Disclaimer: I do not own the vampire diaries/the originals or any quotes used/borrowed.

Notes: This is on the shorter side, for which I apologize. Thanks for the fantastic reviews! I adore hearing what you guys think

Warnings: Mature sexual content later in the chapter.

there's a ghost in the mirror

"They will parade upon your victory

You'll put a smile upon their faces

The world will be yours for the taking

The story you birth will be ageless

Just learn to love pain and be patient."

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Caroline huffed out a frustrated breath. Wes' lab, which Stephanie had directed her to, was basically one big, hot mess; most of his research materials and files, not to mention his many machines were damaged and in disarray. The room still smelled of blood and death, even though Steph had disposed of the body last night. Caroline shuddered. While they'd all been sleeping, Stephanie had come here and killed their professor. Not that she didn't think he deserved it . . . Wes was one bad dude.

"The travelers really cleaned this place out," Caroline grumbled. They must have been watching the lab or something to have gotten here so quickly, but that begged the question, Caroline thought, why would they have let Steph kill their researcher? Surely they'd have stopped – even killed – Stephanie before she as much as stepped foot in the very same neighborhood as Wes if they'd been watching.

Caroline stuck her hands into a box filled with papers and recording devices and her finger brushed up against something. It clicked and she jumped at the noise. "Scared me," she said uneasily and tried to laugh off her fright. Moments later, Wes' tinny voice came out of the recorder.

"I've managed to extract werewolf venom – of all things – from the tissue sample from the male fetus. It's diluted and weak, and raises more questions of the parentage." A frown tugged at her lips.

"So werewolves exist after all." Caroline dropped the recorder and whirled around. Her eyes rounded in surprise. "I'd always thought that they were a joke." The man was tall, accented and radiated sleazy. "I'm Enzo." He smirked.

Caroline huffed, "The Enzo." She cocked a hip and put her hand on it while staring at the man she'd heard tales of from her friends.

"No, I'm the other one." His pink lips curled up into a teasing smile.

"Right, Other Enzo, I don't know what it is that you're after, but I don't want any part of it," Caroline said firmly. "Go away." She folded her arms defensively and glared pointedly. "Bye."

But instead of kindly leaving, Enzo raised his hands as if to placate her. "I'm here for the same reason that you are; I want this vampire virus to go away, out of our lives for good."

"Why?" Caroline asked with a keen eye on the other vampire's moments. Although he'd been the one to alert Stephanie of where Damon was last night, Enzo had been long gone when they'd arrived. Caroline thought that that was pretty suspicious.

"I guess Damon forgot to tell you that we reconnected when we ended up locked in a farmhouse together." He sighed as if he were truly disappointed. "And I did tell you where we were," he reminded her.

"Yeah, well, where were you when we got there, huh?" Instead of giving him time to come up with some perfect excuse, she rushed to add, "Just stay out of it, okay? Leave us alone." Caroline brushed passed him, recorder in hand to destroy the evidence, when he called out to her.

"Then I suppose you're not the least bit surprised that I have the antidote."

She froze in her tracks. "What did you just say?" Caroline spun around and gestured at him wildly in surprise.

Enzo grinned satisfactorily, like the cat that had eaten the canary. Grinning, he said, "You heard me. The travelers want to make a deal, see. All you have to do is bring Damon do them."

"That sounds like a really dumb trap that we are most certainly not going to walk into, thanks," Caroline sniffed. Her shoulders dropped a little though; she'd been hopeful for a brief moment. They could have cured Damon and then everyone would have been happy . . . she wasn't his biggest fan, but Caroline didn't really want him to suffer – and make everyone around him suffer too, consequently. She pulled her wool jacket tighter and gave Enzo a plastic smile.

"It's not a trap," Enzo pressed. "I just want to help Damon and the travelers can heal him. They just need his help with something."

"Help with what?" Caroline demanded. "He's – he's Damon Salvatore, native drunk to Mystic Falls. What could they possibly want from him?"

"They don't want anyone to know what they're up to," Enzo said, "specifically, any witches or former for that matter, in your company." He shrugged. "They're very . . . anti-witch. So Sloan, the leader that is, didn't want me to tell you anything before she saw Damon."

"Well, that's – that's just discriminatory," Caroline huffed irritably. She threw her arms up and barely resisted the urge to stomp her feet in frustration. "Bonnie's not bad! And Liv's – okay, she's kind of annoying but I don't think she has an agenda against your special magic wielding buddies."

