A/N: Double update; make sure you've read Chapter 41! xoxo

LOCKWOOD CELLAR

"Get out!"

Caroline flinched at Tyler's scream; every minute that went on, the teen was thrust into more agony. Just when he thought he'd faced the worst, the pain increased. He hated Caroline - anyone - seeing like this. Caroline glanced around the room frantically, looking for anything to help him, "

His eyes glanced at Caroline, who only looked on with worry, no fear, "I want to help, but I don't know what to do."

"Nothing," Tyler breathed out exhaustedly, holding back his sobs. "There's nothing you can do."

Suddenly he stood and screamed in anguish as his spine began to break. His screams were so deafening that Caroline thought his vocal cords would be damaged. She heard the painful breaks, wincing with each snap.

"Get out!" He sobbed, unable to hold them back any longer.

But Caroline would not leave, "No!"

"Get out! I don't want to hurt you."

Even in agony, he didn't want to hurt her, which was enough for her as she moved closer and closer. Tyler's eyes widened at her action, and he moved back, even as more bones broke, but Caroline was adamant. Soon the chains were tight, and he could not move any further; Caroline's arms encircled him, and she held on.

He struggled to push her away, but her strength outdid his painful, weakened one. "No!" He tried to push her away, but she held firm, "No!"

Soon, her stubbornness outdid his overprotectiveness, and he fell into her, sobbing as the pain became overwhelming. Finally, he looked up at her, wet from sweat and salty tears falling down his face, "You know, you're either the greatest friend in existence or an absolute idiot."

Caroline laughed tearfully, using the top of his damp head to hide her tears, "Tell me what you think when we get out of here later." She stroked his hair, "It's okay. You'll fight through it, okay?"

Suddenly his body began to spasm all over, and bones broke into multiple places; Tyler, somehow, this was it. Whatever comfort Caroline gave him was pushed to his mind, and he pushed her away with all the strength he could, "Leave!"

Caroline fell back, surprised at his strength but argued, "No!"

"Just go!"

Despite his begging. Caroline couldn't leave, "I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere."

Yet it was too late. The bones snapped into place, and Tyler fell to the ground in a heap. It became frighteningly quiet, Caroline shifted slightly, and Tyler's body flinched. Caroline wondered if it was all over, she opened her mouth and stuttered out, "T-Tyler?"

Quicker than Caroline thought possible, Tyler spun. Caroline scrambled back just in time for Tyler to lunge at her, fangs bared and eyes yellow. She ran back and threw the gate shut just as Tyler lunged again, the chains doing their job. Caroline had just sealed the door when Tyler rushed to the gate. The metal strained at his power.

Caroline sobbed, seeing Tyler's transformation complete. But he was different than Mason. As soon as Mason changed, he seemed to slowly calm down. Yet Tyler was only becoming more and more agitated. Caroline opened her mouth to try and comfort him when she paused, and the realization hit her harder than expected. Her. She was the reason for his agitation. They were enemies. He could sense she was the enemy.

Slowly moving back, she turned and ran out of the cellar, her whispered apology hanging heavy in the air.

MYSTIC FALLS WOODS

"Tell me what you know?"

After quite the outburst, Aella and Elijah began walking again when he asked her to explain. Aella, with hands in her pockets, did just that, "From what we've been able to find out, the moonstone apparently holds the sun and moon curse."

Elijah's eyes narrowed, "'Apparently?'"

"Yes, there's a curse," Aella admitted slowly. "For some reason, Elena's blood is needed to unbreak it - which probably has something to do with her being a doppelganger. But the curse itself? I'm not convinced." She looked back at Elijah, who nodded for her to continue, "Curses may be shitty things, but once you know what you're doing, it's quite a simple spell. But that's not the problem; the problem is the actual curse. Ric was able to find in a book that the Sun and Moon Curse was said to be an ancient Aztec curse that a great shaman cast 1000 years ago on vampires and werewolves. The curse decreed that the werewolves would turn into a werewolf on a full moon and that the vampires would be weakened by the sun, which made the werewolves' servants of the moon and the vampires' slaves to the sun.'"

Elijah held back a smile, "Sounds quite logical."

Aella nodded proudly, "It does... unless you've never used magic in your entire life." She jumped on a fallen tree and began balancing as she casually told him, "Otherwise, it's garbage. It's all crap."

All humor disappeared from within Elijah, "Garbage? Crap?"

Aella hesitantly glanced at Elijah, freezing in place on the log; his voice was suddenly quite tight as he repeated her words. "Yeah? As in, nonsense." She returned to her balancing, missing as his nose flared. Her arms spread to balance herself, "There's too many variables for a spell like that to be considered, let alone done."

"Pray tell."

If Aella was worried about Elijah's sudden mood change, she didn't show it as she jumped off the log to face him and pointed to her first finger. "I mean, one: curses deal with a single curse, no either/or. Two-" she pointed at a second finger, "If it's a single curse, it's a single species, i.e., vampires or werewolves, not both. Why not both? We're back to the single curse issue; you can't just say all supernatural creatures because then it wouldn't just be werewolves and vampires - all supernatural entities would be involved, and that's a variable that is simply too hard to comprehend. No," Aella shook her head vehemently, "It's not possible."

