Author's Note: I meant to have this chapter up on Sunday but I accidentally deleted the first version so I had to rewrite this. Thank you guys so much for the reviews and follows! It makes me even more stoked for the story.

I've decided that I'll post on Mondays and Thursdays. So there will be another chapter up tomorrow! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! :)


Ever since Elena and Tyler ran into each other at the Grill they had been hanging out more and more. It was strange though. They had grown up together but they were never close, and now they were together a lot. They blended back into small town life but it wasn't like they were going to high school; neither wanted to go back to that stage in their lives, so all they really had was each other. Not that it was a bad thing, it was just…well, strange.

Instead of dwelling on it the hybrid and the vampire went on with their lives, watching out for Klaus, and just simply hanging out. The town may have been small but it was their home. That meant that they knew all kinds of things about it, places that they could go where they could be reminded of the past. The Lockwood cellar was a good example of that. There were twists and turns almost everywhere and there were all kinds of carvings on the walls from various time periods over the past thousand years. There were places that they couldn't go while down there, magical spells that no doubt the original Lockwoods had put up so that vampires couldn't get in. They just avoided those and focused on the places that they could go, even coming across some carvings that the group of them had made when they were teenagers. A lot had changed since.

After some exploring down there and looking at some carvings that they had made when they were teenagers and life was just beginning for them Elena and Tyler walked up the steps and back out into the fresh air. They decided to head to the Grill, to grab a drink and just be out. Being inside all of the time could really make one go crazy. Elena kept reminding him that it wasn't a good idea to go out and be seen in public. Klaus could have all kinds of people that were scanning the town for activity and he got word about Tyler then he was sure to kill him.

Of course Tyler just brushed it off and decided not to worry about it. He had managed to run off from Klaus for so long that he practically a master at it, and finally understood Katherine's way of life more than he ever had before. He figured that neither of them were any safer at one of their houses. Klaus could get in both of them, and he was much less likely to assassinate him in the middle of the Grill with a whole bunch of people watching.

It didn't take long for the two to arrive since the town was so small and within minutes of entertaining the two were seated at the bar, each with their preferred drink choice.

"Is it just me or did this place get smaller?" Tyler asked as he looked around. He wasn't sure if it was just because he remembered it being bigger, or if he had just been away from Mystic Falls for so long that he forgot how small things really were.

Elena took a sip of her drink and then looked around. There were definitely a lot of people in the place, but it was a Friday night so that wasn't really all that much of a surprise. "I don't think this place has gotten smaller, Tyler." She replied with a bit of an amused chuckle following.

Tyler just shrugged and kept on looking around. While the town had changed ever since it was first founded the people in the town really didn't. Most of them were from families who had lived in the town for so long and just never left. It was kind of nice but Tyler thought about all of the places that they were missing out on. He wasn't the biggest fan of growing up in a place where there was nothing to do, but when he was a teenager it wasn't like he could just leave and do whatever he wanted. He still did have to graduate, but he knew that most of the kids sitting in the Grill weren't going to leave. They may go to college but it would be somewhere nearby. Then they would get married, settle down in Mystic Falls, and have a couple of kids, continuing the cycle all over again.

He was so lost in thought that he didn't even notice the girl who was approaching them, but Elena did. Elena felt like she knew the girl but she had no idea where from. She had never seen her before but there was something that seemed familiar to Elena. As the girl got closer she knew that she'd found out sooner or later. The brunette elbowed Tyler and motioned her head for him to look at the girl.

The hybrid didn't really know what he was supposed to be looking for or why he was even looking, since she didn't actually go ahead and tell him what she seemed to be so concerned over. Eventually he managed to put it together when he noticed that a girl was getting closer and closer. "Who is she?"

Elena just shrugged, leaning a little closer to Tyler. "I feel like I should know who she is." It really was bothering her that she didn't.

Eventually the girl came over and was standing in front of them. "I didn't mean to interrupt you guys," she said with a smile, her dark hair bouncing just as she did. "I heard that you two both recently got into town. I just wanted to welcome you. I'm Samantha Donovan."

