Hey, everyone. Disruption in the updating schedule, I know. But these chapters are easier for me to write, and with school starting...holy shit do I need easier chapters to write. I've managed to get over the hump of Season 1 in this story so you should be expecting an update from me at this same time next Wednesday with the chapter I already wrote unless something goes direly wrong...or I just decide to be rude and not give you the chapter ;) Kidding, of course. Anyways, enjoy the chapter and review at the end please!

Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)

Blood Brothers

Mystic Falls, 1865

A weak, unstable Clarissa saw before her a blurry blotch of sunlight in her darkened vision that fried her skin for a fraction of a second. She didn't know how long she'd been kept in whatever hole Katherine Pierce had shoved her in; her days bled together because Emily Bennett only came to her at night for small doses of feedings. Though Clarissa had been fed from time to time, her throat burned with a hunger that she had no option to control.

The night never was clear to her and Clarissa hadn't seen a single speck of sunlight since she'd turned into a monster by no will of her own. The last thing she remembered was Katherine burning her with just a splash of water. Her captor didn't explain it; all she knew was that she had become something evil. She had fed on a human being, had feasted on the rich substance that made up her friends and family. And because of her capture, they all thought she was dead.

"Clarissa." The voice was nothing but an echo to Claire, who couldn't even move to save her life. Emily Bennett stood over the weak vampire before kneeling beside the blonde she considered to have been a friend before Katherine's intervention. Clarissa didn't make a sound. "Here."

Emily extended her wrist, pulling the sleeve of her shall up so that her skin was positioned at Clarissa's mouth. A whimper escaped the vampire as she felt her fangs withdraw, but Emily wasn't afraid. She had the power to put a stop to it at any time she wanted to. She may have owed Katherine her life, but that didn't mean she didn't recognize what she did was purely wrong.

Clarissa drank from the witch, finding that the blood that coated her throat gave her life again. The color returned to her face—even though she was pale to begin with. Able to move, Clarissa tried to sit up and felt the hairs that had long fallen out of her pinned style brush the nape of her neck. She clutched Emily's wrist closer, now feeding animalistically, until finally, Emily hardened her eyes and Clarissa felt her mind go numb, causing her to drop Emily's wrist. The witch didn't prolong her torture, but it still hurt the vampire.

But Clarissa King was no fool. Emily had fed her more blood than she'd consumed in the total time she'd been prisoner. "Thank you, Emily," Clarissa whispered.

"Do not thank me yet, Miss King." Emily rose from her knees and grabbed her torch. "Damon and Stefan Salvatore are in trouble."

"What?" Claire said breathlessly, pulling herself up from the floor. "What trouble do you speak of?"

Emily waited for a long time before finally answering, "The trouble of turning, Miss King." Her voice was small and firm at the same time. "Damon and Stefan are in danger of becoming like you."

"It's so hard to see him locked up like this," Elena commented under her breath as she peered over the small, barred window that peeked into the Salvatore's own personal basement cell. Stefan had been ignoring all of them for days, keeping his back turned to the cell window and never saying a word to any of the people who betrayed him. Damon stood against the wall adjacent to the door, his arms crossed.

"You're the one who locked him up."

"Actually," Claire intervened, earning Damon to flicker his eyes towards her, "I locked him up."

"It was Elena's idea," Damon defended her. Claire scoffed.

"And you went through with it, too. You even helped," she retorted. The vampire shrugged carelessly.

"I couldn't have him running around chewing on people while the town was looking for vampires, now could I?" Damon gave a sour smirk at her, and she shook her head tauntingly.

"Of course not. And it definitely had nothing to do with the fact that you actually…care about him, right?" Claire teased, but the humor was bitter. Her humor had been that way ever since she stabbed her best friend in the back and locked him up in a cell after joining forces with his evil brother. Maybe 'evil' was stretching it, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was what Stefan was thinking.

"Your thing, not mine." A disinterested Damon turned on his heel and went back up to the main level to be away from the two women that were driving him up a wall. Having Claire live with them was tolerable, but Elena was staying at the house day and night to be closer to Stefan. Damon had enough of all the estrogen in the household. When he was gone, Claire sighed to herself and Elena shook her head.

"I don't understand why he always pretends like he doesn't care about people," Elena voiced as she turned back to the window and observed Stefan. "You and I both know that he does."

Claire shrugged. "Damon would rather give up alcohol for the rest of his life than actually admit he cares about something other than himself. It's the way he's always been."

Elena peeked at the blonde from the side and pursed her lips. "You don't really believe that, do you?" she hinted skeptically. Claire stared at the wall Damon had been standing at for a while before moving her eyes over to Elena with a cocked eyebrow.

"What's that supposed to mean, Elena?"

The human shrugged innocently. "Nothing. Nothing, I just…" Elena trailed off, trying to find the right words. She turned back to the cell's window. "I just think that he cares more about some people than he lets on."

"Stefan's his brother." Claire straightened and turned to the cell window to look inside just like Elena. "And I think there'll always be a part of Damon that will care…even if he doesn't want to. I've seen it…countless times."

Elena peeked at the blonde vampire. "Stefan mentioned that you had a sister, once."

Claire nodded, but didn't look over at Elena. She just stared inside the cell. "I did. She's…long gone, by now. Ran away when she was thirteen. I tried looking for her after I turned, but I couldn't find her anywhere. It was like she fell off the grid."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right." Claire turned away from the cell window and Elena did the same so that the two were facing each other. The vampire jerked her head towards the exit. "Come on. Let's give him some space. There's nothing we can do if he won't talk to us."

Elena nodded meekly, and the two women went upstairs shortly after that. Inside the cell, Stefan laid on his side, forced into solitude by his brother, his best friend, and his girlfriend. He wanted to hate them all for locking him up, but all the hatred went away. It was his own fault that he was inside; it was his own doing that landed him into a state of deep regret for everything that he'd done.

