New cover because...why not? Sorry for the wait on this. I'm really struggling but I hope I get over this writer's block so we can finally get to Season 3. Bare with me for a while, I promise it'll be worth it!
Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)
The House Guest
Without looking up from the copy of Jonathan Gilbert's original journal that Alaric had made, Damon reached forward for his glass of breakfast blood and brought it to his mouth to drink. Right as the blood was inches away from touching his lips, the glass was ripped right out of his hand, causing him to be forced to look up and find a grinning blonde vampire as she sat down beside him on the couch confidently.
"I'll take that, thank you." With a smirk, she downed the entire glass in one swallow and set the empty crystal on the coffee table. Damon scoffed at her. "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"
"You're a bitch," he countered, but she didn't take offense to it. "Where's Stefan?"
"He and Amelia are upstairs...doing what they do, I suppose." Claire leaned back on the couch tiredly. "I should've picked a room farther from his."
Damon chuckled and continued reading the copy of the journal. "Have you suddenly decided that you are annoyed by every couple within a ten mile radius?"
"I'm annoyed by the sounds I hear at night," Claire corrected him. He raised an eyebrow and looked back at her, where she dramatically demonstrated, "'Oh, Stefan! Oh, Stefan, yes!'"
He smiled. "Good thing we were always quieter than that."
"Yeah, but we had a reason for that." She brushed it off.
"Look, if it bothers you so much, then switch rooms."
"I don't want to. I like my room."
"Then figure out another solution." He flipped the loose page so he could read another two-to-a-page copy. "It sounds to me like you could use some inappropriate shouting for yourself."
Claire rolled her eyes. "Was that supposed to be an invitation or a suggestion?"
"Both."
Before Claire could get the chance to respond to his vague and suggestively inappropriate comment, both of them could hear the bell at the door chime for their attention. Damon didn't bother looking up, indicating to Claire that he refused to answer the door. With a sigh, she forced herself onto her feet and mumbled, "No, Damon. You sit, I'll get the door."
"Thanks, sugar," Damon called, hearing her mutter. She gave him a sour look over her shoulder as she walked up to the door and opened it to reveal Elena standing at the front porch step, awkwardly holding the strap of her school bag. Claire smiled at her, confused.
"Elena. Hey, what are you doing here?"
Hearing Elena's name, Damon's ears perked up, and he jumped out of his seat on the couch and flitted to the door in an instant. Elena's eyes adjusted to his quick movement and he gave her a kind smile.
"Hey, Elena. Thanks for coming."
"Yeah, no problem." She cleared her throat and walked through the threshold that Damon opened for her. "What's this about?"
"Yeah, Damon," Claire added, even more confused than Elena sounded. Damon shut the door and looked at the two of them with pursed lips. The blonde crossed her arms. "What is this about?"
Damon hadn't planned on telling Claire at all; though it occurred to him that he might mention it to Elena, he thought worrying Claire was unnecessary. The only reason he even thought to tell Elena was ever in case she decided to go poking holes through his lie by pulling another one of her stunts to go talk to Katherine, especially with what was going on in Mystic Falls. But since Claire was with them, there was no way she was backing down. He sighed realizing that he was going to be forced to tell her.
"Just...let's go sit down, okay? In the study. I need a drink for this." He pushed Elena and Claire in the direction of the study, and as he tuned out the sounds of Claire's confused questions while they walked, his ears noted another bell chime at the front door.
"Did you invite all of Mystic Falls for this secret meeting?" Claire quipped. Damon pushed her forward with a frown.
"No. Just go wait in there."
"Whatever." She looked at Elena. "I could use a drink, too."
With that said, Claire and Elena walked into the study and Damon turned back around at the door. As Claire and Elena disappeared down the hallway, Damon swung the door open to reveal Elena again, standing on the front porch with her hair straight as a stick and a soft, kind smile on her face. Damon's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull as he realized that one of the brunette humans in the vicinity of his property had to be Katherine. Though the Elena in front of him was dressed in her clothing, she wasn't certain that it was Elena.
"Morning, Damon," the second doppelgänger said sweetly. "What is this—?"
Damon moved so quickly, he had the second Elena inside of the house and pinned up against the door faster than she could blink with his hand wrapped around her throat. The second Elena gasped for air.
"What are you doing here?" he snarled. "I told you to leave!"
"What is your...problem?!" Elena choked out.
