Charlie walked down the hallway, heading toward her locker, and she was lost in her thoughts. She had so much to think about. Who knew that being a teenage werewolf in Mystic Falls would be so stressful. 

Once she had told Jeremy about her and JJ, Charlie had felt a weight lifted off her shoulders. The number of secrets she had piling up almost knocked her over, not to mention stressing her out more than she could handle. With the vampires, the werewolves, the lesbians, and everything with Vicki and Logan, she had no time to think about anything else.

Charlie froze, all thoughts leaving her head when she saw Caroline and Matt laughing together. After the weird confrontation the day before, she was wondering what was going on with the two. Things seemed less awkward now.

Caroline giggled again as the two stepped into their classroom. She turned back around to continue walking, and she caught her brother's eye. He also seemed to have been staring in awe at the couple. He looked at her as if asking what was happening, and she simply shrugged. He turned back to his friend.

"Hey." Charlie jumped as a voice spoke next to her. She spun around, and her eyes met the blue ones of JJ Martin's. Suddenly, all of her problems slipped away for a second.

She smiled, "'Hey' to you too."

"So, I heard about this career thing tonight at the school, and I was wondering if you were coming," JJ explained, gesturing to the school when she spoke about the location?

Charlie giggled mischievously as she stepped closer to the girl. "Depends. Do you want me to come?" She had no idea what was causing this confidence, and especially in public. Maybe JJ just brought something out of her.

JJ had noticed this, and she raised her eyebrows. She then began copying the movement, and Charlie stepped back. They kept doing this until the Lockwood's back hit a locker and she couldn't go any further.

"Well, I was just thinking," the blonde mused, "If you were going, I could come pick you up. You know, to save gas." The brunette nodded in amusement, and the Martin girl stepped toward her as well. "And then, afterwards, I thought maybe we could go to my place because my parents are out of town on business."

"Oh, really? And what would we do at your place," Charlie teased, but she could feel her face heating up as JJ inched closer and closer to her.

The older girl smirked. "I guess you will just have to wait and find out."

☾⌑❄⌑☽

Charlie and Caroline at lunch at different times, but for about ten minutes, those times overlapped. They would sit together until Charlie left and then Care would go sit with Bonnie and Elena or find someone else to occupy her time with, and Char had a pretty good idea who that 'someone else' would be.

"So, you and Matt?" the brunette quizzed, smiling smugly as she popped a chip into her mouth. After Matt and Caroline's class ended, Matt walked her to her next class before heading off to his own. That's not something that friends do, at least not in Charlie's book. Or Caroline's book, if she remembered correctly.

Caroline looked down at her food, and her cheeks were turning pink, which made the smirk on Charlie's face grow even more. "I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about."

"You two were totally making goo-goo eyes at each other this morning. Everyone saw it—me, Elena, Bonnie, even Tyler for God's sake," the younger girl told the blonde.

She scoffed, "Well, we are just friends." She then proceeded to stab her salad with her fork so hard that it poked a hole through the plastic at the bottom of the bowl. She didn't seem to notice. She just kept on stabbing and jabbing.

Charlie furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and slight concern. "It certainly does not look like that to me." She glanced at the small pool of dressing that had formed under Caroline's container. "What'd that bowl ever do to you?"

"We just watched a movie, okay? Then, I fell asleep, and he thinks that friends do that. Boys are so stupid and clueless and...stupid," the blonde ranted. 

She then picked her salad up and threw it hard against the table before picking it back up again and standing up as she did so. She stormed off angrily and shoved it into the trash can and disappearing behind the double doors.

Charlie sighed and stared at the exit of the cafeteria before turning back to her food. She wasn't alone for long, however, because not two minutes later, she was joined by someone else. Jeremy Gilbert sat down next to her, journal in hand.

"What's up?" he greeted, turning to her.

She smiled back at him before shifting her gaze to the book in his hand. "Did you find anything? Was Jonathan Gilbert the coolest shoemaker in town?" she questioned, having absolutely no idea what she was saying.

Jeremy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he looked at her. "Jonathan Gilbert wasn't a shoemaker."

"Well, you learn something new everyday," she said, and Jeremy continued to look at her like she was crazy. The truth was, she was so exhausted from everything that was going on that she didn't know what was coming out of her mouth, and she didn't really care.

He gazed at her with concern in his eyes. "Are you okay?" She sighed, nodding as he shook it off and continued, "Anyway, he wrote all of these cool, creepy stories about monsters in the night."

