Hello! :) I feel like I have no life but I've literally had nothing to do so I've been writing like no tomorrow and here's the next chapter already! Yaaaaay! I hope you enjoy it! It's more set-up stuff so bear with me.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the Vampire Diaries!

Every damn time he became aware of his surroundings in an instant. When a vampire 'wakes up' from something that should've killed them if they were still human, it's a very shocking event for them. One can often see them gasp for air like they had just died in some nightmare that certainly wasn't a memory and gather in their surroundings like a wild beast in a new environment. But when there is no air to wake up to the panic sets in. That's when being a vampire is truly a curse.

Death would be a kinder fate. And every damn time he woke up he was gasping for air and sucking in water. He remembers Silas, and realizing that he was a doppelganger just moments before being shoved into the same box that should be holding Silas. With no way out he bangs on the walls in slow motion, screams at the top of his lungs, and prays for a way to make it stop.

The water swirls around him from his pounding fists and the motion seems to send the water faster into his face. This drags on for only about a minute, but it feels like a lifetime for someone experiencing it again and again. And then he drowns. Rinse and repeat. Death would most certainly be a kinder fate.

Damon kissed her sweet lips as the sun rose behind the curtains in his room.

"You know I have to go or I'm going to be late," she mumbled as she tried to pull away with no success.

"And if you're late? It's not like you can't just compel them to think you were on time, or better yet: early. What's the good in being a vampire if you can't utilize its many joys to the max?" Damon argued. He wrapped his arms around her waist when she tried to escape from his bed. He loved knowing that she was his and that everything that he had was hers as well. He loved seeing her body in the morning, and most of all, he loved being with her in the morning. He would never admit it, but he would just stare at her and hold on to her for a minute if he woke up first, just to make sure that it wasn't some crazy dream that she had chosen him. And it never was.

"The whole fact that I'm going to college means I want some normal," Elena corrected, although she certainly didn't mind being a vampire by now. It meant that she could escape his grasp if she really wanted to. But honestly, she didn't really want to. If she could just stare into those beautiful blue eyes all day long she would in a heartbeat.

"Mmm, why can't normal mean spending the entire day with your boyfriend who loves you so dearly and would love some morning se-," Damon started in the most sultry voice he could muster, but Elena raised a finger to his lips and smiled at him, kissing him again before jumping up to get ready for the day. Today was the day that she was moving into the dorms with Caroline. And if Damon got his way then Caroline wouldn't get hers and given that she was going to live the blonde one for the next several months, Elena chose her sanity over Damon's needs.

"Blondie, you're lucky I can't kill you…" Damon muttered angrily as he slumped back down into the sheets without his Elena by his side.

"I heard that!"

Caroline rolled her eyes at Damon. Even from the living room she could hear him and Elena smut it up upstairs. Ew. Jeremy looked at her from the couch and raised an eyebrow at her sudden outburst.

"Are you sure you're going to be OK living with that thing?" Caroline sighed. She crossed her arms and started pacing impatiently for Elena to finish getting ready.

"Yeah. He can be a dick, but he's not all that bad," Jeremy laughed a bit. "Besides, it's not like a really have anywhere else to go." He relaxed back into the couch and was lost in thought instantly.

Caroline's heart went out to Jeremy. He was so young and had lost so much and now he didn't even have a house to return to. On top of it all he was supposed to be dead. How the hell is a teenager supposed to deal with all that?

"Have you heard from Bonnie by the way?" Caroline attempted to change the subject after a bit of awkward silence.

"No, she's still with her mother. You know, she wanted the whole, getting-back-to-nature-witch-stuff kind of summer…" He trailed off, not wanting to say something to that sounded wrong, or revealed that it was all a lie. She was still dead. He saw her, though. She would visit him and they would get to talk for a while about how everyone was doing and she would give him insight only a ghost would know. She had accepted all of it. He hadn't.

"Oh," Caroline murmured. She missed Bonnie. She wanted Bonnie to be moving in with her and Elena. But, she knew that after everything that had happened, her friend needed space and time. But did she really need so much of it?

And then Elena walked down, carrying a few boxes, with Damon right behind her with even more boxes. With scribbly handwriting on the side and full of stuff, the boxes were everything that the girls had bought together for their new dorm life. Elena beamed at her friend.

