Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

According to the people of Mystic Falls, Ella Lockwood was a strange child in many ways. Mayor Lockwood’s only daughter was many things to many people.

Her mother, Carol, thought that Ella was a prodigy, bragging to anyone that would listen about her daughter’s stellar grades in school and knack for languages. Ella was already fluent in French and Italian, and at only fourteen, that was so impressive to her. It was almost like she had learned them already.

(Of course, she had, but more on that later.)

Her father, Richard, didn’t have a vested interest in her. He needed an heir to take over the Lockwood fortune, and as the youngest, and a girl to boot, she wasn’t the top priority.

Her uncle, Mason, hadn’t seen her since she was eight years old, but upon triggering his werewolf curse, worried about her and Tyler. He wouldn’t let his nephew and niece suffer the same terrible fate that he had.

(She had suffered it before. Twice.)

Tyler was resentful of his goody-two-shoes little sister, to say the least. His mother was so proud of the little overachiever, who had perfect grades in school and played the violin and won history fair and volunteered all across town. She didn’t seem to realize how much harder the pressure to measure up to that made his life, or worse, she didn’t care. And then she had the nerve to lecture him on how to live his life? Tyler was certain there was nothing in the world that would ever get the two Lockwood siblings to see eye to eye.

(A shared werewolf curse and a major revelation would beg to differ.)

She wasn’t just important to her family, however.

She was April Young’s best friend, until April was sent to boarding school the summer before freshman year started.

She was a reluctant Sheila Bennet’s pupil in magic, though the elderly witch had no clue how a Lockwood of all people had ended up with the gift. She chalked it up to a cosmic fluke.

She was one of the only friends of the recently orphaned Jeremy Gilbert, and a distinguished member of five different clubs in town. She was the little girl Elena Gilbert remembered babysitting, and Bonnie Bennet remembering hanging around her house, with eyes far too sad for such a small child.

She was all of these things, and more, because Ella Lockwood was an important part of a tiny community in a small town, but Ella Lockwood wasn’t all she was.

She carried the names and lives of the girls that she had once been with her wherever she went. Ever since she had been set on this cursed path of endless rebirth, over one thousand years ago. Evelyn. Dottie. Beatrice. Agnes. Madelyn. Lucretia. Efa. Edith. So many more.

But there was one life - the most important of all. Her first life, the one she could remember as clearly today as she could back then. One thousand years ago.

Back when she had been Eleanor Mikaelson.

Chapter Text

Arc 1: Welcome to Mystic Falls

Chapter 1

“Kol, you’re being ridiculous.”

Eleanor sat on the cold dirt floor of the Mikaelson family home, rolling her eyes up at her little brother. His brow was slick with sweat and the bags under his eyes were heavy, but he bore a triumphant smile.

“You’re just angry that I bested you again, sister,” Kol said.

Eleanor took a deep breath, resisting the urge to leap up and rip the smug expression off her brother’s face. She was the older sibling, she reminded herself, which meant that she had to display some degree of maturity.

“Go on, Nora, say that I’m better than you. In every regard.” He rested his elbows on the wooden table where the open Grimoire rested, looking down at her.

On second thought, if her brother kept talking like that, she was going to rethink her position.
“One bloody time, Kol, you did it quicker than me just one time!” Eleanor protested. “This doesn’t mean that you’re better at magic then I am.”

She turned her glare towards the scorch marks on the table that Kol’s ray of light had greeted, staring as if they had personally offended her. As the only two Mikaelson children capable of magic, the two had always had a competition to see who could learn spells quicker - mostly in good fun.

It never failed to infuriate Eleanor that Kol, three years her junior, was always able to master the spells their mother taught them far before her. And he was so unbearably smug about it, too.

“It wasn’t just one time. I distinctly remember last week, with the tree sapling, and the week before, with the water in the tub…”

Eleanor could feel her face contort, as the familiar feelings of exasperation filled her. A common side effect of spending too much time with her little brother. “Well, I’m better at healing magic.”

It was true. Her brother had never had the patience to learn the complex and slow healing magic spells that Ayana had been teaching Eleanor, so it was the one area of magic that she could claim superiority over.

Privately, Eleanor thought that if Kol could sit still long enough to learn them, he would surpass her in the mastery of the healing spells. His power was just too vast. She’d never tell her brother that, however. He’d be completely insufferable.

“I don’t intend to be the next village healer as you do, sister. I have no use for such spells.”

“What if a neighbouring tribe invades our village and cuts off your head? I’m sure you’d find use for such spells then.” Eleanor’s tone was teasing, her irritation long forgotten. She was resigned to the fact that Kol would always be her superior in the magic arts. And he was just thirteen, after all. There was plenty of time for their positions to change.

“Such violent thoughts, Nora.” Kol’s tone was teasing. “Father would say it’s unseemly for a proper woman.”

Eleanor laughed. “When have I ever been a proper woman?”

“That is true,” a new voice interjected.

Eleanor turned to glare at her twin, who was hovering by the doorway, sword in hand. “Nik! How long have you been standing there? You gave me a fright!”

“Long enough to see you bested by our younger brother yet again. Perhaps it’s time to give up mother’s craft and find something you’re actually good at?” Her brother’s eyes were filled with mirth. So he hadn’t crossed paths with father yet today.

“Why don’t you, Nik? I heard Elijah bested you yet again yesterday?” Eleanor needled her brother, knowing he wouldn’t take it in poor spirits after a day had passed.

Kol snorted at this. “She has the better of you there, brother. It happens occasionally.”

“As grateful as I am to have my wonderful sense of humor appreciated,” Eleanor said. “What brings you to the house at this hour, Nik? It can’t possibly be a newfound interest in magic, can it?”

“Hardly. Mother’s kicking you out, she needs the house today. She sent Finn to tell you, but…”

“He couldn’t bear to be in the presence of such foolish children for even a moment. I understand perfectly.” Eleanor interjected. Out of all her siblings, she was the most distant from him. He remained firmly at their mother’s side, and never spent any more time with his siblings then he had to.

She dusted off the dirt covering her skirt, groaning as she rose to her feet. “We ought to go and find Henrik, then. His skill with a blade should be enough to best Nik now. He is six after all…”

She raced out of the home and towards the village center, hearing Kol’s laughter and Nik’s grumbles of annoyance behind her.

~~

Ella Lockwood pressed snooze on her alarm clock for the second time, smiling in relief as the obnoxiously loud chorus to Final Countdown stopped. That had been a good dream - memory, more accurately. One of the only side-effects of her reincarnation that she enjoyed on occasion was dreaming of her past lives. It was certainly better than dreaming of being burned at the stake for practising witchcraft a few nights prior.

Still, the dreams were a double-edged sword. Thinking of her very first family, the one she had been by far the most attached to, always brought about a glimmer of sadness. It had all fallen apart after Henrik’s death, and then Ayana had killed her just hours before the family dinner that was supposed to happen that night.

She had woken up the next day in a haze of confusion, viewing the world from the eyes of a newborn once more. All the way in the Old World, she realized later. Far from where her family had been, and with no way to find where they had once lived.

She hoped that her siblings had lived long and happy lives, that Kol had become a master of magic, and that Rebekah had found the love she was seeking, and that Nik and Elijah had resolved their differences at last.

But it had been a thousand years, and she knew her siblings were long dead.

It had been a shock, the realization that she had been reborn into a family that lived in the same place her first family had all those years ago. Though it looked nothing alike, the feel of nature through her magic was very much the same. It was comforting, to be back home after a thousand years.

“Ella! Tyler! It’s time to get ready for school!” Her current mother’s voice echoed down the hall, and Ella got out of bed, grabbing her clothes and makeup bag and changing quickly. It would be a terrible impression to be late on the first day of high school, and it wouldn’t fit in with the narrative she had cultivated - of the Mayor’s overachieving, brown-nosing daughter. Anything to distract them from the fact that she had much more knowledge then she should.

Ella smiled at Carol as she came out of her room and walked down the stairs. “Morning, mom. Sorry I slept in.”

Ella liked Carol Lockwood - unlike her husband, she had never been judgemental about her daughter’s occasional lapses in memory (a side effect of having a thousand years worth of memories, Ella had always assumed), and mood swings. Though she could be a little snobbish and a bit of a control freak at times, her heart was in the right place, and she truly loved her children. She was the best parent Ella had had for a couple of lives at least, so she wasn’t complaining.

“At least you’re up now. Are you excited to start high school?” Carol knocked on Tyler’s door again, and Ella bit the inside of her cheek to keep in a laugh when she heard a thud and a string of curses through her brother’s door.

“Yes! I mean, it’s gonna suck not having April here after she moved to England, but I can’t wait for all my classes. Plus, I’m basically an honorary member of half the clubs after all the volunteering I did this summer.”

At the sound of another string of curses coming from Tyler’s room, her mother sighed. “Well, at least one of my children is interested in academics. Breakfast is on the counter, dear, I just need to deal with your brother now.”

“This is exactly why I suggested you buy an airhorn, mom.” Ella said. She recalled from last year the struggle that her mom had, waking Tyler up everyday, but it seemed Carol was determined to do things the old fashioned way.

“Now’s not the time, sweetheart,” Carol said, but Ella could see her lips twitch.

~~

The drive to school was more than a little tense. Tyler had gotten his license over the summer, and was required by their parents to drive her to school. Getting his license was the only thing had done over the summer, Ella had pointed out a few days ago, except Vicki Donovan. Her brother had not found that funny, and had punched her in the ribs.

Thank Odin for supernatural healing. Her brother hit hard, even when he didn’t mean to. She had a nagging suspension that the Lockwood’s might not be as human as they seemed. Tyler and her dad’s most aggressive outbursts seemed to line up with the lunar cycle, at any rate.

“So… Any plans for today?” Ella asked, desperate to fill the awkward silence.

“Don’t talk to me. Not after you sold me out to mom and dad. I told you specifically not to tell them where I was, and you did it anyway!”

She sighed inwardly. Tyler had cut family dinner to go to a party on Friday, and made the mistake of telling Ella. Though their father being there was a surprise (Richard was almost always too busy for family dinner), Ella had never been able to hold up under his interrogations. Richard had always reminded her far too much of the first man who had raised her… Mikeal.

“Well, what was I supposed to do? Tell them you were at the library? Yeah, like they’d believe you were actually doing something productive.” Ella winced almost as soon as the words came out of her mouth. She had gone too far. She could see the hurt on Tyler’s face for a brief second, before they were back to stony silence.

“Ty, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Save it.”

They drove the rest of the ride in silence.

Chapter Text

In the thousand years that Ella had been alive, she had only been to high school once. For most of her lives, organized schooling had only existed for an elite few, and no one but the most radical thinkers would have thought that girls needed an education.

So she was terribly grateful for the advancements in women’s rights that occurred in the past few centuries, and would not take her place in the classroom for granted. She certainly hadn’t in her last life.

Her name had been Evelyn then. She had been a young girl from Alabama, with overprotective parents and a desire to experience the freedom the 70s and 80s had offered for women. She had finally gone to University, passing the bar and becoming a lawyer in New York City.

With the benefit of hindsight, it had become clear that she had maybe been too overzealous in her studies. She couldn’t recall a single friend that she had then, or the last time she had spoken to any of her relatives. Evelyn may have won most of her cases, but she made no meaningful human connections.

What she did recall, however, was a sleep-deprived trek back up to her apartment after a long night at the office. In her haze, she had missed a step on the long, winding staircase and fallen six flights. Evelyn Ramsey cracked her neck and died on impact, at the young age of 30.

Ella winced at the memory now, remembering the sharp burst of pain that she had felt before the darkness had overtaken her. She would have to remember not to be too overzealous with her studies this time around. Or to be more careful around stairs.

“What did the stairs ever do to you?” Ella was shaken out of her trip down memory lane (a more common side effect as her years stretched on) by Jeremy Gilbert, who was sitting on top of the stairwell, sketchbook and joint in hand.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to class?” Ella shot back. She was smiling despite herself. She had always been friendly with Jeremy Gilbert. They were the same age, and had always been roped together at founding family events.

“I have history with Tanner. Heard that he was a dick, so I’m skipping.”

Ella had heard enough of Coach Tanner from her brother’s complaints to have a decent idea of what his class would be like, but something inside her felt horrified at the thought of skipping. “Do you really want to miss the first day?”

Jeremy didn’t acknowledge that. “And speaking of dicks, your brother threatened to gut me this morning.”

Ella winced. “Sorry. Everything with him is… a little tense lately.” She loved Tyler, but had been an ass recently, especially to the recently-orphaned youngest Gilbert. “I’ll try and stop him from committing bloody murder in the near future.”

After hovering awkwardly for a few seconds, she took off down the hall, muttering a “see you later”. Rumours about Tanner aside, history was one of her favourite subjects, and she couldn’t be late.

~~

Ella sat on a bench near the parking lot, waiting for her brother to come out of the school. Tanner had been far worse than she had thought, somehow both condescending and unfairly hard on his students. And he appeared to hold some lost cause beliefs, which cemented his position as her least favourite teacher so far.

She had enjoyed all of her other classes, though. French and English were easy, she liked her Physics teacher, and even untapped, her werewolf abilities made gym a breeze. Even Latin was easier than it had any right to be, though the fact that most spells were Latin-based might have been of some help.

As Tyler finally came out of the school, Ella leaped up, racing to the car. She couldn’t wait until she got her license, because both her and Tyler were sick of him taking her everywhere.

“How was your day-”

“Just get in the car, Ella.”

She winced. Clearly, he was still angry about what had happened that morning. She still felt guilty about it, but her brother didn’t make it easy to be nice all the time.

Tyler was the first to break the suffocating silence. “Why do I even have to take you to crazy old Shelia Bennet’s house anyway?”

Her family never understood why she spent so much time with Sheila Bennet. To Mystic Falls, she was the senile occulut studies professor who believed in magic. Ella, who encountered magic in her first life and many lives after, knew better.

Sheila was a witch, and not just any witch. Ella had heard of the Bennett witches before, and knew just how powerful they could be. When Ella was young, she had made the mistake of using magic in front of the Bennett witch, but it had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Sheila had been initially confused about how someone with no magical lineage could be as powerful as Ella was, but she had quickly become one of Ella’s closest allies.

But of course, Tyler couldn’t know this. Untriggered werewolf or not, he was not ready to know about magic.

“Because I’m considering going to Whitemore, and she’s a professor there, and she’s letting me intern for her. I told you this before, Ty.”

He rolled his eyes. “Nerd. Of course you care about college already.”

Ella bristled. “Do you always have to be such a jerk?”

They pulled up to the Bennett home then, and the second Ella stepped out, Tyler was already gone. She resisted the urge to scream in frustration. She could always find another way home. Hopefully Bonnie would be willing to give her a ride to the Grill later.

Sheila was standing on the porch, glancing at Ella with an amused look in her eyes. “You are someone who is far older than I’ll ever be, dear. It’s always funny when you remind me how much of a teenager you are.”

Bonnie’s grandmother was the only person who knew in this time that Ella was a reincarnated soul. It was hard to hide when she had magic and no one else in her family did, especially from an experienced witch.

“Ty and I are both werewolves, and the full moon is coming up. There’s bound to be a little aggression.” Ella said.

Sheila waved her inside. “I have some old grimoires you can look through, if you’d like. And how was your first day of school?”

~~

Ella had been a witch in several lives before, and she had a large arsenal of spells before she even met Sheila Bennet. What she didn’t have was information. The Bennetts were well-respected and well-connected in the supernatural community, informed of everything that occurred. From Sheila, Ella had learned of covens she hadn’t known existed, and of the bloody supernatural history of Mystic Falls.

She knew nothing of Ella’s own time in Mystic Falls a thousand years ago, and Ella intended to keep it that way. Though Sheila knew she reincarnated, she didn’t know just how old Ella was.

After an hour flipping through grimoires and a couple of practice cloaking spells, Bonnie walked through the door, stopping dead when she saw Ella.

Ella willed herself not to blush. She knew her crush on Bonnie was totally unattainable, but that didn’t change the fact the Bennett witch was probably the prettiest girl in Mystic Falls. And Ella could just feel the magic surrounding the other girl, a current locked below the surface and ready to be released. She had always had a type: dark-haired girls who could kick her ass. Once Bonnie started her magic training, Ella was sure she would be a force to reckoned with.

“It’s good to see you, Ella. How was your first day of high school?”

“It was great, but Coach Tanner sucks big time. Ty wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was the worst. How was yours?”

“Not bad. We have a new student in my year. Stefan Salvatore. I think he has a thing for Elena.” She paled for a second. “Not like, a bad thing. He just likes her.”

Ella laughed. “Bonnie, I’m fourteen, not four. I know what a thing is. Also, Tyler’s my older brother, so…”

Stefan Salvatore. That was a name that Sheila Bennett had mentioned before, of one of the vampires that was turned in the 1860s. Mystic Falls had lived in virtual peace since the boarding house fires back in the 90s, and the only vampiric presence she had heard about had been all the way back in the Civil War. There was no way there were any vampires in her tiny town.

Right?

Chapter Text

Ella spent her whole time at the Grill in a daze, waiting for Tyler to be done with his weird staring contest with Jeremy Gilbert and casual objectification of Vicki Donovan so they could go home. One of the things she hated the most about being stuck in a fourteen-year-old body was having to rely on her brother to drive her everywhere.

And, judging by the ridiculous amounts of alcohol that Tyler was consuming, tonight’s drive wouldn’t be a particularly safe one.

She sighed. Boys.

“So, what’s got the littlest Lockwood all down in the dumps?”

Ella turned to see Tyler’s best (and only) friend, Matt Donovan, sit down at the corner booth next to her.

“I’m not depressed, Matt. I’m just... observing.” She took a sip of her milkshake - peanut butter blast, with whipped cream on the bottom - and narrowed her eyes at him. “And besides, I’m more worried about you.”

Matt was the only one of the guys her brother hung around with that she could actually stand. He had an IQ larger than a peanut and a personality other than keg stands, so he was already the best of the bunch. Plus, Matt never treated her like a little kid, the way so many other people in the town did.

She wished the juniors would get their heads out of their collective asses. Two years wasn’t the be-all or end-all. Besides, she was older than everyone else in their year combined. Not that they knew that.

Matt flinched. “I’m fine, honestly. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Ella had always had a soft spot for Matt. She was worried when Elena had dumped him over the summer. Though her heart went to the eldest Gilbert, something about Elena had always unnerved her. It didn’t help that the other girl was the mirror image of Tatia, with who she had had a pretty big grievance, for causing such a deep rift between Elijah and Nik all those years ago.

Seriously. She looked exactly like her. It was creepy.

“You’ll definitely find someone else, Matt. There are plenty more girls in Mystic Falls who’d be happy to date you. Even though you’re dumb enough to be friends with my brother.”

She turned to look at Tyler, who had his hand not-so-discreetly on Vicki Donovan’s ass, looking like he was seconds away from having sex right on the table. During her shift, while she was trying to work.

That was her brother, the embodiment of class.

“Ty’s not exactly my favourite person right now, considering him and my sister, but he isn’t all bad.”

“He’s my brother. He’s all bad. Trust me, I have to live with him.”

Matt smiled. “The dude’s a dick sometimes, but he really cares about you. In his own, Tyler way. I swear, I’ve been friends with the guy for ten years, and I still have no idea what he’s thinking.”

Mindreading was the one superpower Ella was glad she didn’t have. “Knowing what goes on in that idiot’s head would probably scar me for life.”

~~

Tyler Lockwood was really fucking pissed. At Jeremy Gilbert, for flirting with his girl. Granted, he and Vicki had only hooked up a couple of times during the summer, but she was by far the hottest girl he had been with. Honestly, that was all it was. No warm, mushy feelings, no desire to do “right” by her, no regret for being a dick to Matt about her earlier.

He was a Lockwood, an alpha of Mystic Falls. He wasn’t prey to that sentimental, girly crap. Emotion was for the weak. His dad had taught him that, beating it into his skin again and again when he didn’t get the message.

Tyler had never been a fast learner. He had the grades to prove it. Focusing had always been hard, and the whole thing was boring and useless anyway. He was a Lockwood. His name alone would make sure he passed high school, and got into college somewhere. Then he would be mayor after his dad retired, stuck under the thumb of the sour old dick until the day the old man finally croaked and died.

That day couldn’t come soon enough, in his opinion.

“You good, man?” Matt sat down next to Tyler again, after his long (and a little suspicious, he had seen them both looking at him) conversation with Tyler’s sister.
Ella was everything that Richard Lockwood wanted in a child. She was a high-achieving, polite, perfect-in-every-possible way little priss who couldn’t get her head out of her ass long enough to make any real friends. If Ella hadn’t made the unfortunate mistake of being born a girl, she would have been his dad’s favourite. As it was, Richard didn’t notice Ella at all.

God, Tyler was jealous.

“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Tyler grounded his teeth, feeling the familiar anger well up in him. There were just some nights, where he felt so angry he was surprised he didn’t snap and kill someone. Like Donovan. Right now. Though he probably wouldn’t score anything more with Vicki if he murdered her brother.

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Clearly.”

“Look, if you came here for an apology, you’re not gonna get one. Go talk to your sister, if you’re so pissed about what happened. We just hooked up. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Ass. I don’t know why I bother.”

Matt was gone a second later, leaving Tyler with a feeling in his stomach that he didn’t quite know what to call. Vicki was the kind of lower-class girl his father and mother would never approve of. And they were just having sex. It wasn’t like he cared about her, or anything. He wasn’t like Donovan, who had gotten all mopey and pathetic after Gilbert had dumped him.

In all honesty, Tyler didn’t see the fuss. Forbes was prettier anyway.

He sat alone at his table, stewing. He didn’t want to go home, and a quick glance at Ella told him his sister was in the same boat. Home meant his dad getting pissed for every tiny mistake Tyler made. It meant quiet, stilted family dinners where they all made small talk and his mom pretended they were a normal happy family.

They weren’t, and he was so done with pretending they were. The Lockwood kids always tried their best to be out of the house as much as possible. Ella spent all her time in clubs or at the Bennett house, doing god knew what. Tyler went to party after party and the occasional football practice, and did his best to make sure his sister wasn’t alone in the house.

But not because he cared. He didn’t. Not for Ella, for Matt, and especially not for Vicki. Caring was only for the weak, and Tyler wasn’t weak.

He knew better than that.

~~

Ella knew she was being anti-social. She was one of the only freshmen invited to the back-to-school party at the falls, but she was leaning against a tree, trying desperately to drink her beer. She’d acquired a taste for it in her last life, but it seemed her current taste buds were too young to catch up.

Though she knew the reason she was invited was more because of her last name and status as Tyler’s younger sister, some small part of her liked to think that she would have been invited as a part of French club, or Latin club, or the school newspaper…

Who was she kidding? Ever since April moved away, she hadn’t had a single friend. Well, there was no time like the present to try and be social, and everyone was probably too drunk to care about her half-hearted attempts at conversation.

With that in mind, Ella set off towards the crowd, when a piercing scream cut through the air. The sound of Elena Gilbert’s voice cut through the air, harsh and pleading.

“Somebody help!”

Ella rushed forward, noticing Matt and Tyler following close behind. Vicki Donovan lay sprawled out on the ground, her face pale, and her breathing jagged and uneven. And on her neck, clear even in the dim moonlight, were two puncture wounds on the middle of her neck.

“Vicki, Vicki, what the hell?”

“What the hell happened to her?”

She could dimly hear Tyler and Matt’s frantic shouting, but Ella felt numb, shock coursing through her body. She should have expected this, anticipated it somehow…

“Someone call an ambulance!”

At that, Ella snapped to attention. She had faced situations like this before, had even been a nurse in a previous life. She couldn’t let her emotions get the best of her, and allow an innocent girl to die.

She glanced at Tyler, who looked more terrified than she had ever seen him. He had sent someone off to dial 9-1-1 - yelling a little more than was strictly necessary.

“Tyler, we can help her,” she said. “I took that first aid course during the summer, I know what to do.” She hoped she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.

He looked at her once, and nodded. “Everyone back up, give her some space.” The crowd surrounding her didn’t move. “Now!”

Ella rushed forward, kneeling side-by-side with Elena, who had grabbed a piece of gauze and was doing her best to stop the bleeding. The older girl had good instincts, Ella noted. Talk about a future doctor in the making.

Leaving Elena to her work, Ella listened for a heartbeat. There was a faint one, thank Freyja. Placing her hand on Vicki’s heart, she muttered a quick healing incantation, one that she had heard Ayana use all those centuries ago. She smiled in relief as Vicki’s heartbeat stabilized, and made quick work of wrapping her smaller injuries.

Elena turned to her, frowning. “What did you say?”

Now was not the time to reveal her secret magical abilities, and Elena Gilbert probably wouldn’t be the first person she told. “Nothing. Just… you’re super cool under pressure. Totally a badass.”

Elena smiled slightly, her hands still on Vicki’s neck. “Thanks. I’m terrified though. If she doesn’t wake up-”

“She has to,” Ella said, looking at her brother and Matt, who were inches away from Vicki, both looking like their world had shifted on its axis. “She’s got too much to lose not to fight for it.”

After a couple minutes, paramedics showed up to take Vicki Donovan to the hospital, her brother following closely. Exhausted, Ella had collapsed beside a tree, and she noticed Elena and Tyler doing something similar.

Against all odds, their unlikely team had worked together to save a girl’s life. But something told her that this wouldn’t be the last bad thing to happen in Mystic Falls.

The illusion of peace, which had followed Ella through this entire life, had shattered.
In the days and months and years that followed, Ella would look back at this night as the turning point. As her entrance into the supernatural world of Mystical Falls, the start of a chain of events that would completely upend her life. Long before Katherine Pierce and Mikaelsons returned to Mystic Falls, before heretics and a miracle baby in New Orleans, there were three kids, uncertain of the future.

But only one of them was terrified. Because Ella knew what Elena and Tyler did not. There was a vampire in Mystic Falls - and this was far from the last attack.

No, this was only the beginning.

Chapter Text

It had been over a week since the back-to-school party, and Ella still had no idea what to do about the vampire situation. She had scoured Sheila Bennet’s grimoires, and found more reference to the Stefan Salvatore she had heard of. He was often accompanied by his brother, Damon.

What little she learned was concerning. Stefan was a ripper, and had gone on a bloody rampage in the 1920s with two unnamed vampires. Damon had left a brutal and bloody legacy two. Both of them were over a century and a half old. Though they weren’t nearly as old as her, Ella couldn’t shake a feeling of nervousness that stopped her from seeking out either Stefan or Damon head on. In this body, her magic was far from trained, and she hadn’t triggered her curse yet. She knew that she was probably a match for one of the vampires, but if they were together… She was toast.

And call her a coward, but she didn’t want to die. Not yet. In all her lifetimes, she went out of her way to avoid contact with vampires. Still, that didn’t mean that some vampires didn’t find her.

~~

New Orleans

1961

Dottie Jones leaned against the counter of her apothecary. Her hair - cut in a scandalously short pixie cut - and rather modern bell bottoms had elicited more than its fair share of raised eyebrows from the few humans that came into her shop. Dottie didn’t particularly care. When she had run away from home, all those years ago, she had never expected to find a place as welcoming as New Orleans. All of it, even beyond the French Quarter, was all she ever dreamed of when she thought of home.

It almost felt familiar, like the city had been made for her.

“I heard that you’re the witch to talk to if I need something done.” A voice, cool and calculating, filled the small room of her magic shop.

Dottie felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu. She had experienced it a fair number of times in New Orleans - meeting the vampire Marcel Gerard, for one. He had felt strangely familiar, his mannerisms and way of speaking reminiscent of someone she just couldn’t place. This, though, was overpowering.

She looked up to see a woman who was built in Tatia’s image. In fact, she would say she was speaking to Nik and Elijah’s lover risen from the grave, if not for the stranger’s curlier, shorter hair and cruel, alluring, confidence where Tatia had been sweet and coy.

She could finally see why her brothers were so attracted to her. This girl, who wore Tatia’s face, was extraordinarily beautiful.

“Who’s asking?” Dottie found her voice, and was proud to say she didn’t waver.

The other girl smiled. “Your friend, Thierry Vanchure, wouldn’t stop singing your praises. He talked about you, Dottie Jones. A witch willing to work with vampires and witches. A powerful one, who was willing to help. For the right price, at least.” She leaned over, her face inches away from Dottie’s own.

Dottie smiled, willing herself not to flush. “And what sort of help do you need, miss…”

“Pierce. Katherine Pierce.” She paused for a moment, her eyes narrowing, searching Dottie’s face for something. “You look remarkably familiar. Have we met before?”

“I could say the same of you. And I’m certain I’d recall meeting such a beautiful woman.”

“Charming,” Katherine said.

“I try,” Dottie replied, not missing a beat. She met Katherine’s eyes again. “What was it that you said you needed?”

“I need someone to do a locator spell on an old flame of mine, a vampire. Stefan Salvatore.”

~~

Ella had known some vampires in the past she’d liked, but whoever was dropping bodies in Mystic Falls made her blood boil. Matt had found Coach Tanner dead a couple of days earlier - drained of blood, naturally.

While the teacher had been a total ass (Ella was still furious that he had given her a sixty on her paper on why the idolization of confederates was highly problematic), she didn’t want him dead. And whoever the vampire was - Damon or Stefan Salvatore - had killed him. The next few history classes had been a somber affair, filled with a rotating schedule of supply teachers fielding questions about what had happened.

She felt like such a coward, unable to muster up the courage to find them and kill them, unsure of what to do next. The night of the Founder’s Party, she paced back and forth in her room, muttering spells under her breath and trying her best to shake off the nagging feeling of anxiety.

