Hey, everyone! New story time! Please keep in mind that summer vacation starts in like 3/4 weeks, so I'm going to be able to update a lot. Free days, free nights...what's a girl to do? So that's why there are all these new stories popping up. Don't worry, I planned this out well :) I can't promise that they'll all be kept, but I can promise that it won't be because I have trouble updating. That's almost never the reason why stories get cut when they do.

Anyway, so this is a story taking place from 1x09 and forward. More will be explained into the characters and such...obviously, there'll be flashbacks sometime soon. As you can see from the summary, Claire and Damon's relationship will be completely dysfunctional, like you'll realize in this chapter. But there can only be improvement...well, I'm lying to you.

Enjoy! Review at the end if you can, please.

Disclaimer: Only saying this once. I do not own TVD or any of it's characters/dialogue/episode plot lines. However, I do own my OC character, Clarissa (Claire) King, and any other characters I decide to include. I also own the writing and my original ideas.

History Repeating

Clarissa King walked the brightly lit streets of her modernized, yet still quaint hometown, Mystic Falls, desperately eyeing her phone for a call or a text of any kind from Lexi Branson. She wondered if there was something wrong with the connection regarding her phone's service, but the device told her she was in a range of full bars. So why the hell isn't she returning my calls? The thought boggled Claire, but along with meeting Lexi, she had one more thing on her mind.

It had been since she was turned into a vampire that she'd been back to this godforsaken town, and she knew she was a damn good friend to be coming back. Sure, it was a day late, but coming back at all had to have given her points of some kind. Besides, it wasn't her fault that she'd been detained back in Rio—the entire airport shut down due to the weather. It was just a little…tropical storm.

With a sigh, Claire brought the phone to her ear and waited as the dial rang—once…twice…three times…a fourth time—before it finally cut to voicemail.

"You've reached Lexi! Leave a message!"

Hearing the beep, Claire sighed again. "Lexi, I've been calling you ever since I was able to get a flight here. Where the hell are you? Call me!" With that said, she angrily ended the fifth or so phone call that she'd made to Lexi, never minding the fifteen text messages.

Where was it again? Clarissa thought to herself, pulling her body to a stop as she looked around the town square, finding herself completely unfamiliar with the territory. After all, she hadn't been back since the Civil War era, where the girls wore hoop skirts and big hair and the men wore trousers and riding boots. Now, girls in skimpy little dresses paraded around to school and guys wore jeans that pooled around their ankles.

God save humanity, she thought bitterly, brushing off the thought with a frustrated sigh. She'd already missed her best friend's actual birthday—she wasn't about to miss the day after, either.

"Excuse me," Claire stopped someone in the town square—a young woman, most likely in her twenties, with blondish-brown hair and kind eyes. "Can you tell me where to find Stefan Salvatore?"

"Rise and shine!"

Stefan Salvatore shot up from his bed to face his brother, who was practically looming over him in his sleep.

"You'll be late for school," finished Damon with a scolding tone.

"What are you—what are you doing?" Stefan demanded, quite displeased with his brother. After all, Damon had managed to kill his best friend and piss him off even more—which, until last night, Stefan had thought was impossible.

Damon held out a mug of coffee with a trying smile. "Peace offering."

Stefan nearly rolled his eyes at the lame attempt at Damon getting himself back in Stefan's good graces, and he just shuffled out of bed—without a shirt on. Damon stopped him at the threshold of the bathroom Stefan was about to walk into. "Come on," Damon persisted, practically shoving the mug in his face. "You need it for blood circulation. Does dead flesh good."

Stefan just stared blankly at Damon, refusing to give into him. But could anyone blame him? Damon drove a wooden stake through Lexi's heart without blinking. Damon knew this, of course, and that's why he was trying to apologize for it. "All right, I'm sorry."

"Step aside, please," Stefan said briskly. Just because he couldn't kill Damon didn't mean he had to be nice to him.

"I got the town off our back," Damon complained. "It was for the greater good, but I'm sorry. And to prove it, I'm not going to feed on a human!" he shouted so Stefan could hear from in the bathroom. In a lower voice, he added, "For at least a…week. I'll adopt the Stefan diet, only nothing with…feathers."

"Because I realize that killing your closest and oldest friend is beyond evil…at yet, somehow, it's worthy of humor," Stefan mocked as he walked out of the bathroom with a shirt over his shoulder so he could change.

Damon seemed to catch on. "Are you mimicking me?"

"Yes, Stefan," Stefan mocked again, sliding his shirt onto his body. "Now that the secret society of vampire haters is off our back, I can go back to my return of how can I destroy Stefan's life this week."

