┏━━━ 🜲 ━━━┓
𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗦 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘 ౿ 🪦
╱━ ❛ THE TURNING POINT ◞⁺⊹
𖤐 ﾉ 𝖲𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖮𝖭 𝖮𝖭𝖤 ╱ 𝖤𝖯𝖨𝖲𝖮𝖣𝖤 𝖳𝖤𝖭
˖ ࣪. ࿐♡ ━━━━━━━━ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗘

     𝐓he shrill sound of a phone ringing constantly wakes Charlotte up from her much needed sleep, the blackout curtains in her bedroom doing an amazing job and keeping the sun out of the room.

A groan leaves her lips as she rolls over in the large king sized bed, blindly reaching for the phone as she keeps her eyes closed. before she can grab the phone to answer it, the phone hangs up but it only takes seconds for it to begin ringing again.

"What!? What, I'm trying to freaking sleep!"

"Charlotte Grace! Where the hell are you?!"

"Ugh, do you know what time it is?" Charlotte whined, falling back into the mass of pillows she kept stacked on the bed.

"Charlie....just tell me that you're somewhere safe and not burning in the sun somewhere." Stefan sighed from the other end where he stands in the Boarding house, fingers come up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"I'm not burning in the sun somewhere. I....I came home."

Stefan stands in place, "Okay, just....your mom wanted me to look after you if anything happened to her, and I know that you don't want to be in the same house as Damon right now━,"

"━or ever."

"Yeah....just take the time you need there with Lee, and come back whenever you are ready."

Charlotte smiles softly as she looks around her bedroom, "Okay."

࿐♡

      ❝𝐒o any idea of where you'll go?❞ Stefan steps into the living room after getting off of the phone with Charlotte, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he looks over at him brother.

Damon stares out of the window, "I don't know. London maybe. See some friends."

"You don't have any friends, Damon."

"You're right, Stefan. I only have you, so...where are we goin'?"

"We are not going anywhere." Stefan turns around to face him, "I'm gonna live my life as far away from you as possible. Maybe I'll let Lottie pick where we go."

"But we're a team! We could travel the world together, right along with the brat." Damon smirked, catching the frown on his brother's face as he mentioned traveling with him and the baby vampire, "We could try out for "The Amazing Race."

"Hmm, that's funny." Stefan nods, "Seriously, where are you going? 'Cause we're not staying in this town."

The doorbell rings throughout the house, stopping the conversation between the two brothers before Stefan moves to open the door.

Sheriff Forbes, or Liz Forbes, Caroline's mother stands in the doorway, dressed in her police uniform, "I'm here to see Damon."

"Uh, sure. Okay."

"Sheriff." Damon walks up behind his younger brother, "What a surprise."

"Sorry to bother you, but we need to talk."

"Come in."

࿐♡

     ❝....i'm thinking that she must have turned someone.❞

Stefan listens in to the conversations going on outside with his brother and the Sheriff, his head raising as he's eyebrows pinched together, causing wrinkles to grow on his forehead.

"Or multiple someones. I don't know. The story for the town is another animal attack but I'm not sure how long we can keep lying to them. The council's in an uproar. We thought we were past this."

"So, uh, what do we do?"

"You're the only one who's ever taken on a vampire. We were hoping you could tell us."

࿐♡

     ❝ 𝐀re you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do?❞ Lee sits on the corner of Charlotte's bed as she packed up most of the clothes in her closet and the stuff from her bathroom into suitcases.

"Not really, no." The brunette sighed as she zipped up the last suitcase and turned to one of the constant father figures in her life, "But Mom wanted Stefan to look after me if something happened to her."

"Char, I can take care of you. You are the last thing that I have of your mother and I don't know how I'll survive without knowing if you're okay or not." Lee's voice cracks as he takes in the image of the only daughter he had ever known.

Charlotte says nothing as she moves closer to him and wraps her arms around his neck to hug him, "We can always call and visit each other. This doesn't have to be a goodbye."

"I know." Lee blinks back the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, "You can always come back home, whenever you want."

"I love you, dad."

A tear finally manages to escape Lee's eye, "I love you, kiddo."

࿐♡

     ❝𝐂harlie?❞

The brunette turns around, smiling warmly at Jeremy as he walks closer to her, "Jeremy, hey."

"I thought ━ I thought you were leaving with your sister." He comes to a stop next to her, looking down to notice that she was flipping through the art at the table where he had been talking to Tyler Lockwood just hours earlier.

"Yeah, well plans change." She shrugged, "She had some stuff to do back home and left me in the care of Stefan while she was gone."

"So, you're here for a while?"

Charlotte shrugged, "I'm here until I'm ready to run for the hills and leave. Why? Miss me already?"

Jeremy laughed, "Something like that. Kind of gets boring after a while when I don't have anyone around her with many interests in common. You like art?"

