Finished another chapter for you! I wanted to get it up before the new episode tomorrow. The outline I made for chapter 11 ended up giving me enough material for two decent length chapters, and since I'm nearly finished with the second half, you can probably expect another update in a week or so. Many thanks to AnglcDmn1986 as always.

Monday, June 22

"So what exactly was wrong with the way I collected the blood sample for you last time?" said Damon, looking around Grayson's office with distaste. Being here for Elena or even just to talk shop with Grayson was one thing, but actually sitting on the exam table while he waited for Grayson to stick him with a needle was a little too familiar for comfort. As long as vervain, restraints, and '50s decor weren't part of the equation, he could tolerate it, but he still didn't have to be happy about it.

"You bit your wrist open with your own teeth and caught the blood in an open glass you normally use for bourbon," said Grayson. "What was right with that would be a much shorter list."

Damon rolled his eyes, but pushed his right sleeve up to his elbow and extended his forearm anyway.

"The Mayor stopped by here last week," said Grayson once the needle was in place and blood was slowly moving down a tube into an 8-ounce bag.

"And?" said Damon without interest.

"And he had a lot of questions about Jeanine Davenport," said Grayson. His tone was clipped and terse—like how most people spoke when they were gearing up for a lecture.

"I'm guessing I'm supposed to know who that is."

Grayson glared at him. "She's the girl you sent me a few weeks ago after you'd made a meal out of her."

"Oh, right, her," said Damon. He chuckled. "Yeah, that was a good one."

He could actually hear the bones and tendons in Grayson's hands creak as he clenched them into fists. "It was careless," Grayson said through gritted teeth.

"And yet if it was actually an emergency, you would've told me about it immediately after the Mayor spoke to you," said Damon. "But you clearly succeeded in keeping him off my trail, so why bring it up?"

"Because it can't happen again," said Grayson. "Next time you want to prove a point to me, find a different way to do it."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Damon, narrowing his eyes.

"You might not think it's a big deal, but Richard is desperate enough to put Zach's theory to rest that he actually broke into my office and tried to find the Gilbert watch while I was in Michigan. I have to give it to him soon."

"You can't hand it over yet," said Damon sharply. "I still haven't found a way to keep it from pointing straight at me and Stefan!"

"Well you're running out of time," said Grayson. "If I put him off much longer, he'll try getting in touch with John on his own, and since John isn't actually as incommunicado as I've been pretending, that would open a whole new can of worms."

"Then why the hell can't you just call your brother before Lockwood does and get him in on it?" said Damon. "My brother poisoned me, locked me in a cellar, and starved me, and now here we are playing for the same team less than a month later; what's your excuse?"

"John would be even less happy than I am to know that I'm trying to protect a couple of vampires from the Council, and that I'm actually working with them. If I bring John into this, it'll be on my terms, not because I'm being backed into a corner by Richard Lockwood."

"So let me see if I have this right," said Damon, eying Grayson critically. "You, who tortured me with a fire poker on the off chance that I was a threat to your daughter and shot Stefan with a crossbow within seconds of meeting him, actually hate the honorable mayor of Mystic Falls more than you hate us."

"You and your brother are only dangerous because of your biology," said Grayson. He sounded almost dismissive. "You're vampires. You may have been human once, but as vampires, your wellbeing depends on your viewing the general population as livestock. That, paired with your power to control human minds, taught you a long time ago to see humans as weak, disposable playthings." He looked directly into Damon's eyes as he said this, as though daring him to claim otherwise, but Damon was not the Salvatore brother who was prone to apologizing for his nature and trying to change it. On the contrary.

"That sounds about right," said Damon blithely, "with the occasional exception." Elena: his friend, the girl he would kill or die to protect. The Bennetts: people he trusted to honor Emily's promise and the many life debts they owed him. Grayson: an enemy, but one Damon could respect—one who, due to his connection with Elena, he hoped he would never have to kill.

