(act two, chapter nine: katerina)

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"Hello, Buffy, Elena." Damon greeted as he opened the door for the two sisters.

"Stefan here?" Elena asked. "He called. Said it was important."

"Right this way." Damon said, stepping to the side to allow them inside.

"What is this about?" Elena asked Stefan almost directly as she stepped inside, awkwardly greeting Stefan once she saw him.

"She's upset for the whole Katherine situation." Buffy whispered to Damon.

"Why?" Damon asked with a frown. "We did her a favor."

"Well, she's scared that Katherine is gonna hurt people that she loves when Katherine gets out of the tomb. And to be honest, I can't blame her for being worried. But Katherine's a bitch, so I'm kinda glad to be rid of her." Buffy admitted.

"You do know that Katherine can't get out of the tomb, do you, Buf?" Damon asked.

"It's Katherine. She'll find a way." Buffy answered, she didn't have to know her sister's doppelgänger to know by now that the vampire always had a second plan to save herself.

"You." Elena said, making Buffy and Damon turn away from their own little conversation to the one happening in front of them. Well, if you could call it a conversation at least. The three were more just changing looks with each other.

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Buffy sat down on the couch next to her sister, while the Salvatores were sitting on either sides of them but on other couches. Stefan by Elena's side and Damon by Buffy's side as the four watched Rose pace in front of them.

"Okay, you have to understand 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 of this vampire crap. But Klaus I know is real."

"Who is he?" Elena asked, curious.

"He's one of the Originals. He's a legend." Damon said.

"From the first generation of vampires." Stefan went on.

"Like Elijah?" Elena asked and Buffy couldn't help herself from thinking back at Elijah's desiccated face and a stake pierced through his heart. She did feel a little bit bad for him getting killed, but he shouldn't have tried to kidnap them.

But he had been so soft towards her. Well as soft as a kidnapper could be.

And so hot...

HE BEHEADED SOMEONE BUFFY SOMMERS!

STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM

"No, Elijah was the Easter Bunny compared to Klaus. He's a foot soldier. Klaus is the real deal." Rose said to Elena

"Klaus is known to be the oldest." Stefan said, looking at Elena and Buffy with worried eyes.

"Okay, so you're saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after us?" Elena asked, clearly still in disbelief about the whole situation.

"No." Stefan said quickly while Rose spoke. "Yes."

"What they're saying is- I mean, if what she's saying is true-" Damon was cut off by Rose.

"Which it is."

"You're not just saying this so we don't kill you."

"Which I'm not."

"Then we're looking at a solid maybe." Damon told the girls as he stood up.

"Look, Elijah's dead, right?" Stefan started and moved over next to Elena. "So no one else even knows that you two exist." He said.

Buffy looked towards Rose and the blonde was truly believing that the vampire was telling them the truth. She had no reason to lie about it.

"Not that you know of." Rose said, trying to get them to see that she was telling the truth.

"That's not helping." Damon said while glaring at her.

"Look, I've never even let anyone who's laid eyes on him." Stefan said to the two girls before turning to his brother and Rose. "I mean, we're talking centuries of truth mixed with fiction."

He turned back to Elena and Buffy once more. "We don't know what's real. For all we know, he could be some stupid bedtime story."

"He's real. And he doesn't give up. If he wants something, he gets it. If you're not afraid of Klaus then you're an idiot." Rose spoke again. "Look, he needs Elena for that sacrifice and Buffy, they're not gonna stop looking for her now. When you're looking for a person for over a millennium, you're not gonna stop when you finally found them."

"All right, we're shaking." Damon said sarcastically. "You made your point." He spoke to her, seeing Buffy's freaked out expression that she was trying to hide from them.

With Rose and Damon's bickering, Stefan got distracted as well, causing the two sisters to look at each other, both agreeing with each other that they wanted to get out of this conversation.

"Where are you going?" Stefan asked, moving his attention from Rose, who didn't answer his question, to Elena and Buffy, who turned back to the three vampires in the room as they heard his voice.

