A/N: Episodes three and four are smushed together in this one. Hope that's cool!

Chapter Three

Alexandra

"Just take it slow, Elena."

"Two days ago you're telling me to go for it, now your telling me to slow down? Make up your mind Bonnie Bennett."

"I have, it's saying, take it slow Elena." We were walking to the front doors of the school across the field when Elena suddenly came up with an idea.

"Have dinner with us tonight. It'll be fun. Jenna is going out tonight and I'm sure Jeremy will be gone. It'll be me, you, Stefan, and Alexandra. It's going to be fun. Come on, come."

"Fine." Elena smiles and throws her arm around Bonnie's shoulders.

"We are going to have so much fun!"

"I still don't think it's a good idea that you date him."

"Elena, it's the first time you've been single since freshman year," I say trying to get through to her, for Bonnie's sake.

"And you've been single since freshman year."

"Don't change the subject. But I do have to go find Caroline. She's not picking up and she's going to be late if she doesn't get her ass in gear. See you in history." They both nod and I walk away, trying to call Caroline again.

After class, the whole school was talking about the throw Tyler made to Stefan, his incredible catch and the throw back, making Tyler step back a couple times. It was a perfect spiral and Elena finally got him to try and join the football team.

The first cheer practice of the year is today. Elena and I caught up with Bonnie as she was stretching.

"You two made it!"

"We did," I answer.

"Care is still not here. Where is she?" Bonnie tries calling her when I see her pull up in a blue camero. It was a nice one. 1969, light blue, convertable, perfection. "Who is that?"

"That is Damon Salvatore."

"Salvatore? As in Stefan?" I nod. Caroline kisses Damon and gets out.

As she passes, she says, "I got the other brother, hope you don't mind," to Elena. I look at Damon and his eyes are roaming over my body, his face serious. His eyes stop on my legs, well more precisely, my knees. He sees how scratched they are from the practice already. He frowns when he sees them and then drives away. Why did he care?

Elena and I screwed up the routine so much because we missed camp this summer so Caroline told us to sit out today, but it was in a rude way, which I didn't appreciate. Elena watched Stefan play football and I went back to the locker room and got changed into my school clothes.

At dinner, I was pouring the fresh made pasta into a bowl and the sauce in too. I mixed it together and set it on the table along with the salad.

"You're such a good cook," Bonnie says.

"Thank you. Now on with your story about the numbers."

"So today, I'm obsessed with the numbers eight, fourteen, and twenty-two. How weird is that?"

"Maybe we should play the lottery," Elena says in all seriousness. We laugh and Bonnie looks at us, the look saying it isn't funny. "Have you talked to Grams?"

"No, all she'll tell me is to accept it and embrace it. I don't want to be a witch. Do you want to be a witch?"

"I don't want to be a witch," I say. Elena agrees with me.

There's a knock at the door and it's Stefan. She invites him in and we sit down to eat.

"Did Tanner give you a hard time today?"

"He let me on the team, so I must have done something right."

"Good!" She says. "Did you hear about this morning Bonnie? Stefan caught this ball..."

"Yeah I know. I heard."

"Why don't you tell Stefan about your family?"

"Uh, divorced. Live with my dad."

"I think she meant about the witches," I say, taking another bite of the pasta I made. I've always been the cook in the family.

Stefan was interested in the subject. "She comes from a lineage of Salem witches," Elena starts explaining. "It's really cool."

"Cool isn't the word I'd use."

"It's certainly interesting," Stefan says, engaging Bonnie in witch talk. The doorbell rings and I get up while the rest of them sat, still talking.

"Caroline? Damon? What are you doing here?"

"We heard you were doing dinner, so we brought dessert."

"Hope you don't mind," Damon says, smirking. Stefan and Elena came up behind me and Stefan asked what Damon was doing here. "Waiting for Alexandra to invite me in."

"Oh yeah..."

"No, you've got to leave, don't you?"

"No, I'm here to stay."

"Come on in Damon." I open the door a little wider and let him pass. He lightly brushes against my arm but I ignore the goosebumps that form because of the current flowing through.

"You have a beautful home, Alexandra."

"Thank you," I say with pride. We sat around on the couch and on the chairs and talked. Caroline and Elena got into an estrogen war and Bonnie eventually caved and defended Elena. Damon told a story about his and Stefan's past, about how they've watched everyone they care about die. It was tragic.

I got up and washed the dishes. Damon walked in and holding a glass.

