Chapter 4: Self Dependence


Not long after getting back to her room, Jake immediately dressed down to a tank top and some loose boxer shorts. She didn't usually wear the chest girdle corset anymore like she had need to at Rawley Academy for boys, but it was nice to not be weighed down by all the excess clothes anyway. Honestly, Jake wasn't really even sure why she liked being perceived as a boy most of the time, because when she was alone, or just with Hamilton, and didn't have to try to 'pass', it was such a relief. Still, sometimes she just loved passing under the radar as one of the boys. It seemed that even without the binding corset, she was so skinny and flat enough with a few baggy layers of clothing that no one ever noticed.

Hamilton had been wonderful for the past few weeks. He'd learned to just let Jake be Jake. Their rocky beginning at Rawley, when he was confused and trying to come to terms with being attracted to who he believed to actually be a boy seemed to have passed. As quickly as he'd adapted to the fact that he was actually attracted to a female in disguise, he'd now continued to adapt to the fact that it wasn't all quite as clear cut as it had seemed at first. Jake was female, yes. Technically. Except, that sometimes she didn't perceive herself that way at all. Sometimes, she forgot that she wasn't a guy, and was a lot happier when other people mistook her for a boy. Then other times, usually when she was alone with Hamilton, (or out on their own special dates, away from all the other people that knew her as Jake the boy, or Jake the crossdressing tomboy), she actually also enjoyed being Hamilton's girlfriend. Sometimes, albeit quite rarely, she liked to dress up nice, and have her boyfriend ogling her as if she were the prettiest girl ever born.

Then, right after their date, or when they were back in public, Jake wanted to go right back to being Jake the boy. It was even confusing to Jake. It was like she was going through a second puberty at sixteen, and becoming someone else all over again, only without any known blueprint to see what the end result would be. Hamilton was even younger, by almost a year, but he definitely knew who he was, or at least he knew what he was at his core.

They were in the same grade because Jake had already been expelled three times in the last six years, so Jake had fallen behind before she'd even met Hamilton at Rawley, and was only his year by a technicality. The worst part, was, that her mom hadn't even been able to keep track of what grade she was actually supposed to be in, and didn't even seem to realize that Jake shouldn't actually be a freshman. Jake loved her mom, but the woman was the most self-absorbed person she'd ever met. Jake had just turned sixteen at the end of August, after summer school at Rawley, but right before starting at Mystic Falls, and her mother hadn't even remembered. Jake hadn't even told Hamilton about it either, realizing that neither one of them had remembered to exchange birthday dates, and it had happened when they weren't able to see each other anyway. The only birthday card she gotten, with a hefty check that was ten times her usual monthly allowance, was probably from her mother's assistant, Consuela, who had also been almost like a nanny to Jake as a younger child.

At least at sixteen now, Jake had been eligible for an actual license. Another thing that her mother was unaware that Jake had dealt with all alone. Jake wasn't sure why she didn't tell Hamilton about any of that stuff. He'd probably be upset that she'd said nothing, once he found out later. Sometimes he was just such a happy go lucky kid, especially compared to Jake, that she wanted to keep him that way. Hamilton's innocence and cheerfulness was infectious, and Jake already knew that he'd have supported her anyway. He always did, whenever it mattered.

They were both still so young, though, and sometimes Jake felt bad about pulling him into her screwed up situation with her total lack of any adult role models. After all, he'd have never gotten in any trouble at all and would still be in Rawley Academy right now, happily living his formerly perfect, sheltered life if Jake had never shown up and made such a huge mess of everything for him. Jake was a bit afraid that if things didn't work out with them long term, Hamilton would eventually feel resentment.

Either way, right now it was easy enough to take all of the freshman classes that Hamilton was in, even if their algebra math class had Jake bored to tears. Unfortunately, in those sorts of classes, Jake was way farther advanced than the classes that her transcripts officially showed that Jacqueline Pratt, juvenile delinquent, had successfully actually passed in any legitimate capacity.