"School, we're late." Elena answered.

"Let me grab my stuff. I'll go with you."

"That's okay. We know where it is." Elena answered before turning around, arms linked with Buffy's as the two girls walked to the door of the library. Both of them missing Stefan's nod and Damon's words on the fact that they were ignoring the situation.

"I have an idea." Buffy spoke to Elena as soon as they were out of the house.

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"Tell everyone that we weren't feeling well and we went home instead of school." Elena said as the three girls walked though the woods, on their way to the tomb. Buffy hadn't quite realised yet that this was the first time she was gonna meet Katherine.

"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this. I'm a terrible liar." Caroline spoke, clearly not agreeing with the their idea.

"And keep Stefan busy. I don't want him to know what I'm up to." Elena continued. 

"I'm even worse at duplicity and you know this."

"You managed to keep me occupied when Katherine paid Stefan a visit." Elena spoke back.

"Well, I mean, she got threatened." Buffy spoke.

"Yeah, indeed because she threatened me. Not that I'm saying that you should use that as a tactic, it's Stefan's gonna see right through me." Caroline stopped the two girls from walking

"Caroline, as our friend, do you promise or not?" Elena asked her as Buffy gave her a pleading look before talking herself.

"We need to know, Care. We're talking about Elena's life and something, that I don't even get, to do with my life." She spoke to her best friend, not knowing how to describe her situation to herself just yet.

"You had to break out the girlfriend code." Caroline said with a sigh as Elena gave her a look, similar to Buffy's. "Okay. I promise."

"Okay." Elena spoke relieved before continuing to walk over to the old church ruins.

"Why don't you want Stefan to know?" Caroline asked as she caught up with her friends.

"Because he would never be okay with us doing this." Elena replied as they all went under the church ruins, stopping as they saw the man standing in front of the tomb opening.

"Looks like we're not the only ones needing a little talk with your doppelgänger, Lena." Buffy spoke to Elena, causing the man to turn around. "Hey, dad."

"B, what are you doing here?" Mason asked her confused, before taking a glance at the smirking Katherine inside the tomb, looking towards Elena with a smirk. "You should go. You two as well." He said to Elena and Caroline.

"She can't." A voice exactly like Elena's came from behind Mason. "She has questions. Don't you, Buffy?" Not even waiting for the blonde's response, Katherine's next target was Buffy's sister. "Hello, Elena. You come to watch me wither away?" Katherine asked.

"Oh, no, we came here for answers, but we're definitely enjoying that part, Katherine." Buffy answered instead of Elena with a fake smile towards the older dopperlgänger. 

"Goodbye, Caroline." Katherine spoke to the other vampire in the room.

"As long as we stay on this side on the door, she can't hurt us, please." Elena said to Caroline, seeing that the blonde was hesitant to leave her friends here alone with Katherine.

"Stefan and Damon know you're both here?" Katherine asked the two girls, knowing how much the two Salvatore boys cared about them as Caroline finally left.

"I brought you some things." Elena said, setting the bag, the one that she had been carrying the entire time, down on the ground.

"You came to bribe me? What is it that you want?"

"I want you to tell me about Klaus." Elena said, throwing a blanket over to Katherine's feet.

"Hmm, you've been busy." Katherine said, looking from sister to sister, one busy talking to her dad.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy asked.

"Breaking up with her. What else would I be doing here?" Mason looked at his daughter with a look. After what Katherine did to Jenna, one of his best friends and the mother of his child, he would be crazy to not break up with her. "The better question is: What are you doing here?"

"We have some questions and Katherine is the only person who will be able to give us the answers." Buffy replied.

"Well, I'm not going to leave you two alone with her."

"You don't have to stay here. Lena's right. As long as we stay on this side on the door, she can't hurt us."

