❝ 🪦‧˚꒰ ೯﹙ 𝗦𝗜𝗫 𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗧 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 ﹚- ୭౿ ❞
ꗃ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ﹙ A BACK UP PLAN ﹚˖ ࣪. ࿐
𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗪𝗢 ━━━ 𝖤𝖯𝖨𝖲𝖮𝖣𝖤 𝖳𝖶𝖤𝖭𝖳𝖸
𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘓𝘈𝘚𝘛 𝘋𝘈𝘠 ╱ ╱ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

❝𝗧𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 full moon. We should assume that Klaus is prepared to break the curse. ❞ Elijah stood in the Salvatore Parlor, talking to Stefan, Elena and Anastasia.

"Elena said that the Sun and the Moon curse is fake?" Stefan was confused as he looked between his niece and Elijah. "That it's actually just a curse placed on Klaus."

"Klaus is a vampire born of a werewolf bloodline. The curse has kept his werewolf aspect from manifesting." Anastasia explains to her uncle, "But if he breaks the curse....Klaus will be a true hybrid. Stronger than I am."

"Then why are we letting him break the curse?" Damon asked as he joined the four. "We can kill him today. With Bonnie and Anastasia."

"Leave me out of it." Anastasia rolls her eyes at her father.

"No. Bonnie can't use that much power without dying." Elena shakes her head.

"Anastasia could possibly die also." Elijah says, "It's been what? Twenty years since you've used your magic?"

"I've been using it here a lot lately." Anastasia mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'll write her a great eulogy." Damon ignores the conversation between Elijah and his daughter.

"It's not an option, Damon."

"Alright, how do we break this curse?" Stefan asked, turning the conversation back to the real reason that Elijah was back in his home.

"Well, the ritual itself is relatively straightforward. The ingredients, so to speak, you already know."

"The moonstone."

"A witch will channel the power of the full moon to release the spell that's bound within the stone. After that, Klaus, being both werewolf and vampire, will sacrifice one of each." Elijah says.

"And where do I fit into it?" Questioned.

"The final part of the ritual." Elijah says before taking a wooden box from the shelf next to him. "Klaus must drink the blood of the doppelganger.....to the point of your death."

Damon looks over towards Elena while Stefan grabs her hand in his, Anastasia stays in the same place she was in with her arms crossed over her chest and a bored expression on her face while Elijah opens the box and pulls a jar out.

"And that's where you come in." Elena says.

"This is an elixir that I acquired some 500 years ago for Katerina. It possesses mystical properties for resuscitation."

"So I'll be dead?"

"And then you won't." Elijah said.

"That's your plan? A magical witch potion with no expiration date?" Damon asked, looking back to Elena. "You want to come back to life, what about John's ring?"

"Those rings only work on humans. The doppelganger's a supernatural occurrence. Odds are, the ring won't work."

"I'll take those odds over your elixir. What if it doesn't work, Elena?"

"Then I guess I'll just be dead."

"Good riddance." Anastasia mumbled to herself.

Damon looks over at Stefan, who just shrugs back at his older brother. He then looks over at Elijah before disappearing.

彡☆

DAMON STANDS OUTSIDE, DRINKING a glass of Scotch over his usual Bourbon when Stefan joins him.

"Breakfast of champions, huh?" Stefan asked.

"I'm surrounded by idiots." Damon tells him, "I need all the help I can get."

"You know, you're not helping." Stefan said to him.

"Elijah is an original vampire, Stefan. One we tried to kill. You're going to believe this guy?"

"What do you want me to do, Damon? Elena made her decision. She's choosing to trust Elijah. I'm going to put my faith in her." Stefan tells him.

"Why? She's going to end up dead." Damon spat.

"Because she put her faith in me. She chose to trust me in spite of what I am." Stefan said to his brother, "I'm going to bet on somebody's instincts, it's going to to be hers or Anastasia's."

"Well, then, that makes you the biggest idiot of them all."

