a/n: the only warning i have is that things might get angsty for a lil bit! but i assure you that i'm not one to like writing too much sad :D

CHAPTER TWO: I'LL MAKE A MAN OUTTA YOU

Nova sank down into couch cushions, her hand reached out until it found her sister's and they both held on tight. They quietly watched as their grandmother sat across from them, placing two cookies each on saucers next to the warmed milk.

"What's wrong with us, Grams?" Bonnie asked, not even the sight of cookies distracting her from remembering what had just happened.

"Oh no baby, absolutely nothing is wrong with either of you," Grams said, quick to reassure them both.

"Uh, so do we both have magic?" Nova knew the answer to her question before Grams even nodded. But the older woman didn't say anything for a long moment, just staring at them in poorly concealed concern.

In her and Bonnie's room, she had felt this…warm feeling in her chest, that had rushed all the way down to the tips of her fingers. She could still feel it, resting in her chest. It felt like she had a sun in her tiny body, just waiting for her to let it break free again.

She was a witch.

She had expected her sister to become one, but her? That was something she hadn't expected. Which might've been silly in retrospect, she was a Bennett after all.

"Why?" Was all her sister could find to ask, but at least Bonnie found something to say, all Nova could do was stare into the distance.

She had really wanted to be a tooth fairy, or a mermaid, but she guessed being a witch was close enough?

"Why what honey?" Grams asked, knocking her out of her thoughts.

Nova turned to look curiously at her sister, who was visibly shaken and confused. "Why didn't you tell us?" Bonnie asked.

Nova, for an odd moment, felt as though her soul was detached from her body and she was watching them as a spectator. She felt.. like she didn't belong here.

And maybe she didn't.

All of this wouldn't be happening if it weren't for her. Bonnie would have years more of peace and happiness, if not for her.

"Your mom, before she left.. she wanted to keep you away from this life. Your father agreed."

"Mom was a witch too?"

"Born and raised. As was I."

"Is dad a witch too?"

"No, baby, and believe me, we all thank nature for that." Grams chuckled, seeming to be keeping herself from laughing more by sipping at the iced tea she had poured herself.

"They shouldn't get to decide to keep this from us, not when they can't even bother to be here." Nova found herself talking, and she shivered, trying to shake off the feeling.

Belong in this universe or not, she was here and that's what mattered at the moment. And her being here meant she could help, like y'know, keeping her grandmother from dying.

The rest like, the why, how, or maybe even who put her here, was something she could worry about later. Kinda like the homework she had shoved in her backpack.

"Nova's right, it's not fair!" Bonnie said, her words quiet despite being visibly angry. And her sister's now painful grip on her hand kept Nova grounded in the moment.

"It's our magic, not theirs." Nova added, her words just as quiet as her sister's.

Grams quickly switched seats, and sat down on the coffee table in front of them. She softly brushed away their tears with a gentle look on her face.

Nova hadn't even noticed the blurring in her vision, let alone that tears had dropped until she felt the warm, calloused hands wiping them away. She sniffled, swallowing down the lump in her throat to keep herself from crying even more.

Grams kept quiet until their tears had calmed, her warm presence calming the worst of their nerves.

"I tried to reason with your father, but he never listened. Stubborn as a mule. He always thought he would lose you to magic… only he does most of that himself these days.." The last part was muttered so lowly, that the twins had a hard time hearing her — but they caught the gist of it.

"Can you teach us?" Nova needed to know how to protect her family, and the only way she could do that successfully was if she had magic on her side.

Her first plan to help fix everything had been… morbid, and a little reckless.

But with magic, she didn't need that plan anymore, and Bonnie didn't need to be stumbling in the dark when it came to magic.

"With the way you two went at each other with my furniture, I don't think I have much of a choice." Grams replied, her tone dry even as she eyed them with sharp eyes.

"Are you girls okay now?"

They could've seriously hurt each other, she realized with a shaky breath. Hurting people, especially her sister, was the exact opposite of what she wanted.

Bonnie nodded, sending her a concerned glance as she realized the same thing she had.

"It won't happen again." Nova promised not only her grandmother, but her sister too.

She let go of her sister's hand to make grabby hands towards the cookies and her grandmother, who passed them over with a sigh.

Nova shoved the entire cookie in her mouth, only slowing down when Grams sent her a chiding look. She savoured the second one, the soft chocolate chip cookie practically melting on her tongue, and watched along with her sister as the older woman picked up one of the books by her hip. The smaller one.

Although small in comparison to the other book, it was still larger than Nova's face.

Grams ran her fingers over the worn down leather and it's spine, before opening it carefully to its second page. "This is my grimoire," she said, passing it over to them so that they could look at it together.

The page that greeted them was filled with blue ink smudges, and elegant writings in a language neither of them knew. The pages smelled of ink, their grandmother's vanilla and jasmine perfume and something earthy.

It felt heavy in her hands, even with her sister holding the other side.

"I made it with my own two hands years ago, and filled it with my own spells, and my mother's spells that she passed down to me, as you will both do one day."

Grams gently lifted the book from their fingers, making them look up from the book — the grimoire, and back towards her.

