𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐨
- - -
❝I'm not ready to let go
'Cause then I'd never know
What I could be missing❞
Down
~Jason Walker
- - -
At the Gilbert residence
Stefan paces on the Gilbert porch, wringing his hands. Kat leans against the pillar, her eyes still taking in the fact that her baby twin sister knows about vampires. And that Vicki is one. Kat had spent her whole life around Vicki, catching her whenever she fell. But the elder Gilbert wasn't sure just her company would help Vicki this time around.
"He wouldn't do that" the younger Salvatore insists a thousandth time. And as much as Kat hates to admit, she agrees. Damon never killed Vicki to make her a vampire, he made her leave before that.
"I was with him Stefan," Kat sighs, now in a new pair of fresh clothes, "He's not in his head, but he didn't kill Vicki. He let her go, I saw him."
Just then, they hear commotion flutter through inside the house and then the silhouette of Vicki running away from the backdoor of Kat's house.
"Vicki! Vicki!" Kat tries calling out to her only to intercepted by Matt and Jeremy. She scoffed in irritation at the interruption but stops anyway.
"She was fine, and then she just...she just freaked out!"
"I'm gonna go look for her. Call me if you hear anything" Matt hurries towards his truck with a worried gaze directed across the street. Elena nods in silent communication, rushing Jeremy inside.
Stefan leans over to Kat, whispering, "I can track her"
"I'll take the ring, let's check the forest" she whispers right back. Stefan hesitates but slips the piece of significant jewelry into her hand and rushes off as fast as he could in front of humans.
In the evening, in the forest
Kat staggers over another branch in the dark before she finds Vicki's huddled form against a crypt. Her body racks loudly with sobs, making Kat's heart break. The only time she heard her friend so distraught was when her mother had left her.
"Vicki..." Kat slowly kneels in front of her, hand gently skimming on Vicki's shoulder.
"I'm starting to remember things," Vicki sobs, "What he is, what he said. I remember you. The hospital, the...the rooftop, it's all coming back. What's happening to me?!"
"Oh honey," Kat slowly put one arm around her, then another when the Donovan girl started to calm down, "I can help you, Vic"
"She said that I need to feed." Vicki shakes, "What will happen if I don't?"
Kat couldn't miss that Vicki had referred to a she, but her first priority at the moment is to get Vicki to calm down and be somewhere safe. Kat sighs, swallowing the lump in her throat, "You have to, Vicki, trust me... Please" she pleads.
Kat couldn't imaging her dying, Vicki was her friend and she would get through this no matter what she would have to do. It was so simple wasn't it? When they say she would kill to protect her people, there was no lie.
"But I don't want this" Vicki sniffles, punching her lips close to hide the pain in her teeth.
"I know," Kat sighs, "I know... But it'll be okay. You're gonna be okay. I'll help you, everything could be fine..."
"Is it better?" she lifts her blood-red eyes to Kat, who was out of answers to offer. "Is it better? Will I be better?" Vicki sobs.
She clutches Kat's shirt tightly in her fists, hiccupping on her chest as she shook her head like a little girl throwing a tantrum, "I wanna go home. Please take me home!"
Kat holds her close, whispering into the back of her head as she pulls her up, "I will. Come on, let's g—"
Boom boom boom.
The Gilbert girl falls down to damp earth with a scream following the gunshots when her torso burns. She had never been shot, of course not - she was just a young girl in a small town. Kat had heard somewhere that it hurt, but nothing had told her that it made one imagine their guts tearing open, every inch of her body blasting with pain. The pain became her new feeling of numbness, nothing being able to surpass the pain index a pesky little bullet had spiked up. Kat screams at the hole in her stomach, her misty eyes catching site of the person who shot her.
Logan Fell.
She always knew he was an asshole. But now he was an asshole with a gun.
Someone shouts from around the trees, followed by more gunshots and she another body falls beside her. Stefan hand squeeze hers with a guttural grunt as he heals. Odd enough, through all the numbness of pain, she feels her skin burn.
When Kat's mind recovers from the fog of the attack, she hears Logan's screams, making her crane her neck to his flailing form... in front of Damon. Damon drops the man to the ground with a bloody mouth, and struts to the people in pain lying incapacitated on the ground. They were healing but they were too struck to be strong.
Without warning, Damon digs his wiry fingers into Kat's clothed torso, painfully dragging the bullets out. She screams, trying to push him away, only to have him slap her hands back with a glare and drop the three bullets beside her.
Damon crawls towards his brother next and does the same, albeit with a sadistic smile as he observed the bullet he retrieved, "It's wood. They know. If anyone's gonna kill you, it's gonna be me. My ring." Damon demands.
