Note: It's been two years and some change with an update on this one.

This time in lockdown has really helped me catch up with the last of these fics, so I guess if I was looking for a silver lining, that might be it.

The Queen's Undoing

Circa 1864

Katherine took one look at Damon Salvatore and found herself paying attention. He was like the sharp end of a blade, angular features offset with small, pillowy lips that purred between mutterings. For a split-second, Katherine imagined he had her eyes when she was hungry. The image distorted and spun. He wasn't made for eternity, no, she realised, the best part of Damon Salvatore was that one day it wouldn't matter how many grievances he'd had left because he'd be dead. Thank god.

Katherine could tell by the set of his jaw, that the word 'no' was only ever understood in the cadence of his own arrogance, and the violence of his father's hand. Between the two of them, it was a wonder Stefan had still managed to hold onto the memory of his mother's kindness because as far as the vampire could tell, the only other person on their grounds with an inkling of good faith was Miss Anna. And really, she was one in a million.

Damon's eyes darted between hers and his father's as he spoke, telling them he'd defected from the war, that he was no longer going to be taking part in the underhanded dealings of the white men in the south. And almost as quickly, Katherine found her attention drifting elsewhere, out to the outer grounds, where...if she wasn't mistaken, her daughter was going to have to get a talking to about public indecency afterward.

"Well, you defected, you've yet to spare an enslaved person's life... unless I'm missing something?" Katherine asked with a tilt of her pretty head as her eyes rolled back across to his attention. "You're very impassioned for a pacifist, is what I'm saying," she waved a hand at the blank stare on his face.

"Pacifist?" Damon echoed, alarmed, never even having heard the word before, "Father who is this woman?" He demanded at Giuseppe. How dare she insinuate that Damon was anything like his father, and how dare his father stand beside her and judge him the same as she?

"Her name is Katherine Pierce and you'd do best to jot down what she says when she speaks, she hardly does it to hear the sound of her own voice." Katherine shot him a smug smile when Damon's exasperated face turned to hers after his father had spoken.

"I don't know what you've done to my father, but I won't let a stranger hurl insults at me in my own house," Damon hissed, quirking a brow at Katherine who narrowed her eyes in return.

"Damon, it's hardly an insult simply because you don't know what a word means," Katherine told him seriously, and he considered her words a moment before she lifted a finger and raised it between them, "Though I was insulting you, and I guess I've done so now, twice."

She lifted her brows and dared him to say anything to her. He was about to open his mouth, but she managed to preempt it by changing the power of her gaze over him and locked him in the place all vampires hold their prisoners until they grow bored of them.

Their hypnosis.

Spreading the haze of her power over his will, Katherine's smile grew wider as his body language relaxed, and he slipped under her sway.

"You really think you're what stands between me and the things that I want here, don't you?" Katherine guessed, cupping his cheek, "Doesn't he?" She asked, tilting her head and looking over at Giuseppe.

"He does," Giuseppe said evenly in return, eyes dazed and out of focus.

"You do," Katherine said with a pretend pout, looking back at Damon, "The only issue is, Damon Salvatore, that I don't take no for an answer, especially not from some redneck confederate fighter from the south," grabbing the back of his neck, she pulled him to look him in the eye at her height. "You, just like your father, will bend to my every whim. You will kill racists on-sight and never ever again use any slanderous words against a black human being is that understood?"

"Yes, Miss Katherine," Damon replied robotically.

"And make no mistake, Salvatore, you will feel shame that you had to be compelled into a semblance of human decency, is that understood?"

"Yes, Miss Katherine," both the Salvatore men said in tandem.

"Now, this conversation never happened," her eyes went to Giuseppe's and back to Damon's, "Even as you live by it's every word, and you help me and my Bonnie any chance you get. Got it?"

"Yes, Miss Katherine." She clapped her hands together once after stepping away from Damon, who promptly blinked back into control of his body.

"What was I doing?" Giuseppe wondered aloud.

"Getting some more tobacco for your pipe," Katherine said with an impressively kind smile.

"Ah, yes," Giuseppe looked down and saw that he had all his smoking paraphernalia laid out before him. "Oh, silly me, it was right underneath my nose."

