Chapter 1- Missing you...Both of you
Roughly eight and a half years ago
"Honestly Taryn, I don't understand you!" Eliana Braydenson turned to her best friend as she passed her the shot that the annoyingly flirty bartender gave to them for free.
"And honestly Lia I don't understand what you don't understand! I'm trying to fit in, to... I don't know... Learn to be what I am. And they can help me. They know what it's like and Jules says that," The young pretty girl with the dark hair looked around the room to see if anyone was making use of their time by listening to their conversation. "Jules says that the change is way easier when you're with a pack. And besides," She paused again as she downed the Tequila. "Aren't you the one always telling me I need to go live and shit." She slammed down the glass and motioned to the bartender for another.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I really don't recall , 'Hey Taryn, Why don't you go on and find yourself a pack of werewolves to go dilly around with, hmmm yeah that seems like a great idea' , I don't really think that sounds like me, and I don't remember those words ever passing my lips. Why could that be? Oh yeah, BECAUSE I DIDN'T SAY IT!" The young blonde rolled her piercing green eyes at her best friend and stole her second shot as it came sliding down the bar.
"First,Would you calm your ass second, dilly? Really." Taryn said, before flipping her hand to motion to the bartender who was paying no attention for another. A shot glass that had been set down before a patron whom they had yet to notice the arrival of slid his glass toward them. Lia rolled her eyes at the distraction, but moved her hand ever so slightly so it went sliding toward Taryn.
"Thanks," She threw her gratitude at the dark haired stranger, before actually turning to look at him. He was...dangerous, that much she could tell with just a glance.
"… And besides did Taryn think to think about me when she made this decision? No OF COURSE NOT. BECAUSE NO-ONE TAKES LIA INTO CONSIDERATION. EVER!" Eliana finished with stealing Taryn's shot out of her hand and downing it in a swoop.
"Ok I get that you're mad. But if you touch my damn bourben again, I'll mual you." Taryn said to her friend with her eyes narrowed.
"Oh, shut up." Lia said to her friend. "I think you're developing alcohol dependency anyway so I'm helping you kick your addiction." Leaving Taryn ridiculously confused as to what in the almighty fuck her best friend was talking about. Lia finished getting up from her stool at the bar far from gracefully.
"Where are you going?" Taryn asked her friend.
"To the bathroom. Oh, you know what you could do while I'm gone!Why don't you meet up with the Cullen's and see if they'll sparkle for you." Lia shot at Taryn who rolled her eyes as her friend walked into the ladies room in the back of the bar.
"Your friends pretty..." The dark stranger didn't finish this thought.
"Charmingly Abrasive?" Taryn suggested.
"Yeah," The Stranger said with a laugh "I'm sorry I'm being rude. I never start a conversation with a beautiful lady without telling her my name," Taryn raised her eyebrows and actually looked at the man. Yes her first impression was definitely right. Dangerous... but also, B-e-a-utiful. She shook herself out of it.
"Well you must talk to a lot of beautiful woman." Taryn said, falling back in her usual nonchalant attitude. The stranger laughed , entranced by her ability to stay unaffected by him. But then, she hadn't looked him in the eyes yet.
"Well I talk to my fair share of beautiful women. But I have to say, I don't think I've ever met one quite as hostile as you." His blue eyes twinkled with mischief as he tried to rile her up.
Taryn simply rolled her eyes at him.
"I'm Damon. Salvatore." The blue eyed stranger said while waving the bartender over. "And can I have a bottle of whatever shes having." The bartender nodded.
"So, Damon Salvatore, do you buy drinks for every woman you come across." Taryn turned and looked at Damon straight on for the first time as he answered her.
