While Eleanor spent her morning with unpacking and reacquainting herself with her new old home, Elena interrogated her boyfriend about the newest addition to the family as soon as they were in the car.

"So Eleanor is your niece? Why did you never mention her when we talked about your family?" She couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. They weren't supposed to keep secrets from each other, not with everything they have been through since the vampire came into her life. And a living breathing relative seemed important to the doppelganger. He shouldn't have kept information about the girl's existence from her, she deserved to know.

Stefan could tell from the tone of his girlfriend's voice that she wasn't happy with him at the moment. "Elena" he began cautiously "I didn't mean to keep this from you, but I didn't expect you to ever meet her. Eleanor has been hospitalized for five years and was ill long before that. Probably since early childhood. She wasn't supposed to return this soon, maybe not ever."

Elena pursed her lips, still not satisfied with this explanation so he hurriedly added "Besides, she is not really Damon's and my niece. She is Zach's niece. We are her great great and then some great uncles. I only met her a few times in her life and only found out about her whereabouts when I returned to Mystic Falls the previous summer."

"Damon was in contact." his girlfriend objected to which he could only shrug. "So he says."

They were both silent for a moment when another thought occurred to Elena. "She seemed afraid of you. Why's that?"

"She knows about us. Has for a long time. She learnt about the supernatural when she was very young. She knows that I'm a vampire and about everything that comes with it."

Elena frowned. "She seemed awfully cozy with Damon though."

Stefan sighed, not taking his eyes off the road or looking at his girlfriend. They were approaching dangerous territory. He didn't want Elena to know about his past and the terrible things he had done, too afraid she wouldn't see him in the same light anymore should she ever find out. Not answering wasn't an option though, Elena wouldn't let this go, so he decided on telling her a half truth. "Damon told her stories about me. He always was her favorite and wanted to keep it like that. So he made himself appear harmless to her and told her all the bad things that come with being a vampire about me. He possibly even compelled her."

He really did believe that last part. Sure, he did commit terrible crimes in the past, but he wasn't like that anymore. It happened long before Eleanor was born. Even if Damon told her all those stories there was no way she could loathe him so much and at the same time adore his brother, who still was a monster. It had to be compulsion. It had to be.

Elena didn't seem to suspect anything from his short explanation and was satisfied. However she wasn't done with the topic just yet. "So what exactly is her illness? It must be pretty bad to have her hospitalized for so many years." And with a worried frown she added "She isn't dangerous, is she?"

"No, no. She isn't a danger for anyone." Stefan hurried to reassure the worried brunette. "Her condition must have definitely gotten a lot better or the doctors wouldn't have sent her home." He leaned his head back against the seat contemplating on how to best explain the young girl's condition. "She was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia when she was about eight or nine years old. She hears voices in her head. The voices tell her to do or say things and she can't distinguish the imaginary voices from reality. She believes..." he hesitated "...or used to believe the whispers in her head are real, that real people are talking to her." The blonde vampire was deep in thought now, reminiscing one of the few times he had seen the girl and witnessed her illness. "She used to talk to seemingly thin air. It was like she was having conversations only she could hear the other end of. Sometimes it caused her headaches. She was in a lot of pain and claimed the noises were too loud, that they were yelling at her. It was all manageable. She was seeing therapists and taking medicine, but one day something happened that caused Zach to make the decision to send her to a specialized hospital."

Elena clung to Stefan's every word, intrigued by the drama unfolding. "What happened?" she asked breathlessly.

Stefan now had a somber look on his face. "She set the house on fire. Almost burned herself in the process. One day Zach came home and found her next to burning furniture screaming hysterically at nobody in particular to stop, just stop. By the time he managed to extinguish the flames her pullover sleeve had caught fire. You couldn't see it under her clothes, but her entire left arm and shoulder is covered in scars from that event."

The girl in the passenger seat was stunned. "Wow, that's...that is horrible. I can't imagine..."