She had had the world’s most awkward lunch with her parents and Tyler early in the day at the Grill. Vicki had come up to them, clearly looking for an invite to the Founder’s Party, and her parents had dismissed her with the combination of snobbery and cruelty that would have put a second-rate disney villain to shame.

If Ella had needed any proof that her brother didn’t care about Vicki the same way she seemed to care about him, it would have been the way he ignored the Donovan girl as she was taking their order. Then again, a part of Ella knew she was being unfair - she felt the same paralyzing fear that Tyler did in their father’s presence. Out of all the fathers she had, he was the one that reminded her the most of the first. Of Mikeal, the man who wasn’t really her father but had broken her the way only a father could.

God, she didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was a witch, and a decently powerful one at that. Yet she was so afraid of this human man, of his fists turning to her that she kept quiet and did as she was told, even when she knew his wrath would turn on her brother the second he stepped out of line. Repeating the same cycle from a thousand years ago.

“Ella! Mom told you to hurry up and get dressed!”

The youngest Lockwood cussed loudly as she dropped her mascara. She was a Lockwood, it would practically be sacrilegious if she didn’t go to a party hosted at her house. That didn’t mean she liked spending an hour getting ready so she could hover awkwardly in the corner while her parents talked to guests.

Ella wiggled her way into her black flats and marched out the door, glaring at her brother. “I was basically ready. You didn’t need to yell so loud.” She paused, giving her brother a second glance. “And you look like you spent more than five seconds getting ready. Don’t tell me you’re taking Vicki Donovan-”

“Not so loud!”

Ella rolled her eyes. “You know, you’d have a much better chance with her if you stopped treating her like a dirty little secret. She’s a bit of a mess, but she seems nice. Pretty, too.”

Her brother clenched his teeth. “Back out of it, Ella. It’s none of your business.”

She felt a familiar rage rise up in her, but she did her best to shut it down. The week had been a lot for everyone. “Well, if you actually wanna date her, I won't judge. For whatever it’s worth.”

Not waiting for her brother to respond, she rushed down the halls to the main room, looking for her mom.
Richard and Carol Lockwood were sitting on one of the many sofas in one of the many sitting rooms in the Lockwood Mansion. Ella took a deep breath, walking into their line of sight, bracing herself. Dealing with both of her parents at once was a challenge.

Her father glanced at her, narrowing his eyes. “Your skirt’s too short.”

Ella glanced down at the pale gold dress she was wearing, which went almost to her knees. She liked this dress, but was wearing it really worth risking her father’s ire?

Carol glanced at her, giving her daughter as sympathetic a look as she was capable of. “Richard, please. She doesn’t have time to change. The guests will be arriving any moment.”

The Lockwood sicon nodded once, the closest to an agreement Ella knew she’d get. “I suppose you’re right.”
Her mother turned to her, handing her a binder’s worth of information on the guests, the catering, and historical memorabilia present at the party. “I have some things I need you to coordinate with caterers and the woman looking after the heirlooms. You’re always so good at this, sweetheart…”

Ella, still thankful that her mother had her back earlier, graciously waited to roll her eyes until she set off to the other side of the house. A Lockwood's work was never done.

~~

Hours later, the party was in full swing, when Ella saw Caroline Forbes sitting on a bench alone, her head in her hands. The other girl was wearing a pretty white dress, with a long blue scarf covering her neck. Oh hell no, Ella thought. How had no one else seen this?

Feeling bile rising in her throat, she approached Caroline, who looked absolutely miserable. Still, as Ella approached, the blonde pasted on a smile.

“Hi, Caroline. Why are you sitting here alone?”

“It’s no big deal. I’m just supposed to wait here.”

Ella took a deep breath. “You don’t look very happy, though.”

“But I’m supposed to wait here,” Caroline said. Her eyes were frighteningly blank, and her tone was confused.

She was compelled, Ella realized. And it wasn’t just a one time thing. It looked like it was ongoing.
“Caroline, who told you to wait here?”

The sheriff’s daughter looked puzzled by the question. “Damon, but he’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”

So Damon Salvatore was the vampire that had been terrorizing the town. In all honesty, she had expected it to be the other brother.

Ella grabbed the other girl’s wrist, as gently as she could. “Caroline, you need to come with me. Something bad’s happened to you, but I can fix it.”

It took a couple more minutes, but Ella was able to get Caroline off the bench and bring her through the long empty halls of the family wing. Caroline sat on Ella’s bed, wincing as the doors closed behind them.

“What’s going on?” Caroline asked, her voice more clear than it had been a couple seconds ago.

“Do you have any gaps in your memories? Any feelings that don’t make sense?”

Ella ruffled through the bottom drawer of her cabinet, pulling out a small black book. Her grimoire, which she had transcribed as soon as she had been able to hold a pen. All the spells she had remembered over the course of her long life. Including one for compulsion.

“How do you know all that?”

Ella took a deep breath. There was no turning back now. She was going to have to tell Caroline everything. Her life in Mystic Falls would never be the same. But she couldn’t allow an innocent girl to suffer. “Because you’ve been compelled. Damon Salvatore is a vampire, and he has the power to control your mind. He’s been toying with you. And he’ll kill you when he’s done with you.”

“I can’t stop him. I don’t know what’s happening most of the time. I feel so lost, and confused, and I don’t know what to do.” She collapsed, crying.

Ella’s heart broke a little, seeing the strong opinionated cheerleader reduced to a crying mess. Damon Salvatore was going to burn in hell for this.

“I can help you. I know how to break his compulsion, and stop him from ever doing it again. But, it’s going to hurt. A lot.”

Caroline sniffled. “How do I know I can trust you? And how can you do this, anyway? What are you?”

“You know me, Caroline. You know my dumbass brother. We’ve known each other our whole lives. And I’m here to help you. If you’ll let me.”

Caroline nodded, the steel in her gaze returning. Even a bastard like Damon Salvatore couldn’t keep Caroline Forbes down for long. “I trust you.”

“Edacay.” Ella waved her hand, lighting a candle and casting a quick silencing spell.

Caroline’s eyes widened, as she glanced between Ella and the candle and back again. “So that’s why you always keep crystal and candles on hand. Honestly, I always thought you were really into interior decorating, but hadn’t gotten to the effortlessly classy part. It comes with age, you know.”

Ella almost laughed. If only she knew. Still, she was glad Caroline had it in her to insult someone else’s taste now. “No, I’m a witch. Comes with the territory. No one will be able to hear what goes on in here for the next little while.”

“Do your Harry Potter thing. My life is in your hands. Literally.”

“Brace yourself. This is going to sting,” Ella warned the cheerleader, before pressing her hand to the other girl’s temple.

Caroline screamed.

~~

About twenty minutes later, Ella had removed the last of the compulsion. She’d watched as the other girl’s hysteria had morphed into a righteous, focused anger that was more than a little terrifying. Ella had always seen Caroline as the bubbly and shallow cheerleading head, unremarkable next to the beautiful witch and the self-assured, but kinder than the original Tatia clone.

It was clear now that she had underestimated Caroline Forbes.

“So, tell me again why I can’t murder that asshole?” Caroline asked. Ella had given her the short version of her story - that she was a witch, had been practising from a couple years, had a mentor that had taught her, and had parents that absolutely couldn’t know she was supernatural. Her curse, her werewolf side, and her connection to the Bennets was scrubbed from the story. She had given Caroline a pair of vervain earrings and a handful of the herbs to make into tea. Thank god for Sheila Bennet’s garden.

“Number one, Damon’s a vampire. Strong, fast, clearly willing to kill, judging by what happened to Mr. Tanner. Number two, you’re human. He could kill you in a heartbeat. But don’t worry.” Ella smiled. It was far from a kind one. “I can handle myself.”

She ran through a list of spells in her mind. Her earlier fear was gone, and replaced by righteous indignation.

One way or another, Damon Salvatore was going down tonight.

Chapter Text

Caroline had offered to help find a way to subdue Damon, but Ella had refused. The last thing she wanted to do was force the cheerleader to confront her abuser, less than an hour after breaking free of his hold. Instead, she had left Caroline with Mrs. Lockwood’s stack of party planning notes, and a desperate plea that Caroline step in if anything went wrong.

After all, no one in Mystic Falls was better at planning a party than Caroline Forbes. Hopefully, it would distract the other girl from the dark turn her situation could have taken, had circumstances been different. Who knew what Damon Salvatore would have done to Caroline.

“Invisique,” Ella muttered, and then she set off, racing through the halls of the Lockwood Mansion. Being invisible was strange. She had never quite gotten used to it - the feeling that came when people tried to walk into her, or the foggy feeling that came from using too much of her limited magical ability.

She walked quickly. The spell would wear off soon, and she needed to save some of her strength to take down Damon Salvatore. During the agonizing minutes she searched, she wondered what exactly she could do. She had always been better at healing spells than offensive ones, and she knew few that would incapacitate a vampire permanently. At least, few that wouldn’t draw attention - something told her that causing an explosion on her family’s property wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Finally, she found Damon. He was alone on the lawn with his brother, caught up in some sort of heated exchange.

“What are you gonna do, Stefan? Put vervain in my whiskey again? Drugging me didn’t work last time, and it won’t work this time.” He leaned closer to his brother, his cold eyes inches away from Stefan’s face. “Let’s face it. You’re weak. You don’t have the guts to do what needs to be done.”

“I’d rather be weak than a monster like you. You’re sick, brother. That girl, Caroline? She didn’t deserve what you did to her.”

Damon huffed a laugh. “Are you pretending you care about her? Let’s be honest, the only thing you care about is your precious Elena. She’s nothing compared to Katherine. You know what I can do to her. I’ll rip her pretty little throat out, and the cheerleader bitch’s too. I’ll-”

“You shut your mouth.” Stefan’s tone was biting, echoing through the night.

“Make me.”

Alright, Ella had about enough of the macho posturing. Walking up behind Damon and pressing her hand to the nape of his neck, she channeled the remaining burst of her power into a pain infliction spell, smiling slightly when she heard his blood vessels pop.

He groaned, and she kept pushing, her vision blurring, when she heard a loud snap. Damon crumbled to the floor, his neck snapped. Stefan stood above him, eyes wide.

“Are you alright?”

Ella stumbled back, catching herself before she fell to the ground. “Peachy-keen, thanks for the concern.”

“Just… Your nose is bleeding. And you look really pale.”

Ella touched her nose. Oh. That explained why she felt so icky all of a sudden. “It’s just magical exertion. I’ve done more magic today than I’ve done in a while. It’s taken its toll. I think I’m cut off for a few days.” She looked down at the lifeless body of Damon Salvatore. “What are you going to do with him?”

Stefan sighed. “Lock him in my family’s cellar, let him desiccate… Though why do you care? And for that manner, why did you help me put him down? Who are you?”

“He hurt a sort-of friend of mine. Caroline Forbes? She’s in my brother’s grade, but she’s nice and the head of all the clubs I’m in at once, somehow. She definitely didn’t deserve to be compelled, and she deserves someone to care enough to do something about it. So I did.” She gestured at Damon’s lifeless form. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Stefan snorted. “Not that I’m not thankful for your help, but I had it handled. Though I have to admit, you did take my brother by surprise.” He eyed her appraisingly. “So tell me, how was Tyler Lockwood’s little sister born a witch?”

He knew who she was?

Her surprise must have shown on her face, because he elaborated. “Your brother is kind of a dick, but he’s a human one. You look a lot like him, but clearly there are more differences than just the obvious personality ones. Elena seems to like you.”

“And you like her.”

Stefan flushed. “Are you going to tell her about me?”

“Not if you don’t tell anyone about me. We’ve both got our secrets to keep. No one in town will learn that you’re a vampire, if you keep quiet about the cosmic fluke that resulted in my magical upgrade.”

Stefan nodded, and Ella turned to go. “And a word of advice? Honesty usually helps with the whole relationship thing. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to sleep off my magical exhaustion forever.”

Ella wasn’t sure where she stood on Stefan Salvatore, but he seemed well-intentioned enough. And now the real threat to Mystic Falls was gone, she could rest easy.

~~

The next few days were hell for Ella. She had overexerted her magic, and had spent the next few days barely capable of making a feather float. Not only was she completely exhausted, but she was in a ton of trouble with her parents for bailing on the party earlier.

Her excuse of needing to comfort a heartbroken and dumped Caroline worked well enough on Carol, but it definitely didn’t work on Richard. She flexed her arm, still feeling the phantom pain of where he had gripped her wrist, harder than necessary, and had warned her to get her act together. She was going to need to be careful not to provoke her father’s anger growing forward.

But the cherry on top of an already bad week had been sitting alone at the Grill at night, bored out of her mind but honestly too nervous to go home, when Vicki Donovan had approached her.

“If it isn’t Little Miss Perfect. Tell me, how is life in your glass castle?”

Ella was honestly thrown. She had known that her parents hadn’t liked Vicki (she had heard them throwing around terms like lower-class lout, in the other girl’s presence), and Ty hadn’t treated her the best in their apparently over relationship (judging by what little she could get from him after the Founder’s Party), but she hadn’t spoken more than two sentences to Vicki Donovan.

It was far past when Vicki’s shift had finished, and the other girl just seemed off, somehow. If Ella’s magic hadn’t been depleted, she was sure she would have figured out the problem in a second, but as it was, she was stuck utterly human. And utterly clueless.

“I’m sorry?”

“God knows it must be easy for you,” Vicki said, inches from Ella’s face. “Part of the richest family in Mystic Falls, everyone’s favourite little golden child. Maybe she’ll become a doctor, or a lawyer someday. Maybe one day she’ll even get the stick out of her smug little angelic ass and realize being a Lockwood doesn’t make her better than the rest of us.”

“Vicki, I know you and Tyler had a difficult relationship, but I never meant to make you feel-”

But Vicki wasn’t listening. “I swear, you and your whole family make me so… Angry.” At that Vicki’s eyes flashed. Her veins darkened across her face, and her canines elongated.

Somehow, Vicki Donovan was a vampire.

Ella was screwed, big time. She gulped, inching backwards, and reaching inside her for any magic she could muster, when Vicki’s teeth touched her throat, and -

“Vicki, what the hell?”

Tyler strode up to the girls, as furious as Ella had ever seen her brother. “I know you’re mad about what happened and shit, but don’t take it out on Ella. She’s just a kid.”

Vicki rolled her eyes, but backed off, heading for the door. “Whatever, Ty.”

Honestly, Ella was just glad that she didn’t have to see whatever pathetic magic she could muster. The normal anger that came from Tyler calling her a kid (she was a thousand years older than him), wasn’t there.

Vicki slammed the door behind her, powerful enough that it nearly flew off its hinges.

“What is her problem? Is it her time of month, or something?”

Ella had her suspicions - the transformation of vampirism often heightened a person’s worst impulses - but she would never have the chance to confirm them.

Because three hours later, Vicki Donovan was dead.

Chapter Text

Life fell into a steady rhythm in the weeks after Vicki Donovan had died. Her funeral had been a quiet, somber affair - Ms. Donovan had even managed to make an appearance, more subdued than usual. Throughout the whole ceremony, Ella had felt a crushing guilt. If only she had thought quicker, recharged her magic quicker, done less spells at the party…

But if she could do it all over again, she wouldn’t change a thing. She would have still knocked out Damon Salvatore and broken Caroline’s compulsion. Even though her efforts seemed to be for naught. Stefan had pulled her aside in the hallway the other day and told her Damon had escaped from his undisclosed prison cell, through the help of a compelled cheerleader named Tiki.

Ella guessed she was the Ripper of Montgomery's consultant on all things supernatural now. Wasn’t she lucky?

Luckily, her migraine-induced lesson on the ethical ramifications of treating innocent girls like walking blood barbies seemed to have paid off, judging by the lack of bite marks on Tiki’s neck. Though the other girl had looked at Ella like she was completely insane when she had asked about gaps in Tiki’s memory.

She had been walking on eggshells around her father for the past few weeks, but her combination of good test scores and successes coordinating a Lockwood charity event had brought her back onto her father’s good side. God, she couldn’t wait to go to college and get away from his prying eyes forever.

She had been avoiding Tyler too, who had looked almost as miserable as Matt when news of Vicki’s death had broken. It seemed that Tyler, for the first time ever, had genuine feelings for a girl. No matter how cruel he had been to Vicki during their fling, her heart hurt for him. No one deserved to go through that sort of pain.

Taking her seat in history class, Ella pulled out her notebook and started to work on her report. She was excited to actually do something in history, since the last class of the day had devolved into basically a free period. Ever since Mr. Tanner died, history class had become a glorified study hall - a time for students to work on other classes, gossip, and one particularly memorable occasion, watch Mean Girls on someone’s laptop.

At least, until yesterday, when Alaric Saltzman (yes, that was his real name) had shown up to take Mr. Tanner’s job. Already, Ella liked him ten times better than the coach. He had a detailed knowledge about history, was willing to allow in-class debates about topics, and wasn’t an insecure manchild who got his validation from picking on teenagers. As far as she could tell, at least.

Today’s class was a review of the Battle of Gettysburg, and was a little boring to her. And she liked history. Jeremy Gilbert would have been sound asleep if she hadn’t kept poking him with her pencil. By the time class was over, she was ready to go home and-

“Ella and Jeremy, can you stay back, please.”

There went her plans for a speedy escape. Tyler was going to be so annoyed he had to wait for her. Exchanging a glance with Jeremy, they watched as the rest of the class filed out.

“Jeremy, it’s come to my attention that you’re failing history.” Alaric said, pulling a folder off his desk. “Mr. Tanner did not have great things to say about you, to say the least. It’s all in his jackass file. Which he actually has, by the way.” Alaric threw the thing in the trash can.

Jeremy gulped. “It’s been a rough year for me, with my parents and stuff. I swear I’ll do better going forward.”

“I saw that. But the semester’s half done and a failure doesn’t look good. But yes, to answer the question I know you’re thinking, I’ll let you do an extra credit paper to raise your grade.”

Ella raised her hand. “Sorry to be a bother, but why am I here? I’m not failing history.”

“You are not failing history. However, your mark dropped ten percent when you were given a fifty on your paper on McCarthyism, where you said, and I quote: “the very idea that the majority of Joseph McCarthy’s purges were in any way justified persists only because of idiotic drivel perpetrated by wash-uped high school teachers who believe that blind patriotic faith will detract from their own inadequacies.””

Jeremy snorted.

Ella winced. “It may have been… a little harsh?” Privately, she stood by every word she wrote, but it probably wasn’t the best idea to submit a paper directly criticizing her teacher. Even if it was true.

Alaric’s lips twitched. “It seems to me that you’d also benefit from a chance to raise your mark. So here’s what I want you two to do. Mystic Falls is a town with a lot of history and a lot of superstition, unsolved police cases, and the like. Write a paper about interesting superstition in Mystic Falls, and I’ll consider raising your grades.”

“Thank you.” Ella said, leaving the classroom.

She definitely liked the new history teacher a lot more than the old one. And she knew just what she was going to write about. She had first-hand experience, after all.

~~

“Legends Through The Ages - The Supernatural History of Werewolves in Virginia?” The girl sitting at the table next to her scoffed, briefly looking up from her own book.

Getting Tyler to drop her off at the library instead of the Grill on a friday night had led to a steady round of teasing about her lack of a social life, but as long as something kept her out of the house, Ella wasn’t complaining. Besides, she was talking to someone else right now.

“It’s for a school project. History class.”

And it was a really pretty someone. The other girl was of asian descent, and had long brown hair and brown eyes, and was wearing a purple top and jeans. The little smirk on her face made Ella’s heart do the twisty butterfly thing she’d rather avoid. Yet her magic was warning her, there was something different about this girl.

She was a vampire. Just Ella’s luck. She just couldn’t be attracted to anyone human, or normal, it seemed. She had the advantage here, because the other girl didn’t know she knew she was a vampire. She just had to play it safe, keep her cards close to her chest, and she’d be fine.

“Isn’t history class supposed to be real stuff, though? Not myths and legends? And lame ones, at that.”

Ella glanced up, her eyes meeting the other girl’s. “Myths and legends? Kind of like the ones about creatures that suck blood and are allergic to the sunlight, unless they have a handy daylight ring.” She glanced at the other girl’s hand, which had an old-looking ring on the index finger. “Then again, you’d probably want to keep your cards close to your chest. Vampire.”

Or, she could blurt out everything she knew and pray the other girl wouldn’t try to kill her. That worked too.

The other girl’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me everything you know.”

“Are you trying to compel me? Because that nifty trick only works on humans, you know.”

Ella grinned. “And trust me, forcing me’s not the way to get to all my deep dark secrets. You have to work for it. Even someone as pretty as you.”

The vampire’s cheeks coloured, to Ella’s surprise. “Ok, clearly I misjudged you and we got off on the wrong foot. How about we start over? My name is Anna Zhu, and I’m a vampire.”

“My name is Ella Lockwood, and it’s complicated.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ella Lockwood.” Anna said, her voice softer than before. “I think we’re going to be good friends.”

Ella wasn’t sure if she had just made the greatest or worst decision of her life. And judging by the somersaults her stomach was doing, this was going to take a while to sort out.

She was so screwed.

Chapter Text

Over the next two weeks, Ella saw Anna three more times, all at the library. The two had fallen into some kind of unspoken truce, sitting in silence next to each other. Still, Ella couldn’t stop glancing at the other girl. Anna’s hair was a pretty curly dark brown. Ella's had always been straight and light, similar to her mother Carol in this life, and her brothers Nik and Kol in her first. There was just something about Anna’s that-

Oh, god. She was thinking about hair now. She had a problem.

“Everything alright?” The other girl asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Never better!” Ella said, willing her heart to stop racing. One of the many inconveniences of spending so much time around a vampire. They had a tendency to know exactly what you were feeling.
“You’re still working on that pseudo-history essay?” Anna glanced at The Supernatural History of Werewolves in Virginia. “Haven’t you spent, like, five hours on that?”

The reason Ella had spent five hours on it was that she kept getting distracted by the cute girl next to her, but she wasn’t about to tell the girl in question that. “Pseudo-history? Why is a vampire so unwilling to believe that there are werewolves in Mystic Falls?”

“Is that what you are? A werewolf?”

Since the first day, when Anna had discovered that she couldn’t compel Ella, the two had danced around any topic of importance, which included Ella’s supernatural origins, and what Anna was doing in Mystic Falls.

Still, looking at the vampire and remembering how much kinder she had gotten in recent days - how she had even laughed at one of Ella’s jokes about Tyler yesterday - she had this irrational urge to tell Anna everything.

She hadn’t felt tempted to tell someone about her reincarnation in a while. Occasionally, she’d feel the urge with a close friend or a relative, but she had only ever told someone once. The only father she had ever liked, back in the 16th century. Lorenzo Rossi, the man who had taught her it was okay to be a werewolf. She had learned to be proud of her heritage for the first time since Henrik died.

But to tell a girl she had only known for a week? It was absolute insanity.

And yet… If she played this right, she might be able to figure out that answer to the ever-elusive question of why Anna was in Mystic Falls.

"It’s complicated,” Ella said. “But I have an idea. Come with me.”

Ella could barely hear Anna’s protests, as she dragged the other girl out the library doors.

~~

“Have you kidnapped me?” Anna asked, staring apprehensively at the Lockwood Mansion. “Because I’ve got to say, I don’t make a very good prisoner. I bite.”

“You’ve got things you want to know about me, I’ve got things I want to know about you. I thought we could do a fair trade, of sorts. Get all the dirty laundry out in the air.”

“Is this a convoluted way of asking what my evil scheme is?”

“Do you have one?” Ella shot back, smiling. She hadn’t met someone who kept her on her toes this much since Katherine in the 60s. It was fun. “Don’t worry, my mom, dad and brother aren’t home. I just have something I need in my room.”

As she walked up the steps to her house, Anna lingered in the doorway.

“Anna, you’re invited in.”

The two walked through the meandering halls on their way to Ella’s room, Anna strangely silent.

“You know no one’s going to pop out at you with a stake, right?”

“Sorry. Your house just… seems familiar.”

A couple of minutes later, they made their way to Ella’s room, a blue sphere on the bed between them.

“This is a truth cube,” Ella said. “It’s an old witch's talisman I found, that can determine if a person is telling the truth or not. Hence the name.”

“Here.” Ella picked it up. “My favourite ice cream is peanut butter.” The orb glowed a bright blue. “I’m a vampire.” The orb flashed red.

“Peanut butter? Really?” Anna wrinkled her nose.

“Hey! This is a safe space. Rule number one: no judging what we tell each other in here. Or using it against each other.”

“Of course you would say that. Peanut butter.” Anna teased.

“What’s better than peanut butter ice cream?”

“Mint chip. Obviously. But that’s not the point. You were going to use the magical truth-telling cube to share your dirty little secrets with me.”

Ella flushed. “Yeah. I want to know what you’re doing in Mystic Falls, you want to know about my… stuff. I was thinking we’d get five questions each.”

“Do you want to start, or should I?”

Ella took a deep breath. There was no turning back now. “My name is Ella Lockwood.” The ball flashed blue. “My name is Eleanor Mikaelson.” Once again, the ball flashed blue.

Anna’s eyes widened, darting from Ella to the ball and back again.

“That’s my secret. One thousand years ago, my family and I lived in Mystic Falls. I was a witch. So were my mother and one of my brothers. We were happy, all of us. Finn. Elijah. My twin, Nik. Bex. Kol. Henrik.”

Tears rolled down Ella’s cheeks. It had been centuries since she had said their names out loud. But it was nice, in a strange way. To tell someone else. “We always lived in fear of the wolves. My brothers, Henrik and Nik, snuck out one night to see the werewolves, and Henrik… died. He was always the baby of the family.”

Anna looked horrified. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No,” Ella smiled through her tears. “It’s kind of nice, talking about it. It’s been a couple lifetimes. So, after my brother died, my mother started planning a spell. I don’t know what it was. All I know is that the village’s healer, Ayana Bennet, pulled me aside and told me it was an affront to nature. She tried to channel me, to counteract my mother’s spell. But something went horribly, horribly wrong.”

The ball was still blue. She hated that colour, suddenly. Irrationally.

Ella closed her eyes. “Next thing I knew, I was dead. I woke up as a baby. In the Old World. In Scotland, of all places. Far from anyone and anything I had ever loved. I was angry, and vengeful, and stuck in a family I hated. My parents were cruel. And in a heated argument with my mother when I was fourteen, I struck her. She… fell down the stairs and broke her neck. And I triggered my curse.”

“I hated that I had become what had killed my brother. It took me many lives to get to terms with the realization that my mother had cheated on my father, that I was really my sibling’s half-sibling. I threw myself off a cliff in the throes of my despair, and woke up again. In a new life. I’ve been reincarnating for a thousand years.”

Ella opened her eyes, ready to see the judgement in Anna’s face. She had killed her own mother, and hadn't even regretted it. She had never told anyone that part of the story before. She felt exposed, raw, open in a way she hadn’t been in centuries.

There were tears in Anna’s eyes, but there was only sympathy and understanding on her face. She reached out, squeezing Ella’s hand, and took the orb from her. “I killed my father. It was 500 years ago, back during the Ming Dynasty of China. My mother was a courtesan, and my father was a rich nobleman and a terrible, terrible person. He beat her within an inch of her life, once. A vampire woman - Aurora, I think her name was - offered to turn us. And with that power, that strength at my disposal, I tore out his throat. I never regretted it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Anna grinned. It was a vicious one. “Neither should you.”

“Whatever you’re doing in Mystic Falls, it has something to do with your mother, doesn’t it?” Ella realized. “I mean, it sounds like you’re crazy protective of her, and I haven’t met her once. Where is she?”

“She’s stuck. In the tomb, below Fell’s Church. She and twenty-five other vampires have been desiccating for 145 years, after your Founder’s Council rounded them up.”

“I read about that in the Bennet grimoires. Emily Bennet saved all the vampires by channelling the power of a comet, didn’t she?” Ella had remembered being surprised by the mention of Katherine Pierce, who was apparently one of the vampires in the tomb. Though clearly, the other girl hadn’t been in the tomb, since Ella had seen her in the 60s.

Then again, there had always been something strange about Katherine, something shifty. The way the vampire had always looked over her shoulder, the way New Orleans had seemed to set her on edge. She had been running from something. Or someone.

“And that comet is coming again, in less than a month. All I need is a Bennet witch to help me open the tomb, and I’ll have my mother back.”

“I can ask Bonnie if she’s willing to do it. Granted, I’m still not sure if she knows she’s a witch yet, but I can teach her everything she needs to know. Or Sheila can, too.”

“You’d do that for me?” Anna looked floored. “We just met, like a week ago. And like, you seem super nice, justified murder aside, but that’s a whole new level of crazy.”

“Look, I’ve missed my siblings for over a thousand years. I wanted to stay by their sides, always and forever - that’s what we used to say. I miss Kol’s terrible attempts at flirting with the village girls, Rebekah’s constant gossiping, and Nik's gentle, artistic way of looking at the world. They were my original family, and if I could see them again, I would. So I’ll help you get your mother back.”

“Thank you,” Anna whispered.

Looking down with a jolt, Ella noticed that Anna was still holding her hands, the vampire’s skin cold to the touch.

And it might have just been a trick of the light, but when Ella looked back at the other girl, she could have sworn Anna blushed.

Chapter Text

It just figured that the second Tyler Lockwood’s sister got a social life, he lost his. Tyler had seen Ella a couple times with a dark-haired girl, at the library and at their house. The second he asked his sister about her, she had clammed up. It’s not like he cared, though. Why would he care what nerds his lame-ass little sister was hanging around with? He didn’t.