"Still." Mason spoke as the duo turned to the two doppelgängers and just in time to see Katherine standing up straight, trying to get through the invisible wall that separated her from the three on the other side. Her eyes fixed on the bottle filled with blood in Elena's hands. One that Buffy made from Damon's stack before coming here.

"You don't look so good. How long before your body shuts down? Ten, twenty years? It must be painful to desiccate and mummify. I can't even imagine."

"I definitely can." Buffy spoke.  

Katherine gave in and sank with her body to the floor as her doppelgänger poured some blood into a little cup, moving it over to the vampire in the tomb with a stick she found next to the opening. 

"You have the Petrova fire." Katherine spoke to her before drinking every last drop of the blood.

"More blood?" Elena asked her, taking the cup back. Again using the stick to do so.

"It's a long story, Klaus and I. Goes all the way back to England, 1492, after I left Bulgaria. Or was thrown out." She started.

"Thrown out?" Elena asked while sharing a look with Buffy, who sat down next to her.

"My family, your true ancestors they disowned me. My indiscretions were not tolerated at that time. I had a baby out of wedlock. The shame." Katherine explained.

"It was kept secret." Elena figured out and Katherine hummed, confirming Elena's thought.

"My baby was given away. I was banished to England and I had to learn to adjust. So I quickly became English. It was there that I caught the eye of a nobleman named Klaus. I found out what he was and what he wanted from me. And then I ran like hell."

"So what did Klaus want with you?" Mason asked, leaning against the wall.

"Same thing that he'll want from you. He wants to break the curse." Katherine spoke to Elena.

"By sacrificing her? The new Petrova doppelgänger?" Buffy asked.

"He wanted to drain every single drop of blood from my body." Katherine answered.

"What does the Petrova bloodline have to do with Klaus?" Elena asked confused as Buffy used the stick to slide the cup back over to Katherine, right into her hand.

"It's really tedious, but the curse was bound by the sacrifice of Petrova blood. Witches are crafty with their spells. The doppelgänger was created as a way to be able to undo the spell. Once the doppelgänger reappeared, the curse can be broken."

"So you ran before he killed you."

"Something like that." Katherine said, explaining them about how she met Rose and how the vampire wanted to take her back to Klaus.

"Rose never ended up taking you all back to Klaus, did she?" Buffy asked. Did she feel bad for the human Katherine? 

Naturally.

It was the same thing that would happen to her sister.

Did she feel bad for her now as a vampire, after everything she has done since arriving back in Mystic Falls?

No, not at all.

"No but not because she had a change of heart." Katherine spoke, then telling them all about how she escaped from Rose by killing herself.

"You killed yourself?" Elena and Buffy asked at the same time, both being shocked that had been the way that Katherine Pierce had died.

"Klaus needed a human doppelgänger. As a vampire, I was no longer any use to him."

"But it didn't work. You didn't really escape. You've been running from Klaus ever since." Mason said. He had always knew that she had been running from someone. He just didn't know who.

"I underestimated his spirit for vengeance. Living out of a suitcase is better than dying, so that you could have your blood spilled over some silly little rock." Katherine said to him. "What's wrong?" She asked, turning to Elena, who shifted, uncomfortably. "Afraid I'm right? You don't wanna die? There's another way out? Better hurry. Your opportunity is going, going, going, and gone." Her wrist healed again, stopping the blood from flowing out. "I made the other choice."

"Rose and Trevor spent the last 500 years running because you used them. Trevor just got killed." Elena said.

"How could you do that to them?" Buffy asked.

"Never thought he would've lasted that long." Katherine replied.

"You don't even care that you ruined their lives." Elena said.

"I was looking out for myself, Elena. I will always look out for myself and them. If you're smart, you'll do the same." Katherine spoke, turning away from them.

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"So how much of your little story is true?" Elena asked after a few minutes of silence from the vampire, pacing up and down the room while the father - daughter duo had spent their time playing x o x with some sand on the floor. One of the many games they used to play together with Jenna when Buffy was younger.

