CHAPTER 57: BEFORE SUNSET
The Gilbert House
The search for distractions was something on Natalie's mind from the moment she got home from the dance. Sure, Stefan may have convinced her not to bottle it all up, but that didn't mean that she wanted to lay in bed and cry all day. She did that enough after Scott's death, and the only one that was able to get her up was her late father. No, that wasn't an option. So after entering Alaric's room, she couldn't help but suddenly hate the color of the walls and asked Jeremy if he wanted to paint it with her, and Elena decided to join after their brother asking if she wanted to.
It was awkward, of course. The twins couldn't even look at one another for more than a moment and Jeremy was trying not to make it even worse, so he decided that he probably shouldn't speak up and ask about it, guessing it was probably about Stefan.
Speak of the Stefan, he walked into the room, worried about how the three were doing, not having seen how Elena and Jeremy reacted to Alaric's death, and knowing that Natalie's way of coping wasn't always the healthiest. He glanced at the walls and seeing them about half-way different, about split on the middle. "Going darker, huh?"
Elena turned around to look at her ex-boyfriend with cold eyes, even if he was somehow the person she was blaming less for his relationship with Natalie. "It's the only color we had."
"That's what happens when you decide to paint your dead guardian's room in the middle of the night." Jeremy pointed out, giving Natalie a teasing look, in which she responded with a sarcastic smile.
"I don't suppose anyone tried to talk you guys out of doing this so soon." Stefan sighed, looking between the two brunette females who were both giving him the same kind of look, the look he given both of them plenty of times, which was making him very awkward and slightly uncomfortable.
"We're just trying not to think. If I think I'll probably just curl up into a ball and cry. But don't worry, I'm still letting it in and letting it out." she assured him, trying to fixate on him instead of the fact that her father was dead, smiling at him with this cute little smile, which made him smile softly back.
Elena looked down for a moment as they were interacting, deciding that if there was ever a time to be blunt and ask them about it, it probably wouldn't be now, but she didn't really care at the moment, she wanted to know. She needed to know. "So, are you together now or what?"
Natalie and Stefan exchanged glances of surprise, them not having talked about their current status yet, Alaric's death being a little more important in their minds. Natalie was the first one to glance away and looked over at her taller sister. "No- no, of course not. We're just-"
Stefan then decided to take over after noticing Natalie's panic when it came to answering the question, almost as if she wasn't entirely sure what to answer. "I- I was just checking up on you guys. Seeing how you were doing, after everything."
Jeremy sighed at the drama that was so clearly never resolved between the three, and was not very happy about Stefan ruining the once warmer relationship between the sisters as he left town and Jeremy was more than ready to just blame only him. "We're fine. But, if you are trying to be the good guy again, why don't you do the right thing and give us one day. Just one day without any vampires in it."
The teenage boy shook his head as he glared at the much older male in front of him before walking straight past him, suppressing the urge to bump shoulders with him, but knew that doing so would cause Elena to start scolding him for being rude, which he totally wanted to be. Elena glanced at Stefan and Natalie, and although she didn't want to leave them alone together, she sighed and walked after her brother, not even bothering to say a word to the two.
"He didn't mean that," Natalie tried to comfort the almost hurt-looking vampire in front of her, but then he gave her a look of doubt as he clearly saw through her trying to sound optimistic when she was not agreeing with her own statement. "Okay, maybe he did, but he's a teenager, they never know what they're saying. You should know that, you've been one for like, a hundred and fifty years now."
"Sure, let's go with that." he smiled slightly, even if it was fake because he didn't want her to feel bad because of something Jeremy said to him.
She smiled back for a moment, sadly as she knew he was only trying to make her feel better. She glanced down at her feet, trying to think og anything to say so it wouldn't be awkward, she thought that it wouldn't stop being awkward until they've talked about them and they hadn't had the time yet. "I'm sorry about what Elena said. We're, uhm, we're not really sure about anything yet so... maybe we're being too obvious about everything going on with us, I don't know."
