Alternate title: your strange parade of love
A/n (11/5/23): Huge shout out to "kissed my quite insane (i think i made you up in my head)" by reputation-era, you should check it out. I love their story, and I especially loved the concept of it so much that I was inspired to write this. (title credit: what makes you a man by The Ninth Wave)
Summary:
Elena Gilbert isn't the doppelganger. And while that changes some stuff, it doesn't change enough.
In another life, Elena Gilbert's face is not the echo of so many who came before her.
Yet somehow, so much of the story as we know it, remains the same. (Until it doesn't.)
There are a few fixed points to be accounted for, of course.
A long time ago, a beautiful maiden fell in love with a man who was engaged to another. They may have reconsidered their illicit romance if they knew what was to happen, but then again, perhaps not. Lying and sacrificing and ruining their young lives for a great love was not unique to them, but they did pay a heftier price than most.
(He would do it all over again, if he had to. Love like that happens maybe once in a lifetime.) (Never allowed to know the peace of death, forever a touchstone that holds two worlds together, it was her who might've chosen differently, given the chance.)
Some thousand years later after that ancient shitshow, Astrid Thorsson seeks refuge in the New World. Another tragic love story is written, but that falls to the wayside in the wake of the birth of a new sort of monster.
There were many who shared her, admittedly, radiant face. Her hair shined like sunshine, and her eyes, did they reflect the sky? Or the ocean? Let's let the love struck and the poets hash that out. All of them were bookmarks of nature's reckoning. But even amongst these broken shards of that first doomed girl, some shone brighter than others, and Evangeline Rochester was more audacious than most.
She was contrarian, she was a survivor, and she knew very well that her face was that of a heartbreaker. Was she supposed to take the death of a family she loved incredibly much and her own intended sacrifice lying down? (Let the games begin, Niklaus.)
So let's skip ahead to when she opts to introduce herself by way of Evelyn Roe. Constantly seeking refuge and hiding is starting to wear on her, but she's much too set in her ways to give up now.
Another perfect storm in the making is brewed, and "Evelyn" makes her way to Mystic Falls, Virginia. (We're almost there now. Tick tock, Miss Forbes.)
Those damned and gorgeous Salvatore brothers, another fixed point. They didn't stand a chance. Tragedy strikes and Evelyn disappears, and not far down the line from there, Caroline Forbes is born. A pretty lamb headed for the slaughter, and for what? Who was there to blame?
Fate? An uncaring universe? Rotten luck?
She wasn't the type to see the point in dwelling on any of that. She and Evelyn had that much in common.
Elena Gilbert is still the girl everyone picks first. She still wins the genetic lottery, but this time, her beauty is truly unique and her own. That said, the sentiment of 'just another pretty face' is tad more applicable in this life, which has its ups and downs.
Matt Donovan was casted once again as her first (lackluster) love, and she still calls her parents from that fateful party in the woods. It seems their car was fated to crash over Wickery Bridge, where Elena is once again saved by Stefan Salvatore.
Just an immortal samaritan, a little heartbroken, maybe a little homesick, who happened to be in the right place at the right time. (Is one way to look at it, at least.)
Oh, and almost forgot, she still meets Sir Damon first.
She spies him from the corner of her eye as she wanders away from the party, lamenting to her mom about her trite first love. Tall, dark, and gorgeous, she can't help but whirl around to get a better look. His face is dumb struck, intense, and she follows his gaze over to where Bonnie is making sure an increasingly drunk Caroline drinks enough water.
She hesitantly wanders a little closer to him, close enough to hear him murmur, "Evelyn?" as Bonnie leads Caroline away.
That was definitely Caroline he was looking at, mystified, with a softness in his gaze that she had never seen directed toward her friend before.
"Do you know Caroline?" Elena finds herself asking. Okay, maybe being secluded away with a stranger and making small talk with him wasn't the wisest move, but it's Mystic Falls. Nothing ever happens here.
He directs those ice blue eyes over to her, and her skin pricks. Her heart races. Despite the voice at the back of her head warning her to get away, to run, she stays in place.
He frowns at her, then strolls a little closer, and Elena holds her breath.
"And how long has Caroline been in town?"
Elena blinks dumbly at him, perplexed by the question, but finds herself answering despite herself. "All her life, I guess. She's been one of my best friends since we were in preschool."
He frowns at her and turns to stare briefly again in the party's direction.
"And what are you doing out here all on your lonesome, ah…"
He meets her gaze again, eyes distracted.
"Elena," she answers with a frown. "How do you know Caroline?" It was easy to chalk up her racing nerves to the mere proximity of this ridiculously good looking guy a few feet away from her. There certainly wasn't anyone who looked like him in town.
"She really reminds me of someone-" Now, he seems to focus on Elena, present in a way he wasn't before, and she feels all too seen by him. "I'm Damon. What are you doing out here all alone, Elena?"
The urge to answer his question overwhelms her again. "Got into a fight with my boyfriend."
"You want what everybody wants."
