AN: I don't own The Vampire Diaries, any of the characters or the plot, that belongs to Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson. I solely own Dana and Veronica. All rights go to their original owners.
After timidly taking a moment to brush some of her dark coloured hair away from her face, Veronica slowly approached the closed wooden door that was supposedly the entrance to Alaric's apartment, her breath once again catching in her throat. Panicking slightly, the witch glanced around, knowing that she probably shouldn't be here. She could quite easily get into a lot of trouble for being here, as could Alaric, and she knew that she should probably turn on her heel and just deal with this by herself. She shouldn't get Alaric involved in all of this drama, given that he had enough to deal with by himself, but Veronica couldn't help it. In those moments, she found herself needing emotional support more than ever. Coming out of her thoughts, the young witch glanced down at the post-it note that she held tightly in her right hand, the one that she had scribbled Alaric's address down on little over an hour ago, wanting to double check that she had the right address.
She did.
After taking a moment to once again fiddle with her hair in an almost panicky manner, the young Bennett witch forced herself to bring her hand up and softly knock on the door before she had a chance to turn on her heel and run off in the other direction like every nerve and part of her body was begging her to do. Her heart was in her throat as she waited, each second being dragged out to the point wherein they felt like hours, her nervous mind jumping around whilst she waited. What if she had written the address down wrong? What if Alaric had just been kidding about agreeing to help her? What if he'd decided to spend his day doing something else whilst he'd been waiting for her to show up? Forcing herself to let out shaky and irregular breaths in a failed attempt to calm herself down, the young Bennett witch focused her eyes on the large silver nine that was the only noticeable difference between the door to Alaric's apartment and that of the others on his floor due to all of the doors being a rather bland and unextraordinary brown colour and by the seems of it, were all made out of the same oak material. As Veronica continued to stand there, internally panicking the longer that she waited in front of the closed door, she contemplated turning on her heel and just leaving.
However, before she had more than a chance to take a small step back and lightly glance down at the staircase that would lead her to her freedom and escape from the embarrassment that she knew she was going to end up bringing on herself, the door opened. Veronica almost immediately turned back to face the open doorway, a small smile pulling at her lips as she caught sight of Alaric stood before her, dressed casually in a dark blue shirt and jeans. As Alaric's eyes settled on the much shorter Bennett girl, he returned the smile, with his having a noticeable warmth behind it. "Hey, Ronnie." He greeted her politely, as his expression softened and he stepped out of the way, giving the young girl a brief insight into his apartment. "Come in." He spoke with a small bob of his head, gesturing inside the apartment.
Wrapping her arms around herself timidly as her heart continued to loudly pound within her chest, Veronica slowly stepped inside, looking back at Alaric as he slowly closed the door behind her. "Are you okay? You sounded really panicky on the phone." Alaric almost immediately asked. "I mean, you had me worried for a few moments, I thought you were actually crying." Veronica once again weakly smiled at his response, as she gently nodded.
"I… I'm fine, thank you, Mr Saltzman." Veronica responded politely. "It's just… I'm overprotective when it comes to her. I know that's incredibly sad and that she almost definitely doesn't need my protection most of the time because she can handle herself, but I can't help it. Especially now that I know that vampires are real. She didn't come back from her date last night, and I've been freaking out ever since worrying about what might have happened to her. I mean, I get that it's perfectly logical and more sensible that she probably just stayed over at Ben's place, or Care's and forgot to tell me, but other than my Grams, she's really the only family I have." Veronica soon realised that she was rambling once more, cutting herself off before she got too deep into the reasons why she was quite so protective of Bonnie and her Grams, and why her parents weren't around. The very last thing that Alaric needed at that moment in time was an emotional Bennett witch in his apartment freaking out about something she probably shouldn't even be stressing about.
"S-Sorry, I'm rambling again, I… I really need to know when to shut up. I just get like this sometimes." Veronica apologised meekly, her brown eyes returning to Alaric as the teacher merely shook his head in response to her comments. Silently, he approached her, and lightly placed his larger hand on the young woman's upper shoulder, a gesture that he had done so many times in the past and was just perfect for how fearful the young witch was in those moments. Once again, his eyes met hers as he gave her a weak smile of attempted comfort, something that Veronica was insanely grateful for.
