The Forgotten One- chapter 17
Episode- the end of the affair
A/N: thankyou for the lovely reviews! Now onto the story loves. Btw, can anyone figure out why Aria is acting the way she is, wanting to find Klaus and thank him? What's up with that? It's actually really obvious and everybody probably already knows the answer but for those who don't. Guess.
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I felt his hands on my neck before I saw him, but I could feel him behind me. I was standing in a clearing in the forest, the sun streamed through the gaps in the trees, birds were chirping, flowers were everywhere, grazing my bare feet with their pink, purple and yellow petals. I could smell the pine and feel the sunshine on my face. Everything was so real but I still felt like I really wasn't there, everything was too shiny and blurred, colours mixed together and the lines between real and unreal touched.
Snap.
His hands twisted my head to the side, so far that it was unnatural. I could see everything around me, a royal blue butterfly landed on my still hand and rested there, content on my pale skin, a strange contrast to look at.
I should be seeing Klaus, his gold hair and cerulean eyes with mischief and a sprinkle of evil mixed in but instead I saw soft chocolate hair, hazel eyes and a strong jawline that I love to run my lips over.
Elijah.
I felt the earth shift beneath me until I wasn't in the forest clearing anymore but on the cliff of the quarry. Jenna's desiccated and decayed body lay beside me and Elijah still kneeled beside me.
Jenna's grey form turned toward me and her eyes snapped open, if I could move, I would but it was like I was paralysed, I couldn't even blink, I could barely breathe.
"Why didn't you save me?" she asked. Her voice sounded like it was magnified a hundred times and it echoed in my ears.
"Why didn't you save either of us?" Elijah asked on the other side of me. His body collapsed, his veins turning black and his skin grey. A dagger stuck out of his chest through his Armani suit. Elena stood behind him, though she looked more like Katherine at the moment, her mouth was frozen in a smirk and her eyes narrowed on me.
Elena turned her head to the side and another form of her appeared, only it was Katherine. I could tell by the clothes and hair who they were but their faces matched, the exact same look on the both of them, they looked evil.
"Can't save anyone, can you?" they said in perfect sync with each other, their lips moved as though only speaking from one brain, it was more of a rhetorical question I'm guessing.
They shoved their hands deep into my chest, I could feel the pain but I couldn't move to defend myself. Their hands left my body and in between their hands was my heart, still beating and dripping blood.
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I woke up gasping for air. I could move and I sat up in bed and held my chest. My heart was still there and there were no dead bodies beside me. I got out of bed and walked to the window, same old Mystic Falls, different Aria Gilbert. I still remember the time back when everything was so simple, my mother and father were alive, I wasn't adopted, Jeremy was happy and young, Elena was living life to the fullest and socializing instead of writing in a journal and I was happy at least, I didn't have nightmares about my dead aunt or daggered ex-boyfriend.
"Stefan's in Chicago, you coming?" Elena asks as her and Damon walk into the room.
"Um. No. I'm just gonna hang out with Caroline and stuff." I say and twist my teardrop necklace around my finger. She nods and walks out without saying goodbye, rude.
I dial Caroline and wait for her to answer. Voicemail. Can't anyone just ever answer their phone? Is it too much to ask?
My mind drifts back to when I went home after becoming a hybrid.
The blood from the woman has dried on my hands and around my mouth, a black colour now. I don't know where I should be going. Home? Is it even a home anymore? It's the only place I can go, I guess. I lurk in the shadows of the outside world to keep from becoming a pile of ash. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we come from dust; we return to dust. Morbid and terrible but true.
I kept thinking back to what my last words were; what do you want? Even though I knew, stupid last words really. I knew the way to my house without even thinking about it, I winced when I had to rush through the sun to get to the shade. My skin blistered and burned and healed. My door stands in front of me and I can't even touch the doorknob to go inside. I press the doorbell and wait for an answer of some kind. Voices mumble and I can hear Jeremy's heavy footsteps before he opens the door.
"Aria!" he yells and walks over the threshold and pulls me into his buff arms, he's grown up so much in so little time. My head is on his shoulder and my nose is pressed right onto his pulse point, I can feel the beat of his heart. Calming and soothing like a babies lullaby. I can feel my eyes turn gold and my fangs prod at his neck, the veins snake out and swim under the surface like worms.
"Jeremy, step back inside." Damon says cautiously but I don't lift my head up to look at him.
"What? Why? This-" he notices my face and jumps back startled, he's inside now and I rush at the door but am repelled by an invisible force that protect the tenants of the house. Elena, Jeremy, Alaric Caroline, Bonnie, Matt, Tyler and Damon are all looking at me in horror, I could've kicked a puppy or stolen a baby's candy and I wouldn't get looks like I was getting from them. In their eyes I looked like a blood thirsty monster, that's exactly what I am. The veins disappear and my fangs retract, my golden eyes flash once more before dulling back to ice blue.
"What are you?" Matt asks terrifies, I can't answer so Tyler does for me.
"She's a hybrid." He says and looks at me head tilted.
"But the sacrifice didn't work, I came back. So…" Elena trails off, scared of the answer.
