Mystic Falls, 1864
It was a warm spring night in the town of Mystic Falls during March of 1864. Seventeen year old Elena Gilbert could be seen sleeping peacefully in her bed inside the large Gilbert estate. Then, she awoke to the sounds of feet moving and clothes rustling.
Elena opened her eyes, to see her twin sister Katerina, or Katherine as she was better known, moving about their shared room. Katherine's open wardrobe was emptied of all of her gowns and dresses. At the end of her bed she was packing a trunk full of all that had been taken out.
"Katerina, what are you doing?" Elena sat up in her bed, rubbing her eyes of sleep.
"Nothing, Elena, go back to bed." Elena's sister did not stop moving about the room. She was frantically grabbing any possessions that were within her reach.
The sleepy sister began to notice Katherine's movements and the trunk full of her twin's belongings.
"What- why are you packing?"
"Elena, go back to sleep." Katherine said again with more force. She seemed flustered, practically out of breath. Her eyes were darting all around the room, still searching for anything else that she could grab.
"Are you leaving?" Elena quickly became more awake, she pushed the covers from her body and sat up straight in her bed.
"Yes." Katherine confirmed as she gathered more of her things out of the desk that sat next to her twin's.
"No, you cannot go. Mother would just die, Father would have a fit. What about Stefan? What about me?-"
"I know of all that." She said sadly, regretfully.
"So, why?" Elena was trying so hard to understand her sister's sudden need to leave their life. Their family. Their home.
"I am pregnant." Katherine finally stopped moving around, and sat at the foot of Elena's bed.
Elena sat there for a moment, gaping, blinking, trying to grasp what Katherine just told her. She didn't believe it; she couldn't believe it. There was no way.
"How do you know? You have not grown." She said, trying to convince her sister that this couldn't be true.
"I have not bled in over a month. And I have grown, underneath my clothing."
Elena looked down at her hands in defeat, "Is it Stefan's child?"
"No." Katherine's voice broke as she uttered the word.
"Katerina, I thought that you loved him." Elena said whispered into the dark room, with only the moon to illuminate the sisters same faces.
"I do! But...do you remember that night after the party at the Fell's home?"
Elena slowly nodded her head.
"I came home late that night, with bruises on my arms. I told you that I fell…but that was a lie. I had too much of the drink and after the party, I found myself in town. There was a man who found me and I remember him grabbing me and pulling me somewhere dark. He hurt me and he took off my clothing..." Katherine paused for a moment, staring at the same spot on the wall opposite of where their beds sat. "But I do not remember much but the great pain that came after. All I know is that after he had left me there, I somehow found my way home."
As Katherine told the story, Elena could have sworn that she saw tears glistening in her sister's eyes. Katherine never cried. She was the strong one. She was the one who always had to comfort the emotional Elena. She was the one who made other people cry. Seeing her sister so weak made Elena uncomfortable. She didn't even know how to go about consoling her.
Somehow, Elena got up from her spot on her bed to sit next to Katherine. She wrapped her arms around her sister and held her as she cried softly into Elena's dark curls.
This went on for what seemed like forever to Elena. She didn't understand what was happening to her sister, or what this meant for them or their family. Finally, while Elena was contemplating different possible scenarios to play out from this point, Katherine sat up and wiped her tears.
"Elena, I have to go. Father would make me leave anyways, no matter what my reasonings are."
That was a scenario Elena did not imagine.
"He may not, Katerina. If we just explain to him..." She couldn't even finish the sentence. She didn't even know how they would explain to him let alone how he could ever understand.
The brunette being held by her sister shook her head and smiled sadly at her twin, "No, I would bring shame to our family, and to the Salvatore's. I must go." She disentangled from Elena's arms and sat up from her seat to continue packing.
"But, where will you go?" Elena asked as she watched her sister; dumbfounded.
"Europe somewhere, possibly England."
Elena followed her sister and opened her wardrobed and took out the trunk that sat at the end of her own bed. Katherine stopped her movements and walked over to her sister. Her twin was mechanically opening the clasps of her trunk.
"What are you doing?" She asked, staring Elena down.
"I am coming with you." Her sister answered plainly, determination glistening in her eyes.
Katherine mirrored her sister's same determination and grabbed her arms, "No, you are not." She led Elena to her bed and sat down with her.
"Elena, you must stay here." Katherine brushed a chocolate curl from her sister's cheek. "You will stay here and marry a fellow founder and have children with him, to carry on a founding name. And you will live in a large house and live happily here in Mystic Falls. You will make our parents proud, Elena." Katherine said this to Elena so definitively. There was no room for argument.
"But, Katerina, what about you?"
"What about me?" She returned her rhetorical question with a sad smile. "You mustn't worry about me. I will have my child and live with him and raise him away from here. I do not have a life here any longer, but you do."
