❝ 🪦‧˚꒰ ೯﹙ 𝗦𝗜𝗫 𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗧 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 ﹚- ୭౿ ❞
ꗃ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ﹙ ITALIAN LEATHER ﹚˖ ࣪. ࿐
𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗡𝗘 ━━━ 𝖤𝖯𝖨𝖲𝖮𝖣𝖤 𝖳𝖧𝖨𝖱𝖳𝖤𝖤𝖭
𝘊𝘏𝘐𝘓𝘋𝘙𝘌𝘕 𝘖𝘍 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘋𝘈𝘔𝘕𝘌𝘋 ╱ ╱ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

TWO TEENAGERS SLEPT peacefully, cuddled into one another as the shrill sound of one of their cellphones started to ring. The smaller of the teens groaning as she shoved the boy laying behind her.

"Jeremy! Answer your stupid phone!" Anastasia whined as it starts to ring once more, "Jeremy!"

"How do you know it isn't yours?" Jeremy groaned, letting go of her waist and standing up from his bed to grab his phone which rung once more, "Are you kidding me?"

"I turned mine off last night before we fell asleep." She said, sitting up. "Who is it, anyway?"

Jeremy looked down at his phone screen, sighing as he noticed the name from the missed caller, "Anna. She's your friend, can't you get her to stop following me around?"

"Anna and I aren't exactly friends." She sighed, laying back down as Jeremy made his way back to lay next to her, "Just hang out with her, maybe she'll stop."

"I highly doubt that. But, I guess I'll hang out with her."

"Great." She mumbled, slowly falling back to sleep.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

ELENA SLOWLY wakes up, Stefan's arm around her waist, "Good morning."

"I could get used to this." Stefan tells her, kissing the back of her head."

"Rise and shine, sleepy heads." Damon's voice makes them spring up.

"Damon! Please!"

"What are you doing?" Stefan asked, pulling the white sheets up higher to cover Elena's chest.

"Oh, stop being smutty." He tells them.

"Seriously, get out of here!" Stefan says.

"If I see something I haven't seen before, I'll throw a dollar at it." Damon says, "Now, listen, we have some very important business to discuss?"

"And it has to be right now?" Asked Elena.

"Well, we have lots to do, now that we're all friends and working towards a common goal." Damon said to her, "So, in order to open that tomb, we need to find the journal to get the grimoire to open the spells. First things first, since you are Elena Gilbert, you're on journal duty."

"Since when am I helping?" Questioned Elena.

"Well, Stefan's helping, and you've taken up residence in Stefan's bed, ergo...."

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to." Stefan tells her.

"I'll look for it tonight." Elena laid back in the bed, pulling the sheets over her head.

"Good."

"How do we know that this journal will hold the location to the grimoire?" Stefan questioned his brother, "We're really going to take the word of this vampire?"

"In lieu of any other options." Damon shook his head.

"Okay, what exactly is a grimoire, anyway?" Elena sat up.

"It's a witches cookbook." Damon tells her, "Anastasia has plenty that are from her mothers side."

"Every spell that a witch casts is unique unto itself, so every witch would document their work." Stefan explained to her.

"Yeah, cookbook." Damon say.

"Why can't we just use one of Anastasia's?" Elena looked between the two.

"Doesn't work that way." Damon shook her head, "Besides, even if we wanted to get a hold of hers, we cant."

"Why not?"

"She has them spell. Anyone that touches them that isn't her, they get burned. Literally."

"What about our mystery vampire? Dimwit obviously wasn't working along, so whoever is out there knows who we are." Stefan said.

"And I don't want that disadvantage so...chop, chop. You know, I really like this menage-threesome them thing. It's got a bit of a kind to it." Damon chuckled, "Don't screw it up. Oh! Have you seen my daughter while we're taking about her?"

"She stayed with Jeremy last night." Stefan tells his brother before Damon walked out of the room.

"He does have -,"

Stefan stops her from taking, pointing towards his eat indicating that Damon could hear the two of them talking, "Oh, right, yeah."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"DO YOU think Damon really believes us?" Elena asked, looking through boxes as Stefan sat at the table in the kitchen and Anastasia sat atop of one of the kitchen counters.

"I don't think Damon knows what to believe. Trust isn't something that comes naturally to him." Stefan says.

"You know....I really think that Damon believes that everything he's done, every move that he's made, he's done for love." Elena says, "It's twisted, but kind of sad."

"There are other ways to get what you want. You don't have to kill people." Anastasia tells her, "Dad had no regret for human life. He just likes inflicting pain on others."

