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Chapter Text

"The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage." – Jack London

chapter one: mayday, mayday

She has a vision of Grayson Gilbert.

His wife is beside him, loose white shirt near-ethereal as it reflects the dim flicker of drowned headlights. Her head lolled, long, dark hair obscuring the twist of her neck.

Dead, on impact. 

Water is pouring in, bracingly cold, as his eyes leave his wife for the girl in the backseat, similarly slumped, similarly long, dark hair, shrouding her face. Her fate.

Only the teenage girl comes to, bruised and unknowing of what just happened, as Grayson fights the door, sealed by the force pressing inward, then the window, elbow brutally swinging against the glass like an animal stuck in a cage.

Elena extends her hand as far as she can reach, begs him to stop, voice choking off as the torrent of water has them submerged. She wants only the reassurance of not being alone – of dying alone – as her last breath leaves her lungs.

In the gloom, there’s no one to hear, to see, to aid. The car is their tomb, not built to open from the inside. 

He stops, to offer her a modicum of stillness, an illusion of peace, just for the moment before her eyes close.

Had he done the same, had he given in, he would have been saved. The man who swims to his door would have pulled him out, not seeing through the shadows of the backseat, for the girl whose heart is lulling to eternal sleep.

Grayson tells the vampire he recognizes as Stefan Salvatore, no – not him – save my daughter, and dies, with his eyes wide open. 

Someone gets the drop on her in Richmond.

She wakes in a field, far outside that city, bound wrists stretched over her head, rope tight and bruising, the muscles in her shoulders aching. Her hair is a tangled riot, skin abraded, dress torn.

Someone without the muscle or the courtesy to carry her. Vindictive enough to drag her. 

She stays slumped in the dirt, blinking the fog of the dispersed spell from her mind, cataloguing and brushing aside the minor injuries. 

What an auspicious start, to her retirement. 

Her audience of one stares down at her, tucking their phone away, putting their hand on the knife sheathed to their belt.

"Surprised?" 

Casey ignores the gloating dig in that question, listening for and looking for others. Trying to figure out where she is. The how matters less than where, and why.

"Should I tell you where we are, or do you know that at least?"

No...somehow, in this clearing, in this destroyed wood, lies memory.  

Had she still had her abilities, her affliction, she might have woken screaming, trapped reliving the one hundred hangings and burnings that took place here. It's jolting, realizing she feels nothing at all but humid air on her skin, as if a sense – or five – have been cut off. She's been blinded, deafened, loss the sense of touch, reduced to seeing as everyone else, hearing as everyone else, feeling as everyone else. The only benefit now, is she can stop from reacting. She can think.

Marie continues, aggravated she hasn't gained a response. 

"I didn't think it would be this easy. I was prepared to fight you," she laughs with the absurdity of easy success, with nerves still. "I was so nervous you saw something in me, that maybe you'd know."

Casey pulls her bound arms down, cradles them against her chest, tries to keep her raw wrists away from the knots. "Well," she modulates her voice to be lackluster, purposefully giving no real reaction. "I'm your captive audience. Why don't you enlighten me on what we're doing here, since I don't know anything at all?"

Marie works her jaw, glaring at her surroundings before transferring the force of it down at Casey, moving closer, standing taller with each step. "Nothing? You can't guess?"

Casey blinks, for all the world, unperturbed.

"Why would I take you here? Tonight?" She stresses.

She briefly glances at Marie's knife, in question. 

Why would a witch of middling talent would take someone of magical blood, if not at her previous...denomination...to an isolated spot of powerful, consecrated grounds, on a new moon, with a ritual knife openly strapped to her belt? Welllll.

"Does it all just bleed together? Do the deaths mean nothing to you?" She tilts her head, seemingly genuinely curious.

"Whose?" She asks.

Marie laughs, in disbelief and disappointment, like Casey has failed to live up to her expectations. She rolls her eyes, and her hand falls from her knife. "The doppelgänger's family."

Casey frowns at her chaffed wrists, fingers idly stretching. 

The doppelgängers parents.

The crash off Wickery Bridge?

It's unfathomable that...it hasn't happened yet. Hasn't happened a long time ago. She's still adjusting, relearning the linear flow of time. She's not trapped in the past one minute, then the future, while being splintered into a dozen other presents.

Thinking about it happening now is like taking her to Sarajevo and saying the Archduke is about to be shot. 

"Please go on," she mutters.

"Once it's confirmed that they're dead, you can join them.”

Her brows twitch. 

"Because one has something to do with the other?" 

"Can't have you intervening."

Casey tilts her head back into the dirt and stares up at the dark sky.

Maria didn't know anything about seer magic. Anyone who could be jealous couldn't truly understand it. Seers can't lie. Not outright. And again, she was bound by oath that she would not change through action or inaction, through deed, or word what she has foretold. That was the Faustian bargain she made to acquire the resources to piece her sanity and lucidity together. The deal to get the visions to stop. The backlash of breaking that vow would...

"I couldn't even if I wanted to.”

“Guess it’s a good thing you didn’t want to then." 

She grits her teeth. “Condemnation from someone intent on murdering me? Having me bound in the dirt doesn't give you the moral high ground. It only shows you're afraid of someone who doesn't even have magic left to fight you. You would not have even tried if-"

"Don't delude yourself," Maria spits, concentrating hard before piercing her with a nerve spell that races like electricity in her veins, jerking her into a rigid seizure. “You had power, now you're nothing.”

“And yet here you have me,” she chokes out, laughing with it. 

Marie strides even closer, as if the magic wasn't enough. She wants the superiority of standing directly over her, forcing Casey to look up on the flat of her back. 

“Don’t you realize what you’ve done?" She mocks. "You didn’t remove the target, you just stopped yourself from seeing it. Someone else would have gotten to you, and once they realized they couldn’t spell the knowledge out of your head or compel you they’d break you.”

"Oh?" She looks up at her, eyes large, staying coiled and still in the dirt "you're doing this for me then? Giving me the easy way out?"

Maria juts her chin, defensive and self-righteous.

"Just a coincidence of location? Not planning on profiting at all?"

"You used to be a witch, your blood means you deserve a chance to make it to the Other Side, to be with the ancestors."

She blinks, buries her incredulity, and that part of her that wants to argue and reason and talk her way out this, because betrayal masquerading as mercy, a mercenary affecting kindness, is lunacy. 

She thinks, going to the Other Side? Like hell.

“Want to know what I saw in you Marie?” Better souls than Marie have faltered at the chance, to hear her words, her judgment. Hear a seer's determination. Marie is just the same, freezing at the opportunity. 

“Nothing. At. All,” and she takes her moment quickly, and violently, kick out.

The crash reverberates against the open water.

Splinters of white oak is strewn over the bridge, the wooden guardrail split like the wreckage of a ship.

The hairs on the back of her neck are raised, skin prickled though she isn't cold. Her heart beats like a drum as the water sloshes from the impact. She’s not a creature of magic any longer, but she imagines she can feel the resonance that rings out, calls aid to the doppelgänger. She toes off her shoes between one board and the next, keeps her hand outstretched onto the rail until she comes to the gaping wound. The red backlights descend into the murky water, near obscured under a dark, clouded sky. She's shaking from more than adrenaline, the poison spiking through her bloodstream.

Marie knew that she knew just how poisoned the blade was, had expected Casey to shy away from the knife, to falter once it connected.

She's fought lost causes before, and now? What's there to lose?

She picks her moment, and dives off the precipice.

She's all of two feet away, treading water, as he breaks the surface.

"I've got her, go back!" she reaches quickly for Elena's slumped form, both of her hands underwater. Vampires are more fox, more hyena, than shark. She hopes the water will obscure.

She tries to keep the weakness off her face, keep her shoulders back, her eyes clear. Someone competent and strong enough to handle this part so he can focus on another. 

He hesitates, looking between her and Elena as she actively takes hold of her. She cuts her eyes to him sharply, certain he won't make it down in time, before he dives back under, impossible to follow with his dark hair and dark clothes.

She crosses her arm over Elena's chest, shying from Elena's bruised ribs, and tilts her head back to rest on her shoulder, trying to keep them steady. There's a disquieting unreality to it, touching the doppelgänger. She hopes it isn't damning. A fly willingly diving into a spider's web. 

She should make for the bank, but she needs to know, she needs to see Stefan break the surface with an alive Grayson Gilbert in his arms.

But what if Grayson tells him to grab his wife's body – what if he doesn't know Miranda is dead – what if he gave into the water once Elena was rescued?

What if this – this risk – is entirely pointless?

Stefan reaches the surface, with Grayson issuing gut wrenching coughs, in his grasp.

"Is she breathing?" Grayson chokes, immediately on Elena. "Is, is she-?"

She shrinks without answer. She knows Elena will be fine, but she doesn't actually know, in this moment, if she is, if she's breathing at all. Had the doppelgänger died here, before she died here?

"I can't tell," she jostles Elena's weight higher as he swims closer, pushes the strands of hair off her face, skates his fingers to the pulse of her neck.

Stefan stays outside the loose perimeter as Grayson starts to slide his arms around Elena, and they trade her weight. She's mute when she's supposed to tell him to focus on himself, that she can take Elena or give her to Stefan. She keeps her face open, her movements small, surrounded by predators. She sinks incrementally, neck straining to keep from going under. 

Grayson maneuvers Elena to align her back against his chest. One hand encircles her throat as he performs something like the Heimlich maneuver. Her body jolts, spewing water.

The doppelgänger remains slumped and unconsciousness.

"I'll get her to the bank. Do you have a cell phone? A car?"

She nods wordlessly as Grayson gathers his strength, forces his will.

"Tell them Dr. Gilbert needs an ambulance for his daughter at Wickery Bridge," he instructs, waits for her immediate nod before he starts swimming backwards, Elena tightly enclosed to his chest, and his other arm on a backstroke. He doesn't head for the much closer bridge, made viable by the high-water level, and the large, jagged hole torn out of its side. That would require assistance. Grayson instead swims for the muddy embankment, the red gloom below opening up between them. Shards of white oak drifting by.

"Are you alright?" Stefan Salvatore asks her, made near stranger with his dark hair flattened against his forehead. 

It takes her a moment, to focus on him, to think about what she should do now. One catastrophe, one rescue. One change. And her, still here. 

It's like she expects the water to engulf her, to drag her down to even the scales. She's marooned, in the face of nothing. Breath still in her lungs, pain in her veins. 

She drifts slightly, blocking his view of Grayson and Elena's retreating forms. "I can manage.” She looks away, prepares herself to make a bald entreaty, for him or her, wondering if he realizes that Grayson doesn't want them to follow. “Can you help me climb up the bridge?"

He looks between the bank, and the bridge, and her. She doesn't have the strength to wait, treading water while his world realigns, while he refocuses. She asks without waiting, and so reaches the bridge first. 

She pulls in a breath in preparation before stretching to get both hands braced on to the wooden slats, the splinters pressing into her fingertips. Black veins have spider-webbed from the wound and crawled up her forearm.

She hardly clears half of the height before she starts to fall back. Her bad arm, the poisoned arm, burns with licking fire, the nerves screaming. She chokes back her cry, tears leaking as Stefan's hands catch her at the waist, keep her raised and anchored as she breathes shakily. His touch is more jolting than Elena's. She hadn't been prepared to be touched at all.

He asks if she's okay, but her heart is hammering in her ears. She fights the urge to slacken in his grip, to let herself sink, and instead pulls herself up on bloodless, throbbing fingers. Her elbows shake as she gets her chest flat against the bridge, crawling until her knees hit the deck. She lays there, cheek pressed against the cool saturated bridge, breath burning her upper lip. She weakly rolls onto her back and stares up at the pitch black, clouded sky, wondering again, if this is it. 

Stefan pulls himself up by the strength of his arms alone. She lolls her head in his direction to see he's all in shadow. Black hoodie, half-zipped, black shirt, dark jeans, and black boots that barely make a thud on the wooden slats as he climbs to his feet. How inhuman, to not need to strip layers, to make it in time. A predator dressed for hunting.

He offers her his hand. 

She doesn't want to take it. She doesn't want to move again. 

She shakily stretches out her left hand, and takes his help to stand again on bare feet. 

"Are you..." he trails off as her knees lock to keep from buckling. What adrenaline she had to get her this far is draining through a sieve.

"Thank you," she breathes, her shoulders dropping with the effort. She's cautious with her stride, notices Stefan keeps his hands slightly spread at his hips, as if waiting for her fall. He flexes them at her glance, flattens them against his jeans as he looks away, eyes pulled towards the embankment. She looks over the rail but can't spot Grayson or Elena. Nothing but water and trees. Legolas what do your elf eyes see...

She can only make out what's in front of her. She passes her sandals without realizing.

"I'm sure they're...fine," she broaches, muscles locked against the shivers working out of her chest. She's dripping wet, sundress uncomfortably plastered, hair heavy on her back, straining her neck. It feels like she's sweating under it all. Fevered. "He might need a moment to...explain what happened..." she trails off, not naming Miranda, not letting on what she knows. It depends on whether Elena has gained consciousness and how forthright Grayson intends on being. She wonders, is it safe for Stefan to be alone with Grayson, to be on Grayson's radar? How far does gratitude stretch when you've been conditioned to think all vampires are enemies? 

She hadn't considered the ramifications of Grayson Gilbert living, only that it would change things. 

Stefan nods, hands flexing slightly in front of him before he stuffs them into his jacket pockets. He’s subdued, as broody as expected, with what’s been drudged up, out of the lake. Likely stuck on how is this possible?

Stefan's eyes slid to her when they reach the asphalt, lingering on the protective way she's hunched over her arm, holding her elbow with her left hand. She doesn't realize he stops until his question comes from behind, not alongside, her.

"How badly are you hurt?"

It feels like her veins are being grated. The ache sinks into her bones and sinew, the tightness in her neck makes every movement pulse, her head jack-hammering.

"A little worse for wear," she summaries.

His forehead creases.

"The wound on your hand...it looks like blood poisoning."

She turns her arm up to the encroaching, spider-webbed danger. Her blue fingertips. She curiously watches his reaction, doesn't see the predator in it, and wonders if, to him, it smells of rot or sickness. If she smells of oncoming death. 

"It sort-of is. Poisoned." There's no telling how her body will handle it's magic, slow it or speed it up. She's surprised to be alive at all. "I need to find out if Sheila Bennett is in a helping mood."

His mouth parts, but she turns away, heads for the silver Mercedes haphazardly parked and only slightly pulled into the shoulder. She slips through the open driver's door and reaches, achingly, for the cell phone in the cupholder, with the blade gleaming in the passenger seat.

Her vision spots as she dials blindly. Accident. Wickery Bridge. One unconscious, in need of ambulance. They’re on the south embankment, no I'm not with them. She drops the phone when she's done, takes a moment to look up at Stefan, a stride away from the open door, brows drawn tighter, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"Sheila Bennett?" He asks.

She picks at her yellow sundress, pulling the plastered fabric away from her thighs with her fingertips.

"Magic problems require magic solutions." She looks down at the damage, sees blackened veins have spiderwebbed past the elbow joint. Perhaps mundane medicine could save her as well, with amputation. Likely not though.

His brows furrow. 

"Do you often talk about magic with strangers?" There's some deniability in his voice, the way he says 'magic' as supernatural creatures are wont to do when they're pretending to be human. But he's curious and wary at the candor, eyes tracking hers as he tries to read them. 

What he's really asking, or at least wants to, is why me? What do you know about me to be this honest? 

And there's an easy answer, sitting ostentatiously on his finger. Her eyes drift to his ring. "I have an eye for jewelry."

His hand twitches, instinctively protective if she were to guess, as he gives her opposite hand a cursory glance. Neither of her two rings have a lapis lazuli stone to match, but it's a good instinct to wonder if they too are magical in nature. 

"The guy you saved, Grayson Gilbert," she inclines her head towards the lake. "He has a ring too. A Bennett talisman that protects the human wearer against supernatural death. It also tends to make the wearer act...invincible...around the supernatural."

The expression on his face is pure skepticism, his brows up. “A resurrecting ring...that protects against supernatural death..."

"An heirloom of Jonathan Gilbert, from Emily Bennett," she recites "You might remember killing him?" His expression becomes as still as a statue. "If you check out his gravestone, you'd see the inconsistency. It drove Samantha Gilbert mad, which led to her murdering your family member in..." She blanks, pictures it but doesn't know how to communicate the image. 

He lets the prompting hang for a moment before sighing. "1912," he offers, scrubbing his palm over his eyes and then through his hair, causing it to spike. He looks more familiar that way.

"So, if you're planning on seeking answers be on your guard," she stresses. "He thinks he can kill you and you can't kill him."

His lips scrunch slightly as he narrows his gaze thoughtfully.

There's more there than she could possibly gleam from just seeing a daylight ring. An opening, on why she thinks he would seek out Grayson, or why she happened to be parked here as their car went over the bridge. She waits, resting the side of her face against the head rest, knees pulled up into a huddle. The leather slicks with the water still dripping from her, and her hair feels water-sealed to the side of her face. It's itchy, but she doesn't have the energy to push it away. 

"How serious is it?" He lifts his chin slightly, arms crossed again at his chest.

"Deadly."

His arms loosen, and his eyes track the black spiderweb veins creeping up her arm to her bicep. "Why did you jump in?"

She attempts a shrug, feeling heavier and heavier. "Took a gamble.”

"On your life?" He asks quietly. 

With all that she knows about him, it surprises her still, to have his empathy directed at her. A stranger with strange behavior and strange words. 

"Can't always pick the stakes," she says just as quietly, closing her eyes.

"And you don't want to risk...vampire blood?" 

Her eyes scrunch, slow to catch the implication. For that she peeks up at him, vision momentarily hazy. "Not in the way you think." She smiles slightly, as his eyes glance down, wishing not to be read. "You know how...there's some things your blood can't cure? It’s not judgment thats keeping me from asking.”

He exhales, arms across his chest easing. She hadn't realized he was keeping his distance, to not spook her.

"But Sheila Bennett can help you?"

“Hopefully.” 

She bows her chin to her knee. Stefan watches her, hears fatigue and resignation in her voice. 

"You know," he starts slowly "saving two people from drowning... it's a nice final act, if you don't believe you can be saved."

She minutely shakes her head, thinking back to Marie’s words ‘good thing you didn’t want to then’. She hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t given it a thought until she was drop-kicked into Mystic Falls. "We must be remembering who did the saving differently."

He make a noise in his throat, not quite a hum or a sigh. “Just one more question?" 

"Shoot," she offers, against the the whirl of approaching sirens. 

"What are you?"

She swallows. There aren't any words for what she is, for what's left. 

"Nothing, anymore."

The lights, blue and red, flash behind her eyelids as the ambulance arrives.

Stefan stripes out of his hoodie, pulls the soaked material around her shoulders. "I imagine you still want to avoid the hospital," he says in an undertone, arranging the sleeve to drape over her arm.

She honestly thought it was too late. It was likely the paramedics would take her away, and her reality was to lose an arm, to be butchered, far gone at that point, in twilight sleep. 

"Are you sure you can make it to Sheila's house?" he asks her, seeing her befuddlement, at his touch, his help. 

"I... don’t actually know where it is," she admits, whisper quiet. 

He's close enough, even in the dark, for her to make out the dark green in his eyes, the outline of his dark lashes. She had realized she couldn’t make it herself after pulling herself up on the bridge. Somehow, Stefan sees that, and sees her. What she was doing, what she didn't ask. 

He pulls the jacket around her, until it meets in the front, then leans back, eyes on the squad car and ambulance. "It's probably best if you move to the passenger seat then."

He approaches the two EMTs and the officer getting out of their vehicles. Whether they see her or not, whether Stefan can cover for her, she decides to try, carefully moving the sheathed dagger to the floorboard, and then shuffling across the center console. She forces her eyes to stay open once she's situated, searching for Stefan's form, trying to read the body language of the EMT he's pulled to the side. 

She jolts when he opens the driver's door, realizes she's been floating between consciousness.

"How long has it...?" she turns her face into her shoulder to cough.

"Not long," he starts the engine, the keys already dangling from the ignition. "I had to convince them it was better for me to take you home."

"Very convincing," she agrees, as he stopped them from approaching her at all. It helps that it's a small town, that the focus is on Grayson and Elena. 

"I might have also compelled them," he admits, almost testing.

"I thought you couldn't, on an animal diet," she mumbles, half confused.  

His brows furrow, and he changes his grip on the steering wheel. "I... can. It's just not as strong, and as long as I'm not...forcing someone to do something they aren't open to, it's fine."

She wonders how much of compulsion relies on the recipient’s openness, and how much can be cajoled by his demeanor, his word choice. Is it innate to his personality, that he can stretch his powers when he's weaker, or something that developed because his compulsion is weaker? 

Her thoughts tangent and worsen her headache.

He must have looked over because his voice softens. "Do you need help staying awake?"

"Definitely not," she mumbles.

"Of course not," he agrees, deadpan. "Do you mind if I use your phone?"

She blearily pulls the phone, Marie's phone, out from under her before handing it over, listens to the one-sided conversation as he asks Zach for directions to Sheila's house.

"Brown wood with a blue door," she mumbles, picturing it. She knows what the inside and outside of Bonnie's house, Sheila's house, the Boarding House, the Gilbert house, the Lockwood house, the Forbes house, the Donovan house looks like, but she doesn't know how to navigate to any of those locations. Could hardly believe she made it to the bridge at all. 

When they arrive at Sheila's house, she knows she drifted off again because she doesn't remember the car stopping, and Stefan is at the passenger side with the door open, squatting and lightly touching her face. She can feel the press on his thumb on her chin, his fingertips on her cheek.

"Your lips are blue," he observes somberly.

Her lips press, her breath weakly wheezing through her chest. "The dagger." That's all that's important, right now. 

Her left hand stays gripped to the back of his shirt, nearly all her weight leaning against him. He turns his shoulder as if a pillar, and his right palm briefly touches her back before moving a hairsbreadth away.

The harsh florescent light blankets the porch in a glare as they wait.

Sheila answers the door in pajamas and a bathrobe, a disapproving twist to her lips and an evaluating glance thrown over their waterlogged appearance. She stays behind the doorway.

"And who are you?" She directs at Casey, keeping both in her sights.

"Casey Shannon," she murmurs, her left-hand tightening on the back of Stefan's shirt, unseen.

"Stefan Salvatore," he reciprocates.

"Mm-hmm."

"You might not remember me," Stefan leads politely, offering his hand, balanced as far as he can put it. "but we met in October of 1969."

Sheila's looks down at his hand with raised, penciled brows, as if asking ‘sure you know what you’re doing?’ "Yes I remember."

She trusts in her own power should it be a ploy to pull her onto the porch, so she grasps his hand.

They both turn to her once the handshake is over, waiting.

She grimaces, follows his lead, given no alternative. 

Sheila's eyes sharpen on hers, not dropping her awkwardly stretched left hand as quickly. "I'm not sure what you are, but I can feel you're in pain."

"Yes," she agrees woozily. "And in need of a flushing solution."

Her brows raise "To flush what?"

She realizes the black jacket pulled over her is in the way, so she tries shrugging it off. Stefan reaches over and pulls the fabric aside, letting Sheila see the black veins crawling up her skin. Sheila tracks them from her hand to the base of her neck.

