Hello Readers! This is the next chapter, I know quick update. This one has our two favorite Salvatores in it and I do hope you like it. Please Review! Happy Reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries...

Dying Once, Living Twice

Chapter Two

Something was eerily wrong though, he felt it deep within bone. Something not quite right about Ms. Blackwell, she felt far too familiar to him, like he knew her for a long time. This cold and arrogant woman whom he had never met in his rather long lifetime, who had the same last name as his dead best friend and a resemblance to her actually made him feel like he knew her. Every part of her felt familiar, even her voice and detached expressions. His gut screamed that she was Elizabeth, but he blamed it on his nostalgic mood, yearning for Elizabeth, loneliness and his burdening guilt.

But at the end of the entire matter, he did not believe in coincidences and things were always iffy when it came to Mystic Falls. What were the chances that he met a look alike of his dead best friend more than a century later on her death anniversary and this look alike made his instincts tingling? He stared long and hard at the direction the woman left. It seemed like he had to delay his plans for the night.

Getting someone to eat and sleep with and then drinking into oblivion had to wait. First he had to go home and do the initial research and investigation on this Beatrice Blackwell. Tomorrow he could start with the stalking as soon as he got the needed information. Stalking and scheming was far better than moping around and god forbid, brooding like Stefan did.

So with a huge smirk and a leer he informed Elena, "Well, this was fun," sarcasm dripping from his voice, "but I sadly have to leave, things to do, people to bother and well, a little bit of trouble to cause. You know, the usual!"

Elena couldn't help but shake her head exasperatedly and Stefan rolled his eyes. Damon walked away and just when he was a few feet away and heard Stefan mutter, "Finally!" and Elena giggle in response, he said loudly capturing the attention of all the people around, "Keep it PG-13 you two!"

He smirked and said to himself with determination shinning in his ice-blue eyes, "Now that all's mortified in the Stefan and Elena world, we can get acquainted Ms. Beatrice Blackwell!"

The first thing he did when he got home, he poured himself a strong drink and lock himself in his room with his laptop. Internet research on Ms. Blackwell proved to be quite fruitful. By the end of the night, he had a file done on Ms. Beatrice Blackwell and she was nothing like his Elizabeth.

He went out once more to get someone to eat and after a quick bite from a delightful looking brunette, he went around town discreetly asking around about Ms. Blackwell and then compelled them into forgetting. What he found out was beyond shocking. According to the grapevine, there was reason behind Ms. Blackwell's arrogance. She was one of the most influential people in town, owning numerous properties all over the town, she had a great sway over the council, the business owners, the founding families and the mayor, apart from owning the local pawn shop and the properties she rented out she was also something of a loan shark, rumor had it that she kind of manipulated everyone in town into doing her bidding and even the mayor was in her pocket. Not only was she intimidating she could handle herself very well, no one messed with her, when they did initially they paid for it dearly.

Apparently, her father was a similar man only he did everything with unimaginable charisma; his daughter did it with her cold persona and ruthless streak that sent shivers down the spines of most men in town. But despite all of that she was a respected and sometimes feared member of the town. She contributed hugely to the town's charity and being the only living Blackwell, one of the founding families, she returned a lot to the town.

The town's people's general opinion when it came to Ms. Blackwell was split into two sides. One side thought she was the devil and making deals with her was a huge mistake, she was cruel, manipulative, vindictive, and evil and cared about nothing but making money, but the other side said that she was generous but secretive about it, she was good but lonely and she only helped who needed it. She was a beautiful package of contradictions and no one really knew anything about her personal life.

He lazily walked back home, his mind was swimming in the thoughts about this Ms. Blackwell. That's what everyone called her; no one called her by her first name. No one was allowed to and apparently according to the people he questioned, she didn't call anyone by their first name either. She remained detached from everyone. His mind was processing and painting pictures about her, she was really nothing like his Elizabeth, then why did his stomach twist at that very thought? She still felt far too familiar and he didn't know why. Tomorrow he would find out for himself exactly what was behind the enigma named Beatrice Blackwell.

By the time Stefan got home, Damon was lounging with his drink and clearly lost in his thoughts and Stefan didn't need to be a mind reader to know exactly what was on Damon's mind. Before Stefan could make a comment, Damon asked with a smirk, "So how was Elena? Got to second base yet?"

Stefan glared at him hatefully and growled out as he dropped to the seat across him, "That's not the topic at hand, now is it?"

Damon rolled his eyes, "Then what is or do I need to check with your journals to find out the latest topic you are brooding about?"

Stefan snorted, "Oh, I am not the one brooding this time, Damon and you know it."

Damon shot him a quick glare and took a long sip of his drink, keeping his eyes on the amber liquid and kept silent. Both brothers remained quiet for a long time, there was both tension and content in the air around them. The ghost in the room, Elizabeth's ghost was haunting them both in that very moment and their silence seemed to comfort them as they were lost in their own memories of her.

Finally Stefan dared to whisper, "Elizabeth."

Damon tensed and growled out, "What about her?"