Stefan helps Kat sit up, who digs her wrist to the ground. She had looped his ring through Stefan's bracelet. But something makes her give it up with a gulp. He slips it on with a triumphant glint in his eye and gets up, only to reveal Vicki slurping on Logan's exposed blood.
"No!" Stefan shouts as he takes a step towards the new vampire.
Blood smudged with dirt and black-red blood, she sobs "I'm sorry"
That's when she speeds away.
At the Gilbert residence, later
It's almost dark as Stefan and Kat walked back to her house. The children had long gone inside, not another soul on the streets. It makes them feel morbid in the dead silence, but some part of themselves felt they needed some quiet to calm their nerves down. Kat was still shaken up, trying to recover from the fact that she just had her first shooting experience in the hands of her aunt's high school ex, and that Vicki fed on said high school ex. Vicki Donovan was now a vampire and lost somewhere that was not the woods.
Stefan would know, he had checked every inch of the woods with Kat.
Elena bursts out onto the porch, rushing towards them. Her eyes fall onto the patch of blood on Stefan's shirt.
"You're bleeding"
Stefan looks warily at Kat, who'd taken more bullets than he had but seems more than fine. Though shaken up mentally, he could tell. Over that, he thought he caught an irkling of disappointment wafting off of her when Elena didn't even bother to acknowledge her.
"I'm sorry but Kat..."
Elena's realizing gasp stop his words, her gaze now falling on her twin with bloody holes in her clothes.
Kat bristles at the late consideration, waving her hands, "I'm fine."
"How?"
Kat sighs, biting her lip as she slid down onto the porch steps. "I don't care,"
Elena frowns, giving a bitter laugh, "You don't care? You just healed a wound Kat! Like... Like you're Stefan, or-or like,"
"A supernatural?" Kat fills in, scoffing right after at how green Elena's thoughts seem. She missed feeling that naïve.
"Don't do that Kat, I'm not in the mood to put up with your holier than thou attitude."
"My holier than thou attitude?" Kat snaps, getting up nose-to-nose to her twin, "You see Elena, I'm gonna say it again for you. I. Don't. Care... Vicki's a vampire now, hurt and afraid and God knows where. If you think I really care about how I magically healed after being shot by your childhood asshole babysitter, spare me the lecture."
Stefan sighs, squeezing her shoulder in warning as he towered behind her, "We couldn't stop her. We tried." Stefan states heavily to Elena.
"Oh, my god"
"We'll take care of it" Kat tells her, "I'll find her, and we can show her that she can live like Stefan does. We'll make sure that she doesn't want to hurt anybody,"
"What do I tell my brother?" Elena turns her panicked face from her sister to Stefan "And...and Matt?"
"We'll come up with a story" Stefan says.
"You mean we'll come up with a lie" Elena glares, shaking her head at the situation she's stuck in.
"I'm so sorry El—"
"I gave you today just like you asked. And I understand that you would never do anything to hurt me, and I promise I will keep your secret, but...I can't be with you, Stefan. I'm sorry. I...I just can't-" a sob catches in Elena's throat but she bites it back, rushing into the house without waiting to hear Stefan's heart cracking just a bit.
He looks down, still behind Kat. But he couldn't bare to try and look at her face.
The same face that he loved all those years ago, and now. He just couldn't.
And so, when the girl stands up to face him with a sorry glance, he shakes his head, averting his eyes and walking away.
At midnight, outside the Salvatore Boarding House
Kat knocks on the huge wooden door with a small sigh as she feels weighed with the presence to the side. Another three knocks later, Stefan Salvatore opens the door with lowered eyes.
"Hey..."
"Hello..." Stefan's eyes widen in surprise, taken aback by her at his doorstep. "Vivi... didn't expect to see you here,"
Silence follows, the depression filled in by the crickets chirping. Damon walks up from behind his brother, glass of amber liquid in his hand. He seemed totally unbothered, hair ruffled and a lazy smirk on his lips as he slurped on his alcohol.
Kat curses lowly, running her fingers along the rim of her hat. Casting a look at both of the vampires, she finally sighs, "Look, I know I'm the last face you might wanna see right now, but I... I really need your help. We, really need your help."
Stefan looks up at his best friend with a sympathetic frown, "No no, it's not like that, come on in." he gestures for the girl to step in, only to have her hesitantly take a small inch.
"What is it Katherine?" Damon throws out impatiently. But a second later, his question is answered by the presence sliding beside Kat Gilbert. Kat holds Vicki's hand delicately with a sheepish smile, "She needs to learn how to be a vampire"
𝐈𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫
So Kat's first priority isn't her safety. No wonder her love interest is Stefan lol.