Damon, for his part, isn't sure himself about the soft touch he takes with the stray girl.
He supposed he had just fed, so he hadn't been feeling peckish, and then there was the confusion over seeing Evelyn.
Except that, according to this Elena chick, that hadn't been Evelyn, but Caroline.
And as confusing and disturbing as Caroline's resemblance was to Evelyn, once he got over his shock, it was clear that the blonde was all too human.
It had benignly occurred to him that she was a looker, this Elena. All slim and doe-eyed. She had come to him, unpromoted, but then, most women did. She was easy to talk to, and he liked something about her, despite himself.
A love that consumes you. You want passion and adventure, and even a little danger.
Her eyes had been bright and curious as she asked him, "So, what do you want?"
And boy, was that a stumper.
It had looked like he wasn't going to be able to piece together the grand plan, and time was closing in on him. He usually wasn't one to believe in signs, but spotting Caroline, and her uncanny resemblance to Evelyn, had been as sure of a sign as any to keep moving forward.
"That's my parents." Elena had smiled as the headlights of a nearby car shined their way.
He had been feeling downright generous before he made his exit. He looked into her eyes as he said, "I want you to get everything you're looking for. But for right now, I want you to forget that this happened. Can't have people knowing I'm in town yet."
Elena Gilbert still starts the school year as that sad orphan whose parents died, doing her best to keep her brother on the right track. And poor Jeremy, it seems he was meant to pine after Vicki Donovan, who is found attacked in the dark at the bonfire party that first week of school.
This time, there are no Salvatore suitors hovering around her like bees to lavender, no pretty eyes and teasing grins to distract her from grief. (And for a brief moment in time, there is an absence of fangs and danger and a sword hanging over her head.)
She is charmed by Stefan Salvatore upon first glance, and would have liked to get to know him better, if for not how completely and utterly smitten he seemed to be with Caroline from the getgo.
Elena would never dare say it out loud, but it had been something of a shock to the system. Cold water dumped over her head. From the way things went down, it seems that she was never even in the running.
Maybe there was comfort to be found in that.
And she did love Caroline, despite all the teenage girl bullshit that was putting them through the ringer.
Someone must fill the role of the plaything. The victim, the proverbial bloodbag, and Elena fit just the bill.
And, while a certain vampire does toy with the idea of making her his living, breathing meal for the time being, she just seems too pathetic to even bother.
"Hi there." He grins sharply at her the night of the comet. "Remember me," he says as he takes a seat on the table beside her after Bonnie leaves to go pay the check.
Elena blinks rapidly as a curtain is pulled and a far away memory is dredged up in her mind. "Damon?" she asks with furrowed eyebrows. Despite her confusion, her eyes brighten at the sight of him, and Damon can't help but squint in puzzlement.
"I totally forgot about you," she murmurs to herself, her expression falling as she remembers what happened after their odd conversation. Maybe it had been the trauma?
"Yeah, I think I'm going to have that happen again once I leave," he says thoughtfully.
In another life, her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. She was vapid and shallow and painful to talk to. She had been a means to an end, and thanks to a certain, all-consuming, rather traumatic first love, he had had a preference for brunettes.
This time around, she is sharp. She's light and sunshine and her blue eyes shine with a keen intelligence.
Yes, she's still insecure and neurotic as all hell, which makes it easy to pique her curiosity about the woman who had ensnared both Salvatore brothers hearts, and she can't help but ask Stefan about this infamous Evelyn.
But ultimately, Caroline is fast on her way to falling in love when she meets Damon, and Stefan's gentleness and patience bring out the good in her to the forefront.
If anything, Damon is struck by her similarities to Evelyn. This is how he imagined the vampire might've been, when she was human.
A little less careful, a little less hidden.
All it takes is one touch for Bonnie Bennet to realize that all is not well with Stefan Salvatore.
A chilling, mystifying, decaying feeling. This man (if that's what he wanted to call himself) was dangerous.
And Caroline couldn't have one of her best friends hate her boyfriend, so she threw a dinner.
Elena jumped, startled as her formerly closed bedroom window was now open and letting in a chill.
"Damon?" She asks, and once again, such close proximity to him brought back a rush of memories.
"Evening Elena- Do you know what your besties are up to tonight?" He asks lazily as he lounges on her bed.
"How are you doing this?" She wonders, asking herself more than anything.
She figures she ought to be scared of him. Looks aside, something about his person emanates danger.
But there was peculiar familiarity about him that lulled her into what she can only presume to be a false sense of safety. Nothing about what was going on here was normal or even okay.
"I'm a supervillan." He grins sharply as she turns around in her chair to get a better look at him. Her stomach drops and her pulse jumps as his face shifts into something animalistic, his teeth elongating into these god awful fangs.
She wants to scream, for Jenna, for Jeremy!
But she might very well be looking her death in the eye, no reason to get them involved.
"Jeez, relax, would you?" He says, his face melting back into place as he rolls his eyes and steps off the bed and kneels down beside her. "Don't be scared, alright?" He soothes as he stares into her eyes, and in that instant, there was nothing to be afraid of.
