"Hello, Elena. It's nice to see you again." Isobel looked at Elena.
"Didn't me spraying your face full of vervain clue you in about the fact that I don't like you?" Elena asked with a raised eyebrow.
"So, you're the woman who's dating my husband." Isobel ignored Elena as she turned to Jenna. "I need to speak to Elena, may I come in?"
Jenna snorted as she smirked at Isobel. "No, I try not to invite vampires into my house."
"To clarify," Elena glared. "That means 'Get lost!'"
Jenna slammed the door in Isobel's face and turned to Elena, "Your egg donor is a bitch."
"Understatement of the year." Elena said calmly.
Jenna and Elena looked at each other for a while then they started to laugh.
"Oh, the look on her face when you slammed the door..." Elena laughed in delight.
"Did you really spray vervain in her face?" Jenna giggled.
"Did I forget to tell you about that?" Elena said through her laughter. "It was after she had kidnapped Jeremy to force me to give her the Gilbert device. After I knew that Jere was safe, I sprayed her in the face with liquid vervain and walked away as she screamed."
"You are awesome, doodle bug." Jenna cackled. "How about we eat ice cream and watch a movie?"
"Absolutely." Elena beamed. "You get the spoons and the ice cream I'll get the movie."
Jenna bounced off to the kitchen to get the ice cream while Elena started the tv and put in the movie she chose for them to watch.
"So what movie are we watching?" Jenna asked as she walked back in.
"Fast and the Furious." Elena smiled, she absolutely loved the Fast&Furious franchise.
"Paul Walker is so gorgeous." Jenna said as she sat down on the couch.
"He definitely is that." Elena snuggled into Jenna's side and grabbed a spoon. "I'm convinced that Dom and Brian are more than just friends."
"I completely agree with you." Jenna giggled.
XOXOXOX
The next morning, after Elena and Jenna had woken up cuddling together on the couch, Elena skipped up to the door and opened it for Alaric who was standing on the other side.
"Is Jenna up yet?" Alaric asked as he stepped into the Gilbert house.
"Good morning to you to." Elena smiled innocently before punching him in the face.
"What?" Alaric rubbed his face as he looked at Elena with shocked eyes.
"That was for shooting me with a crossbow." Elena walked away while shaking her hand, punching people hurt.
"Yeah I deserved that." Alaric muttered.
"It's good that you feel that way." Jenna smiled at him and slapped him. "Then you'll realize that you deserved that too."
"Yeah." Alaric did the smart thing and agreed.
"I'm going to go stay at Campus for a while, okay?" Jenna looked at Elena. "I have a big paper due and I seem to get distracted by movies and ice cream while in this house."
"I'm not sorry." Elena laughed.
"Neither am I." Jenna smiled and hugged Elena. "Could you go to the Lockwood's today and accept the Historical Society's check for your mom's foundation?"
"Sure, no problem." Elena agreed.
Jenna walked towards the door but paused before she left, "You can call me if you need anything."
"Remember to eat and hydrate." Elena called back with a smile.
"Where's Jenna going?" John asked as he came down the stairs.
Alaric, knowing that John had done everything he could to mess up things for Jenna, took a page out of Elena's book and punched him in the face. Then he walked out with a 'See you later, Elena,' over his shoulder.
"He punched me." John said as he held his face.
"Who did?" Elena asked with a smirk. "I didn't see anything."
"Right." John muttered as Elena walked upstairs.
An hour later Stefan had joined Elena in her bedroom, she needed someone to talk to and she missed having Stefan as her best friend.
"...this is bad. Between Isobel and John and now Matt, this is a disaster." Elena finished her rant by falling backwards onto the bed.
"Yeah." Stefan nodded in agreement and was about to say something else but was interrupted by John walking into the room.
"Elena, can you come downstairs, please?" John asked politely. "I need to talk to you."
Elena turned to Stefan and mock whispered, "It must be serious, he said 'please'."
"Please, it's important." John turned to Stefan. "You, too, Stefan."
Elena and Stefan followed John downstairs to see Isobel coming out of the kitchen.
"I asked John for a do-over." Isobel said.
