A cool wind blew through the porch, and the wind chimes hanging on Mrs. Flower's' house rang musically. It was an eerie sound, perfect for getting them into the mood for Halloween. Meredith shivered in the cold and moved inside.
All of her friends were in there, getting into costume and preparing for the party and Elena's house. Bonnie ran past Meredith, a costume in one hand and make up in another. Stefan was going out as Dracula (again). Matt was hanging around the house awkwardly, because he didn't have a costume. But none of this interested Meredith at the moment. She was too caught up in other things…
Alaric had promised her they'd go out together tonight, have a dinner and go to a concert, but at the last minute he'd cancelled on her because he was deep in the middle of another paranormal case. He'd been busy with work a lot lately… a lot of the time too busy for even Meredith.
Not only was it surprising that he was choosing other vampires and werewolves to study over her friends, it was somewhat insulting. And now Meredith was left with nothing to do all night; she'd lived through so many Gilbert Family Halloween parties at this point in her life that she knew she'd be bored out of her mind.
There was just no more excitement in her life any more…. Klaus had been defeated, Damon had left town, Elena and Stefan were going to be together forever… but now it was their junior year of college and nothing new had happened. Apparently, as a Guardian, Elena was pretty good, because no new source of evil had bothered them.
Not that any of her friends minded. They all seemed fine with a regular college life. But Meredith itched to have a reason to take up a stake and hunt some undead monsters. Elena kept asking her to drink some of the water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and live forever with her and Stefan; Meredith's answer was always no. If it meant a forever of nothing to do, she wasn't going to indulge.
"Meredith!" Bonnie yelled from the bathroom, and Meredith sighed before hurrying to her friend's aid. Bonnie was standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, make-up strewn across the counter haphazardly, her costume lying as a heap on the floor
"What is it, Bonnie?" Meredith asked.
"Do you think I should wear the purple eye shadow or the green?" Bonnie asked, after a long pause that made Meredith think that maybe Bonnie was stalling.
"Depends on what your being," Meredith answered, frowning. "Is that really all you wanted to ask me?"
Bonnie bit her lip. "Well, no, it's not."
"Then what do you need?"
There was another pause and Bonnie ran her hands through her red curls nervously. Meredith raised an eyebrow, wanting to get on with it. Finally, Bonnie took a deep breath and started talking all in a rush.
"I've been having this feeling all day… this weird feeling, but you know, it's not just a feeling, because I'm, you know–"
"Psychic, yeah. I know."
"So anyway, I just keep thinking, all day I just know that something's going to happen to tonight something big, like crazy and wild and exciting."
This caught Meredith's attention. Crazy? Exciting? That was exactly what she wanted in her life right now. But Bonnie was going to have to be a bit more specific before Meredith prepared for a huge vampire showdown. "Okay… was it a good feeling? Or is there something dangerous coming, do you think?"
Bonnie blushed. "No, it's not dangerous, Meredith, but it's– I keep thinking, tonight, there's going to be something amazingly romantic and awesome and–"
Meredith's hopes were crushed. Bonnie had called her over here because she thought someone was going to have a romance? That was hardly exciting, at least for Meredith. Maybe because she knew it couldn't possibly be about her– Alaric was out of town, having expressed there was no way he could get back here anytime tonight. But Bonnie was clearly keyed up at this prospect, so Meredith pretended to share her enthusiasm.
"Romantic, huh?" she teased. "You and Zander have a date?"
"No, but that's just the thing!" Bonnie exclaimed, looking up at Meredith with wide eyes. "We don't! He's spending Halloween with his werewolf pack going to some bar with a stripper or something. Anyway, I wasn't invited. But I'm worried! Because lately I've been getting the feeling that Matt's got a thing for me– and I think, that just maybe this feeling might be– oh, never mind."
She stopped abruptly, her face bright red.
Meredith was concerned, though. "You think you and Matt are going to hook up tonight?" she asked. "And you're worried because you're dating Zander."
Bonnie nodded fervently, her hair flying loosely all around her face. "Yes! That's exactly it! So now I'm wondering what shade of eye shadow I can wear to make me the least appealing, so Matt doesn't think I'm trying to dress up for him."
