AN: In playing with the timelines to make this story work, I had to take some liberties. In terms of Supernatural, this story takes place during Season 6 (but loosely). For the purposes of this slightly AU tale, Sam is recently returned from his soullessness, but the Campbells are a non-factor and Cas is not working with Crowley.

In terms of The Vampire Diaries, this story takes place during Season 3 (but loosely). Klaus has already come to town, compelled Stefan to turn off his humanity, and ultimately Stefan had returned to normal. Elena is human. The hybrids exist, and Tyler is one of them. The Mikaelsons are still in town, but Esther has not been brought back or returned.

In terms of lore, we will be using The Vampire Diaries' version of vampires, not the Supernatural version. It just makes more sense for this story.

If a change makes sense, it is probably intentional.

The title is from the song "Vindicated" by Dashboard Confessional.

X

Human nature is to simply assume that the worst thing imaginable will never happen to you.

A forest fire? You won't lose your house in one. Starvation? You will always have enough to eat. Violent death? You'll go quietly in your sleep.

Perhaps the shift in that kind of thinking is the most profound change affected by a brush with the supernatural. Suddenly the world is infinitely broader, deeper, and more complicated than you could have ever imagined, and suddenly, the reality of all the worst things imaginable out there is paralyzing.

X

Singer Salvage Yard stretched out for several acres. The property was a mix of woods, dilapidated buildings, and rusty, long-forsaken cars, but it was also warmed by the pale yellow South Dakota sun and blessed by crisp breezes. Sam Winchester sat on the hood of an old '83 Ford truck. His jacket was a little tighter on his frame than it had been last time he had worn it. The creature living in his body – for that was how Sam had to think of himself without a soul – must have had a propensity for working out. He supposed the joy of research was something lost on a soulless human. He lifted his face to the sun, feeling its heat. Dean would laugh him out of the scrapyard if he knew that his brother was just appreciating how damn good it felt to be human. He was smelling grass, tasting cool, fresh air, and touching sun-warmed metal.

The world was in peril again. Ending the Apocalypse had only been the start to saving it. What had felt so final only a year ago was only another adventure in the Winchester gospel, if such a thing was still to be written. Now the threat was different. The Earth would not be leveled. Nature would still sing birdsong and grow sweet, ripe berries, but humans would no longer exist to appreciate it. This time, the mother of all monsters ("the literal mother..." Dean had joked, waggling his eyebrows) was knocking on the door, but she was not asking politely to be let in. She was demanding.

"Sam!" Sam couldn't help but smile at the bellow. Dean had never met a subtlety he liked. "Sam, I got you a burger! It's got mushrooms and some green shit on it."

"Green shit," Sam muttered before raising his voice, "Bring it over here!"

After a few seconds, Dean's head appeared above the cars. He raised his arm, showing off a white bag with a splotchy grease stain showing through it. It was his idea of gourmet, and he brought it over, plopping it on the hood of the car and climbing up beside Sam. They ate in relative silence. Sam noticed that the green shit on his burger was made up of spinach and spring greens and that the terriyaki sauce on the mushrooms was pretty darn good. He savored each bite, again appreciating the little things.

"Bobby's taking a shower. Then I figure we'll keep reading news reports and looking for cases. Big ones," Dean licked a blob of mayonnaise from his chin.

"You think that's how we'll find her?" Sam replied, doubful.

"Her," Dean snorted. "Yeah, if assigning a gender to the bitch makes any sense."

"It's been weeks. No sign of her anywhere. There are monsters out there, but they don't seem to be... doing anything out of the ordinary," He could not help but chuckle.

"What?"

"Never thought I'd say that. 'Monsters seem ordinary' and all."

"Yeah. Hilarious. This whole situation is a regular chucklefest."

"Can't be brooding all the time."

They crumpled up their trash wrappers and started back towards the house. Dean tossed the bag towards a trash barrel, missed, and kept walking. Sam managed to take two steps forward before all the Don't Litter signs he had seen his whole life crowded his mind. He turned around, picked up the bag, and placed it in the trashcan. Catching up to Dean only took two strides. They pushed open the door and headed inside.

