hi everyone! i'm sorry it look so long to update! this chapter was... difficult to write. tbh i've just been winging it for this entire story. like every decision i've made in this story has been impulsive, and that's okay because i find going with the flow fun and i'm not writing this story to be perfect i'm writing it to have fun. but then all the plot holes caught up to me in this chapter and i didn't know what to do with half of the characters so it all came out kinda sloppy. but fun sloppy! the fun prevails! so enjoy this chapter and don't pay attention to the details. love you all :)
Chapter 8 - You're Undead to Me
Stefan and Natalia stared into the cellar with matching looks of brood on their faces. Damon was unconscious on the floor of the cell.
Nat had received a call from Stefan bright and early that morning, asking if she and Bonnie could trap Damon in the cellar in the basement of the house.
They arrived at his house to find a knocked out Damon in the cellar. Stefan had vervained him the night before and wanted to desiccate him. Nat and Bonnie performed a diluted and much easier version of the tomb spell.
After they did it, Bonnie opted to go home and sleep until she absolutely had to leave for school.
Since the spell the twins performed wasn't as powerful as the tomb spell, there was, of course, a big loophole. In this case, it was that the spell was linked to Damon's ring, so if he had his ring on he'd be able to escape. But Stefan took it off and hid it, so the possibility of that happening was slim.
Now no supernatural creature (including witches) could go in or come out. Unless they were wearing Damon's ring.
They were going to keep Damon in the cellar until they figured out what to do with him. They could keep him there until he was desiccated, but that gave him plenty of time to cause trouble, even while stuck inside a cell.
For now, he was asleep because of the vervain in his system so they should really get to school. He would wake up within the next 12 hours, but he would be trapped, so they didn't have anything to worry about.
But Stefan and Natalia stayed watching Damon quietly.
They were both afraid to leave him, scared that he would wake up, somehow break out of the cell and go on a massacre or something.
"We should get to school." Stefan stated with no real conviction.
"We should." Natalia agreed. They both kept their eyes trained on Damon.
Something caught Nat's eye. Damon was laying slumped against the wall. His back would definitely hurt when he woke up. Tough luck, Damon. But there was something in the pocket of his tuxedo - something that glimmered faintly. A memory from the show slammed into Natalia. Emily Bennett's pendant! Damon had stolen it from the Lockwood's… he needed it for something that had to do with the tomb… she just couldn't remember what. She'd have to check the journal.
Wordlessly, she opened the door to the cellar.
"Nat, what the hell are you doing?" Stefan hissed and tried to stop her.
"It's okay, Stef." She soothed. For some reason that made him stop in his tracks and listen to her. If anyone knew what they were doing, it was Natalia. He trusted her.
She quickly snatched the necklace from Damon's pocket. Before she left the cell, she adjusted Damon so that he was in a more comfortable position. That was her good deed for the day, she chuckled.
Stefan looked down at the amber colored pendant in her hand when she closed and locked the cellar door behind her. "What's that?" He inquired thoughtfully.
"It's a talisman." Nat whispered, examining it in her hands. "It belonged to Emily Bennett."
His face flashed with recognition and he nodded before asking, "What are you going to do with it?"
She sighed. "Probably see if Bonnie wants it. It's meant for her, but she might not want to be possessed. I wouldn't blame her for that, honestly." Nat said quietly, keeping her eyes on the necklace.
Stefan had no clue what she was talking about but shook it off, deciding that if he needed to know, he would learn later.
"Do you need a ride to school?" Stefan took his eyes off the necklace.
"No, that's okay. I'll see you there." She responded.
He nodded and they hugged awkwardly before she left.
•••
The hallways were crowded, but Caroline and Natalia plowed through them with linked arms. They had just been released from the second period.
"Oh, and Nats, don't forget about the Sexy Suds car wash tomorrow! The football team and the band have committed. Well, not all of the band. Just the ones who could pull off the bikini. I want 'in-your-face sexy'. I mean, it is a fundraiser, for god's sake." Caroline babbled to her friend.
Before the amused Natalia could respond, Bonnie and Elena skipped up to them, their arms linked around the elbows in the same way Nat and Cares were.
