Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)

Know Thy Enemy

As the daylight broke over the horizon and lit up Damon's bedroom, Claire opened her eyes to find her golden hair sprayed across the white cotton pillow and her bare body wrapped beneath Damon's thin white sheets. For a moment, she was weary of her surroundings, but then...then she remembered.

Claire shot up in Damon's bed and snapped her head over to the dark-haired vampire beside her, his chest rising up and down in his slumber. The sheets on his bed pooled to his waist, leaving his muscular build open and exposed. With a hard kick, Claire managed to wake Damon up as she jumped out of bed, murmuring expletive after expletive.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Damon heard as he woke, startled by the sharp kick he felt in his calf. Somewhat groggily, he watched through slitted eyes as Claire practically fell of the bed, scrambling to get her clothes on. Damon wiped his dry mouth with his hand and groaned.

"Ugh, what time is it?"

"It's morning," Claire grumbled. He scoffed and plopped back down on the pillow.

"Great. Go back to sleep."

"Are you fucking insane?!" she whisper-hissed. Damon's eyes irritatedly opened to watch her as she slipped on her jeans over her undergarments. "I overslept, Damon! I slept in your bed! What if Stefan comes in here? What if he figures...this out?"

Damon sighed. "Then maybe we can sleep in peace."

"Quit trying to be funny," she snapped. Hearing her abrasive tone, Damon was immediately put in a bad mood. He swung his naked legs off the side of the bed and walked over to the dresser, explicitly nude. Claire let out a huff. "You're a pain in my ass, you know that, right?"

Damon shot a smile at her as he pulled on a pair of boxers and grabbed a pair of jeans. "You know, would it really be that bad if little bro knew our dirty little secret? It's not like we're committing adultery anymore. You're divorced."

Claire walked over to Damon's dresser and grabbed a shirt of his as he spoke. He looked at her in confusion, but she disregarded him and slipped a button-down black shirt onto her frame. Surprisingly, it didn't look half-bad or out of place. She scoffed at his suggestion.

"That would require us to tell Stefan what the hell we're doing. Which would involve feelings and talking, two of the things that we agreed never to do." Just as she buttoned the last on top and tucked in the shirt under her jeans, she sighed and gave him a bittersweet smile. "And besides, you wouldn't want to ruin the fun, would you?"

Damon grinned at her cockily and stepped forward, still without a shirt. His scent filled her surroundings and he could tell she was immediately effected. "You know as well as I do that this will always be fun. For both of us."

His finger came up and twirled a piece of her blonde hair, and she shuddered. For a moment, she forgot what she'd been doing, but when she came up for air, she reached up and pushed his hand away, clasping her fingers around his sternly.

"Yeah. Sex fun, Damon. Sex. That's all we do." She dropped his hand and watched as he rolled his eyes and stepped past her to grab a shirt. Claire walked around him, her back facing the door. "I'm serious, okay? We can't tell Stefan. Not now, not ev—"

"Damon—!" Stefan bursted through the door, causing Claire to jump around immediately, frightened by the intrusion. Damon finished slipping his shirt over his head and looked to the door with wide eyes, looking at his brother as Claire stiffened tensely. Before Stefan could continue, Claire jumped in.

"H-Hey, Stefan, I was just—"

"I don't care," he said bluntly and barged in, looking at the two of them with urgency. "I just got a call from Elena. Guess who showed up at the Gilbert's?"

"Who?" Damon prompted.

"Isobel," Amelia chimed as she walked into the room, coming to Stefan's place in his brother's bedroom. She held up a phone in her hand and Claire recognized it as her own. Claire tilted her head in confusion, but her sister tossed it to her. "Check your messages, Claire. You left your phone in your room this morning. I answered one of Elena's calls. It looked urgent."

"Come on, let's go. We don't have time to break up whatever fight you two were probably having over...Claire's fashion choices." Stefan made a distasteful look and hurried out the door, Amelia on his tail, and Claire and Damon right after them. As they moved down the staircase, Claire spoke out to her friend.

"So...what happened, exactly?"

"Isobel just showed up at the front doorstep."

"What's she doing here?" asked Damon.

"I don't know. That's what I'm gonna go find out."

Stefan reached the bottom of the staircase and moved briskly to the door with Damon, Claire, and Amelia trailing behind him. Just as they stepped down into the hallway leading to the foyer, Katherine stepped out of the parlor with her ears hot from eavesdropping.