"Richard, on the other hand, is dangerous because of his pedigree and the sort of man he is," said Grayson. "He's a bully who became a politician, and he comes from a long line of bullying politicians. You referred to him jokingly as the honorable mayor, but you would've had to know him your whole life like I have to appreciate how truly dishonorable he is, and as Mayor and head of the Founders' Council, he has the kind of power over this town that you couldn't achieve even with compulsion."

"And you think the man pulling the strings of the entire town would stoop to burglarizing your office to retrieve an heirloom anyone from a founding family would recognize, even after you said you would get it for him?" said Damon, feeling very skeptical.

"It's true, burglary isn't really Richard's style, but I can't think of anyone else with a motive for searching my office."

I might be able to, Damon thought wryly.

"What about the vervain you're supposed to be supplying the Council?" said Grayson. "Enough of them do actually know the plant when they see it that you wouldn't get away with giving them anything but the real deal."

"Conveniently, vervain takes longer to grow than old pocket watches take to dig out of a safe," said Damon, "so no one minds when I set a slightly extended timeframe on the delivery. But unless you Council members have a creepy ritual where you all stand in a circle drink vervain juice to check for vampire spies in your midst, I don't see it being a problem. I'll just bring it to the Sheriff in a big box when it's ready and no one will be any the wiser. It'll never be enough to put the entire town on it, so it won't even affect my diet."

The only rise he got out of Grayson for that last remark was a slight scowl. As the bag was now full of blood, Grayson eased the needle back out of Damon's arm and began putting away his equipment.

"So what exactly do you do with my blood?" said Damon, feeling the small wound left by the needle heal almost instantly and flexing his arm to shake off the sensation of it.

"I keep some to study its properties, give some to Dr. Fell at the hospital, and put the rest of it in capsules. If I happen to encounter a patient with a normally incurable disease who doesn't know it's an incurable disease, I can give them a false diagnosis of something perfectly curable, prescribe the capsules, and send them on their way. The dosage is small enough that the blood can heal them bit by bit, but doesn't stay in their system for more than a couple of hours at a time, so the danger of turning is small."

"Clever strategy," said Damon. "If you gave them an actual diagnosis, someone might come to investigate your new miracle cure."

"But this way, they just think I'm giving them a standard treatment for an everyday illness," said Grayson, nodding. "And just in case they open the capsules, I added blue food coloring and sodium bicarbonate to disguise the taste and appearance. In the meantime, I'm hopeful that my research on the blood will enable me to separate the healing factor from the turning contaminant. As soon as I can do that, I can share my findings."

"What happens if the healing factor is the 'turning contaminant'?" said Damon, curling his fingers into quotation marks for that last phrase, which he found hilariously pretentious.

"No, it can't be," said Grayson, clearly not even worried by this idea. "At some level, they have to be separate, even if it's all the way down to the smallest enzymes or DNA sequences."

"You're the mad scientist," said Damon, shrugging. He hopped down from the exam table and dropped his sleeve back to his wrist. "So, do I get a little pick-me-up for my troubles before I leave? I'm sure your next patient could spare a couple of pints."

"Just take this and get out," said Grayson, tossing Damon a bag of A-positive from the fridge where he had just stashed his blood.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Grayson, as always," said Damon. He smirked as his fangs dropped, just because he knew it would disgust and annoy the man standing in front of him. Then he bit right into the bag and drained it dry in a matter of seconds, tossed the empty plastic into the garbage can, and strolled out of the office.

X

Wednesday, June 24

Elena beamed when the boarding house door opened to reveal Damon. It was the first time they'd met there since she helped him escape the cell, and she'd been a little worried that Stefan would be the one to answer the door.

"Did you tell your parents where you were going?" said Damon, stepping aside so she could cross the threshold, then closing the door behind her.

