*I do not own Vampire Diaries or anything affiliated*

Thanks for the positive reception on Alex! Here's the next instalment of the story. Happy Reading :) Hope everybody had a good christmas!

Elena had never been more stupefied in her life. She had no idea what to say. Around her, were her boyfriend's arms painfully tight, whilst he emitted a low defensive growl. Caroline had stood up from her defensive pose in front of the pair and was now using a blatant expression that said "What the HELL is going on?". Alaric, Bonnie and Jeremy all had shock, fear and awe written on their faces. Then there was Damon. He just looked... well... there was only one word to describe Damon at this present in time: Bored.

They all had one thing in common though. They all were looking down at 6ft something "Original" who was being pinned down to the floor by his neck by a 5ft 2 vampire who claimed to be over ten thousand years old.

"I won't ask again Elijah." Alex warned quietly.

Elijah, who was looking pretty pathetic at this point in time compared to his grand entrance earlier, gave a look of defeat.

"I- I-...," he coughed.

"Ah, so sorry!" Alex loosened her grip on his neck enough for him to speak.

"I concede defeat to you," he whispered through his raw throat reluctantly, "I am at your command."

At this the red head jumped up from her position. The golden aura was gone instantly and she gave a huge smile as if he had just complemented her choice of outfit. "Thank you Elijah," she sung.

She turned around, looked straight at Damon, when he suddenly dropped the stake from his hands, rolling his eyes and grinning. "Couldn't you have done that before your speech?" he asked. She responded by hitting him over the head.

"You are a complete and utter idiot. When are you going to stop being the hero huh?" she chided affectionately. "What if I hadn't woken up?"

"You were always a light sleeper," he teased, waggling his eyebrows in the way Elena loved. Elena was torn between whooping out in relief that Damon was safe, or brooding in her overflowing jealousy at the obvious attachment between the two. She managed to refrain from doing either when she was reminded of Stefan's presence as he picked her up off the floor.

"Okay, well it was nice meeting you Elijah. Meet back here tomorrow morning at ten, no, eleven sharp." Alex said turning back to him, "Then we shall all discuss how we are going to combine your bait plan, Elena's suicide plan and my assassination plot all together! It's going to be so much fun." She clapped her hands gleefully.

"Wait!" Stefan interjected.

"Sorry Stefan, your plan wasn't bad, it just was lacking-"

"No, you're allowing him to leave? What makes you think he'll come back?"

Alex smiled sweetly at them both.

"Because if he doesn't, I'll hunt him down and kill him."

With that Elijah was gone out of the Boarding house leaving a much damaged floor and some bewildered people behind him. Everyone began to move, Stefan immediately was conversing with Alaric, Bonnie and Caroline about what impending meeting tomorrow whilst Jeremy had headed straight to Elena's side asking if she was okay.

"I'm fine Jer," she assured him; slightly shaken she was, but fine. She looked over Jeremy's shoulder to Damon.

Crap.

She thought no one had noticed Alex's blatant statement about her intended suicide mission. She thought wrong. She gave Damon a pleading look, silently asking him not to bring this up now. He was next to her in a flat second.

"Later." He said sternly. She shivered involuntarily. Jeremy looked suspiciously at them both.

She was not looking forward to later, thought to herself grimly.

"Right!" Damon suddenly clapped his hands together stopping all the commotion in the room.

He looked at Alex and she looked back, Elena instinctively knowing that they were talking to each other through their thoughts, just as Alex had done with her earlier.

"I've just filled in Alex about all that has happened in Mystic Falls since I arrived," he informed the group, "She has also filled me in with something that I also didn't know about," he looked at her accusingly, she just shrugged unapologetically. "But I think you guys should know some background stuff as well," he gestured towards her to continue.

"Well, before I start I just want to make one thing clear. I have spent a lot of effort into making sure no one knows my past, not even Klaus knows half of it, so what I am about to tell you is of the utmost secrecy and anyone who does tell..."

Everybody nodded in agreement; you had to be a complete idiot to not get the message after tonight's spectacle.

"Also you will be getting the short version. If any of you want the long one you will have to wait unitl I write my memoirs..." Elena couldn't decide whether she was being serious or not.

