A/N: Okay, so I decided this story would follow most of the events of season one. The first chapter, this one, and the next couple, should take place during the 'Pilot' episode of The Vampire Diaries. If anyone's confused., The Pilot takes place over three days, and since Eve missed the first day of school, this story starts off a little bit through the first episode, onto the third day, the night the party is on. So she's missed Elena meeting Stefan, the graveyard scene with the creepy fog etc. and all that fun stuff. :) Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that.
Any stolen dialogue belongs to the writers of The Vampire Diaries, and not me. Unfortunately. Enjoy! :)
Picking shot gun might have been a mistake on my part. Elena drove in awkward silence to Bonnie's, the familiar path still ingrained in my memory. Four months wasn't enough to make me forget my friends, for God's sake. Mystic Falls was a small enough town, anyway, so everyone knew where everyone else lived. It was that kind of place. Friendly. Small. Happy. If you had no car, then you were screwed. Basically, Mystic Falls was like that hotel in that Eagle's song. There was no escape.
Cue the creepy music…
She pulled up to Bonnie's, and honked the horn. I surveyed Bonnie's place, and thought about how much I'd missed coming over there with Elena for movie nights. Her grams had always kept it neat and orderly even with the overflowing pile of books that were stacked on the bookshelf in the living room. So many books…so little time to read. I remembered the night Bonnie invited us over, and Elena had gushed to us the news of Matt Donovan asking her out.
At the time, we were all flirty schoolgirls prone to incessant, and often annoying giggling. Hearing the news, Bonnie and I had giggled, and exchanged looks as if were two magicians in on a secret the audience would never know. In our case, it was the news of a new couple in Mystic Falls, news no other girls were savvy to save the three of us.
Of course, that hadn't been the only news. I had made the cheerleading squad, something I had been dying to achieve since the age of eight. Bonnie had gotten the best grades out of the three of us, so we were also celebrating that.
It was a fun night, filled with Cheetos, hot chocolate, and a young Leonardo Di Caprio professing his undying love to an even younger Claire Danes.
A familiar face peeked out the window. A flutter of curtains. A door slamming. A frantic, grinning girl running to the car.
"Hey, sorry, for the wait."
"What wait? We were out here for like two seconds before you were booking it to the car." I shrugged.
Bonnie reached the car. Her hair had grown over the summer. It was now somewhere near her waist. The last time I'd seen her, it was a little way past her shoulders. Her eyes widened when she took me in.
Sighing, I waited for the moment to pass. First, Bonnie would freak. That was stage one. Stage two: the anger would set in, and she would let it riff, focusing all her universally negative energies on my own negative 'aura', yelling at me for leaving town, like Elena did earlier. Stage three: Accept my return, and become resigned to me staying here again, though this time wary, not knowing if I would spring, sprout wings and leave the nest again.
As predicted, the various emotions crossed her face, pulling on her brows in an angry death stare, and drawing her lips together in an excited-to-kill-me pout.
Eventually, after the questions I couldn't really answer right then and there, Elena waved Bonnie in, and with a last, suspicious shot in my direction she opened car door to the backseat, and slid in, the door slamming shut behind her. I could have gone pro at this...maybe open up a palm reading shop downtown...Who knew what was in the cards for me?
"Hi, Bonnie," I muttered, nervously rubbing my hands together, ignoring my own lame joke that I was thankful no one actually heard. Unless they were telepathic, in which case, I had encountered telepaths before on my trips with the Doctor. They had always ended badly, for some reason. But if I ever encountered them again at least I'd be prepared. Grumpily, and keeping this within the safe boundaries of my own head, I scoffed at my train of thought. I could barely go a day without thinking about my travels, and the weird experiences involved.
"So you're back then, Eve? For good?"
Elena's eyes flickered over to mine. She hadn't asked it, but I knew she was burning with the question from the moment we left my mum's house. But it wasn't like I had a prepared answer for her, some eloquent speech prepared to answer all of their questions and then some.
Travelling in all of time and space with a mad British bloke in a blue box just didn't seem…plausible, especially the part where he had dropped me off, and left me in Mystic Falls.
If I was going to be stuck here, the least I could do was pretend to be happy about it, and happy to see my friends. Which I was.
"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking…running away like that. That was stupid of me." I wore a sheepish expression to prove the statement. If somebody had said to me four months ago that I would be saying something along the lines of that... I'd have told the person to go and get psychiatric help. It was funny what trouble in paradise could do to a girl.
