Hello, everyone. I'm really, really sorry for how long it's taken me to get these first couple episodes out but this episode had me practically sleeping at the computer screen. Therefore, I'm not writing in any of the 1994 scenes because they're pretty much going to all be the same. Now, unfortunately for everyone, I don't have a lot of creative license with this chapter so bare with me. Hopefully it'll turn out all right with the dry humor I stick in there for Mads. We'll see.

By the way, thank you to everyone who has reviewed! We're at 300 reviews now! This is really, really amazing and I can't thank you all enough! Enjoy this chapter, everyone...only two more until we get to the good stuff.

Disclaimer: Chapter 1 please :)

Black Hole Sun

Of course it turned out to be one of the hottest days in October on the day that us vampires had to actively search for the human that I attacked a few weeks back because she knew just exactly what I was capable of. The good news was, as a vampire, a human's normal homeostasis rate was half of which was ours. I barely broke a sweat, even though I could practically feel the heat from the sunlight down on my back. Regardless, I stepped over logs and walked through leaves as I listened to the dial tone on my phone before Stefan picked up.

"Hey," he answered. "Any sign of our runaway girl?"

I shook my head. "No dice. We must've went around the border five times between all of us. Sarah's not here."

"She's not on any of the roads...which means she's probably in Mystic Falls."

I groaned. "If I believed in luck, I would mention that we happen to have none right now. She knows what we are and if we don't find her, there's no way of knowing who she'll tell."

Instead of the response that I expected from Stefan, I got a hurried goodbye. "Listen, I gotta go, I'll...talk to you later."

I was about to stop him when he hung up the phone promptly without waiting for me to say goodbye in return, or say anything else for that matter. So there I was, in the middle of the woods, wondering why the hell Stefan was in such a rush to get me off the phone. I paused, thinking for a minute, and then I felt the air underneath my feet as I moved at a graceful vampire speed. Sure enough, I stopped just as Stefan started the engine to his motorcycle in preparation for a getaway. As I stopped in front of him, I hesitated.

"God, I hate using vampire speed," I murmured under my breath before I sighed and crossed my arms at my friend. "You. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Stefan scoffed, caught. "Uh, I'm going home."

"That's impossible, seeing as no vampire can cross Mystic Falls' border." The bronze-haired Salvatore stared at me, waiting for me to realize what I had already figured out moments ago. I frowned. "Don't tell me you really believe Savannah, Georgia is your home. Home is right across that line."

"It was my home," Stefan pointed out. "But I can no longer cross that line; therefore, I have a new home."

"Stop calling it your home." I shook my head and stepped forward. "You can't keep doing this. You're living a lie. A fake new life isn't going to fix anything."

"My fake new life ended when Enzo decided to kill my not-so-fake girlfriend, Ivy." Honestly, and I wouldn't lie, it was hard being friends with both Audrey and Stefan during this tumultuous time. I didn't know who to side with. On one hand, I felt bad for Stefan because...well, if he really did care about Ivy then it makes sense why he'd be so devastated over her death. On another hand, I saw where Audrey was coming from and could recognize that it was wrong of Stefan to leave her and start over with a new woman. Plus, as I'd said before, Ivy was obviously rebound. Stefan continued, "So I am going to go home, pack up, and start over. Again."

I frowned. "You can't pretend that your life here never existed. Not unless your best friend's evil doppelgänger sends you to an alternate universe and you happen to forget your life and think that it's all just a dream."

Stefan stared up at me carefully. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to forget the past, Madeline."

"You lost your brother. You're either in the 'acceptance' stage of grief or you're still in the 'denial and isolation' phase. To be quite honest, I still think you're in denial. Which would explain your isolation." Stefan sighed heavily, obviously exhausted with my conversation. I held up his keys in my hand, keys that I secretly snatched from him when I vamp-sped over to his bike. He stared at the keys with incredulity as I said, "I don't believe that you're fine. I don't believe that you've accepted it and moved on. It's just not possible."

Stefan sighed. "You do not need to worry about me. I have accepted it and moved on. And it's not like I haven't done this before, I have a system!"

"Then prove it." I jingled the keys in my hand and clenched them in a fist. Stepping forward, I stated my ultimatum. "Take me with you. Show me your 'system' and...if I still believe that you're still in the first stage of grief, I'm not letting you out of my sight until we get past this. If I realize that you're in the fifth stage and have moved on, I'll let you go. Which, by the way, I highly doubt will happen." I could tell he resisted a smile. "What do you say, Salvatore? Do we have a deal?"