"And like an idiot he actually thrusted you and invited you in." Elena glared.
"She has information about Klaus." John defended himself then he pleaded with her. "Please, just listen to her, okay?"
Elena nodded slowly and the four of them made their way into the kitchen so they could sit down and talk around the breakfast bar.
"Since I was last here, I've been doing everything possible to find Klaus." Isobel explained. "We knew our best chance was to find him before he could find you."
"Best chance of what?" Stefan asked.
"Keeping Elena alive." John said strongly.
"You care...why?" Elena looked at him. "I mean, you've had, what? Seventeen years to tell me who you really were to me but you wait until now, so why should I listen to anything you have to say?"
"Where you able to find Klaus?" Stefan asked Isobel before John could say anything.
"No. Nobody knows where he is but there are rumors that are flying around." Isobel looked at them al with a serious look. "That a doppelgänger exists."
"Which means that any vampire that wants to get in favor with Klaus will be lining up to capture you." John cautioned Elena.
"Why should I believe any of this?" Elena huffed and turned to Isobel. "The last time you were here, we made it clear to each other that we don't care about the other, or I assume you would have understood that, at least. Now all of a sudden I'm supposed to believe that you want to help?"
"Isobel's been helping all along. Klaus has been obsessed with finding Kathrine for centuries." John protested. "All it would take was any one of those 1864 tomb vampires to spread the word around that Kathrine was still alive and it would bring him straight here to Mystic Falls, where you were bound to be discovered, so we killed them."
"And tried to kill Damon and Stefan, two of my best friends, in the process." Elena glared at them both and said sarcastically. "Yeah, parents of the year right here."
"I have a safe house that I can take you to." Isobel stood up and walked over to Elena. "The deed is in your name. No vampires can get in without your permission, not even me. Let me help you."
"You really want to help?" Elena scoffed with a dark look. "Then get the fuck out of my house!"
Elena was doing her best to breath calmly as she watched Isobel and John leave while Stefan rubbed her back soothingly. "Stefan, remind me why I shouldn't just kill them and solve at least one problem?"
"Because you'd go to prison and get bored within a week." Stefan chuckled lowly.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Elena slumped down against the chair she was sitting in.
"I do tend to be right occasionally." Stefan smiled.
"I really don't trust Isobel, especially because she said the last time, she was in town that she had shut off her emotions which means she doesn't care about anything or anyone." Elena grumbled as she went to but on some shoes, she didn't care that she was technically in her sleeping pants and a t-shirt. "We should talk to the other about what just happened here. We're going to the boarding house, you're driving."
Half an hour later Damon had told Elena and Stefan what him, Jeremy and Bonnie had been up to and they had told him about the meeting with John and Isobel.
"Do you think Isobel was telling the truth about the word getting out about the doppelgänger?" Elena asked slowly.
"I don't trust a word that she says, but I think we'd be stupid to ignore the potential threat." Stefan said as he looked at her.
"You know, you should just stay here." Damon offered with a shrug. "It's better for us to keep an eye on you."
"I can take care of myself Damon and I don't want to be an inconvenience." Elena told him firmly but she sent a smile his way to show that she appreciated the thought.
"We have never claimed that you can't take care of yourself, Elena." Damon waked over to her. "But we do worry about you and don't want to see you hurt."
"So, it wasn't your idea to shoot me with a cross bow to distract Elijah?" Elena hummed.
"You still pissed about that?" Damon tried to sound nonchalant but it didn't really work.
"Yes, and I still don't agree with daggering Elijah but I have decided to let it go." Elena had to stop herself from starting to hum 'Let it go' from Frozen due to the fact that the movie hadn't even come out yet.
"Back to the matter at hand." Stefan interrupted. "We can't have Elena stay here in a house that any vampire can enter. Her place is safer."
"Well, then we'll stay there." Damon shrugged. "I can play some x-box with baby Gilbert if Elena wants to be alone for a while."
"Your plan is to not let me out of your sight ever again?" Elena looked at them like they were crazy.
"Let me know when you come up with a better one." Damon smirked at her.