Nat and Elena linked their free arms, making one big chain of four.
They continued to walk down the hall.
"So, what's happening with Damon again?" Elena whispered with a grim expression plastered to her face.
"He's knocked out." Bonnie replied, "In a cellar."
"Will he wake up?" Caroline questioned.
"Eventually. Hopefully not anytime soon." Natalia said and pulled the chain of girls into the bathroom. She quickly checked the stalls to see if they were empty - they were - and locked the door. "Bon and I did a spell to keep him trapped in there. Unless he has his daylight ring, he won't be able to leave."
"Where's his daylight ring?" Elena inquired.
"Stefan hid it." Bonnie answered. "He won't tell anyone where it is."
Elena and Caroline nodded in understanding.
"Okay, this is off topic, but now that we're all filled in on the supernatural stuff, I want you guys to know that I demand you all wear bikinis at the carwash tomorrow. Please and thank you." Caroline said. She blew them all kisses and strutted out of the bathroom.
•••
It was the next morning, and the twins were anxious as they waited for Ms. Gellar to wake up. They, along with Stefan, Elena, Care, Jeremy, the Donovans and Tyler were crowded in the Salvatore's living room. They didn't have to worry about Damon now that he was unconscious in the basement.
They had been putting off waking up Ms. Gellar for a while. Part of it was laziness; they didn't want to deal with her when she woke up because they knew it would be a lot of work - another part of it was denial. They could continue their semi-normal lives if they just… ignored her? But they knew it was the right thing to do to wake her up and let her make her own decision about what she wanted to do with her knowledge of the supernatural.
Everybody hoped that she would decide to be either an ally to them or just pretend that she didn't witness a murder by a paranormal creature, but that wasn't that realistic. But they didn't think she would run to the founder's council yelling 'vampire!' either, since she was most likely supernatural as well.
Stefan had done some research on Ms. Gellar's family. He traced them all the way back to the 1800s - they had lived in Mystic Falls since then - , but he couldn't find very much information on any supernatural aspect of them from the books stored in the founders archives. Fortunately he did find some connections between the Gellars and the Lockwoods. Michelle's paternal great great grandmother was married to Tyler's paternal great great uncle briefly. Stefan couldn't find out if they had any children, but they most likely did, meaning that Ms. Gellar was almost definitely an untriggered werewolf.
Maybe after finding that out she wouldn't want to expose the other supernaturals in town?
Anyway, their plan was simple: wake Ms. G up, pray that she wouldn't freak out, calmly explain to her about the supernatural world and what Damon was and then she would be able to decide what she wanted to do from there.
"Why the hell isn't she waking up?" Tyler asked impatiently. He was anxious for his distant family member to get up and ease his impending boredom.
"Give it time, Ty." Nat eased quietly, watching Ms. Gellar intently.
"Guyssss." Caroline whined. "The car wash is in two hours. I need to get ready! Can we wrap this up?"
Almost everybody rolled their eyes, this was much more important than a car wash, but Stefan was the one to nod. "Okay," He said, "Why don't you guys go to the car wash? I'll stay here with Michelle."
"No, Stefan, you should come to the wash." Elena reasoned. She was not going to pass up the opportunity to see him washing cars sexily, even if it was for an important thing like this.
"Yeah, Stefan, you can go. I'll stay back with Ms. Gellar." Tyler said. He did not want to go to that car wash, and he also wanted to be there when his cousin (?) woke up.
"Tyler, you can't be here all alone." Natalia said. Leave it to her to be the mother. "What if Damon wakes up? You need someone with you. I'll stay."
"No, no. I'll stay with Ty. Damon probably won't wake up but we'll call you if Ms. G does." Vicki said decidedly.
"Can everybody stop trying to get out of my car wash?" Caroline pouted.
Bonnie looked at Vicki and sighed. "You and Tyler can stay, but keep the rest of us on speed dial."
Everyone else nodded in agreement. "Okay." Tyler said.
"Can we go now?" Caroline groaned.
Nat wrapped her arm around the blonde and chuckled. "Sure."