Clarissa watched as her best friend slowly began to open his eyes to reveal his new world. She waited in anticipation, and didn't even flinch when Stefan jolted upright in his already sedentary position. He looked around with his sharpened new vision to find that he was out in the cool morning daylight by a pond in a small wooden shack.

"Stefan?" Clarissa whispered, trying not to overwhelm his senses. Stefan looked back at her with crazed, confused eyes. She was only left to imagine what she must've looked like waking up to Katherine. Stefan didn't say a word, but instead looked down seeing the bloodstain on his shirt where he had been shot. He ripped the shirt open and found that the bullet wound he had felt pierce his skin was no longer visible. It was gone. Feeling something strange on Stefan's finger, the Salvatore looked down to find a clunky ring with an S branded on its crest.

Stefan looked up at Clarissa with wide eyes. "Clarissa?" he whispered. She nodded and bit down on her lip, hating his confusion. "H-How are you…W-What happened to me?"

"Oh, Stefan…" Clarissa trailed off, swallowing hard. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could've helped, somehow. But by the time Emily told me, she had already found you and Damon. You had been…"

"Shot," Stefan whispered, putting the pieces together. "We had been…shot." Clarissa nodded, and Stefan took a second before he gestured at the ring on his finger. "What is this?"

"Katherine had me make that for you weeks ago," someone interrupted, and Clarissa and Stefan both turned to see Emily as she walked up the wooden stairs to the small shack.

"She made one for me as well," Clarissa added on, flashing Stefan the lapis-lazuli ring that was on her right hand. She had only received the gift from Emily a few hours before. A sad smile appeared on her lips. "It allows us to see the sun."

Stefan stayed quiet for the longest time, and Clarissa could tell that he was going back and forth in his head on the matter. Eventually, he looked up at both women and asked, "Where am I?"

"The quarry. Just north of town. My brother and I brought you here last night. We found you dead in the woods." Emily replied.

"Where's Damon?" Stefan inquired. Emily and Clarissa didn't say anything, but only looked over at the quarry. Stefan turned around to look in the direction they had to find that his brother was lying down by the water, basking in the sunlight with no shirt on his back. Stefan exhaled and turned around, trying to come to an understanding. "Am I a…am I a—?"

"Not yet. You're in transition," Emily answered before he finished his question.

"But how? I…"

"Stefan, when you died, you had Katherine's blood in your system," Clarissa told him softly. Stefan shook his head rigorously, refusing to believe it.

"No, I never—"

"She's been compelling you to drink it for weeks, Stefan," Emily urged, trying to get past the point of denial for Stefan. Eventually, the younger Salvatore realized that there was no point in arguing. He looked up at the two women.

"And Damon?"

"No compulsion was necessary. He…drank from her willingly."

Stefan exhaled sharply, trying to find some sense of hope that he could cling onto. But he remembered the point of his death…he remembered being shot and he knew that there was no going back now. He was ready to accept his fate, but now there appeared to be another option.

The transitional vampire looked up at his best friend. "Clarissa? Are you…?"

"I am," she whispered. Stefan shook his head.

"I thought you were dead." His eyes narrowed at her as he attempted to put it together. "We all…we all thought you were dead."

"I am," she repeated, nodding. "I am dead, Stefan. Katherine killed me, but before she did so, she slipped me some of her blood so I would turn. After I did, she locked me up for…" Clarissa turned to Emily and tried to recall the amount of time she had spent in her personal prison. "A week? Two weeks?"

"Three," Emily corrected her softly. Clarissa turned back to Stefan and repeated with a hard, thick swallow.

"Three. Three weeks."

Stefan eyed her carefully, and the two friends looked at each other for the longest time, letting a silent understanding pass between the two of them through the hard time they were forced to endure. Stefan just shook his head and leaned forward, capturing her in a warm, long-awaited embrace. Claire buried her head into Stefan's shoulder and Stefan's fingertips reached out to gently graze the ends of her hair.

"I'm sorry, Clarissa," he whispered, and it made it harder for her to keep herself in check. She nodded against him.

"I know, Stefan."

After Stefan left Emily and Clarissa at the wooden shack to go speak with his brother, the witch and the vampire stayed side-by-side and watched as the brothers reconciled over their loss. Clarissa could've honestly rejoiced in Katherine's death, but she was too deeply saddened by the misfortune of her ex-best friend and her current best friend, not to mention the fact that Christopher Fell had been reported dead as a result of the battle. Clarissa realized shortly after learning this information that she was practically a window, even though she was dead, herself. In a way, it was almost like a fresh start, but she cared too much about her husband to think of it that way.

"I'm sure you are aware of the process it will take for Stefan and Damon to become vampires," Emily whispered quietly to Clarissa so that the brothers wouldn't hear. Clarissa nodded.

"They have to feed to turn."

"Yes. And, unlike you, Clarissa, they have a choice." Emily turned to face the blonde vampire. Clarissa looked at the witch and slowly began to come to the conclusion Emily was getting at. "And if they choose not to feed…"

"They'll perish," Clarissa whispered, her voice pained. "Both of them."

"While you remain immortal," Emily added. "I'm sorry."

Clarissa nodded weakly and looked over Emily's head to the quarry where the two brothers sat. She felt a painful stab in her chest when she slowly realized that—if they did not turn—she would be entirely alone for the rest of eternity.

Damon looked over the device Pearl had given to him in his hand with a confused expression. He had spent hours and hours trying to see if he could find anything that would point to the purpose, but at this point, he believed it was just a piece of crap that did nothing.

Coming from the basement, Elena and Claire rushed into the study back on the main level of the boarding house. While Claire went to Christopher, who was sitting on the armchair, Elena exhaled a sigh and went over to her bag. She looked up to see Damon with the invention, and she raised her own eyebrow at it.

"Did you ever figure out what that is?"

"Nope. Whatever it is, it doesn't work," Damon replied.

"And you're sure Pearl didn't say anything else about it?" Christopher asked from the lounger, eyeing the invention himself. In the tomb, he wasn't anywhere near the invention, so he was just as clueless as everyone else.

