ELEANOR'S FIRST DECADE DANCE WAS COMING UP, AND SHE WAS EXCITED. It was her first dance in Mystic Falls at all, actually, so she was ready to enjoy it. What she was not happy about was that Caroline and Matt had been hanging out a lot lately, and after what he said to her at Stefan's party, the Chetwood girl was wary of him.

"What are you wearing tonight?" the Forbes girl asked her while they were decorating for the dance. Caroline was head of pretty much every committee you could think of, and she really enjoyed putting things together. Eleanor had gotten roped in like she got roped into almost everything involving Caroline.

The vampire, being the hoarder she was, had plenty of things that she could wear to the dance that she wore in the 50s, which was the decade of choice for the dance. She kind of hated the decade while it was happening because women were not viewed very highly, but the style was cute. "I'm not sure, but I think my mom has this vintage dress that her cousin wore in the fifties."

"You're going authentic?" Caroline exclaimed, whipping her head around to look at the girl in shock and jealously. "Lucky. I've been trying to find a dress all week. I've gone to every vintage store in a fifty mile radius."

"Oh, my God? I think I might have an extra one, if you want to borrow it," Eleanor offered. She had plenty of outfits, so she was happy to loan one. She had a yellow dress that came with a cardigan that she was almost positive that Caroline would like, and she herself was going to wear a red polkadot dress.

The blonde girl's eyes widened in excitement. "Really?"

"Yeah, of course. My mom's a hoarder, I swear," the Chetwood girl lied. She was the one keeping everything, but it was just because all of her things held memories that made her who she was. "Just come over before the dance, and you can pick one out."

"Thank you, I love you. I tried to get Matt to match with me, but he has work tonight," Caroline sighed, turning back to the van that they were painting. Why they needed a van, Eleanor did not know, but she was helping anyway. She was about to ask what was the deal between them, but the girl read her mind. Or maybe she was just talking to herself. "We're just friends, I think, but I feel like it is in the process of being something more. If you're looking for a date, I can try to find someone for you."

"No, it's all right. I'll just hang out with you and Bonnie," Eleanor responded, shaking her head. She wanted to say something about Matt, but she did not know what she could say that wouldn't make Caroline mad. There was no way that Matt Donovan could treat her like she deserved to be treated, but there was no way to say that without it sounding weird.

That night, at the dance, Eleanor was not sure what to do. She was just standing next to Bonnie and Caroline by the punch bowl, drinks in hand as they stared out at the people dancing. They were all in desperate need of some sort of love interest because they looked kind of sad. Elena walked over to them after having the time of her life dancing with her boyfriend, and she asked, "Having fun?"

"No, but this took about two hours, so I'm at least staying half of that," Caroline responded, earning some laughs from the other girls. Eleanor had to help her do her hair, and the hard work really did pay off. The dance also looked amazing, and people were really enjoying it. There just wasn't much to do if you had no one to hand jive with. Eleanor was more than happy to dance with one or both of them, but neither of them seemed in the mood.

Bonnie furrowed her eyebrows, and Eleanor followed her line of sight to where the Salvatore brothers were talking to each other. "What's Damon doing here?"

"He is not young enough for this to not be creepy," the Chetwood girl agreed. There was a twenty-five-year-old at a high school dance. That just seemed strange, especially since he was just standing and staring out at the crowd.

Elena sighed, and the vampire wondered how the hell she and Stefan could stand up for or even tolerate Damon after what he did to Lexi. Eleanor had been sure that Stefan would never talk to him again. "He wanted to come. I promise. He'll behave."

"So what is this, like, a threesome now, you and the Salvatore brothers?" Caroline asked with raised eyebrows. Damon had traumatized her, and it must have been painful to watch one of her best friends pretend like he never did anything that awful.

The Gilbert glanced over to the older brunette, and the glare on her face scared her. She had been hoping that Eleanor would understand, but it did not seem so. She just continued hesitantly, "No, but if I'm gonna be with Stefan, then I have to learn to tolerate Damon. It's not like I can kill him."

"There's a thought," Bonnie responded, and Eleanor hummed in agreement, Caroline adding that she would help. The three of them clinked their glasses together, and Elena looked down at the ground for a moment before heading back to the brothers.

《❂》

THE NEXT MORNING, ELEANOR AWOKE TO A CALL FROM DAMON. All he said was to meet her at his house and that they needed to set their differences aside and work toward a common goal. She had a feeling she knew what that meant, so she reluctantly made her way over. When she entered the house, she heard a yell from upstairs. "Up here, Nora!"

She headed upstairs and over to an open room. When she stepped inside, she saw Damon sitting on the edge of a bed that held a naked Stefan and Elena, covered only by a sheet. She did a double take and wondered what in the kinky hell had she just walked into. Damon just ignored her surprise and clapped his hands together. He had received some information from some guy at the dance that tried to kill Elena, and they were about to set a plan in action.

