CHAPTER 17: BAD MOON RISING
The Salvatore Boarding House
"Are you sure you don't want me to kill him?" Alaric asked his daughter as they were on the outside of the door.
"Nah, I staked him." Natalie shrugged nonchalantly.
"I don't think that makes up for him killing you." Alaric retorted annoyedly.
"The thing is, I came back. If I killed him, he wouldn't." Natalie smiled tightly.
"God, I hate it when you're right." Alaric sighed.
"But, I'm always right." Natalie asked, feigning confusion.
Alaric rolled his eyes and knocked on the door. Damon was of course the one who opened the door. "Thanks for coming, Ric, Natalie." Damon smiled slightly at them before looking solely at Alaric. "Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, bourbon? Bourbon in your coffee?"
"Elena mentioned you needed our help." Alaric said, giving Damon a cold look.
"Yeah, we were hoping you could help shed some light on the Lockwood family." Stefan said as he walked in with Elena, smiling at Natalie slightly, who returned the gesture.
"Now, why would we know anything about the Lockwood's?" Alaric asked.
"Well, you wouldn't. But your dead, not-dead vampire wife might." Damon smirked at him.
"Isobel's research from when you guys were at Duke together." Elena elaborated.
"You said that she had spent years researching this town." Stefan said, bringing up that one night at the school where Natalie shot him.
"Isobel's research here in Mystic Falls rooted in folklores and legends. She actually used to tell them to me as bedtime stories. Which means that we used to think that it was all fiction." Natalie spoke up.
"Like that amazing vampire story." Damon said sarcastically.
"Aside from vampires, what else?" Elena asked, frowing as she waiting for her resonse.
"The lycanthrope." Natalie said after some thought.
"Wait, like werewolves?" Elena's eyes widened.
"No way, impossible, way too Lon Chaney." Damon dismissed the idea.
"Is it?" Stefan asked.
"Stefan's right. If werewolves are too Lon Chaney, then vampires are too Dracula. But here you are." Natalie retorted.
"I've been on this planet one hundred and sixty some odd years, never came across one. If werewolves exist, where the hell are they?" Damon asked.
"That's kind of why you want the research, right?" Natalie retorted.
"Why do you suspect the Lockwoods?" Alaric asked, stepping protectively in front of Natalie, making Damon roll his eyes.
"Because vervain didn't affect the mayor at Founders' Day but the Gilbert device did and it affected his son Tyler." Damon responded.
"And at the school carnival his uncle Mason exhibited inhuman behavior when he fought with one of the carnival's workers. It suggests it's some sort of a supernatural entity." Stefan added.
"We were hoping that Isobel's research could help us figure it out what it is." Elena told her twin and her father.
"She's technically still missing, so all her things are still at Duke, so is her office." Natalie sighed.
"So can we get access to it?" Damon asked.
He didn't get a response.
"Ric, Natalie, we need to know what we are dealing with. If this wolfman thing is true, I've seen enough movies to know it's not good." Damon said, but neither Alaric or Natalie responded. "It means Mason Lockwood is a real-life Lon Chaney and that little Tyler punk may just very well be Lon Chaney junior, which means Bella Lugosi, meaning me, is totally screwed."
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Damon, Elena and Alaric had been decided that would og to Duke to check out Isobel's Research whilst Stefan and Natalie would stay and take care of Caroline. Elena and Stefan had said their goodbye, so she was just going to leave with Alaric and Damon.
"Sorry you can't come too, Stef." Damon teased.
"Call me if you need anything." Stefan said, looking down at Elena, ignoring Damon completely.
"Oh, I'll take really good care of her." Damon smirked at Stefan.
Elena cuts him off by grabbing Stefan by the neck and smashing her lips into his, something Stefan happily returned. Which was something that made the two people stand next to them feel incredibly uncomfortable, maybe even jealous.
"I think it's time for you to go." Natalie cut their make-out session short.
Elena gave her sister an annoyed look before walking over to the car.
"Goodbye." Stefan said and the car drove off, with Elena, Damon and Alaric inside.
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"I think I'll be able to handle it." Natalie said giving Stefan an annoyed look.
"She's a newly turned vampire. I don't think it's a good idea of you to be there with her alone." Stefan shrugged.
"No offense, Stefan, but you're not exactly the poster child for control." Natalie retorted.
"And you're not even a vampire." Stefan said, his smile faded.
"Which means I'm excellent at keeping bloodlust away." Natalie raised en eyebrow at him.
Stefan was speechless for a moment, not knowing how to respond to Natalie's sass. "Fine, but keep by the woods by the swimming hole. I'll be around there so that I know that nothing will happen to you."
