A/N: I am back, despite Alaric's devastating death. Seriously, it killed me inside even though he's not dead dead, just vampire dead. The scene where he was just standing, watching everyone as they all looked sad and cried—that was so beautiful and heartbreaking.

Anyway…

Oh, and for any Secret Circle watchers; did the creepy clown with the knife scare you? 'Cause I had nightmares about it. I kept thinking it was standing next to my bed with the knife, laughing. *shudder*

Hazel's POV

"I'm going to the dance!"

"Hazel, stop that!"

"I'm going to the dance!" I sang again, tossing a dress over my head and grinning as it hit Damon. "I'm going to the dance with Jeremy, and it's going to be amazing, and you can't stop me!"

"I can't?" he asked. He removed the red dress from his head and glared. "Why not?"

"Because you made me go on that stupid trip and you kissed Elena, all on my birthday." I said. I pulled out another dress, a beautiful off-white one with tassels. "So you can't really stop me from going to a dance, because nothing bad will happen."

He sighed. "Haze, did you not hear me when I said that every dance I've gone to here has ended in tragedy?"

"No, actually." I said. "I wasn't paying attention. Name one dance that went badly."

"Elena got kidnapped at one."

"What decade?"

He shrugged. "What does it matter?"

"It doesn't." I held up a pale blue dress that was made of thin, flowery lace. "She got kidnapped. So what? Clearly you got her back."

"Bonnie died at the 60's one."

"That was fake." I said. "Jeremy told me about that one, and it wasn't real. She didn't actually die, and it helped almost kill Klaus."

Damon shook his head and groaned, rumpling his hair in frustration. "You could get hurt."

"Jeremy will keep me safe." I said, partly because I wanted to annoy him and partly because it was true. "I'm not a baby, Damon. I can take care of myself."

I finally decided to wear a different pale blue dress from the 20's, with lots of fringe on the edges. My necklace would match it perfectly.

Damon finally surrendered, holding up his hands in defeat. "Fine, but don't go blaming me if you get killed."

I jumped up and down, excitedly waving the dress as he departed. It was the first real dance I'd been to, one that actually involved teenagers and a date. I couldn't repress my few gleeful squeals of excitement as I ran upstairs to try the dress on and get ready to go. Jeremy would already be at the school, since he was helping set it up and do the decorations.

The dress was perfect, especially when I touched up my eyes with baby blue eyeshadow and my cheeks with the lightest pink blush, so it was barely visible. I did my lips with a simple, clear lipstick that had sparkles in it (I raided Stella's room for that). Combined with the dress, it drastically brought out my eyes and softened my whole face. I looked nice for once, no sharp edges or retorts. The only bright color was the gold of the lion necklace at my throat, ruby eyes twinkling.

"Stella, look at this dress I found!" I yelled, dashing to her room. When I stopped at her doorway I saw she was searching through her closet. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to." She said. She turned around. "You look really pretty."

"Thanks." I said. "What are you going to wear?"

She held up a 20's flapper dress, one that looked like it was made of silvery-white lace, almost translucent and rainbow. It looked see-through, but I could tell it was only at certain parts, like down the back all the way to the waist.

"Fancy." I said approvingly. "Any particular date in mind?"

She blushed, shaking her head. "No."

I left it at that, though I knew it probably had something to do with where she was disappearing to.

I was over-hyper as I waited for the time to leave and head to school. Stefan had allegedly been invited by Elena, and I ended up bothering him until he left for her house. He was a lot nicer, almost like old Stefan. Maybe that was what Stella had been doing; spending time with him and getting him back to his old self.

Finally I left, decided to just run to the school. I went a back way through the woods so that no one would see me, arriving in a matter of minutes.

Jeremy looked perfect, as usual. I saw Bonnie kept glancing at him. She'd been too busy with her mom's death and transition, so we'd never met before. She was glaring daggers at me, and she looked jealous when Jeremy leaned down to kiss my cheek.

"You look perfect, as always." Jeremy said. I blushed. "Very angelic. Odd."

I laughed, halfheartedly hitting him. "Hey!"

"What?"

"I can be angelic." I said. I batted my eyelashes at him.

He smiled. "I believe you."

My feet started to jitter, shuffling to the beat of the music as we walked in. "I love the 20's." I said.

"You were alive then, weren't you?"

I nodded. "I was. Stella and I stayed on the west coast through most of it. Stefan said he was in Chicago."I sighed, letting my mind drift as Jeremy led me to the dance floor. "We used to go to all these parties, where flappers would come to dance. Red lipstick, tassels, short hair. It was a good time to be undead."

"You had fun, then?" he asked. He took my hands and started to dance.

"Oh, yeah."

I soon found that Jeremy was just as bad a dancer as I was, if not more so. I kept stepping on his feet, and he was forever back me into other people by accident. Half the student body wanted us dead by time an hour had passed.

We finally stopped by the table with punchy and food. I sniffed it suspiciously. "There's something in this."

"There always is." Jeremy downed his in a gulp. "Same with the stuff at the Halloween dance."