Damon, clearly enjoying the amusement, hesitated once before playing along, as his brother. "And I can go back to sulking and Elena-longing and forehead brooding." With a smile, he glanced up at Stefan. "This is fun. I like this," he said, amused.

"And I," began Stefan, never breaking character, "will finally reveal my motive behind my evil and diabolical return to Mystic Falls."

As result of Stefan's testing of the waters, Damon quickly dropped his amused tone. "Yeah. I'm done." He turned to leave the room, but spun around to face Stefan and, in a mimicking tone, spoke, "This is just like you, Damon. Always have to have the last word."

With this, Damon left his brother alone to change so he could probably go out and meet with Elena, the love of his pathetic, eternal life. Truth be told, Damon could understand where Stefan was coming from with this girl—she was just like Katherine, just better. Looked like Katherine but had qualities that even Katherine couldn't harbor. But when he had Katherine back, Damon couldn't give a rat's ass about whether or not Stefan and Elena lived a long, happy life together. Without Katherine, though…without Katherine would be a different story.

The second Damon's foot landed on the ground at the end of the stairs, the front door chimed, letting both brothers know that there was someone for them. With a sip of his coffee, Damon walked towards the front door, placed his hand on the knob, and opened it.

"Happy—" The pale-haired vampire gave a disappointed frown seeing Damon's smug smile as he realized who it was. "You're not Stefan," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"It's wonderful to see you, too, Clarissa," Damon chimed, giving her a reserved look. "But, no. I'm not my brother. Thank God." He scoffed at the mere thought.

"Damon—" Stefan began as he descended the stairs to see who was at the door, but stopped frozen in his tracks seeing the twenty-one year old vampire at the doorstep, right beyond his brother's shoulder. "No," Stefan breathed out, incredulous—but in a good way. He rushed up to the door with a smile on his face, astounded at the sight before him. "Clarissa!"

He pulled her into a hug, to which she returned with a tighter squeeze. "It's Claire now," she said to him when they pulled away to look at each other.

"Claire," Stefan corrected. "I like it. It's more modern. What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked, but then a dark feeling settled over him. Lexi, he thought to himself, soon realizing before she even said the words.

"Lexi and I were going to come see you for your birthday," Claire told him, sighing. "But…I was in Rio and they had a tiny little weather problem so the airports shut down."

Stefan raised an eyebrow. "How tiny is 'tiny'?"

"…like, a tropical cyclone." Claire shrugged. "Still. They were all being a bunch of babies about it. Anyways, I couldn't get a flight anywhere to come for the actual day, but the airports opened up this morning and I took the first flight out." She gave him a smile, but then soon asked the dreaded question. "Where's Lexi?"

Before Stefan had the chance to respond, Damon did it for him. "She left," Damon said simply, sipping his coffee without a care. Stefan wanted to correct him—to tell Claire what really happened—but he automatically saw where his brother was coming from.

The three of them had been friends since childbirth, really—Damon was the first one born, Clarissa three years later, and Stefan four years after her. During the time that Stefan wasn't around or was too young to understand what a friend meant, Damon and Clarissa were the two toddlers that everyone was sure would end up with each other. The problem was, after an incident of complete misunderstanding, Damon and Clarissa grew to hate each other with each passing year. Clarissa became closer to Stefan as a friend and Damon spent his time with his other friends—his older friends. Stefan had always been the "mediator", if you will, in their relationship, and whenever he left them alone, he would come back to a house completely destroyed by their wrath.

Finding out that Damon killed Lexi—that anyone killed Lexi, really—would drive Clarissa to do things that no one wanted to see. Since their childhood, she was never the one to show mercy. If she learned that Lexi was gone, she would stop at nothing to find out who it was that killed her—and if she realized it was Damon, her nemesis? That wouldn't end well.

As a result, Stefan played along and said nothing to deny his brother's statement.

Claire frowned. "Well, did she say where she was going? She hasn't been answering her phone calls."

"Nope. Promised to send a post card, though," Damon quipped, smirking against his mug. Claire rolled her eyes and turned back to Stefan, trying not to let Damon get underneath her skin.

"Please enlighten me on your decision to let a pest into your home."

"A pest is better than a whore." Clarissa rolled her eyes at Damon's petty attempt to make her angry, which only made him smile.

Stefan sighed. "Knock it off, you two," he warned, looking between the two of them. Damon shrugged and leaned against the door while Clarissa crossed her arms over her chest. He turned to Claire. "Come on, let me take you upstairs. Damon-free zone," he promised.

