Lexi Branson

**Alexia "Lexi" Branson** was a character who first appeared in the eighth episode of the first season in *The Vampire Diaries*. She was a vampire and was also Stefan Salvatore's best friend and companion. She had known Stefan and his brother Damon for over a century. Damon killed her to make the Town Council think that she was the vampire terrorizing Mystic Falls. She was 350 years old, placing her birth date around 1659 and her turning year in 1680.

Lexi met Elena Gilbert briefly before she died and gave her some relationship advice, encouraging her to give Stefan a chance. Elena thought of Lexi as a friend after they talked, realizing how much she cared about Stefan.

She came back as a ghost in *Ghost World* to help Stefan, who had turned off his humanity and returned to his ripper behavior. Also, she was one of the ghosts who appeared in Mystic Falls when Bonnie dropped the veil in *The Walking Dead* and *Graduation.*

## Personality

Lexi has been around for over 300 years. She has learned a few things. One of them is to enjoy life and have fun. She is probably one of the most down-to-earth and "normal" vampires a person will ever meet. She is also comfortable being a vampire and has no problem socializing with humans. Lexi was one of the few vampires who respected and even cherished human life. Her attitude towards humans is what partly influenced to mentor Stefan Salvatore, a then-Ripper, on how to feed as to not hurt a human. Her patience and her perseverance has helped many people over the course of her life. Lexi felt that as a vampire, life is too short to spend on brooding and dwelling on the past. Living in the present is her philosophy.

## Attitude Toward Humans

She had a very generous nature to mortals and a regard for human life. As mentioned she did drink human blood, but strictly from blood bags in hospital blood banks. Unlike Stefan when he ingested human blood she was able to easily control her innate bloodlust without murdering humans. She didn't hunt them or regard them as her playthings, but as equals. Indeed, she was in love with a human male named Lee as much as Elena Gilbert was in love with Stefan. Lexi dissuaded Elena's worries about being romantically involved with a vampire including her slowly growing old with him being forever young. She turned Lee into a vampire with his consent and wish. The only time in her brief time in the series she looked like she was about to attack a human was in self-defense when Sheriff Forbes and two other deputies captured her with vervain and were taking her away to a quiet place to kill her. As outlined below Damon betrayed and killed her to maintain his cover and to put the Sheriff's fears to rest.

Lexi seemed to have the healthiest attitude of all the vampires so far. Like Damon and Isobel she was totally comfortable with the fact that she was a vampire and craved and drank human blood with little thought about it, but unlike them did not harm humans and regard them as less than herself, nor did she feel any guilt about her existence like Stefan. It is a compromise Stefan hasn't worked out with his strict 'no human blood under any circumstances' attitude and emotional self-flagellation about the feelings and dangerous desires within him.

## Physical Appearance

Lexi was physically a very beautiful woman. She had long blonde hair (hairstyle changing in each passing decade: in the 19th century it was curly, in 1942 it was wavy, and in the 21st century it was straight). She was tanned and had hazel-green eyes. She was also tall and had a curvy figure.

## Powers and Abilities

As a vampire, Lexi possessed all standard powers and abilities of a non-Original vampire. Being over 350 years old, Lexi also possessed more strength and speed of other vampires such as Stefan Salvatore. Unlike other non-Original vampires seen before, Lexi also possessed the ability to project illusions onto other vampires. As seen with Stefan, Lexi was able to make Stefan feel thirst as if he hadn't drunk blood in an extended period of time and started to desiccate.

## Weaknesses

Lexi had the typical weaknesses of a non-Original vampire.

## Relationships

### Lee

Lee was Lexi's human lover, who Lexi eventually turned into a vampire so they could be together forever. Lexi had mentioned him when she first met Elena, but didn't say his name. In *Bloodlines*, Lee tried to murder Damon in order to avenge Lexi's death, but Elena stopped him, telling him not to go down to Damon's level, because Lexi wouldn't want him to be like that. Lee was a close friend of Bree, who set him up to kill Damon.

### Stefan Salvatore

*Main article: Stefan and Lexi*
In 1864, Lexi met young and new vampire Stefan Salvatore who tried to feed on her, unable to distinguish his kind from human. Discovering that Stefan was a ripper, meaning he could not control his bloodlust, losing his humanity, Lexi took it upon herself to help Stefan get back as much as possible of his humanity, generally by not turning his feelings off, succeeding eventually. Lexi found Stefan, now back to his ripper ways in April 1922 before getting him off human blood around 1935.

In 1942, she encouraged him to seek Damon and make good with his brother, but convinced Damon it was a bad idea to ship with Stefan to the frontline.

They would spend every birthday of his together, once attending a Bon Jovi concert, where they were, unbeknownst to them, watched by Stefan's ex, Katherine Pierce.

She has also said in an episode that it's not that hard to fall in love with Stefan to Elena.

### Damon Salvatore

*Main article: Damon and Lexi*
Despite the immense love and support between her and Stefan, Lexi found Damon to be vastly irritating and only tolerated him because of Stefan.

In 1942 she convinces Damon that is would not be a good idea to ship out with Stefan to the frontline, that Damon would be a bad influence to Stefan and he could slip into ripper mode again.

In *162 Candles*, Lexi visits Stefan for his birthday. That night while she is sleeping in one of the guest rooms Damon comes and surprises her. She is immediately irritated and tries to avoid him to no avail. Damon asks how long she will be in town and Lexi replies just for the duration of Stefan's birthday. Damon continues to annoy Lexi and asks her why she is so mean to him. Lexi replies it's because he himself is not a nice person.

Damon explains he is the way he is because he is a vampire. Lexi shoots down his explanation by saying that he is only the bad parts of being a vampire. Damon jokingly asks her to teach him to be good. Lexi responds by violently pinning him to the bed in a powerful choke hold. She replies angrily that she is older and stronger than him and threatens Damon to not ruin her visit with Stefan because if he does she will hurt him. Damon quickly backtracks and says that he won't. Later on, in order to protect himself and Stefan, Damon reveals Lexi as a vampire, and kills her, shocking her.

In *Because the Night*, during 1977 in NYC, Lexi told Damon that Stefan sent her and she would be sticking around. Damon and Lexi partied, drunk and fed together for roughly six months but every night Lexi would ask Damon about Katherine, trying to make him remember love as he did when he asked her to help Stefan in 1864.

Damon mentioned he no longer loved Katherine and that had fallen for Lexi thus flipping his humanity switch on. Damon and Lexi ended up sleeping together. The next morning the sun came up and Lexi started to burn, she ran to the door but couldn't open it. Damon told her he rigged the door during the night so she couldn't get in then revealing he used her and didn't care about her. This was his payment for the past six months of Lexi's "help", then he runs off leaving her behind.

### Rose

Rose told Elena, that a long time ago Lexi said Stefan was one of the good guys, and considered setting them up. However, Rose was more interested in the bad guys, as she said herself. This was proved true when she slept with Damon.

### Bree

Lexi was also a friend of Bree. She had a relationship with both her and Lee. After Lexi was killed by Damon, Lee and Bree planed on killing Damon as revenge.