"Well, we have lots to do, now that we're all friends and working toward a common goal," he announced, standing up and wrapping his arm around Eleanor. She simply gave him a look that warned him to remove his arm or she'd rip it off. He did so, a slightly scared expression on his face as he continued, "So, in order to open the tomb, we need to find the journal to get the grimoire to undo the spells. First things first — since you are Elena Gilbert, you're on journal duty."

"How do we know that this journal will hold the location of the grimoire?" Stefan questioned. Eleanor fought the urge to laugh because he was holding the sheet over his chest. "We're really going to take the word of this vampire? He seemed like a bit of a dimwit."

They all fell silent for a moment, and the two people not in the bed just stood there and stared at him, wondering if he was going to say anything else. Finally, the Chetwood girl spoke up, "Okay, so I'm waiting for you to offer any other options."

"Okay, what exactly is a grimoire, anyway?" the Gilbert girl quizzed, and the female vampire wondered how she let them get that far into the conversation without knowing what a grimoire was.

Damon answered, "It's a witch's cookbook."

"Every spell that a witch casts is unique unto itself, so every witch would document their work," Eleanor explained further because it wasn't just a list of spells. Every witch is different, and every spell was different as well.

"What about our mystery vampire?" the younger brother asked them because there was no way that whoever they killed the night before was on his own. There had to be someone helping him, someone who knew more. "Dimwit obviously wasn't working alone, so whoever's out there knows who we are."

His brother just nodded along, agreeing that that was a problem without suggesting anything to fix it. "And I don't like that disadvantage, so....Chop, chop."

"What am I doing?" Eleanor asked. She had not actually been assigned anything to do. Stefan and Elena seemed to be in charge of getting the grimoire, and Damon acted like they were also supposed to find the mystery vampire.

"You're coming with me," he answered, and she audibly groaned. She genuinely wanted to cut his head off right there. She walked out of the room, and he followed her, saying to them, "You know, I really like this whole menage a foursome team thing. It's got a bit of a kink to it. Don't screw it up."

The only thing that Damon planned seemed to be hanging out at Elena's house while she wasn't there. He somehow convinced her aunt to invite them in for dinner, and it was Eleanor's first time being in the Gilbert household. What Damon was planning to accomplish with this, she had no clue.

When Elena walked in, the Chetwood girl was playing video games on the living room floor with Jeremy. She went to the kitchen to talk to Damon about weird teenage angst things, some of it being Katherine, but Eleanor really did not give a crap. She was too locked in on the game to even try to listen in. Jeremy laughed as she got them past another level. "You said you never played this thing before."

"What can I say? I'm a fast learner," she responded, leaning back against the foot of the couch. His phone went off, and he paused the game to check it. Once he saw whoever it was, he just stuck it back in his pocket and unpaused the game. "Who are you dodging?"

"This girl Anna. She can be, uh, persistent," he told her, and she nodded.

Damon all of a sudden entered the conversation, plopping down on the couch behind Eleanor and rubbing her head. "Is she hot?" She then proceeded to elbow him in the crotch, causing him to groan.

"Yeah, yeah, but she can be weird," the younger boy answered with a shrug. Damon smacked the Chetwood girl on the back of the head hard, but to anyone else, it would look playful.

"Hot trumps weird, trust me," he leaned in and whispered in Jeremy's ear, earning a laugh. Elena then called him over, saying something about Stefan being back, and Damon stood up and went outside. Eleanor knew that she should probably go as well because it was about the journal, but she was actually really enjoying the game. About five minutes later, Damon walked back into the room, followed by his brother and Elena, and he addressed Jeremy. "So....I heard you found a really cool journal from back in the day. Who else did you show it to?"

Jeremy paused the game once again, and he looked up at the man who was speaking to him like he was five years old. "You're kidding me, right? Why is everybody so obsessed with that thing?"

"Who else did you tell other than Mr. Saltzman?" Elena inquired. From what the Chetwood girl was gathering, the teacher did not have the journal, meaning he was either hiding it or someone stole it from him.

He thought about it for a second before remembering, and he just shrugged and said, "Just that girl Anna."

"The hot, weird one?" Eleanor quizzed, recalling their conversation from a couple of minutes ago, and he nodded. That was the girl that he had been ignoring. The older Gilbert's phone went off, and she headed into the next room to answer it while the other brunette girl continued to ask questions. "How do you know her?"

"I just know her. She wants me to meet her at the Grill tonight," he told them, looking between all three of the people that he barely knew, wondering why the hell they were so invested in his life and his ancestor's journal.

Damon clapped his hands together excitedly, and he gestured for the two on the floor to follow him. "Perfect. I'll drive. Come on, Nora."

The three of them headed to the Grill, and the two vampires sat down at a booth on the other side of the restaurant, one hidden from where Jeremy was meeting Anna. They waited for her to show up, and when she finally did, Eleanor's mouth dropped. Annabelle. Anna was such a popular name that she never thought that it would be her.

She was the daughter of Pearl, one of the vampires that was friends with Eleanor and Katherine back in 1864. Pearl was in the tomb at the moment, so that was probably why Anna wanted the journal. Damon smirked. "You down for a little vampire hunt, Nora?"

"You seem to have forgotten who I am, Damon."