Before she could go after him or go back to her friends, Elena appeared in the water beside her and said, "Payton, you're here!"
"Hey, Elena." She greeted her back in a somewhat glum tone.
"Stefan's here somewhere," Elena said as she turned her head around to look for the guy in the spot she had left him, but all she saw now was Liam and no sign of Stefan, "oh, well, he was."
"Yeah, I saw him take off into the woods," Payton assured her friend he was still very much around.
"He talked to me about what happened with you two." She admitted to the girl in a somewhat sympathetic tone.
"Uh, yeah, I'm surprised he's here. I thought you two were off out somewhere." Payton found herself saying back with somewhat of a bitter tone.
"Oh, you saw us earlier?" Elena responded back with surprise, picking up on Payton's harsh tone.
"Yeah. I did. Stefan looked happy." She folded her arms.
"Do you think he's truly happy?" The girl asked her ignoring Payton's manner.
"Honestly," Payton breathed, as she thought back to the past few months and lately, "I think he's putting on a brave face but really he's breaking inside."
"Well maybe we need to stop pulling ourselves apart and bring us all back together," Elena suggested, as she then went to inform her, "I've got Tyler and Matt here..."
"Wait! Matt's here?" She beamed back in surprise.
"Yeah, Caroline too." Elena nodded.
"Oh."
"I know you two aren't talking right now, but we both know she's more hurt at Stefan, you two need to make up and then we can all help to bring Stefan back to us." The brunette convinced her.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." She sighed lightly.
"C' mon. Let's go." Elena said as she held out her hand to her and Payton glanced back over to her new friends, who was still busy playing volleyball to notice her departure.
"Matt!" Payton called as she jogged over to her friend and tackled him into a tight embrace shortly later, now dressed in her swim-suit and some jean shorts.
Like always, Matt wrapped his arms around Payton and began to spin her around, not having seen the girl very much since the anti-magic border had come over the town.
"I had no idea you'd be here." He said to her as he put her back onto her feet.
"Well, when there's a party I'll be not too far behind." She laughed lightly.
He kept his arm wrapped around her shoulder, as Payton snuggled into his side and smiled back at him, before her eyes trailed over to Tyler, who was now beginning to start a conversation with her, "Payton."
"Tyler," She nodded back at him, knowing she hadn't seen him since the other night at the party before the game, "are you feeling better?"
"I'm trying." He said back to her, before sharing a nervous look with Matt.
Payton sighed lightly, figuring out that it would always be hard for him, but she just had no idea what she could do to make it better because the one person who always helped her with the wolf side of things had been gone for years now, he wasn't coming back and she wasn't going to ever get her chance to ask him for some good advice ever again.
Nervously her eyes rolled across to where Caroline was sat on a tree trunk beside Elena, the blonde caught her eyes and Payton spoke up, "Hi, Care."
"Hi." Caroline replied in a quiet tone, before her eyes then crossed over to Elena, "Did you manage to get through to Stefan?"
"Uh, no. He was with Liam and then he was gone. Payton said he went into the woods." Elena explained.
"Could you call him?" Tyler questioned.
"He won't answer for me either." Payton shrugged.
"Why?" Matt questioned.
She kept quiet out of unease, not really wanting to air her relationship issues in front of everyone like this, so Tyler spoke up, "You two aren't on the rocks already are you?"
Caroline nervously glanced back to Payton, as Matt looked down at Payton and said, "You ok, P?"
"Yeah everything's fine," She tried to cover her tracks, as Payton spotted some jelly shots, "are those shots?"
"Yes!" Elena beamed, thankful that someone else was in a party mood like her, "have one."
"You don't have to ask me twice." Payton joked as she went over to take one for herself.
"So you want to fill us in on what we're doing here?" Tyler asked.
"You don't remember this place?" Elena questioned back with confusion, as she went on to remind them, "we used to sneak off here and get wasted while our parents were outside grilling. Granted we have a few less parents but we can still have fun."
Payton tipped back the shot as she listened in to the former teenagers reminisce, as Elena picked up the shots to hand around, "Actually I can't." Tyler cut in quickly.
"Why not?" Caroline frowned.
"I'm working on my rage issues and this wouldn't help," Tyler explained.
