For over a century I have lived in secret; hiding in the shadows, alone in the world. Until now. I am a vampire. This is my story."
"In all fairness, you chose to live like that" Damon pointed out and followed that information with a yawn.
"As opposed to how you live?" Stefan raised an eyebrow.
"I see nothing wrong with how Damon lives" Klaus shrugged, his usual smirk present on his face.
"Of course you wouldn't" Marcel rolled his eyes.
Outside Mystic Falls, a young couple, who are having a good-natured argument in their car, notice fog thickening around them. Suddenly, they hit something in the road that immediately startles them. When they look back, they see a person on the ground, which leads Darren to get out of the car to check on him, leaving his girlfriend Brooke to call for help.
"That has got to be the oldest trick in the book" Kol rolled his eyes.
"Hey man, if it works then it works" Damon shrugged.
"Wait that's you?" MG asked with a slight widening of his eyes. Seeing Damon nod, he was trying to put the Damon he knew with the one he was seeing. Time really does change people.
As soon as Darren makes it to the body to examine it, he is attacked by the man. Failing to get a signal on her phone when she calls for help, Brooke gets out of the car as well and calls out for her boyfriend. Suddenly, his body drops onto the hood of the car, and his throat is visibly bloodied, as though he was bitten by an animal.
"Dramatic much?" Rebekah snorted.
"It's his thing" Stefan explained while Damon got up to bow to the gathered people.
She screams and runs away in panic, but she doesn't make it far before she looks as though an unseen force has grabbed her and flown her into the sky.
"Well it's good to know you left no survivors" Bonnie pointed out, sarcasm lacing every word.
"Of course! I'm so glad you agree Bon Bon" Damon smiled at the witch.
"Don't call me that" said witch rolled her eyes.
"I shouldn't have come home. I know the risk. But I had no choice. I have to know her."
"Stalker" Damon, Kol, Hayley and Lizzie said together.
"I know now what twins feel like when they say the same thing together. It's creepy" Damon said, a shiver going down his spine.
"As a twin, I take offense to that" Lizzie huffed, hugging her slightly embarrassed sister close to her.
On the roof of the Salvatore Boarding House, Stefan, who had been watching the sunrise, jumps several hundred feet to the ground.
"And people call me dramatic" Damon rolled his eyes.
"Guess it runs in the family" Elena chuckled, leaning into Stefan slightly.
At the Gilbert house, Elena sits in her room and writes in her diary: Dear Diary: Today will be different. It has to be. I will smile and it will be believable. That smile will say, "I'm fine, thank you." "Yes, I feel much better." I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her parents. I will start fresh, be someone new. It's the only way I'll make it through.
"You know, it's okay to still be sad. They were your parents" Hope said, leaning forward to look at the female Gilbert.
"It might be okay. But I know that they would want me to move on from this. Be happy" Elena explained.
Hope nodded and leaned back in her seat and thought about Elena had said. All the while missing the curious looks her own parents gave her.
Downstairs, Elena's aunt Jenna offers to make her and her brother breakfast before leaving for a meeting at her college.
"We never met her" Josie whispered to Lizzie.
"Maybe she moved away from town at some point" Lizzie whispered back.
Elena tries to talk to Jeremy, but he's not receptive. During the drive to school, Bonnie tells Elena that she thinks she's psychic, but notices Elena's not listening.
"Well you're not exactly a psychic" Elena chuckled a little.
"Witches are better I guess" Bonnie smiled at her best friend.
Suddenly, a large crow hits the windshield of her car, scaring them both. Bonnie looks at Elena with concern due to her past history, but Elena says she can't be freaked out by cars for the rest of her life.
"Yes girl! That's the attitude!" MG cheered, much to the amusement of most of the people in the room.
At Mystic Falls High School, Stefan walks across the campus toward the main building. At the lockers, Caroline hugs Elena and asks Bonnie if Elena is okay, despite the fact that Elena is right there.
"You know you could have asked me directly" Elena rolled her eyes with a friendly smile.
"Sorry" Caroline smiled sheepishly.
In the school yard, Jeremy gives Vicki some pills, and is teased afterward by resident jock Tyler.
"Jeremy" Elena warned.
"She wanted it. I don't just give it out" the boy rolled his eyes at his sister.
"You are not giving my baby sister anymore of those things" Matt said, his tone dead serious.
Jeremy nodded, though his face said that he might do the opposite.
Inside, Stefan compels the school secretary to let him into school despite not having the required paperwork as Bonnie and Elena check him out from behind in the hallway.
"Pushing aside stalker one and stalker two, Stefan Salvatore using compulsion to get what he wants. So proud" Damon mumbled out loud, wiping a fake tear from his eyes.
"Stefan though ignored his brother and smirked at Elena who just blushed.
Elena sees Jeremy enter the men's room, so she follows him and accuses him of taking drugs when she catches him putting eye drops in his eyes.
"Nice drug bust. But next time, just don't go into men's rooms. People will say so much" Hayley chuckled, her tone teasing.
"I was catching my brother red handed" Elena grumbled, her cheeks tinged red slightly.