"For 145 years, every single time that I have let my guard down and let Damon back into my life, into Anastasia's life, he's done something to make me regret that. I'm not going to make that mistake again." Stefan says.

"So what do you think will happen if the tomb gets open and Damon gets Katherine back?" Elena asked the two.

"I think no matter what Damon promises, a lot of people will die." Stefan said as Elena looks at a photo, "That's Jonathan Gilbert."

"What's this?" Elena asked, opening a wooden box.

"What are you guys doing?" Jeremy asked, walking into the dining room and smiling towards the girl sitting on his counter, "Hi, beautiful."

"You saw me twenty minutes ago." Anastasia laughed, leaning into him after he jumped up to sit next to her on the counter, throwing his arm around he shoulders.

"Hey. Just going through some stuff, feeling sentimental." Elena tells him, "Dad has this whole family journal from years ago. I thought I'd dig it up."

"Jonathan Gilbert's journal?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah, what do you know about it?" Elena asked him.

"I just did a history paper on it." He tells her.

"Oh. So, where is it now?" Elena questioned.

Realization donged on Anastasia, "He gave it to Mr. Saltzman."

Jeremy shrugged, "He wanted to see it."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"HELLO?" ALARIC calls out as he sees someone go passed the open door of his classroom, "Hello? Someone there?"

Going towards the teachers lockers, he pulls a bag out of his and quickly pulls out a gun that was used to shoot wooden stakes at vampires.

Back inside his classroom, he pulls the trigger, a wooden stake flying out only to be caught mid-air by Anastasia.

The Salvatore girl pouts, "Awe, man. Now the cute history teacher is always going to be out to kill me."

"Anastasia." Stefan shakes his head as he came out of the corner of the classroom.

Alaric quickly tries to shoot another stakes towards the two vampires, but Stefan is quick to speed behind him and grab it from his hands.

"Shouldn't have done that." Stefan tells him before shoving him to the ground.

The two watch as he gets up from the ground, staring at the two in disbelief.

"Have a seat."

"What is this? Compressed air?" Anastasia asked as she looked at the gun that was in her uncle's hands.

"Did you make this yourself? Who are you?" Stefan asked, "I'm not going to hurt you unless you try that again." He hands the gun back to Alaric. "Now, who are you?"

"I'm a teacher." Alaric tells him.

"Are we going to have to do this the hard way?" Stefan asked.

"I'm also a historian." Alaric tells the two, "And while researching Virginia, I made a few discoveries about your town."

"So, you show up like Van Helsing?" Anastasia raised an eyebrow.

"Come on. Tell us the truth."

"My wife was a parapsychologist. She spend her life researching paranormal activities in this area." Alaric says, "It was her work that led me here."

"Where's your wife?" Anastasia asked.

"Dead. A vampire killed her."

"Where's the Gilbert journal?" Stefan asked.

"What do you want with it?"

"Where is it?" Anastasia repeats.

"It's on my desk." Alaric tells them.

Anastasia shakes her head after glancing over the desk, "No, it's not."

Alaric looked towards the desk, "It was on my desk."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"MY FATHER never approved of anyone I dated, which only made me want them more. Actually, there was one that he liked. What about you?" Damon asked Jenna as he stood in the Gilbert house, cooking while Jenna sat on the counter across from him as she drank a glass of wine.

"There were a few guys. Logan isn't the only loser I've dated." Jenna told him.

"They ever find him?" Damon asked her, "Or is he still missing?"

"He's not missing. He's in the Bahamas working on his tan. Very entitled that one." Jenna tells him, "Marches to his own drum. He's foul. They're all snooty."

Damon pours more wine into Jenna's glass, "Hello, Elena."

Jenna turned to look at her niece, "Hey, where have you been? We're cooking dinner."

"Is Stefan and my daughter with you?" Damon asked.

"Wait, Anastasia is your daughter?" Jenna asked him in complete shock, "What kind of lotion are you using?"

Damon smirked at the woman.

"They'll be here soon." Elena tells him.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"HOW LONG have you been aware of us?" Stefan asked Alaric.

"I learned just recently. What about your brother? Your father?" Asked Alaric.

"You met Damon." Stefan says.

"Who do you think killed my wife?" Alaric questioned the two.

Stefan and Anastasia looked at one another in confusion.

"Are you certain it was Damon?" Stefan questioned.

"I witnessed it."

"If you're here for revenge, this is going to end very baldy for you." Anastasia tells the history teacher.