And with that, they were off to the car wash.
•••
"Okay, kiddos. No friend discounts. No freebies. No pay ya laters. We are not running a charity here." Caroline told the group sternly.
"No we are not." Jeremy said.
"And, uh, the event is called sexy suds, you know." Care added, looking over her friends' attires distastefully. Someone called her and she skipped away.
"Did we just get scolded?" Stefan asked.
"And judged, yeah." Elena sighed. "I'm sorry, Stefan. I think you're going to have to take that off." She tugged at his zip up sweatshirt.
"I think you have to go first." Stefan grinned.
"This needs to be stopped." Matt said, a disgusted expression marred his features.
"I think it's cute." Nat cooed.
"You think a lot of things." Bonnie scoffed. She took Natalia's hand and pulled her away from the PDA. Matt and Jeremy followed their lead and got started on cars of their own.
Bonnie and Nat decide to stick together, so they teamed up on a black Volvo that just pulled in.
"Nattie, you heard Caroline. You have to take that off." Bonnie motioned to her sister's long sleeved shirt.
"Mmm, no. Nice try, though." The older twin replied.
Mentally, she was in her mid thirties, but she was in the body of a child, and she was not going to parade around in a bikini while Logan bitch Fell filmed her and put it on live TV. There would be creepy old guys watching, for goodness sake!
"I know you're used to dressing like a grandmother, but this is a fundraiser! We got to make some money!" Bonnie started scrubbing the car.
Nat followed her sister's lead and soaked her sponge in soapy water. "They could've made money with a bake sale or something. This is just gross."
She noticed that the water she was using for the car was dirty. Somebody must've already used it.
Sighing, she told her sister that she'd be right back and took the bucket of water over to a nearby hose.
She filled the bucket up with water, but when she started adding dish soap in it, she was interrupted by a voice calling her name.
It was Jenna.
Natalia smiled.
She was standing next to Logan Fell.
Natalia rolled her eyes.
She hated that little shit.
"Hey, guys!" She smiled when Jenna waved her over.
"Hey, Nattie!" Jenna exclaimed, hugging Natalia from the side. "I saw you over there and I wanted to say hi. I feel like we haven't seen each other in years!"
Jenna and Nattie were always close. Because of her past life, Nat was mentally Jenna's age. She loved her twin sister and friends, but when they were five year olds and only wanted to play princess games, Natalia couldn't talk to them like she wanted to or act her age like she wanted to because they were five. But when everyone else was playing in the sandbox, she and Jenna were chatting about more adult-y topics while sipping iced tea.
Of course, Jenna questioned how she could relate to a child so much, but she stopped questioning it after a while.
"Natalia." Logan smiled, but it seemed fake.
He babysat for Nat when she was younger, and she had never liked him. He had a very vivid memory of her little seven year old self trying to push him down the stairs. She claimed it was an accident, but the evil look in her eye proved otherwise.
"Hey, Logan. How's that toupee treating you?" She said, pointing to his hair.
Normally she tried to be polite with people, but Logan had always irked her to hell and back, even when she was watching the show in her past life.
Logan tried to laugh. "Ah, Nat. You've always been a funny one." He said through gritted teeth.
"Hm, I do my best." She smiled sweetly, "Look, Jenna, I got to get back to washing cars, but we'll catch up later, 'kay?"
"Okay, Nats. See ya!"
Natalia scowled the second she turned away. She felt bad for leaving Jenna like that, but she really, really hated Logan Fell.
But thankfully, this gave her a new goal. Nip the Logan, Jenna relationship right at the bud.
•••
Michelle's head was resting in her mothers lap, she was listening to the sweet lull of her mom's voice as she read a book. She could feel herself drifting to sleep, but she fought it, wanting to hear the end of the story.
When her mom finished the book, she gave Michelle a big kiss on the forehead, the cheek and the nose.
"Goodnight, Michelle."
"Goodnight, mama."
This memory had been on loop in her head for the past… she didn't know how long. She loved it. She was five years old and her mother was putting her to sleep. It wasn't her happiest memory per se, but it was one of her most peaceful memories, and for someone who had serious anxiety issues, that was just what she needed.