"Oh." I decided to give it a try and took a sip. The stuff burned my throat, it was so heavily laced with what tasted like vodka. "Mystic Falls has no morals."

"Almost half the students die every year." He pointed out. "Everyone just wants to experience life all at once in case something happens to them."

"Cheerful."

"It's true."

I didn't answer, instead sipping my drink and watching everyone. Stefan and Elena were slow dancing. When I listened to them talk I heard something about how Stefan didn't want to know what happened in Denver because Elena could never hurt him as much as he hurt her when he left. I snorted. Great. Now she had an endless supply of "get out of jail free" cards, all because Stefan screwed up.

Bonnie and the unknown date seemed happy. They were talking about nonsense. The same went for Caroline and Tyler, though Tyler looked upset.

That's when I noticed Stella. She was all the way across the gym, dancing with someone tall, dressed in white. Whoever he was, he practically matched her dress. I strained my eyes, mentally telling him to turn. When he did my mouth fell open.

It was Klaus. That evil Original had his arms around my sister, resting at the small of her back. She was laughing at something he said, her arms around his neck. Her cheeks were red from blushing.

"Oh, hell no!" I said, snapping Jeremy from his trance.

"What?" He asked, expecting some sort of immediate danger. I pointed. "Is Stella with Klaus?"

"Yes." I hissed. I was about to go over to them when Stefan and Damon came up.

"Jeremy, we need to talk." Stefan said. "Bonnie needs your blood for a spell, because Esther did some sort of boundary spell to keep all the vampires stuck at the dance."

"What?"

He glanced at me. "She's trying to get Alaric on her side, or something. Elena left with Esther."

If my heart could, it would have been pounding out of my chest. "What can I do?"

"Act normal." Damon advised. "DO whatever you were doing before we got here."

"So I should storm over there and scream at Stella?"

"If you want." Damon said. He didn't care about the reason. He just grabbed Jeremy by the arm and hauled him off. I pouted, wondering if there would ever be a time where I got five minutes alone with Jeremy.

When I reached Stella Klaus was long gone. "What is wrong with you?" I asked, taking her wrist and pulling her to the edge of the gym. "Klaus? Really? Klaus?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." She said, eyes flitting away from me.

I said, "You were dancing with him, remember?"

"No I wasn't."

"Yeah, Stella, you were!" I insisted, voice rising an octave. "I saw it. Don't you know he's dangerous?"

Stella suddenly looked me in the eyes, a bright spark lighting her own. "He's just confused and lonely, but clearly no one in this town has any sympathy for him. I'm not a helpless little girl, Hazel, and I'm not as innocent as you think. I know he can be dangerous, but he can also be very sweet and gentle. Klaus understand that I'm not naïve and stupid, like you all think I am. Maybe if you'd give him a chance you would see how nice he can be!" She stormed off, out a side door. Her cheeks were flushed red with anger.

I did feel somewhat guilty, because she was right. She was fourteen, but she had lived over a hundred years. It had to be frustrating, though, to have people look at you and think you were little. She could never have a real relationship because most people her "age" would be too immature for her, and kissing was as far as she'd ever get. From what she had said I guessed that Klaus treated her as an adult rather than a child.

Unfortunately, there was nothing that I could do about it. I finally found Damon and Stefan, only to hear that Jeremy had left to go stop Esther. When Klaus joined us outside I sent him hostile looks but refused to speak.

"How much longer?" I asked Stefan tersely. He shrugged.

Bonnie appeared at the doorway. "It's done. You can leave now."

Without a second thought I raced over the boundary, Klaus in hot pursuit. Soon he, Damon, and Stefan had all outdone me and were a few feet ahead. When we reached the graveyard—the Salvatore crypt, to be exact—what I saw horrified me.

Esther was dead. I didn't care why or how. What hurt me was Jeremy, trying to brush away tears. Elena was crying openly, explain to Stefan that Alaric had been turned by Esther and that he had to die, because becoming a vampire would make him evil forever.

"He can't die." Jeremy sniffed, making me realize that he stood next to me.

"Jeremy," I began. I had never been good at comforting people who were hurt.

An eerie silence feel over the graveyard as Meredith, Bonnie, Jamie, Caroline, Tyler, and many others joined us. Alaric appeared from the doorway of the crypt. He didn't say a word, just looked at everyone. I felt a pang of sympathy for him. Eventually Meredith moved forward, walking inside with him. I had no idea what she was doing and didn't particularly care.

I forced Jeremy to walk home with me. I was afraid to let him out of my sight in his condition. When we reached the boardinghouse I made him sit, curling up close to him without really touching him. "Jeremy?"

"I can't believe that after all I've lost Alaric is finally going to die." He mumbled. A tear slid from his eye. "It's not fair."

I felt even worse. What was I supposed to say? "I'm sorry… I wish I could do something."

"You can."

"What?" I was surprised.

He whispered, "Stay here with me?"

I nodded, forcing the smile I had to stay off my face. I leaned forward tentatively, half on his lap. "I will."

A/N: Whoop. Done. Yay.