"She chose to trust you, too."

"Then maybe you shouldn't be so sure about her instincts." Damon said before drinking the rest of the Scotch in his glass, throwing it into the huge backyard and leaving.

彡☆

ELENA JOINS ELIJAH AND Anastasia in the Library, "You'd think he'd understand why I'm willing to do this." She touches the elixir bottle and lifts it upward.

"Why are you?" Elijah asked.

"I'm the key to breaking the curse. Klaus is here because of me. If I don't stop him, then he's going to hurt people. It's that simple." Elena tells him, "And because Anastasia trust you."

"At a time, I trusted Klaus also, Elena." Anastasia tells her.

"You know, there's a possibility this elixir won't work. I don't want to mislead you." Elijah says.

"I know the chance I'm taking." Elena said.

"Get out!"

"Jenna! Jenna!"

"Get out!" Jenna holds a crossbow in her hands, the weapon trained on Alaric.

Damon, Stefan, Anastasia, Elijah and Elena meet each other in the parlor.

"What's going on?" Elena looked between the two.

"It's me, Elena. I swear, okay?" Alaric hold his hands up in surrender. "He let me go. Klaus let me go."

"Prove it." Damon tells him.

"Okay, uh, first night you and I spent together," Alaric looks at Jenna, "Jeremy and Anastasia walked in right when I was about to....,"

"Okay, it's him!" Jenna lowers the crossbow.

"It's him! Don't let me remember!"

"Why did he let you go?" Stefan asked the history teacher.

"He wanted me to deliver a message." Alaric said, "The sacrifice happens tonight."

彡☆

"SO YOU DON'T REMEMBER anything that happened?" Stefan asked as everyone sat around the living room.

"No. It's like I blacked out and woke up three days later. Katherine was there." Alaric said.

"She's under compulsion. Damon snuck her some vervain, but she can't leave until Klaus tells her she can." Stefan said.

"Where is Damon?" Elena questioned.

"I saw him go upstairs." Jenna tells her niece as Anastasia's phone started to ring.

"Hello?" Anastasia answers the phone, getting up to move further away as Elena went in search of Damon.

"Ellie, hey." Tyler's voice surprises her since she hadn't heard his voice since he left. Of course the two texted all the time, they just hadn't really had the time to talk on the phone with everything that had been going on.

"Tyler?"

"Yeah. Look, I'm back in Mystic Falls for a couple of days. My mom fell down the stairs at our house." Tyler tells her, "Do you think we can meet up later for lunch or dinner?"

"Yeah, we can - wait. Your back in Mystic Falls? Like, right this second?" Anastasia's eyes grew wide as she looks around for everyone else.

"Yeah? Why do you sound so weird about it?" It was Tyler's turn to be confused.

"Shit." Anastasia drops her phone on the ground before using her speed to go up the stairs where everyone was in her father's room, Elena sitting on the floor with blood on her lips. "I think I know where Klaus got his werewolf."

彡☆

"I'LL HAVE THE SAME." Alaric walks up to the bar with Anastasia next to him, both of them standing on either side of Damon.

"I screwed up."

"Yeah. Yeah, you did."

"Yeah."

"Gentleman? Why so glum?" A British accent is heard next to Anastasia as a warm hand touches the small of her back. Klaus smirks as he feels the green eyes girl tense up at his touch. "Hello, Little Warrior."

Alaric and Damon turn their heads to look at the other Original vampire.

"Ugh." Damon groaned, "Klaus, I presume."

"In the flesh." Klaus looks over at Alaric, "Thanks for the loaner, mate."

Damon gets up with an angry expression on his face, yanking his daughter away from the man still touching her, pushing her behind him. "Any reason you stopped by to say hi?"

"I'm told you and your brother fancy my doppelganger." Klaus said. "Just thought I'd remind you to not do anything you'll regret."

