At the lake house, Elena was reading Jonathan Gilbert's journal as Stefan entered the room. "Are you still mad?"
"Yeah, I'm still mad."
"We had a difference of opinion, Stefan, we're not always gonna agree on everything." Elena told him.
"Elena, you've agreed to sacrifice yourself to Klaus. To say that we have a difference of opinion is the understatement of the century." Stefan told her.
"You would know." Elena said.
"What does Jonathan Gilbert have to say?" Stefan asked.
"A lot. It's insane the things he wrote in his journal that he kept from the founding families. Stuff that nobody knows. Stuff that... You never told me." Elena said.
"We were angry at the founding families for what they did to Katherine. We wanted revenge. I didn't know about Jonathan Gilbert's ring yet. I didn't know that he would... that he would survive." Stefan told her.
"He describes you as a monster."
"That's what I was. I want you to know the truth... But I want you to hear it from me." Stefan told her. "In the weeks after I became a vampire, I relished in it. I took it to the darkest place I could. I wasn't myself then. I was full of guilt. What I did to my father, to my brother. I had to turn it off. It was the only way I could survive."
"It sounds like you were Damon." Elena said, surprised by the fact.
"I was worse." Stefan said.
"That would be an understatement." They both turned around and saw that Lexi had materialized while they were talking.
"How did you know where we were?" Elena asked.
"Sometimes we can sense where are friends are, especially when we have a bond with someone." Lexi explained.
At the Grill, the others were talking about Elijah. "Other than the lecture on the history of Mystic Falls, did you get anything out of Elijah?" Damon asked.
"No, it was boring. Of course, Jenna thinks he's charming." Alaric said. Anna appeared next to him.
"You sounded jealous. Sound a bit jealous?"
"Kinda do." Andie agreed.
"Ugh. Can we please not talk about you're love lives?" Anna asked. Damon looked at her. Alaric looked next to him, but saw nothing.
"Ah, there's Jenna with her new boyfriend. Hi." Damon said. Sure enough, Jenna and Elijah showed up right then.
"Hey, guys." Jenna said.
"So I hear you two had quite a meeting of historical minds today." Damon said.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
"Well, as much as I'd love to continue this, I've got papers to grade." Alaric said, getting up.
"No, you know what? We should continue this. Let's have a dinner party." Andie suggested.
"Ooh, my girl. Full of good ideas. I'll be happy to host. Say tonight. Maybe?"
"It's good for me. Jenna?" Andie asked.
"I don't know if tonight works..." Alaric said.
"I'm free"
"It'd be a pleasure."
"Great."
"So this is you're plan?" Anna asked. "Invite him over so you can kill him with the dagger that John Gilbert gave you?" Damon looked in her direction and nodded.
"This is too weird. I'm not letting you out of my sight." Anna said, following him out of the Grill.
"Are you insane?" She asked when she met him in the woods. "Why in the world did you tell Katherine you're plan? She'll find a way to twist things, you know."
"Well, if all goes well, hopefully we won't hear from Katherine again." Damon told her.
"I still think it was stupid of you to tell her."
"Are you going to back me up on this plan or not?"
Back at the lake house, Stefan was talking with Elena. "For weeks I kept spiraling. I was completely driven by the desire for blood. Hunt, prey, kill. That was all I knew." Stefan told her.
"How come no one caught on to what you were doing?" Elena asked.
"There was a war going on. The thing about wartime. Endless, anonymous blood supply."
"Yeah, like you knew what you were really doing." Lexi said.
"Why are you still here?" Elena asked her. "Not to be rude, but…"
"Because I'm part of this story, too." Lexi explained. "This guy tried to hunt me down when I first got to Mystic Falls, but I was too strong for him."
"Wait, that's how you two met?" They both nodded. "What were you doing in Mystic Falls, anyway? After they rounded up the vampires?"
"I didn't know about it then." Lexi said.
"She needed a place to stay, so I brought her home with me." Stefan explained.
"When I saw what he was doing, I just knew I had to help him." Lexi said. "I ran into others like him before, but I knew this one would be more challenging." She bumped Stefan with her elbow.
"I can almost see why you two are best friends." Elena said.
At the Boarding House, everyone had shown up. Damon glanced around the room, but he didn't see Anna anywhere. She had promised to be there. "I hate to break it to you, Damon, but according to Elijah, your family is so not a founder of this town." Jenna said, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Hmm, do tell."
"Well, as I mentioned to Jenna earlier, a faction of settlers migrated from Salem after the witch trials in the 1690s." Elijah explained. "Over the next hundred years they developed this community where they could feel safe from persecution."
"Because they were witches." Jenna said skeptically.
"Yeah, but there's no tangible proof there were witches in Salem." Andie pointed out.
"Andie's a journalist. Big on facts."
"Well, the lore says that there was this wave of anti-witch hysteria. It broke out in the neighboring settlement, so these witches were rounded up." Elijah continued."They were tied to stakes in a field together and, uh, burned. Some say you could hear the screams from miles around us. They were consumed by the fire."
"I wouldn't repeat this to the Historical Society." Jenna said.
"It's starting to sound a little like a ghost story to me." John said. For some reason, he'd decided to show up uninvited.
"Funny you should say that." Damon said, he glanced around again, but still no sign of Anna. "So why do you want to know the location of these alleged massacres?"
"You know... a healthy historian's curiosity, of course."
"Of course." He went into the hallway.
"I don't trust that Original creep." He turned in surprise.
"What are you doing out here?" Damon asked.
