5 Days Before the Sacrifice

"You faint at the smell of blood?" Klaus' delight was clear to see by everyone in the room and Bella scowled at him.

"Why? Why does every vampire respond like that? And I don't just spot some blood and collapse into a puddle on the floor; I only faint occasionally."

"How occasionally?" Maddox asked, also seeming amused.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you speaking now? I thought you were honing your skills in the Quiet Game," Bella snarked.

"You must admit, love," Klaus started, still grinning wickedly, "Considering what a vampire-magnet you are, it's rather ironic that what smells like a fine, delicate wine to us smells so awful to you that you collapse."

"Do all male vampires think it's a compliment, comparing your blood to wine or ambrosia or whatever liquid catches their fancy?" Bella asked Elijah. "Because I gotta say, being on the receiving end of such comments is not that great. I mean, that is literally the equivalent of me going up to a guy and trying to flirt by telling him he smells like a batch of chocolate chip cookies."

Greta snorted as she walked into the room. "Like that would ever happen. Count yourself lucky if you can just find a guy who doesn't smell like BO."

"Thank god," Bella cried dramatically. "You have returned! The amount of testosterone in this room is getting to be overwhelming."

Glancing pointedly at the empty glass in Bella's hand and then at the bottles of liquor on the table in front of them, Greta asked, "How much have you had to drink?"

Bella frowned down at the cup, as though just remembering that she was holding it. "I don't know." She looked back up at the other girl. "That's not a great sign, is it?"

Klaus cleared his throat loudly then. "Hate to interrupt," he said obnoxiously to Greta as he stood up, "but I'm guess you're here to tell me that the spell is ready?"

Straightening up slightly, Greta smiled at the Original. "Of course. I'm ready whenever you are."

"If you'll excuse us then," Klaus told Bella and Elijah as Maddox stood to join him and Greta. "We'll be back in a bit."

"Take your time," Elijah murmured, sipping from his glass.

"Alone at last," Bella joked once the others left the room. "Huh. We actually are alone. Where's Jonas and Luka?"

"I believe they're at the library," he answered, leaning forward to refill their glasses. "Luka had a project he needed to work on and Jonas is doing some research."

Bella shifted on the couch so that her back was resting on the arm and her legs were on the cushion in between herself and Elijah. "You know, I've been wondering for a while now, do you actually like the Martin's? I know you guys have teamed up, but do you consider Jonas a friend or is he just a business partner or something."

Elijah looked faintly surprised. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. It's just… you don't actually seem to have a lot of friends. Not that I actually know all that much about your personal life when it comes right down to it, but I've never even heard you mention anyone in your past besides your family. And Katherine, I guess, but she's a bitch and doesn't count."

Chuckling at her declaration, he admitted, "There was never a real need for friends in the past- I had my family. Others could be used against us so we tended to avoid outsiders as best we could. I suppose Jonas is as close to a friend as I could have."

"That's just sad," Bella told him bluntly, eyes wide and movements overly exaggerated as the alcohol took more of an effect. "Without friends, who are you going to complain about your family to?"

"Whichever member of my family didn't upset me," he responded, voice light and posture relaxed. She'd never seen him so calm. He'd taken his jacket and tie off earlier and had rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows.

"What are your siblings like?" she asked. Bella was a little worried that her question would upset him but she was also very curious what kind of people the siblings of Elijah and Klaus were.

Keeping his gaze focused on his glass, Elijah carefully considered his words before slowly answering, "My older brother, Finn, had the most trouble accepting what we had become. He struggled for many years to handle the bloodlust, the heightened emotions, and even the changes in our strength and speed. When he turned the woman he loved, we thought that perhaps it was a sign he had finally accepted what he had become. Unfortunately, that was not the case."

Bella's heart clenched at the hints of sadness and guilt in Elijah's eyes. "Is that why Klaus daggered him? Because he couldn't adjust to being a vampire?"

