After Elena's announcement, the only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of Esther's pain. Everyone else was shocked silent for several moments. The first one to break it was Rebekah, who glared daggers at Elena. "You're lying. Our sister died of the plague."
Elena chuckled. "That's what this bitch would have you believe. The truth is that she made a devil's bargain with her sister. She got to have children through the use of magic, and her sister got the firstborn children of every generation of Mikaelson's. My mother paid the price for her selfishness. So did I."
"No, you're a liar!" Rebekah yelled.
"She's not. She's telling the truth, at least about that," Finn spoke, causing all of his siblings to look at him in shock.
"How do you know that?" Elijah asked.
"I was there when Dahlia took Freya away. She didn't die. She was stolen," Finn said sadly.
Elena laughed bitterly. "Stolen? Is that what you tell yourself to make you feel better, Uncle? She wasn't stolen. She was sold!"
"It's not that simple, child," Finn said sadly.
"Of course it is! Your mother gave up her firstborn child, so that she could have a family. I guess she figured that she could just have more to compensate for the loss of the first one," Elena said scathingly as she looked at Esther.
"I…It wasn't like that," Esther said.
"No? Tell us what it was like then, Mother. You truly gave your own child away?" Elijah asked in disbelief.
"I…I didn't want to, but it was the only way I could protect the rest of you," Esther said.
Klaus scoffed. "Protect us, Mother? You never protected us! And if Elena is to believed, you intended to murder us!"
Esther opened her mouth to speak, but the pain became overwhelming once more, and she could only scream.
"Elena, will you at least lessen what you are doing? We need to hear what she has to say," Elijah said.
"Fine," Elena said before loosening her fist a bit. She still kept Esther on the ground in pain, but now she was at least coherent enough to answer her children's questions.
"Well, Mother? Tell us the truth. What truly happened to our sister?" Elijah asked.
"Giving her up was my price for fertility magic. I tried to stop Dahlia, but I couldn't. She was too powerful. She threatened to take the rest of you if I did anything," Esther said.
"You sacrificed your own child!" Elena snarled.
"You do not understand how powerful Dahlia is," Esther said.
"Sure, I do. Its been ingrained into me since I was small. I know the dangers that evil woman presents. I also know that you chose to make that deal with her! You sold your own child!" Elena snapped, tightening her fist once more.
"If you're Freya's daughter, how did you escape Dahlia?" Finn asked.
"How did I escape? My mother protected me," Elena said before turning back to Esther. "That's what real mothers do. They don't give up. They protect their kids no matter the cost! You wouldn't know about that though, would you? You destroyed your child, and tonight you planned to do it again. What is it that you called your children? Abominations."
Both Rebekah and Kol flinched at Elena's words, both reeling from the fact that their own mother might have called them that.
"What does that make you? Huh? You're the biggest abomination of all. Any mother that would sell her own child and then try to destroy the rest can't be called anything else!" Elena yelled. Her fist tightened even further, causing blood to seep from Esther's nose and mouth.
"Elena, stop! This isn't who you are!" Stefan exclaimed.
Elena glared at him. "You don't know who I am, Stefan! You don't know the life that I've lived. You don't know what I have lost just to survive. I spent my entire life on the run until I was twelve! Then I lost my mom! All because of this evil bitch here!"
Caroline covered her mouth and cried for her friend. This might not totally be the friend she'd known her whole life, but she'd at least been the friend she'd known for the last six years. What she had to go through was awful. Caroline couldn't even imagine having to deal with all of that.
"Elena, look at me please," Elijah said gently before tentatively taking her by the arm to turn her towards him. "I know that you're angry. I understand, but you don't want to do this."
"Yes, I do, Elijah. I hate her! She took everything from me! She destroyed my life and my mom's!" Elena cried hatefully.
"I know, dear, but taking a life changes you forever. And it won't make you feel any better. The pain and anger you feel now will still be there if she's dead. Let her go. Let us deal with her," Elijah said. He completely understood where Elena was coming from. He wasn't even very inclined to save his mother's life after what she did to her own daughter and after what she'd planned for the rest of them. However, Elena was still innocent. He didn't want her to lose that.
