"I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU VERY MUCH LATELY," JJ pointed out to her girlfriend as they stood at the blonde's locker while she got her stuff out of it. The last time they saw each other was at the masquerade ball, but they barely even talked then. They had not really talked for a while now, and Charlie felt really bad about that since she knew that JJ hated when they went a while without talking to each other. She hated it as well, but she had had a lot of stuff to distract her while the blonde girl, who did not really want to be all involved with the supernatural, she had not had as much to distract her.

The blonde girl of course thought everything in the supernatural world was pretty cool, and she was always happy to help. However, she had expressed honestly that she did not necessarily want to be a vampire or a hunter or anything. She was scared that it would mess up her life, and it probably would. So, it was probably a rational fear.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," the werewolf sighed, leaning her head against the locker next to her girlfriend's. She adjusted her bag strap so that it did not slip off her shoulder. "It's just that so much is going on right now with Tyler and Elena getting kidnapped by the old guy. It's just a lot."

It was the truth. She had so much stuff going on at the moment. Tyler still had not had his freak out about being a werewolf, so she was still always on her toes as she waited for that to happen. Plus, it seemed like there was always a problem to be solved or someone to be saved. She hardly had any free time anymore which meant less time to hang out with her girlfriend. She had also not had too much time to work, so she might get fired soon because of that. She was pretty sure that the only reason that they were keeping her on was because of everything that had happened with her dad.

The Martin girl nodded before closing her locker and reaching out to rub the other girl's shoulder comfortingly like the supportive girlfriend that she was. "I know. I can help you with whatever you need."

"No, it's okay," she told her, waving her off before tilting her head a little bit and reconsidering. She joked, "Actually, if you could stop Elena from getting kidnapped all the time, that would be great."

"People do love to take her," the blonde girl admitted because the Gilbert girl had been kidnapped and stabbed and almost killed millions of times. That may be an overstatement, but not by a lot.

The brunette girl nodded in agreement, almost rolling her eyes at the thought. "I know, right? Why doesn't anybody want to kidnap me? I feel like I would be an amazing kidnapee. I'm polite and funny and don't require that much food. The only problem would be that you might get killed every full moon."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I would kidnap you," JJ told her with a small smile.

"Aw, thank you. You're the best girlfriend ever, " the Lockwood girl cooed gratefully before getting back on topic — well, as on topic as what she said next was. "Anyway, it's so weird. No one wanted to kidnap her before Stefan came along. Maybe the old guy is really jealous and just wants Stefan to himself."

The blonde girl furrowed her eyebrows as she thought about that sentence for a minute because it did not sound right. "That sounds kind of pedophilic when you say it like that."

"Well, Stefan is over 150 years old and dated a minor, so..." the werewolf pointed out with a shrug. When you thought about Stefan and Elena's relationship for too long, it was actually really weird.

"Ewwww," the Martin girl exclaimed, her face scrunching up in disgust when she realized how true it actually was. "Don't say it like that. That's so weird."

"It's true, though."

☾❄☽

"SORRY TO DRAG YOU HERE, BUT IF I DON'T EAT, I get those kill innocent people urges," Caroline informed Stefan and Charlie. She had called them there because she had told Tyler that she was a vampire, and she did not know what to do. She was being really weird about it, though. "Tyler totally has those too by the way."

"I still can't believe he's been talking to you about all this but not me," the Lockwood girl groaned out, feeling betrayed by her brother since he kept telling her that he was fine and acting like he didn't care.

Stefan, on the other hand, steered the conversation away from that as he sighed and asked her, "What else did you say to him?"

"Not much. I was trying to keep the questions to a minimum," she answered him as she shoveled more food into her mouth hungrily. Then, she looked up at the Salvatore man nervously. "Are you mad?"

"Yes, Caroline. As a matter of fact, I am a little mad. I mean, you put yourself at risk. If Damon finds out..." he trailed off because they all knew what would happen if the older brother found out, and it would not be good.

The blonde girl looked really worried then, and she tensed up, a little scared of what might happen if he discovered what she did. "But you're not gonna tell him, are you?"

"No, of course not," he assured her, shaking his head quickly because he knew that that would not end well. "He would kill you."

"I'll kill him before he does," the brunette girl told her, and it was the truth. If Damon ever harmed a hair on her best friend's head again, she would not hesitate to drive a wooden stake right through the spot where his heart was supposed to be.

The Forbes girl smiled at her and Stefan gratefully despite the violent threat. "You guys are always looking out for me."

