A.N. -This is where things start to rapidly change and spiral out of control beyond the Salvatores not fighting Elijah in the abandoned house.
Also in a disclaimer that probably should have been on the first chapter: all of the language translations are coming directly from online translators (I'm cross-referencing between three or so depending on language) and I in fact speak none of them so apologies to anyone fluent in: Bulgarian, Haitian Creole, and the five other languages that may still come up. None of which I actually speak... (…and I only just realised that I could literally have used a language I do know and made one of the doppelgängers come from one of the countries that uses them, I'm just dumb and I've given them stories now so I'm not going to change it)
Disclaimer number 2 that also should have been on chapter 1: I have only seen seasons 1 to 6ish of the vampire diaries and season 1 of the Originals (specifically I stopped watching TVD properly around the start of s5 and managed to get through to vaguely meeting the crazy witch in the prison world with Bonnie but I don't really remember very much very well from what else was going on at the time and I think I saw the first couple of episodes of s2 of TO but again I only have very vague memories of what happened from the second half of s1 onwards) so any information not from, let's say before Katherine died in S5 and before Hope was born in the Originals is going to come from skimming the wiki. Also I am thoroughly messing with canon so if something's wrong then there's a good chance I did that intentionally, especially wrt everything surrounding the doppelgängers and significant chunks of the Original's backstory. Wrt characterisation, if someone's out of character and it's a doppelgänger then that's probably on purpose, if they're not a doppelgänger then 50-50 it's intentional versus me just forgetting how they acted properly. I'm only intermittently rewatching so
Third and final disclaimer that I should have already mentioned but forgot: there are actually three points of canon divergence, two more significant than the third. The first is, obviously, in s2 of TVD where the obvious has changed once Elena is kidnapped and she's starting to get memories and impressions from the previous doppelgängers. The second is with the Originals about ten years before s1 happens, more details will be explained later on, and is in fact why certain things are already different (yes I mean certain references to certain people in six sentences at the start and like one sentence later on). The third is minor and has a minor impact on certain relationships and things that happened but has a basically minimal impact on present events. I just changed it because I have strong feelings about the parents of the Originals and the shitty ways they treated their kids.
I was originally going to do one chapter per doppelgänger but then this chapter got massive so I ended up splitting it in two to try and keep with my practise of not having chapters longer than 10k unless absolutely necessary. So congrats, this is Katerina Part 1, Katerina Part 2 will follow soon at some point since I've decided where to cut it but haven't finished part 2 yet. The chapter after that will be Tatia, which is partially written but some of that was from my "scenes I wrote this fic for" pile so I don't know if that counts and has lots of bits that aren't fleshed out yet so no idea if that's going to stay as one chapter or also going to be split up. I was going to post this at a later point when part 2 was also done but it is late I am tired I have work in the morning and I jsut finished editing so screw it I'm going to be impulsive
Also, yes, I can count, and I am aware that going by my count of one doppelgänger approximately every 250 years there should be a doppelgänger between Katerina and Tatia. I'm skipping her on purpose for reasons that will become clear later.
After Jeremy and Jenna come sprinting at the sound of her screams and Elena tries to reassure them that it was just a nightmare and Aunt Jenna believes her but Jeremy doesn't, she sees that she has a message from Stefan asking her to come by before school. For lack of other things to do and unwilling to go back to sleep or lie in bed trying for fear of what she might see, Elena decides to go. She has hours yet before school.
She slowly showers and gets dressed, taking her time and trying to sort through all the memories that are hers but not, that are far clearer now than they were before. Some of them do not belong to Isabela either, and Elena tucks away the knowledge for later contemplation. She counts the different women that the memories belong to and gets as far as four and back to the first millennium AD before she stops because there's still more and she doesn't know if she wants to know how far back these memories go or how many women there have been with her face and her voice and difficult lives and tragic endings. She writes the names Rebeca and Nicolas in her journal anyway, a part of her wondering if there isn't a way to look them up and find out what happened to Isabela's children. And even if there isn't, they should be remembered. She will remember them, for brave, defiant, furious Isabela, who died fighting for her children's future and trying to right a wrong.
She hesitates before putting the necklace Stefan gave her back on, the ghost of the memory of the noose that killed Isabela still heavy on her neck. She remembers the way Elijah's mouth had twitched when she had reflexively grabbed for the pendant and how horrible it had felt to be so dependent on something so easily snatched away and resolves to start drinking vervain or find some other way of getting the protection of vervain that is not as obvious or easily stolen as a pendant around her neck. She puts the necklace on anyway but wraps it several times around her wrist instead of its usual spot. It's too much to put something that close to her throat right now; the memory of Isabela's death is still too close for her to be comfortable with that.
She scribbles a quick note so that her aunt and brother don't worry and snags her keys and a small bag as she heads out the door with her school things – she may as well try and grab some vervain from the Boarding House whilst she's there.
It's still dark when she knocks on the door, dawn is still at least half an hour away, and is greeted by a not entirely awake Damon. "Is Stefan here? He said to come over and that it was important."
