Mystic Falls, Virginia, 2011年1月30日

Formerly human Elena Gilbert takes a deep breath, trying to sort out through the utter chaos that are her thoughts. Her body aches with the odious tension she's been bearing for the past several hours, she feels like a bomb with a match waiting to be set, and her soul cries in lament for the act she committed not even one day prior.

She honestly does not understand what is going on anymore — with herself, with the world, with everyone around her. She does not know where the plea for her brother to kill the Original, his former friend, even came from, damn it. She's never been one to support genocide of any kind —trait only more accentuated due to her current vampirism—, even if it would get them a supposed cure for their condition —not that she wants it whatsoever, despite what everyone around her wrongly assumed and want to believe.

Truth be told, she wasn't sold on the idea in the very least, there were just too many holes in the story, and it all seemed too good to be true. What a coincidence, that someone mentioned something like that existed when vampires who may covet it were around.

First of all, were they even sure it was a cure for vampirism? According to the shady professor, it had existed for over two millennia, meaning it was older than the Originals themselves. Who was to say it wouldn't have side effects on vampires? Especially considering that vampires were the product of a modified spell, if they were to believe Elijah's word. Even if it did work as intended, how many people could take it? There was no guarantee for there to be numerous doses. Then there was the matter of the craziest Mikaelson actually being afraid of something. Elena didn't know about the rest of her friends, but she wasn't about to make the same mistake as with Mikael — they had been warned, they awakened him anyway, and it exploded in their faces, quite literally at that. Besides, wasn't Kol Mikaelson supposed to be an expert in magic or something of the sort? If so, then the more reason to heed his warnings.

Hazy memories plague her mind, and make her head hurt. Did she really encourage her little brother's Hunter impulses? Did she just incite homicide? When did that idea sprout in her mind? She knows Stefan wanted her to take the cure, otherwise he wouldn't have thought of collaborating with Klaus at all. Damon on the other hand is another matter altogether. Elena thinks he is ambivalent about it all — on one hand, he wants her feelings to be real, but on the other he surely must be rejoicing in the sureness that comes with a sire bond.

What she has no doubt about is that there is no world in which she'd be okay with being sired to him —are her feelings real or induced? Has she been taken advantage of? The answer terrifies her immensely, as does the memories she recovered after drowning for a second time.

( "You want passion, excitement, and even a little bit of danger. You want a love that consumes you," he had said. Yet, he had not compelled her to want that, he only compelled her to forget she ever met him before. It was no wonder she felt so confused. )

Nevertheless, even with all her complaints against her current situation, she is not one to support the end of the world. Sure, she would do anything —even sacrifice herself for her loved ones, she is inherently selfish in that regard—, but certainly not at the cost of everyone else, without exception. She is selfish, yeah, but not that much, or so she thinks at least.

Elena shakes her head, and unbeknownst to the Salvatore brothers metaphorically trailing after her like lost puppies, her eyes gain the familiar stubborn look she always gets whenever she is determined to achieve something. She needs to have a heart to heart with her best friends.

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2009年12月13日

Bonnie Bennett has been one of Elena Gilbert's best friends since kindergarten. Actually, she was her very first friend, before even Caroline Forbes came along. She could still remember the first time she met the chocolate skinned girl. At that time, Abby Bennett still resided in Mystic Falls, and Bonnie had been none the wiser to the weight her bloodline carried in the supernatural world. They had bonded over their mutual love for ice-cream and dislike for bullies — Bonnie had been enchanted by Elena's gentleness and fondness for people she brought into the fold, and in turn Elena had been charmed by the cheerful and carefree personality of the little Bennett.

They had been inseparable ever since, and the Gilbert girl had stuck to her friend through Hell and back — when Abby abandoned her daughter, when Rudy had left her behind as well, when Sheila became a drunk with delusions of the Occult.

So after the whole fiasco of the Tomb took place, with remorse and guilt had threatened to eat her alive —hadn't it been for her insistence in Stefan making it out of the Tomb, Sheila Bennett would not have died—, she still offered Bonnie her shoulder to cry on, patiently waiting for when Bonnie needed her, despite the other's initial reluctance due to her part in all of it.

That had been the first tipping point in the relationship between the Salvatores and her, and the secrets that kept piling on each other didn't help bettering their predicament.

