CHAPTER 65: MY BROTHER'S KEEPER
The Lockwood Mansion
Of course, Natalie didn't get much sleep. Elena had stayed in her room that night, partly to check up on her so that she'd survive and hopefully not have awful nighmares, partly because her and Stefan just broke up (not knowing that Natalie had basically told Stefan to make it happen) and she didn't want to be alone. But the night couldn't last forever.
With Miss Mystic Falls coming up, she was easily one of the first people dragged to help set it up (seeing as her best friend was the reigning Miss Mystic Falls) and she was thankful for that distraction so she wouldn't have to flash back to all the horrible hallucinations she had gladly stopped having.
But she was outside of the Lockwood mansion, looking at the flower arrangements as she glanced at Elena and Caroline having a fight (probably about Stefan and Damon) when a guy walked up to her with a whole lot of curly hair on his head. "Excuse me, I'm a little lost. I'm here to interview contestants."
Natalie looked up from the flowers as she met his gaze and sent him a short smile, truthfully wanting him away from her as quickly as possible as he gave of this creepy vibe. "Uh, try inside by the parlor."
He smiled back, before standing for a moment and studying her weirdly. "You're Natalie, right? Bonnie was talking about you. You going strong?"
The brunette girl couldn't help but notice his weird tone of voice, as if he was trying his best to not sound creepy but he still was clearly desperate for a yes. But Natalie wasn't the kinda person to just let him be so weird towards her. "You going creepy?"
His eyes widened at her bluntness and sighed in annoyance as he realized he was pretty much failing at keeping his cool. "Sorry, may have been coming of a little too strong. I'm Atticus Shane, but call me Shane, I beg you."
"Okay, Atticus," Natalie started, noticing him closing his eyes in annoyance. "You're the one who's been all weird with Bonnie and having all the answers to stopping the hunter's curse that didn't do much good, thanks for that. Can I just ask how you somehow have all the answers?"
"I study these kinds of things, Talia. There isn't that much more to know." he sent her a tight smile, as if to signify that the conversation was over and there was no more talking about. "Thanks for the directions."
And only after he walked away had she realized he had called her Talia, AKA what Esther once said was her original name, as in the one from a two thousand years ago. Well, this was interesting.
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The Gilbert House
Natalie loved distractions after something awful happens, and helping her little brother figure things out when it came to his new hunter status was something she was all for, especially seeing as the only reason he had started his hunter's mark was to keep her from killing herself, she was really thankful for that.
But when he had started getting ready for the pageant (Natalie was already in her dress with her hair and makeup done so she was ready) he had started explaining that he had a dream where he had killed their shared older sister, but even worse was the fact that when he woke up he had a knife and a stake with the symbol of the five on it. "Wow, the mark is really messing with you, isn't it?"
"What if I'm just having a psychotic break? You know all about that, don't you?" he retorted, but then seeing the wince on his sister's face he realized that he probably shouldn't have said that. "That was way out of line, I'm sorry."
"It's fine," she shook her head and grabbed a paper out of the folder she had gotten from Matt (she had no idea how he managed to get a hold of it and, quite frankly, she didn't really want to know) and read of it. "Newly awakened hunters may not be fully conscious of their actions. Their sub-conscious pushes through until the urge becomes a basic instinct. This isn't a simple psychotic break, Jer. Either you tell Elena or I do."
He sighed as he finished putting on his jacket and turned to look at his worried sister. "Fine, I'll tell her when I see her. See you at the Lockwoods' then?"
"Alright." she smiled and patted his arm before walking out and getting ready for whatever was going to happen that most likely was going to be filled with drama because it's Mystic Falls.
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The Lockwood Mansion
Natalie was sometimes annoyed with her friends/sister, mostly because of them dragging her to do things she didn't want to do, like helping a girl she didn't know choose her dress for the Miss Mystic Court. There were times like these she envied the year younger Natalie who had the opportunity to skip and shoot trees (and almost Stefan, but she was not to be blamed as they weren't really best friends back then).
April Young was holding two dresses in front of her, a blue and pretty dress and a red and slightly risque dress. Caroline and Elena had clear opinions on the matter as Natalie couldn't give less of a crap but just knew that she had to choose one too. "Blue."
April frowned looking at the tree with questioning look, not really convinced yet. "Really? The blue seems a little safe."
"Safe is good when it comes to the judges." Elena tried to convince her, and a small smile graced her face as she remembered her entering in the pageant, wearing a blue dress, dancing with Damon. They were all good memories until Stefan tried to eat someone.
Caroline hummed in agreement, scrunching up her nose as she recalled one of the times she had gladly joined her mother in watching the pageant and they all got a good laugh. "She's right. Gracie Lockwood had a three-foot slit her year and practically got laughed off the court."
