A/N: This is a stand-alone AU that is based on the first season of TVD. You don't have to have read/seen the series to understand it. The storyline doesn't follow the show, but includes a lot of my (and probably your) favorite scenes and lines. (I fell for Damon the moment he saved Elena from the car accident, so that was my key scene).

Some relationships differ in more than just the pairing, which are these: Damon/Elena, Stefan/Bonnie, Jenna/Alaric, Caroline/Matt and Jeremy/sot-of-Anna. If you're interested in Stefan/Bonnie, please note that the focus of this story is clearly on Delena, and that Bonnie's and Stefan's relationship will only be a sideline in this story.

Setting: Mystic Falls and a close by community college (as I wanted my characters to be older than highschool kids)

Rating: I'm not exactly sure: By strict fanfiction standards, it should probably be M due to sexual content (in later chapters); compared to other novels on this platform, I think a "T-rating" is more appropiate.

This story has been bete-ed by the fabulous Dreamthrower, who is a very talented writer with too little time for writing. Please check out her story "Fallout" if you like Delena, it's great! Thank you, my friend, I owe you big!

I hope you enjoy!

ELENA

When we walked up the tree-lined alley to the house, there was nothing sinister about it. Just an impressive southern mansion in bright sunlight, complete with Corinthian stone pillars and brick chimneys. Nothing that hinted at the dark secrets hidden inside, nothing that could have warned us to stay away.

It was a gorgeous afternoon. A warm breeze played with my hair, Bonnie's wide skirt and the silken whiff of a scarf that Caroline wore purely for decoration. We were in the best of moods, enjoying the last days of spring break that we had spent traveling the state of South Carolina. My room mate in college, Alys, had recommended this charming hotel – one of the old plantation buildings carefully restored and renovated to accommodate tourists like us. She was from somewhere around here, and so far, her advice on the sights had proved most valuable. We were immediately enchanted with this place – the lush gardens, the huge, moss covered trees surrounding the house, the pebbled walkways – all so charming. If only I had known.

"Looks like a picture postcard, don't you think? I love it!" Caroline was enthusiastic. "Just like we had traveled back in time – you almost expect to see a carriage coming up the driveway and the house slaves coming out for greeting..."

Bonnie, whose family had African-American roots, gave Caroline a slightly reproachful look. "That's way off from being politically correct, you know... You might well be speaking about my ancestors."

"Your ancestors were slaves?"

"Given that my family didn't arrive here just yesterday very likely so! Haven't you been paying attention in history class?" Caroline brushed a strand of light blond hair out of her face and sighed wistfully. "Lately, I've been way too occupied with paying attention to that new professor, Mr. Saltzman. They shouldn't make anyone with those looks and such a sexy voice a teacher. It's totally taking my focus elsewhere."

Bonnie and I exchanged an amused glance. It wasn't sure yet if Caroline would make it through college. She was way too interested in the extracurricular aspects of student life. As Alys had put it in the bluntness that was typical for her, she sometimes gave the impression of being somewhat slow-witted, which wasn't true. It was just that her attention was a fleeting thing.

"Well, let's see if they still have any vacancies," Bonnie suggested. "I would love to stay here for a night, all the more because another hour in the car is surely going to kill my back!"

We entered the impressive hallway that was made into a reception area. The woman behind the desk really fit into the picture Caroline had painted earlier. Her clothes were old fashioned – not quite as old as would have fit into the Civil War period, but close. She gave us a warm, welcoming smile. On our question as to an available accommodation for the three of us, however, she regretfully shook her head.

"I'm sorry, we only have double rooms," she said, then smiling again. "But since the house isn't booked out, I could offer you two of those at a special rate. Let me see..." She gave us the prices for each, which really were a special rate and wouldn't overstretch our budget.

"You can have the single room, Elena," Bonnie suggested. "Caroline and I are used to sharing a room with each other, and for you, it'd be probably nice to spend a night without a slightly freaky room mate." Bonnie didn't much care for Alys, who was indeed a little peculiar. I had gotten used to her, though, and even made friends with her. Still, after months of sharing a room, it would be nice to have a room all to myself for a change.