"But Stefan-"
"Stefan will find a kind girl to fall in love with and marry, one who will give him his own children." Elena could see in Katherine's eyes that she had a dream of being that kind girl.
All at once, it was becoming more real to Elena. The idea of her sister leaving Stefan, whom she had been with all of her life, was making her departure too much of a reality.
"Please don't leave, Katerina." She begged desperately one last time.
"I have to, Elena." She again smiled sadly. "But, you must know that I love you very much."
"I love you." Elena wrapped her arms around her sister and tears fell on her dress.
Katherine rose from her seat and buckled her suitcase. "Do not worry, Elena. We will see each other again." Katherine's encouraging smile didn't reach her eyes as she left the room they shared.
And all at once, Elena was alone. In the dark, the beautiful dark-haired girl sat, bathed in the moonlight. She never before imagined a life without her sister beside her. The two were hardly apart and they liked it that way.
The twins were two very different people, anyone could see it. Even though, they looked exactly alike on the outside; both had dark, curly hair. Katherine's hair had smaller, ringlet spirals and Elena's had larger and wider curls. They shared large, brown eyes, exactly alike. The sisters also had the same warm olive skin that paired well with their dark features.
The men in Mystic Falls often told Jonathan Gilbert that he had beautiful daughters that their sons would fight over, and he should thank God that he has two. Women in the town would often tell the twin's mother, Isobel, that she had two lovely daughters and that they were envious that she was able to call them her daughters.
However, on the inside, the two were opposites. Katherine was very impulsive and impatient; but she knew how to have a good time, she was always there to make people laugh. She did care for others, though she rarely showed it. When asked about it once by Elena she answered, "Caring is a sign of weakness and I do not want people to know my weaknesses."
On the contrary, Elena wore her heart on her sleeve. She had compassion; she cared very deeply for people and always put their wants and needs above her own. And when Katherine was there to make jokes— Elena was there to laugh; she was a genuinely happy person.
One thing the twins had in common was their stubborn personalities. This did lead to many arguments. However, they liked to get along rather than fight, which is the only reason their argument were ever able to end.
The sisters were always there for each other. They were able to read the other like a book and could anticipate how the other would react to any given situation. Because they were twins, they spent every milestone of their life together, and some children might not enjoy that, but the Gilbert twins did. They didn't want it any other way.
But, all of their times together were now over, Elena realized in the dimly lit room that night. They were grown up, both 17 years old and one with child. Things turned around so quickly that Elena was having whiplash. It was difficult to imagine a life without Katherine by her side, and for the first time in her life, level-headed Elena Gilbert was losing her grip on reality. Reality was her best friend beside her and holding her hand, reality was eventually marrying someone and raising her children alongside her sister, who would live next door. But these were all her past realities. Now, she was lost, completely and utterly lost. She did not have someone holding her hand and guiding her. And for the first time in Elena Gilbert's life, she was scared.
"She did what?!"
Elena was sitting next to her mother, Isobel, on the couch of the parlor of the Gilbert home. Her father Jonathan was pacing in front of them.
"Jonathan, calm yourself." Isobel said gently.
Their daughter sat with her hands folded in her lap, eyes locked on down on them.
"My daughter was impregnated— out of wedlock— and fled the country. I have reserved the right to be anything but calm." He sneered at his wife.
"She didn't mean for it to happen!" Elena blurted out, staring up at her father.
"It does not change the facts." Jonathan said coldly to his daughter with a passing glance in her direction. "What am I to tell the town? Katherine has brought nothing but shame to our family."
Isobel sobbed quietly into her hands next to her daughter and Elena went back to looking down into her lap.
"And the Salvatore's!" Jonathan announced angrily, as if he just realized the role that the family played in the situation.
"Jonathan, you cannot tell them the truth!" Isobel wailed through her sobs.
"Well, of course not!" He replied. "Giuseppe would no longer financially aid me in my business."
Elena suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at this. The reason her father was so excited about the relationship between Katherine and Stefan Salvatore was because of the connections he had with the family. The Salvatore's were one of the wealthiest families in town, aside from the Lockwood's. Though, everyone knew better than to ask for favors from them, they would have you pay back in their own way.
"I will tell them..." Jonathan was thinking of a story aloud while he continued to pace back and forth. "I will tell them that Katherine has left the country to visit her distanced family in Bulgaria, and that she is gone for an unforeseeable amount of time." Mr. Gilbert stared expectantly at the two woman sitting in front of him. "Well?!"
"Smart thinking, Jonathan. A likely story." Isobel said with honesty as she praised her husband.
"They will not believe it." Elena muttered from her seat.
"And why is that?" Her father stared down at her oppressively.
The young Gilbert now opted to stand up, "Because the Salvatore's are smart people; they will know that you are playing them for fools."
