A/N: And here it is! Happy new year! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
On a Friday afternoon—the day before Rory planned to find the Salvatore house and heft her entire cardboard box of collected Gilbert journals in for Damon's inspection—she caught up with Stefan in the hall.
"Hey!" said Rory as she fell into step with him. Stefan glanced over to give her that subtle, polite smile of his and a nod. "I've been meaning to ask. Mackenzie did some poking around, and it looks like vervain hasn't grown here since 1865."
"It hasn't," confirmed Stefan. He tugged at the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder. "And I gave what little I had to Elena."
Of course you did, thought Rory. She didn't voice it, though. Over the past few weeks, while the entire administration and half the student body had been in turmoil over Mr. Tanner's death and Damon had laid low, Stefan and Elena had started spending quite a bit of time together. It seemed they were walking together down every other hall Rory turned onto, and although it had become something of a norm for Stefan to sit with Rory and her friends during lunch at least a couple times a week, it was always kind of a surprise when he met them at their picnic table.
Instead of complaining about what now seemed inevitable, Rory decided to ask, "Have you ever heard of it growing anywhere else?"
"No," admitted Stefan.
The two had to slow to follow an awkward zigzag of students behind a group of basketball players roughhousing in the hall, and Stefan tugged Rory aside at the last second to help her dodge a stray elbow. "Thanks," said Rory as they reached the other side. She glanced back over her shoulder at the tussling basketball players and shook her head. "I still don't understand why you're bothering with this."
Stefan shrugged. "You don't have to."
"That's fair," said Rory. Overhead the bell rang, reminding the students they had two minutes remaining to reach their sixth periods. Rory raised her voice as footsteps and clattering ensued, echoing around the halls. "What's your address?"
That made Stefan glance at her, sharp and searching. "Why? Is Damon still bothering you?"
Rory just looked at him.
"Right, you can't say," said Stefan, and he sighed. "I'll text it to you after the scrimmage."
The football team, as it had no coach and had been disqualified from the regional season, had taken to organizing unofficial games after school on occasion. "Good luck," Rory offered.
"I'll need it," remarked Stefan, and he gave Rory another nod before he turned and quickened his pace to take the literature hall. Rory, on the other hand, backtracked a few feet to walk down the math hall. As she moved she caught sight of Matt's broad shoulders and that bright red letterman's jacket.
And although he saw her, too, and looked liable to join her, Rory just waved and kept walking. She turned into the Algebra II classroom and headed for her seat near the wide windows, where she dropped into her desk, set her backpack down beside her, and sighed. She knew she needed to talk to Matt about newspaper, but—she still didn't know what to say to him. She'd only spoken to him for longer than a few seconds once in the previous few weeks and that was because he'd wanted to ask her about Stefan and Elena again. At least their articles weren't due until next week.
Rory saw movement in her peripheral vision and found another junior softball player glancing over at her. Tessa Ruiz was always effortlessly pretty, naturally tan with long black hair and a strong jaw, and she studied Rory with visible amusement. "You good there?"
"No," said Rory, and although Tessa raised her eyebrows, she lifted one hand to wave her interest away. "It'll be fine." After I graduate and get the hell out of this town. "How's your day been?"
"Meh," said Tessa with a shrug. A second later, as the final bell rang and Ms. Schroeder marched into the classroom, she straightened to whisper, "What are you doing this weekend? Are you busy Sunday?"
Rory considered. "I have to go to that Founders' Party," she answered, keeping her voice low as the rest of the classroom quieted around them. Her mother had always been thrilled to participate in the Founders' Council—not the one involving vampires, but the one involving an inordinate amount of pride for despicably Confederate ancestors. Rory had never understood, but she knew Elena was going and Jenna wanted Rory to go, too.
"Clarissa Montgomery is coming back this weekend," whispered Tessa. Rory was pleasantly surprised. Clarissa had been on the softball team the year before, but she'd graduated and moved out of state to go to UNC. "Kylie's trying to get people together to—"
"I'm sorry," said Ms. Schroeder. Her voice carried enough that both Rory and Tessa glanced up. She was watching them with an expectant expression, arms folded, as the rest of the class cast a few curious looks over. "Are we interrupting?"
