AN: Heey! I got some extra time this weekend, and I decided to write the next chapter. Stefan is OOC, but I'm going to work with it. Delena fluff will be coming soon, I promise!

It seemed like they'd gotten lucky today. Every place they were stopping at was fairly close; no three hour drives to deal with. The building they pulled up to was a shoddy apartment complex...it looked like it hadn't seen a maintenance worker in at least a decade. They got out of the car, not sure what to expect. If this was one of the witches that had switched them, it was scary to think about what she was capable of. Stefan walked briskly, wanting to get answers as fast as possible. He scanned the buzzers, looking for the name they needed.

"What're you planning to do, Stefan? Ring her buzzer?" Damon asked, sauntering up behind him. "Hi, you switched our souls around, and we have a few questions...seriously?" Damon quickly put a fist through the glass beside the lock, turning the handle on the other side of the door and smiling as it clicked open.

"See? Much simpler."

Stefan shook his head, but followed his brother up the decrepit stairs. They came to the third floor, found the door they were looking for, and knocked.

"Hello?" A voice answered shakily.

"Maintenance; we had a complaint about the plumbing upstairs, we need to look at your pipes." Damon said, rolling his eyes. He saw the light coming through the peephole vanish, and then heard panicked shuffling. She was running.

"Stefan, outside!" His brother bolted.

Damon kicked the door in, looking quickly around the apartment. He saw a thin form desperately struggling to get out of the fire escape window.

"No no no." He said, flashing over to her and grabbing her under the arms. "You have some explaining to do"

"He's coming for me!" She shouted, struggling against him. "He'll kill you!"

"See, that's where you're wrong." He said. "He's dead." In truth, Damon had no idea who or what she was talking about, but he assumed it was the male witch in his dream. Better for her to think that he was dead.

"No! It's not possible!" She exclaimed "he couldn't be killed by a few measly fangs". There was a hint of disgust in her voice; she didn't like vampires much.

"Well hun, you'll have to re-evaluate your realm of possibilities." Stefan came through the fire escape window, watching as Damon pushed the woman onto the couch. "Now, we have some questions." He said, pulling her coffee table in and sitting directly in front of her.

"No!" She said, shutting her mouth and looking away like a child.

"I'm sure you'll change your mind." Damon took her hand in his, applying pressure to one of the many points that lay in it. She tried to pull it away, but it was of no use. Damon pressed down and rose a barely muffled squeal from her throat.

"How about now?" He asked. She shook her head.

"Damon, don't" Stefan said, not impressed with the scene in front of him. "She isn't like the other people you persuade. She's human." Damon turned to him, unimpressed.

"I know, Stefan. That's why I'm using pressure points." He turned back to the woman. "Where is the Grimoire." He said, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. She shook her head. "When I pinch this nerve, it won't go back to normal. I hope you know that..." Still nothing. He pressed down and was rewarded with a scream.

"Fine!" She said, feeling the warmth of a damaged nerve run up her arm. "The Grimoire is with Marc. IF you killed him and it wasn't with him, I won't know where to find it."

"Are you sure?" Damon said, turning her hand over.

"Yes! I'm sure!" She said.

"Where can we find Marc?" He asked, reaching for her other hand.

"You said he was—"

"Dead? I lied." The look on her face was anger and annoyance. Suddenly, she smiled.

"Well then, you shouldn't be watching me. Somebody should be watching the little brunette that's always following you two around."

"Elena?" Stefan said, eyes widening.

"Ah. That's her name. Yes, Elena." She said.

"How do you—"

"It wasn't hard to peek in your heads once you were unconscious. After that, finding your home and collecting things of hers was easy." She said, smug. She was flexing her hand, wincing at the pain.

"You were at the boarding house?" Stefan said, surprised and upset.

"Who do you think brought you back and dumped you into your beds? I'd worry less about the semantics, and more about watching little miss Elena. It doesn't take very long to kill a human...a little aneurism, maybe meningitis...either way, I'd suggest being on your best behaviour." Stefan flashed towards her, pushing Damon out of the way and bending to her eye level. The last few days had pushed him out of balance, and he was definitely angry and agitated.

"If you hurt her, the last thing you'll be worried about is an aching hand..." He said, breathing lowly. Damon smiled. He loved it when his brother was interesting.

