CHAPTER 29: WHAT LIES BENEATH
A/N: So, I usually don't do any author's notes before the chapter actually starts, but now I just gotta. Welcome to the 100th chapter I've ever written including the beautiful love of my life, Natalie/Natalia/Talia Katerina Saltzman/Gilbert/Flemming . Yay! That's mostly why I'm giving you guys a treat that you have been waiting for since the start (which if you were one of the first people who read the first one, would have been a year and a half ago).
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The Forbes Family Cabin
With Stefan and Elena being the final doppelgangers alive, things were getting heated up and they could feel the tension reaching its boiling point. Damon and Stefan had the wonderful idea of them going to somewhere most people hadn't even heard of, which was Caroline's cabin. She had given Elena, Natalie, Damon and Stefan permission to bring a gay warlock named Luke with them to protect them at the cabin.
But the blonde vampire had her concerns about the ownership of the cabin, because she wasn't sure whether or not the deed was in a human's name, namely her mother's, and if that was the case they didn't know if they could reach her.
So, Natalie had decided that she could go and check while Stefan and Elena were left at the car. Nobody really knew where Damon ran off to, but seeing as it was possible to enter, he most likely just decided to leave the others to carry in the bags.
"So, good news, Caroline's worries were all for nothing. We are completely free to enter without any kind of invite," Natalie informed Stefan and Elena where they had been speaking in hushed whispers. As she noticed them tense up, she narrowed her eyes. "Did I interrupt something, or?"
"No, no. We're just, um-" Elena stuttered as she did her best to figure out what she was supposed to say to keep herself and Stefan out of the inevitable trouble they would be in if it wasn't for them being able to keep a secret.
Stefan saved her as he noticed the bags the four vampires brought with them and dumped them in his newest ex-girlfriend's arms in hope that she wouldn't ask any more question. "Unpacking. We're unpacking. Uh, here you go."
She smiled at them, although it was fake. She was growing suspicious at their weird behavior and overall shadiness. But she carried in the bags because someone had to do it anyway after a while. But when she had dropped them off in the hallway, she couldn't help but want to find out what the two were talking about.
She used her heightened hearing to her advantage as she leaned against the door frame, sighing as she watched Elena playfully hit Stefan with a bag as she said: "Stop it. You're the least helpful person I know."
Natalie narrowed her eyes at her sister and felt the need to interrupt their conversation which involved them standing a bit too close together for her liking. "You know, for two people who are being hunted down just for simply being alive, you two are taking it pretty easy, don't you think?"
As the two started to walk towards the door, Stefan smiled at her. "Yeah. Well, you know, a tribe of ancient wannabe witches want to drain of us our blood and eliminate supernatural beings? I've had worse."
Stefan and Elena entered the cabin together with a few bags on their arms. The reincarnated vampire couldn't help but stare after them, biting her lip because she knew that if she didn't, some words and accusations would accidentally fall out.
She forced herself to take a deep breath before following them inside. It was about to become an interesting trip.
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Natalie couldn't help but worry about Stefan and Elena as the two had gone out to get firewood, and it had taken twenty minutes. She knew that it wasn't too close, but it wasn't twenty minutes to and from the shed. She tapped her fingers on the counter as Damon did his best not to snap at her for doing so.
He was preparing drinks for the two sibling pairs as Natalie was supposed to figure out what they were going to do the rest of the day, and she just decided to throw a game of charades in the living room. Since she had nothing to do, she was drowning in her own suspicious as she threw food in her mouth.
Damon was getting annoyed and pulled her hand out of the bowl of the fancy maraschino cherries he had brought with because he wasn't okay with something like chips (which was Natalie's first choice). "Hey, munchie. Those are not for you."
"Shh, I'm thinking," she scolded him, slapping his arm as she continued her tapping and eating in a consistent pattern.
The 175-year-old narrowed his eyes as he saw that it wasn't just something she was thinking about, like a mathematical equation, but it was most likely something that upset her, and he didn't like things that upset her. "About?"