"Well, even if it does turn out that she just stayed at some boy's house, I'm sure Bonnie will appreciate you looking out for her. And maybe it'll remind her to call her family the next time that she decides to do so." Alaric commented in what was clearly supposed to be a reassuring tone, causing a feeble laugh to come from Veronica in response. "And, if that's not what happened, if it does turn out that the vampires took her, then we'll find her. Team Bennett-Saltzman never fails." Alaric added on jokingly, another slightly stronger laugh falling from Veronica in response to his comment and the oddly cute nickname that he'd given the pair of them.
"We need to come up with a better team name." She spoke softly in what was supposed to be her attempt at a light hearted tone, although from the soft chuckle that Alaric let out upon hearing her words, he apparently appreciated the joke despite her not saying it in the right manner.
"Hmm, well, when we spend another evening researching or something, we'll come up with a list of team names. As long as it's not anything too cliché like 'The Super Amazing Team', then I'm sure I'll be fine with whatever we come up with." Alaric spoke playfully, causing the witch to let out a laugh once more, feeling slightly disappointed as the teacher gently pulled his hand away from her upper arm and allowed it to drop down by his side. "I, uh, I made you coffee. I remember you saying that you always turn to it in a time of crisis, so I figured it'd help." Alaric commented with a softness held in his tone, Veronica's large brown eyes slightly widening as she realised that he'd actually remembered the nervous little ramble that she'd had the night before about how much she liked coffee. He actually had been paying attention to what she'd said. The mere thought was enough to get her heart racing within her chest once more, as a slightly shy blush pulled at her cheeks.
"Th-Thank you, that's really kind of you, Sir." Veronica responded gratefully, as the teacher gestured over in the direction of the breakfast bar and the few stools that were gathered around the far end, with it not taking long for the witch to notice the piece of paper that appeared to be a newly printed map that was beside the dark blue coffee mug that was giving off tiny amounts of steam to reveal that it was still warm. Slowly she approached the bar and sat down on one of the nearest stool after placing her bag on the counter, Alaric following after her as he sat down on the opposite side to her, the kind smile never once leaving his expression as he did so. The mere moment that the young Bennett girl had sat down, she gently brushed the back of her hand against the coffee mug to make sure that it wasn't scalding hot, before she picked it up and took a small sip of the warm brown liquid. A small sigh of relief fell from her lips as the familiar comforting liquid slid down her throat, just taking a few moments to enjoy the drink that she had used so many times in the past to bring her reassurance whenever anything in her life was giving her stress. Her large brown eyes soon went to Alaric as she gently placed the mug down on the counter once more, the blush now far more noticeable on her cheeks as she realised that her addiction to coffee would probably seem a bit weird to him. It was probably just another reason for him to view her as being slightly strange.
Her large chocolate coloured eyes met his dark blue ones from across the bar, a clearly shy look held on her expression as despite all of her best intentions, she found herself getting lost within his sapphire coloured eyes. She wasn't even entirely sure what it was about his eyes that were so insanely beautiful or alluring to her, she couldn't really begin to put it into words, but she knew that there was something there that drew her in every time their eyes met.
Perhaps it was the little twinkle that would appear in his eyes every time he laughed or showed any form of happiness, the little crinkles that would form at the very edges of his eyes each time he smiled at her, or just the amazing colour that his eyes were. Sure, she had seen blue eyes before. Matt was pretty infamous for his bright blue eyes, as was Caroline, but there was something about Alaric's dark blue ones that seemed to contain so many other flecks of different colours that held her attention and could easily get her heart racing in excitement. Her breath almost immediately hitched in her throat at the sudden realisation that it wasn't just her gazing into his eyes, but he appeared to be looking back at her with the same level of interest that she held as she looked at him, although Veronica strongly doubted it. Her eyes were nowhere near as pretty as his. They were just a deep brown colour, nothing very interesting, exotic or beautiful in her opinion. He probably wasn't even looking at her like that. He was probably just looking at her and wondering why she was staring at him in such a peculiar manner, a realisation that caused her to shyly break eye contact with him and look down at her coffee once more, trying her absolute hardest to hide the blush that was slowly beginning to form across her expression.
