In the evening and after Jeremy had spent the whole day locked up in his bedroom, trying to translate parts of Mr. Bell's journal, he finally decided to give up. It was then when Kylie texted, asking him to come over to her house to work on it together. Jeremy hesitated before giving her an actual answer. He was worried about finding out something important in front of Kylie. This journal was a map leading straight inside the world of the supernatural, a mad world that Kylie wasn't a part of, a world that could hurt her. He couldn't let her discover the secrets hidden inside that journal; he didn't have the right to put her life in danger. But then again, Kylie was his friend, his only friend and this was a decision he could never take for her… Plus for all he knew Mr. Bell could have written in Ancient Greek his grandmother's cookie recipe and not a deadly vampire secret that could blow up the whole entire world.
"Cookies it is" Jeremy muttered to himself while texting Kylie back with a simple, 'see you in an hour'.
He stuffed all the copies of the journal and the notes he kept with the progress he made, into his schoolbag and slowly headed downstairs. He was too lazy and his leg was in too much pain to wander around the house with the hope to find one of the Salvatore brothers, so instead, he walked to the middle of the entrance hall, cleared his throat and yelled at the top of his voice, "HELP! SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO KILL ME!"
All the way from upstairs, he heard Stefan's bedroom door swung open and soon after he saw Stefan in the flesh appear in front of him out of thin air.
"What happened? Is it a vampire?" Stefan whispered to him, staring wildly around, his ears waiting tensely for the smallest sound.
"I was joking" Jeremy whispered back, imitating Stefan's agitated voice.
Stefan straightened up immediately, looking affronted. "What is wrong with you?" he grabbed Jeremy by the shoulders and shook him hard.
"Have you seen Damon?" asked Jeremy, pulling away from Stefan.
"He just left" said Stefan grumpily.
"Great…" Jeremy muttered disappointedly.
"Is there something you need? Can I help you?" Stefan's annoyance vanished off his face within seconds and he looked genuinely willing to assist Jeremy in whatever he needed.
"Umm, yeah, actually. Can you drive me over to Kylie's house? I'd walk but you know…" he looked pointedly at his crutches.
"Sure" Stefan walked over to the little hook by the door, where he and Damon used to keep their car keys. (Jeremy's were locked in Stefan's room).
Jeremy followed Stefan to his car and sat up front, his eyes staring outside the window in an attempt to show Stefan he was not eager to start a conversation.
"What do you think about the new schedule?" Stefan asked soon after, looking expectantly at Jeremy's blank expression.
"Love it" said Jeremy, sarcasm dripping off his voice. "You should really get a hobby. Klaus is painting, so did Hitler…maybe you should give it a try"
"Do you have any questions?" Stefan asked dismissively, ignoring Jeremy's last comment.
"About Hitler?"
"The schedule!" he barked at him.
"Not really…" said Jeremy with a look as though he was seriously considering the question.
"Would you like to discuss the details?"
"Not really…"
"Did you even read it?" said Stefan in a voice of determined calmness.
"Not really…" said Jeremy, as he gazed sleepily into space.
"I signed you up for ballet lessons" Stefan announced at once, his hands clenching the wheel a little tighter than needed, giving out the impression he was trying to strangle it.
"What?" Jeremy jumped onto his seat, looking positively alarmed.
"Yeah, Elena agreed. You'll look good in pink" Stefan continued pleasantly.
"You're joking" said Jeremy, though he didn't sound completely convinced. He knew that he could expect pretty much everything from Stefan and his sister.
"Yes, unfortunately I'm joking. But it's good to have your attention back" said Stefan thoroughly annoyed, watching Jeremy sink back into his seat, looking relieved. "Though I did sign you up for some extra art classes"
Jeremy looked at Stefan for a few seconds, having nothing to say. He was afraid to admit even to himself how much he actually liked that idea. For a long time now he was considering to get a professional art class, but every time he tried to be a little closer to normal, something catastrophic would happen. First there was the whole moonstone search, then Jenna died, then he chopped somebody's head off on the front porch of his house and got sent to Denver and then his sister became a vampire, leaving him no time to worry about extracurricular activities.
"Is that the house?" Stefan stopped his car at the side of the road and slid down his window to stare at a two-storey, white house.
