Damon stood at the fireplace and watched as the fire burned the wood into ash. He knew it was too early or too late, depending on how you wanted to look at it, in the season to have a fire, but it didn't bother him. Nor did he pay any real attention to it.

Damon felt something was off, and he didn't understand why or how. He remembered Stefan saying before he dropped Silas into the ocean that he was leaving Mystic Falls, but now he said that he changed his mind.

Damon furrowed his eyes. This wasn't the Stefan he loved for over one hundred and sixty years. It looked like him. It talked like him, but something told him it wasn't him. He just needed to figure how to figure out who it was.

Damon was pretty sure whoever this was is Stefan's doppelganger, but he didn't understand how or why he knew this; he just did. If this is a doppelganger, Damon thought, then where is the real Stefan. His brother. The one whom he had loved for over one hundred and sixty years?

Damon hoped Stefan was okay wherever he was.

"Everything okay?" Elena asked as she laid her head on his back.

"Yeah," Damon denied. He didn't want to hurt her with these thoughts. He just wanted to protect her until he figured out who the doppelganger was. "You okay with Stefan hanging around?"

"I did it with you, didn't I?" Elena asked.

"Look where that got us," Damon reminded her.

Elena smiled. "I can live with it," she said, "if you can."

"I can," Damon told her though he wondered now what the cost was for Stefan while he figured out who the imposter was and where in the world his brother had gone to.