Damon squints at her then makes a big show at glancing at his empty wrist, "We weren't expecting you for at least another hour and a half."
"I couldn't sleep." She tells him and lets him assume that it's the kidnapping that's bothering her.
He nods and opens the door wider in invitation, "Right this way."
Stefan's already in the living room when she gets there. He stands to greet her with his hands in his pockets, and she crosses her arms over her chest just in case to ward off any hug or kiss in greeting – they're not back together and she doesn't think they're going to be any time soon. She's planning on telling Elijah that she'll go through with the sacrifice as soon as she next sees him, and Stefan would almost certainly have problems with that if he knew.
"Hey." He says, moving slightly towards her.
"What is this about?" she asks, not making eye contact and adjusting the strap of her bag a little.
Stefan looks to the side and she follows his gaze and sees Rose.
A fury that doesn't entirely belong to her and an irrational dislike that she's sure is at least partially from the kidnapping rise up but she swallows them down and pretends her throat doesn't hurt from holding back her words, "You."
Rose half smiles half grimaces as she lifts her hand in a small, almost sheepish, wave.
Elena suppresses the first three responses she wants to use, despite one of the hers-that-isn't egging her on in the back of her mind. Finally, when she's sure that the next thing she says isn't going to be scathing, she speaks, "Let's get this conversation over with." It's less friendly than she wants but she honestly can't bring herself to be that nice to Rose. The woman kidnapped her, she betrayed Elijah, and she apparently ran straight to Damon and Stefan after he pardoned her and warned her not to betray his family again. Elena cannot condone that. Not after Elijah showed her mercy. She absently wonders when she became so defensive of him, but the equally furious voice in the back of her head that urged her to go with him helps answer that at least a little bit. She knows a bit about that version of herself now. She remembers when Elijah was human and she loved him dearly alongside the rest of his family. Anyone that can betray the man that she knew then is deserving of disdain.
Elena is not stupid enough to think that over a thousand years is not enough to change a person, but if what Stefan told Caroline about vampirism enhancing only what was already there is true, then at his core, Elijah is still the same man as he was then, simply with more atrocities to his name and a thousand years of experience. (In more than one way, Слънчице hums the part of her that doesn't trust him at all)
Elena sits on the sofa and stares at her ex-boyfriend, his brother, and the vampire who kidnapped her silently.
"She said she can help us." Stefan tries to explain, ever trying to be the peacemaker. Elena doesn't deign that with a response, the part of her that is Isabela loudly rolling her eyes – a woman that was only forgiven for her betrayal yesterday, already betraying the person that granted her that forgiveness? Either Rose is a very stupid vampire, or she's blinded by searching for vengeance for what happened to Trevor. Or Elijah sent her and she's working for him, a voice that is her-but-not at the back of her head whispers. It almost feels like Isabela but isn't driven enough by fury. This her is too sad to be the woman that would have been happy to see the French burn.
"Look, Lexi said that Stefan was one of the good ones, and I trust her. And Trevor was my best friend, my brother, for over half a millennium." Rose sits down opposite Elena and leans forward as though willing her to understand, "For five hundred years I lived with one person. And now he's gone. Elijah is good for his word – he won't break it. But he killed my best friend. And I am tired of running and being scared and I don't want to live in fear of the fury of the Originals anymore. I don't have anything left to lose but my life. And I owe it to Lexi to help out Stefan after she pulled my butt out of the fire more than once. So, yeah. I can help you. I want to help you. If only because you are not Katerina Petrova. What happened yesterday proved that. She would never have taken that deal."
Elena does not correct Rose that she is exactly like Katherine. That they are the same person born five centuries apart in different circumstances. And that in her position, she's certain that Katerina Petrova would have done the exact same thing. Because if there's one thing that Elena has known her whole life and does not need one of the women that both are and are not her to tell her, it's that knowledge is power. And if Elijah can tell her why this is happening, how she is remembering the lives of the women that came before her and shared her face and always had a tragic fate, then she will do whatever he asks of her and deal with the consequences. "So, what? Now you're on my side? Your 'best friend' was going to eat me! You were willing to sell me like a lamb to slaughter for your freedom not even twenty-four hours ago and now you're willing to risk it all over again to do a dead vampire a favour?" Elena doesn't know enough, doesn't remember enough to know what happened to Katherine yet, but she remembers the parents of the Originals at least a little and she knows about how your upbringing can affect you later and remembers Nik or Klaus or whatever he's choosing to call himself now well enough to be able to guess what he might have done in revenge. And she will not risk the lives of everyone that she's ever loved by arousing the fury of the children of Mikael and Esther. Not when she knows that there are no lengths that they will not go to for family. She was the same once after all. She still is.
"You don't have to believe me." Rose says, and Elena doesn't. She's torn fifty-fifty between the belief that Elijah sent Rose to spy on her to make sure that she'll keep up her end of the deal and the idea that the five hundred plus year old vampire really is just that stupid and driven by revenge. "But I want to help."
