Chapter 1:

-I know that you don't, know that I know what you know-

Damon watched her leave with Bonnie and hated himself for letting her go…probably right back into his brother's arms.

Elena was completely silent during the car ride home, staring listlessly at the passing scenery. Her body was telling her to put as much distance between her and Damon as possible, but her heart was longing to go back to him.

"You okay, 'Lena?" Bonnie asked casting a glance at her friend in the passenger seat.

Elena nodded. "Yeah…I just feel bad leaving him there." She admitted.

"Jeremy will be fine…Damon won't let anything happen to him."

Elena smiled and let her friend think that it was Jeremy that she was talking about. In truth, she knew Jeremy would be fine. But Damon was staying with a vampire hunter that wanted to kill his own sister only twenty minutes ago…and she missed him already. She felt like a puppy being abandoned by her owner. She wanted to tell Bonnie to turn around and leave her at the lake house. "I know." She said instead.

Stefan waited. He didn't know how long he would have to, but he wasn't leaving the Boarding House until they came home. He was livid at his brother for lying to him and at Elena for not knowing any better because of the sire bond. He knew it wasn't a valid excuse but he blamed her anyway.

It must have been an hour or so after Caroline finally left before the door creaked open and shut heavily. Elena moved slowly taking off her jacket as she walked into the destroyed living room, taking in the damage before settling on Stefan. "What the hell Stefan?"

He rose stiffly crossing his arms over his chest. "Are you sleeping with him?"

Elena evaded the question by addressing the room. "Did you do this?" she bit out in irritation. She was trying to maintain the anger she felt building up towards him.

He sped right up to her and smashed his fist into the wall beside the wall he pinned her to. "ARE YOU SLEEPING WITH HIM?!" he yelled, his whole body tight with rage.

Elena lifted her chin defiantly. "Yes Stefan. Yes…I slept with him." Stefan backed off stunned by her brutal honesty. "Why are you asking questions, you don't want the answers to? He makes me happy!"

Stefan scoffed and shook his head. "It's the sire bond, Elena!"

"Maybe that's part of it…but I know what I'm feeling, Stefan. The sire bond effects how you act not how you feel, and you're forcing Damon to let me go for the 'greater good'?! Whose greater good, Stefan, mine or yours?" she ranted with a fiery tone.

He took a moment to collect himself from her verbal assault. "You don't understand-"

"Oh I think I do. You thought that because I'm sired to Damon every choice I've made since turning into a vampire was based on that…including our break up. You think that if Damon freed me that I'd be running back to you. Well guess what…he did it, to please you Stefan, even though I begged him not to."

Stefan's angry glare turned into a confused frown. "He let you go?"

Elena nodded, suddenly feeling very upset. "I was happy…and so was he. You took that from him."

"It wasn't real." He continued to insist.

"Yes it is! And even if it wasn't who are you to step in and make decisions for either of us! That girl that you keep looking for, the one that you saved…she's gone, she's not coming back; so stop trying so hard. This cure that you and Klaus have been teaming up over to find, I don't want it." Elena exclaimed firmly.

Stefan stepped closer changing his tone, approaching her as if she were a defensive animal. "This cure will save you from this life."

Elena looked skyward in frustration and paired it with a growl of aggravation. "Stop. Trying. To save me!" Elena enunciated every word. "Can't you just accept me the way I am now?"

Stefan was silent for a tense moment. "You deserve more than this, Elena."

She shrugged her shoulders sardonically. "Why? Is it because my parents died, because I'm the doppelganger, because I lost more people in one year than I have my whole life? Why Stefan, what makes me so special that I deserve more." She was letting go of all the tension that she had been hiding from Stefan by avoiding him.

"You didn't ask for this."

"Neither did you or Damon or Caroline. Hell, Katherine didn't ask for this either, but we deal with it." She sighed in exhaustion. She felt miserable. All she wanted was to curl up in Damon's bed and sleep and wait for him to come back. She moved passed Stefan and stopped at the first step of the stairs, turning back around to face him, with her hand resting on the post. "Damon loves me no matter what I am. He doesn't try to change me or force me to be someone I'm not. I can just be me." She continued her way up the stairs. "I'm taking a nap." She tossed over her shoulder tiredly, leaving Stefan standing alone in the room.

"So what's going on with you and my sister?" Jeremy asked Damon bluntly while they were playing video games in the games room.

Damon visibly flinched. "Nothing."

"Liar."

Damon kept his eyes focused on the game in front of him. "I thought it was something, turns out it wasn't, now it's nothing." Jeremy hit pause and turned to him. "Hey…I was totally winning."

"I saw you two, she was happy…and then suddenly she's leaving looking like someone just killed her puppy. Doesn't make sense."

"Like I said, I thought it was something." He tried to be as nonchalant as possible, but failed with his disappointed tone.

"The sire bond." He guessed. "Bonnie filled me in." he explained seeing Damon's stare snap to his.

He nodded his head with a well-timed eye roll. Obviously it was Bonnie that blabbed. "It's better this way. What she feels for me…" he reluctantly continued. "isn't real. It wouldn't be fair to her." He stated resolutely.

Jeremy nodded. "Thanks man…I know that couldn't have been easy for you."

Damon shrugged. "Oh, walk in the park." He gestured to the screen with his game control. "Now press start so I can finish whooping your ass."

Klaus stepped away from the fountain when Carol stopped struggling and walked away with a blank look on his face. He was deceived again. His hybrids, the people he was supposed to trust, had plotted against him. They broke the sire bond, like Tyler did, with his help no doubt. Now they're dead…and he had nothing. It only cemented what he'd already known. Infinite and utter loneliness.

