Morrigan Brooks
BRANDON did call. He called and we talked for hours. Usually, I would consider this moving way too fast, but I really liked him. It was a nice change of pace from the last couple of guys I dated, and as much as I deny it, I do have shit taste in men.
I got a chance to finally sleep in today, and now I was actually putting effort into how I look. For once I wear goddamn sneakers. On the top, I wear a long-sleeved white top that ties in at the front and a green satin wrap skirt.
"Where are you going, smiley? And what on earth are you wearing?" Eliza says as she sees me walking out the door.
"Grill, and I'm wearing a skirt." She shakes her head and points at my feet. "It's not a crime to wear sneakers," I say.
"It is in your world. You only wear them when you run." She says and she starts laughing and singing the start of You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift before I throw a random ball of yarn we had for decoration at her.
"Rory and Brandon, sitting in a tree..."
"He's not working. He's a bartender. Who's getting a drink at ten in the morning?"
"Alaric and Damon," she says and I laugh, nodding.
"Well, either way, he's not working," I say and put the keys, my phone and my lipgloss in my little Prada bag.
"Have fun with Brandon." She says in an insinuating tone, but I ignore her.
In all honesty, my outfit, makeup, hair, shoes and whatnot weren't done for him. I actually forgot about him until I opened my phone while I was walking down the stairs and saw that he was the last person I talked to.
I was thinking about Elijah. I like, totally felt bad for forgetting about Brandon and stuff, but the original had such a... presence.
Not that I liked him.
I got in the car and turned the radio on and turned it up loud enough I couldn't hear my thoughts.
"Looking so crazy, your loves got me looking got me looking so crazy in love," I sing along, turning it up even further.
I turned the radio down when I parked and I walked into the Grill.
"Hey, can I get an iced coffee?" I ask and they nod, I pay and get out of the line. Maybe today wouldn't be dramatic and crazy.
Who am I kidding? Of course, it will be dramatic and crazy, but that doesn't mean I can't delay the inevitable and have a peaceful morning.
"Rory?" I hear from behind me. I turn and low and behold, there's Brandon.
"Oh, hey, Brandon. What are you doing here? I thought you weren't working till later?"
"Picking up my jacket. I forgot it last night and I would get it later, except it's got my wallet in it." I nod. A waitress comes up to me and passes me my drink and I thank her.
"Oh, nice." Fuck this is awkward. "Uh, well maybe I'll see you later, your shift starts at five, right?" I ask and he nods. "Well maybe I'll run into you," I say, waving. I walk towards the door, not really looking where I'm going and I bump into someone. "Oh my god, sorry I wasn't looki-" I look to see who I just bowled into and it just happened to be a certain original vampire. "Elijah! How are you? Sorry for, you know, almost knocking you over." He's taller than I remember, I think.
"It's no problem Rory, and I'm good, thank you." His eyes shift to somewhere over my shoulder and then back to me. "That man over there is staring at you."
I look to where he looked and see that Brandon was looking at us, though his eyes shifted to his shoes when I look.
"Oh, that's Brandon. He bartends here." I explain and Elijah nods.
"Riveting," he says sarcastically, and it took everything in me to not cackle. "Well, it was nice seeing you, Rory. Hopefully, I will again soon." He places a hand on my arm and it lingers for a bit.
"Yeah, see you," I say, walking off.
"That was so disgustingly territorial. And what is Elijah doing here?" Damon says. Jesus, I just keep running into bloody everyone.
"How was it territorial, for one? And from the looks of it, Elijah's getting coffee." I say.
"It was so territorial. The hand? And why are you getting coffee this late in the day?" Damon asks and I swat him on the shoulder lightly.
"I don't question your drinking habits, so let's not make it one to question mine." He nods as if to say fair enough.
"Now please excuse me, I need to kill wolf girl," Damon says, getting in his murder mode.
"Wait, why? What happened?" I say and Damon sighs. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was upset.
"I may have riled her up and then when she transformed into a wolf she broke into the house and tried to bite me, but Rose pushed me out of the way and.... Rose got bitten." I didn't answer him, all I could do was inhale sharply. "Rory?"
"Rose got bitten?" I say slowly.
"Yeah, Elena's at the house now babysitting." He says with a drawn-out sigh but my mind was going at a million miles an hour. "Have you ever seen a wolf bite?"
"Yes," I say remembering Dan, my boyfriend back in '78. "And it's horrific."
"Could you go over there? Make sure Rose is having fun?" I nod.
"Yeah. And make sure to rip wolfy's heart out," I say, speed walking out of there and getting onto my car.
As I broke pretty much every road rule to get to the Salvatore house fast, I was trying to remember if I had ever heard anything about a cure. Don't get me wrong, Rose and I aren't close but when I was with her in the 1830s, we had a fun time.