Stefan sighed again and shook his head at me with a laugh. "Fine."

I smiled at him and placed his keys in his hand before moving around his bike to sit on the back. I never liked motorcycles, but when in Rome..

"And what about our runaway girl? Sarah?" Stefan prompted. I sighed.

"It's hot, I'm tired, and she's in Mystic Falls." Stefan passed a helmet to me, which I didn't quite understand because as vampires we would never get hurt even if we crashed. Still, I took the helmet and clipped it onto my head. "Jeremy, Matt, and Audrey can take it from here."

Without any more objections, Stefan started the motorcycle, and we took off on the highway.

When we arrived in Savannah, Stefan first took me to the garage he said he worked at. He lent me his phone while he picked up his paycheck so that I could see a picture of this infamous Ivy character. I stared at the picture with a million thoughts running in my head, but there was only one I wanted to ask.

"Really, Stefan? I didn't peg you for the selfie type." I smiled to myself and locked the phone, holding it to my side. I could hear Stefan's soft laugh and I shrugged. "She's pretty."

"Was pretty," he corrected me with his back still turned. I sighed, realizing I'd hit a sore spot.

"Sorry, Stef."

"Me, too. But what's done is done." He moved on quickly. "So! After taxes and Social Security and health insurance, I'm left with, uh, 206 dollars and three cents to spend for the week." He turned around at me and held up the paycheck as if it were a prize. "Do you wanna get drunk?"

"Okay...I can see putting the helmet on when we're on the motorcycle just in case a cop stops us." I stood up straight and laughed. "But really? Health insurance? Social Security? Come on!"

He shrugged. "Point is to...start over. Pretend to be as human as possible."

"You can still pretend to be human without paying unnecessary health insurance fees." Stefan shook his head and practically rolled his eyes, but I sighed and moved on. "All right, all right. Fine. So paying money to the government even when you don't need to. Check. No vampire privileges, no baggage, right?" He nodded and I stepped beside him, spinning around on my heel dramatically to point at the red vehicle I had been leaning on. "And that definitely doesn't count as baggage, correct?"

Stefan turned his head at me and bumped my shoulder. "All right. You got me there." He turned around and started moving towards the string to pull the garage door shut. "See, Damon isn't around to call it the granny-mobile so..."

I stepped forward, following in his footsteps so I was out of the garage so he could shut it. "Right. Damon and his infamous nicknames. And who can forget those one-liners, either?" I scoffed out of disgust and murmured to myself. "He always knew how to push someone to the edge."

I didn't expect to hear Stefan respond, because I thought that I had kept my voice low enough for him not to hear, but I seemed to forget that we were both vampires now and that he could hear me just as easily. "That's one way to put it."

Stefan closed the garage and I turned around. "I didn't mean..."

"It's fine." He turned around at me and I moved on, trying to limit the Damon insults to a minimum. I mean, sure, it was sad for Stefan that Damon wasn't around because, after all, Damon was family, but for everyone else? The world was a much safer place without Damon's impossible schemes and irrevocable methods.

"So this system of yours requires two things so far: burning bridges and minimum wage. What else?"

"We haven't even gotten to the fun part."

"Life insurance?"

"No." Stefan laughed. "Deciding who you want to be for the next thirty years. You wanna be an astronaut? You wanna be an Olympic athlete? You wanna skip med school? Boom! You're a doctor!"

I frowned. "That's not how it works."

"You want to challenge me?" Stefan prompted with a smile on his lips curling wider by the moment. "Go ahead, challenge me. I'll show you how it's done."

I shrugged. "Prove your point and I'll let you go. A deal's a deal. Show me what you got."

Stefan nodded and took a moment, thinking for himself for just a minute before looking down at me and smiling. "All right. But you've got to loosen up. And we're gonna need a pair of sunglasses."

I paused, skeptical of the gleam in Stefan's eyes. "Why...?"

Stefan took me to a bar, of course, to make good on his suggestion to get drunk with me. Personally, I wasn't a fan of alcohol, but once in a while did some good. Besides, Stefan had asked for me to lighten up. However, the dark sunglasses that we had acquired were sitting on the table and I had no idea what they were for. After he'd ordered a shot for me and a beer for him, I had gotten a text from Caroline that filled me in on everything going on back home.

"Sarah's still on the loose. There hasn't been any sign of her so either she's skipped town running terrified or she's waiting to spill the beans in a nighttime exclusive." I sighed. How in the hell did all this get so screwed up?

