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Chapter Text

The day after she gets home from being kidnapped, Elena wakes up screaming and scrabbling at her throat.

She is surprised to discover that she lives still.

And it is only after she calms down that she realises that there is no reason for her to think that she had just been hanged.

Let’s go back a little bit.

In September, a new boy starts school. His name is Stefan Salvatore and he is a vampire.

Elena discovers this and her life gets infinitely more complicated alongside the discovery that there is a centuries-old vampire who shares her face.

In December she finds out that this vampire, Katherine, is not trapped in a tomb underneath the old church as they had all thought.

In January, the twins Cole and Rebecca Gerard start school after moving to town with their older brother, an artist who wants to paint the local scenery. It will not be until months later that anyone finds it suspicious that no one has met him.

In February, Founder’s Day happens, and in all the chaos surrounding Caroline’s transition, no one realises that the twins have vanished, despite Rebecca and Caroline’s friendship, and them both promising to help with the Parade.

A little over a week later the twins show up again with a thousand apologies spilling from their lips and an explanation about a family emergency. Caroline is too busy being relieved that she has her bloodlust under control to find it strange that she isn’t tempted to drink from them.

In March, Katherine threatens to rip the town apart until it rains blood unless she gets the moonstone.

Lucy Bennett casts a spell that links the two doppelgängers together. She does not know that it will do more than just physically link them. She tries to break it. And while it appears to work, it is not without consequence.

The next day, Elena wakes up in a strange room with two vampires that she doesn’t know. When she hears them talking about someone named Elijah, something in her relaxes without her understanding why. The woman tells her that Elijah is her worst nightmare, but something in Elena rebels at a soul-deep level at the idea of being frightened of him.

She manages to get a little more information from the two, but nothing that can explain why she’s so certain that this Elijah isn’t dangerous to her. And when they talk about Katherine, something deep inside her is certain that they’re wrong. But she doesn’t know why, or even what it is that they’re wrong about. Just that when they talked about her that they were wrong.

She finds a note from Bonnie, telling her that Stefan and Damon are coming, and her first reaction is relief. Except, on some level, she doesn’t want them to rescue her. She wants to see Elijah. And she cannot explain why.

When the man – Trevor – panics because Elijah has arrived, Elena feels the tension she’s been feeling since she first woke up in this strange house melt away. Rose is trying to calm Trevor, but Elena ignores them, too busy trying to figure out what it is about this stranger that makes her so certain that he won’t harm her. She doesn’t know who he is, she’s never even seen him, but a voice in the back of her head whispers that Elijah is to be trusted.

There’s a knock on the door, so loud that Elena can hear it. And it’s only then that she truly figures out why the vampires are so jittery. It’s not just that they’re worried about pissing him off again. They’re scared.

Rose tells them to be quiet and leaves and Elena cocks her head to the side in a considering manner that predates her birth by two millennia. Trevor paces. 

Elena’s spent enough time around vampires by now to be able to pick up that Trevor is listening in to whatever Rose and Elijah are saying. Carefully, slowly, Elena sits back down on the sofa, perching on the edge of it. A whisper in her own voice, deep in the recesses of her mind, tells her to be ready to run if she has to. Trevor cannot be trusted. 

All the while, Elena remains certain that should the worst happen, and Trevor attack her, she need only get within eyesight of Elijah and she will be safe. This certainty is perhaps the most unsettling part of all. 

Elena has been keeping one eye on the pacing vampire and one on the door, so she notices immediately when his shoulders sag in relief. Her eyes snap to the doorway, and Rose appears, with a handsome man in a suit right behind her. Elena locks eyes with him and feels every cell in her body relax because something about his gaze makes her feel safe. She is instantly alarmed that this stranger makes her feel safer than any other vampire ever has and only distantly registers the barely perceptible surprise on his face that she doesn’t realise is unreadable to most. She stands, unable to prevent herself from trying to get closer, where she’ll be safer, and then he’s in front of her, with a soft whoosh of air ruffling their hair. 

Elena opens her mouth to speak but her words dry up as he leans closer to her. For an instant she is certain that he is going to kiss her and every instinct she has starts screaming that this is wrong. And then the moment passes and his nose is at her neck and she relaxes, again, at the knowledge that he is checking her for humanity. 

“Human.” He breathes, his exhale raising goosebumps on her neck before he raises his head to look at her again, “It’s impossible.” He takes a minuscule step back. “Hello there.”

Elena’s heart is racing and she opens her mouth before closing it wordlessly. What does she say to this man that she has never met before, who is somehow, impossibly, as familiar to her as her best friends, her own brother.

“We have a long journey ahead of us.” Elijah says, stepping closer again, “We should be going.”

There are so many things Elena could say to that as he steps away from her again, ignoring her in favour of whatever task is next on his list. Why are you here? Where are you taking me? What about the moonstone? But she doesn’t say any of them. Instead, what slips out of her mouth is, “Why do I know you?”

Elijah’s head snaps around to look at her.

“I know you.” Elena repeats, “How is that possible?”

Elijah tilts his head to the side in interest, “An intriguing question.” He murmurs. His gaze darts down to her chest and then back up, “What’s your name?”

For a full three seconds Elena just looks at him blankly. Why did Elijah just stare at her boobs? She’s fairly certain she’s not even his type?

He raises an eyebrow at her and she abruptly realises that he just asked her a question. “Elena,” she says belatedly, a hand creeping up to grasp at her necklace in an unconscious action that somewhere along the line became a self-soothing habit, “I’m Elena.”

And suddenly she realises two things in quick succession. Firstly, that it hadn’t been her breasts that Elijah had looked at – it had been the vervain in a necklace around her neck, pendant hanging down to her cleavage. And secondly, that she hates that she’s become so reliant on an object that can so easily be taken away that she has developed the habit of checking it is still there.

Elijah’s eyebrow ticks and the corner of his mouth twitches and Elena is certain that he somehow knows exactly what she’d just been thinking and finds it amusing. She squashes her panic at the idea that she’s so easy to read and tries to ignore the voice in her head that sounds exactly like her that is insisting that she go with him.

“Before we continue,” he drawls, giving her a brief once over that is far more assessing than appreciative, “There’s a piece of business I must attend to.” He turns away and moves towards Trevor, before glancing at her over his shoulder, “Don’t go anywhere.” He tells her in a tone that she refuses to believe is teasing for the shreds of her sanity that she is still desperately trying to cling to amid the multitude of voices and impressions in her head that feel and sound like her but aren’t.

“I’ve waited so long for this day, Elijah.” Trevor says earnestly, bowing his head but not dropping his eyes from Elijah’s face. “Truly, I’m very sorry.”

Elijah takes measured steps until he is almost behind the younger vampire, “Oh no, your apology’s not necessary.” He says dismissively, and Elena doesn’t know what it is that she sees in his face but something in it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and a feeling of foreboding creep up her spine. She is suddenly certain that Trevor will not leave this room alive.

“Yes.” Says Trevor, nodding slightly, “Yes it is.” Elijah moves around behind him, circling slowly – he is the hunter and Trevor the prey. “You trusted me with Katerina,” Trevor continues talking, oblivious to the danger he is still in, “And I failed you.”

Elijah finishes his circle and hums in agreement. “Why yes, you are the guilty one.” Elijah agrees with him. He stops his movement and turns to face Trevor whose eyes are now fixed on the floor, “Rose aided you because she was loyal to you – that I honour.” He pauses, the silence heavy as he moves to stand directly in front of Trevor and look him in the eyes before he asks the next question that Elena somehow knows by heart, “Where was your loyalty?”

Trevor shakes his head slightly and drops his gaze. He manages to lift it again and speaks, voice trembling, “I beg your forgiveness.”

Elijah tilts his head to the side, assessing him and Elena knows, although she cannot see his eyes, that he is debating how he wants to perform his next move. He stills almost imperceptively and Elena pre-emptively flinches, knowing exactly what is coming.

“So granted.” Elijah says evenly, and then as Trevor starts to smile, between one instant and the next, Trevor’s head is gone, lying on the floor, the side of Elijah’s hand wet with his blood.

Elena stares in shock even as Rose wails, she knew it was coming but the speed, the casualness of the movement; the ease with which Elijah had killed Trevor – it shakes her to her core, and if she ever had any doubt that Elijah was the most dangerous vampire she’s ever met, (second most dangerous the voice that sounds like her but isn’t whispers – a voice which is somehow different to the one urging her to trust him even though they sound exactly the same) it died with Trevor.

Rose takes a step forward and Elijah doesn’t even look at her when he says, “Don’t,” he continues wiping the blood off his hand with a handkerchief, “Now that you are free.”

She trembles, tears pouring down her face but she stills and doesn’t move at the reminder that her life was spared by the skin of her teeth. 

“Well, Elena?” Elijah steps towards her and offers his hand like the gentleman he isn’t. 

“No.” Elena says and doesn’t move, yet another voice that is but isn’t her approving of her standing her ground while one of the others yearns for her to go with him. 

Elijah raises an eyebrow. “No?” He says incredulously. Apparently he’s out of practice at being denied. 

“I want answers.” She tells him. “And I have information that I think you’ll want.”

He half laughs. “Are you negotiating with me?” He looks at Rose. 

Still breathing in little gasps of pain and wiping her eyes she manages to get out a strained, “I don’t know what she’s talking about. If she knows something beyond what I’ve told her then it’s the first I’ve heard of it.” 

Elijah hums. “I could just rip that necklace off your neck and compel you to tell me what you know and come with me.” He reminds her idly. 

“You won’t.” Elena says, somehow soul deep certain of the fact. The voices that are her-but-not unanimously agree for the first time since she became aware of them. Although she’s starting to wonder if maybe they’ve always been there and she’s just never pinpointed them as other before. Some of them feel too familiar and too similar to things she’s thought before and the caution that she’s been practising since Wickery Bridge for her to be sure. 

“No.” He agrees, “I won’t. But how do you know that?”

Elena opens her mouth and then closes it again. She shakes her head, “I don’t know.” She admits, “I just do. The same way that I know that you’re Elijah and that you’re safe. That some part of me desperately wants to go with you but another is terrified of the possibility.” Elijah raises an eyebrow at the words spilling out of her mouth and one of the voices that is her-but-not pushes her on because this man is ancient and he could have the answers that she so desperately needs right now. “The same way I know what it means when you raise your eyebrow like that, or when your mouth twists just so. But I don’t know why or how I know these things. I just do.” She shuts her mouth and closes her eyes and exhales, schooling her breathing to calmness the way that she always has that she is only now realising is influenced by one of the voices that is but isn’t her.

When she opens her eyes again Elijah is staring at her with something unreadable in his eyes. “How many siblings do I have?” he asks her.

“Six.” She answers automatically, even while wondering at the strange question, except… “Four,” she corrects, “The others died.”

“A fact that until today only five people alive knew, to the best of my knowledge.” He tells her flatly, but something in her insists that there’s a lie in his words somewhere, she just doesn’t know where the lie is. She can’t stop her frown.

“Как се чувстваш?” He asks her. How do you feel?

“Уморен съм.” She replies automatically. I’m tired. It’s only after she’s answered that she realises the words were not in English. She touches her mouth in fearful shock, unsure what just happened. She opens and shuts her mouth, frowning, mouthing the words she just said and trying to understand how she knew them. Trying to figure out how she understood what Elijah said to her. Trying to figure out what language that even was. She looks up to see him still watching her, Rose still standing behind him next to her friend’s corpse, squinting at her. “I don’t speak Bulgarian.” She tells them, honestly but with her heart beating a fearful drum in her chest, almost certain they will think she is lying. After all, how on earth would she have just answered him like that if she didn’t. (Моето дете croons one of the voices in her head in a familiar tone, and somehow Elena knows what it is saying in that voice that sounds just like her but isn’t in a language that she shouldn’t understand but somehow does.)

Elijah examines her face, head tilted ever so slightly to the side in a way that says he’s listening to the way her heart is pounding. “I believe you.” He says with barely any hesitation.

Elena doesn’t quite sag in relief, but that’s only because a pride that both is and isn’t hers won’t let her show any more weakness than she has to and will not allow her to show relief at being believed when she wasn’t lying.

Elijah tilts his head towards Rose slightly, debating something. The voice that loves and trusts him and wants to go with him whispers that he doesn’t trust her and is deciding whether to make her leave or not.

“What is the information that you think I want?” he asks her after a long moment, voice deceptively calm. Elena doesn’t need the warning from one of the voices that sounds like her but isn’t to know that he won’t react well to being denied again.

