AN: Hi hello, yes, I'm back! A miracle, I know. I love this episode, so this chapter was actually a joy to write despite being way too fucking long. It combines so many things I love: Upstate New York, creepy little girl ghosts, art! It's like it was written especially for me, lol.

Anyway, enjoy!

Addendum

(n.)

A thing to be added; an addition.

Chapter Twenty-One

Provenance

aka

Talking With Strangers

Louisville, Kentucky: July 2018

They're in a bar and the music is too loud and Sam's starting to wish he's the one who got to pick their nightly outing. He's in a corner at an obnoxiously high table, on his laptop, while Dean's at the bar and Elena's on the dance floor. He'd like to be in a nice quiet diner, or maybe a café.

He's hoping the case he's found is enough to spoil someone's vibe because he's way past ready to go. Sam gathers up his notebook and laptop and makes his way across the bar to Dean. Ignoring the pretty redhead who is so clearly trying to get Dean's attention, Sam unceremoniously dumps his stuff onto the bar beside Dean.

The redhead gives Sam a sideways look that he ignores, and Dean continues to ignore them both in favor of watching Elena dance. The floaty black skirt she wore in Cape Girardeau is back, this time paired with a black tank top and thigh high black boots. Elena is bewitchingly enraptured by the music and saying she has captured more than her fair share of attention is the understatement of the century. She has the entire bar under her thrall, but unlike Cape Girardeau, Elena doesn't seem to be doing it on purpose, the joy in her expression and movement is evident, and there is none of the well-honed sex appeal of her previous dance. She's in her own world of music and movement. If she's dancing for anyone beside herself, it could only be Dean. Sam almost feels bad for the redhead. Dean has barely looked away from Elena since she hit the dance floor.

"All right, I think we got something," Sam says, all business.

Dean spares him a glance. "Yeah?"

Sam nods. "Can you get Elena? I don't wanna say this more than once."

"Sure thing," Dean says.

He doesn't make any moves that Sam can see, just looks at her, but within moments Elena is glancing their way questioningly and Dean is nodding. She stops dancing, slipping through the crowd towards them.

Their exchange is enough for the redhead to give up and return to her friends across the bar where they commiserate about the alluring brunette who has enraptured the entire bar and is seemingly unaware of it.

"What, you're not gonna tell her we're reality TV scouts?" Sam asks Dean.

"Tell who?" Dean replies genuinely confused.

"The redhead," Sam says slowly, amused.

"Oh, her," Dean says carelessly. "I thought she was trying to get the bartender's attention."

Sam shakes his head, smiling. "No, just yours."

Dean shrugs. "Didn't realize."

"I've noticed," Sam says. "You haven't really paid much attention to any other girl in a while."

Dean shrugs again, but the look on his face is one part defensive and one part shy and Sam kind of wants to laugh but he also doesn't want to spook him.

Dean clears his throat. "Why don't you go tell the redhead you're a reality TV scout," he suggests.

Sam shakes his head, speaking firmly. "Dean, no thanks, I can get my own dates."

Dean nods in agreement. "Yeah, you can but you don't."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Sam asks defensively.

Elena arrives at Dean's side, leaning against him, smiling into his shoulder, so Dean changes the subject.

"Nothing. What you got?"

Elena turns her head to look at Sam, resting it on Dean's shoulder. Behind them, Sam can see the wistful look on the redhead's face, and now he does feel bad for her. While there are some girls in the bar that are writhing in jealousy at the awe Elena inspires, the redhead looks very much like she wishes she had someone to lean against who would put an arm around her and tuck her into his side like she is the most important person in his life.

Sam looks away, realizing he is beginning to lose control of himself.

He clears his throat, begins, pretends nothing but the potential case exists. "Mark and Ann Telesca of New Paltz, New York-"

"New York!" Elena says excitedly.

Sam gives her a confused look.

"New Paltz is less than two hours from the city," Dean says, providing an explanation for her excitement.

"You've been?" Sam asks, surprised.

Dean shakes his head. "Nah, Jeremy had a piece appear in a show there last fall, right Elena?"

She nods, smiling.

"Oh well, sorry to ruin your happy association with the place, but Ann and Mark were both found dead in their own home a few days ago," Sam says, getting them back on track. "Throats were slit. There were no prints, no murder weapons, all doors and window locked from the inside."

Elena makes a face and steals Dean's beer, taking a healthy swallow.

"Could just be a garden variety murder you know, not our department," Dean replies to Sam distractedly as he takes his drink back.

Elena grins suddenly, looking delightfully mischievous. Before anyone can question her look, she leans forward, pressing her face into Dean's neck again, her lips, cold from his drink, shockingly cold against his skin.

He jumps, pinching her waist in retaliation. "Brat," he mutters fondly as she bursts into giggles.

Sam waves a hand to get their attention. "No." He shakes his head. "Dad says different."

This recapture Dean's attention. "What do you mean?"

Sam digs their father's journal out of his pile of research.

"Dad noted three murders in the same area of upstate New York." He points to the annotation in their father's small, precise print. "First one here in 1912, second one right here in 1945, and the third in 1970, the same M.O. as the Telescas. Their throats were slit, doors were locked from the inside. Now so much time had passed between murders that nobody checked the pattern, except Dad. He kept his eyes peeled for another one."

"And now we got one," Dean says. "All right, I'm with ya. It's worth checking out."

Elena nods in agreement, though she has made up her mind to agree since Sam mentioned the location.

"We'll leave first thing tomorrow," Dean says.

Sam makes a face. It's not that he wants to drive to New York immediately, he'd just much rather do that than stay here.

"C'mon Sam," Dean says, seeing his reluctance. "You don't always have to be the straight man."

Elena is about to take Sam's side, if only for his sake, when a new song starts. Her face lights up.

"Dean, we should start early, it's a long drive," she says sweetly. When Dean nods in agreement she turns to Sam. "Sam, we can leave in five minutes."

"Why not now?" Sam asks.

She grins blithely. "I love this song."

Even Sam has to laugh at that.

She slips out of Dean's embrace, heading back for the dance floor, only letting go of Dean's hand at the last moment.

Dean watches her dance, the way she seems to radiate even under the dim lighting.

Sam watches him watch her. "She seems happier lately," Sam says.

Dean nods, grinning to himself, still watching her.

"So do you," Sam says.

Dean throws a bar napkin at him. "Go talk to the redhead."

Sam rolls his eyes, opening his laptop again. "Let me show you these cave drawings I found on the Guardian's Archive," he says instead. "The moderator's claiming they're Viking in origin, which is insane because supposedly they're in Elena's hometown back in Virginia."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "Vikings in Virginia? Sounds like a bad TV movie."

He squints at the screen. "What are they?" he asks.

"Names," Sam replies, pointing he continues. "That's Elijah, and there's Rebekah. That one's Niklaus."

"What do they have to do with the curse of the sun and the moon?" Dean asks.

"According to the moderator they would become the first vampires."

"The Originals," Dean says. "Right, I recognize the names now. Klaus sounds like a nickname for Niklaus."

Sam nods. "I remember Dad once said no hunter ever survived going after them."

Dean snorts. "That's what he told you? He told me that's where good hunters go to lose their heads – literally."

New Paltz, New York

Dean and Elena meet Sam outside of the Telesca house.

"What do you got?" Sam asks.

"We just swept the Telescas with EMF. It's clean," Dean says.

Sam nods. "I checked the history of the house at the local library. No hauntings, no violent crimes," he says, then adds, "Nothing strange about the Telescas themselves either."

"All right, so if it's not the people and it's not the house, then maybe it's the contents. A cursed object or something," Dean says.

"I guess we're heading back in then," Sam says.

Elena shakes her head. "The house is clean."

"Yeah, I know, Dean just said that."

Dean chimes in. "No, she means it's empty. No furniture, nothing."

"Where's all their stuff?" Sam wonders out loud.

Elena's phone starts to ring so she walks away to take the call.

"Hey Elena," Tyler's familiar voice fills her ear.

"Hey Ty, what's up?" she asks.

"Uh, nothin'," Tyler hesitates. "It's just, have you heard from Ryan lately?"

When Elena returns Sam and Dean have already figured out where the Telescas' stuff has gone.

"What's an estate sale?" Dean asks.

"It's like a garage sale for WASPs," Sam replies.

"Who was it?" Dean asks, referring to the phone call Elena took.

"Tyler," she answers. "He was looking for a mutual friend."

"Oh?" Sam is clearly curious.

Elena shrugs. "I haven't heard from him," she says honestly. "But I do know the perfect person to help us with this case."

Sam and Dean exchange puzzled looks.

"Why do we need help?" Dean asks as Sam asks his own question.

"Who?"

Elena answers Dean's question first. "Well, Dean, we are about to enter a world you've barely even seen on TV because those shows bore you, so calling in an expert snob is the best thing we could do right now."

She turns to Sam. "And Sam, I was just recently talking to a friend of mine who said he'd be in the area for a few days." She pauses, then drops her ace in the hole. "Attending art auctions."

They arrive at the estate sale separately from Elena, both out of their comfort zone and wondering when the hell Elena and her mysterious friend will get there. The auction house is snooty and imposing and Dean won't stop fiddling with the collar of his shirt.

"I feel ridiculous," Dean mutters, looking down at the rest of his outfit in disgust.

"We're blending in," Sam reminds him, a bit more at home in Elena's imposed dress code.

Before she left to meet her friend, she'd issued a set of instructions that made both of their heads spin.

"Dean: wash your car – I can't believe I just had to say to that to you – do valet parking, don't complain, just blend in. Both of you: you don't have to wear suits, but at least collared shirts – no plaid, no flannel." She holds up two fingers. "Two buttons unbuttoned at most; shirts tucked in. No jeans, preferably dark colored pants, black or navy, but tan is fine too. Wear a belt, leather, no canvas." She drops a finger, pointing at Dean. "I won't tell you not to wear biker boots, Dean, but at least make sure they're not dirty. Look clean, look neat, you don't have to look like you go to the Hamptons every summer but please, at least appear to look like you know where they are. Any questions?"

They both just shook their heads weakly and so she'd left, turning back only to remind them, "Oh, and tip well."

"She was still wearing her cut-offs and my shirt when she left," Dean reminds Sam. "Why do we have to blend in?"

"I'm sure she's changing before she gets here," Sam replies in a low undertone.

When a well-coifed gray-haired man approaches them, they both post on perma-smiles.

"Good afternoon," Sam says.

"Good afternoon," the man returns briskly, all business. "And you are?"

Sam and Dean exchange a brief, panicked look. Elena hadn't exactly told them what their cover was.

"We're guests," Sam says vaguely, not wanting to contradict Elena before she appears.

The man gives them a skeptical look.

"I'm Daniel Blake, this is my auction house. Now gentlemen this is a private showing, and I'll need a name to confirm with the guest list."

From behind them, a refined, accented voice cuts in. "Daniel, these are the friends of mine I mentioned earlier."

Daniel looks immediately contrite. "My apologies, Mr. Mikaelson."

Sam and Dean turn to see their rescuer. He is a well-dressed brunet man, everything about him is precise, from his haircut to the cut of his suit, to his clean-shaven, strong face.

Beside him is Elena, looking utterly flawless in a little black dress, her hair pulled up into an elegant chignon. She looks over her shoulder, revealing her back to be completely bare, the fine black material of her dress only covering her from the waist down.

When she looks back there's a slightly mischievous look in her eyes that tells Dean she had no reason to look back except to make sure he saw the back of her dress – or lack thereof.

"Think nothing of it," Mr. Mikaelson says. He gestures to the brothers. "This is Sam and Dean." He touches Elena's elbow, perfectly polite. "And this is Elena." He pronounces her name with a hard E, turning it to E-Lain-uh, separating the first syllable from the rest in contrast to the soft flow of Uh-lain-uh, lending an exotic sound to the familiar moniker.

Daniel Blake looks at her, one part curiosity to two-parts awe. He stares so long that it would make anyone comfortable, but Elena handles it as graciously as ever.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Elena says.

"The pleasure is all mine," Daniel says, his awe still evident in his tone as well as his face. "Any friend of Elijah Mikaelson is a friend of mine." He looks between the four of them. "Please, enjoy," he says before leaving them, glancing back at Elena more than once.

Once he is gone, Elena properly introduces them. "Dean, Sam, this is Elijah Mikaelson, an old friend. Elijah, this is Dean and Sam Winchester."

The brothers shake his hand.

"Mikaelson?" Sam asks. "Isn't that the name of the little girl you babysat for in New Orleans, Elena?"

Elena looks slightly startled, reminding Sam that Elena doesn't know he overheard that conversation.

"My niece," Elijah says helpfully, smiling with deep affection for the little girl.

Elena nods, recovering quickly. "Hope," she says, then smiles at Elijah. "You know, Hope and Sam actually have the same birthday."

Elijah smiles at Sam. "What a notable coincidence."

Sam nods. "I didn't know that."

Elena shrugs. "There was a lot going on, it slipped my mind."

Elijah and Elena exchange a look that speaks volumes. They have commiserated on exactly how much was going on at that particular time. Sam is dying to know exactly what Elijah knows that they do not.

Dean looks between the two of them uneasily. To Dean, they seem very cozy. But Sam senses an undercurrent of tension that he finds intriguing.

Elijah clears his throat. "So, Elena tells me you are looking for an item that previously belonged to an Ann and Mark Telesca?"

Sam nods. "Yeah, that's right, although we're not sure what it is, yet."

"That's perfectly fine. I've asked Daniel's daughter Sarah if she would mind showing us their estate." His gaze fixes on something. "Ah, here she is now."

A pretty brunette in a one-shouldered dark green dress approaches them, smiling.

"Hello, Mr. Mikaelson," she says.

"Hello, Miss Blake," Elijah returns.

"Please, call me Sarah."

"Of course, Sarah, and you may call me Elijah." He gestures to the brothers. "This is Sam and Dean Winchester."

She shakes the brothers' hands.

He touches Elena's elbow. "And this is Elena Gilbert."

Sarah and Elena shake hands, Sarah looking at Elena curiously, like her father did, but without the uncomfortable implications.

"Have we met before, Miss Gilbert?" she asks, studying her face.

"Elena, please." She shakes her head. "And I don't think so."

"Hmm." Sarah is still studying Elena's face intently, because of this she misses the alarmed looks that Elena and Elijah and Sam and Dean exchange.

Elijah's expression clears after a moment, easily solving the mystery. "Elena's brother is a student at the Pratt Institute," he tells Sarah, helpfully prompting her memory.

"You don't mean Jeremy Gilbert, do you?" she asks eagerly.

"Yes, actually, I do," Elijah replies. "Have you met?"

Sarah nods, looking excited. "I attended Pratt's student show this past spring with my father. Your brother had a stunning piece – it was the centerpiece of the show." She addresses Elena. "No wonder I recognize you, you were the model for it."

Before the relief that this kind, polished woman in front of them hasn't met Elena's doppelganger sets in, Sam realizes exactly what she said.

Dean speaks, "I didn't know that."

"Me either," Sam chimes in.

Elena smiles, looking unfazed. "Jeremy sometimes uses me as a stand-in for some of his more cerebral work." She turns back to Sarah. "After all, why wouldn't you use the face you're most familiar with?"