Stefan nodded as he pulled into the school's parking lot. "Yeah, it was pretty bad. After that incident Zach couldn't take it anymore. The responsibility was too much, so he decided it was best to get professional help before she could kill herself or anyone else and sent her to the hospital where she has been staying until now."

As Stefan stopped the engine and they both unbuckled their seat belts Elena uttered her next question. "What about her parents? You said Zach was her uncle and guardian. What happened to her mom and dad?"

"They are dead." Stefan smiled sadly at his girlfriend. "Her mother died giving birth to her and her father had a stroke shortly after learning about the diagnose. Maybe it was the stress of learning how bad his daughter's condition really was or maybe he already had a bad heart. We never found out."

When the couple got out of the car to walk into the school building Elena had tears in her eyes, feeling for the younger orphaned girl. Eleanor's fate struck a cord within Elena. After all, she, too, was an orphan. Even though she was much older when she lost her parents she could sympathize and swore to herself to try and make friends with the girl.


Eleanor had finished unpacking by noon. All her clothes were neatly hanging in her closet, the books were arranged on the shelves and her toiletries had been placed in her spacious en suite bathroom. She briefly contemplated taking a relaxing bubble bath but eventually decided there was time for that in the evening. So now she was lounging on her large comfortable plush sofa, simply basking in the feeling of freedom that came with being away from the dreaded place that was her home for the past five years.

Back at the hospital she would have been dragged to a group therapy session by now to 'talk about her feelings' and 'share her experiences' with the other patients. She hated those sessions. She didn't see the point. None of the other patients or even the therapists could relate to her feelings. They didn't hear what was going on in her head and they naturally couldn't understand anything about it. She was sick of being told time after time that she was hallucinating, that the voices and whispers were only in her head. She knew that, she wasn't stupid. She found out that nobody else could hear them very early on. It was obvious by the weird looks she got from everyone else whenever she responded to them.

But that didn't mean it wasn't real. She heard the voices. Every single day of her life. She knew they were there. What she didn't know was what it all meant, why she was hearing it and what she was supposed to do about it. None of her many doctors had an answer to that either.

No, Eleanor wasn't stupid at all. The opposite was the case. She was pretty smart. That got tested more times than she cared to remember. However that didn't benefit her either. Smart or not, she was the crazy one that heard imaginary things. Who cared that her brain worked faster and better than most people's? Right, nobody cared. It didn't help her one bit.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Her intellect did help her. Once she figured out that nobody could actually help her, she learnt to go by what was expected of her. She learned that her doctors didn't want her to hear voices, so she claimed that it occurred less and less. It wasn't even a complete lie. The medication she was forced to take did keep the whispers at bay, numbed the voices. But the pills not only numbed what she heard in her head, they numbed her entire conscious. Eleanor hated the numb feeling. It made her less aware of what had to be done. It made her slip in her act and the more she slipped the more therapy sessions she had to endure and the more pills she was forced to swallow. The more pills she took the more she slipped… a vicious cycle really.

In the end she succeeded though. Her being here at home was proof of that. The professionals believed she was in control and she really was. While she couldn't get rid of the voices she could decide not to listen, to make her own decisions. Something like the incident would never happen again. She had sworn to herself that she would never let anything like that ever happen again, that she would be in control.

Before Eleanor could work herself into a fit of anger over the memories of the hospital there was a soft knock at her door and Damon entered the room. "Hey Nora, how are you doing? I was wondering if you would like to go on a little mission with me?"

Eleanor looked up at the vampire curiously. "What kind of mission?"

"I'm going to a haunted house with Bonnie. She is Elena's friend and a witch." At the last word he wiggled his eyebrows encouragingly already knowing that this would intrigue her and it did. She couldn't resist an adventure and meeting a witch in a haunted house sounded exciting enough. It wouldn't be her first encounter with one of the guardians of nature's balance. Damon used to take her on road trips when she was younger and sometimes he would have her meet one of the witches he was doing business with. But she had been sheltered for the last years so this sounded like enough of an adventure to lure her out.