Bobby's house was never a paragon of tidiness, but today it was torn apart six ways to Sunday. Every bookshelf was empty. The books were on the couch, on the end table, on the desk, on the floor, open to various percentages before abandoned, with different degrees of beer bottles and liquor glasses around them. Loose papers had managed to wiggle their way free from file folders, trailing their way between rooms. Research was not going so well, but it had been going steadily for days. They were no closer to figuring out how to kill – or trap or maim or destroy – Eve than they had been when they first discovered her rise out of Purgatory. Bobby's shower had been the first break for luxury in 36 hours.

Sam accepted the beer bottle his brother put in his hand just as Bobby rounded the corner. He was back in real clothes, of course, but he only wore a flannel shirt, jeans, and a pair of grey wool socks. The look was so casual, without jacket or boots that made him ready to go at a moment's notice, that it created a false sense of domesticity. For a second, Sam imagined what it would be like to be a man visiting his father. Maybe here for a weekend fishing trip. He knew that Bobby and Dean neither one could imagine things like that. They were concrete people, absolute in their acceptance of reality, but that was not Sam. He could see Dean as a mechanic, hard-drinking maybe but the life of a party, and himself as a... well, lawyer no longer seemed appropriate, but maybe he could be an investigator, a real detective. They would still be different, but they could also still be brothers the way brothers were meant to be. And Bobby could smile every time the fish were biting.

"Sam?" Bobby's voice was gruff.

"Oh shit. Sorry. What were you saying?" Sam shook his head of his thoughts. He needed to focus. After being put back into his body, he had been drifting off more and more, imagining how different their lives could have been. After miraculously stopping the Apocalypse and somehow surviving it, they deserved the chance to put their feet up and have normalcy. He resented that they were still the job.

"I don't know, cupcake. Only that I got a lead on where we might find Eve. Think that might interest you?" Bobby had a facial expression that could have withered fresh spring flowers, but Sam was used to that.

"Yeah, I' m listening, I'm listening. Where's the lead?"

Bobby still looked frustrated, skulking around behind his desk and beginning to shuffle through papers. Dean watched him from the side of the room, leaned back against the doorframe. He tilted his beer up, took a long drink, and then looked back at Sam.

"Bobby got a call today from some hunter in Virginia I've never heard of," Dean remarked, raising an eyebrow.

"Who?"

Bobby chimed back in. "A good guy. He got into the business a couple year's back when his wife was killed by a vamp."

"Some amateur," Dean also continued.

"His name's Ric, and he says he's got some weird stuff happening out his way. He called for information."

Sam could have cut the tension between the two of them. He wasn't sure why Dean was being a dick, but he had his guesses. They didn't have much faith in other hunters these days, not after everything they had been through, but Bobby still had faith in the old ways. He had spent most of his life building and maintaining the network of hunters across this nation; it was thanks to him that information passed the way it did. If hunters no longer could rely on the super information highway through Bobby Singer's, then Bobby had very little purpose left, and he was from the old school where you shot a dog who had gotten crippled. He didn't want to lose his purpose.

"What did he want information about?" Sam intermediated, looking from man to man, waiting to see which one would be his source.

Dean waved his arm, still holding his beer, towards Bobby, who gruffly continued, "Ric says people in his town are starting to hear voices, calling them to kill, and that they're having trouble fighting it."

"Sounds... pleasant." Sam swallowed sharply.

"Yeah, a real walk in the park. He wanted to know what could cause something like that because they're all hearing the same voice, at the same times, saying 'she is coming'. He wanted me to look in my books and get back to him with an answer," Bobby held up a book that would be useless.

"But you think it's Eve," Sam said.

"I think I don't believe in the kind of frickin' coincidence where something like that happens at the same time as the mother of all monsters rising out of Purgatory."

"You don't agree?" Sam looked at Dean now. Dean shook his head.

"She isn't interested in humans. This sounds like demons or ghost posession or something else that we could send someone more local after. Or better yet, we could accept this Ric's statement that he needs information, not help. If he wants to be a hunter, the training wheels have to come off sometime."

