𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 ...
- - -
❝ I never even had a chance you know
Well, you had me from hello ❞
You Had Me from Hello
~Kenny Chesney
- - -
Dear Diary,
I know this might be insane. Trust me, I've talked myself out of believing all the insane stuff about the supernatural... But what happened 2 days ago in the woods is starting to freak me out a bit. Okay, a lot .
Vicki was bit in the neck by an 'animal' and she's in the hospital now. Things are starting to get clearer and foggier by the second. Is it possible? All those missing campers? All those bodies drained of blood... The mysteriously comfortable new guy? No... no it can't be.
This is Mystic Falls right? Nothing bad happens here. Heck nothing ever happens here! This is my home. There are no fairies, magic and there are no.... vampires?
Kat frowns at the question mark on her page, the uncertainty of it all gnawing at her mind. She strikes off the question mark and presses a period roughly onto the page.
no... vampires.
She closes her green velvet diary with a definitive bang, making Elena look at her groggily, still combing through the knots in her hair. "You okay?" She was trying to figure out what was making her twin pull back from just being her normal self. At first, she thought it was concern for Vicki - since Kat was closer to the Donovan girl than Elena was. But then Kat started sleeping in more, writing in her diary longer and sleeping in Elena's room without her even asking for company.
Kat looks up from her diary with an urgent swivel of her head "I-It's okay..." she rushes down in her school clothes - an hour early and gets going on today's lunch for all of them.
"Hey Jenny you have tod- wow" she smiles in shock when she encounters her aunt in front of her mirror. Pressed blue dress, mascara and makeup, and a glossy pout that stands out - Jenna Sommers was looking ready to take a fashion magazine by storm. She smiles at Kat "Hey, how do I look? Do I look adult?"
"As in...?"
"As in respectfully parental?" she smoothens down invisible wrinkles on her blue dress with a nervous smile.
"You look good, but the parental part depends on where you're going"
"Jeremy's parent-teacher conference" she holds her strawberry-blonde hair "Hair up or down?" Elena hugs Kat from behind, making her smile relax a bit. Jenna has her hair held in a could-be updo as she gives a photoshoot pose to the girls. It was almost like before, when the Sommers girl rushed out of her dorm to spend time at the Gilbert residence during her vacations.
"Sexy stewardess" Elena comments.
When the woman lets her hair down onto her collar bone, both of them shrug "Boozy housewife" Jenna's eyes widen in mocking-relief "Up it is!" she eyes her younger niece "You look feisty today"
"I feel good, which is rare. So I've decided to go with it. Fly free, walk on the sunshine, and all that stuff" Elena goes downstairs, a light hum punctuating her each hop. Jenna and Kat smile as they watch the pep in her step after a long time.
Kat knocks on Jeremy's door, calling out a demanding 'get your ass up!'. She frowns when silence greets her on the outside of her brother's closed door "Is Jeremy in there at all?" Kat asks Jenna.
The aunt shoves more pins into her hair with a painful grunt "No. He left early. Something about getting to the wood shop early to finish a birdhou...se" she trails off in sinking realisation.
Her disappointed reflection opens her mouth and closes it after seconds of not having any words to come up with. She scoffs at herself "There is no wood shop, is there?"
Kat shrugs sheepishly with pursed lips
"Yeah... No..."
Kat frowned, sticking her tongue out at the edge of her lips as she darkens the eyes she drew a bit more. Her pen clicks off the edge of the paper, making her sigh and go back to the left again "Am I bothering you Miss Gilbert?" she hears Tanner's voice boom above her, making her jerk out of her mind "Oh, uh, no, Mr. Tanner, the uh," she wracks her brain to recollect what she'd heard with only half a ear.
"Comet brightest tomorrow after dusk" Caroline whispers to her.
"The comet is uh, at it's brightest right after uh, dusk. Tomorrow" she mentions in the end, sitting up erect and closing the book to avoid another snarky comment. Her eyes drift to Stefan's who's eyes narrow worriedly "Are you okay?" he mouths. She puts up a smile and shakes her head in a gesture of 'don't worry'.
Under the desk, Caroline pats her in question, only for Kat to 'later' to her, just to temporarily satiate her curiosity.
Once the bell rings, Stefan walks to the table, Elena right behind him "Hey... Anything wrong?"
Kat shrugs and gets up "I-It's alright..." she tries to push her notebooks into her bag when Stefan — helping her with the books — catches an improbable glimpse of Kat's doodle. Only, what he thought was a doodle, turned out to be more than that.
It was a drawing, of a face - a bloody, fanged, vampire face.
"Stefan..." Kat prompts for the book politely, but the Salvatore couldn't help but stay rooted to his spot.
Caroline, lacking the patience and politeness characteristic of Kat, snaps the book shut as quickly as possible. "See ya, wouldn't wanna get late for French"
"They're keeping her overnight to make sure there's no infection, but she should be able to come home tomorrow..." Matt tells Elena as he and the Gilbert sisters walk out of the school in the afternoon.
