A/N- Here we go.
"Vampires are real! Like, seriously real…werewolves too." Caroline blurted out as the front door opened.
"I know," Bonnie responded, sighing as if to drive all the air from her lungs, "And so are witches."
Figuring that having conversations about the supernatural on the doorstep was probably what had got at least one or two of her ancestors burnt at the stake, Bonnie opens the door wider and Caroline strides in, her hands waving.
"I mean, this is insane!" she announces, her handbag swinging as she rushes past her into the living room,
"Like, a week ago, everything was fine and now…wait…" Caroline spins to face her, as she followed in her tracks, "How do you know that witches are real?"
She clears her throat and tucks her hair behind her ears, "Uh…you better sit down."
Caroline eyes go wide, "Seriously?!" she screeches, "You're a witch?"
"A little louder child," Grams drawled as she walked past, "I'm not sure the Inquisition heard you."
Caroline winced, "Sorry, Grams."
She waits until she's gone into the kitchen before pointing at her, "Is she a witch too?" she mouths silently, jumping nearly a foot in the air when Grams calls 'Yes' from behind the wall.
"Apparently, it's a family trait," Bonnie said, shrugging as they sat down on the couch,
"Dark skin, nice hair, the ability to magic."
She wonders if she should do the feather trick she'd been practicing ever since Grams had shown her how to do it, but Caroline doesn't seem to be doubting her, instead she reaches into her handbag and grabs out a legal pad, starting to fire off questions,
"Do you have a wand?" she asks, "Can you fly? Can you turn people into toads? Is this why that vampire guy tried to attack you?"
Bonnie felt herself becoming overwhelmed, "Uh…Grams can answer the first three but I don't think so, not yet anyway, but if I can turn anyone into a toad, I will let you know…" she pauses and plays with the skin of her nails,
"I'm thinking the vampire came after me because I was alone," she told her, "And he tried this thing on me called compulsion but it didn't work because…"
"Witches can't be compelled," Caroline finishes for her, nodding, "Klaus told me."
Bonnie frowns, "Okay…who is Klaus?"
Caroline puts her legal pad down, "Grams didn't tell you?"
She shakes her head and her friend inhales deeply, "Okay, this is kinda strange, but you know how you always thought Balto was weird?"
Bonnie doesn't see where she's going with this but nods, "And?"
"It's because he was really a guy trapped in wolf form, whose name is Klaus and he's also a vampire when he's not a werewolf."
And, in spite of everything she'd learnt over the last three days, Bonnie still finds herself wondering if Caroline hasn't maybe gone crazy.
Grams comes into the room holding three cups of tea which she places down on the coffee table,
"So, he told you everything?" she asks, Caroline, who gives her a nervous smile,
"I think so," she answers, "He kept insisting on taking breaks to make sure I wasn't going into shock." She sips at the tea and makes a face, which makes Bonnie lift hers to her nose and sniff.
Vervein.
"Anyway," Caroline continues, "He said that you could confirm any thing I wanted to double-check."
From her position on the couch, Bonnie can see Grams throat and jaw, and sees that her grandmother is biting her tongue, "Of course, child," she assures her,
"But we will have to keep this a secret, no-one can know about Bonnie or myself, it doesn't matter how long we've been a part of this community, they could still choose to burn us both."
Caroline pales, "I won't tell anyone," she swears, holding up two fingers, "Scouts honor."
She leaves twenty minutes later, after giving Bonnie a rundown of what she'd missed in school that day, not that she'd been sick but she'd figured that finding out she was a witch deserved a three-day weekend to process.
She walks Caroline to the door and watches her drive off, waiting until her car has turned the corner before closing the door and going looking for her Grams.
She finds her in the study, sitting over a table filled with vervein and a necklace, muttering to herself as she sorted through the flowers.
"Grams?" Bonnie called softly, leaning against the door, "Is everything okay?"
Her grandmother hums and for a moment, she thinks that she's going to reassure her, tell her that everything was fine and that she was being silly but when she looks up, she sees concern in her eyes.
"I don't know," she answers, honestly, "Klaus Mikaelson, is old, an ancient creature who is very powerful and very dangerous, and danger attracts danger."
Bonnie swallows nervously, "Do you think he'll hurt Caroline?"
Grams taps a finger to her chin, "Honestly, child, I think she will be the safest person in town."
Richard Lockwood was sitting in his office, staring at his desk and barely resisting the urge to snap at his wife as she blathered on about preparations for the Miss Mystic Falls pageant.
As if he gave half a damn about the stupid event, or really, any event that took place at his manor that wasn't directly related to his mayoral campaign.
He figured she would have known that by now, but no, she wanted to talk his ear off about how stressful it was trying to find the perfect judges and how the perfect girls to help with organization and set-up were all finalists and thus couldn't help.
If she didn't shut up soon, his sanity and will to live would go right out the window.
