CHAPTER 19 – THE REAPING

-Bonnie-

"Hey," I whisper, lightly knocking on Elena's door and opening it just the slightest - poking my head in, "Hey, Elena?"

Allie is curled up in her Disney Princess blanket on what was Stefan's side of the bed while Elena – much like she has been for the past two weeks – is sitting indian-style and typing away at her laptop. With her face washed in the white-blue light from the screen and the wires from her earbuds framing her focused expression, she looks so much like that teenager from years ago. It's been like this pretty much every night since Damon and Katherine's celebration dinner.

By the time Jeremy gets home from coaching his after-school pee-wee football practice, Elena is usually knee deep in kids toys with Liam, Lola, Allie, and Grayson while I finish up dinner. We eat, we talk a little small town gossip – with Jer and I both working at the public school, we are up-to-date on all the happenings and avoid all Salvatore/Pierce talk – then we split up and I work on the twins bedtimes and Elena handles Allie and Grayson with Jeremy playing handmaid to us both. The moment Grayson goes to sleep, like clock-work, you can bet Allie will be sleeping on her dads pillow to the sound of Elena's short nails click-clacking on the keyboard.

I step further into the room to avoid speaking louder as I do not want to wake Allie. After whispering her name a few more times, I end up having to lightly knee the mattress to actually shake Elena out of whatever thought she was lost in.

Oddly, she looks up at me with a surprised look on her face and a wide smile. All this time, Jeremy and I have thought that she was journaling, or maybe working on something for her job, but with that look, I don't know, maybe she's considering online dating?

"Sorry," Elena whisper-laughs with a roll of her eyes as she pulls the earbuds from her ears – I catch the familiar tune of some ballad, James Morrison… Ron Pope maybe – "What's up?"

"Just wondering if you wanted some ice cream?" I ask, but honestly, now I'm more curious about what in the world she's doing in here every night curled up on her bed, listening to love songs, and smiling like that at a laptop screen. She's my best friend – always has been, so I don't feel as nosy as I should when I just come out and ask, "What are you doing?"

I see a mischievous flicker of something in her very dark, very happy eyes and it sits weird inside of me – here she is, freshly cheated on, even more freshly left by her husband, a single mom, no house, other than her job with that publishing place in North Carolina, she's completely dependent on Stefan who may or may not have a third child coming into the world… and yet here she is, with a very out of place expression on her face as I watch her try and think of an answer.

"Journaling." The way she says it – all high pitched – it's all most like she's surprised by the word, like she's testing it out, seeing how it fits in the situation.

Without even considering not doing it, my eyes shift to the white leather-bound journal sitting on her nightstand, then over to the bookshelf where she has three others from years past.

"Journaling?" The way I say it, my voice lower, the syllables coming out slower, it's almost like I'm saying liar.

"I'm… I'm upgrading to the twenty-first century." Elena tries, but as she speaks her hand pulls the screen down a bit – and as a teacher, let me tell you that's the first sign that someone is doing something that they are trying to hide.

And in an instant my mind is filled with what I know she must be doing in here with her love songs and her big smile. My stomach hurts – aches with jealousy. I'm talking full-on knot! Truth be told, I'm both jealous and sad as I step backwards. A couple of odd timed strides back to the door as I force a smile and a nod to my face and pray to God that I don't start tearing up or doing that lip pursing thing that I do out of habit when I want to scream.

"What kind?" I'm lost in my thoughts, my jealous thoughts of the way he's probably fawning over her, and it takes a moment for me to understand what she's asked. "… the ice cream?" Elena adds in a soft tone, suppressing a giggle.

My throat is tight with accusations that I cannot let slip out of my mouth when I say, "Cookies and cream," Then try to make my tone seem less weird as I open the door, adding with a forced grin, "Jeremy's favorite." I'm married – I mentally remind myself over and over. She shakes her head no and I move to leave as Elena opens her laptop once more and my stomach knots tighter as I wonder what kind of flirty messages he's left for her. Of course, with Elena back and separated from Stefan, it's a no brainer that he would try to make a move. And, it's a given than Elena will fall right back into her Salvatore rotation. Don't get me wrong, I've never been the biggest cheerleader for Stefan, but he's the better of the two for Elena!

I just want to leave. Go to my room and berate myself for being so ridiculous as to have a crush on Damon…

It doesn't matter that he and I have been on friendly, flirty terms for a long time now. I'm no Elena Gilbert… I'm no Katherine Petrova Pierce blah blah blah. And these last couple of weeks, since his flirty texts and just-to-check-in phone calls have stopped, I'd figured it was the baby stealing his attention away… now I am almost one hundred percent sure that it's Elena.

