After this there's only the epilogue

Caroline immediately knew she'd made a mistake in blurting out that one as soon as she saw Elijah's face morph from surprised to in-your-face-furious, it was evident that Katherine had, if not known, then strongly suspected for a long time exactly who was her soulmate.

"want to tell him anything more personal Caroline? Hey since Elijah can see me now why not tell him about that pretty little prophecy the romani foretold on you, I'm sure that as the brother of my former worst enemy he's going to be absolutely thrilled to tattle right away" Katherine snapped immediately matching his angry look

"Katherine please" Caroline tried to sound conciliatory " you are being thickheaded again"

"oh no, you don't get to patronize me Forbes, in fact, I'm a ghost, I don't have to stay here for the aftermath of this little talk" she fumed gathering her ghost powers around her "Petrova out" she snapped before blinking herself away.

"Sorry about that, she's normally not this bitchy on Monday mornings" Caroline said turning to smile her brightest fake smile to Elijah, before moving to a nearby kettle and pouring a teacup of Earl Grey for him "tea?"

"care to tell me what that was about miss Forbes?" Elijah hummed choosing to take a seat across the kitchen island with her, nodding towards the kettle "one sugar please"

"I know" Caroline said her face brightening up as tough guessing how he took his tea was a great achievement "I mean Katherine told me, she debates about you a lot when she thinks I'm not paying attention, how you take your tea, what type of books you read when you are pissed off at Klaus, that you are obsessive about burning sage, your favorite brand of ties, it's still Hermes right?...sorry too much information? She said you like to pull people's hearts out when you are pissed off too" Caroline went on ticking her fingers like meeting Elijah was the highlight of her week "sorry again, I get ahead of myself, she's just told me so much about you, I feel like we're friends already" she said clapping her hands

"She talks about me really?" Elijah chuckled amused at Caroline's exuberant behavior, it was refreshing mostly to be near a girl as unaffected and carefree as she, she seemed to lack that touch of innate darkness that all supernatural tried to wear like an armor, all the opposite actually, her goodness WAS her armor "does she say good things?"

"Yes she does, I mean she IS alone in her plane of existence, nobody to manipulate or talk to when I'm not there so she has too much time alone to go over her earthly regrets, I always had the impression that you were Katherine's epic love, I don't know if it's a good thing or not because it's always...bittersweet, when she talks about you you know, like too much happiness and sadness at the same time, I always thought that you'd be this great asshole when I finally met you, instead..." Caroline lifted her eyes and Elijah was struck with the realization that yes, Caroline's goodness was an armor, but she wasn't as shallow as she would have the world believe "you are someone just as broken as she is"

"what would you know about being broken?"

" I knowenough to appreciate the good things" she replied with wistful sigh

"will you tell me about what she meant when she mentioned a prophecy by the romani then?, I confess that I'm intrigued, the romani don't usually receive vampires in their midst"

"they do if said vampire's destiny is to become queen over all the supernaturals" Caroline said in a very small voice "let's just say, Katherine isn't the only one with a soulmate here" she wasn't looking at Elijah as she said this but at Niklaus's figure in the distance

"he doesn't know does he?"

"that he's my soulmate? Or that every seer I met in my sabbatical leave predicted that we would rule the supernatural community together?"

"both" Elijah, even in all his seriousness couldn't stop a slight smile from touching his face

"the answer is no, Klaus thinks I'm having some sort of midlife sex crisis in which I chose him to purge myself of all my dirty urges...or something along those lines" Caroline groaned "arghhh what am I going to do! If I tell him...I don't know how he will even react"

"Yes you do miss Forbes, faced with that information we both know he will never let you go" Elijah finished for her

