♥︎°~°♥︎
Elena packed her last item into her backpack, her body was tense and filled with nerves about the day. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Stefan asked. Elena huffed out a breath and collapsed next to her boyfriend.
"Which part: Digging through my birth mother's life work, or going to Duke with Damon?" Stefan immediately tensed at the thought of his girlfriend alone with his brother.
"Either....both." He grimaced.
"Well, I'm sure about the first part. But then again, Ric is a good buffer." She leaned over and grabbed her bag to zip it up, "So we can bond in our anti-Damon solidarity." Stefan cracked a smile before it slowly dropped, and worry took over again
"Are you mad at me?" Elena sent him a quizzical look, "for not telling you what really happened that night?"
The brown-haired girl shifted uncomfortably. "No... I'm just, confused. Why didn't you just tell me what really happened in the first place."
"I didn't want to overwhelm you." He admitted, "You had only just come to terms with vampires and had only just found out about the Katherine thing, I felt like if I told you a possible supernatural, glowing eyed, dog-like animal saved you..." he trailed off.
Yeah, I probably would have run for the hills." Elena joked. "I wish you were coming with me today though." She tried to lighten the mood.
"You know, you could not go today, wait till, uh, Caroline's mastered her bloodlust, and then I could go with you." Elena glanced at her boyfriend uncomfortably.
"It's okay that I'm going, right? Be honest, if it's not, I can stay here." She honestly didn't fancy spending the day with the man who had recently tried to kill her brother; and technically succeeded.
"No, I want you to go, I do. You have questions about your lineage and about Katherine. And even though I'd rather be the one going, I have to stay and help Caroline and Damon is set on finding out more about the Lockwood's and the thing I saw, so I might hate it but it needs to happen."
"If it helps, I hate it too." The pair smiled at each other before sharing a small kiss.
~
"It's been a while."
Downstairs Jenna was waiting at the door for her niece, to say goodbye. She wasn't exactly happy that Elena was going on a trip with the guy she saw kissing on their porch, not very long ago. She was just hoping her niece knew what she was doing and wasn't playing her boyfriend, because she actually liked the sandy-haired teen.
"Ha, well, school's been keeping me, you know, busy." Alaric lied smoothly. At least they're not going alone she thought.
"I want you to know, it means a lot to me that Elena has a connection to her mother. I appreciate you bringing her along today." She smiled lightly at him.
"Yeah. Well, I figured it was time to take care of my wife's things, you know?" He shrugged, but Jenna could tell this was harder for him than he was letting on.
"Look Jenna, I know things between you, and I have been a little start-and-stop. And I'm sorry for that, but maybe once I can-"
"Uh, no, don't do that." She cut him off before he could say anymore. "Not the 'half, maybe apology, hope for the future' thing." The car honks at the front of the house, signalling for her niece to hurry up. She hesitated to say something else but instead looked at the stairs, "Elena, are you coming?" She yelled.
"Just, do what you need to do okay?" She tells him. Even if she didn't want any false hope for a possible relationship for them, didn't mean she wasn't going to support Alaric through him trying move on.
Alaric just nodded with a tight smile before moving towards the car, Elena wasn't far behind, moving down the stairs, stopping by her aunt. "Hey, you okay?"
"Ha, yeah. Just men and their baggage." Jenna brushed it off but was still glad her niece cared enough to worry. Elena just nodded absentmindedly, as she continued down the driveway, leaving Jenna to walk back inside.
~
The cool breeze combed through her fingers as Valerie held her hand high in the air, the sky shone down and bounced off the shiny black car as it raced down the empty road. She happily sung along to the radio, the lyrics flowing off her tongue as the beat of the music thrummed in her ears.
The engine of the car hummed lowly as she slowed her driving and glided by the 'Welcome to Mystic Falls' sign. She sighed as she mentally scanned through all the things she had to do, before returning home. She thought by now she would have been used to it, it's not the first time she's had to come and clean up the Salvatore brother's mess, and it won't be the last.
Valerie's phone buzzed next to her, and she grabbed it, swiping up without looking at the contact.
"You've reached the Gerard hotline; how may I help you?" The brown-haired girl drawled out sarcastically.
"Really V, that's how you answer the phone?" A sharp laugh echoed in her ear.
"Oh, thank god, it's you. I thought Marcel was calling to check up on me, again," she sighed.
"He's just looking out for you."
"I know, I know, so what's going on with you, Lucy." Valerie reached out to lower the music.
"Ths usual, Leo is who knows where, however, I finally found a lead on a witch siphoner." Lucy told her.
"Wait really? That's great, how did you find it?" Valerie slowed the car as buildings started to come into view, few towns people scattered around the paths, living their blissfully unaware lives of the uneventful Mystic Falls, if only they knew.
"Well, the last time I visited you, I had heard chatter from witches that were getting ready for something." She explained. "I overheard them talking about the arrival of a powerful coven leader, but let me say, witches are still judgy little things because most of it was gossip about something that happened over 16 years ago."