A short while later they were sitting in Damon's baby blue camaro happily singing along to the songs playing on the radio and chatting about the 'good old times' when Damon would swing by whenever he was in the area to make his niece's life more exciting.

It didn't take them long to reach their destination. Meanwhile Damon reluctantly filled the girl in on the threat to Elena's life by an ancient vampire and how Bonnie was supposed to absorb the power of a hundred dead witches in order to kill said vampire and save her friend's life. It was no use to keep her in the dark, Damon figured. She was living here now and she was perceptive so she would find it out sooner or later anyways. He preferred to do it on his terms so he could keep an eye on her and make sure the information wasn't harmful to her health.

Eleanor was silent when they walked towards the old witch burning grounds mulling over what she had just learned. She supposed this would explain the weird feeling she had and the voices in her head going rampant when she met Elena. She didn't have time to contemplate if there was more to it as her thoughts were interrupted by a dark skinned girl about Elena's age coming out of the house and introducing herself as Bonnie the witch.

The trio entered the building together. Everyone immediately noticed the whispers growing in volume. Damon snapped at the young witch when he suddenly couldn't move anymore. Eleanor however was oblivious to their bickering because she was faced with her own troubles. Neither the vampire nor the witch noticed the girl growing more and more nervous. Her eyes hectically darted around the room. She didn't only hear the usual whispering voices in her head anymore. There were more voices than she was used to. A lot more. They all seemed to be speaking at once, steadily growing in volume until they were yelling and screaming over each other inside the girl's head. It hurt. She couldn't take it anymore.

Only after Bonnie mumbled a spell to release Damon and keep the ghosts of the dead witches from further messing with his daylight ring did they notice Eleanor's distress. She fell to her knees clutching her head with both hands. "Nora?" Damon's worried voice questioned, but she didn't hear him over the ruckus in her own mind. "Make it stop! It hurts...please. Stop!" she wailed in agony her hands now tucking on her raven black strands. "Please! No more! I can't...hear..."

Damon didn't hesitate any longer. He grabbed his thrashing niece by the waist and sped them both out of the building. Eleanor's body went limb in his arms. She sobbed into his chest one of her hands tightly clenched the fabric of his shirt as if it was her lifeline. "Ssh ssh it's okay" he whispered into the crying girl's ear his hand stroking her back soothingly. "We are outside. They can't hurt you anymore."

It didn't take Eleanor long to calm down and wipe the remaining tears away. "Looks like dead witches don't like the Salvatores very much" Damon joked as he helped her to her feet. "Come on, let's get you back home. Bonnie can deal with the witchy business on her own." The girl didn't object and slowly followed him back to the car. The ride back was quiet. Eleanor didn't trust her voice enough to speak just yet and Damon was lost in thought. Oblivious to the fact that it was her own mind that caused her pain the vampire blamed himself for bringing her into the supernatural drama. He should have known better than to expose the fragile human to a bunch of vengeful witch ghosts. Now he could only hope that some rest and a good nights sleep was enough for her to recover from the unpleasant experience.

When they arrived at the boarding house Eleanor went straight to her room now eager to take a relaxing bubble bath. While she soaked in the tub her mind wandered back to the day's events. What exactly happened to her in the haunted house? It wasn't physical pain like Damon experienced and like he thought she did as well. It was something in her mind. Usually she would hear clear voices in her head. She would hear what was said and even if she didn't always understand the meaning she understood the words. But in that house it had been a jumbled mess in her head. It felt like she had been in the middle of a hysteric mass, just that she hadn't. She couldn't comprehend a single word that was said or rather shouted. What did it mean?

Eleanor never came to a conclusion that night, but at least the scalding hot water relaxed her enough to go to bed and fall into a dreamless sleep. Her body and mind much needed that to recover from today's experiences.