Claire's eyes widened with joy. "My life's dream," she sung and walked into the Salvatore house, brushing past Damon who just gave her a smoldering gaze as she moved past him and followed Stefan up the stairs to his bedroom. "Okay, I have one question and one question only," she began as she entered the bedroom and turned around as Stefan shut the door. "Why the hell are you back here?"

Stefan sighed. "You might want to sit down for this one."

After Stefan had finished telling Claire about Elena Gilbert, Katherine's look-alike, she stared at him, astounded. "You've got to be kidding me," Claire said, her jaw practically on the floor. Stefan was lying on his bed, his arm draped across his forehead. "When will you learn, Stefan?"

She got up from her position at the foot of the bed and walked over to his desk, where she shuffled through the papers as Stefan spoke. "It's different, Claire. I promise, she's not Katherine."

"Doesn't matter if she's Katherine or not." Claire shrugged and grabbed the picture on Stefan's desk that laid out for anyone to see. She held it up so that his eyes looked over it. "Are you sure you know what you're doing? If this Elena girl finds out that your ex-girlfriend looked like her…"

Stefan sighed and pulled himself off the bed, walking over to the desk to grab the picture out of Claire's hand softly. "She won't," he promised again. "Even if she does, I think we can move past it. She's so…understanding of it all."

Claire scoffed. "Yeah, you don't find that often nowadays. I have to compel all my boyfriends to not be afraid," she pouted, hanging her head and trailing off sadly. "They're all so…touchy."

Stefan laughed, and a brief moment passed before he spoke again. "So, how long are you planning to stay?" he asked, hopeful that she wouldn't leave. He hadn't seen her since the seventies, and even then, it definitely wasn't back in Mystic Falls.

Claire shot him a smile. "As long as you want, Stef," she piped up, walking around the desk to bump his shoulder. "I've been everywhere you could possibly imagine. Bora Bora, Spain, Rome, Athens…Rio, obviously," she chuckled. "I've done it all. Now I've got some time on my hands."

Stefan smiled, but it was almost glum. She recognized this as soon as she sat down on the bed, crossing her legs underneath of her after she kicked her shoes off. "What's wrong?" she asked, straightening.

Stefan hung his head and sighed again. "I…was actually thinking about leaving," he admitted, looking up to meet her confused gaze. "All I've done since I came back is put Elena in harm's way. After I make sure things are safe for her here, I should probably leave."

Claire frowned. "Yeah, like that's going to happen. Once Mystic Falls has you, you never get out," she whispered mockingly, earning a small smile from Stefan. Quickly, she jumped up from the bed and walked over to him, leaning against the desk that he was propped against. Again, she bumped his shoulder. "Look, if you really want to leave, we'll leave. We need to do some catching up, anyway. London's nice this time of year," she suggested lightly, letting Stefan see her bright smile. In response to her gesture, he grinned as well, until he had to leave to go talk to this infamous Elena.

Claire whistled as she bounced down the stairs in the approaching evening, ready to grab a quick drink before she went back upstairs and waited for Stefan to come back so they could catch up on more things. They had just finished talking about what each of them had been up to at the end of the 1980's when Elena had called him, desperate for his help with something urgent. Honestly, Claire thought it was sweet—Stefan being the knight and shining armor for his girl. Though, he was intent on leaving, which was probably the end of that love story.

Truth be told, she might've attempted at convincing Stefan to stay if it were under different circumstances—or, perhaps, better circumstances. First of all, they were in Mystic Falls, the town from hell, itself. Secondly, this Elena girl looked just like Katherine Pierce, the bitch from hell. Katherine, like Clarissa, Damon, and Stefan, was once a resident of Mystic Falls, herself, but she had brought so much death to the town that it was mind-blowing. The reason Claire hated Katherine more than anything was because Katherine had killed her.

Katherine had turned her into a vampire—forcibly. If not for the vampire bitch, she wouldn't be eternal.

What had happened was that Katherine felt threatened by Claire's presence in Mystic Falls. And what's a girl to do when presented with a threat? Get rid of it, of course. But, no, killing her would just not suffice—for some odd reason, Katherine found her more useful as a vampire. So, the beautiful demon turned her, forced her to feed, and a week later, Damon and Stefan were vampires as well. Unlike her, though, they hadn't been forced into completing their transition.

Good thing that bitch is dead, Claire thought as she poured herself a glass of bourbon. Otherwise I would have some serious questions for this Elena girl.

Just as Claire topped the bourbon container and pulled the glass up to her lips to drink, she heard a voice.

"That's my bourbon."

She didn't need to turn around to know who it was. "Funny," Clarissa said, smiling to herself as she turned around to face Damon, who leaned against the threshold between the foyer and the parlor. "I don't see your name on it."