"Hi guys." Elena smiles brightly as she stands on Caroline's front porch.
Originally, she had turned down the invitation, but Damon had had other plans.
"Don't invite him in," Stefan warns Caroline, but that's Elena on her front porch looking awfully cozy with Stefan's hot older brother. Nevermind that she generally didn't like being told what to do, in what world wouldn't she invite them in?
"Damon wants me to take him to the founder's ball, and Jenna's not exactly the type to forbid me from seeing anyone, but I don't know." Elena stares thoughtfully into the mirror as she touches up her makeup. "I don't think she would be okay with it."
Bonnie catches Caroline's eye, arching an eyebrow. The blonde rolls her eyes in response.
"And how's it going with him, 'Lena," she asks lightly.
She had her guesses. She didn't figure the eldest Salvadore to be the type of guy you had long, meandering chats with, and she was happy Elena was getting hers. She would be blind not to notice how Damon dripped with sex appeal.
Was it wildly out of character?
Fine, yes it was, Bonnie had a point there.
But something awful had happened to her friend, something Caroline couldn't begin to comprehend, and if she wanted to act inappropriate and wild and young, then let her.
It was fine by her, as long Elena wasn't getting hurt.
(Stefan warned you about him-) Caroline shushed the voice. Weren't siblings infamous for not being able to get along? Of course, that wasn't something Caroline could attest to, but for the purposes of Elena returning from her self imposed exile, he would do.
"Damon, no." Elena meant to sound stern, but her voice comes off shaky.
As for Damon, well, he feels a shadow of a guilty twinge, but pushes aside, not able to shake off the appraising look Stefan had given Elena in her shimmering, backless dress. (A noticeable absence of bite marks, the genuine warmth in her eyes as she laughed at Damon's wry remarks-)
But it was all coming together.
He had the crystal, and Evelyn was so close. All he had to do was bide his time and keep Stefan on his toes.
Elena was nothing. She was food. She was bait.
Her scream was lodged in her throat when he buried his fangs in her neck.
And then he was on the ground, his veins burning with vervain, as Elena sobbed and stumbled away from him.
Caroline is quick to rush to her rescue as Stefan makes equally quick work of locking up Damon in the family basement.
Elena doesn't walk to talk about it.
She just met Damon, and even though he's too old and inappropriate for her, she threw caution to the wind and took him to bed. She knew it couldn't be anything serious, just a fun distraction to sublimate her grief.
But, no, that story just didn't sit right with her.
Didn't she meet him a few months ago, the night of her car accident?
She wasn't supposed to be scared, but she couldn't help but scream. He could be so kind at times, and lonely, if she didn't know any better. As horrible as he was, he was glib and sardonic in a way that was endearing. Honestly, she's had worse company.
She's lost her sense of time. He was meant to be a hookup, she's told Bonnie and Caroline it was some of the best sex she's had.
She is also fairly certain they've never so much as kissed.
Monsters with fangs and black eyes aren't real. (But hasn't she seen that other face before-)
Despite it all, the feeling she's left with is an acute sense of betrayal.
Elena is surprised to be left in charge of the car wash fundraiser while Caroline angles a favor from Logan Fell. All she wants is to take a look in old Mystic Falls News Archives, and hey, it's a small favor to ask from an aspiring journalist.
(That man had seemed so sure he had met Stefan before, back in the 1950s. It was ridiculous, but what was the harm in checking it out?)
Stefan still returns home to find his uncle in the cellar with a snapped neck, a stake in his hand.
Caroline returns home after going through the archives, not even bothering to check up on the car wash.
Her mom is gone all the time these days, prioritizing the rampant animal attacks that happened on the dark roads late at night.
A hysterical laugh bubbled from her mouth at the thought.
What in the everloving Twilight fuck was going on exactly?
She couldn't help but jump straight to vampire, sue her.
If that was Stefan in the news footage, and she was pretty sure that it was him, he hadn't aged a goddamn day since then. Not to mention his and Damon's signatures in the guest book at the first ever founder's ball- That bite on Elena's neck! As unpleasant as it was, it all added up together a little too well.
She should tell someone, her mom-
Who would believe her? She could only imagine how it would go if she said the words out loud.
And despite how horrible it all was, she couldn't help but want to go to Stefan.
To ask him what the hell was going on and make him make it all make sense. To make it all okay.
I know. We need to talk.
Vague. Ominous. But the text did the job. Stefan said he was on his way to her place that morning, and her mom had already went to work.
Perfect time as any to get to the bottom of this.
"Care?" Stefan asks hesitantly as he walks up her driveway.
"What are you?" she asks calmly. No, she doesn't think calm is the right word for what she's feeling. Shock seems more appropriate.
Stefan shakes his head, his eyes scrutinizing, and she can see he's scrambling, wanting to figure out what she knows exactly.