"Trust me, it wouldn't," Payton remarked referring back to the other night and how he behaved with Luke, as she helped herself to Tyler's shot.
Elena then handed a shot over to Matt, but he also declined it, "My buddy's wasted, and I've got to train in the morning."
"Oh get you!" Payton teased her with a smirk, causing him to chuckle and shove her playfully.
"Well, will someone do a shot with me?" Elena pleaded.
"I will." Caroline and Payton both chimed at the same time, as Elena grinned triumphantly and handed the two of them a shot each.
"Bottoms up," Elena said, as the three of them tipped their heads back and downed the jelly shots.
"Mmm, well, here we are," Caroline began as she finished off her shot, "having fun. I'm having fun. Aren't we having fun? This is really fun."
Sensing a hint of sarcasm in Caroline's voice, Elena sighed and grumbled, "Ok, clearly this was a big mistake."
"It's not such a big mistake." Payton tried to ease the girl's frustration.
"I just wanted to spend an afternoon where we pretended for just one second," Elena expressed her feelings to them all, as she retook her seat beside Caroline, "like we're not all drifting apart."
"Well, that's the problem, Elena," Caroline began to say as Payton braced herself for a dig from the girl towards the brunette, "not all of us are okay with pretending."
"Caroline..." Payton warned, but Caroline hadn't finished.
"Some of us prefer to face our problems head-on."
"I think we should go," Tyler announced after that slight dig at Elena, who had no idea what Caroline was getting at.
"Yeah." Matt agreed.
"Don't go." Payton said as Matt went to turn away from her.
"We can meet up later, ok?" He promised.
She slowly nodded back at him and drew in a breathe, before watching Matt and Tyler making a hasty exit, not wanting to be apart of the drama that might have exploded around them if Caroline kept going on the way she did.
Payton turned back to the two girls and said, "Well look's like it's just us."
"What's going on?" Elena asked them in confusion.
Caroline glanced over at Payton, who looked back at her uneasily, then the blonde sighed and admitted, "I'm just lonely, ok?" Elena lowered her head at this, as Payton also shared some guilt and sadness, as Caroline continued, "Bonnie's gone, Stefan's gone, Enzo, shocker, terrible, murderous friend."
"I'm still here, Care." Elena reminded the girl.
"Yeah and me too." Payton added, as she slowly came over to them and looked back at Caroline, "And I'm so sorry for everything."
Caroline gave her a small smile in regards before she put her arm around Elena and held out her hand to Payton, in which she took it and Caroline said, "Yeah, you're both still here."
Suddenly Payton cell phone began to ring, so she let go of her friend's hand and picked the phone out of her jean shorts pocket to see that an incoming call was coming from Stefan.
"Uh, I have to take this." She told them, before turning on her heel and heading back to the party to get some privacy from the watchful eyes and ears of her friends.
When she was further out of earshot, Payton hit the accept button and answered, "Stefan."
"Are you having fun?" He asked her with a sense of bitterness in his tone.
"Well, I was yeah." She responded, before going on to ask, "where are you? Caroline, Elena and I are all drinking in the woods. I thought you'd want to join us."
"It's not really my scene," Stefan answered.
"Well, what is your scene these days?" Payton began to ask him with a harsh tone, as she walked back to the party, "because it's hard to keep up with what you do and do not like anymore."
"Well, I had no idea you had new friends." He remarked glumly.
"Well if you actually listened to me when I came home from class instead of being elsewhere then you would have known that." She snapped back at him.
"This conversation is pointless."
"I'm glad we both agree on something," Payton sighed, as she shook her head and said, "Why did you call?"
The line went dead and at first, Payton thought that maybe he had hung up on her, but when she pulled the cell phone away to see the call very much active, she brought it back up and said, "Stefan? Stefan? Hello?"
"I gotta go." He told her before quickly hanging up.
She frowned as Payton pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call, slipping it back into her pocket and catching sight of Caroline near the drinks table. Payton sighed and began her walk over to her, thinking that away from watchful eyes, they could have a proper conversation and she could properly apologise.
"Hey, Care." Payton greeted as she came up beside her.
"Oh hi." Caroline said back to her.
