Hey, everyone! I know I just updated this a week ago, but I needed to get this chapter out because it's probably the most boring episode in TVD's first season and I knew that if I didn't write it and get past it, there would be no getting past it in the future, so here it is! Glad to see you're all hanging in there with me. Enjoy the chapter and review at the end, please!
Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)
There Goes the Neighborhood
Mystic Falls, 1865
Clarissa and Christopher walked down the brightly lit pathways in the midst of the town, their arms looped together. Silence washed over them for a long time, the only sound being the horses that created a background noise for them to focus on.
Christopher inhaled. "Your mother informed me that the Salvatores are attending our celebratory party next week."
Clarissa's eyes wandered around the people in the town square and she smiled. "Well, Father is quite fond of Giuseppe. It's no surprise. Besides, Stefan is my friend as well."
"Yes, but when Marianne said the Salvatores, she meant all of them," Christopher corrected his fiancée. Clarissa turned her head to look at him and he kept them moving without turning to look at her.
"You're worried I will cause some commotion with Damon?" Clarissa prompted.
Christopher finally turned to look at her. "That is not all I am worried about," he confessed, his eyes giving away what he was really insinuating towards. Clarissa stared at him, trying to decipher his double meaning, and when she figured it out, she just exhaled greatly and shielded her eyes. "Damon once told me how he felt," Christopher whispered to her.
"Damon is not aware of how he feels, himself, so how could he have told you?" Clarissa retorted, returning her blue eyes to Christopher's, who stayed silent. "He's…impulsive and reckless and…destructive."
"I would just like you to put my mind at ease, darling," Christopher pleaded, pulling them to a stop and turned them both so they were facing each other. "Nothing ever did happen between you two, did it? After all, you were the ones originally to be wed."
This was the time, Clarissa realized, that she should've come clean. The words should've left her mouth—the story should've been told. Instead, she stared at Christopher with hesitance and just shook her head.
"No. No, of course not, my love." A smile twitched at her lips, and Christopher let out a sigh of relief. "Damon Salvatore means nothing to me. You are the one I am going to be with for the rest of my life, Christopher."
Her words were sweet, and somewhat true. Though her happiness with Christopher did not extent to a way that she wanted it to, she was starting to see a future. A future that she was content in. It was surely no way to enter into a marriage—to just be content on a relationship—but it had to do.
Christopher nodded slowly. "I do love you, Clarissa," he said slowly, his voice quiet. "Despite the fact that this is rushed, I…I honestly do love you."
Clarissa dreaded those words from the very moment she learned that she was being forced to marry Christopher Fell. Every time she wanted to say those words, she just couldn't. She would choke up, unable to get those three words out without a hitch.
So, instead, she settled upon nodding and leaned forward to give her fiancé a light kiss, one that told him how she felt without actually saying it. Did she love Christopher Fell? Maybe to some extent, she did.
Or, perhaps, she was just fooling herself.
"This century has a very strange sense when it comes to looks," Christopher murmured as he studied himself and his new haircut in the hand mirror that Pearl had given him. His earlier look had apparently been too shabby for modern taste, as had the rest of the vampires. Anna had a hairdresser compelled and brought to the communal house in the woods so that the hairdresser could give each of them a modern bump. Christopher's hair, once a little long and wispy, was now short and gelled, creating a whole new persona for him.
"Well, I think you look wonderful, Christopher," Pearl voiced behind him. Christopher set down the hand mirror and turned to her with a sorrowful expression.
"Miss Pearl, I know there is a lot that I have to learn about these new times. But if you know where my wife is, you must tell me. I need to know that she is still out there—I need to see her," Christopher begged. Never did he think there would come a day he would have to beg to see his wife. But never did he think that he would become a creature of the night entrapped in an underground hole for nearly a century.
"Christopher," Pearl began in almost a condescending tone. "I can understand your impatience. But I need you to trust me. If you seek Clarissa before I've had a chance to speak with the Salvatore brothers—"
Christopher's head snapped up and his eyes became focused. "The Salvatore brothers?" he repeated, earning Pearl to stop in the midst of her sentence and sigh. "That's where she is, isn't she? With Stefan?"
"And Damon, yes," Pearl agreed, nodding once. "But I need you to keep your patience just a little while longer. Please. I promise you, Clarissa isn't going anywhere."
A long silence passed between the two old vampires, and Christopher just shook his head once. "Miss Pearl, I'm very sorry if I've given you the wrong impression of my intentions," he began, slowly realizing why it was so important for Pearl to hide him. "I didn't come here to help you with seeking revenge on this town for what happened over a hundred years ago. I came to find my wife."
"And you will," Pearl promised Christopher, earning him to sigh. "Just give it a little more time. I'm sure Clarissa will be more than impressed if you show up on her doorstep and already know the ways of this glorious modern world."
Pearl gave a soft smile and before they could continue arguing, Harper joined them. Both Christopher and Pearl turned around as Harper entered the room with a shy smile.
"I'm sorry for interrupting, Miss Pearl, but Anna left this in the hallway," Harper told the dark-haired vampire, holding up the cell phone device. Pearl's smile brightened as she let a soft chuckle through her mouth.
"Ah, yes! This marvelous contacting device." Pearl's eyes moved over to Christopher, who was eyeing the mirror by his hand. "Christopher? How would you like me to show you what my daughter showed me the other night about this device? It's quite intriguing."
The offer was enticing, and seeing as Christopher had nothing better to do than wait for Pearl's instructions, he ended up nodding. "Why not, Miss Pearl?" he agreed, giving the lady vampire a smile.
Pearl gave him one in return and glanced over at Harper. "Harper, why don't you join us?" Harper nodded immediately, and in no time, they were all situated at the table, watching as Pearl held the device in her hand and began to show them all of the things that it could do. She went over the instructions Anna told her the night before, relaying them to both old-fashioned vampires. "And the keypad is for…texting, which is what you do when you want to avoid talking to someone."
Christopher made a face of approval as Pearl gave him the phone to examine for himself. "Inventors these days must be very intelligent to come up with a concept so useful," he praised as he pressed a button on the keypad accidentally.
As soon as the button was pressed, a voice appeared over the phone, making all three vampires jump in their seats. "Anna! It's Jeremy. I haven't heard from you in a while…"
Pearl and Harper both laughed at the device while Christopher eyed it, finding the device both confusing and exciting at the same time. All of a sudden, Anna appeared from behind Christopher and reached over him to grab the phone and immediately shut off the voice on the other side of the phone.
