"You already know how the story started, don't you?" he said. "Katherine was taken, Stefan and I were shot by my father, and we woke on the bank of the lake with Emily."

"Yes, yes." I said. "Skip to the-"

"Quiet. This is my story." He chided, trying to sound serious but grinning anyway. "I spent my day in transition sitting next to the water. Just thinking. Stefan had run off somewhere, looking for Father, but I had no wish to say goodbye to the man who murdered me."

"What did you think about?"

"My life. My choices. It's one thing to bravely accept death, but another to follow through with it. When normal men want to die, death is the quick option, and life is the slow one, but not vampires; choosing to die rather than turn gives you hours and hours of brooding, while choosing to live is an instantaneous, spur of the moment decision in the heat of the bloodlust, but I digress."

"I thought Stefan was the broody one."

'He is. I did all my brooding on my last day as a man, he's still catching up."

"Carry on then. You were brooding melodramatically about life."

"I was tempted. What sane man wouldn't be by the allure of eternal life when the alternative is death? Most of all, though, it was the thought of freedom that tempted me. Katherine had seemed so in control of her own life. She'd been to places, she'd lived countless lives. I'd spent my life treading on Father's toes and being the resident embarrassment to the Salvatore name. Even when I went to war, my life was constantly planned and run by other men. You understand this, no?"

I nodded, and he continued.

"However, as much I as wanted freedom, I also wanted Katherine, and she'd burned in Fell's Church. This should illustrate how stupidly smitten I was with her, willing to throw my life away if she wasn't in it. I'd made up my mind, and so I waited for Stefan to come back so we could die as brothers. Obviously, when he came back, he'd already turned into new Stefan; ripper and all."

"He brought a girl, and made you feed, and in exchange you promised him an eternity of misery."

"Exactly. It was one last decision made for me before I turned, the thing I hated most, and by the person I trusted most. I was livid, and since I'd just turned, anger turned to fury and hurt turned to vengeance. Death would be too quick and final, but there was no way I could hurt my brother. He was strong, he healed quickly, and he didn't care about anyone. It was incredibly frustrating, until I threatened to leave. Then he'd leap off the couch and beg me to stay, with blood still dripping from his chin. He promised to change, to be a better person and that we would be brothers again, but it was all lies, so I left. When I think about it now, my leaving was what really pushed him off the wagon that first time. He wouldn't be stable again until after the turn of the century, with Lexi's help."

"Where'd you go?"

"Everywhere. After I'd fulfilled my promise to Emily, making sure her line lived on, I was free for the first time in my life. But Mystic falls had left a bad taste in my mouth. Eternity can look bleak if the person you love is dead, and I couldn't get Stefan off my mind. Or Father. I felt guilty. I spent the rest of the nineteenth century feeling sorry for myself, to my shame. I didn't even enjoy the perks of vampirism. I ate because I was hungry, I killed because I was angry, but I never revelled in it. Not until I returned to Mystic Falls and met Sage. She taught me how to enjoy the hunt. How to make it fun. When I left, having seen Stefan go off the rails again, and this time knowing it was my fault, I switched off my humanity for the first time."

"Hold on," I cut in. "You're telling me that Damon Salvatore, the famous believer in a healthy dose of out of control, didn't fall off the wagon himself until almost fifty years later after he turned?"

"Like I said," Damon almost looked sheepish. "I was being melodramatic. But once I'd turned it off, I lived without regret. The First World War meant everyone had their guard down. Everyone was willing to invite strangers into their homes if said stranger claimed to bring news of their menfolk on the frontlines. I even shipped over to Europe for a year or two and fought."

"Fancy that. Damon Salvatore; war hero and defender of democracy."

"Actually I fought for both sides; it's a long story. But luckily there's no shortage of blood in war. After that I came back, and lived it up during the twenties in true Gatsby style. New York was fabulous. Boston and Chicago too, but the latter especially tended to be crawling with other vampires."

"Like Stefan."

"Exactly. Look where that got him. I carried on like that for another decade, but life grew more sombre when then roaring age came to a screeching halt. As all vampire's eventually do, I let my guard down and my humanity slipped in. After so long without feeling, one forgets what it's like, and we're all curious creatures. Unlike my brother, I wasn't utterly crippled by the knowledge of all the people I'd killed. The guilt was there, of course, but I couldn't even remember most of them. Besides, with my emotions back on, I started to feel like my life had meaning again. I thought of Katherine again, and was lonely. When I got to New Orleans I turned a girl who was practically obsessed with me. I liked to think I would be better to her than Katherine had been to me. But ironically, I ended up abandoning her just the same, though I didn't go as far as faking my own death. Just before that, though, I stumbled upon my dear brother again, still being dragged by his ears behind Lexi. This time, though, he wanted to apologise, and he didn't have blood smeared across his face when he promised we could be brothers again."

"How did you torture him this time? Put a penny on the rails again?" I smirked.