"It's nothing," she waved him off, although sounding far from convincing.
He quickly pulled the cherries out of her reach and gave her a hard look. "Speak."
Natalie hesitated, not sure if she was supposed to tell him about what was bothering her. If it was true, he deserved to know as much as did. Her and Stefan were as much of a couple as Damon and Elena were, which was not at all anymore. "Well, don't you think that Stefan and Elena have been a bit... you know?"
"No. Clearly I don't," he replied, even if he did understand what she was talking about, he just didn't want to admit. Because unlike his best friend, he refused to believe in the idea of Stefan and Elena back together.
She started fingering the fabric of her shirt with a nervous expression. "Secretive? Like, really hush-hush. This morning they were having some weird conversation and they got really tense when I walked up there, so it's worth the suspicion, I guess."
Damon wanted to be supportive of her every theory, so he racked his brain for anything that could. Unfortunately, he did find something. "You know, now that you mention it, Elena got all cagey when I brought up Enzo."
Natalie frowned, looking at him as if he was insane. "What are you talking about? Are you even listening to what I'm saying? I'm not talking about Enzo. I'm talking about Stefan and Elena, you know, together."
"How much have you had to drink?" Damon asked quickly, forcing himself to find the accusations ridiculous, because if he didn't, he didn't know how he was supposed to feel and react.
"It makes sense, doesn't it? They've both felt really strong feelings for each other before, also known as love. She's on the market, and you guys are on the outs. And Stefan's... relatively single," she hesitated on Stefan's relationship status, because it was hard to figure it out.
"Relatively single?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her with a teasing smirk, noticing how she didn't straight out say that he was on the market like she did with Elena. It was infinitely amusing to see her squirm the way she did after he asked.
"Shut up," she responded, crossing her arms over her chest in annoyance.
Suddenly the two people they had been talking about entered the kitchen, smiling at the their respective siblings awkwardly, causing Natalie to send Damon an I told you so look that confused them.
"Cocktails. Good call," Elena complimented Damon's choice of drinks, trying to get the mood to improve at least a little bit, seeing as they all seemed to stare awkwardly at one another in some way or another.
Stefan couldn't help but try to avoid meeting his brother's eyes and gestured to the living room, trying to find any reason at all to get away. "I'll, uh- I'll make a fire."
"I'll help," Elena offered the moment he had finished speaking, and quickly followed him into the living room.
Natalie looked over at Damon with incredulous eyes, gesturing after the two. "You see? There's definitely something they're feeling guilty about. Even you aren't stupid enough to not see it, come on."
He didn't respond to her insult, only smirked as he spoke in a low voice. "Let the games begin."
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The Salvatore/Gilbert foursome had done their best to compete in charades with the teams being Stefan/Elena and Damon/Natalie (with the latter winning in a landslide, even if the former weren't too bad).
But Damon seemed to be over the game, and wanted an easy way to get answers that wouldn't seem too suspicious to start with. However, he had to take a few rounds to figure out what, but he eventually figure it out. "Ok. Let's play a game called never have I ever, hmm?"
Elena laughed at the suggestion, her glass in her hand. "Oh, I don't think I'm drunk enough."
Natalie, on the other hand, was all for it because she was able to catch onto where Damon was going with it. It was that kind of thinking that made them win charades. "Come on, it'll be fun."
"Come on. It'll be fun." the older Salvatore brother repeated.
As she still noticed the two others' reluctance to start, the reincarnated brunette decided that it was just about not giving them much choice in the matter, and so she just began without their consent. "Never have I ever been killed."
"Cheers to that one," Damon chuckled. All of them had been killed at one point or another, although Natalie believed she held the record for dying the most, and she wasn't sure if it was anything to be proud of but she still just pretended it was.
After they all had a drink, Stefan decided that it was his turn, and smirked as he glanced over at Elena. "Ooh! Ok. Um, never have I ever been possessed by my evil doppelgänger."
