CHAPTER 44: ORDINARY PEOPLE

Old Lockwood Cellar

As Natalie was busy the day before with her ghosty adventures with Caroline and Bonnie, Elena went out to find a way to help Stefan, and he was currently locked up in the old Forbes cellar after his old friend, Lexi was there when the ghosts were out. Damon, however, got to have a little adventure with Mason Lockwood as it was revealed that he was, in fact, the ghost that was haunting him. So, Mason lured him into the old Lockwood cellar to find a weapon that could kill Klaus, but he wasn't able to get through, as it seemed as if it was a vampire barrier. So he got Alaric to check it out, but they were going back to look at it more closely and bring Natalie and Elena with them.

  "So, the Lockwoods really have no idea that these tunnels are underneath their property?" Elena asked, finding it ridiculous that that they wouldn't have noticed it after all these years of them owning the property.

Alaric shrugged with a small nod in agreement before looking at where Natalie was shining her flashlight. "Careful where you shine that thing. Bats hate the light."

"Wait, what?" Elena asked with wide eyes, not having known that there were bats down there. Natalie, however, just rolled her eyes and adjusted where she shone the light.

And at that moment, Elena didn't realize that someone was sneaking up behind her in a way to scare her. "Elena..." the brunette turned around as she heard the sound, only to be surprised when she saw a face there. "Boo!"

"Ah! God, Damon!" the doppelganger gasped in surprise.

"Scaredy-cat!" the vampire teased the brunette with a smirk, happy to get some normalcy in their relationship again after all the Stefan drama going on.

Alaric wasn't very happy with seeing Damon, even though they kind of made up after Damon killing him, he wasn't completely ready to forgive him. "Just ignore him. That's what I do."

Elena ignored Alaric's everlasting hostility for the 171 year old vampire and rather turned to the vampire himself to confirm what Alaric has told her. "So, you really can't get in?"

"No. Seems even the ancient Lockwoods were anti-vampire." he responded.

Natalie hadn't gotten too much information on what they were there for, so she was the only one who could ask the question that followed. "What do you mean by ancient?"

Damon gestured towards the cave they were there to see. "See for yourself." They only took a few more steps before Natalie noticed Damon standing completely still, not being able to move forwards even if he wanted to. "Well, this is as far as I get to go."

Alaric, Elena and Natalie were all human, so they would be able to walk into the cave itself, and once they were finally there, whatever was in there was so incredible. Weird, but incredible. There were drawings carved into the stone wall, they all seemed to have meaning to them, but Natalie didn't know what they meant. The carvings seemed familiar, and she felt as if she should know what they meant, but she just couldn't push her brain far enough so that she could find the corners in her brain that may have been able to decipher the meaning.

"What is all this?" Elena asked, her eyes wandering over the white lines on the stone.

"Well, as far as I can tell, it's a story. In simple, archaeological terms, it's a really, really old story," Alaric told her before pointing to one of the carvings. "That right there, is the moon cycle," he moved his finger to point to another carving. "A man, a wolf."

"A werewolf." Elena shortened the sentence.

"Yeah, it's the "Lockwood Diaries: Pictionary-Style." Damon joked in a typical Damon-ish fashion.

But one thing didn't make sense in Natalie's mind after all the facts she's been taught about the town and the Lockwood line. "But, the Lockwoods came to Mystic Falls in the 1860s with the other founders. Or... so I thought."

"I don't know," her father responded truthfully, not having come up with another idea than the one following. "Maybe the Lockwoods did, but according to this wall, these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that."

"How long?" the doppelganger asked the elder people in the room as they were the only ones who might even have a little knowledge on the fact.

"Long." Damon said, being incredibly helpful. "It gets better. Show them, Ric."

Alaric rolled his eyes at Damon's command, but did what he asked anyways. "Names. They're not native. They're written in Runic, a Viking script."

Natalie's eyes widened as she heard what kind of script it was. The vikings were around roughly 1000 years ago, around the same time Natalie's past self existed, and she remembered Elijah telling her that they were from Europe, and her first thought when she was thinking about Europe 1000 years ago would easily be the vikings even if the real vikings were only in the northern countries and Elijah never specified where he was from. "Vikings?"

Alaric nodded, but then he pointed to one of the carvings, a name. "This name here, I translated it and it reads Niklaus."

"Klaus." Elena guessed, as the full name did include the regular naming of the hybrid.

"And Elijah...and Rebekah."

