━ 1947 ━
SOMETIMES, happiness was simple. Watching a little girl danced with her father in front of a fireplace, while the mother was sitting not far from them, knitting and laughing, and then they adressed you as a part of their family, asking you to join them. Just a simple little thing like that, making you feel included, making you feel like a part of something.
Only that none of it was actually real. They weren't her family, in fact they didn't know anything about her. But Bella knew, she always knew, because she was the one who compelled them to think that she was a part of their family.
It was sad to think that the only time she wouldn't feel lonely was when she compelled herself a family. And to know that her real family were still alive out there, but she could never be with them without risking their lifes and hers, all because she had gotten herself into a dangerous situation. Now wherever she went she always had to pretend to be someone else, always looking over her shoulder, making sure she didn't left any tiny clue behind. The possibility that she would have to do that for the rest of her life made her really frustrated sometimes. What was the point of living a long life if she could never really enjoy them?
Having a sudden change of mood, she decided to go to her own room. Lately, she had found reading was calming. But just when she arrived at her desk to get some books she liked, she could feel someone's movement behind her.
Within a flash, she had pinned the person against the wall, her hand on his throat. He was a young man with a wavy ginger hair and blue eyes, and instead of looking afraid to what she might do to him, he grinned widely, somehow looking amused at her.
"Did you make sure no one followed you here?" Bella demanded, eyes staring intimidatingly at him and hand not leaving his throat.
"Yes, twice."
"Are you still on vervain?"
"Um-hum."
She finally let go of him, but suspicion hadn't left her face. "If someone tried to compel you before you got here, I want you to punch your own face."
Back then, when Bella was in Kansas, she accidentally witnessed this guy being beaten by his abusive father. And just looking at all of that, her memories of seeing her own father abusing her eldest brother started to come back. It moved something inside of her, and without even knowing it, she saved him from his father. Ever since of that, he began to fall for her.
By the time he found out what Bella really was, instead of being afraid, he asked her to turn him into a vampire. Bella quickly refused, feeling that he didn't really know the consequences of what he was asking for. But after seeing how helpless he was, how much he was suffering from not being able to stand up from his father, she felt pity for him and decided to grant him his wish. And that was when she discovered about the sirebond among the vampires.
That guy was sired to Bella, due to the fact he was in love with her before he was turned. And as far as she knew, the sirebond ensured that he would always do what she said.
After a while, he just stood there and maintained his grin, proving that he wasn't on anyone's compulsion. This made her sigh in relief, then took a step back. Slowly walking back to her desk, she questioned, "So what makes you came early?"
All about the sirebond things kind of gave her an idea. She felt like it would be a waste if she didn't take advantage of it, so she did. She sent him to spy on Klaus, get all kind of informations about the original whereabouts, what he was up to, and so on. Every month, she would ask him to report back to her anything he could find. But it wasn't even a month since the last time he came.
"I have a good news for you," he informed while folding his arms across his chest. Straightened himself up, he then started taking a few steps towards her.
"Oh yeah? What is it?"
"The younger original that you said also after you? The one that being daggered? He's gone forever now."
Bella's hand that had just reached for The Neon Wilderness book on her desk suddenly stopped moving. For a moment, she just blinked a few times, trying to digest the information. She swallowed hard as she finally turned back to him and asked, "What do you mean he's gone forever?"
"I heard Klaus burried him at the sea, along with the rest of his family. He scattered them across the seas where their bodies couldn't be found."
Her chest suddenly tightened.
"And now his body couldn't be found, that would only mean he wouldn't be able to come back to life and go after you again."
Her mind became blank and her heart began to ache. A memory when they were together suddenly came up and caused her stomach to clench. A chill started running down her spine.
"Therefore, one less problem for us."
No. No. No. No. Bella repeated those words in her mind and unconsciously shook her head in disbelief. This can't be happening.
"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly, confusion all over his face. He really didn't expect her to react like this.
"Leo, please leave." It took every ounce of her to just say those words. "I need some time alone."
At first, Leo looked hesitant. He knew something was wrong and wanted to calm her down, but she just told him to leave. And he didn't know why he couldn't argue her.
"Go!" she yelled, eyes glaring sharply at him. And he hurriedly left the room the same way he cameㅡthrough the window.
Bella started pacing back and forth as she inhaled and exhaled. She did that over and over, hoping that it would help to calm her down. But it didn't.
