"Tell me, father,

Which to ask forgiveness for:

What I am, or what I am not?

Tell me, mother,

Which should I regret?

What I became, or what I did not?"

~X~

...

Marcella sat across from the brunette, legs folded hands sitting gently on her knee. She watched the woman for a long moment. Silence surrounding them. After five hundred years of running she'd been caught, Marcella couldn't help the satisfied grin that etched it's way over her features. Five hundred years Katerina ran from her family, from Niklaus how far she'd fallen to be caught by none other than the girl she'd turned.

"Are you just going to sit there all day? Surely you have other things to do." The vampire doppelganger snarked. Marcella rolled her eyes checking her phone.

"As a matter of fact I don't. You see right now making sure you stay put is sort of my main priority." The small blonde informed the older vampire. A smug air to her voice a mirthful look in her eyes.

Katerina groaned. Marcella wasn't sure if it were from the pain of starvation or the vervain ropes and quite frankly she didn't know if she even cared. Her brow raises at the pitiful brunette. "Hungry Katerina?"

"Screw you!" Marcella giggled, well it seemed like she still had some spirit. At that she stood tucking her phone into her pocket and then crossing her arms a slight frown forming on her face.

"I'm curious. What made you so cruel? See I'd like to assume it was just the manipulation from Nik and Eli but we both know Elijah actually cared for you, so that can't be it. Couldn't be just another survival tactic, you can survive without becoming cruel. But what you did to Damon, to Stefan was just cruel. What makes you believe that you have that right? To be so entitled." Katerina laughed. Marcella watched her carefully.

"Your one to talk little girl. I've seen the way you act around them, as if the very air you breathe is better. Your no better than I am." Marcella hmmed, she wouldn't deny the truth of the statement. She knew just what sort of monster she was.

"Be that as it may, I am not cruel. I don't use cruelty to get what I want, it's not how I operate. I may not be better than you, but don't think that we are at all similar. Tell me was it when your father tore your daughter from your arms is that when your heart became nothing but ice?" That had Katerina recoiling like she'd been struck. Eyes wide, disbelieving.

"I've never told anyone about that." She barely whispered. But Marcella heard her, for the first time since she'd been down in the cellar did the harshness of her expressions soften. Just briefly, just a fraction.

"You didn't have too, I could recognize that lost look in your eyes. Like something is just missing. It's the look all mothers who lose their child get a yearning to have something you will never get back. Perhaps we are more similar than I wished us to be." Marcella mused thoughtfully resuming her seat across from the brunette. Katerina's interest seemed to peak at that.

"Have you lost a child?" The bulgarian vampire can't help but to ask. Despite the situation she couldn't say she wasn't curious. Marcella offers no answer and her lips press down into a thin line. Katerina sulks she wouldn't be getting any answers out of her captor now.

Her eyes open slowly, gruggly, her whole body burns. The sensation is what throws her senses into overdrive and suddenly she's wide awake and very aware of her situation. Marcella cannot move, her limbs have been bound, vervain rope and chains keeping her in place.

"So you decided to wake up Macy." She scanned the dark room until she found the owner of the voice. Not that she needed to see their face to know who it was. Marcella could recognize that tune anywhere. Her eyes locked with a shade of familiar blue.

"Father."

….

Damon Salvatore was many things and a liar wasn't really one of them. So true to his words he had in fact taken Kol a couple towns over for a little smorgasbord. Live prey, fresh blood, the whole nine yards. Marcella had practically forced them too bond, insisting they needed to get to know one another and then declaring that she needed 'me time' shutting the front door of the Forbes house in both of their faces. There was something that Damon knew about her, about this 'me time' that he didn't know if her boyfriend realized.

Marcella was hurting. After her little power trip confrontation with the other Originals, she was hurting. She loved them, yet she had to hurt them, force the harsh truth over them. It hurt her. Especially since Klaus wasn't talking to her currently.

So with all that in mind the two had been given no other option than to spend some bonding time together. Get to know each other a little more. Try to get along. Neither male was sure how they felt about the other so it was going to be interesting.

For the most part it seemed to be going well, if Damon would say so himself. They hadn't killed each other yet, or inflicted harm upon the other. So it was relatively okay… for them that was the four people they'd drained might not have felt the same. Or at least he'd assume but since they were a little too dead to say something…

Couple hours into the hunt they got bored. Also neither would openly admit it but also the munchies for something that wasn't people. Apparently blood highs were a thing just like drug highs and bad diner food was the only solution.

That was where they found themselves, just after six in the morning at some old diner at the edge of a different town then where they had been hunting. Approximately three hours from Mystic Falls. Damon had taken to nursing a cup of coffee with mostly bourbon in it and Kol was pushing a rather uninviting hash-brown around his plate. Disgust was clear in his eyes, eyes that Damon had associate with his princes for a time. The physically older male raised his brow, cocking at the younger bemusedly.

"That's not going to taste any better cold." Damon warns, mirth dancing in his mouth. All diner food tasted the same sort of mediocre cold.

Kol arches his brow right back. "Speaking from experience mate?" There was something about his tone, something smug and pompous that Damon wasn't so fond of. It annoyed him really.