Stefan shrugged. "Well, if she does out you, you could always start your life over somewhere else. Free of all the, uh, supernatural drama."

I scoffed. "Me? Starting over? Trust me, I couldn't pull it off."

"I don't believe that." He grinned. "So, you ready to see the system in action?"

I raised the shot glass he had given me and held it close to my mouth. "Phase one, loosening up." I downed the shot, feeling the sting of the alcohol as it went down, but it was surprisingly more graceful as a vampire. It burned less than it usually had as a human. "Completed."

Stefan picked up the sunglasses from the table and slipped them onto my face. I didn't move but watched him through the almost blacked-out lens. He whispered, "Improvise. It's what makes all of this fun. Pretend you're trying to be inconspicuous."

With a sigh, I shifted my chair so that I was sitting in the darkness, away from the light that shone through the window of the small tavern, and Stefan got up from his seat and looked around at all the people in the bar. As I played with the empty shot glass in my hand and tried to remain 'inconspicuous', he let out a huge gasp.

"Oh, my God!" Stefan shouted, loud enough for everyone in the tavern to hear. "Oh, my God! No way! It's you!"

I looked up at Stefan, wondering where the hell he was taking this. "Um...I think you have the wrong person—"

"Hey, everyone!" Stefan announced, earning everyone's attention in the bar. "It's Madeline Reichs, the famous actress!" He looked down at me and nodded over and over again. "Yeah! You're in those werewolf movies, right? 'The Curse of the Sun and the Moon' trilogy?"

I tried to resist laughing at his choice in movie titles. Eventually, I looked around the tavern to see everyone staring at me and I shrugged. "Guilty..."

Stefan smiled widely. "I knew it! Can I have your autograph?"

I nodded. "Sure." He moved forward and grabbed a napkin from the table, but there was no pen. He addressed himself to the people in the tavern. "Hey! Anyone have a pen?"

Murmurs rushed through the crowd and, soon enough, I had a line of people right behind Stefan asking for my autograph. I signed a few of them, making up a signature for Madeline Reichs, and removed my glasses as I did so because I could barely see a thing. Halfway through the line, the bartender looked at everyone.

"All right, step away from the pretty lady. I'm sure she's exhausted."

"Thanks." I smiled at the bartender and looked up at Stefan, who was still standing beside me. "You want to join me for a drink...?"

"Stefan," he introduced himself, holding out his hand. "Stefan Cooper."

"Stefan Cooper." I shook his hand and he sat down at the table across from me, like before. As the excitement died down around me, I laughed at him. "Using my alternate reality name as an alias? Clever."

"I try."

Stefan smirked at me and I just shook my head, replaying the last few minutes over and over in my head again. Madeline Reichs, famous actress. Didn't sound so bad after all.

I ended up getting a dozen free shots from people inside of the bar, but Stefan split them with me (all right, he took more than half) because there was no way in hell I was going to drink all of them. Finally, I cut myself off from the bartender and settled upon lighter alcohol, a beer, just as I finished up texting Caroline who was still keeping me informed.

"So, apparently, now we have to people MIA. Sarah's still missing and suddenly, she can't find Enzo." I sighed at Stefan. "Jesus, you leave Mystic Falls for one day..."

Stefan grimaced. "He's probably out killing someone else's girlfriend."

"Hey, what happens if one of these people search up 'Madeline Reichs' on their phones?" I asked Stefan, a problem suddenly striking me. "She's not real, so she doesn't have a filmography."

Stefan shrugged. "It's all a part of the system. You make up an excuse, like the movie doesn't come out for another two years. Then you find a way to get into the movie industry and there you go, your new identity is created." He paused. "Then, you have to reinvent yourself in thirty years. If you don't, people will start to ask why you aren't getting older."

"Right." I frowned. "Because vampires don't age. Another one of the perks."

Stefan surveyed me as I took a sip out of my beer. "I know it sucks. But you'll get used to it."

I scoffed. "Don't we all." I took a moment to think about his words and I found something bothering me. "Wait a minute, you left Mystic Falls only 15 years before you came back. There had to be a reason you returned ahead of schedule."

Stefan shrugged. "I met your sister. You know, since 1864, I have been a carpenter, an ambulance driver, a migrant worker, high school student..."

"And now an auto-mechanic. Why?"

He hesitated. "No reason."