"No, but I do for the ones that interest me." He said staring into her eyes. "You interest me, and I interest you too. Your cautious, but curious. You know that you don't want to get hurt but you do want to live. And to love. You want danger. And passion , but you'll never do anything about it because someone's screwed you over once and you're not willing to let anyone else do it ever again." Damon finished and looked at the bottle that the bartender set on the table."Bourbon, good choice." He said looking at her and saying that she was still in a state of shock by his words. "So who was it? That screwed you over I mean." He looked at her expectantly raising his eyebrows. Taryn glared back at him.
"I know you too. You're the bad boy huh? The one that all the girls flock to because they know you're exactly the one their parents don't want to see at the dinner table. And I bet you started to act out in the first place because you'd been used before am right?" Taryn relished in Damon's shocked face.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I guess I didn't follow the storyline you're used to. So I'm guessing right about now your damsel in distress would be crying her eyes out to you and you'd take her home and apologize for being so brash! Then you'd screw her and leave as soon as you got what you wanted?" Taryn continued and got so close to Damon that their noses almost touched.
"Don't think that you know me asshole. Because you don't know the half of it." they stared into each others eyes for what seemed like a lifetime.
Until Taryn grabbed the bottle from Damon's hand and took a long swig. When she brought it down from her lips she looked to him and cocked her head.
"So who was it exactly Damon. Who was it that broke you?" She asked and Damon rolled his eyes before looking at her and deeming that she genuinely wanted to know.
"Katherine." He said as he watched Taryn as she was clearly surprised he actually answered. "Her name was Katherine." Damon took the bottle of bourbon out of her hand and took a swig himself as he sat. Taryn looked down at the man before her and almost smiled.
" Katherine huh?" She said sitting down next to him.
He looked at her, a warning look that signalled he didn't want to talk. She smirked slightly. "We don't discuss who broke you, we don't mention who screwed me over." she bargained.
Damon ended up shrugging his shoulders. "Fair enough." He said and passed her the bottle. "So,do you live in Chicago?" He asked.
"Well," Taryn responded. "I don't really have a home right now. I'm kind of a wanderer, a... lone to speak." She giggled slightly at her joke leaving Damon confused , but he quickly dismissed it as her being wasted. " And you?"
"Same boat. Can't be chained down for long." Taryn nodded her head in understanding and looked at him and giggled. "What?" He asked
"You are so not as bad as you think you are." She said plopping back down into the seat next to him.
As she drove she couldn't help but think about him. For the longest time she wished she'd never even deigned to speak with him that night. That she never let him buy her that drink, never let him look at her with his icy blue eyes full of … so many things, wondrous things, yes, but mostly pain. Pain that only another broken soul could see. It was under the bravado and the hate but his entire spectrum of emotion emerged from that pain that he tried to hide. And with her... he didn't hide it. That night, the night when eventually he told her everything would always be known to her as the turning point of her life. There were times since that she would say it changed her life for the worse, and others where she realised it was for the better but, it was just one thing she would never truly know for sure.
"What time is it?" Her groggy witch of a best friend asked her from the passengers seat of her Honda Civic hybrid.
"It's," She looked at the digital clock on her Dashboard for lack of knowing. "It's almost 6 o'clock" She said while pulling into a rest stop. "I've gotta pee." The dark haired woman opened her door and stepped out of the car.
"Fine, but I'm putting my foot down. You've been driving for almost 20 hours now!" Lia said while stretching and moving to take Taryn's place in the drivers seat.
"I'm actually not tired at all." Taryn said to her friend. "I think it's because of Noah. Like I can barely breathe not knowing if he's ok or not let alone sleep!" She said quietly as Lia got up and hugged her.
"It's gonna be ok." She said. "He's alright. Trust me. I can feel it."
"Yeah." Taryn smiled lightly trying to wipe away her first tears since not finding her child in his bed almost a day ago. "I just... Need him to be ok." Lia cringed at the brokenness in her sisters voice as she clutched her to her chest. Then she pulled away and looked into her eyes.