"But before that, you both have to learn as much as possible about magic, about being a witch, before trying any of these."

The twins shared a sheepish look between them, because that's exactly what they had assumed they were going to do.

Nova was honestly a little disappointed, she had wanted to get straight to it. She couldn't understand anything, but it all looked cool enough to try.

Bonnie, in contrast, looked beyond relieved that she wouldn't have to face her powers any time soon.

"When do we start?" Nova asked, wiping crumbs off her chin when prompted.

Grams clapped her hands together once, twice, and instantly every candle in the room was set ablaze, to the amazement of her grandchildren.

"Nothing like the present." The elder witch replied, a pleased smirk lighting up her face, making her look years younger.

The twins were painfully reminded that Grams is still a college professor, through and through.

The older woman had such a passion for Magic, so it wasn't hard to focus on the little lectures and mini assignments she gave them.

Plus it was magic, she couldn't speak for her sister, but she was fascinated.

When the girls weren't at school at one of their friend's houses, they're learning another language and witchcraft from the one and only Sheila Bennett.

The former hadn't been necessary, as Grams had said learning spells without knowing the language used for the spell was like singing a song in a language you didn't know. It was possible and you could still do it perfectly, but Grams wanted them to learn the way she did when she was their age.

So they were taught Latin, along with the Spanish they were learning in school.

Also, turns out there are rules to nature, which she kind of figured, but was still slightly disappointed about.

Rules were boring.

"Magic is not a weapon, or a new toy to play with. Our connection to Nature is give and take. Everything has a price." Grams said, looking them both in the eye to make sure they're both paying attention to her before she continued.

"It's a part of you as much as the very blood in your body, and something that will never completely go away as long as you accept it, even when you pass to the Other Side."

Nova squinted in the bright sunlight, trying to keep her straw hat on her head with both hands when a strong breeze passed by them, along with the fallen leaves in Grams' backyard.

Grams had decided it would be best if they did this lesson outside, where they would feel closest to Nature. And so here they sat barefoot on the soft grass, next to the garden that they had just recently finished replanting and weeding.

Nova smiled proudly at it, as it had never looked nearly as lively as it did now.

"The Other Side?" Bonnie questioned with a frown, her own straw hat tied to her head with a green ribbon.

Nova eyed it with horribly concealed envy, with all her distracted fiddling she had long lost her own purple ribbon.

"It's a place where those who are supernatural move on to when they pass away." Sheila clarified, as gently as possible.

"More than just Witches exist, don't they," Nova said, rather than question, causing her sister's eyes to widen as she realized the full weight of their grandmother's words.

"Do mermaids exist?" Bonnie asked.

The twins turned the full effect of their puppy dog eyes on their grandmother, in hopes that she would actually tell them instead of being vague and mysterious.

Grams smiled, before reaching behind her and in her hands there it was, the large worn down book the twins remembered seeing weeks ago.

"Read this and memorize as much as you can. It's a record of all of the supernatural beings our family has run across, and all the information we have on them."

The twins looked up in awe at their grandmother, before opening the dark tan book that looked older than them all put together.

It looked as though a good gust of wind could blow away its pages.

"We'll make sure to take care of it, Grams." She promised, her sister nodding in agreement even as her hazel eyes remained on its pages.

"I know you will, sweetheart." Grams said it in such a way that made it clear that if they didn't, there would be consequences.

Months and years quickly pass them by, with the two of them soaking up the information given like great big sponges and the rest of their friends and family clueless of what they were and were doing.

"Do you think they'll hate us?" Bonnie asked one night, and she didn't have to say anything else, Nova understood.

Would their friends forgive them for keeping such a big secret from them?

Would their dad ever look at us the same if he knew?

Nova turned in her bed until she was facing her sister, squinting when the light of her black cat night light hit her eyes.

"… I don't know." She was honest because she couldn't lie to Bonnie about this, and well, she literally could not lie to her sister. She always knew somehow, even when she never said so.

"But I hope not." She whispered, her heart aching at the thought of being friendless. Or being feared.

To be feared would be worse, she thought.

Bonnie got up out of her bed and rudely snatched the covers off her bed, "Hey!", before laying down next to her.

They were getting too big and their beds too small, but it hadn't stopped either of them just yet.

Once the twins started to move on to learning how to control fire, that's when things got a little.. difficult for her.

It was hard. Watching her sister pass her by in learning how to control the element that apparently came naturally to Bennett witches.

But her fear of it held her back.

Lighting a match was one thing, but it was another thing entirely to try to will the element to do anything. It made her skin crawl whenever she tried to, which usually resulted in her losing control.

Months flew by, and her nightmares grew even more horrible and twisted, until she felt as though she was holding onto a very thin thread.

Grams had seen her bad reaction to the element, and wasn't forcing her to do anything she didn't want to. But she had grown fed up with her own fear, no matter how rational.

She snuck out of the house, for the first time in either of her lives and well, it was an experience.

It was midnight, she was barely fourteen, small and pretty, and people were disgustingly horrible. And so she kept her head down, her hand on her new flip phone, and slowly made her way to the place Grams had set up in the woods for them to practice more freely.