"This guy told me- You know what, long story short, I was going through news archives and I found this video of you from the 1950s, and frankly, you look exactly the same. And then there's the signatures and the animal attacks and that bite on Elena's neck… I have a guess, but I suppose I want you to tell me. What are you, Stefan?" Caroline asks intensely, her heartbeat racing.
"I'm a vampire." His words are calm as the illusion of normalcy in her life is eroded.
They get the semantics out of the way first. Garlic only contributes to bad breath and the magical, witchy ring he wears protects him from the sun.
"How could you let Damon anywhere near Elena- Hell, even let him into town-"
"He's strong, Caroline. Much stronger than me."
Apparently, once upon a time, the people of Mystic Falls knew all about vampires. Still might, for all Stefan knows. "You can't tell anyone."
Caroline dignify's his words with a frustrated glance, not wanting to make any promises.
They were alike in so many ways.
Evelyn had been coy, shrewd, playful. She knew what she wanted and didn't leave things to chance.
It had been Damon Evelyn chose to go to the founder's ball's with back in 1864, where she danced most of the night away with him. Stefan had gone out into the garden to drink his sorrows, and a part of him still wasn't sure if what happened after was a dream.
"Oh Stefan," Evelyn had cajoled as she wandered into the garden, a hint of a smile on her lips as her eyes met his.
Liquor warming his body, he couldn't stop how his eyes traveled down, hungrily taking in every bit of her. "Why him?" he asked, hurt and confusion laced in his voice.
She slowly walked towards him, pausing only once she was a breath away, her blue eyes soft.
Stefan had taken Caroline to visit the old Salvatore property, thinking back on treacherous times.
"So you and Evelyn started to hook up while Damon was- What? Courting her?" Caroline asks snidely, quietly surprised by the revelation.
"I wasn't proud, doing that to him, but I- I loved her, and I was so sure she felt the same." Stefan recalled the fear that pierced his heart the first time she fed from him, how her eyes darkened and her teeth elongated.
It was almost enough to wish that he had never disrupted Caroline's life at all… And yet.
He wondered if Evelyn had been at a similar crossroads all those years ago.
Poor, tragic, Vicky Donovan is still so rudely transformed into a vampire in this life. If they had cared little more, approached her with a little more patience, would she still be alive?
Caroline won't tell anyone Stefan's secret. (She doesn't much see the good that would do.) And she's tempted to keep pursuing him, still all too enticed by him. But then Damon transforms trashy Vicky Donovan into a vampire.
They hadn't ran in the same circles, and Caroline couldn't help but look down on the druggie townie, slow motion car wreck in the making, but that sad, vicious girl hadn't deserved this. And, oh god, poor Matt. It was too much. For once, the life and death drama of it all was acting as a deterrent, and she found herself telling Stefan they couldn't be together.
In this time, a melancholy Elena knows all too well how overbearing that first love is, and wisely refrains from asking her little brother to not go looking for a MIA Vicky, and she and Jenna join him in his search. ("Family bonding?" she quips at Jenna under her breath as they trudge through the woods, a few paces behind Jeremy.)
Meanwhile, Caroline wishes it was altruistic concern and compassion that drives her to go to the Salvatore house to check on how Vicky is acclimating to her second life, but she fears it's a more darker motive fueling her actions. (Catty, bitchy, nosy Caroline at it again, she derrides herself for a second, before shaking the familiar voice off.)
She genuinely cares for Matt, and she wants Vicky to bounce back from this. As it turns out, the baby vampire doesn't much care for Caroline's well wishes.
"Don't pretend for a second that you didn't think you were so much better than me," Vicky sneers, her hand wrapped around a struggling Caroline's neck. "Fucking founder's daughter- Like that means anything outside of this shithole town."
Caroline drops to the floor once the vampire lets go of her and stalks away, Vicky's words ringing in her ears.
Elena accompanies Matt to the highschool's Halloween party, figuring her friend could use a distraction from his sister's disappearance.
While she's looking for her own brother, she stumbles upon a blood lust driven Vicky attacking Jeremy, and does her best to pull the vampire off her brother, vaguely recalling the sensation of fangs clamping down her own neck.
Vicky snarls at her, pushing Jeremy away before striking at Elena.
"Elena!" the brunette hears a familiar voice call, and then Vicky is pulled off of her, and a stake is driven through her chest right before her eyes.
"I- I don't want to know anything about this Care." Elena sobs in her friend's arms. "And, oh god, Jeremy! He loved Vicky, and she- Why would she…" Elena shakes her head, her eyes horrified as she relives the night's events.
"Can you make them forget?" Caroline quietly asks Stefan once Elena steps away to go check on Jeremy.
Devastated that he couldn't help Vicky, his face is bleak as he meets her eyes. "I'm not strong enough."
Surveying them from the shadows, Damon steps into the scene. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance."
Elena flinches as she walks back to find Damon on her front porch, suddenly recalling that first meeting, and her first true introduction to vampirism.
"Why are you here?" she asks, and Caroline and Stefan are taken aback by the familiarity in her posture, the almost comfortable anger in her voice.