Tyler and Elena looked briefly at each other before looking at the girl, each with a polite smile on their face. "I'm Tyler Lockwood," he said, offering out his hand for her to shake, "And this is Elena Gilbert." He watched as she also offered out her hand, doing her best to be polite. Not that Elena was mean but she had some reservations about the girl who was now talking to them.

Samantha shook both of their hands but when she did she got a really bad feeling. It was obvious on her face and when she abruptly pulled her hand back. It wasn't something that she had ever experienced before. It was dark and depressing; it felt like death was cursing through her veins. Needless to say it wasn't something that she really wanted to experience again. "I'm sorry but I have to go. I just realized that I'm late. I need to help, uh, my grandmother with something." She didn't even wait for them to say anything. Instead she just turned and headed out the front door.

"She's not….?" Tyler asked without actually finishing his sentence. Donovan. It wasn't a name that either had really heard in a long time, but they knew who exactly she was a decedent of–Matt Donovan. Matt and Bonnie had got married a couple of years after Tyler had skipped town and from then Elena tried not to stick around them too much; especially when the two of them started having children. Bonnie made it very clear that she didn't want Elena, Caroline, and the Salvatore brothers around her children.

"Samantha Donovan." Elena whispered out loud though she was talking to herself more than Tyler. She picked up her glass which was still pretty full, well as full as it got when drinking alcohol, and drank the whole thing down in one gulp. "Descendant of Bonnie and Matt Donovan."

Tyler knew exactly what that meant. It meant that she was a witch and she probably knew exactly what they were. So much for keeping their presence on the down low. He didn't know if she actually knew she was a witch but if she didn't know before then she certainly had an inclination now. "Let's go." Tyler stood up, tossing some money down on the bar before walking out of the Grill. If she knew then the two of them shouldn't hang out in the open like that, especially since witches could be a hell of a lot more subtle than Klaus. They had been dealing with vampires just as long as the species had been around.

Elena followed Tyler out of the Grill and the two ended up heading back to her house since it was closer, being that Tyler lived on the very edge of town. She was worried; worried that Klaus would find Tyler, worried that Samantha held Bonnie's hatred of vampires. She was just all around worried. There hadn't been much conflict in that town lately and Elena didn't want to be the one to bring it all back. She couldn't stand the thought of people dying because she and Tyler just happened to come back. Of course she didn't vocalize any of this, instead she just thought about it constantly. She may have been a vampire, one that wasn't always perfect and made mistakes, but she still had a very strong conscience.

The two walked into the Gilbert house and Tyler immediately took a seat down on the couch while Elena started pacing. This was how she worked through problems sometimes, she paced and tried to think of every last scenario and everything was…bad. It was all bad and she didn't know how she was going to handle it. "She's a witch. This could mean the worst for us." She finally said out loud, looking over at Tyler with a very concerned look on her face.

"You worry too much." He worried too but it seemed as if she worried before there was actually something to worry about. She was a witch but that didn't mean that she was out to kill them. Neither of them knew what Matt and Bonnie told their children about everything, never mind knowing what was passed down through the family over the years. Of course he was concerned but not as much as she was and there was no way that he was going to show that. He had Elena for that.

Elena just turned and looked at him; she couldn't believe that he wasn't worried. "Tyler, she's a witch. She's a Bennett witch and she knows that we're vampires. That can't mean anything good, especially since you're supposed to be on the run from Klaus." She really for the life of her didn't understand as to why he wasn't even remotely concerned.

Tyler got up and walked over to her, placing his hands on her shoulders so she would stop moving around. It was strange, touching her, being that close to her face. Neither of them flinched though. "Sit down and take a breath, Elena. We'll be fine. We've survived Klaus, we've survived hunters, we've survived so much and Samantha Donovan is not going to be the one who takes us down."

