A/N: Hello, hello!

Here we are again and I'm so sorry for my absence, but here is the next chapter! I will apologize in advance, I currently am, and have been for the last few weeks, tired and sleep-deprived (my work and my schooling suck- like bad). If you see any strange mistakes (I just know there are a few), that's probably why.

And to all my three reviewers, thank you for the comments, the favorites and the follows! I'm really honored so many of you comment and please know that they are much appreciated. Like always, I'm very curious what you all think about this chapter!

Enjoy and like always, and like always, let me know what you think!

Cheers!

Anna

o.O.o

Chapter Twenty-Nine, A Sense of Normality

I'd been grounded for a solid three weeks as punishment for 'running off with a vampire and getting into trouble'. I went to school, dropped off by Grayson or Miranda, and was picked up when classes ended the same way. On the weekends I had to stay home with Miranda or— as it turned out, had to accompany Grayson Gilbert to his office. Which was why I settled myself into Grayson's car that sunny morning, and watched the town blur past as he drove a little too fast.

Grayson's practice was only a mile from school, so the drive was short, but awkward. We spoke little as I watched the tidy gardens of the neighborhood flash by. Ever so often, I felt Grayson's eyes flit to me, but I refused to meet his gaze. Not even when he parked in front of his practice and dropped his hand on my shoulder.

"We're there, Elena."

"I am aware, dad," I returned gruffly and clambered out of the car.

Hitching up my bag, I stepped past the pillars, through the front door and into the lobby, stalking past the bubbly blonde receptionist and towards the cafeteria. The hallways were eerily still and silent and I quickened my step, settling on one of the plastic chairs in the cafeteria. Gentle rays of warm sunlight softly illuminated the room, washing over the gleaming table and the blue plastic chairs.

"You can't keep on ignoring me," Grayson tried, having followed after me. His coat was gone. I had no idea where he'd left it, but then again, I didn't really know Grayson's clinic well so I'd just dropped my stuff on the counter to the right.

"You disagree with me," I decided on. Because ignoring him was indeed a bit childish of me.

"You refuse to see sense," Grayson remarked.

"Yeah, no, we disagree with each other. Seeing sense has nothing to do with this."

"Elena, you were gone for three days, what did you expect? Of course, your mom and I are upset."

I wetted my lips. "Oh, I understand that. I get why you and mom chose to ground me. I just don't agree. I was with Caroline and we are both fine."

"She's a—"

"Yeah, I know," I agreed.

"And Liz had the nerve to pull a gun on me."

I pressed my lips tightly together to hide my amusement and drew my leg up on the chair and beneath my chin. Somehow, Grayson had figured out, just as Liz Forbes apparently, Caroline was a vampire. I knew for a fact no one of the Council was aware besides the two of them, but when Grayson went to collect Caroline, Liz drew her weapon. He'd been ranting about it for over three days now and I inhaled deeply. "She's her daughter, dad. Would you not choose me even if I was turned into a vampire?"

"That's—"

"Don't say it's different—" I argued softly, "—it's exactly the same."

"Hm, perhaps it is." He muttered and turned towards the door again before stilling. "Oh, and Elena please remain upstairs."

"What?"

"Don't go to the basement. It is a mess."

"Erm—" I frowned, "—sure. I'll stay here."

He twirled around and stalked away, leaving me to my own devices. For a while I just stared at my interlaced fingers, considering what I should do with my time. I had little understanding as to why I shouldn't venture into the basement. Or why I should want to. Perhaps Elena used to stroll around the dust and the spiders? I found that really unlikely. Cheerleader Elena — the Elena before the accident on Wickery Bridge — didn't look like the kind of girl who enjoyed lurking in a basement—

I on the other hand—

I would. If only because, fuck, I was curious. A mess? My ass. Nothing ever was the way it seemed around here and I'd rather be safe then sorry. Dropping my bag on the pale-blue plastic chair, I floundered out of the room. The noon sun filtered in through the windows, already strong and bright, and I shielded my eyes. I tried to be inconspicuous, moving along the walls. If I were honest, I had no idea where the basement was—

Which was why, I spent several minutes searching the corridors. The office or examination rooms I passed quickly, mentally marking the ones from where voices filtered out or where empty examination table were proudly displayed off in my head.

Finally, at the end of the corridor, I found an old door (crew only) with an old discolored brass doorhandles and stood still for a moment. What was downstairs that needed this amount of secrecy so much? I heard Grayson's muted voice echo dauntingly off the walls and finally twisted the handle down. For someone who didn't want me to go down into the basement, Grayson sure hadn't had the foresight to lock the door.

My smile grew when I stared down a steep set of wooden steps and closed the door quietly behind me. All was half-shrouded in shadow. The only light coming from a high window above my head and I slowly started down, holding on tightly to the chair's railing.

