Elena looked at herself in the mirror a few hours after she had woken up. The black dress she was wearing matched the shoes and earrings she had put on. She might not have liked John and she wasn't sad that he was dead, but she did feel grateful for him sacrificing his life for hers.

She didn't know if it was the elixir from Elijah or John's sacrifice or a combination of both but here she stood, ready to go to the hastily planned and compelled funeral of one Jonathan Alexander Gilbert, her biological father.

"You okay?" Jeremy walked into her room.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Elena turned to him. "Are you?"

Jeremy didn't say anything at first. Just walked up to her and pulled her into his arms, "I'm so happy that you are alive."

"Me too." Elena smiled then she smirked teasingly. "Even though I kinda liked being dead, it was peaceful."

"Lena!" Jeremy glared slightly at her.

"What?!" Elena laughed and pulled back from him. "I did promise to never lie to you."

"You're insane but I love you anyway, sister-mine." Jeremy shook his head.

"I love you to, baby brother." Elena smiled at him.

"John wanted me to give this to you." Jeremy handed her a letter. "And this." He pulled out the Gilbert resurrection ring from his pocket and gave it to her.

A few hours later Elena was left at the cemetery with Damon and Stefan as the rest of their family went home.

"So... what's the plan?" Damon asked as the three of them looked out over the grave yard. "The curse is broken and Elijah didn't come through with the promise of killing Klaus. How do you go about killing an all-powerful wolf/vamp and his two-faced older brother?"

"We are not killing either of them." Elena declared with a note of finalization in her voice.

"Elena, Elijah betrayed us and Klaus killed you." Damon murmured as he looked at her.

"I don't blame Elijah for not killing his own brother." Elena informed the Salvatore brothers. "There is nothing in this world that could make me kill Jeremy, not a single thing."

"What about Klaus?" Stefan asked, knowing that he would never be able to kill Damon either.

"First off, I agreed to be part of the sacrifice and second, I'm not dead." Elena smiled. "I didn't lose anyone and life is good."

"Yeah, about that..." Damon looked a little uncomfortable.

"Damon?" Elena and Stefan turned to look at him.

"While you were both at the Quarry some werewolves broke into the boarding house and..." Damon trailed off.

"And?" Elena had a bad feeling about this.

"One of them bit me." Damon pulled up his sleeve and showed them the bite. "It's actually more of a nip, really, but there it is."

"We'll find something." Stefan promised with a look of anguish on his face. "A cure."

"There is no cure, little brother." Damon said softly.

"There must be something!" Elena exclaimed with tears in her eyes. Even though she was still mad at Damon for the attempt kidnapping before the ritual, she didn't want him to die!

"I will find something!" Stefan swore. "I don't care about what prize I must pay."

"And I'll help!" Elena declared strongly.

"Elena, you don't owe me anything." Damon smiled gently at her. "Especially since I tried to kidnap you."

"Hey, we all do stupid shit sometime, yeah?" Elena smiled back. "And if you promise to fight to survive, I'll forgive you for it, deal?"

"Deal." Damon chuckled softly.

XOXOXOX

Two days after Damon had told her and Stefan about the bite Elena and Jeremy were walking through the town square to join Jenna, Alaric and Caroline to watch 'Gone with the Wind'. Stefan had promised to find Elena when he had found a lead to a cure for Damon.

"Do we have to watch a girl movie?" Jeremy mock whined.

"Sadly, yes." Elena nodded. "I would rather watch 'Transformers' or something but we promised Jenna so here we are."

"Why do we let Aunt Jenna talk us into these sorts of things?" Jeremy asked as he helped Elena spread a big blanket on the ground.

"Because she has puppy eyes and we love her." Elena laughed softly.

"And I love you both too." Jenna beamed as she walked up to them without Alaric.

"Where's Alaric?" Elena asked and looked around as if to see him.

"Something came up, apparently." Jenna shrugged and sat down on the blanket.

"Hey, there you guys are!" Caroline came bouncing up to them with a bright smile. "Who's hungry?"

"How much food did you bring?" Jeremy laughed as Caroline placed three big baskets in the middle of the blanket.

"Oh, you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that." Caroline smiled.

Forty-five minutes later Stefan walked up to them with a small smile that looked more like a grimace. "Hey."

