Saudade | D. SALVATORE

1 | in which everything goes wonderfully wrong

She looked up from her writing when a crow flew on top of her parents' grave stone. "Okay. Hi, bird. That's not creepy or anything," she said cautiously, "Shoo!"

"That's what I thought," Elena said as it flew away.

The crow came back and fog began to form around her, an outline of a man appearing behind a gravestone. Elena, panicking, ran, but before she could get anywhere she fell.

Standing up, she was surprised at the sight of Stefan.

"You okay?" he asked in concern.

"Were you following me?" she asked accusingly.

He grew flustered at this, "No, I-a, uh, I-a just — I saw you fall."

"Uh-huh," she raised an eyebrow, "and you just happened to be hanging out in a cemetery?"

"I'm visiting," he explained, "I have family here."

"Oh. Wow. Tactless. I'm sorry. It's the fog, It's making me foggy," she placed her hand over her stomach for emphasis. "And then back there, there was this, this bird, and it was all very Hitchcock for a second," she said regretting her earlier assumption of him being a stalker, "That is the bird movie, right, the Hitchcock?...I'm Elena."

"I'm Stefan," he replied with a smile.

"I know," she smiled, "We have History together."

"And English and French."

"Right," she said, nodding slowly.

Stefan reached over and pulled something out of her hair, holding it up and showing her it was just a leaf.

"Thanks..." she said with a small smile, "Nice ring.

"Oh," he said looking down at his hand, "um, It's a family ring, yeah. I'm kinda stuck with it. It's weird, huh?"

"No, no. It's just, I mean, there are rings and then there's that."

He looked as though he just realized something, "Did you hurt yourself?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you hurt yourself?" he asked again.

"Oh, uh, I don't know."

She puts her leg up on a stone and pulls up a pant leg, revealing a cut that's gushing blood.

"Oh! Would you look at that. That is not pretty."

Stefan turned away, confusing her greatly.

"Are you okay?" she asked in confusion.

"You should go. Take care of that."

"Really, it's nothing," she said looking down at her leg.

She turned back around but Stefan had disappeared. She sighed and turned around but was surprised to see a mirror reflection of herself.

"Boo," the girl whisper shouted, amusement evident on her face.

"Evelyn!" the girl squealed hugging her sister tight.

"Kind of need to breathe," Evelyn said taking a dramatic breath between each word. Elena let go and allowed her sister to breathe once more.

"Hey lil' sis, how's it going?" she asked with a smirk.

"Where have you been?" Elena asked, "How did you know I would be here? Does anyone else know you're here? How long have you been here? Why haven't you called?"

"I've been everywhere and nowhere, because I know all, I haven't been here too long, only since this morning, nobody knows I'm here, and I did, multiple times, you didn't answer," Evelyn answered each of the questions, "Now enough with the interrogation, I have a question for you."