❪ 𝓢𝑰𝑿 𝓕𝑬𝑬𝑻 𝓤𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑹 ❫ ⚰️ ˖ ׁ ⁩ 𓂃
𝚃𝚅𝙳  ⸻  ✸ 🔮⭑.ᐟ
❝ 𝖲𝖮𝖬𝖤𝖳𝖧𝖨𝖭𝖦 𝖯𝖮𝖤𝖳𝖨𝖢 ❞

✦ ╮ 𝟐𝟒. ❝ 𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖱𝖤𝖳𝖴𝖱𝖭 ❞ ── .✦

       ❝HELLO?❞

"Where are you?" Stefan's voice rang through her ear as Anastasia walked out of the hospital, keys in hand.

Anastasia paused, a confused look on her face, "I'm at the hospital. Matt, Tyler and Caroline were in an accident. Why? What's wrong?"

"Someone attacked John." Stefan tells her, "Meet me at Elena's."

"Okay." She unlocks the doors to her car and gets into the driver seat, putting her keys into the ignition and starting the car.

"Eloise...."

"Yeah?"

"Jeremy tried to turn himself."

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          "YOU CAN'T-,"

Elena cuts the paramedic's off, "They're okay."

"What happened?" Stefan asked as he and Anastasia followed Elena upstairs to Jeremy's bedroom.

"He said that Anna gave him her blood and then he took some pills, and now...I mean, he looks find but then again so do you. So, I just...I don't know."

Stefan took Jeremy's face in his hands as Anastasia stayed close to the door, her eyes glued on her boyfriend, "Come here. Look at me. Shh..."

"I'm fine, okay? I feel exactly the same." Jeremy says, trying to push Stefan's hands away from his face, and trying to catch Anastasia's eye at the same time.

"Should I call a paramedic up here? What should I do?" Elena asked her boyfriend and his niece.

Stefan looks into Jeremy's eyes, "No, he's fine."

"You mean I'm not a vampire?" Jeremy asked, "Dammit!"

"Don't say that Jeremy." Elena tells her brother, "Jer, why would you want that?"

"Did you hear about Anna? What happened to her tonight? She's dead." Jeremy stands up from his bed.

Anastasia scoffed from her place by the door, "Of course. I'm about to be burned alive in a freaking basement, and my boyfriend is drinking another vampire's blood, trying to overdose on pills because he's dead set on being a vampire."

"You weren't going to turn me." Jeremy says.

"Of course, I wasn't going to fucking turn you!" She threw her hands up into the air, "You don't want this, Jeremy! The blood lust, the - the emotional hatred you'll feel when you accidentally kill someone on accident!"

"Eloise." Stefan shoots his niece a look as he turns back to Jeremy, "Jeremy, Jeremy. Come here, sit down." He pushed the human boy back onto his bed, "I am very sorry about Anna, but it's very important that you listen to me right now. With every passing moment, Anna's blood is leaving your system right now. If you try to kill yourself right no, you could really die."

Jeremy looks away.

"Hey!" Stefan slapped the Gilbert boy gently, "Do you understand me?!"

Elena steps forward, "Stefan....."

"Yeah, I understand." Jeremy says.

"Good." Stefan moved from in front of Jeremy.

"What about the pills that he took?" Elena asked.

"He didn't take enough to die, so Anna's blood actually healed him of that." Anastasia moved to sit next to her boyfriend just as one of the police officers knocked on Jeremy's door.

"Miss Gilbert."

"I'll be right there." Elena tells him.

"You need to be at the hospital." Stefan tells Elena.

"But...."

"No, no, no, we'll stay here with Jeremy." Stefan said, motioning between him and his niece.

"No." Jeremy started to protest, "I don't need a babysitter."

"Yes, you do."

Anastasia rolls her eyes, "Apparently, you do."

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          "HOW MANY MORE times do you want me to apologize?" Jeremy asked as Anastasia silently sat with him in his bedroom, Stefan having gone downstairs to give the two of them some privacy.