"Wearing her clothes? You think that's gonna work?"
He watched as the girl underneath his hand shifted for a moment, and with his sadistic smile, Damon was expecting to watch her give in and shove him off with her vampire space. Instead, he watched as Elena's features fell and she gripped at his hand with a human strength and managed to get a few words out from his tight grasp.
"You think I'm Katherine?" Damon looked into Elena's eyes, trying to decide whether it was a trick or not. The human's eyes widened. "Why would you think that? Katherine's in the tomb! Isn't she?"
Damon's face fell as he loosened his grip on Elena's throat and felt two presences behind them. Damon and Elena turned to see Stefan and Amelia rushing down the stairs, confused as to what was happening.
"Damon! What are you doing?" Amelia snapped at him as she shoved Damon off of Elena. The human caught her breath as Stefan looked at his brother.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Elena finally caught her breath and looked up at Damon angrily. "I don't know, you tell me! Is Katherine in the tomb or not?"
Damon swallowed thickly, but he didn't answer the question. Instead, he brushed past his brother, Elena, and Amelia and immediately flashed to the study, where he briskly walked in. The woman he believed to be Katherine was sitting on the couch laughing at something Claire said as Claire poured herself a glass of bourbon. At Damon's urgency, Claire turned around at him with a faltering smile.
"Whoa, what's got your panties in a twist, Turbo Racer?" She chuckled and sipped a bit of her drink. Damon growled at Katherine on the couch.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
She stood up, confused. "What are you talking about? You asked me to come here earlier because you had something to tell me."
"I told you to leave!" Damon barked.
"Damon!" Claire set her glass down and frowned at him. "What are you so angry about? You were the one who invited her here—!"
"It's Katherine, Claire!"
Claire rolled her eyes. "Katherine's in the tomb."
"No, she's not, okay? That's what I wanted to tell Elena; Elijah died, Katherine got released. Get the hell out of here, Katherine," Damon pushed at Elena. The doppelgänger shook her head at him vigorously.
"D-Damon, I'm not...I'm not—"
But by then, Claire had already begun to believe what Damon was telling her, and she could see it in Elena's eyes and the confirmation by Stefan and Amelia, who had walked into the study as well and looked at Katherine with the same disgust Damon was looking at her with. Claire's lips had turned hard and suddenly, the blonde had the doppelgänger bitch by her throat up against a bookcase. She gasped, pretending to be human and frail, but Claire did nothing but kept a firm hold on the doppelgänger's throat.
"You bitch!"
"Claire!" She struggled against the hard clasp on her throat. "Claire! You're hurting me!"
"Spare me the theatrics, Katherine!"
"What theatrics?" Everyone in the room turned to look at the other doppelgänger, who was standing by the lower-level entrance to the study with her arms crossed and a cat-like smile on her face. Claire, confused, released her hand off of Elena's throat and listened as Elena choked up the squeeze in her throat as Katherine smiled at her doppelgänger. "It's getting really easy being you."
"What..." Elena tried to catch her breath as everyone in the room processed the duplicity they'd been deceived on and listened to Elena try to choke out her sentence. "What is she doing here?"
"When we killed Elijah, it broke the compulsion and freed the bitch from the tomb," Damon answered.
"How is that possible?" Stefan chimed.
"He's an Original. They have all sorts of special skills," Katherine replied. Amelia narrowed her eyes at Katherine.
"Which is why you've been making me drink that nasty vervain for the last century and a half?"
"Yep," Katherine agreed, popping the 'p' with another smile on her face as she tilted her head, acting innocently. Amelia rolled her eyes and watched as her sister nearly had a vein burst in her forehead from the presence of Katherine in the room.
"I don't want you here," Claire mumbled throatily. "Elena doesn't want you here, Amelia doesn't want you here, Damon doesn't want you here, Stefan doesn't want you here...if someone doesn't get this bitch out of here, I'm going to do it myself!"
"You need me, Claire," Katherine told the heated blonde. She looked around at them. "You all do."
"Like hell." Elena scoffed.
"We all want the same thing! Klaus dead. Yet here you all are, running around like chickens with their heads cut off." Katherine crossed her arms and Elena unintentionally did the same thing.
"I don't need your help and I don't want it," she said determinedly. Katherine frowned.
"And that's incredibly stupid of you." Katherine's eyes drifted across the vampires. "Do you know where Klaus is? When he's coming, what he looks like?"
