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'Elena! Over here!' Damon whispered urgently, snapping the journal shut. When I didn't move, frozen by terror, he grabbed my arm, dragging me towards the desk where he'd found it.

'Get under here!' he hissed, just as we heard the front door open. Finally unfreezing, I did as he said, tossing the journal I was holding onto the desk and diving under it. A second later, Damon joined me, pulling the desk chair in after us as far as it would go. I winced at the slight scraping noise it made as it slid across the floor, my mind working at top speed. Who was in the hallway? Was Jonathan Gilbert home? Or, worse, had Katherine followed us here? Was that blackbird still there? I strained my neck, trying to see past the desk chair to the window.

I gave an involuntary cry of pain as I hit my head hard against the side of the desk, which Damon immediately stifled by clapping a hand over my mouth. I could see the glare on his face despite the darkness, and attempted – not very successfully – to apologise with my eyes. Despite the possible danger of our situation, I couldn't help but notice the close proximity of his body to mine. The lack of space meant we were squashed together, and I was incredibly aware of every place where his body touched mine.

We'd apparently hidden just in time. As Damon released me, I heard the study door opening, and my entire body tensed at the sound of footsteps drawing nearer to our hiding place. The seconds seem to drag, each one stretching into years as I waited for the inevitable moment when we would be caught.

There was a chance that that wouldn't happen, I told myself firmly. There was only a small amount of space between the desk and window, it was dark, and we were partly shielded from view by the chair. Unless the person in the room actually sat down at the desk, we would probably be OK.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though the unknown visitor was doing exactly that. The footsteps continued to come nearer, and a shadow fell across the desk chair, blocking out the tiny amount of light we had. I squeezed closer to Damon, trying to stop my body from shaking, and felt him take my hand, holding it tightly in his own.

I could see a pair of feet now, clad in sturdy, practical shoes that marked them out as male, and relaxed a tiny amount. Not Katherine, then. Still, that only made this whole situation marginally better. The person paused in front of the desk, the feet facing us, so close that I could see a tiny rip in the toe of the right shoe. My heartbeat sped up to the point where I felt sure it was audible to anyone within a mile radius. I braced myself, expecting, at any second, the person to bend down and expose us.

And then what would happen? I wondered. What was the current penalty for breaking and entering?

And then…the person turned and walked away. A few seconds later, the study door opened and then closed again. And, then – unbelievably – so did the front door. For a second we could again hear footsteps on the patio, and then all was silent.

I relaxed, slumping against the back of the desk, as, for the first time in what seemed like hours, I took a breath. We sat there in silence for a few minutes, straining our ears, but no noise came. It did really seem as if whoever it was had left.

'Do you think it's safe to come out?' I breathed in Damon's ear, afraid to make more than the tiniest possible amount of noise.

'Only one way to find out,' he whispered grimly, pushing the chair away and scrambling out from underneath the desk before extending his hand towards me.

I took it, allowing him to pull me to my feet. In the moonlight that shone through the window, I could see he looked just as terrified as I felt. Beads of sweat dotted his brow and his face was paler than I'd ever seen it.

'Doesn't look like there's anyone here,' I whispered. The room was silent, and seemed exactly as we'd left it, and there was no sign of anyone outside the window. 'Who do you think that was? I couldn't see them….Jonathan Gilbert? Maybe he forgot something from the meeting and…'

'Elena…' Damon's voice came from behind me, interrupting my increasingly hysterical rambling. I whirled round, knowing that something was wrong from the sound of his voice.

'What is it, Damon?' I'd half expected to see Katherine framed in the doorway, but there was no-one there.

'That journal you were holding…Jonathan Gilbert's old one…did you drop it on the desk? Before you hid?' he asked slowly. His expression was pained, as if he was trying to put together the pieces of a very difficult puzzle.

'I think so,' I replied uncertainly. Fear had blurred the entire experience in my mind. 'I don't have it with me now, so I must've done, I suppose.'

Damon indicated the desk. 'It's not there now.'

Coming to stand before him, I scoured the desk. He was right. There was no trace of a journal, though, now that I thought about it, I had dropped it there. I was almost sure of it.

I headed straight for the bookshelf where I'd found the journal in the first place, quickly checking. I hadn't left it there either.

I turned slowly back to Damon. I had a feeling I knew what he was thinking, and it wasn't good. A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered how the person had only been interested in the desk, not even reacting to the broken window right behind it.

'Elena, earlier, when we were in your room, and I thought I heard something…' Damon began. I didn't need him to finish the sentence.

'You think it was Katherine? And she heard us saying we were going to break into Jonathan Gilbert's house to look through his journal?' I was hoping against hope that that wasn't what he was going to say, that he had another explanation, but could tell that this wasn't the case even before he spoke.

'What if it was? She's curious about you, about why you're here, but she hasn't managed to get anything out of you so far. Wouldn't she want to read the journal, if only to see if she could work out why we wanted it?'

'That wasn't Katherine.' I said, my heart pounding. I needed this theory to be wrong. Needed to believe that it had been Jonathan Gilbert, coming back for something he'd forgotten. 'It couldn't have been her. It looked like a man.' But the image of the bird, outside the house right before the door had opened, lingered in my memory.

