Stefan POV

162. That was my first thought as I woke up today. My 162nd birthday, far longer than anyone should have the right to live, yet I'm still here. I had been in Mystic falls just over a month and had been mostly enjoying it. There is a small problem, of course. Damon, my older brother and everything I could've been if I had chosen a different path.

He was impulsive, arrogant, selfish and uncaring for others. He swore to me the day we became vampires that he would make my life a living hell for basically forcing this life upon him, not my finest moment sure, but his decisions after the fact were his own. It took a lot of convincing the make peace with that but I'm better for it.

I am content otherwise, my great-nephew, Zach had been visiting his daughter over the past week in D.C where his ex wife and daughter lived. Their relationship might not have worked out, but they never regretted it and continued to be friends. For Sarah.

So, for now it was just me, Damon was off wreaking havoc or drinking copious amounts of alcohol and getting into fights. Not my thing.

I guess I had fallen asleep reading because it was almost 5AM when I heard a noise coming from somewhere. Like glass breaking. That put me on edge, I reached my senses out to investigate just to feel a breeze behind me. I quickly turned to feel it again. Once more I turned, I was getting pissed. Just then I felt an immense force speed into me as I fell back. A familiar blonde, showed her vampire face, fangs at the ready.

'Lexi?' I asked rhetorically. Of course, I should've known she would come.

'Hi.' She says innocently, face turning back before getting up. Both of us vamp sped to our feet, hugging tightly. It was so good to see her again.

'What are you doing here? I thought you would be heading to New York for the concert.' I asked awkwardly, though I knew the answer and was dreading it.

'How could you ask me that? Happy birthday!' She smirked. 'Now, come on. It's not a party until the guest of honour arrives.' She teased playfully. Walking to the door, opening it to reveal...

'Harry.' I said in disbelief, there he is leaning against the door frame casually just behind the threshold.

'Hiya, Stefan. You gonna let me in or what?' He smirked. A party indeed.

'Thanks, Zach.' I spoke over the phone to the owner of the boarding house.

'Are you sure about this guy, uncle Stefan? Can you really trust him into the house.' Zach asked worryingly.

'I trust him with my life Zach. Please trust me.' I assured before handing the phone to Harry, who was standing there with that mischievous grin of his.

'Hello?' He asked jokingly. I faintly heard Zach's reply with my vamp hearing. "Don't make me regret this, you can enter the boarding house." 'Thank you, mr Salvatore. Much appreciated.' He then walked into the house before handing the phone back. I quickly thanked Zach and hung up. 'Happy b-day, Stefan. Nice place you got here.' He said hugging me like a big brother would. I really missed him, haven't seen him since the 80's.

'It's good to see Harry. How have you been?' I hate small talk but I don't know what else to say.

'Oh enough of that Stefan. It's your birthday, so today is all about you and getting you pissed drunk and into trouble. Maybe even laid if we have time, huh?' He grinned.

'Nice try, but Stefan here has a girlfriend, don't you Stefan?' Lexi teased as we walked to my room.

'Maybe I do, maybe I don't. None of your business, lex.' I teased in kind. Before the two of us lay on my bed, Harry grabbing a seat and put his feet on my bed frame.

'Oh do tell.' Harry asked interest. 'What's she like, I'm going to guess, based on your previous "love interests"' he paused as if in thought. 'Sharp witted, sassy, prone to anger, vengeful and manipulative.' He ribbed grabbing the picture of Katherine from the dresser as evidence.

'Actually the opposite, Elena, compassionate, funny, kind and patient. She is nothing like Katherine.' I spoke with conviction, they really are nothing alike. Other than the resemblance.

'Right, and I suppose this is you finally beginning I open up after, what? 80 years. You and Beccs break up and your finally ready to get back out there?' Lexi asked in a mixture of disbelief and hope. 'Tell me, what's so special about this girl that your going into the deep end?'

'I don't know, yet. But I just know she's worth the trouble.' I knew that wasn't an answer but it was still the end of that conversation.