Their combined magic protected the space from being discovered, and from any stray spells from making it outside the circle. And so as soon as her feet hit the boundary, she relaxed and put the guiding light of her Spider-man flashlight back in her pocket.

Nova stared at the little untouched bonfire set up for her, and glanced at her sister's, where the wood had burned quickly and been put out just as fast.

She had never felt jealous of her sister this much in her life, the feeling of it had made her feel sick as much as the feeling of controlling fire had.

Grams said it was more than just setting something on fire, but keeping control of it and snuffing it out before it burned the whole thing to ash.

She pressed her hands to her mouth, warming them with her breath against the autumn breeze, before dropping down in the dirt near the untouched wood.

"I can do this, I'm Nova freaking Bennett, I can do this," she said, repeating it twice more, but every odd sound coming from the dark forest made her twitchy.

Lighting it was easy enough, with a simple, "Incendia," and a forceful will of her magic — always there and warm, and comforting her — and the wood was set ablaze.

Controlling it however, was another story.

Nova kept it at a decent height at first, taking deep breaths like Grams had taught her to do when her anxiety became too much.

But… the memories were more persistent than any breathing techniques.

The screams of dying neighbors rattled in her brain, her vision blurred, sweat went down her brow and her hands began shaking.

She couldn't hear herself think, let alone control anything like fire.

Nova flinched when the flames came rushing towards her, and she couldn't tell if it was real or something in her head, but she tried to escape from it. Stones scraped her palms bloody as she scrambled backwards.

She felt angry with herself for not being able to do anything but panic. She hadn't even survived her teen years this go around, and once again fire was going to kill her. Her own magic at that.

Gosh the cruel irony.

Nova closed her blurry eyes against the flames, ready to accept her fate, before a sharp ringing noise cut through the sound of the fire.

She pulled it out, feeling so very dumb that she hadn't thought to use it, and quickly answered it.

"Hello?" she greeted, her voice trembling until she cleared it.

"He left. He just left me here! Without saying goodbye!" Caroline's voice greeted her, sounding frazzled.

The sound of her friend's voice calmed her down enough to focus on the words.

"Uhh.. who left what exactly?" She eyed the flames warily, but they were already retreating from her shivering form. Her bonfire had gone back to being well, just a bonfire, instead of a forest fire waiting to happen.

"My dad. He's just .. gone, without saying anything to me. He won't pick up the phone. Mom keeps telling me 'we'll talk about it in the morning' but I just want my dad back home. Where is he going to go? Are they going to divorce? Will I have to choose who to stay with? What if neither of them want me now that they aren't pretending to be a happy couple? I don't know, because no one will tell me anything —"

"Carebear, breathe," Nova gently reminded her best friend, reminding herself in the process. She could hear the blonde mirror her breathing shakily, until it evened out.

A loud bird — owl? demon? — flew around the boundary, it screeched in what she assumed was annoyance. As though answering them, the ever persistent crickets got louder and louder.

" ..are those crickets? Where are you?"

"I… I'm on my way to your house." Nova said, shakily rising to her feet, brushing her dirty fingers off on her unicorn pajama pants.

"Seriously? It's too late. You're gonna get kidnapped! Or grounded!"

Nova stared at the fire, took another deep breath, and willed the fire to die down with a clench of her fist, until it was nothing but smoke.

Okay yeah, that was kinda cool!

"Too late Carebear, I'm ten minutes away." She replied, annoyingly cheerful as she turned her flashlight back on and made her exit out the woods.

Caroline didn't snitch her out to her mom, thankfully, but demanded she stay on the phone until she got here. Which, that was a reasonable request, and it secretly relieved her. Now that she had come out of her sleep deprived, girl on a mission haze, she realized that the forest was scary as hell at night, and she would be lost without Caroline's voice in her ear.

Nova arrived at the Forbes residence twenty minutes later, which was much later than she had promised, but not bad considering she had almost gotten trampled by a herd of deer.

She huffed on the front step for a little while, before looking up at the house. Her eyes flicker back and forth to the door, and to the window that she knows goes into Caroline's room.

She shrugged. Eh, she's probably already in trouble and if Grams didn't kill her, her sister would so she might as well go out in style.

"Like who just goes to bed after all of that?"

She looked over her shoulder to make sure that no one who might want to kill her was behind her, humming in response to the blonde's words before looking up at the house. There were no vines for her to climb on like in the movies, but it wasn't that far of a jump, she just needed to think of it like.. jumping onto the monkey bars!

"Hey, can you open your window for me?" Nova asked suddenly, gently interrupting the blonde's rant.

Caroline paused for a long moment, before shuffling was heard over the phone as she assumed the blonde set the phone down.

She decided to just go for it, and jumped up and down twice, and when her fingers grabbed onto the windowsill— she felt deep regret for the second time that night.

For a horrifying moment, her feet swung wildly around and her palms grew sweaty as she tried to hold on. For a moment she thought she was gonna drop, until her feet found purchase against the house. Rolled up like this, she felt like an armadillo for a strange moment, or a really bad Spider-man.

