make your bed and lie in it
"I THOUGHT WE HAD A DEAL, KATHERINE," Athena stands before the doppelgänger, a glare on her face as she takes in the bloody woman. "I got Klaus to let you go compulsion-free and you never showed your face here again, or pulled any of your scheming bullshit with any of us. So what the hell are you doing here? What happened to you?"
Katherine huffs, blowing a stray curl off of her face as she pulls against the binds on her wrists. "Untie me and I'll tell you,"
"No,"
"Fine," Katherine rolls her eyes, shifting her gaze to Stefan with a smirk. "Long time no see, Stefan. How have you been?"
The vampire rolls his eyes, an amused smirk on his face. "Nice try. Tell us why you woke Mikael up. Tell us how you knew about him in the first place,"
"God," She groans, the sound echoing in the living room of the boarding house as everyone glares expectantly at her. "When did you all get so boring?"
Rebekah scoffs, stepping towards the doppelgänger. "Perhaps when you woke my father up and sent him to come and kill us all,"
"In my defense, I didn't know he was your father. I'd just heard rumors about a vampire who hunts vampires, and besides, you killed him once, can't you just do it again? You have a goddess this time around, it should be easy."
"It nearly killed us to kill him, you stupid girl," Rebekah spits, glaring down at the woman who just smirks relentlessly. "You have signed our lives away because you just don't know when to leave well enough alone."
Athena clears her throat, looking at Katherine confusedly. "Why did you even want to find Mikael? None of us were in Mystic Falls, you had no idea where we were. How would you even know where to send him?"
Katherine swallows, looking away from the goddess. "I knew where you were,"
"Liar," Damon narrows his eyes at her, crossing his arms over his chest. "Try again."
"I'm telling the truth!"
Athena sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose exasperatedly. "Katherine, I have been back in Mystic Falls for all of twenty-four hours and somehow, you are already the bane of my existence again. So why don't you just stop wasting everybody's time and tell us the truth."
Katherine grits her teeth, her eyes hard and defensive. "I am telling the truth. If I sent Mikael after you guys, he'd take care of any threat against me and I could finally stop running all the time."
"Okay, well, if you don't tell us why you actually went and found him, I'll just kill you now. Then you won't have to run ever again," Athena smiles, overtly sweet and entirely threatening. "Because you'll be dead."
A stake appears in Athena's hand and she holds it up as she approaches the dopplegänger.
"No, no, no," Katherine pulls against her restraints, eyes wide in panic. "Athena, don't! Please– I'll– I'll tell you, okay? I'll tell you the truth!"
Athena stops, stake raised above the woman's heart and she raises a dark brow expectantly. "The truth, Katherine. All of it."
Defeat seems to settle into the woman's shoulders and she slumps against the chair she was tied to, her eyes suddenly helpless. "It's Elena, alright? There's been whispers of a vampire off the rails in Mystic Falls, and the second I found out it wasn't Stefan going all ripper on us again,"
Stefan rolls his eyes but doesn't interrupt.
"I had to come here to figure it out. I found her," Katherine clenches her jaw, swallowing roughly. "And I found John. She killed him, to finish her transition. And when she saw me, she tried to kill me, too. Obviously, she's not much of a threat considering she's only been a vampire for three months, but her switch is flipped, and she's out for revenge on all of you. Like I said earlier– I'm tired of running, even if it's from baby vamps with anger issues. Who better to take care of all of my problems than a vampire who hunts vampires."
Athena looks across the room, meeting Damon's eyes. Nodding minutely, he sighs and walks to the dopplegänger and unties the rope around her wrists.
"So, what," Katherine clenches her jaw, looking at Athena defensively. "Are you going to kill me now that I told the truth?"
"No," Athena shakes her head, earning a shocked look from the woman. "I'm not you, Katherine."
Something shameful comes across her face, but it's quickly replaced by her usual mask of indifference as she reluctantly stands from the chair, eyeing all of the people around her. "What now, then?"