Flashback

Rebekah was carving her name on the wall carefully, not used to handling a blade if it was for anything other than cooking. There were two people in there with her, her older brother, Niklaus, and her best friend, Natalia, who was basically a part of their family.

Klaus and Natalia was getting bored with the blonde's slowness with the blade, wanting her to finish faster, as the two had yet to carve their names on the wall.

"Rebekah, let me have at it!" Klaus complained, a groan emerging from his lips.

"Quiet, Niklaus! I am to have more concentration if I am not to slice off a finger." Rebekah pursed lips in annoyance, glancing at her brother.

"If you don't hurry a finger will be sliced off, it just won't be from lack of concentration." Natalia retorted, sending her best friend a short smile.

"Father will not like you handling the blade." the un-triggered werewolf reminded his sister, making her hesitate for a moment as she feared her father just as much as her other siblings.

She thought about what she was going to respond with, turning her head around to gaze at the two others in the room. "If I want to wield a blade, I shall wield a blade! Father need not know."

"He will find out. He always does." the long-haired boy grumbled, but staring at his sister worriedly, knowing that if their father would find out about Rebekah's actions he would be the one punished, as always.

"That is only because you tell him. To which he responds with telling my father and getting me in trouble." Natalia reminded him, shoving some of her very long hair away from her face before crossing her arms over her chest.

Klaus seemed saddened at getting the blame, even though he knew that it was his fault, his fright would always overwhelm his loyalty to the small trouble they would cause. "I cannot help it...he frightens me."

"He frightens us all." Rebekah said sadly, turning around to stand by him completely as she knew how scared he was of their father, she wasn't far from as scared, but that was mostly because of  what he'd do to him. 

Natalia saw the sad mood that they both were in, opting to lighten it with some support that they both needed desperately. "That is why we stick together as one." she said, throwing them both her famous smile that made boys drop to their knees.

"Always and forever," Rebekah added, smiling back before turning to her brother with raised eyebrows. "Right, traitor?"

"Right." he smiled back at the two girls who were so important to him, his sisters, although one was bound by blood and one was bound by bond.

Rebekah then seemed to snap out of her state of loyalty as she remembered what she was supposed to meet up for not too long ago and handed the knife to the only brunette in the room. "Here. You finish it. I am to help Mother with the meal."

Natalia rolled her eyes in an unladylike fashion. "In case you failed to remember, my family is dining with yours. I need to help my mother prepare the food. With Tatia, of course."

Niklaus had to suppress the excitement as he remembered that the girl he was in love with was going to his home and had to push on an air of arrogance to break the moment he was trapped in with the girls. "Yes, go tend to dinner, and leave the blades to the men, girls."

Natalia narrowed her eyes at his sexist comment, not liking being underestimated at all but decided to leave the knife as his responsibility. Just not doing it too gently as she slammed the blade into Klaus's palm, slicing it open.

"Ugh, 'Talia." he grunted in pain, glaring at the brunette as he didn't say her whole name for no reason other than the pain.

Natalia forced an innocent look on her face as she smiled at the older boy. "It's just a little blood. Be a man about it."

End of Flashback

Elena studied the wall once again, looking at the names of Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah curiously before looking over at some of the others. "These are the names of the Original Family?"

"Carved into a cave that's been here since way before the founding of Mystic Falls. Or even the entire New World, for that matter." Alaric added, showing his smarts.

The doppelganger almost couldn't believe that they would find so important information about Klaus and his family so easily. "Okay, this has gotta be one of Klaus's fakes."

"That's what I said." Damon pointed out.

"That could be true," Alaric agreed, but then he had to disapprove of this theory with new evidence coming into the light. "Except the last name up here made us think otherwise." 

"What's the name?" Natalie asked, the only names she was able remember being Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah... and Tatia now, but she wasn't apart of this, she wasn't important.

"Mikael."

Elena's eyes widened as the name rung a bell. "Mikael... Mikael, as in, the vampire hunter who knows how to kill Klaus?"

"Yep. I now like to call him "Papa Original"." Damon smirked from outside the cave.

Natalie rolled her eyes as Alaric started pictures, but Alaric taking pictures wasn't the reason she was annoyed, it was Damon's persistent need to add some comment to everything everyone says. But the fact that she rolled her eyes were what helped her notice one little thing. A name. A name that had been crossed out harshly, a white line going askew over it. "What's that?"