"Do you realize what you could've done? You could've died and not have come back. What was I supposed to do then?" She spun around to look at him, "Mourn over a human boy that I fell in love with and then move on? Do you understand how many people I've lost in my lifetime that's been super important to me? I can't - I can't lose anyone else that I love."

"Hey, I'm - I'm not going anywhere." Jeremy puled her to stand between his legs as he sat on the edge of his bed, "I'm not going anywhere. No vampire or human is going to take me away from you."

Anastasia scoffed, "You don't know that. You can't predict the future, Jeremy. What if you end up dead someday because of me? I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing that I was the cause of your death."

"You aren't going to be what kills me." Says Jeremy. "I'm not going to be what kills you. We're going to live a long happy life where you'll stay young and beautiful, and I'll grow up to be this wrinkly old guy that will get weird and judgmental stares from people because I'm following you around."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" She raised an eyebrow at him as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Jeremy smirked, "Is it working?"

"A little bit." Anastasia giggled, leaning down to kiss him.

But before their lips could touch, there as a crash from downstairs.

Jeremy stood up, "What was that?"

"Uh, I have no clue." She tells him, "But stay here. I'll go check it out. I'm sure Uncle Stefan just dropped something."

"Yeah. Come back where you're done." Jeremy tells her before she walks out of the room.

"Uncle Stefan?" Anastasia made it to the bottom of the stairs just as the front door comes open and in walks her dad and Elena.

"Stefan?" Elena asked as Stefan gets up from the floor."

"Elena."

"What happened?" Elena questioned, looking around her house at the mess.

"Katherine happened." Damon spoke up.

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          "DID SHE SAY what she wanted?" Damon asked as him, Stefan and Anastasia stayed downstairs as Elena went up to talk to Jeremy.

"No."

"Woman certainly knows how to make an entrance."

"She said she fooled one of us, at least. What does that mean?" Stefan asked, looking between his niece and brother.

"Hey, don't look at me." Anastasia says, "I was four the last time I saw her, and very much human. Besides, I was at the hospital with Matt and Tyler, waiting to hear news on how Caroline was doing."

"She pretended to be Elena to when I showed up earlier tonight." Damon says as Elena walked down the stairs.

"I told Jeremy, I can't lie to him anymore." Elena tells the three vampires.

"That's why I didn't want Dad to erase his memory, and why I made the decision to tell him on my own." Anastasia says, but was ignored.

"Are you alright?" Stefan asked his girlfriend.

"No, I'm not alright. I thought that with all the tomb vampires gone things would get better."

"I know. We all did." Stefan said.

"Katherine was in this house, that means that she's been invited in, what are we going to do?" Elena asked.

"Move." The father and daughter spoke in sync.

"Very helpful, thank you." Elena sits down on the couch.

"Katherine wants you dead; there's zero you can do about it. You would be dead, but you're not. So clearly, she had other plans." Damon says.

"Right and we need to find out what those other plans are and not provoke her in the process. What happened tonight when you thought she was Elena?" Stefan looks at his brother.

"To risk another frown line encroaching on a very crowded forehead." Damon said, earning a giggle from his daughter, "We.....kissed."

"And you thought it was me?" Elena asked.

"What do you mean you kissed?" Questioned Stefan.

"Well, you know, when two lips pucker and they go-," Damon puckered his lips while making kissing noises, which causes Stefan to rush at him with super speed and both men change spots, Stefan now standing next to his niece and Damon standing next to Elena, "Don't be so obvious, Stefan."

Stefan went to go at Damon again, but Elena stands up and puts her hand in front of Stefan, stopping his movements.

"Stefan, wait. He kissed Katherine, not me." Elena tells her boyfriend before looking back at Damon, "I wouldn't do that."

"We don't have time for your little love triangle you've all got going on." Anastasia rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Late."

"John must know something. There has to be a reason why Katherine tried to kill him." Elena tells the three Salvatore's.

"She's Katherine. She loves to play games and you're fooling yourself if you think you're going to find out what she's been up to before she wants you to know." Damon said.

"No, actually Elena's right." Stefan says, "John could know something through Isobel. Your mother, she was in touch with Katherine so maybe e can go to the hospital and get him to talk."

"I've got a better idea." Damon says.

