Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries and never will, but I do own Charlene Davis and Megan Swann and any other characters I come up with.

Author's Note: Hope you love the updated version! :D

Next episode! Yay! And now we're officially only four more episode away until Klaus, the real Klaus. actually makes an appearance and only seven episodes away from the S2 finale, so that's exciting! Anyway, that's all I have to say. Hope you enjoy the first part of the Dinner Party episode! :)

Stefan was avoiding her.

Megan couldn't blame him for that. She just hated he was so mad at her. She didn't know why she thought so, but she just figured Stefan would understand where she was coming from. However now she knew how stupid it was to think. Of course, he wouldn't want her to be involved in this, but she would have be involved in this either way even if she wasn't a witch. There still would have been chance she would be picked to be the sacrifice for the ritual as she was still a doppelganger.

Though she hated it, Megan allowed him the space and decided to just focus on reading the Johnathan Gilbert journals, which was what she was doing at the moment.

She was sitting on the couch in the room overlooking the lake with one of the journals opened in her lap. It usually took her a while to get into a book, but with this, she was immediately enamored in what she was reading...

"With the dying embers of Fells Church, the scourge of the vampires had passed. And though war raged all around us, our town was safe from the demons of the night…Or so we thought…"

Flashback, 1864...

Johnathon Gilbert was in his home in the dining room area, eating dinner and enjoying wine with Honoria and Thomas. It was pretty quiet in the house while they ate until they heard a sound coming from outside. All of them looked out the window.

A worried look crossed over Honoria's face. "Did you hear that?" she asked the men.

Thomas walked over to the window and peered out of it, but he couldn't see anyone out there. Just in case though, he picked up a sharp knife from the table.

"Stay here." Thomas warned.

"No, Thomas."

"It's alright, dear." He tried to reassure his wife. "The vampires are all dead."

Johnathon nodded in agreement with his friend. "Yes, Honoria…they burnt in the church. We're safe now."

Thomas walked out of the house with the knife in his hand, leaving the door open behind him. Both of their words didn't reassure her and didn't make the worried look leave Honoria's face.

She looked over at her husband's friend. "Please, Johnathon. I'm worried." She said.

"Very well. I shall go see too." Johnathon stood up from the table to go outside. Thomas was already out in the yard, glancing around the area, and he headed towards his friend. "I can prove there's no vampires." Thomas looked at him as Johnathon held up the Gilbert compass, spelled by Emily Bennett to know when there were vampires around. He held it out, but nothing happened. "See?"

For a moment, Thomas looked relieved, but then the sound of the arrow spinning filled the air. Johnathon immediately looked down at the compass and tried to follow the direction the arrow was pointing in. He couldn't figure it out as he turned back around, and Thomas was nowhere to be found.

"Thomas? Thomas?!" Johnathon walked down from the porch and looked around, his eyes wide with fear. Suddenly, behind him, Thomas' body fell from the sky and hit the ground with a loud sound.

He whirled around and his eyes went even wider if it was possible and looked down at the body in horror. Honoria Fell, who had heard the commotion from inside, ran out onto the porch, immediately seeing her husband's body on the ground.

"Thomas!" She cried out as she rushed towards Thomas' dead body.

"No, stay inside! Get back in the house!" Johnathon yelled.

She didn't listen, not that she had time to as the vampire came from out of nowhere, and grabbed onto her only to bite harshly into her throat. He quickly drained her body of her blood only to toss her dead form on the ground. Johnathon watched with unrepressed horror as the vampire slowly turned to look at him.

End Flashback, Present…

Megan read the next couple sentences quietly to herself, not knowing what to think of them. She did know what she felt though…shock and unable to believe it.

"I knew I was about to die. You can not run from a vampire. I saw the vampire who killed me. I recognized him. It was Stefan Salvatore."

Breaking away from the journal, Megan's gaze looked out the window, spotting Stefan standing out on the dock, skipping rocks.

She glanced back at the journal, wondering if what she read was true.