"Yes, I was just in the city and Jeremy was kind enough to show it to me, he did you justice," Elijah adds, meaning laced through his words.

Sarah nods. "It was fascinating." Since Sam and Dean haven't seen it, she explains, "It seemed to be a portrait of a single girl, but upon closer examination, that same girl," she gestures to Elena with her champagne glass, "You were everywhere. Even in the shadows, even in your eyes, like you were staring down your reflection, or your own double."

"That sounds fascinating," Sam says, seeing that Dean can't respond. He is staring at Elena, well aware of the implications of this painting.

"Yes." Sarah nods again, this time fervently. "It was masterful, especially for someone so young." She turns back to Elena. "It was curious; he called it The Doppelganger Effect."

"Curious?" Dean asks, watching Elena, who seems to have turned to stone, as she's wont to do when she is hiding.

"Yes, well, with a name like that, you'd think it would be a self-portrait," Sarah says obliviously. In this audience the subtext of Jeremy's work is completely lost on her and her alone.

"My brother's never been fond of self-portraits," Elena says simply.

Dean knows it's the truth, Elena's mentioned it before, but Elena is always best at concealing deeper truths behind more convenient ones.

"Well, he's very talented," Sarah continues, unaware of the tension surrounding her. "My father was quite upset when he refused to sell it."

"Oh, he'd never sell it," Elena says with certainty.

Elijah nods. "I can't imagine he would." The distant look in his eyes makes Dean tense.

"The doppelganger effect, isn't that a psychological condition that occurs during seizures or schizophrenic episodes?" Sam asks.

"Very good." Elena nods. "Jeremy told me his inspiration came from an article he read about a man who attempted to kill himself after seeing his doppelganger due to a tumor."

"Really?" Dean asks. "Is that where it came from, Elena?"

"Yes." She looks him dead on. "It was based off a chapter from a book the writer had written, I can give you the title if you'd like to read it, Dean."

Elena's tone is mild to anyone who doesn't know her, but Dean looks put in his place – perhaps only because she just asked him if he wants to read an article about a rare psychological event.

Sam holds back a laugh. "I would like to read it, Elena," he says sincerely.

She nods, looking satisfied. "I'll ask Jeremy for the link." While everyone but Sarah might know who Jeremy's real inspiration was, now the others also know that the article exists, and Jeremy did read it.

"What a unique artist," Sarah says. "I predict a bright future in the art world for your brother, Elena."

Elena smiles gracefully, and says, "Thank you, that means so much coming from someone like you, you are the expert, after all."

Sam wonders if anyone else in the world could make a genuinely kind compliment seem cutting only to those chosen few. She might be genuinely complimenting the other woman, but she's also reminding the rest of them that they've strayed from their purpose by being more focused on her than their case. Specifically, he wonders if her doppelganger can do it, too.

Elijah, understanding Elena's subtext perfectly, recaptures their attention. "Sarah, if you would please show us to the Telescas' estate?"

Sarah nods. "Certainly, right this way."

They follow her. Dean, not as polite as Elijah, presses the palm of his hand to Elena's bare back, in the pretense of leading her. She shivers deliciously at the contact, leaning into him.

Sam looks at Elijah, who clearly clocks the gesture. Elijah doesn't look jealous, simply amused – and maybe a tad wistful.

Elena leans into whisper something in Dean's ear that makes him grin in a way that makes Sam thankful he can't hear it.

Elijah, however, does hear her ask Dean if he likes her dress. Elena's playful tone is far different from Katherine's, so the suggestiveness in her tone doesn't bother him as he suspects it might otherwise.

Sarah stops. "Here is everything from the Telesca estate."

She clearly wants to ask why they want to look only at the estate of a couple who was murdered in their home, but she doesn't. Sam wonders if it's out of respect for Elijah as an individual or respect for his money – because everything about Elena's mysterious friend screams money.

The four of them fan out to look through the items. Sam can't help but notice that Elijah pays only a perfunctory amount of attention to the Telesca estate. More frequently, he is watching Elena, a familiar look on his face that makes Sam burn to know its origin.

Sarah notices Sam looking at what appears to be a family portrait. "A fine example of American Primitive wouldn't you say?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "Well, I'd say it's more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses," he replies confidently. "But you knew that, you just wanted to see if I did," he adds.

Sarah is contrite. "Guilty. And clumsy. I apologize," she says.

"I get it, you want to know why we're interested in the Telesca estate," Sam says.

She smiles, clearly slightly embarrassed at how transparent she is. "Mr. Mikaelson isn't usually interested in American art," she says easily. "Outside of his brother's work – although calling him American hardly seems true – and I suppose now Jeremy Gilbert's growing body of work." He looks at Sam. "How does he know the Gilberts?"

"I have no idea," Sam answers honestly. "Ask Elena."

"I once stayed with the Gilberts in their home in Virginia whilst writing about their town. Elena and Jeremy were still in high school, then," Elijah answers, seeming to examine a vase with great interest.

"Oh," Sarah says, clearly flustered at being caught digging for information.

Dean glances at Elena who nods.

Sarah, still flustered, speaks up. "Pardon me, I thought Jeremy said you were orphaned in high school?"

"We were," Elena says calmly. "Elijah stayed with us before the death of our aunt and uncle." She glances at him. "Actually, he was still staying with us when it happened."

Sarah looks stricken. She rushes to apologize for her nosiness. "That was extremely inappropriate of me-"

"It's fine," Elena says, giving her a well-crafted smile.

Dean touches her back again, this time asking if she's all right. She leans into him for just a moment, then returns to her perusal of the Telescas' worldly possessions.

Sarah is still flushed with shame. Sam takes pity on her.

"Trust me, I always regret asking about Elena's life, too," he says.

She looks at him, eyes wide. "That bad?"

Sam glances at Elena. Right now, the Sphynx is more readable than her.

"She's had a hard life," he says, then adds, "Every time I learn something new about her, I become more impressed by her resilience." To himself, he thinks that he also becomes more confused with every new thing he learns about her. The shritgu is still on his mind. Elena Gilbert's soul was as indigestible as the sun to a monster that fed off souls. What exactly does it mean to be a doppelganger? Rick's information has only given him so much to go on, and none of it explains the strange ways monsters sometimes react to Elena.

"What can you tell us about the Telesca estate?" he asks Sarah, distracting her from her embarrassment.

Sarah is candid. "The whole thing's pretty grisly if you ask me, selling your things this soon." She shrugs. "But Dad's right about one thing, sensationalism brings out the crowds. Even the rich ones."

"Is it possible to see the provenances?" Elijah asks.

She nods. "Of course."

Her father reappears as if summoned.

"Dad, Elena is Jeremy Gilbert's older sister," she tells him.

His face lights up with recognition. "The Doppelganger Effect," he says, examining her face again, gaze lingering on her mouth. "I thought perhaps the boy was flattering his model, but I see now that he needn't exaggerate at all. You are unspeakably lovely."

Elena smiles in a way that gives nothing away. "How very kind of you."

Dean presses his hand to her spine again, feeling her lean into him. Their body language a subtle reproof of Daniel Blake's unabashed staring.

"We were just inquiring with Sarah if we might see the provenances?" Elijah cuts in smoothly.

Daniel nods, tearing his eyes away from Elena to do his job, leaving them to acquire the provenances.

Before any of the remaining group can speak, someone else draws their attention.

"Oh my god, Elena Gilbert, as I live and breathe!" The words are shrieked out across the room at a piercing decibel, drawing everyone's attention.

The source of the noise is a rail thin girl about Elena's age with cotton candy pink hair and a nose ring.

"What the hell are you doing in the northern hemisphere!" she shrieks right as she throws her arms around Elena. "Last I heard you were headed for Brazil!"

Elena's face is blank as she hugs the girl back. "Oh, you know, getting away from winter weather," she says airily.

The girl pulls back. "Oh my god, I know, how rude is it that it's winter down there now, ugh." Her blue eyes are wide with irritation.

"So rude," Elena echoes, her face still carefully blank. "Speaking of, um this is Elijah Mikaelson, Sarah Blake, and Sam and Dean Winchester. Everyone this is Verona…"

"Oh, oh my god! Grimaldi. Verona Grimaldi," she says with a giggle. "I can't believe after everything we've been through, I never told you my last name, embarrassing!"

Elena smiles at her like they really have been through too much to not know personal details like last names.

"I love your dress, ugh, black is so your color," Verona is babbling again. "It's so 'like a black widow, baby' – hot!"

Elena smiles. "I like yours too, you look like a flower."

Verona giggles goofily, a surprisingly sweet gesture from her. Hers is a slinky little slip dress in an absurd shade of dandelion yellow that should clash with her pink-hair, but instead it looks whimsical and fairy-like, unlike the menacingly spiky heels she's wearing. She looks like she should be club hopping – not at an art auction.

"So, how do the two of you know each other?" Dean asks.

The girls smile at each and answer together. "Cancún."

Sam is positive Elena's never been to Cancún, he distinctly remembers her saying she'd never been to Mexico when they were getting ready to cross the border for her birthday. But here is Verona, claiming Elena has been all over South America.

"Elena put us up at this insane resort; gorgeous villa, private cabana, cabana boys tripping over themselves to buy her tampons – the works."

Elena quirks an eyebrow at her. "That's what you thought I wanted from the cabana boy?" her voice is quiet, but the implication is unavoidable.

Verona rewards her with a filthy laugh. "Yeah, Bitch!"

"How's Lien?" Elena asks.

Verona rolls her eyes, shakes her head. "I'm over her." She waves off Elena's sympathetic look. "So not worth rehashing, gay panic, it's boring!"

"Got it," Elena says with a nod. "What are you doing here? Art auction doesn't exactly scream 'Verona Grimaldi'.

Verona wrinkles her nose and nods in agreement. "Bonding with stepmummy." She pouts. "Daddy says."

"As they're wont to," Elena agrees wryly.

"We should totally get together while you're here!" Verona says enthusiastically. She grabs Elena by the arm, steering her away. "I need to know which one is yours," she says, glancing at the brothers slyly. "You know tall is my type."

Elena turns her sigh into a smile. "I haven't decided yet."

Verona pouts.

Dean appears. "Hey, I think it's time to take off. Mr. Blake has the provenances."

Elena briefly wonders what he would do if she kissed him right there on the spot.

"Nice to see you, V," Elena says.

Verona grins. "You lying bitch, you've totally decided." She leans over and kisses Elena's cheeks. "Seriously, we're going to Waverly tonight, I want you there, only excuse is if you're getting some, and if you are, fuck you, Slut!"

Dean looks bemused but Elena handles it like a champ.

"I guess fuck me, then. See around, V." She grabs Dean's hand and pulls him away from the pink-haired girl.

"Get it, girlfriend!" Verona calls after them.

"Do you actually know her?" Dean asks.

"God no, but she definitely knows me," Elena replies.

"What?" Dean asks. "And what did she mean, you've totally decided?"

"I was trying to save Sam from her, we might want to hurry before she decides to latch onto him like a tick."

Dean blanches. "Wait is she a…" he makes two fangs with his fingers in front of his mouth.

Elena laughs, shaking her head. "God no, she's just some rich socialite who likes tall guys and will chew Sam up and spit him out before he gets a chance to politely turn her down."

Dean pauses. "Well, are you sure we shouldn't just let her?"

Elena gives Dean a disbelieving look.

"What? He's not gonna make a move, maybe he needs a girl that will," he says reasonably.

"Dean, Sam can't hook up with a girl who thinks she knows me but has actually never met me, it's too complicated," Elena says, her voice sounding perilously close to hissing.

Dean doesn't look convinced.

"What if he says something that contradicts what she thinks she knows about me?" Elena looks at him meaningfully. "Like the fact that when I was supposedly in Cancún with her, partying on the beach, I was actually in Colorado with you, being stalked by a skinwalker."

"I mean, Sam doesn't know that story, he was still at college but yeah, I see your point, you're right," Dean agrees with reluctance.

"I hope you'll allow me the pleasure of investigating the provenances," Elijah says to them as they wait for the valet outside. "I rarely get such a treat."

Sam and Dean exchange bemused looks but both nod in agreement. "Sure."

"Just call us if you find anything interesting," Elena adds.

"Certainly." He nods. "Elena, may I speak with you privately for a moment?"

Elena agrees and the two of them step away.

"Grant Wood, Grandma Moses?" Dean asks, his eyes on Elena and Elijah.

"Art history course," Sam replies, watching them two. "It's good for meeting girls," he adds for Dean's benefit.

Dean snorts. "It's like I don't even know you."

Sam shrugs.

"You should ask Sarah out," Dean says.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Stop trying to live vicariously through me now that you have a girlfriend."

Dean laughs. "Whatever, Sammy, she was totally checking out your ass when we left."

Sam turns faintly pink. "Shut up."

"What exactly is a providence?" Dean asks.

The fact that he stopped teasing Sam so quickly reveals exactly how distracted he is.

Sam corrects him. "Prov-uh-nance," he enunciates. "It's a certificate of origin, like a biography," he explains. "We can use them to check the history of the pieces, see if any of them have a freaky past."

"She seems comfortable with him, doesn't she?" Dean observes quietly, no longer willing to pretend he cares about provenances.

"Yeah, sure," Sam says neutrally. He can't describe the tension between them yet, so he doesn't want to mention it.

"And he looks at her a lot," Dean continues. "Like, a lot, a lot."

Clearly Dean does.

Sam nods. "He does," glances at Dean. "But I don't think it's in the way you think it is."

Dean frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I dunno." Sam shrugs. He continues for his brother's sake. "He just seems kinda…" he searches for the right word. "Wary," is what he finally settles on.

"Wary?" Dean asks.

"Like he's afraid of her or something," Sam explains. "He isn't looking at her because he's in love with her or something like that. It's more like she's the most dangerous and unpredictable thing in the room, and he knows to keep his eye on her."

Elijah glances at them, nodding with no expression and Sam feels the uneasy sense that he has heard every word they said, despite the distance.

"And what the hell is up with the way he pronounces her name?" Dean continues after digesting Sam's observation of the way Elijah looks at Elena. "E-lain-uh," Dean says mockingly. "He sounds like a douche."

A look crosses Elijah's face that makes Sam certain he can hear them: amusement.

"Maybe it's a cultural thing," Sam replies. "Sarah kinda implied that the Mikaelsons aren't American."

Dean makes a face. "I guess."

Elijah touches Elena's elbow and then they part.

"Car's here," Elena says as she returns to them. Sure enough, the valet is holding out the keys to Dean, the Impala waiting behind him.

"Thanks," Dean says, taking the keys and remembering to tip as well as Elena instructed him to.

This place makes Sam question all his life choices, so when the valet opens the door to the front seat, he ushers Elena towards it and takes the backseat for himself.

In the car, Elena speaks casually. "Sam, you should ask Sarah out, Elijah has her number."

Sam groans. "Not you too, Elena."

