"JEREMY!" STEFAN STIRRED AWAKE GROGGILY, eyebrows furrowed and hand resting on his forehead slightly as he sat up at the sound of Elena's panicked cry. "JEREMY?! WHERE ARE YOU?!" He looked towards the entrance to his and Aurelia's tent, which was zipped closed to prevent the monsters of the night from paying a friendly visit. "JEREMY!"

Elena's echoes caused Aurelia to groan softly, and Stefan realized then that she was awake—still lying down in her bed, arm outstretched towards him. Her fingers twitched slightly in his grip—and he realized, too, that they'd fallen asleep somewhere in their hours and hours of chatting, exactly like that. "What's going on?" When he asked, Aurelia didn't look back at him; her eyes closed and her eyebrows knotted together in a look of frustration.

"I don't know—" She raised her free hand to massage her forehead. "I've been awake for a good minute, and I've got a splitting headache." She hissed slightly, head tilting to turn towards him, though her eyes remained closed. "Her shrieks can break glass, really. I think that's why my head hurts." She winced at the desperate call of Elena's voice yet again, and failed to mention how her voice sounded louder—magnified in a way like the light dispersing into the tent. Everything was bright through her eyelids, and the sound of scattered footsteps several yards away from where they were felt like they were just next to her ear.

"I'm going to go check on Elena." Stefan blinked his eyes wide open to fight his grogginess, and his hand squeezed hers gently in an attempt to comfort her. "I'll be right back, okay?" Aurelia wordlessly nodded; eyes still shut tightly from her aching head. "Call for me if it gets worse. I mean it."

"I promise it won't get worse if you get her to keep quiet." She mumbled, clenching her jaw at the sound of Elena's voice piercing through the air once again—she left Stefan's touch, feeling a burst of coldness run through her knuckles and fingers when she broke contact with him to cover her face with two hands. "It's too early for her crap." Stefan, shaking his head, left her in their tent to rest a little while longer, and quickly made his way to the desperate brunette pacing around their campsite.

"Elena, what's going on?" Elena looked at the Salvatore with teary eyes and a gaping mouth, and then at the shuffling from Rebekah's tent as the Original herself emerged from it.

"Jeremy's gone missing!" The doppelganger was obviously distraught. "And so have Bonnie and Shane! Them, their things, they're all gone!" Stefan shot a quick and confused look at Rebekah as she walked over to them, having expected her to keep an eye on the Bennett Witch.

"Well if you weren't busy shacking it up with Damon in your tent last night—" Rebekah rolled her eyes. "Maybe you would've seen to it that your brother was safe. The three of them are clearly together somewhere—all we need is for Aurelia to perform a locator spell to find them."

"You were bent on keeping an eye on Bonnie!" Elena gritted her teeth at the millennium-old vampire. "Don't give me shit for something you failed to do, too."

"Okay, Elena," Stefan, tired of the constant raise in voice between the two women, lifted his arms to gesture for her to relax. "You need to calm down. We're not gonna get anywhere if you can't calm down—and Rebekah's right. They're probably not too far off, and Aurelia needs an artifact from one of them in order to get her spell done."

"What is Aurelia getting done—oh, crap, it's so bright." Aurelia stumbled out of her tent slightly, eyes narrowed. "I never thought I'd say this as a vampire, but I need sunglasses."

"We don't have any of their artifacts—" Elena pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly stressed out. "They took everything and left—I can't explain everything, I just need to find him—" And she cupped her hands around her mouth, spinning to face the dense forest. "JEREMY!"

"Why don't you yell louder?" Rebekah, annoyed, covered her ears. "I'm sure we haven't drawn enough attention to ourselves already."

Before Elena could react with rage, Aurelia stepped in between the two girls, already sick of her day before it had fully begun. "Elena, do you want to find your brother or not?" Ignoring the fact that she wanted Elena to suffer greatly, she willingly proposed the idea of performing a more complex spell—she just wanted the doppelganger's irritating voice to stop hurting her head. "If you do, then you're going to shut up." Elena, suspiciously willing to oblige to the older vampire's commands, only irked her interest. "Good...now where's Damon?"

"That's the other thing—" She said. "We fought and he left—I haven't heard from him since."