"I…I merely pressed a button…" Christopher shrugged in his defense, looking up at Anna.
"I was just showing Harper and Christopher what you taught me," Pearl told her daughter excitedly. "What a marvelous device!"
"Who was that?" Harper questioned the young vampire standing behind Christopher.
"Jeremy Gilbert," Anna responded reluctantly. Suddenly, beside Christopher, Pearl's smile dropped as Harper's extended from the other side of the bronze-haired vampire.
"Is that your boyfriend?" Harper teased. Christopher looked back at Anna waiting for an answer, but Pearl spoke before rising from her seat with a scoff.
"Of course not," answered Pearl for her daughter. Christopher and Harper watched as the dark-haired vampire walked to the threshold and spun around with a new, restrained smile on her face. Pearl gestured down to her new suit, eyeing Anna for an opinion. "What do you think?"
"Vey respectable," Anna praised.
"That's the goal," responded Pearl, looking down at the crisp suit. "I can't say that I miss corsets."
Anna smiled. "Susie Sunshine gave me her car keys…and her ATM card."
Pearl put her pocketbook on her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"
"I'll explain later." When Anna and Pearl began to leave the room, Frederick, one of the angrier, more impatient vampires who'd escaped from the tomb, appeared at the doorframe, leaning against it casually.
"Where are you going?" he asked, his voice dark and accusing.
"We have some business in town," Pearl responded. "We'll be back as soon as we can. I trust that you'll keep an eye on things?"
"So I'm the babysitter now?"
"Frederick, if this is going to work, we have to cooperate with one another."
Frederick nodded slowly and peered up at Pearl with reproachful eyes. "So you say."
Harper stood up from his seat to solve the conflict. "Christopher and I will watch things, Miss Pearl," he offered. Christopher looked up at Harper, but he didn't object to the offer that he set on the table.
Pearl turned around to see Harper and Christopher nodded to agree with the other vampire's compromise. "Thank you." She then turned back to Frederick, who was eyeing Harper with devilish eyes, and Pearl and Anna left the room without humoring Frederick again. Once they were gone, Frederick gave an evil stare towards Harper and Christopher before casually walking out from the threshold.
When Damon returned to the boarding house from a meeting with Liz Forbes, he instantly sensed that something was wrong. The house was empty, or so it was supposed to be. Stefan was with Elena and Claire was drowning her sorrows at the Grill with the unlimited supply of liquor. But when Damon entered the house, he could feel that someone was waiting for him.
He looked back and forth and followed the sound of unusual behavior in his ears. It was pulling him towards the parlor and its connecting room, where sure enough, a dark-haired, sophisticated vampire was waiting for him with her back turned.
"Hello, Damon," Pearl greeted.
"Ever hear of…knocking?" Damon quipped, coming to a halt a few feet away from the turned Pearl, who didn't move at his presence.
"An invitation wasn't necessary. I'm surprised that no living person resides here." Finally, she rose to her feet and turned around to face Damon, Anna standing beside her mother just a few feet away. "Is it just you and your brother?"
"And one annoyingly depressed blonde vampire," Damon added with a shrug.
Pearl hummed and narrowed her eyes. "Yes. Anna told me about Clarissa's return to Mystic Falls. She must be quite upset at you for keeping her husband's real location a secret all these years."
Damon's eyes wandered around the room and cut to Pearl. A sly, restrained smile slid across Damon's face. "You know, my brother and I have a different method for dealing with unwanted vampires. We kill them."
In the blink of an eye, Damon was standing right in front of Pearl with his hand locked tightly around the old vampire's throat. He squeezed as hard as he could, but it seemed to do nothing to faze Pearl. She merely just reached up and grabbed his wrist, twisting it to the side. Damon fought hard, but Pearl's strength was too much, and with a few grunts and a muttered expletive, he was thrown on the floor by the small beige couch. Pearl smiled down at him victoriously and viciously.
"Have a seat, Damon." The raven-haired vampire got up from his place on the floor and sat down on the couch to meet the eyes of Pearl and Anna. "I was hoping we could have a word."
Damon just relaxed back on the couch and gave Pearl a sour smile. "Sure."
It wasn't long before Pearl began to enlighten to the Salvatore vampire with the news that all of the vampires from the tomb have been released, causing Damon to grow increasingly stressed about the situation.
"We've taken up residence at a farmhouse outside of town," Pearl explained. "It'll suffice for now."
"All twenty-five vampires?" Damon questioned.
"Not all. Some. I imagine that a few already left town. Others are probably still in the woods, or like us, acclimating," responded Pearl, glancing up to Anna. Her eyes moved back to Damon, who was processing all the information he was given. "And while we're talking about the vampires who have come to us, I'll have you know that Christopher Fell arrived as well, looking for your dear Clarissa."
Damon turned to Pearl and spoke slowly, "So why haven't you sent him her way? Obviously you knew she was here."
Pearl's shoulders went up and down. "Anna and I have been preparing him for their reunion. And I thought it would give you a head start. Katherine always suspected there was more than meets the eye when it came to you two."
"Well, there's not," Damon shot her down, causing Pearl to eye him with suspicion. Damon ignored it and turned to Anna, who was pacing beside her mother. "How'd they even get out of the tomb?"
Anna shrugged. "I think that witch screwed up that part of her hocus-pocus."
"Oh." Damon's voice dripped with bitter sarcasm.
"I understand that the founding families still have a secret council?" Pearl questioned, and Damon just shrugged as an answer.
"And you're apart of it," Anna pointed out.
Damon scoffed. "That's ridiculous."
"I've been in Mystic Falls since the comet, Damon," Anna told the raven-haired vampire pointedly. "I'm up to speed."
"And so am I," Pearl tagged on. "And now that you've infiltrated the Council, I'll need to know everything they know. Starting with a list of all the Council members and their families."
"And everyone you've supplied with vervain," Anna added.
Pearl nodded. "Yes, that will have to stop immediately," she ordered. The fact that the two vampires had invited themselves into his home and made demands of him that he was less than willing to comply with had Damon growing more frustrated by the moment.
He narrowed his eyes at the mother-daughter duo and said skeptically, "What exactly are you trying to achieve?"
"Mystic Falls is our home, Damon," Pearl rationalized. "They took that from us. Our land, our home. It's time we rebuild."