'Well good luck with it Stefan, but for now you're with us and we are going to have a great night for your birthday. So clean up and get dress nice. We got a party to go to.' Harry smiled before leaving the room to change. What a night it'll be.

'I'm gonna take a nap, we got time.' Lexi interrupted.

'Yeah, see you later. Don't let the bed bugs bite.'

Harry POV

It was 8:30AM and I had spent the last few hours seeing the sights that was Mystic Falls. It had been a few centuries since I had seen the place I had once called home. Obviously a lot had changed. It was bigger than I thought it would be, more people numbering a few thousand as the internet had told me.

I had been visiting the sites of places that I remembered fondly. The old site where me and my brothers and sister would go and hide from Mikael, where we would play games that I remembered from my old life. The old Mikaelson mansion that was run down and condemned now. A shame. I visited the high school where my childhood home once stood. Finally heading towards the town square where my favourite part of the woods used to be I couldn't help but remember how easy everything was back then. At least when Mikael and Esther would leave us alone.

As I turned to leave, finished reminiscing, I spotted a face that I had thought I would never see again. 'Katerina?!' No that wasn't possible. Katerina was killed in the fire that burned down the old church. Stefan saw it with his own eyes. So how is it possible that I'm seeing her face now. She never had children, her entire family was wiped out by Mikael to prevent Klaus from breaking his curse. This requires investigation.

First, I have to go see Stefan, there is no way that he didn't know this girl was in Mystic falls. Whoever she is. I was about to speed away, before with my heightened hearing, overheard a beautiful blond girl walk up to the doppelgänger, smile extremely friendly and say, 'Elena' my heart almost stopped.

That is the girl Stefan is dating? A carbon copy of the girl who changed and almost ruined his life, ' Hey Caroline.' The doppelgänger smiled back tiredly. Caroline, the blond woman I'm guessing seemed not to notice.

'Are you coming to my party tonight?' She asked pleasantly.

'I'm not sure Caroline, I will try and stop by, but I'm not really in the mood, Stefan and I are going through some things.' "Elena" spoke apologetically.

Caroline looked almost hurt but nodded and walked away. "Elena" left soon after. Now my turn. Time to get some answers, Stefan.

Meanwhile, Lexi POV

Stirring awake, I was greeted with the face of Damon Salvatore, Stefan's older brother and psycho. Uhh. Not what a lady likes to see so soon awake.

'Boo.' The younger vampire joked.

'Uhh.' My disgust this time out loud. This is going to be a difficult conversation.

'Hello, Lexi.' Damon greeted casually. 'What an unexpected surprise.'

'"What an unexpected surprise?"' I mocked. 'I think the wrong Brother went back to high school.'

'How long are you here for?' He asked and I knew he didn't really care.

'Just for Stefan's b-day.' Silently praying for a way out of this conversation.

'Aww, you mean you didn't come all this way just to see me?' He pretended to look disappointed. 'Are you here alone? Or did you bring your boy-toy with you?'

'Hm, that's it Damon. After a century I realised that death means nothing without you. I left Harry on his own after 300 years of best friendship and came to be with you forever.' Touching his chin in the best faux-sultry voice possible. 'Do me.'

'Why are you so mean to me?' He grumbled.

'Uhh, have you met you? You're not a nice person.'

'Well because I'm a vampire.'

'But only the bad parts.' I refuted.

'Teach me to be good!' He flirted unconvincingly. Causing me to speed around the bed and choke him with my superior strength.

'I'm older and that means stronger.' I growled over the meek. 'I'm sorry.' That he tried to get out. 'Don't ruin my time with Stefan and Harry. 'Cause I'll hurt you. And you know I can do it.'

'Ohh, did I come at a bad time? You want me to leave you crazy kids alone?' Harry's voice chimed in from behind me. 'Damon! How have you been buddy? Good?' He didn't wait for an answer before he continued. 'Great.' He smirked at Damon's almost scared look. 'We need to talk to Stefan and his choice in women.' He said seriously switching his tone instantly. Must be important.

