Rewrite! I've changed the premise a bit, so this isn't just an edited reiteration. Before it was labeled as 'fan falls into TVD.' The character has the same knowledge but without the insertion. Also, Casey isn't as passive as she was in the last story.

Post-Precognitive OC, reactive OC, lots of canon divergences, references to drug use, quite a bit of cursing, violence, lime-y sexual content, Stefan/OC pairing. No Salvatore love triangle.

I don't know what to do with the canon of later seasons. Throw it out the window or butterfly it away while still acknowledging its existence? Most of it isn't to my taste, some of it I don't know. Hence, the long hiatus.

What's absolutely changed? Katherine is Stefan's first love.

I checked out before Season 8 (but you know, promoting suicide isn't cool, show) as Season 6 and 7 were problematic. Here's my nope list, so far: Valerie, heretics, discount slayer, Lily Salvatore (though some of that dynamic was interesting), their take on the Gemini coven, and vampires having babies. However, when I make canon changes, I'll reference it in an author's note.

Also, there's a bit of swearing in this chapter. Remember Mark Twain."Profanity provides relief denied even to prayer."


i. mayday.

There's only so much collateral she can circumvent.

She can't stop the accident. She can't divert their path, obstruct the road, flash her lights, or slow them down. Her line is the car tipping over into the lake. Her line is acknowledging Miranda, turning to Elena and having her neck snapped, is off limits.

After that, what she can do, is save a man for future ruin.

She doesn't know the consequences of intervening - here or at all. There's no security of certainty.

Maybe Grayson starts preparing Mystic Falls, but what does that look like? Maybe he'll descends into paranoia. (What would that look like?) Maybe he recruits the Salvatore's to his front line. Maybe he drives a stake through Stefan's heart the second Elena is laid on the bank.

("Line of protection, Miranda. Our daughter needs every advantage she can get.")

The veneer of Dr. Jekyll; the monstrosity of Dr. Frankenstein, and the only one left who has a working plan to fight the inevitable.

She's not intervening for absolution. The recipient here is a man who uses psychologically conditioning to make his own family, to make other children think of themselves as lesser extensions of his daughter – all to shore up a willing barrier between her and danger. His brother and Bonnie experienced the worst of it, chipped away, isolated, and molded into form. They don't (probably won't ever) realize how they've been fundamentally damaged like little Alfred and his white rat.

If she was saving the better person, it would be Miranda.

Better though, is subjective.


Save my daughter. Please – my daughter.

The water swells inside the cab, more torrent that the still pressure fighting her to the bottom.

She can barely make out the sporadic panic of Grayson in her peripheral, the unmoving form of Elena. There are no headlights, no backlights, to help. She's been in thicker darkness, so she knows the moonlight, weak and oppressed by cloud cover, is giving some light, 20 feet below the surface. Miranda's shirt, white and floating, reflects a little of that light.

She feels the constriction inside her burning lungs, the pressure against her ears as she braces her weight and pulls on the door handle.

It doesn't budge.

Not on the second, or third, or tenth attempt.

Why isn't it opening? Is it locked?

Elena doesn't look at her when she strikes the glass with her palm. She doesn't look outside her window. Her eyes are closed, arm outstretched to her father.

She focuses back on the door handle with disbelief, eyes blurring.

What the hell is she supposed to do? Don't panic.

If you strain yourself, you'll have to make for the surface. If that happens, you won't make it back in time.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

The pressure in her lungs is painful, her heart is starting to dull in her ears. She hopes, at least, that she didn't dive in too early.

She waits. She starts to drift upwards.

A dark-clothed arm aligns with hers, reaching for the handle. Air bubbles slip past her lips, relief and a myriad of emotions too complex to grab a hold of. She squeezes his arm tightly as he yanks open the door. What's easy for a vampire - futile for a human.

Her fingers tangle in his hoodie as she motions towards the seat belt. She's not sure if Elena tried to set herself free, but if it's stuck, she doesn't have the energy to pull it loose.

Elena's lax face is just visible enough to have Stefan's body freeze.

She has no sympathy in this moment, her nails won't make a difference in his hoodie, so she digs her knuckles into his sides and pushes.

I'm dying, she thinks. I'm dying, so please, please, get it together.

He tears at the seat belt with only his arm inside the cab, and he guides her hand to the vicinity of Elena's wrist. Her eyes slit, heavy and blurred. He seems more shadow than form, but she nods, acknowledgement, or gratefulness, or a direction to see to Grayson now, she's not sure.

She swims up.


Elena's weight drags her on every pull of gasping breath.

She gurgles an expletive in frustration, determined not to drown with her forehead above water, her neck strained upward. No fucking way.

Her diaphragm spasms as she tries to bury her coughs, to breathe as deeply as she can without water flooding into her lungs. She tries to pull Elena's weight higher in her arms, to get them both on their backs, to take the ache out of her kicking, leaden legs. Elena is dead weight, and too heavy to maneuver.

Stefan and Grayson break the surface.

Relief loosens her muscles, pulls her under the water, because she's an idiot. She fights to rise back up.

She wasn't sure if Grayson would prioritize his life over his wife's body. If he even knew she was dead and wouldn't insist Stefan take her instead. But he's here. He's alive.