'She could have compelled someone.' Damon said quietly. 'The way they came in, took the journal and left, didn't it strike you as odd? There's a smashed window right behind the desk, and they don't even stop to look at it? If it was Jonathan Gilbert, he definitely would have reacted to it somehow. That shipment of vervain products only came in recently, there's probably plenty of townspeople who haven't bought them yet…and it probably wouldn't have been that difficult for her to get a key, there could be one hidden outside for all we know.'

He was staring at me as if willing me to come up with another argument, and I knew he didn't want this to be true any more than I did. But there was nothing else I could say.

'They didn't even stop to look at the bookshelf,' Damon continued, sounding like he was talking to himself more than me. 'She would have compelled them to check the desk first, knowing that's where the current journal would probably be…she would have asked them to take it and get out as quickly as possible.'

'Wait, Damon.' I said, something suddenly striking me. 'If the journal on the desk was the one I was reading, where is the current one?'

'Here,' said Damon, with a just a tiny trace of cockiness in his voice as he held it up. 'I held on to it when we hid…so even if Katherine was behind that, she won't have the right journal.'

'Great,' I whispered, some of my fear evaporating. The journal in Damon's hand contained details of the vampire compass – information that we did not, under any circumstances, want to reach Katherine. 'Let's just see if it explains how to use the watch to time travel, and then get out of here.'

Damon was already flicking through the pages. 'Here!' he whispered. 'It says that…'

'Wait!' I stopped his, my heart pounding in my chest, and he looked up, alarmed by the urgency in my voice. 'If Katherine sent someone to get the journal, she isn't going to want Jonathan Gilbert to come home and find it missing. She'll cover her tracks.'

'Which means she'll send the same person back in to replace the journal when she's read it.' Damon completed, the colour draining from his face. He looked back at the journal, his eyes quickly scanning the text, then replaced it on the desk. 'Let's go, I'll explain this to you when we're out of here.'

He grasped the bottom of the window frame, and after a quick glance around the yard, pulled himself out. Feeling immensely better now that we had at least accomplished what we'd set out to do, I allowed him to take my hand and help me through the window.

Once outside, we sprinted away from the house as fast as we could. Damon hadn't dropped my hand, and was pulling me through the streets, trying to force my exhausted legs to move faster. Finally, we reached the gates of the Salvatore house, both breathless and sweating despite the cold.

'Wait here,' Damon panted, stopping me just inside the gates. 'We have to calm down, appear as if we haven't been doing anything more than walking. Tomorrow Jonathan Gilbert is going to find that window, and Stefan knows we've been out all evening.'

'He wouldn't suspect us though, would he?' I felt slightly nauseous at the thought of being turned in by Stefan.

'He might,' said Damon grimly. 'Almost everybody else in town will be accounted for, either because they're at the meeting or because the rest of their family can vouch for the fact that they've been inside all evening.'

I had no response to this. We were going to have to deal with whatever happened in the morning when it came. I felt incredibly guilty for bringing Damon into this with me, although I acknowledged that deep down, I was selfishly glad that I didn't have to go through it alone.

A few minutes later, having smoothed down our clothes and hair as much as possible, we entered the house. Despite the fact that it felt like we'd been out for the entire night, it wasn't actually that late, and Stefan was still awake, reading.

'Did you two have fun?' he enquired, looking up from his book. 'Where did you go?'

'Oh..you know…just around,' Damon replied, attempting to sound nonchalant. 'We took a walk through the grounds, but it was pretty cold so we came in. Katherine back yet?'

'I haven't seen her,' Stefan shrugged. 'I'm sure she'll be back soon though.'

'OK, well, good night.' Damon said, somewhat awkwardly. I knew the feeling. After all the drama of tonight, standing here talking casually to Stefan seemed completely surreal.

After exchanging good nights, Damon and I headed upstairs.

'Do you think we're going to find Katherine waiting for us?' I muttered as we reached the upstairs landing.

Damon didn't reply, which led me to think that the answer was yes.

My heart pounding – apparently the terrifying portion of this night wasn't yet over – we pushed the door of Damon's room open.

It was empty.

A few moments later, we'd verified that my room was equally empty of supernatural visitors.

'What's she trying to do?' I whispered to Damon, collapsing on the bed. I was surprised to find that I was actually slightly annoyed. Katherine had played around with us for long enough, and I was more than ready for things to come to a head between us. Openly confronting her had to be better than this constant fear. Then again, I realised, that was probably exactly why she hadn't come forward. She was counting on torturing us for that extra bit longer by making us wait.

'She's making this into a game,' Damon replied, having apparently come to the same conclusion as me. 'We don't know when she's going to come out…she wants us to be constantly waiting for her. She's probably having the time of her life with this.'

'Wait,' I'd just noticed something lying on my pillow. A piece of paper, covered in old fashioned, slanted writing that looked vaguely familiar. I picked it up, holding it out to Damon for verification. 'Isn't this…?'