( And it would not be the last. )

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2010年10月22日

Caroline Forbes had joined their little group about half a year after Elena basically claimed Bonnie as one of hers. She had always been a happy child, and when she saw the two of them being obviously close friends but relatively isolated from the rest of the Mystic Falls kids, she wanted to try to include them. In the end, it happened the exact opposite: instead of drawing Bonnie and Elena out of their respective shells, it was them who got her to join their little exclusive group —which had worked just as well for Caroline, it had made her feel special, wanted.

Both Bonbon and Elena had been there to support her when Caroline's father left without as much as a second thought. She had been devastated, but having her best friends unconditionally on her corner certainly made everything easier to cope with. They too had been there all the times she felt the need to complain about her mother's neglectful behaviour and her overworking tendencies. They had been there when she first got rejected by a boy, and had been there when she made it to Cheerleader Captain, to Committee President, even to model for a local magazine.

Despite the palpable strain the start of the whole Salvatore issue had put on their friendship, Elena had still looked out for her —she had given Caroline a vervain necklace as soon as she came to know about the vampire thing, in an attempt to protect her from Damon, of all people.

That had been the second tipping point in the relationship between the Salvatores and the Gilbert girl.

She had been there to console and defend her when she was turned into a blood-sucking creature of the night. She had been her solace, her hope-bringer. She was the one who ultimately made Bonnie keep considering her the same Caroline she had always been, just on steroids personality-wise. She had so much to thank Elena Gilbert for, and even though she seriously would not permanently die for her —she still had a mother to consider—, she would go through Heaven and Hell for her friend should the need arise.

Now that her father had died on his own accord, —because he refused to turn into one of those creatures he had been taught to hate—, and despite all the pain she had been through for his close-minded ways of seeing reality, in the end she loved her father even so. Sadness kept colliding with her relief at not being tortured anymore, and it would be her best friends, Bonnie Bennett and Elena Gilbert, who would offer her the support she so desperately needed.

( The final straw would be when bright, chirpy, Caroline Forbes decided that she needed to get an unbearable weight off her shoulders —it had been suffocating her for way too long already—, and before she had the chance to overthink it, confessed to her friends about the walking red flag named 'Damon Salvatore'. Needless to say, it would leave her friends speechless, absolutely livid, and with a thirst for justice that could only be satisfied by a wicked streak of rightful vengeance. )

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2011年1月30日

Mystic Falls residential witch Bonnie Bennett lets out a tired sigh. She is frustrated with herself beyond belief. She genuinely thought that Shane meant well, that her grams' research was something worth being continued. But recently uncovered information does not second that sentiment at all.

In a rare moment where the Professor leaves Bonnie on her own, she immediately takes her leave from campus before it's too late, and goes to her grams' house to pick up a couple of grimoires. Elena called her a short while earlier, voice unusually serious, and asked her to meet up with her and Caroline at her house. A dark voice whispered to her ear not to pay her any mind, but Bonnie is nothing if not resilient, so she ignored the voice instead, and accepted Elena's request.

She sees Caroline and Elena standing in front of the Gilbert Residence's entrance, most likely waiting for her arrival. Before long, just right when Bonnie is close enough for her to hear them speak, Elena opens her mouth, taking her by surprise.

"Bonbon, would you mind setting up a boundary spell? So that no one, not even invited vampires or humans, can enter, please." She is quiet, pensive, Bonnie notices, and if she isn't mistaken she sees a calculating gleam shielding her usually open eyes. No other words have been exchanged, and Bonnie already senses this is a serious matter, and in all likelihood not the kind of martyr-like behaviour the Salvatore vampires would normally expect of her, which, the witch concedes in the privacy of her mind, explains why they have not been invited to this meeting.

The Bennett girl nods once, and after her friends and herself enter the house, she chants softly under her breath in Latin, making it an impenetrable entrance. She turns to Caroline and Elena. "It's done."

Elena seems relieved at that, which makes Bonnie infinitely more curious —she already has her assumptions, and it seems they are not unfounded. Her friend motions for them to sit on the sofa, offering them a cup of coffee and blood respectively. She turns it down, but Caroline doesn't. Once they are all sat down, Elena starts speaking.

"Guys… I think we should forget the whole cure and Silas matter," she eventually confesses. Her expression has darkened a tad, just enough for Caroline and Bonnie to take note of it, and the instant they do they come to the relieving realisation that her friend has gone back to being her normal self; she has finally come to her senses. Bonnie sighs and feels her body's underlying tension dissipate. Caroline, on her part, raises her arm slightly in an obvious sign of 'hurrah', and they can't help but laugh slightly at that.