"What, are you crazy?" Damon condescended, biting his lip. "That was 1864. Wake up, woman! The world has moved on!"
"As a reward, I'm willing to give you what you want most," Pearl compromised.
"I want nothing—"
"Katherine," Pearl interrupted him with one single, crisp word that cut to Damon's core. For a moment, he considered it, but then he saw right through the trick that Pearl was trying to play on him.
"You wouldn't even know where she was. You've been in the ground for the last century and a half," Damon accused.
"Katherine and I were best friends…long before we came to Mystic Falls, Damon," the other vampire retorted. "I know how she thinks. I know her patterns. I know where to find her."
Pearl watched as a flicker of emotional turmoil crossed Damon's face, but he just leaned forward on his knees and responded tersely, "I no longer have any desire to see Katherine ever again. And there's no way in hell I'm gonna play the role of your little minion."
Damon started to rise from his seat, but Pearl flashed up from hers and forced Damon back down on the couch, all done with niceties. "I'm not asking for your help, Damon. Finding Katherine was just a…mere gesture of kindness. The rest is non-negotiable."
Pearl flashed forward again, and this time, her eyes dug into Damon's eye sockets and showed no mercy as she quite literally clawed his eyes out so a thick coat of blood was on both of her thumbs. Damon grabbed her wrists and tried to pull her off of him, but the only thing that he was accomplishing was a loud groan that escaped his lips at the pain. Pearl hissed, her fangs elongating and her eyes growing bloodshot with snake-like veins slithering underneath. Thick streams of blood poured onto Damon's shirt as Pearl yanked him from the couch with her thumbs still in his eyes and tossed him onto the floor.
"I have 400 years on you, little boy," Pearl snarled. "I'll rip you from limb to limb without even blinking and you know it. I'll be in touch."
The air was cold, but it was tolerable to the twenty-year-old girl, so she didn't complain. But going outside in the middle of the night had been her idea, anyway; so there was really no room to criticize. The pond beside her house wasn't frozen over, but it was far from swimmable. Clarissa thought back to the days when she would come out in the middle of the night, like she was doing at that moment, but she had a companion with her most of those times—Damon, of course. But in light of their ongoing five-year argument, all hopes of being friends again with Damon had faded away a long time ago. Now, Stefan was her replacement, and as much as she loved the boy like he was her own brother, she couldn't tell him everything. He was so young…so naïve, and so wrapped up with Katherine Pierce, it was disturbing. She had him under some sort of spell—Clarissa was sure of it. Nevertheless, Stefan was happier than he'd been in a long time.
She wished she had the same kind of happiness.
The night was silent; it was her sole piece of solitude. In the midst of getting ready for her wedding, dealing with Christopher's family, and among other things, Clarissa had been swamped with people and plans. She rarely had any time to herself to think. Her twenty-first birthday would be just days after the wedding and would make sure that her deadline was met. She couldn't back out of the wedding with such short notice otherwise there would be consequences she couldn't deal with. Her parents were so proud of her for marrying Christopher, it seemed unfair of her to take away their happiness to suit her own selfish needs.
Christopher's questions the other day had gotten to her in the deepest, darkest parts of her mind. She lied to him, there was no other word to explain what she did. She lied so blatantly and so well that she wanted to believe what she was saying, but she just couldn't because it wasn't true. There had been something going on between her and Damon—her best-kept secret.
She used to, with her former friend, sneak outside at night and throw stones into the pond. They would skip if you threw them just right, and after a few nights, Damon had taught her the correct way and she had become a prodigy of skipping stones. The nights were fresh in her memory, and as it seemed, she wasn't the only one.
"I wasn't aware that you still come out here." Clarissa turned around to face Damon approaching the pond, looking as if he'd just rolled out of bed. He cleared his throat. "I will leave, then."
"You can stay," she whispered, turning around to face the quiet pond. Damon looked back at Clarissa, her pale blonde hair a beacon in the moonlight. "It would be nice to be around a fresh face."
She barely felt it when Damon came beside her, exhaling largely. "A fresh face. Well, I suppose that is all I am now, after all. We rarely speak. Not without…reason, of course." Clarissa was silent, and Damon's eyes never left the open pond. "How is your fiancé?"
"He is well," Clarissa responded, her voice soft. "And Miss Pierce?"
"Delightful," Damon told her, earning a curt nod from the blonde beside him. Things fell silent, but Damon broke that silence for fear of it getting too far. "I really am quite surprised you still come out here. What with the wedding, you rarely have time for anyone else. Not even my brother, apparently."
Clarissa straightened. "I have been avoiding Stefan," she confessed, earning Damon's confused expression. It was all eased in her next words. "He keeps questioning me about our first fight. It seems no lie I spin has any effect on him. I am considering telling him the truth."
"I would prefer that you not," Damon said, his voice icy. Clarissa turned to him now, causing him to do the same. She looked at him questionably, earning him to clarify. "Things are already strained enough between my brother and myself because of our relationship with Miss Katherine. Learning about our past might upset him."
Clarissa studied him for a moment, but then, she realized. A small scoff escaped her lips. "Spare me your worry for your brother's feelings, Damon. You would only like me to keep the truth hidden so your beloved Katherine will not find out!"
"I am doing us both a favor by keeping it a secret," returned Damon at the same tone. She just turned her cheek, but he kept trying to get her attention. "How would you handle things if your fiancé found out?"
The girl before him fell silent, biting the inside of her cheek in a bad habit as she tried to stop the words she wanted to say—she would be pleased if he found out. Instead of saying those cruel words, she picked up her dress and turned, but it was too late. Damon had already seen through her like she was transparent.
"Unless…" he trailed off, pulling her back. She kept her jaw locked. "Do you want him to find out, Clarissa?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Clarissa said softly, straightening and narrowing her eyes. "He is already jealous enough that we were the ones originally set to be wed. Why would I add to that?"
She tried to walk away again, but Damon cut in front of her, stopping her from leaving. "You are not in love with him, are you?"
"What?" Clarissa whispered, trying to sound offended. "Damon—"
"I know what you look like when you are in love," Damon countered, his eyes roaming across her face. She jerked her head back in the slightest, examining his moving eyes. "You are not in love with him, are you?" he repeated, his hand finding the side of her face. He cupped it, tilting her head up to his.
Clarissa studied him carefully, trying to pick out what he was trying to achieve. Eventually, she settled upon gazing up at him and speaking in a soft tone. "I don't see what you are referring to. Christopher is wonderful and I care so very deeply for him. Just as you do with Miss Pierce."