"I just want to find out what happened to my wife."

"I thought you just said that Dad...." Anastasia trailed off.

"Yeah. I saw him draining the life out of her. He must've heard me coming." Alaric explained, "He just....disappeared. So did her body. They never found her."

"Damon can never know why you're here." Stefan tells him, "He'll kill you without blinking."

"I can take care of myself."

"No, you can't. I can help you, we, can help you." Stefan nods towards his niece, "If you let us."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"YOU SAID you never played this thing before." Jeremy says as he and Damon sat in the living room, playing on Jeremy's XBox.

"I'm a fast learner. Quick reflexes." Damon say as Jeremy's phone rings, "Is that Anastasia?"

Jeremy shook his head after looking at the caller ID, "No."

"Then who are you dodging?" Damon asked, eyebrow raised.

"This girl Anna." Jeremy said, not taking his eyes off the TV screen. "She can be, uh, persistent. But Stacie says if I hang out with her like she wants, then maybe she'll back off."

"Do you like Anastasia? Like, truly like her?" Questioned Damon.

"Of course I do." Jeremy tells her, "She's the best thing that's walked into my life since my parents deaths. I might even love her."

"Might?"

"Well, we haven't known, or been together, long. I don't want to say something that's gonna scare her off." Jeremy shrugged.

"Nothing will scare Anastasia away from someone she truly cares about." Damon says, thinking about his daughter.

"He is ridiculously hot!" Jenna whispered to her niece as the stood in the kitchen, "And Anastasia is almost a spitting image of him. I bet her mom was hot, too."

"Shh. He's an ass." Elena tells her.

"What are you doing with all this stuff?" Jenna asked as Elena looked through a box.

"I thought there might be something about my birth parents." Elena says.

"Have you told Jeremy?" Jenna wondered.

"I will. When the time is right." Elena says just as the doorbell goes off, "That's Stefan and Anastasia."

"Dude!" Jeremy exclaimed as Damon pauses the game to stand up.

Damon and Elena walk to the door, the latter pulling the door open to reveal Stefan and Anastasia who looked at Damon, wondering what he was doing at the Gilbert house.

"Well?"

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"WHO TOOK it?" Damon asked as the four stood on the porch.

"We don't know." Stefan tells him.

"You know what, it's that teacher." Damon spoke, "There's something really off about him?"

"Oh, you mean that he's nice and might be a little more tolerable than you are?" Anastasia asked her father with a tight grin on her face.

"No, he doesn't know anything."

"Somebody got to him before me. Who else knew it was there?" Damon asked, looking through the window to where Jeremy was sitting on the couch.

"No." Elena tells him, "Damon, leave him out of it!"

"Why? What's the big deal?" Damon asked, going towards the front door.

"Damon!"

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"SO...." DAMON walked over to sit on the arm of the couch next to Jeremy.

The Gilbert boy lifts his arms up long enough for Anastasia to slip through the gap in his arms before he put them down so he was able to have his arms wrapped around her waist and still be able to play his game.

"I heard you found a really cool journal from back in the day. Who else did you show it to?"

"Huh?"

"Don't ask questions, just spill."

Jeremy chuckled, looking over at him. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Jer, did you tell anyone other than Mr. Saltzman about Jonathan Gilbert's journal?" Elena asked her brother.

"Why is everybody so obsessed with that thing?" Jeremy questioned.

"Who else did you tell?"

"Just that girl Anna." Jeremy tells them.

"The one you're dodging?" Damon asked.

"Yeah."

"Wait. Who is Anna?" Stefan asked.

"That's what I want to find out. How do you know her?"

"I just know her. She ran into Stacie and I at the Library." Jeremy said, "She wants me to meet her at the grill tonight."

"Perfect. I'll drive." Damon said, standing up. "Come on."

"Actually, I'll drive." Jeremy turns to Anastasia with a smirk as the two of them stood up.

With a roll of her eyes, the Salvatore girl dug the keys to her car out of her pocket and slapped them into the palm of his outstretched hand before following him out of the house.

Stefan and Damon looked on in disbelief.

"Did she just -,"

"She let him drive the car?" Stefan threw his hands up, "She never lets me drive her car! And I paid for it!"

"Careful, brother." Damon smirked as he made his way towards the front door, "Your inner Taylor Swift is showing."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"WHERE'S DAMON?" Elena asked as Stefan walked into her bedroom.

"He left to track down Jeremy's friend, Anna. See if there was anything there." Stefan tells her.