Good on her for making friends, though. She had always been a loner, looked far too sad for her age. And he got it. Dad was a dick, but he hardly hurt her. Richard Lockwood knew well enough that his son was fair game, but if he ever laid into his daughter, Tyler would go straight to the cops. He wasn’t fucked up enough to let his dad hurt a kid.

He had problems of his own. Vicki Donovan was dead, and he couldn’t get over that moppy, depressed feeling some mornings. He didn’t know why he was so upset. It wasn’t like he had been her boyfriend, or anything. She had just been a lay. A good one, and one he liked more than usual, but that’s all she was. He stubbornly ignored the bit of guilt he felt every time he saw Matt. The dude had been through enough. He didn’t need Tyler coming over and trying all that feelings crap.

He didn’t have Matt, or Vicki, or even his place as star of the football team. First, Stefan Salvatore had blown into town and stolen the spotlight with his freakishly good coordination. There was something about the guy that rubbed Tyler the wrong way, some instinct that just screamed the other guy was off. Then, football was completely cancelled, after Coach Tanner was found dead. Sheriff Forbes said it was an animal attack, just like Vicki’s.

Tyler wasn’t so sure. His gut was telling him that something was wrong in Mystic Falls. He just didn’t know what.

“If you’re just going to stand there brooding, you can be useful and help me unpack these boxes.” It was Caroline Forbes, lugging two huge crates through what looked like sheer willpower alone.

Jesus Christ. He did not want to be on that chick's bad side.

“Are you going to help, or is the failure of Comet Day on your hands? You know, a lot of people have worked very hard on this.” She snapped her fingers. “Move it Lockwood! I don’t have all day.”

“I’m not volunteering - you know what, never mind.” Tyler sighed, smiling despite himself, as he picked up one of the boxes. “I’m on it, Drill Sergeant Forbes.”

Caroline flashed him a grin, regal as always. “Thanks, Tyler. Talk to Bonnie after you’re done, she’ll have more stuff for you to do.”
She walked away, directing more of her ever-loyal minions. She was cute, Tyler realized. She was a lot, but she was cute. He wondered why he had never really noticed before.

~~

Annabelle Zhu was terrified. Tonight was the comet, the night she had been waiting for for over 145 years. The night she would finally get her mother back, after decades of waiting. And so much of that was due to the girl next to her.

When she had come to Mystic Falls, her original plan was to use Jeremy Gilbert as insurance, turn a couple of the townies into vampires, kidnap the Bennet witch, bust her mother out, then flee town. When she had met the Lockwood girl, she had figured Ella would replace Jeremy in her plan. But even before she had discovered that she couldn’t compel the other girl, there had been a small part of her that abhorred using the were-witch in her schemes.

Now that she knew Ella, it was virtually unthinkable. She had always felt cursed, living forever, stuck in the body of a teenager yet so unbearably old. She was like Peter Pan, never growing up. Yet she couldn’t imagine living through what Ella had gone through. Living life over and over again for a thousand years, growing attached to people just to lose them. She had found a kinship with the other girl. They were two old souls, trapped in young bodies. Two people who would do anything to protect their families.

And that wasn’t even counting the other thing. How she had noticed, the long glances Ella had taken at other girls in the library. How she had looked at Anna with that same curious stare, alternating between flirtatious and embarrassed in a blink of an eye.

There had been a girl, when Anna was young, named Ying Yue, who had picked flowers for the village market. Anna had stopped by her stall, nearly every day. She had told herself it was for the pretty flowers, but a night of stolen kisses had forced her to come to an uncomfortable realization. She had lived for centuries with the knowledge that she was unholy, unworthy. Different from others. That she liked girls when she should have liked boys. It wasn’t until the 20th century when she learned a word for what she was. Lesbian.

Anna wondered if Ella felt the same way. If she had gone through centuries hating who she was, suppressing the romantic urges she felt. If she had wondered what was wrong with her. If she had come to the realization that nothing was wrong with her - that it was the world that was wrong. If she had loved a girl before.

She wanted, so desperately, so irrationally, to ask the other girl. But that would reveal so much more than she was comfortable saying, so she waited. Content, just to be in Ella Lockwood’s presence.

~~

Bonnie Bennet felt more than a little betrayed. Over the past few weeks, she had been thrust, full-speed-ahead, into the supernatural world. Vampires were real, and so were witches. And Bonnie, just like her grandmother (and mother) before her, was a witch. Which, neat.
It had been terrifying, those flashes of future events in her head, the power bubbling below her skin, making her feel like a balloon about to pop. But she had adapted, just like she always did, and had focused on protecting Mystic Falls from their vampire invaders.

Last night, Damon Salvatore had tried to kidnap her and get her to open the Fell’s Church tomb. Her grams had thrown him flat on his ass in the pavement leading up to her house, giving him a hell of a migraine. Like the kind her father got whenever he had to deal with Grams for more than two seconds.

She resisted the urge to snicker at the sight. There was no way in hell that she was going to open a tomb and let vampires run free in Mystic Falls. Anyone who would think otherwise was an idiot.

An idiot, or apparently, Ella Lockwood.

Bonnie had had more than a little suspicion that Ella Lockwood was a witch, ever since she had discovered her gift. The younger girl had always been hanging around Grams, reading her books (her grimoires), and Bonnie didn’t buy the excuse that Ella was interested in occult studies for a second.

Still, poor excuses were one thing, unleashing a plague of dangerous vampires was something else entirely.

“You want me to do what?”

“Open the tomb,” Ella said, her voice soft. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but Anna’s mother is in there. She hasn’t seen her for a century and a half. She doesn’t care about the other vampires, it’s only her mom and Harper she wants. The rest can be left. And only a Bennet witch can break the seal.”

“And who’s this Anna? Another vampire?”

Ella, to Bonnie’s surprise, went completely scarlet. “She’s… it’s complicated.”

Oh. Oh, wow. That explained a lot about the youngest Lockwood. And put her frequent comments on how pretty the girls in town were in a completely different light.

She had been on the fence since this morning, when Elena had made her impassioned plea that Bonnie help Stefan get closure with his vampire, Elena-look-alike ex. And Ella was a girl Bonnie had known since she was four and Ella two. She had babysat Ella, and watched her grow up. If she wanted to follow in Elena’s questionable footsteps and date a vampire, Bonnie couldn’t help but want to help her out a little.

“Plus, you get to see Damon freak out when he finds out Katherine isn’t really in the Tomb.” Ella added, sounding more than a little giddy.

Now, that sounded fun. “I’m in.”

~~

“You can channel me when you cast the spell.” Ella told Sheila. “It’s going to be a lot of magic, and I don’t mind you taking some of mine. Or better yet, channel Damon. He deserves it, after what he put Caroline through.”

“Sorry, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re also a witch.” Elena said, looking at Ella like she had grown a second head. “It was a spell, you did that day on Vicki, wasn’t it?”

“It was, and I am.” Ella said. “Glad to see your vampire boyfriend grew a pair and told you the truth about things that go bump in the night.”

Elena turned to glare at Stefan, who ducked his head. “Well, it wasn’t exactly his choice. But we’re really happy together.”

“We get it. You’re mushy, pathetic little lovebirds. Now, can we hurry it up?” Damon demanded, earning snorts of general derision from the group.

“Just shut up and let us concentrate.” Bonnie said.

The spell went off with only a few minor wrinkles. Sheila had altered the spell to leave the vampires inside, so Bonnie and Ella joined together to cast a spell that freed Stefan, Anna, the corpse-looking Pearl and Harper, and, unfortunately, Damon as a consequence. Ella felt the beginnings of magical exhaustion creep upon her, but she had still smiled when she saw Anna’s utter joy at being reunited with her mother.

Damon, for his part, had thrown a bitch fit of epic proportions when he had found out Katherine wasn’t in the tomb. In all honesty, Ella had felt the teeniest bit sorry for the guy, who had spent 145 waiting for a girl that had never loved him. Of course, Katherine wasn’t obligated to feel anything for him, but ghosting him for a century and a half was a pretty dick move.

All and all, the night had been a success. No one had questioned Ella’s suspicious witch heritage, Anna had gotten her mother back, Bonnie and Ella got to watch Damon freak out, and no one had died. Crawling into her bed, she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

~~

Glancing up at the night sky, Elijah Mikaelson sighed. He had been searching for his siblings for nearly eighty years, but to no avail. It was… disheartening, to say the least, that another of Jonas Martin’s leads had been a dead end.

In all honesty, he hadn’t thought Niklaus foolish enough to leave any of his siblings' bodies so close to their home. Elijah hadn’t stepped foot in New Orleans since his father had chased them out of the city. He certainly didn’t intend to return any time soon.

It had surprised him how quickly a backwater colony in Louisiana had become his family’s home. They had been born, after all, on an unassuming scrap of land that was now called Mystic Falls, which was likely just as unassuming today.

New Orleans had offered each of his siblings a chance to shine. As the oldest (after Finn’s regrettable, but necessary daggering), it had always been up to him to ensure the welfare of his younger siblings. And they had done well in the city. Kol, always the most lacking in self-control, had thrived in partnership with the French Quarter witches, and Rebekah had found great love, but it was Niklaus that had loved the city most of all. It was there, far away from the ever-present fear of Mikael that tainted their immortal lives, that Elijah had seen a glimmer of humanity in his brother. In his interactions with Marcel and Rebekah, for the first time in centuries, his brother had shown love and kindness.

The creature that Klaus had become today was far different from the man he once was. He had been kind and patient, full of love for his siblings and a passion for art. If anything, his twin Eleonora had been the impetuous one, with Niklaus the only one capable of soothing her temper. The two had always been inseparable.

The night that his brother had discovered his true nature - when his werewolf curse had activated and Mikael had subjected Niklaus to hours and hours of torture - had also been the night they had found Nora’s body in the river, her throat slit. A quick, painless death for a girl who had been so full of life. Elijah may have lost his little sister, but Rebekah lost the only other girl in the family. Kol lost his partner in all things magic.

And Niklaus lost his twin, the only person capable of sharing his grief over his werewolf nature. Their shared nature, as Esther’s illegitimate children. Elijah knew he had no right to grieve as his other siblings did, and yet he did all the same. It was a small mercy that Eleonora had been spared Father’s wrath. That she had not had to see beloved Henrik, the baby of the family, dead a few short hours later. And neither of them had seen the monsters their siblings had become. Had seen Niklaus turn on the others, and leave them to rot in the sea.
And they would not have to see Elijah kill their brother.

Whatever lingering traces of humanity remained in his brother had all but disappeared after the Hunter’s Curse took hold of his mind. Years of agony, of watching his brother speak to Henrik and Eleonora like they were there, of him begging Aurora to take him back and Esther to only love him, had softened Elijah’s heart. Had allowed him to remain by his brother’s side, even as atrocity after atrocity was committed.

He had invested all his hopes in his brother’s redemption, and his brother had thrown their siblings in the ocean to rot. They were not in New Orleans, or anywhere he could find them. They were as good as dead. Elijah knew Niklaus was a monster.

Then why was it so hard to kill his brother?

Chapter Text

“What are you doing here?”

Ella Lockwood’s day had been typical so far. She had hovered in her room to avoid her father, wincing when she heard the sound of shattering glass and her mother rushing to pick it up. She had grabbed breakfast off the counter, and had a rather typical ride to school with her brother. They had never really discussed their blow-up from a couple weeks ago, and had settled into an awkward, evasive silence.

In all honesty, the only noteworthy thing that had happened this week was the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant. Surprising everyone, Tyler had agreed to be Caroline’s date, and she had actually won. Their mother was delighted that Tyler was showing interest in a proper, respectable girl. She had muttered something rude about Vicki Donovan that Ella thought was in no way warranted, particularly considering the other girl was dead.

It had been a shock to the town when Damon Salvatore had stepped in to dance with Elena Gilbert after Stefan had gone missing. The sexual tension between the pair was enough that Ella was sure passerby were wondering why the two didn’t get it out of their systems already. Though Ella was fairly certain Elena would never do that to Stefan. She wasn’t anything like Tatia.

While she wasn’t exactly pleased that Damon was still walking around (and apparently friends with Mr. Saltzman, who was a vampire hunter?), she couldn’t exactly muster up the indignation to try to kill him again. After a thousand years, it was hard to feel much grief for the loss of human life she wasn’t connected to, and Damon didn’t seem to be killing anymore. Still, she had given him a headache for the ages at the pageant, and had filled with satisfaction when he shattered his wine glass.

For Caroline, of course.

Still, besides the Miss Mystic Pageant, nothing interesting had happened in Mystic Falls. Until today, when she walked into school and saw Anna Zhu carrying a backpack and looking curiously at the students around her. The vampire’s skin almost looked paler with the dark red lipstick and black clothes she was wearing.

“What are you doing here?” Ella asked, trying her best to contain the bubbly feeling in her chest. She hadn’t seen Anna since the comet, though they’d texted plenty.

Anna had mentioned that her mother had been a bit overbearing after their century and a half apart, so Ella wasn’t anticipating she’d get to see her soon.

“I… go here now. It’s my first time in high school, ever. Which you already knew, I guess.” Anna said, looking down.

“And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“You’re older than I am!” Anna laughed.

It was nice, being able to joke with someone about who she really was. Having someone who knew about her nature, knew the terrible things she did, and liked her all the same.

During the past few weeks, she had told Anna a bit more about her experiences through the ages. Being a nurse in the blitz, living as a werewolf in the Italian Renaissance, and being a practicing witch in New Orleans in the 60s. She had shared a lot about her first life, experiences with her brothers and sister.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll like this pinnacle of education. We only learn about Virginia in history class - school curriculum, Mr. Saltzman is a pretty decent teacher anyway - and the French teacher, Ms. Rou, won’t stop talking about guillotines.”

“At least I’ll get to spend time with you.”

“Let me see your schedule.” Ella conjured a small gust of wind, blowing it out of Anna’s hands. “We have history and gym together!”

The other girl rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Can I have my schedule back, please? Show off.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“Who’s this young lady, Annabelle?” A vaguely familiar woman approached, sounding amused.

Anna straightened. “Mom, This is Ella Lockwood. She’s the girl I told you about. The one that helped get you out of the tomb. And Ella, this is my mother, Pearl Zhu.”

Ella prayed to Odin that Anna’s mother hadn’t seen their whole exchange. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Zhu,” she said, dying a little inside as Pearl’s expression sharpened. The vampire woman gazed at Ella for a long moment.

“Curious. My daughter told me that you were a witch, but she didn’t tell me you were a werewolf as well.”

How could Pearl possibly know that? Ella did her best to disguise her shock. “I have many talents. I wouldn’t call myself just one thing. But being a witch is the most important part of me.”

In this life, at least, but she was hardly going to say that.

“I didn’t mean to offend you dear, I was merely curious. I’ve met precious few hybrids in my life, and never one that was both a werewolf and a witch.”

Hybrid? Is that what Ella's species was called? In all honesty, she had never known. Did that mean that there were vampire-witches out there, or vampire-werewolves?

Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Pearl laughed. “You, girl, are more powerful than you can hope to know. I rather like you, and I can’t think of a more suitable… companion for my daughter.”

“Mother!” Anna hissed, her pale face flushing.

Ella was floored at the implications, but was more than a little pleased with herself. It looked like Pearl Zhu knew about Ella’s crush on Anna. Knew, and approved.

~~

Caroline Forbes had a bit of a dilemma. She and Tyler Lockwood had gone to the Miss Mystic Falls pageant together, which had been surprisingly… fun. He was a slightly below average date, but far better than she had expected. Nearly acceptable, and they did look good together. They were both from Founding Families (the tradition was a bit archaic, but she acknowledged its importance to the town), and he was a good dance partner.

More importantly, he didn’t see Elena’s best friend when he talked to her. Elena had always been the crown jewel of Mystic Falls, the beautiful, vulnerable, too-perfect-for-this-world girl that everyone rushed to protect.

Not that she was bitter, or anything.

For the first time in her life, a boy had seen her first. He smiled at her, and asked about her, and told her she was smart. And the little fluttering feeling in her chest was perfectly acceptable. Tyler Lockwood, with a little work, could fit all the requirements a boyfriend of Caroline Forbes was required to meet.

There was just one problem, one that was connected to that thing. The thing she didn’t want to think about. When someone else had control of her body, had forced her to pretend that everything was fine. The memories were still blurry, but Ella had managed to piece them together enough for Caroline to have a clear picture of what happened.

Damon Salvatore had bit her, forced her to be a bitch to her friends, to do or say anything he wanted, whenever he wanted. The only line he hadn’t crossed was forcing himself on her, and that might have happened if Ella hadn’t clued in and stopped him.

Just because they hadn’t had sex didn’t mean it wasn’t a violation. And she hated him for making her feel so weak. Hated herself for being weak.

And there was her dilemma. Something terrible had happened to her, and then she had learned that the world was so much bigger than she had ever dreamed. Vampires and witches were real, and Tyler Lockwood’s little sister was a witch.

Before that Founder’s Party, Caroline had never thought twice about Ella. She knew her as Tyler’s little sister, and someone who was cute and was definitely going to be beautiful in a couple years. Good genes, for sure. Not that Caroline was into that sort of thing, though it was fine if you were.

If Ella had a twin brother, though…

Though Ella clearly was, judging by the way she stared a bit too long at Bonnie at the Grill sometimes. Caroline had to give the little Lockwood credit, though. She had good taste.
But Tyler didn’t know anything about magic or the things that went bump in the night. And she wasn’t sure that she could pursue a relationship with a boy knowing that she wouldn’t truly be honest with them.

It didn’t help that Caroline was starting to consider Ella a friend. The girl had saved her from mind-control, and given her something to make sure it didn’t happen again. She had texted Ella a couple times over the past few weeks, with questions about all things supernatural. Vampires, and the limitations of their powers. Caroline would make sure she would never be caught unawares again.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Ella asked, sitting down across from Caroline in the gym. Caroline had held Ella back after school council ended, which some might have considered a mild abuse of her power as president, but she considered absolutely necessary.

“It’s about your brother,” Caroline said, jumping right in. No use for beating around the bush. “I like him, and I think he might like me, but I’m not sure if I’d be able to lie to him indefinitely. I’m not a good liar. And what if I see Damon, or something, and I, like, freak out, and Tyler asks me about it, and I-”

She cut herself off. “Sorry, I tend to ramble a lot. It’s dumb, anyway.”

Ella glanced at Caroline, looking thoughtfully. It had a weird weight to it, making it look like she was an old woman instead of a teenage girl. “No, you’re completely right. The whole… lying by omission to my brother isn’t sustainable, especially now that Mystic Falls has become a hellmouth of supernatural creatures.”

“I promise that I’ll tell him soon. He deserves the truth about himself, too. If you can hold off a week or so, he’ll know and you won’t have to worry about accidentally spilling the beans. And if Damon so much as goes within ten feet of you, he’ll be missing a couple of key limbs.”

“And I’m sorry that I haven’t killed him. It kind of slipped my mind. It might make things awkward with Stefan, but if you say the word, I will.”

Alright, that was genuinely terrifying. Weirdly kind, but scary. “No, that’s definitely not necessary. Just keep him away from me.”

So that was settled. Caroline just hoped that Tyler would get one of the many, many hints she was dropping eventually, and ask her out.

Boys. They were such idiots sometimes. Cute idiots, but still.

~~

Ever since Ella had promised Caroline she would tell Tyler the truth about her, she had been walking on eggshells around her brother. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Would she tell him about being a witch? Would she tell him that she was nearly certain their family were werewolves?

Or would she go further, tell him the thing that only Anna knew? The idea of telling him about her past lives, about her thousand year curse, scared her. She and her brother had never been that close, and she feared how he would react. If he’d think she was crazy. If he’d be afraid of her. She’d been ignoring him for the past three days, trying to push the thoughts out of her mind.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Ella snapped to attention, looking over at her brother. In the dim lighting of one of the Lockwood Mansion’s many sitting rooms, she could pretend not to see the irritated look on her brother’s face. “Are you even going to grow a pair and ask Caroline out?”

It was a weak deflection, but surprisingly, it worked. Tyler’s face coloured. “We’re going to Founder’s Day together.”

Ella grinned.

“Shut up!”

“I didn’t say a word. Good for you, though. She’s pretty, and she’s smart. But if you break her heart, I’ll break your face.”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “Where’s your family loyalty?”

“In the trash, just like my favorite teddy bear you threw out.”

“That thing was creepy. And you’re fourteen. That’s way too old for dumb shit like teddy bears. Trust me, I did you a favor.”

The hint of amusement in his eyes was a relief. They were back to normal, bickering without going too deep. Not rocking the boat, not talking about the big issues. Just being siblings, fighting about ordinary, human stuff.

No one could get under Ella’s skin like her siblings. In any lifetime.

“Darth Snuggly was more than a dumb thing, you ass-”

“Children. That’s enough.” Richard Lockwood said.

And just like that, the glimmer of levity in the room disappeared. Tyler and Ella straightened, glancing at each other quickly. They knew the routine. Avoid eye contact with their father. Try their best not to set him off, to not claim his attention.

“Tyler. What’s this I hear from your principal about you getting suspended from the football team for fighting last week?”

Ella had heard about it. Chad Carpenter had made a comment about Vicki’s death, how she was a druggie and her time had been up, and Tyler had lost his cool. Pounded the guy to a pulp, and had to be dragged off by a passing Mr Saltzman. Tyler had said afterwards that he had no clue why he did it.

It had been a full moon, but Ella could hardly give that as an excuse to the history teacher. Mr Saltzman had given Tyler a light sentence, anyway - the football team hadn’t even been playing since Tanner had died.

Ella knew better than to say any of that to Richard Lockwood, though. That’d only make him angrier.

Richard walked towards Tyler, reaching out in grabbing his wrist. “Remember, son, that everything you do is a reflection on this family. You should be more conscious about how your actions affect me, or your poor mother. If you continue to be a poor reflection on this family, there will be consequences.”

He twisted Tyler’s wrist, and there was a terrible popping sound. Ella was paralyzed, tears in her eyes. For a second, she didn’t see Tyler and Richard. It was another brother, and another father, so long ago.

~~

Niklaus had not been able to do it. Their father had taken him, Finn, and Elijah on a hunt, and he had not been able to kill the deer in the woods. A moment of hesitation, borne of compassion, had given the creature time to flee.

The tale had been whispered to Eleanor, Elijah’s hushed tones filling her with sorrow as they heard their brother’s screams nearby. Nik had been so terribly excited for the hunt, for the chance to prove himself to father. Instead, once more, their father had found weakness where Eleanor and the others only saw strength.

“Mercy is for the weak! Love makes you weak!”

She winced as she heard the crack of the whip once more. She hated herself for not doing more. For dreading the day when her father’s cold eyes turned to her and decided that she was his next target. Eleanor Mikaelson was only nine, but she knew with certainty that her father was a monster.

She slipped out from behind the trees the second Mikael had departed. Running towards her brother, she placed her hands on his bloody back and muttered the healing incantation that Ayana had taught her last week.

Nik sighed in relief, then lapsed into quiet. He turned to her, eyes filled with sorrow, then-
“Why does he care for me so little, Nora? Why did I do to incur such ire? Why doesn’t he love me?” His voice broke a little, and she could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

Her heart broke for her brother, for the pain he had to endure everyday. Mikael cared little for her, content to ignore her existence. He spoke to her perhaps once a week, and it was only to order her around. It was its own kind of pain, but she would never suffer the way her twin had.

“I think some fathers are monsters instead,” was all she said.

~~

Tyler’s wrist was turning purple by the time Richard released it. “See to it that this behavior doesn’t happen again.” Then he was gone.

Tyler groaned, falling back against the couch. “Screw you too, asshole,” he muttered, once Richard was out of hearing distance.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Ellie. You didn’t tell dad today was the day to somehow be a bigger dick than normal.”

Ella handed a mug of hot chocolate, with some healing potion mixed in. That had been their go to routine for years, after stuff like that happened. If her brother knew that he healed uncommonly fast for the injuries he sustained, he never commented, he just said that her hot chocolate tasted good.

They sat in a companionable silence, united in hatred against the monster that lived in their house and called himself their father.

One of these days, Ella was going to work up the courage to do what she had never been able to do to Mikael. She couldn’t watch another brother suffer. Nik was long dead, but his fate wouldn’t be Tyler’s.

She wouldn’t allow it.

~~

“And everything’s going according to plan?”

“We took the device from Elena Gilbert’s house. Sheila Bennett, after some pressing, verified that it’s the real deal. Soon, we’ll have the problem dealt with once and for all.”

“I just wish it hadn’t taken Logan’s death for us to realize that there’s a serious problem in Mystic Falls. These tomb vampires are out of control. I’ve gotten over twenty calls about homicides at the station in just the past two weeks. The animal attack excuse is wearing way too thin.”

“The Founder’s Council has a history of dealing with problems like this. Now that John’s come to town, I’m confident there will be no problems. You ought to be too. It’s your job on the line if we fail.”

From across the hall, Ella glanced at the room, her eyes wide. She was far enough not to be noticed, but even untriggered werewolf hearing was good. Her father and Sheriff Forbes had been cooped up in her dad’s office for the past two hours, and she wanted to see what had gotten the Sheriff so grim. Now, she was left with more questions than answers.

What the hell was a Founder’s Council?

Chapter Text

“It really does look beautiful,” Ella said, looking at the floats going by in the Founder’s Parade. Her brother was standing on the Miss Mystic Falls float with Caroline, looking completely done with everything and everyone. “And Tyler is miserable, so that’s hilarious.”

“You know, I’ve never been to a Founder’s Day celebration before.” Anna was looking at all the floats with a curious eye. “It’s a lot.”

“Mystic Falls is proud of its history. In all honesty, they shouldn’t be, but at least the floats look nice.”

Anna giggled, looking at Ella. For a moment, Ella thought that maybe-

“Hey, Ella! Who’s this?” Matt Donovan came up to them, wearing casual clothes and looking more chipper than he had in months.

“Matt, this is Anna Zhu, she’s new to Mystic Falls. Her mom, Pearl, bought Grayson Gilbert’s old practice and is turning it into an apothecary.”

“Basically, just a fancy name for a drug store. But if mom’s happy, so am I.”

Matt smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Anna. I better go though, I have a shift at the grill, and Mrs. O’Connor will not be happy if I’m late. See you guys later.”

Ella looked at Matt, who was making his way through the crowd, nearly bumping into her mother in his haste to get back to the Grill. She pushed down the laughter bubbling in her throat as best as she could. Her mom wasn’t the parent who deserved her ire.

She had no clue what this “founder’s council” her father was apparently on was, but she got the feeling that it wasn’t good. Sometimes, Ella felt like Richard Lockwood was nothing but a black hole of misery, leaving everyone around him hollowed-out shells of who they once were.

Her mother, burying herself in her committees to try and give herself some sense of purpose after Richard had made her quit her law career. Tyler, explaining away the bruises Richard gave him with a thin veneer of cruelty. And Ella, paralyzed by indecision, just like she had been in the 9th century.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked, in a gentle manner that Ella wouldn’t have thought was possible just a month ago. “You have that ‘I’m thinking really hard about something depressing, and I don’t want to worry you face.’”

Had Anna really figured her out that quickly? In her fourteen years of this life, no one had paid enough attention to decipher her expressions, to really care what she thought. She was the youngest Lockwood, the obedient one, the unremarkable one.

“I just wanted to make sure everything’s alright, Eleanor,” Anna whispered the last word, leaning in close enough to Ella that it made her shiver.

It felt… nice, being called that again. Comforting, in a way. As if she was back at home, in the Mikaelson’s little single-story hut. A simpler time, in a lot of ways.

~~

“He would have to be kind, and strong, and have a good sense of humor. He would have to have loyalty to his people, and like children as much as I do. But most importantly, he would have to love me above all.”

Eleanor Mikaelson lay on the grass next to her younger sister, her skirts billowing around her. Their mother had sent them to gather water, but they had taken a well-deserved one. Esther had been working them to the bone, and with midsummer fast approaching, the girls hadn’t had a moment to themselves.

“What are you going on about this time, Becks?” Eleanor asked, having half-tuned her sister out to watch the birds fly above them.

“The man I ought to marry, of course! He needs to be perfect.”

Eleanor knew she ought to dissuade her sister of her romantic notions. It was certainly what most of her other siblings would do. But she had always had a particular fondness for Rebekah, as the only other sister in a sea of brothers. “A man less than perfect would certainly not be suited for you, little sister.”

Rebekah smiled, her cheeks flushing at the compliment. “And what sort of man would you like to marry, Nora?”

“Eleanor! Rebekah! Mother says to hurry up!” Henrik’s voice echoed through the clearing. Loathe as she was to lose time with her sister, Eleanor was thankful she was saved from answering.

She would never want to marry a man, after all.

~~

Anna was looking at her expectantly, hand on her shoulder. Ella reached for a response.

“I was just thinking about what I’m grateful for. I mean, I do miss my family so much, but I’m glad to be here now. With you. You mean a lot to me, you know.”

“You mean a lot to me too,” Anna reached out to take Ella’s hand. It was surprisingly warm, considering the other girl was a vampire. “Come on, let’s go to the party. I’d love to see you give Damon Salvatore a migraine again.”

Walking hand-in-hand, they left the floats behind, heading to the center of town.

~~

Bonnie Bennett was sitting at the Grill, more than a little stressed. Grams had tried her best to calm her down all through breakfast, and her father was out of town (again) on some kind of business. The Founder’s Council had some kind of device that could be weaponized against the vampires in town, and she wasn’t sure what their plans were.

