A/N: Thanks to those of you who voted for this story (and put it in your reading lists); it means a lot to me! Anyways, here’s the next chapter! Let me know what you think

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                After school Elena asked if Nellie wanted to go to the cemetery with her. Now, Nellie knew that going to the cemetery after school with her twin sister was a little bit creepy, but it was sort of a tradition between the two of them. After their parent's died, they had made it a normal occurrence to go and visit their graves whenever they could. Elena would write in her journal, and Nellie would just sit there and think about whatever was on her mind.

                They made their way to the graveyard as fast as they could, wanting to get home before it turned dark. Once they reached their parent’s headstones, Elena sat down and pulled out her diary. Now was the time where Nellie normally just sat there beside her, but she had a lot to think about today, so she decided to wander around.

                "Hey, Elena? I'm just going to walk around for a little bit. See you back at home?" She asked, and Elena simply nodded, before turning back to her journal.

                Nellie walked into the woods outside of the cemetery, loving all of the trees for their eeriness. She wasn't scared off by creepy things like most people were, and she had always thought that it was a little bit weird. She just didn't get frightened easily. She knew that scary movie material stayed in the movies, and that in such a small town she had nothing to worry about.

                Of course, right as she thought that, fog just had to start rolling by, so thick that she couldn't see more than three feet in front of her. She sighed, and pulled a loose strand of her curly brown hair behind her ear, squinting in order to see.

                Suddenly, something small and black flew in front of her, and she lost it. She let out a loud yelp, and flailed her arms about, nearly tripping over a rock in the process. Nearly meaning that she fell, but someone caught her. And she don't know what scared her the most, that black thing popping out of nowhere, or that the one person who was there to catch her was a breathtakingly handsome man.

                His muscled arms were wrapped around Nellie, and his light blue eyes were staring into her own brown orbs. A small smirk was on his face as he let go once she steadied myself, and she found herself coughing nervously.

                "Uh, thanks?" She asked, not sure if she should even be thanking him, seeing as he was most likely going to murder her. But instead of pulling out an axe and chopping her into little pieces, he just continued smirking.

                "You know, graveyards aren't exactly safe for little girls at this time of day. Lots of..." He paused for a moment, his arms folding across his chest in a sort of pose that was common in models. "Suspicious people lurking in the fog,"

Normally Nellie would have been swooning at the sight, but seeing as this dude was being a creeper, she knew that she needed to get out of there.

                "Um, right. One: I'm seventeen, thank you very much. Two: I'm also leaving," She spoke, and pointedly began walking away from him.

                She expected him to follow her, but as she walked hurriedly through the fog, she couldn't see him, nor hear any footsteps behind her. She started smiling, and was about to laugh at her foolishness, when suddenly the strange man popped out of nowhere once more.

                She let out a loud scream, and instantly shielded her face with her hands.

                "I know that I'm sexy and all, but screaming is a little much, don't you think?" He spoke, his voice sending cold shivers down her spine.

                When it finally sunk in that she wasn't going to die, she put down her hands and let out a deep sigh.

                "Jesus..."

                The man smirked.

                "Nah. Not too fond of the whole beard thing,"

                Nellie turned away from him and flipped him off over her shoulder, heading away from the cemetery and towards her home. She snuck a peak over her shoulder to see what he was doing, only to find that he wasn't even there. So, did she just imagine that whole encounter? Because there's no way he could have run off that fast!

                Okay, she must have imagined it.

                She sighed, shook her head, and trudged off towards her house. The walk didn't take too long, and when she was finally in the safety of her home she made sure to lock all of the doors and windows. Just in case.

                She made her way up to her room, and threw herself onto her bed. Elena was searching through their closet, looking for something to wear.

                "Going somewhere?" Nellie asked her, her words muffled slightly by the blankets in her face. Elena looked over at her and nodded.

                "Yeah, I'm meeting Bonnie at the Grill tonight," She said, taking a black top off of its hanger and putting it on. Nellie sighed, and buried her face into her pillows.