A huge bubble of tension that that had been building between the three of us popped all of a sudden. Bonnie, and Elena both let out audible sighs of relief.
"Good! You know, you missed your finals last year…and you've still got a whole number of assignments to do. Mr. Tanner is going to be pissed that you missed his lecture on the Civil War." Bonnie pointed out, leaning forward in her seat.
"I can catch up." The assignments…Oh, god. The missed assignment. There used to be this analogy that I liked. It had something to do with a knife hanging over somebody's head by a single thread. I read that in a book once, and the thought had freaked me out. For two years, and I was about nine at this time, I had kept a vigilant watch over my head, just to be safe. When it appeared a knife wasn't actually going to fall on my head when I was asleep, I relaxed.
But every now and then a knife dangling by a thread would pop up in my dreams, and taunt me.
"Not tonight you won't." Bonnie grinned.
"Why? What's going on?"
"There's a party down at the falls. Everyone's going."
"Oh, great. Another Back-to-School BBQ, except without the BBQ, and the guarantee of waking up with a killer hangover, and no recollection of the night before."
"Exactly. What kind of Mystic Falls BBQ would it be without the guarantee of a killer hangover?"
I glanced over at Elena.
"Are you going, Elena?"
Bonnie answered for her.
"'Course she is. She's got a date."
"Oh, a date, now? Who's the lucky fella?" The news of Elena's and Matt's breakup was a bit of a letdown. I thought they were cute together. Matt was such a sweetheart around Elena, giving that tell-tale smile that'd show just how much he adored her. The last time I had seen them together had been at school, in between classes, and at their lockers. They were sweet-talking each other as if the hall wasn't crowded with a bunch of other kids making their way to their next class.
"So…Do you guys want to meet at the Grill tonight?" Elena asked Bonnie, Caroline, and me, while still making googly eyes at Matt.
I laughed.
"Sure, but after you two get a room."
"You know," Elena said, blushing, while Matt chuckled, obviously uncomfortable with the attention. "One of these days you'll get a boyfriend, and you'll be the one harassed, and teased."
"I don't harass you guys!"
"If it involves never ending teasing, and constantly interrupting their very private, very romantic moments," Caroline narrowed her eyes at me, smirking. "…then yes, you do harass them."
I held up my hands in mock defeat.
"In my defense…Okay, I don't actually have a defense, but damn it. They're just so adorable together!" I laughed. "Look at the power couple. I mean look at them!"
There followed a series of interesting moments of Caroline, Bonnie, and me following around Elena and Matt in between classes, watching out for signs of their blooming romance to appear.
And it did. We eventually caught them kissing in the girl's bathroom, the one near the office.
It might have been stupid, I mean, we could have spent our time doing more productive things like drum up solutions to problems like global warming and cancer, instead of hyper focusing on a silly, yet beautifully charming romance between two of Mystic Fall High's sweetest pair of…well, sweethearts. But then again, we didn't have the solutions to global warming and cancer. The least we could think of that pertained to global warming since cancer was ultimately too important, and too difficult a problem to deal with, was recycling.
And boy did we recycle.
Elena shook her head, despite the fact that a rosy tint coloured her cheeks,
"He's not a date. He's more of…an acquaintance."
"Ohh…" I nodded importantly, not at all convinced. "And I suppose you two are just there to mingle, and get to know each other, right?"
"Exactly."
Bonnie rolled her eyes.
"You weren't there, Eve. You should have seen the guy. He looked like he could be some kind of hot rock star with his own place in Seattle. He probably plays the guitar, too."
"Bonnie!"
"What? He's hot. I'm not going to lie about it."
Chuckling, I craned my neck to face Bonnie.
"Tell me more about this 'hot rock star'. His name would be nice, for starters."
Before Bonnie could reply, Elena cut in.
"Stefan Salvatore. He's a Gemini, he's favourite colour is blue… um…Caroline mentioned something about a military family…Oh! He lives with his uncle at the old Salvatore boarding house…" Salvatore boarding house. The only one I knew who lived there was Zach Salvatore. Stefan must have moved in recently, then, since his name had been non-existent four months ago.
Bonnie exchanged a knowing look with me.
"She's attracted to him, see. They'll get married within the next couple of years, probably on their eighteenth birthdays, maybe a trip to Vegas." She whispered.
"By the sounds of it, it looks they'll be married within the next couple of days…"
"Wanna take a bet on it?"
"Twenty bucks."
"Oh, now you're just playing cheap, Eve."
"Fine. Fifty."
