At least Elijah was incapacitated.
Maddy had rushed to the tomb, and found Katherine was no longer there. She searched the town, but the only doppelgänger she found was Elena, who'd come to her house to get some clothes before going to spend the night with Stefan.
She'd told everyone as soon as she found them depositing Elijah's still-daggered body in the cellar. Just like that, the evil bitch had materialized at the end of the hallway.
"What is she doing here?" cried Elena when Katherine whistled, and they turned to her.
Damon huffed. "When we killed Elijah, it broke the compulsion and freed the bitch from the tomb."
"Mhm," said Katherine smugly, leaning against the wall. "Elijah's an Original. They have all sorts of special skills."
"I don't want you here," said Elena defensively. "Get her out of here."
"You need me, Elena," said Katherine. "You all do. We all want the same thing... Klaus dead. Yet here you all are, running around like chickens with their heads cut off."
Elena was furious. "I don't need your help, and I don't want it."
"And that's incredibly stupid of you," said Katherine. "Do you know where Klaus is? When he's coming? What he looks like? Not even sweet little Maddy knows that and she was literally Elijah's spy. What the hell was the point of that, hmm?"
"Since you're so knowledgeable," said Maddy coldly, "spit it out."
Katherine smirked. "I think I'm gonna go get some rest before I go to the Grill for breakfast tomorrow. Maybe Aunt Jenna will be free for a bite."
The older vampire decided that she was going to spend the night there. Stefan had gone to the Gilbert House with Elena, while Damon and Maddy remained awake the entire night, listening for any hint of trouble.
There was nothing. All the trouble seemed to be taking place outside the house. In the morning, they learned that Elijah's witch had stripped Bonnie of her powers. Jenna and Alaric were drifting even further apart and John Gilbert, smug as ever, had walked away with Alaric's Gilbert ring, which meant that the history teacher could die for real if any supernatural got the upper hand.
Elena and Stefan had headed off to school the next day feeling frustrated. Damon figured he would enlist Katherine's help to destroy Elijah's body, and hopefully get some intel about Klaus.
Maddy had gone to see Alaric.
"This is totally not weird," he said when she knocked on the door of his studio apartment. "How do you know where I live—?"
"I can read your mind," she said, completely serious. "I have Elijah's phone, and I've already combed through it. Unless Klaus is under some code name, there's nothing here that could get us in contact with him. No files, nothing. If he had a computer that we could get access to, that might help. But since we don't, and I doubt that Katherine is going to be cooperative, I need to see everything of Isobel's that you have."
"Are you planning on looking through it here?" he asked. "I'm on my way to work."
Maddy shrugged. "So I'll take the boxes with me and go read them in the park, I don't know. Just get me what I need. Isobel has to have known something about Klaus. The only other way to get the information we need is to undagger Elijah and go into his mind, and the only way I'd be able to get close enough to do that without him ripping my head off is to resort to certain methods that I'd rather not use on him." She remembered to add, "Pretty please with a cherry on top. I'll even talk to Jenna for you or something."
Alaric just sighed. "Fine. But no talking to Jenna. I'm the one that has to tell her the truth."
"I said it before and I'll say it again... she needs to know everything. You're not protecting her by keeping her in the dark. She's a smart lady. She might be overwhelmed but I think she can handle it. Being oblivious is just gonna get her hurt."
He nodded, to show he understood. "I'll talk to Elena about it, and see what she says. She might not be ready for Jenna to know yet." He went to the closet, pulling out a moving dolly with five boxes stacked onto it. He wheeled it toward her, and she moved it toward the elevator.
"Think you can handle that?" he asked. "I've looked through most of it, and it's not a light read."
"I have vampire speed, I can do everything in a quarter of the time it took you. Besides, I'm pretty sure all this is interesting stuff, it's not like I'll be bored."
"Well, have Google Translate handy because half of it is in another language."
She raised a brow as the elevator doors opened. "Alaric, I speak a lot of languages. English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian—" she kept talking as the doors closed, even if Alaric could no longer hear her.
She spent the day going through every single sheet of paper in the boxes. Because she was already bringing the materials out, she decided to organize everything in alphabetical order once she tucked them back into their respective containers.
Stefan had confirmed, after speaking with Elijah's witches, that they wished to find the site of the witch massacre to channel its power to kill Klaus. Aside from that, they had no actual weapon planned for Klaus, which led Maddy to go through the research again to take note of everything that said 'weapon.'
"So," she said once she was back at her house, unfortunately with Katherine still there, "if we find the witch burial ground, then we have a shot at getting the Martins to help us? They obviously haven't located it yet, so we have to. It's the only way to provide something for the group that will leave them as our allies and not as our enemies."
"Assuming you're smart enough to find it," said Katherine.
Maddy rolled her eyes. "Oh my god, if you know something, just fucking say it already!"