Damon stepped forward. "If you know something, say it or get out!"
"Fine." She shrugged. "Then I'll just...go to the Grill had have some lunch. Maybe Aunt Jenna's free for a bite."
It was a threat, there was nothing more to it. If they kicked Katherine out, she would wreck havoc on the town and there was no denying that. Realizing that they couldn't let anyone get hurt, the reluctant group allowed Katherine to stay and shortly after, Stefan and Amelia left with Elena to go to school.
"Stefan's out playing peacemaker with the Martins," Claire announced as she walked into the Salvatore foyer, finding Damon sifting through the box of Gilbert journals they brought back from the lake house. He looked back at her as she came up to him on his right side and looked in the box. "You think we'll get the witches on our side?"
"What other side do they have to play for?" Damon scoffed. "Elijah's dead, they can't fix that. Though I highly doubt a bunch of know-it-all witches will work with us."
Claire shrugged and picked up a journal from inside of the box. "Bonnie does."
"Bonnie's the exception. Besides, it doesn't change the fact that she still hates it." He paused and looked up at Claire as she examined the journal in her hand. "Plus, she lost her powers so she doesn't count."
"Yeah..." Claire sighed and caught Damon's gaze. "And...she kind of did try to barbecue us. Indirectly, of course. I think the only witch we could count on was Emily Bennett."
Damon snorted. "You. The only witch you could count on. She screwed me over."
"Because you wanted to release a bunch of murderous vampires loose on her hometown just so that you could rescue a woman that wasn't even in the place you were looking for her in," she said sharply. Damon laughed without looking up at her.
"Yes, but if Emily hadn't destroyed that crystal, I would've gotten the tomb open a hell of a lot earlier, no witches had to have been harmed, and you would've gotten back together with your former husband and lived happily ever after."
She sighed. "But Katherine still wouldn't have been in that tomb." Damon and Claire shared a glance as she admitted, "Happy endings don't exist, Damon."
He smirked. "Maybe not the romantic ones."
"Could you two dial down the flirting?" Katherine asked promptly as she sauntered into the parlor to observe Claire and Damon shifting through the journals. Damon ignored her and continued to organize the books so that they could flip through them. Claire watched Katherine as she gave a disgusted look. "I could hear it all the way from upstairs."
Claire smiled at her sourly. "You could always...you know, get the hell out. Then you wouldn't be forced to hear anything and I wouldn't be forced to look at you. It's a win-win!"
Katherine scowled, but regardless, when Claire dropped her sour smile and began to rummage through the box again, she looked at Damon. "So...what you up to?"
"None of your business," he shot.
"We're pouting now?" He didn't respond. "Are those the Gilbert Journals?" Again, Damon ignored Katherine, mumbling to himself as he relayed the year the journal in his hand was created and set it in the correct pile. Katherine took in a deep, irritated breath. "How am I supposed to help you if you won't tell me what you're up to?"
"Can you tell me where a bunch of witches were massacred in this town a couple centuries ago?" Damon asked sharply.
Katherine shrugged. "No."
"Then you can't help."
"Claire's helping and she doesn't know where the witches were massacred," Katherine countered. Claire looked over at her from beside Damon with a grimace.
"Because I live here. I live here because I'm an invited guest here, not because I threatened to go and kill people if I don't get to stay here," she replied.
Though Katherine was clearly displeased, she sighed and brushed past it. "Well, I came here to help so..."
Katherine reached forward to grab a journal, therefore Damon reached down and slapped it away. With a look of disdain, Katherine tried it again, but Damon blocked her effort once more until it became a full-on slapping fight. After having enough of Katherine's childishness, Damon flashed them so that he had his hand curled around her throat tightly and Katherine's body pinned underneath his on the piano chair a few feet away from where Claire was standing with the journals. After observing the fight for a moment, Claire became disinterested and resumed Damon's work while she heard Katherine gasp at Damon in a sense of desire behind her that almost, though not entirely, irked her.
"If it's any consolation, I'm glad that you're not dead." With a huff and no reply, Damon lifted himself off of her dramatically. Katherine gave a familiar laugh and lifted herself so that she was close to his face while she smiled vindictively. "Emily Bennett told me about the massacre. It was a big deal in witch folklore." She returned to Claire's side where, no matter how much the blonde hated her enemy, she was just as engaged in the knowledge as Damon was. "When a witch dies violently, they release a mystical energy marking the place of their death with power."