"She got my vote." the familiar voice that you could always just hear smirking spoke up as he stood at the edge of the door, definitely having listened to every word of their conversation because he was still Damon Salvatore.
Natalie frowned as he was being a little weird by walking into the girls' changing room without even thinking about it (judging by the nonchalant look on his face). She grabbed the first object she could reach (which might have been a blue hairbrush, she wasn't sure) and threw it at him. "Get out, creep!"
Damon closed his eyes as the hairbrush hit him in the face, but seeing as he was a vampire, he barely felt it hit him. So he decided to be sarcastic, of course. "Ouch. Where's Professor Shane?"
"Try the judges' table!" Natalie called out as falsely sweet as she could because he was really being weird and creepy by just walking in when there could be plenty of naked underage girls in there. Caroline walked forth and gave Damon a sarcastic smile before trying to slam the door in his face, but he simply stopped it.
He pushed the door open with his hand as he looked at April, who was still holding up the two dresses, even if the girls had agreed on one already, which Damon clearly disagreed with. "Red one, definitely."
Caroline sent him a short glare as she crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance as he seemed to try to ruin everything she was all for at the moment, including Stefan and Elena's relationship and her control over the pageant. "We've already agreed that the red one is a little bit too showy."
Damon just shrugged it off, being Damon and being a big fan of showy dresses. "It's a pageant. That's the whole point."
The blonde vampire simply gave him a look that was basically telling him to shut the hell up as she placed her hands on her hips, showing that she meant business. "Did you win Miss Mystic last year? No. I don't think you did."
"Neither did Elena and she wore blue." he pointed out, glancing at the Gilbert girl, who almost seemed like she was breathless just from looking at him, which Natalie found very strange and different from the times when she'd yell at Damon just for the hell of it.
"Nobody cares what you think." the female vampire then exclaimed, running out of good comebacks quickly but, she still thought she was right because, well, she was the reigning Miss Mystic Falls.
April looked hesitant to speak up, but she did as she clearly valued an opinion from someone that wasn't terrified of the wrath of Caroline Forbes. "I care."
Damon smirked at the fuming blonde who seemed moments away from going out and yelling at the first person that even seemed to breathe close to her flower arrangement chart. "See? April cares. Red, right, Elena?"
The doppelganger sent her blonde friend an apologetic look before taking another look at the eldest vampire in the room and once again looking slightly breathless. "The red is pretty."
The Forbes girl's face fell at her friend's lack of support for her, making Damon's smirk widen and finally decide that he was finished teasing Caroline for the moment, but the day was young. "And my work here is done."
Elena stared after his retreating figure as Caroline looked at her incredulously, not understanding how she so suddenly was able to change her mind about something they all agreed on. "Uh, what happened to thirty seconds ago when you hated the red one? What happened to safe is good?"
The eldest Gilbert twin didn't answer for a moment before turning to the slightly younger blonde with a glazed look over her eyes. She then shook her head and tried to focus herself after Damon's departure. She shrugged as she looked at April. "Whichever one you want to wear, April."
She then ran after Damon, really wanting to talk to him. Caroline turned around and let out a noise that sounded like a mix a growl and a scream as Natalie simply stared at the door, thinking about her sister's weird behavior, just seemingly acting like Damon was just right about everything and how she didn't seem to concentrate on anything but him for a moment after he had left the room. "Wait, what just happened?"
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Natalie had gotten the very important task of getting all the escorts to where they were supposed to be. She thought it would have been the easiest job in the world, if only her little brother with the murder fantasies would show up somewhere, and since he was gone, she doubted he had talked to their sister about having dreams about killing her.
The younger twin walked up to the older twin as Caroline was announcing some of the contestants and was happy she was alone and not with Damon, who would be a real jackass anyway. "Have you seen Jeremy?"
Elena shrugged and clapped as another contestant was announced and walked down the stairs, linking their arms on their way down. She looked at where the other escorts were, and simply shrugged when she couldn't see him. "He's probably up there with the escorts."
"I was supposed to wrangle the escorts. He's not there," the huntress informed her, the doppelganger turning to look at her with alarmed eyes, wondering why he wouldn't be there when he should, since it didn't sound like this Jeremy, maybe the old one, but not this one. "Did he tell you about his nightmares?"
Elena twirled with the lower part of her braid for a moment as she tried to not rip her hair out because of her worry for her younger brother and whatever he might be going through, especially with these mystery nightmares. "What nightmares?"
"The ones where he kills you." she stated bluntly, Elena's eyes widening a little more as she hadn't thought about the consequences of Jeremy starting his hunter's mark to save Natalie's life.