Elena took a deep breath when he told her to but didn't sit down, mainly because he was holding her. "Okay." There was something about how close he was and the way that he was looking at her. It was obvious that he genuinely cared about her, which was something that she hadn't experienced in so long. When he let go of her shoulders she took a seat down on the couch. She was a little calmer but not by much. "I just really don't want anyone to die." There had been too much death in that town when they originally lived there; she didn't want the death to continue.

"No one is going to die. I'm not going to let that happen." He hated when people died, even if he didn't show it like Elena did. After losing his whole family because of this mess with vampires and hybrids, he really became keener on keeping people alive. No one should have to lose their whole family like both he and Elena did. It wasn't fair nor was it right. "Do you trust me?"

"I trust you." She said, giving him a small smile though it was definitely not a happy smile. It was a smile that showed she was scared and nervous about what could happen, but that ultimately no matter what happened they had each other. They would work together to keep everyone safe, no matter what. Those were just the kind of people they were.

The legends of vampires, hybrids, werewolves, and witches had been passed down for generations, but that's all they were – legends. There were stories that the members of the Founding Families past down but that's all people thought that they were. It wasn't as if people thought that what they heard about the various supernatural species was actually true.

However, when Samantha touched both Elena and Tyler, that feeling, that feeling of death made her think twice. She knew that she came from a long line of witches; she found journals and a grimoire when she was young. She wasn't stupid; even if her mom kept telling her that witches didn't exist and that everything was made up. But she had never experienced something like that before, something so strong that it felt like she was the one dying.

She left the Grill hastily and was back at her house as soon as she possibly could, heading upstairs to her bedroom. There was a chest at the end of her bed, which she immediately began tearing through. There was a specific book that she was looking for, one that she knew she had but for some reason she couldn't quite find. "Typical," she groaned to herself once the chest was empty. She tore her whole room apart until she managed to finally find it.

She set the book down and it just opened by itself to the exact page that she was looking for. It scared her at first, causing her to look around her room cautiously. Eventually she determined that there was nothing there and looked at the page. It was a list of all of the supernatural beings that lived in mystic falls. It hadn't been updated in a long time, since that book belonged to Bonnie Bennett. As her dark brown eyes scanned the pages she because more enlightened than ever before. It was a list of everyone who was a vampire, who was a werewolf, and who was an Original. Everyone from the town that had existed over 150 years ago.

Vampires

Elena Gilbert

Caroline Forbes

Damon Salvatore

Stefan Salvatore

Katherine Pierce

Rose –dead

Lexi – dead

Isobel – dead

Vicki - dead

Werewolves

Mason Lockwood – dead

Jules – dead

Hayley

Tyler Lockwood – turned into hybrid

Originals – The Mikaelsons

Klaus – hybrid

Rebekah

Elijah

Kol – dead

Finn – dead

Others

Matt Donovan – human

Jeremy Gilbert – Hunter – dead

Alaric Saltzman – hunter – dead

Jamie – witch - dead

Abby Bennett – Vampire

Esther Mikaelson – witch – dead

Mikael – Hunter – dead

Samantha looked at the list in awe. She couldn't believe all of the names and all of the people that Bonnie knew. Those were only the ones that Bonnie knew, well, that she documented anyway. She couldn't imagine all of the other ones around the world that she didn't know about. As she scanned through the names again she came across Elena Gilbert and Tyler Lockwood. It definitely explained the feeling of death that she got from both of them. Elena was a vampire and Tyler was a hybrid, not that she really knew what hybrid meant.

After sitting there for a couple of minutes, looking through the list over and over, trying to see if there were any other names that she could recognize–there weren't. She went back to the chest and went through a few more things where she found a whole bunch of pictures. They were obviously Bonnie's. There were pictures of her with Matt, whom she had come to recognize after her mom talked about the two of them so often. Then there were pictures of Tyler and Elena, with some other people she didn't recognize. There was a blonde girl and three different guys. Samantha grabbed all of the pictures, slid them inside the book and then walked right back out of her house. She was about to go and get some answers.