So, to keep her mind from degrading any further, Jake booted up the expensive laptop and logged into the college calculus 2 and advanced computer science classes that she'd secretly enrolled in, trying to learn something new for once. Jake always did the math first, because the computer science often led Jake to doing her own new stuff to 'practice', which was what led to hacking in the first place, and that could last for hours if Jake didn't set a 'go to bed' timer. Especially now that Hamilton wasn't constantly visiting Jake's room like he had at Rawley. Unfortunately, just as Jake got settled into her math assignments, Jake was suddenly rudely interrupted by pounding on her bedroom door.

"Jake! We need to talk!"

It was Bonnie. Great. Jake took a deep breath and pulled on a sweater and a baggy pair of basketball shorts.

"Oookay?" Cracking the door open to peak out didn't work, as Bonnie just barged right in.

"Since when are you hanging out with Jeremy Gilbert and Vicki Donovan? Are you doing drugs with them too, because if you are, then you can pack your bags now and get out of my house! I don't care how much your mom paid my dad to let you board here, if you are part of the reason that Elena's little brother is getting wasted and having sex with Vicki, then I will make sure that you're gone! Like, yesterday!" Bonnie exclaimed, in probably less than ten seconds.

"Whoa, Bonnie, calm down, alright? I'm not doing drugs, and…" Jake started, but was interrupted right away.

"Don't lie to me! Jeremy doesn't have any friends left that he doesn't do drugs with. He's vulnerable, and it's killing Elena!" Bonnie was putting her foot down to this weirdo that had invaded her life.

"I don't do drugs, Bonnie! I've only known Jeremy since school started, and we barely know each other! I'm just trying to be there for him; both me and my boyfriend, Hamilton, we're just trying to be Jeremy's friends. Neither of us ever even did any drugs." Jake wasn't going to bother mentioning the one time that Hamilton had attempted smoking. Pretty much every kid eventually tried it at least once, so that was a freebie that didn't count as actually 'doing drugs' in Jake's mind. "Jeremy doesn't even really do it that much when he's with us, but he's always so sad that he goes right back to it as soon as he's back on his own. We don't know what to do about it, but it seems like Elena is only making him feel even worse."

Bonnie opened her mouth like she was going to interrupt, so Jake quickly continued, "We've just been trying to make him feel happier as much as possible when he's around us. Feel free to ask your other friend, Matt the quarterback, about the time we were out by the quarry the other day, just rowing around in a boat that he helped us move. No one was doing any drugs. We don't even hang out with Vicki at all, and honestly, we wish that Jeremy didn't either, but that's not up to us any more than it's up to Elena. The more Elena tries to tell him what to do, the more he does the opposite. So… Are we done here? Because I have homework to get through…" Jake pointed to the online math course that was opened on the laptop, hoping it wouldn't time out from inactivity.

"Uh, I, wow. Okay, if you're telling me the truth, then I'm sorry. Just, be careful with Jeremy, okay? Also, Elena loves her brother, and she's known him a lot longer than you have, so don't try to say or do anything that turns him against her at all, understand?" Bonnie stood there in the doorway, waiting for Jake to respond, and Jake finally just nodded.

"Okay. Understood. Are we cool, then?"

Bonnie frowned, replying, "Ask me again, later. Right now I still don't know what to think..."

It probably didn't help that Bonnie had gotten a very strange feeling of doom and gloom earlier when she'd first knocked on Jake's door, especially after the extremely cold feelings of doom and gloom that she'd definitely gotten when handing Elena's phone number to Stefan at the diner. Bonnie really didn't know what to think about anything right now, and all of her inexplicable, weird, psychic moments were freaking her out! It really didn't help that Grams kept telling Bonnie that she was a witch.


Damon had no trouble getting invited into Caroline's home, or her bed. Problem was, it was too easy, which meant that there was very little pursuit, and she was definitely younger than he'd realized at first. In his mind, Elena was older, timeless, like Katherine, but he'd been wrong. These girls that Stefan was playing schoolboy with weren't even seniors this year. Caroline wasn't even seventeen, yet. She was a sixteen year old virgin.

