CHAPTER 68: AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL
Mystic Falls High School
The death of Carol Lockwood came as a shock, and it was called an accident by every person who had given their condolences to her son, saying they were sorry about the accident. Of course, with Tyler's rage issues, the fact that they covered up her murder didn't make him feel any better, simply portraying her a drunk who stumbled into a fountain and couldn't manage to get herself up.
Of course, as she was the mayor, it was mandatory for the students of the high school to attend her memorial, and everyone showed up. Well, everyone except for Stefan, who she had checked in on a few times, but he was just drunk.
"Carol Lockwood always said that togetherness in times of tragedy leads to healing, that one community is stronger than a thousand of its members. But how does a community stay strong after losing its leader? And Carol was so much more than a leader; she was an open-minded friend and a concerned mother, taken from us too soon by a terrible accident," Sheriff Forbes spoke from a podium, pissing Tyler off as he left, still not okay with it. "Please join me in observing a minute silence in her memory."
Natalie, who was sitting between Bonnie and Elena, turned to her sister, who had a frown on her face as she looked to the side. "Elena? Are you okay?"
"Be right back." the doppelganger informed her, being the second part of the gang that didn't stay throughout the whole memorial assembly.
The moment wasn't as silent for the twins as the Sheriff would have liked, but she didn't notice at least. "Thank you so much. In the wake of this tragedy, the town has selected an interim mayor. Many of you may already know him. Please welcome Mr. Rudy Hopkins."
A man, who Natalie recognized to be Bonnie's father from the one time he'd been home the previous summer and the huntress had visited the witch. "Thank you so much, Sheriff. Carol Lockwood put this town first. That's why I'm here to talk to you guys. You folks are the future of Mystic Falls..."
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After that boring speech that was just the cheesy take care of yourselves, don't drink, she was the best blah blah blah Natalie had decided to once again check in on the seemingly spiraling Salvatore vampire who kept drowning his sorrows in alcohol, only to discover they knew how to swim.
"I don't if you know the definition of mandatory, as in the mandatory school assembly that happened to not be here for." the brunette spoke over the phone, leaning against the wall as she heard him sigh at her.
"Well, that's because I'm at a mandatory all-day drinking party." he spoke through the phone, sounding very tired and just over the whole doing things with your currently immortal life kind of thing.
"Okay, I'm getting worried. Is this how you usually start one of your ripper benders because I'm so not up for repeating what happened last time, that messed me up and you know it." she scrunched her nose up at the thought of what had happened during his no-humanity time, including the death of Scott and a whole lot of I hate you, I love you.
He hummed in agreement, but she could practically feel how uncomfortable he was at the thought of his last trip out to the edge, where he almost fell off, but someone pulled him back up. "My brother slept with Elena. It kinda puts a damper on things."
She groaned, feeling as if it was her fault, as usual, that he was being so weird and gloomy when she knew that he wanted nothing more than to be happy again. "Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have told you."
She heard him take another sip of his drink before letting out a breath. "No, I'm grateful you told me, Natalie. I don't know if either of them were ever going to, so I'm glad you're brave enough to, even if they could be pissed off."
"Well, I'm gonna do my best to help you right now. Pull yourself together, man! You're better than wallowing in your sorrows and you better get your ass here right now mister because if not, I'll do something, that I will figure out later!" she exclaimed jokingly, trying to cheer him up.
She heard a chuckle come from him and it made her smile. "Yeah, sure, Natalie. I'm looking forward to whatever you will figure out later."
She giggled in return, her hand going through her hair as she pulled it backwards. "Oh, shut up. I was just trying to cheer you up, dumbass."
She knew he was about to respond, but before anything could be said, her phone was ripped out of her hand and a hand was wrapped around her mouth, dragging her with the person, who was dragging her towards the library.
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It hadn't taken long before the person who grabbed her had been revealed to be Rebekah, who already had Elena in the library, compelled to stay there. Natalie did drink vervain, because she was good at rationalizing, as compared to the others in town, who had no vervain at all, so she was simply tied down to the chair, her wrist strapped to it, and she could be easily stopped if she tried to get out with a chair against her wrist.
