"So, who died?"
"No one is dead," said Damon, though he looked irritated enough for Amelia to assume that someone close to them was in danger of dying. "Silas has Elena."
"Huh? But— but Stefan tossed him off into the quarry months ago."
"Apparently, not." He turned to Caroline. "Blondie, get dressed and go look for her at the bonfire. Little Donovan, you're coming with me to check the areas away from the bonfire."
Amelia quickly set her bag down before leading Damon out the door and to the surrounding area where students were not going to be mingling. They figured that Silas would have either slipped away with Elena, or would be blending into the large crowd.
Damon looked over at the girl beside him, seeing her eyes darting all over and scanning the crowd. "Is it true Elena was dreaming about Stefan?"
"She said they weren't dreams. More like feelings. If something was wrong with him this entire time, that explains it."
The vampire didn't seem convinced. "That doesn't explain anything. Why was she having visions? Why not... me?"
Amelia knew instantly that he was feeling insecure, even if he'd never admit it. "Well, they had an emotional connection that was stronger than a brotherly bond. The supernatural world is still confusing. Maybe that emotional connection jumped out into a weird SOS signal. She likes you and only you. Don't think that she's considering going back to Stefan. It's been over for those two for awhile."
Damon nodded slowly, fiddling with his daylight ring as they continued walking around. They reached the Biological Sciences Building again, and caught sight of Dr. Maxfield heading toward his car. Amelia kept her gaze on him for what was apparently a second too long, because Damon nudged her and wiggled his brows.
"Is Goody Two-Shoes Amy considering sleeping with a Professor?" he teased.
"Oh, shut up, don't call me that just because I care about school more than other people. None of us can be Goody Two-Shoes after hanging out with you. He's just someone we're trying to learn more about because of the dead roommate thing."
"That wouldn't happen to be the weirdo that Elena mentioned... the one who signed off on the death certificate?"
"That's him."
"I knew you liked them psycho, but not that psycho."
"You know nothing about how I like them."
"I know that you like me."
"I tolerate you, there's a difference."
"So you're telling me you'd rather with Matt than with me?"
"Ew, you're both my brothers in my eyes, I don't want to with either of you."
"Suit yourself, I'm great in bed."
Amelia scrunched up her nose. "You know, saying that all the time makes you sound really cocky. Leads me to believe you feign being good when you're not. I'd probably need a magnifying glass to see your little friend."
Damon let out a playful offended huff, and she walked off triumphantly. "That's payback for you saying my tits were small when we first met," she chirped back.
"Your loss," he called back. "You don't know what you're missing."
"And I don't care to find out!" she said, looking over her shoulder before skipping ahead to keep looking for Elena and Silas.
They still hadn't located her, hours later. It was dark now, and Caroline had reconvened with them after Damon and Amelia had split temporarily, leading to Silas confronting the older vampire.
"Why would Silas even want to hurt her?" asked Caroline as they moved together through the bonfire groups.
"Because he wants to hurt me," Damon told her.
"You know, if you just would've told the truth, all of this could've been avoided."
Damon cast her a cheeky smile. "Gee, thanks, Caroline. Your hindsight is invaluable in this situation."
One of the students bumped into him as they walked. "Watch where you're going, douche," the guy snapped drunkenly.
Damon gritted his teeth. "Have you seen Elena Gilbert?"
"I have no idea who that is," the kid responded. "And if I were her, I'd probably run from you, too."
"Wrong answer." Damon wrapped his hand around the guy's throat, but Amelia and Caroline were both ready for this. The brunette siphoned from Damon's arm, forcing him to let go as Caroline pulled the guy back, compelling him to forget the incident and to leave.
"You're clearly in a terrible mood," said Amelia, yanking him away, "but that's no reason to be choking random people. Whatever you're into, that's between you and Elena in the bedroom."
Damon didn't laugh. "Silas turned the entire town square into a hunting party for Katherine. How am I supposed to calm down when every single person here could be working for Silas?"
Caroline suddenly frowned, tucking her hair behind her ear and listening. "Hold on, I think I hear her talking."
Damon stopped to imitate her, before abruptly speeding away. Caroline grabbed onto Amelia's hand and whipped her away so fast, that when they landed in a random shed, the siphoner nearly threw up.
"Seriously?" she heard Caroline say just after hearing a thud. When her vision cleared, she saw Jesse on the floor. "That's Jesse, I kind of liked him."