"I'll be fine. I'll bring a weapon for safety's sake." Natalie smiled.
"I'll still stay close. Concidering you died last week." Stefan joked.
Natalie giggled.
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The Mystic Grill
Natalie had quickly fit into her mentoring role as she sat with Bonnie at a table, trying to convince her to make Caroline a daylight ring.
"I don't know how to make a day-walking ring." the witch shrugged sheepishly.
"Well, your ancestor, Emily, made both Stefan and Damon's, so it should be in your witch-cookbook somewhere, right?" Natalie tried to convince her.
"That doesn't mean I can cast the spell." Bonnie said, trying to get out of helping Caroline to come out and make it easier to kill.
"Bonnie, you know how to drop vampires with a single look, okay? I think you can figure it out." Natalie reassured the Bennett witch.
"Caroline killed someone, Natalie. I can't make it easier for her to do it again." Bonnie stopped trying to feign weakness, and rather going straight to the point.
"I'm not doing this to make it easier. That's not what vampire hunters do. I'm trying to keep her from hurting people. The longer she's trapped inside her house and seperated from everything that makes her human- from you, me, Elena, Matt- the more people she hurts." Natalie explained.
"And how do you know she won't hurt anyone else?" Bonnie raised her eyesbrows at the other brunette.
"I don't." Natalie said honestly. "But if we don't try to help her or at least trust that she can do this, then she probably won't be able to keep it together."
"I don't know if I can trust her, not with this." Bonnie shook her head.
"Then trust me. Trust that I will keep her sane. That I'll keep her in control."
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The Forbes House
Bonnie and Natalie soon arrived at Caroline's house with the ring that was going to be Caroline's daylight ring. Even though Caroline did not approve.
"So, I don't get to choose the ring I have to wear the rest of my life?" Caroline asked as she held the ring in her hands, narrowing her eyes at it.
"Hey, if you don't want it..." Bonnie held her hands up as a sign of annoyance before taking a step back.
"No, she wants it." Natalie said sternly, giving Caroline a look.
"Now what?" Caroline said after she rolled her eyes at Natalie.
"Now is the part where I explain the rules. The witch who spells the ring has the power to de-spell it so if you ever do anything to hurt anyone-" Bonnie said sternly, but was cut off by Caroline. "I'm not gonna hurt anyone."
"You are a vampire. That mean the urge to kill is a part of who you are. The minute you let it take over, I will stop you." Bonnie said coldly.
"Bonnie, you're supposed to be my friend." Caroline said, hurt evident on her face.
"I can't ignore what happened, okay? If you want to be friends, you have to prove that the Caroline I remember isn't gone. Now put the ring on the bed." Bonnie commanded, and Caroline followed her instructions.
"Do you really think I meant to kill that guy at the carnival?" Caroline frowned as she looked down in regret.
"He's still dead. Now, do you want me to cast the spell or not?" Bonnie snapped.
Caroline nodded slighly and Bonnie opened a bit of the curtain on Caroline's window, so that the sun was shining on it. Bonnie closed her eyes for only a moment before opening them again. "All done."
Caroline frowned and put the ring on. "So that's it? I mean nothing witchy happened. You know, no flickering lights, no gust of wind. Have you even done this before?"
"Caroline..." Natalie groaned warningly.
"What? I just want to make sure that it worked." Caroline shrugged sheepishly.
Bonnie rolled her eyes before walking over to the curtain, then opening it fully. Caroline winced and waited for the pain. But it never came.
"It worked." Bonnie smirked.
"What if it hadn't Bonnie?!" Caroline exclaimed angrily.
Bonnie picked up her grimoire before walking over to Natalie and whispered. "She's all yours."
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The Woods
You'd think that Natalie, as a human wouldn't really be that good of a mentor for a newly turned vampire. But she was actually doing pretty good, seeing as Caroline hadn't tried to kill her yet. That may have had something to do with Caroline being a natural at self-control. But, you know Natalie, she'd still take credit.
"So what I do when I see the rabbit?" Caroline asked her best friend as they walked through the woods together.
"Chase it, catch it, feed on it." Natalie said, as if it was obvious.
"Isn't killing cute defenseless animals the first step in becoming a serial killer?" the blonde asked rhetorically.
"Hate to break it to you, Care, but you sorta skipped the serial killer stage and went straight to bloodsucking monster." Natalie laughed slightly at her own words, which Caroline did too.
Caroline's mood quickly worsened, though.
"You don't seem fine." Natalie commented.
