Chapter 34: Paranormal Activity

This chapter covers from Ghost World to Homecoming.

Jeremy kept one hand on the ladder as he handed Charlotte a lamp with a lavender shade. Ric coerced them into helping the historical society with hanging the lanterns for the 'night of illuminations'. Tobias Fell, the head of the history department at the school and Ric's boss, had assigned him to bring in student volunteers for the preparations.

"Maybe I should be the one on the ladder," Jeremy said as Lottie stood on her tip toes on the top wrung to reach the tree branch. "I'm taller."

"But I have better balance," she huffed, stretching her arms farther so she could tie the string around the branch.

The right side of the ladder sinking into the mud and slanting to the side had her losing her footing. Dropping the lantern, she flailed her arms trying to keep said balance. Without much grace she toppled off the side, closing her eyes as she fell, her stomach lurched, and her heart pounded against her chest. She never hit the ground. Blinking her eyes open when arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her body into a solid chest, she stared into Jeremy's brown eyes. They were so close she could see the flecks of green in them. Her heart beat wildly, like she was still falling.

"You okay?" Jeremy asked, his breath hitching as his eyes flitting from Lottie's to her pale pink lips slightly parted from the shock of her fall.

"Yeah," she whispered, frozen in place with her face only a few inches from his. "Thanks."

Caroline watched from across the street where her and Bonnie were hanging their own lanterns. She'd turned towards Char as soon as she heard her squeak of momentary terror, but Jeremy beat her to the save. And he still held onto her, seemingly in their own little world. It almost looked like they were going to—

"What's going on there?" Bonnie asked, jolting Caroline out of her thoughts.

"Nothing," Caroline said, watching as Elena interrupted the two. Jeremy released his hold on Char and they followed her towards the center of town, sending each other covert glances while the other wasn't looking.

"That wasn't nothing," Bonnie pressed.

"I know," Caroline said. "But she hasn't said anything to me, which means she hasn't realized it's not nothing."

"And you, pushy, matchmaking Caroline, haven't said anything?" Bonnie asked. Caroline was the spirit incarnate of Emma from Jane Austin's novel. Normally she'd be all over what they'd just seen, forcing it into what she thought it was or should be.

"He's her best friend. I'm not going to do or say anything to jeopardize that." She was staying out of it. No matter how cute the two of them would be together.

…

"Come on, Jer. This could be my way to save Stefan," Elena pleaded.

She'd dragged him and Lottie away, before he could figure out why his heart buzzed like a live wire when he'd caught Lottie, to a brunch with Alaric. It wasn't some weird miss-matched family attempt at bonding thing either, which would have actually been preferable to what she asked him.

"I don't want anything more to do with the ghost world. Besides, I'm not even sure I could contact Lexi. I never met her." The only ghosts he'd ever seen were ones he'd met when they were alive.

"Could you try?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Ric warned.

"And I think this conversation doesn't really pertain to me," Charlotte said. "So, I'm going to go get a refill."

Grabbing her empty glass, she headed inside. Jeremy took the opportunity of Ric and Elena's disagreement to follow her. Anything to avoid giving Elena an answer on the ghost front. He didn't want to be used as a medium to the spirit world. He'd rather ignore it even existed.

As he slipped inside the Grill's door after Charlotte, Anna slinked from the shadows and took the seat he'd vacated. She'd been following Elena ever since the original witch tasked her with finding her necklace. She needed it to keep her foothold, and Elena was the last one who had it. But it wasn't around her skinny little neck, nor was it in her bedroom. So, she had to wait and hope Elena would lead her to it. Hopefully sooner rather than later, as she was bored listening to her going on and on about how to save Stefan Salvatore.

She'd have preferred going with Jeremy and Charlotte. It would be more entertaining to start something so he'd see her than continuing to sit invisible at the table with Elena and the history teacher. Hell, it'd be more interesting to see if they did something about the obvious attraction between them that Elena had interrupted earlier. But that wouldn't be productive. She needed the necklace, and Jeremy and Charlotte weren't going to help her find it.

So, she sat, and she waited. Her patience was rewarded when the ever-annoying Caroline Forbes called asking about said necklace. The Bennett witch needed to destroy it, but she'd have to get it first. Anna already had a head start to the Salvatore Boarding house where it was. With a poof she was in Damon's bedroom. If she was a womanizing, egotistical, overly confident vampire, where would she hide the necklace?