"You never know," Enzo said cryptically.

"Argh!" Caroline bellowed. "This is a trap, obviously," she repeated. "Why are you falling for it?"

He raised a finger and waved it at her threateningly. "I'll give you one hint, but that's it and you have to promise you'll bring Damon and come with me to meet the travelers."

Caroline sniffed. "If it's a good enough hint."

Enzo rolled his eyes. "For the love – fine." He leaned forward and Caroline couldn't the anticipatory jitters she received. "Doppelgängers."

Her face fell almost comically. "Oh, you have got –"

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"– to be kidding me. More doppelgängers?" Like Katherine and Elena hadn't been enough, Stephanie thought to herself. The memory of Silas' last face tickled her brain again, for the first time since they'd killed him. At the time – and then after, for a while – Steph had wondered why he'd chosen Damon's form to appear in. But with this reoccurrence of doppelgängers and the fact that the travelers wanted Damon . . . well. Stephanie didn't really believe in coincidences anymore.

Caroline had brought her news to the Boarding House along with Starbucks and a recording device she'd pushed into Steph's fingers. At Steph's questioning look, Caroline had just shaken her head and said, "Wes." Then they'd gathered in the living room together.

"Did he say anything else?" Elena rested her chin on fist. She'd sat thoughtfully on the arm of the couch, one of her hands lying possessively on Damon's knee. Her fingers kneaded into the fabric that separated the two of them.

Caroline shook her head. "Nothing. He gave me the address I'm supposed to give you," she nodded to Damon, "and he gave me his little hint."

"What has Elena got to do with any of this?" Damon asked. He was vibrating under Elena's hand on the seat of the couch, a drink in one hand and the other was occupied by grasping Elena's wrist atop his knee.

"What if Elena's not the doppelgänger they're talking about?" Stephanie mused. "They didn't even ask for her. They seem to want you specifically, Damon."

"You're not saying that Damon's a doppelgänger too?" Caroline scrunched up her nose. "There could be more of him running around out there?"

"Technically, yes," Stephanie said, "but remember, they wouldn't be Damon. They would just be people that looked like him." Silas, she thought, was probably the first. "If it's true, there were probably dozens of people before Damon. Maybe Silas being one of them."

Caroline clapped her hand to her mouth and Elena pressed her lips together.

"You really think I'm Silas' doppelgänger?" Damon demanded.

"I'm just theorizing. We're not going to find anything out by sitting here," Steph pointed out. "We're going to have to go to them to find out what's really going on."

"I'm coming," Elena immediately said.

"I think you should stay here, actually." Stephanie stood, rubbing her hands on her thighs. "Since this appears to be all about doppelgängers, then we shouldn't make it easy for them to pick you off. Even though they're not asking for you now, the travelers did take blood from you both. I think Caroline should stay with Bonnie at Whitmore to keep you safe, and in case we need backup."

"Hey." Caroline frowned. "I don't think you guys should go alone."

"What are our options?" Stephanie asked. "Look at this realistically; all of this stuff could be one huge trap to get Elena and Damon for some weird spell and maybe they want us leave Elena alone, unprotected. We can't let that happen."

Caroline and Elena exchanged looks, but reluctantly agreed, which Steph was thankful for. The situation they'd found themselves in was something altogether strange and unnerving because they didn't know what the travelers' true motives were. So Caroline and Elena watched, stiff and unhappy as Steph and Damon left them for the unknown.

As Stephanie and Damon slid into his car to prepare for their little road trip, her lower back gave a sharp twinge of pain. She reached back and massaged the area with the area with the heel of her palm.

Damon looked over and arched a brow. "Problems?" He purred.

Steph gave him a tight smile. "Just drive."

"Pregnancy bites, huh?" Damon continued, but he turned on the ignition and pulled out of their long driveway and onto the road. "Regret that roll in the sack yet?"

"Damon, not now." The sharp pain had dulled to a manageable throb, but was still present and irritating. Her son fluttered in her belly as if to apologize and she removed her hand from her back to rub the place he'd moved. He fluttered around again, which brought a smile to her face. Steph would make sure he was loved when he came into the world.

"Do you suppose that I'm really a doppelgänger?" Damon drew her attention away from her baby.