"She…" Damon trailed off, trying to get the words off his chest, but Clarissa stopped him.
"Do not forget, Mr. Salvatore." Her hand moved up and grabbed his from her face, and she slowly moved it so that it dropped to his side. Whispering, she let her eyes drop to his lips. "We are no longer friends. We are enemies."
Damon watched as she moved past him, not even mumbling so much as a goodnight, and a look of hurt crossed his face as he pondered over her words. He was left standing underneath the moonlight, fearful that her words were actually true.
Katherine Pierce stood on the deck of the Salvatore house, overlooking the pond beside the King's mansion, where Damon stood and Clarissa walked away from. She was overcome with jealousy upon hearing their conversation, and she came to realization that she had been right all along. Damon and Clarissa weren't just former friends, they were former lovers—lovers gone wrong, it seemed. Emily Bennett stood by her side, waiting for Katherine's order.
"What should we do, Miss Katherine?" Emily asked, her voice small. Truth be told, Clarissa King was the only one she actually liked in the new town of Mystic Falls. Although loyal to Katherine, she was never fond of vampires. Clarissa, a human, was genuinely kind, unlike her vampire master.
"Well," Katherine exhaled, straightening her shoulders in a defensive stance as she watched Damon return to the side of the river and bend down to grab a handful of stones. "Clarissa's wedding is less than a week away. It would be rude of me to ruin such a beautiful affair." Katherine's kind smile turned down, becoming dark and envious. "But I doubt having a marital tie will stop her from coming after my Damon."
"Is it a spell you want, Miss Katherine?" Emily asked sweetly, folding her hands across her lap. Katherine watched as Damon threw a stone at the pond before him so it skipped across the water three times.
"No, Emily," Katherine said, her voice sickeningly sweet. "I would much rather prefer my own method of torture." Katherine turned sharply to her witch. "After Clarissa King's wedding, she will be absolutely ruined." Her head turned to the side for just a moment to watch as the Kings' daughter walked inside of her house. "I'll make sure of it."
As Claire poured another shot of tequila into her reused shot glass and ran out of liquid to fuel her depression, she felt the eyes of the bartender on her behind the slab. Without a word, she knocked back her drink and hissed at the strong taste as the bartender intently watched. She wouldn't lie, she was a tiny bit drunk, but wasn't it acceptable? She had stopped preying on men, but the tradeoff for that was to drink and drink and drink until the pain went away or dulled, at least. The only way she would really get the pain to go away was to turn off her emotions, but Stefan had thankfully prohibited her from doing so.
When she finished the shot, she knocked the shot glass down on the counter and slid the empty bottle to the bartender with a sly, drunken smile. She tapped the empty glass bottle promisingly.
"Do you mind fetching another one, buddy? I seem to be all out." Claire puckered her lips daintily.
The bartender shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miss King. But I think I'm going to have to cut you off now."
Claire frowned and raised her hand, pinching her fingers together so they were just inches apart. "Come on, just a little more?" She was using compulsion now, her eyes focusing in on the bartender's so he would do what she wanted. Sure enough, the bartender gave her a shy smile and took the empty bottle from the bar and went to grab another bottle from the other side of the bar. As Claire sighed deeply from the excessive amount of alcohol she'd consumed, a grumpy voice sounded beside her.
"Fancy meeting you here." Claire turned her head, but the second she did, she instantly regretted it. Damon sat down in the seat to the left of her, shades covering his eyes. He was cranky—that much she was aware of.
"Leave me alone, Damon," Claire murmured as the bartender returned to her with another bottle of hard tequila. She tilted the bottle and poured herself another shot, not minding the alcohol that spilled over the edge of her shot glass. "Today is so not the day for making amends. I just want to sit here and drown all of my sorrows in solitude."
"Well, don't let me stop you. Besides, I didn't come here to make amends," Damon grumbled and turned to the bartender, pointing at him. "Bourbon. Neat."
Once again, Claire downed the shot and shuddered at the amount of alcohol entering her system. Damon sighed heavily, his shades still over his eyes. The sight was intriguing and skeptical to Claire, who just cocked an eyebrow and asked, "What's with the shades, Tom Cruise?"
Damon turned his head to her and, after a small hesitation, sighed and removed his glasses. "Sorry. My eyes are a little sensitive today. Not that you would care."
Claire shrugged. "Yeah. You're right. I don't." The bartender came up behind the bar with Damon's bourbon and the vampire exhaled as he accepted the drink. As Damon took a sip of his bourbon and Claire poured herself another shot, a voice sounded a seat away from Damon, earning his attention.
"You two are new, aren't you?"
"Oh, on the contrary," Damon returned, his eyes moving to the side to see the woman a seat away. "We're…very old."
Beside him, Claire scoffed and returned the tequila bottle to a standing position. "Speak for yourself, Grandpa."
The woman ignored Claire's comment, shamelessly flirting with Damon and using Claire as just a piece of leverage to up her conversation. "I haven't been gone that long. I would remember someone who looked like you."
"Yeah?" Damon prompted, sighing. "Where'd you go?"
"Around, about."
Damon chuckled. "Been there." He brought his bourbon glass to his lips and drained most of the alcohol from the crystal glass. Claire was beside him, pouring one drink after another.
"I love to see a man drown his sorrows. It's so…sexy," the woman commented, straightforward.
Claire peered out beside Damon and raised her shot glass in the air towards the woman. "Yes, but a woman drowning her sorrows is much, much sexier."
Damon's hard, icy eyes drifted towards Claire and watched as she knocked the shot back. When she returned to a leveled plane, she locked eyes with Damon and gave him an innocent, drunken smile, causing Damon to just shake his head at her and turn back to the woman on the other side of him.
"It's more like nursing my wounds. And you?"
"Well, I was supposed to be interviewing for the bartender job, but, um, I think the manager blew me off."
"Well, that's not very nice," Damon murmured.
"Yeah. Last time I was in town, I slept with her boyfriend."
"Well, that's not very nice, either."
"It happens," the woman defended herself with a shrug. The blonde vampire beside Damon began to cough and laugh at the same time, choking on the mixture of her alcohol and her laughs. She was waving her hand in front of her face in the middle of her fit, but before Damon could intervene, another female voice sounded behind them.
"Kelly?" Jenna exclaimed, coming up to the bar with a pleased, surprised smile on her face. The woman at the bar, Kelly, turned her head and met Jenna with the same surprised smile. "Kelly Donovan!"
