A/N: So. The Vampire Diaries ended last year. What a surprise. I almost thought it would last forever. But because of the series ending I was curious about it all again. It used to be one of my favorites back in the day when I was still in school and innocently dreaming about the future, and I thought why not check it out again? So I did. And despite the cheese and clichés, and sometimes quite annoying characters, I found that I really liked it. So much so that an idea started to grow in my head. This is that idea. Hope you all enjoy!
Warnings: Mentions of death. Alcohol.
Chapter 1
A Bottle of Bourbon
Life goes on whether you choose to move on and take a chance in the unknown or stay behind, locked in the past, thinking of what could have been. - Stephanie Smith
The cemetery was a wasteland of death and ruin.
It stretched on for miles. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but rows of tombstones, big as small, resting upon a sea of trimmed wheat like grass and the lingering feeling of desolation. Wind howled as it danced over the land. Stale trees swayed. And a lonely raven cawed. Above it all the skies bled bright orange as day neared twilight. No soul was left wandering on the burial ground. It was a place forsaken by nearly everything living and breathing.
Lucia despised it.
She had never liked cemeteries. Or anything associated with death and mourning. Too many tombstones were already a part of her life. Too many losses intertwined with her past. But even so she couldn't force herself to leave. Whether it was the numbness in her limbs, or the haze in her mind, her feet were planted firmly to the ground. Unmoving. As though chained to the bodies buried beneath.
Before Lucia lay a grave with a recently carved granite tombstone. It rested upon a bed of fresh soil and displayed a beautiful arrangement of hydrangeas and irises, each and every one of them in some shade of blue.
The flowers were ones she herself had brought - all over the course of the last month. Some of the older ones had withered and died during that time. Condemned without their roots. Others still had managed to hold on to their fleeting beauty. Though they too would waste away eventually.
Lucia had brought yet another hydrangea this day. It felt odd and foreign in her hand. Even though she had been doing this every day since the funeral.
She couldn't let go of what had happened. It was impossible.
A sudden breeze which smelled of salt and algae came over the cemetery. Lucia scowled and shifted her narrowed gaze to the horizon. Somewhere beyond the abundance of tombstones lay the mediterranean sea. No matter that she couldn't see it from where she stood. There was no mistaking the smell of the ocean.
Lucia wondered absently whether that would be a comfort to the man who lay buried beneath her feet. He had loved those open waters.
Almost as much as the secrets he kept.
Still Lucia was the same. She had her ghosts to hide. Her own non-truths to enrich and nurture. It came naturally with time. All things modest and grand which caused shame to rise beneath the surface. Or fear to take hold. It was as common as dirt to tend to things one would rather not speak about.
But secrets also had a tendency to collect.
Lucia looked back down to the grave. Her honey hued eyes coming to rest upon the engraving of the headstone. As per request it said nothing more than the name of the deceased.
Joseph Lazerda.
He had been put to death by his secrets. It was something she had understood the moment she found him in his apartment little more than a month ago. A wooden stake had been mercilessly driven through his heart, and his skin had turned as grey as ash. It had looked like a nightmare come alive. But Lucia had long since known what he had been. Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Voodoo. Magic. She was not a stranger to the occult and phenomenal. Nor to any of the ghosts in the buried man's past.
Joseph had been a whimsical man tied to his wants and desires of adventure and knowledge. He was always quick with his words, cunning and a showman at heart. It was spectacle he wanted. Drama. Something to whisper about in the night as others slept comfortably in their beds. Moreover he had told her everything. All the little secrets he had dug forth, every bit of history and tall tale. She had been privy to it all. Until the new year had come around.
Lucia had known Joseph for long enough to recognize when he was being dishonest. It lay in the way he spoke and laughed without any real mischief or spirit in the action. He always felt guilty. It seeped into his bones like a thousand curses.
It was how she had known that something was askew. He was keeping secrets, nasty ones because he had also taken to the bottle, and he was feeling remorseful.