"Fine." Elena huffed, way too tired of this to argue. "Then one of you two bodyguards is going to have to go with me to the Lockwood luncheon."
"That'd be me." Stefan stood up.
"Not me." Damon walked over to pour himself some more bourbon. "I have witch stuff to attend with Bonnie."
"Have fun." Elena smiled knowing that they were going to the old Witch House.
"What is your plan to get us out of this mess, hmm?" Kathrine looked at them as she walked into the room. "I delivered you a moonstone, a werewolf and the dagger to lure and kill Klaus and right now all you have is a moonstone. Unless you've lost that one too."
"No, we have it." Damon sipped his bourbon.
"Where is it?" Kathrine asked.
"In a very safe place." Damon smirked at her.
"I've been honest with you." Kathrine glared and sounded sort of whiny to Elena. "Time to return the favor."
"You want honesty?" Damon scoffed. "I'll be honest with you; Don't mistake the fact that we haven't set you on fire in your sleep for trust."
Elena hummed in agreement, stole a sip of Damon's bourbon and walked out so she could go home and change for the Lockwood luncheon.
XOXOXOX
Elena and Stefan walked into the Lockwood mansion together. Elena had decided to wear a knee length, light pink, cocktail dress, matched with black open toed heels.
"Hey." Stefan said to Caroline as she walked over to them. "Any luck in finding Matt?"
"None." Caroline looked worried. "What if he tells somebody? What if he tells everybody?"
"It only takes one little push to make someone go from somebody to some body." Elena smiled at her friend.
"Really Elena?" Stefan chuckled.
"What?" Elena shrugged. "I like saying that."
"He was never supposed to find out." Caroline groaned. "Just because I decided to save my ex."
"We'll help you find him." Elena hugged Caroline. "I just have to accept this thing for Jenna."
"Thank you." Caroline hugged her back. "Call me when you're done, I'll be out looking for him."
"Be careful." Stefan smiled at Caroline as she walked away.
"Stefan, I have a bad feeling about this." Elena murmured softly.
"Anything specific or just broadly?" Stefan asked quietly even as he started to look around with suspicion
"I don't know, just this feeling of something..." Elena worried her lip between her teeth.
"I have learned to trust your gut feeling so we'll be cautious." Stefan assured her as he led her into the sitting room.
For over an hour they had to sit and listen to Carol drone on and on about different stuff that Elena didn't even register. Luckily Stefan nudged her when she needed to concentrate again which she was grateful for.
"And here to accept the donation to the Miranda Sommers-Gilbert scholarship fund is Elena Gilbert." Carol smiled at her.
Elena plastered a fake, but believable, smile on her face as she walked up to join Carol at the front of the room to accept the check. "The Historical Society was my mom's baby. She considered all of you family and would be both honored and touched by this gift."
Suddenly a loud thump was heard from outside the room and everyone started to leave to see what had happened. Elena made to follow but was stopped by Kathrine who put a hand over her mouth.
"Nice dress, mind if I borrow it?" Kathrine smirked and knocked Elena out with a well-aimed hit the head.
XOXOXOX
Elena woke up with a throbbing head to Isobel talking on her phone and she heard her say, "I had to do what I was told. He wanted the moonstone and he wanted you."
"Kidnapping? Really?" Elena groaned when Isobel hung up her phone.
As she sat up, she could see that whoever was driving were turning the car into a cemetery. When the driver stopped the car, he got out and opened the door for Isobel.
At first Elena refused to move until Isobel looked at her, "Just because you can't be compelled doesn't mean I can't force you to come with me."
"So, you've been compelled to betray Kathrine?" Elena asked as she got out of the car even though she already knew the answer.
"If I was. I couldn't tell you." Isobel started to lead Elena further into the cemetery.
"If you were clever you would be able to give me some hints but I guess you're not as smart as you think you are." Elena smirked.
Isobel didn't answer as she walked over to a tombstone and kneeled in front of it. As she cleared some leaves from it, Elena could read out In loving memory – Isobel Flemming – Jan 18 1978 – May 4 2007.