"Yes," said Tessa, who feared nothing.
"No," said Rory at the same time.
Ms. Schroeder rolled her eyes. "Keep quiet, you two." With no further orders she turned to step around her desk and approach the whiteboard, where she plucked up a dry-erase marker.
Math class ensued, and Rory settled in to continue drawing up and down a page of lilies she'd started a couple of class periods before. In the middle of the lesson, Tessa scribbled a note on a scrap of paper and tossed it over. When Rory unfolded it, it read Me, Jasmine, Chelsea, Sophie, and obviously Kylie and Shannon are gonna claim one of the softball fields at the Y on Sunday at like 1 if you want to join
Although Kylie, particularly when with her loyal follower Shannon, was kind of annoying, and Sophie was a horrible player, that sounded better than staying home and painting. Besides, Rory thought as she wrote an affirmative note back, she didn't need to prepare too much for this Founders' Party. Going at all when she didn't have to was more than enough.
Early the following morning, Rory woke with a start—and couldn't fall back asleep.
After she tried for half an hour, she heaved a sigh and climbed out of bed to pad over and sit at her desk. She fiddled with her clean paintbrushes and studied the watercolor she'd been trying to figure out how to finish for the past few days. Might as well, she thought, and she ensured her alarm was still set to remind her to shower before she perched her glasses on her nose and started messing around with paint.
A few hours later, when the sky was a crisp cerulean, Rory trotted downstairs in her white high-tops to stride back to the dining table. To her surprise both Jenna and Elena were up and staring at the TV screen opposite the kitchen, mounted on the living room wall. Neither of them looked toward her, and Rory, curious, paused near Jenna to see what they were watching.
"To repeat," said the WPKW 9 news anchor labeled Logan Fell, "the animal terrorizing Mystic Falls has been caught. All restrictions have been lifted, effective immediately."
Though Jenna and Elena started to discuss the news anchor, Rory turned and wandered to the fridge to refill her water bottle. This made no sense, she thought. Sure, Damon had been calm for the past few weeks, but the police had been covering for him; what if he turned around and started hunting down twenty-somethings again? Was he in contact with the cops? Did he have some sort of agreement with them?
Considering Sheriff Forbes was in charge of the police department and quite possibly the secret anti-vampire taskforce, Rory doubted it.
She loped back around to where she'd taken to keeping her box of collected journals beneath the stairs and dug it out. "Where are you headed with that?" Jenna asked Rory as she straightened up and kicked the door shut with one high-top.
Elena, who'd taken a seat at the head of the table to apparently polish some silver, looked up, too.
"Um," hedged Rory. She looked down at the box, the tattered leather-bound journals and their yellowed paper, foxed and worn. "I am…going over to let Damon Salvatore look at these." I should probably tell someone other than Mack and Lauren where I'm going, just in case.
"Damon Salvatore?" repeated both Jenna and Elena, Jenna with confusion and Elena with surprise. Elena lowered whatever she was holding to continue, "You do know he's kind of a total jerk, right?"
"Is this Stefan's brother?" Jenna guessed.
Elena nodded. She shifted her weight in her seat and tucked some of her straightened hair behind her ear. "At the first—or only, I guess—football game of the year, he tried hitting on me in some weird power play with Stefan." She glanced from Jenna to Rory. "They don't seem to get along."
"No, they don't," confirmed Rory. "And I'm not surprised." Her sister and her aunt looked startled. "I'm not looking to date this dude," Rory explained. "This is about historical research. And trust me, I'm not interested in a twenty-five-year-old who hits on seventeen-year-olds."
Jenna pointed at her. "Smart. Keep that logic."
"I'll do my best," said Rory with a hint of sarcasm. "See you two later."
She headed back down the hall with her box. Jenna called a farewell after her and Jeremy rounded the banister as Rory passed it, and although they almost slammed shoulders, he barely spared her a glance. Nice, thought Rory, but as this complete noninteraction was, at this point, not unusual, she snagged her car keys and emerged into the breezy October air.
