Down a highway, a starving Stefan Salvatore stumbled barely able to stay on his feet, after months of starving and suffering alone in a safe at the bottom of the quarry all he could think about was blood.

Nothing else but blood.

As his eyes land on the bar near the end of the highway, he struggles over and as he enters her spots only one woman inside who was clearly tidying down. He had no idea what time it was but it must be late or earlier. He wasn't too sure.

The woman turns and frowns at him "Hey, man. Last call was 4 hours ago."

Stefan ignores her words as he continues to stumble towards her, she merely frowns thinking he was nothing but another stumbling drunk "If you want some coffee I could put some on."
Stefan merely continues to walk towards her without a word until he was stood right in front of her, the sound of blood pumping through her veins was all he could hear, grabbing her he ignores her screams as he digs into her throat, managing to pull himself back he screams at her "Run!"

With that, she runs and he holds himself back as long as he can till he stumbles after her only as he steps outside the rising sun hits him and his skin begins to bubble and burn and all he could do was scream in agony.

Buffy gasps as she snaps awake and sits up in bed, gasping for breath only to frown as Elena who was fast asleep next to her sits up and gasps as well. Elena gasps before running a hand through her hair, however, she couldn't help but frown as she spots her sister with the same horrified expression that she was currently wearing "Buffy..."

"The bar..." The blonde breaths running a hand through her blonde and pink hair "Stefan..."
"He was burning." Elena finishes in shock as she stares at the blonde "You had the same dream?"
Buffy nods in confusion, this made no sense how the hell did the two of them have the exact same dream, it had to be the Slayer gene in them right? That was all they could think that made sense.

Buffy sighs and runs a hand through her hair "It felt like I was there with him." She breaths "This is so wiggy."
Elena nods in agreement "Yeah. You can say that again."

"Make it three times as wiggy." Another voice says from the doorway making the two sisters turn and their eyes widen as there was Katherine who smirks at them both "Route 29. Joe's bar."

Katherine sighs and crosses her arms "Looks like the three of us are having the exact same dreams."
Buffy groans and drops herself back into bed burying her head into her pillow, could this get any weirder?


"So I've found 9 bars along route 29." Damon tells Buffy as he hands her a coffee in a to-go cup before handing her the scythe, if they were going to go searching for crazy ripper blood lusty Stefan they may have to do some fighting. Well, Buffy could.
He would rather record and laugh.

He loved his brother but it didn't mean he wouldn't torment him later.

"Any named Joe's?" The blonde asks as she takes the coffee and takes a sit only to sigh as Damon shakes his head before he smirks "Why don't we play a drinking game on the highway and then when you get your little Slayer feelings thing we know we're getting closer."
"Why do we need to drink to do that?"
Damon merely shrugs "Cause's it's fun. You know what fun is right milf?"

Buffy shakes her head in amusement before arching a brow at her best friend "How you doing?" She asks curiously, Damon hadn't really talked much since they found the dead guy in the safe, she had a feeling he wasn't feeling too good.
Damon sighs as he glances at his best friend "I spent all summer pissed at him for not going after you. And turns out I just wanted to believe he was being a dick instead of actually hurt."

Buffy sighs and squeezes his wrist before picking up the map and placing it into her bag along with the scythe just as Elena enters the room with her crossbow. Damon frowns "Do we need all these weapons to follow your crazy Slayer, banshee dream. If we find him Buffy zooms snaps his neck done."

"This is for whoever else we find." Elena says with a chuckle, Buffy smirks over at Damon who groans "Fine." He huffs before grabbing his car keys off Buffy "You destroyed your car. You're not destroying mine."

"Shotgun!" Katherine calls as she enters the room, Buffy turns to face her and crosses her arms "Actually she broke my jeep. I haven't killed you for that yet."

Katherine rolls her eyes before picking up her own bag making Buffy's eyes widen, she had to be kidding, there was no way in hell she was getting in another car with Katherine, last time they were in a car together Katherine almost killed her "If I'm in a car with you for a long period of time. I'm gonna kill you. Slowly painfully. Then I'll drop you off in New Orleans and let Klaus play hurt the cat."
Katherine's eyes widen in horror and she looks at Buffy with big begging eyes "I'll be quiet."

Elena groans in annoyance and turns to Damon "Please tell me she's not coming."
"A world of no." Buffy hisses while Damon sighs, being in a car with these three was not going to be fun "Trust me, I have no interest in Katherine's well-being, but for some reason, Silas wants her real bad..."