Stefan has a hold of his shoulders, but Grayson moves away the second his eyes find her and Elena. He's forcefully getting his breathing under control, inhaling audibly and panting out. "Is she breathing?" He pushes Elena's head back, fingertips shaking as they push the strands of hair off her face, skate under her nose and to the pulse of her neck.

She's not sure she'd be able to focus on Elena's pulse when hers is drumming in her ears.

Stefan stays outside the loose perimeter, just out of eyesight as Grayson crowds her vision, starts to slide his arms around Elena, and they fumble to trade her weight.

She flexes her cramped fingers. Her head tilts back to take the strain off her neck, her ears below the water as her drumming heart and heavy breaths deafen her to anything else.

Grayson maneuvers Elena to align her back against his chest. One hand encircles her throat as he performs something like the Heimlich maneuver. Her body jolts, spewing lake water. She watches it without sound, waiting for Elena to suddenly revive. She remains unconsciousness.

"Left bank," Grayson points out, commanding Stefan and her briefly before swimming backwards with one arm outreached.

"Are you alright?" Stefan questions her, as her head raises. He hasn't drifted from where they surfaced, and his attention is on Grayson and Elena.

"I can manage." She can barely tread water hard enough to talk, and her voice is strained from choking. "You can swim ahead; he might need your help."

He doesn't. He's likely convinces himself it's for her benefit, and not whatever emotions have been drudged up, seeing Katherine's face. She resents pushing herself because she doesn't want to be so slow. She is slow. She wishes she had a buoy or a life-vest to make it a little easier. She wishes Stefan could take her weight - not that she's comfortable with that.

Stefan offers his hand on the lead up to the bank, as she slips and sinks into the mud.

She looks up ruefully, clasping muddied hands with him, and they both pull her upright.

"Thank you," she exhales heavily, sounding half-strangled, breathing hard on her throat. He nods slightly in acknowledgment, but she's already wading past him on shaking legs.

"We need an ambulance," Grayson greets them, strained and crisp. He's on his haunches, slightly bent over Elena, watching them both. He's pulled Elena farther up the brush than she would expect him capable. It leaves Grayson on the high ground, and no place for Stefan and her to reach equal footing without moving around the copse of trees.

She's collapses onto the saturated grass, forehead pressing into her bent knee, arms pulled around her legs as she counts each expansion and contraction of her lungs as a revelation. The sticky, humid air is oppressively warm. It makes her feel like she's sweating. Maybe she is.

Stefan climbs up calmly and overtly careful, focusing on his booted feet. He doesn't look worn out or exerted, just contemplative and unsure, moving the bare minimum to keep his boots out of the water.

"I can run home to call 911, I don't live far from here," he offers.

She lolls her head, shivering at the feel of her hair down her collar, tickling sensitive, goose pimpled skin.

"We can take my car," she extends carefully, pointing vaguely towards the unseen left side of the bridge. He nods, hands stuffed into the side pockets of his hoodie. With that agreement, she climbs to her feet, palms aching as she pushes off her weight. She is not looking forward to climbing up the slope.

"Thank you," Grayson murmurs, clearing his throat hoarsely before adding, "for your help."

He's turned away from the light on the lake, his palm steady over Elena's heart while his upper body clenches against minute shivers. He doesn't hold her gaze, and his words trail off in a way that makes her unsure of what's to follow.

Stefan doesn't say you're welcome, and she doesn't either. Not everyone survived. You're welcome sounds indecent. She looks at Stefan, and they seem to mutually agree to make towards her car.

Grayson offers his hand before she steps past him.

"Thank you," he whispers again, with the Gilbert ring turned to press into her palm. "I think it's best if we stay, and you direct the ambulance here."

"Do you need help, wrapping your head?" Stefan offers. She glances at him, confused, and not sure who he's talking to.

"It's no longer bleeding," Grayson answers tightly. "I'll be fine."

It sounds like a threat.

Fuck, Stefan had to mention blood.


She pushes the map of Virginia in between the seat and the console so it doesn't fall victim to her muddied jeans, her muddied everything. It's caked on her forearms; she can feel it itchy on her neck. She strips off the socks, planning to give them up to the trash, but for now throwing them onto the floorboard. Her shoes at discarded on the bridge. She doesn't care enough to go back for them.

"Gah-odd," she locks her muscles to stop shivering, hair dripping down her back, clothes plastered and itchy against her skin. She wants to claw out the dirt as much as she wants to jump back into the lake to be clean.

She contemplates climbing over the console into the driver's seat she didn't want to walk to, before looking at Stefan through the open door.

"You could drive," she pleads, side-eyeing him as she digs through the glove department for aspirin. She's not up to toeing the line of what she knows and what she's not supposed to. 'Where do you live?' 'Do I turn off here?' and the other niceties. She screwed up, not getting to Grayson and Elena in time, not getting the door open.

She takes two aspirin with the remains of her cold coffee as Stefan surprises her by shutting her door for her. She watches him walk around the front and get into the driver's seat. When his door shuts, the cab smells overwhelmingly of wet mud. She sneezes.

"Christ," she curses quietly, feeling wrung out.

"God bless you," Stefan responds, the seat clanking as he shifts it back for legroom.