It was like 1918 all over again when she heard that he had been daggered again by his own brother. Only this time, the pain was way worse, even the pain when she lost her own life was nothing compared to this. The thought of actually never seeing him again hit her harder than anything ever could, because no matter how many time she told other people and herself that she didn't want to see him again, her heart would never agree.
When the pain became more and more unbearable, she began to lash out and threw things around. And as every object in her room hit the wall, she cried and let out an agony scream.
Just like the other vampires, she could always flip the switch, just numb all the pain. But she didn't want to. She knew exactly what happened to those who had turned their humanity off. They just became someone else, completely losing their ownself.
Hearing all the fuss she was making, her 'compelled' mother came to her room to check on her. Without even realizing, her face already turned pale. Blood rushed into the veins around her eyes, darkening them tremendously. When her canine teeth lengthened into a razor-sharp fangs, she didn't hesitate to dig it into her 'compelled' mother's neck, sucking all her blood while covering her mouth.
As usual, blood succeeded in making her forget about everything, including the pain. But it was only temporary. Just a few minutes after it passed through her throat, she started to remember all the pain again. Not really wanting to remember all of that, she chose not to stop.
She went after her 'compelled' father next, and then her 'compelled' little sister. And after there was no blood left in their bodies, her next target was her neighbors who was most likely sleeping at the time. She kept doing that over and over again until she started to lose track of time. She killed all of them quietly so that the next one couldn't see her coming.
After all night of feeding, she finally stopped. That was when she realized she had killed all people who lived in the neighbourhood, their bodies were all drained of blood. The pain started coming back, and so did the guilt. But Bella decided to just focus on the guilt since it was so much more bearable than the pain. She had been vampire for 82 years after all. The longer she spent as a vampire, the more tolerant of violence and murder she became.
Later in the noon, Leo came back to check on her. At first, he was a bit surprised to find Bella covered in blood. He then tried to joke around about not being invited to the party. And when he found out that everyone in the neighbourhood were dead, he looked speechless.
Not having time to care about what he might think of her, she casually said, "I need you to do one more thing."
"What?"
"Spread the news that this was all your doing. Don't let anyone know I was involved in this."
Now that she knew what Klaus was capable of doing to his own family, she wasn't really keen to find out what he was capable of doing to her if he caught her for the second time.
Seeing the doubt on Leo's blue eyes, she quickly took his hand on hers and hold it tight. Tilting her head to the side, she gave him a pleading look. "Can you do that for me?"
Leo gulped as his gaze shifted from Bella's pretty eyes to their hands. He then hold her hand back and brought it to his lips. "Yes, I will do anything for you," he answered firmly without breaking their eye contact.
"Good."
Now everytime the memories of him started coming back, or the pain of knowing that she would never see him againㅡthat she was also the one to blame for his death, Bella would distract it with the memory of how she killed every single person in that place, tried to just focus her emotion on guilt and remorse so didn't have to feel the pain anymore.
But even with all of that, the large hole in her heart, the shape of him and only him, it could never close. Because no one else could fit in.
WALKING OUT FROM THE MALL, Caroline linked their arms together. That was a common thing to do when two girls went shopping together, but Bella still felt a bit weird about that. The last time she did that was about three decades ago. And it wasn't the shopping part she was referring to, but the together part.
To be honest, she had forgotten how it was like to have a friend, a real one. Running from Klaus left her no time to befriend anyone. Whenever she got too lonely, she just used the easy way; compel someone to be her friend. It was kind of pathetic, even she had to admit that. And in order to make it feel a little bit better, she just tried to convince herself that she didn't really need friends. Now that she actually had one, she realized how much of a lie it was.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me to the Grill?" Caroline asked when they finally reached Bella's car. She smiled teasingly as she added, "Jeremy would be there."
Bella frowned and pulled her arm from Caroline's. Opening the rear door of her car, she retorted, "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
"Well, I see you two getting closer and closer over the summer," the Forbes girls pointed out, still not giving up on the idea of playing cupid. Tilting her head to the side, she watched as Bella started putting her shopping bag on the back seat with a curious face. "Hasn't he asked you out yet?"
The Salvatore girl groaned as she closed back the rear door of her car. "For the last time, Caroline, that's not gonna happen."