When Rory had shoved the cardboard box into her passenger's seat and climbed into the driver's seat, she pulled up the most recent text Stefan had sent her, with the address for the Salvatore Boarding House. Here goes everything, thought Rory as she copied it into her Maps app. She checked her mirrors and reversed out of the driveway.
The Salvatore Boarding House was fifteen minutes out, in one of the higher-end suburban neighborhoods that consisted mostly of historical homes. There were a few expensive cars pulling out of their brick or cobblestone drives and a couple of joggers, and Rory saw several tennis players on a pair of courts shaded by maples. Somehow it all seemed cleaner out here, everything crisp, and the Bronco earned several visible double-takes.
Rory passed maybe two streets she recognized, because the Riveras lived out here on a few acres with a guesthouse, but as she drew nearer to her destination, the less familiar the trimmed hedges and brown brick Tudor houses became. She passed a veritable wall of azaleas and a line of magnolias before the Salvatore house came into sight.
It was enormous, sprawling brick with diamond-paned windows, multiple chimneys, and several gables. When Rory pulled into the circular drive beside the neatly cut lawn and parked a few hundred yards out from the entrance, which was beneath an overhang, she leaned over to squint up at the house. She could see at least one widow's walk.
What the hell did these two vampires do with all this space? Rory couldn't imagine—although, she realized as she stepped out of the Bronco, she didn't know anything about their nephew. Maybe he was a packrat?
Rory gathered her box. When she'd locked her car she drew in a breath, prayed for patience, and marched up to the entrance. Once there she balanced her box on her hip to ring the doorbell.
She waited, listening to the steady chopping of a neighbor's sprinklers and the fluttering of the oaks and magnolias that branched over the street, studying the bricks and the old-fashioned lamp that hung overhead. Do they have a housekeeper or a maid or something? Rory wondered. She couldn't picture either Salvatore batting down cobwebs or washing windows.
The door swung inward—an unfamiliar man stood on the other side, one hand on the knob. He was an average height and tan, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and a hint of beard stubble. He and Rory blinked at each other. "Uh, are you selling something?" he guessed.
"Let her in!" Rory heard Damon shout from somewhere inside.
Rory snorted. "Hi," she said to the man who'd opened the door and was now surveying her with apprehension. "I'm Rory Gilbert. I'm not a vampire or anything."
The man leaned back. "Nice to meet you? I'm Zach Salvatore."
"The nephew?" Rory surmised. Zach nodded and moved aside, gesturing for her to enter. "Thanks," said Rory, and she headed into the entryway.
The Salvatore house was as intimidating inside as it was out—there were gilt oil paintings and portraits, gleaming mahogany panels, and dark red carpets, and, true to form, it all combined the past and the present. Between the midcentury and older furniture that shone in the sunlight streaming through the massive windows, there was a high-tech stereo with speakers, a TV set, and copies of books that were either dogeared or brand new.
As Rory wandered in, peering up and down what must have been the long, curved main hall, she realized Damon was in the sunken living room across from the entryway. He was sitting up on one of the plush red velvet couches with an open book in his lap and watching Rory when she made eye contact.
"Well," said Damon as she moved forward to step down into the living room, "hello." In a fluid movement he closed his book, pushed it aside, turned, and stood to stride toward Rory. He lifted the cardboard box and set it on the polished coffee table at the center of the room, between the matching couches.
Although he seemed more normal than Rory had ever seen him—probably because it was the morning and not late afternoon or night—she still moved to the other side of the coffee table, giving him wide berth. Without comment he lifted her notebook from the box and passed it to her.
Rory dropped both her water bottle and her bag on the table before flipping open her notebook. "Can you give me more specifics now?"
Damon said nothing and tilted his head back toward the entryway. Rory glanced over and found Zach still there, watching—he lifted his palms in a sign of surrender and left, the thud of his footsteps retreating to some other part of the house.