"Guess what else you could have caught in their" Josh added, effectively brightening the blush on Elena's face.
He walks out and Stefan encounters Elena leaving the men's room. They are both awkward around each other for a moment before Elena leaves, eyeing him again as she goes. In Mr. Tanner's class, Bonnie texts Elena to tell her that Stefan is staring at her.
"Flirting with eyes is one thing. You look downright creepy" Damon shook his head with a sigh.
Stefan though ignored his brother, Elena and the rest of the room. His eyes strictly on the ground this time.
Later at Mystic Falls Cemetery, Elena sits at her parents' grave while she writes in her diary:
Dear Diary, I made it through the day. I must have said, "I'm fine, thanks" at least thirty-seven times.
"That's a lot" Landon whistled. Hope rolled her eyes and elbowed the boy on the side.
And I didn't mean it once. But no one noticed. When someone asks "How are you?", they really don't want an answer."
"She has a point" Kol pointed out.
"Usually people just want to satisfy their curiosity more than really look into how a person really feels" Vincent said in a soft mumble, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Here here" Rafael agreed, leaning back on his seat.
Suddenly, fog gathers and a crow lands on the gravestone in front of her. She tries to ignore it and even shoos it away, but when she turns around, it's still there. Unnerved, she runs off and accidentally stumbles down a hill, only to find Stefan at the bottom.
"Coincidence?" Rebekah raised an eyebrow at her once lover.
"Okay enough of that. At this point we have successfully deduced that my dear little brother is a full blown stalker" Damon said out loud, earning laughs from almost everyone in the room and a shove from the person in question.
He asks if she's okay and says he's visiting family. Elena then introduces herself and so does Stefan. She sees his ring and comments on it before he suddenly smells something in the air and inquires if she's hurt herself. She checks her leg, which is bloody, and the sight of it makes his face change, forcing him to turn around so she can't see it. He tells her she must leave, and when she turns around, he's gone.
"I thought I was hallucinating" Elena explained.
"Well you would. It's not like he left you a note or a goodbye" Lizzie rolled her eyes.
Later at the Salvatore Boarding House, Stefan writes in his journal about his encounter with Elena:
"I lost control today. Everything I've kept buried inside came rushing to the surface. I'm simply not able to resist her."
"I get it!" Stefan snapped seeing Damon open his mouth.
"No need to snap hero hair" Damon fake pouted.
At the Mystic Grill, Jeremy asks Vicki why she's ignoring him. Nearby, Matt and Tyler talk about Vicki, who is Matt's sister and Tyler's girlfriend. Meanwhile, Caroline tells Bonnie about Stefan, for whom she has developed a crush.
"Such a heartthrob" Damon said, hands over his chest.
"Shut up" Stefan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
At the Gilbert house, Elena is surprised to see Stefan at the front door when she's getting ready to leave the house. He returns her diary, which she dropped at the cemetery, and she invites him to the Mystic Grill with her.
"You know, if I didn't know any better, Stefan kinda has this stalker serial killer vibe" Rebekah joked.
"Eh he gets like that around girls he likes" Damon waved it off.
"I'm surprised no one taught her about stranger danger" Josie muttered.
Back at the Mystic Grill, Matt and Bonnie talk about Elena when Matt asks about how she's doing and wonders aloud about the status of their relationship. Just then, they see her and Stefan arrive together to the restaurant while Caroline, Matt, Tyler and Bonnie stare at them.
"Well that's one way to get answers" Tyler muttered under his breath.
"Not a nice way" MG added.
Elena and Stefan were too busy shuffling uncomfortably while Matt was looking at the interesting things on the ground. Like his aglet.
Matt, Elena's ex-boyfriend, immediately introduces himself. At a table, Matt, Caroline, Stefan, Elena and Bonnie talk and Caroline mentions the back to school party at the Falls. At the Salvatore Boarding House, Zach bursts into Stefan's room, handing him a paper detailing the deaths of Darren and Brooke, believing Stefan had something to do with it.
"Does that happen often?" Elena asked.
"It used to. Now it all gets shifted to that one" Stefan pointed his thumb at his brother who gave Elena a friendly wave.
Stefan says he has everything under control and when Zach leaves, he goes to a cupboard and extracts a book with a photograph of a young woman who looks exactly like Elena, except the photo bears the words "Katherine, 1864".
"Is that me?" Elena blinked at Stefan.
"I'm not sure if you ignored the writing or just can't read, but no that is not you" Klaus huffed.
"Be nice" Hayley growled slightly, elbowing the Hybrid on the side.
During Mr. Tanner's class, Stefan corrects the teacher when he incorrectly speaks about the casualties of the Battle of Willow Creek, leaving Mr. Tanner humiliated and angry.
"That was a good one" Damon laughed and held up his hand for a high five. Stefan left him hanging.
At the party, Stefan arrives and is accosted by Caroline.
"Oh my god" Lizzie put her head into her hands.
"What are you so ashamed of? You're more or less the same" Hope pointed out, earning herself a glare from the blonde.
Around the fire, Bonnie hands Elena a bottle and when she inadvertently touches her, she gets a vision of death.