"do you know what it's like to have that pressure? I mean, it's not just him and me? It's like every supernatural community I've met, they were all like "hey when you are queen, remember this and this and this", they call me the "most benevolent" it's like I've already won an election I didn't know I was running for" Caroline suddenly began to ramble looking almost on the verge of a breakdown "and he, he's well..he's Klaus and he's unstable and romantic and sweet and murderous and I think one of these days I might lose it and blurt out the L word, but, he's lived to see a whole freaking lot and I'm suddenly faced with the cold hard realization that next to him I'm just a nobody baby vampire from Mystic Falls and he is monster, myth and legend Klaus Mikaelson" She squeaked "what if I'm not good at it...what if I'm not good at being Klaus's...Soulmate...maybe losing my mom brought out all my insecurities back from the grave, but I just want to give him some time to back out just in case he realizes I'm not worth the trouble"

"you know miss Forbes, soulmate is not a dirty word" Elijah nodded sipping his tea "well I don't know what kind of relationship you have with Niklaus, but I find it quite funny that you care so much about my brother's prospects, because I can tell you quite frankly that if the situation were reversed my brother would not be as concerned with your feelings, he would've hunt you down and used every single underhanded trick he knows about soulmates to force you to solidify the bond...Soulmates make vampires powerful you see, as a hybrid, nothing would have stood a chance against him, if he'd known about it first, I'm sure he would have seduced you to the brink of insanity and stolen your soul with the ease of a man on a mission" Elijah recited plainly putting the teacup down and quirked his brow "instead of that here you are, not wanting to take advantage of what we both know is a very powerful bit of knowledge, knowledge that not only could guarantee your safety and that of your friends but could very well make you the most powerful newborn vampire in the world, all this because you care for my brother"

" I can't spring this soulmate thing on him without warning"

"He would certainly do it to you"

"But I'm not him"

"more the reason why you should tell him soon"

"what would you have done then? If Katherine...you know, If you'd known she was your soulmate, when she was alive..or sort of alive" it was a very naive question to ask, even for Caroline, but Elijah had to remind himself that all she knew of him was from Katerina's tales and those of her friends in Mystic Falls, out of all the Mikaelsons, his brother's intended had been more in contact with Rebekah and Kol than any other of the family and Elijah tried to remember that compared to them and Niklaus, he must be the closest thing to a "good" original that she knew

"make no mistake, I would have done the same as Niklaus...Admittedly with a bit of more finesse but no less forcefully"

"She'll come around Elijah, I don't pretend to know her as well as you do, but I know she wont be able to stay away for long" Caroline moved to pat his arm across the kitchen island in what was meant to be a comforting gesture "if anything Katherine's ghost powers pull her back to me when I'm danger, so if she's not nagging your ear off in a few days, we will find a way to get my butt in semi life threatening situation so you can talk to her" she joked, sunny attitude returning in full force like whiplash

"the seers were right miss Forbes, you will undoubtedly make a benevolent queen" Elijah chose not to reply to her previous commentary seeing his brother had finished with Hayley "Niklaus, I see things have changed very little in my absence, I was just introducing myself to the subject of your latest painting, tough I must admit that your shading was wrong in a couple of places, in person miss Forbes really does give credit to your artistic skills"

Caroline chuckled at that, in Elijah speak, he was calling her beautiful while simultaneously needling Klaus, Katherine had told her about that "And your manners give credit to everything I've heard about you too Elijah, but then again I told you already, you are a Mikaelson, I expected you to be either an overly charming version of Kol...or a boring version of Klaus"

"didn't know you knew my brother so well love" Klaus growled Klaus growled with a possessive tone, warping his arm around her waist making Caroline roll her eyes

"I listen to Rebekah's gossip ok, plus Elena was totally halfway in love with him when he did business with the gang back in the day..you can't blame for being a bit curious"

"Elena always did have a "curious" taste in men if you ask me"

"you are right, she's the one who thinks Damon Salvatore is the love of her life, and I don't judge her but come on the way she painted Elijah, you would think he was a candidate for sainthood"

"he isn't"

"I'm not" they both replied at the same time

Klaus looked in Elijah's direction again and once again tightened his grip on Caroline, wolf instincts rearing their head "And you brother? care to tell me why you seem to be in such friendly terms with my guest already?" his tone was perfectly friendly but the way his body was angled towards Caroline communicated possession in the purest form, alpha body language screaming at his elder brother exactly who the girl at his side belonged to, mine, mine, mine, you don't get to have her

