AN: If you're a Kalijah fan, be warned. Be warned anyway, it's a Datherine fic, but I do completely sink that ship in this chapter.

If they were going to be honest, no one was expecting the situation at the Salvatore boarding house to remain peaceful for long.

Now that peace had descended on Mystic Falls, it would be fair to assume that the reconciliation between Damon and Stefan would not last … but it had.

It would also be fair to assume that the civil relations between Katherine and Elena would dissolve within weeks, but amazingly, that hadn't happened either.

Of course, peace did not mean that nothing had been happening.

First of all, Katherine's existence needed to be explained away to the general public of Mystic Falls. Several suggestions had been thrown around and subsequently dropped, including Damon's suggestion that they compel the entire town (which Elena had shot down before he'd even finished the sentence).

Eventually, Katherine had taken matters into her own hands, giving Elena no warning whatsoever, although she did give Matt a split-second to prepare …

It wasn't a common thing for Matt to answer his cell phone while working, but the Grill was pretty quiet, despite the large crowd for a Thursday morning – most, with the exception of his own friends, who were ensconced in a booth in the corner, sat and nursed their drinks for most of the morning while they chatted (gossiped) about town news (Thursday was the day the local newspaper came out, so a lot of people gathered to discuss it).

With Mystic Falls High empty for the Christmas vacation, Matt wished he could join his friends, but with the bank still knocking on his door for the mortgage, he had to get the money somehow. He supposed he could appeal, given that his mother disappeared on them before he came of age, but he'd still had Vicki, however irresponsible she'd been, and as angry as he was with his mother, he still loved her.

In any case, when his phone rang three times in quick succession, he found himself answering it, only to hear a very familiar voice on the other end.

But Elena was sitting across the room, laughing at something Caroline had said, no phone in sight.

"What do you want?" Matt asked quietly, debating whether to catch their attention.

"A favour." Katherine answered. "Nothing big. Just a piece of acting when I walk in in a minute."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Elena's here, you know. And this place isn't exactly empty. You'll turn heads; Elena's not exactly a nobody in this town."

"That's what I'm counting on." Katherine said. "I just need you to pretend you've never seen me before and act confused that there are two of her."

Matt sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine." He caught sight of one of his neighbours approaching the bar. "Sorry, pal – I think you've got a wrong number."

"Thank you."

Matt hung up the phone, shaking his head. "Kept asking for Jamal, whoever that is. How are you, Mrs Beech?"

"Fine, thank you, Matty." She answered, her eyes skimming the drinks list above his head. "Now what shall I have …?"

"Nice glass of scotch?" Matt joked, knowing she was teetotal.

Mrs Beech tittered. "Oh, you are a funny boy – you're looking after yourself, aren't you?"

Matt nodded with a smile. "Of course, Mrs Beech. And Liz – er, Sherriff Forbes looks in every now and then."

"Yes, I've seen her." Mrs Beech nodded decisively. "Tall latte, extra foam."

"Coming right up." Matt said, reaching under the bar for a mug.

The door to the Grill opened again, and he glanced up to see Katherine walk in, looking uncharacteristically nervous. Remembering what she'd said, his jaw dropped, his eyes flickering over to Elena as if to make sure she was still there.

Mrs Beech turned to see what had caught his attention. "You know, I really think Elena should wear her hair natural more often. It's such a shame when these girls insist on …"

"Er, Mrs Beech?" Matt interrupted. "Elena's over there. With Caroline and Tyler."

Mrs Beech frowned. "So she is. But …"

"Excuse me." Katherine said softly, as she reached the bar. "I wonder if you could help me."

"Erm … I can try." Matt said, his eyes flickering to Elena again. "I'm sorry, but you … you remind me of someone. Just one second." He finished Mrs Beech's coffee, and she took it over to a group of women.

Unseen by the rest of the patrons, Katherine's eyes gleamed with amusement for a second, as the bar began to fall silent in a kind of domino effect.

"I'm looking for Elena Gilbert."

"Over there." Matt said, pointing towards his friends.

Ironically, since she was the only one present without supernatural senses, it was Bonnie who first realised there was something wrong.

"Why's it so quiet?" She hissed.

Elena glanced up, colour promptly draining from her face when she saw Katherine approaching them. "What are you doing here?" She muttered under her breath.

"Play along." Katherine returned, stopping in front of her. "Elena?" She asked aloud.

"Yes?" Elena asked, still looking shell-shocked.