"Oh, come on, give him a chance. He's a good guy." Just like usual, Caroline wouldn't just give up on that subject. A lopsided smile appeared in her face as she continued, "And even you have to admit that he's kinda hot."
"He's still an idiot."
"All guys are idiots. But that doesn't mean we can't date them."
It was a waste of time to argue with Caroline about that, so Bella chose to just change the subject. "Is that why you're with Tyler now?"
"What? No!" The Forbes girl denied. But the red tinge that suddenly appeared on her face said otherwise. "He's just my friend."
"Bitch lesson number one, Caroline, only tell lies when you believe it for yourself," Bella muttered in her lazy tone. She then smiled mockingly at her as she pointed out, "And clearly you don't believe that for yourself."
"But it's not a lie," Caroline insisted, then forced a chuckle. "I mean, you can ask him yourself."
"Yeah, don't have time for that," Bella scoffed. She knew they weren't a thing at the time, but it was clear that they secretly wanted to. The way the look at each other, their body language when the other was around or when they heard the other's name, and not to mention the increasing sexual tension between the two. Only an idiot wouldn't notice all of that.
However, unlike Caroline, Bella was too lazy to play cupid. And despite her secret disagreement with the idea of them being together, considering that they were from two different species that most likely would kill each other if they lost control, she chose to be a supportive friend. "Just don't forget to remind him not to give you any bite when you two decide to hit it up," she reminded her, emphasizing the word any bite on purpose. "Because I don't really feel like selling myself to Klaus just to save your ass, so..."
"Is that your way to say that you're worried about me?" Caroline teased back, completely ignoring her attempt to tease her about Tyler. After getting to know Bella better for the past two months, she realized that Bella was the type of person who purposely made other people think that she was heartless, that she only cared about herself. But it turned out that none of them was true.
"Nope, still don't give a shit about anyone in this town except myself," Bella remarked, trying to sound as nonchalant as usual.
Caroline quoted back her words and mimicked, "Only tell lies when you believe it for yourself, Caroline."
Bella rolled her eyes and reluctantly admitted, "Okay, you got me, I'm worried about you." A fake smile then grew on her face as she continued, "If you die, who else should I go to when I wanna talk bad about Damon?" Her phone suddenly vibrated. She took it out from her jeans pocket and found her brother's name on the screen. "And speaking of the devil..."
"What does he want now?" Caroline groaned.
Feeling up for a road trip to see if our dear brother still kicking?
Bella's face suddenly turned serious after reading Damon's message. "Um... I gotta go," she exclaimed. Without giving further explanation, she put her phone back in her pocket and went inside her car.
After Bella pulled her car out of the parking lot, Caroline reminded her from the car window, "I know you don't really like Elena, but you better not try to bail out on tonight's party."
This made Bella scoff. "The party is in my house, how am I supposed to bail out?" Without waiting for an answer, she drove away.
It has been two months since Stefan left with Klaus to God knows where and doing God knows what. Bella and Damon had been actively tracking their brother ever since. But even with the help of the others, they still couldn't find him. However, none of them were planing to give up. At least Bella knew for sure she wouldn't.
Their newest lead was Memphis, Tennessee. And since both Damon and Bella were vampires who could only enter a house after being invited in, they had to bring Alaric with them in case the owner of the house they were about to check refuse to invite them in.
After several hours of driving, they finally arrived at the address Andie had given them. It was supposed to be the house of the family of a guy Klaus and Stefan had been looking for.
When the three of them stepped out of the car, Damon's phone suddenly rang. But as soon as he checked the caller's ID, he chose to ignore it.
"Elena?" Alaric asked and Damon confirmed it with a hand gesture. "I don't know why you just don't come clean and tell her where we are."
"Cause Andie said this was a half-lead and I don't want to get her hopes up," Damon replied as they walked closer to the house.
"Yeah, well, they're all half-leads, and I'm your accomplice," Ric responded, eyes started to look around the house. "What do you want me to say to her? I'm practically living there."
Bella, who suddenly felt nauseous just hearing their conversation, groaned. "Can you please stop talking about her? You're grossing me out."
"Why do you hate her so much?" Damon asked back and frowned. He had been aware of his sister's dislike towards Elena for a while now, but he never really understood why.
"Countless reason," Bella answered lightly, as if it was the obvious. "For example; her boring look, her boring personality, her goody-goody crap, her hypocrisy, herㅡ"
"Okay, we get it," Ric interjected, not really wanting to hear someone talk badly about his ex-girlfriend's niece. "No more talking about Elena."
