"I didn't get a chance to talk to you this morning," Alyssa moved her phone to her left ear so she could reach back and get her book bag out of the bag seat. "So I was calling Damon to check in. I talked to Elena," some books came out as she did and she had to reach further to get them.

"She told me about the quiray and how guilty you felt about all the bad things you done in your life," she managed to grab all her books and leaned back in her chair, "and I got to tell you, you wanting to tan yourself to death is not only cowardly but pretty selfish. I bet you didn't even think of Elena when you decided you wanting to sunbathe without you magical ring. And how dare you die and try and and stick me with Damon to raise because we both know he can't go unsupervised for even a minute."

"Are you done?" Stefan patiently asked when he was able to interject himself into her rant because she needed to breath.

"I think so yeah," she was still pretty upset with him for the stunt he try to pull but she couldn't spend all morning chasing him about it because she couldn't afford to miss anymore school time. "If I think of anymore between now and the next time I see you which I'm sure won't be long since we go to the same school then I'll tell you then."

"Looking forward to it," she could hear the smile in his voice.

"So you're really okay?" Her tone slipped from annoyed to concerned. She didn't know when it happened but she came to care for Stefan as much as she did Damon. She hadn't realized it until Elena had told her that he wanted to die and she was found herself upset with him over it.

"I'm fine."

"Good," the affection tone she held in her voice went away and she became her regular uncaring self, "because I'd hate to have to be stuck with Damon for the next seventy or eighty years."

"Elena aware of what's going on with the two of you?"

"If there was something to tell," she looked out the side mirror to see Tyler approach the car, "then she would be the first to know. But there is something she should know." Tyler tapped on the window and she motioned for him to give her a minute. "Tyler's here so I can't talk about it right now" she looked to Tyler who backed up so she could get out of the car, "so can we meet up later and discuss how to best tell her."

Tyler stood patiently in front of her and waited for her to finish her conversation.

She closed the door behind her and settled for a time and place to meet.

She turned her attention to Tyler after she had hung up with Stefan. "If this is about Matt," and she had a suspicion that it was from his previous calls and text, "then I'm sorry Tyler I can't help you." She walked away from her car putting her cell phone in the front pocket of her bookbag.

"Alyssa please," he followed her desperate for her help putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "He won't talk to me."

She looked on incredulous because she didn't believe he couldn't believe his response would be any different. "Yeah because made out with his mom and I'm sorry Ty but you of all people should have known better. That's his mom. You know just as well as I do how he feels about the choices she makes when it comes to men. You just became one of those choices. You chose to make out with her you chose so know you have to deal with the consequences and if that means Matt freezing you have to live it. Now I feel for you I do because having your best friend hate you must suck but I can't help you."

She walked away but stop seconds digging her bookbag.

"You talked to John?"

"Damon," she sighed and walked inside.

"How am I just hearing about this?"

"You were having a moment with Stefan when I walked in last night remember," she stopped at locker and opened it. "Beside," she put her entire book bag in her locker and shut it leaning against it, "it wasn't anything important. He knows I know about you and Stefan and accused me of shaming my parents for it. Of course for Uncle John that's nothing new. I didn't find out why he's in town, but I did find out that he was working with Isobel. They both want the Gilbert device which we know nothing about and I haven't found out why, but if it works like the compass then you and Stefan really have to be careful."

"There has to be a way of figuring out what it does."

"Well I can't help you out with that at this moment because I'm supposed to help build the Miss Mystic float for the Founders' Day parade. If I don't, I get the wrath of Caroline. But maybe I could ask Bonnie. If it works like the compass then she could help me figure out what it is."

"She's about as vampire friendly as the council now of days considering what happened to grandma Bennett."

"Then I'll ask Elena to ask Bonnie. Either way, we're figuring out whatever this thing is today. I'll call you if I find out anything."

"Have fun with the Mystic queen, I know I did."

She hung up and walked to the cafeteria where she was meeting the group that was helping work on the float.

She was approached by Rick as soon as she entered. "Elena with you?"

She heard his tone of voice and became worried. "No, why what's wrong?"

He pulled her off to the side, "I got a visit from Isobel last night."

"What?"

"She wants to meet Elena."

"She say why?"

Someone calls out for Rick and the conversation ends there. Rick walks over to his student and Alyssa takes up a seat at the table with Tyler and Matt.

Rick joins them later with a bunch of papers and they discuss the founders day parade.

"So these are the specs for the History department." He begins to pass them out to the table. "For the Founders' Day float we'll be recreating the battle of Willow Creek. Tyler has been nominated at the head of the production design."

That seemed to have caught him off guard. "By whom?"

Alaric answer, "by me. I've seen your sketches and they're good."