"It… It's perfect. Th-Thank you." Veronica shyly mumbled, glancing up through her dark curtain of hair to see Alaric softly smiling at her and giving a gentle nod in response to her words.
"You're very welcome, Ronnie." The teacher spoke softly, as Veronica took another small sip from the warm liquid, her attention soon going to the map before her, trying to find something else to focus on before she embarrassed herself further. After placing down the cup of coffee once more, being incredibly careful in her movements, she opened her bag and pulled out the large spell book that Dana had given her and putting it down on the nearby smooth wooden countertop. "So, what are you actually going to do? A tracking spell?" Alaric's voice curiously asked, causing Veronica to look up at him once more, softly nodding in response.
"This book, it, um, belonged to my grandmother's sister. In here, she calls it an adaptation of a locator spell, but I suppose that tracking spell basically means the same thing. I'm pretty sure she calls it that at one point." Veronica explained softly, beginning to gently flick through the pages in an attempt to find the spell that she had been looking at mere moments before she'd left the house, wanting to be incredibly careful so that she wouldn't risk damaging the pages. The very last thing that she wanted to do was destroy this important part of her family's history. "I've… I've never done it before, so this might go horrifically wrong. If… If that does happen, if it looks like the spell is getting too much for me, I'm going to need you to pull me back, if… if you don't mind, Mr Saltzman." Veronica requested softly. She hadn't done very much magic since she'd found out that she was a witch, so she had no idea if this spell was beyond her limits or not. "Of-Of course, you don't have to do that if you don't want to. I wouldn't want to put you to too much trouble." The young witch mumbled shyly, coming to a stop once she had found the page that had the spell on it, the incantation and instructions written in the scruffy handwriting that she had since come to recognise as belonging to Janine.
"What do I need to do?" Alaric asked gently, causing Veronica's large brown eyes to look over at the teacher, giving him a tiny smile to thank him for being willing to help her out with this spell as she knew it would have been much easier for him to just leave her to it.
"I think just taking hold of my shoulders should work. Physically move me away from the spell. From what I've experienced, not that I've done a lot of magic, it's like a trance. Moving me should break that trance." The young Bennett girl explained with a slightly rambling nature to her words, her lightly trembling fingers coming up to brush some of her dark coloured hair behind her ear timidly. "Could… Could you get me a knife? Or something sharp?" She requested, soon realising that her request sounded a bit violent, something that she hadn't intended to happen. Regardless, Alaric nodded and rose to his feet, soon picking out a small knife from one of the nearby drawers.
"So, is this where you stab me?" Alaric questioned jokingly, as Veronica laughed softly in response, delicately taking hold of the knife as he held it out to her and placing it down next to the map.
"Not today, Mr Saltzman." The Bennett girl responded in her own light hearted tone, a slightly playful glint held within her dark brown eyes, with her taking that moment to appreciate just how much his presence had calmed her down. After just spending a little bit of time with him, she didn't feel as though she was on the verge of having a panic attack anymore. Alaric chuckled at her comment, sitting back down opposite her soon afterwards. After giving a shaking and slightly nervous breath, the Bennett girl took another noticeably larger sip from her coffee, before moving the mug completely out of the way of the set-up spell to make sure that she didn't risk knocking it over when she performed the spell. After shooting Alaric another small glance, she slowly picked up the knife, allowing her dark brown eyes to close. Quietly, the young witch began to recite the spell under her breath, soon using the knife to cut into her palm as the blood that connected her to Bonnie would be the thing that would enable her to locate her sister. As the cold metal pierced the smooth skin of her palm, the witch winced and gave a whimper of pain, refusing to allow the stinging pain that was now radiating through her body to prevent her from doing this spell. Bonnie's wellbeing was more important to her than any pain that she might experience and thus she continued to softly mumble the incantation to the tracking spell, the initially complicated looking words flowing off her tongue with ease as the familiar sensation of magic ran through her body.