"Here are your keys, then. The rooms are next to each other on the upper floor, in the corridor just off the main stairway. Dinner is served at seven in the dining room down the hall. We would like to invite you for a welcome drink just before that. And if you are interested in seeing the premises, there will be a guided tour at five. There will be tourists from the town. All our hotel guests are welcome to join."

We thanked her and retreated to our rooms. There was still enough time beforehand to get comfortable – take a quick shower and unpack the necessities for the night. This was supposed to be our last stop before heading back north, to the little town of Mystic Falls where we all had our roots – more or less. After the divorce of her parents, Caroline had been living with her father in California for three years, and had only come back to Mystic Falls recently, just as I had. Since I was fifteen, I had been living with my aunt Jenna and my cousin Jeremy in a small town in Pennsylvania – ever since the tragic death of my parents.

When starting college last autumn, I had decided to move back to our even smaller home town in Virginia. Greenville college was barely an hour's drive away from Mystic Falls, and I wanted to be close to my childhood friends again – especially Bonnie, who went to Greenville College, too.

Jenna, who had ended a painful relationship recently, was in a mood for a change. Given that my former family's house had never been sold or rented out, she had suggested that we all set up residence in Mystic Falls again, which, after all, was her home town, too. This way, I would have a place to come home to during the weekends, and that was nice.

Caroline hadn't been thrilled to come back, though. She had never been a small-town girl, and besides, she had a strained relationship with her mother, who was Sheriff in Mystic Falls. But after her father had decided to move in with his new partner – who just happened to be another guy – she understandably hadn't been wanting to stay with him, either. As much as she respected his life-style, that was just a little too weird.

I was happy to be with my two closest friends again. After going through much of our puberty together, we all were like sisters – with all the sibling rivalries and conflicts included. If all the family you have left is two childhood friends, a loving aunt and a cousin, you make sure you get along with them. And we really did, most of the time.

"I'm so glad that Alys brought this place to our attention," I remarked, as we were later following the guide along on our sightseeing tour. Bathed in afternoon sunlight, it seemed enchanted, not haunted. "The town is so small and secluded, I wouldn't ever have thought about coming here."

"Nor would I. It's way off from the interstate. Still, I don't think we'll need more than about three hours to get back, tomorrow."

"How come Alys knew about this place?"

"I think Alys' family is from somewhere around here."

"You mean her real family from before she was adopted? What happened to them?"

The question was justified, given that Alys was living in foster care with Dr. Daniels in Mystic Falls. He was the pathologist at the small community hospital and had been taking in foster children ever since he had moved to the town. In the beginning, people were argus-eyed about it – expecting trouble from adolescent kids that surely had to be in foster care for a reason. But none of them had ever given cause for complaint. They had kept mostly to themselves, and Dr. Daniels, despite his somewhat gloomy profession, was a kind, very polite man and well-liked in town. He had been a close friend of my parents, too, but that was long before Alys had come to live with him.

"I have no idea. She never told me how she ended up in foster care. She doesn't like to talk about her past." Despite having shared a room with her for almost a year, I didn't know anything about her past. But then – I never asked. Having lost my entire family, I knew how painful it was to constantly explain myself to people. The unavoidable look of pity I received in return was even more painful, sometimes.

"She doesn't like to talk about anything more private than her favorite color or the book she's been reading lately," Bonnie pointed out. In a way, it was true. Alys was very much a loner. She had never applied for a shared dorm room, but – due to some mistake in the college's internal organization – had ended up stuck with me. Cherishing her privacy very much, she was suffering from the situation.

"She's a recluse," Caroline said, though what she probably really meant was 'bore'. People like Alys didn't hold much interest for her. "Even though she's driving home every single weekend, I've hardly ever seen her in Mystic Falls. I wonder what she's doing all the time."

"She's with Dr. Daniels a lot," I felt the need to defend Alys. "They sometimes go hiking together, or she helps him with the office work in the hospital."

Caroline shrugged her shoulders. She didn't have reservations as Bonnie did; to her, Alys was weird and boring at best. Probably most of our fellow students would have agreed. Apart from me, she didn't have any friends that I knew of. She and I got along pretty well – somehow connecting on a deeper level. I valued privacy, too, and Alys and I found a way to respect the little of it that could be found in a limited space.