Dammit if wasn't he tempted, though. It was hard not to be. She smelled so damn good. Her blood was intoxicating, even before he bit her and tasted it. Oh, he still intended to feed on her. Also, she was definitely going to be the key he used to get what he wanted. Except now he had spent the entire night in her room, unsatisfied and pissed off. He shouldn't be pissed off. His emotions weren't supposed to exist. He shouldn't have any morals. Nothing should be hindering him from taking whatever he wanted.

Last night, he'd let her get all undressed down to her lingerie, and kissed her all the way up her bared skin, smelling her arousal, up until he'd bitten her throat. He'd made it hurt, badly too. He wasn't nice about it. This girl had invited an emotionless vampire into her home after all, and she'd been begging for it. In the end though, after terrorizing her with a few painful bites, and drinking less than he'd wanted to, he'd angrily told her to put her nightgown back on, and to go to sleep.

Then he'd laid there next to her, pissed off that she wasn't older. Mostly, though, he was pissed off that she wasn't Katherine. Most of all, he was pissed off that maybe his emotions weren't off as much as he wanted them to be, because he hated himself for who he'd become, and he wasn't having as much fun as he pretended to. None of that was supposed to be on his mind at all! His head should be clear, cold, and calculating, but Stefan's unexpected presence this summer and the existence of Elena… it had thrown him all off his game. After a hundred and forty five years of waiting and misery, he couldn't afford to screw things up now.

Of course, he hadn't erased Caroline's memory when he'd made her go to sleep, so when she woken up the next morning, she was terrified. That hadn't gone well either, and he'd ended up taking another bite out of her before finally compelling her to think that she was dating him now. Even still, he was mostly just frustrated, and not actually having any fun. Even now that she thought that she was his girlfriend, and tried making out with him, kissing her just felt fake, because it was. He'd still given it a shot for a few moments of experimental canoodling, because she was hot, but it just did nothing for him, and he only wanted her blood.

So when she complained about missing a whole day of school and that she couldn't miss cheerleading practice too, or her friends would put out an APB, which was confirmed by the absurdly annoying endless texts blowing up her phone, he'd finally just put a scarf on her neck and driven her to the high school. Now that she was compelled to think that they were actually dating and not to be afraid of him, though, she never shut up!

It was a little weird when she asked him why he looked exactly like his little brother, who'd she'd seen at the Grill last night. Damon didn't think that he looked anything like Stefan at all. He'd always found Stefan's difference in appearance to his own to be a bit of an anomaly. Maybe he just couldn't see what other people did?

The high point of his day had been seeing the expression on Elena's face when he'd dropped off her annoying little friend. Oh, sure, there had definitely been an intensely disapproving look, which was yet another thing that pissed him off as much as it amused him, but he'd also seen a hint of jealousy. At least that was what he was going to call it.

Seeing that Stefan was trying out for the high school football team was also quite a hoot. It appeared that his little brother was still trying, and failing, to impress Elena. That was sadly the high point of Damon's day.

Pretending that he found everything funny, when in truth it really just made him angry, was quickly becoming tiresome. Ironically, the fact that Stefan fell for his act every time was rather amusing in the moment, but then thinking about it afterwards just made Damon angry too!

He couldn't wait to get Katherine back so he could leave. Preferably before he snapped and ripped the entire town to shreds.


School had gone quite well today for Hamilton and Jake. It turned out that Matt was right.

Tanner was less of a dick if a guy played football. He still wasn't exactly a nice person, or a good teacher, but he'd stopped making a point to excessively single out Hamilton or even Jake. It was possible he'd just gotten bored with them too, since they didn't exactly do anything to give him any new material. They were both trying to avoid problems.

Tanner definitely still acted like an asshole to Jeremy though, especially if Jeremy didn't make it in on time with Ham and Jake because he'd detoured to smoke beforehand.

That afternoon playing football, Hamilton had a blast during practice. The JV team had just cleared the field for the older players before suddenly the guys were calling out that Tanner was letting a new kid try out for varsity, which was unprecedented. Everyone knew that you had to try out in the spring, and only still got bumped up to varsity from the junior reserves if one of the older kids got injured once the season had already started. Hamilton had climbed up to the roof to watch, since Jake had been using the hot spot for some online programming course, and had just wrapped it up.