Stefan frowned as he looked at her once again guilty face, as he could easily see her being very reluctant to go through whatever they're going through when Elena was so against it. "I don't think so. We've been doing our best to keep her from getting hurt and, yeah, maybe we're not being the best people in the world to her, but I think that it's only fair for us to be doing whatever we want with one another. She shouldn't get to decide how we feel, Natalie. Don't let her."
"She's my sister, and, yeah, maybe we've gone through some rough patches lately, but I think that it's my job as one of the only family members she has left to not hurt her as much as I can. But trust me, Stefan, I have not been letting her tell me how to feel. Especially towards you." she smiled at him, biting the inside of her lip as he smiled back. She felt his gaze go down to her lips and her smile widened before remembering that they should talk before continuing on with whatever was going on.
She cleared her throat and took a step back as she looked up to meet his disappointed gaze as he sighed in understanding. "So, ehm, yeah."
Then a noise rang through the entire house, easily recognized as the doorbell. "I'll get that." he offered as he sent her a quick smile, getting a nod in return as she smiled back. He turned around to get the door.
She then glanced around the room, seeing the not even half-painted walls of her father's bedroom but she could still feel his presence there as she glanced at the spot where his bed once used to lie and looked at where there still was a picture of him with her a few years ago lying on the ground. She bent over and picked it up.
She had always loved that photo. She was thirteen and her mother and father decided to take her out to eat somewhere, but then it was full because the management forgot their reservation so they had to find another place to eat. So they found this little cafe by the beach and it was one of the best nights they had as a family.
She sighed as she gripped the frame of the picture and lowered herself on the ground, crossing her legs as she placed the photograph on them as she traced it lightly with her fingers before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, acting like her father hadn't died only a few hours earlier.
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After a few minutes of expecting Stefan to come up again after answering the door, she started wondering if he simply forgot that she was there and had started making out with Elena or something and as much as she wouldn't want to walk in on something like that she also wanted to know if he simply forgot about her and left her there to rot.
She walked down the stairs silently, hoping they wouldn't creak and she would be in a very uncomfortable position, like she was most of the time because she was Natalie and awkward phrases came out of her mouth without a second thought, which was probably one of the things she hated the most about herself.
She quickly walked closer to the kitchen, where she heard a voice that suggested that Stefan was not the only one there, and the way it was suggested was by it actually being Damon talking. "Don't blame me. Blame Bonnie the blood bank. She fed him."
The witch quickly spoke up to defend herself, not wanting to allow the vampire to step all over and blame her. "I had no idea what was happening. Okay, the witches led me there. They wanted him to feed so he turned."
"Who turned?" Natalie questioned as she walked into the room, the three people in the room turning around to look at her with sympathetic eyes as they knew that this would pretty much only ruin a lot of stuff for her even more. "Did- did you feed my dad your blood?" she asked as she turned to look at Bonnie, who looked down as she nodded guiltily.
Stefan looked over at her as he saw a frown appearing on her face and walked over to stand by her, knowing that she needed support. Without anybody thinking that it might happen, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, making Damon and Bonnie share looks of surprise as Natalie just allowed it to happen and she leaned her head against his chest as he squeezed her shoulders comfortingly. "So, where's the stake now?"
Damon shook off his surprise of the two acting so couple-y and decided that it was probably best to continue their conversations about what might be the impending vampire doom. "Oh, you mean the white oak one? The one that can kill an Original and wipe out an entire line of vampires? We don't know." he grumbled as he sent a dirty look towards the brunette witch.
"If you are so upset with me, why did you feed me your blood to save my life?" she retorted, sending him a quick smirk to go along with the comeback that might have been something she was simply very confused about.
"Because I do stupid things, Bonnie. I do things, like let my friend die with dignity when I should have just killed him." he spat in return, and Natalie winced as she remembered when they actually had a conversation about it before they walked in and had their not so-goodbye-ish goodbye.
Stefan sighed at the two's bickering, knowing that they were wasting precious time that could be used to help them stay alive. "Alright, so how do we kill him now?"
He almost jumped a little as Natalie quickly ripped herself out of his arms, because even if she knew that he had to be killed again didn't mean that she was comfortable talking about it or even thinking about it after she had just thought he was dead and had a breakdown because of it. "I, uhm, I'm sorry. I just... I just can't be here right now."
