IT WAS SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING WHEN CHARLIE heard her doorbell ring. She wondered who the hell could be at her door so early, and she assumed that it must be for her mother. When no one answered the door, the ringing came again and again until the girl finally decided to do it herself. She swung open the door to see Damon standing there, and she rolled her eyes before pointing out, "It's six in the morning."

"We're going on a trip," he informed her with a greeting smile that was way too happy for six in the morning. The sun was not even completely up yet, and that meant that no one should be awake.

She just repeated, "It's six in the morning."

"It'll be fun," he insisted, trying to convince her as she wiped her eyes. She was hoping that maybe if she just closed her eyes, he would go away, and maybe all of that would just be a dream. "You, me, and Elena."

"It's six in the morning," she emphasized, and clearly he was not getting it. He acted as if adding the part about Elena would make her more inclined to go. If anything, that made her not want to go even more. She still had no clue where they were going, though.

"You can sleep on the plane," he told her, which made her even more confused. In what world could she just pack up her life and go on vacation with him and Elena to God knows where. "I got us first class tickets."

That caught her attention. She raised her eyebrows at him in question. "Where are we going?"

"Denver," he answered as she turned around and went inside. She left the door open so that he could follow her as she went upstairs, and he did, shutting it behind him. "We're going to pick up your little boyfriend who is besties with your new boyfriend."

"What?" she exclaimed, turning around and walking up the stairs backward as she looked at him in confusion. She got that the first 'boyfriend' was Jeremy since he was living in Denver at that moment.

He sighed before explaining quickly, "Kol has gone to Denver and befriended Jeremy and is ready to kill him whenever Klaus gives him the thumbs up." She nodded slowly, taking that all in as she stepped into her room.

"Let me get changed," she said before closing her bedroom door in his face.

That is how Charlie ended up at a batting cage in Denver with Damon Salvatore and Elena Gilbert. They walked through the different cages in search of Jeremy. The Lockwood had not said a single word to Elena on the ride there, and she was kind of shocked that the older girl even let her come. They came because they were trying to get Jeremy to talk to Rose, who was dead, since she turned Katherine. They wanted to know who turned her so that they could continue to trace that sire line back to the Original that turned the bloodline that Damon, Stefan, and Caroline belonged to so they knew if they could kill Klaus or not. The hybrid did not comment on the fact that in doing so, they would also kill her and her brother. She was just kind of praying that they found a way around that before staking Klaus.

"There he is," Elena said, and she pointed to a boy with a bat in his hand.

A ball came at him, and he swung at it. He missed, causing Charlie to giggle as Damon teased, "Next time we compel him, remind me to make him better at baseball."

"Hey Jer!" the older brunette called, and he whipped around at the sound of his sister's voice and smiled in shock. The smile twisted into a frown after a second, confusing them all.

"Elena? What's wrong?" he questioned as he ran over to them. He knew that the only reason that his sister and Damon Salvatore would fly halfway across the country to see him would be if something bad was happening. He grinned once again when he saw the Lockwood girl. He pulled her into a hug and laughed out, "Charlie, oh my, God. I never got to say goodbye to you."

Once they pulled away, they began walking out of the batting cages as Damon explained what had happened over the past few months while he was gone. "Katherine sired us, Rose sired Katherine, all we need to do is find out who sired Rose."

"So, you traveled across the country to get me to talk to a dead vampire?" Jeremy asked from where he was walking alongside Charlie.

Damon shrugged, "Dead vampire is redundant, but yes."

"Well, I can't," the human boy informed them with a shrug as he shook his head. "I could talk to Anna and Vicki because I knew them. I've never even met Rose."

"What good is you dying and coming back to life if you can't talk to a ghost when I need you to?" the Salvatore man groaned, rolling his eyes at the boy's answer since it was kind of no help to them.

Elena glared at him before turning back to her brother with a suggestion. "Rose spent a long time running from Klaus as well. She and Damon were close, so maybe we can use him as a connection."

"Fine, fine, but can we do this later? My friend just got here and yes, Damon, I actually have some," Jeremy informed them after glancing at the entrance. "I'll call you when I'm done."

"Jer..." the Gilbert girl trailed off as she watched him go join his friend, but then, all of their eyes widened when they saw who his 'friend' was.

"Hey, man," he greeted, shaking Kol Mikaelson's hand in a bro way. All of a sudden, Kol took the wooden baseball bat in his hand and hit Damon with it. The bat broke in half, and the Salvatore fell to the ground as Jeremy watched in shock and confusion. "What are you doing?"

Elena grabbed her brother and pulled him toward her to try and keep him safe as Charlie got ready to attack if she needed to. She was pretty sure that Kol would not fight her, but anything could happen with an Original. " Jeremy, get back! He's an Original."

