It was Christmas morning, and I heard Caroline, Alaric and Stefan downstairs of the boarding house with Lizzie and Josie, walking downstairs into the living room.

"Hi, girls," Caroline told them.

"Merry Christmas, Mommy," the twins told her.

Caroline hugged them both tightly. "Oh! Merry Christmas. Oh! Let me help take your jackets off."

"I'm afraid we're not gonna be able to stay very long," Alaric told her.

"What?" Caroline asked. "Why? This is my last day with them for awhile."

"Yeah, well, uh, I take it you haven't spoken with Matt," Alaric told her.

Caroline shook her head in confusion. "No."

"Is Seline coming to dinner?" Josie asked.

Caroline was confused. "No, honey."

I knew that they needed a subject change from the serious, awkward subject, and that Caroline and Alaric needed to talk about it, walking closer, looking at Josie and Lizzie, smiling. "Hey! I thought I heard you two. I have your Christmas present upstairs."

The twins ran toward me, taking the hands I offered them. "Yay!"

I spun the twins around, making them laugh, leading them out of the room, but I could still Caroline and Alaric downstairs.

"They're asking for Seline?" Caroline asked.

"I know," Alaric told her.

"She kidnapped them."

"I guess they didn't register the danger. No, they just keep asking for her ever since I got them back."

"Well, I don't want them thinking that she's safe. I mean, who knows when she's just gonna show up. I, uh... I'll talk to them."

"No, I'll talk to them... once we leave."

"But we're supposed to have Christmas together first. What is it? Did something else happen?"

"Look, I think you'll need to sit down for this."

I heard Damon walk in. "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, Ric."

Alaric sounded shocked. "I killed you."

Stefan sounded shocked. "You what?"

"He deserved it," Alaric told them.

"Yeah, he and Matt took a whack at me," Damon told them. "They even buried me. I can't tell you how hard it was to get all of that dirt out. I know. I know. Christmas just got merry."

 ********  

I was serving eggnog in the living room to Damon and Sybil, forcing myself to be polite. "Eggnog?" Sybil looked at me suspiciously, taking the glass from me. "I didn't have time to poison it."

"Well, you already poisoned the bourbon with milk and cinnamon, so..." Damon trailed off.

Stefan and Caroline walked in. 

"Ric's gonna stay with the girls for awhile," Caroline told us.

"You don't have to hide them," Damon told them. "I'm honoring the deal. We work for Cade. Munchkins go unharmed."

"Well, Ric's not exactly in a trusting mood right now and, uh... neither am I," Stefan told us.

"My sister kidnapped them," Sybil told us. "I saved them from a life of serving Cade when I cosigned Damon's plan. So, put away your umbrella. I don't need your shade. A simple thank you will suffice."

Caroline nodded implicitly. "Thank you. She's right." She looked at Damon explicitly, referencing what I had told them time and again when they started to act rude to Stefan and me because of the things that Damon did. "You can't fault one sibling for the sins of the other, right?"

"I appreciate that," Sybil told us.

"Stefan, Kaylin, why don't you come with me, and we'll go get some of the old family tree ornaments, huh?" Damon asked. We gave him a look. "Oh, come on, guys. I'll tell you why here."

Stefan and I sighed, relenting to follow Damon.

 ********  

Stefan, Damon and I were talking in the attic.

"My murder," Damon told us. "They actually buried me in a shallow grave, not even in the family plot."

"Well, it's a little hard to be sympathetic about your death when you're standing right in front of me," I told him.

"Thanks to our eternal agreement with Cade," Damon told us.

"What are you doing here?" Stefan asked.

"I'm getting ornaments for the tree, Stefan," Damon told him.

"At midnight, we're all yours, so until then, would you just leave us alone, okay?" Stefan asked.

"You know, Saltzman going all crazy on me did have an unexpected benefit," Damon told us.

I sighed in annoyance. "What's that?"

"I got to hang out with the new head honcho," Damon answered.

"Cade?" I asked.

"The one and only," Damon told us. "He's an interesting guy. You want time with him?"

