3x21 'Before Sunset'

the successfully desiccated Alaric, but Klaus still took Elena.

this is my first story not about a pairing, though there is some Klena and Elena/Tyler. i hope you enjoy! :)

The thought only crossed her mind when Tyler saved her. She didn't count Stefan and Damon. Not after everything. Everything was their fault.

No matter how much she was in love with Stefan, and yes, Damon too, Elena couldn't help but harbor bad feelings towards both of them. If they had never met Katherine (it all comes back to her, not Elena) they wouldn't have cast her a second glance. And she would be dead. Like she was supposed to be.

Everybody would have mourned and moved on. Except Jeremy. Elena had no idea what would have happened to Jeremy.

At least he wouldn't be chopping heads off and dying once a week. At least he wouldn't be seeing ghosts and have a sister who was the doppelganger and brought death with every step she took.

So if she was being truthful with herself and cruel to everybody else, she did blame everything on the Salvatore brothers. Stefan and Damon have done everything for and to save her. And if she really dug deep, searched the darkest parts of her soul, she knew she hated them for it.

She would never let anybody know, but she did. She hated them for dragging her into this world. For Stefan not letting her die because she looked like Katherine. For Damon forcing his blood down her throat so he wouldn't lose her. For when Stefan tried to kill her on the bridge her parents died on. For how Damon would lash out whenever she hurt his feelings. Or Stefan would mope about how he lost her. That wasn't her fault. Nobody could blame her for hating them.

But she knew, Elena knew, that if she ever told a soul, they would. Except maybe Bonnie. But then Bonnie would tell Caroline and then Caroline would have a 'talk' with Elena about all the multiple time the Salvatore brothers had saved her life.

But wasn't that all because they put her in danger in the first place?

Some part of Elena knew that it wasn't just them. That it was her too. She was the Doppelganger. Of course there would be danger. A part of her accepted she would never have a normal life.

It had either been die at Wickety Bridge or live the life she had now.

And as she sat in chains and Klaus drained her of her blood, she couldn't help but wish for the first option. She would have rather died with her parents then with a monster.

Then Tyler showed up, Damon and Stefan not to far behind and took her home.

Safe, they said when the tucked her in bed.

Waiting to die, was what she didn't tell them.

It was the next day, when Tyler of all people came around to check if she was okay. She supposed it made sense; he had been the one to see her being drained by Klaus. He was the one who had really saved her.

When she saw him standing before her door, she catapulted herself into his arms. He seemed surprised at first, but hugged her back anyway. They hadn't really been close at school, but they were counted as friends. Before she met and fell in love with vampires.

She invites him in and tells him he was such a jerk before. He laughs and sits next to her on the couch.

They are talking about the time they had to dance a founders event when they were eight and he had complained that she had girl cooties and she had told her parents she would never dance with a boy 'like that' when the vampire parade walked in. Didn't even knock.

(She was slightly surprised none of them were dead. They had snapped Klaus' neck to get her away after all.)

Damon narrowed his eyes, Caroline frowned and Stefan cocked his head at her guest. Caroline had demanded why Tyler was here and Damon commanded she eat something and go back to bed. Stefan just nodded his head in approval.

Elena didn't want to go to bed. She didn't want her protectors here either.

"Can you guys leave just leave?" Elena asked, though it wasn't really a question. She sunk back further into the couch as the three vampires insisted they needed to be here.

Suddenly, and rather surprisingly, Tyler stood up and growled.

"She asked you to leave." His voice was threatening, the most Elena had ever heard it be.

"Reign in your dog, Caroline." Damon moved forwards, glaring at Tyler. Elena didn't even have it in her to tell him to back off. He never listened anyway.

Caroline proceeded to yell at Tyler, in the way she is often to do. Tyler seemed to be taking it in stride, as he probably learnt to do, and didn't waver once. Elena was proud (she would wonder why that emotion later) of him. Caroline's verbal beatings were quite severe.

When Tyler interrupted Caroline to tell her and her vampire friends to leave again, her face was priceless. Elena loved Caroline, she really did, but sometimes, she should just leave her nose out of other people's business.

Caroline had turned her affronted gaze to Elena as if it was her personal fault, then stormed out the door. By some miracle, Stefan and Damon (albeit reluctantly) went after her.