"No, someone else daggered Finn over a hundred years after we had been changed. When Niklaus found him, he chose to allow Finn to remained daggered." He chanced a glance in her direction, but Isabella's expression was blank, her eyes shuttered. "Other than Niklaus, Rebekah was the sibling I was closest to. Out of all of us, she was the most... open. Open to love, to friendship, to happiness. My brothers and I had all quickly grown to expect the worst out of everything but Rebekah kept a hold of her openness even in the darkest of times. Her outlooked helped balance out ours. That's not to say that there weren't times when she felt hopeless for there were far too many, but she never let that feeling get the best of her. From the very beginning, Rebekah was brave and stubborn."

It was shocking, the difference in how he described his two siblings. When speaking of Rebekah, Elijah sounded like any other doting older brother- his voice was laced with affection and grief. But with Finn, while he had still sounded grieved by his brother's passing and guilty over not stopping Klaus from keeping Finn locked away for so many years, he hadn't sounded as caring towards his older brother. It was like he felt guilty about Finn because he believed he should, not because he actually was. And Bella didn't know how to feel about that.

God, Bella couldn't imagine being Finn. Locked away for centuries by a family who seemed to not love you. Was being daggered really like being dead? Or was it similar to how some described being in a coma, aware of the world around them but unable to interact with it? Neither option was good. If it was the first, then how jarring and horrifying would it be for Finn when or if he ever was undaggered to see just how much the world had changed? If it was the latter, then… well, he was probably insane. Stuck in a box, unable to move but still able to know what was happening around him, spending centuries being carted around by a brother who wasn't exactly the definition of 'stable'.

"How is Charlie?" Elijah suddenly asked and Bella started at being pulled from her thoughts so abruptly.

"Oh, uh, he's fine. Well, that might be a stretch. He's still very concerned and wishes I would just come home. I'm worried that calling him so often has been a mistake though." Bella bit her lip, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs and hugging them tightly.

She looked so small and Elijah's heart clenched at the sight. "Why would you think that?" he gently inquired.

Increasing the pressure on her legs to the point that the force on her chest was a comforting sort of painful, Bella shrugged. "I've sounded better the last few weeks. I think… I think Charlie thinks that I'm getting better. My sudden death isn't going to go over well."

Elijah was silent for a long moment. "Would it not have been more painful to leave him more unknowns? It is unlikely that he has forgotten that you are, in fact, dying- surely it has been a comfort to him, knowing that you are being made comfortable? It will not lessen his pain at your passing, but I am positive that he is feeling relieved to know that you are not suffering unduly at the moment."

"Not for the next two days," Bella joked, but it fell short. Neither liked the thought of how worse a state Bella was going to be in when the time came to stop giving her Elijah's blood.

"You're going to be okay," she told him abruptly and Elijah looked at her in confusion. "Like later, once it's all said and done, you're going to be okay." She didn't know why she felt that it was important for him to know it, but Bella couldn't stop herself from trying to reassure Elijah.

"And how can you be so sure of that?"

"The same way that I know my death is something that needs to happen- I just do."

4 Days Before the Sacrifice

When Bella woke up the next morning, she felt like she was going to die. Her head was pounding, she was covered in sweat, her stomach ached horribly, she was nauseous, and her mouth tasted like something was slowly decomposing on the back of her tongue.

Peeling her eyes open, Bella was vaguely grateful that the blinds were closed in the room- light was not her friend at the moment. There was a glass of juice and two white pills on the nightstand next her and she hauled herself halfway up, taking a sip of juice and popping the pills in her mouth. Her stomach rolled like it was considering forcing her to vomit but Bella just closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. The nausea eventually went away and Bella drank a bit more juice before laying back down and pulling the covers over her head, quickly falling back asleep.

A few hours later when she woke up again, Bella felt perfectly fine. She had survived her first hangover without throwing up and she was vaguely proud of that. Pushing herself upright and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Bella froze at the sight of the glass sitting there. The remains of the juice glowing slightly as the small rays of sunlight peeking through her blinds bounced off the liquid.

She glared at. "Damn it."

Grabbing the glass, she marched out of the room and into the kitchen. Pausing in the doorway, she watched with wide eyes at the sight of Elijah standing at the stove, speaking softly with Luka.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, smiling slightly. "Good morning, Isabella."