"Not exactly," said Elena, following him through the foyer, then the dining room, towards the kitchen. "I said I was going to the library to write some more." She dropped her purse on the kitchen island and sat down on one of the tall bar stools. "You grew up in Mystic Falls, right?" she asked.

"Yeah, why?" said Damon, using oven pads to remove a steaming lasagna from the oven, and setting it carefully on the counter.

"Did you know any of my ancestors?"

"Well, when I was a kid, I used to play with the Gilbert boys, but they were older than me, and once they were teenagers and Stefan came along, we didn't spend as much time together anymore. I think their mother was good friends with mine, though."

"When I was in Michigan, I read a bunch of Johnathan Gilbert's journals. It's incredible to think that you actually lived through everything he wrote about."

"Your dad mentioned those journals to me a while back," said Damon. "He made it sound like they're how he knows so much."

"Well there's a ton of stuff in there," said Elena. "Like that Johnathan was working with Emily Bennett—I mean, Bonnie and I have been best friends our whole lives, and our moms were friends; but it's crazy that it goes back so many generations. And there was all this stuff about original vampires—"

"Wait," said Damon, lowering the knife he was about to use to cut the lasagna and staring at her intently. "What do you mean Johnathan was working with Emily?"

"Just that he'd been trying to make all these devices to track vampires and stuff, but he couldn't make them work without her help. She used magic on them." She looked at Damon and frowned. There was a maniacal gleam in his eyes. "What?" she asked.

"Are you ready to try some of the best lasagna you've ever had in your life?"

"Pfft, like that's hard," said Elena, rolling her eyes. "There's not even an Italian restaurant in Mystic Falls."

"A completely unforgivable oversight," said Damon, setting the plate of lasagna in front of her.

Elena sliced off a corner with her fork, blew on it until the steam stopped curling off it, and ate it. She didn't think she'd ever had anything more delicious. The ricotta cheese was thick and creamy, the tomato sauce had just the right hint of sweetness to it, the noodles were firm but not crunchy, and everything about it tasted so fresh—she doubted she'd ever be able to stomach the lasagna from the frozen foods aisle again. Elena closed her eyes and savored it. She quickly took another bite.

"So how many points is this worth?" Damon asked. Elena opened her eyes again to see him watching her with smug amusement.

"Mm-mm," she said, pointing at her plate and shaking her head. He grinned and scooped himself some. They didn't say another word until both plates were clean.

"Okay, if you make that for me again, then we'll be tied," she declared as she pushed her empty plate away. "Although I'll have to retract that if all other food now tastes gross and bland by comparison."

"Well maybe part of my diabolical plan is to make you dependant on my cooking," he said, his eyes flashing with mischief. "Ever think of that?"

"Watch it," said Elena, hip-checking him on the way to the sink with her plate and fork. "Even super strength won't be enough to hold up your head if you let it get much bigger."

"I think you underestimate my super strength," said Damon, hip-checking her back and taking the dishes out of her hands so he could wash them himself.

"Speaking of super strength, my parents have been teaching me some moves I can use if a vampire tries to attack me," said Elena with some pride. "Aunt Jenna too."

Damon turned off the tap and made a show of appearing very offended by this information. "What, do they think I would actually let a vampire who wanted to attack you get close enough that you would have to stop him yourself?"

"Even if they do, I definitely don't think that," said Elena. "But, well…" She bit her lip. "You're not going to be here forever, are you?" She tried to keep up her playful tone, but it was difficult to do that when her chest suddenly felt like it might cave in and her throat was constricting. "I mean, pretty soon, you'll have Katherine back and then the two of you will probably be off touring the world together, right?"

She managed to tear her gaze away from her feet and look at Damon in time to see that his brow was furrowed and his jaw was set. As soon as their eyes met, he smiled, but it looked kind of painful. "That's the plan," he said. Then he smirked and dropped into a fighting stance, knees bent and fists up. "Now come on, Gilbert, show me these moves of yours."