"Strange." With her comment, she turned back to Stefan. "Got anything of his in your possession? I'd love to avoid performing more than one big spell—I'm far too tired right now." Stefan, also suspicious of Aurelia's abnormal behavior, only began to wonder if there was something she was keeping from him. "Stefan?"

"Uh—" He blinked a few times, shaking his head. "I'd have to go check." With an encouraging look from the magical vampire, he spun around and headed back for his tent, figuring he'd ask her about her physical sensitivity later.

When he came back out, however, his eyes were wide.

"The tombstone's gone."

"DON'T YOU GET IT ELENA?" REBEKAH HELD HERSELF back from screaming at the doppelganger, but to no avail. "There is no peace—" She spat; eyes fixed on the stake the brunette had been offering as a peace treaty of sorts. "Maybe you didn't take the tombstone, but that doesn't mean that I trust you, or your damn friends. They've probably gone and left us!"

"Exactly, Rebekah!" Stefan was tired of the unnecessary screaming match between Rebekah and Elena, the latter of whom continued to argue with no point. "Bonnie's gone, Shane's got the tombstone, and Jeremy's missing! Who knows if Damon's coming?!" Frustratedly, she kicked at the sleeping bag in Rebekah's tent, careful not to hit and disturb a seated Aurelia, who'd been in the process of performing a rather long spell to locate the rest of the group. "So us four, right here—" She gestured to the Originals, herself, and Stefan. "This is all we've got. So, either we're in this together or it's over for all of us."

"I hate to say it," Aurelia's eyes were closed, and her body was faced away from the group of three as she spoke, mind half-focused on the spell. "But I agree with Elena here, Rebekah. Shane snuck in and took the tombstone from our tent—so that's a part of our plan that went wrong—but freaking out over it and disturbing this oddly difficult spell isn't going to do anything."

"Thank you, Aurelia—"

"And you," She cut Elena off. "Put that white oak stake down if you don't want to be thrown out of this tent. This situation won't be fixed by a barter system." Elena kept quiet after that; head tilted downwards in embarrassment. "What the hell?"

Aurelia was frustrated—the spell she was performing wasn't easy, by any means, but she was flawless with it at her best. Of course, she'd gotten rusty and forgotten a good amount of it until now, but it wasn't any reason for it to become as difficult to perform as it had. "What?" Stefan asked, walking towards the seated woman. "Did you find them?"

"No..." Aurelia opened her eyes finally, rubbing her forehead, where a dull ache had turned into a sharp, constant sting. "I can't get this spell down properly. It's taking a lot out of me to perform, which is weird as is—and on top of that, I haven't gotten anywhere."

She then gasped in realization, sparking the concern of all three vampires standing around her.

"They're cloaked." She figured, but not enough to her satisfaction—it still didn't explain why it felt like her entire soul was drained of energy while performing the spell. "Damn it, I can't find them if they're cloaked."

"Now, what?" Rebekah infuriatedly asked.

"They're looking for the cure—" Aurelia deducted quickly, trying to understand any reason they were cloaked for. "Or Shane's gone bloody crazy in his quest to wake the non-existent Silas." She looked up to her left to eye Elena. "The only way we can find them is if we look for the cure, too. According to Shane, Silas is buried with the cure—so that means if we find the cure fast enough, we find them."

"Bonnie sent me pictures she took of Jer's tattoo yesterday. Would that work? We could decipher it." Elena proposed, and Aurelia had to take a moment to think about how she and Elena were actually working together for once.

Hell really had frozen over.

"Let's pack up, then." Stefan took the lead, trying to prevent any further arguments from breaking out. "We need to get going now if we wanna catch up with everyone. With our luck, we might find Damon on the way."

"Alright," Aurelia, at the sound of Rebekah's agreement, stood up and rubbed her forehead, and then her eyes.

She'd force herself to ignore the continuous sting in her head for now.

"TELL ME YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS." AURELIA SCOFFED a little, as tired of the situation as she could possibly get—and therefore fully understanding Caroline's disbelief over her explanation of all that had gone wrong on the trip.

"Trust me, I wish I weren't." She said. "After we came back to the campsite after looking for Jeremy, Bonnie and Shane had just... disappeared. We know that he took the tombstone, and I've tried locator spells, but they're cloaked."

"Cloaked?"

