Damon was standing next to the safe in the cell, in Elena's head.

I stood behind him.  "You still have her locked in the safe? You've been in her head for an hour. What, still nothing?"

Damon didn't answer, walking closer to the safe. "How you doing in there?" He unlocked the safe, opening the door, revealing Elena inside, weak, barely conscious. Damon pulled her out. "Come on." Elena fell to the ground. Damon knelt in front of her. "Is the old you ready to come out and play?"

"Go to hell," Elena told him.

Damon made a face, smiling tightly. "Okay. Back you go." He put Elena back into the safe, locking it. "We can do this the nice way, or we can do it the other way... but either way, we're not stopping until you turn your humanity switch back on. So I'm gonna let you think about that, and I'm gonna come back for you in a couple hours, or a couple years... because all we have is time."

Damon patted the safe twice.

I smirked slightly.

**** 

Upstairs, Damon had brought Elena up in the parlor, tied to a chair.

Damon noisily set down a fire extinguisher.

Elena startled awake.

Stefan walked around the room, which was dimly lit.

"Good, you're awake," I told her. "Thought you could use a little sunshine."

I pulled the curtain back a little, allowing a ray of light to creep closer to Elena.

Elena looked at her hand. 

"Looking for this?" Damon asked, holding her daylight ring in front of her. Elena reached for it as much as the bonds on her wrist would allow. Damon pulled it away.,"Oh, you know the rules. Bad girls don't get nice jewelry."

Stefan nodded to me to let the curtain go.

I reluctantly let it go, letting it close. 

Elena spoke impassively. "You took my ring. I'm devastated. And bored. Can I go back to solitary now?"

"No," Damon answered. "I kinda like you in the hot seat. Whenever you're ready, sister."

I took hold of the curtain without hesitation. 

"Am I supposed to be scared?" Elena asked.

"You will be," I told her. "And when you are, focus on that fear. It's the key to getting your humanity back. And if for some reason this doesn't work, even if Stefan and Damon say no, we're gonna resort to my methods." Elena kept her expression clear of any reaction. "Yeah. So while you're thinking about that ... I'm gonna do this."

"You're not gonna burn me," Elena told me.

"You don't think so?" I asked.

"No," Elena answered. "And even if you do manage to get my emotions back, I'll remember all this, and I'll hate all of you for it."

Damon and Stefan exchanged a look. 

I tilted my head. "Tsk. Worth the risk."

I pulled the curtain wide.

The sunlight started to burn Elena's hand, making her scream in pain, struggling.

****

Her arm ignited into flames for a few seconds before Damon put it out with the fire extinguisher.

I let go of the curtain.

"Bet that feels better, huh?" Damon asked. "How about a little gratitude, or any human emotion whatsoever, and we can stop this?"

Elena, still gasping and straining against her bonds, mumbled something under her breath.

"I didn't quite catch that," Damon told her.

"I said, I'm gonna kill you," Elena told him.

"Bingo," Damon said. "See? There's a little rage. I should've figured that'd be the first emotion that came out of you. I tend to pull that out of people."

Stefan knelt down in front of Elena. "Elena, look at me. We don't wanna do this, okay? You can stop this right now. It's your choice."

Elena laughed. "It's kind of funny, actually. I bet part of you enjoys it, since, you know, I dumped you and all."

Damon knelt next to Stefan. "Wow. That was downright vindictive. See? I think now we're breaking through that tough candy shell and getting into the ooey-gooey rich center of your humanity. This is good."

"I think we should shine some light on the subject," I told them.

"Let me guess..." Elena trailed off. "This is gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me?"

I shook my head, curiousity in my voice. "No. I'm gonna enjoy this."

"Why?" Elena asked. "Because I was tearing your perfect family apart? It was broken before I walked into your lives, but there you were, trying to bring it together." She chuckled. "You know, if you had just left it alone, they wouldn't have paid so much attention to you and Klaus." I scoffed, looking away. "Maybe you could have actually let yourself fall in love with him again without your big brothers getting in the way of you Romeo and Juliet love story. But he left without saying goodbye, didn't he? Do you,want to know why? Nobody likes a tease."

"If you don't know the full story . . ." I trailed off, leaning forward. "Keep your mouth shut."

I pushed the curtain open nonchalantly.

Elena's face started to burn, making her scream in pain.

 ****

Elena was still shouting in pain from the sun burning her skin.

I left the curtain open for a few more seconds.

"Kaylin," Stefan said in warning.

I rolled my eyes, closing the curtain.