"We need to let Mikael come to Mystic Falls without a fight,"
Athena's words earn an outburst from the two Mikaelson siblings, but they're quickly silenced by Stefan. "Enough," He glares at them before shifting his gaze back to Athena. "Let her talk."
"We have no idea where Elena is. We've got no leads, and the only people who could take us to her are all willing to die before they do that. If we let Mikael get to her first, we can kill them both in one go. It'll save us time, and prevent any unnecessary deaths."
"Mikael will kill us all before we even get the chance to kill him first," Rebekah clenches her jaw, but Athena sees through her anger and finds the fear that makes her voice shake as he speaks. "It's a stupid plan."
"And if anything goes wrong, it's on me," Athena placates the Original, looking at the rest of them with rising frustration. "If anyone has a better plan, we can talk it through, but right now I'm the only one providing solutions that aren't just running away so we're going with mine."
Athena's dark eyes shift back to Katherine, and the look in them makes the doppelgänger look away. "And you're going to help us, Katherine. Actually, help us, or I will kill you."
──────
"God, I've missed you, Lexi," Athena grinned at the blonde woman, gesturing to the bourbon on the table. "What have you been doing?"
Lexi huffed, taking the poured drink from Athena with a small nod as she settled in on the couch across from the couple. "Well, I came back here in May to help you guys out with the Klaus thing, but when I got here, everybody was gone and word of Mikael was starting to catch wind. So, I left and tracked down the only person I know who is stupid enough to willingly find the vampire-hunting-vampire,"
"Katherine," Athena intoned, earning a nod from Lexi as she curled into Stefan's side. "Where was she when you found her?"
"Half dead because Mikael feeds on vampires," Lexi says flatly. "Yeah, I can see where Klaus gets it from."
"Don't let him hear you say that," Stefan says, glancing around the living room of the boarding house. Everyone had dispersed quickly when Katherine was sufficiently threatened, going off to claim rooms or re-familiarize themselves with their belongings left behind all those months ago.
Lexi rolls her eyes, not fearful of the crazed hybrid living under the same roof as her. Her dark eyes shift between the couple as they seemingly cling to each other, unaware of their proximity. She had kept in contact with Stefan over the months she was away, but no update on his relationship with Athena truly showed what they acted like.
Frowning slightly, she tilted her head at them, earning a confused stare from Athena.
"What?"
Lexi gestured between them, lifting her glass to her lips. "What happened to you guys?"
Athena and Stefan shared a brief, confused look before looking back to Lexi. "What do you mean?"
"You're being weird. You're somehow more clingy than usual. What's going on?"
Stefan rolled his lips, avoiding his best friend's imposing stare. "We're just tired,"
"Right," Lexi drawled, her disbelief obvious. "You wanna try that again?"
Athena heaved a sigh, pushing herself upright on the couch. She gave Stefan a sympathetic look and the vampire avoided her gaze, still allowing her to intertwine their fingers on his lap. "When we sacrificed Elena, some things happened, and Stefan and I split up. I left, and so did he. But we've worked things out."
Lexi's eyes widened and she looked at them skeptically. "You two? Split up? And the world didn't burn?"
"I, uh," Athena cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably. "I wouldn't have known. I wasn't here."
"Well then, where were you?"
"Olympus," She muttered, watching a glimmer of hope shine in the woman's eyes.
"Did you see–"
"Yeah," She cut the girl off, already knowing her train of thought. "I, uh, I spoke to Apollo. To threaten his life."
Lexi leaned forward, her eyes wide. "What the hell are you talking about? What did he do?"
Athena sat back, feeling Stefan's gaze on her profile as she stared past Lexi at the wall. She hadn't told anyone what happened on Olympus, and the only people who already knew also knew better than to bring it up before she did.
Clearing her throat, the goddess looked at Lexi with a sad smile. "My father wanted to keep me on Olympus so I could take over his throne one day. Which, uh, wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't ruined my life to do so."
"Athena?"