"Poison," Sheila declares.

Stefan hands over the sheathed dagger.

Sheila studies it in a careful grasp, as if she's handling an artifact more than a weapon.

"Snake venom?" she guesses, spying the ouroboros carving on the handle.

More of her weight leans into Stefan's side. "No. It's a blood poisoning spell, but the dagger is coated in werewolf venom."

The ouroboros was a typical 'I'm a servant of nature, everything in balance, all actions righteous and justified' witch motif. And misleading in case someone wanted to dispel the poison. Let them look in the wrong place. 

"Werewolf venom," Stefan murmurs under his breath.

"Try to suspend your disbelief," she whispers out of the side of her mouth.

"What have you done for it?" Sheila tilts her head curiously, watching the interplay.

"Pray?"

Sheila's eyes narrow further, probably at the breathy, flippant quality of her response.

"Vampire blood?" She glances meaningfully to Stefan.

"Won't work."

Sheila hands the dagger back to Stefan and crosses her arms. "You tried it?"

"No, but werewolf venom would turn it to acid."

Sheila purses her lips. "I haven't heard of that."

Implied, as an educator and long practicing witch is that, because she hadn't heard of it, she doesn't believe it.

"I've seen it," she answers flatly.

"Hmm."

Sheila taps her fingers against her arm, gives her a longer evaluating look. "I don't think I have the ingredients you're after."

It takes a long, incomprehensible moment for the words to register.

She just assumed that Sheila, a long alcoholic would keep flushing solutions on hand. But maybe not. It's not like it's a pleasant way to sober up, and it requires wanting to be sober.

If not Sheila, she doubts anyone else has the right ingredients or know-how to prepare it in Mystic Falls.

"And there are no hidden apothecaries around here, I'm guessing?" she questions numbly.

"As far as I'm aware, I'm the only practicing witch in Mystic Falls," Sheila responds, though she can barely hear her. Stefan's hand is curled around her waist. She doesn't remember her knees buckling.

...something else? 

"Do you have...ginkgo biloba?" She grasps the first thing to come to mind, wishing she had more of her faculties, could think. 

Sheila shakes her head. "I'm sorry, but I haven't kept a real garden in years, and medicine has never been my area."

Stefan’s voice drifts through on a fog. "There's a stabilizing spell I saw in Bastogne." He quotes something, but she's unfamiliar with the language, and her ears are buzzing.

"Maybe," Sheila murmurs thoughtfully. "How long did it stabilize them?"

"Days, if it was below freezing out."

"Are you sure it worked on blood poisoning?"

"Yes," Stefan answers firmly, a witness. 

"Casey," Stefan pulls her closer, his head ducking to try to catch her eyes. "Casey," he calls again, somehow farther away.

"Well, it didn't cause another seizure, and she's conscious, so I'd say it worked. For now," Sheila announces aside to Stefan, as she blinks awake, groggy, and weak, laid out on a couch.

Her head isn't quite as pounding, instead reduced to a low throb. She carefully stretches her fingers, feels that her rings have thankfully not been removed, and that her nerves sting where before she had lost feeling completely. The pain level is too subjective to measure. It's just relieving to not be all-consuming. 

“What happened?” She wonders.

"You nearly died on my front porch, forcing me to invite a vampire into my home, and now you're still alive because of Stefan's triage spell."

There's an open first aid kit on the coffee table, and her quasi-bandage from her shift is rolled into a bloody ball. Bloodier than it was before. 

Sheila's head tilts, her tone changing at she looks down at her thoughtfully. "You were in and out of it a few times.” She pauses. She doesn't soften exactly, but she's looking at her with a more open interest. “You told me I needed to start teaching Bonnie what it means to be a witch before I die," Sheila's thin brow raises slowly, and she leans closer. "And to let her know there are better virtues than self-sacrifice."

Sheila waits for her response. 

"Oh," she answers lamely, "is that it?"

Her lips tighten, but her eyes look amused. "That's all you said to me."

She drags her eyes to Stefan. He tilts his chin in acknowledgment but doesn't give much away.

"And what does a non-witch with premonitions, a poisoned knife, and rescuing Grayson and Elena Gilbert have to do with each other?" Sheila interrogates.

She's still working on that. 

Why here, why now, for god's sake why the doppelgänger?

"How much time have you bought me?" 

Sheila cocks her head, not as put out by her avoidance as she expected. "Less than a day, unless you put yourself under a stasis spell."

Sleeping Beauty spells were tricky enough with healthy participants. 

"Thank you," she sighs, weary still with what's ahead. It's still a delayed execution.

Sheila nods slowly in acknowledge and doesn't look away.

She twists her lips wryly. 

"I was poisoned because I had a premonition about the accident, and I shared it. Someone thought I would interfere with the doppelgänger and decided to..." she inclines her chin towards the dagger.

"And this premonition?" Sheila probes.

Sharing premonitions obviously hasn't worked out for her, but...it's already happened. It's already not-happened. 

She glances at Stefan, who observes in the armchair farthest from the blood on the table. "Stefan was meant to rescue Elena. And Grayson died at the bottom of the lake. I didn't really help...I couldn't dive that far, but...I got there in time to take Elena so Stefan had a chance to rescue Grayson as well."

Sheila takes a fortifying breath like she's trying to dispel her anger. "There are things after that girl..." she shakes her head, lips pressed tight, "and with that comet coming to pass..."

"The comet?" Stefan leans forward.

"One you should remember Mr. Salvatore. The last time it passed over was in 1864, a time of a lot of blood and carnage in Mystic Falls," Sheila shakes her head. "That comet is a sign of impending doom once again, and I fear things aim to repeat themselves."

"Magic enjoys repeating verses," Casey agrees, starting to reluctantly sit up on the damp couch. She tests her arm and finds the ache minimal. She moves delicately. 

"You think the comet means things are going to turn out like 1864?" Stefan questions carefully, his voice modulated. She can tell he's not convinced the way Sheila and Casey are, doesn't have the sense of knowing, the familiarity with witchcraft to accept superstition. 

Sheila hmms, but looks at Casey curiously. "Tell me your take on it."

Casey sits back against the armrest and rubs her forehead with the fingertips of her left hand. “Which part?” She asks ruefully. “1864, a Forbes was Sheriff, a Lockwood was Mayor. Now, a Forbes, by marriage, is Sheriff, a Lockwood is Mayor. The Founder's Council decided, will decide, to actively hunt vampires, with the same tactics. 1864 Katherine Pierce had the loyal support of a Bennett witch and the love of both Salvatore brothers. Repeat with Elena." Stefan's brows furrow, though she only notices in a short glance.

"A son breaks his werewolf curse in 1864, also to be repeated in the same family. And..."

She debates not saying this part, but Sheila and Stefan are probably the best people to impart this to. Both of them are listening. "Emily used the comet for a spell, and with it passing again, the ward she made will be broken."

"And what was this ward for?" Sheila narrows her eyes like a bloodhound. Casey looks to Stefan, wondering if this is the right way to tell him. 

She continues carefully. "Katherine...orchestrated the vampires being rounded up, to be subdued instead of staked, so they would be pushed into the church, and the church burnt" she looks away when his hands tighten, realizes it's better if she doesn't look at him, giving him some privacy to process. She looks back at Sheila. "There's a tomb under the church where they're sealed. All of them but Katherine, who used the fire and the tomb as a double bluff so some would believe she perished and others would think she was trapped, desiccated in a tomb, unable to escape."

It's quiet for a long moment, and Stefan's head is bowed, his jaw clenched.

"So, during the last comet a tomb closes, and with the comet coming back, the tomb opens."

"And the vampires let out with it," Sheila hisses "with scores to settle."

"Yes," she agrees, because for most of them, they did. Or will. "Emily's spirit destroys the talisman, but there are people desperate to get into that tomb, and you paid the price of bringing down the spell."

Sheila stares at her piercingly before slowly nodding. She understands what price she paid.

"Vampire problems," she huffs, almost companionably.

Casey smiles slightly, glad at least to give a warning to someone sensible enough to take it. (She won't say that most of these problems are because of Emily). This is her thank you.

She starts to climb to her feet, wary of dizziness, knowing she shouldn't push anything classified as triage. She needs to make it to Richmond. 

Sheila stands with her and offers her left hand, so Casey can shake with her uninjured one. She's surprised at the gesture, wondering what to read into it, but takes it with an equally firm grip. 

"It was...interesting meeting you Casey. I would like to see you again at a more reasonable time."

She accepts the friendly chastisement, offers an ambiguous, "We'll see."

Sheila offers her hand to Stefan as well. "It was a risk offering your hand to me, and I appreciate it. Take care of yourself."

"Thank you," Stefan returns.

Casey take up the abandoned dagger, uneasy to be toting it again as she leads the way out.

"Get that wound taken care of, and let me know if you survive it," Sheila tosses in farewell, morbid if not for the spark of impishness, of some lost youth of the woman Stefan must have admired in 1969. It's comforting, in that Sheila believes she'll pull through, treats it as a certainty. Or hides the uncertainty well. 

The poison and the pain is still lying in wait.

She peeks at Stefan's reflective mood, in the soft quiet of the sleeping street, decides to lean her back against the side of the car instead of reaching for the handle, meeting his gaze when he looks over in question. She gave Sheila enough. But not Stefan. 

Whatever he wants to say, to ask, she wants to give him the opportunity before they part.

He joins her, half a foot from brushing shoulders as he folds his arms across his chest, dropping his shoulders and looks up at the night sky. She inclines her neck back as well, searching for something familiar. 

"Katherine's alive," he murmurs after a companionable quiet. 

She waits, doesn't confirm it, doesn't know if he's even asking her to. 

"And Damon thinks she's in the tomb. He plans to return to Mystic Falls to try to..." his rubs at his eyes, chest expanding on a sigh "rescue her."

There's a wealth of history in that sigh, the frustration clearest - that Damon knew all this time and never let on, that his brother wasted 145 years on a pointless quest, for a woman who didn't deserve it. The bonds of brotherhood are still there, that he can be upset at Damon and for Damon at the same time. 

"And you apparently saw Damon and I replaying 1864 with Elena instead of Katherine," his jaw tightens, eyes down as his shoulders curl forward. "Her doppelgänger who lives in Mystic Falls at the time the comet is meant to pass over again, when this tomb is supposed to open."

"Life is full of coincidences," she replies, not looking at him as she says it. She's gone through this before, seen others at the fork in the road between unhappy knowledge and content ignorance. Knowledge has a way of rarely, if ever, granting peace. 

She looks over at him, the opportunity to accept or denounce the threads of fate, it in her waiting expression. 

He turns towards her, eyes searching and heavy. "Right," he agrees, nodding slowly, making his choice. "Why not suspend my disbelief? Believe that comets are harbingers of doom. Werewolves are real, and -" he flicks his hand, gesturing to all the rest.

She smiles, peeking down at her bare feet to hide it. "Yes, well... I'm sorry your 160-year life has been so un-magical you didn't know werewolves were real."

He frowns deliberately. "I prefer to believe in things I know people have seen. Werewolves are like...Ninja Turtles. Or dragons."

She peeks up at him, tilting her head to keep hair out of her face. "You know one of those is real, right?"

He squints, waiting for her to break. "I don't believe you."

Her grin turns impish. Oh, if only there was a chance of convincing him Ninja Turtles were real, she'd keep him on that hook. "It simply isn't an adventure worth telling if there aren't any dragons."

He tries not to smile, ducking his chin when he's unsuccessful. "Oh?" he asks with all exasperation, "here be dragons meant here, actually, be dragons?"

"That depends on the map," she answers, obviously.  

He shakes his head, stretching away from the car. "Perhaps you can point out these dragons on the way," he offers.

Her mouth drops. "Are you...offering to drive me to Richmond?"

He matches her uncertainty, realizes there's a disconnect between where they each thought they were going. "Not if that isn't what you want..." he answers slowly. 

"I just didn't expect you to...I mean, this is one thing," she means Sheila's house, helping her this far. She grips the fabric of her dress in her uninjured hand, her other still stationary across her waist, as if in a sling to keep it immobile. "But Richmond isn't a few blocks away. I wasn't going to ask you to disrupt your life more than I have already." 

She's unable to meet his eyes while she tries to cool her embarrassment, looking instead at Sheila's porch. Does she know we're still here?

She hears Stefan's stance change, facing her more directly. "I'm still offering," and leaves it there, kind and understanding, and waiting.

She pulls in a deep breath. "Thank you," she says quietly.

She swallows hard when they both turn to the car, realizing it's not just a wet dress she has to contend with, but one splattered with the blood that dripped from her hand. She doesn't want to force him to endure it for two hours, in an enclosed space.

"Do you think we could stop by the Boarding House first? Maybe change clothes?" she bites her lip as she asks, worried he'll guess why she made the appeal.

"Okay," he agrees. 

She feels like she should say something, because jokes about suspending his disbelief aside, there's a lot of turmoil in that brooding forehead of his. What to say though? 

"Stefan?" She calls over the roof, still at a lost when he looks over at her. "The thing about comets being harbingers of doom? They're not really. They're just snow and ice," she echoes something he hasn't had the chance to say yet. He had said more too, that they're just following their destined path, trying to return home every 145 years, that they're alone. That she leaves behind. "You can subscribe all sorts of meaning to it...make of it what you want."

It doesn't have to be any one thing, or any one way. It doesn't have to be tragic. She doesn't want to leave him with that impression, especially when he once looked at it with something like promise, hope, the start of something epic. 

Something inexpressible relaxes on his brow. His eyes drop, and when he looks at her again, there's a thank you there that makes her smile.

Chapter Text

chapter two: ne'er cast a clout 'til may is out

"When you mentioned Sheila Bennett, I thought you knew–" he pauses to rethink his word choice, Sheila's house disappearing in the rear-view "were acquainted with her."

She gives a Gallic shrug. Being circumventive hadn't been her highest priority, as evidenced by not saying sayonara once she climbed up the slats of Wickery Bridge. She called her Sheila Bennett, not Sheila, and hadn't meant to imply any relationship with her beyond reputation. But, there's always something to give it away, isn't there? She can't help sounding familiar. 

"But you do know her," he puzzles out, hand sliding down the steering wheel for a looser grip, his ring tapping silently. "And you know me."

Ah, how well do you know me?

"It's a bit strange," she empathizes. His eyebrows briefly lift in agreement.

"It's more than just seeing someone's future," he guesses. "You know part of their past."

"Yes..." she agrees, keeping her hands still and cupped in her lap, waiting.

His eyes run over her face for a moment, eyes light with curiosity, the strangeness and the newness of it. "How can you have visions about people without meeting them first?"

"You mean without reading their palm or staring into their eyes?" She laughs as his lips quirk, acknowledging that his schema for seers is psychics and fortune tellers. She affects a serious, searching look as if performing a reading before shrugging easily. "Six degrees of separation."

"It's associative?" He tilts his head back to the windshield as he mulls it over. 

"The supernatural world gets pretty tangled," she says it like it's a joke, like knowing him, or Sheila, or this town holds no more significance than anything else. 

"It sounds overwhelming," he says after a moment, pensively. He hesitates on his next question, voicing it carefully to give none of his personal feelings away. "What did you see?" 

"About you?" How to condense that? She knows she's seen more than he'd feel comfortable with. The metaphorical skeletons in the closet, the actual names grooved into the walls.

He frowns. "Me, or anyone. Their life story? Their fate?" A line forms between his brows, reflecting the somber mood that took hold when she talked about 1864 and the comet.

"Their decisions," she decides, realizing his questions are alluding to a crisis of philosophy, of fate vs. self-determination. 

He licks his bottom lip. "So, our choices do matter?"

She waits before answering, thinking about the importance of this question. He believes his actions and his values are what defines him, and it's been a guiding principle and, when he can't reconcile his violent actions against that philosophy, it's been a heavy source of pain. If I do monstrous things, I'm a monster. If I try to be better, maybe I can be better.

But it's not as simple as saying fate, whatever construct of it exists, isn't real. That everything truly comes down to personal choice. 

There's a thread of destiny to Mystic Falls, to the doppelgänger. Stefan's thread is linked to it, and his actions decide how tangled he becomes.

"Sometimes," she blows out a breath, digging her shoulders back against the seat "Most of the time, actually. But...sometimes the cards are already dealt, and you choose how you want to play your hand."

He works with the metaphor. "And if you want to leave the table?"

"You could...” she squints ambivalently, wondering if he’d really be willing to leave Mystic Falls. No. He might stay to persuade Damon to leave, to figure out Damon’s game, to try to convince Damon to give up on Katherine – fat chance without the tomb opening – but he wouldn’t leave before that, she doesn’t think. Unless he looks at it as leaving Damon to his own mess... But, even then, knowing he'd be better for it, she's not sure he could stay removed, aloof to Damon's actions or needs. 

“Do you feel what they feel, or watch it happen?" his question pierces through her thoughts.

It’s not accusing. It’s not criticizing. He sounds genuinely interested in knowing how it works, but she can’t help from bristling. It mirrors too close to past criminations. 

"I didn't just watch it happen. I wasn’t a... a spectator. I didn’t choose - ” she swallows it back, digs her fingers into her closed eyes, feels moisture clinging to her eyelashes. Get it together. Don’t cry. Don’t alienate the only person willing to help you right now by being defensive. 

“Casey,” he gets her attention, hand reaching out before he changes his mind and deliberately places it slowly on the steering wheel. "I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to imply it was...easy for you."

She holds her breath until it hurts, keeps her eyes closed. “No, it’s, it’s fine,” she exhales shakily, dropping her hands into her lap, lips pressed tight. “I’m just...exhausted.”

She’s never going to get away from the visions, is she? 

It's quiet the rest of the drive.

The Boarding House reminds her of that clearing, though it takes a moment to work out why. She was too busy at Wickery Bridge, too focused on making the right decision, and wondering at the fallout, and wondering at the blood poisoning, to think I'm at Wickery Bridge, standing on the largest cache pile of white oak.

She's less overwhelmed now. The Boarding House feels like...something. Something she's stepping into, that she's not sure she should. 

Stefan bends a knee to untie his boots, and she tentatively steps down from the foyer into the living room. There's not much to see, as it's dark. The outer curves of the unlit fireplace, the heavy curtains closed over the large windows. The Tudor batten design rising all the way up to the timbered framed ceiling shadowed high above.

Stefan flips a light switch to illuminate the foyer in soft yellow light. "Are you sure you only want a towel?" His hand lifts to rub the back of his neck. "Or...I can offer you a change of clothes?"

She glances down at herself, at her wrinkled, dirty, waterlogged dress. "If you don't mind..." She would like to change into something warm, and dry, and something big she can hide in, after feeling indecent.

"I don't," he reassures, tilting his head towards the hallway in a signal to follow.

He turns on another light switch, and scones light up the hallway. She walks slowly, head swiveling to each picture, and painting, and tapestry they pass, spaced out to give each their own prominence. There are impressions of little things she's seen. Rose standing there. Damon making out with Kelly Donovan. Small confrontations spoken in hushed undertones. She ignores the déjà vu, reaching out to touch the etched detail on the wooden banister, to trail her hand feather-light on the glossy handrail as they walk up, her toes sinking into the plush red rug laid on the steps.

She knows he's watching her take it in, her steps slow intermediately. There's so much history here, things collected with care. She moves closer to the old photographs, absently searching for Stefan or Damon to see if they're in any of them. They're not, not even up here.

There's a smaller staircase down the hall. Hidden away, she thinks, wondering if it's intentional. It leads up to an open, familiar loft with dark green walls and timber cross beams.

"Do you want to change first?" he asks her.

"No, I'll wait," she shakes her head as he digs through his drawers. In her peripheral, she can see they're organized with almost military efficiency, as she takes in the rest of the room.

There are stacked boxes, as yet unpacked, in the corner where he keeps a brown leather couch, his desk, and where the French doors look down at the separate garage. His desk is clean, no personal affects, no computer. No gaming devices, no tv, no stereo. Because he gets rid of them when they're outdated? Because he hasn't unpacked them yet? There's at least a record player, closed in its glass case, above a shelf of tightly packed records, some of the edges frayed, others pristine. 

Stefan hands her a towel before he heads to the bathroom, and she takes it with an automatic, thank you. She pulls it around her shoulders, creating a barrier between her skin and wet hair as she circles the room without touching anything. No personal pictures. Mostly abstract artwork, which is funny because didn’t he pick fun of Klaus’s abstract paintings? 

The journals are there, their shelf low to the ground.  

So, something of his identity is in plain sight.

Stefan comes out with drier, spikier hair, a white undershirt, sweatpants, and bare feet.

"I left some clothes on the counter," he tilts his chin. "You seemed lost in thought when I pulled them out," he shrugs one shoulder, a light, closed smile gracing his face.

"Sorry," her fingers tighten on the towel to keep it closed in front of her. "Just...weird," she explains.

"Right," he agrees, looking like he agrees as he fiddles with a pair of rolled socks in hand.

"What happened to your shoes?" he gestures to her bare feet, moving to sit on the edge of his bed.

She curls her toes reflexively. "Kicked them off."

"Do you want me to find you a pair?"

She looks down at her toes in contemplation. "I don't know, what size –"

His attention catches behind her, a changed focus coming over him and making her instinctively follow his gaze.

Zach climbs up the last few steps, in a white undershirt and flannel sleep pants. He scratches at his curly, sleep ruffled hair. "Can we talk?" He asks Stefan, sparing her a short, discomforted glance.

Stefan looks at her, and she curls the towel around her shoulders as she signals she'll be in the bathroom getting changed.

Right before she shuts the door, she hears Zach ask, "who is she?" with something uncomfortable in his voice.

She closes the door before she can hear Stefan's response.

The summer sun has leaked out of her face. She pinches her cheek, the skin staying frightfully pale. Her lips are nearly purple, her eyes blood shot and outlined in pink.

After a short, critical inspection: not dead, she keeps her eyes averted.

There's a comb on the counter, but she doesn't have the dexterity or patience to use it. Instead, she squeezes some of the water out of her tangled hair, one handed. Without anything to use as a hair tie, she doesn't bother trying to make it presentable.

She pats her bra with the towel, wipes down the rest of her body before pulling the drawstrings tight on the sweatpants, rolls the extra fabric at the ankles. She sits on the toilet and very sedately rolls the socks on, wondering if she's given Zach enough time to talk to Stefan privately.

She blows out a breath, decides it isn't rude to remind Stefan of her presence, given her circumstances. 

Only, when she steps out of the bathroom, the bedroom is empty.

She stands there awkwardly, straining her ears to catch a hint of where they are. Maybe the bottom of the stairs, away from the bathroom door, in case she interrupted coming out?

Again, nothing. 

The second-floor hallway is also a balcony to the library and the living room. She hears soft, indistinguishable voices, and peaks over the rail.

Grayson Gilbert, blue button-down damp and slick to his shoulders, and Zach Salvatore, still in his sleep-rumbled pajamas, are standing over Stefan's body.

Shit. Shit.

She peeks again, makes out grey socked feet, grey sweatpants. She can't see his face. Can't see his skin. She doesn't know if the rest of his body has turned grey to match.

She can't see from here.

Fuck.

The word loops in her head as she puts one foot in front of the other, finds herself edging down the staircase with a pounding heart.