"Not particularly, no," I answered.

Damon walked closer to me with a wooden Christmas ornament. "Funny thing." He stabbed me in the heart with it before I knew what he was doing, making me gasp in pain. "He said the opposite about the two of you."

I started to desiccate, glaring at Damon, starting to fall.

Stefan caught me as I fell worriedly. "Kaylin!"

I blacked out, temporarily dying, knowing that I would come back thanks to Cade.

 ******** 

 I woke up alone in the attic, standing, looking at my body, a little weirded out, walking out of the room, downstairs into the living room. "Stefan? Damon?"

Cade appeared. "Miss Salvatore. I've been waiting for you."

I glared at him. "Cade. Where are we?"

"Just... behind the veil," Cade answered.

"So, this is Hell?" I asked skeptically. "My living room?"

"If this were Hell, you would know it," Cade told me. "Think of this as a waiting room. Lucky for you, I'm sending you back. But not before we discuss our partnership."

"What's there to discuss?" I asked. "My brothers and I fetch bad guys for the rest of our existence and in exchange, you keep us out of Hell. Seems pretty horrifically straightforward if you ask me."

"Surely, you must have questions," Cade told me.

"Just a Hail Mary pass since we're here," I told him. "Why don't you let me out of this deal? I'm not the right person for you."

"Actually, you're the perfect person," Cade told me. "I'm here to show you why."

 ********  

Cade was taking me through my memories of the '20s, where a version of Past-Me was in a flapper dress and feeding and tormenting compelled people.

"Recognize your work?" Cade asked. "If death and torture is your canvas, this is your masterpiece. I decided you were mine. Right here. Chicago. You killed, you maimed, you tormented. People called you the queen of torture, or Queen of Chicago."

"You're here to show me where I was at my darkest time?" I asked skeptically.

"If it wasn't for falling for the Original hybrid, you could have been worse," Cade told me.

I scoffed. "You're kidding me, right? I got worse because of Klaus. Klaus made me worse, I made him better. It was a complicated relationship."

"You also had control because of what you felt," Cade told me. I sighed, rolling my eyes, looking away. "You lied to others before, about how you had your humanity off in Chicago, 1920s, and again when you left Mystic Falls to save your brother Damon's life, before Klaus returned your memories to you. But you didn't have it off completely. Just enough so that you didn't feel remorse for the people that you killed."

"Yeah, it's called a dimmer switch," I told him. "You can feel things like love, but not guilt."

"Whose to say that you didn't feel guilt, however?" Cade asked. "You wrote the list of names in the closet of your apartment because of guilt."

I sighed in annoyance. "So, what's your point?"

Cade turned to face me. "If you can do all of that while not having it completely off, I want to see what you can do when you turn it all the way off."

I looked at him in annoyance.

 ******** 

We were watching the memory of Past-Me feeding on a man on a dock and letting him fall to the ground.

"You were once an innocent girl who loved the wrong people, who became something more," Cade told me. "Good girl who was headed down the right path and was veered right into the median, turned into something dark."

"Well, I can't change that, can I?" I asked.

"But you can do it to other people," Cade told me. "For me. Find people that would get into the place with pearly gates by an inch, and make them into folks that would miss it by a mile. Like you. Help me gather what I need."

"I thought you needed evil people," I told him.

 "Good people who can be made wicked," Cade told me. "They are evil at their core. Their souls are unusually potent. Those are the ones I want to feed on most of all. As a vampire, even when you were good, you were always willing to do the bad, even if it was just to save your friends. Like your friend Bonnie's mother, you turned her into a vampire against her wishes. You killed countless of people to save your brothers, your friends. The plans that you set in action with the best intentions also had the worst outcomes. Thriving, spontaneous, fun. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to have you as my new servant."

"I will never be that girl again," I told him. "Not for you. Not for anyone."

"I'm disappointed to hear it," Cade told me. "I'm sure the men in your life will, too."

"What do you mean, the men in my life?" I asked impatiently.