The water slides down his skin, from his dark, flattened hair, to his temple, to the fabric of his hoodie. Droplets cling to the hair of his bared forearms. She watches another slide down the bridge of his straight, Roman nose to his pressed lips. She tightens her arms around her waist, shivers, and tilts her head back to the headrest.

He's looking out at the washed-out bridge, though only the sentry posts are visible from their position. From here you can't see the hole carved out of the side, or the White Oak splintered in all directions. His fingers clink the charms on her obnoxiously full key chain together, the movement causing them to swing from the ignition. When he cranks the engine, his hand pauses on the turn signals, and he adjusts the automatic headlights to turn on.

The beam now reaches the start of the bridge. Which, she supposes, begs the question of why they were turned off.

She catalogs a defense but doesn't provide an explanation that isn't explicitly asked for.

His Salvatore ring steadily taps against the gear shift as he makes a u-turn away from Wickery Bridge. "My house is two miles behind us," he explains. She can't tell if he's suspicious. That look he gave Elena, cautious and sucker-punched, doesn't look like his face now.

She watches him, half-lidded, trying not to sneeze again.

"Were you headed to Mystic Falls?"

She gives a Gallic shrug. Mystic Falls isn't a destination for travelers (well non-supernatural travelers), not even a road trip stop given its insular location. 'Have family here?' 'No.' Then why would she go out of her way, travel on two lane roads, to get somewhere worth visiting? Scenery? Get off the highways? Because the name was interesting? She could mention the Viking settlement, but most of academia wouldn't believe it. Jokes on them.

"My uncle owns a boarding house." He gestures ahead of them. "It's considered outside of town, but it's still in Mystic Falls, if you need a place to stay."

He briefly looks in the rear view mirror at her overflowing backseat. She peeks over her shoulder. It looks like she's moving away or towards something, with overstuffed duffel bags and haphazardly packed boxes. It might look like she's transient.

"I didn't see advertising for one. Just B&B's and a bad looking motel off the highway." Not that she did any of that, but she knows the Boarding House was closed a decade ago, so there wouldn't be a listing.

"It's...a bit off the main road," he explains. "It doesn't get a lot of traffic."

"Hmmm." She watches him a moment, longer than the socially polite, brief eye contact they've been maintaining. "Is this charity?" She asks flippantly. "I'm not, like, sleeping in my car. If I was, don't you think I would be a little annoyed with the mud you're getting into my seat?"

He spares a sardonic glance at her muddled jeans, and dirty, bare feet tucked under her legs. She cares more for warmth than cleanliness right now. Plus, she's stretching out her knees, which are smarting from tripping over herself on the slope.

"Yeah, cause people are never hypocritical."

"It's not charity," he sighs, shifting forward as he balances his left palm against the steering wheel, angles his body a little towards her.

"It's not kinship is it?" She misses glibness and hits a strange seriousness, trying to identity her own feelings. She wanted him away from Grayson. She felt she owed him that. "You don't even know my name."

"Stefan," he murmurs politely.

She doesn't immediately reciprocate. She's still thinking about kinship. Maybe because it's associated with blood, and the vampire connation gives the definition an interesting dimension. It's not only blood, obviously, but a sharing of characteristics or origins. The lake was an origin, of sorts, but her place in it is ambiguous.

"The martyred crown," she muses to distract from her thoughts, jumping to a new etymology. She scratches a stripe of mud off her hands. "Casey."

"What does Casey mean?"

Well, fair's fair. "Vigilant," she turns to her side window, looking out at the dark trees. "Watchful."

He looks at her, his expression distorted in the reflection. She can make out the slight push of his lips, the lowering of his eyebrows.

"Is that derived from Cassandra?"

She smirks. She wasn't expecting him to make that connection. "Yeah. Funny, what a name can tell you."

"Is it?" He wonders, tapping softly and rhythmically at the steering wheel at he thinks it over. He sighs. "I'm not sure what to ask you. You're -" he trails off. A thousand things could have followed that word, and she's not sure what sentiment he'll land on. Better to assume the worst.

She smiles slightly, tilting her head back to him. "My best characteristic is I've yet to be offended. You can ask."

"You seem to assume I'm going to accuse you of something," he observes.

She patently folds her hands in her lap and waits.

"You don't have a cell phone." He parrots what she told him while scrambling up the slope. He leans forward as the car starts to lose its acceleration, and they approach the turn-off, and a long driveway.

"I'm trying to stay off the radar. Though that's a weird thing to criticize given you were in the woods without one, alone."

His mouth opens slightly. She waves it off. "I'm not accusing you of anything. You heard the crash and jumped in to help."

His brows furrow. "So did you," he observes quietly.

The sprawling, dark, and isolated Tudorbethan boarding house opens in front of them.

No, she thinks, because helping out of instinct, and having to talk yourself into helping are different things. "Except, I was already there."


The Salvatore boarding house is –

Well, she hasn't gotten used to seeing images from her visions in real life. She knows this home as if she's drifted through it a hundred times and never touched anything, never sat down, or smelt it, or felt the air.

It's very dark, on the outside. The timber of the overhanging car port is painted black. The red brick, both house and the path look like it took years to pave.

She steps cautiously through the open front door. She's not sure what a boarding house even is, other than income to support a house too big for the family that lives in it. It seems too rich for foot traffic and curious hands.

