Disclaimer: See prologue. some dialogue is taken right from the episodes, cuz it's hard not to ya know?
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I haven;t given up, don't worry, I hope i didn't lose a lot of readers.
You called me strong, you called me weak,
But still your secrets I will keep
You took for granted all the times
I never let you down
You stumbled in and bumped your head,
If not for me then you'd be dead
I picked you up and put you back on solid ground
If I go crazy then will you still
Call me Superman
If I'm alive and well,
Will you be there a-holding my hand
I'll keep you by my side
With my superhuman might
Kryptonite
...
A couple days later, Kenzie found herself sitting in Elena's kitchen, going through papers, trying to find Bonnie's mom, who had abandoned her when she was young.
"Thanks again for helping." Bonnie told her.
Kenzie shrugged, looking at the pictures as she tried to match one to the picture Bonnie had given her. "You said you needed an extra pair of eyes and Caroline's busy and I really don't want to hang out at my house with grumpy Jill, so yeah."
"Why did you let her stay there?" Bonnie asked, curiously.
Another shrug. "She's family and Jack is missing, searching for me. That's my fault, I guess I should have kept in better touch."
"You were going through a lot." Elena replied, sitting down with a glass of water for her. "I mean, what happened before you left- Kenzie, you have to know-"
She was interrupted by the redhead holding up a hand. "Can we just not right now? I'm learning to deal so please, let's just not."
Guilt flashed across Elena's face before she nodded, looking down at more papers as the front door opened.
"Who wants to go see Momma Bennett?" Damon asked, walking through the door. "Abby Bennett Wilson, Monroe, North Carolina. Born in Mystic Falls Hospital, graduated at Mystic Falls High... blah blah blah." He handed the folder in his hand off to Bonnie. "A little compulsion helps speed up the research process."
"This is her." Bonnie whispered.
"Yup. Roadtrip. I call Shot gun."
Elena looked at Bonnie, then at Kenzie, who was craning her neck to look at the folder in the witches hand without trying to touch her. Kenzie was just kind of glad her and Bonnie had never been the touchy kind of friends.
"Yeah… no. Bonnie hasn't seen her mom in over 15 years. We don't need your snarky commentary narrating the experience."
"Are you taking Red?"
"Nope." Kenzie answered. "I'm gonna go home, by myself might I add."
"I'm starting to feel unwanted." Damon said with a fake pout.
"You'll live. Let me know how it goes." Kenzie told the girls, leaving the house as fast as she could.
When she got home, she went straight to her room, finishing off some homework and avoiding Jill who was probably still watching TV, completely enthralled by it. If she had to watch Jersey Shore one more time, she might just shoot someone, she couldn't figure out why Jill was so fascinated by it.
She was lying on her bed with her music cranked up when her bedroom door opened. She opened her eyes to see Stefan above her and she rolled them as she sat up.
"Knocking works." She told him.
"So I heard. Come on, we're going on a road trip."
"Let's not and say we did."
"We're going after Elena and Bonnie. She gave me some bullshit story about the lake house but I have a feeling they're going after Bonnie's mom."
"Wow, that's some great detective work there Stefan" She sarcastically told him.
"And you're going to tell me where that is."
"What makes you think I know?" She snapped.
"Because you were with them this morning."
"So? Not like I have the address memorized."
"Don't you?" He asked with a smirk, to which she narrowed her eyes. "Let me try this another way Kenz, we're going after them, you're coming with me because I know you know the address and if you don't, everyone's going to find out your little secret."
"You're such a dick." She hissed at him as she stood up. "Seriously, I hate dick Stefan."
"You and the rest of the town."
She grabbed her purse and glared at him. "Fine, you asshole, let's go."
Kenzie grudgingly gave him the address and the ride there was silent, the redhead scowling in the passenger seat. When they arrived, Stefan told her to stay in the car while he went to investigate and she obliged, cranking the music up loud as he left.