I studied him, trying to find a way to get to the root of where I wanted to be: the problem. I came with Stefan to find out if he was in the first or the fifth stage of grief, and the one thing we hadn't talked about was the one thing I needed to figure out in order to let me go. "I know it must be hard, Stefan. I'll learn it eventually. So many changes and, over the years, there's only ever been one constant...and now he's gone." I paused. "I think we should talk about your brother."

Stefan was reluctant, avoiding my eyes for a moment. I expected those reactions, but I didn't expect his words. "It's a little weird to, uh, hear you refer to Damon as just my brother."

I arched an eyebrow. "Well, he is your brother. What else would I call him?"

He exhaled and took a sip of his beer. "I don't even know anymore."

"You've lost me." I leaned back in my chair, waiting for an explanation, but Stefan just shook his head absently and moved forward with his beer bottle extended to me.

"You know what it's, uh, it's not important." He rushed out and smiled. "Things change, right? To change."

I was careful, cautious to his actions, but he looked at me with a whole-hearted smile and eyes that showed no hidden deceit that I could deduce. Hesitantly, I raised my beer bottle and tapped his glass in agreement.

"To change."

The sun was starting to set, which meant that my day with Stefan was coming to an end. I was still unsure about what I wanted to do, but I realized very quickly that Stefan had himself under control, first stage of grief or last. I trusted him with himself, not that I was just going to let him go and never speak to him again. He was my friend, and with eternity ahead of us, I would hope he'd be my constant.

I moved the sunglasses on top of my head down to my eyes as we neared the door of the nearly empty tavern. I spun around with a small smile on my face and Stefan laughed.

"Very Hepburn of you," he noted. I shrugged.

"I try." We came to a stop in front of the door. "So...let me ask you this. What if, in thirty years, we run into each other again? Are you going to pretend that you don't know me?"

"Mads, I'm avoiding Mystic Falls. Not you. We can talk, we can visit...and, if you ever need a car repair, I will give you the parts at cost."

I laughed. "Good." My lips turned up into a wider smile. "Besides, I still need my best friend once in a while. Shh," I put a finger to my lips, "don't tell Audrey."

Stefan grinned. "I won't."

He pulled me into a hug and I hated to admit it, but I was going to miss him. A lot. I didn't want him to leave, but what was the point in keeping him around for my own selfish intentions? He was happy here, happy creating lives like he'd always been. It was up to him to decide. I pulled away and a sense of melancholic happiness came over me.

"Bye, Stefan."

"Bye, Mads."

Without looking back, I walked through the door of the tavern and stepped out into the sunlight. It glistened down on me, even hotter than the sun in Mystic Falls, and I sighed heavily as I let go of a good friend and continued on with my life as usual. I was just about to call Caroline so that she could come and get me from Savannah since I didn't feel like commandeering a car through compulsion, but when I reached into my pocket to grab my phone, I realized that it wasn't there. I checked my jacket pockets and looked around to see if it fell out, but it didn't take a genius to know that it was inside the tavern, probably. I turned back around on my heel and stepped forward to go into the tavern when I heard sounds inside—sounds that resembled someone getting beaten. Though I hated the way it felt, I vamp-sped into the tavern and immediately forced the man who was beating Stefan up against the bar counter.

"Leave." I compelled the angry man. "Now. Forget this happened."

The man left, and I looked down at Stefan who was bent over the floor with blood dripping from his mouth. I watched him as he tried to rise, all bloody and broken from the man's beating. I couldn't stand the sight before me.

"What is going on, Stefan?"

He pushed himself up off the floor and stumbled over to the bar counter where he grabbed a handful of napkins. I saw my phone glistening in the sunlight on our table and I grabbed it as Stefan grunted.

"I thought you agreed to leave."

"Yeah, well, I forgot my phone! What the hell did you do?" I didn't have to be a psychologist to know what was going on. Stefan could've easily compelled the human to stop beating him...in all honesty, he shouldn't have even gotten in the fight in the first place. But it was common among people who lose someone close to them to use violence as a way to cope. Though it wasn't an excuse.

"I told you I had a system," Stefan muttered.

"Letting someone beat you to a pulp so you can feel? What, you figured if Chuck Bass can do it..."

Stefan scoffed. "You are the last person who should be lecturing me on coping mechanisms."

I sighed, frustrated. "Everyone lost someone when the Other Side collapsed. I lost Bonnie, you lost Damon. But, unlike you, I've reached the last stage. I've accepted it, even though it's impossible to move on with grief that strong. I fought through it."

