❪ 𝓢𝑰𝑿 𝓕𝑬𝑬𝑻 𝓤𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑹 ❫ ⚰️ ˖ ׁ ⁩ 𓂃
𝚃𝚅𝙳  ⸻  ✸ 🔮⭑.ᐟ
❝ 𝖶𝖤 𝖧𝖠𝖠𝖵𝖤 𝖤𝖳𝖤𝖱𝖭𝖨𝖳𝖸 ❞

✦ ╮ 𝟎𝟕. ❝ 𝖧𝖠𝖴𝖭𝖳𝖤𝖣 ❞ ── .✦

ELENA STARED WIDE EYED AT THE figure sitting on the bathroom counter as her little brother rinsed his mouth out after having just brushed his teeth.

"Sorry."

"Oh, no, it's cool. We're done." Jeremy tells his older sister, helping Anastasia jump off the bathroom counter.

Elena gave a look to the vampire girl sitting on on the white counter top, then back to her brother, "You're up early. Where are you going?"

"Stacie's gonna drop me off at the police station." Jeremy answered, "They're organizing the search party for Vicki, so..."

"Wait." Elena stopped her brother, "Shouldn't you be going to school?"

"What? You're kidding me, right?" He asked in disbelief, sharing a looking with Anastasia, who shrugged her shoulders at the human boy.

"You shouldn't skip school." Elena tells him, "If they find her, we'll know. That's what cellphones are for."

"Yeah, your lips keep movin'. I don't know why." Jeremy says, walking into his bedroom.

Elena grabbed Anastasia by the arm as she went to walk out of the bathroom, "I thought I told you to stay away from Jeremy?"

"I'm 133 years old, Elena." Anastasia crossed her arms over her chest, "And I don't even listen to my father when he tells me to do something. When I start to listen to what he says, which will be a cold day in hell, them maybe - just maybe - I'll listen to you. But until then, I'll be in Jeremy's life until the day he tells me that he doesn't want me to be."

"Stacie!" Jeremy called out for her.

Anastasia stared into Elena's eyes, she called back, "I'm coming, Jer!"

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"I DON'T understand why I have to stay cooped up here. Why can't I just go home?" Vicki's voice sounded as Anastasia walked into the Salvatore Boarding house after having dropped Jeremy off at the police station.

"Because you're changing, Vicki." The green eyed Salvatore girl leaned against the doorway, causing the attention to turn towards her, "And it's not something you wanna do alone."

"There's nothin' about that Logan guy I killed in here." Damon flipped through the newspaper as Anastasia sat next to Vicki, the two girls leaning on each other, "Not a word. Someone's covering it up."

"What is that?" Vicki asked as she saw him holding the pocket watch that belonged to Jeremy.

"This is a very special, very old compass." Damon said, "What was Logan Fell doing with it? Aren't you curious?"

"Well, if you're so worried that somebody's onto you, why don't you just leave town, Damon?" Stefan asked, his niece soon pointing at him as if she were agreeing to what he had said.

"We should all be worried."

"Hey, um, I'm hungry. Do you have anything to eat?" Vicki suddenly asked as she began to feel the hunger of wanting more blood.

Stefan stood up and grabbed a cup off the table, "Here."

"What is it?" Vicki asked, looking at the red liquid inside the cup.

"It's what you're craving." Anastasia mumbled, picking at the black nail polish on her fingers.

"He. Don't lie to the girl." Damon looked at his daughter then to Vicki, "It's so not what you're craving, but it'll do in a pinch, right, Stef?"

"What is it?" Vicki asked again, looking over at Anastasia and tilted the cup towards her, watching as the older vampre scrunched her face up at the smell of animal blood.

She only drank blood that she would steal from the hospital, but when she was desperate and couldn't get any blood bags, she had no choice but to go the Stefan way and feed on the cute little animals.

"Yeah, what is it? Is it a skunk? Saint Bernard? Bambi?"

Stefan ignored his brother, "Go on. Give it a try."

"She's new. She needs people blood. She can't sustain on that stuff."

"Yeah, why can't I have people blood?" Asked Vicki.

"Yeah."

"Because it's wrong to pray on innocent people, Vicki." Stefan tells her.

"You don't really have to kill to feed. Just find someone really tasty and the erase their memory afterwards." Damon tells her, "It's so easy."

"No, no, no. There's no guarantee that you can control yourself, okay? It takes years to learn that. You could easily kill somebody, and then you have to carry that with you for the rest of your life, which, if I haven't made clear, is eternity."

