"I don't understand." Elena said firmly, refusing the seat that was offered to her and continuing to pace the lounge, one arm crossed over her stomach defensively and the other at her mouth as she chewed on her thumbnail. "It's not possible that I have magic. If you're saying that I acted out of fear or anger, or whatever, for…for whatever-"
"Elijah's body being desecrated." Kol interrupted dryly, ignoring the withering glare Elena shot in his direction.
"It doesn't make any sense!" She snapped, glaring at him. "No offense." She muttered as a lame afterthought, turning to Elijah who shrugged easily, dismissing any notion of her words causing him any hurt. "I have been in life or death situations many times. Don't you think that if I had this…this dormant power inside of me I would have tapped into it literally any other time before now?" She threw her hands up in the air in frustration.
Rebekah and Klaus shared what could potentially be construed as a guilty look, while Kol and Elijah continued to watch Elena pace intently.
"I watched my parents drown to death, while I was in the car with them." She laughed manically, ignoring the looks that were shared between Bonnie and Caroline, and Marcel and Davina. "I was kidnapped by God knows how many vampires; I watched Klaus murder Aunt Jenna, and I got murdered by him. Uncle John died, Klaus killed Tyler, Damon nearly died; Jeremy was killed a dozen times! Ric was turned into a psychotic killing machine! Rebekah killed me, and nearly killed Matt too! Don't you think these crazy powers would have kicked in sometime before now?"
Sucking in a deep breath, Elena only then realised that she'd been shouting. Collapsing into a seat next to Elijah, she dropped her head into her hands, taking in a calming breath when she felt his hand gently rub her back.
"She has a point." Rebekah shrugged, meeting the gazes of the room easily.
"Unless she couldn't access that magic for some reason." Kol mused thoughtfully, sipping from the glass of alcohol in his hand. "I mean, think about it, death or near death is as close to a trigger as you can get for magic that's been suppressed subconsciously. She has been given plenty of reasons to access the magic from that standpoint, unless it was suppressed deliberately."
"Like Klaus's werewolf side." Elena sighed, running her hands through her hair and sitting upright again, leaning into Elijah's touch slightly. "Who would have done that? And how?"
"Your parents and my mom knew about Mikael." Bonnie said softly, finally joining the debate as it cooled slightly. "What if my mom did something to your powers to try and keep us safe?"
"How would that keep us safe?" Elena protested. "She didn't take your magic away."
"But you're the doppelganger, Elena." Caroline pointed out. "You don't really play by the normal rules."
Huffing, Elena stood from her seat, beginning to pace in frustration again as Elijah ran his hand through his hair, grimacing as he watched the agitation bubbling inside of Elena.
"So, what the hell unlocked it?" She sighed, none of the room missing her biting sarcasm even as she started picking at the undersides of her nails. "You guys saw it, not me. I don't even remember what happened when all the magic actually started."
"It was weird." Caroline shrugged, tossing her hair over her shoulder when everyone turned in her direction. "I've never seen anything like it before." She defended, folding her arms over her chest. "It's not like we haven't seen some wacky stuff."
Elena paused in her pacing, looking at her friend with a furrowed brow. "What do you mean though, Caroline, what was weird?"
Frowning to herself, Caroline fiddled with a piece of her hair, a gesture Elena had long since learned was one of the blonde's concentrating habits. "I don't really know," she mused eventually, "I guess…I guess it was like there was two different types of magic at once."
"What does that even mean?" Rebekah muttered, surprised when her younger brother agreed with Caroline.
"She's right, there was this pulse of magic that burst from Elena, but it was like it was rooted in two totally different types of energy. Most of the time it was intertwined and it was this purple glow, but it split itself in two as well; a vibrant blue and a pulsing pink."
"Oh my God that was totally it!" Caroline exclaimed, pointing a triumphant finger at Kol. "I thought maybe I was seeing things."
"No," Klaus said softly, "you weren't seeing things. It did separate like that, blue and pink."
"Blue?" Elijah asked softly, a frown marring his own features. "What sort of blue?"
"Light." Klaus answered easily. "It was a very light shade of blue, but it glowed so bright. You could see the amount of power just in how much the light glowed."
Taking note of something so small no one else in the room could identify it, Elena frowned at Elijah, moving to his side in a heartbeat. "What is it?"
Squeezing Elena's hand gently, Elijah sighed. "The Hollow, her power glowed like that; the same colour."
"Oh my God!" Caroline burst, clamping a hand over her mouth when the heads in the room abruptly turned to face her, confusion written on their features. "That light I saw, in Elena's room, that was totally the same!"
"She was getting a good look at all of us, at Elena." Davina nodded, flicking through pages in the grimoire she held. "It makes sense."
"No." Elena hedged, shaking her head. "No, it doesn't make sense. If this blue light is the Hollow's magic, then why the hell was it what I used to kill her?"
"Of course." Kol breathed, standing from his seat and appearing in front of one of the bookshelves in a fluid movement, searching for a particular tome for a few moments before he pulled it down, blowing dust off the cover. "It makes total sense."
"Care to fill the rest of us in?" Rebekah sniped, glaring at her little brother.
Kol rolled his eyes, turning to where Elena and Elijah sat. "Elena, you're right, you've been put in life-threatening situations constantly, but have you ever been threated directly by magic?"
Opening her mouth to reply, Elena hesitated, wracking her brain. "No, I-I don't think so, I mean Esther tried to kill me, but she used ghosts, so I guess not?"