Bella smiled triumphantly. "Good."
They suddenly realized the only voice they could hear was their own. There was no other sound as if no one except them was there.
"It's quiet," Ric commented.
"Yeah," Damon agreed. "Too quiet."
Bella was the first to step onto the porch. Opening the front door, she stuck one of her leg in to check if she could enter. But when she found out she could enter, Damon stretched his hand in front of her body, preventing her from entering.
"You better wait in the car," Damon suggested to her. "This could be Ripper Stefan's doing, and I don't think it really is your scene."
Bella frowned and stared at her brother in disbelief. "Seriously? I've been a vampire for over a century and you don't think I can handle seeing a couple of bodies?"
The problem with Damon was that he sometimes still saw Bella as the same little girl he knew back in the 1800s. The same girl that wouldn't even dare to hurt a fly. The same girl that would cry over silly little things. The same girl that would run into his room in the middle of the night because she thought there was a monster under her bed. But the Bella in front of him wasn't that girl anymore.
But she knew she couldn't blame him for that. Because with everything that was happening around them, even with them living on the same roof, Bella barely showed him what kind of person she had become. She only showed the surface, the one that had been her mask for over the years.
"Not just a couple of bodies," Damon corrected. "You see, Ripper Stefan's artwork possess a different level of..." He paused a bit and tried to think of the right word, "...brutality."
"Oh, you think Stefan is the only one who has different level of brutality?"
"What, you have one too?"
"Ever heard about 1947 tragedy? Barnstable massacre, 64 victims, all bodies were drained of blood?"
Bella decided it was the time to tell her brother one of her biggest secrets, so he could finally see a bit of the real her. She was quite sure he wouldn't judge her since his track record was just as bad as her. But it would surely change the way he saw her.
"Wait, it was you?" Damon asked in disbelief. "But words got out it was a vampire named Leo Vinson."
"Then how do I know that there were actually 69 victims?" she revealed, trying to prove her last confession. "They forgot to count the one at the lake house. 61 adults and 8 kids, 49 of them were male."
"Holy shit," Ric muttered in disbelief. "You three really are a psycho family."
Damon looked a bit speechless, his face gave the impression that he was trying to process what he just heard.
Bella turned to the history teacher, smirking. "Better not mess with us," she stated before pushing Damon's hand away and entering the house, deliberately ignored her brother's reaction.
The whole house turned out to be a mess, there was blood everywhere. And they were immediately greeted by two bodies who were deliberately positioned to sit side by side on the couch when they entered the first room they encountered, both of them were female.
"Vampire for sure," Ric commented.
Damon remarked, "Stefan for sure."
"How do you know?" the history teacher questioned.
"It's his signature." Meanwhile Damon started explaining things to Ric, Bella walked closer to the bodies. "There is a reason they called him the ripper. He feeds so hard he blacks out, rips them apart, but then when he's done, he feels remorse. It's the damnest thing. He puts the bodies back together."
When Damon touched one of the victims' leg with his foot, the head fell from the body and landed right beside Bella's feet. And as Bella looked into the bodiless head's eyes, she started to get lost in her own thoughts.
All of these things had brought her back to the guilt and remorse she felt when she slaughtered all the innocent people in Barnstable that night. She did that as a diversion from the pain she felt, the pain that existed because she thought she had lost him forever. But now she knew the truth about it, the guilt and remorse had just gotten worse.
All the way home, Bella couldn't stop thinking about it. And from the driver's seat, Damon, who was still curious about the facts he had just learned about his little sister, stole a few glances at her who was sitting beside him. His tongue was itching to ask more about it.
Unable to hold back any longer, Damon cleared his throat and finally asked, "So, what made you decide to turn it off?" He always wanted to know more about his sister, about what happened to her in the last century, but she was the one who always avoided that conversation.
Without looking away from the window, she replied, "What makes you think I've ever turn it off?"
"Wait, so in 1947 you were still..."
"That's what makes it worse, isn't it?" Bella let out a bitter laugh as she knew exactly what Damon was trying to say. "Even with my humanity on, I was still capable to do something like that."
Damon licked his lips, then stole another glance to his sister. He suddenly understood why she always tried to avoid this subject. But now she decided to open up, he didn't want to pass up the opportunity.
