An hour and a half later Damon were driving them towards Duke with Alaric in the passenger seat and Jeremy and Elena in the back.

"You two okay back there?" Damon asked.

"Yeah we're fine." Jeremy smiled.

"Absolutely," Elena hummed. "Can we stop at Black Knight Studio before we go home?"

"Sure, but what is that?" Damon looked at Elena threw the review mirror.

"It's a tattoo parlor." Elena smiled. "I want to get a tattoo on my inner right wrist."

"And I want one on my chest." Jeremy told them. "Jenna already agreed."

"We'll stop there on our way home then." Alaric decided.

"Shouldn't the one driving decide that?" Damon mock pouted.

"Nope." The other three in the car chorused.

"You have been out voted." Jeremy laughed.

"I can't believe John actually gave you his Gilbert ring." Elena said after a while. "But I'm also happy that he did."

"This ring technically belonged to dad." Jeremy murmured softly. "So, it was mine from the start but John took it."

"We all knew he was a bastard." Damon muttered.

"You mean is?" Jeremy asked. "I mean, he's still alive."

"Technically, yes." Damon nodded. "But I like living in my fantasy world where he is dead and being tormented for the rest of eternity."

"I like your version of reality." Jeremy chuckled and Elena nodded in agreement.

"You guys really don't like him, huh?" Alaric asked with a laugh.

"Nope." Elena popped the p when she answered. "Let's do a recap, shall we? He knew I was adopted because he is my biological dad, he was never around when I was a kid, he took dads ring which belonged to Jeremy, he tried to kill my friends and he is a hypocritical ass because while preaching to me about how 'vampire bad, must kill vampire' he was working with my biological mother who is a VAMPIRE!"

"You feeling better?" Jeremy asked Elena after she stopped her mini rant.

"Yes actually, I do feel better." Elena smiled.

"Good, because we're here." Damon said as he turned the car into Duke University's parking lot.

The group of four made their way to the right office as with Alaric leading the way, "So, Isobel was officially employed by the anthropology department given that most paranormal phenomenon is rooted in folklore."

"Do you have to have a degree in anthropology if you want to become an archaeologist?" Elena wondered out loud.

"No idea." Jeremy shrugged.

"Excuse me?" Alaric said to the woman behind the desk at the office. "Hi, my name is Alaric Saltzman, I called earlier."

"Yes, of course." The woman smiled even as she looked strangely at Elena. "I'm Vanessa Monroe, research assistant, comparative folklore. Let me just grab Isobel's keys."

"These are my friends Damon, Elena and Jeremy." Alaric introduced them as Vanessa led them towards Isobel's office.

"Isobel was one of my first professors, I'm a grad student." Vanessa told them as she led them to Isobel's office. "She was brilliant and one of the reasons I went into folklore. I have to ask – has there been any news?"

"No, I'm afraid not." Alaric told her.

"It's this way." Vanessa said as she opened Isobel's office door and led them inside. "I'll grab the light, feel free to look around. It's fascinating, isn't it?"

Elena and Jeremy walked around the room to look around after Vanessa left.

"I wonder if Gods are real or if it's primordial beings or something out there." Elena hummed as she thought about the dark being that kept showing Itself to her.

"Where'd she go?" Damon asked after a while.

As if she heard him Vanessa came back into the office holding a crossbow. She aimed and fired at Elena but Damon rushed over and put himself in front of Elena to protect her. Damon fell to the floor with a grunt as the arrow hit him in the back.

Elena fell to her knees to support Damon as Alaric restrained Vanessa and Jeremy stood protectively in front of his sister and Damon.

"Can you help me up?" Damon asked, not wanting to be more vulnerable then he had to.

"Sure." Elena said and gestured for Jeremy to help her. Together they got Damon up and leaning against a bookcase.

"I can't reach it Elena." Damon grunted in pain. "Just pull the damn thing out. It hurts!"

"Deep breath and I'll do it on three, okay?" Elena asked as she grabbed the arrow.

"Do it!" Damon growled.

"One..." Elena yanked the arrow out.

"What happened to 'two' and 'three'?" Damon asked as he straightened up and shook himself with a grimace.

"Two, three." Elena smirked.

"Funny." Damon chuckled as he looked at Elena, then he turned and glared at Vanessa. "That bitch is dead."

"You're not going to kill her." Elena said with certainty.

"Watch me!" Damon snarled and Vanessa looked frightened.

"You are not going to kill her, Damon." Elena placed a hand on Damons arm, while Vanessa looked relived until Elena continued with a dark smile aimed at her. "Because I am."

"Together?" Damon asked with a smirk.

"Drag it out?" Elena hummed.

"Can I help?" Jeremy asked.

"None of you are killing her!" Alaric interrupted the three of them.

"Why the fuck not?!" Elena glared at him. "She tried to shoot me! With a crossbow!"

"Please! I freaked out okay?" Vanessa blubbered. "You would have done the same thing!"

"Well, she's not wrong." Elena hummed with a shrug as she looked at Alaric. "You did try and kill Damon."

"It's not possible!" Vanessa sniveled from where she was sitting. "Kathrine Pierce can't be alive and Damon Salvatore died in 1864, okay? I read Isobel's research."