"merely congratulating her on her tea making skills and don't worry about our conversation, your guest was just debating with me the pros and cons of pushing miss Marshall of a flight of stairs"

"Still debating apparently, but I'm leaning towards the pros" Caroline snapped crossing her arms over her chest then disengaging from Klaus's arms before glaring at him "oh and by the way the next time you want to introduce me to your brother as your "guest" please remember to do it when I'm not here so I don't feel as cheap as I do now" with that she stalked out of the breakfast room muttering under her breath "yeah, I'm wearing his shirt, smell mostly of his scent and haven't seen the outside of his bedroom in days..sure I'm a freaking guest...just sure..lets pretend I'm a booty call while we're at it"

"Caroline, Caroline I did not mean it like that love!" Niklaus glared at Elijah who was covering his mouth for his brother not to see his smile "This is all your fault"

"it might help if you introduce miss Forbes as your lover from now on...let everyone get used to it before adding the term of "consort" in the future...both words have less chances of offending her either way"

"I hate you" Klaus snapped like a petulant child "any other supremely useful advice you want to give oh holier than thou elder brother?"

" I approve of her, it might not be a bad idea if you asked her to stay"

"I already did once, she's only here for Mardi Gras"

"Mardi was almost four weeks ago, ask her again" Elijah was too dignified for a shrug but if he could he would have "miss Forbes looks like she's waiting for you to try to change her mind"

"Elijah"

"yes Niklaus"

"I really really do hate you"

"the feeling is mutual when you are this obtuse" Elijah sighed with exasperation before getting up from his seat.

Meanwhile Katherine found herself going back to her spot in the crossroads in between heaven and hell, instead of wandering trough New Orleans waiting for that jerk of Elijah to figure out her favorite hiding places. Self preservation dictated that she go somewhere he couldn't follow, hence why she was back in the crossroads.

Except that once she got there, there was someone already waiting for her.

"Well if it isn't the survivor doppelganger, I admit you really are the most resilient of them all" The handsome man greeted in a friendly manner, like an old friend who was waiting for a hug "you have kept me waiting a bit Petrova"

"who are you? Only higher ranking spirits can linger this much in my plane of existence" Katherine cut to the chase.

"why you don't recognize me? I would think after being dead for so long you would know about me, let me give you a hint, I'm the one that took over after Hades retired to Olympus" he was a handsome young man, dressed in a long black military style coat and equally dark pants, his face was chiseled to perfection in the way only deities and very old vampires can achieve, blue eyes, brown hair, tied back in a low ponytail, the perfect avenging angel.

"Are you the Devil? I mean I've met Lucifer and he's not this handsome"

"I know, my wife says the same thing, but no, I'm more like the guy that overlooks the board, not one of the players"

"You are the ruler of the underworld aren't you?"

"And you are as sharp as the fates said you were" The handsome man chuckled, in a way that was too familiar for Katherine to think it coincidence "Yes, I'm the one who rules the souls of every bad human, I wouldn't call it underworld, or hell, it's just a very Greek thing, I just call it home...my wife tough, she's the boss in the upper lands, she rules over the good souls"

"What do you want from me? I thought they couldn't allow my soul entrance to your place down below" Katherine asked with her best no nonsense tone "by the way! Yay on the holy deity being a girl, I am one hundred percent behind that" she added as an after thought

"We still can't, but there's been talk about you in the higher realm, angels think your little project with the soon-to-be-queen of Vampires means that you still have good in you so they want to redeem you, of course your soul's power would feed a thousand of my demons so you can understand why I was looking into ways to open up my own doors to you, in the end my wife and I conferred with the fates and we came to an detente, one that will benefit you in the long run I assume"

"Do I even want to know what it's about? No offense but everything the fates have done for me hasn't exactly made me trust it..or them"

"I came to offer you a proposition, one so attractive you won't be able to turn down, you will like the deal doppelganger, I can almost guarantee it"

"Oh yeah and you know me so well" she challenged crossing her arms over her chest