After a short while, Caroline was brought in too, and supposedly, she had talked to Stefan who had been called by Natalie's phone to inform him of their current situation, and then the blonde vampire got taken before she could stake Rebekah as planned (with the white oak stake).
But then the last person was brought in and it was Stefan Salvatore himself, and he was as compelled as the others, and he noticed the fact that Natalie was tied to the chair as the vampires simply seemed to stay put. He sat down in a chair between Caroline and Natalie, trying to distance himself from Elena.
Rebekah then seemed very excited, bringing with her new minion April Young, who just seemed very confused about the whole ordeal. "Class is in session. You've all been compelled; you know the rules. Answer my questions honestly, no disobedience, no one leaves. April, my sweet, take notes. This is how you get answers in this town. Let's start with a little quiz. In the year 1114, my brother learnt, thanks to yours truly, about a brotherhood of vampire hunters with tattoos that grew with each kill. These tattoos revealed what, Elena?"
The doppelganger answered reluctantly, not even meeting the original's eyes. "A map."
The blonde seemed victorious at being able to get answers out of someone who hates her so much so quickly. "Which led to...? Caroline?"
"A cure for vampirism." the younger blonde answered, using a very similar tone of voice like the one Elena used.
"Perfect, so we're all caught up," Rebekah smiled at the only two who didn't know about the cure before her daggering. "Stefan and Natalie, the last time we saw each other, you had a vampire hunter, but in order to decode the map, you needed the location of the hunter's sword, which Stefan got out of me using some very dirty tricks. Assuming you found the sword, you also found the cure, and yet, you're all still vampires, which means something went wrong."
Rebekah heard the scribbling of a pen and turned to April, who had a notebook and a pen as she wrote down everything that was being said. "What are you doing?"
The blue-eyed brunette looked up at her with wide eyes, having thought she was simply doing what she was instructed to do, and hopefully doing a good job at it. "Oh, you asked me to take notes."
"I wasn't being literal, darling. But now that you mention it...a flow chart would be nice, which means index cards and push-pins. Go, fetch." Rebekah commanded the small girl, who nodded rapidly, ready to do whatever the dangerous vampire told her to do.
And Stefan decided to once again try to be a hero and hopefully get them out of there by convincing the original that nothing was going to come out of this. "You're wasting your time. We don't know anything."
"So, you just gave up? I thought you would do anything to save Elena? Even if it meant taking the cure yourself, so you could grow old and die with her?" she asked, not having thought that he'd just surrender her humanity because whatever. Elena looked at her ex-boyfriend in shock, not having heard of him speaking of that possibility before. "Why do you look so surprised? I'm missing something. What is it?"
Nobody responded for a minute, before Rebekah sent them long and hard looks and Natalie knew that the sooner she got her answers, the sooner she would let them get out of there, which they wanted very much. "They broke up, okay?"
"Broke up? Wait, I'm confused. I thought Elena was your epic love, Stefan? Or is it Natalie this week, you never really know when it comes to you," she teased, Natalie not meeting a single gaze as they all glanced at her, Elena being the most upset. But Rebekah wanted her answers, so she looked at the male vampire once again. "I asked you what happened. You have to tell me."
"She slept with Damon." he answered reluctantly, the compulsion taking over, shocking everyone who didn't know that he knew. Elena seemed betrayed as she looked over at Caroline and Natalie, only to find Caroline looking as shocked as she did and Natalie looking more guilty than ever, refusing to meet her sister's eyes.
"So, vampire Elena is a trollop who likes bad boys, which explains why Stefan reeks of alcohol. But what it doesn't explain is why sweet, loving, innocent Elena could be so heartless towards Stefan," the original wondered, making Elena glance at her ex regretfully. But Rebekah looked at Stefan, wanting the answers. "How could she hurt you like that? Answer, please."
Stefan was forced to answer a question that he hated the answer for, sometimes wondering how things would have played out if that answer wasn't actually true. "She didn't know it at the time, but she was sired to Damon."
Rebekah smirked at all their discomfort at the mention of their least favorite subject, mostly because they all hated that it was true. "A sire bond. That's fascinating. And what do you think about that, Elena?"