"No, make it a hundred. Then we have a bet."
"Okay. I bet you a hundred they'll get together by the next…what? Two weeks? Does that sound fair?"
We both heard Elena groan, and didn't need to look to see she was rolling her eyes at us.
"Seriously you two…"
"Yeah, sounds fair. Two weeks. If they're not dating within that time frame, you owe me a hundred bucks, my friend." Bonnie and I shook on it, much to Elena's chagrin.
"I hate you two."
…
To say my first day of school since a certain blue box landed in my front yard (that wasn't a euphemism for anything) took me down an unwelcome trip down memory lane, and embarrassing moments avenue, would be accurate to the tee in a golf tournament.
Elena, Bonnie, and I had arrived just in time for the bell to ring, signalling the start of classes, and for most of the kids, the second day of the first semester.
"Relax, it'll be fine." Bonnie placed hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, you wouldn't believe how many stares I got yesterday…"
I could've slapped myself.
"Sorry, Elena, I didn't mean for-"
"No, it's fine, I'm just saying, that you don't need to worry. We'll sort out everything." She smiled at me in that reassuring way of hers as we entered the building along with the throng of bodies. A few kids did a double take, not bothering to lower their voices or anything as they said to their buddy, "Is that Eve Laurence? The runaway? Why's she back?"
"But I feel like an ass. I mean…You…I shouldn't even be worried about myself. You have it worse than I do. At least people actually went up to talk to you. Oh, God. I'm not trying to compare anything between us-"
"Eve! Relax! It's alright. It'll be alright, okay?"
We entered the hallways, and the stares. Just. Wouldn't. Stop. Seriously. Have these people never seen a runaway before? Well, the chances were probably slim. Mystic Falls was a small town. No one ran away.
"I know but…what if they ask what happened, or where I was? I mean, I didn't even tell you both…"
"Look, we don't expect you to. Yeah, we were pissed off when you didn't answer any of our questions, and we're still a little…upset, but," Elena slung an arm around my shoulder. "-But, you know what? Screw everyone else. You shouldn't care what they think."
"Are you saying that out of past experience?"
"Yes. And no. I'm saying it to get you to not care what anyone thinks about you. A city is a big enough place to be anonymous in, while here it can be a little…" Elena made a face, and I laughed. "Point is, people are always going to ask questions, and they're always going to make us think we owe it to them to answer them. But you know what the crazy thing is?"
I tried my best not to look too dubious.
"What?"
"You don't owe anyone anything."
"Oh, come on, Elena. Are you saying that, as my best friend, I don't owe you a single explanation as to why I left in the first place? I mean, I ditched you, Bonnie, Caroline, everyone else. And I didn't say goodbye!"
"You had your reasons." The crowd in the halls was slowly starting to thin. Up ahead, I spotted Caroline, waving to Bonnie, and Elena, then stopping in her tracks when she saw me. I saw her mouth "Eve?" before being hauled off by one of the students.
"When did you get so wise?"
Bonnie, listening the whole time with the trace of an amused smile on her lips, frowned, her attention piqued.
"Well…as you probably had before you left, I had a bad day. You'd be surprised what a summer of grieving can do to you." I was a mess at human psychology, and even worse at voicing my half-brained opinions on a person's actions, but even I could see that an entire summer of grieving hadn't quite been enough for Elena.
I squeezed her shoulders, and sighed.
"I'll see you two later. I've got to go and get my schedule, and enrolment papers all sorted."
Bonnie nodded, making off to her next class.
"See you at lunch then?"
"Yeah. See you."
"Listen…" I held up Elena in front of Mr. Tanner's class. Everyone was still filing into their seats, so I had time. "We'll talk more later? Your crazy wisdom might not permit it, but I do owe you guys answers. I'll tell you everything. It sounds…" I shook my head. "It's a really crazy reason."
"Don't worry. I'll believe you."
"Sure you will."
"Well, you believed me when I said you didn't owe anyone anything."
"I know. But I'll explain everything, okay? That way things can get back to normal that much faster and you can tell me why the hell you and Matt broke up," I pointed a warning finger at her. Elena chuckled. "And you've definitely got to fill me in on this Salvatore guy."
"Fine. I will. At lunch though. Mr. Tanner looks like he wants to give everyone one of his pop quizzes…"
"It's only the second day!"
"Well, you know how he is."