“If I tell you, you’ll tell me why I know these things that I shouldn’t?” she asks him a little desperately, part of her soul-deep certain that if she does not extract the promise from him in the right words then she will be denied.

His face hardens, “Tell me the information and I’ll tell you what I know.” He says and takes a single step towards her.

Despite herself, Elena takes a step back, before setting her jaw, squaring her shoulders and standing her ground. The look Elijah gives her at that is almost impressed approval.

“I know you that you need the moonstone. And I know where it is.” She pauses. “I can help you get it.”

Elijah takes another step towards her. “Tell me where it is.” His voice is too soft for it to quite be an order, but Elena has to suppress a shiver anyway.

“In a tomb, underneath the ruins of a church in Mystic Falls.” She pauses, unsure whether to reveal the next part, but the her-that-isn’t that crooned at her in Bulgarian urges her on with something almost like amusement, “It’s with Katherine – she’s trapped there.”

Elijah hums and takes another step closer, “Interesting.”

Before he can say anything else or she can demand that he now tell her what he knows about the voices in her head that are but aren’t her and know things that she shouldn’t, there’s the sound of something breaking. Elijah immediately breaks the eye contact that Elena hadn’t realised they’d been holding and steps back, looking in the direction the noise came from. She’s torn between relief and regret and tries to ignore the fact that neither of those feelings really feel like they belong to her.

“What is that?” he asks Rose, not looking at her.

“I don’t know,” she replies immediately, voice still hoarse from grief, but more composed than before.

He turns away from whatever he’s listening to, to look at Rose, “Who else is in this house?” he draws out the last word in a way that Elena instinctively knows is dangerous, but she doesn’t move away. She still doesn’t know how, but she knows that he will protect her and that she’s safe with him.

“I don’t know.” Rose says again, more forcefully this time. Elena believes her, but Elijah doesn’t quite. (he doesn’t trust her sing-songs one of the voices that sounds like her but isn’t)

She has an inkling of who it might be, remembering the note that she’d found in Bonnie’s handwriting. But she doesn’t want to leave yet. She needs the answers that Elijah has. The answers that he promised to give her. And she doesn’t want him dead. The very idea wrenches at her heart and she doesn’t know whether it is her or the voice that sounds like her but isn’t and trusts him implicitly. But she also knows that he won’t hesitate to kill people that cross him. She didn’t need to see poor Trevor’s fate to know that.

“They were alone.” She blurts out, causing him to look at her again, and she sees Rose sagging slightly the second his gaze is off her, “The whole time I’ve been here it’s just been her and Trevor.”

Elijah looks back at her. “Is that so?” he murmurs, then suddenly he’s right in front of her, their faces inches apart, “What are you hiding?”

And Elena is abruptly reminded that he can read her as well as she can read him, if not better.

His eyes drop to where she’s unconsciously hidden the note behind her back in clenched fists and dart back to her face. She knows that he knows that she’s feeling guilty. His gaze hardens and Elena knows that he feels a little guilty for what he’s going to do next but does not regret it.

Before she can blink, he’s pulled her into his arms, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other cupping her head to his chest, just so. Elena can hear his heartbeat. She breathes in his scent and counts his breaths as he moves them to the middle of the room. She is horribly aware that in this position he can break her neck with barely a thought. But all she can think about is how safe she feels in his arms, feeling his heartbeat. It’s perfectly calm, barely accelerated and beats a steady thump-thump-thump-thump that feels as familiar to her as lying curled up with Jeremy and watching his chest rise and fall as they simply cling to each other, locking away the outside world, if only for a little while.

“Excuse me,” Elijah calls out, his hold on her as gentle as it is immovably strong. She doesn’t try to move, just keeps counting his breaths as she feels the words reverberate through his torso, “To whom it may concern, you’re making a great mistake.”

Elena shuts her eyes as she feels more than she hears the tell-tale whoosh of someone moving around at super-speed.

“Rose.” Elijah says dangerously.

“I don’t know who it is, I swear.”

Elena feels him tense slightly, his grip on her waist tightening imperceptively. “Leave.” He tells her, “And if you betray me, or any one of us again, you will not like the consequences.” He promises.

“I understand.” She says, tremulously, “Thank you, Elijah.”

There is a pause that Elena guesses is her staring at Trevor’s body for the last time before a tell-tale whoosh lets Elena know that she’s gone.

“How many?” Elijah whispers into the ear that is not pressed against his chest.

Elena squeezes her eyes shut even tighter and turns a little further into his embrace, craving the safety she has not felt since the day the car drove off Wickery Bridge and she woke to the knowledge that her parents were gone. “Two.” She breathes after a long moment, “Please don’t hurt them. They’re my friends, they just want to help me out and keep me safe.”

His grip tightens for a moment, almost enough to hurt, before he relaxes it again, “Do you not feel safe with me?” he asks her, that tone in his voice that she refuses to believe is teasing giving his words an almost amused lilt.

“Please, Elijah.” She says, voice breaking, her fists tightening in his jacket, wondering just how long she’d been clinging to him without noticing. (Elijah, whispers the part of her that trusts him, Elijah, agrees the part of her that doesn’t quite)

He lets go of her waist and uses his now free hand to tilt her face up to look at him, cupping her head in both hands. It has the dual effect of stopping Stefan and Damon from trying anything and making her meet his eyes. For a long moment they just stare at each other, something indescribable and old and familiar passing between them. She knows what he’s going to say before he says it, somehow. And he knows that she knows. He says it anyway for the benefit of their audience.

“How about a deal, lovely Elena?” Elijah raises his voice slightly so that its almost conversational in tone, but does not look away from her, “I will let you go back to your generous protectors and devoted friends. And in, let’s say, a week?” he hums, “Five days, I will return and answer your questions to the best of my ability and tell you what I know about your… situation.” He smiles as he says the last word, and for some reason the almost mischievous look in his eyes reminds her of Cole when he’s messing with his twin and Rebecca that time she’d shut down the Fell cousins at the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant when they were trying to get a rise out of the other contestants.

“And in return?” Elena asks, because a deal goes both ways, and there’s no way he doesn’t want something from her too. The part of her that stands her ground and refuses to bow her head, murmurs in approval.

Elijah smiles, and Elena thinks that if she were anyone else, that smile would terrify her. “In return,” he says smoothly, “You will give me the moonstone and answer any questions that I have for you honestly and completely, without holding anything back.”

Elena blinks slightly, sure there is a catch somewhere that she’s not quite seeing, but not knowing what it is, other than the obvious fact that he wants to break a curse and needs her to die to do so.

“So, what do you say?” Elijah asks, eyes twinkling with what she could almost call amusement, “Имаме ли сделка, Елена?”

She shivers slightly at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth in that smooth, almost seductive tone as he drops his voice to a murmur that she has no doubt Stefan and Damon can hear, even if they don’t understand.

Even though she does and still does not know why.

She wants those answers, desperately. And she knows that if she says ‘no’, there’s no guarantee she’ll ever see her brother or Caroline or Bonnie again. So, in the end, regardless of the part of her that feels safer with him than she has in months, or the part that warns her that he’s dangerous and that trusting him could kill her, her choice is easy. “Да, ние правим.” She tells him, yes, we have a deal.

His lips twitch into a smile that she doesn’t think anyone else would recognise. “Then I will see you in five days, Elena.” His voice is a caress as he lets go of her, and he’s gone before she can blink or register the lack of his touch or the fact that she misses it.

Stefan and Damon are immediately before her, and she hugs Stefan as soon as he’s in reach. She thanks them for coming for her and they interrogate her about what happened and why she made that deal. When they find out about the curse and what’s required to break it, they don’t react well and are furious that she’s agreed to meet Elijah again. She doesn’t have the words to explain to them that she trusts him implicitly or that a part of her knows that no matter what, she will die to break this curse, and she would rather do it willingly than be dragged screaming again, (and she doesn’t know where that ‘again’ comes from but knows soul-deep that it’s true) so she doesn’t even try. They come to the conclusion that she must have been compelled somehow. She just lets them fuss over her and talk and answers the questions they ask almost mechanically, trying to process what happened in that house and the new awareness she has of the voices that are her-but-not that linger in her head. Voices that she’s almost certain have always been there, she’s just never noticed them before, because they sound just like her.

After they get back home and Elena has hugged Jeremy and Bonnie and they’ve all cried in relief, she goes to her room and pulls out the half-used sketchbook that she’s mostly only used for school projects. She has the sudden urge to draw but doesn’t know what or why. She puts a pencil to the paper anyway, and when she looks at what she’s drawn, nearly two hours later, it’s her own face staring back at her. Except she’s wearing an expression that Elena’s never seen on her face before and clothes that belong in a history textbook or historical artwork. She hastily shuts the book and reaches for her journal, desperate for a way to untangle the mess in her head that the sketch only made worse.

Later, when she falls into bed exhausted, she dreams.

She dreams of being the oldest that she’s ever been. Of being the grandchild of a slave and the daughter of a maroon.

She dreams of being married and in love and risking everything because the injustice burns in her veins and just because she is free that does not mean she can stand by and allow others to remain in chains. Of knowing exactly what price her family paid for her to grow up not knowing the feel of chains or the slave master’s whip. Of being an affranchi in Saint-Domingue and sheltering runaway slaves in her husband’s household.

She dreams of plotting an uprising and a revolution with people who have been lifelong friends of her family or her husband’s and being dragged out of her home by her hair only days after Bois Caïman in an attempt to cow the revolting slaves. Of fighting the men dragging her up the steps to the gallows, their hands iron bands around her arms as she screams desperately for her children: her beautiful little boy, and her dear, darling daughter.

She dreams of watching her entire family become martyrs for their cause as they are executed as an example of what happens to those that plot rebellion and watching the slaves and maroons and affranchis in the crowd becoming angrier and angrier with every death and knowing that she’s next. Of seeing her sister-in-law in the crowd and meeting her eyes and sagging in relief, knowing that her children will be as safe and loved as they can be in this changing, violent, world and that they will grow up knowing that she loved them more than anything and that all of these choices that she’s made have been for them. Of letting the men guarding her lead her to the noose and holding her head high and proud as they put it around her neck. They do not bother with a hood and she doesn’t let her gaze waver or her lips tremble. She has nothing left to be afraid of as she watches her sister-in-law slip away as quietly and quickly as she can, knowing that it will not be much longer before the crowd before her boils over.

She dreams of looking her executioner in the eye and having him look away from the unapologetic defiance and accusation in her face.

She dreams of the noose tightening around her neck as the floor drops from underneath her but refusing to close her eyes or fight her fate any further.

She dreams of her last hopes and wishes for her children’s future and the knowledge that the deaths of her family and friends will not slow this revolution at all. It will only fan its flames further, an unnecessary and unneeded encouragement that changes nothing at all.

She dreams of dying.

Elena wakes up scrabbling at her throat and choking for air that is not denied to her and screaming, convinced that she has just been hanged.

It takes her a long moment to realise that it was not her who died that way.

It was Isabela.

And Isabela was a doppelgänger, like her.

Soul-deep she knows that this is just the beginning.

And she labels the voice in her head that is strong and defiant and does not back down, and that sounds exactly like her, Isabela.

Chapter Text

After Jeremy and Jenna come sprinting at the sound of her screams and Elena tries to reassure them that it was just a nightmare and Aunt Jenna believes her but Jeremy doesn’t, she sees that she has a message from Stefan asking her to come by before school. For lack of other things to do and unwilling to go back to sleep or lie in bed trying for fear of what she might see, Elena decides to go. She has hours yet before school.

She slowly showers and gets dressed, taking her time and trying to sort through all the memories that are hers but not, that are far clearer now than they were before. Some of them do not belong to Isabela either, and Elena tucks away the knowledge for later contemplation. She counts the different women that the memories belong to and gets as far as four and back to the first millennium AD before she stops because there’s still more and she doesn’t know if she wants to know how far back these memories go or how many women there have been with her face and her voice and difficult lives and tragic endings. She writes the names Rebeca and Nicolas in her journal anyway, a part of her wondering if there isn’t a way to look them up and find out what happened to Isabela’s children. And even if there isn’t, they should be remembered. She will remember them, for brave, defiant, furious Isabela, who died fighting for her children’s future and trying to right a wrong.