Damon walked up behind Katherine as she picked up a journal and he pried it from her hands while stating, "Elijah wanted to know the site of the massacre."
"What was he gonna do when he found it?"
"Go find a crystal ball and see if you can find out for us," Claire sneered.
"What'd Papa Witch and Baby Witch have to say?" Damon called out as he heard Stefan and Amelia walk into the boarding house, observing the scene before them. Katherine's head turned and watched as the couple walked in and Stefan stared at Katherine in teasing disappointment that was more a joke for everyone except for Katherine.
"Isn't she, uh, gone or...dead yet?" he prompted.
"For the last time, I'm here to help," Katherine snapped. "Can we skip the secrets, hmm?"
"You show us yours, we'll show you ours." Amelia cracked a smile. "Isn't that how it's supposed to work?" Katherine shot her a glare, and finally, Amelia rolled her eyes and answered, "Whatever. Elijah didn't have a weapon that could kill Klaus. He thought that if a witch could channel enough power, they wouldn't need one."
Damon watched his brother and Claire's sister closely. "Like the power you get from a spot marked with a hundred dead witches."
"Hmm," Stefan agreed. "We just need to find it."
"Well, then let's get moving." Claire moved the empty box of journals to the ground and grabbed a pile of journals that were assigned to a year. "I've got 1864."
"I'm in the Salvatore house," Luka Martin told his father as he looked around, nothing but an astral projection as a result of the spell they were performing that would double-cross their new vampire friends. "Elijah's body must be here."
He stepped forward, unnoticed by any of the three vampires in the room. In his head, he heard his father's voice. "What do you see?"
"Elena, Damon, and Claire. They're reading."
"Good. If Elijah's there, you'll sense him. Stay focused."
Luka couldn't help but feel that there was something off about the way Elena, Damon, and Claire were sitting in the parlor, but with his father's words, he turned and continued down the hallway where he felt Elijah's presence drawing him closer. Meanwhile, Damon, Claire, and Katherine sat in the parlor in silence, Damon laying on the couch horizontally and Katherine sitting at the chair by his head. Claire was sitting on the couch across from the longer one, observing as Katherine put down her book and moved towards Damon out of the corner of her eye.
Katherine walked over and put her elbow on Damon's shoulder, resting her head on her hand. She said nothing, so he chimed, "Can I help you?"
"I'm bored," she answered, her voice light and airy. All Damon did was let out a deep sigh. Claire was partially distracted by them, but she tried not to make it too obvious. Katherine reached forward, spotting something in her vision, and read a line from the journal Damon possessed in his hand. "'Emily Bennett was taken by the Council today. They kidnapped her from her home and took her to the same location her ancestors were burned a hundred years ago.' So Emily died on the site of the massacre, too...does it say where?"
She reached for it, but Damon snatched it out of her hands nonchalantly and spoke with a bitter tone. "Nope. You know this whole...friendly, cooperative thing?"
"Mmhmm..."
"I don't buy it."
She frowned and spoke in his ear with a low tone, "I have no reason to lie to you, Damon."
"Lie!" he hushed and turned back to his journal. Tired of repeating herself, Katherine straightened and sighed.
"I'm hungry."
"You're the unwanted houseguest. Go feed yourself."
With the blunt and disinterested statement, Katherine huffed and walked out of the room, unhappy to be ignored and treated the way they were treating her. She believed she didn't deserve it; however, the two who were left in the room after her departure were two of the biggest anti-Katherine supporters in Mystic Falls. When Katherine was gone to get herself some blood from the basement, without lifting her eyes, Claire spoke to Damon.
"You do know I was sitting right here the entire time, right?" she asked, flipping the page in her journal. Damon scoffed and did the same.
"Is there a reason I had to be extra aware of it?"
"'I have no reason to lie to you, Damon'," Claire quoted Katherine with the most seductive tone she could muster. Damon lifted his eyes and watched Claire laugh to herself. "I mean, I felt like I was watching the beginning of a very intense porno. It was disgusting."
Damon sighed and returned to the journal, where his eyes drifted across the page. "Just because you're the only one in this house not having sex doesn't mean you have to rain on everyone else's parade. Besides..." He raised his eyes just as Claire moved hers, "...my door is always open."