"My parents, my grandparents, they put it here when it became clear that the police weren't gonna find my body. They visit every week and they bring flowers, even though there's no one buried here." Isobel explained slowly. "The Isobel they knew is dead. So maybe there is a part of me that is buried here, the...the human part, the part that I abandoned when I... when I choose to become a vampire, the part that used to dream about the day that she'd know her daughter."
"What?" Elena was very confused.
"And instead you get to meet the other part..." Isobel looked at her. "The part that would betray her own flesh and blood."
Isobel's phone started to ring and she quickly answered it. "Yes... Let her go?... I'm done?"
"Who was that?" Elena asked, not really that interested but it never hurt to ask.
"I'm so sorry, Elena. I was such a disappointment to you." Isobel pulled off her necklace and gave it to Elena even as she screamed when she burst into flames and then falls dead to the ground in front of her grave.
Elena raised an unimpressed eyebrow and pocketed the necklace. She walked back to the car to see that the driver was nowhere to be found. Elena picked up a rock and broke the window so she could open the door to the car.
She refused to walk back to the boarding house so she felt really happy about being taught by a friend how to hotwire a car in her last life.
It took Elena almost an hour to get back to the boarding house and when she gets there she walked straight in to Damon's bourbon, poured herself a glass and sat down on the couch in front of the fire place.
"Is that Isobel's?" Stefan asked as he came into the room fifteen minutes later.
"Yup." Elena looked at the necklace. "Is it weird that I'm not sad that she's gone but sort of relived?"
"I can't answer that." Stefan shrugged.
"What I really want to know was why she let me go." Elena murmured and pocketed the necklace again.
"Well, anything John told Isobel, we have to assume that Klaus knows, right?" Stefan theorized. "So, he knows that you won't leave your friends and family and that you have us keeping you safe."
"He knows I won't run." Elena murmured.
"Which is why we need to take some precautions, 'Cause we got played, all of us." Damon said as he walked in and placed some papers in Elena's lap.
"What's this?" Elena picked up the papers.
"It's the deed to our house. It's in Zach's name." Stefan explained. "As soon as you sign it, it'll be in your name."
"You are giving me your house, why?" Elena looked at the Salvatore brothers.
"Isobel had the right idea with the safe house. You'll just stay here until it's over." Stefan said. "That way, you can control who gets invited and who doesn't."
"Although I'll be super pissed if you lock me out." Damon mock glared at her.
"But what if something happens to me, I mean, even if I get turned into a vampire, I'm still dead." Elena shrugged. "Shouldn't we have another failsafe or something?"
"What are you thinking?" Stefan wanted to know.
"Can both me and Jeremy sign this?" Elena looked at them. "That way it will still be vampire proof if something happens."
"You will not die!" Damon growled and poured himself some more bourbon with jerky movements.
"We can't know that, Damon." Elena said gently. "I could be in a car accident, fall down the stairs or even have a heart attack."
Elena jumped in fright when John suddenly gasped back to life from where Damon had put him. Damon vamp-sped over and pulled him up by his collar.
"I swear I had no idea what she was gonna do." John swore with wide eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"Damon, could you be so kind and put him down." Elena walked over to them. "He and I need to have a talk."
Elena started to walk away, expecting John to follow her, which he did after Damon had let him down.
"I always knew that she and Kathrine were close, but I never realized that Isobel and her were working against me." John told Elena after a while. "two of the world's most uncaring and selfish vampires and yet they were genuinely friends."
"If that is what you thought of her, why did you ever put your trust in her at all?" Elena scoffed softly.
"Because I was there when she gave birth to you, Elena." John looked at her. "I saw how heartbroken she was to give you up. And because she was the first girl I ever loved and when she said she'd keep you safe... I believed her."
"I think you believed her because you wanted it to be true." Elena hummed.
"At this point, I will do whatever you want me to do." John continued. "If you feel safer with me not around, then I'll go."
Elena didn't answer at first so John stood up with a sad look. Elena turned to him with a serious look. "You screwed up quite epically in the last few months and I will never see you as my dad but... I might be able to learn not to hate you."
John smiled at her, "Okay."
Elena smirked when he turned and walked away, manipulating him by using his feelings about her was quite easy.