"I don't think Matt would think that, whatever you're wearing," Meredith said, smirking. "Not everyone is as worried about your appearance as you are, Bonnie."
"Well, still–"
"Look." Meredith exhaled slowly, still feeling disappointed that nothing big was going on. She ached for the old sense of danger they'd always had in their lives. "Why don't you talk to Elena about this, okay? She's the expert on loving two guys at once."
Bonnie pouted. "I don't love Matt, okay? I just think he might like me. And I don't really know how I feel about him. But you're right, about Elena– she loved two guys at once, and now look what's happened? We haven't seen Damon for years!"
She was clearly beginning to get freaked, and Meredith felt helpless to stop her as she continued, "What if Zander goes crazy with sorrow and becomes some sort of evil, human-hunting werewolf? All because of me and Matt…."
"What's this about you and me?" Matt asked, walking past and staring through the open bathroom door at the girls curiously.
"Nothing!" Bonnie yelled. "I was just asking Meredith about my make up. You know, for the party. Don't you have a costume, Matt?"
"Nah," Matt said. "Don't see the point in dressing up, really."
"Oh, come on," Bonnie said. "We can pull something together for you. Why don't you go as a vampire? Then you and Stefan can match!"
It turned out this was exactly what ended up happening. Apparently Bonnie had decided to throw caution to the wind and was hanging out with Matt more than ever. Maybe she wanted something to happen. Meredith could understand this– anything to change up their lives now.
As all of Meredith's friends began heading off in their cars to the Gilbert house, Meredith hung behind. She didn't feel like going to the party tonight. Her time would honestly be better spent sleeping.
"Wanna ride with Stefan and me?" Elena asked her, walking out to her car. She was wearing in the Goddess Dress that Lady Ulma had made her in the Dark Dimension. She wore it for all occasions– birthdays, Valentine's Day, Christmas. Halloween really wasn't much of a stretch.
"No, I think I'm going to go home for a little while now," Meredith said, holding back a yawn. "I might drop in to the party later tonight, I don't know."
Elena frowned at her, but didn't push the subject, and left Meredith behind.
It was only when she was in her own car, buckling the seat belt and preparing to drive to her apartment, when she noticed the crow…. Huge and black, it was perched on a tree in Mrs. Flowers's yard, just watching.
…..
Her apartment was no more interesting than the party would have been. Meredith practiced her Tae Kwon Do forms, did some push-ups. She worked on her Chemistry homework. But none of this did anything to alleviate her boredom….
A phone call from Elena, though, and this all changed.
"Meredith?"
"Yeah?" Meredith sat down on the couch, phone held to her ear by her shoulder. "What's up?"
There was something wrong with Elena's voice– it was nervous, almost quivering slightly. "Meredith, have you seen Bonnie?"
This made Meredith pause. "Bonnie? Not since you all left for the party. Why? Wasn't she with you?"
"No," Elena said. "She and Matt were in his car."
Meredith's brow furrowed as she tried to figure out what the problem was. "What's the matter, Elena?" she asked. "Did Bonnie ever show up at the party?"
"No, neither of them did," her friend answered. "It started an hour ago. I just don't get it– they were right behind us the whole time we were driving here!"
Meredith stood up and started pacing back and forth. "I suppose you've tried calling them, right? Or you wouldn't be calling me?"
"Yes," Elena said. "And they won't answer. Either of them. I don't where they could be– but that's not all that's wrong. Not really. It's just– can't you feel it? Something's different tonight. Something's off."
Meredith was jealous of her friend's Guardian powers for a moment, but this lasted less than a second as she was caught up in the moment. "What do you need me to do?" she asked. "Want me to go out looking for her? Is there any sort of–" her breath caught in anticipation– "monster I should be worried about?"
"I don't think so," Elena said, and for the second time that day, Meredith's hopes were crushed. "I can't really tell what's wrong… and Stefan doesn't know either, he hasn't been drinking enough blood lately and he's weak…."
This was hardly news about Stefan. He never took care of his hunger properly.
"So what do you need me to do, Elena?"
