Chapter 35: Hanging on and Letting go

Sun reflected off the mirrors in the studio, casting Lottie in a bright spotlight as she stood at the bar and worked through her warm-up. Jeremy sat against the opposite wall, working on sketching her arms, but ended up spending more time studying her face as she went through each move. She looked so at peace in the studio.

The studio door creaking open had them both looking towards the front of the building. Seeing Simon standing there with his dance bag had Jeremy abandoning his sketchpad. This was Lottie's place.

"I'm just here to dance," Simon said, keeping his eyes on Charlotte.

"And I told you to leave me and my family alone," she said, her hand tightening on the bar.

"This is the only dance studio in town," he said.

"Well then maybe you should leave town," Charlotte said. No one wanted him or any of the hybrids here anyways.

"I can't. You know I can't." Klaus wouldn't let them leave and they were at his mercy.

"Then have Klaus build you one," she snapped.

"I think it's best if you leave," Jeremy said, stepping between Lottie and Simon. Lottie had told him Simon was now a hybrid and he didn't trust him not to wolf out and hurt her.

"Or what? You're going to make me?" Simon challenged, clearly not thinking Jeremy would do it.

Simon's smirk faltered when Jeremy charged at him with a punch to the jaw. It only took him a second to react, twisting Jeremy's arm behind his back and kicking his leg so he was forced to his knees. Just as Charlotte was about to jump in, Madame Kornrich came bursting through her office door looking frazzled and holding a baseball bat.

"Enough!" she shouted, causing the boys to pause in their scuffle. "I won't have any fighting in my studio. Out. Now."

Simon released his hold on Jeremy, picking up his bag. With one last look at Charlotte, he left. Turning her back on him, she turned towards Madame Kornrich to appease her. She didn't want her full access to the studio to be compromised by Simon the stupid hybrid.

"Like dogs fighting over a bone," Madame Kornrich grumbled under her breath.

"I'm so sorry, it won't happen again," Charlotte said, smiling at Madame calling Simon a dog and how apt that was until she realized she was the bone in the metaphor. Before she could refute the notion that Simon and Jeremy were fighting over her, Madame had returned to her office, shutting the door behind her in a clear sign of 'do not disturb.'

"I should go check my schedule at the Grill," Jeremy said, picking up his sketchbook once he was sure Simon wasn't coming back. "You still coming over for dinner?"

"Yeah. I'll be there," Charlotte said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

As soon as Jeremy left, she turned off the music she'd been warming up to and made her way back to Madame's office. She knocked tentatively, unsure if it was a good idea to bother her. Something was wrong, but she wasn't sure if her ballet instructor would want to confide in her. She was going to turn away and go back to her dancing when the door creaked open.

"Is he back?" Madame asked, the bat in her hand again.

"No. I'm just checking on you. Is everything okay?"

Madame had been locked in her office since Charlotte and Jeremy showed up bright and early that morning. Which was strange because she was hardly ever in on the weekend, let alone looking like she hadn't had a good night's sleep in days.

"Everything's fine. I'm just going over some paperwork. Which reminds me, I might need your key back."

"Is it because of Simon picking a fight? I swear it won't happen again. Please, this studio and dancing is the only thing keeping me grounded right now."

With all the supernatural craziness infecting every other corner of her life, dancing and Madame Kornrich's studio was her one safe place away from all of it. Where she could feel normal again, like the world wasn't falling apart around her.

"It's not because of the fighting," Madame sighed, opening the door wider. Papers were spread haphazardly over her desk, most of them with dollar signs on them. "I can't afford to keep this place open anymore."

Charlotte collapsed in the chair beside the desk after Madame conceded to tell her how long the studio had been struggling.

"What about a fundraiser?" If the town would donate for a stupid new placard in the park, they could chip in to save the studio. Art was important. It was already being cut from school; society couldn't let it be lost forever.

"I'm not as young as I once was. I don't have the energy to try and keep it running, even if a fundraiser could raise the money I need, which I doubt. I'm going to have to sell the place."

"But…where will your students dance?" The closest studio was an hour and a half away.

"I don't know," Madame said. "Of course, I'll try to find someone who will keep it a public studio, but I can't make any promises. Please don't worry about this. Your dad built a studio for you at his house. You could always spend weekends dancing there."