"Monsters?" Charlie questioned, sitting up straighter. That caught her interest. If she was remembering correctly, Stefan and Damon would've lived around the time of Jonathan Gilbert, and now, the founder was speaking of monsters in the night.

Jeremy nodded, "Yeah, like vampires and werewolves and all sorts of stuff. The dude was crazy, or alcoholic. Jenna thinks maybe a little of both. Either way, he had a wild imagination."

"That's so cool," Charlie told him, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking about the fact that maybe Jonathan wasn't an alcoholic or crazy. In fact, she was almost sure of it. If that book fell into the wrong hands...

She was snapped out of her trance by Jeremy speaking again. "Are you going to the career night tonight?" he asked, tilting his head in question.

"Uh, yeah," the girl answered, nodding her head and her mind focusing back on the boy next to her, "I'm going with JJ."

Jeremy grinned, "Great. Maybe I'll see you two there." He stood up and pushed his chair in. "Mr. Saltzman wanted an update on the essay, so I have to go. Bye." 

Charlie could only bring herself to nod in acknowledgment as her thoughts wandered off again. She didn't even see hear him leave because she was so lost. Had all the founding families known about the supernatural back in 1864? Had they passed it down, generation to generation so that the family members now knew? Did my own mother know about vampires? Did Tyler know? Because leave it to them to be sexist asshole and think that only he could handle it. If only they knew...

☾⌑❄⌑☽

JJ and Charlie combed through the many brochures on the colored table that were set up in the halls. So far, JJ had picked up Beginner's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, Acting for Starters, and What to Do if Life Isn't Going As You Planned. The younger girl had grabbed How to Be a Police Officer, Change the Game: A Guide to Working in Vegas, and Ways to Deal With a Lazy Husband. She picked out that last one mostly because she was curious about what it said. 

Turns out, when you have a lazy husband, you pull a Fried Green Tomatoes and stand in the doorway with nothing but cellophane wrapped around you. The fact that the school put these out both shocked Charlie and amused her.

She laughed at a joke JJ said before turning around and freezing in her place. She could not believe what she was seeing. She even rubbed her eyes like they do in cartoons to make sure she wasn't seeing things, and she wasn't.

Logan Fell was standing in the middle of the room, looking very much alive and well.

She swore the world was trying to kill her by shocking her so much her heart is unable to handle it. JJ noticed the frozen girl beside her, and she nudged her with her shoulder and tried to follow her gaze. "You good?" she asked, and Charlie snapped out of her shock and turned to her.

"Yep," she replied, glancing between the blonde, Jenna's ex-boyfriend, and Stefan, who was brooding in a corner. He also seemed to be gazing in anger and shock at the Fell man. "I just need to check on something."

She didn't even wait for an answer. She just started making her way to the vampire on the other side of the room.

"Would you care to explain what the hell Logan freaking Fell is doing here? And how is he even alive?" Charlie questioned in a whisper, cleary irritated and confused. No one ever told her anything. She always had to find out from Caroline letting it slip or, like now, finding out on her own. She shifted her gaze to Logan who was acting like nothing was wrong or unusual. He was lingering around the news career stand, obviously.

Rubbing his eyes with his hand like he was tired, which he probably was, Stefan sighed, "He was turned."

"He was what?" Her whispering had turned into a surprised yell, which ended with many people around them turning to see what the source of the sudden loud noise was. The brunette girl lowered her voice again. "You have got to be joking."

"He must have had vampire blood in his veins when he was killed," the vampire explained, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening to them.

Charlie nodded, still shocked and not totally sure what was happening at the moment, before asking, "And what are we going to do about it?"

"Nothing," Stefan shrugged.

"What do you mean, 'nothing?'" Charlie stared at him in disbelief. They couldn't just sit around and do nothing. "We have to do something. We can't have him running around town crying 'vampire.'"

Stefan shook his head in disagreement. "He won't do that. He knows that if he does, he'll be ensuring his own death as well. There's no way he can tell them without explaining how he knows. Even if he does, it'll still make him look suspicious."

"For my sake and yours, you better be right," Charlie warned, watching Caroline talk to the Fell man at the stand, ready to move in if she needed to. "If not, we have a huge problem on out hands." She turned to the Salvatore. "And keep him away from my friends."

Her attention was stolen suddenly by her brother and Jeremy walking side-by-side. That was an unusual sight. They paused and stared at each other, and Tyler seemed angry. That was not an unusual sight. She also wasn't completely surprised with what happened next.