"... I can help," he offers.
Tell him that she left town, and that she's not coming back. He shouldn't go looking for her, or worry about her. He's gonna miss her, but he knows it's for the best.
As Damon goes up the stairs to compel her little brother, Elena contemplates what she wants for herself. Quickly deciding that she herself prefers ignorance to Mystic Falls Lovecraftian unraveling, she checks in with her friend first.
"How are you dealing with all this?" she softly asks Caroline, and the blonde's smile is limp and weak.
"I honestly don't know. I think a part of me still can't believe it- And I swear, I didn't know what Damon was doing to you, or I wouldn't have-"
"It's okay, Care. I know." Elena smiles in reassurance at her friend as Damon returns outside.
Caroline returns to Stefan's side as Elena contemplates the vampire.
"I guess you've done too much damage for me to forget you completely," Elena says cynically, and quickly rewrites their story for him.
They had an ill-advised tryst, and it was Elena who broke it off. She wants nothing to do with him, or any other monster that goes bump in the night.
Elena is mystified by the change in Jeremy's behavior.
He's quick to laugh, to smile, his eyes shine a little brighter. (Perhaps that has to do with a lack of a reliance on weed). He actually begins to care about his grades again.
And for her part, Elena is in the throes of woe.
She remembers meeting Damon for the first time, back in the late spring- And the surprise to meet him again at the beginning of the school year. The lack of color in her life, the loss of her parents, drove her into kissing him first, into beginning a wholly physical relationship.
(Nevermind that the actual content of said relationship was a blur.)
Elena wasn't built for that sort of thing, and so she called it off. That's all there was to it.
The magic in Bonnie's blood is an itch that demands to be scratched, and eventually, she reaches out to her grandmother.
She learns what she considers to be parlor tricks, since her grams seems to be reluctant to teach her any of, well, the funner stuff. "All in due time, child," Grams chides.
Bonnie remembers how she felt drawn to the antique looking pendant out on the lawn the night of the founders party, and spark igniting within her when she picked it up. ("This belonged to one of our most powerful ancestors- Ms. Emily Bennett. You found it for a reason, Bonnie.")
Bonnie can't help but feel relieved once Elena's, ahem, let's say 'liaisons' with Damon are called off, and is quickly able to recognize that her friend is in need of cheering up.
(And boy, was she making the rounds that day. After Elena, she had volunteered to help Caroline plan a party at the Grill. It wasn't exactly Bonnie's bag, but Caroline had also broken up with Stefan, and she wanted to be a good friend.)
Bonnie loved Caroline, but she couldn't help but feel wary of demonstrating her powers to her fair headed friend. Maybe, one day, but Bonnie couldn't help but feel safer in revealing her powers to Elena.
She goes to visit her oldest, and closest friend, who soon marvels as feather's sway gently like snowflakes back down onto the bed around them.
"I'm a witch, Elena," Bonnie admits tentatively, a shy smile on her smile.
It was stupid. She was stupid.
She was the one who told him they had to break up.
Well, here goes nothing, Caroline thought as she knocked onto the door of the Salvatore Boarding house.
"Why a party at the Grill?" Bonnie had asked earlier.
Caroline thought the action spoke for itself. She needed a proper distraction if she was going to get over her break up with Stefan. Now, here she was contemplating her decision to invite him as his front door ominously swings open.
Caroline and Lexi meet, and had Lexi been a younger woman, she might have taken the bait.
As it was, she can't help but admire Caroline's grit, and willingness to say what's on her mind.
"Why are you in town?" Caroline wonders when she sees the blonde vampire at her party later in the night.
"Stefan's birthday," Lexi smiles.
It's tragically soon after that Damon makes good use of the circumstances at hand, and stakes Lexi right before the sheriff.
In the days that come after, Elena offers to help Jeremy with his history extra credit. She had never been too interested, really, in the nooks and crannies of her infamously insane ancestors, and is entertained by their old journals despite herself.
Meanwhile, Caroline seeks comfort in Bonnie's friendship as she learns that Stefan plans to leave town to "keep her safe". Caroline has a big mouth, and she would love nothing more than to tell Elena all about it, but her friend had wanted distance from all this vampire mess, and so, Caroline leaves her friend alone as she licks her wounds.
And then there's Bonnie's wry ancestor, the great Emily, who pops on over from the other side of the veil to thwart Damon Salavtore.
Stefan is still there to save Bonnie after Damon's vicious attack, and Caroline comforts her friend, both of them living with the fact that they will never be able to look at Mystic Falls the same way.
Stefan intends to make good on his word to leave, but was that ever really in the cards?
Caroline's former declarations of love echo in her head as she watches Stefan walk away. All to guys who hadn't been worth shit.
Then Stefan came to town, and chose her first. He found her not so cute quirks endearing. All she wanted to do was talk to him for hours on end, fascinated by him, and curiously, that feeling extended both ways.
"Stefan, I love you," Caroline cried out as he walked away from her.