"Ready?" Caroline smiled bright, excited to hit the road.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Elena replied. She was more nervous than she cared to admit. But she sighed her worries away and filled the empty emotional space with some overflowing excitement from Caroline.

"So, how did your conversation with Stefan go? You never told me about it," Elena asked. Caroline was driving at the time, so she split her focus between carefully filtered version of that night and the road. But the memory was still so fresh in her mind.

Three days ago…

"Hello Caroline." The voice sounded familiar, but the tone was not. Caroline sat in a booth at the Grille, waiting for Stefan to come and explain his behavior after he got back to Mystic Falls. He never said where he left to he just said that he had to get out of town and that he would be back in a few months. And then he shows up and he's so… different.

"Hey! I was starting to wonder if you had bailed on me!" Caroline smiled through the uneasiness she felt. Stefan sat across from her and, apart from the almost creepily content smile on his face, he looked the same. Same gleam in his eye with his perfectly sculpted face structure and not to mention the (what did Damon call it?) 'hero hair'. Indeed, it was the same old sweet Stefan who would stop everything to help those he cared for, as Caroline continually reminded herself. There was something wrong with that smile.

"Why would I do something like that? I wouldn't dare miss an opportunity to see you," He replied smoothly. He words felt like melting ice; the way it glides so easily over anything. It had Caroline feeling suddenly warm.

"Your cheeks are a bit rosy, are you cold?" Stefan continued to a blushing Caroline. She opened her mouth to reply but he spoke before she could. "You could borrow my jacket if you wanted."

"No! I mean, I'm fine, really, thank you though. I uhm-," She caught her starting to stutter and stopped to catch her breath. What the hell was wrong with her tonight?

Stefan just smiled again and laughed it off. "If you're certain."

"I am," her eyes met his for far too and she looked down again. "Listen Stefan, I'll get to the point. I was actually wondering if you were alright?" She looked back up at him, suddenly sure of herself.

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" His head tilted ever so slightly and he waited for Caroline to explain herself.

"Well, you've been kind of… strange lately. I mean, ever since you got back you've been so mellow and less hero-y and less… well, you. I just want to make sure that you're OK. After everything that happened with you and Elena and Da-," she was cut off by a laugh she wasn't expecting. He burst out laughing and then just smiled at her again. It was odd, to say the least. It wasn't necessarily awkward or forced, but it was so un-Stefan-like. Like he was trying to be someone else.

"Do you honestly thing I'm still hung up on that? Don't you think that I would have moved on by now? To something, or someone better?" The way he said 'someone' made Caroline look up. He stressed the word, she was sure. Or was she?

Caroline gathered herself before she replied, "Stefan, you two were in love. Real love, epic love. It's only natural to take time to move on from that."

"Caroline," He began, grabbing one of her hands from the table. "I have taken time. And I have moved on. And she's so many better girls out there than Elena." His eyes pierced her own in way that she didn't even know was possible. Why was he acting like this? It was definitely him, but he was pretending to be someone else. Why would he do that? It is putting on a front for the gang? Honestly, what was going on with him?

"Stefan, I need to go," Caroline hurried to grab her phone and purse and stand up, only to be met by a now standing Stefan right in her face.

"Just know that I'm fine, OK? And I'll be sure to visit you at Whitmore," He smirked at her and moved aside to let her pass. It was all she could do to not stumble on her way out the door. Seriously, what the fuck just happened?

"Ok, let me get this straight. He said he was fine and then basically spent the couple of minutes you talked with him flirting with you?" Elena was trying to wrap her head around Stefan's odd behavior.

"Pretty much. It was weird, but I think he's ok. Just… I don't know. Maybe he went on some sort of spirit journey and just found inner peace with himself and you and Damon and me and…" Caroline got into one of her 'everything is probably OK' rants and Elena found herself tuning it out. Stefan was really over her. She was happy he was moving on, and yet the tiniest part of her still clung to the time they spent together. As a human. Everything about their time together screamed humanity. But she wasn't human anymore and so her love for Stefan changed. Yes, she still loved him, but not the way she loved Damon. She cared about Stefan, but it wasn't romantic anymore. Still, the thought of Stefan and Caroline was weird. Weird enough to not accept? No, probably not. Or maybe. She had to see to believe it that was for sure.

