Chapter 1

The day after telling Jeremy that everything was going to be fine, I disappeared to visit with my family in a way. I knew that Alyssa, my daughter, would take things the worst. The only problem was that she didn't know she was my daughter.

See, the things that Meredith said about me to Elena were true. I had the typical teenage years filled with my rebellion against my parents. Only one good thing came out of all of it: Alyssa.

Before Isobel and I got married, we were on a time-out. We'd separated to a point and I was living back in my hometown. That was when I met Grace. She was your typical show-stopper… But she was also the most kind and caring person I'd probably ever met. We started dating and before I knew it she just up and disappeared from town.

Nine months later I came home to my house to find a baby sitting there in a baby carrier with a note pinned to the blanket. She'd given me all the information to take care of the little girl she had left on my doorstep. In a panic to keep Alyssa from not only Isobel but from any type of harm that my very rare drunken nights would bring, I'd called Amanda, my sister, to come over with her husband.

After staying up until the early hours of the morning and discussing my options, Amanda finally suggested that she and Sean adopt Alyssa. Sean had had cancer when we were all growing up together and the chemotherapy had left him sterile. This was a happy solution to all problems, except for the fact that I'd grown attached within the few hours of being left alone with her.

For years after that, I'd made sure that I doted on Alyssa. Despite her not knowing, we were as close as father and daughter. Hell, I'd even taken her shopping for her first prom dress while Sean was overseas with the company he worked for. Not much of a dad, was he? This loss would be the hardest on her… Especially if my sister decided it was the perfect time to tell her the truth.

I spent my first full day as a ghost following Alyssa around her high school. She was graduating early this year, the first ever in the history of our town. She was the brain in the family, but she'd taken after her mother as well with her good looks… Not that I had ever been considered terrible looking.

The height gene that ran in my family had skipped her but it didn't change anything about her. She built like her mother with long legs and a slender frame. I'd always been afraid I'd hurt her if I squeezed her too hard. Her facial features on the other hand were all Saltzman other than her emerald green eyes.

Her day was normal compared to what I'd seen in Mystic Falls… Okay anywhere other than Mystic Falls had normal days for teenagers like her, but she was so relaxed compared to how Elena and the others were on a daily basis. After school she was early to her job at the local diner. Probably the most cliché thing about her normal life but she'd always enjoyed it. It'd gotten her the first car she actually bought herself…. It didn't help that I'd given her a family discount on it considering it was my old mustang that needed to be gotten rid of anyways. I'd taken the extra money she'd paid me for it and had a whole new engine put in for her as part of her sweet sixteen present.

When her shift was over she headed home. My parents had moved into a smaller house and had sold Sean and Amanda their house after they'd been married for a couple years, so she'd basically grown up in the same house we'd grown up in. She'd picked up quickly on driving the straight shift of the mustang so she easily reached the house in twenty minutes with no issues with the gear shifts.

Alyssa was slow to get out of the car, cleaning up her mess inside of it before heading in.

"Lys, we have something we need to tell you," my sister Amanda called as she came in the door.

"Can it wait? I'm meeting some friends in a few minutes and need to just grab some stuff out of my room." She'd said, hair flying behind her as she raced down the hall towards her room. She had always been full of energy when she was younger and apparently she hadn't changed since I'd last seen her.

"Hun, we really need to talk to you," Sean said as she came back down the hall. The looks on their faces reminded me of when mom had told me and Amanda our favorite dog had died. It was that "we need to tell you something you probably don't wanna hear" look.

"Did somebody die?" Alyssa asked, jokingly of course. When she saw that they weren't laughing, her face fell. "It's Uncle Ric isn't it?"

The silence spoke volumes as the answer. She dropped her bag while grabbing her phone from her pocket. A few seconds of typing and it disappeared back to her pocket. She sat down in the nearby armchair, body starting to shake. Despite the lengths between my visits, we were close as uncle and niece. I had expected her to take my death the hardest out of all my family… My parents had already come to expect my early death considering my alcohol problem.

"Sweetheart, you know that he had a drinking problem." Amanda said going to sit on the arm of the chair, wrapping Alyssa in her arms. "It was quick and painless. His doctor promised me that."

I'd have to remember to have Jeremy to tell Meredith thanks for that. Alyssa tried to hold back the tears but soon her sobs echoed through the room. Sean stayed back. He'd never approved of my being around Alyssa considering that I was actually her father as well as my alcoholic issues. Once she had calmed down, she started in a million miles an hour with questions.

"What happened exactly? When are we planning the funeral?" Her green eyes, the only piece of her mother, lit up.

"Lys, things were already taken care of." Sean explained, looking over at her. "But his death isn't what we needed to talk to you about."

