CHAPTER 69: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

The Salvatore Boarding House

Some people might have ended up uncomfortable if they had a friendship with Natalie Saltzman. Of course, she was a nice person (most of the time), she was supportive if it was actually a good thing she was supporting, but she was also a fan of coming over unannounced, even sitting on your bed as you're in the shower, or maybe that was limited to the Stefan Salvatore's of the world.

She just sat on his bed, casually flipping through his diary in boredom, awaiting his arrival. And once he finally came out, he frowned at seeing her simply sitting there. "You know, knocking's a thing."

"You know, I don't care. You see, I was really bored and I saw a book and I started reading. Too late did I notice that it was your diary and I found some interesting things. My feelings for Natalie are confusing. As much as I'd like for them to be simple, even if I don't know in what way, they are the most complicated thing in my life at the moment. And then I found this: What I wanted was to start anew, fall in love with a beautiful girl and have a life in Mystic Falls. It didn't turn out that way. My past haunts me, correction, my brother haunts me, and I did fall in love with a beautiful girl, but I also fell in love with another, it is like-" she read from his diary, and he looked embarrassed, of course, knowing that she had been reading about his struggle when it came to her.

He grabbed it out of her hand, not wanting her to have any more knowledge on what was in there, because she'd be teasing him and over all trying to be annoying, even if she ends up simply being cute. "Okay, I think that's enough reading today. Why are you really here?"

She sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest, having really enjoyed making him uncomfortable there, but life had to go on. "Usually when you partner up, you talk, discuss, anything. Look, we're at a bit of a disadvantage in this whole race for the cure. Team Klaus has Jeremy the hunter, team Shane has Bonnie the witch-"

He cut her off as he pushed his diary onto his shelf, making sure that it was the right order so he wouldn't have to go and organize it later. "If you're here to remind me of our last place status, I'm very well aware."

She smiled sarcastically at him just thinking that she was there to make him come up with a plan, as if she hadn't already made one herself. "Actually, I have a plan. The cure is buried with Silas, that ancient evil guy that Kol is afraid of. Shane was so eager to prove his existence that he gave away that he has one of the keys to resurrecting him, his headstone."

He looked up at her with a look that basically told her that he knew exactly what she wanted to do. "I see. You wanna steal it."

"Ah, you know me so well. And after we have it, Team Shane will have to join Team Statalie, and Team Klaus... good luck to them?" she chuckled at her own words, pushing herself off of Stefan's bed.

He nodded, finding it to be reasonable plan, before turning to face her and frowning at one thing she said. "Team Statalie?"

"Just go with it."

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Professor Shane's Office

The duo wasted no time in rushing towards the professor's office at Whitmore college, even if it took a little driving as Natalie was blasting music and Stefan was trying not to break the radio, just for her sake. But after that, they managed to get to the office, rummaging through a few things and came up with absolutely nothing.

He grunted in annoyance throwing a book back in place after rummaging around it and not seeing anything headstone-ish. "Well. Headstone's not here."

"Don't ripper out on me. We'll find it. You know, we should really find a way to make you have fun for once. How do you feel about a voodoo doll?" she turned to ask him teasingly, only to get a look that showed that he wasn't amused at all. She then opened another drawer to look for the headstone, but what she found made her a little happier as she held it up for display. "I found Shane's stoner tea! Or, herbs as Bonnie would call them. I tried them at a girls' night. You should too, they'll help you loosen up."

"Not interested." was his simple reply as he moved some more stuff out of the way as he scoured through the next batch of stuff.

She rolled her eyes at him before looking down with a pout as he turned to look at her. "What? You know, there was a time not too long ago where I could actually mistake you for being able to have fun, but that seems to have stopped now. Can't you remember when we used to laugh and joke and be happy besties?"

He shook his head at her phrasing, as if they were ever simply besties and not people who covered their feelings for one another up with friendship. But, nonetheless, he could remember smiling and laughing with her on multiple occasions. "Alright, um... I guess we had a little bit of fun."

"Thank you, so now that we've established that fun is, in fact, possible, maybe you'd like to start having some?" she suggested, holding the herbs out for him to take, but she saw the hesitation and knew that he wanted to do it, because it wasn't really that big of a deal because it was pretty dull, and it would be smaller for a vampire. "Come on! If you're worrying about  Shane, I have him occupied."

