"It would be so easy to kill her right now," Katherine snarled as she brushed her hand against Jenna's neck.

"You touch her again and so help me I'll…"

"You'll what? Beat me up with your fists? You're unarmed, unprepared, and let's face it, I have the upper hand here," Katherine said smiling at him.

"What do you want, Katherine?" Rick said through gritted teeth.

"Easy enough, I just want your ring. You give it to me and I leave peacefully," she said with a pointed look to his hand.

"We both know the moment I take it off is the moment you kill me," Rick said angrily.

"Let's put it this way, then," Katherine said, moving away from Jenna and heading to Rick. "She doesn't have any magic ring. So you or her? Your choice. But I will give my word that I won't kill you…at least not today," she said.

Rick thought it over. It was really a lose- lose situation. If he didn't give her the ring, then he'd harm Jenna. If he did, he risked the possibility of her killing both of them.

At that moment, they were both interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. Katherine glanced at him with an evil glance before sitting back in the chair.

"Sorry to interrupt," the doctor said questioningly, seeing their angry faces. "I wanted to talk to Miss Sommers and talk about her release…but I see she's asleep at the moment…"

"She only just dozed off, I'll wake her," Rick said, talking fast. "Jenna?" he said, shaking her shoulder.

"Let her rest," Katherine protested, but Jenna slowly woke up.

"Hey," she said looking around. "I was tired. Sorry I fell asleep on you, Elena."

The doctor started in before anyone else could talk. "I need to talk to you about the tests, Miss Sommers. I need you both to wait outside if you could."

"Not a problem. Come on Elena," Rick said with a wry look at Katherine.

Katherine stood there a moment debating her options. She could either compel the doctor to leave and have Jenna pass out again, or she could leave the room. If she left, she risked the opportunity to get the ring.

"Actually, doctor" she said, making up her mind. "I think you should leave the room and let us finish talking," she said with command in her voice.

He nodded his head and left the room. Jenna looked at Elena confused. "What was that about?"

She turned to start on Jenna when Rick came around and grabbed her hard by the wrist. She felt her skin burn as she saw what looked like some plant sitting in the palm of his hand. "Vervain," she thought angrily.

"We need to leave," he said pointedly. "Let her wake up. We'll finish our conversation outside."

Katherine let out a hiss as she wrestled out of his grasp. "You need to stop breathing right now," she said looking into Jenna's eyes.

Rick looked over at Jenna and saw that she had indeed stopped breathing and was looking at them fearfully.

"Stop," he yelled at Katherine.

"Give me the ring and I'll stop," she said staring at him

Rick looked from Jenna to Katherine and made up his mind. "Undo your compulsion and I promise to hand it over to you," Rick said, turning pale as he saw Jenna start to pass out.

Katherine thought about it a moment and stepped closer to Jenna. "Resume breathing like normal," she said sounding bored. "And just pass out and forget any of this happened. You annoy me," she ended.

Rick let out a sigh of relief as Jenna's breathing resumed and she went to sleep. Katherine held out her hand impatiently with a look of triumph in her eyes.

He was about to take the ring off when Jeremy rushed into the room.


Damon brought Elena outside to the porch and sat down on the bench, cradling her close to his chest. He looked down to see if there was any change. At the same time, Bonnie rushed out of the house, looking around to see where he had gone.

"What are you doing?" Bonnie asked worriedly. "We have to get some help? We need to…"

"Could you just shut up for five minutes?" Damon said annoyed.

Bonnie shut her mouth and got closer to check on Elena.

They both immediately noticed a difference. Elena was only shaking slightly and was no longer gripping her head or clamping her eyes shut in pain.

"Elena?" Bonnie asked hesitantly.

Elena slowly opened her eyes and gasped. She looked around and let out a huge breath; as if she was holding it the entire town. She then turned her head into Damon's chest and began sobbing in fits of hysterics; her breath coming out in pants.

Damon looked at Bonnie in shock at Elena's reaction. He let her cry for a minute before he brought his hand down and patted her head. "She might need some water….and tissues," he said as an afterthough as he looked over at Bonnie.

Bonnie nodded her head and ran into the house.

"Hey hey, now. I just had this shirt dry cleaned," he said sarcastically, trying to calm her down. "You're going to be ok," he said seriously, still patting her head.

Elena slowly turned her head away and looked up at Damon. If he still had a heart, it would have melted at the sight of her tear stained cheeks and sad eyes. "Sorry," she said hoarsely.

"Kidding," he said looking at her with concern in his eyes. "Are you alright?"

Bonnie came out of the house a moment later with a glass of water and a roll of toilet paper.

Elena nodded her head and moved so that she was sitting next to Damon instead of on his lap. Though it was the last thing he wanted to do, Damon helped her move over. Bonnie handed her the tissues and water carefully, still watching her to make sure she was ok. Elena took a sip and put both the glass and tissues on the floor.

"I guess... It was just so painful. I thought I was going to be ripped apart from the inside," Elena said sniffling. "Everything was fine and then my head started throbbing and I had this gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach…..and…"

But she stopped talking as she suddenly got up. Damon and Bonnie looked at her cautiously, wondering what she was doing, when she leaned over the porch and began puking.