"I don't know… just, keep your phone on, I guess. Call me if Bonnie comes around. Stefan and I are going to look for her together for a while, and if we need you I'll make sure to let you know, okay?"
"Okay," Meredith said. When she got off the phone, she didn't waste a second by sitting around. Whether or not Elena wanted her help now, she was going to search for her friend. Even if it was actually nothing at all, it would give Meredith something to do.
She paused on her way out the door, and grabbed a stake, which she stowed away in her jacket. Just in case.
…
It was dark out by now, and Meredith shivered, even in her jacket. She made her way out to her car quickly, but froze when she reached it.
Someone was inside.
Meredith took a careful step towards the driver's side of the car, where the person was sitting. It was too dark to make out who it was. She should have brought a flashlight, dammit! With a deep breath, Meredith swung open the car's door dramatically.
She nearly screamed. Sitting in her seat was none other than Damon; slick in his leather jacket and sunglasses, a smug expression on his beautiful face. It was like seeing ghost; honestly Meredith had never expected to see him again.
After a long moment, Meredith gathered up her courage and asked, in a hoarse voice, "What are you doing in my car?"
"Waiting for you," Damon answered, flashing a brilliant smile in her direction. This bothered Meredith for whatever reason, and she struck a defiant position, putting her hands on her hips and looking down at him.
"And why, exactly, were you waiting for me in my car?" Meredith demanded.
"This is the welcome I get?" Damon asked, pretending to be offended. "I'd've thought you'd be ecstatic to see me."
Meredith scoffed at this. "Oh, because we were always such good friends. You want a warm welcome, hide in Bonnie's car, why don't you?"
Damon raised his eyebrows at her. "I thought she was missing? I heard your phone call with Elena just now. It sounded serious."
Somehow, Meredith got the impression that Damon wasn't telling her something. This wasn't an unusual feeling to have around Damon; in fact, it was one of the reasons Meredith couldn't stand him. She preferred people to just be straight forward about what they wanted. "Look, Damon. Tell me why you're here. And get out of my car."
"I think I'm fine here, thank you," he replied coldly. "Why don't you get in the passenger seat and I can tell you what I'm here for."
Meredith pulled the stake out her jacket threateningly, not backing down. "Get out of my car. Now." She jabbed the stake lightly into his shoulder, and he winced– she may have been a human to his vampire, but her reflexes were sharp and she'd hurt him.
Damon left the car, still managing to look like he was holding the upper hand, and crossed his arms over his chest. Meredith considered him for a moment– dark and dangerous as ever, but with a mysterious look in his eyes that Meredith couldn't quite place. This made her uneasy. "Seriously now," she asked. "What do you want?"
He didn't smile at her this time and just said, briefly, "I wanted to check up on you all. You know how fragile you humans are. You can break so easily."
"Well, you've checked on us. We're all in one piece. You can go now." Meredith squeezed past Damon and sat down in her car, refusing to look at him anymore. She didn't have time to converse with Damon; Bonnie and Matt were missing, and she had to help find them.
"No, I don't think I want to go yet," Damon said, a second later, he was climbing in the passenger seat of the car. His vampire speed made Meredith feel slightly dizzy– he was so fast, she could hardly track him with her human eyes.
He leaned back against the back of the car seat, folding his arms behind his head in a relaxed manner. Obviously he was making himself quite comfortable. Meredith decided to take the queue from him and shrugged at him, acting as if she didn't shiver at the thought of him being in the car with her. She wouldn't let on that it bothered her.
"Well, I'm going to search for Bonnie, so if you want to do that, than feel free to tag along," she said as breezily as she could, pulling out of the parking lot.
She could see him in the corner of her eye, and began calculating how fast she could get the stake in him if he tried to do anything to her. She'd just seen how obscenely fast he was; if she caught him unawares, though, she could easily catch him. "So, Damon. Did you really care about us all enough to come back here? I thought Elena said you were on some grand self-discovering journey or something."
He rolled his eyes. Meredith had never really gotten close to him before without trying to kill him, and now that she was just having a conversation with him, she realized with a start how dark his eyes were– totally black. Both the iris and the pupil.