Damon snickered to himself and straightened so that he could walk into the room. "There are certain things in this household that don't need my name on it, sugar." He walked forward and simply watched as she drank from the bourbon without hesitation. "For example…my bourbon."

Claire nodded. "Is that all?" she asked, her grey eyes impaling his with a teasing glance.

"Human blood stash," Damon sighed, his eyes giving her a once-over. "That's mine, too."

"I'll make sure to raid that next, then."

Damon scoffed. "Cute." He let out a breath as he watched her sip from the bourbon glass again without even attempting to acknowledge his earlier warning. "So how long has it been? Six months?"

"Seven," she corrected after swallowing down the strong alcohol, setting the empty glass on the alcohol table behind her.

"Have you been counting?" Damon accused in a light tone.

Claire smiled. "You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" Damon hummed in agreement. "When we both know that you've been waiting for me to show up one of these days. That's why you were so happy when I showed up on your doorstep this morning," she accused right back, resting the urge to give him a wider, knowing smile.

Damon's eyes drifted up to meet hers, and they stayed that way for a long time before she was thrown, her back hitting the hard surface of a wall, earning a grunt from her mouth in the searing pain that faded almost as quickly as it had came. Damon's arms kept her trapped within his reach and his body kept her pinned to the wall. "And we both know why you even came back in the first place. Just couldn't get enough of me."

Claire scoffed. "Please. I could've gone years without you." She used her own vampire strength to move them, now throwing Damon onto the couch in the middle of the parlor. He watched as she spread her knees and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. He placed his hands on her waist and kept her situated. "But, I mean…now that we're here…"

She hovered for a split moment, and with understanding between the both of them, Damon leaned forward and began to kiss her soft, sweet skin, ever so often brushing his teeth against her neck. This is what they'd been doing behind Stefan's back for years on end—ever since the late twenties, actually. Stefan thought that his brother and his best friend were sworn enemies…and, they were. Really, they hated each other to no end. But there was a time when that hatred turned into something much more—passion. That passion drove them to one night, and then another night, and soon, it became routine. But their hatred still stood strong, and whenever in front of their mutual party, they would act like they always did. But behind closed doors, it wasn't hate they were expressing.

It was never continuous or exclusive. It was one of those things when, if they crossed paths and Stefan happened to not be around them, they wouldn't spend so much time talking about their hatred but rather not talking at all. There was always an attraction there, from the moment that they'd first really noticed each other. But after they had their falling out, things had never been the same.

But their time in the late twenties wasn't the first time truly showing how intimate they could be. Though it was their first actual time sleeping together back in the twenties, even back in eighteen sixty-four, they'd kissed once or twice by no fault of their own. They were merely "swept up in the moment", as Damon had said once to her.

His lips kissed her skin in broken parts, but nevertheless made desire ripple down to her lower half. "I'll be honest, I missed this, Clarissa."

"It's Claire now," she said, closing her eyes, focusing in on the way Damon's lips felt against her. "Just Claire."

"Claire," he corrected, and the way he said it sounded so...different. They hated each other, they verbally abused each other, and yet this was how they reacted. It seemed quite ridiculous, but it had always been inevitable. The one thing they could control was their feelings for each other. Though their sexual encounters had changed the way they looked at each other, it did nothing to change how they felt. They did not kiss; they decided this a long time ago. Kissing would just ruin it all. Just because their attraction had beaten the best out of them, it was no reason to go changing everything.

"How long will Stefan be gone?" Damon murmured against her, which caused an electric hum to be sent down her spine. She shivered as a result against him, and an involuntary groan escaped her mouth as she responded.

"I have no clue," Claire answered, rolling her hips unconsciously, desperate for any source of friction she could possibly hope for. Her hands ran down his chest, feeling the skin underneath his shirt. The action coaxed a moan out of Damon's mouth against her shoulder, and his teeth skimmed the pale feature. "But I suggest we make this fast."

Damon pulled away from her shoulder and looked up at her. For a second, Claire thought that he would kiss her, but he didn't. A smirk appeared on his lips, and she gave him one in return. He gripped her hips tightly before pushing and pulling her so that she was lying on the couch, and he fit his body between her legs. Damon's hand skimmed the side of the thigh that was slightly pushed over the couch's edge, and he pulled it so that it coiled around his waist. It wouldn't be long until the satisfaction consumed them both, but that was what this was all about.

Satisfaction.

Claire had fixed her hair, a glass of bourbon whiskey, and her shirt before Stefan arrived home. He had walked through the door shortly after Damon had left to go to this "Mystic Grill", a town bar/restaurant that he assured her would be worth her while. But that invitation was meant to be on her own time—though they were sometimes intimately involved, that didn't require much talking on their part. Whenever they started talking, they would start arguing…that was just the way it was. Clarissa was relieved to find that Stefan didn't suspect a single thing when he walked through the threshold.