"I don't think you should tell her that I'm here," Katherine suggested lightly. Stefan knotted his eyebrows.

"What? Why?"

"It's better that she and John not know that I stayed in town after I got out of the tomb."

"You're the one in kahoots with them," Damon reminded her viciously. "You made a deal with John that almost got me killed."

Katherine, however guilty, covered up her shame with a justification of her cruel actions. "I did what I had to do to get out of the tomb. Now, I'm...reconsidering my alliance."

She turned with a cat-like smile glistening all over her face. Amelia crossed her arms and watched the brunette as she started to walk away from them before calling out, "Spill it, Kat. You know something we don't, don't you?"

The vampire reluctantly turned around. "I know that I want Klaus dead which puts me squarely on Team You. Besides, if you ever need me to swap places with Elena again, the less people who know that I'm here, the better." She turned to Stefan. "Think about it, Stefan. Come on, be smart."

"Appealing to Stefan won't help you one bit." Claire stepped forward as she grabbed her jacket from the coat rack by the hallway and walked towards the door. Katherine followed her movements carefully, noticing something strange about Claire that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Claire smiled vindictively. "I'm the one going over to Elena's house, which means that I'll probably be the one to see Isobel first. And if I see Isobel first, there's no guarantee that I won't rat you out and team up with her to kill you."

"Claire..." Stefan warned her, catching the blonde's eyes. She frowned.

"Oh, relax Stefan. There's no guarantee that I will, either." Claire moved towards the door while pointing at Stefan and Amelia. "Call Alaric and tell him that his wife just showed up on his girlfriend's doorstep. He'll have fun with that one. If you need me, text me. I'll be back soon."

"Hey, Claire!" Katherine shouted as Stefan and Amelia dispersed to call Alaric, Damon went for a glass of bourbon, and Claire was halfway out the door. She waited for a moment and watched as Katherine's lips turned up in a knowing smile. "Nice shirt."

Claire raised her eyebrows, confused, but when she looked down and remembered that it was Damon's shirt she was wearing, she looked back up at Katherine with a cold, hard look and slammed the door right behind her.

"I can't find him anywhere," Caroline complained over the phone to Claire as the blonde vampire moved up the stairs to Elena's bedroom carrying two coffees. She'd just been informed that Matt Donovan was aware of Caroline's vampire status because she had to feed him her blood and he walked out before she got a chance to compel him. "He's not at home, he's not answering his phone..."

Claire groaned. "Caroline, how could you let him go? Haven't I taught you better than that?"

"My mom walked in! He just...took off! I didn't know what to do."

"Even if you were walking at a normal human speed you would've been able to catch up with him, Caroline!" she snapped. After a second, realizing that she might've been a little too harsh, Claire sighed and shook her head. "Forget it. What's done is done. Did your mother hear anything you told him?"

"No. She just thinks we're fighting. But he knows about me and he's freaking out about Vicki!"

"Okay, Care? Take a deep breath. It's okay, shit like this happens all the time. The first thing you need to do is find him and calm him down." Claire stopped at the top of the staircase. "Is he still on vervain? Because you may need to compel him if he's that shaken up about things."

"I slip it into his soda when he's at work, but I didn't get to last night, so it's out of his system."

Claire continued to walk into Elena's room as she nodded. "Good. That's really good. So when you find him, you'll be able to compel him and we won't have to detox. Now where can you find him?"

Caroline hesitated as Claire noticed Elena sitting on the window seat in her room, and while Claire waited for Caroline's response, she passed Elena's coffee to her and grabbed her own, ditching the coffee tray on the bed. Finally, Caroline gasped. "He has a catering shift at the Lockwood's today! I'm gonna try there."

"You do that. Keep me posted," Claire ordered before hanging up the phone so Caroline could go find her lost boyfriend. With a sigh, she slipped her phone into her pocket and sat down to Elena while drinking her coffee. Elena let out a sigh as well.

"Ah, this is bad. Between Isobel and Jenna and now Matt..." She exhaled again. "This is disaster bad."

"Eh..." Claire shrugged. "Disaster bad would be the 1970 Bhola Cyclone. To think, I missed that sucker by two months to go to LA." She shuddered, but when she looked back at Elena, she found the young teenager staring at her with disbelief in her eyes. Claire shamefully took a sip of her coffee. "But...err, yeah. This situation is kind of like that...I guess?"