"I didn't think I had that effect on most people," Damon said to Bonnie. She looked at him and narrowed her eyes at him.

When Elena was done, she wobbled back down on the seat.

"But the weirdest thing…" she continued after she drank some water,"was this overwhelming feeling…this need to get out of the house…" she said, thinking back to what had happened. She flinched thinking of the excruciating pain.

"I'm sorry, Elena. I don't know why it went like that," Bonnie said, reaching over to grasp Elena's hand.

"You can't even guess?" Damon asked. "It's easy."

"Care to enlighten us, then?" Bonnie asked exasperated.

"You said all Elena had to do was picture Katherine. I don't think it's hard to assume that Elena pictured herself at the same time…If you had a twin, wouldn't you compare yourself unconsciously?" he said with a superior look to Bonnie.

"I did…." Elena said after a moment. "I pictured the last time I saw Katherine, and then I was thinking about if I remembered anything that would make us different so that we wouldn't be confused….."

"So that's why you took Elena out of the house," Bonnie said, putting things together. "You realized she pictured herself and that the spell was pushing her out of the house…"

"More like ripping me apart," Elena said with a shiver. "I felt compelled to leave, but the pain made me stay there…"

"Is that what happens when you try to enter a house?" Bonnie asked, looking at Damon questioningly.

"No…I physically can't even step foot inside," he responded.

"I bet that's what happens when you're brought in unconsciously or something," Elena mumbled.

"What do you mean?" Damon asked, looking Elena over and noticing she still looked pale.

"Like, if you were knocked out and brought into a house. I mean, it's all a mental barrier; there's no shield on a house, right? So I think when you would wake up, it beats you up until you leave," she ended, looking at Bonnie for confirmation.

"Maybe….You want to test it out, Damon?" Bonnie said with a wicked grin.

"I'll pass on that one. We can always try Stefan though," he said standing up. "But Elena's going to have a problem, now."

"Oh," Bonnie said, realizing what he meant.

"What?" Elena asked looking between them.

"You have to be invited into your own house," Damon said shaking his head and smiling.

"Really?" Elena asked.

"Try to get in. See what happens," Damon told her with a wave to the door.

She scrunched up her eyebrows and got up. She hesitated near the front door, afraid that she would go through the same pain. Taking a deep breath, she went to walk inside.


Sherriff Forbes had a list made out on her desk of the items she thought to be missing. What disturbed her most was that they were nothing of intrinsic value, but important town documents—Founder's journals.

Also missing was the reports she had from the night of the Founder's Day fire and the notebook she had speculating about everything that had gone down in the town—from vampires to werewolves. She shook her head angrily and tried to come up with suspects.

"Who would want this stuff and who would even know where to look?" she asked aloud.

She was still pondering when she heard a car pull up in the driveway. A few minutes later, the front door opened cautiously. "Mom?" came Caroline's voice hesitantly.

"In the den," Lizz replied.

Caroline shut the door and walked into the room, looking around and noticing things were more or less cleaned up.

"I don't think I've ever seen you clean something that fast," Caroline said jokingly.

"And I don't think I told you to come home, yet," Lizz said with slight irritation. "Sorry. I'm just stressed out," she said after a minute, noticing Caroline's face drop.

"It's ok… So what was taken then?" Caroline asked, sitting down in one of the armchairs.

"Random stuff from what I can tell. Whoever broke in didn't stay long enough to take anything valuable," she said, not wanting to let Caroline in on what was taken.

"Why did they rip up the furniture and other things like that. They really went to town," Caroline said shaking her head.

"I don't know. Just trying to be destructive. It happens in break-in situations….So what brings you home anyway, Caroline? I did tell you to wait for me to call you," she said sternly.

"Matt had to go to the hospital to go give Tyler a ride home. He felt bad since Tyler doesn't really have anyone right now," Caroline said.

"They released Tyler already?" Lizz asked surprised. "I didn't know that…I wanted to question him before he left."

"Well he doesn't have anything better to do, I think you can just go to his house and ask him. What? He doesn't," she said in response to her mom's look.

"He's going to need a lot of help," she told Caroline. "You don't know how much," she thought to herself.

"And knowing Matt, he'll be there for him, even if he gets pushed around," Caroline said sighing.

Lizz didn't like the idea that Tyler was out there and could get violent at any moment.

"Listen. I'm going to go and meet up with Tyler," she told Caroline. "Just stay out of trouble, ok?"

"Whatever. I'm going to shower. I totally smell like wet dog and stale chips," she said getting up. "Matt's couch," she said at the look of confusion on her mom's face.

"Call me if you need anything," she said, avoiding asking her if they did anything on said couch.

Lizz went outside and got into her car, hoping that the daytime was safe enough to approach Tyler.

Hope you're enjoying it so far. Let me know if it gets too boring or if I'm not giving enough attention to certain characters. And be honest, I'm all for constructive criticism. Reviews are great as well. Cheers.