Hey guys!
This is the much awaited and much requested update on The Bodyguard! I'm sorry this took so long, and I explain that all in the Author's Note before this. I'm hoping to get this thing going again, because now I have ideas. That's not to say that I won't take a bit to post a chapter, because it takes me a while to write them and get happy with them, but I will not be taking a break again, hopefully!
I also have a Riverdale story up, if anyone is interested :)
I'm not answering reviews this part, just because that's way too many. I will go back to that in the next chapter :)
DISCLAIMER: I do not own TVD, just the plot!
Please review! I love hearing from you guys!
Katia xx
Elena couldn't find the words to say to her principal at that moment. She tried to come up with something that would make her dad proud of her, but nothing was coming out. She felt like she was choking on air, and there was no way for her to stop. It was an avalanche of emotions, and all Elena wanted to do was go to her AP classes. What the hell was happening? Could the school really do this to her?
Then again, upon further reflection, Elena realized that they could. She couldn't blame them for wanting her gone. She'd brought a school shooting upon them, and she felt terrible for that. There wasn't anything that she could do, of course, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel just as bad about it. Who would want her in their school after she'd brought that kind of threat upon the other members of the school? Elena couldn't blame her principal at all. She didn't deserve to continue her studies here, and she knew it. So, where she originally wanted to throw her hands up in protest, she kept her cool.
"I understand," she finally said, gripping the edge of her seat, her knuckles turning white when she did so. She looked up at him, pushing out a breath. It was hard to keep calm during this, especially since they'd made Damon stay outside. She had no doubt he was ready to pounce if she screamed, but still. Him being here would have made her more feisty. And she couldn't tell if she was mad that she wasn't, or glad she could stay level-headed. "I'll...pack my locker up and leave right away."
She stood up, shaky legs, and nodded at her principal, who didn't say anything else to her. She almost expected him to stop her and apologize. She wanted him to change his mind, let her stay. But, against all terrible feelings she had about it, she understood why he didn't. So, she opened the door, walking out of the principal's office. She was doing everything she could to keep her face from betraying her emotions. She must not have been doing a good job, however, because Damon stopped her the minute he saw her. "What's wrong?"
Elena shook her head, as she didn't want to talk about it right now. She didn't want anyone else to hear what had happened. She'd tell Caroline and Katherine later, but she didn't want to think about it right now. So, she'd just push past Damon, knowing that he'd follow her. And he did, straight to her locker. She had to give him credit of understanding she didn't want to talk about it. He didn't ask her any questions when she started packing up her locker. She got a few looks from other students, but no one stopped her. No one had the guts to talk to the girl who'd brought a shooter to the school. And she couldn't blame them. She couldn't blame anyone other than herself.
Once she was all packed up, she booked it outside to Damon's truck. Damon followed her, staying silent the entire time. Elena could feel his concerned gaze burning into the back of her head, and she knew he was going to ask her a million questions the minute that their car was out of the parking lot. "Don't argue with me today," she said, turning and giving him a look. And, for the first time since she met Damon Salvatore, she walked over to the driver's side of her car and got in.
Damon stared at her for a moment, but when she turned the car on and clicked her seatbelt into place, he must have gotten the notion that she wasn't kidding. So, he got into the passenger seat, and watched her carefully. "Your dad mentioned that you don't drive often," Damon said, cautiously.
Elena started pulling out of the parking spot, before glancing over at him. "I don't."
And then she whipped that car out of the school's parking lot, making the tires squeal so loud that you could hear them in the principal's office.
"Elena, I know that you're going through some kind of crisis or whatever, but you are going 80 in a 35 zone. We are going to die," Damon said to her, and he genuinely looked fearful.
"Relax, we aren't going to die."
"I shouldn't have let you get in the driver's seat," Damon mumbled, and Elena grinned a bit, still breezing past the very few stop signs there were in this neighborhood. She knew that she was being reckless, and that she could care about this sort of thing, but she wasn't able to. She couldn't find it in her to stop the car, until she was safely home. Elena was taking out her frustration from the last couple of days on the drive home. And, no, that wasn't safe. But something was clouding Elena's judgement that made her not care about safety or the law.
Damon didn't say anything else until they got home, which Elena thought was impressive. Then again, he had been holding on very tightly to the handle on the top of the car. So much so that if Elena had taken her eyes off of the road, she would have seen his knuckles turn white, she was sure of it. But, she didn't want to give Damon any more fuel to his fire over her driving, so she'd kept her brown eyes on the road, until she put the car in park in front of her house.
Elena unbuckled her seatbelt, grabbing her book bag and getting out of the car. She just wanted to get upstairs to her room as fast as she could, without worrying about getting caught by her dad. She didn't want to explain to him why she wasn't at school at 9:14 AM on a weekday. She didn't want to explain to him how his running for vice president had made her have to give up a social life, and everything she'd hoped to do her senior year of high school
She didn't want to explain that she wished he wouldn't run for vice president-that he'd drop out, so that she could go back to living a normal life.
