Elena felt the hot water surround her in the shower. After spending the day horse riding with Stefan, she really needed this. When she'd walked through the door earlier this night, Jenna almost screamed in shock.
"Oh my God, Elena! What have you done?" Jenna said when she saw Elena. She was covered in mud, and the only sign she really was Elena, was her voice when she spoke.
"Sorry, Aunt Jenna. I and Stefan went horse riding today, and I fell off of the horse a lot. I guess I forgot to tell you. When I woke up this morning, you'd already gone to work. So I figured you didn't want me to disturb you."
"Oh, okay," she answered, but then quickly added "But go upstairs and take a shower before this house is as covered in mud as you are!".
Elena walked up stairs into her room, closed the door, and started to undress. She froze when she heard a familiar voice.
"Wow. How did you manage to cover yourself in all this mud? You should take off your clothes, since the mud is on the outside, I think you'd look better like that."
She spun around and found him sitting on her bed, with his legs crossed.
"Oh, and by the way-" he smirked, moving in an inhuman speed and stopping right in front of Elena, "-I'd prefer you with your shirt off even if you weren't covered in mud." He stroked her jaw line and her neck as he said that.
"Stop it!" she said, cringing away from him, but he followed, closing the distance between them.
"Don't fight it, dearest Elena – I know you want me as much as I want you…." He stroke her hair, and once again, she cringed away.
"Damon, what are you doing? I don't want you, I want Stefan. And you don't want me, either. I'm just your toy to play with, just like every other girl!" She slapped him in the face and opened her window. "Now I suggest you leave, and that you'll use the same way that you used to get in."
"Fine," he said and started to climb out the window. "But don't think for a second that I will give up. 'Cause I won't." Then he was gone.
She took off the rest of her clothes, grabbed a towel and went to the bathroom.
After 25 minutes, she went out of the shower, and blow-dried her hair. She went to her room, and picked out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that she would wear.
She heard her phone buzz, and she saw that it was Stefan who called. "Hello?" she answered.
"Hi, it's Stefan", he answered. "I was just wondering if you'd like to come over? I mean, you don't have to, it's just that Damon's really annoying, and I thought we could go to the Grill and have dinner. Does that sound good?"
"Yeah! I'll be at your house in 10 minutes, I'll see you there."
"Bye." Stefan said, and then they both hung up. Elena threw a glance at her t-shirt she'd picked out just minutes ago. She took it off, and replaced it with a white tank top instead.
She grabbed her phone and went down stairs. She called "Jenna! I'm going out to eat with Stefan, so don't cook for me."
"Okay, Elena," Jenna answered. "Good luck!"
She started the engine and drove towards the boarding house. But when she'd only gotten half-way, she heard a thump, and the car stopped.
"What the hell?" she groaned. She went out of the car to see what had caused the thump and why the car had stopped. When she couldn't see anything that could have caused it, she turned around. And what she saw made her scream.
On the road, there was a woman. She'd just hit a woman.
"Oh my God!" she screamed. She went closer to the body, and saw that it wasn't a woman. It was a teenager. She looked like she could be 17 years old, just like herself. When she got a better look at her face, she froze. The teenager she just ran over with her car looked just like her.
Suddenly, the Elena-copy opened her eyes, and she felt something tear in her skin at her neck. Before she could even think about screaming, she was unconscious.
STEFAN'S POV
About 15 minutes after he'd called Elena, the doorbell rang. He opened the door, and there she was.
"Hi, Stefan," Elena said with a huge smile on her lips.
"Hi," he answered, a smile on his lips, too. "Are you ready to go to the Grill now?" he asked.
"Actually, I thought I could come in for a few minutes, first." She walked inside. She looked around, and then asked "Where's Damon?"
As soon as she'd finished the question, Damon appeared at her side.
"Hello, Elena. To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you here?" he asked.
"Damon, stop with those flirty comments, okay? It's not doing any good. You're just annoying people," Stefan said, and gave him an angry look.
"Whoa, if looks could kill…" he said, not finishing the sentence.
"Damon, could I talk to you for a second, please?" Elena said.
"Of course you can, my dearest Elena." He threw Stefan an amused glance, as he walked away with Elena.
When they were enough far away so that Stefan wouldn't be able to hear them, Elena said "I know you have feelings for me – I mean for Elena." She said.
"What do you mean? You are Elena." He answered confused.
"Damon, I'm doing this because I understand that you and Stefan have moved on."
"Do wha-?" She didn't let him finish the sentence before she stabbed him with a vervain dart.
When Damon fell to the ground, she did her best to put on a sad face, and she let her fake tears start to flow down her cheeks. This was one of the moments where she was glad that she'd been going to acting school for many years.
She started to scream and run towards the part of the house where Stefan was.
"Stefan, STEFAN!" she screamed, hugging him and sobbing against his chest.
"What is it Elena? Is something wrong?" he asked, alarmed.
"It's D-Damon. He's… he's…" she didn't say the word 'dead', because she wanted to make this game last as long as possible.
"Damon's what? What is he, Elena?"
She started to run towards Damon, and Stefan looked at Elena when she saw Damon lying on the floor, unconscious. She'd made sure to hide the vervain dart carefully before getting Stefan. The one she used on Damon was thrown away somewhere in the house, and the one she was going to use on Stefan was hidden in one of her back pockets.
"Stefan, do something! I don't know what happened, he just dropped!" Elena bent down to Damon's still body, slapping him on the cheek. "Damon, wake up, wake up, wake up!" she said while slapping him.
He didn't respond, he just lay there, completely still, not aware of anything or anyone. But that wasn't strange at all, Elena knew that. She'd given him a large dose of vervain. But Stefan didn't know that, so he tried to give CPR to help him.
And that's when she had her chance.
She took out the other vervain dart, and shoved it into Stefan's shoulder. But this was a smaller dose. Damon drank human blood, so it didn't have as large impact on him as it had on Stefan. Stefan, on the other hand, only drank squirrel blood, so he only needed a small dose to be inflicted.
"E-Elena? Wh-what are y-you doing?" he managed to say.
"Silly Stefan. I'm not Elena. You haven't changed at all since 1864. Your brain is still as clever as it was back then – clever as a Coke can."
Only one name was able to escape his lips as a whisper before his vision became blurry, and the blackness nibbled on the edges. Right before the blackness took over and he became as unconscious as his brother that was laying right beside him, he said the name of the person he had feared for so long, that had finally showed up to ruin his dead life for eternity and so much longer.
"Katherine."