He tries to distract himself by thinking about the red head he'd met on the weekend in Richmond and taken back to his hotel room. He tries thinking about her hazel eyes and foreign accent- which meant that he would never see her again- however, he's too stressed to lose himself in the flashback.
This morning he had delved into the Mystic Falls Civil War records and found confirmation of what he'd suspected for weeks now.
The Salvatore brothers that had arrived in Mystic Falls, were the same ones that had fled it in 1864.
Vampires had returned to the town.
And the undead were like cockroaches, there was never just one but a nest of them hidden somewhere.
Except that he didn't want to raise his concerns with the Council yet, because John Gilbert was on his way back to town soon and that meant the damn compass and other paraphernalia that the Lockwood journals warned didn't just track vampires but all supernatural creatures.
And his family had kept their secret for too long just to be discovered by a lowly Gilbert.
Which was the reason Grayson's break lines had been damaged after one of Carol's many irritating Founding Family events.
Fortunately, the idiot had driven off Wickery Bridge and drowned before he'd died in a fiery crash, so at least Richard didn't have to worry about a murder investigation on top of everything else.
Shame about Miranda though.
She'd aged really well.
Better than Carol certainly.
Who is now turning her head and shutting up and Richard thinks it must be a miracle but he hears clomping up the stairs and figures Tyler was home from football practice.
"Oh, darling," Carol gushes, "What happened?"
Tyler slouches into the office and Richard sees that he's sporting a real shiner on his left eye.
"Son?" he demands, "How does the other guy look?"
So help him if the answer wasn't 'worse'
"Unconscious," Tyler smirked, "But it's fine, I won't get in trouble."
Carol fusses over him like he's still a little boy and Richard smacks his hand on the desk,
"He's fine for godsake," he snaps, "Stop coddling him!"
If he wasn't careful, Carol would turn their boy pansy.
And then he'd never trigger the curse.
He tells Tyler to go shower and hopes that Carol will go find something else to distract herself until it was a decent time to start drinking and he's relieved when she follows their son to the door.
But then she lingers.
"You know," she sighed, "I was hoping now that Elena was single, he'd date her, or at least a good girl like Caroline Forbes and clean up his act a little."
He hums noncommittally as she checks her watch and finally heads downstairs to pour herself a drink.
Caroline Forbes.
Perky little blonde but there was definitely something weird about her.
His current thinking was that perhaps she was a throwback, one of those werewolves where the curse passed unbroken for a few generations and had weakened to the point where there was no latent aggression to trigger it.
Shame.
She was a pretty little thing and would make a hell of a werewolf.
And it would explain why that wolf had stuck by her side all those years, because Richard had fed that creature a sausage soaked in wolfsbane and it had nearly swallowed it whole and then whined for more.
So clearly it was just a regular wolf that had befriended a human, like that lion from London.
But this was a good thing.
He already had enough supernatural creatures running around Mystic Falls.
Albeit one less than he wanted.
Mason was supposed to have called him by now.
Stupid little brothers.
Why did he have to do everything himself?!
Sage fixed a smile on her face as she made her way to the garden mezzanine in her luxury apartment building.
Her nose picks up on a sweet scent and her smile becomes genuine as she finds the object of her affection watching the sunrise.
Finn Mikaelson was sitting on a bench, his face turned up to the sky and an almost comically large mug cupped in his hands, filled to the brim with hot chocolate made in the Central European fashion, which was simply melted chocolate poured out and drunk quickly before it could solidify.
It had been the first thing he'd consumed when setting foot in Prague and it had been in that café that Sage had laid eyes on him for the first time in centuries.
At first, she had been convinced she had lost her mind but then he had explained the matter to her.
His little brother was dead and Elijah had freed him from his coffin.
However, Finn had no faith in his siblings and had chosen to flee rather than rely on their good will to keep him safe from the silver dagger.
Over time, he had relented slightly and agreed to sojourning on the same continent as his siblings, however, the marks of his centuries encased in his coffin had left their mark.
Sage wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the crown of his head, "Good morning."
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, "Morning, my love, did I wake you?"
No and waking up to find only natural light in their bedroom had alarmed her.
Finn could not stand darkness anymore, their homes always had to be blazing with light or else his mind would go back to the imprisonment of his active mind but trapped body in which he had spent so long.
What none of his siblings had realized was that while being daggered for decades felt as though one were sleeping, being daggered for centuries did not carry the same mercy.
Finn had regained awareness of the mind but had been unable to move. It had driven him insane and then sane again in an endless cycle that Hell itself could not have made worse.
And that none of his siblings expressed remorse or sympathy for his having suffered hadn't helped matters.
In fact, they only ever contacted him if they wanted something.
Like, now for instance.
They're interrupted by a shrill ringing from the landline they kept in the kitchen and she sighs, already knowing that only certain people were rude enough to call this early in the morning and they were all called Mikaelson.