But the doppelganger vampire wasn't just going to let her get her way all the sudden, she hated the thought of her winning and simply glared at the blonde original. "I think you're sad and bored and in desperate need of a hobby."
Rebekah leaned closer to the sired vampire, her pupils dilating, showing that she was compelling her. "You're hiding something. Fess up."
And without hesitation, without even knowing what she was going to say, Elena spouted out what she felt like was the truth in her sired state. "I didn't sleep with Damon because of the sire bond. I slept with Damon because I'm in love with him."
Natalie looked at Stefan with a sympathetic look, very well aware of the feeling you got when someone you loved seemed to be more in love with someone else. She had gone through it for about a little more than a year with him, so she understood.
But Rebekah caught the glances and smirked, knowing that there were more ways to torture them. "Stefan, we all know there are more troubles in your love life than Damon and Elena. A particular one is sitting right next to you. So why haven't you jumped her bloody bones already now that you're single? We all know you want to," she asked, smirking as she saw the uncomfortable looks on all their faces at the mention of Stefan and Natalie's romantic interest in one another. "Remember, you have to answer me."
The compulsion seemed to take effect once again as he tried to avoid eye contact with anyone, especially Natalie and Elena, who would definitely be the more effected ones by the revelation. "Because she deserves better."
"Please elaborate." the only female original vampire commanded him, finding their love issues very entertaining, it was better than reality TV, which she knew wasn't so much reality.
"She deserves better than to feel like a second choice just because I made a mistake." he answered, and for a moment, he just had to glance up at the girl he was talking about, wondering what her reaction would be. It had been a while since he had last seen that surprised and very vulnerable look on her face, and you could almost feel the emotion just coming out of her eyes only as she stared at him. He regretted choosing Elena over her. He regretted not being with her.
Caroline noticed how Elena winced and looked hurt at that, having thought that Stefan was happy with choosing her the way she had once chosen him. "What does any of this have to do with the stupid cure?"
Rebekah nodded, sending her fellow blonde a silent thank you for getting her back on track. "You're right. We got off the point. Stefan, how do I find the cure? Unless, you'd rather talk about You, Damon, Elena and Natalie all day."
"There's a professor. He knows where the cure is." he informed her, happy that they were done with that conversation topic for the moment, happily giving up Shane's existence.
"Thank you. And, uh, where do I find this professor?"
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Of course, Rebekah had sent for someone to go get that professor that nobody really liked. She wouldn't tell them who she got, all she told them was that it was a surprise, and her gaze was solely on Natalie as she spoke, making her really wonder what was going on and who was coming with Shane.
"Sister... Look at this! You're even worse than Klaus." a masculine voice with a British accent spoke as he poked his head through the door, Natalie stiffening up as she heard his voice, not having spoken to him in so long.
Rebekah shook her head as she was about to get tired of waiting for him to appear with what she was asked him to appear with. "Kol, finally. Did you bring what I asked for?"
And Kol shoved Shane into the library, and Rebekah said her hellos, but Kol was focused on an entirely different person in the room. "Hello, darling." he greeted his old friend.
"Kol." she breathed in return, not having expected to see him, not really having had him on her mind in a while, but suddenly she seemed to have a short flashback to seeing him and their dynamic unfolding, including that very fun night.
"It's sure been a while, hasn't it? I haven't seen you since you tried to sneak out of my bed." he smirked, enjoying the fact that everyone seemed so uncomfortable at the thought, especially the Salvatore brother sitting next to her.
"Are you just talking to me to remind me that we had sex? Because if so, I'm well aware, thank you." she smiled sarcastically, gnawing on the inside of her lip as he tilted his head at her, his smirk never fading as usual.
He walked closer to her, noticing her hand being tied to the chair, and decided to spare her of the discomfort as he used his supernatural strength to break the rope, allowing her to rub her wrist. "Aw, darling, I feel flattered you still think about it to this day."
"Kol, when can we actually do what we're supposed to? If you have to, then bring her." Rebekah rolled her eyes at her brother's persistent need to flirt with their old, old friend.
"My pleasure."
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As Rebekah shoved Shane into the custodial closet, Kol had dragged Natalie with him by the arm, and she closed the door behind them, knowing the importance of that at least. Shane looked between the two originals, awestruck, as if he was seeing a rainbow for the first time or some other cheesy quote.