"Um," Bella, feeling slightly thrown, before she pulled herself together. "Good morning. I think. Is it still morning? I feel like I slept pretty late after I woke up long enough to take some pills and my daily dose of vampire blood." She lifted up the glass in her hand and shook it slightly. "There is vampire blood in this, right? Why would you give me the pain killers then if the blood would take care of the hangover? What's the point in that?" she rambled.

Elijah turned off the stove and turned to fully face her, posture relaxed and eyes open. "I wasn't sure how much you would be able to stomach so I added the medicine just in case."

"You know about the blood?" Luka asked, smiling at Bella as he kicked out a chair for her in lieu of inviting her to sit down. "And you didn't go on strike? I'm impressed."

Glaring playfully at him, Bella slid into the seat and said, "Don't think I'm not annoyed with you for not saying anything. Thought you were better than that."

"Hey man, that was your mistake." Shutting his textbook, Luka sat back in his seat.

"Why aren't you at school?" Bella abruptly asked, realizing that it was Tuesday and therefore a school day.

"Decided to hang close to home just in case," Luka answered, glancing at Elijah from the corner of his eye. "So, it's your second to last day of feeling relatively normal. Anything you're dying to do before you… you know…"

"Spend a few days feeling like death before actually getting around to the dying bit?" Bella finished dryly. "It's okay, you can say the word. And not really." Turning to look at Elijah again, she asked, "Do you or Klaus have any plans involving me today?"

"None that I have been made aware of," Elijah answered as he brought a plate of food over to her.

Bella looked up at him in surprise. "Oh. I… you didn't have to make food for me. I mean, thank you and I definitely appreciate it but it wasn't necessary or anything."

Elijah just gave her another small smile. "Think nothing of it."

Luka looked down at his phone, hiding his smirk. "We should go out today. Even if it's just going to the Grill or going for a hike at the Falls."

"Haven't you learned by now- me and exercise don't mix well. It might be fun to go to the Grill though." Bella poked at her pancake before cutting off a piece and taking a cautious bite. She hummed in pleasure then. "These are amazing and I can't believe you've been holding out on me for so long."

"I'm glad to see you enjoying it so much," Elijah told her, amused.

"I almost want to ask if there's a special ingredient in these but I also really don't want to know if there is."

"Crack," Luka told her. "There's crack in the powder sugar on top."

"That wouldn't surprise me. First alcohol then drugs- Elijah's thoroughly corrupting me."

Something flashed across the Original Vampire's gaze, something dark and heated, but he turned away before Bella could fully understand it.

"If you would, Mr. Martin, please keep your cell phone on while away from the apartment. At the first sign of trouble, call me."

"You're not going to join us?" Bella asked, automatically ignoring the smidge of disappointment to hear that Elijah wasn't coming. Her crush on him was getting out of hand and she needed to get over it. Though, even if she did embarrass herself, it's not like she would have to live with the humiliation for much longer- a thought that shouldn't have been as comforting as it was.

"Unfortunately not. There are several matters I need to see to before we depart from Mystic Falls."

"Would any of those matters happen to be removing Katherine from the apartment?" she inquired, glancing over at the closet the vampire was still stuck in. "Because she's really starting to freak me out."

Elijah shook his head. "Niklaus wishes for her to accompany us when we travel to complete the ritual. My brother prefers to leave nothing to chance."

Grimacing, Bella said, "Can he really keep her compelled the entire flight? Or, God forbid, the drive?"

"As we are going to charter a private flight, that won't be necessary."

Bella rolled her eyes and shared a look with Luka. "Rich people."

Luka laughed. "Looks like it's just you and me then, Bells. If you're finished gorging yourself on pancakes, we can head out."

"Going to the bar in the middle of the day feels kind of sad and pathetic," Bella commented as they slid into a booth an hour or so later. "Also, do you really plan on ordering more food? We just ate."

"It's a lighter staff in the afternoon so it'll take longer for them to get the food out," Luka defended his decision. "Besides, it's basically the only restaurant in town so everyone will be here for the lunch time rush soon."

