LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE EASY. Bella knew that. She knew that even when she was still just a human. Losing a mother when she was still so young, having an abusive father who even though she was never the victim of it physically was still heartbreaking to her as she had to witness her eldest brother become his victim, and not to mention the pressure to be a perfect lady that she got as she grew older. It was the hardest part of her previous life, and yet it was still much simpler than the one from her current life.

"Did you hear from Klaus?"

The question immediately snapped Bella out of her own mind when she started losing herself at the story of a woman named Anna Karenina from the book she was reading. The story dealt with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, and what made her interested in finishing that book was the first lines that started it;Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Such an intriguing, fascinating, and at the same time heartbreaking lines that really struck her as she read it, and she wasn't even sure what it meant, which was why she intended to find out.

Without taking her eyes off the book, she responded, "Not yet." Her finger moved to flip the current page she was reading as her eyes reached the last sentence there. "But we all know patience isn't one of his best traits, so I'm guessing we will hear from him sooner than we think."

"Can't you just give him one of your stakes and pretend you got it from us?"

She finally glanced up from the book, spotting her eldest brother standing in her doorway. And as usual, he was wearing his favorite leather jacket. In his hand was a luggage for the trip he was going to take.

"Do you really think Klaus would be that stupid?" She moved her legs that was rested on the armrest of the chair she was on to the floor below her and fully turned her attention to him. The corner of her lips curled into a cynical smile as she spoke again, "Besides, if I just used my stake, by the time you get the last one out of Alaric, I know you wouldn't hand it over because you're still planning to use it to whoever it is between them who didn't create our bloodline."

"I still don't get it," Damon stated, his brow knitted together. "Why are you protecting them? If this is about your blondie bestie or even your psycho ex, then you don't have to worry. They're unlinked now, and we just want to kill Klaus."

"And what happens when the rest of them seek revenge for Klaus' death?"

He fell silent at once. His face looked thoughtful, as if he hadn't thought of that possibility beforehand. And that was exactly his biggest problem. He didn't think about the consequences of his actions beforehand. He just did it, and sometimes he wasn't the only one who suffered the consequences.

Sighing, Bella stood up from the chair and placed the book on it. "Seriously, aren't you tired of all this?" she asked, stepping closer to him. "Do you really want your life to be a never-ending war?" Her hazel eyes clouded with concern and her brows were drawn together in a frown. "Hell, even I'm getting tired of itㅡof saving your life."

"Then stop saving my life," he retorted stubbornly, annoyingly.

Bella's eyes glared up at him and her voice rose as she scolded, "Then stop trying to get yourself killed!"

Damon looked away from her, and he scoffed. There was a part of him that was annoyed at being scolded by his younger sister, but there was another part that was happy to know that she wouldn't just stop caring about him.

"We're leaving in fifteen minutes," he informed, deliberately switching the subject. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

"Cut the crap, Damon." Bella groaned and rolled her eyes. "I know you don't want me to come anyway."

"Can you stop being such a negative nancy?" grumbled Damon, rolling his eyes as well. "I even already booked a ticket in your name because I thought you might've really missed your little boyfriend."

"Then why you asked Elena to come too? You know how I feel about her."

"I didn't. It was Stefan."

It was Bella's turn to fall silent. Damon had invited her to go with him to pick up Jeremy in Denver since apparently Klaus had sent someone to spy on him there. In addition to that, Damon also wanted to find out who created their bloodline by using Jeremy's ability to communicate with ghosts. Bella might have been against the idea of trying to find out who created their bloodline, because she knew exactly what they would do with that information, but since she also wanted to meet Jeremy, she decided to go along. But that was, until, she found out that Elena would come along.

Bella didn't think she could stand a trip with Elena without wanting to strangle her to death every second. And she thought it was Damon who invited Elena, but it turned out she was wrong.