Whatever child like crush I have on him is just nothing – it's nothing.

"Oh hey," Elena calls out a bit too loudly just before I shut the door – we both stay ultra quiet and stone-still for a long moment as we watch Allie nestle her face against her blanket, yawn once, then relax back into that child-like sleep that you can only get if your of a single-digit age. "Jeremy mentioned a house for sale that I should look at?"

Oh right. His big surprise for Elena that got put off when someone from work called his phone and he had to head out for awhile. "Yeah, um…" Should I tell her? Ruin the big reveal? I check the alarm clock on the bedside table – it's 9:45pm and Jeremy is still tied up at work – "Jeremy really wanted to surprise you, but since he's out of pocket at the moment…" That jealousy in my gut, it's turning to a different acid… anger, suspicion maybe? But before it can get too bad, I inhale a deep, cleansing breath, "Your parents old house. It's on the market again!"

-Damon-

"When did you and the evil original become besties?" Yea, I sound jealous. I am. I mean, he's my damn brother and when I call him up and ask him to come over and help with putting a nursery together, then I expect him to choose me over Klaus "What are you going to do? Sit around and count your fortunes?"

The brief pause before he responds tells me two things.

Stefan feels guilty. So what. He always feels fucking guilty. It's like it's part of his schtick.

He's brooding. Always fucking brooding.

I said two things… there is a third.

He's not telling me something.

You think you can spend almost two centuries with someone and not know things like that? You think you can watch a person grow from a diapered infant to a dirt-covered kid, from a teenager to a mass murder and back to a pretty decent guy and not know every single inflection of their voice?

I know my brother. Even over the phone, I know Stefan like no one else. Elena, Caroline – they don't know shit.

He was weird at dinner a couple weeks ago, but I figured it had to do with telling me he cheated on Elena and then, Elena and her family being there. Since then he's been laying low. I saw him once last weekend – he was running through town when I was doing rounds with the deputy I'm training with. When he saw me, I caught the surprise, but the quick look away struck me as odd. I let it go. I didn't think of it at all… not until this moment. This pause, this odd tone, the choosing Klaus over me and this family event. Stefan, much like Elena, they love family event bullshit.

Something is up.

With a leading sigh, Stefan says, "I can't get out of it now. I've already promised them I'd drive them around while they got things together for their wedding."

"Caroline grew up here and Klaus knows the town just as well, if not better than you and I." Buckling the holster onto my belt, I hold my tongue for a second just to see if he's got a response lined up. When he doesn't, I call him out on it, "What's going on, Stefan?"

Maybe he's not liking life as the inferior Salvatore brother? I mean, I get it – I've been there. Hell, I've lived most of my life in his shadow. I wonder if I should be a bit easier on him, but it's almost 7am and I have to get on the road if I'm going to make it to the station by our shift-handover meeting at 7:30.

Long pause. I hear him inhale. Exhale. Shift around in whatever seat he's in. Just before I lose what little bit of temper control I have, he finally says, "Where's Katherine?"

Katherine? What in the fuck is he asking about my wife, er – girlfriend. Note to self, I should propose pretty soon. "She went to Roanoke for the night, shopping for the baby and the nursery I've asked you to help with." I reply in a snarky tone, off put by his wondering about Katherine.

"I, uh." Stefan stammers a bit and I don't know why but it tightens my gut a little. "Are you working tonight? I'd like to talk to you, face to face… Alone."

-Elena-

I stayed up late. Really late. So late that when I finally shut my laptop and turned off the bedside lamp, the room was already half lit by the rising sun. It was a lethal combination of a late night cup of black coffee, the news about my childhood home, and of course, writing.

I don't know how to explain to you how time passes without me having any sense of the night flying by me. The first time it happened, the same day that I called Stefan and he finally laid into me about Damon… about all the wrong choices I've made… that night I sat down with my laptop and one of my old journals to chronicle what all I had done. I mean, I know what I've done – but with the compulsion and the few months I spent half alive/half dead in Klaus' tomb, sometimes things aren't as clear as they used to be. So I sit down and I start going through everything… it didn't take long for me to figure out that my pattern of choosing Stefan second to everyone else in my life started pretty early in our relationship.