"Don't listen to him. He walks on a moral plane way out of our eyes line. I say snatch, eat, erase." Damon says.

"Hey, look at me." Stefan told Vicki. "We choose our own path. Our values and our actions, they define who we are."

"Okay, count deepak." Damon stood up, "I am out of here."

"Thank God." Anastasia mumbled before she flashed away and came back, dressed in a totally different outfit, and a blood bag in hand, "Where'd Uncle Stefan go?"

"I think Elena's here." Vicki tells her, standing up from the couch.

"I'm gonna keep her here with me until I know that she's safe." The two girls heard Stefan say before they walked down the stairs and stopped when they saw Elena and Stefan.

"How long is that?" Questioned Vicki.

"We can talk about that later." Stefan looks up at her, giving his niece a look as she takes a sip of the blood bag as she eyed Elena.

"Hey, Vicki. How are you?" Elena asked her.

"How am I? You're kidding, right?"

"That was a stupid question." Anastasia mumbled, her uncle shooting her a look as he had heard it, "Oh! Would you like to see my bedroom?" She held her arm out of Vicki.

Vicki grinned, linking her elbow with Anastasia's, "It would be my pleasure!"

"Anastasia's all buddy buddy with her now?" Elena asked Stefan once the two girls were gone.

"Anastasia is only trying to make Vicki feel more comfortable while she's being kept here." Stefan tells his ex-girlfriend, "It's just who she is."

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"COFFEE IS our friend." Stefan tells Vicki as the two sit at the table, "It circulates through our veins, and it warms our body so we're not cold to the touch."

"Well, what if I wanna drink human blood?" Vicki asked him.

"You're gonna have to learn to live with that urge and fight it on a daily basis one day at a time."

"Oh god! Don't start with that whole twelve step thing." Vicki tells him, "School counselor had been down that road, and it doesn't work for me."

"It can work. It's your choice, Vicki." Stefan tells her.

"So, you've never tasted human blood?" Vicki asked.

Stefan paused, looking up at his niece for a few seconds, "Not in a long time."

"How long?" Vicki asked.

"Years and years." Stefan answered, "I'm not proud of my past behavior."

"Does this sketchy feeling ever go away?" Vicki asked, "It's like I have a massive hangover. This daylight thing is a bitch. I need more blood. Where's your bathroom? I have to pee. Why do I have to pee? I thought I was dead."

"I'm going to, uh..I'm going to get her some more." Stefan tells Elena as he stands up from the chair he was sitting in, "Alright, I'll be quick."

"False alarm." Vicki came back into the room, "My body's feeling really funky. It's a good funk, but it's weird."

"Who are you calling?" Elena asked as Vicki pressed a few buttons on her phone.

"Jeremy." Vicki answered.

"Vicki, you can't see Jeremy anymore." Elena tells the newly turned vampire.

"Here she goes again." Anastasia sighed, leaning back in her chair.

"Oh, come on, don't you start. I'm gonna see whoever I wanna see." Vicki tells her, turning to Anastasia, "You'd still let me see him, wouldn't you?"

Anastasia shrugged, "We're not together. I told him until I was ready for a relationship then I'd let him know, and until the two of you can keep up whatever it is that you were doing before I came to town. Besides, Elena pulled the whole "stay away from my brother" thing days ago to me. And where was I last night? Oh! That's right! Jeremy's bed."

Elena looked towards Anastasia, "You act just like Damon."

Vicki lets out a gasp as Anastasia suddenly has Elena pinned against the table on her back, fang out on full display.

"Let's get one thing straight, and let's get it straight right now." Anastasia hissed, ignoring the sounds of Elena desperately trying to get air into her lungs so that she could breathe properly. "Damon's name may be on my birth certificate under "father" and I might have the same facial features as him, but that doesn't mean I'm anything like him. I never have been and I never will be."

"Anastasia Eloise!" Stefan rushed into the room, puling his niece off of the human who rolled off the table as she tried to catch her breath, "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Anastasia scoffs, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with her? I am nothing like my father!"

Stefan glared down at his niece, "Well, right now, you're acting just like him, Anastasia!"

"Burn in hell." She spat, spinning around on the heels of her feet and storming out of the room with Vicki following behind her.

Stefan closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a long sigh, "Dammit!"

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"YOU GOTTA call me, Vic." Jeremy spoke into the phone as he pulled a pitcher out of the fridge, closing the door soon after, "I don't get it. What's going on with you?? Just...just call me, please."