"And if she's right, we need it." Stefan adds, sitting down next to the older vampire. And oh, doesn't that burn. That he's willing to pick trusting Rose over listening to Elena, even if he doesn't consciously realise it. Elena is at least the third doppelgänger to love a man with his face and every time it's led to nothing but pain and heartbreak. You'd think they'd learn.
Elena grits her teeth. "Fine, Rose-Marie, I'm listening."
And Rose sits up straight like she's been electrified. "What did you just call me?"
Elena frowns, because she hasn't actually done anything except agree. "Your name?" she says quizzically, finally putting her bag on the floor – she has a feeling this is going to be a long conversation.
"How did you know it?" she asks in a tone that would probably sound a lot more dangerous if Elena hadn't watched Elijah use the same trick yesterday to far greater effect. "I don't use my full name, I haven't in centuries and no one has used it in front of you."
Elena belatedly realises that Rose thinks that she's been compelled by Elijah and tries to think quickly to avoid having to explain the dreams and memories and voices and knowledge that she doesn't understand, even though by all rights Rose should still remember from yesterday. She doesn't want to share that with the Salvatores yet. These women deserve better than to be scrutinised, whether or not they're in her head, (a lie, perhaps suggests a part of her that she's heard before and she is hesitant to label as Katherine, if only because she's noticed a second voice that is similar enough in feeling and attitude that she doesn't know how to tell them apart yet and isn't actually sure which of them is the voice that crooned at her in Bulgarian and which of them never knew Elijah at all) so she draws on her inner Katherine and ignores the fact that her new knowledge suggests that she's always had a part of her that is Katherine, she's just never noticed, and lies, "Elijah used it, in the house." She says, taking an educated guess from the fact that what she knows of him tells her that he always uses people's full names.
"How do you know that?" Rose demands.
Elena hides the relief that she'd been right on the mark and rolls her eyes in a way that she knows would fit perfectly on Katherine, "Because I was there." She says in her best duh tone, relying on the fact that Stefan and Damon hadn't arrived yet and Rose was too distracted by Trevor's death to remember it perfectly. Her father and Caroline's mother had told them often enough how fallible the human memory is. She only hoped that the same was true of vampire memory. "He killed Trevor, you screamed, he told you not to try anything now that you had your freedom?"
"I- I don't…" Rose frowns.
Elena holds up her wrist, displaying the pendant, "I'm not compelled, I have vervain. You probably just don't remember clearly because you were so upset."
Damon frowns, "Why aren't you wearing it around your neck?"
Of course, of course Damon picked up on that and asked an inconvenient question and exactly the wrong moment. Has he ever not been inconvenient? She frowns slightly because that thought doesn't feel quite like her and prodding it a little reveals that it's a Katherine thought that's slipped through without her noticing. She resolves to ignore the implications.
"Not now, Damon." She tells him, praying that for once in his life he'll listen, "I want to know what Rose has to say."
He opens his mouth to object and Stefan shoots him a look and gestures for Rose to continue. Elena hides the way she wants to sigh in relief.
Rose looks between them briefly before looking back at Elena. She shrugs and folds her arms in a move that she knows Stefan will read as defensive but is actually more self-soothing than anything else and Rose takes that as her cue, standing up and starting to pace a little.
"You have to understand," she starts, "I only know what I've picked up over the years and I don't know what's true and what's not true. That's the problem with all this vampire crap. But Klaus, I know is real."
Elena flexes her fingers slightly. She knows exactly who that is but doesn't say anything yet because she shouldn't. This is more knowledge that she shouldn't know but somehow does. There's a flash of memory, a blonde man with a dimpled smile and a double-image of running to him and loving him and running from him with bone-deep fear. "Who is he?" she asks the room at large, her answers hiding on the tip of her tongue. Elijah's little brother. Freya's favourite babysitter. Katherine's second monster. The man that's going to kill her.
"He's one of the Originals," says Damon, uncharacteristically serious, an expression on his face that she doesn't quite understand. He flicks his brows up and down and smirks slightly, "He's a legend."
"From the first generation of vampires." Stefan interjects, assuming Elena needs the explanation. She doesn't correct him.
"Like Elijah?" she says instead.
"No." Rose says, her voice exasperated. Elena has to struggle to keep her face straight when Rose draws out the word, because as far as she, or the voice that is probably Katherine, or the voice that knew him when he was human, know the only difference between Klaus and Elijah is that Elijah is nearly four years older and Klaus was the result of an affair, meaning he's a hybrid. She knows that the her that knew them first was killed to curse him and that Elena's blood is the key ingredient in the ritual that will break that curse.
"Elijah is the Easter bunny compared to Klaus." Rose continues, ignorant to Elena's thoughts. "He's a foot soldier. Klaus is the real deal."
