AN/ This is the first story I will post on this account, I made this in like 3 hours so sorry if it is especially bad.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries, so please do not sue me. I only own my oc.
Her life had been always, at best mediocre. Of course there were good times, good places, good
people, but always at the end, life got back to that same grey area of mediocre. It was like a box of dark, sometimes you could only sit in the corner and watch things happen, but sometimes oh sometimes something good came your way and that box lid parted just a little, and you could see that slight sliver of sunshine, and there were hope. Just for a bit, but that slight bit of sunshine can keep you going for a surprising amount of time.
Thats how Gwendolyn Gilbert felt most of the time. Her life had always been that picture perfect, sunny picket fence and golden retvierer perfect, you know the type. But every picture, even the perfect ones had cracks. Cracks that started little, like a father being a little bit too aggressive, and then escalated like roots sliding and flowing and suddenly the cracks were everywhere, and suddenly your mother had a little bit too much to drink and your father was still that little bit too aggresive and everything was falling apart. Because of those tiny little cracks that shattered the whole picture.
Gwen loved her family, of course she did. She loved her father, her role model, someone she aspired to be like. Until the cracks came to the picture, and slowly that perfect role model became someone she wanted to hide from, wanted to preserve the picture just a little bit longer, because maybe it was just a fluke, she was being bad, of course she deserved it. But then came the doubt, what if she didn´t. She knew that on some level it was not okay, but looking at the family pictures down the hall made her shut her mouth, atleast at first.
She of course loved her mother too, someone she could always turn to when that box started to close on her. But with the cracks, she was gone also. With a bit too much wine she was gone.
There was also her twin, her sister, a half of her. And that half of her was the thing she loved the most, even when the cracks came. It was like she took root of that half and grounded herself there, always and forever , that was something they said. Then the little brother who looked up to each and every one of them. That little broher she wanted to preserve being little for a lot more time, than she thought she would be able to.
Gwen had been feeling the cracks come for a sometime, Elena and Jeremy of course couldn´t tell, even if they could feel everything being just slightly off. Gwen tried to preserve them from the world, let them live in that picketfence dream for a little bit longer.
It was a sligthly windy, but sunny day when the first piece of Gwen cracked. She had just turned 12 with Elena. She was sitting on their picket fence, appropriately white, when her father was leaving for his office. Grayson was the town doctor, respectable and looked up to. And he was tasked with looking after the kids for the day. Any other day he could have dropped the kids with a neighbour, maybe the Forbers or Lockwoods, but everyone including Miranda was looking after the next weekends event, something to do with charity. Grayson got a call to the office, but he couldn´t leave the kids alone, no even if the twins were responsible enough, if Miranda got home and he wasn´t there he would sleep on the sofa for the next couple of weeks at least.
So that was how the kids ended up sitting up in the waiting room of the office. "You need to sit here nicely, for just a couple of minutes. I will be right back, Mandy will watch over you" Grayson promised them while ruffling Jeremy´s hair . While Elena and Jeremy just nodded and started to read the magazine´s on the table, Gwen watched their father hurry down the stairs, and turned to look at the lady in the front desk. She, the lady or more like girl, Mandy was chewing her gum while looking at a magazine, probably one of those one that told what way to wear your hair and clothes that summer.
Gwen turned back from Mandy to the door. It was slighly opened, her eyes widened. That door was never opened, it was always carefully locked. She looked back at Mandy, still chewing her gum uninterested at the kids, or anything else but her magazine. Gwen stood up, smiling at Elena who looked up just as she rose, "Don´t worry, I´m not going to do anything stupid." Elena just rolled her eyes and smiled, she knew her sister, of course she would do something extremely stupid, but as always she would get just as easily out of it.
Gwen started to walk over to the basement door, not too slowly or carefully that she would rise suspicion. She parted the door and slipped in. There was a muffled scream, that came from the basement just as she closed the door. Her heart jumped to her ears, what was that. As silently as she could she started to go down the stairs. She tried to glance through the plactic curtain, but couldn´t see throught. Frustrated with not knowing where the screams came she parted the plastic strips, just a little, just enough to see something.
There was someone on the operating table, someone that was trying to trash against the bindings on their body. Horrified she catched the eyes of the someone. It was a man, and he looked at Gwen with such wonder, and horror that she could only mirror the emotions on her own eyes. Just as suddenly as the whole thing started it ended. The man let out another scream and Gwen stood back from the curtains.
Her eyes still wide open and full of horror she could just and just make out her father on the other end of the table. She staggered a little back, hitting something metallic that clanked behind her when she stepped into it. She slowly parted her eyes from the sight to her behind, realising she was going to get caught Gwen ran up the stairs, opened the door and sat almost on Elena in her hurry.
"What was in the basement?" Elena asked her, eyes full of wonder. "Nothing special, don´t worry about it." Gwen told her, trying to get her feelings on check, before their father came back. In that moment Gwen´s whole world view changed.
None of the Gilberts would ever know, what exactly changed the sweet little Gwendolyn, but that was the starting point, the starting point of all the troubles that would come in to their lives.