X

After a successful morning of hunting in the woods, Stefan headed back to the boarding house, taking his time so that he could enjoy the sights of the familiar forest. Just as the boarding house came into view, he heard a scream from inside. Alarmed, he shot forward, slipping in through one of the glass doors that led to the dining room and speeding to the edge of the parlor. What he saw there made anger explode through his veins.

Damon had Elena trapped tightly in his arms and he was biting her neck. Stefan was about to dash into the room and knock him away from her when Elena laughed and squirmed out of Damon's grip. He released her, grinning. There was no sign of any blood on either of them, her heart rate was higher than normal but not accompanied by the tangy smell of fear, and Damon's features were human. Stefan stayed where he was, confused.

"Damon, that wasn't fair," said Elena, a mixture of amusement and petulance in her voice.

"Oh, because a vampire who actually wants to attack you would play fair," said Damon sarcastically. "Come on, the biggest things to remember are that we're much faster and stronger than you. As long as you're wearing your bracelet, you can't be compelled, and as long as they don't know that, it's a significant advantage, but you need to have access to some kind of weaponized vervain, sturdy sharpened wood, or fire—or sunlight, if the vampire doesn't have one of these." He waved his ring at her. Stefan frowned. So they were just…training?

"What if I don't have access to any of those things?" said Elena. She went in for a punch, but Damon dodged it easily, flashing around so that he stood right behind her.

"Never leave yourself that defenseless," said Damon seriously. "Didn't your dad give you something from his arsenal already?"

"Yeah, he gave me one of his stakes."

"Well then why didn't you bring that if you wanted to spar with me?"

"I'm not going to stab you with a stake!" Elena protested.

"As if you could," Damon snorted. "But if your goal is to be able to defend yourself if you actually get attacked, you should keep the stake on you at all times. And you should know how to use it."

"Do you really think it could happen?" she asked, wrapping her arms around herself. "Some vampire attacking me?"

"I don't know," said Damon. "I hope not. But it's better safe than sorry. Now, you said your parents are teaching your aunt these moves too, right?"

"Yeah, why?" said Elena.

"I'm just wondering if I need to apologize for threatening her that one time before we all became allies."

"Hey, why were you threatening Aunt Jenna?" said Elena indignantly.

"To be fair, she threatened me first. She told me to stay away from you or she'd put vervain in all the drinking fountains on the Whitmore campus."

"She was just looking out for me," said Elena. "She had no way of knowing I'd actually be safer with you around."

Stefan slipped silently towards his room, his mind reeling from the scene he had just witnessed. Nothing about Damon's behavior for the last hundred years or so had ever indicated that he was still capable of protective instincts and feeling real concern for someone else's safety, and yet Stefan couldn't help believing that it was genuine with Elena. She obviously trusted Damon completely—even though he had pretend-bitten her and kept using vamp speed on her at unexpected moments while they sparred, she had only been amused, not afraid. Stefan found himself wishing bitterly that he hadn't been so foolish the first time he'd seen her. Of course she wasn't Katherine. It was completely obvious now—the way she spoke, the way she moved, the sweet, guileless attitude with which she viewed the world—, but thanks to that blunder, she would probably never trust him.

Still, even if she wasn't Katherine, she couldn't be physically identical to her for no reason, and he would get to the bottom of it. At first, he'd spent a lot of time looking up the ancestry of the Gilbert and Sommers families, but from what he'd been able to discover, none of them traced back to Bulgaria. Lately, he'd been working on a different hunch.

X

Thursday, June 25

Elena didn't participate in nearly as many extracurricular activities as Caroline—she'd probably go insane if she even tried—but one that she always enjoyed doing (even though Caroline had fizzled out on it after a month) was taking a backpack full of picture books to the hospital once a week and reading to the kids in the children's ward. There weren't many long-term child patients at Mystic Falls General (they usually ended up at a hospital in Richmond), so she mostly ended up reading to kids who were only there for a couple of weeks max, but she still loved being able to brighten their days while they were stuck in that foreign, sterile environment.