"John Gilbert's a mediator like Jeremy, he can see me." Anna explained. "So I decided to listen in from the hallway."
"We're going to take care of this."
"To be fair, I don't trust either of them." Anna said. "I'll meet you in the study. Something feels off about all of this."
A few minutes later, the guys headed into the study. "So, let me guess. In addition to the moonstone, the doppelganger, the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, you need to find this witch burial ground." Damon said.
"Because I feel as though we've grown so close, Damon, I'll tell you yes. Do you know where it is?" Elijah asked.
"Maybe. Tell me why it's so important."
"We're not that close." Elijah pointed out. Anna was watching silently from the couch.
"It's quite a collection you have here. It's a funny thing about books. Before they existed, people actually had memories."
"Yeah, well I've always been into reading." Anna said. Damon glanced at her. "Oops." Damon took the dagger out, but Alaric entered the room.
"Gentlemen, we forgot about dessert."
"What was all that about?" Anna asked. She saw the note Damon was holding. "Oh, that John Gilbert's such a jerk!"
"Relax, I can't use it, but a human can." Damon said.
"Just be careful." Anna told him. "We still need you around."
At the lake house, Elena was outside. Stefan was inside. "Just talk to her, Stefan." Lexi told him.
"She won't listen, no matter what."
"That's not true, and you know it." Lexi said. "We've got to convince her to keep fighting and I'll be with you." They headed outside.
"Elena, we need to talk about this." Stefan told her.
"What good is talking if you and Damon are just gonna lie to me? If you don't like my decisions, that's fine. There's nothing I can do about that but if you ever go behind my back again, I'll..." Elena began.
"You're gonna what? What are you gonna do, Elena?" Stefan asked.
"Okay, enough." Lexi said. "For the record, I didn't know about it either, but I agree with their plan, but not at the cost of another vampire."
"Look, guys, It's my life." Elena pointed out.
"Yeah, exactly. It's your life and I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that you live it." Stefan said.
"Then what? This... this... this trip through the past. You being honest. Was there any truth to that or were you just distracting me?" Elena asked him.
"I was telling you about a time when I thought everything was lost. When I had given up because that's exactly what you're doing right now." Stefan answered.
"That is not what..." Elena began.
"Yes, it is! Even if you don't want to admit it. You are giving up... and Lexi? she wouldn't let me give up. I'm not gonna let you." Stefan said.
"Neither am I." Lexi said. "You are risking you're life to save you're friends and family, but you need to think of how that's going to effect them. What would happen if you went missing to them?"
"Look, I just don't see a way out of this." Elena told them.
"Lexi showed me that there was another way. And from that day forward, I started fighting for it. For my own survival. That's all I want you to do. I just want you to fight for it." Suddenly, Lexi disappeared. They both looked in her direction.
"What's going on?"
"She must be communicating with others like her." Stefan said. "Sometimes it disrupts the connection to this side."
Then Lexi showed up. "Guys, I just got a message from Anna. She was watching Elijah in the basement. He's on his way here now." The group looked at each other.
"Then we need a plan." Elena said.
A few minutes later, they heard a sound hitting the door of the lake house. "Yeah, that must be him." Lexi said.
"You have to go. I need to talk to him alone." Elena said.
"Elena..." Stefan said.
"Stefan, I'm ok. He can't come in the house." Elena pointed out.
"Trust her, you know the plan." Lexi pointed out. "I'll watch over her." She headed outside with Elena.
"They shouldn't have done what they did." Elena said.
"The deal is off." Elijah stated.
"I'm renegotiating."
"You have nothing left to negotiate with."
"I'd like to see you lure Klaus into Mystic Falls after the doppelganger bleeds to death." Lexi looked at Elena in shock, then remembered part of her plan.
"Stefan won't let you die." Elijah pointed out.
"No, he won't. He'll feed me his blood to heal me, and then I'll kill myself and become a vampire, just like Katherine did. So unless you want that to happen again, promise me the same as before... promise me... You won't harm anyone that I love. Even if they've harmed you."
"I'm sorry, Elena. I'm going to have to call your bluff." Elena stabbed herself then. Lexi rushed over to Stefan.
"Get ready, she's about to go down." Lexi told him. They headed into the hallway as she fell to the ground. Stefan rushed over to her and gave her his blood to heal her.
"Well, looks like the plan worked." Anna said, appearing by them.
"Little tip. Don't pull the dagger out." They turned around and saw Damon in the doorway.
The group met in the basement of the Boarding House. Damon found the moonstone. "I'll hold on to this."
"So, that's it. I mean, as long as we keep the dagger in there, then he stays dead." Elena said.
"Pretty much."
"Then we better not wake him up." Anna said.
"Okay, then... Good night." They started to head upstairs. "You know, you guys want me to fight, fine, I'll fight. But if we're gonna do this, you can't keep anything from me anymore. From this moment on, we're doing it my way." Elena told them.
"That seems fair."
"Okay."
"I can respect that." Lexi said.
"So can I." Anna said.
"Okay." Elena left the room.
"Seems like she's had a change of attitude. How did you get through to her?" Damon asked.
"He had a little help from me." Lexi said.
"We told her about how Lexi helped me when I first turned." Stefan said.
"Really, you had a hard time with the transition?" Anna asked.
"Did you not see the near-disaster at the Founder's Court?" Damon asked her.
"Actually, I had no idea." Anna said. "I was with Jeremy the whole time."
"You like her brother, don't you?" Lexi asked.
"Let's not get into this now." Stefan said.