Why had he agreed to this? Right… because she had asked and he could never deny her anything. In hindsight it was clear that he was probably whipped.

"Hn.. Common sense more like it pal. If it wasn't for you hot then your palette isn't going to enjoy it cold." The same could be said about blood too, but that was another topic altogether. Damon takes another sip of his almost coffee.

Kol leaned back into his side of the booth, crossing his arms over his chest, a rather petulant look on his face. Damon wanted to laugh at the resemblance, Marcella did that exact thing when she wanted to be defiant or wasn't getting what she wanted. But unlike with her where as it made her look childlike, cute, her male counterpart only looked obnoxious. Like a spoiled brat.

"You know… I don't know what she sees in you mate." The original tries to antagonize, but fortunately Damon knew better than to take his bait. To play this game. He only had enough energy to entertain one child and he'd already made his choice as to who it would be.

Besides. He knew exactly what she saw in him, and he knew that what she saw she loved and needed. Bonded or not her counterpart still didn't know everything about her, not like she did him, and Damon did her. So Damon wasn't worried, he knew. It also helped that he could in fact see exactly what Marcella saw in the original across from him.

Just as he's about to bless Kol with his response he's interrupted by the an incoming call. The preset tune of Barbie Girl alerts him of who it is before he even looks. Damon holds up a hand to pause the current conversation, Kol smirks but he's promptly ignored. He'd get in so much trouble if he ignored her call. Which mind you was what he wanted to do.

Like he'd said. Whipped. Those two had ruined him.

Now the only question was, why was Caroline calling him a seven in the morning? He hoped it was important cause she'd just ruined a perfect opportunity for him to say something pithy.

"Good morning Barbie, what do I owe this pleasure?" From her end he hears the annoyed huff loud and clear. Damon grinned.

"Ass. What the hell! I've been trying to reach you for over an hour. Why aren't you answering your texts?" The grinned slipped off his lips at the panic in her voice.

Something was wrong.

"Been a bit busy Barbie. What's got you in such a tizzy?" Damon does ask, ignoring the smug look Kol gives him, damn he probably actually sounded concerned. Caroline sighs, like she's trying to collect herself, stop herself from getting angry.

Something was really wrong.

"Is Macie with you?I've been calling her phone and it's done nothing but send me to voicemail. She never sends me to voicemail on purpose. I found out from mom that our dad is in town and I wanted to let her know. But she's not answering and I'm starting to get worried." Caroline manages in one breath, and if this wasn't such serious news he would have been impressed. Damon sits up straighter in his chair. His earlier conclusion seeming to be correct. It wasn't like Marcella to ignore Caroline's calls.

This wasn't good.

"Sorry Barbie, she's not with me right now. I'll let you know if I hear from her." Damon gives a courtesy answer before ending the call abruptly. Before Kol can even open his mouth to make demands Damon is standing, throwing money down one the table.

"We have a problem. Let's go."

Marcella was missing… again. The last time she'd gone missing was when Katherine had so carelessly turned her. Her life had been taken from her. Now.. Whoever had taken his princess was going to pay with their life.

Damon wanted blood.

He would get what he wanted this time. There simply wasn't any other punishment that would be acceptable for the crime.

XOXOX

Sorry I know it's another short chapter but I really wanted to end it here. With the parallel between Kol's ending in the last chapter and Damon's like minded thoughts. These two are really working on me, hard to write together in scenes 'because fuck they're so similar. Like I know we always say that Klaus and Damon could have gotten along, had relatively the same views but I just… If you look at the characterizations of Damon in the first season compared to when we meet Kol later on they just go hand in hand.

It's hard to explain, because we don't see the similarities at the same time because by the time the writer's brought Kol to the show Damon's entire character had been changed. I find it so annoying because they made Damon really vanilla in later seasons, they took all those little interesting aspects of his character and stereotypicalized him. And don't even get me started on the injustice the writer's put poor Kol through, the whole silas arc is hard enough to watch as is but having to watch someone try so hard to stop something stupid from happening and getting killed for it is so frustrating to me.

Especially when the people they're trying to help are considered the 'good guys' and the character is the 'villain/anti-hero'.

I don't know maybe I'm just imagining it. But I just feel like the writers could have done better by all of the vampire diaries characters. Because when you look at humans, real live humans, you notice that good or bad people don't really exist in that contexts. Yes there are humans who can be evil, who have done terrible, horrible things but at some point in their life they have done something someone would have 'good'. Just as there are 'good' people who have done terrible, horrible, 'bad' things. People aren't black and white, it's not good vs evil, and in the vampire diaries that's how they characterize all of the characters.

Good or bad.

When the truth is between good and bad, black and white, there is that little gray area. It's the gray that makes characters interesting. Damon was gray in the beginning, like Kol was when he was introduce.

Okay I guess that's it, I'll get off the soap box now. ;) I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and my mini-rant thing. I'm looking forward to hearing back from you guys about your thoughts on the chapter but also if you want on my little rant. I'd love to read your opinions on the subject and maybe chat a little over it.

Also don't know who to credit the quote for but you are awesome!

Thank you so much for reading!

You guys rock!

Sincerely, La'Rae