Elena mentally makes a mark in the column for 'Rose is working for Elijah'. If she knew them back when Katherine was human then she knew them both. And no one can spend more than ten minutes in their combined company without knowing that Elijah is the long-suffering indulgent elder brother always trying to clean up Klaus's messes. So it was when they were human, so it continued in their immortal lives. Also, Rose appears to be conveniently forgetting that it is not the younger brother that she and Trevor spent five centuries running from.
"Klaus is known to be the oldest." Stefan says seriously, looking at her sympathetically. Elena has to try very hard not to snort in an impulse that doesn't entirely belong to her. Klaus has always been the quintessential middle child, even before they knew about Esther's lies. Elena cannot believe that anyone who has ever met him in the company of one or more siblings hasn't noticed that. (unless they're too busy being scared or dying points out a dry, no-nonsense voice that she isn't entirely sure she's heard before but likes to think is what she would have been like if she became a mother)
She sits and thinks about it a little more until she's sure she can get out her next sentence with a straight face. The inappropriate urge to laugh will not make the situation any easier. The voice that was egging her on earlier, the one that might be Katherine but might also be someone else, keeps pulling forward more memories that don't quite belong to either of them, of Klaus being a pouty little brother to both Elijah and their dark-haired, ever-serious older brother that Elena can't quite remember the name of just yet. She parses through some of the newer memories she has, the ones that belong to Isabela or the other doppelgängers that make her remember that things are a little more serious than the boy that one of the hers-but-not loved.
"Okay…" Elena finally says, "So, you're saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after me?" She pointedly ignores the fact that as far as she or any of her other selves are aware, the oldest vampire is the one that is the most monstrous of them all and always was, even when they were human. She would rather be murdered horrifically another dozen times over than come face to face with Mikael again. The part of her that loves Elijah and Klaus and all of their siblings, trembles in fear and retreats. Elena might not remember yet, but she knows, soul-deep that there are only two people that she fears more than him.
"Yes!" says Rose.
"No." says Stefan at nearly the exact same time as Elena looks between the two of them.
"What they're saying is," Damon interjects, "I mean, if what she's saying is true…" Damon apparently cannot help himself and just has to jab at Rose.
"Which it is."
"And you're not just saying it so I don't kill you." Damon continues on, ignoring Rose's interruption. Elena mentally disagrees that Damon is capable of killing her. He couldn't even kill Katherine, who admittedly is an expert at survival and manipulation at this point. But Rose has at least fifty years on her. And unlike Katherine, she was running from Elijah's net, not Klaus's. Elena's willing to bet that the older vampire is even better at survival than Katherine is, even if the Originals didn't want her dead quite as badly, and only by association. Two vampires are far easier to find than one, after all. Especially ones bound to the night.
"Which I'm not." Elena mentally puts another mark in the 'working for Elijah' column as Damon continues talking, completely ignoring Rose.
"Then we're looking at a solid maybe."
Elena blinks rapidly and nods slowly. None of this is particularly encouraging, even if she is planning on going through with the sacrifice.
"Look," Stefan says, coming closer to her and perching on the edge of the sofa, arm coming to hover somewhat comfortingly over her shoulder, "I've never even met anyone who's laid eyes on him." He looks towards Damon and Rose as he speaks, clearly trying to convince them as much as himself. Elena doesn't say that Rose has met him. She doesn't say that Katherine has either. She doesn't even consider mentioning that she has plenty of memories, of both the man and the monster to assure her that he's very real, even if those memories don't quite belong to her.
Rose and Damon are both still looking very dubiously at Stefan as he continues to talk with an increasing sense of desperation. And Elena says nothing, letting them all talk themselves out.
"I mean, we're talking centuries of truth mixed with fiction." Elena idly wonders if Lexi had ever met an Original. The vampire had seemed old enough to have met a few key players in her time. And there were several centuries before she met Stefan in which she could have, even if she never met them afterwards. "I mean, we don't know what's real." He turns to Elena and leans in slightly, trying to reassure her, "For all we know he could just be some sort of stupid bedtime story."
"He's real!" Rose says, standing up again and coming closer, "And he doesn't give up." (She would know snarks the voice that spoke Bulgarian and that Elena is becoming more and more certain is Katherine. The other voice that sounds like her is someone else. A different her. One that came before either of them. She just needs to figure out how to tell them apart properly.) "If he wants something, he gets it." Rose says, emphatically. She's not afraid, not like she was of Elijah, more braced for the inevitable. "If you're not afraid of Klaus, then you're an idiot."