Charlotte just nodded in a haze. She wasn't going to tell Madame she wasn't exactly on speaking terms with her dad. It would only stress her out more about the sale.

"How long till I'll have to give up my key?"

"You have at least a week. If I don't find a buyer by then, I'll have to sell it to the bank."

One week. Then she might never again dance on the worn wood floors she first danced on. The studio where she transitioned to point at eleven. Her solace when her parents were fighting and during the divorce. In one week, she might lose her happy place.

"I haven't told the other dancers yet," Madame said.

"I won't tell them," she promised.

When she left Madame's office, she didn't continue her warm-up where she left off. Instead she spent the day committing every creak in the floor, every crack in the wall, and the feeling of the worn wooden bar to memory.

The probability that she could lose the studio still didn't seem real to her when she left the studio behind still wearing her pink leotard. There had to be something that could be done to save it. Madame just hadn't thought of it yet.

As she stood outside the studio, waiting for a car to turn right so she could cross the street, Jeremy texted asking her to pick up some more butter for whatever Ric was making for dinner. By the time she got to his house, dropping her dance bag by the front door, she had to pee like no other.

"Butter," she called out, tossing the grocery bag to Jer before heading to the hall bathroom.

Jeremy bumped into her, jostling her as she reentered the kitchen. Figuring he was waiting for the bathroom himself she didn't think much of it until she saw his magic Gilbert ring sitting dead center on one of the dining plates. Was he afraid to drop it down the toilet?

"Jer?" she asked, picking up the ring as she turned towards the front of the house. Her brow furrowed when she saw the front door hanging wide open and Jeremy standing in the middle of the street. Just standing, staring straight ahead.

She was halfway down the front walk before Ric and Elena realized something was off, coming to stand on the front porch. Turning the ring in her hand, she called out to Jeremy again, but there was no response. Nothing to indicate he'd even heard her. The rumbling of a car had her hands starting to sweat. Something wasn't right. She didn't even think when an SUV came screeching around the corner. Taking off at a full sprint all she could hear is the pounding of her heart in her ears.

With the momentum she'd built, she was able to shove Jeremy the rest of the way across the street seconds before pain erupted along her right side. She had the brief feeling of weightlessness, like she did when she performed jumps or lifts in dance, before everything went black.

Jeremy blinked away the haziness when he landed next to the curb, trying to understand what happened. Glancing back to the street just as a black SUV pulled away, he saw Ric in the street. A few feet past him, in a crumpled, bloody heap with her leotard torn, laid Lottie. His mouth went dry and it felt like his throat closed up. He couldn't breathe.

"Lottie," he whispered, struggling to his feet. "Lottie!"

On unsteady feet he lumbered his way towards her, collapsing beside her.

"Please don't be dead," he whispered, hands shaking as he delicately turned her limp body over. Tracing his fingers down the side of her neck, tears burned down his cheeks when he didn't feel a pulse.

"Jer," Elena murmured, resting her hand on his shoulder.

"She's dead," he whispered, moving his hand up to tuck a bloody strand of her hair behind her ear before caressing her cheek.

"She's dead," he repeated, his breaths coming sporadically and his chest tightening like his throat.

"Jeremy," Elena said more forcefully, making him turn towards her.

She knelt beside him, holding out Lottie's fisted hand to him. On her right thumb, barely covering the knuckle, rested his ring. Reaching out, he took her hand from Elena, slipping the ring down until it was at the base of her thumb and keeping his hand wrapped tightly around hers and the ring when he realized how loose it was on her.

"Do you think it was on enough to work?" he asked, clutching her hand to his chest.

"I don't know," Elena said after a long pause where she was afraid to say anything for the fear it would bring back the broken, lost look in his eyes when he thought Charlotte was dead. "We'll just have to wait and see. We need to get their bodies inside before anyone comes to investigate."

Jeremy scooped Lottie up in his arms, careful not to jostle her or the ring as he took her upstairs to his bed. Carefully, he removed his hand from hers, making sure the ring stayed put, before he ran back downstairs to help Elena with Ric. As soon as they got him on the couch, he made a beeline for the stairs.

"Jer, we need to talk about what happened," Elena said.