"you're a survivor, what I'll offer you in behalf of the fates, will be exactly that..a chance to survive" the ruler of the underworld said again barely hiding his amusement

"I hear you"

"If we cannot admit you in the upper or lower worlds, we figured we could do the next best thing and send you back to earth" he conjured the wispy image of a random couple decorating a nursery, the woman gently patting her pregnant belly "we offer a rebirth, your soul will be recycled and reborn again, you forget everything, no, past, no knowledge, you will be essentially a blank slate with leave to live your new life as you see fit" the wispy image changed again and he showed her the ultrasound of an unborn baby

"what's good about being reborn if I won't remember anything?" Katherine pointed out bluntly "takes out all the fun of surviving five hundred years...that pesky thing of loosing it all"

"true" the man said with a shrug "but this new life will be yours and only yours, no interference from witches, no doppelganger curse, no vampires in miles from where you will be born... essentially we will be giving back everything the fates themselves denied you from the moment of conception"

"You mean that reincarnation does exist? The Egyptians were right go figure"

"it is only for special circumstances Petrova girl" her interlocutor said sardonically "If all souls in the natural world were recycled, that would create quite a mess...reincarnation is only for spirits that either deserve a second chance...or have unfinished business"

"Will you let me think about it?...I mean it does sound too good to be true and don't think for a moment that I don't know that this is just an elaborate ploy to get me out of your collective spiritual hair..but, before I agree to have a spiritual wipe down, I want to be sure of it" Katherine explained, thinking about Caroline...and Elijah.

"Phillip and Teresa Peterson have been married for three years, they've been going to fertility treatments for just as long" The lord of the lands below said instead, again conjuring back the image of the couple he'd shown Katherine before "Phillip is American, he made his fortune working as a diplomatic liaison between his government and the government of Argentina, he met his wife cosmetic heiress Teresa de Andalluz on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, together they are both very wealthy and any child of theirs would be provided for in the best of ways" the image changed and again Katherine was treated to a view of the beautiful nursery the couple had been decorating "four months ago, the fertility treatments worked and their baby as you might already be guessing, will be a healthy little girl" then the image vanished and the man looked at her with those piercing blue eyes that reminded Katherine so much of death "Buenos Aires is the commercial city with the lowest amount of supernatural beings in the world, neither Phillip or Teresa have had any ancestry that could be either wolf or witch for generations, their baby will not be hunted for powers she doesn't understand, or be prosecuted for blood she doesn't know she carries or be forced to trigger a gene that would turn her into a monster..you have four months Katerina, chose wisely"

"what if I say no"

"you will be stuck here in the crossroads forever"

Suddenly Katherine felt a pull in her gut, that signified Caroline was in danger, shit, she'd lingered way too long, time passed different in the crossroads than it did on earth " I need to go, I promise I will tell you my choice soon, but before I go...why are you doing this? Who are you?"

"I thought you were the great trickster Katerina Petrova, you tell me?"

"I'm just going to take a wild guess and say it was nice meeting you Henrik"

Henrik Mikaelson let out a bark of laughter that was both Elijah and Klaus mixed in one "likewise for me it was nice meeting the sharpest doppelganger in the box, which is why I have to get rid of you before you try to take over my realm"

Katherine felt the pull grow stronger and she almost groaned "until we meet again cupcake, see ya"

"See ya too Kat" and for a moment before Katherine blinked herself back to Caroline's she saw Henrik morph into a fourteen year old boy, looking every inch the little viking he must have been when he'd died, winking at her, he held the illusion for a minute before again returning to his original look "my offer won't stand forever"

Back in earth Katherine realized she'd been gone for days, it was the first conversation she'd had with another being in the crossroads since Liz passed by and it really did a whole number on her sense of timing.

"I leave for a couple of days and you decide it will be nice to get captured and tortured? Oh come on Care I thought we moved past that when daddy dearest was laid to rest" Katherine snarked as she materialized herself in a room where they held Caroline captive, she didn't offer reassuring words, or try to mollycoddle if anything Katherine took a moment to laugh at Caroline's misery "oh wow and here I thought banging Klaus was the solution to your problems"

Caroline, drenched in vervain and hissing north and south actually managed a small smile in her small cell "did it hurt when you used your brain that hard?"