"Yeah? All by yourself?"

"No. You're right, I had Elena. Not so much Jeremy because he hasn't been talking to me lately but...yeah, I did have Elena. So maybe it's not exactly the same but...you had Audrey. You chose to push her away. And I know it might be difficult to think that I can help because I didn't like Damon but—"

Stefan cut me off. "Believe me, that's not what it is."

"He was your brother." I stepped forward. "I understand that. That will never go away. But you know what kind of person Damon was." My friend turned around, an impossible look on his face. I understood his anger, but I barreled on. "So why would you punish yourself for someone who doesn't deserve all the aftermath you've been giving him? It's time to start thinking about you and it's time to start accepting and move on."

Stefan expressed an irritated look and slapped his hands to his sides. "I'm sorry that I can't just forget him like you, Madeline."

"Who said anything about forgetting him? No one will forget hm—"

"You are!" Stefan exclaimed. "You erased him."

I shook my head. "I never erased him. I still remember him, his death just wasn't as big a deal for me as it was for you."

But this made Stefan even more agitated with me. He stood forward and looked me right in the eye with peeved expression. "This has gone on far too long. You had Alaric compel you to forget every good thing that Damon ever did. You made him a monster in your own mind so that you wouldn't have to deal with the grief of losing him."

"That's insane!" I snapped, now pissed off at Stefan for spitting out such lies. "You're lying. I would never memory-wipe myself, Stefan!"

"But you did it."

I crossed my arms and played along with his game. "Why? Why would I do that?'

"Because you were in love with him, and he was in love with you. And when Damon died, a part of you died, too." Stefan and I stared at each other, but all the words coming out of his mouth were words that I couldn't believe. No. Damon? In love with Damon? It had to be a joke. "You two were engaged. If he hadn't died, you would've been married and I would've been your brother."

"Married?" I scoffed. "How can you say that to me? I've never loved anyone in my entire life! I mean...I mean, there was Matt but...but all I did was sleep with Matt once, I never really—"

"You never slept with Matt."

"That's impossible. When I came back from the alternate reality the second time, I slept with Matt and it turned my blood black. That's what made the anti-magic spell possible."

"You didn't sleep with Matt, Madeline," the other vampire repeated. I stared at my friend, but I could see the sincerity in his eyes. It wasn't a joke, it was far from it. "You slept with Damon when you came back from that alternate reality. Your blood turned back and everything else happened because you slept with him."

I took a moment to process this information, but I thought back to the night where I lost my virginity. It was Matt. It had to be Matt. I would never sleep with Damon Salvatore. I would never love Damon Salvatore.

"No." I shook my head quietly. "That isn't possible. Why would I be in love with Damon? Why would I agree to marry him?"

Stefan shrugged. "Believe me, you wondered that yourself for a very long time. I didn't understand it, either. But I saw it for myself. Damon brought something out of you that you liked. He brought a side of you that no one else had ever been able to bring out and you enjoyed it. He made you feel free and you made him feel human. You loved Damon for the same reason that I love Damon. Because, in spite of everything that he did, we couldn't live without him. And now, you don't have to, but I do. So I'm gonna do it my way." He brushed past me. "You do it yours."

Then he left the tavern, where I stood inside and heard the words playing on repeat over and over and over again.

I didn't have time to call Caroline for a ride home. I compelled a car from a stranger and I drove at nearly a record speed back to Whitmore. I ended up meeting Elena and Alaric in his office, where Elena leaned on Alaric's desk while he went away somewhere after I accused him of what Damon told me. I stood, face-to-face with Elena, and asked, "How could you two let me obliterate someone so important to me—important enough to me that I agreed to marry him?"

Alaric walked out of the back of his office with a box in his hand. "Look, Mads, as much is I'd like to think that I am full of wisdom, I think it's time we can stop pretending that I actually know what's best, okay? Look, I've got my own issues to sort out right now and..." He pulled out a journal from inside the box. "I think that this will explain it much better than I can."

Alaric handed me the journal and I looked at it, confused. My gaze drifted up to Elena. "What is this?"

"I made you write it," Elena confessed. "The bookmarked page is a note to yourself. Read it, then you can decide what's best." She paused. "But...Madeline...I hope, for your sake, that you don't ruin this for yourself. As hard as it's been for all of us to adjust, you're happy again and that's what really matters."

"Happy?" I repeated under my breath as I sat down carefully on the couch across from Alaric's desk. Low enough so Elena couldn't hear, I murmured, "Being happy is just a bunch of hormones to fool yourself into thinking everything's going right."

