"How did he take it?" Jeremy asks, exiting his bedroom.
"Elijah was skeptical, which was to be expected," Sigrid sighs. She had been present when Elijah had received Rose's text message. She had instructed Jeremy, who had instructed Rose, to ask for a meeting via text.
On Sigrid's advice, Rose had lifted the tip of the veil regarding the subject of the meeting, without mentioning Sigrid's name. Sigrid didn't believe it wise to accidentally trigger Elijah. He hadn't burst out in song, which would have been highly unlikely in the first place, but he hadn't stormed out to threaten Rose either, which was something positive. "But he seemed curious enough to accept, which is good."
"Is it?" Jeremy asks, looking a little worried. It was he who would be attacked if they weren't convincing enough.
"It is. He's rarely a rash person. Elijah will want to hear what you have to say." Sigrid nods, convincing both Jeremy and herself. "Who's that man in your living room?"
Jeremy narrows his eyes, halting on top of the stairs to listen to the various voices. He frowns, not having heard or seen any visitors arrive last night. "That's John. Our uncle. But he is actually Elena's biological father."
"So, Elena is your… cousin?" Sigrid blinks, confused.
"Yes. My father and John are brothers. Her mother is Isobel Flemming, a vampire." Jeremy rambles. He believed it best to give Sigrid as much information as possible. He trusted the girl not to use her knowledge for evil. And it wasn't as if Sigrid could do much evil in the first place seeing as she was still a ghost.
"That's confusing." Sigrid shakes her head with a small smile, she was the last person to judge someone on complicated family ties. "Is he reliable?"
"He's an ass. But he cares enough for Elena, I think." Jeremy scoffs as he and Sigrid make their way downstairs.
"That's good to know." Sigrid hums before letting out a startled shriek as she and Jeremy are passed on the stairs by a running Jenna.
"Slow down." Alaric grins, following Jenna. He pats Jeremy on the shoulder before following the woman.
Sigrid and Jeremy share a look before following them into the kitchen, where John and Elena are.
• • •
"Yeah, about that...um, Elena, you want me to explain the situation, or would you like to do the honors?" John calls, a smug little smirk playing on his lips.
"Okay, what's going on?" Jenna asks, rightfully confused. She suspiciously eyes John, who looked incredibly at home, holding her favorite coffee mug.
"I'm sorry, Jenna. I should have told you earlier, but-"
John interrupts Elena. "I'm Elena's biological father. There, now you know."
"You guys didn't tell your aunt?" Sigrid asks, a little disappointed by this development. From what she had gathered, Jeremy was familiar with being left in the dark, and she hadn't suspected him of inflicting the same hurt on someone else.
"Elena is insistent on keeping her in the dark about everything," Jeremy mumbles under his breath as he turns away to supposedly look in the fridge.
"Like you?" Sigrid bristles before shaking her head, not needing to hear Jeremy's reply. Of course, it was foolish to believe that Jenna could take on a supernatural being if it came to it, but she wouldn't let Jenna get in harm's way simply because some adolescent vampires decided that. Jenna needed to know the truth and learn how to protect herself. "Jenna is your guardian. She deserves to know what goes on under her roof."
"Stefan and Damon won't let me. Damon says she can't protect us, and Stefan agrees, as well as Elena." Jeremy scratches his forehead, uncomfortable with Sigrid's clear disapproval. She was right of course, but there was no way he would break the news to Jenna. Damon would kill him, again.
"We'll see about that." Sigrid mutters. If things kept piling up the way they did, she would have to ask Jeremy to write a to-do list for her.
• • •
"Excuse me, Caroline, right?"
Sigrid looks up from the book she was reading over a stranger's shoulder. She had been quietly sitting on a bench beside an old man whose reading pace was ideal for her. Shewished she could read more often and hoped that maybe Jeremy or Elijah would be willing to read to her sometime.