"Mean," Elena glared at him as she took a quick shot, but decided that it wasn't too hard to find a comeback for it. "Never have I ever been fooled by my evil doppelgänger while she was pretending to be me."
"Fair," Natalie agreed as her and the Salvatore brothers downed their shots in a matter of seconds. "Never have I ever kissed a Salvatore." Elena started laughing and held up her glass to toast with her. "Today."
For a moment, nothing was said. Damon decided that he should just take her suspicious seriously at that moment just so he could pit himself against them, he found it fun and he had missed it. Elena and Stefan, on the other hand, looked very confused.
Natalie kept her gaze on Elena steadily, staring her down as Elena raised an eyebrow at her looking at her weirdly. As nobody moved, the younger twin decided that it was time to just try to keep them going. "Are you going to drink, or?"
The female doppelganger's eyes widened as she realized what her sister was accusing her for, and she didn't think she'd think that low of her, but she decided to play it as cool as possible. "Are you implying something?"
Stefan let out a cough in hope to ease the tension, but when it didn't work, he decided that it was probably time for him to get out of there. "Well, I'm gonna get another round. Does anybody-"
He was swiftly cut off by his brother's words, these ones being more serious of an accusation, which was a bit more true than the one Natalie had thrown into the room. "Never have I ever lied about where Enzo is."
Stefan and Elena seemed like they were straining themselves from exchanging glances, and as Damon stared his brother down, Natalie just wanted to know what the truth actually was. "What's going on? Truly?"
"Nothing obviously because nobody's drinking," he answered in a way that answered the question a bit more than he wanted it to. He had made it painfully obvious that something was going on.
Damon tilted his head, grinding his teeth together in anger, because he too understood that his brother had been lying, and he dragged their ex with him into the whole situation. "I mean, clearly you know the rules of the game, right, brother? If you lied, you drink."
"Oh, no. I understand the rules," Stefan replied, still standing tall as accusations of him being a liar were thrown around without it seeming like they had thought twice about 50% of them (those 50% being Natalie's).
Elena had gotten a little bit afraid that she was going to squeal, and so she hoped she would be able to get out of the room before it got any more serious. "This just got weird. I'm officially buzzed, so I'm gonna go and get ready for bed."
Natalie rolled her eyes, grabbing the bottle that they had used for their shots. She drank straight from the bottle because she was pretty annoyed with the entire situation, mostly because two of the people she was closest to in the world were lying to her.
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Something really weird had happened. While Elena had decided to take a bath, she had almost been drowned by what seemed like nothing. It couldn't be the travelers, seeing as Luke the gay warlock was doing some protection spell on the cabin. But it had to be something, so as Damon was tending to his ex-girlfriend, Natalie was trying to find Stefan.
She could hear him talk on the phone, and she was a bit surprised to hear him talk to Bonnie of all people about it. If it was either some ex-witch expertise or about dead supernatural creatures it would all make sense, but if not it wouldn't.
But when she heard him ask about things getting worse on the other side, she knew it had something to do with a ghost, most likely. She still wondered why any ghost would want to drown Elena. But when he said that one name, it all made sense. "Enzo's dead?"
Stefan's eyes widened as he heard her voice speak softly behind him. He hung up on Bonnie in a quick second. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer honestly or not, but when he saw her stand there, he knew he couldn't lie to her anymore. "Yeah. I, uh, I killed him."
"Well, I was way off," she realized, finding the thought of Stefan and Elena being together being their secret really weird of her to think. "So, ehm. He's dead, then. Why didn't you tell me? You know you could've told me, right?"
"It's complicated, Natalie," he tried to excuse himself. He knew that it was most likely the worst excuse he could have given her, but that was mostly because he didn't know the answer himself. He had no real reason not to tell her, other than one selfish little thing.
"Enter the complication," Damon announced his presence, giving his brother the evil eye. "Enzo's dead. You killed him. Elena told me."
"You were right. Nicely deduced," she complimented, and if it wasn't such a serious situation, she would most likely either give him a high-five or fist-bump him. She was very proud of herself for resisting the pull to do so.