She knew where the Gilbert house was since there had been nobody in it for so long and it was always the talk of the town, that and the Lockwood Mansion. It was rare for homes to be empty in Mystic Falls so everyone always knew where they were. It didn't take long for her to show up there, but when she did she just stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the house.

Samantha may have been a witch but she wasn't exactly up to speed on what she could do, and going to see a vampire and a hybrid. That was like a death wish. They could kill her in two seconds flat and no one would know a thing. She didn't want that for her family, so she just kept on standing on the sidewalk. I can't do it; she thought to herself and turned to walk away. She took a few steps before there was a little voice inside her head that told her she had to; she needed answers and the only way to get them was to go ahead and ask both Tyler and Elena.

With this new found confidence Samantha turned and walked back towards the house, going up to the front door and knocked on it a couple of times. It seemed like she was waiting an eternity for the door to open, probably from all the nerves. When the door finally opened she was greeted with the sight of Elena. "I know who you are and I know who Tyler is. I want to talk." Samantha said in a very serious, authoritative tone, letting Elena know that she meant business. If she was going to risk her life she might as well act as if there was nothing to be scared of because she was the more powerful one. Even if that wasn't true.

Elena wasn't surprised when she opened the door to find Samantha standing there. It wasn't going to take her long to figure out who the both of them were. "Come on in," Elena said sweetly to the girl and then stepped aside so she could walk through the threshold.

Samantha walked in the house, jumping a little as the door shut. She hoped that they couldn't tell but with their hearing it wouldn't be long before they heard just how fast her heart was beating. It was impossible for her to keep a secret with them around. Eventually she managed to go and take a seat, at the table because she felt more comfortable there. She wanted to keep her guard up the entire time and sitting on the couch, right next to them wasn't going to help. When Tyler and Elena finally came and sat down with her she put the book down, opening it up to the pages where she had found the list. "Bonnie kept a lot of records."

Tyler slid the book over to him and Elena, both of them immediately scanning over the records. Those were only the records of what happened during those high school years, who knows how much more drama they came across during those years? Tyler wasn't around and Elena didn't seem to ever want to talk about.

"How did you become a vampire and a hybrid?" She asked, wanting to know the full story. She couldn't trust the legends, not when she had two people right in front of her who could tell her the answer.

Tyler let out a breath and looked over at Elena, when she nodded that they should just tell her, he figured it was okay. Neither were sure that they could actually go ahead and trust Samantha but she was still a Bennett witch. Because of that, because she was related to both Matt and Bonnie, it was safe to say that maybe they could trust her.

"It started over a thousand years ago," Elena started, planning on giving the vampire version of events while Tyler could give the werewolf version of events. "The Mikaelsons moved here, to the New World, and after an accident with the werewolves the Original witch, Esther, turned her children into vampires in order to protect them from the werewolves."

"My family, The Lockwoods, is the original line of werewolves." That was a little piece of information that he came across during his time away from Mystic Falls and away from Klaus. He eventually found some other family members and was relieved to see that they were still alive. He really didn't want the first line of werewolves to just die off. "One night one of the werewolves accidentally killed Henrik Mikaelson. Not long after Rebekah, Klaus, Elijah, Finn, and Kol all became vampires they tried to kill of the wolves in revenge. It wouldn't be until later on that they would find out that werewolf bites are fatal to vampires and there's only one cure; Klaus' blood because he's both a vampire and a werewolf."

When Tyler stopped Elena picked up, "They found out that they couldn't walk in the daylight so there were daylight rings that were made." She stopped for a moment and decided that this would go faster if she skipped over some of the details. "Klaus ended up turning Mary Porter, who then turned Rose. Rose turned Katherine who then turned both Damon and Stefan Salvatore. Then there's Damon who turned both me and Caroline."

Samantha sat there and listened, making sure that she caught all of the details. It was a lot of names but she managed to keep up, especially since they were going so slow. It was interesting though and she couldn't wait to hear the rest. "Go on."