She hesitates before putting the necklace Stefan gave her back on, the ghost of the memory of the noose that killed Isabela still heavy on her neck. She remembers the way Elijah’s mouth had twitched when she had reflexively grabbed for the pendant and how horrible it had felt to be so dependent on something so easily snatched away and resolves to start drinking vervain or find some other way of getting the protection of vervain that is not as obvious or easily stolen as a pendant around her neck. She puts the necklace on anyway but wraps it several times around her wrist instead of its usual spot. It’s too much to put something that close to her throat right now; the memory of Isabela’s death is still too close for her to be comfortable with that.

She scribbles a quick note so that her aunt and brother don’t worry and snags her keys and a small bag as she heads out the door with her school things – she may as well try and grab some vervain from the Boarding House whilst she’s there.

It’s still dark when she knocks on the door, dawn is still at least half an hour away, and is greeted by a not entirely awake Damon. “Is Stefan here? He said to come over and that it was important.”

Damon squints at her then makes a big show at glancing at his empty wrist, “We weren’t expecting you for at least another hour and a half.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She tells him and lets him assume that it’s the kidnapping that’s bothering her.

He nods and opens the door wider in invitation, “Right this way.”

Stefan’s already in the living room when she gets there. He stands to greet her with his hands in his pockets, and she crosses her arms over her chest just in case to ward off any hug or kiss in greeting – they’re not back together and she doesn’t think they’re going to be any time soon. She’s planning on telling Elijah that she’ll go through with the sacrifice as soon as she next sees him, and Stefan would almost certainly have problems with that if he knew.

“Hey.” He says, moving slightly towards her.

“What is this about?” she asks, not making eye contact and adjusting the strap of her bag a little.

Stefan looks to the side and she follows his gaze and sees Rose.

A fury that doesn’t entirely belong to her and an irrational dislike that she’s sure is at least partially from the kidnapping rise up but she swallows them down and pretends her throat doesn’t hurt from holding back her words, “You.”

Rose half smiles half grimaces as she lifts her hand in a small, almost sheepish, wave.

Elena suppresses the first three responses she wants to use, despite one of the hers-that-isn’t egging her on in the back of her mind. Finally, when she’s sure that the next thing she says isn’t going to be scathing, she speaks, “Let’s get this conversation over with.” It’s less friendly than she wants but she honestly can’t bring herself to be that nice to Rose. The woman kidnapped her, she betrayed Elijah, and she apparently ran straight to Damon and Stefan after he pardoned her and warned her not to betray his family again. Elena cannot condone that. Not after Elijah showed her mercy. She absently wonders when she became so defensive of him, but the equally furious voice in the back of her head that urged her to go with him helps answer that at least a little bit. She knows a bit about that version of herself now. She remembers when Elijah was human and she loved him dearly alongside the rest of his family. Anyone that can betray the man that she knew then is deserving of disdain.

Elena is not stupid enough to think that over a thousand years is not enough to change a person, but if what Stefan told Caroline about vampirism enhancing only what was already there is true, then at his core, Elijah is still the same man as he was then, simply with more atrocities to his name and a thousand years of experience. (In more than one way, Слънчице hums the part of her that doesn’t trust him at all)

Elena sits on the sofa and stares at her ex-boyfriend, his brother, and the vampire who kidnapped her silently.

“She said she can help us.” Stefan tries to explain, ever trying to be the peacemaker. Elena doesn’t deign that with a response, the part of her that is Isabela loudly rolling her eyes – a woman that was only forgiven for her betrayal yesterday, already betraying the person that granted her that forgiveness? Either Rose is a very stupid vampire, or she’s blinded by searching for vengeance for what happened to Trevor. Or Elijah sent her and she’s working for him, a voice that is her-but-not at the back of her head whispers. It almost feels like Isabela but isn’t driven enough by fury. This her is too sad to be the woman that would have been happy to see the French burn.

“Look, Lexi said that Stefan was one of the good ones, and I trust her. And Trevor was my best friend, my brother, for over half a millennium.” Rose sits down opposite Elena and leans forward as though willing her to understand, “For five hundred years I lived with one person. And now he’s gone. Elijah is good for his word – he won’t break it. But he killed my best friend. And I am tired of running and being scared and I don’t want to live in fear of the fury of the Originals anymore. I don’t have anything left to lose but my life. And I owe it to Lexi to help out Stefan after she pulled my butt out of the fire more than once. So, yeah. I can help you. I want to help you. If only because you are not Katerina Petrova. What happened yesterday proved that. She would never have taken that deal.”

Elena does not correct Rose that she is exactly like Katherine. That they are the same person born five centuries apart in different circumstances. And that in her position, she’s certain that Katerina Petrova would have done the exact same thing. Because if there’s one thing that Elena has known her whole life and does not need one of the women that both are and are not her to tell her, it’s that knowledge is power. And if Elijah can tell her why this is happening, how she is remembering the lives of the women that came before her and shared her face and always had a tragic fate, then she will do whatever he asks of her and deal with the consequences. “So, what? Now you’re on my side? Your ‘best friend’ was going to eat me! You were willing to sell me like a lamb to slaughter for your freedom not even twenty-four hours ago and now you’re willing to risk it all over again to do a dead vampire a favour?” Elena doesn’t know enough, doesn’t remember enough to know what happened to Katherine yet, but she remembers the parents of the Originals at least a little and she knows about how your upbringing can affect you later and remembers Nik or Klaus or whatever he’s choosing to call himself now well enough to be able to guess what he might have done in revenge. And she will not risk the lives of everyone that she’s ever loved by arousing the fury of the children of Mikael and Esther. Not when she knows that there are no lengths that they will not go to for family. She was the same once after all. She still is.

“You don’t have to believe me.” Rose says, and Elena doesn’t. She’s torn fifty-fifty between the belief that Elijah sent Rose to spy on her to make sure that she’ll keep up her end of the deal and the idea that the five hundred plus year old vampire really is just that stupid and driven by revenge. “But I want to help.”

“And if she’s right, we need it.” Stefan adds, sitting down next to the older vampire. And oh, doesn’t that burn. That he’s willing to pick trusting Rose over listening to Elena, even if he doesn’t consciously realise it. Elena is at least the third doppelgänger to love a man with his face and every time it’s led to nothing but pain and heartbreak. You’d think they’d learn.

Elena grits her teeth. “Fine, Rose-Marie, I’m listening.”

And Rose sits up straight like she’s been electrified. “What did you just call me?”

Elena frowns, because she hasn’t actually done anything except agree. “Your name?” she says quizzically, finally putting her bag on the floor – she has a feeling this is going to be a long conversation.

“How did you know it?” she asks in a tone that would probably sound a lot more dangerous if Elena hadn’t watched Elijah use the same trick yesterday to far greater effect. “I don’t use my full name, I haven’t in centuries and no one has used it in front of you.”

Elena belatedly realises that Rose thinks that she’s been compelled by Elijah and tries to think quickly to avoid having to explain the dreams and memories and voices and knowledge that she doesn’t understand, even though by all rights Rose should still remember from yesterday. She doesn’t want to share that with the Salvatores yet. These women deserve better than to be scrutinised, whether or not they’re in her head, (a lie, perhaps suggests a part of her that she’s heard before and she is hesitant to label as Katherine, if only because she’s noticed a second voice that is similar enough in feeling and attitude that she doesn’t know how to tell them apart yet and isn’t actually sure which of them is the voice that crooned at her in Bulgarian and which of them never knew Elijah at all) so she draws on her inner Katherine and ignores the fact that her new knowledge suggests that she’s always had a part of her that is Katherine, she’s just never noticed, and lies, “Elijah used it, in the house.” She says, taking an educated guess from the fact that what she knows of him tells her that he always uses people’s full names.

“How do you know that?” Rose demands.

Elena hides the relief that she’d been right on the mark and rolls her eyes in a way that she knows would fit perfectly on Katherine, “Because I was there.” She says in her best duh tone, relying on the fact that Stefan and Damon hadn’t arrived yet and Rose was too distracted by Trevor’s death to remember it perfectly. Her father and Caroline’s mother had told them often enough how fallible the human memory is. She only hoped that the same was true of vampire memory. “He killed Trevor, you screamed, he told you not to try anything now that you had your freedom?”

“I- I don’t…” Rose frowns.

Elena holds up her wrist, displaying the pendant, “I’m not compelled, I have vervain. You probably just don’t remember clearly because you were so upset.”

Damon frowns, “Why aren’t you wearing it around your neck?”

Of course, of course Damon picked up on that and asked an inconvenient question and exactly the wrong moment. Has he ever not been inconvenient? She frowns slightly because that thought doesn’t feel quite like her and prodding it a little reveals that it’s a Katherine thought that’s slipped through without her noticing. She resolves to ignore the implications.

“Not now, Damon.” She tells him, praying that for once in his life he’ll listen, “I want to know what Rose has to say.”

He opens his mouth to object and Stefan shoots him a look and gestures for Rose to continue. Elena hides the way she wants to sigh in relief.

Rose looks between them briefly before looking back at Elena. She shrugs and folds her arms in a move that she knows Stefan will read as defensive but is actually more self-soothing than anything else and Rose takes that as her cue, standing up and starting to pace a little.

 “You have to understand,” she starts, “I only know what I’ve picked up over the years and I don’t know what’s true and what’s not true. That’s the problem with all this vampire crap. But Klaus, I know is real.”

Elena flexes her fingers slightly. She knows exactly who that is but doesn’t say anything yet because she shouldn’t. This is more knowledge that she shouldn’t know but somehow does. There’s a flash of memory, a blonde man with a dimpled smile and a double-image of running to him and loving him and running from him with bone-deep fear. “Who is he?” she asks the room at large, her answers hiding on the tip of her tongue. Elijah’s little brother. Freya’s favourite babysitter. Katherine’s second monster. The man that’s going to kill her.

“He’s one of the Originals,” says Damon, uncharacteristically serious, an expression on his face that she doesn’t quite understand. He flicks his brows up and down and smirks slightly, “He’s a legend.”

“From the first generation of vampires.” Stefan interjects, assuming Elena needs the explanation. She doesn’t correct him.

“Like Elijah?” she says instead.

“No.” Rose says, her voice exasperated. Elena has to struggle to keep her face straight when Rose draws out the word, because as far as she, or the voice that is probably Katherine, or the voice that knew him when he was human, know the only difference between Klaus and Elijah is that Elijah is nearly four years older and Klaus was the result of an affair, meaning he’s a hybrid. She knows that the her that knew them first was killed to curse him and that Elena’s blood is the key ingredient in the ritual that will break that curse.

“Elijah is the Easter bunny compared to Klaus.” Rose continues, ignorant to Elena’s thoughts. “He’s a foot soldier. Klaus is the real deal.”

Elena mentally makes a mark in the column for ‘Rose is working for Elijah’. If she knew them back when Katherine was human then she knew them both. And no one can spend more than ten minutes in their combined company without knowing that Elijah is the long-suffering indulgent elder brother always trying to clean up Klaus’s messes. So it was when they were human, so it continued in their immortal lives. Also, Rose appears to be conveniently forgetting that it is not the younger brother that she and Trevor spent five centuries running from.

“Klaus is known to be the oldest.” Stefan says seriously, looking at her sympathetically. Elena has to try very hard not to snort in an impulse that doesn’t entirely belong to her. Klaus has always been the quintessential middle child, even before they knew about Esther’s lies. Elena cannot believe that anyone who has ever met him in the company of one or more siblings hasn’t noticed that. (unless they’re too busy being scared or dying points out a dry, no-nonsense voice that she isn’t entirely sure she’s heard before but likes to think is what she would have been like if she became a mother)

She sits and thinks about it a little more until she’s sure she can get out her next sentence with a straight face. The inappropriate urge to laugh will not make the situation any easier. The voice that was egging her on earlier, the one that might be Katherine but might also be someone else, keeps pulling forward more memories that don’t quite belong to either of them, of Klaus being a pouty little brother to both Elijah and their dark-haired, ever-serious older brother that Elena can’t quite remember the name of just yet. She parses through some of the newer memories she has, the ones that belong to Isabela or the other doppelgängers that make her remember that things are a little more serious than the boy that one of the hers-but-not loved.

“Okay…” Elena finally says, “So, you’re saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after me?” She pointedly ignores the fact that as far as she or any of her other selves are aware, the oldest vampire is the one that is the most monstrous of them all and always was, even when they were human. She would rather be murdered horrifically another dozen times over than come face to face with Mikael again. The part of her that loves Elijah and Klaus and all of their siblings, trembles in fear and retreats. Elena might not remember yet, but she knows, soul-deep that there are only two people that she fears more than him.