Sigrid narrows her eyes when she sees the woman that had attacked Damon and Rose walk up to the blonde teenager. She recognizes Caroline from the photo Jeremy had shown her. He had been so kind to show her pictures of all the important people in his and Elena's lives and give her a small summary of each person. Thanks to this little history lesson, she knew that Caroline was one of Elena's best friends and that she was a new vampire, turned by Katerina.
Her eyes dart over to the young blonde, worry settling in.
"Yeah." Caroline replies in a disinterested tone.
"I'm looking for Tyler. You haven't seen him, have you?" Jules asks, eyes studying Caroline's face, as if looking for clues of her vampire nature.
Sigrid rises from the bench and joins the two women; she didn't trust Jules at all. Although she did not like Damon, that didn't mean the alpha woman would get to harm people that mattered to her, or in this case, mattered to the Gilberts.
"No, not since earlier. Sorry."
"I know you're lying." Jules accuses, eyes narrowing on the blonde.
"Really? How? Is that one of your little wolf tricks?"
"Oh no." Sigrid sighs, gaze shifting between the two women, already dreading an awful outcome to this confrontation. From what she heard, Caroline can be impulsive, and Jules had earlier shown her violent tendencies, those two characteristics were bound to clash.
"Actually, it is."
"Well, I have a trick too." Caroline lets her fangs drop and hisses in warning at Jules. She knew it was stupid to expose herself like this in broad daylight, but she wasn't going to let this woman intimidate her in her own town. She however lets out a shriek when Jules sprays her with a stinging liquid
"Jeremy!" Sigrid turns to look around, hoping to catch sight of the teenager but came up short. She turns back when she hears a gunshot and sees Caroline crumpled on the floor, a bullet wound on her forehead.
"Always so arrogant, filthy bloodsuckers." Brady mutters whilst picking the teenager up.
"She'll get what she deserves." Jules replies, whilst striding to her vehicle. She didn't want to attract any unwanted attention by waiting around with an unconscious teenager.
Brady grins and follows Jules.
Sigrid looks on as Brady dumps Caroline's body in the trunk of an old car and contemplates her options; she could go with Caroline's attackers, without being able to help, or she could look for Jeremy and lose sight of Jules and Caroline. She curses under her breath before sliding herself into the backseat of the car. Maybe she could find her way back to Jeremy after discovering their hideout or she could gain some intel on the plans of the werewolves.
• • •
"Jeremy?" Sigrid breaks the silence, head turning away from the computer screen. Jeremy had taken the time to explain to Sigrid the workings of a computer, and they were currently watching an illegally streamed movie. She was grateful for his attempt at distracting her racing mind.
"Yes?" Jeremy blinks, before tearing his gaze from the computer screen
"How old is Caroline?" Sigrid asks in a small voice.
"Seventeen."
"She's so young." Sigrid whispers sadly, thinking back on how Caroline had flinched and cried back in the RV. Her mind wanders to another seventeen-year-old blonde-haired girl.
Rebekah had never suffered the same abuse as Niklaus had, but Mikael had struck Rebekah more than once during their human years. Rebekah however always knew that her siblings and Sigrid were there to comfort her after the torment, unlike Caroline, who had suffered alone, not knowing if she would make it out alive.
During Caroline's captivity and torture, Sigrid had remained by the teenager's side, unable to do anything but weep with her and vowing to make the cruel wolves suffer in the nearby future. "And she got really hurt."
"I know." Jeremy mutters, not sure what else he could say to contribute. He wanted to comfort Sigrid, but he wasn't sure how to. The girl had seen thousand years of hurt, Caroline's captivity couldn't have been the worst thing she had seen in her lifetime, but it did seem to affect Sigrid deeply.
"Why aren't you outraged about this? This isn't normal." Sigrid asks, eyes lifting to look at Jeremy. He seemed almost desensitized as if he had already accepted the injustice that took place tonight.
"It is for us, for Elena's friends." Jeremy sighs, rubbing his forehead before continuing. "Bonnie, Caroline, Matt. We all got dragged into this world. And now with Klaus looking for my sister, it will only get worse."
Sigrid shakes her head sadly before turning back to the computer screen, where the movie was still playing. "You are all too young for all this hurt."
