A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited and followed "My Paper Heart!" It's really great to get your feedback. :)
There's a character in this chapter that I happen to especially miss seeing on the TV show. I really enjoyed writing a little tribute to him, so keep your eyes peeled for his appearance. ;)
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of its characters. This is a work of fiction written for entertainment purposes, but the original characters and original storylines present in "My Paper Heart" are my own work.
All of this had happened almost two years ago. So many things had changed since then…
On one particular evening, I had learned of the existence of a supernatural world. Vampires, witches, werewolves, and a little farther down the road, doppelgangers, the ability to see dead people, and hybrids.
They had gathered at the Salvatore mansion to announce the news to me. Everyone was there: Elena, Damon, Stefan, Alaric, Bonnie and Caroline. When I entered the mansion, they looked at me like I was walking to my death sentence. At the time, I hadn't known how close to the reality that statement really was.
Elena made me sit on the couch and took my hand in hers. She explained everything quietly and slowly, like she was talking to a five year old. They were all staring at me like they expected me to turn hysterical or crazy, but I disappointed them. All in all, they were pretty stunned by my reaction.
Of course, I was surprised. And I had a thousand of questions. But I had known for months that they had been hiding something from me. I had noticed that the Salvatore brothers were different without being able to figure out why. Some of Bonnie's reactions or statements were also strange sometimes but they made total sense as soon as I knew the truth about what she was.
But my calm reaction was mostly due to the tiny voice in the back of my head saying that I had known about the supernatural for a long time now, and for a good reason.
After the big revelation, I became Alaric's fighting buddy. Damon and Stefan had insisted that I learn how to protect myself from the moment they told me about the dangerous world I was living in.
Alaric had quickly realized that I didn't need fight-training when I threw him flat on the carpet. I might have forgotten to tell him about my eight years of taekwondo and judo practice.
Nonetheless, he taught me how to make vervain and wolfs bane grenades, how to use the wrist stakes, and showed me the technique for shooting a target with wooden bullets.
Despite all of this training, Damon, Stefan and Alaric hadn't wanted me to tag along with them on their missions at first. When I finally convinced them to take me as backup, they had insisted on keeping me out of the war zone. I had been ordered to stay away, hidden, and to move only when one of them would tell me to.
Unfortunately for them, I had never been the kind of girl to listen, wait and watch. Or maybe it was fortunate, because my first mission had been a total mess.
Stefan was locked in Pearl's basement, being tortured by the evil tomb vampires.
Elena was pretty much as stubborn as I was, and threw herself into the middle of the vampires' nest without thinking. Alaric and Damon were fighting in the hallway, but they were too outnumbered. I cursed silently at the order they imparted on me, instead grabbing the crossbow hanging at my back. I used it to shoot my first stake- right through the heart of the vampire on Alaric's back.
When I joined the heat of the battle, everything was chaotic and happened too fast. It was incredibly terrifying, but I felt the adrenaline pumping wildly through my veins. I hadn't felt so alive since my parents died. It was incredibly empowering.
As soon as all the danger had been eliminated and we were all together and safe, Alaric shot me a side glance and scanned my entire body. When he realized that I had gotten away with only a scratch on my forehead, a satisfied smirk grew on the corner of his lips. Slapping his hand on the back of my shoulder a little too hard, he said, "We make a hell of a good team! Thanks for killing that bastard and saving my ass."
"You're welcome," I laughed, surprisingly happy to see him proud of me.
He groaned, remembering his choice of words too late. "I shouldn't talk to one of my students like that," he chided himself. "I'm a terrible role model…"
"You shouldn't hunt vampires with them either, so I think we're past that," I answered, a mischievous smile on my lips.
I had quickly become comfortable around Alaric. Like I was able to let out the darker, wilder part of myself without him being bothered by it. He never judged me; he even understood it.
Many missions had followed and we had in fact turned out to make a hell of a good team. He had saved my ass almost as many times as I had saved his, and I loved the unique relationship the two of us shared.
It was during this period that Alaric had noticed I was always walking away from the battle with only a few scratches and a couple of bruises. At first they began to joke about it, but it wasn't long before the group grew genuinely suspicious. How could a human girl avoid getting hurt while fighting supernatural creatures? I brushed it off, telling them that I was too smart for vampires and that I had the best fighting partner ever to cover my back. If the daily routine of Mystic Falls hadn't been so crazy, I knew I wouldn't have been able to get away with what had happened so easily. But somehow I did.
I wished I could have been able to talk Alaric out of it that easily when he told us that he didn't want to become a vampire- that he wouldn't complete the transition like Esther had planned. Because I felt like I was losing my parents all over again.
His funeral was perfect. Alaric would have liked it. Damon had even left a bottle of scotch on the side of grave instead of flowers. When it had been my turn to go up and say the last goodbye, I looked down at his coffin in concentration. I raised two of my fingers to place each of them under my eyes, then put my forefinger on my ear and finally placed it in front of my lips, like he had always done before every single one of our missions to remind me to look at everything, listen carefully and be quiet. It had been his way to telling me to be careful and come back safe.
After the ceremony, I felt numb for days. I wasn't able to breathe or even think. It felt like someone had ripped one of my arms off. Something was missing. Alaric was missing.