"Look I am really sorry..." Payton went to apologise but her friend cut her off.
"Look let's just forget it, ok?" The blonde said back to her, as she went on to say, "I'm tired of all of this. If anyone should be apologising, then we both know who it should be here."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." She sighed lightly.
"Aren't we supposed to be having fun?" Jeremy then appeared from behind them, causing the two girls to look over at him, clearly, he had sensed a pissed off mood coming off the two of them.
"Is that why you brought your latest fling in a series of sad attempts to pretend like you don't care about Bonnie to have fun?" Caroline questioned him in her usual judgemental tone.
Payton rubbed her lips together nervously at her friends dig back at Jeremy, knowing Caroline was being harsh, but Jeremy just frowned back at the girl and then turned his gaze back onto Payton, "It's good to see you."
"And you." She smiled back at him more genuinely, just as Caroline's phone beeped.
"I hope you're taking care of Alaric." He said to her.
"Of course!" Payton nodded back at him.
When Payton saw Caroline frown at the corner of her eye, she turned back to Caroline and said, "Everything ok?"
"Uh, yeah, it's just Enzo. He said we have a problem." Caroline informed her.
"What does that mean?" She frowned back.
Caroline shrugged before saying, "I guess we should go find out."
Taking off with Caroline, Payton and the blonde headed back into the woods to go investigate what this problem happened to be when they got to the woods and located him, Payton was shocked to see Stefan stood there, pointing a gun at Enzo, causing Caroline to quickly run in front of the gun and stand in front of Enzo, whilst Payton managed to take the gun off the guy.
"Stefan," Payton said to him in a disappointed tone, as he failed to look back at her.
Inside though, he was annoyed that she had turned up like this, he didn't want her to know what he had been planning, Stefan didn't want Payton to know that he had come to the swimming lake to find Enzo and to kill him to make him pay for what happened last night. He knew that if she knew it would just cause a bigger divide between the two of them. It wasn't even that Payton liked Enzo, but she didn't believe he should die. He saw the way she reacted the first time.
"Good news, Caroline," Enzo began as the girl still stood between the two men, "I thwarted a vampire hunter."
Payton trailed her eyes over to the dead body that was behind them, as Enzo continued on, "bad news, Stefan has become a vampire hunter."
"What are you doing?" Caroline questioned on behalf of her and Payton.
"Why don't you ask him?" Stefan said back to her nodding over to where Enzo was before he went to take off.
Stefan snatched the gun back out of Payton's hold and passed by her, causing her to sigh in frustration and go to catch up with him in anger, not enjoying this more grouchy and brooding alpha male he had suddenly turned into. It wasn't the man she fell in love with.
"Don't you dare walk away from me!" Payton yelled at him as she came up beside him.
"Go back to the party and your new friends," Stefan told her still not looking back at her.
She scoffed at his clear jealously causing her to say, "I'm trying to figure out what is going on with you."
"Surely you don't have time for that whilst you're busy with that guy." He remarked bitterly.
"Oh, so this is about Jacob now, huh?" Payton shook her head in disbelief that he was being this childish.
"Is that his name?" Stefan asked continuing to walk.
She quickly snatched his hand and vamp sped him over to a tree trunk, pushing his body against it and using her strength to hold him there, as he still refused to look back at her, "I'm not in the mood for these games, Stefan! I gave you an ultimatum yesterday which you still haven't given me an answer. You've either dodging me or showing your jealous side just because I have new friends!"
Stefan looked down at his feet, still unable to look back at her, because if he did, he would show how he was really feeling, how hurt and confused he felt, how much he was beating himself up inside because he had ruined what they had and how he couldn't let her go through all of this, but he didn't know if he was brave enough to let her go.
"So what is it to be Stefan?" Payton questioned him once more, as she looked back at him with unease, "are you going to fight for me or let me go?"
Finally, Stefan brought his head up to look at her, the tears now stinging in his eyes as he realised just how much he didn't want to let her go, as she stared back at him, the pain very much in her own eyes, as Stefan slowly brought his hands up to her face and cupped her cheeks in his hands, just like he always did, it would usually make her feel safe and protected, but now it just made her miss the old him even more.