Zach looks up at her first. His shoulders are bunched, hands fisted at his sides. Grayson looks guarded, dark narrowed eyes watching her approach as if he's expecting a fight.

"It would be pretty bad karma to kill the man who saved your life," her voice sounds thready.

"Did he?" Grayson asks, looking down to contemplate the body at his feet.

She forces herself closer, micro steps, just until she can make out Stefan's pale skin.

"Yes he did," she breathes, dizzy, her spine straightening as she looks at him head-on. "And your daughter's. More than I could have done, had he not been there."

She doesn’t say ‘more than you could do’. If she had jumped off Wickery Bridge without Stefan to rely on, she doubts she could have helped at all.

"Stefan saved you? And Elena?" Zach interrupts, eyes darting between her and Grayson's stand-off. He takes a halting step forward, knees slightly bent, like he might drop to Stefan's side, but he checks himself, and ultimately, stays rooted in place.

"He did," Grayson admits, clipped, reluctant. He looks to Casey. "I want to know why he was there in the first place and why you were there with him."

"You didn't ask him before you vervained him?" She tries not to sound sardonic. 

Grayson continues to stare her down, dead-eyed. 

Her jaw tightens. "Because he heard the crash and realized someone needed help. I took Elena from him so he could go back for any other survivors.”

"And he just happened to be there? When my daughter’s life was in danger?" 

"Yes. And he helped a man who just happened to know he was a vampire and would be willing to use that information against him."

His jaw clenches, but he turns his eyes down before she can read them. 

"Should I make an exception for him?" he asks almost absently "hope he doesn't threaten my children, my town, if he can no longer control his bloodlust? Look the other way if a hiker goes missing?"

She runs her tongue along the back of her teeth, briefly looking to Zach to see his take on this. He doesn't offer a defense for Stefan, but there's something in his expression, like he’s hoping she can make an argument he can't.

This isn’t what this is about, but Zach doesn’t know that. Grayson, likely, preyed on Zach’s guilt on the Salvatore family secret. She doesn't know if he's generalizing or if he knows something of Stefan’s bloodlust specifically.

She can’t make Grayson own up to his real worry – about Elena, about rumors of the doppelgänger getting out of Mystic Falls. Unless she’s willing to broach that minefield, she’s limited to this argument.

"The problem with shooting first is you never get your questions answered. Not by the person you want them from." Unless of course, immediate answers aren’t his worry, and he plans to take Stefan to an Augustine basement. "And had you met him earlier, preemptively took him out...you wouldn't have survived tonight, and neither would your daughter."

Honestly, she's not sure how strong the protection is on the doppelgänger; how strong the call is for aid. Elena could have died... (but would she have stayed dead?)

From his perspective she gets being leery, but when Stefan knocked on his glass, had he not been grateful? 

“And the reason you caught him out wasn’t because anyone in your town had been hurt, but because he did something kind.”

Grayson bows his head, staring down at his cradled hands, his right clenched around his left. She can't tell if he's compulsively touching his wedding ring or the Gilbert ring. Which one is stronger on his mind?

"I meant to weaken him, leave him conscious," he confesses, and she dares to hope he’s conceding. "I didn't believe he truly abstained from human blood."

She shakes out her right hand at her side, the ache spreading. "How long will he be out?"

He looks at her considering as she lifts her chin. Will you let him go?

"It depends on his vervain tolerance, how much blood he's taken in, how much weaker animal blood makes him."

"Approximate," she asks. She's not even sure what variables are most relevant. Does age matter? Linage? Diet? Weight even? Is it all about the vervain, how it's cultivated? How it's processed? How it's injected? The volume?

He rubs between his eyes a moment, frowning deeply. "Too long for me to stay. I don't want to be away from Elena too long."

"And you shouldn't," Zach agrees, breathing slowly. "Grayson," he choreographs his movement before placing his hand on Grayson's shoulder. "You're grieving. Your family is grieving. They need you." He doesn't direct Grayson, but leaves the appeal open. 

Grayson looks down at Stefan's body. She bites her tongue.

"I want him to stay away from my daughter," Grayson decides, something dark underlining his voice, of consequences from disobeying this stipulation.

Zach nods, willing to pass on the message.

She doesn’t think declaring it forbidden is going to stop interest from either party.

"You have an open invitation," she declares, with intentional irony. "Apparently." 

"I'll drive you back to the hospital," Zach pulls his hand off his shoulder, eyes skating away from the body on the floor.

"Wait," she blurts out, realizing they really are leaving. She speaks to Zach for the first time, hurriedly while he hasn't turned away from Stefan yet. "Can you carry him to the – to my car?"

He frowns at her, light green eyes surprised.

She moves closer, before he can get his bearings "look, I know you don't know me," she murmurs, even knowing Grayson can still hear her "but I think when he wakes up, he'll want to stay somewhere else for tonight, to recuperate."

Who knows if that's true, but Zach nods tightly.

"And do you have a directory specific to Mystic Falls? A yellow pages? To see the hotels in the area," she holds her breath.

"Right," he agrees, with guilty understanding.

She keeps her hands on the steering wheel, the doors locked as Zach drives off with Grayson. Grayson’s car – what he had borrowed – was parked behind hers (behind Marie's). Did Zach keep an eye out and notify him? Did Grayson lie in wait somewhere where neither Stefan nor she saw him? Was it coordinated between them?

She flips through the B's in the yellow pages, places her finger on the right number.

It rings and rings and rings –

"Hi," she cringes when Sheila picks up with an annoyed sigh.

"Does this seem like a more reasonable time to you?" She sounds both drowsy and affected.

Well, you did foretell her death. Drinking is the usual reaction.

"Any chance you have mugwort or hibiscus?"

Sheila is quiet on the other line.

"I can't see how those ingredients have anything to do with your predicament," she finally drawls.

"Uh, new predicament actually," she looks over at Stefan collapsed in the passenger seat.

Sheila exhales over the line. "Hibiscus isn't in bloom yet; I don't know where you'll find it. I do have some mugwort," she admits reluctantly.

She hoped that wouldn't be the case. By her own confession Sheila didn’t keep much of a garden or pantry. 

She's starting to think Sheila either keeps her magic to teaching occult history at Whitmore, or doesn't practice much at all. 

No coven. No Abby. And with Bonnie, not teaching her, nor sharing any of their history unless she's three sheets to the wind. 

Casey rubs her eyes. "No, I need them both. Thank you anyway."

Sheila sounds reluctant, but she asks anyway. "Why do you need them?"

"They counteract vervain," she answers blasé, closing the yellow pages and moving them to the backseat.

Drunk she may be, but she’s quick to understand the implication.

"Not even a full hour," she hears Sheila grumble before she hangs up on her.

That's...fair.

Stefan twitches, blearily opening his eyes as she reaches to turn the quiet music down further, to a whisper she can barely hear.

"You know, in the time of our acquaintance, we've both been poisoned, and both fallen unconscious," she greets him.

He lifts up on his elbows slowly, looks out at the highway passing through the windshield to orient where they are, before laying back down with a slight groan. She laid the seat as far as it would go when Zach and she carried him to the car. "I didn't know he had vervain," he chokes out.

She keeps her eyes on the road. "Pretty sure I told you to be on your guard around him."

"I was," he declares wryly, hunching forward as he reaches down to pull the seat up. "I didn't think Zach..."

He doesn't finish, his jaw tight as he rubs his hands against his thighs.

She blows out a breath. "I think he was put in an uncomfortable position." He feared vampires, she knew. He supplied the council with vervain. Did he know what Grayson would do – what he does in the Augustine? She doesn't know what led to Zach letting Grayson in, to standing over his body, but he didn't look at ease with it, and he looked...tentatively, relieved when Grayson backed off? It could be fear in Damon's retaliation or out of some existing loyalty to Stefan. "I don't know if he knew what Grayson would do."

"Did Zach tell him?" She can tell it hurts him to ask.

About him being a vampire. 

"No. I don't know," she admits, as he looks at her pained and searchingly. "But I don't think so. I think Grayson found out because of Johnathan Gilbert's journals. 'I recognized the vampire that killed me,'" she loosely quotes.

She thinks that’s how Grayson knew.

"So, every time I came home to Mystic Falls..." he murmurs.

He had been at risk.

She considers if that was true. Jeremy wouldn't believe the journals until he met Anna. Most of the founding families didn't believe the stories until a suspicious animal attack made them reconsider, and this generation of the council hadn't even shared the spooky family stories with their children. She's not sure why that is.

"I don't think they were willing to risk letting the founding families know about their magical rings." It's true that the Gilberts had kept his secret, knowingly or unknowingly.

He nods, but it's distracted, his brows furrowed. "What did you tell him?"

"Grayson?" She wonders. "Basically, I said he was an asshole to attack the person who saved his life."

He raises his brows at her. She smiles briefly, closed mouth. "He wants you to stay away from Elena. And when the first person dies mysteriously in Mystic Falls, I'm pretty sure he's going to try to pull a round up the usual suspects."

He frowns. "You didn't mention anything suspicious about the accident?" He wonders curiously.

She makes a face. "It might be hard to believe, but I don't usually tell people about the vision thing. And the accident wasn’t suspicious, it actually was an accident."

"Really?" And the tone of disbelief is more blatant than it’s ever been.

"Bad timing. Road was slick. Old bridge. No visibility. Usual route closed because of a downed powerline from the storm. Driving too fast and not entirely sober after partaking in a few glasses of wine at family game night, slower reaction time," she lists.

He shakes his head, like he's not sure what to think. "How did you get me in the car?" he asks, starting to sit up more.

"Oh, Zach. I implied you might want to be somewhere else tonight after...that." Because she didn’t trust Grayson. Because it felt wrong to leave him alone and vervained. Because he'd wake eventually, and worse case scenario she'd be unconscious next to him. Her eyes dart to the note on the console with Stefan's name on it. She wrote it before driving, and it lists the directions to the apothecary and what to ask for, just in case. 

"How's your hand?"

Her shoulders tighten. She's been biting the inside of her cheek so long it hurts when she lets it go. Her right hand is immobile in her lap, a burn crawling under her skin. "I think Sheila was optimistic," she admits, trying to sound even. "It hurts worse than before."

"Pull over," he directs, as if he hasn’t just regained consciousness from the caustic burn of vervain.

"Are you sure you're alright to...?" Because if she lets go of the only task available to her, she won't have the energy to start driving again.

"Casey," he sighs, quirking his lips reassuringly when she peeks over at him. "I'm sure."

The kid is her age, probably, and yet her first impression is great, a kid when they walk into the apothecary. Stefan looks better, or at least, is trying to look better, pinched and shoulders curved, but he's conscious and no longer sweating, so doing better than her anyway.

He was skeptical when they pulled up. The sidewalk is a tripping hazard, cracked like an earthquake rolled beneath it. The building was a relic, before superstores and malls drove business off the street thirty-forty years ago.

The sign 'Exotic Teas' is old and peeling, the window-front taped up with cardboard and butcher paper making it impossible to see inside.

The little bell above the door chimes with their entrance, the store bursting with floor to ceiling drawers, and glass jars stuffed with scores of plants and ingredients. The outside looks like a squatter’s paradise, but the inside is vibrant and warm.

The kid behind the counter looks up from his book and greets them with "neither of you are wearing shoes."

She had forgotten to grab Stefan's boots. At least they're wearing socks, and the bottom of their feet aren't tracking anything in.

"Is Charlotte here?"

He rolls his eyes. "You know it's like 3 a.m. right?"

"Yeah? And how are you with breaking a blood poisoning curse?"

His eyes light up, cataloguing the stressors on her appearance with interest. "I can do it," he pushes the book away, clearing the space in front of him and looking up at her with wide, light brown eyes.

She approaches carefully, hoping he’s not overestimating himself.

"I need a flushing solution. For you to break the curse on this dagger," she drops it onto the counter "and the use of one of your hotboxes."

"Hotbox?" He asks, tearing his eyes away from the dagger. "Isn't that for the detoxers?"

She smiles achingly. "You sure you can't get Charlotte?"

He unsheathes the dagger with another eyeroll as he pulls out a sliver of witch-glass to study the curse on the blade.

"Not that complicated," the guy nods, setting the glass down. "So, where'd they stab you?"

She glances down at her hand but doesn't try to lift it. He leans over the counter to peek at the veins crawling up her arm, thick and bulging, and he grimaces. "Gross."

"And painful," Stefan raises his brows at the guy.

"Right, well, you sure you want a flushing solution and the hotbox? You could always go for Epanfero pearls or Theriac. Be easier."

"Keep the dagger and you can study it," she offers, drooping a little as she shrugs. "The curse has to be completely flushed out or it will recuperate. This way is faster." And cheaper. Even with funds, her instinct is to be economical. 

He looks at the dagger again, but without the witch-glass. "Sounds pretty insidious," he replies with a bit of disquiet.

She smiles weakly.

"Alright," he plucks up the dagger, and leads them through the backroom. She looks back at Stefan, nonverbally asking if he's going with her or going to stay upstairs, and he stuffs his hands into his pockets and nods, eyebrows briefly raising as if to say, 'why not?'

"You know you'll have to remove your rings to avoid interference, right?" The clerk comments as he nimbly takes the stairs to the basement.

"Got it," she breathes shakily, carefully following with Stefan at her back. She thought she caught a brief look at her through the witchglass, and she's glad he's proven to be crafter than first appearance.

There are four hotboxes lined up in the room, each with their own little window. 

"Ever used one before?" The clerk asks.

She hums an affirmative. 

There's a stretcher laid out near the door, balanced on crates of electrolyte powder, water bottles, snack packs, and mismatched towels.

She drops onto it with weak knees, figuring any horizontal surface that isn't the floor is perfect.

The clerk places the dagger down on one of the crates and turns to Stefan. "I'm going to get the flushing solution. Her bandage and rings need to come off. And uh, some people strip down, so..." he flails his arm slightly, a very, do what you will before pivoting towards the door.

"I'm going to leave the clothes on," she tells Stefan, her eyes closed.

He makes a noise of understanding. "I'll help with the bandage, if that's okay."

"If it doesn't bother you," she agrees, not wanting to look at it, to pretend it isn’t throbbing with fever. The bandage is already stained with black blood.

She feels his hand touch hers, first to lightly squeeze her wrist before peeling the medical tape away and lifting the bandage off her skin. It sticks slightly, but she doesn't feel it.

She starts to open her eyes, her neck still stretched back when he advises her not to.

"That bad?" She laughs unconvincingly.

"It's not great," he declares, reaching for her other hand. She holds her breath when he slides the opal down her pointer finger, and then the silver Celtic knot down her ring finger.

The glamour drops. The still healing discoloration, lightening webbed with scars at her wrists. The long puckered white line at the crook of her elbow to the middle of her arm. The brand of an eye burned into her forearm near the top of her right hand. She keeps her chin high, her breathing forcibly even as she peeks at his reaction. There are three slashes, waxy with new skin, from her left eyebrow to her cheek.

The shop clerk comes back. Where Stefan observed solemnly, he hisses through his teeth. "Holy shit –” he goggles at Stefan, as if searching for mutual horror, but when Stefan gives him a look, it seems to snap him out of it.

"Right, this for later," he hands the vial to Stefan, and flutters his hands to tell her to lay down.

“Can you also make a tonic of hibiscus and mugwort?" she asks politely, causing his eyes to dart away from her scars.

He squints at her. "Why?"

"For him," she inclines her chin towards Stefan at his shoulder. Both of their expressions are puzzled. "To counteract vervain."

"I didn't know anything could counteract vervain," the clerk murmurs, sounding intrigued, and taking in Stefan's vampire status without batting an eye. 

Stefan's eyebrows are up as their eyes catch, just as surprised that something can counter vervain, before he shakes his head ruefully.

"You know this is going to suck, right?" the shopkeeper advises her.

"It started sucking hours ago."

He shrugs, and starts in on her cursed wound.

By the time she stumbles out of the hotbox, her brain feels like it's melted out of her ears, and her entire body is covered in sweat and flushed red.

She discarded Stefan's clothes in a delirium, and at least has the presence of mind to wrap herself in a towel Gene – the clerk – left in the box with her. It’s steam damp, but she isn’t bothered.

Stefan is sitting against the wall across from the box, forearms rested on his bent, spread knees.

She's not sure where to go for a moment, only wants to desperately cool down before deciding to join him, plopping down at his shoulder against the wall, still panting.

She's latently aware that her tattoos at her clavicle is exposed, but discards it.

"How was it?" he asks, handing over a water bottle with an electrolyte pouch. She tears the package with her teeth.

"I know you've detoxed before. So that, but blistering," she chugs the water until it's half full before dropping the powder into it. "Sorry I smell," she apologizes, breathlessly. The towel is large enough to nearly touch her knees, and she's so thankful she can stretch her bare legs with only a moderate, absent embarrassment. She's more bothered by the visible scars, but it's distant as her brain unfogs.  

He shakes his head, ducking his chin to his chest. "You smell like heat."

She bets he's being kind, but she's happy to not smell of rot or blood.

She turns her hand over, sees the wound is pink and not too deep. She marvels at the healthy skin, and the ability to flex her fingers one by one. Her mood drops slightly, at the brand, waxy and cutting on her arm.

"How long was I in there?" She asks for distraction, tucking her arm behind her.

"About four hours," he digs through his pockets and hands over her two rings. She takes them delicately.

Stefan looks up from her clavicle as the tattoo disappears behind the glamour.

"How'd the tea work for you?" She asks, fixated on the twinkling opal for a moment.

He shakes his head, lips quirked in a quiet bemusement. "It worked. Gene recorded it in his journal."

She finishes her water bottle with a listening nod. Most witches, and warlocks, are very not okay with spells and recipes leaving their person, leaving their family, or their coven. She had an outsider's perspective, and more of an academic view on magic.

More shared more gained and all that.

Stefan obviously has some experience with covetous witches because he watches her expression to see how she feels about it. He doesn't seem surprised when she shrugs, unbothered.

"Thank you for sharing it," he looks down at his hands, loose between his knees.

"Of course." And she breaks the moment by yawning. "Do you mind if I drive you home later? I just need a few hours to sleep."

"Here?" He looks at the barren room, and her, as if he's wondering if this is all she has. 

She chuckles. "No. Someplace else." She looks back to the hotbox, the sweat cooling on her skin and making her rally herself to put the shirt and sweatpants back on. She'll need to settle her bill too. "I could show you?" She offers.

They drop down the short ladder, the walls glowing with swirling murals in bio-luminescent paint. Epoxy has preserved the cobblestone, giving the illusion you’re floating above them. It's the physical embodiment of an acid trip, and kind of hilarious when you realize the passageway leads to a way for people to get clean.

"There’s a hostel on the other side, or you could call it the Brookland Boarding House," she presents, smiling over her shoulder.

"A boarding house for the supernatural?" He asks, bemused.

Ah, wait and see.

She stops at the other ladder at the end of the tunnel and points to the underside of the trapdoor, to the large symbol and Latin script.

"Have you seen that symbol before?"

He shakes his head slowly. "I'm not sure...” he considers it for a moment before moving on to the script. “A warning against breaking sanctuary?"

She's briefly surprised he can read Latin. But then, she's not sure what all he's studied in 160 years, nor the type of education he received in the 1850-1860's.

"The wards will feel unwelcoming at first, but when you sign the registry, you’ll create a contract, vowing on your name and blood that you'll uphold the sanctuary."

His brow lifts in the low, glowing light. "So, you can't attack anyone who signs the registry, and they can't attack you?"

She waves her hand in a see-saw gesture. "You can't attack on the sanctuary grounds or else you'll be punished by blood. If you follow another patron off grounds while you're both signed into the book, and you're found out, your name is mud. You'll be denied sanctuary anywhere."

He considers that. He catches the implication that once both patrons sign out of the book, they're free to do what they like against each other.

"You want to go up?" She asks, just to be sure.

He tilts his head back to the seal, something new and wondering behind his eyes before he nods in agreement. 

She's glad there's something good she can show him, introduce him to, when the supernatural world, for some strange reason, has been closed to him. 

The trapdoor opens at the front desk, with Sofia, the proprietor knitting at the counter with sharp, pointed needles. She gives the illusion of not paying attention, though she's only at the counter because she felt the wards alert her to the trapdoor opening at the apothecary. Stefan climbs up, his shoulders bunched as the wards wash over him.

"You look a mess," Sofia greets her, her stare unwavering from Stefan, her needles still active.

"Late night."

"Early morning," Sofia counters, pointing one of her needles at a stream of morning light highlighting the floor.

Casey beckons Stefan to the registry, laid open under Sofia's nose.

"He's my guest," she explains.

Sofia hands over a fountain pen like one handling scissors, her needles loose and no less threatening in her other hand. Stefan Salvatore is written on the pointed line, and a deep tie forms between his signature and her own, declaring her responsible. His shoulders drop as the pressing weight of the wards turn languid.

"Will you be wanting blood sent up?" Sofia asks him, drifting back to her knitting.

"That's not necessary," Stefan casts Casey a look, full of questions, probably wondering how Sofia could tell he was a vampire. 

She makes a face at him. Did he have to look at her while turning down blood? "Can you hand me the keys?" She asks him.

His digs into his front pocket, the fabric lowering on his trim hips.

Once she has them in hand, she places them on the counter. "Silver Mercedes parked in front of the apothecary. Don't care what happens to it, but I'd like the contents."

"And the owner?" Sofia asks, still knitting.

"Not a patron."

Sofia looks back at the registry, seems to take measure of her guests before shrugging.

That cleared, Casey leads Stefan up the corner stairs.

"What was that look?" He asks in an undertone.

She laughs softly. "Forget it," she isn't going to tell him that Sofia thinks he's going to be drinking from her.

"There's a couch in my room, if you want to sleep, or you can explore, look in the library for any books on dragon species," she smiles tiredly.

She almost falls into her room once the knob clicks as she lays her hand over it.

"Mi sala su sala," she gestures "the, uh, knob will work for you too if you want to leave and/or come back. Bathroom that way."

And then, without washing the sweat off, changing, pulling down the sheets, or even removing her two solitary duffel bags off the end of the bed, she faceplants against the mattress and passes out.

Chapter Text

Chapter three: as the case may be

Gene balances his journal high on his bent knees as he records Stefan’s impressions of the tea, his interest only put off by shifting uncomfortably on the hard cement. Stefan feels an itch to apologize for staying down here, but waiting through a detox, in a basement, is more familiar to him than entering the apothecary upstairs, the domain of witches who in his experience are distrustful or outright disgusted by vampires.

The effects of the tea are subtle, as he’s already burnt through what’s in his system, but he feels less drained. As a consequence of his diet, he’s always aware of his ebbing energy, how to conserve, how long he can stretch out his need before the thirst threatens his resolve. He doesn’t think it’s a placebo. He’s never heard of, nor believed it was possible to neutralize vervain, to have any faith in it. 

“I’m guessing this isn’t the usual way to go about this?”

Gene’s pen stops as his pulls down the journal. “This?” He gestures, spinning his pen to encircle the hotboxes and pointing at the cot where Casey was laid upon. “Uh, no. Hotboxes are usually for people who, you know, poison themselves. Want to get clean. Sometimes purify themselves before a ritual.”

Poison themselves.