"How am I alive? I don't know." I say, my voice is hoarse and raspy, I sound like I had my neck snapped.
"You're not alive technically." Damon says being as unhelpful and harsh as always.
"Klaus…he…I…" I couldn't say the words, they were trapped in my throat and I couldn't force them to come out. Just thinking about made me want to curl up and cry. I would never change, always be the same age, look the same and have to live off of blood. I couldn't hold it in anymore and I sobbed, a big and ugly sob, everybody looked surprised and looked at each other awkwardly, not knowing what to do.
Caroline rushed forward and enveloped me in her strong arms, she cooed me and rocked me back and forth like you did with a baby. My ugly and loud sobs quietened and turned into silent shaking shoulders and rushing tears and sharp breathing.
"Who did you kill?" Bonnie asked, I now understand why Damon calls her 'judgy', she looked disgusted of me, like I repulsed her with something that I had no choice in the matter of. A sharp and searing pain bloomed in the back of my head, like nails on chalkboard, it was a sharp squealing and something pounded and burst in my brain.
"Nobody!" I screamed, more ugly sobs and alligator tear trails. She dropped her hand and I dropped to my knees with Caroline still hugging me to her.
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From then Damon and Caroline taught me the 411 of Vamp 101 and I learned control without having to eat thumper or bambi, I could be around my family without trying to eat them so progress.
I called Caroline again and got her voicemail again. "Hey Care, do you wanna hang out? I'm actually craving shopping and girl talk, amazingly. So call me back." I hung up after leaving the short message and got into my car to drive to her house to see if she was still asleep.
I hear Liz calling Caroline and getting voicemail like me, "Caroline! It's mom. Just coming up for air after a few all-nighters at the station. I thought we'd have lunch and you could remind me I promised not to work so hard." I hear her say into the phone, leaving a voicemail. I see Tyler knocking on the door and join him.
"Looking for Caroline too?" I ask already knowing the answer is yes.
"Yeah, she just snuck out last night and I haven't heard from her." He said this and I deciphered it to, 'the sexual tension finally got to us and we had sex and she left early in the morning to avoid the awkward pillow talk'.
"I knew you two would hook up eventually." I said in my own way of saying 'I told you so'.
"And then I found out that my mom gave her to Bill to torture." He says looking pissed at the words he speaks.
"Wait what?!" I scream.
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Liz walks into the cellar that we know Bill is torturing Caroline in, they talk and he is giving some bullshit excuse.
"Tyler. Aria." Liz calls, we walk down the spiral stairs that Liz is standing on and pointing her gun at her gay ex-husband.
"You're not going in there." Bill says. This is the man who used to help Caroline and I bake cookies when we were seven, now he likes to torture his daughter instead. How times change, insert sarcasm sign. Liz shoots her gun and it makes a bang, the bullet lands close to him as a warning.
"Go ahead." She waves us past and we open the door and see a very sweaty, pale and shaking Caroline, her head lolls back and forth and she groans in pain, one thing I notice is that she's not wearing her daylight ring and the room reeks of vervain.
"Tyler." She whispers when she sees him and I rush toward her daylight ring. "Aria. My ring." She whispers and I nod and slip the cold metal onto her hand after Tyler breaks the chains that hold her in place.
"It's ok. We're going to get you out of here." Tyler says and picks her up bridal style and carries her out, I forcefully bump shoulders with Bill so hard that he stumbles forward and nearly falls.
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When we get to Caroline's we put her delicately in her bed that she sinks into with a sigh of relief, I lay on the bed with her and take the blood bag out of her hands and drop it into the trash can on my side, Liz stands by the door watching her daughter gain some colour in her cheeks.
"Thank you." Caroline rasps.
"Honey, your dad... All our families, we have beliefs that have been passed on through generations. And we were taught never to stray from them." Liz says and I smooth down Caroline's hair that is stuck to her fore head.
"You did." Caroline says.
"You taught me to look at things in a different way." Liz says and I nod in agreement, Caroline had a way to do that to people.
"I just thought that he was the one who got me." She whispers broken.
"He did. He will again." Liz says.
"He just needs time, to think and to understand, but that doesn't change that he loves you and will always love you because you're his baby girl." I say to her and stand when Tyler arrives. "No funny business." I say and both Liz and I wait in the living room for Tyler and Caroline's moment to end so I can get back into bed, I had decided to slumber it with her.
Before we leave Caroline says, "Hey, mom? Thanks for believing in me." I smile and we both leave.
"Thanks for believing in her and not believing in tradition." I say to Liz.
"She's my daughter. I just wish Bill would." She says and shakes her head.
"He'll come around. And if he doesn't, I'll rip his throat out with my new fangs." I say and she laughs. "I wasn't kidding but ok." I say and she shakes her head in amusement before turning away and walking into her own bedroom. I enter Caroline's room with my hand covering my eyes, "are you guys naked?" I ask and I can feel them shaking their heads.
"He hates me. My dad hates me." she cries and he kisses her forehead. I get back into the bed and hug her from behind while Tyler strokes her hair.
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A/N: sorry for the wait!