Damon breaks into a smile at the irony of Klaus's comment. "Ha. Thanks for the advice. I don't suppose I could talk you into a postponement, by any chance, huh?"

"You are kidding?" Klaus raises an eyebrow, looking over at Anastasia, "He is kidding, right, Little Warrior?"

Anastasia sighed, rubbing her forehead in frustration, "I'm afraid not."

"I mean, come on, what's one month in the whole grand scheme of things?" Damon asked.

"Let me be clear....I have my vampire, I have my werewolf. I have everything I need." Klaus said, "The ritual will happen tonight. So if you want to live to see tomorrow, don't screw it up. I'll see you later, Little Warrior." He leaves.

"That was fun."

"You're going to screw it up, aren't you?" Alaric asks.

Damon looks between the two. "You think if I took his werewolf out of the equation, she might....Get over the fact that I tried to turn her into a vampire?"

"I think it won't matter, because you'll be dead."

"But without the werewolf, he can't preform the ritual tonight, which means I would have bought her one month before the next full moon."

"And you'll be dead."

"Are the two of you going to help me or not?"

"What do you want me to do?" Alaric asked.

"I'm only doing this because his werewolf is my best friend." Anastasia tells her father, "I'm not doing this for anyone other than myself."

彡☆

KATHERINE LOOKS AROUND ALARIC'S apartment for a blood bag in the refrigerator before she hears the sound of a key entering the lock. She gets up and walks over to the door to find Alaric himself standing there, not coming inside his own apartment.

"Look who's dumb enough to come back." She tells him.

"Well, somebody had to invite them in. Damon, Stacie. Would you like to, uh, come in?"

Damon and Anastasia walk into the house and Anastasia uses her speed to pin the vampire by her throat against the wall as Damon calmly made his way over to her and smirked.

"I gave you vervain, now I'm here to collect. We got it from here, Ric." Damon tells the history teacher with his arms crossed over his chest.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, only two of us needs to get blamed for this." Damon said, causing Anastasia to roll her eyes, "Get back in the house. Keep Elena from handing herself over."

"Okay." Alaric leaves.

"Get blamed for what?"

"I want to know where the hell Klaus is keeping Tyler, and I want to know where he is right now." Anastasia glared at the vampire with Elena's face.

"Why? What are the two of you going to do?" Katherine looks between the father and daughter.

"No werewolf equals no ritual." Damon tells her.

"No. You can't interfere, Damon." Katherine says, "He may spare Anastasia, but Klaus will kill you and everyone you've ever met."

"I just need to delay this thing."

"No. No way."

"You should like this. It's going to buy you another month of your pathetic life." Damon tells her, being one of the ones that didn't believe that Klaus had gotten Tyler as his werewolf.

"Right. Except that I'm not the vampire he's planning on sacrificing."

"What?"

"Yeah. He's got Caroline Forbes and Tyler Lockwood." Katherine smirked, "Therefore, I'm in the clear."

"And where'd he get that idea from?"

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey, I'm just trying to stay alive long enough to get myself out of here." Katherine tells them.

"What if I told you that Elena had vampire blood in her system?" Anastasia raises an eyebrow.

"What?!"

"Imagine how much fun that will be competing with Elena for Stefan's love for, I don't know, forever."

"The tomb." Katherine says, and Anastasia is out of the apartment before she can finish her sentence, "He's got them in the tomb."

"Thank you."

彡☆

"WHICH ONE ARE YOU trying to save?" Maddox asked as Damon and Anastasia came to the woods just outside the stairs leading into the tomb. "The blonde, or the wolf? Did you really think Klaus would leave them unprotected?"

"Wishful thinking." Damon says before he rushes over to Maddox and pins him on the ground. He starts struggling,but Maddox uses his powers and throws Damon back against some rocks.

He falls on the ground, Maddox gets up and uses his powers, provoking a headache.

Suddenly, there's a gunshot.

Maddox falls to the ground and Damon raises his head as Anastasia spins around to find Matt with a riffle in his hands.