Before he could stop himself, Stefan looked over his shoulder, and caught sight of those cat-like blue eyes, the pale gold wash of her hair, and knew he wasn't going to be able to go through with it.
Dazed and clothed in only Stefan's shirt, Caroline finds it.
A black and white sketch of the one and only, Evelyn Roe. The teenage blonde is astonished, because Jesus Christ, she's practically staring at herself.
Then all that the Salvatore brothers had told her about Evelyn floods her mind, and her entire body cringes, and she feels distinctly slapped in the face.
She still hasn't been chosen first.
"She looks like me," Caroline slurs as Damon rescues her from her wrecked car.
Caroline and Damon go on that fateful car trip, and she's stunned to see that he's not terrible company.
As for Damon, he sees why his brother is so taken with the replica of that first golden girl. Yeah, alright, she's still a little high strung, but she's fun. A little vicious, which is actually a draw for him, but after that, she's fun. He sees how the blonde and his brother are good for each other, not that he would tell either of them that.
Something happens when Caroline says the words that save Damon Salvatore, again.
It's practically a trust exercise, she thinks to herself on the way home. An incredibly high stakes trust exercise.
And Damon feels the most unfortunate sensation of gratitude.
It's wholly by accident that Elena finds out she's adopted.
Amidst all the Gilbert journals, she finds an unopened letter her mother wrote. Curious, she opens it, and sees a picture of herself. She looks about 9, and was dressed as Peter Pan for Halloween.
Isobel,
She's beautiful. It's okay if you want to meet her.
-Miranda
"Jenna, whose Isobel?" Elena asks softly as she wanders into the kitchen, and Jenna's stomach drops. She is not equipped for this conversation.
An impromptu family road trip takes place as Jenna, Elena and Jeremy take a ride up to Duke university.
"She was getting her master's in occult studies?" Elena asks her birth mom's classmate, Diana.
According to Jenna, her parents had tentatively kept in touch with Isobel, but had lost track of her around the time Elena was 8. The last they had seen of her, Elena's dad had caught her in the auditorium of a lecture at Duke University, but chose to respect her wish for distance.
Elena had found Diana through the University's website, and the grad student had agreed to meet her.
"Wicked," Jeremy says approvingly, and Elena shakes her head, a slight smile on her face.
"What happened to her?" Elena wonders.
"She went missing," Diana says with frown. "Before she- She disappeared, she was sort of obsessed with the small town in Virginia-" The grad student's voice trailed off as Elena and Jeremy exchanged a wide eyed glance, and Jenna did her best to find the connecting thread in this conversation.
Diana was nice enough to grant them entry into Isobel's old office, still very much preserved as it was.
"What's interesting about Mystic Falls?" Jenna asks Diana dryly as Elena and Jeremy canvas Isobel's office.
"Ah…Don't you think the amount of animal attacks in that town are just a little bizarre? All these bodies just completely drained of blood? " Diana asks, the curiosity in her voice genuine. "I know that what I'm about to say is going to sound insane, but Isobel was not so secretly obsessed with the idea of vampires being real."
Jenna reeled, shaking her head, a confused laugh escaping her mouth. "Vampires?"
"Johnothan Gilbert was obsessed with them," Jeremy pipes up with an intrigued glint in his eyes.
"Isobel thought vampires were real?" Elena asks quietly as she peruses Isobel's book case.
Unease closes in on Jenna, who finds herself needing a seat.
She remembers the vampire stories Miranda told her when she was a girl, the truly bizarre and unprecedented amount of bodies piling up in Mystic Falls. She didn't know enough about the details to know if all their bodies were, in fact, drained of blood, but something told her that what Diana said is true.
It was all too bizarre to be a coincidence.
"This is crazy," Jenna says, mostly to herself.
The Gilbert and Sommer hybrid family arrive back home in a fugue state, a small portion of Isobel's library and research packed away in the car's trunk.
"Maybe vampires are real?" Jeremy offered as they somberly entered the house.
Jenna and Elena exchange wary glances.
The tomb is still opened, and the power the spell required takes Sheila Bennett's life.
Damon Salvatore falls into a violent depression when he learns that Evelyn wasn't in the tomb. (She never was.)
Caroline can't help but take pity on him. He spent over hundred years in love with the one woman, doing everything he could to see her again. (Only to find out, she wasn't worth it.)
The vampire can't help but be charmed by the blonde, finding himself amused by snarky observations.
Elena's search for her mom leads her back to Mystic Falls, to her history teacher, Alaric Saltzman, and suspects that he knows more than what he was willing to share with her.
She thought that it would end there, with a few old pictures and crazy crack pot theories about vampires.
As it turned out, that wasn't the case.
One brisk evening, the doorbell to the Gilbert House rings.
As it happened in another life, Jenna answers the door, Elena not far behind her.
"Good evening," the dark, sleek dressed woman smiles benignly. "My name is Isobel- I thought it was time we have a little chat."
"Is- Isobel? As in Isobel Flemming?" Its Jenna whose able to summon her words first, casting a frantic glance over to Elena, whose wide eyes rove over her supposed mother's face.