She made herself recite the spell exactly four times, believing that would be enough time to enable the spell to do whatever it needed to do, her eyes partially opening to look down at the map before her. The Bennett's heart gave a nervous flutter within her chest as she saw that the drops of blood that she had dropped onto the map had moved from where she had dropped them, evidenced by the faint crimson streaks that marked the piece of paper, with them now being placed over what appeared to be a motel on the map. Her attention went to Alaric, noticing the clear look of admiration that the teacher appeared to have within his eyes as he looked up from the map that he had previously been staring at, to look at Veronica. "I don't think that I'm ever going to get used to seeing you do magic." He commented in a joking manner. "It's… It's weird, but absolutely incredible what you can do, Veronica." Bashfully, Veronica blushed noticeably as her eyes glanced down at her hands for a few moments, a smile pulling at her lips almost automatically as a result of his compliment.
"Thank you." Veronica commented, her voice barely even audible due to the timid shake that it held as she looked down at the map once more, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied the location where her sister supposedly was. Why was her sister at the tiny motel on the outside of town? It didn't make any form of sense. The young witch opened her mouth to speak, before the sound of her phone ringing within her bag reached her ears, causing her to delve into the faded blue satchel bag and pull out her phone. She couldn't help but become more confused upon seeing that it was Elena calling her, but she just supposed that the girl wanted to ask her about how Bonnie's date had gone, as she soon accepted the call. "Hey, Lena." Veronica greeted the person on the other end, presuming that it would be her friend, with her entire body tensing as she heard a voice that was almost definitely not Elena's on the other end.
"Hello, Veronica. Remember me?" Anna's voice asked coldly, causing a sensation of panic and worry to run through the Bennett witch, her eyes noticeably widening. The response of the young woman earned a look of slight confusion from the history teacher opposite her, as Veronica soon shakily got onto her feet, her knees nervously trembling beneath her.
"Anna? Why do you have Elena's phone?" Veronica inquired, now feeling incredibly confused about what was going on. Had something bad happened to Elena? Had she gone missing too? Anna let out a laugh in an almost mocking manner, apparently being able to pick up on the nervousness that the Bennett witch was experiencing due to the fearful tremble that she had within her voice.
"Well, Elena's not important right now, Ronnie. All that you need to know is that I have your dear big sister, and Elena exactly where I want them to be. I know that you'll have done a tracking spell by now to try and find her, so I know that you know exactly where she is." Anna answered with an almost sociopathic level of calmness, with the Bennett witch feeling her heart virtually stop within her chest as a result of the revelation from the female. Her instincts had been correct, her sister was in danger. "I need someone to get me into that tomb, Veronica, and you and your sister are going to do just that. If you don't want me to kill Elena, that is. Maybe once I've killed her, I'll stop by and visit that teacher that you seem to be so fond of. I'm sure that I'll have a lot of fun killing him too if you don't do exactly what I say. Or maybe I'll even go to Jeremy's." Anna instructed, with Veronica giving a fearful glance back in Alaric's direction, finding herself caught in a dilemma. She knew that opening the tomb wouldn't just let out Katherine, it would also let out all of the vampires that were down there, that had been starving for centuries. Hundreds of people, the entire town, would be in danger if she let them out but at the same time she didn't want Elena, Jeremy or Alaric to suffer. She cared about all of them dearly, with both of the Gilbert siblings and the history teacher that had recently entered her life being incredibly close to her. She couldn't let them die for her.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Veronica's brown eyes met Alaric's for a few moments, clearly feeling hesitant about what she was about to do. It took her a few moments, before she softly responded, "What do you want me to do?" She felt sick to her stomach about agreeing to this, not wanting to help Anna or any of her presumably vampire friends to open the tomb, but she knew that she had no choice. If she wanted to guarantee that Alaric, Elena, Jeremy and even Bonnie were going to be safe from harm, then she had to help them open the tomb.