In the backseat, Sam takes out his phone, intent on checking in on the Guardian's message board. On the board a debate is raging about how many vampires there are working in Hollywood currently

You can't tell me Keanu Reeves isn't a vampire

Ur insane

Get help

Can't you guys play nice for once pls

Don't make me put you guys in time out

Sam snorts at Rick's reply

Everyone be cool!

The teacher's back

He can't resist teasing Rick about always corralling the group when they get too deep into their celebrity conspiracy theories.

Welcome back, Sam

Did you check out the doppelganger literature I sent you?

Yeah, it was interesting

I'm not sure if it's relevant to my research though

Knowing what your researching might help me guide you better

Sam hesitates. Elena is in the front seat, telling Dean about how Elijah's sister lent her the dress she is wearing. The Guardian's Archive and Rick have been a godsend for information, but it feels wrong, telling some stranger on the internet that he might know a living breathing doppelganger. He wants more information, but he doesn't want to put her in anymore danger.

Sam glances out the window and realizes they're almost to their motel. Relieved, he signs off.

Sorry, gotta go

Impulsively, he dashes off another line.

I'll tell you about my doppelganger research another time

Back in their unexpectedly fancy – read: campy – motel room, the campaign to get Sam a date continues.

"I'm just saying, she's gorgeous and smart and you couldn't stop staring at her," Elena says.

She's sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, still in her cocktail dress. Sam is on his bed, still in his fancy clothes because Dean is still in the bathroom and insisted on changing first.

Sam groans, pulling a pillow over his head.

Dean emerges from the bathroom, tossing his fancy-pants outfit across the room, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. "She was doing plenty of staring of her own," he adds.

Sam's pillow emits another annoyed groan.

Dean and Elena exchange amused looks as Dean sits on the bed next to her, their shoulders touching.

Sam hops up, throwing his pillow at them, making for the bathroom.

"I was just being polite," he throws over his shoulder.

"Yeah, so polite you were practically undressing her with your eyes," Dean says at full volume.

Sam swears at him from behind the closed door. "And I was not staring!"

Elena snickers. "Okay, so if you weren't staring, what color are her eyes?" she asks, looking at Dean.

There is a pause and then – "Green," Sam admits reluctantly as he emerges from the bathroom, dressed in his own clothes.

"Okay, class, who else knew that?" Elena asks.

Dean and Elena look at each other, shaking their heads.

"Maybe you guys were too busy gazing into each other's eyes," Sam replies petulantly.

Neither of them is fooled.

"Sam, it is okay to like this girl," Elena gently says.

He refuses to look at her, jaw stubbornly set.

Dean rolls his eyes, tries a different tactic. "Well Sam, Elijah's got the provenance-thingies covered so we've got nothing to do until he says otherwise, and Elena and I have plans that don't include you so, call Sarah or find something else to do tonight."

Sam looks between them, wondering what he isn't being invited to. They both look back at him blankly, so he caves. "Fine, give me her number."

Elena grins, grabbing her phone to get the info from Elijah.

"Elijah thinks you'd make a lovely couple," Elena informs him a few moments later.

Sam groans, pulling the pillow back over his face. His phone vibrates next to him on the bed, Elena just sent him Sarah's contact info.

He leaves the room to make the phone call because there's no way he's doing that in front of Elena and especially not Dean.

Dean and Elena exchange a look.

"So, B-horror movies and pizza?" Dean proposes.

Elena grins. "Absolutely." She gets off the bed to go change.

She looks back at Dean. "You know, you never answered my question," she says coyly.

He raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Do you like my dress?" she asks, spinning slowly.

"Do you like your dress?" he asks in return as she turns back to face him.

She smiles, remembering their conversation about the dresses she wore as Katherine.

"Yes, I do," she tells him confidently.

He nods. "Then I do too." He smirks. "Need help out of it?"

"Yes," she says, both well aware that she doesn't. The back is so low she could easily unzip it herself but half the fun of dresses like this one is being helped out of them.

Dean gets off the bed, Elena turning her mostly bare back to him. He unzips the zipper as low as he dares, both knowing they're both playing a dangerous game, and both loving every moment of it and hating every moment that stops just short of something.

"There you go," Dean says, clearing his voice in attempt to get rid of its hoarseness.

"Thank you, Dean," she says, glancing at him over her shoulder, her voice much huskier than she intended.

"You're welcome, Elena."

Sam's still figuring out how he got tricked into going on a date with the beautiful, intelligent woman that he's very attracted to sitting across from him at a table in a fancy restaurant.

"Nice place," he says, trying to push through his awkwardness.

"Yeah," Sarah agrees, looking inexplicably amused. "I'm glad you called," she continues.
"Surprised," she adds. "But glad," she finishes warmly.

Sam responds somewhat shyly. "Yeah?"

She nods, then adds teasingly. "Although, you seemed to have a hard time getting out the words 'Would you like to have dinner'."

"Ahh…yeah." Sam grins sheepishly. "I haven't really been on a date in a while."

"Welcome to the club," Sarah says with a shrug.

Sam looks skeptical. "You're kidding me."

She shakes her head.

Their waiter approaches. "Here we are." He hands them both their menus, then hands Sam, "The wine list."

Sam clears his throat, looking at it intently, trying to remember everything he's learned about wine from some of his more affluent Stanford classmates.

"I don't know about Romeo here," Sarah says, interrupting his perusal. "But I'll have a beer." She gives Sam a challenging look. "The Pottersville Pale Ale."

"And you?" the waiter enquires.

"Make that two," Sam answers. If he's learned anything from Elena, it's that some challenges are meant to be met with enthusiasm.

"Certainly."

Dean is propped up against the headboard, while Elena is upside down at the end of the bed, claiming Attack of the 50-Foot Woman is much more enjoyable upside down. The empty pizza box is by the door and Dean has a beer in hand. Elena crosses her legs, long and bare in her tiny sleep shorts. He can see every single muscle flex and straighten. He takes a healthy swallow his drink, tries paying closer attention to the movie.

The doctor discovers Harry's dead body clutched in Nancy's enormous hand, ending the movie.

Elena stretches like a cat, pushing herself up onto her elbows to smile at Dean, her hair in crazy disarray and her face rapidly fading to an adorable pink as the blood rushes out of her face.

"Another one?" she asks hopefully.

He nods. "Why the hell not?"

She sits up fully, making a grabbing motion towards his drink. He passes the bottle to her. She downs some, then returns it.

She settles into his side, warm and soft, turning her attention back to the TV.

The channel informs them that Invasion of the Body-Snatchers will start after the commercial break, causing Elena to gasp with excitement.

As a prescription drug commercial starts, Elena turns her attention back to Dean. "So, what's up?" She asks.

He looks down at her. "What do you mean?"

"You seemed distracted during the movie," she says.

"I wasn't," he denies. "I was paying attention."

Elena snorts. "No, you weren't," she replies decisively.

He looks affronted.

Before he can protest, she cuts him off, "A 50-foot woman in a makeshift miniskirt stepped over a highway full of cars full of people, who were all looking up, and you said nothing; I know you weren't paying attention to the movie. So, what's on your mind, Dean Winchester?"

Dean chuckles, shaking his head. He really can't hide anything from Elena. He sets his drink down. "Uh, Elijah Mikaelson, I guess," he says hesitantly.

She cocks her head to the side. "What about him?"

"Is that who you visit when you go to New Orleans?" he asks without looking at her.

"No," she says definitively.

"Is it his brother?" he asks. "He said you took care of his niece, so…"

Instead of answering, she asks a question of her own. "How did Sam know the name Mikaelson?" she asks.

Dean sighs. "He heard you on the phone with them," he answers honestly. "The little girl – Hope?" Elena nods, so Dean continues. "Hope had gotten ahold of her dad's phone and called you?"

"I didn't know either of you were there," she says evenly.

"I wasn't," Dean replies immediately. "Sam just went back for his phone charger, and he heard you and realized you weren't joking about babysitting in New Orleans."

"Of course I wasn't," she answers, looking puzzled.

"You tell a lot of strange jokes, Elena," Dean says instead of confronting the problem head on.

She shrugs. "I guess."

"So, it's Elijah's brother?" Dean asks.

Elena reluctantly nods. "Yes," she says simply.

Seeing how uncomfortable this makes Elena, Dean switches the topic slightly. "I noticed that Elijah looks at you an awful lot," he says carefully. "I mean, not that I blame him," he hastens to add. "Especially in that dress." Trying to keep things light.

She shakes her head immediately. "It's not what you think."

"What is it then?" Dean asks, heart pounding in his ears.

"Nothing we said to Sarah was really a lie; Elijah really was around when Aunt Jenna and Uncle John died," Elena says slowly. "He wasn't exactly staying with us, but he was there." She looks at him intently. "He was right there."

Dean sucks in a breath, understanding her double meaning instantly. Elijah Mikaelson had been there when she was sacrificed.

"Shit," is his eloquent response.

She nods. "Yeah," she agrees shakily. "So, Elijah will always see me as that 17-year-old girl who needed to be protected," she explains simply.

"Yeah?" Dean asks.

"Yeah," she says, takes a breath and the plunge all at once. "And he'll always be sorry that he didn't protect me."

Dean's stomach drops. "Oh." There's far too much to contemplate in that one statement.

"He'll always try to make up for it," she adds quietly.

"Sammy says he looked scared of you," he says quickly. "Or like, wary? Of you?"

Elena chews on her lower lip, mulling this over. "Let's just say Elijah's seen me do some pretty horrible things," she confesses at last.

Dean shakes his head immediately. "Nuh-uh, let's just be more specific."

She sighs, looking reluctant. "You have to understand, Dean," she begins. "That was a pretty dark time in my life," she looks at him, hesitating at the precipice of so much darkness. "I learned a lot about what I was willing to do to win," she says slowly. "What kind of damage I was willing to cause – to others, but especially to myself – in order to protect the people that I love." She shrugs. "Elijah got a front row seat for a lot of it."

Dean frowns. "How front row? And for what?"

"Front row, private performance, there's very little difference between the two," she says, joking weakly.

Dean looks at her.

Elena considers her options. There are far too many adrenaline-fueled moments of self-harm to choose from, and yet, one of them has a significantly cleaner ending. The dilemma is that to talk about it is to reveal to Dean more than he needs to know.

But Dean is still waiting, and she's certainly not going to tell him about the time she actually stabbed herself in the stomach to save her vampire then-boyfriend and his vampire brother, so the best she can do is choose the time she didn't actually stab herself in the throat.

"After Matt died, I was in a very dark place," she begins slowly.

"I was there after Matt died," Dean interrupts immediately.

She nods reluctantly. "And there was so much going on that you never knew about."

"Like what happened to Alaric," he says.

Elena tenses, but nods. "Yes, just like that."

"What did happen to Alaric?" he asks.

"That is a long, painful tale to tell," she replies.

He nods. "Okay, keep going."

Relief that he has let it go floods through her. Unbeknownst to her, it is only the look on her face at the question of what happened to Alaric Saltzman that caused him to change his mind. It's not a look he will soon forget, a breathtaking kind of pain and grief that far surpasses the pain that any reminder of Matt Donovan's death causes her.

"The worst thing about that time period is how everyone thought they could control my life," she says quickly. "Everyone had a plan, and everyone thought their plan was the best and no one cared what I wanted." She looks him square in the eye. "So, I had to make them care."

"And how did you do that?" he asks, his tone firm, in the back of his mind he knows when she says everyone, his dad is included.

She looks away for a long moment. "When everyone else cares more about your life than you do, it's not hard," she says, finally turning back to him.

Dean swallows, jaw clenched. It's amazing how quiet his mind goes as the full implications of her words expands inside his mind, making his stomach drop.

Elena waits while he struggles to come to terms with everything she said.

"I wish you would've told me," he finally says, taking her hand. "Back then, when it was happening, I wish I knew."

She shrugs. "You were there, you knew I wasn't okay," she says quietly.

"Yeah, but I didn't know..." he trails off, taking a moment to compose himself. "That," he finishes.

"I don't think I wanted you to," she says, her voice still so soft.

He wraps both arms around her, pressing her to his chest.

She sighs, wrapping her arms around him in return. For a moment, they sit together, wrapped in the other's embrace.

Finally, Dean clears his throat. "We're missing the movie."

Elena nods. "Yeah, we are."

Reluctantly she pulls out of his embrace, sitting next to him and returning her attention to the television screen.

Dean looks at her for a moment. He raises his arm, wrapping it back around her shoulders to tuck her into his side, unwilling to pretend even for a moment that any space between them is acceptable.

After a beer, Sam has loosened up a little.

"So, you studied art in school, huh?" he clarifies.

Sarah winces, face scrunching up adorably with embarrassment. "It's true," she admits with a nod. "I was an artist. A terrible artist." She shudders exaggeratedly.

Sam is sympathetic. "Well, we can't all be Jeremy Gilbert."

She nods emphatically. "God, did you know he broke his arm in the spring? He had to finish The Doppelganger Effect with his non-dominant hand and it's still completely amazing."

Sam nods. "Yeah, Elena showed me these videos he sent to her of him drawing with his left hand, it was pretty funny."

She laughs. "I'll bet." She takes a drink, switching back to herself. "Anyway, I was a terrible, terrible artist, and that's why I'm in the auction business," she finishes matter-of-factly. "And you were pre-law?"

Sam nods. "Yeah."

She cocks her head to the side. "But you didn't go to law school. How come?"

Sam ducks his head, taking a long drink before answering. "Ahh, that's a really, really long story for another time," he answers vaguely.

Sarah gives him a look, making it clear that she's not fooled by his evasive maneuvers, but thankfully skips over the subject. "You're not like any art enthusiast I've ever met."

"How so? I can talk the talk," he reminds her.

"Well, your brother certainly isn't interested in art-" she starts before Sam cuts her off.

"I dunno, my brother's pretty damn interested in Elena Gilbert and your father certainly seems to view her as art."

He's not entirely sure where this is coming from except something about Sarah's tone mentioned his brother got under his skin – no, Dean's never gonna wander through the Met for fun, but that doesn't make him any less than any of them because of it. It crosses his mind that Dean would probably go to the Met if Elena wanted to.

Sarah has the good grace to look uncomfortable. "He didn't mean it that way…" she trails off at Sam's challenging look. "It's just the painting," she finishes weakly.

"No offense, Sarah, but I'm pretty used to the way people react to Elena – Dean even more so than me – and that wasn't a man looking at the subject of a particularly fascinating painting."

She winces. "Elena's a very beautiful girl."

Sam nods. "She is, there's no denying it, but she's also intelligent, and funny, and way too obsessed with Dracula for anyone's comfort." He smiles, his fondness for his friend evident on his face. "She's also kind, and brave, and frankly, terrifyingly devious." He could easily go on, but he stops there.

"And mysterious and tragic," Sarah adds, nodding her concession.

"Dean'd be the first to tell you that she's a lot more than a pretty face," Sam concludes. "So, maybe he's not exactly an art history buff, but that doesn't make any of us who are any better than him."

Sarah looks distinctly uncomfortable. "Well, now that I've thoroughly inserted my foot in my mouth, I guess I should do the polite thing and ask how long they've been together."

Sam gives her a wry grin, taking a long drink before answering. "They aren't."

She stares at him in disbelief. "They're not together?"

He shakes his head. "They're best friends."

