CHAPTER 23: NO EXIT
The Salvatore Boarding House
Natalie had given herself the task of talking with Sheriff Forbes about Damon, trying to track him down so she could make sure he would be alright. Even if she was pissed off at him, she cared about him a lot. She had luckily gotten Stefan on board with her plan, seeing as he felt a bit guilty about the situation.
And so she met him at the boarding house, having found a lot of things that she knew hewould find very interesting, or terrifying. Most likely both. "You were right. He's off the rails. This is from Liz."
The brunette girl handed her boyfriend a few papers of leads on his brother, but he didn't have to go deep into thought to figure out what most of the things in there said. "Let me guess: missing persons and animal attacks?"
"Check and check," Natalie answered, biting the inside of her lip as she knew there was something a bit more disturbing in there as well. "And, there's something else. All the victims were found decapitated in their homes... but their skin was desiccated."
"Damon's feeding on vampires..." he trailed off, showing his obvious guilt on his face, starting to look at the pictures of the people he had let die by releasing him brother into the wild. "I shouldn't have let him go."
His girlfriend sighed, grabbing his hand reassuringly, but not giving him a small smile or anything. She only grabbed his hand and gave him a few words. "You can't blame yourself, Stefan. Nobody could have stopped him from going after Wes."
He gave her a small smile in gratitude of her words, as she always seemed to find a way to make him feel better. "I guess Wes must have injected him with whatever he was going to give Elena that makes vampires feed on vampires."
"This doesn't have to end like it did with Jesse. Maybe we can find a way to save him." She tried to force herself to think positively, although it was pretty hard as she had never been a particularly positive person.
He frowned (surprise, surprise) and seemed to have chosen what he was going to end up doing. "I have to find him."
Another female voice spoke up, one that Natalie had tried to force herself to not notice because she was kind of jealous about her behavior. And that person was a doppelganger. "Well, I can come with you."
"Oh, hi, Elena. I didn't see you there. Why are you here?" Natalie asked with a faux sweet voice with an equally falsely sweet smile, making Stefan wonder what Elena had done to make her seem so passively aggressively angry.
She didn't seem to be the only one able to be passive aggressive, mocking her tone of voice and smile with a sentence that made the former huntress annoyed. "Stefan has been helping me study."
"Oh. Stefan who doesn't go to college," Natalie commented lowly, and Stefan was really wondering what they had done to piss her off (because she seemed a bit annoyed with the thought of both him and Elena, although mostly Elena).
"Stefan, who's an expert in history," the doppelganger retorted, a small smirk on her face that was a bit uncharacteristic for Elena, it reminded her more of Katherine than anyone else, especially on that face.
"So, how about I go with you two. I need to talk a bit with him too, so you can just pick us up at our dorm after we've gotten some clothes?" Natalie asked her boyfriend, getting a nod in response, and she sent him a shining smile.
She sent a glance back at the face of sister, who was sitting with her arms crossed as she looked at them. Natalie suddenly grabbed each of Stefan's cheeks and pushed his lips towards hers sweetly. That was sure to hold her off a bit.
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Gas Station
The trio had driven for a few hours before Stefan had the idea of actually starting to fill up the car on gas, because it definitely didn't have as much as it did at the start of the journey. They had gotten into Stefan's vintage, red car and Elena did not seem to be very pleased with it, even if Natalie had heard that she used to like it.
"You ever think about getting a new car?" the older of the twins sounded like she would want nothing more than to beat the car in with a crowbar, and if they didn't keep her from it, she might do it.
"No, I love this car!" Natalie looked at her twin's face incredulously. It wasn't even a lie to get Stefan to be #teamnatalie. She genuinely loved the car, and while they were together, her and Stefan had quite a bunch of fun inside of it.
Stefan seemed to agree, but mostly because of the car itself and not the sentimentality that came with it. "Yeah, what are you talking about? This car is a classic."
"Yeah and so is the Wright brother's plane, but you don't see people still flying around in that thing," Elena's voice retorted, finding a clever comeback faster than Natalie had ever seen her do.
As much as Natalie hated leaving the two alone together, she was really hungry for anything involving chocolate. And so, she sighed and decided that she trusted Stefan enough to make sure he would stop Elena from doing anything. "I'm really hungry. Do any of you want anything."
Stefan nodded, a smile on his face because he knew that she knew what he wanted. "You know what I want, don't you? Other than you."
The female doppelganger's voice suddenly interrupted their short flirtation, knowing that she didn't want any of that happening near her. "I want whatever Stefan's having, with a lot more salt."
"Nah, from where I'm standing it looks like you have more than enough salt," the reincarnated brunette smiled fakely at her sister's face, making a forced chuckle escape her lips. With that she went to actually get the food.
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Some Motel
Something was broken in Stefan's classic car, and Elena had gotten grease on her shirt, and she suggested that they spend a night in a motel. Coincidence? Natalie did not think so. She was getting sick and tired of Elena's flirting with her boyfriend (and it seemed like she finally understood what she was going through when Natalie was constantly flirting with him, when he was her boyfriend).