Her doppelganger held a hand out. "I'm Katherine. I think – well, I'm fairly sure now I've seen you, but … I'm your sister."

Elena had to admit later – Katherine had thought it through. The story went that Elena's biological mother had given birth to twins, but could only afford to keep one of them and begged the doctor who had delivered them to keep one and raise her with his wife.

That part wasn't too far from the truth, and the patrons of the Grill, shamelessly eavesdropping, had listened enraptured as Katherine spun a heart-breaking tale of a house-fire, rushing to her mother's bedside at the hospital, and her mother telling her, with her dying breath, about the sister she never knew.

Even Caroline, who knew the story wasn't true, had tears in her eyes by the time Katherine had finished.

Of course, in a few years, when the vampires would be forced to leave Mystic Falls to hide the fact that they weren't aging, none of it would matter, but for now, it just made everything so much simpler.

Then, a few days into the New Year, they received an unexpected visitor …

"Elijah." Elena greeted in surprise. "What brings you back to Mystic Falls?"

"Several rumours, Elena." Elijah answered, impeccably dressed in a suit as always. "May I come in?"

"Of course." Elena stepped back to let him into the boarding house, glancing towards the ceiling almost automatically. She knew Stefan was out hunting, but she wasn't sure where Damon and Katherine were. Showing him into the living room, she gestured to the couch. "Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Blood?"

"No, thank you." Elijah took a seat, glancing at her. "But I sense that the first rumour is true. You're a vampire."

"Yes." Elena confirmed, perching on the arm of one of the armchairs. "Rebekah caused a car accident when we thought Klaus was dead. I had Damon's blood in my veins."

"And my brother has called a truce?" Elijah asked.

Elena nodded. "Said he wanted peace. It seems to be working so far."

"And," Elijah hesitated, and, for the first time Elena could remember, he looked almost nervous. "And he's let Katerina go?"

Elena frowned slightly. "Yes."

"Do you know where she is?" Elijah asked.

Elena hesitated. "That depends. What do you want with her?"

"Just to talk." Elijah answered.

Elena nodded slowly. "I'll see if I can find her." She walked upstairs to Damon and Katherine's room and paused outside, listening carefully. There were sounds of movement, but nothing that suggested anything R-rated, so she tapped once and pushed the door open.

Katherine was sitting at the desk, writing something, but looked up when Elena entered.

Putting a warning finger to her lips, Elena nodded towards the bathroom.

A confused frown crossed Katherine's face but she acquiesced, following Elena into the bathroom and switching on the shower to drown out their voices.

"Elijah's downstairs." Elena said softly. "He wants to talk to you. What do you want me to do?"

Katherine closed her eyes, her lips moving in what could have been a silent prayer, if Elena didn't know that Katherine wasn't religious – at least, not anymore; she may have been as a human for all Elena knew.

"Find Damon and distract him." Katherine answered, opening her eyes. "I'll fill him in later, but I don't really need him running his mouth."

Elena nodded, switching the shower off, and they descended the stairs. "Where is Damon?"

"Out with Stefan." Katherine answered, nodding towards the kitchen. "Try and keep him away from the house for at least half an hour."

Elijah stood when she entered the room, but she crossed to one of the cabinets and rooted around for a couple of seconds, extracting a bottle of scotch she knew Damon had hidden there.

"Given the circumstances, I think he'll forgive me." She remarked, pouring herself a glass. "Want one?"

"No, thank you." Elijah answered. "A little early, isn't it?"

Katherine chuckled humourlessly. "Something tells me I'll need it. Besides," she added, taking a seat across from him, "it's five o'clock somewhere."

"I hear my brother granted you your freedom." Elijah said, ignoring her smile.

"He did." Katherine confirmed cautiously. "More to avoid conflict, I think, than out of actual forgiveness, but I'm grateful for it, whatever the reason." She frowned. "Something tells me you're not, given the tomb incident."

"On the contrary, Katerina, I find it a great relief that my brother can let go of some of the hatred that he has been carrying around for so long."

Katherine grimaced. "You know, I haven't been Katerina in a long time."

"Yes." Elijah agreed. "I'd noticed."

"Yet you and your brother insist on calling me that." Katherine remarked.

"You will always be Katerina to me." Elijah said softly. "It worries me that you have changed so much."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "I'm not that person anymore. I changed my name for a reason, Elijah, and it wasn't to hide from you and Klaus. I'm not stupid enough to think that would work."

"But you were stupid enough to betray us." Elijah added mildly.