"She thought she was stealing his vampire compass, but it was a pocket watch," Damon explained. He sighed. "That Jonathan Gilbert was a crazy scientist."

Claire scoffed. "Tell me about it. Didn't he get us a hot plate or something for our wedding? I mean, it obviously wasn't a hot plate since they weren't invented back then, but…the second we turned that thing on, it went up in flames."

Christopher looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. "I thought he was the one who got us the bottle of scotch."

"That was his son," Claire pointed out. "And it was open and only had half of it left."

"Jonathan Gilbert had a son?" Elena asked as she folded a pair of jeans and put them back into her bag. Damon turned around and answered before the couple could get to it first.

"Yep. He was a drunk. Rude, too. Speaking of Jonathan Gilbert, have you spoken to your uncle lately?" Damon asked the human, still skeptical of the pushy current John Gilbert. Elena shook her head.

"I've been avoiding him, actually," she admitted. "That, and I've been here most nights."

"Are you staying tonight, too?" Claire asked, chiming in. Elena looked over at her as she stuffed her bag.

"Um…I was hoping to. Is it a problem?"

Claire opened her mouth to say something, but Damon spoke first. "Yes. You're a complete nuisance."

Elena scoffed and slung her bag over her shoulder. "See you later," she said to them all before taking off to head to school. Damon kept silent while Claire and Christopher both chorused a goodbye to her and they all shortly heard the front door close as the human left.

At least one person was in the house at all times since Damon neglected feeding Stefan vervain on the hopes that his brother would understand how important it was to feed. None of the vampires had much to do with all the babysitting going around, but it was starting to get complicated when Damon came back from the basement and reported his recent conversation with Stefan.

"Yeah…he refuses to feed," Damon told Claire with a sigh. She crossed her arms at him.

"What the hell do you mean, 'he refuses to feed'? He has to feed, or he'll desiccate."

"I think he knows that, Claire." Damon began walking down the hall. "I also think that he doesn't care. He's kicked it into high-gear with the whole brooding thing."

"Why? The human blood should be out of his system already. All he has to do is feed! I went out and got the blood this morning. What's his problem?" Claire pushed, and Damon just shrugged.

"I don't know. Why don't you go ask him?" Suddenly, Damon's phone began to ring in his pocket, giving him a way out of the conversation. Immediately, he pulled it out and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Alaric Saltzman."

Claire, who had been walking side-by-side with Damon, came to a halt with Damon as they both stared at each other with confused gazes. Alaric…calling him? Damon resumed walking as he barked into the phone, "Before I hang up, how'd you get this number?"

"Ah, it's a mystery. Listen, I've…uh…been doing some digging on Elena's uncle. You interested?"

"What kind of digging?" Damon eyed Claire and they both listened to Alaric as he tried to help them. But it was odd; the fact that a vampire-hunting History teacher was calling them with information that could help. They practically had to beg for it last time.

"I've got an old friend from Duke who studied criminology when we were there together. Let's…just say he's become a very proficient digger."

"Did he find anything?"

"Well, I had him run a track on John's cell records. He was getting a call from a number—the same number that Elena dialed to get Isobel and then the number was disconnected."

Damon shrugged. "Isobel knows John. Whatever. We knew that."

"Right. Well, after that, he started getting calls from a new number and I had my friend run a geotrack."

Claire narrowed her eyes and wrinkled her nose. "Who is this guy? CIA or something?" she hissed. Damon gave her a look of agreement as he kept listening to Alaric on the other side of the phone.

"Got the address. It's…it's an apartment in Grove Hill."

"Isobel's in Grove Hill?" Damon repeated.

"I don't know. I thought we could take a look and see what we find."

"Perfect. Give me the address."

"Oh, so you and Claire can go without me? No. I don't think so." Alaric scoffed. Damon didn't bother denying it; instead, he defended it.

"You tried to kill me! I'm not going with you."

"Yeah, well you did kill me!" Alaric retorted. As Damon dealt with Alaric, Claire felt her phone start to vibrate in her pocket, and she pulled it out to find Elena's contact information on the screen. Without hesitation, she answered the call and stepped away from Damon a few feet so that she could talk to Elena.

"Hey, Elena."

"Hey, Claire. I'm just grabbing some clothes, and then I'll be right over. How's Stefan?"

When Claire turned around to face Damon, she saw him roll his eyes at the phone. "Fine. You drive. Pick us up in an hour." Quickly, he ended the call and gestured to Claire's phone, a silent question as to who it was.

"Elena," Claire mouthed before finally speaking into the phone to the human, "Um…Stefan's not doing too well. Damon says he refuses to eat the blood I got for him this morning."

"He has to eat!" Elena complained. "What's his favorite…kind of…um…?"

Damon rolled his eyes as he listened to the cautious Elena on the other side of the phone. "Tell her it's puppy blood. She'll love that."

Claire scowled at Damon before responding to Elena using her own words and not the sick words of the elder Salvatore's. "I don't think it's his preference that's getting in the way, Elena. I'll try to see if I can talk to him about it when I go down to check on him, okay?"

Elena sighed. "Okay. Thanks. I'll see you in a bit."

"Yep." Claire hung up the phone and slipped it in her pocket before she turned to Damon with crossed arms. He had moved to the couch now, his feet propped up on the coffee table in the middle of all the couches. "Puppy blood? Really?"

Damon smirked. "Little Golden Retriever puppies with cute, fluffy ears…"

Claire frowned at him and didn't say a word before she turned on her heel to go down to see Stefan and get him to drink the blood. Damon watched as she left, and his smile slowly began to fade.

"I bet Jonathan Gilbert has told Father by now. Wonder how he took the news that we're dead," Stefan wondered aloud as he and Damon sat by the water, stripped of their shirts with a bucket of water between them so they could wash up.

"As if he cares," Damon responded. Stefan turned to look at him. "He betrayed us."

"He thought he was protecting us, Damon. He thought he was protecting this town."

