Elena and Bonnie chose that moment to walk through the door, happy and laughing and then they saw me standing there.
"What's happened?" Asked Elena, straight away.
"Ha. Damon wants to tell the world that you guys are real and characters in a book. He wants it to coincide with the special screening of the tv show and has already set everything up without telling anyone.
I've just broken up a fight between Stefan and Damon, Damon's probably in his room and Stefan's in the kitchen on the phone talking to Lisa Jane Smith who is expecting to meet you all at the screening thanks to Damon."
Elena and Bonnie both stared at me with their mouths open, "I'm going for a walk in the park so they're all yours. Good luck," I walked out the door and down towards the park. I knew that I'd be brought up in a conversation eventually as I had recognised the boys from the books after all.
I spent the next hour walking round the park, then I made my way back to the house as it was nearly time for Lee to finish work and he always called to let me know his on his way back.
I walked into the house and was cornered by Stefan immediately. "I'm glad you're back, we just need Lee now." I stared at Stefan uncomprehending, but he just wandered off upstairs. I could hear the television so I went into the living room and found Elena, she looked up when she heard me coming and switched of the television. "I'm guessing from the look on your face no one's told you yet."
"Stefan just said he was waiting for Lee. What's happened?" I sat down besides her as I was getting worried now, but she gave me a hug and reassured me that nothing bad had happened.
"Stefan spoke to Lisa Smith and they had a long discussion about whether or not to go public. Damon told her that you recognised them from their descriptions in her books and her way of thinking was that it would only be a matter of time before someone else did."
Elena took a deep breath, she wasn't looking too happy and I guessed that she had been overruled in her decision. "He's going to do it, isn't he," Elena nodded.
"He's not backing down either. I've managed to convince him just to do it in Atlanta for CW so at least we'll have some sort of normal life over here, I can't get in touch with Meredith or Alaric as they're in Peru somewhere. Matt's not exactly happy but he moved out of Fell's church after college and got married, he's a coach for the college team now and his wife lectures English. It shouldn't really affect them unless someone remembers where he came from."
Elena shook her head and sighed, "I'm sorry Elena, none of this would have happened if I hadn't have opened my big mouth when Damon came up to Stefan that night and told them I recognised them, but I didn't think any of this would happen."
Elena looked up at me horrified and gave me a huge hug, " don't you dare think that Lizzie! If it weren't for you then Stefan and Damon wouldn't be living under the same roof and getting along! If you hadn't have told Stefan and Damon about the tv show then we would have all been in a state of panic when Matt phoned to ask if we heard about it. Thanks to you, we knew more about it than Matt and Stefan reassured him that he would be okay."
Lee walked through the door just at that moment, he saw our faces and looked at me questioningly. "Stefan and Damon have decided to reveal their existence to the world, so have Bonnie and Elena. They're flying out soon to Atlanta to meet some of the cast before announcing that they actually exist to the world at a special screening of the premiere."
Lee sat down with his mouth open, "this happened today?" wow, but what about over here?"
"Good question," said Stefan walking into the room and perching on the coffee table in front of us. "We'll need to see how it goes in America first."
Elena looked disheartened, Stefan held her hand and looked longingly into her eyes.
"Please Elena, I don't want to live in the shadows forever. Not now I know there are people out there who will accept me for what I am and who I am."
Elena shook her head at him, her blue eyes filled with tears. "Stefan, I love you with all my heart. But please, for me. Let me have some sort of a normal life while I still can, I like it here and if we go public over here then we'll have to keep moving."
Stefan opened his mouth to say something but shut it again, you could see the hurt on his face as the tears started to fall.
"I'm scared Stefan!"
I got up and dragged Lee into the kitchen on the pretence of finding something to eat, we did search through the cupboards and his cookery books but couldn't find anything.
Lee looked up suddenly and nudged me. I looked in the direction of the kitchen door and Stefan came in looking happy which was a relief.
"You can come out now you two, pizza's on me tonight, just go and choose what you want." Lee didn't need to be asked twice and fled to the living room, I went up to Stefan and asked if he was alright.
"I'm fine, we're fine, thank you. Now go choose your pizza before I change my mind," he smiled at me and it was a genuinely happy smile.
I shared a vegetarian pizza with Elena, Bonnie was starving and had a Calzone all to herself and Lee had his usual four cheese pizza.
We sat down to watch a quiz show with Stefan, for once was flummoxed on the answers as the round was about pop music and us girls were screaming the answers at the TV whilst Lee and Stefan sat back and watched.
"Well isn't this nice? Everyone playing happy families for once and no one thought to ask me." Stefan got up and turned to face his brother, who was standing with his arms crossed.
"I didn't think that you'd want to play "happy families" with us as you put it," Damon and Stefan glared at each other.
"You're more than welcome to join us Damon. Come sit down," said Elena as I moved up closer to Lee to let him sit next to me.
"I'll pass on the offer, I wouldn't want to intrude." Stefan looked at Damon and nodded, something was going on.
"Lizzie, would you and Lee like to come with us to Atlanta?" Asked Stefan, Lee and I nearly choked on our pizza.
"I'm on holiday with my dad and brother next week in Devon. I don't fly anyway," said Lee, "but Lizzie will go, won't you?" Lee gave me a meaningful look which meant go it'll do you good.
"Um Yeah, okay, I'll go. Thanks," Stefan grinned and sat back down. Damon had vanished, obviously not in a mood to socialise.