Katherine shrugged. "I'm not sure what this witch burial ground is, or where it would be located. I just think that if they haven't found it, you won't be able to."
The three siblings shared a look. "I'm not gonna go through the research another time," Maddy warned. "Everything in there was useless. A lot of legends, stuff that could or couldn't be true. Nothing different than what I learned from Elijah. I guess he knew you guys would figure out that I was compelled pretty soon, because he didn't tell me anything of use."
"Of course he didn't," said Katherine. "The Originals are smart, they cover their tracks. In the event the compulsion was removed... you knew only the vaguest details. Not enough to foil his plan."
Maddy faced Damon. "Any luck destroying his body yet?"
"Nope," he said. "We torched him, vervained him, nothing. Katherine says it's gonna be useless if we try to chop off his head, but..."
"I told you," said Katherine, "the Originals are practically indestructible. You couldn't chop off his head if you tried."
"How about we focus on finding this witch burial ground, hmm?" suggested Stefan, nudging Maddy. "I take one half of the upstairs library, you take the other?"
"Sure," said Maddy. "Since Katherine wants to be helpful, she and Damon can work on the lower levels."
The two females cast cheeky smiles at each other before parting ways.
Stefan and Maddy basically had to reorganize the entire library. They had previously put everything in alphabetical order based on the authors (since they knew most off the top of their heads). However, that wasn't helpful. So they ended up jumping back and forth between sections, placing the books in shelves based on their contents. Regular classics they read for fun filled four shelves. History books filled five shelves (after they'd looked through them). Supernatural fiction was an entire bookshelf on its own. Supernatural history was on the other side, where they could spread the books out further and label whether they had more to do with witches, werewolves, or vampires.
"There is literally nothing in the books we looked through," said Maddy, disappointed as she and Stefan went back to Damon. "Where's Katherine?"
"Getting a blood bag," said Damon.
"Find anything?" asked Stefan.
Damon nodded, but said, "Nope." He gestured them to be quiet, then to get closer, and pointed at a handwritten journal, where it spoke of an old witch house that Emily had died at. He'd found it.
"Damn it," said Maddy. "Do we really have nothing useful in this fucking house?"
"That's too bad," said Stefan. "And here I thought we were good at collecting. Guess not."
"Yeah, bummer," said Damon, smirking at them, glad that they caught onto the fact that they couldn't say anything out loud, or Katherine would hear them.
"DAMON!" they heard Katherine scream suddenly from downstairs. There was a crash, and Damon sped down immediately. Stefan and Maddy figured she'd tripped or something and was maybe just trying to get his attention to seduce him again. But they heard another crash, followed by the unmistakable roar of the flame gun Damon had been using to try and burn Elijah.
The two younger Salvatores sped down. "What are you doing?" asked Stefan when he saw Damon was spraying the flames into the air over Elijah.
"Some kind of crazy ass psychic witch attack!" he yelled. "Get over there and do something about it!"
Stefan grabbed Maddy's arm, since he knew where the Martins lived and she didn't. She didn't dare let go, and just continued to run alongside him until they skidded to a halt in front of the apartment building. He rushed down the hallway, and she followed.
They reached the right apartment just as Jonas Martin was exiting. Inside, they could see his son, Luka, dead on the ground and burned completely.
"You killed him," said Jonas, raising his hand. Immediately, Stefan and Maddy started to feel an extreme searing pain in their heads. Maddy now knew what Bonnie's aneurysm spell felt like. She cried out, holding her temples, trying to stay steady, but finding that it brought her to her knees. She dug her nails into her head, not even able to hear what Jonas was saying, because she was just trying to make it stop.
He rushed off, and by the time the pain subsided, he was gone. She tried to enter the apartment, but was unable to. "Stefan," she said weakly, seeing a familiar cluster of objects behind Luka's body. "Stefan, don't those belong to Elena?"
"They do," he said, forcing himself to his feet. "He's gonna kill her. Call Damon. I'm gonna call Elena."
She didn't hesitate. Thankfully, for once, Damon answered her call quickly. "We've got a problem," she said. "Jonas Martin is going after Elena. Do you know where she is?"
"There's a band playing at the Grill tonight," he said. "Can you and Stefan get there now?"
"Yes, we're on our way."
Stefan had just finished telling Elena what was going on. Maddy was the one that led the way this time, and the two zipped back to Mystic Falls. When they landed, they split so that Stefan could go in and find Elena.
"Damon," said Maddy, calling him again. "Can you get here? Where are you?"
"Stall, do anything you can to stall! Katherine has an idea and I think it'll help. I'll tell Stefan. When you get Elena out, bring her to our house. We'll handle the rest."
"Got it."
Suddenly, the lights went out. Every single bulb in the building burst, leaving them in darkness. The humans immediately began to panic, not knowing what was going on. Then, every glass on the bar flew off to the side and broke, spilling liquor all over the surface. Flames erupted, and everyone started to run in different directions, trying to get out.