“Yes!” says Rose.

“No.” says Stefan at nearly the exact same time as Elena looks between the two of them.

“What they’re saying is,” Damon interjects, “I mean, if what she’s saying is true…” Damon apparently cannot help himself and just has to jab at Rose.

“Which it is.”

“And you’re not just saying it so I don’t kill you.” Damon continues on, ignoring Rose’s interruption. Elena mentally disagrees that Damon is capable of killing her. He couldn’t even kill Katherine, who admittedly is an expert at survival and manipulation at this point. But Rose has at least fifty years on her. And unlike Katherine, she was running from Elijah’s net, not Klaus’s. Elena’s willing to bet that the older vampire is even better at survival than Katherine is, even if the Originals didn’t want her dead quite as badly, and only by association. Two vampires are far easier to find than one, after all. Especially ones bound to the night.

“Which I’m not.” Elena mentally puts another mark in the ‘working for Elijah’ column as Damon continues talking, completely ignoring Rose.

“Then we’re looking at a solid maybe.”

Elena blinks rapidly and nods slowly. None of this is particularly encouraging, even if she is planning on going through with the sacrifice.

“Look,” Stefan says, coming closer to her and perching on the edge of the sofa, arm coming to hover somewhat comfortingly over her shoulder, “I’ve never even met anyone who’s laid eyes on him.” He looks towards Damon and Rose as he speaks, clearly trying to convince them as much as himself. Elena doesn’t say that Rose has met him. She doesn’t say that Katherine has either. She doesn’t even consider mentioning that she has plenty of memories, of both the man and the monster to assure her that he’s very real, even if those memories don’t quite belong to her.

Rose and Damon are both still looking very dubiously at Stefan as he continues to talk with an increasing sense of desperation. And Elena says nothing, letting them all talk themselves out.

“I mean, we’re talking centuries of truth mixed with fiction.” Elena idly wonders if Lexi had ever met an Original. The vampire had seemed old enough to have met a few key players in her time. And there were several centuries before she met Stefan in which she could have, even if she never met them afterwards. “I mean, we don’t know what’s real.” He turns to Elena and leans in slightly, trying to reassure her, “For all we know he could just be some sort of stupid bedtime story.”

“He’s real!” Rose says, standing up again and coming closer, “And he doesn’t give up.” (She would know snarks the voice that spoke Bulgarian and that Elena is becoming more and more certain is Katherine. The other voice that sounds like her is someone else. A different her. One that came before either of them. She just needs to figure out how to tell them apart properly.) “If he wants something, he gets it.” Rose says, emphatically. She’s not afraid, not like she was of Elijah, more braced for the inevitable. “If you’re not afraid of Klaus, then you’re an idiot.”

Elena stares at her. Because Rose isn’t afraid. She vaguely hears Damon saying that Rose has made her point but she doesn’t look away. Three marks in the ‘working for Elijah’ column, but now Elena wonders if Rose is even aware of it. Her behaviour is striking a chord – a chord that sounds like Caroline and the way that she was behaving before Elena ever even knew about vampires and Caroline was still dating Damon. There’s a terrible sense of foreboding creeping up her spine. Because she’d thought that Damon was just feeding on Caroline. That that was all Caroline’s missing time was. She’d given Caroline the vervain necklace (lesbian friendship necklace snickers one of the voices that is but isn’t her, the one that sounds like Katherine) when she’d realised that Damon was still trying to compel her to do his dirty work, but now she’s wondering if she missed something. Caroline had said, the first time she’d walked into the boarding house, that it felt like she’d been there before. She’d kept insisting that she was fine at that horrible party with bite marks on her body and blood streaming down her neck and-

Elena forcibly wrenches her mind away from that train of thought. She can’t go down that road. Not now. Because if the vague suspicion beginning to form in her subconscious ever crystallises, she’s terrified of what she might do. Any illusion she might have had about not being like Katherine and not being capable of the same things is long gone, vanished at the same time that she met Elijah for the first (at least the hundredth corrects the voice that adores him) time. There is nothing that she is not capable of when it comes to protecting the people she loves and avenging wrongs done to them. Of that she is certain.

She abruptly stands up before she can do anything else. Like shout. Or scream. Or stab Damon with something sharp and pointy. Or throw vervain at Stefan for lying to her.

“Where are you going?” Stefan asks as she slings her bag back over her shoulder.

“To get some vervain.” She says, as normally as possible, trying to leave without seeming like she’s fleeing the room, “I want to give some to Jeremy and Aunt Jenna. Apparently I need to be prepared.” She pauses and debates with herself a moment, “Then school. I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Let me grab my stuff,” Stefan says, standing up to follow her, “I’ll go with you.”

“That’s okay.” Elena says, not looking at him. “I know where it is. I’ll just grab the vervain and go.” She leaves without looking back.

The sun is still very low in the sky by the time she reaches the school. There’s a good hour and change before school starts, and probably at least half that before it opens. She turns off the engine, leans back in her seat, and sighs before closing her eyes. She wraps a hand around where her vervain pendant is hanging from her wrist and starts sorting through all the memories that she has that don’t quite belong to her. She has the time. She might as well do something useful with it. 

By the time she opens her eyes to the slow trickle of early birds into the school, she’s managed to sort through a lot more of the memories and now has more knowledge of some of her other selves. Isabela is the most recent. Before her came Katherine - Katerina, who she’s managed to confirm is the crooning Bulgarian voice. She’s also managed to identify the other voice that sounds almost but not quite like Katerina, who feels more similar to her than any of the others but is still separate, as the first doppelgänger born after the first girl who had their face. She dubs her ‘fierce one’ in her head and knows that it will still be some time yet before she learns her name. She  has no name for the girl that loved Klaus and adored Elijah and their three brothers and one sister (Nik she whispers in the back of her head, we called him Nik) but knows now that her daughter’s name was Freya and that her confidant was Lisbet whose fate was nearly as tragic as her own. The sad voice that sounds almost like Isabela but isn’t angry enough is the young one, who died kindest of them all and was younger than even Katerina when she died - neither of them ever made it to twenty. 

Elena has yet to find enough clues to identify the no-nonsense, dry, serious voice that she has dubbed ‘the mother’ but thinks she came between the fierce one and the young one. The first of them, the first girl with their face, their voice, whose tragedy started them all, Elena knows next to nothing about - except that she was there yesterday when she spoke to Elijah. Soul-deep instinct tells her that there’s one more version of them that she’s missing, but something in her shies away from knowing more. 

Checking the time tells her that she still has over half an hour before school starts and nearly another half an hour after that before she’s expected to be in class. She pulls out her phone to text Bonnie and Caroline and then jumps out of her skin when there’s a loud knocking on the window right next to her.

It’s Rebecca. She’s dressed in her usual stunning fashion, with her hair in a ponytail and her cheer gear slung over one shoulder. Behind her, Cole is slouching against a wall.

“You scared the shit out of me!” Elena says, rolling down the window. There’s a nagging in the back of her head that says that she’s missing something and the feeling of one of the other hers watching closely. “What the hell, Rebecca.”

The blonde shrugs unapologetically, “Sorry,” she says, not sounding like she particularly means it, “I was just wondering what on earth possessed you to take a nap in your car in front of the school. Where’s Jeremy? Or the other girls? You don’t normally come alone.” She makes a big show of looking around before leaning in and whispering so loudly that it defies the entire point of whispering, “I specifically didn’t mention Stefan because I know you two are on the outs right now.”

Cole rolls his eyes so loudly that Elena can practically hear it. “Subtle as ever, Bekah. Now that we’ve checked on your latest dalliance, can we go.”

Elena rolls her own eyes, too used to Cole’s casual disregard of everyone but Jeremy and Tyler to get offended. He doesn’t seem to actually like anyone, and gods only know what it is that he sees in her brother and Tyler that makes him tolerate them. She puts the window back up and grabs her stuff before exiting and locking the car, completely ignoring the near-constant bickering of the twins in the background.

The average innocent bystander could be forgiven for assuming that the two couldn’t stand each other, but the one and only time that one of the seniors had made the mistake of trying to get grabby with Rebecca when he’d had too much to drink, Cole had been at his throat before anyone else could say or do anything, and only Rebecca verbally eviscerating the guy had managed to calm him down enough for Jeremy and Tyler to drag him away – but not before he’d broken the guy’s nose and given him a black eye. When the same guy and his friends had tried to get back at Cole for bruising their egos the following day, Rebecca had sabotaged them before they even began and humiliated them in front of nearly the entire school. It had been the thing that had cemented both twins as firmly not to be messed with and solidified Caroline’s cautious friendliness into a genuine desire for friendship. It was a very clear, if unspoken fact that if you came at one of the twins, the other would take great pleasure in making you seriously regret it, even if neither of them was willing to admit it.

The nagging feeling of missing something grows stronger than ever as she starts to make her way into the school. The abrupt end to the bickering behind her gives her a momentary warning that Rebecca’s fallen into step with her before the other girl speaks.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer my question.” She says, nudging Elena feather-light with her elbow, “And you weren’t at school yesterday, either.” She hesitates, “Is everything ok? I know that we’re not particularly close, not compared to you and Caroline and Bonnie, but you’re being really quiet and I’d like to think that I know you well enough to know that you don’t usually take weird naps in your car alone before school.”

Elena sighs slightly, “Yeah. I’m fine.” She adjusts the strap of her bag, “Mostly.” She admits, hesitating before continuing, “Stefan and I are broken up, properly, I mean, not just on the outs, and I don’t think we’ll be getting back together. And last night I just had these really awful dreams and I didn’t want to go back to sleep afterwards so I came here and didn’t realise how early it was until I got here.” It’s not lying, not really, more like creative truth-telling, and all she’s really leaving out is the kidnapping, the existence of the supernatural, and the fact that the thing that’s currently bothering her is the existence of other versions of herself that have lived and died throughout the last two thousand years apparently residing in her head.

Rebecca tilts her head to the side, assessing her in a way that strikes Elena as oddly familiar, even as the nagging sensation continues to bother her – oddly absent of the voices of any of the other versions of herself. And dear gods, the fact that she’s become so used to and desensitised to their existence so quickly should be more alarming than it is.

“Are you going to stop wearing the necklace he gave you then?” Rebecca asks, sounding weirdly concerned. Which is twice as odd as it would be otherwise considering how fixated she had been on it initially.

Elena suppresses her grimace and lifts her wrist, showing off where it’s wrapped around her arm, “Still wearing it, just not sure I want it around my neck where everyone can see it anymore.” Not that the association with Stefan is why she wants to replace it.

Rebecca shrugs, “Suit yourself. I just think it’s a shame given that it’s such a nice necklace. So much better than your usual style.”

Elena shoots her a weird look, gratified that at least Rebecca doesn’t seem to be worried anymore and has returned to her usual snide and judgemental remarks. “So you’ve said.”

Rebecca tosses her head in a familiar movement, but her words are lost in the wake of things clicking for Elena. And suddenly everything falls into place: the nagging sensation of missing something, the odd familiarity of her gestures, the fixation on the necklace containing vervain, the too light way Rebecca always touched everyone like she was afraid of hurting them, the conveniently timed family emergency coinciding with Founder’s Day, Rebecca’s unnamed out-of-town boyfriend who was somehow old enough to not go to school but still got her called a cougar by her brother, Cole’s barely hidden amusement at the threats levelled against him by the seniors that he kept pissing off, Stefan and Damon’s instant, almost irrational dislike of both the twins without being able to explain it, the way the twins were weirdly insistent about not inviting anyone back to their house, the fact that no one had ever even seen their older brother…

Rebecca was a vampire. An Original vampire. She and Cole – no, Kol – were the younger siblings of Elijah and Niklaus and must have some kind of charm or spell concealing their nature from others.

The next logical piece falls into place and Elena realises that they must have signed up for school in Mystic Falls because of her. She doesn’t realise she’s stopped in her tracks until a perfectly manicured hand waves in front of her face and a very familiar voice says, “Hello, earth to Elena!” sounding quite irritated.

Elena snaps out of it and looks at the ancient vampire in shock. Her jaw must drop or something because Rebecca – no, Rebekah - sighs and looks resigned.

“Damn. You figured it out then? Big brother did warn us you might, but I hoped that since you hadn’t noticed in nearly three months, that you’d continue to be stupid for at least a little while longer.”

“You- you’re…” Elena trails off, unable to put into words the things she wants to say, the voice that both is and is not her and adores every single one of the children of Mikael and Esther humming in delight at being in the presence of another of them.

