When I released chapter 20, I was celebrating 9k reads; now here we are, chapter 40 sitting at 123k. So in honour of that milestone here you go! I can't put into words how amazing this is for me, and it is all down to you amazing and dedicated readers. I honestly love you guys so much.

Emma xox

31 August 2010

"It was nice meeting you, Rebekah."

She smiled the most forced grimace she had ever produced before walking off, bags in hand and dog following her closely.

Grace had no idea how long she walked for, Mystic Falls was by no stretch a huge town, but hours seemed to slip away as she aimlessly wandered. She had passed by the school, but the number of cars and the sun setting allowed her to put two and two together - it was senior prank night.

If Nik were looking to pick a fight with Elena Gilbert, he would likely be there.

But she couldn't bring herself to go inside. Instead, she gazed at the door for a few seconds before walking on. If Mystic Falls was a normal place and her a normal 18-year-old, she would have been in there with the other seniors causing all sorts of havoc and mischief. Instead, she was holding all her world possession in a rucksack and large gym bag.

She didn't realise where she was going until she was leaning against the tree. The rocking chair was on the deck like it always was, and the lights were on the inside. The wooden deck looked like someone had painted or varnished it - it wasn't looking quite as worn. Grace didn't understand what force overcame her, but one moment, she was nervously leaning against the beech tree, and the next, the buzzer was sounding as her finger lifted from the button.

It seemed there was nothing left to do other than wait and see if anyone would answer.

"Grace?"

"Hello Ms Forbes"

The Sheriff stood leaning against the door frame, an obvious look of shock painted upon her face.

"You...what, where have you...?" She took a deep breath before taking a step back. Gesturing into the house, she turned to Grace. "Do you want anything to drink?"

Grace was far too tired to realise that Liz Forbes had very carefully worded her invite not to invite her in. She was relieved to see Grace one more but had no idea what she had encountered while being gone for so long.

"If that's alright," Grace said, stepping over the threshold. Liz let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding in.

"Take a seat in the living room. I'll be through in a second."

Grace did as instructed - it felt so strange to be back in this house - in some ways, her house, it was the only place she had ever lived in Mystic Falls after Liz had taken her in. It seemed although the deck had been revitalised, nothing inside had changed, the furniture was still the same, and the pictures that adorned the fireplace and walls still brought the same half-smile to her face.

"I realise I didn't ask what you wanted, but I made hot cocoa," Liz said, entering the room holding two mugs. "I don't mean to presume, but I assume you still like it?"

"Of course, come hell or high water, I shall love hot cocoa." Grace jested, taking the mug from Liz. "I realise you are probably rather confused."

"That's a bit of an understatement." Liz sighed, taking a long sip of her drink - it seemed she didn't have hot cocoa, rather deathly black coffee.

"I know this may seem like a strange request, but I need to know what you know before I can even try to explain some of the things that happened."

"What do you mean what I know?" Liz narrowed her eyes in confusion, but also, a hint of suspicion was beginning to creep in - Grace may not be a vampire, but she may have encountered them.

"What happened when left disappeared - who told you, how did you find out?"

"Well, it became abundantly clear when you didn't come home."

"I realise that but did anyone ever try to give you an explanation, or did you get letters or postcards from me or anything like that?"

"Well, Elena told Caroline and I that she had last seen you leaving Bonnie's saying that you didn't want to be here anymore. Caroline and I have both got letters and postcards from everywhere that you have been travelling."

"But did Stefan ever come and speak to you?"

"Why wait, he did - he came with Elena don't remember him saying much, though."

"Another strange question I know but do you..."

"Grace, please just be straight with me - no more of this talking in circles."

"Okay - look, the only way I can do this without tiptoeing around is just to speak, okay, so I am going to speak and then when I am done, you can ask any questions you want." Liz nodded her head, and so she continued. "November last year, I was at Bonnie's with Elena, and Caroline was coming to meet with us. I know that you know about Vampires, so I will assume that you know just as much as I do. There was an accident; Bonnie lost control of her magic or something else. I am a bit lost on details on that bit, but I ended up falling into a deep impenetrable sleep. Elena, not knowing what to do and not wanting Bonnie to think she had killed me or worse, turned to Stefan, her vampire boyfriend; the two of them, I'm told, tried to no success to wake me but didn't think to enlist the help of the person that put me in the coma in the first place. When they couldn't wake me, they interned me in one of the crypts in the cemetery. I never left Mystic Falls. For sixth months I lay dormant - I really had no clue what was going on, but then I woke up, I stayed in Mystic for a while, but then I left."

"You were here the whole time?" Liz gasped, covering her mouth in shock. "But the letters?"

"Another layer of Elena's lie - it was well crafted."

"But then I just left you, I abandoned you - left you - I didn't even look."

"Compulsion was used as well to make it more convincing - to make sure no one asked too many questions."

"Oh, Grace."

"You've been helping Damon and Elena track down Nik...Niklaus, haven't you?"

"Yes - missing person cases, animal attacks that sort of thing - just keeping tabs, they seem to be all the way to Chicago now."

"Niklaus was there in the cemetery when I woke up - he took me to his apartment, patched me up and then when he left, I went with him."

