A/N: So, I'm giving Vampire Diaries fanfic writing another chance even though my last one kinda flopped I guess. This will be multi-chaptered. probably around 25-30. I generally post one chapter per week and if I must skip due to work I always mention it so never fear this story will be finished. I haven't had an unfinished one yet.

On to the story. Thank you Charahkids for betaing it for me.

Timeline Note: Its S5. Everything is Canon through mid season and with Katherine taking over Elena's body. This story however completely ignores the vampire cannibal virus.

Chapter 1

He couldn't believe everything that had happened. Even though he was there for all of it, it just seemed unbelievable. Never in his wildest mind could he come up with the crazy plan that Katherine Pierce, the bane of his and his brother's existence had put together and executed.

The only consolation was that it was finally over and they had Elena back. Everything else was a disaster.

Stefan sat in a large wing backed chair next to Damon's bed where Elena currently lay, still unconscious. It had been him who had stabbed her, effectively kicking Katherine out of her body and finally ending the horrid vampire's life. Elena had yet to wake up from the ordeal but Stefan wasn't worried. If anything, he was grateful and hoped she stayed that way for a little while longer so he wouldn't have to tell her about Damon.

Taking his eyes off her still form and looking down at his phone for the millionth time in the past hour, he slid the lock screen opened and scrolled down to Damon's name, hitting the call button. As expected, as it had done every other time he tried to call his brother in the past month, it gave a loud piercing sound indicating that the number had been disconnected.

Ending the call, he closed his eyes, covering them with one hand has he sat back against the chair, and counted in his head, trying to quail the emotions that bubbled inside of him. He was tired, and wary, and everything for the past couple of months have just been piling up on him making him want to scream as loud as he could and break as much as possible to get some of the frustration and rage out of his system.

His only comfort through everything since he was released from the safe and they finally defeated Silas and Tessa was his friendship with Caroline, even though she was going through her own crisis right now by giving in and sleeping with Klaus and Tyler finding out. Stefan was just as horrified as everyone else but who was he to judge. He did after all sleep with Katherine again.

That was a mistake he'll never be able to take back. It had been good, obviously they've had centuries of practice but he knew it was wrong, and he was as disgusted with himself as everyone else was at it. Putting aside all the crap she had done to Elena and her friends, the vampire had completely almost destroyed his relationship with his brother, and she did destroy their lives, turning them into the monsters they were now.

He was well aware of the reasons why he had caved in and done it, not needing one of Caroline's or Elena's psych books to figure it out. Stefan would have never slept with Katherine again if it hadn't been for the high emotions that he had been feeling at being trapped in the safe and finally overcoming his fear of it. While she was beautiful and he did and still does in some way love Elena, the attraction to Katherine had left him a long time ago.

Until she came back into their lives after that horrible Founders Day debacle, he hadn't really had any feeling for her either way. Until that night when he had dived into the creek to save Elena and her parents, and seeing her, Stefan hadn't even thought of Katherine for decades. But it all changed and it was sudden. Even when Damon came back and started stirring things up between Elena and him by bringing Katherine up, Stefan didn't feel anything for her.

But then she came back. She pretended to be Elena, she killed Caroline, endangered Elena's family and worst of all she outright broke his brothers heart. Telling him directly to his face that she had never loved him, and it was always Stefan. After that there was no question, he hated her. He hated the devastation she left behind and the chaos she brought. In Stefan's eyes there was no redemption for her and he had struggled hard to keep his brother stable and keep his relationship with Elena.

His mind drifted back to Damon, and the night that they had turned. Remembering his defeated look as Stefan, who for the first time in their lives was stronger than him due to already turning forced him to the girl that stood impassively before them, listening to his broken plead that he didn't want it as the blood touched his lips and the bloodlust took over until Stefan no longer needed to hold him. Damon had promised him an eternity of misery for that one act, and though it didn't matter to Stefan at the time he had said it, years of reflection once his bloodlust was under control had told him that he deserved Damon's wrath for that act.

Though he wasn't sorry at all for doing it.

Stefan had never wanted to become a vampire. He was more than willing to just let the time pass and die. Until the mishap with his father. Damon on the other hand had wanted it, but only to be with Katherine. He craved the love she had given him and when she was thought gone Damon no longer wished to extend his life. He was peaceful in his decision and Stefan was going to go with him. But once he turned he couldn't let his brother die. Even with turning the guilt off right away, a large part of him couldn't just let his brother die. So he forced him to turn.