It's not ostentatious, for all that the furniture pieces and rugs look museum quality. The wood and the earthy colors, even the gold and reds, are warm. Only the foyer overhead light is on, but the curtains are open, and moonlight reflects off the living room floor.

Stefan is leaning against the hardwood trim in the foyer, bare feet on the outside edge of a large, decorative rug. His boots are cast off beside him, the laces loose like he's taken the time pulling them, instead of toeing them off like a typical teenager. His jeans are muddied below the knee. There's a blue towel thrown over his shoulder that looks like it's been rung through his slightly curling, static-y hair. He gestures towards the other, folded towel, on the hallway table, eyes meeting her suppressed smile.

She edges around the dark wooden floor to take it, listening to the one-sided conversation he's having with the police.

She drops her duffel bag, leans sideways a little to pile her hair over her shoulder and start wringing it out. She wants to scrub at her scalp but using a terrycloth towel will be pain enough as her hair dries into a mess of frizz and tangles. She bunches her hair into the towel, systemically turning it once it grows damp.

"Of course. Thank you," Stefan tells the other person as he hangs up.

"They didn't ask for either of us to come in," he informs her, watching her shiver and grit her teeth as she whisks the towel around her shoulders, under her hair.

"Is that usual?" She questions, twisting the front of the towel in her fist to keep herself cocooned.

"I'm sure they'll call tomorrow and ask for a statement," he rubs at the back of his neck, chest stretched as he sighs.

"Nothing about, don't leave town?"

"No," his eyes squint at her, picking up on her unease. He looks down at her fist holding together the towel cape and the corner of his lips twitch. "Do you want a shower?"

She blinks, towel cape loosening. She was expecting an opportunity to change clothes followed by a conversation spent ignoring abraised skin. "Uh, yeah," she clears her throat. "That's okay?" Is this something she's supposed to say no to, because he's asking to be polite?

He wipes his palms against his upper thighs. She notices his fingers flex and curl back into fists. "Yeah, it's okay," his smile turns rueful as he crosses his arms over his chest and rolls his shoulders forward slightly. "I could use a hot shower."

Right. His circulation is worse than hers, more so because of the bunny diet. She nods in understanding. He nods back, taking her response as agreement.

"I can see which of the spare bathrooms are stocked -"

"All I need is hot water," she lifts her duffel bag as evidence.

"Okay," he gestures towards the left hallway, left arm outstretched, and right palm curled around the back of his neck.

He doesn't turn on the hallway switch, so the hallway stays dark with the glow of the foyer behind them.

"The first guest room should work." He gestures to the first door after the staircase, while he stops in front of it.

The hallway is wide enough to sidestep him and pass on the right. She doesn't need him to tell her how to work the shower, so she leaves him easily.

"Oh, umm..." she twists on her heel. He tilts his head up inquiringly, still standing at the bottom of the stairs facing her, hoodie unzipped and rolled over his broad shoulders. "Could you give me like 20 minutes?" She briefly flickers her eyes towards him, gnawing at her lip. "Just combing my hair will take half that."

"There isn't a hurry," he assures her.

She relaxes her fist around the towel, takes a dancing step back with the duffel bag bumping her leg. "Hmmm, remember you said exactly that while you're waiting," she smirks.

"Well," he declares wirily "coffee will be waiting in the kitchen when the water runs cold."


The person in the mirror has dirt caked on cheek, red rimming her eyes and nose, bitten lips, and long, tangled, frizzing hair.

The mirror takes up too much of the wall, being so discouraging and hateful. She ducks her chin, focuses on unwrapping the lemon soap placed in the soap dish and lathers up her hands to scrub at the dirt under her nails. Other than the first, dismayed reflection, she doesn't lift her head to look at the mirror again.

She focuses on the whooshing water, head buzzing with trapped, tangent thoughts. She focuses on distraction, on starving off the inevitable.

There's too much in front of her to succumb to what she doesn't have time to feel. She can't think about Miranda Gilbert's body, or her next steps beyond getting clean. It's the midnight hour, the worst time for reflection or for planning.

She digs through her bag, pulling out her comb, toiletries, and clean sweatpants, underwear, bra, and a long, loose t-shirt that's worn thin. This is her sleepwear, spend one night in a motel bag. She doesn't feel like grabbing something more appropriate from the car. She doesn't know what would be appropriate. Where is she going to sleep tonight? How long is she going to talk to Stefan? Is she going to the hospital to talk to Grayson?

Damn it.

She starts on her hair, bottom to roots, working at the snares with one arm and then the other when one starts to ache.

She runs her hair through the comb until the tangles stop. Then she sits there, on the toilet seat lid, working up the energy to continue, to stand.


There's a trail of soft lights, scones and table lamps, leading to the kitchen. She follows it, finishing the braid over her right shoulder.

"Hey," she shuffles in, breathing in the coffee aroma.

"Hey," he returns, looking up from a deep contemplation, leaning over the kitchen island with a white coffee cup cradled in his hands.

She doesn't spend much time taking in the kitchen. She's seen it plenty of times before, in a way. The green subway tile, and the overhead chandeliers are the same as they were when they were installed in the 1920's. The appliances are new, but modernity is the least interesting thing to focus on here, even if it looks like an expensive, professional-envied, industrial sized stove. The long, black walnut table might be from the original Salvatore mansion.