“A vampire? An Original? Yes.”

Elena just looks at her wordlessly for a moment. “Was any of it real?” she asks, because she’d become very attached to Rebekah in the last couple of months and started to consider her as something like a close friend and the idea that it was all a lie is as heart-breaking as when she had first found out that Katherine looked like her.

Rebekah looks down for a moment, apparently upset, “Yes.” She says after a pause, “I came here setting out to befriend you for our own purposes, but I-” she sighs, “You’re really hard not to like, Elena. I really do consider you my friend. You and Bonnie and Caroline. You all made me really welcome here. And lying to you kind of sucked.” She shrugs, “But family first, you know.”

Elena nods slowly, “I can understand that.” She says, thinking back to all of the children all the different versions of her have had over the years. To the fierce one’s older brother and Katerina’s younger sister and Isabela’s cousins that were more like siblings. To Lisbet who was loved like a sister by the girl who loved the Originals. To Jeremy and Bonnie and Caroline. “I’d probably do the same in your position. It just kind of sucks to be the one in mine.” Her lips twitch slightly as she has the sudden urge to smile and exchanging a glance with Rebekah shows that the taller girl is doing the same.

Before she can help it she’s laughing, and Rebekah joins in. They simply stand there, neither of them entirely sure why they’re laughing so hard, and eventually Elena’s laughs turn hysterical as the last twenty-four hours sinks in. And it is entirely unbelievable that it’s been less than a day since she first discovered that she is not alone in her head and learned all about the different women who came before her. It’s impossible that she knows so much about them after only one night, but it also makes absolutely perfect sense.

When Elena finally quiets, Rebekah gently but firmly guides her to one of the study cubbies in the library and assures her of their privacy.

“Is this where the interrogation starts then?” Elena asks with empty amusement, “Because I already promised Elijah that I’d tell him.”

Rebekah shakes her head, “Not really. I mean, I have questions. I just figured that you could use a break since you got kidnapped yesterday and then apparently had nightmares all night.” She shrugs, “Can’t help but feel a little guilty about that second bit.”

Elena just shakes her head silently, “That’s not what the nightmares were. That was Isabela.”

“Isabela? Who’s Isabela?”

Elena shoots her a look.

“Right, sorry. What do you want to talk about?”

Elena cocks her head to the side consideringly. Maybe she shouldn’t trust Rebekah, but she does. And maybe the Original vampire can help her. Not with answers – she’s starting to think that her and Katerina are the only ones who might have those, but with the vervain problem, certainly. She brushes her hair behind her ear as she thinks, and when the pendant on her wrist bumps against her skin, she makes up her mind. “Actually, I could use your help.”

Rebekah raises an eyebrow and Elena grins at her invitingly and pulls the vervain out of her bag. “I need a way to get the protection of vervain without something as easily stolen as jewellery or being as obvious as drinking it. Any ideas?”

Rebekah grins back infectiously, “Not at all, but we can brainstorm. I can think of at least one or two other people who would love some tips.”

Despite everything, Elena’s day ends up going mostly ok. She’s got a few ideas for what to do about being on vervain without it being easy to spot or interfere with and Rebekah has already said that she and Kol will help her test them.

There are a few new witches in town, one of whom has attempted to befriend Bonnie. Elena doesn’t know how she knows that the new boy – Luka – is a witch. She just knows that several of her other selves started screaming and urging her to run when they saw him and Bonnie together. That they are nearly all terrified of witches and the only reason they’re not that scared of Bonnie is because she and Elena are all but sisters in nearly every way that matters and that they would die for each other if it came to it.

Stefan is upset with Caroline for some reason, and Tyler’s been shooting looks at her all day. If Elena were still a betting kind of girl then she’d put her money on Caroline having spilled the vampire beans to Tyler and Stefan being mad about it.

She’s pretty sure Damon spent the day looking for more information. She still doesn’t tell him what she knows. It will open up too many questions, and besides – for all that he’s been trying to protect her for a while now, she still hasn’t forgiven him for what he did to Jeremy. She doesn’t know if she ever truly will, even if Jeremy appears to have let it go. She’d rather trust the Originals – trust Elijah – to keep their promises than rely on Damon not having another impulsive episode and doing something else unforgiveable. He might say that he loves her, but Elena is under no illusions that he will sacrifice every single one of her friends and family if he thinks it will keep her safe. And that is not something that she will ever be ok with.

She knows what she has to do, and to that end, she starts writing a list. She can convince Elijah to make a deal with her. And if she’s right, and each night will give her more information about the other doppelgängers, then she’ll have more to bargain with by the time he comes to her for her to uphold her end of their deal. And perhaps she still is a betting kind of girl after all.

All she really still needs is to get her hands on the moonstone so that she can give it to Elijah.

That night she dreams again. This time she is Katherine – no, she is Katerina.

She dreams of being the eldest daughter of a wealthy family that is not blessed with sons. Of loving her sister almost as much as she adores their mother. Of knowing that her father’s affection has its limits and that she will only have it so long as she upholds the family honour.

She dreams of falling in love with the son of a travelling merchant anyway. Of trusting him when he says that he loves her too, and giving him her virtue despite her dear loyal friend and maid warning her not to. Of him casting her aside when she has ceased to be of entertainment and watching him leave with his family without a second glance.

She dreams of crying herself to sleep in her heartbreak for weeks, and then discovering too late that she has become with child. Of her father’s fury at the discovery and of knowing that the consequences will be heavier than she can bear.

She dreams of loving the child that grows in her belly and discovering that she will do near anything for it. Of her sister’s fear of their father’s wrath and her dearest friend and most loyal companion being sent away in disgrace for not preventing the dishonour of their family and the sullying of her virtue.

She dreams of having her child snatched away before she can even hold her and begging and weeping for her parents to please show her mercy and allow her to hold her precious daughter even just the once. Of her sister watching quietly with something a lot like horror in her eyes.

She dreams of being sent away to friends of friends in a country called England that she has scarcely heard of – a place where none know of her disgrace. Of being forced to adjust and adapt quickly for fear of further consequences. Of knowing that if she missteps again then she will not survive whatever happens next because her father will not tolerate it and only let her get away with as much as she did because of her mother and sister’s pleas.

She dreams of meeting a man that feels so familiar to her and who treats her with a kindness she hardly recognises. Of meeting his brother who makes her spirit sing even as she shrinks away and guards her heart for fear of losing it again. Of every instinct she has telling her that she can trust them both, that they will not harm her the way that Kosta did. Of a man that her heart cries for and considers beloved and dearest proposing to her and her wondering if perhaps this time it will be worth it – he has proposed to her after all and has made the effort to learn her language. Of his brother – a man that her soul insists is not hers to love and her heart believes belongs to someone else but who her mind draws her back to again and again for the way he treats her with respect and kindness in a way that no other man ever has. Of wishing that she could let herself love the elder brother rather than being engaged to the younger who scares her a little despite every instinct she has screaming that he is safe and trustworthy.

She dreams of finding out the truth and the betrayal hurting more than anything else ever has – more than Kosta scorning her, or her father’s hatred, even more than having her child ripped away from her before she’s ever even held her. Of fleeing for her life and realising that her choices are death by her own hand or being killed by someone else's.

She dreams of trying to kill herself whilst Trevor’s friend is distracted and failing. Of trying again after she is healed and succeeding, her last thoughts of her darling Nadia who never even heard her say her name. Of waking up again after she has died and realising that she is now a monster too.

She dreams of hurrying back home as fast as she can, knowing little except that she must warn her family before it is too late and having a vague hope that now she can take her child back by force if she must.

She dreams of finding nothing but fire and death and destruction where her home should be and clinging to the cold body of her mother as she begs and cries and pleads for it not to be true. Of realising that there is nothing that Klaus will not do to extract his vengeance for what he sees as her betrayal. Of finding out that she can just switch it off and abandoning her emotions and humanity so that she can run.

She dreams of running. Of running and running and running and never stopping, always looking over her shoulder, terrified of what she might see. Of betraying and abandoning people again and again, century after century, every time the monsters at her heels get a bit too close. Of knowing that she can have nothing and no one that she is not willing to sacrifice because they will simply become new weapons to be used against her at the pleasure of the two brothers. Of losing every friend and lover that she gains and destroying or sabotaging every relationship that she has that is not based on a mutual understanding of exploitation for fear of what will happen if she doesn’t. Of switching her humanity on and off as she needs to, abandoning her emotions every time she gets too close to someone to do what she has to, and only allowing them back when she is far enough away that it is too late to undo her actions.

She dreams of surviving despite all odds and refusing to contemplate whether or not the Originals have simply been playing cat and mouse with her and letting her run on a little longer because they find it entertaining to make her suffer. Of finding a doppelgänger, a perfect copy of herself, a descendant of her dear, perfect Nadia, possibly the only thing left of her family on this earth. Of realising what she has to do to try and get mercy off the Original family so that she does not spend her eternity the way she has spent the last half a millennium.

She dreams of switching it off so that she can trade the life of her doppelgänger for her own freedom without any second thoughts about what she has to do next.

Elena wakes up with wet cheeks and silently screaming.

It takes her a long moment to come back to herself and calm her breathing and slow her heartbeat back to normal.

She wishes she did not understand Katerina so well as she now does. Any doubts she may have had about her course of action wither into dust.

She will not let what happened to Katerina’s family happen to hers. No matter what she has to do to ensure it and even if it means making everyone that she has ever loved hate her.

She will not share her fate.

Elena goes back to her journal and opens it back to the page she was plotting on last night. She has further plans to make.

If five hundred years taught either of them anything, it’s that a back-up plan is vital.

Chapter Text

On Friday, Elena watches as Stefan and Damon draw Bonnie and Jeremy into their plots to steal the moonstone from Katerina and says nothing, refusing to let on that she knows what they are doing. She will need it if she hopes to carry out her plans to fruition.

Besides, she has other things to do today. 

Last night her dreams had been nothing but emotions and fleeting impressions. Colours and indistinct sounds that leave her terrified down to her bones when she wakes. And although she remembers more of the others now, her mind still shies away from the gap in her head shaped like the doppelgänger that came between Katerina and the girl who loved the Originals. She knows that that’s who these dreams are remembering. And she’s almost afraid to know what it is that’s so terrible that even the echoes of her past selves are trying to protect her from it, despite the many horrors that they themselves experienced. Because this doppelgänger doesn’t speak to her or come to the surface the way the others do. She doesn’t have a voice. 

Elena wrenches her mind away from thinking of her and puts her new memories in order as she waits for someone to answer the door. Stefan and Damon trying to be sneaky about getting the moonstone without telling her just means they’ve left the person that Elena actually wants to talk to alone.

When Rose finally comes, Elena lies to her. It’s almost surprising how easy it is. Except for all the ways in which it’s not. Elena has been lying to people for years now: her parents, her friends, her aunt, her brother, herself. And Isabela and Kat both hum approval at the back of her mind. The first her and the mother her don’t disapprove so much as give the impression that deception had left lasting marks in both of their memories, and they strongly dislike the need for it.

Elena listens to the women that are her-but-not and continues on the path she has set herself.

Elena lies to Rose. She pretends to want to know more about the Originals, and then tells her that she wants to contact Klaus to prevent him from coming after her family. She doesn’t say that she knows how to contact him already if she needs to. Doesn’t tell the vampire that she has an appointment with Elijah already set and knows exactly what kind of deal she is going to make.

No, this is a test.

This is a test to see where Rose’s loyalties lie, to see whether she knows that she’s spying for Elijah or whether she’s doing it unconsciously. It’s a test to see what Rose will do if Elena trusts her with something Stefan and Damon would disapprove of. Because Elena needs allies who won’t sacrifice damn near anything to save her from something she doesn’t want to be saved from, and Rose would be a convenient ally unaligned with the Originals. Elena’s not foolish enough to think that they don’t have their own agenda that they’re not sharing with her. She doesn’t get the privilege of their trust when all she has is a face they know and a resource that they need. So, she reaches out to see if Rose will help her.

Rose fails the test. She calls Damon the second Elena turns her back and Elena has her answer.

She can’t trust anyone else not to screw this up. She has to this next bit alone.

She sticks around the boarding house long enough to learn that Kat had been suspiciously cooperative when Jeremy had tried to steal the moonstone from her possession and had actually thrown him out of the borders of the spell before taunting Stefan. It makes Elena wonder for the first time if she’s not the only one getting memories and experiences from the other doppelgängers crammed into her head. If maybe Kat doesn’t have a version of Elena poking at her from the inside too. She’s not sure how she feels about the possibility and immediately puts the thought aside in a box labelled ‘for later’ so she can get through the next few days without the identity crisis that she isn’t really certain is actually coming.