He honed his senses and began his search for Tyler…he would suffer, and so would his little bitch of a werewolf.

April shakily put her hands around the dagger sticking out of Rebekah's chest. Why would someone do this to her? Why would someone want to kill this bubbly blonde and leave her in a cave?

She knew that the girl was already dead, probably for a while by the desiccated grey shade of her skin, but she pulled the dagger out with some effort and dropped it letting it clatter on the cave floor with a deafening echo. Rebekah was her only chance at finding out about her father, and now she had no chance.

She cried silently for her friend, using her Miss Mystic Falls sash to wipe her tear stained face. Moments later Rebekah's eyes popped open and her skin slowly started to melt back into its creamy white pallor. With a gasp she sat up and the sudden movement had April scrambling until her back hit the wall behind her.

"W-what…how are you…?" she trailed off in shock.

The Original stood up and dusted herself off stepping out of the coffin. "My brother is a sorry excuse for a man." She grumbled, not even paying attention to April. When April's shallow breathing caught her attention she smiled calmly. "April…" she started pleasantly. She darted in front of her and hauled her to her feet, biting into her neck and enjoying her first taste of blood since her temporary demise. When she had her fill she captured the girl's bleary stare. "You won't remember any of this. You tripped in the woods."

April frowned. "B-but you were dead; you bit me!"

Rebekah raised a brow in awareness. "You're wearing vervain." She scanned her for the offending herb, and smirked when she spotted the bracelet on her wrist. She ripped it off quickly and threw it behind her. "Let's try this again. You were never here, you never saw me…you fell on your way home from," she looked her up and down, "wherever you were, and you're gonna patch that up and you'll be fine. Understand?"

April nodded blankly.

"Good…off you go then." She stepped to the side and let April leave the cave. Rebekah looked down at the hole in her shirt. "Damn it Nicklaus…" she cursed under her breath. "This was my favorite top."

It was the middle of the night when she felt an uncomfortable feeling. She darted out of her slumber to meet Klaus' dead glower. "Klaus…" her breathing picked up when she noticed he was covered in blood sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Surprised?" he smirked bitterly. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know where Tyler is, would you?"

She swallowed nervously. "No…no, I haven't seen him since the Winter Party, why?"

Klaus narrowed his eyes trying to deceiver if she was telling him the truth. "Did you know?"

She shook her head feigning confusion. "Know what? Why are you covered in blood?" She exhaled when he stood gracefully and busied himself with looking at the photos on her mirror and the playing with the pom-poms on her vanity.

"They turned against me." He glanced at her over his shoulder. "My hybrids. They broke the sire bond…I believe Tyler was behind it, him and his little wolf whore."

Caroline couldn't agree more with his terminology regarding Hayley. "What did you do?" she already knew.

He smiled widely. "I left him eleven presents…unfortunately for him I already ripped into them." His smiled dropped instantly and he was back at her side. "Did you know they were plotting against me? Don't lie to me, Caroline." He said her name with such tenderness and trust that she felt bad for him.

She gave him her most innocent look and shook her head. "I didn't know…Tyler didn't tell me anything, I swear." She was taking a huge risk in lying to him blatantly. All Klaus had to do was compel the truth from her lips and she would be dead like the rest of them, so she relied on the tentative bond they shared in order to save her from that fate.

Klaus nodded. "Thank you…" he let the back of his hand trace the side of her face. "You're the only person I can trust." He stated hollowly.

"Please don't kill Tyler…" she begged in a whisper. "It's Hayley…it's got to be, she's been up to something and she's using him to do it."

Klaus sighed. Why couldn't he say no to her? "I've left him with a warning. If you see him you tell him if he makes one wrong move against me again, he's dead. Not even you will be able to sway me." He was gone in a blur out her window the way he came.

Tyler tried relentlessly to get a hold of his mother. After witnessing the mess that was left in the woods and Kim in the Lockwood cellar, he knew he had to run…but he needed to see his mom first. He looped back, mindful to hide his tracks, and headed back home. He knew he couldn't stay there long, if Klaus was looking for him it would be the first place he'd start. As he passed the main courtyard he spotted a figure hanging in the fountain. Tyler stopped, his eyes widening as he recognized the familiar dress. "Mom?!"

He darted over pulling her face out of the water and pulling her into his arms and brushing the wet hair out of her face. "Mom?! Mom!" he shook her, and bit into his wrist and put it to her mouth before the wound closed. He cried in anguish when she made no move to swallow. "Come on….Come on!" She only lay limply and listlessly in his arms. Collapsing to the ground in a sorrowful heap, he cried, knowing who did this…and knowing that Klaus wouldn't be getting away with it.

Shane waited for Hayley to come. When the door to his office opened, his eyes darted up. "I told you to fix the problem, Hayley…not fuck it up completely."

She had tears in her eyes, knowing that Tyler was most likely dead. "I tried…Caroline got in the way, she tried to change the plan. Someone told Klaus what we were trying to do." She explained.

Professor Shane raised his brows. "We?"

"Not us; the hybrids. They thought a witch was going to put Klaus in Tyler's body; that was how I was going to get them all together." She dropped into the chair opposite him in a heap of frustration. Hayley was so close to finding out more about her parents, and then she failed.

Atticus nodded. "So where are the hybrids?"

Hayley was silent for an entire ten seconds before she lifted her head slowly. "If Klaus knew…" she trailed off.

Atticus stood angrily from his chair and raised a hand to the bridge of his nose. "Damn it, Hayley! I needed those hybrids!" he slammed his fist on the desk. "All twelve of them! That was the deal!"

"I'm sorry!"

Atticus Shane looked her dead in the eyes. "You're going to be."