Alaric took a break from taking pictures so he could decipher the meaning and turned to look at the exact one she was staring at. "That one? Ehm, I think it says Natalia, but the line made it a little harder, but that sound about right."

"Natalia." Natalie whispered under her breath, taking a step forwards to put her hand on the name that she, herself, carved into that wall 1000 years ago, only not as herself, but still as herself, if that makes sense. It was a funny feeling, seeing something that actually gave her proof of the fact that she did exist back then.

▹▹▹

The Saltzman Apartment

Elena had headed out to speak to Rebekah to get some information about the cave and the stone wall and the carvings. It didn't work out so well, so Elena headed to Alaric and Natalie's apartment in defeat, and nothing done.

"Rebekah will come around." Elena convinced her sister, thinking that this was going to go smoothly.

Alaric, however, was still skeptical on this, thinking that Elena might just have another stupid idea in her head. "You're sure about that? I mean a thousand-year-old vampire, I'm sure, has learned the art of patience."

And whilst he was talking, Natalie received a text message from the number that Rebekah had entered into her phone as BEST FRIEND, but Natalie changed it to Psycho Original #3.

"Maybe she won't come around to you, but she'll come around to me," Natalie smirked, looking between her confused family members. "Plus, she's a thousand-year-old vampire, who's joined the cheerleader squad...There is a whole different set of rules that play here, Dad. I got this."

She then held up her phone for them to read the text she got.

Come over for a chat. You, not Elena. -Rebekah

▹▹▹

The Salvatore Boarding House

Rebekah was currently staying at the Salvatore Boarding House, and that's where Natalie ended up, only to be confused when she heard the music blasting through speakers and seeing the blonde original holding two champagne glasses and handing one to her.

"Hey! What's up?" she asked cheerfully.

Natalie stared at her weirdly, not used to seeing her so happy, especially when she knew that Rebekah wasn't about to tell her the happiest stuff. "Ehm, the scale of how weird this is."

Rebekah smiled at the girl before leading her into the parlor, which was where she was about to show Natalie some things and get some help. "All right girls, have at it!" at her command, several girls in jewel-toned colored homecoming dresses stepped out from where they were hiding to stand in front of the girls. "Okay, now twirl please." to which they followed her command, obviously compelled.

"You do know that not compelling people to be in your own private runway show is common courtesy, right?" the brunette huntress asked, to which the blonde only rolled her eyes.

"I need a Homecoming dress. So, what do you think? Pick one." the original vampire instructed her old friend, who was obviously reluctant.

But Natalie knew Rebekah enough to know that if she wouldn't get her way it wouldn't end well for the girls, and knew that the only way to get things to run smoothly would be if she did what she was told for once. "Fine, eh... the red one?"

"There. It wasn't so hard, was it?" Rebekah smiled, as she did notice the other girl's reluctance. She then turned to the compelled girls. "Go away. Remember nothing."

"What now?" Natalie asked.

"Now, we have some fun." the blonde smirked, grabbing her former best friend's arm and dragging her up towards the stairs.

Natalie frowned as she wasn't a fan of being dragged around, but seeing as if the girls wasn't out of the house yet, she couldn't really do anything about it. "Where are we going?"

Rebekah didn't respond until they reached a door that Natalie knew too well. "Why are we going to Stefan's room?" she asked as the blonde dragged her into the room before finally letting go of her and going to snoop around.

"How fun is this?" was the only response Rebekah gave as she started opening drawers for no reason other than invading privacy.

"So fun." Natalie sighed sarcastically, leaning up against the wall as she did not want to spend her day looking through Stefan's private stuff and everything that would remind her of him before he turned it off, before he became whatever he turned into.

"Come on, like you've never wanted to snoop," Rebekah teased before finally reaching a very interesting drawer as she held up Stefan's underwear. "Boxer briefs. A lot has changed since the twenties."

"So, how long do I have to wait before you'll actually start telling me about these things?" Natalie asked, placing herself on Stefan's bed, trying to ignore the fact that she was sitting on Stefan's bed.

"What do you want to know?" the blonde asked, turning around to face the other girl after placing her ex-flame's underwear back in it's original placing.

"Well, Elijah said that your father was a landowner in Europe. How did you guys end up here?" the reincarnation thought that was a good question to start with.

Rebekah distanced herself from everything she could snoop through so she could have a more comfortable setting as she sat next to her former best friend on the bed. "My parents had just started a family, when a plague struck their homeland. They lost a child to it. They wanted to escape and protect their future family from the same fate."