She was singing along to the music, enjoying herself, really, when she swore she heard a gun shot. She turned the music off, stopping to listen and when she heard nothing, she got out of the car. She doubted she was hearing things. In the distance, she heard Elena screaming for Bonnie and she took off running down the road. A car started backing out of the driveway to the quaint little house and Kenzie dove behind some bushes, out of sight. She waited for the car to leave before getting up and making her way into the backyard where she could hear Elena's cries coming from the barn. She crept silently along the side of the house, seeing Stefan on the ground, groaning. He had been shot but Kenzie wasn't sure by what. She had heard one shot but his front looked covered in wounds. As she reached the barn, a young guy, who looked not much older than her, paced with a shotgun as Elena tried to plead with him to let her go. He ignored her, walking out of the other side of the barn and Kenzie waited to make sure he was gone before slipping inside the barn.
"Kenzie?" Elena asked in confusion.
She shushed the other girl, kneeling down beside Stefan. "See what happens when you're a dick?" She quipped, checking him over.
"There are wood chips scraping against my heart, you need to get them out." he groaned.
Kenzie nodded as she got to work, reaching inside of the wounds to take out the wood chips. She moved as quick as she could while still being meticulous so as to not make it worse. She was going through the last few when she heard the footsteps of the guy returning and she stood up to go hide just to the left of Elena.
"Jaime, please just let us go." Elena begged him.
"No." He yelled, lifting the shot gun. "Don't do anything. I don't know why I shot him, I don't know why I'm holding this gun but if you move or do anything, I'm going to shot him again."
"Ok." Elena whispered. "Who gave you that gun?"
"A man came by today, said it was a wooden buckshot and said that if anyone got in the way, I'm supposed to shoot them."
"What else did he say?"
"If Abby doesn't find the location of some coffins, I'm supposed to shoot myself." Jaime told her.
Kenzie silently groaned, pulling out her phone and tapping out a quick message to Damon, warning him to move the coffins because some bad stuff was about to go down that she would explain later. He wrote back within seconds, not questioning her but agreeing to it.
"what about me? What did he say about me?" Elena was asking Jaime.
He shook his head. "I'm not supposed to hurt you."
"Are you sure? Because these ropes are so tight that they are hurting me."
Jaime relaxed his hold on his gun as he stepped towards Elena. Kenzie moved out of her hiding spot, moving just a bit faster than normal as she grabbed the gun and yanked it out of his hand, swinging it and hitting him in the head, knocking him out. Elena looked on in horror as Kenzie went to untie her.
"Is he going to be okay?"
"I'm all of 100 lbs. Elena, I'm pretty sure most of that is my hair, what harm can I do?"
She could hear Stefan's quiet snort as she turned back to him, where he was just pushing himself up from the ground. Elena ran to him to check him over.
"I messaged Damon and gave him the heads up." Kenzie told them, "I'm just going to see if he did it, give you guys some time to talk."
She left them in the barn, walking back towards the cars as she looked at her phone, seeing no response from Damon yet. She waited for the other two by the car and when Stefan walked over, he looked even more angry.
"What now?" An exasperated Kenzie asked.
"Did you know about this?"
"know about what?"
"They kissed."
"Yeah, kind of why I left, remember?"
Stefan shook his head. "No, recently. Did you know they kissed again?"
Kenzie felt like she had been punched in the gut as her face dropped.
"I'll take that as a no." He replied with a humourless laugh. "Elena just told me."
Kenzie looked past him to where Elena was standing, with a guilty look on her face.
"Kenzie, I'm so sorry."
She schooled her expression into one of indifference. "Why? We're broken up Elena. It doesn't matter to me."
"You wanna go?" Stefan asked.
She nodded, getting back in the car with him and leaving Elena alone in the driveway.
"You okay?" Stefan asked as they were on their way back to Mystic Falls.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" She asked, staring out the window.
"Kenz, you don't have to hide it from me, okay? I know you're still in love with my brother. For the record, you're better than him."
"No. I'm not. I've never-" She hesitated unsure of how to continue. "I've never done this whole love thing before but he was… he was amazing, we just kinda fit, you know? Then I was turned and suddenly, everything was intensified and I just couldn't deal with how much in love I was with him, especially right after watching him kiss Elena, it was too much for me to handle. I wanted to rip Elena's throat out with my teeth and that's when I realized there was something really wrong with me."
Her phone started ringing and she looked down at it to see it was Damon, she sent him to voicemail.
"I slept with him. Again. The day Damon staked me, before that, I slept with him."
"And he still kissed her?"
"I guess so. Or she kissed him." Kenzie glanced over at Stefan, whose jaw was set in anger. Her phone rang again and she sent it to voicemail again.