Gently Stefan brought her closer and their lips met in a slow yet soft kiss, the two of them melting into each other, Payton holding onto the moment because she knew that this was what she had been wanting, but Stefan on-the-other-hand was savouring it because he knew deep down how he really felt.
After a few moments, he pulled away from her, their foreheads resting against one another, as he shakily took in a breathe and Payton kept her eyes shut, her breathing heavy, as she waited for a response, in which the guy could barely manage to muster one up, before she felt his forehead leave her own and his body slip out from hers, the sounds of his footsteps walking away from her, causing her to flash her eyes open, a tear quickly rolling down her cheek.
Stefan didn't even have the guts to say anything, he just walked away and didn't even give her some goodbye, he just went because he couldn't physically let her go, because it was too hard for him to do that, so he had to just be a coward and go because he believed she deserved better than him. He couldn't give her what she wanted right now.
Payton felt the emotional pain ripple through her body up from her stomach to her chest, where she nearly let out a large sob, but she managed to stop herself and hold it back, not wanting to break down right here, so instead, she took in a deep breath and turned on her heel, going to walk out of the woods and head back to campus, giving her Dad a call first to come to pick her up so she didn't have to be alone.
On the side of the road around twenty minutes later, Alaric pulled up in his car and leant across to open up the passenger door, as Payton took it in her hands and climbed into the car to take a seat beside him.
She looked back at him after putting on her seat belt and held back her true emotions, as he flashed her a sad smile and said, "I'm here for you."
"Can we just go back to your place with a takeaway pizza and some bourbon?" Payton asked him.
"Of course. We can do that." He nodded back, before starting up the engine and driving out of there.
A few hours later, Payton was laying across the couch at one end, her Dad was sat at the other, Payton's feet on his lap, as the two of them watched trashy tv, a bottle of beer in Alaric's hand, whilst Payton held a glass of bourbon in her own, half an eaten pizza in its box was laid out on the coffee table as the two of them found themselves nearly dozing off, when there was a loud knock at the door.
She frowned at who would be knocking on his door this time of the night, as Alaric sighed and got up to go take a look at whom it was, Payton also sitting up on the couch to turn her head around to take a look. When he got to the door, he was confused to see a drunken Jeremy leaning against the front door, looking pretty wrecked and out of it.
"Jeremy, what the hell happened?" Alaric questioned the teenager.
Payton tried to fight off the smirk that fell on her face to see him in such a manner, thankful that it wasn't her right now and not getting busted by her Dad for coming around in such a state.
"I-i might be a little bit drunk." Jeremy stumbled out, as he tried to keep himself upright.
"I've got a full house tonight, buddy." He said to the boy.
Jeremy glanced over at Payton and grinned back at the girl, "I don't mind having a sleepover."
Payton found herself chuckling lightly, as she got up onto her feet and said, "Oh c' mon, just bring him inside, we can take care of him."
"Yeah but guess which one will be cleaning up his sick," Alaric grumbled, as he went around one side of Jeremy to ease him up and Payton on the other, before the two Saltzman's lead him through into the house and put him on the couch where they had been sitting not long after.
Throughout most of the night, they had been trying to sober Jeremy up, which consisted of the guy puking his guts up and not being able to keep any of the food they had given him down, so when dawn broke, they bundled Jeremy in the car and drove him to the campus hospital to see if there was anything they could do to detoxify the guys system.
Payton sat one side of Jeremy and Alaric on the other, as Jeremy continued to vomit into a plastic bag and her Dad was on the phone, to one of Payton's favourite people, Matt.
"Atta boy," Alaric said to Jeremy who was puking again into the bag, as Payton rubbed the guys back, "get it all out!"
"Is he seriously still wasted?" Payton could hear Matt question down the line.
"Yeah little punk showed up on my doorstep last night," Alaric explained to him, as Payton continued to listen in, "Payton and I were having a movie night in when Jeremy turned up drunk."
"I did wonder where Payton had run off to after last night," Matt said down the other line, causing Payton to look down at her feet with unease, yesterday was still very much raw, but keeping herself busy and distracted with her Dad was definitely helping, "is she ok?"
