Chapter 11

While Bella got settled in and Jeremy played with the small dog two brothers in the large mansion at the edge of the woods were arguing. Stefan Salvatore had no idea his older brother, Damon, was in town and he didn't like it one bit.

"Why are you here Damon?"

He asked for the umpteenth time. Damon was largely ignoring him knowing it drove his little brother crazy. It was fun delving to their old roles of asshole older brother and eager beaver younger brother but both men knew there were more important reasons for the other's presence rather than nostalgia for their hometown.

"I hear you're back in school. Again. That must suck. Sitting all day, listening to stupid teenagers whine whine whine while you know more than the teachers could ever hope to learn. Have you ever thought that if you haven't learned your stuff in 145 years, you're probably never going to?"

Damon needled seeing a large vein throb in Stefan's left temple. He took a languish sip of his scotch waiting for Stefan to crack.

"At least I know enough to warrantee my staying in school instead of fighting in the front lines. You must have been bad enough to be able to take so many leaves of absence to scamper back home and no one minding!"

Stefan's verbal hit was below the waist and Damon let a hiss out along with his fangs descending ever so slightly. Stefan smirked showing his big brother his own fangs.

"At least I had the glory of being in a war instead of hiding in my library!"
"Not my fault I can read!"

It wasn't until a gust of air caused the large portrait above the mantle place to fall off the hook that the two brothers realized they were up close and personal ready to fight. They jumped apart, both turning too fast for the human eye to see to look at the fallen painting.

"Now look what you've done!"

Stefan growled going to retrieve the portrait and examine it. Damon rolled his eyes

"You do realize I'm not responsible for the weather, right?"

Despite his unpleasant feelings about the man in the painting Damon strolled close to his brother to look in the eyes of his father. The artist had captured their father's essence on the paper perfectly. Giuseppe Salvatore glared from the canvas the same way he looked at everyone he considered beneath him (which was literally everyone) in real life.

For a minute neither brother spoke, each lost in memory. In the same memory. The one of their father as he conspired with young Katherine's companion to remove the vampiress off their estate. The companion's apologetic words after it while she tended to Stefan's wounded throat. Them accusing her until... until she showed them her own fangs and told them to grow a pair and open their damn eyes. Stefan sighed as he then remembered his father's cutting words when he revealed his changing status at him before ordering both Stefan's and Damon's deaths for they could choose to become vampires. Damon swallowed as he remembered the outcome.

"Have you seen them?"

Stefan asked quietly as he raised the portrait with one arm to put it back on the wall, from where Giusseppe could judge them once again.

"Them?"

Stefan looked at Damon.

"Them. The human girl that looks like Katherine and the one who looks so much like Isabella"

Damon shook his head

"I heard about Katherine's look-alike and I 'ran into' the other one last night while getting dinner."

Stefan raised an eyebrow at the euphemism but Damon rolled his eyes. They argued about their meals every time they met. Stefan believed in draining small, flurry and cute animals of their blood. Damon preferred human blood because it was their natural food source. Rather than get into it again, Stefan remained on point.

"I saw them both. The Katherine look-alike is called Elena. She's fully human and so unlike Katherine..."

Green eyes drifted as he mentally compared the two women that could be twins if it wasn't for the difference in hair and that Elena wasn't born when Katherine was, more than 500 years ago. Damon's blue eyes twinkled

"Good, because Katherine always preferred me."
"In your dreams perhaps"

Damon didn't rise to the bait. Mainly because he was quite unsure of Katherine's affections, the seducing vampiress had shared both his bed and Stefan's and had given both her blood to start their transformation when their father killed them, but also because he couldn't quite fit the calm and self assured vampiress to the frightened woman he unknowingly attacked the night before. That woman looked, smelled, and breathed like Isabella but it couldn't be her. Could it?

- - - Memories of a Past and a Future - - -

It was in the early a.m when Zach, the brother's public uncle even though he was their descendant, drove to the Gilbert laboratory. Liz Forbes was sitting at the steps of the house after having hidden her own car a couple streets away.

"Everything alright? You sounded distracted on the phone?"

The blond woman asked him. Zach shook his head

"Yeah, my other nephew decided to show up unannounced"

Liz nodded sympathetically.

"That doesn't sound pleasant. Is he bad blood?"

Zach looked at her for a minute. How did he tell her that Damon, in human terms, was a serial killer with a tendency to befriend women who ended up giving him their money and dying when they gave him all their blood? How could he share his suspicions that the streak of deaths were probably Damon's fault too, now that he showed up looking like the cat that devoured the canary?

"Let's just say he and I never saw eye to eye."

Liz rubbed his arm.

"I have my share of that. If ever you feel like talking, I' right here"

Zach nodded his thanks knowing it'd never happen. Then he stood back when Liz retrieved the key from the beanie of the dopey looking dwarf and unlocked the front door. Together they entered the house.

"Something feels different"

Liz remarked, he hand on her gun at her hip. Zach nodded, the air felt cleaner, when it shouldn't.

"Let's get it over with"

He proposed and moved first down the flight of stairs to the underground lab, winching when the wooden step winced under his weight. Liz was on his heels, moving her hand from the butt of her gun long enough to hand him the lab keys.

Both shielded their eyes when the bright sun imitating lights turned on. The lab looked like a cross between a greenhouse and Dr Jekyll's laboratory. Half of it had counters various equipment to aid in Grayson's interest in homeopathic treatments. The other half housed plants raging from chamomile and valerian to marihuana and the town's local herb, vervain in neat rows. Liz's eyes fell on the first potted marijuana.

"Is it me or does this one look smaller than before?"

Zach looked at it too

"Not just you. It's about 2/3rds its previous size"
"Guess now we know where the surge of illegal pot originated."

Her mouth set in a grim line. Only the town's council and the Gilberts had keys of the lab. She had no idea how to approach a grieving family about one of them dealing narcotics.

"I can sit down the Gilbert kids if you prefer. Give them a warning before you have to officially be involved"

Liz's chuckle was dry and mirthless.

"We'll see, but thanks Zach. Isn't Elena dating your nephew according to the grapevine?"
"You mean according to Caroline"

Zach joked and moved to start inspecting the vervain plants before he pulled a small pruning hook from his backpack. Liz ignored the jab at her daughter's gossipy nature and repeated the question. Zach was about to admit it was so and that he planned on giving the 'talk' to Stefan, which was going to be a hoot! Considering it all, when the laboratory door was pushed open abruptly and a cold voice called out

"Stop!"