"What?" the Gilbert boy quizzed, still so very confused.

"No hard feelings, mate, but we're not buds," the Mikaelson clarified before turning to the Lockwood girl with a charming smile like he had not just hit Damon and possibly attempt to kill Jeremy. "Hello, Charlotte, darling. I missed you."

Charlie shot him a sarcastic smile, not very pleased with him at that moment, no matter how much he tried to charm her. "Hi, Kol."

"You two know each other?" Jeremy questioned, looking between them in surprise since they seemed like they had been on good terms before that moment, maybe even romantic by the way he was looking at her.

Kol grabbed an aluminum bat from a rack on his side and sidestepped the hybrid to Damon who was still on the ground and groaning. "You know, I'll never get use to aluminum. But hey, at least it won't break." He swung to hit Damon, but the Salvatore grabbed it and with his other hand, picked up the bokeh wooden bat and stabbed Kol in the chest with it. The Original fell to the ground, and they started walking, dragging Jeremy with them.

"Did you kill him?" he asked, unsure if normal wood could kill an Original. He was pretty sure that it did not, though. However, Kol looked pretty dead to him.

Damon shook his head. "No, but it'll give us a head start. Okay, come on."

☾❄☽

THEY UNLOADED THEIR LUGGAGE OUT OF THE CAR that they had compelled themselves and started walking to their motel room. Charlie just had a backpack since she figured that they would not be gone that long. She had a couple of outfits along with the essentials. Damon informed the boy, "For the record, she's the one who wanted to stay in a motel, not me. We're at the corner of somewhere and nowhere where Kol can't find us."

"I can't believe Kol was a vampire," the Gilbert boy breathed out with a sigh, and Charlie winced because she knew that he walked right into a joke from Damon.

"Well, didn't you find it weird that you made a friend so fast?" the older man questioned with a curious expression as both of the girls glared at him for his unnecessary commentary. "Have you met you?"

They entered their motel room and dropped their bags off as the Gilbert girl quizzed her brother, "Well, this should work, right, Jer?"

"Yeah, doesn't really matter," Jeremy answered with a shrug as he sat down on one of the beds. Charlie lied down behind him and stared up at the ceiling. She was not sure how to jump into the conversation, and she still had not spoken to Elena. It was really weird.

"Alright Whoopi, what do you need?" the vampire questioned as he went over to close the curtains and give them some privacy and prevent any distractions from coming their way. "Candles? Incense? Pottery wheel?" When the younger male glared at him, he sighed, "I know, I know. That's not how it works. They push from the other side and you pull from this one."

Jeremy nodded as he looked up at the man expectantly. "Alright, you got a picture of her?"

"Picture? What, a trip to Disneyland? Come on Rose, you're not gonna actually make us wait, are you? I know you're obsessed with me," he sang, and Elena scoffed as she sat down on the other bed.

The brunette boy just exhaled deeply, wondering what Damon wanted him to do since he was trying to help them. He just did not know how when he did not know the person. "All right, uh, tell me something about her."

"Um, well she does this little thing with her tongue."

Elena smacked him across the chest, knowing that he knew that that was not what Jeremy had meant. "Something that matters, Damon."

"She spent her last day in paradise. Soaking in the sun and reminiscing about what it means to be human," he informed them after thinking for a moment, and it was almost like he was reminiscing about the day. "And when death came, she didn't fear it."

"I was with her on her last day and she definitely wasn't in paradise," the Gilbert girl said in confusion, remembering how much pain Rose had been in when she was with her.

"It was in the dream he gave her," Jeremy told her, and they all looked up at him in shock that he knew that. He looked back at them from where he was staring at a spot of empty space. "She's here."

They all watched, asking him questions for Rose to answer. Elena questioned, "Is she lonely on the other side?"

"She says not to worry, she's happy," the boy responded.

Even though they had no clue how much time they had with her, Damon still continued to ask pointless questions such as, "Is she still hot?"

"She misses you. She, uh, misses both of you," the Gilbert replied, pausing between all of his sentences to hear her talk while they waited in silence. "She was sired by someone named Mary Porter."

"Scary Mary. Well, where is she, Rose?" the Salvatore interrogated, and it seemed like he was familiar with Mary Porter, or at least heard of her, judging by the nickname.

Jeremy sighed, "She doesn't know, but she says she can find out."

Charlie was sitting on one of the beds in the motel room that night, brushing her hair when she felt the bed move next to her. She looked to the side to see Elena sit down and fought the urge to groan. She did not have the energy to fight right then. However, the Gilbert girl shocked her with her next words.