"I'm not really into the…"

"Well, you just pick your team," He said cutting him off having already decided that he was going to be in charge, "be creative and…" He sees Elena and Stefan walk in and nods to Alyssa who turns to see why he was trying to get her attention, "Don't screw up."

"I'll be right back," she got up at the same time as Rick walked over to Elena and Stefan. She pulled out her phone as she watched them walk away, "you need to get to the school."

Alyssa waited for Damon outside of Rick's classroom.

"What's with the 911?"

"You're going to want to hear this," she walked inside and Damon followed to see Rick standing near his desk, Elena sitting at one and Stefan is sitting on Rick's desk. "Rick saw Isobel last night." She said sitting down on the desk near the window.

"Isobel is here?" He looked to Elena who nods. "In town?"

He turns to Rick and she watch the exchange. "Did you ask her about Uncle John?"

"I didn't ask."

"What about the invention?"

"Didn't ask."

"Did she know about the tomb vampires?

"I don't know."

"Did words completely escape you?"

"No, I was a little too distracted by my dead vampire wife to ask any questions."

Damon turns to Elena. "What did she want?"

"She wants to see me, Damon."

"Alaric is supposed to arrange a meeting." Stefan told him. "We don't know why or what she wants."

Damon still looking at Elena. "You don't have to see her if you don't want to."

"I don't really have a choice."

"She's threatening to go on killing spree if she doesn't." Alyssa told him.

"And I take it that's not okay with you guys."

"I want to do it." Elena replies with a firm and determined nod. "I want to meet her. If I don't, I know I'll regret it."

Rick setup the meeting between Isobel and Elena and met the at the Salvatore boarding house to tell them the place and time. Isobel chose to meet at the grill with a stipulation that Rick and Damon was not to step foot inside during their meeting. It was an insistence that Damon was happy about but he agreed to stay away. He pulled Alyssa aside to make sure that she knew the same went for her.

"Just so we're clear," he said with a hold on her own. "You're not to go in either."

Confused by this, she furrow her brow, "I wasn't the one told not go in."

"Well I'm telling you."

"Fine," she remembered the warning he gave her the last time and released his hold on her. "I won't go in."

That promise, was how she found herself waiting outside of the grill with Damon and Alaric instead of inside

"I should be in there." She said across the street from the grill.

"Why aren't you?" Alaric asked. "Your weren't banned from going in."

She looked at him sideways. "I kind of promise Damon I wouldn't after what happened with Henry and he doesn't trust that I'll keep my word."

"Cause you haven't and if she knows what good with for her," Damon walked towards them, "she'll keep standing right here until I tell her to move." Rick looked at him with a questioning brow. "Besides, if anyone should be there is me."

"And you would be if Isobel wouldn't have made it perfectly clear she didn't want you or Rick to step a foot inside." Alyssa

"It's not like I'm going to kill her in a crowded restaurant." He said as if that should have been obvious.

Rick didn't like the idea of him killing her at all and Alyssa looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "She ruined your life and you still want to protect her?"

"She's my wife." She raised her brow at the that. "Was my wife. I looked for the woman I married but she wasn't there. Whoever that is, she's cold and detached."

"It's cause she's given up her humanity." Alyssa recognized the symptoms from the way Rick described her when she met Damon having explained it to her.

"Yeah, see, I don't get that. Stefan has his humanity, he's a good guy. Damon's a dick and whose killed plenty of people but I still see something human in you. But with her there was...nothing."

"You can turn it off, like a button you can press." Damon begins to explain to him the way he had to her. "I mean, Stefan's different. He wants the whole human experience. He wants to feel every episode of How I Met Your Mother, so he shuts his feelings out. The problem is, as a vampire, your instinct is not to feel. Isobel chose the easier road - no guilt, no shame, no regret. I mean, come on, if you could turn it off, wouldn't you?"

"You haven't."

"Of course I have, Rick. It's why I'm so fun to be around."

"I tell you what's not fun, waiting around here for news so I'm going to go home and wait." She stopped Damon from following her by placing her hand on his chest. "And you can either follow me to make sure that's where I'm going or you can stay here and wait for Elena but you can't do both," she took her hands off him, "and we both know who you're going to choose." She turned around and walked away.

"Hey," Jenna greeted Alyssa when she walked into the living room. Alyssa saw her holding her phone. "I was just about to call and check in."

"Yeah sorry about not being around," she leaned against the wall crossing her arms. "I've been spending a lot more time with Matt now that Kelly's gone." She stepped into the room. "He kicked her out after he caught her making out with Tyler."

"Lockwood?"

"Yeah, I guess he could forgive her for a lot but not that."

"Poor Matt."

"Yeah, it makes me grateful for that parents that had."

"You want to take a break from saving the world?"

"I got some time to kill."

"Gone with the wind time?"

She shrugged. "I can sit through the first act." She joined her on the couch to watch Scarlett and Rhett complicated relationship.