"Elena has a lot ideas about me that aren't exactly true," Damon said. "I wasn't a journey towards self-discovery, that's for sure. More I was looking for ways to distract myself from anything to do with her."
This surprised Meredith. "Distract you from Elena?" she asked. She'd always thought that both the Salvatores wanted to be with Elena. But now Damon was making it seem like they were just compulsively attracted to her. Helpless to her beauty.
"Elena broke my heart time and time again, completely ruthlessly," Damon said in a flat sort of voice. He was good at keeping his face free of emotion, Meredith noticed, something that she strived to do herself. "You think I want to dwell on that? I think after the fifth, sixth time Elena told me she'd chosen Stefan, I was done with her."
"I can see how that would get annoying," Meredith said lightly, secretly thinking that Elena was completely right to choose Stefan. He was infinitely more stable than Damon; he also wasn't inclined to killing humans.
Damon didn't answer her this time, just frowned out the window at the street. Meredith was going to check down town Fell's Church first; that's where all the bar's were, and she had a hunch that Bonnie might have gone in search of Zander and his pals. Why she dragged Matt along, she wasn't completely sure– especially seeing as she was worried about cheating on her boyfriend with him.
"Turn left," Damon said suddenly, after they'd been riding in silence for several minutes. Meredith looked at him.
"What? Why?" He was trying to have her turn down a dead-end street– there was no way that Meredith was going to do that. She didn't make any move to turn down the street, and Damon noticed this. He grabbed the wheel of the car and gave it a spin in that direction, completely messing up Meredith's control of the vehicle. "HEY!"
He was leaning across the car's center consol, steering dangerously recklessly, and all Meredith could think to herself was I knew it was a mistake to let him in my car.
"Are you trying to make us crash?" she shouted at him after several more seconds of this life-endangerment. "Where are you taking me?"
"You'll see," Damon said, through clenched teeth. His arms kept bumping Meredith's chest as she sat there, something that was all of a sudden very aware of. And he was quite good at driving life this; anyone else would have already crashed.
He steered them down a very bumpy, old road that Meredith knew ended in an old manor house. No one had lived in it for a year; the kids always avoided it, even tonight, on Halloween. It was a health hazard.
Damon slammed on the breaks three feet from the house's gate.
"What the hell?" Meredith demanded her body jerking forward from the sudden stop. "What do you think you're doing?" A thought struck her. "Is Bonnie here?" she asked. "Is that why you took me out here?"
"I don't know," Damon said enigmatically. "Why don't we go in and check?"
He was being completely infuriating– classic Damon. But she couldn't think of any other reason for him to have taken her here, so she followed him when he got out of the car and started walking towards the house.
When they got to the door, Damon twisted the doorknob hard, and Meredith heard the lock break. He shoved it open and walked inside, Meredith at his heels. The house was dark and musty, with the kind of haunted house feeling that could only come from being extremely rundown.
"BONNIE?" Meredith called out into the house. There was no answer. She looked at Damon. "Is she here or what?"
"Let's check upstairs," Damon said, and against her better judgment Meredith went along with him. The stairs of the house creaked dangerously with each step they took; cobwebs hung of the ceiling and hit against her face.
The hall was empty of Bonnie and Matt; in fact, it looked as if it had been empty for a long time. Meredith was starting to doubt more and more that Bonnie had ever been anywhere near here. It had been stupid of her to trust that Damon would lead her into anything important. She had no idea what he wanted her to find, but she wasn't about to figure it out.
"I'm leaving," Meredith said. "I don't know what's up with you right now, but I don't have time for this."
She turned back towards the stairs, but before she could move, Damon grabbed her around the waist and held her in place. "You're not going anywhere yet," he said. "Let's just check one more room."
Meredith tried to resist against his arms as he pulled her in, but to no avail. He was strong. Stronger than Meredith, at least. He dragged her into one of the dark empty rooms and swung the door shut behind them.
As soon as he released her, Meredith ran to the door, and shook at the doorknob frantically. It was locked! She would have started picking it immediately, but she was much too aware of the vampire standing behind her, with the Power to stop her every move in less than a second.
"Damon, explain yourself, now," Meredith said through clenched teeth. "This isn't funny."
"It's not meant to be," Damon replied casually.
