Sorry for the delay. I had to speed events up a little to match the Показать time line. Thanks for waiting!
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Stefan kept getting worse as the days went by. They began to seem like weeks and months. It was an eternity. The couple upstairs were constantly getting closer and inseparable as far as Stefan could hear but soon his hearing went. He was getting to be as he had once tried to get Damon to be: a living mummy.
    His skin was drying up and cracking. His lungs felt like paper and everything felt like if he moved too much или too quickly, it would brake. He kept refusing the animal blood. Elena and Damon both tried to get him to drink it and they even started coming down together until they realized that made him even еще stubborn.
    “Come on, Stefan. Drink this so Ты can get better.” Elena offered.
    “I don’t want to get better.”
    “Why not?”
    Elena didn’t know that Stefan knew about her and Damon. She thought that he was clueless. But he knew. He knew everything that was going on and it made him even еще sick than he already was.
    “Just get out” he сказал(-а) weakly. Elena didn’t want to push it so she nodded her head and went upstairs.
    “He won’t drink anything. I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to get better. The human blood was out of his system a long time ago. You’d think he’d be hungry.”
    Damon sat there listening. He knew why Stefan wouldn’t drink anything. It was how he himself was when he thought Katherine was dead. He didn’t want to drink any blood because he wanted to die. A younger Damon felt that a world without Katherine was not a world he wanted to be a part of. How foolish that was. Now, a world without Elena would be worse than hell.
    She was the sunshine in his otherwise dark life. For two weeks now he had been on animal blood and he didn’t intend to ever go back to human blood. He found that he wasn’t changing though. He was still the same person he always was. He was continuing to be the man who loved this beautiful girl.
    With Stefan, everything changed when he drank human blood. His whole personality and demeanor swung from one side to the other. apparently he was swayed easily. Damon could still joke and have fun and let his guard down without being afraid that he was going to relapse или hurt Elena. Stephan had always been so up tight because he was having a constant struggle but Damon felt nothing like that.

.......

    Weeks had past since Stefan had escaped. Elena had no idea how he had accomplished it. The lock wasn’t broken and there was no way Damon would have freed him. In fact, ever since then, Damon had been out looking for him, even to places and cities he knew Stephen had been before. No sign and anyone that knew him either didn’t know anything или wasn’t talking.
    There was something in the air though. Something told Elena that there was danger headed right for them. After working with Alaric and killing the tomb vamps who were after the founding families, it should have felt like the hard part was over but something made her think otherwise.
    After all of it went down Elena went to find her things, the dress she had worn for the float but it was no where to be found just like Stefan. Why would someone steal a dress? What was in it for them? Ты walk around in a 19th century dress and people are going to think your a little batty and plus it would be easy to spot. If someone sees them wearing it или trying to pawn it they’ll know and tell Elena. It was a small town.
    “I’m telling you, someone took my stuff. Listen, I’m going to head in to check on Jeremy before I come over okay?” Elena сказал(-а) over the phone.
    “Hey, actually, I’ll be there in a little while. I think maybe we should just stay there tonight. I’ll be discreet I promise.” Damon knew that Elena was always worried that Jenna would find out that he spent the night еще often than not.
    “Alright, I’ll see Ты in a few” and with that she hung up and went into the house.     Something crashed to the floor in the кухня and Elena hurried to see what it was. The first thing she saw was... herself? What?
    Katherine.
    “How did Ты get i-” that’s when she spotted her uncle John. He was on the floor bleeding. He was on the floor dead. Half is hand missing and blood coming from his abdomen.
    All Elena could do was sit there in horror. How could this have happened. How did Katherine get into her house? How did...?
    “It wasn’t that hard getting in. Jenna naturally thought it was me and Ты and with just one slip, gave an unknowing invitation. Ты really should have told your family. They have no idea how to protect themselves when they’re related to a girl who’s almost always in the middle of all the dangerous things going on in town.”
    It was Stefan. He was coming into the кухня from the living room, an evil smile on his face.
    Stefan had been on human blood but how could he really align himself with Katherine? Even though he must have known about her and Damon by now, how could this soldier for good turn so кислый so fast? What would have possibly made him turn into something that he never wanted to be and spent the better part of 150 years avoiding?
    “So nice to meet you, Elena. Our boy has been so rude not making an introduction hasn’t he? I thought I’d take it into my own hands.”
    “Get out!” Elena screamed.
    “Now, why would I want to do that?” Katherine asked. “Really, we do have so much in common and not just the way we look. I come back into town to find that Ты have both Salvatores wrapped around your little finger. And without compulsion. Bravo. But Ты are really a one man girl aren’t you? Not something I had a problem with back then but it works out well for me now. I’m happy I could at least steer one away from you. And it’s the one I cared most for anyway.” Katherine’s taunting tone was making Elena’s emotions about to explode.
    “How dare you-”
    “No, how dare YOU! Not that it didn’t work out for me but Ты hurt my little Stephan. That really wasn’t fair to swap brothers when the one who had been so true to Ты needed Ты most.”
    Elena couldn’t say anything to that. In a way, Katherine was right. She had fallen out of Любовь with someone and in Любовь with his brother and if that weren’t enough, she was only half-heartedly trying to get him better. All the times she attempted to give him animal blood she really didn’t try as hard as she should have. And she didn’t think Damon really had his сердце in it either.
    They did want Stephan to get better but they knew that once he was, the pain would set in for all of them. He would be hurt over the relationship that had developed between his brother and former girlfriend, Damon would be guilty over it and so would Elena. Keeping him in that cellar seemed like it was locking away the problem it’s self to be avoided.
    It shouldn’t have been the solution. And now all of it was out in the open and they could get on with whatever was going to happen next. If Stephan was going to turn and be on the other side of a very dangerous line then Elena would just have to deal with it and see him for the enemy that he wanted to be now.
    “So nice for us that we caught Ты at home. Feel like playing a little game Darling Granddaughter?” Katherine sing-songed.
    “Nobody’s going to be playing anything unless it’s me with your burnt ashes”. Damon was coming in from behind Elena.
“Ooo. And here’s the other vampire. Was wondering when you’d Показать up. Funny, every time I looked in on you, Ты were always up to something no good and now look at you. You’ve com riding in to be a white knight. How gallant.”
    Katherine spout out the words but she knew that she didn’t want a confrontation. Besides how much she was disliking Damon at the moment she didn’t want him getting hurt. She still considered them both her boys. They had been a kind of family once.
    Stephan and Damon were staring one another down and if she didn’t get the younger out of here they would rip one another to shreds. That’s not how this was suppose to happen.
    “Well, we really must be leaving anyway” Stephan was about to protest but Katherine kept talking. “Besides, Ты wont miss us long. We’ll come for another house call soon.” With that they were gone....