It was really weird for Stefan to do that, because to Bella's knowledge, he had returned to being the good ol' boy and she had thought that he would try to get the girl he loved back. Sending Elena on a trip with Damon definitely wasn't the right way to get her back, not when it was clear that Bella would have chose to bail on the trip because of it. But after thinking about it from the good Stefan's point of view, Bella finally could see the reason behind it.

"Look," Bella began after a moment of silent, "I've been trying to ignore your petty love triangle, and to be honest I don't really care about it, but please," she gave her brother a pleading look, "just please, don't let your feelings for her come between our family."

She had done everything she could to keep their family intact. But if Damon and Stefan didn't do the same thing, all her efforts would just be a waste.

"You don't have to worry," he assured her, his lips held a faint smile and his blue eyes twinkled. "No matter what happens, you and Stefan will always be my top priority."

A tender smile spread over her mouth and spilled into her eyes. "Good."

And as Damon finally left to Denver, she spent the rest of the night reading and falling asleep on the lounge chair in her room. She only woke up the next day when her phone buzzed.

It was Rebekah, and she wanted Bella to go back to school and help her with the decade dances that would be held this friday night. But Bella had to say no as she still needed to get the stake out of Alaric in order to seal the deal with Klaus and also to ensure their safety.

They had been keeping Alaric on their dungeon for three days in the hopes that he would morph into his crazy self and reveal where he had hidden the white oak stake. However, to this day, there was still no sign of Alaric's crazy self.

And as she decided to check up on the history teacher once again, instead of finding his crazy self, Bella found him and her brother drinking and chatting casually, showing that he was still his sane self.

"I assume this means Evilaric still too shy to come out and play?" Bella said, in a tone dripping with sarcasm. This made them immediately turn to her, and while Stefan let out a heavy sigh as an answer, Alaric just lowered his head. She scoffed, and stepped closer. "Can we try my method now?"

Stefan stood up and motioned to the chair he was on earlier. "Please."

Bella smiled merrily at her brother as she sat herself down. "Relax, Ric," she taunted, turning to the teacher and noticing the wary look he was giving her. "It's not like I'm going to eat you alive."

"Then what are you gonna do?" Alaric responded, still looking wary but also curious.

"Well... your alter ego was a vampire hater," she pointed out, shrugging. "So why don't we just give him some bad vampire examples, the thing he hated the most? Who knows he would come out straight away."

Without further ado, she began to tell him about the most sadistic murders she had ever committed.

The horror was evident on Ric's face as Bella continued from one story to another without a single pause. What was even more terrifying was that she was telling it lightly and cheerfully, as if there was nothing disturbing from it. Even Stefan who was also listening cringed up several times.

"And, oh, I almost forgot about this married couple I met in 1975. They pretended to be sweet and nice to me, telling me that I reminded them with their late daughter. But it turned out, they never had a daughter. They just wanted to throw me off guard so they could vervain me, because somehow they found out what I was... and they wanted to hand me over to a vampire hunter. What they didn't know was, I've been sipping vervain every single day for the last 72 years. It was really easy for me to turn the tables around. And, after bleeding them of vervain, I compelled the wife to poke out one of her hubbie's eyeballs and eat it. Then, I compelled the husband to cut off one of his wifey's fingers and eat it. After thatㅡ"

"Okay, stop, stop!" Alaric exclaimed, unable to hold on any longer with all the images of the sadistic murders popping up in his mind because of Bella's story. "I don't think it works."

"Well then..." Bella gritted her teeth, and a sadistic smile appeared on her face as she began to lose her patience, "perhaps we should give him a little demonstration." Slowly, the sclera of Bella's eyes started to turn blood-red while dark veins appeared under her eyes. Her canine teeth extended into razor-sharp fangs, and she lunged out of the chair towards Alaric. But before she could sink her fangs into the skin of his neck, Stefan had grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away from him.

"Hey, knock it off!" the male Salvatore scolded.

Bella rolled her eyes and hid back her vampire face. "Buzzkill," she grunted to her brother, glancing over at Alaric who was staring at her in shock. She flashed an innocent smile at the local hunter before leaving.