When I descended the last step, my feet hit the concrete and I glanced around. There was little of interest around. Just a mostly bare hallway with several doors, leading to God-knew-where. A few moving boxes lining one wall to the right filled to the brim with Christmas ornaments and fake fir branches. I dismissed them easily and turned to the doors.

Tucking my hair behind my ear, I wandered down the passage, trying the door closest to the staircase. Not locked just as the door to the stairwell. Christ, Grayson really wanted me to go snoop around. I smiled when the door gave away and I leaned in, fascinated despite myself. Veiled mostly in darkness, it looked like an operating room and it was cool inside. I licked my lips, almost actually seeing the doctors, wearing scrubs, masks and eye shields and frowned. I was sure Grayson didn't do any operations in here and let my fingers slide along the wall until I found a light-switch.

When I found it, the OR was brightly lit and I took a slow, small step inside.

Just-

It looked like an OR from an horror movie. A narrow metal table with safety straps was positioned in the middle of the room and equipment I assumed was for monitoring or anesthesia was set at the head of the table. On a table against the wall, a menacing set of tools was settled and near the other a see-through-curtain — splattered with blood — was placed.

There were also medicines. Little glass bottles lining the wall and I stared at the names with a frown. What did they need Propofol for? What was the lab table doing here? What—

"What—the fuck?"

It made me strangely queasy and I quickly stepped back, shutting the door behind me. I'd always thought those rooms were supposed to be— well, sterile. I swallowed, inching to the second door, half-expecting a morgue and slowly reached for the door handle, hesitating for a moment.

The door creaked open and slowly I moved inside, realizing belatedly I was tiptoeing and felt my face heat up. Despite the clammy coldness that had settled low in the pit of my stomach, there was little strange about the room. It was just an office— in the basement. A basement office, which, well let's face it. Having another office in the basement of your clinic was fucking weird!

In three steps I found myself in front of Grayson's desk. It was organized, more organized than his home office desk was. The papers were stacked in neat piles and his laptop was charging. I fingered through the first pile, letting my eyes flit over his accountancy work and several researches.

The second pile was little more interesting and I diverted my search to his drawers. Most came up as unsuccessful as the paper pile search had gone, until I reached a locked drawer at the left of his desk. My initial snooping had not shown me where the key could have been. I suppose I could have left it. Could have taken my loses, but— I was sick of not knowing what I could expect.

With a surge of adrenaline, I reached for the letter opener and jammed it between the top of the drawer and the under-sight of the desk-top, putting force against the lock mechanism. Little splinters of wood curled off the smooth wood and the drawer creaked beneath the blade. I had never attempted to break in someone's desk before, or in anything for that matter, but I had seen it done before. You had to push the teeth up and then push them away, unlocking a lock. It seemed so easy too, but as I pushed against the handle it slipped free from the wood and nicked my finger, slicing open the fine skin on my index finger.

"God damned!" I snapped, dropping the knife as if burned and clutched my hand to my chest.

The cut was shallow, only a small pin-prickle of blood welling up from it and I grumbled. With a force that was probably not necessary I jammed the blade in the brass lock, twisting it this and that way. When the satisfying click finally came I was slightly surprised, but far more glad to finally be able to slip the drawer open. I half expected to find the Gilbert device — I still hadn't found out how the Council had managed to make the device work in the first place — but instead only a leather-bound notebook greeted me.

"Well, that's anti-climatic," I mumbled, taking it out with a sigh, and I dropped into the office chair. Turning the journal in my hands, I cocked my head. It was small, barely longer or wider than my hand and soft leathered, not old like the Gilbert journals had been in the series.

I thumbed through it with a frown. It contained a lot of notes. Notes about subjects and regeneration and— he wrote about removing a lung to see if it would regrow? Sever a hand and watch new bone, sinew tissue and muscle form (which didn't happen, but it could be reattached without even the slightest traces of scar tissue) — like What?

Bile crawled up my throat and I read over more entries. Similar entries, and I understood. Grayson was researching vampires. No, he was conducting tests on vampires. Horrible tests that entailed removing organs and I suddenly understood where those tomb vampires had gone to. My fingers spasmed around the journal and I dropped it on the desk, digging through the drawer again. Several different colored paper folders full of yellow post-it notes. Full of clinically taken pictures of shallow looking people — vampires really. Some looked familiar, some did not. I thumbed through the papers until a face I knew well, appeared.

Bonnie Bennett, green eyes wide and startled like a scared horse, stared back at the camera. My heart seemed to stop beating in my chest. My eyes flitted over Bonnie's picture. At the clinical lights framing her shallow face and cold sweat started to gather at the back of my neck. For a long, long while, I stared numbly folder and then—

A door above my head slammed shut and for a moment, I barely registered through the white-noise filling my head. My hands balled into fists and cold sweat gathered on the back of my neck.