“How does it work?” Some of it is similar, to his own detoxes. Locking yourself away in an enclosed space, locks for a basement, a latch for the box. Until the physical dependence is sweated out. Until the psychological dependence stays dug in. Until you want to be clean. (Want humanity more than the blood.)

“The flushing solution does most of it. This just expedites it. Which...I guess it’s the best way? If the curse tries to rebound.”

Can it work for a vampire? Can his be expedited, instead of wasting years coming off human blood, rationing animal blood in the meanwhile to avoid desiccation.

There's only one reason a vampire would ask. Drugs don’t create the same high, or dependence. It burns too quickly.

He looks down at his hands, hanging between his knees. He can’t admit to it. Not to a human who's alone and at ease with him. Nor does he want to think about his own (inevitable) relapses. “Is that unusual, for the curse to rebound?”

Gene pauses, tapping the pen against the edge of the page. “Yeah. I mean... usually when you curse someone it’s one and done. If you’re cursed, or you’re helping someone, you try to unravel it. Poisoned? Find the right antidote.” He shoots Stefan a look. “I guess because you were dosed with vervain she thought the curse had been in her system too long to trust vampire blood...or...maybe it takes longer for your blood to recover its healing properties?” He looks down at his journal, pauses to scribble a note. “A curse that looks like poison, acts like poison, and can keep replicating every time you try to fix it? That’s...” he twists his mouth, guilty in admiring it.

Stefan thinks about what Casey told Sheila, about the werewolf venom coating the blade.

Werewolf venom.

He doesn’t share that detail with Gene either. 

Casey is curled around her wounded hand on top of the covers, still flushed with fever. Gene recommended keeping an eye on her, so Stefan declined her offer of getting him his own room before she had even elaborated on where that room happened to be.

A supernatural boarding house. A dichotomy to the Salvatore Boarding House. And what was the supernatural community beyond witches and vampires? What else is out there? He asked those questions before, once, and was told nothing. Now...

He’s awake with his thoughts when someone knocks on the door hours later.  

The woman on the other side is carrying an old Gladstone bag with both hands, her right shoulder dropped by the weight. She looks him up and down curiously, rolling her shoulder to push back straightened, ice blonde hair out of her face.

“I’m a friend,” she announces, smiling with a tense mouth belaying her impatience. She jostles the bag to one hand, offering the other for a handshake. “Charlotte.”

“Stefan,” he returns, shifting so Casey’s form is visible behind him. She shakes his hand once, perfunctory, with narrowed eyes, and dismissive purview. She doesn't shudder as witches tend to do when touching a new vampire for the first time. For him, he's always noticed their reaction seemed heightened. As if he's closer to death. Because of the blood, or because of the ripper.

Only Sheila Bennett looked like she was reading something else. Only Casey looked like...it didn't matter. That his touch could help or be a relief. 

“She either mentioned me or you’re very trusting,” she drawls as she passes.

She approaches the bed, dropping the heavy bag carefully. “I thought this was a magical sanctuary,” he opens with to gauge her reaction.

“Which stops me if I value life."

His brows raise, but otherwise he gives no reaction to that interesting take on how the wards work here. Not as safe as advertised, if homicidal or obsessive or thrill seeking urge overrides self-preservation, as happens often in the vampire community. 

She reaches out to brush a strand of dark red hair off of Casey's face, to touch her forehead with the back of her fingertips. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“She was slashed with a dagger, to her hand.” He thinks, by the angle, where the cut is deepest, that it's a defensive wound, but Casey didn't elaborate on how it happened. 

She reaches out for hand, gently uncurling the fingers, staying away from the burns at her wrists. He's not sure how Casey's rings work, that those wounds were once hidden, and now show while the others do not.

Her palm is pink in what looks like a rash. Charlotte lifts the other hand to see the same.

"So she did use the hotbox," she sighs.

He shifts his arms against his chest, hands curled around the opposite elbow, thumbs pressing into his skin. “Do you think the curse will rebound?”

She considers the wound seriously. "No. It's run it's course. I'll run a battery to see what all it did," she clenches her hands in her lap. 

"What it did?" he repeats.

“Don’t let the size of the wound fool you." She doesn't elaborate. "How long was it until she got to the apothecary?”

He shakes his head. He's not sure when the confrontation happened before the bridge. "At least three hours."

He remembers her blue lips, the black tinge on her fingers, the desperate wheeze as she was laid out on Sheila’s couch. Her skin lost all color, except for her veins seeming to swell, the infection strengthening until it overwhelmed her, starved her of oxygen. 

Was breaking the curse and flushing out the poison enough to undo that kind of damage? 

He lowers his chin. “She lost consciousness and needed a witch’s help for a blood clearing spell.”

She frowns. “It took her three hours to get here?"

“We were in Mystic Falls.”

Her eyes widen. "Mystic Falls? She told me - to never -" 

She whips back to Casey, hands outstretched like she's going to shake her awake.

He was not expecting Mystic Falls to generate that reaction. 

“What did she say about it?” he asks, curious.

She shakes her head, looking between him and Casey with a dozen questions flickering across her face. “To stay away basically. Moths, flames.”

Was that a reference to Katherine's doppelgänger? To the comet?

Her lips purse. “Where do you come in?”

“After. There was a car crash off of a bridge. We met after we both jumped in.” 

She frowns. “Was the attacker there?” 

He shakes his head. “No.”

"No," she repeats, turning to Casey as if she can get the answer as to why, from her. She turns back to Stefan. She holds her hands up. "Okay. Did she say anything about them? About the attack?"

He hesitates. By Casey's demeanor she hadn't circumvented much, hadn't avoided anything directly.

But, she had also been in pain, and aware that there was a possibility she was going to die. Was she the type to confess more to a stranger, two strangers, than she would her friend? 

Charlotte watches him. "Did it have something to do with wanting...information out of her?" She asks carefully.

He decides, without knowing if it's the right decision, to reply in the same code, to use Casey's own words. "More to prevent her intervening."

She stares blankly. “Intervening in what?” She stops, eyes narrowing. “The car crash?” She asks flatly.

He nods.

She reaches for her necklace, running the pendant back and forth on the chain. “Did she change anything?”

‘Grayson was meant to die.’ And didn’t. “Yes.”

Her shoulders tighten. “So, someone kidnapped her, took her to Mystic Falls where this event was supposed to happen, told her it was all to prevent her from intervening, mortally wounded her, and then when Casey escaped, she immediately went to do just that?”

That was a paranoid way of looking at it, but...

“You think they meant for her to intervene?”

She glances up at him, quick and distrustful. “She wouldn’t have allowed you into her room unless she trusted you. Magical sanctuary or not,” her blue, flinty eyes warn him if Casey is wrong. “She wouldn’t have asked for your help.”

“She didn’t ask,” he can’t help but correct, not wanting her under any illusions as to how much Casey trusts him.

"Because you offered first?" she questions. She reads his answer in his face. "Then she allowed you to, which amounts to the same thing.” She returns to the pendant at her neck, sliding back and forth. “You know about her being a former seer?”

He nods.

Even though she spoke the word, she looks briefly surprised that he confirms it, tilting her head thoughtfully like she's trying to see something in him. 

"The thing is," she starts slowly, "she would have had to be very, very careful, in the way she intervened.”

“Why?” he wonders at the cautious, delicate way she words it, the way she lowers her voice. Why, Casey, if she intended to help, did she park out of sight of the bridge, and he suspects, wait for the car to hit its point of no return.  

“It’s worse than oath-breaking,” she cautions, deadly serious.

Did that mean something different, to witches and former seers? To him it sounds something out of the classics. Were there rules here that he was completely ignorant, more than antiqued honor at stake when breaking oaths, or vows?

“Torment," she elaborates "beyond death."

He rubs at his eyes. 

He's confused on what having visions mean. Being a seer. Risking intervening. 

Why tell him those things, about what's going to happen? Why advise Sheila to help her granddaughter be less self-sacrificing? 

Because it wouldn't make a difference? Cassandra's curse, to never be believed. Oedipus's fate, to fulfill his own monstrous prophecy. 

No. 

No. Someone who carries a mortal wound on their hand, who fights through the poison, did it because she knew there was a chance. 

He doesn't want to live 1864 again. 

“Did she tell you what changed?” her voice pierces his thoughts, the dread that's hooked into his gut. 

He answers quietly. “She saved someone’s life.”

She observes him for an extended moment, as if waiting for him to add more. Who, possibly. Their importance. 

"The attacker knew about her vision. They brought her close to where it was going to happen. They tried to kill her, or made it look like they were trying, or were trying to mortally injury but with enough time to intervene." She looks frustrated as she spins through possibilities. 

It sounds like a gamble, making sure it happened that way, and that Casey would react how they wanted. "Why didn't they intervene themselves, if that's what they wanted?"

“That’s a good point,” she begrudges, sounding unsure.

Is she right to be suspicious, is too much of this orchestrated, and not chance?

“Without being attacked," he wonders "would she have tried to intervene?”

She shakes her head mutely. "I don't think she would have ever stepped foot in Mystic Falls."

Never. That's a strange thing to consider, now. That he was never meant to meet her. 

He rubs his mouth before asking his next question. “Could it be someone who wanted her to suffer torment after death?" 

Her body goes still. It makes everything else fit. It doesn't matter if they meant for her to fail or succeed in intervening, if that's what they were after. She fists her hands, to stop from reaching out to Casey and waking her up, making her confirm it. “Did she share anything specifically about the attacker, or attackers?” 

He shakes his head. Most of what he knows he’s inferred, her defense wounds, disheveled appearance, the abrasions at her wrists. Her indifference of the car, before she told the woman at the desk to take it. “She had their car, a silver Mercedes C-class, brand new.”

“Where is it?”

“It was parked at the apothecary, but she handed the keys to the woman at the counter here. Said she only wanted the contents.”

“Hope that hurts, if she left them alive,” she answers blithely.

He glances at Casey’s form, chest rising steady and deep, wonders if she did kill them.

Charlotte snorts. “You seem disappointed,” she observes, reading him and whatever he feels about her friend, with interest.

He looks over at her, steady and without expression.

She files it away. "The witch you went to in Mystic Falls, why couldn't she flush out the poison?"

“She said she didn’t have the ingredients.”

Charlotte raises her brow. “Did you believe her?”

He quirks his brow in return, surmising she’s a woman who trusts very little. “Yes.”

She frowns, dropping her pendant again. “Did Casey seem at all reluctant about coming to the apothecary?”

“...No.”

He wonders if she suspects someone specifically. Someone who at least knows about the visions. In Casey’s words, ‘it might be hard to believe, but I don't usually tell people about the vision thing.’

Putting aside torment after death and however a doppelgänger relates to all this - he wonders if whoever it was intended for her to live, or to die.

He heads downstairs when Charlotte shakes Casey awake, advises her that they should break the fever, and carry her into the bath to treat the spreading inflammation. He doesn't know what goes into caring for someone who went through what she went through, the poisoning and the treatment, but she's hardly been asleep for a few hours, not nearly enough to recharge, to find reprieve. 

(Is it because her friend doesn't want to wait for answers?)

Casey awakens without moving, without confusion, without grumbling. It tells him how used she is to being disturbed, adapted to uneasy sleep. When she gets up, already resigned, he decides to leave.

He takes to exploring the strange eclectic house. He assumes it was built in the Queen Anne era; and the wallpaper left from the time it was built. The floors are rickety and could use sanding and new varnish. The artwork is incredibly varied in mediums, styles, size, and taste, and he wonders if Casey was comparing the artwork of the Salvatore Boarding House to this place.

He’s drawn to the only room with the blinds open to natural light.

There’s another occupant tucked into a cushion chair by the window, reading. He trails through the built-in bookcases until he stops in front of the shelves of crammed notebooks and leather-bound journals, running his hand across the leather, some of it cracked, or supple, or hard. He flips through a few, finds handwritten accounts in handwriting he rarely sees anymore. Others hold instructions to ingredient harvesting, crafting, gardening, ritual preparation. He moves towards another shelf, half full of what looks like new additions, most of the covers glossy paperbacks. Some are classics in his own library, none seemingly supernatural.

The mousy brown haired woman who watches him from the corner of her eye speaks up tentatively. “It’s somewhat of a tradition, for lodgers to leave a book behind.”

He scratches at the back of his head, looking over the books. "Is there an organization system?"

She chuckles, burying it in embarrassment as she peeks up through her lashes. “I’m not sure if there ever was one. They all get shuffled out of order.”

He looks back at the paperbacks.

“I think that’s my favorite section. It tells you about the different beings who’ve been here, what kind of people pass through.”

He thanks her and finds himself drawn to the last book. A short, shiny copy of ‘All’s Well that End’s Well’. Shakespeare. Not one of the popular plays. There isn’t a foreword, or signature, or note buried between the pages, but he comes across a highlighted passage:

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.”

He thinks he knows who highlighted this passage, who selected this book.

He finds a seat and starts it at the beginning.

A bell sounds, likely from magic as it vibrates softly through the room, from somewhere farther away.

He doesn’t know what it signifies, and the other occupant in the small library doesn’t look up from her book.

The girl who steps into the library half an hour later looks almost wholly different from the girl he met – who was pained and determined, barefoot and bedraggled in a watertight yellow sundress. Who, beyond her wounding, reminded him of Botticelli's Aphrodite, only with richer coloring. 

Her hair is untangled and smooth, pulled back into a braid that spirals over her shoulder, the ends curled at the waist. She looks more comfortable, arms swinging slightly at her sides, no longer wrapped around her waist. There’s a healthy flush to her cheeks, brightened from the chalky white, and calmed from breaking her fever. There are patches of drying, pink lotion on her cheeks, the edging of her jaw, and down the sides of her neck. The more he looks for it, he notices it's also smeared liberally on her elbows and up her arms.  

She stuffs white gloved hands in her belted khaki shorts, and rocks on her sneakered feet when she reaches him. “Hi,” she smiles, looking only slightly tired. She bites the corner of her lip as her eyes drift to the book in his hands. She aims for dry, but her tone betrays her humor. “You wouldn’t rather read about dragons?”

He softly closes the book, still not sure what he's gleamed from it. “The library’s organized chronologically apparently. I couldn’t decide when’s the most likely time a dragon came to Richmond.”

She laughs softly, plopping into the seat across from him. "Okay...How about an arachnid?”

“Arachnid,” he repeats, without inflection.

Her braid shifts as she leans forward, her face lit from the window behind him as the red lightens, hints at strands of gold. “Spinnetod actually,” her light grey eyes lock meaningfully, flicker just for a second behind him in emphasis. “I don’t think she’s hunting now, but if she’s using this place, it’s probably coming up and she’s scouting.”

Again, he tries to read her expression, werewolves, dragons, and now another species, unique in that he's never heard it before. She's perfected a - he wouldn't call it guileless, because there's too much teasing in it, but a tone, a look of 'I dare you not to believe me'.

He tilts his chin, shaking his head slightly as he's drawn in again. He's willing to admit there's a lot he doesn't know, and it stops him from dismissing...all of this, even if he holds out from truly accepting it all.

“And what does a Spinnetod hunt?” he asks drolly.

She drags out the word slowly, conspiratorially. “Men.”

He rubs at his eyes. “I need a drink.”

“Vampires are non-compatible,” she reassures, still in an undertone.  

The laugh huffs out of him, unexpected. 

“That’s reliving,” he still doesn’t drop his hand.

“If you knew how they hunted, you wouldn’t doubt it. Speaking of which...hungry?” 

She points out a copy of Charlotte’s Web when he puts her book back, but he dismisses it as conjecture. She shoots back he shouldn’t bother leaving a copy of Dracula, as there’s at least fifty in the library.

He assures her it never crossed his mind.

And truly, he’d likely leave something more inline with her choice, not a hint at species.

“Like what, Gatsby?” she wonders, distracted as they head down the stairs.

He stops briefly in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

She looks back over her shoulder, evaluating him thoughtfully. “What’s that quote? ‘We beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”

He doesn’t have an answer. Once, those words spoke to something deep inside of him, always reflecting on his past, his youth, a time before he made irrevocable mistakes. Now, with what she’s shared with him – he’s not sure.

“I was thinking Alice in Wonderland,” he says instead, instead of touching on her guessing at his favorite author, and a novel he’s never understood his yearning for.

“Ah,” she makes a noise of deep agreement. “I’m not crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”

“I’m not surprised you empathize with the Cheshire Cat,” he teases, thinking to himself: ‘it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’ Even if he is fighting the current that’s trying to bring him back to the past.

They step into the kitchen basement. It’s a blend of Victorian and mid-century. A pale blue fridge with a click handle. A gas stove. Brick oven. Blackened stoned fireplace with cast iron rotisserie. There’s a long line of jars on the counters, spices, and cultivated herbs. In that it’s not unlike the apothecary it’s attached to.

Casey heads to the island’s assembly line, to a spread of Ruben pastrami sandwiches, coleslaw, garlic mushrooms, and a tin of chocolate cupcakes with white webbing icing. Casey points at the loaf of rye bread and then herself, the mushrooms, then him, and then gives a pointed look when she reaches the cupcakes.

He raises his brows, not sure what exactly she’s trying to communicate as he makes a cup of coffee from the coffee cart. He doesn’t need, or crave, hearty meals, though vampires do crave delicacy’s, caffeine, and above all else, alcohol. (Not above all else.)

The cook at the stove is built like a fighter, tall and solid, with strong arms, and strong hands. The flour on his half apron, and smell of fresh rye bread pins him as a baker as much as a cook. He’s seems busy grilling sandwiches, the cutting board out with a knife balanced precariously, leeks and parsley chopped fine on the board.

“Charlotte wants you to stick to the stew,” he turns around to point at Casey, taking the lid off a stew pot left simmering, ladling into a bowl.

Casey looks at the sandwiches wistfully. “Yeah probably,” she agrees. “Are you eating?” she turns towards Stefan.

He shakes his head. “I’m fine with coffee.”  

“Do you want any of the frou frou?” she gestures to the cream and sugar near her as she grabs a bottle of water.

“You don’t know?” he asks with dry surprise.

She slides the cream and sugar back to its original spot, as if retracting the offer. “There’s only so much knowledge I can keep track of.”

He holds up his cup to illustrate he'll drink it black.

The cook hands her a steaming bowl filled with barley, carrots, and chicken broth. He raises a bushy brow at her. “Any reasons you're on diet restriction?"

She looks up from the taking the measure of ingredients in the bowl. "I was sick yesterday," she shrugs as she grabs napkins and a spoon, tucking her water bottle into her elbow as she picks up the bowl with both gloved hands. “Gab this is Stefan, Stefan, Gab.”

They share a nod.

“That last one for you?” Casey gestures her chin towards the stove.

He shakes his head. “Got a few more.”

“We’ll be out there, if you want to join us?” she offers, nodding Stefan towards the wood pallet saloon doors.

They move into the dining room, that might have once been a cellar. The walls are limed over brick, and the ceiling is at a low 7 feet. There are scones above every table, carved in the same walnut wood. Some of the tables are small, only room for two people, others four, pushing six. It’s less communal than he expected, given the dining room at the Salvatore Boarding House. The guests are spread out, an older gentleman sitting with his back against the far wall, fixated on his stew. A guy probably in his late teens is eating his sandwich quickly, headphones in his ears, and head turned away from the room. The man and woman sitting together, cradling cups of coffee, are the only ones to shoot them evaluating glances, quick and non-direct, something habitual, and long coordinated.

When the doors swing shut the room darkens slighter without the brighter light from the kitchen.

Casey chooses her table near the couple, her mouth curled in amusement.

He asks her about Charlotte.

“She’s at the apothecary,” she shrugs.

He tries to guess if Charlotte mentioned her theory, her worries. In this he finds her hard to read.

She folds her napkin in her lap, scoots her chair forward on the cobblestone, and blows gently on her soup.  

The couple renew their conversation after neither Stefan nor Casey give them any notice.

The brunette, British, talks about visiting a friend named Slater, perhaps staying with him for a few weeks until they decide whether or not they’ll stay.

The man, who’s accent is harder to pinpoint, but something European, teases her love of windows.

“So, did you figure it out?” Casey looks up from spinning figure-eights with her spoon, as steam rises from the bowl. She nods towards the kitchen.

“Ruben sandwiches, mushrooms, and cupcakes?” He guesses.

She nods, widening her eyes as if he can read the secret in them.

He thinks he understands part of it. The cupcakes with the spiderweb design. He capitulates.

“Sandwitches,” she drags out, then waves her hand. “Granted, the rye bread is a little more obscure.”

"You're going to try and convince me there's a conspiracy in the lunch menu?"

She opens her mouth, stops, and then shakes her head, her wrist temporarily halted. “You draw the line at puns?"

"I think I drew the line at dragons," he returns her look, exasperated and humored at the same time. 

"You know what? I'm going to introduce you to a Dämonfeuer," she quickly decides, leaning closer. "Look at the evidence, rye bread -"

"Which I'm guessing references rye ergot, in this fantasy.”

She smiles, head tilted curiously. “You do know some Salem history.”

“And what are mushrooms?” He raises his brow, mockingly pointing at himself.

She pulls in a breath in preparation, savoring it, before, “garlic. Garlic mushrooms.”

He shuts his eyes and laughs. 

“Okay," he holds out his palms. "What does chicken soup represent?”

At that, she falters, plopping back into her seat. “Uh, melting pot? Like, mixed heritage?”

“So, this is a theory," he nods drolly.

“So is Pythagoras, Pythagorean, whatever,” she mutters, returning to her soup.

Gab comes out to join them with his own platter of Ruben and coleslaw, and a second plate of cupcakes. Casey pulls further in, to make sure he has plenty of room to slide next to her.

Stefan gets up to refill his cup, and when he comes back Casey is asking him if Sofia has taught him the secret to her mulled wine.

He shakes his head as he digs in. “She’s old school. Recipes should stay in the family, and brews are women’s craft.”

“How close have you come to recreating it?” She asks, fully interested.

He smiles wryly. “She’d never admit it if I got it right.”

“So?” she rolls her eyes. “Experimenting will only lead to you developing a better palette, and you might discover it for yourself or develop something unique. Win, win.”

He begrudgingly looks encouraged.

“How’s school, anyway?”

He talks about the different desserts they’re working on. Both make a face at peach cobbler made the wrong way, as if it were a bread pudding. Stefan is now certain Casey was raised in the South, even if her accent is seemingly purposefully obscure, musical, but hard to pinpoint. Regional accents aren’t as easy to guess as they used to be. Stefan has spent so many decades away from home, away from the accents he remembers, his Southern drawl is completely gone.

Gab elaborates why he’s staying at the Boarding House, the supply of cookbooks gathered here, the lost recipes. The woman upstairs, who might be a man hunting Spinnetod, said the books came from things people purposefully left behind. He’s not sure why people would leave behind their family history.

“No one else to leave it to. Family dies out, new generation isn’t interested, which –” he shakes his head gruffly. “I don’t get. But they leave it behind because they can’t bear to keep it, or they’re hoping someone will come along and appreciate them, use it instead of letting it die out. Too many things are lost because people wanted to keep them to themselves.” He smiles. “And I’m grateful. Orphans like us,” he softly elbows Casey, who’s expression flickers, something brittle flashing across her eyes as she pulls in a breath and doesn’t release it “we’d be cut off, but instead we can rediscover something that we can make our own.”