She was almost in the house, before Damon grabbed her arm, pulling her to face him. "What happened in that principal's office to make you want to do this?" Damon asked her, looking down at her. Elena hitched a soft breath when she noticed just how blue his eyes were. She'd never noticed that before, never paid enough attention because he'd always been increasingly annoying. Damon raised an eyebrow as he looked at her, waiting for an answer, and Elena realized that she had been staring.
"I got kicked out of school because I put the other students at risk," Elena said simply, gulping softly as she looked up at him, shaking her head for a quick moment. "I got kicked out of school, and was asked to finish my senior year of high school online, because a shooter came to the school for me, and endangered every other student."
Damon didn't say anything, instead just pulling Elena into a hug, as he noticed that there were tears pouring down her cheeks. It was like admitting what had happened had made it more real, and Elena couldn't deal with it. Once she said it out loud, it seemed less likely that she'd wake up and this whole entire thing would be over.
But this wasn't a dream, and she wasn't waking up.
The rest of the day had been fairly uneventful. Damon had let Elena head upstairs so that she could mope around in her bedroom. She hadn't even picked up her laptop to work on her story, which was really rare for her. Instead, she just crawled into bed and laid there all day, just wishing that this wasn't happening, all while knowing that it really was.
It was currently 7:00 and Elena had yet to come out of her bedroom since they got home. She went to the bathroom once, but even that had an adjoining door, so she'd barely left her own room. She'd just been in a bad mood. Most kids would be ecstatic to find out that they weren't having to go to school anymore, but it just bummed Elena out. Elena had liked school. She was looking forward to her classes this semester. And now how was she ever supposed to finish The List?
That felt like so long ago, now. The last few days had been so full of drama, that Elena found herself wishing that she could just go back to the way things were, before her dad had run for vice president. She missed cutting up after school with Caroline and Katherine. She missed having fun in general. It seemed like her life was missing a lot of that lately. She couldn't even think of a time everything was okay, without going back at least a month.
"Elena?" her dad said, as she heard his fingers on the door. She didn't say anything, but then he repeated it, and she figured that she should probably let him in. Figure out what it was that he wanted.
"Come in," she said softly, moving to sit up in her bed. Greyson entered her bedroom, sitting down at the foot of her bed and putting a hand on her leg. "Hey," he said softly, squeezing her leg softly.
Elena didn't know what to say to him, because there wasn't anything nice she could think of. She wanted so badly to take all of her feelings out on him, to make him feel bad for making this all happen. It never occurred to her that Greyson might be feeling those things on his own. He didn't need her help to feel sorry for the way his career was affecting his daughter's life.
"I'm so sorry, El," He said, and Elena looked up to meet his eyes, not saying anything. He took this as a sign to continue, just looking at his daughter. "If I had known what this would have done to our family, I wouldn't have done it."
Elena sighed a bit, figuring that she couldn't ignore her father forever, as much as she'd like to. "Don't be sorry. You didn't hire a shooter to come kill me. You didn't ask to get me kicked out of school. You're just...doing your job. It just sucks that it's affecting me so much. I hate it," Elena muttered, leaning against her headboard and picking at a spot in her comforter where there was thread starting to come loose.
Greyson sighed, looking like he had no idea how to respond to that. And maybe he didn't. But, either way, just sitting there with his daughter was comfort enough to her. Of course, he was a politician, so shutting up wasn't in his strong suit. "I know you hate it, El. But we are going to do great things in this country, if I win. And I have to try. This is my dream, and I don't want to give up on it."
"I'm not asking you to give up on it, Dad. I'm just wishing I could…be somewhere else. I don't know. Away from Washington." Elena admitted, biting down on her bottom lip as she looked over at him. She didn't know what else to say, just that she wanted him to understand her. Her life had been turned upside down because of his campaign. And while she didn't wish that he wasn't running, she did wish that she wasn't in the heart of the trials and tribulations. That's what made the entire situation suck.
"I hear you, Elena. And I'm sorry."
And that was the end of it. Elena knew that nothing was going to change, but at least her dad was acknowledging her feelings.
The next day, after school hours, Caroline and Katherine stopped by. The whole school was talking about Elena's absence from classes, wondering where she'd gone after the events of the previous couple of days. Caroline and Katherine, who hadn't received any texts from Elena, came over to talk to her, simply wanting to know what was going on with their best friend. Why she'd gotten so...distant. Where had she gone, and why wasn't she at school?
But, Elena hadn't wanted to talk to her best friends, so when her dad called her to let them know they were there, she pretended to be asleep. She didn't want to explain why she wasn't at school. She didn't want to explain why she'd barely left her bed in two days. She just needed time to deal with this, time to deal with everything that was going on in her life right now. Maybe tomorrow she'd be fine. Or maybe next week, but not right now. Right now, Elena needed a moment to herself, just to breathe.
However, Damon hadn't gotten that memo, and he came to check on her anyways. She'd let him into her room, shaking her head when he opened his mouth. She didn't want to talk, but having someone else in the room would keep her from laying in bed and crying. So, she'd turned on a movie, crawled into her bed and patted the spot next to her.
The two of them stayed up until 3 in the morning, watching a new television show. They never spoke, just sitting in comfortable silence. And by the time they fell asleep, Elena's head was on Damon's chest.
It was the first night in a few months that Damon hadn't experienced a nightmare.