He looked at her with tilted head, wondering how she had him occupied, which was by simply telling the police about his confession. She wiggled it in front of him, and he finally took it, causing Natalie to clap her hands together in happiness. "Yay!"

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A while after the fun of taking the professor's herbs, Stefan and Natalie were back at searching for the tombstone, and still having no luck finding that stupid rock. Natalie let out groans of annoyance regularly as Stefan simply grunted and threw things back in their original position.

"This is hopeless. I hate this. Save me. Can we leave? Please." Natalie begged, saying a new thing every time she flipped over a page in a book she hoped had some clues regarding the whereabouts of the headstone, such as books often do in TV-shows and movies.

"We can't. It's one of the keys to resurrecting the ancient evil guy, remember?" he threw her previous words from back at the boarding house back in her face, and in return, she threw the book she was flipping through at him in annoyance. As he caught it, she sent him a sarcastic smile and turned back to the endless sea of useless crap. "Maybe you should take some herbs."

"Maybe you should shut up." she retorted, this time not even turning around to face him as she spoke the words so casually.

He chuckled at her and walked over to her side of the room, hoping that he could maybe help her find something on her side, since his side was just a load of crap. "Weren't you the one ranting about smiling and laughing and happy besties?"

She simply side-glared at him playfully, and when she spoke up she sounded so childish and as if she was seven again. "Well, we're not besties anymore."

The 163 year old vampire's lips tugged up into an almost-smile before stopping his search, resting his hand on a stack of books as he turned to look at her side-profile in amusement, seeing how she wasn't able to keep an entirely straight face at the exchange. "Oh, really?"

She let out a quick snort before acting as if it never happened, stopping her search as well, copying Stefan's posture with a small smile/smirk as their eyes met. "Oh, really." she responded, and for a moment, couldn't help but notice how close they were, and without being able to control it well, she glanced down at his lips, but quickly caught herself, turning away from him awkwardly, knowing that she couldn't just go and kiss him, even if he still had feelings for her. He chose Elena. No matter what happened, he still chose Elena.

Just a moment later, Natalie could feel herself getting grabbed and rushed into a corner in vamp-speed, and knew it was Stefan as he held his hand over her mouth and held her against his chest so she couldn't make any unnecessary noises.

After a while of hearing someone walk through the office, and tapping stone, she heard the person sigh in relief, and Stefan let go of her and ran out to the intruder, Natalie peeked her head forwards, not allowing herself to be covered by the bookcases anymore and saw Stefan holding the man's throat as she glanced around, and saw a huge piece of rock on the desk, probably the headstone. But Stefan still held the guy up with a glare on his face. "Who are you?"

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It didn't take long for Stefan to tie the guy to a chair as the Salvatore vampire had a knife in hand, slicing through his upper arm, making Natalie wince from her spot on a couch not that far away. She hated violence at the moment. Just the thought of being the reason that someone got hurt anymore made her want to scream and leave the town behind, so causing someone pain intentionally was out of the question for her. But she knew that it was necessary for answers.

Stefan held up the knife, and took some of the blood on it on his finger and tasted it, and felt the foul taste that came with vervain. "Either he hasn't been compelled or he was compelled before he ingested it."

"Could we just... stop the violence for now? Take him to your house, wait until the vervain's out of his system and then just compel answers out of him?" the brunette girl suggested, giving him the best idea she had that didn't involve bleeding him out.

"That's not a bad idea," he praised her, making her give him a look as if she telling him duh. He turned to their hostage-ish person to get him out so they could get him home so they could compel him, but before he could do that, he noticed that the man started spitting out blood, so he grabbed his chin and made a startling discovery. "He just bit off his own tongue."

"Ew."

Stefan's lips tugged up a little at her initial reaction, even after everything, she still found it weird and disgusting to bite off your own tongue."He knew something. I guess he was compelled."

"Wait, which team was it?"

"Maybe it's option number three. There's another team in the race."

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A little bit after, when Stefan and Natalie had gotten to clean up (mostly Stefan but Natalie did try), Natalie's phone rang, and she was a bit surprised when she saw who it was, and she kinda wanted to just ignore the call, but for all she knew, it could be important. "Hey, Elena."