"Then what's this about? What are you trying to do, exactly? I thought you wanted to help me find Bonnie–"
"I never said that," Damon said. "And by the way, about that. How do you even know that I wasn't the thing that made Bonnie disappear? How do you know that I didn't drag her and Matt away and–" a dark look crossed his face– "eat them?"
Meredith tried to contain any reaction. She knew that Damon liked to mess with people, torment them– he'd done it to Stefan for five hundred years– and that it was unlikely that he'd eaten Bonnie and Matt. He was a reformed vampire.
But still, this was going a bit far, wasn't it? Meredith pulled the stake out of her jacket again. Any vampire that locked her in a room and joked about killing her friends was a vampire that was better off dead. Even if it was Damon.
She stalked towards him, and he began pacing her, going in circles. She knew he could kill her at any given second; if he was wise, he knew the same of her.
"Damon," she said slowly, clearly. "Tell me if you hurt my friends. I want the truth right now."
"Meredith," he said, mocking her slow speech and drawing out her name. "I didn't hurt your friends. Why would I?"
She considered him for a moment. "I don't know? You're a vampire. You don't need a reason. You could have just been bored. Or hungry. I know better than to think you wouldn't feed on my friends."
Damon laughed at this, slowly, infectiously. He began closing the distance between them and Meredith clutched the stake harder.
"Finally, someone seems to grasp this simple fact. I am a vampire. Why should I be expected to act like one of you humans? Why should I care at all? God knows we don't need another Stefan walking around."
"Stefan," Meredith breathed, "is probably the smartest vampire I know. Because he makes an effort to have some humanity. He's not a threat to anyone. And by being a good person he's increasing his chances of survival– I won't ever have to kill him." Damon was getting much to close for comfort, and so on the last word, Meredith jabbed the stake at him again, this time pressing it into his stomach slightly. But instead of backing away from her, he stepped around the stake and got even closer.
"You're not going to kill me, either," he said to her, and his voice was quiet, almost seductive. But what was she thinking? The fact that she was here with Damon at all wasn't anything to be happy about. If he was trying to seduce her, that was just repulsive….
Or should have been, Meredith thought dizzily, as his face was inches from her own. She'd never been one to like boys who were prettier than her, but Damon… his face was statuesque and so perfect looking she just didn't….
He was talking to her now, his voice a soft purr, and it was getting to her head, she wasn't even listening to what he said, only to his intoxicating voice.
"Get away from me," she choked, pushing him away without the stake this time. "You're disgusting, you know that?"
"You don't think that," he told her, cocking his head to the side. "You think I'm beautiful. I'm just what you've been waiting for; something different and thrilling and exciting. And Meredith… you're going to kiss me."
She slapped him.
"You think I go anywhere without vervain?" she asked him, almost offended. "You can't Influence me, Damon. So don't even try."
He smiled, at it was brilliant, almost blindingly so. Why had she never noticed this about him before? Had he even ever made her any attention in the past? "Meredith," he said, "I wasn't Influencing you. I don't need to."
He stepped towards her again, but a hand around her head, and pulled her into a kiss. And most surprising of all, Meredith didn't resist.
He was so good at kissing. Five hundred years of practice must have really made a difference. Meredith felt her knees go weak, and he pressed her up against the wall. One of his hands grasped her hair and kept stroking it, massaging it.
They were like this for a long time, until finally Meredith gathered the strength to pull away from him. Needless to say, it was difficult. But she was determined not to give him anymore without figuring out what it was he wanted.
"I don't think Elena would like this," she said, breathlessly.
"I don't care what Elena wants," Damon replied roughly. "Don't you get that? I'm over her. She and her Guardian friends ruined my life…."
"What do you mean?" Meredith asked, genuinely confused.
"They made a deal," Damon said. "Now, I can't take a human life without killing Elena." Meredith started to protest that this was not horrible at all, except for the fact that she didn't really want Elena to die, but he went on. "And then they went and did more of that. I can't feed on people, with Influence or even without their complete permission without hurting Elena."
Meredith raised her eyebrows. "Wow. Guess you have to actually treat people with some respect now, huh? Or, of course, you could just hurt Elena."