What was it – our second real date maybe, when I let Damon's snaky ways make me doubt Stefan? Then there was Vicki Donovan. Looking back on it I regret the way I made Stefan feel like it was his place to rescue Vicki. I regret the pressure I put on him to handle every single thing that went astray in Mystic Falls. And it just got worse from there – Jeremy, Jena, Caroline, Bonnie, Matt – over and over and in different order and different severities, each time I assumed Stefan would handle it… and he did.

Every time. He never let me down.

I guess I stopped chronicling and started actually writing right around the entry of my journal where Stefan saved Jeremy and ended up captured – seemingly forever – in the tomb with Katherine. Hours later, Allie woke up and I spent the day groggy, yet excited about the twenty five pages of semi-autobiographical non-fiction-fiction that I'd strung together. As of this morning, I'm one hundred and forty seven pages in – Stefan and I have just broken up. After Jena stabbed herself from Katherine's compulsion. I cried just as hard as I wrote it out as the night it actually happened…

I am both physically tired from hardly getting any sleep these last couple of weeks – with the writing and the No-Stefan in bed next to me – as well as drained from reliving our first six months. It was so hard… my life was just a total mess. Death, destruction – constantly dodging a threat of one kind or another.

And the only thing that held me together, that kept me going was Stefan.

He has never let me down.

So anyway, Bonnie and Jeremy have just left for school with Allie and I've got the three little ones at home with me. Grayson, my late sleeper, is still snuggled in his crib while Lola and Liam with their beautiful Bonnie curls and dark, round Gilbert eyes, are buckled into their high-chairs and giggling over their scrambled eggs.

I'm exhausted, yes, but I'm also dying to know what's going on with my parent's old home. Before they left, I got some more information from Jeremy and now that the kids are occupied for the moment, I take this rare moment of free time to sneak off into the bathroom and call the realtors office.

My thumb trembles as I key out the number and I hold my breath while the connection takes and a couple of rings make my nerves almost unbearable. I mean, what am I thinking? I can't afford that house! Not alone, atleast – and if there's anything I've learned in the very few interactions Stefan and I have had in the last couple of weeks while exchanging the kids, buying my new car, or coordinating an errand or whatnot, it's that Stefan may have completely washed his hands with me all together.

What am I going to do? Call him up and say Hey, can you buy this house for me?

That is exactly like the Elena-moves I'm trying to get away from!

All the discouraging thoughts running through my head almost make me hang up, but a much too cheery voice rings into my ears and cuts away the negative words,"Good Morning, Ross Wickery Realty, this is Margo, how may I help you today?"

Maybe it's because I haven't spoke much today, and when I have I've talked in that high-pitched, soft cooey sound that I use with babies, but when I start talking my voice cracks like I'm incredibly nervous – I am incredibly nervous. I want my home back so badly. "Hi, Good morning. This is Elena Gilbert-Salva-"

"OH Hello!" Margo cuts me off, her smoke-scratched voice is kind of deep, sultry almost – something like how I've always imagined Betty Davis' voice. "Mrs. Salvatore, I am so sorry that I haven't given you call. I had a water pipe burst in my basement and with my daughter getting ready to graduate next month and prom coming up, before I knew it I woke up and it was Friday morning! Oh gosh, where is that message…"

Call me back? She knew my name?

"Umm. I'm sorry, I…?"

There's a little silence as I try to figure out how in the world she knew my name and if maybe I called her and for some reason cant remember – I mean, stranger things have happened to me – and from the sounds of papers rustling and drawers dragging open and shutting, Margo seems to be just as caught off guard as I am.

"Yes, Ma'am. You said Elena? Elena Salvatore?"

"Uh, yea – Elena Salvatore." Sorry to sound braggy, but I am still so proud to have Stefan's last name that hearing it said so casually fills my chest with delight.

"Now, I know I wrote it do - Oh hear it is!" Margo exclaims a raspy chuckle. In a slightly monotone, yet excited tone she reads "Mr. Stefan Salvatore called on Wednesday and asked that I get ahold of one Elena Salvatore at 409-788-7891 in order to schedule a walk through before he issues the earnest money for the purchase of the home on Maple Street."

Stefan… he never lets me down.

-Jeremy-

I'm tired, okay.

I've put in a full day, then another hour working with the art club before a two hour practice with the football team that I assistant coach.

I am so tired that when I walk in the house and see a headful of long, spiral curls and heavy eye make up, I nearly turn around and leave because having Katherine around Bonnie is nothing but bad news for me. I mean, how much longer before she stops covering for me and tells Bonnie all about our relationship. To be honest, I don't know why in the hell Stefan hasn't pulled me under with him!