Caroline had spent the better part of the day assuring Kat that she was just concerned and scared, that there were no things as vampires. Something in the calm and familiar voice made Kat calm down, both of the friends parting ways after school had ended.
"Did you get in touch with your mom?" Kat asks Matt with a frown. That lady doesn't even bother to act interested in her children's lives. Matt crosses his arms over his chest as they come to a stop "Called and left a message. She's in Virginia Beach with her boyfriend, so...we'll see how long it takes her to come rushing home" this makes Kat purse her lips. Vicki was half the girl she was because of her mother, or rather the loss of her presence.
"Vicki's lucky that she's okay" Elena nods with a small smile. "I know," Matt smiles back, hand around Kat's shoulder in a friendly statement of thank you - it was her and Jeremy who found her and Kat was by his side all night to look after Vicki "It's just, I always told Vick to not go out there in the dark ....and now there's talk of some missing campers"
Kat stiffens, looking up sideways to his jaw "Did she say what kind of animal it was that attacked her?" Matt scoffs, taking a breath before blurting out "She said it was a vampire"
"W-Wh-What?"
"Yeah, she wakes up in the morning and mutters vampire and then just... passes out"
"Okay," Elena scrunches up her nose "that is weird"
"I think she was drunk" Matt straight-out denies his sister's words. I mean, who wouldn't? Who would believe if anyone says that a vampire attacked his sister? She wouldn't. Or maybe she would... Matt's hand drops off from her shoulders as he questions Elena "So what's up with you and the new guy?"
His hidden question makes the girl sag her shoulders in apology "Matt... The last thing I wanna do is hurt you-"
"You know, I'm...I'm actually gonna go back to the hospital. I want to be there when Vicki wakes up, get the real story about that night" he starts walking away.
"Can I come too?" Kat follows him over to his car.
He shrugs "I don't know Kat, I don't wanna impose..."
"If you're okay with it, I wanna be there, for Vicki... I just... I wanna know too, you know, it's creeping me out, animal attacks and stuff" she gives him half the story in hopes of convincing the jock.
He nods, smiling sadly "Come on in"
Just as they enter Vicki's room, the girl starts stirring in, her eyes fluttering open with fast jerks. She yanks herself up wildly, looking at her brother and Kat as if she doesn't recognise them. "Whoa! Vick. Vicki, hey. Vick, it's Matt. Hey, what's wrong?!" he tries to hold her down.
"No! No! Get off! No! No! No!" she pushes him with waving arms. Kat kneels down with her hands raised "Vicki, Vicki, Vicki, listen, it's me Kat! Okay! Kat... Shh... it's okay, you're alright" she warily approaches the gasping girl with arms open.
"Matt..." she looks at him out of the corner of her eye "Call a nurse, I'll stay here, go" She touches Vicki's arm very very slowly, making sure the girl's eyes are fixed on hers.
"Hey Vicki... Everything will be alright, do you remember me?"
"Y-You're Kat. Kat..." she whispers with a breath. "Good, good... Do you remember what happened in the woods?" Vicki gasps, eyes widening even more, she looks around her in panic, all the silence gone as she screams a wordless blubber of fear. She thrashes once again, hitting Kat hard in the forehead with her elbow.
Gasping, the Gilbert staggers out of the room to go towards the reception "Matt!" she meets him along half-way with a nurse "Oh my God Matt! S-She's, she just-just freaked out, I don't know what's happening to her Matt!"
They all rush to the room, sliding off their feet a few times in panic. Shouts no longer ring from Vicki's room and a few seconds later they shockingly see why. Vicki is in bed, curled up peacefully to the side as her falling locks get blown slowly by her exhales. "She seems fine" the nurse snarks, going out in a huff. Matt looks at his shocked friend with a slow breath "B-But, we saw..."
"Yea..." she frowns "We saw..."
Before she leaves for home, Kat puts a small stem of her vervain in Vicki's hospital gown pocket and turns to Matt. "I'll come back tonight..." she hugs him, shoving the last stem of her supposed mythical defender-herb into his jacket pocket. Withdrawing, she smiles "What do you want for dinner?"
He chuckles without meaning it "Some safety would be nice".
Kat couldn't explain why his request hit home.
"Well, I talked to Grams" Bonnie begins as she stacks Kat's folded pamphlets in the centre "and she said the comet is a sign of impending doom. The last time it passed over Mystic Falls, there was lots of death. So much blood and carnage, it created a bed of paranormal activity"
Kat frowns at the statement. The statement was gory in itself and her nerves with this mythical shit isn't helping either.
Kat was trying to let go of her paranoia since afternoon. She was surrounding herself with everything that screamed normal and familiar. She was in the most normal places of the boring Mystic Falls - outside the Mystic Grill. Lemonade rested in front of her on the soft brown table cloth and her three girlfriends were chit-chatting cockily around her in the sun, folding the Comet programmes crookedly. She thought of Jeremy, somewhere near home and waiting for Jenna's scolding.
