Hear My Train A Comin'

Mystic Falls, Virginia 2010

Jenna had never particularly enjoyed Founder's Day. Town events were a duty that she fulfilled, but this year with so much work piling up with school she'd had much rather stayed home. The stress of the day had her pacing the living room waiting for her niece to come home. She was determined to be a good guardian and prove to her sister that she was the better decision over John Gilbert. The porch creaked outside and Jenna heard the muffled voices of Elena and, she assumed, Stefan. Much to her shock, she opened the front door to Elena kissing Stefan's older brother, Damon. Her shock subsided into annoyance as she cleared her throat. "Elena? Inside. Now please."

Once the door was closed and Jenna was sure that Damon had left their house, she turned sharply on Elena. "What are you doing?" she asked incredulously. Elena sighed and spun on her heels until she was facing Jenna. "I don't want to talk about." Her words seemed to float in the air before Jenna realized she was halfway up the stairs. Teen angst was normal, but Elena and Jenna had been so close since Grayson and Miranda had died. Jeremy had been the troubled one and Elena had helped Jenna out so much with him.

Jenna walked into the kitchen, brows furrowed and head slowly shaking. Her least favorite Gilbert was posted up at the kitchen island, checking his phone. "Is this going to turn into a habit with you? You can't just be here whenever you want." She was looking for someone to exercise her frustrations on and she found the perfect target, John.

He looked up from his phone, "I still have a key."

She took up the seat across from him. "Ugh, remind me to change the locks then." She immediately felt guilty. Sure, John was the worst but it was also his brother who died. "Sorry, it's just that Elena is not really acting like herself. She adores Stefan and I can't really fathom why she would be making out with his brother, hot or not," she whispered. "She's just not that person. But I guess grief makes you do some wild stuff," she shrugged. She stood up and gave John a pat on the shoulder. "Good talk. You are such a big help with..," she gestured all around, "all this family stuff. I'll see you in the morning."

John barely registered Jenna leaving the kitchen. He was still caught up on Elena kissing the older Salvatore. He rifled through his bag, adjusted and tucked his shirt in, and then walked toward the fridge to grab a glass of water. When he went to close the door, there was Elena. His heart jumped in his chest. "You scared me." He was met with an apathetic apology. He opened up to her about Isobel, a tactic. "You know, I first met Isobel when I was just a kid. Fell in love with her right away, though I'm not sure she ever felt the same way." Elena stayed silent, her dark eyes watching him ask he continued. "She was special. She was something else really. Part of why I hate vampires so much is what they took from her, just everything that made her wonderful. I would have never sent her to Damon had I known what she wanted from him. It's my fault," he edged closer to her. "I hope you can understand."

He walked closer, noticing how he seemed to toy with the knives instead of just putting them away from the rack. Her eyes followed him, neutral and assessing. She thanked him and he bit the inside of his cheek. He nodded and smiled, "Can I help?" He couldn't hear what she said next as his focus was on her blatant glance down to his family ring. As she grabbed the knife and raised it up, John reached around his waist with his left hand, leaving his right on the chopping block, a necessary sacrifice. The blade slicing through his fingers hurt, but he was already inches from her heart when the pain hit him and he couldn't stop now. With his left hand he shoved the stake through her heart and his bloody right hand swung around to hold her back, allowing him enough leverage to ensure that he reached his intended target.

Katherine gasped and looked up at John with Elena's eyes. He laid her down on the tile and winced as he pulled his hand out from under her, leaving a trail of his own blood behind. Her face, his daughter's face, grew grey as dark veins pulsed and transformed her features. He looked at her and almost felt bad. "I may be a shit dad, but I'm still her father," he spoke triumphantly to no one in particular, or maybe that was meant for himself. As he stood up, the adrenaline of the moment ebbed and could feel every ounce of pain. He grabbed a tea towel from the counter and ruined it as he applied pressure. The front door opened and Elena was finally home, unaware of the horrors that waited for her in the kitchen or upstairs in Jeremy's room.

The rest of the night was a blur of blood, tears, and vomit. Elena found John frantically clutching at his hand and asking her not to look behind the island. She shot a quick text to Stefan to get his help with Katherine's body. She ran upstairs to get Jeremy and Jenna, when she was confronted with her worst fear. Jeremy was slumped on his bed, unresponsive to her pleas to get up. Jenna had shot up in bed, woken up by John's screams but too afraid to move. It wasn't until she heard Elena wailing that her courage found her and she ran into Jeremy's room. There is something about other people's panic that instills a kind of confidence in a person and this was one of those times. Jenna's back stiffened and she calmly told Elena to grab his left side while she grabbed his right. Between them, they dragged Jeremy downstairs and out towards the car. On the way to the garage, John met them and grabbed his nephew's side so Elena could run ahead and open the car doors.