"But people didn't even know about this part of the world yet, so, how'd you end up here?" she followed her last question with.

Rebekah laughed at the lack of knowledge Natalie had on the subject, also finding it strange as her past self would easily know this. "Not by anyone in your history books. But my mother knew the witch Ayana, who heard from the spirits of a mystical land where everyone was healthy...blessed by the gifts of speed and strength. That lead my family here, where we lived amongst those people."

"The werewolves."

"To us, they were just our neighbors. My family lived in peace with them for over 20 years, during which time my family had more children, including me. And more people followed our suit and moved there, which includes your family." she responded, a small smile on her face as she thought back to the old times.

"You make it sound so normal." Natalie commented pushing herself up slightly with her hands as she always had some kind of weird thing happening with her thoughts whenever she'd get reminded of her past.

"It was," the blonde shrugged, before a dark shadow stretched across her face as she thought about what she would have to talk about next. "Once a month our family retreated into the caves beneath our village. The wolves would howl through the night and by morning we'd return home. One full moon, Klaus and my youngest brother Henrik snuck out to watch the men turn into beasts. That was forbidden. Henrik paid the price. And that was the beginning of the end of peace with our neighbor, and one of the last moments my family had together as humans."

"But how did I fit into this whole life of yours back then?" Natalie asked, wanting to comfort Rebekah as she saw the sad look on her face as she talked about her little brother, but knowing that she needed answers at the moment.

"You were family. Your parents became friends with my parents and you became friends with me and my siblings. Although, one of them wanted to be a little more than friends."

Flashback

"Shut it!" Natalia yelled in annoyance, clutching onto the bow harshly as she glared at the laughing boy. "It's not funny!"

"Oh, come on, Natalia, you can't shoot for the life of you." he laughed, looking at the brunette in amusement before looking over to the arrow she shot that was way too far away from her target.

"I know, there's a reason why I wanted you to teach me." she grumbled, still letting the boy feel her glare.

The Mikaelson boy stopped laughing for a moment, looking at the angry girl he had been crushing on for a while now, not that he was ever going to tell her that, as he was way too scared of her rejecting him as she did with everyone else who wanted to be her suitor, but he also didn't want to ruin the bond they shared that so many boys were jealous of, but that usually would consist of some form of teasing. "But you shoot like a girl."

"Maybe it's because I am a girl? Ever thought about that?" she retorted, her eyebrows furrowed as she hated being underestimated, especially by the one she would consider her best friend of all, even more than Rebekah.

"Oh, believe me, I have. But this is not very ladylike either, is it? Which means our fathers would have both our heads." he reminded her carefully, as Natalia's mother was always obsessed with her daughter turning into the perfect girl, the perfect wife, the perfect person. So whenever she did something that wasn't considered ladylike she'd have her husband get their daughter and stop her from spending time with any Mikaelson other than Rebekah for maybe a week as she had to sew dresses the whole week or cook every meal. It wasn't something either of them enjoyed as they hated not being able to see one another if they wanted to.

"Then we mustn't let them find out." Natalia smiled widely, knowing that she'd find some way to get him to help her.

"Fine, then," he sighed, walking up behind her. "First of all, you're doing it all wrong."

"What am I doing all wrong?" she rolled her eyes, glancing up at him from in front of him.

"Well, you should probably be using the bow," he said, commenting on the fact that she was just standing there with her hand wrapped around it. She quickly realized her mistake and picked up and arrow and pulling it back with the bowstring. She looked back at him for more instructions. "A good idea would be aiming instead of looking at me."

"What if I like looking at you?" she asked, a smirk playing on her lips as she saw him take a breath at the surprising response.

"Then you can continue later, right now, I'm teaching you this," he told her before putting his hands on either one of her shoulders and pressing them downwards as a sign of her needing to relax. "There's no need to be nervous. We can't all be as good as me, but if you stop being so tense then it would probably work," she complied as she took a deep breath to rid herself of any nervousness so she could show him that she was more than a pretty face. "Now, aim," he instructed, placing his face inches from her, making her able to feel his breath on her cheeks, keeping her totally distracted. "And... shoot."

And she shot. And she failed.

The arrow ended up even farther away from the target than the last one, but he tried to keep his laughter in this time to be kind.

"Well, we can work on your aim soon." he smiled at her as she lowered the bow as she glared at him heatedly.

