A/N: as many of you guessed, there is more to the Matt/Anna backstory than he was letting on...oh and also, YAY this fic crossed the 200-review mark! so awesome- thank you all!
You know those moments when you're so angry at someone that all you want to do is kick, punch, scream, or throw things? Anything to make them comprehend at least an ounce of the unadulterated rage that you're feeling?
Yeah, that's how Elena currently felt.
"SHUT UP!" she shouted, her fingers curling around her cell phone as she furiously hurled it against the metal lockers. It hit them with a loud bang and clattered to the floor, the sound echoing dismally in the otherwise silent locker room.
"You're lucky that didn't break," Tyler commented, staring pointedly at the phone but making no move to pick it up even though it had landed near his feet.
"This is all your fault!" Elena hissed, storming up to him and giving him a shove that caused him to stumble back several feet. "We're stuck in here because of you, and I don't even see you doing anything about it!"
He didn't deny the accusation, but he didn't look particularly apologetic either. "Look, it's not my fault the school locks the only door to the locker room during practice so that no one can steal stuff. It's also not my fault that you decided to come in here looking for Matt."
"No," she agreed through gritted teeth, "Those things aren't your fault." She jabbed a finger into his chest, "It is, however, your fault that you tried to keep me from finding Matt by wasting my time for ten minutes—right up until the moment the doors locked!"
"To be fair, I wasn't keeping track of the time," Tyler slid away from her and moved to the other side of the room. "It's not like I had some grand master plan to get the two of us locked in here after school, Elena." He lounged across a bench and stared up at her impassively, "In fact, you're pretty much the last person I would want to be stuck with anywhere. Ever."
She glared at him and then crouched down to retrieve her phone, holding out an irrational hope that throwing it against the lockers would've somehow caused it to find a signal. She held it up to the ceiling, scowling when she saw that she still had zero bars.
"We're in the basement," Tyler reminded her for the umpteenth time, "No one ever gets signal down here."
"Thanks for that valuable insight," she growled back, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep from screaming at him again. "Look, I don't know about you, but I sort of have important places to be right now—"
"And I'm supposed to be at practice," he shrugged, "Like I said, this isn't exactly on my top ten list of places I want to be."
Elena groaned in annoyance and slumped down to the floor, keeping her back pressed to the lockers for support. "I can't believe this is happening," she muttered, "Alaric is going to kill me."
"Alaric? Oh he's that private investigator that the Salvatores hired, right?"
She glanced up at Tyler, surprised that he knew this information. Although Anna's death had obviously been in the news, not many people knew the details of the investigation. There was only Stefan (who didn't even go to their school), Caroline (who knew minimal details and wouldn't tell anyone anyway), and Matt who…
"Matt told you?"
"He tells me everything," Tyler said after a moment, "I know that you never wanted to accept that I was one of his best friends, but it's time you learned that's the way things are."
Elena decided to ignore the latter part of his statement in order to avoid another argument. She was tired of the fighting, of the constant need to watch her back around Tyler and his brother. She was just…tired.
"Elena?" For a second she could delude herself into thinking that he almost sounded concerned, "Are you alright?"
She drew in a long breath and slowly let it out, counting to ten in her head. "Did you know?" she asked without looking at him, "About Matt and Anna?"
"It was a long time ago," Tyler replied carefully, "You and Matt weren't even together yet."
"Yeah, that's what he told me," she examined her fingernails with sudden interest, "He said that you were there with him in The Grill that night…when Anna came in to look for a job?"
"Yeah, Mason and I were both there."
Elena finally looked up to meet his gaze, her expression serious. "What's the real reason that Matt decided to hide his history with her?"
"I thought…" Tyler frowned, "Didn't you know they slept together?"
"Yes," she answered impatiently, "And you expect me to just sit back and believe that's the whole story?"
"It's what happened, Elena."
"Oh I believe it happened," she got to her feet and began walking around with her cell phone held out in front of her, "I just don't believe that it's everything that happened."
"Looks like denial isn't just a river in Egypt."
She didn't even turn around as she responded sarcastically, "Oh look, someone knows his first grade geography."
Tyler was silent for a full minute before he suddenly snapped, "You think you're so smart, don't you?"
"Well, I think I'm smarter than you…but then again, most people are."
There was a thump and Elena turned around to see what had happened. She gasped and took a startled step backwards when she realized Tyler was inches away from her. "You know, Elena," he sneered as he looked her up and down, "You really are a bitch."
"That's rich," she narrowed her eyes, not backing down even when he took another step forward, "Especially coming from the biggest jackass in school."