"Grace, but he is..."'

"A monster?" She asked quizzically. "I know."

"But if you left with him, then how you back," Liz leaned back. "Why are you back?"

"Because he's back, Nik isn't in Chicago anymore. For some unknown reason, I had been trying to protect everyone - Elena, you, the town - Stefan and I had been embroiled in such a complicated lying scheme; its no wonder it caught up with us. Still, he's back, no, and I am here even though I really had the intention of ever stepping foot in this town again."

"So I was compelled just to forget - just to leave you out there to defend for yourself and not even think twice?"

"Well, you remember me, so perhaps not quite forget but certainly compelled to accept whatever shoddy lie they fed you."

"If you were here after you woke up, why didn't you come and see me earlier?"

"I was flying under the radar a little, I guess - also, I didn't know the extent to wish Elena's brainwashing campaign extended. At the time, I genuinely thought everyone just accepted that I had disappeared and moved on with their lives."

"Grace, I would never..."

"I know that now - that's why I am here."

"Well, it's good to see you even if.."

"Even if you haven't missed me." Grace sighed.

"I can't believe I didn't realise."

"No one did. I don't hold it against you."

"Well, you are back now, although you don't sound like you want to be."

"It wasn't my choice, I guess."

"So Klaus is back?"

"Yes, I'm sorry."

"Even if you don't hold what happened against me, I certainly do," said Liz, her voice gentle and slow as she leaned in toward Grace. She wanted to comfort her, but the Grace sitting before her was an altogether different person. "Things are not going to be how they were, and I realise now more than ever that this was never home to you, but your room is yours, and you are more than welcome..."

"I don't even know if I am going to stay in town," Grace whispered.

"Well, if you do," she reiterated.

"If I do, I don't think I can stay here. Protecting Elena's life was one thing but reintegrating myself into...everything is too much. Caroline and all - I don't think I could live under the same room or make her live with me. Car and Elena are still close, aren't they? "

"As ever." Liz smiled. "I understand, Grace. What about school?"

"I missed almost all of the sophomore year, and to be honest, school has been one of the last things on my mind at the moment."

"Some normality can be important, regardless of how mundane it may seem."

"But school?"

"I'm not your mum, and you know that, but I do care."

"You did pretty well," Grace gave her a small grin before chuckling. "I was hardly an easy teenager to look after, and you were already a single mother of a teenager daughter. At least Caroline strived for excellence and dominated everything she set her mind to. I got excellent grades and terrible report cards - the teachers either didn't know how I was or thought I was a truant, and they would have been right. School wasn't exactly my forte."

"Still, it's your senior year - memories and all that."

"Perhaps not the memories I need to go making."

"It wasn't that school isn't your thing - it was that you made sure Mystic High wasn't your thing."

"Well," Liz chuckled, a humorous glint in her eye, "You said it yourself - you don't want to live under this roof, so I am just giving my impartial opinion."

"I guess I was rather self-destructive."

"Grace, if you want my advice, then stay, re-enrol at school - if Elena's efforts were at all thought through, it shouldn't be that hard to manipulate whatever she told the school into your favour. No one of any importance should blink twice."

"That all sounds un-sheriff of you rather."

"I'm off duty."

"In that case, perhaps I will - although I think a year ago if you would tell me that I would voluntarily pick attending senior year over not, I think I would have punched myself in the face."

"I was going to ask if you were sure that you were alight, but I haven't even asked if you are okay?"

"I'm getting on with things." Grace sighed. "I scream and cry and punch things and burn to build down, but that all seems rather unproductive as fun as it would be."

"What happened to you, Grace?"

"A lot." Grace hiccuped out, her eyes misting over be she clenched her teeth and kept the tears at bay. "I think I should probably get going."

"Grace, where are you going to go?"

"That is an excellent question."

"Again, as I am off duty, you certainly didn't hear this from the Sheriff, but the previous owner of the flat on Lincoln and West above the old florists had a bit of a supernatural accident. The flats have been empty ever since there is a key under the mat - I'm sure no one would notice or mind if you were to occupy the flat again."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely - even if you don't stay long, you can lay low there, and if you decide you want to stick around, it would be perfect."

"Thank you," Grace whispered. "Honestly, thank you so much."

"Grace, just if you stay, perhaps we can talk again?"

"I would like that."

Grace left the Forbes house soon after, the hot cocoa drank and the night darkening she didn't want to stay too long. Hoisting her bags up again, Zeus and she wandered off into the night. She had never particularly paid much attention to the urban geography of Mystic and so had little clue where Lincoln and West met, and she hadn't lived in the town long enough to know where the florist used to be. Due to this, it took a while of aimless wandering before she found where she was meant to be.

The fading facia board still held the vintage floral logo, but to the left was a blue unmarked door. On a whim, Grace pushed it forward and walked through into the echoing stairwell. The walls were scratched and flaking yellow paint, and there seemed to be two doors upstairs and two downstairs. Light and noise poured out from the lower ground flat doors, and Grace seemed to remember Liz saying the flat was above the florists, not next door, so she continued up the stairs.

