Lucy's look for the chapter ≈
CHAPTER XLVII
❝ It's no big deal. ❞
tw : mention of secluding self
Long drives felt different.
The wind whipping at your face through the window, the fresh air of passing fields and the serenity of lone highways.
But Lucy felt none. There was just anxiousness wrecking her nerves.
Brie was fast asleep in the backseat and Niklaus was driving while Lucy was supposedly resting after her tiring driving shift. But Lucy couldn't even close her eyes, let alone sleep for a while.
Niklaus stole a quick glance at her before casting her a concerned look, "Why don't you rest a little bit? Your eyes are so bloodshot."
"Yeah." she mumbled mindlessly, her hands fiddling with the ring, unaware of Nik noticing her this movement.
They will still to talk about 'the ring'. Lucy had locked herself in the room, avoiding any sort of interaction for the night being and had reappeared next day behaving as if nothing had happened. And after a long conversation on Brie's birthday surprise party in Mystic Falls, and Niklaus assuring her repeatedly that he was alright with going to Mystic Falls, they were on their way to Falls.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Lucy shrugged tiredly. "I think so."
"Doesn't look like that."
"It's just," she sighed heavily. "I had this dream a long time ago, and suddenly I couldn't help but remember it. It was a weird dream. I was sleeping and I was pregnant in it. And then someone was choking me. I couldn't see its face but the dream me said 'Casper'."
"This is a very weird dream." his brows furrowed.
"I know, right?" she sighed. "And this just is suddenly bugging me incessantly. And I don't know why. That was just a dream, right?"
"Yeah, Lucy, it's just a dream. You're probably bugged because we're going to the warzone. With everything going with The Cure and my siblings there, it could turn into violence any moment. And I think we're both missing the peace in Florida already."
"Yeah." she sighed. "But it's just a matter of a week."
"It better be."
"We won't be planning to stay, would we? You no longer want the cure, right?"
"Yeah, I don't want my hybrids any longer."
"Why?"
"Because I don't need them. Besides, they're all backstabbing."
"Any other possible reason?"
"We're not having this conversation right now." he mumbled, his face going red. "Go to sleep."
"Yeah. Yeah." she hummed, a goofy smile appearing on her face.
"Close your eyes, Lucy."
"Okay." she giggled, shutting them close as she felt him intertwine their fingers together.
◇◇◆◇◆◇◇
It was past sunset when they reached the Salvatore Boarding House.
"Wake up, we're here, Brie." Lucy prodded the little girl, making her stir as she herself yawned, rubbing her eyes.
"Five more minutes, mom." Brie mumbled sleepily, curling in a foetal position.
"It's s'okay. I'll carry her." Nik offered, stifling a laugh.
"Sure." Lucy nodded, moving to open the tailgate as she piled out the luggages.
"Hey!" a happy voice called out as Lucy turned to see Stefan, who'd just exited the house to greet them.
"Stefano." she grinned as he pulled her in for a hug.
"Look at you." she grinned teasingly. "Ooh, you got piercings."
"Yeah. I got a recent obsession with them." Stefan grinned back. "But you haven't changed a bit, Lucy."
"I know. It's magic." she winked, eliciting in a laugh from him which, unfortunately, faded away as his eyes fell on the person emerging behind her.
"Klaus." he greeted with a forced smile as he soaked in with shock the scene before him.
Klaus carrying Brie like she's his own daughter? Oh, lord.
"Stefan." he smiled back, a real one for Lucy's sake. "Feels real nice to be back after so long."
"Mmhm. Glad to know." he nodded stiffly, trying to be as cordial as possible. "Um, why don't you both head inside? I'll bring in the luggage."
"Is no one else's home?" Lucy asked as Stefan began rolling the suitcases behind them, the slick sound of the wheels scraping the pavement becoming annoying to the ear.
"Um, yeah. Everyone's gone here and there."
"Oh, weird." Lucy chuckled as she turned the handles and pushed open the double doors.
"SURPRISE!" several voices screamed together, making both of them jump out of their skin.
"What the fuck?" Lucy whispered to herself, her eyes widened as she took in the 'Welcome Back' and 'We Missed You' banners before her.
Nearly everyone she knew was there. Vaishali, Bonnie, Jamie, Caroline. Even Elena was standing there, beaming at them. In fact Damon was also standing in a corner, albeit rolling his eyes.
"Hello, darlings!" a newer voice exclaimed as two people jumped before them, popping confetti.
"Happy to see me?" Kol smirked, as Zoey laughed beside him.
"Oh, absolutely not, I'm so sad." Lucy grinned, a teasing tone in her words as they hugged and with hidden shock she noticed as Rebekah appeared by the corner, smiling contentedly.
"Well, hello to you too brother." Kol smirked, turning to his brother before his face morphed into confusion. "Whose kid is that? And why are you carrying it?"
The whole group suppressed their laughs.
"She is my daughter." Lucy laughed. "Her name is Brie."
"And I'm carrying her because she is asleep." Niklaus snorted.
"Oh my god!" Caroline exclaimed loudly, covering her mouth. "You have a daughter?! Since when? And why did no one notice this before?"
"It's no big deal." Lucy laughed. "And by the way, she is ten. And I've had her since she was five months old. And no one noticed this because I never went around with her. And that said, we're actually here for her birthday this weekend."
"That means you're not staying?" Elena asked.
"Um, no." Bonnie smiled awkwardly, answering for her.