"How was your meeting with your girl?" she asked, returning to the foyer instead of going upstairs like she'd planned.

Stefan sighed. "Not good," he admitted. Claire raised an eyebrow in prompt, and Stefan inhaled to begin. "Damon threatened Bonnie—a friend of Elena's. Bonnie happens to be a witch. A Bennett witch."

Claire took a moment, but eventually, she opened her mouth, "Wasn't 'Bennett' the last name of that witch Katherine had under her sleeve—"

"Emily," Stefan answered for her with a nod. "Yeah. Emily Bennett. Bonnie's a descendant of hers. Damon threatened her over this…crystal. Katherine's crystal."

Claire crossed her arms, confounded at his statement. "Katherine's crystal? What would Damon want with Katherine's crystal?"

"I have no clue."

The blonde vampire sighed. "You know, is it just me or is history starting to repeat itself? A strange Katherine look-alike...a Bennett witch...two Salvatore brothers...me..."

"History will not repeat itself," Stefan said firmly, pointing at her. "Elena won't get hurt by all of this. Remember, we're leaving after I know she's safe. And I won't know that until I figure out what Damon wants with this crystal." Clarissa held up her hands in surrender before bringing her glass of alcohol to her lips. "Speaking of, where is Damon?"

Claire finished taking a sip of her alcohol before responding. "Oh, he went out a few minutes ago. Said something about a drink at 'The Grill'." She smiled vindictively. "Probably going to hit on some old grandmas. They're the only ones who would date him." She couldn't help but laugh at her own joke, and she found comfort when Stefan laughed, too. "That was a good one, wasn't it?"

"It was," Stefan admitted, but then pursed his lips.

Claire groaned. "Oh, what is it, Stefan? You have your thinking face on." She waited for him to answer her by taking a large gulp of her alcohol, feeling the sting that came afterwards.

"Do you think you can play nice tonight?" Stefan asked. Claire raised an eyebrow. "With Damon, I mean?"

She kept her eyebrow raised. "…Why?"

According to Stefan, Claire didn't need to change to go out to this restaurant, so she just slipped on a blazer and went with Stefan to this hang out place. It was in the town square, surrounded by nice little shops and the courthouse that was just around the corner. She remembered when the town square was filled with archaic apothecaries and recreational activities. Now, it was full of people and buildings.

To be honest, she liked it better this way. The era she'd been born in was a little rocky, to say the least.

"Bourbon, please," Claire ordered as soon as she came up to the bar, sitting right next to Damon. Damon turned his head towards her in surprise, but another voice caught his attention.

"So, Stefan…" Damon turned his head again to see his brother walking towards him, doing that same childish mockery he had been doing from earlier in the morning. "You know, I've been thinking…I think we should…start over. Give this brother thing another chance. We used to do it oh, so well once upon a time." Stefan gave a smoldering look that was supposed to copy Damon's.

Claire knotted her eyebrows at them curiously and merely watched as Damon responded in a lower, brooding tone. "I don't…Damon. I can't trust you to be a nice guy. You—you kill everybody, and you're so mean. You're so mean, and…"

"I'm sorry," Claire cut in, earning the brothers' attention. "Are you two…seriously mocking each other?" She looked at Damon. "Because if you're mocking Stefan, you're doing a terrible job."

Damon shrugged. "What can I say? My brother's really hard to imitate. And then I have to go to that lesser place…" Claire rolled her eyes as Stefan ordered a coffee from the bartender, who had just put down her drink in front of her.

"So what's with the bottle?" Stefan asked, looming over his brother's shoulder.

Damon let out a sigh. "I'm on edge. Crash diet, and I'm trying to keep a low profile."

"Ha," Claire laughed, nearly spitting out her drink. Damon gave her a sour smile as he watched when she recovered from her near spill. "Damon Salvatore keeping a low profile? I'm sorry, has hell frozen over?"

Damon chuckled. "Well, you should know. I hear you visit on the weekends."

"You know," Stefan intervened, pulling his brother's attention back. "You could always just leave. Find a new town to turn into your own personal 'Gas N' Sip'," he suggested.

Damon shrugged. "I'll manage." The bartender brought Stefan's coffee to him, and the younger Salvatore thanked him for the beverage. Damon eyed his brother carefully, decoding his intentions. "You know, you don't have to keep any eye on me. Especially not with her help." He pointedly turned to Claire, who hadn't caught onto his sentence.