The vampire with the extraordinary hair smiled at her softly in understanding, because he knew her and he knew that if she had to be there and do anything that had to do with his death it would only help spark another break down, like the one she had the night before as she gave him a confession about almost feeling like she was living in solitude. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I understand. Take all the time you need."
She nodded and allowed herself to meet the eyes of the confused and sympathetic supernaturals in the room who happened to be named Bonnie Bennett and Damon Salvatore. She sent them a small and incredibly fake smile as she saw their underlying question in the looks on their faces. "I'm fine, really. Just need to be alone." she lied, and they noticed as they saw her nose twitch, a habit that seemed to come out whenever she was lying.
They noticed her sadness but knew that for the moment it was best to let her have her time.
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Mystic Falls High School
After needing to be alone for a while, she got a call from Bonnie, telling her that something was going to happen and they were going to shut down Alaric but it had to come with a price. The witch had to stop a human heart. She explained that Jeremy volunteered, but Natalie quickly shut down the idea, as she had also been told that both her best friend and her sister had been taken by her father and she was not going to lose Jeremy too. So she volunteered herself. She might have had to argue with Jeremy for a while, but she was able to get her way on the condition that she promised to come back. So she did, even if she wasn't sure if she'd be able to keep it.
Natalie ended up waiting for Bonnie and Damon to finish their conversation as she was getting ready to die again, and for a moment she wanted to run and not go through with it as it actually hit her that she was going to just be dead again, and she didn't want that. But then two faces came into her mind and she just couldn't imagine not saving two of the most important people in her life, Caroline and Elena.
She fumbled with the Gilbert ring in her hand, which was something Jeremy begged her to use so that he would be completely sure that she'd be back. But Damon saw her fumbling and frowned, because even if he wanted her to be alive, he didn't want her to end up like her father. "Hand it over."
"No."
He sighed at her refusal as he gave her a look as if she was an idiot. "By my math, you've already bit it once, this will be twice, wearing that thing and if for some reason, Bonnie can't restart your heart and you do indeed die, then before you know it, we have another psycho alter ego case on our hands, which is bad so give me the ring."
She rolled her eyes as she placed the ring in his palm. "Don't act like you won't care if I come back. You love me."
"Of course I want you to come back, you're my best friend. But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be too good at handling going crazy and evil and monstrous." he retorted, and she nodded sheepishly at the truth in that statement. She already couldn't handle loss of others, why would she be able to handle the loss of herself?
"If you kill her then I'll kill you." he then turned to threaten Bonnie, who simply rolled her eyes at his protectiveness of the other female and nodded, since she didn't really want a good of friend of hers dead either.
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The two females were left alone in the woods and Bonnie really had something interesting on her mind from studying the spell and the dangers of it. Natalie was on the ground, making it easy for Bonnie to place her head above her heart so that she could chant the spell and stop it.
"Natalie, just so you know, because with Esther on the other side, she can get inside your head and keep you from the other side. I don't know what it would do but I think it might cause a nightmare or maybe it can keep you from coming back. I'm not sure, but I'll try to fight it, okay?" Bonnie explained, because if there was any way for Esther to mess up their lives again, she'd probably take it, and she'd probably be happy with being able to mess with Natalie.
"Okay." the brunette sighed, and forced a confident smile on her face as she knew that the old bitch with a w would not have anything against messing around in her mind as much as she could.
Bonnie smiled reassuringly at her friend, grabbing her hand in a friendly and supportive gesture. But then she froze up, allowing the other female's hand to fall out of her own. "They made contact. It's happening." She moved her hands above the huntress' heart and a whole lot of chanting emitted from her lips as Natalie's heartbeat slowed, and slowed, and slowed, and stopped.
She turned around abruptly, hearing noises in the bushes that were there for some reason. She glanced around her, finding herself to be in a forest somewhere, or it seemed like it, her being surrounded by trees left and right. She searched for the source of the noise afterwards, knowing that whatever reason she was there for couldn't be good and whatever was there couldn't be anything better.