Thankfully, Allie tips me off to the fact that it's Elena, my sister, and not Katherine, my girlfriend, when she says, "Doesn't Mommy look pretty, Uncle Jeremy?"

I hope that Elena's odd look up at me from her cross-legged seat in the floor is more from her being uncomfortable in all the make up and not her wondering why I look like I'm about to pass out.

With an odd, forced laugh, I say, "Yea, she looks nice, Al", then quickly make my way to the hall in order to escape what feels like a suspicious look as well as toss my stuff into the closet.

I don't know if I can do this much longer. The lying. It's keeping me on edge constantly…

Just as Bonnie carries a casserole dish to the dining table with over-mittened hands, seemingly finishing a sentence, "…I mean, come on? Did she really think I'd go with her?" Then smiling a hello at me when she realizes I'm home.

Grunting as she stands, Elena says, "Katherine doesn't seem to have any kind of radar for what is a proper reaction to the things she says and does… so yea, I'm not surprised that she invited you to go shopping with her."

Bonnie stops in her tracks, taking off her mittens, "Wow, Elena… I forgot how easy it is for you to turn into her mirror image."

"Yea." She laughs, brushing Allie's hair back, "All I need is a six year old to layer on the makeup and back comb my hair for an hour and I'm the spitting image."

-Stefan-

I've told Caroline and Klaus what I'm going to do… telling Damon, and even though I can see Caroline is worried for me, neither of them object. It's the right thing. Keeping Damon in the dark while everyone else knows is only adding fuel to the fire.

Damon is a proud man… this is only going to humiliate him even further the longer I draw it out.

"So wait," Caroline stands as I slip on my jacket – it's only been two weeks since I saw her last and the growth of her stomach is pretty substantial, she even rocks a bit from the uneven weight. "You're going now? Tonight? We just got here, Stefan!"

"Darling," Klaus starts, reaching for Caroline's hand, "let him be."

I don't know when it happened, or how, but somehow Klaus has become a decent man. He takes care of Caroline, he loves her, and he's loyal to her. And to me. He knows I have to do this no matter how badly I'd rather keep it from Damon.

This may be the last straw for us – telling Damon that I slept with Katherine and the child that he thinks is his may actually be mine, this may be it for the Salvatore Brothers.

I nod a quick thank you to Klaus and give a small, albeit nervous, smile to Caroline, then head out. I've got more than an hour before I'm supposed to meet Damon at the boarding house, but I need some time to get my thoughts together – I have no idea how to confess this without looking like I'm trying to avoid blame or worse, make it seem as though I did it on purpose. One thing I'm certain of, this is going to end with me on the floor.

It's oddly cool out tonight – mid April in Virginia is just slightly warmer than winter. It's nice though, the frigid air against my face, filling my lungs, and it helps to calm my nerves by the time I make it through the parking lot and to my SUV.

I'm not in the seat long enough to start the engine before my phone rings.

Elena

I can't talk with her right now. I'm too high strung. I'm too tense. She's got a way of easing the stress inside of me and honestly, I need it right now. If I'm going to go through with this, I need that rigid edge of my muscles.

As I pull into the street, a light snowfall begins and I'm finding it difficult not to look at the white flakes falling through the headlights instead of paying attention to the road. I guess that's why I answer the phone when it rings again. It's an automatic movement, a reflex almost, hitting the Bluetooth connection on the steering wheel.

I assume it's Elena and give a 'Hey' for a greeting.

"Ugh, Stefan. Thank God you answered," It's Katherine, with her sultry sing-song tone and coming through the speakers it's in full surround sound, wrapping me in her voice. "Where are you?"

"Driving." The less I say, the less she has to play with.

"Hmm. Just tell me you haven't set up this face to face with your brother because you're going to let him in on our little secret…" I don't respond. She already knows, otherwise she wouldn't be calling. The silence lasts too long, both of us unsure of the hand the other is playing, finally she sighs in an exasperated way, "You're so selfish sometimes, Stefan." I laugh. I do, I mean come on… I'm selfish? This coming from her is humorous. Raising her voice a little, Katherine actually sounds unnerved when she speaks, "No, I'm serious Stefan, I can't believe you're going to steal this little bit of happiness from him just to clear your conscience!"

Instantly, I respond cooly, "What do you know about clearing your conscience, Katherine?", but I haven't even finished the sentence before I start to question my own motives.