Shaking his head roughly to clear those thoughts and memories away, Stefan once again pressed the call button on his phone and listened to the invalid number message again before hanging up.

"Still no word?" A voice startled him and Stefan jumped slightly looking towards the door and seeing Caroline standing there. He shook his head, leaning his head back again as she entered the room walking directly to Elena, brushing a few strands of hair from her face.

"She should wake up any time now." Stefan told her, sitting up further in the chair. Caroline gave a nod, staring down at Elena for a couple more moments before sitting on the bed next to her to look at Stefan. He resisted the urge to twitch at the intensity of her gaze as he looked back down at his phone again, wanting to call Damon once more.

"Have you thought about what you're going to tell her yet?" Caroline asked getting right to the point, as she always did. A small smile played on his lips, knowing he could always count on her to ask the hard questions and not beat around the bush. It was something Damon always did, and though he always expressed his dismay at Damon's lack of tact, Stefan appreciated it more than he could ever say.

"There is no way to tell her to make it not sound really bad." He shrugged slightly. "I'll have to just tell her the truth and hope she takes it well."

"Hopes she takes it well?" Caroline scoffed. "Hey Elena, Katherine took over your body for a month, broke up with Damon and tried to hook up with Stefan again. Oh yeah, and Damon dropped off the face of the planet without a single goodbye and disconnecting his phone."

Stefan nodded and sighed, rolling his eyes at her sarcasm. He knew that it didn't sound good. That's because it wasn't good. It was a disaster. "I know Caroline."

"You do remember the last time she got bad news right? She burnt her house down."

"This isn't the same Caroline. Her brother had died trying to find a cure for her. Damon's not dead, he's just missing." He defended.

Caroline didn't appear to believe him as she stared back at him with a quirked brow and a knowing look. Though he knew she was trying to act nonchalant about it, he could tell that she was worried. They all were. Elena Gilbert did not do loss well at all, not that Stefan or anyone else could blame her. She had lost so many people in her life, so many loved ones and even people she disliked.

"He'll come back. We'll find him. He's fine." He mumbled, more to comfort himself than Caroline.

Movement from the bed caused the both of them to go silent as they watched Elena fight her way back to consciousness with abated breath. Her eyes blinked slowly a few times, before closing once more and sighing out Damon's name and falling back to sleep. Stefan met Caroline's worried eyes, seeing the same thing that he was sure was written on his own face. Pain, dread, and horror at having to tell her.

He wasn't sure where he was. He didn't really care. The time of day, the day of the week, whether he was properly dressed or not didn't matter. Nothing did except for alcohol and blood.

He took another long drink from the tumbler in front of him, bobbing his head lightly to the soft music that played from the speakers around him. It was a tune he recognized from some dance party that he had attended not long ago and it made him want to get up and move, but he restrained himself. Instead finishing the rest of his drink slowly, savoring the soft burn down his throat that was ever familiar to him.

Standing up from the stool at the bar he had been sitting at for who knows how long, Damon looked around at the devastation that surrounded him. There were bodies littering the floor and laying on tables, blood pooling and splattered all over every surface. Somehow, he didn't remember what, he had offended one of the other patrons and they had tried to start a fight with him.

He smiled in remembrance. They didn't even have a chance.

Damon allowed the large man to take the first hit, his head snapping hard to the left before springing into action and immediately attaching himself to the man's throat and ripping it out. Screams erupted around him then as people saw what happened and Damon let the body drop ungracefully to the floor. Before anybody could blink or think of picking up their phones to call for help he had sped around the bar, snapping necks and ripping their throats, letting their pain and horror filled screams wash over him like a lullaby as he fed.

"Only twelve?" He asked himself as he finally counted the bodies surrounding him. He had thought it was more, but he wasn't disturbed by his low number. It was very late, or early for him and almost last call when he attacked.

Grinning over the bar, seeing the bar tender who had served his first few drinks hanging limply over a shelf surrounded by glass from the broken bottles that shattered as Damon tossed his body. He felt a moment of remorse for the alcohol that had been spilled and wasted before wiping the thought away.

"Thanks for the drinks." He stated with a huge smile, pulling out a couple hundred dollar bills and leaving it on the counter.