Eventually, she found enough upper body strength to lift herself up, until her butt hit the windowsill. Just in time too, as Caroline came over to her window and yanked the curtains open.

The blonde looked perplexed by her, even as she opened the window.

"Why didn't you just go to the door? I could have just snuck you in." Caroline asked her, giving her a hand so she wouldn't trip over the things on her desk .. that was right underneath the window.

Nova still found a way to trip, even once her feet were firmly on the hardwood floor, she ended up face planting. She rolled herself over, looking up at her friend, a sheepish look on her face. "That always looks cooler in movies." she said, rubbing her neck as she sat up.

"When you said you were coming here, I thought you were joking. Why didn't you go to the door?" Caroline asked again, as she sat down next to her on the floor.

"I thought it was safer than having your mom throw me in the back of her cop car as soon as I got here. Besides that, you called me, in distress. Where else would I be?" Nova asked, genuinely confused.

Sure they weren't as close as Bonnie and Elena, but they were still friends right?

It would be really awkward if this whole best friend thing was one sided.

Caroline looked into her brown eyes with those big blue eyes, before suddenly collapsing into her arms and bursting into previously held back tears. She didn't say anything and just held on tight, if she let out a few tears of her own, well that would be a secret kept between them.

"I think my dad's gay," was the first thing that had come out of her friend's mouth once their tears had dried.

Nova's eyes widened and her mouth formed a silent 'oh', but she stayed quiet until Caroline let out whatever else she needed to say.

She hadn't remembered this being how Caroline's dad left, or much of anything about the man at all. But her younger self had neglected to write this bit of family drama down, or more likely, she had forgotten.

"I mean it's not just the way he always loves shopping more than me. I'm not trying to stera - stero-"

"Stereotype?"

"Yes. That. But I.. ugh, I've never told anyone. But a few years ago, on Christmas, I saw him kissing someone who was definitely not my mom." Caroline quietly confessed onto her shoulder.

Well that could be a brand new version of the song, 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus', she thought and quickly waved the thought away because now wasn't the tie for jokes. Her friend was hurting.

Bills Forbes, the ruiner of Christmas, she thought instead.

She knew that it was more complicated than that, and felt sorry for the man for staying quietly in the closet for so long, stuck in a relationship. Being queer in this town was not easy, she knew. But leaving the Caroline Forbes, one of her best friend's, without so much a goodbye? Well, she wished him his best gay life, and a hard kick in the stomach.

Nova didn't know what to say, so for a moment everything was quiet as she held on to her silently crying friend.

"We could run away if you want?" She offered, and well, she was only half kidding. She had thought of taking her sister and her best friends, and running far far away. Multiple times. It was plan M at this point.

"Where would we go?"

"Pizza place for starters. Then maybe Narnia?"

"We would be good queens wouldn't we?"

"We would be the best queens ever, move over Susan and Lucy, Caroline Forbes and Nova Bennett are coming."

Caroline let out a small chuckle at her theatrics, but it ended sooner than she thought it would. She sniffed, once and then twice more, until she was sniffing so much that she assumed the blonde was crying again.

Caroline pulled away from her, her eyes red and puffy but dry. "Why do you smell like that? Is that smoke, why do you smell like smoke?" She wrinkled her nose up at the horrible smell that she just now registered.

Oh.

"That's a good question, Caroline."

Both girls shot up from their seats on the floor when they heard the third voice.

Nova looked at her friend sadly, before facing her best friend's mother, Sheriff Forbes. Well that was scary, she thought. She hadn't even heard the door open. Damn them for not having squeakier doors.

"Ooo…I'm a ghost, you don't see me!" Nova said in a last ditch effort, watching her friend facepalm out the corner of her eye as she did jazz hands.

Hey! It was all she had left.

"You wanna try that again?" Liz asked, slightly amused until her eyes caught sight of the scrapes on her hands.

"Caroline go get the first aid kit," The older Forbes said.

Caroline opened her mouth to protest, until she caught sight of what her mom was looking at and quietly ran out of her room.

The reincarnated girl wisely kept her mouth shut.

Despite just having her relationship torn into tiny bits and pieces, the Sheriff looked … okay? Her eyes were a little red, but she didn't seem like she was falling apart at his leaving. Good for her, she thought.

"You get this climbing up my house?" Liz asked, gently guiding her to sit down on Caroline's bean bag and kneeling next to her.

"Maybe so…yeah."

"Mm, and what about this?" Sheriff Forbes, done inspecting her hands, looked down.

Nova grimaced when she saw burn marks hadn't noticed on her converse shoes and pants leg. She could explain this. Probably. She just needed a better lie than, well, ghost.

Caroline came in with the first aid, which helped her give her more time, until Liz finished cleaning it and moved on to bandages. They were pink, and hello kitty.

Both Forbes women looked at her expectantly, waiting patiently and in her friend's case, impatiently, for an answer.

"I.. I… might've tried smoking?" Were the words that came out of her mouth, and gosh she wished she could take them back.

"Nova Bennett!"