                "Oh. Have fun..." She mumbled.

                Elena tossed something at her Nellie, and it hit her back. She rolled her eyes and sat up to see that it was a nice shirt.

                "You're coming with me," Elena stated as if it was a fact. Nellie scoffed, but couldn't help herself from smiling softly to herself afterwards. Throwing on the top, she pulled her hair into a ponytail, and went into the bathroom to put on some makeup. After she was done putting on a coat of mascara and eyeliner, she rushed downstairs to meet Elena.

                She passed Aunt Jenna on the way, and stopped to let her know what they were doing.

                "Elena and I are meeting Bonnie at the Grill," She said.

                "Have fun," Jenna responded, and walked a couple of steps before turning back around. "Wait, I got this: don't stay out late, it's a school night," She put her hands on her hips, looking proud of herself. Nellie laughed, and nodded.

                "Well done, Aunt Jenna." She complemented, before turning back around and heading for the door. She stopped when she heard voices, and peaked around the corner to see Elena talking with Stefan, the new kid from earlier today.

                "Were you going somewhere?" Stefan asked Elena, and she smiled.

                "Yeah, I'm meeting a friend," She paused, staring at Stefan for a moment. "Do you wanna come?" She asked.

                He smiled softly at her, and then nodded.

                Well great. It hasn't even been a day and she's already got the new guy wrapped around her finger.

                "Well, sorry to ruin the party, but I'm coming too!" Nellie spoke, just now making herself known to the two lovebirds. They turned, and Elena's face took on an embarrassed look. Stefan just looked surprised.

                "Don't worry, I'll sit in the back..." Nellie muttered. She then threw on a bright smile and held her hand out to Stefan.

                "I'm Nellie Gilbert; Elena's twin. Anyway, off to the Grill!" She pushed past Stefan and got into the car, ready to be at the restaurant and away from her sister's attempt at flirting.

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                As soon as they got there, Nellie quickly ran ahead of Stefan and Elena, who were too busy making small talk to notice her leave. She walked through the doors and quickly found where Bonnie and Matt were sitting.

                "Hey guys," She said, sitting down beside Bonnie. Not two seconds after she sat down, Matt spoke.

                "How's Elena doing?" He asked, looking at Nellie intently. She sighed, and shook her head.

                "Our Mom and Dad just died, Matt. How do you think?" She asked with dripping sarcasm, but quickly sighed. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be rude. Elena's putting on a good face the same as I am, but it's only been four months." She said.

                Nellie knew it wouldn't be long before he brought up their break up, and she wasn't let down.

                "Has she said anything about me?" He asked, looking heartbroken. Matt was Nellie’s friend, so it was difficult seeing him like this, but there was no way she was being roped in between those two.

                "Oh, no. I'm so not getting stuck in the middle. If you want to know, then pick up the phone and call her," She advised him.

                 He frowned.

                "I feel weird calling her. I mean, she broke up with me..." He muttered. Nellie shook her head. She knew Elena's feelings about him, she knew that she loved him like a brother, but how was she supposed to tell him that?

                "Just... just wait a little while, okay Matt? Give it time." She said, trying to get out of the conversation.

                Of course, right as she said that, Elena and Stefan walked in, closer than two strangers would normally be. Nellie resisted a groan, and buried her head in her hands. Matt shook his head.

                "More time, huh?" He got up and walked over to the pair, holding a hand out to Stefan, introducing himself. Nellie didn't even try to hide her groan this time, and looked up at Bonnie, who had the same frown as her friend.

                “When’s he going to realize that Elena’s not into him? I feel bad telling him to ‘give it more time’ when we both know that Elena only thinks of him as a brother.” She said, and Bonnie nodded in agreement.

                “When you care for someone that much, it’s hard to let them go,”

                Nellie twirled a strand of her brown hair around my finger, staring over at Elena and Stefan. Looking at them smile at each other; she realized that they would make a good couple. It was hard for her to say, since she was always jealous of her sister’s dating life, but it was true. They just seemed to fit together, even if they only met each other that day.