Instead of replying, Damon just drew in a sharp breath. "God. The sun hurts my eyes."

"It's a part of it." The brothers looked at each other. "The muscle aches, the sick feeling—Clarissa said she never got to experience it because Katherine made her turn right after she'd woken up, but Emily says that it's our bodies pushing us to feed. To complete the transition."

"That's not gonna happen." Damon hastily scrubbed at his skin, trying to clean up. Stefan squinted in the sunlight.

"Is that your choice, then? To die instead?"

"Isn't it yours?" Stefan was silent. "This was all to be with Katherine! But she's gone. I want it over."

"So that's it, then?" a voice sounded behind them, and Stefan and Damon turned to see Clarissa walk out with the sun behind her head, illuminating her golden hair. Both brothers watched as she walked forward with a melancholic expression. "You both have decided?"

Damon sat still, not realizing that he hadn't thought his reasoning all the way through. Katherine may not be alive, but Clarissa was a vampire, and she would be for the rest of eternity whether she wanted it or not. Stefan swallowed.

"Damon's right, Clarissa." Both brothers exchanged a glance. "We can't complete the transition."

The blonde nodded and walked up to them. Stefan moved the water bucket to his side so that she had a place to sit, and with a sigh, she sat down on the soft grass in front of the lake between both brothers. "I understand completely. I would've chosen the same thing."

"Why'd she do it?" Damon asked suddenly, earning Clarissa's attention. She turned to look at him, her blue eyes growing brighter in the midday sun. "Turn you, that is. Do you know?"

There was a reason—a reason both Clarissa and Damon were both thinking of, but couldn't say aloud. Instead, Clarissa shook her head. "All she told me was that I needed to pay for what I've done. That I deserved a greater punishment than death."

"You don't have to keep going, Clarissa," Stefan said softly, making her turn to him. "We could all die. Together."

"I'm already a vampire, Stefan. I've already completed the transition. There is no dying for me."

"Clarissa." Damon caught her attention again. "I don't think that's what he meant."

Damon and Clarissa stared at each other, silently exchanging words before Clarissa turned her head to face Stefan and did the same thing. No actual words were spoken, but there had been enough said to last forever. Stefan had offered, bluntly, to kill her before he died, himself.

Her eyes turned to the quarry, and she just took in a deep breath.

"I heard someone's got a bad case of anorexia," Claire accused Stefan as she eyed the brooding vampire through the small window of the cell. Stefan kept his head hung and his eyes locked on the animal blood in the water bottle that had been knocked on the floor by his brother. Claire was silent before she began again with a sigh, "You need to feed, Stefan." He shook his head weakly. "Come on. You won't be able to survive without it."

"I don't want to survive," Stefan said abruptly, finally looking up to meet Claire's gaze. She stopped to think for a second, and her eyes narrowed as she listened to his words on repeat in her head.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"I'm sorry, Claire. No more."

"Like hell you're sorry!" Claire snapped, turning from understanding to angry in a mere flash of an instant. "You wouldn't be doing this if you were sorry! Drink the damn blood, Stefan!"

"After what I've done, it has to end. I just want it over."

"All you did was feed off of some ditzy blonde at a high school…debutant pageant!" Claire defended him with a scoff. "We've all moved past it; you can move on now, too. You don't have to go starving yourself!"

"It's not about the girl."

"Then what is it about?"

"I don't want to talk about it anymore." Stefan returned to his original position, hanging his head and recoiling into himself. Claire shook her head at him.

"Stefan, I didn't put you in here because you're the worst person on the planet or something, I put you in here because I was concerned about you and I wanted you to get better. You starving yourself isn't helping anyone." Stefan didn't answer. "Stefan, please. Don't do this to yourself. It's not worth the torture." No answer. "Stefan?"

But it was hopeless. Stefan had stopped talking to her like he had so many times before, and Claire was forced to realize that he wasn't going to talk to her anymore. Angrily, she stormed back upstairs, where Elena was waiting for her upon her return from the basement. Everyone, including her husband, was in the study, so she took it as opportunity to tell them what happened with Stefan.

"You know, he's just being dramatic," Damon tried. "He's not going to starve himself."

"Then why would he say that?" Elena pushed. She was taking the news of Stefan's hurtful dialogue personally, coming to a realization that this was more serious than ever. Damon leaned over the back of the couch and shrugged.

"He feels bad about hurting that girl. It's very typical Stefan martyr stuff. It will pass."

Claire, who was pacing by the unlit fireplace, crossed her arms at him. "No, Damon. This was serious. He was serious. He wasn't upset about the girl; he was upset about something else. He was in so much…pain."

Damon scoffed. "Yeah. Well, that will pass, too, once he eats."

Claire stopped pacing to face him with a frown. "You know I didn't mean physical pain."

Damon kept his eyes locked with hers. "I know what you meant."

"Claire." Christopher sighed and got up from the lounger he was sitting on to walk over to his wife at the fireplace. "Just relax. You told me that he's been through this before with Lexi. He'll get over it, and he'll feed again. Besides, the blood's still in the cell…he won't be able to resist it for long. Even if he doesn't want to take it, he'll have to. His body won't let him desiccate if it doesn't have to…trust me."

His hand reached out and brushed the underside of her chin before sliding down to her arm in a comforting squeeze. Claire nodded, trying to calm herself down before she went crazy thinking about how long Stefan was going to be like this. From the other lounger, Elena's eyes cut over to Damon, who was staring at Claire and Christopher with a displeased expression written all over his face. When Damon looked over at her, Elena quickly tore her eyes and pretended like she wasn't watching him. The elder Salvatore sighed.

"Okay…look, Elena, are you going to be okay here if I have to run out? I have to go to an errand with the teacher."

"The teacher?" Elena repeated with a laugh. "Alaric? Are you two friends now?"

"I don't have any friends, Elena," Damon pointed out as he walked over to get his jacket. Elena scoffed.

"Right."