Jonathan waved her off with a hand, "Giuseppe will not suspect a thing; Stefan lacks the intelligence to think farther ahead, and the eldest son— the brains of the family— is off at war, he has no attachment to this situation."
Elena took offense to the demeaning way in which he spoke of the family that she was so fond of, and how he handled the news about Katherine. She had it. "Father, how long until Mr. Salvatore cuts you off from his money because of the lack of progress in any of your inventions?" She asked boldly.
"Elena!" Isobel exclaimed from the couch.
Jonathan lifted a hand as if he was going to slap his daughter, "Do not ever, speak to me like that again, child. Do you understand me?" He spoke calmly but there was a blaze of anger in his eyes.
Elena kept her chin up, "I understand." She spoke steadily.
And with that, her father exited; leaving Isobel and Elena alone in their sitting room.
"Elena, I know that you are upset about your sist-"
"No, mother, you do not understand. I just lost my closest friend, you and father lost your daughter and all the two of you could be concerned about is your social credit, and the money that we collect from the Salvatore's. Am I the only one wondering, 'Where is Katerina' 'How is Katerina' 'Where is Katerina planning on going' 'Who is going to help her during pregnancy' 'Who is going to deliver her child' 'How will she feed herself and her child'? So, no mother, I do not think you understand. I do not think you even love her and I now know how I am to be treated if anything like this should happen to me. Is anyone trying to find the rapist who attacked Katerina or are we going to let him roam free? Well, who cares anyways? I mean, your reputation is intact as long as your daughter is not to be known as the filthy wench around town!"
"Elena Joanne Gilbert!" Isobel stood up from her seat and stood in front of her daughter. "You know that I love Katerina and I love you. I cannot control your father!"
"Yes, you sitting here, sobbing into a handkerchief is very much contributing in a positive way."
Isobel looked down, her dark hair framed her face. "What do you want me to do, Elena? Your father will do what he pleases and I have no control over that."
"No control? Mother, that is false and you know it. If you truly desired to, you could convince Father to take care of Katerina and find her assailant."
"Elena, Katerina could not have had a future here anyhow. Do you think Stefan Salvatore would marry her after she already had a child that was not his own?" Elena was about to speak again before her mother cut her off. "I don't care how moral Stefan is, I am sure that Giuseppe would convince him otherwise."
"Mother, I am not asking for you to bring Katerina back here, I just want Father to send her somewhere safe with money to take care of herself." Elena's brown eyes were pleading.
"Elena, even if i was able to convince your father to send Katerina away with some money, she is most likely on boat to wherever she's going right now."
"Europe." Elena informed her.
"Excuse me?"
"Europe, that is where Katerina is on a boat to."
"What is there?" Isobel asked confusedly.
"England." The younger woman offered.
They both stood in silence for a long moment.
"Elena, you do know that I love you and Katerina both...?" Isobel spoke.
"Yes." She replied after a thoughtful pause.
"Your father does, as well."
Elena made a face at her mother, indicating that she had no belief in that statement. "Yes, but he did this to her which means, he does not really know what love is."
Isobel shrugged, "You do not really need to know how to love, to love."
Elena Gilbert followed her parents out of their carriage and onto the property of the Salvatore home. She wore a large burgundy dress, it was very tight because her mother insisted that the maids tighten her corset until she couldn't breathe. The sleeves were off shoulder, so her top was on display, including an ample amount of cleavage from the corset being so tight. From the hips down, the skirt billowed down to create a dramatic air it. Her curly hair was pinned up, but loose curls fell down around her face and from behind.
Once Elena exited the carriage, she looked up at the massive house that she had come to love. As children, she and Katerina played with both of the Salvatore brothers. Stefan was the same age as the twins, and Damon was 5 years older than the three. But Damon was always happy to play with them, despite the age differences. He always said that he would rather be outside in the cold with them than in the warm indoors with his father.
The Salvatore brothers each had a very different relationship with their parents. After Stefan was born, their mother ran into some medical complications; they were more mental than physical. However, after many years the physical issues caught up with her. She survived for 10 years after Stefan was born, but then she died. Since her death, Damon's father has resented him. Damon resembled his mother in their appearances, they had the same dark hair and bright blue eyes. The elder brother had always thought that this was the reason Giuseppe begrudged him; Damon was merely a teasing of who is no longer along side his father.
Stefan, however, could not be more of a saint according to his father. He was a bright young man of moral character and he held high standards of himself. But, Giuseppe also liked Stefan because he was able to teach his son things and be an example for him. Giuseppe did not need to teach Damon anything and he did not need an example. He was always a leader, not a follower. This also caused much of the friction in the relationship between Damon and his father. Stefan was eager to learn, and Giuseppe was eager to teach, so they had a mutual bond.