Maybe it was her being slightly gloomy that I responded to. I sure knew about sadness and loneliness, and the feeling of not belonging. In a world of joyful young people who seemed to embrace the freedom that came with finally being away from parental supervision, Alys and I had always felt old. Growing up without the sheltering care of loving parents made you an early adult. Standing on your own feet was not an adventure, it was a liability. And there was this sadness deep inside that sometimes kept the seemingly profane problems, pleasures and amusements of others out of your reach. If it hadn't been for Caroline, who had nothing melancholic about her at all, I might have ended up lost in depression. Unlike me, she was bright, cheerful and careless – and ever optimistic.

Sometimes I thought that each of my three closest friend represented different aspects of myself – Caroline was the fun and carefreeness, Alys was the depth and sadness underneath and Bonnie was trust, stability and loyalty – the remaining parts of my childhood. We had been almost inseparable ever since playing in the sandbox together.

I was very happy to have my two closest friends back with me – during the week in college, and in Mystic Falls for the weekends. It was a compromise also for Caroline, who could at least spend five days out of seven in a decent sized city. Of course, she could have stayed in the dorm instead of going home, but although she was constantly complaining about the dullness of the town, she had easily gotten reacquainted with our old kindergarten and high school friends. I was having a bit more trouble due to my circumstances. Four years is an awfully long time between barely fifteen and almost twenty.

The tour through the old plantations building was enjoyable. All the buildings had been beautifully restored, and the gardens were exquisite. In retrospect, I could only wonder how it was possible to hide ugly wounds and deadly secrets beneath a layer of bright paint where buildings were concerned, while it never seemed to work for people. Nothing seemed amiss, so we were all happy and relaxed when we got back to the main house and sat down in the formal living room, which had been made into a sort of cocktail bar.

Just when we were served the promised welcome drinks, my phone rang, and I left the room to talk in private. The number on the display told me it was Alys. I hadn't spoken to her since the end of term – Caroline and I had left for Pennsylvania, visiting our high school friends down there, before meeting Bonnie in Atlanta a week later to start our little field trip.

She enquired about what we had seen so far and where we were staying. Of course, she was especially interested to hear how we liked in the hotel she had brought to our attention and had me describe everything in detail. Then she gave me the latest news on Mystic Falls, which wasn't that much – nothing much ever happened in that charming, but rather sleepy little town.

"Remember that I told you about Stefan, my old foster brother from when I lived in Chicago?"

I did. Alys had mentioned him those rare times she was talking about her past. From what I had learned then, he had started college about a year or two before her, somewhere up north.

"I remember you saying that you liked him a lot and that you missed him. You wanted him to change universities and move here."

"That's exactly what he did. When I got home at the beginning of spring break about two weeks ago, he was there! I thought he wouldn't be able to switch in the middle of term, but he did. I'm beyond happy!"

I was mildly surprised at Alys's unusual exuberance. Ever since the two eldest of Dr. Daniels's foster children had moved out about a year ago, Alys had been the only one to stay at his house, and I had always figured that she preferred it that way. "Sounds like you really like him a lot."

"I do, very much so. He feels like a real brother to me. You'll like him, too, I'm sure."

"Well, then I'm happy for you. I guess I'll be seeing him soon, then. We'll be back by Friday at the latest, for the spring break party. I take it you won't be coming along?"

"You know how I hate it when people gather in herds."

I sighed. "Yes, I do. I just thought that with your brother – it'd be a chance to introduce him to us..."

"I'd rather have you come over to my place on Sunday."

"Okay. I'll give you a call when we get home." I was a little disappointed that Alys wasn't going to join in the holiday fun, but then, she had never liked parties of any kind, so it wasn't a big surprise. We agreed to meeting on Sunday, and Alys wished me fun and a safe trip.