"How was it?!"

Liz gave her daughter a chiding look, before looking back towards her with her stern mom face on.

"I chickened out! Got nervous and dropped it." Nova tried not to over explain, but also give enough false information to soothe her worries.

She should get a job for lying so well, lying to cops should be a paying job.

Maybe a lawyer?

Her lies seemed to work, but Liz had her Sheriff face back on as she finished bandaging up her hands.

"Where'd you get the cigarettes?" She questioned further, checking her for any other cuts.

"..It was just one, I took it from an upperclassman."

Liz looked like she wanted to continue to question her, but her daughter was drilling a hole in her skull, so she just patted her knee before getting up. "I called your grandmother." And those simple words managed to send a jolt of panic through her.

Grams was gonna kill her. Bonnie would help.

"I told her since it was so late that I would take you home in the morning. So get some rest and we'll talk more in the morning." She seemed hesitant to leave them alone, but eventually wished them a quiet,"Goodnight."

"Goodnight mom."

"Goodnight Sheriff Forbes."

The girl's shared a small look of relief as the door closed behind her.

"Did you seriously sneak out the house and try to smoke?" Caroline asked as they pulled back the covers, nose scrunching up at the thought despite her earlier curiosity.

"Yeah, I know, I know, I'm an idiot," she sighed, kicking off her ruined shoes, before sliding underneath the bed's pink and purple covers.

Caroline noticeably did not disagree as she did the same — and that was an agreement in itself, which, like, rude.

The blonde girl cut off her pink bedside lamp, and it was silent for a moment, until she thought she had fallen asleep already but —

"Thank you, Nova," she whispered.

"Just write me a good speech at my funeral."

Caroline giggled, which again was so very rude. She was being completely serious.

Ironically enough, if tonight had driven home any lesson, it was that her soul had been given a second chance at life and she couldn't waste it.

And so as her friend started snoring next to her, she made a mental bucket list of everything she had wanted to do in her past life and added the things she wanted to do in this life.

Time to be impulsive, she supposed.

Nova had plans okay, and those plans kept her and her precious people if not untraumatized, then at the very least alive.

Plans however, tended to go sideways, so she had back up plans from A to Z, though anything after J was unrealistic. But still, she had plenty of contingencies, which is why she's shocked when most of the beginning of most of her plans end up in the garbage.

Like how the fuck did it get this bad?

Maybe she should rewind?

It starts like this.

She made her way up the stairs, two at a time, smiling wider than ever because her braces were finally off. She still had to deal with her dumb retainer but her teeth no longer looked like a magnet hazard!

Nova rang the doorbell and then knocked twice, jumping up and down on her toes when her friend finally opened the door.

"Lena! Look! My teeth are finally fucking free from their prison." Nova said in greeting, smiling so much her cheeks hurt.

Elena chuckled at her enthusiasm, waving her inside with her hand. "How much caffeine have you had?"

Nova followed her friend into the living room, hand to her heart as she gasped dramatically, before rolling her brown eyes.

"Only two cups, mother."

"Stop it," the brunette chuckled, a bright and unburdened smile on her face. "I'm just checking, you're usually more… grouchy and dead on your feet this time of day."

Okay fair, it was the weekend, and nap o'clock.

"Fuck off, I'm a joy to be around day and night," Nova replied, and well, even she knew that was a bold lie and ended up joining her in laughter.

"Heard that. Please mind your language." Mrs. Gilbert chided from the kitchen, nodding her head at Jeremy if she needed extra incentive.

Eh, he's heard worse. Mostly from her but still. It wasn't that bad. But she wasn't gonna argue with Mrs. G who was cooking her dinner, and not just any dinner, but lasagna, and so she mimed zipping her lips.

"Where's Bonnie?" Elena asked, slapping Jeremy's feet off the coffee table so she could sit on the couch.

Today, the Bennett twins would be bunking with the Gilbert's, as no one else could be bothered to deal with them.

Maybe that was a little unfair. But Grams had to go out of town for a conference and dad was off doing what he usually did — overworking himself to avoid the very sight of daughter's that looked like their mother.

Nova shoved her insecurities deep down and hopped onto the couch next to Jeremy, roughly ruffling his hair until he stopped playing his game enough to acknowledge her wonderful presence.

She leaned her head against the couch, grinning at the look of outrage on his face.

"Dude! You got me killed!"

"You were already dead!"

"She's flirting with a senior at the Grill," Nova replied to her best friend, her words gaining the attention of everyone in the room.

Gossips. All of them.

She couldn't blame them, small towns were so boring she was almost excited for the murder and mayhem to happen.

Hey, she did say almost.

"Oh? Who?" Elena asked, trying and failing to seem like she didn't want to know every detail.

"I don't know, some basic white boy I've probably passed by a dozen times and still don't know the name of." Nova shrugged, snatching the controller from Jeremy's loose grip when he died for the third time in a row.

"And you left her there?" Elena continued to question her, both of them ignoring the bitch fit Jeremy was having at her playing his game.

"Bonnie can handle herself... and I told him if he made any creepy movements that I would know through our twin telepathy and fry his di.. nether region off."

