MONSTER, stefan salvatore [2]

Graduation

Jeremy tilted his head at his sisters' heartwarming moment, knowing that if they continued down that route, they would be crying for real. "Hey, no. No tears. If Caroline was right, we only have until tonight. We need a no-crying rule."

Natalie turned to him as she tilted her head back, her smile simply being a soft smile in comparison to her big and cheerful smile that she gave them previously. "Well, Jer, sometimes crying is good. Because crying shows that we're feeling. And now, I feel happy."

"Me too." Elena threw in, smiling at the guys, who smiled back at them, happy that they could see them be happy for the first time in so long.

But then the moment was interrupted by Natalie's phone ringing, she frowned and brought it up, and looked at her family members apologetically. "It's the Grill. Must be Matt," she then answered it. "You know, you can stop running away from me when you see me. I'm not gonna rip out your jugular, Matt."

"Hello, Natalie. It's your dead friend, Connor. You remember me?" the familiar voice on the other side of the line

"Son of a bitch."

Everyone turned to look at Natalie in surprise, and the ones who actually had vampire hearing (Alaric and Elena) decided to listen in, and Jeremy was left to guess what was happening. "We want Silas, and we want the cure."

Natalie sighed in annoyance, having hoped that the kill that caused her to almost die herself would just leave her alone for once. Especially when she had finally stopped thinking about what happened. "Sorry. Can't help you there."

"Well, you know who's gonna need some help? Grandma and Grandpa Jones, in town for the big high school graduation, along with Auntie Sue and Uncle Mark..." In front of her, Alaric did some movements with his hands that signalized him going to do something, to which Natalie nodded. "Matter of fact, everybody here at the Mystic Grill for graduation brunch. You either give me what I want, or they die."

"If you do that, I'm gonna kill you again, only this time you're actually dead so no hunter's curse is going to affect me now." Natalie growled through the phone, and Jeremy nodded with an expression that seemed to tell her he was impressed.

"I find it quite ironic how you were supposed to wake Silas with your blood and that was all because of how in love with him you once were. You were supposed to work with the hunters... you were a hunter. Now you're what's being hunted. And all because Qetsiyah decided to use your blood as to bind the spell that made Silas turn into stone. Now you have no idea where he is and you're unable to do anything to keep me from hurting people. Get me the cure and Silas or everyone's dead. Including-"

He got cut off by Natalie hearing another familiar voice over the line, but had to use her vampire hearing to completely hear what was said, and knowing that it was her dad made her pretty happy. "So, you get off on terrorizing innocent people?"

"And who might you be?" she heard Connor asked and realized that he had probably forgotten that she was even on the phone with him, but she was too interested in what was going to happen next to hang up, and she saw that Elena was too as she listened in. 

"The guy responsible for the 18-year-old you just threatened." Alaric answered, and Natalie smiled at how he was going into his protective-father-mode that she hadn't seen that often, she couldn't remember seeing it since he met Elijah for the first time.

"Well, that 18-year-old shoved a knife in my neck." the dead hunter retorted, and Natalie tilted her head to the side as if to say fair enough.

"And I'm also the guy who showed her how to do that."

Connor chuckled at what he saw as dumb bravery coming from the guy who taught the girl who killed him how to kill him. "That's ironic. You must not know a damn thing about fighting if you're trying to intimidate a dead guy packing C4."