Suddenly the light that was seeping through the big openings between the trees was gone, but only for a moment before it returned. Natalie glanced upwards, seeing the sun there again, blue skies surrounding it.
Then the light was gone once again, but this time it didn't return so quickly. She moved her gaze over to the top of a tree before lowering her head slowly, hoping that whatever was down there couldn't be good.
The first thing she noticed was the brunette head against the tree, the next thing she noticed was that it was her favorite witch, Bonnie Bennett, herself. Lastly, she saw her throat. It was slit and blood was seeping out of it as the witch covered it, falling back with choking noises as Natalie saw the bloody knife in her own hand and Bonnie looking at her with what could only be described as betrayal. "Bonnie? Bonnie!"
"Natalie?" the familiar voice of her blonde best friend said from behind her and she turned around again, the knife in her hand quickly being gone and replaced by a bow as a quiver of arrows appeared on her back, out of nowhere. The beautiful features of Caroline Forbes' face was now smeared with blood as the blue of her eyes shone through as the red surrounded it and veins broke out underneath. The vampire hissed at the huntress in front of her. And without being able to control her own actions, Natalie raised her bow and grabbed an arrow and without thinking, she aimed at Caroline. The blonde fell down, looking at her best friend with tears in her eyes as grey veins travelled up her body. "Care? Caroline? I'm- Oh my god, I'm sorry." Natalie sobbed, raising a hand up to cover her mouth after uttering the sentence.
She heard more choking noises and saw Jeremy, Tyler and Matt all standing together, arrows in the sides of all their throats, all of them looking like exact replicas of Natalie's. The boys quickly fell down and Natalie wasn't even able to react before turning around to see Elijah, Rebekah and Klaus all falling down on the opposite side of the boys. A tear streamed down her cheek as she glanced between all the dead, recognizing all their deaths as having to be her fault. Bonnie, Caroline, Jeremy, Matt, Tyler, Rebekah, Elijah, Klaus. She killed all of them. Who else would have?
Suddenly she heard gun-shots and looked down in her hands to now find a shotgun there and looked forwards and didn't see anything so she turned to her right, finding her straight haired doppelganger sister doubling over as she looked at the bullet hole in her stomach. But then she heard another gun-shot and somehow, she must have fired it again. She looked to her left and now she found Damon's body becoming grey as he died. Another death on her hands.
Then she looked down, and right by her feet, her father's dead body was lying casually by her boots. He had the same blood splatter on his shirt as he did when he was last on the brink of death, when she said her goodbye to the person she loved most in the world. She leaned down next to him as another tear fell down and another. She placed her hand on the red patch on his shirt. "Daddy? I'm so, so sorry."
"You should be." a voice from right in front of her spoke up. He had a glare on his face as he glanced around to look at all the people she had killed, most of them being people he cared about. "You killed of all them, Natalie. You're a disgrace, a screw up. A murderer. And you think I, Stefan Salvatore, could ever love anyone like you? You're delusional. You're a delusional, helpless, emotional, idiotic screw up who just can't do anything right."
"I have to agree with you there, mate." a British voice spoke up as Natalie tried to cover her ears to keep the harsh words out of her mind but he grabbed her hands off her head as Stefan pulled her up, the two vampires standing on each side of her. Stefan in front and Kol on the back. "A sad, little girl who thought she had anything to decide on between us. The boy who clearly never loved because her sister was always the better choice. No wonder everyone likes her better. And then you had the nerve to think I wanted anything but sex from you? You were a trashy one night stand and you'll never be more than a trashy one night stand for anyone, darling."
Stefan smirked at her as Kol whispered harshly in her ear as she sobbed, Kol gripping her wrists so tight she thought he'd rip her hands off as Stefan squeezed her upper arms so hard that she almost felt like she was going to lose her whole arm. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"You should be." the Salvatore brother hissed as he got closer to her face, glaring heatedly at her as she tried to not meet his gaze. He then lost his grip on her arms as he grabbed her chin harshly and forced her to look at him. She then felt fangs pierce the skin of her shoulder from behind and knew that Kol had started taking blood out of her body and she cried out in pain. But then Stefan turned over to the other shoulder and let his face vamp out as he buried his fangs in her skin. And she knew that she was dying once again.
