A touch,
From your real love,
It's like heaven taking the place of something evil,
And letting it burn off from the rush
Vampires know, better than anyone, that the past always repeats itself. Even among vampires, though, it's uncommon to be as familiar with this concept as Claudia Salvatore is. So, when she arrives in Mystic Falls - back for the first time in just over a century - Claudia strongly considers turning around and leaving when she first catches sight of Elena Gilbert. Enrolling in Mystic Falls High had been Stefan's idea, and while she had attended the first day of the new semester with him expecting for something unfavourable to happen, seeing the exact likeness of the woman who had destroyed her life and her family had not been within that expectation.
It took Stefan three days to persuade her to stay, during which she would pack and unpack her bags at least seven times, and consider calling Damon constantly. Claudia knew better, though, because if anything was going to worsen the tension between her brothers, it would be the existence of Elena Gilbert.
But the past always repeats itself.
Damon arrives with as much impact as he can muster and for several months Claudia and Stefan, along with a number of various allies, battle against the collateral damage from whatever secret mission he has going on. Eventually, painfully, Stefan manages to coax it out of Damon that he's looking for Katherine and no matter how much time and energy Claudia uses up trying to dissuade him, there is no budging Damon on this.
As is par for the course when the supernatural population in any town is experiencing an increase, the lives of the human population becomes chaotic, to say the least. People die, become vampires, die as vampires, discover their supernatural roots, and generally lose a lot of blood. Lexi comes to visit Stefan and Claudia on their birthday as she always does, but meets her final end when Damon sees an opportunity to gain the trust of the local law enforcement and blame her for the up-take in mortality rates in Mystic Falls. Claudia quickly loses count of the number of times Damon has apologised to her in this one year. She also loses count of the number of attacks and kidnappings Elena falls victim to.
Claudia's relationship with Elena is... complicated. The more she gets to know her the better she gets at ignoring the fight or flight instinct Elena's likeness to Katherine provokes in her. It gets easier to view her as a completely different person to the one who caused her so much trauma in the past, the more they go through and the more she witnesses Elena's selflessness. When it comes to her brothers, though, Claudia's opinion of Elena falters. Of course, it's not exactly Elena's fault that there is something about her that not only puts her in constant danger but makes everyone around her want to risk themselves to save her - in the same way that it's not her fault she looks exactly like Katherine - but regardless of whether it's Elena's fault or not, what is left of Claudia's already limited family is thrown into peril almost daily to save a girl who has an outrageous knack for getting into trouble.
Then come the 'tomb vampires', as Claudia quickly takes to calling them. They're accidentally set free as a byproduct of Damon's ill-fated mission to rescue Katherine from the tomb that she is definitely not in. Claudia almost dies when these vampires capture and torture Stefan, her desperation to save him making her reckless and vulnerable. If not for Damon's timing and Elena's compassion...
After this, Stefan's 'vegetarian diet is abandoned almost completely. Claudia - who had been following the same diet in solidarity - is glad to switch back to human blood at a time that requires all of them to be at their strongest. Blood has always been Stefan's weakness, however, and he struggles with it as he always does. Damon, Claudia and Elena do their best to help him, but it's a dangerous process. His bloodlust adds an extra layer of danger to that which Mystic Falls had already been facing. Eventually, they resort to the tactic he had taken with Damon previously and lock him in the cellar in a desperate effort to help him get clean. Claudia sits in between Damon and Elena in the corridor afterwards, and the three of them support each other in a strangely wholesome moment that contrasts with Stefan's blood-crazed torment in the cellar not too far away from them.
Katherine resurfaces and proves her self interests by linking herself to Elena in order to survive the attack they had planned for her. Despite her best efforts, however, Katherine ends up locked in the very tomb she was supposed to have been in for the past century. Damon himself traps her in there, which fills Claudia with a sense of relief she must confess she hasn't felt in decades.
Because they can't be allowed a win without immediately suffering a loss, Elena goes missing the very next day. This leads to a chain of events that results in it becoming the day Claudia had been avoiding for a very long time. The day Elijah Mikaelson finally catches up with her.
I fall to pieces when I'm with you,
I fall to pieces,
My cherries and wine,
Rosemary and thyme,
And all of my peaches (are ruined),
My rose garden dreams,
Set on fire by fiends