"Maybe it's hard to concentrate when all I can think about is you breathing on my face." she grumbled, dropping the bow to the ground as she turned around to face him.

"You'll get better, I promise. I'm a good teacher." he smiled at her, feeling really happy about her close proximity.

And, as always, his smile made her smile. "You mark my words, one day I will become a much better archer than you."

"I'm looking forward to it."

End of Flashback

"Oh..." Natalie trailed off, not really knowing how she was supposed to respond to an original actually liking her in a romantic way. So, she decided that she'd rather ask a different question. "When I was in the caves, my name was crossed out. Why is that?"

"Your sister, Tatia was heartbroken when you died. She heard something about us carving our names in the caves and then... she started getting angry and crying and she crossed your name out to symbolize that you were dead." Rebekah explained.

▹▹▹

It didn't take long after that for Rebekah to continue snooping around as she started reading Stefan's diary, she was laying on his bed after Natalie stood up, and she was looking through something so incredibly personal.

"Did you get your fill of snooping yet? Can we get on with the story?" the brunette asked from a corner of the room, getting tired of waiting for answers that she didn't even know if she was going to get.

Rebekah didn't respond with anything but laying the diary down before pushing herself off of the bed and walking over to where there were two pictures. One of them was of Stefan and Elena, a picture that Natalie had to go through the torture of taking, and another one which was of Stefan and Natalie, just smiling at one another.

Natalie couldn't quite remember who took the picture, but she was really glad they took it. The way that they were looking at each other in that moment was something she knew they would never get back. That ounce of insecurity about their relationship, the pure happiness, the non-existing awkwardness, the kind of Statalie that Natalie missed.

"Honestly, I don't get you two as a couple." Rebekah shook her head, not even bothering to talk about Stefan and Elena as she found those two together completely revolting, but she could tolerate Stefan and Natalie a little bit more.

"First of all, we're not a couple. And second of all, Stefan has many personalities. The one he used to show with me... well, you don't know who he is." Natalie said, as she knew that Rebekah only knew Stefan when he was at his worst, or almost worst in the most recent times.

This didn't make Rebekah any happier as she really liked Stefan and hearing that she didn't even know who he was hurt. "I know exactly who he is. He's a vampire. We're a predatory species. We don't have time to care about humans and their silly little lives."

That response made Natalie frown as it was the exact opposite of what she'd seen with her former best friend. "Oh, really? That's why you kept being so happy that I was there first time I saw you? Is that why you seemed so sad when you thought about the fact that your little brother is dead? Is that why you seem so desperate to have the perfect homecoming? You know what, I'm just gonna go."

"You haven't even heard half the story." Rebekah told her, watching her as she was almost about to hear.

"And you don't want to tell it. You're bored and you have nothing better to do than to snoop around, but you didn't want to be alone. But, guess what, I don't have time for this, I need to get answers. And you're not gonna give them to me." Natalie retorted, making Rebekah realize that if she wasn't going to be completely alone, she'd have to start telling the story.

"The necklace wasn't Stefan's to give. It belonged to the Original Witch." the blonde informed her, starting to give her some more knowledge on the past.

"The one who put the hybrid curse on Klaus?"

"Not just the hybrid curse. She's the one who turned us into vampires. After Henrik's death, my mother and my father wanted us protected so they asked Ayanna to call upon the spirits and keep us protected this way." Rebekah told the girl, remembering the night when she overheard them talking about it. She quickly cleared her throat to get out of her story-telling trance. "I'm thirsty. Do you want a drink?"

She started walking down to the library, to which Natalie followed her with follow up questions. "So vampirism was actually a means to protect you?"

Rebekah couldn't imagine that it was placed upon them for any other reason as she remembered how much her mother wanted to keep them protected. "What else would it be?"

"A curse." Natalie responded, as if the answer was obvious.

"My parents only saw a way of keeping their children alive." Rebekah dismissed Natalie's idea of the start of the predatory species known as vampires.

"But why wouldn't you just leave if you were so afraid of the werewolves?"

"Pride..." Rebekah trailed off with a shrug, remembering the pride that her father possessed, including his overwhelming arrogance. "My father didn't want to run anymore. He wanted to fight and be superior to the wolves. Where they could bite, we had to bite harder. Where they had speed, we had to be faster. Agility, strength, senses... everything could be heightened. But Ayanna didn't want any part in this, so my father told my mother that it was in her hands now."

