CHAPTER EIGHT

"Hey, you know what I just realized?" Jay asks as she walks into her brother's bedroom from the connecting bathroom.

"Hm?" He turns to look at her, away from what he's currently packing up.

"We're moving to a town that could just as easily be called Dinglehopper." She smiles, and he shakes his head as he looks at her.

"You keep making jokes like that, and we'll never make any friends."

"You love my terrible references." She argues, and he shakes his head again.

"Go pack." He tells her and then gets back to what he was doing before she walked in.

"I like my cartoons." She mutters as she walks back to her own bedroom.

They're moving to Washington because Elena thinks that it'll be good for them to get away from everything that's going on with Klaus. Technically, they're only going to school in Forks, they'll actually be living with some family friends on the Indian Reservation that neighbors it.

The little brunette gets to school and she sees Caroline in the parking lot. "Hey." The blonde smiles when she sees the younger girl walking over to her at her car.

"Happy birthday, Care-Bear." Jay says, and she chuckles.

"I forgot you used to call me that. You were...five, I think."

"Somethin' like that." She shrugs. "Anyway, I'm gonna be makin' my rounds today. I don't always see you here, and I wanna make sure that I get to say goodbye to you."

"Right." Care nods. "You and Jeremy leave tomorrow morning."

"Mhm. You gonna miss me?"

"Of course." She smiles as she pulls the younger girl into a hug. "I think my life just got a little less colorful."

"Jeremy didn't like my joke this morning." Jay says as she pulls back and looks up at her. "I told him we were moving to Dinglehopper." She tells her, and Caroline laughs.

"You're an odd one." She says, and the brunette shrugs, a wide smile plastered on her face.

"What would you think if I dyed my hair bright red?"

"I think you should wait for your midlife crises." Care tells her, and she starts laughing.

"Mm. Mhm." She nods, but Caroline's laughter dies down when she notices someone over the younger girl's shoulder. "What?" Jay turns and sees Tyler walking over to them.

"I'm sorry." He says, hoping to get out as much as he possibly can, and she shakes her head.

"No. No, sorry— It isn't good enough. You almost got Jeremy killed, and then Ric..." Tears fill her eyes as she looks down. "What happened between us at homecoming aside, I can't... I want to be with you, Tyler, but I can't. I can't be with someone who's a danger to my family. I'm sorry."

"Jay!" He calls after her when she turns around to walk away from him, but he lets her go.

The school day drags on for what feels like forever before finally coming to an end. Jay was able to say her goodbye to Bonnie, and then she sees Matt in his truck. She calls out his name, and he smiles as he looks out his passenger side window at her.

"You wanna climb back out so that you can give me a goodbye hug?" The little brunette asks as she leans in the open window. "I'm out of here in the morning, and it'd really suck if I didn't get to say a proper goodbye to my favorite Quarterback." She says, and he chuckles before climbing out of his truck.

Jay runs around the front of it and then jumps on him as she hugs him. "You know, it's a good thing you're so small. You're light enough to carry without difficulty." He says, making her laugh.

Later that night, Jay and Jeremy are finishing up their packing when the doorbell rings. They both go downstairs, and he opens the door. As soon as Jeremy sees Tyler, he tries to slam it shut in his face, but the hybrid keeps it open.

"I just want to talk for a few minutes. Jay, please?" He looks at her. "Just give me a few minutes to say what I really need you to hear, and then I'll never bother you again if that's what you want."

"It's okay, Jeremy." She says as she looks at her brother. "Just this once." She tells him, and he reluctantly goes back upstairs to give them privacy.

The little brunette leads the way into the kitchen, and Tyler looks at her as she turns around to face him. "I want to be the person that I am with you, the person that I was because you showed me that I was capable of being better. I fell in love with you because you were the only person who ever saw more in me, and you helped me see it too." He walks over to her, and she takes a deep breath as she looks up at him. "I love you, Jay, and I want to be able to put you first. I think that I can, and I'm gonna try every day. So, please, don't turn your back on me now, not after everything that we've been through together already... I know that we can get through this too."

"Tyler, I..." She leans into his palm when he rests his hand on the side of her face, and she closes her eyes.