"Elena, can you come downstairs, please? I need to talk to you." Claire and Elena looked up to see John Gilbert standing at the door. Claire crossed her arms over her chest at her failed murderer while Elena scoffed and looked away from him.

"I have nothing to say to you," she responded briskly.

"Please. It's important." John looked over at Claire. "You too, Claire."

Claire narrowed her eyes at him, but after Elena gave it some thought, the teenager sighed and rose from her seat in agreement to go with him. Claire followed, only because Elena was agreeing to his ridiculous request. The three of them came down the stairs in a single-file line; Elena first, Claire second, and John last. It was only when Elena turned the corner of the staircase and walked to the kitchen where she saw the real reason John wanted her to come down.

Elena froze in her step seeing Isobel standing in her kitchen a few feet away. At a loss for words, Isobel spoke first. "I asked John for a do-over."

Elena spun around angrily. "You invited her in?"

"She has information about Klaus," John justified. "Please, just listen to her, okay?"

Claire and Elena were silent for a moment, but after looking between John and Isobel, Claire finally stepped forward with a hesitant nod. "You know what? Fine. You tell us what you know, we'll listen. But you cross the line, Isobel, and I will slaughter you without blinking. Fair enough?"

Isobel frowned, clearly not used to being threatened. Regardless, she agreed, and they all convened in the kitchen as Isobel told her story.

"Since I was last here, I've been doing everything possible to find Klaus," she explained to her daughter. "We knew our best chance was to find him before he could find you."

"Best chance of what, exactly?" Claire asked, taking another sip of her coffee.

"Keeping Elena alive," replied John.

"You don't get to talk, okay?" Elena jumped in, looking at her biological father with irritated, fed-up eyes. "Not after everything you've done."

Claire sighed and moved on from the father-daughter spat as she looked at Isobel. "Okay, so here's the big question: were you able to even find this mysterious Klaus?"

Isobel shook her head. "No. Nobody knows where he is, but there are these rumors that are flying around that a doppelgänger exists."

"Which means any vampire that wants to get in favor with Klaus will be lining up to capture you," John added. Claire looked over at him with confused eyes.

"Didn't your daughter just tell you to shut up? In case you didn't hear, I'm telling you again. Shut up, John." Her eyes roamed back and forth between John and Isobel. "You two idiots are telling us things we already know. Get to the good stuff."

"I'm not buying any of this," Elena chimed in, deterring Claire's pushing. The doppelgänger looked down at Isobel. "The last time you were here, you made it clear that you didn't give a damn about me. Now all of a sudden, I'm supposed to believe that you wanna help?"

"Isobel's been helping all along," John answered for the dark-haired vampire sitting beside him. Claire threw up her hands.

"What did I just say?"

With a cautious eye on Claire, John continued, "Klaus has been obsessed with finding Katherine for centuries. All it would take was any one of those 1864 tomb vampires to spread the word around that Katherine's still alive and it would bring him straight here to Mystic Falls, where you were bound to be discovered. So we killed them."

"And almost killed Claire and Damon in the process!" Elena argued. John shrugged.

"Yeah."

"And you wonder why I don't like you," Claire murmured, shaking her head. "Arrogant jackass."

"I have a safe house that I can take you to," Isobel began, standing up from her seat at the dining table and looking Elena directly in the eye. "The deed is in your name. No vampires can get in without your permission, not even me. Let me help you."

"You wanna help?" Elena started after a while, taking a firm step forward. Isobel looked at her with genuine eyes, but Elena didn't believe one second of it. "Then get the hell out of my house!"

Claire straightened, crossing her arms over her chest as she smiled. Go Elena.

Damon, Elena, Stefan, Amelia, and Claire all were sitting or standing in the Salvatore study, facing each other as they theorized. Elena was sitting on the couch by herself, Damon had his legs swung up on his armchair, and Stefan was sitting in his own lounger with Amelia poised on the arm of it. While Claire poured herself an early glass of alcohol, she listened while Elena expressed her concern.

"Do you really think that Isobel's telling the truth that word's gotten out about the doppelgänger?" she asked.

"I don't trust a word that comes out of that bitch's mouth," Claire mumbled as she walked around the couch and sat next to Elena, who sighed. "Oh, no offense."

