"Yeah, we're about to leave now," Maya said into the phone as she put her stuff away. "Is there anything I should know?"

"Well, where do I start. Alaric has an evil alternative personality as a result of dying too many times with the ring who hates anything supernatural. We had weapons that could kill an original but we ended up giving them to Klaus because Rebekah had kidnapped me and drained me of vervain. Finn is dead, his whole sire line along with it. Alaric's alter ego had the last dagger that could kill an original, who, let me point out, could be the sire of my bloodline. Turns out Jeremy was never safe and Kol was with him the whole time. Oh, also, Elena and I kissed again," Damon said casually.

"Wait, so let me get this straight. Alaric is full on 'Jekyll and Hyde' ing it. You did something dumb that lost us our leverage. We can't kill any other original without risking killing all of our friends and you and Elena had another moment?"

"Yeah, sounds about right."

"I'm gone for all of five seconds and everything went to shit, the only good thing that came from it being that my ship is sailing."

"Your what is what now?"

"It's-nevermind."

"Get your ass home wolfie. There's a dance tonight and something always happens at dances. Plus, if I have to go, you have to go."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on my way." She hung up the phone before swinging her bag over her shoulder and joining Liam by the car.

"I'll return the keys," Liam said taking Maya's key and going to the lobby.

Her phone rang again causing her to roll her eyes. "Damon, I told you I'm coming."

"Don't come home," a voice that was a mere whisper and static that sounded oddly like Alaric said through the phone before the line clicked.

Maya stared down at her phone in confusion when Liam joined her in the car. "We should be there a few hours before the dance starts. You can come or not, it's up to you."

"What else would I do?"

"Good point. The theme is the 20s we can stop at a vintage shop in town."

"I have to dress up?"

"You need to blend."

"Can I change my mind?"

"Nope, too late to back out now."

He let out a groan as they continued on the road back to Mystic Falls.

After they got their clothes for the dance, they stopped at Maya's place to put their stuff away and get ready.

"This place is huge," Liam said looking around the mansion in awe.

"Perks of being the mayor's daughter," Maya said as she walked up the stairs to her room, Liam following behind. "It's best if you stay here, at least until Tyler is home. My mom wouldn't be happy to know that I brought a guy home and didn't warn her."

"Good to know," he said entering the room. He placed his bag on the floor and looked around the room.

"What?"

"It's not what I was expecting."

"What were you expecting?"

"I don't know, but not this."

"What should we do for an hour?" Maya asked blowing a raspberry in boredom.

"I have a few ideas," Liam said with a smirk.

Maya fell back onto the bed with a sigh of pleasure. "That was..." she said turning her head slowly to look at Liam as she pulled the cover to protect her sensitive skin from the cold air.

"Yeah," he said with a breathy laugh.

"I need to take a shower," Maya said standing up and going to the bathroom connected to her room. She popped her head back out to the room before asking with a mischievous smile, "You coming?"

They were both changed and ready to go a little late considering they got distracted. They made it to the dance late.

"So this is the mysterious Mystic Falls High," Liam said dramatically.

"The one and only," Maya said before something caught her eye. "Um, I'll be right in. Find Tyler and ask him to lead you to Damon Salvatore. I'll be back in a minute."

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be in soon."

Maya waved a small wave and waited for him to disappear into the school before going after the all to familiar figure that she had been dreading to see since she left.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Maya seethed at the original witch. These Mikaelsons have a problem with showing up in placed they aren't wanted.

"Oh, I'm just here for my asset," Esther said before Maya lost consciousness.

Maya had slowly begun to wake up and she heard voices.

"I'll need your ring," a female voice spoke.

"Now, why would I give you the one thing that protects me from death?" a male voice spoke.

"I will give you all the protection you need, however the stake will burn up in the body of its first victim. If you are to kill all of my children I will need to bind the protective magic in your ring to the stake, thus rendering the white oak indestructible."