"My best friend is dead upstairs. I'm not leaving Lottie's side until she wakes up. If you want to talk, we can do it in my room," he said, continuing up the stairs. With a glance behind her at Ric on the couch, Elena reluctantly followed behind him.

The next time Charlotte opened her eyes, she stood down the street from the Gilberts house. The SUV pulled away, its windshield cracked. Had it hit her? And if so, had she really been thrown that far by the impact? Taking stock of any injuries as she walked down the street towards Jeremy and Elena, crouched in the middle of the street, she realized nothing hurt at all.

She stopped walking when she saw Jeremy and Elena were crouched beside her broken and bloody body.

"Jeremy?" she called out, but he didn't look up as he clutched the hand of the crumpled version of her. "Elena?" she tried.

Nothing. She watched as Jeremy lifted her lifeless body in his arms, carrying her in the house. That's when she realized Ric laying a foot away from where she'd been, just as bloody and broken looking as she'd been.

"What's going on?" She whispered to herself, pinching her arm to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She wasn't.

"You died," a voice sounded to her right, causing her to jump with a little scream. Turning towards the voice she found Sheila Bennett standing beside her.

"I'm…dead?" Charlotte looked around. Was the afterlife supposed to look like Mystic Falls? "Like…dead, dead?"

"That's up to you, hon," Sheila said, glancing towards the house where Jeremy had disappeared with her body.

"What do I have to do?"

"Find your body to reconnect with it. It's your first time, so it's not as hard for you as it will be for him," Sheila said, nodding towards Ric.

"Why is it harder for him?"

"Each time you die, you wake up farther away from your body. Takes you longer to find it. I'd recommend not dying again, sweetheart. Better not to risk it. Now go. Best not to keep him waiting too long."

Making her way towards the house, she turned back when she reached the front door, but Sheila was gone. She climbed the stairs, following the voices coming from Jeremy's room. Entering she found Jeremy sitting beside her body on the bed, grasping her right hand in both of his. Elena stood at the foot of the bed, chiding him about losing his vervain bracelet. He'd been compelled by Klaus to stand in the road without his ring, which explained why he hadn't faltered when she screamed his name.

Unsure of what to do, she crawled onto the bed beside Jeremy. When her hand touched her body, she felt a rush of warmth that tickled her throat, causing her to cough. Sitting up to try and stop the coughing she found Jeremy and Elena staring at her with wide eyes. If they could see her, that must mean she was back in her body.

Jeremy's hand slipped from hers and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close in a crushing embrace.

"You came back," he whispered into her hair. Slipping her arms around his back, she returned the hug. Elena left the two alone, returning downstairs to Ric.

"I think this belongs to you," she said when they pulled apart, slipping off his ring and holding it out to him.

"Maybe you should hang onto it." If she hadn't managed to slip it on today, she'd be dead. He never wanted to feel like he had before she'd woken up.

"I wasn't the target. Besides, it doesn't really fit me." The ring was too loose, it wouldn't stay on her fingers.

The doorbell ringing interrupted any refutations Jeremy might have been about to make. Stepping into the hallway, red and white lights from the ambulance outside flashed behind a strange guy in the doorway.

"That's the hybrid who ran you over," Jeremy said. Slipping back into his bedroom, he grabbed the bow by his bed, pressing a finger to his lips when Lottie's eyes met his as he crept midway down the stairs.

Ric lay unconscious on the floor, Elena beside him, and the hybrid was asking for entrance in to help him. Before Elena could cave, Jeremy fired an arrow into the hybrid's chest, making him fall unconscious to the porch.

Handing his bow up to Lottie, he jogged down the stairs to the kitchen, grabbing the meat cleaver from the cutting board.

"Jeremy, what are you doing?" Elena asked as he moved past her.

"He's not dead yet," he said. Standing over the hybrid he took a steadying breath before bringing the cleaver down hard on the hybrid's neck.

"Now he's dead," he said as the head separated from the body, rolling to the side. "You need to get Ric to the hospital."

Elena stared at him wordlessly as he started lifting Ric. She snapped out of it when he asked for help. As soon as Ric was in the backseat of the car, he walked back towards the house. Lottie had come downstairs and flinched as she wrapped the head of the hybrid in a trash bag.

"Hey, I got it," he said, taking the bag from her. She'd died today; she didn't need to clean up the dead hybrid.

