QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE, THEN THE STORY!

This is the last chapter taking place in season one. They're about to get more detailed with plots, and I'm changing some things. For example: Damon didn't kill Jeremy. You'll notice that in the next chapter. George won't make his appearance for a few more chapters, but please let me know if you'd like a flashback with him. As for this chapter, some Brooke/Damon (they need a ship name) fluff. Their relationship will have gotten very serious within the next three chapters. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

I thought about everything that had happened in the past few weeks as I watched countless vampires drop to the ground in the town square.

Jeremy found out about everything I'd kept from him when he'd read my diary, which, after that, I'd stopped writing in.

Since my road trip with Damon, we'd found a very powerful allie in my history teacher, Alaric Saltzman. He'd also turned out to be the widowed husband of my vampire mother, bringing me to my next point.

I'd found out that, yet again, my parents were not who I thought they were. Miranda and Greyson had lied to Lily and James when they'd told them that I was their baby. What had really happened was a few weeks prior to meeting the Potters, Greyson was leaving his office when his kid brother and girlfriend showed up late. His 16-year-old girlfriend, enter Isobel, was going into labor. Greyson helped the girl give birth, and while he was checking up on the baby, or me, Isobel disappeared. Realizing that Greyson's brother, my 'Uncle' John, couldn't take care of a baby, Greyson made it look like the baby belonged to he and Miranda. It went well, and Gresyon, being a doctor, was even able to forge my birth certificate, hence why it read the Gilberts as my parents.

Now, having the screwed up life that I do, I would generally be briefly pissed about being lied to, but then turn ecstatic over the fact that I had yet another chance at parents. This time, however, was different. And that was because John was attempting to kill my vampire friends (it was a good thing he'd had no idea I was a witch, or he would have tried to get me to help him), and Isobel was already a psycho vampire, she was part of my bloodline to Katherine, and she was also Katherine's bitch.

Not the perfect parents. In fact, I kind of preferred the dead ones. And seeing as there was nothing magical about John and Isobel (albeit the vampirism), I still turned out to be muggle-born.

Speaking of Katherine, she'd been very important in the events of the past few weeks as well. Stefan and I had helped Damon try to get her out of the tomb, but that plan had backfired when it turned out she'd never been trapped at all. She was perfectly capable of finding Damon, but she simply didn't give a rat's ass. It pained me to remember holding Damon as he silently cried over his unrequited love.

After that though, Damon was extremely pissed, so anyone that even tried to get a message across from Katherine, was found lying on the ground seeing stars floating around their head.

Another downside to Katherine not being in the tomb was that since our plan had gone down the drain, we'd accidently released all the tomb vampires, and they wanted all the founding families dead, but I'm getting to that. The strain of the spell on Bonnie, her grandmother, and I had also killed her Grams. It turned out that Damon had actually felt really bad about that.

Speaking of Damon, since our trip to Georgia, he and I had been spending a lot of time together lately. He'd stepped in as my escort at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant when Stefan had gone a bit blood-crazy, and he'd been keeping his promise of not senselessly killing random people. In fact, it had come to my attention that in the weeks since our trip, the only time he resorted to violence was when it meant protecting me.

'It's because he's in love with you,' Isobel's words echoed in my mind. But she was lying. She'd say whatever it took to get what she wanted. That was another thing. She'd come to town threatening everyone because she wanted the Gilbert device, something that my ancestor had invented to point out vampires so they could be hunted. We had no problem giving it to her after Bonnie and I used a two-person spell to take away its effects. At least, we'd thought we'd taken away its effects.

The idea of a two-person spell is to use two people. They both need to try as hard as they can, or the magic won't work. I'd done my part, but Bonnie apparently hadn't done hers.

That brought us to what was going on now. When Damon approached Stefan and I, he informed us of how I was in danger, just like every other founding family member in the town square. The vampires were after us, but they were stopped when the Gilbert device began to work. I immediately figured out that Bonnie had lied when she'd told me that she'd done her part in the spell.

Some friend.

And now, Stefan, my best friend, was on his knees, writhing in pain as he held his head, eyes shut tight.

"Stefan! What's wrong?" I asked frantically, trying to help my blood-sucking friend up.

He couldn't respond, but luckily Ric had made his way over and helped me get Stefan to a safer area.

"Ric, it's the Gilbert device! It must be working! He just dropped!" I tried to explain without completely panicking.

"I know, and he's not the only one," he responded. "All the vampires in the square are dropping, and the Sheriff's deputies are knocking them out with vervain."

Stefan immediately calmed down, all pain gone from his features. "They're rounding up all the vampires," he announced. "We have to find Damon."

"You're right," I agreed, and then turned to Ric. "Can take Jeremy home? We'll handle this."

He nodded his head. "Good luck." He sprinted away, in search of my brother.

~stoppingtosmellroses~

It was a few minutes later that we were on our way to my family's old property, where Stefan had heard the vampires burning. We were stopped by my 'father,' John.

"It's over for Damon, but please, Stefan, go try to help him. When you burn with the rest of them, it'll save me the trouble of staking you myself," John said with a victorious grin.

Stefan looked to me, and when I nodded, he sprinted off towards the building. I started to follow, but was held back by John.

"Move one more step, and I'll tell the cops that they missed one," he threatened, gripping my arm. I stared at him in disbelief. "Keep looking at me like that. It won't change my mind."

"You know, you haven't made a very nice impression on me, father dear," I spat back at him.

His grip loosened. "You know?" he asked, shell-shocked.

"Yeah," I responded. "And so far, I'm kind of wishing I could go back to having the dead parents rather than you. Alarte Ascendare!" John flew back through the air and landed on the ground with a thud. After giving myself a mental pat on the back, I ran off to help Stefan rescue Damon.

