Notes: So most people who know me can tell you that I have a huge problem with fanfiction being published and made out to be original work for a profit. However, I was on a train this morning and I found myself re-reading this document of an original story I had planned once and decided not to pursue. I still think it's a good story, I just got a different idea for a novel. So, I thought to myself, you shouldn't make fanfiction into original fiction, yes, but is there anything morally askew about doing the opposite? Not really, I argued to myself, because it was my idea in the first place and I never took anyone else's characters/ideas and claimed them as my own. So... that's how this story was born.
Notes 2: For the sake of making this story work, there are a few changes to canon. I know this an AU/AH, so really, tons of things are different, but these three are the most important to understand the story: First, Jeremy (and most every other major character) is nine years older than Elena. Second, Greyson is Elena's biological father. Third, Jeremy was the one who was adopted and doesn't know it, not Elena.
Note Three: The beginning diary entry occurs ten years after the prologue and the story itself. Just so you don't get confused. ;)
Serious Warning: Parts of this story include incest. Almost all of it is implied and not explicit, it is (for most of the story) unintentional and unknown by both parties, and I only have two or three scenes planned where explicit smut is involved, and you can always skip those. However, if any of this makes you uncomfortable, please don't read. You have been warned. :)
Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries, its characters, plot lines and premise belong to LJ Smith, Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec, The CW, Warner Brothers and their affiliates. I do not own anything detailed in this story, and I make no monetary profit by these writings. All rights reserved to respective parties.
Preface – Diary Entry
December 24th, 2032
My father had always been a man of the law; strict, austere, traditional and distrusting—the quintessential American lawyer, hiding his prejudice and bigotry under wads of stacked up cash and cultured narcissism. He categorized the world into two sections: those of whom are guilty for that which they are charged, and those of whom are guilty for crimes you've yet to unearth.
It isn't often these days that I allow my thoughts to wander to laments of my father, but I occasionally indulge in some moderated nostalgia—although nostalgia implies a certain fondness, and in that regard, the word is severely misleading. As a child, my mother berated my vocal disdain towards my father as unhealthy, but I found the venting process somewhat cathartic, and it was perhaps that above all else that led me to a Doctorate of Psychology.
My father fought tooth and nail for my attendance of an Ivy League Law School, ensuring that they'd have to be certified lunatics to deny me anything. My mother simply swallowed a mouthful of peas and nodded in resigned agreement. The Headmaster of the premier 'Exeter Private School' I was attending advocated for a degree in History. When I proclaimed my desire to attend a state school psychology program, my father refused to pay, and we would not speak another word to each other until five years later when I would receive word of his fatal heart attack.
Not for the first time over the course of a decade, I find myself wondering how he would've categorized Elena, how he would've regarded her outlandish personality, how horrified he would've been to uncover the true nature of our relationship.
She came in today, walked directly past the onslaught of Holiday consumers and unruly children, squished herself into that tiny little corner booth with just enough leg space to force an uncomfortable crisscross of her legs and sent me a tentative smile that I couldn't muster the energy to return. No one ever sits there but her on this particular day of the week, and I've come to regard it as her table. Eventually I'll take her order—always the same, Peppermint Mocha Latte; she has a thing for the festive drinks, even in the middle of a blistering summer—with that polite, detached retail smile that should only be reserved for imbeciles I really don't give a shit about; not for her, never for her.
She wears these sharp pencil skirts now, clips her hair up in that way that emulates that she lives, breathes and bathes in business, when in reality she lives a lie, breathes only because they let her and bathes alone because she has no real, true relationships. She spends half of her work week at the New York Public Library and the other half a ten minute taxi drive away at some publishing firm I can't be bothered to remember the name of.
Sundays, though… Sundays are special. On Sundays, she sits outside the café across the green for a good three or four hours reading trashy amateur manuscripts, books of every genre and possible topic from the Library, gossip magazines that she'll flip through carelessly only for the occasional pictures - truly anything she can get her hands on. Reading calms her down, an escape from reality—if it's on paper, it's not real. Little does she know that there is no reality for her, not in the true sense of the word.