For so long the idea that she was just a copy of Katherine had haunted her, but now she almost finds the thought comforting. The idea that she is haunting Kat as much as the vampire was haunting her. The Kat in her head laughs the low throaty laugh that Elena knows she uses to seduce people, and the one that knew the Originals and loves Nik so dearly hums as she leans forward and gives off the impression that she’s staring through Elena’s eyes at the dark-haired vampire that is so much younger than he seems to think.

Elena had thought that Stefan and Damon were ancient when she first found out they were vampires. Now she looks at them and can’t help but think about how young and ignorant they are. Isabela had lived and fought and died all before their grandfather was ever born and she is young compared to the others that Elena feels spilling into her head: Kat who’s been around for five hundred years and counting; the one that loves Nik who died 500 years before Kat was born; the first of them all who lived a thousand years before that; and the others – the young one, the fierce one, the mother, the one with barely any presence at all – who all came between them. No, Elena cannot think the Salvatores are young anymore when she feels old with how her memories stretch back and back and back, only half belonging to her.

She leaves and goes home after Damon unequivocally tells her that she doesn’t get to make any decisions anymore because he’s decided that she’s making stupid and irrational ones. She lets him chase her off and doesn’t bother to say goodbye. If Bonnie has the moonstone now, then Elena can steal it without having to confront the only other living doppelgänger. She isn’t ready to talk to Kat yet, not if she’s getting the dreams – the memories – too.

Besides, stealing the moonstone from Bonnie should be easy enough with the help of the hers-that-were. She doesn’t need to talk to Kat at all.

That evening she sends a text to Rebekah and confirms that Elijah is coming to talk to her the day after tomorrow like they had agreed and warns her that Damon will try to interfere.

The siblings appreciate the warning but consider it unnecessary.

When Elena gets home on Sunday, five days after she first started gaining the memories and knowledge of her other selves, she is entirely unsurprised to find Elijah talking to Jenna in the hall. Rebekah and Kol are many things, but neither of them have ever had any degree of subtlety.

She smiles and agrees with Jenna, politely says goodbye to ‘Mr Smith’, and calmly walks up the stairs.

As expected, Elijah is waiting for her on the landing. She puts a finger to her lips in a shushing motion and smiles wryly before rapping on Jeremy’s door. When he answers, she sends him downstairs with the excuse that Jenna wanted him to move some boxes and then retreats to her room.

Elijah is already reclined in her window seat by the time she closes the door.

“Hello again,” she says, smiling.

“Hello again,” he echoes, but makes no move to get up.

Elena pauses to evaluate him for a moment, then ditches her bag on the bed and moves towards where her jewellery box sits on her dresser.

“I have something for you,” she tells him.

“The moonstone,” he guesses, without moving.

Elena holds it up from where she’d palmed it, to show him, before gently tossing it towards him.

He plucks it out of the air with one hand, not even bothering to exert the effort of moving, and idly examines it. “How did you get it?” He asks her, “From what I hear, your witch friend is bound and determined to break the curse on this stone and will not let it out of her sight.”

Elena has no doubt that his sources are named Jonas, Greta and Luka Martin, but does not mention it. She also doesn’t particularly want to explain that specific piece of sleight of hand since it involves certain skills and information that she doesn’t particularly want to share with him yet. “That’s not important,” she tells him, and hopes that he’ll follow her lead and allow the evasion.

Luck seems to be on her side, since he simply dips his head in acknowledgement and moves on to the next piece of business, “My apologies. In that case, I believe I promised you answers, and was promised something similar in return.”

Elena steels herself. She doesn’t believe for a second that Elijah will do her harm, but that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t still be wary. Several lifetimes have proven over again that someone does not need to harm her in order to hurt her.

Katerina and the fierce her and Isabela all press closer to her and the mother her leans forward with encouragement. The young her offers support and there is a feeling of nothing but agreement from the her that loved the Originals when they were human. The first of them all emanates a steady feeling of resolve. Elena does not need the support, but appreciates it, nonetheless. “I want to change the deal.” She tells Elijah, the unanimous support of her other selves bolstering her certainty.

Elijah stills and examines her, like he can see her other selves pressing up beneath her skin and knows he is talking to more than one other. “Oh?” He says mildly. A lesser woman, or one that didn’t know him well, might be intimidated or relieved. Elena and Katerina and the her that loved him all know better: they know that Elijah is considering the request and has yet to conclude one way or another.

After a long moment that stretches out in a manner that would be unbearable if Elena had not watched him do this exact thing a hundred times before, he finally makes a decision, “And what would you like to change about this deal of ours, lovely Elena?” He asks her.

Elena does not sigh in relief. She does not sag at the fact that he either does not suspect or has yet to fully understand the extent to which she and her other selves interact and are as one. And she came prepared for this question. She holds the cards now, because he is interested and the trade she wants to make is one that she knows he will find himself unable to refuse.

“I no longer have any interest in the answers you can provide,” she starts, “And I don’t really want to answer all of the questions I’m sure you have yet either.” She knows more now. And she knows the leverage she can hold over him to get what she wants. And she also knows exactly how far she can push him.

“Is that so?” Elijah’s voice is deceptively quiet, in a manner that doesn’t quite hide the danger in it.

“I’m not finished.” Elena dares to interject before he can continue, allowing a little of the her that loved them, the one that Nik called ‘beloved’, into her voice, as the she presses forward, egged on by both Katerina and the fierce one, whilst the first and oldest of them, and Isabela, both stand by watching quietly.

Elijah inclines his head silently and waves for her to continue; an idle lord commanding his subject. The moonstone is nowhere to be seen, having long since vanished into one of his pockets.

Elena grits her teeth at the image he presents, something soul-deep that both does and does not feel like Isabela protesting at the thought of being beholden to an indolent noble, but she doesn’t have the space to chase who else it is that hates the thought so strongly, and simply forges on.

“You need me to complete the ritual. The sacrifice requires that I die.” Elena spells it all out plainly, “I will come willingly, and thwart any attempts by my friends to stop it and I will give you further information about the curse that you do not know, and that your witches cannot tell you, no matter how good they are.

“In return, I want you to provide protection for my loved ones against any who wish them harm, for the rest of their natural lives, regardless of any other factors or the nature of the threat in question. I am aware that you cannot prevent sickness, but I would also have you use the extent of the resources at your disposal to help my loved ones should they contract a serious illness. Only you will know if you have kept to both the letter and the spirit of the deal when the time comes, but I will hold you to your word, nonetheless.

“I would also amend the honesty part of our agreement to a question for a question arrangement. Either of us may ask any question of the other and expect either an honest answer, or no answer at all. And for every question answered, the other gets an equally honest answer to a question of their choice. Any question may be refused an answer at any point with no consequences whatsoever.” Elena pauses for a moment, staring at the man who would have been her brother in another life, save for his parents’ meddling. She is almost surprised that he let her get through the whole thing without interrupting. But only almost. Elijah’s eyebrow has climbed higher and higher throughout her speech, but Elena is almost certain that he will agree to her terms.

“Do we have a deal?” She asks him, in echo of the words he said to her in the abandoned house less than a week ago.

He hums in consideration, mostly for show. He’s made up his mind already and they both know it - he cannot lie to Elena any more than she can lie to him. That is why this deal will work.

“I have a few conditions before I agree,” he says after a long pause full of false consideration.

Elena nods warily, having half expected the negotiation to drag out like this, but knowing that if it gains her protection for the people she loves and all the girls that came before her that still live in her soul, then she will do whatever is necessary.

“You cannot choose an unlimited number of people to protect,” he begins, “I am only one man and I am not omnipotent, nor can I be everywhere at once. I will hear your list as it has been made, but I reserve the right to negotiate or veto the people on it if necessary.”

Elena doesn’t like it but she tries not to let it show, despite knowing that it is futile, “Of course,” she says instead, half relieved that he has asked for such simple concessions, and thanking the foresight of her other selves, who urged her to plan for such a thing, “I can be reasonable,” she lies.

The sideways look that Elijah slants her way is exactly as disbelieving and doubting as she deserves.

There is no version of Elena that has ever been anything but utterly uncompromising when it comes to the protection of the people she loves, and Elijah knows that.

She ignores his disbelief and simply holds out a pad of paper and a pen - no matter how perfect his recall, she will not chance any slip of memory. She will not risk the people she loves that way.

He stares at her for a moment before taking the offered items with a long-suffering expression that she-they-the-ones-who-came-before have often seen directed at one or another of his siblings.

When she is satisfied that he will write down her list, she starts.

“Jeremy.” She says, “Jenna.” She doesn’t need to think about those two. She hesitates a moment over the next name, because it took her a while to decide whether or not to include him. But, ultimately, he is her father, and she might not like him as a person, but she does love him as family, so: “Uncle John - John Gilbert.”

The next names come quicker, requiring as little thought as the first two, “Bonnie. Caroline. Matt.” The next name is also easy - she’s known him since childhood, and asshole he may have grown into, but they were close once, before everything, and it’s already been proven that the supernatural forces at play won’t leave him out of their machinations, so it’s really simple for her to say: “Tyler.”

Now come the harder names, the ones she might have to fight for. “Bonnie’s dad, Rudy Hopkins. Caroline’s mum, Elizabeth Forbes. Tyler’s mother, Carol Lockwood.” If she is protecting the people she is closest to, she will protect their families as well: she would not have any of them understand what it is to become an orphan.

Elijah still says nothing, simply writing down the names as she gives them.

She forges on - on to the people she has no names for, but would extend her protection to, nonetheless. “Jeremy’s future partner. Any children he might have. The same for Jenna’s partner and any children of hers. John’s too, however unlikely that may be at this point.”

Now, finally, the most difficult names, the ones she debated over including at all, because it might risk the others on her list; it might be a step too far.

“Stefan.” Because she loves him still, and it would break more than just her heart if he died. “Alaric.” For Jenna, because she loves him. And because he’s proven to be a friend, and an ally. And because if they asked she thinks he would fight with them and die beside them. “Damon.” Because he cares in his own way. Because he might try to sacrifice all of her loved ones to preserve her life, but she thinks he would also die too, if it meant that she could somehow live. Because Stefan loves him, and Caroline and Tyler’s mothers call him friend. And because she remembers who he was when he was human, and she can’t help but see that loving, loyal boy in him still, no matter how deeply he is buried.

Finally, “Don’t hurt Isobel - Isobel Fleming. I won’t ask you to protect her, but please, don’t cause her harm. She is still my mother.”

Elijah’s eyes flicker to her face, something almost unreadable in them. She has no doubt he knows the whole sordid story already - she had not spared the details when she spoke with the twins – but given his own complicated relationships with his parents, she’s fairly sure she understands the thoughts she can glimpse behind his eyes. She doesn’t acknowledge them.

There’s one more name that lingers on the tip of her tongue. One that needs barely a thought for her to want to include it. Elena might not be entirely reasonable when it comes to protecting those she considers hers, but she is realistic. She won’t ask Elijah for something that she knows he cannot and will not give. She will not ask for a clemency she knows he will refuse.

She lets the name Katerina die on her tongue.

Elena nods and sits on the bed, tucking her hands under her legs, to indicate that she’s done.

Elijah half raises a quizzical eyebrow as though he can sense that there was a name she hadn’t said but doesn’t push any further.

He twists the pen about his fingers as he runs the other hand down the list that rests on his lap in consideration.

“Some of these names are vampires.” He says slowly, “Their natural lives would be very long indeed.”

Elena snaps back on reflex without even thinking about it, “Caroline is non-negotiable!”

She doesn’t realise her mistake until Elijah tilts his head to the side and repeats her words, “Caroline is non-negotiable?” He places the pen down slowly, “What of the Salvatore brothers, or your mother? You would exchange their safety for that of Miss Forbes?”

Elena bites back the immediate “yes” that springs to her tongue. Because she would. Without any hesitation whatsoever, she would. In a choice between one of her best and dearest friends and two brothers that she has known for barely more than six months, and the biological mother who abandoned her to loving parents only to return to her life and cause her nothing but pain? There is no contest. Elena would choose Caroline every single time and not regret it for a moment.

She doesn’t say it out loud, but she’s fairly certain Elijah knows her answer anyway. He wouldn’t have asked her otherwise.

