04: I Can Turn You Around.

Not a damn person was allowed in that basement. Not Zina when she returned, not Elena, not Jeremy, only Damon. Multiple times a day he would be up and down the stairs with clothes, notebooks, snacks, liquor, you name it. He wouldn't tell anyone how Nova was doing when they asked, only that he had the situation handled from there on out. Zina continuously urged that it was of great importance but Damon told her to back off. On the very last day of Elena being home before venturing off to Whitmore she was grabbing a few miscellaneous things from the Boarding House. Caroline had joined her and Zina remained in the library reading. All three of the female vampires heard the cell door open again and paid no mind until they also heard heels clicking their way down the hall and up the stairs. They all raced into the living room as Damon emerged from the basement door with Nova in tow.

At times he had started to think her humanity was seeping through in that basement. He spent so much time with her again it had felt nice. He surprised her by smoking with her on more than one occasion again, both weed and even a few cigarettes, and she was so docile it was like nothing ever changed. They would smile and laugh at inside jokes when no one else could hear. She would relax curled up to him again. But deep down Damon knew better, he just didn't care anymore. He realized he couldn't blame Zarya for wanting to stay by Dean's side even though he was a demon. As long as you were by the side of the person you loved.

"N-Nova!" Caroline stammered out first.

"Yes, Barbie, it's me," the slightly older Romanian quipped back before bee-lining to the bottle of whiskey on the table. "Alert the media because the queen is back again. Not guilty; no guillotine for me today." She smirked.

"Damon," Elena started off slowly, "what's going on? You haven't said anything in almost two weeks."

"Well obviously I think Nova is well enough to not be some caged animal," came Damon's daunting answer. "She's fine. We have a lot to deal with with archangels on our plate. Nova is a better ally than prisoner."

"See what good behavior gets you?" Nova smirked over her glass before drinking the liquor it contained. "Now," her gaze wafted slowly towards her sister, "how, on this gods damned and bleeding Earth are you lively to terrorize me when Bon-Bon closed the veil?"

Without anyone noticing, a glint of red flashed through Zina's dark eyes before she mimicked her twin's smirk with a hand on her hip. "Come now, sister, do you truly think so lowly of me?" She jostled the hand not on her hip around, flaunting her ruby bracelet. "Death dances silently in everyone's shadow. And she doesn't give a damn. Why give a damn about her?"

Nova set her glass down on the table and the two sisters approached one another. The other three vampires in the room held their breaths and watched with deep anticipation. None of them could guess how the interaction would go.

"Why give a damn about you, soră mai mică? Why have you come back to personally terrorize me in the flesh?"

"I have been waiting on my revival since the day Niklaus ripped my beating heart from my chest. I have always known who I was just as Katherine did. While seeing your face in person makes me want to just break it over and over again as it heals, it can wait until we fend off the angels wanting our heads and the others wanting out bodies."

"How do I know any word that escapes your mouth at this very moment is anything of truth? You coaxed me nearly to my death while I was under the hunter's curse and you have done nothing but make attempts on my life since then."

"You are my sister, Nova. My twin. We were damned from the start and mother dearest knew that. You are mine to kill if anyone will and until I'm allowed such a fight I have no choice but to stand beside you. In the entire history of our blood not a single pair of twins have been able to coexist."

Nova quirked a brow when she understood where her sister was headed. "You want to work together through the curse of the twins? For what?"

"We have a common goal - we don't want to be Remiel's puppets. Lucifer has Zarya right now as we speak, or bicker. Angels continue to hunt us under Michael's direct orders from eons ago. Remiel is hunting down those closest to her blood first and foremost. That's generally the girls whose eyes light up nice shades of purple when their power gets going. Kind of like how yours turn violet." Her head tilted to the side. "What about you wouldn't Remiel want after Runa wears away? It's not like Zarya is going to say 'yes' with good reason anytime soon."

Besides, she thought darkly, she's under Lucifer's wings too. He's the only one who can cut through her.

The sisters were silent for a long while just staring down one another. Finally, Nova smirked and held her hand out to Zina. Everyone realized when they saw her nails that Damon must have helped her fix and paint them again. "Let's build an empire and crush some angels then, soră mai mică."

