We sat there reading. Trying to find some type of sign or information that would lead us where we needed to go. All it left us with was six months of searching, more reading material and complete and total insanity.

Six months had passed and I was more in love with both brothers than the first day I met them. Both undeniably in love with me but never admitting it. It was as if we were a family now. The love for one another and the need and search for the truth binding us together in ways we could not imagine. The fire and electricity didn't subside but intensified everyday that I was near them.

We did not speak a word of our love for each other. We hid it from one another as if we didn't all know the truth. I masked mine with the need to protect them for reasons unknown. Just that Katherine told me I needed to. I knew I was weaker then them. It made no sense to me that I could protect them but the thought of protecting them made it easier for me to deal with the love I had for them fighting inside of me growing everyday.

Damon played it cool with his casual manner and constant bantering. He would tease me and Stefan to no end. I knew teasing Stefan for him was more of a bitter unresolved resentment he still felt towards him about Katherine. He would flirt with me and banter with me as much as possible to get Stefan annoyed. But his flirtations became more evident to me as love when Stefan would not be around and he still flirted or charmed me. He would stare into my eyes knowing just how uncomfortable it made me feel because my reactions made him feel something too.

Stefan on the other hand was more gentle and sweet. He was the calmer and more cautious of the two. He would make sure I had eaten and looked after me the way someone would take care of someone they cared for. He would get me flowers for my room or ask me I needed anything. He was a bit more cautious with his love for me but it was blossoming like friendship.

At first the love I felt for Stefan was all in that vision I had. That was all I had to hold onto. He was attractive but it was taking me longer to feel the intensity I felt towards Damon. I cared deeply for Stefan. We had a friendship so strong at this point Damon couldn't break it. He tried to make fun of us time and time again but we did not shake or shift but grew closer day by day. Through that friendship was an innocent love that grew. It was the sweetest love I had ever known.

The love I felt for Damon was instant. I felt it that night at the bar. One look into his eyes and I was on fire and the burning that I tried to fight off but didn't want to stop. There was yearning for him that I could not diminish no matter how hard I tried. I was passionately and madly in love with him and I wanted him. I wanted him everyday every second of the day. But what I couldn't give him was the truth about how I felt because of the love I felt for Stefan. How could I be in love with two different people, brothers to be exact at the same time but in such different ways?

Don't get me wrong there were times when Stefan would touch me and I would yearn for him as well but it took a touch from Stefan to make me yearn for him the way I yearned for Damon every moment of the day. But the guilt that my love for Stefan had upon my heart caused me to not give in to Damon. It was very tiring and very confusing. I wonder if this was how Katherine felt and how she finally made her choice with Stefan. Was it because Stefan was more gentle and obvious and Damon was harsher more uncontrollable? It must be the Petrova blood in me that boiled around these two. Petrova blood that drew me closer and pulled me in deeper into their world and chaos. I didn't want to be Katherine. I didn't want to hurt one by picking the other. I didn't even want to love them because she did. But it was the Petrova blood the same blood that ran through Katherine and myself that bonded me to them.

But what about Isobel. She had the Petrova blood as well. Why was she not more like me. In love with them both? Why could she stand to leave Damon after he changed her when the thought would cross my mind and literally pain me so badly I would have to find him look into his eyes for healing. Why was Isobel so different then Katherine and I? She had no connection to them. She felt nothing for them.

"Damon. Stefan." I shouted from my room.

They both came to me in a flash Damon first followed right by Stefan.

"What's wrong Elena"? Damon asked darting to my side pulling my hair off of my face. A favorite thing of his to do. He started doing this to tease Stefan but he did it when Stefan was not around and became and endearing habit of his.

"What do Katherine and I have in common"? They stared at me stupidly like I should know the answer to this question. "Guys hello"?

"Um you look just like her Elena"? Stefan answered.

"Exactly. So why didn't Isobel stay with you Damon after you changed her?" I asked finally realizing the truth had to come out.

"She was looking for Katherine". He muttered out confused.

"Why do I look like her? Why did she send me to you guys? Why did she change me? Why am I so connected to her and by being connected to her connected to you two? Petrova blood runs through all of us but Isobel had no connection to you two. She could care less about you Damon. Or you Stefan."

"Maybe the connection you have is not because of blood but because of". I interrupted Stefan right there. We were only hurting ourselves picking at a wound that would not heal until we admitted we were actually hurt.

"Stefan we know the connection. We can keep denying it but it is there and it has been there since day one. It is what made you come find me in the woods. What made you feel I was there. It was what Damon saw the moment he laid eyes upon me at the bar. It was what kept me holding back from approaching you in the first place scared to face this pull towards you. It is what kept Katherine coming back and running away every chance she got. The connection we have, the three of us or four of us. What I feel for you and what you feel for me is love. The same kind of love that existed when Katherine was all you both wanted. But this time around we know what that love can do so we have hidden our feelings from each other. We have sacrificed what is inside and chosen to neglect the growing connection because of the burden it imposed upon you both when you loved Katherine. That love is the connection to Katherine. The reason I look like her. The reason I love you. She and I are made of the same cloth." I began to tremble inside knowing the pain she caused them and the horrible things she did while she lived. "I'm just afraid I am her in every way. I don't want to be Katherine".