"He's your problem now, Barbie," said Damon before whisking Elena away.
"I love being on cleanup duty," groaned Amelia, rubbing her head as she moved forward to help Jesse up.
"What the hell was all that?" he said dizzily, sitting on a broken chair that'd been stored within the shed.
"That was Damon being Damon," explained Amelia, examining his face and seeing he was a slightly bruised, but otherwise unhurt. "Sorry about that." Seeing the way Jesse was looking at Caroline, she bit her lip, and stepped back. "You know what, I should go um, check out the drinks table. I didn't get to yet."
Winking at the blonde, she waltzed right out, letting the two of them have their time. She made a beeline to where the keg was set up, and had the makeshift bartender pour her a drink, which she downed happily before taking the long route back to the dormitory.
"Amelia."
She saw that Dr. Maxfield was walking toward her. "Dr. Maxfield," she said. "I um, thought I saw you leaving earlier."
"I came back," he told her simply. "There's some research I need to get done."
"I'm going to assume you're the type of Professor that always stays late hours. Your partner must hate that."
He raised his brows. "No partner, actually. I learned quite a while ago that no woman could tolerate waiting up for me all the time. I'm married to my job."
Amelia smiled a bit, walking alongside him toward the Biological Sciences Building. "That's probably going to be me in the future."
"What kind of doctor are you interested in being? Or are you going to be a researcher?"
"Definitely not a researcher. I like the idea of being hands-on with patients. I'm thinking of surgery or obstetrics. To be honest, I haven't had much real-life exposure to the medical field. Magazines are just about it, aside from the occasional Grey's Anatomy episode."
"I think you've got what it takes to be a surgeon. You have steady hands, and a lot of drive." They passed the Biological Sciences Building, and Amelia furrowed her brows a bit. Seeing this, Dr. Maxfield gave a slight laugh. "Sorry, I should have said something. My laboratory isn't within the building. I have my own lab inside of Whitmore House. I realize I'm probably straying you away from your dorm."
"It's fine," she said. "I can walk you there."
This seemed to please him, and she figured it was another test. Fine by her, she could easily step past the threshold. On the way, they chatted about the work that Dr. Maxfield was doing, apparently a lot of stem cell research and some experiments on different blood types as it pertained to curing things like cancer and AIDS.
"That's really fascinating," said Amelia, and she genuinely meant it. Dr. Maxfield stopped for a moment to open the door of Whitmore House for her before beckoning her in. She nodded in appreciation before stepping inside of the building, practically able to sense the relief he felt in fully confirming that she wasn't a vampire. She wondered how best to find out how much he knew.
"You know," she thought aloud, "I was reading this study about holistic approaches to those kinds of things, and I saw a lot of them use... supernatural components. There was a doctor who used some old voodoo relics and supposedly cured this woman of stage four cancer in her liver. She died afterward, apparently, of a heart attack."
Dr. Maxfield chuckled, leading her down near the basement area, where his laboratory apparently was. "A lot of students are curious about supernatural occurrences when they arrive on this campus. With such a well known Occult Studies program, it's no wonder they start questioning it all. How did you come to learn about the supernatural?"
"My best friend's grandmother taught here," she said. "Sheila Bennett? When I moved to Mystic Falls, she let me read her books for fun."
"I remember Sheila. Good woman. I was sorry to hear about her passing. I'm assuming you were close with her?"
Amelia nodded. "She was one of the few genuinely good parental figures I had in my life. She helped me get caught up in school."
"I did see that in your file... you were in the foster care system?"
"Yep. Since the age of two. Glad I aged out." Really, she'd run from it.
"You had a lot of odds against you, I expect, when you were growing up. You should be proud of yourself for ending up here. I believe I am right to say that you tried to surround yourself with good influences?"
Well, she wouldn't call them good influences. "You could say that," she said as they finally arrived in a very spacious laboratory. "Oh, wow, this place is really organized."
"I spent all of the summer cataloging and sorting through things," he told her. "Feel free to take a look."
"You won't inject me with something?" she asked a bit teasingly, wanting to see his reaction.
He teased right back. "Is that your way of telling me you'd like to be paid to be my test subject?"
"You tell me, Dr. Maxfield. Do I benefit more from being your assistant, or your subject? Assuming the pay is somewhat similar."
