A/N: Hey all! I'm so sorry that I've been so absent with updating things. Life has been really crazy for me these last few months. Hopefully some of you are still reading this story.

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Remember Me- Chapter Ten

"Gather around, boys." Stefan announced, looking at all the men that had worked with and for him over the last few years, including his older brother and trusted confidant, Damon.

"What's this all about?" Klaus questioned, folding his hands together as he leaned back into his chair and stared over at his brother, Kol who seemed too busy staring at Lexi Branson from outside of the conference room to notice what was going on around him.

Katherine slamming a folder onto the table top in front of him forced him to snap out of it as she noticed him staring and leaned into him, whispering. "Still not really sure what you see in her. But, let me give you a good reminder. Office romances are not a good thing. Rumors spread like wildfire, Mikaelson. We all already know you two are sleeping together." Katherine backed away, walking past him and towards Klaus as she smiled at him and asked sweetly. "How's the wife?"

"Good, she's on her way here. For some reason, Stefan asked her to be here as well today." Klaus replied, turning his head away from Katherine as he let out a small laugh and watched Caroline enter with a box of what looked like files in her arms, puffing her hair out of the way while smiling at all the men in the room. "So sorry that I'm late boys. Stefan here, asked me to find some old paperwork from the realty archives of hell. God, it took forever to find these!"

"Old paperwork? What the hell is going on?" Damon asked suspiciously as he stood up and tilted his head to the side. Stefan watched the door close behind Caroline as he finally clapped his hands together and inhaled sharply, waiting until they were all seated once again to speak. "I know that the five of you are wondering what the hell is going on at the moment and why you're all here on a late Thursday evening. Well, as you all know, I was in London a few weeks ago and while I was there, I met up with an old friend. Talking to her made me realize a few things…" Stefan's voice trailed off as he clicked a button on his laptop and a skype screen popped up on the projector behind him.

"Hello everyone!" Rebekah replied as Katherine looked up and then over at Caroline, leaning in towards her while she whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. "You've got to be fucking kidding me! Has he lost his mind? Surely marrying that Whitmore girl has made him go off the deep end! Now, he's involving the ex-wife from hell. Wow, he really had lost it!"

"Hello to you too, Katherine. Been a long time." Rebekah snarled back, hearing Klaus loudly tell them both to be a bit more civilized around one another.

"My wife has nothing to do with this! But, thanks for your unnecessary input, Katherine." Stefan replied, causing her face to grow red from embarrassment as Rebekah cleared her throat to explain why she was being phoned into the conference.

"Before you all get your panties in a bunch as to why I'm being skyped in. I met with Stefan over coffee a few weeks ago and he confided in me that he wants to become a business owner again. So, the reason you all are here and the reason that I'm here is because of that." She said, folding her arms across her chest as she smiled at everyone in room, smiling gleefully at her brothers.

"You what?" Damon questioned with a surprised tone in his voice.

"I want all of us to work together. I'm making arraignments for a new business venture. Damon, you'll be one of my main players." Stefan announced, leaving his brother a little confused and stunned as he had no idea of Stefan's plans. They hadn't been in touch that much over the weeks before Stefan had gone to London and since Stefan had married Aubrey, the brothers rarely seemed to see one another anymore because of how busy they both were. "Can I talk to you in private for a minute?" He asked, straightening out his suit as Damon stepped out, waiting for his brother to do the same.

"I thought you said you were done with all this bullshit, Stefan. Really, you want to go into another business venture?" He asked, feeling the anger rushing into the palms of his hands and towards his fingers as Stefan glanced down at the floor. "I can't just sit around not being my own boss. I miss it, Damon and this time it would be different. It wouldn't be dad pulling the strings for us. It would be you, me and the best in this business. Katherine and Klaus. We'd all be a team and with all of us, I really do think that this could work. We could really make this work, brother."

"You want my wife involved in this too?" Damon asked, running his hands through his hair as Stefan nodded. He didn't want Katherine in this new idea, to be successful. Stefan needed Katherine in this whole idea. Besides, considering their history and longtime friendship. She was the only one who seemed to calm him down and understand him even better than his own wife did at the moment.

"Without Katherine, this would fail. Damon, I promise you that this time it's going to be different. Rebekah won't be involved at all as this goes further. But, for the time being, she's going to train Katherine and Caroline on everything they need to know regarding all of our marketing and funding processes. That's the only reason I'm involving her. Once they know everything they need to know, she's gone. And, I'm going to promote Kol to being a broker, along with a few others that we know from our old Realty agency. They'll help you and I out when we're slammed with other projects. You and I will be the CEO's and Klaus will be our CFO, our right hand man, the chief financial advisor." Stefan explained, hoping to entice Damon into the idea some more of being their own bosses once again.