"What's that?" Elena asked him.

"I'm just going to ignore the bitch. See you."

"Is that smart?" Elena asked before Damon could walk away.

"If Katherine thinks she's being ignored it will lure her out, she'll make a move." Damon says.

"Yeah? And then what?" Stefan asked.

"Stake her." Anastasia replied.

Damon points to his daughter in agreement, "Rip her head off."

"Something poetic. We'll see." Anastasia and Damon say in sync.

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          "THANK YOU FOR being here." Tyler spoke as he and Anastasia stood outside his house, greeting the guys that came to pay their respects for the loss of their beloved town Mayor and Tyler's father, "You didn't have to come early, or stand next to me."

"Come on, Ty." Anastasia locked her arm with Tyler's, "What kind of best friend would I be if I wasn't here to help you thought this difficult moment in time?"

Tyler chuckled, "Thank you."

"Ooh, who is that handsome devil?" Anastasia smirked at the figure getting out of the Bronco that had pulled up in front of the Lockwood mansion.

"So the black sheep returns." Tyler ignored her question as the man walked up the stairs.

"Tyler?" The man questions.

"Yeah." Tyler threw his arm around Anastasia's shoulder.

"What happened to you?" The no-named man asked, "In my mind you're twelve years old."

"Well, that's two years older than the last time you saw me, Uncle Mason." Tyler said before he moved his arm from around the green eyed girl standing next to him, embracing his uncle in a hug.

"Good to see you again." Mason says, "Uh, wanna introduce me to your friend?"

"Yeah. Uncle Mason, this is Anastasia. Anastasia, this is my Uncle Mason." Tyler introduced the two of them, "Uncle Mason was my dad's brother."

"Hi, nice to meet you." Anastasia smiled, shaking Mason's hand, "You can just call me Stacie."

"Nice to meet you, Stacie."

"Come on inside." Tyler motioned for his uncle to walk inside the house.

"So..." Anastasia smirked, "The hottie is your uncle? I see where you got your good looks from."

Tyler stared down at the girl in shock and amusement, "Ellie!"

"What? When I see a hot guy, I'm gonna let the world know." She shrugs.

Tyler let out a laugh as he wrapped his arm back around her shoulders, "You are something else."

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          "DID YOU KNOW they Gilbert device affected Tyler Lockwood?" Bonnie walked into the room where Damon was standing at the table filled with fruit.

"Well, I know it took the Mayor down." Damon says as he ate one of the grapes from the table.

"Don't you want to know why?" Questioned Bonnie.

"Yes, Bonnie, I would love to know why a non-vampire torture device that you let John Gilberts use against us. Speaking of your guilt, how's Caroline?"

"She's much better."

"You're welcome."

"No, you're welcome." Bonnie tells him.

"Why am I welcome?" Damon asked.

"You live to see another day." Bonnie said to him.

"Hmm, and so does my daughter. You know? Your friend that was also affected by the device and was in the very same room that was up in flames." Damon says, making Bonnie feel more guilt that she already did, "No good deal goes unpunished with you, does it?"

"Doesn't undo the bad. I know what you are Damon. You might have Anastasia, Elena and the sheriff and everybody else fooled but not me." Says Bonnie, "One wrong more and I'm gonna take you out."

"Now you need to stop with the witches' brew. You're starting to believe your own press."

Bonnie stares Damon down until he's holding his head in pas as she gave the vampire an aneurysm. After a couple seconds, she stops. "Oh, I'm sorry, you were saying?"

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         "SORRY, I WAS just looking for the...." Jeremy trailed off as he walks into the room here his girlfriend and Tyler were sat on the couch, passing a flask between the two of them.

"Bathroom is down the hall." Tyler tells him, taking the flask back from Anastasia.

"Hey look...." Jeremy walked into the room, "I'm sorry about your dad."

"Today has been a big day of sorrys from people who really don't give a crap." Tyler tells him.

"I remember when my dad died; I had a house full of strangers telling me what a great guy he was." Jeremy tells him, "Anyway, I know how hard all this is."

"The difference is in your case it was true. My dad was a dick." Tyler drank from the flash.

