Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries and never will, but I do own Charlene Davis and Megan Swann and any other characters I come up with.

Author's Note: Hope you love the updated version! :D

The tea sat on the table, untouched, as they looked over Trudie's old yearbook. She was telling them all about each picture, mostly the ones of Isobel and her and there was some with Amanda as well, but she seemed to have more pictures with Isobel than anything. According to Trudie, Amanda wasn't very comfortable around cameras, at least being in front of the camera. She loved taking pictures though, so she was actually head of the yearbook committee. From the pictures, Charlene was learning more and more about her and Megan's birthmother, making the jealousy from before disappear from her mind. She might not be getting information about what happened to Amanda after giving birth to her and Megan, but the stuff she was getting was better than nothing. Trudie turned to the next page and it showed the cheerleading picture Jenna had showed them on the internet.

Seeing the picture made the woman smile.

"Ah." Trudie said, "They came to the games for us. The football team hadn't won in years. We were the stars. Well, Izzie and Mandy was. But I was a damn good backup."

Elena smiled, laughing softly. "This is great. Thank you."

"Yeah, thank you." Charlene added with her own smile. "We really appreciate this a lot."

Trudie nodded at them, smiling back. "You're welcome." She glanced at their teacups. "You haven't touched your tea."

"Oh. Yeah."

"Sorry." Charlene apologized, wincing a bit. She didn't mean to be rude, but she wasn't a big fan of tea, to be honest. It didn't mean though that she couldn't drink it.

So, she took a sip. Instantly, it burned her throat, and she cried out, choking and nearly gagging as she tumbled out of her chair.

"Charlene!" Elena exclaimed, jumping up out of her chair to go to her. Trudie looked horrified as Charlene managed to look up at her.

"V-Vervain…the tea…has vervain…" she gagged again.

Elena looked at Trudie with wide eyes. "You know."

"I think you should probably leave." She said tightly.

"Wait, what are you not telling us?"

"Please leave. NOW!"

Elena helped Charlene off the ground, and she held on tight to her sister to make sure she didn't fall over. God, vervain was a bitch. Charlene did have a bad feeling about this woman, but she sure as hell didn't think that Trudie knew about vampires.

They left the house and started heading over to Elena's car. Something caught Charlene's eye from her peripheral vision. It was a man and he was just standing in the middle of the road.

"Elena, go." Charlene shoved her sister towards her car. She let her get in first, eyeing the man suspiciously. He didn't even move a muscle as his eyes caught her own. A shudder went through her. After staring at him for a few more minutes, Charlene finally went into Elena's car and quickly told her drive, so her sister did. She did glance back at the man to see if he was moving now and he was, heading in their direction but wasn't going fast enough, so they were already gone.

"Bourbon."

Alaric Saltzman looked up from his drink only to see Damon Salvatore ordering a drink. He looked away just as Damon looked at him.

"Behold the teacher." The vampire said with a smirk. "Don't you have papers to grade?"

Alaric glanced back at him, drink in hand. "It's, uh, more fun with a buzz."

He gave a nod. "Most things are." He took a big drink of his bourbon and sat it back down. "Sober's depressing…"

"You don't strike me as someone who gets depressed."

Damon looked at him, titling his head to the side slightly. "You say that like you know me."

"Nope." Alaric said, "Just a hunch."

They looked at each other hard with Damon's eyes narrowing at him suspiciously. The silence was broken by Alaric speaking up.

"You have a good afternoon."

"Not likely."

Without saying, Alaric left him sitting there at the bar. Damon wasn't there by himself for that long when Liz Forbes came up to him.

"Daytime drinking, huh?" she asked, amused.

Damon smirked at her. "It's all the rage." He said as he drank more.

"Listen, I need a favor."

"You ever been in love?

Liz blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Excuse me?"

Damon went on as if he didn't hear her. "Have you ever been so bent on someone just to have your heart ripped out by them?"

"You forget I was married."

"Oh right, gay husband," Damon said, shocking Liz that he knew that. He nodded to the bartender, "She'll have what I'm having." As the bartender poured her a drink, he patted the seat next to him. "Sit down."