He leans down and hesitates, not sure if she'll let him go any further, then his lips brush against hers. Jay suddenly closes the distance between the two of them and she kisses him as she pulls his body closer to hers. Tyler deepens the kiss as he pushes her against the counter behind her, and then his lips move to her neck.

"Tyler. Tyler, I think we should stop before we have a repeat of what happened last time." She says, but he doesn't listen to her.

Jay feels his teeth sink into her skin just like last time, and again he starts to feed on her as she struggles against him. She's yelling at him, begging him to stop. She doesn't have any weapons on her this time, so she can't do anything to defend herself. But it's different this time, and she knows it. She has vervain in her system, so he should've stopped feeding on her.

Jeremy walks into the kitchen then and raises the dart gun that he grabbed from the top of his dresser on his way out of his bedroom. He fires three darts into Tyler's back, and the hybrid collapses onto the floor. Jeremy then drops the gun and runs over to his sister as she ends up on the floor as well. He picks her up and carries her out of the house.

—

The siblings are now in the living room at the Salvatore Boarding House, and Jay has a dishtowel pressed against the bite to her neck. The front door starts to open, and Jeremy quickly turns as he raises the stake gun, aiming it at the vampire who's walking into the foyer.

"Put the gun down before you hurt yourself, Pocahontas." Damon says as he closes the door behind him. "Aren't you two supposed to be packing? What are you doing here?"

"I needed somewhere to bring her after Tyler tried to kill her." Jeremy says, and his steps falter for a moment as he walks into the living room.

"He what?" The raven-haired vampire looks at Jay, obviously confused. "I gave you more vervain. Haven't you been putting it in your coffee?" He asks, and Jay nods as she looks at him for the first time since he walked in.

"Yeah, and I know that it was burning his throat, but he kept feeding on me anyway." She tells him. "I think it was because of the sire bond. Elena gave Rebekah back to Klaus, and in exchange, he promised not to go after Jeremy anymore. So, he sent Tyler after me instead."

"Are you alright?" He asks as he sits down beside her on the couch.

"I'll survive."

"Let me see." Damon reaches for the towel, and the little brunette removes it as she tilts her head to the side so that he can see her neck. "I can heal it if you want." He says, and she sighs.

"I don't like drinking vampire blood." She says as she looks down.

"I'll take you home right after, and I'll even stick around to make sure that no more hybrids come to kill you. Then you're on a plane in the morning, and it'll be out of your system by the time you go to bed tomorrow night." He tells her. "As long as the plane doesn't crash, you're fine... Unless you want to start your life in a new town with that scarring on your neck. It's cold enough there, perfect for always wearing scarves."

Jay sighs as she closes her eyes. "Okay." She concedes, knowing that his way is the easier,  quicker choice to put this behind her. "Just this once."

The next morning, Jeremy and Jay are saying goodbye to their older sister, except she refuses to stop hugging them. And then Jeremy points out that she does, in fact, have to let go eventually.

"Be safe, okay?" Elena says after pulling back and looking between the two of them.

"We'll be alright." Jay tells her. "You be safe."

"Alaric's waiting, okay?" Jeremy says as he starts to pull his younger sister toward the front door, but he gets distracted when Bonnie shows up to say goodbye to him.

"Hey." The younger girl gets her sister's attention again. "Thank Damon again for me, please. He didn't have to heal me, drive us back, or stay here all night. And he's actually been a lot of help since everything with Klaus started...and then Stefan vanished."

"I will." Elena nods.

"Oh, and tell him that the next time he calls me rugrat, I'm gonna shoot him." Jay adds, and she nods. "Take care of yourself, Lena. I love you."

"I love you too." She smiles.

"Come on!" Jeremy calls from out by the car, and both girls turn.

"I'm coming!" Jay yells as she picks up her backpack and slings the strap over her shoulder. "I'll see you around sometime, Bonnie." She smiles at the older girl.

"Meet some boys your own age while you're there." Bonnie tells her, and she nods. "Human ones, and don't let your brother scare them away."

She chuckles. "You got it."

"Bye." She waves with a smile as the youngest makes her way over to where Jeremy's waiting by the trunk of Ric's car.

"Is that everything?" Ric asks, and both of the teenagers nod. "Alright, let's go."