Buffy groans "A hostage of my enemy is a hostage I want." As much as it sucked Damon was right if Silas wanted a doppelganger human he could wait a couple of hundred years this one was her hostage.
"She can ride in the boot."
Elena smirks "I like that idea. Where's the duck tape."

Katherine merely glares at the two sisters in hatred, she hated these two more than anything, Elena was the reason she was stuck as a human without even getting the family banshee powers and Buffy had the face that Mary had when she fell in love with the witch, this wasn't exactly her idea of fun.

"Do you really think that I want to take a road trip with you two, Miss mom of a demonic child and miss banshee, American's most boring self-righteous one at that. Just remember Buffy and Damon wouldn't be playing bodyguard if you hadn't shoved that cure down my throat."

Elena's eyes widen as she stares at the crazy-ass ex-vampire, it was amazing how she always seemed to forget all the horrible things she had done to them all so she could play herself as the victim "You were trying to kill me!"

Buffy groans before she walks over to Katherine and places a hand over her mouth before throwing her over her shoulder making Katherine scream slightly "Let's get this over with!"
"Put me down! I get sick upside down."
Buffy rolls her eyes "You throw up on me I will give you a damn pixie cut."

And with that Katherine freezes in horror "Buffy did I ever tell you how pretty you are."
Buffy groans in disgust as she heads outside and dumps Katherine in the backseat "Ew."


Stefan groans as he finally feels himself coming back to consciousness, turning his eyes widen in panic as he spots a beautiful dark-skinned woman sat in front of him just watching him. Getting onto his knees he growls in panic, he had already killed someone and hurt that girl at the bar, he didn't want to hurt anyone else but he didn't know if he could control himself for long.

"I don't want to hurt you, so get away from me, before I rip your throat out."

The woman merely watches him blankly, that wasn't the best opener for the person who had just saved him from burning to bits in the sunlight "Hello to you, too." Pausing she picks up a blood bag and holds it out towards him "I brought dinner."
Stefan pants heavily as sweat drips down his face as he stares at the bag of blood before he snatches it out of her hands and rips into it.

As he devours the bag the woman tilts her head at him in interest "A vampire doppelganger who's burdened by a conscience. Now I've seen everything."

Stefan merely grunts as he continues to down the blood and breaths heavily as he struggles to speak "You saved me from burning to death outside that bar this morning, didn't you?"
The woman smiles nodding "And I pulled you from the Quarry before that. After I saw that blonde girl swimming in panic searching I figured you were a little bit further out. And then I told the former owner of this cabin to pull your lockbox from the water. You thanked him by biting off his head."

Guilt fills the vampire before something clicks in his head, the blonde who had been searching for him...Buffy. "Buffy." He breaths as he flashes back to the whole reason he had been rushing to the Quarry, to dump Silas so he could go after her.
The woman chuckles "She's a pretty girl. She was very upset when she couldn't find you."

Stefan groans as he thinks about the blonde before he frowns, how did this woman know so much "How do you know I'm a doppelganger?"
"Because I've seen your face before." She admits "On someone who wasn't you."
Stefan's entire body fills with panic, there was something going on here something he was missing "Who are you?"
She ignores his question as she asks her own "How much do you know about Silas?"

"Heh." He breaths in anger and disgust, Silas was the whole reason he had been suffering, was the whole reason he hadn't been able to go after Buffy "I know that he's a bloodthirsty immortal who's killed more people than I can count. And that was before he stole my identity, threatened to go after the woman I love, locked me up in a safe, and dropped me in the bottom of a quarry."
The woman watches him for a moment before smiling "You made it through. You thought about her a lot. The Slayer."

Stefan clenches his jaw before nodding "Yeah. She was the only thing keeping me from flipping off my humanity switch. Well her, and the fact that if I ever got out I wanted to be myself when I killed him."
The woman sits back and chuckles softly at his words "Strong words."

"He's a monster." He hisses simply before he thinks about the blonde, he would kill Silas but right now he needed to find Buffy tell her that he had tried to come for her "But right now...I need to find Buffy." Standing he moves past the woman and heads towards the door only to halt at her next words "Except you'll burn to death in the sun without your daylight right." Sighing she decides to tell him to the original story of Silas "Silas wasn't always a monster... he used to be a simple man. In love with a simple girl, his soul mate. She was his one true love. Heh, you know how that goes. They thought their love would last forever."

Stefan frowns in confusion, if he was stuck here till the sun was down the least he could do was learn as much about Silas as possible, but there was something he didn't understand, how the hell did she fit into all of this "How do you know all this?"