                Caroline then walked over to the two of them, and led them back to the table where they had been sitting. Matt had wandered off somewhere, and Nellie was positive that he didn’t want to be here right now. Elena sat to her sister’s right, and Caroline was to her left, with Stefan across from Nellie.

                Eventually they started talking, but Nellie found herself zoning out for most of it. When they started talking about Stefan, though, she immediately zoned back in.

                “So you were born in Mystic Falls?” Bonnie had asked, and Nellie lifted her head from her hands to look at Stefan, who nodded.

                “Yeah, and I moved when I was still young,” He said.

                “Parents?”

                Stefan hesitated for a split second, glancing over at Elena before answering.

                “My parents passed away,” He spoke, his eyes flickering between the sisters at the table.

                Immediately, any ill feelings Nellie harbored towards him disappeared. She frowned, and crossed her arms. Stefan had lost his parents? She spared a glance over at Elena, and her sibling’s face gave away her thoughts, which were similar to Nellie’s own.

                If he had lost both of his parents, then he knew their pain, which no one should have to go through. Maybe Stefan wasn’t as bad as she thought he was. Well, he had obviously been through a lot, so she quickly decided to give him another shot.

                “I’m sorry,” Elena was the one to speak, sympathy clear in her voice and facial expressions.

                Stefan looked at both of them, before nodding.

                “Any siblings?” Nellie chimed in, suddenly wanting to know more.

                A sudden emotion crossed over his handsome features at the question, but it was gone before she could tell what it was.

                “None that I talk to,” He answered, and Nellie knew that there was some drama there. But that was clearly personal, so she neatly tucked the thought into the back of her mind for a later date.

                “I live with my uncle,” Stefan explained.

                Caroline cleared her throat; very obviously trying to direct everyone’s attention back to her. Nellie rolled her eyes at the blonde’s see-through behavior, but listened anyways.

                “So, Stefan, if you’re new, you don’t know about the party tomorrow,” She smiled.

                Stefan glanced over at Elena, smiling softly.

                “Are you going?” He asked her.

                “Of course she is.” Bonnie jumped in for Elena, making sure that she couldn’t back out of this.

                Elena smiled, looking down at the table and pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.

                After that, the flirting was non-stop, and everyone else left to do their own thing, leaving Nellie alone with the two of them. They didn’t seem to notice that she was still there, since they were immersed in conversation with each other. Nellie wanted to leave, more than anything, but they were her ride home. After another fifteen minutes, she was done, and decided to leave anyways.

                She stood from the table rather abruptly, and Elena finally acknowledged her presence.

                “Where are you going?” She asked, a frown on her too sweet to be real face.

                “Home.” Nellie replied with a roll of her brown eyes.

                “But how are you going to get there?” Elena suddenly seemed very concerned with her well-being, which for some unknown reason, seriously pissed Nellie off. She narrowed my eyes, and roughly shoved the chair forward.

                “I’m going to walk, Elena,”

                She started towards the door, but Elena stood up from her own seat and followed her. Nellie tried picking up her pace, but Elena grabbed her shoulder right as she was about to open the door to the exit.

                “Nellie, please,” She begged, and Nellie let out a huff of air, turning to face her sister. “Don’t walk home; it’s a good forty-five minutes to the house.”

                Nellie felt her eyes narrow at her twin once again.

                “Elena, I’m not a child, so don’t treat me like one. Just go back to your date, okay? I’ll see you at home. Have fun.” She muttered, brushing past her twin and out of the Grill.

                At first, walking seemed like a perfectly okay idea, but five minutes into the walk home Nellie realized something about herself. She hated any form of physical activity, and walking for forty-five minutes in the dark and cold was not going to be very enjoyable for her.

                But at least she got away from her sister and her soon-to-be boyfriend. Nellie gave a rough estimate of four days before they were a couple. She didn’t really mind, but it did slightly irk her that her sister always had one guy or another. She was with Matt for a while, but there was always some other guy that she had wrapped around her finger.