"Did someone upset you or something?" Damon asked again.
"Just a loss of someone who used to mean a lot to me," she murmured, her voice was toneless. "The pain was really unbearable and I didn't want to turn it off." She swallowed hard when she could remember exactly how she felt that day as if it had just happened yesterday. "Blood was the only thing that could make me forget the pain for a while, so I decided not to stop... at least not until the next morning."
Ric, as the only human in the car, chose to just listen the conversation in silence.
"Why didn't you want to turn it off?" Damon questioned again. "I mean, we have the humanity switch for a reason."
"Because I already lost my old life," Bella answered and finally turned to her brother. "I don't want to lost my old self either." A small chuckle came out from her mouth when she realized she had lost her old self over the years. "I mean, not entirely."
There was no longer any conversation between them for the rest of the trip. Damon didn't know how to respond to her answer, Ric didn't know what to say, and Bella was having a lot of thoughts.
After dropping Ric at the Gilberts' house, Bella could feel the urge to ask the question she had been wanting to ask her oldest brother for so long. She felt like it was the right time since no one else was there and both of them were in a serious mode.
"I saw you," she began when they finally arrived at their house. "In New Orleans, 1864. You were watching me close uncle Gio's restaurant. But when I tried to get to you, you just ran." Her voice began to crack as she asked, "Why?"
Damon sighed. He didn't really feel like talking about that after their conversation earlier. "Look, why don't we continue this conversation later when we're too drunk to remember anything?" He got out from the car and started walking towards the front door, but Bella suddenly appeared in front of him and blocked his way, her face showed that she wouldn't just let Damon escape this conversation.
He groaned and finally explained, "You were just human back then. And you saw it yourself how easy it was for Stefan to lose control and accidentally killed Dad. I didn't want the same thing to happen to you. So I came that night to see you for the last time... to make sure that you have everything you need to move on and live your life as you should."
"And where did that get me?"
It was always easier to blame someone else for the bad things that happened in her life. But as much as she wanted to blame Damon for the life she had to live, she knew she couldn't. Deep down she would always know it wasn't his fault. It was hers and hers only, because it was her own decision that got her into all the mess.
"Look, I don't like the fact that you were also slipped from your normal life like us, but I'm glad I get to see you again," he finally confessed. "And I take it back when I said you were just like Katherine."
"Why?" she questioned back. "I did almost all the horrible things she's ever done. I manipulated, betrayed, torment, and even kill people. All just for my own selfish gain."
"Well, I'm not gonna lie, you and her do have a lot in common," he quickly admitted. "Running from Klaus, all the things you just said, and whatnot." His gaze softened as he continued, "But you came back, and you stay, even when you don't need me or Stefan to protect you anymore, even when you know exactly the risk of staying here. You're still here because you care about us. That's something Katherine would never do."
His answers made her feel a little bit better, but only a bit. There were too many things that made her feel bad about herself right now.
It was Bella's turn to confess, "I may be able to take care of myself, but I will always need my big brothers."
And there is it, the little girl Damon used to know from back in 1800s.
Swallowing hard, he finally apologized, "Sorry I haven't been a good brother to you."
Bella shook her head disapprovingly. "You're a good big brother, Damon." And feeling like it was the time to end their emotional conversation, she quickly added, "Even when everyone's calling you a man-slut."
The older Salvatore scoffed, "Way to ruin the moment, Jingle Bells."
The younger one just replied with a smirk. The two then went inside to get ready for Elena's birthday party which would be held at their house.
About an hour after that, Bella finally finished getting ready. She chose to wear a grey and white feather bone dress with a pair of grey heels. Her hair was styled into long curls. Her face was only wrapped in thin make-up.
Before she left her room, she took one last look at herself in the mirror.
When people saw that pretty face in there, some of them might think of a sweet young girl.
A lovely little sister.
A fun friend.
A potential lover.
But all she saw was just a pathetic monster.
A/n: I'm not gonna lie, I did try to make Bella as Katherine 2.0. I mean, both of them had gone through some similiar problems. The only difference is that Bella still has a family so she fought not just for herself, but also for her brothers. As for Katherineㅡat this time she didn't know about Nadiaㅡonly fought for her own sake.
And in the shows, the Salvatore brothers had an unbreakable bond. So I tried to make them having an unbreakable bond too with Bella, and I really hope it shows.