She glances at Stefan, a small, sad twitch pulling at her lips. "Long story short, I found out my dad was lying to me about a lot of stuff and I tried to escape back here. He caught me, and there was a– a fight," She hesitated to even call it that because he'd done everything but fight with her. He just kept trying to control her. "It's like I went through time. I saw you and Damon in 1864, I was there with you in Chicago in the 20s, I– he wanted to prove his point that there would always be a doppelgänger there because that's what was really meant to happen. A version of you with a version of Elena, at any given point in time."
Her brown eyes shifted to Stefan's green ones, the shining irises holding insurmountable guilt in them that made her squeeze his hand reassuringly. "But everywhere I went you and I met. We met, and you didn't have eyes for anyone but me, let alone a doppelgänger. And every time, whether it was you or Damon, or even Caroline, you told me I didn't belong there. You woke me up, you told me I had to come back and make it all right again."
She shrugged a shoulder, recalling the gods glaring at her as she threatened her father. "I told them that if they came to Earth for me again, I would kill them." Giving Lexi an apologetic look, she shook her head. "Apollo stayed with Artemis. I'm sorry, Lex."
"No, it's," Lexi shook her head, a distant look in her eyes as she smiled softly. "Soulmates. He couldn't leave his sister, and he told me a long time ago that if it came down to it, he'd have to choose Artemis. I understood what I was getting into, Athena, trust me."
"It doesn't take away from the fact that he ditched you," Athena grumbled. "I thought that Artemis would understand me, you know? She always made it seem like she didn't care for our dad's rules, but in the end, she picked him."
"She picked family," Lexi started, earning a slightly shocked look from Athena before she elaborated. "So did you. You picked the people who have been a family to you when Zeus wasn't. And he threatened that when he tried to force this on you,"
Athena shrugged, wanting to change the subject the longer she held Lexi's pity and Stefan's concerned stare. "It's whatever, you know? You're, uh, probably pretty tired, Lexi, we'll let you go to bed."
The goddess doesn't wait for a response, and she stands from the couch, quickly departing from the couch and hurrying up the stairs to her and Stefan's bedroom. In her haste, she missed the knowing, worried looks that the two friends shared.
Giving his best friend a knowing nod, Stefan hurried after his girlfriend up the stairs, his dark brows furrowed. "Athena?"
Stepping into their shared room, he scans the surroundings, finally landing on Athena as she pulls a set of pajamas out of the closet to change into. When she sees Stefan, she huffs and turns away from him, ignoring him pointedly.
She undoes the knot in her top, fingers fumbling shakily as she lets it fall off her shoulders and to the ground. Reaching for the silk pajama top, she slides it on, buttoning it up as Stefan approaches her.
"Sweetheart,"
"Don't," She whispers, voice weak as he forces her to turn around to face him. His heart aches at the tears in her brown eyes and he brushes his thumbs beneath her eyes, gently wiping them away.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
She shakes her head, arms dropping helplessly at her sides. "They were supposed to be my family, you know? A–And it's not that you guys aren't enough, I just thought that maybe I could have this one good thing with no consequences, and I couldn't. I couldn't even have a dad without it being some giant lie. And I feel like I shouldn't even miss them, or be upset because they were just following orders and clearly didn't care about me as much as I cared about them, but I do miss them and I am upset."
Athena's voice breaks off into a shaky whisper and Stefan pulls her into his chest, holding her tight as her soft sobs shake her shoulders. He rests his cheek atop her head, staring worriedly at the wall behind her as his girlfriend's cries echo in the bedroom.
"Hey, hey, look at me," He mumbles softly, pulling away from her to look into her eyes. "You have every right to be upset, Athena. They're your family, they shouldn't have tried to do what they did, no matter who told them to. You didn't deserve what they did to you, sure, but that doesn't mean you can't miss them too. I miss a lot of people from my past that I shouldn't, it's just part of life."
"Well, it's stupid," She huffs, dropping her head back onto his chest as she sniffs, stopping her tears. "And I hate it."