She gives him an unconvinced look.

"Oh, I mean, they're absolutely crazy about each other, neither of them is denying it," he elaborates. "They're just a little slow on the whole, acting-on-it part of the equation."

"How slow?" she asks cautiously.

"Well, granted, I've only had a front row seat for the past eight months, so who knows how long before then, but at least that long."

Sarah shakes her head. "You poor, poor man." She waves down a waiter. "We are going to need another round of drinks; my friend here has suffered very much."

Sam swallows down a hysterical burst of laughter. She really isn't wrong. Dean and Elena and their endless dance are utterly exhausting.

The waiter nods, parting with a sympathetic and curious glance at Sam.

Tired of feeling like a criminal at an interrogation table, Sam turns the tables and asks some questions of his own. "So, what did you mean when you said you haven't been on a date in a while. Trying to make me feel like I'm not such a loser?" Sometimes, Dean's teasing does get to him. It's worse when Elena chimes in.

Sarah shakes her head. "I'm sure you're many things, Sam. I'm also sure loser isn't one of them." She takes a deep breath. "It was my mom. She died about a year ago. Totally unexpected. It really threw me. I went into this shell. A nice warm, safe shell."

Sam is horrified. "God, I'm so sorry, the things I said about your father-"

She cuts him off. "Don't be. You were right." She looks down at her hands. "I mean, I know he loved my mother, but that doesn't change the fact that the way he was looking at Elena was extremely inappropriate, especially considering she's a 20-something year old."

Sam winces. "21-year-old," he confirms.

Sarah gives him an agonized look.

He lowers his voice. "Her birthday was last month. It was fun, we went to Mexico."

She looks at the ceiling. "What am I gonna do with you, Dad?"

Feeling badly, Sam offers her a line. "I mean, she's definitely had worse."

She looks unsure.

"Really?" she sounds hopeful.

"Wayyyy worse," he confirms.

She remains unconvinced. "The way your brother looked at my dad says otherwise."

Sam shakes his head. "Nah, that was barely a 2 on the Dean-Disgust-Meter." She looks slightly more hopeful, so he continues. "If you saw his face when these two stuck-up jerks tried to convince him to tell them what Elena's like in bed, you'd know your dad is safe from Dean's wrath."

She looks disgusted. "What did he say?"

Sam looks down, chuckling at the memory.

The waiter returns with their next round.

Once he's out of earshot, Sam tells her. "He uh, made up a pretty crazy story that involved Elena making some guy cannibalize his own…" Sam clears his throat. "Genitals," he says delicately, snorting.

Sarah stares at him, mouth agape.

Sam starts snickering and that sets her off until they're both laughing wildly, attracting more than their fair share of attention.

Finally, they calm down.

Sarah takes a delicate sip of her drink, working hard not to choke on it as she swallows another burst of laughter.

"So," she says finally. "Your brother does not fuck around when it comes to Elena."

Sam shakes his head. "Not for a minute."

"So, what do you and your brother do? Are you writers like Elijah?" she asks. "Or I guess, writer-historians?"

"Uh, no, fact checkers," he says quickly.

She nods. "Makes sense. You know, I picked up a copy of his book, A History of Mystic Falls, that's his only book about Virginia."

Sam's mind races. "Yeah?"

She doesn't seem to notice that he's holding his breath. "He dedicated it to the Gilberts."

"He did?" he asks, heart pounding.

"'To Elena and Jeremy Gilbert, and in memory of Jenna Sommers and John Gilbert'," she quotes.

"How thoughtful of him," Sam replies automatically.

"Yeah. I've only had a chance to peruse it a little bit, but it seems like an interesting place with a fascinating history."

Sam nods. "I'm sure, some of the stories I've heard about it are…fascinating," he says, echoing her term.

"I'm sure Elena has plenty of interesting anecdotes as someone who grew up there," she says, incorrectly assuming Elena as his source. She continues, "And of course, as a descendant of one of the founding families hers must be vivid – there were several family trees at the beginning."

Sam puts significant effort into focusing on Sarah. He can think about the book and all its possibilities later.

"You know, because of my mom, I felt especially horrible about my nosiness about Elena and Jeremy's past," Sarah says, clearly this has been on her mind. "I hope she wasn't too upset by it?"

Sam shakes his head. "No more so than usual," he assures her. "Elena doesn't particularly like to talk about that time in her life in general."

She looks empathetic. "I can't even imagine losing so much that young," she adds. "Losing my mom was…" she trails off, face tight with pain. "It knocked my whole life off course."

Sam nods in complete understanding, thinking of Jess. "Of course, it did, you can't expect to be the same person after something like that."

She smiles. "Right. So, that's why I haven't really gotten out much." She sighs, looking determined. "But lately I've been thinking. It's not what she would have wanted for me." She shakes her head firmly, like that settles matters, then glances up at him inquisitively. "So…So what about you? You're a reasonably attractive guy."

Sam raises an eyebrow. "Reasonably?"

She rolls her eyes, persisting. "Why haven't you been out and about?"

For a moment, Sam looks caught, a pained expression on his face. "Another long story for another time," he says finally.

After parting ways with Sarah, Sam checks the time. Twenty minutes to eleven. He does a quick search on his phone and then starts the GPS. He arrives at his destination with twelve minutes to spare.

He hurries into the bookstore. Clearing his throat, he approaches a clerk. "Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to have A History of Mystic Falls by Elijah Mikaelson?"

The young woman gives him a surprised look. "This is the second time today someone's been looking for that book. Coincidence?" She looks skeptical

He smiles uncomfortably. "Uh, no, the other person, the woman," he clarifies hastily, "was just telling me about it. It sounded interesting."

She gives him a disbelieving look. "Yeah, and that woman was gorgeous," she retorts like she sees right through him.

Sam is sure in most other circumstances the clerk would be right about where his interests lay, but Sam's pretty damn sure he's way more interested in the book than Sarah is. Worriedly, he asks, "Was that your only copy?"

She shakes her head. "No, lucky for you, we've got another." She steps out from behind the counter, gesturing at him. "Follow me."

Shopping bag in hand, Sam contemplates what to do next. He could go back to the motel and go to sleep, or even find an all-night diner and start reading, but there's an idea growing in his head now that the history of Mystic Falls is on his mind yet again. So, he makes one more stop.

Luckily, they're in a college town, and he easily finds his way onto campus. As the school is currently in summer sessions, the library doesn't have all-night hours, but it is open for another few hours to accommodate the summer session students, and the computer lab/study lounge is open an additional hour longer.

Seated in front of the computer, Sam searches Mystic Falls Newspaper. The unique name of the town making it unnecessary to include the state. In a moment he has hundreds of results for the Mystic Falls Courier. He clicks on the website. Looking through their database, he quickly sees they've only digitized the issues from the 21st century, but Sam isn't worried. For what he's looking for, he should only need the past half-decade. Hearing Sarah call Elena mysterious and tragic combined with her comment about the stories Elena must have about Mystic Falls – add in Elijah Mikaelson's written history of the town and everything he's learned on the Guardian's Archive has sent Sam's researcher's mind whirring.

True, Elena herself hasn't said much about Mystic Falls, but she did mention making the headlines once. This is where it gets tricky. Despite Sam's best efforts, he doesn't have a clear timeline of events, only that Dean said Elena was on the road with him for the past two years back in November. So, he starts there, at his best guess, November 2015. He scans through a few days, finding very little of interest, the mention of some kind of a lockdown occurring during a school dance, and some mild vandalism of a fence on Maple Street, before he hits gold. November 8, 2015, the Sunday paper reporting that Matt Donovan tragically lost his life in a car accident the night before.

Sheriff Liz Forbes provided a brief statement, extending condolences to Matt's family. There is no mention of Elena being the passenger, and not a hint of speculation as to the cause, just that an investigation was underway. There's a brief mention of his funeral a few days later, but that's it. Sam combs through the publications for at least a month after the accident without finding a follow-up before he gets antsy and goes back again. He reaches November 9, 2015. He's ready to keep going back, the headline had been uninteresting the first time around, but a smaller article catches his eye.

"Beloved History Teacher Resigns," he reads out loud. He starts to read the article itself, then he inhales sharply, surprised.

"Beloved History teacher, Alaric Saltzman resigned over the weekend, effective today, Monday. Giving no explanation, Mr. Saltzman, fondly called Ric by his students, left Mystic Falls High School's administration scrambling to cover his American History classes for the remainder of the fall semester and upcoming spring semester… Alaric Saltzman left town without a forwarding address."

He stares, uncomprehending. Dean had only said that Elena would not talk about what happened to Alaric Saltzman. Naturally, he'd assume just as Dean had, that Alaric had died in an unspeakable manner, yet here, the evidence suggested the man was alive and well enough to resign from his post before he left.

Sam can't believe that it's a coincidence that Elena's former guardian left the same weekend she was in a near-fatal car accident that took the life of the driver.

Opening his notebook to a fresh page, Sam draws a horizontal line across both papers. At the end he writes Nov. 7, noting Elena and Matt's accident, Matt's death, and Alaric Saltzman's retirement with a question mark beside it. The article hadn't specified if Alaric had resigned on Saturday or Sunday, only saying that it was that weekend.

He also writes down the name of the sheriff, Liz Forbes, certain that her surname is familiar to him but unable to recall what Elena had said about her or maybe even one of her relatives.

With that, he returns to the website, going backwards from that date, carefully noting anything unusual on his timeline. There's plenty unusual, mostly an inordinate amount of animal attacks, usually resulting in the victim's death with no follow up, much like Matt Donovan's death.

There's a particularly gruesome incident where one of the local news anchors – Andi Starr – fell to her death at the studio while inexplicably being on the catwalk in the middle of the night. It doesn't have anything to do with Elena exactly – except that it took place on the night of June 22, 2015 – Elena's 18th birthday. That's enough of a coincidence for him to write down.

He's starting to wonder exactly how far back he'll have to go when he finds it. He sucks in a breath.

May 5, 2015, the Mystic Falls Courier's headline read: Stalker Murders Victim's Family, exactly like she said. He's reached the start of his timeline when Dean would've met Elena at her aunt and uncle's funeral.

Sam takes a few fortifying breaths before he begins to read. Elena's name is excluded from the article, being two months' shy of adulthood. It lists the deceased as John Gilbert and Jenna Sommers, their cause of death as homicide, and nothing else. No other details, just that Jenna Sommers was the guardian of her niece, 17, and nephew, 16; they were her older sister's children, and that the teenagers were the only family she had left. The niece had reported to the Sheriff that she had been stalked by an unknown individual since the start of the year, if not longer, with the first markable instance being a song dedicated to her at a school event by him. The stalker had displayed increasingly erratic and violent behavior before the final incident.

In this moment, it hits Sam like a ton of bricks. He's refused to look it in the face so many times, but there it is in plain as day print: Elena and Jeremy are the only survivors. They have only each other to count as family. He allows the feeling to sink in. Idly he clicks out of the article, scrolling back through the year that changed the trajectory of Elena Gilbert's life forever – or was it the year before? When her parents died? Which one felt like the tipping point to her? He's reached the end of November again. A headline he dismissed before catches his eye properly this time. For some reason, his breath catches.

Why She Left, is the headline of a blind item printed three days before Thanksgiving. The timing is too perfect for it to be about anyone else, but Sam still expects to be wrong when he opens it and begins to read. Sure enough, the names have all been changed to protect the living, but there is no doubt in Sam's mind that this story is about Elena Gilbert – written by Elena Gilbert. It's nothing like he expected but with every sentence he reads the more his horror grows.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Sam looks to his right. There's a petite Korean girl, probably about Elena's age, wearing a nametag that declares her a Student Assistant at the library.

"The computer lab is closing soon," she tells him.

"Right." He nods, swallowing as he realizes he's breathing hard.

He's capping his pen when he realizes that his hands are shaking. He doesn't know if it's from shame or the horror of what Elena herself seems to have chosen to reveal to her hometown after she left. A story seemingly from before her first encounter with the paranormal. A horror story untouched by the supernatural – it's pure human horror. Blindly he thinks: Aren't there enough horror stories in her life already?

"Um, do I have time to print something?"

Sam shoves his bookstore bag into his backpack before entering the motel room as quietly as possible. To his surprise, both Elena and Dean are awake and fully dressed, Elena lacing up her boots and Dean slipping on his coat, clearly prepared to leave.

Immediately Sam averts his eyes from Elena. The printed article in his backpack feels like a flashing siren instead of some stapled papers folded-up and tucked into his journal.

"Good, you're back," Dean says concisely.

"Yeah," Sam replies. "Where are you going?"

"No time to chat, Sammy," Dean replies, clapping his hands together. "We gotta vamos." He grins at Sam as he passes him on his way to the door. "You can tell us about your date on the way."

Elena follows Dean out of the room.

Sam drops his bag and files out last. "Did Elijah get back to you about the provenances?" he asks.

Elena nods. "Yup, most of them had spotless records, except for Portrait of Isaiah Merchant's Family, painted 1910. Elijah says basically everyone who owned it was mysteriously murdered."

Sam tries to listen to her, but he mostly hears the irregular sound of his heartbeat and tries not to think about what he now knows about her.

Dean chimes in. "We cross-referenced it with Dad's list and it's a match. It was put away into storage in around 1970, hence the nearly 50-year gap."

"Are you okay, Sam?" Elena asks, because of course she noticed.

He forces a grin on his face, nodding. "Yeah, sorry."

"Your date didn't go badly, did it?" Dean asks the follow-up.

Sam shrugs ambivalently, internally lunging for the rope his brother has unwittingly thrown him. "It was awkward, I'm out of practice on the whole dating concept."

Elena nods sympathetically.

"Ah, we all gotta start somewhere," Dean replies, surprisingly kind.

They reach the car and Sam throws Dean the keys, getting in the back before Elena can protest. He's trying very hard to focus on their current case and not how guilty he feels for rifling through her tragedies like it's a particularly thrilling mystery novel; not to mention grappling with the shock of that last revealing article. What was he thinking, considering telling a random stranger on the internet about her personal life? Does finding out more about doppelgangers really matter that much?

"So, is it haunted or cursed?" Sam asks, reverting to their previous topic.

"Doesn't matter, either way, it's toast," is Dean's succinct reply as he backs out of the parking spot.

Elena stretches, a delighted smile on her face. "I love a good fence scaling after midnight."

Dean grins at her enthusiasm. "You really are a wild child at heart, Gilbert."

She winks at him. "You love it."

Sam bows to her, arms, pointing to the fence with a flourish. "Ladies first," he says. Somehow, he's put what he's discovered into a box. Part of him never wants to take it out to look at again, most of him knows he will never be able to look at her without thinking about it.

Elena gives him an infectious grin. "What a gentleman." She paces backwards, a look of pure anticipation on her face as she tightens her ponytail and takes a running start.

Despite the towering height, Elena only touches the fence twice, halfway up, and then just before the top to give herself a boost, easily launching herself high enough to clear the top with room to spare. Her body twisting through the air, she lands on the ground with the lightest of sounds.

Dean and Sam give her a muted round of applause which she acknowledges with a lady-like curtsey.