Zina's brows raised with a brief wave of surprise before she mirrored her sister's smirk and took her hand. As soon as their fleshes touched their eyes briefly illuminated their hibiscus and violet. Neither of them actually trusted the other, knowing they had to be up to something. Once they let go, each of them took a chair beside one another and looked to the latter three. Elena, Damon, and Caroline kept looking between the two with astonishment and, quite frankly, fear. Either of them could snap or be plotting something at any time. Looking between the twins they found it difficult to differentiate. If Nova's hair hadn't been cut and they didn't dress so drastically different, they could almost be doppelgangers. The biggest defining difference was Zina's pitch black eyes.

After a stiff minute, Nova's gaze wandered to Elena. "You're actually attempting that college thing, aren't you?"

"Y-yeah," she stammered back. "Caroline and I… we actually have to leave shortly…"

She nodded slowly, not once breaking eye contact. The coldness in her emerald eyes sent a chill down Elena's spine. She opened her mouth to say something else when a phone started to ring. Damon slipped Nova's phone from his pocket and tossed it to her, having forgotten to before. The ID was blocked but Nova didn't care in the slightest. "Now, who's got the stomach to call Nova Vasile fresh out of rehab?" She purred violently.

"Her niece, actually." Everyone's eyes widened when they heard the response. "How quickly can you and my mother get to Lebanon, Kansas?"

Nova scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Nice try but the last time I was conned into heading towards Lebanon I got duped by a cousin and Knight of Hell. All set with your girl scout cookies today, kid."

"It's Katia Markov-Vasile you emotionless, narcissistic psychopath. Put my mother on the line or put me on speakerphone. I'm quite certain you're surrounded by vampires regardless currently, are you not?"

She flicked her tongue across the roof of her mouth before pressing the speaker button on her screen. "Funny how you have a mouth like your mother when she gave you away."

"I had a call to make," Zina argued, jumping out of her chair. "You couldn't possibly understand what happened to me!"

"Argue a different time, ladies. I'm not reaching out to you after being off the grid for a feather under a century for shits and giggles. Zarya's in a lot of trouble and I actually need you two lunatics to help me out."

"I will be there as soon as I can, Katia," Zina answered first with a cold glare locked onto her sister.

"Like I can trust you to team up with your long, lost daughter off in Kansas," Nova scoffed and stood. "Welcome to the 21st century; do not throw up in my car."

"Ah, not so fast ladies," Damon chastised, grabbing both by the backs of their collars. "Dolcezza, we already had an agreement about you stepping foot out of town and Zina, none of us trust you in the slightest yet. Coming back randomly from the dead and all, you understand. We take my car, I drive, and neither of you hurl in my car."

"If Zarya had spent any more time in your psychotic town she would have been damned a lot sooner than right now," Katia scolded them all. "I don't give a damn what's going on in Virginia, just get to Kansas and make yourselves useful!" Without another word Katia ended the call.

With her eyes darting between Damon and her sister Nova slid her phone into her back pocket. A smug had begun to tug at her unusually pale lips. "Enthralling already. I'm going to go take a real shower, put on some well deserved makeup, and then we get to take what will probably be the world's worst road trip."

"I'm uh…" Elena started as she and Caroline backed towards the door slowly. "We're uh… we have to finish packing…"

Nova waved them off without so much as looking in their direction. "When you've had enough of trying to be a teenager and going to college for good grades give me a call." She walked between Zina and Damon, lightly brushing past each of their shoulders, and upstairs.

Once she was out of earshot and the shower was running, Elena gave a slap to Damon's arm. "Do you seriously think this is a good idea?" She whisper-yelled as quietly as she could.

"She's only off the drugs and blood high," Caroline added just as quietly. "She's still a…"

"A what, Caroline?" Damon half snapped at an octave higher than the girls had been using. "A monster? Guess what: it's exactly what she's said from day one she is. It's what we all are. Have fun at college, Elena." He too then ventured up the stairs and into the bedroom.

Elena's eyes remained fixed on the stairs where she watched both vampires of her sire line walk away. Caroline's gaze held on Zina questioningly. The young twin was also watching the stairs for a moment before wafting over to the girls. "They weren't always like this," the brunette and youngest vampire commented at last with her gaze still on the stairs.

"Damon came back here before Nova, right?" Zina asked softly. "He came back when Stefan had."

She nodded and finally her head turned away from the empty stairs, her arms wrapping around herself thoughtfully. "Damon didn't talk about Nova borderline at all when he came here. Stefan never said anything either, but you could tell there was something more there. He had a reason for doing the things he did and it wasn't about finding Katherine."

