Wanting to surprise Rebekah and also rip into her about driving Matt off a bridge and almost killing him, I waited until the next day before going to see her. Klaus had been keeping tabs on his sister and knew exactly where she was, trying to make an apology to Matt by having bought him a new truck and was attempting to give him the keys, though he wanted nothing to do with it, saying that if anyone needed to hear an apology, it was Elena. Oh boohoo, so Elena was a vampire now, so what? Now she can spend the rest of forever with both her Salvatore boyfriends and they'll all live happily ever after in their weird little love triangle-fest. I really don't see the big deal, I mean come on, ever since she started dating a vampire wasn't this kind of inevitable? Think of all the Twilight fans who would be so insanely jealous of her right now. "You're trying too hard." Klaus said to Bekah as I walked on in, looking out for Matt first. I heard a little of their conversation, close enough to be able to hear them talking but when Matt caught sight of me, that was all I wanted to focus on. I grinned at him, giving a hand gesture that said 'here I am' and he almost dropped the glass he had been drying.
"Hey Mattie." I greeted, starting to walk on over before Matt's face broke out into a grin then suddenly he was hugging me, his arms sweeping me up into the air as they wrapped around my waist and I had to hold onto his shoulders for balance.
"I can't believe it, you're up! I mean…are you okay? What happened to you?" He started laying on the questions, barely able to believe that I was really walking and talking again.
"I'm fine Matt, I just needed a really long nap. Guess that dress really made me feel too much like a princess and figured I needed to wait for some prince to come find me." I joked terribly, grinning as I wrapped my arms around his neck in order to hug him back. "I missed you."
"I missed you too Lia. Don't ever do something like that again." Laughing, I knocked his shoulder as he let me down, telling him that it wasn't exactly a choice to go to sleep for an entire month, blame it on witchy poisons. Matt's boss was now giving us a look, wanting to interrupt and tell Matt to get back to work but knew better than to say anything in front of regular customers like me.
"I'll stick around, so we can talk a little more. I need to rip Bekah a new one for driving your truck off that bridge."
"You know about that?" Clearly surprised, I gave Matt a smile and squeezed his arm as I started to move around him.
"Aw come on Mattie, even comatose I can still keep tabs on you all. I know everything that's been going on." Leaving him to get back to work before he could get into trouble with his manager, I started walking on over to Rebekah and Klaus who seemed to be finishing up their talk. Clearly Klaus hadn't gotten what he wanted as he had that childish pout on him, simmering with anger and irritation as he left, leaving Bekah alone at the bar. "Well guess you two still haven't made up by the looks of things. You guys have another fight?"
"Lia!" She whirled around to face me, face dropping in shock before then it suddenly crumbled and she was sobbing, rushing towards me with a little vamp speed before throwing her arms around me. Having been fully prepared to give her a furious rant about how angry I was she almost killed Matt, and not for the first time mind you, and that she should have remembered that Mattie was an important person to me and all that, I hadn't expected her to start crying. She sobbed against me, leaving me standing there balking until my arms gradually came around her. "Hey…what's all this? Come on, you know I'm not the soppy kind…"
It was then that I realised I hadn't been the only one who must have felt alone. Without me, Bekah probably had no one else around. It was one thing to be asleep and lonely, but to have to face every day alone and somehow manage to function through it must have been far more difficult for Bekah, who had always relied upon someone her entire life. First her mother, then her brothers, and after they all disappeared, me. At least before I met Bekah, I knew I had Matt and there were plenty of people I was friendly with. Rebekah didn't even have that, and now she didn't even have her brother. Perhaps since both myself and her brothers were absent, Bekah had fallen a little too far off the rail, and her nearly killing Mattie was partly because I wasn't there to tell her not to do something so stupid that she would clearly regret later. Switching into comforting mode as best as I was able, I swayed with her in my arms and stroked her hair until she was calm enough to talk. "You're here, you're finally here. What took you so long?! I've been waiting for you for weeks!"
"Gee, I'm real sorry I made you wait with my excessive power napping." Rolling my eyes, I held her eyes for a moment before I grinned. "I'm back now Bekah, it's all going to be okay." I promised and she finally smiled through her tears, dabbing at them with the back of her hand so I grabbed her a napkin so that she could dry them properly. "Though you and I have a lot we need to talk about, starting with the whole bridge thing. Did you seriously think I wouldn't know about that?"
"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking about anyone other than myself at that moment. I was acting on impulse as I always do and this time I didn't have you there to pull me back and I was selfish and…" Clearly she knew how badly she messed up and was desperately trying to apologise so in the end, I decided that today it wasn't something important. We could always talk about it tomorrow and I can start to help her figure out how to make things right, though the thing with the new truck was a good start.
"We'll talk about it later, okay? I'm just so glad to see you, Bekah. I missed you like crazy." Hugging each other again, Rebekah finally calmed down enough to breathe normally. "So your brother told me about the whole Five thing, super vampire hunters or something. Don't fancy helping him out?"
"Of course not. He and I are done."
"Awesome. Let's get something to eat. I'm starving." Having already been home to see my parents with Klaus tagging along to adjust the compulsion he'd placed over them, they'd accepted the fact that I had been perfectly fine and that I'd been there all along for the past month, just ill but I was finally getting better, which was why I hadn't been in school. I think we went with I'd broken my leg and caught a bad cold, but now I was all better things could go back to normal. I just hope nobody asks to see the hospital records because that might be a little trickier. Anyway, after I'd returned to them and thanked Klaus for everything, I'd replaced the protective spells over them so that they could no longer be compelled or hurt by supernatural beings.