"I'll let her talk to you about it later," Alaric explained, knowing Payton would definitely benefit from confiding in Matt about what happened with Stefan, before her Dad went on, "I thought you two were looking for Sarah together."
Sarah was the girl Elena had bitten a few days ago when she was on her come down from the drugs Luke had been supplying her, she had been staying with Jeremy ever since Matt had rescued her and Caroline had compelled the girl to believe it had been an animal attack that had got her, not a vampire sucking Elena, but Sarah had gone missing after crossing the border, her memories had been wiped, meaning she knew what both Elena and Caroline were, putting the two at risk from exposure.
"I did my part. She is definitely not hiding in the Salvatore liquor cabinet." Jeremy commented.
"What about vampire-hating neighbourhood watch guy?" Alaric asked as he went on to say, "if Sarah goes to him, that's a problem."
"I'm on my way to Tripp's office now. I can get him to trust me, tell me what he knows." Matt answered.
"Be safe." Alaric said before Payton shared a small smile with him, "Payton will call you later."
Hanging up the phone, Payton glanced up to see a female doctor heading towards them, but surprise soon clouded over them when she greeted her father on a first name basis, "Alaric."
"Hi." Alaric said rising onto his feet to greet the woman, as he followed her gaze over to Jeremy and Payton.
"Who do we have here?" The woman asked looking between the two.
"This is Jeremy, Jeremy Gilbert," Alaric announced, pointing down to the guy before he gestured over to Payton, "and this is my daughter Payton."
"Oh, you have a daughter?" The woman said with surprise, not even thinking he could possibly have a child, let alone one that was much older.
"Yeah, nice to meet you." Payton stood onto her feet, wanting to introduce herself since this woman seemed to know her Dad already.
Alaric nervously smiled between the two of them, before with the help from Payton they got Jeremy onto his feet, "He's a little..."
"Underage," The doctor finished for him, looking back at Jeremy with amusement, "yeah I can see that."
"I was hoping you could give him one of those rapid-rehydration hangover cure type-thing," Alaric suggested.
"Oh yeah, you mean the ones reserved for professional athletes and starving children in third world countries," The woman went on to say, almost wanting Jeremy to feel bad for what he had done, as Jeremy raised his vomit bag at her, "yeah, I think we'll start with a full workup. Physical, blood, toxicology."
"Why don't you throw in an STD screening?" Alaric then put it to her, knowing Jeremy had been sleeping around the whole summer since Bonnie was sucked into the oblivion.
"Really?" Jeremy looked back at the older man in disbelief, as he took the pee pot from the Doctor.
"Yeah." Alaric nodded.
"Are you sure Payton shouldn't be having one as well?" Jeremy joked, referring to the fact that everyone always commented on her sleeping around.
Although her count was under five compared with Jeremy's, who had probably succeeded that within a week compared to her past few years tally.
"Hey!" Payton hissed at him, nudging his side slightly causing him to grunt in pain.
"I can do you one as well?" The Doctor then remarked.
"No!" Payton was quick to cover that one up, as she went on to say, "I've had very few sexual partners."
"Payton..." Her Dad warned with a slight wince, not really wanting to hear that.
"Sorry, Dad!" Payton chuckled lightly, a slight flush of colours coming to her cheeks.
"It's down the hall to the right." The Doctor instructed Jeremy, who did as he was told and took off down the hall, before she turned back to Alaric, "do I want to know?"
"Just another day in the life of an occult studies professor." Alaric joked.
"Well if that entails supervising drunk morons, then you and I have a lot more in common than I thought." The Doctor responded back, before handing him a clipboard with a form on it for Jeremy.
Alaric lightly chuckled, before he lifted his head up to meet with the Doctors and the two shared a flirty smile, causing Payton to raise her brows up slightly and look back at her Dad, sensing a clear chemistry between the two of them, one that he wouldn't be able to hide from her now she had been witness to it and he had failed to mention meeting this mysterious Doctor in the first place.
An hour or so later, after The Doctor, who Payton had found out the name was Jo, had finished running some test, walked back through the hospital halls with Alaric and Payton in tow, "Quite a boozer that kid." Jo remarked.