""Not as much as those vervain ropes must be hurting you cupcake" Katherine cackled "now walk me trough this please, which wounded soul was it that you decided to help and ultimately betrayed you this time?"

"hey who yah talking to girl" the guard in the door snapped looking trough the bars of the torture room

"My imaginary friend idiot, I'm hallucinating from your werewolf venom! Who the hell do you think I'm talking to" Caroline screamed channeling her inner Katherine "And FYI it wasn't a wounded soul, it was the were-slut and her bumpkin groupies, I said I'm bored and she said I have an idea and I said I don't like you and she said lets go shopping so you can bond with Hope and I said ok fine and bam! Hillbilly wolves are kidnapping me, hillbilly wolves Casper! I've reached a new low" she screamed when another bucket of vervain was thrown on her body while Katherine stood there laughing "Stop laughing you are supposed to help me!"

"I am, just wait until I finish laughing about this" Katherine wheezed slapping her knee in mirth

"we aren't helping you, shut up already bitch" the guards that threw the vervain water shouted back

"Stupid Hayley and stupid Marcel and Stupid Cami, I want to go home! Get me home! I want to bite Klaus so he can make me feel yummy again"

"oookay, venom is making you talk like a three year old" Katherine giggled "can you at least stand?"

"they injected me with vervain and I haven't fed for days, you are lucky I'm lucid"

"and that you have a high tolerance for werewolf venom apparently"

"find Elijah, I'm pretty sure I'm still in the same state as him, please, I beg you, I don't want to die without killing Hayley" Caroline slurred in a quiet voice closing her eyes "everything hurts" she said in a lower tone

"Care you forget that I know when you are faking"

"the guards don't"

"Fine, I'll find Elijah, but just for the record, you owe me!, I could have blasted us both out of this cell with my ghost powers and you know it"

"too weak to walk" Caroline hissed

"yeah yeah" Katherine snapped "I'll be back with a rescue team"

carefully she walked trough the wall and floated trough the corridors of the large abandoned underground building they seemed to be holding Caroline in, it really was a maze, no wonder Care bear hadn't been rescued. The building led to an empty street and it was just her luck that it was the most remote location from civilization, she read a couple of property signs to map her geographical position and when she was sure she knew where she was, she closed her eyes and tried something she'd never done before "okay, ghost powers don't fail me now, I want to be where Elijah is" and in an instant she blinked herself away

when she opened her eyes again, she was in a moving car, with Elijah...and Rebekah..and the were slut "Oh good it worked! I didn't think it would, but yay for me"

Elijah almost crashed the car when he saw her translucent form in the rear view mirror "Katerina!" he almost screeched

both Hayley and Rebekah's heads snapped up with wary and resentful expressions "Elijah what?"

"Calm down mi lord, I'm not here to torment you..yet" Katherine said in a business like tone "I'm here because Caroline is in danger, which was by the way entirely planned by your super magical unicorn wolf princess over here, but that's neither here not there" she shrugged sending a brief glare to a quizzical Hayley "the point is, I need to rescue her and since she's too weak to do it herself, what with being drowned in vervain and all, I came here to make you save her butt...or make you make Klaus save her butt, I don't care about semantics as long as Caroline lives, so since you are the next physical being I can communicate with in this god forsaken planet here's a trick Caroline perfected, open your phone, make a random call and pretend you are leaving a voicemail so the people with supernatural hearing don't think you are being spelled by a witch"

Elijah sighed in a motion that said he agreed before doing just as she instructed and calling a number he knew would not answer "hello Selwynn, this is Elijah, I was calling to inform you that my brother is looking for miss Caroline Forbes indeed and that so far there has been little trace of her anywhere, our entire family promised to give him any information we gleaned from our various sources so I am making sure that you know of my intention to find her and personally deliver her back to my brother safe and sound"

