CENTURIES, stefan salvatore [1]

Before Sunset

"He didn't mean that," Natalie tried to comfort the almost hurt-looking vampire in front of her, but then he gave her a look of doubt as he clearly saw through her trying to sound optimistic when she was not agreeing with her own statement. "Okay, maybe he did, but he's a teenager, they never know what they're saying. You should know that, you've been one for like, a hundred and fifty years now."

"Sure, let's go with that." he smiled slightly, even if it was fake because he didn't want her to feel bad because of something Jeremy said to him.

She smiled back for a moment, sadly as she knew he was only trying to make her feel better. She glanced down at her feet, trying to think og anything to say so it wouldn't be awkward, she thought that it wouldn't stop being awkward until they've talked about them and they hadn't had the time yet. "I'm sorry about what Elena said. We're, uhm, we're not really sure about anything yet so... maybe we're being too obvious about everything going on with us, I don't know."

Stefan frowned as he looked at her once again guilty face, as he could easily see her being very reluctant to go through whatever they're going through when Elena was so against it. "I don't think so. We've been doing our best to keep her from getting hurt and, yeah, maybe we're not being the best people in the world to her, but I think that it's only fair for us to be doing whatever we want with one another. She shouldn't get to decide how we feel, Natalie. Don't let her."

"She's my sister, and, yeah, maybe we've gone through some rough patches lately, but I think that it's my job as one of the only family members she has left to not hurt her as much as I can. But trust me, Stefan, I have not been letting her tell me how to feel. Especially towards you." she smiled at him, biting the inside of her lip as he smiled back. She felt his gaze go down to her lips and her smile widened before remembering that they should talk before continuing on with whatever was going on.

She cleared her throat and took a step back as she looked up to meet his disappointed gaze as he sighed in understanding. "So, ehm, yeah."

Then a noise rang through the entire house, easily recognized as the doorbell. "I'll get that." he offered as he sent her a quick smile, getting a nod in return as she smiled back. He turned around to get the door.

She then glanced around the room, seeing the not even half-painted walls of her father's bedroom but she could still feel his presence there as she glanced at the spot where his bed once used to lie and looked at where there still was a picture of him with her a few years ago lying on the ground. She bent over and picked it up.

She had always loved that photo. She was thirteen and her mother and father decided to take her out to eat somewhere, but then it was full because the management forgot their reservation so they had to find another place to eat. So they found this little cafe by the beach and it was one of the best nights they had as a family.

She sighed as she gripped the frame of the picture and lowered herself on the ground, crossing her legs as she placed the photograph on them as she traced it lightly with her fingers before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, acting like her father hadn't died only a few hours earlier.

▹▹▹

After a few minutes of expecting Stefan to come up again after answering the door, she started wondering if he simply forgot that she was there and had started making out with Elena or something and as much as she wouldn't want to walk in on something like that she also wanted to know if he simply forgot about her and left her there to rot.

She walked down the stairs silently, hoping they wouldn't creak and she would be in a very uncomfortable position, like she was most of the time because she was Natalie and awkward phrases came out of her mouth without a second thought, which was probably one of the things she hated the most about herself.