Quickly, adrenaline forcing its way up through my blood stream, I pushed the file in the waistband of my pants, pulling my shirt and sweater over it. If I sucked my belly into my spine I didn't think anyone would notice and slipped out of the office. Wetting my lips, I quickly started ascending the stairs, tip-toeing up every step. I'd just stepped out of the basement, the wooden door clicking shut behind me, when Grayson suddenly appeared beside me.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded immediately and I winced.

"Oh," I gasped, burying my hands in the front of my shirt. "I thought I heard something—"

"You heard something?" He repeated distantly and I forced a smile on my face.

"Obviously just my imagination, hm?" I shook my head. "Sorry."

"Probably just mouses downstairs." He remarked, his tanned skin strangely dark against the white of his lab-coat. Cocking his head to the side, Grayson cracked his knuckles.

"Probably mouses," I agreed, managing an embarrassed laugh. "I'm sorry, dad, I know you mean well. I just. You taught me so different when I was growing up. I can't just be okay with you hunting them. There are exceptions. Just, remember that. This world is already hard enough without people closest to me actively trying to get themselves killed."

"Elena—"

"Just think about it, all right?"

He nodded and I breezed away. When I turned around to look at him, he was still quizzically looking at the basement door. I cocked my head, eyes flitting over his incredulous expression before I stepped inside the cafeteria. I didn't dare taking out the folder, I didn't even dare to breathe normally and my heart kept up its pitter-patter rhythm well until Grayson pulled his SUV up on the Gilbert's driveway and I took measured steps up to my room. I thought I said something about doing homework when going up and when I was in the relative safety of my room, my knees almost buckled.

Outside, the darkness was swarming, slowly, gradually crawling over the grounds and creating shadows over the windowsills. I had hidden the folder beneath the window seat, cutting open the pillow and shoving it in as far as it would go, before turning it over, pushing the cut and the folder beneath the windowsill. My hands still felt cold and clammy and my stomach felt heavy.

I hadn't felt as out of touch with Elena's body as I did that night and slumped down onto the bed, pressing my back against the headboard. It had been reckless and stupid, taking the folder.

At some point, Grayson was going to miss the information and he would, of course, figure out I'd taken it. For who else would have done so and I felt my fingers spasm around my knees. That folder— it had to go back. If Grayson would sacrifice Bonnie Bennett, a teenage girl who he'd known for all of her life, then what would he do with me? A virtual stranger trapped in the body of his adoptive daughter.

A shudder ran through me. Sucking my lower lip between my teeth, I reached for my cellphone and called Caroline. She answered after the second ring.

"Elena?"

"Hey," I started nervously, "I found something. Just— it's really bad, Caroline."

I almost heard the furrow of eyebrows that followed and the line crackled. "Is your dad planning on shooting me in the head?"

"Yeah, probably, but, no I found Bonnie."

"What?" She gasped and I dared a slow stare at clock on the nightstand. "You— I'm coming over!"

"Take the window."

"Of course, I'm going to take the window. Your dad tried to Vervain. I'm not setting a foot in your house when he's around to witness it."

The line crackled again and I started to bounce my leg, edge on my thumbnail catching on the knee of my pyjama bottoms. There was a silence, the noise, somewhat similar as driving through a tunnel, gone. Then she murmured, "Open up, I'm here."

"Oh!" I stumbled off the bed, my foot hooking behind the carpet and I stumbled to the window, pushing it open. Caroline flashed inside in a flurry of blonde hair and strawberry-scented-perfume and I pressed my back against the wall.

"Hey—"

"Erm, hi," I greeted back, wetting my lips.

She smiled nervously at me and retrieved the folder from the pillow again. Fluffy clouds of foam fell across the floor and Caroline's eyebrows rose. "What is that?"

"Just, read it."

She gave me a pointed look before accepting the file, eyes flitting over the papers. Her eyes were bright in the soft, yellow lamplight and her natural wavy hair ruffled. Her face was rapidly losing color and I knew the exact moment Caroline found Bonnie's file.

"What— what is this?" She gasped horrified and I swallowed.

"That's why Bonnie disappeared. I have no idea where— well—"

"Someone kidnapped her?" She asked shrilly and I shushed her.

"Shut up, Care. I don't want them to hear me!" I hissed back and Caroline paled slightly. I started explaining, whispering, speaking swiftly and concisely, as if speaking fast would somehow make Bonnie's capture better. As if speaking swiftly would exempt me of any blame. After all, if I'd gone with Sheila Bennett that evening, the older woman could have negotiated her granddaughter's freedom.