We had barely hung up on one another when the phone rang again– this time it was Jenna, making a parental control call, probably more out of the feeling that this was the proper thing to do, rather than actually meaning it. Having been a rather rebellious teenager herself, she was a very liberal mother. Even though I was her niece and surrogate daughter, I had somehow ended up becoming more of a friend to her, probably because with my temper and history, I had always been more adult and responsible than most of my peers. Jenna was happy – trusting that I wasn't likely to get into trouble, she only made few, reasonable demands.

When I got back to the parlor, Bonnie and Caroline were already half through their cocktails and apparently amusing themselves. I couldn't exactly tell if it was just the holiday mood or if they were slightly tipsy. Sitting down with them again, I tried mine and found it to be strong, sweet and definitively drinkable. Before I had a chance to really dive into it, though, it was time for dinner.

We went to bed soon after, feeling tired. Bonnie and Caroline seemed almost half asleep by the time we reached our rooms, and I was feeling a little drowsy, too. Probably the long drive had been more taxing than we had noticed.

"Have a good night, then, girls!" Caroline yawned. "Wake me for breakfast – provided it's after nine!"

"Sweet dreams, everybody!" Bonnie disappeared into her room at the end of the hallway, and I closed the door to mine. It was a lovely bedroom furnished in the style of the late 1800s, and at least the massive frame of the bed looked authentic. Probably it was an original piece that had been handed down from generation to generation. I slipped into my pajamas, and, after making use of the fortunately modern bathroom, climbed into bed.

It was incredibly big and soft. The curtains were a bit too much, though, and made me long for fresh air. I got up again and opened the window. It was overlooking the gardens, shaded by huge trees. I couldn't even see much of the sky and thus no stars, but there was a small source of light somewhere in the distance. Maybe an illuminated window of one of the outer buildings. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the silence. Nothing to be heard but the slight breeze rustling in the trees, very relaxing. I decided to leave the window open. It was a warm night, anyway, and hopefully the mosquitos wouldn't be too bothersome yet.

Appeased and loaded with oxygen I got back into the bed, tossing and turning restlessly for a while, before I slowly drifted off. I must have barely fallen asleep when something woke me with a start. My heart was drumming in my chest as if I had just finished a field race. To my own surprise I realized that I was shaking badly. But I couldn't fathom what had sent me into this state of panic. I couldn't even remember a bad dream.

I sat up to get a grip of my surroundings, trying to distinguish between furniture and the shadows they were casting. A sudden movement caught my eye when a huge, black bird flew up from the back of a chair next to the window and disappeared into the night. I almost screamed, totally freaked out. There was gooseflesh on my skin, and it wasn't from the cold. Still feeling my heart beating like a drum inside my chest, I hastily jumped out of the bed and threw the window shut. It took a while before I was able to breathe evenly again. It felt like I had just had a vision – only that I didn't remember any of it. But I was almost certain that something supernatural had happened. I switched on the bedside lamp and decided to leave it burning – just in case. Despite my reasoning that it was just a stupid bird that had accidentally found its way into the room and startled me out of sleep, it was a very long while before I finally managed to get back to it.

BONNIE

Looking back, I think our arrival at this little hotel in Georgia marked a crossing point in our lives. Things most likely had taken a different course, if we had stayed on the highway and simply kept going straight back home. But of course, we hadn't known that at the time. Not even me, which just goes to show that even a sixth sense is nothing reliable when needed.

We happily enjoyed the unexpected comforts of the rooms, the nice interior, the beauty of the gardens and never noticed that we had cheerfully walked into a trap. I was the only one who came out unscarred, though Caroline still appeared to be fine, when she came down for breakfast next morning. She smiled when she saw what was laid out on the breakfast table and immediately dug into it. Unusual for her, who was always conscious about the calorie content of her diet, but surely nothing to be worried about.

"I'm famished!" she declared, when I dubiously looked at what she had loaded onto her plate. "Don't ask me, it's probably the change of air."

"Don't you think we should at least wait for Elena?" I asked, knowing that Caroline sometimes had a tendency not to notice the people around her – or their absence.

"Not necessary – there she comes! Good morning, sleepyhead!"

I turned and saw Elena walk in. Unlike Caroline, she looked anything but cheerful – rather as if she had had a particularly bad night.

"How can you two sound so cheerful?" she complained sullenly. "It was an awful night. I barely slept at all. The atmosphere in this house gave me nightmares!"

