Chapter 4 is here! I just want you all to know, I'm going to be changing the story line a little, not majorly, no deaths or anything, but I really don't think any of you will be mad about what I'll be doing. I'll give you a hint, it has something to do with Klaroline *wink wink*. Soooo enjoy! Remember to review! xoxo
without beauty, love, or danger, it would almost be easy to live
The next day I woke up in Caroline's room and for a couple minutes just stared up at the ceiling. I'd ignored Elena for so long that I hadn't realized so many things had been happening in Mystic Falls. Caroline had filled me in on everything. Alaric was being charged for homicide; I felt so guilty for not trying to help in any way. Apparently also the daylight ring he and Jeremy wore makes you go crazy, at least according to our ancestors it does. The more times you die with it on, the more detached you become from your sanity.
"What are you thinking about?" Caroline's voice interrupted my thoughts. She was laying on her floor next to me wear we had fallen asleep watching The Notebook.
"I think I'm gonna call Elena and meet up with Alaric later. I want to know how he's doing. And after everything that has happened, I really just want to see my family and make sure they're all ok."
"I'm glad." Care smiled. She sat up and crossed her legs before looking at me seriously. I mimicked her motions. "I need to talk to you about something. Technically about someone. And you have to be serious about this, it's a real issue, and I really don't know how to deal with it so-"
"Caroline get to that point." I laughed.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't know how I feel about Tyler anymore." Ok, not what I was looking for, but I'll take it, it's a step in the right direction.
"What!?" I said, shocked. "What happened? What made you realize it?"
My phone rang next to me. It was Elena. "I have to answer this and probably go meet up with her in a couple minutes. This conversation is definitely not over, we'll talk later, go it?" She nodded her head and gave me a soft smile before hugging me and saying goodbye.
I answered my phone on the way down the stairs. I began to put on my black Nike's when I spoke to my sister for the first time in days. "Hey, how's Alaric?" I could tell it wasn't the first thing she wanted to talk about but there's no way she'd avoid the question.
"He's doing fine, I'm going to the hospital now, Meredith is gonna do an MRI scan on him, see what comes up, if anything is you know…wrong." She explained. "Listen, I know this is the last thing you probably want to discuss right now, but we need to have this conversation. In person. We can have lunch and talk it over."
I sighed. "Fine. I'll meet you at the hospital." I said goodbye and stood up, ready to face the day. Sort of.
—
When I got to the hospital the scan was already over. I ran into the room and right into Alaric's arms. "Hey Ric! I'm so sorry I haven't been around, I didn't even know this was going on." I repeated my apology over and over again until Alaric put a hand over my mouth and smirked.
"It's fine No, really." He assured me. "Like I told Elena, and everyone else, I didn't do it." I turned to face Elena, greeting her with a brief nod. Alaric's gaze focused in on the Gilbert ring on the counter. "Or I did, and I've gone insane. Just like your guys' ancestor who…wore their ring."
"Look, I'm gonna call Bonnie." Elena said. "The rings were made by a Bennett witch, so maybe a witch can reverse the damage."
Ric was silent for a moment. He seemed to have made up his mind about what he was going to do next. He slid the ring over toward Elena. "Take it." He insisted. "I don't want it anymore."
My phone rang just as Damon stepped into the room. "Excuse me." I mumbled. "Hey Dames." I kissed his cheek, which made him smile, and exited the room to take the call. Surprisingly, it was Kol.
"Kol! Hey!" I practically shouted as I answered my phone. "What's up?"
"Hello Ellie. Nothing much. I'm fine. How are you? Good to hear, glad you're doing well. Listen here's the thing," he spoke quickly and promptly. "We, as in me and my family, have a bit of a problem. How fast can you be at our home?"
I was a little disappointed that he had called for some reason other than just wanting to talk to me. "Well, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now. And I have a lunch date planned with-"
"A lunch date?" He repeated, sounding a bit angry. Maybe his siblings were bothering him while he was on the phone. "Well then. Why don't you just finish up with that and then meet up with us whenever it's convenient for you. There should at least be one of us home whenever you decide to show up."
"Um…ok. I'll text you or Bekah or someone when I'm on my way."
"Good." He stated bluntly. "See you then."
"See you-" He hung up "…later." What the hell was that?
Elena and Damon were walking out into the hallway as I put my phone back into my pocket. "We leaving?" I asked. Elena didn't answer me and Damon just shrugged. I followed them down out of the building and into the parking lot.
"Don't worry about him." Damon tried to tell her. "I'll take him out for chicken soup, get him a martini, make sure he doesn't kill anybody."
"What is wrong with you?!" Elena used her 'mom' voice. "How could you just go out feeding with Stefan like some vampire pub crawl?"
Apparently I had missed a lot more than I thought I did. What the hell was happening between the Salvatore brothers now?
"Alright, I thought we were talking about Alaric, but of course we're talking about Stefan." Damon rolled his eyes. Here we go, I thought. I really didn't care about what they were talking about so I tuned them out and climbed into the passenger side of Elena's car. They spoke for a few more seconds until Elena got into the car herself and we drove off.
For the first few minutes it was completely silent. Woah this is awkward.
Finally, Elena broke the unbearable silence. "I'm sorry. For everything. For keeping what was going on with Esther a secret, and for not talking to you these last few days, and for trying to control what you've been doing and who you hang out with. I know I keep apologizing, and promising things and then breaking those promises. I'm just really sorry Noelle. I haven't been a good sister lately. And with everything that's happening with Alaric right now, we need each other. You, me, all of us, we need each other, this family is going through so much right now."
"I know." I agreed. "I'm sorry too. To be honest, it was more my fault that you haven't talked to me these last couple days, I've been deliberately ignoring you because of what happened. Rightly so. But I accept your apology. Again. But Elena, you can't keep doing these things and then expecting me to be ok with it, these are my friends, I don't see them in the same way all of you do."