Dean quickly follows, and then Sam, both making it over the fence easily but not quite as flawlessly as Elena.

"I really don't know how you do that," Dean says, shaking his head.

They start towards the auction hall.

Elena grins. "Practice."

It's moments like this that make Sam want to break his promise to Elena and tell his brother that she used to be a cheerleader, so of course her dismount is flawless. It's also times like this that Sam knows better than to distract his brother with visions of Elena in a cheerleading uniform.

Then there is the slip-sliding-slippery thought of that article again and what he knows was happening to Elena during her cheerleading days – and there it is, that image again, a man's hand, large and rough, fingering the edge of her skirt, and her, all of 16 years old – and everything is blotted out by a sickening feeling that he must swallow down, breathe through, and pretend he knows nothing at all.

The three of them watch the painting burn.

"Ugly ass thing," Dean says. "If you ask me, we're doing the art world a favor."

Sam nods in agreement. "Yeah, it's no Jeremy Gilbert." He grins, thinking of Sarah comparing herself to Elena's savant brother.

He looks over at her. "You've never shown us any of Jeremy's work," he says, keeping his tone curious and harmless. This makes sense to him, this he can talk about – and oh god, his brother, he's not sure how he's ever going to broach this subject with his brother. Sam clamps down on the thought, focusing on what Elena is saying to him with every fiber in his being.

Elena, for her part, is rolling her eyes, thinking she sees right through him. "You never cared to see it until you heard about The Doppelganger Effect," she counters easily. She glances between the two brothers. "He's only done one painting about us," she tells them flatly.

Dean looks distinctly uncomfortable about the way she says us, and Sam can't blame him. There's an emotion behind it that Sam can't describe – it's part protective, part possessive, equal parts singular and multiple at the same time, all rushing together to form something that brings the word unity to mind, even if that's not exactly an emotion, it's the best word Sam can think for the way Elena says us.

"Hackles down, killer," Dean requests, his voice soft despite his words. "You can't blame us for being curious."

Elena relaxes a fraction, making Sam realize that maybe it's better if Dean asks the questions.

"I never realized Jeremy's met the doppelganger, that's all," Dean adds.

"They're not exactly best friends, but yeah, they've met," she says.

"What did she do to him?" Dean asks.

"Let's just say it wasn't one of her more tender moments, but he lived," is her reply.

"Sounds like typical evil doppelganger stuff," Dean says.

"I told you, Dean, she's not evil-"

Dean cuts her off. "Just self-serving, right, yeah, I remember."

Elena is silent, then- "And she's not the doppelganger," she says. "I am."

"So, she's the original?" Sam asks, curiosity getting the better of him. This is the part of her life he is insatiably curious about. He wants nothing to do with whatever else he's learned in the pursuit of it. Mythology about a rare supernatural occurrence like doppelgangers? Right up Sam's alley. The horrors teenage girls go through? That's so far out of Sam's wheelhouse he thinks Dean might actually be better equipped to deal with this – at least he knew Elena when she was a teenager. Dear god, does he know? Maybe he does know, this seems like the kind of secret Dean would deem none of Sam's business. It might even explain Dean's protectiveness of her better than his feelings for her. It might even explain why it's so hard for Dean to acknowledge his feelings. This is a lot to know about another person, let alone someone you love.

Elena side-eyes him but shakes her head. "No, neither of us are," she says shortly. "But she's just a doppelganger, I'm the doppelganger."

Sam tries to shake off his internal tangent. He is just so painfully aware of her. He is picturing every moment a man leered at her and Elena pretended not to notice, and Sam has rolled his eyes a dozen times at this, has watched in fascination a dozen more, but Sam has never once wondered when she learned how to do that – to not care about the way men look at her. She is only 21, but she treats this behavior like it's nothing new – like she's old hat at rolling her eyes and flicking her hair and taking men for all they've fucking got.

Dean stares at her. "You don't sound happy about that."

Sam has to agree with his observation, Elena doesn't sound happy at all. She sounds bitter yet resigned. She does not care that men have seen her as an enticing buffet since she was at least 13 – and that story too, he does not know how she doesn't flinch every time someone touches her hair, Sam would flinch – but she is bitterly resigned to her fate as the doppelganger.

She shrugs. "It is what it is," she says shortly.

Dean seems to be considering the riddle of it all. "Was she ever the doppelganger?" he asks.

Elena hesitates then nods. "A long time ago."

"And then you were born?" Sam asks.

She shakes her head again. "No," she says. "And then she changed."

She utters the word changed like she has a specific definition in mind and Sam's own mind is racing, cataloging every supernatural being that changes – his mind splintering off, cataloging every agonizing moment of his own puberty and then wondering what it must've been like, to be changing into someone men wanted to possess before you were even old enough to understand what they wanted from you. Sam tries to pull his thoughts back from this dark abyss, tries to turn back, but there is no turning back. Once you know something you can't unknow it.

This is the first thing he's learned about Elena Gilbert that he wishes he could unknow.

Dean opens his mouth to ask another question, but Elena cuts him off. "The painting finished burning. We should clean up and head out."

The next morning, Sam is returning to the room after carrying his bag out to the car.

Dean rushes out the door, meeting him in the hallway. "We got a problem – I can't find my wallet."

"How is that my problem?" Sam asks.

Dean rolls his eyes. "'Cause I think I dropped it in the warehouse last night."

Sam can feel his heart stop. "You're kidding, right?"

"No." Dean shakes his head. "It's got my prints, my ID, well my fake ID anyway. We gotta get it before someone else finds it. Come on."

"Elena's still at that breakfast with Elijah," Sam reminds him and thank God for that. Sam does not know how he will ever look her in the face again without feeling guilty for what he knows.

"We'll call her on the way," Dean replies hurriedly.

Sam is tense as they approach the auction house.

"How do you lose your wallet, Dean?" he hisses out from between clenched teeth.

Dean shrugs, giving him a hard look as they walk through the front door.

Before he can reply, they run into Sarah.

"Hey guys!" she says, surprised but pleased to see them – well, Sam, anyway.

"Sarah!" Sam pastes a smile on his face. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?" she asks. She's wearing a black turtleneck and her eyes are very green.

Sam fumbles, reaching for the first excuse he can think of. "Ahh, we…we are leaving town and, you know, we came to say goodbye."

Dean interrupts, giving Sam a strange look. "What are you talking about Sam, we're sticking around for at least another day or two."

Sam stares at him in disbelief.

Seemingly oblivious, Dean reaches into his pocket to pull out his wallet. "Oh, Sam. By the way. I'm gonna go ahead and give you that twenty bucks I owe you. I always forget, you know."

Sam is still staring as Dean shoves the bill into his hand. "There you go."

Dean glances between the two of them. "Well, I'll leave you two crazy kids alone, I gotta go…" he trails off. "Call Elena," he says finally. "Yup, gotta call my best girl."

Sam gives him a mutinous look as Dean grins unrepentantly at him, walking away.

"So…" Sam says, looking desperately for any escape.

"Uh, where is Elena?" she asks.

"Uh, with Elijah," Sam answers gratefully. "They went out to breakfast really early this morning to catch up."

"That's nice." She hesitates, but then continues, "I had a good time last night," Sarah says softly.

"Yeah." Sam nods. "Yeah." He smiles at her. "I did too."

And he did have a good time before he ruined for himself by deciding to research Elena online.

She smiles back at him. "Maybe we should do it again sometime," she suggests coyly.

Sam shifts uneasily. "You know," he starts, "I'd love to, I really would, but Dean, he was just screwing around," he explains. "We really are taking off today."

"Oh." She visibly deflates. "Oh. Ah, that's too bad."

He nods tightly, then catches a glimpse of something behind her.

"OH MY GOD!" He exclaims loudly, too horrified to contain himself.

"What?" She asks, alarmed, following his line of sight, expecting something horrifying. Instead, she sees that he's looking at the painting, Portrait of Isaiah Merchant's Family, that, unknown to Sarah, Sam had burned to ash only hours before with Dean and Elena, but now it is in perfect condition.

"The…that painting…looks so good!" Sam says weakly, trying to cover up his overreaction.

Sarah gives him a disbelieving look. "If you can call that monstrosity good, then…yeah, I guess." She eyes him warily.

Sam is thinking desperately. "So…what do you know about that painting?" he manages to ask.

She shakes her head. "Not much – just that it creeps me out," she confides in him. "We sold it to the Telescas at a charity auction the night they were murdered." She shivers.

Sam nods. "Yeah, and now you're just going to sell it again?" he asks, fishing for a lead.

She shakes her head. "As much as my dad wants to, no, I won't let him," she says firmly. "I think it'd be in bad taste."

"Good. Yeah." Sam nods fervently. "You know what? Don't. Don't. Make sure you don't, okay?" he says feverishly.

"Why?" She looks confused. "Don't tell me you're interested in that?" She clearly is questioning his sanity and her interest in him, but Sam can only think about finding Dean and not about reassuring her in any real way that he's not crazy or tasteless.

"No. No, God, no. Not in buying it, no," he chants, nearly hysteric. "You know what, I gotta go, I gotta take care of something," he says, barely functioning. "But umm, I will call you back…" he catches sight of Dean through the window, standing outside on the phone. "I will call you; I'll see you later."

He starts for the door.

"Wait, so you're…not leaving tonight?" she calls after him.

"No-o-o," he says, glancing back at her. "I guess not. I'll see ya."

With that he is out the door, leaving her standing there, feeling both confused by his behavior and happy that he would be sticking around after all.

"O...kay," she offers the empty room.

"Hayley sends her love," Elijah tells Elena. "She and Hope had a lovely visit last full moon, though it was too short, as always."

They've both eaten their fill and the dining room at Elijah's hotel is mostly empty. Each is still nursing a cup of coffee as they talk.

Elena nods. "Any chance you've figured out how to get Klaus to change her back?"

Elijah's answering sigh is enough.

"One day he'll owe me more than I owe him," Elena says more to herself than Elijah.

"I don't doubt it," Elijah says sincerely. "You've grown into a very capable woman, Elena."

"Thank you," she replies. "And thank you for helping with this case, it's been fun."

Elijah nods. "I believe I should be thanking you, I see the appeal of this life, there's a lot of intrigue."

"That there is," she agrees.

She hesitates, then asks the question she's been dying to ask since Elijah arrived. "Has Klaus said anything about Chicago?"

Elijah looks up from his coffee. "Only that there was a demon after your friends," he replies. "Why, did something happen there?"

Reluctantly Elena nods.

"He kissed me," she admits. "In front of Dean and Sam and their father."

Elijah looks mildly surprised. "Was that the first time?" he asks, choosing his words deliberately.

"No," she confesses. "I kissed him first, on New Year's Eve way back when I'd just left home." She frowns, realizing something suddenly. "At the party he held in Chicago."

Elijah nods, absorbing this information. "Why?" he asks finally.

His brother's relationship with Elena has always been a delicate subject. Elijah knows he has no room to criticize Elena for anything she's done to survive – not with Katherine's shadow looming behind them – but it's hard not to, as Klaus' older brother. Klaus has always been particularly vulnerable to romantic intrigue, and Elijah has always been particularly guilty of being too involved, in one way or the other.

"Because I needed him to stop asking me questions," she says, looking at him dead on. Elena does not shy away from the things she does for survival.

Elijah nods. "All right," he says neutrally. "And what happened this time in Chicago?"

"Dean and Sam got kidnapped by that demon, John called for help so I told Klaus he could have anything he wanted if he'd save them," she replies.

"And he asked for a kiss?" Elijah clarifies.

She nods.

"Why do you think he kissed you in front of the Winchesters?" he asks.

Elena shrugs. "To make a point?" she suggests. "To torture Dean, to drive himself crazy?" She shakes her head. "I really don't know," she confesses. "He has to know how I feel."

"He does," Elijah assures her. "He knows, he just…" he ponders how to say this. "He's better at hoping than he pretends to be," he continues. "And by doing it front of your partner, he was probably hoping to provoke a reaction." He shrugs elegantly. "Two birds with one stone."

"So, he kissed me and now he knows I don't really want him back and he wanted to make Dean jealous?" she summarizes.

"No, he wants Dean to take action, I believe," Elijah replies. "He knows you, Elena. You'd suffer forever if you thought you could keep everyone safe that way. If you aren't going to do anything about it, it's up to your hunter."

Elena shakes her head. "That's not fair," she says softly. "I have a very good reason, and you know it."

Elijah knows better than to argue with Elena about this. It's her life, he can't force her to believe that her feelings are more important than her mentor's disapproval.

"Did he succeed?" Elijah asks instead. "Has anything changed?"

Elena thinks about the last few weeks of reckless flirting.

"Maybe," she replies, her voice quiet.

"I didn't know you could blush," he teases her.

"I think it's time to go," Elena changes the subject quickly. Flirting doesn't mean any of her reasons have changed. Flirting doesn't really mean anything; she lies to herself. She flirts all the time. Just because it's Dean, doesn't mean anything at all. Except that it means everything. But Elena isn't ready to admit that just yet. She's worse at hoping than she used to be, life has taught her too many hard lessons.

Elijah nods. "Certainly."

He raises his hand, and their server appears with the bill almost at once. When that's all squared away Elijah looks at her again.

"You know, it's quite remarkable," he tells her. "I think more than anything, my brother wants you to be happy. That's a first, for him."

Elena refuses to feel anything about this revelation. In fact, she disagrees. "I think more than anything he wants me to be safe," she volleys back archly. "He needs his future doppelganger, remember?"

Outside in the parking lot, Sam paces in front of Dean. "I don't understand, Dean, we burned the damn thing."

Dean nods, phone still to his ear, Elena on the other end. "Yeah, thank you Captain Obvious," he addressed Sam. "All right, we just need to figure out another way to get rid of it. Any ideas?" He asks both of them.

"One sec," Elena says.

"Okay, all right." Sam stills, considering. "Well, um, in almost all the lore about haunted paintings it's always the painting's subject that haunts 'em."

Dean considers this. "Yeah. So, we just need to figure out everything there is to know about that creepy-ass family and that creepy-ass painting. What were their names again?"

"Merchant," Elena responds from behind him. "It was titled Isaiah Merchant and His Family."

Sam and Dean spin around to face her, across the parking lot, Elijah is on the phone.

Dean hangs up the phone. "Where the hell did you come from?"

"Heaven," she deadpans, causing him to snort. She comes over to stand next to him. "Elijah and I were already here, that's what I was trying to tell you before Sam came barreling out."

"So, you already know that the painting is fine?" Sam asks.

She nods. "Elijah told me on the way here."

Just then, Elijah approaches. Having completed his phone call, he continues the story for her. "Mr. Blake contacted me while Elena and I were catching up over breakfast. He wanted to know if any of us," he gestured between the four of them, "Had any interest in purchasing the painting. Since Elena had informed me of its destruction, the only answer I could possibly give him was yes."

Sam and Dean stare at him.

"You bought that thing?" Dean finally manages to ask.

"But it's haunted…" Sam says, confused and concerned.

Elena looks at Elijah admiringly. "That's actually brilliant."

"It is?" the brothers ask as one.

She nods, looking between them and Elijah. "Elijah here is one of the few people who is not going to get offed by whichever Merchant is haunting the painting."