"Stefan, do you want to join us?" Jenna asked with a gesture to the blanket.

"No thank you." Stefan shook his head. "I was actually hoping that I could steal Elena?"

"Absolutely." Elena jumped up from the ground and whispered so only Stefan would hear. "Thank you for rescuing me from having to watch the rest of that dreadful movie."

"I think I may have a lead on a way to save Damon." Stefan said as they walked away from the town square.

"How and what is it?" Elena looked hopeful.

"I asked Bonnie to talk to her ancestors and while they didn't want to help her because they see Damon dying as balance." Stefan sneered as he said that. "She managed to hear them say something."

"What?" Elena asked.

"Klaus." Stefan looked at her. "I'm going to Alaric's apartment to talk to him now and I know you would want to come with me."

"Let's go!" Elena quickly made her way to Stefans car.

When they entered Alaric's place, they saw several empty bourbon bottles on the table and Kathrine sitting on the bed.

"Oh, bourbon!" Elena called out and tried to find a bottle that still had some liquid amber left.

"Really, Elena?" Stefan sighed and sat down at the table. "You notice the bourbon but not the vampire on the bed?"

"Huh?" Elena looked up from her search. "Oh... eh... Hey."

"What are you doing here?" Kathrine asked with a glare at Stefan but her gaze soon turned to Elena, or more precisely, Elena's neck, as she licked her lips.

"None of your business." Stefan answered simply.

"So hungry." Kathrine sighed, then she was up and had Elena pushed against a wall with the intention of sinking her fangs into her neck before Stefan could react.

Suddenly Kathrine was ripped of Elena by the neck and had an angry looking hybrid glaring at her, "I wouldn't do that if I were you!"

"Klaus." Elena beamed, then she turned to Elijah and her smiled softened. "Elijah."

"Hello, Elena." Elijah smiled back. "It pleases me to see you alive."

"I'm happy you trusted me and didn't have to go through with the plan." Elena walked over to him. "No one should be forced to kill their own brother."

Elijah grabbed her hand had kissed the top of in in a gesture of gratefulness. Then he turned towards Kathrine with a glare, "Katerina."

"So, what can I do for you, Elena." Klaus asked as he threw Kathrine down on the floor.

"We need your help." Elena admitted softly.

"For my brother." Stefan added as he stepped forward.

"Well, whatever it is, it's going to have to wait a tick." Klaus smirked at Stefan but his look turned apologetic as he turned to Elena. "You see, I have an obligation to my brother that requires my immediate attention."

"Elena knows and understands how important family is and I assume, so do you, otherwise you wouldn't be here." Elijah addressed Stefan. "My brother gave me his word that he would reunite me with my own."

"And so I shall." Klaus showed a dagger through Elijah's chest, killing him. Then he had Stefan against a wall with a stake in one hand.

"Elijah!" Elena tried to run to him.

"Katerina, grab and hold Elena in place, but be gentle!" Klaus ordered but also emphasized on Kathrine being gentle with her.

Elena tried to struggle in Kathrine's grip, feeling tears gather in her eyes as she looked at Elijah's desiccated body. Why did she feel so sad and like there was a hand squeezing her heart?

"Now, what am I gonna do with you?" Klaus stabbed Stefan with the stake he was holding. "Do you feel that? It's scraping against your heart and the slightest little movement and your dead."

"Please don't kill him." Elena pleaded softly, not being able to handle Elijah 'dying' and Stefan being stabbed so she let her tears fall. "We're just trying to help his brother."

"Damon's been bitten by a werewolf." Stefan groaned out.

"The witches said that you had a cure." Elena explained quickly.

"Make me a deal." Stefan looked at Klaus. "Just give me the cure and I'll do whatever you want."

Klaus pulled the stake out, letting Stefan fall to the floor and walked over to the counter to pour himself a glass of blood.

"Trouble is, I don't know if you'd be any good to me the way you are now." Klaus hummed as he turned and leaned against the counter.

"What do you mean?" Stefan asked as he stood up from the floor slowly.

"You are just shy of useless." Klaus huffed, then he turned to look at Elena up and down with a mock leer, but Elena could see in his eyes that he wasn't being serious. "At least Elena would have some uses but I like and respect her too much for that."