On the way to the children's ward, she saw her dad talking to a young female doctor who had her long brown hair pulled up into a bun.

"Hey, Dad," she said brightly, quickening her pace to catch up to them.

"Elena," he said, turning and smiling at her. "Are you here to read to the kids?"

"Yeah," she said. "I brought some Arthur books and 'If You Give a Moose a Muffin' this time." She smiled expectantly at the young doctor, who smiled back.

"Don't you remember Dr. Fell?" said Grayson.

"You called me Meredith when you were little," said Dr. Fell. "I babysat you and your brother couple of times."

"Oh, right," said Elena, her smile widening. "Sorry I didn't recognize you at first."

"It's okay. The last time we saw each other, you were a foot and a half shorter, so I'm sure I look different to you too."

"Well I've got to keep going or I'll be late," said Elena. "It was good to see you again, Meredith. See you tonight, Dad."

X

About an hour later, Elena left the children's ward, full of decidedly warm and fuzzy feelings. One of the nurses who'd been there every time Elena came in for the last several months had gotten all of the kids to surprise her with drawings when she was done reading, so she'd stayed a little longer to thank them and talk to them about their pictures.

She was leafing through them, looking fondly at the wobbly lines and distorted stick figures—though a few of them were quite impressive for the ages of the artists—when she collided with someone at the entrance to the hallway that led to the maternity ward. The drawings went flying as she flailed in an attempt to stay upright. She managed to steady herself by grabbing onto a door handle, and she saw that the guy she'd hit was already scrambling to retrieve the drawings for her.

"Oh, no, you don't have to do—," she began in a flustered voice, but then she caught sight of his face and froze. "Stefan!" she said. "What are you doing here?" She debated whether or not to make a break for the nearest exit, but before she could decide, he was holding out the stack of drawings.

"Here," he said. "I'm sorry for running into you."

Elena accepted the drawings without looking at him. "Thanks," she said. They stood there awkwardly for a while.

"I saw you and Damon at the boarding house yesterday," he said.

"What do you mean?" said Elena uneasily.

"I saw how you are around each other. I couldn't understand before how you could trust him, but now I do. I've never seen him act that way around anyone." She glanced up at him. He was watching her as though she was a puzzle he didn't know how to solve. "You are safe with him."

"I know," she said. She considered him for a moment. Before finding the journal of Agatha Gilbert and the treasure inside it, she never would have done this, but it had inspired a change of heart. Or, at least, a very slight softening of it. "Hey, um, how about we go for a walk," she said, in the friendliest tone she had ever used with him. "I saw my dad on my way in; if he's still here, he won't be happy to see you poking around."

"Okay," said Stefan, looking surprised, but readily falling into step beside her. "Damon actually brought me in on the deal with your dad, you know. So I don't think it would be the worst thing if I ran into him."

"Still," said Elena. "I'm not a big fan of hospitals. I'd rather walk."

Stefan nodded, and they didn't say another word to each other until they'd left the building and walked nearly an entire block. Elena might be willing to offer him an olive branch, but that didn't mean she had any idea what to say to him. Thankfully, he decided to break the silence before she could feel awkward enough to regret her decision.

"So what's this about?" he said. "I thought you hated me. I mean, you looked ready to bolt when you recognized me in there."

Elena wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I'm kind of…bad at hating people. When I try to, it tends to give me this massive guilt complex, and I get all stressed out—even when I have good reasons, like, say, if someone threw me against a door and gave me some bruises and almost killed me, tried to compel me while dragging me into a secluded alley against my will, locked someone I care about in a cellar and starved him while trying to make me think he'd just left town, and murdered one of my ancestors." She shot him a sideways glance, raising her eyebrows.

"Johnathan Gilbert, you mean," he said, his eyes downcast and somber.