"Love it. Art is an escape from the world, a free way to express yourself other than through your clothing. The people around here have a very interesting, uh, taste in the way they dress."

"You saw Patty Marlowe, didn't you? Yeah, she has a thing for always trying things from different decades. We have dances for that, but she dresses up from Halloween on the daily."

"Huh."

"Charlotte." A hand touches her elbow, drawing her attention away from the Gilbert boy and onto Stefan who had been walking down the hallway when he spotted her. "Jeremy."

"Hey, Stefan. I thought Elena said you were leaving?"

"Uh, a little change in plans. Can I borrow Charlotte for just a moment? I'll send her back before this is all over."

"Uh, yeah. She's all yours." Jeremy tells him with a nod, turning to Charlotte, "I'll just text you if I don't see you later? We can make a plan to hangout."

"Yeah, sounds good."

"Okay."

"What's wrong with you? You looked like you've seen a ghost."

"Something like that." Stefan tells her, "I'll explain everything while we're walking out to call Damon."

࿐♡

     ❝Logan Fell's a vampire and when I find him again I am gonna destroy him limb by limb.❞ Damon is on the other line of Stefan's phone that the vampire has pressed against his ear, Charlotte using her hearing to be able to listen in.

"What happened? You okay?"

Charlotte rolls her eyes as she turns around to see Elena standing right next to the side door of the building, the brunette sends the Gilbert girl a little finger wave with a sarcastic smile on her face, being able to feel the jealous vibes from the girl whenever she saw Stefan hanging around the teenage vampire.

"No. I'm not okay. I was ambushed. I was shot ━,"

"━too bad it didn't hit any major artery's, like your heart."

"Lottie." Stefan sends her a warning look.

"Great, the brat is back." Damon rolls his eyes, "Now I'm vengeful. Just got to find him."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that." Charlotte crosses her arms over her chest, "According to Uncle Stefan, he's here at the school."

"You're kidding me. Stefan, she's kidding me."

"Nope. Saw him with my own two eyes."

"Why the hell is here there?"

"He's workin' the crowd."

"Well, I'll be right there."

"So, anything you two would like to share?" Elena now stands in front of the two vampires.

"Ooh, looks like your in trouble, grandpa." Charlotte jokes with the older vampire, giggling as Stefan playfully pushes her head.

࿐♡

     ❝𝐇ey.❞

"Hey." Elena greeted the blue eyes boy back as she and the two vampires moved down the hallway, "Have you seen Logan Fell, the news guy?"

Blue eyes stops for just a moment to address the question, "Yeah. He just gave Caroline a ride home."

"Stay here." Stefan tells Elena, pulling Charlotte along with him.

࿐♡

     ❝𝐂aroline?❞ Elena rushes towards Stefan as he stands at the end of the hallway.

"She's okay. Me and Lottie took her home." Stefan says as they begin walking down the hallway, "She was shaken up. But all she knows is Logan attacked her. Nothing else."

"Where's Logan?"

"Damon's....dealing with it."

"As in....?" Elena trailed off as Stefan nodded his head in confirmation.

"You saw what happened tonight, right?" Stefan asked as Elena puts a hand on his arm, but he pulls back, crossing her arms over her chest, "I mean, you understand why we can't be together? You see it?"

"Yeah, I'm starting to see a lot of things, Stefan. Like how close you and that Charlotte girl are." Elena says, Stefan looking down at her in confusion, "So if you want to leave and be with her━,"

"What? No, no. Elena, it isn't like that with Charlotte." Stefan denied, knowing that he would never catch feelings for the vampire that he practically helped raise. "I've known Charlotte since she was a little girl. I only see her as a niece, and she sees me as an Uncle. That's all she's ever known me as. Nothing has, or ever will, happen between Lottie and I."

Elena opens her mouth to say something, but the right words just wouldn't leave her, so instead, she decided to just offer him a ride home, "Come on. I'll, uh...I'll give you a ride."

"Uh, I can get home."

"I know."

"Alright. That'd be nice."

࿐♡

     𝐂harlotte sits at a table in the Grill, a plate of fries resting in front of her with a glass of Dr. Pepper next to it. Thoughts of her mom swarmed her head as she watched a mother and her three year old daughter in front of her, both with happy smiles on their faces.

"Can I sit?"

The brunette looks up and smiles as Jeremy stands in front of her, his hands tucked away in the pockets of his jeans, "Yeah, go ahead."

"So, why are you here and not at home?" Jeremy asked as he sits down, taking a fry from the plate and eating it.

"Because he's currently back at the house with your sister, and I really don't want to be there for whatever the decided to get up to." Charlotte tells him, scrunching her face up at the thought.

A laugh escapes Jeremy's lips as he leans back, "Yeah, I wouldn't want that either. So, besides art, what else does the great Charlotte Branson like?"

"There's a long list."

"Well....I think we have the time."