"Yeah, unfortunately," I grimaced, thinking back to a humiliating time when he asked me one of a question I didn't know the answer to. He expected everyone to have read the first couple of chapters in our textbooks, but at the time my mum had been sick, and I had to take care of her. I looked like an idiot in front of everyone. That wasn't all that embarrassing to a lot of people, but I liked knowing the answers to things. It bugged me when I didn't know something.
We laughed, and promised each other we'd talk more at lunch. Waving bye to her, I made my way to the office, trying to ignore the memories of four months ago.
…
"See? It's called the Tardis. Stands for Time and Relative Dimension In Space."
"You sound like you've said this a million times to a million other girls…"
"What? What makes you-"
"Hey, you've got a box that's bigger on the inside. I mean, what sort of person wouldn't be amazed?"
He nodded.
"I see your point. But what do you think?"
"It's…Wow." I cringed at my choice of words. "Okay, maybe I'm not Mary Angelou but…wow."
"If you're feeling a little…you know…overwhelmed… the Tardis has that effect on people."
"I'm not overwhelmed. Why would I be overwhelmed?"
"Well, you're looking a sort of green colour…"
"Am I? Oh. Sorry."
"No!" He laughed. "It's nothing to be sorry for. I mean, if you want to go and get some fresh air, you're welcome to-"
"I'm fine." I squared my shoulders. I was standing a box that was bigger on the freakin' inside. Why would I want to go and get some fresh air? "I…can we just go?"
"Go?" He seemed puzzled. "Go where?"
"Anywhere. As long as it isn't here."
"Well…it's your lucky today, because it just so happens that 'anywhere' and 'everywhere' are our destinations…" He flipped a lever, and the room shook beneath our feet. The queasiness returned, but I ignored it. I was finally going to leave Mystic Falls. Oh, god…I was actually leaving!
"You might want to hold on."
"Holding…on!" I yelled as entire thing shook, and spun, nearly sending me flying back from the console. He grinned at me, a mixture of excitement and impish madness in those eyes of his.
"Hello!" He held out a hand in the chaos, soliciting a wide-eyed stare at it. The room was spinning…and he was hanging on with only one hand? Did he have a death wish? "I'm the Doctor."
Still, though. A smile fought its way to my mouth, tugging at the corners. I gave in, and grinned right back.
Gingerly, I let go with my right hand, and held it out to him. He grasped it immediately, shaking it, but not letting go. It was best that he didn't-if he had, I would probably have smacked myself face down on the floor.
"Pleasure to meet you, Doctor!" I played along, figuring that if I died in this mad box, at least I'd do it in style. "I'm Eve. Eve Laurence."
"Welcome aboard Eve!"
…
Receptionists manned the front desk with an authoritarian diligence that even I had to admire. They answered phone calls with a soft, pleasant tone, never for once falling for any awkward slips at an angry parent, or anything idiotic along those lines.
Okay, it was only the second day, so there wouldn't really be any angry parents (at least not yet) but they were impressive.
I walked up to the office doors, to the reception desk…and reinstated myself in Mystic Falls, officially.
…
I bumped into him on the way to History, my first class, which as it turned out, I'd have with Elena all year. Cool.
"Let's see…History. Biology. Right. Lunch. Math…at least it's not in the morning…Drama…." The stupid thing was to look down at the paper while I was walking. I could have avoided making an ass of myself in front of Vance Joy here, but nope.
I clutched my head, mumbling a string of curses.
"Oh! Watch out."
"Sorry, I was being an idiot for trying to read while I walked. Stupid…" I trailed off when I glanced up at the figure before me. Wow. There was me not being Mary Angelou again.
"Oh. Hi," Four months I had been gone, and suddenly Mr. Supermodel moved in town? Why did I leave, again? "I don't want to sound rude, well, I'm probably going to sound rude anyway, and I've just been recently told by a friend of mine that I shouldn't care what other people think, so here goes, but… You don't look like a high school student."
He really didn't. He was tall, dark haired, drop-dead gorgeous, and had a wonderful display of a two o'clock, three o'clock shadow (another thing I wasn't good at: telling time when it came to guy's facial hair). He was young, but not young enough to pass for a high school student.
If I had to make a guess, I'd say he was in college, maybe in his last year, twenty five or twenty six.
"You're right," He smirked, "That was rude."
"I know. I'm sorry." I looked down at my feet. "But at least I'm honest." At least I'm honest? What was that?
Well, he found it funny at any rate.
The smirk still there, he extended a hand.
"You're right, though. I'm not a student."
I took the hand, and shook it, feeling a hard, bumpy lump beneath my palm. When our hands broke apart, I saw a distinct ring on his right hand.