But still, Natalie was completely fine with being a hypocrite that one time. And it didn't help that Elena had suggested they split up in two rooms, and adding that she didn't trust Stefan and Natalie to spend a night in a room together (and Stefan had the nerve to laugh). Natalie just got them all a three-bed-room.
What she hated about that particular three-bed-room was that the heater was broken. And she was freezing. She had hoped that as a vampire she would be able to withstand it, but she didn't have that privilege. Instead, it seemed like her heightened everything made it all much colder, even if it didn't seem to bother Stefan and Elena.
"We'll get him back. He's hurt, but he's not a lost cause," Stefan suddenly said, surprising the girls in the room, because he seemed surprisingly confident in the notion. He wouldn't give up on his brother. Natalie admired that about him and Damon's relationship. She often wished her and Elena had more of that.
"Why do you say that?" Natalie asked, a small smile playing on her lips because she loved that kind of thing about him. His refusal to give up on people who deserved salvation. He was the true savior of them all.
"Because I know what he's going through." Stefan took a long look at Elena when he said it, and Natalie had a bit of an idea of what he was going to say, and she knew she didn't want to hear it. She couldn't.
"What do you mean?" Elena asked, tilting her head in actual confusion. Not the first time Natalie saw that look on her face.
He didn't even hesitate before giving his answer. "You don't know what it's like being in love with you. You know, when you and I were together, every single atom in my body told me that it was the right thing, that we were a perfect fit. And that kind of love, it can change your whole life. And then when somebody who made you feel that way suddenly stops, the vacuum is just-"
Natalie cut him off, not wanting to hear anymore of him telling them that Elena was his soulmate and he loved her and it all felt so right. "We get it. They built a whole prophecy around it."
He glanced over at her, finally seeming to understand how she might have been feeling about his words, but before he could open his mouth to apologize, Natalie spoke. "I'm gonna go talk to that guy about the broken heater. You guys can go back to reminiscing about how perfect your relationship was."
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The guy that she had to talk to about the heater was no help. He just said some random words that made him sound all tough and macho before trying to slip her his number a thousand times. And then there was the times he got a little touchy and she always acted like he just didn't know her butt was there and grabbed his fingers harshly, but acting as though it was nothing. He just kept thinking he had to show how macho he was to the pretty girl.
But after that time she just decided she could live with a broken heater for one night, and she sighed and decided to go back to listen to Stefan and Elena talk about how right it felt for the two of them together.
She finally reached the door and tried to tell them what had happened. "So, heater-fixer-guy was no help, but maybe-" she finally looked up at them and she was in for a surprise. She saw the two of them with their lips only centimeters apart, and it was clear that they had been kissing. And by the look of Stefan's position of hands he had tried to stop it... eventually. She could see that they had been kissing for at least a few seconds before he pushed her off. "Wow..."
She didn't even wait for them to explain themselves, she just turned her heel around and started walking. She could almost feel Stefan start to move after her, but she made sure she was always moving faster until she ended up with getting to this pile of old things that were used for plumbing.
As he saw her start rummaging through the garbage pile of tools and things like it, he got both confused and a little terrified. He just hoped she wasn't losing her mind or anything. "Natalie! Natalie! What are you doing?"
Natalie turned around abruptly, one of the tears in her eyes falling with the pressure of the wind. She threw a wrench back in the pile harshly as she glared at him. "I'm looking for a pipe, actually, two pipes so I can stab you twice before snapping your neck three times. Wasn't that our agreement, huh? That if you leave me I can do that?"
"I haven't left you," he tried to say, but he knew that it wasn't a good argument. Because in her point of view, it must have looked like he was been enjoying Elena's attention a whole lot more than he should have. But he didn't. He pushed her off as quickly as he could, but Natalie walked in on the exact wrong moment.
She chuckled bitterly, finding no real humor. She was angry, and she was trying to keep herself from ripping his heart out, like he did to her. "Then what was that? Because that's how it always seems to end. I allow myself to put myself out there and hope again as I trust you not to hurt me. And then you screw it up. But it's this stupid never ending circle of disappointment. I fall a little more in love with you, you hurt me, I cry over you, you give me some stupid apology, I forgive you, repeat. Now, how you gonna explain kissing my sister in a motel room as you're looking for your brother with your girlfriend?"
He was blown away from the way that she seemed to see their relationship. He knew he had hurt her in the past, but he didn't know just how much it still affected her. There had been few moments that Stefan hated himself more than in that one. "She kissed me! I didn't kiss her!"
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn't!" she shook her head, a loud sob rocking her chest as she wanted nothing more than to break down and fall to her knees, but she had to stay strong. Even if she could feel the pain physically in her heart, she feel her heart beat. But it wasn't like it was before, now it was broken.
Stefan didn't know what else to do, or to say. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, she was the strongest love he had ever felt. And he couldn't imagine his life without her anymore. He couldn't lose her again. "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to leave me alone," she murmured, burying her face in her hands as she allowed tears to fall into them. How did she always lose him? What did she do wrong? There must have been something she had to have done... the only person one would try to hurt so much had to be some kind of monster. "God, I'd such an idiot."