Casey bobs her head, eyes on her soup. 

She isn't a witch anymore - what ever she's been able to make her own, there are large parts of it at least, that she's lost. 

Stefan backtracks the conversation. Cuisine has changed a lot, he broaches, guessing at the recipes in those 200-year-old books, from cultural taste, to choice-cuts of meats, before trade allowed fruit and vegetables from incompatible seasons. He’s familiar with some of the rigor of culinary studies, and they both hold the conversation while Casey silently finishes her soup.

“Where’d you learn?” 

Florence. Rome. Paris. He doesn't mention the institutions, understanding that Gab is putting himself through culinary school. 

“What’s your specialty then?” Casey asks softly as she rejoins the conversation. 

He teases that she might not know traditional Florence dishes. Bistecca Fiorentina. Pappadelle Sulla Lepre.

She bites her lip, lashes shielding her eyes as she looks down. 

 “Sha, I have to bust out the cherie to get that reaction,” Gab guffaws.

She glares at him, snatching a cupcake from the plate and starts pulling off her glove with extreme focus.

“Are you Italian?” Gab asks him.  

He looks away from Casey's blushing face, pulling back in his chair as he clears his throat. “My family came over from Florence. Are you from Louisiana?”

Gab’s mirth drops, but he nods back. “Born in New Orleans. We left when I was a kid. Not much of an accent left,” he shrugs, almost self-deprecatingly.

Casey looks up from where she’s peeling the paper from her cupcake, glancing at Gab’s expression thoughtfully.  

“I was last there in ’42,” Stefan offers, wondering at the mood. “No place like it.”

The man sitting at the next table over (who has been discretely listening to their conversation without facing them) turns in his chair, and disdainfully says, “Is that where you received your little ring, in service in New Or-leans?”

Stefan turns his head, eyes steady as he takes the measure of the man, who flicks his hair out of his eyes to glare haughtily, while the woman next to him shoots her companion a look of warning. He keeps the rest of his body relaxed, laying his hands flat, as the man – the other vampire – looks down at the ring and clenches his jaw.

Casey interjects, “I wouldn’t say it’s little,” peering down at the ring in mock-confusion. Stefan doesn’t look away from the man glaring at him.

“In service of?” Stefan asks him to clarify, all warmth leeched out of his voice, waiting. He’s met very few vampires who had daylight rings, and the ones without who have met him, usually toe around asking how he got it, plead, threaten, or fight.

He smiles back, mocking. “To the vampire king running New Orleans.”

Stefan waits a beat to glance at the man’s empty hand, then back up. “Is that what you tried to do?”

He sneers. “Do you have any idea how much older I am than you?”

“No,” Stefan answers, short and blunt as his female companion hisses “Trev, don’t pick a fight here.”

He’s abstractedly aware of Casey as she pulls off a piece of her cupcake and plops it into her mouth. “Imagine that, fighting in a magical sanctuary. Never a dull moment with you, Stefan Salvatore.”

The woman blinks, hand reaching out for her companion’s forearm. “Stefan Salvatore? Lexi’s friend?”

Her hand tightens. “Knock it off,” she advises, before turning cat-like eyes to their table. “I’m a friend of Lexi’s as well. She tried to match us in...’89 I believe? Said you were one of the good ones,” the last words are more for the man next to her. “Forgive my friend here for being presumptuous.”

Stefan can’t help glancing at Casey, who looks up from her cupcake as if surprised to have his attention, as if she didn’t drop his name deliberately. And he accepts, that Lexi, who’s the oldest vampire he knows, probably knows her, and has tried to matchmake. 

“So, you haven’t worked for Marcel,” Gab questions, before Stefan can ask how well she knows Lexi.

“No. I don’t know who that is,” he admits. “Or that there was a king in New Orleans.”

Gab pulls on his goatee. “I don’t think he was a king in those days. Not until he nearly eradicated the Rougarou 20 years ago. Then, he started subjugating witches.”

Casey looks at Stefan, a sparkle in her eyes as she mouths werewolves. 

He makes a face back, shaking his head at her. 

He sobers as he looks back to Gab, fits that into what he's already said. Mid-twenties, left New Orleans as a child, cut off from his family history, an orphan.   

“And he gives daylight rings to vampires in his...employ?” he asks, playing catch-up.

“To the ones who’ve been with him long enough or are particularly apt enforcers,” Gab declares, with a wealth of complex feeling underlining his words.

“A bit like Scar and the hyenas,” Casey murmurs, mulling over her own words as she sits back in her chair.

“Are the Mikaelsons Mufasa?” Gab rolls his eyes, shifting his chair, if for nothing else than to expel pent up energy.

There’s a visible reaction from the vampires Stefan is still aware of in his peripheral. They both still.

“If Mufasa didn’t really die,” Casey agrees, still picking pieces off her cupcake.

Who are the Mikaelsons?

Gab asks how Stefan earned his daylight ring.

“I didn’t.” He answers shortly. “There was a witch who knew the spell when I was turned.”

The male vampire must find that answer intolerable. He pushes his chair in and tells his companion he’ll be in his room. There’s an almost halted gesture to incline not just his head but his upper back in a bow. It’s an old social norm given his appearance. Unless he’s spent decades desiccated somewhere or kept himself separate from human society.

“From what I’ve heard, you have to be connected to Originals in some fashion, given the original spell is guarded jealously,” Gab cracks his knuckles, looking down at his own calloused hands. “Ever have to fight for it?”

“Yes.” And he’s learned that the spell on the ring is also individualized to the vampire. It can’t be used, successfully, by another.  

He nods, but his good humor is gone, lost in talk of New Orleans. He picks up his plate and tells Casey he’ll catch up with her later.

Gab offers his hand to Stefan, grim, but friendly. Between Gene, Charlotte, and Gab, he’s never had so many witches, or warlocks, at a time, willing to reserve judgment. And Gab has reason not to. 

Casey picks up the two remaining cupcakes, places one in front of her and the other sliding towards Stefan.

“I apologize, again.” The woman interjects with a sigh, ruffling the spiky brown hair away from her cheek. She places her hands on the coffee cups but doesn’t rise. He wonders, with it being daylight, how limited she is on where she can go, and how she might not want to join her companion in his current mood. The other two diners have already left, and it’s only the three of them that remain.

“I thought you were fine,” Casey voices, with a telling look that she thinks the other woman doesn’t have anything to apologize for. Stefan sighs, and reaches for the chocolate cupcake.

“Yes, well, I’d still feel dreadfully uncomfortable if I didn’t,” she jokes, fidgeting with a sugar packet. 

“Then apology accepted,” though he agrees with Casey. Even though he’s not sure what’s motivating her to stay and if it’s isn’t serving something ulterior.

She introduces herself as Rose.  

Casey observes her a moment without reciprocating, instead offering her untouched cupcake.

“Bless be the peacemaker?” she waves, and when Rose smiles, surprised at the gesture, she stretches out to pass it to her. Casey uses the camaraderie to ask why it didn't work out, with Lexi's matchmaking. 

Rose and him glance at each other, evaluating each other for a blind date that never happened. She smirks sardonically, aim more towards herself. “I’ve always been more attracted to the men I shouldn't. Don’t know why. When Lexi said he was a good guy -” she shrugs, as if that was the death keel. 

Stefan lifts his brow slightly, still eating his cupcake. 

“It’s pretty common,” Casey declares, unscrewing her water bottle. “The tame the beast archetype. Why aggression has a certain appeal. Ideally that aggression turns on those who threaten you once you’ve romanced the beast, brought out a softness only for you. Proven fidelity. A strong protector.”

Stefan furrows his brows, watching Casey's expression.

“Protector, huh? That’s what I’m attracted to? Not the abrasive jackass?” Rose ruefully picks at her own cupcake. 

Casey smiles sideways. “It seems counterintuitive, but instinct says the more aggressive, the better the protector. If you feel really unsafe, you'd probably go for the biggest jackass you could find.” There's something teasing in that last statement, something knowing as she looks at Rose. 

Rose glances away. "I take it you don’t agree with this tame the beast archetype?”

Stefan waits upon her answer. Multiple times last night she had relied on his help, when she was hurt, when she felt unsafe. What drove that trust, or was it coincidence of him having been the one that was there? And sharing everything else, circumstance again? Or was it worse, what she saw in him? 

Casey doesn't answer the question directly. “You’re close with your friend,” she states as fact.

“Yes,” Rose agrees, questioning where this is going, but meaning it.

“So...let’s say you found this beast. You fell in love. Your friend needs help, something serious, but something stops you from being there. This man, whose only soft for you, only prioritizes you, can you trust him to be there for him? For the people you care about? What if he feels he’s choosing between caring for you, and helping your loved ones? Can you trust him to respect your feelings outside of him? Your choices?”

Rose doesn’t answer.

Casey seems to shrug, lifting her drink for a sip. “Personally," she pauses, looking down at her water "I think you should have taken Lexi up on her offer.”

Chapter Text

“Suppose [a person] had a basket full of apples and, being worried that some of the apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot spreading. How would he proceed? Would he not begin by tipping the whole lot out of the basket? And would not the next step be to cast his eye over each apple in turn, and pick up and put back in the basket only those he saw to be sound, leaving the others? In just the same way, those who have never philosophized correctly have various opinions in their minds which they have begun to store up since childhood, and which they therefore have reason to believe may in many cases be false. They then attempt to separate the false beliefs from the others, so as to prevent their contaminating the rest and making the whole lot uncertain. Now the best way they can accomplish this is to reject all their beliefs together in one go, as if they were all uncertain and false. They can then go over each belief in turn and re-adopt only those which they recognize to be true and indubitable.” ―  René Descartes

Chapter four: come what may

The plan was to take Stefan home as soon as she woke. After that, she wasn’t sure. Would Grayson share Stefan's secret? Let Liz in on the conspiracy? Parts of it anyway.

Though Liz was Miranda's best friend, they - John, Grayson, and Miranda - shared nothing about the danger Elena was/is in, any plans to protect the town; had treated her like a resource to use, not as an ally. Would Grayson continue that, or without Miranda, would he reach out? 

Maybe she had more than one reason to nab Stefan Salvatore, until she can figure out what to tell him, think up the right strategy. Showing up in daylight might not be enough. 

She guesses, guesses, that Grayson is thankful for Stefan's assistance, and would be willing to stay mum until the bodies turn up, but the best way to gauge the new situation would be to show up at the Sheriff's station, give her statement, see if her tea or coffee, or whatever they offer tastes floral, and watch for any seeds of distrust, of hidden wariness. 

It won't tell her exactly, what she's leaving behind, but it will help her frame her parting advice to Stefan. Thanks for your help, sorry for throwing a spanner into your life. Road to true love never runs smoothly and all that.

The plan gets delayed. First by Charlotte. Then by a gnawing ache for food. Then by Sofia, handing off the only meaningful contents of Marie’s vehicle.

Casey’s purse. 

She didn't leave it behind. Didn't throw it in a dumpster. 

Hmm...

She dumps the contents on the floor of her room, spreads the pieces with white gloved fingertips. 

Stefan thumbs through one of the journals on her bedside table, her notes tucked in as she tries to piecemeal a remedy for cursed scars. She hadn’t looked up but had been faintly aware of him in her peripheral when he moved the chair closer to the bed, so that he wouldn’t block the light streaming in from the window, illuminating her little pile.

Nothing new. Nothing missing.  

She riffles through her wallet, twisting the little plastic card of her counterfeit ID, between her fingers. 

It would be smart, to place a tracking spell on something that stays constant on a mark's day to day. 

She had it made, had picked Casey Shannon, long before she made contact with Marie’s coven. There's opportunity. 

It's not obvious, like a pin, or a piece of jewelry, things that take spells easier. And if it's going to be anything it's more likely that than loose barrettes, chap stick, sticks of gum, as if this is a James Bond novel. 

It doesn't feel like anything. So either it's fine, or her relationship with magic is more severed than she imagined, that she can't even feel it in her hands. A void. 

Casey pulls the knife hidden in her belt and cuts the seams of the inner lining, just to be sure, wanting to find something obvious. 

“This person who attacked you...do you think they’ll try again?” Stefan asks her, wondering if that’s what’s driving her intensity to dismantle her own belongings.

“Unlikely,” she murmurs, distracted, the purse now flayed, threads broken and unraveled. 

“What is it you’re looking for?” 

“Something that isn’t mine. Something that is but feels off,” she purses her lips. “Something that points to how she tracked me so I can at least prevent her, or someone else, doing it again.”

He pauses, something complicated she isn’t quick enough to grasp in his eyes as he tilts his eyes away. “You didn’t kill her.”

Her breath stutters, barely a moment, barely noticeable.

The rubber banded stack of money sits between them among the wreckage. An almost wergild for Marie’s trespass. A petty revenge. Her retaliation. 

“No,” she agrees.

Will you ask why I didn’t? Ask if I wanted to?

Ask how it felt, to still be bound in ropes when I caught the blade in my hand, how it sliced through my palm instead of my heart, how the blood poured, dripped in red tears. 

What it felt like to stand over Marie, knowing that if she had the magic, she could have forced her to confess why, how, who else was behind this. With the right power, turn mercy into leverage, forced Marie to never move against her.

Instead, it's only the upper hand in a fight. One fight. And if she met Marie's rage with her own, if she lived through the poison, she couldn’t afford the enmity of a coven - no matter that it looked like Marie was acting outside of their knowledge. 

Stefan joins her on the floor, squatting with his elbows on his knees, the sun highlighting dark blond in his hair. He surveys the same pile of seemingly innocuous items, tries to offer a sounding board. “Could it have been a locator spell?”

She stretches her back. “Nope, those won’t work on me.”

He takes note of her certainty, but doesn’t ask how that works, if she’s sure it’s infallible. Her eyes are brighter when she’s drawn into conversation, able to escape being drawn deeper into her own mind. She gives her full attention to everything, sparks through interplay, dialogue, banter. Without it she grows distant, more motionless, more desolate.

“Could she have tracked your phone?”

The burner is dismantled, the battery pulled clean. “Not that I could tell...”

At least there’s nothing really there to find. She can easily discard it for another.

There’s no pictures, no contacts, no call log. She’s still in the crossroads of one life and another, not sure what she can take with her. What relationships would she, could she, hold onto?

Stefan frowns. “How many ways can witches track people?”

How many ways are there to hurt someone? Potentially? Endless. “More ways than I can counter. But if I think like that, I’ll go mad,” and a little bit of Alice peeks through on the end. Or perhaps she's been the Mad Hatter all along.

Mad with paranoia. Feeling eyes in every shadow, following in dreams, watching from mirrors, windows, corners.

“Then there’s the other option,” she pulls up her right knee, rests her arm across it so she can drop her chin. She sighs. “It might have just been rumor. Someone saw me, knew who I was, moved it through the grapevine...”

Then, they likely knew she was staying here. Knew her connection with Charlotte, banked on her friendship even.

She drops her forehead against her arm. “I never appreciated how aggravating it is to not know something.”

Stefan hums.

She lifts her head, eyes narrowed.

He holds up his hands, lips pressed to hide a smile. “I’m agreeing with you." Completely. 

Charlotte looks through the contents of her purse, while Casey distracts herself with weaving a strand of dried lavender through the end of her braid. Weeks ago she could have done it herself, or offered something as Charlotte and her work through the magic together.

She breathes deeply, pulls the soothing fragrance into her lungs. For a while her skin, her scalp, is going to be more sensitive, too sensitive for fragrance in her shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotion, detergent. She already feels itchy from sleeping in her – well Stefan’s – sweaty clothes. That had been dumb.   

“There’s nothing here,” Charlotte pronounces, dropping her hands.

A part of her, just a small part, is relieved. If she had gone over her things, found nothing, felt nothing, and Charlotte easily pointed to the culprit, it would have been demoralizing. She had placed her things in Stefan’s hands, just to make sure nothing felt off.  The rest of her knows not having the answer is going to burrow under her skin. 

Why this event? Why Mystic Falls? Why, Marie? 

She finishes her braid again without commenting, chooses to ignore this topic altogether. “So, what dietary restrictions am I looking at?”

Charlotte hands the purse back as she glides towards the workbench.  

“No sugar,” Charlotte reminds her. She nods. Stefan raises his brows at her out of the corner of her eye, not noticeable enough to bust her. The cupcake has already made her queasy, which is why she gave the other one to Rose.

“I gave you the list, so you know what to eat,” she runs through the basics, points out the watercress for iron, the packets she’s bundled together to pour into a blender for some truly unappetizing smoothies. It will take at least a week to get her body to realign, to make sure it’s properly absorbing vitamins and minerals, for heavier fare not to twist her stomach.

“How much water have you had?”

“24 ounces?”  she guesses.

“Triple it, quadruple it, quintuple it.”

24 x 5... Isn't 120 ounces a day a little much?

“I think they call that drowning.” Belatedly, she hears how macabre that joke is, given...

She turns her head, so she won’t see Stefan’s expression. 

Way to be heartless. Way to forget so easily. 

“You should be drinking now."

Casey bites at her peeling lips, nodding mutely. 

Charlotte squints at the unusual reaction, picking up on the change in mood. Casey pre-empts her so she doesn't sniff it out, drudge up the faux pas she's trying to bypass. “I usually get that urge when in your company."

“Really?” She asks, faking amazement. "That’s interesting.” She drawls. “I wonder if I have enough lotion for those rashes to spare...”

Casey fights the inevitable fold. “I guess I’ll just get calamine at the store.”

“If you think it would work just as well,” she simmers.

Neither blink. 

She wouldn't. 

But...

Casey pouts, addressing her defeat to the ceiling. “I’ll ‘quintuple’ it,” she repeats obediently.

“You better,” Charlotte easily returns to her task, naming the items she's placing in the crate. “Fever reducers. Pain killers. Bandages. Lotion. Soap. You should use it for your hair as well.”

“Can’t I just pick-up something hypo-allergenic?” She frowns at the end of her braid that Charlotte plaited for her. It's already going to be a pain combing it out with an aching hand, but drying it out with soap as well?

Charlotte waves it off. “You can put up with it for two weeks.” Then she hesitates on the last items. “This is to check your vitals,” she announces, somber. Charlotte carefully, too carefully, sets them into the crate, the glass faintly tinkling.

“I wrote down the instructions. What you need to watch out for. What normal glomerular filtration rate you need to hit.”

“I don’t know what that is,” she answers slowly, asking Charlotte what’s going on.

Charlotte continues to stare down at the inside of the crate.

“For your kidneys,” Stefan answers, after a pregnant pause. It’s the first thing he’s said in Charlotte’s company, which up 'til now, she had found strange.

Charlotte turns to him. “And a bilirubin test,” she trails off leadingly, testing him.

Stefan’s eyes are locked with Charlotte. He's frowning. “To check for enzymes the liver cells release in response to damage.”

Charlotte glances at Casey, ruminating over something, a distance falling over her expression, her voice. “She has to watch out for liver damage. Kidneys too. She can’t skip meals, even if she has no appetite. Even if the last time she ate made her vomit. Right now, she’s starved for nutrition. Fluids are vital. I’ve written everything I know that could possibly go wrong and what to do.”

She doesn’t know what Charlotte thinks is going on, but Stefan isn’t her nursemaid, or her caretaker, or even her friend. “Char, Stefan met me last night.”

“Most people die when they’re ill because they dehydrate. Call her out if she brushes anything off. If she’s in pain she won’t tighten up like most people, she’ll try not to move her body, drop her shoulders, keeps her muscles lax. If you grab her hand, and she keeps it loose, then it’s bad and you need to–”

“He doesn’t need to do anything,” she interrupts again, throwing her hands up, purposefully throwing herself into movement to show just how fine she is. That's personal, too personal, things she didn't even know about herself. Is this what I do to people?  No wonder people want to murder me. 

“And it’s not that serious,” she glares at Charlotte, though her words are for Stefan.

“It is that serious,” Charlotte swings to her, suddenly severe. “Which is my point! You need someone. If they have vampire blood all the better!”

Casey rocks back. The words 'if they have vampire blood all the better' echo through her. 

What had Charlotte gleamed from the knife?

Charlotte drops her voice. “How it didn’t kill you-” she chokes, bloodless as she tightens her lips from saying more. 

Casey unclenches her fists, uncertain how to respond. How it didn’t kill her... Is she saying the poison damaged her in a way that only vampire blood might heal?  

She worries at her lip. “I’ve uh, built up a resistance to iocane powder –”

Charlotte glares. “Don’t." Don't deflect. Don't joke. "You may not think much of the witch who used that knife against you, but someone gave it to her to kill you. And they gave her a nearly guaranteed killing blow. I studied that fucking knife. The curse hadn’t been inlayed more than a week, which means it was for you. And it was dark. Your nerves would have been screaming like you were on fire –”

“I know what it felt like," she grits, low and harsh, telling Charlotte to stop.

“Look,” she starts again, heavier, the anger to cover up her worry, draining. “Look at it from my perspective. You were almost killed, were dealt with something that needed urgent attention if you were going to stop it from killing you. And you had her phone. You had a phone, but you didn’t call me. You didn’t call me to break the curse. Instead, you-” she tosses her hand, waiting for Casey to tell her what she was thinking.

Casey doesn’t have a good answer. It’s...the magic of Mystic Falls is complicated. Draws you in like a web. She told Charlotte before, not to traipse in it, not to be tempted no matter what she hears. And that was a worry, a distant worry when she had Marie’s phone in her hand.

More pressing was not knowing if the wound would kill her in minutes or hours.

She didn’t want to call her friend, putting it on her to save her, when all she’d be doing is pointing her in the direction of her body. Unloading that trauma on her.

She also didn’t want to drag anyone in if Marie wasn’t working alone, if there was going to be someone waiting, watching at the bridge.  

And also, if she's being brutally honest, she's used to fighting alone. 

Charlotte sighs, wiping her eyes. “I’ve already shared this theory with him,” she gestures to Stefan, who’s watching them with his hands fisted in his pockets, an uncomfortable audience to Charlotte’s anger and Casey’s hurt, Charlotte’s anguish, and Casey’s guilt. “But...maybe they wanted you to intervene so that you’d break your vow. If he,” she jerks her head to Stefan “was supposed to be there, and you were cursed with blood poisoning bound to werewolf venom, then that was to stop you from taking vampire blood. Casey, doesn't that sound...orchestrated?”

She knows she’s right.

“You don’t even know if this is about whoever you saved, or about you, or both. And you can’t...” she bites her tongue, stops herself.

“I can’t what?” Casey asks, resigned to whatever is coming, what Charlotte doesn’t want to say.

She inhales bracingly, hands reaching out to grip the sides of the work bench. “You can’t...pretend you still belong here.” Her face crumbles in apology as Casey stiffens her shoulders. She spews the rest out, hating herself for having to say it. In some way, what she’s been avoiding saying since Casey underwent her ritual. “You know it’s too dangerous. You had to have considered this as your opportunity to pretend you had been taken out. To let Casey Shannon, die, and create a new life where you don’t have to constantly look over your shoulder. And instead,” she pulls in a hard breath “you came back to Richmond.”

Casey stares out the window, hands clasped behind her back, gripping her wrists so tight she can feel the burn of ropes, like an imprint deeper than skin. At least she knows now, where this conversation is headed. Why Charlotte is stuffing everything she can into a care package. Why she wants Stefan to look after her health. Most of Charlotte’s time, when she’s not apprenticing, is helping people detox. It’s how she met Casey.