When she did, she gasped and put her hand to her chest. "Oh, you mean me?" She snapped her fingers, disappointed. "And here I thought I was making your Top Ten Nights list." Claire pouted, earning an eye roll from Damon as he poured himself another shot. "Anyway, Stefan and I aren't here to keep an eye on you."

"So why are you here?" Damon asked, turning to his brother this time for information. Stefan shrugged.

"Why not?" he retorted and grabbed the bottle of alcohol from Damon, swiping it from the counter and moving over to the dartboard. Claire drained her shot before joining the two brothers, who had just started a game.

"Winner plays me," Claire said, dropping to the booth beside Stefan, who was waiting for Damon to write the names down on the chalkboard before they began.

Damon scoffed from all the way over at the dartboard. "Doesn't matter who plays you, you'll still lose."

Claire laughed. "Oh, you better be praying that it's not you, Damon, or I'll take you for everything you've got."

Stefan sighed. "Seriously, when will you two learn to play nice with each other?"

Damon snuck a glance at the blonde-haired vampire sitting beside his brother, but he quickly averted his eyes. "Never, Stefan. Never."

"What was that fight even about, anyways?" Stefan asked as Damon stood by his side and he braced to throw his first dart. "All I remember was that you two were screaming and shouting and our parents had to break it up."

"He broke a vase in my house," Claire answered as Stefan's dart hit a good position on the board. She got up from her position at the booth and marked the score for the youngest within the three. "My parents thought I did it."

Damon sighed. "And then she retaliated by breaking father's prized drinking glass. He thought I did it," he said, throwing the dart at the board while Claire was still at it. She stepped out of the way just in time for it to hit the board instead of her—not that it would hurt her much, anyways.

Claire shrugged and wrote the score for Damon on the other side of the board. "Not my fault you were so naïve to think that I could actually stand to see you after the trouble you'd gotten me into."

She moved out of the way for Stefan to make his shot, and the three of them watched in silence as Stefan hit the very center of the board, scoring him the maximum points possible. "Lucky shot," Damon brushed it off as Claire wrote the score on Stefan's side of the board.

"More like a carefully honed skill over many decades," Stefan retorted.

Damon took a look over at the board. "You're beating me," he said in a sore-loser tone.

"Well, yeah," Stefan said as if it were blatantly obvious. "It's because I'm better than you." He smiled.

"I'm onto you," Damon accused in a skeptical tone. He looked over at Claire. "Both of you. Reverse psychology. I mean, it's a little transparent, but I admire the effort."

"You prefer the brooding forehead?" Stefan asked, mocking his own description that Damon has indulged in time and time again.

"Seriously," Damon said, now annoyed. "What game do you two think you're playing?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Claire interrupted, grabbing the dart from the board and smiling as Damon turned to her. "Darts." She threw the dart straight at Damon, and he caught it with his inhuman speed so that it didn't go flying past him. He smiled bitterly, not appreciating the literal answer to his question. He turned back to Stefan, who was laughing.

"Come on, Stefan. Really. What are you trying to do?"

"That's a funny question," Stefan said, emphasizing his words, "considering the fact that I have ben asking you that for months." Damon just bowed his head, shaking it. "It's frustrating, isn't it?"

Damon took a moment to respond. "Touché," he goaded, though his tone was less than pleased.

Stefan had won darts, and Damon had watched while Claire and Stefan went back and forth during the game, eventually coming out to Stefan winning, again. Moving along with their plan, Stefan asked Claire to come with them to continue the night, but she politely declined and decided to stay at the Grill, where she would be waiting for Stefan if he needed her help. The whole reason she'd come was so that she could back Stefan up if need be. Damon was strong, and in truth, she wasn't the strongest vampire out there, but she was well fed. Unlike Stefan, she could control her diet, somewhat. It was her emotions that were out of control at times.

A while later, Stefan returned from his alone time with Damon—around Clarissa's third drink. As soon as he walked in, she made a sound and pulled the glass away from her lips. "How'd it go?" she asked.

To be honest, she was quite concerned with Damon's ulterior motive, as well. Claire wished her "special enemies" deal with Damon would cause him to tell her his secret agenda, but that was never the case when it came to Damon…or even to her. She wouldn't be so open and willing if he asked her a question about her personal motives.

"Not good." Stefan slid into the booth and looked around, cautiously looking for a lurking Damon. "He's…he's trying to…bring her back."

Claire knotted her eyebrows. "Bring her back?" she repeated, shaking her head. "Bring who back?"

"Katherine."

At this, her confusion turned into fear. "What?" she almost shrieked. Stefan nodded. "You mean, like, bring her back from the dead, bring her back?"