"What are we going to do with the body?" she asked, averting her gaze from the headless corpse on the porch, keeping her eyes on Jeremy instead.

"I've got clean up duty," Damon said as he came up the walkway. "Elena called."

More than happy to let Damon take care of the mess, Charlotte and Jeremy headed back up to his room. Peeling his blood-stained shirt off and throwing it in the bathroom trash, Jeremy scrubbed his face clean of the blood splatters before grabbing a new shirt from his room.

"Are you okay?" Charlotte asked as she sat on the edge of his bed.

"I'm fine. I'm not the one who died," Jeremy said, tugging on a new tee.

No, but he'd hacked off the head of a hybrid.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm okay," she said. Slightly freaked out by the turn of events tonight, but she'd be okay. Glancing down at her torn leotard she sighed. It had been one of her favorites. Now it was ruined. "I guess I should go home and change."

"I'll drive you," Jeremy insisted. Who knew if Klaus had anymore hybrids lurking in the shadows outside?

Caroline latched onto Charlotte when they got home after asking what happened to her. After reassuring her she was fine, Charlotte slipped into her bedroom to strip out of her bloody leotard. Tossing it in the trash she hopped in the shower. Chills radiated over her body as she scrubbed the dried blood from her skin, the water at her feet turning a copper color. If it wasn't for the blood and her memories, she wouldn't have known she'd just died and come back to life. Beneath the blood her skin was unaffected: no broken bones, bruises or cuts.

Changing into pajama pants and a tee, Charlotte opened her bedroom door to find Jeremy waiting outside, holding up the DVD cases of her favorite movies and a cup of tea.

"Caroline helped me set up," he said when they stopped before the blanket fort in the living room. "We also ordered Chinese takeout. So, will it be Elizabeth and Darcy first, or the Phantom and Christine?"

Charlotte's heart melted at how much effort Jeremy, with help from her sister, put into making her feel better after dying. Stepping forward she wrapped her arms around Jeremy's waist, careful not to jostle the tea.

"Thank you," she said, resting her head against his chest. His heart pounded against his chest, keeping time with hers.

…

Charlotte woke up bright and early the next day, taking care not to wake Jeremy as she exited their blanket fort and eased her way into the kitchen. Ever since they were kids, it was birthday tradition to have blueberry muffins for breakfast, and just because she'd died the day before didn't mean she'd stray from tradition. Pulling out the family recipe, Charlotte collected the ingredients and started making the first dozen. Standing on the counter to reach the candles, she placed one in the center of the muffin and lit it before bounding into Caroline's room and jumping on her bed.

"Happy Birthday!"

Caroline gave a week smile, taking the plate from her and blowing out the candle before setting it aside.

"Hey, I spent an hour baking that muffin. You could at least take a bite."

"Sorry, I'm not really in the birthday mood," Caroline muttered, falling back in her bed and covering her head with her blankets.

"But birthdays are your favorite," she reminded her. "And it's your eighteenth. You've been looking forward to this since you were ten."

"But I'm not eighteen," Caroline muttered from under the blankets. "I'm dead. I died when I was seventeen and I'm stuck at seventeen for the rest of my life. I will never be a legal adult. I can never vote. I'm frozen in a filler year."

"You can probably rig any election you want through compulsion. And seventeens not that bad of a year. It has a whole magazine named after it."

"Very funny," Caroline said, pulling the blankets from her face to stick her tongue out at Char.

"Mom's making me stay home after dying yesterday. You could stay home with me," she offered.

"No, I should go to school. I can plaster a smile on my face for one day," Caroline sighed, forcing herself out of bed.

"That's the spirit," Charlotte said. "Now eat your muffin."

Caroline regretted not staying home with Char as soon as she pulled into the school parking lot. Tyler waited for her, and she really didn't want to talk with him. Not when seeing him reminded her that Klaus and his hybrids tried to kill Jeremy and instead killed Charlotte.

"I can't talk to you," Caroline said, going to brush by him before he stopped her.

"I know your upset, but," Tyler started,

"Upset? Klaus and his hybrids almost got Jeremy killed. They killed my sister. And you still blindly follow him. So don't ask me to understand or support you unless you have a plan of action against your sire bond to Klaus."