Alex sat down on the sofa, getting herself comfortable whilst Damon handed her a Whiskey and helped himself to one as well.

"I don't remember when I was born. It was very, very long ago, I don't even remember being a child. I only remember clearly, the end of my human life, when I ascended. There are things that I cannot begin to tell you after that, but basically I was punished and was cursed (with many others) to walk the earth for eternity constantly thirsty, craving for blood and the desire to drain anything dry. And that is what we did at first. We couldn't control ourselves, even though we were supposed to be higher beings," she sniffed in contempt of the memory, "But gradually, as we dabbled more with the mortals, the more we realised, that if we didn't completely kill our victims, they came back as one of us. That was one thing our maker never explained to us about our punishment," she looked sadly at Caroline, Stefan and Damon; "we were not just cursed, but also the cursers. In time we managed to control and co-ordinate our thirst, but it was too late, the ones we had created, in turn created others, so the Vampire race grew. At this time many of us had grown weary. Some decided to travel, others stuck together and settled down, others took on Vampires that had turned and taught them all they knew. Others killed themselves.

"I was with my Husband at the time when I met Klaus. He was strong, we fed from him one day, but he refused to die. I confess in our boredom we decided to turn him and raise him up. For a while everything was content, but Klaus grew power hungry. I especially had taught him many of my skills in my eagerness. You see, even though not being a pureblood, he didn't possess the same kind of powers as us, I showed him how he could extend the powers he did have not just to mortals, but all kinds of beings, including Vampires, such as compulsion. He used this acquired knowledge to beat out his competition and manipulate those under him until he could find a weapon that could make him invincible.

"There is only one thing that can kill a pureblood. That is a weapon made by Angels."

"The moonstone," Alaric said in awe.

"Exactly, the last remaining Angel weapon on earth" she replied softly, "So Klaus manages to get his hands on this stone, and wipes out all of the purebloods he can, including my husband. So I find Klaus in my rage, and there is a large battle, quite impressive if I do say so myself, in which we are nearly evenly matched. Apparently he thinks he killed me. He nearly did, but I possessing the more tricks up my sleeve managed to escape. Injured, but escaped nonetheless. With my pride hurt, my love lost and all the rest of my kind assumingly gone, I proceeded to wander the earth alone, occasionally sleeping for a few decades when I got tired since living for so long does tend to take it out of you. I didn't care if I ever found Klaus, but if I did then I knew that I would have to kill him. Apparently he taught a few of his lackeys some of our tricks and called them "Originals" along with himself. Enter Klaus and gang. They dominate the supernatural world for a while and then a girl called Katerina Petrova comes along and unknowingly steals the most dangerous weapon ever made. The rest you know..."

This was a lot for Elena to take in but she thought she got the gist of it. She felt for this woman that had traversed the earth for nearly ten millennia by herself. She could begin to imagine the pain and suffering she had felt. Shyly, she asked the question she most wanted to know.

"So... that makes you an Angel?"

Alex laughed kindly towards her, making Elena blush. It was unusual how one person could incite so many feelings in a being, from fear to utter enthrallment.

"A Fallen Angel is the correct term."

"Why couldn't Klaus kill you but could kill the rest of the Angels?"

"Hmmm, that probably had something to do with the fact that I was kind of the leader of them all." She stated bluntly to everyone's interest. "I was...high rank before I fell..."

Alaric was the most interested. His face was like that of a young school boy's, his thirst for the history of humans and vampires could all be explained by this one woman and this was his chance to find out.

"So a group of you Fallen Angels, were imprisoned on earth? Why? Was there some sort of war-"

Alex held up her hand to stop the questions.

"I have told you more than you needed to know. I am NOT about to go into the ins and outs of my punishment and the reasons behind it. That is a completely different story. Now, if you don't mind, my sleep was interrupted earlier. I am going back to bed." Alaric pouted in disappointment.

With that she was gone, leaving the broken floor and her audience behind her.

She came back in less than a minute, walked over to the bar and grabbed Damon's prized bottle of Whiskey. Damon moaned in protest but she shot him a look as if daring him to stop her before disappearing once again.

No one moved or spoke for what seemed to Elena an eternity. They had basically been given a history lesson by an ex-Angel. Whoa.