She meets his eyes defiantly, almost but not quite glaring, and holds her tongue.

“I see.” He says thoughtfully. And Elena thinks he does. “Miss Forbes is a very young vampire, and one that my sister is unusually fond of. It would not be a hardship, nor even difficult to protect her. And she is an intelligent girl, if a loyal one. I cannot imagine her rashly making enemies for anything less than an extreme situation.” He pauses, “Very well. Protection for Miss Forbes for as long as she may live, to the best of my ability against any harm that may come her way, even if such danger may come from my family. And, undoubtedly, the assistance of my siblings against any threat she or they may discern for as long as the friendship she has with my sister persists.”

“And the others?” Elena asks, hiding her relief that he will not fight her on this.

“An agreement that I and my family will not harm your mother is easy enough to acquiesce to, much though I dislike her ploys and manoeuvring around you and this situation that we find ourselves in. The Salvatores are another matter.

“They wish I and my family harm, and although they are but 150 years old, between them they have made many enemies and few friends or allies that still live. I find myself unwilling to extend my protection to them against their own foolish choices. Especially when to do so could leave my loved ones vulnerable to their actions.”

Elena closes her eyes for a moment and lets the her that feels like a mother soothe her, before accepting Katerina’s encouragement and guilt for what her actions have wrought. “I would offer to get them to back off if I thought it would work, but it’s much more likely that they’d ignore me and redouble their efforts. They think they know what’s best for me, you see.”

Elijah folds his hands in his lap on top of the pad containing her list and raises a single, elegant eyebrow. “That is their mistake. I know few who would be so foolish as to dismiss the words of one as wise and shrewd as yourself.”

“You flatter me, mágur ,” Elena says, aiming her barbs where she knows they will land, hoping not to draw blood, but to prod just sharply enough to remind him that she knows enough of his weaknesses to make such a contest of wills and vulnerability a losing prospect for them both. “But regardless of their stubbornness, I am loathe to leave them vulnerable as easy targets to the legendarily capricious tempers of your younger siblings, or to people who would wish revenge on myself or those I love.” The oldest her-that-was, the one that came first, approves of her carefully chosen words and urges her to maintain the gaze of the predator in the guise of someone they have loved dearly.

Elijah’s jaw ticks slightly as the barbs land and at the subtle challenge in her words.

“A compromise, then.” He offers, “Me and mine will do them no harm, so long as doing so does no harm to us. Any wrath they incur due to you or yours, I will protect them from, so long as it causes no hurt to those I consider mine. Any who seek to harm them through yourself and your loved ones will feel the full weight of my family’s displeasure. But those who seek only revenge on the brothers, with no connection to the others in your circle, will receive neither help nor hindrance by any means or individual under my command. Is this acceptable to you?”

Elena turns his words over in her head, looking for loopholes or gaps that could be exploited. Isabela hums approval at the offered deal and the sad her and the fierce her both examine it before retreating back to the recesses of her mind. Katerina merely laughs, and it is this which tells Elena more than anything else, that this is the best agreement she could hope for. Certainly, she cannot think of anything better.

“Yes,” she says eventually, “It is acceptable.”

“So we have a deal then?” Elijah asks, mimicking her words from earlier, themselves an echo of his own.

Elena bites her lip and Elijah narrows his eyes.

“Is there anything else?” He asks, with a tone that is almost suspicion, but despite everything, he still maintains his manners.

“One more thing.” She tells him, and rushes to continue before he can interrupt, “I want your word that you will not allow me to transition. If I die with vampire blood in my system, I want you to ensure that I never wake up.”

For the first time since he set foot in her bedroom, Elijah looks genuinely startled. Elena cannot help the bubble of smugness that arises in her breast at being able to throw the most unflappable being she knows.

Elijah schools his face back to neutrality with a swiftness that Elena could almost envy.

“You have my word,” he promises her solemnly.

“Then we have a deal,” she tells him.

He examines her silently for a long, drawn-out moment. “You are an unusual woman, Elena Gilbert.” He tells her, “I do not know that you are like the other doppelgängers I have known.”

Elena bites her tongue to stop herself from answering as Katerina rails in her head at the lack of understanding that this man has for them and who they are. The her that loved him stares sadly at Elijah from behind Elena’s eyes. The most cruel part of him remembering them is the flaws that come with memory. Even with such perfect recall it’s still not quite right, not exact, and the finer details, the subtleties, the things that he didn’t pay quite as much attention to when he could, are lost to time.

Elena knows, they all know, that the only ones that will truly remember them right are each other. No one else will understand them. Not truly. Not the fierce and determined soul at their core, their willingness to do anything necessary for the people they love. The capacity for forgiveness and understanding that they only rarely exercise. The stubborn, watchful defiance that leads them to refuse any attempt to control them and has caused terrible consequences for them more than once.

But she doesn’t tell him that. She can’t. It’s not her place to tell him. Not when Katerina lives still. How could she? How could she explain to this man that one part of her treasures him dearly and another resents him for his inaction and manipulation? How can she put into words that if Katerina had known what Rose’s blood would do, then she never would have killed herself that day? That if she had known she would rise again as a vampire she would never have taken that final step. That she would have rather died human than spend the last five centuries running. How could Elena possibly try to tell him that Katerina choosing to take the best advantage she could of the situation she was in, does not by any means mean that it is something she would have chosen willingly?

And more, how could she tell him that the woman he remembers so fondly, the woman who was almost his sister, would have done the exact same thing as Katerina if she were backed into the same corner? That she, too, would have killed herself to avoid the ritual, and if she had come back after her death that her first actions would have been for her family and the rest for survival.

Not a one of them would ever have chosen the immortality of vampirism given the choice, and they would all go to extreme lengths to protect the people they love, no matter what form that may take.

She stands up and takes a step towards him, “What do you know about them?” she asks him, “The other doppelgängers?”

He, too, stands and approaches her slowly, as though afraid she will run from him this time, despite never having done so before. His eyes roam her face looking for something and apparently finding it. “Why do you ask?”

Elena shrugs, taking another step closer, “Maybe I’m curious.”

He leans forward, and they’re almost close enough to be sharing air at this point. If it were anyone else Elena would probably already be self-conscious about the fact that her breath probably smells and the fact that she could almost smell his skin if she tried. But this is Elijah, he’s been her brother almost as long as she’s known him and makes her feel safe in a way distinctly different to anything any of her parents ever managed besides. Even if he hadn’t been Nik’s brother she still would have loved him.

“What exactly do you want me to tell you?” he asks, “Their names, what they looked like, how they acted, what I thought of them? Or maybe you want to know how they died.”

The last barb lands exactly like he intended it to and Elena can’t quite stop her flinch at his smooth words. “No.” she breathes out slowly and then takes a step back so they’re not quite in each other’s space anymore, “No, I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“Because you already know.” It’s a statement, not a question, and Elena doesn’t quite know how to answer it but finds the words falling out of her mouth anyway.

The her that feels like a mother soothes her while Isabela steps forward and pushes, they all know that if they don’t start this conversation now, they’ll keep putting it off until it all spills out at the worst possible moment, and none of them want that.

“I know that it hurt.” She whispers, “I know that not all of them died screaming but too many of them did. I know that I’ve died to personal betrayals as often as just straight murder and that the closest I’ve ever come to dying peacefully is childbirth and that that was one of the times I screamed. I know that magic hurts more than physical pain but nothing hurts like betrayal from someone you love and that I can’t trust a witch that knows their craft with the truth of my blood because they’ll always end up trying to use it for themselves and I’ll die for it. I know that I’ve never been old and that when it hasn’t been violent it’s always been bloody and that when it is bloody it’s often violent too.”

She drops Elijah’s gaze, “I don’t need you to tell me how the others died,” she tells him, “I know better than you.”

“You just spoke as though there were more than three doppelgängers.” He observes in response, not quite asking outright.

Elena turns to pace, but then stops when his hand catches her wrist just above the edge of her sleeve.

Her head darts upwards and she meets his gaze. He gently lets go of her arm and she sighs before asking the question that she and Kat and the her that loved him all want to know. The question that will decide just how much trust they will put in him.

“Who do you see when you look at me?”

He lifts his hand to cup her cheek, feather-light, and Elena can’t stop the instinctive way she turns her head into his hand, a gesture of trust a thousand years older than she is, started by the her that would have been his sister if things had only been a little different.

“Tatia,” He whispers, barely louder than a breath, and Elena memorises the name of the her that loved him and was killed by his parents anyway, even as he continues, “Katerina,” he says a little more loudly, “Elena.” He finishes in an almost normal tone of voice. “You are not the same. But you are close enough that it would be easy to ignore the differences if I wasn’t aware of it.”

Elena opens her mouth but never finds out what her automatic response would be, because at that moment Jeremy barges into her room without bothering to knock.

“Hey, Elena, I heard you-” he abruptly cuts off as he registers the strange vampire inches away from her in a position that looks far more intimate than it actually is and probably a lot like they were just about to or had just finished kissing.

“Jer, wait,” she tries to stop him before he lunges, but Elijah gets there first, and is across the room in the blink of an eye, between Jeremy and the hall landing.

Jeremy bristles and reaches for Elena but she sidesteps his hand and steps in front of him, “You gave me your word, Elijah.”

“So I did.” He says, eyes still fixed on her little brother where he stands behind her, too tall now to be obscured by her body like he was when they were younger and confronted with strangers.

“Hann er bróðir minn.” she tells Elijah, he is my brother.

“Elena?” Jeremy says in alarm from behind her, not understanding the language she just spoke and trying to get a grasp on what is going on, what he had inadvertently stumbled into.

“I gave you my word, Elena.” Elijah says again, “You brother will come to no harm from me or mine. I will make sure he is safe, as promised.”

“Including compulsion?”

Elijah tilts his head and Elena lets the fierce her rise behind her eyes to glare a warriors promise into the Original alongside her own, and with the knowledge and love of Tatia promising that she will be as ferocious in her defence of Jeremy as she was then, in defence of Elijah and his siblings.

Elijah closes his eyes for a moment then dips his head in acknowledgement. He doesn’t move from his place in the doorway except to properly close the door.

“Elena, what’s going on?” Jeremy asks, hand locked around her wrist like he’s contemplating dragging her to safety and throwing himself in front of her.

Elena takes a deep breath and lets the oldest her encourage her to have faith in her little brother and trust him to be able to handle what she has to say.

“Jer, this is Elijah. He’s promised to help me protect you and our family and friends.”

“Elijah?” Jeremy says suspiciously, “Like the Original?”

“The very same,” Elijah says smiling politely, “Your sister has been very helpful in giving me exactly what I need and has asked for nothing more than protection and honesty in return.”

Elena wants nothing more than to hiss at him for that but is too occupied stopping Jeremy from lunging at the vampire, “Jer, please don’t!”

“What is he talking about, Elena?” Jeremy demands, “What does he mean you gave him what he needs?”

Elena can’t help the way she looks away from him then, guilty about the fact that there’s a moderately good chance she won’t survive the sacrifice and will be leaving Jeremy alone, but still resolute that it’s the correct decision.

“Did you- You stole the moonstone from Bonnie, didn’t you?” he grabs onto her other arm and she can’t help the sadness she knows is written all across her face when she sees the desperation in his, “How- Where did you get a fake moonstone to switch it with? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“The fake isn’t a moonstone.” She told him, still not willing to share the secrets that she gained from the hers-that-were, “And I did what I had to.”

Jeremy’s face falls as he realises exactly what she means by that. “You agreed to let him kill you, didn’t you? Elena, you can’t! Please tell me that you didn’t do this!”

“I’m sorry, Jer, but my life for the safety of everyone that I’ve ever loved? That’s not a competition, that’s barely even a choice. I’m going to do whatever I have to, to protect you, no matter what. You can hate me for it if you want, but my choice won’t change. I’m sorry.”

She gets to watch his face contort with a rage that hides nothing but grief for all of a moment before he tears his wrists away from where she’s moved to hold them and pushes past Elijah. He wrenches the door open and slams it shut behind him. After a moment she hears the door to his room slam too.

She shuts her eyes but doesn’t let herself cry.

The next day she gets cornered by the Salvatores, Bonnie, and Caroline. She knows immediately that Jeremy’s squealed about her deal with Elijah.

She does not want to have this conversation. But she learnt a while ago that she can’t always have what she wants. So she braces herself, lines up her arguments and gets ready for the opening parry.

