - as a hostage to Tom. No voice, no choice, no one to take her side, to hold her hand and say "you decide what you want to do". Deep down, she knew that Rebekah would eventually take their side against Klaus, either out of revenge or because she felt that it was justice. She knew because that's what she would do if she were in the vampire's place and the chance presented itself against Tom. "But you already killed him, didn't you?", the voice in her head said. Emma felt a shiver run down her spine, shook her shoulders and walked to the door.

"You're good, dolly, a real actress", Damon joked, leaning against her car.

"I wasn't acting", Emma replied, even though she was unsure of her motivations. Maybe she was, on some level, acting. But her voice came out assured enough to make Damon frown.

"She tried to kill us all, must I remember you?" the vampire asked in an accusing tone, unbuckling himself from Emma's car and walking toward her.

"She didn't", Emma replied, pulling the key from her jacket pocket. "So far, we tried to kill her, a dozen times. She's just a girl".

"She's an Original! She hasn't been just a girl for a thousand years", Damon angrily replied.

"A lot of these years she had been locked in a coffin or running from Mikael, it doesn't even count. She just wants to live", Emma replied in the same tone.

"Why the sympathy for her? Don't tell me you're changing sides now, dolly. I wouldn't think twice before..".

"Snap my neck? Slice my throat? Kill me?", Emma asked, her cheeks hot with anger. Suddenly, she let her conflicting feelings take over again. Why were they doing all that again? To kill a hybrid who wasn't even in the town, and who would soon be tired of creating new hybrids since no one was a threat to him anymore? Were they really willing to wake a fucking dangerous vampire who happen to be a supernatural slayer just to what? Save Elena?

She was angry, but she didn't fail to notice that Damon didn't respond. He just stared at her with crazy and wide iced eyes. She took his silence as a yes. Emma was sure he could see how hurt she was with the fact that he didn't deny her accusation, because his angry face fell just a few for tiny seconds, enough for his eyes to meet hers with worry.

Emma looked away and unlocked the car with the key she had in her hands, and walked towards the vehicle, passing Damon and feeling a shiver run down her spine. Before she could reach the door, the vampire grabbed her by the arm with one hand, pressed her against the car, and grabbed the back of her head with the other. Before Emma could assimilate what was happening, Damon pressed his lips tightly against hers, demanding passage with his tongue.

Emma allowed it and met his tongue with her own, and the vampire grabbed her by the ass, pulling her until her legs were wrapped around his waist. Damon pressed his erection against her, and despite the two jeans that were between them, Emma gasped. Damon separated his mouth from hers and stared into her eyes.

"Don't ever say that again", he said serious and with eyes almost black with desire, anger, and possession.

"Don't ever threaten me again", she replied.

She couldn't control the intrusive thoughts and insecurity that plagued her, but she could control the way she reacted to the situations that presented themselves to her. She would not accept threats, and she would not accept being put in second or third place. She wouldn't betray her ideals and what she believed to be right just to follow the crazy plans of that small group of people who seemed just focused into achieve Elena's goals.

Emma knew, she felt, that she loved Damon. Gosh, she loved him, it wasn't even a surprise for her. But she also knew that she should love and respect herself. If she was going to make mistakes, let it be by her own choices, and not by the choice of others. She would not be a pawn. Never again.