She hoped this interruption was caused by Elijah at least, he was always very succinct and to the point…
"Finally," the caller snaps before she's even finished putting the phone to her ear,
"You have supernatural speed, how on earth does it take you thirty seconds to reach the bloody kitchen?"
Rebekah Mikaelson.
"I was busy," Sage answers, wishing she could one day be safe enough to tell the spoilt, demanding blonde exactly what she thought of her, "How can I help you?"
"It's Kol," she huffs and Sage has to consciously force herself not to slam the phone back on its hook,
"He fell in with some dodgy witches in the Quarter and, from what I could ascertain, is after a moonstone."
"Alright," Sage acknowledges, "And what does this have to do with Finn and myself?"
"Well," Rebekah sighs, "Obviously, whatever they want the moonstone for, we have to stop them from getting it."
We.
When did the Mikaelson's become a family unit again?
Sage wishes she could make up some excuse about not being around but Richmond was hardly Bratislava.
"Why don't you ask Elijah?" Sage suggested and there's a long pause at the other end of the line,
"He's busy tracking down the harlot."
Katherine Pierce.
Apt description.
"We'll see what we can do," she offers, deliberately keeping her answer vague.
Rebekah scoffs, "I knew you'd say that, but we have reason to believe that the moonstone is in Mystic Falls, and you were on the way…"
On the way to…
The doorbell rings and Sage's heart plummets.
Not even seven am and the day was already ruined.
Jenna is yapping at the door as Caroline slides the key into the lock and when she steps inside, the puppy dances around her feet, jumping up and down until she squats into a crouch to pat her on the head.
"Hey," she laughs as her puppy accidentally headbutts her jaw, "Oof, did you miss me today?"
Jenna topples over, landing on her back and kicking her feet in the air before rolling over, getting upright and racing to her bedroom, leaving Caroline to follow at a much more leisurely pace.
Her bedroom almost looked the same as it had when she'd left it this morning.
If she ignored the long white box tied up with silver ribbon sitting on her bed.
Surprised, she picks up the card slid underneath the bow,
'For the future Miss Mystic Falls'
She snorts and unties the ribbon, letting it fall to the floor where Jenna pounced on it immediately, and lifts the lid.
A beautiful green dress was inside, the exact shade that Caroline had decided upon last year when she had begun plotting how she would win the beauty pageant.
And Balto had been in the room at the time.
She pulls out her phone and scrolls down for Klaus' name- he'd bought a phone over the weekend but thankfully hadn't discovered Angry Birds yet- and taps out the message.
Caroline: Thank-you for the beautiful dress, but how did you get into my room?
She sinks down onto the bed and waits for his reply,
Klaus: Good Afternoon Caroline, your mother's spare key remains in the same place it has always done
Klaus: And why does Jenna get to sleep on the bed?
Caroline laughed, remembering Balto's outrage all the times she pushed him down when he tried to climb onto her bed.
Caroline: Because she isn't a huge wolf.
Klaus: That's discrimination love
She laughs again and reaches down, putting her hand under Jenna's stomach and scooping her up onto the bed, positioning her near her pillows when she starts padding curiously towards the box. She whistles and takes advantage of the puppy looking at her to take a photo.
Caroline: [image]
She takes the dress out of the box and hangs it up carefully, making sure it drapes correctly before turning back to her phone.
Klaus: Utterly unfair
She giggles again and finds herself suddenly wishing that he was the one escorting her to the pageant rather than Jeffrey, whom she'd only chosen because Matt had to work.
But it was too late now, he wouldn't know the dance and would probably think he was only a backup.
Still, she'd invite him anyway and maybe they could do something afterwards?
Damon scowled as he hurled the book across the parlor, straight into the fireplace.
Unfortunately, he hadn't lit the fire yet but the sound of the spine snapping was cathartic.
Besides, it wasn't a useful book, just the journaling of an old ancestor of his, batty even on his best day and down-right crazy when he started mentioning anything useful.
Like the moonstone.
Which his source in New York told him that Katherine Pierce was after.
Magic moonstones were rare and not interchangeable, if you used one for a spell previously, another one couldn't undo that spell. As far as anyone knew, there was currently only six worldwide.
One in London, protected by a witch coven who ate vampires.
One somewhere in Africa.
Three lost or hidden for a century minimum and one that was in Mystic Falls.
Only, Damon didn't know where or which Founding Family currently had it in their collection of creepy antiques.
And without it, he could bring his nefarious plan to fruition.
Especially with that stupidly strong vampire that had come to town and was currently seducing the Sheriff's daughter out of her cheerleading uniform.
Not only was the guy stronger than any vampire Damon had ever seen, but if the sudden upsurge in scarf-wearers around the town was anything to go by, he was a live feeder as well.
Which meant the Council was only one wake-up call away from verveining the water supply and getting a hunting party together.
He leans back in the chair with a groan.
He'd forgotten how much he hated Mystic Falls.