Stefan knew the moment that his brother came home from the Council meeting. This time was different though, he could smell the alcohol that reeked off his brother.

Damon stumbled into the house. His movements were sloppy and loud. In one of his hands he held a bottle of bourbon. He was completely wasted and Stefan sighed as he went to gather his brother.

"Come on Damon," Stefan said as he gathered his brother. Damon tried to push his arms off but Stefan held his brother's torso up and was already directing his steps to the stairs. Damon groaned and slid sideways.

Stefan scrambled to get a good hold on his brother. Damon slid down against the wall, his hands trying — and failing — to grab at the smooth surface. Stefan sighed again as he looked down at his brother who was slumped against the wall of the foyer.

"You couldn't choose another place to do this Damon?" Stefan asked exasperated. Stefan went to gather his brother again.

"Mpphfff… Elena…" Damon muttered against the wall. Stefan raised his eyebrows and looked at Damon's face.

"What about Elena?" Stefan grabbed his brother under his armpits and shuffled closer to the stairs.

"Doooo….Do we really need to save Elena?" Damon slurred, but Stefan heard him loud and clear. He dropped his brother.

He was sent sprawling to the ground and Damon's face smacked unceremoniously on the hard floor of the foyer. Damon let out a groan of anguish and planted his hands on the ground.

"What do you mean 'do we really have to save Elena'? Of course we do. She of all people deserve to be happy in life."

"You're just saying that because you love her." Damon wagged a finger at Stefan from the ground. "You're just saying that because you save her from that crash."

"Shut up Damon."

"Listen, if we let them complete the curse then that mean we can walk in the sun. It means we can stay living our immortal live for once instead of just existing in it."

Stefan stared at his brother. Was he serious? He wanted to walk in the sun that much that he was considering to let Elena die for that? Stefan shook his head.

"I'm not having this conversation with you right now. You're drunk."

"You know what they say about drunk… words…"

Stefan sighed and looked at his brother. He knew that he should not entertain this but the words that had just come out of his brother's mouth. He rubbed his face.

"Okay. Let me play with game with you. You gain the ability to walk in the sun. Elena's dead and you get to walk in the sun. What would you do with that ability, hm? What would you do with that?"

"I would… I would… spend it with Katherine…"

"Katherine doesn't even want you!" Stefan blew up. His brother was a hopeless romantic. He was always believing that he was going to ride in and sweep Katherine off her feet when that was not the reality. Katherine wanted nothing to do with him and he needed to finally know that.

"She does want me—"

"She doesn't want you Damon. She doesn't want you and she didn't want me and it is time that you have understood that. She doesn't love us Damon. She never did. We were nothing but play things to her."

"Shut up."

"I know that you have always harbored this idea that Katherine is this saint but it isn't even true. She had never been that nice, kind, and demure person we met back in 1864."

"Shut up."

"The fact that we were even turned in to vampires is nothing short of a coincidence on her part. She gave us her blood to heal us not to turn us into vampires. She never intended for us to be with her forever."

"SHUT UP!" Damon reared up on his feet, making Stefan take a step back from where he stood hovering over the drunk man. Dad's eyes were livid bringing out the paleness of his blue eyes.

Tears gathered in those same blue eyes and Stefan watched in amazement as Damon slumped down on the floor. He put his head in his hands and though he was not sobbing, his shoulders shook.

"Katherine has to want me. Katherine has to because if she doesn't. Then who— what have I been doing this all for? All this murder and planning. I always did it. I always justified it as it being for Katherine. Everything that I was going to do was going to be all for the purpose of getting back with Katherine and if she doesn't love me then. What's the point man? What's the point?"

Stefan had never heard his brother say so much in one breath. Stefan crouched down lower to his brother and patted his back. What could he say to that? Damon had loved Katherine. He had loved her a lot more than Stefan did at least.

"What Katherine did to us… what Katherine did to you. Was not right. It wasn't right for her to do what she did to us, but letting Elena die is not going to change the past. It isn't going to make life easier for you. Elena deserves to live a full and happy life. She doesn't deserve to die just so we can go in the sun," Stefan said. He sat down next to his brother and looked into the darkness of the house.