"Surprisingly we're not related through blood, he was almost like an adoptive brother at once, but it's quite funny how the booze seems to run through the family," Payton explained with a slightly joking tone.
"Yeah, I wonder who you got that from." Alaric joined in with the joke, knowing she was referring to how they all seemed to like a drink.
Jo shook her head in amusement and somewhat disapproval, before continuing on to explain, "I put him on a saline drip. He's lucky I didn't pump his stomach."
"Yeah, he's had a rough couple of months." Alaric tried to explain.
"Did you bring him in to put a band-aid on and make excuses?" Jo then questioned.
"No, we actually came in here for some advice from a professional," Alaric concluded.
"A kick in the ass might help." Jo then suggested.
"Yeah, that always helped me." Payton shrugged, knowing Alaric's words of encouragement always did her good, even if his push the other night had resulted in Stefan walking away from her, at least within the time it might mean she truly got what she deserved.
"Jeremy too," Jo then teased Alaric, causing Payton to shake her head in amusement and go take a seat on some chairs down the hall, whilst Alaric lingered around to talk to Jo, "look if he's anything like his sister, I'm sure he'll be fine. It's nothing I don't treat every night on campus. Or didn't do myself when I was a student."
"Ok." Alaric then nodded, as Payton listened into their conversation with interest, hoping some serious flirting would go underway so she could taunt him after.
"What about you?" Jo then asked him, before pressing further, "former party animal?"
"Oh yeah. I used to get kicked out of the library all the time. You know, because it was closing." Alaric mocked himself, as Payton caught sight of someone now walking through with a massive nose bleed.
She nervously glanced back at her Dad, hoping he wouldn't notice, either through his vision or through his newfound strong sense of smell that could probably smell blood from a mile away, but god she hoped that this Jo was as much of a distraction to not make him realise what was staring back at him just a few yards away.
"Right," Jo nodded, as she went on, "head in the Wiccan bible?"
Alaric smiled back at her, about to respond, when he suddenly did catch sight of the blood, his face dropping instantly as Payton found herself standing up to go protect him and drag him out of it if necessary, knowing he still wasn't very good at controlling his urges, because he was still new and needed to keep practising, so she wasn't going to let him out himself.
Jo noticed a change in his expression and followed his gaze over to the boy with the bloody nose, as Alaric tried to hold himself together when he saw Payton lingering in the background, giving him an encouraging look to try to breathe himself through it, as Jo turned back to him.
"One piece of professional advice, when a successful sexy only moderately insecure doctor is flirting with you, give her your undivided attention," Jo remarked, as she turned on her heel and was slightly uneasy to see Payton now stood there, as she pulled herself together and said, "nice meeting you, Payton."
"Uh you too, Jo." Payton half smiled back at her, before turning back to her Dad and once Jo was out of the proximity, he let out a frustrated sigh.
"Hey, it's ok," She told her Dad as she came to stand beside him and go walk back to Jeremy's bed, "you got through it."
"Yeah, but I almost didn't." He grumbled.
"Who is she anyway? You two sounded like you knew each other." Payton remarked, wanting to pull him off his burnt up anger towards himself and onto something more positive.
"Yeah, uh, we met at the party the other night," Alaric informed her.
"You both seem very into each other." She teased.
"Yeah, well, even if I wanted to go there, I can't." He said.
"Why not?" Payton frowned.
"I just nearly lost it in front of her, P! There's no way I'm letting her in." Alaric said back to her.
She sighed lightly, feeling disappointed for him, "Please don't tell me you're basing this on the last Doctor you were with."
"No, Meredith is different, she knew about this stuff and look what happened to her."
"She's still alive, Dad! You can get through this. I promise you." Payton tried to make him see sense.
"Right now, I can't be anyone, other than a good father and a professor, ok?" Alaric tried to tell her, before going over to see Jeremy.
Thankfully when Payton got back from the hospital later that morning, she had classes to distract her from her heartbreak over Stefan, something she had barely let in since last night. She didn't really want to think or feel any of it right now. Maybe because part of her was hoping he would be back at the apartment later, waiting for her with a big apology and wanting to try again.
But she knew she was only wishful thinking and her chance with him had been growing smaller since Damon had gone because that was when Stefan began to lose himself.