Jenna drove them to the ER and only broke down once the doctors' took over for both Gilbert men. Alaric met them under the harsh, florescent lighting and held Jenna as she sobbed into shoulder. When he made eye contact with Elena, her eyes were worryingly wide. He wanted to talk to her about what had happened, but Jenna needed him and he'd made a promise to keep her out of all of this. But how could he do that when the monsters kept crawling out from under her bed and had free reign in her home?

When Elena saw Matt and Sheriff Forbes in the waiting room, she nodded numbly as they caught her up to speed. She was finding a hard place to put her grief and worry for Caroline when Jeremy and John were already taking up so much space. She thought the worst day of her life would be the day her parents died, but it was like the universe insisted on punishing her and her loved ones for crimes she didn't remember committing.

A week later, with Jeremy and John back at home, the four of them sat in the living room to lay the truth at Jenna's feet. She freaked out, which was to be expected. She insisted that they'd all gone crazy. After showing her the Gilbert diaries though and giving her time to really digest them, she nodded in a kind of exhausted resignation.

"So, what now?" she had asked. John revealed to them all how he'd been working with Isobel and Katherine to protect Elena against Klaus.

"How could you trust her?!" Elena shouted and John nodded, guilty under his daughter's punishing gaze. He wasn't sure which her she was referring to, but it was a safe bet that she'd meant both of them.

"I was doing what I thought was best, Elena. Klaus is…he isn't like other vampires. He is more powerful and scarier than anything I've ever encountered. And the thing is, he wants you. He wants to hurt you and…I know that I've been terrible. I know that you can't trust me, but I'm asking you to try right now because I need to be your father right now. I need to protect you."

"And what about Jeremy and Jenna? Or Bonnie and Caroline? Matt? Tyler? What about them? What about Stefan?"

"Look, we need to leave. We need to get far away from Mystic Falls, Elena. You, me, Jeremy and Jenna. As far as your friends, well…" John shrugged, he didn't have a good answer for her.

"No, not good enough. If we leave, I need to know that they will be safe."

"You staying puts them in danger." Elena agreed, but she would never give him that satisfaction.

She gave John a week. In a week, she would leave. During that week, she caught Bonnie up to speed. She knew she was asking a lot of Bonnie, to protect the entire town, but she knew that if anyone could do it then it was her. Bonnie was the strongest of them all. Damon begrudgingly agreed to compel the entire town to forget about Elena, save her friends. He did it, but he called her a coward for leaving. Trying to get in one last jab. Elena wasn't sure if she agreed with him or not. She just knew that she couldn't pretend to be normal anymore and she couldn't keep ignoring what felt so glaringly obvious now, she was dangerous to know. As far as anyone would remember, the Gilberts had died and left a surviving son who had moved to Denver to live with relatives. No one would remember the once happy cheerleader who partied with her friends in the woods or the girl who spent too much time in a cemetery.

The morning they left town, everyone gathered on the front lawn except Caroline and Tyler. No one had seen Tyler since the night of the accident and Caroline was recovering in the hospital. Matt had distracted the nurse while Elena had snuck in for a private goodbye the night before and they cried and made promises to always be there for one another. The sun hadn't quite emerged yet and Elena felt like she was slinking away, scared and helpless. Tears freely flowed as she hugged her best friend in the world.

"What if this doesn't change anything? What if I leave and Klaus still comes after everyone? What if something happens to you?"

"It won't. I'll protect everyone." No one else sounded a confident as Bonnie, ever. Not to Elena.

She nodded and looked past Bonnie to Damon. "Will you stay? Will you stay here and protect her?" she asked. She trusted Damon to do whatever was necessary. She could swear his eyes gleamed with a wall of tears that refused to fall, but it was too much to think about what that could have meant.

Elena had intentionally saved Stefan for last. He held her so fiercely that she thought she might snap in half from the pressure. Finally, she looked up and lingered over his lips, his nose, and his eyes. Trying to commit him to her memory. She reached up and smoothed her fingers over his cheeks, wiping away the tears.

"You could stay. You could all come stay at ours and I could keep you safe. It should be me. I should be the one protecting you, Elena." Stefan's bottom lip quivered and Elena stretched up so she could capture it between her lips. Hushing him with a kiss. Stefan met her with a heat and desire to consume her, convince her to stay with his lips. After a while, she pulled back. Drawing back from slowly, her body and brain at odds.

"You know I can't Stefan. I wouldn't be me if I stayed and put everyone in danger. And you know I need you to stay in case he does come. But don't forget about me, please. When it's time, come find me?"

Stefan leaned into her, pushing her hair back one more time and whispered in her ear, "I will always find you, Elena." His words sent shivers down her back and she was still thinking about him when they crossed state lines. She was still thinking about him in the motel when there was a knock at the door. Her heart fluttered, hoping it was Stefan ignoring what she wanted and coming for her anyway. It wasn't Stefan. It was Alaric, coming for Jenna. Elena was happy for her aunt and happy that Ric was there to balance out John's influence over the group, but she was disappointed it wasn't her Stefan.