Somewhat surprised I looked at her. Elena always had her feet firmly on the ground – it wasn't like her at all to be spooked by anything. Besides, I hadn't noticed anything perturbing at all, which makes a lot of sense now, but didn't back then. "I didn't dream anything unusual." I said, frowning a little. "In fact, I don't think I dreamed at all – which, come to think about it, might be a little unusual." Okay, so I had been sleeping extraordinarily soundly, but given the big, immensely comfortable bed, the alcohol we had for dinner and my exhaustion from the day before, this was not really surprising.

"Well, I was having dreams, too," Caroline said with a dreamy expression. "Strange dreams, indeed! But they were – entertaining." She smiled elfishly. "Must have been the cocktails."

Elena dismissed Caroline's theory with a wave of her hand. "I didn't even finish my cocktail. In fact, I had barely nipped at it when my phone rang, and I never got back to it. I tell you – there's something spooky in this house. I just wanna get out of here."

"Now, relax, Elena!" I tried to be rational. "It's not like you to start seeing ghosts in plain daylight. Besides, I'm the one with the second sight, remember? If there was a presence in this house, I would know, trust me!" I gave her a cheerful wink, knowing she would not take me seriously. In fact, I didn't take it seriously myself. It was my grandmother who was into the esoteric stuff – she believed herself to be a witch, and lately, had claimed that I was going to be one, too. Even though she was known all over town as the local witch, nobody apart from herself seriously believed it.

Not wanting to start competing with her in that area, I had always laughed it off. Though there had been a couple of incidents lately that had been disconcerting. It had started out harmlessly enough – knowing who was on the phone before actually answering it, always having an umbrella with me when it unexpectedly started to rain or feeling the presence of other people around me even if they tried to sneak up on me. Recently though, I was also having vivid dreams that more often than not gave me hints about what to expect – visitors that would show up out of the blue, minor accidents or unpleasant things that would happen during the week. I hadn't been much surprised when our neighbor had died – he had been over eighty, so that didn't really count, I had predicted Obama to become president and I had known beforehand that Caroline's latest date would turn out to be a complete disaster. However, that had not convinced her to call it off. Not surprising, giving my lack of arguments.

"Maybe it was the cocktails," I supported Caroline's point, not willing to interpret anything psychic into a night of lost sleep, an unusual appetite or the absence of dreams. "After all, it's not like we're used to drinking. So – what are the plans for today? Are we going to see some sights around here or are we heading straight back for Mystic Falls after breakfast?"

"I don't think there are any sights to see around here. Unless you want to tour different plantations, that is..." Elena skipped through the pages of a little tourist brochure that she'd probably picked up at reception.

"No, thanks!" Caroline immediately dismissed the idea. "I guess once you've seen one, you know them all. I'd like to get back – there's the spring break party tomorrow night in the park. How about doing some shopping before that? I could definitively use a new dress."

"You're right. I almost forgot about it completely. Last time I was at a party in Mystic Falls I had to be home at ten."

"That's because you were only fifteen, back then."

Elena was right. We both carefully refrained from mentioning that it had been the last time she had attended a local celebration in Mystic Falls. It had been the Founder's Party, which was thrown every year in May. In autumn of that year, Elena's parents had died in a car crash and she had moved away to live with her aunt in Pennsylvania. It had been the second tragedy that ripped her family apart. When she was six, her much older brother had also died tragically. Elena said she could hardly remember him, but I remember that after his demise, nothing had quite been the same in her family.

Psychic or not, I had empathy enough to realize where Elena's thoughts had wandered again and tried to lead them back to lighter places. "Caroline is right, Elena," I suggested. "Let's get going and make a stop in Greenville. We can do some shopping there before we get home. That way we'll make sure at least that no one else will show up wearing the same dresses again, as it happened last year with Charlene Cooper and Aimee Bradley."

"You are kidding! How embarrassing is that?" Caroline's perception of tragedy had always been very different from everybody else's.

"Things like these happen if you're shopping in a town with just one mall."

"Really, sometimes I wonder how you two can still look so forward to going home every weekend. It'd be so much more fun just to stay at the dorm and go out in a town that has at least a few shopping centers and more than two bars!"