Payton had just walked into the lecture room when her professor called her over and handed her one of her assignments that he had marked, she took it from him and thanked him, before going to find a seat. Once she had put her bag down on the floor below her feet and her books along with the assignment down onto the table ledge beside her, Payton opened up the assignment booklet and felt a frown form on her face when a folded up piece of paper was inside.
Picking up the note, Payton began to open it up and felt her stomach begin to churn with unease, her chest tightened and she felt a flood of hot air rise through her body as she read over it.
'You always did look good in a swimsuit. Although I wouldn't have walked away from that.'
Quickly folding up the note and shoving it into one of her textbooks, Payton looked around her class suspiciously, wondering just who the hell was toying with her like this. Not only had she been receiving texts and letters through the mail the past couple of months, as well as having someone break into the beach house not long after they left the place, but Payton was also now getting letters dropped into her assignments on campus.
Every single message that was delivered to her felt awfully familiar to her and that was what freaked her out the most, that whoever was messing with her like this was definitely watching her every move and even though she felt powerful and strong from being a vampire, Payton suddenly felt very vulnerable and weak against her harasser.
Somehow she managed to get through her class in one piece and once it was over, Payton gathered up her things and headed to her professor's desk, in which she asked him, "Hi, Sir. Uh, did you slip something into my assignment?"
"What do you mean, Miss Saltzman?" The man asked acting confused.
"I found a letter in my assignment. I wondered if you slipped it inside or you know who might have." She explained in a nervous tone.
"I have no idea what you're on about, Miss Saltzman," Her professor said once again, before asking, "may I have a look at it?"
"Uh, no, it's ok. Maybe I put it in there by accident. It doesn't matter." Payton shrugged, as she went to make a hasty exit out of there.
She still had one more lecture to attend that day, but her head was far from in the concentration mode to focus on her class with her breakup with Stefan in her mind and now the stalker situation getting out of hand, Payton needed to just talk to someone about how she was feeling because if she didn't it would all get too much and blow up on her.
Thankfully he was in his office marking papers when she came swooning into Alaric's office a little while later, he looked surprised to see her knowing she had classes all afternoon, but when he saw the look of unease on her face, he was somewhat glad she had come here.
"Everything ok, P?" Alaric asked, as Payton came in and closed the door behind herself.
"Honestly no. It's not." She sighed.
"Come on in. Take a seat. Talk to me." He encouraged, motioning down to the chair opposite his desk.
Payton quickly came over to take a seat and put her things on the ground, before she began to offload to him, "Everything is a mess."
"With Stefan?" Alaric presumed.
"Yes, but no," She shook her head in distress, as she explained further, "I thought I could handle the whole stalker thing. I thought it would just blow over, you know? That the person would get bored, but it's getting out of hand. They somehow managed to slip a note into my assignment."
"What? Are you serious?" He remarked in surprise, but also anger that somehow was still bothering her like this, "Payton, this has got to stop! You have to tell someone about this!"
"Dad, no!" Payton exclaimed back, shaking her head profusely, "I can't!"
"Someone is targetting to you on purpose. This has been going on for weeks. You can't keep letting it happen. It's starting to bother you."
"Yes because this person knows things!" She yelled back at him.
"Like what?" He frowned.
"Like..." She breathed, Payton nervously looked back at him, "things that only a few people would know or would have seen."
"Are you sure it's not one of your old friends from Florida?" Alaric suggested.
"No." She shook her head.
"Maybe it's Stefan bothering you. Trying to make you squirm so you come back to him." He half-joked.
"God, no. He wouldn't go to all that effort for me. Plus it doesn't sound very Stefan like," Payton grumbled, before she suggested, "maybe it's Damon from the other side haunting me."
"The other side went down." Alaric reminded her.
"Well, it can't be the ghost of Mason then." She sighed.
"It would be a hell lot easier to deal with if it was." He chuckled lightly.
"Yeah, I'm sure it would be," Payton said as she looked away and found herself saying, "sometimes I wonder if he ever found peace."
"I mean sure he did, he barely showed up the past few months."
"Yeah, I guess so. I just thought I saw him once." She explained.
"You did?" He raised his brows up with surprise.