"Precisely." Elijah nods. "I will have it delivered to my hotel suite. Tonight, we shall see exactly what happens when the owner is alone with the painting."

"I kinda wish I could be there," Elena admits.

Elijah looks amused at her confession. "That would be unwise, Elena."

She sighs, nodding. "I know."

Elijah departs shortly after, leaving the three hunters still in the parking lot.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Elena?" Sam asks, still unconvinced.

He's trying hard to act normal around her. She's his friend, he knows a hundred other things about her that have nothing to do with the horrors he learned just last night.

She nods. "Trust me, Elijah can handle it, and tomorrow we'll know which family member to focus on."

Dean and Sam exchange doubtful looks.

Elena purposefully ignores them, continuing on as if blissfully unaware of their doubts, "The only thing we have to decide now is what we're going to do in the meantime."

"Another horror movie marathon?" Dean suggests.

Sam glares at them. "You guys kicked me out of the room last night to have a movie marathon?"

They nod, unrepentant.

He shakes his head in disbelief. "Well, why in the hell couldn't I be there for a movie marathon?"

They both shrug, unbothered by his ire.

He stops, considering them. "Unless…" he starts slowly, looking at both of them very carefully. "It was a date?" he suggests, his hopes rising.

They look at each other, considering his words.

"Not really," Dean admits.

Elena nods in agreement. "You just weren't invited," she says bluntly.

"You guys suck," Sam says flatly. "And we're going to go do research on the Merchant family," he adds decisively. "That way, once Elijah knows who it is we won't have to waste a day doing the research then."

"Or you could go on another date with Sarah?" Elena suggests sweetly.

"That's a great idea," Dean says with enthusiasm.

Sam glares at them. "You guys just want to have another horror movie marathon."

Elena shrugs. "There's a zombie movie marathon on AMC tonight."

Dean nods emphatically.

Sam rolls his eyes. "C'mon guys, we're going to the library."

"Ah yes, the words of our people," Elena quips as they follow him to the car.

"I need cooler friends," Dean says.

Without looking at him, Elena sticks her leg out, tripping him.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean swears, barely managing not to do a faceplant.

"Nah, it's the bitch herself," Elena says, unrepentant.

Sam laughs the whole way to the car.

At the library they manage to find an old black and white photo of the painting, with a notable difference. Back in their motel room, the brothers are seated at the table in the corner, Elena on her and Dean's bed.

"I'm telling you, man, I'm sure of it," Sam is saying to Dean. "The painting at the auction house, Dad is looking down. Painting here, Dad's looking out. The painting has changed, Dean."

Elena rolls her eyes and texts Elijah.

"All right, so you think that Daddy Dearest is trapped in the painting and going all Sweeney Todd on buyers like he did with his family?" Dean says, referring to the gruesome history they'd discovered about the family.

Sam nods. "Well yeah, it seems like it. But if his bones are already dusted then how are we gonna stop him?"

Elena's phone vibrates with Elijah's response.

"All right, well, if Isaiah's position changed then maybe some other things in the painting changed as well. You know it could give us some clues," Dean suggests.

"What, like a Da Vinci Code deal?" Sam asks in amusement.

"Here's a picture of the painting in Elijah's hotel room," Elena announces, dropping her phone into Sam's lap.

That shuts the two of them up, both leaning in to look for clues in the painting.

"Where in the hell is he staying, the Taj Mahal?" Dean mutters.

While the painting fills most of the screen, there is enough of the background showing to reveal the ornate easel it's set on, and a hint of the luxury surrounding it: the edge of a velvet chateau carpet and the arm of a silk embroidered couch peeking out from behind the frame. A glimpse of a glamorous world that Elena seems to have no problem occupying.

Elena shrugs. "Elijah's not really a Motel 6 kinda guy."

"What's his house like?" Dean asks, trying to sound casual.

"It's more to his brother's taste than his," Elena answers, knowing it's not much of an answer.

"Do you have your own room there?" he asks.

Elena shrugs. "I guess."

"Is it nice?" Sam chimes in.

Elena rolls her eyes. "It's beautiful, and I could happily live in that bed, if only sleeping alone wasn't so horrible, what with all the unending nightmares that torment me every time I close my eyes."

This at last shuts down their line of questioning, Elena's nightmares a taboo subject between the three of them. Sam feels the ever-present urge to ask what she dreams about while simultaneously dreading the answer especially now that he knows the answer might have nothing to do with doppelgangers or sacrifice.

Dean is distracted by the possibility that she prefers their endless stream of shared motel mattresses, most questionable at best, if only because of his presence. The subtle assurance that Elijah's brother doesn't occupy her bed when she's there is comforting too.

"So?" Elena prompts them. "Any difference between the painting back then and now?"

Guiltily, they turn away from their private musings and back to the photo on Elena's phone, glancing between it and the printout from the library.

"It kinda looks like he's looking at the little girl?" Sam realizes aloud.

"Yeah, the girl they adopted," Elena agrees.

"Maybe she's part of why he snapped," Dean suggests. "Maybe she knew something she shouldn't have about him?"

"It's a possibility," Sam says. "Maybe she told someone." He holds his breath, his mind instantly leaping to Elena's exposé.

The three of them ponder all the shades of possibilities, each more horrifying than the last. Sam's phone ringing brings them back to reality. It's Sarah.

Sam tries to ignore the looks on Elena and Dean's faces as he answers the phone with a tentative hello.

"Hey Sam." Sarah's voice is warm even through the phone, bringing a slight flush to his cheeks. "I was wondering if you have any plans tonight?"

Steadfastly, he does not look at either of them. "Um, plans?"

"Yes, plans," she repeats, sounding amused. "I'm going to the New Paltz Brewing Co. for a tasting, and I thought you might want to go with me?"

"Oh, the brewery, um…" Sam is subconsciously shaking his head before he even starts to decline, but then Elena is snatching the phone from his hand and Dean barreling into him to stop him from snatching it back from her, knocking them both to the ground.

"Hey!" Sam squawks at the betrayal, distantly aware that not looking at the two conspirators undermining his decisions at this very moment had been a mistake. He should know better than to give the two of them room to plot; curse their stellar non-verbal communication skills!

"Hi Sarah, it's Elena. Sam had to go; Dean needed to ask him something. But he'd love to go to a beer tasting with you tonight," Elena says, her voice deceptively calm as Sam struggles against Dean's hold, expertly hiding the chaos from an oblivious Sarah on the other end of the phone.

Sam, breaking free from Dean's hold, lunges at Elena. Paying hardly any attention to Sam, she takes a step back while simultaneously smacking him directly on the center of his forehead with the palm of her hand, momentarily stunning him, causing him to drop to his hands and knees in front of her.

"Sorry about that, Sarah," she says apologetically, "There was a mosquito." She continues without missing a beat, "Eight is perfect, he'll meet you there if you text him the address." She beams at Sam who glares back her. "He's really excited too! Bye, Sarah." She hangs up.

Sam splits his glare between Dean and Elena. "I hate you both."

They give him identical Cheshire Cat grins.

"Guys. Enough already."

"What?" Dean asks, unperturbed by his glare.

"What?" Sam echoes in disbelief. "Ever since we got here, the two of have been trying to pimp me out to Sarah. Hell, you even recruited Elena's weirdly formal friend to help! Just back off, all right?"

"Well, you like her, don't you?" Dean asks bluntly.

Sam is silent, unable to deny his attraction to Sarah.

Dean continues, "All right, you like her, she likes you, you're both consenting adults…" he trails off suggestively.

Elena nods, perfectly willing to let Dean do most of the talking.

"What's the point? We'll just leave," Sam says flatly, adding, "We always leave."

"Well, I'm not talking about marriage, Sam," is Dean's witty reply.

"You know, I don't get it. What do either of you care if I hook up?" Sam is speaking through clenched teeth.

Elena and Dean exchange a quick glance – and it shouldn't be enough time to say anything but for them it is.

"'Cause then maybe you wouldn't be so cranky all the time," Dean says bluntly.

Sam scoffs, furious.

"You know, seriously Sam, this isn't about just hooking up, okay?" Dean continues, surprisingly serious.

Sam raises a skeptical brow.

"I mean, I, I think that Sarah could be good for you. And…" Dean hesitates but forges on. "I don't mean any disrespect but I'm sure this is about Jessica, right?"

Sam's stomach drops but Dean is still speaking.

"Now I don't know what it's like to lose somebody like that…but…I would think that she would want you to be happy. God forbid have fun once in a while. Wouldn't she?"

For a moment, Sam stands there, speechless and tense. Finally, he sags under the weight of his brother's words. He nods.

"Yeah, I know she would. Yeah, you're right. Part of this is about Jessica. But not the main part."

"What's it about?" Dean asks.

Sam looks away, not ready to explain.

Dean glances over at Elena, passing the baton.

"Sam, you don't have to go tonight if you don't want to," Elena says sweetly.

"Really?" he asks, skeptical.

She nods. "You can watch classic zombie movies and eat pizza with us," she says magnanimously. "But you should go."

"Why?" Sam asks, ready for a pep talk.

"Because you want to," is Elena's deceptively simple reply.

Dean nods, emphasizing her point.

And goddammit, she's right.

"I like the lighter ones," Sam tells Sarah.

At the brewery they've each got a beer flight in front of them.

Sarah shakes her head, pointing to the darkest brew.

"You're crazy, this one is amazing," she insists.

Sam gives her a skeptical look, shaking his head.

"I'm not gonna argue," he says. "I've learned not to argue in matters of taste."

"How diplomatic of a man who said the Merchant Family portrait was looking so good," Sarah teases him.

Sam laughs. "Well, it must've been put away in storage for like fifty years for a reason," he concedes.

Sarah snorts.

"I'm gonna use the restroom," Sam tells her, getting up to go.

While he is gone Sarah finds herself thinking about the mysterious fifty-year gap between sales of that hideous painting. Was it a matter of taste that had the painting put away in storage, or was it something else?

It starts with a wind through the hotel suite. Elijah puts his book down, standing. He glances around the room, alert.

"Hello?" he calls out. "Is anyone there?"

Unexpectedly, Elijah hears the sound of a wicked giggle echoing through the rooms – bringing to mind Rebekah's mischief as a child.

He raises a brow. "That's interesting," he murmurs to himself.

The wind blows open the doors with dramatic flair. Elijah stands back and watches as she enters the room slowly, straight razor in one hand, her precious dolly in the other.

"You're not who I expected," he tells her.

She stares at him, and then she attacks.

Elijah's hotel is intimidatingly lavish, but Elena seems perfectly comfortable with this level of luxury. She simply walks to the front desk and confidently tells the woman, "Please let Mr. Mikaelson in the penthouse know that Ms. Gilbert and her guests are here to see him."

"Right away, miss," the woman says, already dialing the number.

"The penthouse?" Sam mouths to Dean.

In return, Dean widens his eyes to express his astonishment.

In a moment they're being led to an elevator by a bellhop who can't quite keep his eyes off Elena.

The rest of Elijah's hotel room is just as magnificent as they glimpse they got from his photograph of the painting. It's also surprisingly blood splattered.

"I can't believe they actually managed to draw blood," Elena says, sounding genuinely bemused.

Elijah is without his jacket, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Yes, well, she was persistent," Elijah says with amusement and begrudging admiration.

"It was the mom?" Dean asks, surprised.

Elijah shakes his head. "No, the girl," he replies, pointing to the girl in the painting so there can be no mistake.

"The little girl?" Sam asks in astonishment.

"She didn't manage to kill you so where did she go?" Elena asks.

"I believe the paradox of her being unable to kill me vanquished her."

"Well, there's only one way to tell for sure," Dean says, digging around in his pockets. His hand emerges clutching his zippo. "Burn the hideous waste of canvas and paint."

"Excellent idea," Elijah says.

"You're going to what?" Sarah says from the doorway.

"Sarah," Sam stutters. "What are you doing here?"

Sarah takes in the blood-stained room, ignoring him completely. "Tell me what the hell's going on. Who's killing these people?" Before any of them can respond, she continues. "And don't lie to me, I did the research, I looked at the provenances, everyone who has bought that hideous painting has died almost immediately, except Elijah, apparently."

The remaining four occupants of the penthouse exchange silent looks. While Sam and Elijah are not as adept at communicating silently as Elena and Dean are, they ultimately all come to the same conclusion.

Sam takes a breath and takes the lead. "What."

"What?" Sarah asks, confused.

"It's not 'who'," he clarifies. "It's 'what' is killing those people."

She just stares at him, so he continues. "Sarah, I know this sounds crazy…" he trails off, mentally preparing himself for the reveal. "But that painting is haunted."

"You're joking." She takes in all the serious faces in the room. "You're not joking." She sighs. "God, the guys I go out with."

Elena laughs.

Sarah looks at her.

"Sorry," Elena says, shaking her head, unable to stop giggling. "You would just…not believe some of the guys I've gone out with."

Elijah surprises everyone but Elena by laughing along with her.

"We're way off topic here," Sam says, bemused.

"Sammy's right," Dean agrees. He looks at Elena imploringly. "I do need to know what you mean though."

"Dean, focus." Elena shakes her head, no longer laughing but she's smiling so Dean figures he can probably pry it out of her later.

Sam sighs and dives back in. "Sarah, think about it. The Telescas, now Elijah, they both had the painting." Sam sweeps his hands around the room, showing off the blood-splattered finery. "You can clearly see that something attacked Elijah in here. And there have been others before that. Wherever this thing goes people die. And we're just trying to stop it. And that's the truth."

"Elijah looks completely unharmed, though," Sarah points that out.

Sam looks at Elijah who is impenetrable as steel, reminding him eerily of Elena. He shares another quick glance with Dean, then looks at Elena who is looking at Elijah.

"Yeah, honestly, I can't explain that," Sam admits freely. "Dean and I aren't completely in the know here."

Elena and Elijah seem to have come to an agreement.

"I'm not precisely…" Elijah trails off. "Human," he finally finishes, confirming both Dean and Sam's suspicions.

"Oh," Sarah says faintly. "What are you, then?" she finally asks.

Elijah smirks faintly with no small amount of arrogance. "Let's just say I'm quite a bit sturdier than our ghost was expecting. It would take more than a little girl with a straight razor to murder me."

"It's the little girl?!" Sarah asks in obvious distress.

At the same time, Elena tells Dean, "It would take a bit more than what you've got in the back of your car, too."

"We're getting off topic again," Sam reminds them all. "And yes, Sarah, apparently it's the little girl who's murdering people."

"So, what do we do now?" Sarah asks.

"You go home," Sam says firmly. "This stuff can get dangerous and..." Sam trails off, uncomfortable with admitting this truth in mixed company, but he forges on. "And I don't want you to get hurt. We'll take care of it."

"You're not telling Elena to go home," Sarah says.

"I live in motel rooms and Dean's car, home is a weird concept to me right now," Elena says frankly.

"Quit philosophizing, Elena," Sam says sternly. "Sarah, last week Elena blew a werewolf's face off with a shotgun, she's a bit more prepared for this than you are."

Elijah raises an eyebrow at Elena.