"They'd know what I was doing," Damon said, rolling his eyes. "And they'd probably kill me for it. Because God forbid I act like an actual vampire."
All this new information was no reeling around in Meredith's head, and she stared at Damon for a second, something dawning on her. "This is what you want from me, isn't it?" she said. "You want me to give you my blood, willingly. So you can have human blood but not hurt Elena."
He frowned at her.
"That's part of it," he admitted, and Meredith was pleased with herself for figuring it out. This was marred slightly with disappointment, but she didn't want to dwell on that. "But Meredith, I have to admit, I've always wanted to do this."
He ran his fingers down her back and kissed her again, harder than ever this time.
"But why?" she gasped, trying to pull away but saying it into his face anyway. "I hate you. You know that. I could kill you at any moment."
Freeing a hand from its grasp on her hair, he gently removed her fingers from around the stake and it fell to the floor with a clatter. "Not anymore," he whispered. "And somehow, I don't think you want to, anyway."
Not at the moment she didn't, at least. This time she was the first one to initiate their kiss. They carried on like this for a while, and it really– it was like nothing she'd ever done before, nothing she'd ever dreamed of (Bonnie and Elena hadn't been joking when they said Damon was amazing!). Soon though, she could feel his lips drifted downwards from hers, traveling down to her chin and then, slowly, to her neck.
"Damon," Meredith gasped. "Will it hurt?" She didn't want to admit it, but giving vampire's blood had always terrified her. Certain things– like fangs– weren't meant to go into your body.
"Not if you're willing to give me your blood," Damon said. "And I think you are. Aren't you?"
She wanted to say no, wanted to protest, but she knew it was pointless.
When his teeth pierced her neck, she expected it to be painful, but all it did was sting. She could feel her blood leaving her neck, but more than that, she felt it going into Damon. An incredible feeling of connection erupted between them. She wanted to give, wanted to feed him.
After what felt like hours, but could have been minutes, he stopped. "You," he said, "make your little friends seem like balls of fluff. You are the most heady, incredible human being I've ever had the joy to feed off of."
"I bet you say that to everyone," Meredith teased, trying to ignore the fact that he was cutting his own wrist now, bringing it towards her mouth. Suddenly the night's events seemed to be catching up to her– she'd been searching for Bonnie, what was she doing in an abandoned house, making out with Damon? And– and what about Alaric.
His bleeding wrist was inches from her mouth and she wanted to taste his blood so badly. But she needed to get something straight.
"Damon–" she started, but he cut her off.
"You need it," he said. "I drank a lot from you. Don't worry, it won't turn you. It's just a little bit."
"No, that's not it," she said. "I wanted to tell you. I'm not Elena. I'm dating Alaric and I love him and I will stay faithful to him– this, this doesn't count, we can't carry on–"
"Meredith, you might want to check in with Alaric before you go on talking about how to be faithful, maybe he'll have something to say about that–
"Stop it!" she said. "Just listen to me! I can't– I'm not the kind of bitch that goes around kissing whoever she wants whenever she wants, okay? I'm not going to string anyone along or do this or wreck my relationship with Alaric…."
He brought a finger to her lips. "Meredith, darling," he said. "If I had any intention of maintaining a long time relationship with you, you'd know, believe me."
And then, since his hand was right there, he put his wrist to her lips and they completed their blood exchange, Meredith drinking his delicious vampire blood well into the night. And she finally knew what Bonnie's feeling had been about. This was excitement.
…
The next morning, she woke up groggily in her car. She was parked back outside her apartment building.
She looked around. Damon was gone. He'd been considerate enough, at least, to give her stake back, and it was sitting on the passenger seat of the car along with a note.
She didn't even bother to read what it said, just crumpled it up and threw it in the waste bin of her car. She hoped he was gone now, because she knew she couldn't afford to do anything like that ever again. Guilt swam threw her. How could she have spent the night before the way she did– with Bonnie and Matt missing– Alaric, her fiancé (well, sort of) oblivious to the fact that she'd been out with Damon….
But it had been the change-up in her life she'd needed. Finally, she felt awake again. No longer bored with her life.