"Yeah, last summer, when I was leaving for Florida and Bonnie was putting the other side back up, I was getting in my car to drive out of town for the summer when I swear I got a glimpse of him in my rearview." Payton remained on the memory.
"Maybe it was." Alaric shrugged.
"Maybe." She rubbed her lips together nervously.
For the next few hours, Payton decided to stay with Alaric in his office, studying and chatting to him about how she was feeling at the moment, but also about what was going on around them. Alaric had ordered some food down to the office, so they had just finished eating when the door suddenly swung open and Elena stormed through into the office space looking flustered.
"How could you obliterate an entire chapter of my life?" Elena questioned him.
Payton frowned and sat up in her chair, as she looked across at her Dad, seeing his reaction was far from happy right now that the girl had not only stormed in here looking pissed at him but that she had somehow found out about him wiping her memories just days after he had done it in the first place.
Alaric sighed and got up from his desk chair and went over to a box in the corner of the room, where Elena had gathered together all the things that held memories towards Damon, which included a diary that held an entry that she had prewritten to herself if this day was to ever come.
"Look, Elena," Alaric began as he laid the box down onto the desk and Payton went over to close the door up, so they could have some privacy, "as much as I like to think I'm full of wisdom I think it's time we stop pretending that I actually know what's best, ok?"
"But you do have some pretty good advice," Payton remarked, not liking how he was putting himself down.
Alaric shone his daughter a brief smile, as Elena rolled her eyes playfully and the man went on to say, as he pulled out the diary, "Look, I've got my own issues to sort out right now and I think this will explain it better."
Handing the diary over to her, Elena stared at it before she reluctantly took it from him and began to read out the diary entry she had left for herself, which basically explained if she ever found out about what she made Alaric do, then it was true that she did love Damon, but when he passed away, the void he left was too deep, which meant facing a whole entity without him was too hard and had caused her to go off the deep end.
Payton sat in the chair listening into Elena, feeling a wave of sadness hit her, thinking she had been in that girl's place before, the thought of being without Mason had been so hard to imagine at first, but she got through it because she knew she had to. Elena on the other hand, she had dealt with so much grief before, losing Damon was probably the icing on the cake for her.
But then she thought about Stefan, how he must have been feeling the past few months, how she had been trying to keep him on track, to not go down the dark road of ripper life all over again, but whilst she had been so good at making sure he kept in control, Payton had failed to keep a hold of the true Stefan that everyone knew and loved, the man had left when Damon had, Stefan was no longer Stefan because he didn't want to be him without Damon.
And that meant he couldn't have Payton, because he didn't feel like he could have her nor did he deserve her.
She sadly glanced over at her Dad who was now picking up his flask that contained blood, clearly finding it just as painful as Payton was to hear Elena reading this out. Alaric had lost a friend that night as well. Payton had barely stopped to think about how he might have been feeling about his loss of Damon. She had been trying to keep Stefan on track so much that she had forgotten about him. Now she felt so much guilt and wondered if any of the past few months had been worth it.
Everything was such a mess.
Elena then went on to say that Alaric could restore her memories if she wanted him to, but what surprised Payton was that past Elena had almost wished that she wouldn't bring her memories back, because she couldn't see an end to the pain of losing Damon, she wanted better for her future self, she wanted her to be ok and to move on, she wanted her to have hope.
When Elena finished reading, Alaric asked her the dreaded question, "So what do you want me to do?"
Elena handed him over the diary as Alaric slowly took it from her and she answered, "Can you hold onto that? Keep it safe in case I ever need to read it again."
Alaric shone her a small smile and nodded, before laying the diary back into the box and looking back down at Payton, who gave him a sad smile.
Author note: Thanks so much for reading this part. I'm so sorry it's been a good couple of months since I last updated this story. Life has just got so busy and in all honestly I've lost inspiration for a lot of this story. Although I have a good number of parts prewritten that I can continue uploading :)
I really hope you enjoyed this part!
Special thanks to LMarie99, , Adela and team steroline mom for reviewing the last part. It means the world to me to have your support.
I'd love to know your thoughts on this part!
Thanks so much.
Have a good Christmas.
Best wishes always,
guiltypleasurexo