And Casey still feels that connection, that gratitude for supporting her. But it’s a shadow over Charlotte’s perception of her now.

That Casey is inviting danger. That she’s self-destructive. 

That she needs to let go. 

And that she needs to leave.

“Where’d you learn about filtration rates and liver enzymes?” She asks Stefan, eyes screwed tight while she fights the urge to vomit, again.

He gently extracts the last duffel bag from her hand, stows it alongside the others, and the crate, into the trunk.  

“Do you really want to talk about this?” he asks quietly. This as opposed to something else.

“Ab-so-lutely,” she sings, jaw ticking as she focuses on breathing through her nose. Way to show she doesn’t need help. Please, something to fill the cobwebs in my mind.

He moves to sit on the edge of her trunk, hands flat and framing his hips.

“I tried medical school, once.”

That surprises her. “When was this?”

“1946.”

“The GI Bill?” she guesses.

He smiles slightly, self-deprecating. “I thought, after the war, if I accepted my limitations, I could handle it.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it again, not sure what to say. He had been an ambulance driver in the war, had seen to wounded. Did he enter med school because, impossibly, he had controlled it for a time? It doesn’t compute with what she knows about him.

There’s plenty you don’t know. 

“That was a long time, to still remember it,” she murmurs, curious.

She takes the seat next to him in the open trunk, the crate sharp and unyielding against her back.  

“Vampires have long memories,” he shrugs.

She knows it doesn’t work that way. To remember something he couldn’t put into practice, so many years later, speaks to passion and yearning.

“Do you think you’ll try again?”  

He frowns, looking down at his hands. “I don’t think that’s in the cards for me anymore."

She has the urge to touch him. Her palm between the wings of his shoulder blades.

She doesn’t indulge it, in reaching out, but instead leans to knock her shoulder very gently against his. She sways back before he glances over at her, looking up from the daylight ring he twirls against his knuckle.

“I don’t know,” she declares, considering. “You could apprentice like Charlotte.”

His brows furrow.

“It’s not a traditional degree, or title, but it is a practice, and there’s a plethora of medical knowledge you could learn.” He doesn’t say anything. “In places like this, in the enclaves, the apothecarist is the doctor. And you could work around the blood. It’s mostly knowing remedies, more than actual wounds. Knowing what different curses look like, poisons.” She turns over her hand.

He looks down at her hand, the wound hidden by a bandage and a white glove. “Are there any vampire apothecarists?” he asks, like the start of a joke. 

She smirks, knowing which one to mention. “Yes. Pearl, from back in 1864.”

A memory, or a different time slips over his eyes. “Pearl. Is she one of the vampires in the tomb?”

Maybe she shouldn't have brought it up. “Yes, she is.”

He nods absently, weighed now, with the knowledge of one face, one identity, to the circumstances of the tomb vampires. 

She turns her gaze back to the road, swinging her feet slightly as the tips of her toes touch the pavement.

“If...you prefer to stay in human society then there are ways you could look like you’re aging, with magic. Maybe be a....pharmacist?” her voice turns higher at the end, unsure. “I mean, you don’t have to...jump into this,” this society he knows little or nothing about, about 160 odd years trying to fit in the human one “to get a version of something you want.”

“Something I want,” he repeats, muses, brows sardonic, but tone like it’s something he barely remembers. 

It's a reflection she knows well.

He offers to drive. It’s easy to allow him. She might have made the journey, part of the journey, last night, but that was backwards and in the dark. He doesn't need to comment on her wane appearance, though it's there in his offer. She doesn't have to pretend her right grip, and her wrists, don't ache when she touches anything, though it's there in her answer. 

“How did I never know about this place?” Stefan wonders, glancing at the boarding house, at the sliver of the apothecary visible behind the alley.

“The apothecary or the boarding house?” she asks as she drops two water bottles in the cupholders. 

“Either?” He focuses on the road, doesn't look down at her arrangement, the potential of Charlotte's instruction - to them both - hanging between them if he did. 

“Why, thinking about turning the Salvatore Boarding House into the Salvatore’s Supernatural Sanctorum Boarding House?”

“Well...I wouldn’t name it that,” he defends.

“Stefan Salvatore’s Super-Secret Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Supernatural Sanctorum?” she offers.

And what would that acronym sound like?” his green eyes dare her before turning back to the road. 

“Sssssss.” She hisses through her teeth. 

He closes his eyes, faking pain and secondhand embarrassment.  

She ponders what a Salvatore Boarding House would really be like. Hadn’t they opened their door to other vampires, not even knowing why Rose, or Rebekah, or Sage had felt comfortable? Hadn’t multiple vampires just assumed?

“Well, you’re familiar with some sanctuary magic,” she starts with.

He raises his brow at her.  

“It’s one of the principles of having to invite vampires inside,” she explains.

His brows furrow. “I thought it was –” he stops, hesitates “about not inviting evil in.”

“What?" She makes a face. "No," she denies vehemently. 

He's curious at her reaction. “Then what is it?”

She grabs one of the water bottles, looks down as she twists off the lid while she thinks. “It’s older than vampires. It’s – well some of it is magic of the hearth and home, but it’s to prevent the spirits who linger on from entering a domain they haven’t been invited into. Just their presence alone will make the occupants more susceptible to maladies and misfortune. So, it’s a sanctuary linked to thresholds. Vampires fall under it because to become a vampire you had to die. Actually die. Not mostly dead or partly dead, dead-dead. You crossed the threshold of the veil, so you can no longer freely cross the threshold of a domicile.”

She doesn’t say that vampires are basically parasitic spirits inhabiting their own corpse. It’s a disturbing way of looking at it, but that’s why sanctuary magic acts the way it does. 

Stefan runs his hands across the bottom part of the steering wheel, staring out at the road pensively.

“How many people know that?”

She twists her mouth. “How many people care? Where’d you hear it was about inviting evil? A witch?” He nods. “Well it’s wrong, but pretty on brand. I haven’t met a witch who wasn’t at least a little self-righteous. Even when they know they should question their prejudice, there’s so much of it they don’t realize how much they’ve built their understanding on. Especially their relationship with magic.”

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things,” Stefan quotes Descartes, in-tune with her meaning, something she's tried to explain so many times. 

He glances over, feels her gaze just as she skirts it away before they can connect.

“If you used to be a witch, does that mean you fall under the category of...a little self-righteous?” he teases.

“Noooo,” she denies, surprised at her own smile. “I try not to be,” she answers, much more honestly. “I-”

It’s instinct to cut herself off, but mostly, she’s rarely felt the urge to try to explain it at all. Not since the ritual. Not even to Charlotte. Her voice drops to a hush, strangled slightly as it stops and starts. “I had the ability to...see through other people, and... see through myself. Let’s say the basket of apples were tipped over for me.”

He nods in understanding. “I think I’m still sorting through mine,” he muses, ruefully.

She huffs on a laugh.

Tip of the iceberg, Stefan.

But then, he’s already realized that too.

“There’s this place in New Orleans, the St. James Infirmary. Is that magic similar to the boarding house you were staying in?”

“The St. James Infirmary?” she repeats, wondering if the conversation earlier has him reflecting on New Orleans.

He tries to read is she’s kidding by repeating it, given how famous the site is. 

She waves it off. “I mean, as a sanctuary it’s a league above the Brookland. If Marie had been tracking me, when I passed the threshold of St. James, the wards would have dispelled it, distinguished it from...” her throat closes on ‘my own magic’. She frowns, rubbing her arm through her gloves to help with the itch. “From innate magic. Like your daylight ring. If you stood in a patch of sunlight, the ring would still work. How does it know which magic to block and which to allow to protect the patrons? That’s what’s fascinating. Most people call it a ‘magic free’ zone, but if the wards truly created a magic free zone, then daylight rings wouldn’t work. Vampires would die of whatever killed them when they turned as they stepped through the door."

His hands slacken on the wheel. “That’s possible?”

Travelers have been trying to create one for two thousand years. Some have succeeded, but the barriers can never stay up for long. “In New Orleans?” She steers her answer, to not get into the travelers. “It would be a kamikaze strategy. Messing with the magic of New Orleans at that level would be...really dangerous. Sink the city level dangerous.”

And they don’t have the power for it. Not unless they used something like the power of the Harvest Girls, delved deep into sacrificial magic.

“How bad is it in New Orleans?” and there’s a weight to his question, as he wonders if the New Orleans witches are in a desperate enough situation that they would attempt it.

She runs her tongue over her teeth as she thinks about it, takes another sip of water to sooth her throat.

“It’s...alright. For the average tourists. Marcel keeps the vampires in enough order that they keep their human kills low. They spread flyers in the streets for young people to come to them, ply them with booze, give them a party. Partake. Compel. Send them away thinking New Orleans is the place to be and they should spend their money like it’s no tomorrow.”

She finishes off the water bottle.

“And for the locals? People like Gab?” He wonders.

“Well...the vampires are like an occupying force. One that doesn’t think much of the dignity of the locals. If they contest it, they die. If they keep their head down, they might be left alone. If they profit, they live with it. For witches, he’s the boot on their neck. Werewolves in the city, if found out, are killed outright. Marcel has this thing about not killing kids, which allows him to justify the rest. So, when he had the power for it twenty years ago, he went biblical. Killed the adults, the elders, the fighters in the packs, and left the kids. Left the ones that hadn’t triggered their curse. He sent the baby of two leaders he killed into foster care.” She wonders at that. If after holding her he didn’t want to envision ever having to kill the adult version of her. Or if it was just another way of nullifying a future enemy. “A few months ago he enacted a curse for the ones still living in the bayou outside the city, to live as wolves for every night but the full moon.”

“Because they weren’t kids any longer.” His brows pinch. “How did he get a witch to do that?”

“Well, she’s a horrible person,” she answers blithely. “But I guess the same reason other witches work for him even with what he’s done. She found profit in it.”

He mulls it over, hands skimming the steering wheel back and forth.   

“Are werewolves that deadly to vampires?” He wonders after a thoughtful pause.

Did she tell him the danger of a werewolf bite already? She doesn't think so. 

“How did...?”

“What you said about werewolf venom,” he stops. “Which sounds ridiculous.”

She cocks her head. “That’s a witch’s doing actually. Ingenious. She literally modified the werewolf curse by bloodline so that the protection would follow hereditarily. She saved the species. It’s rare, really, really rare to meet a werewolf who doesn’t carry venom. The ones without that defense were decimated.”

He shakes his head, looking amused and something else as he smiles. “I feel like every conversation with you is this revelation.”

She smirks. “Thank you.”

He huffs a laugh, short and quiet, green eyes amused. “Werewolves. Doppelgängers. The comet. The tomb. Katherine. Spinnetods, I don’t... I still can’t tell if you’re joking about dragons, but...venom. Why venom?”

She frowns to herself. “Did you ever ask this before?”

His brow lifts. “Before?” he asks wryly.

“When you found out about werewolves,” she closes her eyes, trying to remember. “Damon was... skeptical. Thought if he hadn’t seen one yet then they didn’t exist. I remember the Don Chaney jokes. You knew someone wasn’t a vampire but had supernatural strength and speed and pretty easily accepted the possibility. But...I don’t remember you asking questions about venom. Or even caring how the bite worked.” She squints, something else occurring to her. “Don’t wolf spiders have venom?”

He exhales slowly. “A werespiderwolf?”

She can't believe... “You know,” she clears her throat “I’m used to seeing behind the curtain, but do you want to lose all your sense of wonder? To not get moments like this, where you literally just said werespiderwolf?”

He drops his head slightly on a sigh, voice desert dry. “I’ll take my chances."

“Fineeee," she capitulates, lips twitching. "It’s not...actual venom. It’s just something unique to their saliva when they’re a wolf. It’s actually a modification of the rabies virus that works symbiotically with the host, only effecting vampires.” She shrugs. “Werewolf venom became the colloquial.”

“So, a werewolf bite can kill a vampire,” he taps his fingers against the bottom of the wheel as he thinks it over.  

“Yes.”

“Does it follow the symptoms of rabies, for the vampire?”

She thinks about Rose, and Damon in particular. “Yes.”

He frowns, not needing to imagine far what a rabid vampire would look like. 

“Is there a cure?” he looks over at her as he asks.

She hesitates. The answer to that is attached to things he doesn’t know yet. Shouldn’t know yet? 

“Do you think I’m taking something away from you, by telling you? Is it better for you to find this out on your own? I mean, you always seem to investigate when you need to know something, and find the answers for yourself...If I deprive you of the need to do that, maybe you'll miss something important because you didn't know to keep asking.”  

“Casey,” he interrupts, eyes clear and understanding. He shakes his head. “You don’t have to tell me.” And he says it so finally, that she knows he’s talking about all of it, not just cures for werewolf bites. In this moment, he means it. When Damon is bitten, he won't. When he learns about the Sun and Moon curse, he won't. 

So, she can't believe him. Sweet now, but with a bitter aftertaste. 

She mulls it over, wondering if her worries are right, or if it's just an excuse. A regret after the course has been laid. 

What am I letting you return to, Stefan Salvatore? How many ways have I fucked up your life? 

If you're going to live, shouldn't you know more, can you survive the crumbs doled out by fate? The bit of fact wrapped in fiction?

She rubs at her thighs, careful not to put too much pressure with her right hand. 

“I guess the butterfly has already flapped it’s wings. I told you things you wouldn’t find out for months.” She pauses. “It’s just the cold light of day, I guess.” A lot has changed, since last night.

She turns sideways in her seat to face him directly. “Yes, there’s a cure. Very out of reach at the moment, but...with magic, there’s always something that counters something else.”

“Like cursed werewolf saliva." 

“Or daylight rings,” she agrees.

He extends his hand as he looks at the blue stone and silver inlay, voice changing as he recalls something. “Why did your friend Gab call it the original spell?”

She blinks, wondering if the universe is doing this to her. She sedately goes through the motions of twisting off the cap of her water bottle, taking enough gulps to quince her dry mouth before twisting the cap back on. Stefan looks over at her when she finishes, annoyingly patient. “Okay,” she wipes the corner of her mouth. “There’s original with a lower-case spelling and Original with a capital. Daylight rings are Original with a capital. An Original – hear the capital - spell.”

“And what is original,” he changes his voice to mimic “’with a capital’?”

“With a capital it means the Original witch who created the Original spell and made the Origin-als. The origin of the modern vampire species, and the paterfamilias, and matriarch of the six sirelines.”   

“Modern vampires?” he repeats, taken back.  

She waves her hand like she’s reintroducing herself. “Man behind the curtain.”

He shakes his head, this time without ducking his head when he smiles. “So, there is more than one type of vampire?” He asks with interest.

She twists her water bottle in her hands. “Only if you’re talking to someone pedantic. Which I am.” She admits, ruefully. “It’s just - there are other creatures that drink blood to survive, going as far back as Mesopotamia. What characterizes the vampire – your vampire – from creatures before it is,” she starts to tick off with her fingers “you don’t shapeshift, feed off of energy, or consume flesh. You have a body, not a shade. You had to die to transition. You have fangs that extract. You have the human visage and the vampire one. You have the power to compel, to see into someone’s mind. You’re hurt or weakened by sunlight and vervain. You’re killed by a wooden weapon to the heart. Your blood can heal others. If digested prior to death is triggers the transition. That basically makes up the modern vampire, and those weaknesses and strengths and characteristics come from the Original family. But there are variants that don’t click all those boxes, failures and successes that are older, so I just find” she uses air quotes “’the Original family’ kind of a pretentious. The Original witch is such an ironic name because she’s a plagiarizer.”

Stefan’s mouth parts, then closes, rethinking the questions that are tumbling through his head. “Okay,” he starts slowly, digesting it “but why create vampires?”

She smiles in sympathy, hearing his own feelings in the question. She keeps her eyes on her twisting water bottle. “Because she didn’t want to lose any more of her children,” she answers in an undertone.

He draws back in surprise. “They were a family?”

“Still are, though the bonds are pretty strained right now.”

His brows pull together. “I’ve never heard of any of this. I mean, I’ve heard a rumor, a theory that a witch created the spell, but...I thought it was something that had gone wrong.”

She nods agreeably. “You might have known more, once,” she admits without looking at him. “It’s a skill of an Original, to compel other vampires. They have their own reasons, which have likely changed on different whims, to hide their own mythos, to make enemies...even friends, forget them.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, reading her. “Casey,” he hesitates, sighing her name. She feels it sit in her chest.

She tries to smile as she looks over at him, dropping her feet back to the floorboard. “Heard any rumors on where the vampire species originated?”

“Transylvania,” he guesses, his brows still heavy, voice not quite meeting the pitch for a joke.

She shakes her head. “Older.” As in, older than Vlad. “Think something so ridiculous you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Somewhere very sunny," he muses. 

She gestures for him to make a more substantial guess, so he throws out with the same cavalier, not even trying when he has no idea. 

"Australian Outback." 

“Less ridiculous.”

He thinks on it more seriously, his knuckles briefly touching his mouth as he takes it off the steering wheel to shift in his seat.  

“Delphi?”

“Delphi?” she parrots, a bit thrown.

He shrugs. She’s staring at him without blinking, waiting for him to say why and how the hell he made that guess.

“It’s where Zeus placed the Omphalos stone to mark the center of the world,” he smiles wryly. “I thought it would be a hell of a coincidence, given the Oracle of Delphi myth,” he looks at her pointedly.

“That’s...incredibly intuitive,” she admits. It’s not...right, but it’s not wrong. “Think closer to home.”

“Closer to Mystic Falls?” he asks with a touch of sarcasm.

She waits for him to look over and raises her brow.

Chapter Text

Chapter five: mayhaps

The Boarding House is a different setting, with the curtains thrown open, bathing the dark wood in golden sunset.

Stefan waits in the foyer, listening to footsteps she can't here. She's not sure if he pauses because this is where he wants Zach to see him first, or if the ramifications of last night have made him reluctant to treat this as his home. She bites her lip in dismay.  

Zach comes into the room with a careful step, nervous around the mouth, in the way he holds his shoulders. He relaxes in increments as he sees Stefan, seemingly fine, not starting off on the offensive.

That's the problem with magic. It can heal almost as easily as it can harm. From the outside, it can make wounds lose their sting.

"Can we talk?" Stefan tilts his head towards the parallel, red couches in the living room.

Zach swallows, glancing at her before tearing his eyes away. "Is she joining us?"

They both look up at her, standing back, shy of the couches they've both chosen. There are questions she wants to hear Zach answer, because she doesn't have nearly enough to go on with Grayson, but she's not sure she should be here, for what might come from this.

She meets Stefan's eyes, and glances at the porch beyond the French doors on the other side of the room, a place where she can step out.

Would you prefer I...?

He shakes his head just slightly. She's not sure if he's sure, but she nods, stuffing her gloved hands in her pockets, and determining to be more of a witness, than a participant between the two Salvatores. 

Stefan leans forward, curved to look between Zach and the loose hands he keeps between his knees. His first question throws Zach off. "Was everything alright, after we left?"

"Yes... I, I took Grayson back to the hospital," his eyes flicker between them as he decides to add more. "His daughter will be alright, from what I was told."

"Did anyone ask why you were the one to bring him back to the hospital?"

"No. I- I don't know. He...Grayson, had left when his son and Miranda's sister arrived. I think, or, people assumed, it was grief. Of being around his family. That he needed to compose himself."

Zach stops, like he's pulling back a defense of Grayson that he wants to voice. His hands spasm, tight against the couch on either side of him.

She glances at them both, searching for similarities in this taller, sun-kissed, human relation to the Salvatores. She doesn't see Damon, but she thinks she sees hints of Stefan. His eyes are a clearer, lighter green, but they express heavy thought, and turbulent emotion. Only with Zach, it looks like he's trying not to openly express his fear. 

Compared to the Zach of her visions - he had been braver. Some people are, in death.

"Has anyone called from the Sheriff's office, to ask for a statement?" Stefan continues.

Zach frowns to himself. "No. I don't think they will. Grayson said that he was the one who pulled Elena out of the water. That you two had just seen the crash and called the ambulance for him."

Stefan and her eyes meet, both processing what that could mean. That could be a boon or a warning, that he doesn't want any connection with Stefan, or doesn't want him to come across as sympathetic, if and when Grayson exposes him.

"What really happened?" Zach wonders, leaning forward. 

For the first time, Stefan looks at him directly, instead of glancingly, and Zach flinches. 

Stefan sighs, rubbing at his eyes. He's reluctant to answer. Instead of anger, or showing his hurt, Stefan has handled the questioning thus far with distance. She doesn't know if Stefan will answer him - yet it doesn't surprise her when he does. Perhaps he's trying, with honesty, with dialogue, to see if the fractures between the Salvatores can heal.

"I heard the crash over the water. When I got there, the car was at the bottom of the lake. He was barely conscious, and he asked me to rescue his daughter in the backseat. There wasn't – we both thought there wasn't time to rescue them both, with her unconscious. When I came to the surface, I saw," he briefly looks to Casey, "Casey there. She had dived in too. She took...Elena, and I went back for him. He was holding his wife's hand. I think he knew I was coming back, because his eyes were still open. I pulled him out."

Zach listens without interrupting, as Stefan tells him how Grayson immediately made for the bank. How Casey called the ambulance. He leaves Casey's injury out, her revelations, their visit to Sheila Bennett, that Elena was Katherine's doppelgänger. He makes it seem like they stayed with the ambulance, and then came to the boarding house to change out of their wet clothes. 

Zach frowns, confused about one part of the story. "You two met last night?"

They glance at each other, him longer than her. 

Stefan is the first person she's met, from her visions, after her visions have been taken away. In that way, there's nothing to compare this...connection? trust? 

"How did you know he was a vampire?" Zach asks her.

She answers Zach shortly and politely. "He's not the first vampire I've met."

It's not that, Zach's face communicates easily. But he knows that's all he'll get, and about what he deserves.

Stefan's jaw ticks under the back of his hand as he rubs his jaw. "Why did you invite him in Zach?"

He had turned over this question a dozen times, to himself. Had dread Stefan asking it. "He told me he knew. About the Salvatore family secret. That there was a vampire living here."

Stefan looks at his hands, the large Salvatore crest on his ring. "And that's all he had to say?"

"No. He...he also said that Miranda was dead."

Oh.

"I thought you had –" but he stops himself from saying it.

Stefan bows his head, and nods.

Casey's hands clench in her pockets. 

Zach looks at her, as if expecting the condemnation that Stefan won't give, but she doesn't look at Zach at all, only Stefan, his sloped shoulders, and his cupped hands.

"Is that how he found out, because you saved him?" Zach asks him in an undertone.

Stefan shakes his head. "No. That was my past, speaking for me."

She mentioned it herself, that this all stems from killing Johnathan Gilbert, but -

It's not the whole story, by far. As she said to Grayson Gilbert, it's a hell of a thing to condemn someone in an act of kindness. 

She could allude to Grayson's activities. Share the history with the Augustine, and the Salvatore who tried to give his two vampire relatives up for a reward. Might actually do a lot to explain why Damon has treated his relations since with distrust and hostility.