"You do realise you're technically a witch, right?" Val laughed.
"That's beside the point. Listen to this, the leader's son went crazy and apparently killed his siblings." She admitted. "Sooo I searched it up and found an article, and I'm currently heading the Portland to check it out."
"Well, that's great, I'm happy for you." Valerie was glad her friend had finally gotten a lead.
"Yeah well, it's better than listening to Marcel and trailing you to Mystic Boring." She admitted.
"He didn't." Valerie's jaw dropped.
"I told him you could handle yourself, but he basically ordered me to do it anyway, I think kingship is finally going to his head." This caused a chorused laughter between the two. It was nice for Valerie, sure New Orleans was her life and she loved leading it alongside Marcel, but sometimes it got overwhelming. So just laughing with her friend and being able to let her guard down was good.
The laughing dimmed and it was left in a comfortable silence as Valerie pulled up to the Mystic Grill, honestly the place hadn't changed a bit.
"But seriously V, if things there get bad, call me and I'll be on the first ride there, the same goes for Marcel and Leo - if he picks up - We all prefer you to be in one piece." Lucy sighed, worry lacing words.
"Yeah, I promise I will, but it will be fine I can handle myself." She shut off the engine, taking her car keys while the phone rested between her ear and shoulder.
"It's the two idiots I'm worried about, if my source was right; and they always are, then Katherine is back in town then she knows about the new doppelganger and I'm sure she'll be after the moonstone next," Valerie admitted.
Valerie loved Stefan and Damon, she really did. But she was plainly aware of their overall obliviousness on the supernatural outside themselves. She honestly didn't understand how they were over a century old vampire and were only aware of witches and doppelgangers.
"Well, that's why your there, come to save the day once again and build their egos thinking they're capable of solving their own problems..." Lucy paused, "how do they actually survive." She deadpanned.
"I have no idea." Valerie's heals clicked on the concrete as she walked into the Mystic Grill, the bell ringing on the way in. "Anyway, I have to go, it's the full moon and I plan to have a nice night in the forest before I jump into all the supernatural bullshit that is Mystic Falls."
They said their goodbyes and Valerie hangs up the phone before setting herself on the stool, hoping to gather a bit of information of the events currently happening so she doesn't stumble into any plans that night.
~
"So, Isobel was officially employed by the anthropology department, given that most paranormal phenomenon rooted in folk law." Alaric walked in the door of the university his ex-wife worked at, Damon and Elena not far behind.
"Excuse me, I'm Alaric Saltzman, I called earlier." He spotted a younger woman sorting through filing cabinets. She had heard them walk in but just assumed it to be other staff.
"Yes, of course, I'm Vanessa Monroe, research assistant." She introduced herself, looking at the three visitors, her eyes lingered on Elena for a moment too long, before they stopped on the older Salvatore. "Comparative folk lore." She cleared her throat awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with the two and kept her eyes on the older man, holding a tight smile.
"Ah let me just grab Isobel's keys." Obviously, her starring didn't go unnoticed by Alaric, "Oh these are my friends Elena and Damon, I hope this isn't too much of an imposition." Vanessa blushed slightly.
"No, Isobel's office is right through there," she pointed to a door on her right. "Isobel was one of my first professors, I'm a grab student. She was brilliant, one of the reasons I went into folk lore." She said.
"I have to ask," she swallowed slowly, "has there been any news?"
Alaric sighed sadly, "No, no I'm afraid not." He felt bad for lying but he couldn't exactly tell the girl, his ex-wife was a vampire.
"It's this way." The air was tense as they walked into the office. The room was dark and filled with old books and trinkets.
"I'll grab the light, feel free to look around." The grad student hurried out of the room.
All three scanned the room for anything interesting, resting in a silence with no one knowing what to say. About a minute passed before the vampire realised, the girl had been gone too long.
"Where did she go?"
Not a second later Vanessa rushed back into the room with a crossbow in hand and a scared look on her face, aiming it at the human doppelganger. Elena gasped as Vanessa pulled the trigger, a wooden stake flying right at her.
Before she could blink, Damon had appeared in front of her, taking the hit in the back. Alaric stood shocked at the other side of the room, with a confused but worried expression of his face as he knew the consequences of attacking the raven-haired vampire all too well.
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A/n
Okay sorry guys that you've had to wait so long for a new chapter, I don't really have an excuse so I'm just gonna say I'm really lazy and it takes me a while to get into a story so I can write it without stopping halfway through the chapter and not writing the rest for weeks.
Anyway this is a kind of awkward place to end the chapter but I kind of needed to upload something and it would have been really long if I finished the episode.
Also this chapter is not edited and probably is really bad due to the fact my computer is getting fixed at the moment.(Update: I'm using my brothers computer until I can get a new one and just edited this chapter.)
Right now not much if really happening but I promise the action will start next chapter.
Thanks for reading and can we get 5 comments and 5 votes for the next chapter.
-Lunar
「2324 words」
11/7/21