Liz sat down and looked over at Damon. "There's fundraiser here tonight that the Founder's con is throwing. The town's most eligible bachelors get raffled for dates, and, well we're short of bachelors."

"Is this what you do when there's no, um…" He lowered his voice. "Vampires? Organize bachelor's raffles?"

Liz laughed. "Oh, trust me, at this point I miss the vampires," she joked. "Look you're the hero of this town Damon. I know most people don't know it, but you are, and you're single and a catch." She looked at him pleadingly, "Please help me out, Carol Lockwood won't let me live it down if I come empty handed."

Damon thought about it for a moment. "You know a room full of woman clamoring to win a date with me. Sounds tasty."

Liz laughed, relieved. "Thank you."

"One thing, can you get information for me on someone?" Damon asked. "Alaric Saltzman, the history teacher. There's just something off about him, and I just—I just wanna make sure that the high school did their homework on this guy."

Liz nodded, "You got it." She scooted her glass of bourbon over to Damon and started to walk away.

"Thank you." He called out before she disappeared.

Charlene entered Stefan's bedroom, trying to find him to let him know what they did this afternoon. They were also going to that fundraiser at the Grill together, along with Elena. It was a little weird going with her best friend's boyfriend, but Stefan was her friend too, so she didn't think much about it.

"Stefan, are you in here?" Charlene called. She wasn't too loud about it, considering he would have been able to hear her if he was there.

"Better. Me." Damon came walking into the room from the bathroom without a shirt on.

Charlene nearly drooled at the sight. God, she knew he was gorgeous but seeing him like this, he was…she honestly was lost for words. Charlene tried to shake herself out of it.

"Er…hey…you…uh look…" she sputtered out. Of course, she couldn't stop her eyes from trailing him up at down. From his chest down to his navel. His jeans were so low on his waist and if she tugged them down a little bit, she would be able to see all he held.

"Dashing? Gorgeous? Irresistible?" Damon smirked as he walked across the room, closing the space between them. They had been this close before, but it felt even more intimate since he had his shirt off this time around.

He looked down at her, still smirking as if he knew the affect, he had on her, which he probably did. It was hard to hide it.

"No, I wasn't going to say that." Charlene scoffed, putting her hands on his chest to push him away from her. He grabbed her hands to keep them there, surprising her. She stared up at him, not saying anything.

"Then what were you going to say?" Damon smirked, leaning in closer to her.

Her lips parted, and she just wanted to kiss him. She could smell his aftershave and it was just doing things to her, but she couldn't let it happen. Not when he was like this. Charlene managed to get her hands free and she pushed him away from her, but it didn't stop her fingers from trailing down his chest. She could have sworn she saw Damon's eyes close in pleasure, but they had opened too quick to be sure.

"I was going to say you look wasted." Charlene crossed her arms over her chest.

He shrugged. "You say that like it's a bad thing." He said before he walked back towards the mirror in the room, his hips moving sinfully back and forth. Of course, she couldn't stop from looking down at his ass, and she bit her bottom lip.

"Do you know that I am one of Mystic Falls' most eligible bachelors?" He asked with a smirk, snapping her out of her dirty thoughts. He tilted his chin up, trying to look proper while still smirking.

Charlene looked amused. "Ha, seriously?"

"I'm always serious, Charlie." She rolled her eyes in response and he pouted at her. "You're so mean to me."

"Well, it is one of my best qualities." Charlene said with a shrug. It was Damon's turn to roll his eyes at her, then she changed the subject, frowning at him in concern. "How are you doing, Damon? Are you doing okay?"

"Never better. Yep." He answered shortly. Charlene didn't believe him, but she didn't try to get an honest answer out of him as he grabbed a black button-down shirt from the chest beside him and slipped it over his shoulders, covering his bare back. "What can I do for you? I'm a barrel of favors today. It's my newfound purpose – how can I help?"

"I'm not here for you. I was looking for Stefan. We're going to the fundraiser together."

"Are you guys dating now?" Damon mocked.

"Ew, no." Charlene made a face. "He's my best friend's boyfriend. There's girl code for a reason. Elena's going too. Don't sound so jealous."

