A/N: This is an AU future fic. I had an idea and I am running with it. Foolish, since I have two other VD works ongoing, but I must. Enjoy and if you find it enjoyable, review.
Intentions, good or bad, pave the road to hell. As roads went, his was the smoothest, blackest two-lane highway around. There was no getting around it either—this was his route 66, no detours, no exits, and no rest stops. If he could stop, he would have to thumb through memories of them to come to the turning point, and he was already insane from going forward. Going back would kill him as sure as a bullet through the heart.
Moonlight glinted off the silver ring of his finger and he sighed. Or not.
Damn fucking promises. The closer he got to home the quicker the memories. It wasn't a promise. More like a hex to blight his humanity. And now here he was with what little flesh and bone and blood he had left, burning rubber and gas to rumble into Virginia to answer a rather vague call. After all these years one would think filial bonds would realign themselves due to a new perspective, but no. Hexes or promises or whatever came with sister strings.
Headlights briefly illuminated the welcome sign to Mystic Falls. It was three in the morning on a Sunday. The town was dead quiet, amber pools of light creating dense shadow wells. Wind rustled leaves from dying branches and swept them across worn Main Street.
Jeremy Gilbert paused at a red light. After blowing fifty of the things to get here, he felt bound by some inexplicable law to obey. He rolled down the window and inhaled. Same woodsy scent. Someone, probably the Logermans, had pine trees still for sale this close to Christmas.
The light turned and he shot down the road, made a left, and continued another three miles over the bridge to the quiet suburb where all his childhood lay in well-defined sections. A part of him thought he wouldn't remember what collection of streets led him to the green painted mailbox with the red rooster, but home engraved an image on his brain he could never erase.
He parked as close to the curb as possible and for the first time in two days, cut the engine. The world was suddenly doused in silence and stillness. He looked up at the house. Half a string of lights were up. There was a tire swing hanging from the oak and a bike rested against the porch steps.
The only force keeping him from a hotel room was the disappointment he would surely catch from about four faces, one of which he found oddly identical to his mother's. He grabbed the duffle next to him and stepped foot in Mystic Falls for the first time in ten years.
Jeremy walked slowly across the lawn and up the steps, sparing a glance at the retro red Schwinn in his path. Someone put up a screen door. Finally. He grinned as he rapped his knuckles twice on the hard wood. Shuffling feet soon arrived and the porch light switched on right above his head. He winced and stepped back the same time the door opened.
"You weren't kidding."
Jenna stood in a blue robe, her red hair pulled back into a hasty bun. He noticed a few lines around her eyes and parenthetical indents around her mouth. Her face lost the roundness of youth but her eyes still sparkled at him like time hadn't passed. All she needed to do was give him a half-smile and he was sixteen again.
"Are you surprised?" Jeremy said by way of greeting. Jenna pushed open the screen door to let him in and a blast of heat and the smell of pie hit him all at once.
He turned to her once she finished locking up. She looked into his face for a second before hugging him. He kept his hands at his sides but allowed himself to relax. It had been ten years. She was allowed.
Jenna patted his back and stepped back. "Are you hungry? There's chicken and some biscuits leftover from dinner."
Jeremy nodded. "Anything to drink too?"
Jenna headed away down the short hall to the kitchen. "I'm assuming something stronger than juice?"
Jeremy said nothing as he took in his surroundings. What was once his house had become Jenna's house. Rain boots and umbrellas stood in a corner near the door. There was a bright purple coat hanging off the banister. Pictures lined the wall leading to the kitchen. Pictures of his parents, of Elena, of him, of Jenna getting married, of her kids, of vacations, of parties. It was a disconcerting trip through time to reach the kitchen.
The sight of fried chicken and biscuits had him salivating the second he sat down. He ate silently, eyes on the imported beer or his plate or the planter by the kitchen window that must have appeared sometime in the past years.
Jenna sat across from him at the island, watching him with a critical eye. He knew she was bursting with questions from the way she kept sighing but the interrogation would have to wait until later, when he figured out what the hell he was doing back home.
"I made up the guest room," she said when he was finished. She took his plate and set it in the sink.
"Maybe I should get a room—"
Jenna cut him off with a swift narrowed look. Jeremy swallowed the rest of the words and followed her upstairs. He glanced through the half-open bedroom doors that used to be his and Elena's. One had a nightlight of dinosaurs and the other one of constellations. He had cousins. It was real now that he heard their soft breathing.
Jenna opened the door to his (temporary) room and he entered it slowly, looking around in the dark. It was large, like Elena's, with a walk-in bathroom. Jenna managed to merge his old stuff and Elena's stuff into something bordering on nostalgia. Well, nostalgia for anyone who knew the importance of the stereo headphones hanging on a hook.
"Better than a motel room?"
Jeremy glanced at her. "It'll do."
"Night, Jer."
She closed the door before he could respond. He stood in the middle of the room and let the duffel drop, then fell back onto the bed, closed his eyes and slept like the dead.
It was raining but there was fire everywhere, crawling up the trees, racing along the forest ground. He could barely see in all the smoke. He stumbled forward, nearly falling on a burning log when a hand grabbed his hoodie and pulled him away.