Jeremy snorted, all forgiven as she sniped the shit out of all his shitty gamer bro friends.

Elena looked to be struggling to pick an emotion, disgust and amusement.

Mrs. Gilbert just sighed heavily as she continued to chop vegetables.

She did in fact trust her sister to handle herself, but it was funny watching boys flinch at her creative threats. Or do that little angry huffing thing where they tried to scare her. They almost never took her threats seriously, but one day.. one day, she thought, sighing longingly.

Bonnie arrived fifteen minutes later with hot gossip in her arsenal. The dude had apparently been the worst at making conversation, like worse than Nova, the weird and introverted twin.

The conversation distracted her enough for Jeremy to pull her into a noogie, until she let go of the controller. "What the ..fudge nugget are they feeding you?" she muttered, fixing her hair before making her way to the kitchen.

"Need any help Mrs. G?" She asked, feeling a little bad for not offering sooner. Nova's relationship with Elena and her parents, knowing what she knew, might seem strange to someone looking in.

She wasn't exactly happy with the fact Mrs. and Mr. Gilbert was, according to her journal, one of the causes for why her and her sister's birth mom had left. But at the end of the day, her mom had a choice to make and she chose to leave them.

Miranda was there for her, at least. Sometimes, she wonders if it's out of guilt or genuine, but either way she was there and kind.

She eyed the boiling pot, and bit her lip from saying anything about the pasta probably being over cooked.

"Yes, thank you, you sweet girl. Could you stir the sauce?" Mrs. Gilbert pointed to the pot as she drained the ground beef.

Nova quietly turned off the pasta pot and stirred the sauce, and after tasting it, she looked at the bubbling sauce for a moment, and back at the spice rack and well, it wouldn't kill them.. would it?

She added more chilli powder, basil and crushed pepper to it and hoped for the best.

"You're a natural at this," Miranda said as she cleaned the spinach, giving her a soft smile that made her light up.

She was such a praise whore.

"It's .. kind of fun," she said, and that was true, but it also kept her distracted when her brain oh so rudely kept her awake.

Maybe it was something on her face that screamed there was more to it than what she was saying, because the older woman gently gave her a side hug. Mrs. Gilbert's hugs were always warm and comforting, but this time when her hand brushed against her skin, a chill went down her spine.

Her body shuddered against her will. She tried to fight the feeling of sleepiness that overtook her, but it wasn't sleepiness. Her eyes grew blurry and distant, before suddenly she was no longer in the Gilbert's kitchen, but underwater. In a car.

What the fuck.

Could she please catch a fucking break?

Nova turned her head to take in her surroundings and wanted to scream when she saw a drowned Mrs. Gilbert next to her. There was none of the softness in her eyes anymore, they were cold and empty.

She was dead.

Why was she dead? She was supposed to save her, to save them all. She tried to reach out to help her, but she could do nothing, she was nothing.

Just a spectator.

Nova blinked and the image was gone, her eyes burned with tears she hadn't been able to shed. Suddenly her appetite was gone.

"You okay, sweetie?" Mrs. Gilbert asked, looking down at her with a concerned frown.

Nova looked at the woman and struggled not to see the dead woman from the car, but the images were still present in her mind.

"Just a little tired."

"Well, thank you for the help, unlike my own children," Miranda raised her voice pointedly.

"Hey, we got our cooking skills from dad, blame him." Jeremy replied dryly, eyes still on his game.

"Speak for yourself, I make the best chilli."

"Right."

Nova would usually make a disgusted face or a joke at Elena's expense, but her heart wasn't in it, so she just quietly tried to shake off whatever the hell had just happened.

"You've been a big help, but I've got it from here, why don't you go take a nap before dinner?" Miranda suggested.

"Okay, Mrs. G," she replied, in too much of a shock to lie and say she was fine.

She made her way up stairs, and made herself comfortable in Elena's room as she crawled in the purple sleeping bag set out for her next to her sister's green one.

Sleep doesn't come. Because of course it doesn't.

Instead she has theories racing through her mind, like —

Maybe she was feeling the pressure of trying to keep them from going over the bridge.

Because this is a lot right? She was dealing with a lot of stress and it was a mother fucking miracle she hadn't gotten a little twitchy yet.

But every time she tried to go over her plan to save them from going over that damned bridge, it ended with flashes of the same image as before. Sometimes it wasn't just Miranda, sometimes it was Grayson, or Nature forbid, Elena.

She had another theory, a really fucking horrible theory, the kind she didn't want to confirm. In the kitchen, her magic had welled up like a fire being kindled. But the very thought of her magic trying to show her a death she was trying to prevent made her wanna vomit, and so she tossed and turned until dinner was ready.

Her appetite hadn't improved but dinner conversation was fun, at least.

Jenna had come home to mooch off of the food and wine, and her presence cheered her up enough to get her involved in conversation.

Her appetite was still shit, but she tried to force herself to eat. If she didn't eat her favorite food, everyone would think she was an imposter, or dying.

Bonnie still eyed her every now and then, watching her and her plate. She made sure to clean her plate of its contents, but couldn't muster the energy to eat seconds like she usually would.