'Okay what's the matter?'

He glanced over at Damon who was still reeling from being choked. 'In private.'

I nodded, 'remember what we talked about Damon. No interference. Capiche?' He nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry.

'Yeah, "capiche".' He mocked, Harry and I then set out, to talk some sense into our favourite ripper. Damon muttered under his breath knowing full well we could hear him, 'fucking Originals.' That made both of us smirk.

3rd POV

Stefan had just gotten out of the shower, when Harry and Lexi entered the room. 'You got some explaining to do Salvatore.' Harry began. 'We need to talk about "Elena".'

Stefan knew exactly what Harry was talking about but decided to play dumb for the time being. 'What are you talking about?' He asked guiltily.

Harry rolled his eyes, walked to the dresser where the picture of "Katherine Pierce" and showed it to his friends. 'Katherine Pierce and Elena look exactly alike. Scarily so. That means that either Elena is Katherine or Elena is somehow related to Katherine. Which as I don't need to explain to you is not a good thing at all.' They knew it wasn't, Harry having explained the whole Petrova curse to them years ago. 'Is there any chance that this is Katherine and she is lying to you?' Harry almost hopeful that that was the case.

'No.' Stefan denied confidently. 'This is not Katherine.'

'Then this girl is the Petrova doppelgänger, somehow, and this is a very dangerous game your playing here, Salvatore. You know how Klaus gets when things like this happens.'

God did Stefan know. Just once did he ever witness Klaus' wrath when a werewolf pack was hunted and slaughtered. It haunts him to this day. 'I know.' He relented. 'But as long as he never knows about Elena, as long as I protect her. She will be okay.' He then looks at his two best friends, pleading. 'Please, don't tell him. I beg you.'

The two elder vampires gave him a pitying look, 'you really love her don't you?' Lexi asked gently.

'I think so.' Stefan admitted for the first time. 'I think she's the one.'

Harry gave the younger man a comforting look, 'I won't tell him. I know he will hate me for a while but I'll deal with it. He'll probably just dagger me for a few decades.' He resigned. 'Eventually he will find out, you realise, and when he does nothing will stand in his way, not even me. I need you to be sure that you will not regret this. That you truly have feelings for her and not Katherine's lookalike.'

'I know what I'm doing Harry.' Stefan said confidently.

'I hope your right.' Lexi spoke up. 'For your sake and Elena's.'

The group of vampires sat comfortably for a while before Lexi broke the silence. 'Now that we've sorted that for now. I'm going to need you boys to leave so that I can get a shower and dressed for Stefan's big night.'

An evil smirk arrived on Harry's face, 'Oh this is going to be fun.' Before dragging the younger Salvatore away. 'To your alcohol collection.'

'Yay.' Stefan sighed defeated. No one can out drink Harry Mikaelson. No one.

The two male friends had (charitably) decided to go easy on the booze before the party while they were waiting for Lexi to finish getting ready.

As they were catching up properly, they were talking about Harry's recent trip to Belgium when Lexi walked in wearing nothing but a towel. 'My god,' she said visibly shaken. 'That is so creepy.'

The men in the room looked confused, 'What?' Stefan spoke up. 'I just met Elena. You were right, the resemblance, I had to remind myself repeatedly that that wasn't Katherine.' She walked up to Harry grabbed his glass and downed the amber liquid.

'Hey!' Harry shouted petulantly.

'God how do you handle that? 30 seconds speaking to her and I barely held of punching her.' While Lexi had never met Katherine she knew enough to hate her with a passion.

'It's easy once you realise how different they are. Katherine was cruel and vain and always had ulterior motives and told half truths. Elena is kind and funny. She cares about others the way Katherine never could.'

'Still.' Lexi didn't have much more to say. It would just take getting use to. She knew that.

'Lexi?' Harry intervened, Lexi looked to her right to see Harry looking away awkwardly from where she sat. 'You're dripping everywhere.' He pointed to the couch. She was, the floor and seat she was sitting on was soaked.

