A few hours later Elena walked into the boarding house and smiled as she heard the music as Rebekah walked towards her with two glasses of champagne.

"You made it!" Rebekah hugged her before giving her one of the glasses.

"Yeah, you called and said we had stuff to do." Elena smiled as she sipped her champagne and followed Rebekah into the sitting room.

"All right girls, have at it!" Rebekah called out.

Six girls in various beautiful homecoming dresses walked into the room, all of them with a blank look in their eyes.

"Okay, now twirl." Rebekah ordered and the girls did as she said.

"You compelled your own private runaway show?" Elena laughed brightly.

"Well, we both need homecoming dresses." Rebekah smirked. "So, what do you think? Pick one."

"For you..." Elena looked at all the dresses with a critical eye. "The red one."

"Oh, nice choice." Rebekah smiled with excitement. "Can I pick yours?"

"Sure." Elena agreed and Rebekah almost squealed in happiness.

"I think you should wear the black and blue one." Rebekah nodded towards a floor length black and blue ombre dress with a shoulder strap.

"It's beautiful." Elena said with a bright smile.

"So we are in agreement?" Rebekah chirped with a little bounce. "I'll wear the red on and you'll wear the black and blue one?"

"Agreed." Elena nodded.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Rebekah giggled, then she turned towards the six girls. "Go away. Remember nothing."

"If you want, we could all get ready together?" Elena offered. "You, me, Caroline and Bonnie."

"What does that mean?" Rebekah asked, a little embarrassed that she didn't know.

"It means that me, Caroline and Bonnie will come here several hours before prom and we will all help each other with hair and makeup, while drinking wine or some other alcohol."

"That sounds amazing." Rebekah hummed. "Let's do that."

"We'll have to ask Caroline and Bonnie but I think they would want to come to." Elena chuckled.

"Come on, let's snoop through Stefan's room while you ask about whatever you wanted to ask about." Rebekah grabbed Elena's hand and pulled her along to Stefan's room.

They entered Stefan's room together as they giggled quietly, feeling a little naughty. Rebekah walked over to the drawers and started to open them.

"How fun isn't this?" Rebekah giggled as she pulled out a pair of Stefan's underwear. "Boxer briefs. A lot has changed since the twenties."

"What, did he go commando in the twenties or something?" Elena asked with a giggle, which was weird, she usually didn't giggle.

"What is commando?" Rebekah looked up at her.

"It's when you don't wear underwear at all." Elena started to look through another set of drawers.

"People actually do that?" Rebekah asked, wide eyed.

"Yup." Elena chuckled. "I know for a fact that Jeremy didn't wear underwear with his Halloween costume one year."

"Damn, that's kinda hot." Rebekah had a far away look in her eyes.

"Are you sexualizing my brother in your head?" Elena asked as she looked up at Rebekah.

"Yes." Rebekah admitted promptly.

"Don't let Tyler find out, he might just try and rip your eyes out." Elena laughed loudly.

"Would be worth it though." Rebekah smirked. "Your brother is hot!"

"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if I found a dildo or vibrator in one of these drawers." Elena smirked, trying to change the subject.

Rebekah was quiet for a few seconds before she burst out laughing so hard she had tears running down her face and had to lean against the wall for support.

"You know, when we get Stefan back, you two should try pegging. And before you ask, pegging is when you use a strap-on and fuck your SO from behind." Elena piped up again when Rebekah had managed to calm down, making her fall back into laughter again.

"I can't breathe." Rebekah gasped out while she laughed.

"You don't need to breath." Elena pointed out with a smirk.

"That's not the point!" Rebekah said while she kept laughing.

Fifteen minutes later Rebekah had managed to calm down from her laughing fit. "What did you want to talk about, by the way? We seem to have gotten off track."

"I wanted to ask about your family, if that's okay?" Elena asked softly.

"Ask away." Rebekah smiled at her and turned back to keep going through Stefan's stuff.

"Just promise to tell me if you don't want to talk about something, okay?" Elena looked at her earnestly.

"I promise." Rebekah smiled. "Now ask what you want to ask."

"Well, when Elijah was telling me a little about your family, he said that your father was a wealthy landowner in Europe." Elena began softly. "How did your family end up in Mystic Falls before it was Mystic Falls?"

"My parents had just started a family, when a plague struck their homeland." Rebekah told her. "They lost a child to it. They wanted to escape and protect their future family from the same fate."

"That can't have been easy for them, losing a child." Elena muttered, louder she asked. "So, how did you guys end up here? According to the history books this part of the world hadn't even been discovered yet."

"Exactly." Rebekah smirked. "The key words being 'according to the history book'"

"Why doesn't it surprise me that they're wrong?" Elena huffed.

"Anyway, my mother knew the witch Ayanna, who heard from the spirits of a mystical land where everyone was healthy... blessed by the gifts of speed and strength." Rebekah continued her story. "That lead my family here, where we lived amongst those people."

"The werewolves?" Elena asked even if she knew the answer.

