AN:In case you're wondering why it went from 12 chapters to 10 even though I'm posting a new chapter, I did some reformatting to combine chapters and make them longer so that this story doesn't end up with 200 chapters lol. Now instead of averaging around 2,000 words per chapter it's closer to 4,000.
Alright, time for the big reveal! Please let me know what you think!
"No friend discounts. No freebies. No 'pay you laters.' We are not running a charity here," Caroline instructed as she sat Elena behind a table at the car wash to collect money.
"No, we are not," Elena agreed.
"Hi," Stefan said coming up behind them.
"Hey," Elena replied.
Caroline looked him up and down, taking in his t-shirt and hoodie clad upper half. "The event is called Sexy Suds, you know," she said sassily before turning away.
"Did I just get scolded?" Stefan asked.
"Oh yeah," Elena replied. "She's mentioned several times that the only reason I'm sitting behind this table and all these signs is that 'my rack looks great now that I'm pregnant,'" Stefan laughed and shook his head as he removed his shirt. Elena was wearing a bikini under a large kimono style cover up that displayed her breasts and flowed loosely over her baby bump.
Elena observed as Stefan began washing the car closest to her. "You're getting soap in your ring," she told him.
"Oh, it's fine," he replied nonchalantly.
"I noticed that Damon has one too. Is there a story behind it?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's the family crest from the Italian Renaissance," he said. She got up from the table and walked over to take a closer look. She grabbed his hand and inspected the ring.
"What's the stone?"
"It's called lapis lazuli," he replied. Elena looked closer. It was a very nice ring and she didn't want it to tarnish.
"You should really take it off. I can hold it in the cash box with me, if you want," she offered.
"No, it's fine, really," he insisted, pulling his hand away. He went back to washing the car and she stepped back to the cash table to tell Caroline that they needed more towels.
She thought that Stefan's behavior was a little odd, but she understood the importance of family heirlooms so she tried not to think too much of it.
A few minutes later, the old man from The Grill came up to the table to pay for a car wash. "I saw you last night. You were talking to a friend of mine at The Grill," she reminded him.
"Well, I thought it was somebody I knew," he replied sadly.
"Stefan Salvatore," she said.
"It can't be. Just my mind playing tricks on me," he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than her.
"Where do you think you'd seen him before?" she asked, trying to help the man connect the pieces of the puzzle.
"When I first moved here I stayed at the Salvatore boarding house. Stefan was just passing through to visit his uncle. I mean, none of us knew he was even here until the attack," he said.
"The attack?" Elena asked.
"His uncle got killed. Mauled by an animal in the woods," he said.
"His uncle? Zach?" as far as she knew, his uncle was alive and well and living with them at the boarding house.
"Mm-mm. Joseph," the man corrected her, shaking his head.
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't think I'm familiar with the story," she said, very confused.
"Well how could you? I mean, this happened years ago," he told her.
"Grandpa, you gotta go. Mama wants you home," one of the cheerleaders that Elena had never really gotten along with, Tiki, said, walking up to the old man. He started to walk away. "He wasn't bugging you, was he?" Tiki asked. "He's a little alzy- heimer."
"Uh, no," Elena said. "He was sweet." She got up to go after him. "Hey, sir, I'm sorry. Um, are you sure that the man that you saw, that you knew, his name was Stefan Salvatore?"
"Yes," he nodded. "I remember his ring. And his brother," he shrugged.
"Damon?" Elena asked.
"Yeah. Stefan and Damon Salvatore," he nodded.
"When was this?" she asked, and suddenly she didn't want to know the answer. She was afraid of the answer.
"It was early June 1953… Yeah. June. 1953," the man seemed sure of his answer.
So there was a Stefan and Damon Salvatore during the Civil War who had lost a woman they both loved in a fire. There was a Stefan and Damon Salvatore in the early 1950s and that Stefan looked exactly like this one and wore his ring. They stayed with their uncle, Joseph, who was mauled by an animal, just like the animal that had been attacking recently. And then there was this Stefan and Damon. Both wore rings, and lived with an uncle, Zach. Both were in love with a girl who died in a fire, and both were endlessly mysterious. Elena couldn't help the feeling she got in her stomach that asked 'What if they're the same person?'
Of course that was insane. Of course it was. But nothing else about Stefan and Damon Salvatore seemed to make much sense either. She had to know what was going on. She needed to find a way to make all of this make sense somehow. She decided to put Stefan to the test.
While he washed a car, she got his attention and he jogged over to come talk to her. "Caroline freed you, huh?" he asked jokingly.
"Uh I don't know where she went. She abandoned me. Hey, earlier I realized that I had no idea your family was from Italy," she knew that it was a lame excuse the moment it came out of her mouth. He told her last night that he was Italian. His last name screamed Italian, for crying out loud.
"No? Last name Salvatore didn't do it for you?" he laughed.
"Right. Duh. Pregnancy brain, I guess. Are there any other Salvatores in Mystic Falls?" she tried to sound nonchalant but she knew she was failing.