Natalie didn't hear any reason as to why it would be something her mother would be able to take care of. "Why would it be in her hands?" 

"Because my mother was also a witch. The witch of the Original Family. The Original Witch?" Rebekah said as if everything would be easy to piece together without her telling her about who the Original Witch actually was.

"But if your mother was a witch, then...?" Natalie trailed off, not really knowing how she was supposed to ask the question without sounding a little rude, as it seemed to be something she did without meaning to.

"Am I? No, a witch is nature's servant; a vampire is an abomination of nature. You can either be one or the other, never both. My mother did this for us. She did not turn." the original vampire informed the shorter girl, answering the questions she might have meant.

"I know you're not a witch. My mom was a vampire freak, she knew this kind of stuff. But now I know she didn't turn, thank you for that. But, how did you turn?" Natalie ranted, but shut it down quickly as she didn't want to make the conversation awkward.

"She called upon the sun for life, and the ancient white oak tree, one of nature's eternal objects, for immortality. That night, my father offered us wine laced with blood. And then he drove his sword through our hearts." a far-away look appeared on Rebekah's face as she remembered what happened that one night that changed lives of thousands of people.

"He killed you?" Natalie asked with wide eyes, not being able to consider someone being so cruel as she could never imagine either of the father's she'd had would even try to kill her.

"And he wasn't delicate about it either," Rebekah whispered sadly. We had to drink more blood to complete the ritual. It was euphoric! The feeling of power was indescribable...but the witch Ayana was right about the consequences. The spirits turned on us, and nature fought back...For every strength there would be a weakness. The sun became our enemy. It kept us indoors for weeks.  And though my mother found a solution, there were other problems. Neighbors who had opened their homes to us could now keep us out. Flowers at the base of the white oak burned, and prevented compulsion. And the spell decreed that the tree that gave us life could also take it away... so we burned it to the ground. But the darkest consequence was something my parents never anticipated. The hunger. Blood had made us reborn and it was blood that we craved above all else. We could not control it. And with that, the predatory species was born."

"But why did Mikael start hunting Klaus?" Natalie asked, still trying to figure out why this would be the case.

"When Nik made his first human kill, which happened to be you, it triggered his werewolf gene. With that, he became my father's greatest shame."

"Wait, Klaus killed me?" the huntress asked, never having heard word of this before, thinking that she would have died from some accident or something.

"Quite brutally too," the blonde added in. "But it was what triggered the gene." 

Natalie shook of the fact that she was actually killed by the original hybrid himself. "Elijah told me this part of the story. Your mother had had an affair with one of the werewolf villagers. Klaus wasn't his son."

"She tried to make it right. She put the hybrid curse on Nik to suppress his werewolf side, and then she turned her back on him. But Mikael's greatest weakness as a human was his pride. As a vampire, that was magnified. He went on a rampage and killed half the village. Then he came home and killed her. He said she broke his heart so he would break hers. He tore it from her chest as Nik watched. Afterwards, my father took off in a rage, and the rest of my family scattered. Nik stayed, so he could help me bury her. He knew I had to say goodbye to my mother. That's when we once again made the promise to stick together as one, always and forever."

"Always and forever," Natalie repeated the phrase, a phrase she remembered from when she first met Elijah, and she knew it had meaning to it. "Even when he locked you in a coffin for over ninety years?"

Rebekah shrugged, looking at the brunette sadly. "We're vampires. Our emotions are heightened. I'm stubborn, Elijah moral, and Nik... Nik has no tolerance for those who disappoint him. Over a thousand years as a family we've all made that mistake at least once. I've made it several times."

"And yet, you love him anyways." the reincarnation said as if it amazed her how much forgiveness Rebekah was able to show.

"He's my brother. And I'm immortal. Should I spend an eternity alone instead?" she asked, but then she realized why Natalie was asking all these questions. "You've heard the story, it's time to go. I said leave, Natalia! I don't know what you're up to, but I'm no longer playing along."

"I'm just looking for one good reason why we shouldn't wake Mikael."

"And I've given you a thousand! But you will anyway. I know you want him to help you kill my brother, I'm not stupid." the blonde yelled angrily, being angry at the fact that things changed so drastically from back way back when.

"I'm gonna leave, okay? But you should know that I'm doing this for the people I love, just the same as you do."

▹▹▹

Old Lockwood Cellar

Natalie soon ended up in the old Lockwood cellar with Alaric and Bonnie, who had spent the afternoon trying to decipher the meaning of whatever was on the wall, and they were doing a pretty decent job at it, considering the lack of information they had. 