She runs her fingers across one of the groves, expertly sealed and varnished, and finds herself sliding into one of the chairs instead of taking a stool at the counter near Stefan.

She looks up to apologize, to get up and move closer, but Stefan is bringing over two cups, and shaking his head a little to forestall her apology. Stefan is in sweatpants as well. A soft grey that's low on his hips with the strings pulled tight, and white undershirt loose on his chest, and tight at the biceps.

She sighs, leaning her back against the backrest, shifting her hips a little to slide down so her head rests against the top. "I didn't cause the accident," she starts with, just as he's sliding her cup in front of her. "In case you thought that."

It feels safer here, to talk. Further from the bridge. Further from Grayson.

"I didn't."

He sounds sincere enough she darts cautious eyes towards him.

"Maybe," she answers, non-committal, not moving, just watching him pull the chair back and take a seat across from her. "But let's be honest. I'm just skipping a few steps."

His brows furrow, and he looks down at his own mug.

She pulls in a steadying breath, reluctantly lifting her head. "If I could have intervened earlier, I..." she fumbles, not sure she knows the answer to that, "I would have thought of something else." Her lips lift, humorously. "Intervening at all was risky."

His lips press, heavy eyebrows dropping "How?"

That's...not something she wants to get into.

"If you tell me you've intervened in every situation where someone needed help, and to give it you would put yourself in danger, I don't think I would believe you."

"Helping put you in danger," he infers, shifting back in his seat.

"Yeah," she agreed, "but it might have...put you in danger as well." Now she really needs to draw a breath, feeling a little lightheaded. "Likely, Grayson doesn't tell the Founder's Council. Given the secrets he keeps that's pretty in character."

His expression...more than that, his entire body language changes. Kinship, she thinks again. He did feel it, because he's suppressing it now, and looking at her coolly.

"Council?" He repeats conversationally, like the word holds no connotation for him and this is a normal conversation.

She clears her throat. "Yeah, that's...still around. Or at least it's been revived. I don't know. Only Grayson's generation of the Founding families know, and only the Gilberts know anything of substance."

His fingertips flicker along the rim slowly, hypnotizing her eye. He might be doing it on purpose, which has her back tighten. "Substance being?"

Just keep going...

"Daylight rings, for one." She looks at his, large and clunky on his middle finger of his right hand. The silver Salvatore arms set into lapis lazuli.

One of his hands drops to his lap. There's a strain in the muscle in his arm, visible in his short sleeve shirt. "You know about..."

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, briefly covering her eyes with her hand, rubbing an inward circle towards the bridge of her nose. She exhales. "I know that's – I mean, I don't care," she drops her hands dully, pushing past her dry throat. "But I get that's not something you're used to being casual about. It's just I can't really tell you you're in possible danger, without mentioning it, so..."

"So," he picks off, cycling through upset, wariness, confusion, befuddlement, and affected expressionless through her explanation. He briefly closes his eyes, shakes his head, and takes a mouthful of coffee. "You knew the crash was going to happen," he leads with. "I'm guessing it wasn't an accident."

"That was an accident, actually."

She knows she sounds contrary. His brows pull further together. "Then how was intervening risky?"

She exhales. Okay. Okay.

She runs the pad of her finger along one of the circles in the wood. "I promised someone it would happen," she confesses "it had to play out like I said it would."

Or else –

Or else.

His eyes ask why. "How did you know it would happen?"

"Ohhh," she drags out, conjuring a smile. "I don't think you'll believe me. You don't seem to know much about...witchy affairs." She makes a face at herself. Occult would have sounded too serious, and she's trying to keep this light. Witchy sounds juvenile. She's talking to Stefan, not Damon.

"Are you a witch?" he guesses.

"Hmm," she wrinkles her nose, eyes unconsciously darting to her loose sleeve. "Something different," she tugs on her sleeve with thumb and fore finger before deciding, fine, just do it. She rolls her right sleeve up slowly, turning her wrist so he can see the raised scar tissue surrounded by pale, new skin. Little scars spread out around the circle, like sparks of lightning.

He looks at it, and at her, eyes crinkled under furrowed brows. It's a mark of torture, not choice, and he sees it without her having to say it. The last person who saw it thought she did it to herself, which, given that they knew her, and he doesn't –

He lays his hand flat on the table, near her wrist, his palm open. She lets him circle her wrist, rotating it to look over the eye branded into her skin. The pad of his thumb feels warmer than the center of his palm. The coffee's effects, maybe. It whispers against the raised edges and waxy skin along her pulse point.

"I don't know what this means," he admits quietly.

Her answer is just as quiet and subdued. "Are you familiar with the name Pythia?"

He licks at the corner of his lips before nodding. "An oracle?" he guesses, looking back at the eye. His fingers draw back, and he slides his palm out from under her wrist gently.

"Seer." She monotones, for a moment leaving the eye visible between them before she rolls her sleeve back down.

"A seer." He inhales, tilting his head towards the back of his chair. It creaks at his shifted position. "Cassandra."