Lucia had not taken it well. She had questioned him. Begged. Argued. Cursed. It had sparked a war of wills between the two of them. But no matter what she did he had insisted that everything would be alright. It was nothing. Don't worry yourself about it, passerotta.
Then…
Lucia let her eyes wander over the tombstone once again. She did not know how many times she had taken in the sight but it she knew it would never be enough. For however long she had lived. She had never felt as aged and withered. Nothing could ever be enough to do away with the pain of losing her closest friend. It would stay with her more than any other death she had been forced to endure.
With a detached nod toward the grave, which was more of a twitch than anything, she crouched down. Her simple black dress embraced her figure only slightly uncomfortably with the movement. She breathed in the very faint scent of the flowers. Something sweet to complement the salt of the sea. Then with all the tenderness she could muster she placed the hydrangea in her hand down upon the bed of flowers.
"You should have told me", Lucia murmured softly. Words which vanished into the wind as soon as she had said them. "Anything".
She waited as though expecting to receive an answer from the cemetery. But there was nothing save the howling of the wind and the caw of the lonely raven.
Lucia sighed. She ran a numb hand through her hair and let the well-nigh black curls cascade gently over her shoulders. She was about ready to leave when a familiar sound reached her ears. It was mellow in contrast to the agitated noise of the wind. Kinder. She almost let another sigh leave her lips but swallowed it instead.
Lucia could recognize the sound as the slight groan of metal and something of great weight moving across the withering grass of the cemetery. It was familiar because it belonged to a decrepit wheelchair, and its owner was someone she had known for a good while. Only not as long as the man who lay buried at her feet.
It didn't take long before the wheelchair stood at her side by the grave. Where it settled into a respectful silence. Its shape casting a somewhat bulbous shadow over the tombstone and the flowers.
Lucia rose and looked to her side. Comfortably seated within the confines of the wheelchair was a middle aged man, sporting a pair of broad orange sunglasses. He was tall, angular, with soft features and tanned skin. His short and diligently combed hair, as well as his growing stubble, was as black as coal with streaks of grey gradually showing. He wore a dark blazer with a deep blue shirt beneath, and a pair of trousers in the same shade as the jacket. Old fashioned. But it suited the man just fine.
"You didn't have to come", Lucia said.
Daniel Cardoza smiled. Nodded. "But I wanted to. He was my friend as well".
Lucia hummed in agreement. She let her gaze fall from the middle aged man and back onto the tombstone. It was slowly getting darker all around. But the remaining rays of sunlight painted the area in a rust and saffron tone. It made it seem almost as though the air itself was on fire. Not that it was a far fetched idea with how sweltering the summer heat stood. She would be grateful as soon as autumn came around. Italy could do with some cold air. For all that she would be out of the country by then.
Lucia did not want to leave. But had already agreed to the move. She had done the paperwork. Sold the car - at a bargain. Packed. All that was left was the move itself by way of an agonizing flight all the way across the atlantic ocean. Lucia did not like airplanes. Still what she despised even more was the idea that she would be doing it without the man who had orchestrated the whole scheme in the first place. Joseph was the one who had proposed the move. It was he who had made the early preparations. And in hindsight she wondered whether that had been his plan all along. To die and then send her away still mourning.
"We should cancel".
Lucia blurted it out before she could stop herself. It was a witless suggestion. She wouldn't even call it short-sighted. Insane. Perhaps. It didn't sit well with her. She wasn't usually the impulsive type.
"Moving?", Daniel asked. He looked to her, eyes questioning, and a serious frown at his mouth. He wasn't of the impulsive type either. "Why?"
She didn't have a real reason. Only that she didn't want to leave it all behind for something unfamiliar. Something without any reassurance and a constant friendly figure at her side. It was spoiled of her. She knew. On the other hand America lay on the other side of the earth and she wouldn't be able to visit the grave anymore.