"He sounded real scared, and besides, there's no demonic omens and he couldn't point to any recent deaths in his town. You boys should head that way."

"Alright, Bobby, alright. We'll load up and head out. Let us both shower first." Dean acquiesced for both brothers. Sam didn't mind; there was a time not that long ago where he would have felt the urge to rebel against his older brother's rule, but now he had to acknowledge that he took some comfort in knowing that someone else wanted to make the decisions in times like this. Plus he already agreed with Bobby before Dean came to that conclusion himself. The end result was mostly the same between the two of them these days.

"I'll throw together sandwiches for the road. I've got a ziploc of bacon in the fridge." Bobby shuffled his way into the kitchen, just starting to show signs of aging in his walk.

Sam headed upstairs and took a quick shower while Dean used the downstairs shower. When he got out, he brushed his teeth again. It felt good to get the funk of terriyaki and beer out of his mouth. As he got dressed, he rolled his clean clothes – which Bobby and Dean had washed at some point this week while he was knee-deep in reading – and packed them into his bag. Two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, two clean tee shirts, a flannel shirt, and a pair of jeans rolled into a tight package at the edge of his backpack. Most of his items stayed there all the time, like a toothbrush and a phone charger, because here at Bobby's, he had a toothbrush in the holder by the sink. It was the closest thing he had ever had to home. Even as a kid, on the rare weekend they had gotten to be here, he had been able to leave things here, knowing they would be safe until his return.

Clean, packed, and smelling better than he probably would for weeks, Sam walked down the stairs.

"Where exactly are we going again?" Dean was seated at the kitchen table, chair pushed back, as he put on his boots and laced them up. He pulled the laces tight at each pair of eyelets, the motion so practiced he didn't have to look. Sam noticed Bobby was still assembling sandwiches for his boys and that Cas was now in the kitchen. The angel stood ramrod straight, as always, right in the center of the room. It was the little things like that continually setting him apart from humans. Humans drifted to corners. They liked to lean on walls, slump a little against the fridge, balance their arms on the back of a chair. When Cas came into a room, he always felt comfortable standing dead center. Sam supposed it was an angel thing.

"Mystic Falls, Virginia," Bobby replied. He dropped a sandwich and a handful of chips into one brown paper bag.

"Mystic Falls? Who names these frickin' places?" Dean muttered as he glanced up at Sam. "Good. You're ready. We've got 1500 miles to drive."

"Is Cas coming?" Sam walked over to grab one of the bags Bobby had prepared and stow it in his backpack where Dean couldn't get it.

"No. Cas is still having trouble with the God Squad," Dean answered. He stood up, stretched his back out, and strated toward the door. "He just came down to get up to speed with where we're going. For once, he answered when I prayed."

Castiel turned his bright blue gaze to Sam, something he had always found unnverving. Dean always seemed so capable of forgetting that Cas was not human, but Sam was in constant awe of that fact. He could never quite see all three of them as equals. Without a doubt, he himself stood apart from the other two. His very psyche had touched levels of darkness they could never imagine. His eyes had been black while his heart pumped demon blood with every beat, and he had contained Lucifer inside him, literally seen the world through the devil's eyes. How could an angel and the Righteous Man in Hell relate to things like that?

"The angels are still at war. The factions are splintering amongst themselves. Heaven is becoming..." Cas paused.

"Hell?" Dean interrupted.

Cas shot him a look before turning back to Sam and continuing, "A place of danger and betrayal. No one knows who to trust or who to look towards. We need a god."

"A god?" Sam felt his shoulders stiffen instantly at the word choice. "Not God? A god?"

"God does not seem to care what happens to his warriors." There was bitterness in Cas's tone, little hint of the reverence he had once touted.

"I'm sorry, Cas," Sam replied.

"You did not do it," Cas answered, puzzled.

"It's just something people say, Cas," Dean sounded exasperated. The conversation trailed on and then off. After the mutual update had passed, Castiel disappeared, popping back up to Heaven. The Winchester boys hugged Bobby goodbye, that brief shoulder-to-shoulder touch that bespoke family, double-checked the trunk of the Impala, and climbed in.

Dean cranked up "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" as they pulled out in a cloud of dust.