While he was outside, Stefan's phone rang, and he picked it up, knowing it was Damon without even looking at the caller ID. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Well, I showered, I shaved. Had breakfast, had a very enthusiastic night with Charlene, if you know what I mean." Stefan could already see his older brother wiggling his eyebrows suggestively on the other side of the phone and he made a face even though his brother couldn't see it. The last thing he needed to hear was about his brother's escapades with who he thought of as a sister. "Very relaxed."

"That makes one of us. I'm surprised you aren't mad at Charlene for keeping this whole thing from you."

"Oh I am, but I'm not going to turn down sex with my hot girlfriend because of it." Damon said with a smirk, shrugging, before he changed the subject. "I did hear one piece of good news though. Tyler Lockwood ran away from home last night."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I heard it from Sheriff Forbes, who heard it from a very distraught Carol Lockwood, thus ending our werewolf chapter, bringing us to…"

"Killing Elijah…" Stefan finished off.

"Exactly."

"Well, it's not going to be easy." Stefan pointed out. "He's very crafty."

"Well, I've got a crafty little dagger."

Stefan shook his head. "He's an Original. We don't know what all that encompasses."

"Oh trust me, Stefan. I'm gonna dot my all t's. I don't want any surprises, and I also have to make sure that Charlie doesn't find out about this because then I'm going to be murdered."

Stefan let out a small laugh. "Wow, Damon, tell me you're actually going to be careful for once?"

"Yes, Stefan, I've become you." His brother responded back sarcastically. "How tragic for both of us. Got to run. I've got a murder to plan. Busy day." He hung up the phone, and Stefan lowered his phone from his ear as he looked at Megan through the window. She was still reading the Gilbert journal, and he let out a sigh. He couldn't avoid her forever.

Letting out another sigh, Stefan headed back inside.

Megan already knew he was there before he even opened the door, so she didn't jump as she watched him enter the house while taking off his jacket. Stefan closed the door behind before turning around to face his girlfriend.

She closed the journal and leaned back against the couch. "Decided to stop avoiding me?" He said nothing to that, causing her to let out a sigh. "Let me guess your still mad at me?"

"Yeah, I'm still mad."

"I understand that, I do, but what we have here is just a difference of opinion. I mean, we can't agree on everything. That would be weird." Megan tried to joke at the end to get rid of the pitched look on Stefan.

It didn't work. "Megan, you're agreed to be the witch for a ritual that would sacrifice Elena and Charlene to Klaus. Your family." When he put it that way, it sounded awful and made Megan look down at her lap. "To say that we have a difference of opinion is the understatement of the century." She didn't say anything as he looked down at the journal in her lap. "What does Johnathon Gilbert have to say?"

"A lot to say the least. I honestly don't know what to think about it all." Megan answered, holding the journal out to Stefan. He took it from her and opened it up before flipping through the pages. "He did keep a lot from the founder's families. Most of it they didn't know. Stuff that you never told me about." She looked at him and he looked at her briefly before looking down at what she just read. She didn't the way his face darkened slightly but it went away just as soon as she saw it.

Stefan didn't say anything for a moment. "We were, uh…we were angry at the founding families for what they did to Demetria and Abigail." He said softly. "We wanted revenge. I didn't know about Johnathon Gilbert's ring yet. I didn't know that he would…" He sat down in the chair across from her. "…that he would survive."

"He described you as a monster." Megan told him softly.

"That's what I was." Stefan said seriously. "I want you to know the truth…but I want you to hear it from me." He tossed the journal on the couch next to Megan. "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."

"Wow." Megan slowly shook her head. "You're making it sound like you were…exactly like Damon." She couldn't even picture it. She knew what he was like on blood, but she had no idea what he could be like with his emotions off.

Stefan chuckled a little, but it wasn't a happy one. "I was worse."

Her eyebrows furrowed together. Worse…than Damon?

Charlene walked into the Grill, her bag over her shoulder. She was meeting Damon and Alaric for lunch, but she didn't expect Andie to be there. Charlene scowled to herself, jealousy hitting her all at once.

It was so irritating to see her especially sitting there next to her man.

Charlene forced a smile on her face as she made her way over to the booth. "Hey guys." She greeted them. "Andie." Surprisingly, she was able to keep the coldness out of her voice.