Stephanie shifted in her seat. "At this point in our lives, I'd say just about anything is possible," she said wryly. Their drive wasn't long, but involved a lot of twists and turns. When they pulled into what looked to be an old train yard with several boxcars lining the tracks, they were grateful. What greeted them was a group of averagely dressed people standing about, looking in their direction.

"I guess that's the welcoming party."

"You don't say," Steph murmured. She narrowed her eyes at a familiar dark head of hair. He was beckoning them forward. "Enzo. What a pleasant surprise." Damon parked his car and they slipped out together, and started to walk side by side. A pretty dark haired woman stood with Enzo, apart from the others, and they too stepped forward to greet the Salvatore's.

"Alright, we're here. Now give me the antidote," Damon said.

"First, we have to find something," the woman said. "I'm Sloan. I believe you've already met my travelers when they took yours and Elena's blood . . . and when she was decimating them to get to you." Sloan inclined her head toward Stephanie.

"What do you need to find? And what does it have to do with Damon?" Stephanie asked.

"Another one of you." Sloan nodded toward Damon.

"So I am a doppelgänger. Huh." Damon pulled a thoughtful face. "What do you need the pseudo me for?"

"You didn't know?" Sloan asked curiously.

"Yeah, uh, no," Damon said and rolled his eyes. "You didn't answer my question – why do you want my doppelgänger, since apparently there's one of those running around somewhere? Poor guy might not deserve whatever you've got coming to him." He flashed a devious smile. "Especially if he's as good looking as moi."

"Apparently doppelgänger blood is special, especially if it's the last two currently on this plane of existence," Enzo explained hurriedly, sliding his gaze toward Sloan, whose face had tightened at the questioning.

"Which was why you took Damon and Elena's blood," Steph said. "Why is it so special?"

"Don't think I haven't asked," Enzo bemoaned, giving Sloan another quick glance. "However, the thing is, unless the last living doppelgänger is gone and there are only two of you – Damon and Elena that is – then mixing their blood doesn't do what they need to do it for their leader Marcus."

"Markos," Sloan corrected sternly.

"So what, you're going to do a locator spell on this guy and then kill him?" Stephanie demanded with clenched fists.

"It's more of a linking spell," Sloan said. "I'll link up Damon and his other, and he'll see some images of his current location, to which we'll track him. Then we take him out."

Damon and Stephanie looked at each other and then again at Sloan and Enzo. "I think we need to talk about this. Way over there," Damon said and pointed to his car. "You up for that, Steph?"

"Definitely." Steph pursed her lips and grabbed Damn's elbow, leading the way out of the train yard and away from the boxcar. "The hell is wrong with those people?" She hissed when they were out of earshot.

"Besides the fact that they need my magical blood?" Damon asked incredulously. His cheek twitched. "Yeah, that was weird. Between the two of us and Enzo, we could probably take them. Maybe you could call in Klaus for some clean up."

"Or we could say we need some time to think about this and then I'll call Klaus and see if he knows anything about this Markos guy," Stephanie said flatly.

"Works for me."

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"You're coming back to the Quarter if I have to drag you back, kicking and screaming."

Steph's brows rose and next to her, Damon snickered. "That bad?" She shushed him.

"Who is he?" Steph asked. "The travelers were very cagey about the whole thing. And they really wanted doppelgänger blood."

"Elena's blood – and Damon's too, I suppose – has magical properties because of what kind supernatural creature she is. There are a number of reasons why they might want it, but it seems to me that they want to resurrect their leader, Markos," Klaus explained grimly. "Bloody hell, Stephanie. It's not safe there if that's what they're doing. Markos is . . . his capacity for evil in unfathomable."

"Pot calling the kettle black," Damon sang. He clapped his hands behind his head and leaned back against the passenger door.

"I'm going to speak with a few of my witch contacts, love," Klaus blithely ignored Damon's interruption, "and I'll get back to you soon. Don't do anything more with the travelers until then." He hung up.

Stephanie glared at her cell phone. "Come on. Let's go back down."

"I'm sorry?" Damon squinted. "Did you just say you wanted to go back to the group of travelers when Klaus the Magnificent Evil just told you that this Markos guy has an unfathomable capacity for evil?"

"He wants to keep me locked away and protected," Steph protested. "I'm not going to sit around while he saves the day."

