CHAPTER TEN | CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

EVEN THOUGH STEFAN AND KLARA HAD SEPERATE ROOMS, THEY OFTEN STAYED TOGETHER. Klara liked waking up in Stefan's bed but something she liked, even more, was when he walked back into the bedroom from a shower with nothing on apart from a towel wrapped around his waist. Her eyes trailed down his body hungrily as she sat up in his bed. "Good morning to you, too, Stefan."

Stefan smirked as she leaned on the doorframe. "Well, I would've asked you to join me but you're quite a heavy sleeper, aren't you?"

"Don't be rude." Klara pouted playfully as a small laugh echoed from her mouth. "So since everyone's appeared to have split off into their own teams to find this cure, do I need to remind you where we currently stand in the race?"

"Last. Klaus has Jeremy, Shane has Bonnie." The Salvatore puffed out almost irritably as Klara nodded. "But, considering the look on your face and how well I know you, I'm assuming you have a plan?"

"Well, Professor Shane seems to be tangled up in all of this and I heard that he's got the headstone which is one the keys to resurrecting Silas, the guy buried with the cure," Klara spoke in a suggestive tone as Stefan slowly began to understand what she was getting at.

"I see. You want to steal it." He smirked at Klara's plan. The two had gotten quite the reputation for stealing things as of lately. "Well, Klara Adams, you've turned into quite the thief."

The blonde vampire peeled herself from Stefan's bad and wandered over to him. She looped her arms around his neck as she smirked devilishly. "Don't pretend that you don't enjoy it. You always seem to be the one that's committing the crimes with me. Now, I never thought I'd say this but, get dressed—we've got a headstone to steal." 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Stefan and Klara arrived at Professor Shane's office at Whitmore but before they entered, they made sure it was empty inside. The item they needed was Silas' headstone and once that was found, they collectively would have everything they needed to find the cure hidden in Nova Scotia. 

After about ten minutes of frantic searching for a headstone, Stefan exhaled and slammed one of the drawers to the filing cabinet shut. "Well, headstone's not here."

"It'll be here. You're just giving up too easily." Klara gave him a stern glance before her eyes dancing around the room. She was almost certain that Shane would've kept the headstone in his office. "Use that so-called stamina you always talk about."

"There's nothing wrong with my stamina." Stefan retorted with a pointed look whilst he heard Klara chuckle. "You know what I love, we're literally last place in the race for the cure and you're still cracking jokes like it's not a big deal."

"Because it's not a big deal, Stefan." The blonde lifted her eyes from one of the card box boxes on Shane's desk and shrugged. "I wanna be human, yeah. But, at the front of the cure list should be Elena. She's the one sired to your brother, I can't imagine how awful that must be."

"Yeah. Not having free-will sucks." Stefan nodded in agreement.

"No, not the free will part." Klara corrected in a mocking tone as the Salvatore furrowed his brows. "I meant being sired that that dumb-ass for the rest of her life. Damon's an idiot." The blonde vampire pulled open a drawer at Shane's yanked out a small jar with herbs inside. "Wait. This is the stoner tea that Bonnie brought over the night you and Damon were in New Orleans."

"No." Stefan immediately shook his head once his eyes clapped onto the jar that Klara twirled within her fingers. "Klara, we're supposed to be finding the headstone, not doing drugs."

"Oh, don't be so boring. They're not drugs." Klara rolled her eye at her boyfriend's cautious attitude. "Okay, fine. We'll just sit here and look through every single box without a hint of the word fun."

"This was your idea, Klara, and it was a good idea, but obviously the headstone isn't here." Stefan wandered around the room as he looked around at the random artifacts dotted around Professor Shane's office. "Besides, how are we supposed to find anything amongst the random crap in here. This room is almost as messy as yours."

"Unkind." Klara playfully grunted toward her boyfriend who gently scoffed. Stefan moved closer toward Klara just as a knife flew straight across the room but Klara caught it before it could hit either of them. "What the hell?"

"Well, well, well," Rebekah smirked as she appeared in the doorway. The Original vampire looked between the two vampires who seemed unnerved by her arrival. "It appears we three had the same idea. I assume you're here for Silas' headstone?"

"And you're here for the same thing, I take it?" Stefan concluded with a loud sigh as Rebekah sauntered into the room and dropped down into one of the chairs nearest Shane's desk. "Why do you even want the cure, Rebekah?"

"To be human, obviously." The Original vampire stated matter-of-factly. "Why do you want it? For your girlfriend, or your ex-girlfriend?"

Klara gritted her teeth and turned toward the vicious blonde that had taken the seat she previously sat in. "Look, if you're here to taunt and cause trouble, get lost, Rebekah."

"I've said why I'm here. Maybe it's the two of you that should get lost." The sound of the door opening again caused the three vampires to immediately speed out of view. They watched silently as a man rummaged through a drawer and pulled out the headstone. "Good. You found it."

Klara stepped into view and grabbed the man by the throat. "But, who are you?"

Torture appeared to be something that Rebekah Mikaelson excelled in. Their grudge about who came up with the idea to steal the headstone was tabled while they tried to get answers from the man who seemed to know Shane's office a little too well. 

"All you have to do to make it stop is tell me who sent you." Rebekah ran a knife against his leg and then licked the blood from the metal as it sizzled in her mouth. "You're full of vervain, so I know you haven't been compelled.

"Or maybe someone compelled him before he ingested it." Stefan offered an alternative answer to Rebekah's question. 