"Huh. Maybe you are psychic" Elena mused.
"Well that's great for me now isn't it" Bonnie rolled her eyes with a sigh.
She walks off before Elena can ask her about it, and Elena ends up finding Stefan standing behind her. On the bridge, Elena talks about the car crash that killed her parents. Stefan tells her she won't be sad forever. In the woods, Jeremy finds Tyler trying to force himself on Vicki and aggressively pulls him away from her, but when Jeremy tries to tell Vicki that Tyler isn't good for her, she becomes upset and runs away.
"I don't get girls" MG mused to himself.
Matt glared at a sheepishly ashamed looking Tyler.
Back at the bridge, Stefan asks Elena about her friends and Matt. Stefan's face involuntarily changes again, and when Elena points out that his eyes are red, he gets flustered and leaves, claiming he's going to go get another drink. Later on, Vicki is alone in the woods and is suddenly attacked by a shadowy figure.
"Seriously?" Matt glared at Damon who just shrugged.
Back at the party, Matt tells Elena he still believes in them as a couple. Caroline once again begins flirting with Stefan, but Stefan outright rejects her and tells her they're not going to happen.
Caroline looked slightly hurt at the reminder while the twins looked at one another.
"I wonder what changed" Josie looked at Lizzie who shrugged.
He then approaches Elena again, who sees Jeremy wandering off and goes after him. They discovers Vicki's body in the woods, her neck bloody and torn open, as though she, too, has been attacked by an animal. She opens her eyes for a second, gasping for air, and then falls unconscious again. They return to the party seeking help and Stefan disappears.
"Nice of you to help" Elena pointedly stares at Stefan who smiles sheepishly.
At the Salvatore Boarding House, Stefan arrives home and tells Zach about the attack. In his room, a crow flies in as he comes face-to-face with his older brother, Damon. Stefan asks why Damon has come back, but Damon does not answer the question; instead, Damon says that he knows Stefan has returned to Mystic Falls for Elena.
"Who's a stalker now?" Stefan raised an eyebrow at his brother.
"Just looking out for my dear little brother" Damon raised both his hands in a mock surrender.
At the Falls, Bonnie tells Elena about her vision. In Stefan's room, Damon taunts Stefan, provoking him until Stefan shows his vampire face and shoves him so hard that they both fly through the window and land on the ground below.
"Man an all out vampire dueling looks cool" MG sighed.
"It isn't. It usually ends with one of them ripping out the other's heart" Elijah explained, successfully stamping out his fantasy.
Outside, Damon continues to taunt him, stealing his ring in the process, but he eventually hands it back to him. Before Damon leaves and goes inside the house, Damon shoves Stefan forcefully against the garage and warns him not to mess with him again.
"Someone is angry" Rafael whistled.
"Trust me when I say this wolf boy, you haven't seen angry me" Damon gave him a friendly smile.
At the party, Elena tries to talk to Jeremy, reminding him that he needs to get back on track, because everyone has already forgotten that their parents died, but he brings up the subject of her cemetery visits and points out that she's not exactly adjusting well either. At the Mystic Grill, Bonnie talks to a rejected Caroline who is jealous of Elena and believes that she is always chosen first instead of Caroline.
"Sorry" Caroline muttered under her breath. She was pretty broken up that night and didn't want to exactly feel like that.
"It's okay Care" Elena smiled at her friend who smiled back.
At the hospital, Vicki wakes up to Matt and when he asks her what attacked her, she says "vampire."
"Great job Damon. You just exposed us all" Kol drawled.
"Oh you're very welcome!" Damon smiled wide at the MIkaelson.
In Elena's room, she writes in her diary:
"Dear Diary - I couldn't have been more wrong. I thought that I could smile and nod my way through it. Pretend that it would all be okay."
Meanwhile, Stefan, who is at the Boarding House, looks at Katherine's photograph and writes in his own journal:
"I had a plan. I wanted to change who I was. Create a life with someone new, someone without the past."
In synchronized, dual journal entries, they express their feelings: "Without the pain, someone alive".
"That was so creepy" Landon muttered.
"I think it was kinda soulmatey" Lizzie sighed happily.
"Is that even a word?" Davina looked at Marcel who just shrugged.
In the living room, Jeremy looks at a photograph of his parents while Jenna looks at him sadly. Elena continues in her journal entry:
"But it's not that easy. The bad things stay with you. They follow you."
At the Mystic Grill, Bonnie pays for the drinks as Caroline smiles coyly at Damon.
"Of course I'm the bad thing" Damon rolled his eyes.
"You aren't exactly good either" Matt pointed out heatedly. Damon did not respond to him, giving him a simple eye roll.
Elena keeps on writing in her journal:
"You can't escape them. As much as you want to. All you can do is be ready for the good. So when it comes, you invite it in, because you need it. I need it."
Hope listened to the words and shared a glance with Landon, both of them smiling slightly.
She then spots Stefan standing outside of her house. When he asks her if she's okay, she tells him to ask her tomorrow and then she invites him inside.
"Stranger danger!" Lizzie groaned out loud, much to the amusement of many in the room.