She scowled. "You think that just because I don't want to see you and my archenemy flirt ten feet away from me means that I'm going to strip down naked and jump into your bed? Please." Claire tossed her hair over her shoulder as both of them returned to looking at their reading material. "I've got much more self-worth than that."
Damon pulled himself to an upright position. "Well take you and your self-worth to get something to eat from the basement because I know when you're hungry and you can get pretty explicit." She looked up at him and he nodded without even consulting her eyes. "Yep. You know I'm right. Go ahead, I won't tell you I told you so."
With a heavy exhale, Claire lifted herself from the couch and put the journal down on the coffee table. As she moved out of the room, she could hear Damon mutter, "I told you so..."
She turned back around at him and slapped his head. He looked back at her as she left to the basement. When she got down to the cellar and went to the fridge, she realized that Katherine wasn't down at the cooler.
"Katherine?" she called out, confused.
"In...here!" Katherine gasped from farther inside the cellar. Claire walked past the cooler and towards the cage where they were keeping Elijah, only to find Katherine fighting to keep the dagger inside Elijah's chest.
Luka, unseen by the two vampires, struggled to relay to his father, "Elena's...fighting me..."
"What's wrong?" asked his father.
"She's...stronger than me!"
Jonas took a while to respond, but when he did, he said it in a hard and serious tone. "That's because it's not Elena. It's Katherine Pierce. Luka, kill her."
"What?"
"She's a vampire! Find a stake and drive it through her heart!"
"What the hell is going on?" Claire asked Katherine, looking around as if the doppelgänger was crazy. She probably was.
"Someone is trying to take this out!" Katherine grunted. Claire stepped forward to her side. Just as she did, Katherine felt the pressure be relieved from the stake and she looked around with wild eyes. This only made Claire more irritable towards the brunette.
"Someone? What the hell are you talking about, Katherine, there's no one—"
Suddenly, from behind Katherine, the wooden chair that had been situated in the corner of the room had come crashing down in bits and pieces. Katherine jumped and Claire's attention immediately went to the scene, where her eyes widened to the size of the moon as Katherine stood up from the floor and backed away, towards the other side of Elijah's head.
"There is someone here, Claire! There is!" Katherine snapped.
"Holy shit." Claire looked up at the entrance and shouted as loud as she could, "Damon!"
But before Damon could even hear Claire's exclamation, Claire watched as whatever invisible being was in their presence as it rushed forward and impaled Katherine right in the abdomen, causing the doppelgänger to stumble back, clutching the wooden stake in her hand. Claire flashed over to Katherine's side and moved her back to rest against the mountain of dirt against the left side of the cellar cage. Just as Damon had reached the threshold of the cage in response to Claire's call, he watched as she turned around at him, revealing Katherine's injury to his eyes. Katherine coughed up her own blood and choked as Damon ran over next to Claire, who gripped the stake in Katherine's chest and pulled it out.
Claire tossed the stake over to the floor as Damon asked hurriedly, "What happened?"
"I don't know!" she exclaimed frustratedly and turned back to Elijah's body. Her eyes observed what she assumed Katherine had seen before; the dagger was rising out of Elijah's chest almost as if by magic. "Damon, the dagger!"
"I can't...breathe..." Katherine choked out, calling Claire's attention back to her as Damon got up and moved for the flamethrower he'd been working with earlier in the morning trying to fry Elijah's body. Claire shook her head.
"I got the stake out, Katherine."
"I think there's..." Katherine swallowed hard, but blood foamed at her mouth, hindering her from continuing. Claire looked at Katherine's wound and realized that there was probably a splinter inside of it. The chair didn't break into even pieces.
"Oh, shit, there's more in your heart. Hold on," Claire instructed her as she tried to pick out the splinters she could see. But just after she got one of them out, she could see Katherine's face as she started to grey up, the veins in her neck becoming solid. Claire's eyes widened. "Oh, that's not good."
Just as she watched Katherine's near-demise, she heard the sound of fire behind her. However, she ignored it and rushed to get all the splinter's out of Katherine. Though it was unclear to her why she was actually helping Katherine when all she wanted was for her to die, she did it anyways. But she knew she wasn't going to make it. Suddenly, Katherine's hand gripped Claire's and forced it up to her mouth. Claire tried to get out of Katherine's grasp but it was too late. Katherine had already bitten into her wrist just as Claire was able to shove Katherine off of her and stand up.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Claire shouted at Katherine over the sound of the flames. Stefan and Amelia had joined them at this time, watching Damon as he fired at empty air.