…

"Are you letting me win?" Charlotte asked as she leaned against the pool table. Jeremy had scratched, again.

"Never," Jeremy said, straightening up and watching as she lined up her own shot. "I'm just a little distracted."

"Are you regretting not helping your sister by trying to summon Lexi's ghost?"

"No. Ric was right. It's not a good idea to meddle with the dead. Just look at all the trouble ghosts have caused us so far."

"Anna did help us find Mikael," Lottie pointed out as she missed her shot.

"Doesn't mean she wouldn't try to kill us, again, if I let her in." Ghost vampires were just as untrustworthy as non-ghost ones. Even worse, they couldn't be killed.

Lining up his shot, that time an echo of screams outside had him scratching. Abandoning their game, they joined the chaos outside, trying to figure out what went wrong. Lottie's hand found his with a gasp. Tobias Fell was strung up like a lantern, covered in blood and obviously dead.

Backing away from the crowd, pulling Lottie with him, Jeremy turned to apologize when they bumped into someone only to freeze when he recognized him as one of the tomb vampires. Which was impossible. They were dead.

"Good evening," Frederick greeted the young Gilbert and Forbes. It was just so convenient how the founding families tended to stay together.

Before Jeremy could think of what to do, Lottie's foot hit the vampire-ghost in the side of the head. It was impressive.

"C'mon," she said, pulling him back down the street, away from the ghost she'd just kicked in the head.

"You could see him," Jeremy stated, confused. He thought ghosts were only visible to him because he came back to life.

"Yeah, and obviously I could hit him too. Which means he and any of his ghost buddies can hurt us. They were probably the ones who killed Mr. Fell."

Pulling out her phone, she called Bonnie. If they were going to make sure the town survived tonight, they needed her to banish the ghosties like she did Vicki Donovan.

"In order to send them away, I need Elena's necklace," Bonnie said, her voice a little distorted as it came through the speaker. "Care and I have torn Damon's room apart and we still can't find it."

"Do you think someone would have taken it?" Charlotte asked.

"Who would have known where to look?" Bonnie asked.

"We have been surrounded by ghosts all day." Charlotte pointed out. Any number of them could have overheard a conversation about the necklace and wooshed away to steal it to prevent losing their foothold.

"And it's not like we're on friendly terms with any of them," Jeremy added.

"There is one who is more willing to tolerate us," Charlotte hinted.

Anna had helped them. And if her mom was against the tomb vampires hurting the founding families, maybe Anna would be more sympathetic to helping them in her mother's memory.

"Seriously?" Jeremy asked, catching onto what Lottie was getting at.

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"Fine, I'll try. But not here," Jeremy said, pulling them further away from the main square and the chaos of flashing police lights. He stopped on a side street lit up with lanterns but was otherwise empty.

Hanging up after promising they'd call if they got anywhere, Jeremy closed his eyes and tried his best to reach out to Anna's spirit.

"For someone who didn't want my help, you seem to summon me quite a bit."

"Be nice," Lottie warned him as he opened his mouth to say something sarcastically spiteful.

"Can you help us or not?"

"I can," Anna said, picking at one of her nails. "But I need the foothold as much as the others."

"Why?" Charlotte asked, curious. If Anna had no plans to help them, she could have ignored Jeremy's…summonses. Which meant whatever she needed a foothold for, there was a chance they could help her with it. Otherwise she'd just ignore them. "Why do you need a foothold."

Anna met Charlotte's eyes, surprised she'd called her out.

"My mother. I haven't found her yet. This foothold gives me time to find her."

"If we could help you find your mom, could you help us find Elena's necklace." Anna had done everything possible to get her mom out of the tomb. It made sense she'd give up her foothold here so she could reunite with her mom.

"If you find my mom, I'll give you the damn thing," Anna said, holding up the necklace in question. She pulled it back, clicking her tongue when Jeremy grabbed for it.

"Deal," Charlotte said, causing Jeremy to pull her a step or two away and whisper to her in a hush undertone.

"I don't know if I can promise that. And we really need that necklace."

"Just try to summon Pearl. If you can't, we'll go to plan B," she whispered back.

"What's plan B?"

"No idea yet," she shrugged. "but we'll deal with that after you try to summon her mom."

With a sigh, Jeremy closed his eyes. He had no idea what he was doing. With Anna and Vicki, he just thought of them and poof, they were there. But they'd also been trying to contact him as well. What if it was like a phone call and if Pearl wasn't looking for his call, he couldn't get through. Could he leave a mediator voicemail?