"He had it coming," she mutters. "He was telling teenage girls online that if he bit them they'd turn and then when they met in person he…" Elena's mouth raises into a snarl.

Sam's stomach does a funny little wobble, remembering once again, the story she wrote for her hometown paper. He had never thought to wonder why Elena turns so fierce in protecting the young girls they encounter on the road. Now he wonders, who had protected Elena? When she was young and vulnerable, and a man had told her lies to get what he wanted, who had slain her dragons?

"He did indeed," Elijah agrees. He doesn't seem surprised by the revelation that Elena is a hunter in every sense of the word. Little Red Riding Hood has become the Woodsman, slaying the Big Bad Wolf all on her own.

Sarah looks between the four of them, so far out of her depth but unable to accept the lifeboat she's been thrown.

"Look, you guys are probably crazy, but if you're right about this?" She shrugs. "Well, me and my dad sold that painting that mighta got these people killed." She takes a deep breath. "Look, I'm not saying I'm not scared because I am scared as hell but…" she trails off briefly before continuing, "I'm not going to run and hide either," she says decisively. "So, what do we do next?" She looks between the four of them again, this time waiting for an answer instead of looking for signs of insanity.

"We're gonna burn the painting again, see if it sticks this time, then go from there," Dean tells her. "I assume you don't want us to do it in your fancy digs?" he directs at Elijah.

"There's a rather large tub in the bathroom," Elijah answers. "I think it will do quite nicely."

Elijah removes the painting from its easel, leading the way to the bathroom with Elena at his heels. Sarah takes off after them, determined to be a part of this, leaving Sam and Dean in the sitting room.

Dean glances at his brother. "Sam? Marry that girl."

They all watch in grim silence as the burned painting restores itself, answering their question.

"Aren't you worried that it's…gonna kill us?" Sarah asks uneasily.

"Nah, it seems to do its thing at night," Sam replies. "I think we're all right in the daylight."

"Check it out," Dean says, holding up the photograph of the painting for comparison. "The razor, it's closed in this one but it's open in that one."

Elena, Dean, Sam, and Elijah glance between the paintings, comparing the differences.

"What are you guys looking for?" Sarah asks, curious about their process.

"Well, if the spirit's changing aspects of the painting then it's doing so for a reason," Sam explains. "Maybe the dad's trying to help us."

"Hey, hey, look at this." Dean points. "The painting in the painting."

Dean grabs a crystal ashtray to use as a magnifying glass.

"God it's hot how smart you are." Elena is blatantly checking Dean out.

He gives her a sideways grin and coy little glance up that says more than enough.

"Looks like a crypt, or a mausoleum or something. 'Merchant.'"

"Oh goody, more graveyards," Elena says dryly.

Dean snorts. "You said it, Gilbert."

For a moment they all consider the little girl in the painting. What had caused such a young girl to go on a murderous rampage in her afterlife that has lasted for the better part of a century?

Surprisingly what breaks the silence is the sound of Elena's laughter.

Everyone looks at her. Dean with curious amusement, Sam with fondness – he just knows whatever she's about to say will be both insane and hilarious – Elijah with bemusement, and Sarah with incredulity.

Elena giggles. "I'm sorry, I just pictured that tiny girl stabbing Elijah with a straight razor and I…" she trails off, wheezing. She leans forward to put her hands on her knees, bracing herself.

Dean and Sam give in and laugh a little. Sarah almost laughs but she can't quite get over the surreality of it all.

Elijah smiles. "I must admit, it was one of the more…bizarre situations that I've been in."

Elena only laughs harder in response.

Dean reaches over to rub her back, grinning and chuckling all the while.

"Your life is really fucking weird," Sarah tells Sam as she seems to realize this for the first time.

"Yeah, I know," Sam says, grinning a little. It's true, but it's also much more fun than it had been before. Elena adds a layer of levity to their job that was previously lacking since his father approached everything so seriously.

Finally, Elena straightens, wiping the tears from her face. "So uh, not to be that person in a horror movie, but why don't we split up? Each one of us can go to a different graveyard?"

She points at Sam who does the same. "Take a shot!" they shout together.

"I don't think we should be drinking right now," Sarah says to the others, worried.

Dean laughs, shaking his head. "It's just an inside joke, we don't actually drink to every horror movie cliché we encounter."

"Mostly because we don't want alcohol poisoning," Sam adds.

"I don't get hungover," Elena reminds him smugly.

"Brat," Dean says with affection.

"Yes, Elena, we know you're basically Wonder Woman," Sam says teasingly, but he's looking at Dean not Elena.

"Shut up, Sammy," Dean replies, looking almost bashful.

"Dean, if you compared me to Wonder Woman I might actually have to marry you," Elena threatens sweetly.

"He did!" Sam yells, too loud in the small space but grinning from ear to ear.

Elena pretends to swoon, falling right into Dean's arms, certain that he'll catch her. He does, grinning down at her. "Don't tease me, Gilbert."

"Me, tease?" She blinks up at him innocently, but her grin is anything but.

They stay like that for a moment, her bent backwards at the waist, him supporting her. Her hair spilling down his arms and obscuring his t-shirt. They're a perfect picture and Elijah can't help but feel sorry for his brother.

"You already turned me down once," he reminds her. He kisses her on her nose before pulling her out of swoon and towards the door.

She goes willingly. "Putting that you want to get married on a bucket list doesn't count as a proposal," she argues.

Sam follows after them, "Yeah but telling you that your name sounds good with his last name does," he chimes in, grinning at them.

"Elena Winchester does sound really good," Dean insists.

"You know I didn't actually turn you down, I just said I wasn't allowed to get married until after college!" Elena points out.

"Gilbert, you're not in college."

"I can't break my dead father's rule, Dean."

"But hey, she's the one who told everyone you two were eloping!"

"That's right, I did!"

Elijah and Sarah are bringing up the rear as they exit the bathroom.

"So, if Sam's the third wheel," Sarah says, thinking out loud. "Does that make us the fourth and fifth wheel respectively?"

Elijah laughs. "I believe that's correct. Two pairs and a spare."

They've split up into two groups. With Elijah teaming up with Elena and Dean, and Sarah and Sam making up the other team, they divided the list of local cemeteries in two, halving the time to find the right one where the Merchant family rests.

"This is the third boneyard we've checked," Sam says to Sarah needlessly. "I think this ghost is jerking us around."

"So, this is what you guys do for a living?" she asks instead of answering.

"Not exactly," Sam says, giving her a humorless grin. "We don't get paid."

Sarah grimaces. "Well, mazel tov."

Sam suddenly straightens as his eyes catch something in the distance. "Over there."

The crypt is the same as the one in the painting, bearing the family name and all.

Sam pulls out his phone as they walk towards it. "I'm just gonna text Elena and let them know we found it," he tells Sarah.

"Are we going in without them or are we waiting until they get here?" Sarah asks.

"Well, we didn't bring this pipe wrench for no reason," Sam says holding it up. "I say we crack it open and see what we can find out before they get here."

After cracking the door, they pause briefly in the doorway, the musty smell so overpowering it is briefly another barrier.

Inside, a small stained-glass window lights the room dimly. Lining the walls are glass displays holding a few notable objects, including urns.

Sarah catches sight of a porcelain doll behind the glass. "Okay, that right there – is the creepiest things I've ever seen."

Sam holds in a laugh. "It was a…" he considers his words before continuing, "sort of tradition at the time," he explains. "Whenever a child died sometimes they'd preserve the kid's favorite toy in a glass case, put it next to the headstone or crypt."

She nods.

His eyes narrow as he takes in the contents of the crypt.

"Notice anything strange here?" he asks.

"Ah…where do I start?" Sarah volleys back, reminding him of their previous topic.

Sam shakes his head. "No, that's not what I mean." He gestures. "Look at the urns."

"Yeah," Sarah says, realizing his point. "There are only four."

"Yeah, Mom and the three kids. Dad isn't here."

"So where is he?" Sarah ponders aloud.

Sam shakes his head. "More importantly, they're all in urns."

"What does that mean?" Sarah asks.

"Ghosts need remains to tether them to this world, we have to figure out how that little girl is still here and committing homicide."

Sarah stares at him in horrified fascination and Sam remembers suddenly how nice it was, back at school, when he was lying to all of the people he cared about. Sure, it got a little lonely sometimes, but none of them ever looked at him like that.

Outside the crypt, Sam and Sarah sit on a bench waiting for the others to arrive.

Sam looks at Sarah, getting caught on her face long enough to notice something. "You have a…uh…you have an eyelash on your right…"

Sarah starts brushing at her face.

Sam shakes his head. "No…uh…you know what." He clears his throat. "Do you mind if I – get it?"

"No," she acquiesces.

Sam focuses on the eyelash, trying to touch her as little as possible, avoiding the thought of how soft her skin is. "Okay, I got it." He tries to cut the tension, with a joke, not nearly as skilled at it as Elena. "Make a wish."

Sarah is less avoidant. "Sam, can I ask you something?"

Sam nods. "Yeah, sure."

"I don't mean to be forward, but a girl could wait here forever," Sarah says plainly. "Is there something, here, between us? Or am I delusional?"

Sam sighs. "You're not delusional."

"But there's a but coming."

She's not wrong so he obliges. "But…" he hesitates. "I don't think this would be a good idea."

She cocks her head to the side, more curious than hurt. "Can I ask why?"

"'Cause I like you," Sam says after a long pause.

Sarah pauses, shaking her head, taken aback by his logic. "Wait. You lost me."

They both let out a chuckle, breathless and awkward.

Sam shakes his head, looking down at his lap. "Look, it's hard to explain. Ah – It's just when people are around me – I don't know, they get hurt." Slowly he looks up and over at her.

"What do you mean?" she asks, no judgement in her tone.

Sam is blunt. "I mean like physically hurt. With what me and my brother and Elena do, it's…" Sam hesitates but takes a deep breath and then the plunge. "Sarah, I had a girlfriend. And she died. And my mom died, too." He shakes his head, pained. "I don't know, it's like, it's like I'm cursed or something. Like death just follows me around." He looks down. "Look, I'm not scared of much," he looks back at her. "But if I let myself have feelings for anybody–"

"You're scared they'd get hurt too," Sarah finishes for him. "That's very sweet," she says. "And very archaic," she adds bluntly.

Sam is taken aback. "Sorry?"

She shakes her head. "Look I'm a big girl, Sam, it's not your job to make decisions for me. There's always a chance of getting hurt."

Sam counters with vehemence. "I'm not talking about a broken heart and a tub of Häagen-Dazs. I'm talking about life and death."

Sarah responds just as quickly. "And tomorrow I could get hit by a bus. That's what life is. Look, I know losing somebody you love – it's terrible." She looks at him with aching sympathy. "You shut yourself off. Believe me, I know. But when you shut out pain, you shut out everything else too."

Sam stubbornly sticks to his guns. "Sarah, you don't understand. The pain that I went through…" He shakes his head. "I can't go through it again. I can't."

"Are we interrupting something?" Elena asks from a few feet away.

Sam looks over, Dean and Elijah with her on either side.

They've been so deep in their conversation that they didn't notice the three of them approaching them.

"No," Sam says quickly.

"Not at all," Sarah agrees easily.

"Apparently," Dean says dryly, making his disbelief clear. "What do we got?" he addresses Sam.

"Urns for the kids and their mother, nothing on the father," Sam explains succinctly.

"Urns? Baby Sweeney Todd is already dust?" Dean asks.

Elena snorts at his joke.

"Wanna check it out for yourself?" Sarah offers.

"Oh, we never say no to a quick jaunt through a crypt," Elena quips dryly and now it's Dean's turn to snort.

The three of them head towards the crypt. When Sam gets up to follow them Sarah does too.

"Sorry we don't have a brewski for you, Elena," Dean says, smiling at her fondly.

"Why would Elena want a beer now?" Elijah asks.

"Back home, in high school, we used to drink in the old founding family mausoleums," Elena explains.

"I never knew," Elijah says, amused.

"Really? Your sister never told you?"

He shakes his head.

Arriving at the crypt, Sam and Sarah hang back at the entrance while the other three enter.

"So, on a scale of our usual motel room to Elijah's penthouse suite, where does this crypt fall in comparison to the Mystic Falls' Founding Families ones?" Dean asks as casually as one can ask that question.

Elena does not skip a beat. "Oh, not nearly enough stained glass."

Even Sarah laughs at this.

Later, they've convened in Elijah's hotel room to discuss options for what was tethering the girl to this plain of existence.

"Should we be worried about Isaiah's remains being unaccounted for?" Sarah asks tentatively.

Dean shakes his head decisively. "Probably not."

Sam nods in agreement. "Isaiah's ghost will probably be put to rest as soon as his adoptive daughter's spirit is stopped for good. We don't need to worry about him."

"Yeah but meanwhile Baby Sweeney Todd's gonna show up in a couple of hours, and unlike Elijah, the rest of us won't make it through a night of babysitting," Dean points out.

"I think Dean is saying we should leave," Elena translates.

"Dean is saying we should hurry it up and figure out what we gotta torch that belonged to the Demon Baby of Fleet Street," Dean counters.

Elena raises an eyebrow at him, and he relents. "Yeah, we're gonna need to leave this cushy penthouse to figure that out."

"You guys go, Sarah and I are gonna do a bit more digging on the Merchant family, see where this kid is getting her juice."

"Not out of a juice box," Elena quips, making Dean snort.

On their way out the door Dean turns back to mouth at Sam, "Make your move!"

Elena catches him, pushing him ahead of her, but she also turns back to look at Sam. She shrugs then mouths some advice of her own. "Think about it."

Sam shakes his head at the two of them, uncomfortably aware that they are giving him a taste of his own medicine. He's spent the last eight months pushing them towards each other and yet he's hated every second of them doing the same to him and Sarah for the last few days.

Once they are alone he and Sarah exchange tense smiles.

"You guys seem to be uncomfortably comfortable with some very dark conversation topics," Sarah says, breaking the ice.

Sam laughs out of sheer relief.

"Oh, we've had much darker conversations. You don't even wanna know the things Elena's made me laugh at." He shakes his head ruefully. "Still think I'm a catch?"

Sarah snorts at his fishing for assurance, shaking her head.

Sam catches sight of something in their research about the family.

"Jesus Christ, Melanie," Sam mutters.

"Who's Melanie?"

"The little girl," Sam says.

"The Demon Baby of Fleet Street?"

Sam gives her a look and she shrugs. "Your brother has a way with words."

"I'll say," Sam admits wryly. He hands the piece of paper he's been holding to her.

As she reads, he can't resist blurting out the reveal. "She was adopted because her family was murdered in their beds."

"God, what a body count," Sarah says morbidly.

Sam nods fervently as he dials Dean's number to relay the information to him. Maybe it will help them figure out what is anchoring Melanie to this world, allowing her to continue her killing spree into the next life.

Sarah glances across the room at the painting. She does a double take.

"Uh, Sam?" she asks, catching his attention. She is staring hard at the painting. "You're the expert on all this ghost stuff. Is that painting supposed to look like that? Where's Melanie?"

Sam spins quickly to look at the painting.

"And the razor," she adds.