"To us, they were just our neighbors." Rebekah explained softly. "My family lived in peace with them for over twenty years, during which time my parents had more children, including me."

"It sounds nice." Elena smiled.

"It was." Rebekah looked wistful. "Once a month our family retreated into the caves beneath our village. The wolves would howl through the night and by morning we'd return home..."

"Rebekah, are you okay?" Elena placed a hand on her arm.

"One full moon, Klaus and my youngest brother Henrik snuck out to watch the men turn into beasts." Rebekah looked sadly at Elena. "That was forbidden and Henrik paid the price..."

"Oh, I'm so, so sorry." Elena pulled Rebekah into a hug.

Rebekah cried silently into Elena's shoulder for a while before she pulled away with a grateful smile. "Thank you."

"Anytime." Elena smiled kindly at the Original.

"You better get that." Rebekah chuckled as Elena's phone started to buzz. "That'll be Damon checking up on you to make sure I haven't killed you and dumped your body."

"He's a bit... protective." Elena grumbled softly.

"You don't say." Rebekah smirked.

"Hello?" Elena answered her phone.

"Hey!" Damon called out from the other end.

"Where are you?" Elena asked, hearing loud music in the background.

"No idea, but I'm pretty sure I'm overdressed." Damon laughed. "Still standing?"

"Yeah, but I might be lying down after I hang up, Rebekah looks like a good cuddle buddy." Elena winked at Rebekah who was lying on Stefan's bed.

"I'll be at the bar." Elena heard Stefan's voice from Damon's end of the call.

"Is that Stef?" Elena glared at the wall.

"Yeah, I kinda went off a bit." Damon murmured. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

"No you don't." Elena deadpanned. "If he kills you or if you somehow end up dead, I'll bring you back only to kill you again!"

Elena hung up the phone and walked over to lay beside Rebekah on Stefan's bed. They didn't speak for a while until Rebekah took a deep breath to continue her story.

"After Henrik's death, our parents only saw one way of keeping the rest of their children alive." Rebekah got up from the bed. "I'm thirsty, do you want a drink?"

They slowly made their way to the parlor and Rebekah poured them both some bourbon.

"Want some blood with yours?" Elena offered her wrist.

"You would really let me have your blood? You would trust me that much?" Rebekah looked shocked and a little lost.

"You're my friend, Rebekah." Elena said like it was obvious.

"Thank you." Rebekah almost sobbed.

"What's the matter, Bekah?" Elena asked softly, the nickname just slipping out.

"I've never had any true friends that didn't want something from me." Rebekah looked down sadly. "And here you are, offering your blood and your friendship without wanting anything in return."

"Oh sweetie, that's not how friendship works." Elena hugged her again. "I don't care about most people, Bekah, the only ones I care about are our pack and even than I have those I care more about than others. For example, if I had to choose between saving you and saving Alaric, I would choose you."

"What?" Rebekah gasped, hardly believing what she heard. "Haven't you known Alaric longer?"

"Yes, but that doesn't matter." Elena said softly. "It's a bit hard for me to explain how I reason because I really can't understand it myself most of the time."

That made Rebekah give a wet chuckle. "You are amazing."

"Why thank you." Elena smiled and offered her wrist again. "Drink?"

"Don't mind if I do." Rebekah seemed to have gotten some of her confidence back.

"So, vampirism was a form of protection?" Elena asked ten minutes later when they were sitting on the couch in front of the fire place.

"My parents only wanted to keep us alive and vampirism was the way they found to protect us." Rebekah sipped her bourbon.

"Why stay? Why didn't you just leave?" Elena wanted to know.

"Pride... My father didn't want to run anymore." Rebekah looked into the fire. "He wanted to fight and be superior to the wolves. Where they could bite, we had to bite harder. Where they had speed, we had to be faster. Agility, strength, senses..."

"Ugh, men." Elena groaned. "So, your mother turned you and your siblings into the first vampires. How did you turn?"

"Our mother called upon the sun for life, and the ancient white oak three, one of nature's eternal objects, for immortality." Rebekah told her. "That night, my father offered us wine laced with blood and then he drove his sword through our hearts."

Elena jumped up from her place on the couch and started to pace, "That pansy, ape looking gorilla, he should be castrated with a sly, rusty, old, spoon! Drawn and gartered! Hanged by his balls in a flag pole until they rotted and fell off!"

"Elena!" Rebekah grabbed Elena by the arms to make her stop pacing and that's when she noticed the tears on Elena's cheeks.

"He betrayed and killed his own children." Elena sobbed.

If there was one thing Elena really couldn't understand or even stand by, it was parents hurting their own children. The child never asked to be born and if you couldn't take care of them and love them, then why the fuck did they have them in the first place?!

"Hey, it's okay." Rebekah murmured as she pulled Elena with her back to the couch. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No, I want to hear the rest but maybe take it without interruptions?" Elena smiled slightly.