"None taken," Elena grumbled.

"But I think we'd be stupid to ignore the warning," Stefan voiced, leaning forward to look at Claire. The blonde shrugged while she sipped her drink.

"Of course we'd be stupid to ignore the warning. But either way, this was bound to happen at some point with Elena's martyr tear." Claire rolled her eyes and Elena gave her a death stare, to which Claire frowned. "What? You know what you did, but it's okay. You'll live with it. We'll figure out a way to stop Klaus before he comes here. I'm sure there are a few vampires that I know that have some information about whether or not word of the doppelgänger is just a joke or a legitimate rumor. But as far as Isobel goes, everything she told us, we've already expected."

"Maybe Elena should just say in the house," Amelia suggested, looking around at her sister and the Salvatore boys. "So we can keep an eye on her, I mean."

Stefan shook his head. "No, that wouldn't work."

"Not really the safest place for vampire bait," Damon quipped, smirking at Elena, who immediately turned to him with a sour expression on her face. "How about we just stay at your house, sparky?"

This only made her more frustrated. "Is that the plan now? No one's gonna let me out of their sight for the rest of time?"

"Let me know when you come up with a better one."

She sighed. "Fine, then one of you four bodyguards are gonna have to come with me to the Lockwood luncheon."

"Ooh, can we go?" Amelia volunteered, sitting up straight while looking between Stefan and Elena. "I miss the Lockwood house. It was always so pretty. And I'm a sucker for town events."

Stefan shrugged. "If it's okay with Elena, we can join her."

"Yeah, it's fine." Elena nodded. Though it was weird knowing that her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend were going to accompany her to a Lockwood luncheon, she didn't really care. There were more important things on her mind than being jealous or feeling pity for herself that Stefan was with another woman.

"Not me," Damon chimed. "I have witch stuff to attend to with Bonnie. What do you say, sugar, wanna join me?"

"Witch stuff?" Claire repeated. He nodded. "Yeah, sure, I guess."

Elena shifted in her seat and leaned forward. "Does that mean that you're taking her to the—"

"Shh." Damon covered his lips with his finger, cutting off Elena from finishing her sentence just as Katherine sauntered into the room, uninvited.

"Don't get quiet on my account," the vampire scolded. Elena turned back at her, realizing why Damon had been so short. "If you have a plan to combat the impending vampire doom, please do tell." No one answered her. "Seriously, what is the plan to get us out of this mess, hmm? I delivered you a moonstone, a werewolf, and the dagger to lure and kill Klaus and right now...all you have is a moonstone. Or so you tell me."

"No, we have it," Damon assured her.

Katherine turned to him. "Where is it?"

"It's in a very safe place."

"I've been honest with you." They could all tell she was getting frustrated, which meant she was definitely hiding something. They didn't know what that something was, but they couldn't trust her regardless. "Time to return the favor."

Damon laughed bitterly. "Let me be honest with you. Don't mistake the fact that we haven't set you on fire in your sleep for trust."

"Fine." Katherine crossed her arms and turned on her heel to walk out. "Be that way."

"Is this the spot Emily Bennett was killed, too?" asked Jeremy as he, Damon, Claire, and Bonnie trekked through high tumbleweeds in the midday sun to the abandoned witch massacre site. Damon nodded at him.

"Founders thought it was poetic, burning her where the other witches were burned," he replied.

"How do you know where the witches were burned?" Bonnie inquired.

"Because I tried to save her. Emily was just my key to getting Katherine back before I knew what a nasty little bitch Katherine was."

Jeremy laughed as Claire sighed. "Preaching to the fucking choir, Damon. If only you figured it out sooner."

Damon looked over at her. "If I figured it out sooner, things would've probably been a lot different, wouldn't they?"

She noticed the gravity in his question, and therefore she looked over at him and cocked an eyebrow. "Maybe not...all that different."

They came to a slow a few yards away from the old, abandoned witch house in the middle of nowhere. It was almost in ruins and it didn't look like any magical forces were residing in the old, run-down residence. From behind Damon, Jeremy slowly questioned, "You...sure it's the right place?"

Damon pursed his lips but nodded. It looked a lot different than he remembered, but he was sure. Maybe a little uncertain, but sure.

Without another word, they walked up to the front door of the home and pushed open the entrance, Damon leading the way for them all. Damon looked around at the termite-ruined staircase and the moss growing everywhere on the doors and walls, as well as the spiderwebs surrounding every corner.