Kelly got out of her chair and the two women practically squealed at the sight of each other with huge grins on their faces. They hugged as a greeting until Jenna pulled away and said happily, "I heard you were back in town!" Her eyes drifted to Damon at the bar. "She used to babysit me."
"And then I used to party with her," Kelly added, tilting her head towards Jenna. At the bar, Damon placed his head on his hand and leaned back, a sick smile on his face.
"This woman was crazy," Jenna stated to Damon.
"Not as crazy as you!" Kelly defended.
"Ha. Not anymore," Jenna admitted sadly, but her eyes caught Claire pouring herself a shot. "Oh. Hey, Claire."
Claire looked up from pouring her shot and gave Jenna a small smile. "Morning, Jenna."
Jenna frowned. "It's five o'clock in the evening."
All heads turned to her, but the blonde just shrugged. "Whatever." And the tequila was knocked back into her mouth mercilessly.
Once they finished watching Claire knock back her shot, Kelly turned to Jenna with a smile. "Well, sit! Drink!"
"Uh, I shouldn't…" Jenna objected. "I'm responsible now. Haven't you heard?"
"Well, take a night off. It's good for the soul," Kelly suggested, sitting down in the seat next to Damon.
"Great for the soul," Damon tagged on, lengthening his words. Jenna, who was obviously longing to sit down, finally gave into her temptation and took a seat beside Kelly, sighing.
"This is not gonna end well," Jenna noted with a small laugh.
Damon hummed under his breath. "Can't wait." And the three raised their glasses in cheers.
The King mansion was filled with guests that they were entertaining for the celebration of the marriage of Clarissa King and Christopher Fell. Almost the entire town was attending the pre-ceremonial dinner, including the infamous Salvatore brothers.
"Damon," Giuseppe murmured to his son as they entered the King's mansion for the celebration. "I expect you to be on best behavior with Clarissa."
Damon cleared his throat. "You won't have to worry, Father. I'm sure she'll be avoiding me all night."
"Good," Giuseppe chirped, but his word was cold and heartless. As far as he was concerned, though, Clarissa and Damon had just been in a terrible fight and there was no recovery for it. For the longest time, Giuseppe was disappointed in Damon for ruining the one thing that could bring the Salvatores and the Kings to union, but Clarissa and Damon couldn't be in the same room without causing commotion in front of everyone. If Amelia were still around, there was no doubt that she and Stefan would've taken Damon and Clarissa's places, but she wasn't, which rid all hope for Giuseppe and even Edward King.
Now, Edward and his wife had to deal with unionizing with Thomas and Honoria Fell through the marriage of their children. He wasn't all that excited about it, but like Giuseppe, there was nothing that could be done.
"I'm going to find Clarissa and congratulate her," Stefan mumbled. Damon watched as his brother left his side, glum over the fact that Katherine Pierce had agreed to accompany Damon to the dinner instead of Stefan. Just as Damon watched his brother take off, Miss Katherine happened to arrive at Damon's side.
Katherine sighed heavily. "Ah, I think this shall be a lovely wedding. Don't you, Damon?"
In the midst of the crowd, Damon caught sight of Clarissa and Christopher standing together, conversing with George Lockwood and his wife. He felt sick at the sight, like he wanted to kick, scream, shout, and do everything humanly possible to stop the wedding from happening. But Katherine, a jealous creature by nature, expected a satisfying answer.
"Yes, Katherine. It should be a…lovely affair," Damon agreed with a small smile as they began to merge into the crowd. Katherine's grip tightened on him.
"Oh, Damon. Your longing is quite unattractive," Katherine sighed. Damon threw a glance to her and raised an eyebrow.
"Longing? What do you mean?"
"I mean your longing for your beloved Clarissa." Katherine's jealousy dripped with venom from her words.
Damon brought them to a stop in the middle of the crowd and insisted upon lying. There was no hope for him and Clarissa King—why ruin everything good to him for a girl who hated every fiber of his being? "Katherine, I don't have the slightest idea of what you are referring to."
Katherine's innocent doe eyes swept across the room and she plastered a smile on her face. "Well, never mind my words, then. It does not matter, anyway. I actually feel bad for Clarissa, what with her marrying Christopher. She'll be so very dearly unhappy."
Katherine's light and airy words were sickening and confusing to the eldest Salvatore. As the young brunette tried to pull him out to the rest of the crowd, Damon stopped her. "Wait a moment, Katherine, what do you mean?"
The lovely brunette looked over at Damon and cocked her head. "Absolutely nothing, my darling. Come. Let's dance!"
But Damon didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Katherine pulled his arm and led him out to the small amount of couples swaying back and forth on the dance floor, but Damon couldn't shake Katherine's words. His eyes lingered on the beautiful blonde the entire night, worried as to what Katherine was implying.
"I hate this house," Frederick complained aloud on the couch in the living room. Beside him, his vampire lover, Bethanne, knotted her eyebrows.
"It's better than the tomb," she presented.
"I didn't stay locked up for 145 years to end up locked in here."
"Maybe you should quit complaining," Harper propositioned on an armchair just across the couch where Frederick and Bethanne were. Beside him, Christopher sighed and took a sip out of the strong alcohol he had in the glass in his hand.
"Maybe…everyone here should quit complaining. It's not as if you all have a wife to return to…" Christopher mumbled, bringing the alcohol to his lips. Frederick's attention turned from Harper to Christopher on a dime.
"When are you going to stop moaning about your darling Clarissa?" asked the complaining vampire, earning Christopher to cut his gaze to Frederick as he stood. "You do realize that she's been out and about for a century and a half thinking you were dead. Are you really that stupid enough to think that she's waited for you all these years?"
This brought a rage out of Christopher that no one wanted to see. The alcohol glass suddenly found itself on the table beside him and he was facing Frederick head to head, his jaw squared.
"How about you just stop complaining and make everyone else's life easier, Frederick? Pearl has made her instructions clear. No one's to leave the house."
Frederick's eyes narrowed. "You gonna stop me?"
"Let it be, Frederick," Bethanne voiced behind him. "You heard what Pearl said."
"I don't care what Pearl said," Frederick responded, his eyes locking stares with Christopher. "What you got, boy?"