'Oh, right.' She stammered, before grinning at her oldest friends why are you looking away? Like what you see?' She teased.

'Very much so,' He said seriously catching her off guard. 'but these are antique armchairs and we have to leave in like half an hour.' He saw the slight blush on her face as she left and laughed. What a good day this was shaping up to be pretty amazing all things considered.

20 minutes later.

As the group of friends get ready to leave, Stefan suddenly runs out the door stating he was going to check on Elena, see if she wanted to go to the party.

'I guess we'll go on ahead then.' Harry surmised.

'I guess so, they grow up so damn fast don't they?' Lexi joked.

'Sweetheart, let the boy enjoy his youth. He promised he'll be back by curfew. Besides more alone time for us.' The original quipped. Wrapping an arm around his best friend as they walked to his car.

'Don't threaten me with a good time.' She grinned.

Honestly the youth these days.' He groaned shaking his fist at where Stefan had ran from.

'Come on old timer, we'll be late.'

'Fashionably late you mean. And besides, you know Mikaelsons always make a grand entrance.' He smiled before starting the engine and driving towards the grill.

(A/N the scene with Elena and Stefan is basically the same. I don't see a point in writing it)

Mystic Falls Grill

The party had been well under way by the time that Lexi and Harry had arrived. They made a b-line for the bar so that they could wait for the birthday boy. Damon was there to intercept them asking, 'Where's my brother?'

'Said hell meet us here.' Was all Lexi said before walking away, not giving Damon anymore room to talk to either of them.

'Two beers, please.' Harry said to the bar tender who nodded and left to get more bottles. They sat down and waited for their third. Chatting idly. He turned his head to see the blond girl that was talking to Elena earlier standing at the bar looking conflicted and sad. 'You okay?' He asked after noticing Lexi had gone off to shoot some pool to pass the time.

' I'm sorry?' The girl, Caroline asked rhetorically. Before turning to see an extremely handsome man before her. He looked genuinely worried for her, which surprised her. They had never met.

'I'm sorry for overstepping my bounds but as a rule I can never see a beautiful lady look upset and not try and do something about it.' He smiled kindly to which she blushed deeply. 'So I ask again, and feel free to tell me to piss off and that it is none of my business. Are you okay?'

She laughed at that, funny, charming and handsome, she thought. A deadly combination indeed. 'Truthfully?' He nodded for her to sit down, to which she did. 'No, I'm not. I sometimes feel like I'm all alone. Like I'm not in control of my own life anymore and that terrifies me. I used to throw parties like this to feel like I am in control of something, anything. But now... I'm doing it because a guy told me to. For whatever reason I can't say no either.' She teared up slightly at that and Harry just grabbed the silk handkerchief out of his pocket an handed it to her. He never stopped listening, attention completely on her.

'I used to be the same, you know. A long time ago I had felt that my entire life had been written out for me. That no matter what I did, I would always end up where they wanted me to be.' He said truthfully, a thousand years has still not been enough time to get over all that Dumbledore had done to him. Caroline looked into his emerald eyes and knew. He was telling the truth. She trusted him for some reason. 'I hated it. I hated him, for what he did. For leaving with people that he knew would hate me and all that I was.'

'What happened?' She asked curiously. She had to know.

'I died.' Harry said simply and her eyes widened. 'I came back, obviously.' He pointed to himself after. His smile faded slightly after, 'but I was different. I realised that after all he'd planned for me was done, that he would toss me aside and find another puppet.'

'So what did you do?' She didn't know if she could do what Harry did, die I mean.

'I left, started living my life by my own rules, I stopped caring what a raving old lunatic with a god complex would do and asked what I should do for the people I cared about, I have not regretted that decision yet.' He spoke so kindly to Caroline, her heart almost wept. Someone did care about how she felt. 'So,' Harry trailed off as he asked for her name, she replied;

'Caroline Forbes.'