I arrive at the Salvatore house and I only just now realise the time. It was 4.45 in the afternoon- maybe I shouldn't sleep in if I don't wake before three. And maybe I shouldn't have gotten coffee- and I worried about Elena, especially since she's literally the doppelganger of the woman who ruined Rose's life.
"Elena?" I say, pushing the massive door open. "Rose?" I walk in the door and hear an awful slurping noise from the basement.
I walk down the stairs and navigate my way through all the twists and turns. I vaguely wonder why the brothers have a medieval holding cell type thing, but that is the last thing on my mind when I see Rose.
The bite was ghastly. When she sees me, she drops the blood bag she was sucking dry, letting it litter the floor along with the other dozen that she had already gone through.
"Hey, Rosy. Why don't we leave the blood and have a nice sleep?" She completely ignores my suggestion and vamps out. The veins under her eyes go crazy, her eyes physically darken and her fangs elongate.
She speeds at me, I assume to drink my blood but I get my hands around her head easily and snap her neck, doing her a favour.
"M-kay, let's go Roseabell," I say, giving her the most random nickname. I pick her up and put her around my shoulders, behind my head, and bring her up to Damon's room. I lay her on his bed and tuck her in, leaving a crystal glass full of blood by the bedside.
Task one, completed. Now onto the next one.
"Elena? Elena, it's Rory! Where are you?" I shout, hoping she's not dead. That would make task two slightly harder.
"I'm in Stefan's room! Hold on!" I hear. It was slightly muffled. Scraping, like she was moving something heavy, then she opened the door, looking worse for wear.
"Are you ok?" I ask, running my hands through her hair when I notice a bit of blood in it.
"Uh... yeah, I think so. Rose attacked me a few times, thinking I was Kathrine, but I got away. Obviously, heh." I nod, motioning to Damon's room.
"I snapped her neck. She'll have about an hour less of suffering than she has to," I say, looking towards Damon's room, concerned. "But when she wakes up... it'll most likely be dark."
Elena inhales sharply. "Which means she can go outside, and seeing firsthand for myself how she can be, it won't end well."
I nod, knowing I'm going to have to do something to keep my mind from wandering. "I'm going to clean up the blood down in the basement, why don't you call Stefan or Damon, see if they killed wolf girl." Elena nods, pulling out her phone and I can only assume she's calling her boyfriend.
I walk down the stairs and find the mess again. I count the blood bags (twenty-eight) and I use magic to easily wipe the blood on the floor away.
My phone starts to ring and I check it, seeing it's Damon I pick up.
"Hey," I say, wedging the device between my shoulder and my ear.
"How's Rose?" He asks, sounding slightly fed up.
I sigh. "I had to snap her neck, but she'll be awake soon and-" I get to the top of the stairs to see the front door wide open. "Shit shit shit," I say and speed up to Damon's room.
Completely empty.
"Fuck." I say panicking. "Elena? Elena where are you? Please tell me you're not dead!" I say, calling out to the girl.
"Yeah, I'm just here, Rory. What's wrong?" She asks and I just point into the room.
"Ror? What's happened?" Damon says, and in all honesty, I had forgotten he was there.
"Our girl Rose is gone. I thought we still had another forty-five minutes before she woke up." I say.
Before I can get out the front door, Damon was in front of me.
"Where did she go?" He asks, wildly looking around.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be freaking out, idiot," I say sarcastically and he just rolls his eyes. "Ok, where could she be?"
"There's like a... party? Function? At the school tonight for the booster club." Elena suggests and Damon nods.
"Loads of warm bodies there. Great, Rory, you drive." He walks out the door and Elena and I follow suit.
"JUST remember, tell her that you dealt with 'you know what's' back in wherever you were before," Damon says, leading me towards Caroline's mother, the sheriff. "Hi," he says in the woman's direction.
"Thanks, for- uh, Damon?" She says when she sees me.
"Liz, this is Rory." I extend my hand toward her.
"Hello, sheriff. Damon thought I might be able to help since I used to deal with... you know... when I was in Brooklyn." I say, flashing her my best smile. She just nods.
"Nice to meet you, and honestly, it's good you're here. We can use all hands on deck." She looks down then back to us. "Thanks for coming so quickly."
"We were close by, what happened?" Damon asks.
"A vampire attacked a maintenance man. Luckily one of my deputies discovered the body before anyone saw him."
"Well, we have to secure the area then." The sheriff nods before calling out to her deputies.
"Don't cause a panic but let's move this party into the cafeteria." The deputies nod before leaving us to it, and the sheriff turns to us. "You guys take the east side, I'll take the west?" She says and we nod, going towards where we were going to be searching for Rose.
We walk over to where Elena is. "Hey do either of you know where Stefan is? Do you know what he's up to?"
"Haven't seen him all day," I say with a shrug, so she turns to Damon.