A sense of foreboding crawls down Elena's back as Jenna invites Isobel in.
"You really should take care to be more cautious about who you invite into your home." Isobel closes the door behind her, a flash of shadowed veins dancing across her face as her eyes darken and her teeth elongate. "The cliches do have some of it right."
Jenna and Elena immediately grab at each other, stumbling back away from the vampire.
"I promise, I mean you no harm. I had business in town to attend to, and I really didn't mean to interrupt your life at all. But some shred of a maternal instinct ate at me, I suppose." Isobel's face returns to normal, her inflection flat as she speaks.
The night moves forward, and soon, Elena and Isobel were sitting at the kitchen island as Jenna went through the comforting motions of preparing tea.
"You- How-"
"Let's not get into all that," Isobel says with a grimace. "I was hoping John would get around to this, but he's being stubborn on the issue. Honestly, with all the vampires crawling around, now's as good a time as any."
"John?" Jenna asked with a frown.
"Elena's father," Isobel says offhandedly, causing Elena to sputter.
"He's become quite the piece of work, hasn't he? He wasn't always like that… Then again, I'm one to talk. He's beside the point," Isobel says, waving away the issue as Elena struggles to comprehend her uncle-father. "Look, I learned from my assistant at Duke that you were pointed in the right direction, I've just come by to drive the point home. Monster's exist, Elena. And they're so much faster and stronger than you- I can snap both your necks in the blink of an eye. There are precautions you can take to protect yourself, and I recommend you adhere to them. Ask John all about it, he'll have no choice but to explain now." And with that, Isobel stood up, preparing to leave.
"That- That's it?" Elena asks in shock, standing up from her own chair. "You just stop by to drop a bomb and leave! Just like that?"
Isobel's face remains passive as she regards her daughter. "In my… Fervor, to finish my research, I've stumbled across truly horrific dangers. Knowing any more than I've told you won't do you any good, and like I said, I didn't come into town for you. Goodbye, Elena. Take care of yourself."
Elena really should have withdrawn herself from the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. Her heart's not in it in the least, and all the little rituals are painfully boring to her.
But it's Jenna's horror and shock that propel her forward.
Poor Jenna, who wants to barricade what's left of her family in the house, and shut out the rest of the world, which is so much more awful and dangerous than she ever could have imagined.
The pageant is silly and impossible to take seriously, and the perfect way to get her aunt out of this house.
"I want to do it for my mom," Elena gently explains to Jenna, who reluctantly agrees to help her with the preparations.
They adjust, as all humans are wont to do when the impossible is forced on them.
John Gilbert is more of a help than anyone wants to give him credit for, arming them with vervain and the Gilbert Family ring, which Elena insists that Jeremy keep. (And there's also the not so subtle warning to stay away from the Salvatore brothers.)
Elena feels that she ought to give Caroline some sort of warning, but John hints that the blonde knows exactly what sort of danger she's in.
"How would you know that?" Elena asks suspiciously.
"It would be for the best if you kept your distance from her as well," John says noncommittally. His mind is taken back not all that long ago, when Bill Forbes tracked him down in New York and asked for his help in learning more information about Evelyn Roe, a vampire who seemed to share his daughter's exact likeness.
Elena can't help but shy away from Caroline's company, even though it's not exactly Caroline she's wary of, but the Salvatore brothers that decorate her arms.
Every time she sees them, Isobel's flash of fangs and unfeeling, absentminded warning sound in her mind.
What good would it do to confront them? She pondered as she carefully read through the Gilbert family journals.
"Hey-Is everything okay between you and Care?" Elena asks Bonnie one day, when she can't help but notice the shorter brunette also seems to be evading the blonde's company.
A peculiar brightness shines in Bonnie's eyes as her gaze zeroes in on the vervain enclosed pendant John gifted Elena. "Where'd you get that?"
"Huh? Oh, gift from John. It's not exactly my style-"
"No, I like it," Bonnie is quick to say. "Seriously, it's so cute, never take it off," Bonnie says with a smile, not meeting Elena's eyes, and then Elena knows.
She remembers her friend's demonstration of magic and her uneasiness with Stefan and Damon, and she knows.
"And everythings good between me and Care," the witch tacks on.
In the meantime, despite the hurt she feels as her friends withdraw from her, Caroline is admittedly distracted by Stefan's not so newfound, lethal bloodlust.
While he's mulling over feeding on Miss Mystic Falls contestant, hopeless Amber Daly, Damon takes his place as Caroline's escort.
And Caroline does know she shouldn't care so much about winning Miss Mystic Falls, she does, she in the midst of the otherworldly turn her life as taken, and she can't help but cling to the last vestiges of normalcy, and she can't help but be deeply grateful for Damon's rescue.
… It was more- Exciting, than she expected- Dancing with Damon. Her worry for Stefan, ever so briefly, melted away as they fell into rhythm with each other, their playful eye contact sending a rather pleasant shiver down her spine that she didn't want to think too much about.