They had stolen it from the Gilbert house, and just appeared to be… hanging onto it, for some reason. Most of the vampires in Mystic Falls were peaceful, Stefan and Anna being the two major ones. In any other circumstance, Bonnie was sure she would have sided with the town council, maybe even activated the device herself.

But Elena was her best friend, and seeing Anna Zhu cry and hug her mother had awakened something in her. That tiny child inside her that wanted nothing more than to have Abby come back. That was jealous every time Caroline and Tyler complained about their moms, because at least they had one.

Bonnie pushed all that anger at the unfairness of the world aside. She was the town’s resident protector. There was nothing she did better than taking care of the people she loved.

“Going somewhere, sweetheart?” A guy, who looked about in his twenties, was leering at her, in a way that made her skin crawl. Vampire, her senses screamed. “What’s a pretty little girl like you doing all alone?”

“Not interested. Just leave.” She didn’t have the patience to be nice to a blood-sucking perv right now, not when all her energy was spent worrying about the people she cared about. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Matt glance at her, worried. He started to head towards their table, when -

“You’re an icy bitch, aren’t you. You know, girls like you need to be shown their place.” He reached out to grab her wrist, calling out in horror when his hand came back completely frozen. “What the fuck are you?”

“I don’t know,” Bonnie grinned. It was a sharp thing, her smile filled with teeth. “I guess I’m a little too cold for you. And maybe think twice before going after another underage girl.”

“What kind of vampire doesn’t know what a witch is?” Bonnie muttered, watching the guy storm off.

She was so distracted, she didn’t notice Matt looking at her with wide eyes - awestruck, with a hint of admiration. He flushed, his eyes remaining on Bonnie as he went to clear the counter.

~~

Ella had taken a break from dancing, and was standing next to the punch bowl. In Mystic Falls tradition, it had been spiked hours ago, but her werewolf metabolism had meant that she was hardly buzzed from her cup. There was a reason that the Lockwood’s had won drinking contests for generations, she suspected.

The Founder’s Day party was surprisingly fun. She had spent time with Anna all night, and had even managed to tease Tyler about Caroline a bit, which had been surprisingly effective. Her brother had gone beat red and silent, far from the usual Tyler pattern of angry and aggressive.

Everything had gone off without a hitch. Caroline had tripped and cut herself on some old glass, but Stefan had given her some of his blood - as a sort of apology, Ella figured, for not doing more while Damon was using Caroline.

Now, Ella was chatting with Stefan about old bands, certain that she was surprising him with all her knowledge. After all, she had seen Bon Jovi in concert a fair number of times during her last life. Elena was also nearby, talking with Caroline and Bonnie, while Matt and Tyler were wrapped up in a passionate football discussion. Anna, meanwhile, was antagonizing Damon, who looked like he would rather be anywhere but at the party, and kept looking at Ella warily.

“Ella, sweetheart! There you are!” Carol hurried over to her, looking more anxious than she normally did at a party, and that was saying something. “I need you and Tyler to go home now. Can you tell him?”

Ella frowned. “Mom, the party’s barely getting started.”

“Now, Ella.” Her mom said, more harshly than Ella had ever heard her speak before. “Or you’re grounded for the rest of the week.”

Ella rolled her eyes, but figured that whatever it was, it wasn’t worth arguing over. “Ty! Mom says we have to go!”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “It’s not even ten yet, and it’s a friday. Mom can chill. Besides-” He stopped talking abruptly when someone came up behind them, his face draining of color. Richard.

“I believe that your mother told you to do something,” Richard said, his voice cold. “I would suggest that you do it, Tyler. Right now.” He reached out, grabbing Tyler’s shoulder and squeezing hard - not so hard that it would be noticed by any of the other people at the party, but hard enough that it would hurt, reminding Tyler of the cost of disobedience.

Richard never hurt his children in public, and Carol was never this anxious. Whatever was going on, Ella was certain it had something to do with the Founder’s Council. She winced as Tyler flinched, gritting his teeth, but did nothing. Humiliating her father would only spell trouble for her mother when she got home.

“Is there a problem here?” Damon Salvatore asked, strolling up to Richard Lockwood with a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Because trust me, I know first-hand the kind of wild things kids get up to at parties, but if you want your son to leave, you probably have to let him go.”

Damon smiled, ignoring the seven teenagers watching him with wide eyes, focusing on the furious mayor. “Word of advice? Know when to back down.”

“I’d watch your back, if I were you,” Richard hissed at Damon, glaring one more time at Tyler before leaving.

“Why did you help my brother?” Ella couldn’t help but ask. “Isn’t being a dick more of your usual style?” Damon had gone after Richard with a vengeance. It seemed almost personal to him, but he barely knew their father.

“You’re welcome, Glinda.” He rolled his eyes. Then he spoke quietly, so soft that Ella was sure she wouldn’t be able to hear it without her werewolf hearing. “I know a thing or two about dick dads.”

For the first time ever, she didn’t completely hate Damon Salvatore. Just for a second.

~~

In the end, Tyler and Caroline had ended up leaving the party. Her brother hadn’t wanted to be around while Richard was nearby, and her parents were likely to be at the party until the early morning, leaving the new couple the house to themselves.

At any rate, Ella wasn’t going back anytime soon. She and Anna were camped out on a picnic blanket, the rest of the group nearby. Matt was being filled in on the town’s supernatural occurrences by Bonnie. After he had seen her freeze a vampire’s arm with her magic, Bonnie hadn’t seen any point in keeping it from him.

“So Damon, Stefan, and Anna are vampires, and Ella and you are witches. You broke Anna’s mom out of a magic tomb, and a bunch of other vampires got out and are lurking around town, and murdered a bunch of people?” Matt sounded disbelieving, and Ella couldn’t blame him. It was a lot for a human to take in.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Elena chimed in. “Witches, vampires… What’s next? Banshees? Werewolves?”

Stefan snorted, and Ella and Anna exchanged a look. “How does a century-and-a-half old vampire not know about werewolves?” Ella muttered.

“Well, I’m not going to be the one to break it to him.” Anna smiled, popping a chocolate strawberry into her mouth.

“Stefan,” Ella said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. My parents were acting weird tonight - weirder than normal, that is. They seemed to be anxious about something, and I overheard my father and Sheriff Forbes talking about something called a Founder’s Council? Dealing with some sort of problem with a device? Would you know anything about that? Because whatever it is, I think it’s happening tonight.”

The younger Salvatore sat upright, and was on his feet in the blink of an eye. “We need to leave. The Gilbert device can be weaponized by the Founder’s Council to kill vampires. They’re probably going to use it tonight to kill the tomb vampires, but it’ll get every last one of us.”

In the blink of an eye, Damon was gone. Matt and Bonnie exchanged a glance, and seemed to decide they didn’t want to get caught up in the commotion either. The last behind were Elena and Stefan.

Stefan stayed back for a second, glancing at Ella. “Thank you. You might have just saved my life.” Then he was gone too, taking Elena with him.

Ella’s mind was working at rapid speed. From Sheila Bennet’s notes, she remembered that Emily had made the Gilbert device to work on all non-Bennett supernaturals, but that it could easily be counteracted by magic. After all, no self-respecting witch would send other witches to their deaths. Ella was a Mikaelson witch, Esther’s daughter. In less than a minute, a solution came to her.

Ella knelt down on the ground, holding the two bracelets she was wearing in her hands. “Aven safa sa belise,” she whispered, feeling the magic enter the small gold bands.

“Ella, what are you doing?”

“I’m figuring out a way to counteract the Gilbert device for us. I’m a werewolf and a witch - so even though I’m untriggered, I’ll be affected. I made a portable boundary spell, embedded into the bracelets, a nifty trick I picked up in New Orleans. It should only last an hour or two, but it’ll be long enough for us to get the hell out of here.”

She fastened one of the bracelets on her wrist and handed Anna the other. The two girls quickly made their way away from the party, eager to get out the way before the Gilbert device activated.

“Wait!” Anna stopped abruptly, her eyes widening. “My mom said she’d stop by the party. We have to get her out, too.”

Just then, a horrible shrieking filled the air, but most of it was muffled by the boundary Ella had created. It would be unpleasant - rather like a headache - but she would deal. Together, the two girls ran back towards the party, praying that they’d get to Pearl before their time ran out.

Chapter Text

In the town square, it was absolute chaos. Ella saw a vampire, wailing on his knees, be dragged off by two of Liz Forbes deputies. Beside her, Anna’s hands were clenched into fists. That could have easily been her, if events had unfolded differently.

“We have to follow them,” Anna hissed. “They’ll lead us to my mom.”

Nodding grimly, Ella followed Anna as they trailed the deputy into the basement of the church. Anna knocked the man on the back of his head with her purse, and there was a loud thump as he fell onto the floor.

Inside, it was chaos. A fire had started in the center of the room, and vampire bodies were packed in like sardines, all dead or dying. Anna found her mother close to the center of the room and picked her up, feeling frantically for the thin, erratic beat that was a vampire’s heart. When she found it, she sighed in relief.

“Anna,” Pearl whispered, the faintest hint of a smile. “You came.”

“I will always find you, mom. I promise.” It was a strange sight, seeing such a small girl carrying a grown woman without breaking a sweat.

Feeling like she was intruding on a private moment, Ella looked away, surveying the other bodies in the room. She had no desire to help the others on the floor, not when she didn’t know who they were.

At least, she didn’t know who most of them were.

Because laying on the floor, groaning and bleeding from the mouth, was Richard Lockwood. His eyes widened when he saw her, and seemed to grow larger when Anna came up behind her.

“Ella, we need to go before this place comes down,” Anna said, a hand wrapped around her mother to help her walk.

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up.” Ella turned her eyes back towards the vampire girl.

“It’s dangerous to stay.”

“I’ll be fine-”

“I’m not losing you!”

Ella jerked back, stunned by the intensity of Anna’s statement. In all her time knowing Anna, the other girl had never raised her voice. Now, she looked flustered, anxious in a way Ella had never seen before.

“I’m not losing you,” Anna repeated. “In just a few weeks, you’ve become so… important to me, Eleanor. More than anyone ever has before. You trusted me with the world’s biggest secret, you saved my mother and asked for nothing in return, and you helped me open up to people for the first time in a long time. You’re smart, and you’re really, really pretty, and I think I have feelings for you, and if you die, I’ll be so pissed.”

Ella kissed her.

It was a frantic, quick thing - Anna still had her mother to worry about, and the building they were in was on fire - but it was good. Probably the best kiss that Ella had in ten centuries. The second they stepped back from each other, Anna looked at her with an intensity that made Ella feel all warm inside.

Ella couldn’t stop a grin from taking over her face. “That was good. Let’s do it again sometime.”

“Yeah, totally.” Anna sounded more than a little breathless.

“Now go and get your mom to safety. I promise I’ll be okay.”

With one last look over her shoulder, Anna was gone. Ella turned her attention back to her father, who was lying on the floor, and a second later, he spat in her face.

Ella stood, unflinching, as blood and spit dripped down her face. “Is that any way to treat someone who could get you out of this god-forsaken mess?”

He glared at her, with all the rage that a man half-unconscious could muster. “I always knew you’d bring shame upon this family, you little homo freak. What kind of girl even are you? I should have known your brother being such a pussy would rub off on you. He made you just as fucked up as he is!”

Ella laughed. It was a cold thing. “No. The only thing wrong with this family is you, Richard. You’ve ruined all of us. You kept mom confined in your shame of a marriage, forcing her to give up everything to please you. You beat the crap out of Tyler whenever you’re in the mood to pretend to be a father. And you kept me scared of what you’d do, scared to do anything that might make you angry.”

“But guess what? I’m not scared anymore. Because you’re nothing but a pathetic, abusive piece of shit.” Ella knelt down beside her father, dispersing the flames that were creeping closer. She could feel a familiar, wolflike rage build in her. This man had threatened her family. A family that didn’t include him, never really had.

“When I get up, I’ll kill that girl you seem so intent to ruin yourself with. And god knows your brother could use a beating, since the little bastard never seems to do what he’s told.”

In a flash, Ella was somewhere else, recalling another father and another brother. The similarities between Mikael and Richard had never been more apparent. Richard Lockwood, through his own stupidity and cruelty, had sealed his own fate.

Ella stood again, slamming her heel into Richard’s stomach. He let out a groan of pain.

“You just made a big mistake, threatening the people I care about. Because once upon a time, I lived among Vikings. I saw death and violence everywhere I went. They were fierce, often unforgiving people. But there was one thing that scared even the Vikings. And that was the werewolves. Every full moon, the people would take to the tunnels and hide from the shifters.”

Ella summoned vines with a flick of her wrist, enjoying the way Richard’s eyes widened as they tightened around his legs, how he stared at her with venom. Her father in this life, finally seeing her for what she was. What she had been too scared to be before.

“I’m a witch, but that’s not important to this particular story. What’s important is the werewolves. You see, the Lockwoods are a family of werewolves. Your reaction to the little Gilbert device confirms it. But you’d never know, because you’ve never activated your curse. Because the only way to do that is to kill someone.”

Richard paled, finally seeming to realize where Ella was going with this. “You’re no daughter of mine.”

“What a coincidence. I certainly don’t consider you my father. But Tyler is my brother, and Anna sure as hell shouldn’t suffer because you can’t deal with me being a lesbian.”

For a second, all Ella could see was Mikael’s cruel, sneering face. She hoped that Nik would be proud of her now, finally doing what she should have done the first time around.

“This is for my real family. One that doesn’t include you.” Taking a deep breath, Ella grabbed a hot metal rod that had fallen in the collapsing church. In one smooth motion, she plunged it into Richard Lockwood’s heart.

For Tyler. For Nik.

She didn’t stay to watch the light leave his eyes. She sprinted out of the basement before it could collapse, hoping that she could make it home before her spelled bracelet lost its power.

A minute later, she felt the familiar stirrings of power run through her veins, healing the burns and cuts she had acquired at a rapid pace. Her senses were sharper, her running quicker.

Richard Lockwood was dead, and Ella had triggered her curse.

~~

Caroline Forbes was sitting in Tyler Lockwood’s car, glancing at the driver every few seconds. The tight line of his mouth softened a little every time he saw Caroline, which gave her a fluttering feeling in her chest that she wasn’t eager to put a name to just yet.

God, she felt so bad for him. Half the town had seen his father hurt him, which meant that Richard Lockwood’s abusive tendencies were going to be what everyone was talking about for months. They had only shut up about Elena’s parents' deaths when Vicki Donovan and Logan Fell had died.

Though, Caroline thought, more than a little bitterly, considering the supernatural population of Mystic Falls, someone was sure to die soon and give everyone something else to gossip about.

Sometimes, she hated being so helpless. She wished she could protect Tyler from the Richard Lockwood’s of the world, be something other than the neurotic control freak who was as shallow as a kiddie pool.

“What are you thinking about?” Tyler asked, his eyes on the road.

“How you make me feel like a swimming pool. Deep, I mean,” Caroline added, when she saw him start to look confused. She really liked Tyler, but they hadn’t gotten to the stage of their relationship yet where he understood everything she meant.

For once, she didn’t actually feel impatient. It would come with time.

Tyler looked like he was going to say something, before he took his hands off the wheel and clutched his head, groaning.

What the hell was he doing? Caroline knew he had drunk a little at the party, but it wasn’t more than a cup. She wouldn’t have gotten into the car with him if it was. “Ty, what’s wrong? Keep your eyes on the road!”

“That noise…” He hissed. “Can you hear it?”

“What noise? We’re going to crash! Can’t you just-”

Caroline saw the other car a few milliseconds before it crashed into theirs, ramming into the passenger side. The next few moments were a blur. She could feel her head hit something, hard. Could smell the rustic tint of blood, just like that one time her dad had taken her hunting and she had cut herself by mistake.

She could hear Tyler screaming her name, more anxious than she had ever heard him. She could feel the sweet, blissful peace creeping up on her, as she slipped farther and farther away.

And then it was gone. When she opened her eyes, she was on the road. Tyler was beside her, calling 911 with his cracked cell phone. Oddly enough, she could hear the operator on the other line, assuring him that everything would be alright. He had a cut on his forehead, but it was healing in a matter of seconds, slower than she thought a vampire’s would but fast all the same.

She could hear everything. The birds and bugs in the trees, the sound of the highway a mile away, the anxious beat of Tyler’s heartbeat. She could smell the tang of the blood on her clothes, from wounds that had completely healed.

She knew what it meant. Stefan had given her his blood earlier, when she had cut herself on some glass. And she should have died in the car crash. But she was awake now, which could only mean…

She was a vampire. And she was hungry.

~~

Far away in Florida, Mason Lockwood felt a strange stirring in his chest. He had spent some time with a pack in the Appalachians, learning how to get used to all the strange sensations and customs that came from being a werewolf.

This tug was one he heard of before, but never experienced. Hollis, the pack’s leader, had described it as a family tether. It had given him the ability to sense when his children, blood or adopted, were in danger. The same tug had poor, young Hayley Marshall searching for a lost family she would likely never find.

It told Mason that something fundamental had changed. That something had been lost, and something had also been gained. It was vague and annoying as fuck, but it was enough. He headed back to his motel, packing his bags as quickly as he could.

Kathy could wait. His niece and nephew needed him.

~~

The last thing he recalled was death, glimpsing his own blood and being terrified at the sight. The pain from the wounds was secondary to the fear in his heart, matched by the frantic screams of one he had trusted above all others.

The one who now stood here, doing nothing, as he was torn apart. The thought angered him. He had trusted that one, had trusted all of them, and all he had to show for this was this. A meaningless life, cut short far too quickly.

He had expected the afterlife, the one that he had heard stories about since he was young. Had expected a comforting, peaceful end from existence. Instead, he had gotten this.

He was… small again. An infant, unable to do anything but cry and watch his surroundings. They were different. The air was heavier, and the stone room he resided in was finer than anything he had ever seen before.

The people who surrounded him weren’t the family he had once known, the family that had left him to die. Their faces were different, their hair darker, their clothes finer.

They spoke a language he had no knowledge of, but over the weeks, he grew to comprehend a few of the words. He had nothing but time, after all.

The first word he learned was Bledri. That was, he was shocked to learn, his name now. Because that wasn’t what he was called, not really.

His name was Henrik Mikaelson.

End of Arc One: Welcome to Mystic Falls.
Next: Arc Two: The Wolf Arc

Chapter Text

It had just been two days since Founder's Day, but to Ella Lockwood, it felt like so much longer. So much had happened, after all. When Caroline and Tyler had been driving, Tyler had heard the Gilbert device and lost control. Caroline had died with vampire blood in her system. So Tyler triggered his curse, and Caroline was a vampire.

Ella had triggered her curse, too, but she preferred not to think about how it happened. How she had killed her father in this life, and enjoyed it. She knew she should be more horrified by what she had done, but she couldn’t muster the energy. It was her lack of horror that concerned her.

Was she a monster? Sometimes, she wasn’t certain.

Carol had barely been in the house since Richard died. She spent most of her time planning his funeral, and working on her new duties as interim mayor. With Caroline adjusting to her newfound vampirism with Bonnie and Stefan’s help, that left her and Tyler alone in the house.

It was past time for Ella to tell Tyler the truth. Especially since he’d be turning at the next full moon, in less than a week. Even Anna had agreed when she had talked it over with the other girl yesterday. Anna and her mother were fine, thank the gods, though both sad over the death of Harper at the council’s hands.

It could have been much, much worse. And if one good thing had come out of recent events, it was Ella finally knowing where she stood with the girl she liked. The two were in a relationship now, which mostly meant a lot more making out in private.

Neither of them was ready to go public yet. If Ella was being honest with herself, she feared Carol’s reaction. After what Richard had said to her in the church’s basement, she had decided she wasn’t going to risk ruining her relationship with another parent.

Not yet, at least. She was keeping plenty of secrets from Carol, anyway. But she was done keeping them from Tyler. Rounding the corner in the Lockwood Mansion, she grabbed her brother by the wrist the second she saw him.

“Ella, what the hell are you doing? Let me go!” Tyler’s confusion was quickly turning into annoyance as Ella dragged him down the hall and towards the backyard.

The Lockwood gardens were huge, and no one was ever there. They also happened to be a few minutes from where Ella had lived, a thousand years ago. She could half-imagine that the spirits of the rest of the Mikaelson’s would be there, giving her courage as she told Tyler the truth.

“It’s important, Ty,” she took a deep breath, saying the one ridiculous thing that she knew would make her brother listen. “Double punch promise.”

~~

When Tyler was twelve, he and his little sister had gotten into a terrible fight. He had stolen her teddy bear and ripped its arm off after he had caught her messing with his MP3 player. Their fight had gotten physical, quickly.

Long story short, he had ended up with a fractured nose, she had ended up with a sprained arm, and their mom had managed to cover it up from their dad, who was on a work trip to Vancouver. Ella and he had made a deal: they each got one time when the other sibling had to shut up and listen to what they said no matter what.

He had called it in a week later, after she had insulted the Carolina Panthers. Five years later, and she had never called hers in. Until now.

It had been really fucking weird in the house since dad died, but Ella had seemed to take it hardest of all. She hadn’t talked to him in days, and the bags under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept, either. Whatever she had to say, it was probably important.

He watched as Ella paced around their patio, not looking him in the eye, for what felt like an eternity before he snapped. “Are you going to say something, or what? Come one, just rip the bandaid off”

“Caroline’s dead, Tyler. And you killed her.”

Whatever he was expecting his sister to say, it wasn’t that. “I called Caroline this morning. She definitely wasn’t dead then.” Had his sister gone completely insane?

Ella shook her head. “She had vampire blood in her system… She’s a vampire now, but the curse doesn’t care.”

Tyler just stared at Ella, in stunned disbelief. His sister had always been the smart one, but now she sounded like a raving lunatic. Maybe their father’s death had hit her harder than even he thought.

She sighed. “I’m not explaining this correctly. I should just show you.” She raised her hand, and the coffee table floated in the air, about ten feet up before it landed back on the ground with a soft thud.

“I’m a witch, Tyler. But the Lockwood’s are also werewolves. It’s a family curse, one that triggers when you take another person’s life, intentionally or unintentionally. Caroline died, even though she’s… undead now. That means that next full moon, you and I will both shift into werewolves.”

His sister was fucking Hermoine. He couldn’t believe it, that she could lift a table with her mind and that he had never known. That he had never really known her at all. And apparently, vampires and werewolves were real too. And he was a werewolf.

In all his confusion, one thing stood out to him. “Who did you kill?”

Ella looked shocked. “What?”

“You said that werewolves need to kill someone to trigger this curse. Who’d you kill?”

She glanced at him, tears in her eyes. “Ty…”

And then he knew. Knew why they found his father’s body with a pole impaling it, knew why Ella had been out of the house every time well-wishers came by, knew why she looked so haunted.

She had killed their father.

His sister was full-on crying now. “I know it’s so terrible, but the things he said he’d do - I could handle it if it was just me, but he said he’d go after you and Anna too, just because she’s my girlfriend, and I just thought how pissed and scared I got every time he hurt you, and I snapped. I’m so sorry.”

Richard Lockwood might have been dead, but that man was no real father. Tyler still had the bruises to prove it. That was his little sister was weeping on the floor, blaming herself for something that had been a long time coming. So he pushed away the shock, the disbelief that the fourteen-year-old had killed someone, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Just breathe, okay? The dude was a dick, anyway. No great loss there.”

Ella sniffled, leaning on his shoulder. “You don’t hate me?”

“Never, I promise.” Wait, what had Ella said earlier? “That goth chick is your girlfriend?”

Ella smiled a little. “Anna, yeah. She’s a super awesome five-hundred-year-old vampire.”

“Isn’t five hundred a little bit old for you?” He couldn’t keep a little bit of his worry out of his voice. Even if his sister was apparently a table-levitating, father-killing werewolf witch, he wasn’t sure if she was ready for the whole dating shit. Much less with a vampire older than America.

“Well, I’m actually older than her. You see, it started a thousand years ago, when my little brother died and my mother - I got my magic from her - started planning a spell that apparently would shift the balance of nature forever…”

Ella had spoken for half an hour, telling Tyler the story about how she had become cursed to live over and over again, with a different name and family, but the same abilities and face every time. So much about his sister made more sense now, like how she was always freakishly smart, knew everything about history, and had been super mature for his age.

He had been competing for parental approval with someone who had already had a law degree and nursing degree, who had lived as Italian nobility and died during the French revolution. Ella was always ten steps ahead of all the other kids, and that was the reason why.

What little she said of her family in her first life made it clear how much she loved them. Tyler couldn’t help feeling a little bit jealous, but he pushed it aside. They had been dead for centuries, and Ella was a Lockwood now. She didn’t even tell him their names - maybe she had forgotten them? She was still his little sister, even if she was apparently centuries older than him.

She had hugged him after he had said as much, then had gone on to tell him what had been happening in Mystic Falls. Stefan and Damon, the new arrivals in town, were vampires. Bonnie was a witch, and Elena was apparently an exact doppelganger of a girl Stefan and Damon had both known, and Ella had met.

And the Lockwoods were werewolves, but no one knew that except them and Anna. Pissed as he was to be left out of the loop (considering even Matt had known before him), he was glad Ella told him the truth. At least now he wouldn’t be in the dark about his sort-of girlfriend's vampirism or the fact that one of his childhood best friends was apparently a witch.

But as happy as he was that he finally knew what the fuck was up in Mystic Falls, he had a new thing to worry about: what was he was going to do on the full moon?

~~

Eleanor had spent the better part of an hour looking for her twin, combing through the woods that surrounded their little village. Naturally, she avoided the wolf territory (even thinking of such creatures made her shutter).

Her mother Esther had been insistent that none of her offspring venture too close to where the wolves resided, but she had always paid special heed to ensuring Eleanor and Niklaus never did. Eleanor always assumed it was because she and Nik were the most prone to wandering off.

As if to prove her point, she found her brother sitting near the falls, staring at a tree with a cardinal perched in it with the intensity of a warrior seeking entrance into Valhalla. She stifled a laugh.

“What a strange sight you make here, dear brother. I fear Elijah was worried about your whereabouts for nothing.”

Nik didn’t raise his gaze from the tree. He was likely painting it in his mind’s eye, something he had to do often in absence of actual tools to hone his craft. “I was distracted and lost track of time. Forgive me.”

“It must be a lovely view indeed, if you’ve decided to forgo all bonds of family - and to miss training as well. Finn was less-than-pleased to find you lacking in the warrior’s spirit today. Granted, something that makes him angry is certainly something worth doing.”

At this, Nik finally looked up, the corners of his mouth twitching into a grin. “I suppose Elijah knocked him flat on his arse today.”

“I’d dare say that Henrik could do the same. Gods, why that dullard is mother’s favourite will never cease to amaze me.” Finn’s obnoxiousness was only matched by his siblings’ sheer annoyance whenever they were forced to spend time in his presence.

“He is mother’s favourite because he does everything she says without question, no matter how inane it is. And is that jealousy I detect? Do you long for the coveted position of mother’s favourite, Eleanor?”

She snorted. It was difficult to imagine being like Finn, who was twenty-five and had sworn off marriage merely because their mother told him to do so. Gods only knew why she did such a thing. The Mikaelson reluctance for marriage had risen many eyebrows in town. “In my time on this plane, little brother, I’ve discovered that there are far more valuable things to do with one’s time than chase after parental approval.”

Nik rolled his eyes, as he always did when she called him little brother. “And I suppose you gained this wisdom during the few seconds you lived before my birth?”

“And those were the best few seconds of my life! Think about it, no wasting hours searching for my brother only to find him staring at a tree of all things, no listening to him speak of Tatia for hours on end…”

“We both know you’re lying. As if you could ever be happy without me.”

Together, the brother and sister headed back to the village. The bickering that followed was good-natured and easily forgotten, but the words that Nik spoke would stay with Eleanor for the rest of her life, and all the ones after that.

Because deep in her heart, was the hole where her twin should be. A thousand years later, and she still missed him.

Chapter Text

As embarrassing as it was to have cried on Tyler’s shoulder (and it had been super embarrassing), Ella was glad that she had told her brother the truth about what had happened - to their father, and to her. 

It had hardly changed the way Tyler had treated her, which had been surprising. Not all teenage boys reacted to the fact that their little sister was a quasi-immortal reincarnated being who killed their father with such nonchalance.  

At least Ella had support at her father’s wake. God, she couldn’t believe that she was at Richard’s wake just a few hours after killing the man. It made her skin crawl, wearing all black and accepting mourners' condolences like she hadn’t shoved a stick in his chest. 

And it wasn’t like any of these people cared, anyway. Everyone in Mystic Falls knew what an ass their mayor had been. She and Tyler had been approached by half the town, and Ella prayed that her nausea could be viewed as some approximation of appropriate sadness by the people in town. 

Because the truth was she didn’t miss him. And deep down, she didn’t regret what she did. Richard had threatened Tyler and Anna, the two most important people in her life. She would do it again without hesitation. 

After an exceedingly awkward conversation with Mr. Saltzman, who had offered her extensions on all of her history projects and had looked like he’d rather be anywhere but there, Ella snuck into Richard’s old study for a brief reprieve. 

“Look who stole my idea for escape,” Tyler said, already rummaging through their father’s old cabinets. 

“Anyone ever told you about respect for the dead?”