I once found her perusing a book of piano composition sheet music and I couldn't help the impulse to inquire about it. She looked up in blatant surprise, as though she'd been so thoroughly immersed in analyzing every smudge and curve of the clef notes that she hadn't even noticed my presence, but she still smiled with that pleasant—(infuriating, heart-breakingly casual, detached, passive)—glow and answered simply, 'No, I don't play. Or… I used to, a long time ago. Too long ago to really matter now,' and excused herself in the very same breath, a warm smile on her lips, a ten dollar tip outstretched in her hands and that unique scent of the whip of her chestnut hair mingling with the soft, spring breeze.
She asked me on a date this past summer. It was a hot, Sunday afternoon in July and she'd just ordered her customary Peppermint Mocha Latte and she just came out with it, as blunt and direct as ever. She tells me that she enjoys the way my smile is always bashful even when I appear most confident, and it's not the first time she's told me this, my traitorous conscience takes to reminding me frequently. She asks if I enjoy Italian food and I immediately dismiss that I find Italian food overrated, but she persists still, determined and headstrong, as I glance nervously all around us for anyone else listening in, rubbing my sweaty palms together in a blatant panic, I politely—painfully—decline the offer, and the heart wrenching disappointment on her face is a thick, forceful lump in the back of my throat, impossible to swallow and even harder to take back. She simply nods, laughing off the rejection in that convincing manner of hers and I didn't see her for five Sundays after that. When she returned, it was as if the encounter had never occurred. As autumn fell upon us, there were more manuscripts in the morning sun, more gossip magazines during the afternoon rush, and ever more Peppermint Mocha Lattes—back to routine, back to familiarity, back to our forever inescapable lie.
Tomorrow's Sunday, Christmas Day; I'm the only one working the morning shift, I volunteered. I know she'll be here. She may not know it as profoundly as I do, but there's no one she'd rather spend Christmas with than me. Truthfully, there is no one else she could spend it with. She has no family, not anymore. I've never been one to indulge in dramatics, but it is just the slightest bit tragic that I no longer believe in Christmas Miracles… not since they took her away and taught me to relinquish any foolish notion of wishes.
Jeremy
Prologue
December 24th, 2022
Grove Hill, VA
The night seemed easy enough to manage when mapped out in theory, as he'd already reluctantly struggled through it several years and counting. He would walk right in, instantly attacked by a crusade of crude jokes and loose tongues, forced to engage in sweaty and uncomfortable handshakes with broad-grinned drunken idiots, engaging in inane small talk he held no taste for. After disentangling himself from numerous people he neither knew intimately nor really cared about, he'd find a smugly satisfied Kat Pierce perched on a bar stool, holding out a glass of eggnog—no doubt spiked with the strongest rum she could find—and he'd reluctantly toss back a few if only to please her so he didn't have to hear her whining about how stuck-up he was. The then drunk-off-his-ass bartender would somehow persuade him into an unenthusiastic rendition of everyone's favorite bullshit melody about a magically personified snowman and his makeshift audience would all break out in exuberant laughter as he rang out that final note, at which point he would gracefully conclude the evening by successfully dodging out of the bar in just under two hours.
He was annoyed to admit that it was becoming something of a Christmas ritual in the past few years. It had become unfortunate tradition ever since Kat had insistently—(drunkenly)—stumbled into his dorm room one Christmas Eve, pulling his bleary-eyed, over-tired and practically drooling from sleep exhaustion graduate student self off his cedar oak desk and into a far too bright and boisterous Irish bar nestled in an inconspicuous corner of one of Grove Hill's more seedy areas.
It was the same festively decorated dive bar that Jeremy Brett now found himself staring at in uncharacteristic apprehension as the sun began to set over its rooftop. He took his sunglasses off and shoved them into the glove compartment of his car, fussing in the visor mirror with a trembling hand through his dark and floppy hair in a half-hearted attempt to keep it from drooping in his eyes. It wasn't the mere eventuality of having to join those drunken idiots in their childlike Christmas festivities that had him all riled up, however. No, the small-talk and mindless chatter had never been the problem; he was quite adept at ignoring the blaring headache he usually got after these affairs, if only to see Kat smile at him in appreciation of his having been there.