'Well Caroline Forbes.' He smiled. 'You need to ask yourself what you would rather do, throw an, admittedly great party for a room a strangers you will probably never see again or do what makes you smile and happy to be alive surrounded by the people you love? With people who love you, just because.' He got as he saw Stefan entering the party. 'Trust me, control without joy or happiness is no way to live... This is where I must leave you Ms Forbes. I hope that I have put your head at rest.' She nodded and smiled.

'Yeah, you gave me a lot to think about...' her face fell as she realised she never got his name.

'Harry Mikaelson.' He helped as if reading her mind. 'Harry.' He insisted. He took her hand and gently kissed her knuckle. 'It's been an absolute pleasure, Ms Forbes.' He then suddenly realised something before looking deeply into her eyes, the compulsion taking effect. 'Never listen to Damon Salvatore unless you wish to. Don't let him make you do anything you don't want to. Goodbye. Have a lovely afternoon.'

Caroline awoke a second later to see her new friend walking towards Elena's boyfriend Stefan and a beautiful blonde woman standing at a pool table. She looked across the bar to find Bonnie with the necklace she had given her. "Was I supposed to do something for Damon?" She thought to herself. "Who cares." Before walking to her friend and talking the way they haven't in ages.

'Leave her alone, Damon.' The aforementioned Salvatore heard as he walked over to Caroline.

'Harry.' The elder Salvatore said. 'What seems to be to problem, 'your majesty' ?' Damon asks sarcastically. With a mock bow and everything.

'Oh nothing now. Everything is peachy keen, now that I've broken the compulsion on Caroline Forbes.' Damon sniffed at that.

'Impossible, vampires can't rewrite compulsions. Not even Originals'

'Well, you'd think but, I have a little trick. See I may not be the fastest or strong of my siblings. I am by far the best at compulsion. Dead useful when you want to take a pesky, arrogant child that turns young woman into puppets for their, "dastardly machinations" as it were, down a notch.' Harry smirked at the look on Damon's face.

snap*

The sound of a phone taking a picture and flash filled their little corner. 'Oh that is a a good one. Klaus and Rebekah will love this one. Stefan too.'

'So tell me Damon. What were you planning to use Caroline for? Hmm?' Harry started using compulsion on Damon.

Damon had tried to resist and that gave Harry the smallest inkling of respect. Barely. It didn't hold though and Damon ended up spilling all of his dirty little secrets. 'You're telling me that not only is Katherine alive but she has been desiccated for 150 years along with all the other vampires that supposedly died in the fire?'

'Yes.'

Bonnie currently holds the necklace of Emily Bennet. The only witch with information on how to open the tomb under the church which houses the vampires?'

'Yes.'

'And this necklace is what allows someone to talk to Emily?'

'Yes.'

Harry nodded at this, 'I can work with this, ok. One more thing. The only reason I am not killing you right here and now is because, I don't know if Stefan would ever forgive me. For whatever reason he still thinks you can be saved. So out of curtesy I'm going to let you live. For now. Plus I believe it is in poor taste to kill a guy on his brother's birthday.' One more compulsion and we're done. 'You will never harm my friends again. You hurt one person without my say so and I will rip out your heart out and feed it to your desiccated corpse. You kill one more person without my permission and I will torture you for the rest of time. We clear?' Damon nods his head at sonic speeds. 'Fantastic!' Harry seemed pleased. 'Forget everything we talked about other than my compulsion.'

With that Harry left to rejoin the party with Damon standing completely still. 'What the hell?' Was his only thought other than "I need a drink. A lot of them."

'What'd I miss?' Before having a great night with his two best friends. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly no drama after that.

And done. Hope you enjoyed. I didn't kill Lexi, yay. Completely underused in my opinion. But don't worry dear readersshe'll be here to stay. Honestly I'm not sure if I handledCaroline right for now. I will probably fix it later on when her character is explored more. For now though, tell me you thoughts. Spent like 4 hours on this. Still takingsuggestions for pairings, comment what you want, no Damon. Period.

See you soon

Potw