"Yeah" said Jeremy hurrying to open the door, when Stefan grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.
"Not so fast" he said, eyeing Jeremy from the top of his spiky hair to his dislocated leg. "Where is your ring?"
"Are you serious?" Jeremy laughed and went for the door, only to realize that Stefan had locked the whole car. "What the hell?!"
"Trust me Jeremy; I don't like this any more than you do, so let's just get it over with" said Stefan wearily, rubbing his eyes, "Where is your ring?"
Jeremy rolled his eyes, but raised his hand in midair showing off the immortality ring on his finger.
"Painkillers" said Stefan commandingly.
Jeremy put his hand inside the pocked of his hoodie and took out the little pill container, making sure Stefan could see it before he threw it back inside.
"Cellphone"
"In my bag, can I go now?" said Jeremy in a bored voice.
"Good" Stefan nodded, "Take care, be careful, don't dislocate your other leg and I'll be here at ten"
"Can't wait" said Jeremy sarcastically and pulled the door open.
Relieved to finally get out of that car and away from Stefan's unpleasant company, Jeremy used his crutches to climb the small steps up the porch and knocked on Kylie's front door. The door opened with a small creak, revealing Kylie in her power ranger pajamas and an enormous grin upon her face,
"Hey common in" Kylie moved aside, kissing Jeremy softly on the cheek, "how is your leg?"
"Its fine" Jeremy replied, slightly blushing from the unexpected kiss, "how are you?"
"Good. My parents are out. So, did you find anything?" asked Kylie as she led the way to her bedroom.
"Well, it's hard to say, the whole thing is in Ancient Greek. Spend the whole night trying to translate parts of it" Jeremy got inside Kylie's room and carefully sat on the edge of her bed. He was relieved to see that the girl's room was almost as messy as his own, with clothes, comic books and action figures all over the floor. Her walls were filled with superhero and Ryan Gosling posters while, a huge collection of stuffed animals were looking dangerously at him from the top of her desk.
"Ancient Greek? Does he speak Ancient Greek?" asked Kylie skeptically.
"Seems like it" Jeremy shrugged and bent down to unzip his schoolbag. "See for yourself" he pulled out the copies of Mr. Bell's journal and handed them over to the girl.
"Nice sketches" Kylie commented, looking inexpressibly at an anatomical sketch of a vampire, "he is a proper weirdo"
"That he is" Jeremy shook his head, very relieved that Kylie took this view.
"Okay, yeah, that is definitely Ancient Greek…" said Kylie thoughtfully, her eyes moving fast from side to side.
"What? Do you speak Ancient Greek too or something?" asked Jeremy mockingly, playing with one of Kylie's Barbie dolls.
"No, but I know somebody who does"
Jeremy jumped up to his feet, looking alarmed. That journal was supposed to be a secret; he couldn't allow to a whole bunch of strangers brainstorming over it.
"Relax, it's my dad" said Kylie hastily, "he is an archeologist"
"And how exactly are we going to explain to your dad getting possession of that journal" said Jeremy rather accusingly, "best case scenario he is confiscating the journal, worst case…" Jeremy's voice died in his throat, he didn't even want to think of the worst.
"Okay, then plan B" said Kylie, frowning in effort to remember, "I think my dad has some of his books in the office, we could use them to translate the journal by ourselves"
"Sounds good, let's go" said Jeremy throwing Kylie's Barbie doll on top of her bed and followed the girl outside the room.
He limped down the stairs to the open living room and went through the first door. Jeremy entered the office cautiously after Kylie, taking a second to look around the dark, green walls surrounding him. "When are your parents coming home?" he asked, shutting the door behind him.
"In a couple hours" said Kylie uncertainly, walking to the desk and a few laid down boxes. "We haven't cleared up all the boxes from the move yet" she said getting a few dusty and heavy looking tomes out of the first box.
Jeremy sat down on the floor and placed the copies and the notes in the same order they were inside Mr. Bell's journal.
"Where do we start?" Kylie crouched down beside Jeremy, setting down two of the tomes.
"I say we start from here" Jeremy placed his finger on the phrase under the sketch of the tree and the names of the Original family.
"Mikaelson" Kylie read out loud, "what does that mean?"