"One more glass." He was handing it to me when it dropped. He caught it gracefully and I clapped a couple times and laughed.

"Great catch. Thank you for the glass."

"I like you, you know how to laugh." He went to the other side of the dish washer and helped me put the dishes in.

"Earlier, were you talking about Katherine?" He nodded. "If you don't mind me asking, how did she die?"

"Fire, tragic fire," his tone is sad.

"Recently?"

"Seems like it was yesterday." I hand him a plate and he puts it in the dish washer.

"What was she like?"

"Beautiful," he answers somewhat quickly. "A lot like you in that department. She was complicated, selfish, and at times not very nice, but she was sexy and seductive." He put another plate into the dish washer.

"So which one of you dated her first?" I handed him another plate.

"Ask Stefan. I'm sure his answer differs from mine." He closes the dishwasher and I turn to the island. I start folding the place mats and he turns to help also. "Quit cheerleading."

I was taken aback. "Why do you say that?"

"Because you looked miserable. Plus your knees are badly scratched up. It's not going to get better if you don't quit."

"You saw that?" He nods. "I used to love it. It used to be fun. But since things went down hill, things that used to matter, just don't."

"Quit, move on. Problem solved. Ta-da!" He says with a smile. I laugh.

"It could matter." I pause and fold one more place mat. "I'm sorry." I say. He looks at me and murmurs what. "About Katherine." I place my hand on top of his. "You lost her too." There was a long look that passed between us that I didn't want to break.

We finished folding and when Elena came in, she didn't stay for long because everything was already finished. She walked out but it took Damon and I a little longer.

"Allie," I turned and looked at him. "Thank you. About Katherine. You were right." I gave him a soft smile and nodded.

He called me Allie. No one gave me a nickname unless it was Elena and Jeremy when they were kids and refused to say Alexandra so they said Al.

I made it to bed and it was nice to sleep. Though I had this odd dream where I was in my room, doing homework, and it was pretty late but who really cares? I had to get it done before class the next day. But my door burst open and Damon strides in. Before anything could happen I woke up. It was a slow process. I didn't sit up, covered in sweat, panting. I just woke up gracefully. And very confused.

I go to my bathroom and get some water. The walking sure helps my headache that is coming on. I lean against the door frame of the bathroom and look at my window. A large crow is sitting there, in my open window. I could have sworn I shut that. It starts cawing. I put my glass down and tell it to shut up and that people are sleeping. It doesn't, of course. I shoo it out of my window and shut it. Sighing, I make my way to my bed again and fall back asleep.

The morning comes sooner than I would have liked. I get up and look at the cheer uniform that Elena has set out on my desk. I sigh and pick it up.

" 'Lena. I'm not cheering any more." I hand it back to her.

"Neither am I. I just thought that you might want to since you loved cheering." She takes it and places it with her's in it's bag. We are going to return them to Caroline.

"You did too."

"Well I quit. I'm a quitter."

The day flies by. We give our uniforms back and just barely escape the wrath of Caroline. Elena and I do end up going to the football game later that evening. Caroline finds us and is about to yell at us for quitting but Stefan comes up, saving us, and askes why we weren't wearing our uniforms. Caroline decides to take this one into her own hands.

"They quit. Can you believe it? They actually quit!"

"Sorry Care," I tell her. She throws her hands up and walks away. She'll get over it.

"Look at you, you look hot in your jearsey," Elena compliments, smiling.

"Thanks but you quit?"

"Yeah, we're quitters."

"No you both are not quitters. You two suffered a great loss. You're not the same people anymore. You should be looking ahead and starting over."

"Such wise words Stefan. You should be the school councelor," I joke.

He chuckles. "Not that wise Alexandra." He turns and gets a box out of his pocket. "I hope you don't think this is too soon." He opens the box and pulls out a gorgeous necklace.

"Not at all," Elena says. "Do I smell rose? Alexandra, smell." I did. And it did smell like rose, yet it didn't it was almost a mixture. "What is it?"

"It's a special herb. It's nice, huh?"

"I love it." She looks at him and kisses him. So they've already had their first kiss? Whoa man. She never told me. "Come on guys, Mr. Tanner is giving his yearly speech." We all stand around and listen. We observe the cheerleaders, oops, and the football players.

"Let's give it up to Stefan Salvatore!" Mr. Tanner exclaims. We all clap, except for the cheerleaders, they wave their pom poms and cheer. I see Jeremy walking away from the crowd, didn't know he was there, and Tyler Lockwood, that guy who is currently seeing Vicky and the one guy Jeremy hates. I ignore it until I hear Vicky yelling at them to stop fighting. It's stupid of me, but I do try and intervene. Jeremy usually listens to me.