"Actually, I'm meeting a new friend here. Would you like to join us? I'd like to introduce you. Her name is April Young. Her father just died in the explosion at his ranch where he tried to kill me, Stefan and Elena." Rebekah said and of course, I knew exactly what she was talking about.
"I remember April when she was younger, vaguely. Sure, why not? Look at you Bekah, making new friends without me. Looks like the whole being human thing is starting to work out for you." I teased her, making her lips flicker with a smile as she then wrapped her arms around mine as if to hold onto me tightly and never let me go, like I was going to float away from her if she wasn't careful. Of course, I knew everything about the ranch explosion that had killed off twelve members of the council, and I also knew what it was building up to.
There were a few pieces of information that was still missing, but I knew it had something to do with sacrifices and that the vampire hunter was also involved. Not with the explosion, but what this all lead to. I was keeping all that to myself for now, however. I didn't want to start making any moves until I had all the information and would probably not get involved until the very last minute. Who knows? Maybe I'll swoop in, defeat the evil and be a hero. Pft. Anyway, Rebekah was eagerly leading me over to the table where an older version of the April I remembered was sat, talking to Matt with a star-struck smile. "I'm not just sitting here alone like the loser new girl, I'm with my friend. She just…"
"Sorry, family drama. April, this is another friend of mine Ophelia. She mentioned she knew you?" Rebekah smoothly slid herself into the booth and I followed, flashing April a smile and she recognised me because of the hair so we said hello quickly.
"You two are friends?" Matt questioned sceptically, looking between April and Rebekah in surprise.
"Is it so hard to believe I would have more than one?" Bekah inquired reflexively, her tone light yet defensive as Matt sent her a look.
"Yeah, it is." He responded, though he gave my shoulder a friendly and warm squeeze as he made to leave and I naturally reached up to return the gesture on his hand. "And I'm keeping the truck." As he left, I noticed that both April and Rebekah watched after him with dreamy little eyes. Oh my god, Mattie has his own fan squad.
"Hey, off limits." Rebekah quickly interjected, noticing that April was staring at Matt too. "I have dibs."
"We still working on the whole sharing concept, are we?" I teased, giving Rebekah a knowing nudge as both she and April gave a delicate blush of embarrassment. Before any of us could actually start talking, we had a rather unwelcome intruder in the form of Stefan Salvatore. He turned to April immediately in order to compel her not to remember any of this next conversation.
"Klaus wants me to fake peace with you so you'll talk about The Five." He informed Bekah honestly and bluntly before his eyes flicked across to me. "Weren't you composting yourself into a tree or something?"
"Excuse me but I nearly died, thank you so much for your concern." Quipping back at him, I pulled a face at Stefan, the two of us still not on friendly terms. "And I was not composting, but comatose. There's a difference." Shrugging to signify that he couldn't care less as Bekah glowered sharply at him.
"Don't help him. He'll just betray you, it's what he does."
"Alright well, forget him. Help me instead." Leaning back against my seat I folded my arms in order to get myself comfortable, curious as to find out how exactly Stefan intended to get Bekah on his side.
"Why? You hate me more than he does."
"Because I'm going to figure out what he's up to, and plus I can give you the one thing that he won't." Stefan responded smoothly as April just looked totally lost, staring at the three of us winsomely and almost completely forgotten in the corner. "A clean slate." Glancing across to Rebekah, I saw the minute shifts in her face to signify that that's exactly what she wanted. "I'm not saying that I'm willing to forgive you for what you did to Elena, but I'm willing to set it aside and start over."
"Why would you do that?" She asked suspiciously.
"Because you're obviously not leaving town anytime soon, and I'm just looking for a way we can all get along." Stefan reasoned rather smoothly, and I had to admit this was something Rebekah had been looking for. Although she had me, I knew she found it difficult being rejected by all other circles just because of the conflict everyone had had with each other in the past. "Plus you can't be too happy wandering around school with no friends."
"Excuse me, but I'm right here." I protested hotly, none too happy that he had completely ignored the fact that I was Bekah's best friend. "And for the record, I like Bekah a whole lot more than I do you guys."
"Right. Two loners thrown together. It's a match made in heaven." That smirking little jerk. I knew I didn't like him, with his dumb looking hair and smooth features, it made me stomach roil.
"What if I don't care about what you or anyone else thinks?" Bekah returned aloofly, but Stefan made the point that although that might not be the case, she did care what Matt thought about her and suggested that maybe he could talk to him about giving her a clean slate too. It was too tempting an offer, and I quietly reasoned that it's probably better to be in the loop of things rather than dig in her heels and make things more difficult later because knowing Klaus, he'd find a way to dig at her until she caved.
Persuaded, Rebekah agreed to go back to the mansion in order to talk to Klaus and just play the game for a little while. Giving our excuses to April we left, and Rebekah insisted that I came with her. I think deep down, she was afraid of what Klaus might do and I was something of an insurance policy. I could keep him under control, or at least handle him with delicacy so that we might somehow manage a halfway civil conversation, though I'm not holding my breath. Family gatherings weren't exactly their strong suit, and I'll be surprised if we make it through to desert without some kind of bloodshed.