Maddy caught sight of Jonas Martin, standing over Bonnie. He had his hand on her head, and he pushed down, causing her to go unconscious. Before he could turn around, Maddy sped to him, tackling him to the ground and putting him in a chokehold, using her legs to pin down his arms.
He chanted in another language, and she went flying through the air, nearly falling onto an elderly woman who was scurrying out with some of the other restaurant patrons. Maddy groaned as she got up, rubbing the back of her head. She couldn't see Jonas anymore, but she could still hear him. Forcing her way through the crowd, she followed the sound of his voice, and found that Caroline had just tackled him to the ground to keep him from going after Elena, who was with Stefan.
"I've got her," said Maddy, nodding to Stefan before she grabbed onto the doppelgänger and sped her out to the alley. "This is going to sound very forward, but shirt off. And take off your necklace, too."
Elena didn't question it. Maddy removed her jacket, giving it to Elena as she removed her shirt (obviously, she had an undershirt beneath it).
"Yoo-hoo." Maddy saw Damon and Katherine approaching. She tossed him the shirt, and Katherine immediately put it on. Maddy then handed them the necklace, making sure Katherine put it on before she grabbed Elena and took her home.
"It's okay," she told Elena once they landed at the Salvatore House. Elena sank down, incredibly dizzy. "Sorry about that, need some blood?"
"I'm fine," she said shakily. "What— why did you bring me here?"
"According to Damon," Maddy replied, pulling Elena up, "Katherine had an idea. Something tells me she's going to pretend to be you to lure Jonas into some sort of trap. For once, having an evil twin came in handy."
"What if it goes wrong?" asked Elena. "Oh my god... poor Luka... they'll kill Jonas."
"Right now, Jonas is not the one I'm concerned about," said Maddy. Her phone chimed. "Damon says they got him. Everything's fine. Let me drive you home. Unless you want to use vampire speed to get there sooner."
"Vampire speed," said Elena. "We need to get there, now."
Maddy was perfectly fine with that. Unfortunately for Elena, a second round of moving faster than she was used to meant she nearly threw up when they got to her front porch.
"I'm okay," she said wearily as they went inside, where the others were waiting.
Stefan and Katherine were just coming down the stairs. "Everything's taken care of," said Stefan, going to hug Elena.
Katherine removed the necklace she'd been wearing and held it up for Elena to see. "I'm guessing you're going to want this back. But your pretty little outfit is going to need a good dry clean."
Elena snatched her necklace back, facing Stefan. "You're going to have to get her out of here before Jenna gets home."
Katherine scoffed. "Is that all you have to say to me?"
"Does it look like she wants to talk to you?" said Maddy. "We appreciate you getting rid of Jonas, Katherine, but you haven't exactly proven yourself. Don't forget you literally made Jenna stab herself."
Katherine rolled her eyes. "Well if we're going to be open... frankly, I'd be happy to see you and Miss Elena dead but if we're going to try to take on Klaus, we kinda need you to be alive," she faced her doppelgänger, who was staring at her hatefully. "So I'm not a threat to you, Elena. If any of you are going to believe anything, believe that."
She walked out of the house, and Damon followed after her, to make sure she didn't murder anyone on the way back to where she'd chosen to live for the time being.
Maddy had taken care of Jonas's body. She'd gone to get Luka before burying the two next to each other in the forest, taking some flowers and replanting them over where each man's head would be. She went back home, taking a shower to clear all the dirt off of her body before gathering the boxes that she'd borrowed from Alaric and loading them into her car so that she could return them to him.
"You don't look too well," she said, pushing the dolly into his apartment so that he could put the boxes away. She could already tell that he was exhausted, emotionally and physically. "Something tells me things did not go well with Jenna."
"I talked to Elena," he said as she waited in the doorway, watching him stow the boxes back in the closet. "We're not telling Jenna yet. I want to, more than anything, and it just... eats me up inside. It's not fair that she doesn't know. So... for now, Jenna and I are done."
"I'm sorry," said Maddy, wincing as she crossed her arms. "Well, your drinking buddy is currently babysitting his ex, but I could get him to come here if you need him."
Alaric raised a brow. "Then you'd be stuck babysitting Katherine."
"I can tolerate her for a while. As long as she doesn't speak."
He laughed lightly. "Nah, I'll have to do without my drinking buddy." He held up the still sealed bottle on his counter. "Unless you want to replace him."
"Aw," she teased. "I'm finally making my first friend here."
"You're definitely a better friend than your brother," said Alaric. "Something tells me Damon hasn't issued a true, genuine apology to you or to Caroline."
Maddy sighed. "No, he hasn't. And it's... annoying. But I'll be okay."