"Kol and Rebekah Mikaelson... two members of the Original vampire family. This is such a trip." he talked to himself, looking between the pair of siblings, not being able to keep his eye on one for more than a moment just because he felt the need to look at another.
Rebekah leaned closer to him, trying to compel him, as she had been doing a whole lot lately. "Where's the cure?"
"Compulsion won't work. It's a little trick I picked up in Tibet." he told her, seeming very proud of himself for even being able to resist the strongest compulsion in the world, that of an original, the first and most powerful vampires.
"Right. Well, we'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way. Beat him until he tells you where to find it." Rebekah commanded her brother, who simply had a smile/smirk on his face (a smirkle?) at the thought as his younger sister left the room.
He glanced at the girl who was a gorgeous as the last time he saw her that was standing by, seeming against the idea of him doing what he always seemed to do best. "Sit by and watch the show, darling. It's not going to be pretty."
"Or we could, you know, change and evolve from the thought of the old-fashioned way and just talk it out?" she suggested, not being too happy with the thought of violence as the last time it happened, it was against her, and the time before that she tried to use it against herself.
"What's the fun in that? And I thought you were a hunter, darling, aren't you supposed to be all for violence?" he asked, grabbing the professor's shirt collar as he tried to escape, using the conversation between the pair as an opportunity.
"See, I have changed. I have evolved." she retorted, using the words she had previously used the last time she had spoken, which was only a few seconds prior.
"Well, I haven't."
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Natalie winced in the corner as Kol once again shouted at the professor, shoving his head underwater, almost drowning him like he had done so many times earlier. He brought him up so he could survive for one more moment, shouted again before shoving him under.
But then Rebekah walked into the custodial closet, and Kol yanked Shane's head up, making him ready to answer the Mikaelson sister's questions. "You're human. Why do you want it anyway?"
"That's the beauty of this. You can have it. I just want Silas." Shane responded, his upper body still soaking wet from his dunks in the water as he thought it might have helped if they knew he didn't want to take away the thing they wanted the most.
But those words seemed to anger Kol as he glared, grabbing his shirt angrily. "No. What do you know about Silas?"
Shane smiled at the original, showing how he might have been slightly insane and having thought about a myth and wanting to wake a myth. "He's the world's first immortal being, who just happens to be imprisoned with the cure...and I want to free him."
The eldest original in the room was not pleased to hear it, and grabbed the back of the professor's head, pushing his head into the water again, this time seeming even crueler than he was before, and he was pretty cruel then too. "No!"
Natalie noticed that Shane might have been down there a little too long, and seeing him maybe getting close to death brought back some unfortunate memories of the last time someone was close to death, which happened to be her. "Stop! He can't help if he's dead!"
Kol reluctantly brought Shane up for the air he so desperately needed, and his quick and heavy breaths were easily heard throughout the small room. "Did you not just hear what he said? Silas will kill us all."
Rebekah was also getting pretty pissed with her brother almost killing her only chance to get to the cure and all because of someone she didn't believe in. "Silas does not exist. He is a- a fairytale made up to scare children into eating their vegetables."
And stupid Professor Atticus Shane had to speak up, only making things worse for himself when it came to the brunette and male original that seemed to hate him enough already. "Silas is very real. I know where he's buried, and soon I will have the spell that wakes him."
Kol then seemed to realize something, since he knew a whole lot about the subject after his studies and good relations with witches and it seemed impossible for a pesky human to be able to follow through with all of it. "Wait a second, you're lying. You can't get to him."
"Without his tombstone? The reincarnation's blood?" he asked, everyone throwing quick glances at Natalie, at least she now knew who her blood was supposed to awaken, it was all confusing. "Dozens to die in a blood sacrifice? Believe me, I know. I've done it. Those massacres are a pain to engineer."
Blood sacrifices? Massacres? He engineered them? For Natalie, that could only mean one thing and that meant that she was completely right about how creepy that professor was, even if Bonnie wouldn't believe her. "You're the one who got the council blown up."