Stefan placed his hand upon mine. Electricity. I looked upon Damon's face tears streaking down mine. Fire. It was too much to bear. I had to get out of there. I got up quickly shoving them both away and ran for the nearest exit into the woods far away from the brothers whom I was doomed to repeat history with.

There in the woods I thought about Katherine. What she said to me. Did I miss anything? Did I hear her say something while I was changing that I couldn't understand because I was out of it. What did Isobel say? Nothing. She was worthless to me that night. Stefan didn't deserve to get his heart ripped out again. She left him once and then died on him with everything unresolved. And Damon she spent centuries making him think she would choose him and in the end she loved Stefan more banishing him from her life and in return losing the love of his and his brother. How could I hurt him when he already felt like he had no love to give. Like no one had ever truly loved him. But if Katherine felt one ounce the way I feel for Damon I knew that to be a lie. She loved him deeply.

Why do I look like her? Why am I connected to them? In love with them? Why do I feel like I'm her but my heart is Elena? I am not a murderer. I never killed a human for blood or carelessly killed for the thrill of it. I never used the men I loved to gain more then what I needed from them which was their love. I never ran from a life I wanted to live to only come back to it and leave again. I was not her. I was caring. I wouldn't hurt a dog and drink its blood. I was scared about everything. I still had my humanity inside of me reassuring that I was still who I had always been. I was not her. I had my own identity, personality. We were two different entitles crossed into one of something that I had no idea was.

The woods were growing darker. I knew they would worry about me soon and come looking. I had about twenty calls from them both that I ignored in my slumber. I raced back to the house the wind blowing in my hair. When I got inside Damon was sitting in the great room waiting for me. He looked angry.

"Where is Stefan"? I asked curiously.

He looked up at me eyes so deeply bothered I could feel more than fire looking into them. He was hurt.

"Stefan went to New York. He has a friend up there who knew Katherine. Had some insider info of sorts to share." Questions started brewing. Who was this friend and why was he just now going up to see her. Or him. Or her hoping it was a him.

I guess he could feel the contemplation going on in my head. "It's his bff Lexi. She and he stopped talking about um fifteen years ago when Katherine came back into our lives. She warned him he didn't listen so she distanced herself from him claiming she was poison and he was now toxic. She didn't like me very much either. She knew Kat from way before our time and she warned him constantly being too scared of her to really tell him why he should stay away. But now Kat is dead he figured hell why not go give it a shot. So when you made your claim of undying love for him he did what any man in love would do and go seek the truth out for his lady in waiting. So honorable Stefan is." He lifted the glass to his lips. He was drinking.

"Damon I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to you." He was at my side faster then I could say my next thought. He was starring deeply into my eyes. The burn starting to touch my skin going deeper to my bones. The very core of me. I quickly shut my eyes. He grabbed my hands tighly.

"What is it about me that when I look into your eyes you look away? You close them? You pretend to be reading. You avoid my eyes like they pain you to look into them. Matter of fact you avoid my glances so much I'm starting to think the sight of me makes you want to run into Steffys arms."

I looked down avoiding his face trying to plead with him that it was not true.

"Damon I care about you so much. You don't know what you are talking about. You are confused and everything that happened today". He interrupted.

"Look at me Elena". I closed my eyes tight. He shook me in his arms. "Look at me Elena. Please."

He was pleading with me.

My eyes wet now with tears opened up and starred into his. The fire came over me burning right into the core of me instantly. There was nothing more that I wanted then Damon Salvatore. Right there in his arms I wanted him to touch every single part of me.

"Please" he whimpered once more to me.

I had to succumb to the truth that had been killing me for months. Damon Salvatore had to know that , "when I look into your eyes my body catches on fire. It's not a burn that is painful but a burn of yearning. Every time I look into your eyes I am overtaken by this incredible burning to be near you. To touch you. To love you forever and never let you go. I am instantly weakened by my love for you. I can not control my emotions when I look into your eyes. I can not control the yearning for you to kiss me. To touch me. To feel you on me. I'm so in love with you Damon I don't know what to do with myself sometimes and looking into your eyes the way I am right now and feeling the way I do right now I could lose myself and I wouldn't care." In that moment I was silenced by his kiss.

At first it was gentle as if he was finally realizing how much I loved him and then it grew and began to smolder. His hands freed mine and found their way to my hips, up my back and in my hair. There he griped his fingers into my hair winding them into his. One hand slowly relaxing my hair and making its way to the bottom of my top. His hands gently slid underneath. My hands found his back and tightly griped at every muscle. He lifted my shirt and his mouth found my neck and for the first time I gasped for air as if I had been under water for years and was finally able to breathe. The panting increased as he found my breast.

The next moment Damon had ripped off my pants and his clothes as well. He lifted me up into his arms and laid me onto the rug where he hovered above me kissing every part of me gently as if I were silk and tasting every part of me as if I were wine. Then finally he found his way inside of me. In this moment I could have died and would not have cared less. Stefan could have walked into this room saw us and left heartbroken and I could not care less. Whatever we needed protection from, the big bad wolf could have walked in the room and I would not care less. All I cared about was Damon Salvatore and I couldn't get enough of him as he thrusted inside me.