Elena stares at her. Because Rose isn't afraid. She vaguely hears Damon saying that Rose has made her point but she doesn't look away. Three marks in the 'working for Elijah' column, but now Elena wonders if Rose is even aware of it. Her behaviour is striking a chord – a chord that sounds like Caroline and the way that she was behaving before Elena ever even knew about vampires and Caroline was still dating Damon. There's a terrible sense of foreboding creeping up her spine. Because she'd thought that Damon was just feeding on Caroline. That that was all Caroline's missing time was. She'd given Caroline the vervain necklace (lesbian friendship necklace snickers one of the voices that is but isn't her, the one that sounds like Katherine) when she'd realised that Damon was still trying to compel her to do his dirty work, but now she's wondering if she missed something. Caroline had said, the first time she'd walked into the boarding house, that it felt like she'd been there before. She'd kept insisting that she was fine at that horrible party with bite marks on her body and blood streaming down her neck and-
Elena forcibly wrenches her mind away from that train of thought. She can't go down that road. Not now. Because if the vague suspicion beginning to form in her subconscious ever crystallises, she's terrified of what she might do. Any illusion she might have had about not being like Katherine and not being capable of the same things is long gone, vanished at the same time that she met Elijah for the first (at least the hundredth corrects the voice that adores him) time. There is nothing that she is not capable of when it comes to protecting the people she loves and avenging wrongs done to them. Of that she is certain.
She abruptly stands up before she can do anything else. Like shout. Or scream. Or stab Damon with something sharp and pointy. Or throw vervain at Stefan for lying to her.
"Where are you going?" Stefan asks as she slings her bag back over her shoulder.
"To get some vervain." She says, as normally as possible, trying to leave without seeming like she's fleeing the room, "I want to give some to Jeremy and Aunt Jenna. Apparently I need to be prepared." She pauses and debates with herself a moment, "Then school. I have a lot of catching up to do."
"Let me grab my stuff," Stefan says, standing up to follow her, "I'll go with you."
"That's okay." Elena says, not looking at him. "I know where it is. I'll just grab the vervain and go." She leaves without looking back.
The sun is still very low in the sky by the time she reaches the school. There's a good hour and change before school starts, and probably at least half that before it opens. She turns off the engine, leans back in her seat, and sighs before closing her eyes. She wraps a hand around where her vervain pendant is hanging from her wrist and starts sorting through all the memories that she has that don't quite belong to her. She has the time. She might as well do something useful with it.
By the time she opens her eyes to the slow trickle of early birds into the school, she's managed to sort through a lot more of the memories and now has more knowledge of some of her other selves. Isabela is the most recent. Before her came Katherine - Katerina, who she's managed to confirm is the crooning Bulgarian voice. She's also managed to identify the other voice that sounds almost but not quite like Katerina, who feels more similar to her than any of the others but is still separate, as the first doppelgänger born after the first girl who had their face. She dubs her 'fierce one' in her head and knows that it will still be some time yet before she learns her name. She has no name for the girl that loved Klaus and adored Elijah and their three brothers and one sister (Nik she whispers in the back of her head, we called him Nik) but knows now that her daughter's name was Freya and that her confidant was Lisbet whose fate was nearly as tragic as her own. The sad voice that sounds almost like Isabela but isn't angry enough is the young one, who died kindest of them all and was younger than even Katerina when she died - neither of them ever made it to twenty.
Elena has yet to find enough clues to identify the no-nonsense, dry, serious voice that she has dubbed 'the mother' but thinks she came between the fierce one and the young one. The first of them, the first girl with their face, their voice, whose tragedy started them all, Elena knows next to nothing about - except that she was there yesterday when she spoke to Elijah. Soul-deep instinct tells her that there's one more version of them that she's missing, but something in her shies away from knowing more.
Checking the time tells her that she still has over half an hour before school starts and nearly another half an hour after that before she's expected to be in class. She pulls out her phone to text Bonnie and Caroline and then jumps out of her skin when there's a loud knocking on the window right next to her.
It's Rebecca. She's dressed in her usual stunning fashion, with her hair in a ponytail and her cheer gear slung over one shoulder. Behind her, Cole is slouching against a wall.
"You scared the shit out of me!" Elena says, rolling down the window. There's a nagging in the back of her head that says that she's missing something and the feeling of one of the other hers watching closely. "What the hell, Rebecca."
The blonde shrugs unapologetically, "Sorry," she says, not sounding like she particularly means it, "I was just wondering what on earth possessed you to take a nap in your car in front of the school. Where's Jeremy? Or the other girls? You don't normally come alone." She makes a big show of looking around before leaning in and whispering so loudly that it defies the entire point of whispering, "I specifically didn't mention Stefan because I know you two are on the outs right now."
Cole rolls his eyes so loudly that Elena can practically hear it. "Subtle as ever, Bekah. Now that we've checked on your latest dalliance, can we go."
Elena rolls her own eyes, too used to Cole's casual disregard of everyone but Jeremy and Tyler to get offended. He doesn't seem to actually like anyone, and gods only know what it is that he sees in her brother and Tyler that makes him tolerate them. She puts the window back up and grabs her stuff before exiting and locking the car, completely ignoring the near-constant bickering of the twins in the background.