"If we go back down there, they're going to expect us to help located my doppelgänger! The poor handsome devil won't have a chance," Damon said. Steph turned her glare upon him.

"We still need your cure. Don't you need to feed soon?" At the reminder, Damon's cheek twitched and he swallowed thickly.

"I can wait," Damon denied. Stephanie turned around and started down the slope toward the train cars. "Steph? Steph!" He followed after her.

"We just need to bide some time," Stephanie said quietly, "and make sure they give us the cure to your virus. Then Klaus can do whatever the hell he wants like he always does anyway." They walked back into the travelers' camp, where Sloan seemed to be waiting vigilantly for them return.

"Well?"

"I'll let you link me up," Damon said.

"Only on the condition that you give him the anti-virus first," Steph interjected. She folded her arms firmly across her chest.

"We link Damon to his doppelgänger, get a location, and then I'll give it to him," Sloan corrected sternly.

"We're giving you what you want," Steph argued. "So just give us a show of faith that you'll hold up your end of the bargain."

"I can't do that," Sloan said. Her lips thinned in growing irritation. "Now," she addressed Damon, "sit down now if you want the antidote." She pointed to the wooden chair they'd set up specifically for him. Damon gave Steph a light pat on the shoulder, and then sat down as instructed.

"Lay it on me," he said grimly. He gripped the arms of the creaky wooden chair and closed his eyes. The skin of Sloan's hands was soft, and her fingers were gentle as they carded through his hair. She began to murmur something unintelligible which was slowly picked up by her traveler friends. Pain began to build up behind Damon's eyes and the feeling of Sloan's fingers quickly turned inflammatory in nature.

The darkness his eyelids afforded him faded; light began to permeate his vision and then Damon found himself unable to move his limbs. Private thoughts – far too dissimilar to his own to have come from his head – invaded Damon's being. And for a minute, Damon Salvatore ceased to exist.

He blinked hard and seemed to wake up in a standing position.

"Neal, what are you doing? We need to in the interrogation room," his boss snapped. He blinked again and Neal wondered where his head had been. He shook of the uncertainly and smirked.

"Just thinking about your very pretty wife. Did you see her this morning in that dress? She's wasted on you . . ." The words spilled forth as if unconsciously and his boss – what was his name again? How had he forgotten his boss' name?

His boss – Macon, yes that was it, scowled. "Get in interrogation and do your job, Agent." He jerked a thumb toward the hallway behind him. Neal saluted and sauntered past. He ran his fingers over his ID badge, which was clipped to his trim waist, instinctively knowing that it read Special Agent Neal Brody, Washington DC.

Neal frowned. There was an itch in the back of his skull, distracting him . . . he clawed the back of his head and stepped into the interrogation room. Sitting there with her hands cuffed down to the metal table was Katherine Pierce, wait, no – her face blurred and turned back into his suspect's. Who was Katherine Pierce?

"Problem, Agent?" His suspect drawled. She was very pretty, but her features were a little fuzzy around the edges and Neal suddenly felt faint.

"No," Neal coughed into his hand. His suspect smirked, her lips quirking in clear amusement. Neal pursed his lips. "What's your name again?"

A flash of surprised flicked across her eyes for a moment before something entirely other settled. She pouted. "Oh, you know who I am, Damon."

Neal's brows furrowed. "Who's –"

Damon was violently ejected from Neal Brody's mind and his body arched up out of the chair. He fell onto the dirt and vomited the vampire blood he'd ingested that morning. Damon spluttered and squeezed his eyes shut; the vomit kept coming up his esophagus and felt like he was throwing up a waterfall. His head spun and he felt . . . very confused.

Neal, no, no, his name was Damon Salvatore, looked up and squinted into the darkening area around him. Bodies littered the ground – all gory with their throats torn out. "Steph?"

Small hands covered him then, wrapping around his waist and shoulders, helping him stand. "Klaus had some contacts in the area that owed him a favor," she explained. "They went through and killed all the travelers within a ten mile radius that were involved." Stephanie's hand slipped into her pocket and pulled out a vial of murky liquid. "They found this on Sloan's body."

"The cure?" Damon demanded. He hated to admit it, but he was still feeling nauseous and uncomfortable, but the urge to feed on vampire blood – on his sister – was growing by the second.