Her phone suddenly buzzed again for the second time that day, but this time it was from Damon. And without stop walking, she clicked the accept button and brought the phone to her ear.

"Guess who Jeremy just introduced to us as his new friend?"

A small frown formed on Bella's face at his opening question. "Who?"

"Your psycho ex."

Her steps suddenly stopped, and her eyes widened in horror. "Heㅡwhat now?" Her mouth dropped open, and disbelief crossed her features.

"Yeah, even I found his obsession with you a little creepy."

She closed her eyes for a moment and quietly cursed under her breath. That bastard. No wonder he didn't want to tell her where he was.

"Where are you right now?" she asked again after taking a deep breath to calm herself down.

"Corner of somewhere and nowhere where Kol won't be able to find us," he answered smugly."Don't worry, your little boyfriend is safe with me."

But her brother just didn't know how dangerous and ruthless Kol could be when dealing with his enemies.

"I'm going there," she stated firmly.

"No, you don't need to. Just stay there and help Stefan withㅡ"

And, she hung up on him.

There was no way she would let them deal with Kol alone.

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT by the time she finally caught up with them. But the trio were no longer in Denver. Instead they were in Kansas, in an old, abandoned-looking house owned by a centuries old vampire named Mary Porter. It was Jeremy who gave her the address since apparently Damon was against the idea of her catching up with them while Kol had been ignoring her calls ever since she found out what he had been up to.

She pulled over beside another car in the driveway of the house, and as her eyes met Jeremy's who was waiting in the backseat of that car alone, Jeremy quickly followed her out of the car.

"Jer."

"Hey!"

They trotted into each other, and he clamped his arms around her waist while she wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging each other tightly. For a moment, the couple seemed to be enjoying themselves. Jeremy was enjoying the sensation of her in his arms as much as he was there to comfort her.

"Well, isn't it cozy?"

They quickly pulled themselves from the hug as they heard that voice, and when they turned to where the voice came from, they found Kol standing around ten feet away from them. He was holding a baseball bat with one hand, and his jaw clenched. There was a dangerous glint in his brown eyes as he stared at them.

Bella stiffened, and she slowly stepped in front of Jeremy without taking her eyes off Kol. "Jeremy, please get back to the car," she ordered, causing Kol to stare at her flatly with the corners of his lips twitching in displeasure.

"No, it's okay," the Gilbert responded, refusing to leave his girlfriend to deal with the original all alone. He stepped forward next to her with a wary gaze fixed on Kol. "I have my ring on me."

"Good for you, mate," Kol remarked, shifting his gaze to Jeremy. A devilish smirk appeared on his face. "Because that only means I can do this." Then, without any warning, he vamp-sped towards Jeremy.

But before he could get to the Gilbert boy, Bella had flashed herself between them, forcing him to stop in his tracks just an inch away from her. Bella shot him a glare, and with a warning tone, she ordered, "Back. The hell. Off."

At first, Kol didn't back down. There was no change of expression on his face even when his eyes met hers. But then, his gaze slowly softened, and a small chuckled escaped his mouth as his lips twisted into an amused smile. "Relax, darling," he teased, "I was just messing around." Stepping back, there was a wicked gleam in his brown eyes as he took a glance at Jeremy.

A frown rolled over Bella's face as Kol turned around and started walking away. What game was he playing?

"And, uh," Kol suddenly stopped as he remembered something, "I apologize for not picking up your calls." He had his body half-turn towards them, and his gaze fell on Bella. A mile-wide grin broke across his face as he explained, "You see, I've been busy stopping your brothers from finding out which one of my siblings they should kill next. But if you still want to talk, just text me when and where. I will be happy to meet you anytime and anywhere." And, after sending her a playful wink, he disappeared into the night.

Bella's frown deepened into a scowl as she could feel Jeremy's confused gaze from behind her. Of course Kol would try something like this. She should have seen this coming.