"Thank you." Elena murmured softly to which Klaus nodded at her. If sex was what Klaus would have wanted for the cure, she would have agreed without a thought but she was relieved that she didn't have to. Sex terrified her, especially after the whole thing that happened with Tanner and then Brady.

"I heard about this one vampire, crazy bloke, always on and off the wagon for decades." Klaus stood in front of Stefan. "When he was off, he was magnificent. 1917, he went into Monterrey and wiped out an entire migrant village... A true ripper. Sounds familiar?"

"I want to kill a whole village and make it a ghost town or something." Elena muttered with a thoughtful look on her face, trying to keep her mind of Elijah and his 'death'.

"I haven't been that way in a very long time." Stefan said, ignoring Elena, even as Klaus sent her an impressed look.

"Well, that's the kind of vampire I can make a deal with." Klaus turned back to Stefan. "That is the kind of talent that I can use when I leave this town."

"How do I even know that you have the cure?" Stefan asked as he looked at Klaus.

"Katerina, come here." Klaus ordered and as Kathrine walked over, Klaus face changed and he bit down on his arm.

"No, no, no, no..." Kathrine looked freaked out as she stared at her arm in disbelief.

Klaus bit down on his own wrist and made Kathrine drink his blood. And as Stefan, Elena and Klaus looked at Kathrine, her wound healed.

"You want the cure?" Klaus asked with a smirk. "There it is."

"Your blood is the cure." Stefan breathed out softly.

"I sort of wanted to see if your bite killed vampires faster than a regular werewolf." Elena pouted slightly.

"Gotta love mother nature." Klaus said to Stefan before he turned to Elena. "We'll have to put that to the test sometime, you and I."

"Looking forward to it." Elena chuckled a little as she finally remembered that Elijah would be woken up by Damon at a later date, if Elena didn't screw around too much with the time line that is.

Klaus put his hand on Stefan's shoulder and led him over to the kitchen island thing, "Let's talk."

Klaus squeezed a knife blade tightly in his hand a while later to have the blood pour into a glass vial, with Stefan and Elena looking on.

"There it is. You want to save your brother?" Klaus looked up at Stefan. "How about a decade-long bender? And I have big plans for you when we leave this town."

"Can I come?" Elena asked, she had always wanted to travel.

"You, my dearest Elena, are more than welcome." Klaus smiled at her.

"Yay!" Elena did a little happy dance from where she was sitting.

"Elena, I don't think your Aunt or your brother would be happy with you leaving so soon after you died." Stefan told her with a look.

"Poodoo." Elena muttered with a pout, she wanted to meet Rebekah when Klaus woke her up. Then she perked up as an idea hit her. "Wait, can't I come and join you if you ever decide to go to a big city? I've always wanted to go shopping in a big city."

"I think that could be arranged." Klaus chuckled.

"Back to the point, I haven't been a ripper in several decades." Stefan admitted as he looked at the blood in the vial.

"Well, that's too bad." Klaus started to pour the blood down the drain. "You would have made a hell of a wing man."

"Wait." Stefan said and Klaus stopped pouring the blood. "I just said that it had been a while, not that I wouldn't do it."

"Now that's more like it." Klaus smirked and threw a blood bag along the counter and as Klaus looked at him Stefan started to drink form it. "Finish it. All of it."

"Can't I enjoy it?" Stefan huffed but quickly drained the bag.

"Again." Klaus threw him another bag.

"You were actually part of the 'Thirty Year War'?" Elena asked wide eyed twenty minutes later. "Which side were you on?"

"Oh, dearest Elena." Klaus smirked at her. "Both sides, of course."

"Of course." Elena laughed brightly. "It's amazing, all the history you've seen and been a part of."

"I have seen quite a lot." Klaus smiled at her. He liked this doppelgänger; she was not like the others. She was not a manipulative bitch that played two brothers against each other like Tatia and she was not a scared little girl that believed in true love and fairytale endings like Katerina, who later became Tatia 2.0.

Elena was funny, ruthless, mischievous, loyal and bloodthirsty in equal measures and Klaus knew that if you gained her loyalty it would be a hard thing to lose. He wanted her loyalty and her trust, her compassion and her fire.

"Elena, if I asked you for a favor in the future, what would that cost me?" Klaus looked at her.

"That depends on the favor and how good friends we are." Elena told him with a shrug.