Elijah stared, and once again, Aella wondered if her big mouth was about to get her murdered. But again, Elijah surprised her for the umpteenth, "You're right." Aella was in too much shock to say anything. Elijah let out an impressed laugh as he stepped towards her, "1000 years, the Sun and the Moon Curse has circulated, and it took a seventeen-year-old to realize it was all lies." He looked almost proud of her for some reason, "I underestimated you, Aella Bennett."

"I was right?"

The corner of Elijah's eyes crinkled at her sudden small voice. It seemed she had been so sure of the curse being incorrect that now she was being told it was, in fact, wrong, and she was right. Her demeanor had changed. How trivial mortals were. "The Sun and Moon curse is a lie. The ancient Aztec curse you spoke of was merely a falsehood. If you had continued your research, I'm positive you would have discovered other cultures with a similar tale."

Aella scrunched up her face, "Why?"

"Entertainment," Elijah simply said as they began walking again. "After a few hundred years, you'd be surprised how tedious life can become."

Aella nodded as if she understood, "That's why you need Full House in your life, 'Lijah. Eight seasons of pure joy."

Elijah suddenly stopped, turning towards her. He grabbed her arms, and his eyes narrowed, "What did you call me?"

His mind had been transformed back into the past the instant she used that name. These woods, her face, that name.

Aella paled, "'Lijah? It's a nickname. I give everyone nicknames E, C, Stef; not the most creative, but it's shorter, and I'm lazy." She swallowed heavily, "Even Damon has his own for me: pixie, smurfette, troll...." She scowled, "That last one is not my favorite, but it means you're close enough you don't have to be so formal... but I can just call you Elijah?"

"Yes," Elijah let her arms go and walked on casually, leaving Aella to catch up to him. "I prefer Elijah. Where were we? Yes, the tediousness of immortality..."

"Speaking of immortality..." Aella cleared her nervous throat. Elijah's mood swings were worse than Caroline's when she realized she could smell which girls were on their periods; having keen senses had some drawbacks. "How can you not die?"

"Nothing can kill an Original," Elijah admitted freely. "Not Sun, not fire, not even a werewolf bite. Only the wood from one tree. A tree my family made sure burned."

"But that's impossible," Aella frowned over at him. "The balance of nature means everything has a weakness to maintain the balance.

Elijah turned to her and told her straight, "Nothing can kill an Original."

Aella wasn't convinced, but she wasn't going to push it and be potentially murdered for the third time that day. "Fine," She shrugged as if the conversation had never happened. "Entertainment made you create the Sun and Moon Curse, but Klaus wouldn't be coming here just for entertainment."

"No, he wouldn't," Elijah agreed. "There's a curse. Just not that one. The real one's much worse. It's a curse placed on Klaus." Aella frowned but allowed him to continue, "Klaus has been trying to break it for the last thousand years. And Elena is his only hope."

Aella stopped him this time; eyes narrowed since he mentioned her best friend's name, "What exactly is this curse?"

Elijah looked away, eyes drifting as if in memory, "My family was quite close, but Klaus and my father did not get on too well. When we became vampires, we discovered the truth. Klaus was not my father's son; my mother had been unfaithful many years before. This was her darkest secret. Klaus is from a different bloodline. Of course, when my father discovered this, he hunted down and killed my mother's lover and his entire family. Not realizing, of course, that he was igniting a war between species that rages until this day."

"Species?" Aella shifted uncomfortably, remembering Elijah's recollection of when he and his family first came to Mystic Falls. "You mean...?

Elijah nodded, "Klaus' father was, in fact, a werewolf. The war between vampires...and werewolves."

"So, what does that make Klaus?" Aella prompted him for more information, disturbed by what he was telling her. "A werewolf? Or a vampire?"

"He's both," He merely told her, as if Klaus' existence didn't charge the whole balance of nature. "A hybrid would be deadlier than any werewolf or vampire. Nature would not stand for such an imbalance of power. Therefore the witches, the servants of nature, saw to it that my brother's werewolf side would become dormant."

Aella held onto a nearby tree, a feeling of helplessness washing over her as her power struggled with the thought, "If Klaus was able to break the curse, the abilities he would have, the things he could do...."

Elijah agreed grimly, eyes cautiously watching over her, "Klaus could sire his own bloodline. Build his own race. Endangering not just vampires but everyone. It would be..."

Aella's magic spoke to her at that moment, and a single tear fell down, "It would be catastrophic."

SALVATORE BOARDING HOUSE

Damon's eyes widened from Rose pushing him and the wolf that just burst into the library. Jumping up, he sped to the sword displayed on the wall, swinging the blade towards the wolf he knew to be Jules. Luckily, wolf Jules seemed more in control than human Jules, and she backed up before running back out the broken window.

Damon quickly approached Rose, breathing heavily from the adrenaline and shock that Rose had pushed him out of the way. His eyes zoomed in on the bite on her shoulder, "How bad is it?"