"This place is disgusting," Claire murmured to Damon as they walked forward. Behind them, there was a creak, and Jeremy nearly shouted like a little girl. Damon turned back with a small smirk on his lips and the teenager sighed.

"Come on..." he mumbled, embarrassed. Damon didn't say anything and turned back around, continuing to walk through the house waiting for some kind of assurance that the witches were still around. He stepped forward and looked through the cracked glass of a french door, but when he turned back to face Claire, Bonnie, and Jeremy and moved forward, he realized he couldn't move. He was in direct sunlight, his feet seemingly glued in place. After a grunt and multiple attempts to shake away the paralytic, he started to laugh.

"Whatever witchy prank you're playing, don't," Damon warned Bonnie in front of him. "It's not funny."

"I'm not doing anything..." Bonnie told him. He frowned.

"I can't move." She stared at him, confused, but right before their eyes, Damon's skin started burning. He wasn't able to get out of the way of the sunlight and his skin was starting to sizzle as his skin turned red. Through painful breaths, Damon breathed, "Ah! Oh, my ring's not working. Do something!"

"What the hell are you talking about, why...?" Claire stepped forward and waved her hand back and forth in front of the sunlight, but it wasn't harming her. Damon tried to stop the sun from hitting his face by putting his hand in front and he groaned loudly as he tried desperately to move to prevent himself from becoming burnt toast in the middle of the witch house. Bonnie focused intensely and finally was able to lift the spell off of Damon, causing him to fall down right into Claire's grasp as she led him from the sun into the darkness. Damon groaned, trying to recover from the pain, and as his skin healed, Bonnie shrugged lightly.

"I don't think the witches like you being here."

Jeremy looked around. "I guess this is the right place."

After standing up, his skin healed, Damon pointed to the door angrily. "I'm gonna go...wait outside."

Claire turned back to the strip of sunlight in the house and continued to wave her hand back and forth over it, but nothing was happening. Suddenly, she jumped when she heard Damon's voice snap loudly, "Clarissa! You're with me!"

"Jesus," she hissed before following Damon out of the house, leaving Jeremy and Bonnie to their bidding. Claire stepped out into the sun, following Damon a few feet away from the entrance to the witch house. "You must've really pissed off those witches."

Damon sighed. "No. I pissed off one witch. Emily Bennett. She worshipped you, on the other hand."

"She liked me," Claire corrected. "And Stefan. And Christopher. And—"

"I get the point," he snapped, cutting her off. Claire resisted the urge to laugh as she walked around him and fake pouted at his real one.

"Why so glum, sugarplum?"

"Sugarplum?"

The blonde crossed her arms. "Am I not allowed to give you nicknames or did you think that the only person who could make up decent nicknames around here is yourself?"

Damon stepped forward and uncrossed his arms. "There's a reason I'm the one who gives everyone nicknames and it's because I don't suck at it."

She shrugged. "Still didn't answer my question. What crawled up your ass? A little witch prank from Emily Bennett put you in a tantrum?"

He stared at her, recognizing the features of her beautiful face and realized: no. Emily wasn't the reason he was in a mood, it was because of Claire. It was always because of Claire, but this time it was different. It was because he was mad, maybe sad. They slept together and he didn't know what it meant and he didn't know if he could do it again without telling her the truth.

She realized the delay in his response, but before she could prompt him to answer again, he ignored her and turned his head around, calling into the witch house, "Wanna hurry it up in there?"

Claire rolled her eyes and walked around Damon as he turned. "Damon, I'm sure taking power from a creepy old witch massacre site is gonna take some time."

"Whatever." He walked forward towards the door and braced to go inside, but just as he moved to it, the door slammed shut on its own, sealing him out. Damon groaned. "Screw you too, Emily!" Damon's body turned as he moved to walk away and shouted through the door, "You know, you're all on your own in there."

He left, and with her mouth opened incredulously, Claire started after him, practically skipping to keep up with his pace. "Damon, you can't leave them here."

"Watch me." He turned to her. "They drove here themselves, didn't they? We're going back."

"I just don't think it's a good idea to leave two teenagers in a creepy witch house all alone—"

Before she could finish her statement, Damon heard a sharp ringing in his pocket, interrupting their conversation. Claire came to a stop beside him as he raised his eyebrows looking at the phone and picked it up hesitantly.