Now Stefan shook his head in rejection to her question. "No. No, that's the thing!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "Claire, Katherine never…died."

"What do you mean Katherine never died—?"

Stefan cut her off. "Claire, come on. I'll explain everything, but we need to get going—now," he said, getting out of the booth immediately. At the urgency, Claire jumped up and left a few bills on the table for her drinks, but wasted no time in following Stefan.

As promised, he'd explained everything to her on the way to the cemetery—or, more specifically, Fell's Church. As Stefan described what Damon had told him, the location began to make more sense…Katherine, who was "burned" in the church was instead trapped beneath it, sealing Katherine away until someone could get her out. Damon's goal was to open that tomb and get Katherine out…which wasn't such a bad thing when you thought about it.

They finally found Damon, who had been fixed onto a tree with a branch through his torso. Stefan immediately rushed to help Damon, and the vampire groaned on the ground. "Oh, that hurts. This is why I feed on people." Claire rolled her eyes beside Stefan, but watched as the young witch girl was drawing a circle in the ground.

"Stefan," the possessed witch said, spotting him. Her eyes shifted to Claire, and the witch straightened. "Clarissa King."

"Do I know her?" Claire whispered, looking over at Stefan. "I don't know her."

Stefan looked forward at Bonnie. "Hello, Emily." At this, Claire widened her eyes and turned back to the young, unfamiliar witch being possessed by Emily Bennett.

"These people don't deserve this," the witch defended herself. "They should never have to know such evil."

"What do you mean 'evil'?" Stefan asked, realizing that he hadn't heard the full story.

"Emily!" Damon shouted behind Stefan. "I swear to God, I will make you regret this!"

"I won't let you unleash them into this world!"

"Them?" Stefan repeated.

Claire shook her head at Emily. "But…you only sealed Katherine in that tomb."

Stefan turned around to his brother, realizing. "What part of the story did you leave out, Damon?"

"What does it matter?"

Hearing his brother's evasive answer, Stefan turned around to face Bonnie. "Emily, tell me what you did!"

"To save her," began the witch, "I had to save them."

"You saved everyone in the church?" Stefan repeated, now realizing why this was such a bad thing that his brother did not want him finding out. If all the vampires got out of that tomb...all hell would break lose.

"With one comes all."

"All of the vampires rounded up into the church, Stefan that's twenty-seven vampires…" Claire shook her head. "With a grudge like that, they'd slaughter the whole town."

Damon staggered onto his feet. "I don't care about that!" he claimed. "I just want Katherine."

Stefan looked at his brother. "I knew I shouldn't have believed a single word that comes out of your mouth. This isn't about love, this is about revenge!"

"The two aren't mutually exclusive."

"Damon, you can't do this!"

"Why not?" raved Damon, his eyes filling with hatred. "They killed twenty-seven people and they called it a war battle. They deserve whatever they get!"

"Twenty-seven vampires, Damon! They were vampires. You can't just…bring them back!" Stefan yelled, holding his brother by the collar. Damon, in turn, grasped Stefan's equally as tight.

"This town deserves this," he claimed.

"You're blaming innocent people for something that happened one hundred and forty-five years ago."

Damon released himself from Stefan's grasp. "There is nothing innocent about these people. And don't think for a second that it won't happen again! They already know too much, and they'll burn your little grandwitch right next to us when they find out," Damon accused, pointing towards the witch in the circle. "Trust me."

"Things are different now," Emily assured him, but Damon wasn't taking it.

He began in a pleading tone now, "Don't do this.

"I can't free them," the possessed witch said, enunciating it out for Damon to understand. "I won't."

Despite Damon's protests, the witch in the middle of the elaborate circle yelled a word and raised her arms and, within a moment, there was a ring of fire surrounding her. Damon cried out, but both Stefan and Claire stopped him from going anywhere near the fire. Damon pleaded, he shouted…he tried to do anything to stop the possessed witch from burning the crystal around her neck. All of a sudden, there was a cry of the possessed witch's real name, but Claire didn't have time to worry about that. Stefan went after the girl who cried out Bonnie's name, and Claire held Damon back from the fire. But the crystal was launched into the air, displaying a burst of fire, and Damon cried out for it as hot sparks floated to the ground as a result.

The fire soon went out, leaving the world around them dark. Claire relaxed her hold on Damon, seeing as everything was now over, but he didn't stop there. She wasn't fast enough to restrain him, and Damon flashed forward and bit into the witch's neck inside the now useless circle, and the witch screamed loudly as a result. As soon as it happened, Claire flashed forward and forced Damon off of the witch with the help of Stefan who later joined in.