That didn't make it right, though, and Meredith decided grimly that she would have to tell Alaric next time she saw him. Hopefully he'd be understanding; they'd been together for such a long time, one night couldn't ruin their relationship, at least not completely. At least, that was what Meredith kept telling herself. She was purposefully ignoring the fact that their relationship had already been strained because of his long hours at work every week….
She ran upstairs to her apartment upon getting out of her car, suddenly very interested in burying herself back in the normal rhythm of her life, in homework and training and taking care of her friends.
There were two messages left on her phone, one from Elena, and one from Bonnie. As she got inside, she sat down at her kitchen table and listened to them.
"Meredith, I just wanted to let you know that I was able to contact Bonnie and she's with Matt and they'll be at the party later. I was so relieved, but kind of annoyed, because Stefan and I spent several hours searching for them. I'm exhausted. But Robert's expecting us to help him with entertaining the guests so I guess I'll have to pull through. Anyway, you should come down soon! I know maybe you're doing your homework or something, but Aunt Judith made some really delicious cookies for us all that I know you'd love. So see you later!"
Meredith smiled, glad that her friends were okay and having fun. Honestly, though, she knew she hadn't missed anything at the party. Her night had been better spent with Damon….
To try and ignore this thought, she pressed a button on her phone and listened to Bonnie's message.
"Oh my God, Meredith! Pick up the phone already! I have so much to tell you and not all of it's very good! I guess you're busy or you'd be talking to me now so I'll just leave a message. All right. Here goes. Last night, Matt and I were going to go to the party right away, but we saw this yellow Ferrari, Meredith, and you won't believe me but I swear we saw Damon in it. And so Matt and I, we looked at each other and we were both like, let's follow him and see why he's here, so we stopped going to the Gilberts' and followed his car downtown.
"This is where it gets really crazy. Matt and I were following his car the whole time and we never stopped looking at it but I guess he used vampire powers or something because then suddenly he was just gone! His car was pulled over and he wasn't in it. So Matt and I were both really disappointed, but anyway we were right next to this really great bar and there was a huge party going on and we were in costume so all spur of the moment, you know, we went in there and– and–"
Bonnie's voice broke at this part of the message, and Meredith was worried about what came next.
"Meredith, we saw Alaric in there! In the bar in Fell's Church! Not way out of town or whatever! And Meredith, I don't want to tell you this here and now or anything because this is something to say in person but I can't keep it to myself and I keep thinking of you in your apartment thinking nothing's wrong and so– and so–
"He was with another girl! And it wasn't just any girl! It was Celia, Meredith! That lady he worked with before. And they were drinking together and talking but it was the way he touched her and so–
"So yeah. Just thought you should know. By the way, nothing happened between me and Matt. So I guess my psychic powers were wrong or something. Huh. Uh, bye."
Meredith stared at her phone for a long time, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
The odds that Alaric had actually been at work all these strange hours lately suddenly seemed very unlikely. And how he was always really vague about where he was going– and Damon's remark about asking Alaric how to be faithful–
Had Damon known?
Had he been leaping upon the chance to kiss her without upsetting the elaborate web of relationships Meredith's friends all had? Because, in his morally lacking mind, kissing someone whose partner was cheating on him or her would be completely okay. Good, even. And, it had been good. Nothing as amazing as kissing Damon had happened to Meredith for such a long time.
Knowing that she was done with Alaric, Meredith ran out to her car again, and fished the note from Damon out of the trash. She unfolded it quickly, and read it.
Meredith-
Last night was fantastic. For both of us. I look forward to getting to know you even better in the future.
I'll think of you whenever I'm getting stabbed by a vampire hunter.
–D
Her phone was ringing again, and it was Alaric. She hesitated a moment before picking it up. She needed to set things right– and she wasn't going to be able to keep Alaric in her life, she knew.
So she answered it, knowing she was going to break up with him, meanwhile folding the note up and putting it in her pocket, to keep as a reminder of the best night of her short existence.
With the prospect of Damon always in the background of her life, she'd never grow bored again. She'd always be on her toes, waiting for him. Whether to kiss him or kill she didn't really know– but she had a feeling it would probably be the former.