"What are you going to do now?" Stefan asked.
The redhead sighed. "I don't know, he was just spewing all this shit about us being together, how he doesn't want me going to California because I belong here, with him."
"California? You're going back there?"
"Maybe for college. I could get a free ride."
"You still want to go to college?" He sounded surprised and Kenzie rolled her eyes at him.
"God Stefan, I'm a vampire, not dead… well not really…you know what I mean. I can go to college, I can be normal and have the whole experience while I live in denial that I'm stuck like this forever."
Her phone rang yet again and Kenzie picked it up this time, just wanting him to leave her alone. "Don't call me ever again." She hissed. "If I see you, I will find a way to stake you, stay the hell away from me."
She hung up on Damon and turned her phone off, throwing it back into her purse before turning to look out the window again, refusing to speak to Stefan anymore.
… … …
Kenzie was pulled out of her tv watching by a knock on the door and she muted the TV, confused as to how someone showed up at her house without her knowing. She very much doubted it was Damon, Stefan had messaged her the night before saying he had hit Damon twice, once for her so she wasn't surprised that the elder brother was hiding from her. He had spewed all this crap about her being it, yet was kissing Elena? And not some, hey I'm feverish and dying kiss but a kiss, one that left her feeling like her heart was being ripped out of her chest every time she thought about it. This whole Vampire heightened emotion thing was not sitting well with her at all.
The knock came again and this time, Kenzie stood up and warily moved towards the door, opening it a small crack to see who it was. The person standing there had her jaw dropping in complete shock as she looked at him.
"Ah, Miss Miller, how lovely to see you again."
"Oh my god." She breathed before jumping out onto her porch and throwing her arms around Elijah. "You've been undaggered. Who did it? Why are you here?"
He pulled away with a small smile as he looked down at her. "Well I'm glad you're not too mad at me."
"For double crossing us? Old news." She waved him away. "I mean, Klaus daggered you again so I'm guessing you're pro getting rid of him again. I'd say come in but um… I'm still a little hesitant about vampires being around my Dad."
"understood, shall we walk?"
Kenzie nodded, grinning at him as he offered his arm and she looped hers through it.
"So tell me, how has everything been?"
"Well, you were daggered, Klaus left with Stefan, who offered his loyalty in exchange for a cure for Damon's vampire bite. Umm Damon was saved, I went away all summer, came back and was pulled right back in the middle of all this. Your brother killed me again, so that was fun."
"You are so flippant when it comes to death." He told her, an amused smile on his face, even as she saw the simmering anger right below the surface at the last piece of news she told him. For reasons she couldn't quite fathom, Elijah had taken a liking to her.
"I have a ring." she replied with a small shrug
"And how are you and Damon?" He tried to casually asked and she glanced at him, seeing he was trying to remain as casual as possible.
"I'm fine and Damon will find a fist in his face if he comes near me."
Elijah gave her a questioning look.
"He kissed Elena when he was all delusional, that's why I left. He's spent the time since I returned telling me it was a mistake, that he didn't remember, only for Elena to confess they kissed recently. Not my favorite people at the moment."
"Understandable. If you would like, I could stake him for you?"
Kenzie seemed to actually contemplate it before shaking her head. "Nah, your brother first. He finally let you out?"
"No, Damon did that before the coffins were returned to my brother. There was a sit down between Stefan and Klaus, where I undaggered the rest of my family."
"Oh, is Klaus dead now? I bet not everyone was happy when they were undaggered."
"Not at all but we were surprised when my mother showed up."
"Your mom? I thought Klaus killed her."
"She was who was in the coffin."
Cat frowned, a little put out that no one had kept her up to date on everything but who would give her the news? Elena? Damon? She'd rather stay clueless.
"My mother wants us to be a family again and as such, we are hosting a dinner party." He steered her back to her house and onto the porch where an envelope sat on top of a white box.
"I do hope to see you there, Mackenze." He bowed, grabbing her hand and laying a kiss on the back of it. "Perhaps allow this Vampire to escort you?"
Her mouth formed an O of surprise as she stared at him before finally grinning. "I would love to."
"Then I shall pick you up that day. Good bye Mackenzie."
He left and the redhead picked up the box, going inside and up to her room. She opened it and pulled out the contents, gasping at what was inside. She couldn't wait.
… … …