"Look, I swear that I am okay? But it's just...I haven't been in the sun for days and everyone is at the swimming hole having fun and Matt is there! And he finally told me that he loved me but I have been blowing him off and now you want me to eat bunnies and I'm kind of freaking out okay?!" Caroline rambled.
Which Natalie found immensly amusing. And she almost couldn't keep her laughs in. Which was something Caroline noticed.
"And now you're laughing at me." Caroline said sourly.
"No, I'm not laughing, I swear. It's just... when you turn into a vampire then everything is heightened. Your emotions, your personality, your character traits." Natalie smiled.
"What do you mean?" Caroline frowned.
"Well, let's say a very emotional person turned into a vampire.The vampire would have become much more emotional. Just like everyone has a character trait that's heightened." Natalie explained.
"So you're saying that now I'm basically an insecure, neurotic control freak...on crack?"
"Well, I wasn't going to say it like that," Natalie teased, but when she saw Caroline's not amused Expression she decided to take a more serious approach. "Look, after you've caught your first... whatever, then we'll go to the swimming hole and you can see Matt."
"Really?" Caroline asked, her face brightening up immensly at these words.
"Really." Natalie agreed.
Caroline laughed in happiness.
"Now, that's the Caroline I know and love." Natalie smiled as she laughed in happiness of Caroline's happiness.
"Oh, I love you, Nat. Thank you!" Caroline smiled exitedly.
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As soon as Caroline and Natalie were out of the woods and rather at the swimming hole, Stefan spotted them.
"There's Matt," Caroline pointed out happily before her mood worsened when she saw that he was with a girl. "With that bitch Aimee Bradley. Be right back." She then walked towards her boyfriend.
"You okay?" Stefan asked as he walked up next to Natalie.
"Oh, don't act like you weren't listening to our every word." Natalie teased.
"Well, it was hard to with the you and the neurotic, insecure control freak on crack were walking around in the woods alone." Stefan joked.
"I knew you were listening in." Natalie's eyes widened and she slapped his arm, but still unable to keep from smiling.
"I never denied that." Stefan reminded her.
Just then, Mason Lockwood passed the laughing pair, and Stefan suddenly became much more serious.
"Uh, oh. You're looking at him with your serious vampire look." Natalie sighed as she looked over at Stefan.
"My what? My "vampire serious look"?" Stefan asked Natalie incredulously.
"Yeah, I mean, it's a little different from your worried vampire look, but neither of them look too different from your "ugh-it's-monday" looks, which weirdly enough looks very much like your "TGIF" look." Natalie jokingly explained.
"I get it, okay. You think I'm...you think I'm too serious. Is that it?" Stefan asked.
"Well, I wasn't going to say it like that." Natalie smirked.
"We were just lauging together." Stefan reminded her.
"That's the thing, I've only seen you laugh with me. You need to learn to have fun, Stefan!" Natalie smiled.
"I'm having fun right now." Stefan retorted, a soft smile lingering on his face.
"I bet you say that to all the girls." Natalie laughed.
And Stefan laughed with.
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Caroline was a jealous person. She always had trouble when someone would try to take something of hers away. And those jealousy issues led her to compel Aimee Bradley away from Matt.
Something that Stefan and Natalie both saw, and they were not happy.
"Hey, I saw that. You compelled her." Stefan scolded Caroline as Statalie walked up to the blonde.
"Yeah, she deserved it." Caroline retorted.
"Caroline, nobody deserves to have their mind messed with for shallow reasons." Stefan lectured wisely.
"You know, why is everyone sticking up for Aimee freaking Bradley?" Caroline asked in frustration.
"Care, you're letting the jealousy get the best of you." Natalie sighed.
"Oh, so now I have magnified jealousy issues, too. That's great." Caroline quipped sarcastically.
"Told you this ain't gonna be easy." Natalie shrugged.
"Yeah, well, I might as well have stayed dead. My entire personality is killing me."
Stefan and Natalie exchanged smiles at Caroline's choice of words.
"Oh, shut up."
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Stefan, Natalie and Caroline decided that it was best to look for Matt, seeing as he was the closest connection to humanity that the blonde vampire had. But when they found him, Caroline was incredibly hesitant to talk to him.
"He's mad at me." Caroline complained.
"Well, he might stop if you go talk to him." Natalie retorted.
"Go ahead, we'll wait." Stefan reassured the blonde vampire.
Caroline nodded and walked towards Matt.
Just in that moment, Stefan got a phone call. He looked down and checked the caller ID, seeing that it was Elena.
"I have to take this, it's Elena." Stefan said, before walking not too far away.
Natalie didn't even get to respond, she just stared after his retreating figure sadly.