"She sure drinks a lot, doesn't she?" Stefan said disapprovingly.

"I think she finds it hard relive her past," Damon retorted quietly.

Elena suddenly knew why Damon was so drawn to Alex; she was the only woman he knew who he could relate to completely.

Everybody agreed that it was probably best to call it a night.

...

Stefan had taken everybody home whilst Damon had gone upstairs to bed. Elena had a sneaky suspicion it was to see Alex and again, the green jealous monster came out inside of her. She doubted very much that he would be coming to visit her now she thought to herself, disappointed. Stefan had offered to spend the night with her. She could tell he was hopeful that he could, but she was in no mood for him. She had no desire to be embraced by him. In all honesty she hadn't since she found out he had secretly been visiting Katherine.

So she bid Jer goodnight, went to her room and got ready for bed. She imagined what Damon was doing right now while she brushed her teeth... Why was her head so filled with Damon tonight? She had been so frightened when she thought he was going to die, which was understandable, he was her friend. She absently touched her necklace.

"God I wish you didn't have to forget this."

She heard his words from some deep rooted memory. She was shaken to her very core. What had he made her forget? Why did she feel in pain when she tried to remember?

She wasn't stupid, she knew that this linked with the fact her necklace reappeared after she was saved from Rose.

"You have some explaining to do."

She turned around to the man in front of her. Anger boiled and brimmed up inside.

"So do you."

Damon looked at her confusedly.

"Would you like to explain to me what you said that was so important that you made me forget that night you gave back my necklace?"

Damon held up his hands in protest.

"First, you tell me where you got the idiotic idea to give yourself up to Klaus? Alex told me everything! Do you really think we would have just let you go? If you had died, do you think that we wouldn't have fought to the death in your revenge?"

He was up in her face now. She could see in his clear ice blue eyes anger, but also there was fear and sadness. He was genuinely upset about what she had planned to do. She unconsciously rested her hand on his cheek. Living up to his usual self these days, he tried to step back away from her, but she moved with him; her hand never left his cheek.

"You don't have to worry about that anymore," she whispered softly, "Alex helped me see a bit differently..."

"Yeah I know," he rolled his eyes; "she assured me that you were no longer suicidal. I just wanted to reiterate what a complete idiot I think you were being and if any thought like that ever enters your head again I will personally make sure you are locked up from the outside world until you see differently."

Elena should have felt indignation at his threat. How dare he control her life? But all she felt was pleasure at his possessiveness. She felt a flood of emotions wave over her as she remembered how close to death he was tonight and the fact that he was avoiding her question about the night with her necklace. Tears began to silently roll down her cheeks to Damon's fright. He shifted uncomfortably out of her touch searching her intently, not knowing what to do.

"Why won't you tell me what you told me that night?"

"Why do you need to know? I didn't do anything bad..."

Why did she need to know? She couldn't explain the wave of emotion she felt. She needed to hear something from him, something that would complete her being, make her a whole person and assure her that what she was feeling wasn't unjustified. That this between them was real.

"Are you okay? Earlier I was so scared for you," she said, leaning her forehead onto his, resting her hands on his muscled chest.

She felt Damon shiver underneath her hands. He put his hands on either side of her face and made her look up with her liquid hazel eyes into his warm ice blue ones. Yes, his eyes were a contradiction to her, how could they be made of ice yet look so warmly down at her. She was in shock at the vulnerability in his expression. The fear. The hope. The utter devotion. The LOVE.

Oh my God.

She had never seen somebody as beautiful as he was. She leaned in, the world around her forgotten. There was only her and him, her lips millimetres from his own.

He wasn't in front of her anymore. He was across the room by the window, looking at her with such a tortured expression it made her heart break bit by bit with every beat.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Before she could reply, he was gone.

She sat on her bed and prepared herself for another night of tears and restlessness. She didn't know how, why or when it came about, but she knew now that wherever that beautiful man went, her heart would always follow.

...

Damon entered the living room of the Boarding House. Stefan was standing by the fire drinking a whiskey.

"Where have you been?" the younger brother inquired.

"Dinner."

Damon began to walk upstairs, pausing and looking at his brother again, emotionless.

"I would ask you where you have been, but I can still smell her on you."

...

Happy New Year guys!