The question was obviously useless—Christopher was turned merely a day before being trapped in the tomb. Frederick was older, and therefore stronger by definition. But instead of Christopher being the one who did something to shut Frederick up, it was Harper who flashed out of his seat and pushed Frederick back onto the couch. The vampire recoiled and attacked Harper, pinning him to the nearest wall.
"Try that again," Frederick snarled. But it wasn't long before a third party, who gripped Frederick's throat and forced the violent vampire off of Harper, interrupted their fight.
"Back off!" Pearl demanded as she shoved Frederick off of Harper. "Back off. We don't fight each other. Those are the rules."
"And I'm tired of the rules. I want out of this house. Why can't we go into town?" Frederick breathed hurriedly.
"Eventually," Pearl answered him with a stern voice. "But for now, we have to keep a low profile."
"No one knows who I am!"
"The Salvatore brothers do," retorted Pearl. Frederick scoffed.
"And I wish to hell I could run into them. They're the reason we were caught in the first place," Frederick spat vindictively, but it didn't matter. Pearl was the strongest vampire in the whole house, and what she said was practically the law.
Or, at least, that's what she thought it was, anyway. Though Frederick had been thoroughly embarrassed by Pearl, it didn't stop him from taking Bethanne and heading for the door the second Pearl was out of his sight. They opened the door quietly and began to sneak out like a couple of high school teenagers, but they were eventually caught.
"Where are you going?" Harper asked as he and Christopher caught sight of the two vampires exiting the house. Bethanne whipped around, surprised, and Frederick just sighed.
"Bethanne and I are going out for a bit. Hit the town. Kick up our heels," Frederick told them. Christopher crossed his arms at the cocky vampire, and Harper stepped forward.
"But we're not supposed to leave," Harper objected. "Miss Pearl made that very clear."
Frederick stepped forward and practically spat in Harper's face, relaying the same words he'd said to Christopher earlier. "You gonna stop me?" Harper said nothing. "I didn't think so."
With a smug smile, Frederick turned on his heel and left the house with his girlfriend, leaving Harper and Christopher inside. Once Frederick had left the house, Christopher stepped forward towards the door.
"Wait, where are you going?" Harper asked worriedly, fearing he had another traitor on his back. Christopher sighed and turned back to Harper.
"Well, someone has got to go after them, correct?" Christopher proposed as he opened the door for himself. "Tell Pearl what happened and that I have gone out to retrieve them before any damage can be done."
Christopher left, and soon after, Harper did what he asked.
"So, the thing about cherries…" Damon trailed off as he twisted a cherry stem in his mouth. "You have to…"
Kelly held up a finger to Damon's lips and shook her head. She produced her own cherry stem from her mouth, holding the tied stem between her teeth. Damon growled seductively.
"Oh, my goodness…" Damon moaned as he leaned forward and took the tied stem from Kelly's teeth and brought it to his own mouth, earning a soft chuckle from Kelly's lips. "That's amazing. You were quick."
The sexy actions made the woman beside Kelly just sigh heavily and walk around the two vulgar drunken adults over to Claire, who was pouring one drink after another and so on and so forth.
Jenna took a seat beside Claire and sighed. "So…what's got you down?" Elena's aunt asked. Claire extended the tequila bottle to Jenna and Jenna took it graciously, pouring herself a shot.
Claire sighed. "Well…let's just say it's…super complicated." Jenna ad Claire bumped glasses and downed their shots, feeling the burn afterwards. When they recovered from the sour shot, Jenna hissed and spoke again.
"Complicated is my middle name," Jenna returned, earning Claire to shoot Jenna a drunken smile.
"All right, fine. Bottom line is, my husband disappeared a while ago and I could've done something, but instead, I was forced to let him go." Claire shrugged and began to pour herself another shot, but Jenna stopped her with her mouth dropped on the floor.
"Wait, you're married?" Jenna asked in disbelief. Claire scoffed.
"Uh huh."
"When did you get married?" the adult pushed further. Claire lied smoothly without blinking twice.
"Oh, a long, long time ago. Feels like forever. I…guess it kind of has been," she mumbled and sniffed her drink, but she felt like it was doing nothing to her. Despite the fact that she had kept herself busy with drink after drink and entertaining man after man that came up to her and started conversation with Damon just a seat away from her, nothing was helping her situation. Claire watched as the clear liquid sloshed around in the glass and some spilled over the edge onto the counter.
Jenna just shook her head. "God, Claire. I'm…sorry."
Claire gave Jenna a sad smile and shook her head. "It's okay, I guess. Not much I can do about it now."
The two women were silent for a while and Claire exhaled, swiveling herself on the bar stool so she faced the crowd of the Grill. Jenna's mouth twitched before she asked a valid question. "What's his name?"
Claire opened her mouth to say Christopher's name, but her world suddenly came to a screeching halt when she saw someone fight his way through the crowd. The sight was like a dream to her, but she knew that she was very much in reality. At first, a million doubts went through her head all at once, but when he stopped and finally caught sight of her, coming to a halt as well, she knew that it was real. He was real.
"Christopher," Claire breathed out, and Jenna turned her head in the direction that Claire was looking in. Damon, who was standing beside Jenna entertaining Kelly, heard the name and instantly began to panic. He thought it was a fluke—that Christopher wasn't really there, but knowing that the vampires were out of the tomb and finally seeing Christopher in the crowd was enough to get him to realize what was happening. He watched as Claire immediately slid out of her seat, still drunk but now sobering because of the sight she'd witnessed.
"Clarissa?" Christopher asked himself, seeing the blonde vision before him. She was making his way towards her, and he stepped forward, as well, all thoughts of finding Frederick and Bethanne in the facility slipping away from him without a second thought. The two of them finally reached each other and came to a stop, examining each other's facial features to confirm.
"Oh, my God," Claire breathed, her chest tightening. "Oh, my God. It's you. It's really you."
"Of course it's me." Christopher nodded, a smile twitching at his lips at the sight of his long-lost wife standing in front of him. "I have been looking for you everywhere, Clarissa."
He could see the corners of her eyes start to water, and she stepped forward and touched his face, her breath catching at the touch. Christopher reached up and his fingers touched the back of her hand, the two of them standing nearly inches from each other. The sight was surreal, but it was right in front of her. All it took was one step and Claire was in Christopher's arms in a loving embrace, one to make up for all the lost time. They held onto each other, Claire's arms around his neck and Christopher's around her waist. No one else, it seemed, mattered to either of them.