"What was that?" Jeremy voiced his confusion at the same time Damon and Elena walked out of the house. There was bloodstained on Elena's forehead, and Damon's face looked like he had just been beaten, which kind of explained what Kol just did there. Bella really wanted to be mad at Kol for what he did to her brother, but she couldn't, because she knew what Damon had done to him first.

Damon narrowed his eyes sharply as he stepped closer to his sister. "Didn't I tell you not to come?"

Bella rolled her eyes at the question. Damon might be her brother, but she still didn't like it when someone told her what she could and she couldn't do. She turned to Jeremy and finally responded to his previous question, "I'll explain everything on the way." And as she climbed back into her car, she quickly followed by Jeremy who climbed into the passenger seat after shooting his sister a look that said I'm leaving with her whether you like it or not.

It seemed that Bella chose the right time to explain to Jeremy about her previous relationship with Kol since she could easily avoid Jeremy's gaze by looking down at the road. She was the one who was driving after all.

"So Kol is your ex?" Jeremy concluded, with a hint of disbelief on his face.

"From like over a century ago," Bella confirmed, trying to make that sound like it wasn't a big deal.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Didn't I just tell you?"

"I mean, before this."

She knew exactly what he meant, she just pretended not to.

"Three reasons," she finally answered, and took a deep breath, "First, I didn't see how it was relevant because like I said earlier he was my ex from over a century ago. Second, I didn't feel like discussing this thing via text massage or phone call. And third, you weren't supposed to know about the chaos in Mystic Falls."

Jeremy was silent for a moment. The wrinkles on his face showed that he was still processing the information.

Taking a glance at him, Bella breathed a heavy sigh. "Look, I'm sorry." She bit her lower lip, and went on, "I've tried to keep you as a secret from him so he wouldn't targeting you. But Rebekah or Klaus must have told him."

"So he still has feelings for you then," he observed, looking more confused at how he should react to that.

Without taking her eyes off the road, she nonchalantly responded, "Does it matter?"

"It does, if you still have feelings for him too." His eyes then narrowed at her as he questioned, "Do you?" His face looked a little worried when he waited for her answer.

She rolled her eyes, and scoffed, "Do I look like I still have feelings for him?"

"Honestly, I don't know." He shifted his gaze from her, and he frowned. "Sometimes you're just unreadable."

"If you're worried about me dumping you for him, then don't be," she spoke softly, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. "Because if I wanted to go back to him, I would have done that a century ago."

Jeremy's brow furrowed as he tried to remember something. "Wasn't he like stuck in a coffin at the time?"

"Actually, he was daggered in 1914. So, no, he was still roaming free a century ago," Bella corrected, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "The point is... I had every chances to go back to him, but I didn't, because I didn't want to." Her stomach suddenly felt tight, and she licked her dry lips. "Because it didn't work out between us."

The hurt look on her face as she said the last sentence didn't go unnoticed by Jeremy. "May I know why you two broke up?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Bella replied sternly, her gaze turning cold.

He could easily sense something was wrong, but he didn't want to force her to tell him if she didn't want to.

"Okay, then, can we talk about us?" he suggested, staring at her meaningfully. "I've missed you."

Bella took another glance at him, and her face slowly softened into a smile that invaded her eyes. "I've missed you too, Jer."

They began to talk some more, and in between the conversations, she asked if Kol had ever done something bad to him when he pretended to his friend. However, when Jeremy said no, Bella didn't just believe it. And to prove her suspicions, she tried to compel him. And it worked, which only meant Kol really had done something to him.

Her resentment for Kol overthrew her fatigue from the hour-long drive from Kansas to Mystic Falls. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind as soon as possible, so after dropping Jeremy off at his house, she asked Kol to meet her at the clearing by Wickery Falls.

By the time Bella arrived there, Kol was already there. The brown-haired original was sitting comfortably on the hood of his car that Bella didn't know he had. To her knowledge, he didn't even know how to drive.

When Bella climbed out of her car after stopping it right in front of his, he greeted with a grin playing across his face, "Hello there."