She gasped as Jeremy's eyes filled with rage, and he shoved the older boy against the lockers, hard. He started hitting him, and Charlie's father spotted them quickly.

"Woah. Woah. Hey, hey, hey," he yelled, rushing toward them. Alaric followed after him, and the two each grabbed a boy and pulled them apart. Mr. Saltzman grabbed Jeremy and Mr. Lockwood took hold of his son.

Alaric looked Jeremy up and down. He told him. "All right, work it out, tough guy."

"You two," the mayor said, staring at the Gilbert as he gripped Tyler tightly. "Follow me," he ordered. He pushed the boy in his hands toward the door, and Jeremy followed after him.

"Excuse me, mayor," Alaric called after him, and Mr. Lockwood turned back to him. "Where are you takin' 'em?"

The other man replied, "I'm gonna talk to them. All fights should end in handshakes, don't you think? Come on." He turned around and began walking again. Both Ric and Charlie watched them go hesitantly. The girl knew her father, and he wasn't the handshake sort of guy.

She didn't even hear JJ approach her side and Stefan leave it. The blonde glanced up at her, and Charlie finally took her eyes off of the door. "Ready to go?" the older girl asked, and Charlie simply nodded her head in response.

All she wanted was a nice, calm evening with her girlfriend, and now, she had news reporters coming back to life and siblings fighting with her friends. And, as she stepped out, she froze when she saw the only other thing that could make this night even worse.

The full moon.

☾⌑❄⌑☽

How could she have forgotten about the full freaking moon? She had been counting down days. She had been getting the cellar ready. She had been so distracted lately that it completely slipped her mind. 

She stared in shock up at the bright floating orb in the sky, fear and adrenaline flooding her veins. As soon as she stepped out into the moonlight, she felt a strong, burning ache in her arm.

She was turning.

She yelped and fell to her knees as a blinding pain shot through her entire leg. Yep, she was definitely turning. You didn't get this kind of pain from a cramp. You got it from your bones breaking and reassembling. 

"Char!" JJ's eyes widened, and she quickly grabbed the other girl's arm and knelt in front of her. Her gaze held concern which turned to paralyzing fear as soon as Charlie tilted her head back up. 

Her eyes glowed a bright golden, and the blonde in front of her stumbled back on her hands in an attempt to get away from the girl. She backed herself into one of the walls of the school and pressed herself up against it as if thinking that if she could get flat enough, she could become invisible. 

Charlie was breathing heavily as her limbs began to break. "Run," she screamed, but it came out as a growl. She didn't wait to see if JJ had moved. She just pushed herself to stand up, groaning from the pain, and sprinted into the woods as fast as she could. She couldn't see or hear anything. She was just focused on getting to the cellar.

She screamed again as she felt her shoulder snap. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she let out a triumphed yell when she saw the cellar. She rushed to it and threw the door open. She practically fell down the stairs before stumbling into one of the cells. She was about to lock herself up with a cuff when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned to see who it was.

JJ Martin was running down the stairs.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Charlie roared, staring in disbelief at the girl that was moving toward her. Who in their right mind would run after a werewolf? "Run. Please, JJ, just run."

"I'm not leaving you," the blonde told her firmly, and when the Lockwood went to retort or argue, anything to stop her from staying, she cut her off. "I don't care how much you argue. I'm not leaving. So, you might as well tell me what's happening and what I can do to help."

Despite the tremendous pain that she was feeling, Charlie felt so truly happy in that moment. JJ had not rejected her. Not only had she accepted her, but she was helping. Snap out of it, Char. Now is not the time to swoon. She told her, "Grab those cuffs and put them around my wrists and ankles. Then, close the door and keep the key out of reach."

With JJ's help, the process went a whole lot faster than it would have if Charlie did it alone, even with the Martin girl flinching and screaming every time a bone cracked or the brunette twitched.

Finally, everything was ready. Just one last thing. "JJ, I need you to promise me something," Charlie informed her once she was out of the cell and into the open space of the cellar.

"Anything," the girl replied, gazing at her through the thick metal bars.

"Whatever happens, no matter how much pain I am in, no matter how much I beg you to, I need you to swear that you will not open that door." JJ nodded. "And if somehow, I get out. I need you to run. Run toward the town, get help. I don't care, just run."

"I promise," the older girl responded before backing up to the opposite wall.

And as the light of the full moon shone through a hole in the concrete at the top, Charlie screamed once more.