He rolled his eyes, scoffing. "I'm not jealous, and even if I was, there would be nothing to be jealous about."

"Now, you're being the mean one." Charlene said, annoyed.

Damon ignored her as he tried to button up his shirt. He tried a couple more times before turning around to face Charlene.

"Help a guy out, will you?" he asked, looking hopeful. "Can't get this?" He tried to get the buttons through again but failed.

Charlene sighed as she went over to him. She grabbed the front of his shirt and started to button it up for him, the tips of her fingers brushing against his skin. As she focused on buttoning, she could feel his gaze on her, but she tried to ignore it.

"Well, I guess since Stefan's not here, I guess I can tell you what I did today." Charlene said. He probably wouldn't care but she needed to tell someone. "We, Elena and I, went over to Elena's birthmother's best friend's house, and she told us all about Elena's birth mom and about mine…" She would have gone on, to tell him about the fact she had known about vampires, but Damon cut her off.

"Who cares."

"What?" Charlene looked up at him, startled.

"They left you guys. They suck."

Charlene clenched her jaw. What he said was probably true, but she didn't need to hear that.

"You don't have to be such a dick." Charlene fumed, letting go of his shirt as she stepped back from him.

He shrugged uncaringly and she honestly wanted to smack him right then and there, but the sound of Elena's voice from behind stopped her from doing unfortunately. Charlene turned around to find her sister there along with Stefan.

"Hey." She smiled at them both, heading over to them.

Elena glanced at her, then at Damon. "What's going on in here?"

Charlene waved her off. "Just Damon being Damon."

"Ah."

Just then, Damon spoke up as he slipped on his jacket, groaning. "I need a bigger jacket. Wow. You know, an occasional sorority girl might, um, you know help fill you out a little." He tossed the jacket on Stefan's bed and buttoned the rest of the shirt up with ease.

This made Charlene realize he was faking it and she frowned at him as he left the room. Did he do that just to get her close to him again? That made her heart flutter a little, but she was mostly annoyed.

"He's just fine, isn't he?" she asked Stefan.

"He's Damon."

Charlene rolled her eyes at that. Yes…yes, he was.

Elena crossed her arms, glaring at the spot where Damon once was. "Maybe this heartache will be good for him. It'll remind him he has one, even if it doesn't beat."

"Won't hold my breath."

Elena smiled and laughed at that before she looked over at Charlene. "Did you tell him?" she asked her, glancing at Stefan.

"Tell me what?"

"Well…" Charlene cleared her throat. "We went to go see Trudie Peterson." His face became stony. "Sorry Stefan, we would have said something to you about it, but we went there on a whim."

Stefan said nothing for a moment. "How was it?"

"It went okay until I drank the tea, she gave us. It had vervain in it." Charlene explained worriedly. "She knows about vampires, Stefan. That can't be a coincidence."

Stefan gave a sigh. "It isn't. This is Alaric's wife." He took out a picture out, and handed it to Elena, who took it.

She looked down at the picture, and she made a face, one that made Charlene realize the picture held Isobel. When Elena showed her the picture, she knew it was true.

"That's her…" Charlene said quietly.

"He gave this to you?" Elena asked Stefan.

He nodded. "Everything he knows about vampires, he learned from her. He believes she was killed by one."

Elena's eyes went wide at that. "What?"

"You're kidding…" Charlene breathed.

"Listen guys…" Stefan started off softly. "There's a lot about Isobel that Alaric can tell you, but I need you two to hold off a little while before you talk to him."

"What? Why?" Elena questioned, startled that Stefan was asking that of them.

He sighed. "I know it's a lot to ask of you, but will you do that for me?"

Elena hesitated for a moment. "Okay…"

Charlene didn't want to agree to that, but he was right, it wasn't the time to ask him about it. So, she finally nodded in agreement.

However, it didn't stop her from wishing that they could talk to him about it. Isobel was the only thing that still connected her to Amanda, and if she couldn't learn more stuff about her birthmother, she could at least know about her real aunt. But for now, they were going to go to the fundraiser and pretend everything was normal.

Easier said than done, right?

TBC...

In...

A Few Good Men, Part 3...