"Is that so? Well, she's not safe and sound thanks to that magical wolf troll princess you like so much, listen to me and listen to me well, Caroline is underground, she's in a world war era bunker down at a property that's almost in the border of New Orleans called Eden Hills, tell Klaus that she has wolf venom in her system but has been resisting it like a champ so far" Katherine told Elijah and saw him give an almost imperceptible nod before focusing on his phone

"And before I end this call, I want you to know that anything else you know, will be appreciated" Elijah said firmly almost cracking his phone with his grip on it

"the were slut set her up and she's in pain, so I suggest you hurry before I take matters into my own hands..and trust me, an angry guardian spirit is something you don't want in New Orleans"

With that Elijah pressed the brakes and rapidly made a U turn "Lijah, why are we going back?" Rebekah wondered as he sped trough the streets making sure to keep an eye on Hayley

"I just had a enlightening idea of where miss Forbes could be and also why she's there in the first place"

As soon as she'd done her job naturally Katherine blinked herself back to Caroline's side, using her protective force fields to shield the blond vampire from any other nasty thing that could be thrown into the cell, it was the first time since she'd been protecting Caroline that she'd had to use her powers so forcefully, force fields took energy and energy had to be taken from somewhere when you didn't have a physical body, so Katherine knew that if Caroline's swat team didn't appear soon, she'd be in big trouble when her ghost energy ran out.

Elijah on the other hand had to navigate the fine line between lying to Klaus about it all being his idea to look for Caroline in a random place and actually accusing the mother of his child of trying to murder the love of his life, he did it in a very Elijah way of course, but he could have gone without the drama.

"Klaus? Did you find me I'm not hallucinating right? They said you wouldn't come, they said you weren't looking for me" Caroline wheezed when Klaus stormed trough the door of her cell, to where she was tied up in vervain ropes

"I'm here love, you're safe" Klaus said almost gently as he worked on untying the ropes "stay still, you need your strength"

"did you kill the wolves that had me locked up?" she mumbled as he pulled her up into his arms and cradled her most fragile body to his chest "Because I almost wished I could have killed them...does that make me a monster?"

"No sweetheart, you are the furthest thing from a monster that I know, wanting to hurt those that hurt you is nothing to be ashamed of" he whispered into her head and felt her nod

"if I fall asleep will you still be here when I wake up? No hallucination?"

"here love, drink this, it will help you heal faster" he said pushing a vial of his blood to her lips

"it tastes like you" she said gulping the blood down and closing her eyes while she adjusted herself in his chest.

"oh come on this is so sweet it's giving me cavities, Elijah, don't just stand there, Caroline's clothes are ripped up because of the sun burns and the vervain, offer her your jacket go on" Katherine said crossing her arms

Elijah once again did as he was told, feeling slightly amused in the way she protected Caroline.

And then when they were back in the manor and Caroline was safely cossetted in Niklaus' bedroom, only then did Elijah turn to Katherine and say "we need to talk"

"no, no we don't" Katherine replied shaking her head and daring him to contradict her.

So Elijah left it alone and went to his study, Katherine's ghost in tow and while the dead doppelganger knew there was nothing she would have loved more than to know he could see her a year ago, now it was different, now that she'd been dead for some time with no hope of escape she was acutely aware of her own intangible state, she would hurt him, she knew that because yes he could see her but dammit even then there was no way she could touch him, he was in the earth plane and she was in the crossroads, it was impossible.

but Katherine didn't point it out for him, he already knew, so instead she talked, told him things, everything really, all those conversations she wished she could have with him when she could only talk to Caroline, she talked about his family, his enemies, his allies, made mean remarks about the people in the quarter and once or twice joked about the strange guardianship role he played over Davina and liked to reminiscence their good times together.

she never told him she loved him again, Katherine Pierce had never been selfless but this was the one time she wanted to spare Elijah that painful knowledge.

the weeks passed and Elijah's siblings began to get suspicious, as did Hayley with whom Elijah hadn't spoken since Klaus almost killed her for plotting against Caroline, not that any of the Mikaelsons had spoken to her since then, with Klaus suddenly all too occupied trying to woo the woman he really loved and Rebekah finally getting to live out her picket fence fantasies with baby Hope, the only other person Klaus and Rebekah really noticed apart from themselves was Elijah, and yes, they where getting suspicious.