Bonnie sat on the guest bed that had become Jeremy's since he had moved in. The room was nice: wood panels on one wall and grey paint on the rest and hardwood floors with furniture that clearly had been handed down through generations of Salvatores. Jeremy had made it his own when he scattered sketches and new clothes all over the tops of the dressers and even – to the absolute distaste of Damon – on the floor. But Damon hadn't said a thing because he knew that Jeremy had been through so much and despite the fact that he would say it was some other reason, he cared for Little Gilbert as a friend. Or, moreover, a little brother.

"He's downstairs cooking dinner, he's not paying any attention to you. We can talk freely," Bonnie smiled at him but he seemed stressed. Finally he was stuck in this house alone with Damon. Stefan had already said that he was going to college so he wouldn't be in the house most of the time. Damon hadn't said anything about the way that life as the eldest Salvatore's housemate was going to go so to keep to his usual pessimistic ways Jeremy feared for the worst.

"Cooking… I've only seen him cook once," Jeremy replied, sitting down next to her. He forced a smile to make her feel at ease.

Bonnie laughed a bit and then reassured him, "It's alright. He's said that he would take care of you and he seemed pretty serious." Before Jeremy could ask how she smiled and continued, "I've been watching Elena. A girl has got to look after her best friends!"

"She left today…" He gazed off but he was clearly upset about his sister moving away.

"I know, but it's gonna be OK! After all, Damon is finding a way to help you go back to high school!"

Jeremy stared at her for a second in shock. "They're actually finding a way? I was dead, how are they supposed to explain that?"

Bonnie simply smiled at him and nodded. "As I said, it's still in the works. But they will, Jeremy. I know they will."

Just then Damon burst in and smiled brightly at Jeremy. "Dinner Little Gilbert!" He half sang it and before Jeremy could respond (while trying to pretend she wasn't there) Bonnie started laughing her ass off in such a whole hearted way that Jeremy felt a weight of concern for her lift off of his shoulders. He realized his delayed response was starting to make Damon suspicious, so he quickly replied.

"O-ok. Thanks…" He forced a smile until Damon wandered off again back downstairs. Jeremy threw a quick 'you almost revealed our secret!' look to Bonnie before he also hopped up and headed downstairs to the kitchen. He suddenly felt hungry and for being a vampire who didn't eat most of the time, whatever Damon made smelled delicious!

Four humans cloaked in hooded robes stood in the light of just a few torches surrounding them. Beyond that was only woods, extending for miles in all directions. The group hovered around some sort of alter made from stones and dripping with red liquid; the same red liquid dripping from the cuts in the hands of everyone in the small group. They began chanting something in a language that sounded long dead.

"Well, this is perfect," a man spoke as he walked up to the group. "It was fairly hard for me to find you, how ironic is that?" He laughed coldly and tilted his head in curiosity for the response of the group. It felt good to no longer have to pretend to be that bore Stefan. Of course he had freaked out the blonde one with his act, but he did that on purpose. She would fall under his spell in no time at all. And now he was meeting the next pieces to his twisted puzzle.

"Who the hell are you?!" One of them barked; a young man by the sound of it.

The man crossed his arms and smiled to the boy who called him out, "Don't you recognize? After all your life seems to revolve around me."

"Lord Silas…." A woman whispered in shock. He stepped forward and bowed to him, pulling her hood back to reveal beautiful long locks of nearly back hair and a perfect face that resembled something of a princess to be fought over by kingdoms long ago. Her skin was a beautiful shade of brown that seemed so reminiscent of a certain recently dead witch.

"Ah, someone who actually has a brain in their head," Silas scoffed. The rest of the group quickly followed in suit. With their hoods gone, they were revealed to be all fairly young, looking like high schoolers or early college students. Two other girls, both red heads with similar looking features as if they were sisters, and the boy who had yelled at Silas: a blonde boy with a pretty face that was now distraught with fear.

"Oh cut the shit," the immortal rolled his eyes. He stepped forward and gently placed a hand below the chin of the dark haired woman. She stood up as he pulled his arm up to meet him face to face and then he smiled so devilishly that it sent chills down the woman's spine. "I have a job for you all."

OK! There we go! :) Please review! Tell me if there's something that I should do, suggestions are definitely welcome although I have a basic direction that this is gonna go.