"I want to understand No." She sighed. "But honestly, I can't bring myself to. I get maybe Elijah, I mean he's helped us out a few times, he's been on our side, but the rest of them. I mean Rebekah? Klaus? Kol? Speaking of Kol, what the hell is that about?"
"What? What do you mean?"
"Caroline told me you and Kol Mikaelson spent the afternoon together yesterday. Noelle, do you know how dangerous that is?"
"Ok wait, let me get this straight." I laughed sarcastically. "You apologize for trying to control my social life, and yet here you are trying to yet again control my social life. I'm confused, how does that make sense?"
She turned into the parking lot of the Mystic Grill and got out of the car. I slammed the door shut, making it very clear just how annoyed I was. "Noelle, I'm not trying to control your social life, ok? I'm just trying to make you realize that who you're hanging out with, these people you call your friends, are extremely dangerous."
"They would never hurt me, stop acting like such a drama queen Elena."
"A drama queen? Are you kidding me?"
"No, I'm not!" I was practically yelling at this point. "You do realize your boyfriend, or exboyfriend, or new boyfriends brother, or whatever the hell which brother is which to you right now, is just as dangerous to you as any of the Mikaelson's are to me, right? Look around you sis, we live in a town crawling with vampires and werewolves and witches and who knows what the hell other freakish mythical creatures that technically should not exist! And yeah, I did hang out with Kol yesterday, you know, the crazy psychopathic brother, and probably the most dangerous, and I had a ton of fun, something I haven't had in a really long time! You know what we did yesterday?! He took me to a fair and won me a stuffed gorilla, which is now buckled in the passenger seat of my car; he's cute as hell and his name is Stefan Jr.! And guess what! For the entire time I was with Kol, I forgot all about the stupid supernatural drama that was going on here! Do you know how long it's been since I've been able to do that, to forgot all of this shit and just have one normal day!? God, Elena! You're so caught up in yourself and your petty love triangle problems that you refuse to step outside of your little box of troubles and realize that every else is trying to deal with their own shit also! So before you try and sit here and get all on me about my issues, figure out how to deal with yours first." I turned around and began walking back toward the hospital where my car was.
"What, No!" I could hear Elena's boots on the pavement behind me, they were loud and quick in pace. "No, I'm sorry. You're right ok. I'm just frustrated right now with everything that's being thrown in our faces. It seems like we work out one problem just as two more pop up. I worry about you, I'll always worry about you, you're my sister. I'm so sorry that you feel like you can't even live a normal life, and I can't help but feel partially responsible for that. All I want is for us - me, you, Jeremy, and Alaric - to just be a family without something coming into the picture and ruining it. I love you No. We've been fighting so much lately, and it's my fault. I can't even make you any promises anymore without breaking them."
I faced my twin sister. "I get it. Ok, Elena, I get it. We are a family. And I love you too. Right now I just really need some time to myself, and I think you do also. I'll be home later maybe, I'll text Alaric and let him know."
—
The walk back to my car was dreadful. It took me twenty minutes, luckily I was wearing my Nike's and not heels or boots like I usually do, or I most likely never would've made it. I slipped into my car and rested my head back against the headrest. I peeked over at Stefan Jr. sitting in my passenger seat, right where I left him. "What are you looking at? I didn't do anything wrong. Everything I said was true, and she needed to understand finally. Maybe, I guess, I could've ended the conversation on a lighter note, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that I got my point across. Oh great now look at me, I'm talking to myself. I'm pathetic. I'll text her later and apologize. Or maybe I'll just go home and do it in person after I see the original fam. Why do I have to have such a guilty conscience?"
I sent a quick text to Klaus, letting him know I was on my way to the house. He texted me back, telling me to drive safe and that he'd leave the door unlocked for me.
When I got there it was pretty quiet, which was weird. Usually Klaus was playing music, or Elijah was lecturing one of his siblings, or Rebekah and Kol, or Kol and Klaus, or Kol and anyone honestly, were bickering and fighting. But instead, there was nothing, even when I walked into the house, there was no noise at all. That's how I knew something was wrong.
"In the dining room Ellie!" I heard Rebekah yell.
When I entered the room I noticed that all of the siblings, except Kol, were present. Elijah was standing, while Klaus and Bekah were sitting across from one another. "What's going on?" I asked in a weary tone.
"We're just waiting on Kol, then we'll explain." Bekah pushed out the chair next to her and I sat down.
"I'm right here." Kol entered the dining room a second later and stopped to stand just behind my chair. "So. Who wants to be the one to break the news?"
I held a confused look on my face. No one said a word. I was going to ask what Kol was talking about when Elijah spoke up. "Back when we were first created, our mother had called upon a White Oak Tree, an eternal object of Nature, in her spell she used to turn us into vampires. It's where we drew our immortality from. Unfortunately, nature demands that there be consequences for all actions."
"Meaning?"
Kol took over. "The wood from that tree was the only thing that could kill us. Obviously, we couldn't take our chances on anyone finding out. So we burned it down."
"However, we think a sapling or something might've fallen off, and after we left, the natives planted a new one." Klaus continued. "It was cut down only a little over a century ago."
"So what's the problem?" I asked. "All we have to do is find out who cut it down, which is probably in the town's archives, and find out what it was used for."
"That's the problem." Bekah spoke. "We know who cut it down. It was one of the founding families."
"Well perfect! You can go find them and compel them to tell you what they might know. A lot of people are really into their family history in this town."
"We can't." Kol huffed, clearly irritated with the situation.
"I'm confused now."
Rebekah took a deep breath. "The family that did all the lodging during that period of time were the Salvatore's. And there's now in hell we can let them know of what we're planning on doing."