"You okay?" Bonnie asked quietly as they helped Mr. Gilbert clean up the kitchen.

A smooth lie almost made it out of her mouth before she shrugged. "I'll tell you later."

Her sister looked unsatisfied by the reply, but she was distracted by Mr. Gilbert handing her another plate that needed drying.

She was fine.

Whatever had happened earlier was probably an omen of dumb fuckery doom but she was fine.

Grams was quick to reassure her that no, she wasn't going crazy, or being cursed. But she instead told her she was a fucking seer. As if she didn't have enough information going on in her brain.

"It's not exactly surprising, you girls have good intuition, and good intuition makes you more susceptible to things llike this." Grams said, getting a warm welcome back home from her granddaughters camping out in her living room.

And yeah, she would rather be cursed than deal with more foreknowledge.

Grams gave her a set of tarot cards, said channeling her intuition onto something would help her get a handle on her visions and then sent them on their way to school.

Bonnie gave her a crystal ball as a gag gift the next day.

Nova gave herself a bad haircut to go with her newly bleached hair — what? Sue her for the sad girl cliche, but she didn't react well to stress she couldn't fix, and fucking up her hair was better than any other reckless thoughts spinning in her head.

"Please let me fix it." Caroline pleaded after a week of dealing with what everyone in school was calling her mental breakdown hair.

Dicks.

…they weren't wrong, but they were still fucking dicks.

Nova didn't care about what everyone thought, but she did hate the strange shade of blonde on her head, and so she let the natural blonde help her — into a salon.

Looking at her new brown and blonde ombré hair and the short cut that came to her chin in the mirror, she thought that they might just have a magic of their own to be able to make her look this good.

That was about the last good thought she had, before she was chased around by cliche bad omens.

Mirrors broke when she thought of her visions, Death haunted her card readings, and she almost ran over a black cat when her dad took her out to teach her to drive.

Needless to say, after all of that, she was relieved when it was finally fucking Friday night. The upperclassmen were having a party in the woods after a … a decent football game.

Okay no, their team sucked, but their afterparties were always amusing to witness.

Usually they wouldn't have been invited, but they were cheerleaders now, and that made them cooler apparently.

Nova had stayed in her cheer uniform because well, if it was gonna make her cooler it might as well make her look good too.

She was a little drunk from shit beer and giggling at a really horrible joke the rival football team had made. He was kind of cute in that .. dumb jock way… or maybe that was the shit beer talking?

Still she kept nodding, twirling her short hair between her fingers with a dumb grin on her face. Gosh, she wanted a burger and curly fries.

Nova shivered when a shoulder bumped into hers, and turned to give them the middle finger, and maybe a 'well fuck you too, buddy' but, she grew silent at the sight of an expensive leather jacket.

Ah.

Well shit on a brick.

No one in this town dressed like that, and especially not a bunch of students.

Her journal had said she had more time before this would happen. Unless, she thought with growing dread, her interference had only sped things up.

"What an asshole," the jock said, moving to defend her honor or do some alpha male bullshit.

Nova patted his shoulder, distracting him before he could get himself killed deader than dead. She didn't remember his name, but she managed to get his attention with a fake laugh and change in conversation.

"Hey, hey, not so fast, can you .. get me another drink?" Nova asked him, quickly gulping hers down with a cough when he gave it a curious look.

"Then maybe we can talk somewhere more private?"

She looked at him as suggestively as she could while screaming internally, and rolled her eyes when he left in a hurry to the expensive yet horrible tasting cans of beer Tyler had smuggled in.

Yeah, she was more drunk than she had thought, to have talked to him for more than five minutes.

Nova ran in the opposite direction, trying to find where that expensive leather jacket wearing jerk had gone.

Maybe she was being paranoid? There were like thirty other people here, some from a town over. Expensive leather jackets that probably cost more than half her wardrobe could be like.. a thing from their school?

Maybe she was overreacting.

She found Elena instead of vampires, and unlike her, she had changed out of her uniform, and was staring into space. In the middle of the road.

Cool. That was fucking brilliant, not suspicious at all.

"What's up, babe?" Nova asked, clearing her throat when it wavered, her eyes scanning the area.

Nova wasn't exactly scared of that asshole, but she was afraid of what would come after.

She was too drunk to try her first plan— or any plan really— it involved absolute control over the situation.

"Hmm?" Elena turned around, blinking in what she assumed was post compulsion confusion.

Nova smiled brightly in the face of her internal screaming. "You good?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, I'm just… I .. Matt brought up marriage and kids.. and I'm just not in a partying mood anymore." Elena explained, walking closer to her, flip phone in hand.

Ugh, stupid Matt.

She had been trying to get her friend to break it off with him for weeks. He was cute and she loved him in that distant 'childhood friend that she rolled in the dirt with' way — but Matt and Elena did not work romantically.

They were in high school and he was talking about having kids? Jesus, she had to show him a goddamn baby birthing video one day.

"You're too pretty to settle for him," she said, looping her arm into hers and walking aimlessly with her.