By the time I'd made it to the back of the building, Stefan was nowhere to be found, but Bonnie was. She stopped me as I tried to sprint past her through the door. "Don't go in there, Brooke! The fire will kill you!" she pleaded with me.

"I have to! Damon and Stefan are both in there! And we wouldn't be having this problem if you had just done your part of that spell!" I shouted back at her.

She looked at me in utter disbelief. "How can you side with them?" she argued. "They're monsters!"

"I care about them, Bonnie! They're my friends!" She released my wrist, and took a step back.

"Fine, then I'm not. From this day forward, Brooke, consider me an enemy." She walked away.

Rather than waste time standing there, being shocked, I ran into the building and found Stefan. "Go!" I shouted. "I'll calm down the fire!"

He opened the door quickly as I began chanting. My eyes shut, I phased into my own world of magic, using more than I could remember since the Battle of Hogwarts.

When I was done, I opened my eyes and saw Damon and Stefan in front of me, the latter holding my shoulders, asking if I was alright, and the former rising from his knees, coughing, then asking me the same. We were standing outside the building.

I responded with, "I'm fine," but the truth was that I had a massive headache.

"Then why are you bleeding?" Damon asked wearily after releasing a groan.

My hand moved to my nose, and when I pulled it way to look at it, my finger tips were stained red.

"It's just because I've never used that much wandless magic before. It's nothing to worry about," I explained. "What about you two?"

"We're fine, right, Stef?" inquired Damon. His brother nodded. "Alright, I've got something to take care of. I'll see you guys later." And he was gone.

~stoppingtosmellroses~

A few hours later, I was walking home. Dreaming in my own little world about the night's event, and not paying attention, I bumped into someone on the sidewalk. It was Damon.

"Sorry, Damon! I wasn't paying attention? Are you okay, you know, after tonight?" I asked, worried about him.

He stared back at me in shock. "But you were just- How did you- I was just with-," he spluttered out.

"What are you talking about, Damon?" Now he had me confused.

Getting his bearings, he said, "I was just with you on your porch. What are you doing here?"

"Damon, I've been walking home for 20 minutes. What's going on?"

"No, we were on your porch, and I told you how I felt about you." I stared at him. "We kissed, Brooke?"

I straightened up. "Damon, we haven't," my voice dropped to a whisper, "kissed since we got back from Georgia."

His confused face was beginning to scare me. "But if that wasn't you then who…?" His features looked knowledgeable, as if he'd figured something out. "Katherine," he whispered.

I understood immediately. "Oh, my god," I gasped, and we took off towards my house. Bursting through the door, we both raced towards the kitchen where the first thing we saw was John, bleeding out on the floor. The next thing we saw was my doppelganger, gently pulling something green out of her chocolate brown eyes. She looked at us with a devious smile on her face.

Just before she disappeared, she spoke. "Colored contact lenses are a bitch, aren't they?"

~stoppingtosmellroses~

Later that night, or should I say, early the next morning, Damon approached me as I sat in a chair in the hospital waiting room. We'd already cleared up the Jeremy was fine, and Stefan was at home with him, but I was waiting to see John.

Taking a seat beside me, he said, "I fed Caroline a little bit of my blood, and she's already starting to come around." That made me feel slightly better.

"Thank you, Damon." I sighed, leaned back, and closed my eyes.

"Hey, come here, relax," he said pulling me into a hug. I leaned into his chest, finding comfort.

We'd both gone silent, but eventually I thought of something he'd mentioned earlier. "Hey," I spoke, looking up at him, "you said something on the sidewalk. About telling me how you feel?"

His slightly tanned face turned a bit whiter. "Oh, yeah, about that-"

A nurse cut him off. "Are you Brooke Gilbert?" I nodded. "Please come with me."

As we walked with her, Damon whispered in my ear, "We'll talk about that later."

The nurse led us to a room where John was seen sleeping, connected to various wires and tubes.

Damon walked along side me towards John. When he noticed our presence and awoke, he gasped at the sight of me, reaching for the button, which would alert a nurse.

Using vampire speed, Damon snatched it out of his hands, and said, "Not so fast, tough guy," with a smirk. John stared on in terror.

I realized the issue. "I'm Brooke, not Katherine." John relaxed slightly. "But I do need to know why she did this to you."

"Where is she?" John gasped, pained.

"You think we'd be here, visiting you, if we knew that, Stupid?" questioned Damon playfully. The corners of my mouth twitched upward at the remark.

"Don't expect me to help you," John spat at Damon.

"How about your daughter then?"

John looked towards me, and after digging it out of my pocket, I handed him his ring. "Please, John, tell me why Katherine wants you dead."

He redirected his attention back to Damon. "If she were my daughter, she would have used her powers to kill you long ago."

I moved between him and Damon, and shoved my face closer to John's. "Smart, John. You figured out that I'm a witch. And you're right, she would have. But I'm not her. I'm a girl who was raised with nothing but pain and suffering to her name. You have no idea what I've had to sacrifice, what I've had to endure since you knocked up your high school girlfriend and left your brother to clean up your mess. Stay the hell away from me, and stay the hell away from Jeremy," I spoke through gritted teeth. I snapped up, turned, and strutted out of the room.

Only a few moments later in the parking lot, Damon was at my side. "Nice job in there. Fiesty."

I laughed at his remark. "What about you? Took you a while to meet me out here. What'd you say to him?"

Damon shrugged. "I figured out that he never spoke to Katherine directly and, you know, told him to leave town or I'd turn him into a vampire," he informed me nonchalantly.

I nodded. "Whatever works."

PLEASE REVIEW! SHOULD HAVE ANOTHER CHAPTER BY TONIGHT!