“I think you’re the last person on this planet who could judge right now, Ells.” The grin on Tyler’s face made her chest unclench a little. Somehow, miraculously, her brother didn’t blame her. Reaching into a cabinet, he picked up a flask of Richard’s old whisky and took a swig from the bottle. “And I need this shit to get through the next hour.” 

“Give me some,” Ella said. At her brother’s disapproving look, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me the responsible big brother routine. I’m centuries older than you, plus I was Russian once. I can handle my alcohol.” 

They passed the flask back and forth, each taking a few swigs, before the door suddenly burst open. “I was wondering where I’d find you two,” said Mason Lockwood. 

Ella hadn’t seen her uncle Mason in six years. After barely finishing high school, he had hung around Mystic Falls for three more years. His arguments with Richard had been legendary when she and Tyler were kids. 

When Mason stormed off to Florida, she remembered how quiet the house had gotten in his absence. Mason may have been the irresponsible layabout of the Lockwood family, but he had cared about his niece and nephew more than his brother ever did. 

“Uncle Mason? What the hell are you doing here?” Tyler grinned and did his best to shove the whiskey behind his back - so naturally, it landed on the carpet, visible in plain sight. 

Mason picked up the whiskey bottle. “You’re both too young for this. Ella’s what, thirteen? And at my brother’s wake - I mean, he wasn’t the best, but he didn’t deserve this.” As he walked by, Ella got a whiff of his scent.

Mason had triggered his curse, probably a couple years back. And he had been living with a pack recently, a rather large one too. If Ella had to bet, he had come back to see if either of them had done the same. 

“I’m fourteen, which is six years older than the last time you saw me. I don’t think you know what I’m capable of. Besides, I have a great metabolism. Practically supernatural.” Ella grinned. 

“Ella! What the hell!” Tyler muttered. 

Mason glanced between the two of them, his eyebrows raised, but he said nothing. 

“Come on, Ty. Can’t you smell it? He’s a werewolf too.” Ella glanced at her uncle. “He probably triggered his curse a few years back.” 

“I have to say, I didn’t expect that you both triggered your curse, much less that you already know what werewolves are,” Mason said. “It’s kind of our family’s most closely guarded secret. But you’re both not full wolves, not yet. The full moon is in a week. That’s when you’ll turn, and trust me, it’s not pretty.”

“Is that why you came back? To help us unlock our full werewolf potential?” Tyler asked, a little annoyed. “We haven't seen you for six years and you come in like you have all the answers?”

“Well, you both know more than I was expecting. Who told you about the werewolf curse, or did you find any of the old Lockwood journals?” 

“My girlfriend’s a vampire, who’s seen werewolves before,” Ella answered quickly. “Actually, Tyler’s girlfriend is also a vampire now. Weird coincidence - that’s actually how he triggered his curse.” 

“Girlfriend?” Mason hummed. “I remember you as eight.” 

Tyler cast an annoyed look at Ella, then turned back to Mason. “What do you mean, the Lockwood journals?” 

Mason looked more than a little pleased that he knew something they didn’t. “Our ancestors have been keeping our supernatural heritage a secret for generations, but they passed down notes on how to survive and contain the transformation. I’d be happy to share with you what I’ve learned.” 

Tyler and Ella exchanged a glance, and he nodded. With the first transformation so near, it would be nice to have guidance. “We’re in,” he said. 

~~

After their talk with Mason, Ella went back to speak with more well-wishers, trying her best to concentrate on the conversations at hand. Clearly, she wasn’t doing too well at the whole thing, since she almost bumped into Elena. 

The other girl deftly stepped to the side, pausing when she saw Ella. She cocked her head a little, looking almost confused, before she flashed Ella a sympathetic smile. “I was so sorry to hear about your father. Please, let me know if there’s anything Stefan or I can do.” 

Wait a second. Elena’s hair was too curly, her movements too quick, and her smirk a little too wicked. It wasn’t Elena at all. 

“Katherine,” Ella muttered. 

It had been decades since she had seen the other girl in New Orleans. After the incident with the tomb, Ella had honestly thought she would never hear of Katherine again. But Tatia and Elena’s mirror image was apparently back in Mystic Falls, and posing as the eldest Gilbert.

The vampire narrowed her eyes. “What did I ask you the last time I saw you?” 

“To find Stefan Salvatore. Which I did wonderfully, by the way. You’re welcome.” 

The corner of Katherine’s lips twitched up. “Dottie. It has been a while, hasn’t it? You’re looking… younger. And with a new family to boot. It’s almost like magic!” 

“What brings you back to Mystic Falls? Searching for your long-lost love once more? I hate to tell you, but he’s moved on.” 

There was something dark in Katherine’s gaze. “That’s a part of it, I suppose, but there’s more at play. I suppose you’ll find out soon enough. A warning though: stay out of my way. If you interfere in any of my plans here, that lovely new mother of yours will be the one to pay the price. Or maybe your uncle. God knows, Mason’s willing to do anything I ask him to. ” 

Katherine grinned, then sauntered off, leaving a fuming werewolf behind her. 

~~

The second that Katherine disappeared, Anna came up behind Ella, entwining her fingers with the angry were-witch. “Why do you look like someone killed your puppy?” 

Even the sight of her girlfriend, wearing the same black dress she had worn to Founder’s Day (did she own any other clothes? Did it matter, when she looked pretty in all of them?) wasn’t enough to make Ella smile. 

Anna looked at Ella, concern in her eyes. “Okay, what’s wrong? You know you can tell me anything.” 

Ella scowled. “Katherine. She’s here, she remembers me from New Orleans, and I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping with my uncle. She threatened to murder him, too.” 

Ella knew that Anna was far from Katherine’s biggest fan. Katherine, after all, had been Pearl and Anna’s companion for over a century, until Katherine had left them to burn to death in Mystic Falls’ vampire hunt. While Ella wasn’t sure she hated Katherine, she would never let anyone hurt her family. 

“I mean, I’ve wanted to get revenge on that bitch for years on mom’s behalf. Whatever you want to do, I’m game.” 

Ella paused for a second, considering. It wouldn’t be a good thing to piss Katherine off that much. She’d definitely go through with her threat if Ella interfered with her plans… Plans! That was it. “There’s no way Katherine would be involved with my uncle unless he had something she needed. We need to figure out what her plans are and stop them, before any more people get hurt.” 

“Or we could just rip a couple of organs out,” Anna muttered offhandedly, grinning when she saw Ella roll her eyes. “I’m kidding! I just love how hot you look when you’re annoyed with me.” 

Ella squeezed the vampire’s hand, putting her head on Anna’s shoulder as she got out her phone and typed out a text to Stefan Salvatore: 

Katherine’s in town. Saw her at my house a minute ago. 

With all luck, Katherine would be too distracted by the Salvatore love triangle to pay any attention to Ella and Anna on her trail. Hopefully, no innocents would be caught in the crossfire in the meantime. 

As the wake went on, Ella was grateful to have Anna by her side. Otherwise, she would have retreated into her worries and paranoia completely. 

There was someone else in Mystic Falls, who knew her secret. And as much as Ella had liked Katherine Pierce back in the day, she knew she couldn’t trust her. The only person that Katherine cared about was Stefan Salvatore. 

Besides, so much of Katherine’s background was shrouded in mystery. It had been apparent she had been running from someone, and Ella was willing to bet the same was true now. But she had no idea how old Katherine was, if she had a family… 

There was one question that plagued her above all others: what sort of monster would make even Katherine Pierce scared?

~~

The body on the floor landed with a thud, and the room’s sole occupant sighed, wiping the blood from his mouth. That had certainly been a waste of his time. 

The little whelp had come charging in to his favorite artist’s retreat, blathering on some nonsense about avenging his brother’s murder. The brother in question had hardly been innocent, at any rate. He had dared to lie about the whereabouts of the destroyer. By the end of his torture, he had realized the depth of his mistake, and had begged for the mercy of death. 

His body was providing ample fertilizer for the rose gardens. And some said that Klaus Mikaelson wasn’t merciful. The thought almost amused him, but he didn’t feel much of anything these days. 

He left the body in the sitting room. There were many sitting rooms, he could kill a dozen people and not have to be inconvenienced by the tedious work of removing bodies. But this place was a quiet retreat, and it would be terribly irritating to have servants running about. 

There was no curse to break, since Katerina had long since become a vampire. No city to rule, since all he loved there had burned to the ground. 

It was just him, and the coffins of his siblings in the basement. As if he would ever throw them into the sea. 

The fact that Elijah had failed to see through the lie was nothing short of infuriating. If nothing else, Klaus was thankful, because it finally revealed the contempt that Elijah had buried, the hatred he had for his bastard brother for centuries. 

A thousand years Elijah had remained fixated on saving his soul, and yet he had given it up in the face of one flimsy lie. As if he would have buried their siblings in the sea! They had disobeyed him, yes, but they were still blood. 

And despite everything, the unimaginable horrors that the centuries had brought him, that bond had still meant something to him. Always and forever had been a comfort in the darkest moments of his wretched life, when he had seen that theater in New Orleans crumble, when the hunter’s curse had taken his mind. 

He had been so terribly weak, Klaus realized, to take such stock in that promise. To have faith in his brother, time and time again, to choose to stand by his side. If Eleonora had lived -

He tried his best to end that train of thought before it began, but like so many times before, the memories of his sister poured into his mind. Hers and Henrik’s names were hardly spoken in the Mikaelson household, and hadn't been for over a century. 

The last time one of the Mikaelson’s had dared invoke Eleonora’s name was in the heat of an argument with Rebekah, back when New Orleans had still been their home, back when he had thought that he might have a glimmer of happiness. 

He knew better than that now. He could still recall Rebekah’s words, the stunned silence of Kol and Elijah. The confusion of Marcel, who had never heard the name before. 

Most of all, he could recall how the words had stung, worse than any blow he had been dealt at Mikael’s hands. 

“If Eleonora were still alive, she would have hated you.”

Chapter Text

The men in her family were idiots. Ella resolutely ignored all of Elena and Stefan’s attempts to corner her throughout the day, mostly by ducking into empty classrooms, and eating her lunch with Anna near the dumpsters. 

She wasn’t proud of the avoidance, but it couldn’t be helped. Mason and Tyler had made fools of themselves at the Carnival last night, beating Stefan Salvatore (and virtually every other guy in Mystic Falls) in an arm wrestle. 

They might as well have just worn giant signs with the word werewolf written on them. It would have been subtler than their actions last night. 

With the full moon fast approaching, she was not eager to have the rest of the little Mystic Falls gang hounding her for answers she didn’t want to provide. Honestly, it was more than a little ridiculous that two vampires with over three centuries of life between them had never met a werewolf, but she couldn’t risk telling them. 

While she and Stefan Salvatore had a tentative alliance, she didn’t exactly want to see how the Ripper of Montgomery would act when he found out there were three werewolves in town. And knowing Damon, his first, impulsive reaction would be to try to kill them all. 

No, Ella was content to let them stew in their ignorance a little longer. According to Caroline, Elena, Mr. Saltzman, and Damon were going to his old college to look up information on something related to the Lockwoods. 

So far, Caroline and Anna were the only ones in the know about the family secret. Ella was eager to keep it that way, at least until the full moon. And that was to say nothing of her other secrets. 

“What’s got you looking so worried?” Mason was looking over at her, grabbing one of the Lockwood journals and handing it to her.

“Oh, I don’t know? Maybe it’s the excruciating pain that I’m due to experience in just a few hours,” Ella snarked. Mason may have been family, may have been pack, but she hadn’t seen him in years. She wasn’t ready to trust him with her real secrets yet. 

He hesitated for a second, before speaking. “Well, if everything goes according to plan, it might be the last time you have to shift.” 

Was he talking about why Katherine thought she had got her claws in him? “What do you mean, Uncle Mason?” Cursing herself slightly, she muttered a truth spell, wincing when she saw her uncle’s pupils dilate. 

“There’s this curse Kathy told me about, the Sun and the Moon Curse. If we break it, then werewolves will be able to turn at will. If the vampires break it, then they’ll be able to walk in the sun. She told me to find the moonstone, that the Lockwood’s were the last people to have it. It’s the thing that the curse is bound to.” He took a deep breath, his eyes returning to normal. 

The Sun and the Moon Curse? That sounded completely fake, not to mention completely unnecessary. Vampires already possessed the ability to walk in the sunlight through daylight rings, and her mother Esther had a spell in her old grimoire for moonlight rings. Ella had even found one at the bottom of a chest. 

There had always been rumors of the North East Atlantic pack chief having the ability to turn into his wolf at will. Ella was willing to stake money on the fact that he had been her first father, and that Esther had made the rings for him. But it didn’t matter now. He and her mother were long dead, and she doubted he would have ever wanted to meet his bastard daughter. 

She shook her head. The Sun and the Moon Curse… That sounded oddly familiar, just like a story Esther used to tell.

~~

“So then the cruel dark witch decreed that there could be no more true love in the land, for her heart had been broken by the death of her beloved Robyn.  She cast a spell that cursed the prince, ensuring that he could only leave his palace at night, and then she cast a spell on the princess, bounding her to the form of a wicked Jötnar, except for one night a year.” Esther finished her tale, smiling slightly at the awestruck look on her children’s faces. 

“Did the princess look like this, mother?” Nik asked, pointing to a surprisingly intricate drawing on the floor of their cottage - especially when one considered it was made with twigs in the dirt by a six-year-old boy. 

“Why didn’t they get a happy ending, mother?” Elijah demanded, looking outraged by the bleak turn the story had taken. 

Esther tilted her head. “Oh, who’s to say they didn’t? After all, there’s always a way to break a witch’s curse….”

~~

Ella couldn’t help but laugh. What an odd coincidence. It sounded exactly like something a Mikaelson would have come up with. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mason shooting her a concerned look, and she turned to him. “Uncle Mason, Kathy isn’t your friend, and she’s not someone you can trust. Her real name is Katherine Pierce, and she’s been a vampire for over a hundred years, probably longer. She’s not someone who’d want to help you.”

He looked a little offended. “Of course, she’d want to help me. She loves me.”

Oh, gods. It was worse than she thought. It was one thing to think Katherine was attractive (because she really, really was), but this? “The only person Katherine loves is herself, and maybe Stefan Salvatore. And I’m willing to bet that this curse is a fake. Please, trust me.” 

After a moment, Mason nodded. “I guess something always seemed a little off about her, how she showed up right after I triggered my curse. I’ll trust you for now.” He stood up. “Get your brother. It’s time to get ready to shift.” 

~~

The first time Ella had ever shifted into a werewolf, it had been days after had pushed her second mother down stairs. That entire life had been difficult. She had struggled to make peace with the fact that she was in Scotland now, that she would never see her brothers and sister again. 

Eleanor - or Edith, then - had been broken by the realization that she was a werewolf, by the realization that she and Nik, by extension, had been Esther’s bastard children. That she was the same as the foul things that had killed little Henrik. 

She had hated herself, hated that cursed gene. She had done everything in her power to ignore her werewolf heritage. Until the one life when everything changed. 

Her name had been Lucretia Rossi then, and she had been the daughter of a wealthy nobleman in Venice. The life of luxury was not what surprised her - rather it had been the fact that, for the first time in 500 years, she had been born into a family of werewolves. 

Lord Lorenzo Rossi was many things - an avid believer in the renaissance sweeping through Italy at the time, a sponsor of the arts, and the only good father she had ever had. With his guidance, she had learned to no longer be ashamed of who she was, but to embrace it.

She could still remember the feeling of running freely through the Carpendo Woods, her father smiling proudly. Feeling wild, and unrestrained, like nothing in the world could touch her-

“You want us to chain ourselves up?” Tyler held up Mason’s equipment, rolling his eyes. “We’re werewolves, not rapid dogs.”

Ella couldn’t help but agree with her brother. She had never chained herself up during transformations - it was pointless, as it was always too easy to break free. She had found a place, far in the woods, where humans never came, and had stayed there. 

“Which one of us is the experienced werewolf here?” Mason demanded. “I can’t risk any of us hurting someone in Mystic Falls. In wolf form, it’d probably take you less than an hour to get back into town.” 

Ella rolled her eyes, thankful that her uncle couldn’t see it with the darkening skies. If only he knew. 

As the night drew nearer and nearer, Ella pulled Tyler aside for some brief advice. “I know Uncle Mason told you to fight the transformation as long as you can. He means well, but it’s bullshit. The more you fight it, the more pain you feel. Let your pain in, let it hurt like hell. It’ll be over quicker. Concentrate on the things around you. Stay grounded. You’ll be fine.” 

She squeezed Tyler’s hand, smiling at him. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Ella only had time to double-check chains around her before the transformation began. 

~~

Pain. Pain was in every inch, every molecule, every cell of her body, as they warped and changed. As the witch became the wolf. She let it all in, nudged the animal inside her and let it come out. 

She smiled as she watched her feet become paws, felt her warm fur wrap around her and warm her cold body. It hurt, but she pushed through. Her field of vision exploded, and she was bombarded by an explosion of sound and smell. 

She could see everything, even the curves on the blades of grass. She could smell the fish in the river half a mile away. She could hear her brother’s frantic heartbeat. 

Tyler. She turned her head, to see her brother on all fours, groaning as his bones cracked and twisted. He was through the worst of the pain, but it still hurt to see him suffering. 

Ella moved towards him, but the chains - the ones she had agreed to, so foolishly - held her back. She hissed with indignation. She was a wolf, not some docile dog that could be tied up. The metal dug into her skin, coating her fur with blood, but she pushed forward until she heard them snap. 

She ran over to her brother and pressed against him, trying to provide what little comfort she could. She felt her tail wag as she watched his fur sprout. It was all brown, the color of a great oak tree. A werewolf was looking back at her, and a powerful one too, judging by his size. 

Nearby, Uncle Mason was shouting, gesturing at the chains. Ella growled at him, teeth bared. His human body may have been the oldest, but her wolf was the eldest of all. And from the way he stared at her in shock, she thought he recognized it too. 

She barked at him. It was slow, pleading. Shift now , she told him. It’ll hurt less. 

As if compelled by some kind of force, Mason’s hands became paws and his ears sharpened. By the time Tyler had broken free of his chains, Mason had fully transformed. He dipped his head slowly, and meeting her eyes, he seemed to say something. 

Alpha, she could feel him saying, with surprise accompanying it. 

She was far too overwhelmed to care about the repercussions of what Mason had done, acknowledging her - a fourteen year old - as the head of the new Lockwood pack. She wasn’t even old enough to drive yet. 

Granted, she wasn’t actually fourteen, but that just made it weirder. Why did her werewolf form feel the same as it did all those centuries ago? Why did it feel ancient and powerful, when her human body was anything but?

Ella could feel the magic in her body pulsing, powerful in a way it had never felt before. She had never been a witch like Esther was, able to cast hundreds of spells in a day without getting tired. She had never been as powerful as Bonnie Bennett was shaping up to be, a witch that could change the world if she wished. 

But here, she felt strong. She could feel the magic feeding into her wolf, increasing her every sense, allowing her to run faster through the clearing, leaving Tyler far in the dust as he chased her. 

She was born to run free. 

~~

Tyler had known that Ella was a thousand years old, that his little sister was older than he would ever be. But knowing it and seeing it first hand were two different things. Her werewolf form was… strong. There was no other way to describe it. 

She was faster, stronger, swifter than he was. Everything about her screamed dominance, had a primal part of him wanting to submit to her rule. Recognizing her as the leader. She was the team captain in this little shitshow of theirs. 

It kind of terrified him, seeing Ella with that kind of power. Seeing her so comfortable with it. Just who had his sister been, before she was his sister? 

As he watched her creep up on a deer, pounce on its back, and rip it’s heart out in one move, he wondered where this vicious energy had always been. 

He knew Uncle Mace was just confused as he was, about how easily Ella took charge. About how different the wolf seemed from the human. What Tyler didn’t want to admit, not at all, was that maybe there was always a little predator in his sister. 

He chased after her as she ran back to the clearing, back to Uncle Mason. He was only a couple seconds behind her, which he was secretly proud of. He liked the feeling of running, the feeling of being the wolf. He didn’t expect to. 

Ella turned back to him, tail wagging. Even with the dim moonlight ahead, he could see as her eyes flashed the same bright gold they did during the turn, before fading to the brown they did before. He could almost feel the magic radiating off her. 

His head lowered. He may have been bigger, and he was willing to bet that he was stronger, but they both knew he wasn’t in charge here. His sister was just too powerful.

She was both the werewolf and the witch. A hybrid. 

~~

Ella was running, running through the woods, the trees and rivers and animals all blurring around her, as she headed for the falls. The night was almost over, and her and Tyler had spent most of it wrestling and hunting, wearing themselves out while Uncle Mason watched in exasperation, remaining in his chains. 

Tyler had gone off in the opposite direction, towards the caves she had once hid in a thousand years ago to escape the wolves. The irony was not lost on her. She was alone, except for the few owls and insects she saw in the peripheral, and the voices-

Wait. Voices? Her ears perked up, and she listened closely. She could pick up the sounds of two people, a boy and a girl. Teenagers, moving at an incredibly rapid pace. Vampires. 

“Look, it’s just been a lot. I’m basically a crazy neurotic control freak on crack, and you want me to hunt bambi, but I can’t kill bambi! I love bambi!”

“Caroline, calm down. You’ve been doing amazing so far. I don’t think anyone I’ve ever known has made it through transition as well as you. So you’ve had a few setbacks - big deal. You’ve never killed anyone, which makes you better than half the vampires I know.” 

Caroline sighed. “Let’s just get this over with, so I can go home and get all the updates from Bonnie about how her date with Matt went. It better have gone well, if he knows what’s good for him.”

Ella fell silent, slowly inching away from the pair. Glancing up at the sky, her heart skipped a beat. It was almost morning. Any minute now, she would transform back into a human, and-

“Wait, Caroline! Do you hear that? I think someone’s here.”

Even from a distance, she could see the anxious look on Caroline’s face. She couldn’t help but be glad that the blonde vampire wanted to keep her brother’s secret. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Stefan.”

Stefan sped through the bushes, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw the large wolf looking at him. Ella tried her best to seem non threatening, but that was hard when a large, wolflike part of her wanted to go after the vampire, the sworn enemy of her species. 

One bite would kill the ripper and his oddly textured hair. Just one bite and- 

She pulled the animal back, realizing that she had been growling. Gods, she had been so close to killing the vampire. It frightened her, to realize how little control she had. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s a werewolf. Alright, on my count we’re going to run.” Stefan said, looking at her with wide eyes. 

That worked out. All she had to do was hold in her shift until they were gone, and Stefan, and Damon by extension, would be none the wiser about who the werewolves in Mystic Falls were. 

She groaned at the tingly sensation she felt as her fur vanished and her back legs grew. Stefan raised his eyebrows, and after a second, she realized why. She was facing Stefan and Caroline, completely naked. Her clothes were probably back in the woods near where she first turned - what remained of them, anyway. 

Ella crossed her arms, willing away her blush. “So. This is awkward.”

Chapter Text

Well, at least she had clothes now. 

When Stefan and Caroline had found her near the falls, it had gone… poorly. Caroline had done her best to do damage control, but there was only so much she could do without admitting that she had known the Lockwoods were werewolves for weeks. She had given Ella a pair of leggings and a cheerleading sweatshirt she had in her car - which was probably the only thing keeping Ella from shivering in the cold April weather. 

Ella honestly didn’t think that Stefan Salvatore had any right to be mad at her for not telling him the truth, but he had fixed her with a look of cold fury, and asked her what else she was lying about. 

 It wasn’t like they were best friends, or anything. She had helped him knock his brother out, saved his life at Founder’s Day, and had occasionally been giving him updates on the going ons of Mystic Falls. 

If anything, the Ripper owed her. Not that he would see it that way. It made her so angry sometimes, the tendency of vampires to act like witches were at their beck and call. It had happened to her a lot in New Orleans, and now it looked like it would happen here too.

She stood there, quietly fuming. Caroline took one look at her, and whatever she saw made the blond vampire take a step back and head in the direction Tyler was. Stefan was more measured, looking at Ella critically. In a flash, he grabbed her wrist and then sped her through the forest. 

Which led her to where she was now. Sitting in the Salvatore Boarding house (honestly, the gothic architecture of this place alone was a pretty good clue the owners were vampires), meeting Stefan and Damon Salvatore’s accusatory stares. 

Whatever nerves were present the last time she had faced the brothers were gone. Her body was buzzing, filled to the brim with more magic then she had ever had before. She had never triggered her werewolf curse and had access to her magic in the same life before. It stood to reason that her full moon shift would make her magic more powerful, and it would dwindle back to normal levels as the month continued. 

She leaned back in her chair. “So, you have questions? Ask them, then.” 

“First of all, was this really necessary?” Stefan raised the arm he had used to grab Ella, which was scorched so badly bone was showing. 

“Hey, you’re the one who grabbed me! I was just acting on instinct.” Ella suppressed the twinge of guilt she was feeling. She needed to show the Salvatore’s she was strong, to keep them from trying to do anything to quell the town’s werewolf population. 

Still, it would be better to have them as friends… Recalling how Stefan had thanked her at the party, and how Damon had made Richard back down, she grabbed Stefan’s arm and watched as the bumpy black skin returned to it’s normal hue and texture. “You’re welcome,” she said. 

Damon raised his hand, before speaking. “Yeah, I’ve got a question? Why did you kidnap Willow the witch, little brother? Doesn’t seem like something the hero would do.” 

Despite herself, Ella laughed. “Willow? This isn’t because of me and Anna, is it?” 

The corner of Damon’s mouth quirked up - possibly the first time she had ever seen him smile. “What? Lesbain, witch, it works on so many levels.”

“She’s a werewolf, Damon.” Stefan cut in. “I was curious, but I admit, I acted on impulse. I’m sorry.” The last part of his statement, Ella could tell, was directed at her. 

“The entire Lockwood family are werewolves. It’s our ancient family curse. I triggered it a couple weeks ago, and didn’t see the need to give the Mystic Falls gang a memo. But I’ve got to admit that you are… persistent. So ask any question, and I’ll answer honestly.” 

Ella felt a little strange, in her young, small body, knowing that they were listening to every word she said. Knowing that the words sounded like they should be coming from someone much older than a fourteen year old girl. 

Knowing that in this situation, they were at least a bit intimidated by her. Not as much as they should be, but considering how young she appeared, it was notable all the same. 

“You just have to promise that you won’t hurt my family. Not my mother, not my brother, not my uncle. The Lockwoods’ stay safe.”

Stefan nodded right away, and she kept her eyes fixed on Damon. Finally, like it was the world’s biggest pain to do so, he nodded. “Deal.” 

So she spoke. 

~~

In the end, she told them pretty much everything about werewolves. How they turned, what their bites did, how packs formed. She stayed vague on the ways to kill a werewolf, and how her witch-werewolf nature affected her. There was no need to give anyone, even people she could tentatively admit she liked a little, enough ammunition to kill her. 

In all honesty, she was just figuring out what she was. She evaded most questions on that front, but the Salvatores’ didn’t seem to mind. She was willing to bet they were just grateful for the new information. 

When she returned home, it was to a frantic Tyler and Uncle Mason, both of whom were packing bags. Upon seeing her, her uncle came over and wrapped her in a hug so tight that she thought she couldn’t breathe. 

“Uncle Mason, I’m fine! The Salvatore’s just wanted to talk, they’re just kind of overly aggressive at times. And anyway, why are you packing?”

He looked at her, sighing. “There’s still so much that you and Tyler should learn about being wolves. Last night showed me that I can’t be the one to teach you. The power that both of you have, especially you… I’ve only seen a few people with that kind of strength.” 

He glanced at the duffle bag at his feet. “I’m going to take you both to the pack in the mountains that helped me. The alpha there, Hollis, he’ll be able to help you and Tyler learn more about being wolves, away from here.” 

“I can’t!” Ella said, the protest slipping out automatically. “I have school!” 

Mason rolled his eyes. “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that. You also scared me shitless last night, so I’m not going to say anything about how lame that was.” 

“I will. That was super lame, Ells.” Tyler reached over the suitcase he was packing and ruffled her hair, causing her to hiss under her breath. 

“Quit that, you jerk!” She turned back to her uncle. “I guess I could ask all my teachers for an extension, and say I’m leaving town to cope with the loss of dad, but how would we explain it to mom?”

Tyler whistled. “You’ve really thought this shit through. My plan was to just bail on everything and hope it turns out fine when I come back.” At Ella’s incredulous look, he raised his hands in the air. “Look, our mom’s the mayor! And I called Caroline and Matt.” 

Ella shook her head. “So when would we be leaving?” She hadn’t triggered her curse in over two centuries, and last night had proved she was stronger than she’d ever been before. Maybe she did need some outside help. 

“After school. You both should probably drink some coffee to make up for the all nighter we had. Talk to your teachers, and be ready for tonight.”

“Holy shit, is Uncle Mace being a responsible adult?” Tyler snorted. “I guess miracles do happen.” 

“Just be ready for tonight.” 

~~

Being one of the highest-achieving students in Mystic Falls High School had its perks. Namely, being able to play the grieving daughter and get extensions from every single one of her teachers, for everything. As far as they knew, her uncle was taking her and her brother to an old Lockwood Estate up north to help them “come to terms with their family legacy.” 

It was technically true. 

Still, Ella wasn’t blind to the fact that her family name probably did her a lot of favors, as well as the fact that her mother controlled how much funding the school got. Richard had seen fit to slash teacher salaries every time he felt like one of the teachers had slighted him, and people in town probably hadn’t figured out that Carol wasn’t going to be the tyrant her husband had been. 