"Liz, what can I do for you?" Damon asked, facing Claire, who was also suspicious. They listened to Liz on the other line and realized exactly what was wrong.

Damon and Claire turned up at the Lockwood mansion where a flood of people were coming out of it being directed by Carol Lockwood to leave. They slipped past the guests leaving just as the last of them were gone and Carol closed the door. Liz looked up in relief to find the two vampire experts at her disposal.

"Hey," Damon began. "How is he?"

"He's dead," Liz answered. John Gilbert was lying on the ground, no breath sounds or a pulse with a big red mark on his neck. Damon bent down and examined his body as Carol and Liz stood above with Claire a few feet ahead of them and behind Damon. After checking his wound to make sure it was a supernatural death, Damon lifted John's hand and saw the Gilbert ring glistening on his finger and he dropped it, disappointed.

"He'll be fine in a couple hours," Damon assured them.

"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Lockwood hissed. "Damon, he's dead!"

"Well..." Damon rose from the floor and turned around. "Here's the thing—"

"That big clunky ring on John's finger, that's a Gilbert family heirloom that keeps a human from dying by the hands of a supernatural entity," Claire finished, summing it up quicker than Damon was able to begin. Carol and Liz blinked at her, confused.

"But he's not breathing," Carol protested. "He has no pulse!"

"He will be." Damon looked down at the dead body and grumbled, "Trust me."

He stepped around and grabbed John's hands while starting to drag his body out from the Lockwood foyer. While he did so, Claire turned at Liz and Carol with a sigh. "We'll need a cover story. Seizure, alcohol impairment, banana peel...whatever. Damon and I will take him back to the Salvatore house and wait until he wakes up. Tell your deputies it was a false alarm, Sheriff."

Claire followed Damon out of the back, and they both slipped back to the car with John's dead body on Damon's shoulder. They returned to the boarding house quickly, leaving John to wake up in the foyer. While Damon went to change his shirt, soaked with Gilbert blood, Claire was downstairs pouring herself a meal from the blood bag she'd fetched in the cellar. While she poured, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket, and so with her free hand she grabbed it and pulled it out.

"Claire speaking," she chimed.

"Claire! It's me," said Amelia, her voice choppy and breathless. Claire set down the blood bag and raised her eyebrows.

"Is...everything okay? I would've thought you and Stefan would be home by now with Elena."

"N-No. Katherine took Elena and tricked me and Stefan. She snapped our necks and—"

"Katherine has Elena?" Claire cut her off, forgetting the blood bag entirely and turning around sharply to listen to what her sister had to say. Amelia agreed on the other side of the line, but before Amelia was able to say something else, Claire shook her head and growled. "No. No, Katherine doesn't have Elena. Isobel does."

"What?! Isobel? How?"

"Because Katherine's a little bitch, that's how! Look, we'll come get you in a few minutes. I've got to go." She hung up the phone and shouted up the stairs, "Damon!"

She would've thought that he'd be more reluctant to come down, eventually leading to her having to go up and get him, but instead he came down instantly, almost stomping down the steps like he was in a hurry. When he stepped onto the last step while adjusting the new shirt he'd covered himself with, they both spoke at the same time.

"Isobel took Elena," said Claire as Damon breathed out, "Katherine took the moonstone."

Damon raised a deep, frustrated sigh. "Damn it!"

"Stefan and Amelia are still back at the Lockwood house."

"Let's go." Damon grabbed his jacket and tossed Claire hers, and they both hurried out the door without a single thought to the dead human lying in their foyer.

They'd looked everywhere for Elena. High, low, and everywhere in between. They searched the home Isobel was lodging in, but when it turned up empty, they kept searching. At last, Elena managed to get hold of a phone and she called Claire, who she told her location and all four vampires came to pick Elena up from a cemetery a few miles outside of town. They returned home at last, bringing Elena to the boarding house to recover after her long day. Unfortunately for Elena, Isobel had apparently committed suicide right in front of her daughter, leaving nothing behind of her other than her lapis lazuli necklace she had used as the weapon to self-destruct. Claire caught Elena staring at it as she sat in the parlor on a chair in a seemingly deep reflection.