The darkness of the house was wanting and tangible. Only the small bastion of light in the foyer kept the darkness at bay. Stefan felt like the light of the foyer, the last voice of reason in a world of darkness. He was the only one who could see into the darkness and try to make sense of it all.

"Fine," Damon started again after a while. "We save Elena."

Stefan let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding. The light of the foyer seemed to grow brighter with the admission. Damon leaned his head back against the wall.

"I don't know what I am going to do without Katherine," Damon said in a small voice.

"You'll do what you have always done," Stefan said, "you'll live."

Two o'clock.

Two o fucking clock.

Did this girl not have any sense in her? Shiela paced in front of her fire place. Just where did she think she was staying out until two o'clock in the morning? She was not running a halfway house for vampires. She expected her granddaughter to be home at a reasonable time.

Shiela sat down and drank some of her tea. She prayed that Bonnie wasn't with Kol. She knew the seduction of magic to a young witch. She had been a young witch once wanting to test her power against any and everything. She knew that she had to nip this in the bud right away. Whatever it was that Kol was teaching her she knew that it would be dark magics. Things that witches were warned not to play with.

Her foot started to jump while she was sitting down. She turned her eyes to the clock. A quarter past two o'clock. Shiela stopped when she heard footsteps on her porch. The sound of keys jingling in the lock. The twist and clack of the lock turning.

Bonnie waltzed into the room like there was nothing wrong with her showing up at two seventeen in the morning.

"Where have you been?" Shiela said as she settled back in her chair. Bonnie started and then straightened her back. Shiela raised an eyebrow at the action. Oh, the girl had some fight in her. "Well, Bonnie? Tell me where have you been ands what in heaven's name have you been doing?"

"I don't think it really matter what I do. I'm not a child. I'm a grown woman and I can come and go as you please," Bonnie said with a stiff lip. Shiela pressed her lips together, nodding her head as she took in the words.

Bonnie was an adult. Bonnie could come and go as much as she wanted. The words burned in Shiela's stomach.

"You may be a grown woman as you want to put it, but until you pay some damn bills around here, as long as you live in my house, under my roof, you answer to me." Shiela crept out her her chair, her voice low. She stalked over to Bonnie like a lion would a gazelle and then she looked at the girl in her eyes. "Do I make myself clear."

"And I said that I am a grown woman and I don't have to answer to you, Grams," Bonnie bit out from clenched teeth.

"You think I don't know what you're doing out there? You think I don't know who you're with?" Shiela reached out and grabbed Bonnies hand. Zinging like lightning went up and down her spine. Kol. It was his essence. His lingering energies were still on her. "I know you're out there playing witch with Kol Mikaelson. What did he teach you? How to raise a somebody from the dead? How to see into the Other Side?"

"I don't have to take this." Bonnie turned away and stomped her way up the stairs but Shiela was right behind her.

"You think he's teaching you magic? All he is feeding to you are lies. He is only going to teach you spells that you think are useful and then he is going to tell you to put the pieces together and make something monstrous. Working with him will lead to nothing but tragedy."

"Maybe if I had a teacher — you know someone to teach me magic — I wouldn't have to resort to working with a vampire." Bonnie turned around her hair flying as she whirled. Shiela stopped and for a moment she could see the visage of not Bonnie but of Abby. She remembered having this same fight with Abby years ago.

"Why won't you just teach me?" Bonnie asked. Shiela shook her head. This was Bonnie she was talking to, not Abby.

"Magic is dangerous, Bonnie. Magic is what took your mother away from us and I promised myself after that day that magic would never tear this family apart ever again." Shiela walked closer to Bonnie and pushed some of her hair behind her ear. "You have to understand Bonnie that magic is not something to play with. It comes with real consequences. All magic comes with a price, baby girl, I just don't want to see you pay too much."

"Have you ever thought that maybe teaching me about this magic would help me. You left me floundering like a fish! Just teach me."

"Mom, just teach me." Abby had said the same exact thing to her once. Shiela considered for a moment.