Anna watched Jeremy, her hopes raising a little that he could really help her find her mom. She didn't notice Charlotte circling to her other side as she waited to see her mom. When Jeremy's shoulders sagged and he opened his eyes with a shake of his head, she realized he stood alone without his little blonde sidekick.

As soon as Charlotte realized Jeremy couldn't contact Pearl, she launched herself at Anna. Tangling her right hand in her hair, she yanked hard and reached for the necklace with her other hand. It was a low move to resort to pulling her hair, but it worked. Far better than fighting the traditional way would. Even though, within a second, Anna had flipped them, pushing her hard against the concrete with her hand around her neck. But Charlotte wasn't looking at her, she was busy sending Jeremy a pointed look and praying he'd be able to read her mind.

"Give it back," Anna demanded, tightening her grip.

"Sorry, no can do," Charlotte smirked, holding up her empty hands for Anna to see.

In an instant she was off Charlotte, looking around and finding nothing but the empty street around them. Their daily runs had come in handy. As soon as Jeremy grabbed the necklace from her, he'd sprinted off down the street and jumped over one of the neighboring hedges; on his way to Bonnie. Charlotte wasn't so lucky. She barely made it to the end of the street when Anna tackled her with a frustrated scream.

"Killing me won't get the necklace back," Charlotte tried to reason with her, but Anna wasn't to be reasoned with.

Realizing she couldn't talk her down, Charlotte gave it her all. Bucking and flailing until she elbowed her in the face and got her to loosen her grip, Charlotte took off again, cursing herself for leaving her bag at the Grill with the vervain mace in it. That time, Anna materialized in front of her instead of tackling her. Going on the defensive, she did her best to block Anna's attacks, but she was sorely losing. Her hand was back around Charlotte's neck and squeezing harder than before. Reaching for her face, trying to claw her eyes out in an attempt to have her loosening her grip, didn't work. Black spots were starting to dot her vision when all of a sudden Anna was gone.

"Thank god," she huffed out in a hoarse whisper, collapsing to the ground in a heap.

Seconds later footsteps pounded the pavement behind her.

"I shouldn't have left you," Jeremy said, taking a seat beside her.

"You did exactly what you should have. That was plan B. You have the longer legs, and you're faster."

"Yeah, well no more plans where one of us gets left behind with a murderous supernatural being," he huffed. He'd known what Lottie planned the second she pulled Anna's hair, but that didn't mean he liked the plan.

"You sound so sure it'll happen again," Charlotte said, leaning her head against his shoulder, still trying to catch her breath.

"It's Mystic Falls. It's only a matter of time before it does," he sighed, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

…

With everything going batshit crazy around them, leave it to Caroline to bring a little human normalcy back into their lives. She'd driven the two of them to the outlet mall the next county over for a much-needed day of sisterly bonding. Homecoming was days away, and Caroline insisted they get new dresses for it. So, they went from store to store, gathering dresses in their arms and having impromptu fashion shows as they tried on everything from slinky sexy dresses to poofy Cinderella ones.

"You have to get that one," Caroline exclaimed when Charlotte came out of the dressing rooms in a short, strapless pink dress with a puffy skirt covered in lace and the bodice detailed in tiny pink gems.

"You said that about the last five dresses," Charlotte said with a laugh.

"Forget those dresses, this one is perfect," Caroline insisted, beaming from behind Charlotte as she stood in front of the floor length mirror.

Charlotte got the dress. Caroline was right, it was perfect. And she was even a little giddy about homecoming until she found out Jeremy was scheduled to work the Grill that night. She was going to bail, but Caroline wouldn't let her. Not even when their high school gym was flooded.

She found herself at Tyler's blow out party that replaced their homecoming. The live band was too loud, and it was no fun without Jeremy there, so she wandered the rooms inside aimlessly, waiting until Caroline got into party mode so she could ditch. As she moved through the living room to the dining room, she bumped into someone she hadn't expected to see at a Mystic Falls party.

"Simon?" Charlotte yelled over the music, crossing her arms as he turned to face her.

"Charlotte," Simon said, his eyes going wide. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, this is my school's homecoming. What are you doing here?"

"Klaus invited me."

Charlotte's blood ran cold at the mention of Klaus. She thought he'd been out of town for the foreseeable future.

"Klaus is here?" She glanced around as if she even knew what he looked like. "Wait, how do you even know Klaus?"