"Charlene." Andie nodded at her. Charlene stood there and waited for her to move. "Oh!" She said as if just realizing what the blonde was waiting for, making her roll her eyes internally. "Sorry." She got up from her spot next to Damon to sit next to Alaric.

"Thank you." Charlene said, sliding into Andie's previous seat. She pressed a kiss to Damon's cheek as he put his arm around her and brought her in close, causing to smile at the gesture. She opened up her menu before saying, "So, what are we talking about?"

"Talking about Alaric's interesting field trip with Elijah and Jenna." Damon said, surprising Charlene.

"What? Is Jenna okay?" Jenna might have been on the list of people to keep safe but still…

"She's fine." Alaric reassured her, and it made Charlene relax, knowing he wouldn't lie to her.

"Good…what were you doing with them anyway?" Charlene wondered out loud.

"He was gathering information." Damon was the one to answer her question. At the look on her face, he added, "Nothing to worry about Charlie."

Him saying that only made her more worried.

"So, other than your lecture on the history of Mystic Falls, did you get anything out of Elijah?"

"No, it was boring." Alaric sighed. "Of course, Jenna thinks he's charming."

"You sounded kind of jealous." Damon smirked. "Sound a bit jealous?" He asked Andie.

"Kinda do." She agreed.

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about this here." Alaric glanced over at Andie.

"Andie, she's been compelled not to divulge my secrets. Haven't you?"

The reporter nodded. "Uh-huh." Charlene didn't like the way she was looking at him and not even thinking about it, she kicked Andie's leg under the table.

"Ow!" Andie glared at her while Charlene looked at her innocently.

"Oops sorry, I suffer from leg spasms sometimes." She said, biting back a grin especially seeing the amused look on Damon's face.

Andie didn't comment only glared at her again. Charlene ignored it, and turned to look at Alaric.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Ric. Jenna loves you." The blonde told him with a soft smile.

Alaric returned it. "Thank you."

"So there's no reason for you to be jealous."

"Maybe you should try your own advice." Damon teased, whispering the words in Charlene's ear as he slid his hand into her lap.

"Well, maybe if little miss reporter would keep her eyes and hands to herself maybe I would." Charlene said, not even caring if Andie heard her as she removed Damon's hand from her lap only to curl her fingers through his and rest their connected hands on the table for Andie to see.

"Jealousy's a good look on you anyway." Damon smirked as he used his free hand to turn her head towards him so they could share a kiss. It made her forget her jealousy for a moment.

Charlene pulled back and smiled dopily at him, then she noticed their audience. "Sorry."

"I'm not." Damon said, smirking again.

The blonde shook her head at her boyfriend. Just then, Elijah and Jenna entered the Grill.

"Ah, there's Jenna with her new boyfriend." Damon joked, earning a nudge in the side from Charlene. He ignored it as he waved his hand in greeting. "Hi!"

Jenna headed over to their table with a smile on her face as Elijah followed right behind her. "Hey, guys."

"So I hear you two had quite the meeting of the historical minds today."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Jenna said, giving a kind smile to Elijah which he returned.

"Well, as much as I'd like to continue this, I've got papers to grade." Alaric placed money on the table, enough to pay for everyone, before he stood up to leave.

As soon as he was up on his feet, Andie said, "No, you know what? We should continue this. Let's have a dinner party."

"That's a great idea." Damon was quick to agree, a little too quickly if you asked Charlene. "I'll be happy to host. Say tonight. Maybe?" At this, Charlene's eyes narrowed at her boyfriend. He, of course, noticed but pretended not to. Something was up. It wasn't like Damon to be so hospitable.

"It's good for me." Andie said automatically. "Jenna?"

"I don't know if tonight works…" Alaric tried to argue.

"Yeah, I'm free." Jenna agreed quickly, effectively stopping Alaric from protesting any further.

"It'd be a pleasure. Would you mind if I bring along a plus one?" Elijah asked.

"Sure." Damon gave a fake a smile. "The more the merrier."

Charlene raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Whatever Damon had planned, she just knew she wasn't going to like it.

TBC...

In...

The Dinner Party, Part 2

Oooh, who could be Elijah's plus one? ;) ;) Any guesses?

See you next chapter!