Alaric pulled off his ring and Esther took it, dropping it into the bowl and chanted a spell. Flames burst up from the bowl at the ring melted. Esther then stirred the molten metal with the white oak stake and it turned upside down. The melted ring poured down and covered the white oak.

"The ultimate weapon for the ultimate hunter."

"What have you done?" Maya said from the floor.

Esther went off to get Elena and left Maya with evil Alaric.

"You don't have to do this, Ric."

"I'm not the 'Ric' you thought you knew."

"Yes you are, I know you're in there, somewhere."

He let out a deep, almost evil chuckle, "You know, he tried to stop this."

"What?"

"I lost control and he called you and told you not to come home. A little pathetic really."

"That was him?"

"Yep, it's a little too late to listen to his advice though."

She opened her mouth to plead for Ric to fight this but her trail of thought was cut off when she saw Elena and Esther join them.

"Please don't hurt Ric," Elena begged.

"She's not hurting me," Alaric said joining Maya.

"Ric!" Elena shouted and moved closer when she seemed to realize something.

"What's going on? What are you doing with him?" Elena asked immediately.

"I'm going to remake him."

"Remake him?"

"Make him strong, fast, like my children. Indestructible. For one final time I'm going to tap into the dark magic I used a thousand years ago. Like my husband Mikael before him I will make Alaric into a true hunter, a vampire to end all vampires."

"What if he turns out to be an even bigger monster than your children?" Maya spoke up from her position causing Elena to look at her in confusion. She didn't know she was back.

"He won't now that he has embraced his darkest aspect, his hatred for them will become more pure and uncompromising. In death that hatred will be magnified."

"How would you know? You know nothing about him."

"That is where you're wrong. Each time he died with that ring during his brief journey into death, I was there on The Other Side. I spoke to him, I nurtured him knowing that every death brought him closer to his true self. Vampires took everything from him. Now he's getting his vengeance."

Elena turned to Maya and mouthed, 'We have to do something.' Maya nodded before turning to Esther.

"Haven't you learned your lesson? I'm not going to help you"

"You don't have much of a choice," Esther said raising her hand but suddenly stopped and her eyes trailed to Maya's stomach, "Would you look at that."

"What?" Maya asked, not understanding what was happening.

"You appear to have a little witch-werewolf hybrid in you womb."

Maya's eyes widened, "Are you telling me I'm pregnant? That's impossible."

"Is it? I'm a witch after all, I can tell. Did you happen to sleep with anyone on your weekend trip?"

"You're lying."

"I'm not, but, you won't have it for much longer."

"Excuse me?" Maya said taking a step back.

"When I use you to help me complete the spell, I'm almost positive it will kill the baby."

"So you would kill a child, who has nothing to do with this, by the way, just so you could right your mistake?" Elena said stepping in front of Maya and the alleged baby protectively.

"You won't miss it," Esther said passively as she began lighting candles and preparing for the spell.

"Ric, this isn't what you want. It's not who you are," Elena said in a last attempt at stopping this before it got worse.

"You don't know who I am, Elena. You only know the weakest parts of me, the man who lost his way befriending vampires instead of killing them."

"You don't mean that."

"They're all monsters. The blood of their victims is on my hands. Jenna's blood is on my hands."

"When you are ready," Esther said as she let go of Maya's arm. She let out a gasp of pain, she looked up at the full moon in confusion.

"No Ric, please don't. Don't do this. I won't help you, I'm not gonna give you my blood, you're gonna have to kill me!"

"That won't be necessary." Esther magically cuts Elena's hand before grabbing her wrist and squeezing blood into the bowl. "Drink. And let it be done."

"No Ric please, don't...No!"

Alaric took a drink from the bowl before asking, "Is it finished?"

"Not just yet."

Esther staked Alaric with the indestructible white oak stake and Elena let out a cry.

Elena walked over to his dead body and pulled out the stake.

"He'll wake soon. When he does, he may, for a time, be his old self. If so you can say your goodbyes before his transition is complete."

"You said you wanted to undo the evil that you created, but this...This is just as evil!"