"I mean, your brothers, Klaus, the man who is feared and hated by all, who just happens to love you because you are just as dark as he is," Cade answered. "If I can bring you and your brothers back from the brink of death and return you to your lives, like I did with Damon, like I'm doing with both you and Stefan, don't you think that I would be able to bring the Mikaelsons back?"

I turned to face him angrily. "Do not use that as a way to get to me. And if you're lying to me about this, I swear to God, I will kill you, whether you're the actual Devil or some third rate imposter."

Cade was incredibly amused and pleased with my reaction. "And you wondered why I would want you. You think that I would lie about this?"

"I think that whoever calls himself the Devil has some pretty manipulative ways and doesn't like to keep their word," I answered. "Now, I'm bored and so not convinced. And you've taken too much of my time."

"I suppose," Cade told me. "Especially considering I have forever with you."

"And if I refuse?" I asked.

"I suddenly become patient enough to wait for those kids to come of age," Cade answered. "I don't think you're patient enough to wait years for your lover's family to be healed and woken."

I glared at him for using that against me, considering for a long moment, thinking about everything he had said. "And what if you don't have to be patient? What if I can get the job done... faster?"

"'Faster'?" Cade repeated. "How?"

"If you keep up your end of the deal, I could become the girl that you want," I answered. "I'd be more effective that way. I wouldn't be held back by my emotions."

Cade smirked as if he knew that I would change my mind after bringing them up. "You'd turn your humanity off?"

"For a short time, yes," I answered. "And then after, when it's over, you let me and my brothers go, and you wake up and heal the Mikaelsons. I'm one of a kind. No one can do what I do."

"One year," Cade told me. "Although, the queen I saw in Chicago will never tire of this work. I predict that, after a year with me, you won't want to leave."

"Well, I think you're wrong," I told him.

"That's what makes our wager worthwhile," Cade told me.

"And if you flake out on our deal, or if you lie to me about letting me and my brothers go and not heal or wake up the Mikaelsons, I will find a way to kill you, Devil or no Devil," I told him. "I don't know how long it would take me to find a way to get to you and kill you, but I don't care, because I get things done. 'I killed the Devil'. It would be an interesting thing to put on my resume."

Cade smirked in amusement, sending me back to life.

 ******** 

I was walking along the road with my bag after coming back to life.

Stefan and Damon drove up next to me in Damon's car.

"Hop in," Damon told me.

I noticed that Sybil wasn't in the car. "Aren't you light a passenger?"

"Four's a crowd," Damon told us. I got into the backseat. Damon drove us down the road. "You're gonna want to get under the hood and flip your humanity switches. Won't be so painful."

"Not yet," Stefan told us.

"Suit yourself, Ebenezer," I told him. 

Damon sighed. "The Salvatores, back on the road again. We need a theme song or something."

Damon turned on the radio to Christmas music.

I sighed, closing my eyes, making myself a promise before I turned it off, that I would only do this for a year, and only because of the deal with Cade included letting me and my brothers go and what he said about the Mikaelsons (even though I wasn't holding my breath on that one. If he was lying to me, I would make good on my promise and find a way to kill him.) Either way, if he was lying or not, when I turned it on, I would find a way to save them. I had already told Hayley what was going on, so she understood about all of this, so now this part was just up to me.

Was it stupid to work for the Devil? Not when you were trying to save your brothers and yourself from a fate in Hell, and not when you were trying to save an entire family of Originals. I definitely didn't trust Cade, but I had to do something, because I was running out of options. Even if he didn't bring them back, maybe I could find out how to do so on my own because of this little experience.

After thinking about all of this and making myself and Klaus the promise that I would still find a way to save them, I finally turned it completely off, for the first time, since all the other times, I had only had it on dimmer modes. 

We past a sign saying Mystic Falls City Limit.

Stefan hesitated for a moment, sighing, closing his eyes, looking for his switch to turn it off, opening his eyes, looking completely void, starting to smirk.

I smiled.

Damon saw that both of us were emotionless. "There they are. Merry Christmas, guys. Merry Christmas."

Here we go.