                It was kind of sad in a way, that, even though we were fraternal twins and looked eerily similar, Nellie had never had a serious relationship before. It wasn’t fair! But she just shook her head, attempted to get the bitter thoughts out of her mind, and focused on the sidewalk in front of her. She had been walking for twenty minutes already, and her legs were protesting every step of the way.

                After another ten minutes, Nellie felt a slight chill creep up her spine, like the feeling you get whenever someone is watching you. She glanced up from the ground, looking around, but she saw no one. Just cracked sidewalks that were barely illuminated by the street lights above.

                When she was certain that there was nobody there, she looked back down at the ground. Her head was down for only a few seconds before there was a cawing noise. She let out a small yelp, and looked up to see a black bird fly past her.

                She nearly fell to the ground out of fright, but quickly chastised herself for being so scared. It was a freaking bird. Not a monster, or a crazy psycho killer, but a bird. And all of this after she had called herself fearless. Even so, it was just a bird, and she was perfectly fine.

                But despite all the reassurances she told herself, she still ended up sprinting the rest of the way home.

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                “The Battle of Willow Creek took place right at the end of the war, in our very own Mystic Falls.” Her history teacher droned on.

                Nellie’s head rested in her hands, and her eyes were slowly slipping shut. She hadn’t slept very well after the whole bird incident, even though she pretended to be asleep when Elena got home. But unfortunately, the lack of sleep was catching up to her; right in the middle of history class.

                “How many casualties resulted in this battle?” The teacher asked, looking out into the room for his latest victim. His eyes passed right over her, but they unfortunately landed on Bonnie.

                “Miss Bennett?” He asked.

                Bonnie looked up from her doodle, a panicked look on her face.

                “Um…. A lot?”

                There were chuckles from around the room, and even Nellie had to smirk at her friend.

                “I’m not sure. But, like, a whole lot.” She nodded seriously at the teacher, who raised his eyebrows at her.

                “Cute becomes dumb in an instant, Miss Bennett,” He said.

                Nellie frowned, and found herself adding another reason to hate history onto her list: having an asshole teach it to her.

                “Mr. Donovan. Would you like to take this opportunity to overcome your imbedded jock stereotype?”

                What a dick.

                “No, it’s okay Mr. Tanner,” Matt responded coolly. “I’m cool with it.”

                Nellie bristled as the teacher made an amused sound, and then called on her sister.

                “Elena? Surely you can enlighten us about one of our town’s most significantly historical events?”

                Nellie watched as Elena struggled, and she knew that her sister was panicking inside. Mr. Tanner frowned, and walked closer to Elena’s desk.

                “I was willing to be lenient last year for obvious reason, Elena,” He glared. “But the personal excuses ended with summer break.”

                No fucking way.

                “Hey!” Nellie didn’t hesitate, standing up in an angry flash of flushed skin. “Are you being serious right now? Or are you really that much of an asshole to say that shit to her?”

                Mr. Tanner reddened, and he raised a threatening finger at her.

                “You-”

                “No,” Nellie cut him off. “I don’t care! But being hard on someone and expecting them to be fine after something shitty is a dick move and I’m not going to sit here and just let that bullshit go!”

                Mr. Tanner looked like he was going to explode.

                “Out!” He shouted, his face red as a tomato. “Get out of my class, Miss Gilbert, and go march yourself down to the principal’s office!”

                Nellie’s heart was beating rapidly from her outburst, and even though she knew that she was going to be in so much trouble, she didn’t regret a single word. She gritted her teeth, grabbed her bag, and started for the door.

                She spared a look at Elena, who was staring at her in shock. As their eyes met, Elena gave a watery smile, and Nellie knew how grateful she was. Nellie smiled back at her, before looking back at the teacher.

                “Asshole,” She muttered under her breath.

                And of course, he heard her.

                “Out!” He screamed.

                Nellie turned as she made it to the door, held out her hand, and calmly flipped him the bird. She quickly ran for the door, smiling as she heard him lose his cool once again. She stood right outside the door, trying desperately to hold in her laughter.