"It usually always is," Katherine said with a coy smile at Damon, before stepping out of the room.

Bonnie inhaled through her nose as her mouth moved against Stefan's.

Truthfully, if they'd been anywhere else, or if it had been any other time, she'd have torn his clothes clean off.

As it were, it was broad daylight, and they were trying their luck already being seen talking.

"Do you know somewhere we can go?" Bonnie asked against his lips.

"I do, but it's a ways away," he admitted, pressing his forehead against hers as he cupped her face.

"Hold the picture of it in your head, can you do that?" Bonnie coaxed.

"I can, of course, I'm imagining the things I'd do to you there-"

Their bodies were snapped up by Bonnie's magic and dropped softly on the ample pillows that lined the haystacks of the barn they were now in.

"Open your eyes," Bonnie encouraged him.

"H-" Stefan's face went from awe to disbelief, confusion, and glee and back again. "How did we get here?"

"Magic," Bonnie said simply. Her eyes went over the small additions he'd made, hoping to convince her to picnic with him.

"I'm sorry my love, did you just say magic?" Stefan asked, looking back down at her.

"I want you to react to this as genuinely as you can. I want to know how your mind conceives it," Bonnie explained, holding his gaze. "I won't say how, but, I could take it back."

"The magic?" Stefan wondered.

"No..." Bonnie kept her eyes on his, "You knowing it's something that's possible, something that I can do."

"Does it put you in danger?" Stefan guessed.

"Naturally," Bonnie nodded.

"That settles it then," Stefan said, looking up and around him before his eyes landed back on Bonnie. "You are special."

Bonnie's eyes shone as she looked up at him, a little because she'd never been looked at that way, but more because she knew that this part of her identity was a fraction of her self-titled 'infractions'; she knew there was no way he could fathom both this part of her nature and the one she had in common with Katherine.

It wasn't that he couldn't, but the fact that she would never bring herself to ask him too. It was too great a burden to bear, over and above the glaring lack of his society's standards.

"I will take your secret to my grave," he swore, before slowly lowering his mouth back down to hers, his mouth curling up into a smile as she leaned up to kiss him first.

"Where have you been?" Bonnie asked, holding his face in his hands and hearing his heart speed, much to her delight.

"Where have you been?" Stefan echoed, pulling her closer to him by her waist.

Their kiss was soft...coy, then Bonnie pressed her chest to his torso, and stood on the balls of her feet, angling his face, so they'd deepen the kiss.

She liked guiding him and knowing that he took a thrill in seeking out her pleasures.

"What do you like?" Bonnie wondered as she pulled slowly away and looked up at him through her lashes.

"About you?" He asked, ever so innocently.

"About touching someone else..." Bonnie explained, eyes shining as she chewed on the bottom of her lip stepping away from him. "About being touched." With a snap of her fingers, she was naked in front of him. Watching him do a double-take amused her, and she wiggled her brows at him and beckoned him to her.

She heard the air whistling through his teeth as his breathing sped.

"Take...mine off as well...please," Stefan said in a small, serious voice as he closed the space between them.

"Is this...the first time you're-"

"Is that a problem?" He asked, pulling back to look at Bonnie clearly.

"No," Bonnie swore, adding a little shake of her head that freed her hair and she watched as he fingered the small flowers in her hair, marvelling. His hand went from her hair to her collarbone and then down to hover over her sternum where her necklace hung dutifully.

"I wish I had the words to tell you how I feel right now," Stefan admitted softly against her lips.

They walked backward together, almost in a dance they way they held one another, bodies touching here and there as kept their eyes locked on each other.

"There's a reason certain words don't exist," Bonnie said, sealing her mouth over his.

Katherine had made her way into town on the arm of Giuseppe Salvatore for the rest of the morning.

It was what she'd always told Bonnie was the smarter option; a preemptive measure to blend and acclimate before you had to do anything remotely suspicious. You wouldn't want the first time someone saw you in their town to be you doing a hand-over of a priceless gem, that was in actual fact a totem that unbound a monstrous hybrid dictator on the supernatural and human world alike.

Katherine shuddered at the mere thought of ever having to see Klaus ever again.