"Natalie!" she heard the extremely exasperated exclamation of voice of Bonnie call out as Natalie awoke with a gasp, tears falling out of her eyes as she sobbed, and even if the witch had no idea why she was crying, she embraced her friend, glad she was alive after thinking that she was dead.
But Natalie didn't grip onto Bonnie because she was happy for being alive. She gripped onto Bonnie because she was happy that she was still alive, and she wasn't a monster. But it was only a matter of time before she became one.
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The Gilbert House
Bonnie had kept pestering Natalie for an answer on what happened, if Esther had gotten inside her mind (which was probably what happened) and if she was okay. For the first one she just said she was happy she was alive, for the second she said no and for the last she said yes. So basically she just went on a whole lying streak.
But then the bubbly blonde best friend love of her life decided to cheer all of them up because of them actually being able to take down Klaus, and Natalie agreed to just try to be a little cheerful for a moment as they celebrated.
Elena walked into the room as drink were in people's hands and food was on the counter and Natalie stood with Jeremy and Matt's arms wrapped around her as they tried to squeeze her as hard as they could in a weird manly competition that she still didn't understand. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Welcome to our victory party!" Caroline exclaimed cheerfully as the others smiled at the doppelganger (some of the smiles were fake, most weren't).
Elena frowned, not really seeing any reason to celebrate with everything going on. "What victory? We failed. Alaric's still out there."
Bonnie rolled her eyes at her best friend's need to make a reason to be a buzzkill. "We know, but we've been trying to get rid of Klaus forever and Caroline convinced us to enjoy it for a night."
Matt then decided to speak up, throwing his available arm around Tyler as he started being all cute and act as if he was confused on why they would leave him out of their plans. "You know, to be honest, I'm a little pissed none of you let me help you take down Original brother number two."
Tyler chuckled at his best friend's confidence that probably shouldn't be there because there was no way he'd be able to take on Klaus. "Yeah, he would have taken you right down to the hospital, bro."
"Please, I'm more stealth than that. I'm like a ninja." the blond busboy smirked as he glanced between the two brunette people he had his arms around.
Natalie looked him up and down, analyzing his build. "Hm, I could take you."
"Probably." Jeremy agreed from beside her as she noticed Caroline, Tyler and Elena beginning their own conversation.
"Hey!" Matt disagreed loudly, but he was simply ignored.
Natalie looked at all the faces that still weren't completely happy and enjoying their probably last five minutes of happiness ever because they lived in Mystic Falls and nobody other than Jeremy had spoken up about their desire to leave. "Can we get to the booze now?"
The other teenagers chuckled at her antics as they all grabbed a shot. Elena, however, had to be a buzzkill for a moment as she looked at her little brother mostly as she spole up about her not being completely on board. "I do not condone this, by the way."
"Oh please, Elena. I need to get wasted right now. I've had a really bad day too, you know. My dad turned, I died. So, yeah, do not take away my booze." she sighed, but it was seen as teasing and the other twin simply chuckled and muttered in agreement even if Natalie was completely serious and just wanted to forget about that freaking nightmare.
"Hang on. Do you guys hear that?" Tyler interrupted all of them as they started raising their shot glasses towards their mouths. Everyone stopped and searched for sounds, especially Caroline the vampire but nobody could hear anything. "That is the sound of a Klaus-free life."
That sparked a few chuckles but Elena then raised her glass, the others following suit. "To a Klaus-free life. And to all of you. My family."
"Cheers."
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A/N: Yes, I have returned from the land where there is no updating, AKA my mind. But I'm back and season finale is next.
And, by the way, I got freaking nominated for the TVD fanfic awards and even if I know I'm not gonna win, this still means that I have one of the fan favorite Stefan fics on Wattpad and that makes me so unbelievably happy. But even if I won't win, I will not stop you from voting for me. Thank you.
High-key wanting to change the Statalie theme song from I Found to Gravity by Sara Bareilles.
Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.