Claire sighed. "I was never one for the necklaces. It just seems like this stupid stone would be too much to handle around your neck." Elena looked up at her as she sat down on the arm of the couch beside Elena's chair. "That's Isobel's, isn't it?"

The teenager nodded. "I never thought I would feel bad about her being dead, and yet..."

"She was your mother, Elena. No matter how evil she was...she was still your mother."

Elena took in a deep breath, knowing that most of that statement wasn't true. Her real mother didn't kill herself, her real mother died in a car that crashed on Wickery Bridge. Regardless, she knew Claire was also right; Isobel was her mother, biologically speaking. Which meant that she held some place in Elena's heart.

Clearing her throat, Elena moved on. "Why did they let me go?"

Claire shrugged. "Do I look like a crystal ball? I have no idea. But it's safe to assume that anything John told Isobel, Klaus knows. He knows you won't turn yourself into a vampire, he knows you have a merry band of vampires keeping you safe..."

"He knows I'm not gonna run," Elena concluded.

"Which is why we need to take some precautions, 'cause we got played. All of us," Damon announced as he sauntered into the room with Amelia and Stefan behind him. He set down a set of papers beside Elena and placed a pen on top as Stefan came to stand beside Claire and Amelia stayed by Damon's side.

"What's this?" she asked, confused.

"It's the deed to our house," Stefan answered. "It's in Zach's name. As soon as you sign it, it'll be in your name."

"You're giving me your house?"

"It was my idea." Amelia smiled as she sat down on the couch proudly. "Sort of. I figured, I was right this morning. The safest place for you is here...or, at least, it would be if this house was owned by a human. I thought about just compelling someone to stay at the house and be the one to invite people in, like Wanda at my house, but then Claire came up with the idea to just sign it over to you."

"Well it definitely wasn't Damon and Stefan's idea." Claire snorted as she looked at the two brothers. "We obviously have more intelligence than these two."

"Right on, sis." Amelia winked, and Claire smiled at her. Stefan scoffed.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever. Anyways, this way, Elena, you can control who gets invited into the house and who doesn't."

"Although," Damon began, "I'll be super pissed if you lock me out."

Elena looked over at him and laughed lightly, earning a smile from Damon. Before she was able to accept their offer and sign the deed, they heard a gasp over in the foyer. Everyone looked back to see John Gilbert as he gasped his way back to life, only to be whisked off of his feet by Damon who was holding him up by his collar, barely allowing him to breath.

"I-I swear, I had no idea what she was gonna do," John pleaded. He looked over at Elena. "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!"

"Damon, let him go," Elena ordered. Damon looked over at her, confused, but Elena's face turned cold. "He and I need to talk."

"Hey, Bonnie said the spell worked," Damon told Stefan, Amelia, and Claire as he looked up from a text he received from the witch. "She's locked and loaded."

Stefan sighed as he passed Amelia a glass of bourbon and then passed one to his friend before bringing his own to his lips. "At least something went right today."

"The one thing that's gone right in weeks," Claire mumbled under her breath. "One thing's for sure is that Katherine isn't coming back. Good. I was about to set her on fire in her sleep."

Damon chuckled under his breath. "I thought you'd appreciate that comment earlier."

"Oh, I definitely did."

"Hmm..." Stefan hummed under his breath as he came to his own, isolated world realization. "Katherine has no idea that Bonnie's got her powers back." All of them nodded at him as he turned around cautiously. "And...Isobel had no idea what you and Jeremy took Bonnie to do today."

Stefan poured another drink and walked over to his brother, handing the dark-haired Salvatore a glass of bourbon as the two of them stood with impressed looks on their faces. Amelia straightened.

"Wait, I'm not following," she began, shaking her head.

"We're the only ones who know," Stefan answered her with a bright smile on his face. Damon smirked.

"That literally makes Bonnie our secret weapon." The two brothers toasted their glasses as they turned to the two blonde sisters across from them. Damon wasted no time in relishing in their realization. "Well, well. Looks like you two aren't the only ones who've got brains around here."

Claire and Amelia looked at each other before Claire turned back to Damon and shrugged. "That's...debatable. But you're right, Bonnie is our secret weapon...which..." She paused and downed the bourbon in her cup before dramatically smiling and finishing, "...calls for another round."

Amelia walked over to Stefan as Claire turned around and poured herself another drink. Damon took a moment or two but he finally swallowed the rest of his alcohol and walked over to Claire, where he set his cup in front of her and said, "Another round it is, then."