"Funny thing about names," she repeats, looking at her coffee. It's a weird thing to offer at midnight, after an experience with death and death-defying. Maybe he picked up on her being far from sleep. She sips at it, cautious of being burnt. It's pleasant, and not too strong. She kind of expected it to taste like fuel, given his vampire-ness. "I'm not one anymore. Had my retirement party and everything."

"Retired," he repeats, piercing through her false levity with understanding. "You got it to stop."

She burns her tongue taking a large swallow. Her throat almost closes trying to get it down. "I made a deal."

"And... intervening might compromise that deal?"

The breathy lightness unravels under the strain. Her smile could cut. "Intervening might lead to my early demise. I wouldn't have done anything if it meant going back to that."

She knows that's a monstrous thing to say, to look him in the eye as she does it and admit she would have let a family drown, but it's true. It's a horrible, horrible truth.

His expression doesn't change, but he lets the moment hang before his voice lowers. "What did change?"

"Grayson." She swallows. "He's alive." And that isn't a small thing. "You were always going to be there to save Elena," she adds.

"That's her name?" His eyes drop. "Elena?"

She snorts, indelicate and unladylike, and hit with an edge of hysterical hilarity. He says the name like it already means something to him. Like it's a delicate. "Never underestimate the allure of the doppelganger," she tells the universe. She presses her lips tightly to stop from laughing.

His brows quirk. "Doppel-ganger?"

Her head tilts. "It's weird that you get Pythia, but not doppelganger."

"Evil twin, I think. I read William Wilson. It just sounds..."

"Vampires are real too, in this crazy universe," she grins.

He rolls his eyes.

"Okay," she concedes, biting at her lip to stop from chuckling. "Not evil twin, but the whole, shadow-walker thing? That's real. Amara, Tatiana, Katrina, or Katherine as you knew her, Elena." She pauses. "A number in between, but those are like, the album covers."

He reaches the point where he's no longer surprised. His eyes don't even widen, which takes a little of the fun out of it. His shoulders curl as he drops further into his seat, palm pressed and pressing between his eyes. "You know about Katherine," he sighs, accepting.

"Yeah..." she clicks her tongue. Katherine is a veritable minefield. "That feels like something that should be tabled."

There are a dozen questions in his eyes. If this was Damon, his hand would likely be wrapped around her throat right now. Stefan shakes his head. "And shadow-walker is different from reincarnation?" He guesses.

"Same soul stuff? No. Well, I say no, but it depends on where you fall on the genetic predisposition, nature vs. nurture debate. They're more alike than different. Same brain structure, same core personality. Environmental doesn't mean much when the same stressors seem to produce the same results." She hasn't given it this much thought before, just focused on the insidious magical effects. "They're kind of like golems I guess."

"Golems," he repeats blandly, green eyes drifting to the ceiling.

"This is a lot to unravel," she sympathizes.

He laughs, breathless and a little against his will, reaching to scrub at his face before sighing. "Okay, so, Elena. Gilbert?" She nods. "Is she a descendent of Katherine's?"

She shifts, balances her elbows against the table and places her chin on her crossed hands. "I don't know if she's a direct descendant. Likely she's from Katherine's daughter, but I haven't done the genealogy. I don't know if the doppelganger thing only follows mitochondrial, and what the limitations are in that. Maybe she's the daughter's daughter daughter times however long 500 years is, or maybe they're cousins, technically, branching out 2,000 years ago."

He leans forward too, his forearm against the table as he scoots closer. "500 years, 2,000 years. I'll assume those aren't random numbers."

"I'm never more truthful then when it sounds like I'm lying," she smiles cheekily.

He laughs again, just a slight huff and shake of his head. "Why? What's the purpose of a doppelganger?"

Her eyes drop as she frowns. "Well..." she mulls over her response, "I suppose, if I had to pick one, then mainly to destroy purgatory."

"Right. Obviously." His brow lifts sardonically.

"Of course, why limit yourself to one?" She smirks.

"Stefan." She startles, instinctively backing away as her heart rate jumps. Zach is standing in the doorway, awkwardly, in a white undershirt and flannel sleep pants and tennis shoes. He scratches at his curly, sleep ruffled hair. "Can we talk?" He asks Stefan meaningfully, head tilted towards the hallway. He spares her a short, discomforted glance.

Stefan looks at her, hands balanced on the table to rise, but still sitting in his seat.

"I'm fine," she dismisses easily, still watching his "uncle". Their relationship seems... more strained than she was expecting.

"I'll be back," he murmurs, tucking his chair in when he gets up.

Zach backs away from him, or maybe he's just moving out of the doorway.

She hears him ask, "is she?" in an undertone, right outside the kitchen.

She doesn't hear Stefan's response.

Her eyes un-focus, nails tapping against the ceramic mug.

She knows he's mostly a hermit in Mystic Falls, but she has vision/memories of him being more assertive, and friendly, and less afraid to turn his back on the great-uncle he likes.

What was he asking anyway, if she was Stefan's next blood donor?

Not a vampire. How could he forget not inviting her inside?


Grayson Gilbert was in the Salvatore living room, standing over Stefan's body.

She can make out grey socked feet, with black soles, and grey sweatpants. She can't see his face. Can't see his skin. She doesn't know if the rest of his body has turned veiny and grey.