With one last look around, Damon stepped over the body in his path and headed for the door, opening it slowly, walking into the bright sunlight beyond.

"Damon!" Elena called out, standing up from the bed. "Damon where are you?"

Her voice echoed around the large room causing Stefan to grimace at the pitch. As expected, Elena hadn't taken the news very well at all.

They had started slow, asking what she remembered and then filling in the blanks and telling her what had happened in the past month, leaving out anything about Damon until she finally just shouted at them to tell her where he was and why he wasn't with her.

"He's not here Elena. Damon's gone." Caroline had informed her friend morosely, taking her hand. Elena's eyes had gone wide with panic as she looked immediately over to Stefan, willing him to tell her differently, but he couldn't and he just shook his head.

"After you…Katherine broke it off, nobody has seen him since." He told her. That was when she got up and begun searching the room.

He wasn't sure what exactly she was looking for as she opened all the drawers and cabinets, all the hiding places his brother had, making a mess. His first instinct was to stop her, especially when she started flinging things around the huge clean room. Unlike Stefan, Damon preferred a clean uncluttered environment, and above all else, he valued his privacy.

But he remembered that this wasn't just Damon's room anymore. The past month Elena…Katherine had moved into one of the guest rooms or was at Witmore. Before that, before Damon and Elena had been taken by Dr. Westfield, they had been a happy couple, and his room had been theirs.

"He's not gone. His things are still here." Elena stated firmly leaving no room for argument as she placed a wooden box on the bed. Stefan looked at her sadly, glancing at Caroline over her shoulder as he waited for further explanation but none came. Stefan recognized the box she had brought out, it had been a gift from Stefan himself to Damon on his twentieth birthday. He had spent months with Harold, one of his families stable hands learning how to whittle and carve wood in order to make it. In return, despite his father's wishes, he had spent some of his free time teaching the man how to read. It lifted Stefan's spirit to see that his brother had kept it all these years.

"Elena, we haven't seen or heard from him in a month." Caroline offered, coming to stand by her friend. But Elena shook her head and tapped the box.

"He wouldn't leave this behind." She insisted, looking directly into Stefan's eyes, obviously knowing that he was aware of the significance of the box.

"Elena…" Stefan sighed, but stopped whatever he was going to say as Elena leaned heavily beside the bed almost collapsing in exhaustion.

Caroline caught her before she fell further and helped her back into the large bed, despite her struggles to get free and covered her up. She wasn't entirely well yet and Stefan berated himself for not waiting a bit longer to tell her all that's been happening.

Elena refused to lay down though so instead Caroline helped her prop the pillows behind her. Elena grabbed the box and placed it carefully on her lap, her eyes drooping a bit though she tried hard to fight it. Caroline excused herself once Elena was settled to go get some blood for her friend, not sure when the last time Katherine had fed.

Silence descended the room then and Stefan sat heavily back into the wing back chair he had occupied not too long before, not taking his eyes off her, afraid if he did she would turn back into Katherine. A soft sniffle from Elena however broke his contact and he looked back down at his lap where his phone lay once again, wanting to call Damon.

"He's not gone Stefan. He wouldn't leave without taking this." She insisted again, and Stefan looked up.

"Of course he would Elena. It's safe here. He'd know where it was." He told her, and Elena shook her head again.

"No, he told me, that when he travels he puts it in a safe deposit box in New York. And then after he's been settled for a while he'll collect it. He always wants it near him." She told him. Stefan sat silently, not knowing that about his brother. There was a lot he didn't know and that pained him. It surprised him that Damon had shared that small bit of information with Elena, and Stefan wondered what else he might have shared. His brother was an enigma to him. Always had been and probably always will. Ever since he was a little boy he'd wanted to gather as much information about his brother as he could. Not for anything malicious but because he loved him and wanted to know him. But Damon was hesitant and always kept everything close to him.

"You see, it's here and not in New York. He'll be back. You'll see." She stated firmly.

With that Elena scooted herself further down on the large bed, placing the box under the pillow next to her as she laid down. Stefan closed his eyes once he heard her breath lesson as she fell asleep, and hoped that she wouldn't end up with nightmares of what had happened to her. He sincerely hoped she had pleasant dreams of better times.

TBC...

A/N 2: Next chapter probably weds or thurs. Please review if you like it, i adore the feedback.