"I need to find the one who did this", Lucia improvised her answer.
It could have been a good excuse. Had she not already spent the last month chasing ghosts. Whoever, or whatever, had murdered Joseph was long gone. They had left no indication as to who they were. Why they had done what they did. Or anything else. She would have blamed it on witchcraft. Some curse. But there had been no trace of that either. All which had remained was the dead body with a stake through its heart.
Daniel shook his head. "No. Lucia, we're moving tomorrow. You've done enough, and cancelling now wouldn't do anyone any good".
Lucia bit at her lip and said nothing. Allowing the silence to be her reply. It wasn't a good one. None of the answers she had were particularly good. She felt at a loss.
Daniel sighed.
A moment of uncertain peace passed between them.
Suddenly Daniel began to move about. He reached for the bag hanging onto the side of the wheelchair and fished through it until he found what he had been searching for. All the while Lucia looked on curiously.
"Here", Daniel said. He passed on a large glass bottle, thick, with an amber liquid inside. It was fancy. With an intricate marker coating the forepart.
Lucia examined the label. "Bourbon?".
"The best I could find", Daniel replied. "It's what you drink when you're feeling down, right?".
"You noticed?", Lucia whispered. Incredulous. She had always made it a point to drink the stuff out of sight. Especially when Daniel was around. He despised it when she drank. It was a given when she tended to drink too much.
Daniel smiled. It wasn't a cheerful sight. "I may not have been around for that long, but we're family, noticing these kinds of things is what we're supposed to do".
Lucia nodded absently. Watching the alcohol slosh around inside the bottle. They were family. Even sharing the same surname. But so many times removed that she hadn't even known he'd existed until around a decade ago. When he had found her with a group of agitated bloodsuckers. Vampires. She had been forced to play the peacekeeper that day and it wouldn't be the last time either. Daniel was not generally comfortable around their ilk.
Joseph had been a rare exception.
"No glass?", Lucia asked. She grinned smugly and shook the bottle somewhat. It made a barely audible splashing sound. The bottle gleaming in the twilight.
Daniel was also someone who was generally not very agreeable about drinking straight from the flask. He was a well mannered man after all.
"Only this once", Daniel said while shaking his head in bemusement.
Lucia didn't let her grin remain. She unscrewed the cap on top of the bourbon bottle. Took in the spicy smell of the alcohol. Let it linger in the air together with the salt and the sea, and the vague scent of the blue shaded flowers. She tilted the bottle, closed her eyes and drank.
She drank. And drank. And drank. Until barely half of what had been in the bottle remained. The slightly sweet and tang taste of the alcohol left a burning trail of pleasantness along her throat. Much like smoldering cinder. But less like the soot it came with.
Lucia sighed. Content. She screwed the cap back onto the bottle and once again looked at the grave where the friend who had been with her through hell and high water lay buried. He had gotten old. Ancient. With centuries upon his name and enough history to fill a hundred books if not more. Still it was not fair for him to end the way he had. Alone. Without a whisper of farewell and forevermore guarding his secrets.
"I guess this is goodbye", Lucia whispered.
Daniel shook his head. "Only for now".
Lucia hummed. She would visit again, yes, but she found no comfort in the notion. It was as though a piece of her own soul had been torn away from her. Not to mention that the thief had fled into the night. She felt tears well up in her eyes. But refused to let them fall. She hadn't cried since the funeral and had no intention of doing so again anytime soon.
In place of allowing herself to come undone Lucia bent down and gently kissed the granite tombstone. It was chaste, and cold. Nevertheless a good distraction. As well as a farewell.
Lucia lingered by the tombstone only for a moment. She blinked away her tears, breathed slowly, and listened to the howling wind. When the last rays of sunlight died out she composed herself and turned away from the grave.
"Mystic Falls".
Lucia let the name rest on her tongue. Measuring how it felt to say.
"Wonder what awaits us there…".
A/N: Well...that's it for now. Please R&R!