Elena was even more of a wreck than I was and it made me snap out of my own distress to cheer her up. So did Caroline and Bonnie.
Sharing the secret of a supernatural world had gotten me and the rest of the gang closer, but Alaric's death had bound us together even more. Over the years, I had learned to like each and every one of them. When Caroline had been turned into a vampire, she became stronger, more confident and gained an entertaining sense of humour. Without really noticing it, I grew fond of the girl.
She had become one of my best friends, even though I still wanted to slap her in the face now and then. She was a cheerful pain in the ass sometimes, but weirdly enough she never had been too pushy with me on certain subjects. Like my parents, or my sentimental life. Smart girl.
Most of the time, I thought that becoming a vampire was the best thing that had ever happened to Caroline. But that would mean thanking Katherine for killing her, and that was not going to happen. That deadly vampire had made every single one of my friends' lives miserable. She had tragically changed many of their paths, and her schemes always seemed to turn our everyday lives into hell.
Strangely enough, I had never actually crossed Katherine's path myself. Half on purpose, half simply out of circumstances. And mysteriously, I was the only one she had never messed with. Probably because I tried to avoid her at all costs. I couldn't handle her frightening resemblance to Elena. It was utterly confusing to me, and I knew it made me too vulnerable- an easy prey for her.
I only had been in the same room as her once or twice, and I had every time stood quietly, as far away as possible from her. The only one moment I had gotten close to her had been to help Damon throw her in the tomb, and at that point she was unconscious.
The remainder of the time, I had been on the other team when the plan was to split up. Which was perfectly fine with me since I didn't have to interacting with her, or even worse, pretend that she was Elena.
None of us had seen her for many months after Alaric's death, and I was thrilled about it. She didn't have any kind of effect on me anymore, not after all we had been through in Mystic Falls. But I was still hoping that, now that Bonnie, Tyler, Damon, Stefan and I had finally succeeded in killing Klaus and burying him in the bottom of the ocean, she was not going to show up again.
Damon had developed some respect for me because of my abilities on the battlefield, but he was still the first class jackass with flirtatious manners. The only thing I really liked about him was his dry sense of humour, even though most of the time I restrained myself from laughing at his jokes in front of the others. I was sarcastic myself with a little touch of dark humor sometimes, but I had learned to keep it to myself when I moved to Mystic Falls. Despite my best efforts, it was still right beneath the surface, and I was really enjoying letting it come out every time I was alone with Damon.
Our sparring matches were refreshing and funny, though I frequently ended up wanting to punch him at the end of the conversation. But what made me perfectly fine with my need to hit him to get rid of the frustration he caused was that I knew he felt the exact same way about me.
It was different though, with Stefan and Bonnie. I had learned to get to know them better and now I could finally think of them as my friends.
I was impressed by Stefan's morals and loyalty, and had always appreciated his diplomacy. His unconditional love for Elena and the way he made her happy eventually allowed me to befriend him despite my jealousy.
Bonnie, on the other hand, was still judgemental, but not completely obtuse. She always managed to go along with ideas she couldn't even stand in the first place simply out of love. And I knew it required strength and devotion to be able to do that. After I interfered to protect her from being bitten by a vampire, and after she had saved my ass a couple of times, we both realized that we could count on each other. Without talking about it or even showing it, a tacit friendship had sprung up between us.
The only thing that hadn't changed during these two years was Elena's love for Stefan. And I had finally accepted it.
Because of our similar history, Elena and I had grown closer quickly, becoming almost inseparable. It felt like we both had known each other for our entire lives. I wasn't really able to define our relationship. It was like we had been in a terrible deadly shipwreck and we only survived it because we had found and helped each other. There was an indestructible link keeping us together that no one else could ever understand. She was my best friend, my soul mate, my sister, my confidante, all at once.
Because of that, I just sat on my feelings for her, every time life had been cruel to her, every time she had suffered a loss, every time Stefan had broken her heart, or turned into a ripper and she needed to cry on my shoulder. Every time she had wanted to be hugged, to feel safe in my arms, to snuggle with me in bed. But it was fine. I was able to handle it because she needed me. And I needed her.
It had been a couple of weeks now since Klaus had been killed, and everything seemed to go back to normal again. Klaus was dead; Rebekah, Elijah and Kol were nowhere to be found.
Caroline was still dealing with Tyler's death- he had sacrificed himself to help us mummify Klaus. We all knew his act was driven by the will to redeem himself for all that happened because of his sire bond to Klaus, but knowing that didn't help Caroline feel better- at first.
But now, her usual smile was back on her lips. Most of the time.
Bonnie seemed to have found her match with Jaime, and was finally at peace with her mother being a vampire.
Elena and Jeremy had managed to overcome their grief for Alaric after many talks with his ghost, and Jeremy eventually decided to go back to Denver- of his own accord this time.
Damon was dealing with his feelings for Elena, trying really hard to get her out of his head for good. Meaning: he was screwing every girl in town between two sips of bourbon.
As for Elena and Stefan, they had worked out their issues and were together again, seemingly happy and relaxed.
Without being able to completely shake the paranoia in our minds, we were slowly, finally, allowing ourselves to breathe a little and enjoy life… All we could hope for was that it would last.