The doppelganger sounded very relieved when she heard her sister's voice. "Hey, Natalie. I get it if you're not so happy with me right now because you care about Stefan and I hurt him, but something's happening. Kol compelled Damon to kill Jeremy so if you slightly care about me or the cure or Jeremy, then maybe you and, if you want to call him, Stefan can come help. They're in the tunnels somewhere and it's one giant maze down here, and I can't find them."

Natalie frowned as she glanced at Stefan, who was definitely listening in to the conversation, standing right in front of her. "How would you ever think that I don't care about Jeremy anymore? He's my family too, Elena. I'm on it."

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The Salvatore Boarding House

Stefan knew Natalie pretty well, and after seeing her recently developed difficulty with violence, he guessed she shouldn't be around when Stefan would do whatever he would do (it probably wasn't even going to be that bad, but still... he was considerate) but as he spoke to Elena, she thought maybe she could have a word or two with Damon.

"You know I'm pissed off at you, right?" the brunette asked as she looked into his cell, the one the Salvatores often ended up in when they were almost or in the middle of a murder spree, as they often were.

Damon simply groaned out of the lack of blood in his system, since they had to find a way to weaken him, with all the vervain they had left being Natalie's and she used it to avoid being compelled. "Why?"

She tilted her head at him, wondering how he didn't see it. "Most people seem to only be blaming Elena for this, but you didn't exactly stop her from sleeping with her ex's brother the day after they broke up. I'm mad at her too, trust me, but she's sired, you weren't. And I know I may sound like a hypocrite for this, because I haven't actually helped Stefan and Elena's relationship, but you know that what you did was wrong. And, yeah, you love her but that doesn't mean you should do something you know would hurt your brother that much, after you spent so long going after her, even when they were together."

Damon glanced down for a moment, but he couldn't think straight, all he could think about was killing Jeremy, because that was what he was compelled to do. "You're right, I love her. Can I at least see her?"

"You know you can't, Damon," she reminded him, knowing that he could simply ask her to let him out and he'd be killing Jeremy the next minute, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen. "I'm sorry that all of this is happening, but you're not as innocent in it as you'd like to believe."

And with that, she turned around, walking up the stairs as Damon called out her name, hoping that she would change her mind on letting her sister see him, because that's what he really wanted at that moment. 

She, however, kept walking, and reached the parlor, only to see Stefan and Elena in a conversation, or the end of one. "You don't know what I look like when I'm not in love with you. I'll let Damon know you stopped by."

And with that, Stefan walked away from Elena, leaving her speechless, shocked, embarrassed, a tiny bit hurt as the eldest vampire noticed her standing there and listening, he sent her a small smile, which she returned in surprise. He was over her, then? Wow.

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Of course, the Salvatore boarding house had many rooms, but Natalie didn't know all of them so she just ended up in Stefan's room again, this time with an old headstone and some tools, but when Stefan walked in, he didn't see the whole process and only saw Natalie put the stone in a secret door behind where his dresser usually was.

"That's a good place to put it." he commented in approval as she turned and smiled at him as she closed the small door, and got ready to push his dresser back into the place it used to be, and it could also hide the door pretty well.

"Yeah, well," she started before she pushed it. "I didn't want to put it somewhere obvious. We don't want a new moonstone in the soap bowl incident, do we? And it was easy, if you're wondering. A few tools and a hollow wall behind. It worked perfectly."

"At least it's somewhere safe," he smiled at her, making her turn and smile back as she walked up next to him. "I wanted to thank you for being my partner in this, even after everything. You're pretty amazing, you know that?"

"Aw, stop it. Not really," she giggled. "Thank you, Stefan. You're pretty amazing too, even if you know how to not act like it."

He put his hand over his heart playfully as he pretended to be hurt by her words. "Ouch."

She giggled again, only this time at his playfulness, definitely telling her that he had relearned how to have fun, which she thought was a pretty important thing. But then she looked at the clock in the room and noticed the time. "Yeah. I guess I'll see you later then?" 

"See you later, Natalie." he smiled.

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A/N: So, this chapter sucked. If I'm gonna be honest, it gave me a huge season 2 vibe, which I don't know if is positive or not, but meh.

Fun fact: this was originally the chapter Statalie got together. I changed it not too long ago, though. Maybe a month ago? Eh, who cares?

Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.