Damon gets up and snaps Maddox's neck while looking at Matt suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"

"Where's Caroline?" Matt asked.

"Listen, man. Not a good time to play the hero." Damon tells him.

Matt quickly cocks the riffle and points it towards Damon, Anastasia nodding in amusement. "Where is she? And what did he do to her?"

Damon puts his hands up, stepping forwards slowly. "I'm just here to rescue her."

Damon rushes over to him and hits him with the butt of the riffle. Matt falls to the ground, unconscious.

Anastasia picks the gun up from the ground, cleaning the bullets from the inside.

"You're lucky I already screwed up once today or you'd be dead." Damon tells Matt's unconscious body before crouching down to pick up one of the bullets which turned out to be wooden.

"Damon?"

"Ellie?"

"You're boyfriend's outside with a riffle loaded with wooden bullets."Damon tells Caroline as his daughter goes over to Tyler. "You have some explaining to do."

"What, Matt?" Caroline asked.

"Matt knows about you?" Tyler asked.

"No, I.....,"

"Shh. Tomorrow's problem." Damon releases her and she gets up. "Let me just get you out of here."

"Wait, Damon, no! I'm not leaving without him." Caroline tells him.

"Neither am I." Anastasia says before ripping the chairs from him.

"How fast can you get the hell away from here?" Damon asked the werewolf.

"I need to get to my family's cellar. I can lock myself up." Tyler tells them.

"I'll help."

"Don't make me regret this." Damon tells the werewolf before they rush to leave the tomb.

彡☆

THE MOON SHINES AS Anastasia, Damon, Caroline and Tyler rush out of the tomb. Matt lays on the floor, waking up and Caroline rushes to his side.

"Hey, Matt!" Caroline calls his name before she looks at Damon, "Hey. Did you hit him?!"

"Did you already forget about the part with the gun and the wooden bullets?" Damon asked the blonde.

Tyler growls as he holds his chest, looking up at the moon.

"Ty?" Anastasia rushes to stand next to the werewolf.

"Are you stupid?" Damon looks at his daughter, "Get away from him, Anastasia Eloise."

"It's starting." Tyler tells her.

Damon turns to Caroline, "Grab boy wonder and let's go."

"Come on."

彡☆

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?" MATT ASKED as the five walked through the woods, "Is he okay?"

"He better not wolf out on us." Damon says as his phone rings, "Bad time, little bro."

"What the hell are you and Anastasia doing?"

"Saving the day. I figured you'd understand. Just tell Elena to stay put." Damon tells him.

"She's already gone, Damon."

"What?"

"Klaus came. He took her." Stefan said to Damon.

"I'll take care of it." Damon says before hanging up.

Tyler doubles over in pain, falling to the ground as the transformation starts, Anastasia falling to his feet.

"Tyler!" Matt calls, worried for his best friend.

"I don't know if I can hold it off." Tyler tells them, "Get out here."

"Tyler, it'll be okay." Anastasia tells him.

"Go!"

"You've got time." Caroline tells him, "We're almost there, just....,"

"It's happening faster."

"Tyler, it's okay."

Tyler's eyes turned yellow as he rushes towards Caroline but Anastasia intercepts, tackling Tyler to the ground.

"Anastasia!" Damon yells for his daughter, pushing Tyler off of her. Now Damon was on his back with Tyler above him.

Damon goes to push him off but Tyler bites into his arm in the process before Damon pushes him off.

"Damon...,"

"Dad." Anastasia starts to tear up.

"I'm fine."

"Get out of here!" Tyler yells at them.

"Get to the Lockwood cellar. IF it held him in, it'll keep him out. If it doesn't...use these." Damon hands Caroline the wooden bullets that he had taken from the gun Matt had earlier in the night. "It'll buy you a couple seconds. Go. Go!"

Matt and Caroline leave as Tyler continued to transform.

