ALMOST IS NEVER ENOUGH | TVD [3]

II • TRUE LIES

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Steven's Quarry

Stefan Salvatore is peacefully lying on a blanket near the serene quarry with his girlfriend Rosie, who mentioned it, as they remain silent to take in the serenity of the early morning of the day, "We could be doing anything right now, Stefan. You know that. Be anywhere. Why here? Why this?" She looks up at her love in wonder as she has her head resting on his warm chest.

He smiles at her, "These are the good moments...the simple ones, the ones that matter. These are the moments that keep me from falling apart."

Rosie smiles as she slowly sits up, and leans down to kiss Stefan's lips.

"This can't last forever. You're just distracting yourself." She reminded him of the raw truth before she suddenly starts choking and spitting up water.

In real life, Stefan starts drowning again in the dark, cold water of the safe.

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Whitmore College, Caroline and Elena's Dormitory Room

Outside the dormitory building, young students-- most of them being the freshmen and several sophomores, lay a variety of different types of flowers at a memorial for Megan King. Minerva walks into her freshmen friends' dorm room to find them rifling through the contents of a big cardboard box.

"Hey, in case you tweedledee and tweedledum are wondering, your roommate's memorial outside is growing by the minute." Minerva spoke.

"Ugh, college kids are so dramatic. She was on campus for, like, one day. She couldn't have made that many friends." The Forbes girl complained.

"Caroline, she's dead. You can stop competing with her." Elena advised in pure sympathy for the recently deceased freshman, who 'took her own life'.

"Sorry, I'm in a mood." Caroline told them as she resumes to rifle through.

Minerva raises her thick dark eyebrows, "Huh. You talked to Tyler?"

"He's deferring from enrolling and deferring from returning my phone calls, so I'm deferring from having sex with him ever again." The blonde snapped.

The young sophomore looks at the older freshman, genuinely curious, "What about you? How's the snooping going? Any explanation why your vervain-laced--" She looks back to check for eavesdroppers, "--vampire-slaughtered roommate had a picture of your dad on her phone?"

What does Megan King have anything to do with the late Dr. Gilbert?

"No." The pair of rifling freshmen simply answered in unison.

"Hm. Disappointing." Minerva suddenly remembers something, and hands a folder to them, "Here. Um, I went by the hospital this morning for you — Megan's death certificate. It says she died of suicide. No mention of the gaping vampire-bite on her neck. So, whoever signed off on the cause of death was part of the cover-up, just like the Founders Council back home." Until they were blown up at the Young cattle ranch by Pastor Young himself. Therefore, someone-- or some people know about vampires around here in Whitmore campus...Officer Freeman could be one of them, perhaps? The head of campus security, though who else knows about them? To find out...