The average innocent bystander could be forgiven for assuming that the two couldn't stand each other, but the one and only time that one of the seniors had made the mistake of trying to get grabby with Rebecca when he'd had too much to drink, Cole had been at his throat before anyone else could say or do anything, and only Rebecca verbally eviscerating the guy had managed to calm him down enough for Jeremy and Tyler to drag him away – but not before he'd broken the guy's nose and given him a black eye. When the same guy and his friends had tried to get back at Cole for bruising their egos the following day, Rebecca had sabotaged them before they even began and humiliated them in front of nearly the entire school. It had been the thing that had cemented both twins as firmly not to be messed with and solidified Caroline's cautious friendliness into a genuine desire for friendship. It was a very clear, if unspoken fact that if you came at one of the twins, the other would take great pleasure in making you seriously regret it, even if neither of them was willing to admit it.
The nagging feeling of missing something grows stronger than ever as she starts to make her way into the school. The abrupt end to the bickering behind her gives her a momentary warning that Rebecca's fallen into step with her before the other girl speaks.
"Don't think I didn't notice that you didn't answer my question." She says, nudging Elena feather-light with her elbow, "And you weren't at school yesterday, either." She hesitates, "Is everything ok? I know that we're not particularly close, not compared to you and Caroline and Bonnie, but you're being really quiet and I'd like to think that I know you well enough to know that you don't usually take weird naps in your car alone before school."
Elena sighs slightly, "Yeah. I'm fine." She adjusts the strap of her bag, "Mostly." She admits, hesitating before continuing, "Stefan and I are broken up, properly, I mean, not just on the outs, and I don't think we'll be getting back together. And last night I just had these really awful dreams and I didn't want to go back to sleep afterwards so I came here and didn't realise how early it was until I got here." It's not lying, not really, more like creative truth-telling, and all she's really leaving out is the kidnapping, the existence of the supernatural, and the fact that the thing that's currently bothering her is the existence of other versions of herself that have lived and died throughout the last two thousand years apparently residing in her head.
Rebecca tilts her head to the side, assessing her in a way that strikes Elena as oddly familiar, even as the nagging sensation continues to bother her – oddly absent of the voices of any of the other versions of herself. And dear gods, the fact that she's become so used to and desensitised to their existence so quickly should be more alarming than it is.
"Are you going to stop wearing the necklace he gave you then?" Rebecca asks, sounding weirdly concerned. Which is twice as odd as it would be otherwise considering how fixated she had been on it initially.
Elena suppresses her grimace and lifts her wrist, showing off where it's wrapped around her arm, "Still wearing it, just not sure I want it around my neck where everyone can see it anymore." Not that the association with Stefan is why she wants to replace it.
Rebecca shrugs, "Suit yourself. I just think it's a shame given that it's such a nice necklace. So much better than your usual style."
Elena shoots her a weird look, gratified that at least Rebecca doesn't seem to be worried anymore and has returned to her usual snide and judgemental remarks. "So you've said."
Rebecca tosses her head in a familiar movement, but her words are lost in the wake of things clicking for Elena. And suddenly everything falls into place: the nagging sensation of missing something, the odd familiarity of her gestures, the fixation on the necklace containing vervain, the too light way Rebecca always touched everyone like she was afraid of hurting them, the conveniently timed family emergency coinciding with Founder's Day, Rebecca's unnamed out-of-town boyfriend who was somehow old enough to not go to school but still got her called a cougar by her brother, Cole's barely hidden amusement at the threats levelled against him by the seniors that he kept pissing off, Stefan and Damon's instant, almost irrational dislike of both the twins without being able to explain it, the way the twins were weirdly insistent about not inviting anyone back to their house, the fact that no one had ever even seen their older brother…
Rebecca was a vampire. An Original vampire. She and Cole – no, Kol – were the younger siblings of Elijah and Niklaus and must have some kind of charm or spell concealing their nature from others.
The next logical piece falls into place and Elena realises that they must have signed up for school in Mystic Falls because of her. She doesn't realise she's stopped in her tracks until a perfectly manicured hand waves in front of her face and a very familiar voice says, "Hello, earth to Elena!" sounding quite irritated.
Elena snaps out of it and looks at the ancient vampire in shock. Her jaw must drop or something because Rebecca – no, Rebekah - sighs and looks resigned.
"Damn. You figured it out then? Big brother did warn us you might, but I hoped that since you hadn't noticed in nearly three months, that you'd continue to be stupid for at least a little while longer."
"You- you're…" Elena trails off, unable to put into words the things she wants to say, the voice that both is and is not her and adores every single one of the children of Mikael and Esther humming in delight at being in the presence of another of them.
"A vampire? An Original? Yes."
Elena just looks at her wordlessly for a moment. "Was any of it real?" she asks, because she'd become very attached to Rebekah in the last couple of months and started to consider her as something like a close friend and the idea that it was all a lie is as heart-breaking as when she had first found out that Katherine looked like her.
Rebekah looks down for a moment, apparently upset, "Yes." She says after a pause, "I came here setting out to befriend you for our own purposes, but I-" she sighs, "You're really hard not to like, Elena. I really do consider you my friend. You and Bonnie and Caroline. You all made me really welcome here. And lying to you kind of sucked." She shrugs, "But family first, you know."