"Oh, Stefan, you got me there." She's using her coy, bitchy voice – I can almost see her narrowed eyes and slow curving lips. "But what I did, I did for him. I did it for Damon. To give Damon the one thing that he wants and he can't have." He can't have? I get what she's trying to say – insinuating that their issues with conceiving had to do with Damon, but I can't believe her. I can't trust her to be straight with me… It's the only true fact about Katherine; she always has a plan B. She is always moving further ahead in the game than you are. Always. "So you feel guilty… so what? Live with it Stefan. Be a man and swallow your pride and let your brother be happy just this one time! Consider it penance… retribution."

She almost had me –playing Damon's infallible believe that he is somehow less than against me – but the last line, that's what threw it off. What do I owe Damon? He chased after Elena from the day Katherine turned him down. Every chance he got, my brother was making move after move to get between us. When he was dying from a werewolf bite and I gave my loyalty to Klaus for the cure, how long was it that he waited before he picked up with this pursuit of the woman I loved? Then Spain…

"Penance?" I huff, "Yea, okay. Remind me what I am in need of retribution for?"

"You've forgotten already?" Katherine giggles – that playful, might just as easy stab you in the neck laugh that I used to find alluring but now causes me pause. "Who was that girl you brought to Damon when you forced him to turn? Was it a Lockwood girl? A Fell?"

-Elena-

Jeremy is totally zonked out on the couch when I come out of Grayson's room. I consider waking him, but decide I could get my shower before I stir him. Even with Bonnie and I railing Katherine for the entire meal, Jeremy was really quiet through dinner and though he helped with cleaning up the kitchen, he fell asleep before Bonnie started working on getting the twins down and she let him rest rather than wake him for assistance. With one long look at my now-big, little brother, I check in on Allie playing on the Ipad Stefan bought her then head to the bathroom.

It's futile, I know, but I can't help but check my phone to see if Stefan has called back or sent a text. Pulling my Iphone from the pocket of my jeans, I'm pleasantly surprised to see an alert – then immediately hit hard by the message.

Katherine: Sent A Photo – Wouldn't a little Stefan look gorgeous in this? ;)

Attached to the text is a picture of a dark grey newborn onsie with blue text that says, If you think I'm cute you should see my daddy

What's that old saying… One Step Forwards, Three Steps Back…

Night after night of writing, combing through my past with Stefan, reliving it and rehashing and therapeutically putting our story on paper – all of that work is gone in an instant.

I'm so angry all over again! Angry that Katherine has the ability to flip my moods like a switch!

Angry that Stefan brought her back into our lives with such a huge surge of power!

Angry that if I want to be with Stefan then I have to deal with her!

Angry that she is once again winning! Yet another occasion in which Katherine Pierce does and says whatever she wants to do and no harm ever comes to her – no payback… no reckoning for her actions.

To keep from throwing my phone or screaming or bursting in to tears – maybe all three – I lean against the bathroom door and squeeze my eyes shut tight. All those breathing techniques that I used when I was compelled to forget Stefan and suffered from panic attacks come back to me and before I know it I find myself breathing in for seven seconds, exhaling through my nose.

Breathing in for eight seconds, exhaling through my nose.

Breathing in for nine seconds, exhaling through my nose.

And by the time I've reached a ten second inhale, I'm calm. I'm calm and I'm ready to finally stand up to Katherine.

-Damon-

I hopped in the shower the moment I got home from work – a 13 hour shift of riding around in a car without another guy just makes me feel grumy, not to mention the clothing. So I do a quick wash off before changing into something more appropriate for whatever Stefan is going to tell me. Maybe I'm wrong – probably not – but I feel like I'm going to end up beating the shit of out of him tonight. With that in mind, I decide on a pair of old dark blue jeans and gray tee shirt that I won't mind getting his blood on.

Sometimes I wish I would have never been changed back to human. I spent a century and a half hating Stefan for making me turn, but now, I miss it. Some of it. The strength, the sensitive hearing, the general bad-ass-ness of being immortal. In human years I'm 29 though I'm pushing 184. When I pull on my shirt, the rolling popping from my shoulder and down my spine remind me just how weak I am as a human.

The sound of Katherine's voice calling my name from just downstairs reminds me of how vulnerable I am – I didn't hear her pull up, I didn't hear the door open… hell I wouldn't have heard her at all if she wouldn't have yelled out my name.

"Damon? Are you home?" She calls again as I start down the stairs – another thing I miss - the speed, the lightfooted-ness, the agility. Each step down the stairs in a small roar of thunder throughout the old Salvatore house.