Zeus seemed hesitant to climb the stairs, but he happily trotted up after her with a quick whistle.

Finally, she as faced with a white door versus a wooden door - in the end, what gave it away was one door had a mat in front of it, whereas the other didn't. Per Liz's instructions, the key was under the mat, so that narrowed things down pretty quickly.

Kicking the mat aside, she almost called out bingo when she found a key beneath it. The door opens with a little convincing, and soon, she was removing the dust sheet from the sofa and crashing down into it. It seemed like, for what she could tell, like a decent one-bedroom apartment. Although perhaps for the decor, it looked more like a bachelor pad, but she didn't dwell on that too long.

The idea of having her own place was starting to sound like a nice concept. As she turned her head to stare at each wall and surface, she began to imagine how she would redecorate - in fact, the longer she thought about it, the more she realised her mind was already made up.

She had been running so fast from Mystic Falls she now wanted to see what would happen if she stayed and tried to make things work. As a wolf, she no longer could fall prey to compulsion, the strength and resilience that it also gave her created an edge she didn't have before. Now she could protect herself, and with the realisation of the lies and Nik's obvious move to rid himself of her, she could now strike out on her own - do something of her own will.

Perhaps it would mean she would do nothing more than make her own mistakes, but that would be her choice to make.

Going through to the bedroom, she removed the dust cover from the bed before tipping the two bags' content out onto it. She wanted to see what the Mikaelson siblings had sent her packing with.

The rucksack seemed to have the same stuff it had the entire trip - some of the clothes that Stefan had swindled for her before they left Mystic Falls and some trinkets that she had picked up along the way. The gym bag, however, had everything that she had taken from Gloria's. She never thought she would actually get to lay eyes on the tomes - in fact; she had been sure that Nik would never have allowed her to keep them.

Sitting down onto the bed, she let out a large sigh; the breath that followed was shaky as her eyes began to mist over again, but now that she was alone, she allowed herself to cry. Everything she had held back and everything that she already knew plagued her came crashing down all at once. She opened her mouth the scream, but nothing would come out. Instead, she sat there, shaking in anger and pain. Her eyes landed on the ring which still sat upon her finger - without a second thought, she ripped it off, hurling it away from herself.

When she finally managed to catch her breath, she was curled up in the foetal position on the bed, the covers stained in her salt wet tears. On her hand, there was a strange light sensation - without the ring she had discarded, her hand seemed to feel bare and exposed.

Wiping her eyes, she got up to look for it; for comfort, not sentimentality, she reminded herself.

If she really was going to begin a new fresh chapter of her life, she wanted to cut out everything of her past, and perhaps that meant both the bad and the good. However, part of her still couldn't let go entirely, and so as she searched on hands and knees for the ring, she made herself a promise. The ring and the dog were the only things she was going to take with her - everything else was to be left in the past, behind her, where she wouldn't let it affect her. Not because she was going to forget it but because she was moving on and beyond.

She couldn't find the ring though, she sighed, kneeling down and about ready to accepted defeat when a small glint on the door caught her eye. Walking over to investigate, she gasped as she realised in her rage she had sent the ring hurtling into the back of the bedroom door where it had embedded itself into the wood.

It seemed her newfound werewolf strength was going to take a lot of adjusting to. As she pulled the ring for the door and slipped it back on, she couldn't help but look at the books and grimoires from Gloria's. She still didn't understand how she had managed to do what she did - to untie the knot, animate the rope and then cause the fire. It made less and less sense the more she thought about it.

Sitting back down on the bed, she realised that Nik was right - she was a wolf, but his curse explanation didn't seem to make any sense. On the other hand, she didn't particularly feel like a witch. Her so-called magic hadn't presented like anyone else that she had heard about, yet part of her knew it still existed.

Perhaps the books held the truth but inside, she knew they probably didn't, although they likely held the next best thing - a way to control it. No one could deny its existence - it was there be that through natural circumstance or otherwise - but these books could perhaps give her a way to use it.

She had so many questions, and so few answers and the one person she wanted to turn to was likely raising hell at the high school not that far from her.

It was his choice to leave her; she reminded herself - he had knocked her out and hadn't even been there to explain himself when she woke up. She understood he was upset, disappointed even, but it seemed that he had made his mind up before either Stefan or her had come clean. The distrust of Niklaus was immense, but if this was how he wanted things to be, then this was how it would be.

She twisted the ring round her finger as she thought back to everything that had happened that summer, but all she could conclude was that she regretted nothing.

Life just sucked, and being part of a world of magic and monsters didn't change that; it just made life a little stranger.

With two sharp whistles, Zeus jumped on to the bed before collapsing down upon her.

"I guess it is just you and me now, boy." Grace sighed, staring up to the ceiling. "Welcome to Mystic Falls."

***

Wow - chapter forty! I didn't want to give it away in the introduction (and you probably won't know this), but chapter forty actually marks the end of part one.

We did it, we made it, and I honestly can't believe how far here is from where I started. Both Grace and I have certainly been on and journey and a half. I started this in 2018, and now this is the last chapter (of part one) coming out in 2021 - that baffles me.

Please read the next chapter/author's notes for a little explanation of what happens next.

Emma xox