"I read his journals," said Elena. "I guess it's a good thing he didn't stay dead. He hadn't met his wife yet in 1865, so I wouldn't have been born. Nobody on Dad's side would."

Stefan muttered something, but Elena didn't quite catch it.

"What?" she said.

"I was a different person back then," he said. Elena was pretty sure that wasn't what he'd said the first time, but she didn't press it. "That was right after I became a vampire. I didn't know how to control my new instincts and urges. For a while, I let them control me."

Elena shivered, even though it was a warm June afternoon.

"I was angry at the town for what they did to Katherine, and I did everything I could to make them suffer. Johnathan was just one name on a long list of victims. Within a couple of weeks, even Damon couldn't stand the sight of me anymore, and he left."

"What changed?" said Elena, feeling morbidly curious against her will.

"Someone showed me a better way," he said, his eyes going out of focus as though he was looking at something far away—something that made him happy. It was so different from any expression he had shown her so far. It transformed him into someone lighter, friendlier, more human. Seeing it made her feel better about burying the hatchet with him.

"So if Damon left because you were in a murderous revenge tailspin and he didn't like it, then how come you've been acting like he's the dangerous one?"

Stefan heaved a sigh, the happy look vanishing. "I won't deny that I've made a lot of mistakes since those days, but I don't want to be the monster that killed Johnathan Gilbert. For the last few decades, I've only survived on animal blood, but Damon has a very different philosophy. Even though I believe he's genuinely your friend, it doesn't change the fact that for more than a lifetime, he's killed without hesitation or remorse. Sometimes to feed, but sometimes just for fun. I've tried to stop him before, but anything I do just makes him go after the people I care about instead. Every time we've crossed paths, he's done something to make my life hell. Just like he promised the night we turned."

Though Elena's instinct was to react defensively against anything that painted Damon in such a negative light, Stefan sounded so dejected about it that all she could do was picture a lost little boy who didn't understand why his big brother was being so mean to him. It was so sad that, as much as she still didn't really like Stefan, she almost wanted to hug him. "Is that why you thought he was going to kill Zach?" She asked quietly. He looked around at her sharply. "Bonnie told me," she admitted. This conversation was starting to make her feel ill. Certainly depressed. But she still wanted to know more.

"I know he would've killed Zach. It wouldn't have been the first time one of our nephews ended up dead at his hands. Maybe not even the second."

"What do you mean?" said Elena, the sick feeling intensifying.

"Well, all I know about Zachariah's death in 1912 is that his murder was never solved, but Damon pretty much gift-wrapped Joseph for me in '53. I got what I thought was a telegram from Joseph, saying that he wanted me and Damon to come back to Mystic Falls for a visit, but when I arrived at the boarding house, Joseph was dead on the parlor floor with a crystal tumbler sticking out of his neck and blood everywhere, and Damon had already skipped town."

"Why would Damon kill members of his own family to get to you?"

"Because I'm the reason he turned," said Stefan, sounding defeated. "I forced him to complete the transition after he'd chosen to let himself die. And I'm also the reason Katherine's been trapped in that tomb all these years." He smiled humorlessly. "Even after I cost him everything that mattered to him, I was still too selfish to let him go."

"If you're sorry for all of that, why don't you just tell him?" said Elena. "Forever is a long time for two brothers to hate each other. Maybe he's sorry too."

"I doubt it," said Stefan. The sorrow was gone, and the hard bitterness was back.

"Well, then maybe he just needs someone to show him a better way."

"You have no idea how much I wish I could believe that."

By now, they'd walked so far from the hospital that they had almost reached the north end of Main Street. "Um, maybe I should head back now," said Elena. "I have to get my car. Do you need a ride somewhere?" Stefan started to answer, but she interrupted him. "No, wait, you could probably get there faster just by running. Crazy vamp speed and all."