Stefan huffs a laugh at her childishness, hugging her to him again. "I know, sweetheart, but at least you have people like Caroline and Damon to help you through this– which is something I never thought I'd say."
"Yeah," She hums, wrapping her arms around his waist. "And I have a boyfriend, too. He's pretty cool sometimes,"
"Oh, really? Only sometimes? I'll have to meet this boyfriend of yours, then,"
"No, you'd hate him. Real emotional guy, always tries to make the best out of things, it's awful."
The vampire rolls his eyes and squeezes her tighter, making her gasp in slight surprise. "Alright, alright, that's enough out of you. We need to get some sleep, I have a feeling we're going to be missing out on it these next few days."
"See what I mean?" Athena pulls away from him, reaching for her pajama shorts as she unzips the side of her skirt. "I can't ever wallow around you, it's awful. Why won't you let me complain and not do anything to fix my problems?"
"Oh, I am so sorry I don't want to see you struggle or be sad,"
"You should be," She points an accusing finger at him, ignoring his eye roll. "You're lucky you're so pretty, otherwise we'd have some real problems."
──────
author's note; ok this chapter is sort a filler chapter and not a great note to return on but it's whatever, i've got some shit to say to you guys and you better read all of this and comprehend it or i will abandon this book entirely and possibly this hellish app.
listen up, people. i am a human being. i am nineteen years old, and i have a family and friends and an entire life outside of writing fanfiction, alright? and i know that most of you guys understand that, as you feel the same. but there's a larger portion of people who don't seem to understand that this is not my job. it is not my life. it is a hobby. it is a passion of mine.
i am a human being. and i understand that it's hard to connect my disembodied personality online to an actual teenage girl, but that's the case, okay? and here's the really big thing some of you guys don't seem to be getting: i am living an entire life outside of your phone or laptop screens. i do not exist solely to write for you.
i announced a few weeks ago that i'd be taking a break to collect myself and detach myself from the negativity in my comments section on this book. in the first week of that break, i was doing great, and i began deleting comments on a few chapters here and there that were just outright negative or were unprompted, unhelpful, comments on my writing and whatnot. i was preparing to come back fairly soon, and then, as it is so wont to do, life happened.
my cousin, who i was very close with, was killed. he was thirty-five years old. he had a son, and an ex-wife that he was raising his son with. and his life was taken from him because of some man who decided he had a right to a woman that my cousin was seeing at the time of his death.
i announced on my profile that i would be prolonging my break to mourn with my family in peace. some of you did not seem to understand that, so let me break it down for you.
my cousin was mudered a week ago. his funeral was five days ago, the day before my birthday. i held his son in my arms as he cried about his father being dead, and some of you had the audacity to message me and not even ask, but demand an update from me. you commented it publicly. you messaged me on tumblr. you invaded a time of mourning because you think that i owe you something and i don't.
so i will only say this once more, as nice as i possibly can, before i turn into an outright bitch. do not comment, telling me to update. do not message me privately for an update. do not message me, or comment, or contact me in any way, asking for an update because you never know what is going on in my life preventing me from updating. have some respect for me as a human being.
and while i'm here, scolding you like children– stop commenting on things demanding smut. don't message me about smut. don't demand it from me, or say you were "robbed". do you know how many minors read my book? do you know how many people of different sexual orientations, gender identies, religions, etc, read my book and wouldn't feel comfortable with it?
i made a tumblr specifically for this reason. if you are reading my book, solely for smut, either fuck off or go request something specific on my tumblr.
and please, try to fucking remember. i am a human. i do not owe any of you a single thing. you don't pay me for this. this is a hobby, and if you all continue to speak to me like you own me, i will lose my love for it and you'll ruin it for everybody else that kept quiet.
so. thanks, and goodnight. who knows when i'll update next.
(it's crazy that even after I was basically forced to divulge this traumatizing moment in my life to get people to stop harassing me, I still, to this day, experience harassment. some of you will never see the pearly gates and I'm so serious - liz from the future)
originally published; 7.26.21.
edited: 12.7.23.
- liz