Zach looks at her, frozen in the doorway, while Grayson doesn't move at all.

"I hope you didn't kill him." There's a pounding in her ears, and her nails are biting into the flesh of her palms. "You know," she continues, stalking closer with no idea what she's going to do, what she's going to say next. "It would be pretty bad karma to kill the man who saved your fucking life."

Grayson looks up slowly, dark shadows under his eyes, and a sickly pale cast to his skin. His face is sweating.

"Did he?" Grayson asks lightly, eyes blown and unfocused, like he's unable to follow the conversation, or make out where exactly, she's standing.

She falters. Danger Will Robinson! has been flashing since she stood in the doorway, has been whispering since Zach looked at her in the kitchen.

She forces herself to stride closer, just enough to make out Stefan's pale skin.

She inhales. Vervain. She doesn't know which of them dosed him. She doesn't know why, but it's vervain, not a stake to the chest.

"If you were here for his blood, giving him vervain seems...counterproductive," it's the only conclusion she can draw without mentioning Augustine, and his torture basements.

"You're remarkably well informed," he murmurs absently, turning his head down to observe Stefan.

"That's my curse. Being well informed," she smiles caustically.

Zach Salvatore, the second Salvatore to betray his vampire relatives with the Augustine, looks out of his depth. Mentioning Stefan saving his life caused his shoulders to stiffen. He's watching Grayson like he he's been lied to and should have known better.

As clinical as Grayson's expression remains, he's cradling his hands against his chest, his left hand clenched around his right. When she sees the wedding ring, knows that's not what he's clutching, she thinks she understands.

"You're waiting. You, you're waiting to die, to see if you'll resurrect. That's -"

"The only way I'll know," he interrupts. Oh God, she was right! Why does she have to be right?

She plants herself, lips pressed tightly. "Idiotic. You're risking your actual life. You're committing suicide."

He doesn't respond. Not even visually.

She advocates to Zach. "He's not thinking clearly. He needs to go to the hospital."

Zach's mouth opens slightly, but he steps back. His green eyes, his slightly curling brown hair - he looks like Stefan. She tries harder.

"He just lost his wife. This isn't – this isn't justified, or strategy, or whatever he convinced you. It's grief."

He's still at sea, unable to chart a course. Grayson then. Grayson who looks like he's about to keel over.

She gets closer and it gets worse. His collar is damp with sweat. His lips are slightly blue. The color has drained from his skin, and his eyes are sunken. This must have distracted Stefan. It's distracting her.

"Maybe you're not dying," it feels like a lie "maybe you're just sick."

"I'm a doctor," he closes his eyes. "I'm capable of diagnosing a cerebral hemorrhage."

Her hand presses against her mouth. Like Elena. Just like Elena.

"Then you need surgery," she advises, throat clogged.

"Mystic Falls has no neurosurgeons," he's twisting the Gilbert ring with his thumb, like he's polishing dirt off the black stone.

She didn't see this. She saw him watch Stefan grab Elena, close his eyes, and accept death.

She licks dry lips. "This is fear. You're worried you won't survive the surgery, so you have to believe it's supernatural. You –"

That means there's nothing she could say to convince him. He's going to let himself die, and because the accident isn't supernatural, he really will.

Does she know that, 100%? Is there a chance she's wrong, that she didn't see everything?

"Why didn't you ask Stefan for blood?" She looks down at his body, at his shallow breathing. She can't stand how clinically Grayson is observing him. Stefan saved his life. He saved his daughter's life. That meant something to him then, and not enough now? "You obviously have no qualms about using it," she grits out.

Grayson looks up at her with something more than apathy now. "I've been expe'ing someing, some-on make a move," he slurs, blinking slowly and wobbling on his feet.

She brings her arms out to bracket him but hesitates to touch him. Stefan's body is close enough she might fall on him trying to catch Grayson. She swallows. "That doesn't mean..." her voice is whispery soft. "There's a reason the doppelganger is cursed."

His eyes close. "Not Elena," his belief is strong enough to almost make it so.

"You vervained him to remove the temptation. You need this answer. You need to be right."

Otherwise, who's at fault?

She should have faced him at the lake. She shouldn't have run away.

His legs start shaking and his knees bend. She lunges forward to wrap her arms around his chest, to soften the landing as she drops with him.

He slumps sideways, his temple pressing into the soft rug, tension draining out of him.

"You know more about me than I'm comfortable with," he remarks with closed eyes, slightly more lucid.

"Another curse," she whispers, reaching out to gently clasp his hands. She avoids touching either of his rings. He taps his pointer finger on top of her hands and doesn't pull away.

"I have to live," he mumbles, and the last thing he mumbles: "Elena needs me."


"He made it seem as if Stefan had..."

"How much vervain?" she asks shortly. Her hands are still gripping Grayson's, so she wipes her cheeks on her shoulders.

Zach looks at the ground. She follows his eyes to a half-compressed syringe.

She nods tightly. It means nothing to her. A little or a lot she could understand. We only wanted him out for a few minutes, that's the answer she needed.

She pulls in a shaky breath, hands fluttering up and down her thighs. "I don't know when he last had vervain, and he's not drinking human blood. You basically gave a weaponized cold to someone with a shot immune system. He could be out for hours."