"You're turning green." Caroline interrupted my thorough recount of finding the folder hastily and I scrambled up to my feet. I barely managed to reach the bathroom sink in time and was reacquainted with my dinner again.

"God, I wish I could do that." Caroline mumbled, reaching over to comb my hair out of my face.

"I wish I'd known."

"Why, would that have changed anything?" Caroline tried soothingly, drawing circles over my lower back. "He's still your dad— What's he's doing, it's horrible and inhuman, but—"

"No, Care, this is— This is so bad!" I tried. "Did Stefan tell you what happened the evening Sheila died?" Upon seeing her shake her head I inhaled deeply. "She wanted me to come with her. Said she needed me and I was so afraid— so selfishly afraid, she would hurt me— but if I'd gone with her—"

"Elena, none of this is your fault."

I knew that. Of course, I knew I hadn't killed or tortured anyone. I understood that, but my choices impacted the people around me. The least I could do was reflect on them. I bit my lip, incisors tugging at the vulnerable skin and turned the water faucet on, holding my wrists beneath the stream of cold water. "I know it isn't exactly my fault. I know I didn't hand her over, or set out to hurt anyone— Not physically at least, but, I fell like, had I gone with her that evening. Bonnie might have been set free."

"Or your dad would have called her bluff and you would have died." She said and met my gaze. "We can't know the future, Elena. We don't know what fate— and God it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud— has in store of us. We know now why Bonnie didn't come to us. We also know she needs help. That's what we need to work out now. How to free her. Regretting something you couldn't have known? That won't change anything."

I gave her a small smile, "You're right." Turning off the water, I followed her back to the bed. "Of course, you're right. I just feel— like I'm failing everyone. I know I don't always make sense, but— I thought Klaus would be the biggest problem. I thought making sure to handle him, would be enough to keep everyone safe." I tried. I'd thought having the foresight to deal with Klaus and having knowledge of the first few seasons would have kept the people in this town safer.

Perhaps, I'd been somewhat successfully, but largely, no matter how much I initially deviated from canon events, the end results had been somewhat the same. After all, both Sheila and Vicky died, just as in the original timeline. Then again, of course, the Gilberts and Tanner survived. I wetted my lips.

"We have to return the folder."

"Why?"

"Because I can't have my dad finding out I took it."

"Oh," she pursed her lips, "I see how that would be a problem."

I nodded. I'd have to return it when he wasn't there. Which left little time. Perhaps I could manage it tomorrow. Sunday the clinic would be closed.

As if guessing my thoughts, Caroline decided. "We could return it now."

"Now as in tonight?"

"Does he have any security cameras?"

I shook my head. I was quite sure there weren't any. And if there were, I could dress in something dark. A black hoodie and matching dark jogging pants. If we raided his opium stash, and made a mess of every room, no one would suspect me. I was sure of that. I wasn't hooked on opium, so— well, I was hooked on other medication, but at least I was slowly getting off them.

"And then— we need to find out where they've taken Bonnie."

"We can compel your dad— right, he's drinking vervain right?" She whispered, spidery veins writhing beneath her eyes and I supposed Caroline rather tortured it out of Grayson Gilbert than compelling it. I wished I wasn't actually considering that option and wetted my lips. Averting my eyes, I stared at my hands. What monster would experiment on people? What monster would remove limbs and innards to see what would happen? Elena's father apparently.

"Let's focus on returning this stupid folder." I whispered.

"Right." Caroline agreed and I moved to the bathroom I shared with Jeremy (who still wasn't on speaking terms with me) and dropped my pajama bottoms to the tiled floor and struggled my tight black denim pants again. Caroline watched me busy myself with an unreadable look on her face. It darkened when I retrieved two of Jeremy's dark, formless hoodies.

"What— why are you taking those?"

"For the off-chance Grayson does have camera's, we won't be recognized." I explained.

Caroline's nose scrunched up in an almost amusing expression. "But they stink!"

"Yeah— teenage boys—" I agreed, shrugging as if that somehow conveyed all the horrors that was my Jeremy Gilbert's smelly clothes. I wetted my lips, dropped the hoodie, Caroline still hadn't accepted, over the sink and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. "Anyway, I think we should ransack the place. To get that folder, I forced the lock with a knife after all, and I think that looks way less suspicious if we take several more and take every drug that's even slightly addictive—"

"Oh," Caroline mumbled, "that's smart."

"Thanks." I smiled and tapped the hoodie on the sink with my index finger. "Let's roll."

Caroline's answering grin was pure sin. "Burn baby, burn."

To be continued…

A/N: And- what do you think, like where this is going? Let me know what you all think?

Like always, I love to hear your thoughts!

Next update will faster than the last...

Have a nice day,

Cheers,

Anna