That was, until Bonnie had brought up words like doom, death, blood and paranormal. It didn't help Kat Gilbert at all.
"Yeah, and then you poured Grams another shot and she told you about the aliens" Caroline rolls her eyes but then turns to Elena - interest oozing out of her looks "So then what?"
Before Bonnie tried to tell them the gory Grams story, Elena was telling Caroline about Stefan coming over to talk on the night of Vicki's attack. Kat had all heard it before but she was lending a ear nonetheless - as a proof that Stefan's just a normal guy, her new friend, Elena's new would-be-boyfriend.
"So then nothing" she shrugs, taking another unfolded sheet from Kat.
"You and Stefan talked all night? There was no sloppy first kiss or touchy feel-y of any kind?" Caroline probes further, making Kat scrunch up her nose, identical to Bonnie's expression at her dad's cooking.
"Nope, we didn't go there"
"Why does that sound more like surprise than disappointment?" Kat remarks with a coy smirk, making Caroline chuckle at Elena's deer-in-headlights look.
"And you say you didn't see it hmm?" the blonde averts her pointy gaze to the busy girl. She rolls her eyes "No Caroline Forbes, I was at the hospital that whole night with Matt and Vicki"
"Not even a handshake?" the girl sags "I mean, Elena, we are your friends. Okay? You are supposed to share the smut!"
"We just talked" she looks around the table to meet three unconvinced looks "...for hours"
"Okay, what is with the blockage!" Caroline jerks up "Just jump his bones already! Okay, it's easy. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy" she smiles widely "sex!"
Kat literally chokes on air, coughing and spluttering. Holding the edge of the table for support as she tries to catch her breath, she gestures for water. Elena holds her up quickly, patting her twin's back. "T-Thank you" she breaths out after a final cough or two. She glares at their friend, who shrugs indifferently "What? Someone has to teach her. God knows you're sister Mary with all your purity"
Elena just scoffed, she didn't really need any teaching in how to flirt or how to score a guy. The younger Gilbert had been quite the bold girl with boys, familiar to groping hands and steamy rendezvous with Matt till the summer. Kat was the one who was a tad inexperienced in the romantic area. Any resident of Mystic Falls would think the very opposite, seeing how she dressed freely and was often prone to fashion statements, but she hadn't even had her first kiss.
"Oh since when did being a virgin become an insult?" Kat raises a brow at Caroline. Both the best friends were known to be the frank and upfront girls of Mystic Falls, yet there was an old passerby who lets out a scandalous gasp at the Gilbert's words. All the girls paste a wide smile till he rushes off in shock, despite their earlier expressions.
Before her sister can sputter once again in public, Elena grabs her hand and starts walking off.
"Where are you taking Kat?" Caroline and Bonnie question in sync.
"Yes where are you taking Kat?" Kat repeats the question to her sister "The programs won't fold themselves"
Elena smiles giddily "Caroline's right. It is easy. If I sit here long enough, I'll end up talking myself out of it instead of doing what I started the day saying what I was going to do-"
"Wait wait wait... You mean you're gonna rush over to Casa del Salvatore?" Kat imitates a strong Italian accent before distangling herself from her dead-set twin "Why do you need me for that?"
"I'm your ride"
"I'll walk, thanks"
"I like Stefan"
"Really, I couldn't notice at all" she rolls her eyes drily, starting to walk back. But to the amusement of the two sitting girls, Elena, for a rare moment in her self-righteous life, somewhat begs her sister "O come on, make sure I don't chicken out" she drags her further.
"Geez okay lady!" she pulls her hair into a side pony with the hair tie and quickly grabs her bag and cap.
"Are you sure this is it?" Elena whispers to Kat for some reason. The big manor-like Salvatore house sits at the edge of the forest, making it look like some forlorn extravagant safe-house.
"I've been here before," Kat straightens her cap with an affirmative nod "Once". They slowly walk up the covered porch and to the door.
"The bell" she points to Elena like a tour guide would and yanks the vintage pulling bell. Chimes echo across, but no one opens the door. Elena looks suspiciously at her frowning twin and purses her lips. Going against every good manners lesson their dead mother ever taught them, Elena pushes the door lightly, to have it swing inside freely. Peeking inside, she holds Kat's hands and steps inside.
"What are you doing?! Elena come back here! Let's go!" she shouts in a whisper, yanking her hand from her crazy sister's. Granted there was at least one acquaintance of the owner of the house present, that didn't mean they could barge in.
"Elena come back" she pulls her back, only to have her sister take a few more steps in marvel. The one-sided conversation comes to an abrupt stop when a crow flies into the house with a haunting caw.
" Hello girls " a man smiles brightly, standing inches from the Gilbert sisters... a place occupied by nothing but air a few seconds earlier.
𝐈𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫
Hello Brother...
(Let's be honest - who all heard that in Damon's voice?)
Zach asked Stefan to ask Elena if Damon could ask me to ask you about how you're liking the story till now.