His hatred of her had only grown each year she'd evaded him, and she felt it somehow...always in the back of her head, the side of her eyes; a mirage toying with her perfect peripheral vision. He was making true on his promise to haunt her for the rest of her inhuman life.

Stepping back into her body, Katherine focused on the task at hand; blending in with people she'd honestly kill with a flick of her wrist if the whimsy so much as looked her way. But, as proven many times before, leaving a trail behind them never bode well for the steps they'd yet to take. So, her on her best behaviour it was.

Besides the staring, it seemed to be going simply enough, what with the deep compliance she'd instilled in the man.

A rumour about him moving on with a beautiful stranger was enough of a distraction to avert any inkling of guessing as to why she was really in Mystic Falls.

"Would you like new fabric, darling?" Guiseppe wondered suddenly as they perused a collection of earrings in a jewellery store. "You do look radiant in red."

"Your affection is endless, Guiseppe," Katherine purred against his ear. "I would love a new red dress."

"That settles it," Guiseppe said with a quick pat to the hand she'd wrapped around his bicep. "Anything for you, Miss Pierce."

"...Where is everyone?" Damon asked, stepping into the kitchen where Anna was focused on perfecting a curling stitch in the fabric, to complete the one-half f the flower she was making. He'd been putting off taking to her most of all since his return, but he knew that he was running out of time to make things right.

"Your father and Miss Katherine are in the town square," Anna said without looking up. Damon came to stand a little closer to her and her hands slowed. "Miss Bonnie and Stefan haven't been around in a while, I'll confess."

"What are you doing? Why are you shaking?" Damon asked, his voice softer, as he took her hands in his. "Did something happen while I was gone?"

"Y-yes, but then again, no," Anna stood to her feet, her hair twisted up beautifully atop her head as she wiped needlessly at the skirt of her new dress. Katherine had insisted on the colour, and honestly, Anna wasn't sure purple was for her. "I'm not making any sense, I know," she sighed.

"Was it my father?" Damon's jaw set.

"Before Katherine and Bonnie came..." Anna's eyes locked with his for a tense moment, before she turned away. "When you left Damon, things changed."

"What changed, Anna? Did someone hurt you?" He walked to her and put his hands softly on her shoulders. "I know I made a mess of things before leaving-"

"I wouldn't call it leaving so much as it was you getting thrown out," Anna said, hugging her arms to her body.

"Alright, father threw me out into the war, it was what he thought I was meant to do with my life."

"It was punishment over me, Damon, admit that at the very least," she grit out, spinning to face him. "When you left your father told you, it was my head, or the war."

"Anna can I be honest with you?" Damon asked, drawing in a shaking breath.

"I'd prefer it," Anna said, and he would have smiled if the words he was about to say hadn't been drilling a hole in his chest since the last day he saw her.

"When he told me what my choices were, I heard them the way I heard most things he'd tell me: that there was no choice, that I was simply being told what would happen. Like, after mother died and everything went to hell." He took a steadying breath and finally confessed. "Anna, when I left, I left because I knew what was about to happen to us...if you were going to die, then, so was I."

"You can't mean that," she said, wiping the hot tears streaking down her face. This idiot man had been mourning her all along.

"Then, I come home, and there are strangers here and father is nothing like I remember, and you're still here, and I was so scared I was seeing things, I didn't even think to say anything."

"You're speaking now," Anna reminded him kindly, with a small smile.

"Anna, I love you," Damon exhaled. "We're both alive and I love you."

"Damon, you don't know what you're saying-"

"We survived my father!" He pointed out.

"And what about the rest of the world?" Anna asked, raising her voice for the first time Damon could recall. Her face was a maelstrom of feelings, and his mind was working overtime to gauge them all, so he'd find the right words, or do the right thing, to help her see the hope that he did.

"To hell with the rest of the world," Damon cried after her and the look she sent him then, stopped him short.

"To the hell with the rest of yours," she said and turned on her heel to leave.

Katherine was swimming in her own thoughts when the horses heeled to a stop in front of Salvatore Estate.

"Dear?" Guiseppe called to her. Her lashes fluttered as she turned to him. "I have a confession to make," her eyes turned to slits.

"And what would that be?" Katherine asked, pushing her persuasion onto him to ensure the full truth, as she should have done from the beginning.