"Yeah, yeah he was." Jeremy agreed.

"I found this in his desk." Tyler held the flash out towards Jeremy who hesitated to grab it, "He won't mind, he's dead."

"Yeah, you know what, sure. Why not?" Jeremy took the flash from the Lockwood boys hand and took a drink from it just as Mason arrived.

"Hey, what's going on in here, Tyler?" Mason asked.

"Nothing, nothing." Tyler says as Anastasia stands up and walks over to her boyfriend's side.

Mason looked at Jeremy, "You have somewhere else to be?"

"Uh, help me find Uncle Stefan?" Anastasia gave her boyfriend a look, tugging on his hand to pull him out of the room.

"Hope to see you around some time, Stacie." Mason flashed her a smile, obviously having heard the conversations she had had with his nephew when he first arrived.

"Yeah, maybe."

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          "YOU GONNA BE okay?" Elena asked as she and Stefan sat on the bench further on the Lockwood property, the Gilbert girl wiping his wound from Katherine.

"Yeah, it'll heal." Stefan tells her.

"That's not what I mean."

"I was trying to figure her out. I was playing along and I let her get to me." Stefan said.

"We tried to track her but she's gone." Damon walked towards the two with Anastasia as his side, "Ooh, cover up, Fabio. We' got a crazy ex on the loose." He looks at Elena, "You better watch out, looks like Katherine is trying to steal your guy."

"That's not what's happening."

"Isn't it? I mean, it's only fair since I went after your girl." Damon tells his brother.

"I'm gonna go check on Jenna and Jeremy. Let me know when you guys are done." Elena tells them before she leaves.

"So, what's it gonna be, huh? Fight to the death?" Damon got into a boxing pose, pretending to punch with his fist as Stefan and Anastasia snort out a laugh, "Go ahead, make your threats, stake your claim."

"I'm not going to fight you." Stefan shook his head.

"Why?! I'd fight me."

"Katherine is gonna try to play us against each other, you do know that right?" Stefan asked his brother.

"Brother, don't you worry, our bond is unbreakable."

"I'll believe that when I see it." Anastasia rolled her eyes.

"We need to stay united against her. So yes, as much as I would like to kill you, though I'm not because of Eloise, I'm not gonna fight you." Stefan tells his brother.

"I kissed Elena."

"Because you feel something for her, because you actually care and I'm not gonna let Katherine come in here and destroy that part of you that is finally, after all of this time, willing to feel something." Stefan says, "She will try to break you, she will try to break us and how we respond to that will define us. It's our choice. So no, I'm not going to fight you."

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          JOHN EYED ANASTASIA as she and Jeremy walking into the living room of the Gilbert house.

"What are you doing here?" Asks Jeremy, wrapping his arm around his girlfriend's waist.

"I'm packing, leaving." John tells his nephew.

"So, you figured you'd kill all your evil vampires and then you leave town?" Jeremy asked, angry to know that his uncle was the reason behind him almost losing Anastasia the night before.

"Not all, but enough." He eyed the arm his nephew had wrapped around the female Salvatore, "For now. Can you tell Elena I said goodbye?"

"Why don't you tell her yourself?"

"You know, Jeremy, I was taught to hate them, the vampires. That's what I know, that's what your father knew." John said.

"My father would have seen things differently." Jeremy said to his uncle.

"No, he may have done things differently but there's no other way to see it." John said.

Jeremy looked at the ring on John's finger, "That ring on your finger, the one's that supposed to protect you, that was my father's right?"

"Yeah."

"Then why didn't it protect him? Why is he still dead?" Jeremy asked, tightening his grip on Anastasia's waist.

"What happened to your parents wasn't supernatural, it was an accident." John says, "There's nothing that could save us from that."

"I wonder what he'd think of all this, of me." Jeremy said.

"He would think that you're still young. You're still finding yourself but you are a Gilbert and you've been exposed to this town's darkest secrets, and with that comes responsibility." John eyed Anastasia.

"I don't believe in that family legacy stuff." Jeremy said. "And don't look at her that way. Stacie's done absolutely nothing to you."

"Sooner or later you'll have to."