"That's what she said." She put it into his hands. Damon tore off the stopper and downed the vial's contents as quickly as physically possible. He blinked rapidly at the sky as the pure need that had driven him for the last few days faded away into his usual – normal – hunger for human blood. He licked his lips and tilted his head down to look at his sister's hopeful green eyes. "Well?"

"It worked."

Steph threw her arms around him and Damon held her in return. He surveyed the train yard over her head. "Klaus' buddies sure did a number on this place."

"Yeah." Stephanie let go and rubbed her face. "The loss of life . . ." She sighed.

"They were probably up to something nefarious like taking over the world," Damon pointed out.

Steph hugged herself. "Yeah, well . . . they were still people."

"Where did Enzo go?" Damon changed the subject away from Steph's guilty conscience.

"He got out of here pretty quickly once Sloan was killed," Stephanie explained. "But he seemed surprisingly angry. Yelled something about a girl." Her face was scrunched into a puzzled frown.

Damon hummed. A girl, huh? "Shall we go home and let everyone the good news? I'm cured, there will be no more travelers harassing us . . . a good team win, I'd say." He held out a hand.

Steph avoided his hand and clapped him on the back. "Let's go. I'm hungry."

Damon snickered. "Me too. Let's stop for some tasty waitress on the way back to Mystic Falls . . ." His questions about Agent Brody faded from his mind as he thought more about returning to Elena, virus free.

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Stephanie stepped back into her bedroom that night with the knowledge that her brother and his mysterious doppelgänger were both safe. He and Elena were out that evening at Whitmore, and Caroline had also returned to school after a celebratory drink at the Grill. Bonnie had been absent from their entire ordeal, tired of their supernatural drama or occupied with her new witch in training, Steph couldn't tell. Steph slid off her jacket and laid it across the back of her desk chair. She turned to fall into bed when cool hands placed themselves around her slightly distended waist. Stephanie stiffened at the touch.

"Easy, love." Klaus' breath caressed the back of her neck and Steph relaxed into his embrace. "I missed you." His lips ghosted over her neck, soft and reassuring as they kissed her pale skin.

"Don't you have a city to micromanage?" Stephanie turned in his embrace to look up into his face.

"Elijah's watching it for me," Klaus said. "You're bigger," he added a moment later, sounding surprised. His pretty blue eyes were slightly widened and his mouth was a little slack.

"That usually happens," Steph pointed out. She unwrapped herself from his arms, but instead of pushing him away, Steph pulled Klaus along with her to her bed. He sat and looked at her gleefully as she crawled into his lap and gripped his grisly jaw with her hands. She kissed him and Klaus arched his body into hers, his crotch sliding against hers. His slender fingers danced down her sides and then cupped her from behind, pulling her body closer to his.

Klaus bit into her lip, drawing blood, eliciting a gasp of pleasure and causing her head to tilt back. Steph made quick work of getting rid of Klaus' Henley, and taking advantage of his exposed torso, let her teeth sink into the meat of his shoulder. Klaus grunted and tore off her shirt with his artist's hands, fingers quick and agile. They discarded their jeans to the foot of the bed in one quick movement and with their clothes strewn about on the floor; he flipped them over so her back was on the bed. He leaned over her, grinning with his devil's smile.

"I missed you," Klaus breathed.

"You sure? Because I know you've been making eyes at Cami." Stephanie tilted her head on her pillow. She was mostly teasing. Klaus' lip curled and his eyes turned amber right before ducked down. He buried his face in her inner thigh and bit down, drinking her blood. Stephanie arched up and an agreeable noise slipped out of her throat.

"I'm positive." Klaus' smirk was bloody when he looked up back. "Now, the next sound I'm going to hear is you screaming my name," he promised.

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Later that night, Stephanie lied in Klaus' arms, spent and comfortable. The friction between them had made her warm, and so her unneeded blankets were pooled around their waists. The moon was high in the sky; full and milky, it lit up the yard and the forest beyond the house. With her nose buried in Klaus' chest and his hands cradling their baby between them, Steph was content.

"Come back to New Orleans with me," he whispered. One of his hands came up and delicately put a string of hair behind her ear. "I've taken care of Tyler. You'll be safe."

Stephanie hummed. "And everyone here?"

"Can make it without you," Klaus said softly. "I really did miss you." He kissed the top of her forehead.

And, because she'd missed him and the bustle of the Quarter, she said, "Yes."

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tbc.