Caroline flashed him a tight smile and sped ahead into the smoke. He heard snarling and screaming all around him, flesh tearing apart amid the cracking of charring wood. There was something at his back and he continued on, jogging around falling timber and gray corpses.
The smoke cleared for an instant and he saw Stefan struggling with a gray wolf. He had his hands around its throat; its jaw was mere inches from his face. He was about to fall when a black wolf streaked into the fray and barreled into the other wolf. They tussled and the black wolf leapt up first, pouncing on the exposed chest of the gray wolf.
Stefan locked eyes with him. He said something and waved his hand towards the clearing. The clearing. Ahead, between the shadows and the flickering orange trees, he saw them kneeling. There was a dagger. He rushed forward, his heart beating hard and his lungs burning. He had the stake in his hand as he approached the figure from the back. His arm was raised as he vaulted into the air and he saw her, for a second, her hazel eyes wide and her hand outstretched…
Jeremy rolled to his feet, breathing hard. Disorientation fogged his mind for a moment before he saw the jewelry box belonging to Elena. His shirt was soaked with sweat. His arm cramped and he released a slow breath as he unclenched his fist. There was blood on his palm.
A pattering of feet turned his attention from his palm to the slowly opening door. He ducked into the bathroom, shutting the door just as he heard small voices in hushed tones.
"Daddy said he's been everywhere."
"He's not here."
A shadow passed by the door. He flushed the toilet and heard them run out the room. They must be…eight and five now. God. He put his face in his hands and breathed out slow. Elena better have a damn good reason for calling him.
The only time he took off the ring was four years ago behind some shithole dive in Portland. He got the living shit kicked out of him by a werewolf a day before a full moon. He felt every initial blow but only a vague tingling afterwards. It didn't occur to him until he was lying there in a puddle of dirty water, unable to stand, that there was something wrong. This was different from having his neck broken or being stabbed to death—when he died he felt it.
He remembered two Tuesdays ago when he sliced open his hand tracking a vampire. Didn't feel the sting. He fell awkwardly during a chase the week before and he walked on the ankle like nothing was wrong despite it being the size of a blood orange.
He felt for the ring, inhaled, twisted it off and immediately passed out. When he woke, a pretty blonde doctor stood at the head of his hospital bed and rambled off his list of injuries.
"You're lucky someone found you. Fifteen more minutes without medical attention and—"
"Do you guys read from the same manual or something?" Jeremy cut in.
She flipped shut the file and sighed. "Mr. Gilbert, this isn't your first time in a hospital and from your rather flippant attitude, it won't be your last. As your doctor this time around, I want you to heed this warning—your body won't withstand another beating. Whatever you're into, quit and find something else."
Jeremy watched her leave and shut the door before disconnecting the leads and the IVs. He winced as he swung his legs over the side to the floor and took a shaky breath. On top of his folded clothes sat his ring. He felt like shit, probably looked it, and it was the greatest feeling in the world. But there was something beneath the feeling, something like a limited time only deal. He reached for the ring and slipped it back on.
The doctor was right—he needed to do something else. He flexed the hand bearing the ring. Too bad he didn't know anything else.
Jeremy pulled the coat tighter around him as a gust buffeted him down the steps to his car. A thin layer of frost covered the windshield and there was a note tucked between the wiper and the glass.
A smile worked his lips as he read Christmas tree card with crayon letters. They were imaginative kids, and persistent. He slipped the card into an inside pocket and went to the trunk to search for the iron brush or ice scraper.
Of course no such thing resided in his car.
"Shit," he said as he slammed the passenger door.
"Need some help?"
Alaric stood on the other side. He held up the brush and the ice scraper.
"Start the car—we can drink some coffee while we wait for the ice to soften."
They ended up leaning against the back of the car, sipping bourbon-laced coffee from thermos caps.
"Where are the kids?"
"Jenna took them grocery shopping. Christmas is in two days and it's our year."
"Your year?"
"Yeah. We take turns hosting."
Jeremy nodded. Alaric drained his cup and turned to Jeremy. "Let's do this."
It took them a good ten minutes to clear the ice. It was a silent endeavor for which Jeremy was grateful. He liked Alaric. The guy was one of the few truly good men he had ever come across, and he hadn't changed despite marrying into a morbid family.
"You know why Elena wants to see me?"
Alaric watched Jeremy wipe down the windshield with a homemade defrosting agent. The kid had grown up since he last saw him. His eye caught the ring. Yeah, anyone would grow up fast doing what Jeremy chose to do.
"Elena is one of those mysteries I'm content to let remain a mystery."
Jeremy stood back and expelled a deep sigh. "I'm just hoping this isn't one of those tricks, you know?"
He tossed the ice scraper and rag to Alaric, who tucked them beneath his arm.
"Yeah, I know. I've busted up quite a few of those plans, some of them pretty damn inventive."
"Oh yeah?"
Alaric grinned. "You have people who care about you, Jeremy. They miss you. They want to see you."
A flash of something broke across Jeremy's face. If he didn't know too much about heartbreak and sacrifices and misunderstanding, he would brook the subject. As it was, he let that something pass.
"Well, thanks for the help Rick. If I'm not back by dinner, you know where to look."
Jeremy slid behind the wheel and revved the engine before tearing off down the road. He made a right instead of a left. Alaric shook his head and went back inside to get warm.