"Is dad going to be involved at all?" Damon asked, somewhat hoping that their father would have a say in this idea since he had been running their former business, SD Realty for over 30 years prior to the brothers taking it over.

"I'm going to talk to him tonight when I get home. After, I pitch the idea to my wife." Stefan said, watching Damon's face contour as he realized that Stefan had yet to even consult his new bride in any of this.

"She has no idea of your plans? She doesn't know you want to open up a cooperate real estate firm, where you're selling people on apartment buildings and lands, commercial buildings…..Wow, so much for being married." Damon stated, a bit surprised that his younger brother hadn't even mentioned the idea to Aubrey yet.

Stefan shook his head. "She would be totally against it, Damon. Her father and mother have a wealthy business already and he's asked me to come work for him. Well, when I refused and told him that I'd like to stay where I'm at because of this idea that was circulating around in my mind for weeks. He told my wife that I refused to provide for my family. So, now her father and I are at odds with one another because he thinks I'm a lazy ass because I didn't take his offer." Stefan exhaled deeply, hearing Damon clear his throat as he spoke again, more softly this time while he glanced down at the ground.

"You know, she wants to have a baby of our own and I told her that after what happened with Elena that I don't think I want any more kids…" Stefan confessed, causing Damon to place his hand onto Stefan's shoulder for a moment, both of them seeming to think of the same thing.

"Have you heard from her at all since you got married?" Damon asked Stefan whose muscles tensed at the thought of Elena.

He licked his bottom lip, shrugging his shoulders back as he admitted. "Rebekah's new husband owns a law firm in London where Elena works. She said that Elena seems to not handling things that well ever since she came back from the states and no, I haven't talked to her in a long time. Although, apparently my ex-wife and my ex fiancé have become friends with one another because of me." Stefan said.

"Damn." Damon mumbled, turning to head back into the conference room. Although, he paused for a moment as he realized why it was that Stefan wanted to get back into his work. "You miss her, Stefan. Don't you?"

Stefan swallowed the lump in his throat, placing his hands into his pockets while he glanced up at his brother, shrugging his shoulders. "Every single day. I miss her like you wouldn't believe, Damon. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how different things would have been had I not married Aubrey and if I had married Elena instead. We could have been a real family, we could have been happy." He said, watching as Damon's hand rested on the doorknob as his older brother locked his darkened blue eyes onto him and said. "If being in real estate is what you want to do. Then, let's do it. I'll be with you every step of the way, all of us will. Although, if you're doing this in hopes of getting Elena back. I want you to know right now that, you shouldn't do it because of that. You need to do this for yourself."

"That's not why I want to do this, Damon. I did this job before Elena and now, I'm going to be doing it after her. It's not a ploy to bring her back into my life either. Before we parted ways, I told her that if she wanted to be a part of Ben's life- she was more than welcome to do that. Even though, her and I weren't together anymore, we'd keep in touch. So, no. This isn't because of her." Stefan replied, watching Damon enter back into the conference room that was filled with chatter as he followed shortly behind him.

"Everyone, we're in business. In a few short weeks, I'll be agreeing on a very nice office space in downtown Miami. In the packets that Katherine handed out, you'll all be reading up on your job requirements and roles. I want all of us in this together. So, this is just the start of many more meetings to come. Also, if you don't like what you've been assigned, we can take negotiations with that and your salaries." Stefan explained, looking towards the projector screen as Rebekah spoke softly.

"Stefan, aren't you going to tell them all what you'll be specializing in and what the real estate agency will be called?" She asked him as he laughed a little, embarrassingly remembering that he hadn't mentioned it when he had first walked in. "Right," Stefan paused, getting everyone's attention as he smiled over the small crowd. His most trusted friends and family as he stated. "We're going to be involved in commercial and investment real estate and the new company will be called Salvatore Realty Group which will be ran by your two new CEO's. Damon and myself."

"Aubrey! Ben!" Stefan shouted out, unlocking the door to their house and placing his keys onto the counter as he untied his tie and placed his suit jacket onto a chair near the dining table.

"Ben! Duke! Hello? Is anyone home?" Stefan shouted out, walking out to the living room as he noticed Aubrey sitting on the couch, her hands holding a piece of paper as her eyes fixated on it and she seemed to be in a trance.