"Alaric will never be what my children became. I have granted him enough power to complete his task. Then when the time is right, he will die."

"How, if he's immortal?"

"All you need to know is that when this is over we will have rid the earth of vampires once and for all."

"Yeah, but you'll be killing the good along with the bad, you're no better than Klaus!"

"Am I not? I desire a world where you and your loved ones will not suffer at the hands of vampires, like your Aunt Jenna did."

"Don't you dare use Jenna as an excuse for what you've done."

"You may draw comfort knowing that your aunt is not in the place that I was. She doesn't know the torment of The Other Side. Though made a vampire, she remained pure. She knows peace. Which is all any of us can hope for."

Maya's ear perked up when she heard a noise, Esther seemed to notice this as well so she went back outside, Elena with her.

Matt and Jeremy were pointing a rifle and crossbow at Esther. "Don't move!" Matt shouted.

"Where's Elena and Maya?"

"Jeremy!" Elena shouted.

"Let her go."

"How foolish of you to risk your lives in defense of those who will kill you. But if that is your choice," Esther said before using her magic to force Jeremy and Matt to point their weapons at each other.

"Matt! Matt drop your gun!" Jeremy said with a panic stricken voice.

"I can't! I'm not controlling it!"

"Esther stop it!" Elena shouted.

Maya turned to Alaric who had woken up, "Maya?"

"We have to help them," Maya said before forcing herself up and joining the four outside.

She saw what Esther was doing. Anger being the only emotion she could feel at that moment, she stormed over to Esther. She plunged her arm into Esther's chest before whispering to her, "I warned you what would happen if you used me, I would kill you. I hope you burn in hell." She then pulled her arm back out with Esther's heart in her hand.

Everyone looked at her in a mix of shock and confusion. Maya simply dropped the heart on to the floor, "Now that the wicked witch of the west is gone, we have a new problem," she said turning to Alaric.

"What happened?"

"Elena and Jeremy will explain, I'm going to clean this up," Maya said looking down at the body and her hand.

Alaric shot her a worried look but she simply shook her head and he went back into the cave with Elena and Jeremy.

She pulled her phone out with her clean hand and dialed the person she knew she would immediately regret calling.

"Hello?" the all too familiar British voice said through the other line.

"Meet me at Salvatore tomb. You have some trash to pick up, bring Damon," she said before hanging up and putting her phone in her pocket.

A few moments later both Klaus and Damon showed up and took in the scene. "What happened?" Damon asked.

"Alaric is in the tomb with Elena and Jeremy, you should go say goodbye," Maya said to Damon who was still confused.

"Say goodbye?"

"Elena will explain," Maya said frowning slightly before he vamp sped into the tomb.

She then turned to Klaus as she picked up a towel and began wiping the blood off of her hands, "I warned her."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," Klaus said as he looked at her feeble attempt at getting rid of the blood.

"Yes, I do. Despite all of the horrible things that have happened between you two, she is still your mom." Maya put the rag down, unable to get all of the blood off of her hands. After taking a seat on a rock, she gestured for Klaus to sit next to her. "She told me something about me, yet she was still willing to use me. She killed Alaric. She deserved it. Please, don't hate me."

"Esther was a horrible mother. She didn't care about me, even when she claimed she did. As I'm sure you already know, I was the result of an affair my mother had with a werewolf. My father hated me for it. He was abusive and Esther did nothing to stop it. If I were to hate you for what you did, I would be a hypocrite because I did the same."

Maya continued to try and rub the blood off her hand but failed. He grabbed her hand to stop her and she looked up at him.

"You did it because you needed to do it for you, I don't hate you. Quite the opposite really."

She looked back down at their hands that were currently intertwined when she heard someone calling out causing her to jump away.

"Maya!" Liam shouted as she wiped away her tears.

Klaus didn't seem too surprised but hurt was etched in the edges of his eyes. He then picked up his mother who laid dead on the floor before vamp speeding away as Liam approached.

"What happened?" he asked walking up to Maya.

"It's a long story," she said looking down.