"My uncle Zach," he supplied, clearly confused by the interview.
"Where did everyone else go?" she tried to get as much as possible out of him while he was still answering.
"I don't know. Just spread out," he shrugged. "Why?"
"I'm just trying to learn more about you," she laughed awkwardly.
Stefan went back to washing the car, and Elena went off to continue her investigation. She found Aunt Jenna sitting at a picnic table and approached her.
"Your car was done an hour ago," she laughed.
"You're saying that aloud why?" Jenna asked. Elena understood completely when Logan Fell came out from behind a news van.
"Hi, you're Elena, right?" he asked, extending his hand to her. "I think I met you once when you were nine."
"Your emotional maturity level when we were together," Jenna quipped.
"Ouch. Here I thought we were making progress," he said.
"Is he enough in your good graces that I can ask him for a favor?" Elena asked her aunt.
"If I do her a favor can I get back in your good graces?" he followed up.
"Uhhh… a very reluctant 'maybe' to both," Jenna said noncommittally.
"Done. Wait. One condition. Dinner, tonight, your house," Logan countered to Jenna.
"Fine," she agreed. "But you're eating leftovers"
"Ooh. What do you need?" he asked, directing his attention back toward Elena.
"Do you have access to old news stories, say… fifties?" she asked, praying that he would.
"Yeah, at the station. Between the archives and the internet we pretty much have everything." Perfect.
"I have this report- way past due. You'd be a life saver," she lied convincingly.
"I'm heading there now," he told her. "Let's go."
Elena beamed and turned to Jenna. "If anyone asks, you don't know where I went. I don't want Caroline to know that I left," she insisted. In reality, she didn't want Stefan to know that she'd left, and that she was onto him. She glanced at him before sneaking off, making sure that he didn't see her.
At the station, Logan showed Elena how to use the database and left her on her own while he went back to work.
She searched 'Joseph Salvatore + animal attack' and an old video clip came up. She was shocked that the search had actually returned a result. Part of her thought that maybe the event never actually happened. The video was filmed in front of the boarding house and in the background of one of the shots was Stefan, clear as day. The video was black and white and grainy, but there was no mistaking it. She replayed it several times and zoomed in as close as she could. Every feature was the same. It was Stefan, exactly as she knew him today, in the 1950s
Dear Diary, I am not a believer. People are born, they grow old, and then they die. That's the world we live in. There's no magic, no mysticism, no immortality. There is nothing that defies rational thought. People are supposed to be who they say they are and not lie or hide their true selves. It's not possible. I'm not a believer. I can't be. But how can I deny what's right in front of me- someone who never grows old, never gets hurt, someone who changes in ways that can't be explained, girls bitten, bodies drained of blood. What kind of world am I bringing my child into?
Elena slammed her diary down on her night stand and knew that she had to confront Stefan. Tonight.
She sped to the Salvatore boarding house. She knew that she was driving too fast, but in that moment she had a one-track mind. She needed to hear him say it. She wondered if he would confess easily or if he would persistently deny it. She felt sick to her stomach, worse than any bout of morning sickness she'd encountered. For a brief moment she wondered if he would kill her when she found out that she knew, but she forced it down, telling herself that his feelings for her had to be real and that he wouldn't just kill a pregnant woman.
She wasn't sure what words would come out of her mouth when she finally saw him. She was angry, and afraid, and more than anything… confused. All the signs where there, screaming at her, and yet she still couldn't believe it fully. It was a ridiculous notion- that the supernatural existed. But every part of her body was screaming at her that this was real and it was happening to her. She was even angrier at the thought that he'd continued to pursue her after he discovered that she was pregnant. He was willing to drag her daughter into his life of terror and secrets and lies. It disgusted her to think about what he could do to her child.
She flew into his driveway in record time and flung herself out of her SUV. She headed for the front door with every intention of just barging in to demand answers, but she paused with her hand on the knob. She couldn't do it. She was frozen with fear that maybe he would just kill her. Or maybe this was just a mistake and there was somehow a logical explanation. She turned, considering just getting back in her car and driving far away. Maybe she could just pack up and leave- raise Graysen somewhere where she never had to worry or let these kinds of thoughts run through her mind. But before she could make a decision she heard the door swing open quickly behind her. She spun on her heel and saw Stefan coming out of the door with a large wooden stake in his hand, and suddenly she knew without a doubt that everything she feared was true.
"What are you?" it came out before she even knew she was saying it and even to her own ears her voice sounded horrified.
Stefan stared at her for a long moment without answering, but the look on his face told her everything she needed to know.
"What are you?" she demanded again.
He looked almost heartbroken and he nodded at her slowly. "You know," he said.
"No. I don't," she tried to deny. She was nearly begging him to tell her that she was wrong. There was nothing that she wanted more on this earth than to be wrong.
"Yes, you do. Or you wouldn't be here."