She would be a better teacher than the vampire and she could teach Bonnie how to stay away from all the dangers. But magic was too tempting there was no way to know that Bonnie wouldn't practice on her own and hurt someone or worse, hurt herself.

Shiela shook her head. "No, baby girl. No. Magic is too dangerous. It is too much of a temptation. It is better if you never had to learn."

Bonnie pulled away. "Then we have nothing to talk about." Bonnie walked into her room and slammed the door.

"Bonnie?" Shiela walked to the doorway. She pounded her fist on the door. "Bonnie please open up. Please baby girl." She tried the door knob but the doorknob wouldn't turn let alone budge. "Baby girl please you have to understand. Kol is going to lead you down a dark path. If you don't stop meeting with him—"

Music began to pour out of the room, drowning out Shiela's pleas for Bonnie to listen. Shiela pounded her hand flat against the door, but nothing.

"Bonnie please!" She tried again. She heard the shower begin to run.

Shiela rubbed her face with her hands. She had lost Bonnie. Tears began to gather in her eyes. Abby had done the same thing when they had fought about magic. She sighed and prodded back down the stairs.

Where had she gone wrong?

The air was heavy with the scent of recently cut grass. Klaus leaned back against the table and sighed as he looked out into the park.

"Is it always pleasant around here?" Klaus asked no one in particular.

He decided that he was going to take his painting outside and in the public today. He had an easel and his paints set up beside him and he was painting the fountain that sat in the center of the park. It was a beautiful day out with the light flittering in through the leaves and the park had some patrons. They walked the paths and they talk amongst themselves.

He did not bother to draw any of the people. He wanted to paint simply the fountain and challenge himself to get the way that the water poured from the spout at the top. Water was always difficult for him to draw.

Last night Caroline had created a vampire problem. She had turned and set loose two vampires that out into the world. She did not instruct them in what they were made for or supposed to do. She just let the hunger gnaw at them and allowed that to motivate them to do as they pleased.

Thinking back on it, Klaus remembered what it had been like to be a just born vampire. He remembered the way that the hunger gnawed at his very soul. It made everything within him ache and he wanted nothing more than to satisfy that hunger. To make sure that he was full, if that was something that he could ever be.

Klaus did not pity the new vampires that Caroline had made. They were simply a means to an end. And besides, it was not like they would have any bearing on his life.

The blue was off in the sky so Klaus leaned over to fix it. He mixed the paint that was in the palette and tried to get it to the cornflower blue that made the sky so enchanting. Behind him he could hear the stirrings of his phone. It buzzed and beeped with messages, but Klaus ignored them. Whoever was important to him would know that he did not put much stock in technology. They knew where to find him.

His phone gave off that annoying jingle that Kol had set it to. And Klaus rolled his eyes, he put down his paint and his palette and grabbed his phone.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Mikaelson?" A voice asked on the other end.

"Speaking," Klaus said. He jammed the phone between his ear and shoulder and went back to painting the fountain. He passed his brush over the sky and smiled when the color came out exactly as he wanted it to. He changed his brush and then began to fix the sky of his painting.

"This is Lockwood. Mayor Richard Lockwood."

"Oh, what a pleasure to hear from you mayor." Klaus went back to trying to perfect the water.

"I was just calling to ask you if you wanted to come over. I have a few things that I need to discuss with you," Richard asked. Klaus raised an eyebrow at that. Going over to the mayor's house just when he was perfecting his technique with water sounded like such a drag.

Klaus controlled himself. It could be important and beside Caroline wanted you to make sure that these country bumpkins were under control so that nothing got in the way of breaking the curse. Klaus nodded his head and plaster a smile on his face.

"I'm at the park right now. Just give me a moment and I can make it to your home, mate."

"Okay." With that Richard hung up. Klaus smiled and began to pack up his paints. When he gathered up his paints he shoved them into his car along with the painting and drove over to Mayor Lockwood's house.

The drive was quiet and was plastered with images of what could only be the suburbia that the 1950's advertised. There were people walking their dogs down the sidewalk and their was children playing. One family was having a cook out in the park.