Elena gasped in relief as her wounds healed.

"You're gonna thank me for this," Damon told her. "After you turn it back on, you'll realize life with no emotions blew."

"You know what else blew?" Elena asked. "Being sired to you... going every day believing that I was in love with you. I remember every horrible moment of it, and you, so scared that it wasn't real. Well, guess what. It wasn't. You were right. So go ahead, keep trying to get the old me back. Who knows? Maybe Stefan and I will give it another go." My brothers took this in for a moment, brushing off her cruelty with indulgent though perhaps hurt expressions. Elena looked at me. "And I will see to it that it has the worse possible affect on you."

I pushed the curtain back open, as far as it would go, leaving it open, walking away.

"Kaylin!" Stefan told me.

Elena bursted into flames.

Obviously, they had saved her life.

****

I was outside, sitting on the lawn, hearing Stefan and Damon walk toward me. "So, that went well."

Damon grabbed my arm, pulling me up, turning me to face him forcefully. "What the hell was that?"

"She knew that you two would never actually let anything or anyone hurt her, including your sister," I told them. "Well, guess what? She was right."

Damon let me go, turning toward the house. "Every other vampire turns it on, no problem. You kill, you feed, you do all the awful things that a vampire does, and then when you're done you turn it back on. Why is she being so stubborn?"

Damon punctuated the end of his sentence by throwing the glass decanter at the front of the house angrily, making it shatter.

"Because she has nothing to come back to," I told them. "Her home's gone, her family's gone, she alienated her friends, she destroyed her relationships--"

"No, she wants to come back," Damon told us. "Scaring the hell out of her should've worked. She's smart. She knows we're not gonna hurt her."

"Let me deal with it," I told them.

"No," they told me.

I raised my eyebrows and my arms in a what the hell gesture.

Stefan pointed at me. "Not after what you just did. Kaylin, you tried to kill her. You think we would risk you having weapons or torturing her?"

"You're being melodramatic," I told them. They gave me a look. I tilted my head. "Okay, maybe you're not being melodramatic." 

Stefan looked at Damon. "All right, so we get somebody else. Somebody who really will hurt her, but doesn't want to kill her."

"Who?" Damon asked. Stefan tilted his head, hinting tacitly at who he was thinking of. "Katherine?"

"Think about it," Stefan told us. "She's the reason Jeremy's dead, right? So if anybody's gonna provoke an emotion, it's her."

"So we call her and then what, beg her to help us out of the kindness of her own heart?" I asked. "Are you kidding me? You're gonna trust Katherine around Elena?"

"After your little stunt, I trust you as much as I trust Katherine around Elena," Stefan replied. "Katherine was just abandoned by Elijah. She has nothing, she has no one. We invite her into our house to come torture Elena? There's no way she's gonna turn that down."

**** 

After Katherine had come to torture Elena, the doors had been left open in the cell, to the door and to the safe.

Stefan and I walked into the library to see Damon and Katherine.

"She's gone," I told them. 

"What?" Damon asked.

"Elena's not in her cell," Stefan told him. "I'm gonna check the grounds. Find out what she did."

Stefan walked out of the room.

"Oops," Katherine said. "Did I forget to lock her in? Let's just say I've lost interest in Elena's recovery. I'd rather watch her tear through an orphanage. Imagine trying to come back from a spiral like that."

Matt walked into the room with Rebekah. "Elena's gone? What happened?"

I tossed him an object that he caught. "Matt, you're coming with us."

"Why should he?" Rebekah asked.

"Because Elena's hungry and missing," I told them. "He's the one that's gonna save her."

I summoned him with a beck of my finger.

Matt and Damon followed me out of the room.

****

Stefan, Damon and I found Matt and Elena in the middle of the woods next to Matt's truck.

Elena gave Matt, who was lying on the ground, a light kick. "Oh, come on, I barely drained an artery." Matt's eyes opened, looking up at her blearily. "Come on! Get up, I'm hungry. My head's fuzzy, I can't think straight. I need more."

"Elena, stop," Matt told her weakly.

"But you're so good!" Elena told him, pulling him up off the ground with vampire speed.

I rushed toward them, pulling Elena off of him. "Hey, hey, you're cut off."

Matt sank to the ground against the truck.

"Let go of me!" Elena told me.

"Gladly," I replied, pushing her into Stefan's arms. "You are acting like a little spoiled brat, you know that?"

Damon arrived, pulling Matt up off the ground. "Enough! You think that we can't punish you. Maybe not. But I can sure punish him."

"Elena," Matt said weakly.

