The Plan

It took Elena about twenty minutes to convince Damon not to drag her home right after she emerged from her little ice bath. It took another fifteen to get him to agree to attend the pack's meeting on how to break into the bank. Elena argued that she should be there, considering she was the only one who had actually seen the building and therefore could be of use. Lucky for Damon, and the ears of all the vampires in the vicinity who were well beyond bored of the bickering, Elena didn't push as hard to participate in the actual rescue mission. She played it off as not being up to full fighting strength, but Damon didn't miss the fear in her voice.

Jeremy, on the other hand, was a different story. While Damon asserted that he was a "mere breakable human", the teen pointed out that he wasn't at risk of the bite.

"Just a snapped neck or tore out throat," had been Damon's response.

It was interesting to witness the evolution that had somehow occurred between Tyler and Jeremy. A few years ago, the pair were tearing each other apart over a girl. Now, they trained - and drank - together in the woods.

"Look, I don't have many friends left," Jeremy had countered. "I'm not giving up on the few that I do."

They had entered the loft still arguing, when Caroline's squeal brought them all up short as she stopped in her tracks, staring at the man already standing inside.

"You? "

"Ha," Stiles clapped his hands, "so you do get that reaction from everyone."

"You know him?" Elena questioned at the same time that Derek, far more suspicious, turned to his uncle. "You know her?"

"We flirted," Peter shrugged, "briefly."

"Met," Caroline lifted a single finger. "We met briefly. You flirted."

"Semantics."

"I wish I could say he's really just a big teddy bear," Stiles smirked, "but honestly, he's probably dreamed about murdering all of us. In fact, he has almost murdered most of us."

"I disagree," Peter tisked and jabbed a finger at him, "threatened you, but then offered to turn you, so is that really so bad?" He ticked off more fingers, not noticing the way Derek eyed the human. "Sweet, sweet Lydia. Bit her. Oh, Kate. Definitely killed her. But that was after she burned almost our entire family to the ground, so really -"

"How is this helping?" Stiles threw up his arms.

"You said you weren't in Derek's pack?" Caroline planted her hands on her hips. "What are you doing here?"

"I also said that I was helping."

"Caroline," Derek ground his teeth, "meet my uncle."

"You're his uncle? The crazy-murderer-formerly-dead one?"

"Don't you mean formerly -crazy-murderer-dead one?"

"No, no, she's right," Stiles wiggled a pencil that he had just pulled from his bag. "You're still totally crazy and still probably murderous."

"I just wonder who I'll go after first," he squinted at the human.

"Let's just get to work," Derek rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Okay," Stiles spread the blueprints out across the table. "You see this? This is how they got in. It's a rooftop air conditioning vent. Leads down inside into the walls of the vaults, which is here and here. Okay? One of the robbers was lowered into each shaft. Now, those spaces are so small, it took them about 12 hours to drill into those first walls, which are stone, by the way. Then throughout the rest of the night, they siphoned the cash up to the guys back on the roof through those little shafts in the wall. Boom."

"Can we fit in there?"

"Yes, we can, but very, very barely. And they also patched the walls, obviously, so we're gonna need a drill of some kind. I'm thinking maybe a diamond bit -"

"Look, forget the drill." Derek shook his head.

"Sorry?" Stiles sputtered.

"If I go in first, how much space do I have?"

"What do you - what do you think you're gonna do, Derek? You gonna punch through the wall?"

"Yes, Stiles, I'm gonna punch through the wall."

Damon ignored their banter, glaring out the window. He only came back to the conversation when he noticed the werewolf landing a punch against the kid's hand and chuckled. Damon imagined Stiles would not have lasted long against his own temper in Mystic Falls.

"Who's following me down?"

"Don't look at me." Peter lifted his hands. "I'm not up to fighting speed yet, and honestly, you're not looking at very good odds for yourself."

"I'd say we've got pretty good odds with vampires on our side." Derek tilted his head.

"That didn't help you before." Peter crossed his arms.

"So I'm supposed to just let them die?

"One of them is already dead."

"What are you talking about?" Derek stiffened.

"Elena heard Boyd and a girl."

"So? She had just met Erica."

"So? Factor in the oh-so-timely kidnapping of Stiles' little playmate and I'm guessing the birthday girl was a replacement for Erica. Or whoever replaced Erica. They've had 3 full moons of this, you know. "

"We don't know that."

"Do I have to remind you what we're up against here? A pack of alphas. All of them, killers. And if that's not enough to scare your testicles back into your stomach, try to remember that two of them combine bodies to form one giant Alpha. I'm sure Erica and Boyd were sweet kids. They're gonna be missed."

"Could someone kill him again, please?" Stiles glared at the man.

"Derek, seriously? Not worth the risk."

Damon couldn't have agreed more.

"Well I'm going," Caroline lifted a hand after Scott had committed.

"Uh, uh, uh, no," Damon wagged his own finger. "We don't exactly have Klaus' blood on standby in case - in case you know what ."

"I don't care. If anything happens, which it won't, he'd still come to save me."

"Yes. Rely on an evil psychopath for your survival. Genius."

"Apparently we do it all the time," Stiles waved a hand toward Peter.

In the end, Derek and Scott were going into the main vault that for certain held Boyd and a girl. Jackson and Isaac would take the second, with Caroline as their wall punching drill and backup. Stefan and Jeremy would flank the perimeter. No one tried to convince Damon to go.