"Hey." Elena walked into the kitchen, going straight to the fridge, "So, um, do you want to hang out tonight? We could go to the, uh, Halloween thing at school. Could be fun."

"Cool. Sure. Sounds, uh, sounds fun. Can't wait." Jeremy tells her before starting to go back to his room.

"I know you're upset about Vicki. I heard she called Matt." Elena tells him, "But you can't be with her. She needs to get better. The best thing you can do for her is let her go."

"What does that even mean? "Let her go"?" Jeremy asked, "Oh, okay, sure. Since we're such experts on letting people go, right?"

"I know you may not see it, but trust me, Jer. It's for the best." Elena said.

"Look, for months after mom and dad died, I felt like crap, like "nothing even mattered" crap. Now, all of a sudden, I get these moments and things start to feel just a little bit better, and Vicki was in every single one of 'em. So, you may not see it, but trust me, keeping me away from her is not for the best." Jeremy tells his sister. "And you telling Anastasia to stay away from me? I care about her, maybe even more than I care about Vicki, so just leave me alone. And the people in my life alone."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"HEY." JEREMY pulled Anastasia off to the side as he found her at the Halloween party, "I need you to do me a favor."

"Depends on what the favor is, hood boy." She smiled, fangs showing since she decided to go as a vampire.

"Wow." Jeremy brings his hand up to her f ace, touching the veins underneath her eyes softly, "That looks so real."

Anastasia shrugged, "I took a special effects class before Uncle Stefan and I moved here. What's the favor?"

"Will you keep Elena distracted for me? I'm meeting Vicki here." Jeremy said, looking around to see if he could spot her.

"Yeah, of course." She nodded her head.

"Thank you." He kissed her forehead, "You are a lifesaver, Miss Salvatore?"

"Don't have too much fun, Mr. Gilbert."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"THANK GOD." Elena let out a relieved sigh as she found Vicki with Stefan and Anastasia, and not with her brother.

"What's the matter?" Stefan asked her.

"I lost track of Jeremy. I was worried." Elena tells him.

"What's goin' on?" Matt asked as he walked towards them.

"Hey, uh, everything is fine." Stefan tried to tell him.

"I told him to quit bothering me." Vicki whined to her brother, looking over at Anastasia for help.

"No, Vicki, don't do this." Elena tells her.

"Matt, he won't leave me alone." Vicki tells her brother.

Matt looks at Stefan, "You need to back off, man."

"Matt, it's....it's okay." Elena tried to tell him, but he wasn't listening to her.

"No, it's not okay." Matt says, turning to Stefan. "What the hell is your problem?"

"Stefan, she's gone." Elena says, dropping her fake hand on the floor and running off.

"I'm trying to help her." Stefan tells Matt after pinning him to the wall.

"Matt." Anastasia's voice made him look at her, "I'll make sure she's okay."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"I WAS so worried about you." Jeremy tells Vicki as they kiss against the buses in the back of the school.

"I'm fine now, but...I gotta leave." Vicki tells him.

"Wh - What? Where?" Jeremy asked.

"I gotta get out of here, Jer. I just - I can't live at home with Matt." Vicki said, "He just doesn't get it."

"No, you can't. You can't just leave." He says.

"Come with me." Vicki tells him, "If you come with me, we can be together forever."

Vicki kissed him once more, using her new found fangs to bite down on his lip, sucking his blood.

"Okay. Yeah. Ow. You're taking that costume a little too far." Jeremy says, pain filling his body, "What is it? Vicki! Vicki, what the hell?! Oh, my god! No! Stop! No! Ah!"

"Vicki, no!" Elena yelled as she ran out the back entrance, grabbing a wooden plank and hitting the Donovan girl with it.

Vicki grabs Elena and throws her into a pile of garbage nearby while Stefan grabs Vicki and holds her up against the bus while Anastasia rushes to Jeremy's side.

"Are you okay?" Anastasia asked him.

Jeremy nodded, gaze on Vicki, "Vicki!"

"Anastasia!" Stefan yells as Vicki disappears, "Take them and get inside, now! Go!"

"Come on." Anastasia pulled both Gilbert siblings towards the ground, and Elena is yanked away from her hold, Vicki sinks her teeth into her neck.

Anastasia crawled over to Jeremy as Stefan grabs a piece of wood from the ground and plunges it into Vicki's chest and straight through her heart.