He decided that he didn't want to leave her alone. He had promised he wouldn't leave her, and even if it seemed like he had, he wouldn't break his promise. He just didn't want her to hate herself again. "No, you're not."
Natalie looked up, a harsher glare than he had ever seen on her face. She started stepping closer. "Yeah, I am. For thinking for even one second that I could be good enough and you wouldn't hurt me. But this isn't my fault. This is all on you and you not being able to stay away from her for the 1000th time!"
She had gotten close, and if it was under any other circumstance, he might have thought she was going to kiss him. But she started hitting him. She banged her hands on his chest in anger as she sobbed. He didn't want her to go through that anymore so he grabbed her hands, trying to calm her down.
It didn't work. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" she yelled, a tear finally escaping the corner of her eye as she looked up at him, this time not as angrily. This time he could see the sadness, the vulnerability. The pain. And he hated that he had caused it.
As he decided to not let go, she ripped her hands out of his grip and quickly slapped his face. And as she pulled back she started screaming in frustration. All kinds of emotion was running through her, and she couldn't deal with them. That kind of abandonment hurt the most. The one where they chose to do it.
He seemed close to tears himself, but she didn't believe that he had a right to feel sad. She meant that he should only be alive to feel guilty. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I love you, Natalie. I didn't mean to ruin that by her coming on to me. I'm sorry."
She sniffed as she bit her lip, studying his facial expression and the way he genuinely seemed to feel pain from seeing her hurt. She believed that he had pulled away from her. But she didn't believe that he did it right away. And when that person was Elena... it all seemed so much worse. "Sorry isn't gonna cut it. Not this time," she nearly whispered, her voice cracking through the last tear that fell.
After that he knew it. There was no fixing it. She didn't believe him. And he didn't blame her, because she had no reason to. He just had one question he needed to ask. "Are you gonna leave?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, looking at him as if he was the biggest idiot she had ever seen. "What do you think? Of course I'm leaving! I can't stand to look at either of you. I actually thought things were going to be good this time. I should have known I'd be wrong. Text me when you find Damon, I want to know that he's okay. He still deserves some of it. But you... you're never going to get the privilege of seeing me again. I hate you, Stefan. I never want to see you again."
And with that, she got ready to grab the next bus.
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The Dorm Room
If there was one thing Natalie loved about her best friend being Caroline Forbes, it was that she was excellent at comforting someone. They usually sat under her covers as they stuffed their faces with ice cream and cried with the Notebook. But that one time, Natalie didn't feel like crying anymore. She just wanted to talk. There was still ice cream, though.
"I heard something was happening with Matt. Did it end alright?" the brunette asked her best friend as she stuffed her face with another spoonful of cookie dough ice cream. Her favorite (that she stole from some other girl in the dorm).
Caroline finished swallowing her piece of Rocky Road as she nodded, although having some things she hadn't gotten answers to yet, but she could at least mention her questions. "Yes. But Nadia's been compelling him to forget things."
Natalie tilted her head, wondering if she was deliberately leaving something out or she just wanted another piece of ice cream. Turned out it was neither, because she didn't know either. "What do you mean? What kind of things?"
She shrugged, letting her straightened blonde hair bounce. "Who knows? He tried to message me, but Nadia stopped him," she pulled phone out and showed her the message. "Help. K was all I got."
Natalie had no idea what was going on there, so she just frowned. "Huh."
Caroline glanced over at her clearly heartbroken friend, but she was as nosy as always, and even if she tried not to, she just had to ask about what about. "So, you and Stefan. What happened? Why did you break up?"
The reincarnated vampire didn't seem to mind though as she answered everything almost monotonously. "Elena kissed him. And he didn't seem to fight it at first, as if he had forgotten that he had me. I don't know, but when I saw them he had just decided to push her away. It's something about the fact that it was Elena that ticks me off, because I know he didn't want it at the end. But... it was Elena."
The forever-seventeen-year-old seemed shocked, she had thought that exact love triangle would never see the light of day again. "I thought Elena had become happy for you two a long time ago, even back at graduation. Why would she do that? To you or to Damon?"
"I don't know. There's only one person that I can remember that hated the thought of Stefan being with someone else enough to hurt so many people..." Natalie remembered who Elena's behavior had reminded her off, and had a small moment of rememberance of something that could have happened. But she quickly shook it off, because it couldn't be true. "Wait, maybe, no."
"What?" Caroline asked.
Natalie hesitated for a moment, not sure if she wanted to tell her best friend what was on her mind. "Matt texted you Help. K before Nadia stopped him. What if that K stands for Katherine? When she was dying, didn't Nadia figure out a way to put her in her body?"
"Yeah, but that didn't happen because Katherine had a change of heart," Caroline seemed to shake the idea off before remembering that Katherine didn't have a heart. Or, at least when it came to the. "No... No. You don't think that... It's impossible that she'd be... We would have noticed! It's Elena. We know her..."
As Natalie watched expression change to one of realization, she sighed, knowing that there was a big chance that she was actually right. Katherine might have been inhabiting Elena's body. "Oh my God..."
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A/N: If you're angry and you know it, clap your hands... no? I'm just gonna... yeah...
Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.