Jeremy had seen Hamilton go up and had followed after. He'd tried hanging out with Jake earlier but had gotten bored since Jake was completely fixated on her laptop. That morning, he had been approached by Vicki with some concert tickets. He'd turned them down, instead, asking her if she even liked him at all or just the drugs? She hadn't responded with any good answer, and he'd stalked off, so he'd been kind of bummed all day.

Now though, Hamilton and Jake were watching the new guy trying out for varsity, and it was kind of intense. There was no doubt that Matt and Tyler were trying to get the guy to screw up badly, but up until an obvious intentionally high hospital pass, the kid was schooling them all.

Eventually, though, Jake and Jeremy noticed the dark look on Hamilton's face.

"What's wrong, Hamilton?" Jake wondered.

"That's the guy, Jake. The glaring creep that I told you about," Hamilton replied, frowning as the older kid stood up after the hard hit. "Dude, I swear he just broke something in his hand and popped it back into place!"

Right as he spoke, the kid on the field glanced upwards right at them on the roof and they all ducked, except for Jeremy who waved back and laughed a little, saying, "You guys are being crazy. That's just Stefan Salvatore, and I'm pretty sure he's a 'friend' of my sister. For some reason, she told me that she thought you were his brother, but obviously not… and there's no way you could have seen someone miraculously 'fix' a broken hand from here, Ham."

"Alright, maybe not," Hamilton admitted, "...but the way he fell and was holding it looked wrong. Jake, I know that something's off about him… Also, no, I don't have any siblings. He looks nothing like me, either."

"Okay Hamilton," Jake replied, "but are you sure it isn't just another situation where you think that someone's strange because they are looking at you like they think that you're strange?"

"Huh?" asked Jeremy.

"Oh, right, like when Scout and Will first started picking up on stuff. About us," Hamilton got it.

"Yeah," replied Jake, "because that happens to us a lot, and you're always thinking that the people watching us are the strange ones. This is probably another one of those."

"Or," Hamilton contended, "he's actually some kind of evil superhuman alien, and has already erased your ability to see him as a threat."

"Rigggght," Jake drawled, "I'm sure that's it, Hamilton. Okay. Anyone want to go out to the quarry for a bit?"

"Sure," Jeremy replied, and Hamilton was already climbing back down the roof.


After a day of questioning her judgment on whether or not she'd been too hard on Stefan, Elena had come to the conclusion that she really liked him anyway. Or, at least, she was drawn to him, for some inexplicable reason. Strangely, she was drawn to his older brother a little bit too, even though she didn't want to be. Talk about red flags… she was definitely not going there!

Maybe it was just because Stefan had totally shut down Tanner in history class, and then still managed to get a chance to kick ass and get a spot on the football team, but there was just something about him that she couldn't ignore. Something intriguing that gave her a bit of a thrill, and made her feel something other than being numb. Sure, there'd been a few too many moments that had really bothered her, but those moments were all just her mind having doubts, right?

According to Bonnie, Elena must've been wrong about Hamilton too. His name was Fleming, not Salvatore, and he was Bonnie's new, weird, unwanted housemate's boyfriend from some other boarding school. Hamilton wasn't even a Salvatore, nor did he live in the boarding house, so Elena must have just thought that he looked like Stefan's older brother. So far, no one else had even met Damon, but a few of them had met Hamilton once or twice. Everyone said that the younger one was a nice kid. No one else had even heard of Damon, yet.

She'd cornered Jeremy in school earlier and asked about him too, and Jeremy had claimed that his new friend was an only child that came from Connecticut, and was definitely a Fleming, not a Salvatore.

So, maybe it was all just a big mistake.

Except, when Caroline showed up late to cheerleading practice in Damon's car, and Elena saw Damon's face again, she couldn't help but think that the resemblance was far to strong to just be in her head. She'd ask Caroline about it later, because clearly Caroline had also seen both of them now.