"Are you okay?"

"I will be."

Maya had avoided saying goodbye to Alaric but more people showed up as the night went on. Stefan, Caroline, Tyler, Bonnie, and Meredith, joined Maya, Liam, Damon, Jeremy and Matt as they waited for Alaric to come out with Elena.

Maya had distracted herself by scattering the candles that Esther had used for the spell around them. Alaric smiled at everyone, he teared up before shooting a small, but sad smile that told her everything she needed to know, before walking back into the tomb and closing the gate.

"You should go home with Tyler, I'm going to stay here, keep him comfortable," Maya said to Liam.

Everyone had left except Maya, Damon and Meredith. Maya was staring at the tomb, trying to build up the courage to go in. Damon sat in front of it, whiskey and stake in hand.

Meredith emerged from the cave, snapping Maya out of the trance.

"I gave him a sedative. He'll fall asleep first. He'll go comfortably," Meredith said as she wiped away a stray tear.

"Well...I offered to snap his neck, put him out of his misery but...he didn't take me up on it," Damon pointed out.

"You seem surprised."

"Well, you just think a guy so used to dying, wouldn't want to drag it out," he said before taking a swig from the bottle.

"Well, it was nice of you to give him the option."

Somewhere during the conversation, Maya gained control of her feet and joined Alaric on the floor of the cave.

"Hey..." she whispered quietly.

"Nice of you to say goodbye," he said, letting out a light, pain filled chuckle.

"I was afraid. I don't want to lose you."

"I know and I'm sorry."

"I get why you're doing this, I just really wish you didn't have to. There has to be another way."

"There isn't. We can't risk it," Alaric said, shifting ever so slightly, shooting Maya a look, "So what did Esther mean when she said you were pregnant?"

"I was hoping you didn't hear that."

"I did."

"Well, it doesn't really matter since she killed it."

"I guess you're right, but next time, to avoid this situation, use protection."

"Are you giving me the sex talk on your deathbed?" Maya said mockingly, a tear rolling down her cheek, "It's a little late for that don't you think?"

He laughed but it quickly turned into a cough. Maya rubbed his back hoping it would calm him down.

"Ric," Damon said as he entered the cave.

"Is this the part where you give me a dream? Rainbows and rolling green hills?" Alaric said after he stopped coughing.

"I was drunk when I told you that."

Alaric let out another laugh, "Yeah and I told you I'd use it against you."

"Damn you. Sorry I killed you. Twice."

"So I have to actually die to get a real apology out of you."

"Drink," Damon said handing him the bottle.

"Actually, I've been thinking about cutting back," Alaric said as a tear rolled off of his cheek.

"Ha, yeah! This stuff'll kill ya."

Maya rested her head on Alaric's shoulder as Damon took another swig from the bottle.

Ric eventually fell unconscious and Maya fell asleep on his arm. Eventually Alaric stopped breathing.

Damon finished his bottle when he noticed something. "Maya?" he questioned, walking over to her, she didn't move.

He listened for a heartbeat but heard none.

He got up, leaving the bottle on the floor and went outside to call Stefan. He noticed Bonnie standing outside under the full moon.

"What are you doing here?" Damon asked confused, putting his phone away. She ignored him and continued blankly toward the tomb.

"Hey, Bonnie...What, are you sleepwalking or something? Bonnie?"

Bonnie turned slowly and looks at him, she lifts her hand in the air and gave Damon a massive headache. He clutched his head and fell to the ground in pain.

"No! Bonnie! No!" he shouted.

Bonnie entered the tomb, she looked down at Alaric's and Maya's bodies. She stabbed both of her hands with the indestructible white oak stake and put her palm into both of their mouths. They both began drinking. Revealing their vampire teeth, both Maya and Alaric pull her closer.

Before Maya could even register what had happened, Alaric threw Bonnie on the floor, grabbed the stake and vamp sped out.

Damon entered the cave in a hurry but knew he was already too late, he looked Maya up and down wide eyed and confused.

"What the hell is going on?"