She dismisses the brothers’ insistence that they can keep her safe with the fact that they couldn’t even protect her and her loved ones from Katherine, how could they possibly protect her from multiple vampires twice Katherine’s age. Bonnie’s accusation that she’s throwing her life away is harder to ignore but Elena fights dirty and strikes back with the fact that she couldn’t bear it if people died because of her and at least this way she can keep the people she cares about safe. Caroline stays quiet until Damon has finished calling her stupid and impulsive and then quietly asks her what she’s hiding.

The problem with Bonnie and Caroline is that they both know Elena so well. She can’t lie to them the way she can to nearly everybody else. She can obfuscate with Bonnie at least a little if she gets her emotional or wound up enough because Bonnie tends to let her emotions blind her in the moment and won’t realise that she’s missed something for a while unless Elena gives her a reason to look closer. Caroline, on the other hand, has an eye for detail and a knack for spotting things others miss that becoming a vampire has only enhanced. And while as a rule Bonnie is the one who’s best suited to get through to Elena when she’s being stubborn, Caroline knows exactly where to hit to make her bleed and she’s not afraid to do it either. She’s ruthless that way. They all are, but Caroline’s the only one who’s normally willing to risk it on them.

Elena tries to evade, but with Caroline pointing her in the right direction, there’s no getting anything past Bonnie. Between the two of them and ignoring the Salvatore brothers, it doesn’t take them long to figure out that Elena knows something about Elijah that leads her to trust him.

“He’s good for his word.” Is all she tells them in response, but its not enough for her two best friends. They know there’s still something that she’s deliberately hiding from them.

She shouldn’t be surprised; they’ve known each other their whole lives and they both know that Elena would never just trust someone with the lives of the people she cares about without some kind of guarantee or something deeper going on. But she can’t tell them. Not yet, not right now.

When she finally shouts at them that she’s only trying to protect them, it’s completely true. But its also her trying to protect the hers-that-aren’t. The women who came before her, who are all sitting in the back of her head quietly and observing her fight some of the people she loves most in the world to keep them all safe.

When Bonnie finally breaks down in tears about how she can’t lose Elena and Caroline tries to comfort her while glaring at Elena and telling her that she could have at least tried to look at other options before throwing herself on the readily available sword, Elena can’t help but feel guilty. But she’s made her bed, now she has to deal with the consequences. And she can’t be sorry. Not when this means they’ll live rather than fighting and maybe dying for something they cannot prevent.

She punches Damon with damn near perfect form when he tries to get in her way as she moves to leave, and she ignores Stefan’s pleading and the heartbroken look in his eyes when he asks her if she’s really just given up that easily.

“I haven’t given up, Stefan. I’m just using the tools at my disposal for the best outcome I can get.”

She knows they’ll spend the rest of the period discussing her and how to convince her to change her mind. It’s exactly what she would have done if it was any of them, or god forbid, Jeremy, in her position. As it is, she decides to take ruthless advantage of the fact. It only takes two text messages and Rebekah is in front of her and asking what she needs help with. She’s still a little leery about how Elena knows so many things she shouldn’t after she’d managed to evade the most pointed of Elijah’s questions and kept most of the situation to herself, but they’re good enough friends that she’s willing to lend a hand.

Rebekah runs her to the Boarding House and compels Rose to forget they were there, which doesn’t really answer Elena’s question about whether Rose is aware that she’s most likely spying for the Originals, but she figures it doesn’t really matter all that much for her purposes anyway. Elena wastes no time in grabbing the book about the Petrova family that Damon had stashed in the library next to a dozen other books that look similar enough that he won’t notice that she’s taken it for a while. She detours down to the basement to grab some more vervain while she’s there and snatches a couple of blood bags for Rebekah in thanks for good measure. Rebekah then runs her home, where after a long moment Elena decides to trust the her that loved the Originals and knew them before – the one that Elijah had called Tatia – and invites Rebekah inside. She gives the Original vampire the blood bags she’d stolen, which Rebekah gives a grumpy look to but she still takes them and starts to sulkily drain them. Elena runs up to her room and hides the book in the false bottom of her cupboard before spritzing a little more vervain spiked perfume on her wrists and taking a swig of the now-cold cup of verbena tea that she’d forgotten to take downstairs that morning. After a moment of thought, she drains it.

By the time she makes it back downstairs, Rebekah has finished two of the blood bags and is making rapid progress through the third. Elena grabs a couple of paper towels from the kitchen and trades them for the used blood bags from Rebekah as she finishes the last of them.

Rebekah nods in thanks, “Guess I was hungry,” is all she says as Elena carefully collects the blood bags to ditch in the dumpster at school and the two of them lock the door behind them.

They get back to the school well before the period is over, and none of her friends seem to be any the wiser. After seeing her walk into class with Rebekah they get the message that she doesn’t want to talk about anything supernatural any more, and Bonnie and Caroline relent and start talking about the decade dance next month and how annoying some of the decorating committee are.

Elena couldn’t stop the smile she has if she tried.

She loves her friends so much, and she’s so unspeakably grateful that even in the midst of everything and all of the problems they currently have, the two of them are willing to talk to her about something as normal as the decade dance.

Even if she had had doubts, this would have erased them. Her own life versus theirs and everybody else she loves? No contest.  

The day before the full moon passes by in a blur. Caroline is off fussing over Tyler and his first transformation. Damon is refusing to speak with her and Stefan tries to do everything he can to get her to talk to him. Bonnie manages to undo the illusion on the white pebble that Elena had swapped for the moonstone. Elena speaks to none of them. The only person she says more than two words to all day is Jeremy. She apologises to him again. Begs for understanding that she knows he won’t give. Then she tells him that she loves him.

That night, when she goes to bed, she knows what’s coming. She knows that this time it won’t be those faceless, voiceless dreams full of nothing but colour and impressions that leave her panting with fear and have haunted her for days. She knows that this time she’ll dream properly again, like before with Isabela and Kat. But it’s different this time. She’s pretty sure it will be the woman that Elijah had called ‘Tatia’, and she knows what to expect now. At least she thinks she does. She hopes that will make it easier to bear.

She’s right about half of it.

That night, she dreams another lifetime. This time she is Tatia.

She dreams of being the prized only child of a father who is a respected warrior and a mother who died in childbirth. Of being the daughter of a seafaring people taught to respect the sea but not to fear it. Of being taught fighting skills that no other girl would be allowed but that she must because her father has no other to carry on his legacy.

She dreams of a man with a familiar face whose eyes follow her and who’s tentative advances are greeted with a smile, despite his lack of status among the others in the clan. Of not caring that his fighting skills are mediocre at best because he is kind in a way few others are. Of begging her father to let her marry him because she would rather marry a kind man that will love her spirit than a skilled warrior that will prize her status.

She dreams of bearing her loving husband a child they both desire more than anything, only for him to die in battle two moons before their daughter is born. Of naming their child after love and war both, for the love she bore her father and the conflict that killed him before he could ever meet her.

She dreams of her father dying mere months after his granddaughter is born and suffering the scorn from her village for being a single woman with no man to protect her. Of going to the witch that lives on the edge of the village with her husband and children and begging for help and being told that she and her daughter will find no acceptance here. Of being told to travel west across the sea for two and a half moon cycles until she reaches new land and then to continue to travel west until she finds the village of warriors that coexists with the village of hunters that are also wolves. Of being told that if she can make it there with her daughter then she will find love that defies lifetimes.

She dreams of putting off the journey for months in trying to find a way to get there safely, and then meeting a group of warriors and kinsmen who are heading in the right direction and realising that if she doesn’t go now then she never will at all and will doom her daughter to staying where their very presence is scorned. Of the sad sad eyes of the witch as she leaves the village with her toddler daughter and pretending that it means the witch is sad to see her leave and not that she has Seen something terrible. Of the journey being hard and terrifying and knowing that if her father had not trained her as he had then she and her daughter might both have perished on the ocean crossing the way several other parents and children did.

She dreams of finding the village she was promised and finding a sister in one of her neighbours. Of having a dear friend like she has never known before and thinking that if this is the only love she can find here then it will already have been worth the struggle. Of meeting the man courting her friend and through him, his siblings. Of watching her friend be blissfully in love in a way she hadn’t even loved her husband and being embraced as another member of the family alongside her.

She dreams of a man with kind eyes and gentle hands that looks at her as though she is made of starlight and treats her daughter as though she is precious. Of being charmed by this middle brother, whose next eldest sibling loves her friend. Of being wary of their parents, with cold eyes and harsh hands and hate in their hearts that is equal to the love they bear their children. Of being unable to prevent herself from falling in love with their least favoured child and unable to stop his brothers and sister from taking up a near equal residence in her heart. Of loving her friend and her daughter and this man that she cannot help but fall for and these brothers and sister that treat her like one of them.

She dreams of watching her friend marry her beloved and being blissfully happy with him but all the while longing for a child that they find themselves unable to have. Of being a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on and all the while watching her daughter grow knowing only the love that is showered on her from all sides by aunts and uncles that do not share her blood but love her regardless. Of falling ever deeper in love and getting her heart broken for it over and over again as she watches the man’s father beat him and insult him and belittle him because he is not as strong as his father wants him to be. Of watching all of the siblings suffer under their father’s temper and being glad that the second brother at least is out of the house and the rest can find refuge with him and her friend or with her and her ready excuse of needing a second pair of hands for her quickly growing daughter.

She dreams of making plans with her friend over loads of washing and trips to gather food and mending clothes while the others are gone. Of trying to find a way to get her friends out of their parent’s house, all the more urgently now that the one who was the best at mediating and calming his father’s temper no longer lives in the family home. Of encouraging the courting from the man she loves and loving him more for every smile he gives her daughter and every time he treats her as though she is his own. Of him apologising to her once for presuming to act to her daughter as a father would and of her own reassurance that she doesn’t mind because she has come to love him in a way that she never thought she would feel for another after Snorri’s death. Of him telling her he loves her and being thrilled. Of agreeing to marry him if only he will not mind raising the daughter of another.

She dreams of things going wrong mere days before she and Niklaus can wed. Of witnessing the terrible grief of his family at the death of their youngest and grieving with them. Of watching her dearest friend struggle to console her husband. Of seeking to console Lisbet and learning a secret that her friend does not yet feel ready to tell her husband when his family is so mired in grief. Of encouraging her friend to approach her mother-in-law for advice only for her not to return at all. Of discovering what her friends’ parents have done to their children. Of realising only when her husband seeks his wife that Lisbet is missing. Of the devastating grief wrecking the siblings all over again at Lisbet’s disappearance into thin air. Of being more careful than she has been since leaving her first home when her friends come to see her and her daughter because she cannot risk Freya to what their parents have made of them.

She dreams of realising too late what really happened to Lisbet when she goes to see Esther and tentatively agrees to help in a spell that she is told will help the man who holds her heart only to be knocked out. Of being dragged screaming to the centre of a ritual circle and knowing soul deep that nothing good will come from this. Of being tied down and hearing people coming and having no voice to warn them or breath left to scream.

She dreams of Niklaus being tied down too, and him begging and trying to reach for her. Of his brother, now widowed, being stopped by a magical barrier that he tries to break through only to fail. Of the Witch starting her spell and knowing pain unlike anything she’s ever known ripping her apart.

She dreams of the Witch reaching down and a tearing and ripping in her belly and blood and pain and fire. Of hearing Nik screaming and swearing and begging and his brother shouting and pleading all for their mother to stop and of being able to do nothing but sob and scream with the pain.

She dreams of pain and blood and fire and pain and screaming.

She dreams of starting to die as the tearing moves up her body to her heart and losing her ability to scream.

She dreams of the screams of someone she loves. Of hearing shouts and pleas.

She dreams of the screaming getting worse and more pained the closer she comes to death. Of hearing begging and pleas and swears of vengeance. Of someone she loves screaming and screaming and screaming and a pain that will not stop and gets worse as she gets weaker and weaker and weaker.

She dreams of dying in agony, soaked in her own blood to a symphony of screams and fire and chanting and an anger that she doesn’t recognise but is relieved to hear.

She dreams of pain.

This time, Elena doesn’t wake. Her hair is soaked with sweat, her sheets tossed aside as she writhes desperately for a freedom that will not come for Tatia. Saltwater tears have left dried streaks all over her face and pillow, from Elena’s pleas for a mercy that Tatia will not receive. And through it all Elena doesn’t wake. Dawn comes and she still cannot wrench herself free from this nightmare.

This time – with this life, this doppelgänger, this dream – she does not wake. She just screams.