"Hello 'You're-right-though-I'm-not-a-student. I'm Eve-very-much-a-student."
"Sexy, and funny." He grinned. "Damon Salvatore."
My eyes widened. I ignored that odd jittery feeling that swallowed my stomach. He was just flirting. I couldn't help but take a quick peek at my attire. Simple jeans, and a button up top. Nothing special.
"You wouldn't happen to be related to Stefan Salvatore would you?"
He nodded, something enigmatic touching his handsome features.
"Indeed I do. He's my brother."
"Oh. Wow."
"Shocking, I know. No, I was just dropping my baby brother off for school."
"Really?" The smirk said it all.
"Well…not exactly. He doesn't really know I'm here. Not yet."
"And you were going to surprise him here?"
Damon shrugged.
"More or less. But I decided it'd be less tacky if I did it at home, then here, in front of all his friends." He rolled his eyes.
I chuckled.
"I heard you two were new around here…"
"Well, we used to live here a long time ago, but then we moved, went our separate ways. He came back around the same time I decided to."
"I guess you two have some catching up to do, huh?"
Nodding, he peeked down at my schedule.
"I see you have History with him right now. You'd better scurry back to class, Eve."
"I will, so long as you stop hanging around here like a nostalgic drop out, Damon." It was my turn to smirk.
"How did you know I was a drop out?" He put his hands to his mouth in an exaggerated prim way, mock shocked.
"See you." I laughed. A thought struck me. Bonnie mentioned there was a party down at the falls later on. If Stefan was going with Elena (allegedly, anyway), I didn't see the harm in inviting his brother. They could catch up there.
"Listen, don't see this as a come on, because it isn't," I was careful with my words. Maybe too careful. "-but are you busy tonight?"
"No, that isn't a come on at all…" He smirked. "Apart of catching up with Stefan, no. Why?" Judging by the amused gleam in his eyes (it was all about the eyes for me today) he could make an educated guess as to what my next words would be.
"Well…again, this isn't a come on. But…There's a party later on tonight. It's like a…back to school kind of thing, and I wasn't going with anybody…not that I couldn't, because I can, oh, I can go with somebody but um…" This wasn't going as planned. "But…Your brother is going to be there. I mean, you two can catch up there, right?"
What was I doing? I'd barely been back in Mystic Falls for more than a few days, and already I was hitting on the newbie's older brother. Older brother. That was it. I'd officially cracked, from all the time and space travel.
At first, Damon didn't respond. He seemed to debate something, something I guessed wasn't about me. He nodded to himself once, and then swivelled his eyes back to mine.
"Okay. I'll go."
"Really?" Tone down the enthusiasm. Tone down the enthusiasm… "Yeah. I'll probably be the oldest one there…" I laughed again. "But who doesn't love a high school dropout hanging around? Baby brother Stefan'll be there, and like I said…You're sexy, and funny." A blush crept its way to my cheeks. "Curiously enough, you don't look like a high school student, either."
I froze. He didn't know did he? Elena, and Bonnie hadn't noticed. He was probably just telling me that to…flirt. Yes. To flirt. He didn't know anything about the Doctor.
He laughed, reckless, and amused.
"I'll see you there, Eve." With a wink, he swept past me, and left.
I snapped out of my little reverie, checking the time on one of the clocks hanging on the walls. 9:30.
Crap.
I'd missed most of the class.
Hurrying, I ran down the hall. By the time I'd reached Mr. Tanner's classroom, my breathing was erratic and heavy.
Summoning the courage to actually go in there, and face the music, I stole a breath, inhaling deeply before exhaling. I opened the door, stealing into the room as quietly as I could.
Mr. Tanner had just finished asking Bonnie a question. So far, no one noticed me yet.
"Ms. Bennett?"
Bonnie looked surprised to be asked.
"Um…a lot?" She said, causing a few chuckles and snickers around the room, including one from Matt. "I'm not sure. Like a whole lot."
Mr. Tanner was disapproving in his tone when he replied.
"Cute becomes dumb in an instant, Ms. Bennett. Mr. Donovan? Would you like to take this opportunity to overcome your embedded jock stereotype?" Come on, Matt. You can do this…
Matt, his hair spiky this morning, and looking tired, merely smiled, and said, "It's okay, Mr. Tanner. I'm cool with it. Eve! What the hell? You're back?" And at that moment, as all eyes abruptly followed Matt's trail of sight and landed on my embarrassed frame, I was reminded of the time I had accidentally peed myself in Kindergarten because I was too shy to ask the teacher, and everyone had ended up laughing at me.