Every time Klaus passed by a quintessential picture like this he felt his mood not exactly blacken but something close to it. It was like watching people marching to their own music.

It was hard to believe that if he had not been born a werewolf he would have ended up like the rest of them. Content to live boring little lives when there was a whole world out there to explore. Klaus shivered at the thought.

He could never see the appeal of it.

Pulling up to Lockwood Manor, Klaus was welcomed by the sight of Carol Lockwood leaving the house. Klaus said hello to her as he walked up the stairs to the house and knocked on the door.

Tyler, their son, opened the door. Though the boy was sweating profusely, Klaus could smell something on him. It smelled like fur. Klaus had rarely smelt something like this and it coming off so strongly for this boy.

"Yeah?" Tyler asked.

Klaus plastered a smile on his face. "Yes, I'm here to talk to your father."

Tyler just rolled his eyes and opened the door wider. "Dad! You have company!"

Richard came out of his side office and Klaus smiled as the man came towards him.

"Yes. Yes. Klaus. Just the man I wanted to see. Come with me to my office."

Klaus followed him to the office and once he stepped inside Klaus noticed how big it was for the first time. The office had space, Klaus guessed that he never noticed it before when it was cluttered with people for the Council meetings.

"Sit. Sit." Richard waved Klaus to a chair. Klaus sat down in front of the desk and reclined back in him seat.

"What was it that you needed to talk to me about?" Klaus asked. The man sighed and then leaned back in his seat.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush. It's about the vampire attacks."

"What about them?" For someone who did not want to beat around the bush, he expected a lot more from the man than just that.

"I was expecting you to be able to handle them faster than this. They have killed two more of the deputies here already."

Klaus cocked his head to the side. "I'm working on capturing the vampire responsible. What made you think that I was doing nothing."

"Well just consider what you are—"

"And what am I, Mayor?"

Richard Lockwood looked at him with two pitch black eyes. Klaus watched as his pupils dilated and then retracted. The silence hung like a thick curtain between them. Klaus hoped for a moment that he said something stupid so that he could retaliate. He could apologize to Caroline later.

"You're a werewolf, like me," Richard finally said in one breath. Klaus raised his brows and then smiled.

"How could you tell?" Klaus said with the same grin still plastered on his face.

"Wolves always have a certain swagger to them. They have a scent too. One that even an unawoken werewolf like myself can smell." Klaus nodded his head.

He knew that was what he smelled on young Tyler.

"That's good. That's good. I'm glad you caught that." Klaus said. He took a look down at the ground and then flickered his eyes up to look at Richard's eyes. "What precautions have you taken against the vampire already?"

Richard leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath. "You know nothing other than the usual. The town water supply is going to be doused with vervain, but I said that with you on the hunt we likely won't have to do that. These vampires only attack during the night and they do not compel people. And with a werewolf on the hunt, I doubt that this will take long."

Klaus smiled and then caught his eyes with the Mayor's. "Good to know." Klaus rose from his chair and nodded. "I'll make sure to end those vampires quickly."

Richard smiled and rose from his seat. He came around his desk to pat Klaus on his back. The two of them walked towards the door and Klaus turned around as he tried to close the door and stuck his foot.

"And one more thing," Klaus said. He looked deep into the eyes of Richard Lockwood and smiled. "I'm going to need you to kill your wife when she comes back from the store and forget that we ever had this conversation."

Richard nodded his head, his pupils blown wide as the compulsion settled in his brain. "It was nice talking to you Mikaelson."

"I'll have those animal attacks dealt with," Klaus shouted as he walked to his car. He slid into the driver's seat and smiled.

It was concerning that there were no werewolves here. He remembered when he was young and he waited in the caves with his family and the wolves tore everything apart above ground. But finding the Lockwoods was a miracle. Who knew that the Mayor of the town would be so easy to compel? He didn't feel sorry about Carol's life ending at the end of the day though.

Klaus pulled out of the driveway and drove his way back home. He needed to tell Caroline everything.

Author's Note: So I have some exciting news! My book is coming out this summer!