"Elena, hurry up." Isobel said, looking over her shoulder at her daughter who stood staring at the mansion in front of them.
Elena followed her parents into the house, and she could see that the party was in full swing. The musicians were already playing music, and some were dancing.
"Jonathan!" A loud voice came from the left.
"Giuseppe." Jonathan greeted his friend.
The two firmly shook hands.
"Isobel, you look as beautiful as ever." Giuseppe kissed the cheek of Elena's mother.
"And Elena, or is it Katherine?" Giuseppe had a playful glint to his eye. "I can hardly tell the two of you apart."
"It is Elena." She smiled uncomfortably, she knew of the conversation that was going to take place next.
"Well, where is your sister? My Stefan will surely be upset if he does not get a dance with her." Stefan's father craned his neck to look behind them, to see if Katherine was dawdling.
"Giuseppe, that is a matter I think that we should discuss more privately." Jonathan cut in.
Suddenly, Giuseppe's playful air diminished and he led Jonathan into his study down the hallway.
"Mother-" Elena started.
"Elena, this is a party for Damon. He is returning from battle, and it is a joyous event for the Salvatore family and this town."
"I know."
"So, do not look so serious, dear." Isobel had a fake smile plastered to her face and she said a quick hello to fellow townspeople that passed by.
"Elena!" The brunette turned to see Stefan calling her as he walking towards her.
"Stefan, hello!" Elena said excitedly as he pulled her in for hug.
"Elena!" Isobel exclaimed. "Inappropriate for the public." She chastised.
"Yes, mother." Elena said with a roll of her eyes, looking at Stefan.
Stefan tried to stifle his laughter as Isobel excused herself to speak to her friends across the room.
"Where is Katherine?" Stefan asked with wide, naïve eyes.
Elena let out a sad sigh, "She's...gone, Stefan."
"What?" He asked, perplexed. Stefan saw Elena's serious expression, but he didn't believe it, he couldn't.
"I'm sorry, Stefan." Elena looked up at him with kind eyes and placed her hand on his forearm comfortingly.
"Why?" The sadness in his face was so clear. It was obvious that he couldn't manage to hide it.
"She's visiting our family in Bulgaria...we are not sure of how long." She used her father's lie.
Thankfully, Stefan did not notice the way that she brushed a piece of hair from her face out of nervousness.
"Oh." He just looked down at his hands.
"Stefan?" Elena cocked her head, trying to make eye contact. "This is a party for your brother. We must both try to be happy."
The younger Salvatore lifted his head, grief was still clear in his eyes, but he tried to hide it with a weak smile. "You are right. Would you like to see him?"
Elena returned his smile, but she tried to at least make her's believable, "Of course."
Stefan led her from the hallway near the front of the house to the large room in which the dancing was taking place. From afar, Elena could see the elder Salvatore, still in his Confederate uniform. The brunette cringed at that, she was trained to hate the Union, because this was a fight for the South's rights. To the South it was "The War of Southern Oppression." But Elena saw it for slavery, something that she did not approve of. Her family was too poor to own slaves, they did not have the money to grow crops or to feed the hard-workers. There were actually a number of men in Confederate uniforms in the Salvatore home that night.
Damon Salvatore stood off to the side of the dance floor, speaking with other men in the Confederacy. They were continuing to go on about the pros and cons of the Battle of Spotsylvania, which had taken place a month ago. Damon could hardly stand to hear more about slavery and southern rights; he wanted out. Though, he appreciated his father's efforts to give him a party to celebrate his return from battle. This was the only part of his life that Giuseppe didn't scrutinize. It was a shame to Damon's father that he had absolutely no plans to return to war.
"Stonewall is going to get himself killed. He tries to educate slaves, which we all know is never going to work. If he is not shot dead by the Union, my gun might accidentally go off one of these days." A man from the Confederacy said beside Damon, as his other friends guffawed with him. But Damon chose to ignore them and their indecency. Instead, he focused on something else entirely.
Damon's little brother stood on the other side of the room, with a woman by his side. One that he had not seen for years. It was his brother's girl, Katherine Gilbert. She stood with her beautiful brunette hair pinned up, but loose curls came to frame her delicate face. Her delectable figure was covered well with her deep red dress, the bodice fitting her like a glove. And, of course, the woman was his brother's.
Once Stefan spotted his brother looking over at him and Elena, he walked across the room to greet him.
"Damon." Stefan greeted.
"Brother." Damon returned.
"I am sure that you remember Elena Gilbert, Katherine's twin sister." Stefan introduced Damon to the girl beside him.
Elena! How could I forget her? She did not look like that when I left.
"How could I forget?" Damon replied smoothly, stealing a kiss from Elena's soft hand.
Her large brown eyes looked up at him, sparkling. "Hello, Damon."
Comments, questions and suggestions are appreciated.
-Alex