X

Rain battered down on the roof of the Gilbert house; this storm had rolled in two days ago, and it had not slowed down a bit. Normal storms had lulls, periods where the precipitation became drizzle, no thunder could be heard, and the clouds even seemed a bit lighter. But in two days, this weather event had not deviated from its torrent. Elena sat on the porch swing, simply because it felt good to be outside, and rocked back and forth slowly. The warm September air was little comfort with everything that had been going on around town, and the book on her lap had been open to the same page for 30 minutes. Her thoughts pinged inside of her skull like the steel ball in a pinball machine.

A week ago, they had been at the Grille, and it had seemed almost... normal. Stefan had actually been playing pool with Tyler; he may have even laughed once or twice. Caroline had put on a black top that tied behind the neck with a big bow and a neckline that dropped too low, showcasing a perfect set of cleavage as she danced along to the music. Hell hath no fury like Caroline Forbes scorned, and she had been punishing Tyler for their breakup with short skirts, flirty eyes, and low-cut shirts for weeks. Elena and Bonnie had been seated on stools behind the pool table, watching and chatting. Across the Grille, Damon had been seated at the bar, the only one of legal drinking age, and in memory, even Elena had to admit that his activity had been watching her. When she recalled the image now, she could still see his hot eyes watching her every move, measuring her happiness through their filter. For a few minutes, they had not been three vampires, a hybrid, a witch, and a human; they had simply been a group of friends.

It had been mid-conversation when all of a sudden, Stefan had whiffed a shot. He missed so badly the pool cue shot out of his hand and across the felt. It bumped once and clattered to the floor. Bonnie and Elena had laughed until his face went serious. "Did you hear that?" He had demanded. At that moment, Caroline had come flying towards him, grabbed his shoulders, and repeated the same question back to him. At the bar, Damon had frozen too, snapping his gaze to his brother.

Caroline, Stefan, and Damon all claimed to be hearing a voice inside their head ("Voices?" Bonnie had tried to clarify only to be corrected that it was a single voice). The voice told them, "I am coming. Make ready. Feed. Feast. I am coming," and other iterations on the same terrible orders. But even once they left the Grille and gathered at the Salvatores, they found more questions than answers in their conversations. Why couldn't Tyler hear the voice? Who was coming? Why was it so hard to fight? Stefan had been shaking from the moment he heard the voice, hands quaking like the addict that he was.

Elena shook her head to clear her mind of the memory. Now their focus was research. The dusty tome in her hands right now was titled Pagan Clairvoyants, and so far, it outlined concepts from witch speak to human telepathy but nothing that seemed to speak the problem in their town. She was reading every book Ric had dropped off, though, and Bonnie was doing the same thing at her house. Stefan and Damon had gotten out of town to go talk to some witches somewhere in North Carolina, both of them rattled, though they wouldn't admit it. Caroline was in bed, acting for all the world as if she could cure whatever this was with a bowl of soup and a positive attitude ("It's not the flu, Barbie," Damon had groused).

Sitting here in this rain, Elena felt more alone than she had in months. Ever since she had gotten tangled up with the Salvatore boys, she had been tailed, shadowed, and watched. Sometimes it was terrifying, and sometimes it was all that made her feel safe. Right now, though, she extended her rubber black boots in front of her and swung the swing a little harder.

Twin headlights came down the road, moving at the slow pace of someone reading street addresses, and then turned down her driveway. She didn't recognize the car, and her stomach seized up in a sudden knot. Strangers were not a good omen in a place like Mystic Falls. Through the rain and the rushing windshield wipers, it was impossible for any human to see who was in the vehicle, but the driver cut the car off. Elena looked around the porch, cursing herself for not having something out here to use to defend herself. When was she ever going to learn her lesson?