"Alcohol..." Claire sighed as she poured him another drink. "A vampire's least fatal vice." She picked up Damon's glass and extended it to him. He took it with grace and she grabbed her own to walk past him, but instead of completely leaving his side, she stopped short at his shoulder and spoke quietly. "My room. Midnight."

And then she left, set with her glass of alcohol and not leaving him to get the chance to say no. But he turned around and stared after her, watching her leave so swiftly, so elegantly, and no matter how much he wanted to tell her off, no matter how much he wanted to just get it over with, to tell her the truth...he just couldn't. He couldn't say no to her.

Damon slammed down what was left of the alcohol in his glass and poured himself another.

When Katherine woke, she was uncomfortable. Sore and uncomfortable. Whatever the bastard witch had done to her at Isobel's house had made her weak and she remembered every ounce of pain that came with what he did, and it hurt like a bitch. She made no sound, but merely turned her head to find that she was in someone's apartment. A few feet away from her, that same bastard witch was chanting a spell with his hands outreached over someone's head.

At the foot of the chair the mystery person was sitting in, there were two vases. One of them was full of blood and the other was empty. Obviously it was some kind of spell; a creepy one at that. Katherine lifted herself from the floor carefully and felt around her neck, instantly realizing that the necklace she had taken from Elena had been stolen off of her person. Confused, she watched as the witch finally stopped his chanting and backed away from the mystery person, who had risen in the chair. The witch bowed as if he were presenting to his king, but when Katherine had finally gotten up and had caused enough noise to catch the attention of whoever it was, she realized quickly that it was Alaric Saltzman.

"Alaric?" Katherine breathed, bewildered. She stumbled upright and as he walked towards her with a sickening smile, she decided to get the hell out of there. She fled, opening up the door about to flit out when she realized that she was stuck. The invisible barrier on the door prevented her from leaving, and more than that, it gave Alaric enough time to come up to her.

"Zdravei, Katerina," Alaric greeted with a grin, humming in approval under his breath. He extended his hands and reached up to touch Katherine's face. She realized they were cold, and she knew that even though it looked like Alaric in front of her, it wasn't. He captured her gaze with a psychopathic stare. "I have missed you."

Then it hit her. Then she realized.

"Klaus."

Klaus is in Mystic Falls ready to wreak havoc! Christopher Fell returns in the next chapter and all hell's about to break loose. Sorry for the delay in the update. Finals, volunteering, and college touring kind of got in the way of things. Thanks for reading! Please review!

NicoleR85: Thanks! It's coming soon...ish. They'll be making progress in the next chapter, but with Christopher's return, it'll things will definitely be going at lightning speed from now on. Thank you for the review! Apologies for the delay on the update.

RHatch89: Thanks!

SomebodyWhoCares: Definitely intense.

Tvd2014: Sorry for the wait! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Gangster hippie: Thank you! Lol that's pretty hilarious. Thank you so much, that means a whole lot. No, it's not a bad thing lol it's a Damon/OC so I wouldn't blame you. Unfortunately he's coming back for a short while but there will definitely be a lot of progress between everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying!

klandgraf2007: They will definitely be going somewhere. Now that Damon knows he has feelings for her because Katherine broke his heart and he can finally see the truth, he won't be able to continue their agreement for long. Christopher will definitely bring some drama that'll mainly be in 2x19. Here's the chapter! Thanks for reviewing.

Anna.B: Aw thank you! Since Stefan and Amelia are together, I needed Elena to bond with someone in the group other than Stefan and Amelia and though Elena has a friendship thing with Damon, he did kill her brother so that was out of the question. Damon doesn't show how much he cares for her because it's different with them since they've known each other for over a century and he knows how she'd react and what to do and what not to do. But in the next few chapters he will be making his feelings somewhat clear. Stefan and Elena will go through some ups and downs, as will Stefan and Amelia. Well...you'll just have to wait and see about how they're gonna save Claire! Klaus and Claire will definitely be sort of the replacement for Klaus and Caroline but it will very different than Klaus and Caroline themselves. Anyways, like I said, you'll have to wait and see what happens at the ritual! Thank you for reviewing! Sorry for the delay in updating, but I hope you enjoyed!

PuffCorn: Here you go! Sorry about the wait! Thanks for reviewing.