"Listen to her, boy." Alex smirked, enjoying the moment. "She's been here before. She knows what she's doing is wrong and she knows she has to come back to us. Sooner or later, she has to come back to us."

"That was different, Alex. And you know it."

"What was different?" Stefan said, puzzled.

Alex's eyes lit up and a smile crept across his face.

"You mean she hasn't told you about..."

"Shut up, Alex."

"...the other worm and his child? I'm surprised at you, Helen. But then, I forgot that if you lay with them long enough you start to smell like them. You start to lie and deceive like them."

"What's he talking about?" Stefan questioned again.

"It was a long time ago. I..." She chose her words carefully. "...I had a child -- with another man. A man like you."

"She means a mortal pig, like you." Alex interjected.

"Do not tempt me, little brother?!" She scowled. "Do not think to tell me how to live my life. Do not force my hand and do not ever believe I will spare you where I would not others."

To her surprise, he nodded, stepped forward and disappeared as if through a doorway.

Feeling suddenly tired, she dropped to the sofa behind her, leaned forward and cupped her hands over her face.

"Helen?"

"I'm sorry, Stefan. I was going to tell you -- really I was."

"Don't worry about that right now."

He sat beside her and placed a hand on her arm.

"No. I want to." She leaned back and stared toward the ceiling. "I was young. Very, very young. And I had a baby with a man I loved very much. But I let my mother convince me to leave him because he was like you. Because she said I couldn't tell him what I am or what our child would be. Because I owed it to our kind. Because that's where my loyalty had to be. To our kind. No matter how much it hurt me, or him, or my baby."

"I just wanted to be happy." Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and she began to weep. "I just wanted to spend my life with someone I loved and who loved me. That was three decades ago."

"So where's...?"

"...the baby?" Helen finished for him. "She was murdered – by those among us who saw her as impure and tainted. They called her an abomination and they took her from mother’s home in the dark of night and murdered her."

"I wanted to die. But before I did I swore I'd make them pay for what they did to my little girl. It took me years to hunt all of them down. But when I did I made sure they would never, ever do such a thing again." She looked up at him hopelessness etched across her face.

"It made me an outcast. And it was only because of Camira’s rampage that I was let back into the society I called my own. In all of our history, none of us has ever taken the life of our own kind. They couldn’t conceive of a way to stop my sister without bloodying their own hands. But because I had already tainted myself they believed I was their only hope."

"But she was my sister. And I loved her. There was no hatred that burned inside of me like when I slew the others. I couldn't kill her. I couldn't bring myself to take her life."

"So you had me do it for you?"

"I'm sorry," she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I guess that makes me a coward."

"No. It just means you did what you had to do. But that's not what I was going to ask." Stefan touched her face with back of his hand, brushing his fingers across her cheek. "I was going to ask, where does that leave us?"

"I left someone behind once before because I was told it was the right thing to do. I let my guard down and trusted those I thought I knew – those I called family – because I was told it was the right thing to do. And they betrayed me and they took from me something I could never recover. I wont make the same mistake again."

"What if Alex comes back?"

"I'll deal with him."

"But..."

"No buts, Stefan. We bleed and die just like you, but we're a lot harder to catch. If Alex or any of the others come back, you have to let me deal with them."

"Okay." He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

"That leaves just one more thing." She straightened.

"What's that?"

"Do you still want to go through with this?"

"Yes."

"Think about it, first." She urged.

"I said, yes."

Helen smiled.