"And how, pray tell, did I do that?" Katherine asked. "Klaus was trying to kill me. I hardly see saving my own life as a 'betrayal'."

"I risked a great deal informing you about what my brother was planning." Elijah told her sharply.

"It wasn't just your brother." Katherine pointed out icily. "Thank you so much for informing me that you were planning my murder, and I'm so sorry that my instinctual reaction was to run like hell."

"I had a plan to save you." Elijah reminded her. "The elixir …"

"And when did you come up with that plan?" Katherine asked.

"When I fell in love with you." Elijah answered softly. "It's one of the reasons I still pray that my Katerina is still in there somewhere."

"Your Katerina?" Katherine repeated. "Let's just look at what happened from my point of view for a second, shall we?" She wouldn't normally, but part of her had been dying to say this for 518 years. "I came to England – a country where I didn't know the language, or the culture, or the people – having been forced to give up my child, cast aside by her father like a used rag-doll and disowned by my parents. I had lost everyone I cared about, most of them because they had abandoned or betrayed me. I was beginning to wonder if love and compassion and selflessness," she laughed bitterly, "everything I'd been raised to cherish was even worth anything in this world. And then I met you. And you gave me hope that it was. And bit by bit, you broke down the walls I'd built and I began to trust you, and I let myself begin to fall, and then …" She smirked humourlessly, taking a kind of sadistic pleasure in the way his face had paled slightly. "Then I found out the truth. Of course I ran. I'd just had it confirmed for me that you can't rely on anything in this world but yourself, that if I didn't put myself first no one would." She stood up, hearing the back door open. "Katerina is dead, Elijah. You killed her. Let her go."

Damon met her in the hallway, Elena mouthing an apology over his shoulder.

Katherine shook her head slightly, smiling at Damon. "Good hunt?"

Damon grimaced. "I don't know how Stefan can do that. Hunting humans seems so much more … humane. At least they can fight back."

"Not the way you do it." Elena muttered, slipping past them into the living room.

"What's Elijah doing here?" Damon asked quietly.

Katherine shook her head, pulling him down for a kiss. "Don't ask, love. Just don't ask."

Elijah had left quietly after that. Elena had apologised for whatever had happened, but he had brushed her off.

"Is she happy?" He had asked.

Elena had hesitated, debating whether or not to be truthful. She had always assumed that Elijah hated Katherine as much as Klaus did, but looking at him then, she had wondered if maybe his sense of betrayal had been a little more personal. "I think so."

Elijah had nodded. "Good." Then he was gone, before Elena could really figure out how to respond.

In any case, Elijah hadn't been heard from since, although Klaus and Rebekah were still in town, and Kol reappeared every so often, deigned to put up with blood bags for a week, maybe two, and then disappeared as suddenly as he'd arrived.

All the vampires who chose human blood as a diet had to rely on blood-bags now, at least if they wanted to stay in Mystic Falls.

Connor Jordan's presence – though brief – had ruffled feathers, and whispers of vampires in the community were louder than ever. Liz and Carole had tried their best to calm the frightened locals, laughing the whispers off as delusions and citing the fact that the hunter's body had been found mauled by wolves as evidence that maybe he hadn't been the smartest of people in the first place – after all, the wolves' territory was surrounded by a large number of cautionary warnings for hikers and campers.

However, just to add an extra level of security, having discussed it with the local supernaturals, vervain had duly been added to the town's water supply.

The only inconvenience this had really caused (aside from the need to travel out of town to procure blood-bags, since there was every chance the donors were on vervain) was that Caroline and Elena could no longer shower in their own houses.

Mikaelson Manor had its own water supply, as did the boarding house and the Lockwood estate, but the Gilbert and Forbes residences relied on the same water as everyone else.

Caroline coped with this by turning up at the boarding house every other day and borrowing the spare bathroom.

Elena had wound up coping in a slightly different way. After spending so much time at the boarding house anyway, she had begun to consider just moving in permanently. She would have already done so if it weren't for Jeremy.

Jeremy, after watching her debate this for several weeks, took matters in to his own hands and asked Matt to take the spare bedroom.

("Us humans have to stick together," he'd joked, "and Elena would kill me if I moved in with Bonnie.")

Matt had argued at first, but caved quickly. It made sense.

The Gilbert's house had been in the family for years, and the mortgage had long since been paid off, whereas Matt was drowning in unpaid bills. His mother had long-since signed the house over to her children, so he had no trouble selling it and moving his few possessions into what had once been Jenna's room.