"Vicki! Vicki! Vicki!" Jeremy screams for her as her body and face started to turn gray.

"Shh, shh. It's okay, it's okay." Anastasia whispered in his ear, pulling him against her chest.

"Get him out of here." Elena looks at the Salvatore girl.

"Eloise, take him home." Stefan tells his niece, who nodded and stands herself and Jeremy up from the ground, heading towards the door of the school.

"Come on, I got you." Anastasia mumbled, "I got you, Jeremy."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"WHERE IS he?" Elena asked as she walked up the porch of her home.

"Inside with Anastasia." Stefan tells her.

Elena went into her house and up the stairs, into her younger brother's bedroom, finding him and Anastasia laid on his bed.

"Do you understand what happened tonight?" Elena asked her brother.

"No. I don't understand." Jeremy clung tighter onto Anastasia, "I mean, I know what I saw, but...I don't understand."

"She was going to kill me." Elena tells him.

"Now, she's dead. Vicki's dead." Jeremy says.

"I'm so sorry, Jer."

"Make it stop. It hurts." Jeremy cried.

"Shh, shh, shh. It's okay, it's okay." Elena pulled her brother into a hug.

"Why does everybody have to die on me?" Jeremy asked.

Anastasia looked up at the ceiling, hoping to stop the tears from falling from her eyes.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"ANASTASIA!" STEFAN'S voice carried up the stairs as it was now just her and Jeremy in his room.

Anastasia started to get off the bed but Jeremy clung tighter onto the flannel she had been wearing under her leather jacket.

"Please don't leave me."He voice was horse as he spoke.

"I'll be back, I promise." She whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead before grabbing her jacket and going down the stairs.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"ARE YOU okay?" Elena asked Stefan as Anastasia closed the front door behind her.

"I, uh, I wanted to help her. But instead, uh, how's he doin'?" Stefan asked.

"He's a mess. I don't want him going through this again." Elena says, "He's just a kid."

"Elena, what can I do? I - what can I do to help? I'll do anything."

"Can you make him forget?" Elena asked, causing Anastasia to stiffen up and shoot her uncle a glare.

"Elena..."

"Stefan, please. I don't know how he'll ever get past this. I just want him to forget everything that happened." Elena tells him.

"If I did it, there's no guarantee that it would work...because of who I am." Stefan said, "Because of how I love. I don't have the ability to do it right."

Elena turned to Anastasia, "Can you do it?"

"No." Anastasia scoffed, "No. I'm not wiping his memory just so you'll feel better about all of this."

"I can do it." Damon's voice sounded as he walked up the porch, "If this is what you want...I'll do it."

"No!" Anastasia protested.

"It's what I want." Elena ignored the Salvatore girl.

"What do you want him to know?" Damon asked.

"I want you to tell him that Vicki left town and she's not coming back. That he shouldn't look for her or worry about her." Elena tells Damon, "He's gonna miss her, but he knows it's for the best."

Anastasia blocked the door as Damon goes to walk inside, "Dad, you can't do this. It should be Jeremy's choice."

"Move, Anastasia." Damon tells her.

"No! Okay, if you do this, if you take away his memory, I will hate you for the rest of my life." Anastasia held eye contact with her father, "And remember, we have eternity."

Damon stared down at his daughter for a few minutes before leaning down to kiss her forehead, whispering an "I love you" to her before moving her out of the way, and going inside.

"Ana-,"

"Shut up." She spits, cutting Elena off, "Just just up! You have no right to wipe away Jeremy's memory, and act like none of this happened tonight. Whenever he finds out the truth, if he finds out the truth, he's going to hate you and I wouldn't blame him."

She pushed her way into the front door, hitting her father on the shoulder as she went back up the stairs and into Jeremy's bedroom, closing the door behind her.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"ANASTASIA." STEFAN says as she finally walked into the boarding house after waiting until she knew Jeremy was asleep so that she could leave.

"What?" She came to a stop as she made it into the living room, both her father and uncle standing around the fireplace.

"We need to talk about tonight." Stefan tells hr, "You cannot tell Jeremy about us erasing his memories. Elena doesn't want him in this kind of life, and we should respect that."

"Great." Anastasia scoffed as she started walking towards the stairs, "This is going to be just like 1864 all over again."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Damon questioned his daughter as she ignores him, walking up the stairs, "Anastasia Eloise! What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that in the end, I'll be the one that gets hurt all over again." She tells them, "Don't worry. Jeremy won't know a thing."