                She caught her breath just in time to hear something from inside the classroom.

                Stefan had nonchalantly mentioned the fact that there had been three hundred and forty six casualties in the battle, unless you were counting local civilians. It had been so simple, so random, that Nellie immediately gave him kudos.

                Mr. Tanner was finally calming down, and apparently, Stefan’s answer was correct. Nellie quickly looked in through the window, and watched the exchange.

                His last name is Salvatore. Hmm.

                Things came to a standstill when the teacher mentioned that there were no civilian casualties in the battle, and Stefan corrected him.

                “Actually sir, there were twenty seven, sir. Confederate soldiers fired on the church, believing there to be weapons; they were wrong. It was a night of great loss,” He spoke. “The founder’s archives are stored in civil hall if you’d like to brush up on your facts, Mr. Tanner.”

                Nellie’s smiled grew to a blinding grin as she took in Stefan’s tone. Okay, fine; he was fucking awesome. Her respect for him immediately went up at the fact that he was doing this for her sister.

                Her smile never left her face as she walked to the principal’s office, the threat of detention never once dimming the complete awe she was in.

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                The disapproving frown on Mr. Webber’s face as he heard Nellie’s story was unparalleled. He stared her down with those beady little eyes of his, and shook his head.

                “You said what, now?” He sighed, rubbing his temple with his fingers. “Miss Gilbert, you know as well as I do that those words were completely unacceptable, and-”

                “He was being a jerk to my sister,” Nellie cut him off. “Elena didn’t know the answer to his question, so he told her off. He said that the ‘personal excuses’ ended with summer break. He said that in front of the entire class, sir. Isn’t that against some rule or something? To openly talk about that in front of everyone?” She protested.

                The principal stared at her, his expression sobering as he took in her words. He held her gaze for a few seconds, before shaking his head once again.

                “Nellie, I know that these past few months have been difficult, but these kind of actions are not allowed. I’ll give you a break this time around, but just make sure it doesn’t happen again. You’ll still have to go home early, however. Take some time to cool off, Miss Gilbert, and we’ll see you again tomorrow.” He spoke.

                Nellie had to hide her smile as she left the room. No detention? Not even a severe scolding? Mr. Tanner was going to blow his top when he finds out. Since Nellie didn’t want to bother Jenna with this, she simply decided to walk home. She would explain what happened when she got off of work.

                Nellie looked around her and laughed when she realized how much walking she had been doing lately. Luckily, school was closer to her house than the Grill, so it only took about twenty minutes to reach her house. Of course, once she was safely inside, she was confronted with the fact that she had another two hours before school would let out.

                She sighed, and made her way upstairs, where she then threw herself onto her bed.

                Great.

                Soon enough, she fell asleep, and was woken up by Elena several hours later.

                “Hmm?” She groaned, pushing herself up to her elbows.

                Elena raised her eyebrows, and sat down beside her.

                “What happened with the principal?” She asked, concern written all over her face.

                Nellie grinned, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

                “Ah, Mr. Webber just told me to go home. No detention, no scolding, not much of anything, really.” She said.

                “Really? That’s surprising. Well, anyways, thank you,” She said, looking up at her twin with her big brown eyes. “What you did, Nellie, what you said, it means a lot to me. So thank you.”

                Nellie smiled, and put an arm around her sister.

                “Ah, no problem.”

                They both grinned at each other, before Elena hopped up.

                “The party’s tonight, Nell, so we need to start getting ready.” She said.

                Nellie frowned.

                “Now? But the party isn’t until like, seven or something,”

                Elena just grinned.

                “Yeah, but if we’re going to get you dressed up in time, then we have to start now.” She stated.

                Nellie felt her frown deepen as she took in her sister’s words.

                Oh hell.

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 A/N: So that was that, the next chapter should be out soon. Hopefully it won’t follow to plotline so much next chapter, as I want Nellie to be her own character, but this was just to set the stage for the rest of the story. Tell me what you think!