The Pen Pal
Prologue
At twenty-nine Jessica Chivari thought she had life all figured out. She had just finished Medical school, and had gotten a position at the local hospital.
She had achieved everything she wanted after the accident that changed her life. Little did she know that one random mistake was about to change her life again this time forever.
She received a letter that was incorrectly addressed from an elementary school student as part of a school pen pal project. She didn't want the poor girl to be the only one not to receive a reply so she wrote back. They had been exchanging letters, e-mails, phone calls and a few rare visits ever since.
Elena Gilbert had become important to her as had the people in her life. Jessica felt as if she knew them, and through Elena's letters she did in a sense. Elena held nothing back when she wrote to her, and so she learned all about Jeremy, Bonnie, Caroline, Matt and Elena's parents.
Over the years as they wrote back and forth. Elena became like the daughter she never had. She was the most important person in her life, and even though they lived hours apart she tried to always be there for her and her family.
Elena's mother had written after a few months of her and Elena exchanging letters. She asked to talk to her worried about how attached her daughter was becoming to someone neither of them had ever met, and so she called to speak with Miranda Gilbert. She held nothing back from her when she asked questions.
She told Miranda her full name her history, and whatever else she asked. She wasn't sure at the time why she did it. Especially since it wasn't like her to be so open with anyone, but she realized later that it was because she already cared for the carefree and compassionate girl that Elena was.
Miranda had of course asked Sheriff Forbes to check her story. Mainly to make sure she wasn't some kind of danger to Elena, but the Sheriff found nothing to worry the woman whose only concern was her daughter's well-being, and so the contact was allowed to continue. Jessica and Miranda spoke on occasion as well becoming friends of a sort.
When Grayson and Miranda were killed she was devastated. Miranda was her friend, but that wasn't why the deaths hit her so hard they weren't that close. Elena however was completely wrecked, and that killed her to see.
She had of course driven up for the funeral, and when Elena saw her she all but collapsed in her arms crying like she would never stop. Like all the light had gone out of her. Jessica simply held her. She knew there was nothing she could say that would make this better, and so she just held her every time she cried. She didn't tell Elena it would be alright enough people had done that, and it wouldn't help so she was just there for Elena to vent to, or cry on, or rage at whatever she needed at the time.
It was a month after the funeral before she returned home. Elena was better not alright by any standards but better. Elena had insisted she go home that she return to her life, and not put it on hold for her any longer. She insisted she had her aunt, and that she would be fine.
Jessica was of course reluctant to leave, but Elena's pleading finally got the best of her. Elena felt guilty for her still being there for taking her away from her life to try and help while Elena pieced herself back together.
Going home to her empty apartment felt like it was a mistake. As soon as she walked in the door she knew she should have stayed in Mystic Falls, but she returned to work, and the life she had left behind for the last month as she had promised.
When school started again, and Elena began writing about the Stefan Salvatore Jessica's had a feeling Elena might need her closer, and so she started to make plans. She had money in the bank, and it was enough to get by for several months, and to find a place much closer to Elena.
She wanted to be there if she was needed, and Elena would need her probably sooner rather than later.
It took a bit for her to arrange to leave her old life behind there wasn't much to leave really a few acquaintances, and a man she didn't love and who didn't love her. They got together when the need stuck either of them, and the arrangement had benefited them both, and so when she told him she was leaving they had one last night, and parted the next morning with no hard feelings between them.
Her job was a bit more difficult to leave she loved working as a surgeon at the hospital, but Elena was more important to her. She gave them plenty of notice so she could be replaced, but she was going to miss working here.
Jessica laughed a bit at her thoughts as she drove back toward Mystic Falls. You might think she was feeling sorry for herself, but she really didn't. She had always accepted her life was the way it was, and never regretted who she was or how she lived.
She hadn't cared about anyone in a very long time not until Elena. She had always had people she hung out with, and getting laid when she felt the need had never been difficult for her, but actually letting any of those people get close that never happened.
After the accident that took her family when she was eighteen she found it hard to relate to people. Her friends had tried to understand, but how could they. No one else in the small town she grew up in had lost their entire family in one fiery explosion on Christmas Eve. Everyone from her grandparents to her six month old son.
What had happened that night was something no one could understand unless they had been through it themselves, and so she decided she needed a change. She moved six hundred miles away and enrolled in college and had kept to herself ever since.
Elena though had somehow slipped past all her self-imposed isolation, and made her care. So here she was reflecting on her life or lack thereof while driving toward the only thing that had mattered to her in longer than she cared to remember.
When she finally past the welcome Mystic Falls sign she had a strange feeling of coming home that she hadn't felt since she was eighteen, and god eighteen was almost twenty years ago had it really been that long yes, yes it had.
She pulled up to the first motel she saw it didn't really matter where she stayed as long as she was here. She got herself a room, and reread Elena's last e-mail. It was all about Stefan and his brother Damon, and everything that had been happening since the last time she wrote it told her about the tension between them, and the little bit of history Damon had revealed.
After she made sure she didn't miss anything important in the message she settled in, and sent a reply telling Elena where she was, and that this time she wasn't going anywhere, and she was here when Elena needed her.
Afterword she mentally steeled herself for whatever was coming but no amount of preparation made what happened next easier for her or for Elena.
After all who in their right-mind expects to find out that vampires and other supernatural creatures are real. Jessica most certainly didn't. She expected to fall in love with one even less.