In her memory, her mom always left the room, closed the door almost completely, and left Michelle to fall asleep. Then the memory would restart.
But this time, she couldn't fall asleep. In the memory, she always fell asleep immediately. So why couldn't she sleep now?
She felt a pull, as if she were being lifted off the ground. She didn't want to leave this memory. She wasn't ready!
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fight the pull. Finally, she felt herself return to her warm bed. The door to her room opened, and her mom entered with a book in her hand.
The memory had restarted. Michelle smiled in relief.
•••
Damon's eyes snapped open.
Everything on his body was slightly sore, but he pushed that down and tried to sit up. There was vervain in his system. He could feel that it hadn't completely left. He racked his memory to try to remember how he got here.
He remembered coming home from the founders party, coming home hungry and in need of a blood bag, finding said blood bag and… that's all he had.
Stefan must've put vervain in the blood. Or he must've gotten Zach to, because we all know that Stefan couldn't get near a blood bag without tearing through that thing like it's a party.
He looked down at his finger. No ring. Did his little bro really think that a little vervain and a ring heist would keep Damon from terrorizing his happiness? There must be something else.
He pushed himself up from the ground and sauntered to the door of the cell to yank it off so he could get out of there, but a force stopped him before he could get there. It felt like he was the opposite side of a magnet and he was being stopped from getting to the other magnet.
He tried again, and again, and a couple more times before giving up and slouching onto the floor.
Stefan's little witch friends must have had something to do with this.
The witches couldn't have done something as complex as the tomb spell, that would be a complete waste of magic and they wouldn't have been able to do it within the time it took him to wake up from the vervain.
So it was probably a watered down version. They would have to link the spell to something magical… his ring.
Which Stefan probably threw into a river.
He sighed.
He didn't know how, but he would get out of here. And now he had plenty of time to plot.
•••
The students of Mystic Falls High School had all learned a very important lesson: washing cars is hard work.
Especially when the September weather couldn't make up its mind. One second it was blazing hot, the next you'd need a sweatshirt. And they were all in bathing suits and T-shirts. It could've been hell, but they found a way to make it fun.
Matt, Jeremy and Bonnie had developed a competition. Whoever washed the least amount of cars out of the three of them had to dump a bucket of dirty water on their head.
Elena and Stefan made it fun by being all cutesy and romantic in the corner.
Natalia got to do her favorite pastime. Brooding.
She stood leaning against a car that she was supposed to be watching, a faraway look in her eye. She gripped her phone in her hand in case Ty and Vicki called.
She was thinking about Damon. She felt a little bad. She did promise him that she'd open the tomb for him, and if he was desiccated she wouldn't have to. But technically she wasn't breaking their deal, she only promised to open the tomb, she never said she wouldn't try to put him in an everlasting sleep before she ever got to it. And he drank from Ms. Gellar first, which was actually violating their promise, so she didn't have any reason to feel guilty.
Her eyes trailed over to her bag. That reminded her, she should tell Bonnie about Emily's necklace.
"Bon nay !" She shouted to her sister who was washing a Volkswagen like her life depended on it.
"What?" Bonnie said, looking up from her task quickly.
"Come here!"
"I can't, dude! I gotta win this thing!"
"Oh, come on!" Nat pointed to Matt and Jeremy who were splashing each other with water rather than washing cars.
Bonnie sighed dramatically in defeat and stomped over to Natalia.
"What do you want?"
"Well," Nat picked up her bag, rummaging through it until her fingers found the necklace. "This," She held it up to Bonnie's face, "Was our ancestor Emily's. It was her talisman. I think you should have it."
"Why don't you want it?" Bonnie asked.
Nat sighed. "While she's technically my ancestor… I don't know, it would just feel weird if I took it."
Bonnie's eyes softened. "Nat, even though you had a whole life before this, you're still a Bennett. And you're the first born. You should take it."
Nat looked sheepish. "Well… that means a lot to me, but I kinda don't want to be haunted, so it's all yours, Bon."
"Uh, what do you mean haunted?"