"Jeremy, stop right now," Elena and I say at the same time. I almost chuckle but I stop myself as soon as Tyler pulls his arm back, hitting my temple with his elbow and as I put my hands out, Jeremy slices my hand with a broken beer bottle he found to try and fight Tyler off. Wow, just bad luck today. I'm embarassed when I get up. Stefan got in the middle and stop the two from fighting any longer.

"My God, Alexandra." Elena rushes over and helps me up.

"I'm good, I'm good." I get up. "I'll be at the car." She nods and helps Stefan control Jeremy and Tyler.

I get to the car and reach in the back for the first aid kit. I turned back around to sit in the back and came face to face with those deep blues again.

"What happened?" He asks, confused at my bleeding hand.

"Intervened in a fight." I place the gauze pad on my hand and reached for the tape.

"Here, let me." He sits and takes my hand, putting the tape on it. With my free hand, I reach for the ice pack and hold it to my temple. I sigh with relief. The cold feels great on my aching head.

"So what are you doing here?"

"Hiding from Caroline."

"Why?"

"I needed a break, she talks more than I can listen." He smirks at me. "All done."

"Thank you." I stay sitting. "That could be a sign."

"Well she's awfully young."

"Not much younger than you."

"In the bigger picture, it's just not going to work itself out. I think she'd drive me crazy." He chuckles. And I can laugh too. I honestly know what he means. But in reality, I favor Caroline over Bonnie sometimes and vise versa.

"I get it. But I've delt with her for forever." There's a pause in our conversation. It's not awkward. Or at least, I don't think it's awkward.

"I'm sorry if I make you feel uncomfortable." He saw my shift away from him? "It's not my intention."

"Yes it is." I stand.

"You're right, I do have other intentions. But so do you."

"How do you mean?" He stands.

"I get to you. You find yourself drawn to me. You think about me when you don't want to think about me. I bet you've even dreamed about me." How the hell does he know that? I never told anyone. "And right now," he looks away for a second then back to my eyes, that's when I look away. "You want to kiss me."

"You might be right about the first part, but what the hell?" I slap him hard across the face. "I don't know what game you're trying to play, but let's get this straight," I lean close to his face and say, "I am not Katherine. Get that out of your head now before I whip your ass." I slam the door to the back of the truck and walk away, holding the ice pack to my head, hoping to enjoy the rest of my night.

But of course that doesn't happen. Because of the stress of finding out that Tanner had been killed by an animal, I go home. The attacks are getting closer to home. Besides, the question wracking my brain is, why does Damon care if I get hurt or not. He was upset when he saw me hurt tonight. I fall asleep writing in my diary.

I wake up not much later when I feel a feather light touch on my cheek. It was a gesture of affection. Must have been Elena or Jeremy saying good night.

A few mornings later, Elena and I are standing at the table overhearing Jenna saying, "Scum ball, scum bucket."

"Who are you talking to?"

"The news guy." 'The animal terrorising Mystic Falls has been caught. It has been caught.'

"Also known as Logan Scumfell. Did your mom ever tell you why I moved away from Mystic Falls?"

"No way! You and him?" I say.

"He's cute," Elena says, smirking.

Aunt Jenna turns to us with a look of disgust on her face. "Not cute. There is nothing cute about him." She shuts off the TV. "What are you doing with that any how?"

"Alexandra got it from the safey deposit box yesterday because Mrs. Lockwood wanted it for The Founder's Council heritage display."

"Is that Grandma Beth's wedding ring?" Aunt Jenna asks, picking it up and playing with it.

"It was originally great great Grandma Mary's wedding ring," Elena says. Wow, look at you smarty pants.

"How much do you think this stuff is worth on Ebay?" Jeremy asks, all of the sudden right behind me, peering over my shoulder.

"You're not going to find out," I tell him.

"That's mom and dad's stuff. You can't just give it away."

I turned and looked at Jeremy. "Jer," his eyes meet mine. "It's a loan, don't worry. We are going to get it back." He sighs and we heard a doorbell. I get my tea from the table and go upstairs, hoping to avoid Elena and Stefan.

Tyler came by a little later. We still hadn't talked since he elbowed me in the temple. "Alexandra, I'm so sorry about that."

"It's done and over with." I hand him the box and Jeremy pops up behind me.