The driver of the car unfolded out into the rain. He was tall and broad-shouldered under a long black coat, but that was all she could see before a passenger got out as well. The driver had seemed tall until this passenger got out. He was one of the tallest men Elena had ever seen in person, shaggy-haired and also broad-shouldered. The pair of them walked briskly towards the porch, seemingly unfazed by the pounding rain. Once they cleared the rain and stepped under the overhang, the men were more clearly visible. Though it was completely irrational, Elena felt a surge of comfort at the sight of them. That, in and of itself, scared her more than the fear she should have been feeling. The shorter man was handsome with his short brown hair, serious eyes, and scruffy beard around a surprisingly soft mouth while the taller man was all lean angles and kindness, with brown-hair plastered to the sides of his neck by the heavy rain.

"Hello ma'am," the driver spoke first. His tone was gruff, informal. As he spoke, he reached up, putting his thumb and forefinger to his temple, and pulled down, squeegeeing the dripping water from his face. "We're looking for Rick Saltzman."

Her eyes widened. "You're looking for Alaric?"

"Alaric?" The driver looked surprised now. He turned to the passenger and muttered, "That's a weird name."

"That's Ric Saltzman's whole first name. Why are you looking for him?" She felt suspicious now.

"We have business with him," the passenger spoke this time. His voice was different, smoother and almost soothing. He sounded like someone who could have counseled the grieving and comforted the bullied. "Is this where he lives?"

Elena hesitated but saw no way around answering the question. "Yes."

The two men exchanged a long glance before finally the taller of the two spoke again. "He called us about a... problem he was having here in town. Are you familiar with the problem?"

Now she sucked in a deep breath that stuck in her throat. Ric had been carefully calling in favors for weeks, using only trusted resources and cautious wording. He needed information from experts, but he needed no one's interest too aroused because if anyone followed the bread crumbs to Mystic Falls, he or she would find a town unlike any other. No paranormal or occult expert would be willing to pass up an opportunity to study the denizens of this not-so-idyllic town, and no self-proclaimed monster hunters would be able to bear knowing such a nest of the supernatural existed. Judging from the looks of these two men, even with their sharp-looking suits under their long jackets... Elena doubted that they were academics looking to take good notes. She wished Ric were here to tell her what answer she should be giving. Finally, she decided on the affirmative.

"Yes, I am. Wait here on the porch, and I will go in and call him to let him know you're here. What are your names again?" She added the 'again' hoping it might make them forget that they had not offered names in the first place. She had no such luck.

"We didn't say. You can tell Ric that Bobby Singer sent us."

"Bobby Singer. Got it." Relief felt warm and soothing when she realized they were not going to ask to be let inside; she never let anyone inside these days until she was certain. Once she had seen the power of the threshold holding back an angry vampire, she would forever appreciate its promise of protection. She slipped inside and back through the house to the kitchen where she knew her call would not be overheard. Then she dialed Ric and waited nervously.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," she muttered into the receiver. Then she heard the baritone hello of her favorite history teacher on the other end.

"Ric, thank God. Listen, there's two men here to see you," she hated how anxious she sounded. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window behind the kitchen sink. Even to her own eyes, she looked pale and nervous. "They say that Bobby Singer sent them."

"Bobby? Shit. I told him I just needed information. If Bobby's sent them, they must be John Winchester's boys," Alaric breathed in on the other end, and a few seconds ticked by. Elena could imagine the face he was making, chin jutted out slightly and frown creasing. "That's not good."

"Why not?"

"They're hunters. You know, kill-things-that-go-bump-in-the-night hunters. Things like Caroline and Tyler and..."

"And Damon," she added in a breath, feeling guilty even as she did so that she had said his name first. He was the wrong brother.

"Yeah, and Damon and Stefan."

"Well, what do I do with them?"

"Invite them in. Give them a soda or a beer or a fifth of whiskey or whatever their poison is, and I'll be there soon to talk to them. They're not dangerous. At least not to us. I'm just at the grocery store, so stall for a few."

Elena laughed as they exchanged quick goodbyes. They were desperately facing down another peril; their friends were in danger again, hearing unknown voices and feeling a bloodlust they could not explain, but she and Alaric still had to go on milk runs. It was the curse and the joy of being human. Thinking of milk made her think of the way her brother used to down a whole gallon by himself some days; she missed Jeremy so fiercely she clenched her fingers into her palms. She knew that sending him to Denver was the right choice. When he called, he was happy, settled, friendly. He was neither the sluggish, drugged Jeremy of after their parents' death or the fearful, desperate Jeremy of supernatural knowledge. He was free.