"I bet whoever killed Anna wasn't even aiming for her," Tyler said menacingly, "If it was me, then you would definitely be my first target."
Elena's mouth dropped open in shock. "That's…" she licked her suddenly dry lips, "That's going too far, Tyler." She shook her head and hurriedly put some distance between them. "We might hate each other, but I would never wish…" she trailed off, muttering under her breath, "Forget it. Let's just find a way to get out of here."
As she resumed walking around every nook and cranny of the locker room to try and find a cell phone signal, she could hear Tyler following behind her.
He was like an extremely loud and overbearing shadow.
The silence in the room now seemed somehow even more oppressing than before, and she could hear Tyler's watch ticking away. In the dark recesses of her mind, a few lines from "The Tell-Tale Heart" sprang to memory and she began laughing to herself.
"Elena?" Tyler sounded nervous. Maybe he was worried she had finally cracked. "Are you okay?"
"What? Oh yeah, I'm fine," she continued chuckling darkly to herself, "Just dandy."
"I'm sorry," he blurted suddenly, "About what I said earlier. You're right, it was out of line. I didn't mean it."
She tilted her head thoughtfully as she examined his expression. "You have these moments," she said to him, wondering where this bout of honesty had come from. "These moments of sincerity and clarity, and I find it really hard to believe that any of it is real."
"I…"
"Like that incident in the hallway the other day," Elena went on, "When you kicked Caroline's book and refused to pick it up until Matt showed up—and then you apologized?" She crossed her arms, "What was that? Why would you take the blame? I was ready to accept responsibility for it, you knew that."
Tyler looked at her in disbelief, "So now you're mad at me for being nice? I just can't win with you, can I?"
"I don't have anything against you being nice," she corrected, "It's the fake-nice that makes me wonder what's in your agenda."
"I don't have an agenda."
"Guys like you?" she scoffed, turning away, "You always have an agenda." A second later, something that he had said nagged at her and she frowned. "Wait, what do you mean you can't 'win with me?' Why would you be trying to get points in my book at all? This can't have anything to do with Matt…we've all come to the conclusion that the two of us will never be friends, and Matt long ago accepted that."
"It doesn't have anything to do with Matt," he ran his fingers through his hair—a gesture that Elena immediately associated with Damon; that is, when he was trying to tell her something that she didn't want to hear, or something that was hard for him to say.
"Who, then?" Elena prodded, "What's going on, Tyler?"
He met her gaze, and she was surprised to see a layer of vulnerability hidden beneath the bravado in his eyes. "I'm sleeping with Caroline."
She burst out laughing, "And here I was, thinking that we were actually having a serious and honest conversation for once in our lives." She continued chuckling as she made her way towards the door. Maybe she could try banging on it, in the hopes that someone walking past would be able to hear?
"Elena." She felt a sharp pain, and she winced as Tyler grabbed her arm to pull her back. "I am being serious," he insisted, "Please, you have to hear me out."
She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. "I don't have to do anything," she corrected, "Especially when you're attempting to spread vicious rumors about my best friend!"
"Caroline values your opinion more than anyone else's," Tyler followed her and raised his voice to be heard over Elena's fists hitting the door. "It's why she didn't tell you…she knew you wouldn't approve."
"Listen," Elena whirled around to face him, "Caroline would never stoop that low, understand? You treat her like dirt, the same way that you treat everyone else around here. So why don't you stop with the lies, and help me figure out a way to get us the hell out of here?"
"Elena, I really like her."
"God," she cried, having had enough. "I don't need to hear this right now, alright? I was supposed to meet Alaric over an hour ago at the treatment center from where, by the way, my brother was kidnapped for knowing too much—I've spent the past few days not knowing if he was dead or if he was being tortured, and this is all on top of wondering if the cops are really trying to find him or not." She sucked in small breath of air, "And last night someone—most likely Anna's killer or hey, maybe it was the cops themselves—dropped off a little homemade DVD at the Salvatore house a-and—and…" Here she broke down completely, feeling her knees give out as she slumped forward.
To her extreme surprise, Tyler's arms encircled her and he caught her just before she hit the ground. "Shh," he whispered, pulling her in for a hug. "I'm sorry, Elena, okay?" He patted the back of her head, murmuring soothing phrases in her ear. "I'm sorry about everything. You're right, you have a lot going on right now. I was a jerk, I should've realized…" As her tears slowed, he tightened his arms around her briefly. "Everything is going to be alright, okay? Jeremy is going to be just fine, everything will be fine."
