everyonelives | Let the moment go… Don't forget it for a moment, though

Yeah. Yeah, I'm good.

[If the worst they have to deal with is witches, then she's better than good.]

Jo and I have a plan, so we'll handle it. Don't worry about me.

[Unless he wants to, but Elena is used to taking care of herself.]

Right.

( That subtle brow movement probably indicates he will worry. )

Things you missed. Damon turned one of the vampires. Graduation happened. Nothing stopped it. Jack walked. ( He smiles and then that smile fades. ) And now he wants to hop a plane to Europe with the teenaged supes.

[She smirks a bit as she takes a bite of her food.]

So he's being a teenager.

He's never wanted friends before, or to travel. All he wanted, for months, was to learn how to hunt. And now, it's, Dean, can I see Europe on my friend's dad's dime. Except, he went to Sam and not me.

( And probably Cas. )

Okay, first of all? The kid is always going to go to the parent who they think is most likely to say yes.

[Aka Sam's a pushover.]

Second of all, he'll have plenty of time to learn how to hunt if that's what he wants. But he won't always have opportunities like this. Hell, I've never even left the country. If my life wasn't a mess when I was his age, I would have jumped at a chance like this too.

... I'd say me too, but I'm deathly afraid of flying. Planes crash. Clowns kill. It's a thing.

( But, her words help. They calm him as he takes another bite of food. )

Just how messy was your life?

[She exhales slowly, trying to figure out where to start.]

Well. I was a vampire at the time, not loving it but trying to pretend that I did. My ex-boyfriend's doppelganger was running around, pretending to be him while he was drowning in a safe at the bottom of a quarry. My best friend was dead and no one knew but my little brother.

I was getting ready to start college and try to move on from the terror that was high school, but that wasn't an easy thing to do. Especially when some of it follows you to college.

Can't outrun it. No matter how much you try.

( The it being every proverbial idea you could think of in these unsaid examples. )

You were a vampire. And -- your ex - was also a doppelganger.

[She laughs.]

Yeah. It was shortly after that that I found out why I even exist in the first place.

[As a doppelganger anyway.]

So the reason that doppelgangers exist is that it's a natural consequence for an immortality spell. If you want to become immortal, nature's going to create a version of you that will die. Turns out, my immortal ancestor had a lover who conspired to turn them immortal in the first place.

[Hence, Stefan.]

And nature didn't like that. Everything dies.

( He's -- definitely used to the backlash of death not sticking. Dean is a walking testament. )

All that was going on and you were right out of high school? And a vampire?

[She nods.]

I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it was better than high school in some ways. No one actually wanted to murder me for my blood. The Mikaelsons had moved out of town. I wasn't the girl with dead parents right off the bat. But nothing in Mystic Falls ever really slows down.

[She snorts.]

Joke's on these witches though. Amara finally died. So I'm pretty sure I'm about to be the last of my kind.

[Then she makes a face.]

Well, and Katherine. Though I firmly intend to outlive her if I can help it.

What happened between you two? You and Katherine?

( He only knows the animosity she's expressed and that Katherine prefers to be in every other room when Elena is nearby. And that she was called in as reinforcements, but most people? Don't like her. All he knows is Katherine the hunter. Former vampire.

Is it that? )

She showed up deliberately trying to antagonize me and mess with my life. She pretended to be me to get into people's houses, tried to steal my boyfriend. She was pretty much going to offer me up to Klaus on a silver platter to guarantee her own freedom, killed my family and friends ... the list goes on.

[Basically, they're not friends.]

And I ... existed. That was enough to make her hate me.

[She knows it's more complicated than that, but every time she tried to get on the same page as Katherine, things only got messier.]

I also cured her, which she also hated. It's better if we don't have to deal with each other.

Wait, so, her taking the cure and your taking the cure... There a cure factory we don't know about?

( Because, he's needed one before. He was cured once. But, having that on reserve and not because of the British Men of Letters... )

[She laughs.]

No. There was only one cure - and I shoved it down her throat. But, Bonnie got trapped in a prison world for a while, which is essentially a mirror of our world. She got the cure from there, and gave it to me.

[So only two cures.]

Don't know who Bonnie is, but this has more twists than Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

( It's just as hard to follow that, too. )

So. That makes you human now. But, still the doppelganger.

Yeah. I mean, I was always the doppelganger, even when I was a vampire. It just made me useless for certain things.

[The Travelers were still able to use her blood to do magic, after all.]

Some spells specify the need for a living doppelganger.

But, others. They need you dead?

( Should he continue to worry? )

Maybe. I don't know. There are so many spells out there and they all need different things.

[She waves a hand.]

At this point, given how hands off they're being? They might just be wanting to make sure I live long enough to reproduce. They might not realize that Amara is dead.

Reproduce. They want you - to continue the family line.

( Ignore the mouthful. It is still serious. )

Continue the doppelganger line. In case nature -- needs you again.

( A big gulp of wine follows. )

Yeah, but ... unless there are other big curses lurking out there that need doppelganger blood, I don't think there will be one.

Amara's dead. Nature doesn't need to make her killable anymore.

Take it from me, spells you think are long gone... come back up. Old grudges, old enemies.

( He sits back. ) The Mikaelsons, the same ones that helped? Hope Mikaelson Mikaelson's?

That's the one.

[She shrugs.]

I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive Klaus for everything he did to me and my family, but I can acknowledge that he's really changed. I guess having a kid brought out the best in him.

[Even if he's still occasionally terrible.]

Yeah, that doesn't always happen.

( Or maybe it does and they're the sad exception. )

You ever think what it could've been like without the monsters? Without Klaus or Katherine.

[She takes a deep breath before shrugging.]

I don't know. I think my life would have been really different.

[Maybe she would have been a writer. Traveled the world. Married a nice guy and settled down somewhere. But her sad, terrible life also brought her a lot of much needed perspective. She glances over at him with a smirk.]

I probably wouldn't be here, now, talking to you, so ... some upsides for the present, right?

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