"I don't know whether it's Bonnie or not, but a witch has placed a spell which prevents them from being tracked."

"And where's Damon in all of this?" Caroline asked.

"Well apparently, Elena and he had some sort of argument, and then he went for a walk on the beach or something." Aurelia said, worried for the raven-haired vampire. "But when we actually came here, he wasn't there, and there were signs of a struggle."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning someone took him." She answered. "I don't know who, but—"

"It was obviously Shane—" Elena, able to hear the contents of Aurelia's call like Stefan and Rebekah, only irritated the Heretic. "There's no other option!"

"Elena, for the millionth time, Shane couldn't have taken Damon. The guy's frail and human, even with the element of surprise, Damon's pretty alert, okay?" She explained. "Anyway, Caroline—I was hoping you could do me a favor." She quickly caught up with Stefan and Rebekah, who were staring at Elena's phone to follow the illustrated map.

"Anything. Tell me."

"We know for sure that Shane's looking for the cure." She started, slowly walking back and forth on the damp sand. "We know that the Hunter's Mark is a map to the cure. We also know that the Hunter's Sword can decipher the map."

"Klaus has the sword." Caroline said, understanding what Aurelia meant.

"Yes, and we have the pictures of the map. Which means—"

"We can translate the map."

"Klaus will never give up the sword." Aurelia heard Rebekah say.

"Yeah, but Caroline can convince him." Stefan said, as Rebekah rolled her eyes.

"Klaus won't do it, not even for Caroline." She insisted. "He's terrified that we'll use it against him. Besides, he wouldn't want us to have a moment of happiness from being human."

"Well, Klaus doesn't have to give it up. He's stuck in Elena's living room, and there's only so many places where a three-foot sword can be hidden."

"I'll find it, don't worry. Just e-mail me pictures of Jeremy's tattoo." Caroline assured. "I'll call you when I get it, okay?"

"Thanks, Care. I don't know what I'd do without your help." Aurelia said in slight relief.

"You'd never find the cure, I guess?"

As the group of four continued to trace their path to where the cure lay, Aurelia began to cast protective enchantments that would shield all of them from any potential attacks from murderous supernatural beings. "You know, Aurelia, I'm immortal—" Rebekah piped up, eyeing the woman as she walked next to her. "This is all very unnecessary."

There was no answer, making her huff.

Aurelia had avoided answering the elder, yes—but not because of the sarcastic comment—the pain in her head had progressively, with each spell she cast, begun to turn from a sting to a sense of dizziness—a feeling that was rare and unfamiliar when it came to performing magic. When she frowned, however, Rebekah's eyebrow twitched with a touch of concern, and she snuck a quick glance at Stefan and Elena, who were a good distance ahead of them. "Aurelia?" She called out. "We're lagging behind."

No answer, yet again. Now she was worried.

"Listen—" Rebekah roughly grasped onto Aurelia backpack, making her blink out of her focus and nearly plummet straight to the ground—the only reason she hadn't eaten dirt was because the Original Vampire kept a firm grip on her bag. "What's happening?"

Aurelia shook her head, half-aversive to worrying the older for no reason, and half-in-denial about her sudden difficulty to perform even the simplest of spirit magic. As she stood up, she took hold of Rebekah's upper arm, only to retract her hand at the sound and sight of Rebekah pulling back with a gasp. "What? What'd I do?" Aurelia looked the woman up and down, puzzled at the sudden reaction.

"You siphoned from me—" She rubbed her forearm. "Thanks for that." When Aurelia only held onto her expression of confusion, Rebekah felt another pang of worry. "You... didn't realize you were siphoning from me? Isn't that something you usually do on purpose?"

"I—It is..." Aurelia blinked a few times, inhaling deeply as she pushed her feet ahead of each other to continue walking. "Sorry, that was my bad." Rebekah refused to let the excuse become believable, and only matched Aurelia's pace with her own.

"You're lying." She observed assertively, making Aurelia roll her eyes. "What the hell is going on?" She didn't miss the fact that the younger's face seemed a little drained of color previously, but had now returned to its warm hue.

"I don't know." Aurelia hissed, careful not to catch Stefan and Elena's attention. "I didn't realize I was siphoning from you—I had a headache earlier, but it got better after absorbing that magic." Rebekah's confusion only grew, and it showed on her countenance.