"Seriously?" Elena asked. "You think this—"

"Shut up!" I told her.

"I'm done playing nice," Damon told her. "Turn your emotions back on right now, Elena, or so help me God, I will give you something to be sad about. I will kill him right here in front of you."

"Damon . . ." I trailed off in warning.

"Don't 'Damon' me," Damon told me, pushing Matt to his knees. "She doesn't love anyone? Fine. Prove it. And if I'm wrong, what difference does it make? One less busboy."

"Elena," Matt said weakly.

Elena and Damon stared each other down.

"You're bluffing," Elena told him.

Damon snapped Matt's neck violently.

Elena gasped loudly, her mouth hanging open in shock. She walked closer, her eyes glistening.

"How about now?" Damon asked. "You feel anything now? You angry I just turned your buddy into roadkill? Or are you sad that the guy that everybody loves is just a bag of bones? Remember when he was a little kid, huh? Warm heart, big goofy smile, his whole life ahead of him."

I knelt next to Matt's body, taking his hand. "I guess it was a good idea that he was wearing this."

I showed the Gilbert ring to Elena.

Elena fell to her knees and took Matt's hand into her own, crying. "Oh, my God, Matt."

"You feel that weight lifting off your chest?" I asked. "That's joy, because your friend isn't dead. That's emotion, Elena. That's humanity."

Elena was openly sobbing, tears streaming down her face.

"You're gonna be okay," Damon told her.

"No..." Elena trailed off.

"Look at me," Damon told her.

"No, no, no," Elena told him. "It's not okay."

"Elena," Damon told her.

Elena stood, starting to walk away. "What have I done?"

"Hey, it's okay," Damon told her.

Elena was pacing and grabbing at her head. "No, no. What did I do? I—I almost killed him—Matt, I almost... And Bonnie, and Caroline, I just—" Damon tried to put an arm around her but she pushed him away. "No, no, I mean, that woman, the waitress, I actually killed that waitress--" Stefan walked toward her but she resisted. "No, I killed that waitress!"

Elena punched through the window of Matt's truck, shattering it, sending glass everywhere.

Stefan and Damon tried to restrain her.

Stefan held her arms on front of her. "Hey, hey, look at me, look at me. I know this stage, okay? The emotions are overwhelming you. You just have to focus on one thing, okay?"

"No, I can't, I can't--" Elena told him, crying.

"You just find that one thing inside of you that makes you strong," Stefan told her. "It's in there, just latch onto it. Channel everything you're feeling into that one emotion. Find the thing inside of you that makes you wanna live. Elena, let it in. Let it in." Elena calmed down and stopped sobbing. She seemed to find a focus. "That's good. That's it. That's it, just breathe it in. Blow everything else out. That's good, that's good."

Elena started to yell in pain, clutching at her head, but only for a few seconds.

Damon reached a hand toward her. "You okay?"

"No," Elena answered. "I'm not okay. But I'll get better."

Elena walked away.

We watched her go.

**** 

At home, in the library, Elena sat near the fire.

Damon approached and wrapped a blanket around her. "Hey. Here you go."

I sat across from her. "Sorry I tried to kill you." Elena shook her head like she thought it didn't matter. "If it helps, I knew they would save you. How you feeling?"

"The pain's still there... the grief and the shame," Elena told us. "But I get it now. Shutting it off. It's a cheat. I mean, you put up this wall and shut out everything that makes you who you are. Nothing affects you, nothing matters. But things do matter, things that happen that can't be undone. And now I know that there's something I need to do about that."

"Elena, what you need to do is rest," Stefan told her. "Take it easy for a couple of days. Maybe even a couple of years. Here."

Stefan offered her a glass of whiskey.

Elena ignored it and started folding up the blanket. "I--I'm done resting. I have to get ready. There's so much that I have to do."

Elena started to stand.

Damon put a hand out to stop her. "Whoa, hey. What are you talking about?"

"Think about it," Elena told us. "It's so obvious. Go back far enough, there's one person who brought us to this, who ruined our lives. Look at you three. Everything that's happened to you, she did that! She brought Klaus to Mystic Falls, she turned Caroline into a vampire. She killed my brother. It all comes down to her. Katherine. Okay? Stefan said to focus on one thing, so I did. I focused on hate. And I hate her so much."

"I don't think that's what he meant..." I trailed off.

"Elena, Katherine's not worth your time," Stefan told her. "Even if you spend ten minutes of your life hating her, she wins."

Elena looked at us, angry. "Not if I kill her."