Text from; Stefan Salvatore

Luka is dead. His father is coming for Elena.

Text to; Stefan Salvatore

We are on our way.

My arm is still throbbing. The fire hit my hand and the top of my arm, scorching off the baby hairs that were collecting there. The skin is red, like it is still on fire and it feels cool and hot at the same time. It doesn't hurt, I wouldn't describe it as hurting but I do feel it. It is there.

The air in this house has become dark and gloomy, like it tends to do when night falls. The lighting is almost orange, impersonating the day but not getting what that means. Katherine is on the couch, she still looks almost exactly like Elena and when she is just laying there, not moving or speaking, even I can trick my mind into thinking it's her. Then she sighs, and the spell is gone. Her hand is still on her stomach, where some magical ghost stabbed her earlier this day, and Damon has gone on the quest of finding Katherine some blood.

He is immediately suspicious when he comes into the room, way too enthusiastic, waving around the bag of blood like it's a white flag.

"Here you go!" when he hands her the bag he also drives a swift stake through her stomach.

"What the hell?!" His face hovers above hers, they could be kissing right now if it wasn't for the pure hatred they both feel for each other.

"That's for not telling me the dagger would kill me. Next time...It goes in your heart."

"Is that how you treat someone-" she pulls the stake out with a sickening plop sound and the purple of her shirt turns a disgusting red "-who's trying to help you?" his back is already turned to her and he's walking away when she's finishing her sentence.

He turns around, "You wanna help? Start talking."

"I'd love to, but you're not going to like it."

He challenges her with his eyes and I let myself sag deeper into this leather chair, still holding a piece of ice against my warm arm.

"Try me."

"Fine. John Gilbert and Isobel want you and Stefan out of Elena's life."

He scoffs, "that's old news."

"Not the part where he offered me a deal. He knew that killing Elijah would get me out of the tomb, so he gave me a choice. Either I stay and help with Klaus, or he kills Stefan."

Damon turns his head, "but he still tried to have me killed."

"Right. That was part of the deal. I could only save one of you."

"So you chose Stefan. Of course you did."

"You wanted the truth, Damon. Would you rather I lie." He walks away and in passing his eyes cross mine and everything he is feeling is so familiar to me. How he has always been a second choice, how he knows that when I kiss him, I would much rather have his brother. And it's not that I don't love him, it's that Stefan is the one I already loved. It's that Stefan is safety and loving and the American dream and Damon is danger and unpredictability. And for me and Katherine, who have been living that unpredictability for lifetimes, all we want is stability. Neither of us will find that in Damon. At least not how he is now.

And I know the answer to Katerina's question now.

Yes, he would rather you lie.

I put the camel coat I was wearing back on, it reaches to my knees and hugs my body just right. I am wearing jeans, black and high waisted, instead of my usual color coordinated pastel skirts.

"Where are you going?" I turn around, as does Damon who is walking beside me and we both face Katherine in the same way. Can we trust you, for once?

"Luka Martin's dead. His father's going after Elena."

Katherine nods and gets up from the couch, "I'm coming with you."

I let out a snort. "No, you're not." Katherine rushes to right in front of Damon.

"Wait." His hand is already on the large door and he is ready to go.

"I don't need your help. I don't want it."

"I know what we can do Damon. You have to let me do it."

The Gilbert kitchen is a place where people gather. I used to have one of those too, a kitchen where there wasn't much cooking, just a lot of people constantly talking.

Bonnie hovering over the counters, she looks distressed. Her eyes big and wide, finicking with the buttons on her sleeves.

"Luka... I can't believe he's dead. After what we did to him." Jeremy lays a still timid hand on hers. That dynamic seems to have changes into something more intimate.

"No, after what he did to you. Look, I'm sorry, I know you feel bad about all of this but I don't."

I want to talk too, give her some love and tell her that it isn't her fault. But I didn't have my tea with Bonnie's herbs this morning, I couldn't find the time. And now, with this burn wound on my arm and my body's attention focusing on it, my mind is a haze.

"I couldn't do anything to help. I was useless. I hated it." The door opens way too loudly when Stefan and Elena walk in. Well, almost Elena.

"Thank god." Bonnie sighs at the sight of her two friends who are very much not dead like expected.

"It's not over yet."

"What's going on?"

'Elena' is already on her way upstairs when she speaks again, "He'll explain."

The sound of her feet on the steps echoes through the silent house.

"When did you guys get home?" his act comes through to Bonnie and Jeremy, now al we have left to hope is that Lukas will fall for it too.

"I'm gonna check on Elena okay?" Stefan nods at me with his serious face on. All wrinkled forehead and piercing eyes and the face of someone who is scared.

I practically speed walk up the stairs, taking two steps at once, mostly focusing on not tripping and busting open my head, ignoring the dull aching in my knees.

"Elena." She is in the bathroom, that purple sweatshirt that she has been wearing since this morning is still on here, when you look closely you can see the hole where Damon staked just a few hours ago.

She lets me hug her, her arms seem to extend away from her body to surround me so fully. We have never hugged before, not in this lifetime, not me as Lola Arends and her as Katherine pierce. Two fierce women just trying to live, and it connects us above all other things.

Then it starts, two hands grab my head and make it hurt like nothing has before. Katherine pops her fangs out of her mouth and throws him away from me. I can hear the sickening crunch of sharp teeth biting into tendons, muscle, bone. She tears into it like butter, sucks every single drop of blood from the body of an already old man. Made powerful by the pain of losing his son.

When Stefan and Bonnie arrive Katherine has already shoved the man to the floor and is licking the blood from his lips. I notice how quickly her demeanor changes when Stefan enters the room, how badly she wants to show that she is remorseless and without feeling.

How she held my hand before, that reminds me of who she truly is. Just a scared little girl, endlessly running from men who try to kill her.

"You're welcome." She chirps. And when I look down at the ground, at this man's still open eyes, at all this death without grace I bend down. I lay my fingers over his eye lids gently.

Before I can close his eyes he gets up and grabs my face. The bathroom we are all in disappears in front of my eyes and all I see is what he shows me. All I see is endless seas of flames, swallowing us whole.