After slamming her door shut, Bella walked over to him with angry steps. "What is wrong with you?" she began, eyes narrowed sharply. "Pretending to be Jeremy's friend? Really? Was it that hard to accept the fact that I've moved on?"

The grin slowly left Kol's face when he realized the reason behind her request to meet. "What is wrong with you?" he retorted, his tone was sharp. "If I remember correctly you didn't think a mortal and an immortal were meant to be together. That's why you wanted to leave me that night." A dry chuckle escaped his lips, and he stared at her sarcastically. "But here you are, now as an immortal, dating a mortal."

For a moment Bella stared at him in disbelief ㅡthen her eyes flared with renewed anger. "Do you even know why I was against the idea of a mortal and an immortal being together? Oh yeah, that's right, you don't. Because you didn't even give me a chance to explain. You just did as you pleased, you just decided on your own what to do with my life as if it was yours and not mine."

There was a change of expression on Kol's face for a brief moment, as if he was admitting it was wrong of him to do that, but he quickly covered it with a poker face.

"A mortal would die someday, and an immortal wouldn't," she spoke again, revealing the one thing she wanted to say to him over a century ago. "Losing someone you loved was the hardest thing in the world to deal with. It was the kind of pain that you felt all over your body, the pain that would never go away, the worst kind of suffering. And even worse, for an immortal this suffering would last for eternity." Her gaze then softened. "I didn't want you to go through that, Kol." She breathed deeply. "But in my case with Jeremy, I would be the one to go through that. And that's okay, I'm okay with that."

"Well, in our case now, no one has to go through that," he pointed out, his face was dead serious and his brown eyes twinkled suggestively.

"That's just the thing, isn't it? There's no our case anymore."

It came out harsher than she intended to, but she couldn't take that back. She didn't want to. She didn't want to give him a false hope about them.

"And if I haven't made myself clear, I think I'm gonna say this out loud now," she went on, and took a step forward. "I will never go back to you."

He winced at her words as his heart sank, and for a moment he struggled to keep his face straight. But giving up on her wasn't an option, especially not when it was clear she still had feelings for him too.

"Careful, darling," he responded, an ever-present smirk was on his face. "You know how much I love a good chase." His teasing tone was obvious, leaving her speechless. "And it would be my greatest pleasure to make you take your own words back."

Disbelief crossed her features, and she shook her blonde head. Realizing that there was no use in talking him out of trying to rekindle their relationship, she decided to leave. But just as she was about to back away, he quickly grabbed her arm.

"Let go of my hand, Kol," she ordered sternly while glaring at him.

But he ignored it and continued to hold her arm. "You're the one who asked to meet and now you're just leaving?"

"I have nothing else to say to you."

"That's too bad because I still have plenty."

"And I don't want to hear it." Gritting her teeth, Bella yanked her arm away from him and flounced back to her car.

Kol groaned. "Are you really going to ignoring the fact that you're linked to me?" he exclaimed, making Bella, who had just opened her car door, stopped abruptly. "That if I die, you would die too? Because you may have all the last remaining stakes that could kill meㅡ kill us, but there's still a very powerful witch out there, trying to find another way to end our life."

Stefan had informed her that he had succeeded in getting Alaric to inform them the location of the last stake and that now it was with Klaus, who most likely destroyed it right away. This only meant that the last remaining white oak stakes were with her. That should have meant they were safe now that Bella wouldn't let it fall into the wrong hands, but even before the existence of the new white oak tree was discovered, the original witch had found a way to kill them. And even though the witch didn't succeed, there was a high chance that she would find another way to do that.

"It isn't over, darling," Kol continued, flashing himself right in front of her. "And I think it's time for us to join forces." He leaned himself against the hoot of her car. His head was tilted to the side, and he watched her think it over with a lopsided smile. "What do you say, hm?"

A/n : So I checked the tvd wiki and found that there was a span of four days from this episode's timeline to the next one. That's why I'm gonna use it to give more of Bella and Kol interaction as they join forces. Who wants to see them as a team? xD