"Oh hey!" Katherine is standing in the hallway, just at the end of the foyer, and the moment she sees me she smiles – a soft, almost shy smile. I don't hesitate. I love this woman. She's incredibly sexy – ten times over now that she's carrying my child – I make a quick turn off of the stair case, a couple wide strides and before she can see what's coming I've got my hands cupping the soft, warm skin her face and a long, slow kiss on her lips. I only pull away because we are in full view of Stefan opening the front door.

-Elena-

Oh no. Oh my God.

This looks…. Oh no…. before I can decide not to, I begin playing the part in hopes that Stefan may somehow confuse me for Katherine just in the same way Damon has.

"Baby brother, perfect timing as always." Damon quips, slipping one hand from my face and down my back, the other moving away from my body all together as he gestures for Stefan to come in. I take a moment to get myself together before turning to look at Stefan – the chest pressure from our frequency has literally frozen my lungs and I need a second before actually looking at his beautiful face.

To my surprise, he's not looking at me – it's good. It's very good that he doesn't know it's me because when I came to tell Damon about Katherine tricking Stefan, Damon confused me for her and before I could even comprehend what was happening he was kissing me and Stefan was opening the door. So yes, it's very good… but it's also heartbreaking that Stefan can't tell me from Katherine like he used to.

"I'm sorry, Damon, I didn't realize Katherine was home." Stefan nods to me, giving me a very short bit of eye contact before looking back to Damon. "I can come back another time."

Damon rolls his eyes dramatically, then heads to the minibar – "Why all the drama, Stefan?" He pours one tumbler of whiskey, then another as he says, "Just talk, there is nothing she doesn't know." Offering Stefan the second glass.

"It's nothing," Stefan says, and when I look back to him, his eyes are on me – an angry glare. That intense stare that I've seen him use with Katherine before. The same look I'd felt almost jealous about because from the outside looking in, it's almost sexy – the focus, the depth of his dark green eyes. From this point of view, being Katherine, I know it's nothing like what I'd imagined. With the gravity and our frequency and his heavy stare I can hardly breathe from his anger. His rage… it's hate, not lust. "I just wanted to give you a gift." Reaching into his back pocket takes his eyes off of me and I can finally inhale – Damon cuts his eyes over to me and I fear that my breath was audible… a gasp almost. "For you guys to get what you need for the baby." Stefan adds with a roughness to his voice, sitting a folded check on the sofa table then taking the whiskey from Damon.

Quickly, in one large gulp, Stefan drinks it down as Damon immediately begins to object almost as soon as he picks up the check.

"No way. Stefan. I cannot take this money from you. It's too much." Damon folds it back, extends his hand to Stefan but he steps back, shaking his head.

"It's the least I can do, Damon."

In cynical tone, Damon wiggles his eyebrows as he says, "A hundred thousand dollars is the least you can do?"

Another step away, another quick look at me – Katherine – Stefan gives Damon a smile… that warm, caring, loving, smile that I adore, "Take it Damon, consider it my paying you back for every time you've had my back… even when I forced you."

Damon looks to me, a confused expression on his face, as Stefan leaves – nearly slamming the door shut behind him.

"What in the hell is he talking about?"

I know. I know Stefan… the words he chooses and the smiles he gives and the look in his eyes, I know him just as he knows me. I don't know why Stefan has started thinking about when he forced Damon to turn, but I am positive that is what he was referring to.

I shouldn't blow my cover – I made it! Damon and Stefan both believed I was Katherine… that was never the plan! I just wanted to come over and tell Damon the truth! But with the kiss and Stefan's ill-timed arrival, I had no other choice. I know I should continue with my role, find some reason to disappear, but I know Stefan so well and I can still feel our gravity and he's hurting. He's ashamed and he's upset and for the life of me I can't stop my feet from taking me to the door.

"Where are you going?" Damon calls to me as I open the door.

"Let me talk to him, okay?" I try a quick smile, but I'm so unconcerned with Damon right now that I have no idea if he even heard me before the door shuts and I'm running out towards Stefan.

I know he hears me. He's walking with those wide angry strides and completely square, tense shoulders – "Stefan! Stefan, wait!"

He stops dead in his tracks – almost mid-stride – turning to me with those burning green eyes and his perfectly shaped jaw flexed to the limit.

"Stefan… I –"

Interrupting me in a loud burst, he almost yells at me, "What!? What are you doing, Elena!?"

***MORE TO COME***

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