"I have no reason to lie, Elena. I have no reason to do but sit here and read and rot." Katherine said still flipping through the pages of the book with her family history, totally unbothered by Elena's and the other two's present.

"Okay, assuming it's even partially true that's the reason why you came back. Because you wanted to be the one to hand me over to Klaus." Elena said.

"Five hundred years on the run, I figured maybe he'd be willing to strike a deal." She answered, standing up, with help of the wall, and smirking at her human doppelgänger.

"So you got me to find you the moonstone." Mason figured. 

"Right."

"What else is needed to break the curse?" Buffy asked.

"Hmm, look who's getting smarter." Katherine spoke in amusement, looking down at the blonde.

"It's not just me or the stone, is it? Otherwise there would be no reason to trigger Tyler Lockwood's werewolf curse." Elena continued.

"Witches and their spells. So many ingredients, so many people to sacrifice."

"So you need a werewolf." Elena said to her.

"Believe it or not, they're hard to come by."

"You'll be dead before you even think about handing Tyler over to Klaus." Mason spoke to Katherine in a treating tone.

"I liked you way more when you weren't going around seeking fights with me, Mason." Katherine spoke, pouting at him before putting up a knowing smirk.

"Oh, ew." Buffy muttered with disgust.

"What else?" Elena asked, continuing.

"A witch to do the spell." Katherine answered.

"Mine bailed, but little Bonnie will do just fine."

"What else?"

"A vampire."

"Caroline." Buffy realised.

"Could have been anyone, I suppose, but I like the poetry of Caroline."

"I have a question." Buffy spoke up. "You had the chance to kill me with Caroline that night in the hospital. You would've had two vampires. Why didn't you?" Out of the corner of her eye she saw her dad looked at Katherine with interest.

"I'm not crazy." Katherine replied.

"Oh, really?" Buffy asked with sarcasm. "Because from everything I know, you definitely lost a screw or two over the years." 

Katherine rolled her eyes. "If I had killed you, I would never get a shot at freedom. Klaus would have my head."

"Why?" Mason asked, confused as he looked from Katherine to his daughter who had a frown on her face.

"So, it's true?" Elena asked, Katherine. "What Rose and Trevor told us about-"

"Buffy being the soulmate of the Originals. Yes, that's true." Katherine nodded.

"What?" Mason asked with eyes wide open, looking down at Buffy with worry. 

"Yeah, you have a lot to catch up since yesterday." Buffy spoke, before turning to Katherine. "How many of them are there?" She only knew of Elijah and Klaus now.

"I know there is a sister." Katherine replied. "Rebekah."

"What else do you know about it?" Elena asked.

"Not much. I saw the paintings of her, but when I asked Klaus about it, he never answered. It wasn't until I actually left England that I found out just how important she really was."

"So you were gonna just hand us all over to be killed." Elena asked the vampire with disbelief.

"Better you die than I." Katherine spoke, before retreating back into the tomb.

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"That bitch is not going to come back, Elena." Buffy spoke to her sister, who kept glancing back at the opening of the tomb every few seconds ever since Katherine disappeared in it.

"Elena!" A voice came from outside as a person came running down the stairs.

"Stefan, what are you doing here?" Elena asked him with surprise, knowing that he was supposed to be with Caroline. 

Buffy turned her head away from the couple after she was done telling her dad what had happened to her and Elena after the masquerade. 

"You were kidnapped!" Mason asked, surprised on how calmly she said it, almost like it happened once before.

"Well, it wasn't really our choice, now was it?" Buffy asked. "Listen, can you just bring me home? My head is killing me and these two bickering doesn't help very much." A hand was on the side of her head, holding it there, because once she removed it the sound in her head got louder and louder.

The blonde tried her best to ignore what the sound was, but the person who was speaking couldn't seem to care that her head was starting to feel like it would break any second from now on.

"Of course."

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Words: 3062

Posted: August 26, 2024

Be sure to comment. I love reading them and it keeps me motivated!

x Kat