"Everything will be fine, Tarry. You'll see!" Taryn nodded her thanks and proceeded to walk through the doors of the large rest stop. She decided to stop for something to eat after doing hee business. Looking at the Cinnabon across from the Mcdonalds that she was standing in line at. She couldn't help but remember the last time she was there with her baby. It was only three days ago, yet it felt like a lifetime.
"Mama! Mamma, Mamma!" Noah Silas virtually screamed at his mother who had started walking toward some childrens store he really didn't want to go in. "Mommmmmmmmyyyyyyy!" He tugged on her arm again.
"What Noah! What is it?" She asked eyes narrowed looking around the perimeter to see if anything was wrong.
"Mamma look! Theres a Cinnabon! Can I get one!" He asked bright blue eyes wide and lip already prepared to poke out to weigh her down if she said no.
Taryn sighed and laughed at the cause of the desperation in her son's voice.
"You just ate!" The young mother said, before rolling her eyes at the pout her son was now sporting.
"But I'm hungry again." The boy stated batting his eyelashes and flashing his baby blues at his weak mother.
Taryn sighed and stood up as she was kneeling while talking to her son.
"Come on, you've been pretty good today." She said straining on the last part to pick up her six year old son and place him on her hip.
"YES!" He said throwing his fist in the air and subsequently beginning to sing of the treat he was about to have. Taryn had to laugh as her son started singing what he told her was called the "Cinnabon Song" all the way home.
Taryn sighed. And thought more of him.
"Mommy." Taryn opened her eyes to see her adorable six year old sniffling beside her bed. Still groggy she yawned and sat upright.
"What's wrong baby?" She asked him pulling him up into her bed , wiping his tears and holding him close to her.
"I had a bad dream." He said to her still sniffling in his mothers arms. Taryn cuddled as his head lay in the crook of her arm and she wrapped her other one around him.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" The mother asked experienced with her child's nightmares.
"I...I can''t...remember...most of it." He said in between sniffles. "I think someone was after me and I was running and there was big orange full moon in the sky."
"Shhhhhh, shhh sweetheart. It's all right. I'm here, I won't let anything get to you." She continued to hold Noah close as his sniffles began to subside. "Your fine."
Taryn relaxed into her pillows, holding her son carefully yet tightly in her arms. "Mom?"
"Yeah baby?"
"Is the moon ever orange?"
"It appears that way sometime, but it's just an illusion."
"But in my dream.." Noah trailed off, not sure how to put his thought pattern into words.
"Why don't you just go back to sleep? You'll have forgotten the whole thing by morning."
"What if I have another nightmare?"
"I won't let any nightmares get to you, I promise." Taryn assured her child. So, shifting slightly in her arms, he began to fall back asleep, but not before one final request.
"Mama?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you sing to me." Taryn couldn't help but smile down at his curly haired head. She began to hum slightly before she started her song.
"Dragon tails, and the water is wide.
Pirates sail, and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night,
and I Love You
Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly
to you each night
on Angel's wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams
Godspeed
Sweet Dreams..."
Noah's breathing turned to that of sleep, and Taryn pressed her lips onto his head. "Sweet dreams, Noah."
"Ma'am?" The woman at the checkout counter said to her as if she had already said it multiple times.
"Oh, Sorry!" Taryn said. "Umm Can I get 2 large fries and 2 Iced teas please."
By the time she got back out to her car, Taryn was emotionally drained, and welcomed the sleep that came to her.
Roughly three months ago
"We might as well stop talking about this screaming at me all the time while we're looking for this damned cure first, doesn't help anything, and second, IS GETTING ON MY NERVES." Damon Salvatore said while walking through the streets of downtown Philadelphia.
"Well, Damon, if you would've done what you said you were doing to do in the first place, WE WOULDN'T BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION, now would we?" Stefan countered obviously still pissed at his idiot of a brother.
"Look I just thought-" Stefan cut him off
"See that's just it Damon. You don't think! You never think. You're incapable of thought unless the thought process centers around your hair or stealing my girlfriend whomever it may be at the time!" He and his brother turned the corner of the street in the quiet small square. Damon simply rolled his eyes at his brothers dramatics.
