Elena was terrified of Esther. The original witch had successfully gotten her to lie and deceive to a close friend of hers, Elijah. In return Elijah let Rebekah torture her in order to get the Salvatore's to help stop his mother. She forgave him as he sent her a letter of apology. Though now things gotten worse. Alaric was now Esther's secret weapon and linked to her. Esther made him incapable of being killed by the white oak like other original vampires. He was a different kind of "original" , but Esther did not want such monster truly immortal. So she linked him to Elena, and intended to kill Elena once his mission had ended that way she'd kill the monster she created to kill her own children and the vampire race all together. Elena didn't want to die nor did she want Alaric to. She tried her best to avoid Finn's death but the group refused to hear her out on saving the originals. She knew they were linked at the time and didn't feel Elijah deserved to die. Damon told her not to save any of them. She had listened at the time but by the time Finn died they were unlinked.

Elena wanted help getting Alaric back. She went to Bonnie. "Bonnie please unlink Alaric and I. I do not want to die and I don't want him to die." Bonnie looked at her friend. "I can unlink you but Alaric is gone. He's a full on original vampire trained to kill vampires. And the ring set off his alter ago too much. He was meant to die. I can unlink you but the witches won't allow for him to be truly immortal." Elena blinked. "What are you saying, that if you unlink us they'll make it so the white oak works on him?" Bonnie nodded. "Yes they won't allow Esther to get away with it if you're not linked to him. Either you both die , ending his mission, or you find another way to kill Alaric because they see him as an unbalance of nature. A monster." This didn't please Elena and she didn't want Klaus killed or her loved ones would be killed. "Fine unlink us and I'll stake Alaric myself if I have to. I don't want Damon or Stefan dying. And Alaric wanted to die instead of complete the transformation anyways."

It hurt Elena to say such things, but Bonnie did it. She unlinked Alaric and her , and as promised the spell of Esther's was changed. Alaric now was just like the rest of the originals. completely able to be staked by the white oak. Alaric was willing to die though instead of hunt down his friends. So Ric gave her the white oak. She hesitated but Damon was by her side. And encourage her to do it if that was what needed to be done. So  Elena staked her stepfather with the only white oak Esther gave him. It took her all of a good ten minutes to realize she killed her own stepfather. It was the second time she had done it but he came back to life the first time. He requested her to kill him so he could come back to life and heal his injuries since a doppelganger was supernatural. his ring would work then. It wasn't as hard to do it the first time as it was the second. Because she killed him for good the second.