"We, uh, filled in what we could. A vampire, werewolf, slaughter, mayhem, et cetera." Alaric informed his daughter, looking at the post-it notes he had.

Natalie looked at one of the carvings, recognizing it from Rebekah's story. "That's the white oak tree that was used in the spell to create the vampires...which means that was when they burned down the tree, destroying the only way that they could be killed."

 "Okay. so tree equals weapon, sort of. We already knew that. What we are not sure about is this: we've got the witch symbol, and what looks like a bleeding heart. Upside down figures usually signified death, of some kind." he said, looking at some of the upside down figures he had, more specifically the one with the witch's symbol, which happened to be the same as Elena/the Original Witch's necklace.

"Mikael killed the witch by ripping out her heart," Natalie concluded, but then her gaze wandered to another symbol connected to the witch's. This one looked suspiciously like a mix of the vampire and the werewolf symbol. "But...why is that one connected to the witch's death?"

"We don't know. We haven't gotten that far." Bonnie shrugged sheepishly.

Natalie examined it once again, and then she remembered that it was Klaus who supposedly saw Mikael kill the Original Witch, no one else. And when the hybrid symbol is connected to her death, it could only mean one thing. "Oh my god, Rebekah doesn't know the real story."

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The Salvatore Boarding House

Rebekah was pouring herself a scotch when she saw Natalie appear and tried to seem as cold towards her as possible, although she only wanted her best friend back. "I thought I told you to leave."

Natalie wasn't in the mood for small-talk and went straight to business as she thought that Rebekah deserved to know the truth. "How do you know that Mikael killed your mother?"

"Nik was there. He told me." Rebekah simply responded with.

"He lied." Natalie said bluntly, not adding in another word so that Rebekah might actually be able to draw the conclusion herself so Natalie would be in no danger whatsoever because of the blonde's temper.

"And how do you know that?"

"You know the cave we carved our names into? It's covered in symbols. The story of your family: how your parents arrived, how they made peace, the spell that turned them into vampires, and this," she showed her the symbol for hybrid. "This is the symbol for hybrid. It's a combination of the werewolf and the vampire symbol. And this is the one for your mother," she showed her the witch symbol before showing her the whole picture telling them the story about her death. "And this is the story of her death. The hybrid killed the Original Witch. Not Mikael. Klaus."

Rebekah's eyes widened in denial, not wanting to believe that her brother would do something so cruel to her, as she was very close with her mother. But she also couldn't completely deny it in her mind, because she knew the kind of person her brother was, and it usually wasn't a good one. "No! No, he wouldn't."

"She cursed him, she rejected him, she made him feel like he would be alone for all of eternity. And when you're a werewolf you're angry and you're violent. And when you turn, all this is heightened. And he got angry enough to kill your mother and then he made up this whole lie so that he wouldn't lose his baby sister." Natalie explained her theory, which made perfect sense, only that Rebekah didn't want to see sense. She wanted to see happiness and her brother not having betrayed their family like that.

"These mean nothing! They're just stupid drawings, done by stupid people who had no idea who my family was!" she yelled, ripping the pictures apart before throwing them into the fireplace, knowing that she was being irrational, but she couldn't accept it. She then turned to Natalie, wondering why she'd want to inflict such heartache on her. "Why are you doing this to me? I've done nothing but be nice to you!"

"Because Klaus has had way too much power over everyone for way too long and it needs to stop." Natalie calmly explained, knowing that getting loud wouldn't help Rebekah with her anger.

But then Rebekah did something surprising as she wrapped her around Natalie's throat as she shoved her against the wall in anger not wanting her to be right, wanting more than anything for her brother not to have killed her mother. "Shut up! Shut up! Don't talk anymore! Nothing!"

But then her grip on Natalie loosened as she let go of the brunette, slowly slipping to the floor as tears that was building up in her eyes were released as she gasped before a sob came out and she couldn't stop another one from following. Natalie didn't know what to do, but she still walked towards the original, stroking her hair as she cried.

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A/N: and a super long chapter for you guys because you're awesome. And most people may have guessed who Natalie's new love interest is a long time ago, but no spoilers. And I'm sorry but next episode is super sad, and Natalie will kinda be full-on sobbing, but there might be a small Statalie scene included, I'm not sure, but there may be one.

Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.