'A page from Jonathan Gilbert's journal.' Damon took it with trembling fingers. 'It was her, then. And she still has the journal.'

'But she can't do much with it, right?' I whispered. 'I mean, it doesn't have any of the information she'd want in it…that was all in the one we put back.'

'I'm sure she has a plan, but I don't think there's much we can do about it, tonight anyway.' Still looking terrified, Damon laid the page on the dresser. 'I think, unbelievable as it is, the only thing we can do now is try to get some sleep. Whatever she does, we'll need our strength to face her. Plus, I'm sure she'll be expecting us to sit up all night after finding that page.'

'You think I'm going to be able to fall asleep? Alone?' I asked, appalled.

I could tell Damon wasn't exactly happy with the idea of going back to his room alone, either. An idea came into my head, and without even thinking about how it would sound, considering that it was 1864, I put it forward.

'Do you want to….stay in here tonight?' I asked hesitantly. 'I mean…just because…I don't think either of us will be able to sleep alone…'

Damon's eyes widened slightly.

'Are you sure?' he asked hesitantly. 'Wouldn't that be…?'

I cut him off before he could finish. 'Please, Damon. I really don't want to be alone tonight.'

Looking like he could hardly believe what he was doing, Damon nodded. 'I'll be back in a few minutes,' he said, heading for the door, apparently to get ready for bed. I could tell by his glance around the hallway before he left the room that he was feeling just as jumpy as I was.

The minutes until he returned felt like hours. I undressed myself as quickly as I could, my fingers trembling. I wasn't sure why a piece of paper left on my pillow was having this much as of an effect on me, but I was truly terrified. We had no idea what Katherine was planning, but she was clearly watching our every move – and wanted us to know it.

I was dressed in my nightgown when Damon knocked on the door. I called him in, feeling instantly better the moment he was inside.

He looked incredibly awkward standing in my doorway, and I had a strange urge to laugh at the difference between him and the 2010 version of himself.

'You can come in, Damon,' I said pushing back the covers on the bed.

We lay down on opposite sides of the bed, but somehow, just his presence comforted me. The exertion of the past two days – I hadn't had a chance to properly rest since the Founder's Ball – finally seemed to be catching up to me, and unbelievably, I fell into a deep sleep, lulled by the even sound of his breathing.

Sometime before dawn, I awoke feeling strangely at peace. It took me a few seconds to realise that somehow, I was now locked in Damon's arms, as I'd slept in Stefan's so many times before. Just as I had at the Founder's Ball, I felt strangely safe, despite everything that happened, and deciding for once not to fight it, I allowed myself to fall back asleep, feeling more comfortable than I would have thought possible given the events of the night.

I was rudely awoken the next morning by Emily roughly shaking me.

'What are you doing, Elena?' she hissed, sounding both shocked and appalled. I raised my head slightly only to realise that Damon's arms were still wrapped around me, the page from the journal we'd discovered the night before was in full view on the dresser, and Emily was standing beside me looking scandalised.

'Get him out of here, before Katherine finds out, if she doesn't already know!' Emily was yelling under her breath, and seemed to be simultaneously shaking Damon and trying to drag me out of bed.

Damon awoke with a start, seemed to take in the situation in an instant, and then slowly turned bright red. He scrambled out of bed and turned to face Emily, obviously preparing to defend himself.

'Go, now!' She pushed him towards the door without even giving him a chance to speak. With an apologetic glance at me, he went.

'It wasn't what you think!' I whispered to Emily, but she didn't give me a chance to speak either, instead going into a long rant about the stupidly and recklessness I was displaying, while lacing me so tightly into my corset I cried out in pain.

'Go downstairs to breakfast, and don't mention this to anyone!' she finished, pushing me out the door.

I went without a retort, grateful that she hadn't seemed to notice the journal page.

Downstairs, however, it appeared that this ordeal wasn't over. Damon was standing in the entrance to the dining room, where his father and Stefan were already eating. He shot me a panicked glance over his shoulder as I entered.

'Elena,' Mr Salvatore greeted me, kissing my hand as usual.

'Mr Salvatore,' I greeted him, sliding into a seat and shooting Damon a puzzled glance. What was going on?

'Stefan tells me you and Damon went for a walk last night,' Mr Salvatore continued, addressing me directly. 'Did you run into anyone? I only ask because there was a break in at Jonathan Gilbert's house last night.'

'A…a break in?' I said carefully, trying my hardest to sound surprised. I'd expected this – that broken window would not have gone unnoticed. 'That's terrible! Was anything taken?'

'Some personal property of Jonathan's – he's terribly upset,' said Mr Salvatore, somewhat evasively. Clearly he wanted to avoid mentioning the journal if at all possible. 'Did you see anyone? Jonathan is desperate to find the culprit and get his…property back.'

Damon, who still looked as if he were about to be sick, nudged my discreetly under the table, indicating his head towards the corner of the dining room. And that's when I saw it.

On a small table in the corner, directly behind Mr Salvatore, lay the journal we'd seen in Jonathan Gilbert's house. Even from here, I could see the initials JG inscribed on the cover.

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