She walked back out to the front door and opened it. The two men were still standing there, comfortable in their silence.

"I'm sorry about that," she swung the door open wider. "Please come in. Alaric says he'll be home in just a few minutes. I'm Elena Gilbert."

The taller one nodded. "Hi Elena. I'm Sam, and this is my brother, Dean."

"Well, Sam and Dean, come on in."

She pulled the door closed behind them and ushered them to the living room, whispering a silent prayer that the Salvatore boys would not get back into town to check on her before Ric came home. She doubted they would take kindly to the two broad-shouldered vampire-hunters now sitting on her sofa.

X

Reuniting his family was only a small part of Klaus's purpose in Mystic Falls. His larger purpose was to create a home for himself, and the uniqueness of this small town was that a percentage of its humans knew about vampires. For him, that presented a more appealing challenge than carving out a role amongst the ignorant. He preferred to use thousands of years of connections and wealth to influence those whose morals asked them to have higher standards. It was simply more fun. Why just recently, he had met with Mayor Lockwood to talk over the town's need for park renovations. These small towns loved their pet projects. That love made his sphere of influence easy to grow. A hospital wing here, some park benches there... before he knew it, he would be the town's most beloved star.

Today, though, he was forced to handle more domestic problems. His brother, Elijah, was pacing the floor of his stately home ten miles outside of Mystic Falls. The hardwood floors were polished to a gleam under the hands of a compelled housemaid; she had scrubbed until her fingers bled, but it was entirely worth it. The luster was almost enough to distract from Elijah's vicious stride back and forth. Against the backdrop of the nasty storm outside, Elijah looked like a figure from an old movie, pacing in front of a broad window and catacylsmic lightning.

"Niklaus, I am having difficulties controlling myself."

It was a statement Klaus could never have anticipated hearing from his brother, eternally cool and composed. Elijah had none of his younger brother's nasty temper. All of his actions came from a place of supreme collection.

"The voice still?" Klaus was not pacing but seated on the expensive white couch. He ran a finger along its seam, appreciating the luxury of daring to own something so pale in a house where blood was so apt to splash.

"She is getting louder, more insistent. She says she is coming." Elijah's suit was immaculate, well-cut and perfectly tailored. Not a hair on his head was out of place by even an inch. His voice even retained its deep, melodic calm. Yet his eyes were wide as he made this statement, rimmed ever-so-slightly in red.

"I do not know what magic this voice works as. It is undoubtedly some witch trying to have her fun, and when I find her, I will end her. However, you cannot let it affect you so in the meantime. It is only a voice," Klaus responded, crossing one leg over the other and looking up at the walls. He had two bare spaces that needed work, but inspiration was loathe to come to him. He felt no shame in acknowledging that Caroline Forbes was his muse currently; he had experienced many dalliances and several true romances over his centuries, and she was a beauty and wit worthy of another. Her reluctance, as opposed to attraction to him, was not surprising considering her belief in her own morality. What he would never admit to anyone was that he was rattled by her belief in his morality, something he had certainly never encountered before. He toyed with the idea of painting Elijah's shoes tapping down on the immaculate floors – might be an intriguing juxtaposition of class and stress.

Elijah stopped pacing and walked to the couch to take a seat beside his brother. "No. You don't understand because you cannot hear it. This is not a witch or some sort of magic. Klaus," His tone was grave. "I think it may be God."

Klaus actually snorted. "There is no God. If there were, He would have smited us long ago. Or rather," His lips curved into a smile. "He would have tried."

"The voice is not angry. It is..." Elijah trailed off.

"I thought you said it wanted you to give in to the bloodlust and kill freely."

"It does. She does," Elijah corrected. Again, his brother was caught off-guard by how uncharacteristic this action was. It was a level of respect and courtesy usually only reserved for family and friends. "But her voice... I think she wants us to be happy."

"Us?"

"Yes. I do not... I do not understand fully," Elijah closed his eyes. "But, Klaus, she is coming. Whomever she is, she is coming."