"I thought we were going together on this," Claire protested as she watched Damon slip his jacket on. He didn't look up at her. "What, now you're cutting me out of the plan?"

"I just thought you wanted to stay here with Stefan, that's all." Damon sighed, turning around at her. Claire shook her head.

"If I stay here with Stefan, I'm going to end up forcing that blood down his throat…which I really don't want to do because it'll be messy and he'll hate me forever." She shuddered at the thought of it, and her eyes flickered to Elena. "Are you okay alone?"

"I could stay behind to make sure nothing happens to her," Christopher offered. Elena shook her head, displeased at being treated like she needed a babysitter.

"No. No, I'll be fine. You all can go," she assured them. The vampires stared at her, and she just sighed. "Look, if you were really all that worried, you wouldn't be leaving. I can handle it."

A long silence passed before Damon shrugged. "Okay. We won't be long." Looking up at Claire and Christopher, he jerked his head to the door. "Come on."

After parting with Elena, the two vampires followed Damon outside the house, where they met Alaric at his car and drove to Grove Hill. After much navigation to the location Alaric had gotten from the cell phone, they finally ended up at an apartment that looked like all the other ones around it.

All four of them walked up the driveway, and Alaric announced, "This is the one here. Records show it was paid three months in advance."

"This is where it gets tricky," Damon sighed as they all walked up to the doorstep. "I may or may not be able to get in."

As Damon reached forward and knocked on the door, Alaric nodded. "Yeah, how does that work? You always have to be invited in?"

"By the owner or person of entitlement," Damon agreed. "Short-term rentals and hotels are…a bit of a gray area. You kind of gotta play it by year."

"Sheratons," Claire pointed out behind Alaric. "Those are the ones that get you."

Damon stepped forward to the door, and Alaric scoffed. "Could we…not kill anyone tonight, please?"

"You mean, you just brought me along for my company?" Damon quipped as he twisted the lock so that it broke in his hand. He let Alaric cross the threshold first, and Claire followed up at the threshold right behind the History teacher. With a look inside, she tested her hand across the doorway and found that it easily passed through, so she gave a look of approval and stepped across the doorframe.

"It doesn't look like anyone's home," Alaric whispered.

"No permanent resident, apparently," Damon noted. The four walked through the hallway leading into the small apartment, and they all branched off. Damon went to the kitchen, Alaric went to the small eating area, and Claire and Christopher walked into what seemed to be the living room. Damon opened the fridge in the kitchen, and when he saw what was inside, he knew it couldn't be good. "Uh…we have company."

The second Damon mentioned it, someone flew out and attacked Alaric in full-on vampire mode. Claire immediately flashed over to the teacher and pulled the vampire off of him without blinking, but the vampire recoiled fast at full attack mode. Damon only had to walk forward to intervene, pushing the vampire down again at a brute force without effort.

"I know you," Damon said suddenly, looking down at the vampire. Claire tilted her head as well, as if coming to the same realization. From beside the knocked-down vampire, Christopher widened his eyes.

"Henry?"

Henry looked over at Christopher and did the same. "Christopher?" He looked at Damon and Claire next. "Damon? Clarissa?"

"You were in the tomb," Damon stated. Henry nodded.

"Yes, sir." He looked between all three vampires. "What are you doing here?"

Clarissa threw a rock into the quarry and watched as it skipped ten times as fast as it had back when she was a human. One of her new abilities as a vampire was strength, and she hadn't grown quite accustomed to it yet. Throwing the stones was what allowed her to try and control said strength, but the stones still skipped father than they'd ever skipped before. Stefan had gone on a walk to clear his head, and Clarissa was sure Damon was off sleeping or something like that. This, however, was what relaxed her since she had nothing else to do.

Stefan's proposition was enticing, she had to admit it. Dying again would give her what she wanted—to be at peace. But now that she had a chance to live another life, she couldn't help but wonder if she should. She could start over, become someone new. Maybe even find her sister at last. Having the choice of whether or not to die was a burden that no one wanted, because there was just too much to give up. It was a life—vampire, transitional vampire, or human. As a vampire, a person might be dead, but they were still…alive.

"How could you?"

Clarissa turned around just as she threw another stone, and the sound of the stone skipping roughly echoed behind her. She turned to face Damon with a peeved expression upon his features, his hands clenched into fists. Clarissa shook her head.

"I—"

"Three weeks." Damon stepped forward. "I went three weeks thinking that you were dead when I saw you the night your parents put your grave in the ground."

Clarissa swallowed and dropped her eyes. "Oh. Right."

"You compelled me to forget that you were there," he hissed.

"I didn't know what else I could do," she defended herself with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "I am dead, Damon. It all would've gotten complicated if you thought I wasn't dead. Katherine made sure that everyone knew. If I hadn't compelled you, she would've known I escaped. At the time, that mattered."

"You still shouldn't have done it."

"I had no choice!" she returned angrily, spinning around and throwing all the stones she had collected in her hand with a flash of anger that came over her. She stayed turned around, her chest rising and falling out of anger. She remembered doing it and how it wrecked her to watch as all remembrance of her appearance had drained from Damon's eyes, but she did have no choice. She had escaped from Katherine during the night and knew that if Katherine had turned her over having some unimportant affiliation with Damon that she would do much worse if Damon knew she was still alive.

When Clarissa turned around, she found that she ended up turning to face Damon just a few feet away from her, closer than before. Things were quiet until he finally said something.

"I could turn," he said softly. She waited for him to clarify. "If you want me to, I'll do it. Just tell me."

"I can't ask that of you." Clarissa scoffed. "And I think it's unfair of you to ask that of me."

"Do you really want to die, Clarissa? Die with both of us like Stefan suggested?"

"I want peace," Clarissa told him, her throat thick. "I spent the last three weeks fighting for my life against a woman that hated me out of pure jealousy. I came out victorious to find that my husband died trying to burn her in a church." Damon winced. "He knew, you know. About my transformation. Katherine made me tell him, but...then she compelled him to forget."