"We'll find him, but April's about to get abandoned." the doppelganger assured her before reminding her of April's existence, which she honestly kept forgetting.
"I got it." Natalie smirked for a moment before catching the eye of a confused Matt, who looked at them weirdly. She pointed at him before doing some weird and fake dance moves and pointing to April. The blond boy pointed to himself for a moment as he raised his eyebrows in question. The female nodded and gave him a thumbs up, which he returned as he ran towards April. "I'll go look for him."
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Finding Jeremy Gilbert should be it's own movie, to be honest. Or, at least that's what Natalie thought as finding him seemed harder than finding Nemo. He was nowhere, he left no clues of where he could be. She had even gone into the woods for a little while to look for him. She hoped that Elena had better luck looking, so she went back to the Lockwood mansion to see.
Once she walked in, she could hear a whole lot of noise and she could almost certainly bet that it was Elena that had gotten herself into some kind of trouble again, maybe with Klaus, seeing as he was on a date with Caroline (and for that Natalie was happy, even though she knew Tyler wasn't), but then again, it could've been Jeremy.
She had rushed towards the noise, hearing grunting and was really hoping what was happening wasn't sexual because she was not up for seeing that (especially if she was right about it being Jeremy and Elena, she would probably puke on the spot, they were not an incestdual family).
Luckily, it wasn't sexual. Unluckily, it was still Jeremy and Elena. He was kneeling in front of her as he had a stake over her heart, and she wasn't down for the sibling-on-sibling-killing-thing. Nope. "Jeremy!"
The brunette boy turned to give his only human and alive relative a sharp look as she stood and gave him a threatening look. "Get out of here, Natalie!"
"Hey, Jer, look at me. She may be a vampire but she's also your sister and you love her and she loves you. It's just this stupid hunter's mark-" she exclaimed, trying to walk closer but stopping when he glared at her and lowered the stake closer to Elena's chest.
"Shut up, Natalie!" he spat, turning back to his vampire sister and raising the stake for the killing blow, but he just couldn't go through with his kill. Not because some moral inside voice was telling him not to, because of the very person he told to shut up.
"Hey, jackass teenager who has no control over his own life! You do not want to do this. Even if you do, sucks to be you because I'm not gonna let you. I'm your human sister and I love you and you love me. And I'm telling you not to hurt her!" she almost yelled, unknowingly causing someone to hear them and rush towards the room. Jeremy stopped trying to stake her, but he still looked like he wanted to.
But before they knew it, the person who heard them sped into the room and grabbed Jeremy by his throat and almost threw him away from the doppelganger. Stefan always saves the day. He pushed him towards the Saltzman girl and barely cared as his main focus was currently Elena. "Get him out of here, Natalie!"
She grabbed his arm and even when he tried to turn back, she simply grabbed his chin and turned his head forwards and dragged him away from the scene. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
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The Gilbert House
Of course, she had done her best to keep the voices out. It wasn't that she was insane and voices told her to murder Jeremy or something, it was more that she just kept remembering short phrases and things that they said to her to get her to end her own life. Of course, she heard them once in a while, but never when she was doing something. Only when she stared out in space in boredom.
But the last thing she actually knew she had to do that day was talk to her brother. She had already spoken a little with Elena and Matt and everything was set up, now she just needed to tell Jeremy. But as she walked into his room, she saw him packing his stuff. "What are you doing?"
He sighed as he threw another t-shirt into the suitcase. "I can't keep living here if I want to kill one of my sisters."
Natalie bit the inside of her lip as she saw how guilty he felt over the things he couldn't control. It wasn't his fault that the hunter's mark was messing with him. "Elena knows that. That's why she moved out and we have a new housemate that could come any second now. Team Mattalie is here to keep you in control. Well, mostly Matt. I'm just here to keep the house from burning down."
The voice of the new housemate spoke up from behind them, putting his bag on the floor as he smiled at the brunettes. "Oh, please. We all know that if anyone would burn the house down it would be you."
Natalie nodded in agreement as she walked over to give him a hug in welcome to the Gilbert house, being a resident wasn't always easy but she was going to act as if it was anyway. But Jeremy only had one question left on his mind, because he was really happy about one of his best friends moving in with them, but he was worried for his older sister. "Where's Elena gonna go?"
No one really answered as the answer was quite obvious. Where's the only place Elena would go? The Salvatore Boarding House.
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A/N: This chapter was hell to write if I'm gonna be honest. And as you may have noticed, Natalie isn't over the last chapter yet because it always annoyed me how Elena simply seemed to forget about it. I think that was pretty stupid.
And nothing really special will happen until Kol is back just so you know. Just a warning, and even then it might be a little boring until Silas starts his reign of terror. Him and Natalie are going to have an interesting dynamic.
Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.