"It hurts," Rose winced, eyes narrowed on the bite.

To their surprise, the two watched as the bite began to fade. Then, with astonishment in his voice, Damon breathed out, "It's healing."

Rose let out a sob of relief, "Oh my God! I thought a werewolf bite was fatal! I thought..."

She began to cry, and Damon was quick to embrace her, feeling a lot more relieved than he expected, "You're gonna be okay." His eyes focused on her unbroken skin, releasing a heavy breath.

MYSTIC FALLS WOODS

Aella sat numbly next to Elijah; the images of what could happen if Klaus were to succeed were unimaginable. There were so many things that could go wrong, so many things that could be destroyed or altered to the point of no return. Mother nature was a kind and composed entity until reckoned with.

The tears continued to fall, Aella's magic forcing her to feel only sadness at the balance of nature being defiled. Aella let out a shaky breath, "Just when I thought we had a handle on things."

"You are handling things amazingly well, Aella," Elijah told her as he sat next to her.

Aella scoffed, roughly wiping the tears from her face, "I'm pretty much the master of handling things and saying things completely wrong."

Elijah frowned, opening his jacket and reaching into his inside pocket, pulling out the hand sewed initial handkerchief. He started wiping the tears on her face gently, "Oh, I'm not sure about that, Miss Bennett."

Aella laughed sarcastically, ignoring the fresh tears that fell, "I'm madly in love with a vampire that has a ripper hidden inside of him as we both pray to god it never emerges again. My best friend is a vampire that I will never grow old with; my cousin is an inexperienced witch that is desperate to learn as much as she can without any boundaries. One of the coolest/most annoying people I know is a hot-headed vampire who can't handle emotions and you're brother is trying to murder my adopted sister! If that's not everything going wrong, I'd love to know what wrong was!"

Elijah allowed her to sulk for a moment; everything she said was true. But if she was anything like Asta, he knew that would not last long. When Aella turned towards him, tears wet on her cheeks, he saw that fierceness that was instilled in Asta, too, "We have to stop him. You have to tell me how to stop him."

Elijah's hand brushed her cheek gently, wiping the tear line away. He had seen many cry, but seeing her cry, her face identical to Asta's, hurt him. Taking his time, he wiped the wetness away, allowing his skin to touch hers and pretend for a moment she was Asta and then told her all he knew. "There's one way to kill any supernatural species...." He raised a well-manicured brow at her, "At the hands of the servants of nature themselves."

"A witch," Aella whispered to herself before looking back up at him. "That's why you have a witch." She frowned, "But a witch... that much power, unlocking such a curse, it would kill them."

"Yes," Elijah marveled at her astuteness. "But if they can be assisted, draw from a stronger power...."

Aella's eyes widened as she realized where he was leading to, "The massacre of the one hundred. It would be marked with such power because of that many violent deaths." Her eyes narrowed on him, "That's why you were so uneasy when I mentioned it... you didn't know its location. You want to find the burial grounds and use its power to help your witch."

He didn't answer her, and she began pacing in front of him, "So that's the who, Klaus. The why, the balance of nature. The where, the burial grounds. You have your witch; we have the moonstone." She stopped directly in front of him, "So why Elena? Why does Klaus need Elena so badly? Why is it Elena's blood that is needed? Why not yours or one of your siblings?"

"You said it yourself," Elijah simply told her. Watching her work everything out was fascinating.

Aella bit her lip as she whispered to herself, "Doppelganger. Elena is a doppelganger... She's Katherine's doppelganger. But...?" Her head shot up, and green eyes narrowed on Elijah, "You said you and Klaus started the rumors of the Sun and Moon Curse a thousand years ago, yet you only met Katherine 500 years ago. But even if there was another doppelganger, how would you know that unless...." She paled as she whispered, "Katherine wasn't the first doppelganger."

Elijah mournfully shook his head, "She wasn't."

However, Aella wasn't finished, "The girl whose blood was used to seal the curse, was she the first?"

'Tatia,' Elijah wanted to say. Not, 'girl,' she wasn't just a girl. She was his, his Tatia. But he didn't say that; instead, he shook his head, "No."

"How many have there been?" She questioned him.

"I don't know," He answered her truthfully. "Few, many, we were never positive. It's why we created the Sun and Moon tale. The more people heard of it, the more that people were interested, the quicker a doppelganger could be found."

"She can't be the only one," Aella frowned at the ground, mind well and truly boggled. "Why only one doppelganger? They were supposed to be legends; we'd have never known about Elena without Katherine..."

Elijah wanted to praise her; she was asking all the right questions. Questions he had asked himself when he saw her face. His mother had informed them she had used Tatia's blood because she was a doppelganger. They were easier for Klaus to find if he ever needed to remove his Curse.

Aella looked back at him, "Have you heard of any other doppelganger lines?"

Yes, Elijah wanted to say, because you are one. You are identical to one of my dearest friends. But he didn't, and he didn't know why; instead, he lied to her for the first and last time. "No. No, I've not heard of any other doppelganger lineages."