"You're insane!" Claire shouted as they looked over the body of the witch that wasn't to blame for this. As quickly as Stefan realized what happened, he bent down and checked for a sign of life and began to save her. "Do you realize what all this can cause? What bringing her back can cause?"

"You always hated her," Damon snarled. "You wouldn't understand!"

"I have a right to hate her!" Claire shouted at him, her teeth gritted. "For a good reason, too, Damon." He fell completely silent at this, and she just shook her head. "You have major issues Damon—major issues."

Damon gave a bitter laugh. "Nothing we didn't know before."

"Her neck," the teenage girl exclaimed as she watched the wound heal from Stefan's vampire blood. "It's healing."

After everything had calmed down and Damon went to be off in peace, Elena led the frightened witch into her car, attempting to ease some of her worries until they reached home. Once her friend was inside, she approached Stefan and Claire, who were waiting for her to come over to them. As soon as Elena reached them, she spoke, "Is she in danger of becoming a—"

"No," Stefan said immediately. "No, she has to die with my blood in her system, so keep an eye on her tonight and make sure that nothing happens and once it leaves her system, she'll be fine."

Elena nodded before inhaling and turning to Claire. "I-I'm sorry…who are you?"

"Elena, this is Clarissa—Claire," Stefan corrected himself as he introduced Claire to Elena, the uncanny Katherine look-alike. Claire was staring at her in a way that she was sure made Elena feel uncomfortable, but…she just couldn't help herself. Just looking at Elena made her angry, but she had to hone in on the girl's heartbeat to stop herself. "She's my friend from back in eighteen sixty-four, she just…came for a visit. Claire, this is Elena."

Elena nodded, and this time, Claire spoke. "All right, well, Stefan, I'm going to head back to the house now," she said softly. Stefan nodded.

"I'll be back soon," he promised, and with that said, Claire gave Elena a small smile.

"Nice to meet you…Elena."

"You, too."

Damon had spent most of his night out in the woods, feeding on his own sorrow. The crystal was gone and he had no way of getting Katherine back, so he would now leave—at least, that's what he told his brother. So, with his depressed emotions, he made his way back to the house to find Clarissa in his room. With a heavy sigh, he shook his head. "You made yourself clear, now get out before I have to make you leave."

"You think that was me making myself clear back there?" she scoffed, standing up from the foot of his bed. "Damon, you have no idea what I mean when I say that I will not have Katherine back to ruin my life."

"Well, you won't have to worry about it now, will you?" Damon shot her a bitter smile as he stripped his jacket and she watched. The sight of her staring made him remember that she wasn't just an enemy, and at this, he smirked to conceal his pain. "So are we going to start or do you want to yell at me some more?"

"Tonight?" Claire asked, looking at him incredulously. "You want to do this tonight? You're a complete mess!"

Damon shrugged. "Give it a couple minutes, I'll find…some way to get over it," he said, eyeing the clothing he wanted so badly to strip. She scoffed.

"Well, you certainly bounce back fast."

"Yeah, but you knew that already."

"You know, you're a real asshole," she said as he neared her, but she didn't flinch once. "Do you know how angry you made me tonight? Not just me, but your brother, too?" Damon rolled his eyes.

"I thought we agreed not to talk about him."

"Hard not to talk about him when you're his brother and I'm his best friend."

Damon frowned. "You were my best friend once."

Claire scoffed again. "Yeah, those were the days. I distinctly remember you stealing all of my food and getting me in trouble for everything. That vase was the last straw. You make me sick."

"The feeling is mutual." But, as a contradiction to those words, Damon pulled his shirt over his head, intent on getting what he wanted. "I don't suppose I can persuade you to believe that I wasn't the one who broke that vase?"

"Absolutely not. You're a natural born liar." But, despite her words, he caught her staring with lust at him. The second her eyes flickered up to meet his, he could see that she was done arguing with him.

Damon looked down at her, and she flickered her gaze up at him. "You want to shut up now?" His hand extended and his fingers grazed the hem of her shirt, giving her the slightest touch on her torso. The touch was light and barely noticeable, but it made her spine shudder.

She thought to protest against his obvious efforts to get her in his bed, but after much thought she decided against fighting him. Damon just made her so...angry. When Claire became angry, she was blinded by emotions that crept their way in to replace the rage. So, she just took his hand and pulled it up so that her shirt was dragged with it, and he took that as his answer.

And, as usual, there was no more talking.

Pretty dysfunctional, huh? Do they hate each other? Do they like each other? We just will never know. Well, I know, of course ;)

More will be coming soon! Please review if you can!



Love,

BellaSalvatore1918

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