"Hey." She commented quietly, looking up at Stefan with what looked like tears in her eyes, the sudden mood of happiness being sucked out of the room as Stefan gave her a perplexed look, asking where Ben and Duke were at. "I took them over to my mother's for a bit while I cleaned the house." She commented, placing the piece of paper down beside her as Stefan watched her get up and give him a tight hug, holding onto him a little tighter than usual. Stefan could feel that something was off as he looked behind her at the paper that was on the couch.

"Are those my new test results for the oncologist? They're totally fine, right?" He asked, tilting his head to the side as she seemed to avoid his question, running her hands through her hair nervously.

"Stefan, there's something I need to tell you." She said, hearing him continuing to talk as he looked around the living room, noticing that she had been organizing their family pictures.

"I thought that he said he was going to call me with them…" Stefan's voice trailed off as Aubrey glanced back at the paper and then towards her husband. "He did. He called the house while you were in London. He said that he wanted you to go in and see him again, though. Then, this came today while you were at work."

Stefan inhaled sharply, letting out a deep cough. "You're just telling me this now?" He asked her with a bit of an angered tone as she pointed back to the paper and then locked her eyes on to him.

"Stefan, I'm sorry. I got busy with Ben today and it just kind of slipped my mind." She stated, hearing him sigh out a breath. "Aubrey this is my life that we're talking about here. I've been cancer free for the last three years. You know how important this is to me. If something isn't right, if they found something and it came back. You need to tell me." He said, watching as she swallowed down the hurt she was feeling as she grabbed the paper off of the couch and handed it to him.

"Here, this is what it says. Don't you see why I didn't want to tell you right away?" She asked him, sighing out deeply as she crossed her arms over her chest, turning her back to him as he took it into his hands and began walking away from her.

Stefan read it carefully, feeling his whole body go numb as his eyes scanned over the words. He didn't look at her, he just took the piece of paper and tried to comprehend the words on it. While he brokenly said over his shoulder that he needed to be left alone. "I'd like it if you went to pick up my son and Duke from your mother's. I'll be in my office." He told her, walking into his office as he placed the piece of paper onto his desk. Stefan sat down in his chair, bending down to pour himself a glass of bourbon. He watched the liquid swirl around the thin china glass before he took a sip of it, allowing it to burn down his throat. Glancing over the piece of paper that burned a whole in his heart, he read it again, this time out loud.

"Dear Mr. Salvatore, we are writing you this letter to inform you of your current oncology test results from Dr. Pratt. Test results that were taken on June 19th showed a large mass on your right lung. After further testing and imaging. We would highly suggest that you call Dr. Pratt as soon as possible to go for a follow up appointment."

Stefan leaned over his desk, dialing a familiar number, one that he hadn't dialed in a long time. He exhaled deeply, holding his breath this time around as he heard her answer with a groggy tone in her voice, sleepy sounding almost. But, before she could answer, he spoke first. "I know that I told you that I'd only call you in regards to Ben. But, this is a little different and I need you to listen to me. I'm sorry that I've been out of touch. But, this has been really hard for me too. I'm calling you because I didn't know who else to call. I got some news today and.." His voice trailed off as he closed his eyes, feeling a tear trickle down his cheek.

Her voice softened as she spoke. "Stefan, what's wrong?" He heard her ask, the concern clearly evident in her voice.

"I know that I'm the last person you probably want to hear from right now and that you don't want to see me and that we agreed that things would be easier if we were apart from each other because of my wife, that we also kept minimal contact and just talk about Ben. But, I can't go through this without you, without talking to you about it all. He's going to ask me questions, he's going to eventually want to know why I can't be there for-." Stefan could feel the tears flowing down his cheeks heavily now as he spoke about his son. This was killing him inside, the reality of everything setting in as he allowed the tears to drip down onto the piece of paper.

"Stefan? You're scaring me. Please, tell me you're okay." She said with a panicked tone as he exhaled a deep breath and stated. "I'm not. Listen, I got my test results back from my oncologist today. The cancer's back and I don't know what to do. Elena, I'm really scared this time because it's not just a small skin cancer scare like before. This is bigger this time; this is a lot more serious. Listen to me, whatever happens. He can't lose me. Ben, I can't leave him. Elena, he needs to know that I love him more than anything and I can't leave him." Stefan sobbed, his whimpering cries filling Elena's ears as she leaned back into the pillows on her bed and closed her eyes. They might have been 4,397 miles away from one another by an airplane ride. However, Elena wished more than anything that in the moment she could be right beside him and that they would be okay. That, he'd be okay because she as much as she worried about Ben in the moment. She knew that she couldn't bear to lose him either.

A/N: Please feel free to leave me a review. Thanks for reading!