A wicked giggling fills the air.

"Oh fuck," Sam replies.

Sam whirls around, heart pounding as he searches for the threat.

There's a rustling noise in the background. Sam grabs Sarah's hand. "C'mon!"

They race for the door of the penthouse, only to find it locked.

"Shit," Sam curses. Fumbling, he grabs his phone, dialing Dean's number.

"Dean!" he starts talking as soon as the line stops ringing. "The little girl left the painting early; tell me you've got something?"

"What do you mean early?" Dean asks. "How in the hell did she do that?"

The air fills with demented giggling.

Dean, hearing it through the phone, shudders. "Oh, that is creepy."

Sam ignores his spot-on observation, answering his question instead. "I dunno, she must've sensed a threat, tell me you're close!"

"Uh yeah, Elena remembered all the stuff in the mausoleum, we figured it must be something in there, so we came back."

"You're there now?"

"Yeah, yeah, all three of us," Dean says. "Are you safe?"

"We're in the kitchen," Sam replies. "Sarah is looking for salt."

"Found it!" she yells triumphantly. "It's that pink Himalayan crap."

"It'll work," Sam reassures her.

"Okay, stay there, Elena is sending Elijah to give you some back up."

"Great," Sam says. Somehow, in this moment, the other man's inscrutability and mysterious indestructability seems very comforting to Sam.

"Elena and I will try to figure out what shit to burn," Dean says, hesitating. "Or scratch that, we'll burn all the shit." Dean's voice changes. "Elena, run back to the car and find something to break the glas-" his words are cut off by a gun shot and the sound of glass shattering. "That works too."

An unnatural wind starts to form inside the penthouse.

Sarah whimpers. "Oh god, I don't want to see a creepy little girl ghost," she admits to Sam.

"I don't want that for you either," Sam admits. "But if you see her, you hit her with some salt," he instructs her sternly.

Sarah is incredulous. "You want me to season her?!"

Sam laughs then groans. "God, I spend too much time with Elena," he mutters. "The salt is pure, it will repel the spirit," he explains.

She nods. "That makes sense."

"It won't banish her completely, but it will buy us sometime."

Finally, Melanie makes herself known, appearing dragging a doll in one hand, the straight razor clutched in the other.

"That is just so wrong," Sarah says, fumbling to open the salt so she can throw some at her.

Suddenly she stops, then shouts, "The doll!"

"What?" Sam asks. "Sarah, the salt!"

Sarah shakes her head. "Give me the phone, you season the child." She pauses, groans. "Ew, not like that."

Sam takes the salt from her, shoving the phone into her hands. "Sarah, not now."

He throws a handful of salt at the ghost, causing her to disappear.

"Right," She says quickly, fumbling as she puts the phone to her ear. "Dean? It's Sarah."

"Yeah," he says tersely.

"We used to handle antique dolls at the auction," she explains.

"Well, that's fascinating, Sarah but is it important right now?" Dean replies, trying to be kind.

"Well back then they use to make the dolls in the kids' image, I mean everything, they would use the kid's real hair."

"Human remains, same as bones," Dean realizes. "Burn the doll first, got it, thanks, Sarah."

Just then, Elijah appears so quickly they don't see him pass through the doors, one moment they are closed and the next moment they are swinging in his wake.

"Yeah, no problem," she says faintly.

Just as the little girl rematerializes directly in front of Sarah, raising her straight razor high, she begins to burn, disappearing right before their eyes in a matter of moments.

"Well, the two of you don't seem to be in need of any rescuing after all," Elijah observes coolly.

"Nah, Dean burned the doll, we're good," Sam confirms. "Thanks, though," he adds hastily, trying to be polite to Elena's supernatural friend.

Sarah whimpers, slumping over suddenly.

"Are you all right?" Sam asks her, coming over to check on her quickly.

"I never want to do that again," she tells him bluntly.

He nods in understanding. "You won't have to," he promises.

Realizing she still has his phone, he takes it back, reassuring Dean and Elena that it worked.

After burning the painting in the penthouse bathroom for a second time, they decide the only response to seeing it burn for good this time is to move to one of the lavish sitting rooms to celebrate with a nightcap.

Sarah recounts the events for Dean and Elena at least twice, amazed and horrified at what she went through. "I'll never look at dolls or little girls the same again," she promises, making Elena laugh.

As they're leaving, Elena tosses over her shoulder to Elijah, "Tell Rebekah I said thank you for the dress." She sounds oddly reluctant, like she can't imagine thanking her; like her name leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

"She'll be pleased to hear it," Elijah responds, the look on his face confirming that he knows exactly how much it costs Elena to extend gratitude to Rebekah.

In the elevator Dean asks, "Who's Rebekah?"

"His sister," she says absentmindedly.

Elijah and Rebekah Mikaelson, Sam thinks, and then he stops. His heart is pounding so loud he's afraid they can all hear it all the way down to the lobby.

"Uh hey, Dean, Elena, why don't you go get the car?" he asks, praying they won't question it.

They nod.

"Hey, Sarah," Sam starts once they're alone.

"Yeah Sam?" she asks hopefully, but Sam's mind is on a completely different track.

"What's Elijah's brother's name? The artist?"

Sarah, confused, answers anyway. "Klaus. Or I guess, Niklaus. It's Niklaus Mikaelson."

Sam's heart stutters. Shit. This is worse than he thought.

"What uh, what does he look like?"

Dean and Elena are fast asleep, Sam is sitting at the table, his laptop in front of him. He has the Guardian's Archive open, and he's looking at the picture of the names on the cave wall again. He clicks back to the homepage, still absorbing the information he learned earlier.

Sam glances at the header of the Guardian's Archive, then frowns, doing a double take.

Research provided by Professor Isobel Fleming.

This isn't news to Sam. He saw it the very first time he stumbled across the website. But it's just now occurring to him that he knows nothing about the mysterious Professor Fleming, and that certainly needs to be remedied after what he discovered earlier that day. How exactly does Professor Fleming know so much about all of this?

Sam opens a new tab, typing the name into his search engine.

The next morning Elena and Dean leave Sarah and Sam alone after saying their goodbyes.

Sarah starts. "There are a million thing I wanna say to you but for the life of me I can't think of one."

"Yeah, I'll miss you too," Sam replies, cutting to the chase.

Sarah smiles. "You know there's a lesson in all of this."

Sam cocks his head to the side "What's that?" he asks.

"We all got through this in one piece," she says. She spreads out her hands, gesturing to herself. "I didn't get hurt."

Sam nods. "Yeah, I'm glad for that," he says simply.

"So, maybe you're not cursed," she says. "Maybe…" she looks down, almost shy. "Maybe you'll come back and see me."

Sam ducks down to catch her eye, so she can see how sincere he is when he says. "I will."

Sam starts towards the car, then changes his mind, going back. Some things can wait, but not this. Sarah sees his intent in his face and beams at him, meeting him halfway for a perfect first kiss.

"That's my boy," Dean says from the driver's seat as he and Elena spy on the two of them.

"Awww, good for him," Elena says. "He seriously needed that."

Dean nods fervently. "Damn right he did." He starts the car, pulling out onto the road.

"Where are you going?" Elena asks. "We can't just leave Sam here without saying anything," she points out.

"He'll catch up with us," Dean assures her. "We're not going far; he can find his own way there when he's ready."

"Where are we going?" she asks again.

"Where do you think we're going, Gilbert?" he asks playfully.

He glances over, watching as she gets it and seems to light up from within, like the sun – like a girl's whose soul is so bright it could disintegrate the darkest of beings who attempts to consume it.

"We're going to see Jeremy?" she asks like she's not sure.

"Course, I texted him last night, he's waitin' on us."

Elena beams, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. Her kiss lands far too close to his mouth for him to keep breathing but there's nothing flirtatious or calculated about it. She's just too excited – too happy at the thought of seeing her brother – to be careful, to pretend that anything between them means less than it does.

AN: Chapter title taken from Talking With Strangers by Miya Folick. God there is just too much to say about this song tbh. I know it has literally nothing to do with the case of this chapter, but that's because this time it's all about Sam. This episode has always felt important to me in Sam's grieving process, it's probably the most significant step towards healing over the loss of Jess that he takes within the actual narrative. This song just said that to me. Sam's pretty damn young and he was raised in a pretty messed up way, he's still learning how to not be his father's son. At points further in the show itself, he does fail, but he also ultimately succeeds. At this point, this is Sam succeeding, learning how to properly grieve and let go of Jess, in a way that John never did with Mary. It also has the ironic double meaning of Sam's current internet habits!

Notes/References:

In the actual episode Dean does tell the girl that he's a reality TV scout. Which is one of the funnier Dean come-ons to me because of how unnecessary it is. Like, dude, all you had to do was ask for her number, she would've given it to you because you're you. File it under: evidence that Dean Winchester is a dumbass. (If you wanna tell me some long tirade about why Dean feels the need to lie - go ahead, I've heard it all, I still think it's unnecessary and hilarious.)

Sam, vibing too much with the poor redhead that Dean ignored: imagine losing the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with and then spending the next 8 months of your life with two people who are clearly in love and refusing to do absolutely anything about it, that would be...frustrating, to say the least.

While I was touring colleges I actually visited SUNY New Paltz. But I didn't end up applying because I was lukewarm on the school and my grandpa absolutely hated it. I do love New Paltz as a town a lot though.

How could I NOT include Elijah in this episode? Art auctions and snobs are his bread and butter. And sure, Klaus could've worked just as well here because he's actually an artist, but I figured since Klaus got Chicago, Elijah could have New Paltz. And since Elena recently spoke with Elijah about Hope and Hayley, she would know he was nearby to help.

In TVD, I think only Elijah and Damon ever pronounce Elena with a hard E - Damon possibly only in the pilot - but I dig it and I knew Dean would hate it and what is my job as a writer but the annoy the shit out of these characters?

So in the outtake where Elena visits Jeremy and Bobby in Sioux Falls for Christmas, Elena tells Bobby that part of her agreement with Klaus is that he's not allowed to know where Jeremy is. Obviously, that's changed if Elijah goes to visit him and Elena is unbothered by this. I would attribute Elena and Klaus being (slightly) more trustful of each other to Hope's birth and Elena being there for all that. I will confirm that Hope's birth is an outtake to this story, but I will also throw water on anyone's excitement by admitting that while that outtake is already written, it probably won't be published for a while. In fact, it might be the last one posted. #Spoilers, ya know?

The article Elena is referring to is called "The Disturbing Consequences of Seeing Your Doppelganger". It's written by Anil Ananthaswamy, based on a chapter from Anathaswamy's book, The Man Who Wasn't There. The article is available to read on the BBC website, if anyone wants to read it. If you're interested in rare psychological events, I highly recommend it.

Grant Wood painted American Gothic, and was best known for his depictions of the American Midwest. Whereas Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) was a folk artist, best known for her idyllic depictions of American rural life. One of her most notable works is The Old Checkered Inn in Summer. They were both painters but Moses was also known for her embroidery. Both were American painters, but from distinctly different movements. (Personally, I'm a sucker for the American romantics, the Hudson Valley River School especially. Thomas Cole is my favorite painter. If I'd gone to grad school he's who I would've focused on.)

I told y'all to remember the pink-haired girl from Katherine's Cancún adventures! A brief cameo, but I just wanted to acknowledge exactly how deep Elena and Katherine's con goes. Elena's got Kat's party girls' names memorized!

Pottersville Pale Ale is from New Paltz Brewing Co., a brewery in Hudson Valley (and about 30 minutes from New Paltz). It was one of the few beers I genuinely liked back when I could drink beer - truthfully I'm more of a bourbon girl, but I digress. It annoys me endlessly when characters aren't specific about their drink, you can't just ask for "a beer" and expect the server/bartender to know which one. So, since we're in my territory, I took a moment to shout out a local company.

I could say quite a bit about Elena and her complete disregard for her own physical pain and her hyper-awareness of how she can use others' value of her body (and self) to manipulate them to utterly terrifying degrees but for now I'm just gonna say that I find it endlessly fascinating (and horrifying) and it's probably one of the reasons she's still my absolute favorite fictional character to this day. While the show was willing to dive deeper into most other characters' insecurities and self-loathing, unfortunately we only ever got hints of Elena's, with her willingness to hurt herself at the drop of a hat being the most obvious.

God bless Sarah for recognizing all that Sam has suffered by being stuck with these two stubborn, pining - horny - assholes for so long.

In canon, Elijah actually uses the pen name Elijah Smith as a writer/historian, and as far as I can remember, there is no mention of him canonically publishing his writing, even though I personally love to imagine him picking a new pen name every generation and having his research and scholarly articles published dating back centuries. So, for the sake of the plot and Sam finally making some more headway with his Elena research, Elijah writes as himself and publishes the books too.

Some of the headlines I came up with on the spot, for your pleasure:

LOCKDOWN AT THE GET-DOWN

A DECONSTRUCTED WHITE PICKET FENCE: A COMMENTARY ON SMALL TOWN BIGOTRY?

Lockdown at the dance: esther getting elena alone in 3x20. Vandalism of a fence: klaus using Elena's neighbor's fence as projectiles at the group gathered inside the Gilbert house in 3x21.

There is going to be an Entire outtake about Elena's article Why She Left and let me tell you, it is Long and I am Nervous but you know what? Posting this means I can't back out now lmao. Also, did y'all catch the hint Sam missed in the article about Alaric resigning?

Elena's excitement at hopping fences: me too, girl! Not to completely expose my parents like this, but I can't remember my first hopped fence. However, I can say that it happened before the age of six. Also like Elena, I also have a barbed-wire scar! Mine is on my shoulder instead of the palm of the hand like Elena's though, and in my parents' defense, that happened as a pre-teen (I think, I know exactly where I got it, so truthfully it could be anywhere from ages 8-12, but tbh, there's been a lot of scaled-fences) and I was with my friends (this is gonna sound wild, but I swear I was the responsible, scaredy-cat of that group…the more you know about me the more unbelievable that sounds but I swear it's true. You can be both a responsible scaredy-cat and a reckless hell child at the same time, I assure you!) so there's no way my parents were responsible for the fence-hopping incident that resulted in said scar. But yeah, I love a good fence hopping almost as much as I love cliff diving, and I especially love combining the two!

just because Dean and Elena are in love doesn't mean they're going to stop picking on each other. It is their love language, if you will. Like when Elena pushed Dean off of Sam's friend's porch, that was in the spirit of her love for him - and her disdain for his taste in jokes. But mostly it was love!

Sorry to all Stelena shippers but also I thought it was funny okay lmao. Imagine being a 21-year-old badass hunter and just living every day with the fact that you dated a vampire at age 17, you'd laugh too!

Okay now is the time for me to admit that I included Elijah in this chapter for one purpose and one purpose alone: in order to inflict everyone with the image of a creepy little girl ghost frustratingly stabbing him with a razor while he just stands there completely unaffected! It was so funny to me the first time it occurred to me that I literally laughed until I cried.

Maddie the Sweeney Todd jokes are just for you!

So, do you think Sam is gonna tell Rick about Elena?

That's all for now, see you next week!

Thoughts? Questions? Please leave a review!

xoxo

-Pixie