Ignoring her questions, he took her by the arm and led her to a quieter corner in the front of the house.

"You need to go," he said.

It wasn't until then she realized he wasn't just leading her towards a quieter corner. He was taking her to the front door.

"You can't kick me out of my own homecoming," she said, yanking her arm free from his grip. "And don't touch me."

"I'm being serious, you need to go," he said, reaching for her arm again.

"I'm not going anywhere. Especially not with you," she said. Before he could touch her again, she turned and used her momentum to send a sucker punch to his stomach. He let out a small groan, his eyes flashing gold and dark veins spreading under his eyes.

"Oh my god," she muttered as she watched the veins disappear. "You're a hybrid."

"Now you know how I know Klaus," he said grimly. "I can't tell you why, but you have to trust me, you need to leave."

She was stunned enough he was able to drag her out to the front lawn before she came back to her stubborn senses. Honestly, he was trying to keep her from being mauled to death by the Hybrids, including him.

"Trust you," she scoffed. "You were going to let my dad torture and or kill my sister. You left Jeremy and me locked in my dad's basement so I couldn't help her. Nothing you've done gives me any reason to trust you."

"Klaus is here. I'm a hybrid. Do the math. If you have any self-preservation, use it and leave. Now."

He was serious. Klaus was planning something. And that meant nothing good for anyone at the party.

"I'm not going to just let him hurt innocent people." Sure, she didn't know half the people there. But part of that was because half of them were hybrids. The rest were innocent humans just trying to salvage their homecoming.

"You're not really in a position to stop him. Do you even know what he looks like," he pointed out. "Besides, even if you tried, you'd have hundreds of hybrids on you for just attempting to hurt him. Two hundred hybrids against one human, do you like those odds?"

"You're a butthead," she grumbled, crossing her arms. "Fine, I'll go. But I'm not leaving without Caroline."

That was non-negotiable. Still, he looked like he was about to fight her on that, when Matt came out the front door carrying an unconscious Caroline.

"What happened," Charlotte asked, ignoring Simon as Matt stopped beside her, shifting his hold on Care.

"Tyler vervained her and told me to take you both home." At least now he wouldn't have to go back in and try to find her in that crowd.

"Tyler did that?" she asked. Klaus must really be planning something if Tyler had vervained Care. He'd never do that to her unless he was desperate.

"Yeah, you coming?" Matt asked, motioning towards his truck.

"Just give me a minute," she said, turning back to Simon.

"I told you," Simon started, cut short when Charlotte kneed him in the balls. Grasping them, he was doubled over when she threw a right hook to his left eye.

"I don't care what Klaus tells you to do. You stay away from my family," she spat out before turning on her heel.

"Nice punch," Matt complimented with a smile when she slid into the cab of his truck.

"Thanks," she said, buckling her seatbelt before easing Care's head into her lap.

The drive back to town was silent until they passed by the main square and Charlotte asked Matt to stop. He gave her a quizzical look as she hopped out of the cab, but she assured him she'd be fine. She had a hankering for a burger and fries.

It was late, and the Grill was practically empty. She could see Jeremy wiping down empty tables from the front window. He didn't turn around until she crossed the Grill, her heels thudding against the hardwood floor.

"Lottie," he said, surprised. With the dance tonight, he hadn't expected to see her. His eyes swept over her, from her sparkly heels to her loose side swept hair. She looked incredible.

"Is it too late to put in an order?" She asked.

"Not for you," he said with a heart stuttering smile. "Take a seat. I'll get your order in."

Sliding into one of the booths, Charlotte straightened when Jeremy came back with a tray of food and two cokes. He slid into the booth across from her, picking at her fries and making her laugh by recounting stories of the earlier patrons. Crossing her ankles under the table, she smiled at the turn of events. Sitting in the Grill sharing a burger with Jeremy was so much better than any Homecoming dance.

A/N: hey all. I had so much fun writing this chapter…especially the first part ;) so I hope you guys enjoyed it. With each chapter am more and more excited for whats to come with season 3. Though, I haven't decided how to press forward once we get to around episode 11. I have two options one involving both of them staying for the big fancy mikealson ball and the other following the plot of Jeremy going to Denver. Any opinions or preferences on that part? As always thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following this story. And if you're curious about Charlotte's homecoming getup I'll post an outfit collage to my Instagram (gracelesslyfalling) and pinterest page (swan princess by gracelesslyfalling)

Rach

xoxo