"No! She deserves to suffer!" Elena yelled.
"Then let us make her suffer," Klaus said with an evil smirk as he made his way closer. He knew that this girl was not going to respond to his brother's spiel about the dissatisfaction of revenge. She was angry. The only thing she'd respond to was the idea of causing his mother more pain, and since that was something Klaus now wished too, it wasn't hard for him to argue it. "Death is a mercy. She doesn't deserve that, not yet. She needs to be punished.
Elena considered his words before finally opening her fist. She then uttered the incantation for a sleeping spell, and Esther immediately lost consciousness.
"That's it, sweetheart. She'll suffer the way she deserves," Klaus promised.
"Finn, Rebekah, send our guests home. This party is officially over," Elijah said.
Finn nodded before leaving the room. Rebekah followed him out.
Klaus picked his mother up off the floor. "I'll chain mother up in the dungeon."
"You have a dungeon? Of course, you have a dungeon," Caroline said.
Klaus smirked before turning to the two Salvatore's. "It's time for you two to leave as well. As Elena said, this is a family matter."
"Like hell! We're not going…" Damon trailed off as his neck was suddenly twisted to an angle, and he dropped to the floor unconscious.
"I've been wanting to do that for months," Elena said with her hand raised. She never really liked Damon. Stefan, she had fallen for, but Damon was just an irritating control freak. She put up with him because she had a reputation she had to uphold. That ended tonight. In fact, now she wasn't even a big fan of Stefan. The moment he tried to drive her off a bridge, she'd lost any feelings she once had for him.
"Elena!" Stefan chastised.
"What? I've had a night, okay? The only reason I didn't break yours too is so that you can carry his ass out," Elena said.
"No, Elena, we're not going anywhere. We deserve to know what's going on," Stefan said.
Elena laughed. "You lost the right to anything with me the night you tried to drive me off a bridge to get Klaus to give you what you wanted."
Elijah narrowed his eyes at Stefan. He hadn't known that. He was very close to killing the idiot now. He might not understand much right now, but one thing that was clear was that Elena was his niece, and this boy had tried to harm her. "Stefan, I suggest you take your leave now before you end up with worse than a broken neck."
Reluctantly, Stefan put his brother over his shoulders and left the room.
"I'm not leaving," Caroline said. She wanted that made clear. She wanted to know everything that was going on and she also wanted to help Elena.
"That's fine, love,' Klaus said before carrying his mother out of the room.
Xxxxxxxxxxx
Elena sat on the couch in the living room. Caroline was right next to her holding her hand. "You don't hate me?"
"No, I don't hate you, Elena. Your name's not really Elena, is it?" Caroline asked.
"Yes and no. I've been Elena for years. I'm used to it now. It helps that I have all her memories. But I used to be someone else," Elena told her.
"Anyway, I don't hate you. I don't really understand much of what's going on, and I can't say it doesn't hurt that you've keeping all of this a secret from me, but you're still my friend," Caroline said.
"I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. My mom made me promise never to tell anyone who I really am. I broke that promise tonight in my rage for Esther," Elena explained?
Caroline nodded. She could understand that. She couldn't begin to imagine what this whole thing had to be like for Elena. She lost her mother and then had to contend with a new family she didn't really know. Plus, she couldn't talk about what she'd been through. "You must miss your mom a lot."
"I miss her so much, Caroline. I'd give anything to be with her again," Elena cried.
Just then, the Mikaelson's all filed in. "Alright, I don't know about anyone else, but I could definitely use a drink," Klaus said before he went over to a glass table with a bunch of liquor on it and started pouring. He passed out drinks to his siblings before bringing two over to Elena and Caroline. "I imagine you could use this too, love."
Elena took the offered drink.
"Elena, I know its been a long night, so we'll try to make this quick. We'll only ask you a couple of questions tonight. We can talk again later," Elijah said before sitting down on the other side of her. Finn sat on the other couch while Rebekah and Kol took two chairs. Klaus stood off to the side.
"Sure," Elena said.
"How did Freya survive for a thousand years?" Finn asked.
"A spell that made her and Dahlia immortal. They sleep for a hundred years and grow power. They don't age during that time. When they're awake, they're impervious to harm," Elena said.
