𝟏• 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂 | 𝐓𝐕𝐃 ✓

TWENTY-NINE [UNEDITED]

Taking a swig of some whiskey, Aurelia swayed her hips to Bon Jovi, one of her favorite artists of the 80's, and coincidentally, Stefan and Lexi's, too. She danced all the way into the sunlight at the parlor, next to Lexi, laughing as the two held hands and fooled around.

Stefan sat on the couch, drinking straight from the bottle Aurelia just drank from, he slumped even more onto the couch, smiling at he admired and somehow danced while he sat.

"Damon!" Aurelia heard Stefan exclaim. She looked at the brothers, grinning as she continued to dance. "Help me celebrate my 17th high school graduation."

"And my 31st!" Aurelia chimed in. Damon turned the music off.

"Hey, you remember my friend Lexi, of course." Stefan said, gesturing to the recently resurrected blonde in the parlor.

"Lexi, back from the dead." Damon said. "Goody." Lexi waved at him, before speeding to him and pinning him up against the wall.

"What's up, buzzkill?" She asked, as Aurelia jumped over the couch, sitting next to Stefan as he wrapped his arm around her back and rested it on her shoulder.

"Stefan, you're just gonna sit there and let her enact her ghostly revenge on me?" Damon asked, his voice strained. "You too, Aurelia?"

"You reap what you sow, buddy." Stefan said. Aurelia laughed again.

"Let's be very clear," Lexi stated. "Whatever time I have left here, I sure as hell don't plan wasting on you. You got me?"

"Yeah, got you." Damon said, as Lexi released him and he took a breath of air. "So, if you and Ric are all flesh-like and real-seeming, that means something went horribly wrong when Bonnie tried to put that veil up." He said. "And here you three are, having dance party USA."

"You're right." Stefan said. "How selfish of me to be indulging in these precious moments with my formerly dead best friend and my currently alive best friend." He said. "I should be sacrificing my own happiness for the good of others, right?" He took the bottle, raising it to Damon. He pulled it down, looking at Aurelia. "I should be upstairs grooming my hero hair."

"Are you drunk?" Damon asked. Stefan looked up at him.

"I don't know, mom." He said, making a face. "Am I?" Aurelia burst out into laughter at his face, and he smiled mischievously, messing up her hair.

"Hey, no!" She protested, as Lexi took the bottle. Damon abruptly snatched it from her

"Okay." She said.

"Well, I guess that's some way to celebrate our supernatural apocalypse." The raven-haired vampire took a gulp from the bottle. "Now, care to hazard any guesses on what the hell went wrong?"

!

The door-bell rang, and Aurelia adjusted her clothes, walking downstairs from a sober-up shower. She looked up to see Damon answer it.

"Who is this?" She asked, looking at a shorter-blonde-haired man. Her eyes trailed to a large tattoo on his right arm. "Oh." She said. "Hunter, huh?"

"Galen Vaughn." He said, with a smirk. Suddenly, he pulled out a gun, shooting Damon in the shoulder. Aurelia tried to help him, shutting the door.

Before she could, he kicked it open, and shot her straight on her collarbone as she yelped in pain. "What the hell?!"

"Got a little message for you, laddie." He said, his Scottish accent thick. "Straight from the mouth of the witch Qetsiyah. We want Silas, and we want the cure."

!

"Ah." Aurelia said, pulling out the bullet from her collarbone. Vaughn looked at her and Damon, who was looking at his wound.