This year—for the first time in eleven years—Samuel Pierce was making his very public return to Virginia, in his normal egocentric and arrogant fashion, of course. Once the bastard had phoned his sister to ask of her Christmas plans, Kat simply couldn't resist inviting her dearest half-brother to spend Christmas Eve with them. Jeremy scoffed bitterly as he got out of the car, grimacing from the harsh winter wind nipping at any bare expanse of skin it could find.
As he walked up the cobblestone pathway leading to the unfortunately familiar Ahearn's Tavern, he fumbled inside the pockets of his thin jacket for a lighter, a stale cigarette drooping from between his pale, cold lips. He couldn't help but think he'd rather be spending Christmas Eve anywhere else—even in the one-bedroom apartment full of seven screaming toddlers and splattered pancake walls occupied by the Tavern's overworked and underpaid cook Jess. But Kat isn't at Jess', she's here at Ahearn's with Sam and a plethora of ostentatious Christmas decorations, and so here he would be.
"Those nasty things are gonna kill you one day, Brett," an amused voice drawls from only a few feet away, and Jeremy looks up in irritation, a deep scowl on his face as he regards the man of the hour—(who's hour? certainly not his own…)—with his distaste on clear display.
He wants to bite his tongue and say nothing—he's a twenty-eight year old professional and not the same aggressive and irritable child Sam still regarded him as—but it proved impossible. No one got under his skin quite like Samuel Pierce.
"Not unless you do first, Sam," Jeremy responds back in a disgruntled mutter muffled by the ferocity of the wind. Sam laughs a low, taunting chuckle and slings a mocking arm around the younger man's shoulders, steering them both towards the inside warmth of the pub.
"Now, we both know I can't do that, Brett. You do work in a Correctional Facility, don't you? That's what my sister's always telling me—she just loves talking about you, do you know that?" A frown appears on his face as he contemplates his own words; "You aren't screwing my sister or anything like that, are you Brett? 'Cause I don't care where you work, I'll slice your head off and bury it right in this pretty little dumpster if you are."
"You don't know Kat and I very well if you think we're like that, Sam. Then again, how can I expect you to really know Kat at all?" The cigarette is lit now and Jeremy takes a long drag of it and exhales the smoke right into Sam's face. "After all, she was my best friend and living in a god damn foster home before you even decided you wanted her as a pseudo-sister, isn't that how it went down? Please, refresh my memory…" He trails off with the corners of his lips turned in satisfaction.
Sam just laughs again and Jeremy clenches his fists just that little bit tighter. If there was one thing that infuriated him more than all the rest about the elder Pierce, it was how he never seemed affected by anything Jeremy said, however sharp or cutting it may be. He let it all flow right off him, and on purpose too. Sam knew of the promise Jeremy had made to Kat in their younger years to never hit her brother unprovoked, and boy was the fucker a common genius when it came to pushing every button Jeremy had.
"But you do really work at Eastern Correctional outside Richmond, yeah?"
Jeremy gave a reluctant nod of his head, inhaling a heavy breath that turned his lungs ice cold. Why the hell did Sam even care?
"Overseeing laundry operations?" Sam inquired further, a sly and condescending smile on his lips.
"Correctional psychologist," Jeremy corrected but did not offer anything else. In any other case—with anybody else—he would jump at the chance to spew out a long and detailed analysis on what his job was and how important it was, but with Sam, he could barely manage civil conversation. He reached for the door to yank it open, eager to get away from the older man as quickly as possible, but a strong hand held it back and he whirled around to glare angrily at the imposing blonde nuisance. "What the hell do you want from me?"
"Correctional psychologist, hmm? Thought you were following the family legacy and all that bullshit—what is it, fifteenth generation lawyer scumbag or something to that effect?"
"Plans change," Jeremy hissed out between clenched teeth. "What do you want?" He reiterated again in agitation.