"Because I was there in his arms."
Stefan couldn't help but frown "You're telling that you were Silas' one true love."

She doesn't even look at him as she speaks, as though lost in the 2000-year-old memories of her life with Silas "I would have done anything for him."

Stefan couldn't help but frown, none of this made any sense, if what she was saying was true then she should be long dead "That's impossible. How are you here right now?"
"Love bends the rules of possible." She tells him smiling "You should now. Give the love of your life was destined the fall for the hybrid. But she chose you despite having a child with him." As Stefan goes quiet she continues "Silas and I were the two most powerful members of a gifted people called travelers. When we were engaged to be married, we decided to reach even further. We wanted to find a way for our love to last forever."

Stefan couldn't help but groan he didn't care about Silas' love story what he cared about was getting back to Buffy and killing Silas "Yeah, look. I know the story. Everything was great for Silas until some witch named Qetsiyah or whatever came by and screwed him over right?"

The woman couldn't help but scoff as his simple-minded knowledge of what he assumed was the truth, but the story had been changed, over 2000 years and no one had told it correctly "Wrong. You don't know the story. Silas convinced Qetsiyah that he loved her so she would make him the immortality spell, but when she found out that he was just using her she dumped him in a tomb with a cure, hoping he would take it and die because she had created a supernatural limbo to trap his soul."

Stefan sighs honestly looks like Mary and this Qetsiyah woman would have been a match made in heaven "Like any other sane, rational, well-adjusted woman would do."

The woman clenches her jaw at his sarcasm before turning to face him "Which catches us up to today. Now Silas wants to destroy that supernatural limbo. With the Mikelson-Summers witch dead he is searching for another way so he can take the cure, become mortal and die. And finally, pass on and find peace."
Stefan clenches his jaw at the mention at Joy, at least this was one positive somehow Silas and no one had realized that she was actually alive, but there was something he didn't understand "Look. If you really are Silas' one true love and you're not dead, then why don't you do us all a favor and run off into the sunset together?"

The woman tilts her head in interest he hadn't realized yet "Silas was my true love. I never said that I was his. I'm Qetsiyah. That sane, rational, well-adjusted woman..." As she speaks fire begins to form around her and Stefan couldn't help but gulp. He had screwed up big time.


" I love rock and roll!" Buffy and Damon sing loudly as Damon drives and Buffy sits in the passenger seat, the two of them trying to have a bit of fun to distract them from their worry and panic over Stefan.

Elena, however, could not have fun as she was stuck in the backseat with Katherine sat beside her, she was taller then Buffy she needed more legroom yet The Slayer was always in the passenger seat.
"We said we were gonna swap once we were out of Mystic Falls." She reminds her sister as Damon laughs and turns down the music "That's Buffy's designated seat." Buffy smirks at that and smiles before focusing on the road ahead, Damon groans as he continues driving "How much longer?"

"We stop when we see it."
"We'll know it when we see it." Katherine and Elena say at the same time making Buffy shiver slightly, this was so freaky, after all of their years of dealing with doppelgangers and robots and shape-shiting demons this was still just so weird.

Katherine who was bored out of her mind glances over at the blonde bombshell in the front seat "So Buffy, how do you even know that Stefan's still in love with you? I mean he could have actually sent that text to Damon before Silas threw him in the water."

Buffy groans in annoyance, because as much as she hated it Katherine could be right, she didn't know anything for sure right now, but it didn't matter even if Stefan didn't feel the same way they were still friends and she couldn't just leave him out there.

As Buffy doesn't answer Katherine pushes a little more "Come on Buffy, you spent most of your summer with your baby-daddy and partying with Damon. You sure you even want to see Stefan?"
Buffy clenches her jaw "Someone hurt her!"
Damon smirks slightly "I'm tempted. But don't worry once the vervain's out of her system we'll compel her and we'll put her on mute."

"I can do that now." Elena sighs and before shoving Katherine's head against the window knocking her out cold Buffy's eyes widen and she pauses for a moment before she laughs loudly and glances over at her sister "I love you. So...should we take bets on who kills her first? I got 20 bucks on me snapping first."

Damon chuckles "I gotta go with Elena...she's never killed, Katherine would be a nice first kill."


Matt's eyes widen as he spots Nadia stood outside the Grill with a smile on her face as though she hadn't messed with his mind "What the hell did you do to me?" He hisses as he glares over at her "Look. I know you and your creep-show boyfriend screwed with my head the other night, so who the hell are you, and what do you want?"
Nadia sighs and looks at him as honestly as she could "I'm here to keep you safe from Silas."
"Silas?" He asks in confusion as he takes a few steps back "What do you know about Silas?"
Nadia sighs "I know that he still wants you dead. You're going to need to trust me, ok?" She begs as she steps forwards him placing her hands on his face before mumbling in Czech, suddenly Matt's eyes go black "Gregor?"