But, it's not what this moment needs. Come on Zach. For a man who's held himself like he expects retaliation, hasn't he realized he's gotten Stefan's nature all wrong? Did anything she said to Grayson last night, reach Zach? 

"Are you going to leave Mystic Falls?"

She closes her eyes, briefly. Instead of apology, he asks Stefan if he's leaving, in a tone that poorly disguises his hope that Stefan says yes.

"I don't know," Stefan answers heavily and non-committal.

Zach frowns, and pushes. "Why would you stay, given...?"

Because this is his home. 

She looks away from the adornments in the glass cabinet against the wall, her attempt to stay unobtrusive, because Stefan doesn't say it.

Mystic Falls is my home.

She hears his voice, his real voice, not the echo of the visions, say, 'so every time I came home to Mystic Falls...' in the weary realization that home hadn't been safe for him, hadn't been real since 1864.

She's hurt him, with her knowledge. He can't even defend coming home.

"It's your decision Stefan," Zach says uneasily, pushing "but do you really think it's safe for you to stay?"

Stefan huffs, like he agrees, making Casey bite her lip with her eyes still turned away. "Do you know where he got the vervain?"

The question takes Zach completely by surprise. He tenses like a string, then berates himself for it. 

"I didn't think it grew here, after 1865," Stefan leads.

"Not openly," Zach admits, reluctantly. "But...some things have been passed through the generations."

"Right," Stefan nods. "I remember." The Founding Families legacy.

In another life, perhaps that's the only way she should look at it, Zach had shown Stefan his stalks of vervain and said: Blood only runs so deep when you're related to vampires.

The hints were already there. She needs to remember to listen to what people mean, underneath what they say.

"Remember little Cassandra, never take the visions at face value."

There's one thing in particular that she's drawn to, in the library.

Not that she couldn't spend hours admiring the books. Weeks even. These are the stories Damon and Stefan felt worthy to keep, to send back, on top of what the human Salvatores collected, and what survived from the original library. 

It also holds a clue, that Stefan deserves to know. She can't predict how many things she's thrown off track, but she can ensure this one is there, ready to be unearthed, when he's ready to find it.

She has the library all to herself, while Zach keeps far away, and Stefan leaves to hunt. A hunt she encouraged. 

When she realizes he didn't keep any blood in the house, she couldn't help the look on her face.

"Stefan," she had sighed, guessing the why – to not discomfort Zach, and thinking it inhumanly considerate and kind of dumb in equal measure. "You haven't had a moment to yourself – and monitoring my health while I slept does not count – since finding out," she waves her hand, to encompass everything that's managed to cram itself into a day, less than a full day.

"That Katherine is alive? That Damon thinks she was in a tomb all these years? That he'll come to Mystic Falls to try and get her out and might unleash twenty-six starving vampires instead? Or, the Council is still around, and the Gilberts already know our secret." 

She nods along to his sarcasm, relieved he's framing it like a joke, after his dealing with Zach. "And one of those Gilberts happens to be Katherine's doppelgänger," she sing-songs.

He shakes his head, brows drawn together. "I still...don't understand how that works? Was Katherine from here? Did she..." he sounds like he doesn't quite believe what he's about to ask "have a child before she was turned?"

She purses her mouth, choosing how much to reveal. "To answer your first question. No. She was born in Bulgaria, but..." she sighs "the Petrovas, and um, one of her direct, very identical ancestors, came from Mystic Falls. And yes...she had a daughter before she was turned."

But that's a lot to get into. She continues her original point. "What I mean is, you haven't slept. You've been vervained. Personally, I would take a hot bath and then curl up in bed, and I know you're more likely to write this all down to help you process it" at his look of slight surprise she smiles in apology, again knowing just a little too much "but maybe you should just...go for a hunt?"

He's surprised how open she is, in bringing it up, surprised and uncomfortable.

His brow drops. "You honestly think that's a good idea?" he asks with heavy self-incrimination, realizing of course she knows about...that. 

But it's because of the ripper instincts that she recommends it.

"It's not my worst," she smiles, matching the self-deprecation in a lighter manner. "And... I think it's a better choice than bourbon."

He crosses his arms against his chest, takes a step away from her. "I'm not sure that's true."

That's the moment she thinks about his father. Before they're even in the library. Maybe because she's trying to communicate nothing can be found in a bottle, or because his issues with blood, with being a ripper, partly stems from the horror of his first kill. She thinks about Giuseppe's grave and feels an idea spark.

She puts that on the backburner. 

Instead, she tries to find the right words. She understands why he's a ripper. Knows there are things he needs to come to grips with that can't be solved by telling him one day he'll learn better control, one day he'll be able to take human blood without falling into a pit that takes him years and years of deprivation to get out of. That one day he'll be able to hold onto the parts of himself that are shut away, in the throes of bloodlust.

She doesn't want him to think she's giving him false hope. She doesn't want to hurt him by comparing him to an unrealized version of himself. 

"Remember the Spinnetod in the library? The one I said hunted men?"

He looks up, brows wrinkled at the sudden conversation change, wondering where this is going.

"Yes?"

She's not sure if the parallel will be comforting, but if anyone could empathize with a Black Widow, to understand what instinct and need can make you do, without changing how you process it, it would be Stefan Salvatore.

"See, their transition, it starts at puberty, as young as twelve and thirteen if you can image. They start molting, the le retour d'age. It takes three days, three days for three layers of skin. And three men to..." she doesn't want to go into detail on what happens to the three men. His brows shoot up, but he listens intently. "Pre-puberty, they're normal. No instincts, no awareness that there's anything different at all. Then it starts. The, um, overwhelming urge to hunt. To seduce, copulate, and... consume. And if they don't, they can't molt, and they age rapidly. Very rapidly." She bites her lip. "See, if all you knew about them was the way they hunted, you would think they were...monstrous. To know their victims intimately, then to consume them the way they do, while they're still alive..." She hesitates, "but in truth, most are horrified by it. And, deeply remorseful. And even though they could feasibly live a very long life...there's a lot of....deaths, in their community, right before their second, or third, or..." 

When they've had enough of fighting it. 

"The woman in the library," he questions, thinking of a glimpse of woman who didn't seem monstrous at all. 

How can a man with a pure heart turn into a ripper?

"She kept to herself, while I was there," she twists her mouth. "I think she was...painfully shy."

He drops his crossed arms, the ring almost never not moving back and forth under the direction of an absent thumb. She watches his hand flex, follows the muscle up his exposed forearm, as he stretches his shoulders. The conflict runs under his skin, as he sighs. 

It reminds her that he pushes his body in activity, in exercise, when he's curbing his wants. Instead of pull-ups, she thinks he's better off at hunt, at satisfying part of his instinct. 

"Will you be here, when I get back?" he questions like he isn't sure she won't disappear at the opportunity. 

"I... can be, still not sure if I should," she admits.

He smiles wryly, understanding, for all that she's said she had visions that he stays. But before he leaves, he thinks of something to entice her, to make her want to stay just a little longer. 

He asks if she'd like to see the library. 

She smiles. 

There's nothing overt about vampires, about the tomb, about the plan the town constructed. Giuseppe Salvatore speaks in metaphor, though not particularly descriptive or engaging ones.

Not vampires, but demons. Demons that prey on your mind, twist and enslave your spirit.

When it's not recounting the day to day, it reads like a confessional, disappointments, resentment, allusions - not outright admittance - to fears. Fighting a dependence that makes the worse of you. Focusing on the faults of others because of a loathing of self.

Stefan finds her mulling over a particular phrase, two weeks before the fire is set in the church.

And so, I have determined to go to my grave, with as many secrets as a man can hold.

"That's my father's journal," he realizes, questioning.

She jolts, taken by surprise, and feels a twist of guilty. "I'm sorry," she apologizes, hoping this isn't a liberty too far. "I was hoping I could show you something, but your father was more cryptic than I expected."

He shakes his head, his hair dark and damp from a shower. There's something looser, in his demeanor, that she hopes means the hunt was successful. 

"Show me what?" He wonders, pulling the chair out next to her.

"Well..." she starts carefully. "Your father carried something to his grave. I thought I could show you the proof of it, so that you would...know."

He leans his bare forearms against the small desk, hands loose as he gestures to the journal. "May I?"

She smiles begrudgingly, that he would ask, when it should have been the other way around, letting him turn the journal as she reaches over to point to the specific phrase.

If only she was pointing at Johnathan Gilbert's journal, where the secret was laid out much clearer.

He reads it silently, without expression. "It was a... surprise, when Damon and I found out that he had another son. He was legitimized in father's will."

That's not the secret she expects to hear. She sits back, shifting her braid behind her when it falls forward. "I had wondered, how the Salvatore name continued after 1864."

He raises a brow. "You didn't know?" he asks drolly.

She narrows her eyes, but her mirth gives her away. She shakes her head. "As far as I know your...half-brother led an ordinary life. I never had a vision about him."

There's a wistful tilt to his smile, maybe something bittersweet, at a life he could have led, a brother he didn't know. "I saw him once, but I didn't...we never met. Better that we didn't."

The grandfather clock chimes behind her. Stefan looks back at the journal, as if it were a reminder. She wishes the clock had stayed silent. "My father used to say he would have a grave full of secrets."

And a secret child isn't the last of them. 

"He also meant it...literally."

His green eyes search hers.

"Before the council enacted their plan, for the vampires, they also knew about Emily Bennett. They talked about what to do with her grimoire. Johnathan Gilbert was particularly wary about keeping it."

He frowns. "You said Emily had created a ring for him, that protected him from supernatural death..."

"Yes. She also created the compass they used to find the vampires that night. And a device that produces a high pitch frequency that incapacitates vampires and werewolves. And other creatures too, I suppose."

"So she helped him," He realizes, flatly, filtering through his memories. He doesn't understand why, but if she did... "She helped him, and he still..." betrayed her, let her be burned at the stake, left her child an orphan.

She realizes she's making it seem like Emily and Johnathan had some sort of alliance, which might be misleading. 

"She helped because it was Katherine's plan. He benefited from it," she tilts her chin "sort of - the ring actually drove him crazy – but...in the end the town would have been better off with just vervain and branches of wood. Instead they got party tricks, which the Gilberts consider neat heirlooms I'm sure, but it also made the round the vampire plot unnecessarily convoluted."

His brows raise at her disparagement. "It seemed to work," he shrugs, to see her reaction. 

She huffs, leaning back with closed arms. "Yeah, one for the humans. Except, the threat isn't eliminated, and you died, so I'd say the round them up and put them in the church plan turned out to be unbearably dumb."

He ducks his chin to hide his smile. "I think they planned it that way, because they wanted the cover of war. It was happening elsewhere; burning churches with civilians inside."

She pauses, not quite ready to give up ground. But it is a good point. "Why couldn't they dose them with vervain, and pretend they had a deadly disease? Shuffle them off to a quarantine area, then let the records say they all perished."

He shakes his head. "And how could they blame that on the Union?"

She...hadn't considered the war perspective, the mentality of the time. 

"But that's not how it's remembered today..."

"No," he agrees, straight faced. "They say it was that confederate soldiers who fired, thinking there was a cache of weapons in the church, and killing twenty-seven civilians."

She scrutinizes him carefully, feeling that spark of curiosity, in unearthing a secret.

"It was Damon's idea," he admits. 

Kind of petty, but clever, making it a point of shame for the town. 

But then, by the time Stefan argued that history with Tanner, under the admiring gaze of Elena, even the history teacher didn't know it. No one wanted to remember that version.

"Still..." she considers "all it would take was one stake-happy council member and Katherine's plan would have blown up in her face, like it should have."

He frowns at the reminder that Katherine had planned it all, deeper than he ever knew. Or Damon, who knew more than him.

"I guess no one knew vampires could be killed that way."

Her mouth drops. "What?"

He tilts his head. "It wasn't common knowledge then. No Bela Lugosi. Dracula wasn't written until 1897."

She's actually dumbfounded. Of course that isn't true. There have been vampire hunters for a thousand years. But...that's among people who have been exposed to them. Before 1864, this town hadn't been. She took current, 20th century pop culture for granted. Of course even humans, now, know what a vampire was and how to kill them. 

"Wait. Didn't you know, when you turned?"

He shakes his head.

That surprises her further.

Damon would have known though. Damon knew what he was getting into. 

"Huh."

He's smiling now, as strange as it is, given what they're talking about, because she's frowning to herself, annoyed that she didn't know this. Had overlooked this. 

"So Emily's spell book is in my father's grave?" He asks, to bring back her attention. She blinks grey eyes at him. "Even though he died before her?"

"They..." she shakes herself "took her spell book that same night. Your father wouldn't of had it long, before..." Before Stefan killed him, the next day. What a strange fate, to receive the stolen relic you plan to take to the grave, and be buried right after. 

"I wanted you to know where it was, because you found out, originally, by the Gilbert journal, and... I doubt Grayson is going to let Jeremy lend it out to Alaric this time around, so..." she raises her hands, to shrug. Stefan looks at her covered palm, wonders if it pains her still, the way she's kept it by her side. He can guess who Jeremy is, and that just leaves an unknown Alaric.

"You think I'll need it?" He wonders.

She bites at the corner of her lip in thought. "Well, you dug it up before."

He can only think of one reason why he would do that, to dig up his father's grave. "To prevent someone else getting it? Like Damon?"

She nods.

"Because her spell is in there, to open the tomb," he realizes aloud. "If Sheila had the grimoire, would she be able to keep it sealed?"

"I don't think it would turn out the way," she answers diplomatically. She purses her lips. "Can you see Damon taking it on anyone's word, that Katherine wasn't in the tomb?"

No. He knows Damon. He would do anything to prove Stefan, or anyone else, wrong.

"When does Damon arrive, in Mystic Falls?"

She makes a face.

Stefan sits up. "He's here?"

"No! He was, but he left."

"Why?" But then he falls back in his chair, realizing, with dread "Did he kill someone?"

"No. I – no?" Probably not. "He decided to leave and make his grand appearance to you in... September, I think. Whenever the school term starts here."

The school term? "Why did he leave?"

She blows out a breath. "He might have met Elena. Before the crash."

Stefan's brows draw together. "He saw Katherine's doppelgänger and he left?" That part doesn't sound like Damon at all.

She lifts her hands again, to show she doesn't actually know the inner workings of Damon's mind. "It was meaningful for him. Maybe it weirded him out too."

Stefan's frowns to himself. Knowing that Damon was here, and left bothers him. The fact that they came to Mystic Falls at the same time, met Katherine's doppelganger the same night.

How would he have reacted if he saw Stefan was vervained, if he had been there, if he knew Zach gave Grayson Gilbert, a member of the council, an opportunity?

Is he even capable of caring? Had he truly written Stefan off long ago?

Casey's reluctance to mention Damon and Elena's meeting, is curious. The fact that she had a vision of it at all, is more so.

"1864 Katherine Pierce had the loyal support of a Bennett witch and the love of both Salvatore brothers. Repeat with Elena."

"You had a vison of their meeting?" he asks just to see her reaction.

She makes a face, but nods.

"What was his reaction to her?"

She pauses. "Disbelief at first. Charmed, the usual reaction."

Stefan nods to himself, looking back down to his father's journal. His father's secrets. The grave he was willing to disturb, for a spell-book that Damon wanted. He can guess, based on Casey's insinuations, that he failed to keep it out of Damon's hands.

"What if we did it now?" He wonders, glancing up to see if she's willing to change something else, again.

"Beware any witch who's willing to disturb a peaceful grave," she remarks, remembering a lesson long ago, as she looks down at Giuseppe Salvatore's headstone.

Then again, she's no longer a witch. 

It feels like commitment, to a life far from the one she was raised to have – when Stefan takes a deep breath before using the shovel to crack the dirt.

They're really doing this.

Casey mans the flashlight that lays as heavily in her hands as a baton. She switches it to her left hand exclusively, as gripping it even loosely in her right makes her palm ache. She had offered to take two shovels, so she could contribute a little more, but Stefan had tilted his chin to her hand knowingly, and something in his face said, he thought this part was his duty alone.

The old graveyard, more barren wood now, is quiet beyond the beam of light Casey has focused on the ground. Stefan works rhythmically. Thud of the shovel, shift of dirt like falling rain.

"I thought it was my fault," he broaches, eyes still downcast as he works. "Katherine getting captured. Damon and I being killed."

The flashlight wavers, just enough for Stefan to look up at her, see she hadn't meant to physically react, that's she's contemplating what to say.

"Fault is a pretty damning word..." she answers carefully, eyes on the dirt. "Everything had worked out, according to plan."

He stops, resting his hands against the top of the shovel.

"Everything?" He asks with foreboding.

She clenches her eyes. Why she said that she doesn't know. This isn't like telling him some of the things he might do, in his future. The past is a different beast entirely.

And this secret, had never come out.

"There's something more about what happened that night..." he leads, and looks at her, waiting, wanting to know even though he knows it's going to hurt.

She slowly slides down to sit now that he's standing four feet in the hole. They're at the same height now, but she can't look at him as she tells him this. The flashlight wavers again, down at where his father's body is still hidden. She keeps her eyes on the beam of light, licking her lip. "Your father was compelled, that night."

His hands tighten, knuckles taut against the wooden handle. "Compelled." He repeats. Compelled to what?

The graves are silent around them. She wonders if Giuseppe Salvatore would want this said for him, to explain something hidden of himself. Not everyone wants their secrets unearthed.

He shakes his bent head. "He was on vervain," it's almost a rejection, a refutation that she has to be wrong.

"Not always." She stops, but he looks up, needing her to continue. All it takes is a moment, to drain someone of vervain, to compel them, to wipe their memory. "He fought it, but compulsion can be...insidious." He falls back to lean against the side of the grave, the shovel now loose in his hands. His face is too shadowed, backed away from the light for her to read his expression. "I think...from his journal, he could tell his resentments, his anger, were...heightened unnaturally. Made to flourish. He knew what happened to him, even though he was made to forget. And he hated himself, because he thought if...his natural wasn't what it was, he would have been stronger in fighting it."

Stefan looks at the grave like he's looking through it.

"You never found out about it," she can't help but confess. "Maybe you were better not knowing. I – I don't know." Again, she thinks of the ways she's managed to hurt him. "This is why seers are more trouble than they're worth." 

"No," he says slowly, sighing with it. "That's...something I wanted to know. And if there's a right place to tell me, I think this is it."

She looks up, wondering if he meant it. She bites the inside of her cheek. 

When he gets to the casket, he wipes the dirt off the Salvatore crest, his palm with the daylight ring, laying flat against it. The next time he hesitates is removing the bound book from the grip of his father's bones. She holds her breath until the casket is closed again. 

He sets it next to her at the side of the grave. He doesn't break the binding, doesn't confirm what it is. Instead, he takes the shovel again, and buries his father.

Before a new pile of dirt falls onto his casket, she gives a quiet blessing to his bones. "Rest well, Giuseppe Salvatore."

Stefan looks up at her, sees the grimoire untouched where he left it, and her morning dew eyes made silver by the flashlight's reflection, watching him, direct and full.

He licks his bottom lip. He offers a prayer to his father's spirit, in the Italian he learned as a boy.

He knew, what it felt like to be compelled by Katherine, to see yourself doing things you knew was wrong, felt was wrong. And he knows, the true horror his father must have felt, when he saw his son become –

He covers the grave under Casey's light, and before he leaves the old desolate graveyard, he finds the faded inscription of Johnathan Gilbert's declared death.

1904.

Somehow he didn't need to see it, to know she was right, but it settles something in him, to see the proof of it anyway. 

He lets the Jeep idle, lingering on the outskirts of the graveyard, hands still dusty with grave dirt.

"Are there any more graves to disturb in Mystic Falls?" He hopes not, but half expects her to say yes. 

She laughs softly, relieving some of the tension as they had silently made their way back to the car. "Not presently?"

He looks at the book in her lap, at what they pulled out of this one. His Father's grave. 

"Do you want to see it?" She wonders, gathering it to hand over.

"Is there a curse on it?" though maybe that isn't a joke. Maybe there is. He remembers Howard Carter's discovery. "To meet death by a disease no doctor can diagnose?"

"Wouldn't that be interesting," she tilts the book, like she can shake a deadly curse loose. She quirks a smile at his look, her braid loose, so stray red locks curl around her face. "I used to dream about being an archeologist, exploring cursed tombs," she confesses quietly and wistfully.

"Apparently, there's one close by."

"Maybe Emily Bennett had the same dreams," she muses.

He never got to truly know Emily. The witch who played Katherine's maid, who seemed her friend when he thought Katherine capable of it. He wonders if her magic ever gave her a feeling of freedom or if it was a different nature of servitude.

"Are you planning on giving it to Sheila, or her granddaughter?"

She tilts her head. "I wasn't planning to do anything with it. Other than hand it back to you."

"To me?" That seems...sacrilege, to hand a witch's cookbook to a vampire.

She gives him a questioning look, like she doesn't understand why that would be strange. In his experience, most, almost all, witches hold enmity against vampires. It was fundamental to their relationship with nature, to view vampires as a blight, as something wrong. If any of the witches he had met had visions of vampires...he can't see them being kind, after that. 

He wonders what she could have possibly seen, to see redeeming qualities, and not a wash of blood. 

"Well, I expect you'll give it to them," she shrugs. "But maybe you'll want to copy some of the pages first. About the tomb. So, you could learn more about it? And she has the daylight ring spell in here. Lexi has a witch friend she trusts right? I figured you could..." she trails off, brow drawn together as he stares at her.

A daylight ring. For Lexi.

Of course, Emily had the spell when she made his and Damon's rings. He can imagine Lexi's joy, to finally be able to live in sunlight. "Did you see Lexi with a daylight ring?"

Her eyes slide, for just a moment. She shakes her head, with her lips tight. "No but that doesn't mean anything. She could have it now."

He takes note of her reaction but doesn't comment. Instead, he focuses on her suggesting it, when it's something she hadn't seen at all.

"Thank you," he says sincerely.

Was this her way of saying goodbye, to leave him with this one, precious, gift he can give to Lexi? 

As her potentially last act last night, was to dive in anyway, to help rescue Grayson. As her words to Sheila in her delirium, was to impart advice for Sheila's granddaughter's well-being. As she asked Gene for something to counteract the vervain, before she went into the hot box, where he could hear her muffling her cries.  

He doesn't expect her to want to stay. Not in Mystic Falls. Not with someone she's known for a day.

He knows the way she left Richmond hurt her, but that doesn't mean she wants Mystic Falls. 

But -

"Would you be interested, in going through it?" 

She looks down at the grimoire in her lap, before frowning. "You mean to help you understand it?"

He doesn't want to be selfish, by asking her to stay, for him. 

"If you want to," he decides.

She searches his eyes, mouth slightly parted.

Are you...?

Yes. 

"Okay?" she answers slowly, like she can't believe she's saying it. "Yes?"

And though it's the last thing he expected he would do, after digging up his father, after finding out what really happened that night, Stefan breathes, and smiles. 

Chapter Text

Previously: Grave robbing.

Chapter six: may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb

"You can't just leave! John, please, I don't know how to do this. I can't –"

"They're teenagers Jenna." She hates Grayson's ring on his finger, the Gilbert family ring. He cared more about finding that ring, finding out if Grayson wore it when he died, than he did about figuring out the funeral. As if the Gilbert legacy was so important, more than seeing his niece or nephew or admitting that he felt any grief at all. "They just need someone to lay out ground rules until they're eighteen."