Sam plowed on ahead, as though Jeremy had never interjected at all. "And in backwoods Westover, no less? You know I work police force in Richmond, right? You'd be way better off looking for opportunity there, Brett…"
Jeremy rolled his eyes and snuffed his cigarette out in the ashtray above the trash can. "If you're implying something, get on with it. If you're messing with me, get over yourself. Either way, I'm going inside," and he tried to push past Sam once again, but the blonde asshole had always been far stronger physically than Jeremy could ever claim to be.
"Don't get all hostile, kid," Sam reprimanded with that mock serious tone that still made Jeremy flinch even given the eleven-year gap since he'd heard it. "I've just got a suggestion for you. I have a 'friend'—I think you'd like her, actually, since she hates my fucking guts—Bonnie Bennett, big-time news anchor in Richmond. Anyways, she's running a story tonight 'bout the captured daughter of the most notorious and wanted man in the country… I just thought you'd find it interesting to tune in and check it out—as a psychologist and all, you'd probably find it riveting," Sam concluded, and with that, he opened the door himself and walked in, leaving Jeremy standing outside in blatant bewilderment.
He did not waste another moment contemplating Sam's underhanded intentions before pushing inside the haze of warm air and dim lighting, desperate to push this unsettling encounter into the far recesses of his mind for the rest of the night so he could have a shot in hell at actually enjoying it. This proved instantly simple after he was greeted with the customary enthusiasm and spiked eggnog of his best friend, and everything seemed to fall into their regular place. He was doing a marvelous job at ignoring every irritating statement Sam would make—("You know, I think I've been away from this town for far too long—did you know they still let smokers linger outside of public eateries?")—and the way countless women fawned all over him in hushed, excited whispers—("Don't his eyes just remind you of a calm ocean stream on a summers day?"), perhaps only because Kat sensed his immense discomfort and managed to distract him any way she could.
It was well into the second phase of the evening, and even Jeremy had to admit he was slightly buzzed, having completely forgotten about the weird conversation he'd had with Sam earlier when the man himself nudged Jeremy in the ribs not so discreetly and pointed to the TV screen with a knowing smirk.
As he turned to look at the screen, a short, dark-skinned newscaster with a killer smile was relaying the story of something he didn't quite catch involving a guy called 'Gilbert', the display on the top right corner showing an unfocused picture of a young woman. She could most likely be considered a classic beauty under different circumstances, with a beautiful heart-shaped face, disarming smile, warm, olive skin and waves of dark, brunette hair. Actually, come to think of it, she was easily recognizable as looking remarkably like his best friend—even given the tiny, blurry picture-in-picture display, and he could see Kat from his peripheral vision staring in awe at the television screen. Kat's mysterious twin couldn't be much older than twenty at most, and yet her striking resemblance to his 30-year old best friend was befuddling and perturbing. Jeremy was hardly confused as to why Sam had taken such an interest… she was clearly attractive, young and guileless—just the way Sam liked 'em. What was this story even about again? He'd missed the majority of the anchor's talking in favor of analyzing the confounding girl in the upper hand PiP.
'Elena Gilbert, daughter of notorious doctor-turned-criminal Greyson Gilbert is being held for questioning in a maximum security Virginia Police Safehouse in a currently undisclosed location…' The woman trailed on with her explanation, but all Jeremy could do was stare into the inexplicably fascinating eyes of Elena Gilbert, entranced by the gaze he was holding with a girl he'd never seen nor met before outside the confines of a blurry News photograph.
Jeremy was abruptly jolted back to reality when Kat snapped back to reality herself and raised her glass high above them both and declared with conviction, "To a new year with a lot less screw ups than the last one," to a receiving of delightful laughter, cheery assent and clinking glasses.
"And to figuring out the puzzle behind my mysterious doppelganger," Kat murmured conspiratorially to Jeremy low so no one else could hear, but her voice only nudged the corners of his consciousness—his gaze was directed at someone else.
Sam was still staring at the news story as well with a smug, satisfied expression and when he finally turned to face the rest of the group, he leveled his stare directly at Jeremy, smiling with such a falsely innocent façade that it sent shivers down his spine. "To opportunity," he emphasized in addition to Kat's first toast and nodded ever so slightly towards Jeremy in what outwardly appeared as nothing but a genuinely innocent wish of good fortune.