But regardless, I opened the journal in my hand fully aware that Alaric and Elena were intently watching me like hawks. Inside the journal were two things—a picture of me and Damon in what looked like clothes from the 1920s, oblivious in an embrace, and a diamond ring that did not lack in size or shine. Knowing that Elena and Alaric were probably itching to hear what I had written, I read the note aloud.

"'Dear memory-wiped Madeline, if you are reading this, that means that someone—I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was Caroline—spilled the beans about your past. This is not the first time you have forgotten about Damon Salvatore, but this is the first time that you will remember him with no feelings of love or gratitude towards him at all. Yes, Madeline, you did love Damon. He was the only man you have ever loved.'" I looked up at Elena and Alaric with surprise, but they urged me to continue with their looks. I looked back down and swallowed thickly.

"'This must be hard for you to understand. You have given it a lot of thought and have excluded the truth from Elena. Taking away the memories of loving Damon will take away all that he has bestowed upon you—all the passion, all the comfort, all the care. You will be left as you were when you were a junior in high school with no sense of compassion towards those you care about. Damon was the one who guided you to see that there is more to life than education and being right. But when Damon died, everything you knew died with him. What you knew yourself as, what you wanted to be as a vampire, disappeared. Facing the realization that you are forced to live an eternity without your soulmate destroyed you. Alaric can restore your memories if you want, but all I'm asking you to do it only after you have rationally thought of the consequences. The reason I am not able to make my own decisions is because of the lack of my rationality, my greatest strength. With Damon's death, that disappeared as well. As you do not know of the grief surrounding his death, you have your rationality back. Please think about this before making a decision. Otherwise, all I wish for you is happiness.'"

I stopped at the end, covering my mouth with my hand, and I said nothing. Elena and Alaric stared, saying nothing, and I unclenched the engagement ring from my fist that had been squeezed so tight. It was hot in my hand, burning a hole as I basked in the shock and desperately tried to recover from what I'd just read aloud. I wanted to ask how it could be possible, but it was all there, in my handwriting.

And I had asked myself to think of the consequences with rationality. I had asked myself to think clearly. How could I think clearly knowing that I had another life I had no idea about? How could I think clearly when I didn't remember loving a man—a ghost—who had loved me enough to marry me?

"So..." Elena whispered slowly. I lifted my head to meet her gaze. "What do you want to do, sis?"

I rose from the chair across from my sister and walked towards her. I shook my head. "I don't know. I asked myself for time so...I need some time." I looked over at Alaric. "I'll let you know what I decide."

Alaric nodded, and I left the room without another word to either of them. I shut the door to Alaric's office and sighed heavily. Right as I moved forward to go back to my dorm, however, I began to feel that familiar pressure on my eyes. Red irises emerged and I stopped cold, waiting for the urge to pass.

It didn't. Black spots covered my vision and, within seconds, all I could see was darkness.

Thanks for reading! Review, please! Again, thanks for reaching 300 reviews!

grapejuice101: That is so true. We'll see how he reacts to her losing her memory...again...in 2 more chapters :) Thanks!

ThisIsMeAndYou: That's primarily the point because I haven't forgotten how I've made Elena's character in this story. She did sleep with her sister's boyfriend after all and didn't really feel any guilt about it because she was looking out for herself. Elena and Damon are never going to get back together, trust me. Damon's now fully committed to Madeline and he'll have some choice words for Elena when he gets back.

SomebodyWhoCares: Haha Elena's always been bad :)

Adela: Thank you!

DivineOrder: Thanks! She will definitely be more prominent in the upcoming chapters. I have a very interesting story line worked out for Madeline Reichs. I just don't want to keep repeating the same situations over and over again, which is why I ended this chapter with Madeline blacking out instead of Reichs killing again. But don't worry, she won't disappear any time soon.

UnleashedJay.64: Cross your fingers and maybe we'll see...

Guest: Thank you! Sorry for the wait on the update. Life catches up to you pretty fast nowadays...

Guest: Thank you. Here's the update.

Rebel royal: Here you go!

Rory: I try :) Here's the update.

PS: I have recently created 3 social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr). I was only going to make one of them but I decided to live a little and manage all three. Links are up on my profile. Check them out! Twitter will be for communicating with you all, Instagram will be for posting pictures relevant to my stories, and Tumblr will be for...pretty much everything else. I'll try to make it eventually worth following :)