"That's not all they need, and you know it!"

She leaves great big openings for him to insult her abilities here. But he won't fight, won't argue. Damn him! He's the only one who understands what she lost – to lose the big sister who was more her mother, who had all the answers, who helped with all her screwups. Grayson was the big brother, the quasi-father to him, who stood by him exactly as Miranda did for her.

He can't run. He can't leave this to her. Her own urge to bolt is vibrating through her, with Elena and Jeremy at Liz's, it would be so easy to just…

And she hates that he's running first. That he's taking that option away from her.

She shoves him, so his own weight slams the front door closed. He turns to her, and there's a flicker of that lost grief that shows only because she's caught him off guard, his jaw already tightening against it.

Finally, finally she's getting something from him. She doesn't let him recover from it, slams herself against him, kissing him, brutally and defiantly, and desperate. And he kisses her back, just as angry, just as broken, pulling her against him in the first contact that's been for her since 'I'm sorry Jenna, Miranda and Grayson, they…'

They yank each other, pull and push, and bite. It's fury as he has her up against the back of the front door, and even lost to it, she still has her arm thrown over the doorway as a barricade.

And then he's gone. He doesn't even grab his shirt, or button his pants. He leaves her out of breath, fallen to his feet. 

And she never, ever, forgives him.

She awakens early, in one of the shuttered rooms of the once-Boarding House, in the new sheets Stefan and her had fitted onto the mattress. It's hard to sleep, with grief that isn't hers clogging her throat. She wonders what will happen to Jenna with only Miranda dead. Will she still feel abandoned, will she let herself run away? Will she avoid a fate, of dying in a world she doesn't understand?

She takes her glass to the kitchen to refresh her water and sees Stefan unloading crates of fruit – apricots and cherries and strawberries, with large leafy greens, and asparagus, zucchini, cucumbers. She takes a deep, savoring breath, of a plucked garden come to life on the kitchen island. 

"I went to the farmer's market when they opened," he explains.

She nods slowly, wondering how early that could have been, to be done before seven. "Don't you sleep?"

His head is tilted down to the groceries he's sorting, hands busy and able, but she catches the slight raise of an eyebrow. "Do you?"

She sighs, rubbing at her eyes. "Dreams," she explains.

The what-would-have-been.

He nods, watching her gently set down her glass and carry a carton of large brown eggs to the fridge. The nearly empty fridge. No wonder why Stefan pulled a grocery run, it looks like Zach survived off of frozen meals and take out. "So how was the Mystic Falls farmers market?"

"Small," he answers after a moment, handling the items for the cabinets while she neatly places organizes the items in the fridge. "There's less farmers than there used to be."

"Since when?" She wonders curiously, wondering if he means the 1860's or the visits since. 

"1994," he answers with a slight delay, forearms flexing as he moves the crates of fruit and vegetables closer to her at the fridge, glancing subtly at her hand as she handles the produce. She pulls a strawberry to her nose, pleasantly surprised by the aroma. The dearth of farmers might be linked to the loss of witches, or it could be something more common and mundane.  

Perhaps Mystic Falls was effected like any other small town, by national and global chains, no matter that they try so hard to stay the same.

"I bet they miss when this place used to be a boarding house." She teases, setting down the cucumbers as well. "Though I'm sure you've left them with the impression you're going to revive it."

A smile graces the corner of his lips. "I might have bought more than I intended."

"And you didn't buy any junk at all, chips, frozen pizzas, nothing. I bet you didn't even buy chocolate," she eagle-eyes what's left.

"I was going for the most nutritional value."

Her fake-offense drops. He shrugs at her expression, the understanding of why he went out for garden-fresh produce, and stocked the kitchen, passing between them. Even though she could be out the door, today or tomorrow. 

He easily, as if the consideration doesn't need to be acknowledged, returns to something else that needs to go in the cabinet. Could she say thank you, and not have it sound gruff in her throat? 

She swallows, looking for something else she can help with. 

There's a brown paper sack, seated nearly invisibly in one of the island chairs that she grabs next.

"Uh, that's not –" he quickly interjects, halting before he comes closer as she has the container, half out of the bag, the deep red, almost black, viscous liquid inside.

"I was going to take that to the downstairs freezer," he explains, in barely a murmur. 

She shifts, not sure if she should immediately put it back or...

"Did you…buy it?" She wonders, voicing her confusion. "In Mystic Falls?"

He pulls in a deep breath, his sentences coming out short and reluctant. "Grove Hill. It's a town over." He inhales, the back of his hand running across his mouth. "It's pig's blood."

"Oh," she sets it back down on the counter.

"Oh?" he echoes, watching her expression.

She had told him it was a terrible idea not to have blood in the house. She was only surprised he bought some. She hadn't considered he listen. "You know I have had Black pudding before. It's not like pigs' blood in the fridge is weird."

He still spends a moment gauging her reaction before lightly shaking his head, glancing away. "Cooking it makes it even less appetizing."

"But deep freezing it like a popsicle makes it yummy?" She asks with skepticism.

He huffs, so quietly she almost doesn't hear it. It's almost a chuckle, but she can tell he doesn't feel quite comfortable joking about it. "No, it doesn't," he admits drily.

She smiles in commiseration, not that she understands the blood, but the part of deprivation and hiding parts of yourself? That she gets.

She puts the container back into the paper sack, like it's contraband alcohol, and places it back in the island chair. Out of sight. Stefan watches her do it, wordlessly.

But he doesn't say anything, as Zach wanders into the kitchen. 

He looks at Casey, in light summer pajamas and her braid tousled, and realizes she spent the night.

He awkwardly stalls, like he might back out instead before his shoulders drop. "Is there any coffee?" he asks Stefan, still only glancing at her.  

"No, I just got in," and Stefan answers normally, like this morning isn't different from any other he's shared with Zach. 

Zach nods, moving towards the coffee pot.

Casey almost wants to say good morning, but it might come across sarcastic, so she just refills her water glass and leans against the island, opposite of Stefan. 

He finishes with the flour, and claps the powdering off his hands. "What would you like?" Stefan asks her, hands stretched out above the island.

"For breakfast?" She wonders, watching Zach pick up the folded newspaper from the corner of her eye. "Are you having anything?"

He deliberates, head tilted as he intunes she's going to say she's fine if he doesn't eat as well. 

"How about a omelet?"

"Sounds great," she agrees, smiling. 

"Zach?" He offers.

Zach looks up from the paper, hearing his name, but deaf to the context. "Miranda's funeral is tomorrow." He crinkles the paper, so it folds enough that she can see Miranda Gilbert's smiling face and Tragic Accident in the headline. "Are you…going to attend?"

Stefan shifts back on his feet. He sounds nearly exasperated. "I don't think my presence is wanted there, Zach."

Zach nods, keeping his head down. "Right." He crinkles the paper back and forth, pondering what to disclose. "There's going to be a council meeting, after. Or during the reception." He pauses. "There always is, if a member of the Founding Families dies in an accident."

Casey sips slowly, seeing another opportunity for Grayson to come clean, or to blame vampires. To alert the council.

Stefan folds his arms across his chest. 

"And do you think he'll tell them the truth?" he asks, watching Zach.

Zach rolls his tight shoulders. "I don't know him that well," he admits, like it's a very recent revelation. "He's my GP. He's most people's GP, here. I know he still works as a surgeon at the hospital, in pediatrics. He's won awards. Saved a lot of kids." He looks back at the paper, folding it so Miranda's smile is hidden away. "The whole town will likely be there. She, Miranda, did a lot for the community."

Asking her to stay was giving her an excuse to delay a departure. She doesn't forget that he did it after seeing his father's bones, after hearing his father's story that's been hidden for 145 years. Right now he's alone. He knows he's out of his depth, and she has answers. But she also knows he did it because she doesn't quite know where to go yet. 

Just a delay of departure, she reminds herself. 

Stefan offers to help her run the tests on her kidneys and liver, but she makes herself another glass of water and says she's fine.

So, they finish breakfast, without Zach, and break the seal to Emily's grimoire in Stefan's loft.

There're at least five things she intends to show him. The daylight ring. The ward on the tomb. The 'Gilbert device'. The compass. The Gilbert ring.

She's not sure what other secrets Emily's grimoire holds, but those are highlights, what will soon, one day, might be, relevant.

And the daylight ring spell is right there, on the second page.

So she started this grimoire after meeting Katherine…

"I was hoping there would be more," she frowns in disappointment.

"Is it incomplete?"

She shakes her head. "No, that's fine. It works. It's just…I thought she might have had the mechanics of how it worked. It would have been interesting to get her take on it, see if she experimented."

But it was early in her grimoire. Perhaps she hadn't come into herself as a witch, for breaking spells down and experimenting.

"And instead?" He wonders.

"It's just a copied answer. Like a…clock face, with no gears inside."

He smiles at that, pretending to nod seriously.

"What?" she laughs, realizing she was pouting just a little. Emily was a bit legendary in a family that had a lot of impressive witches.

"Nothing," he denies, but with a smile still in his green eyes. "It's just, this," he gestures "it's amazing. But you're used to seeing amazing." He catches her surprise in her quick blink. "It's uh, nice, that you like to see how something works not just…know…that it works."

"I don't think anyone has put it quite that way," she jokes. "More like easily-dissatisfied, why does it matter?" She tilts her head back down to the grimoire, her smile small and self-deprecating. "You'd think I'd of had enough answers for a lifetime."

"Maybe," he agrees, soft and leading "or…"

"Or?" She bites her lip, glancing up.

She sits still as he considers it, his eyes doing a slow perusal of hers. "You know the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?"

It sounds like a set-up. To a joke, a logic problem, or a quotation. She frowns, trying to trigger a memory, but draws a blank.

"...No. That one must have escaped me."

He ducks his head, hiding his smile. "It's from a book. The answer is 42."

"42...what?" She wonders, not getting it. 

"The answer to life, the universe, and everything," he repeats.

She's obviously missing the context, but...

It dawns, slowly. 

That's the point. It doesn't answer anything. It's not enough.

She looks back at the spell. The spell that she's seen performed an untold number of times. The spell Katherine was gutsy enough to steal. She knows more about it than Emily did, even if she knows less than Esther.

"42," she repeats, hearing the symmetry to her own answer when someone asks how something works and she replies 'magic'. 

"I do have a question though," Stefan broaches.

"Shoot," she agrees easily. 

He frowns thoughtfully. "Can you…scan a grimoire?"

She's close enough when Stefan makes the call, checking that the uploaded image hasn't obscured any parts of the spell, that she can hear Lexi gut reaction of disbelief 'shut up!' and building excitement when Stefan tells her what he's emailing her.

The fact that he couldn't play coy for longer than two minutes makes her shake her head with a grin. Two minutes to break from 'you'll have to see' to 'it's the spell for the daylight ring'.

'How?! How in the world did you get it?'

Stefan looks over at her at the same time she's turning in the office chair, their eyes catching.

"I met someone," he answers after a moment.

She bites the inside of her lip, skating her eyes away as she gets up from her seat, giving Stefan the all the clear that the image is ready. She doesn't let herself listen to the nuances in 'I met someone'. Instead, she flops down onto couch, lets herself enjoy watching Stefan relax and laugh as he talks to his oldest friend.

How did Damon take this from him?

She reabsorbs herself in the grimoire to give him privacy, wondering absently if Emily knew what the Gilbert ring actually did.

When Stefan gets off the phone, shoulders still loose and open, she sets the book back down.

"Has she convinced you to run off to some far away, sunny place?"

He laughs. "She tried. It's still unbelievable to her." He smiles softly. "She's a lot older than me, but…there's a lot she hasn't been able to see."

It's the first time she's seen him smile without unconsciously ducking his head, maybe even including the visons. She blinks at the image slowly. "So…why didn't it work, enticing you to run away?"

He thinks over his answer, twisting his ring on his thumb. "I told her she needs to decide where she wants us to go first."

But if she can hear the excuse, Lexi definitely can. 

"You could come back," she offers. His eyes lift in surprise. "Things will get dicey soon enough. By that time Grayson will realize…" she trails off. She can't lie. She's not sure what he'll realize. Some people learn lessons too late, or they learn the wrong ones.

"And would I leave them for Damon or leave Damon to them?"

She's not surprised he's thinking about Damon. Resigned to cleaning up after and caring for the brother that only half-hates him.

"Damon will get his chance to leave too, when he finds out Katherine isn't in the tomb."

He tilts his wrists, nodding slowly. "Then I guess I'm here, until then."

Stefan hears them when they're still in the driveway. Last time he met a surprise visitor, with Zach standing next to him, he got a syringe of vervain to the gut. This time she pushes against Stefan's shoulders, tells him to step onto the balcony that overlooks the driveway, while there is still sun to lighten his face.

If Grayson alerted Liz to the daylight ring, it's pointless, but if Liz doubts Stefan is a vampire for even a moment, it might make the difference.

Stefan steps back into the loft to Casey rubbing at the center of her forehead. 

"I'm sorry to meet you under these circumstances." She rattles off quickly. "If I say that it means I don't trust it, and I think Grayson told her."

He exhales through his nose. "You want to meet them?"

"I think it's safe to say Zach is going to let them in regardless." She bounces on her toes, suddenly flooded with nervous energy. Her hand twinges, but she shakes it out at her side. "If it seems fine, I'll say Stefan will be down in a second."

He pauses. She can tell he isn't entirely comfortable with this plan, so she waits to see if she has his agreement. He rakes his hand through his spiky hair, nodding. "Okay."

She drops back onto her heels, inhaling slowly to calm, to center, surprised and not surprised at his acceptance. Alright, so this is the plan. She can work with this. Make it work. "Okay," she decides, looking down at the loft's steps. "It will be fine. I rather Sheriff Forbes than Dr. Gilbert."

Even if the Liz that accepted her daughter as a vampire was different from the Liz of today. Was closer to the Liz that ordered the shooting of Damon and Stefan, no matter that Damon had just been her closest ally. All she has to do, is make sure Liz doesn't know Stefan is a vampire. 

She's still on the stairs as she hears the chime of the doorbell, to normal and cheery to mean danger. 

She slides up to the wall, waits for Zach to answer it, with Stefan no doubt upstairs above the open living room.

"Hi Zach," Liz greets polite but weary. "Grayson said you have guests staying with you who reported the accident."

Zach pauses. Hopefully not suspiciously. She has no idea what he sees on the other side of the door. "Yes, my nephew and his friend."

"Nephew?" Her surprise sounds genuine. "I didn't know Josiah had a son, before he…" she trails off awkwardly.

"Yeah, well, it's not the first bastard of the Salvatore family," Zach sounds too flat to be joking. She wonders if the human Salvatores of Mystic Falls carry a stigma all the way from the Civil War, or if illegitimacy is a recurring theme. 

"Right," the Sheriff answers uncomfortably. "Would they mind each giving a statement, I know Grayson wanted to keep the kids out of it, but for the report, we just like to know what happened from their perspective."

"You...just need a statement?" He clarifies. 

"Well," she sounds slightly off-kilter. She hates that she can't see. Liz's voice hushes. "Even though it looks like an accident so far, I'd like to pick up vervain for my officers. We've been lax with it, but at the meeting tomorrow I'd like to tell the council that everyone on the force is on it."

"Uh…right. Of course," Zach agrees.

"You should bring some to the meeting, I think it will set a lot of minds at ease. If you hadn't continued cultivating it, I think we'd all be at a loss."

She's only a half-step out of sight when Zach says. "Do you want me to get that first, before I call Stefan?"

It sounds too much like a hint. She skips the last step, turns the corner with a puzzled expression. "Mr. Salvatore, is everything alright?"

The door is wide open, and the Sheriff is stepping through, with the officer behind her still standing at the squad car. Zach clenches his back, and doesn't immediately turn to her. 

She ignores him, stepping forward and sideways so the Sheriff only has her in her direct line of sight. Nothing in Liz's expression gives away worry or fear. And Liz is a lousy actor. "Is this for our statements? Stefan will be down in just a second. We might, um, go to a movie together," she stuffs her hands into the back pocket of her jeans, biting her lip. "You know, something…normal."

Sheriff Forbes smiles in sympathy, seeing Casey as an out-of-depth teenager. And Casey sees an overworked mother, with the pain of losing a good friend wearying her eyes. "I understand, you're too young to have seen what you had to last night."

She swallows. "I'm glad Stefan was there. All I did was call the ambulance. He's the one who saved two people."

And when Stefan steps up to her side, Liz's smile is pure gratitude.

"I have an idea, for the funeral tomorrow." She glances at Stefan after Sheriff Forbes and Officer Franklin drive off with a burlap sack of vervain, and Zach apologizes for the vervain Stefan had stepped into the basement to see. It wasn't because of you. It was Damon. In case he came back.

"Switching out the vervain?" he muses, without any real interest.

"No," she nibbles on the corner of her lip. "I think Grayson expects that. He wanted you to know Zach is supplying the council, and that you can't stop it unless you want the council suspicious."

Stefan's expression doesn't change. He's realized the point of Liz's visit as well, even if Grayson was never mentioned. He's more Machiavellian than she expected. And she knows that because this visit didn't happen originally. 

"What's your idea?" he wonders, his voice and his crossed arms giving away his support to strike back. He wouldn't blink if she said they need to dig up ten more graves. 

"Well, I was thinking about…breaking into his office?"

Here's what she knows about Grayson Gilbert's clinic. First, when Elena was a girl, he tortured vampires in its basement. And second, John Gilbert in a future where his brother is dead, burns it down.

Those two things might not be connected. But maybe.

And vampires can enter clinics, even if they have to break a window to do it.

There's an embalming table in the torture room, in the one room morgue. Ordinary but for the bucket of rope soaking in vervain. Stefan is on the other side of the door, breathing shallowly, when the smell becomes overpowering. The vervain is cloying. 

"Are you okay?"

He shakes his head tightly, but answers that he's fine.

She gives up her search in another five minutes, certain that the Augustine journals aren't here. She's not totally ready to give them up as lost in Whitmore. She wants to check his office first.

"Why does he do it," Stefan asks quietly "torture them?"

So, he knew what he was looking at, in that room, even with the electrodes stored away.

"It's like Zach said. He's won awards. Saved kids," she repeats flatly. Why Grayson does this, and the organization he's a part of, is a lot to unpack right now. She isn't sure he'll keep his cool if he finds out what was done to Damon.

They make it up to Grayson's office. Stefan breaks the lock by turning it past the point of resistance without even leaving a mark.

But it won't lock back up when they leave. Grayson will know someone was here.

There's a wall of pictures. Of cards. Of children's smiling faces. A hundred of them.

Thank you Dr. Gilbert and Merry Christmas Dr. Gilbert and I've graduated the 5th grade! and We can't tell you how grateful we are.

"He tortures vampires, and he saves kids," Stefan says, staring at the wall.

"Yeah, that's where I'm at with it too," she shrugs ruefully, making her way behind the desk.

No college-bound journals. His desk is neat and orderly, with prime of place given to pictures of his family. The books behind him are all medical in nature. Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine. Grey's Anatomy. Gold-leafed titles in leather bound, and…

A book about the writings of St. Augustine. The one thing that isn't like the others.

She holds her breath as she slowly pulls it out of the stack.

And hidden away in the cut pages, is a hard drive.

She asks Stefan if they should leave a note, something in the line of 'A secret for a secret'.

He takes a deep breath, with the memory of vervain in his lungs, in his veins, and a possibility of what could have happened the other night, and says, simply, no.

She sips at an unappetizing green smoothie that tastes like algae and kale, while she explains the process of pretending to be a vampire groupie to Stefan.

"You met this goth girl who talked about how this vampire named Slater is going to turn her, here in Richmond, and drop in some true lore about vampires."

"And that's how you want to get in touch with him, through an online chat," he raises his brows at her.

"There are enough people out there that make sure pertinent information about the supernatural is hidden in a marriage of myth. He's one of them, and he's established himself as part of the network of knows someone who knows someone who knows someone."

He taps at the keyboard without pressing down. "What's the girl's name?"

She crinkles her brow. "I don't remember," she admits. "I only had one vision of her helping Elena after Slater was killed."

"And so, you want me to play the vampire groupie, on the internet," he deadpans.

She shrugs. "Can't you just say what women have said to you?"

He makes a face, like she's said something ridiculous. "I've never had vampire groupies."

"Never?"

"No."

She abandons her smoothie, less joking and more focused on the nuances of his expression. "You're kidding. Or you're embarrassed. Don't be, honestly."

"I'm not," he says it like he means it, like she's the one still being ridiculous for suggesting it.

"You never had a hanger on who wanted you to turn her, or wanted the," she uses air quotes "'vampire experience'?"

She knows other vampires do it, had met them, had seen them and 'seen' them. But her understanding makes Stefan look away, become distant without even moving out of reach.  

"I know that lifestyle exists," he explains "but I don't agree. I wouldn't want to use people that way."

She observes his expression quietly, the statue he's become. This is a Stefan that no matter the hardships hasn't turned off his humanity. Hadn't bent on a moral code that was more human than vampire. More human than her own. 

"Okay," she agrees after a moment, abandons her approach to Slater, to the message boards. "We won't try what's-her-names method. We'll just be…direct."

Username: BroodyHeroHair

Need: To break into a password locked hard drive. Born in the 1800's so I don't know how. Heard mention of a Richmond vampire named Slater who is a whiz at computers. Anyone know his information to get in touch? Keywords: vampires. vervain. Stake to the heart. Daylight. Mirrors and crucifixes and garlic are myths. Dracula never existed.

The responses pour in. All she has Stefan send back is 'if a vampire named Rose is staying with you, then tell her I met her in Brookland'.

More bogus messages. Which character is Rose in vampire literature?

Eternal74 sends a phone number.

It's Rose who answers, curious but not surprised to hear Stefan's voice.

"And what do you want with Slater?"

"Help in breaking into a hard drive."

"And what makes you think Slater can help you?"

She gets that Rose is pulling the gate keeper act, that she's wary of being called out directly. She wants to know Stefan, and her, trustworthiness. 500 years of running has that effect.

Casey pips in over the speaker phone. "I heard his name around the boarding house, and you and your companion mentioned him."

It's silent for a moment as Rose processes that, chooses whether or not to believe her.

It is true, but with a slant.

When the phone is transferred to Slater, the first thing he asks is when was Stefan turned.

Stefan looks at her in question. She shrugs.

"1864."

"By Katherine Pierce, correct? You and your brother Damon?"

"Yes," he answers dryly.

"Sorry, if you consider that personal. I'm creating a database of known vampires and their bloodlines. Katherine Pierce is pretty infamous. Or was, there are conflicting reports about whether she's dead."

Stefan pulls a deep breath into his lungs. Casey sips at her smoothie, trying not to make a face. She's still anemic, so she does it without complaint. 

"So I've heard," Stefan agrees.

Slater warns with Stefan's computing power, no matter Slater's code, it could take days or weeks for the hard drive to unlock.

If they bring it to Slater in Richmond, it could be done in a few hours, even less if Grayson picked something simple.

"So, should I expect you?" Slater offers.

Stefan and she share a look, wondering how badly they want the hard drive cracked, and if they're willing to risk Slater, and Rose and Trevor, and Richmond.