"Yeah. Well, you don't exactly make it very easy on me," the other vampire told her with a slightly frustrated voice, but they knew that he did not necessarily mean to be rude.

"Then why do you do it?" she asked with a curious expression, glancing between the two that were sitting at the table across from her. "Why are you such good friends to me?"

The Lockwood girl just shrugged with a small smirk. She teased playfully, "You're an okay person to be around." Caroline glared at her, but she was smiling before she gestured for Stefan to answer.

"I don't know. I guess you...you remind me of someone. My best friend, Lexi," he informed her with a small, reminiscent smile. Charlie remembered Lexi, the girl at Stefan's birthday party that was really one of the reasons that she and JJ started dating. She owed her relationship to that girl, and then, Damon murdered her. All the more reason to hate him.

The two girls audibly gasped in shock when they heard that, not missing the chance to make fun of the boy because there were so very few. "I...you have a friend?"

"I think he's being sarcastic," the werewolf muttered, causing her friend to giggle.

He shook his head at them, putting a hand to his heart playfully to pretend like he was deeply offended by their comments. "You guys say that with such a discouraging amount of surprise."

"Oh, you were being serious," Charlie said, acting like she had just realized it when she knew it all along and was just making fun of him. He just rolled his eyes at her.

"Yeah, sorry," the blonde girl mumbled, looking down at the table to stop herself from laughing before looking back up at him. "Tell me about her."

He was about to stand up as he told her, "I will some other time. I got to go."

"Wait! No!" Caroline exclaimed, and she seemed really desperate to have him stay. It became apparently obvious to her best friend that she was hiding something. Charlie kept her secret though because she figured it was something important, and she was definitely not going to take Stefan's side over the Forbes girl's. "What do we do about Tyler? I don't want Damon to kill him 'cause there's a full moon coming up and Tyler is totally freaking out about it."

They kept talking for another minute, but after that, he got up again, this time actually standing up. "Okay, now I'm leaving."

"Wait!" the blonde girl exclaimed, standing up with him and blocking his path to the door. Charlie felt a little left out sitting there at the table and got up with them.

Stefan shook his head, and he was starting to get a little angry. The Lockwood girl guessed that he read between the lines and found out that the Forbes girl was hiding something. "No, no, no, Caroline, you have two seconds to come clean."

"What do you mean?" Caroline questioned, trying to play dumb, but she was really bad at it.

"I'd believe the whole innocent act a little bit better if I didn't know how good you were at providing a distraction on demand," the Salvatore man explained, and the werewolf would have taken the last part ass a compliment. "Where is Elena?"

The other girl sighed, and they could tell that she was feeling very conflicted and guilty. She held her ground though, upholding the girlfriend code. "I can't tell you."

"You can't tell me? Are you kidding me?" Stefan scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration, and the Lockwood girl felt bad for her friend because she was just trying to be a good friend to Elena but she was also getting yelled at. She did not say anything so that she did not anger either of them, and she just stood there and watched them argue.

The blonde girl told him as firmly but also as apologetic as she could, "I'm sorry but I—I can't tell you."

"Caroline!" the male yelled, and he was clearly stressed and concerned about his ex-girlfriend that did not want to be found. "Elena was kidnapped. She could have been killed and you're seriously not gonna tell me where she is? "

"She's not in any danger. I would not have let her put herself in danger," Caroline assured him.

"Put herself in danger where? What do you...?" Stefan questioned with furrowed eyebrows. Then, all of a sudden, realization came to his face, and he looked almost hurt. Charlie wondered what he was thinking even though she had no idea where the Gilbert girl actually was. "She's with Damon, isn't she?"

Both girls scrunched their faces up in disgust, and the blonde girl exclaimed, "Ew, no!"

"Who would want to hang out with Damon?" the werewolf asked, and she was genuinely curious because she had yet to meet someone who voluntarily spent time with the Salvatore man after they had actually met him.

"Then where is she?" he quizzed, confused. Then, he played the friendship card, and Charliewinced when he did because she was pretty sure that that was the same card that Elena used on Caroline. "Listen, if you're my friend like you've been pretending to be all day, then you'll tell me where she is."

The Forbes girl answered, "Stefan, I am your friend but I'm also Elena's friend and I'm sorry but I'm not going to tell you where she is." That did not please him.

"Do you know where she is?" He turned to Charlie and raised his eyebrows, and the girl was kind of surprised both about the fact that he actually did ask her and the fact that he did not ask her sooner.

She just put her hands up in defense. "Dude, no one tells me anything."