Zina looked up at the top stairs one more time. For a moment she could picture her sister walking down them with her flowing hair and glowing grace. She could see Nova dragging her nails tauntingly down the wood banister, her signature smirk on her signature maroon lips. Part of her still loathed Nova deeply; wanted to watch her hurt. But she realized there was another part that actually didn't like to see her sister hurting and feeling nothing because of it. Unknowingly, her right hand had risen and rubbed an ache she was feeling in her chest above where her heart would be.

Zina couldn't say she was surprised when she found herself sitting in the back of the Camaro. She didn't mind in the least though as she watched the subtle interactions between her sister and Damon that anyone else likely would have missed. Nova even laid her hand on top of his in the middle between them. Even without her humanity Damon Salvatore was still a person completely separate from the world to her. Whatever she went through, whatever fires she walked, Nova Vasile was sworn and smitten to Damon. Zina wondered from time to time if there really was ever anyone out there like that for her. It wasn't 100 percent confirmed that each and every Vasile woman had a soulmate out there. Maybe some just weren't meant to find that kind of loyalty and affection…

"Damon," the slightly younger Vasile chimed nearly an hour and a half into their silent drive towards Lebanon, "why did you return to Mystic Falls in 2009 when Stefan did?"

"Tch," Nova scoffed and directed her gaze out the passenger window, "what does it matter to you?" When Zina didn't answer, her emerald eyes slid slowly onto Damon as he stared ahead at the highway. He looked like he was actually contemplating an answer.

"The same reason why I came back in 1994," he started to answer at last. His pause kept both women on their toes awaiting the reason. "I knew Nova wouldn't follow me when she found out I was in Mystic Falls if she ever came looking. Granted, I ended up being wrong, but I wasn't for a while." He noticed Nova's eyes shift back out her window.

"So you came to Mystic Falls in 1994, left, and still came back in 2009? Why?"

"Why are you asking?" Nova hissed. "I thought you were all knowing from being dead."

Zina made a slight face and crossed her arms over her chest. "I couldn't exactly keep tabs on everyone you know. I'm not God, if He even exists. I'm just trying to figure out how everything has seemed to gravitate back towards Mystic Falls for you lot; what it was that got us here." She gestured to the three of them in the car.

"Because Mystic Falls is my home," Damon responded before Nova could even think about shutting down the conversation. "And it became Nova's too the day her boat landed on our harbor. So much has happened that it will drive you away and bring you right back."

Zina nodded slowly. A smile was attempting to tug at her lips but she wanted the conversation to continue in the right direction. "You lied then," she told him boldly. Both of them glanced in the mirror back at her. "You weren't under the impression that Nova wouldn't follow you; you knew fully well that she would eventually. Stefan had, you had, it was only a matter of time. You were trying to bait her. You wanted her to come home."

Nova was trying her best to tune out the conversation and allow the two to continue as if she really weren't there. Had it been a purposeful conversation? An attempt to turn her humanity back on? Zina said she hadn't given a damn about that, but she knew she couldn't trust a word out of the woman's mouth. She was trying so desperately not to hear them that she didn't notice the half smile making its way to Damon's face.

"I suppose I could have been," he admitted with a small shrug. "I wrote her everyday." He knew that piqued both sisters' interest no matter how hard Nova wouldn't allow it to show.

"What do you mean you wrote her everyday?" Zina furthered as she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, genuinely invested in the conversation. "I didn't figure texting was a big then yet but," she trailed off and shrugged.

Damon chuckled a little, his eyes glancing at Nova for the quickest second. "It wasn't, but they weren't letters I ever sent."

"Didn't figure so since I never got any," they heard the older Romanian mutter.

"They're still there," he move obviously looked over at Nova. "At the boarding house. If you wanted to read them when we got home."

Slowly she looked over at him with the same cold, emerald eyes. "Only the ones that detail your murders and plots rather than all of the feelings I'm sure you poured in so you could remain so nonchalant to everyone."

Zina sat back with wide eyes as Damon took his entirely off the road to look her sister dead in the face for a solid minute. Not once did the vehicle jerk or even sway. "I guess you'll have to find where I hid them first then." He smirked before returning his eyes to the road.

[Flashback; September 8, 2009]

"Damon," Stefan breathed stiffly when he saw his brother standing in the doorway of his balcony.

His lips pulled into a wolfish smirk, steel blue eyes guarded and closed off of any emotions to show. "Hello, brother."

"Crow's a bit much, don't you think?"

"Wait till you see what I can do with the fog." Damon waltzed in and started poking around at the trinkets in his brother's room.

"When did you get here?" He paused and started looking back out the balcony hastily. "Is Nova with you?"