A minute after he'd been gone, Damon glanced up at Rory. His eyes seemed a brighter blue in the daylight coming in through those windows. "Give me any mentions of Emily Bennett or grimoires."
Rory thought about it and flicked open her notebook. "I think I found one. Hang on."
After she checked a couple of notes she'd written down, Rory, without thinking, moved closer to Damon to dig into the box of journals. She fished out a particularly worn one and flicked it open. Christopher Gilbert was written in embossed ink inside the front cover. "It's kind of hard to read Johnathan Gilbert's handwriting," said Rory as she searched for a specific entry. "But Christopher had much better penmanship." And seems slightly more sane.
"Christopher?" echoed Damon, as if trying the word out. "I don't—"
He paused as Rory continued to look through entries from the 1860s. "I do remember him," Damon realized aloud. Rory saw him brace one hand on his hip out of the corner of her eye. "He was Johnathan's brother. No one ever talked about him—he ran off to join the Union."
"Good for him," said Rory. She found what she'd been searching for and passed the journal to Damon, tapping the entry for him to read.
June 4th, 1864
I've asked Emily Bennett—Katherine Pierce's handmaiden—about the Power. She referred me to Seth McCullough, but it's been difficult to facilitate a meeting. My brother has been paying too much attention, when he hasn't been anxious over his demons, and news of the war worsens each day.
I intend to leave sooner rather than later, to insist on joining the Union despite my infirmity, but I want to know more of the Power before I go. If there is indeed an untapped, natural Power in the earth, it could be used for so much good. For now I must settle for exploring the groves on the Lockwood property.
Beneath the entry, Christopher had sketched what appeared to be a massive hawthorn tree. Rory was sure such trees were important to Celtic druids, and McCullough certainly sounded like a Scottish or Irish last name.
Damon was less impressed and handed the journal over. "I figured as much."
"Figured what?" asked Rory, drawing back again.
"That the Power is concentrated around here," he said. Rory blinked at the blasé mention of some mysterious entity, some supernatural power source, and Damon continued, "It's this archaic—energy, I guess you could call it. Witches and old vampires can use it."
Rory furrowed her eyebrows. "Can you?" What the hell qualifies as an old vampire?
"A little," said Damon. "I can do a couple of tricks, with fog and a crow." He half-glanced over his shoulder as if checking for eavesdroppers before continuing, "Takes a lot out of me, though."
Rory wasn't sure what to say to that. It did occur to her, though, that Damon was even more dangerous than she'd thought, which was saying something, considering her fight-or-flight reflexes were usually at 100% around him. "Um, right."
"Pass me the notebook," said Damon, and Rory did so. He nodded toward a stack of books haphazardly dropped onto the coffee table. "And go through those, would you? Give me anything about the Founders or the Bennetts."
Rory proceeded to do so.
For some time both of them flipped through journals and books in silence, the only sounds breathing and the turning of yellowed pages. Rory had started to fidget with the sleeve of her denim jacket when she heard the air-conditioning creak into action and realized she could hear the distant, unsettling ticking of some grandfather clock.
Rory glanced at one of the speakers near that stereo. "Can I play something?" she asked. "Anything?"
Damon looked up as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Depends," he said, arching an eyebrow. "Are you planning to subject me to Coldplay or Katy Perry?"
Rory couldn't believe he remembered the specific band and singer from her Spotify playlist weeks ago. She had to assume it was because, aside from murdering her history teacher, he didn't have much else to dwell on. Ugh. "I only listen to pop and classical."
"Classical?" said Damon, his face scrunching up in confusion. If he'd been anyone else, Rory might've thought it was a cute expression. "Why?"
"Because violin and piano?"
"Pop," said Damon with a dramatic shake of his head. "You're really giving me some great choices here." He pointed to the stereo, on a table beneath an oil portrait, beside one of those diamond-paned windows. "You can plug in over there."
Rory stood up from the couch she'd claimed and strolled over to find an aux cord. She had to fish it out from behind the table, and she plugged her phone in and opened her Spotify app to consider playlists. Her most played were the classical ones based on aesthetics, like summer in florence and winter in paris. To spare Damon she scrolled past them and found a playlist that leaned slightly more toward R&B than pop.