"Aren't you going to go with him?" She asked, "If he gets to the journal before we do, then..."

"Doesn't matter." Stefan says, holding up a bunch of rolled up printouts.

"What is that?"

"It's a copy of it."

"How did you get that?"

"Well, Mr. Saltzman made a copy and was kind enough to loan it to me." Stefan tells her.

"He did?"

"Not exactly, but Anastasia and I got it."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"JUST COULDN'T live without me, huh?" Anna asked as Jeremy walked over to her, but frowns as she noticed that Anastasia was behind him, a smirk on her face, her arms crossed over her chest in a "ha, you thought, bitch" kind of way.

"Well, I got permission from the girlfriend." Jeremy tells her, grabbing a pool stick, "Let's play. Winner plays Anastasia."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

ELENA SAT on the bay window in her bedroom, her and Stefan reading through the printed pages from the Gilbert journal, "Here's a reference that he wrote about Emily. "The Fell family believed it should be, I, not them, who protected the witches spell book. But I feared she would haunt me from the hereafter. They moved my fear, but it was Giuseppe Salvatore who" - is that your father?"

"Yeah." Stefan takes Elena's copies and reads from where she left off, "It was Giuseppe Salvatore who removed my fear. He told me he would protect the secret of the spell book. He said he would take it to his grave. And the only other person he had told was....four year old, Anastasia Salvatore."

"He told Anastasia."

"Who better to tell than a four year old that could barely say her own name."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

--- ▐ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦,
𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗔 𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

"STEFAN." GIUSEPPE spoke as his son came into his study, "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Did I interrupt your writing?" Stefan asked.

"There are the dull musings of my troubled mind." He tells him as Anastasia ran into the study with a little giggle, running over to her grandfather, who picked her up and sat her on his lap.

"A great mind." Stefan says, making a face at his niece, who let out another giggle.

"Still. I will carry the real secrets with me to where, little one?" He looks down at Anastasia.

"To your grave!" Anastasia yelled happily.

"And a full grave it will be. Now, speaking of troubled minds, what's on yours?" Giuseppe motioned for Stefan to take a seat next to him.

"I have concerns about your plan for the vampires." Stefan tells him.

"And why is that?"

"We are making the presumption that all vampires are as evil as they've been characterized, but what if that's not true?" Stefan asked.

"Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Do you know of any vampires?" Giuseppe questioned his son.

"No. No, of course not." Stefan says, "But we are to take what others have at face value? You always taught us so differently."

"Stefan - These creatures are of the darkest parts of hell. They have the ability to control your mind, seduce your spirit. They are deadly. They must be destroyed. Those who stand with them; those who bring shame to their families will be destroyed as well."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

--- ▐ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦, 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗔
𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

"I KNOW where it is." Stefan says.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"WHY ISN'T your father buried in your family's tomb?" Elena asked, shinning her flashlight on the headstone of Giuseppe Salvatore.

"It wasn't built until well after he died." Stefan tells her, moving to pick up two shovels as Anastasia suddenly appears from out of no where, making Elena jump back with a gasp, "Eloise."

"Sorry. I forgot she isn't used to that." Anastasia shrugged, leaning against of the trees with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Are you sure the grimoire's in there with him?" Elena asked.

"As sure as I can be."

"Great."

"Elena." Stefan got her attention, "I can do this on my own. I have Anastasia here to help."

"And I said I would do whatever I can to help." Elena tells him.

"I know, and we appreciate that, but-,"

"This is my home, Stefan. My friend and my family are here. You're here. I don't want that tomb open any more than the two of you." Elena tells him, "I'm sorry that you have to do this."

"Anastasia, there's a third shovel. Help me d-,"

"Uh, no." Anastasia gave him a blank look as she points down to the leather boots she was wearing, "These are Italian leather. There's no way I'm going near that dirt pile."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"HOW LONG have you been here?" Damon asked Anna as the stood in the hotel room she had been staying at.

"I arrived around half-past comet. Watching you screw up, not only every change you had to open that tomb, but also watching you screw up your already messed up relationship with your own daughter," She tells him, taking her purse off of her shoulder.

"How did you know about the spell?" Damon questioned her.

"I didn't say much back then, which means I heard everything." Anna tells him.

"So, if you've been here the whole time, then why are we just crossing paths right now?" Damon asked.

"I like to use others to do my dirty work."

"Like Logan Fell?" Damon asked, "Oh, yeah, thanks for that by the way. Little bastard shot me."