As they had, in another life, everything comes to a head on Founder's Day.
Caroline is Miss Mystic Falls, and the sight of her in her corset and 1860s skirts send Stefan and Damon reeling.
Elena is quietly wrestling for the umpteenth time with the knowledge of vampires (not that she knows this) as Jeremy mourns the disappearance of Anna (who he suspects wasn't a mere human), and Jenna finds the courage to barrage Alaric with questions about what he knows. (She'll be damned if she's going to wrestle any more answers from John.)
John still enacts his chaotic plan to do away with every vampire in Mystic Falls that night, pleased that Jeremy had opted to go home early (and he had caught sight of Lockwood shooing Elena, his son, and the Donovan boy away from the mayhem).
Liz Forbes thinks John Gilbert is the devil, which is saying something, considering the literal monsters running around in her town.
But he's a necessary evil, or so she's told by her ex-husband.
Caroline had been fourteen,on the cusp of fifteen, when Liz had found the most bizarre sketch of who she thought was her daughter. Except, in the picture, Caroline's features had been sharper- Older, her face less round, and despite her daughter's best efforts, she had had yet to see Caroline pull off that seductive, coquettish look in this woman's eyes (and as far as Liz was concerned, her daughter was still very much a girl).
"Who is this Bill?" she had asked, for some reason finding this sketch more unnerving than the existence of verifiable vampires.
It hadn't taken long for Bill to connect the woman in the photo with the name Evelyn Roe.
She's not proud of this, but Liz is all too aware that she has, on more than one occasion, abandoned her daughter for the sake of the town.
Despite what Caroline might like to think, Liz does know her daughter.
She's smart, so much smarter than what other people see, and she's tough. She has more in common with Liz than Caroline would like to think. She is capable, and she has the Forbes grit that her husband utilizes to resist a vampire's compulsions.
And so Liz had taken comfort, on more than one occasion, on the fact that she knows Caroline can take care of herself.
(But she shouldn't have to) A voice whispers in her ear as Liz races home the night of Founder's Day Anniversary. The Sheriff hadn't seen her daughter since she had stood at the top of the parade float with her beaming smile, continuously calling her daughter's phone as she canvassed the crowd.
"Fine, I'll meet you at home," Caroline had huffed over the phone at Liz's insistence.
And what exactly do you think will happen if I forbid Caroline from seeing Stefan Salvatore? Liz had demanded of her ex-husband, who had clued her in quite recently on just who exactly the Salvatore brothers were.
The mother had entertained, ever so briefly, that maybe Stefan had revealed what he was to her daughter. But no, that didn't seem to be the case, and Liz was sure she would know if Caroline had learned about the existence of vampires. (And as much as Liz does know her daughter, children as smart as Caroline master, at one point or another, keeping secrets from their parents.)
Liz Forbes hand aches for her wooden-bullet gun once she pulls up to her house, catching Caroline and Damon Salvoretore in a lip lock. As much as she wants to kill the bloodsucker, the smarter move is to play dumb.
"Caroline- In the house, now," Liz snaps as she steps outside the car, glaring daggers at Damon.
The vampire frowns as he meets Liz's eyes. "Liz," he says in a placating tone.
"We'll talk later- In the meantime, stay away from my daughter," she all but growls as she slams the door in his face.
"Care," Liz calls out, "We have to talk-" She pauses once she steps in the kitchen. She had thought she would have to wrestle her daughter from her bedroom, but there she is at the kitchen counter, pouring herself a glass of water.
All the trouble he caused and the questions he raised, and there he was already, looking all dopey eyed over her banal shadow self.
Evelyn had been lurking in town for a cool minute, and she wasn't impressed.
But she supposed the real trouble started with the Forbes family themselves, and despite Bill Forbes meddling, Evelyn was as sure as she could be that Klaus still had yet to track down her most recent descendant. If there was ever a time get the ball rolling for a barter, this was it.
"Care, there's something- There's so much I have to tell you," Liz says as she steps towards Evelyn, her eyes frantic with a mother's terror, and the vampire feels an unexpected twinge of pity.
"And there's so much I have to tell you," Evelyn says, remembering how Stefan had trailed like a puppy after a poor knockoff of what they used to have.
Liz seems to gasp more in surprise than pain as Evelyn uses a nearby kitchen knife to stab through Liz's hand.
"Evelyn?" the woman gasps in terror.
"Tell Bill hi for me, Liz."
"Someone stole my stuff." Phone held up to her ear and keys in hand, Caroline stands on her front porch talking to Stefan. "Look, my mom's freaking out. I just need to let her get a good look at me, and then I'm headed towards the hospital. Meet me there?" Caroline asks sweetly.
"Of course," Stefan replies.
"I love you, Stefan."
"Love you too."
And despite all that had happened that night, and the worry that plagued her over Elena being in the hospital, Stefan's voice helps set her at ease as she steps into her house.
A/n: Not too sure what this over 8,000 word ramble is, tbh.