Elena nods slowly, "I can understand that." She says, thinking back to all of the children all the different versions of her have had over the years. To the fierce one's older brother and Katerina's younger sister and Isabela's cousins that were more like siblings. To Lisbet who was loved like a sister by the girl who loved the Originals. To Jeremy and Bonnie and Caroline. "I'd probably do the same in your position. It just kind of sucks to be the one in mine." Her lips twitch slightly as she has the sudden urge to smile and exchanging a glance with Rebekah shows that the taller girl is doing the same.
Before she can help it she's laughing, and Rebekah joins in. They simply stand there, neither of them entirely sure why they're laughing so hard, and eventually Elena's laughs turn hysterical as the last twenty-four hours sinks in. And it is entirely unbelievable that it's been less than a day since she first discovered that she is not alone in her head and learned all about the different women who came before her. It's impossible that she knows so much about them after only one night, but it also makes absolutely perfect sense.
When Elena finally quiets, Rebekah gently but firmly guides her to one of the study cubbies in the library and assures her of their privacy.
"Is this where the interrogation starts then?" Elena asks with empty amusement, "Because I already promised Elijah that I'd tell him."
Rebekah shakes her head, "Not really. I mean, I have questions. I just figured that you could use a break since you got kidnapped yesterday and then apparently had nightmares all night." She shrugs, "Can't help but feel a little guilty about that second bit."
Elena just shakes her head silently, "That's not what the nightmares were. That was Isabela."
"Isabela? Who's Isabela?"
Elena shoots her a look.
"Right, sorry. What do you want to talk about?"
Elena cocks her head to the side consideringly. Maybe she shouldn't trust Rebekah, but she does. And maybe the Original vampire can help her. Not with answers – she's starting to think that her and Katerina are the only ones who might have those, but with the vervain problem, certainly. She brushes her hair behind her ear as she thinks, and when the pendant on her wrist bumps against her skin, she makes up her mind. "Actually, I could use your help."
Rebekah raises an eyebrow and Elena grins at her invitingly and pulls the vervain out of her bag. "I need a way to get the protection of vervain without something as easily stolen as jewellery or being as obvious as drinking it. Any ideas?"
Rebekah grins back infectiously, "Not at all, but we can brainstorm. I can think of at least one or two other people who would love some tips."
Despite everything, Elena's day ends up going mostly ok. She's got a few ideas for what to do about being on vervain without it being easy to spot or interfere with and Rebekah has already said that she and Kol will help her test them.
There are a few new witches in town, one of whom has attempted to befriend Bonnie. Elena doesn't know how she knows that the new boy – Luka – is a witch. She just knows that several of her other selves started screaming and urging her to run when they saw him and Bonnie together. That they are nearly all terrified of witches and the only reason they're not that scared of Bonnie is because she and Elena are all but sisters in nearly every way that matters and that they would die for each other if it came to it.
Stefan is upset with Caroline for some reason, and Tyler's been shooting looks at her all day. If Elena were still a betting kind of girl then she'd put her money on Caroline having spilled the vampire beans to Tyler and Stefan being mad about it.
She's pretty sure Damon spent the day looking for more information. She still doesn't tell him what she knows. It will open up too many questions, and besides – for all that he's been trying to protect her for a while now, she still hasn't forgiven him for what he did to Jeremy. She doesn't know if she ever truly will, even if Jeremy appears to have let it go. She'd rather trust the Originals – trust Elijah – to keep their promises than rely on Damon not having another impulsive episode and doing something else unforgiveable. He might say that he loves her, but Elena is under no illusions that he will sacrifice every single one of her friends and family if he thinks it will keep her safe. And that is not something that she will ever be ok with.
She knows what she has to do, and to that end, she starts writing a list. She can convince Elijah to make a deal with her. And if she's right, and each night will give her more information about the other doppelgängers, then she'll have more to bargain with by the time he comes to her for her to uphold her end of their deal. And perhaps she still is a betting kind of girl after all.
All she really still needs is to get her hands on the moonstone so that she can give it to Elijah.
That night she dreams again. This time she is Katherine – no, she is Katerina.
She dreams of being the eldest daughter of a wealthy family that is not blessed with sons. Of loving her sister almost as much as she adores their mother. Of knowing that her father's affection has its limits and that she will only have it so long as she upholds the family honour.
She dreams of falling in love with the son of a travelling merchant anyway. Of trusting him when he says that he loves her too, and giving him her virtue despite her dear loyal friend and maid warning her not to. Of him casting her aside when she has ceased to be of entertainment and watching him leave with his family without a second glance.
She dreams of crying herself to sleep in her heartbreak for weeks, and then discovering too late that she has become with child. Of her father's fury at the discovery and of knowing that the consequences will be heavier than she can bear.
She dreams of loving the child that grows in her belly and discovering that she will do near anything for it. Of her sister's fear of their father's wrath and her dearest friend and most loyal companion being sent away in disgrace for not preventing the dishonour of their family and the sullying of her virtue.