"I don't know yet." Klaus smiled at her and then he turned to Stefan who was finishing his fifth blood bag. "You drink the last bag and the cure is yours."

Stefan snatched up the last blood bag and started to drink it with gusto, wanting to get the cure for his brother as fast as possible.

"That's the spirit." Klaus took the vial of his blood and turned to Kathrine and compelled her. "Sweetheart, take this over to Damon and come right back."

"You want me to leave?" Kathrine sounded confused but that couldn't hide the hopefulness.

"No!" Stefan surged to his feet.

"Yes and if I were you..." Klaus didn't even manage to finish the sentence before Kathrine was gone. "I'd hurry."

"She'll never take it to him." Stefan started at the door.

"You mean because she's on vervain?" Klaus hummed.

"You knew?" Stefan looked at him.

"I could smell it the moment she started to drink it." Klaus laughed. "Which is why I'm doing this."

Klaus pulled out another glass vial and filled it with his blood and held it out to Elena. "Take this to Damon and if Katerina actually gave Damon the first vial you can keep this for the future."

"Thank you." Elena kissed him on the cheek as she grabbed the vial.

"You are welcome." Klaus smirked at her. "And remember, I'll call you if we are ever in a big city."

"Sounds good." Elena smiled at him and then at Stefan. "Have fun and don't get dead."

XOXOXOX

Two weeks after Klaus and Stefan had left Mystic Falls on an epic werewolf quest, a crying Elena rushed into the boarding house.

When she had gotten back to Damon with the cure, she saw that Kathrine had actually brought the cure to him so she saved her own vial of blood for a rainy day. Then when she found out that Sheriff Forbes had actually shot and killed her baby brother, both Damon and Caroline had to hold her back so Elena wouldn't murder said sheriff.

Elena had then spent a whole day wrapped around Jeremy to assure herself that he was really there. Jenna had also joined them, having been there when the sheriff shot her nephew.

After that Elena had decided to finally read through her fathers' journals which led to now, as she ran up to Damon and wrapped her arms around him while sobbing into his chest.

"Elena?" Damon asked even as he wrapped his arms around the sobbing young woman. "What's going on? Why are you sad?"

"My da... Greyson," Elena refused to call that man her dad at the moment.

"What about him?" Damon slowly coxed a crying Elena to the couch.

"I've started to read his journals." Elena murmured, still not pulling her face away from Damons chest.

"Whatever it is it can't be that bad, right?" Damon encouraged. "Did he cheat on your mom or something?"

"No, he worked for the people that experiments and tortures vampires." Elena wailed quietly.

"What?" Damon sounded confused.

"Greyson worked for something called Augustine." Elena pulled back and she looked absolutely devastated. "And they hurt vampires."

"Elena..." Damon didn't know what to say, he hadn't thought about Augustine in years.

"And that's not even the worst part." Elena sobbed. "He had written detailed descriptions of how he experimented and tortured a vampire 'for science'. And he didn't call the vampire by name, like this vampire wasn't even a person, he just called him 12144."

"What did you say?" Damon startled and pulled back.

"Greyson experimented and tortured vampires for science?" Elena asked as the tears continued to fall.

"Not that, what number did you say?" Damon demanded to know.

"12144." Elena repeated.

"Elena... I know who that is." Damon got up and started to pace.

"How can you know that?" Elena wiped her cheeks with her shirt.

"Because I used to be an Augustine vampire." Damon admitted. "They called me 21051."

"Did Greyson....?!" Elena looked almost sick.

"No, no, no, I escaped in 1958 after having been there for 5 years." Damon pulled her into his arms again and proceeded to tell her about his time at Augustine, and finished shamefully. "And to save us I thought I had to turn off my emotions so I could stop being sacred and have rational thoughts but after I shut them off, I just left my best friend to die, not caring in the slightest."

"He's not dead, Damon." Elena told him. "He's still there."

"What?" Damon looked devastated. "I thought he was dead.... I left him to be tortured for 50 years... I need to get him out."

Damon started to walked, or more like stumble, towards the door, but Elena managed to pull him back to the couch.

"We can't just rush in there without a plan." Elena declared. "And we need more people."

"We?" Damon looked at her.

"Of course I'm going to help, he's your friend." Elena said like it was obvious. "And we can even ask Mason and Tyler to help."

"We'll help." Mason spoke up from where he and Tyler entered.