"What are you doing?!" Stefan inquired, his voice loud.
"Shutting down a crazy ass psychic witch attack! Get over there and do something about it! Go!" Damon demanded. As he did, Amelia and Stefan both fled.
Claire watched with confused and frightened eyes as the grayness in Katherine's skin started to fade and the bloody wound on her chest began to heal as a result of her blood. Katherine had made all these claims to what her blood could do, but healing a vampire from the brink of their second death? She wouldn't have believed it if she saw it.
When Damon finally put the flamethrower down when he was certain that the witch attack was no longer a threat, he came to Claire's side and observed her astounded, boggled face as Claire stared at the recovering, breathless Katherine on the ground.
"What is it?" Damon looked between the two of them. "Someone tell me what's going on."
Rex sanguis ex fortissimis. The strongest blood comes from the King.
"I'll be damned," Claire murmured as she crossed her arms. Katherine looked up at her with cold, hard eyes. "The bitch actually told the truth for once."
"So everything you said was...true." The word tasted odd coming out of Claire's mouth as she sat on the couch across from Katherine, who was still recovering over Damon's blow that he delivered earlier for something that Claire was unaware of, but had a pretty good idea of what it was about. Katherine sipped at the blood bag in her hand without a word as Claire's hard blue eyes stared into her doe-like ones. "Everything about my blood, about turning Caroline, about that freaky doppelgänger of mine that ruined your life—"
"She wasn't a doppelgänger," Katherine interrupted, rolling her eyes.
"It was all true." Claire ignored her and leaned forward on her knees, processing the information. Her head was bowed as she took a moment, and when she had finished taking a deep breath, she flipped her hair over her head and looked at Katherine with exhausted eyes. "How can it be possible that the one thing I want you to be lying about is the one thing you're actually telling me the truth on?"
Katherine shrugged. "I work in mysterious ways."
Claire scoffed and leaned back on the couch, drumming her fingers on her knee. "If she wasn't a doppelgänger, what was she?"
"Look alike?" the brunette guessed. "Don't look at me. I'm only educated in doppelgänger lore."
"Then why are you so sure that she wasn't a doppelgänger?"
She could see Katherine's patience was wearing thin. "Because in order for her to be a doppelgänger, she would've had some kind of purpose. A magical purpose—like breaking the Sun and the Moon curse. All Tabitha ever had in her life was misery, she had no purpose."
Claire snorted. "Gee, thanks."
"It's the truth," Katherine shot. Things were quiet for a while, but when Katherine spotted Claire's eyes drift suspiciously to the staircase, she realized something. Katherine leaned forward and put the blood bag in her hand down for a moment. "Mm...you haven't told anyone about Tabitha, have you?" Claire looked at her with cold eyes again, but said nothing, which answered Katherine's question. "I wonder why that is. Maybe it's the fact that you don't want to accept that I have a valid reason for hating you because you look like the best friend who screwed me over?"
"I haven't told anyone about it because what does it matter?" Claire snapped. Katherine shrugged again, but it was more condescending than anything. "It's not like there's another me running around. I never had a kid, which means that I never continued the King line."
"But others have."
"Fine, but maybe it was just a freak of nature sort of thing," she suggested. "You know, they say that there are 7 people in the world that look like you. Maybe it had something to do with that so what's the point of getting all freaked out over a look-alike that was only around when you were a human?"
"I see your point." Katherine leaned back on the couch. "Go ahead, keep it from everyone. What do I care? It's not like I'm helping anyways, right?"
When silence reigned over the room, Claire crossed her arms tightly. "I'm sorry, if you wanted me to say something inspirational and kind here, you're gonna have to adjust your standards. You stole my blood so you wouldn't die and, since you're you, that makes me a little angry."
Katherine scowled. "You couldn't let me die even if you tried." Before Claire could respond, clearly protesting the statement, Katherine spoke out to the entire room, and Claire realized that Damon had come down the stairs. "Where are you going?"
"Luka Martin is dead. His father's going after Elena." Damon's eyes drifted from Katherine to Claire and he jerked his head to the door. "Let's go."
Claire nodded and got up from the couch, walking over to where Damon was. Damon passed Claire her jacket as Katherine finished her blood bag and stood from the couch. "I'm coming with you."