"What's wrong with the Grill?" I asked. That was the place where we usually hung out on weekends. It was nothing special, but it had a pool table and was always crowded. Basically, because it was the only place to go to if you wanted to hang out.

"Nothing! It'd just be nice to not always go out to the same place, meeting the same people all the time. I'd just like to make a new acquaintance, every once in a while."

"You're lucky," Elena said in between bites. "Alys told me yesterday that Dr. Daniels has taken up another foster-child."

Caroline raised her brows. "And why would that be interesting?"

"Because, strictly speaking, he's not a child. Though Alys referred to him as her little brother."

"I know who you are talking about!" I was able to give input. "His name is Stefan – I accidentally bumped into him at the library last weekend." I had been so engrossed in a book I was reading while walking along the line of shelves that I hadn't felt him coming. After a bit of embarrassed apologizing on my part, we had exchanged a few words, and I had learned that he had moved to Mystic Falls just recently and was a transfer student.

On hearing that he was to live with Dr. Daniels, I had felt a brief twitch of disappointment. So far, I had never much liked any of their foster children, not even Alys. Not that we were fighting – Alys was neither mean nor bitchy. There was just something mysterious about her that I couldn't put my finger on. She was always trying so hard to keep her distance and I had always felt that she had been particularly determined to evade me. In my opinion, her need for privacy bordered on paranoia, and with a room the size of our college dorm, I often wondered how Elena managed to respect it. Much to my surprise, she had even taken a liking to her – maybe her gloom was something that she could relate to. Though Elena and I were very close, my relationship with Alys was superficial at best. We both tried to get along with each other, if only for Elena's sake. I didn't begrudge her the friendship, though – Elena and I had such a long history together that I didn't have any reason to fear for it or to be jealous. Besides, she deserved every ounce of happiness that was to be found.

"You saw him?" Caroline interrupted my silent reverie and drew my attention back to the really important matters. "What does he look like? Do you think he's nice?"

"Well, he seemed nice enough, and he's definitively a looker. I figured he must be about our age, but he has an air about him – I don't know – he just seems way older."

"According to Alys, he's a senior," Elena noted. "Probably a smart kid that jumped classes. He'll be enrolling with the upcoming term. She knows him from when they both lived with another foster family somewhere up north. That was before Dr. Daniels took her in."

"Didn't Alys and he get along?"

"Why – I think they did. She seemed happy that he would come to live with them."

"I was just wondering – if they liked each other, then why did they make her change foster families at all? She came to Mystic Falls – what, about two years ago?"

"I don't know – maybe the family didn't want to be in the foster program anymore and they couldn't find a place where they both could stay at that time?"

"Yeah, maybe. Well, good for her that he's back, then."

Caroline smiled mischievously. "Good for us, too, if he's our age and good-looking! There are not to many decent and available guys around in Mystic Falls."

"Oh, come on – it's not that bad! There's Matt, and Joey, and Tyler... well, maybe not Tyler, he's good-looking but not exactly decent. Still, there's a lot of interesting guys around, you just have to give someone a chance."

"Matt was your boyfriend."

"Right – he was, past tense. Now we're just friends." In fact, Elena and Matt had been friends even before they had briefly started dating, shortly after she got back to Mystic Falls last summer. It seemed like the natural thing to do – Matt was a nice, gentle boy, well mannered and even-tempered, and he had an inborn desire to look after people. Exactly what Elena had needed. She said that she had so much wanted to be normal for once, just like everyone else. While Caroline had gone through at least three more or less serious relationships up to then, it had been Elena's first. It hadn't lasted long, though.

"You dumped him. It must have been for a reason."

"It wasn't his fault. I just wasn't ready for it."

"Seriously, Elena – when are you going to be ready?" Caroline shook her head. She just couldn't imagine that there was life without a man at your side. Again, I felt the need to jump to her aid, saving her from having to answer that. "Well, I am actually ready – with breakfast. Shall we get going?" Elena thanked me with a grateful smile. We all got up, back to our rooms and packed our belongings. Half an hour later, we were on our way home again.