Caroline could usually temper Klaus, but Rebekah was too perceptive with Elijah.

Since Caroline's rescue, he'd begun to become increasingly moody, one minute looking very pleased with himself after sharing unknown Intel about a new plot against them and the next looking very frustrated, talking to himself more and more when he thought they couldn't hear him and staying cooped up in the house too much. then there where the things Elijah knew, how he sniffed out enemies and revenge plans before their foes even thought about becoming a serious threat, how he anticipated news from their allies and always seems strangely up to date with the personal lives of well...everyone in the vicinity.

Sure Elijah had always had some sort of omniscient quality about him but lately it was getting scary how much he knew.

Elijah on the other hand had begun to see Katerina's ghost form way too clearly (it was driving him mad) how does a vampire fall in love with a ghost?, he knew what they had was something impossible, beautiful and incomparable, for him who had found out about her death months after it happened, having Katherine at his side was something he had wished for ages, yet he knew it was also wrong.

She wasn't alive, he couldn't touch her, gods, he couldn't kiss her, but how could he tell her to leave when he had loved her for the better part of five hundred years?, he still did, but now their relationship has once again evolved into something unhealthy, the eldest Mikaelson never understood the meaning of what humans called platonic love, until now, they talked, walked and laughed together, she understood him better now and he had finally learned to see her as Katherine, not just Katerina, but they could not touch and he knew it was painful for her, yet they where both selfish in that aspect/

He could not tell Katerina to leave anymore than she could offer to go, she willingly tortured herself and him by remaining at his side and he could not for the life of him tell her to stop, because a part of him was just as selfish as her, he wanted her to stay, no matter the wrongness of his wish, he was not daft, he knew she loved him as well, which was why it is so wrong.

of course there where advantages to living with his own personal ghost as she was quick to point out in an effort to prove she could be useful to him, a silent way of begging him not to get rid of her via witch, because she was still Katherine Pierce who had made a living and been sold and hunted down by Klaus because of the things she could bargain with, he reasoned that even in death she didn't know any other way to earn someone's good graces, but yes she was right, being a ghost in the other side Katerina could easily eavesdrop on New Orleans current witch covens, listen in into the plans of any new vampires and provide eyes and ears in any place Elijah couldn't physically be in.

Strategically it was a wonderful tool.

The downside of course was that lacking the abilities to pick up the remote control to the TV, Katerina amused herself with the personal relationships of others in the vicinity, Niklaus and Caroline mostly seemed to be her favorite target, so apart from reporting the usual threat alarms and coven secrets she could glean out with ghostly precision from her place in casper land, Katerina liked to gossip in his ear a lot when Caroline was otherwise occupied with his brother, sometimes unnecessarily so, which resulted in him often having useless and not so useless knowledge on which warlock was having an affair with the leader of which rival coven and which teenage werewolf was planning on running away to Alaska.

it wast as if Katherine didn't like to gossip with Caroline, is that for a ghost that wasn't really living, Elijah still made her feel happy, when she talked to him, she felt better, alive, even when she knew she wasn't.

And happy for them was such a dangerous place to be.

And then Henrik said the words that carved her choice in stone "If you reincarnate, what's to stop you from finding him again Kat?, soulmates transcend space and time, if a it took a thousand years before the fates found the soul that was Klaus' perfect match, what's to say they won't bring you both together again" her four months were almost over, Teresa Peterson would give birth soon she could see it in Henrik's projection

"I need to say goodbye first"

"take all the time you need, but remember that you are not allowed to tell anybody the details of our deal else the fates might get nasty with you"

"Fine" Katherine agreed "I'll be back soon then"

her goodbye to Caroline was as emotional as she feared as a ghost Katherine couldn't cry, but Caroline did for both of them anyway, Katherine explained that no she wasn't going towards the light and no she wasn't going to hell either, she was getting sort of a do-over, she told Caroline to come clean to Klaus about her ghostly existence once she'd been gone for long enough and to please look out for Elijah, extracting a promise about keeping an eye out for his bad taste in women when she was gone.