"But you spent twelve years with her, didn't you?" Elijah asked.
"Yeah. We don't really understand how, Mom thought that my magic somehow anchored her to me and kept her awake. We don't know if it did the same to Dahlia. That's why we were always running. The whole thing was starting to take its toll on me though, and my mom worried that if Dahlia wasn't already awake, she would be in a few short years, and she would sense me. So, four years ago, she placed me in the body of a doppelganger," Elena explained.
Elijah frowned before taking the glass of bourbon from his niece's hand. If his math was correct, and it was, that would make her sixteen, not eighteen.
Elena rolled her eyes at her uncle, realizing that he'd figured out that she wasn't as old as she made herself out to be. "It didn't work out the way she thought it would though. She thought I'd lose my magic, and there would be nothing for Dahlia to sense, but that didn't happen. In fact, I think the blood of a doppelganger made my magic stronger."
"Um, Elena, you know I'm bad at math, but four plus twelve does not equal eighteen," Caroline said.
"Yes, exactly how old are you?" Klaus asked.
"Well, age is kind of relative in this case," Elena said.
"Elena," Elijah said a bit sternly.
"Well, technically, the body I'm in is eighteen," she said.
"Elena," Elijah warned again.
"Sixteen… in two months," Elena finally answered.
"You're fifteen?" Caroline asked in disbelief.
"My mom put me into the body of an older kid purposely. It was another way she could camouflage me from Dahlia. I know what she did seems extreme, but she was trying to protect me," Elena said to Caroline.
Caroline sighed. She didn't like what Freya Mikaelson did. She felt like she'd lost her friend in a way, even if she sort of gained another one. But she was in no position to judge the woman. She could never understand the desperation she probably felt. "I imagine that a mother would do anything to protect her child. I have a question now. Is the Elena Gilbert that existed before you took over still there?"
"Sort of. She's a part of me. I have some traits from her. I have all her memories. It's kind of like she and I are one person now," Elena explained.
Caroline nodded. She didn't know if she fully understood it, but she decided to take as that her old friend was still there. She was just a part of someone else now.
"Can this conversation end now? I wanna go home and sleep. I'll come back tomorrow if you want," Elena told the others.
"Oh, sweetheart, you're not going anywhere," Klaus said matter-of-factly.
Elena glared at him. "You can't keep me here."
"Watch me, love. You're fifteen-years-old. What you need is supervision, and you haven't had it for quite a while," Klaus said.
Elena smirked. "You can't make me stay here. I can incapacitate you with ease."
"Perhaps, but you're not going to do that," Elijah said in a firm tone.
Elena turned and scoffed at her before turning her head.
"Uh, uh," Elijah said before taking a hold of her chin and turning her to face him. "Look at me. You're not going to do that because it would be an abuse of magic, and I think you've been taught better than that. Haven't you?"
Elena sighed unhappily but said nothing.
"Haven't you?" Elijah asked again.
"Yes," Elena said grudgingly. Her mother definitely never allowed her to use magic to avoid rules or punishment. She had used it once to get out of a punishment, and her mother had been less than pleased. Her punishment had been doubled.
"Uh huh. That's what I thought. So, you're not going to use magic to avoid supervision. You're going to do as we ask because we're your family. I know you don't know us too well, but we are what you have right now. You will be staying here. That isn't up for discussion," Elijah said firmly.
"I don't have my things," Elena said.
"You can borrow some clothes from me tonight," Rebekah said. She had a lot of issues with Elena, but if she truly was her niece, and as young as she said, she would forgive her.
"I could also stop by your house and get some things for you," Caroline said. She wasn't sure how she felt about Elena staying with the Mikaelsons' given the history between them, but like it or not, they were her only family right now, and Elena clearly needed family.
"There you go. We'll see about getting the rest of your belongings tomorrow," Elijah told Elena.
"Fine," Elena relented begrudgingly.
"Good. Go on with Rebekah upstairs. I'll see about getting a room set up for you. Any other questions can wait until tomorrow," Elijah said.
Elena nodded before standing up and leaving the room with Rebekah.