"Wait, this means you knew about everything from the beginning?" Caroline excalmed, turning to Bonnie.
"Um, yeah." she laughed awkwardly.
"I second that." Vaishali grinned as Lucy chuckled to herself.
"I third that." Stefan piped in, grinning at Caroline's flabbergasted form.
"I'm so jealous right now, like, only I didn't know." she pouted, making the whole group burst into silly laughter.
"No, Caroline, most of us didn't know." Damon commented with his usual smirk plastered on his lips. "Looks like we weren't important enough to be told of such a huge thing as having a daughter. Tsk-tsk, so sad, Caroline."
"Shut up, Damon." Stefan snapped, making Damon roll his eyes. "Everyone knows now, right? So it's fine."
"Whatever you say, little brother." he shrugged, passing them a smirk which annoyed Lucy to the core.
"Damon, please." Elena interrupted, giving him a stern look as he muttered an annoyed 'fine' and stayed shut after that.
"Ugh," Vaishali groaned dramatically, "this is so messy in here, let's get your things settled, Lucy and co."
"Yeah." Lucy nodded. "But, before that, I'm planning a surprise party for Brie this Sunday. The invitations will reach you guys soon. But I wanna inform in advance that the theme -"
"Wait," Zoey interrupted, "are we sure that she's actually sleeping? Anyone would wake up in such noise."
"No, she is actually still sleeping." Niklaus laughed. "She is an extremely heavy sleeper. Even if the whole pack of lions were to roar at her, she still wouldn't wake up."
"Yeah," Stefan laughed. "She is just like Lucy."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Lucy mumbled, sticking her tongue at him, before continuing. "So, the theme is Disney."
"Disney? Are you kidding me?" Kol scrunched his nose.
"It's a kid's party, Kol, and moreover, Disney is far more than princesses. So choose your costumes wisely and please don't be out of theme. And also thank you so much for this beautiful surprise. And please join us at Grill for dinner tonight. It's totally my treat."
◇◇◆◇◆◇◇
Casper Daldron was annoyed and worried at the same time.
He had no idea why in the bloody name of Merlin was Lucy not picking his phone?
His call had straight gone to voicemail, after five rings, for the umpteenth time.
"Lucy, call me, it's important."
The voicemail went and a cool female voice announced that it was received too.
He sucked in a deep breath, ringing her phone again.
It went again to voicemail.
"Okay, so first off, this is very important information, so I advise wearing your earphones really fast." he paused, giving her the time to wear earphones whenever she listens to this recording. "Okay, now that you're alone, and wearing earphones, listen carefully. You need to run as soon as possible. Uncle Richard has gone-" he took a sharp breath "-nuts. We've talked about this before and I know that you're still believing that Uncle Richard no longer wants anything from you, but trust me it's crazy down here. Steve's death anniversary is approaching, you obviously know that, and he is sulking and having extreme mood switches. It's worse than every year. And now suddenly he is in planning mode and I'm telling you, currently he is not himself, and he is planning something with my father and they want to do something big again. And trust me it's not going to be good at all. I don't know what they are planning, it's super confidential. But I managed to pick-up snippets of their conversations, and I know for sure that it's got to do something with you. Uncle Richard has got this crazy look in his eye, that look that we'd seen last time when he succeeded in the sacrifice. Stay safe and hide. I'll keep you up with the updates and please make sure-"
He stopped short, his heart nearly leaping to his throat as his eyes fell to his father standing in the doorway.
"Casper." he said, a smile forced onto his face. "Now, now, what are we doing here?"
"Nothing, father." he gulped. "Just chatting up with an old friend."
"Oh, the friend to whom you went to celebrate your birthday, isn't it?" he continued, that fake smile still etched onto his face.
"No." he drew a sharp breath, his heart quickening.
"Mind what you say to that wretched girl, son." Dietrich snarled, his fake smile falling, as he snatched the phone out of his grip as Casper gulped in fear.
"I thought I have brought you up better than this." he continued, his face strewn in anger as his fingers worked on deleting all his voice messages. "Going behind my back. I'm so ashamed."
"I swear it's not what it looks like." Casper hurried to explain.
"Don't lie to me, boy. I heard every single word you said into this device. And I heard every single dagger that you've stabbed into my back. How could you? After everything I've done for you, for us? This is not how everything was planned out to be. You can't be moving your mouth around, spitting secrets like this."
"I'm sorry." he whispered, cowering in his presence.
"As you should be. I never expected such betrayal from you, son. Never. You've disappointed me." Dietrich sighed in anger. "Now keep your nose out of my and Richard's business. That girl's loss shouldn't mean anything to you. And besides, now, you're not to leave the house nor have your phone or any other form of contact with that girl until we're done with what I've planned for her. You are to keep your nose out of my business. Understand?"
"Yes." he nodded timidly.
"Now do some work. I want you perfect in that invisibility spell as soon as possible, because now," he smirked, "thanks to your backstabbing, I've something planned for you that you're going to love so much."
Holy shit, Casper has screwed up big time.
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A/n :
Omllllll... We're so close to the end of part one. I'm feeling so anxious.
Like, seriously, part two, it's theories, ideas, brainstorming, all have been a thing in my mind like, I'll write this in future. But that moment is approaching fast and I'm suddenly anxious.😩😩
But that said, we're just a few, minimum 4, max seven chapters more & 2 events away.
I'm so anxious for this part's end and second part's beginning.
Anyway, take care. <33
Until then,
Ripahhhhhhhhhh.
Word Count : 1946