"You say that about everyone."

"I'm not fucking wrong though."

Elena chuckled, her eyes scanning the road for something or someone. "I'll talk to him later. I just need to get home."

"Let me take you!" Nova offered, plastering a smile on her face that hurt her cheeks.

"Nova… you're drunk." Elena reminded her. Nova made a quiet ohh sound as she remembered that fact. "I called my Mom already. She should be here soon."

Maybe plan D(ick) was in order?

Sure kidnapping one's friend was… a lot. And it would reveal her status as a witch and the Gilbert's wouldn't ever trust her again, but they all would be alive.

Nova placed her hand on her friend's hand, her hesitancy making her magic slow to come.

Elena's eyes were drawn to hers, a little furrow in her brow as though she knew something was wrong, but the witch had made up her mind —

A car horn startled them both, and she shivered when the same cruel vision she had been having for a week took hold of her.

The brunette recovered first from the noise, slipping out of her reach, and walking towards the car they hadn't noticed pulling up.

"I'll see you later," Elena said, after greeting her parents.

Nova struggled to hear her over the sound of water rushing past her ears, an echo of the vision stubbornly remaining, like gum on underneath her fucking shoe.

"No!"

Elena jumped at the sadness and utter desperation in her tone more so than the volume.

"You okay?" Elena asked, finally noticing the look on her face. She couldn't answer, her eyes were too busy seeing her best friend drown with her parents.

"Did you need us to take you home, honey?" Miranda asked, and she wanted to cry at the concern aimed at her.

"I…" She could see flashes of it, in her mind, her drowning with them and — no, no, she refused to go out like that.

"No, I just.. you were just gonna leave me without a hug?" Nova joked, the smile on her face still painful as pulled her friend into a hug to hide it.

"Okay, okay," Elena said, patting her back and pulling back when the hug went on for too long. "Exactly how drunk are you?" She whispered with a small grin, before pulling away, getting in the car with one last little wave.

Watching them drive away put tiny little daggers in her heart. She clutched at her chest, struggling to take deep breath's in and out.

Shit, how many seconds, minutes, or hell forbid, hours had passed by while she stood there and moped.

She needed to keep a cool head.

Nova ran off in the direction the Gilbert's car had gone off to, but midway she decided fuck that and took a short cut through the woods that should - hopefully, lead her to the Wickery Bridge.

Nova went over the facts as she sprinted through the dark woods, the bonfires from the party fading as she ran through the woods, with only the moon and her dying phone to guide her. Her lungs and legs were burning, but she tried to push herself forward as fast as she could.

Fact one, her influence was fucking with everything to the point her visions were a shifting pile of shit. Like dominoes, or the butterfly effect. Whatever the fuck you wanted to call it, it meant she couldn't trust her future knowledge to be ironclad anymore, not even her visions were completely safe.

Fact two, the universe or fate or whoever or whatever the fuck did not want her to interfere with Elena's parents dying.

Fact three, fuck the fucking universe, she was stubborn and had all this knowledge and power for what?

And — her legs really hurt from tripping over fucking fallen tree limbs and rocks that were getting in her goddamn way, and great it was raining now, there goes her moonlight, why was this universe so cruel?

She bounced back like a ball against a wall, and only strong hands on her shoulders kept her from hitting the ground like one too.

Burning lungs be damned, she blinked against the pouring rain and looked up with a glare filled with burning hatred towards the shadowy figure that had dared to interrupt her momentum.

"Hey, hey, are you alright? Is there someone chasing you?" Stefan Salvatore asked her over the pouring rain and vicious lightning.

Ah, great.

The other one, she thought, wanting to scream at him but refraining.

Always the hero.

Where the fuck was her hero hair, she thought with a sniffle.

Nova could hardly breathe let alone speak, and blinking away the rain that was beginning to drown her, she realized that she wouldn't have made it either way.

She was gonna be too fucking late, and who knew if Stefan would wind up near the crash now, all because of her.

Nova ignored his words and dropped her phone to grab his face, pressing her fingers to his forehead.

Before he could shove her away, she used her magic to shove her visions of her friend drowning to his mind.

"You're… it can't be, she looks just like.." Fucking Katherine.

"Please." Nova said, and it was all she could muster between heaving breaths.

Before she could gather the breath to ask him to take her with him, he left her so quickly she started to question if he had even been there at all.

Goddamnit.

Without someone to hold her up, she quickly slid to the ground, her knees scraping along the way, until she fell back onto the wet bark of the tree behind her. She stared at the rip in the skirt of her cheer uniform, watching as the mud, blood and rain ruined it.

Nova waited for the tears to come, but they didn't, she just felt empty and exhausted.

A loud rustle in the bushes made her look up, and she thought maybe it was one of the Salvatore brothers. Maybe one of them was gonna eat her in the not so fun way, that would be cherry on the fucking top of this fucktastic night — but surprisingly enough it was an actual animal.

Whatever it was, she didn't need light to see their unrealistically bright green eyes. The moment they came closer, the lightning illuminating their figure for a second, was the moment her breath caught in her throat once again.

Merlin.