"Yeah," said Stefan, looking halfway between amused and sheepish, but then he looked at her very seriously. "Thank you, Elena, for giving me another chance. I know I probably didn't deserve one."

Elena smiled at him. "I'll see you later, Stefan." She turned and started to head back up the street, but then stopped, an idea occurring to her, and spun around again. Luckily, he hadn't moved yet.

"Did you need something?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah," she said. "I just wanted to know when Damon's birthday is. I'm pretty sure it's in the summer, but I don't know the exact date, and if I haven't missed it already, I want to surprise him."

For a fraction of a second, something like disappointment flashed over Stefan's face, but it was replaced with bemusement so quickly that Elena wasn't sure she'd really seen it. "Um…wow, I don't think he's really done anything for his birthday since our mother died," he said, running a hand over the back of his head. "He'll be a hundred and sixty-nine on June 28."

"That's this Sunday!" said Elena. "Oh, man, I'm so glad I asked you when I did." She hurried back over to him.

"Whoa, whoa, you're not planning to throw him an actual birthday party, are you?" said Stefan, looking rather alarmed now. "Because even before Mother died, birthdays really just meant an extra special dinner with a cake and a new book or item of clothing. Making a big deal out of birthdays is a tradition that's a few decades younger than us."

"You just admitted that you at least acknowledged them," said Elena impatiently. "But no, throwing a party? I mean, who would I even invite? Maybe Bonnie could come, but she doesn't really know him, so that might be weird. I'm just thinking party hats, cupcakes, and presents. I have my present already—I found it at the lake house—and I'll bring everything else, and you could get something—"

"Wait, you want me to be there?"

"Yeah," said Elena. "The thing I found applies to you almost as much as it applies to Damon, and you're his brother. Can't you just…forget about all the bad blood between you for a couple of hours and be his brother?" She had shamelessly injected a wheedling note into her voice and hit him with the full power of the puppy-eyed stare she used on her dad whenever she wanted something he wasn't inclined to give her.

"I'll think about it," Stefan said gruffly, breaking eye contact.

"See you on Sunday!" she said brightly. "I'll text you the details." With that, she turned and started walking back towards the hospital, her gait decidedly bouncy.

X

When Damon pulled up next to the curb beside the Gilbert house, he was disappointed to see that Elena's car was missing from the driveway (evidently she still hadn't returned from her trip to the hospital), but slightly relieved that Grayson's was gone too. He climbed out of the Camaro and strode up to the door.

A few seconds after he rang the doorbell, Jeremy Gilbert's face appeared through one of the small windowpanes to the side of the door, and he frowned before opening it. "Why are you here?" he asked. "Elena's not home."

"Then we'll just have to put our Vegas plans on hold," Damon sighed. "And I had everything ready to go in the car."

Jeremy scowled at him.

"Actually I need to talk to one of your parents," said Damon.

"Why?" said Jeremy. His arms were folded and his stance was both suspicious and hostile.

Damon narrowed his eyes. "That's between me and them, kid."

"Look, I know something weird's going on around here and that you're part of it, and you can quit it with the Vegas thing, because it's seriously getting old."

"Jeremy?" came Miranda Gilbert's voice from inside the house, accompanied by the sounds of her approaching footsteps. "Did you get the—oh, hello Damon." She smiled at Damon and put a hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "Could you go finish your chores, sweetie?"

"But I already did—," Jeremy began.

"Not yours and Elena's bathroom," said Miranda.

"It's Elena's turn to clean that!"

"Then she can do it the next two times," said Miranda. "It's dirty now and needs to be cleaned."

Jeremy gave his mother the sort of frustrated pout teenagers often give their parents when they want nothing more than to continue to argue but know that it isn't worth the risk of getting grounded, then shot Damon a look of deep loathing and stalked off towards the stairs.

"What can I help you with?" said Miranda, turning to face Damon again. The kind smile was gone; she'd replaced it with a raised eyebrow and a slightly suspicious look that highlighted her resemblance to her son.