"We had to drink more blood to finish the transformation." Rebekah continued. "It was euphoric! The feeling of power was indescribable...but the witch Ayana was right about the consequences. The spirits turned on us, and nature fought back...For every strength there would be a weakness... The sun became our enemy. It kept us indoors for weeks... And though my mother found a solution, there were other problems... Neighbors who had opened their homes to us could now keep us out. Flowers at the base of the white oak burned, and prevented compulsion. And the spell decreed that the tree that gave us life could also take it away...so we burned it to the ground. But the darkest consequence was something my parents never anticipated... The hunger. Blood...had made us reborn and it was blood that we craved above all else. We could not control it... And with that, the predatory species was born..."

"My theory is that nature wanted your mother to succeed in creating you." Elena divulged softly. "Vampires are basically human population control. And, well, if nature didn't want you to exist you wouldn't exist, or are you claiming that your mother was more powerful than nature?"

"That actually sounds logical." Rebekah murmured. "Can you tell me what you mean about population control?"

"Well, as I told Stefan..." Elena proceeded to tell Rebekah about what she had told Stefan and how it worked.

"That makes a lot of sense." Rebekah nodded, then she frowned.

"So, why did Mikael start hunting Nik?" Elena asked after a while.

"When Nik made his first human kill, it triggered his werewolf gene." Rebekah said slowly. "Whit that, he became my father's greatest shame."

"Elijah told me about how your mother had had an affair with one of the werewolf villagers and that Nik wasn't Mikael's son." Elena hummed.

"She tried to make it right. She put the hybrid curse on Nik to suppress his werewolf side and then she turned her back on him." Rebekah informed her. "But Mikael's greatest weakness as a human was his pride. As a vampire, that was magnified. He went on a rampage and killed half the village. Then he came home and killed her."

"That is not entirely right." Elena spoke up softly.

"What?" Rebekah asked as she turned to look at Elena.

"If you want me to tell you, I need you to promise to keep calm and try and be rational, okay?" Elena implored seriously.

"I promise." Rebekah gave her word after a minute.

"Your father may have killed half the villagers but he didn't kill your mother." Elena admitted. "Nik killed your mother."

"WHAT?!" Rebekah screamed.

"You promised, Rebekah." Elena spoke calmly.

"I'm sorry, but how could he do that?" Rebekah sniffled sadly.

"Imagine having part of yourself looked away against your will." Elena said gently, trying to get Rebekah to understand. "You feel empty, disoriented, in pain and the only thing you really know is that someone did this to you and you want revenge. Nik told me that he shut off his humanity when he managed to get back to himself after he found out he had killed your mother."

Rebekah sat quiet for a long while, just staring at the fire and thinking, and Elena left her to it, knowing that she needed to sort out her thoughts and feelings in peace.

"I think I understand why Nik reacted the way he did." Rebekah spoke up softly almost forty-five minutes later. "Your feelings are amplified when you become a vampire and then she betrayed him in the worst way... yeah, I can understand why he did it."

"You won't believe how relived Nik will be to hear that." Elena smiled at her. "He has worried about it since I confronted him about him not telling you."

"Anyway, after we buried our mother, we promised each other 'Always and Forever'." Rebekah smiled softly.

"That is what family is all about." Elena hummed in agreement.

They sat in silence for a while until Elena perked up, "Wanna have a sleep over at my house?"

"What's a sleep over?" Rebekah asked slowly.

"It's when friends sleep over and then they talk about boys, gossip, paint each other's nails and eat snacks." Elena bounced in place. "I think we could both use it right now."

"Sounds fun, I'm in." Rebekah smiled. "I'll just go and pack some clothes."

An hour later Elena and Rebekah were sitting on Elena's bed as Elena painted Rebekah's toe nails a dark red, while she told her about her first trip to Bree's Bar with Damon. "... and then I thought 'I bet he would look good in a collar and in his knees too' but it turns out that I said it out loud."

"Oh my God." Rebekah giggled like a maniac.

"And I do, just FYI." Damon spoke up from the window.

"Ahh!" Elena screamed and threw the nail polish bottle at him. Luckily for Damon, she had just finished with Rebekah's toes so the bottle was closed.

"Ouch!" Damon rubbed his fore head were the bottle had hit him.

"Damon!" Elena glared slightly while Rebekah laughed at her scream. "Seriously?!"

"What?" Damon tried to look innocent. "I just wanted to tell you that I just met Mikael."

"What? How?" Rebekah stopped laughing abruptly.

"Elena's plan worked like a charm." Damon smirked. "And I even managed to get Stef on our side."

"That's great... I guess." Elena murmured.

"How about we all meet at the boarding house tomorrow morning?" Damon asked as he walked back towards the window.

"Sounds good to me." Elena agreed and Rebekah nodded.

"Good, see you then." Damon stepped one foot out of the window. "Now, I'm going to go home and cuddle with Enzo."

"Have fun!" Rebekah called after him as he jumped out.

"Do you think they would let us watch their naked fun?" Elena asked Rebekah with a devious smirk, making Rebekah giggle and blush, while still looking intrigued.