"My baby brother's not at the top of my priority list right now." He pulls a perfectly whittled stake out of his back pocket. "Here, take this." She looks at him questioningly, but he just puts a hand on the small of her back, leading her in the direction we were going already. "Come on, let's go."
We walk around for a bit, looking for Rose, but we don't find anything until I hear her.
"Damon-" I say and he nods, whipping his head around before he speeds in the direction of where the squelching sound was coming from.
I speed to where he is and Elena runs after us. When I get there, Damon's on top of Rose, trying to calm her down from her psychotic state and there were two dead bodies.
"Rose! Stop!" Damon was shouting but she didn't seem to recognise him. "Rose, Rose, it's Damon. It's Damon." She finally calms down and the veins under her eyes recede, but her psychotic state is replaced by an inconsolable one.
"Did I do this?" She asks, her voice shaky. "No, no. I didn't mean to hurt anyone I never wanted to hurt anyone." She started crying, looking at Elena and me. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Let's get you home," Damon mutters.
"No, I don't have a home!" She mutters something incomprehensible before continuing. "Please, make it stop, just please make it stop." picking her up bridal style before bringing her to the car.
"I'll drive," I whisper to Damon. He just passes me the keys and nods gratefully. I drive us back to the Salvatore house quickly, thanks to like half the town not having anything better to do than be at a high school function, and I open the door for Damon who was still carrying Rose.
He brings her back to where it all started. His bedroom. I go to get Rose some blood, but see that she finished the stash the brothers had.
Walking back up the stairs, I hear Rose talking, albeit, weakly, but she was talking.
"I don't like taking human life. I never have." I watch everything unfold from the doorway, and I doubt any of them noticed my presence.
"You shouldn't be here," Damon says harshly to Elena but Rose continues.
"That's the worst part about it. The hunt. The need to kill. The thirst. The pleasure it brings you afterwards. I wasn't meant to be evil. It hurts."
"Then let's stop talking about it." Damon snips.
Rose rolls her eyes. "Damon's a lot like me. he wants to care. The minute he does it runs away from him. I'm sorry for what I've done today."
"I know," Elena whispers comfortingly.
"And you need to fight. I know that you're scared but you need to do it anyway." She has a bit of a coughing fit and Elena puts out her hand for help, but Rose just nizzles her head in it. "Hmm. Why are you so nice to me?"
"Us humans," Elena says as an answer.
"You can never forget it. What it feels like to be human... it haunts me, but it's the only thing that's kept me going."
I can't help but agree with that sentiment.
"It doesn't hurt as much anymore." There was a pause before she starts groaning and yelling, clutching her stomach.
"What do we do?" Elena says, but I'm already coming towards her to pull her out of the room. Damon and I share a solemn but knowing look and I grab Elena by her hand and walk her downstairs.
We get to the living room and I sit down, letting out a big sigh.
"What's he going to do?" Elena asks. I wait a second before answering.
"It's a mercy, Elena. I've seen it been carried out completely and... Damon's making the right choice." She inhales sharply but doesn't contradict me.
"Do you miss it?" She asks a minute later.
"Hmm?"
"Being human. Are there times you miss being human?" I smile and nod.
"Yeah. Yeah, there are. I had a daughter, you know. I'm sure you figured it out after my little fight with Kathrine, but I had a daughter when I was human, and she died the same day I turned." I smile at all the memories I had before that day. "Don't get me wrong, parts of my human life were miserable, like my father, for example. He was an ass. Uh, my baby daddy was a complete airhead which caused me a bit of stress, but all in all, it wasn't bad, being human."
"That sounds wonderful." She says and I nod. We sink back into a comfortable silence before I hear it. The faint gasp from Rose and the stake going clean through her heart.
At least her sufferings are over.
Damon comes trudging downstairs, five minutes later, with Rose over his shoulder.
"Let me show her to Forbes."
"No, Morrigan."
"Damon, would you rather look at her body for the next ten minutes or would you rather have a drink, break something, and go to bed."
"You make it seem like I give a damn." I just hold his gaze and after what seems like forever, he rolls his eyes and passes Rose to me, so I give him the liberty of ignoring the little lining of silver on his eyes.
I drive Rose's body out into the woods and show her to the sheriff.
"Thank you so much for getting involved and protecting this town, Rory, you don't know how much this means." She says. I nod with a smile, and place rose in the shallow grave that had already been dug and her deputies immediately start to cover her in the dirt.
"It was nice working with you, sheriff, though hopefully, we won't have to again," I say and she nods.
"I hear that. Have a good night." She says, walking back to her car.
"You too," I say and drive home, anticipating the drink that's waiting.
A/N: omg I only really brought Elijah in for this chapter for the Jacob/Edward-core rivalry
also, this is a bleh and short chapter but back to our regularly scheduled program super soon