Elena pulled away from him, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. "Sorry," she wiped a hand against her eyes and turned away, "I didn't mean to go off on you like that."
"It's my fault, I was being a jackass." His tone was self-deprecating, and once again she caught the underlying sincerity.
"Well yeah," her lips twitched, "You were."
He smiled at her slightly, though his expression sobered almost immediately. "Want to tell me what happened? What was on the DVD?"
"Jeremy," she whispered, "He was sitting in a chair in some room, and I think whoever was standing behind the camera was holding up cue cards or something for him to read because his eyes kept flicking to a spot exactly to the right of the camera as he spoke."
Tyler swore under his breath, "What did they make him say?"
"That he was alive and that he would continue to be kept alive, if..."
"If what?"
Elena bit her lip, "If we stopped our own investigation into the crime and just let it go."
"You're kidding."
"Nope."
"But..." Tyler looked at her in confusion, "I thought you said that you were supposed to meet Alaric after school?"
"I was."
He hesitated, "So you're not calling off the investigation? What about Jeremy?"
"Ric thinks that whoever kidnapped Jer is working with the police. As long as they don't know what we're doing, then the killer won't know either."
He frowned, "You're playing with fire, Elena."
"I don't have a choice," she swallowed, "I need to get to the bottom of this before someone else gets hurt."
Tyler suddenly gripped her arm, "They'll come after you next, Elena. You need to drop this!"
She stared at him, surprised by his intensity. Before she could respond, however, the door clicked open and the coach stormed in. "LOCKWOOD," he barked, "Skipping out on practice, are we?"
"We got locked in here," Elena jumped in to explain before Tyler could say anything, "It's my fault."
The coach glared at her but didn't comment. "On the field. NOW," he stood by the door and pointed them out, "Ms. Gilbert, are you done here?"
"Yeah," she hastily made her way out the door. As soon as she got near the stairs, her phone emitted a multitude of beeps signalling all her missed calls and texts.
"Hope you're not in too much trouble," Tyler nodded towards her phone, keeping his tone light in the presence of the coach. "Maybe you should just change your plans since you're late anyway," he added pointedly, hovering beside her when she didn't respond.
"LOCKWOOD!"
"Coming, coming," he grumbled, jogging out towards the field. He turned one last time to look at Elena though, a warning expression crossing his face.
She didn't know what to say, so she only waved to show that she had heard him. Then her gaze quickly scanned the field, trying to find Matt. When she didn't spot him, she sighed and looked back down at her phone. A series of increasingly worried texts from Alaric, Damon, and Stefan had filled her inbox. There were also four missed calls from Caroline's cell as well as the landline number at The Grill.
Elena hit the call back button to Damon's cell first, and raised the phone to her ear as she hurriedly made her way into the parking lot towards her car (well, technically, Stefan's car that he had seemingly loaned to her for the time being).
As she neared it, however, a car door slammed from somewhere in her vicinity and familiar voice fairly shouted at her, "Where the hell have you been?"
"Damon?" she gaped at him as he angrily strode towards her, "What...what are you doing here? Why aren't you at work? Why—" All the breath was abruptly knocked out of her as he grabbed her to him and enveloped her in a hug. "Can't breathe," she wheezed, but he didn't loosen his hold.
"Don't care," he hissed back, his hands entangling in her hair and pulling her even closer. "Jesus, Elena," he breathed into her ear, "You scared me half to death."
She finally raised herself on her tiptoes to loop her arms around his neck, feeling how tense he was in her arms. "I'm sorry," she whispered back, "Tyler and I got stuck in the boys locker room, and the door was locked and the coach didn't come looking for him until now...it's in the basement so there was no cell phone signal..."
"I thought..." Damon pulled back to look at her, his hands instinctively cupping her face, "I thought that maybe Jeremy's kidnapper or Anna's killer or god knows what had gotten to you."
Even though none of it had been her fault, Elena could still feel the guilt bubbling up in her throat at the sight of his worried expression. She had never seen him look that scared in her life, not even the time that Stefan was eight and decided to run away from home (he had made it to the school bus stop down the street).
"I'm okay," she murmured, reaching up with her own hands to hold his in place on her face, "Really." Then she amended, "Well, apart from a short but intense screaming match with Tyler...but I think that the two of us have finally reached an understanding that—"
"Elena?"
She broke off with a puzzled frown. For the first time, Damon was wearing an expression that she didn't recognize. "Yeah?"
"Stop talking."
She knew what he was going to do the second before he did it, and she vaguely realized why she hadn't been able to recognize his expression. But then his lips were on hers, and all coherent thought slipped from her mind.