He was watching her with great interest, seeing as she ran her fingers over different test tubes and flasks he'd left near the sink. "Well, the position doesn't formally open until next month. So you have time to decide. In all seriousness, what I need most of all is an assistant. The hospital provides me with blood to do my tests. You'd be helping me with labeling, measuring amounts of compounds to set aside for later, washing the reusable equipment, that sort of thing."
"That sounds good to me," she said, stopping in front of a refrigerator full of several centrifuge tubes. There appeared to be blood in them. "Will I be learning about all the things you keep in here?"
"Do you wish to learn about them?"
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."
He stepped closer to her, and she stopped to look at him. "The only thing I feel concerned about is your level of commitment," he said.
"Commitment?"
"You have a boyfriend, don't you?"
Amelia made a face. "Oh, no. The guy you saw me with earlier? He's like my adoptive brother. As for my friends, they're good people, and they understand that I came here to work my ass off. I need the job."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "It's a personal reason."
"Personal enough you can't share it with your future boss?"
She figured that he thought it to be something relating to the supernatural. "Well," she sighed, "I need money to travel to where my birth family is. So I guess it's not that personal. But personal enough that I wouldn't just prance around telling everyone."
Dr. Maxfield hummed, putting his hand over the refrigerator handle as if he was going to open it, but he didn't. Instead, it was as though he was blocking her access to it. "You strike me as someone who's good at keeping secrets. There will be things here that need to remain on the down low. Research that's not ready for the outside world to know about just yet."
"I can keep my lips sealed," she promised. In reality, all of this was going to be spilled to Caroline and Elena as soon as she got to the dorm. "I'm good at not opening my mouth when it ought to be closed."
She saw a flicker in his eyes that let her know she'd gained an advantage. She wasn't a vampire, and had acquired his trust. She'd gone along with his offer, and had realized he was attracted to her. That would make it a whole lot easier to get things out of him.
"Good," he said quietly, his grip on the refrigerator handle tightening enough that she could see the veins and tendons popping up on the back of his hand. "Well, I've kept you out late enough. You should return to your dorm."
"Goodnight, Dr. Maxfield," she said, turning on her heel and making for the door.
"Amelia."
She stopped before she could exit. "You can call me Wes," he said, making her smirk before she walked out the rest of the way and left Whitmore House.
As soon as she'd finished hearing about Caroline's time with Jesse as well as the very strange scene she'd walked in on (a shirtless, tied-up Damon and Elena impaled to her chair), she'd reported everything she'd learned so far. Elena and Caroline were thrilled to hear that she had made so much progress in one day.
"Look at you, playing teacher's pet," teased Elena as she started packing some of her things. Apparently, she was going to go to Mystic Falls to speak with Jeremy and hopefully find Stefan. "I'm assuming you'll be using any means necessary?"
Caroline giggled. "Elena, it's Amelia we're talking about. She wouldn't sleep with a Professor even if we put a gun to her head."
Amelia grinned. "Care's right, Elena. I'm there for the money and the information, nothing more. He's cute, but not my type. If I were into the whole teacher-student thing, you'd have seen me all over Alaric."
"Gross," said Elena, sticking her tongue out playfully. "That's like hearing you say you want to bone my dad."
"Hold on," said Caroline, holding her hands up. "But aren't you into older guys?"
"Well, I like the idea of older guys, but I wouldn't seduce a Professor. That reflects bad on me as the student. This isn't about to turn into Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee."
"Remind me what happened in that book?"
"It's the one where Professor David Lurie sleeps with his student, Melanie, and ends up in South Africa with his daughter..."
Caroline shivered. "Oh, ew, that book was just— wrong on so many levels."
"The point," said Amelia, "is that I'll do what I have to in order to get information. But I draw the line at sleeping with him. Don't even make dirty references about me getting under his desk or anything like that."
Caroline and Elena both raised their eyebrows as if they were definitely intending to joke about that, and Amelia rolled her eyes. "I'm being serious. I'm not attracted to him. I just want to know why he lied on Megan's death certificate. And maybe also work in a lab so I can be ready for my career."
"What if he's being Mind Controlled?" asked Caroline. "What if he didn't actually do it off his own free will, and he's actually a good guy? Then what?"
"Jeez, Care, it sounds like you're wanting me to have sex with him."
"I can't help it, Amy! Since I've met you, you've never once told me about any kiss or hook up you've had. It's been two years already, have you really not been intimate with anyone in Mystic Falls?"