Zach gets down on his knees. It looks like prayer.

"If we did use Stefan's blood, like you said, it wouldn't work?"

"My blood would be better," she grimaces. His head draws back. She sighs. "I'm O positive, the universal donor, and mine isn't poisoned."

He presses his lips until they're white. "You said resurrect."

They both look at Grayson. He's still breathing, shallowly. She reaches out again, finding the weak and thread-y pulse in his wrist.

"Mystic Falls and their family secrets," she doesn't have the energy for contempt. She's giving this conversation less than half of her attention. "It's his ring," she elaborates.

Is the ring really his only chance? If he goes to the hospital will they take it off?

"I'm not waiting," she decides, drawing her hands away and stumbling to her feet.

"What are you going to do?" Zach doesn't look away from the two bodies, doesn't shift from his upright position on his knees. His voice strains.

"I'm going to try to expedite the process. If Sheila Bennett is awake, I think I know how to neutralize the vervain."


"Who are you?" Sheila grouses, her dark, liquored eyes squinting heavily under the yellow porch light. She's thrown the door wide open and looks angry enough at the wake-up call to toss her bodily to the curb.

"Casey Shannon." She remembers how Stefan earned her trust by offering his hand. She's not sure what Sheila could read from her. She doesn't really want to know. "Do you have hibiscus and mugwort?"

Sheila's stare hardens. "I assume this is a time sensitive endeavor?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Hmm," she purses her lips, contemplating Casey's disheveled appearance and raising a penciled eyebrow at her bare feet.

"I'll owe you one," she propositions. She knows the weight of promises and doesn't offer it lightly. I knew then too, I just didn't care. Sheila wouldn't ask for the same things, wouldn't know to ask.

"By agreeing to help will I see myself roped into whatever trouble you're gotten yourself into?"

Correct answer: no ma'am.

"Probably. Eventually. But through your granddaughter's relationship with Elena Gilbert, not by me," she answers. And you're killing yourself, anyway, so why would you care about trouble.

Sheila Bennett is as unyielding as stone. She may be copiously poisoning her liver, but her spine is steel.

Maybe her warning will make Sheila focus on Bonnie, on teaching her fundamentals she never got around to.

"In the future, I'm not an apothecary. Do not come to my doorstep at one o'clock in the morning ever again."


When she gets back to the boarding house, Stefan is laying where she left him. Grayson isn't.

There's a note next to Stefan's body that says 'Hospital'. She assumes its Zach's script.

She doesn't know when Zach left. She doesn't know if Grayson worsened. If he died.

She took to long, or Grayson's clock ran short, or Zach was too agitated to wait for someone he didn't know while a man he did was dying in his living room.

She drags Stefan's dead weight to the nearest wall. If he's not upright enough she'll drown him instead of reviving him, and he does breathe, and he is capable of drowning, as she knows. She places her hands under his armpits, pulls up the rug in her journey dragging him, and props him against the wall with her arms wrapped around his waist and her hands bloodlessly clenched together.

She angles his head up and unscrews the traveler's mug one-handed. She uses her thumb to pull his jaw open and starts tilting the liquid down his throat. It immediately spills down his chin.

"Fuck," right, because swallowing is, you know, mostly voluntary.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she pulls back, analyzes the situation before moving forward again, this time lightly kicking his legs apart to kneel between them. She tips the mug into his mouth while using her ring and middle finger to rub his throat, under his chin, over his Adam's apple, and to the base of his throat.

Less spills over, but it still leaks out of the corner of his mouth.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up," she repeats under her breath.

Stefan starts to choke, the home brewed tea bubbling and leaking past his lips as his chest convulses. She starts to pull back, but he reaches out to weakly grab her wrist. His skin feels chillier than it had pulling her out of the lake. She stays perfectly still, not wanting his grip to tighten, as his eyes open hazily.

"You were injected with vervain," she tells him, still close enough to count his full, fluttering eyelashes "I gave you hibiscus and mugwort to counteract it." He loosens his grip, lets her pull her hand back. She shifts so her knees aren't pressed into his inner thighs. His hand rises to touch the hair fallen over her shoulder, already pulling out of her braid.

"How?" he asks hoarsely, a strand of her hair between his fingers, curled over his daylight ring.

"I...got it from Sheila Bennett," she blinks at him.

He licks his dry, cracked lips, slumping back against the wall. His hand drops to his lap. "Where –"

She clears her throat. "Zach? Grayson?" she guesses. He nods tiredly. "Zach took Grayson to the hospital. I've been gone...more than a half an hour. You were out a few minutes longer than that."

She leans back on her heels, holding the traveler's mug to his eye line before depositing it outside his sprawled legs. "In case you need more, I don't know if you being conscious means you're in the clear or not. Were you able to hunt, before? Having fresh blood in your system might help."

He doesn't answer but his hand reaches for the mug, grasping it on his second attempt. He quickly drains the rest of it, and keeps it tilted until the last drops onto his lips.

Even counteracted, vervain would still weaken him. (How much?)

She bites her lip hard, and consciously stops before drawing blood.


Maybe in TVD/TO you can take blood from a vervained vampire and still heal, but I'm saying no.

Seeking Opinion: Is Legacies worth watching?