"Hey, I just wanted to apologize," she informed her, and Charlie's jaw almost dropped. Elena admitted, "It was wrong, what I did to Jeremy."

The Lockwood girl paused for a moment, taking in everything that she said and contemplating her answer. "It's okay. I know you were just trying to look out for him."

"Thanks for understanding," the human girl said, breathing out a sigh of relief that they were not fighting anymore. It was getting exhausting for the both of them.

The younger girl nodded. "Of course."

That night, she was lying in bed with Elena with her eyes closed, and she guessed that Damon assumed that she was asleep because after he was done 'freshening up,' he lied down on the Gilbert girl's other side. They started whispering, and she groaned before standing up and walking over to the other bed that Jeremy was in. They barely spared her a glance since they knew that she was not interested in whatever the hell they were talking about.

"What are you doing here?" the Gilbert boy asked when he felt her lay down next to him, and he turned over on his other side to face her.

She answered very casually and in a low voice. "Damon and Elena are about to have sex." The two lovebirds in the other bed were two focused on their own conversation to pay attention to what she was saying anyway.

"What? No. Ew," he exclaimed, shaking his head in denial as he lifted his head up slightly to make sure. He scrunched his nose up when he saw them together, though.

"Tell me about it. I was about to be in bed with them when they did it," she said, and they both made really disgusted looks. They fell silent and pretended to be asleep as Damon and Elena got up and left the room all together. Once the door closed behind them, the two younger people sat up in the bed and raised their voices. "I'll bet you twenty bucks that they're making out."

He scoffed, not wanting to think about his sister making out with anyone, let alone the man whore that was Damon Salvatore. "You're on. Elena would never — Rose found Mary."

"What?" she asked, not sure if she heard him right since he had said it so abruptly.

"She lives in Kansas," he informed her, and his eyes shifted from the corner of the room where she assumed Rose was back to her. He climbed out of the bed. "Let's go tell them."

She nodded as she got out too and headed toward the door with him. "Okay, but prepare for their lips to be locked."

"Shut up."

They opened the door, and much to Jeremy's surprise, Charlie was completely right. The two were making out and had not noticed the two younger teenagers yet. The Lockwood glanced at her friend who seemed to be in shock. "I told you."

"Elena?" he called from where they were standing, and the vampire man and human girl sprung apart when they became aware of the teenagers' presence.

Damon looked kind of smug. Jeremy looked betrayed. Elena looked conflicted and scared. Charlie looked completely grossed out. The Gilbert girl exclaimed, "Oh my God, Jeremy. I..."

"Rose found Mary," he told them, letting them know as he dug a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and shoved it into Charlie's waiting hand unhappily. "She lives in Kansas."

"Okay then. Let's go," Damon said before heading back into the room with everyone else behind him slowly but surely. Jeremy seemed very disappointed in Elena as he climbed back in bed with the younger brunette girl.

The next night, they pulled up to an old, abandoned-looking house and climbed out of the car. It had been a long drive, and the whole time, the brunette boy was pouting about Damon and Elena. "This is the address."

"Looks about right," the Salvatore confirmed, looking around the property. It did look like a place where someone named 'Scary Mary' would live with her dead children and ghost cats.

Elena turned to Charlie and Jeremy and ordered, "You two, wait here."

"Why? So you guys can make out some more?" her brother spat back, and it was a valid concern. You never know what happens inside a haunted house. Elena gets scared and jumps on Damon, and the next thing you know, they're making out on the cobweb hammock.

"Don't be a dick. Listen to your sister," Damon demanded, and Charlie just grabbed Jeremy's arm. He scoffed but followed her back to the car nonetheless. "Thank you. Come on."

Charlie and Jeremy were in the car, talking and catching up for about fifteen minutes while they waited for Elena and Damon to come back out. They straightened up when they saw a dark figure step out of the house and approach the vehicle. The Gilbert pulled the girl toward him and away from the door closest to the figure as they watched the person step into the light. The Lockwood audibly groaned when she saw who it was. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"

"Relax," the thick British accent assured her as Kol's beautiful face came into view. He shrugged like it was no big deal as he said, "I just came to kill Mary."

"What?" she exclaimed angrily. That was their only clue to figuring out who sired Damon's bloodline, and he had just ruined it.

He grinned playfully as if he was proud of himself for doing what he did. "Yeah, have fun figuring out their sire line now."

"You know," she accused, wondering if he knew who sired Mary.

"Of course, I don't, darling, but I couldn't risk it not being Klaus. We all know that they would throw you and your brother under the bus to get rid of him. I can't have that. So much beauty would be going to waste," he explained, reaching forward to caress her face as she flinched out of the way. "Anyway, I'll see you." He looked at Jeremy with a smirk. "Cheers, mate."