Damon watched as the couple consoled each other by the entrance of the Grill, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek at the sight. So much for Pearl wanting to give him time. Beside him, Kelly looked in the direction he was staring and scoffed.
"What is it?" Kelly asked. On the other side of Damon, Jenna grabbed her stuff and began to exit the facility.
Damon turned to Kelly and tried to ignore the fact that the blonde vampire he'd spent the last century loving and hating all at the same time was now emotionally and physically unavailable to him. He hummed at the slutty woman in front of him and decided to use it straight to his advantage.
"Nothing, nothing." He shook his head and gave Kelly a signature smile. "What do you say we move this party elsewhere?"
A glint of want flashed in Kelly's eyes, and Damon had no doubts about her answer.
The wedding had finally come, and the town was reeling over the union of the two Founding Families. Everyone had shown up to the Fell's mansion for the ceremony, including the Salvatores. But Giuseppe had told Damon that he mustn't go to the ceremony, seeing as he was so sure that Damon would cause an unnecessary scene and ruin the entire wedding and embarrass the Salvatore name.
Damon had intended upon staying home—he thought it would be best for everyone, even him. But thinking over the celebratory dinner and Katherine's cynical words, Damon had a bad feeling about the wedding. He had a bad feeling about…everything, in general. Katherine may have tried to coax him into telling her what really went on with him and Clarissa and, though she failed miserably, that seed of doubt she planted in Damon's head regarding his ex-best friend's future husband kept Damon fidgeting.
He had to warn her. He had to at least try to. There was a pit in Damon's stomach that just churned thinking about the wedding and how happy everyone would be that the two were getting married. Katherine's words came back to him, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Katherine's words were true. He knew Clarissa would be unhappy, and he wasn't saying this because he wanted to be with her. Damon had a terrible feeling that she was making a grave mistake. He might've hated her, but he didn't want her to marry a man she didn't love.
He had to stop it.
The Fell's mansion was easy to slip into without being noticed, but it was proven to be a challenge to stay under the radar. Michael Gilbert, Jonathan Gilbert's son, spotted him as Damon tried to round the corner to the study, where he knew the bride would be kept.
"Damon!" Michael bellowed, causing Damon to widen his eyes and look around to see if anyone had heard the shout. The drunken Michael Gilbert came up and smiled at Damon. "Come to see this beautiful wedding, haven't we?"
Damon let out a small laugh. "Yes. Yes, I have. I just could not resist it. If you'll excuse me…"
Damon left the drunken Gilbert son to himself and was thankful that he didn't come after him. Michael Gilbert was the product of Jonathan Gilbert's first marriage, where his wife died giving childbirth. Now, Jonathan Gilbert, a single man, was pining after the woman who ran the town's apothecary, Pearl. Michael was a terrible drunk, but his father was too insane to notice. Everyone in the town just disregarded Michael's very existence.
When Damon finally made his way to the study, he opened the sliding doors and all conversation came to a halt upon seeing him. Honoria Fell and Marianne King were standing around their daughter, who was dressed from head to toe in the purest form of white. Her blonde hair accented the white dress, he tip of her braid touching her ribcage.
"Damon?" Marianne asked with confusion lining her voice. There was no doubt in Damon's mind that Edward and Giuseppe had come up with the idea of Damon staying at home on their own.
Damon gave a small smile to the lovely Mrs. King and stepped inside the room. "Good afternoon, Mrs. King. Mrs. Fell. May I have a moment alone with your daughter?" Damon asked politely.
Clarissa was eyeing Damon, and as soon as Damon asked about a moment of privacy, the two women surrounding her looked up for any hint of an answer on her face. Clarissa cleared her throat and looked between the two women.
"It's…all right. Just a moment, please." Clarissa turned to Damon with her hands across her stomach and they both waited as Honoria and Marianne left the room with a silent stare to Damon. Once they were gone, the study door was closed, leaving them with the ultimate privacy. Clarissa sighed. "What is it, Damon?"
"Clarissa, please," Damon begged, shaking his head. "You should not be going through with this wedding." Clarissa turned her head and sighed, as if she expected it from him, but Damon wasn't willing to give it up. "Please! This isn't about you and me, Clarissa, this is about you and your happiness—"
"My happiness?" Clarissa scoffed, turning to him abruptly with hard, angry eyes. "Since when have you ever cared about my happiness? All you want is to destroy it! You cannot stand to see me happy and when you do, you take it from me! That's all you've ever done!"
"How can you say that?" Damon growled. "I have come here today against my father's wishes to tell you that I want you to be happy. But he can't give that to you and we both know it."
"On this day, you choose to be so selfish?" Clarissa snapped, clenching her fists. The bodice on her was so tight, she felt like it would snap from the rage she experienced. Damon could see the anger flash in her eyes, and he instantly began to regret ever disobeying his father. "You hate me much more than I ever imagined you would! To come here today and accuse me of not being happy with my fiancé if I marry him like I vowed to? To ask me to give up the one chance at a content life...?" She shook her head at him in angry disbelief, and then began to point to the door. "Get out! Get out, get out, get out!"
The yelling had gotten so out of control that the doors slid open to reveal Edward King and Giuseppe Salvatore, eyes widening at the turnout of Damon and Clarissa in the same room.
"Clarissa, what's going on?" Edward asked coldly as he entered the room with Giuseppe on his tails. Spying Damon, Edward looked at Giuseppe. "I thought you told your son to stay home!"
"I did," Giuseppe said angrily "Damon?"
Damon looked over at Giuseppe and could see the disappointment and anger all in his father's eyes. It was nothing different than how Giuseppe looked at him the rest of the time, but Damon couldn't stand to see it anymore. He just shielded his eyes from his father and turned on his heel to walk out. Clarissa, Edward, and Giuseppe stared after him as he left, but he had earned the attention of everyone in the Fell household by now, which included his brother and Katherine, who had come together.
Once Damon was gone, shamefully walking away, Katherine gave a frustrated sigh and peered into the study to see everyone's beloved Clarissa. She was so angry, it bubbled over inside of her. Katherine had tested Damon; she tried to see if he would take her bait and try and talk Clarissa out of the wedding because Katherine was certain Damon had feelings for her.
But after Katherine gave Clarissa just enough amount of time to be happy to take it away from her? Oh, Damon would never feel for her again. She would see to that.
"How did you even get out of the tomb?" Claire asked in disbelief as she and Christopher sat down on a bench out in the middle of the night in the town square. She pulled Christopher down with her, their hands entwined.