Gregor now inhabitation Matt's body glares at her anger as he hisses at her in Czech "What the hell? You killed me!"

"Gregor, I'm sorry!" She screams trying to make him understand "But Silas was going to kill you. Doing it myself was the only way to salvage the deal. I need his trust."


Stefan who was rummaging through Qetsiyah things while she was gone in search of his ring panics, he needed to get the hell out of here and away from her. He didn't know why she needed him and he didn't care.
However unluckily for him Qetsiyah opens the front door and stares at him with wide eyes, Stefan clears his throat trying to think quick "Do you have, a, uh cell phone? I have to make a phone call."
"There's no cell reception out here." She tells him as she shuts the front door "And remember I made it safe for you here, but I wouldn't go outside if I were you."

Stefan arches a brow at the witch, not trusting a word out of her mouth "No offense, Qetsiyah. I'm having a bit of a hard time believing what you're saying."

Qetsiyah seemingly winces at the sound of her name as she plays with the flowers she had just picked "Qetsiyah sounds so...ancient timey, don't you think? How about Tessa? It's a little different but not so different you wouldn't find it on one of those souvenir key chains."
Stefan couldn't help but groan instead of being with the woman he loved right now he was stuck in what was basically a fancy shed with a crazy psycho witch, his life just sucked "So that's why you rejoined the land of the living, souvenir key chains?"

"I'm here because the Bennett Witch lowered the veil." She reminds him "I saw an opportunity to make myself a living, breathing mortal. And I thought...why not? My hunters have failed in their task to kill Silas. I figured it was time to handle things in person."

Stefan arches a brow at the witch, if she was so powerful why didn't she just kill Silas all those years ago "Well, 2000 years is a hell of a long time to hold a grudge."

"You have clearly never been left at the alter." She tells him before she losses herself in the memory all over again, of the day her life fell apart "Like a lovesick idiot, I created an entire garden for our wedding, and I made a spell that would keep us alive forever. An immortality spell so we would never have to part. Silas and I were going to drink the immortality elixir as part of our wedding ceremony, but then everything around me started to die. My wedding flower, the garden trellis, our harvest, and then I realized why. Silas had already used the immortality spell. He was already drinking the elixir somewhere else. He took what he wanted and then the bastard abandoned me. So call me a woman scored or a vindictive bitch or whatever label suits your story, but I thought I was his one true love, and he ripped my heart out."

At her words Stefan had to admit he couldn't help but feel for her at that moment, her story was heartbreaking "I'm sorry."

Tessa sighs "I deserved a chance to look him in the eye and make him understand how much he hurt me so I found him in the wilderness, with the woman he gave my immortality to, the woman he chose over me, and just when I thought his betrayal couldn't cut any deeper, I learned that his actually true love was someone very close to me...my handmaiden. Amara...the first Petrova Doppelganger."

At her words his eyes widen, the first version of him and the first version of Elena had been that big epic love story, this was getting really weird "So Silas was the first version of me, and your friend was the first version of Elena?"

"Amara was hardly a friend." Tessa hisses in disgust at the memory of the betrayal, sighing she continues "When they drank the immortality elixir, they violated the natural law that all living things must die..." She tells him as she takes her flowers and bends down by the fire basking in its heat as she continues her tail "So nature found a balance by creating mortal shadow selves."
"Doppelgangers."
Tessa nods "Like you. Like Katherine and Elena, all caused by the ripped effect from Silas and Amara's sin."

Pausing she places a metal bowl in the fire, throwing in some silver which begins to melt inside as the flames hit it.
Stefan watches her for a moment before circling to sit down behind her "You want to tell me what the hell you've been doing this whole time?"

"Silas stole your daylight ring. You're going to need another one." She says simply before glancing back into the flames "When this is done I'm going to need your help to take down Silas once and for all. You see...I've been forced to watch versions of you and Elena fall in love over and over again but that all changed 7 years ago. When a blonde Vampire Slayer walked into your life. You were supposed to fall for Elena but you didn't. The Slayer broke a chain, got in the middle of destiny...something no one has ever done. Her face...even when Marianna held it...it tapes into you. The way Elena or even Katherine couldn't. You and Buffy, you're story. It changed something...I find it interesting."