"I don't think that's how it works. Also, aren't you worried about getting into trouble for skipping school?" she asked, not bothering to look at the menu.

"Doubtful," Damon said as he slid into the booth next to Bella. "The truancy laws in this town are rather lax."

Luka frowned at the vampire but Bella remained unbothered. "Day drinking? Trouble in paradise?"

"Well, you know, it's kind of rough going when you find out that your best friend has been taken over by psychotic vampire."

"Two things about that statement," Bella started. "First, aren't most of the vampires you know psychotic? And second, isn't he your only friend?"

Damon waved her comments away. "Semantics."

"This is why you should have multiple friends," she sang and Luka finally relaxed.

"Considering the fact that I'm pretty sure Luka is your only friend, do you really have room to talk?" Damon squinted at her.

"Hey now, remember, I'm dying. I don't need a ton of friends; I just need at least one person who, when it's all said and done, will have a vague notion of where in the woods my body is buried at."

Luka snorted. "Those are some low goals, girl."

"Yeah, well, I'm not classy enough for lofty ambitions."

"So, are you all planning on leaving any time soon?" the vampire asked as he sipped from his glass. "Not that we aren't enjoying your time here- I just want to know what day I should schedule your goodbye party for."

Bella leaned against the wall on the side of the booth and stared at Damon. "You do know that, depending on how much you've annoyed him, Klaus might just come back after the ritual is done for the sole purpose of continuing to torment you, right?"

"He could, if it wasn't for that pesky fact of Elijah planning on killing him during the ritual." Damon raised his glass in a mock toast before giving Bella a piercing look. "Unless you know something that I don't."

"Nope," Bella sighed. "As far as I know, that is still the plan. It's a stupid plan if you ask me, not that anyone has. I understand though- I wasn't taken for my brain, after all. I was taken for my beauty."

Damon laughed. "You're not terrible to look at, I'll give you that."

"Stop," Bella deadpanned. "You're making me blush."

"If you can manage to get away from your guard dog then I can absolutely make that happen." Damon winked at her.

"Sorry, Flynn Ryder, I think your smolder is still broken."

There was a snort of laughter coming from behind Luka and they all turned to see a beautiful dark-skinned woman coming towards them and stopping at their table. "Sorry for the wait," she told Luka and Bella, completely ignoring Damon. She set a glass of water in front of each of them and then glanced at Bella. "You still alive?"

Both of the boys stiffened but Bella didn't even blink. "For the moment but hopefully not for long."

She laughed again and then turned to walk away. "Best of luck to you."

As they watched the woman walk away, Damon turned to study Bella again. "So, you have made more friends than just Luka then?"

Bella frowned at him. "No. Why?" When Damon just gapped at her, Bella looked at Luka. "What?"

"How did that girl know about you dying?"

Clearly unbothered, Bella told him, "Oh, at this point, I just kind of figured that everyone here knows."

"You don't even know her name, but she knows you're dying," Damon told her, as if she was unable to grasp the situation on her own. "And that doesn't concern you at all?"

Sighing, Bella shouted, "Hey," at the other woman who had just stepped behind the bar. "I'm Bella. What's your name?"

The woman glanced over at the table and sighed. "Fuck you, Damon," she shouted back before telling Bella, "I'm Rayvn."

With a smile and a nod, Bella turned back to the boys. "There you go. She's Ravyn. I know her name and she knows I'm dying. We good now?"

"Not really," Damon shrugged. "But I'll let it go- I'm flexible like that."

"That is the main descriptor I hear attached to your name," she agreed. "Along with angry, obsessive, and delusional. Such a colorful collection of adjectives, wouldn't you agree?"

Luka laughed, but when Damon glared at Bella and made an aborted move to grab her arm, the teen quickly turned serious. "You try anything, and I will give you an aneurysm so large you'll spend the rest of the month in agony."

"That is a threat in poor taste," Bella interjected, also eyeing Damon. "I would have gone with 'anything you do to me, Elijah will return to you tenfold simply because he warned you to back off'. Getting your heart ripped out does not sound like a fun way to go, does it, Damon?"