Still, maybe she'd give Stefan another chance, too. So she invited him to dinner tonight, and also invited Bonnie, hoping that herself and her best friend would both come to the conclusion that they'd been wrong about him and all of the supposed 'red flags' that kept bothering her, as well as Bonnie's bad feelings. Then, she invited Caroline too, and asked her to bring Damon. Caroline was stoked.

In reality, Elena wanted to get answers to a lot of things all at one time, before she let herself get anymore in over her head with Stefan.

Unfortunately, she never saw Jeremy or his friends anywhere that afternoon, or she'd have invited them all too.


"At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me. Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea!" Jake was having one of those rare moments, where she acted out loud before thinking. After all, it'd been a long week, and since rowing out into the middle of the quarry, the three of them had ended up in quite a jovial mood.

So, Jake stood there at the front of the boat, letting out some stress by channeling their Rawley teacher, Finn.

Hamilton and Jeremy rocked the boat, chuckling as Jake quickly had to squat back down to avoid falling out, laughing, "Whoa, hey now!"

Hamilton decided to join in with Jake's little outburst, trying to impress her and mimic something that Krudski would say, standing up and pointing an oar upwards where the stars were becoming slightly visible as the sun began to set, shouting, "Over the lit sea's unquiet way… and, uh, um, in the rustling night air came the answer! Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they!"

Jeremy was confused as hell, and he wasn't even stoned, rocking the boat again to this time throw Hamilton off balance, while saying, "Ha, ha, okay, What was all that about?"

Hamilton grabbed onto Jake's shoulder for balance, as they both recited, in what was presumably someone else they knew's deeper, more serious voice, "Resolve to by thyself, and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery!"

They both burst out laughing.

"What?" Jeremy was totally lost, but rather amused.

Hamilton decided to explain, stating, "Our old English teach loved giving us life lessons by quoting philosophical poetry while standing out on a boat like he was some kind of Captain Ahab. That one was about a guy that went on a long sea voyage to 'find himself', then tried to get the meaning of life from stars, wondering how he could become just like them in order to fit perfectly into the universe."

"Seriously?" asked Jeremy, looking upwards again at the stars that were appearing in the twilight sky. "Sounds like a crock of shit."

"Mmhmm," Jake, agreed, before adding, "… Although, a whole sea voyage, only to finally realize that the stars only existed by being exactly what they were all along; themselves. So, he could never fit into the universe by becoming them, only by being himself. Or something along those lines. I'm pretty sure we were late to that one, and missed half of Krudski's input on the matter."

Jeremy wasn't any less confused, shaking his head, "Yeah, no wonder you guys are in that honor's English class…"

Hamilton snorted, "Yeah, well, we barely got by in Finn's class compared to some of the other brainiacs."

"Speak for yourself! Ham's right though, I'm better with technical, hands-on stuff," Jake admitted.

Hamilton smirked and waggled his eyebrows, "Wanna tutor me some of that hands-on, Jake?"

Jeremy laughed loudly.

Jake didn't laugh though, and scoffed, "I'll let you swim back to shore, how's that for hands on, Fleming?"

"Aw," Hamilton sighed, in mock disappointment. It had been quite a fun day though for all of them, but he figured that they ought to row back to shore and hide the boat, before it got any darker. Also, he was hungry and thought that they should go get food before he had to go home.

"Hey, you guys want to hit the Grill, or stop by my place tonight? I think my sister is trying to get me to go home for dinner," Jeremy held up his phone, letting them know that he'd been texted. He was a little worried that meant Elena might be laying in wait with Jenna again, to try to gang up and 'talk' at him again.

"Well, I'm up for whatever, so it's up to you, Jere?" Jake figured that Jeremy should be the one to decide. It was his house and his sister.

"Yeah, I mean, are you sure there'll be enough food if we went to your house, though?" Not enough food would really suck in Hamilton's opinion. Roger's wife didn't cook either, so he needed to get food before going home by curfew.

"Well, the text says that I should 'bring my new friends', so I think so, probably, yeah," Jeremy nodded.

"Alright, then. Let's go?" Jake shrugged, and Hamilton nodded his acceptance.


End Note Disclaimer: Quotes used from the poem 'Self-Dependence' was written by Matthew Arnold and discussed in the TV show 'Young Americans'