"You don't have to shove aside your feelings. That's not healthy."
"Are you a history teacher or a therapist?"
Alaric half-smiled. "Eh, I can do a little bit of both when I'm trying to avoid my own problems."
"I just don't want to disturb you," she said. "You should... get some sleep."
"I don't think I can sleep. I feel... like everything is kinda just falling apart. And there's nothing I can do to stop it."
"Kind of what I'm feeling too. There's so much that I can't control and I hate it. I'm all wound up and I need to break something but that's not exactly a good thing."
Alaric wiggled the bottle. "Come on in. Let's talk about it."
"That's nice of you," said Maddy, not stepping inside, "but I don't think we're going to make any wise choices if we get drunk. This can end in... several ways and I don't think you want to go down those routes."
He raised a brow. "And what are those ways?"
He started to approached her, and she gulped. "Well," she said, "either you end up with alcohol poisoning, or someone dies, or..."
"Or what?"
"Don't," she murmured when he came to stand right in front of her, his gaze flickering between her eyes and her lips. "I won't regret it, but you will."
"Why would I regret it?" he asked.
"When you get back together with Jenna she's not going to like it. And if we do this, Damon will kill us both. Me for sleeping with his best friend and you for screwing his little sister."
"Does anyone else really need to know?" asked Alaric.
"You're already drunk," she assumed. "Otherwise you wouldn't be so forward. I don't sleep with people who can't consent properly."
"I haven't drank anything today," he told her. "So... your choice. Because it seems like both of us have a lot of feelings we need to get out."
Maddy couldn't resist. She wanted to be irresponsible. Perhaps that would make her feel something other than worry. She'd felt attracted to Alaric since she met him.
She decided that she didn't care if he was Damon's best friend, and technically off-limits. She wanted to enjoy herself at least once.
"We have to come to an agreement first," she said as she stepped into the apartment, pushing Alaric back slightly, just so that she could close the door and flip the lock. "This has to be a one time thing. No strings attached, seriously. I don't like dating humans, I get attached and then it just becomes this whole big mess."
"Deal," said Alaric. "One night stand, no strings attached. And no one finds out."
"I'm good with that," she replied, grabbing the back of his head and bringing their mouths together.
He pressed her against the wall as they started getting to know each other, hands moving desperately over her body once he felt her starting to undo the buttons of his shirt carefully, so that she wouldn't ruin it.
"I haven't done this in awhile," Maddy groaned as he pushed her onto his bed and came to hover on top of her. "Especially with a human."
"We can stop if you want," said Alaric, though Maddy had a feeling he was going to have a very uncomfortable sensation in his pants if they called it quits right then and there. She found it sweet that he gave her an out despite what he was feeling, and lifted her legs, wrapping them around his waist to pull him down, which made him groan into her ear.
"I don't want you to stop," she whispered, kissing over his neck and being careful not to bite him. She'd get a mouthful of vervain if she did.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked when he felt her reaching between them to undo his belt.
"I'm a big girl, Ric, I can make my own choices. The real question is are you sure? Like I said, I won't have regrets, but you might."
In response, he connected their bodies, causing her to press her chest against his as she tried to contain a moan. "I'm not gonna regret this," he told her. "Though, if you leave me too injured to work tomorrow..."
"Damn," she said playfully as he started to rock his hips back and forth. "Just when I was thinking that I should split your back open with my nails..."
She was glad that Damon didn't randomly decide to come and check on Alaric. The two had their fun, and in the early hours of the morning, cleaned themselves up before getting ready to part ways.
"Thank you," said Maddy, using her spare shirt to finish drying her hair. "So, just to confirm... one time thing."
"Yes," said Alaric. "Promise. Thank you, too. That... was better than drinking my woes away."
Their phones rang at the same time. They frowned, holding up their devices to show Stefan was calling his sister, while Damon was calling Alaric. The middle Salvatore quickly waved at him and darted out onto the street to answer her brother.
"What's up?" she said casually.
"Isobel just showed up on Elena's doorstep. Jenna saw her, and she didn't take it well. She's packing to go to Whitmore now."
"She what? Oh no..." she looked back as she saw Alaric rushing downstairs. "I'll be home soon. Did anyone tell Alaric?" she added innocently.
"Yeah, Damon's calling him now." Maddy waved at Alaric as he climbed into his car so that he could see Jenna before she left. "Where did you go last night, Mads? Thought you were just gonna get rid of Jonas's body."
"I got rid of Luka's, too. Put them next to each other, it felt like the right thing to do. After that... I didn't want to be in the house with Katherine there. I honestly don't feel comfortable. I crashed at a motel with a very delicious cleaning lady."
"Maddy, you should have told me, I'm sorry."
"It's fine," she said, clearing her throat. "So, I'll see you at home in a bit."
"Alright," said Stefan, unsuspectingly. "See you."