He smirked at her, his gaze immediately softening as he met her eyes. "Thank you."
"You guys think we could, um, talk about this some other time?" Stefan asked, feeling uncomfortable with the subjects, even if he knew that his brother had every right in the world to be pissed off.
Even if he had looked at Natalie with a kind look, he immediately hardened as he looked at his brother who he really wanted to punch at that moment. "By all means, brother. At your convenience."
Stefan sighed. He knew he deserved every insult his brother could think of throwing his way, but it wasn't the right time. "Listen. The other side is falling apart, and I think it's allowing Enzo to mess with us."
And then Damon had the most genius idea. "Enzo! You in here? Because knock it off!"
"None of this makes any sense whatsoever. He may have been a dick, but he was far from stupid. Drowning Elena wouldn't kill her, at least not permanently. Although I will not completely rule out that he was first only in there because of Elena's clothing, or rather lack of, I don't think that's it. Maybe he just wanted to scare us or send some kind of message," Natalie suggested.
While she had gotten painfully close (which the ghost of Enzo was smiling at), Damon was the one who figured the whole thing out completely. "Drowning Elena was just a distraction. He figured out a way to kill us all in one fell swoop."
Natalie then realized one thing he could've done to get them all killed in the end, and so she ran over to the front porch, where Luke had been sitting, only to find it completely empty. "Crap."
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Stefan and Damon had gone one way in search of the guy that was supposed to protect them, and Natalie and Elena ended up going the other. Even if it would have been more effective to go alone (which Natalie wanted to do so she could avoid having an awkward conversation with her sister), Stefan refused the fact. He wanted both of them as safe as possible, so they had to walk together.
As Natalie tried to call out his name, Elena was thinking of things and solutions to find the guy she had met at college, seeing as he was a friend of Katherine's or something similar. "Maybe Luke-" she then noticed the way her sister was doing her best to avoid meeting her gaze. "You're upset."
"I'm not upset," Natalie denied, sounding very upset. "I'm looking for Luke. The one that's here to protect us, well mostly you and Stefan, who is now missing because of your and Stefan's inability to tell the truth about Enzo's whereabouts. So they can finally find you and Stefan, use your blood and do their spell. Now we're just waiting for our impending doom."
The older twin sighed. She knew that Natalie had to right to be upset about their lies, but it didn't mean that it wasn't annoying of her to go around and complain about it. "I was worried that if Damon found out-"
"He's what? Rip people's heads off and knock their bodies down with them in a twisted game of bowling?" she quipped sarcastically. "Even if he would have done that for whatever reason, I'm not Damon. So, what I don't get it why you didn't come to me? Why didn't you come to me?"
The doppelganger looked down, shrugging as she only had one response. "I just didn't want to put you in an awkward position."
"Right, because it wasn't awkw
ard at all with me thinking and accusing you of being back together with Stefan," Natalie retorted, crossing her arms over her chest as she tried not to trip over a branch.
"Actually, yes, it was," Elena replied, and even when she searched her brain, she couldn't find any reason for anybody to think that. Her and Stefan were over, and they had been for a year. "Where did that even come from?"
"I don't know."
"Well, are you over it?" the older one asked sharply, finding the subject of conversation to be getting old quick. Natalie hesitated, but eventually nodded. "Good, now let's go find Luke."
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Damon and Stefan had found Luke in the shed the Forbes family kept their firewood, and Enzo had decided that it was time to burn it down. Luckily, they saved the warlock. Damon was barely able to get out, but after promising he would bring him back, he survived.
That left Natalie staring at the burning shed as Damon, Elena and Stefan packed up the final few of the bags in the car. There was no use staying there anymore, the travelers most likely knew everything about their whereabouts.
Stefan walked up behind her, even if she seemed very deep in thought. He thought she wouldn't be too angry with him for disturbing her, maybe a little bit, though. "Come on. Car's packed. We got to get out of here."