She turned her ringer up loud enough that she could hear it from across the room, hit play, and returned to her previous seat.
"TLC," observed Damon as Rory picked up the book she'd been skimming. "Not bad." With no further comments he returned to the journal he'd been flipping through.
Neither of them said much over the ensuing hour. Rory found several mentions of an Irish clan that had settled in the area and left behind, it seemed, a heritage of Celtic druidism, and a sacred grove. A few times it was described as being on the Lockwood estate, but in the more recent books—relatively speaking—it was assigned to some McCullough property.
Rory took a few photos of pages with her phone and took a second to text her friends' group chat about whoever the McCulloughs were. It seemed strange that in a town obsessed with its founders, there had been an entire estate that no one even talked about anymore.
There was one other piece of information that was interesting—apparently witches were rounded up and burned at least once. These dudes sucked, thought Rory when she read that paragraph. What the hell was their problem?
She was one book out from finishing with the stack Damon had assigned her when Zach returned. Rory saw movement out of the corner of her eye and lifted her head to find him loitering in the entryway, fiddling with the cuff of his long-sleeved button-down. He was focused on Damon, who was lounging on the couch across from Rory, all long-legged and languid.
"Go on, Zach," said Damon without looking. "Get it out. What's on your mind?"
"Why are you here, Damon?"
Damon glanced up at that, but he didn't look at Zach. Rory watched with an instinctive trepidation as Damon answered in that airy, sarcastic manner, "To spend time with you, Zach." He flicked the journal he was holding shut and zeroed in on Zach. "Family's important."
Zach opened his mouth, but—Rory could see what was coming a mile away. She cleared her throat, and when Zach glanced at her, she widened her eyes at him and shook her head. His eyebrows furrowed and she made a slicing motion across her throat. Don't question yourself into danger, my dude!
"Don't bother, Rory," said Damon, and Rory jumped, startled he'd managed to see her in his peripheral vision. "If Zach wants to get himself into trouble, well—"
"I don't," said Zach quickly. He gave Rory the slightest hint of a nod. "I'll leave you two alone."
He was out of sight and down the hall in seconds.
When he was gone, Damon twisted to give Rory a strange look. "Why'd you help him?" he asked. He threw the journal he was holding back into the box and it thudded together with the others. "You don't know the man."
"I don't have to," said Rory.
Damon studied her for a second. He said nothing, though, and stood. "You can go," he announced. "Leave the books and take the journals with you. And don't let anyone else—i.e., my brother or your sister—read them."
"Okay," said Rory, and Damon sauntered out of the living room.
Rory struggled to her feet and gathered the journals back into the box with her notebook. She was about to walk back over to unplug her phone from the aux cord when she heard the front door swing open with a creak. Stefan came in and stopped when he saw Rory. "Oh, hi."
She waved. "What's up?"
No conversation could ensue—Zach strode back in, glancing over his shoulder. "Stefan," he said, and he halted near his uncle to have a hushed discussion with him. Rory ignored them and moved to unplug her phone and tuck the aux cord back behind the polished wooden table the stereo was set on.
Rory had automatically started flicking through her notifications when she caught a shadow of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and found Stefan beckoning for her to join him and Zach. Rory hesitated, but she walked over. "What?" she asked in a low voice when she reached them.
"We can trust her," Stefan almost whispered to Zach. "We're friends, and Damon can't compel her."
Rory was kind of mollified, both by the mention of her being trustworthy and Stefan considering her a friend. Zach scrutinized her before he glanced at Stefan. He seemed to make the decision and tilted his head, indicating the left end of the hall. He turned on his heel and hurried in that direction, and after Stefan and Rory exchanged nonplussed glances, they followed him.
As it turned out he was walking them through a mysterious wood panel and down a couple of flights of old, rickety stairs, into a basement that smelled of earth and leaf mold. Another turn later, past an enormous collection of unidentifiable antiques that Rory would have loved to go through, Zach walked them through a side door.