Christopher's shoulders shrugged. "I…have no idea. There were these…people that had come into the tomb. This…commotion, of some sort. There was a scream, and the next thing I knew, I smelt blood. I finally gathered enough strength to finish off what was at my disposal and then I got out of the tomb. I have no idea why the seal broke."
Claire bit her lip, feeling incredibly guilty. She knew exactly what Christopher was talking about, and those 'people' he spoke of happened to be her, Damon, and Stefan. Now that she knew the seal was never back on the tomb door to begin with, her entire reason for leaving Christopher behind was null and void.
"But it doesn't matter now." Christopher squeezed Claire's hand seeing her distress and smiled at her. "I've been staying with the other vampires because I thought Pearl could help find you for me, and…well, as grateful as I am to her for teaching me the ways of this new world, I have you now."
Claire looked down at their hands and smiled, but that hole inside of her chest just deepened at the guilt. For a century and a half, she had been so unfaithful that it was nauseating. Now that Christopher was out and here with her, she felt even guiltier for being the way she was. He looked at her like she was the most innocent girl in the world when, really, she was far from it.
She looked up at him and tried to get off the topic, finding it was just digging a hole inside of her body that she didn't care for. "Pearl's set up a house for the rest of the vampires?"
Christopher nodded and sighed. "Yes. I suppose that they're trying to reclaim Mystic Falls as their rightful home because of the hell they'd been through. It's not surprising."
"Hardly," Claire snorted, tilting her head back and forth. She exhaled and just looked off into the crowd of townspeople walking in the middle of the night. "Well, Stefan really won't be happy about this," she muttered and then turned to Christopher. "Which reminds me—"
"You're…going to tell me that you're staying with Damon and Stefan in Mystic Falls, aren't you?" Claire nodded. "Yes. Pearl informed me this morning. I tried to go back to the original Salvatore house when I first got out of the tomb, but it was torn down."
Claire smiled. "Well, they have a new home now. The boarding house." She paused, pursing her lips, but then she saw something on Christopher's leg. It was his hand, and the wedding ring was exhibiting a glare of light at the angled it was positioned. Claire reached over and grabbed his hand, examining the ring in the dim streetlight. Blue gemstones radiated in the band's width. It was confusing to her, especially since she was sure his wedding ring was studded with diamonds. "What's this?" she murmured.
Christopher straightened and blew out a long breath of air. "I…I haven't the slightest idea. I think it protects me from the sun. I could have sworn that my wedding ring had diamonds embedded but—"
"They're lapis lazuli," Claire whispered, and she looked up at Christopher with her enticing blue eyes of a lighter color than the gemstones. Suddenly, a light laugh escaped her mouth. "Oh…Emily Bennett. God. If she ever possesses Bonnie again, I'll have to remember to thank her."
Christopher hummed under his breath, but as his thumb brushed over Clarissa's knuckles, he frowned and pulled her hand up to him. It was her left hand, that much he was aware of, but she wasn't wearing her rings. The thought kicked him in the chest, but he realized quickly that it wasn't fair to her. Claire pulled her hand away from him as she could see the realization cross his face. She ducked her head, shameful, and put her hands in her laps.
"Christopher, I—"
"Clarissa, you don't have to explain anything to me." Christopher sighed, shaking his head. "You thought I died in that church for an entire century. I didn't…expect you to…"
Claire turned to him and shook her head. "No. No, please don't think that I've…moved on or anything." She scoffed. It was a bit of a lie, but she needed to tell him whatever he needed to hear. She felt so insanely guilty that she was sure it'd eat her up alive, but she didn't want to lose Christopher so soon after getting him back. It may have been an arranged marriage that she didn't want to go through with, but over time, it had grown to become as real as it got. "If I knew you were in that tomb, I would've never rested until I got you out. Believe me."
"I believe you." Christopher nodded. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she was able to get the words out, her phone rang in her pocket. Christopher jumped, but Claire just tilted her body and grabbed her phone from her back pocket. Stefan's name was on the screen, so she answered it without hesitation.
"Hey, Stefan. What's up?" Christopher watched as Claire listened intently on the other side of the phone, and she widened her eyes. "Oh, my God. Yeah. I'll…uh…I'll be right there." She ended the phone call and stood up from the bench.
"What's going on?" Christopher asked, standing up, too. Claire shook her head and ran a hand through her blonde hair while she shrugged.
"I…I have no idea. Stefan just called and said that two vampires broke into the house. Vampires from the tomb."
Christopher was silent, thinking to himself, but then he realized. Two vampires, out and about around town. "Frederick and Bethanne," Christopher muttered, disappointed.
Claire looked up at him, confused. "Did you know they were attacking?"
Christopher shook his head. "No. The reason I came out tonight was to look for them. They took off against Pearl's wishes, but…well, seeing you distracted me. They must have known you were there so I'd be preoccupied when they attacked."
Claire processed the information, but it was nothing useful. She just sighed. "Well…come on. Let's get back to the boarding house." Christopher exhaled and nodded, but she thought she saw a hesitation in his eyes. "Unless you'd rather go back to Pearl's…"
Christopher looked down at her, eyebrows raised. "Of course not. As I said before, I wanted Pearl to help me find you. Once I did, I wasn't going to stay."
Claire and Christopher eyed each other for a long time before Claire nodded. "Okay, then. Let's go."
When they finally reached the boarding house, it wasn't long before Damon and Stefan revealed that Bethanne was dead to Christopher and Claire. Upon learning such information, Christopher was forced to return back to Pearl's to tie up loose ends before coming back to the boarding house with Clarissa. Stefan was on the phone with Elena to check up on her while Damon and Claire both tried to move the dead body to the fireplace to incinerate it.
"So how long did you know about the tomb vampires being out?" Claire asked Damon as they carried the body over to the fireplace and dropped it in front of the flame. Damon looked up at her, raising his eyebrows in that Damon-like way. "And don't you dare lie to me this time."
Damon sighed. "Since this morning." Her frown turned into a straight grimace. "Oh, don't look at me with those judgy little eyes. You were wallowing and Pearl said she wanted to set up a lovely reunion."
Claire crossed her arms. "Have I mentioned how much I despise you and your life's mission to make my happiness obsolete?"
"Vaguely. Stefan!" Damon turned to his brother who had just ended the phone call with Elena. Damon gave the bronze-haired vampire a sour smile and just said, "Could you help us out a little bit?"