"I'm not talking about the Taylor Swift song. This is the necklace that Emily haunts to try to stop Damon from opening the tomb!" Nat explained, "You read about this in the journal, remember?"
"Ohh, it's that necklace." Bonnie said understandingly, "Yeah, I don't want that thing."
Natalia scoffed. "Well, it's all yours if you want it, girl."
Before Bonnie could reply, Tiki came up to them.
"Hey, have you guys seen Dana?"
Nat and Bonnie looked at each other and then both shook their heads. "No, why?" Bon asked.
"We were having a conversation and that bitch just stopped talking halfway through and walked away. I haven't seen her since. She looked like she was in some sort of trance or something." Tiki explained, rolling her eyes.
"That's weird. We'll keep our eyes out." Nat said. Tiki nodded and walked away.
"Nat, do you think-?" Bonnie trailed off.
"I do." Natalia said, keeping her voice from shaking. "Go get the others, I'm going to go to the boarding house."
Bonnie nodded and rushed over to Stefan and Elena.
Natalia grabbed her bag, stuffed the necklace back in and took out her phone. She ran to her car, not bothering to put on her seatbelt and held her phone in between her shoulder and her ear as she sped down the street.
It was exactly an 8 minute drive from the school to the boarding house, but at the speed Natalia was going, the time would be cut in half. She was surprised she hadn't crashed, since y'know, that's how she died in her last life.
Tyler didn't answer his phone. Nat cursed under her breath and tried Vicki's phone.
No response from her either, but by the time the phone finished ringing she was pulling up to the boarding house.
She ran barefoot into the house (the door was already open, which made a pit drop to the bottom of her stomach), and found Ms. Gellar on the couch, still sleeping peacefully.
Where the hell were Tyler and Vicki?
She decided that was a problem for later and sprinted down to the basement to find Damon leaning against the cellar wall with a smug grin in place.
"Hey, Nats. What are you doin' down here?" He asked cheekily.
"Where's Dana?"
"Don't worry your beautiful little head off. She's right here with me." He moved to the side to show Dana with a dazed look on her face.
Oh, dear. Nat couldn't go in to get her because supernatural creatures weren't allowed and a human couldn't because Damon would kill them. Damn it.
"Oh, hey, Natalia!" Dana exclaimed, "How are you?"
Nat swallowed. "I'm okay, Dana. Do you want to come out here so we can talk a little closer?"
"No, Damon said it would be better if I stayed here." Dana replied cheerily.
Just then, the rest of the gang along with Zach raced down the stairs.
"Where were you two?" Natalia asked Tyler and Vicki.
"We found Damon's flat screen TV and… got a little carried away. We didn't mean to spend so much time there but Ms. G wasn't waking up and-" Vicki tried to explain.
"Okay, okay." Bonnie shut her up.
"Damon, let Dana go." Natalia reasoned.
"Give me my ring and I will." Damon negotiated.
"I don't have it."
"Mm, but Stefan does." Damon smirked.
"Damon, I can't give it to you." Stefan said. He wasn't going to back down this easily. They'd find another way to get Dana out.
"Yes, Stefan, you can, because if you don't, this poor girl is going to die." Damon grinned evilly and brushed Dana's hair to the side to show off her neck.
"Don't you dare." Bonnie said, her eyes going dark.
"I won't. Just give me my ring or undo the spell." He held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender.
Stefan, Nat and Bonnie exchanged a look. If Stefan gave Damon the ring, the spell would be broken and he'd (obviously) have his ring. And if they broke the spell, the spell would be broken and he wouldn't have his ring.
They knew that the latter was the better choice.
Before Nat could mutter the reversal spell, a voice interrupted her.
"Somebody tell me what the hell is going on!" Ms. Gellar shouted, stumbling down the steps of the cellar.
Just when you think things can't get worse, the voice of your Home Ec teacher can bring things to an all time low.
ello loves. how did you feel about that chapter? draaamaaa. little side note, in this story, untriggered werewolves can NOT be compelled, but in the show i think they can. haha like i said. sloppy. thank you very much for reading! have a good day!