Sometimes she loved being a Lockwood, but the power of her name wouldn’t be enough to sway Alaric Saltzman. Something told her that the hunter wouldn’t want two untrained werewolves in his town, so all Ella had to do was to play up that angle, and she’d be fine. 

After history class, she stayed behind, tapping her foot impatiently as the rest of the class filed out. Finally, she turned to face the teacher. “I’m going to be gone for a couple weeks, and I need an extension on everything,” she said. No sense beating around the bush. 

Alaric raised an eyebrow. “How long is a few weeks?” 

Ella shrugged. “Don’t know. A month, maybe? What I do know is that Damon probably told you about my little lupine problem. Until I can get it under control, it’s not safe for me to be around people. Plus, I have a ninety-nine in this class. It’ll be super easy for me to do the work while I’m gone.” 

“You’ll have to do three tests in a week, and your midterm presentation the week after when you come back. Are you sure you can handle it?”

Well, add that to the huge pile of work she would have waiting for her when she came back. She should honestly just bring all her textbooks with her on the trip to get a head start. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

She turned to leave, when Alaric said: “And Ella? If you write an essay for me about what a werewolf pack is really like, I’ll give you a twenty percent bonus on the exam.”

She smiled. 

~~

Anna was waiting outside the history room door, and looked up from her phone the second the other girl appeared. The two had talked at lunch about Ella’s impromptu trip, and well Anna had seemed less-than-enthused, she had understood its importance. 

“You know, sitting alone at lunch is gonna suck. I might have to talk to new people. It’ll be gross.” Anna made a face. 

“Maybe you’ll make some new friends while I’m gone. Jeremy Gilbert isn’t totally lame. And Bonnie and Caroline are super nice. It won’t be too long, I promise.”

Anna half-smiled, looking at Ella. “The last thing I want to do is be the clingy girlfriend, but promise you’ll text? Every day? Even if it’s just some dumb thing your brother did - which he does a lot of, it’s a miracle he’s still alive - I want to hear about it. I want to know everything.” 

Ella giggled, ignoring the tears building up in her eyes. “I’ll text so much you’ll get sick of me.” 

“I guarantee that’s not possible,” Anna said. The vampire leaned over, kissing the other girl softly. “I could never have too much of you.” 

Ella enjoyed the last few minutes of solitude she had with her girlfriend - probably the last few that she would have in a while. 

~~

“You’re certain that you both want to do this? You know that school is an important obligation, and missing so much could put you severely behind.” Carol Lockwood looked like she was on the verge of tears, watching her two children load their bags into Mason’s truck. “I mean, I’m hardly worried about you, Ella dear, but Tyler…” 

“Mom, we’re going to be fine!” Ella interjected. “We’re bringing our work with us, and I’ll call you every day, and we can Skype on my birthday, if we’re still up north then.” As far as Carol knew, they were staying at Mason’s cottage in Ohio for some family bonding time. 

Carol sighed. “It’s going to be terribly quiet without you both here.”

“Like you’d even notice, considering you’re too busy doing all that city event planning. I know Caroline is furious at me for missing the masquerade.” 

As Mason started the car, Ella reached out and hugged her mother. “Love you, and see you soon.”

“I’ll see you soon, darling. Both of you.” From the determined glint in Carol’s eyes, Ella knew that her mother would hold her to that promise. 

“See you soon, mom,” Tyler said, climbing into Mason’s truck. Sparing one last glance at her mother, Ella did the same. And then they were off. 

~~

The Appalachian Mountains Pack wasn’t exactly what Ella had expected. She had been picturing a series of cabins alone in the woods, far from any human civilization - and WiFi she could use to call her girlfriend. 

Instead, the pack comprised the entirety of the small town of Pylea. There were less than two thousand people, but it was enough to fill the town - there was a bar, training grounds, school for the younger kids (the high schoolers were bused to a nearby town), and a small grocery store. 

The pack leader, Hollis, owned a series of cabins that he rented to out-of-town werewolves. Apparently, a lot of teenagers and young adults came here to learn to control their shift, and some ended up staying. 

On their tour of Pylea, Hollis had pointed out a couple of other werewolves in town, and Ella had noticed with relief that some looked around the same age she was. At least she wouldn’t be the youngest one here. 

“If you have any questions at all, go to Doris,” the alpha was saying. “She’s our pack elder, and she’s nearing one hundred. She’s seen nearly everything you could imagine.” 

“Where would we find her?” Ella asked. 

“She lives right near the school. Her house is the one with the red door,” Hollis said. “And here’s where you’ll be staying. Mason, you were here just a couple weeks ago, so no doubt it’ll feel like home for you.”

Ella stepped into the cabin. It was old, but the structure was sound, and from the inside it looked more like a cottage than anything else. It was out of the way, about a fifteen minute walk from the bar, and she could see the start of a forest to the left in the back, and the mountains to the right. “This place is nice.” 

Hollis seemed pleased. “I’m glad you think so! There are four bedrooms, so someone’s already staying here. She’s a bit of a wild child, but I’m sure you’ll like her. Her name is-” 

“Hayley Marshall,” Mason interjected. “How is she?” 

“She’s fine,” came a soft voice from above them. “She’s doing pretty well, all things considered, but she is kind of wasted, so if you could keep the noise down, that would be great.” A girl was standing on the steps, with dark hair and a round face. She couldn’t have been older than twenty. 

“Hey, kid. It’s good to see you again. Get into any trouble these last couple weeks?” Mason asked, smiling at the other girl. Ella couldn’t help it when her stomach rolled uncomfortably, uncharitable though she knew it was. 

She hadn’t seen Uncle Mason in six years, and yet he had found the time to be some kind of mentor figure to a teenage werewolf? It wasn’t as if she needed the guidance, by Tyler certainly had more than once - gods knew he never listened to his little sister. 

Hayley rolled her eyes. “Whatever Cassandra tells you happened at the bar is a bald faced lie. Trust me. Granted, I was too drunk to remember it, but even I can’t tear down an entire wall by myself.” 

Mason snorted, and Tyler perked up at the mention of alcohol. Ella resisted the urge to bang her forehead against the wall. Boys really were so predictable. 

Hayley turned to look at her and Tyler, only now seeming to realize that they were there. “Oh, these must be the famous niece and nephew. Guess they both triggered their curse. Your uncle’s talked a lot about you - I’m Hayley Marshall. It’s nice to meet you guys.” 

The werewolf girl smiled. It was the sort of happy, unrestrained energy that was more than a little infectious. Someone like Hayley wouldn’t have been out of space partying on the streets of New Orleans. There was something so oddly familiar about the other girl, something Ella couldn’t quite place. 

Still, Ella shook it off, and grinned at the other girl. “That doofus over there is Tyler. And I’m Ella. What’s living in the pack like?” 

~~

Over the next week, Ella settled into a comfortable routine. Every morning, she went for a jog up and down one of the nearby mountains, then hiked around town, listening to music with her earbuds. 

Around 7am, she’d head back to the cottage and call Anna, getting all the updates on what was going on in Mystic Falls. Though her and Anna’s conversations normally focused on… other things, she learned enough to get a vague picture of all the crazy stuff that had happened in their absence. 

The rest, Bonnie and Caroline filled in. Ella had to admit, she had been worried about what Bonnie was going to think about her being a were-witch, particularly when she had opportunities to tell the other girl before and hadn’t. 

In Ella’s defense, she had sent Bonnie a text telling her the truth right after she had talked to the Salvatore brothers. But she supposed I’m a werewolf, leaving now for wolf boot camp. Be back soon would be a bit of a shock to the system. 

Still, after Bonnie lectured her for about twenty minutes, then giving her Grams free rein to ask any question about Ella’s were-witch abilities, the other girl had (mostly) forgiven her, and had given her the run-down of what was happening in Mystic Falls. 

Apparently, the Mystic Falls Protection Squad had managed to take down the ever-cunning Katherine Pierce, trapping her inside the old church tomb without blood as an act of revenge. Bonnie’s long lost cousin Lucy (Sheila and Bonnie apparently weren’t the last of Ayana’s descendants) had helped them. 

Elena had been kidnapped from the Masquerade, by two vampires who were both dead. The vampire who wanted her called her a doppelganger, and needed her to break The Sun and the Moon Curse, which Ella was still fairly certain was fake. Stranger still, the vampire in question was one of the originals. 

The Originals weren’t often talked about in the supernatural community, and even though Ella had been alive for a thousand years, all Ella had heard was rumors of indestructible, all-powerful beings who left carnage in their wake. 

At least, until she had met someone in New Orleans. Someone who had claimed to know them. 

~~

The young witch collapsed on the sofa at the corner of her shop, utterly exhausted. Though she made good money from them, she could barely stand dealing with the human tourists who passed through the French Quarter, asking a billion inane questions about if what she did was really magic. 

She was at the end of the rope. She swore, if anyone else walked through that door, she’d completely lose it. 

“Dottie Jones! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Marcel Gerard strolled into her shop like he owned it - which, as the supernatural king of New Orleans, he pretty much did. He was flanked, like always, by his right-hand man, Thierry. 

Dottie had never particularly liked vampires, but she had always been fond of Marcel. He had always been fair to a fault, charismatic, and willing to compromise for the good of his men. His vampires adored him, that was certain. And there had always been something familiar about him, something about his mannerisms that she knew…

“What do you need this time, Marcel?” She rolled her eyes, but her smile displayed her amusement. She gave a quick nod to Thierry, who smiled at her in greeting. 

“Someone’s been spreading rumors of the original vampires. I need you to find out who it is.” Marcel’s face looked more serious than she had ever seen it before. 

“The originals? Aren’t they a myth?” Ella had heard the stories of a number of vampires, indestructible and deadly, but she had never paid them much heed. 

Marcel sighed. “What I’m about to tell you needs to stay between us. You’ve proven that I can trust you, but be warned that I don’t tell you one of my biggest secrets lightly.” 

As Marcel spoke, Ella got the impression that he wasn’t telling her the full truth, but she didn’t press. He told her that he had been raised by one of the originals, who had fled the city after a great fire in one of the theaters.

“I spent days digging myself out of the rubble, feeling my bones reattach bit by bit. He was gone, and didn’t bother looking for me. But the worst part was that he took her too.” 

‘Her’ was clearly the girl Marcel had been in love with. In the three years she had known him, Marcel had never shown an interest in any of the women who came his way. He had always seemed wistful whenever one of his vampires had found happiness. 

“You know, you remind me a bit of her. Her eyes were the same shape as yours, and they had the same color, too.” Marcel had told her, solemn in a way she had never seen him before. 

“I’m sure you’ll find your lady again someday. I’d bet she’d be thrilled to see you,” Dottie told him. If he loved the vampire girl as much as he said he did, she hoped they found their way back to each other. And from the way Marcel described her, she seemed like a lovely woman. 

“Nah. When I see her again, she’s definitely going to try to kill me,” he seemed almost enthused at the thought.

~~

All she knew of the originals was supposed Marcel’s connection to them, and she wasn’t particularly eager to get her old friend involved in Mystic Falls business. So she refrained from mentioning him in her texts to Caroline and Bonnie, merely saying that the Sun and Moon Curse sounded like total hogwash. 

Apparently, the hunt was also on for the moonstone, which was a key component in breaking the curse. It was the same moonstone that Ella currently had under her bed, having nicked it from her father’s office. 

Besides the information and the exercise, Ella had spent some time with Hayley Marshall. The other girl’s room was right next to hers, and when she wasn’t drinking the day away, the other girl was pretty good company. 

Hayley was also much stronger than she looked. She had been able to knock Ella flat on her ass in the training ring every time they spared, much to Tyler’s amusement. 

“Looks like I win again,” Hayley grinned, her eyes gleaming and arms bruised, barely flinching when she offered Ella a hand up. 

While Ella knew that she was improving, it was still a little infuriating not to be able to beat the other girl, particularly when they had an audience nearly every time. Still, her annoyance at losing was balanced out by the desire to actually be challenged. Tyler never actually hit her, and Uncle Mason spent most of his time in his room or the bar. 

So she kept fighting. Maybe someday, she would win. 

~~

On the day of Ella Lockwood’s fifteenth birthday, she hadn’t been able to get out of the door until ten in the morning. She had two hour-long calls, one with her mother and one with Anna - the latter of which was much more enjoyable. 

It seemed like Tyler had told the whole town about it - she had gotten well-wishes from pretty much everyone in town. Even little Kayla had given her a drawing that vaguely resembled an elephant, which she had accepted with a smile. 

Now, she and Tyler were walking past the school and back to their cabin, carrying a few bags from the grocery store. 

“You know, if mom found out that you hadn’t had a fancy party for your birthday, she’d probably freak,” Tyler said, grinning at the thought. “Glad you managed to survive without all that lame shit.” 

“No, this is way better. Besides the no Anna. Not having her here sucks.” 

“You spend at least an hour a day talking to her on the phone, even though we’ve only been gone a month. You’re totally whipped for that vampire chick. Loser,” Her brother said fondly. 

“Oh, you’re one to talk! You text Caroline, like all the time. Hayley said that even Doris noticed, and we haven’t even met her.” 

Tyler looked like he was going to reply, but his eyes widened, and he crouched down behind a nearby boulder, dropping his shopping bags. “Ells, I think there’s someone here. Not human.”

Ella ducked behind the border with her brother. After a few minutes of quiet, she heard the distinct sounds of a twig snapping, and felt a familiar, hostile presence. A vampire. But not one she had met before. 

It was a pale-skinned man with red hair, who must have died at around forty. He had a long scar on his face, one that must have been made by something even vampire healing couldn’t have fixed. 

He was muttering to himself. With her werewolf hearing, she could pick up most of it. “Fucking stupid moonstone. The last thing I want to be is around these filthy little beasts. I’ll kill every last one of them if I have to.”

The moonstone… Ella’s heart sank. This was her fault, she had brought trouble to the pack’s doors. All she could do now was fix her mistake. 

 Ignoring her brother’s protests, she leaped out from behind the boulder, raising her hand and watching as pain brought the vampire to his knees. Making a frantic stabbing motion at Tyler with one hand, she turned to face the vampire. “Word of advice, don’t talk so loudly around a bunch of werewolves. We pick up on a lot of it.” 

“Now, what do you want with the moonstone? Answer, and you’ll die quickly. Otherwise, it will be very painful for you.” Ella smiled, watching out of the corner of her eye as Tyler grabbed a stick from a nearby tree and raced back to where she and the vampire were. 

“He needs it, to break the curse.  He told me to do everything I possibly could to get it.” The vampire was sputtering now, struggling to talk. 

“He? Who the hell would be okay with killing innocent werewolf children?” Ella demanded. 

“Well, that part was mostly my idea. His name is-” The vampire’s eyes went wide, as Tyler shoved the branch into his chest. He collapsed, motionless. 

“Seriously, Tyler?” Her brother’s eyes were wide, and he was alternating looking between her and back towards the school. “What’s the matter?” 

“Ella… Your eyes were glowing. Like, they were gold. And I think someone saw.” He pointed at a house with a red door, and an obnoxious amount of bird feeders, where a elderly woman, looking directly at Ella, was walking towards them. 

She was regal looking, with dark skin and silvery hair, cut in a bob that framed her face. She was the one person in town that the Lockwood’s hadn’t met, the one Hollis said knew everything that happened in the town. 

“You should come with me,” Doris said, her expression hard. “We need to talk.”   

End of Arc II: The Werewolf Arc

Start of Arc III: The Hybrid

Chapter Text

Doris’s house wasn’t anything like what Ella had expected. It was completely packed with books, but the small sitting room was nearly completely bare. Ella sat on one of two couches in the room, the elderly werewolf on the other, with a small coffee table between them. 

The silence between them was pervasive, and it was making Ella a little bit uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but I assure you, it’s nothing to worry about.” 

“I know exactly what I saw, young one. It’s been a long time since a werewolf-witch hybrid has been born, but your kind aren’t as rare as you might think.” She paused for a minute, considering. “Then again, I suppose you're not that young. You might even be older than me.” 

Doris took a sip of her coffee, her eyes never leaving Ella’s. Now, tell me. How many lifetimes have you lived?” 

Ella was floored. A thousand years on this earth, and no one had guessed what she was. No one, apparently, except this werewolf woman. She was shocked into answering. “More than thirty. I usually die young.” 

The other woman nodded, like that made sense to her. “I thought so. The type of power you have, the magic you possess, has the mark of an older time. A time when magic was more free. Before Malivoire gained all the strength he possessed today.” 

What was Malivoire? That sounded like the name of a bad Lord of the Rings villain. Ella opened her mouth, but Doris continued on. “Back in your day, witches possessed much more power, from what I’m told. Now, when a witch casts truly dark magic, magic with long-withstanding changes that affect nature, nature fights back. Sometimes, the backlash from the spell affects the souls of the recently dead, and keeps them from finding the Other Side.” 

“Instead, they’re born again, and again. Some with the same physical appearance and abilities they possessed in their first life, some not. Some with the memories of who they are from the beginning, others not. There can’t be more than twenty of your kind, but they have left their mark on history.” 

“My mother… She was planning to cast a spell,” Ella said. “A dark one, one my mentor Ayana was worried about. And I died right before she did. I don’t know what she intended, but whatever it was, it must have worked. She did this to me, then?” 

Ella didn’t know how she felt about that. Sure, this life was better than many of the last, but that hardly excused the fact that she had been miserable for centuries. That in some lives, she had killed herself to try to end her curse of eternal life. Esther had never been the best mother, but knowing that her spell was the reason Ella was the way she was was a bitter pill to swallow. 

Whatever her mother had been doing, Ella hoped that it had been worth dooming her daughter to eternal life. 

Pushing away her feelings of resentment, she focused on Doris once more. “How do you know all this? I’ve never met a soul on this earth who did.” 

Doris’s eyes darted to the side, seemingly lost in a memory. “I met one of your kind some decades ago. A boy, doomed to live his life over and over again, and bitter about the fact. He was no werewolf, but he was a kind man. He helped me out of a difficult spot. I was fascinated by the subject after the fact, and tried my best to help him break his curse.” 

“Did you find a way?” While Ella enjoyed this life, she wanted to know that there could be an end if she wished it. That she wouldn’t have to start over every few decades, forge new connections. 

“Nothing concrete. As far as I can tell, unless you can find some kind of closure about what happened in your first life, you will live forever. I’m sorry.” 

“What was it that we promised each other? That we stick together, Always and Forever.”

Ella closed her eyes. The only people who could bring her any sort of closure were long dead. “Thank you for your help. I really do appreciate it. If you need anything, you need only ask.” 

Doris smiled. “If you could do me one favor? Indulge an old woman’s curiosity. What was your first name?” 

Ella smiled, already facing the doorway. “Eleanor.”

As she left the house, she missed how Doris’s eyes widened.

~~

It had been foolish of Ella to bring the moonstone here. She had risked the whole pack with her desire to be in control. Still, she couldn’t very well leave a curse-breaking rock (and one that looked oddly familiar) unattended, especially when someone like Katherine Pierce wanted to get their hands on it. 

She wanted to have the upper hand in the situation. The Sun and the Moon Curse was clearly fake, she had texted Bonnie that much. Whatever was really going on in Mystic Falls, she needed to go home and find out. Loathe as she was to leave the werewolf community she had found here, she couldn’t put them in danger. 

But first, she would enjoy her birthday. 

“You’re staring very intently at that rock.” Hayley noted, peering into Ella’s room. “Was it a birthday gift from your girlfriend, or something?”

“It’s the key to some mystery I don’t understand yet. Some kind of ancient curse.” Ella said flatly, not knowing if the werewolf girl would think she was joking. “Wait, how do you know about Anna?” 

“You talk to her on the phone for like four hours a day. You’ve got it bad, kid. That romantic, lovey-dovey shit. Young love. It’s kinda cute.”

Ella frowned. Hayley Marshall couldn’t be over twenty, and she already seemed so dejected. So closed off from the possibility that someone could care about her. “I’m sure one day soon you’ll find your totally epic love.” 

Hayley’s face flushed, like she was embarrassed she was that easy to read. Averting her gaze, she glanced at the bags at Ella’s feet. “Are you leaving already? I’ve got to admit, I’ll miss you a little.” 

“The day after tomorrow. I don’t want to shift at home alone, and doing it tomorrow with the pack should be fun. There’s some stuff going on at home I should take care of. But if you ever want to come to Mystic Falls, there’s an open invitation. I could use another girl wolf around.” 

“I might just take you up on that some time,” Hayley smiled, and Ella couldn’t help but grin back. She’d love to see what trouble the party-girl werewolf would get into in her hometown. It’d probably be enough to rewrite the laws of reality itself. 

~~

The experience of shifting with the pack was unlike any other Ella had before. In the previous lives she had lived, she had turned alone, maybe with one or two other people. Here, there were over thirty, rough-housing and racing up and down the mountains. 

There were other, powerful werewolves here. Hollis’s raw strength was the most apparent - though Ella was sure she’d be able to take him down if she needed to, she might lose a few limbs in the process - but Hayley was a close second, which was remarkable considering her age. 

Ella’s wolf had existed, on and off, for centuries. Hayley Marshall’s, at less than a decade, came close to matching her. The two of them had raced up and down the hills through the night, with a very annoyed Tyler watching their fun nearby. When Ella shifted back the next morning, she was exhausted, in a way she hadn’t been during her last shift. 

Unfortunately, a lack of sleep didn’t give her an excuse to get out of over-emotional goodbyes. Both Uncle Mason and Tyler had understood her reasoning for leaving, though Mason had looked kind of shifty when she had mentioned the moonstone, and they had called Carol to let her know that Mason and Tyler needed some “guy time”. Whatever that meant. 

“Mom sounded thrilled to get her favorite child back,” Tyler grinned. “You’ll have to deal with her smothering for a solid month before we get home.” 

“Ugh, you’re the worst, throwing me to the wolves like this.” Ella rolled her eyes. “Mom may be the only human in our family, but that woman can pry into other people’s business. Did you know that she knew Meredith Fell passed her residency before Meredith Fell did?” 

“Doesn’t surprise me.” Then, to her surprise, Tyler hugged her. “Be safe, alright? Don’t let doppelgangers and ancient curses and magic rocks get you down.”

Ella laughed. “You too, loser. Try not to have too much fun in werewolf paradise without me.” Turning to her uncle, she hugged him as well. “And please, keep Ty from doing something stupid?” 

“Have you met your brother?” Was her uncle’s only response.” 

She waved to Hayley, and thanked Hollis for his hospitality, and then she was off, on the first of several buses that would take her back to Mystic Falls. While the trip to Pylea had only taken around five hours, it would take her almost ten to get back home. Sometimes she hated being stuck in such a young body. She couldn’t even drive!

Getting out her ipod, she leaned back, closing her eyes. Whatever was going on in Mystic Falls, she hoped that it wasn’t too serious. 

~~

Mystic Falls was dreadfully boring. Elijah had been to the place of his birth once since the day he had become a vampire. The first time, two hundred years after his turning, it had been nothing more than a barren wasteland. The werewolf pack that had once terrorized the settlers was long gone, as were the settlers themselves. 

He had despised it then, sitting near the river. It was so very close to the place Henrik had bled out, mauled by the werewolves his father had then slaughtered in mass. It was the very spot that Eleanora’s body had been found, floating down the river, throat slit. 

He had not thought it in him to return to the place where he had lost Tatia, lost two of his siblings. Where they had all lost their innocence, became the world’s greatest killers. Where he had - 

A red door flashed in his vision, but Elijah pushed it aside. Despite the civilization that had been built here, the town was hardly worth note. It’s supernatural community was small, and largely composed of easy to manage teenagers. 

Bonnie Bennett would have great power one day, but the girl was largely untrained. Her grandmother scarcely left her house, and had little magic to speak of. Caroline Forbes was little more than a fledgeling, and Annabelle and Pearl Zhu may have been turned by Aurora, but they were wise enough to know to stay out of Mikaelson business. 

The Salvatore brothers, on the other hand, were reckless fools, threatening him time and time again for the supposed welfare of Elena Gilbert. And they were young still, considering Katerina Petrova had turned them in the Civil War. 

The elder Salvatore had recently provoked a visiting werewolf clan, leaving Elijah to clean up their mess and assure the safety of Miss Gilbert. According to the Martins, the wolves had been looking for the Lockwoods, who had vanished just a few weeks before he arrived, and who their leader, Jules, suspected Damon Salvatore of murdering.

Elijah wasn’t quite sure how a situation that should have been easily resolved, particularly considering the Lockwoods were in fact alive, dissolved into an all-out-brawl, but he supposed it was a testament to youthful stupidity. 

The werewolf family had fled the town after the late Richard Lockwood’s children had both triggered their curses. He couldn’t help but be glad at the fact, because it allowed him to integrate himself with Carol Lockwood without anyone around who could resist his compulsion. 

The woman was dreadfully dull, and unaware of her children’s lupine heritage, or virtually anything of note that occurred in Mystic Falls. However, he needed the humans to accept his being here without question, and posing as a historian who had the mayor’s seal of approval was as good a way as any. 

Unexpectedly, the normally subdued Mayor had shown a spark of life last night, after a long phone call with her brother-in-law that confirmed her daughter was returning home. The young Miss Lockwood was a strange sort of enigma Elijah couldn’t help being intrigued by. A werewolf who, if the Salvatore brothers were to be believed, was also a witch.

Hybrids were not impossible, certainly. Niklaus’s existence proved that, as did the various exiled members of the Gemini Coven through the years, but he had never heard of a werewolf witch hybrid. The fact that such a creature was a young girl, without the age and experience to know how to use her powers, did little to reassure him. The last thing that was needed in this town was another impulsive teenager. 

The fact that the girl had run off with the moonstone, if Katerina was to be believed, was another sign of impulsivity. However, it hardly mattered. If she had any modicum of intelligence, she would realize its importance and carry it on her person. Which meant that all the components to breaking Niklaus’s curse would be here in Mystic Falls. 

All part of his elaborately planned trap to kill his brother once and for all.

~~

Something was clearly wrong. The second Ella got home, when she had rushed to greet her mother, she had noticed something was off. The more she talked to her, the clearer that picture became. 

Apparently, there was a stranger staying in the house, a historian who was doing a book on the town. Her mother, who hated having people in her space, had offered him a spare bedroom. Her mother, who now had gaps in her memories she couldn’t explain. Carol Lockwood had been compelled, and her daughter was furious. 

Ella was willing to bet that whatever vampire had fashioned himself Elena’s savior was the one to do this. If you were planning on staying somewhere for a long time, it would be strategic to integrate yourself with the human population, and who better to give the seal of approval than the Mayor? 

She had to find out who she was dealing with, first of all. So she smiled, told her mother a couple of funny stories about the girl Hayley who had lived next door, and assured her she was totally fine to go to school tomorrow. Then she went upstairs, silently fuming but careful to keep her emotions below the surface. 

Her magic tingled with some sort of familiarity. She just couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching her. She had to be on guard, but she was exhausted from the full moon last night. All she really wanted to do was go to her room and sleep until tomorrow. 

So as Ella turned the corner and headed for her door, she barely paid attention to the door that was slightly open, dim light of sorts coming from it. Sleep was the most important thing on her mind, at least until she heard the sharp intake of breath, and muttered curse in Norse, so faint she wouldn’t have picked it up if not for her werewolf ears. 

It had been so long since she had heard that voice, but she would never forget it. Suddenly, she understood what her magic was trying to tell her. The presence behind her was familiar, but with ten centuries of weight added to it. Different, yet still intrinsically the same. A vampire, but still her brother. 

“We’ll stick together. Always and Forever.”

Ella turned around, slowly, all traces of sleepiness gone. Because standing before her, was someone she hadn’t seen in a thousand years. Someone who looked as shocked as she felt. Words slipped out, almost without her realizing, in the language she had spoken all the way back then. 

“Elijah? Is that really you?” She asked her brother.

Chapter Text

1492, England

Elijah sat, bone-weary, on a chair in the sitting room. To an outsider, his posture might even look slightly slouched - which was utterly unacceptable by the Mikaelson’s standards. Still, he could hardly help it. Niklaus had him searching for Katerina Petrova for the past two days, scouring desperately for the last chance to free his brother of his curse. 

And Elijah had failed. 

To say Niklaus had been unpleasant since then would be an understatement. Rebekah and Kol had scampered off to their home in London, eager to avoid Niklaus in one of his rages. So it had fallen to him to fell his brother’s mood. 

He approached his younger brother’s room with all the grace of a panther, hoping to gage Niklaus’s reaction before entering. The door to his chambers was open a crack, and he glanced in, only to feel a stone drop in his stomach at what he saw. 

Niklaus was fiddling with a charm, a tiny, pink pearl witch talisman that had been Eleanora’s. He kept it on a necklace that Elijah knew never left his person, along with a dog carving that had been Henriks. 

His brother sat on the floor, in quiet contemplation. It could almost be seen as a spiteful mockery of prayer, if not for the tears in his brother's eyes. Elijah watched, the pit in his chest growing, as Niklaus began to speak. 

“I failed today, Nora. I was so close to breaking the curse, and I couldn’t bloody find that girl.” He laughed, a wet sound. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like, if you were still here. Perhaps father - perhaps Mikael would have never chased us. Perhaps mother never would have cursed us, and we would run wild and free together.” 

Oh, he shouldn’t be listening to this. Niklaus never spoke of Eleanora, none of them ever did. Kol had once, and Rebekah had shushed him, with such venom that he hadn’t mentioned her name in the centuries since. Lucien, Aurora, and Tristen knew of her, but that was when the grief was fresh. They had never healed from it - but Niklaus always was the worst of all. 