"Don't break it, dick."

"Jeremy shut up," I tell him. "Don't need you getting in another fight cause I don't need to get hurt again." I shove him inside and as I'm about to close the door, I say, "be careful, please." He nods and walks away. "Jer! Learn to refrain from getting into fights, got it?" He rolls his eyes and walks away leaving me alone at the bottom of the stairs.

"Delicate Flower or Naughty Vixen?" Bonnie asks, holding up two nail polishes. One pink and the other a dark purple.

"Tough call," Elena starts. "Can we mix them?"

"Look at you getting all pretty for your date. You seem happy-ish," Bonnie says.

"I am-ish. Tonights going to be a good night. But don't let that stop you from say what you've wanted to say since you walked through that door."

"What if I tell you in the morning? I don't want to ruin your night."

"Out with it." I say.

"It goes straight in the vault, got it?" We nod. "Turns out Stefan has an interesting back story. Do you know what happened with his ex, Katherine?"

"We know they both dated her," Elena says.

"Only she chose Damon and that drove Stefan mad. He did terrible things to try and break them up. He manipulated Katherine, filled her head with lies till it worked, she ended things with Damon."

"That sounds like Damon's side."

"Just wanted you to know." We nod and continue to get ready.

"Why did you take it?" I ask Jeremy after getting off the phone with Mrs. Lockwood.

"Because it's supposed to be mine," his voice was getting louder. "Dad says it goes to the first born son."

"Sh, Jer. Mom promised Mrs. Lockwood. What do you want me to do?"

"I don't want you to give it to her. It's mine and I would never sell this. Okay?" He says to me. I run my hand over his hair and cup his cheek.

"I get that. Can we please just have it for the display? Just for tonight. I'll bring it right back to you."

"No."

"Okay. That's your decision. I'll respect that." I place the watch back on his desk, kiss the top of his head, and walk away.

And The Founder's celebration is upon us. I walk in and I see everything is flowing smoothly just like always Mrs. Lockwood always does her best with these.

"Alexandra, honey!" I hear Mrs. Lockwood calling. I turn. "Did you find the pocket watch?"

"I didn't, I'm sorry. Maybe it's here? Maybe it was misplaced? I'm sorry. I never found it."

She fakes her smile. "It's alright. Maybe next year."

"Maybe." I walk away and head to the heritage display where I find Elena and Stefan entering as well. " 'Lena, Stefan." They turned and smiled when they saw me coming. Elena looked beautiful in her light pink and orange floral dress. I had a thin strap, tight-fitting at the bust and flowy at the bottom, royal purple dress on. My brown hair was down, flowing every which way. I wore this dress to all of the small Founder's events.

"Hey, coming to look at the heritage?"

"I was coming to look at the registery. I heard it was filled with names that we would recognize." We all went to see it. I was shocked. "Is that Stefan Salvatore? And Damon too?"

"The original Salvatore brothers." Damon says, waltzing in with Caroline on his arm. Damon tells us the prequeal to the story of the two Salvatore brothers. Caroline, being the active person that she is, grabs Stefan's hand and leads him to the dance floor and proceeds to dance with him out in the main room.

For some reason, Stefan really doesn't want to get into the story of their ancestors. Elena goes to find Bonnie and it's just Damon and I. "I want to apologize, first off, for being such a world class jerk for the other night. It was no excuse. My therapist says I'm acting out. Punishing Stefan."

"For?"

"It's all in the past. I don't even want to bring it up. But let's just say all the men in the Salvatore line has been cursed with sibling rivalry. It all started with the original two brothers." He pauses and looks to his own heritage set up. "Salvatores are practically royalty in this town. With the battle..."

I cut him off. "Battle of Willow Creek. I know. We are learning about it now in history. Confederates fired on a church with civilians inside."

"What the history books left out was that those people were believed to be Union sympathizers. They weren't there by accident." There was a pregnant pause. "Stefan and Damon had someone in that church that they loved very much. And when they went to rescue her, they were shot in cold blood." He sounds angry and sad at the same time.

"Who?"

"A woman.. I guess. Doesn't it always come down to the love of a woman." I gave him a sad smile.

"Damon, I'm sorry that you and Stefan have this family problem but Elena and I cannot get in the middle of it. I'm sorry and I really hope that you two can figure this out without Elena and I." I place my hand on his shoulder and then looked down and walked away.

I skip out on the rest of the party action early and go home to lay down. Man, what a day.