"Did you want him to forget?" Damon asked softly. Clarissa shook her head.

"Of course not. But Katherine thought that, when I told him, he would think that I was a monster. Some kind of demon." She swallowed again. "She was wrong. He didn't think I was a monster. He accepted it."

"So it was just me, then?" Damon barked, his eyes cold and hard. "It was only me you wanted to forget the fact that you were alive?"

"If that's how you look at it." She nodded. Damon frowned at her.

"You kissed me again."

"I know. It was wrong…and selfish," she added. They stared at each other across the grass until she let a sad smile on her face. "But it's time to just accept the situation as it is, Damon. We'll never work, even if it were possible to…which it's not, because I'm not ready, and neither are you."

"So you're saying…?" Damon trailed off, trying to come to a conclusion. Clarissa inhaled.

"I'm saying that you broke a vase in my house and that I retaliated by breaking your father's drinking glass." Another silence ensued, passing between them. "And it's time to just accept that as the truth and let the rest go."

She nodded as if reassuring them both, but Damon just stared without saying a word.

"So," Henry began as he drained a blood bag into a glass to make it more presentable, "How do you know John Gilbert?"

"Well, I've…known him for years. He's a good friend," Damon lied. Claire bit down on her tongue to keep from telling the painful truth that John Gilbert was just an annoying parasite. "How do you know him?"

"I met him right after I got out of the tomb," Henry told them. "He's been helping me out."

"Helping you out how?" Alaric asked. Henry put the glass of blood in front of Damon, who had been the last to receive the drink.

"Adapting. It's a whole new world. Cars, computers, 'match dot com'. There's so much to learn! Right, Christopher?" Henry asked, gesturing towards him. His eyes flickered to Claire. "Well…I guess 'match dot com' probably wasn't relevant to you, anyway."

"Yeah, it…really is a challenge." Christopher cleared his throat and leaned forward. "So what about this place? Is John the one who got it for you?"

Henry nodded as he pulled another blood bag out of the fridge for himself. As he did so, Alaric asked, "So, do you live here alone, or is there…uh…someone else here?"

Damon quickly covered Alaric's hasty question, "That's my friend's very…passive-aggressive way of asking, uh, do you know a woman named Isobel?"

Henry shook his head. "Uh, no. No, I don't know an Isobel. I know John. He's my only real friend." Claire silently rolled her eyes. "He really showed me the ropes—how to use a microwave, separate my whites."

"What else do you do for him?" Alaric asked.

"I help keep an eye on things—you know, with the others."

"The others?" Claire repeated, cocking an eyebrow. Henry nodded.

"From the tomb. I mean, obviously not Christopher since he's not a big threat or anything being with you and all," he amended, "but some of them are still pissed at the Founding Families for trying to burn them alive. I'm cool, but those tomb boys, they want revenge."

"What does John want with them?" Alaric pushed

"He's just keeping an eye on them, you know? Trying to make sure they stay out of trouble."

Damon laughed. "Well, that's John. He's such a do-gooder."

"Saint John," Claire agreed with a bitter smile. Suddenly, a phone started ringing, and Henry reached in his pocket to pull out a small cell phone with a green light on top indicating the incoming call.

"That's John now," he laughed at the irony. Damon immediately rose from his seat.

"Oh! Hey…let me talk to him." He grabbed the phone out of Henry's hand with an agreement from Henry, and the smiling tomb vampire just waited for Damon to answer the call. Claire and Christopher both stood up from their chairs and walked around to surround Henry, whose smile was falling when Damon didn't pick up the phone.

"Are you gonna answer that?" Henry asked.

"Am I gonna…answer that?" Damon knotted his eyebrows, looking at his companions. Alaric shook his head subtly behind Henry, and Damon's eyes flickered to Claire, who just gave him a look of understanding. Henry looked at all the vampires.

"What's…going on?"

The tomb vampire might've been stupid, but he wasn't that stupid. After a second of silence, he finally realized that he was being ambushed, and he began to go into full attack mode. Unfortunately for him, by the time he tried to lunge at Alaric with his demonic face breaking through, Claire had already come up behind him and restrained him so that he couldn't get anywhere.

"Clarissa, don't!" Christopher protested, but it was too late. Alaric tossed Damon the wooden stake, and the vampire caught it halfway in the air and shoved it into Henry's heart faster than he could blink. Claire and Damon watched as the vampire in their grasp turned to a greyish color blotched with exposed veins. Slowly, Claire placed Henry down on the ground and dusted out her hands. Silence overwhelmed the group as they stared down at Henry's dead body and no one even realized that there had been a protest until Christopher spoke again.

"You didn't have to kill him!"

Claire and Damon both looked up simultaneously, finding as the bronze-haired vampire stood before them with disappointment in his eyes at the dead body on the floor. Claire thought, for a moment, that he wasn't serious, but she saw the sincerity when he scoffed and turned down the hallway towards the front door. She suddenly felt very ashamed of herself—something that she hadn't felt in a long, long time. Killing people had been a part of her nature, something she actually enjoyed doing from time to time. Sure, she was more humane than most vampires, but the thought really never did cross her mind to leave Henry alive. That's what shamed her.

Claire watched as the front door slammed, and she turned to look at Damon and Alaric, who looked like they were standing awkwardly in the middle of a fight…which, in a sense, they were. Something about it made Claire a little pissed, so she ended up grumbling, "See if you can find anything. We'll be outside."

Damon and Alaric nodded, and Claire just stepped over Henry's body and went out to find Christopher while they finished up inside. Luckily for her, he had only gone down the driveway when she stepped outside and closed the door shut behind her.

Obviously, he heard her—like all vampires would've been able to. "Is that normal to you? Killing people who never do anything wrong?"

"He was working for John," Claire defended as she walked up to him. "You know that. He was loyal to him."

"And I spent one hundred years with him trapped underground, Clarissa. He would've been loyal to me if I asked. It could've been entirely avoided." Claire bit down on her tongue, unwilling to argue with anyone else. She'd had enough excitement for one day—correction, the entire year.