"Well, that was far easier than I presumed it would be. If I'm correct and you've done the tracking spell, head to the place that the spell pointed out. The motel, room 16. Go alone, with no weapons. No tricks, unless you want Elena to have a snapped neck. I have a little friend looking after your sister and Katherine's double, and he's expecting you." Anna demanded, with Veronica weakly nodding in response, placing her book into her satchel bag. "Go now. I'm in the town square, and if I don't get a call from my friend within the next half an hour telling me that you've arrived, I'll stop by and say hello to Mr Saltzman. I'm far more powerful than he is, even with all of his fancy weapons." Anna commanded with an eerily instructive tone, with Veronica having to force herself to swallow down the large lump that had formed within her throat in order to speak once more.
"I'll be there. There's no need for you to hurt him. Please. Leave him out of this." Veronica virtually begged, causing Anna to once again mockingly laugh at the witch's pleading.
"Wow, you really are as pathetic as I thought you were. Half an hour, Veronica. Or I start killing those that you care about." Anna concluded, with the call soon coming to an end. The Bennett girl's shaking hands brought her phone down, making sure that the call had ended as her attention returned to Alaric, the pure terror and upset that she was feeling in those moments evident on her expression. Alaric apparently picked up on this with ease, as his head tilted slightly, with him slowly getting up on his feet.
"Ronnie? What's wrong?" He inquired with his voice being filled with nothing but pure concern for the young woman before him, just in time for her to pick up the map that she had used to do the spell, holding it out to the teacher.
"Anna has my sister. There… There's this tomb they want opened, I don't have time to explain properly, they'll…. They'll kill Elena and you if I take too long." Veronica's nervous voice responded, as Alaric gently took hold of the map, clearly feeling very confused about what was going on. "Please, take this to my Grams. She'll know what to do, how to help me and Bonnie. I need… I need to go. Now." The Bennett witch commented in a frightened manner, lightly placing her bag back on her shoulder, the confusion in Alaric's eyes only increasing as a result of her words. "I'm going to save my sister and keep you all safe. Even if it's the last thing I do. I… I know that you don't need me to keep you safe, that you're an adult and you don't need a teenager looking out for you, but… It's what I'm gonna try and do anyway." Veronica spoke gently, her eyes staying on Alaric as she tried her hardest to calm herself down, but found it almost impossible to do so. Everyone that she cared about was in danger, her protective nature was on overdrive. Alaric's eyes looked down at her with clear hesitation, almost as if he didn't want to let her go, something that the witch soon dismissed as he was probably just hesitant to get involved in this whole situation.
Truly, she couldn't blame him, she probably wouldn't want to get involved in all of this either.
She felt bad for forcing him to get involved in this latest drama of hers but time was of the essence and he was her best shot at making sure that map got to her grandmother and thus her, Elena and Bonnie would all be safe from harm. "Please, Mr Saltzman. I'm… I'm not going to force you to do this, but it would really help me out." Veronica requested softly, glancing down at the watch around her wrist to check the time. As her dark coloured eyes looked to Alaric once more, she saw the teacher give a small nod in response, agreeing to help her by taking the map to her grandmother. A gentle grin pulled at Veronica's lips as she slowly held her hand out to him, lightly placing her hand on his right arm. "Thank you." Veronica spoke, clearly meaning her words, her brown eyes lingering on the teacher's own hesitant blue ones before she forced herself to look away. The young girl felt ridiculously sick to her stomach as she forced her feet to move in the direction of Alaric's front door, one slowly moving in front of the other, in an almost robotic-like fashion due to how nervous she was feeling.
She just had to hope that her Grams would know exactly what to do to help, and that she hadn't just wasted a chance at saving her sister.
She would never forgive herself if something bad happened to Bonnie or Elena because of her.
AN: And I'm going to end it there! Thank you very much for reading! I hope that you enjoyed! Please let me know what you thought and I'll see you on Friday for the next update!