"Klaus is both a vampire and a werewolf – a hybrid. Combined with the fact that he is from the Original family of vampires he's pretty much unkillable. He wasn't always like that though. Long story short his mom put a curse on him to make sure that his werewolf side stayed dormant. The only way that it could be undone was by performing a ritual. In it there's a sacrifice of a vampire, a werewolf, and the blood of a doppelganger. Of course you need the moonstone and a really powerful witch." Elena said, thinking over in her head. If she was going to tell this story she wanted to make sure that she didn't leave anything out.

"And that's how you became a vampire?" Samantha asked, thinking that she was right.

Elena shook her head. "No."

"Klaus took months figuring out trying to make more hybrids until one day he just…got really impatient. He fed me his blood, snapped my neck, and gave Bonnie some time to figure out how to keep me from dying like all the rest." He cringed at just the memory of that. Those few minutes where he was going into transition without actually having any blood in his system was one of the most painful experiences of his life. "Eventually I took Elena's blood and it worked. From there he made a whole bunch of hybrids but I'm the only one still living."

Elena kept her gaze on Tyler as he told the story. That day wasn't good for anyone. It was the day that Stefan was compelled to turn off his humanity and she was used as vampire food. "We tried to kill Klaus. It didn't work but they ended up desiccating him. Alaric, who was a hunter, was turned into an Original Hunter by Esther, the Original witch. The only way that he could be killed was if I died because our lives were tethered together. He staked Klaus and his body went up in flames, everyone thought that he was dead. Rebekah was so upset that she sent the car that Matt and I were in over the bridge. Stefan came to rescue me but I told him to save Matt and that's how I died."

Samantha just looked at the both of them for a few minutes, very confused. "I don't understand how you became a vampire."

Elena nodded with a bit of understanding. She had been vague but there was definitely more to the story. "Klaus was draining all of my blood from my body, before they desiccated him. He wanted to have my blood so that he could go and make more hybrids."

"I was gone from Mystic Falls for a while trying to break the sire bond." He saw the confused look on the witch's face. "Sometimes when you're turned there's a bond to your sire. You're grateful for what has happened to you and you do pretty much whatever they say. You can say no but you'll still do it anyway. I bit Caroline at the time, almost killed her, so that's when I left and broke it. When I came back Elena was getting her blood drained and I couldn't let her die. We had this plan, we did it, and then things…well things got complicated."

Elena could agree with that. Complicated was only the beginning of that. "I went home and passed out. My brother Jeremy took me to the hospital where someone put vampire blood in my system. So when I died that night I came back as a vampire."

Samantha just sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. She was processing and trying to make sense of everything in her brain. It was a lot of stuff that happened to them and she couldn't believe that any of them even made it out alive. The legends that she had been told growing up were true but this, this was just in way more detail. It seemed way more real. "How is Klaus still alive? You said that his body went up in flames."

"That's because of me and Bonnie actually." Tyler said, remembering how it all came together. "Bonnie and I got to talking and well, if Klaus died then we would all die. Me, Caroline, Stefan, Damon…Katherine." Katherine wouldn't have been that bad but still, the rest of them would have died to. "So, we did the body switching spell that is one of his favorites. It put him in my body. Eventually we were switched back, and he's still alive. He's out there somewhere."

"Wow." Samantha nodded. "That's just wow. So what happened to everyone else? You two are the only ones in town."

Tyler and Elena looked at each other. They knew this story would be just as long but they weren't going to deny her. "Before any of this stuff happened Tyler, Bonnie, Caroline, Matt, Vicki and I grew up together. I was dating Matt until my parents died. After that I broke up with him and when Stefan came to town we started dating."

"I was sleeping with Vicki, Matt's sister at the time. She hooked up with Elena's brother Jeremy, who loved her. She became a vampire and died." That was a whole long story that he was not getting into. Even all those years later he felt awful for the way that he treated Vicki. "Damon and Caroline hooked up, but then Caroline got with Matt. That went south after Matt found out that she was a vampire and eventually Caroline and I dated. I fell in love with her but we had to separate because Klaus sent me on the run. He said if he ever saw me again that he'd kill me. I've been avoiding him and this town ever since, but now Caroline is with Klaus." He was definitely not pleased about that last part. The idea of Caroline and Klaus together just drove him absolutely insane.

