2 minutes and 37 seconds. That's how long we were home before my brothers decided that they needed to go check up on their precious Elena. I said I'd be civil to her but that doesn't stop me from being a complete an utter bitch about her in my head. Walking into the living room/parlour I walked over to Damon's excessive drinks collection and rummaged around for something less bourbon-y.

"Damn it, is bourbon really the only drink he is capable of owning?" I muttered to myself, bending down to search the cupboard. Only to find more bottles of bourbon and one bottle of gin. "Well at least he has some variation in his diet" Closing the cupboards I stood back up. Clearly I wasn't going to find any good drinks here and we had drunk all the emergency supplies of vodka that I kept in my car on the journey back. "What to do, what to do…" I pondered. This is why I hated small towns there was nothing interesting to do, I preferred the crowded streets of cities be it New York, Madrid, London heck even Shanghai and that's about as crowded you can get.

Realising that there was little entertainment to do in the house I decided to make my way to the local watering hole, where I could get a real drink and for once I wasn't talking about blood. However if the opportunity presented itself…. I smirked at that thought; there was no way either of my brothers would as so much let me smell any of this town's residents.

After an uneventful drive to the grill, walking through the doors my eyes automatically scanned for anyone who could make decent conversation. My eyes drifted over a few familiar faces that I saw when I made my first appearance in this town such as 'witch bitch' to whom I smirked at and waved when we made eye contact, to which she sent me some evil with death glare thing. At the bar I saw Alaric Saltzman the town's resident ex-vampire hunter and now my brothers appointed drinking buddy all new information that I learnt on the way back from our sibling bonding. But what really piqued my interest was seeing the subject of my brother's affections little Miss Elena Gilbert. Seeing her made me immediately want to go over and start antagonizing her but then I remembered my promise to my brothers to act civil to her and after a little war in my head debating whether to go over her and explain why I've been acting such a bitch to her or to just ignore her and go over and drink the bar dry like my original intentions but sadly the moral side of me one and I found myself walking over to her and sitting directly in the seat in front of her facing her.

"I suppose you want an explanation" I said looking at her.

"A what?" she asked a confused expression on her face, god she wasn't going to make this easy.

"An explanation, you know, from me, to you explaining why I've been nothing but a bitch to you so far." I said breaking up the beginning, God it's like talking to a toddler.

"Oh." She said and then it was like watching her have an epiphany "Your brothers are making you do this aren't they?" she asked.

"Yes. No. Sort of, but even though I'm doing this it doesn't make us friends. I only agreed that I would be civil with you I just thought that you would probably want an explanation as to why I've been acting like a cold heartless bitch; aside from the fact I am one." I told her

"Okay that's fine by me" she agreed, huh maybe there was hope for her yet.

"Right, umm how to start" God these things were easier to do in your head. "I know! Right, put yourself in my shoes. I come home from having not seen my brothers in years, decades even. And when I knock on the door who do I see?" I began

"The same face as the person who broke up your brothers before." Dopple Bi- I mean Elena realised.

"Exactly. I love Katherine in fact she's one of my closest friends but she still tore my brothers bond apart and it's going to take them a whole lot of alcohol and maybe a couple of therapy sessions to get that bond even close to what it used to be. Anyway when I come home to visit my brothers and I see the exact replica of the person who tore my brothers apart in a town where history is known to repeat itself I immediately go into defence mode. And Elena I will be honest with you for a while now my humanity has been turned off and then I come to this town which has so many bad memories and it had only been 20 minutes since I found out the person I had been avoiding for a long time, other than my brothers is in town. I will be honest with you I was freaking out and a little bit drunk and I didn't know what to do so I did what I do best, I lash out at people and you just happened to be there with your face in this town and I was scared I was so so scared that I had no idea what to do and I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'm sorry. There I said it savour it because you will never hear me say it again." I finished my little rant and just got up and walked away.

Slouching at the bar with my back to Elena I mumbled a "Vodka and leave the bottle" at the bar tender before taking a swig and enjoying the burn it left as it went down my throat. Turning to my left I saw an almost drunk Niklaus. I grabbed the bottle and moved up next to him.

"So what's your excuse for wallowing in self-pity? Because I guarantee you it can't beat mine" I asked curiously as I took another swig from the bottle. As if only just noticing my presence Niklaus turned to me with his bottle of bourbon in his hand God why does everyone drink that stuff it's disgusting.

"My mother wants to kill me and my family hates me" he told me taking a swig from his bottle

"Huh, I was wrong yours is worse than mine" I mused this time taking a long drink from my bottle.

"Somebody alert the media Lucinda Salvatore says she's sorry and admits she's wrong in the space of 5 minutes, the end of the world must be near" He joked, however I saw that his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. I just rolled my eyes and took a few last gulps of my vodka till the bottle was empty.

"Well I'm done and still not nearly drunk enough to make stupid mistakes that I'll regret later in life. I'm outta here, there's a club a few streets over. You look like you could do with some forgetting." I said tossing some bills over the counter to pay for the vodka and walked over to the door. When I reached the door I turned back around and quirked an eyebrow at Nik. "Well are you coming or not Nik?" I asked and he jumped up with a bit of a wobble in his step as some of the alcohol was getting to his system. I couldn't help but notice the giant grin on his face. When he was in front of me I couldn't help but ask "And what's that grin for?"

He just shrugged his shoulders and said simply "You called me Nik" I hadn't realised I'd done that. "Come on love, let's get out of here"