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          "OH GOD, YOU scared me." Elena jumped as she walked into her bedroom, finding Damon sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Just doing my part in the neighborhood watch." Damon tells her.

"Thanks. For, um, for looking out for us. For me." Elena says.

"That's me, your trusty bodyguard." Damon slurs, "Calm in crisis."

"Have you been drinking?" Questioned Elena.

Damon held his forefinger and thumb a small distance apart, indicating that he had been drinking just a little bit.

"And you're upset. That's not a good combination."

"No, I'm not upset. Upset is an emotion specific to those who care." Damon tells her.

"Come on, Damon. That's a lie. You care."

Damon looked up at her, "You're surprised that I thought you would kiss me back? You can't imagine that I believed that you would want to?"

"Damon...."

"That what we've been doing here means something? You're a liar, Elena. There is something going on between the two of us and you know it." He stood and walked towards her, "And you're lying to me, and you're lying to Stefan, and most of all, you're lying to yourself. I can prove it."

"No."

Damon grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her.

Elena, uncomfortable and not wanting to kiss him, pulled away. "Damon, don't! What's wrong with you?"

"Lie about this."

"Stop it! You're better than this, come on."

"That's where you're wrong." Damon tried to kiss her again, but she kept trying to push him away.

"No, no, no, Damon! I care about you. Listen to me, I care about you." Elena tells him, earning a small smile from the man, "I do but...I love Stefan, it's always going to be Stefan."

"Elena, what's going on in here?" Jeremy asked, walking towards the door with his hand intertwined with Anastasia.

"Nothing, Jeremy. It's okay, just go back to bed." Elena tells her little brother.

"No, it's not okay, Elena." Damon looked at his daughter and Jeremy before looking back at Elena, "He wants to be a vampire." He rushed at Jeremy and pushed him against the wall.

"No, Damon, stop it!" Elena yelled.

"Dad! No, let him go!" Anastasia yelled as she watched her father choke her boyfriend, "Dad, let him go! Get off of him!" She rushed to his side, but Damon shoved her off of him and made her hit her head on the dresser in Elena's room. "Dad!"

"You want to shut out the pain? It's the easiest thing in the world. The part of you that cares just goes away, all you have to do is flip the switch and snap!" Damon snaps Jeremy's neck, sending the Gilbert boy to the ground, dead.

"Jeremy!" Anastasia cried out, crawling to her boyfriend's still body.

"Damon! No!" Elena watched as Damon looked down at his daughter's crying body before he left.

"Elena, Elena." Anastasia cried, "Elena, his hand."

Elena looks down at her brother's hand, seeing the ring on his finger. The ring that would bring him back.

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          STEFAN STOOD BEHIND his niece and Elena as Anastasia held her boyfriend in his arms, running her fingers through his hair as she kissed the top of his head, "He saw the ring, that's why he did it. He knew."

"He didn't see the ring." Elena looked down at her brother and Anastasia.

"It's Katherine. She got under his skin." Stefan says, "She undid everything that was good about him."

"There's nothing good about him. Stefan, not anymore. He decided what he wants." Elena said. "He doesn't want to feel, he wants to be hated, it's just easier that way. He got his wish."

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          DAMON THREW HIS jacket onto the couch as he walked into the Boarding house. He walked over to where he kept all of his liqueur bottles and poured him a drink.

Flashes of the look on his daughters face as she cried over the Gilbert boy appeared in his mind as he threw the glass from his hand into the fireplace.

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           "I HATE HIM, Stefan." Elena cried as Stefan knelled next to her and pulled her into a hug.

"I know. I know." Stefan kissed her shoulder.

From Anastasia's arms, Jeremy woke up, gasping for air. She took his face in her hands, looking him over for any signs of anything not normal with him.

"Is he okay? Ana, is he okay?" Elena asked.

"He's okay. Shh. You're okay." Anastasia pressed her forehead against his. "You're okay."

"He killed me! Damon killed me!" Jeremy clutched onto her shirt.

"It's okay. You're okay." Anastasia cried as Stefan embraced Elena into a hug, both of them sighing in relief. "You're okay."