Elena put her hand on his arm, trying to calm him down and wordlessly tell him that it would be okay. She knew that Caroline and Klaus being together upset a lot. "Stefan and I broke up not too long after I became a vampire. I ended up falling in love with his brother, Damon, who I was also sired to. We stayed together for a while but it didn't work out. Stefan is now with Rebekah, Klaus' sister. Damon is with Katherine. Jeremy died. And I don't know where Elijah is, to be honest. Then there was Bonnie and Matt who got married and actually got to live a normal life."

"And now you two are together." She stated, not even asking. It was strange to see how everyone in their little group seemed to just swap partners.

The two of them just looked at each other and let out a small laugh. "No, we're friends." The two of them said at the exact same time. Nothing had ever happened between Tyler and Elena and they had never seen each other as more than friends.

The witch didn't really believe that but she wasn't going to debate about it. "Does anyone know about you guys here?"

"No." Tyler said firmly. "You can't tell anyone. You'll get us both killed." He really preferred to be alive and he had spent so much time running just to end up dead.

"Samantha," Elena said softly, wanting to really get through to the girl without seeming like she was using her vampire powers over her. "You really can't tell anyone. We're not going to hurt anyone while we're here. This is our home. We grew up here and we're not going to do anything to destroy it." Elena just wanted to be able to stay in Mystic Falls for a little while and Samantha was definitely in her plan. Now that she meant the Bennett she didn't want thing to go south.

"I don't know." She still didn't trust them. After all they weren't exactly human and the only people that she really could trust were human. It had been told to her, her entire life that vampires were not to be trusted, even if they were just legends. The moral of the story was always the same, but after looking between the two of them she felt like she could. "Okay. I won't tell anyone but if you do anything to harm or kill someone then all bets are off."

"That sounds fair." Elena agreed. She definitely didn't have any plans to cause any trouble anyway, and Tyler wasn't exactly one who went around and killed people either. "Thank you."

She closed the book, leaving the pictures on the table. "You can keep those." She said as she stood up. "I better go now. It's late." She held the book close to her chest and walked out of the house, letting out a deep breath when she finally made it into the fresh air. That was probably one of the most nerve wracking experiences of her life, but she did feel better about the whole thing.

After Samantha left Tyler and Elena just looked at each other, sitting in complete silence for a few minutes. "Do you think we made the right choice?" Elena asked, unsure if telling her everything about them and what happened was the right choice.

Tyler thought it over but then ultimately decided that it was the right choice. "She's not going to kill us. One, I don't think she has the power and two, she's not like Klaus. She couldn't handle the blood on her hands for no reason."

"I hope you're right, Ty. I don't want this to become World War III. Not with Klaus looking for the both of us." Elena was worried but tried to act like she wasn't. Her life was calm for so long and now she felt like it was about to come crashing down. "We're in this together though. I'll protect you and you protect me."

"We're in this together." Tyler repeated and just smiled at Elena. The more time that he had been spending with her the more that he found he liked her. The Elena from high school was not the same Elena that he knew then, and he liked that. Plus, it didn't hurt that there wasn't Stefan or Damon around. "I should head home."

Elena was lost in her own thoughts as he was staring at her, thinking about Samantha and what would happen if Tyler and her really did have to do something to save themselves, that she barely registered what he said. "Or you could stay." There was a confused look on his face. "It's nice when someone is around. There are extra rooms. It might be safer if we stick together."

The two of them could handle things themselves and he knew that Elena knew that, but he wasn't going to say no. If anything just hanging out with someone once more was nice. "I'll stay," he agreed and smiled at the smile that had formed on Elena's face.

He used to have Caroline and she used to have Damon, now all they had was each other.

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