Through it was a quiet, ominous series of rooms that Rory, glancing around at the carved stone and listening to the drip of mildew, realized must have been antebellum, related to the transatlantic slave trade. Rory could feel the little hairs on the back of her neck rising as she tried not to think about what the hell must have gone down here—she automatically moved closer to Stefan until she remembered that his family owned this house and he'd been alive during the Civil War.
Fucking yikes, thought Rory with disgust, giving him more space again.
Zach brought them to one of the doors and pushed it open. As he and Stefan stood around the open doorway, Rory slid between them—and she saw a wealth of pale purple flowers. Their overwhelmingly floral scent was far better than the rest of the basement, and Rory took a few quick steps into the stone-hewn room to inspect them. They were shaped like foxglove, their flowers and green leaves bright beneath a yellow grow light.
"You've been growing it," mused Stefan, observing the flowers with combined surprise and understanding. At Rory's confused glance, he clarified, "It's vervain."
"Oh!" said Rory, looking back at Zach.
Zach shrugged somewhat modestly. "It's just something that's been passed down through the generations. Blood only runs so deep when you're related to vampires." He fiddled with his sleeve again. "Damon would kill me if he knew that I had it."
"But—you're telling me," said Stefan. "Why?"
"Because I trust you," Zach answered. He gave Rory another once-over before returning his attention to Stefan. "And you're gonna need it if you want to get rid of him."
Rory turned more toward Zach as it occurred to her. "Are you on the Founders' Council?"
Zach was visibly startled, and he nodded.
"Damon wants me to join it," said Rory. "I'm a Gilbert."
"Your father and your uncle have been on it in the past," said Zach, and Rory took an entire step backward, beyond bewildered. Did Dad know about vampires this whole—wait, does Uncle John still know?! Is he just out there, knowing about vampires and not telling anyone?! "Why does Damon want you there?"
Rory had to force herself to remain present, to stop thinking about the flurry of questions Zach's revelation brought up. "I, um, have no idea," she said, still struggling to focus. "But it would be amazing if you could talk to whoever's in charge for me. I kind of want to see if they could help drive him back out of town." In half-explanation she added, "He murdered my history teacher."
"Coach Tanner," Stefan said in an aside to Zach.
Rory shoved her hands into the pockets of her denim jacket. "I didn't even like him, but a human being is a human being," she said. "Damon should not get to decide who lives or dies." No one should.
Zach surveyed her and Rory blinked back. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
Zach shook his head and Rory stifled a sigh. "The Council wouldn't let you in. Not without—" His gaze moved past Rory, over her shoulder and toward the vervain. A series of clashing thoughts crossed his face, and he folded his arms. "I want to leave town," he confessed. "No offense, Stefan."
"None taken."
"I can sign the deed over to you as soon as the office opens Monday," Zach said to Stefan, and he glanced from him to Rory. "Would you be willing to bring vervain to the Council? Once a month?"
Rory nodded. "Can I give some of it to my friends?"
"Sure," said Zach, which was kind of a relief. "You can plant it in your backyard or your attic or wherever, too. I can give you instructions."
After he and Rory exchanged contact information, Zach gave her the neatly packaged cardboard box of vervain he'd intended to bring to Sheriff Forbes over the weekend. Once he had, the trio walked back upstairs together to part ways in the main hall. Rory dropped the new box into the old one with the journals and carried it out to the Bronco.
As Rory shoved the box into the passenger's seat she half-glanced back at the enormous house, looming overhead. It seemed insane that her father had somehow known about vampires—how had he found out? Through these journals? When had he taken the time to sit down and read through them?
Not that, of course, Rory had to admit, she'd ever known much about her father, or even had much in common with him. The most they'd been able to bond over had been softball. Otherwise he'd been out of the house all the time, on call for work. I could try to look in his office for more journals, Rory thought, biting her lip as she climbed into the driver's seat. Or the master bedroom.
At once she shook her head to herself. She was definitely not ready to face either place. I'll just stick to what I've found, then, Rory decided, and with that she started her car to head home.