"Well, I have an idea for how I can get that compass to not point to us."

X

"Stefan!" Damon shouted when he returned to the boarding house. Given Stefan's enhanced hearing abilities, there was no legitimate reason to raise his voice, but he did it anyway on the off chance that it would get on Stefan's nerves.

"What?" said Stefan, appearing at the bottom of the stairs to the left of the foyer, looking irritated.

"Well, first of all, you really need to stop poking around in Grayson's office. The man already shot you once; are you trying to get staked in your sleep?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Stefan in the least convincing indignant tone Damon had ever heard.

"Or how about this morning's hospital visit?" said Damon. "If you're sick of animal blood, there are more dignified ways to change your feeding habits than stealing blood bags." He knew perfectly well that Stefan had done nothing of the sort, but he also knew that the mere suggestion of it would be enough to provoke Stefan into revealing his hand.

"I wasn't stealing blood bags!" said Stefan crossly. "I was trying to find Elena's birth records."

"Oh, really?" said Damon. "And why on earth would you need to see those?"

"You're telling me you're not the least bit curious about how she and Katherine are connected?"

"Well they're obviously related," said Damon, "but so what?"

"So you don't think that could have something to do with why old, powerful vampires might come after her even though she's a human girl who's never done anything to make enemies with anyone?"

Damon stared at Stefan, a horrible sense of foreboding creeping through his veins. As much as he hated to admit it, his brother might have a point.

"Dr. Gilbert obviously doesn't want to tell a vampire everything he knows, so I've been trying to find out on my own. If you want to help, we could probably make a lot more headway, since you actually have access to the house." Stefan couldn't quite hide his sulkiness on this last sentence, but Damon could gloat later about being invited in where Stefan was not.

"I doubt the information Grayson isn't telling me is the kind of thing he'd leave lying around on a piece of paper where Elena or Jeremy could have stumbled across it," said Damon. "He and Miranda succeeded in keeping the truth hidden from them and Miranda's sister their whole lives, so I'm not going to find it if I break into their house in the middle of the night. Besides, they didn't even know that Elena looks like Katherine until I told them, so you definitely won't learn more about Katherine and Elena's connection by snooping through the Gilberts' stuff."

"I found out Elena's adopted," said Stefan stubbornly.

"Oh, and is one of her birth parents a Petrova?" said Damon, masking his surprise at this revelation.

"I'm still working on that," said Stefan. "All I've been able to find out so far is that her birth certificate, which was conveniently written by Grayson, names him and Miranda as her parents, but there are no hospital records of Miranda being pregnant with Elena or giving birth to her, even though she does have them for Jeremy."

"Maybe I can ask Grayson about it sometime," said Damon. "But in the meantime," he added, smirking and pulling Johnathan Gilbert's watch out of his pocket. "Come on." He tossed the watch up in the air and caught it again. "You and I are going to pay Sheila Bennett a little visit."

As I was working on this chapter and going back over all of the Salvatore flashbacks we've had in canon, I realized that every single time Stefan and Damon met up again after they turned, from Stefan's perspective (which is the perspective of an eternal teenager), it totally seemed like Damon was intentionally screwing him over. From Damon's perspective, things just always went horribly wrong, but he was never actually trying to make Stefan miserable. At least, not until after he switched his humanity off. Looks like we've got some serious misunderstandings to clear up! Anyway, some more fun with Damon and Grayson, then some Elena and Damon being adorable, and then Elena and Stefan clearing the air between them a bit. Another thing I realized was that with Miranda still alive, Elena would still be doing all of her community service extracurricular stuff. Reading to kids in the hospital seemed like the sort of thing Elena would pick, whereas Caroline is the type to be on as many committees as she can possibly join. Next chapter you'll finally find out what Elena found in Agatha Gilbert's journal. So far, none of the guesses about what it is have been correct, although a couple were close.