"Let's just find the idiot, make him tell us what he knows, then get back home." Damon grumbled.
Stefan sighed. "Address should be right around the next corner." The brothers proceeded around the corner of the street and Stefan made his way into the Gimmick Palm Reading shop. Damon looked at the outside of the store and rolled his eyes.
"Why is it that every judgy witch has to have some lame tourist attraction to make a living off of?"
Stefan ignored his brother and pushed through the doors into a the shop. The place was dimly lit, with walls covered in weird symbols meant to look mystical, and the air filled with the smell of multiple candles burning.
"A palm reading shop. Can't they just use their witchy judo to make money or something?"
"Well Damon, maybe they enjoy living through honest work." Stefan shot at him.
"You call this 'honest'?" Damon retorted. "It's tricking idiot humans into paying money so another idiot can pretend to know the future from a few age-marks."
The boys were interrupted by the entrance of another man. He was tall, had a lanky build with dark skin and too much makeup.. He dressed all in black, and when he spoke it sounded like a twisted carnival master. "Greetings gentleman. How can I be of service? You want to know your futures, no? You've come to just the place."
Stefan and Damon just looked at him for a moment. "I'm sorry, this is just too much concentrated crap in one area." Damon finally said, shaking his head and looking away.
Stefan rolled his eyes at his melodramatic older brother and walked toward the man.
"I apologize for my brother's behavior." Stefan said holding his hand out for the eccentric man to shake. "Stefan Salvatore. And this is Damon." He finished nodding his head toward the blue eyed menace.
"There is no need to apologize. I have seen your brothers kind many times before. A non believer. They come into shop, saying there is no such thing as magic, and I am merely cheap tourist attraction. I show them truth."
"Oh, I believe in magic all right. I've seen and experienced it first hand. So I'm aware that while you can't tell anything from my palm, you can still do magic, warlock." Damon retorted.
The man's eyes suddenly narrowed. He studied Damon quickly, then turned his attentions to Stefan. Once he was through, he briskly walked to the door, changed the sign to close, pulled down the shades over the front window and switched a light switch, flooding the room with light. When he spoke again his voice was deeper and serious. "It's been a long time since vampires have come to my shop."
"Ahh, and so the pleasantries can be skipped. Hallelujah." Damon commented.
"Look, we don't want any trouble." Stefan explained.
"Then why the hell are you here?"
"See, told you." Damon pointed at the man while eyeing his brother. "Judgy, witch."
"We're here because we were hoping you could help us."
The man eyed them warily. "Help you? With what?"
"Planning a birthday party." Damon said sarcastically.
"Damon." Stefan warned. Damon sighed.
"All right, all right. Man you're no fun. Word in the witch community says you can communicate with spirits of witches, even better than the average witch."
"And why would that interest a vampire?"
"We're searching for something. It's a , cure, for vampirism." Stefan answered.
"I've heard of it. A group of warlocks once found out about it before they were murdered."
"So you know that only the map from a hunter's mark can lead to the cure, meaning we need a full hunters mark."
"I take it you don't have volunteers rounding the corner for that little task."
"We need to know if theres any other way to the cure. We figured that if anybody found another way, it would probably be some sort of witch. Since you can communicate with the majority of witches to ever exist, you're the best chance of learning anything." Stefan explained.
There was a few minutes of tense silence. Finally, the man crossed the room, weaving his around tables of tarot cards and palm charts. "I've been talking to witch and warlock spirits for years." He said over his shoulder. "Whenever I was told something worth remembering, I'd write it down. A decade or so ago, there was a witch who knew about the Five. She was a descendent of Silas." he held his hand up in front of a bookshelf filled with large, musty, old-looking books. After a moment one of them edged forward. He grabbed it and began flipping through. "She told me everything she knew about the Cure." he finally stopped and scanned over a page. Stefan and Damon waited with silent anxiety. It only took a few minutes for him to sigh and snap the book shut. "I'm sorry." he said, turning back to them, "The only way to find the Cure is through the map in the hunters mark."