"He was after the headstone, we need to know who sent him."

"So we take him home, put him in the cellar, wait 'till all the vervain is out of his system, and then compel him to tell us what we need to know." Klara shrugged as if the answer was so obvious. "Simple."

Rebekah tilted her head in agreement with the blonde who stood beside her with her hand at her hip. "It's not a bad idea." Blood suddenly poured out of the man's mouth as he spat what appeared to be his tongue across the room. 

Stefan grabbed the man by the throat and held his head steady as he looked into his mouth. He turned back at the blondes who both looked confused. "He just bit off his own tongue."

"That was an omission of guilt if ever I've seen one." Klara shrugged with a light chuckle before the man grabbed hold of the knife in Rebekah's hand and jammed it into his own neck. "I'm gonna say he was compelled, after all."

Rebekah exhaled in irritation then glanced at Stefan. "Was it my bastard brother, or yours?"

"Maybe it's option number three. There's another team in the race."

As if on queue, Klara's phone began to buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out to see that none other than Elena Gilbert was calling. "Hey, Elena, what's wrong?" 

"Klara, Kol compelled Damon to kill Jeremy." Elena's frantic voice explained as Klara saw Stefan's eyes widened, fearfully. "They're somewhere in the tunnels and I—It's one giant maze down here and I can't find them. I know you care about Jeremy, and the cure so I was wondering if you can come and help."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be right there." Klara nodded and immediately ended the call before she turned to Stefan. "I need to go and help otherwise Damon will end up killing Jeremy. You coming?"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Once Stefan and Klara had found Damon, they knocked him out and took him back to the Salvatore house. Stefan dragged him straight down into the basement where Damon would stay while they bled him out enough to make sure he wouldn't be able to go after Jeremy.

Eventually, Damon regained consciousness and slowly lifted himself up right where he saw Stefan and Klara both staring at him. "Damon, take it easy."

The eldest of the two Salvatore brothers immediately realized what was had happened to him and his eyes widened in disbelief. "So you bled me out?!"

"Yeah. We didn't really have much of a choice." Stefan answered back with a sigh. "Kol's compulsion is still in effect, so you need to stay locked up. We don't have any vervain, so this was the only way I could weaken you."

Damon breathlessly rolled his eyes. He looked weaker than Klara had ever seen him, and it hurt her to see. "Shouldn't we be going after Kol, make him decompel me?"

"You wanna make Kol do something that benefits us?" The blonde vampire scoffed immediately. She watched Damon try to get up to his feet, but because of the lack of blood in his system, he fell back to the ground. "Damon, I said take it easy."

"At least let me see Elena." He replied, almost begging.

"You can't." Stefan shook his head. "With the sire bond, all you have to do is tell her to let you out of here. It's too risky. It's better if you stay in here for now, at least until we find the cure." 

Damon's pleading eyes turned to the blonde vampire who stood right beside Stefan. Damon could see in her eyes that she felt guilty for how weak he was, but it was the only option. "Klara, pleas—"

"—You could end up killing Jeremy, Damon. Stefan's right, we're out of options here. I'm sorry." Slowly, the couple made their exit from the cell and left Damon grunting on the floor. Klara headed up the staircase and toward her bedroom to get changed, but was instead greeted by Damon. "Elena, hey."

"Let me see Damon, I need to talk to him." The doppelganger looked toward the blonde, who furrowed her brows in immediate confusion.

"While you're sired and he's compelled to kill your brother, you can't be anywhere near him, Elena." Klara shook her head as she kicked off her boots but before she knew it, Elena had grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against the wall. "What the hell—"

"I said, let me see Damon." Elena's voice was stern, almost as if she were challenging Klara, but the blonde had enough. She pushed Elena off of her with ease and backward a little. 

"And I said, no." Klara snapped viciously toward the doppelganger who looked almost shocked at Klara's stance to keep her away from Damon. "Once he's free of compulsion or you're no longer sired, you're free to do whatever you like. But, until then, stay away."

"Stefan put you up to this, didn't he?" Elena chuckled quietly under her breath as she began to nod toward the blonde. "God. He wants to keep us apart so bad."

"This isn't you talking, it's that freaky-bond to Damon. Look, Elena, nobody's doing this to keep you and Damon apart. We're doing it to keep you safe, there's a big difference. Stefan doesn't really care what you and Damon do together anymore, he hasn't for a long while." Klara sighed as she began to tug at the hem of her skirt while Elena remained quiet. "If you wouldn't mind making your exit now, that would be great."

Elena stormed out of Klara's bedroom and passed Stefan on the way. When she noticed the Salvatore head toward Klara's bedroom, she scoffed. Stefan appeared at Klara's door as she stood with her back to him while she changed. "Hey. What was that about?"

"Oh." Klara rolled her eyes as she grabbed another shirt and pulled it over her head. "Nothing I can't handle. Elena just seems to think that everyone's out to keep her and Damon apart."

Stefan chuckled quietly as he stepped closer. "You handled it well, though." A knowing look appeared on Klara's face as she turned around to look at him. "I mean, I started listening when I heard she grabbed you. I was gonna come and intervene but you're more than capable of looking after yourself."

"That I am." Klara smiled as she stepped forward and threw her hands around his neck loosely with a nod. "Rebekah's on our side, she's hidden the headstone somewhere nobody will find it."

"So, we're on team Barbie now? Sounds great, can't wait. I'm sure this will go swimmingly."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───