"Too late. You've already given me her name. That's all that Marc still needed..." She closed her eyes, smiling as she started chanting a barely audible whisper. Stefan lunged, his large hands fitting easily around the woman's neck. He wanted her to stop talking, that instant. It had been decades since he'd been this angry; since he'd been willing to take human life.

"Stefan, calm yourself." Damon said, standing from where he'd landed on the floor. He stood to pull his brother away, but he found himself launched across the room; no match for the strength of his own body. He was dizzy.

The woman chanted louder, desperate to make the name go through to Marc before she lost consciousness. Her chanting drove Stefan to push down hard, resulting in a resonating crack. She fell limply onto the couch. He took a breath, relieved and hoping that the mysterious warlock didn't know Elena's name. It was then that he realized that the front door was open, and a female figure was standing, in shock.

"Stefan...?" It was Elena.

"Elena?" Stefan was shocked. "How did you..." She silently walked towards him, holding out her hand and pressing it to his chest. He looked down, following her gaze. It landed on what seemed to be a mood ring, which was now turning a deep azure blue. She looked at him, pale and sick, stepping back.

"You killed her!" She said, eyes wide. "Stefan, I..." She didn't know what to say. She'd expected this kind of behaviour from Damon, but she'd never expected it from Stefan.

"Elena, she was going to kill you." He said, looking into her shocked and disgusted face.

"She's a human, Stefan." She shook her head. "Is it that easy for you to take life?" She said. "Have you been hiding this from me?"

"Elena, it's the switch; it's made me not myself and I—"

"You what, Stefan?" She said, stepping back again. Damon stood slowly, watching the argument in silence. "You all of a sudden are willing to just...to just do that?" She looked at the woman's lifeless body, suddenly nauseous.

"She was going to kill you, Elena!" He said, as thought repeating it would make it matter. She looked from him to Damon before turning to leave. "How did you find me?" He said.

"Your iPhone. I used the locator app." She sighed. "I'm going. I can't be here right now" She said, disappearing down the hall. Her head was swimming, and she needed out of there. She flipped open her phone, dialling Caroline. She really wanted to talk to Bonnie, but given her dislike of Vampires, the last thing she needed to hear was that the one she somewhat trusted had just killed someone. The phone rang, and Elena felt tears swell from her eyes. It picked up.

"Elena?"

"Caroline, can I come over?" She said, trying to hold the tears back until she got into the car.

"Elena, what's wrong? I'm not at home, but I can be there in ten." She said, the voice of a concerned parent. As over the top as Caroline could be, she was still there when her friend needed her.

"I'll meet you there...it's Stefan." She said, muffling a sob. She slammed the door to the car just as the tears spilled over.

"What about him hun?" She asked. Elena could hear Caroline's signal light in the background.

"Caro, he...he killed someone."

"Oh my god..." Stefan said, looking around and realizing what he'd done.

"I told you to calm down." Damon said. "Although, you definitely did a good job pretending to be me. Too bad it wasn't yesterday..."

"Damon, the last thing I need is you speaking." He shook his head. He didn't know what to do about Elena, about the switch, or about the dead woman in front of them. He wasn't the kind of person to kill people, was he? It wasn't like he could pretend that his vampire instincts had taken over; this woman was still full of blood. He sighed, sliding his face in his hands.

"I would have expected that from you in your normal body, I have to say." Damon said, pulling a sheet out of one of the closets and laying it out on the floor. "This thing is screaming at me all day to kill. You finally get a break from it and murder someone. Odd." He pulled the woman's body off the couch and onto the sheet, carefully wrapping it around her. He'd seen Elena's face, and he knew that this would hit her hard. He was worried for her; she loved Stefan—no – she loved the idea of Stefan, and that idea had just been shattered. He knew what it felt like, and he knew she'd need someone to explain it all away; something he had no intention of doing. This was his brother. This was how he'd always been, and he'd known that the changed version he'd presented to Elena couldn't last. That was what hurt him the most when he watched them together; knowing that Stefan was lying to her and himself. Damon wasn't the best guy in the world, but at least he was honest.

"What are you doing?" Stefan said, watching.

"Someone has to clean this up." He murmured. He'd help clean up more than just the mess at the apartment. He'd help Elena, too.