There was another brief silence. Stefan finally broke it "Damnit." he exclaimed, bringing his fist down on a table.
Damon narrowed his eyes at the warlock and started toward him."You're lying." He said nostrils flared and eyes fiery. "You saw something in that damned book. What was it?" He yelled as he started running toward the table to snatch the book. Before he could reach it though, he was stopped by a sharp pain in his head as if being stabbed multiple times.
"Damon!" Stefan moved to help his brother.
"You would be wise to not threaten a warlock in his own establishment. I make an honest living, and I will not be part of some vampire mess." The man said releasing the elder brother from his spell. The warlock then turned to Stefan.
"Your brother doesn't do well with witchcraft does he."
"You have no idea." Stefan responded. "I do apologize for his behavior. My brother is rather, impulsive. Thank you anyway, Mr..."
"Colton."
"Well Colton, thanks for your help." Stefan pulled up his brother and began to push him to the door.
"Hey boy, what'd you say your last name was?"
Stefan turned back. "Salvatore." he said confused. Colton's face contained a glimmer of recognition.
"I've heard about you. You're the one trying to kill the Original Vampire."
"How'd you know that?"
"Spirits know everything. So, you gotta a way to kill him?"
"We have a stake that might work."
"The white oak one, right? But that'll kill his whole bloodline." At Stefan's confused face, he simply continued, "Spirits."
"That's why we haven't killed him yet." Damon interjected. "We don't know whether or not it'll kill us too."
Colton continued studying the boys, Stefan particularly. He kept running his gaze over them, and the works in his mind could practically be seen turning. Finally, he said something the two men couldn't of suspected. "What if I told you there was a way to kill Klaus without taking out any of his bloodline?"
Needless to say, this got the boys attention. Damon shook Stefan off of him and looked at the Warlock.
"And what's in it for you?" He asked.
"Well sizable payment of course." The man said. "And the knowledge that you two will walk out of my shop, and never come back." When both Damon and Stefan nodded in agreement Colton turned back to the shelf, and removed another book. "There is a sacrificial ritual. You need two hybrids, and you take out one by sacrificing the other. It needs an incredibly powerful witch to be completed though."
"Powerful witch, shouldn't be a problem." Damon told him. He turned to Stefan. "Judgy would just love to help us out."
"Wait, so to kill Klaus, we'd need to sacrifice another hybrid?" Stefan clarified.
"It's not quite so simple." Colton explained. "For the ritual to work, a 'made' hybrid-Klaus, can only be killed if the sacrifice is a 'born hybrid."
The brothers looked at him blankly.
"Wait, wait, wait. Are you suggesting it is possible for a vampire and werewolf to have a kid together?" Damon looked at the man as if he was crazy.
"That's not possible, vampires can't reproduce. We're dead!" Stefan said.
"True." Colton told him. "However, it has happened before. Only once, across 22 centuries, and that one was killed before anything could happen period. The mother was
held captive by the father and he killed it strait out. But, you boys are in luck, because it just so happens one of them is living now."
"Wait, how is any of that even possible?" Stefan asked incredulously.
"Hey, I just collect the information, not understand it all."
The brothers shared a look, before silently agreeing. "We'll take it."
"Very well then." Colton said before grabbing an envelope out of the of the envelope he pulled a picture and a slip of paper with an address written on it in front of them. "This is Noah Silas. He's currently the only born hybrid living. And this is where you should find him." After exchanging a few more words and in the boys case, money to the warlock, they were ready to leave, yet Colton called out again.
"Hey."
The boys turned around. "Yeah?" Stefan said.
"Fair warning, the kid is guarded by a werewolf at nearly all times. I'd, uh try to avoid her at all costs."After all, she is his mother."