Pulling his hand back, Damon snapped, "You know, you have a lot of faith in a man who has literally spent the last few weeks prepping you like a lamb for slaughter."

Bella just laughed. "You know, I would have thought you of all people would know better than to assume someone's an innocent just because they have big brown eyes." Catching Damon's eye, she told him, "I went into this with eyes wide open. Sure, my consent never really mattered, but that doesn't mean I didn't know and accept what was going on. Elijah's intentions have never been hidden to me."

"Then why not leave?" he asked. "Run? Sure, I get the whole already dying thing, but you seem to have made friends with a pretty powerful witch. There's gotta be a spell to remove that pesky tumor and then presto- you have a future."

"God, you really are one of those people who fight to the bitter end, aren't you? Must be an age thing because guess what, gramps? I'm a millennial; we've all already made our peace with death a while ago. An eternal nap is a life goal for most of us." Before he could say anything else, Bella told him, "Also, you should know that Klaus let Alaric go yesterday. Or, at least, he's no longer in your friend's body. If I were you, I'd go look for him because I can't imagine he's doing well and it'd be really tragic if something else were to happen to him, wouldn't it?"

3 Days Before the Sacrifice

On her last day of guaranteed health, Bella claimed the kitchen as her own and baked up a storm. Jonas sat at the kitchen table, flipping through multiple grimoires, his attention split between his research and the sound of Bella scolding Luka as he kept stealing the batter for each dessert she worked on. Greta, who had been the one assigned by Klaus to keep an eye on Bella that day, stayed in the living room. Her gaze kept straying away from the TV to stare at her father and the doppelgänger.

Her relationship with her father and her brother since her arrival had been strained to say the least. They couldn't understand how she could willingly align herself with Klaus. They couldn't see the glorious future that Klaus would bring them once his curse was broken. With him, she was valued. Klaus understood how powerful she was and appreciated what she could do. Her family still viewed her as a little girl, a child who needed to be protected at all times. They would have to accept the truth soon though; they would see for themselves just how powerful she was once she broke Klaus' curse.

Greta worried that her father might become an obstacle to Klaus' plans though. The way he watched the doppelgänger… it was the similar to the way he watched Luka- a mixture of caring and protectiveness.

Not unaware of the looks Greta was giving him, Jonas kept his focus firmly on the grimoire page in front of him. When he'd learned that Greta had willingly joined Klaus, and fully supported his plans, Jonas hadn't known what to think. With such a short amount of time left before the ritual though, he had decided to deal with that later. He had been given a task by Elijah and it was one he refused to fail at. There had been many times before where the Original Vampire he'd begun working with had asked him to do something he wasn't altogether comfortable with. This though, this was a request- a challenge- he was more than willing to attempt to do.

"Luka!" Bella shouted, voice filled with laughter. "Stop eating the brownie batter!"

"Never," Luka declared, moving the bowl out of the petite brunette's reach. "It's mine now!"

"You at least have to share," she insisted. When Luka gave her a surprised look, Bella grinned and told him, "I love brownie batter; that was one thing I wasn't planning on baking."

He grinned and brought the bowl down. "In that case, grab another spoon and let's do this."

When Klaus arrived later that afternoon, now in his own body instead of Alaric's, he found the kitchen counters covered in treats. "And what exactly is all this?" he asked.

Bella spun around in surprise, and it took a moment for her to realize who he was. "Klaus?" she asked. "Dang, you do not look like I expected you to."

"Is that a good thing?" he asked with a smirk.

She studied him for a moment. "Why did you leave your shirt open like that? What made you go for a deep V-neck type deal?"

Luka turned away quickly, hiding his chuckles as best he could. Jonas just ducked his head, hiding his grin.

"Such impudence. I've killed people for less you know," Klaus teased, unbothered by her comments. Her attitude really was refreshing; he found her company delightful, even if she was a doppelgänger.

"Well, give it a few days and then you can tell us for sure if killing me really helps with the anger inside," Bella told him dismissively, leaning back against the counter.

"Your last night of health," Elijah commented, leaning against the frame of Bella's bedroom door. She started at his sudden appearance and stared up at him from where she was curled up on her bed with a book. "I would have expected you and Luka to have plans."