She hadn't gotten far before Elena was back and she was immersed into another complicated relationship.

"So I was right," Alyssa said after Elena had filled her in on the conversation with her mother. "She wants the device." They were in Elena room with Elena sitting on the

"She wants me to convince Damon to give it to her."

"If there's any chance that that thing works anything like the compass does," she looked between Elena and Stefan who had unsurprisingly joined them. "There is no way Damon's going to just hand it over."

"If he doesn't, she's going to start killing people."

"So then we figure out how to stop her." She pulled out her cell and left to make a call.

"Hey," Alyssa met with Bonnie in Rick's classroom as directed by Bonnie. "Thanks for doing this."

"You said that it was important and that it's for Elena."

"It is." She assured her with a nod knowing that it would be the only reason to get her to even consider doing what she she had in mind. "Do you have the spell book?"

Bonnie pulled it out and showed it to her.

"According to what I read, Jonathan Gilbert has never actually succeeded in inventing anything. Emily spelled it with magic." She spotted the compass on the page Bonnie had turned to. "That's the vampire compass and the rings."

She pointed to round silver item next to the compass. "This is the mystery device Elena told me about."

"It's only part of it. Damon only has the one piece."

"Emily pledged her loyalty to Katherine. But she couldn't stand by and watch innocent people get killed. This was the only way she could think of to help, to let Jonathan Gilbert believe that he'd actually invented these devices."

"Does it say what it does?"

Bonnie read the page. "Are you sure this is what Isobel wants?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Why?"

"This is a weapon. Against vampires."

She stood up. "Can't say I'm surprised. All John inventions were made to target vampires. Does it says how it works?"

"It doesn't, not without this box."

"Is there a way that you could deactivate it like you did the tomb."

"I'd have to look into it."

"You do that. I'm going to fill Elena in. You keep working on it."

She left the classroom to go find Elena who she knew was working on the float for the parade. "Hey," she stopped when she saw the panic look on her face. "What's wrong?"

"Isobel has Jeremy." Elena told Bonnie as they rejoined her in Alaric's classroom. "If we don't give her the device, she's going to hurt Jeremy."

"Where is the device?" Bonnie asked.

Stefan responded. "Damon has it. He's going to be difficult to reason with."

"Then I'll talk to him." Elena said.

"He's not just gonna hand it over, especially if it's harmful to vampires." Stefan said.

"What if it's not?" Alyssa thought about what she had asked of Bonnie about dispelling it and if she could really do it then that would make it easier to convince Damon to do it.

"Absolutely not!"

They were at the boarding house where they found Damon to talk him into handing over the device but it hadn't been going so well.

"Just hear me out." Elena pleaded.

"I'm not gonna give the device to Isobel so she could give it to John who is going to turn it to kill me." Damon said. "I like being a living dead person."

"But it'll be useless," Elena tried once again to convince him. "Bonnie can take its power away."

"I don't trust her."

Bonnie insisted, "I can remove the original spell."

Elena assured him, "John and Isobel will never know."

"No," Damon still wasn't up for it. "I'll get Jeremy in my own way."

Stefan was skeptical, "Really?" he asked, "How are you going to do that? Because Isobel is a vampire and Jeremy could be dead the second you walk in the door."

Damon considered this and turned to Bonnie. "Are you even up for this? I mean no offense, you're no Emily Bennett. Emily knew what she was doing."

"I've been practicing."

"It's not piano lessons, honey." Damon sarcastically replied.

Out of the blue, Bonnie asked Damon, "what's your favorite book?"

"What?"

"Name a book," Bonnie said, "any book."

"Name a book...How about "Call of the wild", Jack London?"

Bonnie turned and looked at the library. A book flies and lands in Damon's hands.

Damon looked at the book. "Jack London. Great parlor trick."

"We're doing this," Alyssa was fed up with the bickering between them with Jeremy's life in the balance, "And we're doing it this way." She walked over to Damon. "Now give me the device. We're wasting time."

Damon looked to Bonnie. "I don't trust you, I tried to kill you."

"You're right," Bonnie agreed with him. "You can't trust me.

Elena responded with, "but you can trust me."

Damon looked at her still contemplating his decision.

"It's for Jeremy Damon," he looked over to Alyssa who wasn't above begging in this situation, "please."

He took a second before he handed over the device.

"Thank you," she took it over to Bonnie so she could start the spell.

She took out a piece inside and held her hands above it. They all stood and watch as it floated in the air. The lights flickered on and off before the flames on the candle and in the fire flames rose.

"Done." Bonnie said and gave the device to Alyssa.

"Great," Damon said then asked, "now what?"

Alyssa handed the device over to Elena. "We give it to Isobel."

Alyssa got out of the car once the reached the agreed upon meeting space, town square, and turned to Damon. "You think once Isobel gets what she came for she'll disappear again?"