"I don't know" said Jeremy at once, "probably a name. Let's focus on the phrase" he pointed at the phrase one more time.
"Son of Mikael" Kylie muttered quietly, before opening the first of her dad's books. Jeremy got the second book and like Kylie, he buried his face inside it.
The first five hundred pages on each tome were about grammar, turning this seemingly exciting research to a real bore. "There must be an easier way to do this. Can't we just post the pictures on the internet and wait for somebody to tell us what it means?" Kylie whined, pinching herself to keep awake.
"Huh?" Jeremy looked up at her, after spending the last ten minutes reading the exact same phrase without realizing it. "No" he said dismissively and glared back at the phrase. That same, lazy idea occurred to him too last night, but after all, having top vampire secrets in open view all over the internet couldn't be such a wise thing to do. They had to find the answers by themselves.
Finally, after going through five abnormally big tomes, things started to look up.
"Oh my god!" Kylie shrieked excitedly, almost causing Jeremy a heart attack. "Look at this" she pointed somewhere in the middle of page three hundred and eighty-two. "It's the first and the last words of the phrase"
Jeremy took the book off her hands and looked at the words the girl was indicating.
"Θάνατος" Jeremy read.
"It means death" said Kylie knowledgably, clearly very proud of her discovery, "It's the first word, and here is the last one, "ζῆν"
"Life…" Jeremy read quietly, looking from the phrase to the book, to make sure those were the right words.
"Only two hours later and we have 'Death' and 'Life', what a productive way to spend Saturday night" said Kylie mockingly, but Jeremy wasn't listening.
"Jeremy…" Kylie waved her hands in front of his face, trying to get Jeremy's attention, "did you think of something?"
"Where is your history book?" Jeremy snapped all of the sudden.
"Umm…upstairs, why?"
"Bring it here" said Jeremy hotly, looking back at the two words.
Kylie knew him all too well to understand she was never going to get a proper answer out of him before she brought him that book, so she ran back to her room at top speed and returned to the office only seconds later. "Here" she threw the book at Jeremy.
Jeremy didn't open it though; he only looked at the cover. His heart sank.
"Θάνατος οὐδὲν διαφέρει τοῦ ζῆν" he read from the side of the cover, "Life is no different than death" he couldn't help but feel like a complete idiot, this whole time the answer he was looking was right in front of his face and he simply ignored it, because he didn't like history but mostly Mr. Bell.
Kylie remained silent, her mouth slightly open.
"What do you think it means?" she asked at last. "Is it another code for something?"
"I think it means exactly what it says" said Jeremy dropping his voice. If according to this saying, life and death meant the exact same thing then maybe, death wasn't that far from where they all stood.
"I think he is a psycho" said Kylie, as Jeremy stared at the ceiling waiting for inspiration to come.
"Who is a psycho?" the door of the office suddenly opened and a man around his early forties appeared on the threshold, his gaze lingered upon Jeremy who gulped and sat up a little straighter, alarmed looking.
"Just some teacher, he gave us extra work for the weekend" said Kylie with a small smile, "this is my friend, Jeremy" she indicated Jeremy, "Jeremy, this is my dad"
The boy pulled himself up using his crutches and shook Mr. Atkins's hand.
"Nice to meet you, Sir" said Jeremy, while Kylie got to her knees and hastily gathered all the books and papers, before her dad could have the chance to take a glimpse of what they were truly working on.
"I own a shotgun" said Mr. Atkins savagely, his yellowish eyes deeply staring into Jeremy's.
Jeremy looked around at Kylie and then back at Mr. Atkins, who was still holding his hand rather aggressively.
"Okay…" he said not knowing whether how to react to this statement.
"That's something for you to keep in mind, for as long as you are hanging around my daughter" Mr. Atkins explained and with one last glare, he left Jeremy's hand.
Kylie had just finished with the books and zipped back Jeremy's schoolbag, before handing it over to him.
Together, the three of them walked to the living room, where another man was standing, looking at the TV. Jeremy didn't need to be told to know this was Kylie's other dad and even though he knew perfectly well that Kylie wasn't biologically related to neither of them, he couldn't not notice that Mr. Atkins looked very much like Kylie. He was a normal size, kind looking man with dark blond hair, brown eyes and a face full of tiny freckles.
