Matt stood alone in the cemetery, facing his sister's grave and holding a bouquet of wildflowers. It wasn't easy for him to visit her place of burial, knowing how she'd died.
She died a vampire. She lived her entire life as a human - as one of us - but she died one of them.
A part of him felt guilty for differentiating between himself and the majority of his friends that way. It made them sound evil.
Well…maybe that conclusion wasn't too far off for someone like Damon, though Matt hardly considered him a friend. He was more along the lines of a necessary evil. Damon was in the habit of almost exclusively looking out for number one, but occasionally it worked out that what was "best" for Damon was also good for the rest of the group. Only then did Damon grudgingly go along with everybody else.
Then there was Damon's brother Stefan, a vampire Matt actually felt sorry for. All that he'd been through the last couple years, in simply trying to protect Elena, had seemingly only served to bring her into vampirism, not to mention closer to Damon.
Elena…now there was a girl who had been through a lot. If it wasn't enough to have her parents ripped away from her, she'd had her world invaded and turned upside down, ultimately changing her into a girl he no longer recognized.
And as far as unrecognizable females went, the change in Caroline was incredible. Once upon a time she'd been smug and two-faced, but vampirism had brought out a sensitivity that Matt had never known Caroline had. Her new personality suited her, and Matt had to admit it was one of few good things that had happened recently.
Matt's thoughts turned to Tyler, one of his few friends that wasn't a vampire. That is to say, he wasn't just a vampire. No, Tyler was a hybrid, with vampire and werewolf blood running through his veins. He'd gone through hell to break Klaus' sire-bond over him, but he'd come back a stronger leader than he'd ever been before. That was another good thing that had come out of this nightmare they were living in.
And of course there was Bonnie and Jeremy, both in their own respects a link between humans and supernatural creatures. Bonnie had fully accepted the "witch gene" passed on to her from her mother and grandmother, and even though she'd meddled on the dark side and lost her powers, she was working hard to regain them. And poor Jeremy was torn between two identities, struggling to retain relationships with vampires he cared about while trying to resist the inner demons that were telling him to kill Elena and the others.
And then there's me…plain old, normal, predictable Matt. Nothing special or supernatural here; I'm just me.
In a group that was largely populated with otherworldly creatures, Matt felt very much outnumbered and as if his opinion regarding supernatural matters carried no weight.
It seemed like vampires and hybrids were running rampant through the streets of Mystic Falls, almost to the point where the supernatural world was normal, and being human put you in the minority.
Matt looked at his sister's headstone. "Vick, did you ever feel like this…like you were completely invisible, like no one needed you? Is that why you started hanging out with the wrong crowd…so that you'd feel better about yourself?"
Even as the words passed his lips, Matt again thought of his friends - Elena, Caroline, Tyler, Stefan, and even Damon - and how suspicious so many people were of supernatural goings-on. Since the explosion at the Youngs' farm, it seemed like everyone was on a vampire hunt.
There was only so much protection the vampires and hybrids could give one another; Bonnie was only now beginning to get her powers back; and Jeremy…well, Jeremy was in a class all by himself. But Matt…Matt was human, and being human could have its advantages. He tended to blend into the background, and because of that fact, Matt knew it was possible for him to get information that the others might not have access to.
Matt still felt a little left out as the only "normal" one in the group, but honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to be like his friends. He was having enough trouble just trying to keep their vampire/vampire hunter/hybrid/witch identities a secret, without having to worry about a secret identity of his own.
The fact of the matter was, people in Mystic Falls trusted him; they felt comfortable having him around. Because he was safe, he was normal, and he was predictable. In a town that was none of those things, Matt Donovan was a rare commodity.
That meant his friends needed him. Maybe being "just human" wasn't so bad, after all.
Matt placed the bouquet in the flower holder by the gravestone and wiped a tear from his cheek.
"I miss you, Vicki," he whispered. "I think you'd be proud of me. I hope you would be, anyway. Things have gone haywire around here lately, but my friends and I…we're trying to make it right again. Maybe someday we will. In the meantime…well, I guess for now I don't mind being ordinary. That's the way my friends need me, and it's really nice to be needed."
With that, Matt turned and walked away, ready to face whatever might come his way.