No one was laughing now. They were all…shocked.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I am. Hi Matt." I waved awkwardly. Stunned, Matt waved back, brows furrowed.
"When did you get back?"
"Uh…"
"Ms. Laurence. Glad to have you back." Mr. Tanner, pressed in his dark violet sweater, and black vest, walked to the front to where I was, and wave me on over to his desk.
"Oh, it's good to be back, sir."
"If you don't mind, I'd like to have a word with you after class…" If stares could burn holes through a body, I'd be a goner, for sure.
"Oh, yes, okay."
"Have a seat, Ms. Laurence." Blushing, this time out of mortification rather than out of flattered embarrassment, I looked around for a spare seat, finding an empty one near Matt.
I noticed Bonnie sending a text to Elena, near the back.
I sat down, and smiled nervously at Matt. Up close, he looked a bit older than the last time I had seen him.
He returned the smile, and whispered, as Mr. Tanner said something about tardiness, "Glad to see you again. We all missed you."
"Thanks. I missed you guys too."
"Ms. Laurence?"
My head snapped in Mr. Tanner's direction.
"Yes?"
"I was just asking the class a question, and I was hoping that, wherever you went, you might have picked up a few things, and might be able to answer my question for me."
"Oh, uh…sure." Tardis. Time Travel. After numerous trips back in time, I was pretty sure I'd be able to answer this question, no problem.
"No one else, I'm afraid, was able to answer, but hopefully you'll be able to enlighten the class. The Battle of Willow Creek took place right at the end of the war in our very own Mystic Falls. How many casualties resulted in this battle?" I looked at the blackboard and noticed he had written 'Civil War' across in broad letters.
I jolted back in surprise. Oh. Civil War. That was it?
I remember the Doctor accidentally landing us in the middle of it. We had ended up stuck for a year, because we lost the Tardis, and out of curiosity, and, I guess I had to admit to myself, a prickling of nostomania, we went to Virginia towards the end of the war.
From what I actually recalled of the events, they were brutal, bloody and as awful as the textbooks described, and more.
"Ms. Laurence?"
"Sorry," I smiled. "I was just thinking…"
"Well, are you done 'thinking'?"
A few more chuckles in the room, the sound like a quiet roar of crickets in the night, sporadic and intermittent.
"Oh, yeah. Um…It was…I believe…346. Yes. 346."
"Very good. See, class, maybe you should all follow Ms. Laurence's-"
"-and about 27 civilian casualties."
"That's incorrect, Ms. Laurence. There weren't any civilian casualties."
"Yes, there were. I was-" I clamped my mouth shut, fighting the urge to answer in detail. Telling Mr. Tanner and the rest of the class that 'I was there' would be like shouting to the world my lunacy. They'd haul me away if I did.
"Ms. Laurence?"
Fuck. How was I supposed to cover this up, now?
Someone at the back cleared their throat.
"Mr. Tanner?"
Everyone turned to face the student with their hand raised in the air, including myself. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elena raise her eyebrows in surprise at the guy. She leaned forward as he opened his mouth to speak. From his Edward Cullen haircut, and the way that he seemed to show off to Mr. Tanner without being overtly obnoxious about it…and the way that Bonnie was texting Elena, and the embarrassed smile that appeared…this had to be Stefan Salvatore.
"Yes, mister…?"
"Salvatore."
"Salvatore. Any relation to the original settlers here at Mystic Falls?"
"Distant," was his only answer.
Mr. Tanner nodded.
"Interesting."
"Sir, Eve was right," Stefan nodded to me in acknowledgment before returning his attention to the teacher. "There were 27 civilian casualties."
"No, there weren't. Now, class consider-"
"Actually, there were 27, sir." I raised my brows at the guy. He was gutsy. Mr. Tanner looked at him as to say 'Oh, really?' but waved him on anyway. "Confederate soldiers, they fired on the church, believing it be housing weapons. They were wrong. It was a night of great loss. The founder's archives are, uh, stored in civil hall if you'd like to brush up on your facts, Mr. Tanner."
"Hmm…" Silence all around. Stefan looked over at me and winked. Elena seemed impressed, along with Bonnie and the rest of the class.
In the class, while Mr. Tanner hurried to get past the awkward moment, I could tell there was one thought that pervaded everybody's minds, and it was directed at Mr. Tanner: Burrrrrn.