Elena had thanked Tyler, went into the kitchen to make something for them to eat and then proceeded to go to bed. He spent the night on her couch.

That was four weeks ago. The second time she even guessed at it was when she was running one morning and noticed she was being followed. She turned down the nearest street and stopped, waiting for whoever (she had a feeling it was a hybrid) was coming after her. She'd had training. She could (kinda) hold her own. She also had a wolfs-bane and vervain dart in her pocket that quickly relocated to her hand.

It was a hybrid (goddammit Klaus) and when it saw her standing there, waiting, cautiously proceeded forwards.

"What are you doing?" Elena demanded.

"Following you." The hybrid answered bluntly, though there was almost a softness (admiration, she would later realize) to his voice that made her wary of a double-meaning she didn't understand.

"Did Klaus send you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because he wants to make sure you're alive and well."

Lovely, Elena thinks. She sighs, tilts her head to the left.

"Does he plan on kidnapping me now Alaric is-?" she could bring herself to say it. It was as good as dead.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Oh." She wasn't expecting that. He had to have some big evil master plan to carry out, right?

"He would like to talk to you." The hybrid continued.

"Tell him I don't want to ever see his face again." Fat chance that'll ever happen.

In a flash, the hybrid was gone.

Elena looked around, her brow furrowing. Weird.

She tests it out the next day when Tyler drops by to check up on her. She asks him if he could make her a sandwich. Something Tyler would have never done for her. He doesn't ask a single question, just lopes off with a "sure" into her kitchen. She shakes it off as chance, that he's only doing it because she was almost completely drained by Klaus last week. And he broke the sire bond. So it was impossible.

Unless he only broke Klaus' sire bond, a part of her mind whispered.

It was just too impossible.

Says the girl who has vampire friends, a witch friend, a brother that could see ghosts, a bitch of a doppelganger and a father/guardian/vampire hunter who was made to kill the Original vampires and Klaus, who wanted her blood to make a hybrid army.

Yeah, way too impossible.

After experimenting more on Tyler (she definitely wasn't guilty about it (she even got him to fix the bathroom door and help her garden)) she drove over to Klaus' mansion.

She didn't tell anybody, god no, otherwise the world would crack in two from their fury. Damon's especially. Why couldn't they all realize she could make decision for herself that worked? Half the plans she made would have worked if they hadn't went behind her back and ruined it all. She loved them. But she needed to do things on her own.

Like confront Klaus.

She didn't have a death wish, despite popular belief. She just wanted to see how powerful the sire bond was on the other hybrids.

For a fleeting moment she let herself hope that she may even have a sire bond over Klaus. How great would that have been. It would have solved all her problems.

But, since she was Elena Gilbert, the universe would never let that happen.

When she first walked into the grand mansion, she braced herself for the yelling and the snarling and the destruction that she associated.

Nothing.

Nothing but a "Hello, love."

Elena wasn't sure which was worse.

"Klaus." She greets with a stiff nod.

"What brings you to my humble abode?"

Elena doesn't bother to hide her snort. There is no Elijah here to impress with her nobility and compassion.

She meets his raised eyebrow with one of her own.

He smiles (Elena's not sure if that's scary or not) and offers her a chair to sit in what looks to be a lounge room. The highest-class lounge room she's ever seen in her life.

Klaus sinks into the chair across from her, resting his arm across the back of it and stretching his legs out in front of him. He snaps his fingers and suddenly a hybrid steps into the room and all Elena can think is finally.

"Why don't you get us a drink?" Klaus asks, pleasantly (it makes her more comfortable then she thinks it should), tapping a long finger against the glass that suddenly appeared in his hand.

Elena looks at the hybrid, waiting till it meets her eyes for a split second before talking, trying to sound as commanding as was possible. "Don't take a single step."

Elena's beyond proud when the hybrid freezes completely.

She feels powerful for the first time since vampires entered her life when Klaus makes a funny noise in the back of his throat.

As Elena grins triumphantly, minutes of silence go by as Klaus opens and closes his mouth several times. He quickly stands up and addresses the hybrid.

"Come here." The hybrid starts to move forwards then jerkily stops when Elena her earlier command.

Elena's grin doesn't falter as she looks back to the man who had killed hundreds maybe. He's looking at her, studying her. He's frowning, and again she feels powerful.

"You're not the only one the hybrids are sired to, Klaus."

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