"Right!" Kol nodded, turning back to the book in front of him and flipping through a few more pages. "Now, lets say that Bonnie's mother did bind your magic, there's no completely full-proof way to get rid of someone's abilities, it has to be bound to a tether, an object or a place."
Exchanging a confused look with Elijah, Elena fiddled with the necklace she wore around her neck, oblivious to the dawning understanding that came over Caroline.
"So, if Bonnies mother was aware of Mikael, and that he was going to come for Elena, it makes absolute sense that she would lock her magic away to the best of her ability."
"It does?" Elena questioned dryly, raising an eyebrow at him when he turned to her.
"It does." He said firmly, not leaving any room for questioning. "Killing Elena to stop Nik from breaking his curse wouldn't have been enough for Mikael, he would have wanted to use her to kill Nik, if not all of us."
Elena shook her head, interrupting Kol again before anyone else in the room could pipe up. "This doesn't make any sense, Kol. And, how would Abby even know any of this?"
"Bennetts are extremely powerful witches, Elena, for all we know the ancestors could have told her what could arise if she didn't act. Regardless, Abby's motivations don't matter." He dismissed, lapsing into silence as he flicked through the book in front of him again, clearly searching for something.
Taking Elena's hand, Elijah squeezed gently, offering her an encouraging smile when she looked at him.
"See, Abby knew you had magic, and she knew the man that was coming after you was evil and would find a way to use that for his own gain. So she had to find a way to bind your magic that was as close to full-proof as she could get; so that Mikael would never sense or be able to unlock the power himself." Kol turned back to the room, holding up a page of the book that Elena could now see was a grimoire.
"Really?" Elena frowned, narrowing her eyes at Kol. "You've been hunting for a page about doppelgangers? Like we don't already know enough about them?"
"In ancient mythology, doppelgangers were thought to be an evil double of a person, or a harbinger of bad luck, or both, but you are the doppelganger. So, what happens if the doppelganger isn't the double anymore?"
"The more you talk, the less sense you make." Elena sighed, rubbing her brow tiredly. "I'm clearly still a double, I met Katherine more than enough times."
"Don't think in such a literal sense." Kol dismissed, shaking his head. "You're a doppelganger, which means all the laws of nature get twisted up inside of you, but they still have a defined way to work; you represent two things, yourself, and the evil double of someone else. Now, if Abby bound these two together, merging the identities and tying your magic to your so-called evil identity, you wouldn't be able to access the magic unless your identities were split again."
"Which the Hollow did accidentally." Bonnie realised, the first to catch up with Kol's frantic waffling. "When the Hollow possessed you, she entered your mind, she forced her way in there, and in the process she split apart two parts of your consciousness, releasing your magic, Elena."
Elena nodded dazedly, her brain struggling to keep up with the words Kol and Bonnie were throwing at her. "Right, okay, fine. But then why did my magic appear the same as the Hollow's?"
Kol waved a hand dismissively. "Just a side-effect. She jumped in a doppelgangers head and she got more than she bargained for." He shrugged. "Because she was in the middle of the split in your mind, a piece of her got cinched when she left, clinging onto your magic and your special blood."
Dropping her head into her hands, Elena aggressively rubbed her brow, trying to ease the headache she could feel coming on from trying to follow Kol.
"There's still one thing I don't understand." Kol mused, resulting in a groan from Elena.
"I do." Caroline said softly, drawing Elena's confused gaze and interrupting what would be another stellar ramble slash lecture from Kol. "The pink magic," she continued, meeting Elena's eyes, "I understand it."
"How?" Elena asked, frowning when Caroline stood up and walked over to her.
Sitting beside her friend, Caroline didn't say a word, carefully fishing Elijah's necklace out from under Elena's top and gently unclasping it. Taking hold of Elena's hand, she turned it palm up, gently depositing the necklace in her palm, smiling when it started glowing again, a soft, but brilliant, pink.
"That's how." Caroline whispered, smiling more at the stunned look on Elena's face.
"What is that?" Elena breathed, watching her hand glowing in awe. "How did you know about that?"
"When we were looking for Elijah, we found his necklace outside the cemetery, do you remember?"
Elena nodded, her gaze still fixed onto the glow emanating from the silver charms in her hand.
"It glowed like that as soon as I put it in your hand." Caroline sighed. "The same glow that came from you in that warehouse, Elena."
Guest: She do be a whole witch! The gang are going through it, but they'll get there! I'm building towards Elena and Hope, slowly but surely. Yay the chefs kisses! Aha awh no!
HisSecretLover18: Thank you! I feel like there definitely needed to be some reunion before the explanations came into force, but it's definitely about time I got into them properly.
QueenAsura: Awh that's so sweet, thank you so much!
lauramorgenstern: I've been missing some soft fluff for our babies, definitely was fun to get back to! Oh, absolutely not, there had to be some drama when it comes to a Mikaelson meeting! Yes, we made it back to the pool, I couldn't resist! I'm so glad it came back to a scene you specifically enjoyed.
yellowbessie: 1. I have so much love for them, I can't write a fic without them! 2. Hell yes, especially when it comes to the Mikaelson siblings. 3. Yes the pool! I'm glad you enjoyed me cycling back to it!
Well guys, it's been a hot minute; I'm sorry about that! It's been pretty tough balancing a new job with time to write. This isn't the most exciting chapter, but hopefully it clears some bits up for you all!
As always, I'm excited to hear back from you all, and hopefully it won't be so long until you hear from me this time.
Until next time,
~ I x