After dinner I went upstairs with Bonnie to sort out what I was going to wear as I had hardly anything that you could call fashionable and I had no idea what the weather would be like.
We put the radio on and the DJ was playing old pop tunes from the early 90s. I'm ashamed to say that we both ended up singing along to The Back Street Boys very badly, which attracted Damon's attention as he couldn't stand it anymore and came to tell us to shut up.
"It's not our fault that you have super hearing. We're allowed to sing if we want to." Bonnie picked the wrong time to stick up to Damon, he was in a bad mood for some reason and she wasn't helping.
"You can't sing which is the whole problem. Now either you stop or I'll make you stop, it's just about tolerable that you're playing this rubbish anyway." Bonnie stuck her chin out and opened her mouth but I pulled her back by arm and got between them.
"Enough! Please. Okay, we won't sing anymore Damon. I'm sorry if we hurt your ears." Damon glared at me and then looked over my head at Bonnie with something like amusement on his eyes for a brief second, then he was gone as quickly as he came. "Why'd you do that for? He wouldn't dare influence us," Bonnie complained.
"Because I want to keep the peace in the house," I grinned at Bonnie and dragged an old Now That's What I call Music from my collection, it had all the popular hits from the summer on it and that particular summer half of the popular hits were boy bands, the other half were bubblegum pop like Britney Spears' early tracks and the Spice Girls. Bonnie laughed as I put it on selecting track 2 which was the Spice Girls first hit- Wannabe, possibly the most annoying song ever, so we carried on sorting through my clothes with the volume turned up a little bit.
Sure enough a few minutes later Bonnie was staring wide eyed at the doorway. "Must you play this utter rubbish?" I grinned at him.
"Yes we do as a matter of fact. Personally, I can't stand the stuff you play but you have every right to play it so I don't complain. We have every right to play whatever music we want and if you don't like it then put some earplugs in or something."
I heard Stefan's laughter and his face appeared over his brother's shoulder, "unfortunately they have a point. But since this is our house, I think we should show them who's boss."
Bonnie and I looked at each other horrified, Damon and Stefan stood there grinning. "You wouldn't dare!" she said, both brothers gave her a look that suggested that they would.
"No they wouldn't dare. Stefan I'm ashamed of you! Picking on my friends because of their taste in music." Stefan turned his evil grin on his wife.
"What makes you think I wouldn't dare Elena? Perhaps I ought to start with you," with that Stefan picked Elena up and slung her over his shoulder.
Elena screamed and then they were gone, leaving the three of us staring after them. "Well, no prizes for guessing we won't be seeing those two anytime soon," I laughed.
Damon stood there staring at Bonnie who was looking in the direction Elena and Stefan went. "I wish I had a gorgeous boyfriend like that, my love life sucks," Damon disappeared again and we were left staring after everyone.
"Come on Bon. I still need your help with what I'm taking," with that we were back to the job in hand.
The days flew by and soon we were in Atlanta, it was very humid and thanks to Damon it was overcast. We had a day to recover from the long flight and then the next day Damon had arranged for us to meet Ian, Nina, Paul and Katerina at a café in Little Five Points.
But I almost literally bumped into Paul the day before as I was too busy looking in shop windows and not looking where I was going. He apologised, I apologised and he took a good look at me before asking my name. "I'm Lizzie Roberts, are you Paul Wesley?"
"Yeah, oh hey, you're Stefan and Damon's friend right?
Wow. I'm really pleased to meet you, Damon's told us all about you," he said. He saw the surprised look on my face and laughed, "did you want to grab a bite to eat somewhere? I'd love to know what it's like living with Damon and Stefan."
I agreed on the condition that his bite to eat wasn't me and teased him that I'd heard about his fangs which made him laugh. We grabbed a coffee and cake at one of the many cafés, he asked me what Stefan was like compared to the books.
"Good question actually. He's different to how he is in the books, he's happier and he has a bit of an evil streak in him which is quite scary 'cause he looks like Damon when he does that."
"Evil?" asked Paul, looking slightly worried.
"Yeah, evil as in mischievous sort of thing. He's great fun to live with actually and you can go to him with any problem and he'll help you out as best he can.
I've been doing a bit of family history research and some of the certificates and census records a bit hard to read, he's been a great help in that department. I keep everything like that in the library and there was one day when it was Stefan what does this say and Stefan what about that? Bless him, he was so patient with me and the next day when I opened my folder he'd been through everything and written it all clearly for me along with significant events he knew of like wars, the depression which was really handy for me."
"He sounds really cool, I can't wait to meet him tomorrow. I hope he likes how I'm playing him."
"I'm sure he will, I've been showing him the trailers and adverts online, so far he's really pleased. But I just think he's waiting for the premiere to make a proper judgement."
Paul nodded and said he thought that was fair enough, then his phone rang and he politely excused himself while he took the call. He came back a couple of minutes later with a grin on his face.
"Ian's round the corner and I said he could join us, you don't mind do you?" he grinned at me and I laughed.
"I think that would be great. Wow, Stefan and Damon having coffee with a human and getting along together." We both laughed and were still laughing when Ian came round the corner- with Damon of all people.
Damon was smirking, Ian was grinning and I groaned into my coffee.
"You know him?" Asked Paul, seeing my reaction. I grinned at him and gave him an are you serious look, "that's Damon."
Paul's widened in shock and he stared at Damon who walked over to the table, I got up and Damon kissed me politely on the cheek before Paul introduced himself to Damon and Ian to me.