"I've never had a best friend Forbes, but if I had to chose, you would be it" The hardest part was that Caroline understood, she understood so profoundly it was almost easy to let go, because Caroline knew she herself wouldn't want to be stuck in limbo forever if there was another choice and it made the doppelganger wish she'd had a friend like that in her era.

And then it all came down to talking to Elijah.

Their talk wasn't pretty, they started out with an argument over her not telling him before and it escalated before dying down to embers of what could only be a heartbreaking goodbye.

"isn't this how we usually go? You stay in one place I leave, I stay in one place you leave" Katherine said defeated "five hundred years, you would think a girl would learn not to hope for happiness by now"

"I can't lose you again for a second time Katerina, please don't ask that of me" Elijah almost begged

"But I want you to be happy and you can't be, while I am ghost, perhaps I'll find you when I reincarnate, perhaps I won't but I need to hope, I know it will hurt, you will hate me, but I'm used to that coming from you/I don't want to continue like this, all I ever seem to do is hurt you"

"I can never hate you Katerina, not even in my darkest moments"

"Then don't ask me to stay when I know that my situation is tearing you apart"

"But I love you" Elijah whispered in a broken voice "I would take the pain of having you here as a ghost, if only it meant that I could at least keep a part of you with me"

"And I'm the one that cannot let you do that Elijah" Katherine replied, holding back a very sad croak " look at what a mess we are, the last time I said I loved you, you turned your back and walked away from me" Katherine said with a wistful sort of sadness " now that you are the one saying it, I'm the one who cannot stay...some would call it a poetic ending"

"it's not an ending, don;t say that Katerina, you are not going anywhere, as your soulmate I forbid you to"

"Goodbye my love, please" Katherine said with finality, dropping all her sarcasm to let him see a piece of the innocent peasant girl she used to be once "let me be unselfish this once" and pressing a translucent kiss to his lips, Katherine dissipated.

And in a gesture of absolute grief, Elijah let out a painful scream.

Henrik didn't say anything when Katherine met him back in the crossroads...he just put her soul into stasis and took it down under to where the fates lived. He'd seen her saying goodbye, he knew what Katherine was giving up, he just hoped she was satisfied with her end of the bargain.

One month later on the other side of the planet, a wealthy couple who thought themselves infertile, would welcome a long awaited child into their lives, a healthy baby girl with green eyes and brown clumps of hair in her head.

"oh look at her Phillip, isn't she beautiful?" Teresa Peterson cooed over the red faced screaming newborn "what should we name her, she doesn't look like a Phillipa or a Teresa to me"

the baby's father took one look at his new disgruntled daughter who'd been disrupting all the other babies in the maternity ward with her little shrieks and smiled "How about Katrina? Like the hurricane, after all she's already a forced to be reckoned with in the nursery"

"it;s perfect dear" Teresa agreed kissing the top of her baby's head "hello Katrina, welcome to the world"

Then for the first time since her birth a few hours earlier, the baby laughed.

And somewhere, somehow far from there, a thousand year old vampire felt the pulse of his soulmate thread, flare alive again.

An: one epilogue to go, where we jump to eighteen years later, see how Caroline and Klaus are doing, catch up with Rebekah, Stefan, Enzo and Kol and of course Elijah will meet eighteen year old Katrina Peterson (and yes I totally changed the spelling so I could officially named her after the famous hurricane that almost destroyed NOLA in 2005..LET ME HAVE MY IRONIES DAMMIT). Also kudos on hot twenty something Henrik Mikaelson ruler of the underworld

Note: Vote on this, should I include a Klaroline wedding in 18 year later epilogue? Yes/ No, is it too tacky? Should I let Klaroline live in sin to annoy Elijah and Rebekah's sensibilities?. Also, who should Katrina meet again first, Caroline (best friend) or Elijah (soulmate), I'm kinda torn, there's the chicks before dicks rule, but I also adore Kalijah