"Before getting into the heart of the matter… Lena, why now? Why not earlier?" Caroline questions her, and Bonnie looks at Elena, she too is interested in what she has to say.

Elena does not even stop to think about it, she must have her mind made up. "I don't know why, whether it was the sirebond weakening, the vampirism giving me a breath, or what exactly, but it felt as if the world finally allowed me to think clearly."

She looks her friends in the eyes, and they feel their heart shatter at the raw sincerity that emanates from them. "Truth is, I may hate Klaus, I may dislike Rebekah, but for God's sake if I don't understand their positions. And Elijah… he has betrayed us, betrayed me, but I kind of get why he did. It's not all cool, rainbows and roses, you guys know that —at the end of the day, Jenna, John, Alaric, they all are still dead and there's nothing I can do to bring them back without grave consequences—, but I think I've made my peace with it. Now, that said, for the love of my parents up in Heaven I have no fucking idea why I did what I did yesterday evening — I don't condone homicide." Her voice cracks at the end of the sentence and dragging along their own breaking hearts. Caroline and Bonnie instantly go to hug her, making her melt into their embrace.

Bonnie has to admit she doesn't understand either why she just followed with all the stuff happening. She detested Klaus too, still does, yeah, and much like Elena she does not like Rebekah, but she too still dislikes Damon Salvatore to this day, in all likelihood more than she could ever dislike the female Mikaelson, and it isn't as if she blindly trusts Stefan either. Kol Mikaelson did not deserve his death. She should not have listened to the professor. She should not have done many things, but it was too late. And of course, there is the issue of Kol's sireline not dying with him, which makes his sacrifice all the more unnecessary. She never thought she'd ever have an opinion like this about a Mikaelson, but she hates herself for her part in what had been done to them.

"Well…" Caroline interjects awkwardly. She has never been good at being delicate about things. "So what do we do now?"

Bonnie takes this as her cue to lay out her cards, and tell her friends what her thoughts on the whole thing are. "Shane wasn't being truthful. He cares not for the cure, only for Silas. He's desperate, says it's for his wife, but I've been digging on what Expression truly was and, considering his wife had been consumed by it, there's no soul to come back from the Other Side even if we were to tear it down." A minute to let her words sink in, horrible realisation painting a painful expression across their faces. But she rambles on, she has to keep going. "Kol came to me one time, asked me about magic, about what I knew of my line. He knew what he was talking about. I really think we've been nothing but fools for not believing in him sooner. And I know it won't miraculously make him come back from the Other Side, but at least we could make sure his goals of not awakening Silas are achieved."

Elena's cheeks have been carved with rivers of water and salt freely flowing down her face by the time Bonnie finishes saying her part, and she can only helplessly empathise with her. Caroline, who has kept silent for the past several minutes, feels like she has to follow her friends' footsteps and voice her musings.

"I've talked with Klaus. Well, more like we have been talking for a while now." She lowers her eyes to the floor, scratching her neck, shame overcoming her features. "If we're being honest, I have no idea how he keeps forgiving me, especially considering he's prone to holding grudges — not that he's a saint or anything, because he's not, but at least he has never done anything directly to me that wasn't in part warranted." She raises her head, taking a deep breath. "You didn't really see how he broke down, guys, when he saw his brother's corpse burning. You were busy keeping him in place, but I saw his stricken face. He's a terrible person, but I honestly think if one can still feel so deeply and genuinely, even if they really suck at expressing it —which he does—, then there's still something in them worth saving," she finishes, eyes wet and a resigned smile replacing her previous frown.

The girls remained there, standing in silent contemplation for a few minutes. Then, they look at each other, shoulders squaring, unwavering determination coursing through their veins.

Thus, Elena makes their conviction a reality, and states out loud: "We are going to fix this."

Before they go back to planning, the slight hesitation Bonnie has seen in Caroline fades, and that can only mean one thing; she has found her resolve to confess what has been eating her from the inside ever since she became aware of the supernatural.

"Actually…" She starts, "now that we're coming clean and all that, there is something else you must know."

Bonnie and Elena exchange puzzled looks, and a tad of dread settles in the witch's stomach. That doesn't sound good.

• • •

It would not be long until the sun set for the day, so after letting all out and raging with her friends for all the misfortunes they had overcome together, Caroline leaves the Gilbert residence and leisurely walks back home, head filled with all the information it has just absorbed like a brand new sponge. About a couple of streets away from her house, she takes notice of a new face in town. It is a tall young man, and judging by the crease between his eyebrows and the almost unnoticeable sweat drizzling from his forehead, he is lost. She feels suspicion steadily rising its ugly head, considering who their latest visitors have turned out to be. Another stranger coming into town out of nowhere does not seem the most trustworthy of people.