It had been a long time since Matt had had any emotional connection to the house; the only sticking point was packing up what was left of Vicki's belongings. Although he had insisted he wanted to do it alone, Tyler and Jeremy turned up with pizza and the three had reminisced into the night.

So Matt and Jeremy had taken over the Gilbert home and Elena had moved into the boarding house, eliciting a promise that Matt would make sure Jeremy ate properly and slept regularly.

Life in the boarding house was fairly quiet now (well, as quiet as it could be with four vampires, two couples with heightened emotions – and high sex drives – and very thin walls).

The only point of friction was Katherine and Stefan, but even that wasn't too bad.

Stefan still didn't feel remotely comfortable around Katherine, and Katherine seemed to be going out of her way to make sure the boat wasn't rocked, so to speak, so at first went out of her way to make sure that Stefan didn't have to be around her alone.

After two months, she stopped, although didn't actively seek him out, but as she stopped, he began to avoid.

This morning, something was different.

Stefan woke first, lulled gently to alertness by the sunlight streaming through a gap in the curtains, Elena's head resting on his chest, shallow breaths ghosting over his skin.

Pressing a kiss to her hair, he tuned in to the sounds around him, the distant traffic on the other side of the trees; the few deer that had ventured out of the woods in the early light to graze on the lawn; the movement in the kitchen below him as Katherine made breakfast, humming to herself.

He had never pictured Katherine cooking before now. Even when they were human and he was enchanted with the very idea of her, the thought of her doing anything domestic was laughable.

But, like Damon (though he would never admit it), cooking didn't seem to be a chore to her – rather, a joy, even though none of the residents needed food.

There was no sign of his brother, not even breathing, which meant he was either still asleep or out of the house altogether.

Usually, in this situation, Stefan would wait for Elena to wake up, unwilling and unprepared to go downstairs and deal with Katherine – even if (maybe even especially if) dealing with Katherine now meant small talk and somewhat awkward silences.

But today was an important day, even if Elena hadn't remembered (and it was unlikely that she would, not because she had a bad memory for dates, but because it probably didn't carry the same weight for her as it did for him).

It was March 5th and a year to the day that Mason Lockwood nearly managed to get him and Damon killed by Liz and her deputies.

A year to the day that Caroline had intentionally killed to save them.

A year to the day that Stefan finally admitted that he just wasn't strong enough without human blood.

But most importantly to Stefan, it was a year to the day that Elena had stood in the Salvatore library, her blood pooled in her hand, offering more of herself than he would ever dare take, the first time he had consciously and willingly drunk her blood.

Drinking Elena's blood was something of a contradiction in itself – on the one hand, she was the only person Stefan was certain that not even the blood-lust would allow him to hurt; on the other, her blood tasted so divine that it was a wonder he kept a clear head around her at all.

"It's you and me, Stefan." She'd said softly. "Always."

'Always' had seemed a bit of a pipe-dream at the time, but not anymore.

Over the last week or so, he had formed a plan, one he would never have carried out (not yet, anyway) if she was still human. As it was, today was the perfect day for it, with just one small problem.

The Gilbert lake house was somewhat pivotal to the plan, and Elena happened to be planning on driving out there to finish packing up her parents' belongings.

Stefan needed a way of keeping Elena in Mystic Falls without staying in Mystic Falls himself. Bonnie, he knew, had plans with Jeremy, Matt was working, Tyler was helping his mother with something, Caroline would never be able to keep a secret, and Elena could read Damon like a book; she'd figure out that something was up.

There was only one thing for it.

Gently easing Elena out of his arms, Stefan got up, retrieving a shirt from his closet before walking downstairs, pulling it over his head as he went.

Sure enough, Katherine was alone when he reached the kitchen, sitting at the table with a mug of warm blood and a book.

"There's rabbit in the microwave." She said by way of greeting, not looking up.

"Thanks." Stefan said automatically, retrieving it. He took a sip and dropped into one of the chairs at the other end of the table.

Katherine glanced up, a hint of surprise showing on her face. "Elena still asleep?"

"She sleeps like the dead." Stefan responded.

Katherine sniggered. "No pun intended, right?"

Stefan cracked a smile, realising what he'd said. "Actually, no." He took another sip of blood. "What are you doing today?"

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "Stefan, this is the first conversation we've had in months. What are you thinking?"

Stefan rolled his eyes. "Nothing like that." He sighed. "I never thought I'd say this, but … I need your help."