He chuckled a little in a way that made Stefan skeptical. "Nope, no Nova. Just me again, Steffie."

"It's been fifteen years, Damon. Where's Nova and what are you doing here?"

"You asked less questions in 1994. Thank God it's over, though. I couldn't take another day of the nineties. That horrible grunge look? Did not suit you. Remember, Stefan, it's important to stay away from fads."

"Why are you here?" He pressed, growing irritated.

"I missed my little brother."

"You and Nova hate small towns. There isn't enough for either of you to do or murder."

"I've managed to keep myself busy."

"Without Nova?" He noticed the slightest twitch of his brother's eye. "You left that girl in the woods alive tonight. That's very clumsy of you. Nova would have finished her off to make sure."

"Since when are you all about Nova's existence, hm?" Damon barked suddenly, tossing some porcelain figurine off a shelf and shattering on the floor. "Why are you here, brother? Because I'm fairly certain your answer can be summed up all into one little word… Elena. She took my breath away, Elena. She's a dead ringer for Katherine. Is it working, Stefan? Being around her, being in her world? Does it make you feel alive?"

"Does Nova? Is that why she hasn't been with you? Because of your obsession with Katherine? Elena is not Katherine."

His lips twitched until they tugged into a smirk again. "Well, let's hope not. We both know how that ended. Tell me something, when's the last time you had something stronger than a squirrel?"

"I know what you're doing, Damon. It's not going to work."

Yet still Damon pushed his little brother around until Stefan snapped back. The veins appeared beneath his darkening eyes before he whipped around and tackled Damon out of the open balcony doors. Somewhere in the fall Damon slipped out and let Stefan fall flat on his face onto the pavement. The elder brother stood unscathed by some bushes clapping slowly and mockingly. "I was impressed. I give it a six. Missing style, but I was pleasantly surprised. Very good with the whole face… thing. It was good."

"You know, it's all fun and games, Damon, huh? But wherever you go, people die." Stefan told him as he stood and brushed himself off. "Whenever you're bored because Nova isn't there to entertain your whims you leave a path of bodies and questions in your wake. Damon, please. After all these years, can't we just give it a rest?"

Damon's countenance remained unreadable through his cynically playful smirk. "Where's your ring? Oh, yeah, sun's coming up in a couple of hours, and, poof, ashes to ashes." Stefan looked quickly down at his hand and found his ring was gone. When he looked back up his brother's hand was extended with his ring in his palm. "Relax. It's right here." Hesitantly, Stefan stepped forward and grabbed the ring, sliding it back onto his finger. When he looked up to Damon, the dark haired brother grabbed Stefan by the throat. "I don't give a damn if she's not by my side currently, Stefan." The veins and darkness appeared around his eyes as his fangs extended. "For everything you've caused towards Nova and I, I promised you an eternity of misery, so I'm just keeping my word." He tossed Stefan away and into the garage wall and door effortlessly. "You should know better than to think you're stronger than me. You lost that fight when you stopped feeding on people. I wouldn't try it again. I think we woke Zach up. Sorry, Zach." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and vanished as he walked down the driveway.

Damon had wound up at the pier just as the sun was coming up over the watery horizon. He sat down at one corner of the dock and took out a small, black box hidden beneath an old crate. Opening it revealed a fair line of sealed envelopes taking up half of the box with a stack of paper, envelopes, and pen at the other half. Using the crate as a table he set down a blank piece of paper and took the pen in his hand. He looked up to the rising sun before pressing the pen to the page.

September 9, 2009

Dearest Nova,

Would you believe who returned to Mystic Falls yet again? If you ever read these I'm sure you'll be bored to dessication with all of my lame stories and reruns to this town. I suppose everybody returns eventually, especially when you've lived well past your expected expiration.
I don't think you would know what to expect if you ever came back. Well, at least in the next fifty years or so. It would seem that Steffie finally found himself a rebound, and with the exact same face nonetheless. Would you believe it, dolcezza? A second face, a mirror image of Katherine Pierce on a simple human girl. You aren't going to actually read this so I shouldn't need to include a warning to not shred and burn this letter at the mention of Katherine.
I know what I've done, but you need to know that I have to see this through. I just need to know the truth, Nova. After all of this time I just need the truth. That's why I need to find Katherine. That's why I need to get into that tomb. I should have just told you to begin with because you would have made this so much quicker and easier. Plus you could be here to gloat if I've been wrong this whole time.

I'll find you again one day, dolcezza. We have an eternity.
Love, Damon