Leave it to Sean to be straight to the point. He had never been one to handle things in a way that wouldn't leave her reeling. Of course he would want to just drop that they weren't her real parents on her. Sean had never been greatly in favor of my sister's idea of adopting my child… He'd only relented because after his fight with cancer he was sterile and couldn't get my sister pregnant. He did love Alyssa, but he'd always had a hard time treating her like his own.

"What else is there to talk about?" She asked confused, looking from my sister to Sean. I stood there, helpless to stop him… Waiting for him to send her into the spiraling depression my family had bouts of.

"Sweetheart, you have to understand that we love you… No matter what," Amanda said as she moved to sit next to Sean. I rolled my eyes. Yes, my sister meant that… But Sean didn't. "Alaric was you biological father…. We adopted you after your mother gave birth… She didn't want you and Alaric… Well he wasn't ready to be a father…. Sean and I weren't able to have children of our own… And there you were."

Alyssa was deadly quiet… I'd only seen her like this once… It was the last time I had visited and she'd been told she couldn't come visit me and Isobel at our place. Only I think that this was worse. She took a deep breath, eyes staring at the floor.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I knew that was coming. I flinched at the thought of having told her after Isobel dying. She probably would have never spoken to me again if I'd been the one telling her this. "Why tell me now when I can't even…. This isn't fair!"

"He was going to tell you himself, Lys… He wanted to be the one to tell you… He just.. Every time it he thought it was the right time, something came up. He was going to tell you three years ago when Isobel died… But that happened and he couldn't." Amanda explained moving towards her but Alyssa stood up and headed towards the door. "Sweetheart, he wanted to tell you… Things just didn't give him the opportunity to."

"You should have told me…." Alyssa said before running out the front door. I followed after her, worried… Even if I couldn't do anything, I was going to attempt to be there for her. Amanda was right after us, calling out for her to stop. My sister finally caught up to her and hugged her tightly.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart… But Ric wanted to be the one to tell you." Amanda cried into her ear. "He wanted this to be as painless as possible… I doubt he would have wanted us to tell you now, but you needed to know… You deserved to know the truth, sweetheart."

That night I stayed at the house, watching them have a normal family dinner. Alyssa tried to be happy…. Tried to smile. Sean was the same as he had always been when I visited, deaf and mute while stuffing his face. He loved Amanda and that was the only reason he had agreed to adopting my daughter. Amanda was trying to make things better, asking Alyssa about her day. Once dinner was over, Alyssa went and hid in her room.

I found her in her bed, reading a book I had gotten her. I'd made an attempt to at least be a presence in her life even if I wasn't there. I wasn't sure what would happen if I sat down with her, but I did anyways. That was when I spotted the old family Ouija board sitting on the desk in her room. I couldn't help but laugh. She still played with that old thing.

After an hour or so of her staying on the same page, she finally got up and went to the board. She lit three white candles and put her hands on the pointer. I had no clue what she was doing until I felt a tingling. I went over to where she sat at the desk and tried to move the pointer…. And I managed it. She'd had her eyes closed but now they were wide open. I could tell she was scared since it had moved by itself.

It took me a few minutes, but I managed to message out to her that it was okay. She was frightened, but I could also feel her excitement. Alyssa wasn't sure how to continue our conversation, so I just wrote out my own message.

"How has school been?" That brought a genuine ear-to-ear smile to her face.

"It's been great… I'm ready to graduate at Christmas already." Her voice was quiet. I knew she was thinking that she didn't want Sean or Amanda coming in and taking the board away from her. They'd hated when I'd given it to her for her sweet sixteen. But hell, it was what she had asked for….. Well other than buying my old mustang. And then she asked the question I had been waiting for. "Why didn't you ever tell me the truth? Didn't I deserve to know?"

I stumbled for a moment before writing out my reply. She was patient as she wrote the whole thing out.

"Alyssa, I wanted to tell you… I just never got the chance to because life always seemed to get in the way. I was going to tell you when I came back to visit for Thanksgiving… but this happened… I hate that Amanda and Sean had to tell you the truth. It was my place to tell you and I screwed it up so much…"

"Don't blame yourself," she whispered. She was staring down at her hands. "I understand why…. I find out the truth, but I don't get the chance to actually understand why you did this."

"I could tell you, but it would take a while. It's a long story." I spelled out. It would go a whole lot easier if she could actually see me like Jeremy could. At least that way she wouldn't have to write down our conversations.

"It can wait... If we have that kind of time."

"We do."

Those words… They were something I would never regret. I had no plans of moving on until everyone was safe again. My daughter needed me, and I needed her as well. She was a wonderful girl and I hated for her to know what I had gotten myself into. Those words finally brought a smile to her face, and she put the Ouija board away. Little did I know that things were about to go crazy….

A crazy that she had no business being part of.