He nodded rapidly, and there was this glimt in his eyes that scared her, as if it was the right thing to do, just killing dozens of people to wake one immortal being. "It was a noble sacrifice... and temporary, because once I raise Silas, Silas will raise the dead. He will bring back every last soul who died on his behalf."
And before anyone could do or say anything more, Kol's rage had finally taken over him as he grabbed a steel pipe, quickly shoving it through the professor's stomach, allowing him to bleed out. He heard the noises of disbelief come from Rebekah and Natalie alike, and didn't know why it was such a big deal for them, well he knew but he didn't care. "You should be thanking me."
The blonde glared at her older brother, sounding as if he had just betrayed her in the deepest sense, and she felt as if he had. The cure was the thing she wanted most in the whole world and now the chance was gone. "You killed my only chance at finding the cure."
"Silas on the loose would be hell on Earth. Frankly, sister, I don't think you could handle it." Kol spat, finding his sister's rage simply annoying as he pulled out something very familiar if you were a supernatural or supernatural-familiar individual.
"How did you get that?" Rebekah asked, staring at her brother in fear as he held the white oak stake in his hands. The only thing that could permanently kill her or any of their family members, but now she thought more about herself.
"Way too easily."
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The Salvatore Boarding House
She had found out that Elena wasn't home when she had gotten home, which she thought was weird as Jeremy wasn't home so he couldn't kill her, but then she had gotten a text from Stefan, asking her to come over to his house. She didn't know why he wanted her to, but she just went with it as usual.
"You called." she stated the obvious as she walked in the parlor and seeing Stefan with (surprise, surprise) a drink in hand as he turned to look at her with a smile in greeting.
There was no time for small talk as he cut straight to the chase, wanting to know if she was still on his team as she had been for a while now. "You still wanna find the cure?"
She nodded, walking closer to him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she tried to keep it away from her face. "If you want to, then I'll gladly help you. The only problem is that Shane's dead and he was the only way we could have gotten to it."
"Shane's not dead." he put out bluntly, making her eyes widen, as he had to be lying. She saw what happened and unless he was a vampire, he was dead(er than he would have been as a vampire).
She shook her head at him, not finding it to be plausible at all, not when she saw the way the pipe entered his stomach harshly and blood spewed out, forcing him to give up his life. "I watched Kol kill him."
"Well, you probably shouldn't have left him alone. Bonnie did a little spell. He's perfectly fine," he informed her, and she nodded, of course Bonnie did a spell to save her creepy professor. For a moment it was silent as she debated whether or not to ask about earlier that day, but he started talking first. "Look, you know that I still have feelings for you, even if I'm not really sure how you feel about me anymore. But I don't want you to take it the wrong way, but I don't think I can be able to handle going around the rest of eternity without knowing how Elena truly feels about my brother, not after how much she was willing to hurt me for him."
She refused to meet his gaze for a moment as he just told her that he had feelings for her, even after he chose Elena, which he seemed to regret, and she fumbled with the edge of her shirt."Well, if you really want the cure, you should know that Shane has an agenda, and it's a dark one. He said he organized dozens of people to die in sacrifice, he admitted to the council explosion where twelve people died, and I'm guessing it's not a coincidence that Klaus happened to kill twelve hybrids."
"Twelve... channeling the energy from mass death is used in witchcraft to perform dark spells. It's called Expression. Shane admitted all this to you?" he asked, not believing that he would spout out information that important to her, but she nodded, and that basically told him the answer, as nodding usually does. "Well, then, I guess we'll have to figure out how to manage him while we find the cure for ourselves."
"We?"
He walked closer to her, finding them standing with maybe a meter between them as he thought that getting closer might have been considered inappropriate, as it was bad enough with her comforting hug, but he couldn't do anything like it again. "Listen, we've always been pretty good together, no matter how you see it, and Damon's got Jeremy, Klaus has the sword, and Shane has Bonnie. You and I are the only ones left with nothing. I'm gonna need you."
"So, what are you saying? You want us to be partners?" she asked as she finally looked up to meet his eyes, and he could already see her answer through them, and it was a small tug at the corner of her lips that could only mean that she was almost at a smile.
"Did we ever stop?"
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A/N: So, I noticed a lot of you guys are mad at Stefan, but trust me, nobody is more mad at Stefan than Stefan.
Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.