He smiled broadly at Jeremy and shook his hand, under the threatening look of Kylie's other dad.
"You must be Jeremy, I heard a lot about you" he said friendly. "You should stay for some late dinner"
"No!" said Kylie and Jeremy together, very loudly.
"Then it's settled" Mr. Atkins clapped his hands, "we can't wait to learn everything about you Jeremy"
Dinner in the company of Mr. and Mr. Atkins at Kylie's house was not a pleasant experience for neither of the kids. Kylie kept looking awkwardly at her plate, mouthing apologies to Jeremy every five minutes, while Jeremy himself was trying to answer to all of the personal questions Mr. and Mr. Atkins seemed so fervent to ask.
"How long have you been living in Mystic Falls, Jeremy" asked Mr. Atkins with an indulgent smile.
"My whole life, Sir" said Jeremy, looking at his watch every two seconds, trying to make time go faster, but somehow managing to accomplish the exact opposite.
"You should call me George, I'm not that old" said George, looking pointedly at Mr. Atkins, whose eyes were scrutinizing Jeremy's every move.
"Where do you live?" asked Mr. Atkins threateningly.
"Umm…the Salvatore boarding house" said Jeremy in a deeply resentful voice.
"Salvatore? I used to know a Salvatore, Zach" said Mr. Atkins with a frown, "real jerk he was" he added, looking severely over at Jeremy as though it was his fault Zach Salvatore was a jerk. "So, please tell me young Jeremy, what is a Salvatore doing in my house?"
"Uh…" Jeremy murmured, looking across the table at Kylie, who was sitting with her hands covering her face, pretending to be invisible. "Actually, I'm a Gilbert if that's any consolation"
"Very well, dear. How do you like school?" said George, trying desperately to bring back the friendly atmosphere.
"What is your relation to the Salvatores?" Mr. Atkins spoke over him, his eyes darted on Jeremy.
"Damon Salvatore is his dad" said Kylie hurriedly, deciding it was about time to be a part of this conversation.
"Guardian, actually" Jeremy corrected her, putting down his fork.
"Not a big difference" said George soothingly.
"I've heard of your father around town. He is a close friend with the sheriff and the major" said Mr. Atkins with the air of a person that is trying to remember something highly unpleasant. "He sure is a real Salvatore"
"Not all Salvatores are bad" said Jeremy louder than he had intended. His face felt hot, though he had no idea why that comment about Damon made him so angry. It's not that Damon wasn't a dick like Zach, but having to hear Mr. Atkins say that, made something in his stomach twist. That man didn't know Damon; he didn't have the right to say anything bad about him just yet.
"Peter is going to be working with the Major in the town hall starting on Monday" George informed Jeremy, smiling proudly at his husband. "So, I guess he and your father will be seeing a lot of each other"
Jeremy almost chocked on his juice. "Great…" he forced himself to say, making a mental note to later beg Damon not to kill Kylie's dad.
"We should go" said Kylie, before her dads had the chance to bring up another uncomfortable topic.
"Yeah" Jeremy jumped up, feeling internally grateful to Kylie for saying these words.
"What happened to your leg?" asked George, watching Jeremy grab his crutches from the side of the table.
"I tripped" said Jeremy mechanically; he and Kylie carefully avoiding to look at each other.
"You should be more careful" said Mr. Atkins venomously, with a last threatening look.
"I'm so sorry, I can't begin to describe how sorry I'm" started Kylie, once they were out of the house, standing on the front porch.
"You should really stop apologizing about family. Especially after you met the people I live with" said Jeremy; keeping his eyes open for Stefan's car, having no doubt that Stefan would be there right on time.
"Still, I'm so sorry. They are not usually like that. It's just you are a boy and they worry"
Jeremy looked at his watch, it was ten o'clock exactly and as expected he saw Stefan's car lights from afar, illuminating the dark road.
P.S. Hey there guys. I'm here to inform you that due to family vacations, I won't have internet and unfortunately won't be able to upload a new chapter for at least the next 12 days. Thank you all so very much for taking time off your life to read this story, like it and review, it really means a lot. Hope you all have an amazing couple of weeks. Take care and see you very soon with a new chapter that's called "Parent-Teacher conference" :D :D :D