Stefan sighed in exasperation; it seemed that his brother was dead set on acting like a mule. He was going to remain in denial and Stefan had to pull it out of him. Stefan said looking unblinkingly at his brother, "The woman we met this evening. Beatrice Blackwell, she is Elizabeth's brother's descendant."

Damon bit out sarcastically, "Really? I couldn't tell with the name Blackwell!"

Stefan ignored Damon's comment and continued, "She looks a lot like Elizabeth."

Damon scoffed, "No, she doesn't. She just has green eyes, dark hair and dimples. That's where the resemblance ends. I am not pulling an Elena-Katherine card like you did."

Stefan raised an eyebrow, again ignoring Damon's lashing out, and he questioned wryly, "Really? So her appearance has nothing to do with the fact that you were completely stunned when you saw her?"

Damon snapped, "I was not stunned. I just didn't respond to her ignoring me. I mean come on; the hard-to-get card is like the oldest card in the book. You need to ignore women who play that card and those snooty hotties fall straight in line once they see how their play doesn't work on you."

Stefan eyed him warily, "So you accept the fact that she is not Elizabeth?"

Damon glared at him, "Of course she isn't. What is wrong with you?"

Stefan shrugged, "Nothing. Just clearing it all out."

Damon said stoically, "Yeah well, there is nothing to be cleared."

Stefan persisted, "Except the fact that she looks like Elizabeth."

Damon growled throwing back his drink in one swallow, "For fuck's sake, she looks nothing like Elizabeth. In case you were too busy lost in La-La-Elena land and didn't notice this woman has a ten on ten rack. Elizabeth was as thin as a twig."

Stefan shot Damon a look of pure disgust at the crude way he pointed out the difference between the two Blackwell females. Stefan had to agree, Damon had a point but Stefan had his own logic, so he countered, "Yes, but Elizabeth was a seventeen year old girl and this is a twenty-two year old woman. How do we know that Elizabeth wouldn't have looked like that had she lived?"

Damon looked down at his empty glass and said casually, "Then Elizabeth would have grown to be a very desirable woman and would have had no problems with finding suitors for her hand and eventually her husband would have been a very lucky man."

Stefan gritted his teeth at Damon's mock nonchalance. So he pushed just to make Damon react, "You mean you would have been her lucky husband?"

Because Stefan was looking for it, he noticed the way Damon's hands tightened into fists and his jaw ticked, there was a wild flash of feral rage in his blue eyes for the fraction of a second, and then he was calm all over again. Damon shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not. We both know that things changed when Katherine came into our lives. If Katherine didn't turn me or if I hadn't fallen in love with her, then yes I would have been Elizabeth's proud husband. But I was turned and she killed herself, so that obviously didn't happen."

Stefan's body was thrumming with rage at his brother's mock nonchalant attitude towards Elizabeth. But if he confronted Damon about that then it would only push him closer towards Beatrice Blackwell and make him fixate on her. Damon was all about distractions. Beatrice would be the perfect distraction to Elizabeth's memories.

So Stefan decided to pretend to agree with Damon about his denial about Beatrice Blackwell being nothing like Elizabeth. But how could Stefan convince himself? He felt something off about Beatrice Blackwell. Something about her just called to him and he needed to know more about her. Stefan frowned and softly, "If Beatrice Blackwell is in fact nothing like Elizabeth, then why are you so affected after seeing her?"

Damon leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and sighed tiredly, "Little brother, you are asking way too many questions tonight and I am not nearly drunk enough to answer any of them, truthfully or otherwise."

Stefan persisted, "I know, but I still want an answer."

Damon grumbled, "It wasn't seeing her."

Stefan asked, "Then, what is it?"

Damon smirked darkly as he taunted Stefan, "I am surprised and appalled that you don't remember. How hurt Elizabeth must be turning in her grave feeling right now that her darling Saint Stefan didn't remember the day she died!"

Stefan gasped. He couldn't help but seethe at his brother's audacious words and he growled out, "Shut the fuck up, Damon! How dare you! Of course I remember, I always remember. And you ignorant bastard, if you weren't so self-involved and hell bent on ruining everyone's lives and every good thing around you then you would notice that Elizabeth's death anniversary isn't today, it's tomorrow!"

Stefan expected Damon to jump up and attack him; Damon had done so much worse to him for far insignificant things. But he shocked him, Damon chuckled harshly and replied, "Oh enlightened one, how truly dim you are. She jumped off that tree on today's date, her body was found the next day. So to be very precise, today is her death anniversary, not tomorrow. Tomorrow would be the anniversary of the day her corpse was found."

Stefan could feel his eyes on the verge of changing he was feeling that angry. For over a century and half he had mourned their Elizabeth on the wrong day. Well to be fair, he mourned her on the day he learned she was dead. But it wasn't exactly the error of getting the date wrong that had him feeling like he was about to burst at the seams.

It was the vision that came back to him, the vision of Elizabeth's mangled corpse underneath that tree. That familiar tree in the woods between the Salvatore property and the Blackwell property; the tree which held every good and happy memory the Salvatore brothers had with their Elizabeth, mostly shared between Damon and Elizabeth, it was after all Damon and Elizabeth's tree.