"For Elena's sake I hope so."

She turned to Elena once her and Stefan joined them. "Ready?"

Alyssa walked Elena to the designated meeting spot. It wasn't long before Isobel arrived.

"Where is the device?" They turned to see Isobel standing behind her.

"Where's our brother?" Alyssa countered.

"Can't say I'm surprised to see you here."

"You think I'd like her come alone. Now's where's Jeremy."

"This isn't a negotiation. Where is the invention?"

"Not until we get our brother." Alyssa said crossing her arms.

"Do you really think that I came alone?"

Frank and Cherie arrives behind them.

"Did you really think that we came alone?"

She looks over her shoulder to Damon and Stefan arrive behind Isobel. She looks at them.

"For god sakes, call home and ask to speak to your brother Jeremy."

Alyssa pulls out her phone and calls home. He picks up after the second ring.

"Jeremy, are you okay?"

"Yeah yeah I'm fine, Uncle John hit his head. It was an accident."

"We're all laughing." She heard Jenna said in the background.

"But yeah I'm okay."

"I'll be home soon, alright?"

"Yeah."

She hung up and turned to Elena. "He's okay."

Elena turned to Isobel. "You were never gonna hurt him."

"No, I was going to kill him." Isobel replied. "Don't look for any redeeming qualities in me. I don't have any."

"But you took a risk with Damon. How did you know that he was gonna give it to me?

"Because he's in love with you."

Over Isobel's shoulder, Damon looks at Stefan, he looks uncomfortable. Stefan seems upset. Elena gives the device to Isobel.

After a long pause Elena said, "Thank you.

"For what?"

"For being such a monumental disappointment. It keeps the memory of my real mother perfectly intact."

Isobel didn't let her word phase her. "Goodbye, Elena. As long as you have a Salvatore on each arm, you're doomed. Katherine was smart. She got out. But we all know that you're not Katherine."

Isobel looks at Elena and leaves. Alyssa followed suit now that she knew that Isobel had the device and Jeremy was safely home. She would let Elena deal with her love life on her own. Though she was sure that was going to get messy.

"Hey, where you been?" Jenna came out of her room when she heard Alyssa in hers.

She took off coat and hung it in the closet. "Elena and I were getting our dresses for the founders parade. The theme is 'Gone with the wind' Caroline choice naturally. What did you did all day?"

"The same," Alyssa shut the closet door and turned to her, "though I'm starting to regret having you and Elena bond with me having to be alone with John."

"Well good news is, I don't think he's going to be sticking around for much longer."

"He say something to you?"

"Not in so many words but I think whatever business he has here is about to be over and so will his visit, which can't come soon enough."

"Let's pray he keeps his next visit short."

"I'd actually preferred if he didn't visit at all," Alyssa said as Jenna left and she walked into her bathroom to start her normal usual bedtime routine. When she was done, she came out of the bathroom walking over to her dresser grabbed her brushed to begin brushing her hair. "If you're looking for Elena you might want to check the window next door." She sat down her brush and turned to Damon.

"But then again I don't really have to tell you that. I'm surprised you're here I thought you and Stefan would be somewhere on a building beating your chest vying for Elena's attention. Or is that too subtle for you. Or maybe Stefan's already draw the line in the sand and that's why you're here with me instead of the person you really want to be with."

"I found out something about Elena's birth father that I thought you would want to know."

"You mean that's it's Uncle John." She crossed her arms and shrugged. "I already figured that out and I'm sure since you have too then you've told Stefan and he's going to tell Elena so if that's all it's been a long day and I'd really like go to sleep now." She walked over to her bed. He caught her arm as she passed and she turned to look at him in defiance. When he failed to say anything, she wrenched her arm free, "I'm sure you can show yourself out."

She walked into the bathroom locking herself in until she was sure he had left. She walked downstairs stopping at the top of the second flight of stairs when she saw John open the front door. The phone pressed to his ear. He picks up an envelope.

"I got it. I won't fail." She assumed that he had been talking to Isobel on the phone and stayed where she was so he wouldn't notice ther.

He retrieves his ring and puts it on his finger. Alyssa figured it was the ring that Damon had been referring too. The same one Rick had that brought him back to life after Damon had snapped his neck.

She stood there and listened to the one sided conversation. "Let me guess."

"That was always part of the plan. Consider them gone." Alyssa had her suspicions as to who the them might be that John wanted gone but she knew that thanks to Bonnie, that wasn't going to happen. Though she had wished that it didn't mean the other tombed vampires were going to go free.

"I know." John said and hung up as he turned around closing the door behind him. She stayed where she was either though she knew he would have seen her, and he did. They trade silently glances before he walked back to wherever he had been before he had answered the door and she looked straight ahead of her with a look of determination.