“I think you would tell me to continue on, dear sister. To find the beauty in the world, to see the light in the darkness. But the truth is, I can feel the rest of our family start to hate me, their bastard half brother, can feel the seeds of mistrust growing. The truth is, there is so little beauty without you. And wherever you are, I wish for you to know that you are missed.”

Gods, Nik truly was lost without his twin. Elijah had never realized that before now, but suddenly, it was apparent. And who knew what he would do in his grief, without her here?

He turned away from his brother, leaving him to mourn in peace. Swallowing down the words that he wanted to say. 

I miss her too.

When Elijah had last seen Eleanora, her throat slit and body dumped unceremoniously in the river, the only emotion he felt was anger. Anger that he didn’t know who would do such a thing to his sister, anger that such a vibrant life had been cut short. And above all, he was angry at himself. 

He, the protector of his family, had failed them so utterly. Eleanora and Henrik were dead, and vampirism had made monsters out of the lot of them. In the centuries that followed, Elijah had longed for the better days, the ones where they were all human. And on the worst days, he had longed to be in the presence of his lost siblings in the halls of Valhalla. 

Yet his sister, by some miracle, was not dead. She looked considerably younger, fifteen or sixteen at most. It was a far cry from the woman of twenty-three she had been before her death. Her hair was shorter, barely reaching her shoulders. And she wore the clothes of this age, dark jeans and a soft flannel shirt markedly different from the dress of their era. 

It should have been impossible. He had seen his sister’s body floating in the falls all those years ago. He had mourned her, avoided her name, knowing the quiet rages that it sent Niklaus into. And yet, when she said his name, in the language they used to speak, he knew. 

Eleanora was alive. And she was right in front of him. His throat felt heavy - it was a strange feeling, being utterly lost in a situation. He didn’t much like it, but right now, he was far too elated to care.

“Eleanora,” he started, and before he could get another word out, his little sister ran across the room, and wrapped her arms around him with surprising strength. 

“I thought you were dead.” He didn’t miss the way her voice broke over the last word. “I mourned you, all of you. Nik, Bekah, Kol, Henrik, you, even Finn.” 

“And I thought the same of you. How is it exactly that you’re alive? You look young, and mortal. Mrs Lockwood certainly seemed to regard you as her daughter. How did you come to live this life?” His sister had not let go - she was rather like a koala in her tenacity - yet Elijah found he didn’t mind. 

“For centuries I wondered. I woke in a new life each time I died, newborn but with the same memories of the lives I once lived. I spoke to a woman, recently, who had knowledge of others like me. Reincarnations. She said that it was a backlash to some dark magic that had been cast around the time of my death, that kept my soul from reaching the other side.” 

Eleanora released him, taking a step back. “It was mother, wasn’t it? The spell that Ayana feared so greatly. She made you the world’s first vampire.” 

“Not just me.” Elijah swallowed, wondering how much he should tell his sister. She had always been impulsive, but she had compassion. He was certain even a thousand years couldn’t have changed that. She would see Niklaus’s madness for what it was. “Finn. Niklaus. Rebekah. Kol. And… Father.” 

“He is not my father,” his sister said - and she was his sister, no matter her parentage. There was no hatred or anger in her voice, as there so often was when she had spoken of Mikael before. Just firm, utter certainty. She knew. 

“You know the truth of Esther’s infidelity?” Eleanora had died before the full moon where Niklaus had first turned, when they had discovered his - and her - werewolf heritage. There was no plausible way for her to have known. 

His question must have shown on his face, for his sister started to speak. “In each life I lived, many things changed. The country I was born in, the families I was raised in, the life I lived. But some things always stayed the same. My face I always retained, and I always had at least a glimmer of magic. And I could always feel her, my wolf, below the surface.” 

Eleanora smiled then, and Elijah marveled at it. At how much she seemed to love the predator inside her, when Niklaus, for all his never-ending desire to break his curse, was uncomfortable with the very notion of being a werewolf. 

“The first time I killed someone, in an accident the life after my first, I triggered my curse. I fear I didn’t react well. It took me a long time to accept the fact that Mikael could not be my father, for my new family certainly weren’t werewolves, and longer still to accept that I was the same as the creatures who killed Henrik.” 

“I fear Niklaus is much the same,” is what slipped out, unbidden. Elijah cursed himself inwardly. He meant to bring up the topic of their wayward brother later. Eleanora had always been the closest to Niklaus, the most willing to shield him from their father, the one pushing him into trouble at every opportunity. 

Her eyes widened at that. “I didn’t want to push… But Nik? You said mother made you all into vampires. Where is he? Where are the rest of them?” 

Gods forgive him, Elijah couldn’t bear to tell her. Not when her eyes were so alight with hope, when her face looked so young, so like his . How could he tell Eleanora of Niklaus’s madness, how he had killed the rest of their family? Of the cruel, vengeful creatures that the Mikaelsons had become over the years? 

His hesitation must have shown on his face, because Eleanora rolled her eyes, in the overdramatic fashion that he remembered from their youth. It nearly brought more tears to his eyes.

“Brother, I know that look. It’s the same one you had when you tried to hide that Rebekah tore that huge hole in my boots. You aren’t telling me something. What is it?” 

He closed his eyes, dreading what he had to tell her about her twin. This would crush her, but it needed to be done. He doubted that even the revelation of Eleanora’s continued survival would register in her paranoid twin’s mind. 

So he told her. 

~~

Gods, Ella could barely believe it. Elijah, her first brother, the sibling’s protector was here. Alive and in front of her, just as astonished to see her as she was him. With a terrible haircut and newfound vampirism, but still him. 

But that was the only happy shock of the night. Elijah had spoken to her for hours, about what had happened since the rest of the Mikaelson’s had become vampires. He wove a tale of constant paranoia, of looking over their shoulder every few seconds for Mikael the Destroyer. Of his father killing their mother, and chasing Nik ever since. 

Their family had fractured, Elijah had said. Finn had turned to self-loathing, hating his newfound vampirism. Good riddance to him - Ella was sure that he hadn’t been missed. 

Kol had turned to violence to cope with the loss of his magic, unleashing massacre after massacre. He had developed a patronage of witches, hoping to be near a craft he could never practice again. Ella mourned for her little brother, who had always been so talented and so carefree. 

Rebekah had flitted around, searching for love and struggling against the strict rules of her male relatives. She had found someone Elijah had approved of - though he was scarce on the details, almost as if the memories pained him - but then the man had died. Ella’s heart had ached at that, remembering the young girl who had been so eager for love. 

Elijah’s stories made precious little mention of him, the glue that held always and forever together, fraying slowly at the seams. He mentioned Katerina Petrova offhandedly, and with a tone that spoke of a great deal of repressed affection. That was… concerning, but hardly noteworthy. Elijah had always had terrible taste in women. Tatia was proof of that. At least Katherine was fun.

Yet nearly every story spoke of Nik, the villain in every tale. The hybrid, desperate to break his curse, no matter the cost. The scorned brother, who prevented Rebekah’s chances at love. The power hungry, conniving, beast that Elijah could barely control. The one who daggered their siblings on a whim, who had killed the rest of them out of spite. 

Ella couldn’t believe that the monster in the story was Nik. It couldn’t be her kind younger brother, who abhorred violence, loved painting, and was a romantic at heart. She was the one who always had to goad Nik into trouble, not the other way around. 

So she listened between the lines of Elijah’s story. Past the pain and the anger to the grief, the love that was still buried there, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. To the guilt, to the part of him that blamed himself, not Nik, for what had happened to their family. 

Nik, suffering from a terrible curse that broke his mind. Nik, hunted and feeling alone in his werewolf heritage, with her, the only one who could possibly understand, gone. Nik, heartbroken because of a vampire woman named Aurora de Martel, and God, did Ella hate her already for what she did to her little brother. 

She had been born ten minutes before Niklaus, and as soon as she was capable of thinking, she had decided she was going to protect him from everything that would dare to hurt him. Now, it looked like she had to protect him from himself. 

She looked back at Elijah, who looked utterly exhausted at the story he just shared. “So, what are you planning to do to our brother?”

Chapter Text

If there was anything that Ella had missed about Mystic Falls during her time in Pylea (besides Anna, obviously), Bonnie Bennett and Caroline Forbes would have to top that list. Her one-time crush and her brother’s boyfriend both seemed glad to see her, and neither had held the werewolf revelation against her in any way. Elena had also offered her a small smile as they passed each other on the way to the Salvatore Boarding House.

“Hi, everyone! Thanks for coming.” Elena said, turning to the group sitting in the parlor of the Salvatore boarding house. Damon, Stefan, Bonnie, Caroline, Matt, and Anna all sat on different chairs. 

“It’s not like I live here, or anything,” Damon muttered, glancing at all the couples sitting together with thinly veiled disdain - Stefan and Elena on a loveseat, Anna and Ella leaning against a couch, and Bonnie and Matt sitting next to a chest table. 

That was something… interesting that had happened while Ella was gone. Apparently, Matt watching Bonnie use her magic to kick some misogynistic ass the day of the Founder’s Party had been the start of a new relationship. Ella knew that badass, hot Bennett witch could do better, but she was sure Bonnie would find that out. 

She sighed, watching the two kiss deeply. Eventually.

“Listen up, everyone!” Caroline said, slipping into drill sergeant mode. “Enough getting romantic. We have work that needs to be done, and it’s time to do it.”

“Jeez, Blondie. No need to ruin Stefan’s mojo,” Damon said. “Maybe if he gets some he’ll get that stick out of his ass. And Boy Scout’s scored a miracle getting BonBon to go out with him. Let the couples enjoy their romantic solitude.” 

Damon Salvatore wasn’t growing on her. Not at all. 

So, Ella was apparently part of Mystic Falls’ supernatural scooby gang now. That was new, she supposed, though not entirely unwelcome. Sharing a glance with Anna, who rolled her eyes at the chaos unfolding in front of them, she could tell her girlfriend thought the same. She really needed to get Anna alone, so she could introduce her to her brother, and-

“What are you smiling about?” Anna asked, putting her head on Ella’s shoulder. Her skin was warmer than any vampire’s has a right to be. 

“I just really missed you. It was just me, my uncle, and my idiot brother up in the woods. Though there was this super cool werewolf chick.”

“I missed you too, loser.” Anna grinned. “But if you leave me for that werewolf chick, I will burn down your house.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re-” Ella stopped speaking as the lights flickered, her eyes turning to a triumphant Bonnie.

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Damon Salvatore, but we do need to focus. Otherwise, Elena will be dead by the next full moon. We need to find a way to stop Klaus breaking his hybrid curse.”

“I believe I can help with that,” Elijah said from the other side of the room, smirking at the shocked faces of everyone in the room. His smile widened when he saw Ella, who was sure she looked as amused as she felt. Elijah had always been dramatic. Almost as dramatic as Nik-no, she wasn’t thinking about him right now. 

Matt yelped. “Who the hell are you?” Everyone else in the room seemed to have some kind of indication, and looked at him with varying degrees of distaste or weariness. 

“Klaus’s brother.” Elijah leaned back in his chair, yet his posture was still as formal as always. God, when had her brother learned to act like a kingpin in a mob movie? “And I’m not his only sibling.” 

She was going to kill him. 

~~

Luckily, Elijah hadn’t spilt her entire life story to the Salvatore’s and co. Instead, he wove a tale remarkably similar to the one that he told her. It was one of a cruel brother who cast the rest of his siblings into the sea, but the details were remarkably sparse. He mentioned none of their siblings by name, and not Finn at all. She and Henrik were absent from the tale, present as mere mentions of siblings dying prior to the rest becoming vampires.

It hurt, hearing Nik regulated to the big bad wolf of a children’s tale, but Ella kept silent. She genuinely didn’t know what she was supposed to do? Had he really become the monster of Elijah’s telling? She had to meet him, to find out for herself. 

Some part of her dreaded it, though. She no longer knew Nik, and from what Elijah had told her, it was hard for him to trust others now. She knew that there was a likelihood he wouldn’t believe her. Could she really bear the pain of rejection from her own twin? For all she knew, he had been relieved she was gone. 

“So, you’ll help us kill Klaus, then?” Stefan asked, the second Elijah had finished his story. 

“You have my word,” Elijah nodded, his eyes sparkling as he looked back at his sister again. “It was a pleasure to meet you all. You’re all such an… eclectic bunch.”

And then he was off. 

Why in Odin’s name hadn’t he told her he was planning this? Still, Ella couldn’t only muster up the faintest sense of irritation. She had missed how Elijah had gotten under her nerves, how his unruffled demeanor had broken her composure time and time again. 

It almost distracted her from the whirlpool of emotions thinking of Nik brought up in her. She shook her head. She needed to get out of this room, away from the plans to kill her own brother. 

She turned to Anna. “I’m going to go visit Katherine in the tomb, and see what she knows.” The two of them quietly slipped out of the room, not noticing Damon’s eyes on them - and him turning to follow them. 

~~

Katherine looked like shit. That was the kindest way to put it. There were bags under her eyes that Ella didn’t even know it was possible for a vampire to get. Her face was pale, and her hair unkempt. She looked utterly exhausted, but that didn’t stop her from rolling her eyes as the two girls approached. 

“Glad to see you’re back in Mystic Falls, Ella Lockwood. Or should I say Dottie Jones? All those names bound up in your head, it must be so difficult to track.”

Ella ignored her. “That’s not why we’re here, Katherine. I need to know about Klaus Mikaelson. Is he the kind of person you can negotiate with? Who’d be open to new ideas?” 

Katherine laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “I know evil. Hell, I am evil. But Klaus Mikaelson is something else entirely. That monster needs to be put in the ground. There is no negotiating with someone like him.” 

The moonstone felt heavy in her jacket pocket. She had never taken it out - had been nervous about someone else getting their hands on it. And she could hardly reveal that she had it now. It wasn’t as if Damon needed much provocation to try to kill her.

Katherine’s eyes were wide and fearful. She looked almost like a mouse cornered by a cat, her eyes half lidded at even the mention of his name. Ella’s heart sank. 

“What did he do to you?” Anna asked. “This is clearly personal.” 

“What didn’t he do? He slaughtered my entire fucking family, babies and all, because I refused to die to break his stupid curse. He burned my village to the ground. He killed every last one of my friends. He hunted me for five hundred years. Take your pick.”

She leaned in as close as the barrier of Elijah’s compulsion would allow her to. “The only way to deal with Klaus is to rip his heart out. He cares for nothing and no one.” 

Ella only stared at Katherine, too shocked for words. The raw, genuine emotion that Katherine had exhibited was unlike anything she had ever seen from the doppleganger. She had always expected Katherine to have been running from someone foul. She had just never expected that someone to be her own twin brother . 

Katherine glanced up at Ella, tilting her head slightly. “It’s only fair that you give me one of your secrets now. After all, I bore my poor little soul to you. So tell me, Ella Lockwood, what’s your real name? I’ve been wondering.” 

What was the harm in telling her just a little? She could always just have Elijah compel it away later. Besides, some part of her felt bad for Katherine. “It’s Ella Lockwood. This time around, anyway.” Her eyes flashed, a bright gold.

She watched as Katherine’s eyes narrowed, saving the information for later, and turned to go. As she walked back towards the town square, she heard a lowered voice. “And stop flirting with my girlfriend, you ass,” Anna said. 

Ella grinned when Anna caught up to her. “Jealous?” 

Anna flushed, but caught herself quickly. “In your dreams!” 

“Oh, you’re in all of my dreams, Zhu. As a matter of fact, I had one last night involving you, Kristen Stewart, a house in need of desperate plumbing, and the apocalypse. You fill in the rest.” 

Her eyes were focused on her girlfriend, her heart so full of her presence, that she didn’t even notice Damon Salvatore, watching them with narrowed eyes. 

~~

Katherine walked right out of the exit of the tomb, smiling brightly as she filled with her daylight ring - which had been filled with vervain and hidden in her bra. The people in Mystic Falls were such idiots . Honestly. 

Had Elijah bothered to check if she had ingested vervain before he had compelled her, she would have been locked in the tomb, without the moonstone, the sacrifices, or anything else that could have secured her freedom from Klaus.

The moment was so close that she could taste it - the freedom that she had been denied for five centuries. Five hundred years of looking over every shoulder, paranoid of a witch or vampire being on her tail. Five hundred years of being alone, even if Lucien Castle had made a compelling case about revenge against Klaus, because she worked better by herself. 

The last time she trusted someone freely, without abandon, she had nearly walked to her death. And Katherine Pierce would never let that happen again. 

She knew better now. 

But, with her newfound information, she finally had the advantage. Ella Lockwood was an interesting complication, far harder to toy with than the dreadfully boring Salvatore brothers. Far older, too, if her information was correct. 

It all traced back to an ancient mystery, one that she hadn’t cared too much for at the time. Klaus had taken everything from her - why should she care about his freudian excuse for being a sociopath?

Her meetings with Lucien Castle had been a mutually beneficial exchange of information. Her knowledge about the particulars of the hybrid curse, in exchange for invaluable knowledge about the Mikaelson family. And Lucien was in possession of their closest kept secret.

There had been one sibling, Lucien had told her, who the Mikaelsons’ never spoke of. Klaus’s twin, the world’s first known hybrid - a werewolf and witch - who had her throat slit before the siblings were turned into vampires. He had described the girl for Katherine briefly, as looking like Klaus in female form.

To bring up Eleanora Mikaelson in front of her siblings, was to throw them off their game. To trigger a rage so profound it leveled city blocks, or a sadness that made them shut down - just for a moment, but a moment long enough to gain the advantage in a fight. 

Katherine had thought nothing of it, viewing it only as a tool to use to her advantage, until she had met Dottie Jones again in Mystic Falls, younger and with a new name. She had rather liked the witch (as much as a vampire could like a witch) when she had met her in New Orleans all those years ago, with her brazen preferences towards her same sex that she took no pains to hide. 

The girl had reminded her of Klaus, but she had shoved that uncomfortable feeling down, convinced that it was paranoia. And then there she was again, not a doppelganger, but the same girl, with the same body, the same powers, reborn in a new life. 

A reincarnation. Rare, but possible. But a girl who looked so much like Klaus, who was both a werewolf and a witch, couldn’t be a coincidence. Somehow, the little were-witch had been such a fascinating puzzle to figure out, was Niklaus Mikaelson’s lost twin. 

She was sure that she could easily share that information with Klaus, and get under his skin. But she wanted him to suffer, and reuniting him with the sibling he was closest with sounded awfully like a reward. Besides, he would be dead soon at Elijah’s hand. Katherine hoped that he suffered when the time came. 

It was the least he deserved. 

And she was so consumed in her hatred, in her absolute certainty of victory, that she didn’t notice a witch come up behind her, muttering the words to a sleeping spell. She collapsed to the floor, cursing stupid magic users under her breath. 

By the time she woke, she was in an apartment, hands chained to a pole and with cuffs laced with vervain. She hissed as the metal dug into her skin, heart pounding, frantically searching for a way to escape. There was a window about a meter from her, curtains drawn. If she could just-

“Katerina.” There was a soft, amused, clucking sound. “I can tell you’re thinking of some clever little way to get out of this mess. One, might I add, that you brought upon yourself. That might not be a good idea.” 

Oh, no. Oh dear Lord in Heaven, no. A million prayers she had learned in church as a child raced around in her head. It would have been laughable in any other circumstance - she had long ago learned not to trust religion - but at this moment, it seemed apt. After all, it was the devil standing before her. 

The voice was different. The body was new, but he had used that trick a few times before. But the cruel glint in his eyes as he looked at her, leaning forward like a cat surveying a mouse, that had haunted her dreams for centuries.

“Klaus.”

Chapter Text

The first Monday after Ella returned from her trip to Pylea, she was utterly exhausted. She had been on the phone with Hayley for most of the night. The werewolf girl had regaled her with stories detailing all of the dumb things Tyler had done since Ella had left. 

It had been nearly a week - Carol had let her skip a couple of days to get caught up, and Ella had persuaded the principal to let her wave most of her makeup work with a mix of abusing her mother’s power as the mayor, drawing on her reputation and good history as a student, and playing the grieving daughter card. It worked like a charm. 

So now, she was actually excited for her first day back at school. She had stopped to see Shelia and Bonnie a couple of times, informing them of her possession of the moonstone, but other than that, the only people she had been interacting with were Anna, Carol, and Elijah, who was still living at the Lockwood house. 

It had been nice to catch up with her brother and her girlfriend - luckily, her mother assumed that her love of history is what had her talking to Elijah (whose cover was a historian), and that Anna was coming over to help her get caught up on classwork (her girlfriend found the situation hilarious, particularly when Carol had asked if Anna had her eyes on any cute boys). 

Still, Ella was looking forward to seeing her classmates again. She breezed through her morning classes, and ended up sitting in the quad with Elena, Bonnie, and Stefan. 

“Did Mr. Saltzman seem a little weird to you today?” Bonnie was asking Elena, as Caroline slid into the seat next to them. 

“Yeah, he totally did!” Caroline chimed in. “He didn’t remember his lesson plan at all, and he seemed to think Watergate happened in the sixties. I mean, he’s never been the best teacher, but I think this is a new low for him.”

“I noticed he looked really tired,” Elena added. “Maybe he’s just having an off day. Like, he didn’t sleep too well, or something. Tiki asked him if she could leave the class because she was bored, and he didn’t even care.”

Caroline snorted. “I saw Tiki in the washroom, putting on even more perfume. I don’t know why she needs it! She smells like a hospital waiting room.” 

Bonnie looked up from the pencil she was levitating in the air, the corner of her lips turned up. “Wow, way to be rude to hospital waiting rooms!” 

As the girls dissolved into giggles, Ella smiled. It was nice to be home. 

~~

When Ella and Anna walked into their last period history class, Mr. Saltzman was nowhere to be found. It was an odd occurrence, but normally wouldn’t be something unusual. Still, remembering what Bonnie had brought up at lunch, Ella resolved to keep an eye out. Maybe Katherine had compelled him at some point, or something. 

“So, how much longer do we have to stay put without a teacher before we’re allowed to leave?” Anna asked, leaning over Ella’s desk. “You’re the one with all the public school experience. Teach me the tricks of the system, sweetheart.” 

“I’m fairly sure that one is made up. Sorry to break it to you, but I think we have to stay here. Unless you want to single-handedly upend the American legal system, that is.” 

“A were-witch and a vampire? We’d bring the government to its knees in two days, tops. And Caroline would definitely help if we promised to make her president afterwards.”

Ella laughed, but didn’t have time to comment, because Alaric had walked through the door, looking utterly and completely done. “So, where were we last class?” He asked, his gaze trailing the class. Ella was about to shake her head in amusement at how bored he looked, until his gaze met hers - and he looked like someone had shot him. 

She glanced behind her, wondering if it could be something else Mr. Saltzman was looking at, but she couldn’t find anything in the classroom that could trigger that sort of reaction. She exchanged a glance with Anna, who looked as confused as she felt. 

What the hell was his problem? 

~~

Klaus had expected a degree of boredom, stuck in the body of the asinine history teacher with inexplicable connections to half the supernatural beings in this town. The doppelganger and her Bennett witch friend were in his morning class, but being forced to keep cover meant that he had been stuck teaching high school all day. 

Mortals lived such tedious lives. It really was dreadful, being one of them. He was stuck in such a painfully weak body, unable to see or hear or even smell as vibrantly as he used to. Stuck living Alaric Saltzman’s terribly boring life - noteworthy only because of who he interacted with. 

Katerina had told him all she knew about the people surrounding Elena Gilbert. The Bennett witch was his largest concern (the utter havok Elise Bennett had wreaked in New Orleans in 1911 had ensured he would never again underestimate one of their elk), considering her grandmother was all-but confined to her house, and rarely practiced.

The girl was… powerful, but untrained. She had the potential to be a threat in a few years, and reminded him uncomfortably of Ayana for a few brief seconds, but he was confident in his ability to kill her, if need be. Though Kol would think it a waste to kill such a powerful witch. 

The day was draining, to say the least. It was fortunate that he had never had any children (and he ignored the uncomfortable way his heart panged when he thought of Marcel), for teenagers had to be some of the most irritating little gremlins on the planet. His patience was nearly completely tried, and it took all of his considerable restraint not to kill the particularly irritating ones of their lot. 

The last class of the day contained more members of Mystic Falls supernatural community. There was Jeremy Gilbert, noteworthy only for being the doppelganger's brother, sulking in the back of the classroom. A daylight pendant on the neck of a young asian girl marked her as Annabelle Zhu, who’s mother ran an Apothecary shop in town. The pair were the oldest vampires in town (at a meager six hundred years), and direct sirelings of Aurora. Depending on how close they were with their sire, or how deeply they cared about the Gilbert girl, they might need to die. 

The Zhu girl was leaning over her desk to talk to the last person in the classroom, who had to be Ella Lockwood, presently the only werewolf in Mystic Falls. It was irritating, to say the least, that Mason and Tyler had run off just weeks before the sacrifice, because he certainly wasn’t going to kill a child to- 

His train of thought abruptly stopped as he looked at her face. 

He swore at Frigga and Balder and Odin, all the gods of a youth long forgotten. One that he was suddenly, abruptly reminded of, when he looked at the mirror image of the girl that had died a thousand years ago. 

Klaus had heard plenty about the youngest Lockwood. That she and her brother had recently triggered their curse, that their father had died in a town-wide fire some months ago, that her mother was the mayor. He had even heard concerning rumors about her magical aptitude, but he had dismissed such notions. He was the only hybrid on this earth, whatever rumors he had heard about heretics from Kol and Rebekah aside. 

What he had most decidedly not heard about Ella Lockwood was that she was Elenanora’s doppelganger. The resemblance was uncanny. Certainly, the hair was shorter and loose, while Nora’s had been long and always kept in braids. 

The girl wore the clothes of this time: leggings and a shirt referencing some infernal television show - and makeup of this era too. But the way her eyes glinted with amusement as she leaned towards Annabelle Zhu, laughing at things that were too faint for this cursed human body to hear - that was Eleanora, if she had been given flesh again.

“Do you really think I care what Finn says? You are my twin, Nik. No matter what happens, I will always believe you.” 

“If I never push you, Niklaus, you’d stay holed up in the forest with your little paints. Life ought to be fun! Who cares what mother says?”

“If father ever hurts you again, Nik, call me, and I will come running. Always and forever.” 

This girl was not Eleanora, merely a cheap imitation of his twin sister. A thief of a face that was better used centuries ago. He couldn’t dismiss the possibility that this was a trick, of Elijah’s, of Mikaels, of one of his many enemies. Still, the effect of seeing his sister’s face again was… considerable. He had painted her once, back when they had resided with the Martel’s. He had carted it around for centuries, until the day Rebekah, in the throngs of grief over a daggering and Marcel’s newfound vampirism, had said what she had said. 

“If Eleanora were still alive, she would have hated you.”

It had stung, because it had been true. So he had burned the painting, burned all traces of his twin from his life, and shoved his grief deep down inside him. And miraculously, it had worked. At least, he had thought it had, until this foolish child entered the room wearing his sister’s face, and made him realize that he had never stopped missing Eleanora. 

And that he never would. 

~~

Mr. Saltzman would not stop staring at her. In all honesty, it was starting to make Ella uncomfortable. She didn’t think the rest of the class had noticed - with the exception of Anna, who was glaring daggers at the man - but she could feel the beginnings of irritation creeping up on her. 

What the hell was his problem? Was this about her missing a history test while she was in Pylea? Because the dead father excuse had worked on all her other teachers, and Alaric had already proved that he gave people the chance to make up for their work.

He was Damon’s best friend (which showed his questionable tastes, but that's besides the point), so maybe he was angry on the Salvatore’s behalf. Ella racked her brain, trying to think if she had threatened to kill Damon more than usual. And it wasn’t like she was going to go through with it - he was kind of growing on her, like a fungus. 

Besides Anna, who as her girlfriend and a vampire, was hyper aware of everything going on in the classroom, she didn’t think anyone was noticing how Alaric kept glancing at her. However, what they did notice was how badly their history teacher was remembering basic American history. 

Quickly cottoning onto the fact that their teacher was out of it, the class zoned out, pulling out their cell phones one by one. Ella didn’t think she could risk it, considering how much attention he was paying to her, but she was going to text Bonnie and tell the other witch she was right as soon as she got out of class. 

Alaric was nuts, and Ella couldn’t wait for class to be over. Maybe then she could finally get some answers. A glance at a very angry looking Anna proved they were on the same page. All they could do was wait. 

~~

As the bell rang, Jeremy stopped at Ella’s desk on his way out of the classroom. “Hey, what did you do to piss Ric off? He’s been looking at you like you kicked his puppy all class?” 

Ella sighed. “Trust me, I have no idea. Maybe I pissed off Damon? But then again, everyone pisses off Damon. Or I forgot to do my makeup work.”

Jeremy glanced at Alaric, who was looking at something on his cell phone - not looking at her for once. “Well, good luck. And it’s nice to have you back in Mystic Falls. Trust me, I know how shitty it is when a parent dies.” 

Ella blinked. That had to be the most words Jeremy had spoken to her consecutively in a long time. “Thanks, Jer.” He smiled, and headed out the door, leaving the two girls alone with Alaric. 

“Look at baby Gilbert, growing up before our eyes,” Anna laughed. “I never thought a teenage boy could express that much emotion.” 

“Well, Ty cried once when we watched Titanic - and that secret goes to your grave,” Ella quickly said, noticing how Anna’s eyes glinted with amusement. 

“Well, been there, done that.” 