Stefan was never all that keen on climbing that tree with them and frankly Elizabeth looked downright silly and very unladylike when she climbed that tree like a monkey in her dress. She always got her dress dirty and torn in places, but Stefan adored her for it. But it had all turned into a living nightmare; Stefan was there when Elizabeth's dead body was discovered underneath that very tree. She had jumped off that tree. He couldn't believe that his fearless monkey girl climbed up to her favorite spot and jumped.

Some had tried to claim that she had probably slipped and fell, one of them being her uncaring mother trying to salvage a little of their reputation from being tarnished. But it was unanimously accepted that Elizabeth had committed suicide. Everyone who lived in Mystic Falls knew that Elizabeth was the oddest girl to have ever lived and there was not another male in town let alone a female who could climb trees as expertly as Elizabeth did, which is why many people called her by Stefan's nickname behind their backs, monkey-girl.

The people of Mystic Falls also knew very well why the odd girl had ended her life. there wasn't a single person in Mystic Falls who hadn't known of Elizabeth Blackwell and her deep infatuation with Damon Salvatore. There was not one girl or woman in Mystic Falls who hadn't tried to step in between Damon and his Elizabeth and despite the fact that Damon was clearly not equally infatuated with Elizabeth, he cared immensely for her and no one could make his attention waver from Elizabeth.

That is until Miss Katherine Pierce came to town and that changed everything. Everyone watched as Damon fell head over heels in love with the enchanting Katherine while Elizabeth was left in the shadows with a fiancé who everyone predicted would break their engagement soon. So it did not come to them as a surprise when the girl ended her life, after all, the girl's reputation was already tarnished. She had spent an indecent amount of time with Damon Salvatore and he was just about to break their engagement and ask for Katherine's hand instead.

Elizabeth had nothing left to her, she wasn't a beauty, nor was she a proper lady, her reputation was in tatters; the only thing she had was her family's wealth and even that couldn't make her desirable to any good match, so it came to no wonder to the town's folks as she ended her miserable life before it could get any worse. But the saddest thing was that many of the town's people actually felt pity for the young girl because they knew how she had truly loved Damon Salvatore and how heartbroken she must have been. For years they used Elizabeth's example to teach their daughters how to live their lives properly and responsibly.

Stefan didn't care about what other people thought or what they had concluded, he knew that it was heartbreak that had caused her to end her life; in fact he was sure that Damon had probably broken off their engagement and told her everything about Katherine, which caused her to jump off that tree and end her life. She loved Damon far too much. There was also a possibility that maybe Damon was compelled by Katherine to be unnecessarily harsh to Elizabeth before ending things with her. That was the kind of thing Katherine would do and Katherine did hate Elizabeth too much for being connected with Damon and Damon was one of Katherine's possessions. To this day, over a century later, the exact reasons and events that led to Elizabeth's suicide was a mystery. What happened that day was a mystery.

Elizabeth was a kind and very understanding soul and her smile lit up the room, Stefan adored her and was protective over her. Stefan blamed it on Beatrice Blackwell's eerie resemblance to her long-dead ancestor for inciting that same protective instinct in him that he had for Elizabeth.

After a long time of silence between the brothers, Stefan asked gruffly, "What do you want with Beatrice Blackwell, anyway?"

Damon chuckled, "Well brother, I am bored and I am curious."

Stefan sighed tiredly, "With you that is the most dangerous combination. Don't hurt her. Just leave her be."

Damon smirked dangerously at his little brother and drawled, "Why Stefan, you wouldn't be presumptuous enough to actually tell me what to do, now would you?"

Stefan seethed, "Damon, leave her be. She does not need you or any danger you bring in her life. She is the last Blackwell alive, for Elizabeth's sake at least leave her be."

Damon just kept on staring at his nearly frantic brother with cold eyes and retorted tauntingly, "If you think playing the guilt card on me is going to make me less curious about her, then you are sadly and very pathetically mistaken, brother. I don't care about what she needs or not, I care about what I want and if I am curious about her then she will have to deal with me and the dangers I bring."

Stefan really wanted to hit something right then. Before he could say another word, Damon added with a wide smirk that felt far too smarmy, "Besides Stefan, you can't deny the fact that you are curious about her as well. There is something odd about her and I am going to find out what it is. You can stay on the sidelines like a good little boy and go on your play dates with Elena while I sate all sorts of my curiosity with the delicious Ms. Beatrice Blackwell."

Stefan looked into his brother's cold blue eyes and the fire that he saw burning was nothing less than mad zealousness. He remembered a cold fact that left him feeling just a little helpless, everything that vampires felt were in extreme, everything was heightened. What Damon felt was longing, guilt, betrayal, possessiveness, affection and love for Elizabeth and now it was amplified by ten times because he was a vampire and the added century only fermented it. Fixation did not begin to describe what Damon had for Elizabeth's look alike Beatrice Blackwell then. Stefan was not exactly sure what to do about any of it. He just hoped that he could make sure that by the time Damon was done Beatrice Blackwell would come out of it all unscathed or at least as minimally scarred as possible, physically or mentally.