"It's not possible. It can't be," she told him, grasping onto everything she know about the world and holding on for dear life.
Stefan moved to put down the stake in his hand and Elena backed away.
"Everything you know and every belief that you have is about to change," he told her seriously. "Are you ready for that?" No. She wasn't. But she couldn't stop now. Although it would destroy her, she knew that she needed to hear him say it. Just once. She had to hear the words from his mouth.
"What are you?" she asked again fiercely.
"I'm a vampire," he told her. And her world shattered forever. In that instant she felt every moment of her life slipping through her fingers. She no longer knew fiction from reality and her head was spinning. Vampires existed. They were real, and had been her whole life. When her father held her in his arms at night when she was small and told her that the monsters under her bed weren't real, that they didn't exist, he had been wrong. Elena would never be able to soothe her child and tell her that the monsters weren't real. She could never rock her to sleep and promise her that vampires were just make-believe and that they couldn't really get her. She felt the breath sucked out of her as she realized that there was nothing that she could do to protect her daughter from these monsters that she had invited into their lives. Monsters do exist. And Stefan is one of them.
"I shouldn't have come." It was all she could muster up the courage to say.
"No," Stefan whispered in anguish, taking a step towards her. "Please."
"No!" Elena yelled firmly, running towards her car. She had never felt so afraid for her life. Not even in the car, mouthing to her father that she loved him before her vision went black.
Suddenly Stefan was in between her and her SUV. It happened in the blink of an eye, so fast she didn't even see him move. She looked across the yard at the spot she'd last seen him. It was several yards away.
"How did you do that?" she asked, her voice dripping with fear.
"Please don't be afraid of me," Stefan begged, blocking her from getting in the car.
"Let me go," she demanded.
"Elena, there's things that you have to know and understand," he grabbed her and she was frightened. Her whole body trembled.
"LET ME GO!" she screamed, breaking free of his grasp and flinging herself into the driver's seat of her car.
She peeled out of the driveway and sped back to her house, trying to calm her breathing. When she got home, her hands shook as she desperately tried to unlock the front door. She flew up the stairs and into her bathroom to try to pull herself together. She laughed bitterly when she felt Graysen's first real kick. Her life was in shambles and her mind was running a mile a minute, but her daughter demanded her attention. Didn't she know what was happening? Couldn't she understand that her mother couldn't raise her into this life where vampires were real and they looked like cute mysterious boys that could draw you in and suck the blood from your veins until you were dry and dead on the forest floor just outside of a party? For the first time in months Elena was again overwhelmed by the feeling that she could not do this. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right. She was finally happy. She was in a good place with Matt, and her brother was getting better, and she was so happy to be a mother. She wanted her baby. With every fiber of her being, she wanted Graysen to be hers. She loved her more than she'd ever loved anything and she wanted to raise her and watch her grow up and tuck her into bed at night. But above all that, she needed her to be safe.
Elena checked on Jeremy and let out a sigh of relief that he was safe in his room. She went back to hers and flopped down on her bed as she kicked off her shoes. When she felt restless again she paced the room. What would she do? What would she tell Matt? Where could she send her baby that she would be safe? And how could she keep her safe for the next 4 or so months that she was still going to be pregnant?
"Elena," she jumped out of her skin when she heard Stefan's voice behind her. She immediately began to cry. She ran for the door, hoping to get away from him, but he slammed it shut before she could get out. She pushed herself against it, guarding her belly from him as sobs racked her body. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck.
"I would never hurt you," Stefan promised. "I would never hurt your baby. I swear. You're safe with me."
"All those animal attacks? Those people who died?" she demanded as she cried. Clearly they hadn't been safe with him.
"No. That was Damon," he insisted, staring deeply into her eyes.
"Damon?" Damon was a vampire too? It made sense, and now she was even more afraid. Damon was callous and manipulative. He'd hurt Caroline. He'd bitten her.
"Yes. I don't drink human blood! That's not how I choose to survive, but Damon does. I'll explain everything to you, but I beg you, Elena, do not tell anybody," Stefan was nearly begging her to believe him.
"How can you ask me that?" but really, she wondered who would believe her.
"Because you knowing this is dangerous! For so many reasons. You can hate me, but I need you to trust me," he begged.
"Just go," she whispered, her arms shielding her stomach. "Just go. Please. Go. If you mean us no harm then you'll go," she was desperate for him to leave. At this point the stress was overwhelming and she worried that she'd miscarry. She needed him to leave before she had a heart attack.
"I never wanted this," he whispered solemnly as he backed away from her, removing his hand from her bedroom door. She opened it to give herself space and when she turned back around he was gone. She walked quickly to her open window and locked it, though she knew that it could do little to stop him. She laid down on her bed and took several deep breaths to try to calm herself down for the baby's sake. She tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep because her nightmares were keeping her awake.
AN: For the most part, the dialogue in this chapter is the same as in the show, but because Elena's priorities and emotions are changed in this story, the inflection of the words is a little different.