You knew something was off the moment you opened the door to the Salvatore manor.

It wasn’t the usual kind of “off”—Stefan brooding in the corner, Damon pretending not to brood but clearly brooding anyway. No. This was worse. This was her.

The faint trace of her perfume was already in the air, drifting like smoke before the fire. It was too deliberate.

“Close the door before you let the whole town in,” Katherine’s voice called from the living room, casual as if she lived here.

You stepped inside, shutting the door slowly. “You’re sitting in my chair.”

“Our chair,” she corrected, leaning back into the cushions like she owned the place. She was in black, as always—boots propped on the coffee table, a glass of bourbon in her hand. “You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I was busy ignoring people I don’t like.” You walked past her toward the kitchen.

She followed without missing a beat, heels clicking softly on the hardwood. “Still pretending you’re immune to me?”

“Not pretending.”

“That’s adorable,” she said, sliding onto one of the bar stools. “How’s high school? Are the lockers still tiny, or did they make them bigger for grown men playing dress-up?”

You smirked. “Jealous you can’t pull off the look?”

Her eyes narrowed, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “Please. I invented the look.” She took a sip of your bourbon—your bourbon, which she’d apparently helped herself to—and added, “I also invented you.”

“You turned me because you thought I was passing away. I was fine.”

“You were out from two gunshots to the chest,” she said, exasperated. “You were not fine.”

“And yet, here I am. Still not with you.”

Katherine tilted her head, studying you like she always did when she was deciding whether to tease you or throw you through a wall. “Centuries, and you’re still playing hard to get. I should be offended.”

“You should be gone.”

She ignored that completely. “Do you ever wonder what it would’ve been like if you’d said yes the first time?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

You leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching her swirl the bourbon in her glass like it was part of some elaborate plan to seduce the furniture.

“You’ve been chasing me for over a hundred years,” you said. “Don’t you get bored?”

“Never,” she said, her voice dropping into that low, almost conspiratorial tone she used when she wanted you to believe something. “You’re the one thing I’ve never been able to take. And you keep showing up, century after century, like you’re begging me to try again.”

“I keep showing up because you keep breaking into my house.”

“That’s semantics.”

Your brothers—weren’t here. Stefan was off pretending Mystic Falls High needed another Salvatore, and Damon… well, Damon was probably doing something terrible . Which left you, alone in the manor, with Katherine Pierce sipping your liquor like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You’re not staying here,” you said finally.

She slid off the stool, walking past you just close enough that her shoulder brushed yours. “Of course I am.”

“You’re not.”

Her grin was quick, sharp. “Tell me that again in another hundred years.”

She set the empty glass on the counter, gave you a look that was half challenge, half promise, and wraps her arms around your neck.

“Go in hell,” you said.

Katherine leaned her face closer, smirk in place. “Only if you come with me.”

And she kissed you, while you admitted to yourself the unavoidable truth that you’d be having this exact same conversation, in some form, for the rest of eternity.