She dreams of having her child snatched away before she can even hold her and begging and weeping for her parents to please show her mercy and allow her to hold her precious daughter even just the once. Of her sister watching quietly with something a lot like horror in her eyes.
She dreams of being sent away to friends of friends in a country called England that she has scarcely heard of – a place where none know of her disgrace. Of being forced to adjust and adapt quickly for fear of further consequences. Of knowing that if she missteps again then she will not survive whatever happens next because her father will not tolerate it and only let her get away with as much as she did because of her mother and sister's pleas.
She dreams of meeting a man that feels so familiar to her and who treats her with a kindness she hardly recognises. Of meeting his brother who makes her spirit sing even as she shrinks away and guards her heart for fear of losing it again. Of every instinct she has telling her that she can trust them both, that they will not harm her the way that Kosta did. Of a man that her heart cries for and considers beloved and dearest proposing to her and her wondering if perhaps this time it will be worth it – he has proposed to her after all and has made the effort to learn her language. Of his brother – a man that her soul insists is not hers to love and her heart believes belongs to someone else but who her mind draws her back to again and again for the way he treats her with respect and kindness in a way that no other man ever has. Of wishing that she could let herself love the elder brother rather than being engaged to the younger who scares her a little despite every instinct she has screaming that he is safe and trustworthy.
She dreams of finding out the truth and the betrayal hurting more than anything else ever has – more than Kosta scorning her, or her father's hatred, even more than having her child ripped away from her before she's ever even held her. Of fleeing for her life and realising that her choices are death by her own hand or being killed by someone else's.
She dreams of trying to kill herself whilst Trevor's friend is distracted and failing. Of trying again after she is healed and succeeding, her last thoughts of her darling Nadia who never even heard her say her name. Of waking up again after she has died and realising that she is now a monster too.
She dreams of hurrying back home as fast as she can, knowing little except that she must warn her family before it is too late and having a vague hope that now she can take her child back by force if she must.
She dreams of finding nothing but fire and death and destruction where her home should be and clinging to the cold body of her mother as she begs and cries and pleads for it not to be true. Of realising that there is nothing that Klaus will not do to extract his vengeance for what he sees as her betrayal. Of finding out that she can just switch it off and abandoning her emotions and humanity so that she can run.
She dreams of running. Of running and running and running and never stopping, always looking over her shoulder, terrified of what she might see. Of betraying and abandoning people again and again, century after century, every time the monsters at her heels get a bit too close. Of knowing that she can have nothing and no one that she is not willing to sacrifice because they will simply become new weapons to be used against her at the pleasure of the two brothers. Of losing every friend and lover that she gains and destroying or sabotaging every relationship that she has that is not based on a mutual understanding of exploitation for fear of what will happen if she doesn't. Of switching her humanity on and off as she needs to, abandoning her emotions every time she gets too close to someone to do what she has to, and only allowing them back when she is far enough away that it is too late to undo her actions.
She dreams of surviving despite all odds and refusing to contemplate whether or not the Originals have simply been playing cat and mouse with her and letting her run on a little longer because they find it entertaining to make her suffer. Of finding a doppelgänger, a perfect copy of herself, a descendant of her dear, perfect Nadia, possibly the only thing left of her family on this earth. Of realising what she has to do to try and get mercy off the Original family so that she does not spend her eternity the way she has spent the last half a millennium.
She dreams of switching it off so that she can trade the life of her doppelgänger for her own freedom without any second thoughts about what she has to do next.
Elena wakes up with wet cheeks and silently screaming.
It takes her a long moment to come back to herself and calm her breathing and slow her heartbeat back to normal.
She wishes she did not understand Katerina so well as she now does. Any doubts she may have had about her course of action wither into dust.
She will not let what happened to Katerina's family happen to hers. No matter what she has to do to ensure it and even if it means making everyone that she has ever loved hate her.
She will not share her fate.
Elena goes back to her journal and opens it back to the page she was plotting on last night. She has further plans to make.
If five hundred years taught either of them anything, it's that a back-up plan is vital.
A.N. - It's also really really fun to be writing this predominantly from Elena's pov because she's got such a skewed perspective of it all. She's not nearly as reliable a narrator as she thinks she is because she fundamentally misunderstands how everyone else sees the Originals. She just doesn't get that no one else can see the same undercurrents in their interactions that she does because no one else can read them like she can. To pretty much the rest of the world the Originals have impenetrable poker faces and what you see on the surface of their interactions is all there is. Elena is just working off knowledge that predates the vampirism so she doesn't buy it the way everyone else does.
Thing I did not notice or put together before but am now running with in ways that will become clearer later: the Martins being from Louisiana and also being big on witches being loyal to each other and collecting the grimoires of dead witches with no family or covens.
Also as a sidenote: you know you got someone perfectly in character when someone with no knowledge of the source material reads a section with them and immediately pins down several of their core character traits (this is about Katherine's section in Elena's dreams and my bf reading it and immediately being like "oh she's kind of a selfish bitch")