"Can't you just siphon off of yourself?"

"I can." Her frustration grew. "I don't know why that happened." And Rebekah's lips parted as a thought hit her.

"It only happens when you can't siphon enough from yourself—" She thought fully, verbalizing her cognitive processes. "Which means your magic needs more than your body can give." Aurelia only frowned; eyebrows knitted at her words. "Aurelia, your body had more than enough magic to perform even complicated spells. I've seen it firsthand."

"Get to your damn point, 'Bekah." Aurelia ensured her voice was low, but didn't hide her impatience. "You're starting to freak me out."

"Don't you get it, Aurelia?" Rebekah asked. "The myths, everything we thought was just a fable—" She let out a shaky breath. "They were all true—Expression is draining you of your magic." And Aurelia stopped walking as she began to process her words. "Bonnie's probably been more powerful than we thought for a while—the difficulty in performing your spells, your pain, your siphoning—"

"Keep it down." Aurelia threw a look at the pair ahead of them, who were engaged in conversation, blissfully unaware of the revelation unfolding behind them. "I don't need another problem coming up now, of all the times it could pop up."

"Just—" Rebekah looked at Stefan. "We need to tell Stefan." Aurelia held onto her hand firmly.

"No." She obviously felt guilt when she said that—Rebekah was clearly worried, and Stefan would be, too—and she'd tell him, of course. But she'd have to wait until they'd found the rest of the group to bring up the newest plot twist in their never-ending difficulties. "I'll tell him, but not right now. There are bigger problems—"

"This is practically his entire reason to be here!" Rebekah hissed.

"Rebekah—I know." Aurelia tried her best to remain calm, although there wasn't much she could do to ease the idea of impending death standing at her doorstep. "And I've been honest with him—I just don't know this for sure, and I don't need to worry him unnecessarily." When Rebekah tried to argue, she was only shushed.

"Fine." She said. "But you're not performing any more magic."

"Okay." Aurelia sucked on her teeth in dismay, eyes fixed on the ground her feet strode upon—the apparent paranoia plaguing her friends previously began to seep into her own mind as well, proving itself closer to the truth than not. "I'm going to go ahead and catch up with them."

Before Rebekah could answer, Aurelia appeared just behind Stefan and Elena, whose echoing yelps of fright resonated across the distance between the now-trio and Original Vampire. "You were just there!" Stefan clutched his chest as Rebekah heard him speak, only to shake her head in disappointment at the Heretic's unwavering ability to shield herself from the people wanting to comfort her.

And then the Original's phone rang—it had been on a so-called 'vibrate' mode that Aurelia had taught the elder about somewhat recently, and so it buzzed violently in her pocket, but didn't emit much of a noise.

She simply furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, and began to wonder why Caroline was calling her of all people, rather than Aurelia, who'd spoken to her a few hours ago about some deciphering issue. "Caroline," Continuing to frown, Rebekah eyed the group in front of her and began to drag her feet and kick some rocks, wondering if there was any secret information being gifted to her behind someone's back. "This isn't Aurelia's number."

"I know." Caroline's response was a bit laced with dread and skepticism, assuring Rebekah that the world had not flipped on its axis yet. "I think Aurelia's phone is dead, and Stefan isn't picking up. Elena...after everything she's done, if I want to continue being friends with her, I need some space for now."

"Fair enough," Rebekah mumbled, slowing her pace. "What have you got for me?"

"We have the translation of the tattoo. We're emailing you pictures of the map and instructions right now." The Original, feeling like she had some importance for the first time since she'd set foot on the bloody island, smiled and sighed with slight content. At least she'd got something over Elena at the moment. "Check and tell me if you've got it."

"I have." Rebekah spared a moment to look at the new mail sitting on her app. "Thanks."

"Actually," And she heard the familiar voice of her brother, recalling that Caroline was babysitting him for the day to ensure he didn't actually burn the house down if the spell broke for any reason. "It was me."

"Nik," She had to purse her lips, feeling the beginnings of utter confusion fog over her mind. "You helped?"

"You sound so surprised, little sister."

"Shouldn't I be?" Klaus only chuckled lightly through the line, and Rebekah had to pinch herself. "I mean, you don't want me to be human. You don't want any of us to be human. Why would you help us find the