"Actually I believed him. He was going off to war. Wanted to drive a bus or ambulance or something in Egypt, I think. I decided I'd go with him. Why not give Stefan another chance? If I didn't, he'd likely disappear for another decade or two, and frankly it would have been nice to have some company my own age for a change. But things didn't work out that way. Lexi, the one who wanted us to be friends again in the first place, more-or-less forbade me from going along. Some crap about being a bad influence on Stefan. She thought I'd tempt him to drink the people stuff if we were together. I don't know what she was thinking letting Stefan become an ambulance driver in that case. Ambulances tend to pick up dead or dying people, who tend to bleed everywhere, but anyway. Once again, I was feeling charitable and I consented to stay behind. The war began, Stefan left, and blood didn't seem to be enough anymore. It was the first time I really admitted to myself that I was lonely. So I flipped off my emotions again, and didn't feel anything for another few decades before I found out that Katherine wasn't actually dead."

"And you came back to Mystic Falls?"

"Almost. I spent some time around Mystic Falls, testing the water, getting an idea of how alert the Council was. It was about that time that your mother came to me, but you already know how that turned out."

"If you and Stefan left off on relatively good terms in the forties, why were you so bent on making his life hell when you came back to town?"

"I'd been in Mystic Falls for months before you 'officially' met Stefan or me."

"Yes. I saw you in the clearing the night we drove off the bridge."

"Exactly. My emotions were on, and my love for Katherine was as strong and unreasonable as ever. The first time I caught Stefan spying on you, I smashed several bottles of good whiskey. And several necks too. The thought that Katherine might have been hiding out here with Stefan all along made me wild. So I pulled a stupid and reckless move, and walked right up to you in the clearing. If you'd been Katherine, you might have ripped my head off, but I hardly cared. As it turned out, you weren't Katherine."

"But you were still angry?"

"It brought back all of the pain from 1864. If I hadn't been set on freeing Katherine, I might have flipped the switch again and gone on a real killing spree."

"So when Stefan kept complaining about finding your humanity to stop you killing everyone, your feelings weren't off?"

"Of course not. You, Elena, have never had the chance of meeting me with no emotions. I doubt you'd like me much."

"Is that your round-a-bout way of telling me you don't like me without my emotions, Damon?"

"No, Elena. It's just a fact."

"Then what's the point of this nostalgic tale?"

"Because I wanted to prove to you that not even I know how to keep humanity at bay, and frankly I wouldn't want to. But most importantly," he continued, laying his hands on my shoulders and looking at me seriously. "I want you to know that it's alright. When we turn into vampires, everything about us becomes more intense, but our dark sides are never really revealed until we've gone off the rails and felt nothing. Our other selves are as unique as we are. Some people, like Stefan, need to suppress their dark sides, but I don't believe in that. Hiding it doesn't mean it's not there. I accept who I am, all of it, which is why I can control it."

"So you think I should feel again?"

"Yes."

"Even if it means accepting my 'other' self, as you put it?"

"Yes."

"What if you don't like that part of me?"

"I respect you, Elena, and respect means accepting people for who they are. Not who we want them to be and especially not who they used to be."

"I believe you."

"You do?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to feel again."

"That's a shame. Why?"

"Because I'm not ready to let go of the girl who I used to be. She was a good person, and right now I'm not. But that's okay, because right now I'm a psychopath. If I were to become her again, but were still bad…"

"The old Elena died. Twice. You were a different person after the first crash too."

"There's a big difference between quitting cheerleading and killing people because you enjoy it, Damon." I said hotly, narrowing my eyes at him. "The old Elena was a good person. She was compassionate, loving and reliable. She didn't have this dark side to her."

"Yes she did, she just didn't know it yet."

"As much as I might dislike the old Elena, and her pathetic ways, I owe it to her and to the people who knew her not to rub her face in the dirt and turn her into a bad person. I'm the bad one, not her."

Damon looked sadly at me for several seconds. When he moved, I felt his hands shift on my shoulders as he snapped my neck.

"Is everything ready?" Klaus asked Bonnie. Above their heads, the moon peaked through the dark canopy, and twisted trees surrounded them like stumbling beggars.

"Yes. All we're waiting for now is Damon."

"I'm here." Damon's voice said suddenly, as he materialised out of the gloom. Elena was slung over his shoulder, unconscious."

"Did you bring what I asked for?" Bonnie said, rather coldly.

"Yes. Elena's right here, and the ashes," he pulled a vial from his pocket. "Are here too." He laid Elena down, and tossed the vial to Bonnie, who began emptying a jar of salt in a pentacle around Elena.

"You think this will help Caroline?" Klaus asked.

"We couldn't care less about Caroline." Damon said, Klaus grinned, but his eyes glinted dangerously.

"Don't push your luck, Damon. You're lucky to be getting help from me at all."

"Yes, Klaus." Bonnie said. "Once Elena is fixed, she won't be able to interfere in helping Care."

"Good. Begin."

Bonnie put the empty jar aside, and closed her eyes. She began chanting as the leaves of the trees rustled in the sudden breeze. The candles she'd prepared roared to life, bathing Elena in a flickering golden glow. After several seconds, she removed the cork in the vial of ashes, and the grey powder swirled about like dancing smoke. The ash settled at last, but immediately a thick, ghostly white fog seemed to seep from the ash, and rise to form a solid pillar, hiding Elena. Bonnie's cries grew louder, and Damon had to shield his eyes from the blustering wind. When she finally stopped, Bonnie fell to her hands and knees in exhaustion, and the pillar of fog was shredded by the wind, revealing the pentacle.

Inside, three doppelgängers lay on the forest floor.