"There's nothing I can do about it, Caroline. That's the point. I just want you to know I understand why you can't be with me. Even though I want to put you first, before anyone, I can't. I'll never be able to. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just wanted you to know that."

As if that speech wasn't heartbreaking enough, he gave her a birthday present before leaving. After that she knew she couldn't go inside and pretend like everything was fine. Instead, she went right back to her car and drove home.

Jeremy woke up in their blanket fort to find Lottie watching Phantom of the Opera again on mute, hugging a pillow to her chest and mouthing the lyrics to one of the songs. The twinkle lights were still on, looking like fireflies around her head, and he had the urge to tuck her sleep tangled hair back from her face and…

"Morning sleepy head," Lottie said, her attention turning towards him. "Want a blueberry muffin?"

She held out a plate of muffins to him.

"No, I'm good," he said, sitting up so he faced her.

"Are you okay? You seem a bit dazed," she said.

He opened his mouth, unsure of what he was about to do or say when she was less than a foot in front of him looking adorable in a way he'd never took the time to notice before.

"Today is the worst birthday ever," Caroline called out, slamming the front door behind her and startling Jeremy out of the daze he'd been in since waking up.

"Looks like it's sister time," he said crawling out of the fort so Caroline could take his place.

Charlotte wanted to stop him from leaving. She didn't want whatever spell had enraptured them in their fort for those brief few moments to break. But Caroline needed her. So, she spent the day eating too many sweets with Caroline while she vented about Tyler and his sire bond and Klaus and how the universe sucked. They watched 80s and 90s romantic comedies until Bonnie, Elena and Matt came to take over the Birthday festivities.

"You can come, you know," Caroline offered as she changed into her birthday slash funeral attire.

"I'm fine. I'm going to head to the studio. You have fun. You deserve it, Birthday Girl."

Madame Kornrich wasn't at the studio when Charlotte got there, and she couldn't decide if that was a good or bad sign. Bolting the studio door behind her to prevent any interruptions, Charlotte turned her music up louder than she usually did, and texted her mom to let her know she was at the studio before easing into her warm up.

Jeremy sat at the head of his bed with the scrapbook Lottie made him for his fourteenth birthday. They grew up with every page he turned, and where her pages ended, he'd continued them in a minimalist design, taping in pictures on the white pages. When he reached the crazy pictures her mom took of them before the last decade dance, his heart fluttered in his chest at the mixture of funny faces and bright smiles in the different frames. Reaching for his phone he called her number, his eyes glued to the last photo of them. It took her a few rings to answer, and when she did an orchestra played in the background, making him smile. She was in the studio.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked.

"Can you meet me at the park in ten minutes?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said without hesitation. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's great. I just want to talk."

"Okay, how about we meet at the memorial bench by main street?"

"I'll see you in ten," Jeremy said, hanging up. His hands were sweaty, and his stomach flip-flopped uneasily as he grabbed his jacket from his closet. He didn't have time to second guess anything. Shrugging his jacket on he turned to find Damon and Elena standing outside his door.

"Hey, can we talk?" she asked.

"Can it wait? I'm on my way to meet Lottie."

"No, it can't."

Sighing, he took a seat on the edge of his bed.

"What's going on?" he asked when Damon took a seat beside him.

Grasping his shoulder, Damon waited till Jeremy looked at him before he said anything.

"Here's the thing. You're going to go out of town for a while. A long while," Damon started his compulsion. "You're going to stay with family friends, go to a new school. You're going to drink a few beers, take an art class, do whatever you want. You're going to leave Mystic Falls behind without telling anyone that you're going, or where you're going, and never think twice about it. You're never going to worry about anything supernatural again. You're going to have a better life, Jeremy."

A/N: Hey everyone! SEMI-IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT about future updates. From this chapter on I won't be following everything that happens in Canon so rigidly. Things might happen earlier or later in timelines and I'm probably going to veer off the original plot completely. I've been discussing options with silentmayhem after she messaged me about the story, and I've grown a more confident in going off script with this story so to say. I'm sorry if this upsets anyone, but I like the idea of shaking things up a little. Hope you enjoyed this update!

To the guest who's curious on how things would go if Jeremy didn't go to Denver: I considered multiple different scenarios on where to take this story next, and although it was tempting to keep Jeremy in Mystic Falls, I chose to have him leave town.

Rach

xoxo