No sooner does that thought cross her mind, the man lifts his eyes from his mobile phone —wait, isn't that the latest model? Is he another of those elitists? If he's supernatural, he may know the Mikaelsons— and catches her gaze from across the street. He then starts to cross it, and Caroline cannot help but wonder whether she has just committed a fatal mistake. Woah, the situation is seriously getting to her if her paranoia has started acting just like Klaus'.

"Hello," he greets her with a slight, awkward smile. Caroline simply stares, dumbfounded, because not only does the guy have a noticeable European accent, he is incredibly hot. And… there she goes, back to her teenage American roots.

"Hey," she greets back, sending him a polite smile of her own in hopes of calming him down a bit. "You're new here, aren't you?" Yep, she has never been good at containing her curiosity, especially regarding any kind of gossip.

"Yeah, was it that obvious?" He scratches his neck with his free hand, the other one still grabbing his phone. "I'm Thomas, nice to meet you." He offers her a friendly hand to shake, or what she can only interpret as friendly, because, well, he is awkward.

"Caroline Forbes," she chirps back. When their hands touch, she sees his fiddly behaviour crack, expression cloudy. She feels uneasy at that, and starts mentally screaming, suddenly wanting nothing more than to reach her house already.

"Well, it seems I've just found out one of those me and my brother have come for," he muses, eyes thoughtful now. And poor Caroline can only tilt her head in absolute bewilderment, with no idea of what to do.

• • •

Oh, what would those who don't believe in the Originals say if they saw the Big Bad Wolf drowning his sorrows in alcohol and wallowing in misery, even if not outwardly. Two of his brothers? Dead. The third one? Whereabouts unknown, AWOL. His sister? Confabulating with the enemy, it seems, despite their clear intentions to eradicate them all as soon as they get the sireline severed. It has been a few months since he last felt this lonely, and that coupled with the lack of activity on the Scooby Gang front has his thousand-year-grown paranoia in full swing.

His attention is snatched up, however, when a glass of Dalmore is set before him out of nowhere. His neck almost cracks with how fast he turns to face the newcomer, and after checking it isn't any of the unsavoury doppelgänger's friends, his alarm mellows a tad and is replaced by cautious weariness. He knows for a fact it cannot be any acquaintance of the Salvatores.

The woman standing in front of him is obviously Asian, with a few strokes of Western here and there. Warm brown hair elegantly tied up in a formal updo, and her dressing choice makes her look like she has just left the office and is coming back home from a formal meeting. She brings the glass a bit closer to him, and sits in the stool next to him.

He arches an eyebrow at her bold move, and for one moment he feels as if he could forget his suffering and smirks with his typical, infuriating, arrogant smirk. "And who are you, love? New to town?"

She ponders her answer for a millisecond before promptly responding: "Actually, that's correct, I've just got here a couple of hours ago." She takes a long sip from her own glass. In turn, Klaus takes a moment to appreciate her, and what he sees has him mesmerised. There is an invisible aura surrounding her, just like the self-confidence she seems to radiate in every direction as effortlessly as lifting a feather. "I'm Kyriake Iordanou, and you would be…?"

"Klaus, lovely to meet you, sweetheart."

That stops her short, and his eyes narrow, mistrust briskly creeping up his back. But the woman pays no mind to any of that, and simply declares with a pensive look on her eyes: "So it's you who I've been sent for."

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Unknown location, 1988年10月3日

«When times change, and resolutions are challenged, the decayed sands of memories long forgotten will be brought to life for one final time. History tends to repeat itself, and whilst the Earth keeps spinning, those inhabiting it never seem to learn from past mistakes. So an ultimatum must be given, and it will do nothing short of deciding the course of the world for the times to come.»

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Unknown location, unknown time

Honey blonde curls cascading down the frozen figure laid inside a pillowed coffin. Unshed crystals prickle behind her closed eyes, her suffering unending even when she slumbers. The lonely woman's dreams are filled with the longing hopes of one day reuniting with the family she was robbed of so long ago. Her soul has suffered plenty — tiptoeing instead of running, caged instead of free.

But soon, very soon, it will change with the impending coming of a new age. For better or for worse, Time hadn't told and history was yet to be written on stone.

Meanwhile, all the way up in the sky, the stars unfreeze and so resumes their falling.