"Fine, you're right. It could've." She let out a breath, trying to calm herself down. The day only got worse by the hour. "Look, Damon and Alaric are inside looking through Henry's things. Once they're done, we'll leave."

Christopher could see the annoyance in her eyes, and he stepped forward. "Look, I didn't mean—"

"You know what? It's been a really, really tough night, Christopher. Okay? I have Stefan to worry about, Damon to worry about, and Elena to worry about. I don't need another thing to stress over."

The couple stared at each other in utter silence, neither of them willing to say what was really on their minds. Christopher looked like he was about to say something, but he decided against it and just turned on his heel to go back to the car. As Claire watched him climb inside Alaric's unlocked car, she thought of something that she knew was on both of their minds—there was some part of her husband that looked at her like she was still an innocent human girl. But he was wrong.

She wasn't innocent, and she definitely wasn't human anymore. Death had changed her, like it had everyone else in their predicament.

When Claire returned home, Elena was sitting on the couch in the study writing in her diary with her knees against her chest. The fireplace was glowing brightly, adding a natural illumination to the room as well as warmth. Christopher had gone off somewhere and Damon was talking to Alaric out front. When Elena saw that Claire entered the study, she turned her head and gave a soft smile "Hey, Claire."

"Hey, Elena." Claire walked up behind the couch and uncapped the crystal container filled with bourbon. She grabbed a glass on the tray and poured herself a much-needed drink before asking, "How's Stefan? Did he eat?"

"Not yet," Elena murmured in a sad tone. Claire exhaled heavily while downing a sip of the bourbon in her hand, and when she was thinking over what she was going to say next, Damon interrupted by walking into the room and groaning.

"God. You're still here?" he mocked dramatically. Elena played along, looking up at him with a sour smile.

"Were you expecting anything else?"

"Nope." Damon walked around the couch to Claire and grabbed a glass of his own to pour some bourbon into. Elena looked up at the two behind the couch, sipping out of their glasses like they were synchronized. Brushing it off, she coughed.

"So…how was the 'errand'?"

"Futile," Damon responded. "Although, I think I witnessed the teacher having an existential crisis."

"You did?" Elena asked at the same time Claire raised an eyebrow and asked the same thing, apparently having missed all the fun. Damon looked back and forth between the two of them and nodded.

"Uh huh. Anyways, it's not important." He looked over at Elena. "Has Stefan eaten yet?"

Elena held her head proudly. "I thought you didn't care."

"Chalk it up to morbid curiosity," Damon lied smoothly, shrugging at her. Elena just smiled and ducked her head into her diary, but nodded.

"I think he's getting there. But he's got a lot of guilt that he has to deal with. And it doesn't help that you've spent the last 145 years punishing him for Katherine getting caught," Elena commented snidely.

"You know…that actually makes sense. Stefan doesn't feel bad about Amber, he feels bad because of what he did back in 1864 that turned you both into vampires…that's what he meant," Claire realized, trying to figure out ways to solve the problem in her head. Damon glanced up at her and cocked an eyebrow defensively.

"So you're saying that this is my fault, too?"

Snapping out of thought, Claire looked over at Damon. "Well…it's not technically your fault, Damon…but you have tormented him for a century and a half over losing Katherine. That can't be easy on him…you know how moral Stefan is. All of this—us locking him up—probably made him think that everything you've been saying for years is actually true."

Now Damon looked offended—pissed, really. He downed his bourbon and stared at Claire with cold eyes. "No. No, you don't know the whole story, Claire. You left us that night, remember?"

"What night?" Claire scoffed, taking a sip out of her own alcohol.

"The night we turned," he spat angrily, walking over to the fireplace as if getting ready to leave. Instead, he turned around on his heel and looked at both Elena and Claire. Claire just looked confused, but Elena was consumed with curiosity. Damon looked down at Elena. "Let me ask you this, Elena. In all this important soul-searching and cleansing of the demons of Stefan's past, did you ever manage to get the rest of the story?"

Elena shrugged and straightened. "He said there was more."

"Yeah. That's an understatement," Damon scoffed and turned on his heel to leave the room, as pissed as he could get. Claire put down her bourbon and Elena watched as she flashed over to him and pulled his arm back.

"Damon!" He turned around at her and pulled his arm to the side. Claire looked at him with concern, curious herself. "What are you talking about? What did I miss the night you two were turned?" He fell silent. "Tell me."

Damon swallowed hard, the memory too much for him. He didn't want to relive those horrible moments of his life, but he didn't seem to have a choice. Sincerity lined the blonde vampire's eyes, and he finally sighed.

"You and I just finished talking about the night you compelled me to forget that you were alive when you went on a walk to clear your head," Damon began, walking around Claire to return to the alcohol table behind the couch. Elena and Claire both turned their heads to follow his movement. "I thought Katherine was dead…I'd already made my decision not to turn, but while you were gone, Stefan came back with a girl. A human," he clarified. Claire slowly began to realize, just like Elena, the rest of the story as the pieces fell together. "He forced me to do it."

"Oh…my God," Elena breathed out. Damon nodded and took a sip out of the bourbon glass in his hand.

"From the moment Stefan had his first taste of human blood, he was a different person. I suppose I should thank him. It's been a hell of a ride." Damon laughed sickeningly.

Claire shook her head. "No. No, you two told me that you just decided that it was worth it to live. I…I believed you."

Damon shrugged. "Stefan knew you would be disappointed if you found out that he was the one who made me. He thought he'd lose you as a friend, and I already had, so I didn't care."

"He said he wanted to die," Elena whispered. "That's why he won't feed. Now I understand why, but— "

"His choice." Damon poured himself another glass. "If he's stupid enough to make it, so be it."

An angered Claire just began to walk out of the room, but having to say something, she spun around at him and pointed. "Damon, just stop, okay? Don't. Don't pretend like you don't care and that you've never cared for him a day in your life because it's not true and it's really starting to piss me off."