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Caroline had decided that making out with Matt could be more important then telling Stefan and Natalie about her whereabouts.
So, Stefan and Natalie, of course, had to go looking for her, whilst Stefan explained to Natalie that Elena, Alaric and Damon found out that legend says that a werewolf bite can kill a vampire.
But then Stefan stopped, seeing the scratch marks that were on the ground as he heard a growl behind him. And scarily enough, there were chains tied to a tree, but they were broken out of. Stefan held Natalie behind him protectively, even though she already grabbed a crossbow that she'd brought along with her.
Stefan looked into the car carefully, only to discover a pair of glowing yellow eyes. A pair of glowing yellow eyes that belonged to a werewolf. A werewolf that jumped out the window, landing on to of Stefan, making it's wet drool drip on him grossly. But Natalie was quick to react, and aimed her crossbow at the werewolf, and shot at it. It hit the werewolf, but only in the leg, so it almost didn't do anything but scare it away.
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As soon as Stefan heard Matt make noises that teenage boys usually don't make during make out sessions ("Caroline? What are you doing? Ah! Caroline! Caroline! Stop!") he decided to grab Natalie and speed towards where the noise was coming from.
When they saw Caroline with her mouth on Matt's neck, her fangs deep in his flesh, they were about to panic.
"Stop it! Stop! Stop! Stop!" Stefan demanded as he grabbed Caroline, dragging her away from Matt.
Caroline's face stopped 'vamping out' and became normal. But Matt wasn't doing too good. So, he fell.
"Oh my god." Caroline's eyes widened in realization of what she's done.
"No, no, no, stop. Listen to me. We need to get out of these woods now. We need to leave." Stefan commanded as he held Natalie's arm tightly with one arm, and Caroline's with the other.
"What was that?" Caroline asked pleadingly.
"Matt, stay down. Do not move." Natalie said as she saw Matt's form start to move slightly.
Then they heard the rustling of leaves and the growls of a werewolf.
"You and me, we're gonna run. I've got Natalie and she's got her crossbow. It's going to follow us; we need to lead it away from Matt. You need to run as fast as you can. Do you understand me? Go, go!" Stefan asked Caroline, not even waiting for an answer before running.
They ran, until they reached the old Lockwood ruins, which was not a good place to stop.
"Wait! What is it?!" Caroline asked as she stopped them.
"It's werewolf! And it loves hunting vampires, but it could for a human or two." Natalie said.
Without them noticing, Tyler was arriving to where they were. "Hey! What are you three doing? "
"What are you doing?" Stefan retorted.
But, out of no where, the werewolf came, and decided that it's prey would be Caroline. So it jumped her, and was standing on top of her in the same way that it did for Stefan earlier.
But, once again, Natalie decided to save the day, so she aimed the crossbow at the werewolf before shooting it again, but not in a dangerous place (as in a place that would kill it).
"No!" Tyler shouted as the werewolf fell over, on the other side of Caroline, in pain. The werewolf looked up at him, keeping eyecontact with him shortly before running away as fast as it could whilst being hurt.
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"What are we gonna do about Tyler?" Caroline asked Stefan, thinking that the two were alone whilst Natalie had gone to find Tyler. But Tyler was nowhere to be seen, so it was pointless, so Natalie decided to listen into their conversation.
"I took care of it and I will get Matt on vervain, it'll keep you from being able to compel him and also to keep you from drinking his blood." Stefan replied.
"I can't believe I hurt him." she could hear Caroline say, sounding very disappointed in herself.
"I know."
"He is the one person on this entire planet that I never wanted to hurt." Caroline said sadly.
"It's not going to get any easier. You're just gonna have to work that much harder." Stefan gave caroline words of not-so-much-encouragement.
"I shouldn't be with him, should I? Because if there is any danger..." Caroline trailed off sadly.
"I'm the last person to make that kind of decision for you. If I had follow my own advice, I would walked away from Elena and- no, just Elena-," he cut himself off, sighing in relief as he managed the save. "-a long time ago."
"You ever think you should have?" Caroline asked thoughtfully.
"I know I should have, I just can't." Stefan said.
And after those words, Natalie just couldn't take it anymore.
So she went home. Leaving Stefan and Caroline alone.
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A/N: I am on a roll with updating lately. If I keep going with this then we'll get to season 3 much sooner then expected. So, do watch out for several updates over the weekends, because I'm going to try as much as possible to update as much as I can. Hopefully I'll be able to update once more this weekend, but idk.
And I really enjoyed writing this chapter because I missed writing Natalie and Caroline. So, the question is if you guys like their friendship? I really hope you do, though.
Votes and comments are greatly appreaciated.