"Ana, come on." Damon grabs his daughter by the arm, both of them rushing away.

彡☆

KLAUS WALKS INTO ALARIC'S apartment, "Where is Maddox? He should be back by now."

"I don't know." Katherine tells him.

Klaus sits down and opens the laptop, the screen showing a live video of Jules lying on the floor of a cellar, chained to the wall.

"What are you doing?" Katherine asked him, getting nothing in response, "Where's Elena?"

"I sent her off with Greta." Klaus keeps his eyes on the computer screen. "It's almost time."

"The door to the apartment opens and Damon walks inside, having sent his daughter to grab her Uncle. Both Klaus and Katherine look towards the door.

"I wasn't aware you'd been invited in." Klaus says to Damon, who's standing behind him.

"I've come here to tell you that you have to postpone the ritual." Damon tells the Original vampire.

"Didn't we already have this conversation?" Klaus asked the eldest Salvatore.

"Yeah, but that was before I rescued your werewolf and vampire and killed your witch."

Klaus gets up from his seat, "Excuse me?"

"And you can kill me for it, I don't care." Damon tells him, "It was all....me."

"Katerina, give us a moment." Klaus tells the female vampire sitting in her chair.

She looks at them both before leaving.

"I've heard about you. The crazy, impulsive vampire in love with his brother's girl. And the father who left his daughter when she was just four years old, and then left her again when she was human and dying. I knew one of you would try and stop me. I know that it wasn't going to be Anastasia, she has to much to gain. It was just a 50/50 guess on who." Klaus says before showing Damon a video of Jules, "The nice thing about werewolves is they tend to travel in packs. Need a closer look?"

Klaus throws the phone towards Damon, who catches it.

"Jules."

"When you spend a thousand years trying to break a curse....You learn a thing or two. First rule...always have a backup..... Backup werewolf. Backup witch."

"Back up vampire." Damon says.

"I've got that covered, too." Klaus smirked.

彡☆

DAMON LAYS ON THE FLOOR unconscious with Katherine giving him blood from a blood bag.

Katherine slaps him on the cheek. "Hey, Damon. Hey, Damon!"

"Ahh. What the hell happened?" Damon wakes up with a groan.

"He's gone. He went to do the ritual." Katherine tells him, "I'm sorry, I had to. He wold have known that I was on vervain if I didn't do it."

"Ahhh. Do What?" Damon asked.

"Klaus. He made me call her to lure her out. He needed another vampire." Katherine tells him.

"Who did you call?" Damon asked, grabbing her by the arm. "Who did you call, Katherine?"

彡☆

ELENA FOLLOWS BEHIND GRETA in the dark throw the woods to where the Sacrifice was going to be happening at. "Where are we going?"

"This way." Is Greta's only reply.

"You're Luka's sister, aren't you? I heard about you. He and your father were looking for you." Elena tells her.

"Well, they were wasting their time." Greta says, "I wasn't lost."

Elena trips over a rock, "God, I can't see anything."

Greta uses her magic to light fires all around them.

Elena can see a figure laying on the ground and rushes over to it once she notices that it's her Aunt Jenna, "Jenna? Jenna, Jenna! Jenna. Hey, hey, Jenna! Jenna! Oh, my God. No, Jenna! No!" She looks over at Greta. "He killed her? Why? I did everything that he asked.

Jenna gasps awake.

"She's not dead." Greta tells Elena, "She's in transition."

彡☆

DAMON GETS UP FROM the floor, "Should have used me. Why didn't he use me?"

"He couldn't. Damon, he said you were good as dead." Katherine tells him.

"What does that even mean?" Damon asked her.

"What does that mean?" She looks at the bite on his forearm from Tyler. "What is this, Damon?"

"It's a werewolf bite."

𝙰𝚄𝚃𝙷𝙾𝚁'𝚂 𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙴 ‼️
Only two more chapters until the end of Seasons two and fifteen episodes until the best friends reunite!