"Logan was an idiot. We slipped him some blood and then he started getting all poser slayer with that compass. I needed his family's journal. I couldn't let him die."

"What'd you want with the Fell journal?"

"I thought it contained the location of the witch's spell book. I was wrong. According to her journal, Honerea gave the grimoire to Jonathan Gilbert. And according to this." She grabbed the journal off the table, "He gave it to your father. So now you're going to help me find it."

"Why would I help you?" Damon questioned.

"Cause you and I both want that tomb open."

"Hmm. Sorry." Damon gave the journal back to Anna, "I work alone."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"WHAT?" STEFAN asked as he caught Elena staring at him.

"Not many girls can say they've done this." Elena says as Stefan hits something with the shovel in his hand.

Opening the coffin, he pulled the book out the boot that was sitting with his father.

"Is that it?"

"Well, what do you know?" Damon walked over to them, Anastasia scrambling up from her place where she decided to sit on the ground, "This is an interesting turn of events."

"I can't let you bring her back. I'm sorry." Stefan tells his brother.

"So am I. For thinking for even a second that I can trust you." Damon said, glancing over at his daughter, "Either of you."

"Oh. You're not capable of trust. The fact that you're here means that you read the journal and you were planning on doing this yourself." Stefan says.

"Of course I was going to do it by myself, because the only one I can count on is me! You made sure of that many years ago, Stefan. But you." Damon looked at Elena. "You had me fooled. So, what are you going to do now? Because if you try and destroy that, I'll rip her heart out."

"You won't kill her."

Damon quickly sped over and grabbed Elena, "I can do that one better." He bit into his wrist, forcing his blood down her throat, "Give me the book, Stefan. Or I'm stabbing her neck, and you and I, will have a vampire girlfriend."

"Let her go first." Stefan tells his brother, grabbing his niece and pulling her against him, hands positioned on her neck so that if he were to snap it.

Anastasia's breath picked up as she stared wide eyes at her father, "Dad, please."

"Drop it." Damon motioned to the book his his brother's hand, "And let go of my daughter, 'cause you and me, we both know that you wouldn't dare lay a hand on her."

"I'm not going to give this to you, or let go of Anastasia until she is standing next to me." Stefan says.

"Problem is, I no longer trust that you'll give it back!"

"You just did the one thing that ensures that I will." Stefan says before jerking his niece's head to the side, causing her to go limp in his arms, temporarily dead.

Damon stared wide eyed at his daughter's lifeless body as Stefan sat the book on the ground, making sure that he still held onto his niece tightly.

Once Damon let her go, Elena rushed over to Stefan as he picked Anastasia up and walked away from Damon.

"Is she-,"

"No." Stefan shook his head, "She's just temporarily dead. She'll be just fine. She knew what was going to happen, it was her idea."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"ASPIRIN MUST be downstairs. Is my head supposed to hurt like this?" Elena asked after searching the bathroom for the pills.

"Oh, you'll be fine." Stefan kept his eyes on his niece, "That was just a small amount of blood. It should pass out of your system by tomorrow."

"Are you okay?" Elena asked him.

"Damon was right. This is, uh, this is my fault." Stefan tells her, "I put my faith in my father, but Damon put his faith in me, and I destroyed that. This is my fault."

"You didn't do anything wrong. Don't forget that." Elena tells him.

"Okay." Stefan let out a breath he was holding, "I'm going to get you that aspirin."

"Okay."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"YOU KNOW you're not staying the night, right?" Jenna asked Stefan as he walked down the stairs.

"We're just going to hand out for a little while." Stefan tells her.

"You're lucky I like you." Jenna tells him, "Keep the door open."

"You got it. Hey, do you have any aspirin?" He asked.

"Yeah." Jenna says, standing up.

"Oh, hey, Stefan." Jeremy walked out of the kitchen. "Where'd she go?"

"She went to the bathroom." Jenna tells him.

"Where'd who go?" Stefan asks.

"He has a friend over." Jenna says, "Even though I don't think Lulu's gonna appreciate that."

"Anna." Jeremy rolled his eyes, "Stacie thinks if I hang out with her, she'll finally leave me alone."

"Uh, Anastasia is asleep in Elena's room." Stefan says, making more than one excuse to go back upstairs, "Mind if I lay her in your bed?"

Jeremy shook his head, "Not at all."

Stefan rushed up the stairs, ignoring the look Jenna and Jeremy gave him as he went into Elena's room, finding Anastasia still lying on Elena's bed, but the Gilbert girl was nowhere to be found, the window wide open.

"Elena!"