Amelia wanted to say that she had been, she just didn't feel comfortable enough to tell Caroline that. "I've kissed a few... people," she said awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head. "Mostly random makeouts at parties."
"But you haven't gotten laid since before you came to Mystic Falls. Which makes me wonder, yet again, how is it that you were having sex before any of us?"
"Because I was a kid who spent a lot of time out of the house getting in trouble. A person does a lot of stupid things when trying to stay as far away from lousy guardians as possible."
The one thing Caroline did not seem to understand was that no one was required to tell her all the dirty details of their lives. "Amelia Torres!" she shrieked. "You have to tell us your secret."
It wasn't any secret. Amelia had just been an idiot who hooked up with a fellow fourteen year old years ago to prove a point. She hadn't told anyone the details because she hardly remembered them herself. She didn't count it as her first sexual experience because she didn't want to. The one she did count was her singular night with Kol. But since Caroline and Elena didn't know about that, she wasn't going to spill the beans.
"I was just a reckless kid who said yes to the first person who offered," she said a bit uncomfortably. "I really don't see why it's worth talking about."
Elena seemed to notice the change in her attitude, and quickly jumped in. "So!" the doppelgänger said brightly. "I was thinking, while I'm gone, you, Caroline Forbes, should totally go on a date with Jesse. I mean, you clearly had a connection with him tonight. He's cute. You should go for it."
Amelia cast Elena a grateful look before moving onto her bed, now listening to Caroline chatting about Jesse.
She dreamt of Kol that night. This didn't surprise her in the slightest. He seemed to come to mind whenever she was feeling particularly lonely.
"What is it, love?" he'd asked her one night when they'd been cuddling. She'd snuck out to meet him in the hotel room he was staying in, while he resided in Mystic Falls trying to get the others to stop searching for Silas. "Your heart beat changed."
"Just thinking," she whispered, feeling his arms wrap tighter around her. "You're going to leave soon, aren't you?"
"I want you to come with me."
She looked up at him. "What?"
"I won't stay here forever. I want to return to New Orleans. Your particular little gift can help us both once we're there. There's a tomb in the Lafayette Cemetery, the Claire tomb, and it's full of dark objects that I made in the past. Useful things that you can siphon from to practice magic on your own. A witch I used to hang around with locked me out. Unfortunately, she got locked away elsewhere, meaning the spell hasn't been removed. I'd like to take you to meet your family once we run that errand."
"Thank you for everything," she said, bringing her hand up to run through his hair. "You've done so much to help me find out about who I am. It means more to me than you could possibly know."
"No need to thank me, love. I'm glad to be able to help you."
"Do you think this is going to last? Us?"
"I'd like it to, Lia." He kissed the top of her head. "I think I'm falling in love with you."
She sat up, surprised. "Really?" she asked, wondering if he was teasing her. "You're telling me Kol Mikaelson is falling in love with a siphoner witch that's one thousand years younger than him?"
He smirked, tucking his hand under her chin. "That's exactly what I'm telling you, my perfect little witch." He'd moved to kiss her, hands roaming all over her body before slipping beneath her shirt.
Amelia woke up sweating. She looked around quickly, seeing Caroline and Elena were still asleep. After a brief moment of hesitation, she got up and grabbed her things before heading in for a cold shower, which left her shivering, successfully distracting her from the mixed arousal and sadness.
That night wasn't something she liked to remember, because exactly twenty-four hours later, Jeremy had killed Kol, and Amelia had been in charge of cleaning up that hotel room to give Klaus all of Kol's belongings. There had been no funeral for him, and since only Bonnie and Matt had known about her relationship with Kol, she'd had to swallow all her tears and hold them in until Elena turned her humanity off (this had given her an excuse to cry. No one would question it if she said she was feeling miserable because of what had happened to her friend). Even then, she'd never really mourned properly.
Her phone rang when she went out to the dining hall for breakfast. "Matt," she answered. "How are things?"
"They're... okay. Listen, Caroline told me yesterday that she's coming to Mystic Falls for the weekend. Are you coming with her?"
"She hasn't formally invited me, but I expect she'll ask me today if I want to come. Do you need me to go?"
"Please. It's... it's urgent. I don't want to say it over the phone. Bonnie isn't answering my emails and I need to tell you about something."
"Matt, I can make my way there today— Elena's going."
"No, no, you need to go to class today. It's fine, just come down in two days, and it'll be fine, I promise."
He hung up, and she was left in the dark.