Ella leaned over and kissed Anna. “I bet I got you beat in that category. But please, keep my brother’s secret? I only just got him to be cool about me dating someone. If he finds out my hot vampire girlfriend has all his deep dark secrets, he’ll be insufferable.” 

“Girls? Was there anything you wanted?” Mr. Saltzman asked, looking between the two of them with an indecipherable expression. Ella didn’t know why he was so confused: her relationship with Anna was pretty much an open secret in their friend group at this point. Plus, Damon had walked in on the two of them making out in a broom closet yesterday. 

The Harry Potter jokes had been insufferable, but she dealt with it. The point was, there was no way Alaric didn’t know that she and Anna were a thing. So that couldn’t possibly be why he was glaring at her. 

“Oh, right! I was wondering when I was supposed to do my make-up presentation? Also, Ty is going to be back soon, and he wanted me to email him the list of all the things he had to do, because my dear brother is incapable of managing his own school work.” 

Alaric’s expression was oddly… sad? And she didn’t miss the way he flinched when she said brother. Did he have a brother who died recently? Maybe he was projecting his loss onto his only known classmate with a brother. Gods, Ella had no clue what was up with this man.

“It’s awfully nice of you to look after your brother like that,” Alaric said quietly, looking at her almost like he was searching for something. 

Ella shrugged. “He’s my brother. I’ll always have his back.” As she said it, she knew it was true. Tyler was as much her brother as the rest of her siblings had been. As Elijah was again. 

“He’s very lucky to have a sister like you,” he said, and okay, he was still being weird. 

Ella laughed uncomfortably. “Trust me, I’m not that great. You should be glad you don’t have a sister like me. Anyway, I’ll just email you about those lists. Have a good night!” 

And in her haste to get out of the door, she missed the look on Alaric’s face - an odd mix of heartbreak, anger, and longing. A particular mix, and one easily forgotten.

But Annabelle Zhu, still watching the history teacher, noticed. And she narrowed her eyes. Because somehow, the man watching Ella knew her. But Anna didn’t think he knew Ella Lockwood. And more importantly, she didn’t think he was Alaric Saltzman. 

No, he was someone else entirely.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Annabelle Zhu was tired of being one of the only people with half a brain in Mystic Falls. There were shockingly few people she trusted to make good decisions. Mama, obviously, was one of them. Sheila Bennett may have lacked magical power, but she made up for it in experience. She and mom had become quick friends, as the only two supernatural adults in town, and now had a weekly bingo game. 

They were very competitive. It was embarrassing. 

Shockingly, Caroline Forbes was probably the most reasonable of the Mystic Falls gang, with Bonnie Bennett constantly throwing herself into danger, Elena Gilbert oblivious of the sacrifices everyone seemed to make on her behalf, Tyler Lockwood missing in action, and Matt Donovan utterly human. The less said about the Salvatores, the better. 

Of course, her Ella was firmly in the category of smart ones, but a thousand years of life experience definitely helped on that front (and wasn’t that crazy, that her girlfriend was older than her mother ).

Anna trusted Ella more than she had trusted anyone before. The other girl was whip-smart, funny, magically talented, and a strong and powerful werewolf. She was also really pretty, which Anna had noticed a few of the guys in town had taken notice of. 

And if she had glowered in their direction, and hit Jeffrey Wright with a baseball to the head when he commented on Ella’s rack, well, she could hardly be blamed. She was a vampire, she couldn’t help but overhear. Which is what she had said to a giggling Ella, who had just laughed harder. 

So yes, she trusted Ella. But as perfect as her girlfriend was - pretty close to perfect, for the record - Anna wasn’t blind to the one big blind spot the were-witch had. And that was her family. Ella didn’t like to talk too much about her past lives. But recently, Ella’s brother from her first life had come to Mystic Falls. 

That was a strange thing to learn, that her girlfriend’s siblings had become the original vampires. That her girlfriend’s mother had created the entire vampire species. That the family Katherine had been running from for years was the family Ella had spoken about so fondly. 

But Ella had been off her game ever since Elijah and her had reunited. She had mentioned that Klaus - the evil hybrid, the long-lost twin - had supposedly killed the rest of their siblings. She had begged Anna to go with her to Katherine, to find out if what Elijah had told her was true. Then Ella had shut down completely, and a few hours later she was acting completely normally, as the news about her twin didn’t bother her at all. 

Anna knew better than that, and could see how it was eating up Ella inside. Her girlfriend was a Mikaelson and a Lockwood. Ella’s two sides, Ella’s two lives, were coming into conflict. And she was deferring, delying, suppressing her feelings. Ella was too close to the situation to be objective. But Anna wasn’t. 

Here’s what she knew. 

Someone else was inhabiting the body of Alaric Saltzman. If Anna had to guess, it was an old switching spell Anna had seen used a few times in Paris. Only a strong witch could cast one, and it required either the consciousness’s death, or a being inhabiting the body strong enough to block the consciousness out. 

The person in question recognized Ella, and was surprised by it. Judging by their terrible attempts to hide their emotions, it was obvious they had loved her. But in Ella’s last life, she had been a lawyer, with no connections to the supernatural world. Which meant whoever was in Alaric’s body had to be immortal, and connected to Ella. 

Anna was rapidly coming to a conclusion that was more than a little bit insane. God, she couldn’t believe she was entertaining it. There was no way Alaric Saltzman was actually- 

“Dear, are you alright?” Her mama leaned over the counter in her shop, glancing down at Anna, who was sitting on a stool with her face between her hands. “You look like something’s troubling you.” 

Anna sighed, wondering how much she should reveal to Pearl. She loved her mother more than life itself, but she wanted to protect Ella’s secrets. Her mom may have known Ella was a hybrid, but how would she react when she found out she was a Mikaelson? 

“I just found out something about Ella. I found a person I think she’d really like to see, but I’m not sure it’s them. I don’t want to tell her and get her hopes up, and from what I heard, he’s kind of a dick, and I don’t want him to hurt her. What should I do?” 

Pearl raised her eyebrows. “That is a complicated mess you’ve got yourself into, sweetheart. I admire how much you want to protect that girl of yours. But don’t go rushing into things. I say gather more information. See if this person is who they say they are.”

There was a meeting at the Salvatore house in an hour to talk about Klaus-killing plans. She’d bet her hypothetical firstborn child that Alaric would be there. All she had to do was make sure that Ella didn’t come, and get to him alone.

Anna nodded, reaching over to grab her bag. “Thanks, mom! I’ve got to go.”

Leaving her bewildered mother behind, Anna pulled out her phone and typed out a quick text to Ella. 

Anna: Hey - I know you’ve got a lot of homework, so I can take point on dealing with the MFG tonight. Don’t worry, I’ll keep Damon from doing anything too stupid. See you at school tomorrow. <3

Ella: Thanks, you’re a total lifesaver. See you then. <3

Anna exhaled, ignoring the stirrings of guilt that were building up in her chest. It was time to deal with the Salvatores. 

~~

The last people Anna expected to run into outside of the boarding house were Tyler and Mason Lockwood. Last she had heard, the werewolves were still on their retreat. Judging by how much fun Ella seemed to have had in Pylea, Anna had doubted that the rest of her family would be back in Mystic Falls anytime soon. 

Yet the proof that she misjudged the situation was standing right in front of her. Noticing her, Tyler gave an awkward wave. “Hey, Zhu. Do you know where my sister is? I get the feeling she’s going to be pissed that we didn’t tell her we’re back.” 

“And why is that, out of curiosity?” 

Tyler rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I saw a crazy vampire try to murder my sister because she had a magic rock. Then she decided to bring the magic rock back to Mystic Falls, and I thought I should have her back if any more idiots try to kill her.” 

Mason stepped forward. “It’s nice to meet the girl that my niece won’t shut up about. Drove us and Hayley bonkers, the way every conversation managed to circle back to you. Almost as bad as Tyler and this Caroline girl.” 

Tyler flushed a deep red, and Anna laughed. “What’s the matter Lockwood? You finally realized Caroline’s out of your league?” 

Mason pointed at Anna. “I like her. Tell Ella I approve.” 

Anna rolled her eyes, just picturing her prim, proper mama meeting Ella’s modern family. It was a disaster in the making. She smirked at the thought.

Taking a deep breath, she stopped at the entrance. All she had to do was provoke the body-stealler into giving out potentially incriminating information. To figure out if they were who she thought they were. And hopefully not die in the process.

She headed inside, and almost immediately spotted the man in Alaric’s body. He was looking at cheap beer on the kitchen counter with a sort of horrified distance, prodding it with one hand like he was trying to will himself to drink it. 

Anna almost laughed. He couldn’t have been more unlike Alaric Saltzman if he tried. “What’s the matter, Alaric? Have you finally realized liking alcohol isn’t a personality trait?”

He turned to look at her, a dark look in his eyes for a few brief seconds, he seemed to wrestle down whatever anger he was feeling. “Did you need something, Anna?”

She did her best to put on a concerned tone. “Did you and Jenna break up again? I have girlfriend experience. I could totally help you out.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you for your concern.” He paused for a moment, his hand clenched every so slightly, before continuing. “Are you and… Ella a recent development?” 

“Only since Founder’s Day.” Anna paused, trying her best to suppress a smile at what she was going to say next, and watching carefully for a reaction. “Is this your way of telling me you know Damon caught us hooking up in the broom closet yesterday?” 

The effect was immediate. The not-Alaric seemed to be caught in between amusement and some kind of righteous anger, before both emotions left his face. It was nearly the same response Tyler had when he caught the two of them kissing in Ella’s bedroom. Anna filed that away for later. 

Anna crossed her arms. “Wait, you don’t have a problem with the gay thing, do you? Because Ella is amazing, I’m amazing, our relationship is amazing, and I will eat you.” 

He looked vaguely panicked now, though not at the prospect of being eaten. “No, I don’t have a problem with your relationship. In fact, the two of you seem to be better suited for each other than most teenage couples.” 

Anna resisted the urge to mention that neither of them were teenagers. The last thing she wanted to do was to tell her girlfriend’s presumably long lost brother that Ella was alive without her permission. God, when did her life become so complicated? 

She laughed. “I’m glad you think so. I know Ella’s a bit self conscious, especially since she doesn’t know how her mother is going to react. We’re keeping it on the down low for now.” 

Alaric looked like he was genuinely upset by that fact, but Anna could tell he was getting a better handle on his emotions by the second. She needed to shock something out of him, and quickly. “I mean, considering how her father reacted, I’m not surprised. Patricide is such an ugly way to trigger a werewolf curse.” Anna added.

He choked, his eyes widening. “I beg your pardon?” Oh, he sounded almost British now - the pronunciation of the words slipping out differently in his state of shock. 

Anna leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell your drinking buddy you heard this from me, but the night of the Lockwood party, Ella’s dad was stuck down in the basement with the vampires. Turns out the founder’s council’s device affected werewolves too.” 

“We went down to find my mom. Things got heated, and long story short, Richard found out about us. Threatened me, and Tyler too. He always was an abusive asshole, though. I left with my mom, and next thing I knew, Ella was coming up the stairs, having triggered her curse. I didn’t need to be a genius to figure it out.” 

It was an open secret among the group that Richard Lockwood’s death had come at the hands of one of his children. Them triggering their curses the same night as his death was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Caroline had been in the car with Tyler, so she knew definitively that Ella had to have been the one to kill him. As far as Anna could tell, the rest of them merely suspected. 

She was certain none of them would fault Ella, but especially not Damon. The strange way he had reacted to Richard suggested his father had behaved in a similar manner to the late mayor. Well, he could join the club. Anna’s father hadn’t exactly been a prince herself. She had been grateful when her mother had killed him. 

But more importantly, the man who had raised Ella in her first life, the viking Mikael, had been worse than even Richard. And the brunt of that rage had been focused on one person in particular. A person who would react a certain way to an abusive father being killed.

“I think she did it for Tyler, deep down. You know Ella. She’d do anything to protect her brother.” Anna smiled, watching the man whose identity she could confidently say she knew, who looked torn between a sort of vindictive pleasure and a deep, sad jealousy.

Because he was the kind of person who was jealous of how deep Ella’s affections for her newfound brother ran. Jealous that she had killed his abuser for him, yet glad neither of them had to suffer any longer. A vindictive, vampiric streak every rumor about him suggested conflicted with the deep heart Ella’s stories showed he had. 

Anna had to say, Klaus Mikaelson was a great deal more complicated than the great evil she had expected him to be. 

But then again, what else could she expect from her girlfriend’s twin brother?

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: When Lies Pile Up (The Truth Comes Out)

“Must you read such trite, sister?” 

Ella looked up from her book at Elijah, who was sitting stiffly in a chair in the Lockwood living room, not a wrinkle in his suit. He wrinkled his nose at the book - an old, faded comic book with tape holding the pages together - and Ella couldn’t help but roll her eyes. 

“It’s one of the best stories in modern history! The hero’s son is back from the dead, but the very thing used to raise him twisted his mind and left him hellbent on breaking his father’s code against killing and taking over Gotham himself. And he tried to kill one of his brothers. It seemed appropriate.” 

Elijah laughed. “Clearly, you feel passionately about these… comic books.” He said the words with, in Ella’s mind, an undeserved vitriol. 

“You need to broaden your horizons, brother. You can’t keep listening to Bach and reading Shakespeare forever. I mean, they’re great, but it’s kind of elitist.”

“You were born a Lockwood in this life, Eleanora. I think you can safely count yourself as one of the elite. And I seem to recall you mentioning you were French royalty in the 1600s.”

Ella had never been able to talk so openly about her life experiences. It was nice, falling back into the pattern of teasing that the Mikaelson siblings had, all those years ago. “I was a peasant far more than I was noble, which is more than can be said for the rest of you. Did Kol really seduce Anne Boelyn?” 

And as her and Elijah bickered back and forth, she could almost forget his intentions. She could almost block out the picture of Nik’s body, bloody and felled by their elder brother’s blade. Almost, but not quite. 

~~

Bonnie Bennett sighed at the sight of her boyfriend’s retreating form. Things had been difficult between her and Matt lately, ever since she had taken on Jules and her pack of werewolves to save Damon and Stefan’s sorry asses. 

She liked Matt, she really did. He was the first boy she had ever really dated, excluding the week her and Kyle from summer camp had made out behind the counselors cabins, or all the love letters Jeremy Gilbert had given her when they were younger. 

But still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was… off? She was debating going to her Grams for advice. She knew Matt was only trying to have her best interests at heart, but, even so, it was really grating when he kept trying to tell her that using her magic was too dangerous. 

Last she checked, she was the one with the magic powers. Her whole life, she had felt aimless, like nothing more than Elena Gilbert’s best friend. When she got her powers, she had gotten a purpose. She had inherited a legacy - the Bennett family legacy, the legacy of the world’s most powerful magical bloodline. And she could use that power to help Mystic Falls.

She liked Matt, she really did, but she didn’t appreciate him telling her how to use her magic. He couldn’t understand what it was like to have this fire burning under your skin, begging to be unleashed. 

And Bonnie was starting to think he never would. 

“Where did Donovan go?” Damon asked, entering the bedroom she was sitting in and taking a sip of his perpetually-filled glass of whiskey. God, did that vampire have a drinking problem. 

“What, no nickname for him?” Bonnie asked, raising an eyebrow, and certainly not teasing him. Teasing was reserved for her friends. One of which Damon Salvatore was certainly not. 

“Nickname privileges are reserved for the hot or interesting people,” Damon smirked. “Witchy.” 

As he sped away, Bonnie couldn’t help the smile that crept up on her face.

~~

When Tyler had told Uncle Mason to bring them straight to the Salvatore Boarding House, he had hoped his little (older) sister would be there. In all honesty, he had thought that there was no way she wouldn’t be. Ella’s freaking insane levels of power were only matched by the sheer stupidity she showed time and time again as she thrust herself into danger. 

Was that a witch trait, or what? Bonnie was much worse, considering how she had thrust herself into the literal middle of a warzone to save Damon Salvatore from his own stupidity when he antagonized a pack of werewolves. 

Tyler hadn’t been there, so he didn’t exactly know all the details. What he did know was how much Matt had complained to him, talking about how it was impossible not to be insecure when his girlfriend had swooped in to save a vampire's life. 

Honestly, the dude had no reason to be insecure. Bonnie Bennet and Damon Salvatore? They hated each other. They would never be friends, let alone a thing . Hell would have to freeze over before something like that would happen. 

Witches were crazy, but apparently Ella didn’t feel a need to join the Mystic Falls Gang this time. Still, Tyler was glad he should up, answering his girlfriend’s 56 SOS texts, and guaranteeing that he would score later. Caroline was really hot when she was taking charge, and seeing her in the center of the room, giving everyone their marching orders made something in him stir. 

Caroline turned to Tyler. “Where’s Ella? Shouldn’t she be here to help with the planning? I specifically texted her she needed to come, and she swore she would! What gives?” 

Tyler couldn’t resist needling her, just a little. “You’re cute when you’re all riled up and ready to defend my sister, Forbes. But don’t worry, she can take care of herself. No need to be so high-strung.” 

Caroline’s fangs came out, and she almost growled as she sped over to Tyler. “Elena might die, the crazy vamp chick who’s weirdly obsessed with Stefan is unaccounted for, and Prom is about to be totally ruined! We’re in crisis mode, Lockwood. Make another joke, and I’ll make sure you never have any kids to make jokes to.” 

She flushed, sitting back down. Out of the corner of his eye, Tyler noticed Alaric looking at her with a sort of surprised, newfound respect, while clearly trying to hide his laughter behind his hands. If he was younger - and you know, not Alaric - he would have thought the other man was kind of into his girlfriend. Alaric turned to look at him, and glared. Tyler frowned. What was the other man’s problem.

He wasn’t normally surprised. Most guys had some sort of attraction to Caroline. He figured it was the bossiness. 

 “Ella’s on sick leave,” Anna said, her expression getting softer as she spoke of the other girl. “You know how antsy she gets before the full moon.” 

“Be careful, Carmilla, looks like blondie is going to go all fun police on your ass,” Damon idly leaned forward from his place on the couch, looking at Anna. 

“Can we all just focus?” Stefan said, looking tired. Honestly, Tyler couldn’t blame him - the poor guy had to live with Damon all the time. 

“Stefan’s right.” Elena chimed in from beside her boyfriend. “This isn’t helping anyone. But we do need all the help we can get if we’re going to face an enemy like Klaus. Are you sure Ella can’t come?” 

Tyler could feel the annoyance rise up in him. He liked Elena, he really did, but his sister had to come first. “Look, if Ella isn’t feeling good enough to be here, she’s useless, okay? When she was eight and broke her arm at the park, April Young passed out from the sight of the blood, so Ella was the one who walked all the way home and called the hospital.” 

“Besides, we’re wolves. The night of the full moon, we’ll turn. We’re going to be useless to you anyway. If my sister needs a break, let her take a goddamned break. Besides, she’s only fifteen. What could she do that a room of ten other people can’t?”

Matt whistled, and Bonnie elbowed him.

Mason smiled, taking a sip of the bourbon Damon had given him when he entered. “What my nephew said.”

But then Damon got a glint in his eye, and Tyler could feel dread building up in his throat. Damon had only ever looked that smug back when he had been going full-blown supervillain. Whatever was about to happen was not going to be good. 

“Is she?” Damon’s voice was quiet. 

“Is she what? What are you talking about?” Tyler asked. He had no clue what the hell Damon’s game was here. 

“Seriously Damon? We have more important things to worry about than your little power trips.” Bonnie said, sounding almost disappointed. 

“Oh, I promise this will be worth the wait, witchy. You see I overheard a really interesting conversation that our resident were-witch and Anabelle had with one Katherine Pierce. Most of it was sentimental boring stuff, but one thing stood out to me. A name. One that our dear friend Katherine called Ella Lockwood. Dottie Jones.”

Oh, fuck. Whatever Tyler had expected, this was way worse. He had no clue how Damon Salvatore, the worst possible person to know, had managed to stumble into the truth about who his sister was, but he had. He shared a glance with Anna, who looked even more pale than normal. The other girl looked down to her phone and started frantically typing something. 

“So at first I thought, maybe Katherine’s crazy! Or maybe Ella is one of those magical doppelgangers too. But then I realized that it didn’t add up. Because those two seemed to know each other. Katherine asked me about Ella, more than once. I don’t know exactly what your sister is, Lockwood, but she sure isn’t a fifteen year old novice witch.” 

“You know, I’m almost flattered, Damon. I didn’t know you thought so highly about me. Or that you’d spend so much time trying to… understand me and Katherine.” Almost on cue, everyone’s heads turned to look at Ella Lockwood, who had her arms crossed, and was leaning against the side of the door. 

There was something dark in her voice, something dark in her eyes. It was completely different from the sister he knew. Her tone, the way she managed to be so damn scary even wearing skinny jeans and a Beatles shirt, reminded him oddly of Elijah. 

He could dimly see Alaric leaning back in his chair like he was in physical pain, coming to some kind of realization. But as soon as that registered, it faded from his mind, absorbed as he was watching his sister, wondering what she would do next. 

Ella spread out her hands, her eyes glinting gold. “You had questions. Well, consider this an open forum. Ask away.” 

Chapter Text

“Mother will be expecting us to return shortly,” Nik said, leaning against the white oak tree, his gaze fixed petulantly at the sky. “What do you think we ought to do?” 

Eleanora rolled her eyes at her twin brother. “That depends. Will you be able to stop moping and whining about Tatia and Elijah sitting beside each other at the campfire last night?” 

The younger twin sat upright, indignant in only the way a boy of sixteen could be. “I was not whining! I was merely… expressing discontent.” 

She laughed. “And that was why your voice was as shrill as Rebekah’s when she ruined the hem of her favorite dress? No, brother. I don’t believe you for a second.” 

He could feel the familiar stirrings of fond exasperation rise up in him - the ones that only Eleanora was able to provoke. It was infuriating, her ability to decipher his every expression, predict his every move. “Do you think me a liar, sister?” 

“No, I think you reasonably upset by the machinations of that cunning shrew.” His twin grimaced, like what she said next physically pained her. “She is quite beautiful, too.” 

“Oh, do not pretend that you weren’t looking at her, just as Elijah and I were.” Nik seized the advantage, a rarity he scarcely possessed in his verbal spats with his sister.

“I was not,” Eleanora hissed, her cheeks a flaming red color. 

“I do not believe for a second,” he replied, content in his winning of the argument. Eleanora was many things - impulsive, arrogant, kind - but he knew she would never be able to truly surprise him. 

~~

Everyone’s eyes were on her. Why did she decide to make herself the center of attention, again? Oh, right. It had been because Damon had woken up and chosen today was the day to be an asshole and attempt to spill all her secrets. 

When Anna had texted her to come here, right now , this had been the last thing she’d expected. She thought maybe someone had died, or the council had invaded the house, or Caroline and Bonnie were having another weirdly heated argument about that Spanish soap opera they were obsessed with and needed someone to break up the fight.

First off: what the hell? Wasn’t she entitled to some sort of privacy? She was pretty sure that the Salvatores owed her that much, considering how she had solved the tomb vampire problem for them. 

And secondly: how had she not noticed that Damon had overheard her conversation with Katherine? For that matter, how hadn’t Anna spotted Damon? She exchanged a glance with her girlfriend, who looked as lost and pissed as she did. 

She tried her best to avoid the glances of the others as she walked into the center of the room. Tyler, sympathetic and worried. Damon, vaguely smug. Uncle Mason, looking at her like he didn’t know her at all. Alaric, who was still being weird for some god-forsaken reason that she really didn’t care to find out now. Elena, who looked completely shocked. 

With all the seats in the room full, Ella sat on top of the desk in the corner of the room, hoping that her newfound superiority in height would give her some kind of confidence. Weirdly enough, it seemed to be working. 

“What the hell is going on?” Matt demanded, looking so completely bewildered that Ella had to laugh. 

“Oh, that’s an easy one. Damon’s decided to be a complete dick and miserably fail at his attempts to spill my secrets, despite the fact that I saved him from the tomb vampires not two months ago. And the fact that he and his brother have multiple secrets of their own.” 

“I don’t know about secrets-” Stefan started. 

“Keep talking, ripper, and I’ll tell them about the mess you left in Montreal in 1917. I should know, I was there.” 

Stefan, wisely, shut up, though he didn’t look as angry as Ella expected him to be, more guilty. In all honesty, it made her feel the tiniest bad for going after him like that. 

“What do you mean, you were there?” Mason asked. “I was there the day you were born, Ella. I drove Carol to the hospital after my brother was too much of a dick to do it himself. That was in 1994. There’s no way you were alive, like eighty years before that.”

Ella sighed, feeling the anger drain out of her. “I mean, I was there, Uncle Mace. I saw the carnage, helped clean up after, and died not two weeks later in the mob violence that followed. And right after that, I was born again. In London.”

“What the hell?” Caroline’s mix of shock, awe, and anger seemed to reflect the general tone of the room. “How is that even possible?”

Bonnie shot straight up, like she had been struck by lightning. “My grams gave me a grimoire a couple of weeks ago. In it, they mentioned that when a witch casts a really dark and powerful spell around the souls of the recently dead, sometimes it tethers the souls to life. It means that they can’t go to the Other Side, so they keep being reborn. Over and over again.” 

Bonnie’s words were near verbatim what Doris said. Just how many people knew about reincarnations? Though it wouldn’t surprise her that the Bennetts had had all the knowledge. They were, after all, the greatest witch coven in history, however slim their numbers might be now.

Bonnie turned to Ella, looking at her for the first time since she arrived. There was pity and some degree of understanding in her eyes. “ That’s why you were always so weird when we were kids. How you knew every answer to every test, never played with the other kids, and always seemed mature for your age . You’re a reincarnation, aren’t you?” 

Ella laughed, a watery thing. “Leave it to a Bennett to figure it out. Why am I not surprised? You are a credit to your ancestors, Bonnie.” 

“Wait, how old are you?” Stefan interjected. “Have we met before, you know, except for the Montreal thing?”

“Actually, Katherine asked me to use my magic to spy on you once, in the sixties. She’s freakishly obsessed with you. You should be worried. But besides that, no. I only started being born again in North America in the 20th century. Before then, it was exclusively Europe for centuries. I normally died young and brutally, so I’ve been to every country imaginable.” 

She snorted when she saw the complete shock on everyone’s faces. Clearly, they hadn’t been expecting just how old she was. “Yes, I’m older than all of you here. Put together, too. What would it be?” She closed her eyes, considering. “I’ll be one thousand and thirty-four this June, I think. We didn’t really keep track of time too well back then. And we didn’t follow the Christian calendar.” 

“So who did you piss off enough to condemn you to an eternity of painful deaths?” Damon asked, having been uncharacteristically silent the entire time. His tone was falsely bright and vaguely sympathetic - his version of an apology. Clearly, he hadn’t expected to unearth centuries of residual trauma.

In all honesty, Ella wasn’t sure what Damon had expected. But she wanted him to suffer a bit. So she answered him, as bluntly as possible. 

“My mother. Let me say, it’s not been a fun ten centuries. I died in some brutal ways. In the blitz. Ivan the Terrible’s attack on Novgorod. French revolution. Tripping and falling down the stairs, which was just embarrassing, honestly. Wherever Esther is, I hope she’s rotting in hell.” 

From his spot in the corner, Alaric’s face was completely drained of color. 

~~

The hunger was the worst part. Burning, never-ending hunger for the flesh and blood of the people they had once shared a village with. Kol had already succumbed to their newfound bloodlust, tearing through every last man in a nearby hunting party sent to contain them. 

Finn had fallen into awful, heaving sobs, so utterly raw and unlike the brother he knew that he had turned away out of respect. He hadn’t left his little cave in days, hadn’t so much as spoken a word to anyone. 

Rebekah and Elijah had sat side by side, a vigil by Henrik and mother’s body. They had insisted on bringing them on the ship they had taken, even with father - with Mikael - chasing after them. It was sentimental foolishness, he told himself, and that was certainly not something he’d tolerate. Not anymore.

“We waited for you, Nik. To burn Eleanora’s… She wouldn’t have wanted it if you weren’t there.” Rebekah was speaking, but the words she was saying barely made an impact. 

“I suspect she didn’t want to be dead. Besides, her wishes don’t particularly matter, do they? She’s gone! Through her body in the sea, for all I care.” Klaus had never raised a voice at his youngest sister (youngest sibling, now), but now seemed as good a time as any to start. 

Her eyes filled with tears. “Nik, you don’t mean that!” 

“I suspect he does, sister.” Kol interjected, shooting his half-brother the dirtiest glare he could muster. “But Nora had a warrior's heart, so she will get a warrior’s pyre. Nik be damned.” 

Funny. That was exactly how he felt, losing two siblings and his mortality in a fell swoop. Truly, this was all his mother’s fault. He was glad he killed her. 

~~

There were a great many things that Klaus Mikaelson blamed his mother for. Stripping him and his siblings of their humanity, for one. Lying to him about his parentage, for another. And today, he had found yet another reason to despise the creature that had called herself his mother. 

Yet stuck, paralyzed in this undeniably human body, he was unable to do anything. His vision was hazy, and breathing felt rather like an unnecessary hassle. (Truly, how did humans live? Their bodies were ridiculous.) He sat in silence, replaying the words she had said. 

“Wherever Esther is, I hope she’s rotting in hell.” 

“He’s my brother. I’ll always have his back.”

Bloody hell. His mind slowed to a grinding halt, and when he looked down, his hands were trembling. It had been a nervous tick that Mikael had always faulted him for, one that came out in times of stress. He had been rid of it for centuries. 

It shouldn’t have been possible. And yet it was. 

Eleanora was alive.