Damon watched as Claire angrily stormed out of the room and headed for the basement, and he muttered something that she blocked out as she rushed downstairs to see Stefan and confirm the truth in Damon's statement. Instead, when she reached the basement, she found that the door was swung wide open and no one was inside.

"Shit," Claire cursed under her breath as she looked around the empty basement with worry. Looking straight ahead at the bench Stefan had been lying on, she saw something small glint in the dim light. Rushing forward, she reached it and grabbed Stefan's daylight ring that he looked like he intentionally left behind.

Elena came to a halt at the cellar door and watched as Claire turned around with the ring in her hand. Her mouth dropped, and she began to widen her eyes.

"Elena, what the hell did you do?" Claire hissed. Elena looked up at her with guilty eyes, and Claire just sighed out of exasperation.

Stefan found himself back at the quarry, reliving the night that tore his insides up every single day of his pitiful existence. He remembered what Emily said about his heart being pure, he remembered what Damon said about making his eternity an eternity of misery, and he remembered watching as a looking of sadness crossed Claire's features when he told her that they would live forever. He knew that some part, no matter how small inside of her, wanted to die, even if she wouldn't admit it. He, once, wanted to die, too.

A pained, broken Stefan looked around the quarry and waited for the sun to rise as he fought the inner demons that clouded him and his judgment. It was only when a familiar voice called his name that he stopped to turn around.

"Stefan."

Claire stood a few feet from her best friend, Stefan's ring in her clenched fist and her expression bearing that of someone who couldn't stand to see another in so much pain. Stefan turned around to look at her and once he did, he stopped and remained completely quiet. Claire nodded to him.

"You lied to me," she said slowly, her eyes glancing around the quarry. "That night, back when you and Damon turned. You said you had both decided on your own to become vampires, but Damon told me the truth."

Stefan swallowed. "I should've died that night, just like I had chosen. We all should've."

"I know." Claire nodded. "I know. We were all ready to die. We were all going to. And you're right, we should've." Stefan bit down on his lip to keep from breaking, and Claire did the same. "But we didn't, Stefan. And dying now won't change what happened that night."

Stefan shook his head in denial. "Every single person that's been hurt…every single life that's been lost, it's because of me."

"We're vampires, Stefan," Claire told him softly. It would've been routine of her to yell and scream, but she felt that it would be pointless in this case. It was what Stefan was looking for. He wanted to be yelled at. He wanted to be hated so that he could die and know that he had a purpose for it. "People are hurt, lives are lost…sometimes, and that's just the way it has to be. We were all made monsters, Stefan. And every single day, we all have to live with that guilt—that pain inside of us that tells us how awful we are. The blood makes us something that we all despise, and what you've done is you've changed. You decided that you didn't want to be the typical vampire, and that's what I always appreciated about you. You choose to be good rather than…what the rest of us are by default."

"You could always control it. You don't understand," Stefan complained, his eyes red from the pain. "Every day I think that…if I just give myself over to the blood, I can make that pain stop. It would be that easy, and every day, I fight that. And I-I'm so terrified that one day, I'm not gonna wanna fight that anymore, Claire."

"Death…changes us, Stef," Claire whispered, her voice broken. "You don't think I look in the mirror every day and ask myself how the hell I'm supposed to get up in the morning knowing what I've done? Knowing how many people I've killed unnecessarily?" Stefan fell silent. "It's our curse, Stefan, and we have to live with that. It would be different if you were alone in this, but you're not. You have me. You have your brother. You have Elena. Now isn't the time to be selfish, and you know it."

But Stefan was done, and Claire could see that. He was in so much pain that it was evident in the way he looked, the way he moved, and the way he acted. This time, it had changed him. The blood had taken out the ground and had given away the underlay of the real problem at hand—Stefan was torturing himself over the guilt of that night, where it all began.

Claire held up his ring in her hand and displayed it for him, nodding a few times. "I can't force you to stay with me, Stefan. I can't force you to stay with us. But if you take this, you can put it on and you can let me take you back and we can figure it out together this time…no basement cellar. Or, you could throw it into that quarry and wait until the sun comes up to end this, but I'm telling you right now that it isn't worth it. And that you won't be alone." She placed the ring into Stefan's hand enclosed their fingers around it. She looked up at him. "You're my best friend, Stefan, and I will never, ever leave you."

"Claire…" Stefan trailed off, but she just shook her head and released his hand before she lowered herself down onto the ground and sat down on the grass. She looked up at Stefan and waited for him to make his decision, and she found herself increasingly growing worried as Stefan turned his back to her and looked out over the water. She waited impatiently, but she couldn't see what Stefan was doing. Eventually, she found that he turned around and sat down beside of her, grabbing her hand with his. On his hand sat the daylight ring, safe and secure. Claire let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding in, and she looked up at Stefan, who nodded. "Together."

Claire nodded right back at him. "Together." She smiled at him, and Stefan gave her a sad smile back as she moved her head so that it rested on his shoulder and they overlooked the smooth waters of the quarry. The two friends sat in silence for a while before Stefan smiled to himself.

"Even if I had thrown my ring into that quarry, you still wouldn't have let me die, would you?" Stefan asked.

Claire shook her head against his shoulder and whispered, "Absolutely not. Sorry, but you're stuck with me."

She felt Stefan chuckle, which earned her to smile. But she knew he was still hurting, and that wouldn't go away anytime soon. All they had to do was make sure that they were there for each other, as always.

Truth be told, I felt really bad about Claire stealing Elena's place at the end of this chapter...so I wanted to apologize for that, just a bit. I want this story to be different than TVD in the aspect that it won't focus fully on romantic relationships but rather the friendship dynamic between Stefan and Claire, Claire and Elena, and even others as we get down the line. I totally should've just named this story "The Salvatores and the King Girl" or something like that because it's literally the main theme I want to get across.

But thanks for reading! Review if you can, please.