"Ha!" Claire laughed as she turned to the door and started to walk out. Just as she did with Damon right behind her, Katherine flashed over to the two of them with her hand on Damon's chest to stop him.
"Wait!"
"I don't need your help. I don't want it," Damon snapped bitterly.
"I know what we can do, Damon," Katherine strategized. Damon's eyebrows knotted as he was taken back at Katherine's willingness to help Elena. "You have to let me do it."
Damon and Claire exchanged a glance, but Katherine's sincerity had them intrigued.
Damon, Claire, Elena, and Amelia all stood in the Gilbert foyer waiting as Katherine and Stefan finished with Jonas upstairs. Elena was positioned by the post at the door, exhaling heavily as Damon paced in front of her and Claire and Amelia stood with their backs to the couch.
"How did you guys convince her to do this?" the human asked.
"We didn't," Damon responded simply. "It was actually her idea."
Elena's eyes widened. "Wow. That's...not good."
"Nope." Claire crossed her arms. "Definitely not good. But it was our best option."
"Doppelgänger deception," Amelia muttered lightly. Claire snorted.
"Right."
"Everything's taken care of," Stefan announced as he and Katherine came down the stairs. Katherine sighed and gripped the vervain necklace around her collarbone tightly so she could pull it off.
"I'm guessing you're going to want this back," she assumed, holding the necklace out for Elena to take. She put her hand on her hip. "But your pretty little outfit is gonna need a good dry clean."
Heatedly, Elena stepped forward and snatched the necklace back from her doppelgänger. Katherine merely smiled, and with her head bowed, Elena told Stefan, "You're going to have to get her out of here before Jenna comes home."
Katherine's smile dropped. "Is that all you have to say to me?"
"This doesn't change the way I feel about you."
"I don't much like you, either, if we're going to be open. And frankly...I'd be happy to see you dead, but if we're gonna try to take on Klaus, we kinda need you to be alive. So I'm not a threat to you, Elena." Katherine looked at all the vampires in the room who were watching Katherine's do-gooder speech. "If any of you are going to believe anything, believe that."
Claire watched as Katherine frustratedly left Damon's room, bumping the blonde's shoulder as she left to find another place to sleep. Claire came up to the threshold of Damon's bedroom and observed the raven-haired vampire lying on his bed with the Gilbert journal open in his lap. Without looking up, he spoke to her.
"Do you need something?"
Claire didn't respond. She bit down on her lip as she contemplated what she wanted to do. She could turn, she could run, she could lie, or she could do what was on her mind. At the lack of response, Damon put the journal down on his nightstand with a sigh and looked up at Claire as she was waiting at the threshold, debating internally. His face changed as he watched her struggling expression and realized what she was thinking about. At last, Claire swallowed.
"When you said your door was always open..." She swallowed thickly. "Did you mean it?"
Damon hesitated, but eventually, he climbed out of his bed and flashed over to her, where she watched him as he took her inside and closed the door behind her.
Thanks for reading! Please review!
SomebodyWhoCares: Stefan will always cause problems lol especially in S3. Thanks for reviewing!
RHatch89: Thank you :)
NicoleR85: Thanks! They did! Though the next few episodes will be a little difficult for Damon to deal with just because he's really in love with her, he just doesn't want to tell her and blah, blah, blah, so just having sex for him is a big problem. But it'll work itself out eventually! Sorry the wait for this update was so long. Thanks for the review!
Tvd2014: That won't really be revealed until S5, believe it or not. I mean, it'll be touched on briefly but like how the doppelgängers weren't explained until S5, Claire's terrible luck won't be explained until S5 either when we get more into this whole thing with Tabitha and another character that will be introduced sometime in S3 during flashbacks. I wish it could've been weekly updates but I've been so distracted. Thanks for reviewing though!
grapejuice101: Thanks! Yep Klaus's arrival is only 2 episodes away! Here's the update. Thanks for the review!
Tvd2014: Lol I wish I could update 5 chapters in one week but my life is so hectic. Hope this update was worth it though. Thanks for reviewing!
klandgraf2007: Thanks! Yeah, I like to tell Damon and Stefan's story through Claire's eyes because she has a very particular lens because of everything that happened with Damon. Plus, I feel like it makes her character more relevant so she's not just sitting around doing nothing like Amelia basically...though Amelia should get a better storyline in S3 and an even better one in S4. A lot happened with Kat being out of the tomb. She really got to Claire. Anyways, thanks for reviewing!