Damon was drinking by himself in the cellar when Stefan walked in, looking for him.

"Are we celebrating?" Stefan hoped.

"Anna hates me," Damon supplied succinctly, swallowing another mouthful of god-knew-what, as he made his way carelessly through his father's collection of alcohol.

"You expected what exactly, after leaving for the war?" Stefan asked, lifting his brows when Damon shot him a dark look.

"I left because father forced my hand," Damon said, with the patience of someone who'd repeated the same words about a thousand times.

"You left because you chose wrong when father forced your hand," Stefan corrected him.

"And you were doing what while all this was happening?" Damon scoffed, pointing an angry finger, "Picketing for racial integration?"

"Father knew better than to ask that of me," Stefan said with a jut in his jaw.

"Oh, congratulations to you," Damon sneered, slurring his words, "Let's brush off the fact that I was the oldest, that you have mother's face, that father was going to beat the woman I love to death in front of me, and the only choice he gave me was to go and fight a war where her blood would be spilled through others." Stefan grew quiet. "You've gotten so used to be the one who got it right, that you don't even see why that is anymore, and that ...well, brother that infuriates me. In fact," he stood upright and threw a suspicious look at his younger brother. "Since those two women arrived, I'm told everyone is acting a little differently."

"You leave them alone," Stefan hissed, standing suddenly as well.

He stood toe-to-toe with Damon and he had a look in his eye that Damon had never seen on his brother before.

"Which woman is it, then?" Damon asked, never one for preamble.

"Bonnie," Stefan confessed quietly.

"And you say you're nothing like me," Damon laughed, patting him roughly on the shoulder before ambling out of the room, to his quarters to sleep off the headache that always seemed to come after an altercation with Stefan.

"I make my own choices, Damon," Stefan called after him.

"What difference does it make if those choices never save anyone but ourselves?" Damon quipped back, without turning back around.

Bonnie was walking through the gardens again, alone this time, as she thought over her day with Stefan.

The sun was setting as Katherine stepped into view.

"There you are," Katherine called out. Bonnie's face lit up as they made their way to one another.

"I've missed you," Bonnie said sweetly as Katherine cupped her cheek. "How was your trip with Guiseppe into town?"

"They're all dull and disingenuous, but I can bear it," Katherine assured her, "if anyone asks, he and I are in love, and while I only came here to view his collection of heirloom jewellery for myself, I stayed, because of him."

"A whirlwind romance, then?" Bonnie smiled.

"Sound familiar?" Katherine teased.

"No prying yet, I'm still floating," Bonnie said, beaming as she led Katherine through the greenery.

"That you are," Katherine said with a nod, studying her child's face.

A moment passed as she considered letting Bonnie enjoy the moment for what it was.

She shook herself, knowing Bonnie would always want to stay two steps ahead, as she did.

"Darling, the men that live here...they hunt supernaturals like us," Katherine said, and felt her own heart twist as she watched Bonnie's face go through the myriad of expressions, processing her words. "They have a secret union... they're inexperienced and afraid, which only makes them more dangerous."

"W-what do you mean they have a union?" Bonnie stammered.

"Guiseppe, bless him, knows what I am, and since he's under the impression he is in love with me, he is at odds with what he considers his duty," Katherine explained.

"So...what do we do?" Just as she asked that her pendant began to glow and Bonnie pulled Katherine behind her without thinking twice.

A figure stood a few yards away, staring at them.

"Is that who I think it is?" Bonnie asked as she and Katherine reappeared in front of the woman in question, not a beat later.

"Pearl!" Katherine exclaimed under her breath, eyes bright as they hid amongst the larger ferns. "You made it."

"Hello Katherine," Pearl said, flicking her thick wavy hair over her shoulder before standing with her hands clasping her purse at her front. Dressed in a teal and black-laced gown, the mother and daughter inclined their heads at the elder vampire. "Hello, Bonnie."

A/N: I actually edited this one. Only a bit, though, so no getting attached to that notion.

We're having a vigil here in two days for the black people we've lost to violent police and deployed forces during our national lockdown.

No one black is safe anywhere, and it really is our duty to change that. Be safe everyone, and look after each other and yourselves.

Stay excellent.