"I'm Elena Gilbert, Isobel's biological daughter and, sadly, a descendant of Kathrine Pierce." Elena growled. "And this is Damon Salvatore who you just shot and you're right, he's dead, just the Undead kind of dead."

"I would be extra nice to us right now." Damon smirked with his vampire face on complete display making Vanessa whimper in fear.

"Oh, and that was my sister you tried to shoot." Jeremy glared. "I have no problem with helping them to get rid of you."

"Now, if you would show us all of Isobel's research relating to Mystic Falls we might, oh I don't know, forget about this little incident?" Elena hummed.

"Absolutely, I'll do anything." Vanessa nodded quickly.

Around fifteen minutes later Vanessa brought a box into the room and placed it in front of Elena. "This box checks Kathrine's arrival to Mystic Falls in April 1864."

"Is that all there is about her?" Elena asked as she opened the box.

"All that I'm aware of." Vanessa told her. When she sees the vervain in the box she whispered to Elena, "Does vervain really work?"

"Nope, not at all." Damon said from across the room.

"Can he hear us?" Vanessa whispered again.

"No, that would be creepy." Damon mock whispered.

"Can he read minds to?" Vanessa sounded both freaked out and intrigued.

"You know, if you wanted to see me naked," Damon turned towards Vanessa and Elena with a smirk. "All you had to do was ask."

Elena and Jeremy burst out laughing and Elena had to support herself against the desk to not fall.

"Any luck?" Damon asked when they had been looking through the information for a while.

"There's nothing here about Kathrine that we didn't already know." Elena sighed.

"Ah, man, you know, it's a real bummer that we don't know someone who was there when Kathrine was in Mystic Falls in 1864." Damon hummed with a smirk. "Oh, wait..."

"You're right, we should definitely call Stefan." Elena teased back.

"Ouch." Damon grabbed his chest in mock pain.

"Hey guys, check this out." Alaric called out from where he was standing beside Vanessa.

"There's no record of werewolf mythology in Mystic Falls, but here are some records of some of the lesser-known legends. Everything from Scandinavian skin-walkers to the Maréchal de Retz." Vanessa held out a book with Aztec drawings. "Tonartsliitsii Metslii, which roughly translates into..."

"The Curse of the Sun and the Moon." Elena interrupted. "It's Aztec."

"She's right. It explains one origin of the werewolf curse traced through Virginia." Vanessa lectured. "The short story; 600 years ago, the Aztecs were plagued by werewolves and vampires. They terrorized the countryside, made farming and hunting neigh impossible until an Aztec shaman cursed them, making vampires slaves to the sun and werewolves' servants of the moon. As a result, vampires could only prowl at night and werewolves could only turn on a full moon. When the full moon crests in the sky, whoever is unlucky enough to fall under the werewolf curse turns into a wolf."

"Can they control the transformation?" Damon wanted to know.

"If it were a choice, it wouldn't be called a curse." Vanessa sneered at him. "Werewolves will attack humans but instinct and centuries of rivalry have hardwired them to hunt their prey of choice; vampires."

"See I told you that vampires and werewolves were enemies." Elena said as she threw her hands up.

"If werewolves were hunting vampires, I would know about it." Damon declared with certainty.

"Not if there aren't that many werewolves left alive." Vanessa looked through the book in her hand. "Hundreds of years ago, vampires hunted them close to extinction."

"War and survival of the fittest." Elena nodded like it made perfect sense.

"Why would they do that?" Alaric asked.

"To protect themselves." Vanessa turned towards Alaric. "Legend has it that a werewolf's bite is fatal to a vampire."

"Oh..." Damon said slowly as Elena, Jeremy and Alaric looked at him in concern.

"Hey, have you done any research on doppelgängers?" Elena asked a few minutes later as she found a picture of Kathrine.

"Well, the word means a lot of different things to different cultures," Vanessa said. "But typically, a doppelgänger is a living, breathing double of oneself."

"Hello my shadow self." Elena murmured quietly, remembering the end of season four of the tv show.

"What?" Damon asked.

"Nothing." Elena shook her head and looked up at Damon with a small smile.

"Usually doppelgängers torment the people they look like, trying to undo their lives." Vanessa cautioned. "It's not exactly uplifting."

"That doesn't surprise me." Elena shrugged. "I just want to know why we look alike."

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" Damon hummed.

"Are doppelgängers considered supernatural beings?" Jeremy piped up from where he was observing everything, still on high alert incase Vanessa attacked his sister again.

"That is a very good question." Elena admitted.

"I don't know." Vanessa shook her head.

An hour later Elena and Jeremy were by the car, waiting for Damon and Alaric.

"Look what I found." Damon strutted up to the Gilbert siblings, holding out a book towards Elena.

"'Petrova'" Elena read the title out loud. "I saw this on a shelf."

"Kathrine originally came from Europe. Petrova was her real name." Damon explained. "Katerina Petrova, to be exact."

"How do you know this?" Elena looked up at him.

"Back in 1864 I saw it engraved on an old heirloom." Damon shrugged. "Men snoop too, you know."

"He's not wrong about that." Jeremy admitted with a quiet chuckle.

"Let me know what you find?" Damon asked. "I'm very curious."

"Absolutely." Elena smiled at him. "Thank you for the book."