It took a moment for her brain to change focus from her book to Elijah's words but, once it did, she said, "He has some work he needs to hand in tomorrow since he'll be out of town for a few days. I told him that I wanted to make sure I finished this," she showed him the cover of her book, "today anyway so we're good."

"I see." Stepping further into the room, he held out his hand to Bella. "In that case, would you mind joining me on an outing this evening?"

Glancing between Elijah's eyes and his outstretched hand, Bella slowly set her book aside and reached out to place her hand in his. "Alright… what did you have in mind?"

He smiled softly at her and squeezed her hand. "I thought you might like to go for a drive. There's no need for you to change but I would suggest bringing a jacket."

Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, Bella pulled away and went to grab a sweater she had tossed over the back of the chair by the window. "You're being very mysterious and I have to say, I don't know if I like it."

Chuckling, Elijah offered, "Why don't you wait to see just what I have planned before you make any decisions?"

"Such a reasonable request. I think that's a real first for us."

Half an hour later, Elijah turned his car onto a dirt road. "If it wasn't for the fact that I know it's Klaus who's going to kill me, I'd be worried that you brought me out into the middle of nowhere in order to murder me without anyone hearing my screams," Bella joked. "Not to sound too childish but are we there yet?"

Finally coming to a stop, Elijah put the car in park and turned the engine off. "Yes, we are." Opening his door, he gestured for her to do the same before stepping outside.

Following suit, Bella got out of the car and moved to join Elijah by the trunk. "Seriously, Elijah, what are we doing here?"

Leaning against the car, Elijah told her, "I remember you saying once that one of the things you disliked most about Forks is the fact that it was always cloudy there- that you could never see the sun or the stars."

Bella's eyes widened in shock and her heart skipped a beat. Slowly letting her head fall back, she stared up at the clear, star-strewn sky.

He had remembered. Bella herself had forgotten that she'd made such a comment not long after she'd been brought to Virginia, but Elijah had remembered. He had remembered, and he had gone out of his way to give her this.

"I thought that you might appreciate seeing them again," he continued softly. "One last time."

Against her will, Bella could feel her eyes start to fill with tears. "These stars," she finally spoke, voice choked. "They were the greatest comfort to me growing up. Whenever I was mad or sad or scared, I would go outside and look up at the stars and it was like everything felt less heavy. The world may be a scary place but, at the end of the day, we're all just so very small and insignificant. That thought would probably make other people uncomfortable but, for me, it really made me feel at ease. It wasn't until I moved to Forks that I realized just how important this was to me." She felt slightly frustrated at how inadequately she was explaining this to Elijah, but she couldn't find any better words.

Elijah didn't say anything, just quietly listened to everything she had to say. He could smell the salt from her tears in the air around them. "There weren't a lot of constants in my life growing up," Bella told him. "But the stars? They were always there. And that was really all I ever wanted- something that wouldn't crumple or change on me. Something solid."

"Yes," he finally agreed with her, after a long moment of silence. "Even after a thousand years, the stars in the sky have been the one thing I could always be sure of. Some things may have changed- some stars finally burned out or pollution made them more difficult to see- but they were there all the same."

Bella couldn't tear her gaze away from the sky. "Elijah?"

"Yes?"

There, under the night sky and away from all other people, Bella finally felt ready to confess a truth she'd been denying for a while now. "I'm scared."

His hand slipped into hers and he squeezed tightly. "So am I."

(A/N): Welcome back guys! Sorry, I know it's been awhile but things have been a bit of a mess as of late. Again though, I promise I'm not going to abandon this story.

Now, I know that I said that Chapter 11 would be the big one, but it just got too long and I needed to break it up. Hopefully this was enjoyable enough for you all and you won't, you know, give me too much grief.

This was not beta read so all mistakes are mine. It's also really late here and I didn't have time to give it a proper look over so there are probably more errors in here than I'd like but I wanted to get this to you ASAP.

Thank you for reading! Here's hoping you all have a great week!

Please leave a review on your way out!