"We're still friendly, right? Even if we're not really friends," she asked quickly, narrowing her eyes at him as she asked the question. He tilted his head at her, finding the question a bit strange considering the fact that they weren't sure what they were at that moment. "I mean, I don't know if we're ready to get back together anymore. But, you trust me, right?"
He bit his lip to hide his smile, seeing as he knew exactly what was going on. She thought that she was simply annoyed at how he only told Elena about Enzo, but he saw how she truly felt. And it was kind of fun to see her jealous. "Natalie, it's not because I didn't trust you."
"Yeah, I guess I know that. But it just seems like you trust Elena more. Which kinda sucks, you know." She shrugged, turning to meet his eyes and she was also secretly trying to fish for confirmation that he still loved her in a way, no matter what way.
He could see that she was still slightly hurt at the fact that he kept it from her, but he knew that he should just have told her why he didn't tell her anyway. "You know that I trust you more than anyone. She was just there when it happened. I know I should have told you, but there was something holding me back. I just- I didn't want you to think any less of me."
"Stefan, are you an idiot?" she asked suddenly, causing his eyes to widen in surprise at her words. She simply giggled at his expression and shock, because it was really funny. "If I were to think little of you, don't you think that would have happened back when you were in your last ripper bender? Of course, I don't think it was right to kill Enzo, but I'm not mad at you. And I definitely don't think less of you."
He just felt a little giddy, like he hadn't in a while with her. It was like the kind of feeling they were searching for had resurfaced. It just fit, the words she used. From asking if he was an idiot to saying that she didn't think little of him at all, it was just the kind of thing that made sense for them. It wasn't the fantasy type of stuff they had tried to avoid lately. It was just Stefan and Natalie, Natalie and Stefan.
As she gave him a crooked smile, he couldn't help but just want to go for it. He didn't want to wait anymore. It was already killing him, and he wanted nothing more than to just grab her face and pull her to him, but he knew that it wasn't right unless he knew she was ready too. "Well, if it'll make you feel better, there are things I tell you that I don't tell Elena."
"Like?"
"Like how I really, really want to kiss you right now," he responded, not a moment of hesitation. They were the words he had wanted to say for a while. They had known who they were individually for a while, but they just had to figure out who they were together, and then it would be so much harder. But now the words just flew off his tongue like it was right, it was just right.
She bit her lip harshly to contain her smile as much as possible, because she couldn't help but let a small part of it emerge. She couldn't help but feel the same, like it was finally time. The other times they'd gotten together weren't right. But now, in that moment, everything just seemed perfectly right. "Can I tell you something too?"
"Of course," he responded, trying to contain his nervousness.
"I want you to." It didn't take more than those four words for him to slowly put his hand on her cheek. He didn't want to do it forcefully. It wasn't supposed to be full of fire, or dangerous passion. They weren't those kind of people together anymore.
Their bodies quickly melted together, their bodies fitting together like two puzzle pieces that were finally truly connected in the way they were supposed to. He took his sweet time for their lips to meet. He didn't want to rush it anymore, he wanted to reach her in the best way possible.
Once they finally met it felt truly and completely perfect. Together they had grown and learnt who they were to themselves and to each other. They had taught each other how to reach who they were. And they weren't themselves without the other. After knowing each other for almost three years, they had learnt to find a home that they could stay with even if they moved. They found home in a person.
And so she smiled, and she giggled against him and he felt himself finally having found that home, and it was in everything she was, everything she did. If one thing was for certain, it was that Stefan Salvatore was completely and recklessly in love with Natalie Saltzman, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.
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A/N: So, thanks for being there for all those 100 chapters. 100, wow. I almost can't believe it.
And in case some of you didn't get it, here's the deal with Stefan and Natalie. They weren't acting like themselves together because it was weird for them. They were clinging onto a fantasy of who they were together, and so they were just working out what they were doing from each other, but it didn't work well. But now they've been doing thinking and they know that they need to work together and not tiptoe and basically just do whatever the other one seems to want.
I know most of you probably really love me because of this, but get ready to hate me more than ever soon.
Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.